#914 Diabetes Myths: How You Got Diabetes

May 18, 2023Scott Benner

A brand new series examining the myths surrounding diabetes.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 914 of the Juicebox Podcast

a Jenny's here today and we're going to be talking about diabetes myths. Myth. Am I saying that right? You know what I need? I need some. I need some synonyms for myths. Because every time I say it I feel like I'm like I'm butchering it. Let's see, I know what a myth is. I don't need an example of myth, myth. Synonyms folktales stories legends tales, fables, sagas, allegory parable, tradition lore folklore mythos. How come I can say mythos but not myth? Wait, I said myth. Hi, Jenny's here we're gonna talk about myth, myth, dammit. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing please remember, I can't say myths that and also that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. Quick quick, right 35% off your entire order at cosy earth.com with the offer code juice box and check out 10% off your first month of therapy@betterhelp.com forward slash juice box by free travel packs and a free year's supply of vitamin D with your first order at athletic greens.com forward slash juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom G seven continuous glucose monitoring system dexcom.com forward slash juice box you want to wear the Dexcom that Arden's wearing, you're gonna have to get the G seven cuz she just switched and it's I almost cursed. It's really great. The podcast is also sponsored today by Omni pod Omni pod.com forward slash juice box you want the Omni pod dash where you want the Omni pod five it's completely up to you both can be accomplished at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. You want to gear up like Arden you want the Dexcom and you want the Omni pod?

Oh goodness. Well, you guys can hear Jenny laughing we're back to record our first myth. Are you in the topic that we're going to do? Today? Reasons Why You got diabetes?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:30
No, no underneath the miracle. I'm gonna have to like,

Scott Benner 2:36
I don't know. Sure. Well, last week. Yes, we will. Alright, anyway. Okay, so let me I'm gonna scroll two reasons why you got diabetes on the master list. All right. So first one says, obviously, I caused it in my kid because I fed her too much sugar. Yeah, oh, you can't cause type one diabetes by feeding people too much sugar?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:07
No. 100% Incorrect.

Scott Benner 3:09
Type One is an autoimmune disease. And that's not how that works. So where's the confusion? Is the confusion is that people believe, first of all, that diabetes is the word they know. And when they hear diabetes, they think about I think most people think about older people in their life.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:33
I think it comes from honestly, the larger amount of the population knowing. And I say knowing in air quotes hear more about type two diabetes, right. And as we've talked before, about the differences, type two diabetes does have lifestyle component to it, and to diagnosis. It does. But I think people don't realize the very large difference in terms of why you could have type one versus having type two. And so it all with just the broad term of diabetes, it all gets lumped together. And so you know, these people will say, well, they just wouldn't feed them all that sugar or you know, if your kid wasn't eating this for lunch every day, or you know, I've heard from a number of parents who have actually been told by some of the school personnel, well, if you wouldn't put that in their lunchbox every day, maybe their numbers would look better. Like really, really come on.

Scott Benner 4:42
This is caused by eating too much sugar. We've loaded our son with sugary snacks and drinks and that's why he has diabetes, the unhealthy diet. Now here, my uncle said five minutes ago while watching television, a doctor, Dr. Pepper commercial came on and he said that pepper, that stuff will give you diabetes. So this is where I think this is where I think it comes from. Right? Because I mean, listen, forget Dr. Pepper, soda. It's not good for you know, it's just not so no. And health issues. If you drank enough soda, you would have health issues.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:24
Yeah, yes, absolutely. I mean, there are so many things on the market today that are not food, right? I mean, no, I don't think hopefully nobody thinks Dr. Pepper or anything of the like, is really food. But it really is not even close to being anything we should be putting in our body anyway. But again, statements like this, my personal is that I've just come to the point of I just brushed it off. I'm like these people, my educated brain is like and what, whatever, I let it go, right, I'm not going to ruminate on it, because that doesn't help me at all. If I could have five minutes with them, I would teach them why that statement is wrong. And it's not funny to many people. But some people really get very offended. Honestly, by a statement like this, that stuff will give you diabetes or, you know, the the comedic types of jokes about diabetes and again, personality wise, I don't, I don't take them in as a personal attack against me. I take it as your a dumb person who just doesn't, doesn't understand even what you're trying to be funny about. So I'm gonna let it fly, whatever.

Scott Benner 6:40
When this would get said to me about Arden when she was younger, I was always amused that the people who were saying it, we're not exactly long distance runners, you know what I mean? They weren't at the pinnacle of health and performance either. Have you looked in the mirror this morning? You know, she's got diabetes, but maybe you might want to skip it too. for other reasons. You don't look well, this year, this year is heartbreaking. My own mother saying to me, this is a quote, you got diabetes, because you ate so many sweets as a child, which I don't know how that person didn't respond. Well, who was in charge of that? Like, What an odd thing to say to me right now? Yeah, like, that was you like, like, not me? Like, I didn't have any money. I'd be like, Oh, my God, that wouldn't have gone? Well, if somebody would have said it to me, I would have been like, I didn't have money. You bought that stuff? Agreed? Yeah, that's been there. That's heartbreaking. And then I mean, like, you can deep dive into the psychology of it. Like maybe what the moms really saying is, I let you down. I feel like I let you down. You could be you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:50
this is the way that it came out. Yes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 7:53
People don't do a good job of communicating. When I was when my 18 month old was diagnosed in decay, and someone asked me how that happened. When he was so young, did he eat a lot of sugar? So now that see, this is the part this is why it's so upsetting your kids 18 months old. And in DKA. I don't understand why people think this is the time to say hey, do you think you did something wrong? Like Like, it would be like if I came up on a car accident, and you were pinned in the car, and the back of the car was on fire? And I looked in the window, and I was like, Hey, were you driving too fast? Like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:30
did you not use your brakes? Did you not see what was happening in front of you?

Scott Benner 8:33
Yeah, this is your fault. Like, can you help me out the car please? Like, like, like, you know, like, it's just a that's like college, the part that throws me off, you know what I mean?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:46
And this is the part that I wish, you know, as people with diabetes, who are the majority listeners to your podcast? They will they will listen, they will think about this and they'll say yeah, you know, who I really wish this could go to. I wish this could be just a podcast for the like the this is the general public's information about when to keep your mouth closed. Honestly, like, if you don't know what you're talking about, please. I mean, what is it? Zipit locket put it in your pocket is like what my kindergartener has learned, right? If you have nothing right to say, or you're not supposed to be talking, close your mouth. Right? And that's, I wish this could go to the general public and just be broadcast as a commercial. Like, if you don't know, don't comment.

Scott Benner 9:37
Maybe people should just if they get this comment, you can just AirDrop them a link to this episode here. I'll tell you what, like, I've now skipped past so many statements that say the same thing. But this one catches my eye. My Type One daughter being asked if she ate too much sugar, and that's what caused her type one. Like that's the thing like now I'm trying to think like you've you think this thing? Why would you say to a kid, I don't understand why you would say to her mom, I really don't understand why you would say to the kid,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:12
well, you know, one other place. And maybe this comes up in these comments. But another comment I've heard from many parents along the line of the sugar piece is, well, your kid is eating sugar. Like they say all the time, I guarantee they're not eating it all the time. But it's very likely they catch the child eating sugar when their blood sugar is lower, right. And they then sort of come back with a statement of, well, it would be better if they just didn't eat so much sugar, or it was caused because of that sugar you're giving in on the back end, as the parent, you're thinking, Well, again, I could give you a whole education session on why she's probably eating sugar right now, if you would actually sit down and listen,

Scott Benner 10:58
yeah, here's the other side of it, too. I grew up, I'm older than you. I'm older than most of you. But I grew up in the 70s. And in my refrigerator, was a large plastic one gallon container, they still make them today. And you turn the top and you can pour out of it. That container was always full of some sort of juice. Now I'm making air quotes with juice, cuz it was most assuredly not juice. It was we used to get this big container of a powdered substance. And you'd put like, 15 scoops of it in there. Little warm water to melt it little cold water. And then it I don't even know what it was. But I'm pretty sure it was sugar, and or chemicals. And I don't even use plastic containers in my house. I won't even put I'm pretty sure it was both of those chemicals and sugar. And it was ruminating and like in plastic. And I don't have diabetes, type one or type two. We used to eat it Kentucky Fried Chicken all the time because it was close to our house. My mom did not know the first thing about nutrition. I clearly am not lean because of my upbringing. But that's not my point. My point is, I don't have type one diabetes, and I don't have type two diabetes. And if the amount of sugar an 18 month old could have consumed could put them into decay, then I would have 43 times that amount of diabetes right now. Correct? Yeah. And you absolutely. And here's the interesting thing. I'm talking a little out of school here, if because I don't remember the the test. But I recently went to the doctor and had like a complete physical. And this lady runs bloodwork so much that I had to pay for some of it out of my pocket, like the I mean, like she's testing things that your insurance customers, like, we don't need to know that she's like, I need to know what is B 12? Is it like stuff like that? She said to me, I forget what the test was. But she said, I can say to you with a fair amount of certainty, you're never going to develop type two diabetes. And I was interested, I was like, why I'm gonna get I'm gonna find out about what that was. Yes. And. And she pointed to a marker and she said, Look, I can't say for sure she goes, but this number here tells me you're very unlikely to get type two. And I was like, Okay, thank you. I didn't ask her. We were talking about a lot of stuff. And I didn't remember to ask, I'm going to email her and ask her. But my point is, I'd be I'd be curious. Yeah, what it was, I don't have type one yet. You know, I don't know that I will or I won't. But again, the antibodies is still something very misunderstood about diabetes type one, like for sure. And even type two, like, I just don't seem to be predisposed to it. You know, so I just that sucks when everything else gets caught in the in the way also, I just made a decision about this episode. After we record this. I'm going to send a file of it before I edit it together to Erica, I'm going to let her listen to it. And then we're going to talk about the psychology of why people might say stuff like this to people.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:14
That would be really interesting. From from the mental standpoint. Yes,

Scott Benner 14:20
I just it just hit me here. Let's see. This woman says, This person, by the way, I just assumed these are moms. And I could be wrong. That my type one causes diabetes because the diet I had to choose to ignore this talk, because I was gonna throw some hands and I'm not I'm not cut out for jail, it says. So that's pretty

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:45
funny. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:47
Candy, the week of my daughter's diagnosis, we went to a scout meeting and at the meeting, the troop leader said to me, Oh, wow, I didn't know she had such a sweet tooth. She said Skinny? Yeah. Yeah. Okay,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:05
again, your child has diabetes because behind the scenes, I didn't realize it, but your kid was clearly like, eating the whole bag of sugar. A whole

Scott Benner 15:14
thing had to happen. Oh, here's one. You're a terrible parent, because your child got died. diabetes.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:20
Oh, that's so sad again. Dip your lip. I'm sorry. Really like, Joel, you're

Scott Benner 15:30
this. This one's from a deep thinker, probably. Probably a scientist. I fed my child mac and cheese. And that's why they have diabetes that that statement came from a family member. Yeah, there's probably probably a scientist that came up with macaroni and cheese gave your kid diabetes. Oh, jeez, too much sugar cause diabetes. I'm 26 I got diagnosed at 15. Apparently, I'm too young, not fat enough. Or my parents fed me crap. So that's a light. That's, that's 10 years of people saying that?

Unknown Speaker 16:12
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:15
Cheese. We moved to Canada from Europe. And my son was diagnosed here four months ago. Very often, I heard Oh, this is because of our Western diet. From considerably intelligent people. They don't know that we're from Canada, and are not from, we're not from Canada, and our diet is Mediterranean. And we don't buy prepared food at all. So this person is not eating the way they think. But it's still what happens. You know? So is there, like, really break it down for a second? And your answer might just be one word. But is there anything about diet that could make your type one diabetes happen?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:59
It mean, in terms of diagnosis?

Scott Benner 17:02
Or anything I could eat that would force me to get type one diabetes? No. Okay. I mean,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:08
that that we and I say that with the side note of? No. Because again, if we really knew the true, one point cause of type one diabetes, there would be a cure for it. Yeah. Right. So I mean, diet in and of itself, has not of all of the I don't necessarily that say that they're myths, all of the hypotheses about where type one diabetes comes from and why someone may have it versus another one may not within even the same family. There are so many unknowns about that. That you can't necessarily say no to food, but food I don't believe by any means especially just the simple thing of sugar right? is definitely not Oh, you have diabetes, because you ate all that sugar. Wrong.

Scott Benner 18:05
I'd like to point out that I don't think you should eat a lot of sugar.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:09
Right? We're not advocating for downing sugar.

Scott Benner 18:13
I'm not saying that we should go back to the country time lemonade and the the punch that we used to get as kids and oh my gosh, popsicles Jenny during the summer, that just your refrigerator just full of sugar.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:28
Did you have the little they were called Little jugs. Oh, sure. They looked like little like barrels. They were plastic like white ish. Right? And then you had an aluminum rip tap.

Scott Benner 18:40
Ever try want us an adult? Orange. I tried one as an adult. That's like what the is Oh my god. Like it makes your brain like

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:50
because I didn't even like them as as a kid. I had. I didn't like the flavor of them. I and I liked like Kool Aid. But I did not like those. They were just not favor.

Scott Benner 19:05
Yeah. But that's a cost thing for us. Yeah, they were like, I know this is probably hard for people to imagine. But you could get like a flat of them for like $2 Yeah, it was nothingness. You know, like, and so your parents bought stuff like that because it was cheap. And they didn't nobody trust me. If you went back in a time machine, and got my mom in 1976 and said, Hey, this lemonade is bad for you. My mom would go lemons grow on trees and pollute and that would have been the absolute end of it. My five year old has diabetes because she's overweight. Oh, but you're so young and look so healthy. Yeah. Lovely. Had a couple times.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:53
Yeah, that's one that I've I mean, I've heard it as well. And again, I think it comes from The visual of what most people see as diabetes, which is type two diabetes, and it's even, it's very unfair, even in that line of, you know, type of diabetes, but I've got what you look great, you know, when you, you're running all the time and bah, bah, bah, like, yep, still got a dysfunctional beta cell in my body, though. So I have

Scott Benner 20:23
other autoimmune issues, if I can tell you about what it is listen, from, from an uneducated perspective. It's hard to ignore, you do not look like a person who has something, quote unquote, wrong with them. Like you just you don't. And I know that, like, if I didn't have a kid with type one. And you said to me, I don't know. Here's three people tell me which one of them has an illness. And it was me, you and I don't know, Bill Clinton. I wouldn't pick you. That's a good thing. I think it's Bill and then it's me after Bill, but that lady is definitely just thrown in here to confuse everything. So yeah, I mean, I get where it comes from. I don't I don't understand why you would say it. If you don't know, when people really just think they know.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:18
Well. And the thing is, I You said something that made me think that it's you said the uneducated, these are many of these statements don't come from uneducated people. Yeah, they are uneducated, in terms of one particular thing, but specifically diabetes.

Scott Benner 21:39
So the thing that always keeps me focused on not getting upset when this stuff happens is that there are maybe a billion things you could ask me about that? I don't understand. And if you pressed me, and I made a guess, I'm sure my guess might very well be wrong. The thing I don't have that these people have is I have no compunction to walk up to a person and go, Hey, you want me to tell you? What's, that's the part that that's the unplug. Here, though, I want to go, I want to go this one. This is from a I'm guessing from a widowed person because it says, oh, stress caused my type one, if that were true, then every widowed person would have type one. But I caused this the word there. I saw this the other day, people love, it's still very popular to say my I have diabetes, because I COVID. And then they'll say COVID, cause my type one diabetes. But COVID didn't give you type one COVID set off an auto immune response that ended in type one,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:43
redirect and forever. Not for everybody does that obviously just like this statement is every widowed person would have type one, every single person that had COVID, or every single person that had the flu, and a really or really nasty fever. Any of those if you know anything about the research being done in type one diabetes is there's a lot of viral research going on about why does one person this virus causes a reaction that shouldn't happen the way that it does, right? So stress is horrid. And the way the body reacts to stress Absolutely. In one person, person versus another could have something happen. But to tell somebody that, you know, well, you're so stressed out. Clearly, this is why this happened. It's

Scott Benner 23:35
it's, I think I think the word cause is where the confusion comes in. Like it's so close to. I don't know, I'm trying to find a simple example, like, stress doesn't make type one diabetes, you don't get stressed out and suddenly have type one. No, but you could get stressed out to the point where your body experiences turmoil that ends up in an auto immune response, that if you already had antibodies for type, one could kick the whole thing into gear,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:06
right? I mean, stress causes significant inflammatory response in your body. It does

Scott Benner 24:12
this is this this little misunderstanding between the word caused and like, you know, my daughter had hand foot and mouth disease, which is called coxsackievirus. And then she got type one diabetes coxsackievirus didn't like go into a laboratory and make type one and shove it into my daughter's body. Like it. She's got but she has type one, because she got Coxsackie. The point is, if she doesn't get Coxsackie that day, and just gets a virus two years later, then she likely gets the diabetes then this lady could have it's funny when I hear this statement. I mean, assuming that she was widowed at an older age, I think wow. How lucky is that? She got through most of her Life without getting type one. Like that's how that actually kind of feels to me, which is interesting. This person said I was diagnosed the same summer that I completed three marathons. And I can't tell you the number of people who told me that running the marathons made me diabetic. That's interesting. Is there anything

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:20
I liked the next day, I started to say things like, yes, instead of a finishers medal, everyone that completed that race got type one diabetes, exactly.

Scott Benner 25:27
There's, there's the thought 1000 People ran a race, one of them ended up with diabetes, and somebody goes, oh, there was the race thing. Instead of, instead of saying 999, out of every 1000, people that ran a race didn't get type one diabetes, they see at the interest, where people's minds are interesting.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:49
When I think it begs of it's a it's like a deeper thought, honestly, as what you just said, along with the stress, and like the widowed person is this person without knowing as many people are walking around today without type one diabetes, specifically, right? Nobody just randomly goes to the doctor. And it's like, Yep, I want to make sure that I'm not carrying around these antibodies and whatever, right? These are not tested for factors. Unless you are doing something like trial net or whatnot, because you already know that you have type one in the family and you really want to stay on top of it. The majority of the population has no idea if you're walking around with something that could at some point get I say turned on. Right and or your body reacts a certain way. So you know, this person running the marathons, who knows, was just the point at which that piece in their body was like, Yep, it's time. Yeah. So sorry.

Scott Benner 26:51
Here's a couple of like, I hope people are listening to them, because contextually you can figure out where it comes from. Although this one's just sort of hilarious. I was told that I had not lost so much weight, I wouldn't have gotten diabetes. That's just that's, uh, that falls under the you're damned if you do damned if you don't category. I'm telling you to people. But here's this one's interesting. My two type ones were diagnosed about nine days apart, ran to a friend's husband at Target right after diagnosis. The question was, what causes that diet? And then she's she says, Yeah, dude, I did this to my kids like with food, but I get her feeling. But you understand his question. He's worried. He's like a lady. I know. Both of her kids got type one diabetes, nine days apart? Is that something I have to worry about? Like, that's the question she takes the way she takes it because of her. Rightfully so like, I'm not saying that. But like, I get where his question comes from, like, Hey, what happened here, like somebody told me, so this doesn't happen to me, is what I'm getting out of that. I think this is the case that takes the cake. When I met a stranger at a birthday party, who told me in the first five minutes of meeting him, that I really should research my kids diagnosis more, because it's likely it could just be a parasite, and then no one. And then no less than five minutes later said, I don't really understand how diabetes works, and then wanted me to explain it to him. And then a Dexcom alarm goes off, and they use cake to take care of a low. But again, you know, that can be a parasite. By the way, what is diabetes? Thank you. Thank you for your searing insight. Do you see this one I had a professor tell a lecture hall full of 200 people that type one is quote the one you get the one you're born with. I raised my hand. I said I wasn't diagnosed until I was 13. And then she talked her way out of it by going you know what I mean? shut her down. And so like so but that's another example. Right? The one you're born with means that's in your that's in your body already. Right? You're. But that's not true. either. You could develop the antibodies later in life as well. Yeah, so my God, these go on forever. I cause

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:23
it's, you know, what's painful is that we live in a very we live in a society today where it's very easy to now get the right information. Yes. Right. I mean, these types of comments. I've heard myself since I was diagnosed almost 35 years ago. Yeah. So it makes me really sad then that people are not learning.

Scott Benner 29:58
Jenny, I heard recent li that you your phone has access to more information than the President of the United States had access to in the early 80s. I would agree. And now you can't like, and still people can't figure anything out. This one's terrible. I caused it. That and that I deserve the punishment. Oh, wow. I don't know who's I don't know what burden you're trying to lift by telling people that but that's horrible. Oh, my daughter was diagnosed because she was born by C section. So this was a myth mixed with mom shaming. So hey, cuz you couldn't push that kid out. It has diabetes. So she hits her on, like, twice. People are horrible. Yeah. Oh my gosh, um, it is my fault that my son has diabetes. Because I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with him. My weight must have caused my daughter's diabetes, my weight must have caused my daughter's diabetes, okay.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:07
Meaning they is kind of the same as the the one you just read about. Maybe the maybe this person is overweight or herself and was pregnant and overweight at the same time. And maybe that is what they're expecting, cause the daughter to have diabetes, because clearly the body was unhealthy while it was in its gestational

Scott Benner 31:30
age. This this one, here's the whole story is not important. But she does point out that like, people wouldn't even make eye contact with her after her children were diagnosed. That's they thought it was they thought more type two stuff. Just weird that like

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:49
that. And I think in this, I think some people just don't know what. They just don't know what to say. Yeah. You know, after, after a diagnosis. It's like, I think of any kind when you hear somebody that you have gotten to know, has had something traumatic in one way or another happen. Sometimes you feel like you just don't have the right words. And you're not quite sure. You know, what to say? Yeah. Now, I mean, the response of just not even like approaching or eye contact or whatever, clearly isn't the right way to go about it either. But I don't know. It's sad.

Scott Benner 32:29
These last couple are about contagious. My kids are grown now. But I had to have three with type one. Kids would ask my kids if it was contagious. And eventually they get tired of saying no, and just started saying yes, then fake coughing on everybody. Somebody said, I've been told that it's contagious. But this one, this is the last one on the list. And then we'll wrap up. As a teen. My friend's mom was told diabetes was a sexually transmitted disease. And if her son and I dated, he would get my diabetes. Oh. Did you give it to your husband, Jenny? No. No, no. Well, that didn't work. Dammit.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:13
We've been married and together a lot.

Scott Benner 33:16
Jenny and her husband have a sex at least four times. And I got wedding kids and like a birthday. And it hasn't happened yet. Wow. diabetes is a sexually transmitted disease. It Well, that's the end of the list. i My takeaway is, I just always think about this the same way like you can't judge people. On their level of understanding. I mean, there are some things in here in this list that are just confusion. There's some things in here that are ignorance, there's some things that in here stupidly, it depends on who you bump into. But the one thing that I've learned from this list is that everyone believes in themselves to an absolute fault. Everybody's like, I think a thing. So the thing must be right. And then here we go. And your point about being able to look into it. Especially in a world where people spend so much time connecting to information through a phone or a computer. Why not take five minutes to find out something before you say to somebody, like just right, you're on your phone anyway, like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:34
well, right. I mean, at a general, a general party, how many people you know, backyard party in the summertime, you've got a family and you can see that the child or maybe one of the parents or whoever looks like they've got an insulin pump, right. Or they've got a CGM rather than like just spewing words out of your mouth that clearly are not going to be smart because you don't have two clues. You know, whatever. VLC is on their phone at that point, get on your phone, figure it out, look it up and

Scott Benner 35:05
listen. Not to be too clear headed, because I don't want to ruin everybody's stupidity with this. But you could just ask. Just Yeah, exactly. Say, Hey, I'm very sorry to hear about this. I hope you're okay. Do you know what causes this?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:24
And I think the other thing that all of these statements also are kind of show behind the scenes is people want to offer you information without understanding your situation. Right? They think that they like, no. They think they know something like, what did you know about this? And I, I saw this famous person and they're doing this kind of thing. What did you ever think about doing that?

Scott Benner 35:57
No, I haven't, but thank you. And so you're saying I just need to diffuse Oak Grove water? Okay. I want it. Thank you something about cow urine? Did you say

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:10
how we write cow urine? And you know, I'll

Scott Benner 36:12
get right to it. Honestly, like, I really am gonna, like, I'm just gonna grab Erica for like, 10 minutes, that would be great. And I'm just gonna say to her, like, read these. I don't even need to talk. You just jump on here. And tell me what you think. And you guys are gonna hear that right after my voice stops. So awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much, Jenny. Thank you.

Eric, we'll be here in just a second. But first, let's talk about the Dexcom G seven continuous glucose monitoring system. Why do you want it? Well, it's smaller, it's flatter. It's more comfortable to wear, says my daughter. It's easy to put on the new insert II system thingy, boom, like really easy, push it down, hit the clicky. Done. Very cool. I didn't want to get too technical with you there. But you definitely hit the clicky. And then it goes in, you're gonna get what you expect from Dexcom 10 days worth of monitoring out of each sensor. But now like, unlike with the G six, when you're done, you just kind of pull it off and flip goes in the garbage. There's no pulling out the transmitter and then putting the new transmitter into the new sensor bed. And like you'll see I'm already forgetting how to do it because Arden got the g7 now take a look at it, Dex comm.com forward slash juicebox. Don't get me wrong, the G six is terrific. The g7 is smaller. And there's some other good stuff about it too. Shorter warm up period for 130 minutes, pretty great. decks comm.com forward slash juicebox. Of course, you can get up to 10 followers, use your iPhone or Android phone as a receiver or you can use the Dexcom receiver all that good stuff still exists. This smaller package. You know, they say good things come in small packages. I don't know why they say that. But it is say speaking of sayings, here's one for you get it on the pod Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Why? Well, how about tubeless? How about you can swim with it, bathe with it run around with it? How about you don't have to disconnect to do things. I just saw another story online today if somebody disconnects their palm who disconnects there. I just thought I just saw another story online today of a person who has to disconnect their tubes pump to do an activity and guess what they did? They forgot to turn it back on blood sugar. Right up. It's a quick way to DKA you don't want that. I only bought you leave on omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Your kids can leave it on when they're out playing about and adults. When you do adult stuff, you can leave it on to can you imagine those adults things but without the tubing. You would like that, wouldn't you? Of course you would dexcom.com forward slash juice box Omni pod.com forward slash juice box check out the Omni pod dash. Or if you want that sweet, sweet automation, check out the Omni pod five. That's right on the pod five paired with Dexcom G six is a beautiful marriage. Let those things make those decisions for you. More insulin less insulin, automated baby omnipod.com forward slash use Basal links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. When you use my links to get these items and the other things that are bandied about on the podcast, you are supporting the production of the podcast you are keeping it free for its listeners and plentiful. That's the thing you do. And I'm not telling you to just go by Omni pod if you don't want it, but if you want it Omni pod.com forward slash fusebox. I'm not saying get a Dexcom to support me. I'm saying if you're getting to Dexcom dexcom.com forward slash Tuesday Awesome. You got it. Alright, let's get back to these. Dammit, mythos. Why can I just say it like that? Myth? Myth I can say multiple myth is myth. And that it seems like I'm saying it wrong. It's very upsetting

Speaker 3 40:27
Hi

Scott Benner 40:39
All right, as I promised when I was speaking with Jenny earlier, I harangued Erica into jumping onto this jumping onto this episode too. So Eric already knows, but you know, just to kind of lay it out for you guys. As Jenny and I were speaking during this episode, I found myself wondering, like, what makes people say these things? Like I couldn't fathom? Like, I'm trying to imagine a person coming up to me and saying, like, Oh, my kid was diagnosed with type one diabetes, or I just got diabetes or something. And the thing I say to them back is so I mean, ignorant, I guess for the lack of a better word, and often course, and mean. You know, to give you some examples that you didn't hear from when Jenny, I were recording, you got obviously the you got diabetes, because you ate too many sweets as a child, huh? Except, you know who that came from, to this adult? Their mother, which flipped me out because you were in charge of the food lady, when, when I was a kid, like, you could have made a different decision if you think that was it. People who sit in a room with you. And you know, the example here was like a commercial came on. And they're like, oh, that's soda, that stuff gives you diabetes. And like that stuff. So you're, I'm really first just looking for your interpretation. Do you think people set out to be Corson unfeeling? Or do you just, this is just a gap between their brain in their mouth most times? Or what do you? I don't know.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 42:10
I, I would hope that most often people are speaking without pausing or speaking without thinking how their words are going to land. I think sometimes the example you just gave from the mother. Sometimes it's easier to shame somebody else, as opposed to maybe blame yourself, or consider that as an option. And not that we meet, we're looking for anyone to blame themselves or but that could be an automatic response. Yeah, I think the the ignorant comments may stem from their understanding of what diabetes is, which may be from, you know, misinformation like commercials from, you know, thinking, I think we think about cancer, there's so many different types of cancer. And people try and relate to other stories and other family members who have cancer. And I think they think that diabetes is very similar that there's one type of diabetes, and so they speak out, they make a comment, it may be that they're trying to connect with somebody, they might try and share that they have an experience with diabetes. But they don't know they obviously there isn't a real solid knowledge coming in some of those comments you just

Scott Benner 43:29
shared. I wonder too, not just in this topic. But in general, if people don't want to pre absolve themselves from a future problem. And kind of what I mean by that is, if you come up to them like that, here's the person here said that they were just flat out told by somebody else, that they were a terrible parent, for their child having type one, that they mess, their diet up, and all this other stuff. So obviously, knowing that that's not the case. And that's not how you get type one. I always think that there's like this split second decision made in the back of your brain somewhere like this, like I'm standing in front of you, and your kids been diagnosed, my kid doesn't have diabetes, I have to think you're a bad parent. Because if I think this is random, then it could happen to me and my kid. And like, almost like I have to blame you. So that I'm protecting myself. I'm making air quotes, protecting myself from this thing happening to me, because I'm a good parent. So there's no way this could happen. You must be a bad parent, you must not have done the things you were supposed to do. And that's why your kid ended up that way. And I don't think that's to shame you. I think it's to protect themselves from the fear of it happening to them, but I could be way off on that. But that's how I always think about stuff like this.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 44:49
Yes, and gosh, I sure hope that is an internal process. You know, I hope that but I know these things are spoken and they do come out of people's mouths. And I think it gets I appreciate that perspective is I'm going to protect myself because we also are always trying to make sense of why it happened. And if we don't know why we're going to either make false assumptions, false accusations, generalizations, and those obviously, never land well. So I like yeah, that's it, maybe it is a protective factor for the person who's making the comment, and kind of rationalizing how they would never get something like that, or do something like that to themselves or their child.

Scott Benner 45:32
Now, here's another thing somebody said, and I will go, I'll say this, like, it's nice to try to understand people, and to be generous with them and everything. But if someone looks at you, and like, you say, Hey, I found out I have type one diabetes. And their first thought is, and I'm quoting here, you're not fat enough for that to happen to you. Maybe surround yourself with smarter people. Like, honestly, I don't know. Like, there seems to me like, there might be an element here of just people who don't know how to how to be, you know what I mean? Like, that's just a who would in your wildest dreams, Erica, in your wildest dreams? Would you ever say, Oh, well,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 46:10
but I think so that we look at, and I know, we'll spend time on how to receive these comments. But I think that person who's saying that maybe is really is trying to compliment the person in our way, right? But their assumption is like, Oh, you get diabetes, if you if you have obesity, that's the person's assumption, right? That's how they're speaking out of that. And so they're trying to tell the person Oh, but you're, you're too skinny to have diabetes, and maybe they're trying to compliment. I don't know, listen,

Scott Benner 46:40
I'm not a well educated person. But if you're having that thought it would be my thought to say, you know, that's really surprising to me, because I, you know, I guess in my mind, I, I relate that to this, and you're not like that, like, why not say that instead of? I don't know, learn a couple extra words. So yeah, so my question is now, it is about that, right? Because you I'm assuming you have a couple of options here. You know, somebody says something silly or stupid to you like that. You could keep yourself together and educate them or try. You could get angry and be back, which I don't know if anybody would blame you. And you could walk away, right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 47:28
Yes, I think first, I would encourage you to think about, you know, here's this exchange of information, you've shared, something you've shared, you've been diagnosed, your child has been diagnosed, they respond in a way that is often maybe not helpful, even though maybe they're trying to help they're trying to relate. They're trying to compliment whatever it is, we don't know. Always the person's intent and motivation. But pay it being paying attention. First and foremost, how is that exchange of information making you feel? Are you feeling and that might dictate your next step? But is it? Are you irritated? Are you angry? Are you sad? Are you you know, raging and sigh?

Scott Benner 48:05
A murderous rage?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:09
Are you? Yeah, so I think it probably depends on a that the environment, the the context, you know, where are you? Who is the person? And that would maybe dictate your next response? Is it a family member? Do you want to spend time educating them? Maybe? Is it someone? Is it a co worker? Who says, gosh, you know, I didn't you have diabetes? You don't eat a lot of sweets? Or oh, can you you know, this goes along with it? Can you eat that treat? I think your response to do I want to educate them? Do I want to be kind of a jerk back to them and be like, You have no idea go, go Google type one versus type two, or all of the different types? Do you want to just check in with yourself and you know what, actually, that's, um, you don't have to express to them how you're feeling. But you can choose to say, Gosh, internally, you're thinking I'm feeling so angry right now. I want to touch this person. Yeah, but it's not worth it to me. I'm gonna say, You know what, actually, that's really that's off base. And here, you can go look at this website. And then and then later, I would encourage you to kind of spend time on that that feeling.

Scott Benner 49:19
You know, one of the what I count as one of the most terrible things that is said to me, or has been said to me in the past about this, and I heard it a more than a handful of times when Arden was so little, I know 100% It's meant well, but I've never come closer to punching someone square in the face than when I've been told, Oh, well aren't got type one diabetes, because God knows you can handle it. And I'm like, okay, so what are you telling me that because I'm a competent person, I gave my daughter diabetes by being competent. So if I was just a big dummy, then she wouldn't get diabetes because it like and meanwhile I know people have died ladies were incompetent. So I understand I understand the message. I even understand the intent of the message. That one, that one was hard for me, but it was difficult. I think it shut my brain off. Because the only thing I could think to say was like, you know me fairly well, like, I would have just eviscerated them if I open my mouth. So I just I like just big eyes and nodding.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 50:24
Yeah, and I think most often people are so taken aback. And usually this is in the early stages of post diagnosis. So you yourself are still grieving, you're trying to figure out what does this mean? What, what is type one, what is type two, you're trying to figure this out. So oftentimes, people are deer in headlights, and they they freeze. It's like, I can't believe you just said that. And I don't know how to respond quite yet. Yeah. And so maybe the best response is to just what you just did not with your eyes wide open.

Scott Benner 50:53
I mean, yeah, like I was. Yes, I was like, I could, I could have strangled somebody for saying that to me. Like, because that's the like, you can, you can mean, whatever you mean, from my perspective, I am a competent person, therefore, your God gave my kid diabetes. Like I was like, all right. I mean, that doesn't make like, can you not step out of a thought and break that down for a second go? Well, that's not at all comforting to somebody, you know, but I understand the idea. The idea is, well, if it was gonna happen to somebody, at least x, y, z, which, by the way, that may have been okay, like, I probably would have, I don't know, in the very beginning, I don't know how well I would have received it. But if you said that to me now, like, just recently, someone online, and I've referenced this once already, so I don't want to go too deeply into it. But they were just kind of like posing, it was like a thought exercise. If if we put Scott in a situation where he could like, accept or decline Ardens diabetes, but he knew but you know, but he knew that, like, all these people were being helped by the podcast, what would he do? I was like, well, unequivocally, I would say no, thank you to the diabetes if you gave me the option. But I was able to have that conversation. But if I wasn't me, like, can you imagine saying that to someone else? Like, it just it's a weird thing to say? I don't know. I don't get it. So

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 52:21
I think yes, people are often they're trying to be empathetic, they're trying to maybe in that moment, give you that compliment. But oftentimes, they're unskilled and how to express empathy that's appropriate. And it's hard to give people the benefit of the doubt when you're in the space of still grieving and trying to get your feet on the ground. Oftentimes, a lot of my claims will say, when they're trying to give the other person the benefit of the doubt of like, how much did I know about type one, or that there were two different types before my diagnosis? Really? Nothing? Maybe usually, you know, most people do not know anything about the difference, or that there is a difference. But then there's still that feeling of but this isn't helpful. This, this empathy, or this compliment that you're trying to give me is not helpful. So then, going back to Yeah, how do I want to respond? By checking in with that emotion? Is it your own narrative? That they're, that it is your fault? Are you feeling guilty about that? Is it touching on something that you were kind of wrestling with internally that you might, that might be and so yeah, sorry,

Scott Benner 53:28
I'll pause No, not at all. I, I just, I wish there was a way to say to the people who are eventually going to be in that situation where they're going to be struck, and for whatever reason, say a thing to tell them like, at the very least, if you can't, if you can't just get better at talking, then ask questions, instead of making leading statements like that's very, that would be a very helpful way around it. Because then at least the person hearing you would say, Oh, they don't know. So you're missing by the way, why would you know, how many diseases are there in the world and conditions? Um, I don't know anything about any of them. I know a lot about this, and very little about anything else. And I don't know why I expect my neighbor that I bumped into at the grocery store to understand diabetes. So he's just it sounds like it would have sounded to you a week before it happened to you, you know, so it's confusing. I think they're, I think they're scared. They don't want it to happen to their kid or themselves. And the unknown is frightening to people. And I think that I think that blaming the other person makes it feel that's my that is my real take. It makes it feel less likely. It's gonna happen to you if you can say, it's the comparison thing that Come on, everyone does it. You want they walk around constantly and like if you if you're uncomfortable about your weight, you find a person who you're like, Oh, well, I'm better off than they are. Or you're the amount of money you have, like, oh, I might not have any money but that guy, the fenders fallen off his car fenders are on my car. I'm doing okay. Like I just think that's I think people's brains rank things to protect themselves, but Anyway, so yes. So if I want to get if I'm really angry, and I want to get out of it, I don't know like to me, to me, I just, I just go with, like smile and wave, like, yeah, thanks. And just get the hell out of there. Because I mean, what are you going to do? You can't you also can't put yourself in the position of educating the entire world, because they're not going to remember they're not going to understand they don't really care, you know, so.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 55:32
So you've received the comment, you're feeling the rage, anger? What what is the most effective way to respond? I think, what you could have one statement to say, you know, what, actually, I used to think that way, too. If you did, you know, I totally thought that way too. But actually, it's really different from that assumption, I, and I'd love for you to go check out and you could list any website, you know, Google Wikipedia,

Scott Benner 56:00
that haven't even have an answer in your pocket already

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 56:03
have an answer in your pocket. I know. Some people like the the etiquette cards from the behavioral diabetes Institute, you can print off a PDF of those, and they actually carry them in their bags. And we'll say, You know what, that's I used to think that way. It's totally actually incorrect. As it turns out in here, check this out. And so have I think, particularly when you're in that really raw grief stage, to have a statement memorized to say back is really helpful. So that you're not having to make that decision in the moment of like, I want to burst out in tears, I want to punch the person. I'm just gonna say this. You know what, that's actually really incorrect. Here you go, go check out this website. Great

Scott Benner 56:45
idea. And it stops you from looking crazy, which, you know, the worst thing is after this, after this interaction, where you, you didn't start it, someone else starts it with you. And then when you walk away, that person is walking away thinking, Oh, you poor thing. And you're back. They're like, you know, pulling your hair out, because they didn't understand and then you tried to hit it happens in the beginning, when you start to explain diabetes to somebody in the beginning. I don't really know this from a parenting side. You sound out of your mind. Like you really do to other people. Like if I get too low, this might happen. If I get too high, this might happen. I just long term complications, and there's needles and insulin and like you just you start rattling stuff off. And you sound unhinged. I've sounded unhinged in the past. Like when I was first diagnosed?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 57:31
Yes, yes. But you're because you do feel this kind of gut need to want to educate everybody, because you've learned so much. And you realize, Wow, I did not realize that there was this difference, and I'm staying on that topic. But so you want to then share the information and let other people know. But then that's exhausting. And it's not as you said, it's not your responsibility to have to do that. But then allow yourself whatever that feeling is coming up in the moment to allow yourself to feel that it might not be appropriate, right? Then

Scott Benner 58:03
take take this one step further, then we'll we'll say goodbye. What happens when you get misinformation from a physician? What do you do then? Like how do you like me? Because it's now it's not a one on one. It's not you know, a person you work with or person, you know, but it's somebody who extensively has like a position of power over you. They're saying something incorrect, or doing that thing where people come in, this happens a lot. People, they struggle, they figure something out, they get together super proud, they head to their doctor's office, look what I did, I got my agency to drop a half a point, I'm super, like, stable and everything. And the doctor just immediately says to them, well, you must be low too much. And they're like, No, I fit and they won't even some people won't even hear of it. They'll try to tell you to like I've heard of people's having their pumps taken from them. After finally achieving success, the doctor is trying to turn their insulin down to make their blood sugar's higher. So wow, I don't know, how do you like that was painful.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 59:00
I think? Well, as we have all learned, we've become really good at advocating for ourselves and our needs. And in the beginning, that's a new for some, you know, it's a new skill set, right to know what you need and be able to advocate for it. And you can do it in a respectful way of, you know, all due respect Dr. So and So, but this is my body and this is my child's body. And we found great success with this. Thank you very much for your time and your and your suggestion.

Scott Benner 59:35
I've seen a lot of people send me notes. They're like, Oh, the doctor took the palm made changes. We walked out of the room. I didn't even get out the lobby put everything back. And yes, we got going. So yes, it's a weird, weird position that you don't expect to be in but it very well could happen. So well. Thank you. And

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 59:54
but one more. One more comment of just encouragement. I think it does. comments about not only why did you get diagnosed, but how you should operate as a person with diabetes, those comments do continue right throughout your life. And they do. Either your skin gets thicker or you have all of your statements already memorized in your back pocket. And then you and it's easier to just choose to say, Oh, actually, that's totally false. But it's okay, we can still we're still good, you know, and it doesn't hit you as hard. You know, over time that does that does happen. So I just wanted to give that piece of encouragement, but in the beginning, it can feel like you're just getting barraged with those painful comments.

Scott Benner 1:00:40
Right. Okay. Thank you very much.

We're gonna thank Jenny, we're gonna thank Erica, we're gonna say that Jenny works at integrated diabetes.com You can hire if you want to. You can thank Erica. And you can thank and you can hire Erica, if you live in a couple of states, you can do the virtual with her. Erica forsyth.com Go hit her link up and see if it fits for you. If it doesn't betterhelp.com forward slash juicebox save 10% On your first month of therapy with my link. And of course, Omni pod sponsoring this episode. Thank you Omni pod Omni pod.com forward slash juice box go get the Omni pod five. And Dexcom is here to dexcom.com forward slash juice box to do G seven. Where that G six right at your fingertips at my link dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back again soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you can think of more diabetes misnomers and you want to share them, share them with me. On my Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. It's a private group with over 40,000 members. You can be part of it. Find it log on, make a post and say Hey, Scott, I forgot about this one. Maybe one day your example will be on the podcast.