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#146 Leo's Dad is not a Doctor

Podcast Episodes

The Juicebox Podcast is from the writer of the popular diabetes parenting blog Arden's Day and the award winning parenting memoir, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Dad'. Hosted by Scott Benner, the show features intimate conversations of living and parenting with type I diabetes.

#146 Leo's Dad is not a Doctor

Scott Benner

D-Dad Daniel dishes about diabetes...

Daniel is the father of a young son living with type 1 diabetes. On this episode he and Scott chat about T1d issues, ideas and more.

You can also listen to the Juicebox Podcast on: Apple Podcasts/iOS - google play/android - iheart radio -  or your favorite podcast app. Now on Spotify.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Episode 146 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Dexcom. And on the pod in this episode of the podcast, I'm going to speak with Daniel who is Leo's Father, we have a really great kind of conversational episode together, it did strike me about halfway through that I don't think we ever spoke about one thing we meant to speak about, but I still really enjoyed it. As I was going back and editing and listening, I just found this one to be incredibly interesting. And I go into a bit of a rant in the 40 or 50 minute mark, which, you know, could happen sometimes. Anyway, Dan's a great guy, and a really good dad, he's just very interested in the ideas that are going to help his son live better with type one diabetes, and those are the things we end up talking about. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before being bold with insulin.

Daniel 1:12
All right, my name is Daniel. I am a father of a four year old type one diabetic who was diagnosed in January of 17.

Scott Benner 1:21
And so it is still 2017 It's October. Yes. Almost October, she you're only nine months in you're Yeah, you're really new. Wow. How did and do? Are we gonna say your son's name?

Daniel 1:33
Yes. My son's name is Leo. Okay. No,

Scott Benner 1:36
don't be sorry. I just, I just want I just want to be sure you want it to?

Unknown Speaker 1:39
Yeah, I'm fine with it.

Scott Benner 1:41
So Leo is was he for at diagnosis? Or he turned four since then?

Daniel 1:45
He was he turned four in November. I was diagnosed in January.

Scott Benner 1:50
Oh, wow. Okay. Yes. It's a big birthday celebration for you.

Daniel 1:54
Yes. Yes, it was. I know. You always ask what was the typical diagnosis, we were on vacation. And the four of us I have another child, we're down to Mexico. And we towards the last couple days, we noticed a lot of bathroom breaks, that we probably wouldn't have noticed if we are at home because he wouldn't have asked he would have just gone and then our flight home from Mexico to Cincinnati on the three plus hour flight. I think I had to get them taken to the bathroom. On a minimum of seven times. Not including before not including in the Mexican airport and the Cincinnati Ohio airport.

Scott Benner 2:29
So no, we didn't say this at the onset. But your position, right? No, no, I'm

Daniel 2:35
not. I'm not that that email address is just, it's gotten in plenty of places, but it is my initials.

Scott Benner 2:43
Just always assumed that that's not no not why I had you on the podcast, so don't worry about that. Yeah, yeah. So okay, so anyway, Daniel's got a misleading email address. So So doesn't matter.

Daniel 3:01
Say I know you so when my wife and I were younger, and we lived in Chicago, we lived in between two bars right by Wrigley Field. And the one bar next door used to always dump like nasty stinking mop water in the alley like in the park in our parking spot. Yeah. And I emailed the older man in Chicago. I'm not sure how you the alternate situation. But it's real shady, obviously in Chicago is by email the alderman and they were like, Dr. Webber, we'll get this taken care of right away. And I was like, thank you. Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:33
Yeah, just cracked me up. Because I had a whole thought process and where I was going, and then you know, when I went, Oh, okay, hold on. Anyway, forget that part. What? What about the urination? Like, what? Where did that take you to? Like, I

Daniel 3:46
never really asked that specific question your kid urinates nine times in three hours. What does it make you do next? We at first thought it was nervous or something like that flying I mean, the kid have drank a ton of you know virgin daiquiris and pina coladas all weekend long and there all week long. And we just kind of chalked it up to that. And then we came home, and probably like the eighth and ninth of January, he was just like, he still wears a pull up. Not anymore, thank goodness, but he was still wearing a pull up. And he was just soaking through the pull up in the bed. And after two days of that, my brother in law is a pediatrician. So my brother in law here in Cincinnati, my wife called him and said, You know, I think there's, I think there's something wrong and and he called me immediately after getting on the phone with her and he's like, you know, is this is this Melissa being Melissa? Or do you really think there's something wrong? And I said, It's me. I said I was working on I told her to call I think there's something wrong, you know that it doesn't seem right. And obviously, in this day and age, you go down the Google hole and you read everything you want. And we had a pretty good idea, but my brother and I kept saying there's no way there's no way. And you know, we I was supposed to fly out to Chicago like that afternoon or something like that. And he said, Bring him in on my lunch break and I'll have them go in a cup and he went to cup and Leah and I were just kind sitting in the front of the office, and I saw him like kind of frantically running around and I was like, we know what this is. And then you know, they prick his finger and it just says hi. And, you know, we spend the next few days at Children's Hospital.

Scott Benner 5:12
didn't I? I'm sorry, the most The best part of this I interview a lot of ladies mostly. But so far my favorite part of this is, is it's the part where your, your wife calls her brother to get medical advice, then he circumvents her to check with you to make sure she's not being hysterical. Right. Right.

Daniel 5:32
Well, and it was, yeah, I mean, it was definitely It was definitely a shock to us. But it was like, you know, you you kind of deal with the cards that are dealt you and you play the cards that are dealt you and we went from there. Right? And yeah, well, so

Scott Benner 5:46
tell me that. Then having a it's interesting. So now your your your pediatrician is related to you. It's different. It's close. What does he have you do immediately. I mean, he sent you right to the hospital or he,

Daniel 5:59
I mean, he called the hospital because he knows people, his you know, his family's been pediatricians in this in this area for a long time. So he calls Children's Hospital here in Cincinnati, which we're lucky to have a great Children's Hospital. And they told them you know, we don't have any beds right now. And he's not in decay or anything like that. His number is not too high. So you know, we'll have open beds at six o'clock. So just go home pack a bag, do what you're gonna do and bring him over tonight. And we did okay.

Scott Benner 6:22
Yeah, well, listen, Cincinnati's got all that extra. I mean, they don't put any effort into that football team. So you can put it somewhere else. Correct. Exactly, exactly. children's hospitals and things like that, which is probably Yeah, better serve, by the way.

Unknown Speaker 6:34
Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 6:36
I saw my son brought me his phone the other day. And he's, I don't know when your children get older if Twitter will still be a thing. But I do a lot of interacting with my 17 year old son where he goes, Hey, look at this. And he throws a phone up in my face. Right. And it was, it was about it was about kin It was about North Korea, and the and the bangles and it said like what is North Korea and the Cincinnati Bengals have in common? I'm always hearing about all the weapons they have. But something I don't know the rest of it. It was it made me laugh though.

Daniel 7:06
I'm not I'm not a native cincinnatian. But living here. We've been here for three years. My wife was born and raised here. And like, the love for the bangles baffles me people just love them and they're just not good. And like they they fired the who did they fire they fire the offensive coordinator yesterday or something like that, like for the first time and offensive coordinator have been fired during the season. But Marvin Lewis has been the coach for like 12 years, and they've done nothing. Like you know,

Unknown Speaker 7:34
it might be a really nice guy.

Daniel 7:36
Yeah, right. Well,

Scott Benner 7:38
I'm sorry to hear that your wife dragged you to Cincinnati. Yeah, yeah. So So you said, you were getting ready to go on a plane. But you did. You stayed back when when your son was diagnosed and stayed home? Or did you?

Daniel 7:50
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I luckily I traveled for work. And I work for a kind of family company based out of Chicago. They're not family anymore, but. And they just kind of understand everything. So I just said, I can't go on this trip. And I and I think I had to go on a sales meeting with the customer. And I just called someone else on my team and said, Hey, can you fly out there and do this for me? They said, Yeah, no problem. And we spent three days like I said, at Children's Hospital here.

Scott Benner 8:13
So what's the advice you get? Now, since you have sort of a backdoor through your through your brother in law? What's the like? I don't know what Leo uses right now. Does he have a pump?

Daniel 8:23
He's on an omni pod into Dexcom.

Scott Benner 8:25
Okay. And so what gets you to that? Like, how do you get to that? Is it something you see something you find online, something your brother in law says to you how does that work, though?

Daniel 8:34
I mean, my brother in law is a great pediatrician, but he really has nothing to do with the diabetes care, because that's just you know, he's just a pediatrician. So, he, he, he, I think he came to children's hospital that night with us and kind of just dropped us off and dealt with that just to meet the people that he knew. And then there was a fantastic nutritionist at Children's Hospital who was just Dexcom Dexcom Dexcom. All she would talk about is how great the next comment is. And what I've learned to see through the T Wendy community is that like, there's so many like connections involved, you know, I feel like 90% of the nurses or the or the, or the nutritionist at Children's Hospital, either had diabetes, or had a kid who had diabetes or grew up with a sibling had diabetes, they're all just so connected to it. So this this nutritionist was just talking about Dexcom you know, all she could like she just kept talking about it. So we didn't really talk with the doctors about it then but then I came home we came home on 13th I think and I just asked my brother in law I said can you call this into Kroger and he called it into Kroger and we we put it on the first time blindly without any any lessons and that was probably the easiest that went on for the first two months and then we struck out about 100 times the next couple times he tried to do it. But Kroger the funniest part about it was Kroger kept calling me asking me Are you sure you want this? Are you sure you want this? it's gonna cost this much money and I was like Fill the prescription. I'll be there now to pick it up. You know, like,

Scott Benner 10:03
and so what? So that's interesting. So did you. Do you have insurance? That? Yeah, yeah. And so it's they're talking about your, your portion of it. Yeah. And yet they tried to make they try to try to talk you out of it. Yeah,

Daniel 10:18
they basically were like, I mean, it was January 13. So we have, we're on a high deductible plan. And we were paying everything out of pocket until we hit that deductible, you know, which was hit on I think, January 17. But that's okay. So, you know, they kept just they called, they called Melissa my life saying, you know, is this is this accurate? And she's like, fill it and they called me, I was like, fill it. And, you know, we obviously I would love to use Kroger, but we switched to mail order.

Scott Benner 10:44
Yeah. Interesting, though, isn't it funny that I mean, it's because that happens to us too. It's, you know, you have the the calendar flips, you need to make your deductible. And inevitably, it's time to buy some stuff and re decide instead of getting hit $100 here and $100. There, you're all of a sudden, like, Okay, this is just one big thousands of dollars bill comes you're like, Okay,

Daniel 11:05
I just I've been joking with with my wife recently. I was like, I wish I knew at first I could just write you know, your health care check. Here you go. Just because we're, we don't we have since the 14th. We paid like zero like absolutely nothing. Right. Right. Yeah. So all the equipment comes my pumps come this time that comment? It's like, here you go. Okay. All right.

Scott Benner 11:25
So you had a Dexcom before an insulin pump? We did. Okay, and what did what did that? So that's interesting. So what, what did you what feedback were you getting from your CGM that told you that my next step is an insulin pump.

Daniel 11:40
I think I mean, this is gonna sound really funny, but like Leo is an eater and kind of like a grazer. And we would have to go, you know, that route that says, like, like, you know, you can have it, but then you need a shot, and like, we would begin to feel bad about it. And so we went around and started talking to children about when we can get a pump, when we did all the pump classes, and it was just kind of made sense. You know, like, it is honestly made our life much easier minus that email I sent you the other day, which we can talk about later. But like, just the fact that like, you know, we walked through Costco and he wants to have a sample. And instead of having to say, we'll take it home, he did I just say do do, and he can eat whatever it is. I think that like my wife, and I got a pretty good grasp of diabetes, right from the start, like, we just kind of looked at it and said, You know, this is what we need to do, and we're going to do it and we're going to get it done, you know, and for the first couple of months, probably like, five, six months, we tried to like control it as much as we could. And as soon as we realized that we can't really have all that control that we can do the best that we can, right. You know, that's when things became a little easier for us until we started. We started Omni pod in.

Scott Benner 12:45
Okay, Major. Okay, so that's really quick, which I like, I like hearing that people got to things like that, like quickly, like without having to, you know, struggle, or I just just saw I mean, it's 2017, almost into 2017. I saw a person this morning online, say, I asked my kids PDF are my kids, endo, we want to Dexcom? And they said, No, we're not ready for that yet. I was like, what does that mean? Exactly. And so you're a person who took it. You didn't speak to anyone about it, you know, slapped it on, he

Daniel 13:19
started going, and I'm pretty sure that Children's Hospital here was like, I remember I called in to say, we have a deck calm. Can you put that in our file? And can you can you go Can you call the center prescription into opt in or whatever the heck fills it now? And they said you have a lot and I said we have a dexcom and they're like, Where did you get it? And I was like my brother in law's pediatrician. He wrote the prescription for me, like, that's just me, you know, it was a weekend and we wanted it, you know, like, I think that we wanted our goal for Leo is to make sure that his life is not any different. You know, we want to make sure that he went with us, he was diagnosed on the 10th I think it was maybe a Wednesday, he was back to school on Monday or preschool on Monday. Like we wanted to make sure that he could go back to school. He goes to a small Montessori School, and you know, they don't have a nurse. So we wanted to be able to track it wherever he was, and know that we needed to do something. And so it was just like a no brainer for us.

Scott Benner 14:11
Yeah, yeah, that's really excellent. Actually, it just, it I think what it shows more than anything, is that that kind of old paradigm idea of you should have diabetes for months and years. Once you really understand how to, you know, once you really understand how to build a fire with sticks and hay in the sun and a broken piece of glass after you get that will give you a lighter, right and you know, maybe, you know, well why don't we just skip ahead? A little bit at least like there's no reason. I can't fathom a reason why you wouldn't let allow somebody to try a CGM.

Daniel 14:48
I mean, I think that like there could be a little bit of a data overload but I like it. You know, I like to be able to look at it. I like to be able to track it. I think I was joking with my wife this morning because like, I went in, he was like, What 143 at like, 5am, and I was like, ooh, got a crack that, you know, like, maybe they never CGM, I sleep a little better. But, you know, I don't know that it's worth it.

Scott Benner 15:12
It's an interesting concept to the idea that, you know, so you just said something that I just made me think of just an odd analogy. But if I had a fire alarm going off in a far reach of my house, but the house wasn't burning down, I don't know, if I'd be like, I would just write one I wander down in the basement, find out why that thing's beeping. And, and, and maybe I get down there, and it's beeping, because the battery's dead. And maybe I get down there, and it's beeping, because, you know, my, my heater is making a little smell or something I don't exactly know, but at least I know what's happening now. Right? Right. It's an interesting concept, with a health issue, an interesting concept to think that there's, there's something happening, but because it's not killing me, right, this second, just gonna ignore it. And that's just an oddity to me, like I get it is,

Daniel 16:03
I mean, we obviously follow groups and read things and some of the things I read where I'm just like, and obviously, we're nine months, I know, whatever that is, and I you know, I think we're doing a pretty good job. But I look at it and I'm like, well, I'll just let him eat it. And I'll correct it when the time. Yeah. Like, really? That's, yeah, that's

Unknown Speaker 16:23
good. Yeah.

Daniel 16:24
And I understand that not and I've heard you talk about it before, you know, you could meet smart CEOs who just can't get a grasp of diabetes and couldn't understand it, you know, like, but, you know, some things I feel like you should be able

Scott Benner 16:36
to think that's, I think, in that specific, you know, situation, I think it's fear to like, I think it's the idea that the, you know, I really for, because think about it, if you think hey, there's going to be food here, in what you've only been with diabetes for nine months, if you ever seen food not need insulin? No, right? Because that would be not having diabetes. So right, you can say, well, maybe I had a bolus longer ago, and maybe it was too much. And you know, there might be some insulin leftover you can maybe yourself to death. But that's fear. That's the idea of I don't have the unknown not wanting to breach the unknown, where and so in a strange way, getting a high blood sugar that you can later correct down is at least an understood quantity. You're right. And so if you're if you are operating from a fearful position, I almost get that I get the idea of why don't we Why don't we just let them get high? Because I know how to take care of that. And that doesn't seem like it's going to cause them to have a seizure. Right, essentially. So you know, but I'm, I'm the opposite. I'm, you know, I didn't had some pretty Arden had some fairly spectacular lows this summer. And they were overnight. And they required a lot of intervention and a lot, a lot of effort and not a lot of sleeping at some points. Right. But it never occurred to me to let her blood sugar be 200 when she went to bed to know that that it never I never considered that. So

Daniel 18:09
yeah, I mean, I think we we try to, you know, play, not play but use insulin as much as possible and take care of it. And there's always a juice box, or, you know, if I gave Leo juice box, he's so little, he would just skyrocket so there's always a quarter of a juice box or something like that, that can take care of it. And I think at the start, we tried to deal with it more like healthy, you know, here's an Africa here's this, you know, and now we're like, here's a Skittle here's an area, you know, they work much quicker and you don't bite me for him. So

Scott Benner 18:38
put your head back while I put the sugar shaker in your face. Seriously, listen, if it makes you feel better, I did something last night that I I hardly ever do and wouldn't really recommend because it is not good for your teeth. But our didn't hit this blood sugar. And last night I don't know if it was one o'clock in the morning maybe and she just kind of went to a spot and I was like you've got to be kidding me. And I and there was no insulin happening. So I thought I know what we'll do. I know what's gonna take her right back to 90 and leave her there. So in her she's, she's asleep. And I whispered to her, Hey, I'm really sorry, I need you to eat these fruits next. And so her mouth like she lays back and I just take two fruit snacks at a time bump them on her lip. she opens her mouth she chews them up when I'm sure she's done. I must have given her I don't seven of them. And then I had her drink a little water and rinse your mouth out a little bit. And and then she went back to sleep this morning. This by the way worked perfect for the budget. Right and and this morning, she comes into my room and she it's dark. You know it's early. Right as dad did I have fruit snacks in my sleep last night. And I said Yeah, why? And she goes there's one stuck in my hair.

Daniel 19:53
I'm amazed with with Leo like he'll he doesn't wake up for a thing like I'll grab it. His hand and he'll stick a finger out. All you know, if he's just falling asleep, it's hard to get him to take like a we were we were shying away from glucose tabs, but they're just so easy that we're now just like, here you go use them. So he'll like you just put it to his left, he puts it any choose, it doesn't remember a thing like it's fantastic. Yeah,

Scott Benner 20:19
I think some people have a question in their mind about how much information is too much information, and how much involvement is too much involvement. When they're talking about their type one diabetes, you're trying to make life easier, not more complicated. And I think sometimes if you don't completely understand what on the pot and Dexcom bring to your life with these devices bring it can sound like they're bringing you work more, I want you to try to imagine that that's completely opposite of the truth. When you get this data back, you can see I put a bullet in here, and this is what happened. I cut off my bazel here for half an hour. And this is what happened. When you get that information back, you start making these decisions that are so kind of precise and intuitive, that the alarms don't happen anymore, your involvement with diabetes actually goes down. The more you understand up front, the less you have to do later. So I'm giving you a combination ad today, this is for Dexcom. And on the pot, because I want to talk about them both. I don't think this is what they paid me for. And they might be mad if they heard it. But darn it, this is the right way to talk about this today. If your Dexcom tells you your blood sugar's 120, and it's starting to creep up, you can give yourself a tiny little bolus and fix that if your blood sugar sitting at 80. And you're worried that it's going to get lower, but it doesn't seem to quite be moving, you can take your Omnipod and just shut your bazel off for a little while. And then that'll allow your blood sugar to drift back up. shutting off your Basal is not going to stop a crashing low. But it could make that little bump and that little bump could be the difference between just bringing in an ad back to a 90 or feeding an ad and then having it be 200 this is a really important aspect of type one diabetes management once you start understanding these concepts, everything just gets so much easier. And when things get easier. alarms happened last. Arden stacks calm. She's at school now it's like 12 o'clock in the afternoon hasn't been once all day. Not once. So Arden's blood sugar has been between 70 and 120 since she's been at school, the last thing I said to her on the way out the door was, hey, we're going to do a little bit of insulin here. I think we both like a point seven for a blood sugar that was 120 diagonal up but she was leaving. It came right back down. She was 110 before lunch. With all this knowledge in this data, I was able to bolus Arden's insulin 15 minutes before she even left her class to go to lunch. So now she has a healthy Pre-Bolus going for a really fun kid meal. I don't know what you're sending to your kids for lunch. But today Arden had a bagel and cupcakes and cheese. It's and I don't know what else up a bunch of stuff. Stuff You don't normally think about being able to give a kid with diabetes and keeping their blood sugar at 110. But again, it's the data it's the information that comes back from the Omni pod and the dex comm This is where this is where the genius lies. Once you have a few experiences, and you can believe that what these devices are telling you is true, the whole world opens up for you. So I want you to go to my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box and ask for a demo pod today they are free and they have no obligation. I'll take you two minutes to get one. And then I want you to go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box and start learning about the Dexcom continuous glucose monitor. These are important steps and ads in the future I'll do more the way the companies want me to do them. But for today, you guys really need to understand this is how I do what you hear me talking about. If you're listening to this podcast and you want to get these things accomplished. I do them with Omnipod and Dexcom I think you could tell right I'm never not amazed by the waking up in the morning and her walking downstairs with a banana peel in her hand going bananas Yeah, all the data in your sleep

Unknown Speaker 24:13
I got

Scott Benner 24:15
no no no I was just gonna say it's fascinating I can't imagine if I walked up to my wife tomorrow night while she was sleeping and I don't know a handful of food my hand and I was like hey here eat this that she would that in the morning she wouldn't look at me and go Are you out of your mind did

Unknown Speaker 24:30
you want to know

Scott Benner 24:33
you know or whatever it ends up being but but I it's just I don't know I don't even know how to explain it to be perfectly honest. It's

Daniel 24:39
faster Yeah, I just think it's it's truly like I just don't know how he doesn't. Did I wake up last night did I do this? Did I do that? And now we've mixed in the whole thing where I told him he was no longer worrying pull up so I waking him up at midnight to pee doesn't remember that either. Like I got I just don't get it.

Scott Benner 24:55
I'll tell you that sounds fantastic to be perfectly because I remember every time I paid last night, yeah, exactly, exactly. Wandering to the bathroom, just being like, I can't believe I got older.

Daniel 25:09
I'll walk into Leo's room and do the quietest thing. And he doesn't move. And we have a 14 or 15 month old, who is the room next door? I opened the door and that guy's crying like, it's ridiculous.

Scott Benner 25:21
Well, so anyway, Daniel, how did we end up together on the podcast? I know, we're pretty much 25 minutes into this and I forget why you're coming on, tell

Daniel 25:30
me. I sent an email and I said, I love your podcast. And if you're looking to talk to a, you know, a newly diagnosed Father, I guess I'm not gonna be diagnosed that my son was newly diagnosed. I said, you know, I'd love to chat. You know, there's questions I may have. There's questions you may want to know about my thoughts and ask some of those, you know, and I think one of the ones that I'm more shocked about that I, like I said, emailed you today was more crazy about is that we went in so confidently to his last visit. And then he went, he was up. Yeah. And that was just crazy to me. Yeah, there's

Scott Benner 26:00
this there's this thing that I don't know if I've ever I don't think I've never said it willfully. or not, but it's, it so falls into the, into the auspice of advice that I guess it's just not something I say a lot. And I have no way to quantify it. It's something I it's something I heard on the internet that I that I tried and work. Yeah, and and so Danny will say here that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. But if you are using an omni pod PDM as your meter, and you're using the freestyle test strips that are coded as 16. On the test strips, there are people who might tell you that you should set the code on the PDM at 18. Some people use 17, I use 18. When I did that, it helped my daughters they want to go down. So you can absolutely take that for whatever you want to take it for I'm not even making any assertions about it. What I will say is that device manufacturers are in an interesting situation where they go to the FDA, they make a claim about this device that they've created, the FDA verifies that claim, and then they are allowed to sell it to you. If they want to change that claim, they have to go back to the FDA, it takes a very long time and invalidates their device. So a lot of companies can't do that. It just doesn't work. reasons that I don't understand in any way, shape, or form, technically or otherwise, when I have ardens PDM when I tell ardens PDM that her test strips are code 18. When they're really code 16, we get much better, more accurate. Blood Sugar checks that more closely agree with her Dexcom. And I'm assuming because of that, we're able to make decisions like so basically, if you're in a situation where you're like, hey, my blood sugar is 110 I'm happy with that. But it's actually I don't know, 140 then your a one c may come back higher than you expect. And it's harder to deal. Like when I'm trying to deal in a world where I want a blood sugar to be at. I need to know it's really 80 I can't write you know what I mean? It can't be it can't be higher or lower because I'm I'm working with small tolerances. So anyway, if you have a on the pod PDM maybe give it a try. Maybe don't I'm certainly not telling you what to do. But Dan here had an issue with Leo where he has a one seat was higher than his blood test indicated it might be. And that was the that was the sage like wisdom that I passed to him that had been passed to me years and years and years ago by some nice person on the internet. So So what happened that you went in and you thought we're gonna be at what what do you want see where you like, this is what we thought we were going to be in the low sixes right?

Daniel 28:58
So he wasn't that he was 771 diagnosed, he wasn't that high. Okay, we immediately dropped to six something, I think six seven then six, six. And we thought we were trending in the lower lower sixes and it came back in the lower lower sevens and we were like what, and endocrinologist couldn't speak to it and was giving us round about answers and none of it made sense. And you know, I think that if you were sitting in the room as a fly on the wall, you could see how frustrated I was with it. And then you know, we fell down that Google rabbit hole like he talked about and we looked and then we we saw it the only variable in the two was he started a pump in May which was two weeks after after last one see. So we went to a totally different meter. So um, since then we are testing on three different meters now but only using only using one cu update.com obviously,

Scott Benner 30:01
you could probably stop doing that, but I get it. But I want to congratulate you on being serious. you're checking, I want to congratulate you for being so rational about it and looking and saying what's different in our lives? Because you went to something that most common sense would tell you well, getting a pump would have helped not right. And in getting the pump didn't hurt. It was this one specific tiny aspect of it. You you I think you knew when you asked me to be perfectly honest,

Unknown Speaker 30:28
right? Yeah, right. Yeah.

Daniel 30:30
I mean, yeah, I read all over the internet, but I just, you know, wanted to hear it from other people. And it's some of it I even called Omni pod. And they're like, no, ours is perfect. And Omni pod is great. Don't get me wrong.

Scott Benner 30:40
No, but they're there listen to listen on, the pod is on the pod is stuck doing what the FDA has told them. They're allowed to say about their products. Right? I listen, I privately have conversations with people at Dexcom a number of times a year where I say to them, hey, you give people this, I always put it like this. I'm like you give people a bazooka, then you teach them how to kill a fly with it. I said, right. Like, why don't we Why don't we learn how to blow up a tank with it? You know, like, right, I think that's what it's for. except they're not legally allowed to say certain things about what their product does. Because it's because if they spent that much time going after all that from the FDA, if they, they never would have got the product on the market, right. But they proved out everything they wanted to prove out like here's one look, I'll say this. Absolutely. Without a doubt. The lower you put your higher threshold on your Dexcom CGM, the lower you make that line when it tells you Hey, your blood sugar's on the way up, the lower you put that the lower your a one C is going to be I can absolutely unequivocably tell you that that is true Dexcom would be happy to tell you that's true. Except they weren't able to ask that of the FDA before they got the thing thing. So they can't actually come out and say it like, right.

Daniel 31:53
I mean, I think one of the other crazy parts of us was is that we were showing we like I literally like had all this data printed out obviously. I showed the doctor I was like we came in at our last checkup and he was averaging a 144 on Dexcom, which is fantastic where this many months in and there's a one C was like, perfectly spot on match to that. And now we're three months later, he's averaging a 130 something. And Aria once he's way off, like what's going on, he's like, well, the a one c score and the blood glucose aren't the same. And I was like, you're grasping at straws here, man, like I understand you don't have the answer.

Scott Benner 32:26
But stop saying random things. Right? Right. Exactly. You have to when you go back down, you have to stop yourself from just looking at him going. You don't know what you're saying. I thought about going on

Daniel 32:38
like the patient portal and being like, we did some research. And here we are. We'll talk in three months and see what happens. You know,

Scott Benner 32:45
let me say this at Arden's last Arden's last. A one C was a couple weeks ago. So her last point was a couple weeks ago. And there's something going on with Arden that I don't not really ready to talk about yet because I don't completely understand that. And, and but but I'm in there asking questions, right? The answers I'm getting back, it's the same thing. It's it's like, you know, you ask the question, you felt like the answer. They were like, have you considered that? It's because the sky is blue? I'm like, No, I hadn't considered. It doesn't make any sense. And you know, so they're just, well, what about this? What about this? And then it comes to they're like, well, let's just wait. And I went home and I was talking to my wife and I'm like, I'm not comfortable waiting, like, why are we waiting? This doesn't make any sense. And we we pressed the doctor and said, No, we're not gonna wait. We didn't wait and it's a week later and I think we found the answer now it takes I can't just start coming on the podcast and telling you stuff like that yet because I don't I don't know for sure. And I don't want to put information out that's not that's not accurate. But but that's exactly what happened was like, why am I waiting? You just I just sat in front of a person for 45 minutes who said nothing to me. They spoke a lot of words didn't say anything. I left going well, this was a waste of an hour. And and on top of that Arden's a one c went up. So I was already bummed out, it was six, which I'm not complaining about, but right she had so many lows in the past three months that we were just, you know, it ended up not it wasn't as stable and when it's not as stable then it's harder to hold lower numbers because the variabilities you know, right. I'm not literally not complaining a sixes phenomenon, right? But we were 5.6 the time before and so you can you can see the difference. It's just a tiny bit of variability caused the half a point move imagine what happens when you're at 150 all the time, or you know, that's how you get two points higher. Anyway,

Daniel 34:36
yeah, and I kept like a cleaner wife. I was like, No, we have really good control like you can see we have good control of it but our numbers not right, like so. I mean, I was I was expecting him like I was complaining enough that I thought he was gonna say let's rerun the test and he did not do that. And I ordered home a one T one test a one t test on Amazon, but I didn't use them. If I do You don't work because I

Scott Benner 35:01
it's something I wouldn't occur to me to do, because it just seems like it wouldn't work. But

Daniel 35:05
um, yeah, I mean, they have them. And I was like, I'm willing to try it just to see if I get the same. And then once we thought about it more logically and realize, you know, here's the variable. I'm like, okay, I don't need to spend the $50. And I returned them.

Scott Benner 35:15
Right? Good for you. So I just had this whole picture in my head where you're explaining to your wife, no, you don't understand we have the numbers. This isn't right. And just in my mind, the thought bubbles over her head, or I, my mom was right, I should have married this guy babbling about numbers. And he's clearly he's clearly wrong. And I'm gonna have to start cheating soon.

Unknown Speaker 35:38
Like I just said the whole thing rolling through her head. But

Daniel 35:41
he was almost he was just as upset as I was. We were just like, I just don't understand. I mean, we do a really good job of like, sharing the responsibilities. And I traveled for work. So she's, she's on top of it a ton of the time as well. But like, we were both just like, what are we going to do? And I think she from the start, she was more like, we need to get that number lower. We need to get that number lower. And I was like, I wasn't there with her yet. I was like, let's just get this under control. You know, it's new to us. And now I'm like, No, get like give them into Lenny's do I

Scott Benner 36:11
140 What are we doing? Yeah, national tragedy in your home. Yeah. look sad lays down doesn't get up for an hour's like how the boys at? Leo went to 141. Yeah, exactly. We covered all the windows are sitting. But listen, I think that's By the way, do you find that easier? I find it easier to keep blood sugar's lower than I do to chase them around when I'm chasing them around. I get I'm exasperated all the time.

Daniel 36:40
I think I definitely I mean, I think you said it last week, you'd rather flat up or down last week, obviously a long time ago now. But you said you'd rather battle a 67 than a 267 or something like that. I'm 100. We both are 100%. in that in that campus thought, you know, we want to battle not that low. Obviously. I think it's really hard to have that. What am I trying to say? The Children's Hospital does not agree. I think the tech is way behind, or the hospital's way behind where the tech is. And obviously, I think that the hospital and the doctors have to deal with, with the average, not with the people that understand it, or the people that can afford cgms and whatnot. You know, like, every time I'm in there, they're like, you know, this is rad. I'm like, it was 75 you know, like, when he turns when he turns five, you're gonna tell me a 70s. Okay, right. So why are we even talking about it? And I always say to him, I said, I have to imagine that. With with people having seen cgms the the risk of extreme lows has to go down. So we need to talk more about that, you know, like, obviously, we were going to lunch the other day, and he was 71 and straight across. And I was like, Okay, I think I can Pre-Bolus. And before we get there, so I Pre-Bolus them. And then literally we pulled out of the garage and he went double arrows at like 68 I was like, Oh, this is going to be bad news. So we pull into Starbucks, where we're going anyways, just down the street for the fabulous lunch that it is. And I order his peanut butter and jelly. And then I pricked his finger, and he was a 30. And that's the lowest I've ever seen him, right. And I like went up to the counter, I was like, I'm gonna pay for this juice. And the second and like, you know, like, obviously, you can deal with it. And I don't want that to happen all the time. But at least I knew it was coming. You know, like, I feel like at that CGM would have said 38 that he would have been, you know, at 28 or 20. And that would have been a different story. You know, so having the technology there. And I just feel like sometimes the doctors don't understand that we're monitoring it. You know, I don't want to be like I'm helicopter parenting, but we're monitoring it 24 hours a day. Like I always know what's happening.

Scott Benner 38:33
Dan, you just warmed my heart so much. It was already swollen with pride, and then it's grown more. I want everyone to hear that even though it didn't go well can Pre-Bolus a 71 he's a madman. It's fantastic. I will tell you the this so far, this new school year is only a week or so old. But you can Arden is she more mature now. So there's a lot of that anxiety about school starting is gone away. So we didn't get the highs that we usually been getting years before in the first week or so. And she's been coming in coming into our Pre-Bolus at lunch a little lower than she did last year. So I'm seeing a lot of like 80s and 75 like when we're trying to Pre-Bolus all I did all I've been doing is been Pre-Bolus thing with more of an extended bazel. So not that not the correct I'm not correcting you, but that's 71 if you would have done I get you're trying to get some insulin moving and you're gonna be there in a couple minutes. And you can believe that that insulin is not even gonna start working before you're sitting down and you you experienced the low off of something that happened prior. But right it sounds like to me, but I but what I've been doing in school lately is like you know, it's if it's an eight unit bolus for 10 unit bolus for lunch, it's here's 20% now and then the other over a half hour or an hour and that that way it's happening it's moving her blood sugar's going in the right direction when she starts the but I haven't done A ton of insulin Endor when she's a little she's to loading right.

Daniel 40:05
And that's the one of the other funny things you mentioned. The other thing that hospitals really not on top of is like they're like he's for don't people. And I'm like, No, thank you. If you know if he doesn't want to finish this pancake, then I'll you know, he'll eat in Africa, and we'll be okay with it. Like, I got to be in the right place for that.

Scott Benner 40:23
Yeah, it's, um, it is really, I mean, you get the idea. Like everybody hearing it, it's just thought the same thing. I just thought like, it's sometimes a four year old might just look up at you and be like, I'm not eating that. And then you are gonna be in a situation where you curse under your breath for a second. And then you're like, Okay, how do I make up for the all the insulin I just gave him, he's not gonna eat this pancake or whatever. But if that happens every once in a while, isn't that way better than the alternative of your kids blood sugar being 250 all the time. Like,

Daniel 40:53
I mean, not common sense. We have barely gone over a two we barely go over 200 now on spikes, and we are much happier and a house because of it. We can see that he is happier. He had a soccer game last weekend. He was really high going into it. And it was miserable to watch and to be a parent of like, I just wanted to pull him out of there because he did not want to be bothered to get participating. And then we had another one this weekend. And he was like he went in at 150. And it was perfect.

Scott Benner 41:20
Yeah. Well, last last night, Arden had a we had a an insulin pump site. Go ahead sooner than I expected it to. So she gets this now for me. She's She's has these stubborn highs that I can affect. And when I tell you that if I told you we were battling stubborn highs yesterday, How high do you think I'm talking about?

Daniel 41:38
I mean, listening to you, I know you probably like 190 Yeah, it was 150.

Scott Benner 41:41
I was like this mess. Yeah, everything is upside down. This isn't working, right. So I tried, I pushed and pushed as she was in the afternoon school, she came home. The first thing I said to her was, I'm going to Bolus this one more time. And I said, if it doesn't respond the way I expect it to, if there's not some sort of outside influence going on, that I can understand that's maybe more psychological with her or like, you know, physiological that I can't write, you know, one more bowl is this doesn't work. We're bailing on this thing. And so we did bail on it. But I was on a phone call. And so I did it later than I wanted to. And I realized that as I was handing her dinner, I was like, this is probably not gonna go well, you know. And so I bullish really heavily with the new pod. And it took a while for it to actually work. So her blood sugar hit, it went way up last night, it went to like 364 an hour. And so it was just one of those things where she ate a meal with basically, not nearly enough insulin, and I got it back down pretty quickly. But when it popped up in that hour, I heard she's doing her homework, she came over, she looked tired when she shouldn't have looked tired. And then she said to me, Hey, can you rub my ankle, my ankles are starting to hurt and like, you know, all this stuff that you don't realize is from the high blood sugar.

Daniel 42:56
Right? And it's I mean, she's she's older, so at least you can like, tell you what the issue is. I mean, try having a four year old try to tell you what his problem is, you know, and a lot of times he'll just tell us he's low because he thinks he's gonna get sugar snacks, you know? The cookie? Yeah, yes, exactly. That's what comes

Scott Benner 43:12
out. You people are like train seals. I hear you. So tell me something. So you, you're not that far into it. You've you've really embraced that you've had a low blood sugar. That's scary, and it didn't dissuade you? Can you tell me? Is that just who you are? Do you think? Did you learn something that helped you with this? Did you hear something, see something, do something? What puts you in this mindset quickly? Because it is my goal that everybody feels like you as soon as possible. So how does that happen?

Daniel 43:44
I mean, I think I mean, not to toot your horn too much. I we listened religiously, Melissa started listening first. And I started listening as well. And now I'm way more into it than she is. And I think

Scott Benner 43:55
I've just two things. What's wrong with her? Why is she not isn't?

Daniel 43:59
No, because she's definitely into it. But what happens is I'm like, all drive to school, or I'll be at the airport drive to the school, or I'll be at the airport, so I can listen to it. And I'll be ahead of her. And I'm like, did you hear this today? Actually not yet. And I'm like, Okay, so,

Scott Benner 44:11
so I did not ask this question to hear about how great my podcast is. But please go on and tell me how great,

Daniel 44:16
it's fantastic. So I just think that we've always we've come to I mean, like you can see, what am I trying to say? There's always influenced and there's always carbs. Like they're not we're not all of a sudden going to be out of one or the other. So we can always correct whatever, whatever harm we've caused, and not that it's really armed. And, and for us, you know, like, I'd much rather have that low than the high because, you know, I mean, obviously I don't think Leo is gonna lose a limb or an eyeball, like in five years. But like, there's, you know, there's long term effects that are, you know, just as great If not, you know, greater than short term effects. And I think that having a CGM on him has enabled us to not have to really worry that he's going to go too low. You know, like, my phone beeps in my room all night long. You know, that night. When it goes up above a certain number a low and I, and we don't miss it. So I think that there's a, we just come to realize that we're not going to kill him, you know, we're we're just trying to make life better, we're trying to make it you know, we've we've seen that when he's in that range, and we try to keep him between 80 and 150, but obviously a little bit lower, that he's a happier person, and it makes the household happier. I love that somebody

Scott Benner 45:27
just came on the podcast and said, 150, like, it was really high. You were like, embarrassed, like, you know, it's been 80 and 150. But that 150 I tried Scott, I promise, we try not to go there. I just, it's such a well, no, it's just it's such a seed, then you don't know, because you're nine months into it. But I'm, I'm 12 years into it. People did not speak about this, like this, even in the in the in the last few years. It's only happening and, and I'm gonna say that I was talking to someone last night. And we're gonna do I'm gonna do a joint podcast with somebody which will probably come out prior to this. And when you hear that, she'll be like, I heard that that was months ago. But it was. And so we were talking about what we're going to talk about while we're on there. And I just said, Look, I said, my goal with this podcast is, is to just get rid of the old norms to tell people how important the technology is, if you can afford the technology, if you can afford the technology, you don't have it, in my opinion, you should, that it's that simple. I mean, like, I know, there's personal preference. I understand all that I get that some people don't want the beeping. I trust me any argument you're making in your head right now yelling in your car, or whatever you're doing. I understand. I think you still should.

Daniel 46:36
I mean, you know,

Scott Benner 46:38
yeah. And because I want because you should because it's a bigger conversation. It's how you feel who you are, how your brain works. It's it's you know, is your ankles are sore while you're doing your homework. It's the story I told months and months ago about the woman who contacted me after I helped her with her with a very young child and said that her sister child's on the ground playing the way I remembered her. So she what she was saying was that for a protracted amount of time, her kid just wasn't the same person. Right. And and so, you know, it goes back to to Lynn harbor and talking about her son and saying, Yes, my son passed away, and he had type one diabetes, but I'd rather him have had 20, some amazing years than 40 years, or 50, or 60, or 80. Like, do you really want to live this long, painful, unpleasant life. And and your point, which you're making really well is that if you're careful when you have this technology, and you're reasonable, and you test when you're not sure, and all the things that go along with being safe, you're probably not going to have a problem. And having said that, you probably are too, but so is everyone else with diabetes, if you leave your blood sugar crazy high for safety sake, you're still going to have the same 38 low that everybody else has. It's not, it's not the people who keep their blood sugar at 80 or 90 or 100 that have all these lows. When you understand how to keep your blood sugar 90, you have less lows. It's the it's it's when you're up at 300. And you've gotten to the point where you're like, I don't know what to do. Here's all the insulin in the house. That's how you get low later. Right. You know, I mean, I just got done telling you over the last hour my daughter was low last night and she was really high last night. Now it was a it was a breakdown of the technology that that caused the high. But as soon as she was high I had to over Bolus and it created a low later when she's when she's 130. I don't over Bolus i'd nudge bump little little bits of insulin here and there. I yeah, I can't do it anymore. That's it. Just let's just listen to me. I get no I'm just kidding. Like there's, there's so much common sense in that. And then people most people don't listen to most and most people with type one diabetes, don't hear this podcast, they hear their doctors, and they hear it's okay, it's 180. It's 200. Don't worry, it'll come down. They're young, it won't hurt them long. All the excuses that trust me, they don't know if they're true or not. If a doctor told you it's okay for your five year olds blood sugar to be 250. Because long term, they have data that says that doesn't hurt. I I'm going to tell you right now, you don't want to be the one to find out. That's not true.

Daniel 49:11
So get a new doctor.

Scott Benner 49:13
Because when you find out that's not true. It is too late and irreversible at that point.

Daniel 49:18
So I mean, I just think that just having a dexcom alone makes a difference. You know, some people prefer shot, some don't whatnot, but even just having the CGM I think has made our life easier from the start because we knew and then once we got better control, we could try to keep it down and we're trying to do it and you know, the pump just makes it easier. I think the pump makes his life easier. Yeah. And he really hated hated having lantis. So

Scott Benner 49:41
Dexcom Dexcom is the speedometer on your car. Like let's say that if you went over the speed limit or under the speed limit too far, you are going to die? What would the most important thing be in your life then your speedometer? Right, right? Like it really would be if this was speed and we run a bus and there's a reference no one's gonna get Seriously, that's worse than the matrix. No one's getting the speed. No. But the point is, I'm on your bus on your bus and you can't act. What are you gonna do?

Unknown Speaker 50:13
By the way? By the way, No, I

Scott Benner 50:15
know. I just realized I say matrix all the time, because I really do feel that way. And then I just said speed. And these are both canon Reeves movies. And they are both a huge camera. Reeves fan. I don't know how this has happened. Although those john wick films are fun, but that's not the point. The point is, the point is this damn damn it is that you can't have a disease. That is basically the fluctuation of your blood sugar. If it goes too high, you're going to have long term horrible health effects. likely if it goes too low, you're going to drop that today. That can't be the narrative. And then you tell me, hey, there's this thing that tells me where my blood sugar is. But I don't need it. Like that. What?

Daniel 51:00
Yeah, I mean, I'm with you, Melissa. jokes that like, you know, if all of a sudden we hit the lottery, our foundation, we like providing Dexcom to people that can't afford it. You know, because x comes away all the time. That's how I dream. Yeah. And there's like, no way to do it. Like, I mean, like, I can just find a kid and hand him a dexcom. But like, you know, you can give insulin to infant for life. But I can't give like Dexcom for like, yeah, like, Listen, I

Scott Benner 51:22
mean, there's a barrier for money, obviously. And that is the other side of it. There are a lot of people listening right now. Like, look, I would love one Shut up. I can't afford it.

Unknown Speaker 51:30
Right, right. I

Scott Benner 51:31
get that I really do. But here's what I'll tell you. If I think about this, like this, I was watching. I was on the Facebook yesterday. And apparently, they're these glasses that help people who are colorblind to see colors. And I've now seen two videos of grown men in their 50s 60s who have lived their whole life not seeing colors put on these glasses. Now, apparently, I get from these videos that these glasses must be very expensive, okay. But if you saw these guys put these glasses on, your heart would break, you'd go out, you'd find somebody was colorblind, you'd buy a pair of these glasses, if you had to sell your car to do it, you'd hand it to them. Because it's, it's genuinely beautiful to see somebody have that experience. I think I think this is the same situation. I'm not saying everybody can just dig up 3000 $4,000 if you're paying out of pocket, I'm not saying that. But I am saying that if there's any way for you to accomplish it. It is really, really worth your time. And I did not I listen, I do not mean, I do want to say to people, I don't mean for the podcast to sound like a one hour advertisement for the people who were buying ads, the podcast. But you really do need to trust me and think of it this way. I'm taking the ads from these two companies. Because I'd be saying this with or without them. The reason you don't hear other companies come in leaving ads. And by the way, other people do want to put ads on the podcast. But because you don't hear that is because I cannot speak this passionately about their products. And this podcast is not about making money. For me this podcast is about getting this information to you. So if you ever hear me Take another ad from a different company. You must be like Scott loves that. because trust me you don't make enough money with a podcast to sell out one human being it just isn't. It isn't like that.

Daniel 53:17
Now, we should expect to see an ad for the next Keanu Reeves movie.

Scott Benner 53:21
Well, at the very least that john wick. But yeah, that I would show for I gotta be honest, if you ever hear me start doing movie reviews. Don't for the money at that point. Like, I'll tell you what cars 15 is fantastic. They have not lost the franchise at all. And then we spoke for a whole hour but nothing.

Daniel 53:42
We if I don't if I don't ask you a question my wife will act will kill me. I don't because

Scott Benner 53:47
fundamentalists a couple of times. Yeah, I don't want her to be upset. Go ahead.

Daniel 53:50
We can't we cannot figure out fatty foods for the life of us pizza. We just fight us all the time. Extended boluses I feel like a horrible item. How do we how do we do that?

Scott Benner 54:00
So everyone's different than we know this to be true. So what are you telling me that the boy has pizza, your Pre-Bolus and you're still getting high afterwards?

Daniel 54:10
I'd say we get like high like an hour and a half later.

Scott Benner 54:14
Okay, and then does he get low after you correct it? Maybe not totally. So what does this tell you?

Daniel 54:23
That we're just not giving them enough insulin out front and covering it for longer periods of time

Scott Benner 54:27
more insulin and you needed a covered and the coverage?

Daniel 54:30
So the question at that timing and amount. He He's on such a little amount of influence, right. And so I feel like when I do an extended bill if let's say he eats 50 card, two slices of pizza or whatever that is, you know, so 50 cars will give him maybe maybe two and a half minutes if I can remember off the top of my head. If I extend that two and a half units for four hours. It's not gonna work. Like I feel like I or three at whatever it is. I feel like I need to triple the amount that amount of influence to extended.

Scott Benner 55:00
So you might need more because we listen, there are times when you do an extended bonus, I just had this conversation with Joan, who was on like one of the episodes in the in the first year, we were talking about extended bonuses on the phone yesterday, about about her son, and similar ages. And so when I when I said to her, and what I'll say to you is, if you're going to extend the bolus out, you may need more insulin. So if this theoretical 50 carbs needs two units, two and a half units for you, but you're going to extend it that might end up meaning it needs three units, or three and a half. But if I was you, I would do some bazel adjusting in there as well. So if I if I had pizza, and I saw that I was getting high an hour and a half later. But I mean, How high are we talking about?

Daniel 55:44
I mean, I think he gets he can break 250? You know, 300? Maybe? Not not ridiculous? I mean, right? So we're not breaking the Dexcom.

Scott Benner 55:54
So what you need it like so if I was gonna have pizza in that situation? What's his basal rate point for How old is he,

Daniel 56:01
he's he's I mean, he's got a bunch of different ones, I think the highest one he has is point 357. At night, he tends to drift up at night so

Scott Benner 56:08
that I would double his basal rate, or 100, you know, as much as I could for probably two or two and a half, maybe two hours, right. But I would start it I'd started about a half an hour before the pizza for maybe two or two and a half hours. That way, we've got a nice wall of basal insulin coming, that's going to help with the pizza. And then you need the bolus enough to stop an initial spike. But then stretch the rest of it out over an hour, not three hours or four hours, but just over an hour. So there's still a heavy amount of your Bolus still exists in that time, just prior to the spike. So if you're seeing a spike in an hour, but if you Bolus all of it up front and a half hour into the pizza, he starts getting low. And so you need to just there's that first half hour in there where you sort of need to take half of the bolus and move it to a half an hour later. And then let it and then let it hit him again. Because what's happening is he's eating it, you're keeping the initial spike down, then it's getting into a stomach is starting to digest and it continues to digest and continues to digest and keeps pushing and pushing and pushing his blood sugar up. You have to have enough insulin there to fight it. I think a combination of of a doubled bazel rate and a slightly extended bolus but not a crazy extended bolus is the way to go. Because there's two there's two windows here there's this first window of of spike. And then there's the long than you're seeing long a tail on it. If you control that first hour and a half better than I think the tails not as drastic, and you could probably adjust it pretty well with just a little more insulin. And make sense. That's all that's okay. That's it. That was Did that make any sense? I don't know what I'm talking what I'm saying. No, I

Daniel 57:47
mean, it made sense. And we'll try it but you know, we'll try everything one let me boil it down

Scott Benner 57:51
in a simplistic, very simplistic. Your issue is timing and amount of insulin. Now, good luck figuring out how to fix that, but right but but there is a there is an answer. It just it's not evident to you yet. So keep trying. Keep trying keep moving. Well,

Daniel 58:12
he's a four year old kid he wants to eat pizza.

Scott Benner 58:14
Yeah. Pizza now. Although First things first Today's the 19th of September. I should probably not tell people how far in the future some of these are recorded because it probably sounds weird. But I'm just excited to download the new operating system on my iPhone today.

Unknown Speaker 58:30
Aren't you nervous about your Dexcom though?

Unknown Speaker 58:32
Never nervous. I

Daniel 58:33
was thinking about it. I've never nervous.

Scott Benner 58:36
I don't think enough to be nervous. And that's my that's my superpower my ignorance.

Daniel 58:42
Because I actually it should be it's coming soon. Um, I was thinking about it last night. And I was like, Well, you know, it's gonna they're gonna say that Dexcom is not ready, and I'm going to do it anyways. And then I'm going to get some funky beats and somebody no names mentioned will tell me you should have updated yet. You know, listen,

Scott Benner 58:57
before the podcast. Here's what I will tell you. I happen to know how they do it at Dexcom. And they are going to I would bet I would bet anything and I know nothing. No one's told me anything. But if you upgrade today, that message about hey, this app's not compatible with this operating system. I bet you don't see it two days later, because that's a live thing. That's a live thing they're doing. They have Pete there are people out there right now in California sitting at their desk cracking their fingers waiting. And they're gonna.

Daniel 59:32
Yeah, on a completely side note, the people at Dexcom are the nicest ever. We went to San Diego for vacation this summer. And I just sent a random email saying hey, my four year old T one D blah, blah, blah. Bring him in. We'll give him a tour. Yeah, it's beautiful. They showed us all around the manufacturing and everything was fantastically cool.

Scott Benner 59:49
I've never seen it. I've heard it's really interesting.

Daniel 59:51
It looks like I mean, it looks like you're in like a science movie. Like there's just a bunch of people and like lab coats and there's like hand washing stations before they go on to like this. Free rooms. And you know, it's just a pretty San Diego chill atmosphere. And then you throw in a big science lab. And it's crazy.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
No kidding.

Daniel 1:00:08
I emailed them as well asking about the watch. And they somebody called me yesterday, and we had a long conversation about it. And he basically said, in theory, and he used that in theory very loosely, because I'm sure it's gonna happen rather quickly. Once the once they get it ready, you wouldn't even need to carry your phone anymore.

Scott Benner 1:00:24
Yeah, if you had the new Apple watch with cellular, right, that the Apple Watch three or whatever it is. Mm hmm. Yep. You shouldn't, you shouldn't need a receiver anymore to see your data. Yep. And they can even that now think about that, like you're calling it a watch, right? It could be anything like that the watch is an inch square, you could have something in your pocket, that's an inch square that has your array,

Daniel 1:00:44
right? Like Dexcom could just say, Hey, we're gonna put an LTE LTE receiver or something like that on the on the center of the transmitter.

Scott Benner 1:00:52
I think the point is, it's limitless at this point now, right? Right. They've just opened up their API to developers. Now Now if I'm a developer, I can make the tiniest I can make the thing the size of a credit card if I want that picks up that signal or, you know, geez, you could have an app on your computer now like there's all kinds of stuff that can happen so lots of good stuff coming.

Daniel 1:01:14
I joke that I want like a like a stock picker above my TV in my bedroom that just flashes his current blog because I don't have to roll over and see your phone.

Scott Benner 1:01:23
I will say this and I've had this thought about twice while we were talking that as time goes on this all sort of lessons all that like the involvement lessons because you don't need it as much because you're, you'll know, a steadier world like listen, I'm gonna pull up I haven't looked at Arden's a blood sugar all morning, right? I just I've not been once looked at it. So I can go back now five o'clock. Now it's 1115 now Arden's blood sugar's been between 120 and 67 for the past five hours. And if that's not something that I could have said a couple of years ago, and and they'll be an but the bigger lessons, I think for you is that I haven't looked at Arden left the house this morning at 740. I haven't looked at her CGM, since she's been gone. It's 1120. Now, so that will happen for you at some point, you will get it so just kind of it'll be so easy at some point. You won't have to think about it constantly. And then you will look up one day and see that little stock ticker above your television saying I don't need this. It's making my hair gray.

Daniel 1:02:31
I got it. I gotta be done with it. I checked probably three times over here on the phone.

Scott Benner 1:02:37
So I have I'm gonna give you a couple more minutes here. So what what is Leo's blood sugar by the way that Leo's names got to go in the title because that's a great name. But what what is Leo's

Daniel 1:02:48
key is currently 112 and straight across and what

Scott Benner 1:02:51
is he been since we've been on the phone?

Daniel 1:02:53
Uh, it's kind of hard to sometimes it's hard to tell. Could you get that green line up top but his three hour? I'd say he's been in 100 the entire time like the low one hundreds of 112. Since we've been on the phone, right before we got on he had he had gone up, but I think he had snack at school and they don't Pre-Bolus. So he hit 150. right then. And then just started coming down right away.

Scott Benner 1:03:18
The ones where you guys, you guys have a good handle on it. You really do. Yeah, if you're snacking, not Pre-Bolus and going to 150 and back to 112 You're You're doing a great job, but good for you and good. And by the way, try and I've not talked to you for an hour, obviously Melissa deserves some sort of a metal Dan, you're not easy to get along with. Really, it's your spectacular you make I'm gonna feel good all day, about about about this conversation because

Daniel 1:03:45
you can do the next one with her and get her perspective. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:49
Of course. That's not my goal to get to break up families. And so listen, people are like, why is your wife not on the podcast? Like, please do that the other day? What I'm doing wrong, and then I'll feel compelled to stick up for myself and 45 minutes into that you'll be like, I think I just heard two people kill each other on a podcast.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:09
Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:04:10
it has been an hour, I gotta say goodbye. But thank you so much for coming on. I really genuinely appreciate it. Thanks so much, Dan for coming on and telling his story. Leo story and his wife story who we may be made fun of a couple of times, unnecessarily. We apologize about that. Thank you very much dex comment on the pod for sponsoring the show, you can always go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box or my omnipod.com forward slash juice box for more information. And there are always links that are clickable in your show notes right there in your podcast player. Just click right. They're not going to bore you at the end here. Thanks very much for listening to Juicebox Podcast. We'll be back next week and every week in 2018. With a brand new episode coming up. We have a bunch of stuff going on. But one of the things I'm working on is on the pod has a few announcements, and I'm going to try to get somebody back on from the company to talk about that. I've been wondering a lot about Dexcom. Lately, I'm hearing stuff. So I'm gonna reach out to somebody over there and see if we can do a couple of technology shows coming up really soon. All right, guys, have a good week. I'll see you soon.


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