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Podcast Episodes

The Juicebox Podcast is from the writer of the popular diabetes parenting blog Arden's Day and the award winning parenting memoir, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Dad'. Hosted by Scott Benner, the show features intimate conversations of living and parenting with type I diabetes.

Filtering by Category: Jenny Smith CDE

#307 Diabetes Pro Tip: Emergency Room Protocols

Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on type 1 diabetes care

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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, everyone, and welcome to Episode 307 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is another in the diabetes pro tip series. Today's topic, emergency room protocols. This is a really great and complete conversation about how to handle trips to the hospital. And my voice is a little broken up right now you may have just heard it. So especially when you get to the ads in the middle, you'll have you know, I'm not quite like, but it's getting there. So I'm doing as little speaking as like Ken today. That said today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod and Dexcom you can get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump sent directly to your home by going to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box. And to learn more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, you're going to want to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box now there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox podcast.com. For all of the sponsors, check them out. So today Jenny Smith and I are going to be talking about going to the hospital with Type One Diabetes. Jennifer Smith is not only a good friend to the Juicebox Podcast, but she is also a person who's been living with Type One Diabetes for over 30 years. So she has first hand knowledge of day to day events that affect management. Jennifer holds a bachelor's degree in human nutrition and biology from the University of Wisconsin. She is a registered and licensed dietitian, a certified diabetes educator and a certified trainer on most makes and models of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems. She is also my partner in these diabetes pro tips. You can check her out at integrated diabetes.com you can actually hire Jenny, she'll help you through your process. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. or becoming bold with insulin.

So Jenny, this whole time we're going to talk today, I think we're gonna just talk about this one.

Unknown Speaker 2:27
email that I got.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:28
Yeah. Which was great. And I think I mean, we've touched on some of these points in like some of the I know, we did like up a safety in a hospital preparedness and all of that kind of stuff. But I think this hits a really specific mark of most people that go to an emergency room in a very emergent setting. They don't really know, and why would they know that the staff there is not prepared to deal with Type One Diabetes, they're not and they're not in. I don't say that in a like a god, they're not educated they are they're highly educated, they're educated in a million different things, right. But their focus is so much not type one. And because the scope of how we manage type one, especially in the past 10 years, has changed so dramatically. They the staff, they can't keep up with that they they don't they don't have time to keep up with that. So when you come in, you know, on these fancy gadgets and all these things, and they're like, Well, I know an insulin drip and I know how to, to hook you up to glucose and that's what we're gonna do. Like and you step back and you're like, No, no, no, no, I do this,

Scott Benner 3:49
you could you come to realize what they really understand is just how to keep you from having a low blood sugar incident while you're there. That's what I know how to do. So you may or may not be surprised by the number of emails I get yearly from nurses and doctors who have children who are diagnosed or sometimes who have themselves diagnosed. And inevitably, there are three sentences or three sentences in their email that describe I'm a good nurse. I'm a good doctor. I don't understand Type One Diabetes at all, every time. It's Yeah, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:26
I'm working with a family right now. The the father is a physician and the mother is a nurse practitioner and their little child they I mean, they came to us and they were like, We know diabetes, but we don't know diabetes. You know, I mean, we know the coded book description of this is what you do, and that should be cut and dry and playing the limit. Not cut and dry. There is no book anything nuanced just a bit, right. Right. Right. So I don't

Scott Benner 4:59
I think misty would mind her name being used, Misty came into the private Facebook group that we have for the podcast. And she shared that, you know, her child had to go to the hospital. And then she had all of these questions afterwards, and statements and things like that. And when it ended, she said, I would love it if you and Jenny talked about this stuff. And I said, Okay, you go ahead and put a list together of what you think of, you know, as emergent that came from this experience. And Jenny, and I'll try to talk about it. And she really did. So misty, congratulations, this, you are the founder of this feast today. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:38
yeah, and she did not I mean, from the topics that she noted, would be helpful to cover and everything. I mean, quite honestly, it kind of speaks to the amount of medical education you get, yes, it's only in one field. But the amount of medical stuff you learn, when you become either the person with diabetes, or the caretaker for someone with diabetes, I what she has here is very much in a very, very specific way really important, and should quite honestly be like taken to the emergency department heads. And this is what your Doc's should have a list of protocol to follow up. So

Scott Benner 6:19
that's what we're gonna say the real question becomes, excuse me. The real question becomes, what happens in an emergency situation in a medical situation, when you are the most knowledgeable person in the room and have the least power? Right, apparently to you in the moment, right? Doctors, lab coats, people bubbling around, you're not a doctor. But it turns out, you do have power, you just need to know how to assert it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:46
How to wield it exactly. So

Scott Benner 6:47
let me read a little bit here. This, this emails, not miss these initial post in the in the Facebook page. This is the email she sent to me. And so she said, Hey, thanks for considering making this up. Thanks for considering making an episode about emergency care. Going through the sickness with my son, which was the first time he had had a stomach bug since diagnosis almost a year ago, made me start thinking about how to figure out what else I don't know. In this instance, probably the three biggest mistakes made the ER ended up being the doctor turning off his bazel they didn't hang dextrose and refused them an absolute refusal to call an endocrinologist. And she said, I knew that these things weren't right. But by doubting herself and assuming that the doctor must know better than she did. You know, she had no idea in the end, how to make him do those things that she knew needed to be done. And she should have been more assertive, she says and sooner. Mm hmm. So she put she just puts a bulleted list here. That's terrific. I and I think we did go down the list. Right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:55
Absolutely. Because it's it's a great list. And I think some of the points can actually even be kind of melded together in a way. But I it is, it's a very well put together list. It's actually In fact, many of the things on here, when we talk to people, the people that we work with in our practice, and we give them our information about prepping for a hospital stay, we have not only a hospital stay or expecting like for a planned surgery, but we also have a lot of these things covered so that you do know how to advocate for yourself, because that's really what it becomes. When you go to the emergency room. Unless you are the person with diabetes, and you're completely out. Well, you know what? They're gonna do what they can do to save your life. And you have no control there then. But

Scott Benner 8:44
yeah, and maybe you can get into a situation where you don't end up like you've heard people in the past talk about in the podcast, where they have family members sneaking them in insulin, and they're like, you know, like, wouldn't it be nice if that's not how this went? Right? It would be lovely for your, you know, your medical doctors to know about the insulin your body. So Right, right. I have a couple of experiences that I'll I'll interject if they fit, and I know you're going to have some. So first question was, how do I know when it's time to go to the hospital or even at least to call the endo? When it's a specific type one problem, I guess around illness? When do you tell people to call?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:23
Yeah, I mean, we usually tell people to call at least to call their endo or I guess even a step before that is make sure that you've addressed with your endo a 24 hour emergent line to be able to contact somebody at because I guarantee that your specific endo isn't going to be there at two o'clock in the morning, everything every time something happens, right. So the step ahead of that is knowing who to call, what's the number who will I actually talked to you? Is it just going to be a nurse triage or is it really that I'm going to get to talk to somebody that's going to give me some information without playing phone tag writing

Scott Benner 9:58
services still exist to you might just be They do person taking a message,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:01
right? Correct. I mean, most systems, most healthcare systems do have 24 hour nursing care within your, like, you know, whatever your insurance coverage or whatever system you're in, right? And that nurse should also be the one who can help determine what are your symptoms? What's going on? Or what what's happening with your child? Is this emergent enough? I'm going to call the doctor on call, and we're going to get some answers for you or no, you need to go to the emergency room there. I mean, we've used it a couple of times for for our boys when they have been like, sick fever, like, you know, rolling around, not feeling great. I'm like, Okay, let's call the nurse and see if it's time to go to the doctor, you know, um, but so they're, from our experience, they've been very, very helpful and good. So that's a first step, if it's daytime, certainly try to call your endo office get in a very emergent message that, hey, this is what's going on and have some very good facts to give them, you know, we've checked blood sugar, we've given insulin, we've checked ketones, you know, my child won't take any fluids, or my child can't stop vomiting, or those are very, very important things to be able to give facts, so they know what to do with you.

Scott Benner 11:15
I also think that it's important not to get caught up in the emotion of it, telling stories and like, they need the facts. They don't need the extra stuff. My mother in law was over. And yeah, let that go. That's not

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:31
a kid's friend was over three weeks ago, and had you know, the flu Two days later, they don't care. They don't need to know,

Scott Benner 11:37
we've all been around a person telling a story who's telling a story. They're five minutes into it, you're bored out of your mind, and then they go. So anyway, it was one o'clock in the afternoon. Wait a minute, was it one o'clock? Or was it 130? Right? I you know, I think and you're like listening, going, it doesn't matter. Just tell me the story. Right? So yeah, and I think to to recall, to remember, is that it's possible, you'll get a really learned person on the phone who can hear you and respond from their own brains knowledge. And you might also get someone on the phone who's just following a flowchart waiting for you to say a key word. So you know, exactly. So expectations, I guess, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:19
And definitely, you know, like I said, Have the facts in order that you can tell them so they can direct what they need to tell you in the right way. And then, you know, if you really just don't know, you know, when is it actually time to just pick up and go to the hospital? I mean, certainly, we usually say if it's, in this case, you know, her son had a stomach bug. So my expectation is that there was a lot of vomiting, or maybe there is vomiting, and the other end as well, kind of coming out. I don't know, stomach bugs are pretty nasty. And for little kids, or kids of any age, even adults, you could be so like, just out of it, that even remembering to take a sip every couple of minutes or remembering to get, you know, some food in or some carbs in or to try adjusting your insulin this way. Some of that may completely go out the window. So I mean, when is it time to go to the hospital when you've put everything in, and you've adjusted, and you've tried all the sick tape protocol that you've been given to try. And it's not working, and especially if there are more. So that higher ketone level, you need to go to the emergency room, don't play with it.

Scott Benner 13:36
There's the idea. The illness is not fixable, you are ill now you're ill, you're either able to manage it at home in a way that isn't going to become dire. Or you need to be at the hospital prior to it becoming dire. Right, right. That's correct. That's the idea.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:52
And a lot of some of the evaluation in this case would be hydration, for a stomach bug, when to go to the hospital, especially for little kids. If they haven't been able to even take anything in fluid wise or fluid with a little bit of carb. It's It's time to go hydration is a really, really, if you get dehydrated, it's hard

Scott Benner 14:15
to recover from that and pay attention to your ketones. I would imagine when you're sick, yep. Alright, so then she says, What do I take with me? Maybe you should talk about this stuff you have prepared in case you're too sick or unable to speak for yourself a list of medications, outlining of what your normal type one care is like, what hospital is best for you to go to if you have a choice. She gets there. She lives very far from her hospital, which is interesting. I live in a metropolitan area. I never think about that. Like, I never I don't realize that some people have to take an airplane to an airport to fly somewhere else. Like that's not the life I live. Yeah, if I wanted to go to a children's hospital right now. I could go to five of them if I wanted to. Right. Yeah, right. So but that's not everybody's story. So what should you I mean, you've talked before though about having a go bag for yourself,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:05
yeah, next to the next to the door or even if you keep it in the car, as long as doesn't have any, like meds or anything that will freeze, you know, if you live in a cold place or way too hot place. But I mean, some of those things that should be in a bad bag, especially if you're on a pump, things like extra reservoir tubing, infusion site, even a bottle of water, extra batteries, tapes, adhesives, you know, all those kinds of things, even some extra like glucose, glucose, gel, juices, simple sugar, all the things that you would pack, to potentially take along on like a vacation, let's say, could be in that bag along with and I love that, you know, she pointed out things like a list of meds 100% because you know what, when you're bringing your child someplace emergently like that, while you may the back of your hand know exactly what the rates are of bazel delivery and what they get, and maybe if they're on injections how much and when, when you're in that emergent situation that may completely go out of your brain, and you may be fumbling to remember. So having that all, you know, written down even, you know, if you upload your pump, do a printout once a month of the changes that are in your rates, ratios, you know, time of action and everything that's available on every pump load site, right? download it, put it in the bag, that way it's there.

Scott Benner 16:31
Yeah, yeah, I think to as you were talking, it made me realize I'm gonna do something. So Jenny, and I have topics for some of our episodes. And we just keep them in a simple note in an iPhone, right. And it's a shared note. So I type in a list, Jenny goes back and strikes things out or add things we go back and forth. And as we make changes to it, the other person can see the changes, you could just simply have a note in your iPhone that is shared with your husband and your mother and and those people, that is a list of medications, what basal rates are stuff like that, so that everybody has access to that information. The second,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:06
the other really good like I'll like I never take off my ID bracelet. But many ID bracelets like mine on the very back of it. Now of course I can't get it off. But on the very back of my ID bracelet is actually a an 800 number and a website, that's it's free. All they would have to literally do is look at my ID bracelet. and log into that and all of my medical history is there. So if your child wears a necklace or a bracelet or something like that, many like American medical ID does a really good job. Most of the other websites. I don't know if they offer that as a free service when you buy a bracelet, but it's a nice way that again, you don't have to have that list, like printed out. It's there. It's excellent.

Scott Benner 17:55
Okay. Okay, Misty says what are the universal non negotiable things once you're at the ER, like for your safety? She says that in their case, it was not shutting off the pump, you know, they hanging dextrose not sailing way. That's a way that one's Interesting, isn't it that they gave him because the sailing drops your blood sugar,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:17
like well, and the dextrose versus the Sallie Mae, you know, in her circumstance, she's right. But in other circumstances, depending on where blood sugar was, you know, hanging sailing versus dextrose. If somebody's coming in, in DK, obviously feeding them more glucose, at least initially, you know, you're gonna actually you need hydration. So there are some pieces that go along with the illness that you've come in for, to pay attention to. But I think what she's really saying here is asking what's being hung? Right? Right. It's it's knowledge to say, okay, you're hanging Sally, and he's come in with a stomach bug, I understand that you're trying to provide some hydration. But let's look at where blood sugar is. Let's look at all these things, then she, you know, again, also very correct. And it's a big thing that I go over all the women and men and parents that I work with. If you go to the emergency room, do not let them take your pump. Do not let them take your pump. I mean, like, if you have to, like scream and yell and whatever, then advocate and don't let them take your pump. If you come in because you've had a pump malfunction. Obviously, your pumps not gonna be doing what you need to

Scott Benner 19:32
take your busted pump.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:34
There's a difference in the story, right, but definitely not shutting off the pump. The other thing here too, is they don't necessarily know pumps well enough to even be able to know whether you shut it off.

Scott Benner 19:47
So Jenny just brought something up. And

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:49
so I kind of, I kind of sugarcoat that in a way, like, they don't know. It's like,

Scott Benner 19:58
it's like when my kids were little We used to go into a spare room, pull the sofa away from the wall a little bit and hide Christmas presents behind the sofa. And the kids never knew where they were because they just didn't know to think about that. Right. So So I have two hospital experiences with Arden. And they both come within the last year. So they're fresh in my mind. One of them is an emergency room visit where Arden had abdominal pain. It was bad. We went into the ER, the first thing I started doing and now keep in mind that this ability to do this comes from a confidence standpoint, like I was confident when I got there, so you know what you're doing. So I got I said to the nurse, and anybody who walked in Arden has type one diabetes, she's wearing an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor. Her continuous glucose monitor is reading her blood sugar live, here it is I held it up and showed it to them. And her insulin pump is giving her basal insulin and boluses in case she gets larger, we want to keep these devices on her. Okay. Now you would think they'd be like, Oh, I don't know. But But when people realize, you know, and they realize they don't know, they get a little smaller in the conversation, if that makes sense. like someone's in charge and someone's not. Now it is not the you're not trying to lord it over them. You don't want them to be like, you're not like, Hey, I'm here. I know what I'm doing back up. It's a very symbiotic thing you're trying to set up

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:21
as you've also come in for help for something else respect.

Scott Benner 21:24
Right, respect what they know, try to get them to respect what you know. Mm hmm. It's very important not to come off crazy during those initial conversations. Correct. flustered, like you don't realize it. But if they look at you and your hair on fire, they read that as I'm not listening to that person, right? You know, and that's good on them, they shouldn't. And also keep in mind, that emergency room people deal with a lot of crazy people. So know if you're crazy or not. And so you have to build a little quick rapport, simple conversations, ask questions. And I also found that I'm was kind of, in my mind scoring the people, what did they understand what right, when did they get a blank look? Or when did they have a response that made sense, you know, try to figure that out, then sometimes, there were people in the scenario I just stopped talking to about diabetes, I directed it more towards the nurse who seemed to understand what I was saying, the one who wanted to give me a little space, and did and that's how I did that. Right. And, and it worked out really well.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:27
And I think at the same time in your scenario, kind of bringing in until she mentioned a little further down, not until the nurse really was like, I need to set you straight. And I'm going to call in somebody else to talk to you and set you right and whatever. And she called it an endo consult, quite honestly, when you go to the emergency room, and you know that you may have a stand up and put your hands up and say I got this I know. And you know what you can call an endo bring them in, because I would like another advocate for what I'm doing. right up front. Ask for them. There is always an endo on call. There's there's always a specialist on call that will come.

Scott Benner 23:12
And if I could play psychologist for a second, when the nurse says that the misty that's the nurse saying, well, I really don't know enough to write to be the stop in this situation. I think that woman should stop telling me what to do. But I don't have enough facts to stop her. I'll get a person with facts that come in, then we'll see later that the person with facts came in and, you know, right, told them.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:36
You know, hopefully overall, the nurse may have learned something in that setting, too. You know, everything is kind of with diabetes, I find it if people are willing to listen, it's a teaching moment. So you know, hopefully for the next person who comes in or the next parent with a child who comes in this nurse will be a little bit more in the know and be able to say you know what, I don't know enough about this. I do understand that you feel like you know what you're doing? I'm going to call the endo. Let's just make sure everything is is good. Everything is the way that it's supposed to be going based on what you came in here for, you know, three.

Unknown Speaker 24:11
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 24:15
One second, I gotta tell ya, I found myself at a speaking event last weekend. And outside of the event, there were vendor tables, and one of those tables was on the pod. So I went up to the person working the table and I said, Hey, I'm pretty good at telling people about on the pod Could I try? They said yes. And then the next person that walked up to the table, I stepped up. I said hello, how are you? Are you interested in the Omni pod to boost insulin pump? And the guy said Not really. I saw Whoa, why not? Let me tell you. So first I found out was he interested in a pump? And he was then I explained how the Omni pod work did It was a standalone device that didn't have any tubing, but he could wear it while he was bathing or working out, going swimming in the ocean even. Then he started Listen, I talked to him about how important it was to continue to get his basal insulin during those activities, and how if he had a tubes pump, you'd have to disconnect to do those things. And I had his attention. After that, we talked about the personal diabetes manager that's used to control the pump, and even discuss that sometime at the end of 2020. On the pod would be adding an algorithm that their horizon system would be coming out that this was the perfect time to get acquainted with the Omni pod. Just like that he picked up the free no obligation demo, and took it home. And you can get one for yourself at my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. When you go there on the pod, we'll send you an absolutely free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod. Check it out. All right, I'm gonna keep going and do the last ad for the show right here. And of course, it's for the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, my voice is failing me. But the Dexcom will always be there for you. The dexcom g six is the only continuous glucose monitor that I would ever put on my daughter. It gives back information about the speed and direction that her blood sugar is moving, that is so necessary and needed in our life. It is how we make every great decision about food, insulin, how we stop low blood sugars from happening, how we head off high blood sugars before they become high. It is how we do everything. Every insulin decision we make begins with the information that comes back from the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. I look there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox podcast.com for both on the pod index calm. But you can just remember this right here, you'll get to where you need to be dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Go read about the alerts and the alarms about the share and follow features. Figure out if this is something you want. Don't take my word for it because my word is do it. That mean if you want to trust me just jump right in. But if you don't want to trust me, Go read about it at least go find out how your child or loved one can be anywhere using index calm and you can be somewhere else remotely seeing their blood sugar's my daughter's blood sugar right now is 71. She's at school. It's 1030 in the morning. I can see that right on my iPhone dexcom.com forward slash juice box are the links in your show notes. Were at Juicebox podcast.com. And don't forget, if you're thinking about moving to an algorithm based pump at some point, you're going to want the Dexcom so now's the time. One second, I gotta tell her something.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:57
She fallen asleep in class because she's so tired from studying so late last night.

Scott Benner 28:02
She's actually on our way to lunch. She's been at school for 25 minutes and she's going Watch now which is you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:06
we always we always talk at the time that she's heading into lunch. Yes. And you're always texting her do this or did you do this or eating today?

Scott Benner 28:15
Want me to pull the curtain back a little bit people like hearing about that. So there's a reason why I'm always recording all Ardennes at lunch and I'm much more well thought out than I give myself credit for Do you believe I am. Okay, and then she asks the end. Is it ever okay to shut off insulin. So misty, I'll tell you that. I was rockin Arden's blood sugar for hours in the emergency room and there was no food going into her like we had some juices once in a while we were sipping juices always let the nurse know juices happening. Because the nurse was always like, Look, if you can't manage this, we'll use I don't know what it is dextrose or glucose or something like that. Right? And I was like, okay, you know, but I was trying really hard for that not to happen because just like the nurse who called the endo on misty, I didn't have any perspective for that. I did not know what was gonna happen next. And I use texting Jenny, I was like, what's gonna happen if they give her this? Like, what trying to be ready because I've taken insulin away, like, I don't know what to do. Right. And we kept going for a long time. But finally I just couldn't. I couldn't keep it up anymore. Right. And so they gave it to her. And the woman's like, let it go for a minute to see what happens. She was right like it shot up. But it came back down pretty quickly again, like had I given her insulin for that that would have been a major, like problem, right? Yeah. And then once we got that drip regulated, and then got her bazel rate to where, like I just adjusted her bazel to manage the dextrose instead of what it was usually managing. She was getting a very tiny bit of insulin. Yeah, but a little bit. And that was it. And it's making me realize as we're talking, the tools really do work anywhere. Like they were in that situation too. So I guess confidence and honest actual confidence that comes right that comes from experience that you No, it's gone over and over again, the right way, is really helpful.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:05
And I think that, you know, as far as what you were doing, because you know how to manage and you know how to adjust, you know how to turn things down or turn them up or micro adjust with little bits of juice, if you know that if the person can take a little bit by mouth, and it's okay, according to what, you know, their protocol is in the emergency room, or again, like a dextrose drip, if that's an option, and you can adjust accordingly with your basal insulin drip. Great. But it's and I hesitate to say, is it a yes or no? Is it ever okay to shut off insulin? Technically, no, for somebody with type one? I mean, really, it's not. I mean, we, we know what happens if there's 100% deficit of basal insulin, you're not going to see the impact right now. But you are going to see the impact in the next several hours based on that deficit of bazel. That was supposed to be there. Even if they needed less basal insulin, they will always need basal

Scott Benner 31:05
insulin, and you and if you get to that spot where your it all is out of control, they're going to take it over, then they are going to take a minute your life feels a danger. And they don't think that what you're trying helps them you're going to lose control the situation. Right, right. And that's, that's obvious. I want to fill in here that misty said that eventually, it seemed like the ER doc was probably confused about pump therapy in general, and didn't realize that her child wasn't also getting a long acting previously injected insulin. So that doctor did not understand what the pump does

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:42
know. And that's not a common misunderstanding, quite honestly, like I said, initially. The doctors and the nurses and the staff that work in the emergence and the emergence setting of an emergency department, they know a lot, they really do. But they're they're not schooled in, in this setting. What was the difference? Again, between type one and type two, they're just, I mean, they know if they sat down at a desk to somebody, they could tell you the difference, right? But I think because they don't work it all the time. There really is this disconnect in understanding someone with type one diabetes, and I hope lots of healthcare professionals. Listen, Amy, but there is a definite you don't have insulin production, you have got to have at least the background drip drip, drip, drip drip of insulin. And if you're somebody on MDI, which misty also asked, you know, what about people who are using multiple daily injections, what about them, if and that kind of goes along with the emergency preparedness bag, if you can grab your supplies and take them along to the hospital with you, and you're on multiple daily injections, I guarantee you need to grab your basal insulin, whether it's you know, whatever brand you're using, bring it along, because while the hospital will have within their formulary, a basal insulin to use. They may want not know how much you're using, and they'll base it on a formula to calculate how much to give you. But if you don't tell them when you've taken your last dose, or when you usually take your doses of basal insulin, in the hectic nature of what they're trying to do for you. Maybe you take it at 5pm every night, and you end up going to the emergency room at 3pm in the afternoon, and you're there for seven hours. Well, you know what 5pm comes and you don't get your basal insulin, you're going to be at a deficit, they don't know that.

Scott Benner 33:39
And they're gonna be not inclined to give you a eradications they don't understand. So here she says, How should you advocate for yourself for your child if things aren't happening, right? Like, she's like, what if like asking nicely just doesn't work? I think then it's okay to ask to speak to someone else. Correct. You know, like, at some point, you have to just say, Listen, I really do see that you're trying to help. And I don't I'm I always put it back on myself. So there's a little trick I use sometimes in personal communication, where if things aren't going the way I want them to, and I believe it's because the other person is not understanding me. I put that misunderstanding on me. Right. Maybe I you know, I think maybe

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:22
I didn't explain it right.

Scott Benner 34:25
I'm not explaining this correctly. But it's obvious that we're not on the same wavelength here. Could I just talk to someone else and maybe re explain, maybe they'll hear me differently, you know, maybe how I'm saying it will hit them differently, whatever. But just know that I've been at this a long time. And I know this isn't right. And so despite this can't be the end result where we're at right now.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:48
And that's where I think advocating sooner than later. If you are getting any pushback, even in the first you know, minutes of being there. Ask for a console. With an endo, ask for somebody to come in who can from an understanding place, advocate with you and or for you based on what you then tell them? And I think another piece that obviously goes into it is, what is your typical plan of care for a day? Right? How much insulin, how sensitive Are you all those dosing, you know, strategies that you use all those doses and everything that you use from a ratio standpoint, sometimes having it just written down, rather than trying to explain it visually to somebody who is medically trying to help you at that point. They could read it, and it may just click

Scott Benner 35:41
Yeah. Because they're not used to looking at your pump settings are thinking about it, maybe even the way you talk about it. And I listen, I speak to a ton of people as you do. There are a million different ways that people explain the same things all the time, right? Like you hear somebody say it one way, then someone else says it another way. And then a third person found a fun way to say it. And like, you know, versus the situation, you don't want to be using the fun way around the house to explain the doctor because they don't know what the heck you're talking about.

Unknown Speaker 36:06
No, no.

Scott Benner 36:08
So So Arden's emergency room visit was eventually, it turns out because she had a cyst next to her fallopian tube, caused her like incredible, like stomach pain. So eventually, after a lot of testing for other things, we figure that out. And we found ourselves getting surgery for art and to have the cyst removed. So we must have met with the surgeon, four times prior to the surgery. And every time at the end, I would just say, hey, just wanted to remind you that Arden has an insulin pump, and a glucose monitor, right? And that we want to keep them on her doing, but it's really only a 45 minute procedure. And the doctor was, oh my god. Yeah, that's great. Right? You guys are doing great. Just do it. She just boom, yeah, sure. Then we get to the hospital that day, and we're doing intake. And I realized the first nurse is just getting her set. She's not going to be part of the procedure. But then eventually another nurse comes in, who's obviously going to be in the room, I say, Hi, I don't know if the doctor told you. But my daughter has type one diabetes, and she picks the chart up. And look, she has no I didn't know that. And I was like, okay, and I said, Well, she she does. And she's wearing an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor and look at her blood sugar right now, look that I've kept my daughter's blood sugar between 100 and 130 for the last 12 hours, because for this, okay, right? And so keep in mind that that's incredibly difficult to do. And I don't want you to take this the wrong way. I've done it. Okay. So and if you need it for another 45 minutes, I can I want to Okay, she goes, Well, protocol is and I went Oh, okay, so now my brain starts going argue with the doctor said it was okay. No, don't do that. Ask for the doctor, maybe. Then another nurse works walks in the room, I swear to you, I turned away from the woman I was talking to look at the next one went Hi. I don't know if you know this or not like the first nurse wasn't even standing there anymore. But my daughter has type one. And I went all through it. And luck habit She goes, my best friend has type one diabetes. While you're doing great. Let me see your graph. I think my daughter, I think my friend has a dexcom too. We talked about this sometimes. You're doing great. You do whatever you want. Yeah. And that was it. And I said, Okay, great. I said, if she does get low, feel free to give her glucose to bring her blood sugar. Would you like to take her phone into the operating room? And they were like, Yeah, absolutely. And they put it in a surgical bag, they stuck it on the operating table so that it could stay connected to everybody. Once I found somebody who got it, she was thrilled to not be involved in it. Right? Much like your school nurses, and your and your administration school, once they realize you can take care of this and you're like, we don't want to go to the nurse anymore. That's their dream not to take care of your kid, you know. So I found that very same situation kept our blood sugar nice and stable during the procedure. And then as soon as she was out, and her blood sugar tried to go up, I stopped and I was much less aggressive than normal. But I had a goal like I'm going to try to keep under 170 you know without getting her low because she was she was loopy.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:17
Yeah, yeah. anaesthesia is not fun.

Scott Benner 39:20
Right. And, and it worked. But it didn't work because I had the conversations with a doctor didn't even work because I had it worked because I kept having the conversation. Right? So don't get into a position where you feel like I've said this once because said it once to somebody doesn't understand.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:38
And it's also hard in that scenario when you've explained it. And now you come in and you have to explain it yet again. And then they come in with more people and you have to explain it yet again. It's hard not to start to get like this escalation of, oh my god, if I seriously have to explain this to one more person. I'm gonna like my head's gonna explode. We I mean, you really have to take that level down. So that you can advocate well for yourself, and you don't start to look like the crazy person, right? Really think

Scott Benner 40:08
about the suspension of, I don't know what it is expectation or ego or something like that. You're just, you're just and I always explain, I never explained it from a asking point of view, I was always being Matter of fact about it. Like, you don't mean like there's there's, there's an idea behind having you know, whether you're buying a car or any kind of like a situation like that someone's in charge, right? Like someone's in charge. And when you start at the hospital, by default, the hospital people are in charge. If you become subservient in the conversation, you are immediately under them, and you'll never go anywhere else. Right, right. And it's just it's all human interaction. So you start with Hi, you know, I don't want to sound crazy are full of myself, were really good at this. Let me show you how good we are at it. I promise. I'm, you know, this is the truth. And here's what I'd like to do. Here's what I think I can accomplish with that work for you, then you kind of loop them back into the process again, showing them they're important. It's manipulation, really, but other people call it communication, but you know, what you gotta do?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:16
You do. And sometimes it's sometimes even the team might have, you know, in a scenario of going to the hospital, even for like a planned procedure, like the case of art and surgery, right? I mean, in in August, I had surgery for kidney stone. And it was entirely different than the surgery I had just a couple months before that in May. In August for my kidney stone. I had to, like my mom came to the procedure with me after it when she was bringing me home. She's like, I can't believe how many times you had to explain to different people the same exact thing. And I was like, yep, I know. I've done this many times now. And she's like, I know, but she's just like, you know, really proud that you didn't get so flustered. And like she's like, I would have like hit somebody over the head with a charge. She's like, I wouldn't have done that. I'm like, well, you would have but you know, it was actually the anesthesiologist who was the most besides the admitting nurse, who was the anesthesiologist, for me who was really phenomenal. He, he was really interested in my CGM graph he was really interested in in fact, he kept my phone in his pocket. The whole entire procedure, you know, and he, he was awesome. It was actually the surgeon who kept asking me like, how much did you turn your basal insulin down? And like, I didn't turn it down? Because I know what my basal insulin does. Totally fine. Are you sure you don't want to turn? I'm like, Look, buddy. I know what I'm doing.

Scott Benner 42:49
Do your part. I'll do mine. How's that? So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:51
yeah, it was but yeah, you'll encounter different people. And just continuing to kind of continuing to know that you have rights, you have rights, you as long as you do know what you're doing. Your Rights include advocating for yourself, and also asking for other care team members to come in, that may be able to help you better, right,

Scott Benner 43:16
right. It's like being on the phone with customer service, you realize the person you're talking to is does not have the power to do what you need them to do. And you got to get somebody else you just gonna have an argument. All right, Misty says, you know, What rights do patients have once they're in the hospital setting? And what she means specifically by that is, can you demand things be done in a certain way? But then it's interesting in her in her question, she doubts herself, she says, and how do I verify that what I'm asking for is actually the best for treatment? So how do you like how do you make the leap in your head that this is what we do at home, but maybe this doesn't work here. Right now, maybe they know more than I do.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:53
Some of it's also in terms of, you're going to the hospital with a condition that you know how to manage, but you're going to the hospital, let's say it has nothing to do with that condition. You're going to the hospital because you got severe abdominal pain. Clearly, Scott, you don't have any idea why Arden had abdominal pain, you can't like see into her belly and see what was going on. I mean, some of those things, you have to say, You know what? I came here for this. You're the team, you're the experts, I expect you to figure out what the pain is, but I've got this part of it. I've got the diabetes management part of it because I do this 24 seven, and you don't. So some of those things, you have to you know what you're requesting. I mean, if you're requesting something like jelly beans that your kid needs to eat, but he's throwing up quite honestly, they're probably going to look at you like you're crazy and say you know what jelly beans might be what works really well but he's not going to keep them down. So let's do a deck straw strap. Yeah.

Scott Benner 44:56
Again, I'm a big fan of keeping people in involved. So when I The last thing we did before our knee surgery was I said to the doctor, here are all the places I can put Arden's insulin pump for the day of surgery. Which of them would you like it on? Now, let me tell you a secret Jenny. It would no matter which one it was on, I was actually giving her something like, do you know what I mean? Like, I do the same thing in 504. It's like, I find something in a 504 that I'm like, well, we don't need that anymore. And when I go into the meeting, the next year, I give it back like it's a present. I'm like, Oh, you know what? We don't need this line anymore. Take that out. I'd like to make this as easy for you as possible. Yeah, like, oh, look how nice he is. Right? So in this case, it's a little ego stroke for the doctor. You tell me what's best here. Right was arm or it was thigh. Mater. Like neither of those were going to be in their way. And I let the doctor pick. Yeah, that was it. Right. And And, by the way, double down on my maniacal thinking. I was trying to get Arden to use her arm again. And I thought he'll probably say, she'll probably say arm over thigh. So I'm just going to give her arm or thigh. she'll pick arm. I'll make her feel better. And I'll get Arden's pumped back on her arm. Haha, ha like a double? Yeah, I was like an evil genius in that moment. Uh, what is okay to let slide? And she's like, what hill? Should you die on? I think we're answering that question on the way right? Like you just you what's important to the management of the diabetes? What keeps insulin going as best as you can? So what do I do about pumps settings that I don't, I don't even follow myself all the time becoming and so so she's a fluid person, like she listens to the podcast, right? And so what happens when your management is fluid, and then all of a sudden someone wants to make it static for the situation? Right? To me, I would tell them that, I'd say, look, let's start here. If this doesn't hold it down, we might have to amp it up a little bit. And if it's too much, we might have to take it away. But I don't know, because this is a different scenario than we usually manage it. These numbers are not set in stone like Jesus, that's the that's the core of the podcast, right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:13
And I think a better part of it too, is to explain in a more simple way, maybe to them. This is the baseline that we work off of based on what's happening with glucose, because we've got a trend on our fancy CGM. I can because the pump settings, the smart features of my pump, allow me to do this, if, if his blood sugar is starting to go up, I'm going to do something that temporarily allows me to just stop, I'm also going to temporarily adjust down in this scenario. So explaining that in the simplest way that you can help them to see that what's there as settings, is it's meant to be fluid. You know, it's these are what we start with, and, you know, in the in the case of something like the carb ratios, you know, she's like, well, then carb ratios are a little bit more of a suggestion. They're really not something that we 100% hard number go off of, you know, what, if in the emergency room, you get to the point that they're bringing you food, and your bolusing? You know what, you give them the ratios that are in your pump, and you do what you know, works. What they will usually ask for is what dose Did you give, because they need to put that in the medical record? Right? They don't know that it's been adjusted or adjusted down based on you know, whatever you say, this is what my pump suggested I take this is what I'm taking adjustment up or down that that's a piece that quite honestly, they're not really going to care nor know about. I mean, when I was in the hospital for both post deliveries of my boys, the nurses every shift, they would ask what is your bazel running at? Have you made any adjustments? Where's your blood sugar? Have you taken any boluses? Have you eaten? all they needed to do was really document what was going on? That's it. There's

Scott Benner 49:10
a lot of but covering going on?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 49:12
It is a lot of covering? Exactly. 100%

Scott Benner 49:16
Yeah. And so even if you're MDI, that's really the same advice like, no, if she does make the point that they like to give like a set dose? They do. Right. And so, you know, but then that kind of leads into one of our other questions. Is it ever a good idea to just do things on your own and not tell the staff? And I would have to say, I mean, no, but but probably

Jennifer Smith, CDE 49:42
in some of it is a little bit of like, coding an answer, right? Like I said about the bolusing. Right. It's is it ever a good idea to do things and not tell the staff not to not know, but if you're bolusing for a meal and they ask you Did you go Less or to have you taken any corrections or whatnot? I mean, the simplest answer yes. And this is what the dose is. That's kind of the level that they need. They don't need to know that you factored in. Well, it looks like his blood sugar is dipping. So I adjusted back by this much. They don't, again, too much story, right? They don't need to know that.

Scott Benner 50:19
They're long,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 50:20
because they don't have. Right and then they start thinking, I've got a crazy person who's like just giving willy nilly doses of insulin. I don't I don't agree with it. Let's shut the pump off.

Scott Benner 50:30
Yeah, it might seem disconnected. But you know, when you hear a late night talk show host make a joke about diabetes. And you think, how could they possibly do that? When I know all of this stuff about life would die? They don't know, that's the answer. The answer is they don't know any of that stuff. And so these people you're talking to very well may not know most of what you're saying. So listen to what Jenny's saying. I've said it one way, she's saying it another way, get them to do what you need them to do, if they say five units, because that's what we do. But you know, it's six, and maybe it's okay to do six, if they want to do five, and you think it's 15, that you're probably gonna have to say to them, right, because you're crafting your own safety, that's what you're really doing, right? You're trying to protect your safety against your blood sugars. And going high is how it feels most of the time. But the truth is to, you would need to protect it from going low, you would not want to give yourself way more insulin than your doctor knew about. Because if you did get low, that we wouldn't know how to eat it. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:30
exactly. And you know, for some of the MDI users that I've worked with, and a very good friend of mine, some don't even really have a true set ratio as a dose to use. And I think you had done this for a while, too. It's like, you can look at a meal. And you can say, like, my good friend, ginger, she can look at she knows her apple and her peanut butter is this many units of insulin. This is what she takes for it all the time, unless her blood sugar's higher, or lower or whatever. But this is always what she takes for it. That's not really a ratio, Could she figure out a ratio to tell them? Sure, right? She could. But technically, there's no ratio there, because you've just figured it out. Because they're standard foods that you eat. And you know that five units or two units or 12 units always works for it.

Scott Benner 52:17
And so when you're not ginger, or you or me, or maybe a lot of the people in this podcast, what do those people do, people really don't understand this year about their diabetes, are you just in the hands of that,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 52:29
and that's where these protocols are put into place, with the expectation that the medical staff knows best, and that the people coming in, aren't taking that type of level of care for themselves. So they have protocols, they've got these, if this, then do this, if this is where it is adjust by this much change to this, add this, plug this in whatever. And those are safety protocols they are. But I think from the staff position, or the medical, you know, person position, you do have to look at the individual, you have to look at the person who like you comes in with Arden and says I got this, I'm following it, we do this, we do it this way. I know where things are. She's beautiful, she's level, I can manage it, versus the person who comes in and can't even tell you the last time that they took their insulin, or what their rates are running at in their pump. Okay, that person baby, the kind that one, the staff should then get an endo consult in and to the staff needs to follow their protocol, because they can definitely say this person has no idea what they're doing.

Scott Benner 53:44
Maybe that would be a wonderful opportunity for somebody on staff to help that person, you know, because at the end of Arden's initial emergency room visit that I mentioned, as we were packing up and leaving and getting ready to go home and everything the nurse did come in and say, I really appreciate all the help. I hope I was good. You taught me a lot today. Mm hmm. You should understand, though, the way you and I started today because it was a little contentious at the big Yeah, I just tried to stay away from it, because 99% of the people I see in here don't understand their diabetes in any way.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 54:18
Right. And the majority of people she sees that come in are likely type two, and have had much less education. Even if they are on insulin, have had much less education than somebody with type one.

Scott Benner 54:33
No, of course. I mean, so it's just in to kind of go on the side of the doctor for a second and talk about it from their perspective. You and I talk to a lot of people in our private lives who are constantly raising and crashing their blood sugar's like all day long, but by what they're doing, they don't realize that they think it's happening to them, but they're doing it, you know, and they don't know what they're doing. And what if I get you into a situation where you have multiple units of insulin going? And your blood sugar's crashing? You want to have a seizure here at the hospital and in front of the nurse who doesn't particularly understand it to begin with, like, you know, but then you know, you have, you just have to understand their perspective, and not just understand it for like, you know, nicey understand it, so that you can tell them what they need to hear, like, right, like, you just, I don't know a better way to say it when you're, you know, when you're arguing with your spouse, right? And you in your heart, you're like, why are they not hearing what I'm saying? It's because they think differently than you think. But if you understood how he thought, or vice versa, you could say to him, the thing that would put him at ease, and help him understand you. And that's what you're trying to do here, you're trying to communicate on a better level than we all communicate on most days. Right? That's all

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:00
right. And, you know, when I worked clinically with an endocrine group, in DC, at our hospital, we actually worked with the emergency room staff to develop a protocol for both type one and type two diabetes for when somebody was admitted to the emergency department. And we also had a protocol within the type one. If somebody came in on an insulin pump, it was an automatic endo call. They got somebody there. And if the endo couldn't make it, which was most often because they were busy, one of us the CDs got called to the emergency room to help the ER Doc's manage. So you know, not all hospitals obviously have that. But we did it mainly because we saw the need, we were getting called so frequently to the emergency department to manage that they were like, well, let's just get something in place. So we better know what we're doing, and when to actually bring you guys here,

Scott Benner 56:58
right? That's a it's a it's not an easy fix. But you're just ideas that hopefully some of them will make something better for you or the conversation or your health. It's, there's no, there's no like, do this, this and this, and now we're going to be okay. After the song got posted online, I actually sent me a follow up question. And it was from another person. And the idea basically was, what if you're an adult friend of a person who has diabetes, and is not capable of talking, right, can't speak for themselves in the moment? Like, is there a way to advocate for them? I mean, as I read that, I thought, that's a wonderful idea. I just mean, if you're not a blood relative, first of all, you can't, they're not going to listen to you to begin with. I mean, they might listen a little bit, but what are you even going to say you don't understand their diabetes, probably any better than?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 57:50
Right? I think the easiest, the easiest way to advocate then would really be to ask the emergency room staff, if they could get an endo console consult, quite honestly. Because you know, you can, if you know your friend well enough, and hopefully you do, if you're taking them to the emergency room, you haven't just met them on the street corner, and you know, took them in or whatever, this guy passed out, and I decided to help you. It looks like he's wearing this pager with a tube. And I'm not quite sure what that is. But But you know, if you're enough of a friend, bringing another friend to the hospital, you would, you would typically know that they've got a pump, or that they use injections, you may not know how they use it, but you could at least say hey, you know, he or she has the pump on here. He or she wears and uses this thing that tells them what their blood sugar is, you know, those kinds of things would be easy enough to be able to share with the staff at least

Scott Benner 58:52
Yeah, I think instead of trying to find a way to talk to the friend, we have to be talking to you listening who has diabetes, you you have to as crazy as it sounds, you probably have to try to break down your diabetes into six bullet points. And explain that to your friend so that they have that information to ask somebody, listen, you've all been diagnosed, right? And someone downloaded an hour's worth of talking into your head and you got home and went Ah, so you know, like your friend over you know what dinner once in a while when you mentioned your blood sugar. That's not how they're gonna do. But if you had a bullet pointed like five point lists, like make sure they know, this is what my basal rate is. Make sure they know you know that I'm MDI and that means I inject my slow acting insulin and my fat there are two different instant like that kind of like simple stuff, like break it down into t shirt slogans for Yeah, right, exactly.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 59:44
Then even even when you change therapy, then it's important to share with them, Hey, I'm not using injections anymore. I'm using an insulin pump. Even that as a simple statement can be very helpful within those simple bullet points. So, do this, or do this, if I behaving this way, you know, help me this way, whatever, that just the other day I brought up with my husband in the, you know, couple of years that I've changed over the type of pumping strategy that I use. I, my husband was very good with my other pump. He knew how to push the buttons and how to do everything. And since I've changed over, while he knows what I'm doing, the button pushing and stuff. I've never gone over with him again. And just the other day I was thinking, I really need to like reteach him. Yeah, all of this in case of need,

Scott Benner 1:00:39
you know, I really do. Yeah, hundred percent. Jenny, we've done it again, I really believe that this

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:00:46
is a good episode in a really great awesome that you're, Miss misty, decided that it was a really good topic because

Scott Benner 1:00:55
it was hard for her to do. Really, super, actually. That's what I like about Listen, all of you listening are terrific. You know whether I've ever met you or I'll never meet you, or you'll never say a word to each other. But I've gotten to meet some of the people online a little closer. And it's really wonderful like that Facebook group is little more than a couple thousand people who really understand what's being spoken about on the podcast. So when new people come in, they're really helpful. And I just put a post up the other day where I very proudly said, no one's ever been banned or deleted from this place. And even when they when they don't disagree as much as they think they have conversations. It's really lovely. Actually, that's nice. Yeah, it's wonderful. You can actually talk to people you don't know who disagree with you and not yell at them.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:01:44
And it's still okay.

Scott Benner 1:01:45
Yes. So do that while you're at the hospital. Awesome. Let me say this right, before I let you go. Yeah, I don't know that most of what we just said here today does not apply also to when you're in your general practitioners office. Right, like the idea that they probably don't understand as much about your diabetes as you hope they do. Correct. Right. So don't make that assumption. I think I think that's really it. Like, don't assume anyone understands. And, you know, and if you're an adult with type one, and you're worried you're going to be in the hospital by yourself, make that bullet point list for yourself and keep it keep it on you. You know?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:21
Yeah, absolutely. Even. You mentioned the, like the iPhone with the notes or the you know, the phone with the notes and whatever. I know some people even use, I know iPhone has the the swipe screen that you can actually have your medical ID right up there with all of your information within that medical ID. You can put it right there. Right. In the Health app. Yep.

Scott Benner 1:02:43
Yeah. And again, for all and please don't take this the wrong way. But for you type A lunatics be brief, okay. Yes. doesn't need to be a dissertation. Right. Then one time when she was six, okay. The doctor stopped reading when they got to that

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:59
planters war that I treated this way. 40 years ago.

Scott Benner 1:03:03
My blood sugar was a little higher during that week. And I really think that plantur word infer a medicine is what was so please keep that in mind. I don't have one now. But I mean, say I'm unconscious for four or five months here at the hospital and I develop planners where you decide to take it off for me, I really want you to keep in mind what happened to me. 40. Yeah, just keep it simple. What do they say kiss keep it simple, stupid, right? Like, I don't think they're calling the person stupid. They're saying super simple. And there is a way if you think about it. And if you listen to this podcast, really, you probably have it now. There's a couple of simple ideas that will keep you within a reasonable range and safe. So right tell the doctor that stuff. All right, or just don't get sick. I say is my nose is stuffy this

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:03:46
year. So it's harder to do that than other years Really?

Scott Benner 1:03:50
100% right. There's a lot going on.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:03:52
There's a lot of illness going on. So

Scott Benner 1:03:54
I'm gonna tell Jenny, a really gossipy story that you guys don't get to hear so goodbye. A huge thank you to Jennifer Smith. Don't forget you can check Jenny out at integrated diabetes.com. And to the sponsors of this episode Dexcom and Omni pod, please, please, please get your no obligation. absolutely free demonstration pod sent to you today by going to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box and then roll right around to the dexcom@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. There are links to all of the sponsors. So not just on the pod index calm but also the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one.org right there in the show notes of your podcast player. And of course at Juicebox podcast.com. I'm sorry about my voice. I'm trying. I actually have to go to Atlanta and speak next week. Don't freak out Atlanta. I'll get this fixed. I need a band aid for my uvula. Hey, there's a giveaway going on on the blog. It's ardens de.com. Scroll down a little bit to recent articles. I have one brand New Omni pod pullover it's really super nice and soft. It's given to me for Arden and she never fit in it. So we just found out the back of the closet super nice. There's pictures there. It's a lady small, but if that's your jam, actually, it's a lady's extra small. So if that's your jam, go check it out. Real simple to enter. One of his gonna win it might as well be you. It's been a while since I've said this. So let me just remind everyone who may be newer to the show. The diabetes pro tip series began back in February of 2019 and Episode 210. And in my estimation, these pro tips should really be listened to an order. The first one number 210 was diabetes pro tip newly diagnosed are starting over at Episode 211. We get to all about MDI, at Episode 212. All About insulin. Episode 217 is about Pre-Bolus Singh. There goes my voice. Episode 218 Temp Basal. Episode 219. Insulin pumping to 24 mastering your continuous glucose monitor. Episode 225. bumping in nudging blood sugars to 26. The perfect bolus 231 variables at Episode 237. Jenny and I talked about setting basal insulin. That's what about getting your basal rate right. Episode 256 diabetes pro tip, exercise 263 fat and protein. I bet you didn't know you had two bowls for fat and protein go find out about that in 263 then Episode 287 diabetes protip illness injury and surgery Episode 301, glucagon and low blood sugars and then of course today 307 emergency room protocols and there will be more. Check them out. The feedback on them from listeners is really terrific. I think there'll be an abundance of help to you. I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much for listening, and for sharing the Juicebox Podcast with others. I'll see you next week.


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#301 Diabetes Pro Tip: Glucagon and Low BGs

Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on type 1 diabetes care

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon AlexaGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

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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, everybody, welcome to Episode 301 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today in a pro tip episode, Jenny and I will talk about glucagon, emergency Lowe's, just you know, how they manage that kind of a scenario and what happens if you need glucagon and how do you use it? That kind of stuff? It's not a bummer. Don't worry, Jenny and I laughed more during this one than most of them. So we're gonna go over how to use the glucagon what glucagon is, what is it? Do the three different kinds that we could think of that are on the market? Pretty much it's a nuts the bolts glucagon extravaganza talking about low blood sugar somewhere else you're gonna talk about people having seizures, and hearing them laugh at the same time. I mean, who else is putting out diabetes content laughing about a seizure? It's not funny By the way, it's just the situation was funny. You'll see when you get to it Don't get upset. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor hmm you can go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box or Contour Next one.com To find out more about the sponsors and what they got going but trust me what they got going is some amazingly accurate blood sugar measuring tools. Arden uses both of these devices daily and they are exceptional dexcom.com forward slash juicebox Contour Next one.com take a look at both of them support the sponsor support the podcast last thing I'm going to be at the Dallas let's see how they build themselves type one nation summit northern Texas This is the greater Dallas in Greater Fort Worth slash Arlington chapter, big chapter. You're gonna be able to see me and I don't know if you know this Kyle Cochran guy's been a Ford he is a four time American Ninja Warrior. Warrior. Warrior I would not pronounce they are any? Well, any Well, I think I'm having a stroke people. This is the last episode of the podcast. Anyway, Kyle Cochran is gonna be there, I'm gonna be there, there's gonna be some other great resources. It's a really wonderful type one nation event, check them out, you can go to Juicebox podcast.com. Scroll to the bottom, click on events and there's a link right there to buy tickets. It's a great event, February 16. It's a Sunday, Please don't make me fly all the way to Dallas, and not see you. Alright, we're gonna get started. Just remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. And now, Jenny Smith, and I do the chit chat about the glucagon.

I liked your idea, a lot of doing a pro tips for glucagon. And I was wondering if we couldn't meld it together with like emergency situation ideas as well. Yeah, you know what I mean? So I just realized that what we'll talk about what we're talking about it? Yeah. I don't know how to start this. Honestly. I can tell you that. We buy glucagon religiously. I always have some, when it expires, we always get more. We've never used it. We've had opportunity to use it twice when Arden was little, and both times opted to try glucose gel instead. which worked. Here's the best place to tell the story, I guess. And I'm sure I've said it here before, so I'll encapsulate it a little bit. But, you know, when Arden was really newly diagnosed, she was probably like two and a half years old. And thinking back now knowing everything that I know, she was probably honeymooning still, right. And I had no one ever spoke those words to me ever. I didn't know that was a thing back then. And we got kind of ahead of ourselves one day and Kelly was getting ready to leave on a business trip. She was gonna go overseas. And it was like, six or seven hours before her car was gonna come to take her to the airport. And she's like, hey, I need another piece of luggage. Like, let's go to the mall, get a little piece of luggage looks like alright. So we get over to the mall, and it's a Sunday. And we're hungry while we're there. So we grab, you know, the worst thing in the world like mall, chocolate, Chinese food, just not just more food, more Chinese food. And I was just like, boom, I can have my carbs and I was like, pull up my insulin and the needle, bang go ahead and eat. I figured this out. And she ate the food. We ate we bought the bag we went home. Arden was super little so she fell asleep in the ride home during the ride home only like 15 minute ride. And I carried her into the house and put her in her crib. My wife's packing and my son's watching the football game and Everyone's living their life. And all of the sudden, it sounded like there was a wild animal trapped in the house. Right? There was like this grunting and grunting and grunting. And you know, it's like anytime like, I'm just like, What is that, and they start moving through the house towards the sound that's coming from Arden's room, and I get into a room and look in the crib, and she is having a seizure, you know, and I was just like, I did not 100% know what to do. So I picked her up, and I went through the house to where Kelly was. And we had just this kind of little area rug. And I said, I'm like, Arden's having a seizure. And so I put her on the floor, and I got out the glucagon. So the the red box, you know, it has the, it hasn't changed it forever. And this is the one Lily cells, right. And so the red box, I pop it open, and there's a needle in there, the needle needs to be put together, the needle has liquid in it, I know the liquid needs to be shot into the powder, that it has to be reconstituted and drawn back out. And I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I was so freaked out that I fumbled with that thing. And I was nowhere near getting it put together before Kelly was rubbing glucose gel into her cheek. Right? And I'm not embarrassed because I look back on that time. And I remember when they gave it to us, the nurse made such a big deal of saying, This is life saving glucagon. But don't worry, you'll never need it. And so when she said that, I was like, well, I'll never need it. No, I never, you know, and so good thing is

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:44
that you knew where it was in the house, at least it wasn't like, you know, in the bottom of the dog's bed or something right, just giving me credit knew where it was. So he knew where it was.

Scott Benner 6:55
So So literally, during you know, the Kelly put the glucose in her cheek, she started to come out of it. I will tell you 100% of the the experience of watching art and have a seizure will never leave me I have never forgotten any of the details of it. She was blind, like she couldn't see anybody. She couldn't talk. But I don't think that meant that she wasn't aware of what was happening. Because there's a I've shared it on the podcast recently. But there's, um, you know, there's a video of her from a year or so later explaining how it felt to have a seizure. And so you even when you touched her, it scared the crap out of her when you touched her, you know? And and so I just never even figured out how to put it together. I had shown it to nurses, I had shown it to people like everything, but when the time came, I was like, not very helpful. Right? Anyway, glucose gel did work. And then we went to the hospital, we call 911. And we went to the hospital. And then you get to the hospital and then the hospital kind of treats you like, you don't really need to be here. Like, there's that kind of feeling. And then you realize like, Oh, it's over now. Okay, yeah, it's okay. So, later, while we're talking, I'll tell you about the second time our next seizure, people are gonna be like, why am I listen to this podcast when we happen to voice? It was in the beginning. So I guess, let's really start at the very beginning, right, like, what is glucagon? And what does it do when you inject it? I don't know where you are right now. But I'm on Contour Next one.com you gotta cut me a break. There's only so many ways to do these ads. Okay. I want you to know about this meter, I'm not messing around about it. Arden started using the Contour. Next One, like I told you before, like a year or so ago, maybe it's a little less a little more. I don't know, my grasp of time is uh, you know, I'm getting old. I don't really know how long ago it was. Here's what I do know, the damn thing is accurate. It's easy to carry around. The test trips are amazing, you can miss on your first try go back again without ruining the test. So you're not wasting test trips. Again, the accuracy this meter is just wonderful. So frequently matches with Ardennes Dexcom. It's amazing. And you can get a free Contour Next One meter at Contour Next one.com. So why not go see if you're eligible for it, it's only going to take you clicking on it to find out where the next time you find yourself at the end, just tell him Look, I'd like to use a more accurate meter than what I'm using. Now. Let's write me a prescription for this one. Get some test trips and get moving with the Contour. Next One. I'll tell you what the next one is next level. The Contour Next One is a highly accurate, easy to use meter. As unique smartlight feature it instantly shows you if your blood glucose is in target range, and that can help you make dosing decisions. Right like real management decisions. You know what else they have wonderful. The contour diabetes app that seamlessly connects via Bluetooth. Understand that you test with a meter boom it pops up magic, like on Your phone. And then this app is more than I can describe to you right now. But it's free, and you want to check it out. So whether or not you use my link found at Juicebox podcast.com, or in the show notes, or if you ask your doctor to get the meter, or whatever you end up doing, in the end, just make sure you click on Like, I'm just kidding. Just make sure you get the meter. It's really wonderful. It's gonna be a great addition to your diabetes toolkit. I cannot stress enough how much we're enjoying it. What is glucagon? And what does it do when you inject it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:30
It's made by the body to begin with glucagon, right. And so in the human body, it's a piece of the glucose management system that your body has in place without diabetes in the picture, right. So you've got this management system of your body releases insulin, your body also releases glucagon, which enables the body to break down glycogen, which is stored form of glucose, right? And so you get this drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip drip of both. And that helps to keep things stable through the course of your life. So you know, in a person without diabetes, you've got blood sugars that might start dipping down your body releases a little bit of the glucagon, which enables the body to break down the glycogen into glucose, and it starts to navigate things back up, but it's a seamless system, right? I mean, nobody walking around on the street right now, right now, even the most highly educated biochemist, whatever is probably thinking, well, I wonder what my body is doing. But

Scott Benner 11:33
just one of those things that happens,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:35
it happens like breathing, you don't think about it, it happens. But in diabetes, we, we kind of have, like a faulty system, obviously, right? Our body isn't making insulin anymore. But we still do have this like drip drip drip of glucose into our system, or we wouldn't need bazel insulin, right? Yeah. glucagon, however, is, as you explained, well, it's an emergency, we know it as an emergency, we have to use this if this situation is here, right? A low blood sugar, treat a, you know, a friend, a child, a spouse, whoever it might be. So when we inject glucagon, it stimulates a very large amount of breakdown of the glycogen, the stored form of glucose, so that the glucose can get into the system, thus bringing the blood sugar up,

Scott Benner 12:29
it's stored in your liver, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:33
glycogen is stored in both liver and muscle cells

Scott Benner 12:36
themselves, okay? So in a functioning person who doesn't have type one diabetes, your body really is bumping and nudging on its own, it's giving you is giving you insulin, and then it's saying, Oh, this person needs a little more glucose. And so I'll release a little here, I'll release that. And that's happening constantly back and forth, back and forth all the time. So So when we're diagnosed with Type One Diabetes, when someone's diagnosed, we always I mean, for me at least, like, in my mind, what happened is Arden's pancreas stopped making insulin, but more happened in that right, but we just don't talk about the rest of it usually, like, you know what I mean, like, right in because you hear people say like, my pancreas is dead, but it's not that does Oh, no, it does way more things than

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:24
that. Absolutely. Absolutely. It doesn't mean you've got more things in your pancreas than just the beta cells 100%. In fact, the the the glucagon actually is made in the alpha cells of the pancreas. So a completely like different little cell hanging out, you know, Lahti die here I am to do this thing, right. So, overall, our pancreas isn't dead. It's just a piece of it. That's nice.

Scott Benner 13:49
It's not purposeful function. Yeah. And, okay. So it's interesting, right, like, so how often do you think how often do you speak to someone who's needed to use glucagon in an emergency situation?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:05
Hmm. In if I had been doing this

one years ago,

likely more.

Mainly, because I think that with the influx of the technology that we have now, we've got alerts to actually tell us when things are dipping, before we would even get to the place of needing

Unknown Speaker 14:33
glucagon.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:34
Now, I mean, that doesn't mean that it isn't potentially, you know, necessary. We've got the standpoint of prolonged exercise, you know, where you've had, like, people who do like a whole entire Iron Man triathlon, and that's a huge depletion in your body's glycogen stores, even if you've been fueling along the way as you should be. That's a huge depletion. Your body has tapped into your stored glucose to fuel that long duration movement. So, I mean, if you have exercise like that, potentially, you're going to need something to boost glycogen out of the system to bring a low blood sugar up and or you've got too much insulin there to begin with, for whatever reason the dose was wrong or the dose was wrong along with a long, active active day or whatever the scenario, glucagon will potentially at some point be necessary. I knock on wood, I'm not really superstitious, but that's like my grandmother's thing to do. It's like knock on wood. Whatever works, right, but I mean, in 31, in plus years with diabetes, I've never had to be given glucagon. I haven't. I mean, my husband knows how to use it. My parents knew how to use it. My teachers at school, my girl scout leaders, I mean, everybody that I interacted, they all knew how to use glucagon. I went to sleep overs with the glucagon in my bag, I did. Never had to use it. Thankfully, in the amount of people that I now work with, I would say, it's not, it's not common to have had to use it, at least not. I mean, we may talk about this a little bit later, like different kinds of emergencies settings of use, but there is the benefit of also mini dosing. And some adults, especially the adults that I work with, are much more proactive in in trying to offset something they know is not working right, you know, and so, ability to micro dose a glucagon injection and offset a low that you don't pass out from and nobody needs to help you. You can help yourself, right.

Scott Benner 16:52
It's funny the way you put it, because I'm thinking back now, you know, Arden's very infrequently low, but she has like a crazy low once a year that just comes it appears to come out of nowhere, right? And we think back on one of those, you realize that without the sensing technology, like if she didn't have a dexcom those she would have seizures in those moments. Yeah. Right. Because it's, it's unexpected. First of all, it's not like I've done anything different that day than another day. I'm not standing around all day going, who this is gonna be the day never happens. It never happens. When you're like, something's gonna get squirrely today, right now that day, right? Oh, and so you know, you're it's one two o'clock in the morning, and you get the alarm, and you realize she's falling way faster than you would have any expectation for. So there's something, whatever it is pushing down on her blood sugar, and nothing to resist it in the other direction. And it's just falling and falling and falling. So we get, you know, we get an alarm go in, you give her I mean, for me, I give her juice first, because I find that works very quickly. Like it's it, the way I think of it is like let's get something in there working. While we do the rest, right? Then I look at things like they're like palatable quick. I always look for like a banana in that situation. Because it's not hard to eat a banana. It's sugary, right. And then you know, I'll roll back to another juice if I have to. But you'll see those, those crazy lows go like 70 6050. And they fall really quickly. And before you know it, you're treating it 50. And you would have treated sooner you just there was no time you're treating it 50 you're into the 30s. Now you're testing now you're doing the like, Okay,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:30
this number,

Scott Benner 18:31
let me double check this right. So you're, you finally have a second there's some food in. So now you hit a finger stick, and it says something like 30 or 26 or something ridiculous. And you're just like, okay, now I'm here waiting for her to either have a seizure or not. Like that is really what it feels like, like I've put the food in, it's in there, it's going to do something. And you know, and you're just, I don't know about everybody else, but I test and then I wait like, not long, you know, it's like four or five minutes later, you test again, and you're looking for just any sign of stability. Did the 38 stay at 38?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:08
Did he come to 40? Did it go to 40? Because

Scott Benner 19:10
if it was 40? I don't think she's gonna have a seizure. Right, like, and so I think everyone needs to know how to handle a moment like that. Yeah, you know what I mean? But I'm now now, you know, having seen that moment, a few times in my life. I see, as you're talking that without the sensing technology, she would have went from 50 to 30. And the, the alarm I would have gotten would have been the grunting and the right to see it would have been the seizure. Right. Right. And then and

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:38
without. Yeah, and without this technology, I mean, I I think fully even to this point, I I still have symptoms for Lowe's. I do even with the technology that I have that alerts me and whatnot. I still know when I know usually even before my system is going to tell me I can tell where I am. What's your number when

Scott Benner 19:59
you know You're low.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:01
My number is usually in the 60s

Scott Benner 20:03
Arden's at 60. She knows Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:06
But you know, years ago when I was first diagnosed, in fact, a good a good case where my parents probably could have used glucagon, but didn't. It was the summer like several months after I was diagnosed, we were camping, had been out playing, you know, rafting in the pool at the beach, doing everything that you would normally do when you're on vacation, you know, and it was the evening and my dad was making popcorn at the fire. And we were all gonna sit around and whatever you do at play games, and it was time for me to check my blood sugar because it was like nighttime, right? It was bedtime almost. I sit down, I check my blood sugar. And my mom was like, that numbers not right. And I looked at the number. And I mean, I was the age that I knew numbers, and I knew where my numbers should technically be. And it was 26. You might either like those old like old meters that took like four minutes to test. You just swipe the blood off, stick it back in the machine, push another button, wait for it to actually give you a value. But yeah, 26 my mom's like, That's not right. She's like, Did you wash your you know, all the things I washed my hands again. And like, I tested again, my was like, How are you feeling? I'm like, I feel like I did like 30 minutes ago. I'm like, totally fine Mom, you know, she has to get it was like 25 it was like literally it hadn't moved. Mm hmm. I was like, like, my mom is the kind of person who's just like, oh my god, like, seriously, you know, and my dad was right there. And he's like, well just give her some juice. And my mom. My mom's like, this number isn't juice. This is like we got to do and he's like, give her the juice. She's talking. She's fine. She's answering questions. You know, I mean, I can remember this very vividly. Give her the juice. I drank the juice. You know, my mom's like, okay, let's check again. You know, like, all the thing is certainly, it started coming up. It was slow. And it's a painful Wait, it really is. But my main my mom was like, there. She was like that glucagon is gonna be here in 15 minutes if this juice that your dad wanted to give you is not working? I mean, and who knows? What was the accuracy of a machine like 30 years ago? You know, I mean, my blood sugar could have been 50. Who knows? But, again, I think you also have to judge those scenarios. Like, okay, she can take something into eat, she's talking, he's talking the person's, you know, with me? Can we actually like do the glucose gel? Can you do glucose tablets? Can? Is it safe to do something to chew? Should we just do some juice? I mean, but glucagon is always there, if you don't know. And you can't tell us the glucagon. It's, it's going to work for you. It's the only thing

Scott Benner 22:39
you have at that point to it, right? Because, you know, just as I describing Arden having a, you know, a bad low, she could still eat and reason and talk and all that stuff, right? And so that's fine. But when she was seizing, you couldn't have she couldn't have drank anything or eaten anything that wasn't happening, she was gone. You know what I mean? So she needed she, you know, perfect world situation, we would have used the glucagon in that scenario for certain. You know, it's just it's, and it's, listen, I have to say this, too. It's frightening. But if you think you're going to live a whole life with type one diabetes, and not get into a situation where you test and see a 26. And I think you're wrong. I think it's going to happen at some point I used to tell. It's funny, because you described how everyone in your life knew how to use glucagon. And I've done the same thing, right? You've explained to a million people that it never comes up. And I think that sort of builds a false narrative in those people's heads like, Oh, this diabetes isn't as bad as these people say, right? Because they showed us this emergency thing. We've never used it. It's a it's not a real concern, because it never happens. I do think that's one thing that happens, but But the other thing is that is that you have this kind of feeling of I don't know, like, like, it's it's never going to happen. But it could, it just really could happen. And and if it does, you can't be freaking out in that moment. because trust me, I freaked out once. And if Kelly wasn't there, I don't know what would have happened too hard, because I was like, not processing. Well. And then since then, you know, the second learn. Yeah, you know, storytime the second time Arden had a seizure. We were Disney. And we had spent the entire time day at a park. And we were coming coming back later and I was hot. We were walking. She was eating we were giving her insulin you know, the way we thought we should we were testing she didn't have a glucose meters long time ago. And we're we're within like visual sight of our hotel walking back through the park. And this popsicle salesman's walking on us. It's like 1030 at night. And I remember looking up and seeing this guy holding these giant popsicles thinking like, what devil sent you in my path. You know what I mean? You know, and so But the kids are like, Can we get those? And we're like, Yeah, of course. And we gave her some insulin for it and gave it to her right? Looking back now, I never would have given her insulin for a popsicle. And that's a scenario of knowing your blood sugar or not knowing your blood sugar. And so we you know, she eats the popsicle, we walk back to the hotel kids are again, exhausted, she goes to sleep. The about an hour later, the grunting sound happens. And I'm like, this time, I'm like, oh, there's no raccoon in the house. Arden's having a seizure. I know what this is. And so it was both comforting and hilarious and scary. All three, excuse me, not both, but all three. I went into the other room, goddaughter, sure enough, she was having a seizure, we went right for the glucose gel, because you're like, Well, we know this works. And take the cap off the glucose gel and go to squeeze some out, it won't come out. And in the panic, I just thought, I don't know what I thought. But just the little silver paper was still over the thing, the freshness seal, they squeezed it way too hard. The freshness seal did not come off. But it sprung a pinhole in the back corner of like the sealed part of the tube. So imagine icing tubing, and I'm squeezing it and I am writing in calligraphy all over the ceiling of the hotel room in this laser thin beam of glucose,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:23
right? Oh, no,

Scott Benner 26:25
we all look up, everyone laughs we spin the thing around and shoot the glucose gel under our mouth out of the pinhole and out of the thing rubbing her cheeks, she wakes back up again. She's fine. She's kind of looking at you like Yo, what's up, and we get we get her stable, make sure she's not falling, and we put her back to bed. The whole thing took like 15. And that was sort of the end of it. And she's never had one since then. You know, but we learned a lot in that in that time. Absolutely. So if you don't think that's gonna ever happen, I hope it doesn't happen to you. But to live like it can't happen. That's a mistake. And so back to my original point, when when I used to spend time before when I was younger going into school and saying, look, here's what you really need to understand about diabetes, and I would go over the stuff. But I would always end with I know you feel like we're sitting here today, getting ready for when it happens, because it's something we can prepare for. I'm like, but the secret about the diabetes in an emergency is you sort of can't prepare for it. Like, if you knew it was coming, you'd stop it. And that's always the weird part about this stuff is it always happens just when you would never expect it to happen, like because otherwise you'd be sitting around going, Oh, you know what's going on this afternoon. It's totally a seizure situation. Like no one thinks that way. And so I don't know, I just, I think it's incredibly important to be prepared.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:48
It is well and one additional to that, like preparation. Let's say you are prepared. You've done all of your homework, you know, you've got the glucagon, you know how you know to use it, your friends know how to use it or whatever. And I, I bring this in because it's something that I do discuss, especially with like older teens and like college students and anybody who does a lot of socializing within their job. I think it's, it's really important to know that there may be a point at which glucagon may not work. That's right with alcohol. Mm hmm. And I mean, there really is, there's a real reason it's not like the glucagon is like, Oh, I'm just not gonna work today.

Scott Benner 28:32
Like, you know, Jenny trust too much. She doesn't deserve for me to work.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:37
Right. Right, right. He she had beer and I would rather she has, like, you know, a Mai Tai or something. No, not at all. It's just, you know, it's the there are biological reasons, right? I mean, your liver again, your liver is like this phenomenal organ in your body. It really is. It's, it's fantastic. And it does a tremendous amount of stuff for you. One of them is and we kind of call it your body's detoxifier. Right? I mean, that's a really like nutshell term for the things it does. But the livers task of ridding the alcohol out of the system, which it sees as a toxin. It's going to do that first. Before it does that's its first thing that is its job, it's going to see a toxin is gonna be like this body doesn't need this, let's get rid of it.

And it takes

a while for your body to process that alcohol. So I think it's like one drink takes about an hour and a half to process out of the body. Okay. So in that time period, your liver isn't going to as he efficiently areas effectively check into what's happening with your blood sugar.

Scott Benner 29:45
Yeah, it's a task I really do. Right? It's not

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:49
but in that if you give glucagon in that scenario, and now you're asking the liver to do another task, it's not a multitasker.

Scott Benner 30:01
doesn't already so are you? I feel like Jenny's saying that a liver is more like a guy, like you give it a thing to do when it does that thing until that thing's over, and then it moves on to something else. I know, this is a generalization, it's sexist. But, you know, I don't know that it's, I don't know that it's that wrong.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:20
Yeah, yeah. And drinking in and of itself can also, you know, do some crazy things just to blood sugar levels in general, right. So if it's got carbs, and if it doesn't have carbs, and it's pure alcohol, etc, you may not have been eating with the alcohol. So I mean, there are a host of other things that could go into a low blood sugar in terms of alcohol consumption. But one of the things, of course, is that the livers not doing that drip drip of glucose, right or glycogen to turn into glucose, etc. So your bazel, then that's dripping in the time period that it was beautifully tested, it should be working great. Your basals managing without the normal

Scott Benner 31:03
bukal. They're very important point.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:08
So if it's not doing that, then what happens you get a little blood sugar. Now when you take the glucagon, you're now telling your liver, like I said before, to do something to release this glycogen and to give you some extra glucose to bring the blood sugar up. And there's either a major delay or it doesn't, it doesn't do it. They're really in drinking some emergency, you know, if you're with it enough to know that your blood sugar's dropping, obviously, simple carb, you can do the juice you can do that is if you're with friends, college friends, a spouse, a significant other, whatever, they should know where the glucose gel is something safe. If it's not glucose gel, they should know where the honey is, if they don't know where the honey is, make sure it's cake frosting, something that can be squirted into the cheek can be rubbed in massaged in, it starts to absorb and it can bring the blood sugar up.

Scott Benner 32:00
We don't want to have to swallow it to make this process happen. We want it to absorb through the lining in your mouth back.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:07
Correct. Exactly. So that's one I think one in that like emergency time of potential Oh, get the glucagon out.

Scott Benner 32:17
Try some other stuff first. Right? stuff first,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:20
obviously even calling you know, emergency services, obviously, you're with somebody you really don't know what to do.

Call 911. Yeah. And it's so

Scott Benner 32:29
it's so interesting, because what you just said about, you know, when the liver stops making, you know, it stops dripping out this glucagon, this glucose, we always talk about, you know, you need your basal insulin setup, I'm always saying, right, it's like timing and amount, it's the right amount of insulin at the right time against carbs or body function. And you know, then we talk about body function being like stress or anxiety or pain, or, you know, all that or your liver and what you're doing, that's a body function that's causing your blood sugar to try to go up. And if all of a sudden, it's not trying to do that anymore. Now you're bezels too much. It's too much, right? It's actually off the topic,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:06
right? I mean, it's actually the reason that with alcohol, our standard of education that we say to do is for every alcoholic beverage to take your basal rate, if you're using a pump, that is take your basal insulin down by 40%, and set it to last duration, at least two hours for every drink consumed. If at the end of the night, you've had, you know, four drinks, that's eight hours worth of a decreased bazel.

Unknown Speaker 33:37
So

Scott Benner 33:39
right, so let me so now I have this question as we're having this conversation, and maybe I'm wrong. But this thing that we call glucagon that we inject inject in emergency situations, is it actually glucagon? Or is it something that makes your body produce glucagon? cliffhanger? You got to go check out the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. You have to if you don't have one, I can't even understand you. I really don't. At least looking into it. I don't understand. How would you? How would you hear all this stuff every week and not think to yourself, I need to see my blood sugar. I want to know what direction it's moving. And I want to know how fast it's going. I want to see my kids blood sugar while he's at school. I want to know what my daughter's blood sugar is at a sleep over. I want to know before I get low, I want to know before i get i three days ago, and by the way, let me say this first. These are my results and yours may vary. Okay. Three days ago, I started helping a person with a blood sugar that was completely out of whack. I'm talking about over 404 hours a day, that low and then when it sat steady, it was well over 250 it was a mess, right? And I was able to help that person make adjustments to their insulin just by seeing their Dexcom that's it took like two days. If I could do that in two days, imagine what you could do with the Dexcom for a lifetime. Please, really, really think about it. I hear all kinds of excuses from people, I don't want to, I don't want to hear it, beep, I don't want this, I don't want that. It's gonna beep to help you. And once you learn how to use your insulin, it's not going to beat that much. Because you're not going to be jumping out of range all the time, like you are now, that's a real tangible thing that could happen for you. dexcom.com forward slash juice box, the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com, Please, I'm begging you just look into it.

Is it actually glucagon? Or is it something that makes your body produce glucagon?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:52
No, it I, I understand that it's glucagon.

Scott Benner 35:55
So glucagon makes your body make more glucagon,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:58
glucagon injected makes your liver release glycogen and transition it into glucose. Okay,

Scott Benner 36:05
so is this stuff that we're injecting helping bring up our blood sugar? Or is it just making that function happen?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:12
It's making the fun, right? It's the glue gun that you inject is telling your body to release the stored glucose and send it into the system. That's what raises the blood sugar.

Scott Benner 36:23
Gotcha. It seems like such a simple thing. But as we were talking, we're a half an hour into this. And I'm like, maybe I don't understand what's in the vial.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:32
Unless somebody else knows something else. I've all the years it is glucagon in the it's in that little vial. And it's not as very stable compound at all. I mean, that's why it's in that

Scott Benner 36:43
like the way it is

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:44
pill form shift the way it is. That's why it expires so frequently. It's why you have to mix it and use it. I mentioned briefly before even using mini glucagon, a small portion of what you mix up, if you are, you know, alone, and you can use it yourself. That vial that you mix up, then it's only good for 24 hours. Yeah, kept in the refrigerator. So

Scott Benner 37:09
and so you're talking right now about the one that comes in the red box, the one that's made by Lilly. So I guess let's break them down a little bit because now there's suddenly on the market more glucagon it forever and ever it was the you got the red box, right. And so inside of that red box really is a vial like a glass smile. And it's got powder inside of it. Then there's a, a needle with and it's an inter muscular needle, it's not an under this, it's not under the skin, like little insolently looks like a all the way all the way in.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:40
And it's a pretty good sized needle. It's a hunk of

Scott Benner 37:42
a needle is what it is. And so you pull out the vial with the powder in it. You take the needle, and you inject the liquid, it's in the needle into the vial, then you kind of spin it together, you know, between your two hands. I know you can't see what I'm doing. But anyway, that Yeah, then it, it constitutes it, it mixes the powder with a liquid, then you have to draw it back into this syringe. And then you're supposed to stick that syringe like into the muscle in your butt, right? Or something like that. Or they

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:08
usually say right into the body. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's the easiest way checking

Scott Benner 38:13
that glucagon into the muscle. All right. Now that's one glucagon but since that's happened, another company made a nasal glucagon who made that? Do you remember?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:24
Um, gosh, I don't remember the name of the company. It's back semi is the name though of the okay. Nice. Oh, God.

Scott Benner 38:31
No, that's sort of like, you know, everyone, I think assumed it was like an aerosol, but it's more powdery. Right? Have you talked to anybody that's used it yet?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:41
I've not talked to anybody who used it. I have it myself. I did get a prescription for it. And part of the reason quite honestly, that I got a prescription for it is well, twofold. It's it's certainly much easier to use from all of the research and all the studies. The there's a significant decrease in accuracy of use, okay, or a significant increase in the accuracy of use with the back semi compared to the mixed injectable.

Scott Benner 39:11
Okay. Let me let me take it personally, I'm looking at it so it's actually also made by Lily. Oh, and it's so it looks like it comes in a thing that looks like you know, sailing you'd see it the tube, alien thing you'd spray in your nose, but I'm reading it here it is a powder, dry powder spray in a portable single use ready to use device now. I've only heard from a couple of people who have tried it and so far the people who've tried it have said to me that it burned their nose. So the inside of their nose I don't they didn't say about how well or not well it worked but Jenny's hearing that it works more that it works better than the this

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:51
in terms of accuracy. It was from what I know it works the same as dosing but the accuracy if somebody else has to give it to you More accurately delivered. Okay,

Scott Benner 40:02
so in a panic situation, your friend is a little more able to stick something in your nose and squeeze it than it is to everything I just described and then stick it in your butt.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:12
Correct. Okay, correct. I mean, I guarantee you that, you know, when Arden was two and a half, if you had had something like this, taking it out of the bottle, sticking your nose and pushing it in, you would have had no trouble doing that, you would have been able to figure it out. And I, you know, a big part of having it in the house is because with little kids, you know, I, my seven year old is a smart kid. And while he would know to call 911, he would know to go to the neighbors if I was a home loan with them, and I wasn't right. This is something that I easily showed him in two minutes. And I was like, this is all you got to do and then run to the neighbors. That's that's all you gotta do.

Scott Benner 40:55
You know, you're gonna sleep soundly one day and wake up with a burning, burning in your nose and their front door wide open. Gonna be like mommy's down, and you'll be like, Nah, he's just sleeping. So now there's a third one on the market. And I just left Arden's appointment the other day, and I got our glucagon change to G Volk. So, g Volk, comes in a syringe still, but it is the I think the kind of the genius of what this company figured out is, is that it's, it's pre constituted, you don't have to mix. It's not a powder and illiquid. And it's incredibly stable. So my assumption, I'm making an assumption that you might, you know, maybe people who used to think, oh, one day, we're gonna make a closed loop system with glucagon in it, but we couldn't, because they couldn't figure out how to keep that glucagon stable long enough. I'm starting to think maybe that that might be the next step after these algorithms, you know, I mean, maybe it will be a dual chamber pump with an algorithm. And this, but I went with this one, and I will be 100% honest, why? There's two things. The nasal thing to me, seemed everything what Jenny just said, like, seems super easy to do, and all that stuff. As soon as I started hearing about the burning, I thought, okay, like, that makes sense. And I still was going to go with it. Until and again, this is being very honest, the makers of GE Vogue said, We'd like to come on the podcast and talk about the glucagon. So sometime in the future, you're gonna hear an interview with the CEO, and he's going to tell you why the company started and all this stuff. And it was super interesting and incredibly interesting life. I it's possible that when you listen to it, I mean, if you listen to this podcast enough, you might not be surprised by this, but I don't know exactly how much we're gonna talk about the glue gun, how much I'm just gonna be like, so what did you do after college? That's weird. And, you know, but but that, so I went with it. For two reasons. One, because it's stable. And you know, I don't have to it doesn't have to be metal. Yeah, the injection isn't intermuscular. It's just, it's just a normal like, little needle. And I thought, maybe I can use it for bumping, like doing glucagon. Like little bumps, too. And then and that wouldn't be possible with the nasal. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:19
And there is I mean, there is a guide, certainly for using you're talking about like that mini dosing, kind of of glucagon. And there is a guide for it. In fact, it's, it's actually a guide that starts with, you know, a tiny, tiny amount for little people.

Scott Benner 43:34
And you talked about it on the pro tip about celiac illness. We talked about that, right? Yep. Yep. You people can check that out if they want to hear that, but and so incredibly, ironically, I guess, not long after you and I recorded the the illness pro tips, Episode ardyn got sick for a number of days. And unlike most people who are like, Oh, I got sick and my blood sugar went up, Arden gets second or blood sugar goes down. So there was this one time her blood sugar was you know, it was at 70. And I'm like, it's gonna hold it's gonna hold eat something. And then the food didn't do anything to her. And it kept drifting down. And I gave her more and more. And then there was this moment, you know, we're like, 45 minutes into this since she's now 55. And I'm like, Jesus, none of this food is touching her. And so I'm thinking to myself, what's next? Like, I have to do something right now. I walked up to her with a juice box. She goes like this. puts her hand up and she goes, if it's my time, it's my time. But I'm not drinking another juice. Girl super serious and trying to be funny at the same time. I said, Right on, okay, I hear what you're saying. She's like, seriously, if I drink another juice, I'm gonna throw up and I was like, gotcha. So I went downstairs. This is probably the first of all this is completely off label. But it's also why at the beginning of the episode, I tell you, this isn't I'm just telling you what I did. It's not medical advice. And I took my Old no red kid warm Lily and I mixed it up. I went back and listen to what you and I said to each other. This is me like, I'm like, I wonder what I'll do. You know, there's a podcast episode about this Hold on. Then but and I remembered and I drew up like I kind of spit balled it a little bit. It was off based off of weight, I remember that I drew up seven units. And I gave it to her. And it took a little while, but no lie, her blood sugar went back up, not too far. And it leveled out. It stayed there. And I was like, right on, I am definitely getting the gfo instead of the nasal stuff, because this might happen again. Now, that was my reasoning for going that way.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 45:39
The big question about the Evoque would really be the pen itself, how? How, how much is in the pan? Like how many? You know, what's the dosing because when you look at how much to give, it's, I think it's if you're over 50, in the doses, 15 units of mixed up glucagon. And that would be given kind of like we talked about before, and the other, the other episode, a certain amount of time. And then if it doesn't bring the blood sugar above 80, then you re dose with the double the amount. So just with the G Volk, my question would really be how, how much do you know that you're giving

right as a mini dose? Because

Scott Benner 46:20
I used to find out because you're 100%? Right. And and so I'm going to try it? I'm going to find out. And if it's not right, I'll switch to something else. I you know, yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 46:28
Yeah, I pre mix that you don't have to do any of that extra stuff. That's really awesome.

Scott Benner 46:34
I think that as a replacement for the Lilly one, this one's a no brainer, right? Because you don't have to mix it up. And it's not this giant needle. But I think and this is not something the company said to me, my but my assumption is, the real excitement here is about the possibilities for dual chamber pumping, tested stable. And not only that, I think the bigger excitement and I think the CEO alludes to this, if I'm not mistaken, I'd have to go back and listen. But my assumption is, they figured out the science of making something liquid stable, which now means that science could get applied to other things. Sure. I'm guessing I'm guessing this is the very infancy of this company is what I'm thinking and run by nice people. So that's cool. Oh, okay. So we went over the three different kinds of glucagon. What and the when? Right, you're going to use glucagon when somebody can't physically take something in their mouth anymore? Right, right. When Arden had a seizure, we only use the gel and rub it into her cheeks. We were trying to get her to swallow it. If you try to get somebody having a seizure to smell something, you get them to aspirate. It's bad. Right? Right. Right. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:49
They may be even a you know, something for, as we know, symptoms of low blood sugar, even if you're not passed out or having a seizure, you could be not together with it, right? I mean, many people complain about their spouse, significant other child child getting very violent, or very abusive, or whatnot. I mean, getting them to eat something is impossible, maybe impossible. So using glucagon, in a scenario, like that may be your only option.

Scott Benner 48:19
Yeah, you might be tackling a,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 48:21
you may be tackling that and holding them down.

Scott Benner 48:25
I'll tackle them that hand me the needle, it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 48:28
Right? Right. So

Scott Benner 48:30
well, that really is, you know, I've heard the stories too. And there's been people who've come on here and told them, but I've heard them privately two of the worst scenario ends up being when you're two adults, and one of us physically smaller than the other one. And the larger person, you know, becomes combative or angry. And I've heard I've heard about people throwing furniture and, you know, saying terrible things. And, you know, yeah, and everything in between. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 48:58
and from a safety standpoint, you know, if the person is up and moving and in, let's call it like a violent sort of behavior, and you're not safe, just call 911. I mean, that's really, I mean, don't try to get close to them with a needle in China

Scott Benner 49:16
is not a good idea. It's such a bad television show, like you're just standing across from each other one guy's ranting and raving and holding a lamp and you've got a needle in your hand. Every bad movie I've ever seen in your life. Exactly. I think the goal would be not to get that low if you absolutely can. But like we said, these are emergencies. They don't happen on purpose. I think it's just very important to remember, like, you can't plan for an emergency. I mean, you can plan for what to do when it gets here, but you can't plan for when it's going to happen. Right? Right. So let's talk about since we're in this vein right now, and we're using a part time and we have a couple more minutes. Let's talk first about low symptoms. Some of the things you've heard people saying I will start with the one that Arden tells me What is happening? Why or why am I being treated buddy wants to reach you? Oh, you know what actually this is funny. It's um, Express Scripts I have to say okay to prescription glucagon prescription. I'll call them too funny to call them back in a little bit. But I know that's what that is. Now my wife has picked it up downstairs and she's busy listening to a recording. And she's trying to figure out why she's listening to a problem. So are we the other day? She She got a little low, right? And we were going right into our restaurant. So she went like quickly from like, 75 to 60. And I was like, hey, you're dropping, and she's like, Yeah, I know. And I was like, How do you know? And she said, My lips are numb. Mm hmm. And I was like, really? She goes, Yeah, she's like, that's the one that I like, that's my physical tell. She's like, my lips get numb. And she goes, and if you don't take care of it, she's like, I didn't realize before. So she told me a story. She said one time she was out with my wife. And this happened. And my wife gave her a drink to have. And she drank it and orange like, Oh, this tastes terrible. And my wife's like, really? And my wife tried it and said, Kelly's like, no, it seems fine. And Arden kept drinking a little while later, I think we were at a baseball game for my son and I was on the other side of the field. So I came back over eventually. And my wife said, Hey, Arden was low earlier, but we took care of it. She drank this. She said it tasted weird. And so I tasted it. I was like, I'm zone tastes fine, you know. And so it took Arden she said, it took her years to figure out that when that numbness comes, it's affecting, like her tongue in her mouth, too. She feels it on her lips. But she's like everything. Everything tastes weird. At that moment, I was like, Oh, no kidding. So I was wondering if that happened, anybody but what are some of the of like, what happens to you?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:51
So and I think that's, it's good to acknowledge symptoms and understand that there are many symptoms because they can also change over the years. Like I, you know, when I was younger, my symptoms were the classic like, I would get, like, visibly shaky, I could hold my hand out and I was like, visibly shaky, beyond just the internal symptom. It was there was a visible cue there too. In college, I also had something very similar to what Arden is describing. But it was more It was more like an internal mouth numbness. It wasn't really my my lips, it was more like an internal mouth like it almost like you know what it feels like to be numbed at the dentist. Like you feel like your whole mouth is thick, and like pudgy. That's what it felt like to me. Okay. Um,

Scott Benner 52:44
hello, now is there for you ate, like, after you brought your blood sugar back did it last?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 52:50
Ah, gosh, I mean, I would say it probably lasted a bit of time after my blood sugar was actually normal. Because I specifically remember it. Like in college, I was still on injection. And so I would often have that as I came into lunch, because they had pretty full mornings of like zooming around on campus and getting back and forth, the classes and whatnot. And so I would often have that at lunchtime. And I can say that, before I headed out into my next course of classes in the afternoon, I still had that feeling even though my blood sugar was already back off from having eaten. So I guess for a bit of time, it seemed to last. Whereas my symptoms now don't last after I've treated, they don't last long, unless it is, unless it's been a significant drop. That's happened very, very quickly. And it takes a while for the carbs to kind of start to make me feel better. My symptoms now are much more like this, like, feeling of everything rapidly moving. Like I feel like the world is spinning and moving. And my thoughts are fast. But I I feel like I'm walking through mud. I feel like I just I can't keep up with the way that my brain is thinking about things.

Scott Benner 54:24
So I wonder if we'll never know, obviously, but I wonder if your thoughts are at regular speed and your body is slowed down? Or if your thoughts are sped up and your body's that regular. I'm so interested in that. There's no way to know but because it's right, like you're one part of you is being fooled about something about something and it feels like it's like you feel like that might be what it is. Maybe it's like that maybe you feel like you're in slow motion. I don't know. Isn't it weird? It feels like if it makes me feel like you're in like a dream right? And you're like, kind of screaming like, you know what's going on, but you can't affect anything. Is it that kind of a feeling or no? Am I wrong?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 55:07
It's somewhat Yeah, the other one is kind of feeling like drunk. Like I get kind of tipsy. And I'm like, I've literally been like drunk maybe three times in my whole entire life feels like and but that's not every time but some of my lows feel. And I'm a I'm a very happy like, drunk person. Like, whenever Everything is fine and happy, I'm not an angry drunk. Ah. So I get kind of tip with a low blood sugar sort of like, Ah ha ha, that's funny when it really isn't funny at all.

Scott Benner 55:47
It's like I'm describing with Arden to like, because she's done that a couple of times. Like, you know, I'll be like, Arden get up you have to do some your blood sugar's low. And she'd be like, I'm just gonna die over here, like, but that's very jovial when she says it, like she's very like jokey about it. Like it's cold and

Unknown Speaker 56:02
funny and totally fine.

Scott Benner 56:04
Just be fine. But you know, yeah, I think it's interesting. So when people have you heard from other people like some of this stuff, because they are, before we go into that, let me ask you this one. When you wake up after you've been low for a while, and you didn't know, why are you so sweaty? Do you know? Why did they did well, though,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:23
it's an it's a body response to the low blood sugar. All of the physiologic like mechanisms that make it happen. I can't, too, but I do know, it's very, very common to wake up in a sweat.

Scott Benner 56:38
Yeah, like mad, like, change your clothes after you treat blood sugar, like, yep, take the sheets and wave them around for a while. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:48
That's exactly right. Even kids. You know, I've heard some parents that comment to that, you know, an older child, obviously, wouldn't be wetting the bed anymore. With a low blood sugar may have mainly because they've not got the conscious, I guess, ability during that time period for their brain to wake them up to actually get up and go to the bathroom. Because they're low, you know, so But I mean, outright symptoms, you know, even blurred vision can be one of those sort of like a tipsy feeling on your feet. The shakiness in the hands, people talking kind of like, kind of like off the rocker sort of like, yeah,

Scott Benner 57:29
they don't make sense. Yeah, we're confused. Yep. And it, I guess it it's funny to like I, I've read, you know, back in the day, like all kinds of blog posts from people where they talk about being low, and everyone describes it like slightly differently, but I think it's situational, too. It's really interesting. There's somebody I keep thinking of having on just to describe below one time because this person's love was, like an amazing story to see if I can figure that out someday. Okay, treating things. Like let's so let's talk about it for like to finish up real quick. My blood sugar's falling, but I don't want to get high again. I'm ahead of it now. Like, you know, I know people know Arden's a juice box person, if you know if, if she's looking for a quick hit, if she's not hungry, juice boxes work for us, we use this very specific juice box. I think it's important to remember that you're not looking to drink so I found the smallest box I can with the most carbs in it, so that she's not having to like I I started helping Arden's friend the other day. Yeah, and you're gonna and she's doing great by the way. Oh, yeah. And but you know, if the first time was like, hey, I need you to drink some juice. She pulled out this juice box and it was huge. And I'm like yeah, you that's here. I sent her a link I was like get these like you're killing yourself you drinking eight ounces of juice to get 15 carbs. Yeah, I only want you to know the juice is medicine. It's not for fun like you don't even so juice boxes work I've talked to people who use jelly beans glucose tablets Skittles like so you're you're looking for something that's a real simple sugar that's getting absorbed in your mouth and then hitting your body quickly when you swallow it like that's it so what sometimes people say milk but I don't think milk is fast right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 59:16
So that's Yeah, I mean ages ago that was one of the treatment things even on my list when I was little for low blood sugars it was milk right well when you consider like whole milk one there's fat there there's protein there and the body actually have to has to break down the milk sugar in order to get the glucose part out of it. Which is what actually brings your blood sugar up so I I don't ever recommend milk. I really don't I wouldn't. I don't think it's a I don't think it's a good low I mean obviously if you don't have anything else around have added drink your milk, but there are much better simple sugar things to carry along with you. Even dried fruit. And you know when I was little, my mom actually used to give me a little mini mini boxes of raisins. Okay. And then I had, at the end of the school year had these like, dead raisins sitting all over the bottom of my backpack that had to be like, they were disgusting. They were like, you know, full of dirt. And they were gross. But that was what worked. I mean, raisins were easy. They they worked well. They got the glucose tablets when I was little were horrid. They were horrid. I mean, if you think they're bad now, they were like, bad, bad years ago. I mean, now, the only ones and I don't even I don't I don't know if they're on backorder still, but the gluco lift brand is the only one that I love. They taste good. They don't come from a GMO glucose source. All the colors and the flavors come from natural fruit and fruit extract. So they're not artificial. You know, nail Lake number 70, or whatever it is. So but something simple. I like your juice box though. I actually have kind of the opposite. I look for the smallest juice box that has the least amount of carbon it because

Scott Benner 1:01:07
when I drink I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:01:09
either have I'm either I'm like half awake. If I ever do you have to treat a low overnight, which thankfully, I haven't had to do in a really long time. But I don't want at two o'clock in the morning to have to be completely fully conscious.

Scott Benner 1:01:21
I say to yourself, I really need this juice box,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:01:24
right? I mean,

and so the juice boxes I get are actually there. They're four ounces, and they're only eight grams of carbs apiece. Okay. Yeah. So you know, they work Nice,

Scott Benner 1:01:35
nice. I know, Arden also carries those little pouches or fruit snacks with her. And they always have like eight or nine fruit snacks in them, and it will sometimes texture and be like eat for two for snacks. So the other morning, we were heading to school and she was here, throw this out for me. And she gives me a package of open fruit snacks. I still have four in them, but they're hard as a rock, you know? And she's like, they're hard. And I was like, Okay, I'll get rid of them for you. And but yeah, she always has one of those. So in her bag, she has a juice, a small juice box and a small pack of fruit snacks. And she always has that weather. And yeah, and then there's juice boxes sort of spread around the school. So Martin's in high school, so she changes obviously, you know, Ross's Yeah, so there's, you know, in a closet somewhere, there's a couple of juices in each class. And then wherever she is, and she has to take one out and drink it from reverse. If she does, she just hits the closet and replenishes her purse. Yep, you know, I have to say that we don't you know, the beginning of the school year, it's not as it's not as intense when you're older. And you've done it for a while, we just take two bricks of juice boxes and spread them around like, you know, right rose petals at a at a wedding. We're just like, there are some here are some here, throw some there. And you're done. And then maybe once a year are they'll be like, hey, I need more juice boxes. So she might go through. I don't know, she might go through 1020 of them a year at school. But that's pretty much it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:56
Yeah, pretty new. That's pretty minimal. That's actually pretty good. You know, when you when you get to be an adult with diabetes and have kids in your house,

you actually have to be

kind of good at hiding thing,

Scott Benner 1:03:09
or disappears.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:03:10
Or it or it disappears, like literally, I mean even I mean even my husband don't drink them or eat them. And he I mean, you know, he'll tell me if they're obviously not there anymore. But I mean, my kids if I have my glucose tablets out, they'd love them. So I hide them and so it's like it becomes really important like purses, by purses, I have like these internal like hidden packs, pockets and many of my purses because when they see an open purse on the table or the floor, they're like, oh, does mommy have any of her stuff in here? Like mommy stuff is for really important reason.

Scott Benner 1:03:44
reminded me that during during a family vacation once there was an argument, because we were we were in a moment where it was summertime. And we need help by the way we now because of Disney new hell like magical popsicles were right they give you a little bump, but they didn't make you go too high or anything like that. And for our net lease, and so we bought these box of popsicles like you know, you get to a shore house you go out and go shopping. And someone said Oh, I'm gonna have a popsicle and cozy Hey, you know, I just needed not to touch those. We've got them in case Arden gets slow, which prior to all the technology was going to happen like you were going to use those popsicles. And one of the parents said that's not fair to the other kids. And I remember Kelly going will tell them to get diabetes and then they can have all the popsicles they want to know but like for right now just don't touch the popsicles. But it actually caused it was like a like you know, that's that's not fair. Our Kelly's like, are we talking about fair because my kids are measuring fair. I think I win. Anyway, right. Do you feel like we did a good job here if you needed to? All right, cool. So I will so let me say goodbye let you get back to your business and Jenny's businesses she does this for a living at integrated diabetes.com this is not an ad. This is just me telling you that Jenny is the bomb diggity. Check her out at integrated diabetes.com there's also a link to her email address right there in the show notes look in your player right there. Thank you so much to Dexcom for sponsoring this episode. Don't forget to take a look at the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor today by going to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box or clicking on the links in your show notes. Were the ones you'll find at Juicebox podcast.com. And of course, you need to run out and get yourself a Contour Next One blood glucose meter Contour Next one.com


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#287 Diabetes Pro Tip: Illness, Injury and Surgery

Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on type 1 diabetes care

Episode 288 is a companion to this episode, don’t miss it!

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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
You are listening to Episode 287 of the Juicebox Podcast. This episode is part of the diabetes pro tip series that began way back on episode 210. Today I'll be discussing with Jenny Smith, the topic of illness, but not just how to handle a sick day, the flu, a stomach virus, an injury, a surgery, a dental appointment, all of those medical ideas that might require a little more thought. Today's show is proudly sponsored by Dexcom Omni pod and dancing for diabetes. You can find out more about the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor@dexcom.com forward slash juice box and the tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been wearing for a decade. More than a decade. Ah the Omni pod my omnipod.com forward slash juice box to get a free no obligation demo today. And if you'd like to learn more about dancing for diabetes, it's simple dancing the number four diabetes.com.

This episode is going to have a companion piece. It's the defining diabetes episode on ketones that will have come out at the same time. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin. Don't forget they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So don't forget to wash your hands before during and after preparing food before eating food before and after caring for someone at home who is sick before after treating a cutter wound after you use the toilet changing diapers. helping a child use the toilet after blowing your nose coughing or sneezing touching an animal animal feed animal waste handling pet foods or treats touching garbage and you know how to wash your hands does anybody ever really told you they got a wet them right so you run some water on them warm or cold doesn't matter. Get them wet and put some soap on. vigorously lather your hands by rub them together with the soap on the backs of your hands between your fingers and under your nails. scrub them for at least 20 seconds. Rinse your hand well under clean running water dry your hands using a clean towel.

Jenny let's do a big Sick Day episode. And so I'd like to try if we can to get through sort of a regular sick day like you know, a little beyond the sniffles. Okay, the flu, stomach virus, an injury like a broken bone or something I might have to take, you know, steroid for and then an actual surgery and have you Where do I want to start? You've had a surgery pretty recently, haven't you?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:57
I've had multiple surgeries. I've had awake surgeries I've had I've been out surgeries. I don't like surgeries. But I've had though. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:05
so let's start there a because you got good information about it and be because Arden is gonna have a cyst removed in a couple of weeks. So I want to hear about this. So let's start with something you were awake for. I guess also, like dental procedures would probably fall in this category a little bit, maybe, maybe not,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:26
they could they would be a little bit different only because, um, like a dental surgery if you're going to be awake for it like just a tooth removal or something like that. Usually, the awake component to it means that you don't really have to go in fasting or without any food in your system, you know, those kinds of things. If it were going to be I know now, they usually try to take all the wisdom teeth at once if they're going to do that. And oftentimes now I've heard a lot more people being completely put under my son for wisdom tooth, you know, extraction, I didn't I my dentist said Your mouth is not big enough. You need to have your teeth come out but there's nothing wrong with them as they come in, we're gonna take them out. So as my teeth kind of came out and honestly my wisdom teeth didn't completely come through until I was well into my 20s and so they just took them out in office.

Scott Benner 4:31
Me I'm gonna make a note here to myself, because it has nothing to do with this but my wisdom teeth extraction story is absolutely insane. And I will tell it at the end. So why don't we just made it myself. So okay, so if I'm just going to the dentist to have a cavity done or something like that. Not a lot for me to do probably handle things the way I normally do. You know, I guess

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:55
the big thing to make sure is especially if you're new to having it done is And you've never had any, like pain medication. No, you may experience a little bit of a higher blood sugar, potentially a stress component from having like the novocaine. I mean, that needle is, it's scary, the scary looking needle that they're shoving in your mouth, right. And it doesn't feel very nice either, as they inject it several times. So for those of you know, those people have never had this done, I, it's not very fun. And if you ever do have to have fun, done, it's not a fun thing. But it could cause a rise in blood sugar because of a pain component, because you're just in a setting that's completely not under your control. So, but other than that, yeah, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have to go there fasting, or make any true adjustments to anything. You know, in the future, if you had a second surgery, or a tooth extraction or tooth work, and you knew what happened the first time, you could potentially look back,

and maybe make adjustments like setting a Temp Basal increase, or taking a small amount of Bolus ahead of time to offset arise if you don't want it, or just correct after if you're not quite sure what's going to happen.

Scott Benner 6:13
Yeah, especially I'm thinking if, you know, if you're trying to I'm not usually up for like, run high to avoid a low kind of situation. But if it's an hour, an hour and a half in the office, and it makes you comfortable, you know, let your blood sugar be a little higher for that. And then and then get at it. And because you're I guess too, if you're numb, taking in juice or gel or something that could end up so you don't want to be in that situation could

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:35
be harder. Exactly. Yeah. So it's been in some things like that, it sure it's a little bit safer to potentially be a little higher, if it does end up rising. I mean, obviously, don't go in at a blood sugar of 250, just because you're scared. But if it rises up, you know higher than you'd love it to be again, an hour, hour and a half of being too high, you can correct it after without worrying that things are going to drop too much. And you can't chew anything, then that's okay. So this

Scott Benner 7:02
is so funny, I'm going to ask you, when I say leave it a little higher, I have a number my head, what's your number?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:09
It's a little higher would be like 180 ish.

Scott Benner 7:11
Yeah, I might be insane. Actually. It's like, I was like, he could comfortably already 35 ish in there, I don't want to get crazy, that thing starts drifting to 160, I got a fight with it, then, you know, yeah. But the point is, is wherever you feel like you can reap the control. And if you're real stable, that could just mean like dialing your bazel back a little bit to just let your blood sugar kind of come up a little bit, you might not have to add something to make it happen. Okay, so that's simple. Now, moving on to the kind of the next step of it. Wisdom teeth knocked out cold. Now, I do know this from my son, if you get a good doctor, you're only under a very short time. But when you come back, you are not in any shape to make decisions. Drink eat, my kids said some crazy stuff on the way home from that doctor. And then even once his head cleared out, which I have to admit, didn't take too long. He's bleeding is his mouth is packed with gauze and everything. So I guess we're in are we in that situation, now we're better high than low,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:18
it would be better than to be again, in that case, you know, if you went into that surgery to be put out and your blood sugar was nice and stable, let's say 120 even, it should for the short amount of time of that type of a procedure, it should remain stable, or it might climb again from the stress on the body. In the aftermath of that, though, again, it would definitely be better to be a little bit higher than you're typically running. And again, I'm not saying like 180 200 high, obviously, you could correct to bring that down safely. But if you're running like 140 leave it I that there is no detriment there whatsoever at 140 you know, as long until you can take something in or start to eat, or, you know, whatever the dentist told you for when you could start to eat again. I mean, even with my wisdom teeth being taken out one at a time, I think there was I think I had to take it out the first time it was a bottom and it was a top wisdom tooth. And I remember a couple of days of like just soft it was you know where the chewing component just was not pleasant. So having a plan of action to just like any other Sick Day kind of thing, having some things ready to go especially if you're an adult and you're taking care of yourself. You know having some soup or some broth or some jello or yogurt or popsicles or an ice cream or whatever it is that you can tolerate. soft enough don't have to chew it that you can get something in. I think

Scott Benner 9:52
that I think that my as I'm thinking about this happening for Arden next year, probably my plan would likely be higher, not so high that it could get away from you higher, but controllable. And then if it tries to move, just kind of keep tamping it back down a little bit like so that you're in the power position, right? It's not out of control high. So that you're, you're going, Oh, geez, I've used a lot of insulin here. And it's not low, just you know what it tries to come up, push it back down, like, play play that game for a little bit. So you've got the level you're looking for, but you're still reasonably in control of what's happening. I put yourself in a power position there, I think I'm having to handle it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:31
That's correct. Considering the fact that, as we've said before, the littler incremental adjustments sooner mean less insulin sitting there to potentially dump you down to low later. And then a setting where you can't actually take anything in, whether it's a mouth surgery, or this might even move into kind of like stomach bugs or those kinds of things where you may not be able to take anything in or not quite sure when you can take anything in it. It's certainly better to nudge little by little rather than take this big walk thing adjustment and then you can't eat anything to offset.

Scott Benner 11:07
Yeah, I think bumping is the nudging is the way to go. That's I so as I'm considering it right now, for the first time talking to you. And when Arden's wisdom teeth come up, I think that's definitely what I'm going to do. I'm going to shoot for 140 in that range, take your advice over my advice, maybe more like 141 50 and then just keep knocking it down. If it if it tries to run away, basically, just kind of keep tripping it as it tries to get up for a minute. Nope, nope.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:35
And find out ahead of time what her favorite soft or cold things are. So you can have them ready. Well, yeah,

Scott Benner 11:40
the pre like, you're gonna have to prepare, right? Like you're gonna write, this is not something you're gonna want to think about after the surgery is over, you're gonna want this stuff,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:46
let her sit in the like parking lot at the grocery store. Well, you run in and be like, what did you want to get in her mouth is full of gas. And she's like,

Scott Benner 11:55
I can't get her to pick food when she's not sick or injured. Like we were at the grocery store. Grab a couple snacks for lunch, whatever you're looking for. I don't know, you decide. And I said, How about this? She goes, No. And I went, well, how you gonna tell me the side? And then I say something? He told me? No. I was like, What if I grab something that she has? If you show it to me, I'm gonna say no, if you bring it home, I'll eat it. And I went, Oh, that's a reasonable understanding of your psyche. I was like, Okay, great. So I did anesthesia, impact it all.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:25
So some people, myself being one of them. Not only do I have experience with surgery, I have experience with anesthesia, not my body doesn't like it. So again, if you're going into something where you've never had any anesthesia whatsoever before, just be aware that it can cause some like, post operative nausea. Many people get a little bit like woozy headed, I myself just don't tolerate it at all. I talked to the anesthesiologist ahead of time I say, you need to load me up with whatever tools you have. Because I will probably throw up on the nurses when you get me awake. And there's only literally been one time that I had a I had a hernia surgery and umbilical hernia. And, man, if I could carry that anesthesiologist around in my pocket, if I ever needed surgery again, and his little toolkit of medications, he used post surgery, I was golden. I didn't feel horrible. I mean, you know, normal, but not like nauseous, whatever. So anaesthesia can cause some nausea. So just be aware of that. If you know that's an issue, again, talk to the doctor about it ahead of time, there are many different kinds of medications they can use to stop that.

And it depends, you know, on post surgery,

sometimes they'll try to get you to nibble or drink a little bit of something in the post op when you're you know, recovering waking up. You can also be really really woozy, like in and out of like waking up and then getting really drowsy again and that it takes for everybody it takes a little bit of time to wear off. Usually in a post op setting. They'll probably have you in recovery for at least an hour. It could be longer than that, depending on how you seem to be doing. So it's I've always brought somebody along who knows how to look at my palm, how to potentially do a finger stick for me even though the nurses there could definitely do that for you. So my mom has come to a couple of my surgeries. My husband was there obviously for both c sections that I had. So it's really really, really advantageous if you've got a go to person to be there after

Scott Benner 14:49
so funny. I alluded to this while we were recording recently, but you I have a question that's on the tip of my tongue and if you would have paused I would have asked what you said. I'm like, one of us doesn't need to be here? I'm afraid it's me. So I was gonna say, Did you were your pump? And yeah, you know, how did you take control of it? What did you do? So, as long as you were coherent, you were doing it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:15
Correct. As long as I was coherent I was doing it's also really an ahead of time for any type of surgery. I mean, again, like a dental kind of thing. The dentist could probably really care last as long as things are okay and controlled when you come in. They may if they know you have diabetes, they're definitely going to ask when you come in, or your sugars, okay? Are they controlled? Are you feeling well, you know, whatever, they're not going to know anything about telling you to do or dial back or dial up or anything

Unknown Speaker 15:45
that's a dentist,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:46
medical doctors, though, will be more involved will be more involved. And they it's really important thing to talk ahead of time, right? Because

Scott Benner 15:56
there as a default, gonna just err on the side of I'd rather see your blood sugar be 300 for the next couple of hours, they're always going to feel that way. They don't really want to be managing your blood sugar. I don't. Yeah, I've seen now in multiple people in my life type two type one, you know, all the way down to my my friend Mike, who was in a, you know, in a coma at the end of his life? And they nobody would nobody? Gosh, I don't want to say they care. They didn't care. But it was a problem. They they weren't prioritizing, I guess. Correct. You know, it was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:29
a secondary issue.

Scott Benner 16:31
Yeah, really, it's the think of it that way.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:34
Yeah. And they're they're concerned. I mean, from the medical standpoint, in fact, if you don't address the fact of staying on your pump, and keeping your CGM on and whatnot, as long as you can keep them on, there are some medical procedures that include machines in the operating room that could potentially require you to be off of your products, just from a machine. I guess, interference standpoint, there may definitely be some things, there may also be length time of a procedure or a surgical procedure that determines you need to be on an insulin drip versus being left on your pump. So you know, those kinds of things, there is a definite difference. But for shorter lived surgeries. If you go in with your team, and you talk to them, and you say hey, you know, you know that I'm on an insulin pump. If you've got backing of your endo, you can have your endo write a letter of approval for you to remain on your pump and your continuous monitor through the surgical procedure. Your doctor may even include in it, you know, glucose levels, we've, we've discussed, she or he will come in with a glucose level here to here, she or he will have a temporary bazel adjustments set. Many doctors are a lot more conservative than you need to be for surgery. Many doctors will say dial the bazel back by 50% just

Scott Benner 17:59
seems like a lot,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:00
again, which is a lot. And for most people again, there are the rare people who have a drop in blood sugar from that stress impact and whatnot. But if it's not common, it's more common for stress to cause a rise in blood sugar. So, you know, dialing bazel back, kind of goes back to some of our other episodes about like testing things, or going into surgery. First thing, they will usually have somebody with diabetes on insulin, have surgery first thing in the morning, they will not push it into the later afternoon or the evening mainly because they'll want you to come in in a fasting state. And it's easiest to get that in the morning for somebody with diabetes. They're in lies, do you know that your maysles are doing what they're supposed to do? If you've got time?

Scott Benner 18:51
Well, yes. Can you imagine to you're gonna need to be fasting for a procedure at 8am and you wake up and your blood sugar's 45 what are you gonna do? You know, you're gonna have to do something and now you have to show up at the hospital and say, I drank juice this morning, and then they're going to boot you back out again and you have to reschedule. So, alright, that makes sense to Yes, I'm so conversations ahead of time with doctors. I'd like to control my own insulin pump. I can do it when I'm on. You know, when I'm not capable. I've got a person here to help me. Here's a letter from my endocrinologist outlining you know, some of my goals for my blood sugar's that they'd like me to be able to stay on my devices. If I'm MDI, I don't want to be on a, you know, on an insulin drip, I want to I want to inject my slow acting, you know, the way I always do, and probably having a little bit of, I don't know charting the word or records to be able to show the doctor like, Look, here's what I do. Normally, I feel confident I can come in and accomplish this correct, yes, correctly important

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:51
because it eases

their ability to also chart and say, you know, this is the plan of action. This is where You know, this patient's glucose levels, they're controlled, the insulin doses are here, the glucose levels are usually here. This is where they came in the morning of the surgery, even showing them. I mean, every surgery I've gone into they've all the nurses have been fascinated with the continuous monitor. They've been fascinated with it

Scott Benner 20:20
that happened to Arden when she went into the emergency room for that belly pink. And you and I talked that day, actually. Yeah. And the other nurse who was way in charge, super confident and, and competent. And she, when she saw that thing, she's like, this is amazing. And, and I was like, Yeah, right. And she's like, Alright, well, you know, what do you want to do? And I was like, I, you know, I, it was that moment when I said, Listen, I'm not trying to be like, I'm not, you know, I'm not blowing a horn here or anything like that. I'm like, but my daughter is a once he is incredibly stable. On the lower side, her blood sugars. And I showed her like, this is her blood sugar for the last 24 hours. I'm like, I am completely confident that I can keep her blood sugar here. And if I can't, could we just do like she's got an IV and right, you could you could hit her with, you know, yeah, with glucose dextrose. Right. And so that actually happened, we were there for so long that they did have to run dextrose. And it was really interesting to watch, because it took forever to hit, and then it jacked her up. But if you gave her any insulin at all, it went right away in two seconds is very, very interesting to watch how it works. But when going into that scenario, right away, I mean, after we were settled, like I didn't run in the door yelling, she has type one diabetes, and we're gonna take care of it. Like, you know, after we were settled, you know, we were there for a little while. I'm like, Hey, listen, here's the situation, we'd love to stay like this. And that, to be honest, she seemed thrilled to let us do it. It almost felt like, well, then I won't have to do this. So perfect. You know, it was a little bit of that. And okay, that's actually

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:50
for the most part, what I've actually what I've experienced, there's almost like you, you can't physically see it, but you can see it because with diabetes, we become very intuitive to other people's like, what you can see them thinking you can like hear their gears going right. And every time I've come in for a surgery, I can almost like, see the nurse like go

like their shoulders like relieved.

They're like somebody has control of this. And we don't have to worry about I mean, they will, they will ask where your glucose is, if you do a finger stick or look at your CGM. report it to them make sure that they know and are aware of where things are going. If you did it all make an adjustment to your insulin doses or take anything, make sure to note it to them so that they can chart it. Because it becomes part of the medical record then. But yeah, I mean, my, the, my first child when he was born, we knew it was going to be a C section. And so we we came in planned everything. And the nurse anesthetist who was there during the C section. She actually at that point in time, I had the receiver yet for my deck. Right, I was still using it. And I she was holding it because my husband was like, you know, with me, obviously. And she was amazed by it. She kept like, she's like you changed again. He's like 81 now like, yeah, it'll give you a new number every five minutes, right? But she was like, she was so just enjoying watching. She's like, this is a really steady line. And I was like, yeah, that's what happens when your insulin is dialed in the right way.

Unknown Speaker 23:38
So,

Scott Benner 23:38
you know, to your point, I'm recalling a conversation I had with a nurse in a in a hospital setting. And we talked about this. And she told me that one of the things she dreads the most is running up on somebody who really, you know, doesn't have a firm idea of what they're doing. And she's like, but but it's, they feel like it's working for them. Yeah. And then you feel like you're in the position of explaining to them like, Oh, this isn't Okay, this should be more like this or more like that. She's like, and that's not my job. And you know, and they don't take it well, and they're already under stress over a lot of other things. Right. And now you're you are in the corner of the room going, oh, by the way, you don't do a very good job of taking care of your diabetes. Here's what you should be doing. She's like, it's not the right time.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:22
No, it's not at all. In fact, I when we went in for my second son's birth, you know, management had already been established endocrine and my MFM team and already written Jenny will manage, if she's unable her husband is here, he can help her manage, she will remain on her pump, etc, etc. and the nurses were really really surprised by that because they had had a woman the week prior, come in on a pump. And they thought she knew just like, you know what everything I was saying. They said okay, we need you to dial back You know your rates by this much blah, blah, blah, cuz she didn't come in with a plan of action herself. And this woman unfortunately literally didn't even know how to button push on her pump. So I don't I don't know the whole story other than the fact that the nurses and the doctors were like, well, we you can't safely we cannot allow you to stay on your pump. And so she was so excited. She's like, so glad you know what you're doing. Like, this was the scenario we had.

Scott Benner 25:24
I hope hopefully that'll This will give the confidence to other people to make these kind of like pre planning decisions too. Right? Um, okay, so let's, you know, injury. And I only have one example. But Arden got hit really hard in the kneecap with a softball bat in softball once and her blood sugar began to rise almost immediately after the pain hitter, and stayed up for the better part of 18 or 24 hours, she needed a lot more insulin. Now, I you know, I don't think there's a lot to say to this other than there was an impact coming from her body that required more insulin, I gave her more insulin. But that's is that is that a hard and fast rule that pain? Put your blood sugar up in constant pain can hold it up? Or is it that's person the person I would imagine to?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:11
For the most part? Yes. I mean, as as kind of just a blanket statement. Yeah, if, if you're in pain, and it's considerable pain, blood sugar's will be higher. If the pain ebbs and flows, you may find a little bit of kind of a drop down as things feel much better. And if it starts up again, maybe between pain medication or whatnot, it may start to escalate again. So So yes, pain, pain is a horrible thing. You know. And that's actually one of the things that I in having had two births. The management of P and post delivery was, most women's insulin needs fall dramatically, after they deliver child and placenta and everything, and all those pregnancy hormones are gone. But after a surgical delivery, like a C section, or a more traumatic delivery, potentially, you may actually see that the stress of that, and the pain that you're in, could leave those glucose levels higher requiring more insulin despite the pregnancy hormones being gone. So that's kind of a similar example or swapping the hormones for the pain.

Scott Benner 27:25
Right, right. And I did see with Arden's knee that when pain issues only taking Advil, but when it worked for she needed less insulin, and then at the end of that Advil if I if I didn't overlap it correctly, then she'd start to go up again. Okay, well, I just wanted to hit that but now we're gonna we're gonna jump into the like the illnesses you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:45
yet one, can I can I make a comment on one thing, of course, prior to illnesses, since we've been talking about, like, planning for surgery, and all of those kinds of things, if you do have a plan of action, and you know, you'll be going into the hospital. The other things to definitively know is your length of stay.

Or that

okay, because you do have to plan ahead for how much may you need to bring along as far as supplies, right, especially if you're on a pump. If you're on a CGM, you want to make sure that you have enough that you don't have to either send somebody home, the hospital will not have anything to help you out with your pump

Unknown Speaker 28:23
supplies,

Scott Benner 28:24
they're not going to offer you an omni pod, if you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:26
they're not going to

they you know, I mean, certainly they've got glucose glucometers in the hospital, they've obviously got insulin, if you're really stuck on your type of rapid acting insulin, or another example, and you've got something planned coming up, make sure to bring your insulin to the hospital with you, you may have to give it to the nursing staff, they may have to hold it in in the medical area with your name and label on it. But otherwise, you're kind of going to be at liberty of whatever's on formulary at the hospital and it could be the kind of rapid insulin either you've never used. Or maybe it does doesn't work as well for you.

Scott Benner 29:02
So you ever. Have you ever had an experience yourself or spoken with somebody who's had the experience where they go into the hospital, the hospital wants to leave their blood sugar higher. The people say I don't want that. But the hospital resists. And then the person sort of Mission Impossible style gets insulin to themselves, because I've heard that from a lot of people. Like um, I had, I had to hide my pin from the nurse like that kind of stuff.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:29
Correct. Now that in fact, I'm sure she wouldn't mind me answering it because ginger who I wrote my book on type one with Yeah, you know, she is She is an MDI. She takes multiple daily injections. She doesn't use an insulin pump. And her first delivery. That's what she had to do because the nurses were like, We don't want you I don't know where they told her to take her insulin dose down or up by so much that ginger was like, that's gonna kill me. She's like, you can't Do that. And so yeah, she had her like insulin pens in her room with her. And when the nurses weren't in the room, she just dosed herself. Now, am I advocating for that as a healthcare professional? No, I'm advocating that you talk to somebody. But you know, what if in the case of the question that you asked if they're just leaving it, like, so much higher, detrimentally higher than would be healthy for healing. I would advocate for bringing in like, a patient advocate asking the hospital to bring somebody into the room to talk with because there has to be a safe work around that. You're being safe. And the hospital staff knows what you're doing, but that you're doing what you know is better for you.

Scott Benner 30:48
You know how this always happens. It happens in so many different walks of life in and around diabetes and separate the two, especially at school, by the way, with, like how people take care of their children at school. There's this idea institutionally, this is how we do it. And when you come in and say, hey, that's really cool. I'm glad that works for people. I would like to do it like this. No, no, no, this is how we do it. But no one remembers why this is how we do it. Right. Like and it really is. It's the meatloaf story. You know, it's it's that if I ever told you the meatloaf story. I'll do an abridged version of it. Mother and a young girl it's a pot roast actually mother and a young girl and making a pot roast. Mother gets out the pan cuts the ends off the pot roast, puts it in the pan sticks it in the oven. The daughter says Why did you cut the ends off the pot roast? mom thinks for a second says I'm not really sure that's how my mom made pot roast. So they find the grandmother asked her grandmother says I don't know. You're gonna have to you know next time you're at the old age home, find my mom and ask her why. So they visit the old age home they find the mom she's 100 years old, all curled up in a ball. Great Mom, do you remember why we cut the ends off the pot roasts? You know, when we make them? And the old lady thinks and thinks and she goes? Oh, yeah, I had a really short pan. Right? Yeah, you know? Exactly. So. So you don't know why the hospital saying what they're saying? You don't know why the school is saying what they're saying. And sometimes you just have to be reasonable, like you said, and talk and say, I get this is what you normally do. But hey, this is what we do. And look how well it works. Couldn't we? Couldn't we find a middle ground here? Correct. The problem is sometimes that communication breaks down because of I mean, I know on my end, when it would break down for me in the past, it's always emotion, like, you know, you're very emotional and you feel like, oh, you're gonna, you're gonna ruin my kid's life or something like that, or you know, you're gonna hurt somebody and you feel and then you start wrong. And then before you know it, you're arguing. And so you have to really, you got to come at it from a real calm place. But But yeah, I'm not advocating anybody doing that either. I'm just saying that the number of people I know who have done that is more than I can count on my fingers.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:56
Something that kind of goes along with that, too, would be sort of an emergent type of setting where you come to the hospital unplanned, like an emergency room, right? a really important thing is that you if you can, if you're awake with it, or somebody who's with you can advocate for you. It's not allowed for them to want to disconnect a pump. Do not let them disconnect your pump. Say that like more forcefully or whatnot. I mean, if you are with it enough, do not let them take your pump, right? Because it they don't they don't know. I mean, emergency department personnel. They're they're great clinicians, but they see a host of things like trauma problems, issues, whatnot, they are not schooled in insulin pump management, they're not. So that's a really, really important one.

Scott Benner 33:55
And these are emergencies that aren't the top end of the emergency like if you're really injured. You know what these people try to keep you alive. You stop thinking about you're in some pop now, but like that, that kind of stuff, right? But yeah, in moments where you're Cognizant, it's, it's a weird thing. Like why would you give over the control of your insulin pump to somebody just because you broke your toe when you're in the emergency room now? Correct. This doesn't make it exactly

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:17
okay.

That's also the benefit of having a

Scott Benner 34:22
medical ID. Oh, look at Tony is wearing her bracelet, don't you? Oh,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:25
it's always on. I think actually, I glued it closed. Because I've lost it. It comes from American medical ID by the way. It's they do a great job. But my class had come like it unsnapped twice already and I've had to reorder the same bracelet. So now it's glued closed. Like they would literally have to cut it off of me to get it off. I was

Scott Benner 34:48
gonna joke that Jenny is making side money, the mentioning America medical bracelets on the podcast, and then she said it broke twice and I thought well, that's probably not what they want people to hear.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:59
I'm quite sure sure that it was, you know, my fault of patching it, whatever. But, yeah, it's so actually, it's funny because when I went into the hospital the last time where my kidney stone was not fun

it was a whole bunch of extra visits and whatnot

after, but I told them I was like you, they wanted like all jewelry and like everything removed, and I was like, well, you're gonna have to cut it off then because it's glued together and the doctor was like, Okay, well, we'll just put them whatever it's called, like, Cole ban, or Kay ban or whatever around it, and he's like, you're fine. We'll be fine.

Scott Benner 35:35
Oh, there you go. There's Jenny's had diabetes for 30 years, and she's wearing her bracelet now. Don't you all feel bad for not wearing your I don't even think Arden has one. So I'm feeling particularly bad in the moment. Oh, I'm sorry. You know, it's funny. It's when she gets older. Like, then I think of it like right now she's with somebody constantly. Who knows she has diabetes. It's you know, but it's those other moments. I guess it's the ones you can't plan for, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:04
I've got a lot of friends who've gotten tattoos, actually, you know, type one wrist tattoos. I've actually got a good friend in Michigan, who she even talked to some EMTs. And she asked specifically about her design so that she could know from a medical perspective, would this be visible enough? Would this be recognized as a medical ID and whatnot. So there are some beautiful designs that are out there? I just have never one day go that route. I have a tattoo but I just don't have a tattoo on my wrist.

Scott Benner 36:40
Are we sharing where your tattoo is? Or? No,

Unknown Speaker 36:42
it's on my leg. Okay.

Scott Benner 36:44
I have a couple of tattoos. I have one of the top of the crack of might now. I'm just kidding. It's on my shoulder and one of my shoulder one. Well, mine aren't that cool, though. Maybe they are. I don't know. I've had them for so long. That sometimes I look in the mirror and I see it and it startles me. The one of my shoulder happens with him sometimes, like what is on me? And then I realize that 25 years ago I got I've had to and i don't i don't see it because it's behind me. Anyway, okay, so. So let's start with the easiest version of a sick day, right? Like a cold. sniffles a cough like something that doesn't you know morph into something worse, just something that is you're under the weather. How does that does that always present with your blood sugar the same way, like for you personally. All the ads are going to be right here. First up Dexcom, the G six continuous glucose monitor you need it. You want it? You're feeling it with me right now. You've been listening to the podcast for a while you're hearing people making these adjustments to their blood sugar's using the information they're getting back from their Dexcom, you're thinking that's the next level, I want to be at it. And that's just one reason you might want the Dexcom JSX. You also might be looking to be able to watch your child's blood sugar while they're at school or at a friend's house asleep over. Maybe you want to help your sister out he lives halfway across the world. These are all ways Dexcom can help you. But at its core, the Dexcom g six is a beautiful way to see the speed and direction that your blood sugar is moving. You'll be able to see this, of course, as the user on a receiver or on your phone, iOS, or Android. And as a loved one. If the user should give you access, you can also see their blood sugar on an Android or iPhone. What do you do with that information? Of course, in our experience, we use the Dexcom information not just for safety and peace of mind. But for dosing decisions, seeing blood sugars move, deciding how to attack them with insulin or how to maybe take some insulin away when needed. This is where the Dexcom is, in my opinion, exactly what you need. Go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to find out more. When you do you'll get yourself some peace of mind. And the ability to look at information about your blood sugar that makes real and lasting changes. improvements, your health and welfare.

The holidays are coming and you deserve a gift. Something it's warm and meaningful, something that will add to your life not take away something that you can get for free. What That's right. You can get a free absolutely with no obligation demonstration on the pod sent right to your house so that you can try it on where it decide if it's something you might like to have in your life. That's right You can get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod to boost insulin pump sent directly to your house itself. swim with it. I mean, if you're in a warm weather place, you can bathe in it. You can frolic with it, you can play sports with it on. So why not get the demo and do all those things do those life things wearing this demo so you can understand what it would be like if you were using the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump like my daughter has been for 11 years. Every day for 11 years, Arden has been wearing an omni pod. And the addition to her health is immeasurable. The ability to manipulate insulin in forms of temporary bazel rates, extended boluses the ability to keep her insulin going while she's involved in activity in the shower. All times when people with tube pumps have to disconnect doesn't exist with Omni pod. You got to give it a try. Like I said, they're not going to charge anything to get the demo. You don't have to commit to anything. So you might as well give it a whirl, right? Give yourself a little present here at the holidays. Miami pod.com forward slash juicebox. Get that demo sent to your house. It's fun to open up something you didn't pay for. Last thing check out dancing for diabetes today at dancing the number four diabetes.com whip out your little phone there check them out on Facebook, and Instagram. They're on all the Grammy facie things, dancing for diabetes, dancing the number four diabetes.com does that always present with your blood sugar the same way? ache for you personally.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:34
For me personally it does. I've found that just the typical sniffles. I'm not really feeling bad. I'm just feeling kind of like stuffed up or something. Typically, I don't see any change in my blood sugars whatsoever. I don't see any change in my insulin needs whatsoever. It's not really until I start feeling sick, where I might feel a little more fatigued, tired kind of rundown, like I could go to bed like at 8pm instead of 1030 you know kind of thing that I like a good thing for me to know that I really don't feel good is that I just don't want to work out because I typically do something every single day for a workout. And if I really would rather like skip the gym, feel like I know that I'm really not feeling great. But blood sugar wise, I've already I already know that I'm not doing great because I'll see an incremental creep use me I usually need about 20 25% more insulin with something that's got me kind of just not feeling the best at all right

Scott Benner 42:38
so with Arden when she has the regular just sick day sickness she needs her blood sugar's are so easy to control those days. I don't like it and not not like I'm coughing and my chest hurts or there's, you know, she's not flying out of my nose or something like that, right? She's a little under the weather. Her blood sugar's easier. Now maybe if I really delve into that maybe she doesn't eat as much during those days. But like there could be another reason that I'm wrong about. But I have heard people say, you know both ways, like I need more, I need less. And so for this right? hydration really is got to be step one in probably all of these right? You have to stay hydrated. Keep food in you. Yeah, as best you can. So you don't get into one of those deficits where you've got a bunch of insulin going and there's nothing inside of you and you drop quickly. It is kind of morphing that from just a regular sick day to a slightly more sick day where you're under the weather maybe have a bit of a fever is the biggest fear. What if I need to eat and I can't or what if I get sick to my stomach and my stomach empties like what do you think of the biggest fear around being sick as being

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:49
I would say it's more the it's not like the congestion, the nasal the bronchitis, the ear infection, that's usually not it's more the bugs that hit the digestive system that are the fear for most people. High blood sugars. Most people will realize that they need more insulin, whether they're just throwing insulin and correcting because they're staying high or they actually intuitively are like huh, I need to bump my basil up I'll use a Temp Basal here because I obviously I'm just running across the board high. That's not so much the worry it's more the Gosh, I really don't feel very good things could be coming out one or both ends and nothing really seems to be sitting well or you have consistent enough nausia that you can't really do more than a sip every hour. Yeah, those are more of the bugs that worry people. So I mean there are there are some kind of hard and fast rules. You know if your blood sugar is on the lower and declining or dropping and you can catch it ahead of get being to low you can if you're using an insulin pump set at Temp Basal decrease about 80%, or about two hours, okay, so if you're really nauseous to the point that you can't take anything into stop that drop off, you can decrease bazel enough again, before you actually are too low, to stop the drop and sort of curve you off until you could get a little bit of something. Usually extreme nausea doesn't last like nine hours at a pop, it kind of ebbs and flows through a stomach bug. So, you know, at some point, you could get in something even in the case of honey, you put put honey in the gum and sort of just massage it in, you don't even have to swallow it, but some of it does start to get absorbed in you know, through the mouth,

Scott Benner 45:49
right. So it's funny, so you just described exactly how I help Arden sleep in really long. So on a on a Saturday, if she you know, she goes to bed late, and or she's been really exhausted all week or something like that, this this out is going to be one of those like, she's got a lot going on this week. And I know she's going to sleep in, there's a moment, like in the in the beginning of the day, the six o'clock 789 o'clock hour, it's like a 50% decrease in her insulin. And that keeps her at 90, right. But if she starts power sleeping into that 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, I sometimes have to go down to like an 80% decrease, just because everything in her body that could possibly keep her blood sugar up is gone. Now it's just, it's really gone. She's been asleep for 12 hours, you know, 10 hours, it's really gone. So I've learned that I can't take all the insulin away. Because if I do that, she's gonna jump up or be really high two hours after she wakes up or something like that. So you have to leave summon, but almost not enough for it to impact the moment at all just for to help overall. And right and then from there. It's great. I mean, the idea of the honey in the cheek, something that doesn't make it to your stomach, because the the lining your mouth is really absorbent for things It is so your cheeks under your tongue, right? Yeah. Yep. That kind of stuff. So you can get sugar in there without actually swallowing? I'll tell you, I'll tell you two in a panic situation, if you don't have anything, even table sugar, you know, you can dissolve sort of in the saliva of your mouth and leave it there. Yep, yep, there's a lot of ways, but you're going to have to get creative unless you're planning to head right, and you have sports drinks that you can take these kind of micro steps off of throughout the day, you know, yeah. But all we're talking about here is, is maintaining that balance with the extra variable of your stomach, maybe being sour or incapable of holding the fight, right? When it

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:53
comes to also prepping similar to other illnesses and whatnot, kind of, you know, like the discussion about mouth surgery, just prepping and making sure you've got some things on the shelf in your house, kind of, if it's popsicles that you always keep in the back of the freezer that have a sticker on that, say, don't touch Unless, you know, sick days, six days stash or whatever it is, there's actually a really good electrolyte. It's not pre mixed, it comes in like one of those little two, not tubes, but like packets, kind of like Crystal Light, almost. It's called drip drop. That one works really nice. I think each packet, if you consume the whole thing, it's only about like nine or 10 grams of carb. But the nice thing is that it's got the electrical light component to it to for replacing what might be coming out.

Scott Benner 48:40
Yeah, um, so just some options. It's very dense with what you need to and I know about it for a completely different reason. But when Cole was recruiting for college, he got stuck at this three day event in August. And it was like 115 degrees. And he was playing baseball for three days in a row trying to you know, it's like, look at me, someone take me on their damn team. But he was downing Pedialyte throughout the day to stay in that. So yeah, it is really impactful.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 49:11
The other component to stomach bugs and adjustments would be if you are able to take in a little bit usually because of stomach bug means that you're not absorbing well. digestive leave, we really expect that you're probably absorbing only about 50, maybe 60% of the carb amount that you might be taking in one don't Bolus until you know that it's going to stay down. So in this circumstance, you're not doing Pre-Bolus thing at all. You take the food in you make sure it's gonna sit there it's gonna stay you Bolus only for about 50% of what you actually consume. This

Scott Benner 49:45
is survival situation, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 49:46
It's a survival and again, if you see it coming up, sure that's where that like little bump nudge, kind of with a little bit more, maybe a little bit more whatnot, but be conservative to begin with because stomach bugs don't last long. There. Not like the common cold five to seven days, maybe even 10 days, usually stomach bugs are gone within about a 72 hour time period, you may still have decreased absorption for days after you're feeling better. So don't don't think it's odd that you might be dropping a little bit low when you're back to eating what you consider normal food after meals, it might just be that your digestion is just not up to par yet. So

Scott Benner 50:26
if you're a person or a parent of someone who is prone to stomach issues, is having a prescription on hand for so friend or something like that. Is that a good idea? Like an anti ship medication? Yep. Yep, we'll talk about that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 50:41
There's another one that's over the counter. It's called Emma trawl, m e, m, e, tr, O L, I think it comes in a little white bottle, it's got a rainbow on it. That was something that the my second. My second wisdom tooth extraction, the dentist actually recommended for me, okay, um, for nausea. So and it seemed to work really well. So

Scott Benner 51:06
so and if I'm on MDI, and I have this illness coming up. How do I cut back my, my slow acting insulin? Is it a percentage do you think? Or where do I start to,

Unknown Speaker 51:17
you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:18
it again, in the circumstance that you wake up in the morning throwing up, or, you know, just not feeling the greatest and you're taking your basal dose in the morning, you can adjust it absolutely. And you could take it back by 10 20% as a starter. If it's really considerable nausea, and you're not really sure that you're going to take anything in, you may cut it back even a little bit more than that, and then just cover with boluses of your rapid insulin, if you are riding higher through the course of the rest of the day, but don't take an additional dose of your long acting insulin from what you missed. From the initial dose to make. Don't just wait, the next time you need,

Scott Benner 52:01
you know, so, you know, when you're talking about taking care of kids. I mean, anybody who's a parent who's had a child is sick, you realize, you know, for sure, like everything in your life stops, right? You know, it work doesn't matter. You know, the television show you really want to watch tonight disappears out of your life, you know, the weather doesn't, you're, you're keeping your kid alive. But But what if I'm an adult, and I'm alone, right? I'm living by myself and I have type one diabetes. I'm sick, and I'm exhausted. And I know I am going to fall asleep and stay asleep. Like, what? What do I do before I fall asleep because that kind of illness you see people sometimes 10 hours there, they're out like a light, right? And it's the kind of illness in the in the stress on your body. You might not wake up if you have a problem. And you don't want to be in that scenario. You don't even want to wake up with an extremely low blood sugar. Like imagine having a 40 on top of a stomach virus. Right? It's got to be horrible. I'm guessing. So do you ever? I mean, how long you been married? You ever live alone? Like what would you do in that scenario? Would you

Jennifer Smith, CDE 53:06
I've personally never lived alone. I either I went from my parents to having college roommates, to having off campus college roommate. To then I think I lived alone for about a month between my college roommates moving out graduating and then getting married to my husband,

Scott Benner 53:25
your husband should take a lot of comfort in the fact that your face did not go Oh, geez, I do have to get divorced. Isn't that what's that saying? No, no. Jenny has to fly.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 53:38
I've done but I've traveled alone. Right? You know, so in that circumstance, too. There are always like safety pieces, you know, and I, when I travel alone, I actually set my CGM alert for a little bit higher. I'm over in the overnight time period. Just because I want to know sooner than if my husband was sleeping next to me cuz he's usually the one that hears it before I do.

Scott Benner 54:03
I got hit the shoulder last night. Don't you hear that? And I'm like, No, because I'm sleeping. Like Yeah, beeping I was like, Alright,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 54:11
but for those living alone, I think some some strategies again, this would be a staying safe, by being potentially a little bit higher is actually better. So if you know that you are just like done and you are out and you are going to go to bed and you may not be up for the next 1012 hours. Just set a Temp Basal decrease. Or again, if you're going to bed at night, and you know that wake up in the morning at six o'clock is probably not going to be until 10 o'clock because how horrible you feel. Maybe you take your basal insulin injection dose down a little bit. You know, I mean, there's safety things. Yeah, you may wake up higher than you want to be. But it's in this scenario of being alone. That would be the safer case. I'm not advocating obviously for waking up at 200 or 300. or whatever. But yeah, you wake up at 180 instead of waking up at 100. You know what, at least to see?

Scott Benner 55:08
Well, I mean, the idea is to get through this unconscious time period and back attack the conscious safely. Correct. That's what you're shooting for.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 55:16
The other component too could be, you know, setting alarms on your phone, or setting an alarm clock in that time period, just to wait. I mean, as much as you want to sleep and need the rest, because you don't feel good. If you really are worried because you already took your basal insulin, and you can't adjust it now. Or you're getting to that point of just needing to lay down and you just had a meal, and you're not quite sure what that bolus is going to do for you. set an alarm.

Scott Benner 55:43
Right. Yeah, I mean, everybody should have an old $8 windup alarm clock back and pull out of a drawer and set across the room so that you can just reach over and touch snooze on your phone. Yeah. And, and, and get out of it that quickly. Okay. Well, that's, that's really, I think we're finding a lot of good ideas here. Um, so real quick medications around illness, cough medicine, you know, they make some without sugar, I guess. Or I could Bolus for like

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:10
they do. It's called diabetic tostan. diabetic testing.

Scott Benner 56:14
That's what it's called. We really just called it diet testing. But all right, I mean, I'm not a PR department over there.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:21
It's cough syrup that doesn't have any sugar added to it whatsoever does the same job but doesn't have any, you know, glucose raising component to it.

Scott Benner 56:31
Chris Rock in his stand up, it was like, rub some tussen on it was that my mom used to say Robson? Was that

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:37
Who? I don't remember figure

Scott Benner 56:38
out? I'll figure that out. Okay, so diabetic tossin was, what about is there? I mean, steroids. steroids are going to push my blood sugar up the entire time they're in the body, right?

Unknown Speaker 56:53
Correct.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:54
Yes. And the increase can be considerable, depending on the dose. So injected, injected steroids, like a cortisone injection into a joint or something like that, those will cause considerable increase in blood sugar, definitely within the 12 hours after, you're going to need an increase at least 50%. Many times people see 100% increase. And then that that increase will last for a couple of days until the dose from an injection sort of starts to dissipate. I mean, the impact of it stays within the body, but the impact of the actual it's called, you know, cortisone, or whatever else has been injected on what other kind of prednisone or whatever it might be, it's going to dissipate enough that you're going to see the need for that increase in in bazel dose come back down. I, you know, it's it's not odd to see 100% more 150% more bazel dose, especially many people who are also paying close enough attention will often also need an adjustment down in their insulin to carb ratios, the correction factors. A, as far as oral steroids, depending on the dose, and again, on a potential hard stop or a taper of the dose. Most often, those are people who have like a Bronxville illness, and they have like a background like asthma or some other type of lung condition that the doctor really wants to attack the illness to prevent pneumonia or something else, you know, progressing. Those types will usually again, increase the need significantly, and the insulin to carb and the sensitivity factor will need to be adjusted.

Scott Benner 58:48
Okay. And I guess how to medications that may have a side effect of nausea, you should be careful about if they want you to take them with food, give yourself a chance to not show up, you know, make yourself nauseous when you when you might need to hold something down. And what I double back a second to the idea of an alone adult or even a kid whose parents, you know, might feel like it's slipping away, like, when do I it's so funny to ask this question, because we spent some time talking about the fact that hospitals don't seem to particularly you know, value, like your blood sugar that much but the winds the moment when you wave the white flag and go to the hospital, like like when am I like, you know, not that you should be running every time you're sick. And by the way, I feel terrible because some people get sick more frequently than others. I can. I can count on two hands. The Times both of my children have been ill. Arden doesn't get sick much at all. Which by the way, too, for those of you who do, what a horrible joke that is from nature, right? Your immune system was strong enough to beat the crap out of your pancreas. But it can't make bronchitis go away. You're like, Whoa, come on, man. But, but so when do I like what's the Mendoza Line four when I think I better get the professional help. And why do I want to do that? Like, what is it I'm avoiding,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:00:06
that kind of comes in. And I know we had a whole discussion, an episode all about ketones and how to look at that and whatnot. But that kind of brings that into the picture as far as blood sugars and or hydration. And if you are ill, and you're really not feeling good check ketones, you know, because in the case of moderate to high ketones, those often especially if you are not feeling well, and you can't get enough hydration and fluids in, you may very well need to go to the emergency room. In that case, it's just your blood sugar's may not look like high enough to say, Gosh, I this is really bad, I have to go on both, you know, to the emergency room or the hospital. But if your ketones are at that moderate to high level, you definitely need some help clearing those or you're going to be in trouble.

Scott Benner 1:01:03
And IV would help with that, right as

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:01:04
an IV would help with that. Because they're not going to make you down a whole bucket of water via your mouth. They're going to put an IV in and they're going to push it in through your vein. Because if

Scott Benner 1:01:16
you could, you would, too. And and I know I know that because and I think I've told this here before but Arden woke up one time with should have bent Canyon one bent Canyon, like 14 years is amazing. But she was pretty. She woke up with a higher blood sugar. She was nauseous. I tested her ketones, they were high. And I said to her, I'm like, Look, here's your options. Now she wasn't sick, like you know, I mean, shouldn't have a stomach virus. I said, You pound this water down. I crush you with insulin. And you promise me that you can eat something to stop the fall. Right? Like and or we're going to the hospital. And and she's like, uh, she took a bottle of water for me and Arden is I've mentioned this here before she's a princess slipper. When she drinks water. It's like a little bit a little bit. She took that bottle of water. And she pounded it all down. And she was like, Is that good? And I went, yeah, you can sip it. The next one, you know, and we got like three bottles of water in or over two hours, we made a big bolus. she, her blood sugar broke, and her ketones began to fall. And we caught it with a little bit of we caught it something and that was it. It took us three hours to not go to the hospital. But she was willing to do it. And it was hard. She told me later that drinking that water was incredibly difficult because of the pain she had from the elevated ketones. Yeah, she was she felt very nauseous from it. Obviously, she wasn't sick. But yeah, at some point, there's gonna be a safety issue, please don't get to the point where you're calling an ambulance, you know what I mean? Like, like, you might have to give up at some point,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:54
right, you're doing this kind of, it kind of brings into it. A component of like nausea in pregnancy can be a very considerable thing for some women, especially in early pregnancy. So if you have significant enough nausea, and you're not literally able to take things in, or you've gotten to the point of actually vomiting, because of the significant nausea, it's always better to try to go and get at least IV hydration so that you don't run into an issue of ketones even though blood sugar levels may not be elevated in that circumstance. You could develop ketones mainly because you're just not keeping anything in. And that's very, very, very bad in pregnancy.

Scott Benner 1:03:46
Can I ask you a question? And I don't usually put you on the spot for this because it's a massive question about how to do the podcast. When I put this episode out, I was thinking to put the ketone, defining ketones right with it, you see them as these are companions to each other. Okay,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:04:00
absolutely. That's a great idea. I will definitely do that, then.

Scott Benner 1:04:04
This is usually the time where I say is there anything I didn't say that I should have said?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:04:08
The only thing I would say is for all of this, the biggest thing comes from like my years with Girl Scout, be prepared, right yet to be prepared. And one of the best things I can recommend doing is having you never know when you're going to have to run out the door to like an emergency, like situation, right? Or even in the case of I know this isn't illness specific, but this is like just being prepared like you have to run out of the house because I don't know your stove is on fire. Right? I mean, if you have a diabetes, emergency bag packed, get a backpack, a red backpack, cheap, go to Target or wherever get one put in it. All of the things you could potentially have to take with you quickly out of the house. Hmm, it'll be a lot easier in a an illness emergency especially, especially somebody has to take you out of the house, right? If you got stuff pack to go at least you know you've got, you know, a set change and extra test strips and batteries and whatever they're all in.

Scott Benner 1:05:17
So Jumanji situation when giant vines and lions are going through your living room and you really need to get out, you want to be able to grab this bag. Correct. And at least have it pack somewhere and no, it doesn't have to be hanging by the door chasing

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:05:29
you through the kitchen. Whatever you very mean in that movie. He were the

Scott Benner 1:05:35
Robin Williams and now I'm now people are like Robin Williams wasn't in that movie. That was the rock. How did you confuse those things? And who is Robin Williams, but there's been two Jumanji movies, so young people, please leave me alone. I want to close by saying that as we were talking, I was proudly struck by how much of what is normally spoken about on the podcast translates very well to this idea of sick days. That, you know, obviously there's heightened scenarios, but that the tools you use really aren't much different. You might use different ones in different times than normal, but, but it's not like. And the reason I say this is because when people are trying to figure things like this out, I oftentimes see them believing that there's some extra special knowledge that they don't have about diabetes that applies only to the day you're sick. And I still think that one of your greatest diabetes tools is common sense. And so I think that, you know, we obviously broke things down a lot more granularly here, but it's still the tools. It's the pro tip series right now applied slightly differently. So right um, I thought this was really appreciate you doing this. And we talked so long that I can't ask you to define Lada so I'll do that next time. Okay, so that you can go, I will say thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:53
You're welcome.

Scott Benner 1:06:56
Huge thanks to Jenny Smith, who of course, you can find out more about at integrated diabetes.com links in the show notes. And of course Dexcom on the pod to dancing for diabetes for being long time. heartfelt sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast, go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box to find out today about the G six continuous glucose monitor. Or go to my on the pod.com forward slash juice box to get your free no obligation demo of the Omni pod sent right to your house, they'll mail you a tubeless insulin pump to try yourself. And of course dancing for diabetes on Facebook, Instagram, and at dancing the number four diabetes.com. And if you're just finding the Juicebox Podcast now welcome shows been around for five seasons. And not like you know other podcasts are like they put up like five episodes like that was a season, a season of The Juicebox Podcast is 52 weeks long, you might want to call it a year, and you're gonna get two episodes. In every one of those weeks, there's always going to be an interview with someone who's living with type one diabetes, and then more of a management episode. I call those defining diabetes, diabetes pro tip. Ask Scott and Jenny. These are all episodes where we break down more management ideas. So find those and check them out. The feedback I get from listeners is really encouraging. As a matter of fact, I will go right to a review right now just whatever the most recent one is. See, there's a bunch of them here, here from November 30. This podcast should be prescribed to all diabetics at diagnosis. I have read books, scoured the internet and attended hours of training at the end Oh, and I've learned so much more from this podcast series, I cannot recommend highly enough to check out the podcast and maybe you'll have a similar experience to this person who said life changing podcast. And I am not exaggerating. Within two months, I lowered my one C from 7.4 to 6.1 with obvious and easy to follow instructions. All right now I owe you a story about my wisdom teeth being pulled. So I grew up incredibly broke. It was me my mom and my two brothers. And my mom had a job that I think at the time must have paid about $4 and 85 cents an hour. So we didn't have like fancy stuff like you know, health insurance and dental coverage and stuff like that. As I'm growing up 1819 My friends are having their wisdom teeth pulled out. I just keep doing what poor people do all over the world. I ignore the fact that I have wisdom teeth and that they're probably eating to come out. But then one day I'm 20 or 21 they really begin to hurt. So I go to a local dentist's office, you know have to go in there with my head down. I don't think I've been to a dentist and forever and I'm like, Look, I don't have a lot of money but I'm having pain and I was hoping you could help me. So he looks and says it's almost like he ignored what I told him about. My money situation is like, Oh, those wisdom teeth have to come out, I'm gonna give you the number of a, an oral surgeon, he can take them out for you. I said, Wait, like in the office or hospital, he starts telling me about, you know, procedure, they'll be taken out, said, Man, I can't afford that I don't have any insurance. And he says, well, they have to come out. I was like, Well, how much do you get to pull a tooth? And he says to me what I'm like, like, if I had to pay you cash to pull out a tooth? How much would you charge me if I didn't have insurance? Like I says, $50? I said, $50 a tooth? They said, Yes. I said, Okay, I'll give you $200 to plot my wisdom teeth do it right now. Well, he's horrified, obviously, not how things usually go. And I'm just very insistent, I'm like, Look, if you think these really have to come out, this is the only way this is gonna happen. I cannot afford to go to this oral surgeon you're talking about. So he numbs me up. And calls in a dental assistant, who I swear to you stands behind me above my head, as I'm all the way back in the chair. And he takes his two palms and puts them on my forehead. And his job is to push down on my head while the dentist is pulling out the wisdom teeth.

And boy was that unpleasant. The pulling of the teeth, even with the guy like laying all of his weight on my head was pulling my head up off of the chair. And at one point, I could tell by the dentist's face, he was horrified. He was thinking to himself, I should have never done this. I should not have gotten started with this. But it was too late. You know what I mean? We were in for a penny in for a pound at that point. And he had one of the teeth out. So he's pulling the guy shoving down in my head. I'm trying not to freak out. And next thing I know, we're done. All four out. I'm late 200. He sends me out the door with the great medical advice of don't go to the gym for a couple of days. And that's how I got my wisdom teeth taken out. My son got to go to a beautiful dentist's office. It was put to sleep and a wonderful slumber woke up and he didn't have teeth anymore. I tried to share this story with him, but I don't think he has any context. So I didn't seem to penetrate him. Quite the way maybe would somebody else penetrate is not a word I met penetrate. But I don't have the heart to go back and edit it out. So let's just call this the end of the podcast. Don't forget, oh, the defining diabetes episode about ketones that Jenny mentioned is out right now to well worth your time. If you're thinking about sick day treatment. I hope you don't get sick. Don't forget to wash your hands. cover your mouth when you sneeze into like the you know he's supposed to do in your elbow now, right? They changed the rules on sneezing. You know, when I grew up, you just sneezed on your hands but turns out that's not a great idea. retrospect It was pretty easy to figure out. I don't know why we were doing it. But you know, the 70s whatever. Get out there. Stay safe. Get a flu shot. If you're going to get a flu shot. Do your best. Try not to touch your face. Oh my God when you're on airplanes, right? Don't breathe. Just trying to breathe on an airplane. Just hold your breath for that. Just hold it in as long as you can on the plane. Alright guys, good luck. I hope nobody gets sick if you do. I hope this episode helps.


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