#1187 The Wonderful Drink

Kim has type 1 diabetes and has been in a number of trials. 

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1187 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Kim has type one diabetes and three children with alopecia. We chat for a little bit about that, but then quickly get into the idea that Kim has been in a number of different trials, including one for a GLP medication, which led to a long conversation about ozempic and GLP medications. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Are you a US resident who has type one diabetes or is the caregiver of someone with type one if you are in a listen up because in less than 10 minutes fewer than 10 minutes maybe about 10 minutes? You can take a survey at T one D exchange.org. complete that survey and you have helped with type one diabetes research It is that easy. And you will not be asked one question that you don't know the answer to T one D exchange.org/juicebox. When you place your first order for ag one with my link you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink ag one.com/juicebox.

podcast this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next one.com/juicebox This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo penne Find out more at G voc glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever sent CGM and implantable six month sensor is what you get with ever since. But you get so much more exceptional and consistent accuracy over six months, and distinct on body vibe alerts when you're higher low on body vibe alerts. You don't even know what that means. Do you ever since cgm.com/juicebox Go find out.

Kim 2:23
My name is Kim. I've been a type one diabetic for almost 31 years. I was originally diagnosed as gestational and switched to type one after delivery when nothing changed.

Scott Benner 2:36
Gestational during your three kids, right?

Kim 2:40
I have three kids it was my first pregnancy your first pregnancy

Scott Benner 2:43
was that a short or long time ago?

Kim 2:47
It was almost 31 years ago.

Scott Benner 2:48
It's a long time in my book one years ago, gestational, one of three kids, any of the kids have type one. They do not know type one for the kids. How about in your family extended.

Kim 3:02
My grandmother had either type two or type one. She was on insulin had many, many problems from her diabetes. But she was diagnosed very late in life, I want to say 60s. So and that was quite a while ago. And I don't know if they actually just assumed it was type two or ever did any kind of testing to see what it was or if there was any testing at that point.

Scott Benner 3:26
Kim, how old are you?

Kim 3:27
I am 56

Scott Benner 3:29
You just freaked out young people when you were like she was old. She was 60. What? Well, she was older back then.

Kim 3:36
That was old though. Yeah, to diagnose.

Scott Benner 3:38
Yeah. Oh, to be done, please. 60 Well, I mean, this has got to be what? I mean, I don't want to like 5080 years or 5060 years ago, something like that. Yeah, yeah. Have you not had that experience Kim of like, being the age you are now I have my hair is dark. So I might get away with it more. But I'm around other people my age. I'm like, Why look much younger than you do? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And then you go back a generation. Oh my God, just go back one generation. I look at my mom's picture from when she was my age. I don't know, if he told me she was 70 in some of those photos. I might, I might believe you. So I don't know. Also, I have a very easy job. Can I just sit in this chair. So not a lot of stress. Sounds awesome. I'd like to chat. I'm not climbing a building or anything like that. You know, maybe it's a little easier, but I really do think it's the dark hair. Honestly, because without the dark hair then you can kind of see I have crow's feet. You know, like that kind of stuff. But I think I get away with it from like 10 feet.

Kim 4:41
Things are a lot different now though, too. I just I don't know back when I was younger and I thought about being in my 50s I like you said I thought it was ancient. And but now my friends all look young. I just feel it's a different world we're living in and we're not dressing like we're old.

Scott Benner 4:59
You know, that has a lot to do with it too, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, absolutely activities and things like that. Oh, anyway, listen if you want to hear me, sound young you should have been here last night when the Phillies blew their chance to go to the World Series because I sounded like a child while I was screaming in my living room.

Kim 5:18
That's how I am every Sunday during football so I understand what's

Scott Benner 5:20
your what's your football day?

Kim 5:22
Buffalo Bills?

Scott Benner 5:23
Oh my goodness. Look at you. You got raised way up with excitement about that boy. And then

Kim 5:29
until this year, yeah,

Scott Benner 5:31
looks good for a second, didn't it? It sure did.

Kim 5:34
got us excited. What's

Scott Benner 5:35
the vibe in Buffalo? They paid him any any staff.

Kim 5:38
He's still great. It's just we have so many injuries right now. And I don't know they're just falling apart. I'm not sure that

Scott Benner 5:47
sucks. I'm switching right over to the eagles that fell out. As soon as the Phillies game was over. I shut it off. And I thought I'm gonna watch the Eagles game on Sunday. This will be better. There you go. So anyway, slowly. So interestingly enough, I know a little bit more about your family than I usually do before I start you have three children or three children have an autoimmune issue, though, but it's not type one. What is it? Correct. They all have alopecia. When did that come up for them at different ages? Or was it similar for them?

Kim 6:13
Well, my two younger children are twins and they my daughter actually was the first one to show signs of it. And she was probably just turned four or about to turn four. And then her twin brother started with signs of it just a couple of months after that. Wow. And it it was very it was very odd they they both lost most of their hair and then it would come back it was spotty back and forth. My daughter ended up growing hers completely back by the time she started kindergarten. And my son has just remained real patchy until it finally all fell out. And then my daughter's fell out again. Of course Lucky her when she was starting middle school, which was super pleasant. How

Scott Benner 7:01
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Kim 8:15
was very rough. She wore a wig. And then she reached a point in high school where she just said she's had enough it's too uncomfortable. She took it off. And now she's 27 and she does not wear it.

Scott Benner 8:27
Do you think it bothers her at this point?

Kim 8:31
You know, it's hard for me to tell? I don't think so. She she actually will get into it, I'm sure but she has a laundry list of autoimmune disorders. And honestly, I think maybe the alopecia is just the least of our problems. So she doesn't really care.

Scott Benner 8:45
How many people listening know that phrase? Oh, that's the least of a laundry list. That's the least of my worries. It's something everyone else would freak out about. I'm like, Yeah, I don't even think about that.

Kim 8:56
Yeah, absolutely sucks, but

Scott Benner 8:58
it is. Well, what else does she have going on?

Kim 9:01
She has celiacs she has Crohn's she has Raynaud's. So I'm saying that right. To get away from the autoimmune she also has Chiari and has had two brain surgeries. I don't know that when I'm sorry. It's the brain tissue extends into her spinal cord. So she had to have surgeries to have that taken care of. And the first surgery actually landed her in a wheelchair for a while, but she's now past that she's doing well. So it's been a long road for her. She's had a lot of problems. My

Scott Benner 9:37
gosh, is she I don't know what the word is like, is she thriving now? Is she an adult working in engineering?

Kim 9:42
Absolutely. She Well, she she doesn't she doesn't hold a job. She she has a lot of memory issues from the brain surgeries. So unfortunately, at a young age after getting a college degree, she's on permanent disability. But um, but she Yeah, she's definitely living In normal life, besides the memory issues and things like that would that would just make it difficult for her to

Scott Benner 10:04
hold a job? Long term or short term memory?

Kim 10:08
A little beach mostly short term.

Scott Benner 10:12
That's interesting. Jesus own ball. I'm sorry to hear all that, obviously. But I'm glad she's like, I don't know what the word is out there making the best of her situation obvious, you know? And yep,

Kim 10:21
she actually she has a son. And she I mean, she's doing great.

Scott Benner 10:26
Now. Oh, geez, that's, that's something else. What about the other two?

Kim 10:31
Oh, then my, my oldest son, he developed alopecia in his 20s went through the whole childhood without it. And then I think now he's, he'll be 31 in January. I want to say he was probably about 25 When he started showing the patchy signs of it. And then all three of them right now are completely they have no hair on their bodies whatsoever. Same dad? Yes.

Scott Benner 10:57
Look at you. Look at you. Okay.

Kim 11:01
My high school sweetheart. So

Scott Benner 11:03
he's still with you. You allow him to look at that. He's been around for a while. So how kind you are letting him live in the house? Wonderful. Well, okay, well, that's something else. So you have gestational diabetes, and then you give birth, does the gestational dissipate? Or does it stick around as an they tell you of type two? Well,

Kim 11:23
it's started that when they when I drank the wonderful drink. And they told me that I had gestational, they sent me home on diet control. And they told me to keep in touch with them. And let me know if my numbers changed, or if I had any issues. And the next day, they just, they weren't super high. But I want to say was a while ago, but I'm thinking I was running around 131 40, which is high for being pregnant. And I called them and I told them that and they said, well, we want you to get to the hospital right away, you need to start insulin. And I'll never forget it that was on a Thursday. And my baby shower was supposed to be that Saturday. So I'm freaking out thinking I'm going to be in the hospital for my baby shower. And I go to the hospital, and this is how long I'm going to be there. And they're like, Well, as soon as you can give yourself the shot, you can leave. So I learned how to do the shot within an hour probably, they kept me a day watched me. And then just sent me home, just teaching me how to do the insulin. And at that point, it was NPH and R so it was you know, the old stuff and how to do it, there was no carb counting or sliding scale or anything, really. And they gave me very, very little education on it. But they monitored me very close then because of the diabetes through the rest of the pregnancy. They ended up doing a C section three weeks before he was due. As soon as I delivered, they took me off the insulin, they assumed I didn't need it. And I think I was I remember correctly, I was okay for a little while. But then within a couple of days, I was out of control again. And they finally realized, well, maybe there's something else going on. And they put me back on the insulin but again, with very little education. They they didn't tell me much at all. And then one day, my son was about a month. And the only thing I remember of this incident was waking up in an ambulance. But in the middle of the night, my husband said he woke up and I was sitting up in bed rocking back and forth with my hands clenched against my face. And he said My eyes were wide open. And he had no idea what was going on or what to do, because nobody explained the possibilities of these low blood sugars or anything. So from there, they obviously took me to the hospital got, you know, gave me the glucose got me back in back in working order, and sent me home. But still there it was, it was very strange when I look back at it. And after listening to your podcasts and about all these people's diagnosis, I had no signs of diabetes whatsoever before I was diagnosed as gestational. And I don't think I had a high a one C I never had any problems. So it's all very strange to try and figure it all out and piece it together what happened and how it happened. And but from there, it just I mean, I definitely needed the insulin, they taught me a little bit more about the insulin, but still, I had at least two more episodes like that in the middle of the night. And they never told me about glucagon. I was never really instructed on any of the possibilities of anything happening like that to the meter. I had a meter at the time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:36
But was it a thing you used?

Kim 14:38
I did. But you did probably not as much as I should have. But I did wouldn't imagine.

Scott Benner 14:44
I mean, if you don't get any, any education about it. I don't know how you even imagine when to especially in the beginning. It could take you a couple of years to figure it out if nobody's going to tell you anything about it. And it did. Absolutely I would imagine that's something Wow, when did your management change? I mean, when did they first of all, when did they tell you for sure this is type one, not type two.

Kim 15:08
I honestly don't know if they ever actually came out with those words. Or they just kind of told me that I had to start using the insulin. And then as my care has gone on, they've they've used type one. But they never really they never did an A, any tests or anything to see what it was.

Scott Benner 15:26
That's crazy. What's the first transition from your first methods? The regular the mph to the next one? How long did you do that for?

Kim 15:36
It was quite a while. I was very stubborn. And when when pens came out, they made me very nervous. Because when I use the needle and the vial, I could see how much insulin was in there. And I could see how much was going into my body with the pen. I felt like I lost that control. And I couldn't physically see it. And it made me nervous. Interesting. So I fought that for a very long time and stayed on the needles and with the vials of insulin. Can

Scott Benner 16:07
that's a really interesting. I don't imagine it's unique. I bet you a lot of people feel that way. But I mean, that's a leap, isn't it? Oh, they gave me this medical device. One of them I can see the liquid and the other one. I can't. And because I can't see it. I don't trust it.

Kim 16:23
It was very scary to me, because I wasn't sure how much I was actually getting at that point.

Scott Benner 16:28
Even though it said you've dialed up two units.

Kim 16:31
Right? Yeah, yep. That's I had trust issues. I

Scott Benner 16:35
was gonna ask you actually, my next question is, do you have trust issues in your life other than this?

Kim 16:40
I really don't know. It was just something with that. I mean, I guess I just didn't want to be in a situation where my blood sugar's were going out of control. And it was because I didn't get the proper amount of insulin.

Scott Benner 16:51
Because you couldn't verify Correct? Yeah, I by the way, I don't disagree with the idea or the feeling. I mean, but it's a leap because I bet you a lot of people don't think twice about it. Right?

Kim 17:02
Yeah. Yeah. Once I finally did switch to the pens, I kicked myself, I'm like, I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. But it did take me quite a while.

Scott Benner 17:10
And those pens were what back then? Humalog? Yes, yeah. Okay. To using human log. And what was your Basal at that point?

Kim 17:21
I was on Lance. I was on Lantus for a while. I don't know if that was my first. Okay.

Scott Benner 17:26
But yeah, if something honestly don't remember. And do you use the pump now? Or do you still are you still on di

Kim 17:32
I am still on di I'm contemplating going to a pump. But I am currently participating in a study which doesn't allow me to be on a pump. So I have to wait until the study is over. You had

Scott Benner 17:45
to tell me about the study. Sure, a study for

Kim 17:48
once a week Basal insulin. And unfortunately, I didn't get that. But I did get all the benefits of the study, which is all of my supplies, my Dexcom everything for free for a year, I get paid to be in the study, which is another perk, and I get very close care. And since I've been in the study, I brought my a one C down since December from a seven five to a six, four. So even though I'm not getting the study drug, it's been very beneficial to me.

Scott Benner 18:21
So I understand what a double blind study is. Right? But this isn't blinded, you know if you're getting the drug or not.

Kim 18:26
Yes, because they can't not give you your insulin. So

Scott Benner 18:30
that was where I was at on that. I was like, Well, wait, some people get saline? That doesn't make sense. What would that?

Kim 18:36
Yeah, they can't they can't do that. So you know, you know, right up front of you're getting it or not, but they just they ended up changing the insulin that I was on. I was on Novolog and Basal are at the time, and now I'm on Nov or I'm sorry, homologue and trulicity. So

Scott Benner 18:53
they put you on the trulicity. And that's kind of the what they're studying against and then correct and they're shooting and there's how often you shoot trulicity though.

Kim 19:01
That's true. Mostly me. Maybe I misspoke. I'm sorry. Hold on one second, to Ciba. I'm sorry, recibo. Yeah, I'm sorry. They call it something else. They call it degludec.

Scott Benner 19:13
Yes, yes. I imagine that's what they call it. I gotcha. So yes. So what do you shoot that every how often?

Kim 19:20
Once a day, it's that's my basil. That's

Scott Benner 19:22
still your basil once a day, but they're saying we have a magic one you'll shoot once a week. Correct. And then they gave it to somebody, not you? Yes. Were you pissed about that?

Kim 19:33
Um, at first I was but then when I saw the benefits that I was getting from this and how it was really helping me. I don't care anymore.

Scott Benner 19:39
Yeah, I mean, you're getting paid. You're getting a free CGM. How long does How long is the study go for? A little over a year? How long has it been so far?

Kim 19:46
I started in December. So it'll go to I think it's till the beginning of February. It'll be over a few more months. Okay. This is actually the second study that I've done and the first one was for ozempic to see if ozempic work for type one. ones they were trying to get it approved. That one I was lucky enough and I got the ozempic. So that was nice. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:05
Kim, let's

Kim 20:06
talk about that for a second. Yeah, it's very similar to your situation now.

Scott Benner 20:10
Yeah. How long were you on it? This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the only six month were implantable CGM on the market. And it's very unique. So you go into an office, it's I've actually seen an insertion done online like a live one like, well, they recorded the entire videos less than eight minutes long. And they're talking most of the time the insertion took no time at all right? So you go into the office, they insert the sensor, now it's in there and working for six months, you go back six months later, they pop out that one put in another one, so two office visits a year to get really accurate and consistent CGM data that's neither here nor there for what I'm trying to say. So this thing's under your skin, right? And you then wear a transmitter over top of it, transmitters got this nice, gentle silicone adhesive that you change daily, so very little chance of having skin irritations. That's a plus. So you put the transmitter on it talks to your phone app tells you your blood sugar, your your alert, show arms, etc. But if you want to be discreet, for some reason, you take the transmitter off just comes right off no, like, you know, not like peeling at or having to rub off it. He's just kind of pops right off the silicon stuff really cool. You'll say it. And now you're ready for your big day. Whatever that day is, it could be a prom, or a wedding or just the moment when you don't want something hanging on your arm. The ever sent CGM allows you to do that without wasting a sensor because you just take the transmitter off and then when you're ready to use it again, you pop it back on. Maybe you just want to take a shower without rocking a sensor with a bar soap. Just remove the transmitter and put it back on when you're ready. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox, you really should check it out. The contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. And it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link contour next one.com/juice box, you're gonna find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger and Meijer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour Next, test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance. And I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that. But what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable. And it is the meter that we've been using for years contour next one.com/juicebox. 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.

Kim 23:10
From May of 2021 until November, they it was supposed to be longer but they pulled me off because I lost too much weight so they had to pull me off to gain it back. I lost 40 pounds and I've gained five back after almost two years. So

Scott Benner 23:31
can I tell you something? I just learned something about myself. I don't think I enjoyed being fat. I don't that almost made me cry. Like oh wow.

Kim 23:40
I it was it did absolutely nothing for my blood sugar's but just that changed my entire life because now it gave me more energy. I exercise daily. I've been able to keep the weight off. I just feel better about myself. It's it's been wonderful.

Scott Benner 23:56
You a small person too. I saw you for a minute when we were starting. You told

Kim 24:00
me actually took a pic. We actually took a picture together a couple months ago. It's right. Okay. All right. So the type one thing but I'm only five foot one. So I'm pretty sure

Scott Benner 24:11
Kim I know how tall you are. But the people listening don't know. So I was trying to be sorry. Yes, I'm five foot one two years. Now they're like he knows the answers to some of the questions he's asking. Trying to get the information to you blowing your cover. Well, you lost 40 pounds. At five one. Are you willing to tell me what you weigh now and what you weighed then?

Kim 24:34
I was 170 I went down. Well, I went down to 129. And now I'm 135 Wow.

Scott Benner 24:40
That's I'm very happy for you. It's wonderful. I'm it's been great. I'm right at the 40 pound mark right now.

Kim 24:47
It just feels amazing, doesn't it? It's insane.

Scott Benner 24:51
How much better my life is? Yeah, yeah. I don't even know another way to really say it other than you'll have like gi side effects from it at some point. I mean, not everybody, maybe, but I did. I've had a couple of moments where I was like, I don't think this is what everybody would want. But who cares? Yeah, I mean, like, Are you kidding me? Like, I just have to live through this little side effect for six weeks. And then it passes. Like I had pretty I had heartburn for a while in the beginning. I had that feeling for a while that when you ate the food felt like it stopped in the middle of your chest. Did you ever have that one? Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. That's not what was happening. By the way. It was just a feel. So I was like, Well, this is uncomfortable, and I don't care. So you know, because I'm going to wake up tomorrow. I've had experiences on ozempic Kim, like, there was this one night, a couple of weeks ago, my wife went away for business. And she was gone for like two days. And I was like, all by myself. And you know, like, a lot of guys might get hookers or Coke or something. I got. I got sort of a that was. That was me going crazy. I was like, I'm gonna get some Mango Sorbet. feel like an idiot? Are

Kim 26:03
you able to eat it? Well, yeah, a whole serving of something well, so

Scott Benner 26:07
I could. And not only that, I just think the whole point of it. I hadn't had something like that. And so long, I sat down, I was watching something at the end of the night, and I just kept eating the sorbet. i It's good. I love it. And it's one of the only things I'm on we go V, but it's ozempic. Yep. And if people don't understand that, it's the same molecule rebranded for different insurance reasons. There are things I can eat without feeling too full. And like liquidity, like that the sorbet I can write that I can eat without feeling full. And so this is like and it still tastes sweet to me. And a lot of things don't taste overly sweet anymore. Anyway, I started eating it. And I just don't stop. I was like, I remember being fat and loving sorbet. And I ate the whole thing in one night. And I'm telling you this because I woke up the next day, I was a pound lighter than I was the day before.

Kim 26:57
Really nice. And I just thought you should eat more sorbet. Well,

Scott Benner 27:01
I considered lying to myself and saying that. But moreover, I just think that I was on my way to losing weight that day anyway, and right eating that didn't impede it. And it was just crazy. Because if I would have eaten that, prior to this medication, I 100% would have woken up like heavier or bloated or something the next day, right. But to your point, and I do want to hear about your experience as well. My body being smaller, is a significant psychological uptick for me, like I now find myself, I left the room the other day, I was with Arden. And I left the room and I had to go out and do some things. She was going to be by yourself for a few hours. And I was wearing I don't know, like a black pullover. And actually, it was a cozy Earth, buddy, you guys could save 40% cozier.com on your entire order. If you use the offer code juice box at checkout, I was wearing a black pullover, and some pants and I stood there and I thought this doesn't look like me. I was in front of a full length mirror which I don't find myself very frequently. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't recognize this as my body. And then I went out into public actually were I had another experience where you were I saw you I was walking around that that giant hotels so big, you know, I just kept seeing people and thinking, Oh, I look like everyone else now. Like that, that that feeling like I don't I'm not different. Like Like, I just I'm blending in in the crowd. It's not an enduring feeling. It hasn't bothered me. It's not something I even thought about in the past. But it was something I recognize that I just I physically look different, but the way I feel isn't saying I sleep better. I used to have I couldn't eat after a certain time at night because I'd have terrible heartburn overnight. I was taking stuff for heartburn. That's completely gone now. The heartburn that I even experienced in the beginning with the wheat govi I don't even know if I can blame the wheat over here but it was just my body like adjusting to like because it was already a like a dumpster fire as far as that goes. I mean I'm losing weight. I don't look like it's my my skin's shrinking. So I'm not like crazy flabby anywhere, anything like that. Energies much different mental energies, different physical energies different.

Kim 29:21
Know,

Scott Benner 29:22
if I grew a horn tomorrow, I would cut it off and just go Oh, well.

Kim 29:27
Yep, I totally agree. And there's there's still times at this point. Even though it's been a while for me. If I'm outside someplace and I walked by a store window and I catch a glimpse of myself. I'm like, Who is that? It's still it's still doesn't sink in that had happened. I'm

Scott Benner 29:44
doing a talk in Austin this weekend. We're doing this like nine or I think it's 9:30am or 10am till like 330 like and we're just gonna have this. There's 350 People got tickets and people were terrific from the pod caste. And it's a free event there'll be 350 people there, Jenny and I are just going to sit up on stage and talk like it's going to be very long form and conversational not like if anybody's ever been to these things. Usually someone stands up on a stage or lectern and kind of gives you a presentation. Like we're not doing that. It's going to be like this kind of very comfortable conversation anyway, when we're setting up what it was going to look like I said to the person running it, I'd like to sit in the chair and talk like like kind of fireside he like just put Jenny nine chairs next to each other. The person who, who's running the whole thing, Jen, a really lovely person named Jenna. I said, Yeah, I want to sit down. And I shared with Jenna later, that is not a thing I would have asked her for last year, I would not have been comfortable seated in front of people because the way my body would have folded. And I wouldn't have been comfortable, because my stomach would have like caused pressure. And it would have made it harder for me to talk if I was sitting down. And I was like, I'm like I'm gonna sit down. And I know that seems like a really small weird thing. But I'm excited that I'll be able to sit in front of people and I won't look at maths. And it won't impact me physically, either. So anyway,

Kim 31:12
it does a lot for you. It's just it's a great feeling. And it's funny because I knew I was overweight, but I always in my mind felt like, oh, I carry it. Okay, I'm okay. And when I look back on those pictures, I'm shocked now.

Scott Benner 31:28
It's funny because people at first though, like, you're so thin, and I'm not. I'm just thinner than they're used to seeing me. Like, like, I'm not like, you don't see my bones sticking out anywhere or anything like that. I actually heard Anthony Anderson was on the show. At one point. He's an actor who has like, type two diabetes. And I don't know, I don't know his situation. I don't know how he's losing weight, but he's lost weight over the years. Anyway, I saw a picture on social media the other day where his kind of shins and his ankles were exposed. And someone jumped into his comments and said, Yo, man, your ankles are really thin. And he said, Actually, they're not. That's the size. They've always been there just not surrounded by a bunch of fat and water anymore. Wow. And I thought he's right. Like, he's absolutely right. He doesn't look then. Like he just he looks. I think the way we're supposed to look.

Kim 32:19
Right? Yeah. No, I totally agree. It didn't touch your blood sugar though. No, it didn't do anything for my blood sugar. It's so crazy. Some people some people with type one do get results from it. I did not. Okay.

Scott Benner 32:33
I think that's valid. There's I don't want to give somebody's details way. But there's a girl whose mother I'm aware of, and maybe she's I don't even want to give her like she's like 1315 in that range right there. Right. And it worked for her for weight and for blood sugar to the point where there are days she's like, it feels like they're honeymooning again, that's great, and having to adjust insulin down. And I have to tell you that this last weekend, I was having a conversation with Arden's endocrinologist, and will Arden and I were both having a Congress I don't want to make it sound like I call Arden's doctors without art. We were we were having a conversation. And she said, You know, when you come home from college, I'm gonna look into putting you on ozempic. She's like, because we're seeing this is really me talking out of school. So everybody be real aware of that. But she said, I'm starting to see not just about like insulin, you know what they call it insulin resistance. But Arden uses a little more insulin than you might expect for her weight. Right. And for what she eats. On top of that they're seeing some impacts for hormone hormonal impacts for people on it as well. Oh, really? Yeah. So I'm gonna just do this right now with the Google machine. And I just Googled female hormone GLP one. And if you're interested, you should look into it. Like, does GLP one affect estrogen? And, you know, so they're just starting to see this stuff, you know, as people are using it longer. So she's like, you know, let's maybe we should give that a try for you. But I mean, if if Arden's insulin use went down, 20% even on this, I would think that was valuable for Absolutely, yeah. So that would be great. Because I'm going to assume then it's not not so much about the insulin, but about like spikes at meals and things like that. Maybe they'd be less or no less insulin at a meal time, which might, you know, lead to fewer lows and maybe more stability and stuff like that. Right. So I'm interested to see what all comes from this because they they were doing a they were doing studies on GLP one and kidney disease, and the initial data was so overwhelmingly positive. They canceled the study because they said we don't need to keep doing this. This just helps. That's insane. So

Kim 35:03
that's really interesting kidney

Scott Benner 35:05
benefits of GLP. One ra include reduction in mackerel, but a real wild, I don't know what that word is, which may be driven in part by reductions in blood pressure and a one C with age. So there's so basically what I think we're finding, because they're also saying that people on GLP ones are having fewer heart attacks. So I don't think this is like, hard to understand. But when your body's not carrying around all that extra weight, and all of the metabolic problems that come along with that. Turns out other systems work better too. So, and I don't look at our next person who needs to lose weight, by the way, I'm not saying that. But but but it's just very interesting. So

Kim 35:49
yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of benefits to it that I wasn't even aware of at the time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:53
right. And even stuff that but it worked for you like so what did it do for you mostly? How'd you lose the weight?

Kim 35:59
I couldn't eat anything. The one story that stands out in my mind as I went through the entire summer, and I was in bed by eight o'clock at night, or even before that, because I was exhausted. I was eating next to nothing. There was one day where I was feeling pretty good. And I was craving this sounds gross to me now. But I was craving a meatloaf sandwich with gravy and french fries. And I just wanted to go out for that. So my husband and I went out for dinner, I ordered that. I looked at it. I think I took one bite. That was it. I took it home with me. I got three dinners three lunches out of it and threw the rest of it out because there was still leftovers from it. And

Scott Benner 36:42
you wouldn't order it again. Right? It seems this taste, you know? Yep. Yep, I have that too. Yeah, there's just food I look at. And I'm like, I don't, I don't want to do that. Like that seems disgusting to me. Now. I tried a number of things along the years, like I've talked about on here, I completely eliminated oils from my life, except for I'll cook a little bit with like cold, like cold pressed olive oil. Only I make popcorn with coconut oil, but I don't really eat very much of it. It's for other people. So there's no like processed oil in the house. Right? I won't eat deep fried things anymore. And like you make that change to your life, you're like, well, this will help. And you know, it's a good change, right? And it is, but then it didn't do anything. Like I made that big elimination in my life. And it's not like I lost 20 pounds or something. I was like, come on, like I don't drink. I don't drink sugar. I don't like you don't I mean, like I do most of the things you're supposed to do. And the only thing that makes sense to me at this point is that my body has a GLP deficiency, maybe, maybe no different than people who have a thyroid deficiency, right? Like you need a thyroid stimulating hormone to help you along if you have hypothyroidism. I don't know that I just don't think I have enough GLP like or whatever that and I'm not a scientist, I don't know, I'm just telling you, I put this stuff in, I started losing weight immediately. And you're that's not even supposed to happen. Like they'll tell you like it could take a month for you to start losing weight, like you're not even on a therapeutic dose when you first start. They're just trying to get your body accustomed to it and bring your body along and stuff like that. I was a week into it. I lost four pounds. That's awesome. Yeah. And I just kept losing weight slowly along the way. I've been at it for like a long time now. Like I've been at like nine months now. But it teaches you a lot about like being patient and having like long term views of things. You know, like a pound a week used to seem to me like that's ridiculous. I have this much weight to lose. If I lose a pound a week, it's going to take me you know, 20 weeks to lose 20 pounds like that's, and then the next week you'd gain two pounds or you wouldn't lose, you're like, Oh, this is never gonna happen. But there's a consistency about this that made me hopeful.

Kim 38:53
If that makes when I was on the ozempic there was a point where I was losing a half a pound a day. The other thing though with me, I wasn't drinking any alcohol whatsoever. I know you're not a drinker. Not a heavy drinker, but I would go out I would have a couple of drinks. I couldn't even look at alcohol. It would make me sick to even think

Scott Benner 39:11
about it. Yeah, yeah, I don't I can't drink. I didn't drink much soda in my life. But I I don't. It's not good. Now, like drinking the carbonation was bad for me, but it so it's slowing down for people to understand it slows down your digestion. I'm gonna eventually have somebody on the show who's knowledgeable about the science behind it to talk about it but it slows down your digestion which decreases your insulin usage. And even for people who don't have diabetes, that's a big deal. You know that insulin comes in and you know it's storing stuff is fat and that's not happening anymore. So my digestion slower. I mean, you're not hungry because your stomachs full. But also, it tells your brain you're not hungry to I don't know another way to explain that other than I'm not hungry. In my head or physically in my stomach, so much so, and this is like, I'm not going to tell the story, but I had to go unexpectedly. Go visit art in a college. So, I lived my whole day, one day on a Friday, I got up at eight o'clock I did whatever I did, I eat whatever I don't remember anymore. At midnight, I was in bed thinking I was gonna go to sleep. And the next thing I know, I'm buying a plane ticket, and I'm driving to the airport at four o'clock in the morning. And at 7am After taking a short nap in the airport, and I must have looked homeless, I got up I got on a plane at seven, I went back to sleep on the plane. I woke up when the plane landed at 1030. I got into a car I drove to her Arden was I spent hours and hours and hours with her. And it was I think around two o'clock in the afternoon. On Saturday. I not I'd only slept three hours between 8am Friday morning and two o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday, I thought I was gonna pass out. I was at the end of like being able to just talk through this. But we didn't have access to food yet. And I said to Arden I was like I have to eat anything. And I just like we were in a gas station basically. And I bought like a bag of like candy like hard, like sugary candy. I thought maybe the sugar will like give me enough of a jolt that we can get to where we're going. And I can eat something for real. So I had a little bit of that candy there. And I drank some diet soda with caffeine and to try to like literally to try to keep me awake enough to get back to where I was going. And then we got back to where we were going. Had a very little bit of food. And then I went to sleep, slept all night long. Woke up at eight o'clock. Let Arden sleep two more hours, got together at noon on Sunday, and headed out and got a turkey sandwich. Right. So you're now hearing that I had a handful of candy between probably 8pm Friday or 6pm. Friday and 2pm on Sunday. I was even woozy at one point because I wasn't taking into nutrition. But you know what? I wasn't? You weren't hungry? Never hungry that entire time. Yeah,

Kim 42:12
it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Like,

Scott Benner 42:16
that's the only way I can explain it is to tell that story. I never once thought I I'm hungry, I should eat something. Or some people hear that and go that's dangerous. It's not dangerous. You just eat like, you know, it's not that you can't eat. It's just that you don't you're not prompted to eat. Right? It's really wonderful. Did you have what they call the food noise in your head prior to the ozempic? I'm not sure what that is. People describe it as they wake up in the morning. And they are immediately thinking about what they're gonna have for breakfast. And then as soon as breakfast is over, or even while they're making breakfast, they start thinking about lunch. They're always thinking about food. Did you have that?

Kim 42:54
Not really. I don't think from the point that you're saying it. I would sometimes get like that just because of my insulin schedule. I've always been well, I have to eat at this time because I have to do insulin, right. And that that part was a little odd being on the ozempic too, because I would forget to eat at times. And then I would be nervous because it's been hours since I've had any insulin but also been hours since I've had any food. And that was also a big adjustment.

Scott Benner 43:24
Yeah. How long did it take you to figure out how to basically you're fasting for longer gaps of time. I'm assuming you had to adjust your insulin for that. And you were losing weight too.

Kim 43:33
Yes. Yep. So I definitely I shouldn't say that it didn't help my blood sugar's because it probably did lower my insulin intake, which is beneficial, like you said, but I just didn't feel like my agency really dropped it all from it.

Scott Benner 43:48
But now but when once you got on the you were in a you're in a study, your a one C came down the way it did during the study, but why do you think it

Kim 43:59
came down? No, my a one sees coming down in the second study that I'm on. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 44:03
that's what I mean not to do that not to do with those epic. Why do you think it's coming down now?

Kim 44:07
Honestly, I think a lot of it has to just do with the fact that I'm being monitored so closely. There's a lot more accountability for me with this. And the insulin is different. I was on Joseba in the past, and my my insulin stuck or my I'm sorry, my insurance company stopped covering it. And they switched me to basic lar. And I just never felt that I got the same results from it. So I don't know if it's because I'm back on the SIBO or if it's I account a lot of it to the the accountability and the close monitoring in the beginning of the study I was seeing every week and it just made a very big difference for me by

Scott Benner 44:51
close monitoring Do you are you saying I know people are looking so I do a better job on purpose.

Kim 44:57
Probably partly because of that and also Because of from the beginning, seeing my a one C drop and actually, like just really enjoying that, and being very proud of that, and I wanted to make it go lower and lower and lower. So I was trying harder on my own too.

Scott Benner 45:12
I think that's a big part of it. Honestly, it's just the motivation, the motivation to actually Pre-Bolus Your meals and when you get hired to like, oh, no, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna stop it. You know, like, that kind of stuff is small and look at what a big difference is like in the sevens like I think you'd agree Kim like a mid sevens a one sees not. You weren't thrilled with that, I would imagine. No, right? Absolutely not. Yeah. And but it was just the way life went. And this is how it felt. Yeah,

Kim 45:39
yeah. Yeah. But the six the six, four, I'm quite happy with oh, I

Scott Benner 45:44
would imagine. Yeah, of course. And congratulations. I know. You're very welcome. I think that a lot of people report that they use the podcast in the same way. As like, the they use it to remind themselves to do the things they need to do. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's, I think that, that in general is very valuable, like something to be not like you're being graded. And not like somebody's coming along to check on you. But just a quiet moment in your mind where, you know, like, I got to do this thing. I'm gonna do it. And, you know, I don't know how to talk about that. Exactly. It's a responsibility to something but not something that holds you hostage and makes you feel like you failed if you don't do it. Does that make sense? For

Kim 46:29
me, it's nice. What I something I get out of the group is just having more people around me going through the same thing and hearing what they're doing that's making a difference. I don't really know any diabetics, not a couple of type twos. I don't think at this point. I know any type ones. And I don't have anybody to say, oh, yeah, that happened to me. This is what I did. Or that happened to me. What did you do? So it's nice to have the podcast and listening to it and hearing what people do in different situations? Oh,

Scott Benner 47:02
yeah, I just I believe that it's, it's one of the unintended benefits of the show. Like I didn't, I didn't reach out, I didn't start it thinking, Oh, well, people will be able to hear other people. And that'll make them feel like, oh, I can do this too. And like, I didn't know any of that was gonna happen. That's just stuff that got reported back to me by listeners. And that makes sense. Now, as I look back, but I just didn't, I didn't do it on purpose, you know, so? Well, it's worked. Yeah, yes. I'll tell you there are very few times when you think, like, I don't, I don't know how other people's minds work. I'm competitive. And I, and I'm very, like, I'm a hard working competitive person, like, so if I make one, I want to make two, if I make two, I want to make four. Like I keep going like that. And so because of that, there are often times you don't feel accomplished, because you make 1000, you want 2000, you know, then suddenly, you're in the situation where I'm at now where like, there's like a half a million downloads a month. And I'm like, I wonder if we could get to a million, but an odd thought to have, instead of just going a half a million, that's a lot. Every once in a while, I have a moment where I'm like, oh, yeah, I can see this as going well. And I have to say, I spoke earlier about speaking in Austin this weekend, that JDRF and Austin came to me. And they were like, we do these things, like these kind of like little office meetings that you know, the local chapter, and somebody comes in and speaks. And she's like, sometimes we get 3040 People come to listen to the speaker, would you like to come down and give like one of these little talks? And I was like, Hey, I would love to do that. And so we're chatting a little bit. And I said, so just the people and you just tell the people in your chapter, she goes, Well, you could tell the people on your Facebook group and I went, Oh, if you do that, we're not going to fit in that room you're talking about? At first I think she was sort of like, okay, buddy. I'm sure you and your ego think that you know, and so I said, No, I'm like you're gonna have I think if I'll do that, I said, but if you tell me to make it public, you're going to need to be ready with a bigger space. And she goes, how big I said, I'm gonna guess 500 people, and she goes, are type one nation events don't get that many. And I was like, Have you ever had me at one of your type one nation events? And she goes, No. And I said, Well, then I'm gonna tell you 500 So she comes back like a week later and says, I found a space I can get it holds 350 people and that's gonna disappoint some people. I'm like, but that's okay. And she's like, Okay, well, I'm gonna get the ticketing set up and she sets it all up and everything. And she's like, you can make the link public now. And I said, Okay, I said, it's going to be full in about a day. And there I think she almost laughed at me. And I gave she gave me the link up with the link online. And about 36 hours later, the 350 seats were taken. Oh, that's great. How she felt aside by it is one thing, but it was a moment for me where I actually went, Oh, I'm doing a good job. Like making this podcast like, instead of just, I didn't hear 350 and think, Well, we probably could have got 700 I'm not lying. I did think we could get But, but I didn't like it didn't burden me. I felt good about it.

Kim 50:04
Well, and it also wasn't your fault. The biggest room she could get was 350. So,

Scott Benner 50:08
Kim, I like the way you're thinking. Yeah, right. Yeah, I could have filled that space. You could have pushed that higher. Absolutely. But but it's just it's one of those. It's just a very nice moment where I actually felt accomplished. And not like, okay, there's a number like, keep going. It was it was nice for me, because I don't get that very frequently. Because the way I'm wired, the way you know, the way I'm usually wired is just usually, that's good more. And you

Kim 50:34
think is that you're not feeling accomplished? Or do you just think it's, you know, you can do more, and you want to keep doing more? Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, yeah, I mean, that is a positive.

Scott Benner 50:45
I don't think of it as a negative, I'm just telling you, like, I'm the, like, I'm well suited for a thing that needs to be in growth mode constantly. Because it I don't find it pressuring. I like it. So the podcast is social media. The Facebook group is, is social media, it's those are things that normally don't ever work. Like, I don't talk about this very frequently. But I think there's something like 4 million parked podcasts, meaning like 404 million people have registered a podcast name, only, like, I don't know what it is exactly, like only like 800. And some 1000 of them are even active and active can mean as few as one episode a month of those active podcasts, 86% of them 86% of these 800 and some 1000 podcasts, only get 130 some downloads per episode. So there's really only 14% of podcasts that are doing better than 136 downloads, like historically, for an episode, like they make an episode of content pull up in 130 people here. And that is not the case for this podcast, I actually fall in the 96th percentile, right around there. That means that 4% of the active podcast do better than me. And that and that's it. And I'm in a niche. So like, I'm not just in a niche, I'm in a niche of a niche. I'm not even really diabetes, I'm type one like you don't I mean, like it's a Nishi thing, right? And I look at that, and I think I could probably get in the 97th percentile. Weird thought, there's nothing wrong with that. And but it stems from this, like you're getting the benefit of my aggressive nature, in that. That's not my motivation. My motivation is I hear people help by the podcast. And I see the numbers. And I think, Well, that's nice, but there are far more people who have type one diabetes, we're not, we're not finding those people. And that to me, like if you could get to a million, like, by the way, a million downloads a month doesn't mean a million people listened. It could mean you know, it could mean that a few a lesser number of people listen to 10 episodes a month, or something like that. And so like, you just want to find those people. Like you know, there's there's part of me that if I didn't have the podcast, I might take the Pro Tip series on on thumb drives and walk around the country like Johnny Appleseed, throwing them at people with insulin. Because I think that would actually be helpful. I just don't know how to reach them. Like, like that. Because there's plenty of people you see it in the in their Facebook group all the time. Somebody will say, Oh, my God, like look at my variability, or my agency is down from this to this. And I've been in this group for a year. And I don't know why I didn't listen to the podcast. And I listened to this series like that. So somebody just told me the other day, I listen to bold beginnings and the defining diabetes stuff. My agency came down three points. And I was like, Yeah, cool. That's good. I know. You should all go

Kim 53:47
well, there's people. There's people in the Facebook group that don't listen to the

Scott Benner 53:50
podcast. Oh, Kim, over overwhelmingly.

Kim 53:54
I always thought they kind of went hand in hand. And I actually found the Facebook group because I was listening to the podcast, but I'm just I'm surprised by that.

Scott Benner 54:02
I would trust me. I used to be surprised by it too. And the word surprise, you could also use the word really irritated. But

Kim 54:10
I guess maybe some people don't have the time for it. But I'm

Scott Benner 54:15
beyond understanding it. But I can tell you this. There are 42,000 people in the podcast in the podcast Facebook group, and an overwhelming majority of them are actually active participants in the Facebook group, which is also not common. A lot of those Facebook groups have like big numbers. But when you go look at their the number of like, comments, new posts that they get, they'll they'll get like 10 new posts a week or something. Like you'll see a group that's like we have 80,000 members and you look in the group has 10 posts this week. My group does 85 to 125 posts a day. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And so those people are actually all active, if every one of those 42,000 people right now went and subscribed to the podcast. and downloaded just the Pro Tip series. I'd be the biggest podcaster in the world. Like no kidding. That's how many people are in the Facebook group not listening to the podcast. And by the way that it's not, not in the world, like, you know, I don't know, Joe Rogan's got millions and millions of people. Like, I don't mean that I just mean that like by downloads, I would catapult into the 99th percentile. Oh, we

Kim 55:24
have to work on that. Scott, we have to push that him.

Scott Benner 55:26
I've done everything I can think to do. And I've seen your recent posts, yes, what I've learned is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink water. So I don't know which one of those pronunciations was closer to being correct. You can't make people even in the face of their own good health, you can't make them do something they don't want to do.

Kim 55:51
Well, it's funny as I say that, because I've been listening, probably for about a year and a half now. And I have yet to listen to any of the educational podcasts, any of the educational ones, the bold beginnings or anything? I liked the interviews. Yeah, actually. So and that's where I go podcast

Scott Benner 56:09
people like the interviews, more of the Facebook, people like the management stuff better. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. And it's not, it's not dollar for dollar. But I think that if you find yourself on Facebook, you're looking for help. You're like, Oh, my God, my kid or me, or somebody's got diabetes. And this is not going well. Let me see if I can go find some people who know, they get into the group, they start hearing things that are helpful, and they fine tune something, it gets a little better. If you were freaked out, because you're 40 years old, you've had diabetes for 20 years, you're a onesies, like nine, you've never been able to do anything about it. You go to the Facebook group, you hear a couple things, you put them into action, all of a sudden, your a one C seven, you'd be surprised how many people are just like, Oh, good, well, good enough. Really. Yeah, they don't have the bandwidth maybe or the time or whatever to like, let me dig dig in more. And I also think a lot of people don't even believe it's possible to have a low six or high five a one say that could be Yeah, so they get some benefit. And they're like, good enough. That's it, I did it. And I'm telling you, I think you take the bold, bold beginnings, or, you know, in the when your very first diagnosed and listen to it, or you go to the Pro Tip series, and just listen to those 26 episodes, I would be surprised if you're a one sees not in the low sixes after listening to 26 episodes of the prototype series. That's it, like I just think it would be, or you at least have an incredible opportunity for it to be probably 20 hours worth of listening. And it's funny because I have like I have people who helped me with the Facebook group. Like if you if you got Isabel on here, which by the way, she's never coming on here. But if she does not because I won't let her on. She doesn't want to do it. But if I let her on here, let her on here. If she let herself come on here, she'd start complaining, Why won't people take better care of themselves, all you have to do is listen to this, like that kind of thing. And I know her feeling. And I used to have it too. But now I just know I keep serving the content, and we grab the ones we can grab. And those people are helped. And the rest of them are not my responsibility and I can't make them do better for themselves. That's

Kim 58:18
great, too. So like you said, you can only do so much. It's

Scott Benner 58:23
human nature, like it's fine. Like I'm not coming down on them even to be I'm genuinely about that. I'm not saying they're doing something wrong. I'm just saying this is just it's humanity. It's the way it works. So I mean, look at look at me even I was overweight, right? And I did the same thing you did. I used to say I carry it well, or people can't tell. And that was actually true. I don't know if you've ever heard me say this, Kim. But when I went to the doctor finally so what happens to Arden went away to college. And I said to Kelly, if we have to take care of ourselves, like we did it, the kids are their adults, like we're gonna die. Like we need to do something. We've been killing ourselves to feed them and pay them and pay for them. Like we got to do something for ourselves. So I went to Arden's endocrinologist, to Addy, who you've heard people have heard in the finding thyroid series, and if you haven't, you're really missing something. But I went to her and I said, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm like, but I don't eat a lot. I don't lose weight. You know, I got problems with my iron, like a messed up, I'm gonna die. Like, you know, like, I got I need to do something. So we're talking and she says, What do you mean you have to lose weight. I said, I just I'm, I think I have to lose a lot of weight. And she's like, That's ridiculous. And I stood up because I was about to get on the scale. And I said, Look, I'm gonna get on the scale anyway. Guess my weight can hurt my feelings. We're all going to know in a second I'm going to jump up on the scale, right? So it's fine. Just really look at me assess me and guess my weight and she goes, I don't know. 175 pounds maybe like if she was having trouble getting herself to 70 Five. And I told her, I weighed myself this morning. I'm slightly over 236. And she goes, Oh, and she's got this lovely accent she goes, we get you the Wiko v. And I was like, Can I go? Yeah. And she goes, Yeah, I think so. And I'm like, Alright, so now I've lost 40 pounds. I think this morning, I was like, 194 or something. I'm gonna tell you, I now can I can now be not that I wasn't being honest before. But now I understand it better. And I understand. Not only do I not need a bunch of food, but I wouldn't want a bunch of food, that I'm still eating plenty of nutrition. And I'm eating a fraction of what I was eating before. But I can still look at myself and objectively tell you I need to lose 15 or 20 more pounds still, like my body should probably be around 180 pounds, 175 180 pounds. And I was at 236. Thinking I needed to drop 20 pounds. That gets it's crazy up weight in places I don't even think I knew existed. To be perfectly honest. So

Kim 1:01:04
what is the plan then being on the go V? When you reach your goal? Do you go off of it? Do you lower your dosage? Do you know how that works? Yeah, so

Scott Benner 1:01:13
because of insurance, they only we go V goes up to 2.4. And then you can't go back again. Like you can't have your doctor say okay, they've lost all the weight like give them let's get give him the one unit again or something like that, or the one milligram isn't milligram. I think it's more grip. So what she told me was, we'll start experimenting with shooting it further and further apart. Okay, so right now you do it every week. But she's like, maybe we'll do it every 10 days and see how it works or a little farther. Or maybe I won't need it anymore. I mean, you don't need it anymore, right?

Kim 1:01:48
Usually, they say that once you go off of it, people start to gain the weight back.

Scott Benner 1:01:52
Well, I'm going to tell you, if I have a GLP problem, then I'm going to have a problem going off of it. So I'm going to I'm going to I'm just looking I'll stay on it forever if I have to. I don't care, like but I don't want to continue to lose weight. But also I don't know that that would happen. Like isn't my body going to reach a stasis point? I would think so. Yeah, I'm not losing weight, by the way, because I'm not eating enough. I'm losing weight because I'm eating the correct amount. And I'm fat. That's why I'm losing weight.

Kim 1:02:23
You see what I'm saying? I understand trust me.

Scott Benner 1:02:28
Gives like, Yeah, I hear Yeah, I'm fine. I was five 170. Something else? Yeah, I'm not gonna turn into a skeleton. So I'm gonna get down to the part where there's not excess fat on my body. And I just think I think it's possible that all these generations and decades of us looking heavy around each other makes us feel like that, for some reason that like, a fit body is thin for some reason. And I don't know that that's the case. So and I'd like to put my salon and I'm going to try on my own. But I can tell you, if I can't accomplish it on my own. I'm going right back to that doctor, and I'm gonna go like, hey, what other intervention can I get here to make me stay alive? I'm not against staying alive. And I you know, it's funny, you hear people say, I can't believe you use that to lose weight. You cheated, right? Or, like, you know, I'm in my 50s. I'm gonna go back and say, Look, we'll testosterone helped me put muscle on and make me I don't want to be big, but like, healthier, you know, stronger, go support my joints, that kind of stuff. People would be like, Oh, you're cheating? Don't you love that? I'm cheating. But the whole world's drunk and high? And they don't think anything of it.

Kim 1:03:40
Absolutely. Have you noticed a big increase in your energy, though? I mean, are you able to exercise more where you weren't

Scott Benner 1:03:46
before or had an injury that slowed me down, and it's still not gonna be talking about, I'm not quite back yet. So I'm doing a little bit at a time getting into it. I mean, the problem I'm having right now is that I'm not a person who's exercised. So, you know, I'm in the situation that everyone who has an exercise is and I have to start slowly build up to get to something. I haven't been out of breath in a very long time. I can tell you that much.

Kim 1:04:10
That's how I was though, too. I would prefer to sit on the couch and watch TV then do any kind of exercise. And once I started taking the weight off, I started just simple walking. And now I walk between 12 and 16,000 steps a day. And I think that's a big part of why I didn't put the weight back on for sure.

Scott Benner 1:04:28
Yeah, you've you've changed your, your lifestyle. Yeah, that's fantastic. And you're not eating. And there is something. I don't know how to put it exactly. But it takes you out of your mind. Like all the things that you can think of like, wow, I might take ice cream and put like caramel syrup on top of it. Like that's the thing that from my youth, I would have loved right. And now if you put that in front of me, I would probably take a spoonful of it and I'd be like, Oh, that was good. But then I wouldn't care for the rest of it. It would feel like just excessive too. mean to eat it, or when you see greasy things with like a lot of sauce on it or something like that I go, Oh, I would not only that, that that's not good for me. Like, you know, i When my wife went away on business, I went to the store, I got a turkey breast, chicken wings, and shrimp. And I thought, Oh, this will feed me for like a week. And I smoked the turkey breast and I smoked the chicken wings. And when I wanted something kind of zesty, I had the chicken wings. And when I wanted to eat and be you know, just get my nutrition in, I would take the turkey breasts up, like slice it up, I was putting it in with like scrambled egg and eating in a wrap or something like that. I eat coconut milk, yogurt in the morning, I drink my ag one, like that kind of stuff, rice. But the other night I came home, and I was I was I was hungry. When I got home I'd been traveling, like I said unexpectedly and I was back. And there was just not my stuff wasn't in the house. And my wife had bought like some Trader Joe's chicken nuggets that looked very like healthy. And I warmed four or five of them up. And there were like these potato chips in the house. And I thought oh, I'll have a couple of potato chips with these nuggets. And I ate the nuggets and about the third potato chip. And I was like us it's so greasy and disgusting. These these potato chips. And I put them back in the bag like I was I was turned off by them. And I think that whatever is in all this processed food that rewires our brains or our guts or tells us you know that we're hungry, or we need sugar or whatever. I think it's once that's gone, you look at stuff and go oh, like what is that greasy, like mayonnaise on that? Like a like, why would I can't eat that? You know, I mean, or like these chips tastes like grease, but I know they would have been good chips to me a year ago. Yeah,

Kim 1:06:49
definitely changed your mindset on it and kind of come to your senses about it. But

Scott Benner 1:06:55
that's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah. You know, it feels like you're you were being tricked forever. And now you're like, oh, you can't trick me. There's no reason for me to eat this. Like, I was like, yeah, if you took me to Burger King right now and bought me a cheeseburger, I'd be like, I, I Please don't make me that. Like, I couldn't do that I even a good cheeseburger. I've had that experience that you talked about earlier. Like, by good I mean, like, you know, like grass fed beef and like no fillers in it. And you know, like on a, like a brioche bun, I could eat maybe a quarter of one of those. And then I'd be like, that's enough. Like, I'm good. You know? So yeah, it's, it's fantastic. I honestly came, I had a conversation with a doctor, not a doctor, anybody would know, is a person I met who's also a doctor. And I told them, I can see a world where GLP medications, fundamentally shift obesity and overeating. In maybe a generation? I 100%. Agree. Yeah, it may be one generation, it could actually stop the whole problem. So I'm assuming that means that like agri companies right now are trying to pressure the insurance somebody's to not cover it so that we all keep eating the way we eat or so I imagine that's all happening in the background. And I'm not a person who's like, take medication. Like if you can't do it, take medicine. I tried my goddamn hardest my whole life. It just didn't work. And I think that people who don't understand it think like you're you're putting some poison in your body that's melting you away. And they're stuck on things they heard originally, like ozempic face for example. I've

Kim 1:08:35
heard that and I don't I don't even know what that is. I've never seen a case of it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:40
let me tell you what it is a bunch of people blew their bodies up big and fat. And then they deflated them. And people went, Oh, you look old and kind of scraggly now. Well, yeah. Because there's extra skin on your face.

Kim 1:08:49
So that's all they mean by the ozempic face is just the extra skin. Yes. But once

Scott Benner 1:08:52
someone says that, like the first person who goes, Oh, I have ozempic face, which means I lost a bunch of weight. And my face looks like this now because I lost a bunch of weight. Then that gets out into the zeitgeist. And people are like, Oh, ozempic must make your face look weird. Which it doesn't. It's just you're puffy and bloated. And now you're not anymore. There's extra skin and a lot of people eventually, like it tightens up for them. I've been lucky. My face has changed and I don't have I don't have hanging or loose skin and my cheeks around my eyes or anything like that. You know, speaking in my face, you want to talk about how your brain tricks you. As I was starting to really lose weight, like the first 15 pounds, I thought oh, my face looks a little different. And I actually thought I looked terrific. I did something that I'll just admit to you now that I've never said I've always wanted to do more video content for the podcasts like social media and stuff but I didn't like the way I look so I didn't do it. And I lost this 15 pounds. I was like I look so much better. I'm gonna I made a video. Well, thank God I did because I still have it because a month later I made another one and I was like Oh, I did not look okay. A month ago when I was down 15 pounds down 20 pounds. I look better dancer Only five I look better down 30 I look better at 40 I look completely different. And then the strangest thing happened the other day, I got out of the shower, turn to the mirror. And I thought my face looked fat, really? And I thought, oh my god, is this how quickly your brain receives things? Do you know what I mean? Because I My face is is not perfect, and there is weight to lose it under my jaw, a little bit in my cheeks. That's still there, right? But I look so much different in my face at 40 pounds than I did before I started or even if 15 pounds down. I look great now like I'd be happy if I look like this forever. But I'm not wrong. There's still weight in my jaw, and my gel like good Godhra my neck. What I'm saying is it was fascinating how quickly my brain told me you're not there yet. And it was a different message than before, when I would look and say, Oh, I can't make a video because I look fat. Like I don't think I look fat. I just now know, this is not exactly what my face is supposed to look like if my body was at the correct weight. I don't know if that difference is obvious to everybody. But it's after going through this. It's very obvious to me the difference? Well,

Kim 1:11:21
you posted the pictures on the Facebook page. And I don't know if I had ever seen pictures of you before. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:28
well, a lot of people don't take pictures of themselves and they look fat. So I don't do that either. If you want to talk about being upset, here's something to be upset about. I now realize I have consciously self consciously kept myself out of photos with my kids my whole life. Me too. Yeah, because I didn't want them to think I was

Kim 1:11:47
the one taking them. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:49
I also felt like if I think I felt like when I'm gone, I'd rather than remember me the way they thought of me then actually be able to pull up a picture and go my dad was a fat guy didn't know that. Because I've had conversations with them. They don't know. They don't think of me that way. It's kind of fascinating. So after I lost that first 15 pounds, I was pretty excited. And I saw my son for the first time because he wasn't living at home we went visited him. And I think for the first half an hour I just stood in the room like posing like Madonna thinking he was gonna look up at me. He's gonna look up at me and go like, I think this guy's voguing. Why is he doing that? Let me look. Oh, it's because he's so thin. And he wants me to know. And he's trying to get me to say something. But after a while, I just thought he doesn't see any difference to me. So I asked him, Do you see that? I've lost weight. And he looked at me and he goes, No. And I said, I've lost 15 pounds. I said, like I went down a t shirt size. And he goes, Yeah, I don't think of you as a fat person. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Isn't that interesting?

Kim 1:12:51
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's cool that he didn't even notice it. Yeah, he's

Scott Benner 1:12:57
like, I don't think of you that way. And I was like, Okay, I can't wait for him to see me again, because I'm going to see him in a couple of months. And I mean, at that point, I'm probably going to be down 45 I'm gonna guess about 45 pounds. And I look significantly different now. And I don't think he's going to notice it. He just doesn't he doesn't care about that. Does Arden say anything? We had the same conversation. She's like, Yeah, I don't think she's like, I'm looking at you. I see you've lost weight. She goes, but I don't see. It doesn't feel like an improvement to me. It doesn't change how I thought about you now. Or then. Like, it's just, I think we're just the kids just think of us is like, our thoughts and our emotions and stuff like that. Right? Yeah. So and by the way, it's the same thing, like anybody who's grown older with like, with a person, like I said to somebody the other day, I was with my wife and someone else. And they were talking about getting older and everything. And I and I wasn't trying to score points or anything like that. I said exactly what I what I meant. Like I said, when I look at Kelly, I think of this 20 year old girl that I went away on vacation with. Like, I'm like, That's how she looks to me. Like, that's how I think of her in my mind. Like, you know, like she's like, she's a collection of my experiences with her when I'm not with her and I think of her. But if you asked me to picture her, I almost always picture her the way she I remember her on this vacation. We went on when we were dating. I don't see her as like, older or heavier or grayer or anything like that. She's just her, then. So I think that's how my kids must think of me.

Kim 1:14:33
Yeah, I feel that same way about my husband too. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. They just kind of the years just go by and you don't think anything of it? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:42
though. It's just you're just a collection of memories at that point, not necessarily a thing. And I think that's why like, the other day, I was leaving Arden and I was saying goodbye to her roommates. And I was joking. I went into the one girl's room and I was like, Hey, I think I'm supposed to call that girl Heather. I'm like, Hey, Heather. It's not really and And I said, I'm leaving now I'm sorry that we I'm glad we got to see each other. I'm sorry, it was under like kind of the circumstances. And what I'm most sorry about is that we didn't have time for you to really absorb how thin I am. And she's like laughing and I was laughing. And he goes, What's wrong with you? And I'm like, I have no idea. And so we went over to the, we went over to the next person to say goodbye. And I'm like, I can't remember what I'm supposed to call this girl. So I'm like, Hey, I'm like, you know, and Arden looks at me, she's like, he's gonna do the same bit for her, he just did for the other one. So I get to the point where I'm gonna say, I'm so sorry, you didn't get to, like, really absorb how thin I am. And that's enough. Just let's go.

Kim 1:15:39
We're done here, your friend.

Scott Benner 1:15:41
Just let him finish. And she goes, I already know what he's gonna say. And I'm just doing that to make Arden laugh. So, you know, anyway,

Kim 1:15:50
it's great. It's

Scott Benner 1:15:51
completely life changing. And, you know, it's amazing. So, it really is, yeah, I'm very hopeful that it'll, it'll be that insurance will allow us to find a way to help type ones with it. I, I think we're going to, and I don't think it's gonna work for everybody. I think it's gonna be just like everyone else. Like, some people might not have a good time that I've talked to people were like, look, I got so sick on it. I had horrible diarrhea or like, my stomach hurt, I had to stop now. I wasn't with those people. I don't know how they tried to eat while they were on it. I don't know, if maybe they thought this was a magic weight loss drug and you inject it, you just keep eating and you lose weight. That's not the case. You can eat through it. Like it's, it's you can willfully just keep eating, and you will feel bloated, and stuffed and probably vomit and you know, like, have terrible like gi problems. So I don't know if people just there are some people who are just like, keep eating the same crappy way they always ate and thought they were gonna magically lose weight, or if it really is just something that some people can't tolerate. And I think times gonna figure that out for us.

Kim 1:16:59
I had a lot of issues from it, I actually reached a point where I called the nurse that was in charge of the study and begged her to take me off of it. How come I just the constant fullness, and like I said, I wasn't eating much at all. And I don't know, it felt like it was at the time, it felt like it was ruining my life. Like I said, I just, I was asleep. All summer long. I was asleep at seven, eight o'clock at night. I just didn't want to do anything. I couldn't eat anything. I didn't want to go out because I'd go out to dinner with a group of friends. And they'd order and eat and I just didn't look at my food. And just the just the way my stomach felt. And do you ever get the sulfur taste in your mouth?

Scott Benner 1:17:43
Oh, no, I don't. But I've heard people talk about it. Yeah, it was

Kim 1:17:47
really bad too. And the indigestion? It got bad for a while. Yeah. And I was lucky. I never I never vomited. But I felt like I was going to quit a bit. I

Scott Benner 1:17:58
felt like I've swallowed my food. And there's a rock in my sternum like it stopped. And it hadn't. I mean, obviously, it's passing through and everything's fine. But I also tried to do other things, I magnesium oxide to make sure I kept going to the bathroom so that the process would keep happening, like so the food could keep passing through, there was a time where I got constipated. So I added fiber. And that was scary. Because I thought what if the fiber goes in, it doesn't come out. So like, I took like a little bit of fiber to try to like, get through that bad week. But what I'm saying is I saw we were going in the right direction. And there were speed bumps, but I was like, I'm gonna find a way around each and every one of these speed bumps because I'm not going to stop. And there were times I had to take Tums because of the heartburn. And, you know, I take your point about going out to to eat and being like, everybody's buying food, you're like, Yeah, I'll take a bite of that. And but my wife and I kind of turned into a game like I would order like one thing and she'd order one thing that we kind of pick from it, we'd like we're done. And then like see, take it home, you could live off it for like two days after that. Right? I don't know what I would have done. If too early on, I would have had those problems. I might have bailed too. You know what I mean? And it's not going to be for everybody. Like I'm not saying everyone's going to have my experience with it. I don't think that's true. But I just think that the experience that I've had I've lived through it long enough now that I'm out the other side and I just see food differently than I did before I started Are you on the highest dose now? Yeah, I've been on the highest so for a while when I called her and asked

Kim 1:19:31
her to take me off of it she with ozempic You either gonna start on the point to five and then the point five and then the one and at the point where I was when I asked to be taken off of it I was at the one and she was able to move me back down to the point five and then I was okay, okay, yeah, just being on the highest dose was just too much for me.

Scott Benner 1:19:51
I kept pushing I was like this parks on pleasant. I'm gonna go I want to see what it means to get to the end of this. And but there were days there days where it's like eat didn't eat much at all. You know, we're like, there were days I'd make like a bowl of chicken soup, chicken soup. Just an eight ounce can of soup. And like halfway into it. I was like, oh, that's enough. Yeah, that's

Kim 1:20:12
exactly how I was. And did you notice it a lot than when you got to that highest dose? Did it make a big difference in all of that your side effects or anything or not so much.

Scott Benner 1:20:21
What I noticed was that it was hard to get through. And then once I got through, and I've been on the highest dose for a while I'm okay now. Well, that's good. Yeah, like my body adjusted to it eventually. That's great. Yeah. So I mean, honestly, I could talk about it forever. I got the other day, I was somewhere. And though the woman said to me, you were just in here buying shirts. And I was like, yeah, she goes, Why are you back? So soon, I said, I went down another size. So I went from a to x t shirt, to a large, that's great. So I was back buying shirts, and I said, Oh, I have recently lost a lot of weight. And I was here, I bought a couple of shirts. I've by the way, this is my plan. I've done it with underwear and shirts, I buy enough to keep me going knowing they're gonna get thrown away, because I'm gonna keep losing weight. And I'm going to need more. And so I was back and that the woman asked me, How do you lose weight that fast? And I was telling her and she's just like, what's this now, and then this girl, this girl, like I'm explaining it to her. And then this girl comes around who works there. This girl was young, 1820 21 years old. Tall, she probably she's probably six feet tall. But she had to have weighed well over 300 pounds. And so she's like, I've been losing weight this year to she's on a medication for migraines, that the side effect of it is weight loss. I don't know anything more about than what she said, right? But she's like, I've already lost 60 pounds this year. And she's like, but tell me more about this. And as I was telling her about it, you could just see on her face. Like, I hope you don't I mean, like she was like, maybe that would work for me. And I was like you should try. I'm like, I don't know if you'll have the same experience I did. But I don't know that there's harm in trying. And she's like writing it down. She's like, I'm gonna go talk to my parents, I'm still on their insurance, they have good insurance, I think I'll be able to get this. And I was like, Okay, I was, you know, good luck. But, you know, I don't know, like, Listen, if you're 300 pounds, you're six feet tall, and you're comfortable with yourself. I'm not telling you, you need to lose weight. I'm certainly not saying that. This is just my experience. But you know, I'm standing in front of a stranger who's in that exact situation. And she just very, I think you were in that situation of sick, I'm never going to see you again. And she's like, I need to do something. And I was like, okay, she's like, I think my whole life's gonna get ruined if I don't figure something out. I was like, Well, you know, good luck. And I don't know if I'll ever be back there again. I mean, I don't imagine I'm going below a large to be perfectly honest. If I ended up in a meeting over No, no, I my body structure. There is a way I held all that weight and people didn't exactly know, I have a I'm pretty broad at my shoulders through my chest and everything. I don't see how I could get. Yeah, there's no more to go like this shirts hanging on my, you know, on my body now not on not on. It's not being puffed out by insulation. Anyway, Kim, I don't know what the hell happened in this episode. Do you have diabetes? Gonna be talking about that? What's it? Do you have diabetes that we talked about? I think I do. So you like the conversational stuff, right? Yeah, you're not bothered when you get to the end of it. And I'm like, I just talked about GLP. And nobody's mentioned diabetes for more than five minutes. That's okay for you. Right? I

Kim 1:23:37
like it. i Yeah, like to the personalities of it. And I enjoy it. You go for a walk with me every day. So that's lovely to be entertained. It

Scott Benner 1:23:46
was nice to be to come and see me when I was in Orlando. I appreciate that very much.

Kim 1:23:49
It was great to meet you. Yeah. No, it was it was a wonderful time. Oh, don't

Scott Benner 1:23:53
they do a nice job? Oh, it was wonderful. Let me just say this touched by type one.org. You should go check that out, too. It was great. I'm supporting advertisers. While I'm talking. They were the they were the very first people whoever let me speak at an event. Oh, really? Yes. And up until then, no one came to me because I didn't have diabetes. And if they talked to me about something, they were like, you just talked about being the parent and how hard that is? And I'm like, no thanks. But somebody there was listening to the podcast and had some real life benefits from it for their child. And so during a meeting, that person said to them, like, you know, I think we should have this guy talk about diabetes. And I came down I did their first event. I've been at every one of their events, and they do a lovely job. It gets bigger and better every year. And just a wonderful group and, and I very much like being a part of it. Yeah, they do a nice job. throughout

Kim 1:24:52
the event. They talked a lot about the growth through the years and I would assume you had a lot to do with that because I don't think I talked to anybody who didn't hang up your name or the podcast? Oh,

Scott Benner 1:25:02
that's nice. I'm not gonna say that. I will, you can say whatever you want.

Kim 1:25:07
I talked, I talked to quite a few people. And I mean, I saw the the amount of people sitting in that room when you were speaking. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:25:14
No, it's It's nice. I draw a crowd.

Kim 1:25:17
Absolutely. It was so interesting to I actually

Scott Benner 1:25:21
have from here. I'm trying to find it for you now. Elizabeth, who runs touched by type one. She's the founder and the president of it. I asked her after the last time I spoke, I never do the things that other people don't like, you know, could you give me a quote? I was like, because I'd like to do more speaking. Can you just give me a quote about having me at your event? I'd like to use it like in social media and stuff. And so I actually just got this back from her the other day. She said, Scott Benner is our top speaker year after year, the largest crowds are always dedicated to his sessions, and consistently have the highest rated feedback. He's developed sessions tailored to a variety of age groups. And a large part of our conference turnout is due to attendees coming specifically to hear him speak. His personable and welcoming demeanor makes him a joy to host. And we look forward to his participation for many years to come.

Kim 1:26:11
So that's awesome.

Scott Benner 1:26:13
I actually haven't absorbed that yet. Because it just arrived. But it was nice. It was nice to share your I appreciate Elizabeth being so kind. And hopefully other people invite me out. I draw a crowd and I do a good job once I'm there. And I work hard. I don't I see other speakers. Don't worry. I see him. They come they take their money. They give you crap and they walk out.

Kim 1:26:35
Well, that was the thing you made it entertaining. It wasn't just do this, do this do this. It was I don't know. There's more personality in it when you were speaking.

Scott Benner 1:26:45
You're very nice. That's lovely. Thank you. And I'm thin now. So it's easy to look at me.

Kim 1:26:50
Actually, you are thin. Actually, I

Scott Benner 1:26:52
don't imagine anybody had a tough time looking at me prior. But it's easier for me to stand up there. I don't think about angles as much or how I must look like to people. That was the thing I had to give away. When I started doing public speaking. I thought I know I don't look good up there. I have to let that go. But as an example, touched by type one last year, like not this past one, but the one prior to that the videographer came around when I was speaking and I said listen to me, you shoot me from the back of the room? And do not stand under this riser and shoot up at me. I'm like do not do it.

Kim 1:27:29
Really you were that bothered by at home?

Scott Benner 1:27:31
I was that bothered by it? I was like do not do that. Shoot me from far away. And do not do not do not come up from underneath me. I said as a matter of fact, if he could suspend yourself from the ceiling, that'd be the way to do this. Like a selfie angle come down from me from an angle. And this year I got there. I never thought about it. That's great. Yeah, it was really freeing, actually. So like

Kim 1:27:54
you said, just life changing, just to not worry about those things anymore is wonderful. It's

Scott Benner 1:27:59
the best thing I've done for myself, personally, as an adult. So, yeah, so anybody who would come to me and say you cheated or anything like that, I would just look at them and go, Oh, you could go yourself.

Kim 1:28:14
Oh, it infuriates me whenever anybody says that. It's, yeah, I did what I had to do. And well, I didn't even do it for the weight loss. It was just an unexpected benefit. My husband and I were actually on vacation. And I got a call from the woman running the study. My doctor had given her my name. And she's telling me about and she's talking about the diabetes and everything. And I'm like I said, I'm I'm in a hotel room in Vegas. I'm like, I just need to get back out and do my thing. Could you hurry up? And all of a sudden, she's like you, there's a chance you could lose a little bit of weight. And I'm like, say what? Come again. And she started telling me about more about it. And I was hooked. And I didn't even plan on it. And it just kind of fell into place.

Scott Benner 1:28:55
I don't know how often I've said this, but my wife works in drug safety. She has her whole life. So there are people at pharma companies whose job it is to make sure you're safe. It's a lot of paperwork and a lot of understanding regulations and a lot of going to other parts of the business and telling them things they don't want to hear because it's for safety reasons, you know, she's very good at, but about a decade ago, maybe my wife was at Novo Nordisk for maybe four years she might have worked there. She came home one day, and she said, I'm seeing this data. And I'm pretty comfortable saying that one day there's going to be an injectable weight loss drug that's actually going to make people lose significant amounts of weight, really. And she's like, Yeah, I think it's gonna change hunger and like, a lot of things. And she just said that to me off handedly one day, and some 10 years later, maybe I'm using it. And she is too by the way. It's kind of crazy. She's like, I can't believe this. This stuff work because they put so much stuff through r&d that doesn't go anywhere. You You know, right? And she's like, Yeah, this is crazy. So there it is like, we're, we're using the thing that she talked about all those years ago that she's like, I saw data and it really looks promising.

Kim 1:30:09
That's all she said. That's really cool. Yeah, that's very interesting. So

Scott Benner 1:30:13
I'm not saying everybody should run out and get it. I'm not saying if you have 15 pounds lose, maybe you shouldn't try to sit up first. Like, I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying that. But at the same time, I'm not here to judge anybody, if it's 15 pounds that could make you feel the way I've described if it's 115 pounds, like whatever, I put my picture up online, and people came in and shared their photos of a get brought a lot of people out of the woodwork who are like, Hey, I'm using those on pic. And or I'm on we go V and look at this, and one guy lost, like over 100 pounds. He's like a completely different person. You know?

Kim 1:30:47
It's fantastic. Look at the celebrities. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:30:51
yeah, no,

Kim 1:30:52
it's and people are bad mouthing them to their people to who cares?

Scott Benner 1:30:57
Yeah, you're not gonna catch me saying anything bad about people trying to help themselves, that's for sure. I've heard thing people say, I've worked my whole life to stay thin. I've restricted my calories. And I've worked out and it feels upsetting that you got a cheat code for it. When I hear people say that, I would tell them look, that may be the case for some people. But for a lot of other people. That I don't know that. I think it's just physiological. And you know, or maybe it's social, social, or maybe it's financial, maybe they just can't afford good food. Like, it's easy to hear a famous person say, I've tried really hard, but yeah, you can afford good food. And you can, you know, I like I always love it. When you hear somebody who's famous go, all you have to do is work out. I'm like, Yeah, your job is three hours a day. You make a podcast for three hours a day. Yeah, you can go work out you have nothing else to do. And you have a gym in your house. Yeah, how about or trainer comes in helps you or whatever you have to like access. Most people are working eight hours a day and commuting another two hours a day. And by the way, they have to sleep and they have children. And the toilet needs to be scrubbed. When you don't want them to go to the gym, the rock the internet. I mean, like, like, well, I guess if I made Jumanji, I could spend some time in the gym too. But sadly, no one's come calling yet. So I'm gonna have to do my job. You know. It's a weird thing to hear famous people whose lives are different, as far as the structure of their days, go tell you, hey, you know, here's what you should do. You make a lot more money than I do. Like you can afford to eat foods that aren't processed. And if you don't know what those foods are, you can afford to hire somebody to tell you what those foods are. Right? And then you can afford the time to work out. I'm not saying they still don't have to do the work. They're obviously still doing the work. But I don't know they always see the the impacts that like a regular person has in their day. Yeah, that's all. Alright, Kim. I was incredibly chatty during this one. So I apologize up front. I'm gonna let you go. Because you must have a life

Kim 1:33:01
you have to get back to. It's all good. I had a great time.

Scott Benner 1:33:05
Is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have? I'm glad you had a good time.

Kim 1:33:09
I don't think so.

Scott Benner 1:33:12
Yeah, we didn't have a big plan on this one, really. So I just when you said I've been on ozempic. I was like, I never have an opportunity to talk about this outside of the diaries that I make. Right? Which people are enjoying, I didn't realize, oh,

Kim 1:33:26
I listened to all of them. And it's funny because I compare myself at each stage that you're at, oh,

Scott Benner 1:33:32
like where I'm at now versus some of the days or? Yeah, so for people who don't know I, every day, I inject my weak Ovi while I'm making a diary. So I sit down, I just off the top of my head, reminisce about the week prior, I inject it and I pop out and then the next week it comes up and after the episodes like 3035 minutes long, I just put it out. That's the extent of my prep on that one. But I thought like, I didn't imagine people would like it. But I actually started getting people running notes about it. So I was like, Oh, cool. It's very

Kim 1:34:04
interesting. You're covering everything with it. So it's been very helpful. Oh, it's

Scott Benner 1:34:07
good to know. Thank you. I don't know what I'm doing here, Kim. I'm just doing my best. Whatever works works and we'll keep it up. Thank you. Oh, hold on one second. For me.

Having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next one.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Get the only implantable sensor for long term wear. Get ever since. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors GE voc glucagon find out more Bouchy voc hypo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that? G VOKEGLUC AG o n.com forward slash juicebox if you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that it really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

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#1186 Hey Jude

Mary Kate's pregnancy was completely normal, until it wasnt. 

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

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1186 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When Mary Kate was 23 years old she was pregnant experienced a kinked cannula. That cannula put her into DKA and it caused her to go into labor early, almost killing her and her unborn son. 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. 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 juice box at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and you'd like to help with T one D research right from your home, you can by going to T one d exchange.org/juicebox and completing the survey. That's it. It'll take you about 10 minutes. You can do it from wherever you're sitting right now on your laptop, your phone, tablet doesn't matter. T one D exchange.org/juicebox need to be a US resident who has type one, or is the caregiver of one. And just like that you're helping

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one is an organization dedicated to helping people living with type one diabetes. And they have so many different programs that are doing just that check them out at touched by type one.org. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G seven and G six continuous glucose monitoring systems. dexcom.com/juicebox Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox or search the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Mary Kate 2:43
My name is Mary Kate. I've had diabetes since I was 12, which means about 13 years, and I had my first baby in November of last year of 2022. And it was kind of a disaster because of diabetes. So that's why I'm here. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:06
you're here to tell your baby making disaster. Yep. It wasn't going poorly for a while, right? No,

Speaker 1 3:13
it was like, perfect. Perfect until the day he was born. Literally.

Scott Benner 3:20
We'll get to that first Medicaid. Let's figure out a little more about you. So you're 25 years old?

Unknown Speaker 3:26
Yeah, my birthday is coming up. 24. Now, but yeah.

Scott Benner 3:30
This is my favorite part of what it happens. Like when people are like, Well, no. In a month, I'm going to bed I'm like, Oh, God, nobody cares. So you're diagnosed 12 years old? Was that? Puberty or pre puberty? Or right as it was happening? Right as

Unknown Speaker 3:50
it was happening? Yeah. A

Scott Benner 3:51
mitzvah? Yes. Yeah. Any diabetes in the family? Other autoimmune in the family? No, nothing. Nothing to say you were surprised that diagnosis would be fair. Ah,

Speaker 1 4:06
yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I had been feeling poorly for a while. So it wasn't surprised that something was wrong with me. But you know, being like, just a little girl. All you think about diabetes is you know, that commercial of the guy saying diabeetus so definitely had no idea what was coming for me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:25
well, for Burnley people have forgotten his name. It's okay. There you go. Yeah. So that you know, you weren't feeling well for a while. What did that look like? Um,

Speaker 1 4:35
I mean, all the textbook stuff like we should have caught it even sooner than we did, honestly, because it was a ping like crazy eating like crazy drinking like crazy. I was in band at the time at school, and I played the saxophone. So that's a reeded instrument and you have to keep the reed wet in order to play. And I was like, I'm unable to play my saxophone for the hour period at school, because my mouth is so dry. I keep having to go out to the hall to get drinks of water from the fountain because it's just like, so dehydrated.

Scott Benner 5:11
You think you had a very absorbent read in your saxophone?

Speaker 1 5:14
I mean, I just, I was thirsty, I guess 12 You know, you're 12 You don't think something's wrong with you? You're just

Scott Benner 5:23
listen. 12 2060 Most people are like, I didn't think anything was wrong with me. I just thought, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever was happening to them. So, how long does all this go on for before you end up at a doctor?

Speaker 1 5:35
Well, my dad's a doctor. So not very long.

Scott Benner 5:38
What kind of doctor is your dad? He's like a,

Speaker 1 5:41
like a family doctor, just general general practitioner. So not not too long. I ended up going on vacation with my mom and sisters and my dad and brother stayed behind. And that, like close one on one time between my mom and I is when she was finally like, okay, that, you know, she's not being dramatic. There's something really weird going on here. So the day after we came back from that trip, I was in his office getting, you know, all the labs done? Yeah. China.

Scott Benner 6:14
He found it that way. Hey, how many brothers and sisters do you have? Straight? Okay. Are you the youngest?

Unknown Speaker 6:19
I am.

Scott Benner 6:20
I could tell. All right. Well, I just could tell because your mom was like she's not being dramatic, which means that your mom had lived through a couple of kids already. Why did you why did you think I could tell?

Speaker 1 6:33
I don't know. It's just usually a negative connotation when you're the youngest, like you're, you know, whiny or annoying or spoiled or

Scott Benner 6:40
do you feel like you've been whining for the first six minutes of this? Not enough. You've been terrific. I know, I just thought if that was your mom's response, then you must be one of the younger kids. Yeah, yeah, that's all. Okay. So your dad, that's weird. So you were diagnosed by your dad? Yes. How do you remember that? Like, was he? Is he the one that told you? Yes. Yes. Was it a weird experience? Like your dad being your is your was your dad always your doctor Dexcom G seven offers an easier way to manage diabetes without finger sticks. It is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone, your smartwatch. And it effortlessly allows you to see your glucose levels and where they're headed. My daughter is wearing a Dexcom g7 Right now, and I can't recommend it enough. Whether you have commercial insurance, Medicare coverage, or no CGM coverage at all Dexcom can help you go to my link dexcom.com/juice box and look for that button that says Get a free benefits check. That'll get you going with Dexcom. When you're there, check out the Dexcom clarity app where the follow Did you know that people can follow your Dexcom up to 10 people can follow you. Right now I'm following my daughter, but my wife is also following her. Her roommates at school are following her. So I guess Arden is being followed right now by five people who are concerned for her health and welfare. And you can do the same thing. School Nurses, your neighbor, people in your family, everyone can have access to that information, if you want them to have it. Or if you're an adult, and you don't want anyone to know, you don't have to share with anybody. It's completely up to you. dexcom.com slashed use Box links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. And when you use my link to learn about Dexcom you're supporting the podcast.

Speaker 1 8:35
Yeah, like, you know, on paper, we would put one of his partners, one of his business partners. And if it was anything serious, he was very hands off, because he's like, you know, he didn't want his emotions or anything to get in the way. But for all the routine, you know, kids stuff, we always just, you know,

Scott Benner 8:53
you take care of it.

Speaker 1 8:54
Yeah, he'd do it at home, whatever. I don't know, it wasn't that big of a deal, just because I had no idea what it meant. They had told me prior to the testing, like you might have diabetes, and that might mean that you have to take shots, you know, for a while, but they were very like, vague. They didn't Yeah, they did not explain like the severity of the situation, or that it would change my life forever. Or, you know, they didn't want to scare me, I guess until they knew for sure. I

Scott Benner 9:22
was just wondering if your dad wanted to be the one to say those things to you. Or if it's not nice to have a more removed person tell you something like that? No,

Speaker 1 9:32
I don't think he wanted to be the one because even that day, I was sitting in his office and he was like, well, all he said was, well, you do have it. He didn't say you know, you do have diabetes. And here's what's going to happen to you. He just said you do have it. You didn't even call it what it was.

Scott Benner 9:50
But Mary Kate, you can imagine from listening to all these episodes that he was he was probably incredibly upset.

Speaker 1 9:56
Oh yeah, definitely. But he's You know, stoic and quiet. So,

Scott Benner 10:03
gotcha. Well still, though inside, he must have been devastated. And now he's like, now he's probably stuck between Am I a doctor? Or am I her dad? Like, I don't want to be the one like, I don't want her to think back on this moment. It's her father telling her like, I bet you there was a lot going through his mind. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you find out you actually have diabetes? Didn't go to the hospital? No.

Speaker 1 10:27
So he that was a Friday. So he managed me. Over the weekend. He got me into an endocrinologist in a larger city that falling Monday, and they they took over my

Scott Benner 10:39
care. Okay. You remember, I mean, 13 years ago, doing the math? Did you get a pump?

Speaker 1 10:47
Yeah, actually, the insurance required six months of injections. So I did the bare minimum. And then I jumped over to animus actually,

Scott Benner 10:56
yeah, the ping? Yeah, you miss it. And that was better. So okay, good. I'm not good. But like, most people are always like, I miss my, my animus ping, either. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. I've never even I've never used one. You know, it wasn't great.

Speaker 1 11:11
But, I mean, the pumps today are great, too. So we've got algorithms. So

Scott Benner 11:17
yeah, I completely agree. Okay, so you got on a pump pretty quickly. was living with diabetes 1314 15 through high school? Was it problematic for you? Did it go pretty smoothly,

Speaker 1 11:29
it went, as well as it could have gone honestly, for the first, well, through middle school, I had a difficult time as far as just like, self esteem. And, you know, I tried to hide it from everybody. So that part was hard. But as far as actually managing the disease, I, I was super independent with it. I really didn't want help, and honestly did a great job, even as a middle schooler, and then in high school, probably later, high school more like junior year senior year, is whenever I started, like actually trying to educate myself on my own. And that's when I figured out like, oh, you know, you can actually have an agency lower than six, and you know, those sort of concepts. My endocrinologist, she was fine, but she had pretty low standards for what was successful. So, you know, I, I rode in between six, five and seven, probably like, all the way up until senior year of high school, before I figured out like that it was achievable, and necessary to do better. through college, I really got things under control. So what

Scott Benner 12:45
led you to wonder if what you were doing wasn't enough?

Speaker 1 12:50
I don't know. And I don't know if I even did wonder or if I just stumbled into that. I'll tell you what, what really like, got me? Well, Dexcom made a big difference in my life, obviously. And then the first thing that I stumbled across was like, you know, low carb lifestyle. And then from there, I found myself in a Bernstein Facebook group. Do you know about that guy? Yes.

Scott Benner 13:16
A little bit. Yes.

Speaker 1 13:19
Yes. So he's huge on the low carb thing. But anyway, he's got a YouTube channel. So I found myself down that rabbit hole, I read his book. And his whole thing is, he's very pro low carb. But he's also pro bold with insulin and teaches you you know, how to Bolus for proteins and fats in a way that nobody ever had. And he's like, ancient like in his 80s, or 90s. And, you know, has always has always been in the fives. It went C was his big thing is to try to be to try to keep your blood sugar at 83. So that made me kind of have a light bulb moment of like, oh, the goal blood sugar doesn't have to be 120. Right? It can literally be

Scott Benner 14:04
at three your goal. Can you make your goal?

Speaker 1 14:07
Right, yeah, right. So somehow I found myself there and that that's whenever I started striving for Lower, lower.

Scott Benner 14:15
Did that experience make you eat low carb? Or did it just make you shoot for lower numbers? Yeah,

Speaker 1 14:23
I ate low carb for couple of years. Like, yeah, couple years.

Scott Benner 14:27
It worked for you.

Speaker 1 14:29
It did. Yeah. Why did you start as I like bread,

Scott Benner 14:34
like bread? That's a fair enough reason. This is a weird conversation for me because I'm of the opinion that people need to know how to use insulin. And then after they know how to use it, they should go forth and live their life anyway, they decide to if it's right, you know, four carbs a day or I don't know 40 or 100 whatever they I don't care. I honestly don't care how people eat. But if you get too involved in conversations about How people eat, you will find extreme people on, you know, sides, like with anything else who are ravenously upset with you. And I try not to have people ravenously upset with me, especially when I wish I could explain to them, I am very happy for them that what they do works for them, I just don't want them. I'm in a weird position. I don't just make a podcast, I also have an incredibly like, huge Facebook group. And so my concern always is, is that if a brand new diagnosed person comes in, and it's like, I don't know what I'm doing Oh, right, yeah. And someone comes in and says you if you just don't eat carbs, then this will be fine. Okay, fair enough. But it doesn't allow that person the opportunity to learn how to use insulin, or what will happen if they have a piece of bread, which they are probably going to do at some point or, you know, what would happen if your five year old, you know, was low carb by you're doing and which would be fine. And then they leave for college one day and wonder what pizza is. And exactly, now they have no idea how to Bolus for for these cars. And so, again, to be very sincere. Sorry, very Kate, you don't know the extraneous problems I have in my life. But you're probably starting to figure him out right now while I'm talking. Yeah, to be very clear, I do not care how people eat. I think if you eat low carb, and that works for you. That's amazing. Fantastic. Congratulations, whoo, good, sincerely. But from a macro position, which is one, I find myself in having seen 10s of 1000s of people with diabetes, start their journey or be lost in their journey or whatever. I can tell you that it's my opinion that understanding Insulin is the first step not removing carbs, because then you can sort of falsely make your way through, which is fine if you do it forever. But look at you, you're 25 and you're like, look, I'm I want to have bread again. I can't do this anymore. Anyway, that's my point about that. I don't know why. I do know why I had to say that. But But I think it's cool that you found that I think it's cool that you gave it gave you the idea. And it's you know, are you able to live in a way that you think is healthy now not being low carb? Oh,

Speaker 1 17:14
yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm, I'm fully bought into the juice box method at this point. And I, I do what I want, and I'm still successful with my diabetes, which is for me, that's that's the best way

Scott Benner 17:28
to do it. Well, congratulations on finding your way to it. I think that's fantastic. Do you think if you would have found the podcast before hearing about low carb, do you think you'd still be in the same spot right now? I don't know. That's a good question.

Speaker 1 17:44
I might have tried out low carb anyways, because at the time that I did it is when keto was like the biggest fad. Huge. Yeah. So I Yeah, you know, might have just done it anyway, just to see what it was like, I

Scott Benner 17:56
think I should be clear. I don't eat a ton of carbs. You know, like, I don't have diabetes, but I also like, I mean, I went to dinner the other night, I had beef, I had a little fish. I there was a piece of bread on the table like flatbread. I had one or two of them. But I think if I buy I mean, there's no sugar in what I drank. I had a bit. I'm gonna guess that at a dinner. I had, I don't know, maybe 25 carbs at dinner. You know, and probably the rest of the day. I probably didn't have 100 carbs that day. So you know, probably I mean, I think I definitely didn't have 100 carbs that day, and I don't most days. Tough, but I think processed foods a big problem. Especially if you use Yeah, totally agree. Right. So anyway, okay, so you're making it through? Everything's going well, you get married at some point?

Speaker 1 18:45
I do. Yeah. When I graduated college, I got married.

Scott Benner 18:49
And you've just recently decided we're going to make a baby. So that's the rest of this conversation. So you're married? You want to have a kid? Is your agency already in a place where they're comfortable with you being pregnant? Or was that something you had to work towards?

Speaker 1 19:04
No, it was already there. So I had been in the fives for a couple of years at the point when I got pregnant.

Scott Benner 19:10
Oh, fantastic. Okay, so you were well on your way to knowing what you were doing and having success over and over again? Yes, gotcha. Okay. So we decide to make the baby and here it comes. Tell me about the pregnancy. How did the first trimester go?

Speaker 1 19:24
I'm pretty much textbook. I bought Jenny's books, so shout out to her. And that helped out a lot. I kind of knew what to expect. So a lot of lows first trimester but nothing too crazy because I was well prepared. I yeah, I have a great endo as well, who actually, whenever I found him initially, he was like my favorite. He was like, Do you want to have a baby? Eventually? I'm like, yes, he's like, my favorite patients are pregnant women. He's like, here's what you're gonna do when you get pregnant. You're gonna tell you Your husband, you're gonna tell your mom and then you're gonna tell me. So he was you were very very hands on and super helpful throughout the whole thing. So

Scott Benner 20:09
that helped a lot. And what he said about they're my favorite patients is because you're not gonna see a woman with type one trying harder than when they're pregnant normally, is that what his opinion was? I think

Speaker 1 20:18
he meant from a more clinical side like he's, he's, he's obsessed with diabetes, he only does type one. So I think he likes the challenge of managing a pregnant woman and likes you know, all that he gets to educate and all that he gets to do that's that's really what I think he meant gets a

Scott Benner 20:37
little game day adrenaline from it. It sounds like Yeah, I think so. Alright, so. So you're saying first trimester went about as you expected, you took a little while to dial in insulin, get it? Right. So you didn't have lows? And, but other than that pregnancy wise, nothing out of the ordinary diabetes wise, you were, you were happy with where everything was. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic. diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen. I

Speaker 2 21:10
was going straight into high school. So it was a summer heading into high school was that particularly difficult, unimaginable, you know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school, I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So you know, outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 21:43
Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 2 21:48
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it. Did

Scott Benner 22:03
you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in. I

Speaker 2 22:07
never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see. You know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more. You know, how I'm able to type one diabetes? To

Scott Benner 22:28
hear Jay Lin's entire conversation. stay till the very end. Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community.

Speaker 1 22:40
Yeah, it was it was great. I mean, you're making changes constantly, like, at least every week, if not more. And all throughout pregnancy, I was in the 5.0 range. I think I started pregnancy at like, five, three pretty low. Now as things went on, I did through second and third trimester, I was gradually getting higher and higher and higher, but I had not made it to a 6.0 a one C yet even at even before delivery. So it was I mean, yeah, I was getting higher as as I went on, as you expect, but nothing dangerous. Everybody was happy with me. So it was all going really really well.

Scott Benner 23:20
Were you employing any of your low carb ideas to help.

Speaker 1 23:23
I cut out all sugar, basically. But I mean, I was I was still eating bread.

Scott Benner 23:30
Like the breads that the crux of this right here like what's your favorite bread? Do you have if I said that to you? Would you like blurt something out? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 23:38
I would blurt out sourdough.

Scott Benner 23:42
Pardon me once they ask you what the second favorite bread is. I wonder if we can't make an incredible list?

Speaker 1 23:49
No, no, I'm not that obsessed. But it's just, I mean, it's just delicious. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:54
I mean, I can't say otherwise. It's fantastic. I swear to you, like even just like a thin, like anything really? Like I'm like, oh, like at dinner go there. And I'm like, What is this? And I opened the basket up and I'm like, Well, I'll try that. There was little Ribery there. I was, like, I'll take a little rye bread. It's like kind of it's fantastic. So you're not low carb. And but you did cut out sugar. What did that mean for you? Like what what had to leave your your life for you to get rid of sugar.

Speaker 1 24:20
My creative outlet is baking. And so I for a long time I've baked like, only about once a week just for fun. So I completely let that go because I've never had the self control to bake and then not eat what I've made. So for for my whole pregnancy. I was just like, forget it. Like I'm not going to be making any desserts because I just knew it would be you know, not good

Scott Benner 24:50
for me. Pretty much the only place you're getting sugar from to begin with. Yeah,

Speaker 1 24:53
no, I'm not a I'm not. Yeah, that was it. I don't I'm not a candy eater or anything like that. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 24:59
So you thought if I cut out baking, did you find um, I'm changing my thought midstream. But did you find like a black hole for your creative this? Like, did you do something else you could do with your creativity? Or what did you do to replace?

Speaker 1 25:16
Oh, I, I guess I just I'm not a very creative person anyway, so it's not really that, like, big of a deal for me to just kind of turn that off. Okay. So yeah, didn't really replace it. Did

Scott Benner 25:27
your husband lose weight during your baking? Shutdown?

Unknown Speaker 25:31
I don't. I don't think so. Actually,

Scott Benner 25:33
I would probably have been grateful if I was like, oh my god, I'm always eating that bass stuff she

Speaker 1 25:38
makes. No, he gave me a really hard time the whole time because I always do a really big birthday cake for him. And he didn't get his. Oh

Scott Benner 25:47
my gosh, you were serious about it. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Are you are you a rule follower in general?

Unknown Speaker 25:54
For good rules for stupid rules?

Scott Benner 25:57
I gotcha. But once you decided that, was it you're not there was no like, well, I'll make you a birthday cake.

Speaker 1 26:02
No, no, because I it was just it was about me. I wouldn't have had the self control

Scott Benner 26:07
not to eat that birthday cake. Yeah, good for you good for knowing. And, and well done, like actually following through on it. That's pretty impressive, actually. Alright, so second, you're welcome. second trimester, do things start to change? Not

Speaker 1 26:21
really. I mean, they changed by the book where, you know, you're slowly needing more and more and more insulin every single week. But, you know, it was manageable. What

Scott Benner 26:30
was your Basal rate when you started your pregnancy? And how did it move up?

Speaker 1 26:34
I would say my average Basal rate pre pregnancy was probably like 0.6 0.7. And then by the end of pregnancy, my average, which I only made it to 33 weeks. So when I say the end, that's what I mean. By the end, my Basal average was probably like, 1.5 1.6.

Scott Benner 26:56
Would you mind telling me what you weighed when you got pregnant? When

Speaker 1 27:00
I got pregnant? Somewhere between 125 and 130?

Scott Benner 27:04
Okay. How much did you gain while you're pregnant? Shane pounds? We'll get you showing off. Okay. Hold on a second point 6.7. Up to about 1.5. Well, that is interesting. Because it's not it's not about your weight. It's about it's about the hormones and everything that's happening inside of your body where the need goes up like a full unit an hour. That's something isn't 24. That's 24 more. Yes, yeah, units a day, a lot

Speaker 1 27:33
of extra insulin, and I affected my carb ratio as well, by the end of it. That was actually the bigger impact by the end of pregnancy. Like, my breakfast carb ratio was 123. What was even as crazy. What

Scott Benner 27:47
was it when you started

Speaker 1 27:48
one this? Well, either one to six or one to five? They're different for meals for me, but it

Scott Benner 27:54
doubled. Hmm. About that. So you, you probably added 30 or 40 more units a day being pregnant?

Unknown Speaker 28:03
A lot. I don't know. But a lot.

Scott Benner 28:05
That's so interesting. I mean, I mean, I know what happens, but it's still it's still incredibly interesting. You know, okay, but you managed it and you expected it and stayed with it. Jenny's book helped with that. Definitely good. Yes. Good. Did you listen to any of the pregnancy episodes of the podcast? Yes.

Speaker 1 28:22
Yes. All of them actually. Which is that also helps. I kind of had a roadmap. Okay,

Scott Benner 28:27
great. Oh, that's good to know. Okay. So, things are going along. You're cruising. Let's just be honest here. It's a humble brag, but you're cruising through pregnancy doing a fantastic job. And can this baby? And are you working during the pregnancy?

Unknown Speaker 28:41
Unfortunately, I was yes.

Scott Benner 28:43
I think that every day when I'm working to unfortunately, I'm working. And I've never wanted to carry a baby, except in my hands. Okay, so you're working. You're you're pregnant, it's going really well. And you get to 33 weeks and it sounds like that's when the train comes off the track. So what happened? What

Speaker 1 29:01
happened? Okay, so I got the flu. Okay,

Scott Benner 29:06
you're not supposed to get sick. When you're pregnant. You're like, have like, super immune system when you're pregnant. It's someone licky with this. Is that your husband's fault? This is what I'm trying to get at. i

Unknown Speaker 29:15
It's not his Okay. Unfortunately.

Scott Benner 29:19
It would be so much better if you could hold it over his head for the rest of time and mourn, but Okay, so you get the flu. I'm sorry. Keep going.

Speaker 1 29:25
I apologize. Yes, I get the flu probably. So my baby was born on a Wednesday I started feeling sick on the previous like, Saturday or Sunday. I know I didn't go to church on that Sunday, because I was under the weather. So yeah, I mean, I I was just kind of managing at home. I was feeling bad enough that I I knew it was either blue or COVID Probably. But with both of those, it's kind of like well, that you know, there's no treatment. I mean Tamiflu if you get there early enough, but maybe that'll help. Maybe it won't. And maybe they'll give it to you if you're pregnant, and maybe they won't. So I was just kind of hanging low resting a lot. And then actually, I started getting worried like, Okay, I diabetes, I probably have the flu or COVID. And I've got a baby. Yeah, at this point, all I'm concerned about is the baby. I had a maternal fetal medicine appointment on that Tuesday, and I like, pretended not to be sick. Because this was back when like, if you had any sickness symptoms, they wouldn't let you come to any appointments, because I thought you would have COVID or whatever.

Scott Benner 30:39
You pretended to have the flu? Yes, you just think you look like you were on heroin when you walked in maybe or something? Because I guess it's hard to pretend not to have the flu. How did you accomplish that? I'm interested what?

Speaker 1 30:50
Well, I like I managed to do my hair and do my makeup. So I would look a little little better. Yeah. And they required you to wear masks anyways. So that was really the saving grace. So I wore a mask. I took like a hot tea with me. So I'm gonna try to keep the cough like at bay, because I'm just thinking, like, I have to check on my baby, or I'm gonna go crazy, you know, worrying about him, right? So I fill out the questionnaire and say, you know, no, I don't have any sick symptoms and all that. And he was perfect. So make it to the appointment. They're like, amazing, you know, they did an ultrasound, everything. Everything was great. They said, Get out of here. The next day is when crap hit

Scott Benner 31:35
the fan. Wow. And it happened very quickly. Is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 31:39
I would say it was very quick.

Scott Benner 31:41
So did you think because I know what happened, right? I know how but what did you think was happening? At first, like, were you blaming the illness is what I'm getting at. I

Speaker 1 31:53
thought that it was. So what happened? I'm by myself all day, the day. So it's a Wednesday the 16th I'm at home alone all day. So I'm just like, veg and now watching movies, feeling like crap, whatever. And then around like, I don't know, 6pm I started having cramping. And so I think this is Braxton Hicks. Right? I'm 33 weeks. So Braxton Hicks would be totally normal for that to start happening to me. So that's that's all I thought once I started having this cramping I just associated with the pregnancy and I think must be Braxton Hicks. Everything must be fine. This must be normal. It's kind of where my head starts out.

Scott Benner 32:34
And you call your dad, I always wonder every time you have you mentioned something, I wonder if you call your dad? No, I did not call my dad. Okay. No reason just, it's not what you do? Well,

Speaker 1 32:44
I guess I just didn't want to freak anybody out. I'm always afraid of making something into a bigger deal than it needs to be. So I was afraid that either, you know, I would be dramatic. And it would become a whole thing when it didn't need to be or that he will be dramatic and told me to, you know, the ER, which was what I should have done, but you know,

Scott Benner 33:06
right. So to you're sitting here, you're watching your movies, you're having your cramping, and you think it's normal? How long do you believe it's not like, how long did you live in that before you thought, oh, I should do something.

Speaker 1 33:17
Maybe only like 15 or 20 minutes before I text a friend who had recently had a baby. And I'm like, because they're getting progressively more painful. And I'm just like, How bad are Braxton Hicks supposed to hurt because, you know, like, what the heck, this is hurting really bad at this point. And of course, you know, this is texting and she can't see me. You know, whatever. Basically, she's like, Yeah, they can hurt pretty bad. So I'm like, Alright, I guess this is just how much pregnancy and labor and Braxton Hicks sucks. So I just get in the bath and like try to you know, manage the pain basically. And so as I mentioned, I was home alone. So my husband was actually an hour away. And he was at the time he was in professional school. And he was going to be getting out of class in 30 minutes. And I was like, I can ride this out for 30 minutes. And like, you know, see how I am see if it gets worse. Again, like not be dramatic. And wait till it gets out of class calm. So that's what I did.

Scott Benner 34:26
Let me ask you a question. How much of that is growing up with a physician hearing stories about people are always running to the doctor when they don't need to or like you program that like, you don't go unless you have to.

Speaker 1 34:36
I'm also a nurse myself. Now

Scott Benner 34:40
we're getting to it. So okay. Yeah,

Speaker 1 34:42
yeah, I was trying not to admit that I guess. But yeah, so I'm definitely programmed to, you know, I don't know not make a big deal about everything. Right. And I also feel like whether or not it's true, I've always been told that have a low pain tolerance. So I'm thinking like, well, maybe I'm just literally the world's biggest wind. And you know, so I need to wait until this really hurts. You got

Scott Benner 35:06
to be careful about that stuff. My wife grew up being told she had terrible sense of direction. And of all the people I know, she has the best sense of direction of anybody. So I think she just got lost one time when she was 16 in the car and people like tagged are with, you have a bad sense of direction.

Speaker 1 35:21
Right? Yeah, the things people tell you can really get in the way of your thinking.

Scott Benner 35:28
Okay, so you're like Mary Kay, you're a baby. You know, you're a baby. Everybody tells you that. So just stick it out. This doesn't hurt other people wouldn't mean wow, who cares? Pain is pain. It is whatever it is to you. But I take your point. Exactly. Okay. I'm sorry. So moving forward, we, what do we do 730

Speaker 1 35:44
hits, apparently, is when he got out of the class. So that's when I called him. And I'm like, at this point, I think I'm in labor, because the pain is just like through the roof. Like, I'm not able to be quiet anymore. I'm like, in a lot, a lot of pain. And I as I call him in a big tizzy. Like, I don't know what's going on. Maybe I'm in labor, this hurts so bad, like, you gotta get here or whatever. And he's like, What the heck are you doing? Why haven't you called 911? Basically, you're

Scott Benner 36:16
calling me for I'm in grad school? I don't know anything.

Speaker 1 36:20
Yeah. And so he's like, I'm going to call me and they'll tell me to call an ambulance. And I'm like, don't do that. Don't do that. Call the OB emergency line. So I convinced him to call the OB emergency line and Shaddam 911. So he hangs up with me calls them and lo and behold, they don't answer. So he calls me back. And it's like, I mean, this is all much more dramatic than I'm replaying it for everybody. But

Scott Benner 36:48
just so you all know, there's screaming and yelling, and you guys were yelling at each other. And there's high pitches. Yeah, I gotcha. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 36:55
Exactly.

Scott Benner 36:58
What are you doing? You like I just thought that it was like, like that kind of,

Speaker 1 37:02
right. Pretty much. Okay, gotcha. So he called back and he's like, they didn't answer I'm calling 911. Forget it. Basically, he's pretty cool under pressure. And obviously, with the way that I was freaking out, it was, like, obvious that that's what needed to happen. So he calls 911 to come pick me up. Meanwhile, he's like, you know, trying to fly. He's an hour away. So he's trying to fly back to where I am as fast as possible, because we don't, you know, we don't know what's going on. His side of the story is he thought with when I called that the baby had already died. He was like, I thought that I don't know. Like he just died inside of you. And your body was trying to, you know, give birth to our dead kids. So he's freaking out.

Scott Benner 37:49
Oh my god. Geez. Yeah, he took a leap. Ah, that sounds good. Yeah,

Speaker 1 37:55
yeah. Yeah. So called the ambulance ambulance gets to my house. Probably around like, eight or so he called 911. Around 745. And the ambulance takes me to the nearest hospital.

Scott Benner 38:08
Not the hospital you work at though, right? No,

Unknown Speaker 38:11
thank God. No.

Scott Benner 38:12
Okay. All right. I was wondering if that was part of the reason you didn't want to call or not?

Speaker 1 38:15
No, no, I commute to work. So that was okay. Okay.

Scott Benner 38:19
Not the issue. He must come in like hair on fire when he gets there. Well,

Speaker 1 38:24
he doesn't get there in time.

Scott Benner 38:27
Oh my gosh. Okay. Keep going. Look at you. Very key. Look at you tell on a story. Good job. Keep it going.

Speaker 1 38:35
So, yes, ambulance takes me to the nearest hospital which thank God I live in a big city. So it's a very, very good hospital and it's a hospital that has a NICU and a like a level four NICU thank God. So anyway, but I get there I'm, but whenever the ambulance gets here, I'm like, at this point, I'm, I think probably having a panic attack. Like I'm just screaming, like freaking out about everything. Everything hurts. But I think in my mind, I'm also like, really multiplying the pain because I'm so terrified about like, what's happening to me right now. So I get wheeled in to like labor and delivery, er or whatever. And I was in too much pain to lay on the stretcher or the gurney or whatever. So I got on it on my hands and knees that was more comfortable. So I can't see anything. And I like can't move out of this position either. So I'm like, just looking at the floor. But there's a million people running all around me. Everyone's everyone's freaking out, probably because I'm freaking out. But eventually they like, you know, they flipped me over and they everybody's poking me for labs and IVs and they're putting the contraction monitor on me and they're trying like how Oh, to get a Doppler on my baby to see how the baby's doing. That's whenever I hear somebody yell out, the heart rates only 60. And if you don't know anything about babies, a baby in utero, heart rates, like very, very high 151 60, something like that. So then I really start freaking out, because I think my baby's gonna die.

Scott Benner 40:26
You actually know what that number means. So yeah, a lot of people wouldn't, wouldn't know. But you did about that. Okay, so now you're flipping out more.

Speaker 1 40:35
Now I'm flipping out more, and I'm literally screaming at the top of my lungs. Where's my husband? Where's my husband? And nobody, which I've been on the other side as a as a health care provider and like a life or death emergency and it's, I understand why it's like, you really don't have the capacity or the time to address the patient's needs. But oh, my God, nobody would talk to me. They're all just like, doing things to me. But no one is talking to me. Nobody would answer me where my husband was, or tell me what was happening or what they were going to do to me. It's just horrible, horrible, like mad, panic, chaos. They do a cervical check. And I'm not very dilated. Yeah, she was like, she well, the OB yells at me, she's like, I need to do a search for cervical check on you. Because if you're dilated, you need to push right now and deliver this baby. Otherwise, we're going to the LR and so I'm like, okay, okay. Okay. And you know, she does it whatever. I was dilated to like a two or something. So, that was it. They pretty much immediately wheeled me off to the O R. And next thing I remember is finally a nurse. I'm still screaming, where's my husband? Because like, I just needed so badly for somebody to like, speak to me, like a human being to calm me down. And of course, I wanted him to do that.

Scott Benner 42:02
Yeah. Also, Medicaid, I think it's important to point out, you're a really mature person. I don't know if you know that about yourself. And but you're not that old. So like, it's all well and good to be mature. And like, you know, have your head about you because you have a job where you have to and stuff like that. But once it happens to you, you're 20 How old? Are you at that moment? You? 23?

Unknown Speaker 42:25
Yeah, yeah, I was 23 You're

Scott Benner 42:27
like a baby yourself? Yeah. Like, yeah, and you don't I know, listen, I've only been talking to you for 45 minutes. But I would definitely come get you if there was a problem that didn't involve you. Because that I think you'd be really, I think you'd be really rock solid. And it sounds like you grew up in a serious household with, you know, doctors, and, and, you know, you went on to be a nurse, etc. But like, it's the whole time you're talking. All I could think is you're my son's age. And he almost not qualified to deal with anything. So. So you know, and I remember being young too, when When Kelly was having a bit when Kelly was having cold, she was pretty young. And I look back now and I, I see myself through my eyes now. And I can see myself through how I thought of myself back then. Like we thought we knew what was going on and that we were handling things. And I'm sure we were but like as I look back on myself now I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So anyway, that just it's been ringing in my head the whole time. You're talking like How old were you when this was happening? So anyway, I'm sorry. So you they knock you out and give you a C section or you go out from the pain? How does that work? Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:38
they knocked me out. So I feel like the, you know, oh, ours are so freakin cold. So I remember. Well, finally, as we're running to the O R, a nurse comes right up to my face. And she's like, what's your husband's phone number. And in that moment, somehow I remember. I remember its phone number. So I recited off to her. And then the next thing I feel is just like that cool blast of air of being in the O R. And so I'm like, okay, like, I know what's going on. And then the OB, again, like, is screaming and she's like, we're going to do a lot of things that are going to be really uncomfortable, but I'm trying to save you and your baby's life. And then I just feel like this big dump of cold liquid on my belly, which I think was them literally just dumping beta dine on me as opposed to like doing the proper, right you know. And then the anesthesiologist comes over my head and he's like, this is gonna burn and then he just slams in whatever anesthetic he used into my IV.

Scott Benner 44:46
propofol, that stuff burns. I've had it before. Probably the Jacksons. Yeah, there's an by the way, for anybody who's wondering, I didn't know you're like, please let Mary Kate keep telling her story. But if you ever have to have it in a non emergency situation If they can cut your arm and put, they can put in something else that numbs it and takes the sting away. I can't think of what it is like Benadryl or something like that. It's probably not Benadryl. You probably shouldn't listen to me for medical stuff. But ask the anesthesiologist, isn't there something you could put in there to stop the burning? Because there is so yeah, burned like, Oh, I've had it. I've it feels like fire rolling up your arm and across your chest and it feels like your heart is gonna burst when it gets to it. Yeah. And the the issue is, is the rightest you think your heart's gonna burst? You just fall asleep? But anyway, keep going. So the burning comes, you're soaked in beta Dine, someone's talking to you about saving your life and the baby's life. And you and

Speaker 1 45:44
I go out he I remember the horrible burning and screaming from the burning and then he slaps the face mask over my screaming face. And that's that slides out from

Scott Benner 45:56
there. Wow. Oh, my God. Well, they saved your life. Obviously. Yes. Yeah. And we've already talked about your son. So I feel like everyone knows this was like the Titanic where you're like, I wonder what's gonna happen in this movie? Like the boats gonna say for sure. But we knew you guys were gonna be okay. So what? What happened? Like, why were you suddenly from months and months and 33 weeks of this is easy. My onesies are terrific. My blood sugar's are great. I'm cruising to Holy hell, I should call an ambulance. What the hell happened that day.

Speaker 1 46:27
So as I already told you, I got the flu. And as every good little diabetic knows, the flu predisposes you to DKA or, you know, any sickness. So I had that going against me and wasn't really thinking about that properly. And the day of my son's birth, I changed my pump site around like noon or one. So I did that. And then basically laid on the couch doing nothing. I was snacking. Like, I don't, I didn't, I don't think I'd even really eaten for the entire day. I was just sort of nibbling on some Wheat Thins and drinking like some Gatorade zero. So I looked back at my CGM graph in preparation for this and up until the birth my my blood sugar, I didn't even go over 150 for the day, because I was basically just laying there not even really eating but change my website around noon or one. Then if you look at my CGM graph, around 5pm, I go over 180. And then as I said, I kind of started all this cramping around like 6pm. And by 6pm, I was, let's see, by 6pm I was over 250. And by 7pm, I was over 307 pm is when I called my husband and the ambulance got there sometime around eight. My son was born at 844. And at 844 My blood sugar was 297 Were you bolusing

Scott Benner 48:11
in the afternoon while you were going up, or were you too sick to think about it? Yeah,

Speaker 1 48:16
I was. I was bolusing. But like, so I changed my site around noon or one. And I didn't even go over 130 until 415 didn't go over 180 until 505. So it's just like it happened. At Well, it happened slowly until it until I got you know, like a double arrow up but so from like noon or one till four, I mean, I wouldn't correct for anything until I go over 130 So from then I'm not doing anything about it. And then yeah, once the pain got so bad i i totally wasn't even thinking about diabetes anymore, right? I forgot about diabetes.

Scott Benner 48:53
So I mean, I'm assuming most people have figured out what happened by now but just say it.

Speaker 1 49:00
So my frickin cannula was kinked you had

Scott Benner 49:05
a king cannula you're in DKA I was in DK you had not had nearly enough insulin since noon. Yeah,

Speaker 1 49:12
yeah, exactly. So I wasn't I wasn't eating properly which I should have been because Hello you have the flu like you should be. You should be doing those boluses I should have been drinking a regular Gatorade, Gatorade zero and been doing Bolus is for that or something. But I wasn't I wasn't taking good care of myself from like a sick day perspective. And then my my fatal flaw is I put my pump site on like my love handle area. And by then my belly was so big that I couldn't like twist around to to look at which I'm using auto soft 30 So it's not a perfect view anyways, but you could at least see condensation kind of collecting if you had a bit cannula. I do remember looking in the mirror Before I called my husband trying to see like, is there condensation there because I had had that thought, because by that point I was pretty high. But yeah, so yeah, too little too late.

Scott Benner 50:11
I just want to mention for people that you can be in decay without a high blood sugar. Like just yeah, not having insulin can put you in DKA. So if you're not pregnant, and that happens, maybe you're, you'll eventually think, Oh, my, this is the cannula you might reintroduce insulin to yourself and then a couple of hours later feel okay again, like you might have been able to hydrate and Bolus your way out of that. Like it's just right, but the DEA threw it threw you into labor? Is that what you think happened? They're not sure. That's kind of what I mean. No one's gonna know.

Speaker 1 50:45
Right? Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what it seems like another theory my so it wasn't even my OB who ended up delivering the so my, my actual OB, whenever I tell her the whole story, another theory she had is maybe the dka put me in such severe dehydration that like I had lost so much amniotic fluid, but I was having horrible cramping. She said she's seen that happen before or maybe it was Labor it's kind of weird that I was only dilated to a two if it were labor and the pain was so bad, but you know, who knows?

Scott Benner 51:21
I mean, you can Google DKA causes early labor and get a number of different things that are interesting to read. But we're not going to do them now. But that's that's crazy like a kinked cannula. You are on the the cruise of all cruise pregnancy you get you get the flu, which you probably would have been okay with if the cannula didn't kink? Yep. And then yeah, back quickly all that happened.

Speaker 1 51:45
One mistake is sometimes all it takes to literally ruin your life.

Scott Benner 51:50
Yeah, I thought you were gonna say ruin the cake. Gather you're gonna go back to the baking thing, which would have been amazing, but I ruin your life is much easier because you were close to being dead. Do you think that's true?

Speaker 1 51:59
I don't know. I I think I would have been okay. I was when I got there. I was like, I mean, I was not doing well. I was I kind of like looking septic. i My heart rates was like what my babies should have been, I was like, way up 131 40s 150s. And my blood pressure was super low. So I wasn't doing well. But in terms of like, acidosis, I wasn't actually doing that bad. My Ph wasn't horribly low.

Scott Benner 52:30
When did they start managing your your blood sugar's after the the emergency C section? Because it's not like you didn't roll in there going, Hey, guys, by the way, I have the flu. And I changed my sight today. So God knows maybe that cannulas like you didn't have those conversations with anybody. So how long did it take them to figure all that out? Well,

Speaker 1 52:47
in I actually did tell them I did manage to get because you know, they're asking you questions. So I managed to get out. You know, I'm 3333 weeks, three days pregnant. I do have an OB because if when they see like a horrible situation like this, they kind of just assume that you're an idiot. And maybe you haven't even had any OB care so that I was able to get that out. I was able to get out that I had to have type one diabetes, and I was able to get out. I think I have the flu. That's like all the personal information that I gave them. Good

Scott Benner 53:18
for you. Mary Kate, is that because you're a nurse that you thought to make sure to squeeze that all out? Do you think?

Speaker 1 53:25
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like, they've got to know all this.

Scott Benner 53:28
Right. That's well done. Are you a different person professionally now because of your experience? I

Speaker 1 53:34
don't know. I think about that a lot. I'm sure her I'm sure it's affected the way that I treat my patients, but I don't I'm not sure in what ways? Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:44
Do you know Artem was in the emergency room last weekend? Twice? Oh, no. She had lower stomach pain that we couldn't figure out it looked like appendix at first. Anyway, she's at school, she ends up in an emergency room. They had her there for 12 hours and help her they knew they just they were like this isn't your appendix thing. Like they booted her Yeah. Then she ended up back there the next day because it it looked like okay, maybe it wasn't an appendix. But it feels like it could be gallbladder now because some other symptoms arose. And she finds herself back in the emergency room for 12 more hours sorry and spent 24 hours in the emergency room over 48 hours. And I would like you to guess how many times someone checked her blood sugar?

Speaker 1 54:25
Oh, God. Maybe? Like I would say at most twice on each occasion.

Scott Benner 54:34
Yeah would never surprise you. Wow, Never Never. No one ever checked to see what her blood sugar was the entire time she was in either time.

Speaker 1 54:43
Wow. They even asked her where they like Do you have a CGM?

Scott Benner 54:47
No they never talked about her diabetes. She was managing it. I was managing it remotely. What

Speaker 1 54:51
a disaster. Yeah, I mean, it's it's most of my colleagues have no idea how to manage it or have no idea what type Mine is for dang sure.

Scott Benner 55:00
Also keep in mind she was rocked on morphine both times. So if something did go wrong, she wasn't in the, in the right mind to take care of it either right? Arden's arm doesn't drink. She didn't do anything. So you hit her with morphine. She's, she's over pretty much, you know. And so I was managing it the first time, remotely. The second time I got on a plane and flew to where she was because of how bad the first time went. Yeah, I don't blame you. Yeah. So anyway, she's doing better now. But that's not that's not the point of me bringing this up. The point of me bringing it up is she was 19. Clearly scared, had something she couldn't figure out. They didn't know. She got there said I have type one diabetes, like, you know, told them the whole thing no one ever once looked. It's just embarrassing. Like, I didn't yell at anybody when I got there. But I wasn't nice. And I finally got them to do the testing they needed to do so we could rule out the things that needed to be rolled out. They were trying to street her the second time without checking her gallbladder after having her there for 10 hours.

Speaker 1 56:02
She's ers are just so dumb. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:07
When I got there, a man was standing over top of her and her roommates, and he was badgering them to leave. Wow. And art in about 15 minutes before I was able to get there. She said to him, I demand that you admit me? Yeah, yeah. And that's the only thing that froze him long enough for me to get there. Like she didn't really want to be admitted. But she's like, she's like, I knew they were kicking me out. And then if I asked to be admitted he wouldn't be able to kick me out anymore. Right. So she froze him. And she was like, I demand to be admitted. And that that was it. Like it gave me enough time to Uber from the airport to where she was. Oh, that's crazy. Anyway, it went great. Good job. I'm not gonna say the name of the hospital, but your disaster. So anyway. Yeah, so cool. What's your name? The baby. Jude. Nice. You call for him? Hey, Jude.

Unknown Speaker 57:02
Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 57:03
I mean, I would does it make you sing after you call for him? Of course, I was gonna say is your brain not as simple as mine? Because I'd be like, hey, now that I've been told that I would start singing.

Unknown Speaker 57:15
Pretty simple. Yeah. So wonderful.

Scott Benner 57:17
And he's fine, obviously. But he was early. He was seven weeks early. And so he was definitely not done cooking. What did did he have to be in the NICU for a while?

Speaker 1 57:26
Oh, yeah, you're just getting to the well, I guess for me, it's the worst part of the story, maybe not objectively, the worst part of the story. I was, you know, they put me to sleep for the C section. And the last thing that I had heard about him was that his heart rate was 60. But by the time they got him out, he actually had no heartbeat. So they resuscitated him there and the O R, and were able to bring him back the resuscitative and intubated him, and then he was in the NICU for six weeks. Wow.

Scott Benner 57:59
That's a long time. Did you? Was it touching go at any point? Or was he just too small to come out?

Speaker 1 58:05
Like they were, they were pretty confident with us that he was going to survive. They were really scared that he was going to have like severe brain damage. And they were very upfront with us about that. Just because they didn't nobody knew like how long. I mean, frankly, he was dead. Nobody knew for how long was he dead? Before they brought him back? In a baby. That's, I mean, that's a big deal to not have oxygen to your brain for any amount of time. That was that was the main concern. We were pretty sure he was gonna make it. But yeah, he took a really long time to recover, just respiratory wise, took a long time to get off the ventilator. And then, you know, I recovered from my acidosis within like, 24 hours, but it took him like, oh, my gosh, like, six or six or seven days. So yeah, so my DKA like, put him in metabolic acidosis. My blood was so toxic and tainted, and he's just getting all of it, obviously. So when they got to him, his his blood gas was just a disaster. So that was kind of the main thing that took so long. And then once they had all that correct, and it was just kind of your normal NICU stuff of getting him big and getting him able to eat and breathe on his own and everything.

Scott Benner 59:30
Do you feel like there's any deficits?

Speaker 1 59:33
No, oh, my God. No, he is. He's right on track. He's doing amazing like, and he's huge. People have no idea ever that he was a NICU baby.

Scott Benner 59:46
How old is he now?

Speaker 1 59:47
He is almost a year. He's 11 and a half months old.

Scott Benner 59:52
Congratulations. That's lovely. Thank you. Did you name him after St. Jude?

Speaker 1 59:56
No, but we did learn after the fact We're not Catholic, but we are we are Christian. And we learned after the fact that St. Jude is the Saint of impossible prayers, desperately

Scott Benner 1:00:08
cases and lost cases, right? Or lost desperate cases and lost causes maybe.

Speaker 1 1:00:14
Yes, yes. Something like that. And that was just like, Wow, what a God thing because we, I mean, for us the only way the only way we survived the only way he survived is just the flooding of prayers that we had from our community going out for him and just the way that he's completely fine now is kind of mind blowing. So he's definitely definitely was an impossible prayer.

Scott Benner 1:00:38
I'm risking freaking myself out here. Did you pick that name before the day? Or after?

Speaker 1 1:00:43
No, he's it was like three days after, actually. Because if you

Scott Benner 1:00:46
were like, we were gonna call them do the whole time, then I'm freaking out. But then Yeah, I'm okay with that. Well, you made a sad song and you made it better is that the line took a sad song and made it. So what are we gonna call the episode? Hey, Jude, probably right.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:01
I mean, that's pretty cute.

Scott Benner 1:01:03
I think that's what we got to do. Well, there's a lot there, Kate. Like I'm now I'm emotionally spent from having this conversation. I now I'm sorry. No, no, seriously, though. It really is crazy. That. It just that one moment, like, Listen, I've I've had that happen. Right. Arden had a pod that had to be changed while she was swimming. And sort of there'd been all this activity during the day. And so we expect them to have like lower blood sugars in the evening because of the of the all the activity and the swimming people know this. Right. So we changed the pump. It is literally in Gosh, Arden's been using Omnipod. Since she was four, she's 19. That's 15 years in 15 years of using on the pot that's changing one every three days. She's only ever had one king to cannula. Oh, wow. happened after that? Swimming. And so she wakes up the next morning. She's in DKA the next morning, just from that King cannula overnight. So Right. I don't even know how many pods. That is. It's insane. Right? We can figure it out. But 15 years, 365 days, probably 100. And some pods a year should probably wear. I mean, just crazy bow over 1200 pods maybe happen one time. And the one time it happened. It happened while she was asleep. Right didn't happen in the middle of the day where we would have noticed or something like that it didn't happen in a situation where we would have noticed quicker because her blood sugar would have shot up because it didn't shoot up because of all the swimming. Like just these little happenstance variables that kept it from being discovered right away. And it was you know, anyway, look, I always

Speaker 1 1:02:48
say it was just the perfect storm. Like everything lined up for a horrible disaster, right? Just was. And I feel so long. I was so angry because it's like, one tiny mistake one lapse in. You know, I don't know

Scott Benner 1:03:07
what I don't even you can't even blame yourself. Really? I mean, the cannula just kinked when you put it in? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:03:12
but you know, it's like, well, I should have made sure that it was working and all that. And I should have been doing like real sick day management that would have helped. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:23
but you know how many times people in your like with diabetes? get by? You know what I mean? Like, they just go like, I know what I should be doing. But it's going to be okay. And nine times out of 10. It is okay. And then

Speaker 1 1:03:36
that's been me my whole life. I've never I've never passed out from a low. I've never gone into DKA. So I kind of had this attitude of like, no, I got it. I got it. I always got it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:47
I'm telling you. I raised a little girl with diabetes. That's the biggest problem that is the most difficult to address is that it's difficult day today to have the same. Oh gosh, what's the word like sense of like, sense of like, we have to be on top of this that you have when you're parenting someone with type one, like when you're doing it as an adult? It doesn't make sense, right? You'd make yourself crazy. But yet, something's going to happen at some point. But look, you know, this could happen that can you could have kinked three days before before you were sick. And you probably would have figured it out. Your blood sugar would have started going up you haven't I know what the hell Oh, I just changed my site and blah, blah. But the cannulas being sick, blah, blah, blah. And you just you're trying to get through it. I'm telling you, that's crazy. Well, well, I'm happy obviously that it all worked out. And really nice of you to come on the podcast and tell everybody about it. Thank you so

Speaker 1 1:04:40
much. Oh, absolutely. It's like a dream come true. Kinda.

Scott Benner 1:04:45
Oh, do tell. I have a couple of minutes. Why am I fantastic? Now's the time.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:53
Oh, I think you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:55
it's fine. I'm very happy that the podcast is here. been invaluable for you through a lot, you know, through this time. So I really do appreciate you adding your story to it, because this is the kind of thing people need to hear. Like, you know, it's all well and good when nothing bad happens at the other side. But, you know, this is a great, it's a great experience to share to give people the idea that you do have to be diligent, you know, like, you can't just keep letting it go over and over again, it's gonna catch up at some point. And, man, I'm just glad that it all worked out. And so your husband, he, he gets there. I just this is the last little Yeah, he's there while you're in surgery already, is when he arrives. So

Speaker 1 1:05:39
it turns out well, I, I didn't ever see him. When I woke up. I wake up and I see him. So I'm gonna go thank God. But what actually happened is he he was there. And this is just perfect storm. It's hilarious. They took me to labor and delivery er, the ambulance did and he shows up to the hospital and goes to main er, and is at the ER front desk, like where's my wife? Where's my wife? Benedetta. And by the time, you know, the ER locates me and is like, Oh, she's over in lnd. Er, I was already back in the or so. That's, that's how we missed each other just

Scott Benner 1:06:17
like that. Oh my gosh, does he know? When do you to find out together the baby situation? Where does he find out before you wake up?

Speaker 1 1:06:28
Together, but I was like, kind of, you know, half there. I remember the doctor standing there and being like, he's alive. But we don't know if he's gonna be you know, fully functioning basically. I remember her being like, you know, just very direct about it.

Scott Benner 1:06:47
And tempering your expectations. Yes, yes. But

Speaker 1 1:06:52
he, you know, obviously went to meet him without me and everything like that. So

Scott Benner 1:06:57
did you were you with it enough to know how bad it was? Or were you kind of really out of it?

Speaker 1 1:07:01
I was really out of it. I thought I was with it. But then looking back I didn't really come to for for like two days because they had me on a you know, a lot of pain medicine and then I was still in DKA and yada

Scott Benner 1:07:16
yada. Sure. No, no, no, I imagine. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Well, if it's okay with you, I'm definitely calling this one. Hey, Jude. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I'm thrilled that, uh, that everything's okay. I seriously it's very kind of you. I would stay on with you a little longer, and talk about other stuff. But the truth is, I'm looking back on our conversation. I think this is about as much as people can take from whatever.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:39
I'm, I'm sad that I'm such a depressing. No,

Scott Benner 1:07:41
not depressing if it feels like I'm on a roller coaster.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:45
Yeah, I mean, well,

Scott Benner 1:07:48
yeah, I just feel like I feel like we've been on the Tilton world long enough. Now we all need to get off.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:54
Everybody needs to go listen to something happy.

Scott Benner 1:07:56
Yeah, I'm sure there's an after dark or someone's doing something absolutely insane. You can go listen to that. It'll probably pop you right up. Although I'm told by some people they don't like the after darks because they find them sad, but I find them incredibly interesting. So I don't know. Do you like them?

Speaker 1 1:08:11
Yeah, not. They're not really my style. I've I've only listened to one I think to me, to be honest with you.

Scott Benner 1:08:17
It's too much when people's like, have so much like distress in their life.

Speaker 1 1:08:22
Yeah, basically, I'm like, my life's crazy enough. Like, I don't want to I feel the same way about like sad movies or scary movies. It's just like, I don't want to consume, you know, negativity, I guess like life is. Life is crazy enough. It

Scott Benner 1:08:35
certainly is. Hey, here's my last question for you. Are you planning on having more kids?

Speaker 1 1:08:41
I am. Yeah. Yeah, you think it'd be okay. All I can do is pray. Did

Scott Benner 1:08:47
you ever figure out who gave you the flu?

Speaker 1 1:08:51
No, I don't know. Is probably at work. Realistically, it was flu season. I didn't care for anyone directly that had the flu. But we did have patients there that that were flu positive. Around.

Scott Benner 1:09:02
Yeah, I take it all right. I just like it because I there's part of music. I hope it's not somebody in their family. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, like,

Speaker 1 1:09:11
that'd be horrible. I would not be able to get over that one. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:09:15
How did your dad handle the story afterwards? Because he understands it too. Like, is it hard for him to hear? Ah,

Speaker 1 1:09:23
yeah, definitely. He's like, he's really emotional, but like, keeps it on the DL. So I don't know. I know, like my parents came down, you know, the next morning and my husband's parents and I know everybody was kind of a mess. But I didn't. Everybody put on a brave face for me, I guess is the point. And I didn't really wake up out of all my craziness until like day two or three. So until

Scott Benner 1:09:49
you've been in a situation where a loved one is in a desperate that way. You don't realize how everyone just gets very like, Oh, it's fine. You'll look great. This is going to be okay. A Don't worry, I told my mom not to worry three hours before she was going to I knew she was going to die. And I was pretty sure it was going badly. I like Mom, it's gonna be alright. Like, there's nothing left to say. You know what I mean? Yeah. What are you going to? What are you going to do? Go? Oh, looks bad man. You better talk to Jesus because I think he's coming. So like, you know, it's so everyone does that thing, because they're just trying to get you back to a good place, you know? And exactly, yeah, it's wonderful. Well, listen, I'm glad you had people around you. And the law worked out. If you hold on just one second. I just need to talk to you for a second after we're done. But thank you so much for doing this. Of course, I

was happy to Oh, great. I don't one second.

A huge thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website touched by type one.org or on Facebook and Instagram. A huge thanks to Dexcom for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast dexcom.com/juice box head over there now. Get started today. Jalen is an incredible example of what so many experienced living with diabetes, you show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes to find you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox And look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made the finding diabetes, go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes, to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative. That's the finding diabetes. Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're gonna hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Speaker 2 1:12:22
My name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since.

Scott Benner 1:12:37
Nice. How old? were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes?

Speaker 2 1:12:39
I was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:12:44
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What do you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Speaker 2 1:12:49
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 1:12:58
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Speaker 2 1:13:01
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was,

Scott Benner 1:13:22
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time? I

Speaker 2 1:13:25
honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 1:13:43
Was there any expectation of diabetes? Is somebody else in your family have type one? No,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:47
I was the first one to have type one in my family.

Scott Benner 1:13:49
And do you have children? Now? I do not know. Do you think you will one day, still

Speaker 2 1:13:54
thinking about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 1:13:59
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Speaker 2 1:14:02
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about

Scott Benner 1:14:10
eight years now. And you get to travel a lot in that job. Yes, I

Speaker 2 1:14:14
experience a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes. What

Scott Benner 1:14:24
do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Speaker 2 1:14:28
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt I felt like I needed to always have something on me and that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 1:14:50
So growing up in the small town. What was your initial challenge during diagnosis, and what other challenges did you find? along the way.

Speaker 2 1:15:00
Yeah, I think the initial one, I felt isolated, I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through. You know, they were people would say, Oh, I know, this is like hard for you. But I was like, you really don't like I, I just felt lonely. I didn't know, you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this, you can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been, you know, I don't even remember what it was like, for life before diabetes at this point, because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a life with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:15:34
when you found yourself misunderstood? Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 2 1:15:42
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it, which I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 1:15:59
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in.

Speaker 2 1:16:03
I think I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out was people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before, is

Scott Benner 1:16:25
college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time, or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking. So

Speaker 2 1:16:31
I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person. And he had had it since he was a kid like young once this was like, maybe born, or like, right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college. And I started meeting other people, I was a member of the band, and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university. But then, once I moved to, I moved to St. Louis. And a lot of my friends I met were like med students, and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic. And I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technologies, and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more. And with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:17:23
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school, but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Speaker 2 1:17:34
I didn't, you know, I honestly didn't think about it, I just was i Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much to, like, connect with them. So sorry, connect with them all. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:54
no. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people, but there's still value in that. Right?

Unknown Speaker 1:18:06
Correct.

Scott Benner 1:18:07
What do you think that value was at the time?

Speaker 2 1:18:09
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 1:18:25
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:18:29
So about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around, and I noticed stumbled upon the patriotic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my punk you couldn't, I would wear long sleeves, like, didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community, just, they embraced it, you can see and they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 1:19:04
How is it knowing that your diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Speaker 2 1:19:17
I will refuse to go anywhere. Like, I would run to the bathroom. I just didn't want to do it in public because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into the professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out because I was so afraid. But then once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on and how does this work and what does this mean and things like that, which made it kind of inspired me because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand And what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:20:02
what did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag, and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well? Can you tell me how that is either different or valuable? I guess compared to meeting a few people in real life?

Speaker 2 1:20:19
Absolutely. I think if you look back from when I was first diagnosed to now, you, I would have never thought of like, you know, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes. And now it's like, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, and you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that, that kind of just motivates me, and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know, how I live with type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 1:20:54
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one?

Speaker 2 1:20:58
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows, it understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know, what's going on with your mic? I'm actually a type one diabetic? This is what's going on? I need your help. What about?

Scott Benner 1:21:36
Once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship? After

Speaker 2 1:21:49
I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after some type of event or anything like they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front? Because they were like, you know, I care about you, as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 1:22:06
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation. But what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn? And you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:22:21
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars, you know, I can tell like, for my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to you know, when I go out backtrack, when I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And and so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have snacks, we got to take some insulin, and my blood sugar is running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin, and I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me in my career, because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:23:12
right? Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people? Yeah, I

Speaker 2 1:23:23
can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I always at least said it, I have been showing that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of understood it, because I'm scared, but it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the work day because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 1:23:56
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Speaker 2 1:24:12
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions, or comment and be like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos and upload videos, and I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that, but I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make like just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:24:42
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more.

Speaker 2 1:25:09
Yes, I think it's just because it's something you see. And so it's like, and I think that one thing, and obviously, it's a big stereotype of our diabetes is you don't feel like you have diabetes. And that's something I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people, and I'm like, they have type one diabetes, just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed.

Scott Benner 1:25:38
What are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist, and you make a plan for the next few months? What are you hoping to achieve? And where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes, I'll

Speaker 2 1:25:49
be honest, I was not someone who is you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I have personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my chance, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs, I see your, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high, too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like an exciting visit for me.

Scott Benner 1:26:37
So you'd like to set a goal for yourself. And then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal.

Speaker 2 1:26:44
Yeah, I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard our journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible you're doing it's just, it's not going to motivate you because it's you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve. That's what really has been the game changer for me in the past two years. Jalen,

Scott Benner 1:27:22
I appreciate you spending this time with me. This was terrific. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:25
Absolutely. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:27:27
If you enjoy Jalen story, check out Medtronic. diabetes.com/juicebox Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com

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#1185 Type 1 Doesn't Discriminate

Rouselind and her son have Type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 1185 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's show I'll be speaking with Rosalyn, she has type one diabetes and a child who also has type one. Today we'll talk about Rosland story that begins all the way back with mph, and will also discuss how different ethnic backgrounds have different pathways to learning about diabetes. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, the T one D exchange is looking for you they just need you to complete a survey it takes about 10 minutes. You just have to be a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of one and you can do this survey it helps move type one diabetes research forward, your answers will help T one D exchange.org/juicebox. To save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com Please use the offer code juice box at checkout. And if you're going to drink ag one two with my link drink ag one.com/juice box don't forget to find the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes us med is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox 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 888721151 for use the link or the number get your free benefits check it get started today with us med this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the only implantable sensor rated for long term wear up to six months. The ever since CGM ever since cgm.com/juicebox.

Rosalind 2:09
My name is Rosalind. 42 years old, I was diagnosed with type one when I was 12. And I have two children. One my son is 13. And my daughter is nine. My son also has type one. He was diagnosed when he was seven. And he was recently diagnosed with celiac earlier this year

Scott Benner 2:29
as well. Okay. And your daughter's nine she doesn't have does not have any autoimmune issues. Thankfully, no. Okay. All right. This is on your side, the autoimmune or are their father's side too. Until

Rosalind 2:41
now, I was the only person with an autoimmune. I have two siblings, and neither one of them has type one. No one on either side of my family has type one. Until recently, when my son was diagnosed with celiac, I found out to my mom that we actually have I have a second cousin. I think yeah, his second cousin who actually also has celiac.

Scott Benner 3:04
Oh, okay. All right. Well, then that's I mean, not a big, not a big tree for sure. But at least that's a little more information for you. You were diagnosed when you were 12. That's 30 years ago.

Rosalind 3:15
It was 1993. Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 3:17
What was that? Do you remember that at all?

Rosalind 3:20
I actually do. I remember I started with symptoms towards the end of sixth grade. Obviously, we didn't we didn't have a history of it in the family. It was also the 90s. So you know, no one really there was no internet or anything like that. I remember being very thirsty. I remember the kids would get mad after PE when it was my turn to get up to the water fountain. I also remember kind of like the teacher like being upset every time I had to go to the restroom. And then I remember also looking back at my pictures. I was so so so skinny for my graduation pictures. Yeah, I didn't get diagnosed officially until the end of the summer. So I basically went on with the symptoms for like three months. That's

Scott Benner 4:02
what I was gonna ask you. Do you think it went on for about three months? Yes. lost weight, bothering kids at the water fountain. But do you think the water fountain is even a thing kids understand now? They have bottle filling stations. Now. Did you know that right?

Rosalind 4:17
So no, I don't think so. You remember you would just

Scott Benner 4:21
put your mouth right on it. You didn't care?

Rosalind 4:24
Exactly. Especially when I was going through that. I mean, I would just stand there. And I remember the teacher will counsel 10 per kid. So what I will do is stay a little bit extra and then go back to the end of the line. And hopefully you get another turn. So I remember that so clearly. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:41
Is that a thing? You ever? Do you recall it being worrisome to you or no? No,

Rosalind 4:47
I actually don't because I don't even think my mom realized that until my stepfather was the one who noticed and said she's losing a lot of weight something doesn't seem right like she I don't know. I don't think she noticed that either. Wow.

Scott Benner 5:02
Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things right. Like, I don't know how you didn't go. Did you go into DKA? Or do you remember being taken to the hospital or doctor's office?

Rosalind 5:10
Yeah, no, I did not. I don't think I wanted to DKA. But I do remember I was in summer camp. And I remember my mom picking me up. And I remember I was just laying down on literally on the concrete as other kids were playing. And so geez, she just picked me up and took me to the Children's Hospital. Because what happened was when my stepfather mentioned to her, she she looks really, really thin. Something isn't right. She just took me to the regular pediatrician and they did blood work. So they called her a few days later and let her know, hey, her sugar is high. You got to take her to the ER right now.

Scott Benner 5:43
And when she goes to find you just lying on the ground,

Rosalind 5:46
I remember that. Yes, I was laying I had like zero energy. And this was in Florida in the middle of the summer. So it was like super hot. And I do remember that I was laying down

Scott Benner 5:57
like a fried egg on the ground. Well imagine that. Yeah, but seriously, imagine being so depleted, that you? That seems like a reasonable thing to deal with laying on the hot ground, you know, right.

Rosalind 6:10
And I remember always like when she would serve me dinner, I would eat all of it. But then I would always and it was so funny, because then later on, she was like I was killing you. Because I would always ask for more soda. And my mom was one of those moms that was okay. She will just give us more soda. And I remember drinking like glasses after glasses of orange soda. You

Scott Benner 6:29
know, everyone's mom. And so I'm saying that they're like, Oh, I can't believe like, my favorite part is when people are like, you know, we were on our way to the hospital. And my kid asked for some food or something or said they were hungry. And I thought well, maybe this is their last time so I got them some big crazy meal or something like that. And right. Your mom was just happy to probably that you were eating. Honestly, you don't I mean,

Rosalind 6:50
probably Yeah. Because I was so skinny. She was we were all I have two sisters that we were all very small growing up. So she was probably like, okay, she's finally eating. And then she probably she also thought it was like, oh, puberty and you know, she's changing and all this other stuff. So she never put the two

Scott Benner 7:05
together? Of course not. And what gets you there? Finally, is your stepfather saying, hey, something's wrong. She takes you to the doctor. They do the blood work, and then this whole thing starts for you. Correct? Yeah. Okay, so management 30 years ago looks like what? How many times have you thought it's time to change my CGM? I just changed it. And then you look and realize, Oh, my God, it's been 14 days already a week, week and a half. Feels like I just did this. Well, you'll never feel like that with the Eversense CGM. Because ever since is the only long term CGM was six months of real time glucose readings giving you more convenience, confidence and flexibility. So if you're one of those people who has that thought that I just did this then I why we're gonna have to do this again right now. If you don't like that feeling, give ever sent to try because we've ever since you'll replace the sensor just once every six months via a simple in office visit ever since cgm.com/juicebox. To learn more and get started today, would you like take a break take a shower you can with ever since without wasting a sensor. don't want anybody to know for your big day. Take it off. No one has to know whether your sensor has been failing before 10 or 14 days. That won't happen with ever since. Have you ever had a sensor get torn off while you're pulling off your shirt. That won't happen with ever since. So no sensor to get knocked off. It's as discreet as you want it to be. It's incredibly accurate. And you only have to change it once every six months. Ever since cgm.com/juice box.

Rosalind 8:45
It was NPH and regular. I had the I still remember the one touch meter the squared one that took 45 seconds to give you a result

Scott Benner 8:56
was that the one that looked like a like the size of a brick. It wasn't

Rosalind 8:59
as big as a brick. But it was I think it was called One Touch basic. And then eventually they came up with one touch to

Scott Benner 9:06
me to try to find a picture of it while we're talking. It

Rosalind 9:09
was like gray it was like light gray and then I still remember the the middle was like a darker green. And then it was 45 seconds to get your results which was like oh my gosh, longest 45 seconds where you

Scott Benner 9:22
just like standing there waiting to see if I am looking at it. Oh my god. You can find one on eBay still. One Touch basic by lifescan.

Rosalind 9:31
Yes, yes. It will say that I remember that. Uh huh. Oh,

Scott Benner 9:35
that's fantastic. Look at that thing. But look, you know what it looks like a Um, wow, this is something no one's I don't even know if I should bother saying this. But I used to have a handheld football game. But the football players were just dashes on the screen. And the football player that had the ball was a bold dash and the other ones weren't and then you had these little I know no one remembers this at all. You're too young for that. You're like, Yo, Scott, come on. I had Colico vision at least, it just looks exactly like that. It's crazy. It's just a gray box. You you described it perfectly by the way. It's

Rosalind 10:11
in my brain. Like I can literally see it right now. And I don't have it in front of me. Yeah, that's

Scott Benner 10:15
amazing. So let me kind of work backwards a little bit. How is your overall health right now? Do you have any, any issues?

Rosalind 10:23
I luckily do not have any complications whatsoever that I know of. And I mean, I get tested. I go to the doctor regularly. So I don't have any complications.

Scott Benner 10:35
Amazing. When do you know how long used regular an MPH for?

Rosalind 10:38
I use regular and NPH? Actually a little bit like a little too long. I think I started our Lantis and human log, like in 2005 or six, or maybe even seven to be honest with

Scott Benner 10:54
you. Oh, uh, you were over 10 years doing it that way? Oh, yeah. That's something and then when you move to the more modern insulins, back then you're not pumping still. You're doing MDI.

Rosalind 11:08
I actually you mean now currently back then

Scott Benner 11:10
when you got off regular and mph? Did you go to a pump? Oh, no, I

Rosalind 11:14
was on pens. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 11:16
How long did that go for before you made it to a pump?

Rosalind 11:19
I actually made it to a pump because of my son. And I actually started on a pump

Scott Benner 11:24
last year. Ah, this is what I was wondering if you were gonna say so your your the way you manage was the way you manage it was working fine for you. And you you had no need to change it. What were your A onesies like over the last decade? For example?

Rosalind 11:37
I honestly don't think I ever went past like an eight. Okay. I never did I remember when I first got pregnant with my son. And I went in they of course, it wasn't perfect. I think it was like a 7.6. And then I worked really hard at it. And I went down to I think the lowest I got throughout his pregnancy was probably like a 6.2.

Scott Benner 11:58
Good for you look at that. And then after the pregnancy is over, do you kind of just go back to the way you did it before? Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So with your MDI, and I have to be honest, like holding than a one C like that, coming from the time you came from is very respectable, and and like good work. You know what I mean? Because you I mean, how much information did you have about diabetes? Honestly, honestly,

Rosalind 12:20
not a lot. But I think I figured some things out. Like I figured what made me feel good and what didn't. I also remember, as a child, it was, we would go to the clinic for for type one. And it was like the day that although type ones would be seen by an endocrinologist. And I remember a parents who also had type one talking to my mom. So I was born and raised in Miami. So it's a big Hispanic community, as my culture is also Hispanic. So we eat a lot of rice, right, and beans and stuff like that. And I remember this woman talking to my mom and saying, let her eat as much as she wants just not as much rice. Okay. And so, yeah, that always stuck to me and to my mom. So I would always have more protein and veggies. Also, we had a nutritionist when I was hospitalized. And again, it was a big Hispanic community. So even the nutritionist was Hispanic. And she even said that you want any more, eat more, be more protein, eat more veggies. Not as much rice don't have a lot of racks. It's

Scott Benner 13:22
crazy how things happen while I'm recording. Two days ago, I put up an episode. It's a type two story with this girl who's Mexican. And the next day, I you know, we talked about kind of culturally how that impacted with food when she was growing up. The next day I recorded with a woman who has type one, if I'm being honest, Roslyn, she was a very white lady. And she had a very Spanish last name. And I was like, What's going on here? Like when she spoke, you could tell she spoke Spanish. And I was like, what's happening? So I just asked her, her husband's Mexican. Oh, he had just gotten type two. And she that led into more conversation about the culture and the food. And then when you just said today, like, you know, this is my heritage, and it's like, what am I on? Lika? You don't I mean, like, is this like, tell them under this week? What's going on here? It's like, fifth, I

Rosalind 14:08
would say that because I've been listening to your podcast since my son was diagnosed in 2018. And I'm like, Hey, we I need to hear more Hispanic stories or other cultures. I need to hear more, because I'm like, I know. I'm not the only one.

Scott Benner 14:20
Apparently, I'm on it this week. So it's fantastic. You said that I was like, this might be like, I gotta look to see if like, I made a did I put out an email for like, cultural like stuff? And I'm like, I don't think I did. But anyway, so you know, it's funny, I think, because when people come on from different cultural backgrounds, they have no trouble saying look, it's our culture. We eat a lot of this or there's a lot of pasta or a lot of rice or you know, like, but but nobody ever says look, I'm a I have a standard American diet culturally. We eat a lot of processed food and a lot of like, it's it's interesting, isn't it? Yeah.

Rosalind 14:56
And I actually did hear that episode. You're mentioning with the Young Lady earlier this week, and I remember when she was talking about that. And that's exactly what I thought. I'm like, wait a minute. Every culture has food is actually there's healthier versions and and then the regular good stuff. You know what I mean? We can

Scott Benner 15:13
all eat chicken and broccoli, but it doesn't matter what your culture.

Rosalind 15:18
Right? It just depends on how you make it. Yeah. Is it? Yeah, is it portion control in my opinion. And so I learned that early on, and I tried my best to stick to it. And that's what I did.

Scott Benner 15:32
I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies, and never had a good experience. And it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually for about three years now. Because that's how long we've been using us med us med.com/juice box or call 888721151 for us med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omni pod dash, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys. They have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996. And they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. US med carries everything from insulin pumps, and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and Dexcom G seven. They accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at us med.com/juice box or just call them at 888-721-1514 get started right now. And you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do. I think what people are really saying is they're going look over generations, the people in my family have decided that on these days of the year or this day of the week or whatever, it doesn't matter what we because it's the thing we do. And so you know, it's Christmas. So you can eat cookies for breakfast or like, you know, it's this so that and you know, I don't know, I'm interested by it. It's a it's an interesting way people talk about their food. So I don't know, I'm always I always like these conversations. No. You're MDI this whole time. And then, by the way, not an uncommon story. Your kids diagnosed and what does that do? It makes you reevaluate yourself.

Rosalind 17:35
Um, yes, absolutely.

Scott Benner 17:37
What is it, you see, that makes you think, Oh, maybe I should be doing something different.

Rosalind 17:42
So first of all, he was diagnosed in 2018. And it's very interesting, because I'm not the one who caught it. It was my husband.

Scott Benner 17:50
Yeah, that is kind of funny. Yeah. I'm always like, How did I miss

Rosalind 17:53
that? So he wasn't even showing like symptoms. He there was no weight loss. There was no frequent urination or anything like that. The way we found out was, it was a Cinco Demayo weekend. And my son has always been a big eater. And so he wanted tacos. I was like, okay, cool, make them tacos. But he kept asking for more and more food. And I mean, he was seven at the time. And I think he had like, four toggles and my husband's like, something's wrong. Like, why is he sweating like that? And I'm like, What do you mean, he's running around and he's eating? And my husband for some reason to this day, I will never know what made him ask that he goes, get your meter and check his sugar. I was like, Okay, I was like, You're crazy. But okay, I'll check a sugar. Check a sugar here. Sugar was 220 something. And I was like, This is not right. So we did a second test. And it was 220 something again, then I checked myself, check my husband cuz I'm like, the meters broken. This can't be right. Yeah. And so when we see that it's actually reading, right? I mean, the rest is history. We I we got them. We took them to the ER. And by the next morning, it was you know, they diagnosed him it was type one

Scott Benner 19:07
that break your heart or where does that land you? Like psychological?

Rosalind 19:11
Oh, my gosh, no, I was devastated. Why?

Scott Benner 19:14
Tell me what what about your life made you feel that way?

Rosalind 19:17
I felt really guilty. For some reason. I even got emotional now.

Scott Benner 19:23
Okay, I'm sorry.

Rosalind 19:26
It's okay. He was so young. And that was always my biggest fear. And I felt bad because when I planned when we plan to have children, I mean, honestly, he wasn't planned. But before that, I had always asked doctors, what's the likelihood that my kids will get this? And they're like, oh, no, they're likely to it's the same as anybody else. That's what they were telling me. I even had the handle told me that due to my age, because I had them when I was 29. They were like the likelihood is even less that your children will have type one Okay, it's like, okay, cool. Even as a baby, I asked this pediatrician, they're like, it's, you know, he has the same risk as any other child. So then fast forward to this day, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe that's happening. So my fears. I mean, I guess it's just be living with that. And he was so young, and you know, just thinking complications and things like that, even though I didn't have any. But, you know, it has always been in the back of my mind that that's something that can happen. So

Scott Benner 20:30
were you seated with those fears? When you were growing up? Did people talk to you like, about it that way? Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. So eat like this, or this is gonna happen, like, take your insulin, or this is gonna happen, those sort of things were said.

Rosalind 20:45
Yes, not by my mom. My mom never did that. But the end goals were not exactly. I still remember one Endo, I went in, I don't remember my agency. So I don't remember what caused him to say this to me. But we go in, and he just puts his hands over my eyes. And he tells me if you continue this, this is what's going to happen, you're not going to be able to see, I was like, you know, that terrified me. And I was like, Oh, my gosh.

Scott Benner 21:09
So did it work? So I've heard it described by people as someone tried to scare me into taking care of myself. And it backfired, or they tried to scare me, and it worked. Did you like Were you scared straight? Or did you just ignore it? I

Rosalind 21:23
didn't ignore it. And it also I also wasn't scared straight, I still just went on doing what I was doing. And in the back of my mind, I just basically started thinking, I might as well enjoy everything as much as I can. Because you never know when this thought or the other might happen. So it was always in the back of my mind. But it didn't. I mean, I still went out and ate my sugar still ran high. Sometimes, you know, I still partied and things like that. But I wouldn't say a scare me straight. But it also did kind of, I guess, in a way. Now, I don't want to say help. But I guess it just always made me aware of the fact that, you know, I might have issues later on. So I might as well enjoy things as much as I can. If that makes sense. Like

Scott Benner 22:06
it does make sense. I've and I've heard other people say it, that, to me seems like the danger of it. Like if you if you tell somebody, Hey, if you keep going like this bad things are gonna happen. But then they don't tell you how to stop going like this, whatever that means. You have no tools, you just now you just have the consequence in front of you. And right,

Rosalind 22:24
because there's not like they gave you they told me what to do after that. It's not like, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 22:30
It's my biggest pet peeve with doctors is they like to tell you like, the x is going to happen if you don't fix it, but they don't tell you what fix it is. And you know, where they I don't know, if they assume you know, I can't tell Rozlyn? I can't tell if they assume you know, or if they don't know how to explain to you how to achieve it. I can never figure out exactly, maybe it's sometimes, you know, sometimes it's just bad communication. Maybe sometimes it's a doctor who doesn't understand what to tell you. Like, I don't know the difference, but it's upsetting because then you have this conversation with somebody 30 years later, and you're like, hey, you know, I didn't know what to do. And, you know, you would you have worked at it if you knew.

Rosalind 23:12
I think so. But I think also what I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that if they don't have a lifelong condition, they don't understand how difficult it could be to manage that along with life. If that if, if that makes sense. And I think they think that those quick courses that they gave you of counting carbs, or the exchange diet, which is what they did back then, like they think that in one week that they teach you all that that's just what you're gonna go by forever. Yeah, they don't know. Yeah, I think it's a lot. And then also the fact that what they see you for, like 15 minutes. Yeah. So I

Scott Benner 23:47
definitely think the mix of the problem is a little bit that most medications are like, Hey, take this in the morning on an empty stomach, or, you know, like that kind of stuff. And I do think they feed out that diabetes information in the same way. You just count this, you do this, you push the button here, it's all going to be fine. You know, don't worry about

Rosalind 24:06
Yeah, because when I went on shots, when the pens, I remember they gave me a class on how to carb calm. Until then I didn't know how to carb count, because I was still on mph and regular. Yeah. So now fast forward to the Lantis and human. I had a class for like an hour, I think. And I remember I think it was a nurse. And so she taught me how to carb count. And so what she told me was one unit per 15 carbs. And I remember going home that day and thinking I counted correctly. And I gave myself way too much insulin and I started dropping. I remember like sweating and I'm like, Oh my gosh, what is going on? And then after that I was like, I need to figure this out on my own because they really what they were telling me wasn't working. So I kind of just tried to figure it out on my own. Just like I had a scare with Atlantis, where I was told to take it in the mornings. No, I'm sorry in the evenings they told me to take it in the evenings. And then I would wake up and I will be really low during the night. So what I did was I started taking it in the mornings, and I helped a little bit.

Scott Benner 25:08
And that's you around 22 years old, right? Like in your early 20s? Yes. When you started shooting, right, right. So this is interesting, because you had an experience, and then said to yourself, that's not right. I'm going to have to experiment. But some people have that experience over and over again, and they do not have the nerve to break free of what the doctor told them. Like, why were you so comfortable saying, I'm not gonna do this overnight? I'll do it during the day. I really

Rosalind 25:34
can't tell you. I just knew I was scared to go to sleep at night and not wake up. So I was like, okay, maybe I can try this in the morning. At the end of the day, it didn't make sense to me. I'm like, What is the point? I was always used to doing my NPH and regular in the morning, not before bedtime. So I guess I just apply that idea to the Lantis.

Scott Benner 25:53
You just apply common sense. Like if I'm gonna get low, I'd like to be awake while it's happening. Correct? Yeah, that's simple, isn't it? Wow. Isn't that interesting? And so just your personality? Do you kind of not take crap from people generally speaking?

Rosalind 26:05
I think so. Yeah.

Scott Benner 26:08
You're like, Yeah, sure. I don't want to sound harsh, but I don't take people. Right. No, it just because you see what I'm saying? Like there are plenty of people who will struggle for their life, doing a thing that they absolutely as they're doing it think this is not the right thing to do. Right. And yet they will. It's what the doctor told them and they and they won't break free from it. So go so good for you. Congratulations. But still, even having done that in your early 20s. You're still getting seven and a half, eight a one sees you know, get it down to the six is for a pregnancy. Babies born back kind of how you're doing it. You have another little I mean, it looks like if he was seven, she's nine. She was three. She was Yeah, then she was a baby when he was four,

Rosalind 26:55
three and a half or four. Okay. And another thing to what you said before that another thing I had pushback from the doctors was, I would always test my blood sugar. I they've recommended before meals. And I remember this so vividly. No matter who the handle was they were always asking me, why are you testing so much? Because I was testing sometimes up to 910 times a day. And they couldn't wrap their head around why I was doing it that often. And I remember having to tell them, I'm exercising. So I need to know where my blood sugar is before I start exercising, or I need to know if I'm lower now before I get in a car before I started driving. And so that was another pushback I got they would always ask me. Why are you testing so often, you're only supposed to test before meals.

Scott Benner 27:43
Two things that happened to me when Arden was younger that stuck in my head. And I still like I can picture the scenario I was in when it was said to me. So the first one is similar to you. I said, Hey, listen, she's eating and like an hour and a half after she eats her blood sugar spiking up? And do you know what they said to me? Stop testing, then. Wow. And I'm like, Yeah, I was like, Stop, hold on a second. So for blood sugar is getting really high. And I want to know what it's doing. So I can figure out how to stop it. And they're like, does it come back down? And I'm like, yeah, they go then don't worry about it. I'm like, but no, but like, it could go to 300 or more. Right? I was told the same thing. Yeah, just don't test them. And I was like, so we're gonna go with head in the sand on this one. I was like, that's, that's your vibe. And the other thing around insulin that was said to me. And testing specifically that I just like, shocked me immediately, is I said, Well, how often do I have to test her overnight? And they said, You don't have to test overnight. And I was like, Well, if I don't have to test overnight, why do I have to test during the day? And just the blank stare? Like I said, What's the difference between being asleep and being awake? I'm like, I don't understand, right? You need to get sleep. And I was like, that doesn't address the problem of her blood sugar. It's fascinating. Like, there's no common sense in either of those states. Right? And that's what people were told for freaking ever. Just forever. Yeah, they

Rosalind 29:13
just tell you, I think they just tell you, whatever it takes. So just make a quick thing. Just get out I need to see. To be honest with you.

Scott Benner 29:20
I like how honest you are about that. You're like I just think they want you out of there.

Rosalind 29:26
I mean, it makes me that's what I've noticed, you know they have a waiting room full of people you're just another number they're just trying to get get you out of there. I honestly think that after everything I've learned what myself and especially after my son, when you're diagnosed with something it's kind of your own responsibility, I guess to do your own research because honestly, you're you're you're on your own. Unfortunately the person

Scott Benner 29:49
who made those two statements to me, I think is a very well intended lovely person and who actually cared about Arden right, but to say the Give me those two answers. Just don't look after she eats and you don't have to look at night. That's a complete misunderstanding of, of of insulin, right? Unless you understand how it works. You're deciding to concede for me that we can't be successful and healthy. So why bother looking? Like if that's what they that was one of the other, she that didn't know what she was talking about? Or didn't think it was possible to fix, even though she understood the mechanics of it. I don't know. I just very upsetting to me, trust me, right. That was maybe 13 years ago. I can make myself upset right now about that, if I think about it,

Rosalind 30:36
yeah, it's because how many people don't receive the same advice and literally just follow that. And then, you know, that creates all the issues and complications probably were so many, I was told the same thing with my son when he first started going to the doctor's visits. So they would say it's been two hours since he ate. So that's pretty normal, that his sugars are gonna be elevated, you'll eventually come down. They used to tell me the same thing. It's

Scott Benner 31:00
something else, I don't know it's up. It's like I said, I get upset when I think about it. So alright, so anyway, so he's diagnosed. And what happens the their endo tries to put them on a CGM, or by the way, are using a CGM during any of this time.

Rosalind 31:14
Oh, that's another story. So after I have my daughter, she was born 2013. I guess the Dexcom four had just come out. And so the endo gives me or puts me on the Dexcom. It worked great. But unfortunately, I had to stop using it because I would have horrible skin rashes. And I remember calling Dexcom and saying, Is there a way I can fix this? What can I do? I really need it. I really want it. But I can't handle these rashes. I mean, my skin would be wrong. Unfortunately, they didn't have an answer for me. I didn't know about diabetes groups on Facebook or anything like that. So I just stopped using the Dexcom. Wow.

Scott Benner 31:54
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and now we know, well, first of all those original devices, that adhesive was like duct tape, get really, really held on and they've learned over time, I mean, all of them. But Dexcom. Specifically, they learned over time, like we have to find a balance between how much the sticks, and how much it irritates people's skin. And they do a good job with it, like over the generations of figuring out but yeah, you got so you got into early basically, and then had a problem and never got back to it. When when's the next time you thought about a CGM again after that. I

Rosalind 32:29
thought about a CGM after that when my son was diagnosed, so when in 2018, when he was diagnosed, I remember in the hospital, I asked, Are there any support groups that you guys have anything because I need support, I need to know what's going on. I need to know what to do. And so basically, they're like, No, I'm sorry, I don't have anything. So then I started looking at Facebook, and I joined some groups there. And I started seeing everyone talking about Dexcom, and then also the libre. So when I asked his Endo, they said that he he got diagnosed, right when the Dexcom G six was about to come out. Okay. So what she told me was he got diagnosed in May. And if I remember correctly, the G six was released, like in July. So she said that in two months, we can go ahead and put them on the G six, there's no point on putting him on to five. I said, Okay, well, if if he can't have that, for whatever reason, you're saying, what about the libre? And then I remember I got him on the libre. Because she I don't remember what was her reason for making me wait, or not giving me the libre, but she eventually gave me the libre, the prescription for the libre? Because I told her Oh, they wanted me to check him at 12 midnight every night. And I'm like, Okay, we, me and my husband both work. And if there's something available, where it could be a little bit easier, or give me peace of mind when he goes to school? Why can I just have this in the meantime? Yeah. So they finally let me have the libre. And I remember having to wake up and swipe them in the middle of the night and all that good stuff. And then eventually, as soon as the Dexcom came out, we went ahead and he got on the on the G steaks. And then he started complaining of the itching as well. And that's when the parent group started helping because I realized, Oh, I could just spray some flow nice on him and he'll be fine and that

Scott Benner 34:19
crazy. Of all the weird that

Rosalind 34:23
I felt so frustrated. I was like, what was the three four years ago? I could have been fine. Yeah. So I then of course, then I got on it as well. So then we were both on the Dexcom yeah,

Scott Benner 34:33
sometimes I see stuff like that. I'm like wait to go internet. That's amazing. Like who's the first person who was like, I'll spray flow nasal on it, let it dry, then put it on. President I have it's such an inappropriate story I've told on the podcast before and I'm not going to embarrass you with it here. But I use Flow neighs once for something that it's not meant for and it really saved me two already. I'll tell you afterwards. It's such a dumb story anyway, maybe at the end not right now. So okay, so he's a G six. And then does he get a pump pretty immediately,

Rosalind 35:08
he got a pump. So my son is very interesting. He's a very, I don't know, he's just very, he's wise beyond his years. He's very like with it. I remember coming home with him. And my hands used to literally shake whenever I had to give him a shot. So two weeks into diagnosis. He's like, I can do it. I'm gonna do it. And we were like, Okay, you are? And he said, Yes, I got it. I was like, Cool. And he and he did it. So then fast forward to another year. I think he was eight. I send them to a weekend diabetes camp that they had in Florida. So he goes, and I guess he sees other kids with an army pod. And he comes back and says, Mom, I really want that. The kids have like a remote and they can just trust. I mean, they could just give themselves incidents. I don't have to do shots. Yeah. So I was like, Okay, we'll talk to the doctor. And I had asked from before also, because once I started listening to your podcast, which is I found that in one of those parent groups, someone said Juicebox Podcast, so I started listening to you in 2018. He must have been like two weeks in diagnosis. And so I remember when I initially asked where he was still honeymooning, he honeymooned for a long time, because we caught it so early. And so they said he wasn't on enough insulin to be able to use the Omnipod at first. Okay. Right. So it wasn't until 2020 that he was finally able to get on the Omnipod. I

Scott Benner 36:30
see. I see. i By the way, I love that your seven year old, at that point, watched you shaking with that needle and thought this lady is not my best bet. I bet.

Rosalind 36:41
He's like that, even with the celiac diagnosis. He's like, I'm fine. I got it. Don't worry about it. And I'm like, Are you really no good. Sometimes I just I kept putting things like that.

Scott Benner 36:51
But how many times do you inject yourself every day? At that point? I mean, when when he's diagnosed, when he's diagnosed, you're injecting still, how come? You couldn't do it to him?

Rosalind 37:00
I think I was just a mess. Yeah, I was just a mess. It was I took it really, really hard. I was really, really sad. And it just I don't know, I was just a mess. heartbreaking,

Scott Benner 37:10
right? To do. I'm sorry. It's heartbreaking to do it. Like, especially

Rosalind 37:15
it is I just couldn't believe that he would have to go through what I you know, have been going through all these years. And I think what especially broke my heart was that at least I got diagnosed at 12. He was seven. And so it was really difficult for me. But I think he's a really strong kid. And I think it also helped I think, at least that's what my husband says the fact that he sees me doing it, he would always see me injecting myself in the morning before heading out the door to go to work in school. So I guess he's just like, Okay, this is just what we do. She looks fine. So I'll be fine.

Scott Benner 37:48
So the family thing, I guess. Yeah, well, like red hair, I guess is what we have. That's pretty. That's pretty great. He sounds terrific. Absolutely. Let me make sure I understand this. Now that it's not you, it's him. You're like, we need to do a good job. And I don't have enough information, even though I've been at this for nearly 30 years at that point. And so I'm going to go out into the world. I'm going to find some support, see what other people are saying. I mean, I'm assuming it's a life jacket thing like you. But it's not right. Like you get him first you don't you don't figure it out for yourself and then go to him, you figure him out and then relay it back to your own care.

Rosalind 38:27
I think it kind of happened at the same time. Okay. I remember when he was in the hospital, it was a weekend. And so they wanted, they said they figure they're like, Well, you have it. So it should be fine. But we still want you to make sure your husband understands carb counting as well. Well, little did they know I honestly had never really carb counting. So we're sitting there learning how to carb count and my husband's actually doing better than me.

Scott Benner 38:52
Well, he also knows what diabetes looks like, because he saw it on your kid in two seconds. That's like you said earlier? Like, I don't know why he saw it so quickly. But what I thought was was he's been watching you, probably

Rosalind 39:03
because I remember I mean, I feel so bad for him afterwards. Because at night when I would have Lowe's be free. You know, I didn't have a Dexcom. So he would be the one waking me up. You know, sometimes. And I guess that he mentioned he told me, you know, this is what I had to do all the time with you because you would sweat and when I would see you sweating or you wouldn't move I knew something was wrong.

Scott Benner 39:24
Yeah, that's so so it's funny. He thought of the sweating is a low blood sugar. Right? Right. So he saw your son sweating and thought diabetes, but he was probably sweating because his body was just working so hard at, you know, trying to stay nice to try to stay alive at that point when his blood sugar was high in that crazy. Well, yeah, good for him. And good for all of you, honestly. And it's lovely to hear how well your husband takes care of you too, and looks out for you. Oh,

Rosalind 39:51
thank you. Yeah, I've heard some episodes where people talk about their spouses and how some of them are not that like vested into it and whatnot. And it's interesting because I remember when I started on the Dexcom, after my son, he wanted to follow me. And I told him absolutely not. It was so bad. Of course, I eventually let him follow me. But until then it had been my thing. You see what I'm saying? So I was, I took care of it, I got it, don't worry about it. And he's like, Well, I need to know what about when I'm at work, and you're at home with the kids? How can I not know what your sugar is? Why don't you want me to know? And so yeah, it was it was very interesting how that also switched. Because until that moment, I think he didn't obviously, he didn't know what diabetes all entailed. And also, I felt like it was something that was just mind for me to take care of. And I didn't need anyone to help me. You

Scott Benner 40:45
also, by the way, coming up through regular an MPH, you didn't know all it entailed in a modern world. Until exactly so you started worrying for your son and paying attention to what other people were doing. And then it brings you along. So if they asked you like, what's your one see now? Right now I'm at six point to look at you say and that's not you freaking out because you're pregnant. That's just how you live. Exactly. Good for you. That's wonderful. And your son similar? Yes,

Rosalind 41:11
he's also like, 6.2, the highest he's ever been, I think was 6.70. And that's middle school. That was a hole. Yeah.

Scott Benner 41:21
Hey, do you eat rice again? Or do you not like it anymore?

Rosalind 41:24
Oh, no, we rice sweet. Everything's

Scott Benner 41:26
your back. You're like, Hey, I figured out insulin. gave me that rice.

Rosalind 41:33
We figured I figured it all out. Thankfully, listening to your podcast, I was a big help to be honest with you, especially in Dublin game. Oh, yeah. I remember listening to your first few episodes. I mean, I've listened to all of them for the most part. And I was like, Oh my gosh, he doesn't like how I do it. Because they were really strict about wanting me to count carbs. And I'm like, I don't do that. I can just look at something and at least for myself, and kind of know how much I need. And so that's kind of how I started doing it for him. And it wasn't that it wasn't working. But they wanted me to do it their way by counting. And I was like, oh, that's kind of like not how I do it. And so I just learned how to, after listening to I think I forgot which episode it was. But I was like, Well, you know, if his daughter's doing great, and this is how he does it. I'm pretty sure I can continue to do it the way I've always done it and my son is going to be fine. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:23
I think what works is what's best. And you know, that's what works for you. You but you can't lie to yourself. You can't say oh, no, it's fine. Like I have some people say, Oh, my a one sees a man. Great. And I know a one see, like, I know we're looking at time and range, too. I'm just using this as an example. But I hear people say like, Oh, my one sees are great. I'm like, Oh, I used to just say, I used to think when people said that. Oh, they think great means what I think great means. But then I learned to say what what is it? And they say, oh, it's been in the sevens. And I'm like, well, that's, that's by the way. It's it's hard work and well done and etc. But it's not a great agency. And you know, like so like, you know, what is it about their management style that's leaving them at a seven? What could they be doing slightly different that would make it a six or lower or whatever. And, you know, I think you have to have those conversations, or else people kind of I don't know, they kind of float to the middle of what their understanding is like if at some point. I mean, I think ADA still says sevens a target a one C? So I believe so. Yeah. So if your doctor is telling you, Hey, listen, we're happy around seven, and you float up to 7.8. Sometimes he goes, Don't worry about it. Like like, you know, now in your head, you're like, wow, seven eighths, okay. And you know, if just understanding how insulin works a little differently, or how the food was impacting you, or something like that could take that number and bring it into the sixes. I mean, that's a conversation worth having, in my opinion. So, you know, I love that that happened for you. And it's funny, right? You didn't want your husband looking at your CGM. But when it came to your son, you were like, I'm happy to let anybody give me advice anybody at all. Like, I'll go out in the world and find people, not your husband, but other people. It's I just, I want I want unmarried men to hear that so they know what to expect one deck, but by the way, vice versa, ladies, it's gonna happen to you too. You'll be like, he doesn't listen to me listens to everyone else. It's true. Yeah. I'm gonna shift gears a little bit here for you. Because in your notes, it says that are you untethered?

Rosalind 44:21
Okay, so that that's the reason why I wrote to you last year. Yeah. Not me, my son. Okay. So when he started middle school, sixth grade lot, well, two years, he's in eighth grade now. So that was two years ago. His blood sugar, he was very, very thin. And so the pods would sometimes fall off, or the sites would become like, I don't know, blocked, I guess is the word I forgot. Or he would always complain that it would hurt. He would always have an issue with the pods, especially while he was in school. So I a couple years ago, I had listened to another podcast. I can't remember her name, but she had just mentioned him PASI that her son was going through puberty and that he was untethered. So basically, he was taking PT recibo was still on his pump, because he was on so much incident. My son had just the, you know, he was 1112 he started puberty, you know, you could tell the changes, growing voice change all that. And the blood sugar's were just insane. And I felt like I couldn't keep up. And so I asked the doctor again, I asked, I said, Hey, can I can we do this? Can I give him a little bit of extra PT receiver, while his pump is still working? Because my fear is that he's going to go into decay, or something happened while he's in school, and I'm not going to be able to make it on time to school, or he's gonna pay attention to it. She told me I couldn't do that. She said something about the pump getting air in it. And it just didn't make

Scott Benner 45:48
sense. Yeah, that's not an accurate description of your question at all. The idea of being untethered, I don't even know where that word came from, you would shoot your Basal insulin, like, like you were on MDI. And some people then would just use their pumps for meal and corrections. Or sometimes they would split it a little bit, a little bit of basil from the pump, a little bit of basil from the MDI. Now, you can see that sometimes the people who have like, like significant insulin needs, because you can flood your pump sites if you're using a ton of insulin through them, and it makes them kind of less effective sometimes. Right?

Rosalind 46:22
And I think that that's what was happening to him. He was on so much insulin at that point. I mean, I kept changing his Basal rates. I kept telling him to Bolus more for lunch. And I mean, his blood sugar's were just constantly high while he was in school, right. So what I decided to do was, I said, let's start with giving him seven units of PT receiver, and then just still keep his Basal going. Like

Scott Benner 46:47
how the story went from your doctor told you no to how you did it.

Rosalind 46:52
Oh, yeah. I just couldn't sit there and watch it anymore. I was at work every day, looking at his Dexcom. And the moment lunch would come. Not even that just breakfast. And I would always ask him, I'm like, What are you eating? What are you doing? I mean, that's a whole other story. Eventually, we found out he was he was having lunch from home and also school. Yes. To lunches. He's a big eater. Not a big guy. Not a big kid. But he eats a lot. Yeah. And so

Scott Benner 47:23
if the doctor said No, where did you get the transceiver from? Oh,

Rosalind 47:27
I will still MDI.

Scott Benner 47:29
Yeah, yeah. You know, earlier when I said, Do you not take crap from people and you act it all. demure? I feel like there's a whole other part of you that could have answered a completely different way.

Rosalind 47:41
To me, I mean, I don't see it that way. I just see, like, I don't know, I just feel like if someone tells, you know, just Can you try to figure it out onto someone says, Yeah, or you figure it out yourself? I guess I don't know, Ross,

Scott Benner 47:51
and I've been talking to you for 45 minutes now, like your common sense is really strong. It's impressive, actually. So every time you've been intersected with a problem throughout your story, you actually refer back to common sense. And you follow it, which is this very cool. And, and you did it here with this too. So good for how long did he doesn't still do that? Or he does?

Rosalind 48:12
He does not? He does not. So he did that for a good year. It did help a little bit, it helped because we stop having pod failures, right? And occlusions. It helped with that. And also helped stabilize his blood sugar a little bit more, he was still getting high. But it wasn't as bad as before. And at least I knew, Okay, if he has a pod failure, or like is not dosing correct, you're correctly or whatnot. IBC still has that background incident in.

Scott Benner 48:41
I hear people talking about now to their pumping. But they also got themselves a prescription for a Frezza. They inhaled insulin. And when they get like, when they get tough spikes or sticky highs, they'll use the president break the high, but the pump does everything else. It's very interesting when people get, I don't know, a little DIY about diabetes, and like, you know, like the flow neighs idea like, oh, look with the internet figured out, you know, it's really interesting. Oh, absolutely.

Rosalind 49:10
I think that Instagram, Facebook groups and your podcasts have been a great help because you just hear something and it kind of sticks to you. You're like, Wait, let me try that. I've never thought of that. And then you just try it and it either works for you or it doesn't and I just tried, you know, fantastic.

Scott Benner 49:26
Hey, is your daughter? Did you do trial net or anything to see if she had any antibodies?

Rosalind 49:33
I tried trial net for her and her antibodies were negative. That was in 2018. Okay. Then fast forward to a year later. I picked her up from summer camp one day, and she's like, she tells me she doesn't feel well. And I decide to check her blood sugar and I'll never forget this. It was one night before. So I freak out. I asked her what does she have? She said she had a cookie, no juice. So I'm rushing home. I get home. I check her blood sugar again. It was like 117 120 I was still afraid. So I took her to the doctor to get blood work done. And this was the second time that I had her tested through my son's Endo. And again, she didn't have antibodies. I guess her sugar just went high, because they gave her too much sugar.

Scott Benner 50:17
I felt like a hippie for a second. You shouldn't drink fruit, or vegetables. Like you shouldn't be blending things. Well, I'm a vegetables but think you shouldn't be blending fruit down and drinking it. It is not good for you. Your body does not know how to handle it like that. So Right. Yeah, it's why it's so effective at bringing up a low for a person with type one. And battling that what that insolence doing because it's just it's not your systems just not meant to drink juice. And by the way, I don't just mean like, you know, like something that a company makes and sticks in a juice box. I'm talking about orange juice, pineapple juice, like that stuff is hard on your system. So right

Rosalind 50:53
because it's so many oranges for one glass, instead of just having one orange and moving right along. Yeah, I got a glycemic

Scott Benner 50:59
index for that is insane. It's just, it's a ton of sugar. So anyway, whatever you give me I'm like, yeah, do what you want. But I'm just saying no. after

Rosalind 51:10
that. I never gave her juice again. I mean, she was one of those kids who love juice. I mean, now she'll have like the Capri Suns that have like five grams or six grams of sugar. But that's it. She will not have a juicy juice ever again. Which is what they used to give them in school. Yeah.

Scott Benner 51:23
Oh, listen, look how look how far you've come from your mom like laying those orange sodas on everybody. Yeah, I know. People don't know. Like, listen, you're not my age. But you could buy a two liter bottle of soda for 50 cents. And it was a lot of liquid and it was sweet. And people liked it. And you know you could the house was stocked with it like we used to have it. Oh, absolutely. There's everywhere like the countertops. There was like soda bottles lined up everywhere. Oh, yeah,

Rosalind 51:53
absolutely. Especially our generations that they weren't as health conscious as now. Now everyone's low sugar, low fat, organic, but back then we just ate whatever was there. Yeah, whatever

Scott Benner 52:03
was cheap and available. That was food. So yeah, my god the pizza, they would serve us at school. I don't even know how to describe that. It's like if you if you know what I get an Ilios frozen pizzas. That's bare bones frozen pizza. I don't think the pizza at school was that good even.

Rosalind 52:22
It was not. It was not. It's funny because my daughter hates school lunch. I have to make her lunch. She brings in lunch every day. And sodas my son, especially now with the car. But she hates school nodes.

Scott Benner 52:36
Art and moved from her freshman to her sophomore year in college to a an apartment that had a kitchen because she's like, I can't keep eating here. It's It's killing me. Like, yeah, it's gross. She came home with weight on she came home with like her agency was up like her. She's like, Dad, you should see how much insulin I'm trying to use. Like to keep this down. She's like, I gotta get a kitchen. And that that's what she's doing now. And boom, you can see it right away though. Just the processed food. And I don't know all the fat and salt. They put in things so that it tastes better. And just, you know, not good for you.

Rosalind 53:11
Yeah, it's awful. It's awful. It's so hard on your body and on your sugars. Because especially when you eat something like that. It's like your sugar stays high forever. It's like it doesn't want to come down. Oh,

Scott Benner 53:21
yeah. She said actually, she said she didn't feel well, yesterday. It's so weird for your kid to be sick. Like, and not with you. Like it's a hard thing to get past. You'll see when your kids get older. It's it's a terrible feeling. Yeah. But she just like she called me in the nighttime. She goes, Man, my stomach hurts like I am sick, I feel nauseous. And she's like, I'm just gonna lay down. And you know, she gets up the next day. And it doesn't feel good in the morning, but eventually feels better. And she's great. And then the afternoon comes. And I'm talking to her yesterday afternoon. We're FaceTiming and she's telling me about how one of her classes went. And her roommate comes from negocio you want to go out and get this. And Arden goes I really don't want to cook today. Like yeah, let's do that. And I was like, alright, well, you know, I'm gonna go you go ahead and go and do what you're going to do. Her blood sugar was not good for like three hours after she ate. And I texted her and I was like, Hey, you miscalculated this meal, like, you know, just, you gotta hit it. Again. It's not, you know, you're not making a dent in this and the algorithm, by the way is hump and trying to get it down. It's not working. And I'm like, you know, you need to add more carbs or more insulin or something like that. But that was just one time of her getting into a groove of bolusing for food that She's made herself and bought at the grocery store versus going to a restaurant. And then she was struggling again and didn't you know, all the regular amount of insulin she should have used for a meal like that that she would have made did not work when they bought another place. So

Rosalind 54:49
yeah, it's crazy. And I She actually doesn't live far from me because I've seen that you posted she's out in Savannah. We recently moved over here not far From the Oh, no

Scott Benner 55:00
kidding. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. Have you been in the South? While you were been in Florida? So you move north a little bit? Um, yeah. Nice. Do you like it? Oh,

Rosalind 55:09
it's very different from from where I used to live. Because even though Florida is in the south, I lived in Miami. So it's a very different it's not at all.

Scott Benner 55:18
Miami has its own place. It should be its own state.

Rosalind 55:20
Is everyone? Yes. If you know, you know, it surely is. So it's it's been very different. But

Scott Benner 55:26
it's good. Nice. Arden says it's a little too slow for her. It is it's

Rosalind 55:31
very slow. But we actually moved here because my husband started working at a job here. And so we just decided to move the family here because at the end of the day, Miami is very fast paced, and in my opinion, not the best place to raise kids. So

Scott Benner 55:48
what if you want to give them a coke habit?

Rosalind 55:51
party all the time. I'm like, Yeah, that's just not working. But

Scott Benner 55:55
it's not bad. Yeah, no, Arden says I love it here. It's a lovely place. It's too slow for me. I don't want to live in the south. And she's like, she goes, don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to go to college. She was places wonderful and everything. But yeah, I don't want to stay here. We're like, Okay, well, oh, yeah,

Rosalind 56:11
my son says that already. He's like, Oh, once in five, because he already has his life planned out. I'm like, That's okay. I don't want to stay here either. Once you guys are old enough and leave, I'm out of here to Daddy

Scott Benner 56:21
can come if he wants to, but I'm getting out of here. Have we covered everything you want to talk about? If we missed anything? No,

Rosalind 56:30
I think we covered everything except that I didn't talk about his celiac diagnosis and how that was kind of like, similar to the same thing. They tell you a diabetes. Um, it's interesting. Um, once we moved here, he had a new Endo. And so they ran all the bloodwork all over again. For some reason that was interesting in itself as well. That's another thing I should add as to why I'm not crazy about living here. But healthcare here, in my opinion is not great.

Scott Benner 56:57
Yeah, a little downslide. And in the quality of the doctors, you're seeing not just

Rosalind 57:01
the quality, the quantity, actually, there's only like, a few angles. There's only one pediatric Gi, which to me is insane. Okay, yeah, it's been even for me, there's like only a handful of endos over here. And it's been really difficult to find one that I like, I don't like any of them. And then I just have to stay with the one I have. So luckily for me, I know what I'm doing. Because I mean, I don't want to keep going. But for a short while I worked at an endo office here. And it's really sad to see how people here manage their diabetes and how poorly they're doing it, it was really sad. I actually had to stop working there because I couldn't see it anymore. I

Scott Benner 57:42
really just the level of understanding that they had as patients or as the doctors had are both both the

Rosalind 57:49
level they had his patients. And I also got to see it from the other side. There's only so much a doctor can do when they have so many patients, and only a certain amount of time per patient. And this person's coming to you and you're trying to help them but there's only so much you can do to help

Scott Benner 58:06
man they don't understand. Right. And yeah, they really,

Rosalind 58:09
don't. They? I think that's another thing. I think a lot of them just don't understand. They can't wrap their head around it.

Scott Benner 58:16
Yeah, no, I believe that too. I look I get to see. I mean, between the Facebook page and the podcast, I see a lot of people like 10s of 1000s of people talking about their diabetes. And it's I think you're right. I think there's some people who have a basic understanding, or some people have a slightly better understanding. There's some people are like superheroes at it. And there are some people that when you watch them, it feels like that, like no one's ever even, like mentioned to them what's going on? They're just right. Yeah,

Rosalind 58:48
I just think they think that this is like, Okay, I have diabetes, I'm just gonna end up in a bad place. It is what it is. I mean, I saw it all from younger people to older people. And I mean, just to hear their blood sugar. I'm like, how are they walking in here? Like,

Scott Benner 59:03
it's that, like, I've got the sugars feeling. And this is my life. This is my lot in life. And this is what gets me and I guess this is how it goes. And it's so sad because you know, it's doesn't have to be like that. And, and yet, it does end up that way for a lot of people.

Rosalind 59:19
Yeah, man, I think yeah, definitely. And the health care here, you know, it doesn't work. I mean, it doesn't help. There's, like I said, there's not a lot of doctors that you can choose from, you just have to stick to whoever has an opening. And you just, it's like good luck. And so when I took my son to this Endo, which is what was covered by our insurance, and not that there's any other endos around, I was taken aback because he asked me about what sure my son had type one diabetes, like, yeah, since 2018. And I'm also type one. And so he gives me a look and he goes, Well, we're just gonna run on all the blood work. So he goes ahead and does that.

Scott Benner 59:57
You've had diabetes for 30 years. Was your son's had it for five years? And he said, Are you sure you have type one? Well,

Rosalind 1:00:05
and not only that, then he also asked me if I was willing to talk to other parents. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:00:10
well, yeah. Oh, he saw you're a one season. He's like you want a job?

Rosalind 1:00:16
Are you willing to talk to other parents about Taiwan? And I'm like, I guess if you want me to, because I guess he was seeing some really bad stuff. And I can only imagine because at the time, I was working in another office, and I knew and I'm like, if you want me to help, I could help. But I don't. I mean, I'm not a medical professional, per se. I was just working on the front desk. Basically, he ran the paper, the blood work. And then when we go to the next visit, he says that my son's the markers for celiac were a bit elevated, and he was referring us to the GI. So he goes and we had to have, he had to have an endoscopy, which of course came back that he had damage and he had Cydia. And so when they told us this, I thought it was absolutely horrible that we're sitting there with my son, and in comes a doctor, basically, part of her explanation was that if he doesn't follow what he, you know, a gluten free diet, he could end up having cancer. And I'm like, Who says that in front of okay, like, really? Oh, my

Scott Benner 1:01:14
God. I've talked to so many people who got that like that scare tactic, gi doctors. And by the way, I'm not saying it can't happen. It certainly could. But I mean, that's a pretty aggressive like first step for that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Rosalind 1:01:31
Well, not only that, maybe that's something you might want to mention to me when he's not in the room. You know, can we

Scott Benner 1:01:35
talk in the hall for a second?

Rosalind 1:01:39
So needless to say, I was a mess. When I left that place. Again, it was like reliving another diagnosis. It was very difficult, but he's he's taking it like a champ. He's doing what he needs to do. But it's definitely not easy having more than one autoimmune, especially not celiac. And I've learned that a lot of people actually have both. But yeah, I would say if I had to choose one, I'd say type one. And that's what he says is what I

Scott Benner 1:02:05
have to tell you is that so many people are so poor communicators is fascinating to me. I mean, what does that look like? Like, Hey, buddy, do you like spider man? You do? Oh, yeah. Do you like Tom Holland or the other guy? Oh, that one? That's great. If he bred you're gonna get cancer. Oh, great. What in the hell? Like, like, seriously, what it? How does? It's so frustrating. It is really, really very frustrating. You know? Like, it would have been a hard thing to say to you like to pull you aside and go, Hey, listen, this is not, you know, whatever the stats are about it. Maybe it's not incredibly common. But you need to know if this is a thing. You just go home and just blindly ignore because some people have that quiet celiac, right where it's doing the damage, but they don't have pain from it. So they they just what was happening to my son, I get that they need to get it through to you that you can't just go home and ignore it because there's not going to be any symptoms. But my goodness, like whatever. I don't know, at this

Rosalind 1:02:58
time, it was not great. Needless to say. I was trying to find another doctor but I know that there is in town for pediatrics. So

Scott Benner 1:03:09
yeah, I'm, I feel very lucky about the person we moved Arden to as an adult because it means she doesn't even do type one anymore. But we were just like, please, like, please, I don't know if you've ever heard the thyroid episodes. There's an episode with a with Dr. Benito. And she came on and explained thyroid stuff so beautifully. And she she manages all everyone's thyroid in my family. But when Arden had to leave the, you know, the the pediatric Endo, I called her and I was like, Is there any chance you would see Arden for her type one on like, we won't be any trouble? Like, you know, I just need you to run some labs and write some scripts. And she's like, Yeah, no problem. And I was like, Oh, that's great. But it already freaks me out. She's like, you know, she's not an old lady. But she's a she's an adult. I'm like, she's not going to be in practice for as long as Arden needs somebody. And so right. It's scary. Good.

Rosalind 1:04:01
Doctors are hard to find. And not to say I mean, his endo is not a bad doctor, though, because He even offered to just do the blood work to keep up with his levels for celiac. Because I guess maybe he knows that he's not the best GI doctor.

Scott Benner 1:04:19
I don't know what I'm doing. What do you say? What do you whisper I don't know what I'm doing. Jesus, my God, what I went

Rosalind 1:04:29
back to him after the, you know, he got diagnosed with celiac. And he went back to his endo follow up. He actually asked me how did I like the doctor and I said, I'm actually trying to find a second opinion.

Scott Benner 1:04:42
Don't worry, we're also trying to get away from you too. Right? I don't, you know, I can see a world where, listen, I'm a proponent of the idea of like something you mentioned actually, I guess they used to do it a long time ago. You said there was basically like tight One day for kids it your Windows Office? Like, yeah, I think I think you wouldn't need as many qualified doctors if they could see people in bigger groups. So if you found a great Endo, but I don't know, instead of seeing 10 people a day, you know, 15 minutes at a time, like, what if you just had three two hour talks every day and 100, people could come to each talk. And you could just come in at any point during the week and sit down on one of those talks. And there'd always be a talk happening with a qualified person, and it becomes a HIPAA thing, because people would want to talk out loud about their specific stuff. But know that you couldn't do the big talk, and then roll people into the small appointments, write their scripts, ask their personal questions and get them out. That would

Rosalind 1:05:47
actually help a lot here, because that's how they run it here. He only sees as type one patients on Wednesdays, I

Scott Benner 1:05:55
just think there's a better way to do it. And I mean, I need somebody to think about it and actually try it. Right.

Rosalind 1:06:00
If someone could figure it out, it would be great, because it's really sad in places like here that I'm experiencing. Now. You know, a lot of these kids are going to grow up with type one from a very young age, and they're not going to have any knowledge of what they're really supposed to do. And

Scott Benner 1:06:14
now they're gonna Yeah, they're gonna have problems now for sure. Okay. I really appreciate you doing this. This was fantastic. Thank you for for reaching out. Thank you for the nice stuff you said about the podcast. I'm thrilled that it helped you. And I really appreciate you sharing your story. And your son's story was is really fantastic. And like you said, Well, I hope more people reach out with varying backgrounds and want to be on because this was fantastic. Absolutely.

Rosalind 1:06:42
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we're coming from all types of places, backgrounds, and everything I want definitely doesn't discriminate. So it's great to hear all the stories, ya know

Scott Benner 1:06:53
that it really is. It's just very kindly to come on and talk about it like this. Thank you so much. Can you hold on for a second for me? Sure. Thanks. A huge thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Don't forget us med.com/juice box. This is where we get our diabetes supplies from you can as well use the link or call 888-721-1514. Use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us met. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juice. Box, get the only implantable sensor for long term wear get ever since.

If you're ready to level up your diabetes care, the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast focuses on simple strategies for living well with type one. The pro tip episodes contain easy to understand concepts that will increase your knowledge of how insulin works, and so much more. My daughter has had an A one C between five two and six for since 2014 was zero diet restrictions, and some of those years include her in college. This information works for children, adults, and for the newly diagnosed and for those who have been struggling for years. Go to juicebox podcast.com and click on diabetes pro tip in the menu or head over to Episode 1000 of the Juicebox Podcast to get started today. With the episode newly diagnosed we're starting over and then continue right on to Episode 1025. That's the entire Pro Tip Series, Episode 1002 1025. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes, and you're looking for support, comfort or community check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

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