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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

#640 Defining Thyroid: Thyroiditis

Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith define thyroid terms.

In this Defining Thyroid episode, Scott and Jenny explain Thyroiditis.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 640 of the Juicebox Podcast.

In this the seventh installment of the defining thyroid series, Jenny Smith and I will define thyroiditis. So far in the defining thyroid series, we've tackled hypothyroidism, and Hashimotos thyroiditis. That's an episode 616. In Episode 619, we define pituitary and thyroid glands. In Episode 624, we defined P S H testing, and in Episode 628, we define T four and T three. In episode 632. We talked about auto immune episode 636 was goiter, and today in Episode 640 thyroiditis. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin?

If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and are a US resident, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. And take the survey. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, learn more and get started today@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. It's at that very link that you'll be able to say hello to Dexcom. Let's define thyroiditis

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:09
I was checking off. So I remember which of these as well. I'm sure you probably

Scott Benner 2:13
Well, I I appreciate that we've known each other long enough that you're not 100% sure if I'm doing it so that you're handling it to which I really appreciate. Thyroid is is interesting because my wife has hypothyroidism my daughter's had it for years. My son has Hashimotos now and until I met Dr. BENITO nobody ever said the words thyroiditis to me ever. And she used it so much. While she was talking to us that I thought Well, this must be important because she has said it a number of times. Can you tell me what it is?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:48
It's the swelling, right? Just swelling of the thyroid gland. Correct? Yeah. And which can either cause high or low levels of the thyroid hormones kind of into the bloodstream or in circulation. That's my general idea of what thyroiditis and I mean, itis is really inflammation. So that's anything that ends in itis is an inflammatory type of condition. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:15
Interestingly enough around this because I don't think there's a ton to talk about around this. When when she was saying it, I I had no like I said, I had no context and I jumped a thyroid storm, in my mind in my head for some reason. But those are not the same thing. No, right. So I'm going to blend those two here together just because why not keep my confusion together. thyroid storm also referred to as a thyrotoxic crisis is an acute life threatening hypermetabolic state induced by excessive release of thyroid hormones, T H s in individuals with thyroid toxicity, Tyro Toxis store, thyroid storm may be the initial presentation of thyroid Toxis. I know I'm not saying that right. firerock thyroid talk. Holy God,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:12
is it there? Is it there a toxic Kosis Is there a sea of courses? Yes, yes. thyrotoxicosis.

Scott Benner 4:18
If I were gonna say that word, thyroids. I'll do it again, thyroid store and maybe the initial presentation of thyroid toxicosis in undiagnosed children. Okay. All right. So a thyroid storm, is I didn't realize this is much more serious than thyroiditis, thyroiditis is inflammation. thyroid storm is is a real like legitimate problem. That's interesting. So these are just words you may hear while you're talking about your thyroid issues in the doctor's office, and I didn't want people like I don't think they're like, I don't think thyroid thyroiditis and thyroid storm are things that you're going to need to know day to day while you're managing your thyroid issues. But I don't want you to be in the situation I was in where I was sitting there with a dumb look on my face gone. Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, thyroid is right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:12
Once every storm from what I know, is very, it's rare. Yeah. Right. That is not a it's not, you know,

Scott Benner 5:20
it's not likely something you're going to see. But I think it's I do think it's a phrase that people know. Because, yes, I know it. Then other people have to know because I'm not like, you know, I mean, prior to this, I wasn't digging around for words like that. And I remember when I said it the first time privately, Dr. BENITO was like, no, no, no, she put her hand up like it was COVID time. So we were talking through video, she put her hand up, she was that is not the same thing. And I was like, Oh, well, there goes me sounding like I know what I'm talking about. But I just wanted to have them here in the series, because, you know, I think you're going to hear them. And if you do, you should.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:00
Well, and I. Yeah, I was gonna say in in from what I remember about just the term thyroid storm, which again, I think it's a general enough term that some people may not know enough about it or may misunderstand, from what I know about it, just the general it's much more relative to treatment, that has not gone the right way for Graves disease. Okay. I believe, again, rare as it is, if you're treating hyperactive thyroid with what they it's like a, it's like a radioactive iodine that's used. It can result in thyroid storm. But that's again, it's rare to happen. So it's not something to be concerned if that's the therapy that they're going to use for your greatest disease. But it can occur I

Scott Benner 6:58
see. Yeah, because it's saying here that your heart rate your blood pressure, your body temperature can all soar to dangerously high levels during a thyroid storm. So this is not something that people who just have hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism are gonna see this this is yeah, very specifically very specific. Yeah, to you. Oh, wow. That's really crazy. While the symptoms are insane, fever, sweating, vomiting, diarrhea, delirium, severe weakness, seizures, irregular heartbeat, yellow skin, jaundice. Yeah, this is not I want to be clear, this is not something that most any of you are going to run into. If you have it, it's good to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:37
clear up what it is to be able to say, you know, definitively, you're very likely, you're more unlikely to have this ever happened to you. But this is what it is just in case somebody, you know, sort of strangely uses the term and you're like, I don't know, I don't know exactly what that is.

Scott Benner 7:55
I'll tell you the one thing that switching back to thyroiditis, when Dr. BENITO was talking to us about it privately, you know, Arden had a swing in her health at one point, and she kind of the doctor kind of couldn't figure out what it was a couple years. Okay. And she just said, Well, this just might be thyroiditis, and we're gonna have to wait for it to pass and calm and like she almost made it sound like you know, you can get a swelling of you know, and it can happen. It says the, the most common cause of thyroiditis. Some of the agents known to cause thyroiditis are antibodies. This is the most common cause drugs, radiation organisms like viruses or bacteria, conditions in which the body attacks itself, or autoimmune disease. thyroiditis can be an autoimmune disease while we know that, but the way she made it sound was like, well, maybe Arden just had a virus and it and her thyroids acting up because of it. And we'll we'll get on top of it with medication, retest her later and see if we can move we'll move the medication back when it's time. That could I guess that, you know, for most people, I mean, I really love bringing this up, because I'm a very strange person. I don't have a thyroid issue. And I am really enjoying talking about this. But but it's because you

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:09
live, you live with enough thyroid issues. Right?

Scott Benner 9:13
I did I know how important it is to really understand it so that you can see what's happening around you and make adjustments. And moreover, because of my job, and the amount of people I see who have, you know, some sort of hyper hypothyroidism Graves disease who live in this in this bubble. I see how many people are not managing it well, don't understand it and are struggling very needlessly and correct. That's why I wanted to do this because it's just, it's just it's not it's this tiny little pill, you take it once a day. It's not that hard, you know, and it's a huge help for

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:49
you. I think the hard thing is finding somebody who can manage that medication well for you and that the other hard part is paying close enough attention to your own body. You know, when something is not right anymore, that you can say, you know, my meds have been working really great. Everything's been in line, Hey, Doc, I'm getting this symptom back or I've got this like new and it's just sort of started and otherwise I feel okay, but this is not right. So it's always important to bring up anything that doesn't seem right once medications are well managed, because it could mean that something has changed. And you may need more or less.

Scott Benner 10:28
Jenny is doing a great job of getting us ready to talk about the next topic. Very good, Jenny, that's awesome. Look at you just segwaying away. Seriously, you should put this on your CV. Thinking

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:40
about doing that. It's just what was in my mind in terms of our context.

Scott Benner 10:45
But it works, because the next thing we're going to talk about is how to treat your thyroid. So you did Oh, all right. Awesome. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon. Yeah. Cool. I think you should put podcaster on your CV.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:57
I think, you know, I actually I probably should, I mean, I've done this enough with you. I mean, that I probably

Scott Benner 11:04
really good. I like to see it on your I want to see it on there. Let's get it in.

Before I tell you about the sponsor Dexcom. I'd like to thank you for listening to the defining thyroid series. It's not over yet. There are a few more episodes, but I'm getting a crazy amount of positive feedback from the listeners. And I appreciate it. This is a little bit of a departure from the diabetes stuff. But I thought it was really important. And I'm glad you're enjoying it. You can say hello to dexcom@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. I'm going to give you an example a real life example of something that's going on in our house right now. So my daughter has to be on a steroid pack for six days. And as you will know, if you've ever tried to take steroids, and you have type one diabetes, those steroids can make your blood sugar go up significantly. And with my daughter, they tried, but I knew I was going to combat it with a significant Basal increase. But that's a scary thing to do, isn't it? Right? As an example, my daughter's Basal is 1.1 An hour during the day, right now. And I didn't know how much I was going to have to increase it. So what do I do? Well, I use the data that was coming back from the Dexcom to make adjustments almost in real time to Ardens. Basal needs to know how much she ended up needing per hour to combat those steroids. four units an hour, I can tell you right now, that without seeing my daughter's blood sugar in real time, right in front of me on my phone, I would never have had the nerve to go from 1.1 to four. But that ends up being what she needed. And I was assisted by the data that came back from the Dexcom G six. That is just one example of how having that constant feedback of blood sugar data is valuable. I mean, just imagine the same situation, but a growth spurt. Or maybe some female hormones are in play. You can make adjustments and see their impacts in real time. You can see your blood sugar on the Dexcom receiver or on an iPhone or an Android phone. That was a big help to me today. Being able to see my daughter's blood sugar's when she wasn't with me when I sent her off to school with a Basal rate that was four times normal. That gave me a lot of pause. But I felt comfortable because a I knew it was working. It had been working for a number of hours at home and be I knew if something went crazy, I'd see it right on my phone. And I'd be able to do something about it right away. The Dexcom G six shows you what your blood sugar is. It shows you what direction it's moving if it's moving, and it tells you how quickly it's moving in that direction. This information is of key importance dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. These are my results. Yours may vary of course. But I'm going to tell you right now, the speed, direction and number of your blood sugar right there on your phone. There's nothing like it. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player, and links at juicebox podcast.com. For Dexcom. And all of the sponsors. When you click on the links, you're supporting the show, head over now and say hello to Dexcom dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. I'll be back very soon, with much much more

If you're wondering what signs and symptoms to look for in hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease and Hashimotos I'm going to list them all for you right now. If you already know what they are. Well then thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast, but if you're waiting for the signs and symptoms they're gonna happen like right now. symptoms of hypothyroidism Farey the Mayo Clinic list of possible symptoms as fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold constipation, dry skin weight gain, puffy face, hoarseness, muscle weakness, elevated blood cholesterol level, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, pain stiffness or swelling in your joints heavier than normal or irregular menstrual periods. thinning hair slow heart rate depression impaired memory enlarged thyroid gland, which could be known as a goiter. If you're looking for this in infants, you might also look for a large protruding tongue difficulty breathing, hoarse, crying, an umbilical hernia, or yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. As the disease progresses in infants, you may also notice constipation, poor muscle tone and excessive sleepiness. In teens, you may notice poor growth resulting in short stature, delayed development of permanent teeth, delayed puberty or poor mental development. Let's move on to hyperthyroidism. Still on the Mayo Clinic's website, they say of course, that hyperthyroidism can mimic other health problems. We've been talking about this through all these episodes, you know that unintentional weight loss even when your appetite and food intake stay the same or increase, rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, pounding of your heart, increased appetite, nervousness, anxiety, and irritability. Tremors usually a fine trembling in your hands or fingers, sweating changes in menstrual patterns. increased sensitivity, heat, changes in bowel patterns, especially more frequent bowel movements, and enlarged thyroid gland of course called a goiter, which may appear a swelling at the base of your neck, fatigue, muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping, skin thinning, find embrittle hair. For Graves disease, you're looking for dry eyes, red or swollen eyes, excessive tearing or discomfort in one or both eyes, light sensitivity, blurred or double vision, inflammation or reduced eye movement, protruding eyeballs. Just quickly Hashimotos disease which as we know is an autoimmune version of hypothyroidism. Hashimotos disease progresses slowly over the years you may not notice signs or symptoms of the disease. Eventually the decline in thyroid hormone production can result in any the following. There gonna be a lot of duplicates here from hypothyroidism, fatigue and sluggishness, increased sensitivity to cold increase sleepiness, dry skin, constipation, muscle weakness, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, joint pain and stiffness, irregular or excessive menstrual bleeding, depression, problems with memory or concentration, swelling of the thyroid, the goiter of puffy face, brittle nails, hair loss, enlargement of the tongue. I'd like to just finish by saying that if you have any of these, please see a doctor get a simple blood test and get yourself some answers. Don't forget a TSH over two is enough reason to be concerned. Treat your symptoms, not the lab values. Thanks again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.


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#636 Defining Thyroid: Goiter

Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith define thyroid terms.

In this Defining Thyroid episode, Scott and Jenny explain Goiter and talk supplements and nutirition.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 636 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I bring you the sixth installment of the defining thyroid series today Jenny Smith and I are going to talk about goiter, and supplementing, and some other stuff. So far in the defining thyroid series, we've tackled hypothyroidism, and Hashimotos thyroiditis, that's an episode 616. In Episode 619, we define pituitary and thyroid glands. In Episode 624, we defined P S H testing, and in Episode 628, we define T four and T three. In episode 632. We talked about auto immune, and today we're gonna be talking about goiter, supplementing and some other stuff. It's kind of a, I don't want to call today a free for all but today is sort of a building conversation. You'll well you'll see in a minute. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin.

If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and are a US resident, please go to T one D exchange.org. Ford slash juicebox. And take the survey. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash, the Omni pod promise and the upcoming Omni pod five. Learn more about that Omni pod dash and see if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Today's episode is short. So at the end, I'll explain how you may be eligible for that free 30 days of the AMI pod dash. Alright, Jenny, we're gonna we're gonna do a quick All right, I'm already laughing ready? Goyder?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:25
I know it's such a funny word. Funny Little word. Really goitre. Like, couldn't. There are many medical terms that I think are hilarious. But definitely goiter is one of them. It is. It's funny.

Scott Benner 2:37
I don't know. I'm just I always wonder still. Why, you know, we didn't find out what Hashimotos first name was before they named it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:46
Well, I think the thing about goiter, too, is the fact that like there's a visible part of Goyder, right? It's not just like the name. That's right. That's funny. Like there's a visible piece that on your body, you're like, ooh, that doesn't look normal. shouldn't really be there.

Scott Benner 3:01
Well, and some people can get them. I mean, they can look like real like lumps in your neck, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:07
Yes, yes, my mom. In fact, when I've seen pictures of my mom, I mean, they're the really old like fading types of pictures before she was diagnosed or within the process. She had a very visible I was on both sides of her neck, she had a very visible she had kind of like the protruding sort of like eyes. There were a lot of things that were very like, that's diagnostic there for her. But, but yes, goiter is essentially an alert and enlargement of the thyroid gland. If that all that we just said did, like, bring that up. That's what it is enlargement of the thyroid gland.

Scott Benner 3:46
goiter also called enlarged thyroid probably by a doctor who laughed every time he said goiter. You know, when it's um, gosh. Do you remember I'm really gonna date myself. There used to be this. People used to shop on TV. I don't know if that's the thing that everyone knows. But there were like infomercials or longer commercials that some guy would come on with a deep voice and tell you about the the heartbreak of psoriasis, you know, or something? Yes. And it's the word terror, which has nothing to do with anything we're talking about here but sticks in my head since I'm a child, because you know, the heartbreak of surprises you and he runs through these lists of other things you might see. And then he goes terror. And it's like stuck in my head. I don't know why I can't get rid of it. I don't even know what it means. That's really funny. So, goiter says abnormal enlargement of the butterfly shaped gland, below the Adam's apple, which is called the thyroid. Of course, a goiter commonly develops as a result of iodine deficiency or inflammation of the thyroid gland. Not all goiters cause symptoms symptoms that do occur might include swelling cough. Rarely, symptoms may include throat tightness or trouble breathing A small goiter that doesn't cause symptoms may not need treatment. In some cases, medication or surgery is needed. Doesn't have. So it's so funny because I'm actually learning something here today. So it shows me we're on the right track, Jenny. Yes. So goiter. I mean, not that I'm just repeating myself. But goiter is an enlarged thyroid. It's not a thing. It's not like a new thing that appears in your neck. It's, it's the enlarged,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:34
it's the thyroid and large and really reason. I mean, the reason is because your thyroid gets kind of signaled too much by the pituitary gland to bring out more thyroid hormone, right, I mean, that's the gist of it. And so that over stimulation can cause the thyroid to get larger. And to some people get large enough that you could visibly see that see the change,

Scott Benner 6:03
and the reason in the United States that you would kind of pretty much think thyroid hormone problem or nodules, when you see a goiter. But I guess Believe it or not, is because we have iodized salt in the United States.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:21
Yes, we do. As long as you truly get iodized salt,

Scott Benner 6:26
right. Yeah. Can you get it non right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:28
But I mean, if you look, and it's interesting, since we started doing all of these about thyroid specifically, I've started paying attention to salt at the grocery store. I like the grocery store anyway, so. But I was noticing like at Costco specifically, there are big things of sea salt, specifically state on the label. This is not a valuable source of iodine in the diet. So does Himalayan sea salt. I mean, there are many salts that have now become this as the preferred to use that no longer have enough of it in it.

Scott Benner 7:10
Yep. And it's so so in a past episode, I think in the goitre episode, I talked about No, not in the greater episode in the autoimmune episode. This is the goiter episode I talked about. I talked about a new rheumatologist that that ardency she spent 10 minutes talking about iodine and how it's interesting, not in our diet anymore. You know, and and then she went into talking about, I think this kind of fits, she went into talking about even when you eat well, in a factory farming society, you're not eating as well as you think you are. And she used an example of she chose a very popular grocery store chain and said, they, some of their fruits, they they flash freeze, and they don't deliver them to you for months afterwards. And she's like, they have ways of delivering foods where they show up to you with not nearly as much nutritional quality and quality believe that they have because you're like, Ooh, I'm eating a piece of fruit or I'm eating a vegetable. She said but the they've been decimated for nutrition all the time. And she started talking about having to supplement things that you just even if you have a certain diet, you might not know you need to supplement and that that's what made me think of this, which is you know, we all use salt and things. So if you used iodized salt and you have a goiter, it's likely not because of iodine, it's likely because of thyroid, but in other places in the world or if you've gotten all Fifi and you're using sea salt which I say jokingly because I realized this we're talking I switched to pink salt like years ago years ago right? I absolutely don't use much of the other people might have still use the salt shaker but I I have a little salt

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:04
pig you like that you like the pink salt.

Scott Benner 9:08
I like to take a little pinch and just like you know let it go over top of things and and now I'm realized that I better just shake this the shaker a little bit myself once in a while. Okay, glitters did not look pleasant in the photographs.

Unknown Speaker 9:22
No, they don't. Yeah.

Scott Benner 9:25
And your mother had one. My mother

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:27
had one. Yes, a noticeable one again from pictures and whatnot from that time and then once her thyroid was well managed, and she actually had thyroid burnout and everything because she was hyperthyroid and now she actually takes the typical levothyroxine because she has hypothyroid because of everything wise

Scott Benner 9:51
I have to say when I when I just Googled for pictures of goiter when they come back with like no not drawings but like but actual therapy. Following photographs, a lot of them do look like they don't live in the United States. That's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. And while they can get massive in some Yeah. Oh, that's horrible. Okay. All right. Fun times here on the podcast.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:14
Yes, exactly. From time.

Scott Benner 10:17
There's nothing else to add to this one, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:19
I don't think so. No, there's certainly things that I could add, but I don't think that they're as 13. I'll

Scott Benner 10:25
just read this last piece that I had here in larger the thyroid gland, when your thyroid is bombarded by signals from the pituitary in an effort to trigger the thyroid into making more hormones. The excessive stimulation may cause the thyroid gland to enlarge to the point where you have a bulge in your neck. So this seems like that means in the case of an actual thyroid issue, but not an iodine deficiency, correct? Exactly. All right. Well, let's never speak of this again. Seriously,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:57
unless somebody comments, just like I want to learn more about guider, and

Scott Benner 11:01
we'd be happy to talk about it. But my goodness, that is that is very unpleasant, we'd

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:05
have to find a greater ologists, I think.

Scott Benner 11:09
I'll tell you what, if my life gets down to that, Jenny, I'm not, I can't do this anymore. That's fine. I'm trying to outline the fact that I think that if I don't get Arden straightened out, and everybody else doesn't just stay healthy for five minutes, I'm gonna like light my underwear on fire and start running around the streets much longer.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:36
Everybody just needs to well, and what it actually goes along with something that I It sounds like you really found a quite good physician, because a lot of what she was telling you about the quality of food, I mean, it's the big reason that I take or spend the extra to buy non farm raised fish, okay, because the difference between farm raised salmon and actual wild salmon, there's a major difference. If you look at farm raised salmon, and you look at the package, you will see color added that color is added because they haven't been being fed the wide diet that they would eat in the wild to actually get the quality or megas that your body the benefit of eating salmon or tuna is for the omegas which in your daughter's case, the doctor was like, hey, you need more omegas right? Well, don't buy farm raised fish then because that's not going to help her anymore.

Scott Benner 12:38
I want to say too, she spent a lot of time showing us how to read labels on supplements, vitamins, and she said there are overwhelmingly more useless vitamins on the market, then, you know, she's like, and they're very good at marketing it to make it sound like they're good, but she's like there's nothing in them. It's just a it's just a waste of your money.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:59
So my original naturopath when I saw her years ago, um, she actually did the same thing. What supplements are you using? How are you using them, and she actually recommended very minimal list of quality, just multivitamins, and at that time I had needed to start taking like a prenatal vitamin, right in terms of preparation for getting pregnant. And she was like these are the ones and don't pick outside of those this list. These are quality they come actually the nutrients come from real food sources, not from synthetic something something she's like otherwise you paying for a bottle of what's actually getting peed out into the toilet.

Scott Benner 13:39
He also told me that the real popular vitamins that people know are good get knocked off online, so you have to be careful about even buying them from Amazon. And what else did she say? Oh yeah, anything that you can absorb to the lining of your mouth is preferable over swallowing it. So she gave Arden vitamin D drops instead of like sardines, one of those people that takes 50,000 I use a vitamin D a week, like once a week. And she's like No, she's like, just do these drops instead.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:07
Again, it goes back to the gut and absorption and they know very well that the gut and absorption and people who have type one is lacking. My my naturopath did the same thing. My vitamin D was 18 Yeah, the doctor had given me a supplement, huge dose like pills, supplements. And he was like, I don't know I started seeing a naturopath. She said you need to drop you need to put it under your tongue every single day, get things retested in eight weeks and come back and they were up already.

Scott Benner 14:38
You know, it's funny I'll add here before we end this one and move on to the next that if you would have found me before Arden had type one diabetes and before I knew anything about all this stuff, and had this conversation with me, I would have said oh I met a hippie lady today that was talking about vitamins and how they're not all the same and you know, you got to take vitamin D under Your tongue and I think she was high on the weed is what I would have thought, you know, they mean like, oh well, lovely cookie woman, you know, but now I know you're not cookie, and I'm not either. Thank you. So there's way more to this than, than most people would think, Oh, just just getting your supplements, right? It's not coming from your food. I mean, everybody, look when this is over today, take five minutes, close your eyes, be honest with yourself and think about what you've eaten this week. And tell me if there's food in any of it. Or if you're just keeping yourself alive and not nurturing yourself. You know, so I, I was on a road trip yesterday. I got up very early in the morning, I did not feel like eating, I drove a couple of 100 miles. I saw my son, I drove a couple of 100 miles back, I drank two bottles of water in the morning. I peed in a sketchy rest stop. I went to get my son. We went to lunch, where we went to a English pub, and I had fish and chips. So I had cod, probably not deep fried, but I stay away from the oil. So I picked all the breading off of it. And then I had fries and a little bit of ketchup. And then I got in a car and drove home and ate a peppermint patty, because that's what I could find it a rest stop. And then I got home and that is what I'd eaten that day. You know, and if you asked me, How do I eat? I'd probably say I'm fine. Because the day before I didn't eat well, but I didn't. I didn't on Sunday. And you really do have to start asking yourself, Am I I'm fueling myself and I'm not hungry, and I'm staying alive. But am I bringing in the nutrition that my body actually needs to maintain itself and to rebuild itself from problems? You know, and I think for most of us, I really I hate to say it, I'm not coming down on people. I think most of us, I don't think we do really?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:53
Right? Well, and I think if you ask many people who have enough resources and whatnot to actually have enough food in their life, it's quantity of food seems enough. So they would say yes, I'm well fed. Well, what's the quality? Not the quantity of what you're eating? Because quite honestly, here in our United States, we have enough quantity,

Scott Benner 17:19
right? It's almost hard to go hungry at this point. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:23
So you know, and I mean, there are certainly people who do struggle for enough. But even them unfortunately, what they can have then access to doesn't have a quality piece to it. It's what they can have is what they can have, because this is what's affordable. And unfortunately, there's not much quality there.

Scott Benner 17:47
Yeah, no, I mean, if you are a person who's listening to this in the hopes of fine tuning your health, there's nothing in a Dorito that's going to help with that, I guess is the message. Even though I will say this of all the longtime foods from my childhood, the junk foods, Doritos has done the best job of keeping the experience of a Dorito the same as it was 20 years ago. Here's a short list of people who have not Fruity Pebbles, Apple Jacks, just using. There are some junk foods that people have just messed up over the years. For funny, Fruity Pebbles is my biggest disappointment. Jenny's like I don't know what a fruity Pebble is that? I'm not eating it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:26
I don't Well, the funny thing is I do but we didn't have we didn't have those. I think I've had 30 pebbles, maybe once in my life. And it was just because my parents just didn't buy that kind of stuff. If we did have cereal, it was way way up camping. And it was like honey nut cheerios, right. I mean, that was like, and I mean, it still has sugar added to it. Obviously it's still you know what it is? But yeah, I think we just we didn't get that kind of stuff. I was actually talking to somebody the other day and I were talking about like kids and what they eat and whatever and it was like my children have never been enough Donald's

Unknown Speaker 19:05
like we can pass and Donald's and there is no Mama Mama Mama.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:11
They don't really I mean, my nine year old now obviously knows what it is but he would have no desire to stop there. Because we just don't that's not a regular thing for us to do.

Scott Benner 19:23
Yeah, in my house. It was soccer because Kelly did not did not want our children to play soccer we gave them no context for when they were growing up. I know I've told this story before but it I don't think to me that's interesting. We bears it bears repeating because you can you can impact how your children go up and what they think to do and what they think to don't do you know, food being the example but when my son was like two or three years old, we were stopped at a traffic light and there was a men's league and they were playing soccer. I'm talking about like hundreds of people spread out over five soccer fields. My son says, Mommy, what are they doing? And Kelly looks out the window and looks back and goes I have No idea and the light turned green. And we drove away. Because Kelly's sisters played soccer growing up, and Kelly hated going to soccer games. Ah, she's like I didn't, she didn't want to have a kid who played soccer. So we just didn't tell him what it was. And he just didn't, he never asked about it. And that that was it. And I, I'm dialing that back to your, you can, you can move your children in the right direction with a lot of different things. Even taking a supplement every day, you know, like just a multivitamin. You can make that part of their life to the point where they get older, they just, they just do it. You know, because not every older kid just you know, if you you realize when you're 20 years old, you need a a multivitamin or something. It's not going to be easy to get everyone to integrate that into their life. You know, most people are gonna have a hard time adding things as adults. So,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:52
right. I mean, even my five year old can go to the refrigerator and pick something like he'll often want and want to do it himself. An apple cut up with peanut butter. That's like his favorite thing ever. He can he make his own egg salad. I think it's pretty awesome. It's not pretty. And it certainly is kind of messy on the counter. But you know what? He can make his own eggs

Scott Benner 21:16
to do it. Well, that's, that's the, that's the takeaway from this one is you can make decisions about how you eat and how you get. There you go. Alright, Jen, do we have time for one more? Yeah, absolutely. If you're tired of injecting your insulin with a pen, or a syringe, or you have a pump with all kinds of crazy tubing attached to it, that you really don't like, this next bit is for you.

The Omni pod tubeless insulin pump does not have any tubing. That's why they call it tubeless. I know you're thinking that's not possible. But it is Omni pod doesn't have tubing. Other insulin pumps have a controller with a cartridge, connected the tubing that kind of you know, goes all over the place to an infusion set. And then that's how you get your insulin through that long tube. But with Ali pod, there is no tubing, no tubing to get caught on door handles. And nothing to disconnect when you're bathing or swimming. Because the Omni pod is, you know, it's happy in the water. You can go in the bathtub, in the shower in the local lake. You can go wherever you want wearing your Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. That's pretty important because then you don't lose your insulin during those times. How many of you have disconnected for a shower only to forget to reconnect to your tubed insulin pump? When do you find out an hour or two later when your blood sugar's sky high? Because you haven't had any insulin for a while. Why? Because you had to disconnect for a shower. That shouldn't be the way and with Omni pod it isn't. Now if this all sounds magical or different to you, and you're not sure what to do, I understand that, but you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. Now go to Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox to find out. If you're eligible, Omni pod, we'll send you a free 30 day supply. You can check it out and see what you think. And even if you decide to stick with what you're doing after the trial, you still got our free 30 days. How often you get a free month of anything. So the Omni pod dash is tubeless it's waterproof, you can shower with it, or you know swimming the pool. Right the pool the pool. Are you thinking about summer I just made me think about summer. It's not here yet kids slipped through this cold a little longer anyway. swim in the pool. Don't get your tubing caught anything, don't have any tubing to be sneaking through your clothing. It's all pretty great. And no multiple daily injections. With the Omni pod, you just pull out the PDM that's the personal diabetes manager's little handheld device kind of looks like a cell phone. And you you just say I'm gonna have 12 carbs, he talks a little thing 12 carbs and says I think you should have this much insulin, you know, based on your settings and you go okay, push a button and boom, boom, here comes the insulin. No injections. I love it. Now you might be thinking, Alright, Scott, I want it on the pod but I've been hearing about this Omni pod five, and I'm just gonna wait for that. Hmm, I would say in a normal circumstance, I understand. But with the Omni pod promise, you don't have to do that. Here's what the Omni pod promise says. You get the Omni pod dash today. And you start using it and you love it. And then I don't know, a month from now two months from now whenever Omni pod five is available for you and covered by your insurance. You just move up to the Omni pod five. That's the Omni pod promise. The Omni pod promise says you can go to new technology that Omni pod has, when it's available to you and covered by your insurance. That's it, you want to change, you can change. That's a pretty good promise on the pod.com forward slash juice box, you might as well go poke around on the website and figure it out a little bit. See if you're up for it. Check to see if you know you're eligible for that free trial and get started today. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox Podcast comm to Omnipod and all of the sponsors

if you're wondering what signs and symptoms to look for in hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease, and Hashimotos, I'm going to list them all for you right now. If you already know what they are. Well then thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. But if you're waiting for the signs and symptoms they're gonna happen like right now. symptoms of hypothyroidism Farey the Mayo Clinic list of possible symptoms such as fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold constipation, dry skin, weight gain, puffy face, hoarseness, muscle weakness, elevated blood cholesterol level, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, pain stiffness or swelling in your joints heavier than normal or irregular menstrual periods. thinning hair slow heart rate depression impaired memory enlarged thyroid gland, which could be known as a goiter. If you're looking for this in infants, you might also look for a large protruding tongue difficulty breathing, hoarse, crying, an umbilical hernia, or yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. As the disease progresses in infants, you may also notice constipation, poor muscle tone and excessive sleepiness. In teens, you may notice poor growth resulting in short stature, delayed development of permanent teeth, delayed puberty were poor mental development. Let's move on to hyperthyroidism. Still on the Mayo Clinic's website, they say of course, that hyperthyroidism can mimic other health problems. We've been talking about this through all these episodes, you know that unintentional weight loss even when your appetite and food intake stay the same? We're increase, rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, pounding of your heart, increased appetite, nervousness, anxiety, and irritability. Tremors, usually a fine trembling in your hands or fingers, sweating changes in menstrual patterns, increase sensitivity he changes in bowel patterns, especially more frequent bowel movements, and enlarged thyroid gland of course called a goiter, which may appear a swelling at the base of your neck, fatigue, muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping, skin thinning, fine embrittle hair. For Graves disease, you're looking for dry eyes, red or swollen eyes, excessive tearing or discomfort in one or both eyes, light sensitivity, blurred or double vision, inflammation or reduced eyes movement, protruding eyeballs just quickly Hashimotos disease which as we know is an autoimmune version of hypothyroidism. Hashimotos disease progresses slowly over the years you may not notice signs or symptoms of the disease eventually the decline in thyroid hormone production can result in a the following. There going to be a lot of duplicates here from hypothyroidism, fatigue and sluggishness, increased sensitivity to cold increase sleepiness, dry skin, constipation, muscle weakness, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, joint pain and stiffness, irregular or excessive menstrual bleeding, depression, problems with memory or concentration, swelling of the thyroid, the goiter of puffy face, brittle nails, hair loss, enlargement of the tongue. I'd like to just finish by saying that if you have any of these, please see a doctor get a simple blood test and get yourself some answers. Don't forget a TSH over two is enough reason to be concerned. Treat your symptoms, not the lab values. Thanks again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.


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#632 Defining Thyroid: Autoimmune

Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith define thyroid terms.

In this Defining Thyroid episode, Scott and Jenny explain Autoimmune.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 632 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Welcome back for the fifth installment of the defining thyroid series. Today Jenny Smith and I are going to discuss autoimmune disease. So far in the defining thyroid series, we've tackled hypothyroidism, and Hashimotos thyroiditis. That's an episode 616. In Episode 619, we define pituitary and thyroid glands. In Episode 624, we defined P S H testing, and in Episode 628, we define T four and T three. Again, today we're going to talk about autoimmune and how it impacts your life with thyroid disease. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and are a US resident, please go to T one D exchange.org. Ford slash juicebox. And take the survey

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash, the Omni pod promise and the upcoming Omni pod five. Learn more about that Omni pod dash and see if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Welcome back, Jenny.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:59
Hi, how are you today? Oh, you know how I am? You're always full of energy. So

Scott Benner 2:07
Oh, sure. Sure.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:10
I could never tell what happened in the night before. Does he always talk in the morning too, right. So

Scott Benner 2:15
I always do. So I overslept, and was a woken, luckily, by a text from my neighbor wondering if our power was out. It is not by the way, obviously. And then I looked at the clock and realize that it was four minutes before you were going to call.

Unknown Speaker 2:34
And it's time to get up and get going.

Scott Benner 2:36
So I'm just gonna leave it at that and tell you that I may or may not be wearing pants. So today we're going to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:45
say good, that's a good thing about you know, stuff like this, or you could have fuzzy

Scott Benner 2:50
slippers, I look perfect. And this these headphones are holding my hair down. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:53
we're all good. Nobody cares.

Scott Benner 2:56
Alright, so we're gonna define, I mean, you know, it goes along with the thyroid terms, but autoimmune disease. I have it here as a disease caused by a defect in the body's immune system. Instead of protecting the body it attacks and destroys a healthy part of the body. Having an autoimmune disease is considered a risk factor for hypothyroidism. Correct? Okay. hypothyroidism, of course, is defined in another episode, but a condition in which the body's immune system mistakes its own healthy tissue as foreign and attacks them. Most autoimmune disease cause inflammation that can affect many parts of the body. Inflammation to the real, is the real bandit in all this, isn't it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:40
For most of the autoimmune diseases, it really is. Yes. I mean, if you look at just the simple ones that are very inflammatory kinds of conditions, it's rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and even, you know, like, the fibromyalgia and all of those types of things, the inflammatory bowel diseases. I mean, it all relates to inflammation.

Scott Benner 4:05
Yeah, I'm gonna, you know, well, I guess the first let's tackle this here, right. So I'll tell you that I think Arden has type one diabetes, because obviously she was born with or developed markers for the first two years of her life. Antibodies, and then she got sick. So for Arden, in my you know, listen, I don't have a crystal ball. I think Arden got coxsackievirus she got coxsackievirus it was this thing that our pediatrician was like, oh, kids get this don't worry, it clears out. This is how long it takes a protracted amount of time passed, which I don't remember how long anymore because I was not a person who tracked the illness back then. And, and then suddenly, Arden had Coxsackie virus again. Hmm. So I took her to the doctor. And I remember him saying this This is weird. I was gonna say that's, that is weird. You're not supposed to get this more than once. It's like chickenpox. I remember saying you get it and you don't get it again. And when I look back now, I wonder if it ever really went away the first time. Like, maybe she got it, and her body just

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:17
was like, what's what hibernated for a bit and

Scott Benner 5:21
ran her body ran right past the coxsackievirus right into our pancreas is what I'm thinking. And, and so that was kind of how it started. And you know, people who pay attention, you talk to them, they have any number of stories about an illness they had before they were diagnosed with type one or sometimes, right stress, stuff like that. Anyway, you know, in the, in the course of looking into this, if you Google auto immune disease, what is it, you'll get? Here's the top five, here's the top seven, here's the top 10. You know, there are so many lists of things that people like you blew through a couple, one that's more common than then you think once you get involved with people with the type one like I see vitiligo on a lot of Yes. Right? Celiac almost feels like sometimes it goes hand in hand with people with type one. Which one do you think you so you see most frequently?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:19
I would say, quite honestly, thyroid and celiac are the primary that I see. In fact, I would say that the majority of kiddos that I work with, or families that I work with, the celiac has already been, like tested at diagnosis. At this point, I'm quite certain that when I was diagnosed, I I would probably guess that when Arden was diagnosed, she probably wasn't tested for celiac. Was she at the same time? Yeah. But those are pretty common. And then it's like a retest, because many markers can actually be higher at a diagnosis where everything is out of order, right? And you've got this high blood sugar level, your body has been kind of attacked, so to speak, and is trying to do, okay. So in terms of celiac, oftentimes, even if there is a positive result, originally, those may, may or may not come back down into what they consider normal. And or they may also do like the biopsy, which is considered the most diagnostic in terms of true positive celiac condition. But thyroid is the other one, definitely. I mean, those three, very much go hand in hand, I would say, you know, along with it, but I don't, I don't see it as frequently is RA or rheumatoid arthritis. So, you know, I think a lot of times too, with rheumatoid arthritis, it takes it takes really digging into the symptoms that you've been having, and finding the right doctor to analyze things, and it helps you figure out what it is, you know, that could be causing some of those, like more telltale signs for RA, because it could certainly be something else to

Scott Benner 8:19
well, you know, I go back and forth on the show, hinting around that Arden has other issues, but I don't talk about them because we haven't figured them out yet. You know, it's years and years of, you know, looking and watching and writing things down and talking to doctors and then to oh, you know what, this all sounds like her thyroid and then we, I mean, Arden's thyroids now managed to with an inch of its life, and it didn't help her for some of the other problems, right. And we just did find a doctor very recently, actually, as I gone to her. So Arden has an endo that manages her thyroid, the woman who's on the thyroid episode, Dr. Benito. And then Dr. BENITO suggested another. Another doctor, which we saw recently actually Arden's getting bloodwork today to check into the things that that this doctor is is wondering about, and it's just important to know that we've gone to the Children's Hospital with these concerns. They do a fairly I don't know what I want to call it, uh, you know, gosh, it was, I'm trying to make a very in depth panel. Well, you would think it would have been in depth, but instead it was like it was blood work. And she they saw her for 20 minutes. They're like, Ah, she doesn't have that. And that was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:36
the Oh, yeah, that was the doctor that was not this new doctors do doctors

Scott Benner 9:41
talk we were in there for I think I told Jenny privately, almost three hours to two and a half, three hours in a doctor's appointment, where she was just talking to her and pulling things out that a regular doctor would not and you kind of have to do that because these things so clearly mimic each other all the time. In my heart, it's about the, it's about the inflammation. Yeah, you know, like this, this, the autoimmune diseases and inflammation give you a lot of feedback in your body that's similar. You know, joint pain could be any number of autoimmune, yes. As an example. So I just wanted to bring it up here because I think we've got people's attention on the thyroid thing. I'm getting a ton of nice feedback online, saying thank you for involving thyroid in the in the podcast. We'll definitely do this again. I mean, I imagine we're going to end up doing this with celiac in the future and give giving a little deeper look into that. But you know, I'm looking at a list here, pernicious anemia, alopecia that a Lago type one Graves disease, celiac, rheumatoid arthritis Hashimotos. These are what this one place calls the top 10.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:59
Ms. I mean, yeah, you know, I know, there are there is a bigger list than I think, the last time that I looked. So I think things have either been added or they've been clarified a little bit better, which is a good thing. Because sometimes you feel a little bit lost in terms of, well, what's wrong with my body that this is happening? You know, and I think that's the unknown thing about autoimmune disorder is that it really isn't, the trigger isn't really known. Why does one person's body react so well, and not have any problems to whatever this trigger is that then for somebody else, completely gets this ball rolling, of inflammation and immune attack, that's a completely incorrect immune attack on healthy cells that are supposed to be doing what they're, you know, meant to do?

Scott Benner 11:52
Well, what I Google just now, I never would have if I didn't make this podcast, but because of the after dark episodes, I've now been in contact with three and I have one more on the books, people with type one diabetes who want to come on and talk about their bipolar disorder. Ah, I never would have thought of that. But you know, a quick Google search bipolar disorder, autoimmune, just those three words. Bipolar disorder are strongly associated with immune dysfunction. You know, it goes on after that to say replicated. Epidemiologists, epidemiological studies have demonstrated that bipolar has high rates of inflammatory medical comorbidities, including autoimmune disorders, chronic infections, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorder.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:38
Well, then getting bipolar diagnosed the right way. Again, another whole topic because bipolar one, there's bipolar two, there's from the little that I know about, it's, it's another world of management.

Scott Benner 12:51
Yeah, people can get people can get medic medicated, completely wrong. Wrong, they get close to Okay. And then the doctors accept that as we want. So we can do, I've seen a couple of older adults that have been working with, you know, their bipolar disease for years, almost stand up one day and go, I don't think this is right, and then start over with another doctor, and they completely change their medications around it changes their life. So yeah, yeah, these are just things that I mean, listen, I think I mean,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:24
as a as to interrupt, it's kind of a hallmark of a lot of these autoimmune conditions. It's the reason that it's not a cut and dry, open up the textbook, Here's your medicine, take it and everything's going to be great. Autoimmune disorders, they really require individualized management. What works for one person may not be the quote, unquote, cocktail that works for the next person.

Scott Benner 13:53
Well, when I was sick a few years ago, and I had a problem with iron, you know, you know, anemia is on this list, too. And when I was tested, they told me I was celiac sensitive, not they didn't call me they didn't say I had celiac disease. They said, I said, I'm sensitive. You are gluten sensitive, it'll send a little sensitive to some glutens. Right? And, you know, I mean, listen, we've known each other a long time you see me, I'm not a thin or lean person, and I'm not an obese person. But I don't. Let's see how this sounds. My lifestyle doesn't reflect my body. Meaning, right, I don't, I don't eat a ton of food, and my body holds on to weight. And I do wonder sometimes too, if that's even, you know, some sort of inflammation somewhere, maybe I don't know, like, I have no idea but you know, it makes me wonder as I get older, so, you know, if it's all just bad luck, or, or why well

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:59
I don't think so I think it also speaks somewhat to, I guess what's been hinted at in terms of inflammation, right? A good portion of our immune system lies in our gut, our gut, not like some fancy little gland somewhere like in our digestive system. If we keep our digestive system healthy, that goes a huge way in keeping us immune to our body reacting the incorrect way to something, right. And a lot of study has been done, especially in autoimmune disorder type one and celiac very specifically, in terms of like, the the term has been thrown around so much I hate using it, but like this leaky gut type of potential for somebody who has that type of body that may have the potential to let something sneak through, right, the digestive system, which then causes this reaction in the body, that allows the body to then go the wrong way with how it responds to that, right.

Scott Benner 16:08
Yeah, well, I'm hoping I'm gonna I should, I'm hoping that this. I'm hoping the rheumatologist that aren't seeing now is going to work out. And this is as hopeful as I've ever been after visiting somebody for art and right. Because I'm going to get that person on this podcast too. If this all works out. I'm going to get her because here's how they started with Arden's treatment. It wasn't you know, I mean, there's a blood panel, like, you know, three prescriptions long, like don't get me right there that route. But she looked at her and she's like, Honey, you're a very healthy person, we're going to figure out what's wrong here. And what they started her on was a quality multivitamin. Fish oil, you know, bumping up her vitamin D significantly by giving her oral drops to hold her mouth instead of tablets to take and a couple of probiotics and not like, you know, not like go to the pharmacy and get us a chewable probiotic. Like this stuff smells a little like poo when it comes out of the container here. And it's refrigerated I bet Oh, it's it's something else is what it is. And so, and she's like, for a month, take this cocktail. And then we'll do your blood work in the meantime, and we'll come back and talk again. Right? It's like, but she's like, what makes sense to me is that your gut is unbalanced. And now we were we had we were on to that already. So I've been I've been taking my diabetes brainon appointment at Arden for other reasons for a while. And I'm not a doctor. So it goes a little slow. But we had just gotten Arden about two months ago, a study of her gut, which by the way, comes from pooping in a box. Yes, and sending it away in the mail. Not easy to get a 17 year old girl to do, but we did it, my wife did it, I actually want to give her all the credit. Anyway, at some point, I'm gonna figure this out and then we're gonna add it into this podcast. So for all for today, I appreciate you helping me define autoimmune disease. Of course, if you're tired of injecting your insulin with a pen, or a syringe, or you have a pump with all kinds of crazy tubing attached to it, that you really don't like this next bit is for you.

The Omni pod tubeless insulin pump does not have any tubing. That's why they call it tubeless. I know you're thinking that's not possible Scott, but it is Omnipod doesn't have tubing. Other insulin pumps have a controller with a cartridge connected the tubing that kind of you know, goes all over the place to an infusion set. And then that's how you get your insulin through that long tube. But with Ali pod, there is no tubing, no tubing to get caught on door handles. And nothing to disconnect when you're bathing or swimming. Because the Omni pod is, you know, it's happy in the water. You can go in the bathtub, in the shower in the local lake. You can go wherever you want wearing your Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. That's pretty important because then you don't lose your insulin during those times. How many of you have disconnected for a shower only to forget to reconnect to your tube insulin pump? When do you find out an hour or two later when your blood sugar sky high because you haven't had any insulin for a while? Why? Because you had to disconnect for a shower. That shouldn't be the way and with Omni pod it isn't. Now if this all sounds magical or different to you, and you're not sure what to do, I understand that but you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. Now go to Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox to find out if you're out Trouble Omnipod we'll send you a free 30 day supply. You can check it out and see what you think. And even if you decide to stick with what you're doing after the trial, you still got our free 30 days. How often do you get a free month of anything? So the Omni pod dash is tubeless it's waterproof, you can shower with it, or you know, swimming the pool. Right? The pool the pool, are you thinking about summer, I just made me think about summer, it's not here yet kids slipped through this cold a little longer anyway, swim in the pool, don't get your tubing caught anything, don't have any tubing to be sneaking through your clothing. It's all pretty great. And no multiple daily injections. With the Omni pod, you just pull out the PDM that's the personal diabetes manager's little handheld device kind of looks like a cell phone. And you you just you say I'm gonna have 12 carbs, he talks a little thing 12 carbs and says I think you should have this much insulin, you know, based on your settings, and you go okay, push a button, and boom, boom, here comes the insulin. No injections. I love it. Now, you might be thinking, Alright, Scott, I want it on the pod. But I've been hearing about this on the pod five and I'm just gonna wait for that. Hmm, I would say in a normal circumstance, I understand. But with the Omni pod promise, you don't have to do that. Here's what the Omni pod promise says. You get the Omni pod dash today. And you start using it and you love it. And then I don't know, a month from now two months from now whenever on the pod five is available for you and covered by your insurance. You just move up to the Omni pod five. That's the Omni pod promise. The Omni pod promise says you can go to new technology that Omni pod has, when it's available to you and covered by your insurance. That's it, you want to change, you can change. That's a pretty good promise on the pod.com forward slash juice box. You might as well go pick around the website and figure it out a little bit. See if you're up for it. Check to see if you know you're eligible for that free trial and get started today. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox Podcast comm to Omnipod and all of the sponsors

if you're wondering what signs and symptoms to look for in hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease and Hashimotos I'm going to list them all for you right now. If you already know what they are. Well then thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. But if you're waiting for the signs and symptoms they're gonna happen like right now. symptoms of hypothyroidism Feri the Mayo Clinic list of possible symptoms as fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold constipation, dry skin weight gain, puffy face, hoarseness, muscle weakness, elevated blood cholesterol level, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, pain stiffness or swelling in your joints heavier than normal or irregular menstrual periods. thinning hair slow heart rate depression impaired memory enlarged thyroid gland, which could be known as a goiter. If you're looking for this in infants, you might also look for a large protruding tongue difficulty breathing hoarse, crying and umbilical hernia, or yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. As the disease progresses and infants You may also notice constipation, poor muscle tone and excessive sleepiness. In teens, you may notice poor growth resulting in short stature, delayed development of permanent teeth, delayed puberty or poor mental development. Let's move on to hyperthyroidism. Still on the Mayo Clinic's website, they say of course, that hyperthyroidism can mimic other health problems. We've been talking about this through all these episodes, you know that unintentional weight loss even when your appetite and food intake stay the same or increase, rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, pounding of your heart, increased appetite, nervousness, anxiety, and irritability. Tremors usually a fine trembling in your hands or fingers, sweating changes in menstrual patterns. increased sensitivity, heat, changes in bowel patterns, especially more frequent bowel movements, and enlarged thyroid gland of course called a goiter, which may appear a swelling at the base of your neck, fatigue, muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping, skin thinning, fine embrittle hair. For Graves disease, you're looking for dry eyes, red or swollen eyes, excessive tearing or discomfort in one or both eyes, light sensitivity, blurred or double vision, inflammation or reduced eye movement, protruding eyeballs. Just quickly Hashimoto Disease, which as we know, is an autoimmune version of hypothyroidism. Hashimotos disease progresses slowly over the years you may not notice signs or symptoms of the disease eventually the decline in thyroid hormone production can result in any the following. There gonna be a lot of duplicates here from hypothyroidism, fatigue and sluggishness, increased sensitivity to cold, increased sleepiness, dry skin, constipation, muscle weakness, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, joint pain and stiffness, irregular or excessive menstrual bleeding, depression, problems with memory or concentration, swelling of the thyroid, the goiter of puffy face, brittle nails, hair loss, enlargement of the tongue. I'd like to just finish by saying that if you have any of these, please see a doctor get a simple blood test and get yourself some answers. Don't forget a TSH over two is enough reason to be concerned. Treat your symptoms, not the lab values. Thanks again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.


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