#1188 Glass Half Positive

Megan and Kevin are the parents of a child with type 1. Kevin also has type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1188 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I'm going to be speaking with Megan and Kevin. Now Kevin has type one diabetes. He's had it actually for 40 years since he was eight years old. And now, Kevin and Megan's daughter, Lily, who is four has type one as well. This episode is a terrific opportunity for you to hear a husband and wife team talk about type one diabetes from different perspectives. Please don't forget 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. Hey, do you have type one diabetes? Or are you the caregiver of someone who does? Are you a US resident? If you are those things, please go to T one D exchange.org/juice. Box and complete the survey. That's all I need you to do. And you will have helped type one diabetes research. T one D exchange.org/juice box. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes, and you're looking for support, comfort or community check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. If you'd like to wear the same insulin pump that Arden does, all you have to do is go to Omni pod.com/juice box. That's it. Head over now and get started today. And you'll be wearing the same tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been wearing since she was four years old. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the only implantable sensor rated for long term wear up to six months. The ever since CGM. Ever since cgm.com/juice box. An explicit version of this episode is available exclusively to Apple podcast Premium subscribers.

Megan 2:16
Hi, I am Megan. I live in North Carolina and I am the mother of a four year old who has type one. And the wife of a an adult who has type one, I

Scott Benner 2:33
thought you're gonna say an adult who acts like he's four years old.

Speaker 1 2:37
Well I do feel like sometimes I have four children instead of three. But I'd still love him. And that that is kind of why we're here today. To

Scott Benner 2:50
let us know that you still love Kevin. Ah,

Speaker 2 2:53
yeah, that's that's good to hear. Yeah, that affirmation is always

Scott Benner 2:59
appreciated. Kevin, you have type one diabetes for how long? I

Speaker 2 3:02
have. I've had it. So I just turned 48 I was diagnosed at eight years old. So I'm 40 years strong now. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So I've seen quite the the evolution over a long period of time and both sort of health treatment is recommended. And just that you know, the technology growth. It with this disease. It's been quite crazy to watch

Scott Benner 3:28
a massive Yeah, massive change. Hit. Can I ask Can I ask a question? Just jumping right in for a second. Kevin? You have two kids. It sounds like right. Three. We have three? Yep. Oh, I'm sorry. She I'm sorry. I counted her when she was like four. I don't know why I did that. I have four

Unknown Speaker 3:43
kids. Yeah. So you can Kevin

Unknown Speaker 3:46
is yeah, I'm the I'm the fourth. So.

Scott Benner 3:48
So three children. One of them has type one. He's he or she I'm sorry. He she she Excuse me? Our

Unknown Speaker 3:55
our youngest daughter. She's four years old. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:58
Yeah. So you've got two older children. It doesn't happen until your third kid. How old was she when she was diagnosed? to two. So this is two years ago. You're so Kevin, this is my point. You're 46 years old at that point, you know, 38 years into having diabetes. Did you ever think your children would have type one? Well,

Speaker 2 4:17
we it was always in the back of our mind, because I know just in my line of work, I do work in the research area. And, you know, I know how to read some medical literature. And so I think, you know, while the overall chance is still pretty low, you know, I think if you you know, if you have a parent that has type one, I think your you know, the chances that your child is going to have it is still is still going to be statistically you know, higher than if you if you didn't have it yourself, so it was always kind of in the back of our mind. I think what surprised us the most was that it was our young Just and not our middle child or boy, we were kind of expecting Alex pockets. If it's gonna happen, it'll be him. Yeah, he's looks exactly like me were they were basically the same, I think it tends to be a little bit more common boy. So we sort of always, if it was gonna happen, we thought it would be him. And it could still could be who knows? I don't want to jinx him. But we were just surprised that it was it was her. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:28
How did she present? It

Speaker 2 5:32
was, you know, kind of typical, you know, we noticed that she was just thirsty, and go into the bed, go into the bathroom a lot. And we I think we did catch it very quickly. Because, you know, we knew there was problem when she was getting up in the middle of the night and asking for water. And, you know, the first time she did that we we finger checked her immediately and found out.

Scott Benner 6:00
So Megan, do you have the same feeling about wondering if the kids would have diabetes? Like is your you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 6:08
I don't I before this, probably not so much. I actually will say I really surprised about how little I knew about diabetes, even being married to somebody with it before all this so no, I mean, I guess it was always sort of in the back of my mind a little bit. I do agree with Kevin, I thought for sure. happened to one of our older too, probably our middle son. I do remember asking all the time at the pediatrician like what do you think my husband's a type one? And she would say, I think you're okay. I mean, we see it in families, but usually, I don't see it so much in father daughter, Father, Son, I'll see it in like, you know, Uncle cousin sort of situation. So I don't know that I was incredibly worried about it. I probably wouldn't have married Kevin, if I was that worried. No, just kidding.

Unknown Speaker 6:58
Gee, thanks,

Scott Benner 7:00
Kevin. I'm actually interested in that, like, so. It's too late. Now you guys are like, I mean, you're in your late 40s. But he been married for 20 years. When he was younger.

Unknown Speaker 7:12
I got lucky. Hold

Scott Benner 7:13
on, hold on. I didn't know Meghan was a trophy. Meghan, congratulations. First of all, Kevin, congratulations to you. This is lovely. Did you trick her or get her with money and goods? How did this go? Yeah,

Speaker 2 7:24
I think it came down to like she's saying she just wasn't that like aware of it. And it the other thing, Scott, too, is like for me, you know, just as background on myself, I maybe there's some favorable genetics or whatever. But just over the course of the years, I've I've had a pretty easy time with diabetes. My a one C's have always been great. And it's never really like afflicted me. At least not not yet. And so, you know, when she meets someone like me, you know, it's there's nothing really outwardly that's different, or that's, you know, that overwhelming in terms of how I handle it on a day to day basis. You know, she took my word that it was I've got everything under control. It just wasn't a big deal. Yeah, in our conversation, I lied

Scott Benner 8:18
to my wife a lot to when I was dating. I told her. Yeah, I was like, Oh, I

Speaker 1 8:23
mean, I I will say like the whole No, no, Kevin, I don't know, Scott, you talk a lot sometimes about, you know, the psychology of things and perspective and things like that. And, you know, it's interesting, because I think Kevin is definitely a glass half full type of person, and I am definitely not, I am half empty. So he always really didn't really dwell on diabetes, or it's holding me back or like, you know, I so I just, I never really thought much of it. I kind of just thought I handle it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Because his perspective has always been really positive, which is great. Mine isn't positive at all. I mean, it's taken me two years with our daughter having it to finally be like, Okay, I guess this is fine. Yeah. Well,

Scott Benner 9:11
listen, first of all that dynamic keeps the world moving. Because that that little bit of anxiety that you feel as a mom, that's what keeps everything going. Yeah, yeah, I'm positive that I would still be in my mom's house. If it wasn't for Kelly, I'd be like, this is fine. You know, Kelly's the one that was like, No, we need to do more. We have to go through this now. And I'm like, Okay, if you say so. You know, and guys, I think, you know, obviously, an incredible generalization, but that idea of like, just like we'll just run forward and make something happen. It'll be okay. You don't think

Speaker 2 9:43
yeah, I also think part of the just the, the outlook of, you know, the positive outlook on it. It it also comes partly from just being diagnosed as a as a child. You know, eight years old, it's, you know, you don't really you don't have I've kind of the, you know, the, the worldly concerns, and at that time social media did not exist. And it was, and I had a mother who was very task oriented. And, you know, once we got the system down, that was it, it was it was just, you know, it was a part of daily life, a part of your tasks each day. And, and I think, you know, while you know, having a two year old diagnosed for us, that definitely sucked, you know, for her, you know, I think the blessing is that, you know, it's, it's always going to be, she's never going to remember not having it, it's always going to be kind of part of her daily life. And I think I think that's gonna help her later, she, I think, will have less tendency for that, like that rebellion against diabetes, because I never had that I never like

Scott Benner 10:49
you're actually incredibly fortunate. You probably don't see it this way. But if you were diagnosed 40 years ago, management was nothing less you probably did an injection once or twice a day, right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 11:00
the mental load at that, well, just the load in general at that time was nothing. It worked more like, you know, just taking a prescription. You know, you take a pill a day, a couple times a day, and you all you only you checked blood, your blood sugar, like three times a day, you know, breakfast, lunch and, and dinner and you took your shot twice a day, basically. And you just stuck to the script, right? Somehow I always managed really good a onesies, but I have no idea what my blood sugar was doing in between.

Scott Benner 11:33
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Speaker 2 12:50
say to like, I think, you know, what, as I moved later, you know, once I got into my 20s, and you really, you know, had to, you kind of take more ownership and control it myself. I started finding myself, you know, a little bit at odds with the doctors that I had, because I think even to this day, out of the treatment approaches are still too conservative. And, you know, for many years, even before CGM came out, I was essentially do trying to do what the CGM is do now I, I found I switched over to just being followed by my PCP at that time, who knew diabetes, and he would prescribe for me like 400 test strips a month, and I would check check my blood sugar like 15 times a day. And that's how just, you know, I just manually kind of knew what my trends were all the time. I think that helped a lot. And I was I was aggressive with my insulin. And I think those that period of time is, I think, really what I helped me,

Scott Benner 13:58
it's all fortunate. It's all very fit your personality works that way and everything else now. Megan, I have a question. After your daughter gets type one, how far into it when you start really understanding what's happening to her, and like, how her body's reacting and what all the variables are? How long until you take a quiet step back and think oh, my god, is this Kevin's life? I had no idea.

Speaker 1 14:18
Yeah. Wow. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I did definitely think that at some point when I don't know because I feel like I was so far up my own. I mean, I was just I had a hard time when she was diagnosed with it. Yeah, I actually don't think it was till a while after where I started to think like, gee whiz, like, I should convey this to me. This is pretty raw up like, you know, and I'll speak to Kevin's mom and say like, Oh, my God, how did you do this? And to Kevin's point, I think back in the day, it might have been easier just because they didn't have the technology they have now but yeah, I mean, I definitely have had those moments where it's Crazy how just being the mother is opposed to the spouse, for me has been way more eye opening, you know? Yeah.

Scott Benner 15:10
Can I ask Kevin? Did she has Megan ever voiced that to you? Or is that the first time you're hearing that? I? Yeah,

Speaker 2 15:15
we've talked about that, for sure. And Megan has had those conversations with my mom, which I think, you know, even though it was totally different when my mom was first, your

Scott Benner 15:27
mom's probably like, why are you trying so hard? Just give them one shot.

Speaker 2 15:32
Yeah, but that, you know, having having my mom to go to I think, I think he helped her with that as well. And and again, you know, it's like, I've been very fortunate and lucky and well controlled. And so, I don't know, you know, for me, it's I appear more normal probably, to Megan, then then then then our daughter Lily does. So

Scott Benner 15:55
when you say normal, do you mean less intensive? Like concerns and cares because yes, yeah, right.

Unknown Speaker 16:02
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:03
What's your management style? Kevin, what do you do?

Speaker 2 16:06
So, you know, right now, you know, I have a, I don't really use any set formulas, I kind of, you know, I am still I am still on the the original Omni pod. Okay, so I'm not even moved to the dash yet. Which I'm kind of you will be soon. I know. I know. I don't worry. We've got like a six month stock. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 16:34
think December if I'm not mistaken, and December's the date? They're gonna start making them. So yeah,

Speaker 2 16:40
yeah. But it's, you know, I think it's, it really follows. You know, much of what you talk about on your podcast, just being really diligent about Pre-Bolus Eat for meals. And then the other part of that, for me is is not overdoing things on the carbohydrate side. You know, in particular, I think the last six months or so, I've kind of moved to a lower carb diet right and, and I made my last day one seed. Just I got it a week ago.

Scott Benner 17:09
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Speaker 2 18:35
Oh is 6.2 which is pretty good for you know, I'd like it a little bit lower. But I've managed that while reducing my insulin intake by quite a lot just you know by having a bit lower carb diet so you know, it's always a mental game. You know, as a diabetic you don't overreacting in either direction. If you're on a low or a high that that will put you on the roller coaster and that's you don't want to be on on that it's keeping an even keel is the key for me. Yeah. can

Scott Benner 19:09
eat up your whole day actually. Yep, it can. Yeah, yeah. All right. So you're using Omnipod? Do you have a CGM by any chance?

Speaker 2 19:17
Yeah, yeah, I'm on. I'm on the G six. I have had no problems with the G six.

Scott Benner 19:22
Yeah, we never did either. Yeah. We

Speaker 2 19:25
just put our daughter on the libre, which I think is a better device for various reasons. And I may switch to that at some. Okay.

Scott Benner 19:34
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think you should use whatever works for you. Yeah, Arden's using g7. It's been fantastic. And actually, I'm going to put a g7 on this week, too. I'm going to try to I'm going to try to get my numbers and put them online for people. So they seem interesting. Yeah, it seems to be I'll tell you why it seems to be really helpful for people to see a person who doesn't have diabetes and Watch their blood sugar ebb and flow. I think it alleviates a lot of your, you know, the worry of you know, when you see 140 after a meal, you're like, oh my god, it's over. You know, you're like, actually, I think everybody's blood sugar does that. Yeah. You just don't want to be in a situation where, you know it keeps going up or doesn't come back down and you know, in a reasonable amount of time, etc. Anyway. Okay, so what about your daughter? What is she managing with?

Speaker 1 20:24
So Lily's on an omni pod? Lily's Billy's been quite an adventure for us. We got her on the Omni pod the you know, the original mine, we got her switch. This is why we're on your podcasts because you put a post up in the Facebook group asking if anyone had gotten their little ones, I think on an Omnipod. Five, and would you be interested in coming on the show? And I think I responded and you didn't have immediate openings. So you sent the link for I don't know if this was probably a year ago? No,

Scott Benner 20:52
I gotta tell you, I just put that link up again for people. And we're talking in August 2023. Right now, I already see stuff on my calendar for or excuse me, we're talking in October 2023. I'm already seeing stuff on my calendar for August of 2024. So Oh, my God, I'm sorry about that. But yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, great. Let's talk about that. Then. Your setup here is too interesting not to talk about for a little longer. Also, if one of you can say, oh, Lily, at some point, I would love to make that the title as a Munsters reference, but that's a long way to go. If one of you could like work that out for me the next half an hour. So thank you very much. Just go Oh, Willie, and then I'll be all set. That's a pretty name. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 21:32
We have a lot of practice saying that.

Speaker 1 21:35
You do? A few. Yeah. Bad words thrown in there. No,

Scott Benner 21:39
I actually, Megan, you're interesting because you have that you have that North Carolina thing in your voice. But you came so close to saying I was so up my ass when Lily was diagnosed. And I was like, Oh, she wants to curse. I hope she

Unknown Speaker 21:52
I am from Long Island. Oh,

Scott Benner 21:54
I have it in me. Alright, let's go.

Speaker 1 22:00
Yeah, it's hard for me to hold that Kevin gets he gets annoyed with me because I do have a potty mouth. And so does our four year old because of it.

Scott Benner 22:08
Excellent. I love Lily now perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I just want to dig a little farther into all of this. Because Megan's obviously I mean, you're describing yourself as kind of like shell shocked, you know, when Lily's diagnosed? And I'm assuming her care goes to you? Or does it go to both of you? Yeah, I

Speaker 1 22:26
mean, Kevin will Yeah. Now, come on. Let's be honest, though.

Scott Benner 22:29
He's got a swagger carbs and to like, throw some insulin out or be like, I don't know, that should work.

Speaker 2 22:34
It is interesting, even though I am the diabetic. And if I had all these years of experience it, you know, 100%, more Magan D deals with Lily much more than than I do. And she's like,

Speaker 1 22:48
I go out with friends. And Kevin's texting me, like, what would you Bolus are for this? Hey, she's got this iob she's going up? What should I give her? And I'm like, figure it out. Two years. My man,

Speaker 2 23:03
I think there's a good point there, though. It's like, you know, it is very different. The treatment course between like a toddler and an adult, that's, that's had it for years. Like they, they don't translate all that well, in some cases, you know, because Lily's got, you know, growth hormones going on. And it's just, it's so different. You know, either

Scott Benner 23:27
the child aspect to the adult aspect or one day, by the way, female hormones, and you not having ever dealt with that. But But moreover, what you're describing is the problem that we see in health care for people with diabetes, because, you know, yeah, have you ever heard that, you know, when people are talking about big monumental problems, they'll say, Well, the last thing that could help this is if a generation dies off, like the if the old ideas go away, and I think that you're still just see a blend of this in the world. Like there's, you know, like, nobody at this point should be telling you if you get low you should take 15 carbs and wait for 15 minutes. But yeah, that's the thing that said everyday to people, doctors offices, right. Yeah. And you know, like all of this stuff that's left over remnants of the past impacting now. And and you're in Kevin's in his mind's doing great, right. Like even earlier, he said, I've always had really good a onesies. And Kevin, I want to say this, I don't think a 6.2 is not a really good agency. But if you tell me you've had diabetes for 40 years, you're a low carb and you're a one sees not in the fives, I think oh, he doesn't completely get it. Like and then again, nothing wrong with a six two it's it's absolutely amazing. You should be allotted for it. But you know what I mean, though, right? Yeah. Well,

Speaker 2 24:40
to your point sky can give you a great example of what you're talking about. I've had in the in the last year. You know, I've also I've had a one sees in the high fives last year, I had an appointment with my Endo. I was going in with a 5.9 That was my reading. And I'm telling you this You're kind of like a kid that you want to come home and show show your mom and dad your great report card, right? Every time I have a one sees like that and go in to my appointments. It's it ends up being a struggle session going through the graphs and the lines nitpicking and picking apart the lows and how do we address the lows? And from my point of view, I'm willing to accept, you know, a little bit of risk and having some lows mixed in. Yeah, if overall, that's going to mean I'm on average, lower and I can achieve those types of baby onesies, I think, in healthcare, you know, the sort of your standard endocrinologist doesn't really get that.

Scott Benner 25:45
No, no, it's funny, isn't it a person now you have a child with by the way, what's Lily's height? One say? Oh, last

Speaker 1 25:51
one. Well, so Okay, so it's usually around six to but her last one, which we want to dive into with you was seven because of her CGM issues, which we can explain.

Scott Benner 26:03
But I was just gonna say, though, that Kevin, you're in the doctor's office with a six two had been a five, nine, very stable, right? You've had diabetes for 40 years. Your kid has diabetes, and still someone sits down to you and goes on August 15. At 3am. What happened? Yep,

Speaker 2 26:19
yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's all about avoiding avoiding lows. And I think, you know, the care that is prescribed, even to this day is still geared more toward that. I don't know, if it's, you know, just a safety, liability, liability, they want to avoid liability. And I would also love to see more diabetics go into endocrinology as well, I don't think I've ever had an endocrinologist that has actually had diabetes, huge

Scott Benner 26:49
help. It is huge help actually have been booking doctors who have type one, but are in other parts of medical care for a series I want to do like next year. Oh, yeah. Where I want to, I want to have doctors that are in like, all different practices come on, and talk about what it's like to watch healthcare from their perspective.

Unknown Speaker 27:10
Because that would be great. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:11
I think that I think you're just right. So you know, there's that last aspect of it that if you don't have it, or you haven't managed it, like day to day, I don't know how you're supposed to know the rest of it. You know, it's almost unreasonable that you could, but Okay, so let's, let's get to why you're here. She's on on the pod five, I'm guessing. Yes.

Speaker 1 27:31
So she started on the regular or the original. And then we got her quickly switched to the Omni pod five, our Enzo was great. And, you know, wrote it off label for us pretty quickly when it came out. Got her on it. And at that point, she was on the G six. Yep. And we, I would say, had a tough time at first with the five in that. I think we thought falsely that hey, this is gonna solve everything for us. Yeah, you know, it was a little bit different than what we'll eat. But we thought but we got the hang of it and quickly realized that we had to fight the highs a little bit more than we thought it were then we'd like, we felt like she got high a lot on it and started to just be a little bit more aggressive with our boluses she was on that. I'm gonna say about June of 2022 22. She was on it did get

Scott Benner 28:26
it? Right. Yeah, right away. I think it was. It was in August, it came out or you guys got it like, day one.

Unknown Speaker 28:33
Like, it was really quickly.

Scott Benner 28:36
I mean, it was very early. Okay. It was

Speaker 1 28:39
very early. For her age, I think even like it wasn't even proved yet. But we had gotten it for her. And we're working on it. And we get her on it. You know, everything's great. I think the biggest the most significant change we saw was that night, way less wake ups. For us in her there was no really, I mean, it prevented flows really well. We were sleeping better. So we're doing good on it. It was great because she goes to a part time preschool where they don't have a nurse and so it was really great to have you know that that pod just stopped the insulin when she was going, Whoa. And in about June of this past year, so June 23. Her Dexcom stops becoming reliable for us. So her Dexcom are G six pretty much immediately after diagnosis. So maybe September October of 21. We get her on the GS six. It's working beautifully for us. I mean, of course hiccups here and there. Suddenly in June I don't know what start what happened. But she we started noticing a lot of either sensor errors or major discrepancies in her in her her CGM reading from what a finger stick would say. I mean, I'm talking

Scott Benner 29:52
it was reporting her lower than the finger stick. Yeah, yeah, way,

Speaker 2 29:56
way low right. Way more. Unbelievable. Yeah. And those lines were just Scott some of her lines on the on the air. It looked like a shotgun blast. There was no, in some cases no discernible line at all it was it was so strange. So strange.

Scott Benner 30:14
That was strange. So my first thought is hydration.

Speaker 2 30:17
Like, yeah, yeah, we we tried it all.

Scott Benner 30:21
Yeah, no kidding. And so did it ever, like come back together? Because, you know, it's funny, we talked about this all the time, but never really dig into it very much people in general, they make this one static, physical item. And then we plug it into countless I don't know how many customers CGM, you know, are two, they're not all going to work the same with everybody's body chemistry. And you know, when you see things like hydration, you know, that kind of stuff all impacting it, the site placement, etc. I think it's fascinating that we don't see more people. We're just like, this doesn't work for me. You know what I mean? Like it's but I've seen it be wonky for people, and then work again, and you're never Yeah, and you never really know what changed in the physiology that that led to that. I've also seen people just say, Look, this doesn't work for me. And yeah, you know, and have to move on. What did you end up having happen? Yeah,

Speaker 1 31:17
so I mean, extremely frustrated, because we really, I mean, this started in June, and we went all summer just trying and trying, we just kept getting them replaced, getting new ones trying different batches, trying different sites, hydration, no swimming. I'm like, maybe it's the swimming. We've really stuck with it. And it just did not come back. And it's the weirdest thing, right? Because they worked for us for a year like she had, right? I mean, what suddenly changed over the course of three months, you know, because again, we tried, she gave it three months like of this.

Speaker 2 31:48
And then we switch the switch to Dexcom

Speaker 1 31:52
g7. And that for us was really no better. I think, you know, it was a little bit better with the readings. Sure. But the major problem we had there was the connectivity if she didn't have her phone on her body doesn't carry. Yeah, she she's at school, and I'm flipping out texting her teachers like what's her blood sugar? So we quickly we I mean, we probably only did about four G seven sensors. I mean, they were failing to battle so

Scott Benner 32:20
yeah, they all fit. We went was a very loving a g7. It

Unknown Speaker 32:25
was this past September. Yeah, this is

Scott Benner 32:27
more recent. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:28
So we we Scott, we went probably, I guess from that June period through September. I don't think we want had either the G six or G seven. We did not have any go pass? Like, what, five or six days? Negan? Yeah, maybe?

Scott Benner 32:46
Yeah, I'm fascinated. Because, I mean, I obviously get talked to a lot of people and a lot of people have access to me. And so when stuff first comes out, I'll tell you a secret when I don't care which sensor it is Dexcom libre, whatever, when they first come out, I don't pay attention to them. Because there's fine tuning to be done. The companies never come right out and say it but I don't, it doesn't make sense to me that they wouldn't need to see it on a lot of people before they could actually like dial it in the rest of the way, if that makes sense. And and I've seen that over and over again throughout the years with a lot of different devices. So the first couple of months, if people are like this thing's low, or it's high or two, I go and just wait a little while. And but then for some people, it's just never does. Arden has a friend who is like, couldn't use the sensor at all. Like it just they don't work for her. And I don't know why. You know, did you contact Dexcom and ask them?

Speaker 1 33:38
Yeah, no one can help me there. No one called Yeah, I was a regular. They just

Speaker 2 33:46
Yeah, eventually they stop denying our requests for replacements, because we had called so much. Wow.

Speaker 1 33:51
You know, I mean, they they tried to and then I was like, Oh, well, so yeah, you'll be.

Speaker 2 33:56
This is where the Long Island comes in useful. Scott. Oh, please.

Scott Benner 34:00
I told the story this morning. To a person who didn't grow up near me. That must have sounded so filthy to them that they didn't they were like, very aggressive. I was like, I didn't think so at all. They were like, it really is. Oh,

Speaker 1 34:11
this is just normal. Kevin. Kevin accuses me of speaking aggressively to him. And I'm like, What are you talking about? Kevin,

Scott Benner 34:17
you're fine. And so I had a European person telling me the other day, you're so direct. And I swear to God, I know this probably sounds ridiculous to the people listening but I thought I am. Right,

Speaker 1 34:31
right. Yeah. I know. I know. And then I stay standing up at night worrying about it. But yeah, I mean, I called I demanded a new transmitter. They sent us a new transmitter. I think what threw me and went through Kevin is that it works for her and I was like, surely you guys have seen this before? Like what is wrong? Like why was this marking?

Scott Benner 34:56
Vegans do you ever try putting one on

Unknown Speaker 34:59
you know, I haven't and I would love to if

Scott Benner 35:03
I do one, one. Because, like, because you're confident that if you pulled one of those out of that door today stuck it on her, it wouldn't work. So put it on you. If it works, then at least you can say to yourself, hmm, it. It's something between her physiology and that device. Yeah, you know, like, give some insight. It

Speaker 2 35:23
is. Yeah, it has to be because like I said, I've had no problem if it works perfectly for you. My lines are smooth as can be. Yeah, no, no, I

Scott Benner 35:34
started to say earlier, and I stopped myself. I don't know how I did that. But I did. I'm always kind of fascinated because people have access to me, I hear a lot of people's stories. Arden's Warren, I can't even remember them. All artists want a G for a g7 g7 plus a G six. And now a G seven. By the way, there used to be seven pluses before there were seven. I don't understand all that. Exactly. And now the current, the g7, in its current form, I've never ever seen a problem. Never like like, it's always great for her. I'm not going to tell you that you don't put it on. And for the first couple hours, you're not like what the hell, like you don't even like that kind of stuff. I'm not going to tell you that. You know, I don't test her blood sugar, or she doesn't test your blood sugar. And it's not off by 10 points. But I was just telling somebody this morning. Ironically, I'm watching someone were one who doesn't have diabetes. And they're like, my blood sugar always looks high. And then I test myself and I'm not. And I was like, yeah, it's only off by 10 points. And she goes, but my blood sugar is 90. It says it's 100. I was like, yeah, when you have type one diabetes, and like that kind of doesn't matter. Like Like, do you know what I mean? Like it does a little and maybe if you're really small, a little bit of insulin can make a big difference. But for the most part, once you're an adult, the insulin you get for a 100 or 110 is like yeah, it's all kind of the same, you know, you'll be able to see Yeah, it's well worth the investigation just to find out and then like so. A couple of questions. I guess. Kevin, how's your thyroid?

Speaker 2 36:58
My thyroid is great, according to my last labs, so I've never had an issue with my thyroid.

Scott Benner 37:05
What's your TSH? Do you know it when it? I don't

Speaker 2 37:09
know it? I've, if you give me a second, I can look those. No, I'll

Scott Benner 37:12
tuck them back in while you look. So I've seen like thyroid numbers mess up like CGM data sometimes. I don't know why I'm that. Trust me that could be completely made up and colloquial at best, you know what I mean? Like, but yeah, I also, Kevin's got he's had diabetes a longer time he's been with older endos. If he came back right now and said his th his TSH was four. I would tell him he needs thyroid replacement hormone and his doctors gonna tell him it's fine. And so like, I wonder if, like, is that a thing? We would check for Lily? Yeah, you know, yeah,

Speaker 1 37:46
she had a checked I think it was a year ago. And they of course told us it was fine. I you know, it's funny before I, we were coming on to talk to you, I meant to check it because I don't remember what it was. But it's that

Scott Benner 37:58
thing that once you have type one or an auto immune issue, you learn to not just hear it's fine and go great. You go What does that mean? What's the number? What's the range? Making? I want to know everything, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think Kevin has? I have no idea why like Kevin's thyroid might be 1.6 when he gets back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:14
So Scott, my TSH is, this was just last week. One 1.04 Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:21
he's amazing. Okay, you don't have a thyroid issue. So like, you know, not that that would mean she could or couldn't just, I was just interested. Yeah, I don't know. Like nobody, Kevin no celiac for you? Nope, no, I

Speaker 2 38:33
never had anything like that

Scott Benner 38:36
more more, more autoimmune issues, you don't have that. Now.

Speaker 2 38:40
It's interesting, you bring that up. In general, I do have like allergies. And when I was, I don't know if it was linked at all in any way. But over the years, I when I was a kid, I had basically unexplained hives, and they would they would come about a lot of times in the summer, this would happen when I was a kid. And it would happen, you know, on a recurring basis, even in into adulthood. Especially like in my 20s, you just get hives, and they would be sort of symmetrical on your body. So you know, you get it on your wrists, the on both wrists or like, your, on your, on your thighs on the inside of your thighs be on both interesting or on your ankle, that sort of thing. So it was and no one could ever really figure out. Yeah, what was what was causing it, but I, you know, I I sort of just concluded, you know, I've got diabetes, I probably do have a bit of an over overactive immune, immune system. Well,

Scott Benner 39:39
I buy into that people with, you know, autoimmune stuff and the even just hay fever and stuff like that. That's all just immune response. Meghan, by the way, he didn't bring that up on a date that he

Speaker 2 39:50
Yeah, I think at that point, it was maybe I was in remission from the high

Scott Benner 39:56
Yeah, you guys were never dinner and he was like, by the way when I was in my 20s I got one lives on my thighs. I think come up at dinner did it?

Speaker 1 40:03
No, thankfully, because he would have been out.

Scott Benner 40:06
I'm sorry. I don't know what that means. But you gotta go. You gotta

Speaker 1 40:09
go. Yeah, yeah. I just pulled up Lily's her TSH was 1.7. And about a year ago. Yeah.

Scott Benner 40:17
I mean, that's really good. You know. So if it climbs over to and you see symptoms, do something. Just don't let them tell you. It's in range. That talk. Okay. Yeah, cool. Yeah, no, celiac for her. Nothing like that gluten stuff. What CGM is she wearing right now? Libra.

Speaker 1 40:35
We got her brave three. We started that.

Scott Benner 40:39
That worked better for Oh my gosh. Yeah. I

Speaker 1 40:42
agree. It has been great. Yeah, it's been night and day. It's been great. I'm so thankful the only thing that sucks is the night time.

Scott Benner 40:52
It Oh, because you can't use on the pod five with it. Correct? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:57
So it's just every day I mean, as you know, every day is different. So like, you know, last night she's low so I'm adjusting basil tonight to be you know, you know, while we're but then she'll probably be high all night. So it's just, it's hard. And crazy.

Scott Benner 41:12
What can she wear both me know her? Could she wear both? Like could you use a Dexcom? Yeah. Oh, okay. Socks. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 41:22
We Yeah. And we when she was still wearing the G sailor G six we were like the the information that that the Omnipod was getting? Was this such garbage? We're you know, does it even matter that she's on automated because it I don't know how the automated mode could even work with what it was getting from? From her Dexcom?

Scott Benner 41:48
I don't think I'm talking out of school to say that I think Omni pod will make on the pod five work with libre soon. I think that's a goal. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:58
I think I read it. I think they are. I think they said the two though, which is weird, because I mean, yeah,

Scott Benner 42:05
I think once they figure it out with one though, it should be able to move pretty quickly to the next one. It's about it's not weird when they start doing that with the FDA. The libre two is probably what was available for them to work with. You know, so they'll get that. Okay. And then it should not take a lot to get the next okay. Because I don't think there's probably a significant difference between two and three as far as the FDA is concerned. Yeah,

Speaker 1 42:29
I think we're gonna try it again, though. I think over Christmas, when she's home from school for several days. Well, we'll try to put the G six back on her, you know, after giving it a rest for a few months, maybe, you know, maybe it was just something going on over the summer. I don't know. We'll try it again before

Scott Benner 42:46
Yeah. It's terrible. It's a lot to go through. Especially the false lows for months. is exhausting. Because I'll tell you what happens is at first you're like, oh my god, she's low. She's like, you test her and she's like, she's not learning. Okay. By the way, you calibrate after that happens? Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:01
like so we did when you can? Yeah. Sometimes it didn't accept it, because it was a 50 point discrepancy, so they wouldn't accept it. And then that happens.

Scott Benner 43:11
You just trick it. This is not medical advice at all. But if you're like a 50 point discrepancy in the CGM says 100. And let's just say the CGM says 150. And you're 100. Just tell it 120 And then let it readjust and then tell it again and like and kind of walk it forward to it. But I know it's still a pain in the butt. My point was, is that you see those lows? They're false or false or false. And then you think I'm gonna stop looking. That's not real. But you know, for God damn. sure that the first time you don't look, it's gonna be a real low and then you're right. Yeah, right. Yeah, let's take your time. No, I know. Yeah. That's terrible. Terrible. Well, I'm there's no way for me to tell you all this. How they get. Oh, I know. Don't told me that. You'd still be in the first doctor's appointment. And you you they'd be pulling you back in a window by now. So yeah, they can't tell you all this. You got to learn this slowly.

Speaker 1 44:03
Now, it's terrible. And I think that was what was the hardest for me is like when she was diagnosed, I'm like, Okay, so, you know, if she's like, at this level, her blood sugar, like, how many carbs should she have? It just there was no concrete answers for any of it. And I was like, What do you mean, and I'm turning to Kevin like, this is what you've been doing, like,

Speaker 2 44:22
well, in the thing was, it was not what I had been doing. I've never like card counted or had those formulas. I would I would go into my appointments. And they would ask me those questions. I'm like, I just have you know, at that time, I just had I had I always had my pin with me and I would look at the food I was going to eat and I just gave myself what I what I knew would be fine. What would work. I'm not sitting there working a formula out. And so that was another opener for you struggle session at these appointments. Yeah,

Scott Benner 44:51
yeah. But I mean, now moving forward a couple of years into it. You've got to be watching what Megan's doing with Lillian thinking like, oh, yeah, that's yeah. Oh, yeah. Crazy. See, right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 45:01
yeah. And since I've moved to the Omni pod Yeah, you know, I've got I've got my, you know, formulas in the in the pod but it's not, you know, I got to look at look at it to tell you what it is. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:11
you're old school, you're still like you look at a plate and you go that's a units, that kind of thing. Right, exactly. You know, I understand. Wow, that's a lot. It's interesting. You guys are like a little like podcast science experiments. Very nice. Actually, for me, it's horrible for you. But it's really good for me, the podcast and people.

Speaker 2 45:30
I think I think for us, what will be really like where we want to be is that the libre working with the Omnipod? Five. And I think from there, you're back. And I know, there's probably there's FDA issues and approvals. But having the ability to remote Bolus with the audit, I think is for us what we would really ideally want,

Scott Benner 45:54
I gotta be honest with you, I could have used remote Bolus yesterday. So my kids 19 Yeah. She's doing this thing where she's, she's wearing, like, her pod site, obviously went wonky, like 12 hours before it was gonna shut off, like before she was gonna run out of insulin. And by that, I just mean that her blood sugar was very stable at 120. But the algorithm just couldn't get her below 120. And for people listening at this moment while I'm talking, Arden's wearing Iaps Do It Yourself algorithm. Yeah. And so, and it just couldn't move her. So I have access to like, change her target. So I made her target lower, which, which made the insulin more aggressive, which was able to keep her at this 120. But, you know, at some point, like, I sent her a text, and I was like, Listen, this, this pump is over, and she goes, this pumps not coming off until it's out of insulin. I'm too busy. And I was like, okay, so she was willing to live with the 120 for 12 hours, because she's like, I just don't have the time for this. And if she would have made a couple of like, correction, boluses I think maybe she could have pushed it into the 90s. But it's just, I mean, she's in college, and she's, you know, she's killing herself. And she's like, look, this is something's gotta give here. And this is what's going to be the thing today. Now, meanwhile, a 120. average blood sugar is like a six. So it's like a six to a one. Say like, I'm not sitting here worried about that. Right. But it's just, it's just the interesting, even I think it's interesting to say that even with the wonky numbers you were getting with the G six, or the g7. To that you were still having a seven a one C and sleeping through the night. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. So yeah, we

Speaker 1 47:37
thought it was gonna be way worse. We were honestly surprised, because we went into that appointment thinking, Alright, we're gonna be like, ate something. I mean, your

Scott Benner 47:44
whole problem was that it was reporting a lower number, so it wasn't being as aggressive with the insulin. That's, that's where you get the higher. Right, right. That sucks. I'm sorry. I'm not a soothsayer. But I bet you something changes with her. Or they make the I mean, you only mean like, one day, it just all works around the pod five versus Libra. And you'll look back on this is like the horrible six months where this was the problem? You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, it's important to keep that attitude too. Because as this stuff changes, and keeps you got to keep morphing with it, like Kevin knows now. Yeah. You know, like, honestly, man, like, 10 years ago, you should have been with all of us doing this stuff. But you weren't going to because you had diabetes for so long. You're like, this is fine. I'm doing fine. And now you now you know, it's it's eye opening? I would imagine.

Speaker 2 48:33
Yeah, it's interesting to like, I think you you made a good point about kind of identifying sort of what what are the big issues, your big obstacles that kind of still remain today in the character, diabetes, we talked about the, you're kind of just still the sort of an old, this old school approach that endocrinologist still have the day, I think there's also other kind of bigger things out there, you know, thinking about Lily going into school next year. And, you know, us, you know, as we've been talking to her, you know, her kindergarten school that she will be going to kind of seeing how, you know, this is handled, you know, in schools with with nursing and those sorts of things. I mean, it's very much it's, I mean, caveman days, in terms of how, you know, this is dealt with in schools. And so, it's really important, I think, you know, to have things like remote bolusing. And we're probably going to be looking at looping if if there's not a if there's not that option with Omni pod by the time she goes to school. So I think there, there's a lot of those sorts of big issues out there that are still kind of holding people back. And I think there's also just accessibility to the devices as well. I think it's a big issue. You know, the last couple of years. I think a lot of progress has been made on on making insulin itself more affordable and, and available, but to me that's only part of the equation it's you also got to have good access to the technology I think that's also lacking now with the way D Amis work and third party and

Scott Benner 50:18
it does loop not work with libre three,

Speaker 2 50:20
we don't know, maybe it does. We haven't started looking into loop yet. We were kind of hoping that Omni pod is going to have a remote Bolus option i

Scott Benner 50:33
Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, between you and me, that's my hope and goal to is that just, you know, one day, you know, the retail algorithms are just a little more aggressive or customizable, or like, I don't know what the word you want to use. Exactly. I mean, it's, in the meantime, I have to say like, I'm of both minds when I talk about this, because I'm talking about it from our perspective. But I'm always tempted to talk about it from other people's perspective, which is the systems are amazing. And you should not be on Omnipod, five, control, like you, whatever the Medtronic thing is now the 780. Joel does it. And like, if you're on those things, you're doing amazing. Yeah, maybe they're not going to keep your agency in the fives. But wow. Like how like crazy is this technology? And you know, Are you a person who's going to like, build their own algorithm, like app and load it on their phone? If you're not that person? I wouldn't even think twice about it. You know, but yeah, also, I mean, doing what I do, it's just, it's easier for me, it's easier for me to speak up. And I text a lovely man named Mike. And I'm like, I don't know how to do this. And Mike's like, I'll jump on a zoom with you and show you because I like your podcast, and thank you and like, you know, like, I have a different reality than other people do. I wouldn't do it either. Like To be perfectly honest with you. Trust me when we got on the pod five, Arden was like this is great. Perfect. No more like, yeah, Dr. frankensteining an app on my phone. I was like, Nope, nothing like that. And it was the, the one thing that stopped her was the carrying the PDM. She was like, I don't want to carry another device. I want to go back and do do loop. So that's, that's what ended up happening. It's just that that one thing, like I don't want to carry this extra thing. And one day that'll be going to by the way. So you know, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:20
And as as parents. Yeah, having the remote Bolus option means that, you know, we don't have to text the school nurse to say, hey, go give her Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 52:32
it's a big deal. It's a big deal for reasons that people don't know to like you don't think of which is you know, you have a drifting up blood sugar at school. Now you're involving the nurse. Now the nurse, it probably doesn't make her more aggressive enough Bolus. And this is now a whole day and Lily school and her heads cloudy and like given any like it's, it's, it's a great idea. Also, I could make the other argument. Like what if somebody just Bolus and you didn't know it? And now you're Bolus thing again? And like, yeah, there's, you know, pros and cons to the idea. Exactly. Yeah. No kidding. Okay, what else? What else we got to talk about?

Speaker 2 53:06
Well, I think just to follow up on what you were just saying that you're totally right, that, you know, the technology is is amazing. I that's another kind of thing that we're thankful for with Lilly, you know, I mean, if you're going to be a diabetic, you know, right now is, it's a great time, you know, way better than 40 years ago, when I was diagnosed, it's the best time you could choose to be a diabetic, if you're going to have it, you know, because of the technology that we have. So, yeah, we are very thankful for that. No question about

Scott Benner 53:39
Kevin. And you're just one of those people, man, you're one of those lucky people like you came through I'm going to assume you did regular an MPH you probably did. Beat probably to beef important to write these input. You mean like the animal when I was the animal insolence?

Speaker 2 53:53
Oh, yeah. Yeah, at that time. It was I think it was pork. Yeah. Right.

Scott Benner 53:57
So you've been? You've been through all of that. And you're okay. Like, you don't have any

Speaker 2 54:01
Yeah. And it was Yeah, never even the diet aspect of it. year, you had all these tables of exchanges. This food for that food. You

Scott Benner 54:12
and you've heard me talk about like exchange like you'd used to do the exchange diet, right? Yep.

Speaker 2 54:17
Yeah, I remember that. When I when I was a kid. And it was even to check your blood sugar. You had it? It works the way ketone tests. Yeah, that tube of strips. Yeah. You checked your shirt, and you had to compare the colors. And I'm like, does it that was so imprecise. So

Scott Benner 54:34
please. Yeah, that was a while is the you've been but but my point is, is that I've talked to plenty of people who live through this. And right now there have a lot of complications. And I've talked to people who were just like, yeah, there's I have no problems. It's absolutely fascinating. And I've

Speaker 2 54:49
never had any complications other than maybe it's about 12 or 13 years ago, I had a very, very tiny spot of retinopathy In my left eye, and it was out of my field of vision, and it never didn't require any treatment, and it just kind of went away. Other than that, I've never never had any issues in terms of the issues with feet or vision or anything like that. So I do think that there are some genetics can can come into play, some people just won't, for whatever reason do better than that you're using enough

Scott Benner 55:26
insulin. It was dumb luck back then, really? Like you were just using enough insulin. Yep. Yeah. And you described being aggressive about it, which was probably very helpful.

Speaker 2 55:36
I mean, it to the great frustration of my endocrinologist, you know, they could not understand kind of what my system was, because it really wasn't a system other than I just, I gave myself what I thought I needed at the time. And I, you know, I didn't really hold back on it, and I was willing to deal with, with lows. You know, that

Scott Benner 55:56
was what we were talking about earlier. Right? Just kind of charge ahead and see if it's okay. Yeah. Okay. So we got these things covered, we're doing well, I like this, this is just flowing along. You guys are great. By the way, I appreciate you're doing a very good job of back and forth and not talking over top of each other. I appreciate this very much.

Speaker 1 56:11
It's really hard for me to not talk over him because he's so wrong. He's you know, he's from the south. And so sometimes I'm like, get to the point. You know,

Scott Benner 56:21
the podcast taught me how to do that. I wasn't I was bad in the beginning. In the beginning, I would talk over people. And then eventually I just sat here like wheeling myself not to speak. Right. Right. Begging. Let me ask you a question. When you realize that you know what he's going to say, but he hasn't finished saying it yet. That's frustrating, right?

Speaker 1 56:40
Oh my god. Yeah. If we were here in our living room, I would say it for him and walk out of the room. Yes, Kevin. That's

Scott Benner 56:46
a northeast thing, man. We're like, Yeah, we already know what you're gonna say. Let's go.

Unknown Speaker 56:51
Yeah. 100%. Yeah. We

Scott Benner 56:54
got to make more money and buy a bigger house. It just hurry up.

Unknown Speaker 56:58
Exactly. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:59
And make it How great is that not to have to drive over that bridge anymore. Be honest.

Speaker 1 57:04
That's the worst. You know, I would never go back. Great. We live in a great place here in the south. But yeah, I mean, as long winded. Southerners, man, it's

Speaker 2 57:15
not just the talking. It's just that every perspective, everything is just slow. You have slow here, right? Yeah. So

Scott Benner 57:22
Kelly and I went to lunch. In Savannah. We were visiting Arden at school. I think it's out of the bag that art is not in Connecticut, right? And so like, so we're in Savannah, and we leave the hotel and Arden's got a class, so Kellen are like, we're gonna go get lunch, then we're gonna get art and later, like this whole thing. So we go to this little place, and we sit down. And let me just say, two fucking hours later, I walked out of there. I'm like, I don't know what just I had fries and a half a burger. Oh, my God, why were we in there? And all I could do while I was sitting there is think, why do none of these people have anywhere to be right? There's no pressure on their face. I'm looking around like, what do you want to make money? Oh, my God for money. I want to give you good. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's people waiting outside go take their money to him. Like nobody thinks about it like that. Yeah. So So Arden said recently, she goes, I love she does. This is a lovely place. This is how we knew. By the way, this conversation was gonna go sideways. Because she started off saying something very positive. She goes, this is a lovely place. I can't wait to get out of here. Oh my god. I'm like ratios. I can't live here. And she's like, what she goes, it's so slow. Like, I just I need people to want to be somewhere while they're driving. I need them to like, have some urgency. Like just She's like the grocery store. I'm gonna she goes, Dad, I'm gonna murder somebody in that grocery store. And I was

Speaker 2 58:50
in the south wait till she gets stuck behind someone in the line that still writes out the checks. Oh, I'm sure.

Scott Benner 58:55
Yeah, that will be on the news then at some point. Yeah, yeah. Young diabetic girl beats old woman in grocery store for writing check. I mean, she's really like, just like, my god. She's like, it's so slow. I can't handle it. And, by the way, conversely, my son's in Atlanta, and he's like, I gotta get out of here. I hate I hate this. I hate being in a city. Yeah, like,

Speaker 2 59:20
where we live is it's changed a lot over the years because we're our specific area. I'd say most of the population at this point is actually northeasterners now particularly from from New York, yeah, areas like that. So I think that is changing. But yeah, you know, sort of capital.

Scott Benner 59:41
We gave ourselves Anjan and making a pile of money we're gonna come by your house is now that's exactly what's happened. Yeah, there you go. Oh, worry. Yeah, we're on it. Oh my gosh. I want to make sure is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have?

Speaker 1 59:58
Oh, And I think we pretty much covered I think everything that we wanted to talk about. One thing I think is pretty crazy. You know, in in Kevin's family, there was no type one before he was diagnosed and that they know of I mean, I asked every time his mother here is here. I'm like, Are you sure? Like, are you positive? There's nothing.

Speaker 2 1:00:20
But we did leave out. Yeah, we did leave that out. Right? Yeah. identical

Speaker 1 1:00:26
twin and he has his identical twin brother is not a type one.

Scott Benner 1:00:30
What about Well, that makes that makes sense to me. But what about other autoimmune stuff, Kevin? Well,

Speaker 2 1:00:35
so the other thing about my brother hit, he has a 17 year old son that does that also has type one. So I have I have a nephew that has type one. So he's a carrier. Clearly, clearly,

Scott Benner 1:00:51
I've got a very scientific way of saying that. Well, what about other stuff in the family? I'll go through it with you. Celiac. In your extended family? Thyroid?

Speaker 2 1:01:00
Yeah. Well, now my mother, she had her thyroid taken out. She had like a gourd, whatever. It's called that condition where your thyroid swells. Yeah, the rule haven't

Scott Benner 1:01:11
Yes. removed. Rheumatoid arthritis.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:15
Not that I'm aware of.

Scott Benner 1:01:17
How about bipolar disorder? Not

Unknown Speaker 1:01:20
that I'm aware of. Okay. But yeah, although

Scott Benner 1:01:23
everyone goes, who knows? Yeah, everyone goes, I don't know. I got an Ant Man. I'm not sure. So like, but heavy hay fever through the families. How about vitiligo, like any other autoimmune stuff. Our

Speaker 2 1:01:35
son, our our seven year old, he does have peanut allergy, and just allergies in general. So yeah, just

Scott Benner 1:01:43
like allergic stuff. I gotcha. Hey, I asked the question very early on, I didn't get the answer to and it doesn't matter anymore. But I still wonder it. So I'm just gonna ask again. How long have you guys been married?

Speaker 2 1:01:53
Let's see. We had our 10 year. We were married in 2017. And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:58
2011. I think they were married for 12 years.

Scott Benner 1:02:01
You guys don't know how long you've been married? That's fantastic. We

Speaker 1 1:02:05
have three children and run a business. And

Scott Benner 1:02:09
I don't know what day it is, right?

Speaker 1 1:02:12
We got diabetes times two in this house. It's a busy place.

Scott Benner 1:02:15
This guy pops up in my Facebook group the other day. And he goes, as you know, and I'm like, Whoa, stop yourself. I don't know anything. I was like,

Speaker 1 1:02:22
Yeah, remember? Nothing. You could have told me yesterday. Running

Scott Benner 1:02:26
a thing larger than you can imagine. And I don't know. i My wife says things to me. Listen, I go to the grocery store. Get to the grocery store and text my wife and go Why am I here?

Speaker 1 1:02:40
Right. Well, Kevin does too. And he's not running this huge podcast. Oh,

Speaker 2 1:02:45
yeah, I do. Yeah, I've the grocery store. Trips are not are not the best i There's always like two or three kind of unicorn items that are on that list. And I'm having to call her like, where do we find this? Where is this?

Scott Benner 1:02:59
Yeah, that could be a boy thing. Maybe that's not this part of it for me. Exactly. But I leave my house going iced tea bread. Like I say it over and over. But I just learned about three years ago. I just tell him I just told my wife and I'm like, you want it? You texted me? You don't text? Me. You're not getting like that's, that's the best I can like I can hope for anymore. But yeah, like I I'm fascinated like 42,000 people in that group. And the guy starts talking to me, like I sleep next to him. And I'm like, Man, I don't know what you're talking about. You're sure you do. And I'm like, No, you remember it. I like everyone should be in my position for a day. And then they wouldn't say stuff like that to people anymore. They go you obviously don't know who the hell I am would be the answer. Because I've talked to 65 people since you and I, I don't know any of their names. I can't see their faces. It's virtual. It's hard to keep track of you know, so yeah. Anyway, you guys were really great. I appreciate you doing this very much. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:03:58
I'm really excited. Your podcast has been awesome for us. We love listening. And it's helped me a ton. I mean, a ton. Yeah, I've learned a lot. I think I brought Kevin on to it pretty early. And I was like, You gotta listen to this guy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:04:12
And then yeah, for me, and for me when I listened to it was, you know, they're talking about things that I had already been doing for many years. And it was nice to know that there. There was this other path out there that, you know, people have discovered, you know, in terms of, like you say, being bold with insulin. I've

Scott Benner 1:04:32
heard that it was Yeah, I've heard that from people. They're like, I didn't know anyone else did it like this? Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. Scott

Speaker 2 1:04:40
Scott, do you know if if there are endocrinologist out there that actually recommend people listen to your podcast? i

Scott Benner 1:04:47
That happens a lot. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:49
I wish more would that would? Yeah, we're trying.

Scott Benner 1:04:52
I have an intake form. So when you come into the private Facebook group, it asks you like four quick questions, and one of them is Where did you hear about This, and I'm gonna say around 40% of people say from their doctors. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow, it's pretty. It's either from other support places, for my doctor on Reddit is a big one, which is fascinating. I've never been on Reddit before in my life, but apparently, thank thank you to the people on Reddit, they seem to like the podcast, or from a friend like that. That's it. I've had so many. So you know, it's funny. This is the time of year where I have to go back to the advertisers. And I'm like, are we doing this again next year? Like, you know, they're like, Yeah, you know, we kind of do that whole thing, that the business part of it, I find myself saying to people lately, this is crazy, because this is the ninth year of the podcast. But when you really look at it, the first four years, were bullshit, like in the grand scheme of things like don't get me wrong. In the first four years, this was the biggest diabetes podcast that existed, it was at some points, the only one that existed, there's been like, I think the numbers now in the mid 80s, people who have launched the type one podcast that have failed in since I've started mine in like the last nine years, there's a handful of them that are left, but as near as I can tell by looking at charts, they don't chart on any Apple chart whatsoever. I'm sure they're helping people and reaching people, but not on enough of a scale that you know, it reads out. And that's I'm not saying anything bad about them. I'm just saying that that's the situation. And still, as I look at the numbers, I think I realized this is in its infancy still. Yeah, those first four years, it took me four years to get three or four years to get to a million downloads, like total downloads. And I was like, Oh, my God, I have a million downloads. And now four years later, I have 15 million. Yeah, so amazing. Yeah. And so I really think it mean, this year should do 6 million last year did like four and a half. Even if it doesn't grow any more. If it stayed at 6 million a year, that would be insane. Those are indicators to me that of growth. And here are some other indicators of growth for me. I was in Oh, usually I say you won't know what this means. But Megan, well, I went to Walmart the other day, Megan. And my I was just we were around the house. If I'm being honest, the Phillies game was getting ready to start. And my wife said, Can you run out and get me iced tea real quick. And I was like, if I can get back here before the Phillies game starts, I'm happy to do this. So I left. I run into Wawa, which is a convenience store for the rest of you. And I go to the cooler I grabbed the gallon jug, and I'm walking to the to the register and I turn a corner and there's this like little girl standing in front of me. Like we kind of turn corners and we don't walk into each other. But we kind of came face to face. And she was only like, I don't know, nine. You know what I mean? She's little, and she's in her little soccer uniform. And her mom's standing behind her. And I just smiled at her because I felt like I might have startled her turning the corner. And I looked at the mom, I continue to smile and I kept going. And I have to admit, if I think back, the mom glanced down at my shirt. And I go get line. I'm doing self checkout. Mega knows I'm flying out of there. I'm proud of how fast I'm getting out of there. You know, I mean, I'm like, I can't wait to keep moving and go drive fast and turn my music up and do all our Northeast the things. Yeah, and I'm gonna definitely break a speed limit on the way home. It's gonna be fantastic. I look up and the lady and her kid are standing behind me. And she goes juicebox Oh, cool. Yeah, go. That's awesome. So I tried to be funny, which didn't go over well, cuz I think I didn't realize how like, excited she was. And I just I put my hand up that my waist and I went not in public. And I thought I was being like, obviously funny. And she goes, Oh, I'm sorry. And I'm like, oh, no, wait, I was good. I was like, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. I'm like, I'm Scott. Give me a second. Like, I'll finish up. And so we're chatting and stuff. That's insane. It's in the last six months. Yeah. In an altar at a gas station. In a Wawa? Yeah. Like, I think it's just starting. So it is interesting,

Speaker 2 1:08:59
Scott. I mean, I think the you're clearly to me, and this podcast is moving the needle, I I would be interested to see like, just on a on a health basis, like maybe you've done this already, you know, do a survey of of your subscribers, you know, what's your average glucose? What's your average a one C, it would be interesting to compare that to, you know, like, general population. And see see how different they are? I think that would be that would be very, very intriguing to look at. I bet you it would be, you know, much better than the Gen pop. Yeah, I did a survey

Scott Benner 1:09:39
last year of 1100. listeners. Oh, you did? Yeah. And it's not like I don't think a hospital would say that. I did it correctly. But we asked as many questions as we could think to ask and I had, I had a grad student from Johns Hopkins go over like a person who knew what they were doing. Oh, excellent. Yeah. And I would say that, who provides adds a satisfactory range of diabetes topics is one of the questions right addresses many of your unanswered questions. And given the choice between medical professionals, the podcast slash the Facebook group and other online printed materials, out of an average of six medical professionals got 2.9 online materials 2.5. And the podcasts was 5.6. Out of six Yeah, it just and now these are these are, you know, someone would point out well, yeah, those are the people who are listening to the podcast, I would point out well, if more people listen to the podcast, then more people would answer that way. Right? You know, so it's there. It's everything. It's the things you need to know in a conversational way. It's learning without knowing you're learning. It's hearing something that makes you go, Oh, I didn't think of that. You know, like, those are the things that can't happen in a doctor's office, the things that can happen in a doctor's office don't happen in a doctor's office. So these other things are, they're never going to find a way to do that.

Speaker 2 1:10:55
Right, exactly. And just the concept of looping Scott, we would have never known now, of course, you could do do a DIY loop system. But for this podcast, endocrinologist, I'm not aware of any that suggests looping or would even mention it. And that's an actual option that that we need to look at for Lily going into school next year, we probably going to need it if Omni pod is unable to, you know, get a remote Bolus option going and get it approved. So yeah, yeah, that's a great example. Right there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:31
the scope is the important part. Right. So to take you back years ago, I knew my blog helped people. And when I started a podcast, I saw that the podcast helped people at a greater rate. And then I saw as it got more people got back as I reached more people, and then I realized that scaling was incredibly important if you're going to continue to reach people. And so I probably have, I have enough of like a small business owners mindset. And aggressively, you know, I like to win. I don't know how another way to put that exactly. And so like, you put those things together, along with the information. And I was like, if I reach more people, more people be helped. And I kind of just obsessively do that over and over again. And so what the podcast has done is it has a massive reach that nothing else in the diabetes space touches. Like they like people try companies try, they've all given up, they can't do it. Like look at what the companies do for marketing. Now. They just do influencer stuff. Yeah. Right. They can't create their own content draw people in, they know it. And I don't just mean one company, all of them. So they go to influencers. And by the way, those influencers burnout so quickly, they're they're shooting stars, you know, like for six months, you're like, Oh, I love this girl on Instagram. And then we're she now you don't know, it's over. You don't I mean, like, so building, size and scope. And then sustainability was my was my next step. Like I was like this has to, it has to be as valuable today as it was six years ago, that I figured out like, I'll use an example, I just pulled up in front of you, you want really great information about loop, loop and learn has a YouTube channel, the information on there is really great. But, you know, their best video has, I don't know, 1000 2000 views. And that's not a reflection on them. Because, again, it fantastic information. It's a reflection on how people want their information given to them. Yep, you know, I heard somebody say, if I was watching a TV show, or where I heard somebody say recently, you know, you can blame people. And you can blame America or companies all you want, you know, because McDonald's sells french fries to people. But I guarantee you if McDonald's sold kale salads, they'd be out of business. And you know, like, at some point, you have to say, this is what people want. This is how they want it. And what I did was I, I took diabetes information and put it inside of a format about how people like to be entertained. And just mix them together. And that's a thing that still no one will do. Like they won't they want to be very, like uptight and buttoned up if they're going to talk about diabetes. And I maintain over and over again, if that's what you're going to do. No one's going to listen, man, it's King boring. And, and I don't it doesn't matter that it's going to save your life. That's not how people's brains work. Again, they need to kale salad, if that's how everybody's brains work. It's not Yeah, so I just said, Why am I fighting the nature of people? I'm going to make a podcast that I think is entertaining. And instead of talking about movies, or whatever else, the hell else people talk about in podcasts, but uh, talk to people left diabetes, and then the stuff will come out organically. And there you go. It's not a big secret. Anyone could rip me off. Go ahead and try like, you know, like it just nobody will do it. So yeah, anyway, I'm glad you guys found me. Thank you. It's

Unknown Speaker 1:14:55
helped. It has helped us

Speaker 1 1:14:58
out to us anytime. There's some thing we're on or we run into issue, I go straight to your Facebook group and I search it because chances are someone has done it, someone has got it, and I'll search it. And I am so anti Facebook, because I feel like it's doomsday and everyone puts the worst up there. And you know, in the beginning, I promised I wouldn't go on all these groups. But you know, the juicebox Facebook group is real. It's been great. I think it's a great community. I mean, I'm sure for you have one or two people on there. So great people.

Scott Benner 1:15:29
But for the most part, not many, and you just make those people go away. And that the first thought I try if they don't want to play ball, and by play ball, I mean, be nice to people, then they're gone. Yeah. And you know, like, and I did the same thing with the Facebook group that I did with the podcast, I was like, how do people like to talk to each other? Like, why do we just accept that this is what it means if you're on Facebook, everybody's going to be in short, and all that stuff like that doesn't have to be that way. So I set a standard. And I was like, This is how we're going to treat each other. Listen, last night. There's this guy in the Facebook group, he's given me trouble a couple of times. He gets upset when people I don't know, if he gets upset sometimes. And when he tries to make his point. He's a little militaristic about it. And it makes people It makes people upset it see it. So I one time said to him, hey, look, you can't talk like that to people, like chill out, you know? And he said, Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And then a month later, he did it again. And I'm like, so I suspended his account. And then I sit down at my computer last night, and I've got a message from the guy. I'm like, listen, we're not 15 Don't message me about your problems. I was like, be nice, stay in the group or leave? I don't give it like, like, like, it's you know, that's it, you know, and I don't know what it'll do. And honestly, I don't care. So like, at some point, it's the bigger picture. You're helping 42,000 people, if three people want to be idiots, they gotta go like that. Yeah, that's

Speaker 2 1:16:54
also everyone's individual situations with diabetes are going to be different. Yeah, we talked about my situation. And just, you know, for various reasons, you know, there, there are things that you can control. But I do believe there are variables that body composition and chemistry and those sorts of things that aren't, they're also going to affect it. And you know, it's not always a one size fits all, no,

Scott Benner 1:17:19
and twins, there's enough core information that is standard from person to person, that if you have that bit, then you can figure out the rest later. But if you start with the assumption that this is all just chaos, then you're never going to figure anything out. Because you chase ghosts all over the place. When you see things happen. Yeah, it's Listen, I don't want to say I got it figured out. But I figured it out. And so like, you know, and now it's just a matter of just having these conversations over and over again, and letting people listen into them. And

Speaker 2 1:17:49
I think what Megan just said, too, about just kind of the there are sort of places where you can go, you know, there's, there's other corners of Facebook and Instagram, you know, that might have diabetes information. But with social media, I think one of the one of the trappings can be kind of, you're falling into kind of the, you know, a victim mentality with the, you know, I, I would say, again, this is where I go back to kind of being blessed that that I was diagnosed back in the early 80s When this stuff didn't exist. But you know, at no point, I've never had had a time where I've sat and thought, you know, what, why me and why do I have this? And of course they were because, you know, honestly, there's there's a lot of other crap out there. That's way worse than than this.

Scott Benner 1:18:42
You must like listening to Arden when she talks about diabetes, because she's just like, she said something last time she was on that really resonated with people. Yeah, I said, Hey, you know, we're sending you off to college on Iaps. We've only been using it for like 10 days, we don't really know what we're doing. Because it's just turning some buttons and knobs. I'll be fine. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:03
Helps me because I am like the why me? Why my kid? Why is this happening? And when Arden comes on, it's so awesome to hear. Because that could be Willie in 15 years, or whatever, it's fine. It's just part of whom I

Scott Benner 1:19:16
would help you to know. I think that she got into her car at 11am one day and drove 700 miles by herself to Georgia. Crazy with what we wrote learned later was COVID symptoms. Oh wow. So cheap. So she drove she basically kicked COVID driving south like shivers and shakes the hot like that whole thing and her blood sugar she got there like absolutely fine. And the people that I saw respond back to that little statement if I got just some knobs, like I'll figure it out like buttons, I'll push and it'll be fine. People were like, oh my god, like why am I so worried if this freaking kid is just like yeah, whatever.

Speaker 1 1:19:58
This Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I pray I pray that Lily is like that one day and I, you know, try to be positive for her and not let her see any of my anxiety surrounding it because that's how I want her to be. Yeah, no big deal.

Speaker 2 1:20:12
It does help her to, to see me with my AMI pod on and mighty sit and wait, you know we would. Yeah, we kind of talked to her about that and you know, just just like daddy's no big deal, that sort of thing that that does help her. I mean, there's been a few times where she'll she's sort of asked, you know how, you know, I don't know what, what word she used magnet to the effect of forever. Yeah, but she sort of moves on quickly and doesn't really yeah, she's just

Scott Benner 1:20:46
the kid. Just go. Yeah, you have to wear it forever. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:20:51
I was like, she asked that actually the other day. Do I have to wear this thing forever? And I was like, oh, Lily, don't think about that right now.

Scott Benner 1:20:57
It's gonna be fine. Well, Kevin, I'll tell you what, Lily having diabetes is going to help you. And you don't even know it yet. Oh, yeah. I

Speaker 2 1:21:05
Scott I did not have I never moved to Omni pod until she did. I was just I was always against having a device on me because I, when I was back at it, I played a lot of sports and just thought it would be an impediment and realize that it wasn't when he when she started. And it's it's helped me greatly just just that one thing is

Scott Benner 1:21:25
not unlike most other things in the world that you're scared of before you do them that after you hear them. You're like, oh, this was fine. So yes, yeah, yes. I agree. I really do. Alright, well, you guys are terrific. I appreciate the conversation very much. Yeah. Hold on for one second for me. I'm gonna say goodbye privately. And we're done. So thank you very much. Thank you, Scott. My pleasure.

Let's get rid of that Fu. There should be no fear of missing out on Omni pod because you have the opportunity right now to use my link at Omni pod.com/juice box to learn more about Omni pod five, four to get started right now. Omni pod.com/juice box, please use my link. There's links in the show notes and links at Juicebox Podcast the Omni pod ever since and all of the sponsors. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and a terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Get the only implantable sensor for long term wear get ever since. If you're living with type one diabetes, the afterdark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about. From drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction, and so much more. Go to juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark. There you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. I know that Facebook has a bad reputation. But please give the private Facebook group for the Juicebox Podcast. A healthy once over Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. The group now has 47,000 members in it, it gets 150 new members a day. It is completely free. And at the very least you can watch other people talk about diabetes, and everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones, everyone is welcome. Go up into the feature tab of the private Facebook group. And there you'll see lists upon lists of all of the management series that are available to you for free in the Juicebox Podcast, becoming a member of that group. I really think it will help you it will at least give you a community. You'll be able to kind of lurk around see what people are talking about. Pick up some tips and tricks. Maybe you can ask a question or offer some help Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

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#1187 The Wonderful Drink

Kim has type 1 diabetes and has been in a number of trials. 

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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 1187 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Kim has type one diabetes and three children with alopecia. We chat for a little bit about that, but then quickly get into the idea that Kim has been in a number of different trials, including one for a GLP medication, which led to a long conversation about ozempic and GLP medications. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Are you a US resident who has type one diabetes or is the caregiver of someone with type one if you are in a listen up because in less than 10 minutes fewer than 10 minutes maybe about 10 minutes? You can take a survey at T one D exchange.org. complete that survey and you have helped with type one diabetes research It is that easy. And you will not be asked one question that you don't know the answer to T one D exchange.org/juicebox. When you place your first order for ag one with my link you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink ag one.com/juicebox.

podcast this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next one.com/juicebox This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo penne Find out more at G voc glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever sent CGM and implantable six month sensor is what you get with ever since. But you get so much more exceptional and consistent accuracy over six months, and distinct on body vibe alerts when you're higher low on body vibe alerts. You don't even know what that means. Do you ever since cgm.com/juicebox Go find out.

Kim 2:23
My name is Kim. I've been a type one diabetic for almost 31 years. I was originally diagnosed as gestational and switched to type one after delivery when nothing changed.

Scott Benner 2:36
Gestational during your three kids, right?

Kim 2:40
I have three kids it was my first pregnancy your first pregnancy

Scott Benner 2:43
was that a short or long time ago?

Kim 2:47
It was almost 31 years ago.

Scott Benner 2:48
It's a long time in my book one years ago, gestational, one of three kids, any of the kids have type one. They do not know type one for the kids. How about in your family extended.

Kim 3:02
My grandmother had either type two or type one. She was on insulin had many, many problems from her diabetes. But she was diagnosed very late in life, I want to say 60s. So and that was quite a while ago. And I don't know if they actually just assumed it was type two or ever did any kind of testing to see what it was or if there was any testing at that point.

Scott Benner 3:26
Kim, how old are you?

Kim 3:27
I am 56

Scott Benner 3:29
You just freaked out young people when you were like she was old. She was 60. What? Well, she was older back then.

Kim 3:36
That was old though. Yeah, to diagnose.

Scott Benner 3:38
Yeah. Oh, to be done, please. 60 Well, I mean, this has got to be what? I mean, I don't want to like 5080 years or 5060 years ago, something like that. Yeah, yeah. Have you not had that experience Kim of like, being the age you are now I have my hair is dark. So I might get away with it more. But I'm around other people my age. I'm like, Why look much younger than you do? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And then you go back a generation. Oh my God, just go back one generation. I look at my mom's picture from when she was my age. I don't know, if he told me she was 70 in some of those photos. I might, I might believe you. So I don't know. Also, I have a very easy job. Can I just sit in this chair. So not a lot of stress. Sounds awesome. I'd like to chat. I'm not climbing a building or anything like that. You know, maybe it's a little easier, but I really do think it's the dark hair. Honestly, because without the dark hair then you can kind of see I have crow's feet. You know, like that kind of stuff. But I think I get away with it from like 10 feet.

Kim 4:41
Things are a lot different now though, too. I just I don't know back when I was younger and I thought about being in my 50s I like you said I thought it was ancient. And but now my friends all look young. I just feel it's a different world we're living in and we're not dressing like we're old.

Scott Benner 4:59
You know, that has a lot to do with it too, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, absolutely activities and things like that. Oh, anyway, listen if you want to hear me, sound young you should have been here last night when the Phillies blew their chance to go to the World Series because I sounded like a child while I was screaming in my living room.

Kim 5:18
That's how I am every Sunday during football so I understand what's

Scott Benner 5:20
your what's your football day?

Kim 5:22
Buffalo Bills?

Scott Benner 5:23
Oh my goodness. Look at you. You got raised way up with excitement about that boy. And then

Kim 5:29
until this year, yeah,

Scott Benner 5:31
looks good for a second, didn't it? It sure did.

Kim 5:34
got us excited. What's

Scott Benner 5:35
the vibe in Buffalo? They paid him any any staff.

Kim 5:38
He's still great. It's just we have so many injuries right now. And I don't know they're just falling apart. I'm not sure that

Scott Benner 5:47
sucks. I'm switching right over to the eagles that fell out. As soon as the Phillies game was over. I shut it off. And I thought I'm gonna watch the Eagles game on Sunday. This will be better. There you go. So anyway, slowly. So interestingly enough, I know a little bit more about your family than I usually do before I start you have three children or three children have an autoimmune issue, though, but it's not type one. What is it? Correct. They all have alopecia. When did that come up for them at different ages? Or was it similar for them?

Kim 6:13
Well, my two younger children are twins and they my daughter actually was the first one to show signs of it. And she was probably just turned four or about to turn four. And then her twin brother started with signs of it just a couple of months after that. Wow. And it it was very it was very odd they they both lost most of their hair and then it would come back it was spotty back and forth. My daughter ended up growing hers completely back by the time she started kindergarten. And my son has just remained real patchy until it finally all fell out. And then my daughter's fell out again. Of course Lucky her when she was starting middle school, which was super pleasant. How

Scott Benner 7:01
do you manage that when you're that age? If you take insulin or sulfonylureas you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most. Be ready with G voc hypo pen. My daughter carries G voc hypo pen everywhere she goes because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar and people with diabetes ages two and above that I trust. Low blood sugar emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily, G voc hypo pan can be administered in two simple steps even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you storage EVO Capo pen and how to use it. They need to know how to use Chivo Capo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why G voc hypo pen is in Ardens diabetes toolkit at G voc glucagon.com/juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma. Or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulinoma visit G voc glucagon.com/risk For safety information. It

Kim 8:15
was very rough. She wore a wig. And then she reached a point in high school where she just said she's had enough it's too uncomfortable. She took it off. And now she's 27 and she does not wear it.

Scott Benner 8:27
Do you think it bothers her at this point?

Kim 8:31
You know, it's hard for me to tell? I don't think so. She she actually will get into it, I'm sure but she has a laundry list of autoimmune disorders. And honestly, I think maybe the alopecia is just the least of our problems. So she doesn't really care.

Scott Benner 8:45
How many people listening know that phrase? Oh, that's the least of a laundry list. That's the least of my worries. It's something everyone else would freak out about. I'm like, Yeah, I don't even think about that.

Kim 8:56
Yeah, absolutely sucks, but

Scott Benner 8:58
it is. Well, what else does she have going on?

Kim 9:01
She has celiacs she has Crohn's she has Raynaud's. So I'm saying that right. To get away from the autoimmune she also has Chiari and has had two brain surgeries. I don't know that when I'm sorry. It's the brain tissue extends into her spinal cord. So she had to have surgeries to have that taken care of. And the first surgery actually landed her in a wheelchair for a while, but she's now past that she's doing well. So it's been a long road for her. She's had a lot of problems. My

Scott Benner 9:37
gosh, is she I don't know what the word is like, is she thriving now? Is she an adult working in engineering?

Kim 9:42
Absolutely. She Well, she she doesn't she doesn't hold a job. She she has a lot of memory issues from the brain surgeries. So unfortunately, at a young age after getting a college degree, she's on permanent disability. But um, but she Yeah, she's definitely living In normal life, besides the memory issues and things like that would that would just make it difficult for her to

Scott Benner 10:04
hold a job? Long term or short term memory?

Kim 10:08
A little beach mostly short term.

Scott Benner 10:12
That's interesting. Jesus own ball. I'm sorry to hear all that, obviously. But I'm glad she's like, I don't know what the word is out there making the best of her situation obvious, you know? And yep,

Kim 10:21
she actually she has a son. And she I mean, she's doing great.

Scott Benner 10:26
Now. Oh, geez, that's, that's something else. What about the other two?

Kim 10:31
Oh, then my, my oldest son, he developed alopecia in his 20s went through the whole childhood without it. And then I think now he's, he'll be 31 in January. I want to say he was probably about 25 When he started showing the patchy signs of it. And then all three of them right now are completely they have no hair on their bodies whatsoever. Same dad? Yes.

Scott Benner 10:57
Look at you. Look at you. Okay.

Kim 11:01
My high school sweetheart. So

Scott Benner 11:03
he's still with you. You allow him to look at that. He's been around for a while. So how kind you are letting him live in the house? Wonderful. Well, okay, well, that's something else. So you have gestational diabetes, and then you give birth, does the gestational dissipate? Or does it stick around as an they tell you of type two? Well,

Kim 11:23
it's started that when they when I drank the wonderful drink. And they told me that I had gestational, they sent me home on diet control. And they told me to keep in touch with them. And let me know if my numbers changed, or if I had any issues. And the next day, they just, they weren't super high. But I want to say was a while ago, but I'm thinking I was running around 131 40, which is high for being pregnant. And I called them and I told them that and they said, well, we want you to get to the hospital right away, you need to start insulin. And I'll never forget it that was on a Thursday. And my baby shower was supposed to be that Saturday. So I'm freaking out thinking I'm going to be in the hospital for my baby shower. And I go to the hospital, and this is how long I'm going to be there. And they're like, Well, as soon as you can give yourself the shot, you can leave. So I learned how to do the shot within an hour probably, they kept me a day watched me. And then just sent me home, just teaching me how to do the insulin. And at that point, it was NPH and R so it was you know, the old stuff and how to do it, there was no carb counting or sliding scale or anything, really. And they gave me very, very little education on it. But they monitored me very close then because of the diabetes through the rest of the pregnancy. They ended up doing a C section three weeks before he was due. As soon as I delivered, they took me off the insulin, they assumed I didn't need it. And I think I was I remember correctly, I was okay for a little while. But then within a couple of days, I was out of control again. And they finally realized, well, maybe there's something else going on. And they put me back on the insulin but again, with very little education. They they didn't tell me much at all. And then one day, my son was about a month. And the only thing I remember of this incident was waking up in an ambulance. But in the middle of the night, my husband said he woke up and I was sitting up in bed rocking back and forth with my hands clenched against my face. And he said My eyes were wide open. And he had no idea what was going on or what to do, because nobody explained the possibilities of these low blood sugars or anything. So from there, they obviously took me to the hospital got, you know, gave me the glucose got me back in back in working order, and sent me home. But still there it was, it was very strange when I look back at it. And after listening to your podcasts and about all these people's diagnosis, I had no signs of diabetes whatsoever before I was diagnosed as gestational. And I don't think I had a high a one C I never had any problems. So it's all very strange to try and figure it all out and piece it together what happened and how it happened. And but from there, it just I mean, I definitely needed the insulin, they taught me a little bit more about the insulin, but still, I had at least two more episodes like that in the middle of the night. And they never told me about glucagon. I was never really instructed on any of the possibilities of anything happening like that to the meter. I had a meter at the time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:36
But was it a thing you used?

Kim 14:38
I did. But you did probably not as much as I should have. But I did wouldn't imagine.

Scott Benner 14:44
I mean, if you don't get any, any education about it. I don't know how you even imagine when to especially in the beginning. It could take you a couple of years to figure it out if nobody's going to tell you anything about it. And it did. Absolutely I would imagine that's something Wow, when did your management change? I mean, when did they first of all, when did they tell you for sure this is type one, not type two.

Kim 15:08
I honestly don't know if they ever actually came out with those words. Or they just kind of told me that I had to start using the insulin. And then as my care has gone on, they've they've used type one. But they never really they never did an A, any tests or anything to see what it was.

Scott Benner 15:26
That's crazy. What's the first transition from your first methods? The regular the mph to the next one? How long did you do that for?

Kim 15:36
It was quite a while. I was very stubborn. And when when pens came out, they made me very nervous. Because when I use the needle and the vial, I could see how much insulin was in there. And I could see how much was going into my body with the pen. I felt like I lost that control. And I couldn't physically see it. And it made me nervous. Interesting. So I fought that for a very long time and stayed on the needles and with the vials of insulin. Can

Scott Benner 16:07
that's a really interesting. I don't imagine it's unique. I bet you a lot of people feel that way. But I mean, that's a leap, isn't it? Oh, they gave me this medical device. One of them I can see the liquid and the other one. I can't. And because I can't see it. I don't trust it.

Kim 16:23
It was very scary to me, because I wasn't sure how much I was actually getting at that point.

Scott Benner 16:28
Even though it said you've dialed up two units.

Kim 16:31
Right? Yeah, yep. That's I had trust issues. I

Scott Benner 16:35
was gonna ask you actually, my next question is, do you have trust issues in your life other than this?

Kim 16:40
I really don't know. It was just something with that. I mean, I guess I just didn't want to be in a situation where my blood sugar's were going out of control. And it was because I didn't get the proper amount of insulin.

Scott Benner 16:51
Because you couldn't verify Correct? Yeah, I by the way, I don't disagree with the idea or the feeling. I mean, but it's a leap because I bet you a lot of people don't think twice about it. Right?

Kim 17:02
Yeah. Yeah. Once I finally did switch to the pens, I kicked myself, I'm like, I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. But it did take me quite a while.

Scott Benner 17:10
And those pens were what back then? Humalog? Yes, yeah. Okay. To using human log. And what was your Basal at that point?

Kim 17:21
I was on Lance. I was on Lantus for a while. I don't know if that was my first. Okay.

Scott Benner 17:26
But yeah, if something honestly don't remember. And do you use the pump now? Or do you still are you still on di

Kim 17:32
I am still on di I'm contemplating going to a pump. But I am currently participating in a study which doesn't allow me to be on a pump. So I have to wait until the study is over. You had

Scott Benner 17:45
to tell me about the study. Sure, a study for

Kim 17:48
once a week Basal insulin. And unfortunately, I didn't get that. But I did get all the benefits of the study, which is all of my supplies, my Dexcom everything for free for a year, I get paid to be in the study, which is another perk, and I get very close care. And since I've been in the study, I brought my a one C down since December from a seven five to a six, four. So even though I'm not getting the study drug, it's been very beneficial to me.

Scott Benner 18:21
So I understand what a double blind study is. Right? But this isn't blinded, you know if you're getting the drug or not.

Kim 18:26
Yes, because they can't not give you your insulin. So

Scott Benner 18:30
that was where I was at on that. I was like, Well, wait, some people get saline? That doesn't make sense. What would that?

Kim 18:36
Yeah, they can't they can't do that. So you know, you know, right up front of you're getting it or not, but they just they ended up changing the insulin that I was on. I was on Novolog and Basal are at the time, and now I'm on Nov or I'm sorry, homologue and trulicity. So

Scott Benner 18:53
they put you on the trulicity. And that's kind of the what they're studying against and then correct and they're shooting and there's how often you shoot trulicity though.

Kim 19:01
That's true. Mostly me. Maybe I misspoke. I'm sorry. Hold on one second, to Ciba. I'm sorry, recibo. Yeah, I'm sorry. They call it something else. They call it degludec.

Scott Benner 19:13
Yes, yes. I imagine that's what they call it. I gotcha. So yes. So what do you shoot that every how often?

Kim 19:20
Once a day, it's that's my basil. That's

Scott Benner 19:22
still your basil once a day, but they're saying we have a magic one you'll shoot once a week. Correct. And then they gave it to somebody, not you? Yes. Were you pissed about that?

Kim 19:33
Um, at first I was but then when I saw the benefits that I was getting from this and how it was really helping me. I don't care anymore.

Scott Benner 19:39
Yeah, I mean, you're getting paid. You're getting a free CGM. How long does How long is the study go for? A little over a year? How long has it been so far?

Kim 19:46
I started in December. So it'll go to I think it's till the beginning of February. It'll be over a few more months. Okay. This is actually the second study that I've done and the first one was for ozempic to see if ozempic work for type one. ones they were trying to get it approved. That one I was lucky enough and I got the ozempic. So that was nice. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:05
Kim, let's

Kim 20:06
talk about that for a second. Yeah, it's very similar to your situation now.

Scott Benner 20:10
Yeah. How long were you on it? This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the only six month were implantable CGM on the market. And it's very unique. So you go into an office, it's I've actually seen an insertion done online like a live one like, well, they recorded the entire videos less than eight minutes long. And they're talking most of the time the insertion took no time at all right? So you go into the office, they insert the sensor, now it's in there and working for six months, you go back six months later, they pop out that one put in another one, so two office visits a year to get really accurate and consistent CGM data that's neither here nor there for what I'm trying to say. So this thing's under your skin, right? And you then wear a transmitter over top of it, transmitters got this nice, gentle silicone adhesive that you change daily, so very little chance of having skin irritations. That's a plus. So you put the transmitter on it talks to your phone app tells you your blood sugar, your your alert, show arms, etc. But if you want to be discreet, for some reason, you take the transmitter off just comes right off no, like, you know, not like peeling at or having to rub off it. He's just kind of pops right off the silicon stuff really cool. You'll say it. And now you're ready for your big day. Whatever that day is, it could be a prom, or a wedding or just the moment when you don't want something hanging on your arm. The ever sent CGM allows you to do that without wasting a sensor because you just take the transmitter off and then when you're ready to use it again, you pop it back on. Maybe you just want to take a shower without rocking a sensor with a bar soap. Just remove the transmitter and put it back on when you're ready. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox, you really should check it out. The contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. And it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link contour next one.com/juice box, you're gonna find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger and Meijer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour Next, test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance. And I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that. But what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable. And it is the meter that we've been using for years contour next one.com/juicebox. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show.

Kim 23:10
From May of 2021 until November, they it was supposed to be longer but they pulled me off because I lost too much weight so they had to pull me off to gain it back. I lost 40 pounds and I've gained five back after almost two years. So

Scott Benner 23:31
can I tell you something? I just learned something about myself. I don't think I enjoyed being fat. I don't that almost made me cry. Like oh wow.

Kim 23:40
I it was it did absolutely nothing for my blood sugar's but just that changed my entire life because now it gave me more energy. I exercise daily. I've been able to keep the weight off. I just feel better about myself. It's it's been wonderful.

Scott Benner 23:56
You a small person too. I saw you for a minute when we were starting. You told

Kim 24:00
me actually took a pic. We actually took a picture together a couple months ago. It's right. Okay. All right. So the type one thing but I'm only five foot one. So I'm pretty sure

Scott Benner 24:11
Kim I know how tall you are. But the people listening don't know. So I was trying to be sorry. Yes, I'm five foot one two years. Now they're like he knows the answers to some of the questions he's asking. Trying to get the information to you blowing your cover. Well, you lost 40 pounds. At five one. Are you willing to tell me what you weigh now and what you weighed then?

Kim 24:34
I was 170 I went down. Well, I went down to 129. And now I'm 135 Wow.

Scott Benner 24:40
That's I'm very happy for you. It's wonderful. I'm it's been great. I'm right at the 40 pound mark right now.

Kim 24:47
It just feels amazing, doesn't it? It's insane.

Scott Benner 24:51
How much better my life is? Yeah, yeah. I don't even know another way to really say it other than you'll have like gi side effects from it at some point. I mean, not everybody, maybe, but I did. I've had a couple of moments where I was like, I don't think this is what everybody would want. But who cares? Yeah, I mean, like, Are you kidding me? Like, I just have to live through this little side effect for six weeks. And then it passes. Like I had pretty I had heartburn for a while in the beginning. I had that feeling for a while that when you ate the food felt like it stopped in the middle of your chest. Did you ever have that one? Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. That's not what was happening. By the way. It was just a feel. So I was like, Well, this is uncomfortable, and I don't care. So you know, because I'm going to wake up tomorrow. I've had experiences on ozempic Kim, like, there was this one night, a couple of weeks ago, my wife went away for business. And she was gone for like two days. And I was like, all by myself. And you know, like, a lot of guys might get hookers or Coke or something. I got. I got sort of a that was. That was me going crazy. I was like, I'm gonna get some Mango Sorbet. feel like an idiot? Are

Kim 26:03
you able to eat it? Well, yeah, a whole serving of something well, so

Scott Benner 26:07
I could. And not only that, I just think the whole point of it. I hadn't had something like that. And so long, I sat down, I was watching something at the end of the night, and I just kept eating the sorbet. i It's good. I love it. And it's one of the only things I'm on we go V, but it's ozempic. Yep. And if people don't understand that, it's the same molecule rebranded for different insurance reasons. There are things I can eat without feeling too full. And like liquidity, like that the sorbet I can write that I can eat without feeling full. And so this is like and it still tastes sweet to me. And a lot of things don't taste overly sweet anymore. Anyway, I started eating it. And I just don't stop. I was like, I remember being fat and loving sorbet. And I ate the whole thing in one night. And I'm telling you this because I woke up the next day, I was a pound lighter than I was the day before.

Kim 26:57
Really nice. And I just thought you should eat more sorbet. Well,

Scott Benner 27:01
I considered lying to myself and saying that. But moreover, I just think that I was on my way to losing weight that day anyway, and right eating that didn't impede it. And it was just crazy. Because if I would have eaten that, prior to this medication, I 100% would have woken up like heavier or bloated or something the next day, right. But to your point, and I do want to hear about your experience as well. My body being smaller, is a significant psychological uptick for me, like I now find myself, I left the room the other day, I was with Arden. And I left the room and I had to go out and do some things. She was going to be by yourself for a few hours. And I was wearing I don't know, like a black pullover. And actually, it was a cozy Earth, buddy, you guys could save 40% cozier.com on your entire order. If you use the offer code juice box at checkout, I was wearing a black pullover, and some pants and I stood there and I thought this doesn't look like me. I was in front of a full length mirror which I don't find myself very frequently. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't recognize this as my body. And then I went out into public actually were I had another experience where you were I saw you I was walking around that that giant hotels so big, you know, I just kept seeing people and thinking, Oh, I look like everyone else now. Like that, that that feeling like I don't I'm not different. Like Like, I just I'm blending in in the crowd. It's not an enduring feeling. It hasn't bothered me. It's not something I even thought about in the past. But it was something I recognize that I just I physically look different, but the way I feel isn't saying I sleep better. I used to have I couldn't eat after a certain time at night because I'd have terrible heartburn overnight. I was taking stuff for heartburn. That's completely gone now. The heartburn that I even experienced in the beginning with the wheat govi I don't even know if I can blame the wheat over here but it was just my body like adjusting to like because it was already a like a dumpster fire as far as that goes. I mean I'm losing weight. I don't look like it's my my skin's shrinking. So I'm not like crazy flabby anywhere, anything like that. Energies much different mental energies, different physical energies different.

Kim 29:21
Know,

Scott Benner 29:22
if I grew a horn tomorrow, I would cut it off and just go Oh, well.

Kim 29:27
Yep, I totally agree. And there's there's still times at this point. Even though it's been a while for me. If I'm outside someplace and I walked by a store window and I catch a glimpse of myself. I'm like, Who is that? It's still it's still doesn't sink in that had happened. I'm

Scott Benner 29:44
doing a talk in Austin this weekend. We're doing this like nine or I think it's 9:30am or 10am till like 330 like and we're just gonna have this. There's 350 People got tickets and people were terrific from the pod caste. And it's a free event there'll be 350 people there, Jenny and I are just going to sit up on stage and talk like it's going to be very long form and conversational not like if anybody's ever been to these things. Usually someone stands up on a stage or lectern and kind of gives you a presentation. Like we're not doing that. It's going to be like this kind of very comfortable conversation anyway, when we're setting up what it was going to look like I said to the person running it, I'd like to sit in the chair and talk like like kind of fireside he like just put Jenny nine chairs next to each other. The person who, who's running the whole thing, Jen, a really lovely person named Jenna. I said, Yeah, I want to sit down. And I shared with Jenna later, that is not a thing I would have asked her for last year, I would not have been comfortable seated in front of people because the way my body would have folded. And I wouldn't have been comfortable, because my stomach would have like caused pressure. And it would have made it harder for me to talk if I was sitting down. And I was like, I'm like I'm gonna sit down. And I know that seems like a really small weird thing. But I'm excited that I'll be able to sit in front of people and I won't look at maths. And it won't impact me physically, either. So anyway,

Kim 31:12
it does a lot for you. It's just it's a great feeling. And it's funny because I knew I was overweight, but I always in my mind felt like, oh, I carry it. Okay, I'm okay. And when I look back on those pictures, I'm shocked now.

Scott Benner 31:28
It's funny because people at first though, like, you're so thin, and I'm not. I'm just thinner than they're used to seeing me. Like, like, I'm not like, you don't see my bones sticking out anywhere or anything like that. I actually heard Anthony Anderson was on the show. At one point. He's an actor who has like, type two diabetes. And I don't know, I don't know his situation. I don't know how he's losing weight, but he's lost weight over the years. Anyway, I saw a picture on social media the other day where his kind of shins and his ankles were exposed. And someone jumped into his comments and said, Yo, man, your ankles are really thin. And he said, Actually, they're not. That's the size. They've always been there just not surrounded by a bunch of fat and water anymore. Wow. And I thought he's right. Like, he's absolutely right. He doesn't look then. Like he just he looks. I think the way we're supposed to look.

Kim 32:19
Right? Yeah. No, I totally agree. It didn't touch your blood sugar though. No, it didn't do anything for my blood sugar. It's so crazy. Some people some people with type one do get results from it. I did not. Okay.

Scott Benner 32:33
I think that's valid. There's I don't want to give somebody's details way. But there's a girl whose mother I'm aware of, and maybe she's I don't even want to give her like she's like 1315 in that range right there. Right. And it worked for her for weight and for blood sugar to the point where there are days she's like, it feels like they're honeymooning again, that's great, and having to adjust insulin down. And I have to tell you that this last weekend, I was having a conversation with Arden's endocrinologist, and will Arden and I were both having a Congress I don't want to make it sound like I call Arden's doctors without art. We were we were having a conversation. And she said, You know, when you come home from college, I'm gonna look into putting you on ozempic. She's like, because we're seeing this is really me talking out of school. So everybody be real aware of that. But she said, I'm starting to see not just about like insulin, you know what they call it insulin resistance. But Arden uses a little more insulin than you might expect for her weight. Right. And for what she eats. On top of that they're seeing some impacts for hormone hormonal impacts for people on it as well. Oh, really? Yeah. So I'm gonna just do this right now with the Google machine. And I just Googled female hormone GLP one. And if you're interested, you should look into it. Like, does GLP one affect estrogen? And, you know, so they're just starting to see this stuff, you know, as people are using it longer. So she's like, you know, let's maybe we should give that a try for you. But I mean, if if Arden's insulin use went down, 20% even on this, I would think that was valuable for Absolutely, yeah. So that would be great. Because I'm going to assume then it's not not so much about the insulin, but about like spikes at meals and things like that. Maybe they'd be less or no less insulin at a meal time, which might, you know, lead to fewer lows and maybe more stability and stuff like that. Right. So I'm interested to see what all comes from this because they they were doing a they were doing studies on GLP one and kidney disease, and the initial data was so overwhelmingly positive. They canceled the study because they said we don't need to keep doing this. This just helps. That's insane. So

Kim 35:03
that's really interesting kidney

Scott Benner 35:05
benefits of GLP. One ra include reduction in mackerel, but a real wild, I don't know what that word is, which may be driven in part by reductions in blood pressure and a one C with age. So there's so basically what I think we're finding, because they're also saying that people on GLP ones are having fewer heart attacks. So I don't think this is like, hard to understand. But when your body's not carrying around all that extra weight, and all of the metabolic problems that come along with that. Turns out other systems work better too. So, and I don't look at our next person who needs to lose weight, by the way, I'm not saying that. But but but it's just very interesting. So

Kim 35:49
yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of benefits to it that I wasn't even aware of at the time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:53
right. And even stuff that but it worked for you like so what did it do for you mostly? How'd you lose the weight?

Kim 35:59
I couldn't eat anything. The one story that stands out in my mind as I went through the entire summer, and I was in bed by eight o'clock at night, or even before that, because I was exhausted. I was eating next to nothing. There was one day where I was feeling pretty good. And I was craving this sounds gross to me now. But I was craving a meatloaf sandwich with gravy and french fries. And I just wanted to go out for that. So my husband and I went out for dinner, I ordered that. I looked at it. I think I took one bite. That was it. I took it home with me. I got three dinners three lunches out of it and threw the rest of it out because there was still leftovers from it. And

Scott Benner 36:42
you wouldn't order it again. Right? It seems this taste, you know? Yep. Yep, I have that too. Yeah, there's just food I look at. And I'm like, I don't, I don't want to do that. Like that seems disgusting to me. Now. I tried a number of things along the years, like I've talked about on here, I completely eliminated oils from my life, except for I'll cook a little bit with like cold, like cold pressed olive oil. Only I make popcorn with coconut oil, but I don't really eat very much of it. It's for other people. So there's no like processed oil in the house. Right? I won't eat deep fried things anymore. And like you make that change to your life, you're like, well, this will help. And you know, it's a good change, right? And it is, but then it didn't do anything. Like I made that big elimination in my life. And it's not like I lost 20 pounds or something. I was like, come on, like I don't drink. I don't drink sugar. I don't like you don't I mean, like I do most of the things you're supposed to do. And the only thing that makes sense to me at this point is that my body has a GLP deficiency, maybe, maybe no different than people who have a thyroid deficiency, right? Like you need a thyroid stimulating hormone to help you along if you have hypothyroidism. I don't know that I just don't think I have enough GLP like or whatever that and I'm not a scientist, I don't know, I'm just telling you, I put this stuff in, I started losing weight immediately. And you're that's not even supposed to happen. Like they'll tell you like it could take a month for you to start losing weight, like you're not even on a therapeutic dose when you first start. They're just trying to get your body accustomed to it and bring your body along and stuff like that. I was a week into it. I lost four pounds. That's awesome. Yeah. And I just kept losing weight slowly along the way. I've been at it for like a long time now. Like I've been at like nine months now. But it teaches you a lot about like being patient and having like long term views of things. You know, like a pound a week used to seem to me like that's ridiculous. I have this much weight to lose. If I lose a pound a week, it's going to take me you know, 20 weeks to lose 20 pounds like that's, and then the next week you'd gain two pounds or you wouldn't lose, you're like, Oh, this is never gonna happen. But there's a consistency about this that made me hopeful.

Kim 38:53
If that makes when I was on the ozempic there was a point where I was losing a half a pound a day. The other thing though with me, I wasn't drinking any alcohol whatsoever. I know you're not a drinker. Not a heavy drinker, but I would go out I would have a couple of drinks. I couldn't even look at alcohol. It would make me sick to even think

Scott Benner 39:11
about it. Yeah, yeah, I don't I can't drink. I didn't drink much soda in my life. But I I don't. It's not good. Now, like drinking the carbonation was bad for me, but it so it's slowing down for people to understand it slows down your digestion. I'm gonna eventually have somebody on the show who's knowledgeable about the science behind it to talk about it but it slows down your digestion which decreases your insulin usage. And even for people who don't have diabetes, that's a big deal. You know that insulin comes in and you know it's storing stuff is fat and that's not happening anymore. So my digestion slower. I mean, you're not hungry because your stomachs full. But also, it tells your brain you're not hungry to I don't know another way to explain that other than I'm not hungry. In my head or physically in my stomach, so much so, and this is like, I'm not going to tell the story, but I had to go unexpectedly. Go visit art in a college. So, I lived my whole day, one day on a Friday, I got up at eight o'clock I did whatever I did, I eat whatever I don't remember anymore. At midnight, I was in bed thinking I was gonna go to sleep. And the next thing I know, I'm buying a plane ticket, and I'm driving to the airport at four o'clock in the morning. And at 7am After taking a short nap in the airport, and I must have looked homeless, I got up I got on a plane at seven, I went back to sleep on the plane. I woke up when the plane landed at 1030. I got into a car I drove to her Arden was I spent hours and hours and hours with her. And it was I think around two o'clock in the afternoon. On Saturday. I not I'd only slept three hours between 8am Friday morning and two o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday, I thought I was gonna pass out. I was at the end of like being able to just talk through this. But we didn't have access to food yet. And I said to Arden I was like I have to eat anything. And I just like we were in a gas station basically. And I bought like a bag of like candy like hard, like sugary candy. I thought maybe the sugar will like give me enough of a jolt that we can get to where we're going. And I can eat something for real. So I had a little bit of that candy there. And I drank some diet soda with caffeine and to try to like literally to try to keep me awake enough to get back to where I was going. And then we got back to where we were going. Had a very little bit of food. And then I went to sleep, slept all night long. Woke up at eight o'clock. Let Arden sleep two more hours, got together at noon on Sunday, and headed out and got a turkey sandwich. Right. So you're now hearing that I had a handful of candy between probably 8pm Friday or 6pm. Friday and 2pm on Sunday. I was even woozy at one point because I wasn't taking into nutrition. But you know what? I wasn't? You weren't hungry? Never hungry that entire time. Yeah,

Kim 42:12
it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Like,

Scott Benner 42:16
that's the only way I can explain it is to tell that story. I never once thought I I'm hungry, I should eat something. Or some people hear that and go that's dangerous. It's not dangerous. You just eat like, you know, it's not that you can't eat. It's just that you don't you're not prompted to eat. Right? It's really wonderful. Did you have what they call the food noise in your head prior to the ozempic? I'm not sure what that is. People describe it as they wake up in the morning. And they are immediately thinking about what they're gonna have for breakfast. And then as soon as breakfast is over, or even while they're making breakfast, they start thinking about lunch. They're always thinking about food. Did you have that?

Kim 42:54
Not really. I don't think from the point that you're saying it. I would sometimes get like that just because of my insulin schedule. I've always been well, I have to eat at this time because I have to do insulin, right. And that that part was a little odd being on the ozempic too, because I would forget to eat at times. And then I would be nervous because it's been hours since I've had any insulin but also been hours since I've had any food. And that was also a big adjustment.

Scott Benner 43:24
Yeah. How long did it take you to figure out how to basically you're fasting for longer gaps of time. I'm assuming you had to adjust your insulin for that. And you were losing weight too.

Kim 43:33
Yes. Yep. So I definitely I shouldn't say that it didn't help my blood sugar's because it probably did lower my insulin intake, which is beneficial, like you said, but I just didn't feel like my agency really dropped it all from it.

Scott Benner 43:48
But now but when once you got on the you were in a you're in a study, your a one C came down the way it did during the study, but why do you think it

Kim 43:59
came down? No, my a one sees coming down in the second study that I'm on. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 44:03
that's what I mean not to do that not to do with those epic. Why do you think it's coming down now?

Kim 44:07
Honestly, I think a lot of it has to just do with the fact that I'm being monitored so closely. There's a lot more accountability for me with this. And the insulin is different. I was on Joseba in the past, and my my insulin stuck or my I'm sorry, my insurance company stopped covering it. And they switched me to basic lar. And I just never felt that I got the same results from it. So I don't know if it's because I'm back on the SIBO or if it's I account a lot of it to the the accountability and the close monitoring in the beginning of the study I was seeing every week and it just made a very big difference for me by

Scott Benner 44:51
close monitoring Do you are you saying I know people are looking so I do a better job on purpose.

Kim 44:57
Probably partly because of that and also Because of from the beginning, seeing my a one C drop and actually, like just really enjoying that, and being very proud of that, and I wanted to make it go lower and lower and lower. So I was trying harder on my own too.

Scott Benner 45:12
I think that's a big part of it. Honestly, it's just the motivation, the motivation to actually Pre-Bolus Your meals and when you get hired to like, oh, no, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna stop it. You know, like, that kind of stuff is small and look at what a big difference is like in the sevens like I think you'd agree Kim like a mid sevens a one sees not. You weren't thrilled with that, I would imagine. No, right? Absolutely not. Yeah. And but it was just the way life went. And this is how it felt. Yeah,

Kim 45:39
yeah. Yeah. But the six the six, four, I'm quite happy with oh, I

Scott Benner 45:44
would imagine. Yeah, of course. And congratulations. I know. You're very welcome. I think that a lot of people report that they use the podcast in the same way. As like, the they use it to remind themselves to do the things they need to do. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's, I think that, that in general is very valuable, like something to be not like you're being graded. And not like somebody's coming along to check on you. But just a quiet moment in your mind where, you know, like, I got to do this thing. I'm gonna do it. And, you know, I don't know how to talk about that. Exactly. It's a responsibility to something but not something that holds you hostage and makes you feel like you failed if you don't do it. Does that make sense? For

Kim 46:29
me, it's nice. What I something I get out of the group is just having more people around me going through the same thing and hearing what they're doing that's making a difference. I don't really know any diabetics, not a couple of type twos. I don't think at this point. I know any type ones. And I don't have anybody to say, oh, yeah, that happened to me. This is what I did. Or that happened to me. What did you do? So it's nice to have the podcast and listening to it and hearing what people do in different situations? Oh,

Scott Benner 47:02
yeah, I just I believe that it's, it's one of the unintended benefits of the show. Like I didn't, I didn't reach out, I didn't start it thinking, Oh, well, people will be able to hear other people. And that'll make them feel like, oh, I can do this too. And like, I didn't know any of that was gonna happen. That's just stuff that got reported back to me by listeners. And that makes sense. Now, as I look back, but I just didn't, I didn't do it on purpose, you know, so? Well, it's worked. Yeah, yes. I'll tell you there are very few times when you think, like, I don't, I don't know how other people's minds work. I'm competitive. And I, and I'm very, like, I'm a hard working competitive person, like, so if I make one, I want to make two, if I make two, I want to make four. Like I keep going like that. And so because of that, there are often times you don't feel accomplished, because you make 1000, you want 2000, you know, then suddenly, you're in the situation where I'm at now where like, there's like a half a million downloads a month. And I'm like, I wonder if we could get to a million, but an odd thought to have, instead of just going a half a million, that's a lot. Every once in a while, I have a moment where I'm like, oh, yeah, I can see this as going well. And I have to say, I spoke earlier about speaking in Austin this weekend, that JDRF and Austin came to me. And they were like, we do these things, like these kind of like little office meetings that you know, the local chapter, and somebody comes in and speaks. And she's like, sometimes we get 3040 People come to listen to the speaker, would you like to come down and give like one of these little talks? And I was like, Hey, I would love to do that. And so we're chatting a little bit. And I said, so just the people and you just tell the people in your chapter, she goes, Well, you could tell the people on your Facebook group and I went, Oh, if you do that, we're not going to fit in that room you're talking about? At first I think she was sort of like, okay, buddy. I'm sure you and your ego think that you know, and so I said, No, I'm like you're gonna have I think if I'll do that, I said, but if you tell me to make it public, you're going to need to be ready with a bigger space. And she goes, how big I said, I'm gonna guess 500 people, and she goes, are type one nation events don't get that many. And I was like, Have you ever had me at one of your type one nation events? And she goes, No. And I said, Well, then I'm gonna tell you 500 So she comes back like a week later and says, I found a space I can get it holds 350 people and that's gonna disappoint some people. I'm like, but that's okay. And she's like, Okay, well, I'm gonna get the ticketing set up and she sets it all up and everything. And she's like, you can make the link public now. And I said, Okay, I said, it's going to be full in about a day. And there I think she almost laughed at me. And I gave she gave me the link up with the link online. And about 36 hours later, the 350 seats were taken. Oh, that's great. How she felt aside by it is one thing, but it was a moment for me where I actually went, Oh, I'm doing a good job. Like making this podcast like, instead of just, I didn't hear 350 and think, Well, we probably could have got 700 I'm not lying. I did think we could get But, but I didn't like it didn't burden me. I felt good about it.

Kim 50:04
Well, and it also wasn't your fault. The biggest room she could get was 350. So,

Scott Benner 50:08
Kim, I like the way you're thinking. Yeah, right. Yeah, I could have filled that space. You could have pushed that higher. Absolutely. But but it's just it's one of those. It's just a very nice moment where I actually felt accomplished. And not like, okay, there's a number like, keep going. It was it was nice for me, because I don't get that very frequently. Because the way I'm wired, the way you know, the way I'm usually wired is just usually, that's good more. And you

Kim 50:34
think is that you're not feeling accomplished? Or do you just think it's, you know, you can do more, and you want to keep doing more? Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, yeah, I mean, that is a positive.

Scott Benner 50:45
I don't think of it as a negative, I'm just telling you, like, I'm the, like, I'm well suited for a thing that needs to be in growth mode constantly. Because it I don't find it pressuring. I like it. So the podcast is social media. The Facebook group is, is social media, it's those are things that normally don't ever work. Like, I don't talk about this very frequently. But I think there's something like 4 million parked podcasts, meaning like 404 million people have registered a podcast name, only, like, I don't know what it is exactly, like only like 800. And some 1000 of them are even active and active can mean as few as one episode a month of those active podcasts, 86% of them 86% of these 800 and some 1000 podcasts, only get 130 some downloads per episode. So there's really only 14% of podcasts that are doing better than 136 downloads, like historically, for an episode, like they make an episode of content pull up in 130 people here. And that is not the case for this podcast, I actually fall in the 96th percentile, right around there. That means that 4% of the active podcast do better than me. And that and that's it. And I'm in a niche. So like, I'm not just in a niche, I'm in a niche of a niche. I'm not even really diabetes, I'm type one like you don't I mean, like it's a Nishi thing, right? And I look at that, and I think I could probably get in the 97th percentile. Weird thought, there's nothing wrong with that. And but it stems from this, like you're getting the benefit of my aggressive nature, in that. That's not my motivation. My motivation is I hear people help by the podcast. And I see the numbers. And I think, Well, that's nice, but there are far more people who have type one diabetes, we're not, we're not finding those people. And that to me, like if you could get to a million, like, by the way, a million downloads a month doesn't mean a million people listened. It could mean you know, it could mean that a few a lesser number of people listen to 10 episodes a month, or something like that. And so like, you just want to find those people. Like you know, there's there's part of me that if I didn't have the podcast, I might take the Pro Tip series on on thumb drives and walk around the country like Johnny Appleseed, throwing them at people with insulin. Because I think that would actually be helpful. I just don't know how to reach them. Like, like that. Because there's plenty of people you see it in the in their Facebook group all the time. Somebody will say, Oh, my God, like look at my variability, or my agency is down from this to this. And I've been in this group for a year. And I don't know why I didn't listen to the podcast. And I listened to this series like that. So somebody just told me the other day, I listen to bold beginnings and the defining diabetes stuff. My agency came down three points. And I was like, Yeah, cool. That's good. I know. You should all go

Kim 53:47
well, there's people. There's people in the Facebook group that don't listen to the

Scott Benner 53:50
podcast. Oh, Kim, over overwhelmingly.

Kim 53:54
I always thought they kind of went hand in hand. And I actually found the Facebook group because I was listening to the podcast, but I'm just I'm surprised by that.

Scott Benner 54:02
I would trust me. I used to be surprised by it too. And the word surprise, you could also use the word really irritated. But

Kim 54:10
I guess maybe some people don't have the time for it. But I'm

Scott Benner 54:15
beyond understanding it. But I can tell you this. There are 42,000 people in the podcast in the podcast Facebook group, and an overwhelming majority of them are actually active participants in the Facebook group, which is also not common. A lot of those Facebook groups have like big numbers. But when you go look at their the number of like, comments, new posts that they get, they'll they'll get like 10 new posts a week or something. Like you'll see a group that's like we have 80,000 members and you look in the group has 10 posts this week. My group does 85 to 125 posts a day. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And so those people are actually all active, if every one of those 42,000 people right now went and subscribed to the podcast. and downloaded just the Pro Tip series. I'd be the biggest podcaster in the world. Like no kidding. That's how many people are in the Facebook group not listening to the podcast. And by the way that it's not, not in the world, like, you know, I don't know, Joe Rogan's got millions and millions of people. Like, I don't mean that I just mean that like by downloads, I would catapult into the 99th percentile. Oh, we

Kim 55:24
have to work on that. Scott, we have to push that him.

Scott Benner 55:26
I've done everything I can think to do. And I've seen your recent posts, yes, what I've learned is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink water. So I don't know which one of those pronunciations was closer to being correct. You can't make people even in the face of their own good health, you can't make them do something they don't want to do.

Kim 55:51
Well, it's funny as I say that, because I've been listening, probably for about a year and a half now. And I have yet to listen to any of the educational podcasts, any of the educational ones, the bold beginnings or anything? I liked the interviews. Yeah, actually. So and that's where I go podcast

Scott Benner 56:09
people like the interviews, more of the Facebook, people like the management stuff better. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. And it's not, it's not dollar for dollar. But I think that if you find yourself on Facebook, you're looking for help. You're like, Oh, my God, my kid or me, or somebody's got diabetes. And this is not going well. Let me see if I can go find some people who know, they get into the group, they start hearing things that are helpful, and they fine tune something, it gets a little better. If you were freaked out, because you're 40 years old, you've had diabetes for 20 years, you're a onesies, like nine, you've never been able to do anything about it. You go to the Facebook group, you hear a couple things, you put them into action, all of a sudden, your a one C seven, you'd be surprised how many people are just like, Oh, good, well, good enough. Really. Yeah, they don't have the bandwidth maybe or the time or whatever to like, let me dig dig in more. And I also think a lot of people don't even believe it's possible to have a low six or high five a one say that could be Yeah, so they get some benefit. And they're like, good enough. That's it, I did it. And I'm telling you, I think you take the bold, bold beginnings, or, you know, in the when your very first diagnosed and listen to it, or you go to the Pro Tip series, and just listen to those 26 episodes, I would be surprised if you're a one sees not in the low sixes after listening to 26 episodes of the prototype series. That's it, like I just think it would be, or you at least have an incredible opportunity for it to be probably 20 hours worth of listening. And it's funny because I have like I have people who helped me with the Facebook group. Like if you if you got Isabel on here, which by the way, she's never coming on here. But if she does not because I won't let her on. She doesn't want to do it. But if I let her on here, let her on here. If she let herself come on here, she'd start complaining, Why won't people take better care of themselves, all you have to do is listen to this, like that kind of thing. And I know her feeling. And I used to have it too. But now I just know I keep serving the content, and we grab the ones we can grab. And those people are helped. And the rest of them are not my responsibility and I can't make them do better for themselves. That's

Kim 58:18
great, too. So like you said, you can only do so much. It's

Scott Benner 58:23
human nature, like it's fine. Like I'm not coming down on them even to be I'm genuinely about that. I'm not saying they're doing something wrong. I'm just saying this is just it's humanity. It's the way it works. So I mean, look at look at me even I was overweight, right? And I did the same thing you did. I used to say I carry it well, or people can't tell. And that was actually true. I don't know if you've ever heard me say this, Kim. But when I went to the doctor finally so what happens to Arden went away to college. And I said to Kelly, if we have to take care of ourselves, like we did it, the kids are their adults, like we're gonna die. Like we need to do something. We've been killing ourselves to feed them and pay them and pay for them. Like we got to do something for ourselves. So I went to Arden's endocrinologist, to Addy, who you've heard people have heard in the finding thyroid series, and if you haven't, you're really missing something. But I went to her and I said, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm like, but I don't eat a lot. I don't lose weight. You know, I got problems with my iron, like a messed up, I'm gonna die. Like, you know, like, I got I need to do something. So we're talking and she says, What do you mean you have to lose weight. I said, I just I'm, I think I have to lose a lot of weight. And she's like, That's ridiculous. And I stood up because I was about to get on the scale. And I said, Look, I'm gonna get on the scale anyway. Guess my weight can hurt my feelings. We're all going to know in a second I'm going to jump up on the scale, right? So it's fine. Just really look at me assess me and guess my weight and she goes, I don't know. 175 pounds maybe like if she was having trouble getting herself to 70 Five. And I told her, I weighed myself this morning. I'm slightly over 236. And she goes, Oh, and she's got this lovely accent she goes, we get you the Wiko v. And I was like, Can I go? Yeah. And she goes, Yeah, I think so. And I'm like, Alright, so now I've lost 40 pounds. I think this morning, I was like, 194 or something. I'm gonna tell you, I now can I can now be not that I wasn't being honest before. But now I understand it better. And I understand. Not only do I not need a bunch of food, but I wouldn't want a bunch of food, that I'm still eating plenty of nutrition. And I'm eating a fraction of what I was eating before. But I can still look at myself and objectively tell you I need to lose 15 or 20 more pounds still, like my body should probably be around 180 pounds, 175 180 pounds. And I was at 236. Thinking I needed to drop 20 pounds. That gets it's crazy up weight in places I don't even think I knew existed. To be perfectly honest. So

Kim 1:01:04
what is the plan then being on the go V? When you reach your goal? Do you go off of it? Do you lower your dosage? Do you know how that works? Yeah, so

Scott Benner 1:01:13
because of insurance, they only we go V goes up to 2.4. And then you can't go back again. Like you can't have your doctor say okay, they've lost all the weight like give them let's get give him the one unit again or something like that, or the one milligram isn't milligram. I think it's more grip. So what she told me was, we'll start experimenting with shooting it further and further apart. Okay, so right now you do it every week. But she's like, maybe we'll do it every 10 days and see how it works or a little farther. Or maybe I won't need it anymore. I mean, you don't need it anymore, right?

Kim 1:01:48
Usually, they say that once you go off of it, people start to gain the weight back.

Scott Benner 1:01:52
Well, I'm going to tell you, if I have a GLP problem, then I'm going to have a problem going off of it. So I'm going to I'm going to I'm just looking I'll stay on it forever if I have to. I don't care, like but I don't want to continue to lose weight. But also I don't know that that would happen. Like isn't my body going to reach a stasis point? I would think so. Yeah, I'm not losing weight, by the way, because I'm not eating enough. I'm losing weight because I'm eating the correct amount. And I'm fat. That's why I'm losing weight.

Kim 1:02:23
You see what I'm saying? I understand trust me.

Scott Benner 1:02:28
Gives like, Yeah, I hear Yeah, I'm fine. I was five 170. Something else? Yeah, I'm not gonna turn into a skeleton. So I'm gonna get down to the part where there's not excess fat on my body. And I just think I think it's possible that all these generations and decades of us looking heavy around each other makes us feel like that, for some reason that like, a fit body is thin for some reason. And I don't know that that's the case. So and I'd like to put my salon and I'm going to try on my own. But I can tell you, if I can't accomplish it on my own. I'm going right back to that doctor, and I'm gonna go like, hey, what other intervention can I get here to make me stay alive? I'm not against staying alive. And I you know, it's funny, you hear people say, I can't believe you use that to lose weight. You cheated, right? Or, like, you know, I'm in my 50s. I'm gonna go back and say, Look, we'll testosterone helped me put muscle on and make me I don't want to be big, but like, healthier, you know, stronger, go support my joints, that kind of stuff. People would be like, Oh, you're cheating? Don't you love that? I'm cheating. But the whole world's drunk and high? And they don't think anything of it.

Kim 1:03:40
Absolutely. Have you noticed a big increase in your energy, though? I mean, are you able to exercise more where you weren't

Scott Benner 1:03:46
before or had an injury that slowed me down, and it's still not gonna be talking about, I'm not quite back yet. So I'm doing a little bit at a time getting into it. I mean, the problem I'm having right now is that I'm not a person who's exercised. So, you know, I'm in the situation that everyone who has an exercise is and I have to start slowly build up to get to something. I haven't been out of breath in a very long time. I can tell you that much.

Kim 1:04:10
That's how I was though, too. I would prefer to sit on the couch and watch TV then do any kind of exercise. And once I started taking the weight off, I started just simple walking. And now I walk between 12 and 16,000 steps a day. And I think that's a big part of why I didn't put the weight back on for sure.

Scott Benner 1:04:28
Yeah, you've you've changed your, your lifestyle. Yeah, that's fantastic. And you're not eating. And there is something. I don't know how to put it exactly. But it takes you out of your mind. Like all the things that you can think of like, wow, I might take ice cream and put like caramel syrup on top of it. Like that's the thing that from my youth, I would have loved right. And now if you put that in front of me, I would probably take a spoonful of it and I'd be like, Oh, that was good. But then I wouldn't care for the rest of it. It would feel like just excessive too. mean to eat it, or when you see greasy things with like a lot of sauce on it or something like that I go, Oh, I would not only that, that that's not good for me. Like, you know, i When my wife went away on business, I went to the store, I got a turkey breast, chicken wings, and shrimp. And I thought, Oh, this will feed me for like a week. And I smoked the turkey breast and I smoked the chicken wings. And when I wanted something kind of zesty, I had the chicken wings. And when I wanted to eat and be you know, just get my nutrition in, I would take the turkey breasts up, like slice it up, I was putting it in with like scrambled egg and eating in a wrap or something like that. I eat coconut milk, yogurt in the morning, I drink my ag one, like that kind of stuff, rice. But the other night I came home, and I was I was I was hungry. When I got home I'd been traveling, like I said unexpectedly and I was back. And there was just not my stuff wasn't in the house. And my wife had bought like some Trader Joe's chicken nuggets that looked very like healthy. And I warmed four or five of them up. And there were like these potato chips in the house. And I thought oh, I'll have a couple of potato chips with these nuggets. And I ate the nuggets and about the third potato chip. And I was like us it's so greasy and disgusting. These these potato chips. And I put them back in the bag like I was I was turned off by them. And I think that whatever is in all this processed food that rewires our brains or our guts or tells us you know that we're hungry, or we need sugar or whatever. I think it's once that's gone, you look at stuff and go oh, like what is that greasy, like mayonnaise on that? Like a like, why would I can't eat that? You know, I mean, or like these chips tastes like grease, but I know they would have been good chips to me a year ago. Yeah,

Kim 1:06:49
definitely changed your mindset on it and kind of come to your senses about it. But

Scott Benner 1:06:55
that's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah. You know, it feels like you're you were being tricked forever. And now you're like, oh, you can't trick me. There's no reason for me to eat this. Like, I was like, yeah, if you took me to Burger King right now and bought me a cheeseburger, I'd be like, I, I Please don't make me that. Like, I couldn't do that I even a good cheeseburger. I've had that experience that you talked about earlier. Like, by good I mean, like, you know, like grass fed beef and like no fillers in it. And you know, like on a, like a brioche bun, I could eat maybe a quarter of one of those. And then I'd be like, that's enough. Like, I'm good. You know? So yeah, it's, it's fantastic. I honestly came, I had a conversation with a doctor, not a doctor, anybody would know, is a person I met who's also a doctor. And I told them, I can see a world where GLP medications, fundamentally shift obesity and overeating. In maybe a generation? I 100%. Agree. Yeah, it may be one generation, it could actually stop the whole problem. So I'm assuming that means that like agri companies right now are trying to pressure the insurance somebody's to not cover it so that we all keep eating the way we eat or so I imagine that's all happening in the background. And I'm not a person who's like, take medication. Like if you can't do it, take medicine. I tried my goddamn hardest my whole life. It just didn't work. And I think that people who don't understand it think like you're you're putting some poison in your body that's melting you away. And they're stuck on things they heard originally, like ozempic face for example. I've

Kim 1:08:35
heard that and I don't I don't even know what that is. I've never seen a case of it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:40
let me tell you what it is a bunch of people blew their bodies up big and fat. And then they deflated them. And people went, Oh, you look old and kind of scraggly now. Well, yeah. Because there's extra skin on your face.

Kim 1:08:49
So that's all they mean by the ozempic face is just the extra skin. Yes. But once

Scott Benner 1:08:52
someone says that, like the first person who goes, Oh, I have ozempic face, which means I lost a bunch of weight. And my face looks like this now because I lost a bunch of weight. Then that gets out into the zeitgeist. And people are like, Oh, ozempic must make your face look weird. Which it doesn't. It's just you're puffy and bloated. And now you're not anymore. There's extra skin and a lot of people eventually, like it tightens up for them. I've been lucky. My face has changed and I don't have I don't have hanging or loose skin and my cheeks around my eyes or anything like that. You know, speaking in my face, you want to talk about how your brain tricks you. As I was starting to really lose weight, like the first 15 pounds, I thought oh, my face looks a little different. And I actually thought I looked terrific. I did something that I'll just admit to you now that I've never said I've always wanted to do more video content for the podcasts like social media and stuff but I didn't like the way I look so I didn't do it. And I lost this 15 pounds. I was like I look so much better. I'm gonna I made a video. Well, thank God I did because I still have it because a month later I made another one and I was like Oh, I did not look okay. A month ago when I was down 15 pounds down 20 pounds. I look better dancer Only five I look better down 30 I look better at 40 I look completely different. And then the strangest thing happened the other day, I got out of the shower, turn to the mirror. And I thought my face looked fat, really? And I thought, oh my god, is this how quickly your brain receives things? Do you know what I mean? Because I My face is is not perfect, and there is weight to lose it under my jaw, a little bit in my cheeks. That's still there, right? But I look so much different in my face at 40 pounds than I did before I started or even if 15 pounds down. I look great now like I'd be happy if I look like this forever. But I'm not wrong. There's still weight in my jaw, and my gel like good Godhra my neck. What I'm saying is it was fascinating how quickly my brain told me you're not there yet. And it was a different message than before, when I would look and say, Oh, I can't make a video because I look fat. Like I don't think I look fat. I just now know, this is not exactly what my face is supposed to look like if my body was at the correct weight. I don't know if that difference is obvious to everybody. But it's after going through this. It's very obvious to me the difference? Well,

Kim 1:11:21
you posted the pictures on the Facebook page. And I don't know if I had ever seen pictures of you before. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:28
well, a lot of people don't take pictures of themselves and they look fat. So I don't do that either. If you want to talk about being upset, here's something to be upset about. I now realize I have consciously self consciously kept myself out of photos with my kids my whole life. Me too. Yeah, because I didn't want them to think I was

Kim 1:11:47
the one taking them. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:49
I also felt like if I think I felt like when I'm gone, I'd rather than remember me the way they thought of me then actually be able to pull up a picture and go my dad was a fat guy didn't know that. Because I've had conversations with them. They don't know. They don't think of me that way. It's kind of fascinating. So after I lost that first 15 pounds, I was pretty excited. And I saw my son for the first time because he wasn't living at home we went visited him. And I think for the first half an hour I just stood in the room like posing like Madonna thinking he was gonna look up at me. He's gonna look up at me and go like, I think this guy's voguing. Why is he doing that? Let me look. Oh, it's because he's so thin. And he wants me to know. And he's trying to get me to say something. But after a while, I just thought he doesn't see any difference to me. So I asked him, Do you see that? I've lost weight. And he looked at me and he goes, No. And I said, I've lost 15 pounds. I said, like I went down a t shirt size. And he goes, Yeah, I don't think of you as a fat person. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Isn't that interesting?

Kim 1:12:51
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's cool that he didn't even notice it. Yeah, he's

Scott Benner 1:12:57
like, I don't think of you that way. And I was like, Okay, I can't wait for him to see me again, because I'm going to see him in a couple of months. And I mean, at that point, I'm probably going to be down 45 I'm gonna guess about 45 pounds. And I look significantly different now. And I don't think he's going to notice it. He just doesn't he doesn't care about that. Does Arden say anything? We had the same conversation. She's like, Yeah, I don't think she's like, I'm looking at you. I see you've lost weight. She goes, but I don't see. It doesn't feel like an improvement to me. It doesn't change how I thought about you now. Or then. Like, it's just, I think we're just the kids just think of us is like, our thoughts and our emotions and stuff like that. Right? Yeah. So and by the way, it's the same thing, like anybody who's grown older with like, with a person, like I said to somebody the other day, I was with my wife and someone else. And they were talking about getting older and everything. And I and I wasn't trying to score points or anything like that. I said exactly what I what I meant. Like I said, when I look at Kelly, I think of this 20 year old girl that I went away on vacation with. Like, I'm like, That's how she looks to me. Like, that's how I think of her in my mind. Like, you know, like she's like, she's a collection of my experiences with her when I'm not with her and I think of her. But if you asked me to picture her, I almost always picture her the way she I remember her on this vacation. We went on when we were dating. I don't see her as like, older or heavier or grayer or anything like that. She's just her, then. So I think that's how my kids must think of me.

Kim 1:14:33
Yeah, I feel that same way about my husband too. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. They just kind of the years just go by and you don't think anything of it? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:42
though. It's just you're just a collection of memories at that point, not necessarily a thing. And I think that's why like, the other day, I was leaving Arden and I was saying goodbye to her roommates. And I was joking. I went into the one girl's room and I was like, Hey, I think I'm supposed to call that girl Heather. I'm like, Hey, Heather. It's not really and And I said, I'm leaving now I'm sorry that we I'm glad we got to see each other. I'm sorry, it was under like kind of the circumstances. And what I'm most sorry about is that we didn't have time for you to really absorb how thin I am. And she's like laughing and I was laughing. And he goes, What's wrong with you? And I'm like, I have no idea. And so we went over to the, we went over to the next person to say goodbye. And I'm like, I can't remember what I'm supposed to call this girl. So I'm like, Hey, I'm like, you know, and Arden looks at me, she's like, he's gonna do the same bit for her, he just did for the other one. So I get to the point where I'm gonna say, I'm so sorry, you didn't get to, like, really absorb how thin I am. And that's enough. Just let's go.

Kim 1:15:39
We're done here, your friend.

Scott Benner 1:15:41
Just let him finish. And she goes, I already know what he's gonna say. And I'm just doing that to make Arden laugh. So, you know, anyway,

Kim 1:15:50
it's great. It's

Scott Benner 1:15:51
completely life changing. And, you know, it's amazing. So, it really is, yeah, I'm very hopeful that it'll, it'll be that insurance will allow us to find a way to help type ones with it. I, I think we're going to, and I don't think it's gonna work for everybody. I think it's gonna be just like everyone else. Like, some people might not have a good time that I've talked to people were like, look, I got so sick on it. I had horrible diarrhea or like, my stomach hurt, I had to stop now. I wasn't with those people. I don't know how they tried to eat while they were on it. I don't know, if maybe they thought this was a magic weight loss drug and you inject it, you just keep eating and you lose weight. That's not the case. You can eat through it. Like it's, it's you can willfully just keep eating, and you will feel bloated, and stuffed and probably vomit and you know, like, have terrible like gi problems. So I don't know if people just there are some people who are just like, keep eating the same crappy way they always ate and thought they were gonna magically lose weight, or if it really is just something that some people can't tolerate. And I think times gonna figure that out for us.

Kim 1:16:59
I had a lot of issues from it, I actually reached a point where I called the nurse that was in charge of the study and begged her to take me off of it. How come I just the constant fullness, and like I said, I wasn't eating much at all. And I don't know, it felt like it was at the time, it felt like it was ruining my life. Like I said, I just, I was asleep. All summer long. I was asleep at seven, eight o'clock at night. I just didn't want to do anything. I couldn't eat anything. I didn't want to go out because I'd go out to dinner with a group of friends. And they'd order and eat and I just didn't look at my food. And just the just the way my stomach felt. And do you ever get the sulfur taste in your mouth?

Scott Benner 1:17:43
Oh, no, I don't. But I've heard people talk about it. Yeah, it was

Kim 1:17:47
really bad too. And the indigestion? It got bad for a while. Yeah. And I was lucky. I never I never vomited. But I felt like I was going to quit a bit. I

Scott Benner 1:17:58
felt like I've swallowed my food. And there's a rock in my sternum like it stopped. And it hadn't. I mean, obviously, it's passing through and everything's fine. But I also tried to do other things, I magnesium oxide to make sure I kept going to the bathroom so that the process would keep happening, like so the food could keep passing through, there was a time where I got constipated. So I added fiber. And that was scary. Because I thought what if the fiber goes in, it doesn't come out. So like, I took like a little bit of fiber to try to like, get through that bad week. But what I'm saying is I saw we were going in the right direction. And there were speed bumps, but I was like, I'm gonna find a way around each and every one of these speed bumps because I'm not going to stop. And there were times I had to take Tums because of the heartburn. And, you know, I take your point about going out to to eat and being like, everybody's buying food, you're like, Yeah, I'll take a bite of that. And but my wife and I kind of turned into a game like I would order like one thing and she'd order one thing that we kind of pick from it, we'd like we're done. And then like see, take it home, you could live off it for like two days after that. Right? I don't know what I would have done. If too early on, I would have had those problems. I might have bailed too. You know what I mean? And it's not going to be for everybody. Like I'm not saying everyone's going to have my experience with it. I don't think that's true. But I just think that the experience that I've had I've lived through it long enough now that I'm out the other side and I just see food differently than I did before I started Are you on the highest dose now? Yeah, I've been on the highest so for a while when I called her and asked

Kim 1:19:31
her to take me off of it she with ozempic You either gonna start on the point to five and then the point five and then the one and at the point where I was when I asked to be taken off of it I was at the one and she was able to move me back down to the point five and then I was okay, okay, yeah, just being on the highest dose was just too much for me.

Scott Benner 1:19:51
I kept pushing I was like this parks on pleasant. I'm gonna go I want to see what it means to get to the end of this. And but there were days there days where it's like eat didn't eat much at all. You know, we're like, there were days I'd make like a bowl of chicken soup, chicken soup. Just an eight ounce can of soup. And like halfway into it. I was like, oh, that's enough. Yeah, that's

Kim 1:20:12
exactly how I was. And did you notice it a lot than when you got to that highest dose? Did it make a big difference in all of that your side effects or anything or not so much.

Scott Benner 1:20:21
What I noticed was that it was hard to get through. And then once I got through, and I've been on the highest dose for a while I'm okay now. Well, that's good. Yeah, like my body adjusted to it eventually. That's great. Yeah. So I mean, honestly, I could talk about it forever. I got the other day, I was somewhere. And though the woman said to me, you were just in here buying shirts. And I was like, yeah, she goes, Why are you back? So soon, I said, I went down another size. So I went from a to x t shirt, to a large, that's great. So I was back buying shirts, and I said, Oh, I have recently lost a lot of weight. And I was here, I bought a couple of shirts. I've by the way, this is my plan. I've done it with underwear and shirts, I buy enough to keep me going knowing they're gonna get thrown away, because I'm gonna keep losing weight. And I'm going to need more. And so I was back and that the woman asked me, How do you lose weight that fast? And I was telling her and she's just like, what's this now, and then this girl, this girl, like I'm explaining it to her. And then this girl comes around who works there. This girl was young, 1820 21 years old. Tall, she probably she's probably six feet tall. But she had to have weighed well over 300 pounds. And so she's like, I've been losing weight this year to she's on a medication for migraines, that the side effect of it is weight loss. I don't know anything more about than what she said, right? But she's like, I've already lost 60 pounds this year. And she's like, but tell me more about this. And as I was telling her about it, you could just see on her face. Like, I hope you don't I mean, like she was like, maybe that would work for me. And I was like you should try. I'm like, I don't know if you'll have the same experience I did. But I don't know that there's harm in trying. And she's like writing it down. She's like, I'm gonna go talk to my parents, I'm still on their insurance, they have good insurance, I think I'll be able to get this. And I was like, Okay, I was, you know, good luck. But, you know, I don't know, like, Listen, if you're 300 pounds, you're six feet tall, and you're comfortable with yourself. I'm not telling you, you need to lose weight. I'm certainly not saying that. This is just my experience. But you know, I'm standing in front of a stranger who's in that exact situation. And she just very, I think you were in that situation of sick, I'm never going to see you again. And she's like, I need to do something. And I was like, okay, she's like, I think my whole life's gonna get ruined if I don't figure something out. I was like, Well, you know, good luck. And I don't know if I'll ever be back there again. I mean, I don't imagine I'm going below a large to be perfectly honest. If I ended up in a meeting over No, no, I my body structure. There is a way I held all that weight and people didn't exactly know, I have a I'm pretty broad at my shoulders through my chest and everything. I don't see how I could get. Yeah, there's no more to go like this shirts hanging on my, you know, on my body now not on not on. It's not being puffed out by insulation. Anyway, Kim, I don't know what the hell happened in this episode. Do you have diabetes? Gonna be talking about that? What's it? Do you have diabetes that we talked about? I think I do. So you like the conversational stuff, right? Yeah, you're not bothered when you get to the end of it. And I'm like, I just talked about GLP. And nobody's mentioned diabetes for more than five minutes. That's okay for you. Right? I

Kim 1:23:37
like it. i Yeah, like to the personalities of it. And I enjoy it. You go for a walk with me every day. So that's lovely to be entertained. It

Scott Benner 1:23:46
was nice to be to come and see me when I was in Orlando. I appreciate that very much.

Kim 1:23:49
It was great to meet you. Yeah. No, it was it was a wonderful time. Oh, don't

Scott Benner 1:23:53
they do a nice job? Oh, it was wonderful. Let me just say this touched by type one.org. You should go check that out, too. It was great. I'm supporting advertisers. While I'm talking. They were the they were the very first people whoever let me speak at an event. Oh, really? Yes. And up until then, no one came to me because I didn't have diabetes. And if they talked to me about something, they were like, you just talked about being the parent and how hard that is? And I'm like, no thanks. But somebody there was listening to the podcast and had some real life benefits from it for their child. And so during a meeting, that person said to them, like, you know, I think we should have this guy talk about diabetes. And I came down I did their first event. I've been at every one of their events, and they do a lovely job. It gets bigger and better every year. And just a wonderful group and, and I very much like being a part of it. Yeah, they do a nice job. throughout

Kim 1:24:52
the event. They talked a lot about the growth through the years and I would assume you had a lot to do with that because I don't think I talked to anybody who didn't hang up your name or the podcast? Oh,

Scott Benner 1:25:02
that's nice. I'm not gonna say that. I will, you can say whatever you want.

Kim 1:25:07
I talked, I talked to quite a few people. And I mean, I saw the the amount of people sitting in that room when you were speaking. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:25:14
No, it's It's nice. I draw a crowd.

Kim 1:25:17
Absolutely. It was so interesting to I actually

Scott Benner 1:25:21
have from here. I'm trying to find it for you now. Elizabeth, who runs touched by type one. She's the founder and the president of it. I asked her after the last time I spoke, I never do the things that other people don't like, you know, could you give me a quote? I was like, because I'd like to do more speaking. Can you just give me a quote about having me at your event? I'd like to use it like in social media and stuff. And so I actually just got this back from her the other day. She said, Scott Benner is our top speaker year after year, the largest crowds are always dedicated to his sessions, and consistently have the highest rated feedback. He's developed sessions tailored to a variety of age groups. And a large part of our conference turnout is due to attendees coming specifically to hear him speak. His personable and welcoming demeanor makes him a joy to host. And we look forward to his participation for many years to come.

Kim 1:26:11
So that's awesome.

Scott Benner 1:26:13
I actually haven't absorbed that yet. Because it just arrived. But it was nice. It was nice to share your I appreciate Elizabeth being so kind. And hopefully other people invite me out. I draw a crowd and I do a good job once I'm there. And I work hard. I don't I see other speakers. Don't worry. I see him. They come they take their money. They give you crap and they walk out.

Kim 1:26:35
Well, that was the thing you made it entertaining. It wasn't just do this, do this do this. It was I don't know. There's more personality in it when you were speaking.

Scott Benner 1:26:45
You're very nice. That's lovely. Thank you. And I'm thin now. So it's easy to look at me.

Kim 1:26:50
Actually, you are thin. Actually, I

Scott Benner 1:26:52
don't imagine anybody had a tough time looking at me prior. But it's easier for me to stand up there. I don't think about angles as much or how I must look like to people. That was the thing I had to give away. When I started doing public speaking. I thought I know I don't look good up there. I have to let that go. But as an example, touched by type one last year, like not this past one, but the one prior to that the videographer came around when I was speaking and I said listen to me, you shoot me from the back of the room? And do not stand under this riser and shoot up at me. I'm like do not do it.

Kim 1:27:29
Really you were that bothered by at home?

Scott Benner 1:27:31
I was that bothered by it? I was like do not do that. Shoot me from far away. And do not do not do not come up from underneath me. I said as a matter of fact, if he could suspend yourself from the ceiling, that'd be the way to do this. Like a selfie angle come down from me from an angle. And this year I got there. I never thought about it. That's great. Yeah, it was really freeing, actually. So like

Kim 1:27:54
you said, just life changing, just to not worry about those things anymore is wonderful. It's

Scott Benner 1:27:59
the best thing I've done for myself, personally, as an adult. So, yeah, so anybody who would come to me and say you cheated or anything like that, I would just look at them and go, Oh, you could go yourself.

Kim 1:28:14
Oh, it infuriates me whenever anybody says that. It's, yeah, I did what I had to do. And well, I didn't even do it for the weight loss. It was just an unexpected benefit. My husband and I were actually on vacation. And I got a call from the woman running the study. My doctor had given her my name. And she's telling me about and she's talking about the diabetes and everything. And I'm like I said, I'm I'm in a hotel room in Vegas. I'm like, I just need to get back out and do my thing. Could you hurry up? And all of a sudden, she's like you, there's a chance you could lose a little bit of weight. And I'm like, say what? Come again. And she started telling me about more about it. And I was hooked. And I didn't even plan on it. And it just kind of fell into place.

Scott Benner 1:28:55
I don't know how often I've said this, but my wife works in drug safety. She has her whole life. So there are people at pharma companies whose job it is to make sure you're safe. It's a lot of paperwork and a lot of understanding regulations and a lot of going to other parts of the business and telling them things they don't want to hear because it's for safety reasons, you know, she's very good at, but about a decade ago, maybe my wife was at Novo Nordisk for maybe four years she might have worked there. She came home one day, and she said, I'm seeing this data. And I'm pretty comfortable saying that one day there's going to be an injectable weight loss drug that's actually going to make people lose significant amounts of weight, really. And she's like, Yeah, I think it's gonna change hunger and like, a lot of things. And she just said that to me off handedly one day, and some 10 years later, maybe I'm using it. And she is too by the way. It's kind of crazy. She's like, I can't believe this. This stuff work because they put so much stuff through r&d that doesn't go anywhere. You You know, right? And she's like, Yeah, this is crazy. So there it is like, we're, we're using the thing that she talked about all those years ago that she's like, I saw data and it really looks promising.

Kim 1:30:09
That's all she said. That's really cool. Yeah, that's very interesting. So

Scott Benner 1:30:13
I'm not saying everybody should run out and get it. I'm not saying if you have 15 pounds lose, maybe you shouldn't try to sit up first. Like, I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying that. But at the same time, I'm not here to judge anybody, if it's 15 pounds that could make you feel the way I've described if it's 115 pounds, like whatever, I put my picture up online, and people came in and shared their photos of a get brought a lot of people out of the woodwork who are like, Hey, I'm using those on pic. And or I'm on we go V and look at this, and one guy lost, like over 100 pounds. He's like a completely different person. You know?

Kim 1:30:47
It's fantastic. Look at the celebrities. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:30:51
yeah, no,

Kim 1:30:52
it's and people are bad mouthing them to their people to who cares?

Scott Benner 1:30:57
Yeah, you're not gonna catch me saying anything bad about people trying to help themselves, that's for sure. I've heard thing people say, I've worked my whole life to stay thin. I've restricted my calories. And I've worked out and it feels upsetting that you got a cheat code for it. When I hear people say that, I would tell them look, that may be the case for some people. But for a lot of other people. That I don't know that. I think it's just physiological. And you know, or maybe it's social, social, or maybe it's financial, maybe they just can't afford good food. Like, it's easy to hear a famous person say, I've tried really hard, but yeah, you can afford good food. And you can, you know, I like I always love it. When you hear somebody who's famous go, all you have to do is work out. I'm like, Yeah, your job is three hours a day. You make a podcast for three hours a day. Yeah, you can go work out you have nothing else to do. And you have a gym in your house. Yeah, how about or trainer comes in helps you or whatever you have to like access. Most people are working eight hours a day and commuting another two hours a day. And by the way, they have to sleep and they have children. And the toilet needs to be scrubbed. When you don't want them to go to the gym, the rock the internet. I mean, like, like, well, I guess if I made Jumanji, I could spend some time in the gym too. But sadly, no one's come calling yet. So I'm gonna have to do my job. You know. It's a weird thing to hear famous people whose lives are different, as far as the structure of their days, go tell you, hey, you know, here's what you should do. You make a lot more money than I do. Like you can afford to eat foods that aren't processed. And if you don't know what those foods are, you can afford to hire somebody to tell you what those foods are. Right? And then you can afford the time to work out. I'm not saying they still don't have to do the work. They're obviously still doing the work. But I don't know they always see the the impacts that like a regular person has in their day. Yeah, that's all. Alright, Kim. I was incredibly chatty during this one. So I apologize up front. I'm gonna let you go. Because you must have a life

Kim 1:33:01
you have to get back to. It's all good. I had a great time.

Scott Benner 1:33:05
Is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have? I'm glad you had a good time.

Kim 1:33:09
I don't think so.

Scott Benner 1:33:12
Yeah, we didn't have a big plan on this one, really. So I just when you said I've been on ozempic. I was like, I never have an opportunity to talk about this outside of the diaries that I make. Right? Which people are enjoying, I didn't realize, oh,

Kim 1:33:26
I listened to all of them. And it's funny because I compare myself at each stage that you're at, oh,

Scott Benner 1:33:32
like where I'm at now versus some of the days or? Yeah, so for people who don't know I, every day, I inject my weak Ovi while I'm making a diary. So I sit down, I just off the top of my head, reminisce about the week prior, I inject it and I pop out and then the next week it comes up and after the episodes like 3035 minutes long, I just put it out. That's the extent of my prep on that one. But I thought like, I didn't imagine people would like it. But I actually started getting people running notes about it. So I was like, Oh, cool. It's very

Kim 1:34:04
interesting. You're covering everything with it. So it's been very helpful. Oh, it's

Scott Benner 1:34:07
good to know. Thank you. I don't know what I'm doing here, Kim. I'm just doing my best. Whatever works works and we'll keep it up. Thank you. Oh, hold on one second. For me.

Having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next one.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Get the only implantable sensor for long term wear. Get ever since. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors GE voc glucagon find out more Bouchy voc hypo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that? G VOKEGLUC AG o n.com forward slash juicebox if you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that it really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

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#1186 Hey Jude

Mary Kate's pregnancy was completely normal, until it wasnt. 

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

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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 1186 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When Mary Kate was 23 years old she was pregnant experienced a kinked cannula. That cannula put her into DKA and it caused her to go into labor early, almost killing her and her unborn son. 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. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout that's juice box at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and you'd like to help with T one D research right from your home, you can by going to T one d exchange.org/juicebox and completing the survey. That's it. It'll take you about 10 minutes. You can do it from wherever you're sitting right now on your laptop, your phone, tablet doesn't matter. T one D exchange.org/juicebox need to be a US resident who has type one, or is the caregiver of one. And just like that you're helping

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one is an organization dedicated to helping people living with type one diabetes. And they have so many different programs that are doing just that check them out at touched by type one.org. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G seven and G six continuous glucose monitoring systems. dexcom.com/juicebox Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox or search the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Mary Kate 2:43
My name is Mary Kate. I've had diabetes since I was 12, which means about 13 years, and I had my first baby in November of last year of 2022. And it was kind of a disaster because of diabetes. So that's why I'm here. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:06
you're here to tell your baby making disaster. Yep. It wasn't going poorly for a while, right? No,

Speaker 1 3:13
it was like, perfect. Perfect until the day he was born. Literally.

Scott Benner 3:20
We'll get to that first Medicaid. Let's figure out a little more about you. So you're 25 years old?

Unknown Speaker 3:26
Yeah, my birthday is coming up. 24. Now, but yeah.

Scott Benner 3:30
This is my favorite part of what it happens. Like when people are like, Well, no. In a month, I'm going to bed I'm like, Oh, God, nobody cares. So you're diagnosed 12 years old? Was that? Puberty or pre puberty? Or right as it was happening? Right as

Unknown Speaker 3:50
it was happening? Yeah. A

Scott Benner 3:51
mitzvah? Yes. Yeah. Any diabetes in the family? Other autoimmune in the family? No, nothing. Nothing to say you were surprised that diagnosis would be fair. Ah,

Speaker 1 4:06
yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I had been feeling poorly for a while. So it wasn't surprised that something was wrong with me. But you know, being like, just a little girl. All you think about diabetes is you know, that commercial of the guy saying diabeetus so definitely had no idea what was coming for me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:25
well, for Burnley people have forgotten his name. It's okay. There you go. Yeah. So that you know, you weren't feeling well for a while. What did that look like? Um,

Speaker 1 4:35
I mean, all the textbook stuff like we should have caught it even sooner than we did, honestly, because it was a ping like crazy eating like crazy drinking like crazy. I was in band at the time at school, and I played the saxophone. So that's a reeded instrument and you have to keep the reed wet in order to play. And I was like, I'm unable to play my saxophone for the hour period at school, because my mouth is so dry. I keep having to go out to the hall to get drinks of water from the fountain because it's just like, so dehydrated.

Scott Benner 5:11
You think you had a very absorbent read in your saxophone?

Speaker 1 5:14
I mean, I just, I was thirsty, I guess 12 You know, you're 12 You don't think something's wrong with you? You're just

Scott Benner 5:23
listen. 12 2060 Most people are like, I didn't think anything was wrong with me. I just thought, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever was happening to them. So, how long does all this go on for before you end up at a doctor?

Speaker 1 5:35
Well, my dad's a doctor. So not very long.

Scott Benner 5:38
What kind of doctor is your dad? He's like a,

Speaker 1 5:41
like a family doctor, just general general practitioner. So not not too long. I ended up going on vacation with my mom and sisters and my dad and brother stayed behind. And that, like close one on one time between my mom and I is when she was finally like, okay, that, you know, she's not being dramatic. There's something really weird going on here. So the day after we came back from that trip, I was in his office getting, you know, all the labs done? Yeah. China.

Scott Benner 6:14
He found it that way. Hey, how many brothers and sisters do you have? Straight? Okay. Are you the youngest?

Unknown Speaker 6:19
I am.

Scott Benner 6:20
I could tell. All right. Well, I just could tell because your mom was like she's not being dramatic, which means that your mom had lived through a couple of kids already. Why did you why did you think I could tell?

Speaker 1 6:33
I don't know. It's just usually a negative connotation when you're the youngest, like you're, you know, whiny or annoying or spoiled or

Scott Benner 6:40
do you feel like you've been whining for the first six minutes of this? Not enough. You've been terrific. I know, I just thought if that was your mom's response, then you must be one of the younger kids. Yeah, yeah, that's all. Okay. So your dad, that's weird. So you were diagnosed by your dad? Yes. How do you remember that? Like, was he? Is he the one that told you? Yes. Yes. Was it a weird experience? Like your dad being your is your was your dad always your doctor Dexcom G seven offers an easier way to manage diabetes without finger sticks. It is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone, your smartwatch. And it effortlessly allows you to see your glucose levels and where they're headed. My daughter is wearing a Dexcom g7 Right now, and I can't recommend it enough. Whether you have commercial insurance, Medicare coverage, or no CGM coverage at all Dexcom can help you go to my link dexcom.com/juice box and look for that button that says Get a free benefits check. That'll get you going with Dexcom. When you're there, check out the Dexcom clarity app where the follow Did you know that people can follow your Dexcom up to 10 people can follow you. Right now I'm following my daughter, but my wife is also following her. Her roommates at school are following her. So I guess Arden is being followed right now by five people who are concerned for her health and welfare. And you can do the same thing. School Nurses, your neighbor, people in your family, everyone can have access to that information, if you want them to have it. Or if you're an adult, and you don't want anyone to know, you don't have to share with anybody. It's completely up to you. dexcom.com slashed use Box links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. And when you use my link to learn about Dexcom you're supporting the podcast.

Speaker 1 8:35
Yeah, like, you know, on paper, we would put one of his partners, one of his business partners. And if it was anything serious, he was very hands off, because he's like, you know, he didn't want his emotions or anything to get in the way. But for all the routine, you know, kids stuff, we always just, you know,

Scott Benner 8:53
you take care of it.

Speaker 1 8:54
Yeah, he'd do it at home, whatever. I don't know, it wasn't that big of a deal, just because I had no idea what it meant. They had told me prior to the testing, like you might have diabetes, and that might mean that you have to take shots, you know, for a while, but they were very like, vague. They didn't Yeah, they did not explain like the severity of the situation, or that it would change my life forever. Or, you know, they didn't want to scare me, I guess until they knew for sure. I

Scott Benner 9:22
was just wondering if your dad wanted to be the one to say those things to you. Or if it's not nice to have a more removed person tell you something like that? No,

Speaker 1 9:32
I don't think he wanted to be the one because even that day, I was sitting in his office and he was like, well, all he said was, well, you do have it. He didn't say you know, you do have diabetes. And here's what's going to happen to you. He just said you do have it. You didn't even call it what it was.

Scott Benner 9:50
But Mary Kate, you can imagine from listening to all these episodes that he was he was probably incredibly upset.

Speaker 1 9:56
Oh yeah, definitely. But he's You know, stoic and quiet. So,

Scott Benner 10:03
gotcha. Well still, though inside, he must have been devastated. And now he's like, now he's probably stuck between Am I a doctor? Or am I her dad? Like, I don't want to be the one like, I don't want her to think back on this moment. It's her father telling her like, I bet you there was a lot going through his mind. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you find out you actually have diabetes? Didn't go to the hospital? No.

Speaker 1 10:27
So he that was a Friday. So he managed me. Over the weekend. He got me into an endocrinologist in a larger city that falling Monday, and they they took over my

Scott Benner 10:39
care. Okay. You remember, I mean, 13 years ago, doing the math? Did you get a pump?

Speaker 1 10:47
Yeah, actually, the insurance required six months of injections. So I did the bare minimum. And then I jumped over to animus actually,

Scott Benner 10:56
yeah, the ping? Yeah, you miss it. And that was better. So okay, good. I'm not good. But like, most people are always like, I miss my, my animus ping, either. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. I've never even I've never used one. You know, it wasn't great.

Speaker 1 11:11
But, I mean, the pumps today are great, too. So we've got algorithms. So

Scott Benner 11:17
yeah, I completely agree. Okay, so you got on a pump pretty quickly. was living with diabetes 1314 15 through high school? Was it problematic for you? Did it go pretty smoothly,

Speaker 1 11:29
it went, as well as it could have gone honestly, for the first, well, through middle school, I had a difficult time as far as just like, self esteem. And, you know, I tried to hide it from everybody. So that part was hard. But as far as actually managing the disease, I, I was super independent with it. I really didn't want help, and honestly did a great job, even as a middle schooler, and then in high school, probably later, high school more like junior year senior year, is whenever I started, like actually trying to educate myself on my own. And that's when I figured out like, oh, you know, you can actually have an agency lower than six, and you know, those sort of concepts. My endocrinologist, she was fine, but she had pretty low standards for what was successful. So, you know, I, I rode in between six, five and seven, probably like, all the way up until senior year of high school, before I figured out like that it was achievable, and necessary to do better. through college, I really got things under control. So what

Scott Benner 12:45
led you to wonder if what you were doing wasn't enough?

Speaker 1 12:50
I don't know. And I don't know if I even did wonder or if I just stumbled into that. I'll tell you what, what really like, got me? Well, Dexcom made a big difference in my life, obviously. And then the first thing that I stumbled across was like, you know, low carb lifestyle. And then from there, I found myself in a Bernstein Facebook group. Do you know about that guy? Yes.

Scott Benner 13:16
A little bit. Yes.

Speaker 1 13:19
Yes. So he's huge on the low carb thing. But anyway, he's got a YouTube channel. So I found myself down that rabbit hole, I read his book. And his whole thing is, he's very pro low carb. But he's also pro bold with insulin and teaches you you know, how to Bolus for proteins and fats in a way that nobody ever had. And he's like, ancient like in his 80s, or 90s. And, you know, has always has always been in the fives. It went C was his big thing is to try to be to try to keep your blood sugar at 83. So that made me kind of have a light bulb moment of like, oh, the goal blood sugar doesn't have to be 120. Right? It can literally be

Scott Benner 14:04
at three your goal. Can you make your goal?

Speaker 1 14:07
Right, yeah, right. So somehow I found myself there and that that's whenever I started striving for Lower, lower.

Scott Benner 14:15
Did that experience make you eat low carb? Or did it just make you shoot for lower numbers? Yeah,

Speaker 1 14:23
I ate low carb for couple of years. Like, yeah, couple years.

Scott Benner 14:27
It worked for you.

Speaker 1 14:29
It did. Yeah. Why did you start as I like bread,

Scott Benner 14:34
like bread? That's a fair enough reason. This is a weird conversation for me because I'm of the opinion that people need to know how to use insulin. And then after they know how to use it, they should go forth and live their life anyway, they decide to if it's right, you know, four carbs a day or I don't know 40 or 100 whatever they I don't care. I honestly don't care how people eat. But if you get too involved in conversations about How people eat, you will find extreme people on, you know, sides, like with anything else who are ravenously upset with you. And I try not to have people ravenously upset with me, especially when I wish I could explain to them, I am very happy for them that what they do works for them, I just don't want them. I'm in a weird position. I don't just make a podcast, I also have an incredibly like, huge Facebook group. And so my concern always is, is that if a brand new diagnosed person comes in, and it's like, I don't know what I'm doing Oh, right, yeah. And someone comes in and says you if you just don't eat carbs, then this will be fine. Okay, fair enough. But it doesn't allow that person the opportunity to learn how to use insulin, or what will happen if they have a piece of bread, which they are probably going to do at some point or, you know, what would happen if your five year old, you know, was low carb by you're doing and which would be fine. And then they leave for college one day and wonder what pizza is. And exactly, now they have no idea how to Bolus for for these cars. And so, again, to be very sincere. Sorry, very Kate, you don't know the extraneous problems I have in my life. But you're probably starting to figure him out right now while I'm talking. Yeah, to be very clear, I do not care how people eat. I think if you eat low carb, and that works for you. That's amazing. Fantastic. Congratulations, whoo, good, sincerely. But from a macro position, which is one, I find myself in having seen 10s of 1000s of people with diabetes, start their journey or be lost in their journey or whatever. I can tell you that it's my opinion that understanding Insulin is the first step not removing carbs, because then you can sort of falsely make your way through, which is fine if you do it forever. But look at you, you're 25 and you're like, look, I'm I want to have bread again. I can't do this anymore. Anyway, that's my point about that. I don't know why. I do know why I had to say that. But But I think it's cool that you found that I think it's cool that you gave it gave you the idea. And it's you know, are you able to live in a way that you think is healthy now not being low carb? Oh,

Speaker 1 17:14
yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm, I'm fully bought into the juice box method at this point. And I, I do what I want, and I'm still successful with my diabetes, which is for me, that's that's the best way

Scott Benner 17:28
to do it. Well, congratulations on finding your way to it. I think that's fantastic. Do you think if you would have found the podcast before hearing about low carb, do you think you'd still be in the same spot right now? I don't know. That's a good question.

Speaker 1 17:44
I might have tried out low carb anyways, because at the time that I did it is when keto was like the biggest fad. Huge. Yeah. So I Yeah, you know, might have just done it anyway, just to see what it was like, I

Scott Benner 17:56
think I should be clear. I don't eat a ton of carbs. You know, like, I don't have diabetes, but I also like, I mean, I went to dinner the other night, I had beef, I had a little fish. I there was a piece of bread on the table like flatbread. I had one or two of them. But I think if I buy I mean, there's no sugar in what I drank. I had a bit. I'm gonna guess that at a dinner. I had, I don't know, maybe 25 carbs at dinner. You know, and probably the rest of the day. I probably didn't have 100 carbs that day. So you know, probably I mean, I think I definitely didn't have 100 carbs that day, and I don't most days. Tough, but I think processed foods a big problem. Especially if you use Yeah, totally agree. Right. So anyway, okay, so you're making it through? Everything's going well, you get married at some point?

Speaker 1 18:45
I do. Yeah. When I graduated college, I got married.

Scott Benner 18:49
And you've just recently decided we're going to make a baby. So that's the rest of this conversation. So you're married? You want to have a kid? Is your agency already in a place where they're comfortable with you being pregnant? Or was that something you had to work towards?

Speaker 1 19:04
No, it was already there. So I had been in the fives for a couple of years at the point when I got pregnant.

Scott Benner 19:10
Oh, fantastic. Okay, so you were well on your way to knowing what you were doing and having success over and over again? Yes, gotcha. Okay. So we decide to make the baby and here it comes. Tell me about the pregnancy. How did the first trimester go?

Speaker 1 19:24
I'm pretty much textbook. I bought Jenny's books, so shout out to her. And that helped out a lot. I kind of knew what to expect. So a lot of lows first trimester but nothing too crazy because I was well prepared. I yeah, I have a great endo as well, who actually, whenever I found him initially, he was like my favorite. He was like, Do you want to have a baby? Eventually? I'm like, yes, he's like, my favorite patients are pregnant women. He's like, here's what you're gonna do when you get pregnant. You're gonna tell you Your husband, you're gonna tell your mom and then you're gonna tell me. So he was you were very very hands on and super helpful throughout the whole thing. So

Scott Benner 20:09
that helped a lot. And what he said about they're my favorite patients is because you're not gonna see a woman with type one trying harder than when they're pregnant normally, is that what his opinion was? I think

Speaker 1 20:18
he meant from a more clinical side like he's, he's, he's obsessed with diabetes, he only does type one. So I think he likes the challenge of managing a pregnant woman and likes you know, all that he gets to educate and all that he gets to do that's that's really what I think he meant gets a

Scott Benner 20:37
little game day adrenaline from it. It sounds like Yeah, I think so. Alright, so. So you're saying first trimester went about as you expected, you took a little while to dial in insulin, get it? Right. So you didn't have lows? And, but other than that pregnancy wise, nothing out of the ordinary diabetes wise, you were, you were happy with where everything was. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic. diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen. I

Speaker 2 21:10
was going straight into high school. So it was a summer heading into high school was that particularly difficult, unimaginable, you know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school, I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So you know, outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 21:43
Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 2 21:48
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it. Did

Scott Benner 22:03
you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in. I

Speaker 2 22:07
never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see. You know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more. You know, how I'm able to type one diabetes? To

Scott Benner 22:28
hear Jay Lin's entire conversation. stay till the very end. Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community.

Speaker 1 22:40
Yeah, it was it was great. I mean, you're making changes constantly, like, at least every week, if not more. And all throughout pregnancy, I was in the 5.0 range. I think I started pregnancy at like, five, three pretty low. Now as things went on, I did through second and third trimester, I was gradually getting higher and higher and higher, but I had not made it to a 6.0 a one C yet even at even before delivery. So it was I mean, yeah, I was getting higher as as I went on, as you expect, but nothing dangerous. Everybody was happy with me. So it was all going really really well.

Scott Benner 23:20
Were you employing any of your low carb ideas to help.

Speaker 1 23:23
I cut out all sugar, basically. But I mean, I was I was still eating bread.

Scott Benner 23:30
Like the breads that the crux of this right here like what's your favorite bread? Do you have if I said that to you? Would you like blurt something out? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 23:38
I would blurt out sourdough.

Scott Benner 23:42
Pardon me once they ask you what the second favorite bread is. I wonder if we can't make an incredible list?

Speaker 1 23:49
No, no, I'm not that obsessed. But it's just, I mean, it's just delicious. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:54
I mean, I can't say otherwise. It's fantastic. I swear to you, like even just like a thin, like anything really? Like I'm like, oh, like at dinner go there. And I'm like, What is this? And I opened the basket up and I'm like, Well, I'll try that. There was little Ribery there. I was, like, I'll take a little rye bread. It's like kind of it's fantastic. So you're not low carb. And but you did cut out sugar. What did that mean for you? Like what what had to leave your your life for you to get rid of sugar.

Speaker 1 24:20
My creative outlet is baking. And so I for a long time I've baked like, only about once a week just for fun. So I completely let that go because I've never had the self control to bake and then not eat what I've made. So for for my whole pregnancy. I was just like, forget it. Like I'm not going to be making any desserts because I just knew it would be you know, not good

Scott Benner 24:50
for me. Pretty much the only place you're getting sugar from to begin with. Yeah,

Speaker 1 24:53
no, I'm not a I'm not. Yeah, that was it. I don't I'm not a candy eater or anything like that. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 24:59
So you thought if I cut out baking, did you find um, I'm changing my thought midstream. But did you find like a black hole for your creative this? Like, did you do something else you could do with your creativity? Or what did you do to replace?

Speaker 1 25:16
Oh, I, I guess I just I'm not a very creative person anyway, so it's not really that, like, big of a deal for me to just kind of turn that off. Okay. So yeah, didn't really replace it. Did

Scott Benner 25:27
your husband lose weight during your baking? Shutdown?

Unknown Speaker 25:31
I don't. I don't think so. Actually,

Scott Benner 25:33
I would probably have been grateful if I was like, oh my god, I'm always eating that bass stuff she

Speaker 1 25:38
makes. No, he gave me a really hard time the whole time because I always do a really big birthday cake for him. And he didn't get his. Oh

Scott Benner 25:47
my gosh, you were serious about it. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Are you are you a rule follower in general?

Unknown Speaker 25:54
For good rules for stupid rules?

Scott Benner 25:57
I gotcha. But once you decided that, was it you're not there was no like, well, I'll make you a birthday cake.

Speaker 1 26:02
No, no, because I it was just it was about me. I wouldn't have had the self control

Scott Benner 26:07
not to eat that birthday cake. Yeah, good for you good for knowing. And, and well done, like actually following through on it. That's pretty impressive, actually. Alright, so second, you're welcome. second trimester, do things start to change? Not

Speaker 1 26:21
really. I mean, they changed by the book where, you know, you're slowly needing more and more and more insulin every single week. But, you know, it was manageable. What

Scott Benner 26:30
was your Basal rate when you started your pregnancy? And how did it move up?

Speaker 1 26:34
I would say my average Basal rate pre pregnancy was probably like 0.6 0.7. And then by the end of pregnancy, my average, which I only made it to 33 weeks. So when I say the end, that's what I mean. By the end, my Basal average was probably like, 1.5 1.6.

Scott Benner 26:56
Would you mind telling me what you weighed when you got pregnant? When

Speaker 1 27:00
I got pregnant? Somewhere between 125 and 130?

Scott Benner 27:04
Okay. How much did you gain while you're pregnant? Shane pounds? We'll get you showing off. Okay. Hold on a second point 6.7. Up to about 1.5. Well, that is interesting. Because it's not it's not about your weight. It's about it's about the hormones and everything that's happening inside of your body where the need goes up like a full unit an hour. That's something isn't 24. That's 24 more. Yes, yeah, units a day, a lot

Speaker 1 27:33
of extra insulin, and I affected my carb ratio as well, by the end of it. That was actually the bigger impact by the end of pregnancy. Like, my breakfast carb ratio was 123. What was even as crazy. What

Scott Benner 27:47
was it when you started

Speaker 1 27:48
one this? Well, either one to six or one to five? They're different for meals for me, but it

Scott Benner 27:54
doubled. Hmm. About that. So you, you probably added 30 or 40 more units a day being pregnant?

Unknown Speaker 28:03
A lot. I don't know. But a lot.

Scott Benner 28:05
That's so interesting. I mean, I mean, I know what happens, but it's still it's still incredibly interesting. You know, okay, but you managed it and you expected it and stayed with it. Jenny's book helped with that. Definitely good. Yes. Good. Did you listen to any of the pregnancy episodes of the podcast? Yes.

Speaker 1 28:22
Yes. All of them actually. Which is that also helps. I kind of had a roadmap. Okay,

Scott Benner 28:27
great. Oh, that's good to know. Okay. So, things are going along. You're cruising. Let's just be honest here. It's a humble brag, but you're cruising through pregnancy doing a fantastic job. And can this baby? And are you working during the pregnancy?

Unknown Speaker 28:41
Unfortunately, I was yes.

Scott Benner 28:43
I think that every day when I'm working to unfortunately, I'm working. And I've never wanted to carry a baby, except in my hands. Okay, so you're working. You're you're pregnant, it's going really well. And you get to 33 weeks and it sounds like that's when the train comes off the track. So what happened? What

Speaker 1 29:01
happened? Okay, so I got the flu. Okay,

Scott Benner 29:06
you're not supposed to get sick. When you're pregnant. You're like, have like, super immune system when you're pregnant. It's someone licky with this. Is that your husband's fault? This is what I'm trying to get at. i

Unknown Speaker 29:15
It's not his Okay. Unfortunately.

Scott Benner 29:19
It would be so much better if you could hold it over his head for the rest of time and mourn, but Okay, so you get the flu. I'm sorry. Keep going.

Speaker 1 29:25
I apologize. Yes, I get the flu probably. So my baby was born on a Wednesday I started feeling sick on the previous like, Saturday or Sunday. I know I didn't go to church on that Sunday, because I was under the weather. So yeah, I mean, I I was just kind of managing at home. I was feeling bad enough that I I knew it was either blue or COVID Probably. But with both of those, it's kind of like well, that you know, there's no treatment. I mean Tamiflu if you get there early enough, but maybe that'll help. Maybe it won't. And maybe they'll give it to you if you're pregnant, and maybe they won't. So I was just kind of hanging low resting a lot. And then actually, I started getting worried like, Okay, I diabetes, I probably have the flu or COVID. And I've got a baby. Yeah, at this point, all I'm concerned about is the baby. I had a maternal fetal medicine appointment on that Tuesday, and I like, pretended not to be sick. Because this was back when like, if you had any sickness symptoms, they wouldn't let you come to any appointments, because I thought you would have COVID or whatever.

Scott Benner 30:39
You pretended to have the flu? Yes, you just think you look like you were on heroin when you walked in maybe or something? Because I guess it's hard to pretend not to have the flu. How did you accomplish that? I'm interested what?

Speaker 1 30:50
Well, I like I managed to do my hair and do my makeup. So I would look a little little better. Yeah. And they required you to wear masks anyways. So that was really the saving grace. So I wore a mask. I took like a hot tea with me. So I'm gonna try to keep the cough like at bay, because I'm just thinking, like, I have to check on my baby, or I'm gonna go crazy, you know, worrying about him, right? So I fill out the questionnaire and say, you know, no, I don't have any sick symptoms and all that. And he was perfect. So make it to the appointment. They're like, amazing, you know, they did an ultrasound, everything. Everything was great. They said, Get out of here. The next day is when crap hit

Scott Benner 31:35
the fan. Wow. And it happened very quickly. Is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 31:39
I would say it was very quick.

Scott Benner 31:41
So did you think because I know what happened, right? I know how but what did you think was happening? At first, like, were you blaming the illness is what I'm getting at. I

Speaker 1 31:53
thought that it was. So what happened? I'm by myself all day, the day. So it's a Wednesday the 16th I'm at home alone all day. So I'm just like, veg and now watching movies, feeling like crap, whatever. And then around like, I don't know, 6pm I started having cramping. And so I think this is Braxton Hicks. Right? I'm 33 weeks. So Braxton Hicks would be totally normal for that to start happening to me. So that's that's all I thought once I started having this cramping I just associated with the pregnancy and I think must be Braxton Hicks. Everything must be fine. This must be normal. It's kind of where my head starts out.

Scott Benner 32:34
And you call your dad, I always wonder every time you have you mentioned something, I wonder if you call your dad? No, I did not call my dad. Okay. No reason just, it's not what you do? Well,

Speaker 1 32:44
I guess I just didn't want to freak anybody out. I'm always afraid of making something into a bigger deal than it needs to be. So I was afraid that either, you know, I would be dramatic. And it would become a whole thing when it didn't need to be or that he will be dramatic and told me to, you know, the ER, which was what I should have done, but you know,

Scott Benner 33:06
right. So to you're sitting here, you're watching your movies, you're having your cramping, and you think it's normal? How long do you believe it's not like, how long did you live in that before you thought, oh, I should do something.

Speaker 1 33:17
Maybe only like 15 or 20 minutes before I text a friend who had recently had a baby. And I'm like, because they're getting progressively more painful. And I'm just like, How bad are Braxton Hicks supposed to hurt because, you know, like, what the heck, this is hurting really bad at this point. And of course, you know, this is texting and she can't see me. You know, whatever. Basically, she's like, Yeah, they can hurt pretty bad. So I'm like, Alright, I guess this is just how much pregnancy and labor and Braxton Hicks sucks. So I just get in the bath and like try to you know, manage the pain basically. And so as I mentioned, I was home alone. So my husband was actually an hour away. And he was at the time he was in professional school. And he was going to be getting out of class in 30 minutes. And I was like, I can ride this out for 30 minutes. And like, you know, see how I am see if it gets worse. Again, like not be dramatic. And wait till it gets out of class calm. So that's what I did.

Scott Benner 34:26
Let me ask you a question. How much of that is growing up with a physician hearing stories about people are always running to the doctor when they don't need to or like you program that like, you don't go unless you have to.

Speaker 1 34:36
I'm also a nurse myself. Now

Scott Benner 34:40
we're getting to it. So okay. Yeah,

Speaker 1 34:42
yeah, I was trying not to admit that I guess. But yeah, so I'm definitely programmed to, you know, I don't know not make a big deal about everything. Right. And I also feel like whether or not it's true, I've always been told that have a low pain tolerance. So I'm thinking like, well, maybe I'm just literally the world's biggest wind. And you know, so I need to wait until this really hurts. You got

Scott Benner 35:06
to be careful about that stuff. My wife grew up being told she had terrible sense of direction. And of all the people I know, she has the best sense of direction of anybody. So I think she just got lost one time when she was 16 in the car and people like tagged are with, you have a bad sense of direction.

Speaker 1 35:21
Right? Yeah, the things people tell you can really get in the way of your thinking.

Scott Benner 35:28
Okay, so you're like Mary Kay, you're a baby. You know, you're a baby. Everybody tells you that. So just stick it out. This doesn't hurt other people wouldn't mean wow, who cares? Pain is pain. It is whatever it is to you. But I take your point. Exactly. Okay. I'm sorry. So moving forward, we, what do we do 730

Speaker 1 35:44
hits, apparently, is when he got out of the class. So that's when I called him. And I'm like, at this point, I think I'm in labor, because the pain is just like through the roof. Like, I'm not able to be quiet anymore. I'm like, in a lot, a lot of pain. And I as I call him in a big tizzy. Like, I don't know what's going on. Maybe I'm in labor, this hurts so bad, like, you gotta get here or whatever. And he's like, What the heck are you doing? Why haven't you called 911? Basically, you're

Scott Benner 36:16
calling me for I'm in grad school? I don't know anything.

Speaker 1 36:20
Yeah. And so he's like, I'm going to call me and they'll tell me to call an ambulance. And I'm like, don't do that. Don't do that. Call the OB emergency line. So I convinced him to call the OB emergency line and Shaddam 911. So he hangs up with me calls them and lo and behold, they don't answer. So he calls me back. And it's like, I mean, this is all much more dramatic than I'm replaying it for everybody. But

Scott Benner 36:48
just so you all know, there's screaming and yelling, and you guys were yelling at each other. And there's high pitches. Yeah, I gotcha. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 36:55
Exactly.

Scott Benner 36:58
What are you doing? You like I just thought that it was like, like that kind of,

Speaker 1 37:02
right. Pretty much. Okay, gotcha. So he called back and he's like, they didn't answer I'm calling 911. Forget it. Basically, he's pretty cool under pressure. And obviously, with the way that I was freaking out, it was, like, obvious that that's what needed to happen. So he calls 911 to come pick me up. Meanwhile, he's like, you know, trying to fly. He's an hour away. So he's trying to fly back to where I am as fast as possible, because we don't, you know, we don't know what's going on. His side of the story is he thought with when I called that the baby had already died. He was like, I thought that I don't know. Like he just died inside of you. And your body was trying to, you know, give birth to our dead kids. So he's freaking out.

Scott Benner 37:49
Oh my god. Geez. Yeah, he took a leap. Ah, that sounds good. Yeah,

Speaker 1 37:55
yeah. Yeah. So called the ambulance ambulance gets to my house. Probably around like, eight or so he called 911. Around 745. And the ambulance takes me to the nearest hospital.

Scott Benner 38:08
Not the hospital you work at though, right? No,

Unknown Speaker 38:11
thank God. No.

Scott Benner 38:12
Okay. All right. I was wondering if that was part of the reason you didn't want to call or not?

Speaker 1 38:15
No, no, I commute to work. So that was okay. Okay.

Scott Benner 38:19
Not the issue. He must come in like hair on fire when he gets there. Well,

Speaker 1 38:24
he doesn't get there in time.

Scott Benner 38:27
Oh my gosh. Okay. Keep going. Look at you. Very key. Look at you tell on a story. Good job. Keep it going.

Speaker 1 38:35
So, yes, ambulance takes me to the nearest hospital which thank God I live in a big city. So it's a very, very good hospital and it's a hospital that has a NICU and a like a level four NICU thank God. So anyway, but I get there I'm, but whenever the ambulance gets here, I'm like, at this point, I'm, I think probably having a panic attack. Like I'm just screaming, like freaking out about everything. Everything hurts. But I think in my mind, I'm also like, really multiplying the pain because I'm so terrified about like, what's happening to me right now. So I get wheeled in to like labor and delivery, er or whatever. And I was in too much pain to lay on the stretcher or the gurney or whatever. So I got on it on my hands and knees that was more comfortable. So I can't see anything. And I like can't move out of this position either. So I'm like, just looking at the floor. But there's a million people running all around me. Everyone's everyone's freaking out, probably because I'm freaking out. But eventually they like, you know, they flipped me over and they everybody's poking me for labs and IVs and they're putting the contraction monitor on me and they're trying like how Oh, to get a Doppler on my baby to see how the baby's doing. That's whenever I hear somebody yell out, the heart rates only 60. And if you don't know anything about babies, a baby in utero, heart rates, like very, very high 151 60, something like that. So then I really start freaking out, because I think my baby's gonna die.

Scott Benner 40:26
You actually know what that number means. So yeah, a lot of people wouldn't, wouldn't know. But you did about that. Okay, so now you're flipping out more.

Speaker 1 40:35
Now I'm flipping out more, and I'm literally screaming at the top of my lungs. Where's my husband? Where's my husband? And nobody, which I've been on the other side as a as a health care provider and like a life or death emergency and it's, I understand why it's like, you really don't have the capacity or the time to address the patient's needs. But oh, my God, nobody would talk to me. They're all just like, doing things to me. But no one is talking to me. Nobody would answer me where my husband was, or tell me what was happening or what they were going to do to me. It's just horrible, horrible, like mad, panic, chaos. They do a cervical check. And I'm not very dilated. Yeah, she was like, she well, the OB yells at me, she's like, I need to do a search for cervical check on you. Because if you're dilated, you need to push right now and deliver this baby. Otherwise, we're going to the LR and so I'm like, okay, okay. Okay. And you know, she does it whatever. I was dilated to like a two or something. So, that was it. They pretty much immediately wheeled me off to the O R. And next thing I remember is finally a nurse. I'm still screaming, where's my husband? Because like, I just needed so badly for somebody to like, speak to me, like a human being to calm me down. And of course, I wanted him to do that.

Scott Benner 42:02
Yeah. Also, Medicaid, I think it's important to point out, you're a really mature person. I don't know if you know that about yourself. And but you're not that old. So like, it's all well and good to be mature. And like, you know, have your head about you because you have a job where you have to and stuff like that. But once it happens to you, you're 20 How old? Are you at that moment? You? 23?

Unknown Speaker 42:25
Yeah, yeah, I was 23 You're

Scott Benner 42:27
like a baby yourself? Yeah. Like, yeah, and you don't I know, listen, I've only been talking to you for 45 minutes. But I would definitely come get you if there was a problem that didn't involve you. Because that I think you'd be really, I think you'd be really rock solid. And it sounds like you grew up in a serious household with, you know, doctors, and, and, you know, you went on to be a nurse, etc. But like, it's the whole time you're talking. All I could think is you're my son's age. And he almost not qualified to deal with anything. So. So you know, and I remember being young too, when When Kelly was having a bit when Kelly was having cold, she was pretty young. And I look back now and I, I see myself through my eyes now. And I can see myself through how I thought of myself back then. Like we thought we knew what was going on and that we were handling things. And I'm sure we were but like as I look back on myself now I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So anyway, that just it's been ringing in my head the whole time. You're talking like How old were you when this was happening? So anyway, I'm sorry. So you they knock you out and give you a C section or you go out from the pain? How does that work? Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:38
they knocked me out. So I feel like the, you know, oh, ours are so freakin cold. So I remember. Well, finally, as we're running to the O R, a nurse comes right up to my face. And she's like, what's your husband's phone number. And in that moment, somehow I remember. I remember its phone number. So I recited off to her. And then the next thing I feel is just like that cool blast of air of being in the O R. And so I'm like, okay, like, I know what's going on. And then the OB, again, like, is screaming and she's like, we're going to do a lot of things that are going to be really uncomfortable, but I'm trying to save you and your baby's life. And then I just feel like this big dump of cold liquid on my belly, which I think was them literally just dumping beta dine on me as opposed to like doing the proper, right you know. And then the anesthesiologist comes over my head and he's like, this is gonna burn and then he just slams in whatever anesthetic he used into my IV.

Scott Benner 44:46
propofol, that stuff burns. I've had it before. Probably the Jacksons. Yeah, there's an by the way, for anybody who's wondering, I didn't know you're like, please let Mary Kate keep telling her story. But if you ever have to have it in a non emergency situation If they can cut your arm and put, they can put in something else that numbs it and takes the sting away. I can't think of what it is like Benadryl or something like that. It's probably not Benadryl. You probably shouldn't listen to me for medical stuff. But ask the anesthesiologist, isn't there something you could put in there to stop the burning? Because there is so yeah, burned like, Oh, I've had it. I've it feels like fire rolling up your arm and across your chest and it feels like your heart is gonna burst when it gets to it. Yeah. And the the issue is, is the rightest you think your heart's gonna burst? You just fall asleep? But anyway, keep going. So the burning comes, you're soaked in beta Dine, someone's talking to you about saving your life and the baby's life. And you and

Speaker 1 45:44
I go out he I remember the horrible burning and screaming from the burning and then he slaps the face mask over my screaming face. And that's that slides out from

Scott Benner 45:56
there. Wow. Oh, my God. Well, they saved your life. Obviously. Yes. Yeah. And we've already talked about your son. So I feel like everyone knows this was like the Titanic where you're like, I wonder what's gonna happen in this movie? Like the boats gonna say for sure. But we knew you guys were gonna be okay. So what? What happened? Like, why were you suddenly from months and months and 33 weeks of this is easy. My onesies are terrific. My blood sugar's are great. I'm cruising to Holy hell, I should call an ambulance. What the hell happened that day.

Speaker 1 46:27
So as I already told you, I got the flu. And as every good little diabetic knows, the flu predisposes you to DKA or, you know, any sickness. So I had that going against me and wasn't really thinking about that properly. And the day of my son's birth, I changed my pump site around like noon or one. So I did that. And then basically laid on the couch doing nothing. I was snacking. Like, I don't, I didn't, I don't think I'd even really eaten for the entire day. I was just sort of nibbling on some Wheat Thins and drinking like some Gatorade zero. So I looked back at my CGM graph in preparation for this and up until the birth my my blood sugar, I didn't even go over 150 for the day, because I was basically just laying there not even really eating but change my website around noon or one. Then if you look at my CGM graph, around 5pm, I go over 180. And then as I said, I kind of started all this cramping around like 6pm. And by 6pm, I was, let's see, by 6pm I was over 250. And by 7pm, I was over 307 pm is when I called my husband and the ambulance got there sometime around eight. My son was born at 844. And at 844 My blood sugar was 297 Were you bolusing

Scott Benner 48:11
in the afternoon while you were going up, or were you too sick to think about it? Yeah,

Speaker 1 48:16
I was. I was bolusing. But like, so I changed my site around noon or one. And I didn't even go over 130 until 415 didn't go over 180 until 505. So it's just like it happened. At Well, it happened slowly until it until I got you know, like a double arrow up but so from like noon or one till four, I mean, I wouldn't correct for anything until I go over 130 So from then I'm not doing anything about it. And then yeah, once the pain got so bad i i totally wasn't even thinking about diabetes anymore, right? I forgot about diabetes.

Scott Benner 48:53
So I mean, I'm assuming most people have figured out what happened by now but just say it.

Speaker 1 49:00
So my frickin cannula was kinked you had

Scott Benner 49:05
a king cannula you're in DKA I was in DK you had not had nearly enough insulin since noon. Yeah,

Speaker 1 49:12
yeah, exactly. So I wasn't I wasn't eating properly which I should have been because Hello you have the flu like you should be. You should be doing those boluses I should have been drinking a regular Gatorade, Gatorade zero and been doing Bolus is for that or something. But I wasn't I wasn't taking good care of myself from like a sick day perspective. And then my my fatal flaw is I put my pump site on like my love handle area. And by then my belly was so big that I couldn't like twist around to to look at which I'm using auto soft 30 So it's not a perfect view anyways, but you could at least see condensation kind of collecting if you had a bit cannula. I do remember looking in the mirror Before I called my husband trying to see like, is there condensation there because I had had that thought, because by that point I was pretty high. But yeah, so yeah, too little too late.

Scott Benner 50:11
I just want to mention for people that you can be in decay without a high blood sugar. Like just yeah, not having insulin can put you in DKA. So if you're not pregnant, and that happens, maybe you're, you'll eventually think, Oh, my, this is the cannula you might reintroduce insulin to yourself and then a couple of hours later feel okay again, like you might have been able to hydrate and Bolus your way out of that. Like it's just right, but the DEA threw it threw you into labor? Is that what you think happened? They're not sure. That's kind of what I mean. No one's gonna know.

Speaker 1 50:45
Right? Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what it seems like another theory my so it wasn't even my OB who ended up delivering the so my, my actual OB, whenever I tell her the whole story, another theory she had is maybe the dka put me in such severe dehydration that like I had lost so much amniotic fluid, but I was having horrible cramping. She said she's seen that happen before or maybe it was Labor it's kind of weird that I was only dilated to a two if it were labor and the pain was so bad, but you know, who knows?

Scott Benner 51:21
I mean, you can Google DKA causes early labor and get a number of different things that are interesting to read. But we're not going to do them now. But that's that's crazy like a kinked cannula. You are on the the cruise of all cruise pregnancy you get you get the flu, which you probably would have been okay with if the cannula didn't kink? Yep. And then yeah, back quickly all that happened.

Speaker 1 51:45
One mistake is sometimes all it takes to literally ruin your life.

Scott Benner 51:50
Yeah, I thought you were gonna say ruin the cake. Gather you're gonna go back to the baking thing, which would have been amazing, but I ruin your life is much easier because you were close to being dead. Do you think that's true?

Speaker 1 51:59
I don't know. I I think I would have been okay. I was when I got there. I was like, I mean, I was not doing well. I was I kind of like looking septic. i My heart rates was like what my babies should have been, I was like, way up 131 40s 150s. And my blood pressure was super low. So I wasn't doing well. But in terms of like, acidosis, I wasn't actually doing that bad. My Ph wasn't horribly low.

Scott Benner 52:30
When did they start managing your your blood sugar's after the the emergency C section? Because it's not like you didn't roll in there going, Hey, guys, by the way, I have the flu. And I changed my sight today. So God knows maybe that cannulas like you didn't have those conversations with anybody. So how long did it take them to figure all that out? Well,

Speaker 1 52:47
in I actually did tell them I did manage to get because you know, they're asking you questions. So I managed to get out. You know, I'm 3333 weeks, three days pregnant. I do have an OB because if when they see like a horrible situation like this, they kind of just assume that you're an idiot. And maybe you haven't even had any OB care so that I was able to get that out. I was able to get out that I had to have type one diabetes, and I was able to get out. I think I have the flu. That's like all the personal information that I gave them. Good

Scott Benner 53:18
for you. Mary Kate, is that because you're a nurse that you thought to make sure to squeeze that all out? Do you think?

Speaker 1 53:25
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like, they've got to know all this.

Scott Benner 53:28
Right. That's well done. Are you a different person professionally now because of your experience? I

Speaker 1 53:34
don't know. I think about that a lot. I'm sure her I'm sure it's affected the way that I treat my patients, but I don't I'm not sure in what ways? Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:44
Do you know Artem was in the emergency room last weekend? Twice? Oh, no. She had lower stomach pain that we couldn't figure out it looked like appendix at first. Anyway, she's at school, she ends up in an emergency room. They had her there for 12 hours and help her they knew they just they were like this isn't your appendix thing. Like they booted her Yeah. Then she ended up back there the next day because it it looked like okay, maybe it wasn't an appendix. But it feels like it could be gallbladder now because some other symptoms arose. And she finds herself back in the emergency room for 12 more hours sorry and spent 24 hours in the emergency room over 48 hours. And I would like you to guess how many times someone checked her blood sugar?

Speaker 1 54:25
Oh, God. Maybe? Like I would say at most twice on each occasion.

Scott Benner 54:34
Yeah would never surprise you. Wow, Never Never. No one ever checked to see what her blood sugar was the entire time she was in either time.

Speaker 1 54:43
Wow. They even asked her where they like Do you have a CGM?

Scott Benner 54:47
No they never talked about her diabetes. She was managing it. I was managing it remotely. What

Speaker 1 54:51
a disaster. Yeah, I mean, it's it's most of my colleagues have no idea how to manage it or have no idea what type Mine is for dang sure.

Scott Benner 55:00
Also keep in mind she was rocked on morphine both times. So if something did go wrong, she wasn't in the, in the right mind to take care of it either right? Arden's arm doesn't drink. She didn't do anything. So you hit her with morphine. She's, she's over pretty much, you know. And so I was managing it the first time, remotely. The second time I got on a plane and flew to where she was because of how bad the first time went. Yeah, I don't blame you. Yeah. So anyway, she's doing better now. But that's not that's not the point of me bringing this up. The point of me bringing it up is she was 19. Clearly scared, had something she couldn't figure out. They didn't know. She got there said I have type one diabetes, like, you know, told them the whole thing no one ever once looked. It's just embarrassing. Like, I didn't yell at anybody when I got there. But I wasn't nice. And I finally got them to do the testing they needed to do so we could rule out the things that needed to be rolled out. They were trying to street her the second time without checking her gallbladder after having her there for 10 hours.

Speaker 1 56:02
She's ers are just so dumb. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:07
When I got there, a man was standing over top of her and her roommates, and he was badgering them to leave. Wow. And art in about 15 minutes before I was able to get there. She said to him, I demand that you admit me? Yeah, yeah. And that's the only thing that froze him long enough for me to get there. Like she didn't really want to be admitted. But she's like, she's like, I knew they were kicking me out. And then if I asked to be admitted he wouldn't be able to kick me out anymore. Right. So she froze him. And she was like, I demand to be admitted. And that that was it. Like it gave me enough time to Uber from the airport to where she was. Oh, that's crazy. Anyway, it went great. Good job. I'm not gonna say the name of the hospital, but your disaster. So anyway. Yeah, so cool. What's your name? The baby. Jude. Nice. You call for him? Hey, Jude.

Unknown Speaker 57:02
Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 57:03
I mean, I would does it make you sing after you call for him? Of course, I was gonna say is your brain not as simple as mine? Because I'd be like, hey, now that I've been told that I would start singing.

Unknown Speaker 57:15
Pretty simple. Yeah. So wonderful.

Scott Benner 57:17
And he's fine, obviously. But he was early. He was seven weeks early. And so he was definitely not done cooking. What did did he have to be in the NICU for a while?

Speaker 1 57:26
Oh, yeah, you're just getting to the well, I guess for me, it's the worst part of the story, maybe not objectively, the worst part of the story. I was, you know, they put me to sleep for the C section. And the last thing that I had heard about him was that his heart rate was 60. But by the time they got him out, he actually had no heartbeat. So they resuscitated him there and the O R, and were able to bring him back the resuscitative and intubated him, and then he was in the NICU for six weeks. Wow.

Scott Benner 57:59
That's a long time. Did you? Was it touching go at any point? Or was he just too small to come out?

Speaker 1 58:05
Like they were, they were pretty confident with us that he was going to survive. They were really scared that he was going to have like severe brain damage. And they were very upfront with us about that. Just because they didn't nobody knew like how long. I mean, frankly, he was dead. Nobody knew for how long was he dead? Before they brought him back? In a baby. That's, I mean, that's a big deal to not have oxygen to your brain for any amount of time. That was that was the main concern. We were pretty sure he was gonna make it. But yeah, he took a really long time to recover, just respiratory wise, took a long time to get off the ventilator. And then, you know, I recovered from my acidosis within like, 24 hours, but it took him like, oh, my gosh, like, six or six or seven days. So yeah, so my DKA like, put him in metabolic acidosis. My blood was so toxic and tainted, and he's just getting all of it, obviously. So when they got to him, his his blood gas was just a disaster. So that was kind of the main thing that took so long. And then once they had all that correct, and it was just kind of your normal NICU stuff of getting him big and getting him able to eat and breathe on his own and everything.

Scott Benner 59:30
Do you feel like there's any deficits?

Speaker 1 59:33
No, oh, my God. No, he is. He's right on track. He's doing amazing like, and he's huge. People have no idea ever that he was a NICU baby.

Scott Benner 59:46
How old is he now?

Speaker 1 59:47
He is almost a year. He's 11 and a half months old.

Scott Benner 59:52
Congratulations. That's lovely. Thank you. Did you name him after St. Jude?

Speaker 1 59:56
No, but we did learn after the fact We're not Catholic, but we are we are Christian. And we learned after the fact that St. Jude is the Saint of impossible prayers, desperately

Scott Benner 1:00:08
cases and lost cases, right? Or lost desperate cases and lost causes maybe.

Speaker 1 1:00:14
Yes, yes. Something like that. And that was just like, Wow, what a God thing because we, I mean, for us the only way the only way we survived the only way he survived is just the flooding of prayers that we had from our community going out for him and just the way that he's completely fine now is kind of mind blowing. So he's definitely definitely was an impossible prayer.

Scott Benner 1:00:38
I'm risking freaking myself out here. Did you pick that name before the day? Or after?

Speaker 1 1:00:43
No, he's it was like three days after, actually. Because if you

Scott Benner 1:00:46
were like, we were gonna call them do the whole time, then I'm freaking out. But then Yeah, I'm okay with that. Well, you made a sad song and you made it better is that the line took a sad song and made it. So what are we gonna call the episode? Hey, Jude, probably right.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:01
I mean, that's pretty cute.

Scott Benner 1:01:03
I think that's what we got to do. Well, there's a lot there, Kate. Like I'm now I'm emotionally spent from having this conversation. I now I'm sorry. No, no, seriously, though. It really is crazy. That. It just that one moment, like, Listen, I've I've had that happen. Right. Arden had a pod that had to be changed while she was swimming. And sort of there'd been all this activity during the day. And so we expect them to have like lower blood sugars in the evening because of the of the all the activity and the swimming people know this. Right. So we changed the pump. It is literally in Gosh, Arden's been using Omnipod. Since she was four, she's 19. That's 15 years in 15 years of using on the pot that's changing one every three days. She's only ever had one king to cannula. Oh, wow. happened after that? Swimming. And so she wakes up the next morning. She's in DKA the next morning, just from that King cannula overnight. So Right. I don't even know how many pods. That is. It's insane. Right? We can figure it out. But 15 years, 365 days, probably 100. And some pods a year should probably wear. I mean, just crazy bow over 1200 pods maybe happen one time. And the one time it happened. It happened while she was asleep. Right didn't happen in the middle of the day where we would have noticed or something like that it didn't happen in a situation where we would have noticed quicker because her blood sugar would have shot up because it didn't shoot up because of all the swimming. Like just these little happenstance variables that kept it from being discovered right away. And it was you know, anyway, look, I always

Speaker 1 1:02:48
say it was just the perfect storm. Like everything lined up for a horrible disaster, right? Just was. And I feel so long. I was so angry because it's like, one tiny mistake one lapse in. You know, I don't know

Scott Benner 1:03:07
what I don't even you can't even blame yourself. Really? I mean, the cannula just kinked when you put it in? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:03:12
but you know, it's like, well, I should have made sure that it was working and all that. And I should have been doing like real sick day management that would have helped. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:23
but you know how many times people in your like with diabetes? get by? You know what I mean? Like, they just go like, I know what I should be doing. But it's going to be okay. And nine times out of 10. It is okay. And then

Speaker 1 1:03:36
that's been me my whole life. I've never I've never passed out from a low. I've never gone into DKA. So I kind of had this attitude of like, no, I got it. I got it. I always got it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:47
I'm telling you. I raised a little girl with diabetes. That's the biggest problem that is the most difficult to address is that it's difficult day today to have the same. Oh gosh, what's the word like sense of like, sense of like, we have to be on top of this that you have when you're parenting someone with type one, like when you're doing it as an adult? It doesn't make sense, right? You'd make yourself crazy. But yet, something's going to happen at some point. But look, you know, this could happen that can you could have kinked three days before before you were sick. And you probably would have figured it out. Your blood sugar would have started going up you haven't I know what the hell Oh, I just changed my site and blah, blah. But the cannulas being sick, blah, blah, blah. And you just you're trying to get through it. I'm telling you, that's crazy. Well, well, I'm happy obviously that it all worked out. And really nice of you to come on the podcast and tell everybody about it. Thank you so

Speaker 1 1:04:40
much. Oh, absolutely. It's like a dream come true. Kinda.

Scott Benner 1:04:45
Oh, do tell. I have a couple of minutes. Why am I fantastic? Now's the time.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:53
Oh, I think you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:55
it's fine. I'm very happy that the podcast is here. been invaluable for you through a lot, you know, through this time. So I really do appreciate you adding your story to it, because this is the kind of thing people need to hear. Like, you know, it's all well and good when nothing bad happens at the other side. But, you know, this is a great, it's a great experience to share to give people the idea that you do have to be diligent, you know, like, you can't just keep letting it go over and over again, it's gonna catch up at some point. And, man, I'm just glad that it all worked out. And so your husband, he, he gets there. I just this is the last little Yeah, he's there while you're in surgery already, is when he arrives. So

Speaker 1 1:05:39
it turns out well, I, I didn't ever see him. When I woke up. I wake up and I see him. So I'm gonna go thank God. But what actually happened is he he was there. And this is just perfect storm. It's hilarious. They took me to labor and delivery er, the ambulance did and he shows up to the hospital and goes to main er, and is at the ER front desk, like where's my wife? Where's my wife? Benedetta. And by the time, you know, the ER locates me and is like, Oh, she's over in lnd. Er, I was already back in the or so. That's, that's how we missed each other just

Scott Benner 1:06:17
like that. Oh my gosh, does he know? When do you to find out together the baby situation? Where does he find out before you wake up?

Speaker 1 1:06:28
Together, but I was like, kind of, you know, half there. I remember the doctor standing there and being like, he's alive. But we don't know if he's gonna be you know, fully functioning basically. I remember her being like, you know, just very direct about it.

Scott Benner 1:06:47
And tempering your expectations. Yes, yes. But

Speaker 1 1:06:52
he, you know, obviously went to meet him without me and everything like that. So

Scott Benner 1:06:57
did you were you with it enough to know how bad it was? Or were you kind of really out of it?

Speaker 1 1:07:01
I was really out of it. I thought I was with it. But then looking back I didn't really come to for for like two days because they had me on a you know, a lot of pain medicine and then I was still in DKA and yada

Scott Benner 1:07:16
yada. Sure. No, no, no, I imagine. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Well, if it's okay with you, I'm definitely calling this one. Hey, Jude. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I'm thrilled that, uh, that everything's okay. I seriously it's very kind of you. I would stay on with you a little longer, and talk about other stuff. But the truth is, I'm looking back on our conversation. I think this is about as much as people can take from whatever.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:39
I'm, I'm sad that I'm such a depressing. No,

Scott Benner 1:07:41
not depressing if it feels like I'm on a roller coaster.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:45
Yeah, I mean, well,

Scott Benner 1:07:48
yeah, I just feel like I feel like we've been on the Tilton world long enough. Now we all need to get off.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:54
Everybody needs to go listen to something happy.

Scott Benner 1:07:56
Yeah, I'm sure there's an after dark or someone's doing something absolutely insane. You can go listen to that. It'll probably pop you right up. Although I'm told by some people they don't like the after darks because they find them sad, but I find them incredibly interesting. So I don't know. Do you like them?

Speaker 1 1:08:11
Yeah, not. They're not really my style. I've I've only listened to one I think to me, to be honest with you.

Scott Benner 1:08:17
It's too much when people's like, have so much like distress in their life.

Speaker 1 1:08:22
Yeah, basically, I'm like, my life's crazy enough. Like, I don't want to I feel the same way about like sad movies or scary movies. It's just like, I don't want to consume, you know, negativity, I guess like life is. Life is crazy enough. It

Scott Benner 1:08:35
certainly is. Hey, here's my last question for you. Are you planning on having more kids?

Speaker 1 1:08:41
I am. Yeah. Yeah, you think it'd be okay. All I can do is pray. Did

Scott Benner 1:08:47
you ever figure out who gave you the flu?

Speaker 1 1:08:51
No, I don't know. Is probably at work. Realistically, it was flu season. I didn't care for anyone directly that had the flu. But we did have patients there that that were flu positive. Around.

Scott Benner 1:09:02
Yeah, I take it all right. I just like it because I there's part of music. I hope it's not somebody in their family. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, like,

Speaker 1 1:09:11
that'd be horrible. I would not be able to get over that one. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:09:15
How did your dad handle the story afterwards? Because he understands it too. Like, is it hard for him to hear? Ah,

Speaker 1 1:09:23
yeah, definitely. He's like, he's really emotional, but like, keeps it on the DL. So I don't know. I know, like my parents came down, you know, the next morning and my husband's parents and I know everybody was kind of a mess. But I didn't. Everybody put on a brave face for me, I guess is the point. And I didn't really wake up out of all my craziness until like day two or three. So until

Scott Benner 1:09:49
you've been in a situation where a loved one is in a desperate that way. You don't realize how everyone just gets very like, Oh, it's fine. You'll look great. This is going to be okay. A Don't worry, I told my mom not to worry three hours before she was going to I knew she was going to die. And I was pretty sure it was going badly. I like Mom, it's gonna be alright. Like, there's nothing left to say. You know what I mean? Yeah. What are you going to? What are you going to do? Go? Oh, looks bad man. You better talk to Jesus because I think he's coming. So like, you know, it's so everyone does that thing, because they're just trying to get you back to a good place, you know? And exactly, yeah, it's wonderful. Well, listen, I'm glad you had people around you. And the law worked out. If you hold on just one second. I just need to talk to you for a second after we're done. But thank you so much for doing this. Of course, I

was happy to Oh, great. I don't one second.

A huge thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website touched by type one.org or on Facebook and Instagram. A huge thanks to Dexcom for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast dexcom.com/juice box head over there now. Get started today. Jalen is an incredible example of what so many experienced living with diabetes, you show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes to find you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox And look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made the finding diabetes, go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes, to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative. That's the finding diabetes. Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're gonna hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Speaker 2 1:12:22
My name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since.

Scott Benner 1:12:37
Nice. How old? were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes?

Speaker 2 1:12:39
I was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:12:44
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What do you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Speaker 2 1:12:49
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 1:12:58
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Speaker 2 1:13:01
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was,

Scott Benner 1:13:22
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time? I

Speaker 2 1:13:25
honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 1:13:43
Was there any expectation of diabetes? Is somebody else in your family have type one? No,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:47
I was the first one to have type one in my family.

Scott Benner 1:13:49
And do you have children? Now? I do not know. Do you think you will one day, still

Speaker 2 1:13:54
thinking about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 1:13:59
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Speaker 2 1:14:02
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about

Scott Benner 1:14:10
eight years now. And you get to travel a lot in that job. Yes, I

Speaker 2 1:14:14
experience a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes. What

Scott Benner 1:14:24
do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Speaker 2 1:14:28
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt I felt like I needed to always have something on me and that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 1:14:50
So growing up in the small town. What was your initial challenge during diagnosis, and what other challenges did you find? along the way.

Speaker 2 1:15:00
Yeah, I think the initial one, I felt isolated, I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through. You know, they were people would say, Oh, I know, this is like hard for you. But I was like, you really don't like I, I just felt lonely. I didn't know, you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this, you can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been, you know, I don't even remember what it was like, for life before diabetes at this point, because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a life with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:15:34
when you found yourself misunderstood? Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 2 1:15:42
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it, which I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 1:15:59
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in.

Speaker 2 1:16:03
I think I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out was people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before, is

Scott Benner 1:16:25
college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time, or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking. So

Speaker 2 1:16:31
I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person. And he had had it since he was a kid like young once this was like, maybe born, or like, right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college. And I started meeting other people, I was a member of the band, and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university. But then, once I moved to, I moved to St. Louis. And a lot of my friends I met were like med students, and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic. And I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technologies, and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more. And with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:17:23
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school, but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Speaker 2 1:17:34
I didn't, you know, I honestly didn't think about it, I just was i Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much to, like, connect with them. So sorry, connect with them all. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:54
no. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people, but there's still value in that. Right?

Unknown Speaker 1:18:06
Correct.

Scott Benner 1:18:07
What do you think that value was at the time?

Speaker 2 1:18:09
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 1:18:25
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:18:29
So about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around, and I noticed stumbled upon the patriotic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my punk you couldn't, I would wear long sleeves, like, didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community, just, they embraced it, you can see and they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 1:19:04
How is it knowing that your diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Speaker 2 1:19:17
I will refuse to go anywhere. Like, I would run to the bathroom. I just didn't want to do it in public because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into the professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out because I was so afraid. But then once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on and how does this work and what does this mean and things like that, which made it kind of inspired me because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand And what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:20:02
what did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag, and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well? Can you tell me how that is either different or valuable? I guess compared to meeting a few people in real life?

Speaker 2 1:20:19
Absolutely. I think if you look back from when I was first diagnosed to now, you, I would have never thought of like, you know, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes. And now it's like, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, and you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that, that kind of just motivates me, and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know, how I live with type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 1:20:54
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one?

Speaker 2 1:20:58
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows, it understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know, what's going on with your mic? I'm actually a type one diabetic? This is what's going on? I need your help. What about?

Scott Benner 1:21:36
Once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship? After

Speaker 2 1:21:49
I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after some type of event or anything like they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front? Because they were like, you know, I care about you, as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 1:22:06
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation. But what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn? And you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:22:21
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars, you know, I can tell like, for my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to you know, when I go out backtrack, when I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And and so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have snacks, we got to take some insulin, and my blood sugar is running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin, and I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me in my career, because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:23:12
right? Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people? Yeah, I

Speaker 2 1:23:23
can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I always at least said it, I have been showing that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of understood it, because I'm scared, but it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the work day because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 1:23:56
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Speaker 2 1:24:12
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions, or comment and be like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos and upload videos, and I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that, but I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make like just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:24:42
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more.

Speaker 2 1:25:09
Yes, I think it's just because it's something you see. And so it's like, and I think that one thing, and obviously, it's a big stereotype of our diabetes is you don't feel like you have diabetes. And that's something I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people, and I'm like, they have type one diabetes, just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed.

Scott Benner 1:25:38
What are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist, and you make a plan for the next few months? What are you hoping to achieve? And where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes, I'll

Speaker 2 1:25:49
be honest, I was not someone who is you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I have personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my chance, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs, I see your, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high, too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like an exciting visit for me.

Scott Benner 1:26:37
So you'd like to set a goal for yourself. And then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal.

Speaker 2 1:26:44
Yeah, I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard our journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible you're doing it's just, it's not going to motivate you because it's you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve. That's what really has been the game changer for me in the past two years. Jalen,

Scott Benner 1:27:22
I appreciate you spending this time with me. This was terrific. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:25
Absolutely. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:27:27
If you enjoy Jalen story, check out Medtronic. diabetes.com/juicebox Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com

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