#648 Defining Diabetes: Insulin On Board

Scott and Jenny Smith define diabetes terms

In this Defining Diabetes episode, Scott and Jenny explain Insulin On Board

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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 648 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I come to you with another in the defining diabetes series. Today Jenny Smith and I are going to define insulin on board the notorious I O B. Please remember while you're listening 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 or becoming bold with insulin. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo pen. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. If you're a US citizen who has type one diabetes or is the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org Ford slash juicebox. Join the T one D exchange registry fill out the survey support people with type one diabetes T one D exchange.org Ford slash juicebox.

G voc hypo penne has no visible needle, and it's the first premixed autoinjector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is G voc hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about all you have to do is go to G voc glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit G voc glucagon.com/risk.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:04
Insulin on board is an interesting topic it is

Scott Benner 2:08
and I think it's going to become more interesting as more people use algorithms to Yeah, because you're going to start thinking about it a little differently. But insulin on board is a measurement. I'm making air quotes about how much insulin is in your body that is yet to have done its job is how I think people think of it. Do you think of it? How do you think of it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:34
True. And I think in in another way to define it. It's kind of like the expected it's the expected decay or action time over a defined period. So you know you've got this many units of insulin, your insulin action time is defined as four hours let's say you had four units taken 50% should be done by two hours after you Bolus if you have a four hour action window of that insulin right. But that's like the nutshell. Right? of insulin on board. I think insulin on board individually is very ill defined. It is not individualized unless you really test it out.

Scott Benner 3:29
And I so Kenny comes on and I and I think you know Kenny actually can yes on and talks about loop a lot. And if I'm not mistaken, his child's insulin action time he has set pretty short a prior to any kind of algorithm. I had Arden's insulin action time set at like two hours, two hours, I never remember, I never didn't want the pump to suggest insulin. Right. So I so I wanted that, you know, the way I talked about it with people is that there's a setting inside of your pump. And you just get to say, how long your insulin lasts for right, your insulin action time is one hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, five hours. If you use loop has an algorithm, it measures it as six, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:17
A five to six hours. If you use one particular like action, you know, profile, you can choose from multiple there's a child base, there's a adult based, then there's one that you can adjust the hours within, for the people who are doing some of their own coding and whatnot. They can also self adjust within their code, what they have their insulin action time kind of set for. But yes, each pump, whether it's algorithm driven or just conventional pump, loop pump or not. It is something that each pump has built into it. And again, I don't think that it's very well defined for people even just starting a base Conventional pump in an office clinical training, it's something that gets set, and is less than a minute in explanation as to why it's set for three hours or four hours or five hours. It's set that for three hours, and then you move on to like the next setting. Never go back to it. And they never come back to it. And I don't know how many people in a first visit, when I chat with them, we look at their active insulin time. I'm like, Well, why is your active insulin type set like this? Well, what is that? What does that mean? And where do I find that? Like, that's let's start over from insulin.

Scott Benner 5:41
Because if it because it's a it's a dummy setting, in the in a pump in a regular pump. By that I just mean, if you tell it three hours is your insulin action time, right, then it and you Bolus, I don't know 10 unit new gear at noon, two hours in the insulin on board is still going to indicate is probably being like a third of the Bolus though, correct, right? Yes. And but having said that, if you if that insulin action time was set at four hours, then it would think you had insulin on board of 4%. Right? If you said two hours, it would think it was more like 30%. And my point is, is that this, this number that gets put into your pump by a doctor who just is like I don't know, most people's is like three, and they just dial it up to three or maybe four, or maybe they're thinking I don't want you to over do it. So I'll make it five. None of that has anything to do with the impact of the food and your use of your insulin. It's it's it's a nice thing. But I think we're kind of beyond that now with technology. And you shouldn't be guessing at your insulin action time. Because it impacts insulin on board. And then what happens in real life is you eat some food. You don't do a great job of Bolus going for it for whatever reason, it's two hours after you've eaten your blood sugar's 270, you're indicating you're still going up. And then you look at the pump and go, Oh, we still has insulin on board. I don't want to do anything about this. And or

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:09
it's recommending point two units, or like point two units. That's like a drop in the ocean. Like what point two is like nothing that's like, that's like, why would I even take it there's no purpose to just do it. And that's where people get frustrated. They're like, Darn it. That's where range Bolus came from 2.2 units, I'm going to take two units instead. And then it becomes like this willy nilly management of, well, I know the pump is wrong. Why is it wrong, though, right. And I think you made a really good sort of like comment that I think leads into insulin action was formulated to cover carbohydrate. That's how insulin rapid acting insulin was formulated to cover the expected in and out effect of carbohydrate. It's why we are very carb centric in diabetes education. Everything's about carbs. It's about counting the carbs, it's about insulin to carb ratios, right. But when we start having more than the typical well portioned, mixed meal, broccoli, grilled chicken and maybe you know, blueberries on the side, or whatever it is. Once it becomes heavier, in those other macronutrients, insulin action time, isn't wrong. But the reason that it doesn't look like your blood sugar is where it's supposed to be. Once insulin is done working, is because the other pieces of that meal weren't covered the way that they should have that. So it I mean, there's a lot of mix within evaluating insulin action time. How long does your one Bolus really stretch out and work for you? Is it getting you to where you want to get blood sugar wise? And then when you bring in pizza, versus the chicken and broccoli? What happens? Right now I'm stuck high and my pump is recommending point two units. I know I need more. We don't need more because your active insulin time is wrong. You need more because there's something else in the picture that wasn't covered. And it needs to

Scott Benner 9:30
be Yeah. So at a basic level these these measurements were set it for perfect world situations, not for the situation you find yourself in right away. There is a world where if you send your if you set your you know, your insulin action time at three hours, your insulin on board will probably reasonably be right if you're always eating the way you described. But the minute you elongate a meal impact by adding fat to it or protein or something that starts hitting You know, an hour and a half later, after you've eaten it, these are these are new impacts on your blood sugar that this, this simple, simplified formulas not thinking about. And I understand, right? Like, you can't explain all the stuff we talked about in the podcast if somebody's in a five minute doctor's visit, right? Right. And so, but the problem ends up being is you set the settings somewhere, and then you tell people, well, this is it. Insulin on board, if you have insulin on board don't Bolus, it's a, it's a generic thing to say. And you might be right sometimes, and and that might be wrong sometimes. But people get into this situation where they're in their home. And they know they should do something. And what rings in their head is the doctor told me not to correct before three hours. And I don't know if you've ever taken 24 divided by three. But there's only so many three hour segments in the day. And that's how you make yourself crazy. So waiting three hours feeling the pressure of this blood sugar's high, I don't want to do the wrong thing. The doctor said I have insulin on board still, it's sort of comes down to there's another epic defining diabetes episode that I think is called. I don't know if it crushed it and catch it. When I probably where I probably say something like, it's not stalking if you need it. You know? Yes, yes, you could stack insulin, do it wrong, make yourself very low. But it's not stalking if you need it, meaning that one meet and

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:30
if, if you need it, you may want to go to the variables that we hash through in like very, I think really good detail, right? Because those variables are some of the reasons for saying, I'm not stalking, I'm taking extra insulin now. Because this variable is in the picture. And I know that I need it. My pump isn't recommending, but my pump doesn't have my brain. It's it's like a locked, I see this, you only need this. You are in real world. You know, you know what's going on.

Scott Benner 12:06
You need to understand I play there. Sometimes I think I say the same thing a lot. But you need to understand that 10 carbs of rice is going to impact you differently than 10 carbs of grapes than 10 carbs of pizza. And the Bolus that probably works well for the grapes, let's say doesn't work for the rice definitely doesn't work for the pizza. And so you take the insulin you think you're supposed to have you get high, take it again, a doctor would call that stalking. But I would say that if we're talking about the pizza, you just didn't understand how to Bolus for the pizza to begin with. Right? Right, or you used more insulin, or you would have timed it differently. This is the point where I've never really said this before in a defining episode. But if you tuned in to hear about insulin on board, and you're like they talked about insulin action time a lot. I think that if you really want to understand insulin on board, you should just go find the other pro tips and the other defining episodes and educate yourself about the big picture. And then I don't think you think about insulin on board anymore.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:11
Well, and I think the other thing, as you mentioned earlier is we become we've become in the past, I would say even three to five years of a lot of these algorithm driven pumps that people are using, I think with learning more about why is the system doing what it's doing. Why does it seem to work better than my conventional pump did? And some people get locked into the well, my system isn't giving me more insulin. I think it needs to be, but it's not giving me more. It's not helping me more? Well, our, our algorithm driven pumps have much more, I guess, a lot longer insulin on board or insulin action times, right. They're much extended comparative to what you may have had set in your conventional pump. I noticed that difference very early, going from conventional pumping to loop I did. And it was also a question for me. I was like, Well, I see it's giving me more and on my conventional pump, I probably would have given myself more with a I've got this much like hindsight that I know I need this much more, and I feel safe doing it and I can do it. But my pump wouldn't have recommended it. These systems are following blood sugar in a way that a conventional pump wasn't. And it's taking into consideration the glucose shift, where again, a conventional pump is not it's locked into one point of data that you're giving it to get back a suggestion. Whereas the algorithm driven pumps they're adjusting based on our rate of change, and the more information you feed it, the better can decide what to give you? And how long to look for that along with gets drawn out active insulin time.

Scott Benner 15:06
Yeah, it's important to know that what if you're experiencing, you know, a rise that you that you don't expect, it's not always just change your meal ratio, because your meal ratio might work really well, for a lot of things, it just doesn't work well for Chinese food, right. So you don't want to change your ratios in the pump, you want to change the way you think about that specific food. And I mean, that's a, that's a trial and error situation. But you you have to be able to look and go, my ratios work most of the time, they don't work for these foods, I have to figure out how to Bolus for these foods better. And and the other thing that what you just said made me want to talk about was, I guess I do actually still pay attention to insulin on board. But it's more about during a fall. So if I'm managing a high blood sugar down, or I have a real steady, lower blood sugar, and I want to know if it's going to drop, that's where active insulin makes is important more concerning to me than it is while I'm bolusing for food, crackers, one bolusing for food, I can see what's happening, I can see the big jump, I can see. Well, I mean, listen, I'm not into bolusing perfectly every time I don't think you should be that way. But if your blood sugar's one at a half an hour, after you ate, you didn't Bolus right. You know, like there was a way to do that better. There, that's easy to deal with. But when you find yourself at 180, or 200, and you start attacking it, and now you're dropping down. Now it's important for me to know how much active insulin is here because I can look at the act of insulin and decide how much juice as an example, would, would right counteract that act of insulin. So almost thinking of it as correcting a high blood sugar was almost like Pre-Bolus thing for the juice. And now put the juice in so they can do their job. And then the rest of it is just putting it in in a place where you kind of come in for a smooth. Yes, yeah. So you don't do it too soon or too late. And it is a lot like trying to land a plane apparently. So. Correct. You don't want to you don't want to fly off into the horizon and you don't want to crash into the ground. So good comparison. Yes. Great. I've never flown a plane in my life. And I never I flown a plane. Have you

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:20
really? I have. Yeah, like a little, you know, like, a four seater. It's not like it was a huge plane or anything, obviously. But it was fun.

Scott Benner 17:29
Or and Lieberman was on here once and he offered to take me out. His parents live near me. And he was living in he was the CNN CORRESPONDENT Israel when I spoke to him, but I think he's back in the States now. And I was like, No, I'm not getting a small. He's like, we could fly down to here and get a sandwich. And I'm like, No, I don't know.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:50
It's it was it's really noisy. I mean, really, really noisy. But it was super fun.

Scott Benner 17:57
All right, so yeah, maybe I would do it. Six parachutes strapped in my face. Thank you very much for talking about it. Yes. On board with me, of course.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc. Glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com. Forward slash juice box. If you'd like to hire Jenny Smith, she works at integrated diabetes.com. And she does this for a living, you should check her out. And don't forget that T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box link, go fill out that survey, please.

I want to thank you very much for listening. I want to thank you for sharing the show with other people. I want to thank you for the wonderful reviews and ratings that you leave. I would like to invite you to come check out the Juicebox Podcast Facebook page. It's called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it's completely it's a private group is the words I was looking for. So about 23,000 people in there now they all have diabetes, great conversations going on. You can jump into one of them or just sit back and watch. I'd also like to remind you that today's defining diabetes episode was the latest in a long line of defining diabetes episodes. You can find them at juicebox podcast.com diabetes protip.com, or right there in your podcast player just search for defining diabetes juicebox they'll pop right up in your podcast player. There are so many I can't list them for you right now. And if you like the series, let me tell you about The rest of them. You know what I'm going to come back to this one diabetes pro tips, they begin at episode 210 and cover a bevy of topics. Those are also with Jenny Smith. There's the diabetes variable series also with Jenny variables that impact your type one care Quickstart episodes, how we eat everything from vegan carnivore, low carb flexitarian, intermittent fasting episodes for how we eat popular request episodes, stuff like what's in your go bag, switching to an insulin pump, how to split long acting insulin, bolusing, insulin for fat, all kinds of stuff there. What else we got? There's a great mental wellness series all about type one everything from sneaking food to hard questions to kids ask about type one. In a number of those episodes, I'll be joined by Erica Forsythe. She is a therapist who also has type one, there's a ton of Scott and Jenny episodes, so many to choose from their how to Bolus for fat and protein. We have a number of episodes about that. I have a great four part series about pregnancy with type one diabetes, and a ton more about pregnancy. Some in the defining diabetes episode, some in the pro tip episodes. Just so many we've done so many great conversations with pregnant type ones. And mothers who recount their pregnancies, ton of great stuff. I said ton a lot. I appreciate that. You're letting me go on that. But about algorithm pumping. Like if you're using a loop or any other algorithm actually don't miss the fox and the loop House series or any of the others. We just finished up the defining thyroid series which is really well received by people. And after dark so many afterdark episodes living with bipolar psychedelics, heroin addiction, we sex, divorce, sex workers, disordered eating from male and female perspectives. They're all there in the afterdark series. And last but not least, I told you I wasn't going to list the defining diabetes episodes but you know what Dammit, I'm going to you're ready. I'm gonna hammer through this. So today we did insulin on board. But going all the way back to Episode 236 When the series began, we have defined Bolus Basal honeymoon a one see time and range standard deviation extended Bolus algorithm, noncompliant glycemic index and load Pre-Bolus Trust will happen low before high brittle diabetes stop the arrows, ketones insulin resistance and over Bolus feeding insulin bumping nudge rage Bolus compression low and interstitial fluid, fat and protein rise. Dawn phenomenon smudgy effect feed on the floor insulin sensitivity factor adrenaline highs, insulin deficit growth hormone stacking insulin hydration, a lot of diabetes, moody diabetes, crush it and catch it see peptide and beta cell and of course today's insulin on board and there will be more. You can't use the tools if you don't understand what the tools are. Again, if you want to see those lists, join the Facebook page Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, go right up to the top of the page where it says featured. And there is a post in there with lists of all of these episodes. And honestly, these are just a fraction of the episodes that are available in the Juicebox Podcast. So if you're not already subscribed, please do subscribe in the audio player that you prefer. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#647 Vagina Blog Podcast

April Davis interviews Scott for The Vagina Blog Podcast.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

---

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 647 of the Juicebox Podcast

Well, today's gonna be a little different, probably not that much different. But you'll see, I woke up one morning to an email inviting me to be on a podcast. And as you'll hear later, they usually don't answer those emails. But this one, well, there is something special about it. So today, you're going to hear an episode that is also simultaneously going to run on a different podcast. This is apparently quite a common thing for podcasters to do, although I have never done it. Please remember while you're listening, 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. We're becoming bold with insulin. Just a moment, you're going to hear April from the vagina blog podcast interview me about how we manage our periods with type one diabetes. And of course that points things go off the rails and I say weird stuff. So there's that to look forward to.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. If you're using insulin, you should be using a Dexcom find out more@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Fair warning before we start if the word vagina makes you uncomfortable, I'd stop listening right now. I'm gonna record on my into I didn't know we were starting a lot of pressure. Right now I'm recording. I'm literally sitting here wondering how I'm going to stop myself from just overtaking this Congress. Guess I'm good.

April Davis 2:14
I'm good. Guys. I am so excited today to be talking to Scott Benner. It is very rare, but I have a male on the podcast. But I was just too excited to talk to Scott because and this is very selfish of me. I wanted to create an episode around type one diabetes, and everything that that has to do with female body health. Scott has an incredible podcast called The Juicebox Podcast, it is single handedly the most useful information I have found as a parent of a child with type one diabetes. So if you are listening to this episode, it's maybe going to be a little bit type one diabetes specific, but I super don't care because the type ones need it. So, Scott, welcome. Tell us how you got into this. Tell us who you are. Tell us about juicebox

Scott Benner 3:03
April, wait, this is just gonna be about diabetes. I have so many euphemisms for vaginas written down. And I really, I'm trying to know,

April Davis 3:10
don't you worry, we'll get into that.

Scott Benner 3:12
Is that upon? Are we starting off right away? Exactly. Because I tell my every woman in my house, I'm like, at the end of your inspection. I don't know what you guys call it. I I think you should ask the doctor. So on the whole Is everything okay? And I don't, I don't know why they don't. But

April Davis 3:34
this is like when my best friend I was going in for a stretch and sweep, which is only like swipe your membrane when you're pregnant. She's like, did you just say search and seizure? And I was like, it's that's basically the right yep, that's what I'm getting done.

Scott Benner 3:45
What feature was she a cop? Oh. All right. Well, I have to start off by saying that. I don't go on other people's podcasts. I get invited on a lot of them. And I to even say that I say no is polite. I just don't answer the emails usually. But I got yours. And I'm like, I need to know why I'm being invited on a podcast called The vagina block. Even if I was a woman, or if I even ever once had a vagina. I'm assuming it wouldn't even work anymore halfway because I'm 50 So like,

April Davis 4:25
you're getting up there. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 4:26
mean, it would just really be good for picking at this point. Like right I mean, I don't know exactly. Oh, really? Oh dear. I'm lying in bed. I'm looking through my emails trying to like you know, get the energy to get out of bed. And I'm like, What is this this and I must have emailed you back on medium like I need to talk to you on the phone. So I went from I usually don't respond to people to having a personal conversation with you because I just

April Davis 4:49
which was fantastic because and to share with you guys like Scott had recently become my very best friend as a diabetic, a parent of a diabetic. Um, there's very few resources that are like truly reliable and actually really helpful. There's a lot of commiserating out in the world, the diabetic community and the community is incredible. Like the diabetic community as a whole is incredible. It's a very special club to be a part of. But Scott was, it was like a natural progression, I felt like in our relationship was like, of course, I'm talking to you on the phone, you're my very best friend.

Scott Benner 5:19
Gonna devolve into me making sure that you're mentally stable for the next hour. Because,

April Davis 5:24
no, I'm a parent of a type one child, like, are any of us, okay,

Scott Benner 5:30
we're gonna say, has that ship sailed already? Or do you know, you're alright? So So, I mean, must be fascinating for people listening. I'm not a woman on the show about, you know, female reproductive parts. And I don't have diabetes, and I run a podcast about diabetes, I must seem like, I must, I must, at first glance, people are like, Oh, this is gonna be a mansplaining episode of Deep proportion. Right? I just talked about things in detail that I have no idea about. But exactly. Gosh, how did I end up doing this? Is that the question I've talked so much?

April Davis 6:04
Yes. Tell us where you came from. Okay.

Scott Benner 6:08
Is that Is that are you trying to get me to say, I came from my mom's vagina, I feel so much Russia. I'm teasing you. I have two children and a wife. And with that wife, I made the first baby, everything seemed okay. And a few years later, we got all full of ourselves. And it's like, we're good at this. Let's just do it again. And we made another one. And that one came out fine. We were like, boom, we're geniuses. And then two years into that. Our second child Arden was diagnosed with type one diabetes. So that was 2006. In the summer, and back then, like, it's funny, like, blogs weren't really a thing, or they were just sort of starting to become that was the

April Davis 6:58
beginning of the blog world, because that's about the time I kind of started dabbling as well. That was like, everyone had a blog spot. But we were all kind of trying to Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 7:07
people were drifting out of what was the one that was just basically animated pictures, MySpace, and either Blogspot or it was, what's that? What's the other one? Look how old I am. WordPress, WordPress, you have it. And so my daughter gets diabetes in the first year is a real slog, it doesn't go well, or a one sees in the eights. I have a general feeling most days that I'm killing her. putting her to bed at the end of the night, like talking to myself as I'm walking out of the room, because I hope she's going to be alive in the morning. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Everything's terrible,

April Davis 7:42
which is so that's so real. Like I like when I listen to the episode that you had talked about that exact feeling. I was like that is that describes it perfectly like, well, they're probably gonna die tonight, I did the best I could I can go to sleep knowing that we really tried. And it will completely make sense when they're alive in the morning,

Scott Benner 7:58
no technology to speak of. Yeah. Now there are continuous glucose monitors, there are pumps, I mean, algorithms that help you. I mean, I don't want to give anybody who doesn't understand type one, the feeling that it's just easy, but it you know, you can, if you have the money in the insurance, you can kind of see what's happening, which is Yeah, valuable. Right. So let's sleep at night. Yeah, do I have slept more since the technology? Anyway, on her one year anniversary, as it was coming up, I started getting overwhelmed with the idea of like, helping, research, I guess, is how it felt like, I was like, Well, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a, I'm not smart. I'm not gonna figure this out. Like maybe I can push money towards people who might help her. And, and I just didn't know how to do that. So I started writing an email. Like, I would like send emails out to people, like, you know, just like, This is what diabetes is about. And it was kind of lame. And then I tried to raise some money. In the first year, I think I raised like, $1,500. And I was like, Oh, God, I'm bad at this, too. You know, I can't take care of diabetes. And I don't know how to raise money. And but on those hard, it wasn't easy. So on the first anniversary, I found a piece of software on my computer. I'm a Mac user, and it was called iWeb. And it promised the magic of being able to put my thoughts onto the internet. And to give it a landing page kind of thing is how they talked about it. So I made this little blog, and I started blogging about what it was like for our to have diabetes. And then I used my email, which maybe was reaching, you know, three or 400 people that I knew in the whole world. And I said, I'm going to do a day of diabetes, where I'm going to email you every time I touch her, so that you can understand what it's like and that information will also be on the blog. Well, I'm gonna say by about two o'clock in the afternoon, I started feeling bad because a no one had asked for these emails. And oh, yeah, it's not like I asked him to opt into it and and be I just was like, God, if they've got the point already. If they don't, they don't care. Yeah, like a month later, I got an email from this lady living in England who I don't know, and could not in any way figure out my connection to her. And she's like, Hey, your blog is really helping my family. Yeah, I was like, I don't, I don't even know what she's talking about. Like, I didn't think I didn't think of myself as having a blog. Like, I didn't think of any of that. And it went on like that for quite some time. Because unlike WordPress, or the other stuff, there was no SEO, it was all word of mouth, if it if it got around at all, and I put no effort into making it bigger. And I something about not having an eye on making it amazing. Let me build it very organically instead. Uh huh. all word of mouth. So unlike, you know, nowadays, we're all young people. I'm just kidding. I just, I just feel really, you know, you're like, people are like, I'm gonna start an Instagram. And, you know, I'll be a trainer by Friday. Or, you know, and I just was like, I don't care. Like if this reaches people and helps them right on. And if it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not trying to make money with it. I don't want it to be a business.

April Davis 11:10
And you are traveling, sharing, like, I'm already trying to stumble into this knowledge. I might as well just share what I have what I that was like the beauty. There was no like, all the pictures have to be perfect. There was no like, yeah, I have to push this. Like, what's my SEO strategy? Like? It was those early days of blogging were like, so delicious and naive and like, really altruistic? Well, I

Scott Benner 11:32
did it for the right reason. And there was no real way to make money with it. Anyway, it's not the world that yeah, I didn't today. So there was no like, eye on the prize kind of feeling. And I had learned from other people, by watching that if they got a popular blog, then they would make the deadly mistake of shining it up and making it look corporate. And then people don't like it anymore. And I was like, so you built this thing by coming to people saying like, look, this is me, I'm in my underwear in my living room typing this to you. And then you made it look like a formal website and like, and now you're like, people don't read it anymore, you know, or you stop saying what you thought or whatever. So I was just always very honest. And the truth is the first number of years of it, were just me being it was very, like raw nerve, like something would happen. Mainly, that thing would be bad. I would share it online. And other people would say, oh, that happens to us, too, which I guess was, I guess that was nice, because it gave people a feeling of camaraderie. But oh, yeah, after a while I started thinking, This isn't really valuable beyond that. And wouldn't I like it for it to be valuable beyond that, like the way I usually say it is, it's nice to know, at two o'clock in the morning, you're not alone? Because there are other people out in the world fighting with diabetes to. But wouldn't it be better? If that didn't happen to you at two o'clock in the morning? Like, let's talk about how to stop it from happening and stop commiserating over it and saying, Oh, this is what diabetes is. And it's just what it is. So I hate that term. I hate it when people say, Oh, that's just diabetes, because it makes it feel like it's out of your hands. And sometimes it is, but not as much as people think.

XCOM That's right. We're here to talk about the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, and all the things that will bring to your life. Here are some of them in no particular order. Calm data, a sense that things aren't out of control. That enough, do you need more? All right, I'll give you more Hold on. You are a loved one has type one diabetes, or type two diabetes. And you want to see the speed and direction of your blood sugar. So you get yourself a Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. Yeah, put it on. And the next thing you know right there on your Dexcom receiver or on your Android or iPhone. You're looking at your blood sugar. I know right? It's cray cray. It's constant like the numbers always there. It also indicates to you the direction your blood sugar's moving, is it stable? Is it rising slowly? Is it rising, quickly, falling slowly falling, etc. You understand the direction. So you've got the number, you've got the direction and there's this beautiful graph that shows you where you've been. So you understand kind of the backstory of your day. People can follow your Dexcom I am following my daughters. I have picked up my iPhone, and I'm opening it Arden's blood sugar is 116 and it's stable. So that means it's not falling at an appreciable rate. But if I look at the graph, I can see that she's coming down because we just changed a pump. And her blood sugar got a little sticky for a minute during the pump change and we've been pushing it down since then. So while I believe that she's not falling at any great rate, I do expect this number to keep drifting over the next hour or so. Just based on what I'm seeing and my experiences using a Dexcom. Now, if that's not enough, I don't know what to tell you. I think you should head over right now to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box and find out how to get started. At the very least, check out that Hello Dexcom offer they have because you may be eligible for a free 10 day trial of the Dexcom G six. What did I just say? Free. Go find out if you're eligible, because you want to see this. You know, if you if you try it out, you don't like it. That's cool. But I think you're going to fall in love, fall in love with the comfort and security that comes with seeing the speed and direction of blood sugar. It just opens up a whole new world. And I would sing a whole new world, but I believe it's copyrighted. So I can't. But I could reenact my favorite scene from a lot. Princess Jasmine. I'm kidding. dexcom.com forward slash juice box, head over and check it out. Things that I described in this ad are of course, the results that we've achieved here. And yours may vary. But I'll tell you what's not gonna bury seeing that data, understanding how insulin and food affects blood sugar. That's a game changer. That that is absolutely magical, like a young man flying on a carpet. See what I did there. No one thought that was gonna tie together, not even me. Listen, if you can do it, a Dexcom is gonna make a big difference. I think you're really gonna like it. I hope you check it out. There are links in the show notes, to Dexcom and all the sponsors, those links are also available at juicebox podcast.com.

April Davis 17:12
Something that's been so helpful for me though, I think it takes a certain level of bravery and brazenness to be able to be like, Look, you went and sat down with your doctor, they decided to do X, Y, and Z. I'm actually living this crap day to day, let me give you some actual real world advice. Because I think we get I for me, I get caught up in like, I don't want people to come at me later and be like, That was terrible advice. And this is medical. Because even the realm of women's health is as much the wild west as the realm of type one diabetes. Like I very much saw this and like even listening your podcast, I love that you guys will so crystal clear be like, Look, we did this. And we tried this. And this problem has this. And I think a lot of people tiptoe around that. Because they're scared. And so I love that you don't tiptoe. I love that you say how it is I love that you say look, this is what we're doing. And this is what actually works. It's the same approach I've really tried to have to like female body health as a whole, because we tiptoe too much. And we don't actually share what's really like really thinking or what we're really like, I don't want to be mean, to the doctors are I don't want to go against whatever the current medical wisdom is are. But like if the medical wisdom isn't there, and your doctors are actually managing a kid, they don't really know. They don't really know. And it's the same with endometriosis. It's the same with PCOS. It's the same with like, a lot of these women's disorders. And so there there's I just I loved your brazenness in so many ways that you've just been like, No, this is just what we're doing. And it probably could totally work for you. Oh,

Scott Benner 18:46
April, you're nice. I mean, I'm fantastic. But we need to get past that. Well, I'm saying. I agree with you. And it's also a different thing. Now in the world where content content content, you have to have something constantly I'll tell you right now, if anybody, if everybody anybody ever wants to do this and thinks they're going to be successful at it, here's my analogy, take a stone, hold a lighter up to it, both stone will get hot. The second you take away the lighter, the stone will be freezing cold again. And that is trying to be relevant online. If you are not constantly holding the flame to the stone, you will go out and people will forget about you and go find you a hot stone. And because of that there's so such a push to get content out the people don't wait to find out what they're saying is valuable. They just like I hadn't thought here's my thought. And I don't do that. So if, again, being able to build slowly through the blog, I was able to build kind of a system for managing insulin. And then at one point I said to my wife, I have a way of doing this and it just works. And I think it would work for most people if not all of them because it's on such a basic distilled level. We're just talking about figuring out how insulin works in your body and then applying it to the things you're eating. And so I thought myself through the blog, and then I distilled it, and I kept taking it down until the thoughts were so small that they were basically t shirt slogans. Because at two o'clock in the morning, when you're fighting with your kids, low blood sugar, you don't need to start like pulling up, you know, something you read online and rereading it to figure it out. Like you need my stupid voice to say five words in your head, that triggers an entire memory for you that you can put into action very quickly, right? You

April Davis 20:35
don't want to be pulling out the physicians ducks reference of diabetes, I just want someone to be like, hey, trust that what what you think will happen will happen? Right? Okay, you're my new best friends. Exactly.

Scott Benner 20:44
You're correcting a low blood sugar in the blood sugars, 50. You give the kid 40 carbs. And then people just go back to bed? Well, some of those 40 carbs need insulin now. Because after the blood sugar's corrected, it's gonna start going back up again. Because now you've put in these carbohydrates and not compensated for them with insulin. And so I started telling people, you should trust that what you know is going to happen is going to happen. And yeah, it's not something that means seven people sat in a room and figured out to say, I just blurted it out while I was talking one day, and then I can see what sticks to people, like, you know, so I wrote that blog, I still have it. And I do put stuff on it. But I wrote that blog earnestly, until I started this podcast in 2015. Yeah, this podcast is like, it's over. And I don't do like when people no offense to anybody listening, but like when you all say, like, I have a season of a podcast, and there's 10 episodes. And that's, I laugh at that, that's two weeks of a podcast, like you gotta like, you gotta go. So you, so I just thought, Alright, I've got to blend these ideas together, I want to help people. And I really should be clear, because I'm from the East Coast, and I cut I could come off as flippin. All of this, to me is about helping people live better like that, that it's become a thing. That's a business like that. I send out invoices for ads and things like that is is secondary for me. Yeah. And so I hold on to that core tenet of helping people. But I understand that if you take the flame off the stone, you're not going to help people anymore. So you have

April Davis 22:22
to play this exact same game. And it's all those fine lines of like, you know, am I am I maintaining this in a way that I can continue to go at this speed while also like helping helping everyone. So I'm assuming if someone is listening to this far, they probably have some interest in type one. And what to know, like, let's let's get to the good stuff. So let's, let's talk about this you are managing a teenage girl. And so you are familiar with what it looks like to manage someone with a menstrual cycle. Yeah, and I even love I brought up this to you earlier, like you just barely did an episode around masturbation, but I had not even thought about how masturbation can affect blood sugar levels, which is really like when it comes to managing a type one of being a parent of a type one like, and even maybe being like anyone listening that has type one. Maybe that is me having clued into them like oh, oh, oh, no. All right. So my menstrual cycle,

Scott Benner 23:22
I hear what you're saying. You're saying stop chit chatting, Scott, let's get to the meat. Forever. You want to make this? Do this. No problem. So let's be clear. First of all. During the masturbation episode, I did not speak about my daughter. I just

April Davis 23:38
Yeah. But you do have a teenage child. She's 17. A young adult someday.

Scott Benner 23:45
Yes, 17. She's had diabetes since she was two. And so it kind of goes back to the tenants of the podcast, which are, I think one of the mistakes that people with diabetes can make. And I want to be clear, so I don't sound like an ass. I think that one of the reasons I'm good at talking about managing insulin and type one diabetes in general is because I have a third party perspective, that's really a first person heart, and I can be dispassionate about it. Because I'm not the one in the panic situation. If someone's blood sugar's crashing, I understand all the emotions and the inability to even maybe handle your own body as your blood sugar gets lower, but I don't have to have that I'm kind of an observer. So I can see what works in a situation and apply it. So for me, when I tell you, I mean, if you're still listening and you care about diabetes, here's what I think. I think you get your Basal insulin right. You learn to Pre-Bolus your meals correctly. You learn the difference in the impacts of foods heipo you how to put it simply as that you know, eating a handful of popcorn even if it's 11 carbs might impact you differently than having 11 carbs. papaya, right? So there's the glycemic load and glycemic index of foods, you have to understand the difference between them so that you can use the proper amount of insulin and not just do that thing where Oh, it's 10 carbs, I don't understand why it didn't work. And then after that, I think it's about staying flexible. And I think people have trouble with that. And they can get very mathematical about diabetes, which I don't think works very well. And nice terminal about Yeah. And then they go

April Davis 25:27
like, this is supposed to be this. There's a lot of supposed to in the mathematical.

Scott Benner 25:32
Yeah, there's no supposed to. And yeah, and and then the next thing that happens to them, is they get caught up in the why. So no,

April Davis 25:40
same. get offended by it.

Scott Benner 25:44
Why can't I figure out why this is happening. So to me, I don't think you like if you jump out of an airplane with a parachute on and it doesn't open. You don't go, well. This is up fine. How do you do? That guy told me there's a parachute back here that work? You start wondering if you have another shoot? Like, is there one on the front? How does this thing work? Right. So people why themselves right into the ground?

April Davis 26:05
Oh, and waste so much time? Just correct. And move on? Yeah. In the moment is so frustrating. I'm like, I did everything right. What is going on? Why? Why? And then the figuring out the white in the meantime, just correct them. And

Scott Benner 26:21
I don't know why some people's brains work that way. But mine doesn't. And I don't know why some people have trouble. You know, saying out loud. My doctor doesn't give me great advice. But I don't have trouble with that. I don't care. I don't care about anything that would impede my daughter from having a less than healthy life. So Right. So I apply that idea to the menstruation part. Because, listen, I again, I don't know what it's like to be a woman. But from a third party perspective, it seems to be an unholy dumpster fire every once in a while, like what happens to you guys. It's horrible. You know, and you know, muscle aches and headaches and joint pain, and I messy here. And everything's horrible. And like, Oh my God, I need another Pat, I need this. I'm 19 years old, and I don't want to put a tampon in, but I want to go sweat. Like, I don't know, any of it. God bless you. Okay, like, it's amazing. So what I noticed was, is that there are times of the month that my daughter needs more insulin, and there are times of the month that she needs less. And I don't argue about that in my own head. I just accept it and handle it with the same way I would handle everything with diabetes. So I'm guessing something about ovulating. Gets your hormones rolling around. Those hormones then cause some issues with using insulin because you see it with boys right when boys grow. And they then they have a hormone influx. They have different insulin needs poor girls as soon as they start getting their periods almost immediately at for Arden. It wasn't like day one, but a few months. I feel like she had like a training wheels period for a couple of months. totally right. Yep. That makes sense. Yep. And then. And then I started realizing like, Okay, well, this, when you see these things happen, that's an indication that she needs more insulin, stop worrying about why and move the settings so that now the settings meet the need, right? Just meet the need. And then as you see it drift away. And for Arden, it's usually when the here's where I get stuck me on your podcast, what do we call this at the event? When does it like the full? I don't know what to say.

April Davis 28:35
Demonstration occurs?

Scott Benner 28:36
Listen, when whoever invented people, I'm gonna just guess it was the end of the day, right? April, whether you want to believe in God, or, you know, the big bang or whatever, somebody was sitting there, and they're like, What do we do to indicate they're not pregnant? And the guy's like, oh, I want to go home for dinner. Like you figure it out. And then like the guy like in the office got to decide he was like, I don't like my mom much. We should make them bleed out of their vaginas. And like, just terrible. So when, when that thing happens over the next 36 hours or so her insulin needs start to drift back to where they are.

April Davis 29:12
So I have a question about this. And because obviously I've been listening your podcast so I know Arden is on birth control which suppresses ovulation and and flatlines all your hormones. Have you noticed a difference coming from an ovulating cycling? Teenage female into now a completely flatlined? No longer ovulating? No longer menstruating female?

Scott Benner 29:37
Yeah, the the insulin needs are more stable again. But yeah, but you can still see them. The difference is still interesting. Yeah, just a little bit. So it's like, it's not as much of a change, but it's still a change. And it can be a little worse now. You can go back and forth a little bit during your period sometimes You have to be able to start separating things out like this is when?

April Davis 30:03
Well, because she would be going cuz like she had like a pill

Scott Benner 30:07
your way? Actually, that's been a whole. You want to hear about that. That's been a dilemma. Yes. So that's why we're here. That's why, if somebody would have told me that I would have led with this, I'm just teasing.

April Davis 30:18
Oh, no, you wouldn't have

Scott Benner 30:22
run me over. If you didn't run me over 10 minutes ago and try to get me back on track. I'd still be kidding about something. I know. Hey, listen, if you want you go ahead and try to make a podcast if you're not chatty, it ain't easy. I know. So orden starts getting How did it start? I'm gonna guess it

April Davis 30:43
like that. It's a withdrawal bleed. So you're withdrawing from a synthetic hormone. So I could see where the insulin meets would still change with the menstruation because you're going through withdrawal from hormone, hormones.

Scott Benner 30:56
It can be a little more erratic during the bleeding. But so so here's what happened. She starts to get her period. I forget how old if I'm being honest. That's fine. A number of months into it. She starts experiencing this is fascinating. A nosebleed. One big nosebleed almost every 30 days, out of nowhere, never happened to her before. We're in a movie 2019 We're seeing the Joker. It's like 15 minutes left in the movie. He's about to kill Robert De Niro. Sorry, coolers. And I don't think anybody listening to this podcast is like, oh, no, I'm just gonna watch the Joker. And she looks over at me and she goes, What's going on? And blood is pouring out of her nose. And that, in my mind, looking back in hindsight was the beginning of this whole mishegoss which is, yeah, yeah, it's a yet a short, it means a disaster. And so we didn't notice that the nosebleeds were happening monthly at first. Mm hmm. And then she started talking about her period was very heavy. And then before we knew it, she was dying. Like, I mean, like it's an exaggeration, but she was like literally falling apart. And for months, like she'd get home from school pass out on the countertop, like I have photos of Arden sleeping on a countertop, like like with her headboard sitting in a chair just couldn't hold her head up. And it wasn't all the way until we realized that her her ferritin level had dropped very far. And, and we got her an infusion of iron. And she just came right back up, like, like leaving a flower out in the heat and then watering it again, you're like this will never come back. And then the next day like, Oh, my God, it's all falling green. Again, she comes right back up about a month. But somehow we didn't put that together with depleting. So normally, she just drained back out again. And then we were then I said to my wife, I'm like, holy shit. This is Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know if you're on here. Okay, this is about her period where she's losing too much blood. So we got her on a pill, they put her on low, low estrogen, low lows, didn't help anything. But they made her do it for three months to be sure. Then they moved at a low estrogen, which seems to be magical. Nosebleed stopped, period regulated. And when I say regulated, Arden was getting our period, 11 days straight to day break. And then it was coming right back again. Over and over. And all that stuff that we talked about before the tiredness and the muscle aches and just anemia. Yeah, we wouldn't stop. And so she's just like melting into a pile. And so we thought, Oh, this is perfect. We got it. Now two months ago, she starts saying I can't eat meat. And I have no idea if this is going to be about this or not right. But this is me thinking through it. And then suddenly I can't stomach meat turned into I'm hungry. But I don't have a flavor for anything. Like I can't imagine what would tastes good, right? And just last week, Arden and I read her OBS appointment, because I've been a stay at home dad for over 20 years. And I go to a lot of things that a lot of guys don't do. And we're sitting sitting in the office, and we're trying to figure it out. I think the doctor is gonna move into Yaz, is that right? No, yeah. And then we realized through talking more, it's possible that heard that our drug our pharmacy moved her to generic about the same time we think that her thing with her appetite started so we're still going to try we're still going to try the ads anyway because she's still having some weird acne that the doctors like with this pill. You should not be having any acne. So she's gonna switch around a little. But I think we might look back and find out it's just the generic and by the way, the nosebleeds came back.

April Davis 34:43
Interesting. Because they're, I mean, really the generic supposed to be pretty much the same thing. That's fascinating.

Scott Benner 34:50
Yeah. And so who knows, but I I'm a little trip. Obviously I don't seem trepidatious because I just talked but during trying to figure out During trying to teach myself about birth control pills, I learned that there seems to be two very specific camps online about it. There are people who share their experience with their birth control pills. And then there are people who yell at them. It seems like for Yes, seeming like they're talking people out of using or shaming. I don't know, I'm 50 I don't really care what the hell all you do. Doesn't matter to me. Oh, yeah. But but I'm telling you, this is what happened here. I don't know exactly if this is right or not. But the way I think about it is, if I just said something that anyone can have a lightbulb moment for, and it helps them think good. And by the way, if this isn't you, then keep moving. You don't mean like, oh,

April Davis 35:43
no, it's so share the vagina blog, the official stance on birth control is it has a time and a place. There. It's one of those things that like, unfortunately, we've presented it as like a multivitamin to people like this is it's just no big deal. Just take this small, fix everything. And the reality is, it has its own side effects. Yeah. And it's, it's essentially putting your entire hormonal system at rest. So it suppresses everything. And it's frustrating, because like the medical community uses terms like regulate, but it's not regulating, it's just turning that whole cycle off. So what you're doing is you are taking medication that suppresses everything, and then you are having a withdrawal from a medication that causes bleeding that looks like a period. And so it feels like Oh, I'm regulating. But there's a time in place for all of this, like even even knowing all that, like I was on birth control for many years, because I just really could not find a great way to not get pregnant. Didn't want to have babies April, what she's going through as a teenager. I mean, that's the other thing that's tricky. Like, you definitely have some bleeding issues that are serious. Yeah. So maybe while you wait through that and get a diagnosis, this is a great bandaid.

Scott Benner 36:56
I'm gonna be honest with you prior to this with my daughter, my knowledge and birth control pills were that I dated a girl in high school whose breasts were amazing because she was on birth. And that is all. That's all I knew about. And honestly, like, I didn't think about it. I didn't know about it. I just know that one day, I had a girlfriend. And the next day I had a girlfriend whose boobs were better yet. Now, I know I'm seeing everything you said and how valuable that could be for people. And yeah, I understand better that it's not the way I was led to believe, which is oh, you know, you just can't get pregnant and it makes your period very regulated. I'm making air quotes. Yeah. Yeah, I can tell you this, that I to the best of my knowledge, and I'm pretty sure I'm right. My daughter's not sexually active. And oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. No. I'm doing that's not what I'm doing. Yeah, she was and she wanted to use a pill. I know, that would be up to her. I'd be okay with that. I'm saying yeah, to your point. Like, this seemed like a reach to us doing this. This was not like an easy thing where we were like, oh, we'll just run this now. Like it was, it was hard to get to. Because Because as we read about it, and we started realizing more of the impacts of it. It did seem really serious now. You know, for a number of months, it felt like it was saving her life. And now I feel like she they're gonna starve to death or bleed to death. We can't figure out what she's gonna do first, you

April Davis 38:25
know, I have to tell you, my Murena caused irritable bowel and messed up my appetite soon as I check out that IUD at all was like, right back to completely normal. But it's one of those things like that's a side effect of some of those some of the birth controls. You just kind of have to like, you have to weigh you always have to weigh the pros and the cons on those and go okay, is this what which one's worse? And I'm gonna go with bleeding to death being worse.

Scott Benner 38:49
Yeah. Well, and that's exactly. Let me catch up for a second. You just mentioned an IUD is that the thing that looks like the flux capacitor out of the back of the future card? Like it's like, Oh, yeah. My uterus. I know what it is, like? I just, I, you would think they just put like a little guy in there with boxing gloves that could beat up the sperms. Oh, yeah, it'd be much easier. That's what it is. Yeah. So again, 50 year old guy talking about periods. I don't know what I'm talking about at the time. Oh, you're doing great. Well, no, but I mean, it's either as anyone else, I guess, is my point. And you just have to like, dive in and figure it out. And much like with with the diabetes, I only know as much as I know about it now because I cared about my daughter, and I wanted to figure it out. And that's the same thing with this. Like, I couldn't just see or be like that. Just, you know, totally.

April Davis 39:37
You just hopped back on a different roller coaster and you're like, Okay, here we go.

Scott Benner 39:41
I have like a terrible view in my head of like, you know, the pre internet life where people would just be like, ah, that's my daughter. She's tired all the time. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Right. Just bad. So, yeah, I'm not gonna know what happens. She starts the pill, the new pill. In a week or so. But But back to the the insulin stuff. Yes. While she's on while she's been on the birth control pills, getting on them was a rough ride, like her levels changed a fair amount. And then yes, yeah, that's what I was wondering Yeah. And then I started figuring out the pattern, and then I was able to change your settings to meet the needs. And we know what it looks like to switch gears when you basically have to switch gears about twice a month, you know, going into it changing and then coming out of it again, and I know what people get scared off, they're like, Well, I don't know, like, how do I turn this up? If I'm not sure it's going to happen. But to that, I'd say it's happening every month. Like you trust that you know, what's gonna happen is gonna happen and and you just kind of get out of it. Because that's, that ends up being what happens is people, they wait, the blood sugar's get out of whack, then suddenly, they're chasing these horrible roller coasters up and down, up and down, up and down. And that's just not the way insulin works if, yeah, you know, you use and I just keep learning

April Davis 41:03
that fun lesson over and over again, it's great.

Scott Benner 41:07
Let me say this. And then let me ask you a question. So in my mind, insulin you use now is for later, timing wise, but more more appropriately, if you're trying to think about it, you have to think about that the insulin I used before is impacting right now. And I know it's the same thing but it's not when you when you're thinking about it, it's it's more important to know that your blood sugar might be getting low or high right now because of a decision you made two hours ago. Because if you don't know that, and you're always fighting the fight, as the fights happening, you can never stop the reoccurring again, you're always behind in, in in my mind, you're chasing it. And only like, level people with insulin know how to like stop the chase in its tracks, which I do try to explain to people on the show. And I think we do a pretty good job actually. What is your idea? You

April Davis 41:58
did a great job I that has gotten significantly better since listening to the Juicebox Podcast. What blew my mind? was we would so my daughter loves to eat and not tell us that she ate. She's nine. So it's a nightmare. We've talked about it all day, every day that she can't do that. But she continues to which is it? We're working on it anyway. That's probably a parenting issue. Or supervision issue. Yeah, but Mary, I

Scott Benner 42:34
think it is parenting in it as much as that. It's going to take you a long time to teach kids something. So I think I was a stay at home dad for a long time. i And yeah, I'm basically a lady. I'm just, I'm missing a couple of internal parts. And I could probably be

April Davis 42:52
my job. My husband and I have switched off back and forth our entire marriage. So he's the stay at home parents. Like I love that you've done this and like had that experience.

Scott Benner 42:59
I quit my job in around Christmas in 1999. So I haven't if you made me get up and go to work today, I'd cry just chained myself to something heavy announced I'd be like, you could not make me leave this house.

April Davis 43:15
Not wearing pants on a list. I want to go

Scott Benner 43:17
shave. I want to shave and not before I realized my way about five or six years into being a stay at home dad that I would have this big crazy beard. And women would always be wearing sweat pants in the winter. And I was like none of us are shaving.

April Davis 43:32
No. Winter

Scott Benner 43:35
seemed pretty warm. Yeah, it seemed unfair that they could hide it and I look scruffy. But

April Davis 43:41
I try numbers. And what surprised me because we would always give her this big correction that she would crash and immediately go whoa, like, you know, an hour or two later. And it would be this whole like, Oh, we got to correct now. What is weird is I will now give her that same correction and crank up her Basal. And she comes in Smith for landing.

Scott Benner 44:01
Yeah, so you figured out a thing that worked for you. Like

April Davis 44:05
what in the world I give her more insulin, it doesn't crash as hard. It's the

Scott Benner 44:09
timing of it. So the you have to love you have to line up the impact of the carbs with the action, the insulin they have to happen at the same time. And they kind of create this tug of war that no one can win. And that's that's really what using insulin is to me. You if you put in, you know, if you put in insulin five minutes before you eat, insulin doesn't work that way. So it's not going to be active and doing what it wants to do. The food's gonna go in and start hitting sooner. Now the blood sugar's flying up and the insulins basically still like off on the side stretching its legs and getting ready. And before you know it, even if you started with a great blood sugar of 90 or 150 or 200, it's flying up and then all of a sudden the insulins like I'm ready to run and then it jumps into the fight. It's way too late now, because you used enough insulin for, you know, say to cover 30 grams of carbs. Add an 89 blood sugar. But now the blood sugar's to 10. And it's rising. So there's momentum, there's the numbers change, you do not have enough insulin anymore. All that insulin goes in and tries, it tries, it tries, it can't really do anything. And then you're high and you're looking at it, like, Oh, I'm gonna have to do something. So you put in more insulin, then the food gets digested out of the system stops impacting the blood sugar, all the insulin is left behind, and you, you plummet, right? But if you just put in the right amount of insulin a little sooner, so that as the insulin begins to peak, as the food begins to impact, it's sort of just becomes it's an impasse, let's, you know, just imagine two sides pulling on a rope. But both are exactly the same strength and they can't move the rope. And that's when you see those steady lines on people's graphs. That's what they have happening. They have a balance of the need of insulin, and the amount of insulin and it's a very good balance. And that's it. So

April Davis 45:55
here's the here's a question coming back to ministration. Were you ever able to autopilot? Were you ever, ever able to like dive into your pump system? And say, Okay, we know on week one of her menstrual cycle and week two, or like the first half in the second half, like her Basal programs need to be this and our Basal programs need to be that was it? Were you ever able to get into like an autopilot situation with it?

Scott Benner 46:17
That's what we do. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't listen, if you're using insulin, and especially if you have type one, and you're waiting every three months for your doctor to make an adjustment to your settings, you're always going to be lost. It just, it's a thing that's happening right now. And you need to address it in the moment. So yeah, I mean, I've been changing Arden settings since I figured that out. I mean, a very long time ago, like I said earlier, in the beginning couple years, I was just doing what I was told. And it was it was not going well. And then I started seeing things, putting two and two together, recognizing very quickly, I need to be in charge of when this insulin goes in and how much it is. And, you know, and since then I've been but I would never not make an adjustment. If I needed one. Now you can over adjust. But yeah, you can't just turn dials for the sake of turning dials and needs to be a little purposeful, a lot purposeful. But that's the Yeah, that's the kind of stuff we talked about in the show so that people can understand.

April Davis 47:14
Well, and it's anyone listening to this? Who wants to know more about that? I mean, it's you have great episodes on stopping the arrows on on how to how to get your Basal, right, like Basal really, like if it's off, its off, like, and so that's you've got great resources for that somebody else we wanted to ask you about. And I mean, I feel bad that we're like really just talking about art. And you're also like over this entire community that you can draw from to but have you seen insulin resistance since introducing birth control? Because for some people, using birth control can cause insulin resistance.

Scott Benner 47:49
So I don't talk about insulin resistance like that, because I think it I think it puts an idea in people's heads that there's a magical thing happening that causes them to use more insulin, and they can't know why it exists. So I understand that insulin resistance is a thing, but I think it makes people think about it the wrong way. So do you have hormones that cause you to need more insulin? Yes. But that's not insulin resistance. That's just Yeah, it's a need is how I think about Yeah, and I know, you know what I'm saying. But I just think it's incredibly important to be clear, because it puts people into those thoughts of, oh, well, that's just diabetes, there's nothing I can do about it. I get insulin resistant once in a while. But that's not true. If you can step back and take a macro enough view, there are repetitive nature as to what's happening to you. And so if three days before you ovulate, you know, something happens. Well, then that's about what happens. I mean, if you want to think about it, yes, on resistance, you can, but I just think about it as on that day, you need more insulin or on those grouping of days.

April Davis 48:54
So you haven't seen an overall rise in like, oh, suddenly sent being on birth control, her insulin needs have been greater overall, like I'm talking like, there's an overall like, so I have PCOS, which is a an insulin disorder, essentially. And so birth control when you have PCOS can it can make your insulin resistance worse, so you're even more resistant to the insulin that your body's making. And so I always like, I wondered how that affected type ones.

Scott Benner 49:25
What at the time, yes, her insulin needs went up her. Her Basal rate needs went up. Not significantly, maybe from nificantly point eight to one or 1.1. Like right now she's in, you know, because we this, this pill suddenly not working for us. She just suddenly broke through and had bleeding. You know, like she had a period like eight days into this pillpack Which is, you know, we're like, Oh, great. No, horrible. No, it's not even to this part, you know? Yeah. And so, you know, that happen, and I watched her needs go to like Plessy About a week. And so we we changed a little bit, but not a lot. Her sights have been, I don't know if I'm right about this or not. But I think sometimes during her period, her sights don't last quite as long. I don't know if that's an overall feeling of the body just being, you know, in a mess. And maybe it's, it's in a healing process, like I think can cause

April Davis 50:23
inflammation. So typically menstruation and even withdrawal, bleeding can cause the body to go into an inflammatory state, that would totally make sense that the cannula would be that much more irritable.

Scott Benner 50:34
Yeah, so So we, you know, we're a little more on top of changing pumps, like in that second day, in the end of the day, you're like, uh, you know, I'm not getting what I expect out of this. And so we might jump off of it a little sooner, that happens a little more during her period than not good, but it doesn't. I think that the problem with this, and maybe a lot of things is that people want like concrete LightSwitch answers to things and health just as always work that way. You know, so you have to, you have to step back and you have to see what's happening. And then be proactive and do something about it. You can't just say, you know, you have PCOS. So it's going to be that way, the way it is for you for everybody, because that's not the case and diabetes, you know, is similar life is similar, right? Like, it's, it would be nice if there was just a book of answers. But it doesn't work.

April Davis 51:24
We all have totally different bodies. One, one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode with you is just a to kind of create almost a list of like, suggested like she just suggestions like we I've noticed this in my community, I've noticed this like with my own daughter managing I've noticed some of this, we've seen some of death, like just a guideline of like, if you have type one, and you're menstruating, you know this, it could potentially look like this for you be on the lookout look for your cycle, what patterns are emerging, what, which is really a gospel, I preach all the time, wait, let's look at your cycle and see what patterns we can find. As I think for a type one, you know, that's that much more important?

Scott Benner 52:02
Well, it's going to likely happen to you when maybe for some people it doesn't or maybe some people are MDI and you know, not to get like too in the weeds. But there are some people who are MDI, who aren't great about Pre-Bolus Singh, and they aren't great about carb counting. So they're endos will set them up with a heavier Basal rate to sort of like, try to lay over the sins that might happen during the day, right? Yep. So yeah, maybe because of that, like, who knows, maybe because of that, you have more Basal than you need, maybe your needs go up because of your period, and your appetite goes down. So you eat less and you don't notice that some of that extra Basal you were using for food is now being used for hormones and impact from your parents. Like I can't tell you all the things that might happen to the variable or like their mind numbing sometimes like what Scott,

April Davis 52:51
I brought you on here to tell everyone everything about everything? Well,

Scott Benner 52:55
I am telling you, here's a flexible, stop. Don't ask. Don't ask why meet the need. That's it. Like I mean, yeah, I love that. I joke with Jenny sometimes. So for people who don't know, I had a woman named Jenny Smith, come on my show one time she has diabetes for like 30 years or more. She's a CD certified diabetes educator. She's a nutritionist. She's delightful. She's very smart. And I just had, I had her on as a guest one time. And I couldn't get her out of my head. I was like, I need to have her back on the show. So I had her all the time as a guest. And I had the same feeling again. And then I told her one day, I didn't know her, like try to imagine I sent her an email. And I was like, I want to take all the little parts of like management that I talked about, I want to distill them because the one thing my podcast is, is conversational. So yeah, my goal when you're listening to an episode is that it might be entertaining, it might be fun, you're going to learn a couple of things in your hour will feel pretty well used. And that that episode will build on to another one that will build on another one kind of makes a tapestry of understanding. But I didn't have any specific like this episodes about setting your Basal insulin because my brain doesn't work that way. So the Jenny, I'm like, I have these tenants, I would like to put them in their own place. And she came on and helped me make the diabetes Pro Tip series that exists inside of the podcast now. It went so well that I was like, Would you also help me define terms? Like would you talk about variables like so she's on a lot, but she really is. She's a lovely person. She's just a guest. Like, she's not a she's not an employee. She doesn't like you don't I mean, it's just a wonderful person. And anyway,

April Davis 54:36
the diabetes world it's like, oh, can I help? Of course I'll help. I'll figure it out.

Scott Benner 54:40
It really is. It really is. Yeah, so I said to her one day you know, I want to do one about periods to like about menstrual cycle because we have like pregnancy series. We have like all stuff. Yeah. And and we're talking back and forth. And I said, you know the the truth of this is, is that this whole Things Not really a podcast, like none of it is like I should have 115 minute episode that says, Get your Basal right Pre-Bolus Your meals, learn the different glycaemic impacts of food, stay flexible. See you later, you know what I mean? Right. But it doesn't work that way. You can't just, you can't just say something to someone, and they go, Oh, okay. And that's it, and not just for this for anything. And so that's why delivering content this way. I mean, the blog was popular. And I'd get a note, you know, every couple of weeks, like this blog is really helping me but I mean, like, it's weird to say out loud, because content providers say these things a lot when they don't, they aren't necessarily true. But I hear from probably a dozen, to, I'd say, 15 people a day, about what they're about what the podcast does for them.

April Davis 55:52
It's intimate. Your inner ears, like right now, when people are listening to this, and they're part of our conversation they love like, I love hearing the stories. I love learning the lessons through the stories, I love hearing the other people are going through the same things that I'm going through. But even like the episodes where you had Jenny, that was the beginning of me finally go at like, finally be like, oh, oh, I need to do this. I need to try that. I didn't even think about this. My doctor never covered that. I didn't know what this acronym stood for. Yeah,

Scott Benner 56:21
it's just it and you can't just give it away. In a sense. It's not a blog post was nice. It didn't work, right. You know, trying to do it on Instagram, that's a fool's errand, you're not gonna be able to do it that way. It's,

Unknown Speaker 56:32
it's a good time, let me tell you.

Scott Benner 56:35
Doing this, the and kind of maybe underappreciated aspect of it is, is that if you're not a good communicator, and you're not interesting, it doesn't matter if you have the secret to life, 45 minutes into your podcast? No, make it to it, you know. So it has to be engaging. I think one of the things that I've done, if I can take credit for anything is I've taken a very dry medical heart, yet hard to understand. And I've made it fun somehow. And you know, in that, so weird mix, and I don't think that's what most people wouldn't think to do that, they would think that there's an appropriateness that maybe goes away, but like, I listen,

April Davis 57:17
brazen, I think your brain, appreciate it.

Scott Benner 57:21
I'm just old, I don't really give a crap what anybody else thinks. But I just I grew up in a time where entertainment was, you know, it needed to be entertaining, or you'd shut it off. And I think the same way about this, and I, at the same time, feel very responsible for the people listening, you know, so I don't want to give them bad information. So that I have an episode. And then that goes into what how do you make a podcast over and over again, I interview people who are just regular people, like I avoid, like the plague anybody in the diabetes space who has a name for themselves. And I really know them. And I legit know that this is something I want to do. Because people come off this practice then. And they have sound bites they give and they're trying to direct you back to their Instagram. And I'm like, like you, you've been very kind to a couple times while you're talking, if you like inserted the name of the podcast, like, I don't care. Yeah. Like, I really don't care if nobody listening to this comes unless I

April Davis 58:16
do I want anyone that listens to this, I have type one, I need you to stop when you finish this episode, I need you to go straight to the Juicebox Podcast, I need you to look up all these basic episodes that he's talking about with Jenny. And you just start at square one and listen to all of them. And then you can go back and listen to Scott go on and on and on about whatever with whoever, then that's great, too. But the defining diabetes, the diabetes, basically all those series, those are essential listening for someone managing type one diabetes, like there is nowhere else you're going to get this information. There's no books. There's, I mean, it's your blog, and like you said, like so many of these other diabetes blogs, they're great. They're front and there's a lot of commiseration going on. But there's not a lot of actual real like, no, if you do this, it will get better. Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:02
And it's right. And it works for adults too. Which Yeah, I hear a lot of times when people like oh, well you're the father of a kid with diabetes. I thought this was for kids. And it's not it's it's for no using insulin, any diabetic

April Davis 59:13
that's been diagnosed for any number of years. I've been doing this for four years, and was still like, oh my gosh, how did I know I already know this. Why did no one tell me that I or this sounds familiar from she got diagnosed four years ago, but no one's ever brought it up since then. Like that's terrible that like and like you said to if you're waiting to go see your doctor, we go every six months. Hey, we need to change doses until every six months. That's why she's been mismanaged for the last four years. Like you can't wait that long. Like there's so much there. Well, I'm gonna wrangle you in though we got to talk about masturbation.

Scott Benner 59:47
All right. Well, what I do it and I'm just kidding.

April Davis 59:52
So diabetic masturbation got

Scott Benner 59:55
I have a bustling Facebook page. That's a private Facebook page for the podcast. It has 15,000 plus people on it, talking about, you know, diabetes and living with it and management of it and that kind of stuff. And I very much run that Facebook page the way I talk. I don't Yeah, I don't look at it. I don't care what people say to each other. If you say something that insults somebody else, you better figure it out amongst yourselves because you're adults, and I'm not your mom. And I saw how

April Davis 1:00:23
beautiful is it? I don't see a lot of that going on on your page where people are friendly, respectful, and also quick to be like, No, we don't do that. You're sorry. I

Scott Benner 1:00:30
like it. When people step up and go Scott would not like this if he saw it. Because one of my rules for the Facebook site page says if this becomes a pain in my ass, I will close it. Like I really

April Davis 1:00:39
don't know, I don't blame you. I haven't started on myself because it's too intimidating to me. So like, this is incredible. So

Scott Benner 1:00:44
whereas other people might start a Facebook page thinking this will feed my podcast, and I just don't care. Like it works because it Yeah, and it works because I'm hands off. I run out Facebook pages the way I parent my kids and I live my life like your you'll figure it out like you don't need me. And yeah, listen, if somebody says something terrible, or a scammer comes in or something like that, I take heart I take care of that right away. But if people disagree, you know, we're like, oh, this is uncomfortable, like, well, you either better be comfortable or look away because it seems okay for these people who were interested in. But anyway, I watch these people have these great conversations. And one day, somebody says, Oh my god, I just realized my son's blood sugar goes up when his bedroom door is locked. And, and hundreds and hundreds of comments later, I was like, this is an episode of the podcast, right? Oh, yeah. So I get Jenny on to do a variables episode. And I and I wish you knew I don't pre plan. So I'm like, Jenny, Hey, today, let's talk about orgasms. And she's such a lovely woman, and she's from the Midwest. And she's like, Oh, okay, that's like, this is gonna be more fun listening to her be uncomfortable than anything else. But so I watched these people talking. And then it all started making sense. But then Jenny and I talked through it, and we even kind of found more like, like, if you're, if you're going to masturbate at home, and you're an adult, right? You probably just like, Ah, I'm going to grab a towel. And I'm going to use a little bit of this, and I might grab a vibrator, or I'm going to use my hand. It's not a big deal. Easy. But if you're a 15 year old boy, and there are people in your house, you're like, Oh,

April Davis 1:02:24
I got yeah, there's excitement, all

Scott Benner 1:02:26
that starts hitting you, and it makes your blood sugar go up. And then lovely. Like adult women in the group came in and said, I gotta tell you, it doesn't work the way for me, but I get a little low afterwards. Yeah, right. And I was like, Oh, this is fasting. So. So then, you know, I so I guess like, best. I'm sorry. Like, I'm such a child in my heart. Like when I hear hormone I think of like, I think of like a joke of when I was 12. How do you make a hormone and when I think of girls masturbating, I start thinking about weird euphemisms like flicking your being and stuff like that. And I get all like, inside like a small child. Anyway. And then I started like, you know, I'm trying not to be creepy, but the thought of girls, you know, and jerking off is my favorite euphemism for female masturbation, because it seems like it doesn't fit anyway. Yeah, point is we like when they go to do that. You get that build up, obviously. But then the release and the release comes maybe a bit of relaxation. And people don't, and people don't recognize it. Some of your insulin need can come from stress. So yeah, so if you don't have all the vigor of intercourse, that might bring your blood sugar down, because that's another thing we talked about, you know, with adults having sex, like, it hits men differently than women. They have food by their bedside, like there's all this stuff. But so if you just kind of cruise into it, like an adult, and you've had a stressful day, and you bang one out real quick and you're relaxed, your blood sugar might start to go down. And they might not back that because you think about excitement, or shouldn't it go up? Well, if I'm a 15 year old boy looking for a quiet room, I might be like, Oh my god, I saw this girl on Instagram. And I really need to go find a private place to be, you know, like that those impacts will be different. So stress, anxiety. Those things impact

April Davis 1:04:13
hormones. Insulin is a hormone, like it just was like such a like I had never considered it listening to this morning was like, Oh my gosh, of course.

Scott Benner 1:04:22
And it doesn't even have to have an effect because a hot shower, a hot shower could bring your blood sugar down. And some people think, Oh, hot showers make my blood sugar fall, well, maybe that's the case. Or maybe you're all uptight. And you know, maybe you're an uptight person, and you have a Basal rate of 1.5 an hour. And when you relax, that Basal rates too heavy, and it makes your budget too much. Yeah, and my point is, is you're never going to really know. So instead of trying to figure it all out, just know where to look, see it happen, recognize a pattern, and then you know, make an adjustment afterwards like you know, maybe you know, maybe you Need a snack before you, you know, you do your thing. Or maybe you, you know, maybe you can't have a meal and then jump right into the shower. Like, you know, like little like because you've got all this active insulin like, the point is, is that I don't know. And I can't say something definitive, that fits in a nice bullet point list that's going to make your life with diabetes better. But I can have conversations with people so they can bring up what's happening to them, we can think it through the best we can, and maybe you'll find some sameness and that it'll help you like, that's how I think about it. But I

April Davis 1:05:30
love that because I think that's all it is, is going hey masturbating, it might affect your blood sugar, your menstrual cycle might affect your blood sugar, it might, he might, because you're cyclical, you're going to maybe know some patterns with your menstrual cycle with your blood sugar and how you manage your diabetes and masturbation. And I also love even bringing that up, because it really also shows like, there's a lot of topics that you've covered on your podcast that are somewhat taboo. Like, if you go into your doctor's office and go, I would like to use illegal drugs or drink alcohol, and how would I manage my blood sugar? They're gonna go a I don't know and be don't do just don't do that. Yeah, right. They're gonna think you were like, no, let's actually talk about it. Like that's like, these are things that actually happen. So let's just talk about it. I have

Scott Benner 1:06:14
had amazing conversations with people who are just I interviewed a lady two months ago and just went up recently, she's 62 years old. She said diabetes forever. And she has cancer, blood, everything, had a wonderful conversation with her. I've also had a conversation with a person who was diagnosed with type one diabetes during a heroin bender. I, you know, like, I I think all of those conversations are real like to pretend that people with diabetes, don't use heroin is ridiculous to to think that they might not drink is silly. Like, you can't just talk to people about the parts that are polite company stuff, because it's not really the answer. Like they need a real answer. And I'm not telling you to use heroin. And if you commingled, what I just said with that idea. Yeah, I think you're insane. No, you know, that's not it. But yeah. I mean, I've had conversations with people who are bipolar and have type one. And how about Yeah, after having a number of conversations, hundreds and hundreds, I start hearing the word bipolar and people's like, binds and then I start thinking, is bipolar disorder, an autoimmune disease? Where does it have any link to that? Because people with type one, quite frequently have other autoimmune issues? Or in the family? Maybe, right? Totally. And I wouldn't have, like, put two and two together like that. Had I not had so many of these conversations and met? Like, listen, quirky, people are fun. You know, like I can, I'll tell you what, for years, I've been trying to get somebody on the show has been in prison. And I don't mean, like, over the weekend, you know, cuz like,

April Davis 1:07:44
type one, I want to listen to

Scott Benner 1:07:46
that. I want to talk to somebody who has been in been inside and had diabetes, I want to know what that's like. And yes, it's a hard thing I've had, I've had four people booked for it. And they always drop off. And it's usually to do with

April Davis 1:08:00
oh, gosh, they end up back in prison.

Scott Benner 1:08:04
There's concerns about their parole, usually. Oh, yeah. I don't want to tell stories that maybe put them back in trouble. So I keep trying, and I keep trying. But I mean, I have one up today about woman came on to talk about her eating disorder. I listen, I got an email once from somebody who said, I was assaulted in college, I was raped. And it impacted my, my diabetes care. And I want to come on the show and talk about it. And I thought, Oh, my God, there can't be an hour conversation about her impact over control. We're gonna end up talking about sexual assault, right? Like, okay, I'm like, let's do it. And so she got on. And before we started, I was like, Are you sure about this? I was like, because I am not sure I'm me. I'm gonna say something stupid during this at some point, you know, she, she was only the show, you're going to be okay, let's do it. And we did it. And she thanked me when it was over. And she's like, this is terrific. Put this up just like this. And I said, Oh, okay. And then I don't blink an eye. Like, I know, some people might think like, oh, God, I'm gonna get like, cancelled, or I don't know what you guys do to people online anymore. But I don't think about it that way. I'm like, This is gonna help somebody. And you know, listen, it's in the title. When it starts, I'll say, Look, we're going to talk about this today. You know, I'm not a person who understands the idea of being triggered by something, but I do know that some people are and so I want them to know, but at the same time, you can't spend so much time papering things with oh my gosh, be careful this and be careful that don't be this you'll never get to the damn content. You always be apologizing for it. And this stuff,

April Davis 1:09:45
this is another reason why I feel like your podcast is so useful and what we're missing in a lot of ways and this and it's community.

Scott Benner 1:09:51
We're not missing it. I put it out four days a week. What do you think of that? It's Yeah, right here. Exactly. I am a whore. I put my content out like But I'm but I'm very proud that I don't think that there's, you might find a episode that you don't jive with somebody or maybe there'll be a time where I talk a little too much or not enough or whatever. But overall, I don't think there's a clunker in that podcast. Like, I don't think episodes you'll turn on and go like this was a waste of my time. So yeah,

April Davis 1:10:20
everyone is interesting. I learned something from every single one of them. And, and that's ultimately why I love having mine. Because I hope the same I hope that people can take away something from every even if it's not applicable to them. I hope if someone's made it this far in this episode that doesn't have type one that they learned something new today and still have something that applies to them personally, even without type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:10:42
It from my listen through rate is 93%. And if there aren't a lot of people still listening, I'm insulted. And I wish they were listening so I could tell you I had no choice to stay and listen, I'm terribly interesting. But I have a couple of vagina questions because I feel like you're gonna kick me off in a second. So absolutely. All right, labia, is it majora and minor or is it minority? Because I'm enormously mature and labia menorah? But isn't a menorah? The thing you put candles in at the high Hall also that why would they do differently? But why? It's terrible. So alright, so Majora is that the

April Davis 1:11:21
external lips? Okay,

Scott Benner 1:11:22
so let me back up. Some ladies have like nice like smooth presentation, and some ladies have a more general presentation. Those are the Majora Yeah,

April Davis 1:11:31
it just it each snowflakes vulvas are like snowflakes. Each one is different. Each one has different measurements and things some have longer outer lips, longer inner lips longer both. None. snowflakes,

Scott Benner 1:11:45
okay? If you have bigger outer lips, do you need more lubrication?

April Davis 1:11:49
Depends on you. Some people really like naturally lubricate super well. I always tend to lean on like, you know what, if you're worried about add lube, it rarely is about idea

Scott Benner 1:12:01
couldn't get caught, like in a foldover situation to be unpleasant?

April Davis 1:12:04
Absolutely. Like I my joke to with like, I'm pretty not against plastics or like I'm pretty against plastic surgery in that area. Like it's bothers me that this has become such a mainstream thing because it is so unnecessary the majority of the time. But my joke is like if if your baby's getting stuck in your zipper, like maybe maybe you could potentially lose a little bit of it and be okay, still, you know,

Scott Benner 1:12:26
get your wings clipped, you're saying no. Yeah. Like, like, would you that's the

April Davis 1:12:31
problem. There are nerve endings and every single bit of that tissue and so anytime you go in and start sniffing around, you could potentially take off portions of the clitoris by messing around about because people always think of the cartridges that little teeny tiny, but that's under the clitoral hood.

Scott Benner 1:12:47
The hard part does

April Davis 1:12:48
the Yeah, like your dorsal nerves go down into like, your labia or what's covering the other portion of your clitoris. So you have to be really careful when you start messing with that. And unfortunately, doctors are not as well informed about this because really, it's been only in the last few years that they've even agreed on the anatomical terms for all this most medical textbooks do not teach what a normal link is what a normal depth is. And so you may be dealing with a doctor who's just practicing based on like, what they feel like

Scott Benner 1:13:23
I don't like that keep your lips now. Nor are those the little ones towards the hole more like the interior more that'd be the menorah. Yes, I'm testing myself because I've been married for 25 years. I haven't seen a vagina in a while. So now the the thing at the top the mons pubis, is that where the hair grows? Yes, yes. Why is that got such a Why does everything have a weird name? I don't know. How do we get I don't know. How do we get dick and balls and you get mons pubis? That's really ridiculous. Great. Hold on If

April Davis 1:13:55
you haven't yet frenulum and the shaft.

Scott Benner 1:13:59
Please, please don't say that's the part that connects the testicles. vast difference. Yeah. That's inside stuff. I don't care about the entire part. I just care about what I can say. I have other questions is squirting real. Where our Lady seeing themselves what is happening?

April Davis 1:14:16
absolutely real. So sporting is typically fluid coming out of the scheme's glands. So the same glands that lubricate the vagina can also have a buildup of fluid with stimulation. And that buildup of fluid through stimulation, which typically is internal stimulation, which which feeds to critical the g spot which is really kind of the backside of the RF. Typically that type of stimulation can help build up fluid and Askins bonds and then when females ejaculate, that's what their Jack elating is this lubricating fluid. If they do, it can be learned. But not for everybody just depends on the body.

Scott Benner 1:14:52
You just said something fascinates me. The G spot is the it's like knocking on the back door of the tourists. Yep, totally. For the Finger thing is real.

April Davis 1:15:02
Oh, absolutely. It's that Oh,

Scott Benner 1:15:04
I knew that. Hey, how long you been married? Come on. No, it's right. I'm trying to be a little bit too. What else do I have? Okay, I have other things, you know, I only have pornography to go by. But when guys look too big to be real, where does it go? We're just talking about length like, like, where does it disappear to? Like the old joke of like, it looks like it's in her stomach kind of feeling. But where

April Davis 1:15:33
does it keep it vaginal? tenting is real, like, that totally happens. And you would be amazed at especially if, like, let's say you've maybe overused some of these areas of your body, they are all capable of stretching. You have to think that like kids come out of there, right? So like, this whole area was built to stretch and accommodate. And so like, to a certain degree, you can stretch and accommodate.

Scott Benner 1:15:59
Okay, so when whenever the hole when something that like I'm just giving away that I don't have a giant penis, but when something that big looks like it's disappearing, it's still inside of the where it's inside the like, you're trying to really care, Lord.

April Davis 1:16:15
Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Because your your cervix is nice and tight. Like it's, you're not poking up further past there. And like you said, stretch and accommodate is like the scale of the vagina.

Scott Benner 1:16:27
The cervix is the thing. Like if you go too deep, feels like it's almost like a little butthole inside but stronger, right? Yep. Yep. See, I know that's a great way to describe it. Thank you. It's very, very

April Davis 1:16:41
interesting, like even your cervix, it pulls forward, and it can tuck back depending on where you're at in your menstrual cycle. So and it moves it hangs down in the vaginal canal. People think it's the end of the of the road. It's actually hanging down into the tall. Interesting.

Scott Benner 1:16:58
All right. What's the How come some of the fluid looks clear, but some of its creamy sometimes.

April Davis 1:17:07
That's so your cervical fluid actually changes as you go progress through your menstrual cycle. So we men straight, we have a couple days of dry. We then start with crumbly. So this is a cervical fluid that's maybe not super cold, like great for sperm. We progressed from crumbly and dry and kind of sticky to creamier, more lotion like smart mucus to suddenly we got a very, very fluid, watery egg white almost fluid, that fluid is really conducive to sperm, they can live in that they love that crap. Like they can live there for up to five days. And then after you ovulate, you'll feel taper off with what your cervical fluid typically have a period of like dry, and then you go back into your month like even straightening blade. Okay. That's

Scott Benner 1:17:53
why the boobs get different during periods. Like that's hormones.

April Davis 1:17:59
Yeah, it's a hormone. Estrogen. I believe it's estrogen that increases boob size, if I remember right, but also

Scott Benner 1:18:06
sensitivity, right?

April Davis 1:18:08
Oh, yeah, totally. And you may have some people who like can't have their nipples touch one single itty bitty bit when they're menstruating. And then two weeks later, when they're ovulating, they want you to like bite on.

Scott Benner 1:18:19
Girls are weird. That's all I know. It's not your fault. But Jesus God, that's a lot of information. Well, it

April Davis 1:18:25
can't be you have to think like coming from a male perspective, right? You have a 24 hour hormone cycle. So at 11 o'clock in the morning, every day, your hormones should be exactly the same. We have a 20 to 32 day hormone cycle. So we're only the same critters 12 days out of the year.

Scott Benner 1:18:42
No I that I've noticed. I've said to my wife, is there a reason we can't put like an indicator light on your forehead that says, you know, you're like how you're feeling so that I don't come at you from the wrong angle and say the wrong thing. And I like that. I don't mean it. pleasingly. It's just she at and I don't, you know, I don't ascribe fault to it, obviously. Like, it's just it's the natural cycle of things. But my goodness, like you're like, Wow, there's so much happening. I genuinely have him. Yeah. And then on top of that, boys, constantly chasing around trying to find your vagina. That's really our main focus. But it's fascinating that I it's I'm 50 I have my children. And it is hard not to think about still, like, oh, yeah, it's difficult not to just like every girl you walk past you're just like, like, there's an internal thing in your body and you just think like, oh my god, that one's cute. That one's cute. This one isn't but I don't care. Like it's a real weird thing. Our brains work.

April Davis 1:19:41
I think you come at life with a certain degree of curiosity too. So I don't even know that that's always sexual in nature for everybody. I think when you're a curious person, and you want to know all the things about all the things of Krishna like What do you smell like?

Scott Benner 1:19:55
So you're right about that? Because art when I when we walk past a person Buddy are questions or, or impulses to say, did you notice that whatever are always exactly the same? That's interesting. Yeah. And we're just similar. Yeah,

April Davis 1:20:10
I don't. I think we try to make so many of these things like weird or sexual or only boys or like, you know other stuff. And I really think that just comes from being a generally curious person.

Scott Benner 1:20:19
You've helped me. Thank you. Alright. Do you have questions written down that we didn't get to?

April Davis 1:20:24
Oh, my goodness. I mean, I always ask everybody how they like to manage their period, but I think you're excluded from

Scott Benner 1:20:34
a little basket on the bowl. Right, even it's got absorbency, isn't it? I do know that I restocked them for the girls in my house. Oh, yeah. That's all I know about that. Good. I we change the sheets from light lighter colors. Sometimes. Yes. Right. That's important. That's a good one. We make sure there's like, spray and wash around the house. That's all I have. I yeah, you're not you're not really married to a woman is called you and said, Hey, take these upstairs and get me another pair. And then you're, then you're a real married person?

April Davis 1:21:07
Absolutely. 100%. That's

Scott Benner 1:21:10
not what people usually say. I'm gonna let you know. It totally depends

April Davis 1:21:13
on the person some people manage. I mean, it's there's so many different alternative ways to manage your period these days. So like, we've gone so far beyond like, pads and tampons, there's menstrual cups, menstrual period panties, sea sponges, I mean, rebleeding. Like, there's a whole world out there of ways to manage. And then on top of it, like there's some of the rituals of like, yep, when I menstruating, I always try to like to drink this or eat this. And this helps with this, or this is how I manage my cramping with this or you know, so it's a

Scott Benner 1:21:41
fork like a coal milk thistle,

April Davis 1:21:42
everyone's different.

Scott Benner 1:21:45
I think you're, you're you're not you're less helpful than I was, when you asked me questions about diabetes. I'm like, I don't know you gotta try. Exactly. I appreciate you asking me to do this. I'm sorry, if I took over, I don't really know how to, um, I'm not a good guest on people's podcasts. You're fantastic.

April Davis 1:22:03
I think this has been a really beneficial conversation, I hope so. I hope anyone who's listening to this, especially with type one, or even managing a type one will have a little bit more insight into thoughts to have around it, things to consider right curiosities to have around different things that could potentially make it easier to manage.

Scott Benner 1:22:22
I appreciate that. And by the way, on a more personal level, I appreciate that my show has been valuable to you and that you were very coach, when you reached out huge, that was lovely, life changing. See, you don't make me feel weird. But I mean, I'm stuck in the middle, because I want you to say nice things. But then I get that. I get that goofy feeling in my chest when you say something. Yeah,

April Davis 1:22:45
I love you deeply and you have saved me and my child's life. Know that you're an important member of the Davis family now.

Scott Benner 1:22:54
I really do appreciate it. I really do. I mean, that it helps anybody, you know, listen, not to be boring at the end. But you don't start a podcast thinking it's gonna become incredibly popular. And when it happens, you there's an amount of time where you're like, you want to make sure you don't freak out because you're like, I just need to do what I'm doing. Because what I'm doing works. You don't want to examine it too closely. And when when, when I got into the situation where people were saying things like you just said, and they send emails all day long, and they post online to tell you, you don't want to minimize anyone's feelings. But it's sometimes it's weird for me, like sometimes at 11 o'clock, you are the person who's told me I've saved your life. And it's I don't feel like it's not trite to me. But I'm tired. And sometimes I'm like, Oh, thank you. Like, you know, you email back and you're like, I really I'm glad you like the podcast, but I don't know what to say sometimes.

April Davis 1:23:51
Isn't that the best thing that we can see? Because I get the same thing like people will show really, really intimate and deep things with me about you know what, what, like they've they've run with something I've said that has been so helpful for them and seem like it is overwhelming to me sometimes. It also motivates me and keeps me going. So it's like gas in the tank every time but it is also overwhelming to like take on and also like the trust that people have in you can be very overwhelming.

Scott Benner 1:24:18
Yeah, you just said something interesting. Like the motivation part of it. It's not that you're not motivated. It's just like my podcast is a full time job. I work at it six days a week. If you hear an episode, I put 10 or 12 hours worth of my effort into you hearing that our right yes. And having ads on the show is actually it's I mean it's monetarily it's good, but it's good for me because I'm I have to put an episode out when I said I was going to and totally and it has to be good or Yep, people will stop listening and if people stop listening now I've sold an ad to somebody that they won't be served on like there's it feeds

April Davis 1:24:56
oh I'm I'm in your same boat but on Instagram. I hear you and it is I find lane and it is a balance because I've got to create enough fantastic content that it stands on its own. But I can justify doing sponsored content and advertisements because I want to make sure to meet the needs of my advertisers. I also want to make sure those advertisers are serving my clientele. Yes. You know, like, it's, but I think you've also done that really well. It's funny, I was already on Dexcom and Omni pod, but every time I listen to podcast, I'm like, Man, if I wasn't, we weren't using it. We wouldn't be by now my

Scott Benner 1:25:27
favorite email came from a grown man that just said, the subject line was Omni pod. And the body of the email literally just said, Okay, fine. You win. I'll get it. Yeah, I thought that's hilarious. broken down, one by one. It's, it really is. Um, I mean, I honestly, I'm 50 years old, you tried to imagine that when I was in high school. Everything that I'm doing right now, wasn't just a thought it literally didn't exist. Like nothing that I do right now was real when I was deciding what to do and very strange, you know, and you find this, this space where you're helping people, and you always kind of have a quarter of an eye out to the future, like, what's going to change? Like, how do I have all this? If it shifts? And what do I it's, you know, I don't know, hopefully, I mean, how much longer can I do this? I always say to people, like, begin to, you know, listen to a 65 year old guy who doesn't have diabetes tell you about diabetes, like, at some point, it's gotten right? Ah, but it's growing still, we just hit a major milestone the other day, the show got its 4 million total download. Which, which was just amazing, because it took you know, for anybody who thinks about putting content out you want to be super like, I don't know, you feel like you want to be successful at it. I had more downloads last month than I had in the first two years of the podcast combined. And it took four years to get to a million. But then once I got to 1,000,002 million came quickly, 3 million came faster. Four came faster than that. It's it's not just about being there and tricking people to come see a thing. There. Actually, no, there's to be something there for them when they get there.

April Davis 1:27:13
Yes. And you're providing the you absolutely are. So if you're listening to this guy's gonna head over to the Juicebox Podcast, go find the juice box Facebook group. He even has an Instagram. You don't do much over there, but you have one.

Scott Benner 1:27:27
I'm 50 What am I gonna do with it? I tried to put up like when episodes are coming on. That's not what people want for Instagram. So I mean, if I get into a bikini, which I think is how Instagram works, I don't think I don't really feel like anybody's gonna want that.

April Davis 1:27:43
You're trying to be we don't know.

Scott Benner 1:27:44
No. I'm pretty certain nobody wants that. So I, I have it and it's there. Listen, I'll tell you this. You're already a podcast listener, just search Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes. That's it. You'll find it wherever you listen. If you want transcripts there at juicebox podcast.com. For every episode, that was another thing. I didn't understand why people started asking for transcripts. I have listeners who don't listen to the show. They read it. Yeah, they just read. I don't know that. But God bless them. And like, you know, like the whole thing. So it's there. I'll tell you this. My daughter has a one C has been between five two and six two for over seven years. She does not have any diet restrictions. I think if you listen to that podcast, you could easily have an A one C in the sixes and if you really wanted to work at it, you could have it in the fives and I stand behind that nothing none of its medical information like I have, you know, you know, I do that thing. I'm like, I can do it my sleep reading matches. Nothing you here on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Or becoming bold with insulin, which is just something I said in Episode 11. That resonated

April Davis 1:28:54
which is a fantastic disclaimer for this episode here on the vagina blog podcast. Please take that into account.

Scott Benner 1:29:01
Listen, not only am I not a doctor, I might be a moron. So great assault you don't I mean? Oh yeah, thank you. Well,

April Davis 1:29:09
thank you so so so much Scott for being here today. I so appreciate your time.

Scott Benner 1:29:13
I really it was a pleasure. I swear to you, I might start answering more of these emails. just deleting Would you please call my delete? We would like no delete leave me alone. I'm busy. Vagina. What's this now? You got me so if anybody right vagina and email at least read it.

April Davis 1:29:37
There you go. Thank you so much course.

Scott Benner 1:29:52
Hey, how about a huge thanks to April for inviting me on the vagina blog podcast, and for letting me run the audio here on the Juicebox Podcast. GUEST hope you guys had fun listening. If you're interested in April's podcast, check it out again. It's called the vagina blog podcast. It's all about vaginas. I don't I've never heard it. I don't know what else it's about. I'm sorry. But I bet if you had a vagina you'd like it. Also want to thank Dexcom for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast and remind you to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juicebox go say hello to Dexcom

thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#646 More Affordable Insulin Is Coming

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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.

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The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

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