#1474 Head Like a Hole

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Diagnosed at 26. Chicago pediatric nurse and new mom who built a looping algorithm after overcoming early depression with her husband’s support.

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

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

Carolina 00:15 Hi, my name is Carolina. I'm 30 years old. Turned 30 yesterday, and I have type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 00:24 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. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink AG, one.com/juice, box to get this offer. Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident? If you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d, exchange.org/juice box and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds. So if you'd like to help with type one research, but don't have time to go to a doctor or an investigation and you want to do something right there from your sofa, this is the way t 1d exchange.org/juice, box. It should not take you more than about 10 minutes. Today's episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate and waiting for you at contour next.com/juice, box. US med is sponsoring this episode of the juice box podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years. You can as well us med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number. Get your free benefits. Check and get started today with us. Med, the episode you're about to listen to was sponsored by touched by type one. Go check them out right now on Facebook, Instagram, and of course, at touched by type one.org check out that Programs tab when you get to the website to see all the great things that they're doing for people living with type one diabetes touched by type one.org

Carolina 02:48 Hi, my name is Carolina. I'm 30 years old. Turned 30 yesterday, and I have type one diabetes. Are

Scott Benner 02:56 you serious that yesterday was your birthday? Yes, yes. Turned 30 yesterday. Yesterday, I recorded with a woman, and she said, Today is my birthday.

Carolina 03:05 Oh, yeah, and it was Election Day. It was a big day.

Scott Benner 03:09 It was, but that's not but what the heck? Isn't that weird? It is weird. The two people born on the same day recorded a rather niche podcast a day apart, one on their birthday and one the day after it. I don't like it. I think it's freaky. Okay? I just want to say I'm not okay with anything that's happened so far. Well, happy birthday. How old are you again? I'm 30. Congratulations. It's a nice age. Yeah, really is your hips don't hurt yet.

Carolina 03:36 Yeah, right, yet. Awesome. I woke up feeling okay, so we're okay so far.

Scott Benner 03:40 Oh, you might have named the episode. I woke up feeling okay. I like that. Let's see where this goes. How old were you when you were diagnosed? I was 26 oh, what the hell that's a bummer. It sure was. Tell me a little bit about that.

Carolina 03:56 Yeah. So I was, yeah, 26 I did not see it coming at all. I was losing weight. Excused everything away. I was having vision problems. I was just like, oh, I need stronger glasses. I was finishing grad school at the time, so everything I was just like, I'm stressed. I'm tired. Of course, I'm working full time and in grad school. So everything was excused away. And then the weekend of my graduation, we flew to Pennsylvania for graduation. My parents were there. My parents were like, You look really rough. Like, even my dad, you know. And my dad's like, you know, he's the type of guy who's like, everything's always fine, and he doesn't notice those things. And he's like, You look really thin. Like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm eating all the time. Like, I'm just so so fit and losing weight. It's great.

Scott Benner 04:48 You don't understand, this is me. This is this is Fit Carolina, okay, yeah, no, I've been doing uh, pilates, exactly, by the way. Had you been doing anything?

Carolina 04:58 Uh, no, no. Okay, working. Full Time and in grad school, so I was just doing homework all the time.

Scott Benner 05:02 I finally found the secret mix of El fudge to Doritos, and it's working perfectly. Dad, I don't know, I just I figured the whole thing out. Okay, so Does that strike you when your parents, who are normally not those people, are like, Hey, what's wrong with you?

Carolina 05:19 You know, when my dad said something, my mom, like, worries about everything. So not from her, but when my dad said something, I kind of was like, Maybe something's off. And then, like, the first thing that ran through my mind was like, okay, unexplained weight loss. Do I have cancer? And then I was like, in my head, I was like, if I do have cancer, I'd rather deal with that in a week after graduation, not right now, so I just kind of avoided thinking about it. And then on our plane ride home, I started vomiting. No, I didn't vomit till we landed. And then after that, I just kept vomiting and vomiting. And so eventually went to the ED and they, you know, looked at me, and they were like, has anyone ever told you that you have diabetes? And I was like, No, I have never heard those words in my life. It's

Scott Benner 06:07 only because I don't. So, yeah, because I don't have diabetes. I don't know if you know, I'm getting an advanced degree. I'm on my way. I'm taking over the world. So

Carolina 06:16 yeah, and that was that, you know, right away, I was like, maybe 100 pounds at the time. I was pretty small, so they were basically right away. They were like, it's probably type one. We're gonna have to wait for all these test results to come back, but probably type one. And I was like, I'm a nurse. So I was like, I like, begged them in the ED I was like, Can it please be type two? And they were like, No, probably not. What about

Scott Benner 06:38 your nursing background in your life made you wish you had type two, not type one. I

Carolina 06:42 was a camp nurse back in nursing school for a summer, and the type one kids were maybe needy is the wrong word, but like, they needed so much care, that was, like the closest experience I had to type one. So I just remember, like, having to wait, anytime we had a kid who had type one, we'd have to take turns, like waking up go prick their fingers overnight. I didn't know about CGM and all that stuff, because none of those kids. I don't know if it was a coincidence. It wasn't that long ago, but nobody had anything like that. So I was just like, oh my god, I'm gonna have to prick myself all night for the rest of my life and give these shots. And it just sounded so overwhelming. And I was like, with type two. I was like, I can fix my diet. Eat less of those Doritos that we just talked about, which, you know, now I know a lot more, a lot more than that, but at the time, that's how I saw it. And I was like, I can, I can go on more walks. I can, I can eat more salads. Like, I can do something, whereas with type one, I knew there wasn't really anything I could do to, you know, prevent or reverse, yeah.

Scott Benner 07:37 So it felt like two fold, like, this is like genetic somehow, I'm not getting rid of this. And functionally, there's a lot of work here, yes, and it's not going to end. It's always going to be this thing. I watched those kids, it felt like a struggle for them. Now I'm going to struggle that whole thing. Yes. Okay, exactly. Now, when you ask the lovely people in the emergency department to change over the kind of diabetes you had. Did anyone pull out a magic wand to try to help you? No, they were just, what a bunch of assholes. Why wouldn't they just help also, I have to get past this in my mind, or I'm never going to. I thought for sure that your name was going to have some weird pronunciation that didn't match its spelling. No, yeah, but it doesn't your Carolina doesn't,

Carolina 08:22 yeah. I mean, some people say Carolina, and I answer to that too, but I usually go by Carolina, but your parents

Scott Benner 08:28 were like, That's Carolina. My parents are Polish. Oh, is that why it starts with a K? I'm just kidding. Yes. No, go ahead. What do they say? Yeah,

Carolina 08:38 no, they say, you know, like Carolina, that's how you say it in Polish.

Scott Benner 08:41 Oh, okay, so it's not your parents being like, I just love the south on the East Coast, and I wanted to name my kid after. It's a name that's not, it's not an American name,

Carolina 08:50 correct? It's a super popular Polish name. If you, if you go to Poland, you'll meet Carolinas on like, every corner, oh, oh,

Scott Benner 08:57 it's the Smith of of Poland. Yeah. Gotcha look at us getting through all this. When they say it to you, what does it sound like? Catalina, Oh, lovely. You don't have a an accent of any kind, though. I don't I was born here. I was born in the States. Gotcha. Do you speak Polish? Is polish a language? Uh, oh, oh,

Carolina 09:15 wait a minute, polish it is language, okay, yes, yeah. Poland is a country. No, no. I mean,

Scott Benner 09:21 I know it's a country, but I don't know if they like, like, you're not like Carolina, that wasn't nice. I mean, I don't know everything. I'm just trying to find out. Okay, all right. So here we are, emergency department. I've got type one diabetes. Your parents are around, right? Because you did you do it while you were visiting, or did you wait till you went home to look into it. Yeah.

Carolina 09:42 So I live in Chicago. My parents live in the suburbs. I'm married at this point at 27 so, yeah, I got married at 24 Okay, which sounds young now, but back then,

Scott Benner 09:52 did it feel young? Uh, oh, I can feel I like you Carolina. I feel like we're gonna be all over the place today. Did it feel young when you were getting married? Or were you like? No, I'm so. Ready for this?

Carolina 10:00 No, I was so ready. Yeah, I always say I forever feel 24 because that's when I got married. Nothing really changed after that. So,

Scott Benner 10:07 yeah, so now when you look back, you're like, Oh my God, why didn't somebody stop me? Or are you, like, happy with it? I'm happy with it. He's the best. He's the best. He's not the best. Yeah, stop it. He's the best. He's one of the best. I guess, if I'm the best, how can he be the best, true,

Carolina 10:21 I said one of the best. Yeah, I see what you're

Scott Benner 10:24 saying. So me and him basically. Okay, yeah. So what are you telling me? He's got a decent job and he's not an idiot, right? Yes,

Carolina 10:31 and yeah, can't imagine, you know, even going through DKA and everything you know, without him. So

Scott Benner 10:37 let's talk more about that. Then you were in DK before you went to the emergency department, and how do you manage all that like, what? What's that run up like? What it's like after you get the diagnosis? You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works. And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, US med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it, push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. US, med.com/juice, box. Or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefit. Benefits checked now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem, freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new islet pump. Check them out now at us, med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all the sponsors. The contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash then you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter, then you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show. Yeah.

Carolina 13:21 So before I thought they were going to tell me, I have cancer, as I had mentioned before, I was like, maybe it's stomach cancer. That's why I'm vomiting. And so that diagnosis came as a shock, so I'm still in shock. It's 2021 so it's still COVID ish, so they're not letting him spend the night or anything like that, which was really, really hard that first night. I think I cried like the whole night, the poor, like, CNAs coming in to prick my finger were like, Oh, honey, it's gonna be okay. I'm just like, it's not gonna be okay. So we made it through. And then, rather than, like those moments, the hardest part for me was about six months after, I never considered myself to be someone who had like, anxiety or depression. And six months later, I was, like, deep in a hole. I think the first few months, I was just like, Okay, I'm gonna carb count perfectly, and I'm gonna do everything that I'm supposed to do, and I'm gonna be the best diabetic on the planet, and it's gonna be great. You know, I'm carb counting, I'm trying to work out. I'm like, up, I'm down, I'm 40, I'm 250 like, nothing's making any sense. And few months later, I was like, Okay, I'm trying so, so hard, and it's it's not working. And so that's when I kind of Yeah. At some point, I was like, I don't think I want to live anymore. And having those thoughts really freaked me out, so I found a therapist. Like, right away, I was like, I I have the tools. I have so much insulin on hand. Like, I don't want to go deeper down this hole. I don't like myself like this. Like, that's not me. But I was in that place, and that was really, really hard. So you know, for my husband to be there for me through all of that, I. And, you know, just support me and be like, Okay, what do you need? You know, try to lighten the mood when I was upset, and then at the same time, not like, you know, when I'm having a hard time just, just really being there for me. Was like, you know, that's what marriage is, right? So it was, it was so important. And at some point I was like, we're not even ever going to have kids, because what if I pass this down to them, and he just let me process how I needed to process, didn't try to talk me out of anything or or pressure me in any way. Have you

Scott Benner 15:29 ever wondered if he was just sitting there quietly thinking, like, how long do I have to wait before I leave her? I hope not. I'm sure he wasn't. Probably, he's like, Oh, no, no. You're like, Oh, look how understanding he's being in his mind. He's like, so there's how much money in the bank account. No, no, that's lovely. That's it's really awesome. So how long did you, you know, how long did you have, like, your head, like, a whole moment, oh, look at me, Nine Inch Nails. Is that what I just did? Had, like, a whole black as you're Yeah, oh, I'd rather die than give you control. Is that how you felt? Yeah, I wonder what this song's about. Do you think Trent Reznor wrote this about you, like perhaps, but 20 years ago. I mean, how old is this? Do you even know this song? No, Holy Christ. You're young. You don't know head like a hole from Nine Inch Nails. No,

Carolina 16:23 all right, I don't my parents were foreign, so sometimes I don't know things that other people know. So are they not still?

Scott Benner 16:33 So now I can't play a song on here, so I'm gonna leave it to you to listen to. Do you what kind of music do you like? Oh, like country. Oh, you're not gonna like this song at all. Okay, I still listen to it. All right. Try it once head like a hole by Nine Inch Nails. Okay, all right. So obviously we can't go down that road or that hole, because you don't know what we're talking about. So your your boy is being very like supportive, which is awesome. You are not that far into being married, right? Like two years maybe, right? And you're, you're doing the whole thing. Everything's wrong, everything's nothing's gonna work out the way I want it to. I'm trying my hardest. All it's doing is returning, like, horrible results. And how do you get you go to a therapist? Is that? Right? What's the therapist tell you? That's helpful.

Carolina 17:20 She had type one, oh, which that was enough for me. I realized I really needed community, and I didn't have that at the time. I needed someone who understood without me having to explain, you know, the the mental toll of every day of type one, right? And so she gave me the phone number of someone she thought I would hit it off with, and I met up with this girl, and she was my first friend with diabetes, and that I feel like more than anything, more than the therapy, more than anything, that really started to turn it around for me. Wow, and I just really needed that community. Is that

Scott Benner 17:57 legal? By the way, I don't care, because it worked out really well for you. But are you? Isn't that a HIPAA violation? She asked, I suppose. Oh, okay. Oh, that makes sense. Yes, I see, I see she didn't just go like, Hey, check this girl out. Yeah, no, here's her Instagram handle, just like stalker. Till you can find her, it'll be great. Okay, I see she worked it out like a professional, yeah? So she gave you a friend. Is that right? That is right, huh? Say, Listen, I'm I, I'm not super surprised by that. Like, I watch it happen in my Facebook group constantly. So as a matter of fact, one of the things that I I'm saddest about that I have to say things on Facebook like, please don't DM each other like, you know, like, if you have an answer, put it here. Because, you know, for every great person who wants to help somebody, there's like, one Nick in there that's trying to take advantage of people, and so in order to try to stop everybody from being taken advantage of, sometimes you end up blocking what I think could be some of the best aspects of it. Yeah, now I imagine people do it on the slide behind my back, and I act like, I don't know that's happening, because almost like, when people are like, I have pumps that I want to give to somebody, and I'm like, oh, you can't give away medical stuff, but I sometimes wait an hour before I say it, you know what? I mean, yeah? But that's awesome. Like, she just gave you a buddy, yeah? Tell me what that did for both of you,

Carolina 19:13 yeah, for both of us. I mean, we still talk all the time. She ended up coming to my baby shower like we are legit friends, yeah, having her was amazing. We we built Iaps together. We had a little I back before it was, what is it now trio, when it was Iaps, we had a little IPS building party. We could just text each other like, you know, a screenshot of our Dexcom graph, and be like, today sucks. And just having that more than more than my husband, more than my mom, more than people who were like, yes, that sucks, but I don't understand. I don't know that was just so important for me, just to have that understanding without me having to explain. And since then, I hope you don't kick me out of your Facebook group. I met two other people on Facebook through your Facebook group. One. One of them lives a few blocks away from me, so we hang out, and I met another girl, and we have not met in person, but I'm going to her wedding next year, and so I just feel like having diabetes as a foundation to a friendship for me has just been, I don't know, I've made such great friends that it's like, unbelievable. Carolina.

Scott Benner 20:18 Me too. Listen. Would you believe that the first time I met Jenny, I had probably had hundreds of hours of conversations with her before we met in person? Oh, really, yeah, and no, Jenny and I did not like face to face meet for God, five years of knowing each other, I just met Erica last, like, two months ago. Oh, wow, yeah, I had no idea, for the first time in person, and it's such a strange thing. And I told her ahead of time. I was like, listen, Eric, it's gonna be weird. She's like, Yeah. And I was like, she's like, No, it won't I'm like, It's gonna be weird. I'm like, because we feel like we know each other, and then you're gonna get there, and there's gonna be this physical aspect of it that didn't exist before. But two days later, she and I at the end of, like, a long weekend where we were both exhausted from all the talking we did. We sat and had a dinner at the end of the night, and I felt like I was talking to somebody I'd known for years, because I was, you know, yeah, the internet for all the things that it does that, you know, I'm not always thrilled about it really does, right? It makes the pond, smaller so you can find your fish. That's pretty much it, you know, it's awesome. So look at how you, kind of like, low key slipped in that you made a baby. Yes, I did. How old were you when you did that?

Carolina 21:32 Well, I was 29 was born five months ago, just a little baby, still,

Scott Benner 21:38 holy shit, is this it Carolina? Is the baby's name, Scott. Is that? Why you're here? Come on, is it? Oh, my God, it's, I knew that was gonna come up, but it's not. It's not, did you even think of it for a second? We didn't, but

Carolina 21:50 we have a valid reason. It's a

Scott Benner 21:53 terrible name, but what else was the reason?

Carolina 21:56 No, so my husband's from Italy, so we wanted an Italian name. Oh

Scott Benner 21:59 well, I'm adopted, and I went to 23andme and I'm mostly Italian, so apparently Scott is an Italian name, and you messed now, we know, no, it's too late now, isn't it? I mean, are you gonna make another

Carolina 22:11 baby? Oof, not right now? Oh, I don't think so.

Scott Benner 22:19 I have kids. I know what you meant. I'm gonna get back to the making the baby part with diabetes. But before I do these words from Chief o kypo pen, no, I'm just kidding. It's actually like, are those lies? Can you imagine if I start doing live ads? Chief o kypo Pen is actually, God bless chief oak. They don't make me re record those. I don't even remember what that one says. I recorded it years ago. I could do some of the other ones off the top of my head, though, so I don't know. I just cracked myself up. Now, I gotta give me a second. Also, I have a day in front of me. So, I mean, election was last night. I think it was up to, like, three in the morning, and I'm recording with you, and then I'm recording two more times today. And the truth is, all I really want out of today, besides doing good recordings for you all listening, is I want to go to the grocery store and buy like, a half a pound of shrimp and steam it for my dinner. And I think I'm not going to be able to accomplish that, and it's pissing me

Carolina 23:17 off. Love, sucks. Can you order it? Can it be delivered?

Scott Benner 23:19 I'm old and I don't let people bring me groceries in their car. Oh yeah, I think you're all gonna live to regret that one day. I don't know how it's gonna happen. I just think one day, collectively, society's gonna stand up and go, Hey, do you remember back when we let strangers drive us around in a Corolla. Why did we do that? I don't know. Maybe not. Then again, I the cars are going to drive themselves. It's not going to matter. You're not even have time to think back on it. So whatever. Yeah. Anyway, this is not the point. The point is this, you got diabetes. It sucked. You got sad. You dug your way out of it through what it sounds like a really supportive young guy who was nice enough to not leave you when he found also, by the way, I don't think there's any reason he should have but do you know how many stories I've heard of people who did,

Carolina 24:11 yeah. I mean, I was telling him to leave me. So tell me more. There was that, yeah. I was like, you know, this sucks. I'm gonna have this forever. It's super expensive. We have to max out our health plan every year. I was like, we're not going to have a baby because that baby's going to get diabetes, so that's out the window. I was like, we're young. I was like, Go find someone young, healthy and leave me here. And he just ignored me. But yeah,

Scott Benner 24:38 he just ignored me. He's like, by the way, that's how I got my wife to marry me. She's like, I don't really like you. I'm like, I'm just gonna stay. I think you do. I think it's gonna be fine, don't worry. But by the way, see, that would have been a funny thing to say 20 years ago, but now everybody will get upset about it. But yeah, I just outlasted her. That's all I did.

Carolina 24:59 I. First it worked. You guys are still together, right? So, oh yeah, and

Scott Benner 25:03 we're generally happy, right? It's generally the right word, I think so mostly it might be better when you've been married for 30 years. Yeah, that's crazy. How old will you be when you're married for 30 years? I guess I'll be 54 ah, I'm 53 Oh, exactly I did the same made the same mistake you did. It's your husband your age. Uh, he's two years older. They're always older, right? Because you can't find boys your own age that are not nut next Am I right? Where's nut next coming from? What am I Yiddish? All of a sudden, it's hard to find boys that aren't idiots when you're younger, right? Yes, yeah. That's why I found one. And then we you're like, Oh, this is good enough. Let's go, yeah. Oh, I like you talking like a boy. Go ahead, say it again. I locked that up, Scott, that's what I did. How did you start your management off? It's not that long ago, right? So how long until you find CGM? And is that something you found through your buddy or on your own?

Carolina 26:05 Yeah. So I actually got to CGM super early, so I was in the hospital, and you know how they like listen to you. So I was literally getting ads for Dexcom, like the next day after I got diagnosed.

Scott Benner 26:17 Oh yeah, your Siri knew you had diabetes, yeah.

Carolina 26:20 Literally, Instagram started showing me like Nick Jonas Dexcom, I don't remember what else, but all sorts of stuff. So

Scott Benner 26:27 all you're making me think is that I know somebody at Dexcom in marketing. Why don't I ask them how they did that? So that when people get diabetes, they get my podcast on Instagram?

Carolina 26:36 Yeah, you should. They did a good job. So Okay, all

Scott Benner 26:41 right, I'll figure that out on my own, by the way, right now, there's people out there like, do not do that, you idiot. I can't afford it. Obviously, I think Dexcom has a couple more dollars than I do. I almost said shekels. I am Yiddish today. By the way, Yiddish is not a person Jewish speaking Yiddish. This is not my point. Okay, so you're on what is wrong? Oh, I'm tired. Is that? What's happening that will never up till three, yeah, that could be it. Never mind. You get your ads. What happens? Yeah,

Carolina 27:05 so I get discharged from the hospital with nothing, I mean, a long acting, pen and short acting. I get the Dexcom, like a couple days later because somebody had sent in a prescription for me. And so I have a virtual meeting with an endo. I think they were like, a PA, do you feel like you can? She's like, you're a nurse. She's like, it's easy to put on. Like, do you think you can just figure this out? Or do you want to come in for a class? And I was like, I want to put this on as soon as I can. Just the like, four days of pricking my finger, that was enough for me. I was like, I'm either 40 or, like, 300 and I don't understand, I need something more. So she was like, okay, then just put it on and see you later. And so I put it on, and kind of from that moment on, I was like, Oh my God, no one's really gonna help me. I'm gonna have to figure this out on my own. And so I tried. I actually got, I don't know if it was an ad, but somebody on Instagram posted about your podcast. About your podcast, probably within that first week. And this is going to sound so bad, but the name threw me off. It made me think it was for kids or something, even though she was an adult who was diagnosed at like 30, and she was like, go listen to this podcast. It's the best. And I was like, that sounds like a child podcast. It's not for me. So it took me a while to actually listen to it, but the first episode I listened to was bold with insulin, maybe a month or so after being diagnosed, and I was like, Oh, my God, I need a pump. And then I did not want a tube, pump. And back in 2021 there was no algorithm except loop for the Omnipod. So, I mean, within like, a month or two of diagnosis, I was like, I need to loop. And I don't really know what that means, and I don't really know how I'm going to do this, but that is what I want. Okay, and so I had to fight with my underdog office to get the arrows pods. They really wanted me on Dash. And again, in 2021 you couldn't dash. Wasn't ready. Finally got my arrows pods that took forever, and so I started looping in, like, maybe, like, four months, four or five months after diagnosis. So I wasn't on pens very long. And so I never really figured out pens. I hope I never have to go back to them, but if I do, I guess I know how to, like, survive, but I did not have good management. And then all of a sudden, my my agency dropped. It was I was 11.7 at diagnosis, dropped to 6.8 and then after that, I've been in the fives. Oh, good for you. So that's awesome. It's been, I think, a combination of loop trio, Iaps and obviously your podcast, learning how to manage insulin. It's not

Scott Benner 29:41 lost on me that I wore you down too. You're like, Juicebox, nah, go off, and then you're like, woke up. Like, sometime later you're like, man, where's that podcast? This ain't going well, by the way. I imagine that's how it goes. For a lot of people, to be perfectly honest, do you know what I mean? Like, I see the barriers to entry, like I have type one diabetes. I'm an adult. I'm gonna go to listen to a guy who doesn't have type one diabetes talking about how he took care of his daughter with type one diabetes. Like, that doesn't sound like that's me. That sounds like it's them, until you listen, and then don't let me put the words in your mouth when you listen to the podcast, you realized what? Yeah,

Carolina 30:22 well, one, I was starting to get that community that I realized later that I really needed. So listening to the stories, especially the ones of people diagnosed as adults, was kind of my only like tangible connection to someone with type one at that point. So that was so helpful to me, and then the management, because I knew what I wanted. I wanted good control. And I got really lucky that when I was in the hospital, you know, we met with some of the doctors, and there was a fellow there, and my husband asked her, like, what can we expect in the future? Like, in terms of blood sugars, what is this going to look like for us in real life, and she just, like, off handedly, was like, Oh, I imagine, like, she's gonna have, you know, pretty normal blood sugars, like, once everything is, you know, stabilized and she gets the hang of it. And so that's what I had in my head, that like, I'm going to have stable blood sugars, but I couldn't figure out how. And so when I started listening to the management episodes, I was like, Oh, this is exactly what I was told was going to happen. But nobody, at the end, though, is able to give me any tools to, like, make this happen. So it just gave me everything I was kind of searching for, I guess. Well,

Scott Benner 31:32 good, just what I wanted, honestly, get. You know what I mean, like, I'm thrilled that it worked that way for you, genuinely, genuinely happy. You get your tech very quickly, you're motivated by not wanting to poke your finger CGM. You hear about, like, more stable blood sugars. You think, I need more control over my insulin pump. You go right to Omnipod because you don't want tubes. And then the algorithm is a leap. But why was it not a leap? Who in your life is tech savvy enough that you were like, Oh, I could do that. Is it you? I guess it's me. Yeah, cool. So you were, you're not put off by any of that. No, here,

Carolina 32:06 well, here's where I'm gonna sound, you know, dumb because I was a nurse. I was in healthcare. I'm a pediatric nurse at that. I thought that's how pumps worked, that they read your blood sugar number and responded to it. So when I got diagnosed and I found out that that's not how most pumps back at that time worked. I think it was just tandem, maybe, oh, and Medtronic. But I found out very quickly to not get Medtronic. So I, you know, didn't consider that one. And so I was like, shocked that that was not how it was. So when I found out you could do it yourself, I was like, Oh, well, perfect. This solves all my problems.

Scott Benner 32:42 That's awesome. So it was your expectation that led you to desire that stuff. You're like, this is how it should work,

Unknown Speaker 32:48 yeah,

Scott Benner 32:52 ignorance is bliss, yeah, yeah, and so, oh, that's awesome. Also, it should be noted that before we started recording, I joked with you, like, how quickly you, like, fixed your technical problem, versus people who are, like, 10 years older than you, who fumble around when it happens. Oh, that's right, yeah, and get pressured, and they're like, oh, I don't know what to do, and I like all that, but you were just like, okay, click, click, click, and it was like, oh, Bucha fixed that very quickly. So just generationally, you're not put off by technology either.

Carolina 33:19 Yeah, that's probably what it is.

Scott Benner 33:21 Yeah, no, that's that's really great. Let's see I'm looking at we skipped over that you ended up on antidepressants when you weren't feeling your best. Did that something that you kept doing? Or has that stopped? How are you managing that

Carolina 33:35 I am still on that I'm nervous to get off of it, because I hated how I felt like I didn't feel like myself, and I had all those thoughts and so I would be, I've been nervous to get off of it, especially, you know, considering that I was pregnant and now I have a little baby, I was like, it's probably not the best time to go off of it. So I'm hoping in the future, I'm just on, like, one low dose once a day to get off of it, but I feel like myself, and so I'm okay with it right next. I mean,

Scott Benner 34:06 listen, I think what works is what's right usually. So it's a thought in your head though, like you're like, one day in the future, I might like, wean myself from this and see what happens. Yeah, has your doctor talked to you about

Carolina 34:18 it? Whenever I get my refills, she's just like, do you want to try? Do you want refills? And I'm always like, I want to refill. And she's like, Okay, see you in six months, or

Scott Benner 34:28 whatever. Gotcha. I'm glad it's working for you. Yeah. How was it being pregnant with type one, it

Carolina 34:33 wasn't that bad, which I would never expect to say on the other side, I thought it was going to be it sounded so scary, but now going through it, I'm like, Okay, that wasn't really that bad. I will say I did a lot of work in the front end to get a team that I thought would help me have the pregnancy that I imagined. I think I went through like three undoes before I finally found one who would support me. Looping during pregnancy. That was a challenge. I had an endo who was supportive of loop, but literally, was like, the second you're pregnant, you have to go off of it. And I was like, What happens if I don't go off of it? And she's like, well, we you won't be compliant. We could hold your refills. I was like, That sounds terrible. Don't know if they actually would. But I was like, this is not the endo office for me. Hey, you're no

Scott Benner 35:20 fun. We're gonna find something. Did you say to her? I'm gonna be leaving? No,

Carolina 35:24 I went back a second time because I felt like I was so thrown off in that conversation. Because she was supportive of loop. I didn't expect it at all. So I went back for one more visit, hoping to have kind of an adult conversation about it, advocate for myself and it literally, she just like, said no. And I was like, you can't say no. You don't control what I do outside of here. So then after that, I left good for you. I went somewhere else that didn't work out either. And then I finally found a third Endo, and she was wonderful. And same with, you know, finding an OB GYN, I really did not want to be induced early, simply because I have diabetes. I know that happens a lot, just for me. I was like, I want to go to at least week 40 before we talk about induction, assuming the Baby and I are healthy. And so I finally found an OB who was on board with that. She was like, That's reasonable. She's like, you will have like, extra monitoring. But she basically said, like, even if we schedule an induction, she's like, we don't show up to your house, like, so if you don't show up, like, you know, not much

Scott Benner 36:30 we can do.

Carolina 36:31 And I was like, Wow, I like you.

Scott Benner 36:33 You're like, I just want this baby to be like, medium well before it comes out exactly. Yeah, I don't want it to come out too rare. And I don't want it to be tough, you know what? I mean, like, excellent. But what'd you end up doing? I

Carolina 36:46 ended up going into labor at 39 and actually exactly at 39 on my own, nice. So I'm glad that I did not agree to be induced at, you know, 37 or 38

Scott Benner 36:56 and maybe a good size. Were they happy with the size? Yeah, he was seven pounds. He come out the, the natural way. Or did he? Did you make a little pocket and take him out through

Carolina 37:06 that? I love that. Um, he came out the, the natural way.

Scott Benner 37:10 Gotcha, yeah? Something that is another reason you don't want to have another baby, right?

Carolina 37:15 Yes, no, we're good.

Scott Benner 37:22 But yeah, you keep listening. You can be the academic as you want and understand everything, but as it's happening, you're like, what the is going on?

Carolina 37:32 I know my husband was like, if somebody offered me a million dollars to do that again, I would not do that.

Scott Benner 37:38 It's like, whoa. The fun part turned into the weird part. What's going on? Yeah,

Carolina 37:43 and I was like, you, you're just, you were just there. You didn't do anything. Well, what

Scott Benner 37:49 does that tell you? He's like, I wouldn't go through this again, and nothing happened to me. Yeah, it's off putting. I'm just gonna say beautiful, Miracle life, etc, and so on. But what the hell am I right?

Carolina 38:03 Yeah, no, it's people

Scott Benner 38:07 ask me, How do you know there's not a god, I'm like, if there was, there'd be a zipper on the side of a lady, and that's where the baby would come out from. I mean, duh, oh my gosh. Like, right? Zip here. Zip done. I mean, if we're engineering this thing, why go with that? Yeah, no. Seriously, nice. Also, why doesn't P come out of the tip of your pinky? How great would that be if you just walked over to something you're like, convenient. I'm making a lot of sense. I'm just saying, if this is on purpose, maybe they could have thought it over for another week or two. Yeah, before me getting sick meant boogers getting in my nose. Like, I mean, was there not another way? True? You know what I'm saying. I do. Where are you from? What part of the country did you say Chicago? Chicago? All right, okay, it's the worst.

Carolina 38:54 Boogers the worst. No,

Scott Benner 38:55 boogers are the worst. Oh, oh, yes, oh, we can definitely call the episode boogers are the worst, can't we?

Carolina 39:02 People might not listen to it. Oh no,

Scott Benner 39:04 them, they'll listen i I've set my expectations up in a way where they're like, it doesn't matter what it's called. You know, can I loop back around to the thing I wasn't sure if I was gonna say or not. Yeah, okay. Is part of my charm, and this is me leading you by saying I'm charming, because you might not find that I am, but is part of why you like the podcast. That's not the question. Once you were like, Okay, I'm going to listen to a podcast, and it's going to be from the dad of a guy of a girl who has diabetes, right? And then there's this expectation, right? That it's a parent, I'm going to be like, all high voice, then like, oh my god, everything's great, or everything's terrible, or like that. But like, when you jumped on and you're like, This is just a person talking to me, like, I would listen to this podcast if it wasn't about diabetes. Did that happen to you first of all? And if so, was it surprising? Or am I making this up and I'm wrong? Like, I just, I feel like people must jump on here and be. Like, well, this is not what I expected.

Carolina 40:01 It was not what I expected. Okay, but I will say the first episodes I listened to were, it was definitely bold with insulin. And then, like, some management episodes, because back then, you didn't have all your lovely helpers on the Facebook group, and so somebody just randomly posted, like, if you're newly diagnosed, try out these episodes. And it was like a picture of, like, a note card with, like, handwritten right? Episodes, yeah. And so that's the list I went off of, because you had so many at the time. Now you have even more. But we had so many, there's

Scott Benner 40:29 gonna be more. Hold, hold, tight. Carolina, we're making a podcast here. There's gonna be like, 1000 more by the time you look up again. But go ahead.

Carolina 40:36 So I feel like I wanted the management and I wanted the diabetes, so I didn't even think about the fact that I would probably listen if it wasn't about diabetes, because I was searching for diabetes.

Scott Benner 40:45 So is that unfair of me? Like, or in hindsight, if, if I started making a podcast about something else and it wasn't like something that you hated, do you think you'd listen?

Carolina 40:55 I don't listen to podcasts except yours, so I'm probably a bad person to ask this question.

Scott Benner 40:58 Too interesting, but you do listen to mine like a podcast though, like you like, Oh, someone's here to talk about they used math. I'll listen to that. Like you do listen to it. Like, oh, yeah, I drew you in. Yeah, it's exactly how I tricked my wife. This is awesome. I'm glad to know it works in other forms of life. It just occurs to me that, I mean, if you said to me, I'm gonna listen to something that's made by the parent of a child with a chronic illness. I would not expect for someone at 30 minutes into a conversation to refer to childbirth as you turned the fun part into the weird part, yeah. And I think that's why people like the podcast,

Carolina 41:36 oh yeah. And that's why you keep listening. Because in the beginning, I was looking for the management I was looking for the diabetes, like I really needed that,

Scott Benner 41:44 but you wanted to get in and get out. Was, yeah, yeah. I would have stopped

Carolina 41:48 listening. But now it's, it's entertaining. It's nice to hear about people's different walks of life. And yeah, the conversations are casual or entertaining. They're they go all over the place. I never know. Like, when I click on an episode, I'm like, oh, what's gonna happen in this one, you know? So, yeah,

Scott Benner 42:03 podcast, I'm just following my heart. Seriously, I'm doing something later today. I'm recording with ever since, actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna record about the ever since 365 that came out. So the new implant, the implantable CGM now lasts a year, and so I'm having somebody on from the company to talk about it, and the person who sets it up is, like, very cool with how I am, which is awesome, because some companies will be like, well, what are you gonna ask and what are you gonna talk about? And what do you I'm like, Oh, I don't know. And I think that, like, they think that's like, a facade, like, like, because the podcast does run very well, right? And it is popular. So I think they must think that, like, behind the scenes, I'm like, all Machiavelli, and I'm like, today I'll talk about this, and tomorrow I don't like, I swear to you, like, a week from now, there's gonna be an after dark episode on a Friday and then another one on a Monday. I didn't do that. I just was like, actually, when I found that, that's how I set it up, I was like, What the hell did I do that was dumb, like, so I'm not planning anything. I really don't know what we're going to talk about. I don't look at your notes before we start talking. You don't, no, I don't look at the note that you sent until, like, we're into the conversation.

Carolina 43:13 Oh, okay. I was like, Wait, why did we fill that out? No, no, you filled it out because,

Scott Benner 43:17 like, also, I want to make sure you're a real person and stuff like that. Also, honestly, it's your relationship with diabetes. Have you been on a podcast in the last six months about because another pipe on pot, because I wouldn't want you to come like, I'm not looking to like, regurgitate some conversation that somebody already had. So and then, what are some common themes you want to talk about? Is basically, once we start talking. My assumption is you have things in your heart you want to get out, and I don't want to, like, steamroll you and miss them. And as you're seeing today, I could easily be a little sleepy and then go off on a tangent, and then you don't get to tell me your story, and other people will enjoy it when they listen. But you, I don't want you to get short changed. If that makes sense, makes sense, having the baby with loop, not so bad. Yeah,

Carolina 44:07 I was on Iaps IPs for my pregnancy, not so yes, it really wasn't that bad. I mean, I had an easier time managing my blood sugars when I was pregnant than I do now. Postpartum. I know that's not always the case for everyone, but that's how I personally found it postpartum. I'm almost five months out, and I still, I think I'm having like, the worst blood sugars I've had since, since I figured out what I was doing. Okay,

Scott Benner 44:30 so are you breastfeeding? Is that part of it? Do you think?

Carolina 44:35 I think so, especially in the beginning, anytime he would eat, I would I would just crash, like, like, crash, crash, just double arrows down. So I would have to eat, like, while he's eating without taking insulin.

Scott Benner 44:47 Do you drop crumbs on him when that's happening by any chance?

Carolina 44:50 Oh, yeah, he said all sorts of things on it.

Scott Benner 44:54 Cleavage. Crumbs must be the worst. No, they're so uncomfortable. I would think, yeah. Yeah, the worst, I'm just imagine you like you're just chowing down and the stuff's like falling on the kid. You're like, Listen, I'm gonna pass out if I don't do this. Just nothing. Are you just flicking them off of him? How does it go? Exactly? I usually

Carolina 45:12 pick them off and eat them inside.

Scott Benner 45:15 Awesome. Oh, look at that big piece. What do you eat to help keep your blood sugar up while you're breastfeeding? It

Carolina 45:22 was like, breastfeeding? It was like bars for the most part. You know, Lara bars, Kind bars, whatever I could get my hands on. It wasn't usually like fast acting, maybe a little bit of fast acting, but I tried to circumvent by something that would keep me a little more stable. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:36 So breastfeeding with type one sort of like going for a run. You just got a car blown in the beginning and put something in there. It's not going to digest very quickly. You didn't need it in there to hold you up for a while. How long is the impact after the breastfeeding?

Carolina 45:48 That part of my life is such a blur because it's gotten better, like, I'm definitely more stable now than I was, you know, the first month postpartum. I just remember my husband waking me up all the time, and he'd be like, sorry, but like, you're you're 35 you're low. I was constantly low, right? Don't die. I

Scott Benner 46:05 don't want to take care of this baby by myself. Yeah, Jesus, I should have left her. She said you can leave. And where was I? So it sounds like very hormonal. So you didn't have as many hormonal impacts during the pregnancy as you did in the weeks after it.

Carolina 46:20 Yeah, I never, you know, I feel like I hear, you know, I joined on some, like, Facebook groups and type one in pregnancy. And, you know, I read a lot. I read Jenny's book. And so I know some people are, like, on a one to one by the end of pregnancy. And I was terrified because some of sometimes, some parts of the damn like, one to five. So I have, like, a relatively stronger, you know, carb ratio. So I was terrified. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna end up on u2 100. This is gonna be crazy, but I never got there, okay, like, I think one to four was, like, my strongest carb ratio during pregnancy. Are

Scott Benner 46:54 your blood sugars after pregnancy more like before or no, they're different.

Carolina 46:59 They're different. I just feel like I'm having a harder time timing my insulin than I used to, and I can't figure that out. So things that I used to have, I'd be like, Okay, I need I enter this many carbs, this much fat, this much protein. I Pre Bolus 15 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it is, you know, I had these meals figured out. I cannot figure them out.

Scott Benner 47:19 Are you? I'm sorry to ask like, this, is your weight different than it was before you got pregnant?

Carolina 47:23 No, I'm basically back to my pre, pre pregnancy. Oh, show

Scott Benner 47:27 off. Wait, I mean, that's nice. Good. Good for you. That's excellent. So I was just wondering if, like, your your ratios were off and because of that. But that's not the case. So, yeah, do you think it's hormonal? I think

Carolina 47:40 it might be, you know, I still have not gotten my period back since having the baby, so I assume there's some hormone somewhere in my body doing something. And, like I said, the timing of it. So I don't know if my digestion is different, or maybe that's related to milk production. I don't know, but, yeah, the timing, I think it's the timing rather than the amount, okay, but I can't seem to figure

Scott Benner 48:02 it out. Yeah, and, but you think it's normalizing slowly as time passes. It does

Carolina 48:06 feel that way. Okay. Now my nights, most of the nights, I don't get Dexcom alerts for a long time. I did, especially low ones, so that's been nice. Yeah, that's

Scott Benner 48:15 tough. Overnights are like, I mean, plus the baby, right? How old does he even sleep at this point. Yeah,

Carolina 48:21 he did till he turned four months, and now we have a fun four month regression. Oh,

Scott Benner 48:26 it's going backwards. Yeah, hey, buddy, go to sleep. Go to sleep. I'm losing my mind like that. Or is that about where we're at now?

Carolina 48:38 Um, kind of he sleeps with me now my my husband's in the guest room. So that's where we're at. That's how we're surviving right

Scott Benner 48:47 now. Oh, no kidding, because your husband can't go to work if, if he's near the what's going on? Oh, I see why you're not having another baby. There's a lot of reasons I got you. It'll happen to you. Probably you just wake up one day and you'll be like, Hey, honey, you know we should do and he's gonna be like, go on vacation, and you're gonna go, no, no, I think we should give away all the money that we were gonna spend on that vacation and make another baby because our son needs a sibling or something ridiculous like that. That you're gonna say, My God, God bless everybody. You're all in trouble, by the way. Good luck paying for college. I just want to say that too. Oh, I know, yeah, that is probably gonna like, I mean, have you already saved a couple of million dollars? So you'll be all right if you have, I wish. No, you haven't. Oh no. Oh, my god, yeah, it's ridiculous. Arden, by the way, is like, at some point today, she's like, I just looked into baking school. And I was like, Oh, if you want to drop out of college, that'd be awesome. I support that. Yeah, I'm fully behind that. I would also write you a check for a few $1,000 to help you get on your way. What do you think of that? Like, let's get you out of here. I'm sorry. You're a nurse, and can I ask what your husband does? I. He's an engineer. Oh, oh, I didn't know this about you. Is your dad an engineer too?

Carolina 50:06 No, my dad's a construction worker,

Scott Benner 50:09 contractor. Do they think similarly the two of them? Uh, no,

Unknown Speaker 50:13 no, okay,

Scott Benner 50:17 why? How do you like being married to like an engineering mind. I

Carolina 50:20 like it. I, you know, my dad was a business owner, and so I was like, I want somebody who works a nine to five and is, I mean, you own a business. So, you know, it's, I mean,

Scott Benner 50:30 I was working last night at 930 I don't know what I was doing. I just, I'm, like, up here. I'm just, like, hammering away Kelly's like, what are you doing? I'm like, trying to make money. I mean, you wouldn't be able to be able to pay the bills, right? Like, it's a terrible feeling. So okay, you're looking for a guy who's going to be around a little more,

Carolina 50:47 yeah, except he is now a consultant, so he works, like, you know, 800 hours a week. So it did not work out for me, but I gave it my my best try. I chose

Scott Benner 50:55 poorly. Scott, Okay, what else do you want to talk about? What else is on your list here? What are you thinking about? I mean,

Carolina 51:01 I think we covered most of the things. I think I just wanted to say how helpful it was to have community definitely advocating for yourself. I feel like I see especially in the pregnancy and type one groups like, Oh, my doctor said I have to do this. And, you know, people do it. I put a lot of time and effort into picking physicians who would support the pregnancy I wanted and the birth I wanted, and I think that was worth all the effort. And so I think sometimes people just forget that you don't have to stay with that doctor just because that's the one that you live closest to. And I know I'm in Chicago, so I have a lot of doctors to choose from, but if anybody's, you know, kind of on the fence of, should I stay with this doctor? Should I not? You know, it's okay to to leave them. I think sometimes people are like, Oh, I felt bad leaving. They're so nice, but at the end of the day, like you have to look out for yourself and your family. I'm so grateful, because I think my my pregnancy would have been way more stressful and way different experience if I hadn't done all that work up front. So, yeah, I just wanted to, I guess, encourage anyone who was thinking about

Scott Benner 52:05 it. Yeah, it's awesome. Are you an only child? Yes, oh, okay, I figured it out. Nevermind I got you, I don't know where, at 24 years old, you know, 26 years that age, like, where you get the like, your first response is just like, Whoa, no, I'm going somewhere else. I was trying to figure out, like, Why did you have such, like, a clear vision of yourself and what you would be willing to accept? And that I thought, oh, probably a only child, plus immigrant parents, right? Yeah, working hard. They weren't looking to, like, right? They're not trying to repopulate the world. They're trying to get their feet under them. So it made sense to me, and you speak like you're older than you are. Oh, interesting as you're talking, if you told me you were, you know, 40, I believe that easily. So not because you sound old, but because you're sure of yourself and measured. Does that make sense? That's nice to hear. Oh, is it? Oh, good. Well, then I meant it as a compliment. It was not, I know I didn't mean in any special way, but since you took it that way, I definitely meant it. No, I mean it is a compliment, and it's um, but indicative of someone who's an only child. Yeah, that's interesting. My son's girlfriend's an only child, like she doesn't accept bullshit. It's just very simple, and I was an only child for five years, and I have a bit of that myself. I was just trying to figure out, like, the whole time you've been talking, I've been in the back of my mind thinking about, like, what makes a young, pregnant, almost newly diagnosed type one say, like, be so self assured in the face of doctors telling them something, especially because the doctor was very curt with you. Yeah. It wasn't like, hey, we can talk about it. No, it's not going to work out. It was no, if you do that, you'll be non compliant, and we'll withhold your medication, yeah. And you were like, or you, and then you left, and I was like, Oh, awesome, because a lot of people would go, Okay, well, I won't do that. Then, yeah,

Carolina 53:59 maybe some of it is because I'm a nurse, so, like, I also know that doctors are human, because I've worked with so many doctors over the years, right? So, yeah,

Scott Benner 54:07 my wife says that my wife works with a lot of medical people. She said to me one time, she goes, Oh, doctors, some of the dumbest people I know are doctors. But it's not because they're doctors. She just realized they're people. And yeah, and they can be wrong or, you know, influenced by how they feel, or things they think that, you know, might not be what you think. It's just really awesome that you were just like, No, I'm just gonna go find somebody else. I'm gonna do this. Look what you got out of it. You had what you described as not a bad pregnancy with type one, which I think is, I mean, that's like saying rainbows and sunshine. Not bad, you know what I mean, yeah, yeah. Did you ever go back to that doctor and go like, Oh, I just wanted to let you know how wrong you are. No, look at you. I wish very mature. It's awesome. And a photo, yeah, a photo of the kid with a note that just says, Hey, just wanted to let you know how wrong you were about everything. My pregnancy went great. It's very easy to manage with IEPs. I. I carried the baby just about the completely full term all by myself, in case you're wondering. And also, like, I know who you are, a little bit like, you're a tinier person, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So like, that baby gets neck, it gets pretty big, and you were like, now I can hold it in forever. Don't you worry. You were wrong. Go away. Thank you. Carolina pronounced and then write it out phonetically. But I'm petty. So you know, I'm actually not petty, but I would have thought all those things.

Carolina 55:32 Oh, I thought a lot of things. Oh, okay, all right, cool. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 55:35 good to know I'm not petty. Seriously, I would have laughed, but I'm older, like, if at this point, if a doctor would say something to me, I go, oh, oh, you're serious. Okay, never mind. You know, most people don't get into that situation. They get that white coat syndrome when they get in there and they're scared, and not you, though, huh? Were you in there by yourself during these conversations? Or was your husband with you? Oh, I was by myself. I like you. Okay. All right, you're allowed to be on the podcast. This is awesome. Oh, great. All right. Well, let's end strong.

Carolina 56:08 Well, I will say before we go, the one thing you didn't ask me was auto immune in my family. Oh, you're polish.

Scott Benner 56:14 I just assumed celiac. And hold on, what else did I assume? Celiac? Thyroid? Am I right

Carolina 56:23 kind of I have thyroid. I have Hashimotos. My mom has lupus. Oh,

Scott Benner 56:27 wasn't on my bingo card today, but it could have been on a different day. Go ahead.

Carolina 56:32 Yep. And then her brother, so my uncle, this is pretty recent. He was diagnosed with MS. I want to say, like a year or two ago. That sucks, yeah. Up until then, it was just my mom that we knew of, then me and now my own no celiac. I'm gluten free, but I don't know if I'm

Scott Benner 56:49 actually celiac. Oh, why are you gluten free? You trying to be trendy? Or did your belly hurt?

Carolina 56:54 Yeah, after I got my wisdom teeth removed back in high school, I got, like, super sick, and I was losing a lot of weight, and we couldn't figure out why, and so we were trying diet things, and I went gluten free, and I felt a lot better.

Scott Benner 57:08 Don't go getting tested find out Scott was right. Okay, yeah, let's just let that be a mystery.

Carolina 57:14 We decided it doesn't change anything. I will be gluten free either way. So what's the point of actually finding out? Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:21 is that part of your trouble with your blood sugars? Like, are you eating? Because I know a lot of gluten free foods can be car beer,

Carolina 57:28 maybe, but I've been gluten free the whole time. I've, you know, had type one, so I don't know it any other way. Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:33 it makes sense. Why would it matter this? Yeah, it's hormonal or something, something in there is messing with you. Yeah, get that kid to drink a diet fresca or something instead of your you know what you're making for him. And I think maybe a lot of your stuff goes back to normal. Yeah, diet fresca. Where did that come from? I don't know. Am I having

Carolina 57:53 a is there a regular Fresco? I don't actually know what fresca is. Oh, well,

Scott Benner 57:57 first of all, fresca is a terrible soda that was for sale when I was young. I don't know if it's still for sale or not. Oh, was there a diet fresca? I mean, we can look.

Carolina 58:07 I'm googling fresco right now. Damn, right here. Okay, to see what it looks like from

Scott Benner 58:11 the Coca Cola Bottling Company. Now, it's a sparkling flavored soda. Oh, so does it have carbs? Oh, it's soda. I don't think it does. If Wait, hold on a second. Oh, because you said sparkling, I see what you're saying. Hold on. I'm looking boy, anything you click on takes you to Amazon. That's Bezos guy, huh? He must be doing all right.

Carolina 58:28 Ai overview says it was introduced in 1966 and is a sugar free diet soda. Oh, it's

Scott Benner 58:35 a diet fresca. Yeah, there you go. Now we know. Now we know. Yeah, what do we know exactly? Not much. I'm laughing in my mind, thinking of you listening to head like a hole later. So, oh yeah, yeah, it's on my list. Is it really? Are you really gonna do it? Well, I have to,

Carolina 58:51 right? I feel like

Scott Benner 58:52 you and I could listen to it now at the end, but then I'd edit it out, and then afterwards, just ask you what you thought, but I don't know if you'll be able to hear it. Never mind. It seems like a lot of work. I just as I said all that, I was like, ah, that I'm not doing all maybe we gotta listen to the song. Then we gotta wait, and then you gotta tell me what you think, and the editor's gonna take out the bar over it just seemed like a lot. I was just like, Ah, never mind. We don't give a what she thinks about this,

Carolina 59:20 and I'll probably hate it. So we don't all have to listen to

Scott Benner 59:22 that. What kind of country music do you like? What's your go to right now,

Carolina 59:26 I have a baby. I just type in, like, you know, hot country hits, and then they play. Are you? I don't have a lot of time to

Scott Benner 59:34 Well, now you sound 40 for real. By the way, you're like, I let the machine Tell me. Like, so wait, like, more like jelly roll, or more like Luke Bryan,

Carolina 59:44 like Luke Bryan, Poppy country, yeah,

Scott Benner 59:47 so more like Poppy pickup truck songs, yes, all right, they're the best listen. I'm alright with. That's good, yeah. Can you imagine if I wasn't? You imagine if, right now, after all these episodes of the podcast, I just. Like, sat up on my chair, stealed my spine, and said, Listen to me. I can't believe these are the songs you're listening to. I have a lot of thoughts about this. I don't give a what you listen to, but I just wasn't sure if you were, like, where you were, like, falling your whole life. Country music, I'm

Carolina 1:00:13 not that picky. So like, whatever's on the radio, I'm usually like, Oh, this is catchy. I just like catchy things. Okay, faster music, catchy things. I'm less of like a slow listen to the words,

Scott Benner 1:00:27 would you listen to a Taylor Swift bop? Yeah. Okay, so it doesn't have to be boss. She's Do you know she started as a country artist. I do know that. Yes. Oh, finally, we found something that happened recently enough that you're aware of it. And I don't sound like I'm about to die. Why does he keep saying things I don't understand. I interviewed somebody recently and they said, Can I be honest, Scott, I don't understand a lot of your references. I like it when Arden says to me, like, like, what's a good example? She's like, you know that Dua Lipa song? And I go, what I'm like, is that a person? And she's like, Yeah, you know who it is. And I go, No, I don't. My wife will be like, you know this song? And I go, I do not know this song. And she goes, No, you've heard this before? And I'm like, No, I have not. I do not know this song. And she's, you know, like, I only hear stuff if it breaks through for like, weird social reasons, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, if, what is that Whap song, like that. I was like, Wait, what's going on? Like, that made it to me. But do you even know what that is? I don't wait, hold on a second. This is gonna have to get bleeped out the Oh, God, I can't believe I'm gonna say this.

Carolina 1:01:36 Oh, wait, oh, wait. Don't

Scott Benner 1:01:39 make me say it. You're a young mother. You know what I'm talking about.

Carolina 1:01:41 Right now, I got it. Okay, yes. Now I know all right. Like that

Scott Benner 1:01:45 made it to me because I was like, What the hell is happening? In fairness, if you said to me right now, gun to your head, sing that song, I'd be like, I don't know how to do that. You don't even sing

Carolina 1:01:54 it either. Yeah. Well, I think, I don't know if that helps or not, but I

Scott Benner 1:01:57 think it's good. You think we could be friends, even though we're 23 years apart, I feel that way. I do too. It's awesome. That just makes me feel young. By the way, it's got nothing to do with you. I'm like, I can still hang I know I can. The minute my hair is not dark, I fear for how I'm gonna feel about myself. I feel like it's the only your hair. No, I don't, by the way, okay. No, no, I'm just saying I have nice dark hair, and I think that the minute it lightens like, if it goes to gray, I feel like it's my superpower right now, it's the only thing that allows me to, like, you know, when people say I feel like I'm 12 inside my whole life, like, I really do feel like that. But I think people do get to an age sometime where they just give up on that part. And I don't see a time where that's gonna happen for me so far, and I just think that, like, all this silliness, if I was gray, would be weird. I know that sounds super strange, but I think it would be

Carolina 1:02:49 weird. Yeah, you don't care, though, right? It'll be interesting when it happens to see how you feel.

Scott Benner 1:02:54 What's the cut off for when you go, I can no longer listen to a podcast made by a 65 year old. Like, where's the number, where you're just like, What am I doing?

Carolina 1:03:03 I don't know. I mean, as long as you keep bringing on the guests and all the Dexcom people, I feel like

Scott Benner 1:03:09 doing everyone, all right, yeah, I'm done. Okay, well, I'll tell you what. I've been holding off buying a new enclosure for my chameleon, because I always feel like I want to tell you, like, when you make content for a living, which I hate talking about, like, this way, but it's what I do. There's this, like, feeling in the back of your head constantly where you're like, this can't last much longer, right? You know what I mean, like, this has got and now it's a decade I've been doing, literally, making this podcast for 10 years. Wow. But I'm not like, I grew up broke, so I just want to buy a new enclosure for my chameleon. And I'm like, seems like a waste of money, because, like, this podcast thing, like, I'm gonna have to go get a real job. Like, you know what I mean? Like, maybe not. All right, I'm just gonna put that out there at everybody I would like to not get a real job. So if you can all keep listening, I think that would be awesome. Thank you very much. All right, Carolina, all sticking around, help me say, I want to try to say your name the way your dad says it. Okay. Help me one more time. I'm very bad speaking phonetically. But go, yeah, Carolina, Carolina, no, that was close. It was close. It wasn't good, though. Why? Why? It's back your throat? Carolina, no, front of your throat. Carolina, no. Bucha, I lost it. I'm so bad at this. The

Carolina 1:04:20 first A is different. It's

Scott Benner 1:04:24 Carolina, Carolina. Oh, Carolina. We're in that bounce. All right, I'm not doing that, but does your husband call you

Carolina 1:04:36 that? I don't know what he calls me. What a great question. What is your Oh, go ahead. What

Scott Benner 1:04:40 does your husband call you? Let's figure it out before we go, because that whatever he calls you is the name of the episode. Go,

Carolina 1:04:46 oh, I think he just calls me like Carol, or Carol or something like that, like

Scott Benner 1:04:51 the syrup that people put on pumpkin pie. Oh, there's no way you knew that one either. I. Yeah, all right. Carol is a corn syrup, which I think is really not good for you. So my dad was a Pennsylvania Dutch, like, I know it's not a thing you know about. It doesn't matter, like think Amish, but not that serious, okay, does that okay? They eat like the strangest things. So when Thanksgiving rolled around, my grandmother would make pumpkin pies from scratch, and then they would pour dark carro syrup on it, and then a little whipped cream. And I have a small jar of dark carro syrup in my house all year long, for the time when I put a tablespoon of it on a slice of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. Now, if you google this, you will look at it and think, oh, Scott, I don't think that's a thing you should put in your body.

Carolina 1:05:46 So I'm googling it right now. Yes, it looks a little scary to me. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:05:52 don't get me wrong, but if you put a little bit of that dark on pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and eat it and don't love it, I don't understand you. Now, I think the craziest thing we've learned by clicking on carrot.com is that Tia Mowry is their spokesperson. Oh, do you know who that is?

Carolina 1:06:08 Yes, but I'm not actually on their website. I was just on, like a grocery store from Sister. Sister. Yes, I see her now. I did know Sister. Sister. So there's something I know more crazily, am I right about this? I think it's possible

Scott Benner 1:06:26 that I once moderated an online chat that she or her sister was in for a diabetes org, and just now, when I Googled her name to see if I was right. I've learned that her daughter's name is Cairo. Oh, so Caro, K, A, R O, her daughter's name, c, a, i, R O, I think that's Cairo, right. And then I think I've spoken to her or her sister at some

Carolina 1:06:58 point. That's wild. Are they related to diabetes? I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:07:02 Now I'm trying to figure it out, because I don't remember why they were there, but I don't it was, it was some diabetes org, and they reached out to me to moderate their thing. So Tia had gestational when she was pregnant. Oh, I wonder if that's so long ago, I don't remember, awesome. I don't know what to call this episode now, before I'm excited to find out. Yeah, I mean me too. All right, I'm gonna let you go. It feels like you have to go breastfeed something. So, um, do you is that coming up? I'm at work, so, oh, you have a job. You're trying to get back to work. Yeah? All right, go do your thing, hold on one second. Having an easy to use an accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter, touched by type one, sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out at touched by type one.org. On Instagram and Facebook. Give them a follow. Go check out what they're doing. They are helping people with type one diabetes in ways you just can't imagine. Us. Med, sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. Check them out at us. Med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, 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 Diabetes variable 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, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way, recording.com do.

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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.

Carly 00:14 My name is Carly. I am originally from Canada. I've been in Texas for just over three years and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes at the age of 40, nothing

Scott Benner 00:28 you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink AG, one.com/juice box. To get this offer, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy Earth com. All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident? If you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d, exchange.org/juice box and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds, T 1d exchange.org/juice, box. The show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the ever since 365 the ever since 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year, and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get ever since cgm.com/juice. Box. Omnipod five sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juice. Box, links in the show notes links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Carly 02:00 My name is Carly. I am originally from Canada. I've been in Texas for just over three years, and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes at the age of 40. It was a happy 40th birthday present for me, right around your birthday, right like so my birthday is October. The symptoms I was diagnosed in February, but the symptoms definitely started popping up like late November, early, early December. So yeah, and the other story is my husband. He was married before, to a type one diabetic, and he proposed to me on my 40th birthday, and then I got diabetes a month later, so it's basically all his fault.

Scott Benner 02:43 Have we had his penis tested?

Carly 02:48 Is it possible? But he refuses?

Scott Benner 02:51 Oh, no. I think we should do a scraping of skin cells and then send them off. So I don't know the technical dues that's behind how we figure out if his penis is calling seeing type one diabetes in women, but I think it's possible. Yeah, yeah. Would you let him cheat on you to see if the next girl gets type one next girl?

Carly 03:08 He'd actually, yeah, okay, fine, that's an experiment. I'll be

Scott Benner 03:14 Carly. I love you. But if this is what you need,

Carly 03:18 the sacrifices I have to do for my wife.

Scott Benner 03:21 Can I pick the girl? How does this work? Yeah. Okay, so Wow, do you have any other autoimmune in your life, like in your extended family, or you personally,

Carly 03:31 myself, personally? No, I've got a bunch of random, weird health stuff. It's always, um, generally, when I get sick, I get really sick. Tends to be my strategy my mom has, that's the

Scott Benner 03:45 funniest way anyone's ever said it.

Carly 03:49 I had a perfect perforated ulcer when I was 15, shingles in my 30s, dealing with cancer now. So Wait, seriously, heart disease.

Scott Benner 03:58 Wait, hold on, you have heart disease

Carly 04:00 I have, well, it's called an aortic heart dissection. So I've got a weird hair in my in my heart,

Scott Benner 04:07 Harley, we have to figure this out. And what kind of cancer are you okay? I'm

Carly 04:11 okay. I'm going through so it's basically the cancer is like a melanoma. So I did immunotherapy for a year, had a bunch of lymph nodes taken out my armpits, like, year and a half ago, thought that was all done, and then basically, kind of on, like, two weeks after I rang the bell, a new thing popped up, which was linked from the original stuff. And so they actually ended up doing a live herpes virus into the spot to kill it so, and then that was kind of working, and then I was gonna get that cut out. And then within those scans, they found a new they found a new variant. So now I want some chemo drugs that had more surgery. And yeah, that too much. I want

Scott Benner 04:53 to find out how that affects your type one. But not before I say this, how many of these things have happened to you since penis? Boy touched you. Almost all of them,

Carly 05:05 yeah. So yeah, yeah. Like the perfect answer when I was 15. I can't blame him on that. But yeah, everything else, yeah, yeah, we were definitely dating when I got single. Yeah? No, I feel like this is him. Everything else has happened

Scott Benner 05:19 post you're from the, what they call the Great White North. But Is he correct? He is yes, okay, okay, so you guys moved together into the states.

Carly 05:31 Yeah, during COVID, his company shut down, like their Canadian office. So he moved here in 2020 we spent a year apart trying to figure out who's going to quit their job. People felt like there was probably more opportunity for both of us down here. So, yeah, so I followed about a year later, healthiest year

Scott Benner 05:49 of your life. Yeah, no, beyond being serious

Carly 05:54 outside of, like, all the major diseases, like, yeah, generally, like, I'm super active and like, that's basically like, I've never been one that got to sleep lots, and I would sleep in workouts, eat workout, eat some more. Workout, sleep.

Scott Benner 06:09 I just didn't know if it was like a moldy house that you didn't realize had mold in it, like you walked out of it for a year and you're like, hi, everything tastes fresher all of a sudden, and then he came back. You're like, yeah, jeez, all right. Well, listen, let's not make fun of the poor guy. But hey, you two aren't going to make a baby, though, right? No,

Carly 06:26 no, they're both, yeah, we're too old, so

Scott Benner 06:29 sorry, would you if you were younger, it was definitely

Carly 06:34 up for debate, like we I've had, I've also had kind of issues on, on that standpoint. So I always kind of wanted kids when I was younger, and it just kind of wasn't quite in the cards. And, yeah, we have a, we have a great life now, and I'm very, very happy with, kind of, yeah, like with, kind of with our life together, not

Scott Benner 06:54 in the cards. Like, your lady bits don't work, right? Or just like that. You know,

Carly 06:58 yeah, I could get pregnant, but could never hold a pregnancy game. So that was, yeah, sorry. I'm sorry, but it was so Jeezy,

Scott Benner 07:07 took all the fun out of it. Never mind. Okay, I know. I know. Sorry. Hey, everybody just found my line Carly. I was like, they're like, oh, he choked right through cancer, but he got to, he got to miscarriage, and he shut them right down. Yeah. Anyway, that was it. That was it. Now you all know my line. Okay, so what is it? Well, geez. So how many years have you had diabetes for?

Carly 07:29 Not long, so I it will be eight years in February.

Scott Benner 07:33 Oh, you're, you're almost my age, yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. So you've had it for eight years, and in those eight years, you haven't found any other family members with autoimmune stuff or type one my daughter is 20 years old. I can't even believe it. She was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was two, and she put her first insulin pump on when she was four. That insulin pump was an Omnipod, and it's been an Omnipod every day since then. That's 16 straight years of wearing Omnipod. It's been a friend to us, and I believe it could be a friend to you. Omnipod.com/juicebox, whether you get the Omnipod dash or the automation that's available with the Omnipod five, you are going to enjoy tubeless insulin pumping. You're going to be able to jump into a shower or a pool or a bathtub without taking off your pump. That's right, you will not have to disconnect to bathe with an Omnipod. You also won't have to disconnect to play a sport or to do anything where a regular tube pump has to come off. Arden has been wearing an Omnipod for 16 years. She knows other people that wear different pumps, and she has never once asked the question, should I be trying a different pump? Never once omnipod.com/juicebox, get a pump that you'll be happy with forever. When you think of a CGM and all the good that it brings in your life, is the first thing you think about. I love that I have to change it all the time. I love the warm up period every time I have to change it. I love that when I bump into a door frame, sometimes it gets ripped off. I love that the adhesive kind of gets mushy sometimes when I sweat and falls off. No, these are not the things that you love about a CGM. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the only CGM that you only have to put on once a year, and the only CGM that won't give you any of those problems, the ever since 365 is the only one year CGM designed to minimize the vice frustration. It has exceptional accuracy for one year with almost no false alarms from compression lows while you're sleeping, 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. My mom's got hyper thyroidism,

Carly 09:58 and actually. Something that I never like, I just only recently learned was auto immune. Is, I keep wanting to say eczema, but eczema, my sisters had eczema her entire life, so that would be the only other so

Scott Benner 10:11 thyroid eczema type one, yeah, and then just you randomly getting sick, yeah, yeah. Nobody, anybody else that you're related to just have that, like, what people would call, like, bad health luck. Well, yeah,

Carly 10:24 my dad passed away from ALS about 10 years ago. So no, 15 years ago, so I'm sorry she's very bad health

Scott Benner 10:32 Yeah, that is bad health luck. Yeah, yeah. I think anything that happens that ends up with you dead is definitely bad luck. Oh, well, that sucks. I just feel terrible to me. Oh my gosh. You have brothers and sisters. You do? You have one sister?

Carly 10:44 Thanks, yeah, no, yeah, one sister, yeah. She's 15 months younger. Gotcha,

Scott Benner 10:49 you diagnosed eight years ago. You're in the States. When it happens, you're in Canada. I was in Canada, yeah, how do they start you off your treatments?

Carly 10:57 Yeah, I guess that was kind of one of the things, like just, you know, listening to the differences between the different the different countries. But so I was Alberta. Like, every province has their own health care system, so I'm guessing someone in Ontario is going to have a little bit different experience than someone Alberta. But like, basically, I was wasting away. Like I was about 20 pounds lighter than I should be. I had zero energy. I was trying to get to my family doctor, who was part of a walk in clinic and had an appointment in, like, March and like, that was, you know, three months this, as soon as I could get in to see her, and just kept feeling worse and worse and worse, and kind of went into the walking clinic with where, you know, my doctor was, and the lady who saw me, and I don't blame her, because I think a lot of people come and say, I don't feel well, and it's just like, Yeah, you know, to pick up yourself here, whatever. I'm like, No, but I'm like, I'm super active. I know my body, I'm definitely not doing well, but I kind of go in and she's like, well, you're seeing your doctor in a month. Like, can you wait? I'm like, I don't think I can anymore. And she's like, Well, you didn't just turn 40, like, things slow down. I'm like, well, it's not like it turns 40, and my entire body decided to to shut down. So she sent me spurs, some blood tests, and the next day she calls me and she's like, You need to go to emergency right now. Like, kind of in Canadian numbers, my blood sugar was like, 35 or something like that, which

Scott Benner 12:21 is, I can figure it out for while you're talking good, you talk, I'll figure, yeah, yeah.

Carly 12:25 So, yeah, so. But so she's like, he's going to emergency right now, kind of left the office, went to emerge, spent about six or seven hours in emergency waiting to see someone. So finally they like, yep, you've got diabetes. You've got type two diabetes, just because of my age. Like, you know you're over 40, so it must be type two and like, I'm, like, you can see my veins and all my body.

Scott Benner 12:51 Everything I seem to know about type two diabetes says I shouldn't be, like, wasting away like this, if it's happening. Yeah? Also, three took them three months to see you too. Huh? That's very Canadian, yeah, yeah.

Carly 13:03 Very, very, yeah. So he, like, he sent me away with a prescription for Metformin, and then and a bit the referral to see the endocrinologist. Like, a week, you know. So this was a Friday, so the soon as I could get in was a week later to see an endocrinologist. So he spent that weekend, basically, like, you know, my husband is like, six four and played rugby, so, you know, close to 300 pounds. And we're walking around like, we went saw a few friends that weekend, and he's basically walking in the door going, guess who has type two diabetes? And he was all excited, because it wasn't him and it was me. It's so kind of spent a week on Metformin. Carly,

Scott Benner 13:45 if he ever breaks up with you, be careful if he walks in the room and yells, everybody who's dating me, raise your hand.

Carly 13:53 Exactly. Yes, it's been a week on Metformin like that was kind of all I had. And no equipment, no nothing, kind of, not much guidance beyond that. And so I went and saw, kind of my endocrinologist on Friday, and I walked in and she's like, You are not type two diabetic. She's like, you are type one. We're gonna get you in to see, like the dietitian right now and stuff. So kind of, I saw a dietitian. They showed me how to do insulin shots in the moment, and she said, Come back and see me in a week. And they just put me on long acting for the first week, just to kind of guess, get used to it and see us, started finger pricking and long lasting per week. And then saw her that next week, and she put me on,

Scott Benner 14:31 listen, it wouldn't be hard and fast, I don't think. But if I saw you with a 35 blood sugar, which, by the way, is 630 in over here in America? Yeah, I think I'd have a really difficult time thinking this is just type two diabetes. Also, like, yeah, not that your body weight has you know that people can be thin and have type two diabetes. Like, that's not my point. But like, you gotta think you can start adding the things up, like, the losing weight. Like, did you have other symptoms? Were you going to the bathroom? A lot?

Carly 14:59 Yeah, oh yeah. Like, it was where it first showed up. I grew up competitive swimming, so I always know when I'm getting sick when I'm swimming, like, because I'll feel bad without, like, before I actually feel bad. So it kind of popped up in December where I'm, like, my energy levels were really low and stuff. And didn't really notice the weight loss until kind of maybe a couple weeks before I went in, where I was, like, Oh, wait. Like, I put on a pair of jeans and, like, these are falling off me. Like, like, I would do a bike class, kind of the group on Saturday mornings. And my husband's also a very good cook. Stay can pass at kind of Friday nights. And I would show up on Saturday mornings generally, like, hung over and, like, super dehydrated, and joking with it was always joking with a buddy that my husband was trying to kill me. So I just feel like sweating salt and stuff like that. Carly,

Scott Benner 15:42 you're so Canadian.

Carly 15:47 So like, it was, yeah, like, those lots of thirst, getting up in the middle of night, he definitely infections and stuff like that were popping up and wouldn't go away. And, yeah, so, like, you look back on it, but like it was, like it was the energy level, like, again, it'll do something active, probably two, two times a day. And like, you know, I'd go for coffee in the morning from the office and just to walk a block. Just felt like that was

Scott Benner 16:08 too much. Hey, things degraded the way we would expect. But for some reason, a doctor looks at you and says, You have type two. You see endocrinologist A week later, after a week of metformin, he probably lost more weight, I'm imagining. And, yeah, luckily, you're not dead, but you're in DKA, aren't you? Not? If I was, they didn't tell me. Okay, so the the endo puts you on the long acting for a little while to get used to it, i By the way, why couldn't they should have put you in the hospital, is my point? Yeah, yeah, no, like, I, they sent me home that night, yeah, this will probably be fine. Give yourselves one of these a day while you acclimate to it. And then we'll talk to get, like, acclimate to, oh my god, yep. So you live through that. Obviously, you go back in a week. What happens? So they

Carly 16:54 put me on normal, like, yeah, so kind of fast acting and long lasting. And, you know, I see the dietitian, like, or I get a diabetes nurse that I kind of have to go and see her for, like, once a week for, I think about three weeks to kind of make sure I'm kind of getting the hang of it, yeah, and then I see the Endo, I think about three months later. And then after that, I'm on a one year rotation with the Endo, and that's about it for my for my care.

Scott Benner 17:23 Are you carb counting right away, or are you doing sliding scale? Which province? Oh, excuse me, you're messing

Carly 17:29 they did, yeah, they Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got me on carb counting right away. Well, yeah. So I got one friend that, like, two of his three children had type one diabetes, and I actually, like, I think that first Saturday after I've been diagnosed, I showed up. He was also part of this computing class. Showed up, and I kind of just said, I'm like, I got type I'm like, I've got been diagnosed with diabetes. And dude looked at me and he said, you know, like, well, he's like, there's two things I know about this disease. It's a numbers disease and it's a routine disease. And he's like, if I know two things about you, he's like, You love your routine, and you love numbers. So he's like, you're gonna kick ass at this, and you'll be fine. But he definitely helped me on the gave me a little bit more direction on kind of carb counting, and, you know, how they like,

Scott Benner 18:14 you know, kind of gave you a leg up. Give you a leg up on things, and got you going. I have to tell you, this lag just saved me because you said I have a friend whose kids have diabetes, and my brain wanted to say, Oh, God, your husband wasn't near those kids, was he? And I knew, and I knew how wrong that was, and the lag gave me time to think about it, and so I didn't say it. Now I'm taking credit for not saying it as I've posturally said it anyway, I find that both not funny at all and hilarious, in case you're all looking for an insight into my sense of humor, yep, well, I get it. Yeah, no, I was like, the only thing that stopped me was lag. I don't want to, I don't want to talk over when I say my stupid stuff. Anyway, let's assume those kids were over 18, so that what I just said feels okay. Yeah, they are now. They are now, yep, for sure, or then whatever. Anyway, your husband had nothing to do with that, nothing, nothing, no, not on this one. But, I mean, it is fair to say his ex wife and you both have diabetes. I'm just saying, Oh, my God, he should probably wear a condom constantly. I'm just, I think, so I don't know what he's got down there, but I don't think it's good. So

Carly 19:25 it's dangerous. Whatever it is, it's dangerous.

Scott Benner 19:29 That's right. Oh, there's no way to call this Canadian danger. Penis is there. I don't know what

Carly 19:35 your what your safe cards are allowed. So

Scott Benner 19:37 I think Apple won't let me do that. It's a shame, because, god damn it, that'd be awesome. So okay, so you get a little help from a friend. You get not a lot of, you know, not a lot of direction from healthcare. Does healthcare ever step in for you and become more valuable? Or do you just free wheel it on your own and figure it out?

Carly 19:56 Kind of free wheel it on my own, like people like, I really. Like my endocrinologist, but I think just the system is too, like, it's the way that, like, it is the, definitely the difference. You know, both systems have their issues. But like, the one thing I've really noticed in the States, I'm getting more appreciation, kind of, on the cancer side of things, is like, because it's a business, there's some customer service aspects down here, whereas in Canada, like, it's like, there's not, there's no incentive to go above and beyond, and you're kind of getting paid for, like, who you see and like, anything extra is, but not even that. There's not compensation. But, like, they're overworked, underpaid, and don't have the capacity to do it. But yeah, like, I would see my endo once a year. She's like, you're doing great. Like, my a one, CS at the time was low, sevens, but she was like, it's a little high, but you're super active, so I'm not worried about you. You're, you know, like, your weight, steady, all of that kind of stuff. So here's a prescription for the next year. Off you go, and we'll see you in a we'll see you in a year.

Scott Benner 20:58 Yeah? So it's a shame. You know, it's funny, as I'm sitting here like it's election day in America while you and I are doing this, it just occurred to me, I mean, out of nowhere, almost crazy, that you could listen to this podcast not know me and be like, Scott's got some really weird right wing fringe ideas, like he's always talking about how doctors aren't blah, blah, blah and everything. And I'm like, and I don't really give away my politics on here, or how I lean, really, but I don't feel that way. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have, like, the, like, the whole world's out to get me. This is all a conspiracy. You know, no one's working on a cure because there's more money. I don't really, I don't think like that. And by the way, if you do it's, I don't give a play. It's fine with me. But I find myself talking that way because of all the conversations that people have coming in here. Like, if you go back to the first year of the podcast, all I all you would hear me say is, like, look, I didn't get a lot of direction from my doctors, and I figured this out. And here's what I figured out. And here it is, you can just do whatever you want with it, right? But I don't know how many people have to come on and and say this stuff before you just go, wow. Like it, mean, it doesn't matter. It's ladies in Canada. Like it's, I hear from people in I just interviewed a woman in where, what the hell was she the other day? You don't know, because it was just me and her, but I think about, I think I was interviewing a woman from Bahrain. How does a woman from Bahrain find a podcast made by a guy in New Jersey? Because the people there aren't helping her. And, like, you know what I mean, and and so, and everywhere in between. If I pulled up a map of where this podcast is, like, vigorously listened to, the answer is almost everywhere. Yeah. This is also not to say that some of you don't have, like, awesome doctors who, like, on day one sat down and talked to you like, bang, here it is. Let me lay it out for you. And you just walked out of there with a five, five, a, 1c, because you know what you're doing. That absolutely happens. But clearly, I interview a person at least five days a week, and overwhelmingly, this is how the stories go. And I know people don't come on the internet to tell people how good things go, you know, all the time, but maybe more people should. So if you're listening to this, you're like, hey, you know it's not balanced. Well, then come on and be balanced about it. But all I can tell you is that a lot of people that come on tell me this, like, Hey, Scott, I know who you are, because my doctor did not fundamentally help me. So sucks, is all well, and on the other side, like

Carly 23:24 they're here, like three months, like we've

Scott Benner 23:28 only been 15. Oh, Carly, did you go to the wrong part of the house? Again, I'm with me, but she

Carly 23:33 made me cry.

Scott Benner 23:37 Oh, I can Yes. Now, okay, did you go to the wrong part of the house? What just happened?

Carly 23:40 Maybe. All right, let me Are you moving? No, I was sitting very still,

Scott Benner 23:44 because when I talk on the phone, I wander around my house aimlessly. When I'm on the phone, I like, oh, clean toilets. I put laundry in like, I sweep floors. People like, what are you doing? What? Sometimes I have to say to people I'm on phone calls, hey, in a second you're going to hear me flush the toilet. It's not because I just used it, I promise. It's because I cleaned it while we were talking. Yeah? Try something else. Maybe put your Wi Fi back on. Yeah. Okay. Well,

Carly 24:10 first, let's I've just tried a different room, which is going to be a little bit more. I don't know if that's echoey, but

Scott Benner 24:16 you have a tin foil hat that you can wear that might help. So I made my big pronouncement, and I said, it sucks, really, you started talking. I literally couldn't hear you. I'm sorry.

Carly 24:26 Okay, so, yeah, just on the endocrinologist side. Like it the first one I found here. She was actually quite involved with my diabetes and, like, but I yeah, she basically made me cry everything. Like, I left,

Scott Benner 24:39 oh, the office. But Carly, how does that? How does that happen? What does she say that that makes you upset? Well,

Carly 24:45 so this is so I was before coming down to the States. I was just on MBI, and so saw her for a while, and she's like, You need to get on a pump. You need to get on a pump. I'm like, Hey, fine. Like, I want to so kind of starting out, trying to understand insurance and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, with the insurance that we had was my husband's company at the time, I was just covered for Omnipod and the five was coming out. So I'm like, Well, this is supposed to be the newest technology. Like, why don't I just wait until it's out? Started on the five, and I'm like, maybe two weeks into it. First time I'm ever on a pump, and I walk into the office and he's like, this doesn't make any sense. I don't understand how to read any of this information. This is not helpful. Like, I didn't even know this was out. Like, what's going on? And she's yelling at me.

Scott Benner 25:27 She told you, get on a pump. You got a pump. And she's like, not this pump, you fucking idiot. Anyway, this is how the stories happen. People just keep listening. Go ahead. Yeah,

Carly 25:39 yeah. So that was kind of where I'm like, okay, yeah, I definitely it's time to leave her. So kind of got a new PCP, or found a PCP, and she referred me to a new window. I really quite like her, but again, like, I see her every three, four months, and, you know, we spend 1015, minutes together. But just even the difference, because, like, the Canadian and this could have changed. Like, I apologize to Dexcom, is it has changed. But the Canadian app versus the US app, like the Canadian app, the doctors didn't have the ability to download all your information. Okay? So, like, you'd go get your blood test and they would just see your ANC and like, that was the information they had, and that was that was it where. So even just the fact that, like, when my endo walks in, even if she only spent five minutes looking at my my information, she at least has a sense of what's going on with me. And, you know, and like, there is some kind of service around that level. But, you know, like, on the cancer side too, like, I'm just, I'm blown away at the care that I'm getting. And like, my access to doctors, and just, you know, one of the reasons that I was quite sure, if I was still in Canada, I might not even been diagnosed at all, and definitely would not have a lot of the stuff that has been caught would have gone unnoticed, just because of the way the system is set up there, versus it is here. Like there's something about the customer service, like, where it is a business, that you're trying to bring people back, that my brother in law had some kind of, like, just had some skin cancer stuff, and he went in, they treated it, and they said, like, hopefully we never see you again. And like, there's no preventative care to follow up, or like, anything like that. It's just like, you know, off you go and good luck. Whereas here it's like, you know, I'm still getting, you know, you're getting scans every three months just to make sure nothing new is popping up. And, like, there's a better sense of and with her, it could be just because, you know, kind of conspiracy people well, it's a business. They want to bring you in like they're trying to make money, you know, like, that's, I don't care, because they're, they're trying to take care of me. So do

Scott Benner 27:36 you think that, like, it feels like doctors helping you with cancer are more on the ball, because what they're doing is segmented, already understood, like their steps they're taking. We're going to do this, then we're going to take a scan. If the scan says this, we'll do that. Like it's much more if, then if this, then that, because it's a it's planned out, whereas diabetes probably has a lot of variables that the doctors aren't aware of. Yeah, I

Carly 28:02 hadn't actually, yeah, I hadn't really thought about that. But that does make again, with like, cancer, like, you're kind of supposed to be kind of cured, or whatever, and, like, but it can come back. And so there's whereas with diabetes, I guess, yeah, like, we have it, you have it, and it's not going away. So there's less, less need for follow up, is the right word. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that's, that's a very good point. Yeah. I just

Scott Benner 28:23 wonder if that's the end it feels like it's going well because you're alive, so you're like, well, there was a CGM for your cancer, and you could see it bouncing around or whatever. I wonder if you would be like, well, they're trying their hardest, but it's not going as good as I wanted it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's such a I don't know. It's hard thing to quantify. I guess, yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's, it's, it sucks. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, in the end, you're asking a human being to, like, go to college, get an undergrad degree, go off to medical school, do the whole thing, absorb as much as they can, probably go into a specialty, learn as much as they can about the specialty, probably while they're learning about the specialty, the stuff they're learning is probably outdated, yeah. And then you come into a room and all the other stuff's going on, the human interaction, stuff, insurance, or time, or whatever, and they've got to look at you, make an assessment, say a thing based out of the knowledge in their head, and it's either right or it's wrong. And you go forward and see if you're lucky enough to, you know, to do it. I think with diabetes, when they tell you the wrong thing, it's so obvious right away, yeah, that you can say, Well, the thing that that person said to me was not helpful. And then they know that's the deal. And so then I think they throw their hands up and they think, oh, they'll figure it out. Yeah, that vibe, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of stories in between, but kind of feels that way to me sometimes, yeah, no, that's, yeah, that's a I like that, yeah, I don't know. It's just, I. Just think it's human. Yeah, I honestly think that if you stop talking about, I don't know, diabetes or cancer or health right now, and just shift it over to anything else and try to have a conversation about it, you'd start having the same exact conversation. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So,

Carly 30:19 and it's person to person dependent too, right? Like, it's even kind of, I would think of this kind of, like, work from home stuff that popped up post post COVID. Right now, companies are pulling back on that. And there's, you know, like, there's people that, like, it's work from home, but I'm still working. And then you have people like, Oh, I'm going to take advantage of this system. And, like, you know, it's kind of that some employees are good at it. Some employees aren't. And it's, I would assume, kind of the medical system and the doctors and everyone else out there is the same, like, you know, kind of people's motivations different, or people

Scott Benner 30:49 are a mixed bag, yeah, that's, yeah, right? And they have their barrier. They can find the bad ones, yeah. And they have their variables too, right? There's, like, it's easy to say, like, oh, you know, I don't know David doesn't do good working from home, but you don't know if David's kids are sick, or his wife is yelling at him constantly, or he's yelling at her constantly and she's running around, hiding from like, I don't know, like they might have a lot of family problem, and then he's working from home, and then it's both, David doesn't do a good job from home, or maybe David's At home, you know, with his phone in one hand, watching a YouTube video, and, you know, looking at Twitch with the other hand, and that's why he's not getting anything done. Yeah, you know, you don't know what the reasons are that things happen, but at the same time, there's going to be as many just lazy people as there are people who are just not in a good situation. And you just never know why what's happening is happening. Like, it's easy to think, like, Mo, my doctor is an idiot. He doesn't care. He's not trying to help me. Or maybe that's not the case at all. Like, maybe your doctor's sick, or maybe your doctor's, you know, getting divorced. Or, like, you know, I mean, like, there's a lot of things going on in people's lives. In the end, none of this matters, because this is what ends up happening. Listen, if you really look at diabetes, like over a timeline, go back to 19, you know, 1915 as an example, and you get diabetes and you die eventually, right? They were doing starvation diets to try to keep people alive, like that kind of stuff worked. Sometimes, for some people, insulin comes out. Shoot people with insulin, hey, I'm alive, right? Insulin gets better. I'm sure these people who were saved by insulin in 1928 for example, didn't live till they were 7990 years old, like, Right? But it saved their life in the meantime. Then you know what comes next? Uh, pork, beef, you know, regular mph, like, you start going through that timeline there, and every time I talk to somebody who lived through one of those timelines, it came with its own challenges, and then it gets better every time the insulin gets better, and then it gets better when pumps come out, and then it gets better when testing is better, and it gets better when CGM come out, and it gets better When algorithms come out. But what we're counting on through this whole thing is technology, either biological or mechanical, technology, to make diabetes better. At no point during this process do I hear anybody telling me, Oh, I was diagnosed in 1965 but I'm still alive now. Let me tell you how much better my doctor got during this time, no one ever tells that story. Right in my mind, what we're waiting for is technology to be able to mimic better the ability to take in information, absorb it, consider it, apply it towards everything the world knows about health and type one diabetes, and then regurgitate the correct answer. I think we're waiting for AI. Yeah, yeah. That's where I think a leap in doctoring is going to finally come from, because, not because doctors are bad people, or they're not trying, or they don't take it seriously, or they don't care about me, or there's, you know, insurance, they got everybody in there. It's, it's the limitations of their their little like, noodle, they're thinking thing like, it just, it's not because they're dumb, it's because we're human. Yeah,

Carly 34:07 well, and in the end, we we're human. Like, doctors can only give us so much information, and, yeah, I can have best doctor in the world. It's going to be like, you know, no more than anyone have, like, the best advice that, if I don't take that home and listen like, you know, in the end, it's still like me that has to figure out, like, what my body's doing, and why does it, you know, why it reacts this way when you know I'm doing this? And like, in the end, like we have to take some responsibility ourselves. Like, it sucks that, yeah, you know, you hope that you could be able to kind of go and see a doctor, and they should give you the right guidance. But in the end, it's like, you know, again, we still need to go and figure out what's best for us.

Scott Benner 34:46 And even that perspective is like, we have to go home and do something with it that gives that you understood it. Yeah, it's not just about like the doctor telling you the right thing to do. It's about them telling you that in a way that you can absorb. And now. Like, you're a different person. Some people are visual learners. Some people don't want to read. They want to some people want it told to them, like, how the hell are we supposed to get this straight? Do you know what I mean? But like, yeah. Like, I've already done an episode or two. I'm not saying it's perfect or anything like that, but I've had people come on who have had, like, medical issues that they're like, I don't know what's going on with me. And I was like, why don't we just sit down and keep asking? Ai like, why don't we keep telling the AI about you? And then ask it what might be the problem? And it gives back, like, I don't know if it's right or not, but it gives back reasonable ideas to look into that I don't know that everybody would think to look into. Yeah, I know it's not perfect right now, and I don't know if it'll ever be perfect. I'm not saying it will be or anything like that, but at least it can hear what you said. Remember all the things that you told it. My name is Carly. I'm this tall, I weigh this much. I've got this kind of cancer and that kind of cancer. I've got this kind of this, and I've got that, and I have type one diabetes, and I end it's possible that somebody with a magic wand is trying to kill me.

Carly 35:59 And, you know, because I call it magic, that'll just that goes right to his head,

Scott Benner 36:04 which head? Now, listen, exactly. We'll get the Canadian out of you, yeah, now the AI is, is it's remembered those things that you've told it. Now, here are my symptoms. What do you see here? Like, here's who I am, here's here's my, you know, here's my measurables. Here's what I know is wrong with me. Here's what I'm, you know, experiencing. Lay it out for me here. What do you think could be going on? What could I try, first, to try to impact these things, and then let an intelligence you know that has access to the internet, which should have access to everything that doctors learned, and if it doesn't, someone's going to do it. And you know what I mean? Like, I think doctor, your doctor in a pocket. Listen, I said this to my wife a couple of years ago, and she fought with me a little bit about it, but I said, I think one day doctors will be technicians and not the clinician. I think the AI will be the clinician and the doctor will be the human there to go over everything, to make sure it makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah, I don't think surgery right away, but you know what I mean, although there are, like, there are some robot surgery tools that are awesome, but they're usually very specific to one surgery that they do, yeah, but that, to me, makes the most sense. Like, where's the limitation of doctors? It's their inability to keep all of the necessary information in their head and then compute it and spit out an answer. Well,

Carly 37:29 to your point, earlier, like, you know what they're learning? Like, you know, stuff is changing so much and, like, yeah, so quickly that, like, what they learned even a few years ago might be irrelevant, and they might not know it's, it's relevant, right? Like, it's so or, what about

Scott Benner 37:44 new literature, new new testing, you know, this stuff that comes up constantly. Like, I had a lady reach out to me this morning, and, you know, like, listen, let's be clear. First of all, I'm a podcaster, okay? Like, you know, and she's, you know, she sends to me. She's like, Look, I know you're not a doctor. And know, this isn't medical advice, but my three year old has diabetes, but only has this specific antibody and blah, blah, blah. And you know, like, you know, isn't using much insulin. He's getting stem cell treatments. Like, the family's doing a lot, you know, trying to keep this diabetes at bay. And she says to me, do you think a GLP medication would help him? And I'm like, I'm reading this, and I'm like, and if she's listening, you know, it's cool that you reached out to me and everything, but I'm thinking, like, It's nine o'clock in the morning, lady, and I didn't go to medical school, like, I don't know, but, and my assumption now is that she's been listening to the podcast and heard a couple of people's stories about using glps and their insulin needs going significantly down, but I asked her that, and she hadn't heard those episodes. Oh, now, side note, Carly. That made me sad, because I would like it if you all listen to all the podcasts. But I got past that part pretty quickly, and I sent off an episode, and I said, Hey, listen. Here's an episode with this 15 year old girl who's using a GLP, and she's, like, barely using any insulin. Now, she had type one for like, three years. She's using a ton of insulin. Like, something's working for her. It's not gonna, you know, it's not curing her, obviously. And I'm assuming, at some point in her life, you know, this is gonna, you know, ratchet up. But this has been going on a while now, and everything. So she's like, I'll go listen to that. But Scott, what would you do if it was your kid? And so I'm like, Look, I'm not a listen. Also, I'm not a doctor. I don't give people medical advice. Like, I can't answer this question, but she had a lady here. She's you, she's craftsmen at straws, right? And I don't know if this ends up working for her kid or not, but obviously the lowest dose that's available in a pre mixed in a pre, like, measured pen, I'm assuming, would be insanely too much for a person that size, right? And I don't know the reasons why or why not. You wouldn't give it to a kid. Like, I don't know any of this, right? So I tell her all that. I'm like, I have no idea about any of this. I really don't know, but I. I would wonder too, if I was you, like, is there like, a micro dose of this medication that would help but and then I said to her, the the lamest thing you should ask your doctor. And when I said that, I thought she's gonna go ask a doctor who is gonna just have heard, like the side effects from GLP from two years ago on the internet and go, you can't give that to them. Give them liver disease and shut off their they're gonna, their guts are gonna twist up in a butt. Like, you know, I mean, like, so I ended up saying, why don't you send this episode to the doctor and let them listen to it, see if you can spark their imagination to go ask questions and find out. Because I don't know. Like, would the tiniest little bit of that stuff, like, do something for the kid? Would it hold off their diabetes? Like, would it, like, lessen the impact on, on the on the kids beta cells? Would it stretch things out? I don't know, but you know who definitely is not going to know her doctor, and so she was put in the ironic position of thinking to herself, it's possible a podcaster will have more up to date thoughts on this than my physician will. Now I'm not saying that's a good idea. I'm not saying you should be coming to me before your doctor. I genuinely am not saying that. I want to be very clear, but like it puts her in that position to wonder that, yeah, and if aI had access to everything that was happening in the world, and it could, it could consider those things, you know, like testing and, you know, stories and, you know, anecdotal and and whatnot, it might be able to come back and just say to her, like, hey, You know what? Don't do that, or I wonder what maybe the AI would come back and go, Hey, you do have to wonder what would happen if we just gave the kid, like, the teeniest little bit of this, like, I don't know, like, you know, but that's what I think you're waiting for, is you're waiting for something to aggregate information, be able to hold it, understand who you are, and regurgitate reasonable things to look into, yeah, yeah, no, for sure, yeah, because it ain't gonna happen. It's definitely not gonna happen in Canada. I mean, no, I try not to make a big deal out of it, because I feel like some people are like, Oh, see, he's like, He's agreeing that socialized medicine is a bad thing. But it takes way too long to go to a see a doctor in Canada. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just like, when I was, yeah,

Carly 42:21 like, when I was in and I remember, like, when I got diagnosed, I'm just talking to a co worker, I was like, Well, yeah, like, I always had a very negative view of the US system. Like, well, you know, you could go bankrupt and, you know, whatever. Like, just, how is this not just part of, like, your everyone should have decent health care, right? And, yeah, I get diagnosed, and I have, you know, access to a nurse, and I immediately get an endocrinologist and stuff. And then I come down here and it's like, oh, like, both systems, again, have their issues, but if you have insurance here, like the level of care you're getting is exponentially better, you know, like, is so like, it's, yeah, like, neither system is perfect, but yeah, the Canadian system, like, having, just having access doesn't necessarily mean you're being taken care of,

Scott Benner 43:09 right? Yeah, right. Access to people three months later, and you know, we're longer I know, listen, I know other Canadians, and they come in with reasonable concerns, but, you know, the doctor's like, well, that's not going to kill you. We'll see in a year. And I'm not making that up. Like, I've had people tell me, I you know, I had low iron. Took them nearly a year to see a doctor, but, and it's low iron that needed, like, intervention, not like a vitamin, yeah? I mean, a year is a long time to live exhausted, yeah, when it's not necessary, because I had that happen to me, and I pressured a doctor, and four days later I had an iron infusion. Guess what? I felt better in two weeks like so somebody else has got to wait 12 months to your point. What exists here that doesn't exist there? It's the carrot at the end of the stick. It's money. So, yeah, you want to get paid. You get my ass in there and you fix my low iron problem. Yeah? You know, yeah, I don't know.

Carly 44:03 Like, I'll use my sister like she so my sister, over her lifetime, she's had, like, it's happened three or four times where she's just stood up and she's just passed out. And the last time it happened, she knocked her head, got a pretty bad concussion. And so they finally ran it, like, we'll run some tests and stuff. And so they're like, Well, we think you have epilepsy. So she goes and does the test. Like, it takes her three or four months to get the test, another three or four months to get the results. And like, it's inconclusive, so we need you to run another test. So it takes another three months, takes another three months to get the results. They're like, just over a year into this, and they're sitting there going, if you have epilepsy, we're gonna have to take you're gonna lose your driver's license, but because we don't know you know off you go do your live your normal life, but it was basically, like, it took them almost two years and maybe four or five appointments in total for her to be diagnosed as like, it's inconclusive. So we're just gonna leave. It. But all of

Scott Benner 45:01 that, anything was yeah, just even wear a helmet. I mean, like, is that? Like, yeah, yeah,

Carly 45:08 exactly. She first told me to epilepsy, looked up for ways to like or things to, you know, things to do, to take care of yourself. And one was like, maybe wear a helmet.

Scott Benner 45:17 Did somebody really say that? Send her a picture of what? Wait You said that you and I

Carly 45:24 would get along. Helmet for Christmas,

Scott Benner 45:26 yeah, you and I would get along. I see this, yeah, to me, though, the horrible part about the story isn't that they couldn't come up with an answer. Like, I accept that they can't always find an answer. It's the amount of time it took them to not come up with an answer. That's the part that kind of pisses me off. Like, how much time has to go by for you to go, oh, sorry. Like, you know how demoralizing that is, yeah, well,

Carly 45:49 just the fear of, you know, she's 45 years old. Like, yeah, when are we gonna be like, I've been driving for almost 30 years. Like, you're gonna take this away from me and like, what are the like, what does that do for my job and my kids and like, yeah, and stuff just overhang, like, hung over her for almost two years, and then to be like, ah, not sure. So we're just gonna leave it

Scott Benner 46:10 anyway. Good luck. Thanks for coming. Yeah, hey, get yourself a Tim bit on the way home. Yeah. God, that's a donut hole, right? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. You call it something fancy, but it's, it's the it's the middle of the track, like you've made something up, you know what? I mean, yeah, yeah. Have you ever tapped the tree and taken syrup right out of it? Yes or No,

Carly 46:34 I did. I was at a water poll tournament nationals in long time ago, and they were in Montreal, and so we went and did, uh, we did do that. So

Scott Benner 46:43 I know any stupid thing I ever say to people they've done so, yeah, I know

Carly 46:49 only once, though, only once. I only

Scott Benner 46:50 do that so that people who think that generalizing is bad go, maybe, maybe it's not like every dumb thing he says to people like, oh, that definitely happens. Go back to the Canadian episode where the girls, she's a can can dancer in the Yukon. It's awesome episode. Oh, and I say something to her about, like, working at the bar that I know people were like, Oh, stop reaching for. She goes, yep. And I'm like, Yeah, I win again. Anyway. What do you have here in your notes about diabetes versus cancer? What do you want to talk about revolving around that was interesting.

Carly 47:22 Papers reached out about that, like, because it was kind of like this. You know, if I could have one over the other, and cancer is looking like it's more chronic and not going away either. But if I can get rid of one, I would get rid of diabetes, because it's still still it's because it's all consuming, right? Like, Cancer sucks and but in the end, if you don't do a good job with either of them, the end result is going to be the same. You have a little bit more control, actually, probably a lot more control, over diabetes. But it's like, it's all consuming, right? Like, no, I probably don't go much more than 10 minutes where I don't, at least I'm like, What's my blood sugar? Like, haven't looked at my blood sugar. What's going on? Like, in every decision you make, right, like, Okay, I'm going to eat, but I'm going for a ride in a couple hours. Like, where it's, like with cancer and it again, like it my thoughts process is changing a little bit on this now that it is a little bit more chronic and not going away. But, you know, like, when I was first just doing, like, head surgery, surgery absolutely sucked. Post surgery sucked even more. But like, then I was just going in for immunotherapy once a month, right? So you kind of go in, you get the treatment, and then you would think about it for another month, right? Like, you kind of go about life a little bit, whereas Carly,

Scott Benner 48:33 I gotta tell you something, it isn't often that I get bummed out by things, but that I'm usually a very positive person. I don't want to bum you as the parent of a child with type one diabetes. She's just embarking on her young life. That really kicked me in the stomach. I have to tell you, thanks, Carly. I'm Yeah, yeah. Just here

Carly 48:53 to bring joy. I appreciate you

Scott Benner 48:56 being honest about it, and it's a very interesting perspective. Now, may I ask you if the cancer was going to take you three months from now, for sure, you'd say I'd rather get rid of the cancer. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. I mean, I just didn't want people who can't hear nuance to yeah, get upset. That's all,

Carly 49:11 yeah, yeah, no, and like, and yeah. Again, it's kind of, you know, the fact that this is not going away as quickly, it becomes a little bit more sure of a bigger deal and a little bit more emotionally time consuming and stuff like that itself. So, you know, that perspective, you know, is, is evolving, yeah, probably say, but yeah, like, it's, they're, they're different mindsets. Have you

Scott Benner 49:33 had a big if I'm not here anymore conversation with your husband? Not really

Carly 49:38 like, I think so. I'm generally, um, relatively positive. I don't do a lot of research, you know, like, kind of, my doctor's like, oh yeah, we'll just have the surgery and you're just gonna do this treatment and whatever. And so I'm just kind of, I've gone about thinking I'm going to be fine, and not done much research. I guess still am reading a book and, like, there was one section on cancer, and I was like, Oh, this isn't doing. Well, for my my emotional health. And I did, um, I shared, like, one paragraph writer to my husband, and the next morning he woke up and he's like, You have to stop reading that book, because he didn't sleep the entire

Scott Benner 50:12 thing. He's like, listen, I read it and it's upsetting. Well, I mean, listen, I think that's like, I again, it's, I can't believe Texas. I mean, come on, you know what? I mean, it's a state. It's big, isn't it huge? It's the biggest city in Texas. I think it's bigger than a lot of countries like you would think, get a nice, rock solid internet connection. But neither here, yeah, I get the idea that the cancers, like do the thing move forward, right? Like we do the thing, we test later, we move forward. It's the only way to live with that. In my like opinion, my mom lived a, you know, a time, but a short time after her cancer was removed, and like she got to ring her bell and like it's gone, and then, you know, a year and a half later she was gone. But in that time, look at me trying to be upbeat about my mom dying. In that time, I did appreciate that we did the thing. The thing is over. We'll set up the next test. Until then, you'll live like it's not going to happen again. There was something good about that. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand how you could live otherwise, to be perfectly honest. No.

Carly 51:15 Well, you can't, like some people do, right? Like, I guess you know you you see it in the in the diabetes community, you see it in cancer community, right? Like, cancer came back and, like, I probably need to talk to someone. So kind of got a therapist, and, you know, first meeting, he type one diabetic and has been type one diabetic for like, 35 years. I'm like, okay, Kim and I, we're, we're each other's people. So kind of got along right from the beginning. But, like, both of us, we kind of talked about that. It's like, how I am not diabetic. I have type one diabetes, right? Like, and so it's kind of across everyone. Like, some people just internalize whatever's happening to them and make it part of their identity. And like, I'm not saying one way is right or wrong, right or wrong at all, but it's, you know, like, it's kind of how you guess, like, that's kind of part of me. And, yeah, like, you know, I guess saying like, diabetes is all consuming, but I still, like, I don't, my lifestyle hasn't changed, you know, like, I didn't, yeah, I haven't stopped drinking. I still eat carbs. Like, you're gonna live the way given that cookie, like, you know, like it's, yeah, like, my life is exactly the same as it was

Scott Benner 52:18 before. And how many visits with a therapist till you ask him if he's had sex with your husband.

Carly 52:26 That's a neckline. I think,

Scott Benner 52:29 listen, I don't think I can tell you any more of my secrets till I double check on this. Yeah. Rugby guy, big dude. You don't know him, do you? He's like the Johnny Appleseed to type one diabetes, your husband. He's gonna find this funny, right? Because he's big. And you, yeah, yeah, you can reach me through an interstate. So I'm not worried.

Carly 52:54 You can see the stuff that he sends me on Instagram, like the reels. He says, I don't want

Scott Benner 52:59 to open my front door. One die. And like, you know, like, this giant man sitting in front of me, I'm gonna go, Oh, you're gonna be Carly's husband. Yes, I'll just tell him that story about the can can dance or loosen him right off. He'll be fine. Yeah, yeah, Carly, is there anything we haven't talked about that you that you want to, that I haven't brought out of the conversation?

Carly 53:19 No, no. I think that's kind of Yeah. That covered it like, yeah, I guess just one kind of like that. Every system is a little different. And it's just, you know, I find kind of, when listening to someone from Canada talking about the system versus the states, that there's always kind of a bit of a, I don't know, cognitive difference. Is that the right term like that, I struggle with. And it's just, yeah, the system just, it's a little different and interesting, you know, managing both,

Scott Benner 53:46 yeah. So if someone comes on and starts saying, like, Oh, I'm in Canada, and everything went great, party used, like, It ain't like that everywhere. Sister, like, that kind of feeling like, just makes you feel like, that wasn't my experience, yeah,

Carly 53:57 yeah. And it just, and I think kind of people like in in Canada, we don't, like, until he was here, I didn't appreciate some of the, you know, the positives of the system down here, and some of the pro like, you know how some of it is a little bit more proactive and preventative versus, you know, yeah, like in Canada, like, unfortunately, like, it's part of the system, but, like, there's not a lot of preventative stuff. It's more like, just, how do we manage what's already happened? Yeah,

Scott Benner 54:22 I think that's pretty much everywhere, though. Like, yeah, if you're lucky enough to be working on preventative care, you're doing it yourself to some degree and or bringing in doctors who you're paying cash to here that are helping you with stuff like that. Like, if, you know, I don't know if they're, yeah, I don't know if most of them are, you know, even allowed to, like, listen to you. If you come in and say, Hey, like to preventative, I need you to help me manage some preventative mate, but that'd be interesting. Why don't you go into a general practitioner and say, I want to, I want to preventatively main, do something here. Can you help me watch the doctor go? Yeah, sure. But we can't bill your insurance. I. You know, so that sucks, really does, by the way, I love Canadian danger penis so much that I'm wondering, can I just, like, make it pee, like, you know, like ampersand, like NIS, or, would that, yeah, be okay, yeah, I don't know such a good title, or, what if? What if I called it Canadian danger and then a different P word, like a more acceptable one. Then the first thing I said when the episode came on was like, Look, guys, this episode is really called Canadian danger penis. But I couldn't put that, yeah, I couldn't put that in the title. I'll probably just reflect

Carly 55:36 that. That'd be another like, of course, in the moment I'm blanking on any other term for the Oh, for the penis, for a penis, but like, Is there, like some other, like Carly, I know, for

Scott Benner 55:47 fun, why don't you name all the words you know for penis right now? Yeah, the guy can bleep him out. What comes to mind? Go ahead. Well,

Carly 55:59 you said, imagine it like magic wand, like the shrimp boat. I'm now, I'm going to, was that Grumpy Old Men? At the end of Grumpy Old Men to be able

Scott Benner 56:08 men. How old were you? What the hell

Carly 56:10 was the same, like John Lennon and Walter les gal and stuff like,

Scott Benner 56:15 you got that. So, right? Walter Matthau, did you say? Is that right? Is that right? Is that the Walter, Matthau and Jack Lemmon, I believe you said John Lennon. Did you say John Lennon?

Carly 56:32 Wrong. One. Wrong.

Scott Benner 56:34 That was awesome. I did some use my Google fingers. Member, phallus. Phallus could work. Canadian danger phallus, oh yeah, that's what we're gonna do. Also, manhood, organ, shaft, tool, genitalia, private part, masculinity, Rod, package, pecker Johnson, Willie and junk. That's what came up for me. All right, that sounds pretty standard, yeah, none of the dirty ones came up.

Carly 56:59 No, no, yeah. But see, there you go,

Scott Benner 57:02 Canadian, let's go phallus, because the P is there, and then, yeah, because in private part would be weird. Yeah, I'll do phallus in the title, and then everybody will come in and I'll let them know I just had to do that for the title. And then we'll move on. Yeah, there we go. I love it. You've brought a lot to this podcast. When I look back over this thing when I'm done, I'm gonna remember this moment. I wonder how long I'll do this for. How long have you been listening?

Carly 57:26 So I started during COVID, like, I was kind of like, I needed to get out of the house, you know, work from home. And so I wasn't big into podcasts at all. I don't listen to podcasts at all at that time, like, oh, maybe this will be a good place to to learn about diabetes. And so it just kind of Googled diabetes podcasts and landed on yours

Scott Benner 57:44 and just started listening and have been stopped. 2019, 2020, 2020, Oh, awesome. Thank you. So I think I can Kelly, summer 20, Summer, summer. 2020. Summer. Okay. I think I could keep this going. I think I could do it another 10 years. Like, for me personally, like, I could, like, once I get into my 60s, like, I'm gonna be like, Listen, I'm just whatever money I've been able to scrape up, I'm, I'm gonna off with it now and be done. But I think I could do this for a decade. I think I could make it interesting for a decade. So that's my goal. Is 10 more years, 20 years total. Like, at the end, at my funeral. What's that well, and then the end, like, where

Carly 58:23 it's, like, it's part of, it's just creating a community, right? And people sharing stories about, you know, their own experiences that we're all experiencing. So it really is,

Scott Benner 58:31 Listen, I'm very proud of the whole thing, like, how I see it helping people every day, and it's a great outlet for my stupidity. So that's awesome. And, you know, like, people come on and tell stories that you just don't hear anymore. Like, listen. I don't know what we talked about today, but at one point you said, I think I'd rather keep cancer than diabetes, and I think that's a thing worth hearing and considering if you're out there listening, you know what I mean? Like, I do agree that you have to live like it's not their diabetes, that you have to minimize it as much as you can, you know, all that stuff, and try not to let it over take your life. But the truth of the matter is, is that, you know, when Carly came on and said, If you could give one of these away, she said, What? She said, You know, so you got to keep that in mind while you're living with it or parenting with it, or whatever. Yeah, all right, well, this was somehow a bummer and fun at the same time. I'm so sad about your just go

Carly 59:25 back. Just go back to the penises. And yeah, we'll make it end on a high note. On a high note,

Scott Benner 59:34 you just broke up. But I was so sure you're gonna say strategic and, oh, you just, you just broke up, Carly, I was so positive you're gonna say on a high note or on a hard note, but I wasn't sure where you were going with that. Is that where you're Oh, you and I would get along really well. You and I would get along very well. Wouldn't we look at us, you'd be like, Oh, he's about to say something stupid. I know. Yeah, I know he's about to say something stupid because I'm already thinking of stupid now. There you are breaking up like it is so infuriating. All right, I don't know what's wrong with Texas, but I hope they fix it. You were just gone. Hello,

Carly 1:00:11 Carly, hello, I'm here. Yeah, breaking up.

Scott Benner 1:00:15 I don't know what's wrong with Texas dog. Houston, we have a problem technology. Am I wrong? Yes, Justin,

Carly 1:00:21 we really do have a problem. Also, I can definitely call you not wrong.

Scott Benner 1:00:27 Carly, I'm gonna let you go so that I don't bang my head on this desk while people are listening. Okay,

Carly 1:00:32 yeah, no, that's great. Hold on one second. I'd

Scott Benner 1:00:42 love 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/juice, box, one year, one CGM, a huge thanks to Omnipod, not just my longest sponsor, but my first one. Omnipod.com/juice box. If you love the podcast and you love two plus insulin pumps, this link is for you. Omnipod.com/juice box. I Juicebox. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective. The bowl beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player. Or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. Hey, what's up? Everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way, recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

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#1472 Tao of Tom

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Tom, 29 (T1D since age 8), overcame resentment, weight gain, and stigma to take control of his diabetes while working in commercial real estate.

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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. Today I'm speaking with Cassandra. She's a returning guest who was initially on episode 829, called Chinese hamster ovaries. She is giving us an update on how things are going with her PCOS gastroparesis. She had SIBO. She's an awesome guest. She's had a lot of success. Jump on here with us today, find out what she did to help herself. It is really, really exciting. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink AG, one.com/juice box. To get this offer, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident? If you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d exchange.org/juicebox, and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds, T, 1d, exchange.org/juice, box. It should not take you more than about 10 minutes. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about mis Bolus is or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses, learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox the show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the ever since 365 the ever since 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get ever since cgm.com/juicebox

Cassandra 02:28 Hey, my name is Cassandra. I'm a returning guest, and some of you may know me as a group expert from the Juicebox

Scott Benner 02:36 Podcast. What do we call you online? Princess in Cassandra, excellent. So nice to talk to you again.

Speaker 1 02:44 Yeah, I'm so happy to be back because I have, I guess, a lot of new things to share. Yeah,

Scott Benner 02:50 no kidding, I'm looking at your list here. We're gonna, we're gonna really get into some stuff, give people maybe just kind of a high level overview of what your last episode was about.

Speaker 1 03:00 Oh my god, about so much and nothing at the same. I feel like,

Scott Benner 03:05 how? So, you know, everyone says that. So let me, I'm gonna get somebody's opinion here. So everybody listening. What you don't know is that when most of the interviews end, people say the same thing, hey, if you don't want to use that, it's okay. Everyone always thinks that their episode was about nothing. It wasn't good, like I listened to the podcast and all these other episodes are so helpful to me. And I know I didn't help anybody, but I always say to them, I'm like, delete episodes like the ones you're feeling helped by those people thought the same thing as you when it was over, that this just was not valuable at all. Right? So

Speaker 1 03:40 I don't think necessarily it wasn't very valuable for anyone. I just think, like we covered so many topics, and probably the main thing for me was, even if life gets complicated, especially with diabetes, especially with complications, you still can have a good life and perspective matters.

Scott Benner 04:05 Yeah, yeah, for sure, excellent. So we don't have people back very often, so you're special, of course. Do you want me to call you Cassandra or princess? Where you at with us? Cassandra? Okay, so Cassandra, I guess let's keep it then last episode. Tell people your episode number. Do you know it? 829, 829, okay, so medically, what did you tell people about? We

Speaker 1 04:29 talked a lot about Chinese hamster ovaries, about immunosuppressants, about chronic urticaria, about retinopathy. We talked thyroid.

Scott Benner 04:44 What do you have going on that brings you back? I kind of want to jump into it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 04:48 Well, at that point back then, when we recorded the PCOS, I suffered from since, like forever, was kind of at bay and didn't. Bother me as much as the last couple of years, and it kind of got urgent or more severe, I feel like, towards the end of my 30s now, and maybe that played also into it. And every time I asked my gynecologist about it, she just told me to eat healthier and do more sports. And maybe one thing you should know about me, I have a pretty active lifestyle, and I try to eat as healthy as I can. So it was basically just gaslighting

Scott Benner 05:41 so your ovaries were giving you trouble. And she was like, have more kale and go for a walk. Yeah? That seems helpful. This

Speaker 1 05:49 works, but not when your BMI is 22 Yeah, right, yeah. I was at a perfectly normal weight. I mean, a lot of people who suffer from PCOS, obviously, are overweight or obese, but that wasn't my problem. I had an a hormonal imbalance. Even

Scott Benner 06:09 if they have a hormonal imbalance, you can help your hormones back into balance by being at a healthy weight, not carrying fat. Has a lot with your hormones. So I get it. If a person was in that situation. They're like, hey, let's get you active and and maybe get some weight off of you and see if that helps. But you're saying not your situation at all. No, right, okay. And

Speaker 1 06:29 then I switched endos, and there again, the topic PCOS came up, and he told me, like, well, I could try some anti testosterone medicine, blah, blah, blah and all this stuff just didn't convince me, because they came with an array of side effects that you don't want. Yeah, and then I told him that I want to go to a specialist who is only specialized in PCOS and talk to them. And in the back of my mind, I had kind of a plan what I wanted to do, because I did some research, also, how you can manage PCOS without hormones, like because I knew when I walk in there, the first suggestion they will give me is just take the pill. Yeah, and I didn't want that. I found out that they actually perform a surgery on some women when they try to conceive. But it doesn't work. They use a treatment called laparoscopic ovarian drilling, and that kind of drill. They drill holes into your ovaries for what, so they can get babies.

Scott Benner 07:48 And does that work or no? Yeah, it does. Wow, okay,

Speaker 1 07:52 well, but that wasn't also wasn't my situation. I don't want to have a baby. I think we talked about that also last time. But, I mean, I wrote this, read this paper a little further, and they saw in this research that it also normalizes hormone levels and gives you a regular cycle. And I thought, yeah, bingo. That's all I need. I don't care how fertile I am, right, right. The main thing is, I have a regular cycle. Did you do this? And it worked well, and then the whole gas lighting started over because Doctor said, Well, no, it's, we don't do this here. It's far too dangerous. Just take the pill, because it could be that you enter a perimenopausal early and it will be far too dangerous, okay? And then another doctor told me, Well, yeah, it's just you talk to manage and babysit your diabetes. And I really was at the point where my cycles were anywhere from like 28 to days to three months, and ovulation started at day 14. And there is where the craziness started. My body tried to build up. The hormones to ovulate. Insulin needs went up. The ovulation didn't take place. Hormone level dropped, insulin needs dropped, and that for weeks and weeks and weeks and then all over again. And he just said, yeah, that's just your job. Now, the only other thing he could offer me would be the pill, but only the pill would be much too dangerous for me, so I need, would need to take blood thinners. Additionally, tell people

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Unknown Speaker 11:49 because I don't want to gain weight.

Scott Benner 11:50 Yeah, that was, that was your main concern. Yeah. Okay. Why would you have to take blood thinners?

Speaker 1 11:56 Yeah, because I'm over 35 and they are concerned for your cardiovascular health, then,

Scott Benner 12:03 oh, if they put you on the pill, they put you on a blood thinner as well. Yeah,

Speaker 1 12:06 okay. And I mean that this plan already sounds ridiculous to me. And then I went to a third doctor, and he said, Yeah, let's do it. And and then

Scott Benner 12:20 what happened? And I did it well, tell me what happened. What was that like?

Speaker 1 12:23 And also in the same time frame, I know, can I this all took so long to figure out I was desperate and I wanted some relief, and it was also at the time where you started talking about authentic Okay, so I went to my end all and said, Please put me on the lowest dose of authentic. I want to try this. And it was all kind of in the same time frame, seven months ago. Now, okay, ever since the surgery and the authentic, I had a regular I have a regular cycle. Wow. I mean, it's not picture perfect 28 days. It is somewhere between maybe 28 and 3540 but it is regular, actually. And I never had that before in my life. It's

Scott Benner 13:14 awesome. So my question here is, with some hindsight now and out of the problem, the, I mean, the bleeding, forever and ever, the pain and everything else that came with it. Can you look back on that time that you felt that way and really quantify it, like put it into words for people, what it was like? What, what was that thing you were so desperate to get away from? I mean,

Speaker 1 13:35 there's not really words for that, because I was just chasing a monster, like six weeks, eight of us out of eight,

Scott Benner 13:46 yeah, like heavy bleeding. I didn't

Speaker 1 13:49 have any bleeding at all. I don't have had I didn't have pain, I didn't have bleeding. It was just kind of could tell when my hormones started to raise, and then went down. And that's what my insulin needs. Just constantly changed, and, like, they doubled, and then in one hour, I was back down to normal.

Scott Benner 14:13 And so for you, it wasn't as much about the classic problems of an extended period, it was about taking care of your diabetes, yeah, yeah. And how long had you been doing it this way? Like, how much of your life? Like, tell people how old you were when you got type one. And when did this all start with the PCOS? I

Speaker 1 14:30 mean, I got type one when I was 11. I never had a normal period, so it's the you could say I was diagnosed with 14 when my period never started. And

Scott Benner 14:45 do you look back over that time and see insulin issues the entire time? Or did it start when you got older?

Speaker 1 14:51 I mean, I was so unmanaged, you can't tell, but probably, probably, yeah, and then, I mean. Some years I had an IUD, and that was better, not good, but better. And then when the replacement came up, I tried an IUD again, but I was basically just crying out of nowhere for a month and that IUD had to go out.

Scott Benner 15:19 The hormones from the IUD just put you into a tizzy, as they would have called it in the 50s.

Speaker 1 15:24 I was just crying out, starting to cry out of nowhere, right? I wasn't myself anymore, terrible. And that's also a reason why I said I don't want to try a pill. Yeah,

Scott Benner 15:36 right, right. Okay, you did the ovarian drilling and you started a GLP med. Do you think it's a combination of the two that helped, or do you think one of them is doing something and the other one wasn't valuable? I don't

Speaker 1 15:49 know what I can tell you from the TLP side is that I was able to lose some weight on parts of my body where I always had like a little extra,

Scott Benner 16:05 where did that? Would you mind sharing, where it gathered on you, on my belly, your belly. Okay, I'm

Speaker 1 16:11 a lean person to begin with, but my belly just always stored some fat, and I started out on the authentic at around the 130 pounds, and went down the first week five pounds and lost now in total, 23 pounds. Wow,

Scott Benner 16:35 you didn't feel good for so long. But can you like separate the things? Can you tell how just weight loss itself has impacted you, or is it more about the fat being gone? I feel

Speaker 1 16:45 now that I'm at the weight that is reflecting my lifestyle, and it's kind of fair. Do you know how I'm mean?

Scott Benner 16:56 Has it changed things for you, socially, or just the way you feel about yourself.

Speaker 1 17:00 It hasn't changed anything socially. No, okay,

Scott Benner 17:04 your attitude about who you are and everything that hasn't changed. No, okay, what about this? The way you feel, health wise, do you notice a difference? Yeah.

Speaker 1 17:15 I mean, my cholesterol, for example, was always like, not high, but a little bit on the higher side where they want you as a diabetic, it's completely normal now. They were always concerned about my kidneys. They are functioning completely normal now, and that's all since I started the TLT, you

Scott Benner 17:42 didn't go up, right? Are you still on a low dose? No.

Speaker 1 17:44 I mean, I always stayed at the point two, five milligram because, I mean, my BMI is now almost underweight, so I even I can't afford to go up.

Scott Benner 17:58 My point was that you're getting these benefits without ramping up the medication more and more and more. Yeah, yeah. How about the eating? Are you able to eat? Or are you having, like, what are your fights with glps? I mean,

Speaker 1 18:10 the fight is that that I'm actually, I had gastroparesis before I started the authentic so that was a concern. But from what I can tell, it didn't get worse on the authentic so it's it was a bit worse, like the first two weeks, I wasn't able to eat that much and had to divide portions and eat more snack type things. But like, after two weeks, this was fine again, but only, like, maybe two months ago, I found out something very interesting. Go ahead, I started to log my calories because I was pretty certain I'm not getting enough calories with your Sen big I would say I was able to eat more and still lose weight. If I had eaten that much prior to authentic, I had gained weight, I'm sure

Scott Benner 19:11 interesting, I will tell you that. Well, I'm using zepbound, which is, you know, a GLB from a different company, and I didn't eat poorly before. Do you understand? Like I Yeah, me neither, yeah. I found myself thinking this. Arden and I went out yesterday afternoon, and she helped me pick out glasses, and I took her to lunch. First, I got a sandwich. It was a, it was a brisket sandwich, right? So it was a, it's not really what I wanted. Cassandra, but I was at a restaurant. I was limited options. I got a brisket sandwich, just two pieces of rye bread, some shaved brisket inside the tiniest bit of cheese. They sent it out with some fries. I think I had eight fries, and I was like, oh, it's enough. And I was able to eat half of the sandwich, yeah. And I looked back and I thought, prior to the GLP, would I have eaten? All of this, maybe right? I might have, I don't think I would have cleaned my plate, but I probably would have eaten a little more of the sandwich. I might have had a few more of the fries. I drank an unsweet tea with it, you know, in a glass of water. But my point is, is that I looked around the room and there were other people in that restaurant eating far more than I was eating, and they were all thin, and they didn't look like they had health, you know what I mean, like visually they and I thought if I ate this without the GLP, get it, I'd weigh 50 pounds more than this. Yeah, I just would. So did it change how I eat? I don't eat quite as much, but not to the degree that you know, you guys have, if you've listened to the podcast, you've heard before, like, I would say all the time, like, I'd eat the the tiniest little bit of thing, I'd wake up a pound heavier. I was always like, I'd wake up the next day a pound heavier, like I either had to eat nothing, or, you know, really restrict down to, like, little bits of protein and stuff like that. My digestion still sucked all these other things. Yeah, but on the GLP, I'm not saying, like, I could go out eat a quart of ice cream every day and still be thin, but there's part of me that wonders if I couldn't, like, I don't test it, you know what I mean, because I don't care and I don't want that food. But I think some people are losing weight on it because they're taking in too many calories, and it's restricting their calories, and they're losing weight. And I think other people like you and me, and probably other people with autoimmune stuff in their families, something else is happening with it.

Speaker 1 21:29 Yeah, you know, I mean, I talked to my endo about it, just like a week ago, and it's like, you're talking to a ball. Yeah? They don't know. He just tells me, Oh no, no, you're just eating less than before. And I mean, I eat dinner every day with my partner, and I trust that he can touch pretty objectively if I eat more or less and it's the same portion size. And then he said, Oh yeah, maybe you had, like, snacks in between, and didn't even notice you had them, and you don't have them. Now, did you

Scott Benner 22:07 try explaining to him that that's not it, or did you just go,

Speaker 1 22:10 Okay, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous, and he's, he's, listen, no, he didn't, but no, it's just, there is no explanation. So it can be

Scott Benner 22:21 it's funny, because I'm sure you've heard Dr Blevins on the show, right? I did. I've had great conversations with him about glps, and he's much more forward to thinking than most people. But it always sticks in my head that at one point when I kind of broached the subject with him, his answer was, well, people are eating fewer calories. And I thought, yes, for some people, but I think for other people, for everyone, yeah, and, and I know he gets it, because you can tell by the rest of the conversation that he's very open to the idea, yeah. But at the same time, I wonder if doctors are just trained not to say more than the label says it does. You know what I mean? It must be that, yeah, yeah, because I don't know how to argue with what you're saying. I started

Speaker 1 23:06 to log my calories, and I've figured out I've eaten probably for the last decade, not more than 800 calories a day.

Scott Benner 23:16 Yeah, so you shouldn't be carrying 20 extra pounds.

Speaker 1 23:19 No, right? Also not losing weight, because 800 calories for sure, don't cover my knee. Yeah, should

Scott Benner 23:26 put you in a deficit, right? Exactly. This is awesome. Listen, Cassandra, I don't get enough credit on this podcast. So you learned about the glps on the podcast. I did. Yeah, basically I saved your life. Is that what you're here to

Unknown Speaker 23:38 say again and again and over and over.

Scott Benner 23:42 I'm teasing for the people out there, and for those of you who hate me, you're like, oh, he really, really needs this. No, I just want to point out that getting information like this can really change things for you. There are things you're not going to hear in other places, and the only reason you hear them on this podcast is through random events. Like, you know, we had to put Arden on a GLP for a similar idea. Like, we really consider that Arden has PCOS, and, you know, her struggles are different, and we put her on a GLP and injected, gosh, she started with ozempic, but Arden also has a significant needle phobia that we don't talk about a ton on here, because I don't really know how to talk about it. I'm actually going to do an episode with Erica about it, to try to dig into it a little bit. But so she had trouble with the ozempic pen, having to give herself because the visible, the needle was visible, right? So we took her to a self injector. But she just has a lot of psychological pain, like she just does from from the needles. Like, if you don't know a person with a needle phobia, I don't just mean like, I don't like needles. I mean like running for your life when you see them, you know, like, that kind of thing. So she powered through it for a while, and was doing it, but on the self injector, you're stuck with whatever the lowest dose is in the self injector. And it was too much for it was. Handling her blood sugars beautifully, and her acne would just about completely go away. And, you know, belly pain that she would have, like, gone, or periods got better, like all that stuff, worked really well. She just really struggled with the injections. So she did just start this week. We're doing a experiment with rebellious so a GLP, yeah, I was going

Speaker 1 25:23 to ask you if that wasn't an option, yeah. So we're

Scott Benner 25:27 trying it now. She's three pills in and right now the doctor has her. She's like, let's start every other day, because we want her to be able to eat, so we're watching it, but I think she's going to be able to go to it daily and still be able to eat, but it's a, like I said, an experiment. We're going to be at it for a little bit before, before we figure out exactly

Speaker 1 25:46 how to handle it. Well, I hope it works for her. Thank you. Thank

Scott Benner 25:50 you. We're also going to try working on the phobia. It's, you know, little bits at a time.

Speaker 1 25:55 Yeah, that's not something you accomplish, like, in a week, no, no,

Scott Benner 25:59 when it got bad at the end, I wasn't sure if I was gonna ever share this on the podcast. But when it got bad at the end, she was home for a little bit from school, and she was at that time away at school, about a six hour drive. So I said, Look, well, I can inject it for you before you go back. And that buys you a week. And she's like, Oh, great. Well, what do we do next week? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, we'll figure it out, right? So she and I together in a room. We couldn't do it. She just, she was like, no, no, no. Like she turns into, it's almost like she's in the electric chair. That's terrible. And she'll say anything to keep you from pushing the button. It's, it's crazy how like, she turns into, like, a life or death situation for So finally, in that moment, she said, just have Cole come in and hold my wrists, like I'm giving you permission to just give it to me, but I'm gonna defend it. I think I'm gonna swat it away when you come at me with it. So have Cole hold my hands. And I was like, okay, so Cole came in, poor Cole. Was like, what is happening? And, you know, so he kind of just restrained her around her wrists, like holding her hands together. And, you know, it was difficult, right? It was really one of the more difficult moments I've been through recently. And as I do the and you know how quick these injections, if they take eight seconds, you know what I mean? And like, so I'm doing it, and I just hear colgo. She's biting me. She's biting me. Oh my god. And Arden, like, I look over and she goes, I'm sorry. I thought I was biting myself. Like she actually went to bite her own hand, like, out of like, desperation, I guess, and she got him and didn't like she couldn't feel anything she's like. So I just thought I was biting myself. And then Cassandra, as as horrible as that was and is, like, fraught with tension and peril and, like, honestly, seriously, I'm not doing a good enough job of telling you how tense it was. She just starts laughing, because it's over now and all that's gone. It just disappeared. Wow, that's crazy. We started talking about it later, and she said, I'm scared of the needle. She's like, I can I picture it like puncturing my skin. And she goes, but I'm also disappointed and embarrassed that this is my reaction. So she's fighting with all that at the same time. Yeah, so what are we gonna do next week? The GLP is helping her so much, and she now she's going to be away at school, and so I am a little embarrassed to tell you that every Sunday morning, got up really early and drove the six hours to her, gave her the injection. We had lunch, and then I drove home. I spent my whole day Sunday going to give her the shot. I did it like three weeks in a row, and then one day she was just like, please, I can't keep doing this. She goes, I'm dreading it the entire week. And I was like, Okay, well, then that can't be like, so took us a little time to get the rebellious, oh, we got some samples, and now we're trying it. So I'm definitely gonna knock terrible. But you know what she's trying to avoid, because you've been through it too, yeah, with the hormones and the impacts on your blood sugar and your life and everything anyway, my point was, is that you heard about glps and what they can do for that, because my daughter had a problem, and I'm trying to figure it out, and I talk about it on here, and that's just a weird combination, like so you could have gone your whole life and not heard about these.

Speaker 1 29:19 Actually, I heard about them like in the media, because obviously they're everywhere at the moment you and what helped me back was always the talk about gastroparesis, and that I actually have gastroparesis, and actually only one word or one sentence you said, with something in my head that I said, thought like I need to try this. That several times, this is not even a therapeutic dose,

Scott Benner 29:53 right? So maybe I'll just go down and try that and see if it doesn't hit me. Yeah, the hard i. I would not minimize anybody's problems seriously. And gastroparesis is super serious. There are two ladies on the Facebook group that anytime glps Come up, they'll race in and leave a comment about, like, you know, people have gastroparesis, and these drugs are going to bind their stomachs up and like, and I'm not saying that couldn't happen, but you have to know your situation, like, if you've had type one diet,

Speaker 1 30:23 and then in the end, every medication has side effects. Sure,

Scott Benner 30:27 yeah, no. I mean, yeah, the greater risk is, like you said, everyone's flipping a coin when they take a drug, right? But for the people who have had type one for 3040, years, you know, can look back with honesty and say, like, you know, I had high a one CS, I had a lot of variability. The technology wasn't as good back then. The drugs weren't as good back then, like I have gastroparesis. Now, this is not a thing I want to risk. I understand that. But if you've had type one for, you know, three years and your a one C's been, you know, six and a half the whole time, you don't have gastroparesis, you're not just going to magically get it for injecting the drugs. But I think some people,

Speaker 1 31:01 but I feel like that's what some people are worried about.

Scott Benner 31:06 Yeah, so. And then they worry about that, and they think that, and then they say it out loud, and it scares everybody off by the people they're tolerated by are very well tolerated by those people like you just have to figure out who you are in the situation now, and

Speaker 1 31:17 I think also you have to be aware that you have to carefully choose what you eat. Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:26 so you're making another point that I've seen with this is that some people think magic weight loss drug, right, like

Speaker 1 31:32 if you infect the authentic and go to McDonald's in the evening and eat, I don't know what? Three burgers. It's probably not gonna go well, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 31:44 You do have to put an extra effort, and it sucks, because I don't think doctors are gonna tell you about it, but yeah, that's true. Listen, I've been on it for a year and a half, maybe more. I'm at my lowest, literally, today, my lowest weight. Yay, congrats. Thank you. And forget the weight like you should see, like the other measurements, you know, like the other measurements of health. So I use this scale that measures a bunch of stuff, weight, BMI, subcutaneous fat, like, all this stuff, right? And when I started, all my numbers were red, and then slowly they became yellow. And now of the 369, 12, of the 13 things it's tracking. I have four items that are yellow and the rest are green. Wow. So it's stunning. It just it's and I feel awesome, you know?

Speaker 1 32:35 But, yeah, I mean, it's similar to my story. I always had the thing with my kidneys, where they were always concerned and always on the brink of putting me onto medication again and just gone now,

Scott Benner 32:51 yeah, I talked about it on here a couple times, but they did a study about the impact of GLP on kidney disease. Yeah,

Speaker 1 32:59 I know, and I was hoping I get some effects from it as well. And there you are. And then, like a month ago, I was at my lowest weight, and was concerned I'm losing more, because it was really like my BMI was only 18.1 then, and talk to the doctors, what we do about it? And I also had tried to up my calories, because obviously I'm not getting enough calories, but I can't eat more because not working, I don't think to eat and I would feel too full, probably also partially due to the gastroparesis. And I started now drinking high caloric drinks, which is a little insane. When you're on a PLP, to bring high caloric

Scott Benner 33:51 drinks, you're trying to get in the calories somehow. Yeah, and it's working the way it's back up. I drink up protein drinks sometimes, just because they Yeah,

Speaker 1 34:01 but they don't have enough calories for me. Yeah, I need like, 800 calories in drinks.

Scott Benner 34:07 What do you drink that does this for you? A doctor

Speaker 1 34:11 can prescribe those really, yeah, that's awesome. They do this like for people who have cancer, or for all people that don't have appetite, or for people with eating disorders, yeah, it's like, it's similar to a shake, and you can have like, 100 different tastes, and not

Scott Benner 34:37 bad, right? And you know what? It's funny, because you're basically, you're bio hacking yourself. The way I'm hoping for people to think about it is that you have all these different systems in your bodies, right in your body, and they all have different settings, basically, and your settings are off, and your body's not putting them back to where they belong. So you're, you know, use the GLP to move some of the settings, but now it's causing a problem with my. Caloric sense, so I'll put them in here. Yeah,

Speaker 1 35:01 and I actually was very worried that the doctors would see this the wrong way, because the TLP isn't the problem. My body is the problem exactly. There is no reason to take away the TLP because my body works now the way it's supposed to work. So we need to add the calories and not take away the TLP. And luckily, all of my care team agreed it's

Scott Benner 35:29 excellent. Well, and did you have to do a lot of explaining to them to get them, or did they just kind of go with it? They basically

Speaker 1 35:35 just went with it. Oh, that's awesome, because they also see all the benefits. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:40 well, they're paying but, yeah, but yeah, but sometimes they see the benefits. I mean, think about the people with type one who find the podcast and go to their doctor three months later and they're like, Hey, how are you? I know my a 1c, has always been eight, but it's 6.4 now, and the doctors go, you're having too many lows. We need to cut back your insulin. Like they panic and like they see them out, yeah? So who knows when that happens or doesn't, yeah,

Speaker 1 36:02 yeah. And I guess also, because I was very proactive and told them, hey, my weight is dropping. It's not something I want to happen. We need to address this, and this is my solution. They were probably, yeah, more prepared to help.

Scott Benner 36:20 Yeah. Also Cassandra. If they're reasonable people, they probably thought, hey, this person's really paying attention. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they would probably like it if more people came in with solutions like this for their problems. So probably good for you. No, seriously, do you feel like we covered that part of the conversation well? Because I want to ask about the G poem surgery. Yeah. Okay, so think younger, excellent, excellent. It's great. It's great story. Actually, you have gastroparesis from years of I mean, what do you think? Why do you think you have it from

Speaker 1 36:49 years of not paying tension, from in checking insulin, from high blood sugars. Okay,

Scott Benner 36:56 so now you're trying to decide to do something about it. Did you get this G poem surgery. Yeah,

Speaker 1 37:02 I mean, last time we talked, I had the procedure where they dilate the pylus, and that worked great for three months, and then I had another one, and it worked again, great for three months, but it always was kind of destroyed by some side effects from meds that delayed gastric emptying, and I was basically back to square zero, and also got SIBO, the bacterial overgrowth in my stomach, also due to the gastroparesis and then my gastro suggested to make the cheap poem, basically, not even better my situation, or Sure, partially also to better my situation with the gastroparesis. But I didn't have, like, super bad symptoms, but because also, mainly to prevent that the bacteria return again. Can

Scott Benner 38:05 I read this real quick during G poem, a flexible endoscope is inserted through the mouth into the stomach. The surgeon makes a small incision in the stomach lining and creates a tunnel to access the pyloric sphincter, the valve controlling the passage of stomach contents into the small intestine by cutting the muscle around this valve, the procedure relaxes the sphincter, facilitating better gastric emptying. That's the idea, right? Exactly, okay. And so you had this done, yes, and it wasn't fun. I mean, beyond that description,

Speaker 1 38:36 I mean the surgery itself was easy, because obviously they put me under and the preparation wasn't that much fun, because the surgeon told me, Well, yeah, just don't eat after midnight and come in in the morning and we do the surgery. But I knew they need an empty stomach, and if I fast for just shy of 12 hours, my stomach won't be empty, right?

Scott Benner 39:00 Did you say to him, I have gastroparesis, that's not going to work. Yeah.

Speaker 1 39:04 And then we agreed on seven on a 72 hour fast, wow. And yeah, that was hard. How'd

Scott Benner 39:13 you keep your blood sugar up for 72 hours? It

Speaker 1 39:15 was actually pretty easy. With the loo. I didn't change any of the settings, and it was just smooth sailing. I was

Scott Benner 39:23 gonna say, Arden got up this morning early to go to the dentist, and so she's been up for a couple hours now, and her blood sugar is incredibly stable. So

Speaker 1 39:33 and that's also something I wanted to point out, because I see that very often in the group, that people are scared to go in with an empty stomach for anesthesia, if it's a planned surgery, it's actually the best time to basal test beforehand, and then you don't have to change any settings, and you just go in and change nothing. Yeah, I understand.

Scott Benner 39:59 Why it's scary. But once your settings are good, especially on an algorithm that's, you know, really dialed in, you can go a fair amount of time without eating, yeah, yeah. But it sucks not eating for 72 hours, I imagine, yeah,

Speaker 1 40:11 yeah. And then, I mean, after surgery, I couldn't eat for two more days.

Scott Benner 40:16 Oh, gosh, no kidding. Yeah. Oh, how hungry were

Speaker 1 40:21 you? Kind of the wound had to heal, and they couldn't the muscle had to relax, and yeah, the stomach chest shouldn't

Scott Benner 40:29 work. Did they give you IVs? Or did you stay in the hospital? I

Speaker 1 40:33 had to stay in the hospital for two nights for that reason, particularly, and actually on after the surgery, my sugar started to grow, and then I turned back the basal, but it wasn't enough. And they said, Yeah, you can have one or two dextrose tabs. I was like, yeah, one do nothing, but let's try.

Scott Benner 40:58 You say I need an IV with some dextrous and it is what I need. Yeah,

Speaker 1 41:03 well, they offered me that, but I was scared I'm gonna go high and I don't want high blood sugars when my body should be able to heal. Right now, I hear you after a few dextrose tabs, I agreed on the dextrose iwi, but said I'm deciding how much goes in.

Scott Benner 41:21 Nice look at you, and they listened. Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:26 I had a very, very nice nurse who listened, and that just rang the bell every 10 minutes. Like, go little back, go little up and like, within an hour, it was perfectly dialed in. I had some insulin going, I had some dextrose going, and it was smooth sailing again. Did you

Scott Benner 41:47 have like, daydreams about having access to this dextrose in your real life? Not use this at home some days?

Unknown Speaker 41:57 Yeah. Honestly, nice. The SIBO

Scott Benner 41:59 overgrowth. How did they handle that? Probably

Speaker 1 42:01 around 200 rounds of antibiotics.

Scott Benner 42:06 What kind oral or inject? Yeah,

Speaker 1 42:10 it's like a special antibiotic they only use for SIBO, and that always worked short time I felt great on the treatment, and maybe, like two weeks after, but I did a fair amount of research there as well, and there are also a lot of natural treatments, and basically the natural treatment worked better for me.

Scott Benner 42:37 Let me ask first about the medical intervention. So they're giving you the antibiotics, trying to get your gut to balance out, right? But do they know why it's like, Why do you have the overgrowth? They

Speaker 1 42:49 think it's from the gastroparesis. Okay, that's what I was just so much food in there. Oh, and actually, what I wanted to tell about the 72 hour fast after the surgery, I asked the surgeon, like if there was any food left in my stomach. And he said, Yeah. I mean, it was almost empty, but not completely. 72

Scott Benner 43:09 hours, and your stomach wasn't empty yet. Yeah. Wow. And then what did you find naturally to to address the SIBO

Speaker 1 43:16 Berberine, and then oil of oregano, and there's also a third one, like a combo of three mats that you have to take for three or four weeks. And, I mean, if you Google it, there are, there is a ton of research around that. There are dosing schemes. You can figure that out on your own. And actually, even my gastro knew about those treatment options and said For some the natural remedies just had better and that I should try

Scott Benner 43:53 it. Berberine and oregano oil, yeah,

Speaker 1 43:57 and something else. Are you still taking them every day? No, no, no, it's just like four week course. And I had to, I mean, I was on it, maybe on and off on meds for half a year, so it took quite a while to heal. And then I also did the low fault map diet, and just to help manage symptoms, and I still can't eat everything again.

Scott Benner 44:27 Where are you now? Like, in like, where's your health? Do you feel like you're still working towards something, or do you feel like you got there? I'm not

Speaker 1 44:35 back 100% but I'm fine where I'm at. I just tried to minimize my Gluten intake, I can't have too much garlic, and that's about it. And, oh yeah, and I have to pay attention around fruity stuff with fructose. That's still a bit tricky. But I mean, if I go to a restaurant and have spaghetti for one. Night, nothing will happen. I just don't do it three nights in a row.

Scott Benner 45:03 Yeah, the fructose, because it it kind of like, what does it seed your stomach with all that sugar, and you get the overgrowth. The low

Speaker 1 45:11 fault maps is all about different sugars that can ferment in your stomach and that that helps the overgrow to happen, I have

Scott Benner 45:22 to tell you, I'm really happy for you, because it's probably been a year or more now, for people listening who don't know like Cassandra is a group expert in the private Facebook group, and there's a pretty big handful of lovely people who kind of bang around in there and they see people's questions and they'll answer them, like, Hey, you should try this episode of the podcast. Or, you know, here's a post about that, like, just, you know, trying to help. It's a really big community, and you know, people need to be directed. Sometimes. A Facebook group is not a perfect way to introduce you to a podcast, but if people are there to say you should try this episode or check out this list, it's really helpful. And so Cassandra and a number of other great people are doing that, and I couldn't possibly begin to thank them enough. But at the end of the year, I usually call everybody and, like, we chat for a long time, usually, like, it's usually an hour or more, like, just kind of get on the phone and say hello and stuff like that, and you and I spoke. I don't know if it was last Christmas or the Christmas before that. I really don't know. But do you know last Christmas? Last Christmas? Okay, while I was driving to see Arden, I think, yeah, I remember we talked for a long time, and I remember getting off the phone and thinking, Cassandra's really going through a lot, and you sounded tired from it. I was, yeah, yeah, you found it really beat up. Like, not like you were giving up or anything, but just like, like, this had been going on too long for too many days without enough answers that how you felt, yeah,

Speaker 1 46:52 yeah. I mean, it was exactly in that period where I tried to figure out the PCOS. And then I guess also, shortly before our call was I switched over to Iaps and just couldn't figure the darn thing out. And felt really like a failure.

Scott Benner 47:15 When we got off that call, I thought, oh gosh. Like, I don't think Cassandra is okay, but you sound so much better today. I am better. Yeah, it's awesome. That's really great. I'm still very, very happy for you, is all I wanted to say. Thank you. Yeah, it's a interesting to check in on people's lives and see they mean, I'm obviously not there every day while you're doing the work or or, you know, feeling the pressure to see you in, you know, gaps of time, gaps of time, and to watch it get better. It's just, it's uplifting, because you didn't give up. You figured out a lot on your own. These are not easy things to figure out. This gut stuff is not easy to figure out. You know, most doctors around gastroparesis are just going to tell you to eat a gastroparesis diet, and that's all, that's it. That's all. It's going to happen, and they'll give you pain medication for your stomach. They won't actually give you something to help you, because

Speaker 1 48:05 there also isn't that much for diabetes, gastroparesis to help

Scott Benner 48:11 you get something to numb your stomach, basically, yeah, and then that's that. But you mean, look at he did the, by the way, the G poem in surgery that we talked about as gastric parole endoscopic, my Myo to me, geez, no wonder they call it g poem, you know, like, that's the thing you had to go find out about, you know what I mean, and like, do your research about, and go through the, you know, the whole process of doing it, just to try to get some relief. How long ago was that surgery?

Speaker 1 48:41 It was in June. So six months is it still working?

Scott Benner 48:45 Yes, that's awesome. So did you have to adjust your insulin because of the rate that you were digesting? No, I

Speaker 1 48:53 also didn't have such a big effect as with the dilations. I feel like there I had to adjust my insulin more, but I feel like, since I'm on your same pick, my basal went down quite a bit, but I have to be more aggressive with my Bolus, because

Scott Benner 49:15 you don't have a lot of background basal. I'm not sure it might be are you using less? I mean, you probably are. But how much less insulin are you using now than a year ago? Listen,

Speaker 1 49:26 this is a very difficult comparison, because I'm eating much more now, but I can tell you my basal went down by around 40%

Scott Benner 49:37 Wow. Do you have a different relationship with food today than you did prior? I mean, not crazy.

Speaker 1 49:41 I always was a healthy eater. I don't use a lot of processed food at home. I tried to cook a meal every day. The only thing I probably noticed is, for example, if we go out. Out and then have dinner. And then the waitress comes again and asks if you want dessert. I'm like, nah, nah, it's fine. And before the authentic I would have thought about it more. Yeah, it's not that I don't like it anymore, but it says, In the grand scheme of things. It doesn't matter that much if I don't have dessert or something sweet doesn't

Scott Benner 50:25 bother you, don't feel like you're missing anything. Yeah, CNN did a special about glps, and I put it on, and I watched it, and it was a little like this. Part of me it was like, Is this an ad? Like, you know, I couldn't tell exactly what was happening. At one point, they go to this person who tries to make the argument like, you know, well, it's ruined eating for me. And I'm like, I don't understand the argument here exactly like, you were very unhealthy prior to this, and you're describing this insane improvement in your overall health, your weight, you know, all these other measurables, like, have gotten better, better, better, better, and at the end you cry like you're like, ah, but I want cake after dinner, and I'm like, go get a different hobby. Yeah, I

Speaker 1 51:12 actually had a very funny discussion a couple of weeks ago with my family doctor. He told me that he has a patient on a TLP, and he's on it for weight loss, and he said he wants to stop it every few weeks so he can eat normally.

Scott Benner 51:32 I don't understand. So people are

Unknown Speaker 51:35 like that,

Scott Benner 51:36 yeah, listen, I understand if that's how you feel. I guess what I don't understand is seeing all these improvements in your life that create such you know, I think

Speaker 1 51:47 you know what, Scott, I noticed this also from your stories that you're not so emotionally bound to Food. Sure, yeah, that's fair. And that's also something I'm not that emotionally bound to food. And some people are very, very emotionally bound to food. And for them, it probably feels like more like missing out, even if they see all the advantages it brings. Yeah,

Scott Benner 52:19 I mean, I would say, go talk to a therapist. Don't stop your medication for a week to eat differently. I mean, you know, and I don't even mean that funny, like, I'm just like, you know, obvious. Obviously you've got to, like, an issue. Yeah, you have an issue. Go figure out what it is. Like, you're so close now. And I, you know, my heart goes out to people who feel that way. I know people who have that attachment. I've seen some of them be able to push through it with GLP. And I've seen others like you describe I talked to this one person this past summer, and they clearly have pre diabetes, right? But it's probably type two already, and a weight issue, and their job requires a certain A, 1c, so they go on a GLP long enough to bring their A 1c down, and then get the test so they can keep their job. And then they go off and go off it immediately because they want to eat. And I had a very frank conversation with the person. I was like, You're killing yourself. You're you're gonna die, like, running around with an A 1c like, in double digits, you know? And I was like, just, don't, you know, like, and the person described to me that one of their joys is to come home after work, take a bag of frozen french fries, put them on a sheet pan, bake them and put cheese over top of them and eat them. Wow. And the person was like, I don't want to not do that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 53:43 you can't do that.

Scott Benner 53:46 No, no. TLP, yeah, you made the point earlier. There are going to be people who have stomach issues because it interacts poorly with them. Their body morphology is not able to handle it like but there are other people who slow their gastric emptying down with the drug, and then just continue to push in foods that are high fat, processed, not good food for you. You get stuck in there. Yeah, it's not like you're trying to digest a bunch of, you know, natural food. You're, you know, it's chemicals and additives and etc, and you're just jamming it in there in a slower digestive situation, and they're like, Well, I have stomach problems for the GLP, I would argue you have stomach problems from the bag of French fries, from the way they eat. And we need doctors to see the difference in that before they make blind judgments about, like, what this medication is for and what it's not for. You know, because I

Speaker 1 54:37 also had a person in my social circle who is overweight, and they tried the TLP as well. They tried it after I started. So I knew quite a bit to tell her how to handle the start and some tips and tricks. She couldn't do it. She just said, I can't eat such small portions. That isn't healthy for me,

Scott Benner 55:01 but they're significantly overweight. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Well, you tell yourself whatever. You tell yourself, I had side effects from GLP in the beginning, like, I probably didn't take what you would consider to be a well formed bowel movement for quite some time. And you know, my wife and I were doing it together, and she's like, are you gonna stop? And I'm like, I'm losing weight. I was like, No, you know, if this is how I gotta pay the piper to, like, you know, to get where I need to go, then I'm gonna find a way to get through this. And yeah, I had to take magnesium oxide to keep going to the bathroom. And it led to, you know, loose stool. And I was like, I guess this is the price I'm paying for, you know, for getting back to good. So I'll keep going, you know. And now it's not like that anymore, but it was like that for longer than I wanted it to be. I'll tell you that much. But I was like, I'm persevering. What have we not talked about that we should have? This is a good conversation.

Speaker 1 55:58 I think we covered everything that I wanted to talk about. Awesome,

Scott Benner 56:02 awesome. Hold on a second. Arden's texting me. Hi Arden. She said, the dentist, let me see if she's out now. She said, Are you recording? And I said, I'm almost done. Why? Let's see what she says, a drum roll. She's gonna want breakfast. What is she asking about? A lot of times, my kids just want me to cook for them. I'm hungry and I have to leave to get naughty in an hour or two, are you home? She could be in the house. I don't know. This is so boring, texting with Arden on, yeah, okay, I'll be down. She just wants breakfast. She's 20, by the way. She could use her hands and make it herself, but apparently it's better when I make it. But I think that's just convenience, yeah, well, that's it, yeah, exactly, right. They're like, Oh, it's better when you make it. I'm like, You mean, because I make it,

Speaker 1 56:44 yeah, in every aspect of it, you know, yeah,

Scott Benner 56:49 exactly I want to cook or clean up, or any of the stuff I have to get her back on. I've recordings with her. I'm starting to run out of my recordings of things she doesn't understand. Have

Speaker 1 56:58 to go do some love this series. You definitely have to continue. Oh, okay,

Scott Benner 57:01 good. I'll have to tell her, that's awesome. We were talking about the one that's coming out next week. It's about Bridget Mendler, like the Disney actress. No idea, nothing about this girl's like, a, you know, on a Disney TV show as a kid. Then she, you know, pumps out a couple of, like, hit pop songs, then she goes off to college, and, you know, who knows where she goes, and now she's running, like, running a satellite company, okay? And I'm like, What the hell? So Arden's just like, there's these crazy she's like, how did this happen? So we talked about, but I do love this guy. I like them. It's funny. I like them with Jenny too, because we talk more about, like, diabetes stuff in those Yeah. I think it's a great concept. Yeah. So I want to get more people to come on and do it. I'm going to, in 2025, I'm going to kind of put the call out for people and try to get people to pop on and just like, pick one topic, just like, I don't understand this, and I want to talk about it. And so together, we won't understand it. We'll figure it out. I'm definitely looking forward to that. Good, good. I'm glad. Oh, it's awesome to talk to you. Well, I'll see you. Oh, no, you're the oh, we're doing a group. What we're doing a group expert like, get together on Zoom. But we had to do it at a certain trying to stay up. What time of the morning? What time would it be for you if you were there 2am

Speaker 1 58:21 tell people where you live in Switzerland. Yeah, we

Scott Benner 58:26 adjusted it. We usually do it at one time, or Cassandra can come. But then it seems to mess up the people on the West Coast of America. So we moved it around a little bit so they could make it. But then it puts it like super late at night for you. So I will understand totally. Obviously, if you can't come, I'll try to manage you should pre record a message and send it over to us. This was really great to come back on and do a follow up like this. I really do appreciate it and all the hard work you put into the group,

Speaker 1 58:53 too. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me again. It's a pleasure.

Scott Benner 58:57 You're awesome to talk to. You're great to talk to because you have struggles, you pay attention to them, you research them, you put stuff into action. It works, or it doesn't work, you move on. And I think that's how more people should handle their health. Probably all people should handle their health. People like that are always very good at retelling their story, because they so authentically came to the answer that they really do understand the journey that makes sense. Makes sense? Yes, thank you. No, you're good at you're good at explaining your story. So it's always great to have you on. It's a pleasure. Hold on one second for me. Thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set, it all comes together to simplify life with. Diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. 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 Eversense CGM, ever since cgm.com/juice, box, one year, one CGM. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. 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, 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 Hey, what's up everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way. Recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

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