#1446 Curious George

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Alisia, 20, with T1D since 8, rejected parental myths to lower A1C via an iLet pump amid weight, thyroid challenges.

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Scott Benner 00:00 Welcome back friends to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Alicia 00:15 I'm Alicia. I am 20. Been diabetic for about 12 years. It'll be 12 years in January,

Scott Benner 00:23 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. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink, AG, one.com/juice box. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com I'd love it if you would go to T 1d exchange.org/juicebox and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds. So if you'd like to help with type one research, but don't have time to go to a doctor or an investigation and you want to do something right there from your sofa. This is the way t 1d exchange.org/juice, box. It should not take you more than about 10 minutes. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juice, box. The episode you're listening to is sponsored by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us. Med, I'm

Alicia 02:00 Alicia. Been diabetic for about 12 years. It'll be 12 years in January. How old are you? I am 20. Okay, all right. I've kind of dealt with diabetes practically on my own, because my family's more on the Hispanic side. They kind of are just trying to heal my diabetes with, like, the cinnamon tricks and medicine tricks, like herbal stuff. And I would take it. So, like,

Scott Benner 02:31 cultural stuff,

Alicia 02:33 yeah, so, like, they, they would tell me, you know, like, take, it's an herbal seed, and it's called Moringa. When they said that that cures diabetes and that it cured their friends diabetes, and most of their friends didn't specify that they were type two, right? So, like, my dad was like, No, take this and take that. And I took it, because I was a kid like, you know, they were mostly like, just trying to help me. So I I understood where they were coming from, until I hit the age of starting high school. Actually, I just kind of gave up on it. I really didn't take care of myself much. I was really frustrated. I want to be I wanted to be the teenager with hormones. I wanted to be, you know, like the, like, normal, like, without having to deal with diabetes. I wanted to eat a bag of chips with my friends because I would see them, you know, do it. Yeah, I was okay with it. And my mom didn't know half the time that I was doing it, until I got I had a cold. It usually started with, like, allergies and colds and headaches and stuff, and, um, freshman year, right before freshman year,

Scott Benner 03:43 Alicia, are you being attacked by a pack of hounds? What's going on?

Alicia 03:47 It's my dog. He barks at everything in the background. Oh,

Scott Benner 03:50 good. That'll be great for a podcast. That's good. Let me ask you a quick question before you keep going about this. I'm going back to you know, you're diagnosed the date, so you're pretty young. Obviously, you're alive still, so they gave you insulin, right? Yeah, but it was on you, though they weren't really paying any attention to it.

Alicia 04:08 It was more of they helped me with it until, kind of like they taught me to do it on my own. My mom would like send me to the bathroom. Hey, go take your insulin. So I kind of like, depend on myself to okay, they're sending me to do my insulin, but they're not really overseeing it, you know, oversee, yeah, overseeing the units. So there was a time where I would take, like, a few more units and stuff, and then my sugar would drop, and my mom didn't know why, okay? And then I would tell her, like, Hey, I did take a few more units than expected, because I, you know, we were with the family who was out of town, or whatever, so we would eat. We'd eat like out. Often, my parents really didn't consider the eating out affected my blood sugar more, because my, my family's from Mexico, so I. When eating out, we go to Mexican restaurants, and Mexican food doesn't have a lot of carbs. It has a lot of carbs, realizing, like, now I'm like, I should have spoken up about it, because I never, like, got the chance to explain, like, hey, maybe this is not a good choice for me. Yeah, I shouldn't be eating, like, a big plate of this, or a big plate of that,

Scott Benner 05:22 were you actually told that the food didn't have many carbs in it?

Alicia 05:25 Not really. When I was diagnosed in the hospital, they didn't really give a really well explanation, because my dad is not really fluent in English, okay? So to have a translator there, we really never had one. It was me trying to translate it. And

Scott Benner 05:43 as an eight year old for your parents, yeah, I barely really, as you're being diagnosed with Ivy, how long did they give you the cinnamon before they decided it wasn't going to work?

Alicia 05:52 They had me on my parents had me on cinnamon pills. Did cinnamon tea? Um, for about a few years. Actually, I was my godmother was trying to influence my mom to give me cinnamon pills and all these, you know, vitamins and Moringa pills and stuff. And Moringa pills, what is that? It's like a seed, but they would make it into powder and put it in pills for people who didn't like chewing the seed. Okay, you have to chew it. And it was a very bitter, bitter seed. And my dad was like, oh, you know, take this and take that, and it was never really a cure. So it's just like, no, like, I still have it. My

Scott Benner 06:32 question is, is, if your parents give you a Moringa pill, for example, which, by the way, is made from the leaves of the moringa tree, plant rich with nutrients, antioxidants and anti inflammatory compounds. It's often touted for its potential health benefits, including blood sugar regulation, anti inflammatory properties, high in antioxidants, lowers your cholesterol, rich in nutrients, and I think it's going to make you taller and prettier, too. It seems like it does a lot of things. They're giving this to you. You still need insulin. Like, is there a moment where somebody comes to you and goes, Hey, listen, the moringa pills are clearly not working, so we'll stop doing that now. Or do you

Alicia 07:05 know what I mean, it's so with me, I just kind of like I stopped them slowly on my own, because I was like, these are just not like, I still have to depend on so no matter what, these are not gonna work. They would sometimes regulate my sugar at the same time. I was taking it before a meal. So I was taking my insulin as well. So sometimes it would bring it a little bit lower, yeah,

Scott Benner 07:27 I was gonna ask you, do you not buy much? Instead of spiking to 300 Scott, I would spike to 275 it was a mirror, yeah? Like,

Alicia 07:35 like, it was, it was not by right, much,

Scott Benner 07:39 by the way, I don't doubt that there are, you know, supplements that people take that they see value from in a lot of different ways. But that's not type one diabetes. You see, you know, like, that's a different animal. You don't have type one diabetes. And just take a big dose of zinc and it goes away. But my confusion here is like, there's never once a moment where someone says to you, hey, I want to say out loud that the thing we told you to do is completely unnecessary, clearly not working. You don't have to do that. You just were left to regulate it on your own. The contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now, I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show. Diabetes comes with a lot of things to remember, so it's nice when someone takes something off of your plate. US med has done that for us. When it's time for Arden's supplies to be refreshed, we get an email rolls up and in your inbox says, Hi, Arden, this is your friendly reorder email from us. Med. You open up the email. It's a big button that says, Click here to reorder, and you're done. Finally, somebody taking away a responsibility instead of adding one us. Med has done that for us. An email arrives. We click on a link, and the next thing you know, your. Products are at the front door. That simple, us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, I never have to wonder if Arden has enough supplies. I click on one link, I open up a box, I put this stuff in the drawer, and we're done. Us. Med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and the Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide over 800 private insurers, and all you have to do to get started is call 888-721-1514. Or go to my link, us, med.com/juice, box, using that number or my link helps to support the production of the Juicebox Podcast.

Alicia 10:49 Yeah. So my dad would kind of just like, keep on telling me, hey, you know, take this and take that, and my dad's stubborn. I'm stubborn, he would tell me, and I'm just like, it's not it's not it's not gonna work. It's not gonna go through. Sometimes, there was times where he was like, hey, you know, like, maybe you should try this instead. And I'm like, I've explained so many times I have to depend on insulin for the rest of my life. I've talked to my doctors. I've told them, you know, the things you you have me take. And even my mom was like, yeah, the doctor said, you know, that's just not gonna work. And my dad's like, well, how does this person I'm like, because that person probably has pre diabetes or type two diabetes to where they're able to reverse it, you know, like, for me, it's not reversible, yeah.

Scott Benner 11:36 Also, if you can find me one person that told me that they had pre diabetes or type two diabetes, took cinnamon and more ring appeals, and it just went away magically. I would love to talk to them, right?

Alicia 11:49 So, like, it was just, it was very confusing,

Scott Benner 11:54 yeah, yeah. And you're, you're your little kid too. Like, that's the thing that, like, throws me off. It's cultural to some point, right? Because it's just gonna sound like I made this up. But years ago, I'm not making this up, by the way. Years ago, in a, like, a Walmart parking lot, I don't know how I met a person in a parking lot who, like, looked at me and like, said, Excuse me. And I said, Excuse me. And then she was like, Are you the guy from the like, she heard my voice and knew I was from a podcast, which was freaking weird. But, like, we started talking, and then she started telling me she's, like, my son has diabetes, type on diabetes, and I have a real struggle. My mom doesn't want him to have insulin. And she started telling me the story about, like, you know, I keep fighting for him to have insulin, but my mom doesn't want him to have it, and my ex's parents don't want him to have it, my ex doesn't want him to have it. And I'm like, I don't understand what you're telling me. And she said, Oh, I think it's an Hispanic thing. And I was like, okay, like, I didn't know. I mean, she was just sharing her story with me in a parking lot, but that's what she said. She said everyone in my family, they were all Hispanic. She said, everyone in my family just believes that we can, like, just get rid of it some other way,

Alicia 13:07 with herbs, with herbs or some type of seed. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:13 I can never, I'll never forget this girl, because she was the only thing standing in between that kid dying and not dying, like, because right everyone around him didn't want him to have the the insulin anyway. Okay, so this is your life. It's not it's not going great. Are you managing with injections, pens and insulin pump?

Alicia 13:34 So I was managing with pens, and because I wasn't, I just kind of like, gave up the hormones, puberty, everything hit. I did fall into diabetes coma once, and the paramedics thought it was a overdose, because I did take ibuprofen for a headache.

Scott Benner 13:53 You thought you OD on ibuprofen? Yeah, I gotta get you away from the adults you're around.

Alicia 13:59 They took they took it as an overdose. They did it give me Narcan, because that I was practically already in DKA. So they were, you know, giving me CPR. My mom was freaking out. And once they arrived to the hospital, the nurses and the doctors gave the paramedics hell. They gave them how? Like, no tomorrow, yeah, and we're yelling at them, because they were like, No, this is not an overdose. This is diabetic coma. She is in diabetic coma. How do you guys like, not see like, her body is in in shock. Her body's trying to, trying to wake up and not waking up. What are you guys not seeing?

Scott Benner 14:40 They come into your home, your parents, the first thing they say Isn't she has type one diabetes, yeah,

Alicia 14:44 so that's what my mom said. My mom told them she is diabetic. She took some medicine for a headache. I just got back from the store because I went to go get her some tea. She wasn't feeling good, but you

Scott Benner 14:55 had a headache because your blood sugar was 700 or whatever. Yeah. How? How do you get there? How did did you stop taking care of yourself? No,

Alicia 15:03 so I when I was sick, I was trying to give insulin, and from my with my body, I've noticed is when I am sick, I cannot control my blood sugars, trying to give insulin, and it wasn't going down. And I was sleeping more than half the time without alarms. Okay, so just kind of waking up, checking my blood sugar, seeing it was how I give insulin, go back to bed. What

Scott Benner 15:25 kind of illness like, like a flu or a head cold, or what did you have? It

Alicia 15:29 was a cold that I had, and it was, from what my mom told me is, it was like a cold that I guess went around the house, because everybody was sick that week. So it was a it was a strong cold. My body just wasn't able to fight I guess because COVID, same thing happened to me. I didn't fall into DK because I called the ambulance myself and I told them in type one diabetic, I can't control my blood sugars. COVID is really taking over my body. At the moment, I need to go to the ER, and my family has COVID as well, so the whole house was in COVID. So ambulance came and they saw my blood sugars were just going up. I wasn't even eating. I was trying to just control it, and I couldn't. So when I first fell into DK, it was a very traumatizing moment. That's when I kind of was like, Okay, I need to get a hold of this. I need to take care of myself. My mom noticed that. She was like, Okay, I need to start watching her. My dad's a very busy, busy person, so half the time he's not home, and we've had those arguments like, maybe you should have stepped in, because I tell them, like, I see so many families on the type one juice box group, be so involved. I was like, you have to understand that herbs and and seeds are not going to cure it, right? What's going to help is you being involved. You checking on my blood sugars the way my mom was, because after that, she would wake up in the middle of the night because she heard my thing go off a few times, and she's like, Hey, what's your blood sugar? Is it low? Is it high? Correct? If it needs to, she'd even open my phone, because she's like, I know you're not going to check your phone. She's like, I know you're not going to wake up, so I'll check it for you. There was times where she even tried to, okay, so we're going to go here and eat, take your insulin before we leave the house, because by the time we get there, you know you're you'll be able to eat comfortably.

Scott Benner 17:29 She was reminding you to do these things throughout your life.

Alicia 17:32 Yeah. So throughout I was I was on pens because high school, she was constantly checking on me. She was constantly, uh, texting me and stuff. So she, she became more involved until I was like, okay, but she would try to, like, over push it. Sometimes. I'm like, Mom, there is a point, you know, there's a boundary of like, okay, I got this like, I understand you're trying to make sure, because I'm your daughter, and I know we had a very traumatizing situation and stuff, but there is a boundary,

Scott Benner 18:01 yeah? So let me make sure I understand the timeline correctly. You get sick, you go into DKA. That freaks your mom out. She gets more involved. Yeah, okay. Are you taking care of yourself at that point? Because earlier you said you kind of burned out during high school and stopped taking care of it. When was that?

Alicia 18:16 So that was right before freshman year. Was DK, high school. I was, like, trying to give insulin, but then enjoy all the snacks with my friends, and I'm like, having to give insulin again. So, like, my sugars were kind of like a roller coaster, and my a 1c was still high. It was at, I believe, a 10, okay, at the time.

Scott Benner 18:38 Can I ask, did you go to doctor's appointments regularly. Did your parents go with you? Yeah.

Alicia 18:42 So my mom would take me with and go with me. She was kind of like my voice at the doctor's appointment. Okay? And it was very difficult to communicate with the like the doctor myself. How come we would tell her, like, what I'd eat. We'd let her know what's going on with my life, stuff like that. So it was very not helpful. Yeah, it was because my mom would try to, like, communicate with her more than I would and stuff. And my doctor did, kind of, like, was like, oh, okay, you know, because my mom was involved. But you know, she wasn't with me all the time. So yeah, for me, like, sneaking little snacks here and there, not

Scott Benner 19:22 Bolus, sing for them, stuff like that. Let me enjoy it. What was your understanding of a, 10, a, 1c and what was your mom's understanding of it? My mom

Alicia 19:30 was like, Okay, we need to work on it more. She was like, Okay, give insulin this time and this time and this time. I've always had a difficulty with my ANC, until about two years ago. Okay, my UNC skyrocketed really high because I had um, two losses in my family. So very important people give

Scott Benner 19:55 me a second, somebody, somebody, people passed away. And then, yeah. Tell me how that affects your a one thing

Alicia 20:03 that affected me really, really difficult, because it was two of the most important people who who were in my life, my grandmother, who taught me how to cook and how to make meals and stuff like that. I didn't want to do anything. I kind of, and I was in my technically second senior year, because I had to take another year to graduate. I fell behind. I kind of just slapped Do

Scott Benner 20:33 you think that you were depressed? Do you think that your blood sugars were just so all over the place and high that you were cloudy? Do you think there was a mix of that happening? I think

Alicia 20:41 it was a mix. For me, I didn't want to do nothing. And then two weeks after that, we found out that my godfather went missing. And in Mexico, it's, it's, it's a lot different. So in Mexico when, when, you know, somebody went missing, you know, like something happened to them. For me, it was, I was just like, done. I was kind of like,

Scott Benner 21:03 did you ever know you were sad? Did you ever think about hurting yourself during that time? There

Alicia 21:08 was times where I just wanted to kind of give up, not like, hurt myself, but like, because I knew I was diabetic, I was just like, okay, maybe if I just stop the insulin, um, that'll fix it for me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 21:23 it wasn't like you just needed a break and you need to give something away. So you gave away, thinking about the diabetes to lessen your burden. It was more than that.

Alicia 21:33 It was, yeah, it was, it was more. It was, I just kind of wanted to give, give up on life, okay, not just like life, just like, not worried about anything my health. It was more worried about my family. My family was hurting. I was hurting right?

Scott Benner 21:48 So you had more to think about than you had space for Yeah, okay, and you kind of gave the diabetes away. Then you're like, Okay, I'm not gonna pay attention to this. This will be one less thing for me to do,

Alicia 21:59 yeah, and because my body was really kind of what my endo only was, my body was kind of already immune to a high, A, 1c, that my body was just kind of used to it kind of used to being

Scott Benner 22:13 high. That's the wrong word. I hope he didn't say immune.

Alicia 22:16 Well, not immune, but like, just being used to it, yeah, your body

Scott Benner 22:19 tries to adjust to the bad things happening to it so that you can feel better. But you know, what it ends up doing is you feel normal when your body is in trouble. And so, yeah, right, okay, just as long as the doctor didn't say you your body's immune to high blood sugars. Now, because I would just like, I'm gonna come take you away and like, adopt you if that happened to you? Okay, right? But two years ago, things changed for you. You started doing better, like, what happened that shifted you? So

Alicia 22:47 I did meet my boyfriend, and I was still kind of in the dark stage, and I was telling him, You know, I am diabetic. I haven't been taking care of myself. Not gonna lie to you, I was like, I'm gonna be completely honest, because I've seen diabetes pass away from not taking care of themselves. My auntie passed away from type one diabetes because she wasn't taking care of herself. She had a really high one, A, 1c her whole life, she passed away at the age of 40.

Scott Benner 23:17 Oh my gosh, this your mom's mom or your dad's mom, it was my mom's cousin. Why didn't they give her cinnamon? Do you think

Alicia 23:25 my mom's side of the family is not really Hispanic? They're Philippine my dad's side is the more Hispanic side to where, okay, they would tell us, like, take cinnamon. I got it. Came to the realization, though, my auntie did tell my dad, like, my son's diabetic, you know, I've tried to tell him to take cinnamon in it. It doesn't it doesn't help. My dad's like, oh, but, you know, it could help. And my Auntie's older than him, like, that's his older sister. And she was just like, No, just give up on it. Let her focus on insulin, and you focus on just supporting her because you're not helping.

Scott Benner 24:04 Um, Alicia, are you crying when you talk about your your life, or are you just, it's

Alicia 24:09 just realizing that I didn't take care of myself, kind of like a hit in the face, like I should have.

Scott Benner 24:15 Oh, well, you know, though, like, listen, you're young, so you don't let me. Let me try to help you a little bit here. I don't know if you know the term. I'll give you a couple. You can tell me which one you know, dumpster fire show. Have you heard these things? Yeah, okay, I like to say you started out. You didn't start it in a hole. They went to the bottom of the hole, dug another hole, threw you down in the sub basement of the hole, then threw the dirt over top of you, then threw a lot of cinnamon on top of you, and then said, let's see if you can climb out of the hole. And then you got out from under all from under all the dirt. You're like, oh my god, I'm still in a hole. And they were like, Yeah, let's see if you can get out of that. Now listen, deference to your parents, like, you know, if they didn't know, they didn't know, and cultural stuff can really, I mean, can really, really manipulate people. No one was helping you. And eight years old is too young to figure out how to take care of yourself with type one diabetes. 80s by yourself. So

Alicia 25:01 yeah, it was, you know, go ahead and take your insulin. And I'm like, Okay, so like, like, Yeah, they did teach me how to poke myself with syringes and stuff and whatnot. But then I was like, Okay, I'm still young. I'm still trying to adjust to it. Sure,

Scott Benner 25:16 there's a lot more to it than that. Yeah, definitely,

Alicia 25:19 living in a Hispanic home, there's a lot of things. Like, if you went to bed as a kid, you know, like Something's just not okay, or whatever, well, I'd get in trouble for it. Realizing that they didn't know I was diabetic yet. I threw up in my grandpa truck. We were in California. They didn't know I was diabetic yet. There was so many symptoms that they missed. We kind of like realize it now, like you guys missed that, you know, high blood sugar, a pee constantly, and because I was a little kid in a bed, wetting the bed was, like, something that happened, and you guys didn't really realize it, I got in trouble for it, right? Like, a really difficult situation, because I kind of like, make fun of my friends. Now I'm like, you know, I got in trouble for, like, technically, being a diabetic without you guys knowing I was diabetic. Are you mad at them? No, it was just more of like, paying attention would have really helped, because I feel like I was type one diabetic before I got diagnosed, and realizing, like, now I was just like, wow, I was type one diabetic for a while without them realizing it. I was wetting the bed, like, constantly. So it was, like, kind of confused about because I was like, why? Like, I'm trying to get up and wake up and I can't. And then when I threw up, I was just like, Why do I constantly feel sick? I was going to the bathroom locked in, and my mom was questioning it, but kind of just like, like, she'd question it, but then just forget about it, if that makes sense, yeah,

Scott Benner 26:48 there's no follow through, yeah, yeah. Like, you'd leave the appointment. She'd say, we have to do better. But then nothing actually happened after that, right?

Alicia 26:55 There was times like, it'd be like, a week or two or three weeks, like, okay, constantly, take your insulin, take your insulin, take your insulin, and then just after a while, you know, just stops. She wouldn't push as much and stuff. But also,

Scott Benner 27:08 just take your insulin. That's not actually valuable. It's just somebody bugging you to take take your insulin,

Alicia 27:15 take your medicine. Yeah. It's like telling somebody to take their medicine, yeah.

Scott Benner 27:19 Like, did you know why you had to? Like, let's go back a little bit. Did you understand what the insulin was doing? Did you understand how it worked? Or was it just as simple as like, Please count this young

Alicia 27:29 kid. I just knew that it was just gonna help me. Okay, I just knew that it was gonna help me live. Because the way that the doctors kind of explained it like as an eight year old, you think, huh? Like, what? What do I have now? Like,

Scott Benner 27:45 yeah, you understand it as a child. You're like, what is

Alicia 27:50 my body doing to me? You know, because you don't know your body at a young age. So for me, it was like, what?

Scott Benner 27:57 What's your level of understanding right? Now, of it like, and where did you get that understanding from? You meet the guy, it sounds like you felt guilty almost. You're like, look, you're gonna, if you're gonna like me, I should let you know I might die. That's what you did, right

Alicia 28:10 as a diabetic, because I didn't really comprehend everything until I did more research, until, because my auntie would even be like, oh, you know, there's medicines on the black market. No, no. She, she tried so hard, and I love her to this day because, you know, she, she does worry about my diabetes, but not in the same way as, like, because she's like, anti government type. So it was just more of like, I'm like, You don't understand. Like, I have to live with it. So when I explained to my work, and I was like, it's something I have, something I have to take before I eat, to help my pancreas live do its work, because my pancreas is not producing, so I have to take an insulin for it. He actually kind of like, looked into it. He's like, okay, he goes. Now I understand the difference. He goes because I thought maybe it was because of eating. And I was like, No, that's type two. I'm like, type two is more of you kind of just screwed yourself

Scott Benner 29:12 up. Type Two is insulin resistance of some kind, right? Yeah. So some, yeah. Listen, there are plenty of people who you know, have type two diabetes that you'd look at and they don't look like they eat an extra calorie all day long, and they have type two diabetes, right? It runs a spectrum of people who have it. It was just helpful enough, because that's how he thought of it, right? Like what he thought was, if someone says they have diabetes, that means they ate too much food and now they need right insulin,

Alicia 29:40 right? So that's what he kind of understood. I was like, no for me, I was diagnosed with it at a young age, and it can happen to anybody. I was like, in I have to make sure my portioning is proper and stuff like that. Because that's when I was kind of, like, looking into it more he was, he was supporting me. Who's asking me, Hey, what's a normal blood sugar? What's a high blood sugar? What's a low blood sugar? So I know to this day, like, even he knows, like the sounds. He knows every sound of everything. He's

Scott Benner 30:12 paying attention. He's doing what you asked your dad to do. Yeah.

Alicia 30:15 So he he's like, Okay, I know your blood sugar is high use. What is it at? Let me help you. He's like, go ahead and take your insulin. We'll go for a walk or make sure to drink plenty of water. He's looking out for you. He constantly was doing it, and I just, I felt like, Okay, if he's gonna help me, I need to help myself too.

Scott Benner 30:36 Alicia, is it fair to say that you just felt alone, and once you didn't feel alone anymore, it felt more doable. Yeah, okay, definitely. Let me ask you a different question. You listen to the podcast, right? Yes, okay, you know Jenny, you listen to any of the pro tip stuff or any of that? Yes, okay, in your mind, just make a scale in your head and put Jenny somewhere on the scale of understanding diabetes. Right now, if Jenny, let's put Jenny to 100. Okay, and let's say the scale goes from zero to 100 Where are you on that scale? Where's your boyfriend on that scale?

Alicia 31:07 So that's a we'll

Scott Benner 31:11 make your dad zero. Your boyfriend 100 where do you fit?

Alicia 31:14 I put myself maybe at a 75 okay,

Scott Benner 31:18 by the way, people should know Alicia, and you should know too that for reasons that I can't quite understand, I'm holding my hands apart, making a scale, even though no one can see me. Why am I doing that? All right, I'm gonna stop. Don't stop doing that now. Okay, so you're just why it was I doing that? Are you at a 75 where

Alicia 31:36 do you put your boyfriend, like, right next to me? Probably, like a 74 so

Scott Benner 31:40 you and he kind of have a similar understanding of it at this point. Yeah, so Okay,

Alicia 31:44 he's gone to doctor's appointments with me. He sat there. He's asked questions. He's a Curious George. He's a Curious George definitely, because he's asked the doctors, like, what can I do to prevent her from going high, because stress has affected my blood sugars a lot. So he's like, What can I prevent her from, like, trying to stress out or trying to freak out, because I don't want her to go to a high blood sugar because I'm

Scott Benner 32:14 a mean diabetic. Because you're mean when your blood sugar gets high, I am so mean. Um, he's not curious, George. He's scared, George, actually, yeah, I just want to say, Alicia, had you said curious Jorge, we would have had a title for the episode. But no, it's okay.

Alicia 32:29 That even works too, because he's like, and when she's low, she is shaky and she feels lightheaded and stuff, and she feels like she's like a person I don't recognize. You've been with

Scott Benner 32:41 this guy two years now, right? Yeah, okay, in those last two years, you've gotten the eyelet though, when did that happen? So the

Alicia 32:48 eyelet happened about, I want to say, 10 months.

Scott Benner 32:52 Okay, let me make sure I understand. A couple of years ago, you start dating someone. You think I'm going to do better for myself. You go out, you try to learn more then, right? And you're at that point, your a 1c is in the 10s or greater. So

Alicia 33:04 it spiked, and then it went down to about a 12,

Scott Benner 33:08 okay, when over a 12 came back to a 12, you try to figure things out six months later. So 18 months ago, before the islet, where's your a 1c so

Alicia 33:17 before the islet, it was that 12 okay? Because it was, we were trying to work with it, with the just the insulin pen, and there was times where I was just because I was working in a very difficult area, where they didn't understand my diabetes either. My job was very questionable, like, why I'd go to the bathroom to go get my insulin often? Because I worked in a kitchen for two and a half years, it was very Why do you need to go constantly to the bathroom to go get insulin? Well, because, you know, my body depends on it. My blood sugar is running high, so I have to make sure that it is controlled. They weren't so supportive of, like, because I did the Omnipod for a little bit, they weren't supportive of it. They're like, um, why do you have that on and why are you so like, you got a lot like, customers about it. Because customers did ask. They were like, Oh, what's that on your arm? How is that working for you? They were curious about everything. So I'd explain to them, like, in the simplest way. And they were just like, Why do you have to explain to everybody what it is and and very difficult with me. So I was just like, you guys don't understand my health is more important than this job.

Scott Benner 34:33 Can I ask a question here? I know you're young still and everything, and it's you got a crappy start with all this, and you're you're getting it together. But how does a person forget you for a second? I can't wrap my head around having a 12, A, 1c, like, Were your settings wrong? Were you using not nearly enough basal insulin? Was your carb ratio way off? Like, How was that possible with

Alicia 34:55 mine, they had my carb ratio one unit per five carbs. Okay? And I would give the insulin, so I'd give it about 15 minutes earlier than when I would have to eat. Sometimes it was, like, right before I would eat, because we didn't have a lunch break half the time at work, okay, I didn't know, like, the next time I was gonna pretty much eat, it would still spike after I gave my insulin. How much basal were you taking then? For like the Lattis, it was 54 units. She had me up. You

Scott Benner 35:25 were using 54 at least. If I ask your weight, are you comfortable answering?

Alicia 35:30 Yes, go. So I was at a weight of one, 170, okay. When I was doing the 54 units, and I gained quite a bit of weight, trying to take care of myself, trying to get my ANC down. I tried to cut out, like, the carbs more, and try to just, you know, like, limit my carbs, because my sugar was still going high. Recently, about six months ago, I found out that I could be insulin resistant as well.

Scott Benner 36:05 Well, yeah, hey, Alicia, thank God I didn't have to bring this up, because, yeah, rough math on basal insulin at your weight puts you somewhere between like 31 and 39 units a day, and you're using way more than that, and having an A 1c in the twelves. And, I mean, and you're a one for five carb ratios. I mean, it's pretty heavy, you know what? I mean? So, like, it's not like they were way off on that. So somebody finally, I mean, listen, does this story end with you getting a GLP medication? Because it feels like this is where this is going, or no,

Alicia 36:35 right now, I'm on the pump. I've been on the pump for a little bit. My a 1c dropped from a 12 to a nine.

Scott Benner 36:41 That's on the the eyelet took you from a 12 to a nine. So what

Alicia 36:45 happened at first was the they put me on the islet, which, it works great. It works wonders. I'm a full time college student. I'm a full time worker. So both of those were just like, because I got a new Endo, and she completely changed everything for me. She's like, No, she's like, you're insulin resistant. She's like, for your insulin, you you take insulin and you're still high. Yeah, she was, and they had you at a 54 unit, the one that's that used to be my endo is now above her, and she's like, how do you let Alicia, you know, get to a high ANC like this, because I have her out of nine right now they, they kind of like, did comparison? Like, I dropped her for a 1c because I put her on a pump, and she's like, Oh, I tried putting her on her pump, and I was like, You pushed me to do an Omnipod, which obviously didn't work, because I'd have to switch out the pump within a day and a half, I was

Scott Benner 37:42 gonna say you were using up too much insulin. Yeah, did you say your mom's side is Peruvian? No, they are Filipino, Filipino. Okay. I mean, between that and Mexican, you can't be more than five 3am. I Right?

Alicia 37:53 Yeah, I am five. But exactly, yeah, it was good. Okay, all

Scott Benner 37:57 right. So, yeah, you didn't have, like, the hype gene on your side is what I was getting at. So you're using that amount of insulin. You're having that outcome. Something about getting on the eyelet, changing your your settings is making a dent in it for you, but it is not but you're also gaining weight using more insulin, right? So, yeah, is it fair to say that you are you taking in more calories a day than you need.

Alicia 38:21 Like, as a young kid, I didn't focus on that, and I just focused it on the car, focus on the carbs and the sugars. Now me and my boyfriend, are we? We kind of, like, realized this, like, a year in. We're like, wow, like, the calories kind of do make a because he would eat out a lot, yeah. Now he okay, maybe we should stay. And he goes, I don't want your blood sugar going high. So we kind of noticed, like, it is a big difference, because my boyfriend has gained weight as well. Yeah. He goes, it's because, you know, I'd eat out, and now that I'm like eating in with you, and we're cooking healthier meals, and sometimes we do, like lunch out on the weekends, we noticed the calorie difference, and we noticed the weight because we both got told, like, you guys have gained so much weight, and it's like, well, he gained weight because of relationship. I gained weight because the insulin.

Scott Benner 39:10 I'm making that boy happy, and that's why he's getting fat. Okay, yeah, it's

Alicia 39:15 a huge difference. So with the calories, we kind of just were like, we noticed, and we're like that. Like, damn. Like, this is, this is a lot.

Scott Benner 39:24 Are you excited to have figured out a thing that cult that that may be culturally but definitely familiarly You Didn't Know About right? Like, so,

Alicia 39:32 oh yeah. Definitely, it was like, Uh, I wish I could tell my parents. Like, Hey you. You guys know that y'all never really cured me.

Scott Benner 39:43 But like, Listen, I'm not cured, and you didn't teach me how to eat for damn sure. What did you guys do exactly? Also, I'm working full time while I'm in college. I don't feel like anybody's really covering my ass here. But no, seriously, like, now you have, you have a different idea of the world, like, you have a different idea of, like, how to fuel yourself and, like, what. Many calories. Listen, I'm going to tell you like I just looked online to get a window. If you're an active person at your height and weight, you need maybe 1800 2000 calories a day. And if you don't do much exercise, you're more like 1400 or 1500 and big difference. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, just track your calories for one day to get an idea of what's in what you're eating, right? It could be startling. It could be a lot different than you think. If you put yourself on some sort of a, I don't know, whatever, like you know, if you put yourself on some sort of a regimented system that got you around the caloric intake that you that you needed, I don't know what you actually need, you'll find out, but when you dial it back to a number where you start going backwards with your weight, you'll know that you're in a bit of a caloric deficit, and then you know you're gonna start losing weight for being in that deficit. Yeah, yeah. And then you will, like, Listen, you will 100% use less insulin as you lose weight.

Alicia 40:54 So I switched insurances currently, and now they're not wanting to cover so my my endo put me on trulicity right now, okay, to see how it affects my weight and affects my blood blood sugars, just like this week I found out that they don't want to cover it.

Scott Benner 41:15 Oh, I started getting so excited. I was like, Oh, this is good. We'll see how this goes. Like, yeah, so I want you on ozempic. Or, like, Well, they'd give you we go v, if your insurance covers GLP medication, you will qualify for your weight, right? You could go back to your doctor and say, Hey, I'd like to take step bound. Or we go V based on my body mass index. And can you please? Like, don't even mention my diabetes, just that. That's what I want to see. And if your insurance covers it, you're going to get it right. Yeah.

Alicia 41:44 So, because I was looking into it and stuff, and I noticed trulicity depends on your body weight, and it depends on because it said max weight you lose is 10 pounds. I was like, that's my time. You're like, much? You're like, Great, yeah, it's gonna help me a little bit, but it's not gonna help me, right, completely, like, I need it to, because right now, currently, I'm over 200 pounds, like, the pump, she was like, oh, you know, put in that, you have to take a meal, and it'll cover your insulin. And so when I was doing that, it, it would last me a day. And I was like, 160 something units is not gonna that's gonna make it worse for me. She was like, oh, you know, she said, explained it as, like, a small reset on my eyelet. And I was like, it's not a small reset, because it's gonna get used to giving me that 160 units a day. She wants

Scott Benner 42:39 you to push more insulin so that the pump starts to try to use more insulin, because she thinks that'll keep your blood sugar down. I'm going to tell you I I wouldn't think about it that way. I would think about it, yeah, like food. I mean, I would wonder, have you ever had your thyroid check too? Yeah.

Alicia 42:54 So she checked my thyroid right away when she first became my endo and my thyroids are abnormal, just by a bit. And they put me on medication for they gave you, like, Synthroid, yeah, okay, and then they were normalized. She said that everything was fine with my thyroid. You stayed

Scott Benner 43:15 on it, though, right. No, oh, hold on, if the medication fixed, it doesn't give in the medication away. Medication away, put it back again.

Alicia 43:24 She put it as like, 90 day supply, and just until my next appointment. Pretty much, because my my appointments are every three months. Okay? And this was my with my old Endo. This isn't the new doctor, yeah, okay. The new endo checked my thyroid again and it looked normal. Did you tell her? That's

Scott Benner 43:41 because you just got done taking the medication for 90 days? I

Alicia 43:43 told her. I was like, Well, I was on a medication before it, but she had me stop it because I guess it was not needed anymore. She's like, well, your thyroid came back normal, which I don't understand, because thyroid runs in my family. Yeah, quite bad.

Scott Benner 44:00 At least listen, here's what you need to do. Just scream and run in a different direction till you until you've gone as far as you can, and start over again in another place. I don't know what to say. I've

Alicia 44:10 been back and forth with because this is the general hospital in New Mexico. So it was very, very difficult, because now that I'm on the Blue Cross, they don't want to cover my sense. My sensor. They don't want to cover your CGM, yeah, so thank God I have, you know, test chips in a meter. But I'm like, where's this

Scott Benner 44:30 insurance coming from? Who you getting it through Blue Cross and Blue Shield? Yeah? But why? Like, through your job, or through someone else's job, or,

Alicia 44:37 no, my, my mom has me under her Medicaid.

Scott Benner 44:41 Okay? Well, Medicaid should definitely cover a CGM.

Alicia 44:45 So I was like, Wait, what

Scott Benner 44:49 the I'm almost cursed. Tracy. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You gotta teach me. You gotta teach me some Spanish curse words so I can get away with them. Hold on a second here,

Alicia 44:59 because. Was, I was, I was with my boyfriend yesterday, and I was like, they're not covering so I opened the mails like, they're not covering the trula city anymore, because I'm supposedly not type two diabetic. They stopped covering the Dexcom g6 and I was like, This is my thing to monitor my blood sugars constantly for a reason, because we're

Scott Benner 45:20 not giving that away. Because, by the way, your CGM, your your your pump needs it

Alicia 45:25 exactly. So I was just like, what? So I tried calling yesterday, and they're like, Oh, I tried calling in the pharmacist yesterday, and she's like, your insurance is not wanting to cover it, so we're trying to talk to your doctor to see why it's not being covered and stuff. And I was like, this is something that I need. This is not like my pump relies on my Dexcom. Without my pump, I can't wear my pump, and then you guys can't kill my insulin. What's gonna happen then,

Scott Benner 45:56 yeah, you can't say my pump is covered. If the pump needs the CGM, if the pumps covered, then the CGM is covered. Like Boy, I'll tell you what thinking is not people's strong suit. Okay, so here's what I've learned using the internet a little bit. So Medicaid should cover CGMS. That shouldn't be an issue. Medicaid Part B covers therapeutic CGM like Dexcom g6 FreeStyle Libre under specific conditions, beneficiaries with type one or type two diabetes. Who have need for insulin dose daily and regular blood sugar testing requirements are often eligible. There's no way you shouldn't be able to get your CGM. And then Medicare Medicaid coverage for GLP medications for weight management such as ozempic and we go vary by state. I try to figure out if New Mexico was covered. It says Medicaid offers limited coverage for GLP medications, specifically for weight management, that's perfect. That's what you need. So however, this coverage often has conditions including prior authorization and verification of other weight loss efforts. Okay, well, we can get a doctor to say that there have been other weight loss effort like it should take one motivated physician with a pen and three brain cells to make sure that you have CGM and a GLP medication, right? Yeah. So

Alicia 47:04 with that, I was, I was very like, you guys are joking, right? Because this is ridiculous. I've had my sensors covered. I've never had an issue, and we just switched to Blue Cross and Blue Shield because they said that they cover more. I believe this is like a few to your face right now, because I've had this covered my whole life, so I shouldn't have an issue with it.

Scott Benner 47:28 I just want to be clear, you can't afford this stuff in cash, right? No, okay,

Alicia 47:32 it is I work at work at a Walmart. It is not. That's where I met that lady, and it's in and I'm in college, so paying for textbooks is already a struggle, yeah, and paying for other stuff, and to be driving to a far campus right now is is a struggle. What are you studying? I'm studying Pharmacy Tech, so, like, realizing, like, everything. I'm like, Okay, I'm not gonna, like, yell at the pharmacist, because it's not their fault, but it's also like, have this comfortable life, this not

Scott Benner 48:05 be an issue. Yeah, you need the doctor to come to your rescue here and to set this up for you properly, right?

Alicia 48:10 So I was just like, I was explaining, like, insulin by itself is so expensive. I've seen people struggle buying insulin here in New Mexico, the Dexcom alone is $300 where am I going to pull $300

Scott Benner 48:25 from? Would your parents be helpful or no, my mom

Alicia 48:29 told me, you know, for right now, if anything depend on on the the test strips and the meter, she goes, but we should be fighting this. We shouldn't be having to pay for something that, if

Scott Benner 48:41 it should be covered, it should be covered. Yeah, we

Alicia 48:44 were so just irritated this morning, because we're like, ridiculous, and then to be on the phone and wait and wait for somebody to answer. I was already irritated. I was like, You guys are just messing with my mind. And then for my endos office, it's more of we have to leave a message, and then they'll get back to us. I'm like, This is an emergency here. Yeah? Like, yeah, right. Just asking a question. This is more of my health at this point matters, because what if they don't even want to cover my insulin? Yeah? Because

Scott Benner 49:17 now you're worried that everything's going to go away. At least listen, between you and I, your doctor's office should see your weight as an emergency. It should see your insulin uses as an emergency. It should see that the CGM not being covered as an emergency. They should not be putting you on trulicity. They should be trying. There are clear medications in the world that work great for this. Or I've lost 52 pounds in the last year and a half, right? I know people who have lost 85 pounds. I know people who have lost 70 pounds. I know people have lost 100 pounds. Like, there's a world where, if you could get on this, this medication, it would listen, it's going to slow down your hunger, like, probably significantly, which is going to curb your it's going to curb your appetite. You. It's gonna you're gonna take in fewer calories, you take in fewer calories. You're gonna lose weight, you take in fewer calories, you're gonna take in fewer carbs. You're gonna need less insulin as you lose weight, you'll need less and less insulin. You keep it, you know, the eyelet, you know, hopefully can kind of keep up with that. You know that adjustment as you lose weight. And there's just no reason why. Literally, six months from now, you couldn't be, my God, you probably could be 40 pounds lighter six months from now, and on your way to doing something using a lot less insulin. Your a 1c would probably be down into this, you know, you would imagine the two sevens at that point, and you could be in a completely different situation.

Alicia 50:36 I've been dreaming of, like, yeah, since I realized, like, I really want to get to a seven. I've seen so many diabetes happy, more of like, a an excitement. For me, it's just like, Okay, I'm at a nine. I still gotta go down. Yeah,

Scott Benner 50:50 well, I want to say this, going from a 12 to a nine is pretty awesome, like, short term, if that is fantastic. I cried.

Alicia 50:57 I cried like a little girl, because I was like, finally. Like, I begged for this pretty much, I've, I fought for it, so, like, for me, like, even my boyfriend was like, Oh my gosh. Like, holy crap. Like, you, you did it yourself. Did you

Scott Benner 51:11 ever try, like, a low carb lifestyle?

Alicia 51:14 Yes, I've, uh, I went on pretty much the kind of like veggie, light protein type diet. So it was consist of, like, broccoli, carrots, small amount of carrots, because I realized I was like, Oh my gosh, like these even have carbs, like this is ridiculous, celery, brussel sprouts, stuff like that.

Scott Benner 51:37 What about protein like animal meat proteins like chicken, yeah, beef, fish.

Alicia 51:42 We're not too much on the, like, red meat side, because my mom did get diagnosed with heart failure last year, okay, and it was due to, like, smoking cigarettes, and she did have a high blood pressure, and it runs through the family, so she had that for quite some time. Well,

Scott Benner 52:00 that's even another reason to help you, because, I mean, we could easily pull together a couple of articles about GLP medications, lowering heart attacks, strokes. So

Alicia 52:10 that's what I explained to my end of because my mom went on the off brand of ozempic,

Scott Benner 52:20 okay, like she listened to your aunt, but on the black market, what are we talking about?

Alicia 52:24 No, so she she talked to a doctor because she was diagnosed with heart failure and she had high blood pressure, and it was very difficult for her to lose the weight. So when she spoke to the doctor about getting the weight loss medication, they gave it to her. But she does have to pay out of pocket. She has to pay, I'm not mistaken about 175 for the medication, and she's lost a ton of weight, good, okay, for her ton of weight, she's moving around more. She's, you know, she's healthier. Her appetite has gone down almost completely. So I was like, okay, you know, that's something I want to speak to my doctor. Because I tried the gym. I was working out about five times a week. I was on the treadmill. I was trying to, you know, try to just lose the weight somehow, some way, because I always struggled with it, but because I was taking care of myself, and the insulin just kept on going. The scale did not move. It moved like, maybe three pounds, and that was about it. And I was so irritated, because when I first got out of my doctor's appointment with the weight of about two something, I was like, Okay, let me go to the gym. I didn't weigh myself until another three months, and it only moved a few pounds down, yeah. So it's like, something is wrong. And that's when my new end was like, Yeah, you have insulin resistance. You need a medication. She's like, I'm not for sure gonna give that to you yet, because I want to see how your sugars are. And I'm your new Endo. I do have all your, like, old paperwork, but we need to see what's going on.

Scott Benner 54:02 Yeah, tell her I said, and I'm nobody, but tell her I said that, let's go. Okay,

Alicia 54:07 right? So I was kind of like, okay, you know, wait, my mom's like, No, you need to go on a weight loss injection, like, something that can help you forget the whole insulin resistance thing, because that's what your body's really like.

Scott Benner 54:21 You're fighting too many battles. At the moment, I don't think you're gonna over. You're not gonna be able to overcome all the things. Like, even if you work out like crazy, eat ultra low calorie, you know, low carb, like, on a line, you know, with a with a site on trying to lose weight and trying to get down. You know, your insulin needs. You know, insulin resistance comes with fat, like, it just that's part of it, like, so you're just, you're kind of behind the eight ball. Now you need something to kind of boost it, yeah, give you a little help. Yeah.

Alicia 54:49 So I was just like, this is not working. This is just, so when I went in for my last appointment, I told them, I need a weight loss. I need something, because this is not helping. Yeah? This is not helping at all. I was like, I've tried, tried losing weight. I've tried going on just like a no carb for like, constantly, like, like, I would do, like no carbs, pretty much I do, like, Max, maybe 15 carbs out of the day, right? My body, it felt great, but it felt still horrible, because my sugars are still moving like a roller coaster. And I was like, I haven't even eaten that many carbs today, like, so it was just a lot. And I was just like, I need something. And so she put me on the trulicity. And then instead of nowhere, I was like, where's my trulicity? It's not coming yet. And

Scott Benner 55:35 then they tell you, that's no good. Listen, the Trulicity is a nice idea, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna make a dent in your situation that big, yeah,

Alicia 55:42 when I realized, like, I looked it up, and I was like, What's side effects? Just to, like, kind of prepare myself, the max weight is, like, 10 pounds. Like they, they really put me on this, even if it

Scott Benner 55:52 would help me out. You need something to help you with a number of different things, like with the insulin resistance, hormonal stuff, you know, as you gain fat, excess fat, like that, visceral fat, around like they people get around their stomachs. Like it interferes with insulin signaling pathways. I'm not real good at all this like, but like, it increases, like, an inflammatory response. It increases insulin resistance in a number of different ways, and it's not something that's just gonna, like, magically go away. You're not like I mentioned it earlier, right? Like no one taught you how to eat growing up. They didn't teach you how to take care of your diabetes, right? And now this is what's happened, right? And now you're paying attention to it, and you're, you know, as an adult, you educated yourself, and you're trying to learn more. There's nothing wrong with giving you a boost here. Also, I don't understand the thyroid medication thing. Like, if your TSH was elevated enough that the bad doctor thought to give you the thyroid medication. Well, my God, you know what I mean, because that doctor didn't, didn't understand much, my guess is your TSH was really high, if they saw that and was like, Here, take medication. So then, great, the medication works. You need to stay on it to keep it down again. I'm gonna guess if you go back for blood work right now, your TSH is high again, and that's probably another reason why you're having trouble losing weight, right? Yeah, also, that makes using insulin more difficult, too, by the way, yeah,

Alicia 57:10 because I explained to them, like, the high blood pressure thyroids, type one diabetes does run in the family. Yeah. I explained to them, maybe I was like, could it be my thyroids? Because my mom's on thyroid medication, right? I was like, and she's been on thyroid medication for a year now, because they noticed her thyroids were high.

Scott Benner 57:30 Yeah, Alicia, can I say if I was you, or if you were my kid, I'd go with you to the doctor, and I'd be like, I know she's 20, but I'm here. And then that would be that. And then I would say, I want her labs redrawn. I need you to get her a GLP medication, not trulicity. I don't want a pill. I want an injectable. I would like munja. I would like the Z bound. If you can't give me the Z bound, I'll take the ozempic. I want to go on a schedule like I'm supposed to. I want to take it for a month. I want to make sure I'm okay. I want to move up for a month. I want to move I want to keep going. I'm trying to lose trying to lose weight here. Don't tell the doctor. It's, you know, don't tell the don't tell Medicaid. This is for my diabetes. This is for weight loss. I mean, my rough math says your BMI is, like, close to 40. So you qualify under any BMI that I know, as long as the insurance company covers the medication. You should qualify for it, right? I don't want to hear that. It's like, oh, it's not good for type ones, because that's not true. Like, you know what I mean? Like, so,

Alicia 58:29 so many times I'm like, No, you guys just don't want my

Scott Benner 58:33 Synthroid back. Okay? Like, go if you need to test me again, that's fine. But if my TSH is above two, I want my Synthroid back. And if you want to know why I'm saying all this to you, my mom has heart failure. That's going to be me. I don't want that. You know what I mean, like. So these things will stop that from happening. These are the things I need please make this happen right now. And I need your help. You might need to write a letter to the insurance company. They might say to you, has she tried exercise? Well, I have you might need to write that down. I went to a gym. I did all that. It didn't help. I tried trulicity. It didn't help. Like, now, like, let's go. I'm telling you, one motivated doctor should be able to set you right,

Alicia 59:12 right. Yeah. My last appointment was August 26 and with the whole, like, not covering my my stuff. I called this morning, and I specifically said, I just need to speak to my Endo. That's it. There's a concern. My medications aren't wanting to be covered because the islet communication wise with the beta bionic company is very, very stressful, very

Scott Benner 59:42 difficult, because I'm interviewing them. Soon, I'll tell them, tell me what you want me to tell them.

Alicia 59:47 Because my doctor tried to communicate with them to ask, because she could see my blood sugars and stuff, and like, the doses and all that on the Omnipod, but she could not see it in. Through the I let beta bionic she had so much trouble trying to reach out to someone in Colorado who was an educator on the islet beta bionics. She tried reaching out to the one here in New Mexico. Nobody reached out to her until, I want to say, a month after my appointment, and then that's when she called me. She's like, Hey, okay, so now we can communicate about this. But nobody reached out to her. She sent several emails, tried to call and nothing. She was having a very difficult time seeing, like everything that was happening on my island, until they called me, and they were like, I heard that you guys needed some help. Was like my Endo, she cannot see anything through my eyelet. It's only shared to one of you guys as the educators of eyelet, beta bionic, but it needs to be shared with my Endo, because my endo can't see it. I was like, my endo can only see my Dexcom blood sugars, but not my eyelet. So why is that like not happening? And she's like, let me going on.

Scott Benner 1:01:07 I'm not sure about that, but I mean, I can ask somebody to see if I can get an answer.

Alicia 1:01:11 After a while, she reached out, and my endo was like, after so long, though, and for you to have to be on a pump, because at first, my pump was lasting me a day and a half again, like the Omnipod. So I was like, it's only lasting me a day and a half. Like, this is just not like I I love it because it's changed my ANC, but it's making me gain the weight. It's only lasting a day and a half, not even two two half days.

Scott Benner 1:01:40 I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something here, like, I don't know, like, you have a lot of different implications, right? But the one thing that we can kind of control on our own here is the is the caloric intake. So insulin, letter of the law, insulin doesn't make you gain weight. Calories do so if you're able to eat a lot and keep your blood sugar down, because the pump is pumping so much insulin, that's not the insulin making you gain weight. It's, it's the it's the caloric intake, right? So do you have, I know you haven't looked at the calories in your food, but is there like, can you tell me, like, a genuinely, like, kind of average day of eating looks like for you,

Alicia 1:02:14 an average day would be like a really small, like, breakfast usually, which is about eggs. Sometimes they heated up sausages, because I'm usually running inside and out the house. So usually it's just a small breakfast lunch I usually eat, like at work. So usually it was like, pre made sandwiches right from Walmart, like they have, like the lunch box, I guess now, okay, so it comes with, like, a small sandwich, carrots, a cheese stick.

Scott Benner 1:02:50 I'm looking at it here, like an, like an All American half sub kind of thing.

Alicia 1:02:54 Okay, all right, like a simple, you know, like, lunch box, usually, or sometimes I'll eat like a fruit bowl because I'm, like, craving sweets, and that's like, my my go to if I don't want to eat a payday bar or something. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:10 I mean, that sandwich is only 360 calories,

Alicia 1:03:13 like, the protein, which is like, the the meat, cheese and crackers, yeah. It just depends on all three of those. Or sometimes I'll get, like, the the chicken from the from the heated up area, and I'll take off, like the breading, because I don't know, crispy chicken tenders always have made my sugar go, just have it spike,

Scott Benner 1:03:33 yeah? So the bread and the breading, and then it's greasy, because it's deep fried, so it pushes up your blood sugar, then it holds it up, because the fat holds it up. Yeah? So

Alicia 1:03:43 I'll do those, yeah, keep going. And then dinner wise is usually a chicken with veggies, and then like a side, like rice or mashed potatoes or Yeah. So that shouldn't, like, carb Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:58 so Alicia, that shouldn't be the issue. Then the food, it's not the issue. You don't think, no,

Alicia 1:04:02 like, I feel like, because when I do eat, there is times where I do snack on, like a bag of chips or a bakes good, because in the cold, there's, there's quite a bit of sweets. Not

Scott Benner 1:04:16 gonna understand? No, I listen. I understand. I really do. I mean, listen, I know what I said, what I think already. I think if you could get those couple of items, they would make a big difference here. I think you'd come back on the show a year from now and be like, Oh my god, Scott, I weigh 125 pounds now. You know what I mean, like mine, I'm not using nearly as much insulin, and my a 1c is lower, and I feel amazing, and my thyroid is better. And I think that's very doable for you. You just got to get somebody that's willing to help

Alicia 1:04:42 you, right? Yeah, that's what I I've told because my endo was like, you know, it's technically still, because I'm 20, they still have it as, like, your like, the children's No, no, what are we doing? Well, they're focused on, like, just the diabetes. And I'm like, I'm 20 years old. You guys gotta understand, there's so. Much more with my body now that I understand that, that I know I need, yeah, so she's like, Okay, we'll move you to, you know, like the adult type one. This is, this is

Scott Benner 1:05:11 bull. This isn't going to help you. What I said earlier is what you got to do. You have to call the doctor and say, listen to me. I am in crisis. My mom has heart failure. How old your mom? My mom is 42 okay, my mom, who is 22 years older than me, is in heart failure, and I am following right along in her footsteps. I have Medicaid. I want you to get me this and like, stop asking them. Tell them what you want. Be nice, but tell them what you want. Tell them you need help getting through the system. This needs to happen immediately. You're gaining weight at an uncontrollable rate, and you don't know where this is going to go. Every day is dire. I need your help. I need you to help me save my life. That's what I would say to her and then, and I would say, Please, like, let's stay on the phone right now and work this out. I need a GLP medication. I would prefer Z bound, because I think it'll help me lose more weight, but if you can only get me, we go v, then that's fine, but let's start with Z bound, and then I want my labs redrawn. I want you to check my TSH again, and if it's above two, I want my Synthroid back, because I have hypothyroid symptoms I can't lose weight, like, but like, we probably have other ones too, right, right, yeah, right. And I have a familial issue with that. My mom is also on that, and you need to make sure I get me I'm keeping my CGM here because this pump brought my a 1c down three points. And if you help me lose this weight, my a 1c is going to come down three more points. But I need to stay on the CGM, and I need to keep this pump, and then just make sure that happened. Like, do not stop until that happens. I'm telling you those three things you're going to save your life definitely. Yeah, go get them. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry you're dealing with this when you're 20. My daughter's 20. If I told her I have to do all this, she'd be like, I'm I don't how am I gonna get this done? But like, you're a little you're a little more, I think you've been on your own a little longer. So if you need anything, write to me on the Facebook group. If you want me to outline this again or say it again, if you want to try to help, get people to help you, get language. There's a girl in the Facebook group that could write a great letter to your insurance company to help you with your GLP and your CGM. If you need help, like you, let me know through that Facebook group if you need help, okay, alrighty. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Hold on one second for me. Don't hang up. Okay, the conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us, med, us, med.com/juice, box, or call, 888-721-1514, 887211514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, having an easy to use, an accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour, next.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast, private, Facebook group, juice box podcast, type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome type one type two. Gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox Podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook. Okay, well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Uh, why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribe in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram. Tik, Tok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please do not know about the private group. You have to join the private group as of this recording, it has 51,000 members in it. They're active, talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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#1445 Hippy Dippy

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

Morganne’s homestead upbringing shaped her views on medicine, but T1D changed everything. From hidden family history to Bluetooth fears—this one’s unique.

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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 00:00 Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Morgan 00:14 My name is Morgan. I've been diabetic for three years. Upcoming in November here, I'm not sure what to say at the beginning, really to describe me just adult female that didn't think I'd have to do this at 18 years old,

Scott Benner 00:27 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. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama or Missouri, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 the only one year where CGM, that's one insertion and one CGM a year, one CGM one year, not every 10 or 14 days ever since cgm.com/juice box, if you or a loved one, was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective the bowl beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, where you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. My

Morgan 02:31 name is Morgan. I've been diabetic for three years. Upcoming in November here, I'm not sure what to say at the beginning, really, to describe me, just Yeah, adult female, that didn't think I'd have to do this at 18 years old.

Scott Benner 02:45 You're how old now at 2121 diagnosed at 18, had diabetes for three years and an adult female, I like you. You introduced yourself like, like you were on a form. Adult female, 5755, actually, five, five, I don't know kilos, so I don't want to

Morgan 03:03 guess. I don't even know it's waving pounds. So

Scott Benner 03:08 you were, do you feel like your diagnosis came out of nowhere? Absolutely,

Morgan 03:13 I was farm raised, so, like, really healthy immune system. But we never went to the doctor. I never had a, like, family doctor or anything. We just, if we were sick, you'd sleep it off and drink tons of water, which, ironically, it was very bad advice for me, considering it took a long time to get diagnosed.

Scott Benner 03:32 Okay, I just You made me think of that, um, packaging. What is it? Farm Raised, grass fed, uh huh, grain finish, pretty

Morgan 03:38 much something like that. A little crunchy hippie dippie. That's where my parents are, yeah. How

Scott Benner 03:43 does that work? By the way, like they finish, like some people finish the beef with a little grain for flavor, even though they've been grass fed. Is that right?

Unknown Speaker 03:53 I have no

Morgan 03:55 idea. We're like, small, small, like hobby farms. So we had cows, but we always fed them as much, like non grain stuff as possible. Okay, so we got them good hay, and, gotcha, we had a good pasture. So, yeah, apparently there's

Scott Benner 04:07 a whole theory about feeding them grass, but then finishing them off with grain before you slaughter

Morgan 04:12 them. I don't know. Maybe it's the sweetness and the GMO. I

Scott Benner 04:15 have no idea. But wait, tell me more about the farm. What's a hobby farm? Because a lot of, first of all, Morgan. How do you say your name Morgan?

Morgan 04:23 It's French. It's actually Morgan, but my dad's Quebecois and my mom's English from Ontario. So that was a very interesting mix. They didn't know each other's language when they met tree planting out here in BC. Oh,

Scott Benner 04:35 they are hippies, very they are hippie Tippie. Oh, yeah. Did that translate to you, not

Morgan 04:41 entirely other than I smoke weed and I have some similar beliefs, but like, not as extensive. I gotta

Scott Benner 04:48 say, if weed smoking makes you a hippie at this point, I think that's been I think we're all hippies,

Morgan 04:55 not you, though you're good. Oh,

Scott Benner 04:57 you say that. But who knows I am? I try it. I got my stress too. Oh, that's fair. So okay, because I was looking at I'm like, am I mispronouncing this? There's a lot of extra letters in your name, but Morgan, there

Morgan 05:08 is, yeah, Morgan, okay. Well, and on the end of Morgan, Morgan, how's the English way to say it? I suppose, a

Scott Benner 05:16 hobby farm. Like, it doesn't make money, right? Like you don't live off it,

Morgan 05:20 no. Well, we live off it. It just supplies us, basically. So we have enough chickens for us, enough goats for us, enough cows for us. We got, like, quails, pigs at times, we had rabbits. Oh my gosh, I wanted rabbits when I was younger, and so I went to my dad. I'm like, hey, hey, can we get bunnies? Because I'd seen friends with, like, pet bunnies. And my dad is like, we're not going to get anything that doesn't supply some kind of profit to the farm. I'm like, let's get meat rabbits. We'll eat them when they're older.

Speaker 1 05:43 Meat, they're delicious. Wait, what kind of rabbits are you're good eating

Morgan 05:48 Flemish giants. They're a meat free I wanted baby rabbits.

Scott Benner 05:53 Dad's like, if it can't, like, poop on something and make it grow, or I can't eat it, we're not buying it, pretty much. Yeah. So wait, your parents showed up in BC to plant trees

Morgan 06:05 when they were younger, like they had left their houses. They did some backpacking down in Mexico, separate but, like, at the same time. And then they also, they met planting trees up here at Queen Charlotte Islands. And then they moved back. Yeah,

Scott Benner 06:18 you're old enough now. Okay, you can, you can ask them, like, come on, you just did that to get laid back then, right? Like, that's, they're

Morgan 06:25 definitely not those kind of people, really. It would have been like, Oh, we're helping the environment, and it's a good way to make money. Because I think, like, it's, it was pretty good pay. I think it's still pretty good. Now, I'm not too sure, though, but I know that they said that it was pretty good back then they pay you to show up and plant the trees. I think so, yeah, I don't think it was a volunteer process. I think you'd show up in a group and you get paid, and then, like, however many trees you plant, you get paid by the tree. I think is what my dad explained. It less hippie, a little less hippy, yeah, but they are still like, Oh my goodness. They have a farmstead Now out here, and they'd like, self rely on most things, and they've cut out, like they turn off the Wi Fi at night,

Scott Benner 07:03 and they turn off the Wi Fi at night, yes, yeah,

Morgan 07:07 because of the waves of the Wi Fi being detrimental to health, yeah. Oh, okay, they wouldn't be happy to figure out, well, they weren't very happy to figure out that my Dexcom stuff is Bluetooth. I didn't tell them when I was diagnosed in the hospital. I My dad was actually picking up my brother when I got out of the hospital, and that's when he found out, because I was just getting back tell

Scott Benner 07:29 me now that you thoughtfully while being diagnosed with type one diabetes, considered I shouldn't tell my dad. This thing is Bluetooth. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 and just as the name says, it lasts for a full year, imagine for a second a CGM with just one sensor placement and one warm up period every year. Imagine a sensor that has exceptional accuracy over that year and is actually the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. What if I told you that this sensor had no risk of falling off or being knocked off? That may seem too good to be true, but I'm not even done telling you about it. Yet. The Eversense 365 has essentially no compression lows. It features incredibly gentle adhesive for its transmitter. You can take the transmitter off when you don't want to wear your CGM and put it right back on without having to waste the sensor or go through another warm up period. The app works with iOS and Android, even Apple Watch. You can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at Eversense cgm.com/juicebox, cgm.com/juicebox, one year, one CGM,

Morgan 08:45 yep, part of me did think that for a second. It was more so now I'm dependent on a drug, and that was the one thing my parents did not want for me.

Scott Benner 08:55 Yeah. Well, you get over that pretty quick. Oh yeah,

Morgan 08:58 pretty damn quick.

Scott Benner 09:01 I like you. So far. Morgan, this is going good. I appreciate you having a good headset too. What do you use that thing for in your regular life?

Morgan 09:08 I bought it for this. Oh, you have a quality that you want it to sound good. And so I bought a headset. It was on clearance at the source because they're wiping out into a Best Buy. And so I got it. This

Scott Benner 09:20 is so weird. Can I share something with you? Sure I think I'm gonna cry. No, don't cry. No, no, no. This

Morgan 09:26 early, I have more to tell you.

Scott Benner 09:28 I'm having such a bad couple of days. And then, just to think that you were like, I want this to sound good. I'll go buy a headset. It really like, God, this is where I'm at today. This is, I'm sorry. I feel so grateful. Thank you. God. I feel like, now I feel like a hippie, Jesus Christ. All right, oh, God, I got so sad for a second. Like, happy, sad. I was like, she did a thing that was so nice. Oh, okay. All right, let's get past this. This is ridiculous. Okay, parents, I was gonna make a joke about your dad planning one last thing before he got done. I'm gonna let that go. Because you're 21 and then now we're here. So any other type one in your family, or auto immune stuff in your family? No, so

Morgan 10:07 no type one that I know of other than I did ask my grandmother, and this is where I figured it's probably come from, on my mom's side, way back in the day, there were some kids that died young. They didn't know why. I'm like, I'm willing to bet they died of decay, and they just were never diagnosed, talking about, like 100 years ago, or more, probably, yeah, something like that. Like 100 even, like 80 years ago. Like there was a few different kids that died young at like 11 or so in the family. It's on my mom's side, yeah.

Scott Benner 10:33 Okay, how about other autoimmune stuff for you? No, nothing that's been diagnosed,

Morgan 10:37 apart from, I don't know that. Nothing, really, my parents are definitely not part of the going to go get diagnosed types. Uh oh. Do

Scott Benner 10:46 you think your parents have autoimmunities that they just don't? They might,

Morgan 10:50 yeah, for sure. Uh, PCOS, actually, my grandmother, if that's considered, I don't know, my grandmother had her left ovary removed when she was younger because it wrapped around like, 14 times. Yeah, yeah. And then I also had, we'll get to that. But I also had my own run in with it

Scott Benner 11:06 as well. You had your own run in with PCOS, I'm

Morgan 11:08 assuming, not diagnosed, but I've had an ovarian cyst twice.

Scott Benner 11:13 What do you do for it? Is it like, what? What are we talking about? Like, harsh periods, acne, yes, a weird,

Morgan 11:19 oh my gosh, yeah, acne all over, harsh periods. One week it'll be normal. One week it'll be like, heavy. One week it'll be like, just not there at all. It'll skip. Very odd. But I also have, and this is the I did put this into the interview request. I have a birth defect. Oh no, it's here. Coordinate uterus.

Scott Benner 11:37 You know? It's here. It says I have a wacky birth defect. I do. Yeah,

Morgan 11:41 it's a bicarnate uterus. So it's called a heart shaped uterus. It happened when I was in my mom's womb. And apparently, most people don't get diagnosed with it, because they only find it after they've had, like, a whole bunch of miscarriages, okay, but when they went into ultrasound my ovarian cyst, they

Scott Benner 11:57 they found it two for one kind of a situation, apparently.

Morgan 12:00 So this was only two months after I was diagnosed. Oh, that

Scott Benner 12:03 sucks. And does this mean you can't have kids? I don't know. I haven't

Morgan 12:07 tried. I'm not sure how fertile or whatnot. I've not done like, any tests or anything. I'm not interested in kids at this current moment in life, 21 still too young Tom. What is it called? Again, by? What? By, cornea, uterus. You can look it up. It'll show you a picture. It's pretty funky. I am trying to look it up right now, but yeah, I woke up 630 in the middle of the morning in excruciating pain. Now, of course, women, we get period poops, we got to run to the toilet, so I thought it was one of those. But as soon as I stood up, I started feeling really faint and like I started losing vision. I thought it was my blood sugar, so I went back to my phone, checked I was not, like, low or anything. I think it was at like, nine or something, so it was pretty high. Actually, figured it wasn't that, but I was panicking. So I called my grandma. We went to the ER, and they tried to say appendicitis, but I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, listen to me. This is an ovarian thing. They checked the same day with an ultrasound, and lo and behold, I was right. Wow.

Scott Benner 13:00 Heart Shaped uterus appears indented or heart shaped with a dip or cleft at the top. Yeah.

Morgan 13:06 We're not sure how deviated it is, because they come in various Yeah. Well, I

Scott Benner 13:10 guess you won't find out till you try to plant some trees. I guess what? Some tree planting boy starts talking to

Morgan 13:17 you. Uh, yeah, no, mine likes to drive excavators. Oh, you have

Scott Benner 13:20 you found a boy already? Yeah, he's pretty sweet. Oh, good for you. And he drives what back hoes,

Morgan 13:28 no like anything he can get his hands on big machinery. He drives mostly rock truck at work. But he bought himself a mini excavator.

Scott Benner 13:34 He's got like, a little backhoe in his house. He does. I rented one once. Oh, do you want that story? Yes, we bought this house, which was a very long time ago, this very tiny, little house, and it had way too many trees and way too many bushes on it. And one of the things it had was this line of forsythia bushes. These like bright yellow, they're very pretty, but they're dirty, and they just kind of grow under each other. They're like, they're unruly, they're and these had just not been managed for what it felt like decades, and they were just growing into the ground and on top of themselves, they were a mess. So I rented a small like excavator to pop them out with, and then a dumpster to put them into and have them pulled away. And that was going to happen on Saturday. The thing was going to get delivered on Saturday. On Thursday, I was outside, kind of cleaning up, getting ready for all that, and this car pulls up in front of my house. It stops right in front of my house and sits there for like a good long time, long enough that I feel like, well, I have to go down and say something, because I'm either going to be shot from a distance or shot close up. Let's make sure I exceed the attackers, at least in case I live through it. I go down to the road, making it sound like it's very far. It was, like 50 feet. I went down to the road. Oh my god. I got out of my SUV, like I had to drive down. No, I just went down. And I was like, Hey, can I help you? There's this old couple in the car, like, late 60s, maybe even old. Her. And they were like, Oh, I'm so sorry to bother you. And the woman just gets, like, up her nerve, and she puts her hand on her husband, and she says, he built this house. And I said, Oh, you built this house. And he goes, Yeah. He goes. And then she's like, we lived here for this long and and I stopped, and I went, Oh, my god, stop. I'm like, we found a wedding photo in the attic when we moved in, let my wife won't let me get rid of it. Oh, like, my wife won't let me get rid of it because she thinks the person could be dead. And like, it'll like, you know, like some hocus pocus will come upon her. So I run in and I get it, and they're like, No, my God, that's our daughter's wedding portrait. Thank you. And I was like, You're welcome. And I gave it to them, is really lovely. And then we kept talking. And through the course of talking, he explained to me how he built the house, like I actually we tore the house down now, but it was, I don't know if you know this, but used to be able to buy houses at Sears. Does that make sense? Oh, my goodness, really? Yes, you could buy the pieces. And he and his brother would get done work. Every night, they'd go to Sears by the next part of the house, come and install it until finally it was done, which explained why there was newspaper in the walls as insulation. Oh, interesting. But anyway, during the course of this conversation, he points very proudly to the line of forsythia bushes and says, I planted those with my daughter. Oh, and I thought, I'm gonna rip them out of the ground two days from now, but I did not say that. Just

Morgan 16:29 let him live the happiness felt so

Scott Benner 16:31 terrible. And I actually the crazy reason why this is in my head is my brother and I were talking about this the other day because my brother feels bad about making a change to a house he's moving into. Oh, yeah. And I told him I was that I felt like I was just grateful the guy didn't come the following week fair,

Morgan 16:47 yeah, because it had been just a week later, he would have seen he might have even seen them ripped out.

Scott Benner 16:52 Yeah, he might have seen them in a big dead, like wilting pile, like waiting to be picked up. But anyway, I used the mini excavator for that.

Morgan 17:00 Yeah, they're fun. The first night we got it, and we're picking up pallets and stuff and just playing around. It's, they're awesome.

Scott Benner 17:07 I'm glad I found out my, oh, good, no, no, you found out what. I found out my,

Morgan 17:11 my ATV key works in it. I have a Yamaha Kodiak 400 and it. Yeah, the key turns it. You

Scott Benner 17:17 are very Canadian. You're not going to meet a ton of 21 you're year old girls here that are like, I have an ATV.

Morgan 17:26 Well, I got it from inheriting it from my uncle, but yeah, no, it definitely that going out in the bush in the weekends, that's definitely pretty busy of us. That's

Scott Benner 17:34 pretty cool. Okay, so I want to find out more about your diabetes, because people complain that I don't talk about diabetes on my diabetes podcast a lot,

Morgan 17:40 fair enough, I actually have an interesting one for you. Go ahead. Oh, it's very interesting. So I actually wrote it down a little bit and I went back into some of my test results. So if you look back in February 27 2020 my ANC was 5.7 This was before diagnosis. I was November 16, 2021, so 5.7 seems pretty high for a young, six or 17 year old. I think I would have been at the time. I think so. Uh huh. I was taking ferritin test. I was at 12. I checked my TSH, 1.134 Yeah.

Scott Benner 18:12 Your ferritin was low for like, before your diagnosis,

Morgan 18:16 yeah, February, 2020,

Scott Benner 18:18 okay. And did you and how long after that was the uterus thing that

Morgan 18:23 was after my diagnosis. So that was, I think it was January of 2022,

Scott Benner 18:28 I was a lot longer since then. Okay, have you addressed the low iron life art and ever? Not

Morgan 18:33 really, because I brought that home and my mom, she goes, Oh, you eat enough red meats. We I feed you enough good foods. You have enough spinach.

Scott Benner 18:40 But are you tired or weak, or any of the things that come with having low fire

Morgan 18:44 time? Definitely, I had it rerun recently. It was 43

Scott Benner 18:48 when Addie came on and talked about this. She said the endocrinologist that came on to talk about thyroid stuff, she said that a woman of menstruating age, she thinks 70 is bare bones, as low as it should go. Oh, okay.

Morgan 19:03 I've been trying to say that my doctor's like, look, I feel like I'm iron deficient, but I just get, you know, swatted away, because that's their listening skills for you.

Scott Benner 19:10 It's buried in the thyroid episode with her, if you want to

Morgan 19:14 listen, if I haven't already, I might have fallen asleep to that one, so I might not have caught the end. I think

Scott Benner 19:17 it's nice when people fall I fall asleep. It's so comforting, is it? Yeah, okay. I'm glad I really liked it. It's so it does sound strange, though out of context. Like, I like to, like, I'm 21 I like to fall asleep to a podcast made by a 53 year old guy who, every once in a while, talks about diabetes in his diabetes podcast. And so

Morgan 19:38 anybody who doesn't understand won't understand. Anybody who does

Scott Benner 19:41 really does, yeah, when you find a voice that you'll like it, it is comforting. It's soothing. Yeah, all right, we'll get back to your iron thing. So where are you going with this story? So

Morgan 19:50 Well, I started, I'm a lotta. I actually got myself diagnosed. Lada, okay. Now they first thought type one, but I had my C Pep. Rerun. When I was diagnosed, it was 147 which the way that we measure it here is like 300 to 1090 is the normal numbers. So that's pretty low. But recently I got it redone in May, and it's 275

Scott Benner 20:13 so that's why they say that there's an indication for a lot of because this is a very slow onset of this type. One for you.

Morgan 20:19 This is three years after diagnosis, where it jumped back up to just below the normal, like low fish number for people. So I asked the doctor, I said, would this be Lata? And finally, I got a yes,

Scott Benner 20:31 if you are seeing your C peptide go in the other direction, and is your insulin usage fairly low compared to what you expect? Oh, yeah,

Morgan 20:40 so I need the Omnipod. I adore the Omnipod. Thank you, by the way, for giving me the confidence to actually get one. I was too afraid to have something that would be constantly giving me insulin, but once I figured out, you could back out the insulin that was phenomenally just a life changer. I can give myself a quarter of a unit just to bot myself down, yeah, where like half a unit would be too much. I think my total daily dose is like, on average, between sometimes it'll be nine, sometimes it'll be 16. If I'm on my period having really bad hormones, it'll be like 20. And that's

Scott Benner 21:14 total total basal and Bolus. So given that you have PCOS on top of all that, have you considered asking them for like, a GLP medication?

Morgan 21:25 That's what I wanted to ask you. I was really happy to be able to come on here and actually ask you, do you think a GLP might like help me, even though now the issue is, is I have poor appetite already,

Scott Benner 21:40 yeah, so I can tell you how we're trying to get around that with Arden. So first of all, I know it's only 20 minutes in, but not a doctor, not advice. I really seriously. I barely got through high school, okay, but here are the conversations that I've seen on the podcast of recent right? Little girl, 15 years old, using like 70 units a day. She's down to like three or four now, I think her mom texted me recently. It's, you know, like she's still barely, she's off her pump. She's barely using any insulin, etc. Guy that came on 50 years old, Lada, was using a ton of insulin by the time he was six years in, they put him on a GLP for weight loss. He at the moment is, I mean, he's going to need insulin at some point again in his life, but at the moment, it wasn't using any as the time he recorded like and so if your C peptides going the other way, then that kind of feels like reminiscent of his story. If you have PCOS symptoms, that seems reminiscent of my daughter's story, and it just makes you wonder, like, what would happen if you added me?

Morgan 22:47 Like, would I go down? Like that young girl who barely uses any insulin and has been able to take off her pump?

Scott Benner 22:53 I mean, I wonder. It's worth asking your doctor about, although you're in Canada. So, I mean, yeah,

Morgan 22:59 that's my problem. Yeah, I could, I could try around now, there is a specific clinic run by diabetics out in a nearby town. Once the government will finally let me drive, maybe I can get myself appointments there. Why won't the government let you drive? So I had to do some blood work. I did do paperwork for them to sign off that I was type one diabetic when I was diagnosed, when they gave me a pamphlet about type two diabetes in the hospital, it said on there you should tell your licensing provider. So I did. That was the stupidest idea ever, because they told me I had to do paperwork and take it to the doctor, which I did, and then they give me blood work, which I do, and then they send that off to drive safe BC, and then they're supposed to sign it off. And then I go back in few months later to ask, like, Hey, is it done? I can't apply for my license. I can't do anything about my license. And they said, Oh, it's going to be a little bit. They're back ordered, and it's actually expired, so you have to do it again. And so I've done it twice now and still nothing. So

Scott Benner 23:55 you do it, they don't get to it in time it expires, because it hasn't been looked at. And then they tell you to do it again, and then it happens again. Yeah, so I can't get a license. It's so fat. I want you all to keep this in mind when you hear people say, like, oh, we should have, like, you know, state sponsor this and state sponsor that, because I know people who live in the Canada and yeah, and they have issues, and they go to a doctor and say, Hey, this is my problem. But if your problem is not going to kill you, you go to the bottom of the list. Yeah, right. And you're going to find that problem with that iron. Ask. You're going to say, Hey, I'd like to be seen for my iron. They're not going to see it for a year. Yeah, right. And then you're seeing it with the is it drive BC? Is that what they call it? Yeah,

Morgan 24:39 drive safe. BC, just governmental. There's no actual building. Or better, you have to call them

Scott Benner 24:46 only. So there's that. And then, yeah, so if you know a place you can go that is run by diet, like type ones or type twos or whatever, that you can go make this case and say, Look, I know that a GLP medication is not, you know. FDA approved, or whatever you guys call it up there, or PCOS. But here's some stories of people who've been helped by it. Also, here's some stories who have been helped by this. Also tell them my story, which is, I had low ferritin till I went on a GLP. And now my body, because my digestion has changed, I believe, is picking up my ferritin on its own. And I don't have a problem with Ferran anymore. I used to have to get I heard that the

Morgan 25:21 other day. I heard that the other day. I was wondering. I was like, Wait, what is it that stopped you from having to get infusions?

Scott Benner 25:25 I just think it's the you changed my digestion so my food, because I am, because your mom's right. Hey, you are eating enough. Oh yeah, yeah, but, but it's not staying in there long enough to get absorbed, for some reason. And that's my experience, right? I 100% tell you that I started taking a GLP medication, I lost just about 50 pounds, and my ferritin level shot up, and it stays up. Now

Morgan 25:50 that would be amazing, because, like, not feeling shaky would help tremendously, because I've got anxiety, and my anxiety symptoms feel like a low blood sugar, and so sometimes I'll feel low when I'm not actually low just based off of anxiety, and then I'll finger check to make sure gotten better at doing that first before just downing sugar. And so annoying. Well, let's

Scott Benner 26:11 What if a little farther. Okay, because again, not a doctor, not a vice don't know anything, but interviewed a lady recently. I don't know if it's up yet. Maybe it is. I'm sorry, there's so much. No, that's okay. A lot of her child's bipolar issues went away on a GLP medication. I ask out loud, if anxiety is inflammation related, what if the GLP reduces your inflammation and reduces your anxiety?

Morgan 26:39 I wonder. That would be amazing if you see

Scott Benner 26:41 that and the problem, okay, I don't know how much you weigh, and I don't know how things work in the canidia, but like in the Canadian possible that you're not going to like be able to be covered for this one way or the other. But more more importantly is the way they do the dosing for some people, and we found this for Arden, because Arden started taking GLP for PCOS stuff, and it immediately, like ban it pushed her insulin needs down 20% maybe it was awesome, right? And cleared up a lot of her PCOS issues. But Arden was also one of those people who already wasn't very hungry, and then she just was not hungry at all, yeah. And we tried just telling her, like, you got to eat through it. And she did, but struggled to do it enough, lost what we thought was too much weight, took her off of it for a month so she could put, put, like seven pounds back on, which she was able to do. We were on a FaceTime the other day, and she goes like this. She goes, Look. I was like, Okay. And so she got back to where she wanted to be, and but right away, as soon as the GLP was gone, like her insulin needs went wonky. And the biggest problem was, is that the spikes she was seeing at meals, you know, if you don't Pre Bolus, do all the things, like, suddenly they were back again. And she had gotten really used to being like, it did she get Bolus last minute? Like, all that stuff and everything. Like, super, like, cool. So we're left with just take this and shoot this stuff, because it comes in a pen right the lowest one she was using, she's using Manjaro is 2.5 milligrams, and she's like, as soon as I do this, I'm not gonna be able to eat again. And I was like, yeah, so we took a little bit of advice from other people who listened to the podcast and bought vials, like sterile vials, and then, instead of injecting the pen into Arden, we inject the pen into the vial and then draw out the medication with an insulin needle and give her less Ah, I see we're in the middle of figuring out what dose impacts her blood sugars and her other stuff without taking away her appetite. Appetite. And we're that makes sense. We're in like, week three of that experiment right now.

Morgan 28:57 Okay, so, yeah, it would be, it would probably be pretty hard to get them to give me a GLP, because I'm not, like, I'm on the lower end of the BMI scale, and so there's not really much. The PCOS might be my biggest thing, but then I would have to get myself diagnosed with it. I didn't go in the second time I had an ovarian disperser. I just

Scott Benner 29:14 knew what it was. You're just like, Oh, I know what this pain is. I'll live through this

Morgan 29:17 like I'm cold and sweaty and I feel like I'm dying. Oh, I had to run to the washroom first thing, that's first thing in the morning. I know what this is.

Scott Benner 29:24 We think that happened to Arden while she was at school last year. Yeah, it's not fun, yeah, because she's had one removed surgically as she Oh, yeah, that was not fun, either. And then the next time it I it just must have happened, because she's in the hospital with, like, terrible, you know, pain, and doesn't go away for a few days, and it lingers for a week right afterwards. Oh,

Morgan 29:47 yeah, it's, it's quite a kick it, yeah? Well, because it's, if it's ruptured, it's free flowing blood, so your intestines go, why are we internally bleeding? And it sends all those nerve signals. That's why it's so extreme. Shooting, they told me, yeah,

Scott Benner 30:01 that's something, and that's we don't really have a great way to treat any of this.

Morgan 30:06 No, unfortunately, not. But anyway, kind of kick in the butt. Yeah,

Scott Benner 30:09 I don't know what you're gonna do. Sounds like you're but I'll

Morgan 30:14 figure it out. I'm still alive. Yeah, I did want to ask you something about, I don't know if you've heard a lot of people talking about their beta hydroxy beauty rate number. What when they're in DKA. Tell me more. So I looked this number up because I was like, why is my number so high? Your normal range is supposed to be, like, 0.3 okay. And when I was in the hospital, because I'm curious about, like, How close was I had to really keeling over when I was diagnosed. Because it was a while before I got seen it was a 7.62 and jumped to 7.77 when I was in there at night, next morning, I was back down to 0.78

Scott Benner 30:53 and what is your question about it? Because nobody's really brings I mean, honestly, that one, I can't think of anybody bringing that up in their diagnosis source, if you look

Morgan 31:02 it up, beta hydroxy beauty rate. Could spell it if you want, but it'll probably auto correct you. I believe it shows you how much like toxicity may be, or how much in DKA you are. And so once you hit, like, three, you're in. DK, like, full blown, okay. And I was at 7.77 I'm like, was I just my body somehow, by this string of gums keeping a baby tooth in the mouth, like, alive, when I was going in there, and the doctors were all like, Oh no, no, you're okay. You're okay, you're

Scott Benner 31:38 okay, okay, you're still talking. You're fine, yeah? Like, I have a feeling I'm about to keel over. So you feel like, like, you just want to know how close you were to, like, shuffling off.

Morgan 31:51 Yeah, yeah. I had gotten COVID A month and a half before I was diagnosed. However, I had been needing to urinate more frequently for like months, like my ex boyfriend, the one that dumped me like, was it three months after diagnosis, lovely man, that one was, we've been together for three years, and he started noticing at the very end of it that I was needing to use the washroom a lot more frequently. Told me I should get that checked out. It was like four months after that that I finally did because I was, I was I thought I had a bladder infection. I went in, no, go to the ER, right now, you're diabetic, and so I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay, my grandma, my lovely, lovely grandma. Love that woman. She took me there and she stayed with me. She's the only one who came and saw me in the hospital. Okay, couldn't tell my parents. So couldn't tell their parents because, well, first of all, they wouldn't have been able to come in because of the COVID vaccine thing. The COVID vaccine thing. And second of all, just their reaction of me being medically dependent, their first is to fix it.

Scott Benner 32:53 How close are your parents to wanting to pray this away? They're not

Morgan 32:57 praying it away. They're feeding me healthy foods away, they believed wholeheartedly they can fix it with

Scott Benner 33:05 apple cider vinegar, maybe, no a nut, a nut meal diet,

Morgan 33:11 and they looked into some researchers and such that apparently had cures out of diet. So, yeah,

Scott Benner 33:20 oh, your parents want to feed you ground up nuts to get rid of your type one diabetes. Yeah,

Morgan 33:25 yeah. So don't get much support there, unfortunately,

Scott Benner 33:29 oh no, no, no, no, no, we need to. We need to. We need to move Yeah, I already moved out. Thankfully, yeah, oh, I didn't realize. Okay, all right, yeah. Oh,

Morgan 33:39 my goodness, I think honestly, it was two months after I'd moved out. My body held off because it knew my parents would have had me just sleep and drink water tell it would go to comatose.

Scott Benner 33:47 Jeez. There's a couple of those stories, like, every couple of years that pop up of people who are like, it's usually for religious reasons. They don't treat it or something, definitely

Morgan 33:54 not religious. Yeah, very much. Like more so pagan.

Scott Benner 33:58 Oh, we'll let the mother take care of it. Am I making things up, or am I getting closer?

Morgan 34:04 No, you know you're you're like, more spot on. Now paganism, Mother Gaia, that is their belief. That's the kind of crunchy hippy dippy. Jeez. How many kids they got? Two me and my brother, who pisses them off because he's trans.

Scott Benner 34:18 Oh, Jesus, that must not be good for them. Oh, my goddess, no, oh, did you say oh my goddess?

Morgan 34:23 No, I was trying to say goodness, but I've got, like the worst, try to put two words into one. My mouth just stutters at all because

Scott Benner 34:30 I, like, called the episode, oh my oh my do not. Oh my god.

Unknown Speaker 34:36 No, fuck my head, oh my

Scott Benner 34:38 god, laughing. Okay, so I have here with a little Googling, et cetera. DKA levels can rise above 10 millimoles per deciliter, or even higher. At this point, the blood becomes highly acidic, which can lead to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance and ultimate organ failure or death, if not treated. So it sounds like maybe in the sevens. Were obviously high, but I don't know, not quite there, ready to pop? Yeah? Okay, good,

Morgan 35:05 good. Yeah, that was that, because I had only gone in for a urine test because I had called in for work. And then, of course, they're like, Oh, you need the doctor's note to be sick, big corporate. And so I went, and I called the 811, number, because I'm like, I'm not getting a doctor's appointment. It's five o'clock at night. And then they told me, yeah, I go into the walk in. So I did, and then I ended up in the ER from Monday till Friday. Jeez, when

Scott Benner 35:30 you get this diagnosis, I want to first understand they give you a Dexcom. Is that right? Yeah,

Morgan 35:35 oh my gosh. I love Kate, the CDE. That is the here, like, I'm in a senior town. So they have like, four type one diabetes they deal with. They kept me supplied with Dexcom for like, eight months before my MSRP, or whatever the thing is, kicked in so I could get my own fair PharmaCare, separate from my parents. Wait,

Scott Benner 35:52 isn't MSRP manufacturers suggested retail price. Oh,

Morgan 35:55 the MSP, okay, yeah. Leave the R alone. MSP, yeah, yeah, they you have to have your own number in order to have your own health coverage. And I'm still underage at 18 to be as I stole my dad's and he's a contract like a tile setter. He makes a heck of a lot of money, but it's all like cell phones, so he's got to pay his employee and his truck bills and all those things out of his income. So it looks on paper like he makes too much, and so they wouldn't cover it.

Scott Benner 36:26 So this lady just kept, like, saying

Morgan 36:28 just did tester boxes. She's handing them to me every time I would, because they saw me, like once every two weeks, and then it was once every month or so, and I was every two, well, three, then it was a three months, and then it's like six months now. Now it's at the think a year, because I keep forgetting to call them back. But I love them. They're super sweet. They don't have much information to give me. They just hear me talk, really and then, and even before I found the podcast, they just listened to me talk, and I had no idea what I was talking about. They're like

Scott Benner 36:53 a grandmother is like, I don't know. Usually I don't know what you're saying, but take a piece of candy. Yeah, my

Morgan 36:58 like, my a 1c, was at 6.2 because I was going up extremely high, and then down, and then up and then down. So I was fibbing out the a 1c test, and they're like, you're doing great. Like, I don't feel like I'm doing great. Tell

Scott Benner 37:08 me, how did you figure out how to manage yourself if they weren't helping you? Well,

Morgan 37:11 at first, like, I left the hospital, I didn't even know that I should be under 10. Like, I mean, they gave me a pamphlet, but it was geared towards type two diabetes, okay, and so, I mean, they made sure that I knew how to inject myself, and they kind of, I mean, they probably threw the information a little bit like, your your range is four to 10, but they didn't put any kind of emphasis on keeping yourself there, like, you know about the complications, but they didn't explain that, like, the high blood sugar is what's going to cause the complications, not the fact that you have the disease itself. And so I left. And for a few months, there had no idea what's going on. I dropped in because I had a honeymoon phase on lot of but, like, I had a more so honeymoon phase where I completely dropped down to, like, using two units of basal, okay? And, like, I didn't need to use Bolus insulin for my meals. And so that was, like, only a year of it. It like, like, a staircase went down. I would drop two units of basal, like, every few days, and then it kind of hovered a bit on the lower end, and then it started climbing back up towards the end of the year, where every few weeks I would kind of need to go bit more till I kind of settled at the 10. But they didn't, yeah, when I was coming out of the hospital, they just made sure I knew how to take the insulin. I had my type two pamphlet, and they made sure I had my supplies. So they gave me insulin, and they gave me dexcoms enough to supply. Then if I needed them, I could call them and say, like, Hey, I'm out, and they'd give me some more. I tried, like, calculated it, it's probably like, 1000s of dollars that they just were helping. Handed me, yeah, without me. It was just really sweet. They gave me half those

Scott Benner 38:39 pens. They understood your situation. They were trying to be helpful. Yeah, exactly, yeah. They gave

Morgan 38:44 me a half dose pens and told me to get the cartridges when my insulin needs dropped really, really low, so that I would be able to just give myself like happiness for food. That's

Scott Benner 38:54 wonderful. That's lovely, actually, especially in the situation you're in at your age and with their lack of like, like family backup for yourself.

Morgan 39:04 Yeah, and nobody is there to watch. Nobody's gonna see my which is kind of sad to me, because my mom was a midwife, and so she is, like, hard green to wake up to a pager. So if there could have been anybody to help me, sorry, figure out how to take care of myself

Scott Benner 39:21 at night. Now you're crying. What the hell yeah, Jesus, she would

Morgan 39:26 wake up to a low alarm at night or I don't. I'm so sorry. You're fine to run myself higher than I'd like. It's

Unknown Speaker 39:33 because you don't feel like

Scott Benner 39:35 you have anybody to back you up. I have nobody that would wake up. What about excavator boy?

Morgan 39:39 He won't. He sits right there. You think he can hear. He's deaf. Come on, the excavators, ruins, is your hearing? I'm

Scott Benner 39:45 so sorry. Not only did your family not look like a valuable resource to you, but you were dating someone who, at the time, who broke up with you because you got diabetes.

Morgan 39:53 Not only you know how being a high blood sugar changes who you are as a person, and he created a different. Image in his head about who I was, personality wise, rather than realizing that I was going through some other stuff. You know, been together for three years, so some crap had happened, and couldn't get over it. Just, yeah, he just blocked me on everything. Said, I think we should break up, hung up the phone and didn't say a word. I had to actually go to his friend to give him get a reason.

Speaker 1 40:19 Yeah, how long? Three years, yeah, three

Morgan 40:23 years during high school. Was my high school sweetheart, people, I lost my virginity that, oh my

Scott Benner 40:27 gosh, oh yeah. He could have said goodbye nicely,

Morgan 40:31 oh yeah, no, I think we should break up. Yeah. I mean, even if it was

Scott Benner 40:35 like, inarticulate, and he was like, I appreciate you giving me your virginity, and I have to go, yeah,

Morgan 40:39 like baseline, I'm like, you, you were a good lay for a bit. Like something to hate him even would have been nice, but, yeah, just

Scott Benner 40:47 the direct cut off is the worst part. Radio silence. Yeah, it is terrible. I have to admit. You know, I realize it's very common, but like texting a person to break up with them is such a new idea that I can't wrap my head around, yeah,

Morgan 41:03 it was supposed to see him that day, and so I was, I was on the phone with him, and then, yeah, it was, it was just over the phone. I'm like, you couldn't even do it in person.

Scott Benner 41:13 Sucks. I'm sorry.

Morgan 41:16 It's been few years now. I had another diplox After that, and then I got my little my excavator, bueno, oh, excavator boy, he's not a

Scott Benner 41:26 little glad you found somebody better, and that's a valuable part of your life. But I wanted to give you a second to get away from your sadness about your mom. But I appreciate it. But at the same point, I mean, we don't talk about this stuff very often, because people don't bring it up, but you feel abandoned, I imagine a little bit, yeah, yeah, and you got your grandmom, but that's really it. As far as family goes,

Morgan 41:51 I love her so much. She calls it diabetes. She tries her best to understand. And she's, she's probably the more of the knowledgeable ones in my family, for sure, but yeah, it's

Scott Benner 42:02 odd. Yeah, you really feel like you feel like you're on your own, and at a young age too,

Morgan 42:06 yeah, too old. I was diagnosed at 18, so I just graduated two months prior. I was getting my first job. I'd been at that job for like, a month and a half or so. Yeah, the

Scott Benner 42:17 thing that your parents represent here the like, we don't need medicine, that kind of thing, like growing up for the first number of years. Was it a problem? Was it almost like mom and dad or like, hippie dippie? It's fine. But then where was a

Morgan 42:30 midwife? There's a reason she hates the medical system. She delivered 500 babies in her career, if not more, and the amount of toxicity and corruption within the hierarchy and within I'm you've heard from all the whistle blowers? Yeah, they lost faith in the medical system, and so, because they've never had to deal with like type one diabetes, they didn't really intake it the same way. Severity wise. Do

Scott Benner 42:59 you think they don't understand that without the insulin you're they understand

Morgan 43:03 that. They know that like because there was one of the first things my dad, when he was upset, I told him, I said, I would have died had I not gone in. I would I wouldn't be talking to you right now. And that kind of shook them into reality, but they still feel like they can fix me.

Scott Benner 43:16 Is there really people in line who think that ground nuts can Is that true? I think, I'm

Morgan 43:20 not 100% sure, but it was a book or something that they had read by a physician who I'm gonna look please do. I'm curious. I was like a mixed diet, but nuts were a primary aspect of it. I don't

Scott Benner 43:36 know how to figure this out. Like, what do I google? Like cure type one.

Morgan 43:41 I don't even know, because, yeah, you'll get everything, including the one guy that told me a hyperbaric chamber would work. But, you know, yeah, I have to do it for a month, and it costs $6,700 Oh, yeah. I'm like, yeah, no, thanks.

Scott Benner 43:54 I can't find the myth that ground nuts cure anything, but Jesus also the hyperbolic there. That's like, that's a cult thing. Like, Hey, you want, you want the protection of us, you just have to your daughter needs to sleep with the guy, and it'll all be fine. You know what? I mean, we'll let you right in, like, for only $6,700 we'll put you in a hyperbolic chamber. Make this whole thing go away. Yeah, cure it all Wow. Where did you meet a person who told you that

Morgan 44:20 at work he was one of my customers because I saw my insulin pump, and

Scott Benner 44:25 he's like, Hey, if you have $6,700 I can save you pretty much. Yeah, how many? By the way,

Morgan 44:31 I've gotten a couple of the religious nuts too that come on, like I want one. I just kind of scared me the intensity in his eyes. He goes, I will pray for you. So he starts praying, and just to go out in front of me and like holds my hand and I'm just sitting there, and the intensity in his eyes, I did not want to be subjected to this. But thank you.

Scott Benner 44:49 Appreciate your help.

Unknown Speaker 44:51 Here's your receipt.

Morgan 44:55 Well, to be fair, though, this Job did bring me you. I had a wonderful cost. I work in the auto parts department. I was selling this guy a battery, and he I don't know if you noticed my Dexcom or my bracelet, but he said, My girlfriend has type one. She's in the car. Do you want me to go get her? I'm like, sure,

Scott Benner 45:12 sure. Yeah, go fill her up. Let's see what's going on.

Morgan 45:16 So she comes down, she comes back in, and I'm like, Oh, no way. We had a little conversation, and she gave me sugar surfing and your podcast, and I written it on my arm, and it was maybe a day or two later. I had seen the writing on my arm was nearly faded, and I'm like, oh, I should write this down before it fades away fully. And so I started listening to your episode, and I don't remember which one was the first one, I found it really stuck to me. One of the first ones that I listened to was the one where you're explaining how you talked a lady through feeding her son food when he was high, but giving him the extra meal for the correction as well as the meal and catching it, yeah, at the right time. And I nearly cried because I was like, no, no one had explained to me that I could do this, or things like this, and just the fact that I'd found so much information at the time, it was like 1000 episodes, I think, yeah,

Speaker 1 46:10 sorry about that. Okay. I was like,

Morgan 46:13 there's so much information. I finally feel like I have a direction ago, because beforehand, I really didn't understand much, like I said, like, they didn't explain that it was the high blood sugars that caused all the complications, not just the fact that you had diabetes itself. And it didn't really give me methods. I went to my doctor when I was first few months in, and I said, Hey, what do I do? And he goes, Well, trial and error. I don't really have a resin for you. You're gonna have to figure it out. I'm like, Oh, well, I feel even more alone.

Scott Benner 46:43 Is it okay if I listen to a guy with a podcast? Is that fine? I've

Morgan 46:48 brought that up to them now. Since then, I'm like, I listened to a podcast. He's been phenomenal. Deal with

Scott Benner 46:54 it. You're very nice. I just had a kid like, you know what I mean? Then I we were like, that went, well, let's make another one. And, like, and it came out. And we were like, two, we have two kids, and then a couple years later, we're like, how come this one? Seems like it's dying. Oh, gosh. Then we went to a hospital, and they were like, you know, it's it your daughter has type one diabetes. And we were just, wherever one of you has been, like, I know what we were doing, rudimentary direction, sometimes no direction at all. And, you know, the the first time, the first months were terrible, Arden had a seizure in the first handful of months, I was just following what the doctor said to do. Then you start thinking, God, this is it? Like, she's two, you know, like she's gonna have seizures. Like, you know, like, we can't eat lunch, you know, like, everything is scary, and you're not sleeping all of a sudden because you're like, constantly, like, like, this insulin is gonna, like, either save her or kill her. Yeah, every time like, and, you know, like, and that's the life. And then it got desperate, and I thought, like, like, I'll write a blog about it. You know, back right, right at the beginning when blogs were like, even a thing. And then I just was like, well, like, I'll beg people to, like, donate to things. Basically, like, I'll, if I can explain to them what this really is, like, maybe they'll put a donation into this thing, and maybe somebody smarter than me will, like, figure out something is kind of how it happened. Then that's where community starts, right? Like, looking back on it, I always kind of missed that piece of it, but, like, I met other bloggers, yeah, right. And then they tell stories about things, like, there's this lovely woman, though I haven't seen in a decade, probably named Lorraine. And like, she's the reason I know about a Pedra, for example, right? I was like, writing a blog about how, like, art and blood sugar was, like, bouncing all over the place. And she said, have you tried a Pedra? And I was like, I don't know what that is. I'm like, I have insulin, I have Novolog here. And she goes, Nova logs, not insulin. It's a kind of insulin. I was like, oh, okay, there's like, more like, because in my mind, I was in the hospital and someone reached out with a violin, this is insulin. I was like, All right, this is insulin. This is insulin. Yeah, I'll remember that, you know, yeah. And, you know, I remember the first time that somebody mentioned, uh, CGM was in a doctor's office. And, you know, I've probably told that story a bunch of times, but, you know, my daughter's nurse practitioner tells me a story about, like, there's these things now you wear them, and you can see your your blood sugars in, like, almost real time. And, and I have this patient, and she starts telling me about this kid who's probably like 17 in the story, if I remember right? And he got one who was super excited because he couldn't eat Eminem's without his blood sugar going up. And he thought he could figure it out. And then she just told me, like he did it a bunch of days in a row. He put them the insulin, ate the M M's, like normal. Watch what happened the next day. He changed the amount of time before he. He put in, you know, he put in the insulin. And he did this a few days in a row. He had a bunch of M M's, and one day, figured out the timing and the amount that kept the M M's from causing him a problem, either either a spike high or a low later. And I just thought, like, I bet I could do that with everything. Yeah,

Morgan 50:18 yeah. That's why, whenever people, I see them, and they still say, like, Hey, you shouldn't eat that, because that's just you want. You don't want that high blood sugar. You shouldn't eat that. Like, but it's possible it's all timing and amount. Scott's done it, you can do it and

Scott Benner 50:31 see, and then so, like, you know, I go along and I make these, like, you start figuring things out. And then, like I said, like, people would come on the show, and like, even you brought up sugar surfing, like, Dr ponder came on the podcast, like, very early on, yeah, and I remember when I was talking to him, I might have said it out loud. I haven't listened to it in a really long time, but I remember thinking, at the very least, well, this guy calls this thing something, but I have a system, too. I didn't realize I had a system. Like, I knew there were these things. Like, if I do these things, generally speaking, it works out for me, and then eventually I made those into the Pro Tip series. Yeah.

Morgan 51:04 Oh, those are amazing. There's so many people are so thankful that you created that series. Oh,

Scott Benner 51:09 I'm so glad. And so you're just like, okay, like, well, that worked. And then you talk about it, and then more people than the podcast gets super popular, and then people come on and they tell their stories, and then, like we did a half an hour ago, I'm like, Well, I don't know if this is right or wrong, but this lady told me this thing, and I just feel like Lorraine saying, like, hey, you know, have you tried a Pedra? Like? So I'm like, I don't know if a GLP is going to help you or not, but here's something somebody else told me. I don't even know if it's worth giving it a shot, but at least you know about it, and then you can decide for yourself, right? I've

Morgan 51:42 been thinking about it for a bit, and that was one of the things I actually wanted to ask you, is, like, even though I have issues with appetite, is it still would? It may be because I have most like, I'll have sensitivity points where I'm on extremely low. Like, that's when it's on nine units a day total. And then some of the days that are really extreme around, like, my luteal phase, I'll go up to like, 2025, units an hour, and I'm still high and can't bring it down. Yeah, and just the amount of jumping it does with my menstrual cycle and the hormone changes, and with it being so irregular with everything, it's a nightmare to figure out when something's going to be too much, or if I need to up it by like, four times the amount. Like,

Scott Benner 52:19 maybe you don't even need the new kind of more modern injectables. There's pills glps that have been out for years. Like, like, who knows? Like, maybe you should try Metformin, I don't know. But, like, you shouldn't just sit around being in pain all the time. And, yeah, you know, having horrible like, you know, having your horrible period poops and running to the potty and all that, that's not fun. They're

Morgan 52:40 a nightmare. No, nobody likes those. Nobody likes period poops.

Scott Benner 52:45 There's a kid's book. You're never gonna say

Morgan 52:47 definitely not. Mom went to the bathroom again. We don't talk about it.

Scott Benner 52:52 Don't talk about what happened. I got my period, and now all I know is I'm not sure what's gonna happen when I get to the potty. Listen, I love women, and there are women in my house, in my life, and I watch it with them constantly. Yeah, so it's very unfair. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. I'm

Morgan 53:08 sure it's a it gets to be quite a handful when you have the girls think too. I love the Bluetooth uteruses. I'm just

Scott Benner 53:13 gonna tell you right now, boys don't have problems like that, so I Yeah, yeah, it's just, like, whatever. But no, you just, you feel bad when you see it happening, or, you know, like, you know, my wife's, like, wakes up in the morning. I'm like, I thought you were going in the office. She was i Coming to work from home today. Okay? I hope you're okay again. Just

Morgan 53:31 push the chocolate slowly towards her. He's offering,

Scott Benner 53:36 here you go. Feel better. Don't bite me. I'll be

Morgan 53:38 in the other room, please. Yeah, my new kitten keeps biting me everywhere you

Scott Benner 53:42 have a kit. What is the name? Milo? Not Scott? Okay, no,

Morgan 53:46 I know. I'm sorry. I is an orange kitten, and I watched Milo notice a lot when I was younger. So I'm a Milo,

Scott Benner 53:52 makes sense? Well, I'm, again, just very happy that any of this helped you, or has helped anybody. I think that's awesome. Absolutely,

Morgan 53:59 you have done so much for the community. I know you don't like to take in the compliments very often, but you've saved lives legitimately, and you've saved complications in future, so many I hope

Scott Benner 54:13 so. I'm going to take it today because I can use it today. So thank you. Well, there

Morgan 54:17 you go. Yeah, I wanted to ask if anybody had ever mentioned to you the fact that, like, okay, because we are diabetic, we have to pee more often, right? Because the liver is trying to filter out the high blood sugar. If so, if you're high blood sugar, you got to pee more often. I have noticed that if I'm fighting with a high blood sugar now, this might just be because I'm on lower sensitivity. If I have to go to the washroom, and I don't go pee, and I'm fighting with this high blood sugar, I'm just pushing insulin in every like 4550 minutes because I'm on FIAs, so it's much quicker acting. So I don't have to worry about stacking as much, right? If I don't pee, it'll stay higher. As soon as I go to the washroom, it starts going down. As soon as I go to the washroom, it's and. It's so annoying, because if I'm sitting somewhere where I can't use the washroom and I'm watching the number climb, I know I'm not going to be able to bring it down as quickly as if I'm able to go and use washer.

Scott Benner 55:09 So is the question in a type one, does the extra glucose in the urine during high blood sugars impact the glucose in the blood stream. Is that the is that the question, I

Morgan 55:32 guess, because I wonder, like, if maybe there's, think of it like an extra fuel tank. Once you've drained the fuel tank, then there's more room for the liver to push extra blood in there so you're able to dilute it out of the bloodstream quicker. Okay, maybe,

Scott Benner 55:46 well, I mean, you know, there's definitely things like, I've seen high blood sugars with constipation, and then when the poopy happens, the blood sugar starts to drop. Okay, that I've seen, and I interesting, again, I didn't go to college, yeah, but the way it always occurred to me was that there's some matter inside of you. It must me, it's got to be impacting, like, glucose. I don't, I don't know. I could be 100% like, trust me, I could be wrong, but what I can say for sure is that I have seen constipation, high blood sugars. Go to the bathroom. Blood sugars begin to fall almost immediately.

Morgan 56:21 Okay, yeah, because I see that with urination, and I feel like maybe there's something else going on in, like my uterus, bladder area, to maybe something to do with the bicarbonate uterus, but I feel like I always have to use, like, I always have to pee, even if my blood sugar is within range. Like, it lessens thankfully. Like, if I'm able to have a good day, I have noticed I do, I'm able to hold it in for a lot longer. But like, as soon as my blood sugars go to Arrange, I'm peeing every 30 minutes. So obviously, a

Scott Benner 56:50 person with diabetes gets spillage into their urine, right? Because you're like, you said, your kidneys are like, let's try to get rid of this glucose somehow. But does that glucose inside of the urine impact like your actual blood sugar, I don't, yeah, I don't know. And I don't, probably not, like it's not connected to your bloodstream. So I

Morgan 57:09 wonder if it's like an adrenaline thing, maybe even, I don't know, all I can adrenaline of holding in it in and then it keeps it going up. And then maybe I

Scott Benner 57:17 look back on my early life with my my buddy, Mike, who's passed on and had type one. I've heard you mention him, yeah, and he, you know, I obviously, with hindsight, had high blood sugars a lot. And one of my, like enduring memories of Mike, is that if we went to a washroom together in public, there was part of you, oddly enough, you mentioned your father being a tile cutter. There was part of you that thought he was gonna piss right through the urinal, right through the wall and outside. Oh, the force. Yeah, yeah, from the force.

Morgan 57:50 Oh, oh, my goodness, yeah.

Scott Benner 57:52 Oh, are we gonna call this episode tile cutter? Maybe, oh, maybe Canadian tile cutter. Maybe we'll think about it. But yeah, like, I, and I look back now and I think, you know, he ended up on dialysis, yeah, and I, and I always thought, like, I've thought in hindsight, like, geez, like that high, all that urine, that high pressure peeing all the time back then, we didn't, I didn't understand what that meant. And he certainly didn't. He just thought he was a guy who peed hard, you know what? I mean? Yeah, yeah. No internet, nobody to ask, etc. And it blew his kid, I mean, his kidneys blew out. He was on dialysis for years before he passed away. Yeah, maybe

Morgan 58:31 that's what happened to my grandpa, because he had type two diabetes, and I know he pissed like a race horse. You could hear him from the other room. Yeah, maybe that was a I'm not laughing at your

Scott Benner 58:40 grandfather peeing hard for grandfather paying hard. I'm laughing at a meme I saw recently that said, why can I hear my boyfriend peeing from every room in the house? And I thought, oh, god, does that happen to every girl? It's like a megaphone. But the real thought here is like, you know, stability, lower your variability, keep your keep, you know, keep your blood sugar as in range as possible. Take that pressure off your kidneys,

Morgan 59:08 yeah, my biggest thing that I'm proud of being able to do, at least, is I don't tend to sit anywhere above 15 for lengths of time, like I don't have it refined too, too much. Because, well, first few years here, I was kind of flying blind, and then I found the podcast, and I've been finding so much helpful information. I've already been noticing a flatter line and able to handle foods more more nicely. My high on like my Dexcom reading, for the clarity, the high, high number is 15, and I'm like, 1% above that at all times. Okay, much that's awesome. Yeah, I do not like sitting and seeing an 18 at all. I will smash as much in slim as I can on there.

Scott Benner 59:47 You've spent time figuring out how to help yourself. You're doing well with that. You've, you know, emancipated yourself to some degree, and you're living on your own. We were with your grandmother, right? With my boyfriend, with your boyfriend, okay, yeah. Yeah, how have you thought about how to structure the next decade of your life, for example, so that you can take care of your health and, you know, be happy and build a life at the same time? Yeah?

Morgan 1:00:11 Well, I'm definitely I can't wait for, like, on pod five to hit Canada. We're still waiting for that. Then I can have an algorithm. Maybe I'll get some better sleep. I kind of wanted to be a CDE, but I feel like I have a lot of interest in diabetes. Of course, I know I do a lot of personal research and those kind of things, but if I made it my job, my career, I feel like I would maybe even lose interest in taking care of myself. So I don't want to risk it. So I've always wanted to be a vet, but there's a lot of issues in the vet area, so I'm haven't really figured out what I want to do yet, but I do want to take, like, a biology course in university to try to get back into school, because, well, I was going to take a gap year, but then got diagnosed and I didn't feel safe enough to move, like out city wise, farther away from little bit of help I had in the main town, right? So I have plans to either trades, because I am in auto parts, and I have a high interest in an auto body and, well, I do live in one of the very popular muscle car areas of Canada, and so there's people here that love their gassers, and they're not going to change that. So there always be work and with diabetes wise, I'm really hoping that just over time, I'm learning kind of what's going on. I hope the GLP might be something I could try. However, I do feel like I'll start to see less and less sensitivity slowly. Is like the lot of kind of settles into normal type one. I guess I'm not really planning on having kids in the near, near future, so I don't have to deal with that extra stuff as well. So mostly just figuring out what works for me, and I can't do the whole like, low carb diet, I have hard enough time eating anyways, I've got, I mean, I've seen it around, and I'm not diagnosed, so I don't really want to say it, but like, kind of an arfid style, where it's like food avoidant. If I'm not hungry, I won't eat. And if it doesn't seem like it tastes like I won't be able to physically chew it, like I'll gag and feel nauseous. If it's something that doesn't taste good, or I'm not craving has this been

Scott Benner 1:02:22 prior to diabetes, or since

Morgan 1:02:24 not prior to diabetes? You've had this

Scott Benner 1:02:27 forever? Yeah, I actually

Morgan 1:02:29 lost. The reason I didn't really notice much on the losing weight when I was diagnosed is because a year previous, during COVID, I had lost like 20 pounds from just drinking tea. I might I joked. I said I was keeping my blood sugar steady and from going low by drinking

Scott Benner 1:02:48 throughout the day. That's what you thought was happening. Like, obviously, I'm handling this whole thing with tea. Yeah, it works. You all should try it. I'm gonna start. I'm like,

Morgan 1:02:59 I wasn't eating much, so I'm like, at least I'll drink the tea so that, you know, because this was, like, way before a diagnosis, like, so I don't get shaky and stuff and feel and feel, and I won't have any low blood sugar, and I'm still eating something and the tea with a bunch of sugar, like, a quarter cup of sugar. Oh, I was like, sugar. Whore. When it comes to my tea beforehand, I

Scott Benner 1:03:20 wonder if your low ferritin has any impact

Morgan 1:03:26 on I also think I have low sodium because I'm constantly craving salt, and every time I've had my tests done, the sodium number is like, right on the lower end. Do you chew ice? No, no,

Scott Benner 1:03:39 it's never been that low where you're like, chewing ice. Okay, no, I just wonder if, like, Can low Fert and impact desire to eat. I wonder as well, maybe, maybe it does. What's the word? How come I can't think of the word in appetite? Thank you, Jesus. Of course, I'm talking about so many things, thinking about so many things that I'm sitting here

Morgan 1:04:01 saying, because my brain functions really quickly. I like that episode you had with that lady the other day, or I listened to it the other day, where she her brain works really quickly, so everybody talking seems slow to her, and so she has to, like, slow herself down and try not and so I just related a bit to that. I'm always speaking too quickly for people to hear me.

Scott Benner 1:04:20 I have a little bit of feedback here. Don't know if it's right, but low ferritin levels can impact appetite. Iron is an essential mineral that plays a vital role in many bodily functions, including oxygen transport, energy production and maintaining normal metabolism. When ferritin levels are low, due to iron deficiency, several factors can contribute to changes in appetite, reduced energy, levels of fatigue, altered taste and smell, hormonal imbalances

Morgan 1:04:47 and sounds like every one of those marks is accurate, gastrointestinal

Scott Benner 1:04:51 symptoms, emotional impact, like feeling fatigued or dizzy, etc, yeah, so you're looking for unintentional weight. Loss, lack of motivation to cook or prepare meals. Difficult swallowing or discomfort when eating. I feel a bit called out now. Decreased interest in food or eating smaller portions than usual. I feel

Morgan 1:05:11 really called out. Chaka Khan,

Scott Benner 1:05:13 we've done it. Not a medical not a doctor. Almost couldn't get through high school, fell asleep, missed 53 days of my senior year of high school. Just want to say, look at you now. All right. Well, this is it. Let's get your iron up, okay, and either do it. The problem is, I know somebody that this happened to, yeah, in the great white north up there. Oh yeah. And they went to the doctor and they gave them a an appointment, like, a year out. Oh, yeah, yeah. So maybe we got to get you to that clinic and tell them all this, and say, Look, I just want you to jack up my ferritin to see if I feel better. Yeah, that, yeah. And then once it's up, we'll test it again when you watch it fall and see that I'm eating well and it's not keeping my fire tune up, then maybe you'll give me the GLP to try to help with that, and help me dose it in a way that can keep up my appetite, but have some sort of an impact on this PCOS stuff. And Bob's your uncle, we're all done.

Morgan 1:06:18 Yeah, no, that would be awesome. I definitely have to get to that clinic out there in Rena.

Scott Benner 1:06:22 How often do I get to say, Bob's your uncle, and nobody says, What are you talking about? Not that often you knew what I meant. I know it's like common phrase up here. I know it is because I make a podcast so I learn all kinds of useless

Morgan 1:06:35 I should have known.

Scott Benner 1:06:37 Yeah, that's how I learned that, from y'all, from us all. Yeah, you stabbers. I was a staff that's something we talked about before we started recording. So it's completely out of context now, but, oh yeah, I suppose so isn't it? Also that was the most Canadian thing you've done since we've been Oh yeah, you're supposed so Hey,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:57 really cool that. Now,

Scott Benner 1:06:59 do you know who Bob and Doug McKenzie are? Yes,

Morgan 1:07:02 I do. They play as the moose and Brother Bear.

Scott Benner 1:07:06 How? Oh, that's how you know who they are.

Morgan 1:07:07 Well, I'm, I am a tooth early, 2000s baby. That's awesome. I

Scott Benner 1:07:12 you know, I brought it up to a Canadian once they've never seen the movie strange brew. I'm disappointed. I was too, so disappointed. I was like, what kind of a Canadian Are

Morgan 1:07:21 you? Right? My uncle, before he passed, like, that was one of his favorite like, you sit down, just watch him for hours. No fun. I love those guys. Yeah, that's so

Scott Benner 1:07:29 cool. All right, what have we not talked about that we should have also you and I should probably have our own podcast together.

Morgan 1:07:33 Oh, I would love that. Yeah. Oh, my God, I would, and I would love to come on again in the future, as I've figured out more and more things if possible. Because, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:42 talking to you, Well, that's very possible. I really enjoyed this, but talking to you is the way I imagine talking to Arden on the podcast is going to be but it never is. She's like, I'll do it fine. Let's go, oh, Arden and I have been recording. I don't understand episodes which

Morgan 1:08:00 you have. Oh, nice, because I heard the other ones with Jenny that you just recently published. I love them. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:08:06 good. Jenny's and mine are just, like, diabetes related stuff where we're like, I don't understand why this is, like, this Ardens and mine have nothing to do with diabetes. Because I said, Can we, like, throw in some diabetes stuff? And she's like, not, if you want to talk to me. I'm like, Okay, so we've been doing, like, we have this long list of things. So where this idea came from was that Arden would say stuff to us, like, I don't understand how money works. We'd be like, what? And so one day, I'm like, start writing these down. And she's like, what? I'm like, I'm like, start a note, some content here. Like, start a note in your phone. Every time you think you don't understand something, just go into that note and be like, I don't understand how Wi Fi works, which, by the way, is

Morgan 1:08:44 on her list. Is it okay? You'll figure out what my parents are so scared about.

Scott Benner 1:08:48 Yeah, yeah. We'll figure it out. And so you said about a minute ago. And so, like, knew this would happen. We built this. It's really coming out as you get more comfortable. It's fantastic. We built this long ass list of things. It's an embarrassing list. She's like, I should not tell people I don't understand these things. And I'm like, No, it's gonna be fun. So like, we jumped on the other day for the first time to do it remotely, because she's at college, so I sent her off to college with a microphone. And I'm like, I'm like, we're gonna record every Tuesday at 3pm and so we jumped on and she's like, Dad, I'm exhausted. My period's late. I don't want to do this. And I'm like, and then she just like, the time came up, and I'm sitting on the link. She's not there. And I text her, I go, Hey, and she goes, Hey, what's up? And I'm like, we're supposed to be recording now. And she goes, Oh, hold on. How do I get on this link? I'm like, You're kidding me. I'm like, it's in your email. Click on it. She goes, I'm not 150 I don't look at my email. Oh my goodness. I'm like, okay, so she jumps on. I get her set up with the microphone and everything, and then we start, like, bickering and talking and everything and just like that. And I'm like, All right, like, what are we gonna do? All. Off this list, and I started reading stuff off the list. She's like, that, I don't know, I'm so tired. And then she's like, my period won't come. And like, I'm just, I just want my period to come. And I'm like, right? And she goes, I got homework to do. And I'm like, just pick something off this goddamn list. And they're all like, gems. And I'm like, spinning them out. And she's like, I don't know. And then we just pivoted and I was like, You know what I don't understand? And she goes, what, I'm like, the idea of being judgmental, like, it's like, it's so, like, I don't think of it the way I think other people think of it. And so we started talking about that. She called me out on some things. And so we went over judgmental, because between you and I, I don't think that me assessing what's happening around me and slotting those assessments against what I've seen historically constitutes me being judgmental. I think I'm just witnessing things, observing and observing and putting the spot. And I made the point to her that I don't think it becomes judgmental until you inflict it upon the person who you're noticing. And she goes, dude, you're so judgmental. Stop it. And I'm like, I really don't think I am. I'm like, I'm not cruel to people I would never, like, witness something and then go up to them and go like, Oh my god, Alice, yeah, yes. So anyway, that's what we talked about. Yeah, it's an episode that will 1,000,000% make me look like an asshole for being so honest, but like, I'm gonna love to hear great. I think people feel like that, like, we all notice, but it's not till you run up to somebody and you're like, Yo, did you know you're this or that? Like, yeah, then it's judgmental, right? Yeah, but

Morgan 1:11:34 then start putting malice into, yeah, negative connotations too. Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:11:39 that'll all be coming up on the podcast at some point, and I think you and I should do a couple of those together. Is what I'm saying. Oh, definitely, definitely. I think that's where the podcast is going to go. Eventually. It's just going to be people coming on, going, you know, I don't understand this. And then we just start talking,

Morgan 1:11:55 start delving into it. Well, hey, it's very informative, and it just keeps building upon you can't like you said before. In other episodes, you can't say the same things over and over again. And expect people, new people, to come in and want to listen. You got to keep it interesting. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:12:09 love it when people are like, you know, you don't talk about diabetes much. Your Diabetes podcast? I was like, yeah, there are diabetes podcasts that do that. No one listens to

Morgan 1:12:16 them. Yeah, exactly. It's too it's too hyper focused. You have to bring in the other stuff to Yeah, balance out like I went snowmobiling on the mountain, and I figured out for the first time that altitude is not accurate to the Dexcom readings. In fact, I think my snow pants had actually pulled off the Dexcom I was stuck on. Because we have these beautiful, my future father in law there, he's got these beautiful, like, 2018 Polaris RMK, 800 mountain snowmobiles. And so they will go up a wall, if you put them there. I got stuck, of course, and I was fighting to get it out. And I could feel my blood sugar was going down, but I looked at my Dexcom said 10. I could just I could feel it. I could feel that I was going low. And so I tested. And by the time, because I should have tested instantly, but I hopped back on the snowmobile and rode another two minutes just at the very top of the mountain, where it was windier and colder, and then tested and found I was at 3.3 and I had given myself insulin to try to correct that 10 that I'd seen earlier. So I was coming down.

Scott Benner 1:13:12 First of all, your blood sugar was obviously falling. But I've had conversations with people where they say, I swear to God, altitude really impacts my blood sugar.

Morgan 1:13:21 It sure does. That's where I noticed it, for sure, because it like I just started going down, and then, because of how cold it was, my one touch meter wasn't freaking and so I'm sitting there, I've got five different people huddled around me. They're handing me full sugar, sodas, chocolate bars, this, this and that, this is like the family. So it's my boyfriend was there, my boyfriend's brother, his dad and their landlord, which is essentially an adoptive grandfather for everybody, and they were all huddled around me, trying to keep me warm, and trying to get my meter warm enough so that I could test my blood sugar again. Charles gave me his gloves, and it was just super sweet, because, like I I have a little bit of support here and there, as much as they might not understand. They knew then I needed sugar, and Mike knows I've got my backseat me in my bag, so anything were to happen, he would be able to apply it. Though, I don't think he's at all interested in ever doing that. No one do

Scott Benner 1:14:14 it if need be, not until you get not till you get into the fight. And you're like, All right, yeah, exactly. You're like, Oh no, I gotta do it. I guess we're gonna do it. What you said earlier, it's just, really, it's accurate. Like, if you, if you sat down, you're like, I'm gonna make a podcast episode today. It's gonna be about altitude and how it impacts blood sugar, and then I'm gonna make the title, altitude impacts type one diabetes. You know, no one, no one is gonna be like, Oh, I can't wait to flip that on and find out more. Yeah, you know, like you got to have a conversation with somebody, get the number, let them take this. Yeah, it comes up.

Morgan 1:14:46 I think that's what works so well with your podcast, and why you've become so successful is because you're not trying to force it upon anybody. You just leave it there so that people can come and find it, and curious cats will come and find it. Really

Scott Benner 1:14:57 is my goal. Yeah, just. Let people talk, and I'll babble on about things I've noticed, and you'll either find something in it that's valuable for you, or you won't. But there's no pressure, right? Like, the podcast doesn't cost you anything Exactly. There's no timeline. No one's forcing you to listen to it. There's no timeline. You don't have to do anything. Like, it's got ads, but you don't click on the links for the ads. Like, whatever I try to say in the ads, like, look, I appreciate all of you are trying to support the podcast. Like, like, don't buy this stuff if you don't really want it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just, it's here. These people pay to put ads in the podcast. Click on them if you want to. But like, there's no pressure there, even, yeah, you know? Like, just do your thing. Like, and, and take, hopefully there's something here you just like, you're spreading flowers around, and hopefully people come by and find them valuable a little 2k. Listen, you make mistakes sometimes, and the same thing, like, look, I misspoke, or I said something that wasn't right. I'm sorry. You know what I mean? Like, I'm I'm talking a lot here. I'm doing my best, you know? Anyway, I think net positive times 1000

Morgan 1:16:02 Absolutely? Yeah. Did you get two more chameleons? By the way, what are you

Scott Benner 1:16:06 doing? You trying to make me sound like a weirdo on the internet?

Morgan 1:16:09 I don't worry. I have two leopard geckos, and you saw my crested gecko last night on the page. All right,

Scott Benner 1:16:14 so here's what happened. And then we gotta stop, because Rob tells me, these are too long. Ah, we had a whole conversation in the car the other day. He's like, I think 50 minutes is the sweet spot. I'm like, Dude, I can't get anything done in 50 minutes. What are we talking about? So, long story short, my entire life I wanted a chameleon. I never told one person last Christmas, a couple days before Christmas, we were all standing around in the kitchen, and I just kind of as a conversation starter, said, Tell me something. Like, my whole family was there. I was like, tell me something you've like, you know, always wanted to do that you've never done. And everybody went around the room, it got back to me, and I just shocked everybody by saying something that they had never heard before. Like, I've been married to my wife, like, nearly 30 years. I've got kids in our 20s. I've never said this out loud? Oh, my goodness. I said I'd really like to keep a chameleon one day. And everyone was like, What? What you're, what he what? Hold on. I say, What do

Morgan 1:17:10 you say? This one wants a what? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:11 hold on. Hold on. What was the A, come on. And I'm like, Yeah. And I started talking about like they're so I find them very relaxing. They

Morgan 1:17:22 are. They force you to move slower and kind of breathe and think you move fast. You could hurt them.

Scott Benner 1:17:27 Even while you and I are talking, I can see one of them just moving so slowly through his enclosure, right? And it's very it's very relaxing. And plus, they're difficult to keep so then the question was like, why have you never done this before? Like, you know, like, we're not wealthy, but we could put a cage together and throw a chameleon in it. Why would you never have done it? And I said, they're very their care is incredibly difficult. And I just that caregivers thing that you you guys, get off me from the podcast, like, it extends to everything. I don't want to let anything down, probably because my parents, Mama there, yeah, my parents are divorced. Like, you know, there's probably reasons, but like, I don't want to let anything down. And yeah, the next day, my wife sends me off, right before Christmas with a list of things to do, and one of them is to, like, whip through a pet store and buy, like, like, stocking stuff or stuff for our dogs. And I'm in there, and as I'm walking out with my hand full, and I'm also a boy, so I'm irritated that I'm buying stocking stuffers for dog. They don't care. There's already a basket of toys. We can just throw them back out on the floor, you know what I mean? But my wife's like, no, they need something to open. I'm like, they're dogs. I'm pretty sure they don't, but whatever. And so, like, I'm walking out of the pet store, and I hear this, and I look over and there's this little baby chameleon, like, walked past, and it was, like, shocked by me, and it was like, Hey, what the buddy. And so I got home, and I said to my wife, I was a craziest god damn thing. I have never in my life seen a chameleon in a pet store, but there was one right there two seconds. I mentioned it in passing. I do not bring it up again. I didn't say, y'all should go buy it for me. I didn't say anything like that, right? So then Christmas morning comes, and we're all done with our gifts, and the dogs have opened up their squeaky toys, and of course, and Arden goes, Hey, there's one more gift for you, but you got to come up to my room for it. And I was like, What the hell. So we all get up and start moving to her room. Because when my wife started moving, I was like, something's happening. Because this is the point in the morning, she wasn't gonna get up again, you know? And I was like, Why is every and I go up and as they're opening the door, I think to myself, Oh, my God, it's gonna be a chameleon. Oh, you do. Don't be a chameleon. I don't know how to take care of a chameleon. The thing's gonna die in five seconds, right? Yeah. And I open the door, and they're like, We gotta eat chameleon. And I was like, and I went, like, I'm a dad. I'm like, Oh my God, thank you. This is awesome. The voice of my head is like, you

Speaker 1 1:19:48 get it, Mother, why did you do this? But

Scott Benner 1:19:52 I'm like, That's so nice. Thank you. But I just realized in that moment, I'm like, I'm gonna have to now give over. And it ended up being a solid month. Of, like, YouTube videos and just trying to figure everything out, which, by the

Morgan 1:20:05 way, whatever did we do that? So sweet that you check out like that. I'm gonna

Scott Benner 1:20:09 kill this chameleon. I can't do that. Yeah, by the way, that's where, and I always hope the guy hears it. One day, I found the chameleon equivalent of me. Oh, dear. It was, did you strangest goddamn thing? Like, like, there he is, like, with, like, a lot of the basic ways that I think of talking to people, he's doing the same thing and spreading, trying his best to spread good information. And he's even got like, people who don't like the way he does it and like, and I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, this is exactly the same. It's like, I'm looking into like a mirror, and instead of me looking back, it's a guy who's like, I'm saying all the same things about chameleons and having all the same experiences about chameleons that you're having in diabetes. My God, so bizarre, you know? But anyway, I learned how to take care of the chameleon. She is the most well pampered, $75 pet store chameleon you've ever seen in your life, like she's living a better life than we are. And I'm glad to hear, yeah, doing great. But it is not long after that that I think this is not the kind of chameleon I wanted.

Morgan 1:21:12 Oh no, oh no. So that's why, oh so

Scott Benner 1:21:15 I was like, okay, no big deal, right? Like she's gonna live like, six, seven years, and I'll get another one, like, and then one day I was like, Yeah, I'm 52 seven years from now to be 50 9am. I gonna really buy a chameleon when I'm 59 and I was like, probably not. And I just relegated myself to the idea that I just like, maybe that's not gonna happen, you know? Yeah, but I did look around in the meantime, and I found this breeder in California who breeds the kinds of chameleons that I wanted. And his stuff is like, man, his animals are really wonderful, you know? Oh, good to me. And he has like this, this success breeding them where it's not a thing that people do. Well, breeding, right? Because I think these eggs take almost two years to actually gestate and to hatch, Oh, wow. Like, this real, like, the whole thing. Like, yeah, it's a whole thing, and he has a lot of success with it. So I bookmark his site, and I'm like, well, when I'm ready, I'm gonna go figure this out. And then I look at his site one day because it pops up in front of me and because I followed it on Facebook, and he's like, Well, here's my last hatchlings. You know, so sad to say, I don't think I'm gonna be breathing these chameleons. Oh my god. I'm like, you motherfucker. And I was like, I was like, so now I have, now I'm sitting in this chair thinking, Am I gonna buy another chameleon? Because I'm an adult, and that seems ridiculous,

Morgan 1:22:40 but you're an adult, and you can buy,

Scott Benner 1:22:42 I'm gonna do it like, so, yeah, anyway, so I have this again, like a, literally, like a pet store Veiled Chameleon. She's so nasty, like she won't let me anywhere near her, like she's just like she's, I've tried to explain to her that this great life she's living is because of me, and she could maybe love her and you care about her attack, she don't seem to care about it also. That's how my wife treats me, too. So I'm used to it. And then I have a Parsons chameleon, oh, which will live 12 to 15 years and grow up to maybe as much as 24 inches long. Oh, cool.

Morgan 1:23:15 Yeah. My geckos will live to be about 15 to 20 years long as well. I've got one that was supposed to be incubated a female. Turned out he was a male. And not only that, he's a giant leopard gecko, so he's 30 grams heavier than he, like a normal

Scott Benner 1:23:29 gecko is, and that's a male. Does that get up to almost a foot long? He's

Morgan 1:23:32 not quite a foot long. But I brought him to the vet clinic because he had a Hemi penis prolapse, and so they had to go and pop it back in. Yeah, and yeah, and we've ever seen I had to do it myself. Actually, a few weeks afterwards, he did it again. And so because I had seen what they did, I'm like, I'm not gonna spend another $375 I gave him a soak, and I did what they did, and he was okay, and he hasn't had it happen again. I was maybe

Scott Benner 1:23:59 a year ago, nice, but he's the biggest leopard gecko they ever saw, the

Morgan 1:24:02 biggest leopard before they've ever seen. He's that big boy. I got him a 40 gallon tank, even though, like, the 20 is generally the normal size for them. Like, no, we're going big.

Scott Benner 1:24:11 My niece just rescued a leopard gecko. They are so sweet. They're one

Morgan 1:24:15 of the best temperaments. And you know what? They poop in a corner. They are one of the cleanest, if not the cleanest reptile you could own, because they pick one corner and they will poop in that corner. I have

Scott Benner 1:24:25 bioactive setups for my chameleons. So they poop on the ground and then, and then it just gets kind of taken in at night, the the ISO pods and the spring tails come along and eat. Oh, okay, so

Morgan 1:24:35 that's what I was talking with the the lady on the Facebook page last night. I want to do a bioactive tank from my crested gecko, because I didn't know you could have some of my favorite plants there inside the tanks. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:24:45 it's fine. It's actually nice, because I basically, I have, like, a little Arboretum in here with me, and it happens to have things crawling through it. So anyway, so what ended up happening for the third one, just so you understand, yeah, okay, is that like, I became really interested in it. I paid more. Attention. And it turns out, I live very close to one, the only guy, one of two guys in the country that breeds these tiny, little carpet chameleons. Now they only live, they only live, like, two or three years. They have a much shorter life, but they also require a much smaller enclosure, which I have space for. So I was like, I'm gonna get a carpet chameleon too. So how big are they? Um, she's probably, like, seven inches long, like, tip of her tail to her snout right now, but she's gonna get, she'll get her body's gonna get bigger, but I don't think her overall, like, she's tiny, probably on the size of Apollo, then she's super colorful and, like, like, growing great and everything. But I just, I come in here in the morning, I feed them, and like, while I'm recording or working, I just like, I don't know, like he's looking at me right now, like he's walking across the branch and he's looking at me like, are you going to kill me? I'll hold really still for a second to be sure you're not going to kill me. Oh, my goodness, that's how they live their whole life. They just, yeah. They just in fear, yeah. It's why they want to be up high, you know. So then he's like, all right, nothing's gonna kill me. Then he'll take a couple more steps,

Morgan 1:26:06 and then they're little mittens as they grab around things. Yeah, they're so cute.

Scott Benner 1:26:11 Well, they're cute on the little one, the big one, like, makes scary. He's strong. He's he could grow. He could grow to 500 grams. Oh my Yeah. So he's 300 now, and he's a year old.

Morgan 1:26:23 Oh, mine's mine's 130 Alaska. He's the big boy, and that's like, my biggest reptile.

Scott Benner 1:26:28 Yeah, you'd be stumped by this. He looks like a dinosaur. Oh, my goodness, my

Morgan 1:26:32 brother had a blue tongue Skink. That was cool. Okay, she passed away, unfortunately. So

Scott Benner 1:26:38 I had to stop looking online at things, because the crocodile

Morgan 1:26:41 skinks are expensive, but they're my favorite skin Yeah, because

Scott Benner 1:26:44 I saw one day, I'm like, these crocodile skinks are so cool. I know you can't, like, house things together, like you can't. So if you could, then I know I'd have, like,

Morgan 1:26:59 salt fish tank. You just huge one side of the wall the room good to go, yeah?

Scott Benner 1:27:06 But anyway, this is it for me. I'm good, yeah, yeah. Three is enough, yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. I will, um, I will take their chameleons and kids, yeah, yeah, that's the whole thing. But I'll take a photo of this enclosure for you insanity of when we get off, so you can see it. So I would love that. Listen, she's great, the Veiled and, and I do love her, because she runs all over the place and she has a terrible attitude, so it's fun. But, yeah, but he's just like, he's the one I wanted, like, when I was a kid. This is the chameleon I was your dream chameleon having, yeah, or I wouldn't have, you know, they didn't know that. And, yeah, anyway, I should end this story by saying it's like, one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me was like, That's really sweet. Yeah, go get that. But I'm an I'm a rep. I don't think I could do a snake, I have to be perfectly honest.

Morgan 1:27:53 No, I mean, I love snakes, but I, my mom's terrified of snakes, so that was kind of never an option. And then I just, I love my little critters that can walk on feet and kind of travel a bit easier and not get themselves stuck in places. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:28:05 I do have to admit, though, and they're very common pets, but people who have bearded dragons, my

Morgan 1:28:11 brother, yeah, he's had two so far. They're really common, but they're more upkeep than people realize. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:28:16 I that the one thing about the chameleons that you wouldn't know until you really, until you dig completely deep into everything they need, is that everything they need, with the almost, with the exception of food, you can automate. Oh, so like, basically what happens here, using the Parsons as an example, there's a misting system in his cage, right, right? Comes on, and it mists him and so that he can, you know, drink, if he wants to drink from leaves. Generally speaking, he doesn't need to drink, though, because there's also a fogger that, oh, okay, brings up his humidity at night, and then he actually hydrates through breathing in the fog.

Morgan 1:28:55 But they don't cool, yeah? They don't like to drink as much, do they from a bowl?

Scott Benner 1:28:58 There's no standing water in any chameleon cages. Like for drink cool, yeah. So they just intake it from their environment. They breathe it in, and that's how they get it in. So if you fog them to the right level for the right time, they're hydrated, right? And then the cages have fans on them that are on timers for air flow. They have lights that are on timers for UVB and for and for regular light. So with that, with the exception of having to put the food in, you know, if you go away for a couple of days or something like, they get everything they need still. And then

Morgan 1:29:30 that's one thing I do like about the Leopard Geckos they only need every two to three days, yeah. And so as long as they've got their standing water, they're, they're okay, right? If I go off for, like, a weekend camping trip or something like that. I went

Scott Benner 1:29:42 away for a week recently, and we just had like, a pet sitter came in and just pet them. Yeah?

Morgan 1:29:46 Those that would be really nice. I don't have long enough vacations to ever need one of those, thankfully. But that's one of the reasons that they're awesome, too, because my brother knows how to take care of them. Yeah, since he's had reptiles himself as well, so he's always been my carer whenever I was gone for a. For a week.

Scott Benner 1:30:00 Yeah, yeah. That's anyway I could talk about it forever, because I do find, I do find it incredibly react or, like, just incredibly, like, reflective and relaxing to be around. They are, yeah, he's staring at me right now, like he I'm, here's what this stare means. I'm pretty certain bring a roach over here and give it to me. I

Morgan 1:30:21 am hungry. Where's the food? And

Scott Benner 1:30:23 I imagine now people listening are like, did he say roach?

Unknown Speaker 1:30:27 But yeah,

Morgan 1:30:28 no, the roach with mealworms is what mine. That's mine. Roaches are illegal. Up here the dubious,

Scott Benner 1:30:33 yeah, I have a small bin of them, and I'm letting them breed because they're so expensive. I'm like, I don't want to buy them. All the

Morgan 1:30:40 meal worms are pretty decently priced, but you can, you can multiply them by, I had 500 count, uh, probably sitting in this one tub, and it I just kept cycling them. I didn't pay leopard gecko food for a year, yeah, until my breeding system died off. I have to make a new one.

Scott Benner 1:30:55 Yeah, you don't realize when you buy a reptile, you're about to become a bug breeder. And you don't, yeah,

Morgan 1:31:01 part of the first thought, you figure that out afterwards. So

Scott Benner 1:31:03 now I'm 53 and when people say, what do you do for a living? I go, I make a podcast. And then they say, and what do you do for fun? I go, I have a chameleon. And I'm like, oh my god, I shouldn't tell people any of this. Yeah. Do you know what it's like to tell other adults you have a podcast? Oh,

Morgan 1:31:19 I'd imagine it's, it's probably you get a lot of questioning looks, and they just don't understand. Frustrating, a little bit too, because you can't quite convey how important the podcast is to everybody, because it is, like, 15 million downloads. It's a huge amount. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:31:33 also, it's 17 and a half now. But thank you.

Morgan 1:31:36 Wow. Congratulations. I push it wherever I can. Like, if somebody's saying anything, like, I don't understand. Like, just watch podcast. I

Scott Benner 1:31:42 appreciate it. Yeah, no, but it is really strange, because it's not a job. I mean, like, for most people, they're like, Wait, what did you say? Yeah, it's like, telling somebody you're the tight end for the bills, but yeah, like, it sounds ridiculous. Like, no, that's not money off of that, like, a livable wage. Yeah, that's the other thing. They're like, any reasonable adult later goes, I'm sorry, and this, it generates income, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I'm like, you know, I don't think I'm gonna, like, buy the Taj Mahal anytime soon, but, like, but it keeps everything

Morgan 1:32:11 running, and you have a livable wage. And so the people complaining is one of the things that I've seen as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:32:18 my wife has a job too, but, like, it helps pay the bills, and I save a little money at the end. And, you know, and living

Morgan 1:32:24 my life, three chameleons who are very happy little spoiled babies, I

Scott Benner 1:32:27 can afford, Dubia Roaches that too, which I don't even know how much those cost. Well, that's why I'm breeding them, because they weren't too then they do get inquisitive. They're like, I don't understand. Like, why is that a viable way to like, why is that a job? You know? Yeah. And then when you explain it, they go, oh, oh, that sounds great. You've

Morgan 1:32:44 hit a niche where you just, you got it, you rolled with it, and you've managed to keep it going.

Scott Benner 1:32:48 It's funny. It's amazing for it not to be on purpose too. Yeah, yeah,

Morgan 1:32:53 because you just started a blog, and then you started making a podcast. Because back in whenever you started, was 2010 around then it was popular

Scott Benner 1:33:00 podcast in 2015 it only because Katie Carr told me I was good at talking to people. Oh, okay,

Morgan 1:33:08 yeah. No, that makes sense. You do have a very well how to explain this. Well formed, well thought out. You're meticulous about things in ways that others aren't, and so you're able to pick apart information that most people were just brushed by,

Scott Benner 1:33:20 it's interesting. I had, um, Erica, you know, have you ever listened to any Erica's episodes? I think I heard one. Okay, it was a bit ago. Yeah, she, she and I were talking the other day, and I'm gonna have to bring her back on talk about it more. But she said we were talking privately and and she said, you know, you you had a therapy. I either had a therapist or a psychiatrist. On Sandy, she was on recently, and during it, she's like, you could be a therapist. And I was like, I could, like, and then you do have that affiliate, yeah. And I was like, really? And then Erica said, I heard her say that, and she's like, I have to tell you, like, you actually, you do a lot of things that are taught to therapists. And I was like, I have no idea about that. So she was telling me. And I was like, I can't even remember everything she said right now, because I don't have that kind of mind. But she's like, No, that's fair. Me neither. Goldfish brain. When people say things, you ask questions correctly, you do this, your follow up is really good, and like, on and on, and so that was, that was kind of a so, all really interesting. Yeah,

Morgan 1:34:18 definitely. You've learned how to have the art of conversation extremely well, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:34:23 I appreciate it. Okay, I'm gonna let you go, go live your life. Be Canadian,

Morgan 1:34:27 yeah, Canadian work, yeah. I know

Scott Benner 1:34:31 you're going to Don't, don't worry about it. Hold on one second for me, today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 you can experience the ever since 365 CGM system for as low as $199 for a full year. Visit Eversense cgm.com/juicebox for more details and eligibility earlier. You heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's real. Thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So, if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like. Blue circle health is currently available in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. If you live in one of those states, go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking blue circle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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Scott Benner 00:00 Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Polly 00:13 My name is Polly, and I live in Northern Nevada. I'm excited to talk to you.

Scott Benner 00:18 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. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama or Missouri, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. The Diabetes variables series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about, travel and exercise to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com, go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. Today's podcast is sponsored by the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing since she was four years old, Omnipod, omnipod.com/juicebox, you too can have the same insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing every day for 16 years. The episode you're about to enjoy was brought to you by Dexcom, the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. You can learn more and get started today at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox,

Polly 02:07 my name is Polly, and I live in Northern Nevada. I'm excited to talk to

Scott Benner 02:12 you, excellent Polly, thank you for doing this. I appreciate it. You're welcome so you have the diabetes, as they say,

Polly 02:20 I do got a touch of it. Just

Scott Benner 02:24 a splash, a big splash. When did it splash on you?

Polly 02:27 Well, got a very long, embarrassing, I guess, path so about 12 years ago. Okay, my husband said, you haven't been to the doctor in a very long time, I think it's time. So I really dislike, probably dislike and distrust doctors. And so I was friendly with a very capable midwife, so I went to see her. She said, What's your a 1c and that's like, What the heck are you talking about? And she was like, you've never had your a 1c done. And I said, No. She goes, Well, let's do

Scott Benner 03:10 it. How old are you at that point, 12 years ago? Probably about

Polly 03:13 39 okay. And so she did it, and she did a bunch of other stuff. And so she goes, Oh, it was really cold that day. And she said, this a 1c needs to be a little bit warm. So she's like, let me go put it in the bathroom and I'll be right back. So she came back about five minutes later, and she was white. And she was like,

Scott Benner 03:38 I peed on your test. I'm so sorry. We have to do it again, by the way. When does it get cold in in Nevada, I don't understand. I'm in northern Oh, I see in the mountains. I say, go ahead.

Polly 03:48 Yeah. She was white. She goes, you've got a problem. And I was like, What are you talking about? She goes, this is 12.60 I said, What are you talking about? I knew, I mean, I, I knew absolutely nothing, right? And so she said, this is indicative of diabetes. I've always been overweight to some degree. At that particular point I was losing weight. And, you know, we all know why now. And she said, You need to go to the ER right now and get this checked out, and then get to an endocrinologist. And so I said, No, I'm not going to do that. And I had just read about we were following a diet called the McDougall diet at that time, okay, and it's a low fat vegan diet, and I was really getting serious about it, which is why I thought I was losing weight. And Dr McDougle had just posted on his newsletter about this diet called the rice diet, which was used originally. Been formed for high blood pressure, but people had had really good success 4050, years ago with diabetes, with, I mean, it's, it's really a miracle, and it it's not used anymore, because it is tough. I mean, it is a tough diet, and now we have medication that they didn't have back then. So I said, I'm going to try the Bryce diet. She was like, I'll give you third she's like, I'll give you 90 days, and then I'm not going to treat you anymore. She's like, you've got to do something. Polly. Let me stop

Scott Benner 05:32 you for a second. I'm going to live in this moment for a second. A, 12. A, 1c. Are you thinking now, in hindsight, she thought you had type two diabetes. Oh yeah, absolutely, okay, all right, because at a 12 A, 1c I'm gonna go eat rice. Is like, well, then you're gonna come back with a 15 A, 1c like, what are we doing here? You know what? I mean,

Polly 05:53 yeah, yeah. So she, she's like, well, you've gone this far. Basically, let's do it your way, and then we'll do it my way. So when to do this, and it's not just rice, it's rice and fruit, that's all you eat very little. I think I was at like 900 calories a day. She had a scheduling conflict, so we had to go four months. So I went four months on this diet. So I went to see her after four months, and my a, 1c, was 6.2

Scott Benner 06:23 okay, and had you lost weight? Surprisingly,

Polly 06:27 when you're when you're sick and on the right side, you don't always lose weight, is what I found out eventually. So I lost 18 pounds, which with such little calories, was surprising to me. I was expecting the weight to just lose the ball off. That was my introduction to diabetes. And I thought, Hey, I've cracked code. You know, you went from

Scott Benner 06:54 this 12 to the six, yeah, not thinking that you probably had Lada and you had like, like, like, ebbing and flowing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. I see

Polly 07:04 I did the modified version of the rice diet. I had never felt better in my life. I'm a pretty big advocate of this diet, because so many people I've studied it, and so many people are do really well, but it's tough. I mean, just eating rice and fruit so food became non fuel at that point.

Scott Benner 07:24 Yeah, hey, give me a second here. Key components of the rice diet. White Rice is a staple fruits and vegetables. The diet includes fresh fruits and vegetables, which provide essential vitamins, minerals and fiber, low sodium, minimal animal products, low fat, low protein, whole unprocessed foods. That sounds like the diet, yeah. Okay, that's it, okay? And it runs in phases. Is that, right? There's like a detox phase. And the Dexcom g7 is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it features a lightning fast 30 minute warm up time. That's right from the time you put on the Dexcom g7 till the time you're getting readings, 30 minutes. That's pretty great. It also has a 12 hour grace period, so you can swap your sensor when it's convenient for you. All that on top of it being small, accurate, incredibly wearable and light these things, in my opinion, make the Dexcom g7 a no brainer. The Dexcom g7 comes with way more than just this, up to 10 people can follow you. You can use it with type one, type two, or gestational diabetes. It's covered by all sorts of insurances. And this might be the best part. It might be the best part alerts and alarms that are customizable, so that you can be alerted at the levels that make sense to you. Dexcom.com/juice, dot com, slash juice box. Links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com, to Dexcom and all the sponsors. When you use my links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omnipod. And before I tell you about Omnipod, the device, I'd like to tell you about Omnipod, the company. I approached Omnipod in 2015 and asked them to buy an ad on a podcast that I hadn't even begun to make yet because the podcast didn't have any listeners, all I could promise them was that I was going to try to help people living with type one diabetes. And that was enough for Omnipod. They bought their first ad, and I used that money to support myself while I was growing the Juicebox Podcast. You might even say that Omnipod is the firm foundation of the Juicebox Podcast, and it's actually the firm foundation of how my daughter manages her type one diabetes every day. Omnipod.com/juicebox whether you want the Omnipod five or the Omnipod dash, using my link, let's Omnipod know what a good decision they made in 2015 and continue to make to this day. Omnipod is easy to use, easy to fill. So easy to wear, and I know that because my daughter has been wearing one every day since she was four years old, and she will be 20 this year, there is not enough time in an ad for me to tell you everything that I know about Omnipod, but please take a look omnipod.com/juicebox I think Omnipod could be a good friend to you, just like it has been to my daughter and my family. Yeah, there's like

Polly 10:27 a there's like the first phase, which is just what you mentioned. And then you can add, they joke that you can add that you got chicken, so you can add, like, protein. And I never did, because I just wanted to jump in. I knew nothing. I had never even heard the word A, 1c, at that point, yeah. So I thought, Hey, I've looked this, you know, I'm good. So I stayed on a modified version, and I started losing weight. And I thought, Hey, I am good. And I didn't lose, you know, massive amounts. It was very steady. So I thought, you know,

Scott Benner 11:07 I'm doing this healthy, even I am good, right? That

Polly 11:11 went on for about five years. And then the best way to say it is my mental state just collapsed. I couldn't think. I was upset all the time. We own our own business, so I was just under a lot of pressure. I was putting myself under a lot of pressure. I really don't remember what caused me to get up one morning and call my reproductive endocrinologist that I had had 16 years earlier when I was trying to get pregnant with my son, and I said, I need to see an endocrinologist. And I really, I can't tell you what got me to that point. I called him, and they said, Oh yeah, across the parking lot, go see doctor so and

Scott Benner 11:57 so, I guess what got you there is five years of rice and apples. But, you know, yeah,

Polly 12:04 so I called and I couldn't get in, and I just felt, at that particular moment, I felt very desperate. So at the time, I didn't have insurance. So we have a wonderful nonprofit. It's not the health department, but it's a medical facility. So I called them, and they got me in that day, and they did an A, 1c and it was 17, I think Jesus, it was during COVID. Lady, you know how things stick in your brain, the lady, the physicians assistant that was helping me, she's Russian, and she's just one of these flappy people, you know. And she had on one of those masks that look like a duck bill, you know what I'm talking about, that people were

Scott Benner 12:59 I'm still stuck wondering what flappy means. What is it when people are flapping? Just a

Polly 13:04 real excitable person, oh, you know, I gotcha. And she had on this mask. So here I am, you know, knowing that my health is just falling apart. And this Russian lady, you know, is just flapping around the room with this, you know, duck bill mask. And I wanted to laugh, but it was just crazy. So anyway, so she's like, you gotta get to the emergency room. You gotta get to the emergency room. And I was like, okay, okay, I'll do it. Shut up, you know, just calm the hell down. You know, go to the car. My husband's in the car waiting for me because it's COVID and he can't come in. And I did not know he had called his brother, who is a doctor, and he had not been able to get back in touch with his brother. As I get in the car, you know, my head is just spinning. I'm saying this lady is saying I got to go to the ER. And he said, I'd really rather talk to my brother before we go, just to see what we're looking at. And I thought that was reasonable. And then the phone, my phone, rings, and it's the endocrinologist that I had called that morning. It's we had a cancelation. We can see you

Scott Benner 14:18 tomorrow. Did you tell them what had just happened, yeah?

Polly 14:21 Well, it was just the receptionist. And so I told her, because at

Scott Benner 14:25 that point, Polly, you're five years late to go to the ER,

Unknown Speaker 14:28 yeah,

Scott Benner 14:31 like, one more day,

Polly 14:33 one more day. Well, exactly, that's exactly what I was thinking. And I told her, and she said, she's like, you can go to the ER. And she said, then we'll see you. But she's like, you know, she's like, you've gone this far. Why don't you wait till tomorrow? I

Scott Benner 14:47 have to be honest for everyone listening, I don't think that's a reasonable medical response. I

Polly 14:52 know she was just receptionist. So I was talking to my husband, and he's like, I really would rather talk to my brother. We can come. Back into town and go to the ER if he says to go. So he calls us back as soon as we walk in the door. We tell him start to finish. And he said, If this is a reputable endocrinologist, and not just, you know, like a general practitioner kind of thing, he's like, I would just go tomorrow and see what happens. Okay, so we went tomorrow, the next day, and once again, and I'm gonna sound like pooping on physicians assistants, I have not had good experience with physicians assistants. Okay, so the physicians assistant at the at the endocrinologist comes in, oh, I forgot to my brother in law, is a very he's very thorough. What kind of doctor is he neurologist? Okay, he's very thorough, and he's very kind. He's just the tops in his field. So he said, you really ought to go get this thing called a gad test. He said, I doubt you have type one, but at least he said, When, when an A, 1c, is that high that might you might have type one? And he said, that's going to tell you if you do or you don't. So we ran back into town and went to a walk in and we did the GAD test. And what's the other one? Forget it's

Scott Benner 16:32 you did the auto antibodies for the for the GAD and the C peptide,

Polly 16:36 C peptide. So he told us to do those. We did those. And the next morning, we got it, and they they texted, they faxed it to me, and I looked at the, you know, the range, and my range was

Scott Benner 16:51 on the back of the paper, to flip it over to find it. Yeah, I would imagine. I said, look

Polly 16:57 at I told my husband. I was like, Look at this. I'm not even remotely in the range. And he says, Does that mean you have type one? Because we didn't know, sure. And I was like, it looks like it. And he was like, Well, that might explain a lot. So I get to the endocrinologist, and I show him these tests, he would not look at him

Scott Benner 17:21 because he wanted to run him and bill you for them. No, not at all.

Polly 17:25 He wouldn't run them. He goes, if you had type one, you'd be dead. That's what he told me. I swear

Scott Benner 17:30 to God, Polly, I gotta tell you something. I don't know if I've said this in a while, but the whole thing, it's all being held together by good luck and duct tape. Do you understand? No kidding, yeah, that. I don't mean you or your health. I mean everything. We're the worst stewards of logic people. Just how many people like that? One doctor, I'm five years back in this story, that doctor knew what to do, told you to do it. You said, No. And she went, Okay. What she should have said is, Polly, are you a doctor? Shut up and go to the ER, right. But instead she goes, Polly wants to try the rice diet. We'll go with like, Are you kidding me? And also, you're not a person who goes to the doctor, so you're trying not to go to the doctor to begin with, and she should have pushed back on you. Then no. And then your life falls apart. You end up in another place. Go to the emergency room. Then you leave, how about sit here and I'm gonna call an ambulance for you. Do you know what I mean? Or, like, go get your husband, or we'll go get your husband who's out in the car, or something. Like, everybody just like, hopes it's gonna be okay. It's fascinating. And then you get to an endocrinologist who tells you, Oh, if you had type one, you'd be dead, yeah, unless No. And now I'm sorry, this is very frustrating. Go ahead, keep talking. He says that my

Polly 18:49 frustration, you got out of your mind. I knew enough. I mean, I can read, you know, yeah, now so I could read that the ranges were off, and I saw that with my own two eyes. And here he is. I'll give him credit where credit is due. He slapped a Libra two on me and said, This is going to tell you where you are, and we need to bring the numbers down, and that's what we're going to do. So he slapped a CGM on me, gave me ozempic and gave me Jardiance and, oh, and I'd skipped an entire portion of the

Scott Benner 19:35 but Polly, how does he ignore the C peptide and got antibody? I have no idea. Like, has he did everything right if you had type two diabetes, but he's looking at testing that says you have type he won't

Polly 19:46 even look at it. He never looked at it. He would not look at it. I know. I mean, we've considered we are not litigious people, but we have considered Su and him, because it was so i. Malpractice so much. I don't

Scott Benner 20:01 understand anything that happens. It just in general. Like some of you have great doctors, like you just do. But for those who don't run into great doctors, this is the other side of it. Yeah, it's not like a slow gradient from fantastic down to amazing down to either you get a good one or you get this. It seems to be what it is anyway. I'm sorry, yeah, you said you missed something in the story. Wouldn't you

Polly 20:24 miss? Yeah, so I failed to say about a year before the flappy physicians assistant, I went to see a naturopath doctor, and she came very highly recommended. We were back on the Type Two diagnosis, and she had put me on what's the pill? Oh, God,

Scott Benner 20:49 Metformin. I'm in your head. Polly, everything you haven't thought of I've known today. Go ahead. I know. There you are. And

Polly 20:54 so she had put me on Metformin, and I must have had some kind of reaction. You make a lot of poopy It was like nothing I could even imagine. Much less had ever happened before. It was terrible. Okay, so that's when I went back on the rice diet and all that. So, so there was that portion there, and she was like, you've got to get to an endocrinologist. And I was like, No, we're going to do this. Blah, blah, blah. So, so here I am diagnosing myself. So anyway, so I'm with this physician's assistant, and he's throwing all these type two medications on me, and he was just a terrible person. I mean, I can't say anything nice about him. He had no bedside manner. He wouldn't listen. He would yell at me. It was just my husband. The only time he was nice to me was when he had a trainee physician's assistant there, and she was very cute, and so he was flirting with her, and that was the only time he was nice to me in the six months I saw him. Are you so me? No,

Scott Benner 22:05 Pauly, are you telling me that you only get good medical care when the doctor's showing off for a pretty girl in the room? Exactly.

Polly 22:12 It was terrible. I don't know what was going on with the MD that was in that practice, because I tried getting in touch with her, telling her, you know, this is what's going on, and they would never let me talk to her. She dealt with the really big cases. I guess it was, it was, I

Scott Benner 22:29 don't know, I just, I hold on a second. You're exhausting me, not you. But this story is exhausting me. I know. Oh my god.

Polly 22:41 It was, it was, it was an interesting I'm trying

Scott Benner 22:43 to picture me walking into my doctor's appointment going, I hope there's a young, perky girl in the room so that my doctor tries.

Polly 22:51 I'll tell you the cherry on top of the story with this guy after your episode about ever since I thought, oh, that sounds great. I would like to give it a try. So I call ever since, and guess who is the only one who does the implant in my area?

Scott Benner 23:11 Doctor. Feel good. Yeah.

Polly 23:12 And the girl of the and I started just laughing, Catholic. I started cackling. And I was like, No, so we'll have to try something else and shoot. I'm

Scott Benner 23:24 going to tell you something, because when this recording comes out, it should be the truth, but they're going to have a one year. Their sensor is going to go for one year soon. Oh, cool. Ever since put it in once. Here's what I understand. Is coming one insertion a year, and if it all works out, it's only going to require calibration once a week. Well, yeah, it's pretty awesome. I mean, it's a big leap for that device. So just imagine not having to change your device, like 10 days, 14 days, however you're changing yours now, can't get knocked off, can't fall off in a pool. If you want to stop using it for an hour. You don't have to restart over again with a new device like, man, it's just a lot of value there. It's coming. You know what? I mean, it's pretty awesome. Is it a thing? You actually can see

Polly 24:09 excited about it, because right around the time of that episode, you know how you can go a year without having any issues, and then it's like one thing after, I had to call libre or Abbott for six replacements. And the lady on the phone was like, what? Why are you doing six one time? I was like, I have not had time. It's been one thing after. So I got six replacements.

Scott Benner 24:37 I can't call every time your thing blows up, I know. And it was just like,

Polly 24:41 one thing, I hit it once, once, twice. It just didn't work. You know, another one. So really excited to hear about the ever since,

Scott Benner 24:50 yeah, I think a big part of why people might consider switching to it. I mean, once it goes to the year and but again, by the way, that it should be at a year. By the time this episode comes out, it should be that should already be by ever since cgm.com/juicebox, go look, if you want to see what it says. But the idea that you won't have to mess with devices, like, I mean, devices, listen, they're all terrific, and they add to your life, but then they're almost like, buying a pet, you know what? I mean? Like, you're like, Oh, I got a thing. It's so cute. I love looking at it, but I also have to clean out its cage, and I gotta, like, give it water, yeah? Like, so you get a CGM, like, It's amazing all the things it brings to you, but now that's also part of your job. So a lot of people are gonna see the value in going to a doctor once a year. Again, this thing inserted, calibrating it once a week, and not thinking about it other than that, I think. But we'll see what happens. So I don't know, does your story get better? Does anybody realize you have type one diabetes at any point in this story?

Polly 25:48 So I'll, I'll just go, keep going. So

Scott Benner 25:52 she's like, Polly's like, Don't knock me off this course. Yeah. I mean,

Polly 25:56 it eventually gets better. So I'm going to this Yo yo, and I just don't feel good about it. And so I'm a Christian, and I have learned, obviously, that I don't know everything. And so I I prayed about it, and I was like, you just gotta help me through this, Lord, because I'm not getting anywhere. I've felt I learned about Lada, and I just felt confident that I was water. I remember, and at the time, I have a chronic yeast infection in my intestines, so I was going to another doctor for that, and he was looking at the whole thing. He was trying to just figure out why this yeast infection would not get better. Well now we know because it was because my Yeah, he was so, yeah, it was just getting fed constantly with sugar. And so he looked at my dad and and see peptide. And he's like, You don't he says, You sure don't make a lot of insulin. I was like, thank you. I'm trying to tell you know this guy. And he's like, I want to get you on some insulin. He said, I think that's going to help everything. So he put me on Lantis, a real low dose. He was afraid of killing me with Lantis. And again, this is during COVID, so just not a lot of contacts either. Yeah. I mean, everything was on Zoom and getting into other doctors was difficult, and he's like He says, I feel confident that this is going to help you. So I am sitting in front of the grocery store after picking up my Lantis, and my phone rings, and it's the endocrinologist office, and the girl said, I've got some bad news. The PA just left the practice, and you have an appointment next week, and we don't have anybody for you to see. I started cackling like and she, I'm sure she thought I was just the craziest person in the world. And I started cackling. It was like, I believe in prayer. I said I got my answer, because I am not supposed to see him. So she was like, we just don't know what we're going to do. So when we get somebody else, you know, we'll call you and set up an appointment. That was December, and I probably went five months without seeing anybody, which was just fine, I mean, because I wasn't getting good care to begin with, right? I went back to the health department place, and they were like, You need to be seen. And so they did a referral to a big hospital in Reno, which is the next big town, got in there to see the doctor, and he immediately looked at the GAD and the C peptide, and he goes, You're lad. He said, Why are you being treated for type two? And I was like, well, thank you. That's been my question for the last year and a half. Well, it's

Scott Benner 28:46 18 months since you went to that endocrinologist and said, Look at this test. And he said, No, I'm not going to look at it. You'd be dead.

Polly 28:53 Yeah, I don't and so, and it took a doctor, you know, three minutes. Yeah, he kept me on ozempic. He took me off of the Jardiance

Scott Benner 29:03 was the ozempic helping you? Like, did you lose weight? I

Polly 29:06 was losing weight. I would say, overall, it definitely helped. I

Scott Benner 29:11 mean, it must have been helping a little bit with your the resistance as well. I would imagine, like, you're exactly your limited beta cells were probably, you're probably getting more bang for your buck than you would without it

Polly 29:21 exactly. I think that's what it was. He was not convinced that it was helping. And at that time, I didn't need to lose any more weight. I was pretty thin at that time, okay, but he thought it would help with the gut issues, because it was giving me some consistency on on digestion. Okay, so like, right now, I'm not on ozempic, and my digestion is one meal, it might digest in 20 minutes, and another it might be three hours. It's very inconsistent. So that's very frustrating. I

Scott Benner 29:57 don't have diabetes, and I love G. P for how consistent it makes your digestion, it's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, for me, he kept

Polly 30:05 me on that. I saw him in September three years ago. I was pretty good by my a, 1c i think i was like around 6.2 he was pleased. So I was still just doing the low, very low dose of Lantis and those impact. And so I was just kind of rocking along with that. And then Christmas came and went. And between Christmas and New Year's, I could not bring my numbers down. I was constantly at 202 50, I call them, and they sit down. You're over your honeymoon. They put me on a pin, and I started taking that.

Scott Benner 30:50 Here comes the next part. Yeah, wow. What a slow is it? So, I mean, obviously we'll never know, but how interesting would it be to go back to the beginning, go to that emergency room on day one, get that testing, find out you have Lada. And I wonder how well it would have got managed if they knew exactly what it was, and how long it might have strung this out, because you really the reason you're not dead is because your onset was so slow, it was

Polly 31:18 so slow, and my brother in law pontificates that it's because we were on a vegan diet, and so I was very consistent with what I was eating. Were you lower carb? No, it was actually high carb, high carb. It's a it was a very high carb diet, high carb diet. That high

Scott Benner 31:37 carb, high fat thing, low fat, low fat, excuse me, like the mastering diabetes thing, or no, yeah,

Polly 31:44 probably a lot like them. Okay, I'll be honest. I tried. I looked into mastering diabetes for whatever reason, it just didn't click with me. And maybe it was because I was doing this other diet for so long, just the high fruit just really would send me flying. So I just, it just didn't sit well with me, even after the rice diet, but the high fruit of mastering diabetes just didn't make sense to me. Okay, after I got the CGM, I could see, you know, where it would just send me flying, but I know a lot of people do well on it, but it just didn't click with me, with

Scott Benner 32:22 a lot of those different like plans, if you stick to them, they often give you what they they say they're going to and I think where the hiccup is is when people can't stick to them. So yeah, exactly, don't want to, or whatever. How do you find me? So

Polly 32:37 I did what any 21st century person did, did and I got on Facebook, and I looked up lotta there, I found two lotta groups, and one of them was just hardcore low carb, which I just haven't even looked into, that it's just not, it wouldn't fit my life. I'd

Scott Benner 32:58 love to see you jump in there and tell them about your rice diet. I think that'd be awesome. Yeah, they

Polly 33:01 would, their heads would blow up, and then another one, not hardcore, but they definitely leaned towards the low carb. And they would talk about Juicebox, Juicebox Podcast, Juicebox Facebook group. And I'm like, What in the hell is this Juicebox? And I really ignored it, because, I mean no offense. I mean absolutely no offense, because I love the podcast and I love the Facebook group, but it's not, what a stupid name, you know, I'm not going to go look at juice box that must be for kids. And then one day, I was like, Okay, I gotta find out what this juice box, because they were just talking about one of the episodes. I went to the Facebook group and just fell in love with it, because everybody is just so helpful. And

Scott Benner 33:46 the kind place, it is very

Polly 33:49 kind, yeah, very nice people. I kind of left that lot of group behind and went to the Facebook group, and I probably stayed on Facebook group for a good three months before I ever listened to an episode. It was a little bit overwhelming, because there's just so much information. So went to the website, and I saw where you had, you know, different groups of episodes, and that was helpful.

Scott Benner 34:12 I'm glad that's Isabelle. She did that for me. She did a fabulous job. I'm a boy that was very she met me, and she goes, You need to be more organized. And I was like, well, that's not going to happen if you're waiting for me to do it. So yeah, if you'd like to get involved, that'd be wonderful. I get stuck in that spot, like, I don't know what to do. Like, I create, I create content. You know what I mean. So if you make an episode once a week or once a month or something, it's not enough. You don't cover enough details, and you don't cover enough subjects, and if you put it out as fast as it needs to be put out so you can get it all out there, then some people say, Oh my God, I feel overwhelmed. And you're like, I can't win, so I throw it all out there, and I just hope you can find it. And then try to give you some opportunities to find it. Yeah, yeah. It's an imperfect system. Them, but it sounds like you made your way through it about the way we expect, by the way, yeah, get on Facebook. Hear a bunch of people saying, Juicebox Podcast. You're like, What the hell is that? I'll go fine. I'll go look actually, the way I market the podcast is the way I got my wife to marry me. I just put her in a situation. She was like, Oh my God, if you're gonna keep asking that, okay, you know, you hear Juicebox, juice box. You head over, you find the Facebook group. And then it's unavoidable. If you're in that group at any interval, you are gonna see three people a day say this podcast really saved me. And then I guess it's gotta draw you in at some point, right? You know? But, yeah,

Polly 35:36 I mean, it was, I am not a it's just the truth. I'm not a deep thinker. I'm more of a my husband. I believe that to my husband and my children, they all have that engineering brain type thing going on, and I'm the one who just kind of fills in the gaps. So I was listening to podcast, and it was making so much sense to me, my husband and I got in the car, and I was like, You gotta listen to this and tell me if you know I'm understanding this correctly, if you understand it

Scott Benner 36:10 the same way I'm hearing what I'm hearing, right? Yeah, yeah. And

Polly 36:13 so we did, and he probably like, three or four of the bold beginnings that day we were in the car, and he was like, Yeah, that makes perfect sense. He was like, I would have never thought of it, but it makes sense. So it really changed, not drastically, but it changed and kind of put us on a path of management that I think has been very helpful. I'm glad that's excellent, that the digestion thing is, you know, the monkey wrench and everything dealing with that is not easy. I can't Pre Bolus, like other people can. I'm constantly playing catch up because I just don't know when the food is going to hit. So one would say, Well, you know, you know that such and such is going to hit you quickly, and that's not true. There's just no are

Scott Benner 37:02 you on the GLP right now? No, I'm not. Is there a reason why my

Polly 37:06 husband was having some endocrine issues? So we went to he went to an endocrinologist in another one. He got recommended to another one, and we just really liked him. So I started going to him as well. And the endocrinologist is great, but his PA is not. The PA took me off of the ozempic and made wouldn't increase my basal. Just really made a lot of bad choices.

Scott Benner 37:35 I mean, if you take somebody off a GLP, they're going to need more insulin, very likely. Oh yeah,

Polly 37:40 yeah. So now that I'm off of it, the insurance won't pay for it. My doctor did a conference call with the insurance company. They still won't do it. So we're gonna try again in six months, so we'll see that getting

Scott Benner 37:53 off it is horrible, because, like, once you've got the okay, you don't want to make them look over at you again. You know what I mean? Exactly? Yeah? Now, yeah, I've learned that you got it when you had a type two diagnosis, exactly, right? So now they're gonna have to go back and give you a dual diagnosis of type one and insulin resistance, and they're gonna have to call that type two, and then the insurance company's gonna have to accept that there's a dual diagnosis, which is starting to happen, but you're not for sure that it's going to happen, and you're going to need somebody really thoughtful to have those conversations with them and there and that that doctor is going to have to be invested in following through, or you're not going to get anywhere.

Polly 38:33 And he's not right now, right? Because he's not 100% sure that that's the direction we need to go. Have

Scott Benner 38:40 you explained the value behind the digestion and what it was doing for you? Yes,

Polly 38:44 and no, I don't think it has clicked with him. He's just grateful the yeast infection has gotten compared to where I was even six months ago. It is night and day,

Scott Benner 38:58 yeah, but that's apples and oranges, those two things, don't I mean, I see why he thought they were connected originally, but they're not. We've talked

Polly 39:04 about it, and he's just not. There's so much going on, you know, I've got the Hashimotos and the yeast infection and, oh, you

Scott Benner 39:14 have Hashimotos. Where's your TSH, I don't remember.

Polly 39:16 I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. The last time I had it done, he apparently was very good, because he messaged me saying, This is amazing. We're making progress. And so it was good. Keep pushing till you get it under two, if you can, now that you mentioned a number, I think it was four, yeah, keep

Scott Benner 39:34 pushing it under two. You'll you'll see a reduction in symptoms. I would imagine, if you can get it under two what symptoms of Hashimotos Do you currently have? Well,

Polly 39:45 lately I really have, other than being tired, and you know, the typical stuff, lately, I've been having my throat kind of close up, which is not happy. Hmm, making me happy. That's a new thing. Like, within the last five or six weeks, what's your dose? You know, is it point eight? Eight? No, I want to say point two, five. It's pretty low. Yeah, it

Scott Benner 40:12 should probably be. I mean, this is a good time for me to say probably. I'm not a doctor, and I barely got through high school, but I would think that given like I saw you for a split second when we first started talking. And I don't know your weight or I'm not guessing it, but I don't see how point two five, if point two five is keeping you in the fours, that seems like a low amount. I would think you could handle more

Polly 40:34 from hearing other people talk on the podcast and on the Facebook group. I thought it was low.

Scott Benner 40:40 Yeah, there's a lot of things they could do. They could even just giving you one extra pill, like a month. Sometimes you'd be surprised how good doctors like work through it, but just push for under two, and that'll help. But that's and it could help your digestion a little. I mean, digestion is, I mean, your thyroid does help with digestion, yeah, but it's not crazy to think that you could get some benefit from that. And if, if he wants to go the route of no GLP, I want to handle it through getting your TSH, right, well, then that's fine, but then adjust my TSH, yeah, yeah. And don't take me off a GLP, and then don't adjust my insulin. That's insane. We

Polly 41:19 are, you know, obviously watching the insulin, but I mostly take a Fresa so I can get on it quickly when it does start going up, because since I can't Pre Bolus, oh, that's cool, and I can't do a pump, so it's been very, very helpful up until my last A, 1c which was about six weeks ago. I was 5.40 wonderful, yeah. So between the Fresa and I am a big fan of the sugar pixel on my desk. I know where I stand. And so I can, you know, I can jump on it pretty quickly when the food does start digesting. Yeah. So that's been really nice. And so Mr. My new pa that took me off the ozempic. He left the practice. So once again, I've gotten rid of another PA. You'll like this. Another pa story. So I am prone to UTIs, and I knew I had a UTI, and nobody would do the flipping test, you know, to tell me I had one. One day I knew I just had this raging UTI, and I was at 280 and it took 22 units to bring me down to 150 and I have never taken that much insulin in my life. That's the infection, right? Exactly, yeah. So coincidentally, the hospital called to do an appointment for a test. I was so upset over this high blood sugar that would not move and all this insulin I was taking, I was sure I was killing myself, you know. So this poor girl in the Scheduling Office, Dr so and so could care less if I was laying flat on the floor, and I told her what was going on. She was like, well, that's just not right. And I was like, Well, I can tell you, it's not right, but that's where my life is right now. And she was like, well, we're going to fix that. And I mean, God bless her, I would say, 20 minutes later, I get a call from from the doctor, the MD, and he said, what's going on? And I told him, he's like, he's like, Well, there's a lot going on there. He was like, You should be on more than eight units of basal. He was like, that's just not doing any good. And so he said, We gotta fix this basal. And he said, We gotta fix this UTI. And I was like, Well, yeah, you know, thank you. I would say that was kind of a turning point that was about, that was probably about four months ago, and so we got the basal worked out, and we got the UTI worked out. So I've been flying high since you're getting better,

Scott Benner 44:11 yeah. I mean, it's moving on. It's just so slow for you. Like, it shouldn't take this long to get these things straight. It's just, I mean, do you have a feeling after having been through all this. Like, are there? I know you said you're not the you're not the engineering thinker in your family, but what could have happened to you? I don't usually ask him fistic questions like this, but along the way, I mean, you must have been thinking about this forever. Like, along the way, what would have helped you? Like, What would people need to have done in certain situations that would have been really valuable for you. The gut

Polly 44:43 issues, like I said, just throw a monkey wrench into everything, because, number one, it just makes, makes me feel so bad, and then add public sugars and all that to it. I really don't know, honestly, because you. We are trained to trust doctors, to trust the medical establishment. I've just gotten such bad advice. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:08 so where have they let you down? Like, looking back now? Like, are there moments where you're like, I was told this and I or have we gone over all of them? Or I'm just trying to figure out if, like, if I'm a doctor, I'm listening to this like, you know, it's gonna be easy to hear this and go, Oh, this is the problem. You know, we're all fractured. There's one doctor does this and one does that, and you've gotta get references and referrals and insurance, and not everybody knows what's happening. And, like, I get all the arguments. But what fixes that for you? Yeah,

Polly 45:35 I don't know. I guess just, you know, I gotta go back to my brother in law, him thinking out about out of the box, you know, what neurologist thinks about, you know, type one. He that's not it shouldn't

Scott Benner 45:50 be out of the box. Thinking it's an out of the box thinking for a neurologist, but not for an end, and not for an endo. Your endo was, like, literally, 100% wrong when you face them.

Polly 46:01 I really can't say, you know, I mean, I guess just, it's shocking, the number of people on, you know, your podcast that are misdiagnosed, it's the norm. It's

Scott Benner 46:13 funny because, can I say, Polly, that people like I'll hear from doctors like you have a lot of episodes where people are being negative about their doctors, and I want to say to them, like, do you think this was my goal? Like, do you think I started up a podcast, and I thought to myself, like, I'll have a lot of conversations about how doctors let people down. I never thought that mine, you know, oddly enough, my doctors were, you know, for Arden, were okay. Like, they weren't great, but I was masking so much of it, I didn't know if they were good or bad to begin with. Like, I wouldn't have known. But if you would have come from my personal experience, I would have been like, oh, the doctors are fine. It's not till they start talking to all like, these two are the people who are reaching out, you know what I mean? Like, and other people who have good doctors hear these episodes, and sometimes they reach out. But if you're listening to this, you're like, Wow, this podcast has a lot of conversations about how doctors are, you know, not doing a good job. Like, this podcast is a problem. Like, I'm not the problem. I'm just, people are just coming on and telling us I didn't know what the hell Polly was gonna say before she got here today. Like, seriously, you know, like, do a better job. Like, I don't know what you want from me as a whole. Like, you know, as a profession,

Polly 47:19 the only thing I can think of, there's just such a prevalence of type two that that's just top of mind. I used to, I think you were too. I was in advertising for a while, you know, and you talk about top of mind awareness, and I think that just type two is what everybody's thinking about type one is, and definitely Lada is, you know, just So way back in everyone's mind that it just falls by the wayside. That shouldn't be the case. Yeah, you know, bodies break down. So, you know, type one is gonna, I mean,

Scott Benner 47:59 it's not like there's a million possibilities for what was wrong with you. You had type one or type two. Like, it's not like they had two choices. There were two choices. Like, why don't we go crazy and pay attention to both of them? I don't know. Like, it just it seems so ridiculous that they can't and listen. I've also had conversations with doctors that, at the end of them, they sway me. And I'm like, All right, well, I see how this happens. And, you know, like, I could probably talk to your doctors and they might say stuff, like, I don't know, Polly's non committal. She's, you know, like, said something and she went with me, or, like, whatever. Like, she didn't fight me, so I thought she didn't, I don't know what they would say, you know, but I'm frustrated by this conversation over and over again. And I think it's possible people think I'm frustrated about diabetes. I'm frustrated about people. Like, that's that's my concern. Like, you think this is about diabetes. It's not. This is about everything. And then, you know, the the example people use all the time, like, you know, 15 years ago, people used to love to say, like, these computers are ruined everything. I went to a cash register and my cashier didn't know what my change was, and people would use that as an example of like society not being able to make decisions about stuff or understanding things well enough to even do their own jobs. But I do think that as automated as everything is getting, it's good. I do think it's good, but at the same time, we're not absolutely, yeah, we're not there yet, and we still need people to think. And I think a lot of people have given up on the thinking part. They're like, Oh, the process takes care of it, or someone in another department does that. I had a conversation this morning. It's nothing to get like, it's not a big that was talking to an advertiser, and they were like, oh, yeah, we got to get that set up. I have to move that to this person. And I'm like, you don't know how to do that part. Like, wow. Like, this is segmented. You know what I mean? Like the guy you hear about siloing, you know what I mean, that's a professional term that, right? But they say that the reason these organizations are so like, organizations. In general are so inept is because everyone's siloed, meaning that they're stuck in this one knowledge spot within the company. They know how to do one thing, and if you ask them to think about the silo next to them, not only can they not think about it, they don't even know what's in that silo. They just like they just know that when I hear that word, bill gets the email, that's it. Nobody understands anything. And now, okay, if it's in advertising, but when it's a physician like Jesus, that's frightening. I was watching something I don't remember what the hell it was, and the host was talking, this is not a show that usually talks about medicine. And the host started talking about, if you think your doctor knows best, you better be careful, check for yourself and and then he used the word, and then he goes, you can have to be your own best advocate. And I was like, Oh, now the wait that got outside of conversations around, like, health stuff, like, now other people are aware of this, so it's into the mainstream. Now, like, you think I'm like, You think I'm talking about wait till the mainstream who doesn't have any compassion for how hard it is to be a doctor or how difficult it is to figure things out, like wait till they get a hold of the fact that people are going to you and getting misdiagnosed for five years, then you're really gonna, you're gonna think you're gonna run back to me and say, Oh, Scott was nice. So I don't know, Polly, the whole thing just, I've been frustrated by it for years, you know, so it's hard for me to talk about without getting upset sometimes. Yeah, anyway, I'm sorry. Was there anything else you want to talk

Polly 51:32 about? I just think it's more manageable now, and I hate it, you know? I was just, I was just telling my husband we were we went to some kind of meeting a couple weeks ago, and they were serving these fruit nectar juices, and they're really tasty. And, you know, I used to drink them when I was a kid. And I said, you know, I can't even think about drinking something like that, because it would just send me sky high. And I said, you know, I have to think about that. I can't just have a juice, you know, yeah, like a normal person,

Scott Benner 52:08 you're not looking to drink a gallon of juice a day, but like you're at a thing, and there's a cup of something there and you feel reminiscent about it, you'd like to be able to take a couple of sips.

Polly 52:16 Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I said, I have to think about, you know, juice. You know, who thinks about juice? And I've never been a juice drinker, but, you know, if I wanted it, I would like to be able to drink it, but I can't. And so that that kind of stuff is frustrating. Listen,

Scott Benner 52:34 my only my daughter has diabetes, and we were away somewhere and someone had lemonade. I love lemonade, right? But this was, like, full on sugar made from lemons, lemonade. And I got a glass of it, and I got about halfway through it, and I thought, oh, I should

Polly 52:49 stop drinking this. Yeah, my husband's the same way, yeah. So I just put it down. He loves, like, that lemonade slushy stuff, and he'll drink, you know, maybe two sips of it, and he's like, my eyes are fuzzy because of the sugar. You know,

Scott Benner 53:04 we all live like, well, not everybody, but like, I limit sugar pretty significantly for me. And yeah, you have a little bit. And you're like, you're like, oh my god, is this what cocaine is like? Meanwhile, people who have done cocaine are like, no,

Polly 53:19 but we're all cheap drunks. But yeah, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 53:23 I would be a very, very cheap date, for sure. I'd be like, I'd have a half a beer and I'd be buzzing around. So, yeah, anyway, but I take your point, like, it's just it sucks. It's not something you want to be doing. Just because you're doing well at it doesn't mean it's fun, that's for sure. Yeah,

Polly 53:38 you know, when you add all of it, the Hashimotos and the diabetes and the gut thing, and I know you're a big advocate for glps right now, and I do see now that I'm off of it, I can see that there's a lot less consistency because that which is interesting. You know, I don't know enough about it. You've probably studied it a lot more than I have, but it just seems to be a lot less consistent right now than

Scott Benner 54:07 study is a strong word, Polly, but I am trying to pay attention to it, because I really believe, after what I've saw with Arden, I'm like, Man, this is really something like, there's a lot here to be learned. You know, Arden was at at the lowest dose of Manjaro, two and a quarter. What is the lowest dose of Manjaro? Hold on a second. I should probably also learn how to pronounce it at some point. But I honestly don't care Manjaro, but 2.5 milligrams, right? Is the start. Is the starting lowest dose. That's all. Arden was using 2.5 a week. But she got to the point where she was, we were like, uh, you look too thin. So how do you balance all the value you're getting, insulin use, insulin sensitivity, you know, her acne cleared up, like, all this stuff, like, right? Like, there's a lot going on here that is clear about it to me, is clear it's impacting insulin resistance. And, you know, probably a 10. 20% reduction in her insulin use. But she's like, that. I'm like, I'm never hungry, and so she's making herself eat. And you know, she's like, I, you know, I'd like to be hungry once in a while. I'm like, yeah, right on. Like, I'm not looking for you to, like, lose she lost some weight, which was fine, but then she lost some more, and we were like, oh. And she got to the point where we were like, you gotta put like, seven pounds on here. And so we got the weight back on her, which wasn't hard, but we did it by taking her just off the mantra no for a week or two or for a month, and she put the weight back on and but Jesus, like her insulin needs went crazy again. And I was like, All right, so now we're dosing it. By the way, sometimes I say stuff on here. I'm like, I don't know if I don't know if I should be saying this or not, but I'm not a doctor. This isn't advice. You shouldn't be doing this, etc and so on. Use drugs the way they're meant to be used. We're injecting the pen into a new, clean vial and then drawing it out with an insulin needle. And we started by giving her half of it. So if she was 2.5 it's what, 1.25 and that wasn't enough and that, but that was basically about 15 units in an insulin pen. So this week, I texted her and I said, hey, when you inject the Manjaro this week, do 18 units like we're gonna move up slowly, and because we're trying to find the balance between impact on her insulin stability, for her digestion and for her blood sugars, and still being able to eat. And I we're very hopeful we're going to find it. I see the difference this week, and I think next week we'll move up a little more and then find that balance between being able to eat and getting the good impacts for the rest of the stuff. So my expectation is, once it gets wider used by type ones, they're going to have to put it into a vial and then let you talk to your doctor about dosing, instead of just saying, like, here's the because these are all set up for here's your starter dose, here's your move up, your move up, your move up. And we got to get you up to this big dose in order for it to really work for you, if you're really trying to lose a lot of weight and everything, but what if you're not trying to lose a lot of weight? There's still a ton of like value here. Anyway, I just went on for a while, but that's what I think about it at

Polly 57:11 the moment. It didn't affect my appetite. It didn't completely take my appetite away, but at four o'clock, it was as if a switch was turned on turned off, and the thought of food was the last thing on my mind. And so from like four to like 10 o'clock the next morning, I would not want to eat. It was the craziest thing. Oh,

Scott Benner 57:38 it hit you times a day. That's interesting. Yeah, it was crazy. Today is my injection day, and I don't have the I have to go to the pharmacy today to pick it up, right? And I woke up this morning and I was standing in here, like, like, planning my day out. And I was like, Man, am I hungry. Like, I haven't felt hungry like this. And I was like, oh, in about a week, it's really crazy how it hits different people different ways the injection

Polly 58:02 day. Yes, I would be hungry on the injection day. Yeah, it was. It was crazy, well, but which makes sense?

Scott Benner 58:11 Yeah, I know more and more people, they're calling it micro dosing, but they're they're basically finding their own dose of it, and it's gonna get popular, like people are gonna have success with it, and start talking about it, and then it's gonna, it's gonna make its way out. I know some people are shooting tiny bits of it every day. Some people are doing what we're doing with Arden, which is once a week, but less, like, you know, it's gonna find its footing. And then, you know, I tried

Polly 58:34 the the smaller amounts, like two or three times a week, and it didn't make a huge difference, not enough of an impact. Yeah, it wasn't worth the

Scott Benner 58:44 effort. Well, for Arden, Arden's like, I'm not injecting every day, just so, you know. And I was like, okay, like, she's like, that's just not happening. So I was like, gotcha. So that's why we're, we're trying to find a balance here. And I don't, I don't know, like, I've just, all I can tell you is it's not for everybody. Or some people are gonna have like side effects that they're just gonna be like, this isn't worth it to me, or they just can't do it. But you're gonna hear about more and more people who are finding value with it too. So we'll see what happens. What else? Anything else are we good? I think that's enough. Done it. Yeah, Polly, I love that attitude. I think that's enough. I like how earlier you said I'm Christian, so I know I don't know everything. And I thought, I'm not Christian. I don't I know too. How did she find out? Can I ask one question, though, before we go, sure if your family's brains work in like an engineering way, how do you describe how yours works all

Polly 59:41 over the place, just, I see everything, not but not details. I'm not a detail person. Big picture.

Scott Benner 59:51 You see big picture. Stuff, really big picture. Yeah, you know how things impacted something else, but you don't like you see that it impacts it. You know for sure. Or it does, but you're not sure the mechanism. It just does, yeah, yeah, artistic, are you artistic? I'm not particularly,

Polly 1:00:08 I've been told I have artistic brain, but I'm not an artistic person, like I like to cook and make things. Make, yeah, not really, but I mean cooking is probably, cooking is probably my thing. Cooking is probably my outlet. You know,

Scott Benner 1:00:24 Paul, you have no you have no ego. When you're talking about yourself. It's very nice.

Polly 1:00:30 Well, I don't, it doesn't do any good. You're just like,

Scott Benner 1:00:33 I don't know anything about that. Some people would be like, Oh no, I've, you know what? No, not really. It's excellent. Now, how many kids do you have? Two? Do they have any auto immune issues? I

Polly 1:00:46 think my daughter does. We had her thyroid tested because she was just sick right after she started college. Two years ago, she was just exhausted, and so that was my first thought. But it came back No. I mean, not even close to problem my son. We did the type one test for him, and he came back clear.

Scott Benner 1:01:10 Okay. Does your daughter have any of your digestion issues? No, no, okay.

Polly 1:01:15 My endocrinologist is pretty convinced this was an acquired thing that, and then the high blood sugars fed it that, somehow I got this yeast infection, and then the sugar just fed it for so long, I meant

Scott Benner 1:01:32 more about the speed of your digestion, because, is that possible? She's not picking up nutrients. Maybe

Polly 1:01:38 we had that thought, but she's, I think she had just run herself down. Both my kids were home schooled, and we did a dual enrollment program at a community college, and so she was pretty young, and she was taking college classes, and she got involved in student government and all of that. I think she was just running herself, ragging the

Scott Benner 1:02:00 candle at both ends. Yeah,

Polly 1:02:01 yep, absolutely, gotcha. So she's doing much better as far as energy and all that. So I don't think it's that. My gut tells me it's not a health issue. So our daughters are the same age. Then Arden's 20. Mine just turned 1818, oh, oh,

Scott Benner 1:02:19 but she's in college two years. Yep, she started when she was 15, and I think that I didn't account for Okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Okay. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this and adding your voice to the podcast. It's been fantastic getting to know you. I really do appreciate your time. Thank you. Oh,

Polly 1:02:38 thank you. Thanks for all you do. Oh, that's nice.

Scott Benner 1:02:41 You're welcome. Would this go the way you expected?

Polly 1:02:45 Yeah, good. Pretty much. You're You're good at what you do. Thank

Scott Benner 1:02:49 you. Yeah, you are. I know I am. I just, I tried to sound humble. It didn't work. I'm just teasing now. I'm just being funny. And I know people like he's not being funny, he I know I'm pretty good at this, but I've gotten a lot better at it over time, which makes me think there's another ceiling that I'm just not aware of. So I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep going and getting better at it. So we'll see doing my best here. So I appreciate you very much. Hold on one second for me. Okay, a huge thanks to Omnipod, not just my longest sponsor, but my first one. Omnipod.com/juicebox if you love the podcast and you love tubeless insulin pumps, this link is for you. Omnipod.com/juice, box. Dexcom sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link. Dexcom.com/juice, box. Earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's real. Thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So, if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like. Blue circle health is currently available in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. If you live in one of those states, go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in four. Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking bluecircle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcast and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, you.

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