#1444 Floppy Duck

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Misdiagnosed for over six years, Polly fought disbelief from doctors despite clear T1D antibodies. Her journey from a misguided rice diet to a staggering A1C of 17 tells a story of resilience, frustration, and finally, clarity.

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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 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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#1443 Tattletale Nurse

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.

A vivid dream, two T1D diagnoses, bad doctors, and a school nurse who crossed the line—ShaNeil’s story is unbelievable.

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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 Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Chanel 00:14 My name is Chanel. Two of our kids were diagnosed with type one in 2022 our daughter, Cate, was diagnosed first when she was four and a half, and she is seven. Now, our son was diagnosed 85 days later, just two days after his seventh birthday.

Scott Benner 00:33 Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. 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. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the one year where CGM, that's one insertion a year. That's it. And here's a little bonus for you. How about there's no limit on how many friends and family you can share your data with with the ever since now app no limits. Ever since friends touched by type one's walk is coming up quickly on March 8. That's a Saturday at Lake Eola Park in Orlando, Florida. Go now to touched by type one to sign up and register. It's completely free. You're gonna have a wonderful time touched by type one.org Go to the Programs tab, click on Steps to a cure.

Chanel 02:15 Hi. My name is Chanel. I have been married for 15 years. My husband and I have five kids. Two of our kids were diagnosed with type one in 2022 our daughter, Cate, was diagnosed first when she was four and a half, and she is seven. Now, our son was diagnosed 85 days later, just just two days after his seventh

Scott Benner 02:42 birthday. How old are your kids? Top to bottom,

Chanel 02:45 my oldest is 11, so I have 11, 975, and three. Wow. Will

Scott Benner 02:53 there be more?

Chanel 02:54 I don't think so. No more planned. Don't think so. How old are you? I am 36

Scott Benner 02:59 so listen, you're 36 you've got five kids, two of them have type one diabetes. In earlier, you asked me if we talk about locations, like, I should stay vague, right? Like, I could say I live just in Utah. So Mormon, you're Mormon, yes. I mean, if you weren't, I'd be like, Wow, what a coincidence.

Chanel 03:18 No, I am. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. Thank

Scott Benner 03:23 you. And I, and I never remember how to say it exactly right, which is why I say Mormon, because I'm not sure. And we haven't had an opportunity to say this recently on the podcast, and that my friends are in Utah are letting me down. But I am huge. This podcast is huge in the church, is it not?

Chanel 03:38 I have heard you say that it is lovely. Okay,

Scott Benner 03:42 I would like to be bigger in a couple of other churches too, maybe one day to get outside of Utah, would be nice. Okay, so, do you have any autoimmune in your family besides your children? Yes,

Chanel 03:54 my father in law has Crohn's disease. My mom has crest syndrome. Okay, so that one's pretty rare. I think I've only heard it mentioned on here once or twice, but she has that. And then my sister has Graves disease. Graves. Anything for you? Nothing for me. I take a thyroid pill, but there's nothing like diagnosed or anything.

Scott Benner 04:23 Well, you but you have hypothyroidism, I do, but you haven't gotten tested to see if it's Hashimotos. Yeah,

Chanel 04:29 they've never told me that. They've never told me it is, it just

Scott Benner 04:34 snow. You want to go out on a limb and say it probably is, because I'm willing to do that. It's possible. Yeah. What is it? The thing your mom has this here,

Chanel 04:42 crest crest syndrome.

Scott Benner 04:46 I So you're saying you've heard about that on here.

Chanel 04:50 I've heard about it. I know once for sure, like scler Derma

Scott Benner 04:56 press syndrome is a sub type of scar DOMA, a chronic auto. Immune disease that causes hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissue. People have talked about this on here. Okay, crest stands for the five primary features of the condition calcinosis, Raynaud's phenomenon, esophageal dysmo, motility. Oh, that sounds not good. What is sclerodactyly?

Chanel 05:20 I'm not sure that that woman has come up with my mom, yet tight, thick

Scott Benner 05:24 in skin on the fingers and toes and, oh, my god, telecy, what the hell

Chanel 05:30 that's why we just call it crest because, yeah, no

Scott Benner 05:34 small red spots on the skin caused by widening blood vessels. How about that? Yeah, and it's considered a milder form of systematic sclerosis. How about that? Okay, I was gonna say, Cool. I don't know why. Sorry. I apologize. I was almost like, I think I just meant, let's move on. Okay, so there's auto immune happening.

Chanel 05:53 There's one other thing. When we were about a year into my kids being diagnosed, we found out that my husband's uncle is type one. Nobody really knew that to tell us when we were trying to figure out with our kids what was going on. There's him. And then my husband's grandma had a brother who died in his early 20s, and they think that he was probably type one as well. Oh, there's a fair amount then. So there's, there's lots of stuff going on, yeah, and on both sides too. So, Mm, hmm, gotcha things that we never knew until, yeah, until all this hit

Scott Benner 06:32 and so, and your daughter was first. You said she was four, yes. How did it present?

Chanel 06:38 I kind of feel like a crazy person when I tell the story, but I did not know anything about diabetes, like nothing. My dad's type two, but yes, I didn't even know there were different types. I didn't know anything. Yeah. So one night, everything was normal. I went to bed. My baby was six months old at the time, and I had a dream, and in my dream, Kate, that's my daughter. Kate, had diabetes, and I wasn't doing anything about it. In my dream, I just knew that she had it, and then it was just a list of symptoms, I guess, a list of words going through my head all night, really,

Scott Benner 07:22 that's insane. I had a dream a few minutes ago that I had to pee, and when I woke up I actually had to pee, but that that's not the same that's not the same thing. Wait, so you're having a dream that's telling you your kid has diabetes. 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 a 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, one year, one CGM,

Chanel 08:43 yes, this is why I feel like a crazy person when I tell the story. But it was just the things going through my head, constant, snacking, fatigue, thirsty, frequent urination, blurry vision, like just over and over these things. And so my baby woke up in the night and I went to feed him, and I was like, Well, this is the weirdest dream I've ever had. I don't know what's happening. So while I'm feeding my baby, I'm just Googling some things, and I'm like, type one, type one diabetes. I don't even know what that is, but that's interesting, because in my dream, Kate had diabetes,

Scott Benner 09:23 and so you're freaking me out. You know, hold on a second. No, I know. I know, prior to falling asleep that night, were you noticing that she was sick? Did you see symptoms anything like that? No,

Chanel 09:35 no. And so looking back, she was thirsty, but she had just gotten a new water bottle for Christmas that she was really excited about. So

Scott Benner 09:46 yeah, I hear you. I'm just trying to decide, like, Were you on the scent of this subconsciously, and then you went to sleep, and things you know, and that you didn't even know you knew, kind of popped into your consciousness or but you don't think that. What happened? I

Chanel 10:00 don't think so. It was just a regular day, regular everything was fine. I woke up to feed my baby, googled the things, saw the diabetes stuff, and then went back to bed, and the dream started again, just the same thing, replaying through my head all night, and

Scott Benner 10:19 you couldn't stop it, even when you were saying to yourself, lottery numbers, lottery numbers, go back to nothing like that.

Chanel 10:26 I wish that worked. It just kept going, and I didn't it was it was just really weird. No

Scott Benner 10:33 kidding. Okay, so you wake up, you think you're crazy, or you look into it. I

Chanel 10:38 didn't think too much of it, but I kind of couldn't just shake the filling. I told my husband while he's getting ready to work, like I had the weirdest dream. This is what happened. This is what it was. And he's like, Well, good thing. That was just a dream. And then he went off to work, and I was here with the kids. Took my two oldest people to school, and then we went to Walmart, and I was printing pictures of the baby for Grandma, you know, and I'm sitting there at the computer in Walmart waiting for the pictures to print, and I turn and I look over, and Kate was just sitting in the big part of the cart, and kind of had her arm up on the edge, and kind of leaning her head on the arm, she looked really pale. And I asked if she was okay, okay? And she said, not really. I'm hungry and I'm really thirsty and I need to potty. And then she took her classes off, and she said, Are these dirty? Because everything looks blurry. Wow.

Scott Benner 11:40 And you were like, This is just like, the drink. Did you think?

Chanel 11:44 Yeah, I just like, Oh crap. And I just stared at her for a minute,

Scott Benner 11:49 and then you said, Honey, what are the lottery numbers? Go slow. Go slow. Five. Then what?

Chanel 11:54 Yeah, right. And so I was like, Well, okay, let's go to the bathroom and get a drink, and I got this fruit snack in my purse. I can give you that, I guess. I mean, I didn't, yeah, I didn't know anything. And so I'm trying to take care of all these things that she said she needed, and while she's in the bathroom, I'm really lucky. I have a pediatrician who will text me. I just sent him a quick text. I didn't tell him I was a crazy mom who had a dream.

Scott Benner 12:25 I bet you left that out. These are some

Chanel 12:27 things I've noticed. He texted right? And I said, Can this wait for her well child check, or is this something I need to make an appointment for? And he texted back and said, Can you be here in 15 minutes? And then he's like, Oh yeah,

Scott Benner 12:43 if any halfway decent doctor would have heard, you know, frequent urination, the blurry vision really pushes it over the edge too, I think,

Chanel 12:52 yeah, and I don't know if her glasses were just dirty. I mean, she was four, they were always dirty. But just that, she said that,

Scott Benner 13:01 well, in the dream where her glass is dirty or would she it was just words. It's just words

Chanel 13:06 going through my head

Scott Benner 13:08 being serious. Have you had any other meaningful dreams that have resonated in real life? I

Chanel 13:16 have had some cool things happen before, but nothing that was quite like this. All right, we're

Scott Benner 13:23 gonna, I'm gonna ask you about that at the end of the episode. I want to hear what else has happened in your dreams. Okay, I mean, does this put you in a bit of a panic? Can you be here in 15 minutes? Yeah,

Chanel 13:32 totally. And so I was like, Okay, I I'm coming. So pack up these three little kids. Drive straight to the doctor. We go in, and he's like, this looks like diabetes. He said, We're gonna test her urine, I'm gonna do a finger poke, and I'm gonna send you over for a blood draw. And I was like,

Scott Benner 13:54 what? Yeah, How old's your baby at that point? Six months oh, she have a six month old. You have your daughter, and there's another one with you, right? Only two kids,

Chanel 14:02 yeah, there's there's one in between there, right? So four year old, two year old baby, and so I kind of was just sitting there, and everything was just surreal, I guess, like slow motion. Did this? That did the urine test. There was sugar, showed sugar in it. Her finger poke was only 256 but, like, I didn't even know what that meant when he told me what her number was, and so he was like, well, you're gonna go over across the parking lot, get this blood draw and then plan on going down to the Children's Hospital. Wow,

Scott Benner 14:38 hey, did you call your husband and go? I told you that our

Chanel 14:45 size like, she has been using the bathroom a lot, but like, maybe she has some sort of infection, like she hadn't been potty trained for that long, and so I was kind of, maybe I'll take her to the doctor and we'll find out she's got, like. Of what UTI or something, I'm not sure. And so I was kind of texting him, and he's like, well, hopefully that's not what it is. Just go get the blood draw. Let's see. And so I was like, Okay. And at that point, I was I told my doctor. I was like, This is too crazy. Like, this doesn't happen. And I at that point, I told him about my dream, did you really? I did. And I was like, I dreamt about this last night, and these were the symptoms, and this is what happened. And he was just kind of staring at me, like, what?

Scott Benner 15:34 And at the end of the dream, you said you felt so bad for me that this visit was going to be free. They just stare until he talks again,

Chanel 15:45 and he was like, you know, this is why I always trust a mom's gut. If a mom has a gut feeling that something's off with one of her kids, it doesn't hurt me at all to run the test so I can run the test, even if it's just to make the mom feel better. So if a mom thinks something's up, something usually is and and I was like, Well, okay, so I just felt kind of weird. I dragged these three kids across the parking lot to go to this other building where we were supposed to get the blood draw he had sent me with the paperwork to the paper to show them what they needed to do. And the lady over there was so mean. She like, I don't even know I'm I'm there with these three little kids. I'm kind of in shock, and don't really know what's happening. Um, it was just supposed to be a quick trip to Walmart, you know. And this lady grabs the paper, looks at it, and then she's just so irritated and angry, and she's like, there is no reason they should be having me do this to a child. And so at that point, Kate's scared. She doesn't know what's happening either. The Lady grabs her arm. Isn't gentle with her at all. Kate starts crying, and the lady just yells at the four year old, like, you need to hold still and shut up and let me do this. And what was she

Scott Benner 17:14 doing? She's doing a blood draw.

Chanel 17:15 Yeah, she's doing a blood draw. And I was just,

Scott Benner 17:21 that's bizarre, that's weirder than your dream. I was

Chanel 17:25 like, can you just give us a minute? She's scared. I'm scared. We don't know what's happening. Yeah, you're

Scott Benner 17:30 kind of a bitch. So like, let's maybe you're polite. You're like, give us a minute. What you mean is, maybe you should take a minute, like, and get away from everything for a second. Did you let her do it? Or did you ask for someone else?

Chanel 17:43 And she was like, Well, I have to get this done, and it's not gonna work if she can't hold still. And she had someone come in, and Kate was sitting on my lap, and this lady just grabbed her arm, pulled it straight, and just jabbed a needle in there and got the blood draw, and I was so angry, like, if that would have happened now, I would have handled it differently, but I was in shock and I was scared and I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, my whole world was being flipped upside down.

Scott Benner 18:15 Are you different now, or do you just, do you mean just now, like when you weren't in that

Chanel 18:20 situation? No, I would have been more vocal about it now, yeah, because

Scott Benner 18:24 you've been through some stuff now, and you because,

Chanel 18:28 yeah, because I've been through some stuff, and I've had to advocate for my kids, and I've had to to teach people things. And, yeah, you know, yeah, I understand. I've just been through the things now,

Scott Benner 18:40 so after Cruella gets the blood out, by the way, I'm gonna It's the strangest thing, this is gonna seem like a left turn for a second, but you said I drug those three kids across the parking lot, and I swear to you, you almost the next thing you heard from me was almost me crying, because I has popped in my head, but I I remember taking my mom to her oncology appointment to see if this oncologist would do surgery on her, and then after he agreed, we had to go across the parking lot for blood work. And my mom was in a in a wheelchair at that point because she was so sick. And I swear to you, it took me right back to that spot, and I was so, like, I was so happy you were talking and filling the space, because I couldn't think for a minute so interesting how it like those words, like I drug them across the parking lot and we were talking about a medical thing, and it took me like, I felt like I was standing there for a second. I'm okay now, by the way, because the story about the horrible nurse, like, snap me right out of it. But, but anyway, I just, I thought I would share that, like it just, it really took me to another place. I'm sorry. Go ahead, I apologize. No, that's great, great, great, great that my mom had cancer or great that I started. No, okay, good.

Chanel 19:57 Yeah. So I. We got the blood jaw, they sent us back over to the pediatrician. He kind of just said, go, go down to the Children's Hospital. Pack a bag. I'll let him know you're coming. And so I didn't really know that I was supposed to go right then. So I kind of went

Scott Benner 20:19 back to Walmart to pick up your pictures. I God, if you did, don't tell me. I don't think it sounds good, if that's what

Chanel 20:29 happened. No, I didn't do that, but I went home and I was kind of trying to wrap my head around things. I was trying to Google some stuff. I was talking to my husband. My mom lives a couple hours away, so I was trying to get her to come up to take care of my other kids. I was just trying to get things figured out. So some time passes, the doctor calls me and he's like, Hey, Chenille, I got a call from them. They told me, You're not. There is everything okay? And I was like, Well, I'm waiting for my mom to get here. We'll go after my husband gets off work and I pick up the kids from school, and he's like, no, no, no, you need to go. You need to put Kate in the car, and you need to get down there. Yeah, they're expecting you. And I was like, oh, because somewhere in my head he hadn't actually said, this is type one diabetes. He said, This looks like type one, right? And so I guess I kind of thought we were going down there for more tests, and I didn't know that it was an urgent thing that we needed to to get down there quicker. Yeah,

Scott Benner 21:32 this moment. Do you think of this as the the first big, like, life changing event that had happened in your family, or had other stuff happen prior to this?

Chanel 21:42 No, this was the this was the biggest thing. The first big thing

Scott Benner 21:46 levels up your perspective pretty quickly. Yeah,

Chanel 21:49 for sure. Yeah. The hospital called me and they were like, are you coming? What's what's going on? And I was like, Well, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my baby. He was breastfeeding at the time, so can he come with me? And no, no, no, absolutely not. They still had COVID rules. They said that both my husband and I could be there, but we had to check in together at the same time. And once we were there, we couldn't come and go. Once we were there, we were both there, if one of us left, we couldn't come back, and so I just trying to figure things out. But it's funny because when the pediatrician called me and asked, like, why aren't you there? And I told him that I'm trying to figure stuff out and I'm go when my husband gets off, and he was like, Have you packed a bag. And I was like, Well, no, not yet. He's like, I need a bag. And he's like, you're there for the weekend. You're gonna be there for at least a few days, yeah? And I was like, Oh, I didn't realize. I didn't know, yeah,

Scott Benner 22:52 there's a gravity to the situation that just hadn't struck you. Right, right? Yeah.

Chanel 22:57 And so he's like, grab a paper, write this down, and he, step by step, told me the things to pack. And I feel so stupid now, looking back, looking back on that, generally

Scott Benner 23:10 speaking, are you a person who, gosh, I don't mean this in a certain way, but I don't know. Do you need leadership or generally, no,

Chanel 23:19 no, no, no, no, not. Usually, this situation

Scott Benner 23:22 just kind of like really did just mix you up inside. It

Chanel 23:26 was just weird, and everything was hitting, and I didn't understand what was happening. And

Scott Benner 23:35 you're by yourself, anything. You have three kids with you, and you're by yourself too. I'm

Chanel 23:39 by myself. I'm thinking about how I'm gonna get my other kids from school. Like, what do I even say to the other kids? I don't know that

Scott Benner 23:47 started to go through your head right away. Yeah, all the stuff, yeah, all

Chanel 23:51 the things. It was just I couldn't shut my mind off, and everything was just going through my head at a million miles an hour, and I just couldn't focus on packing that bag. Yeah, you know, did

Scott Benner 24:04 you call people and speed them up after that, or did you just let the day unfold? Still? I

Chanel 24:08 just let the day unfold. I sent a message to like my family group, like this is happening with Kate. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I don't know what's going to happen. I'll let you know when I know more. So I sent a message to my family. I sent a message to my husband's family. It took my mom two hours to get up here to we don't live super close. I was going

Scott Benner 24:33 to say, is she far away or does she have your level of motivation in these situations?

Chanel 24:38 No, she left immediately. They didn't know anything about diabetes either, but she knew that it was serious that I was being sent to the Children's Hospital. She left right away. It just took time to drive here. I called my husband, and I was like, well, they said, We need to go now. We can't wait till you get off work. And he was like, Oh, okay. He came. We loaded Kate up in the car. We went down there, and everything from my dream became a real life nightmare, and we got thrown into it real quick.

Scott Benner 25:11 Well, you know what her blood sugar was when she got to the hospital? It

Chanel 25:15 was in the three hundreds. I don't know the exact number, but at that point, I still didn't even know what those numbers meant? Like, I understood that it was a little higher than usual, but I didn't know. And so they tell me the numbers, and I was like, Oh, okay. And so then they're like, Well, we're gonna get give her a little insulin to get her number down and see how she responds to it. And so they didn't really explain how it worked. They didn't really explain things. They said you're going to need to poke her finger every three hours. Every two to three hours, poke her finger see what the number is. If it's high, you'll give her insulin. If it's been three hours since the last dose. If it's low, she needs a snack. That's 15 carbs. That's what you were getting in the hospital. That's what they told us. And then they gave us a little booklet to teach us how to count carbs. And I mean, they didn't teach us how insulin works. They didn't teach us much else, right? They didn't teach us much else, yeah. And so I was just so focused on learning to count these carbs that I was like, Well, this is what we need to do. And then I'm setting timers to remember to poke her finger at certain times, because they said every two to three hours, right? And so, like, I just didn't understand even the basics. Yep, I've

Scott Benner 26:40 been through it. I know what you're talking about, but at the very least, can commiserate with you on that part, like it's just not a lot of I mean, you're so confused and upset and sad and all the things you just did such a good job explaining those things are all happening at the same time. And then, even if they were, I've come to believe that even if they were giving you good information, you probably wouldn't retain much of it to begin with, right? You know. And they don't know anyway. Like, that whole like, 15 carbs, 15 minutes test, every three that's the extent of what that nurse probably knows about it. Yeah, you know. So it's not even like, they're not telling you, she just doesn't know. They say things like, we're gonna get you an endocrinologist, and they're gonna, but they're going to teach you everything, and be like, oh, right, how long did they let you stay in the hospital?

Chanel 27:25 So we were in there from Friday evening ish to Sunday afternoon. That's pretty cool. We were in there couple days. I mean, I didn't feel any more prepared leaving the hospital than I did going in, it was just all chaos and crazy, and set the timer so I know when to poke her finger, set the timer so I know when to give her her insulin. And it was all just timers.

Scott Benner 27:55 We ate in the hospital cafeteria as we were leaving the hospital, because I think we were afraid to experience a meal and not be at the hospital. So, like, we left her room, went downstairs and went right into the cafeteria of the hospital to eat. It was just like, it seemed like the safest thing to do, you know. And then I remember getting out to the car and already being confused about something, and I was like, Oh my God. Like, this is the disaster, you know. Like, we have no idea what we're doing. And I even look back on that now, and I don't know how safe she was in that car. Like, I mean, what did we do for that food? I had no idea. You know, just for it was the worst. So I want to kind of jump ahead and come back. So, okay, to jump ahead once you're home, what makes you get your other kids tested?

Chanel 28:46 We didn't do it right away. After a few weeks, I'm trying to figure out, like all the supplies are driving me crazy. I gotta have a way to organize everything. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with the supplies. I'm trying to figure out what to do with this binder of you know, information that they gave us that I don't know really wasn't that helpful. And I saw a thing for trial net that kind of explained about if you have other kids, you can have them tested. And I was like, Oh, well, this came out of nowhere. So chances are they're all fine, right? Chances are it's nothing, but it was kind of in the back of my head like we should probably, we should probably do this, since we have five kids, yeah. So when things settled down a few weeks later, I made the phone call to set that up.

Scott Benner 29:38 Did you do that in a lab, or did you have them send out the kids? We went

Chanel 29:42 to a lab. We scheduled the appointment. Took all five kids with us. My husband and I were also tested. Since we were both under the 45 I think it is that they'll test that too. Did

Scott Benner 29:55 anybody besides your son come back with auto antibodies? Yes.

Chanel 29:59 Yes, so my son came back with two, and our other daughter, who was two at the time, came back with four. Our baby was too little to test, and my oldest daughter didn't have any at that time. Okay, we've retested. We retested a couple months ago and found out that our oldest daughter now has one of the auto antibodies, so she has developed one in the last two years. And our baby, we he's now three, so he was tested for the first time, and so far, he doesn't have any. Oh

Scott Benner 30:39 my gosh. So so so 85 days after this happens to you, you get another diagnosis. But how long between the information coming from child net and the diagnosis happening like, what was the gap of time there?

Chanel 30:52 So it took a few weeks, probably maybe about a month. We did the test. We figured that our daughter, since she had four, we figured that she would be next, and then they had us come back for the glucose tolerance test for the two kids who had the markers, and my son, Ryan, who had two of the markers, he failed that glucose tolerance test and was diagnosed then he was diagnosed at that time,

Scott Benner 31:23 right then. And there they were like, Yeah,

Chanel 31:26 we had to wait for the official paperwork to come back. But after they did the finger poke, the lady was kind of like, oh, we'll just have to see what the lab says. This doesn't look great. And so we didn't, we didn't really realize that they were telling us he had it. We were waiting for the official results. But then our daughter, who had the four, she passed her glucose tolerance test and has passed two cents on so it's kind of just the waiting game for her.

Scott Benner 31:58 Yeah, my gosh, so you're gonna have three with type one at some point.

Chanel 32:03 Yep, at least three of them will have type one. How

Scott Benner 32:07 is that knowledge for you, knowing that it's coming? What does that

Chanel 32:10 feel like? Oh, it is scary. It terrifies me. I hate it, but I think that it's actually kind of good for her, because things she'll say, she's mentally preparing for the day that it happens. So she'll say things like, when I have diabetes, I'm going to be so brave when I have diabetes, really, can my purse be pink when I have diabetes? And I'm like, Oh, it breaks my heart to hear her say those things, yeah. But also, I think it's good that she knows that it's a real possibility for her.

Scott Benner 32:56 Has she ever had her finger tested or anything like that? Yes, we,

Chanel 33:00 we will do random, random finger pokes on all the kids, really. And she has worn a Dexcom. We used the last 10 days of our transmitter one time to just see what hers was doing,

Scott Benner 33:14 and she seems to handle it all pretty well. Yeah, that didn't sound that didn't sound very comforting. Go ahead

Chanel 33:23 as well as she can when Kate is thrown into it, and she had that terrible blood draw experience, and then all of a sudden, everyone's poking her and, you know, giving her insulin and testing her blood. And it was so terrible, we had to literally wrestle her down to even poke her finger. She was so scared and so confused and just didn't understand what was happening. And so I know that it won't be like that when it happens with my other daughter, with Carissa, yeah, wow, because she's she's got it in her head and she's seen the things happening, and how much

Scott Benner 34:02 of their care is you and how much is your husband? Do you guys split it? Or is it one of those things where you know you're like, I do it, or he does it. It's

Chanel 34:10 mostly me. He's done all the same classes and been to the appointments, and he knows how to do all the things, but I, I stay home and he works. So okay, mostly fall off on me. How are you handling all that? Not well, most of the time, I don't think outside people are like, you're handling this so amazing. And I'm like, I am a mess. I am not. What makes you feel like you're a mess? My brain never shuts off. I'm always thinking about it. I'm always checking it. Someone always needs something like someone's always beeping, someone's someone needs a correction, someone needs a juice box, someone you know, yeah,

Scott Benner 34:50 someone's always beeping. So so people are telling you you're doing great. You don't feel. You're doing great, right? Is it you being hard on yourself? Is it psychological? Do you feel what's the level of of the impact on you? I handle

Chanel 35:10 it better now than I did in the beginning, for sure, because, you know, I've learned a lot, and I've had experiences, and so I know that I handle it better now than I was at first. I cried every day, and I'm not usually, I'm not usually a crier, so I just go in my room and just cry, and then I kind of wipe my tears away and pretend like everything was okay. And then I'd go do it again. Go do it again.

Scott Benner 35:40 Yeah, I was like the game, do you have any support? I mean, you got five kids, and you're, you're stay at home, mom, right, yeah, right. So do you have any support for you?

Chanel 35:50 My family, they're far away, but they're supportive. They've tried to learn. They've tried to, like the last question, see how things are going, I can leave them for a short time. My oldest daughter is actually pretty amazing. She after, after Ryan was diagnosed, she was kind of just watching things and how everything unfolded. And she came to me one day and she was like, Mommy, I want, I want to learn how to help you take care of them. Oh, wow. And I was like, Well, this is a lot. This is a lot for a nine year old. She was only nine at the time, right? She started to learn. And she I would, I would draw, I would like count the carbs and drop the insulin, and, you know, do all that,

Scott Benner 36:44 just let her feel like she's part of it. But yeah,

Chanel 36:47 she she would be there, and she'd be part of it. And I taught her how to do the finger pokes. And Ryan was more open to having having her help than than Kate was okay. And so that first time i i took a picture of it. It was so tender. She gave him a shot, and, like, I took a picture, and it was just like these two little kids, and they just looking at each other, and she was trying to be brave, and he was trying to be brave. And, you know,

Scott Benner 37:22 geez, that's kind of lovely, isn't that nice? And

Chanel 37:25 I was just sitting there watching, like, trying not to cry again, because crying is what I what I would do. And since then, she my oldest daughter. Her name is kiersly, and curiously, has totally stepped up. I don't even hesitate to leave my kids with her in charge, even as an 11 year old, she understands it. She can count carbs, she can give insulin. I found out by accident that she can change their pumps. I we went on a family date that my parents had given us for Christmas, and I we had to leave the kids. And so we left with my older nephew, who's in his 20s, and his girlfriend, and we were like, at least I'll have an adult there in case they need it, right? And so they had pumps, they had Dexcom, so we could see their numbers, we could text them. So it was fine, but we were gone for, I don't know, five hours, and when we came back, my nephew's girlfriend was like, Oh, by the way, Ryan's thing came off. And I was like, his thing came off. Like, what came off? Yeah, because I could still see his number, his pump came off. So I was like, Ryan, let's get this. Let's get this back on you. I pull out our bag. I'm, like, starting to get stuff set up to replace his pump site. And he's just looking at me, like, getting crazy. And I was like, what came off? Do you need a new pump site? And curiously, my oldest like, Oh, Mom, I already changed that. And I was like, awesome. You did like, she had never done one, but I had, she had never done it. She'd only watched me. I said, You changed it. And she said, Well, yeah, it fell off, and I knew that he needed insulin, so I changed it, wow. And I was like, oh, cool, okay, I'm

Scott Benner 39:24 gonna go back to what I was doing. Thanks. Like,

Chanel 39:27 you got new insulin, and you put it in the cartridge and, and she's like, Yeah, I got I put it in the cartridge, I took a few bubbles out, I got the air out of the syringe, I put it back in, I build the tubing. Like she went through the whole thing. And she was like, I handled it, Mom, because I knew he needed that. Geez. And I was like, this girl is like, awesome. Let's

Scott Benner 39:50 also get her in charge of other stuff, because it sounds like she could handle more. Oh, she

Chanel 39:56 She's so great. She's She might

Scott Benner 39:58 not be doing enough around the house. Else, this kid's got a ceiling, you know, he's pretty high. Oh, that's awesome. Wow, isn't that great? How old was she again?

Chanel 40:06 So she was 10 at that time, by the time name. Oh, that's awesome, by the time that happened, but

Scott Benner 40:12 there's a heartwarming part of your story. So yeah,

Chanel 40:15 I was like, she's got this. She knows how to help me. Oh, it's so

Scott Benner 40:20 nice, but she doesn't feel a lot of pressure about it. She just, she knows how to jump in if she needs to, like, you don't think she's running around thinking like, this is her job, right?

Chanel 40:27 No, I don't think that. But if she hears something and she thinks that I'm like, in the other room, I've heard her like I heard that beep, what was the number? And she'll check in with them, and she'll be like, I think you should probably have four Skittles. What if

Scott Benner 40:46 you said to her, the dishes need to be done? Would she be like,

Chanel 40:50 Oh, no, she would do that. She would do that. Look at that. Yeah, she she does jobs around the house, my kids,

Scott Benner 40:57 my kids help her. Very easy. Here is what I'm realizing very easy. My gosh, when you asked to come on the podcast, did you have a reason, like, or were you just, like, I want to chat, or, like, Was there something that you really wanted to make sure you got out? I don't really

Chanel 41:10 know why. I just saw a post on your Facebook page and you had said something like, see if you can catch my interest. And I was like, just curious, wonder if I could catch his interest. So I wrote a couple sentences, and you sent me the link to sign up. So I was like, Oh, I

Scott Benner 41:28 did, all right. I just, I just wanted to make sure, like, Minister, I don't want to, like, get me, we're not done. But I I want to leave time here, because there you have notes, like, you send a little note here. I

Chanel 41:38 don't even remember what I put and not, I'm not gonna lie. You said there

Scott Benner 41:43 were some frustration you had with the doctor telling you to aim for an A, 1c, over seven. I was wondering if you'd tell me more about that. Oh, yeah. Also, there's no chance you're from Canada, right? Originally? No, no, because you owe ya a lot. Did you know that? You didn't know that not from Minnesota. Haven't spent time in Wisconsin, nothing like that. Nope, just Utah my whole life. No kidding, I've enjoyed your accent the whole time. So I'm sorry. Go ahead. We didn't even know I had an accent. Everyone does, and no one hears it. I sound like a trash person, from what I understand from the people who write in. So go ahead, please. About the this 71

Chanel 42:19 say, okay, so we were, I don't know, a few appointments in to both kids being diagnosed. We usually try to schedule them so they can go at the same time, because just easier for me. So they took both kids, a one, CS, and we had them they were at like, 6.1 and 6.2 and Kate had been up in the eight, and then, like, gradually come down a little bit, but not, not really. And so finally, I felt like I was doing something right, because, you know, they're in the low sixes now, yeah, so I'm, I'm improving on something. And the lady came in, and I was feeling pretty good, and she came in and lectured me and told me that it was unrealistic to expect a one CS under seven, and that I needed to come to terms with that. And she wanted me to change what I was doing, and aim to get their a one, CS up into the seven to eight range.

Scott Benner 43:24 She wanted you to go up two points, yeah,

Chanel 43:28 like somewhere in the sevens, high sevens, close to eight, try to keep it under eight. And I was like, why would I do that? That makes no sense to me. Why would I change what I'm doing if it's working and if it's lowering their A, 1c, why would I try to keep them in the

Scott Benner 43:45 seven? Did you ask the question? Yeah, what was the answer? She just told

Chanel 43:49 me that it wasn't realistic and I was going to kill myself trying to keep them that low, that I couldn't maintain it like it was going to be too stressful for me

Scott Benner 43:58 at that time. Did you feel like it was too much for you? No, I felt

Chanel 44:03 less stressed knowing that they were coming down, knowing that I was doing something better than before.

Scott Benner 44:10 How do you handle that then when, when it said to you,

Chanel 44:14 I said, like, What are you talking about? Like, this is working. And she's like, well, you must be having lots of lows. And I said, you can see their Dexcom charts show me where the significant lows are. Like, why would I aim to keep it higher? Why wouldn't I try to keep their numbers as close to normal range as I could? And her answer was that long term complications don't start for at least 30 years. Did you tell her your kid was four? And I was like, So you're telling me that I'm gonna have my 35 year old daughter coming to me with these complications, like, I can't see I have neuropathy, I, you know, kidney stuff, like, I don't want my kids in their 30s coming to me saying. Why didn't you do more for us when we were younger? Because now we're having to deal with this. Yeah, and so I said thinking about that for their future is more stressful to me than trying to keep their numbers in range. Now sure,

Scott Benner 45:15 what brilliant thing did they say to that?

Chanel 45:20 And they were like, well, it's really the long term complications are unknown, and they're not likely that's not going to happen with your kids, because it would have to be really high numbers for a really long time, and so that won't happen. And I was like, but you don't know that that won't happen. You're here now. You're telling me this crap that like, I don't think that's true. You don't know that they're not going to have complications. And I said you're not going to be here in their 30s when this stuff starts popping up, if I don't get a hold of this right now,

Scott Benner 45:56 also, I'm doing a good job. Why are you not being supportive of me? Do I'm doing it like you're telling me it's impossible, by the way, it's every cliche that's gonna burn you out. You must be having a lot of lows. You're not having a lot of lows. Oh, you don't feel burned out. Okay. Well, you know what? It's gonna take 30 years for there to be any problems anyway. Oh, you don't like that answer. Well, what about this answer? Like, at what point would the person not say, Hey, let me see. I wonder how you're accomplishing this. Why don't you tell me what you're doing? Maybe I'm thinking incorrectly. No, just hammer away at all the all the standards. How old was this doctor? I'm assuming that you fired and don't go to anymore.

Chanel 46:34 We have switched doctors a couple times. I still don't have one that I'm happy with. I still don't feel like they help me with pump settings or anything, and I don't feel confident completely. I just try things right, but I don't feel like the doctors help me. And at that point when I said that, she was like, Oh, well, I can see you're really stressed about this. And I was oh, and I was like, wait, wait a minute. So I'm just getting angry with her, yeah,

Scott Benner 47:02 because, oh, you just made me mad. Go ahead, Keith. I'm sorry.

Chanel 47:06 And so I had said these things like, show me the lows. Show me this. Like, why would I do that? And she's like, I'm gonna send a social worker in to talk to you, because I can tell that this is just too much.

Scott Benner 47:18 Oh, you Can I curse in the church her? You guys don't curse, right? We don't. Okay. Can I do it for you? Would you mind? Would it bother you? If it'll bother you? I won't do it, but if you want, I can speak for you in this moment and let it be cathartic for you. Because what that all right, I won't do it. But my what in the hell is she thinking, right?

Chanel 47:41 And so I was just angry. And I was like, I don't need to talk to a social worker. I need a doctor who will help me and who cares about the well being of my kids. Like, I don't need to talk to anyone about this. I need you to help me. Yeah. And she was like, well, just talk to her for a minute, and we'll see how you're feeling after that. And I was just no mad, and I don't want to talk to you. I don't I'm not talking to them. Like, just help me.

Scott Benner 48:12 Was this a can? I just have the age of the person,

Chanel 48:15 probably 40s, not like a married person married? Yeah, do you think they're married? I have no idea man or a woman. It was a woman, really.

Scott Benner 48:27 I don't understand if I spoke to my wife like that. She kicked me out of the house. First of all, so I assumed a married woman would never talk to anybody like that. That was my point. Oh, my God, I would never. I gotta tell you something. I'm not a huge fan of this word, because I think it's overused, but I think she was gaslighting you, like, when you're telling her how you feel, and she's like, that's not how you feel. Yeah, I'll send in a social worker now to let you know how upset you are and why you're upset. You're like, I'm I'm not upset. I'm disappointed in your lack of direction. Oh, and then she goes, No, you are let me send in another professional to let you know how upset you

Chanel 49:05 are. It totally felt that way, and I was just so frustrated because I went from being happy I'm proud of myself for doing something right, to just being so angry and frustrated, and I didn't even want to talk to any of them. Like, obviously they don't care about helping my kids with this. Or you, yeah, or me. Like, they don't care about them. They're just trying to scoot me through and, you

Scott Benner 49:35 know, and make a little more money sending in another doctor they can bill you for too, right? There's another spot I would have cursed right there, Shanel, if you would have let me. Whoa. What about that boy? That's that's really interesting and frustrating and not surprising. At the same time, that was the day

Chanel 49:53 where I was like, they're clearly not going to help me. I've got to figure this out. Yeah, I've got to help my kids the best I can, and I can't depend on the medical professionals to be there for us, at least not that lady,

Scott Benner 50:09 geez. Yeah, wow, wow, that's really, I don't know. You know, after hearing these stories so many times, I don't know why, I'm shocked, but there's something about that specific back and forth that I found particularly nauseating me too. Yeah, no kidding. And look at you sticking up for yourself. That was that was well done too. Did you look back on that after and be like, Wow, I did not take any crap from her at all,

Chanel 50:35 not really. I just didn't even know. I didn't know what to say, and so I just said exactly what I was thinking. Why?

Scott Benner 50:45 Yeah, if you, if you weren't in the church, you would have cursed at her, for sure, because I was gonna curse at her, I swear to you, like I don't know why nobody ever says stuff like that to me. I'd be thrilled to hear about that. I would have enjoyed that argument very, very well. I sent the kid out of the room first, said, Hey, go outside for a second, and then I would have said, You taking this job seriously at all, like, what is wrong with you? I'm in here with a major accomplishment. I'm looking for a little more help. You're telling me I'm doing it wrong. I'm clearly doing it and, oh my god, I can't go back out. You've made me very upset. Not you personally the story. I'm sorry. No, don't, please. Don't apologize.

Chanel 51:22 How long ago was this? A little over a year ago, 2023

Scott Benner 51:27 look how far we've come, everyone, look how far we've come. You know, it's funny, may I say I made that cold wind series? Yeah, I got some notes from people. They were like, you know, is he shining a bad light on doctors. You don't, you know people need to be able to trust their doctors, and you know you shouldn't be doing that. One person told me it was like, it's dangerous that you're making this series. I'm like, I'm letting people come on and tell me about their work environment. And you think that's the dangerous part. Talking about, it's the dangerous part, not that they're doing it, the talking about it's the dangerous part, and I didn't even know how to respond to that email. And so if that person's listening, that's why you didn't hear back from me, because I thought you were an idiot, and I just didn't know how to respond back. But I did get that sentiment a few times, like you shouldn't shine. Like one person wrote me and said in this episode, the doctors came off very poorly in that episode. And I think it's dangerous for people to hear that what like, I don't understand like, I don't understand how things like this. I don't understand how people's minds work. You know what I mean, like, these people are out there. Some of them are doing a great job. I know plenty of great doctors. I know of 1000 endos you could have gone to where you wouldn't have had that experience. But the truth is, is you did have that experience, and that person is meeting people every day and using that level of ineptitude to practice their their craft. And in a world where I just interviewed a woman a couple days ago who, by the way, has someone else's kidney in her now and then goes back and tells a story about how she was mistreated by doctors as a child. And you think, Well, I hope they hear that story. I hope they hear that the way you treat a kid when she's 10. It could be the beginning of a long, winding, sad, dark path that ends with her with her sister's kidney. You know what I mean, and I'm not being ham fisted about it, like I the story it relates. She got bad advice from doctors, then they didn't help her, then they treated her poorly. She spiraled, and this is where she ended up. And you could that same thing. Can you imagine if you would have just said, oh, a seven or eight is okay, okay, cool. And then you just left, and then that's what you started doing instead. And then, 30 years from now, one of those things that you're worried about actually does happen to one of your children, like, it's too late now, like, oh, it's very upsetting. Seriously,

Chanel 53:59 I don't know well. In the first few months, the first couple appointments, I did do that, I just went with what the doctor said and didn't question it.

Scott Benner 54:09 But then you're on your own, you brought it down, and then they came after you. Yeah, yeah. There's a post like this in the Facebook group at least a couple of times a week. Yeah. People are just like, I finally found my success. I know what I'm doing. Look at this charts. Look at these graphs. Oh, by the way, today I got yelled at by my doctor, Yep, yeah, good for them. Everybody should be real proud anyway. And then, you know, who's the bad guy in all this? By the way, when it's over, it's me. I'm the bad guy for pointing it out. Like, you know, like you don't want, you don't want people to speak ill of you do a decent job. Like, now, everyone's not looking for perfection, but you got to be able to hit the big points. You know what? I mean, right?

Chanel 54:53 Oh my gosh. I mean, I have learned so much from from listening to the podcast. Us and from the different series, and I appreciate it so much. Thank you made such a difference for us and for my kids and I, I will listen to it in the car, or, like, doing pickups or while I'm cleaning stuff. And it's really interesting to see that, to see my kids pick up on things they hear when I don't even think they're listening really uh huh and stuff I say, or the good stuff, mostly the good stuff. But they'll, I'll kind of look at him, like, where did you learn that? And, well, we heard it on the podcast nice, like, oh, well, there you go. That's

Scott Benner 55:43 awesome. Wow, I should pay closer attention to what I'm saying. I'm just kidding. I'm pretty I pay pretty close attention to what I'm saying. Oh, that's lovely. I know there are people whose kids hear it, and I try not to think about it while I'm making it, because I think it would turn into a Mr. Rogers podcast, and I think most people would be upset. But, you know, I like that. You've got your, you know, you can make your own decisions about what your kids hear. I'm assuming they didn't listen to, like the like some of the after dark ones and stuff like that.

Chanel 56:10 Well, that's actually funny, because pretty early on, a stranger off Facebook who lives in my area gave me something. I don't remember what she was giving away, but something I thought I needed. I went to her house, picked it up, we talked for a little bit, and she gave me a little note card that said Juicebox Podcast, and, like, Pro Tip series, you know, yeah. And it was just kind of sticking there in my binder and so. And then I heard about other places. I read a little bit about it online, and I wasn't I never listened to podcasts. I didn't even know how to listen to podcasts. And so I was like, well, maybe I'll give this a shot. And I just opened it and clicked one, and it happened to be an after dark one, and I didn't know.

Scott Benner 57:03 Sorry. You know, that's one of the things I work. I do have all these conversations with people sometimes, like in my private life, and they'll be like, can you imagine if this is the first episode somebody heard?

Chanel 57:13 And it was definitely the first one. I always say, like, Yeah, I wish

Scott Benner 57:17 there was a way around that, but I mean, it is what it is. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I can't like, hopefully you heard it and you were like, oh, maybe I'll just switch to a different episode and try again. But I thought about that. I do wish there was, like, there's part of me that wishes there was a way to segment it up differently in but podcast players just don't let you do stuff like that. So which one do you remember what you heard? Like, what the story? I don't even

Chanel 57:40 remember what it was, but right away I was like, Oh, I can't play this with the kids around. I'm gonna have to wait. I don't know. And so I kind of didn't go back for a little bit. But then I was feeling so desperate, and I needed help, and none of the doctors were helping me. And I was like, I'm gonna go back to that podcast and see if I can learn stuff. And at that point I was

Scott Benner 58:02 like, oh, okay, they're not all like that one. Yeah, I

Chanel 58:06 just clicked on one that happened to be one I shouldn't listen to with

Scott Benner 58:10 the kids, right? Have you ever heard butt hole adjacent? I have

Chanel 58:14 heard that one I actually I went through. Listen to pro tips. Listen to defining diabetes. Then I listened to, like, runs in the family.

Scott Benner 58:28 So I not stuff that really pertains to what you're going through,

Chanel 58:30 uh huh. So I knocked a whole bunch of those out. And then I started listening at the beginning. Did you really listen to, like, a few 100 episodes? And then I was like, well, I should listen to the more recent ones. So it's like a chunk in the middle, there's like 500 or so that I haven't gotten to. I'll get to them. Take your time. I'm working on it. We're racing. We're working through them. You have,

Scott Benner 58:54 you have no time and plenty of time at the same time. So, right? So listen, what about other dreams you've had? What are, what are the other dreams you've had that have sort of come true in in the real world?

Chanel 59:07 Well, pertaining to the diabetes thing. Well, that,

Scott Benner 59:11 yeah, we know that one. But has there been anything else? There

Chanel 59:15 was one more that was kind of, well, diabetes related. We didn't have a Dexcom for, what, just over a month before Kate was able to get on a Dexcom. So we were doing it the old school way, finger poking all that one of the first nights that she had a Dexcom, we were just using the receiver. She didn't have a phone yet. We couldn't just look at our phone in the night and and see where she was at. I heard like clear as bells, I'm asleep in the middle of the night, and I hear her voice saying, Mommy, I'm low. I need a finger poke. And she said it twice. I sat up, I turned on my one. On my phone, and she was not there. She was not in my room. So I'm like, What in the world? So I like, woke up my husband, Russell, did you hear Kate? Like, is she over there? And he's like, she's not here. You're crazy. You didn't hear anything. You'd be

Scott Benner 1:00:20 like, buddy, do you not remember the dream about the diabetes? How could you dismiss me like this? And so I

Chanel 1:00:26 was like, well, she just told me that she's low. And he kind of like, rolled over and pulled the blanket up. And so I got up and went into her room and go look at the Dexcom receiver. And it says signal loss, and we had never seen that message yet. We were pretty new to Dexcom, right? So I grabbed the bag, and I was like, well, I'll just do a finger poke so I can see my husband comes in the doorway, totally confused, and he's like, What are you doing? And I was like, Well, Kate told me she was low. She told me she needed a finger poke. And he's kind of like, asleep and tired, and, you know, half asleep, and he's annoyed, and he's like, No, she didn't Chanel. She's been sleeping here the whole time. She hasn't gotten up, she hasn't moved. You're crazy. Like, he's

Scott Benner 1:01:18 like, I picked the wrong lady. I'm stuck now. I got five kids with her, but she's she had a lot of crazy stuff. No, no, no. I'm sure that thought has crossed

Chanel 1:01:26 his neck. I went ahead and poked her finger, and she was in the 30s. Look at you. She was low and with things like that. I'm, I'm really trying to learn to trust myself more if I have one of those thoughts or one of my feelings, maybe I'm not a crazy person. Maybe I want

Scott Benner 1:01:49 you sleeping with those little lottery cards and a golf pencil. I seriously. I want you sleeping with a golf pencil and those lottery cards. You wake up with any numbers in your head. I want you jotting them right down. You go right down to the the 711 or whatever they got out there in Utah, and I want you buying tickets. That's so CR i I've had deja vu once. That was so incredibly accurate. It freaks me out, like 50 years, like 40 years later, but we were in the backyard of like a person my dad worked with. We'd never been to their home before, and it was like this big party, and all the kids were outside. We were all sitting around these chairs, and one kid was sitting up on the back of the chair. You know what I mean? Like he had his feet where your butt goes, and his ass was up on the butt on the back of the chair. And you know, there's all these people around that I don't really know. You're trying to be social a little bit. And there's one kid who has snuck a beer outside, and he's got it and he's talking to somebody, and in my mind, I watched the kid sitting on the chair fall off the chair. The beer got knocked over. Everything got tussled around, people moved in a certain way, and a split second later, it all happened. Oh, man, it was just the strangest thing that I've ever experienced in my life. Yeah, I have no idea. I'm sure there's an explanation for it. Like it happened and I froze, maybe, and then it felt like I saw it like I have no idea what the actual explanation is, but that that stuck with me. I don't remember much about being a kid, but that whole thing, that scenario, just sticks in my mind. Like, if you gave me the furniture right now, I could settle up and put all the people in the space. It's it's stuck to me so much. Wow. Anyway, that's very cool. Anything else, no lottery numbers. Nothing like where we can make a couple bucks, nothing,

Chanel 1:03:38 I know. I wish, I wish I had the lottery numbers, it would really, really come in handy five

Scott Benner 1:03:44 kids. I bet you do wish that, yep, jeez, you have five children. So many kids, it doesn't seem like a lot to you, or does it just seem like what people do? I

Chanel 1:03:55 came from a family with six kids. My My husband came from a family with five, so we always figured, you know, we'll have four or five kids. We'll see how it goes. Hey,

Scott Benner 1:04:09 your your husband, uh, owns an oil field.

Chanel 1:04:12 Uh, what is he? What kind of work does he? He's a civil engineer. That does

Scott Benner 1:04:15 not sound like a job, that makes a ton of money,

Chanel 1:04:20 not a ton of money. You're right. Things, things are a little bit crazy over here, but, but like, we want all of them. We love them.

Scott Benner 1:04:29 Oh no, I wouldn't say otherwise. No, I'm just, I'm trying to figure out how they're going to do you already talk in their ear. You're like, you don't need

Chanel 1:04:35 college. Well, my oldest actually wants to be an endocrinologist. Oh

Scott Benner 1:04:39 god. Well, tell her, there's that. What about something in a trade? Huh? Have she? Has she thought about plumbing? That's a really good job. Makes a ton of money, and you don't have to go to college for it. Let's see what we can get her involved in.

Chanel 1:04:52 Maybe we can, like, whisper to him in their sleep or something, get there.

Scott Benner 1:04:57 I both of my kids. I was like, you guys don't want to do a trade. Like, I. Think that'd be awesome. You know what I mean? Like, I'll split what college costs with you. I offered my son a car to stay home from college. I was like, this will be cheaper for us if I just purchase you a vehicle and you go to this school, like, more local school. I want to play baseball in school. I was like, Oh, I bet you do.

Chanel 1:05:20 Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, I think they know that they're gonna have to to help out with that.

Scott Benner 1:05:25 Yeah. Well, the one's definitely gonna help. The one girl is awesome. She'll probably get a job and start paying for college herself. The one

Chanel 1:05:33 she's she's already mowing lawns and babysitting for people, so she's got a savings account.

Scott Benner 1:05:39 I knew I wasn't kidding. That kid's got her own money, right? She does.

Chanel 1:05:43 How old is she now? She's 11, yeah, be damn

Scott Benner 1:05:46 Yeah. She's gonna own something. Yeah, she's pretty

Chanel 1:05:50 proud. She's not a spender. She saves her money the she mows lawns for a neighbor. He hired her, and he's hired her for just some odd jobs around his yard, nice. And he like, joked around with her and like, you're gonna go buy a doll. You're gonna and she

Scott Benner 1:06:11 did not pick I started a 401, K, but thank you.

Chanel 1:06:14 She did not pick up on his sarcasm at all. And she's like, No, I'm gonna put it in my credit union account. And he, he just kind of looked at her, and she's like, college is expensive.

Scott Benner 1:06:29 I got a money market paying 5% right now, buddy.

Chanel 1:06:33 And actually she does. And she was like, I'm gonna put it in my money market account and earn some interest on this. Where does she learn this? I set up a little account for all the kids. They'll get money, and we'll take their piggy banks in, and I'll let them deposit it and stuff. Awesome. But she has really taken it seriously. I

Scott Benner 1:06:51 was gonna say, can you put her on learning Dropbox for me and have her come give me a 15 minute tutorial? Because I'm having trouble setting I feel like she could get it worked out pretty quickly. Oh my gosh. Okay, so she's

Chanel 1:07:04 very, very bright, and things seem to come naturally to her. It's awesome. Good for her.

Scott Benner 1:07:11 That's really cool. All right, so I'm gonna let you go, but first, let me tell you this. I've learned this from chat GPT. A Utah accent and a Canadian accent have some similarities, but are generally quite distinct from each other. But here's a quick breakdown so one they have Val pronunciations. Both Utah and Canadian accents share some vowel shifts, but the Canadian accent is known for the Canadian raising where words like about sound more like a boot. Utah speakers don't typically have this trait, though they may have their own unique vowel pronunciation, such as flattening or lengthening certain vowels. And then there's something here called rotis. Roth rot. Rotith is, how the hell do you say that? Hold on a second. This thing's amazing, by the way. It's pronounced, rotis, t rhoticity. Okay, it came in my headphone so you couldn't hear it. But rhoticity, both accents are rhotic, meaning they pronounce the R at the end of the words, unlike some other English accents, uh, it tonation, uh, intonation and melody. Canadian accents have a distinct upward intonation, especially at the end of sentences, often referred to as Canadian question intonation. This is less common in Utah, which tends to have more of a level and straightforward intonation and word choices in slang, Canadian English often incorporates unique slang and expressions influenced by French and regional Canadian culture, whereas Utah slang is more influenced by western American culture. Oh,

Chanel 1:08:44 there you go. Bob's your uncle? Interesting. Yep, I didn't even know

Scott Benner 1:08:48 it's not the same, but it's so similar that it struck me for a little bit. Did we talk about everything you want to talk about? I

Chanel 1:08:55 don't know what else I put in the note, but like, there's been frustrating things with insurance. There's been totally mean people who just don't understand. We've had some scary lows a couple times with both of my kids, and we've had some some terrible school nurses. Luckily, we have a great one now, but in the past, we've had some real, real bad ones. What's your worst school nurse story? He was in kindergarten. She got on a pump just after kindergarten started, and the nurse would just keep her in her office all day. She wouldn't give her corrections. She said that the only time they can do corrections is at meal times, even though, you know that's not true when they're on the pump. And so she would she kept her in there for six hours one day and just monitoring her number, but refusing to give her insulin because her blood sugar was high, yeah. And so I. Called, and I'm like, What is going on? And she's like, well, we're just monitoring it. And I was like, well, like, give her a correction. And so that time I actually, I went and I went to the school and did it because she wouldn't. But another day she was going into this was also Kate. She was going into lunch, her number was like 72 which used to scare me, but I'm not scared of I'm not scared of that anymore. So this nurse decided not to dose her for lunch because she was low, so she didn't give her any insulin at all. And so then I'm at home seeing her number just like, skyrocket, and all of a sudden it's just high too straight up. And I called because nothing was changing. And I was like, What is going on here? What's happening? And she's like, Well, Kate was low, so I didn't give her her insulin for lunch. And I was like, Well, how many carbs Did she eat for lunch? Well, 85 so she gave her 85 carbs uncovered. Wouldn't give her a correction even. And I was like, but you didn't, you didn't even give her the insulin she needed for her meal. Yeah. And she's not low anymore, right? And she's not low, she's opposite. She's totally high, and so give her the insulin. And she said, Well, now, unfortunately, it's outside of mealtime, so I can't do a correction. Why are people so? And I was like, but you didn't give her her meal time insulin. She didn't get any of that. Yeah, give it to her. Now she needs insulin. And she was like, well, hopefully it will come down. And I said it will not come down unless you give her the insulin she needs. She needs the insulin for it to come down. You can't just keep her in your office monitoring things, because it's not coming down unless she has insulin. That's a registered nurse. Yeah, she was our school nurse. And the same lady another day she calls me, and Ryan was a little bit high. He's up, like, low two hundreds. And she was like, well, he's high, and I'm watching them, and I'm monitoring things because, you know, and it was the same thing. I can't give him a correction.

Scott Benner 1:12:22 We are bolusing. We're bolusing hope. So I'm sure it's gonna come down any second now. Oh, by the oh, let's call your episode Bolus hope. By the way, that's a great idea.

Chanel 1:12:34 She said, I'm gonna take him for a little run. I'll have him like we'll go on a walk, and we'll run a little and I'll have him drink some water, please. I was like, Please, just give him insulin and send him back to class. As long as he feels fine, the insulin will need a little bit of time to work, but if you give it to him, then it can start. We're

Scott Benner 1:12:54 willing to hope, we're willing to pray, we're willing to go on a run. We've given him a glass of water. Can you give him insulin? No, it's the wrong time. And so I

Chanel 1:13:03 said, please send him back to class. He doesn't need to be in your office waiting for it to come down. As long as he feels fine, send him back to class. So about five minutes later, I get a call from him on his phone, which he doesn't normally call during school, right? And so I was like, Well, this is weird.

Scott Benner 1:13:20 Hey, Mom, the nurse is an idiot.

Chanel 1:13:23 That's basically how it went. Hey, Mommy. Like, what's going on, bud? And he says the nurse is making me run laps.

Scott Benner 1:13:32 And I'll tell you what else. She doesn't even have a money market account. She doesn't know what she's doing. He's

Chanel 1:13:38 like, huffing and puffing. And I'm like, I just told her to send you back to class. Why are you running laps? And he's like, Oh, she sees that I'm on the phone. I gotta go. And he hangs up on me. And I was like,

Scott Benner 1:13:54 Are you kidding me? They had him cut the shrubs and dig a dig a trench, and

Chanel 1:13:59 so yeah, I was like, you gotta be, you gotta be kidding. That's awesome. That's this is not a thing. Oh, there's so many dumb

Scott Benner 1:14:07 people. It's fantastic.

Chanel 1:14:09 She doesn't, she doesn't work there anymore. No, she wasn't

Scott Benner 1:14:12 a she wasn't a star, a star, shocking. No, my God, that's great. I gotta go. She sees me.

Chanel 1:14:23 She sees that I'm on the phone. I gotta go.

Scott Benner 1:14:25 That's funny, but it's also sad. Oh, it's crazy, well. And

Chanel 1:14:28 she would also, like, call me to tattle on the kids. Like,

Scott Benner 1:14:37 you know, I had him out running laps, and he stopped and he was on his

Chanel 1:14:40 phone. Kate was caught eating a Skittle in class. And I was like, perfect, and she felt like she needed a little bump, like, that's what I'm trying to teach her to do. Caught. She was caught eating a Skittle. What

Scott Benner 1:14:54 a phrasing. How come the How come the story isn't Hey, you know, we just wanted to let you know how. Probably are of Kate. She got a little low in class. She took care of it herself.

Chanel 1:15:03 Oh, it was a total tattle, like, and I said, like, great, that's what I want her to do. I want her to recognize that she needs something and to just do it. Yeah. And like, this is part of her learning how to take care of this. And then another day Ryan was caught giving himself insulin, and I was like, perfect. He noticed he needed a correction, and he was doing it,

Scott Benner 1:15:27 yeah. Everybody's like, yeah. It's weird how people think I'm not kidding.

Chanel 1:15:32 And she's like, No, they need to come down to my office and I need to supervise that. They can't just give themselves insulin. They can't just eat something. We need to know about it. And I was like, you don't the whole goal is to get these kids independent in their care. They need to learn these things. And I am proud of them, and I don't want you to tattle to me. Like, maybe get

Scott Benner 1:15:56 on the team for God's sakes, seriously, right? Like, try to see what's going on here.

Chanel 1:16:02 And she actually told me, because, well, if I see something that I'm like, Oh, we're gonna have to catch this before, you know. So I'll tell them to eat. I'll text them and tell them to eat a little something or and they just give me a thumbs up, so I know that they saw it, and they do that. So she actually called me one day and she said, I don't have the right to text them while they're in her care. And I was like, I don't have the right. These are my kids. Like, what I have the right? You can't tell me not to not to text them.

Scott Benner 1:16:40 That's awesome. So, yeah, oh, so stop talking to those kids, because you're finding out what's going on. Yeah,

Chanel 1:16:47 pretty much, that's how it felt. Unbelievable. Are you calling the other parents? If you see their kid eat a Skittle or a Eminem or something, you're calling their parents to tattle?

Scott Benner 1:16:57 Yeah, probably not. I'm gonna guess,

Chanel 1:17:01 like, one little Skittle is not gonna send her up as high as you have her by not dosing her for lunch

Scott Benner 1:17:08 exactly. I didn't tattle on you when you gave her all those carbs and give her any insulin. You, oh, man, it must very frustrating in that your whole story is full of frustration. I'm so sorry.

Chanel 1:17:19 No, tell me about it. That's crazy.

Scott Benner 1:17:22 Chenille I have to stop or I have to spend more money on the editing. You don't want to send over money,

Chanel 1:17:27 do you? I don't want to cost you more money. Very much.

Scott Benner 1:17:31 You really, I really do appreciate your conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Oh, of course, it's my pleasure. Hold on one second. You I'd like to thank the ever since 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days, you want the ever since CGM, ever since cgm.com/juicebox one year, one CGM. 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 bluecircle 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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#1442 Small Sips: Using a CGM Well

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A CGM provides more than just a number—trends help guide better decision-making and prevent extreme highs and lows.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to the sips series.

These foundational strategies were nominated by listeners. They told me, these are the ideas in the podcast that truly made a difference for them. So I distilled them down into short, actionable insights. There's not going to be any fluff or complex jargon, just practical, real world diabetes management that you can start applying today. And I know your time is valuable, so we're keeping these short. Another small sip will come out once a week for the foreseeable future. If you like what you hear, check out the Pro Tip series or the bold beginning series for more. Those series are available in the menu at Juicebox podcast.com and you can find complete lists of all of the series in the featured tab on the private Facebook group. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. The questions you have, I guarantee you there's answers to them in the Juicebox Podcast, and it's all free. You

Jenny, let's talk about using your CGM graphs for more than just the number. Oh, you up for this? Of course, okay, apparently we talked about this in a number of episodes. Episode 37 with you, Jenny Smith. It's called Jenny Smith, type one diabetes guru. That's crazy is that, like the first year of the podcast,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:50
it must number 37 you said 37 really

Scott Benner 1:53
early. Yes. And we also spoke about it in episode 1006 called Mastering A CGM, and in the bold beginning series episode 1271, but the person that sent this idea in is saying, Look, I came to realize that I could infer things from the graph and not just count on the number. Now, yeah, I will say this. Do you think that that changes from system to system. Or do you think it's pretty consistent throughout them, meaning

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:23
brand to brand of CGM,

Scott Benner 2:27
yeah, and maybe even like, g6 to g7 for example. Like, does the pitch of the line mean something different to you in g6 than it does on g7 that kind of an idea. Or do you think, generally speaking, this conversation could cover all these ideas? I think it could

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:41
cover all of the ideas, because the systems all have some type of an arrow directive along or associated with the number that is your considered current glucose value, right? They all have a graph that indicates rising, falling or stability. I think it could be used across the board.

Scott Benner 3:01
Okay? Because I used to say to people Dexcom g6 and prior, I used to say, set your graph to three hours, and then look at the last three dots on the right side. And if they would bend one way or the other, it was a good indication that you were about to get an arrow that way. And I have to admit, I don't find that to be the same in g7 anymore. Oh, that's interesting. I don't know why exactly. Maybe some people still use it that way. But whether I think it is or not, these, to me, are the little things you're looking for. Like, what does the graph tell me is happening? You know, for instance, we all know about compression lows with CGM, right? You roll over you, lay on the CGM, all of a sudden, your blood sugar looks significantly lower than it was five minutes before after. That's happened to you a number of times. I don't know about you, but I can look at the graph and say to myself, being fairly confident, oh, this is a compression low Yes, because I can see it on the graph

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:57
well. And there's a very on the graph, again, in terms of talking about those, the graphical view, the compression laws are very evident, because they look like a pretty stable looking line of trending dots, and one dot veers off in a very different, abrupt manner. It's almost, I kind of describe it akin to a cliff dive? Yeah, you're on the cliff, and all of a sudden you're like, at the bottom of the gully or whatever. And

Scott Benner 4:29
sometimes you'll lose connection for a second. It'll almost look like a couple of dots weren't there, and then, like, Listen, I'm not saying this couldn't happen, but it's fairly unlikely without insulin that would, you know, make this happen for your blood sugar to go from 100 to 40 correct in a couple of minutes, like, you know, when you look and you go, Oh my God, it just went down 40 points. And then that panic hits you. I'm not saying you shouldn't check on it immediately, but what I am saying is you might think I'm just going to test my blood sugar because this could. Be a compression, low, correct, right? And then after that happens a number of times, I still think you're gonna check. I would still like you to check, I guess is what I'm saying. I'd like you to whip out your meter and make sure, but at the very least, maybe it could keep you from having that heart dropping into your stomach feeling correct

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:15
and or treating when you really don't need two grams, four grams, eight grams, whatever. You've gotten used to treating something like that with. You're likely to not really need it if that value is not truly that low.

Scott Benner 5:29
So instead of the panic putting a juice box into your hand, let the panic. Put a meter into your hand and go. No, look, you know what? I am 100 maybe I'll just wait a second to see what happens here. Now, similarly, using the graph after a meal, for example, I think of that line sometimes, like on a protractor. I don't know if people have ever used a protractor before, like, when you're like, put in a little, I don't know, Pre Bolus for a meal, and you've got a nice little drift happening, and then all of the sudden, it looks like a bent arm, like shot up into the air. All of a sudden, I say to myself, well, I don't think my Pre Bolus was long enough, long enough. And okay, so let's next time to take a little look at that. Now, if it jumps up very quickly, and then, you know, levels off and then comes back down to me that says, Oh, I'm close, like, I almost have this, right, you know. But if it goes from, if you bowl us at 100 and you're at 80, and then all of a sudden it's jumping up like a rocket. You're 121, 4160, and it goes up over 200 you might have missed on your pre balls. You might have missed on the amount of insulin you needed. Like this, to me, is an example of I have to look at the amount and timing of the insulin that I'm using, it, but I'm pulling out art and CGM just so I can look at it and think about it. I think often you can look at your CGM and say, Oh, I see the mistakes I made, but I don't feel that way about it. Like I feel like you should look at it and say, Oh, this is what happened. Here's what I did. I know what I should do next time to stop this from happening. Like, those lines tell you a lot

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:00
well, and that's a good differentiation of passing judgment on yourself or your decisions for yourself or for the child or the person that you're caring for, trying to take the emotional piece out of it. Don't judge your decision. Instead, I always recommend once a week, not every day, maybe, but once a week, take a look at your data. Look historically back and see okay, I can see where I might need to make an adjustment. I can see where some things aren't falling into the target ranges where I really would like them to be. Again, don't judge. Just say. I can take a look at breakfast. It looks like there's not enough Pre Bolus, I could take a look at lunch knowing I have enough Pre Bolus, I'm still getting higher or lower than I want. I need to make an adjustment in something. So,

Scott Benner 7:50
yeah, I should have it with me, but I don't. But there's this great little graph that people made from the podcast. Apparently, you and I said things over the years, and people like put them out, like, if this happens, it was too short of a Pre Bolus. If this happens, it was like, like, so probably, yeah, I'll find that, and maybe I'll put it into the end of this episode. Again, your blood sugar doesn't jump up right away, but drifts up slowly over, you know, the last 45 minutes. Maybe this was just not quite enough insulin. Like, if it didn't jump up initially good Pre Bolus, but if it does, then continue to rise, not enough insulin, right? If it just jumps up out of nowhere, but then levels off and stays super steady after that might have been the right amount of insulin with not enough of a Pre Bolus. Like those are the things that you can and I hope you do infer from the graph and teach yourself with because in the end, this whole game is timing an amount. It's using the right amount of insulin at the right time. And that graph can teach you a lot about it. Yes, sure you can get used to like, what does a compression low look like as a more valuable tool? It's that. It's going back and saying, I put the insulin in here, then this happened. What would happen if I put the insulin in five minutes sooner or five minutes later, there was a little more, a little less, and really learning from it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:09
I know I was going to say, go along with that. That really is, that's assessment of your information. I think a lot of people value whatever continuous monitor they're using these days for the alerts the here and now. I'm getting an alert here, or I'm getting an alert here. It gives you something to react to. But if you get into looking at your information, like I said, even every seven days, just taking 15 minutes to look at your trend in the last week, you can then learn to be proactive and make the right adjustments so that your alarms and alerts don't become a nuisance and they aren't going off as regularly. I

Scott Benner 9:50
think the two things I hope people take away from this one that you shouldn't just look at and go look what it's doing, because it's not doing anything like you're eating and putting it in so. And it's showing you what's happening. So, you know, just don't look at it when you see the peaks and the valleys and go, Oh man, diabetes just I don't know, you know. Trust me, you could know. And the other thing I would say, this will sound crazy to people who are not at a place yet to feel like they can keep their blood sugars in a range that they're shooting for, but having a lower, high alarm and not treating your CGM just like a don't die. Advice is, like a device is a big deal, like, please don't just treat it as a low alarm, right and then push your high alarm up to 400 and ignore it like you'd be surprised. The way I usually think about it is often after you have good ideas about your settings, and you know how to Bolus insulin. And you get better at that, you start to get what you expect. So if you expect your high blood sugar to be high at 150 you'd be surprised how often you stay under 150 so if you've got a 400 you know, and listen, I'll go over very quickly. If your highest set at 202 5300, 400 wherever it is the amount of insulin that it's going to take to bring you down from one of those big numbers is much more. It's much more. It's harder to know. It's more likely to cause a low later. And I think it puts you in a three hour fight with this high blood sugar, instead of getting an alarm at 140 or 150 and going, oh, what would fix this? A quarter of a unit, you know, and then putting it in, and now all that other stuff doesn't come with it. There's so much you can do with that CGM that will make your life easier. I think

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:28
too a lot of people are with the tightening of people's ranges, the goals getting tighter than what the ADA recommends that 70 to 180 right? People want maybe 80 to 150 or 70 to 160 they're tightening their range that they want to see their overall averages in which is a healthy thing. But you have data now to be able to do that much more precisely. And so with the concern about high blood sugars many times, if we're reactive to just the CGM alerts, what we end up doing is creating more roller coaster we're creating more variability. And so, like you said, if you have your high alert set really high, rather than a bit lower, to be able to see what's happening sooner, you may end up giving more insulin creating a low. The low most often creates another rise up. And so you start this up, down, up, down, up, down. It's very difficult to get off of that roller coaster. So if you instead of focusing so much on highs, look first at your reports for where are the lows. And if you can filter out a good majority of the lows, you're often going to decrease the height of the highs. And that may take some adjustment to, you know, insulin doses, strategies, all of those types of things. But yeah, often lows are really the end result is, is a high that you didn't want, and then it just keeps going.

Scott Benner 13:04
Well, there's no doubt that most of the people listening, who are like in need of this information, probably see some sort of stability overnight, right? And then they get up in the morning, they miss time or miscalculate their first meal. Whoop up. They crush it with insulin. Whoop down. You panic about the low food in too much back up. And I know it sounds crazy, but I've seen people get on that roller coaster and not get off it for years, right? I'm not even kidding. Like it's not like, oh, Monday got messed up. Sometimes, if you're doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, I guess that's the definition of insanity. In the end, it really is just, I promise you, it's, it's about timing and amount. Like, go listen to the Pro Tip series. I don't know how many episodes it is now. It starts at Episode 1000 in your player. It's Jenny and I talking about big ideas, more, you know, long form conversations. I genuinely think if you listen to it, you'll understand by the time it's over, and you can make this stuff happening for yourself. Yes. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you.

Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them? You're like, Oh, if I Bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less, a little more, if you're starting to have those thoughts, if you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would, I think I see something here, but I can't be sure. Once you're having those thoughts, you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. It begins at Episode 1000 you can also find it at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group. Just check right under the featured tab at the top. It'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 if you're newly diagnosed. Check out the bold beginnings series. Find the. At Juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu in the feature tab of the private Facebook group, or go into the audio app you're listening in right now and search for Juicebox Podcast, bold beginnings. Juicebox is one word. Juicebox Podcast, bold beginnings. This series is perfect for newly diagnosed people. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app. Please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. You.

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