#1024 Diabetes Pro Tip: Female Hormones

September 24, 2023Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny dive into the topic of hormones, specifically female hormones and how they affect those with diabetes. They discuss the challenges and changes that come with menstruation and provide insights on managing blood sugar levels throughout the month.

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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 0:03
Hello friends, and welcome to the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. These episodes have been remastered for better sound quality by Rob at wrong way recording. When you need it done right, you choose wrong way, wrong way recording.com initially imagined by me as a 10 part series, the diabetes Pro Tip series has grown to 26 episodes. These episodes now exist in your audio player between Episode 1000 and episode 1025. They are also available online at diabetes pro tip.com, and juicebox podcast.com. This series features myself and Jennifer Smith. Jenny is a CD and a type one for over 35 years. This series was my attempt to bring together the management ideas found within the podcast in a way that would make it digestible and revisit double. It has been so incredibly popular that these 26 episodes are responsible for well over a half of a million downloads within the Juicebox Podcast. 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. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by assenza diabetes makers of the contour next gen blood glucose meter and they have an amazing offer for you. Right now at my link only contour next one.com forward slash juicebox free meter you can get an absolutely free contour next gen starter kit that's contour next.com forward slash juice box free meter. while supplies last US residents only. The remastered diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one. See all of the good work they're doing for people living with type one diabetes at touched by type one.org and on their Instagram and Facebook pages. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. Okay, give me a testing. Hello. All right. You're there? I'm there. Okay. Yeah. All right. So I've spent, not my whole life, you know, but the last number of days and weeks looking into all of this, trying to get ready to make a pro tip episode about female hormones. And it's a very scary proposition. There's a lot going on. I'm not scared, scared, but I'm overwhelmed. And then the last kind of piece of it was that I went on to the Facebook page and said to people look, you know, throw out your questions for this episode. I want to be clear, I almost didn't think I needed their questions so that we could talk. I wanted to see if there was repetitive need, like you don't even like what are people like same questions over and over. And my goodness, I mean, it's kind of obvious, right? Like so. The questions ranged from like, just God, is there any rhyme or reason to this to? What about menopause? What about perimenopause, what about the time where my kid isn't getting their period yet, but it's starting to exhibit, you know, symptoms and having hormone fluctuations, talking about puberty and then pregnancy and then and then. Oh, is your head spinning post pregnancy? It's it's listen nature. God, I don't care what you think this is, there's gotta be a better way to do this. Someone, someone, this was an afterthought. Like, like someone at the end was like, oh, you know, here's what we'll do. We'll throw some eggs in here. And then you'll have to throw in some estrogen to get the eggs really roll and then one egg will come out. And if they don't get pregnant, the whole thing will just bleed out of their vagina. Perfect. Like, I don't know who what. Oh, my goodness. PCOS keeps coming up. Is that polycystic ovarian syndrome? PCOS? Yes. Now I know those words. So already, Jenny, I want you to tell me what you just said before we started recording about the inequities of diabetes management from men to men to women,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:48
or from an education standpoint to begin with. I mean, it was not something that was ever discussed in my presence, at least and I don't think my mom had outside of this Did conversations with my peds? No at all about hormones? Right. So I learned all of this as I was having this like, typical cycle, you know, that should happen after a certain point in the sort of teen years. And education today. It's focused as on diabetes, in general, right? Not on, if you're a woman with diabetes, versus if you're a man with diabetes, these are the differences that you will definitely see. So you're a woman with diabetes, you've got all the female hormones pumping in your body. Let's discuss diabetes from the angle of being a woman. Right? I mean, especially for my like, I wouldn't even say, when I start working with somebody, if they're from about the age 1011, all the way into, well, even the women they work with, into the perimenopause and menopause age, that's something in an initial visit, I always ask about, because it, even if it isn't yet visible, it will be at some point. And people need an idea that they need to like, see out into, if I see this, and this and this, I'm clearly not a crazy person. This is body function.

Scott Benner 6:21
Well, I guess, especially given that, you know, because we talk about things in general terms, like the cycles, 28 days, that's in general, it's not, it's not for everybody, and it might not be for you from month to month as well. So if you can imagine when you hear people talk about like diabetes, like just when I thought I had it, it changed or you know, those memes, there's meat is it memes? Oh, my God, I'm old, you know, where it's like Monday, two plus two is for Tuesday, two plus two is seven, you know, Wednesday, two plus two is zebra, like that kind of stuff. If that's already how diabetes feels to people in general, and then you put this on top. I mean, you really are kind of creating two different spinning layers of confusion that can impact each other, or show up on their own. And I don't know how you're supposed to make sense that I actually after going through all this, I have an idea I'll share at the end about how to get a handle on this. But I just don't know. Well, I guess to give people some context aren't in 17. So this is the depth of my understanding of this. My understanding of this is I'm married, and I've lived with a lady for a couple of decades. And, and my daughter has diabetes, and she's been getting her period for a while.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:43
And I bet you never paid as much attention as when it really was in reference to diabetes management.

Scott Benner 7:49
Only thing I used to pay attention to was, there's this what I call the nice day, there's like this. There's this literally one day a month, where my wife is a 1950s. Like, I'm making quotes perfect mom, wife, lover, like it's that day on that day, I feel taller and more handsome. Like, you know, like she is so incredibly

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:18
kind of like Leave It to Beaver mom, sort of, at that age have an idea of what a Mom was

Scott Benner 8:23
right? Yeah. 100%. And I, I bask in that day, because the day that comes after it. I can't even look her in the eye. Because if I do something wrong, she's the different like, and then I know that the the event is coming in about five to seven days. Like that's how it works for

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:44
us paid enough attention to actually like, I can tell you many, many spouses or partners are,

Scott Benner 8:51
I thought I was gonna die. I was defending my own life, you know. And so for years, that's the only way I ever thought about it. And then Arden starts to get her, you know, and then we're kind of rocking along and taking care of Arden's blood sugar. Like it ain't nothing some days, you know, it's just like, I do really have this all figured out. And then one day, she started getting her period. And it was all fine at first. It actually almost got more difficult at some junctures. But it was it was very structured. So I didn't have any trouble with it really. Right. And then all of a sudden, her periods got heavy. And you know, people listening will know that, you know, Arden went through a year or two of like us not understanding what was going on. She got anemic a number of times she had to have iron infusions. This was all ended up being because of her period. Right? Yeah. So Arden would get her period for like 11 days, like she'd have like 11 day long cycle, and then only a couple of day break before she started to bleed again. It was just really Nicholas, which led us to put her on birth control, hoping, like, you know that she wouldn't bleed to death, because she was, I mean, the impact on our life was insane. Sure, you know. And so first go round with the birth control they gave her it wasn't strong enough didn't really do anything. But they still asked you to be on it for 90 days before they consider changing it. So you, you struggled all this time you think you have an answer, and then 90 more days is struggling. And then they moved her up to another, I guess strength and that has, you know, straightened out her. Excuse me. Also, the first indication of that problem was nosebleeds. Oh, really bad out of nowhere nosebleeds. That only happened once a month. And it took us a while to figure it out. It was literally happening on a cycle. I never was able to connect it to her periods. But the minute she went on the birth control and the second round of birth control, and it straightened out her periods, the nosebleeds never happened again.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:11
That's really interesting. Well, and I mean, again, a symptom that if you're paying enough attention to your body, there are lots of things that your body is trying to tell you. Right, if we just pay attention to.

Scott Benner 11:24
And that's why I bring it up, honestly, because part of what I figured out, Jenny, part of what I figured out being a man who doesn't get a period, and a person who doesn't have diabetes, as I consider talking about this with you today was was that you kind of have to, you gotta kind of have to Jane Goodall it a little bit, right, like, you got to take notes and step back and see things and keep wondering what's happening until you can build some, some idea of like, I keep seeing this thing over and over again. And where does that fit on the calendar? And how does it work in relationship to, you know, bleeding or pain or insulin resistance, and then you sort of start making sense of it, you have to track your period. Yes, maybe for six months before you'll be able to wrap your head around it a little bit,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:14
especially if your cycle is not regular. I would say for women who, especially women who are considering maybe you're starting to track things and pay attention because you are planning a pregnancy, or maybe you're really trying to prevent a pregnancy. So then tracking things becomes just as important, right. But then along with the lines of even planning a pregnancy, the goal in diabetes is to have pretty optimized management prior to conception. So yes, I mean, you really should be tracking things for a fair amount of time, if you don't have them already nailed down because you've paid attention, right. And there are a number of really good period apps out there. I mean, there are some that are free that do just as well as some of the ones that have all the 1000s of bells and whistles for tracking everything else. But I think the ones that are the best actually have a place where you can keep notes. Because the tracking app that I like to use, I actually track month to month, how my insulin changes have looked this month. So I can go back last month, the month before and actually see, has it been consistent enough? Is it going along with what is normal for me. And that helps.

Scott Benner 13:29
Well, even very recently, in the last couple of months, Apple added a period tracker to their health app, which sounds interesting, robust, and it's free, and a lot of people use Apple phones. So I wanted to throw that out there.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:43
I didn't even know that was an option. So thanks.

Scott Benner 13:45
Yeah, so because Arden uses one that's third party, I don't even know what it's called now. But as I looked at people's questions, and I thought about Hold on a second. The gods are coming after me for talking about periods when I'm not a leader. That's right. As I thought about how I been figured, like, like step back and looked at what we had to go through to try to figure this out for Arden. And then I looked at people's questions. The real fear when you see fear is around the unknown portion of it. And all I could think over and over again, when I saw their questions like how do I know if it's going to fluctuate? When do I turn up my Basal insulin if I can't be sure when it's going to start? I kept thinking you're gonna have to track it, you're gonna have to pay attention you're gonna have to put like work in and I know that sucks because it feels like diabetes has already worked. But it really made me think about like, kind of what we talked about another pro tips, which is, you know, some upfront effort can save a lot of heartache, right over and over again,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:50
are a lot more micromanagement than you really should need to be doing.

Scott Benner 14:54
Yeah, yeah, you get stuck in that situation where you're constantly constantly constantly adjusting your blood sugar in the moment, which I'm a listen, I'm a fan of if your last to stay flexible, but in this situation where what was the number I saw the average woman's gonna have how many periods like 400. And something or it was like, oh, like

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:17
hold on in a lifetime? Well, I guess if you expect an average age of a period starting at the age of 12, and there are 12 months in a year, right? So you would have, let's say, one cycle a year. And then the average time period of a cycle, completing would be about, let's say, age 12, all the way to maybe 55, let's say maybe even 60. And that's a good amount of time that you would be having cycle.

Scott Benner 15:52
I'm using your math 55 minus 12, is 43 times 12 months, is 516. So you go. So I'm saying, that's a lot of tracking. I'm saying put in put some, like real, like, it's gonna be honest effort, because you're gonna have to track you know, your insulin use every day. And, you know, just giving yourself I think, what helped me was just simple words. Difficult, easy. You know what I mean? Like, referring to my management, you know, meals were, what I expected, easier than I expected, harder than I expected. Yes, you know, my Basal seemed to work well, not Well, today, like just kind of keep it keep it like that, you make a little note for yourself. And I'll tell you to tracking your period is going to help you get better at taking care of your blood sugar, too, because you're gonna see all all around. Yeah, yes, you're gonna see all kinds of things that you didn't, didn't see before. To begin with,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:50
you're gonna learn a lot of things too, in that time of tracking for all of those other variables that we have to adjust around, right? Because I for one, know that my sensitivity, once I've gotten to about day three of my period, after that point, and until about ovulation is a really sensitive time. But it's more sensitive from day three to about like day seven ish. And in exercise, I have to be more aggressive and adjusting my insulin for exercise. Or I will go low. Despite my other tools and tweaks working outside of that, I will go low, if I don't adjust more than I normally would, is

Scott Benner 17:39
that a progesterone period in there.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:42
So you're essentially when you're looking at progesterone, that is typically like, peaking at certain points, right. And then there's also the luteinizing hormone, there's follicle stimulating hormone and there's estrogen, and you got a lot of hormones that are coming into play. So progesterone kind of starts to really kind of like, fall off. Essentially, once your period is started, it has really climbed in the time of you coming into potentially having a period. And part of the reason for that is in the anticipation that you in sort of that Avi LaTorre time period, have actually conceived, right? progesterone levels will stay high and continue to climb in pregnancy. One, you don't have conception happen, and you start to have your period, that level falls because there's no reason to have that elevated. I mean, again, other hormones at play here as well progesterone being one of them, but it doesn't need to remain where it was because you're not pregnant. Okay. So then it flexes right.

Scott Benner 18:58
And do do we let's try to think about this. Do we count the the beginning of the cycle is considered when the period starts right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:09
Day one of your period is day one of your sites.

Scott Benner 19:14
In that moment, estrogen at that point is lower. Is that right? And then it starts to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:23
and then estrogen starts decline. Coming in to ovulation. And then in that next day is around ovulation and potential like conception. Again, progesterone is sort of like climbing into that time period, right? So, you know, again, all these fun hormones doing different things. I mean, if you even looked up a simple like just Google have a graph of like, what your hormones should look like. You can tell why. One Basal for 30 days in a row if you're a woman who has As a monthly cycle

Scott Benner 20:01
couldn't doesn't work yeah, it does. The remastered diabetes Pro Tip series is sponsored by assenza diabetes makers of the contour next gen blood glucose meter and they have a unique offer just for listeners of the Juicebox Podcast. If you're new to contour, you can get a free contour next gen starter kit by visiting this special link contour next one.com forward slash juice box free meter. When you use my link, you're going to get the same accurate meter that my daughter carries contour next one.com forward slash juicebox free meter head there right now and get yourself the starter kit. This free kit includes the contour next gen meter 10 test strips 10 lancets, a lancing device control solution and to carry case but most importantly, it includes an incredibly accurate and easy to use blood glucose meter. This contour meter has a bright light for nighttime viewing and easy to read screen. It fits well on your hand and features Second Chance sampling which can help you to avoid wasting strips. Every one of you has a blood glucose meter, you deserve an accurate one contour next one.com forward slash juice box free meter to get your absolutely free contour next gen starter kit sent right to your door. When it's time to get more strips, you can use my link and save time and money buying your contour next products from the convenience of your home. It's completely possible that you will pay less out of pocket in cash for your contour strips than you're paying now, through your insurance. Contour next one.com forward slash juice box for E meter go get yourself a free starter kit. Touched by type one has the back of people living with type one diabetes. Take for instance, their D box program touched by type one knows firsthand the intricacies of living with type one diabetes, and so their team has created a D box which is a starter kit that provides important resources and supportive materials to individuals with diabetes. They want you to thrive. The D box is completely free and available to newly diagnosed people. All you have to do is go to touched by type one.org. Go to the program's tab and click on the box. While you're there check out all the other resources and programs available at touched by type one.org. Speaking of support, touched by type one.org is available in English and Spanish. Don't forget to find them on Facebook and Instagram too. You do not want to miss what touched by type one is doing. When you have diabetes and use insulin, low blood sugar can happen when you don't expect it. G voc hypo pen is a ready to use glucagon option that can treat very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Find out more go to G voc glucagon.com forward slash juicebox G voc shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma visit G voc glucagon.com/risk. You know what else I learned by digging into all this? Is that not that I wouldn't expect this because it's a physiological thing. But it's incredibly complicated what's happening. It's not just like, you know your your eighth grade health understanding of it, which you know, in my mind was an egg gets released you use it or you don't use it if you don't use it, you know the uterine lining and the egg come out in a period which I know is high level what it is. But the idea of like the ramp up right like the gosh, like you start talking about like follicles and like there's this process that's happening in there where your body's trying to locate the strongest egg to be released. It's not just like the next one on the assembly line. It's like it literally anyway, it's mind boggling. Even the TED talks on it are confusing. Even when even when nice girl sit in front of cameras in front of YouTube and trying to talk to you right in your eyes. You're like, I don't understand there's so much happening. But I think for the case of but for type one for using insulin is it is it as easy as saying that there's a time when you're bleeding. There's a time when you're ovulating. And there's a time when your body is trying to make your body a hospitable place for sperm to live. So that the process of fertilization can happen well, is that basically like there's I mean, that's

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:45
basically the simplified and I think sort of along the same line of what you're getting at is if you if you're having a cycle whether you're on birth control with a cycle or you're not on birth control with a cycle you can expect the times of your period to show similarities for you in insulin need, right? One person may experience during this phase of, you know, hormone release, or this phase of their cycle, that they always have higher blood sugars now that they've been tracking things, they can say, Yes, I'm always getting higher here, one of the first places that that commonly starts is the fasting blood sugar, or the overnight blood sugar. For whatever reason, in the hormone dance of the human body, that's the first place that commonly women see things are running higher. And if you start to pay attention to your calendar, it will most likely coincide with, that's going to be somewhere about like, three to maybe seven days prior to your period, starting. Some women experience really short lived higher insulin needs. And whether they may have missed a slight nudge up maybe a week sooner. Most of them notice cash, the first, you know, day and maybe the two days before my period, I'm just high, I can't take enough insulin, I dump it all in and I still sit high. Well, next month, you know, if that's the case, and you start seeing higher blood sugars, and you do and you are maybe somebody who doesn't have a regular enough cycle, I would probably expect that this is what's probably on its way, as long as your site isn't bad, you know, all the other variables that it could possibly be?

Scott Benner 26:34
Yeah, so it's going to be incredibly important for you not to throw your hands up to the diabetes ferry and go, Oh, it's just diabetes, it's happening to me again, like, after it happens a couple of times, you gotta say, like Jenny saying, like, this is what happens. Whether or not I can tell you that it absolutely happens on day, I don't know 13 of my cycle or not, it becomes unimportant, like you, you sort of see, you know, it's not any different than, like, as you're talking about all this and about when people see higher blood sugars, like Arden has this too. But because my mindset is like more insulin pushback, don't let it happen. I can't see it. Sometimes I can tell you that we're bolusing more or that I'm running a higher Basal like profile. But I'm so accustomed to just being in the fight and fighting the fight. I sometimes don't think about why it's happening. I just

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:27
right, you just adjust to get it back to target. Yeah. And I think that's, that's okay, as long as you're okay, adjusting that way. And if that works for you, then great. I think that more women especially again, those who are planning a potential pregnancy, are really wanting to track well enough because they're also in ensuring that their blood sugar's are really optimally managed for possible conception, and that thereafter, you know, so if you really do want more consistency, rather than saying, Well, I know how to do more insulin, I do it all the time. I just, you know, adjusted here and take more, they're just back here or whatever. But if you have even those that have a regular enough cycle, it could take some of the like headache out of the salon. Hi again, I know I need more, I'll take more. But gosh, is this happening regularly enough that I could actually figure out how much more do I need on an average monthly change time? Well, yeah, well, that is less guesswork in the moment that

Scott Benner 28:30
and the reason I brought it up is because the process of getting ready to make this episode with you made me realize I'm going to set up three different profiles for art and because she's gonna go to college. Yeah, I know what I need to do. Her blood sugar is gonna go up and she's gonna be like, this never used to happen before. You know, and she's, you know, not going to realize the thing she's missing is me. Texting, texting, you're going yo Bolus, what are you doing? Cuz because for people who don't like really understand, I know, it sounds like micromanaging to some like newer people, but for people listening to podcasts, I don't imagine it does. Like, I don't like to see a blood sugar over 140. And I act like like, you know how some people might act when your blood sugar is 300 is about how I start feeling at 140. I'm like, yo, what are we doing here? Because in my mind, I'm targeting back to AD in my mind 140 60 points too high. Like get it get it, but the the amount of insulin that it takes to get it has climbed since Arden's been on a birth control pill. So while yes, the birth control pill has regulated artists period, and she's not bleeding to death anymore. Her diabetes has gotten more difficult. Yeah, because and now if you go look at graphs about how it's like, Listen, what I know about birth control is probably not enough. But you're getting you're getting a pretty regulated amount of these hormones. Every day, and that birth control is literally tricking your body into not releasing an egg. I didn't realize that, that the bleed

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:09
is keeping you on a one cycle of hormone akin to not needing

Scott Benner 30:14
ovulation. Yeah. Right. And so you're not nothing's happening. And obviously like the whole process isn't happening actually, I think what confuses people? Is that the bleeding that happens when you're off the hormones and you're on the the placebo placebos is not your period. It's got it's actually got a name. It's, uh, hold on a second. I have so many browser windows open. It's called withdrawal bleeding. Yeah, it's not your it's not the same thing.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:44
Never heard. I've never heard it called that before. Okay. Well,

Scott Benner 30:47
I was schooled, I recorded an episode about this with a different podcast. I'm going to be on a vagina podcast pretty soon. And that's funny. Oh, it was hilarious. And as I was being asked, I was like, why is this happening to me? But but but people who really take birth control? I don't mean, seriously is the wrong word. But but see it as stuff that maybe, you know, there are people who think you shouldn't do it. There are people who think you shouldn't tell people how to live their lives, there's a lot of consternation around birth control in some circles. And it's important for those people for you to know you're not actually getting your period when you're on birth control. So and I have to be honest, I don't want Arden to be on birth control, not because it's birth control, but because I don't want her to take anything she doesn't have to take right when she was going down. You know what I mean? Like, we were looking at her like, I guess this is it, like, you know, the money, the money we saved for college, we could buy a house with now or something? Well, and

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:48
that's I mean, those there are, I think, really, there are really good reasons to utilize birth control all around, there are. But in a case like this, it's almost a necessity in order to get containment of something. Now, the other thing is, you know, is this something that's just, it's just the way that her body is gonna continue to work even into like adulthood, where she continued to have to have this level of birth control, you know, management, so that she doesn't have this problem. That question, you know, I had

Scott Benner 32:22
constantly like, when do we just like, stop at once and see what happens? You know what I mean? Like, but I don't understand any cause and effect reasons why using birth control for a while, would you know, quote, unquote, regulate things and then you wouldn't need it anymore. Were was this just a cycle of her life, and it was going to pass on its own. And we're never going to know, as long as she's on the birth control pill. Right? I keep saying, I keep thinking maybe, you know, a few months before college, maybe we like, would try to bail on at one time and see what happens. Because when you've done

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:58
enough work already to know, I mean, she's used several different types of it. So you also have an idea of what works, what really did nothing good. And what does actually work because there are so many kinds of birth control that are available. And so many mixes of hormones that you could use, or some are single, single hormone, some are a mix of hormones, at different levels. They're taken different ways. I mean, there are

Scott Benner 33:32
at one point, our our pharmacy benefits changed her over to a generic things were going great. And then they change the generic and it went right back to where it was again. Oh, and then we had to swap her back to another one.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:45
So funny, right? I mean, if it was the same thing, only a generic what's different about it? Right?

Scott Benner 33:53
I have no idea. This is the this. Jenny in one way or another vaginas are the bane of my existence. They're, they're torturing me from different angles and different perspectives all the time. And, and on the Ardennes period has been, I mean, a roller coaster, it has not been fun for her for the people trying to help her. Well, and I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:17
think you see it from a perspective of you want the best for her. You want her to be healthy and enjoy life and everything's you see it really as a it's problematic, not from a physiologic standpoint is problematic and what it brings into the picture of her management, you know, you may have a very different look on it. If she didn't have diabetes.

Scott Benner 34:42
Yeah. Yeah, I guess I there's so much about I wouldn't even understand or pay attention to her. Right, Senator. So I, I'm basically having this conversation to tell people that I'm going to start doing what I think you should do, like I'm going to I'm going to set up my own tracking app. And I'm gonna track Arden's like insulin in bushes, Jenny's making a face because I don't,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:05
I'm pretty AMI like, you don't do things like

Scott Benner 35:10
she's gonna leave for college and either bleed to death or having a onesie and the aids like one of the other. Like, it's just one of the others gonna happen.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:18
So and typically I mean that is it's also another piece in the mix too because you brought a lot of things in that could be happening in periods that are mismanaged, right? Someone who has excessive bleeding can bring in a lot of other health risk problems that can also make the diabetes management piece even harder to figure out and manage around. So it's really important. I mean, on average, don't quote me, but I think I read at one point, like the average woman with a normal healthy cycle length, and not excessive bleeding, really only loses about a quarter cup of blood through the whole period, which is it's a tiny amount, right? I mean, if you know what a quarter cup measuring cup looks like. So I mean, if you're saying gosh, excessive, clearly excessive is like lots and lots that shouldn't be happening.

Scott Benner 36:14
Here's the one measuring stick for you. Arden's ferritin gets down to like the teens, she gets an infusion. They tested again, it pushes it into like the 130s. It gets pretty high when you get the infusion. Yeah, within three months of not being on the period. She was back in the teens again, teens again, yeah. So and just I mean, for people who don't know, anemia, low blood, low iron, whatever, you know, however you get to it. I mean, just can't hardly pick your head up. Oh, freezing feels horrible. You feel like you're dying, the whole time, shortness of breath. You can have heart palpitations. Like, it's not good. You know, you get like pain and you're like muscles and joints and like, it's, it's terrible. So Arden's gonna stay on this as long as she needs to. But yeah, but it's funny, while she was home, aren't chill at home, like when she was going to school from home, she needed less insulin. As soon as she went back to in person I knew her needs, were gonna go up again. And I did the thing, where I was bolusing too much and didn't adjust settings for a little while to like, it happens to everybody, it's sure doesn't not happen to me, because it's my podcast, like, you know, like, you're so used to managing one way. And then this big piece of your life changes. And you don't even realize it for some reason. And that just made me sad, or when I realized that thinking about this, because basically, on your period, your life is changing. Like every couple of weeks, you know, like there's this impact and an end, it might not happen to everybody, there are some women who will listen to this the go, oh, that doesn't happen to me, or, you know, just like, Oh, my God, well, in fact,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:59
I've got, you know, some women that I've worked with, you know, even outside of like preconception planning, just in terms of diabetes management. And obviously, the cycle is a piece that we talk through and talk about, and some women who actually have the higher blood sugar levels during their period. Not before. It's more really an onset, while they're actually having their period, which is not the typical of what I've seen, but again, I've heard it enough that it's also not odd or rare,

Scott Benner 38:30
ya know, in the questions that I sent to you that that I found online, it was almost like people were like, hey, during these days here, my blood sugar is incredibly easy. And then somebody would come along and say, well, in those same exact days, my blood sugar is incredibly difficult. And yeah, I'm sure if we could, you know, Doctor House, every person in the world you might find, but I don't think that's gonna I used to love that show. I mean, right. sarcoidosis usually. Right? And I don't even know what that means. But, but so did you see anything in these questions that you definitely wanted to go over?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:08
I was just gonna go back to because

Scott Benner 39:14
because at some point, too, there were a number of questions about menopause, too. And some women are asking about what about when they take hormone replacement? Is it going to happen then, and I don't know, but it seems like the same as taking birth control to me, right your your address, you're adding hormones to your daily intake. If you're living with diabetes, or the caregiver of someone who is and you're looking for an online community of supportive people who understand, check out the Juicebox Podcast, private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes. There are over 41,000 active members and we add 300 new members every week. There is a conversation how happening right now, that would interest you, inform you, or give you the opportunity to share something that you've learned Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. And it's not just for type ones, any kind of diabetes, any way you're connected to it, you are invited to join this absolutely free and welcoming community.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:23
And hormone replacement therapy is usually for the most part centered around like the menopause kind of time perimenopause, menopause kind of time, it's supposed to help to ease much of the hormonal transition that's creating some of the symptoms, things like the hot flashes, and the energy swings and the insomnia and the, I guess, level of irritation, one woman may experience versus another. Right? So that's supposed to technically, even things out more. And it's a good question to actually ask, if you haven't, and you're considering or already taking the hormone replacement therapy, you know, asking your physician if they know anything, really about that piece in terms of what they should expect. My expectation would be that with the replacement therapy, if it's going well, and the dose is well managed, technically, you should have actually more stability than in how you're feeling, which should also bring more stability to your glucose management, right?

Scott Benner 41:35
Well, I guess while we're in this area, what about somebody who's had a hysterectomy? Did they lose all of those, that the cycle is just gone? Right? So that is, but it's all the hormones are all the hormones gone to?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:49
So although I mean, there's a good question, because quite honestly, you could have a partial or you could have a, like a total hysterectomy, right? I mean, so there are hormonal imbalances that can definitely happen with partial hysterectomy. It does, for the most part, from what I know cause less dramatic change in hormone levels than a full hysterectomy does. So in terms of that, you know, your hormones definitely shift because obviously, there's nothing there to cause that trend of hormones change, right, there's the period, right disappears. So, you know, overall, while there may be some initial management that needs to be done, I wouldn't expect that there would be as much I've worked with many women who've had hysterectomy. But I wouldn't expect that there to be as much fluctuation, as they probably usually had. I mean, when the menopause obviously is kind of similar in that when that happens, obviously, your ovaries stopped producing enough hormones to continue the menstrual cycle. Right? So if you had a hysterectomy, which includes removing the ovaries, you would then be essentially moved into sort of like a premature menopause kind of time. Right? So

Scott Benner 43:19
all right. Well, you know, if there's one person that asked such as a detailed question that I think Yeah, way they broke it down might be valuable for us. So her first question was, why does the body become more insulin resistant during different phases of the menstrual cycle? Just the laid out for people now that I think we haven't, but is the answer, just simply there's more hormones at different parts?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:43
Right. And so that's, you know, initially we're talking like what is the surge of the different hormones through the course of pregnancy or through the course of of a menstrual cycle? Right? So in terms of that rise up in insulin need, you know, there are a couple of points of time for different hormones, one of them progesterone, as its kind of rising, in terms of, are you going to find out you're pregnant? Or are you now you don't know if that you're pregnant, or you're not going to be pregnant, so you end up having a cycle. So then that climb in progesterone is again that typical time period before your cycle starts, that you would have insulin resistance creep into the picture. It may creep slowly, like seven days before you start to notice you've got that rise in blood sugar, okay, maybe you change up your overnight settings or, you know, whatever it might be. As you get closer to your expected first day of cycle, you're going to see a lot more resistance. I mean, many women find 20 to even 40% more insulin needed in that time period of climb in hormone, and then that most women experience the most significant and resistance the day before their cycle starts

Scott Benner 44:55
the day before the cycle starts which is the day yes leading

Jennifer Smith, CDE 44:59
day before there. Put yes there before their period starts, there's their bleeding happens, the event here, but in the event, there you go. So you know, that could be, you know, a visual point of saying, Well, I'm not crazy, I didn't need to change my pump site and change to new insulin or at nothing was really wrong, I see that this is the pattern and this is what's always happening. So how high did my blood sugars go? How much more insulin did it look like I continually used in the past two or even three months, so that you can expect it now. And you can make a, I guess, a wiser shift in your insulin rather than just sort of like completely guessing. Right? Oh, I'm gonna take three units today because clearly two and a half yesterday didn't work well. Okay. But if you have some back knowledge, you can say okay, this is definitely how much more I needed. And I can adjust better here. Now

Scott Benner 45:53
do you know there are months that Arden's period doesn't begin on the first day of the placebo, it happens sooner. Which doesn't make any sense at all. She's definitely kooky in her belly, like like, something's, something's going like when that happens. So two days ago, I saw as much resistance from her as I as I had in the month. And I said to her, like something, you're gonna get your period. Soon she goes, I have like four pills left. And I was like, okay, so then yesterday, dude all day, like we had to cut her insulin back. Crazy yesterday. So when she got home from school, I was like, did you get your period? Because No, I still have a couple of days left. But her body acted like her period started yesterday starting. And I'm like, I wonder if the bleeding is now adjusting back to where it's supposed to be. I also wonder, sometimes like Kelly's, you know, still still matched traits, my wife still fertile.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 46:52
That's a good thing. The longer you actually have your cycle, the healthier for you. It reduces a lot of the risk of female related cancers. Because the longer you have your cycle, and the length of the cycle matters, too. Not that this is diabetes specific, but it's a piece in the mix of if you've bad cycle, regular cycle, and the longer you have it in the life the better for you.

Scott Benner 47:16
Yeah, well, that's good news. But what I was wondering was is you know how you kind of sync up to people? Yeah, like I I've often wondered if Arden and Kelly even being near each other is messing with Arden.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:29
Very likely because in college, I had three other roommates. And at that point, we we all within a week had our periods at the same time. Yeah, like it was not a house

Scott Benner 47:48
or buying a bigger trash can. Okay, so this person's next question was, do insulin needs change? Only when premenstrual or does it happen around ovulation as well? I think yes. We've pretty much gone over that. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 48:03
Yeah. And ovulation. For some, just in clarification, some women notice more significant insulin resistance around ovulation than they do in the pre cycle or like period start time. And it's often much shorter lived have a is a swing up, more noticeable rise. Post meals often tend to be impacted more if you're going to notice a change around ovulation. But it's only going to be like 24 to 72 ish hours around that ovulation that you're going to notice such significant resistance. So again, we've got this like roller coaster of hormones going on. Making people feel crazy.

Scott Benner 48:48
So I watched a video about how to know when you're ovulating getting ready for this. And there's a lot that you can watch. Oh, geez, I learned a lot about discharge and cervix ripening and feeling sexual and that it sometimes happens and sometimes, to some people doesn't happen to others. Some people get many of the symptoms, some people get fewer Nan. Yeah, you know, I love it when something spelled out to you like this. Here's what could happen unless it doesn't. Or maybe it won't, but K could and you're like this is not helpful, like, say something concrete or stop making videos. But it was really, I don't know, it was interesting. Anyway,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 49:32
there's a really good book I got actually years ago before we even plan to to start trying. It's called taking charge of your fertility. And it goes through it's really, I think, I think that it should be given to women in general. Because even if you never plan to have children, it gives you a really good idea of how the female body works. Yeah, and it Can, from just that standpoint make you feel less like? Like, I've always kind of hated when people are like, Ah, she's getting her period. Like, that's the reason for all of these mood swings and whatever. Well, it's I mean, that's, quite honestly, it could be true. I mean, it's somebody's meaning it in kind of like, not a very nice way. Yeah, but it is true that hormones change in flux a lot. But for you to know that as the person living with it, so you don't feel silly, about that's your body. It's supposed to be doing that.

Scott Benner 50:34
I'm 20% More a feminist than I was before I started paying attention to this. And I was already on the lady side. And so I mean, listen, I've never once been given medical direction that began with start with a clean finger. But I've heard those words a lot. Now, since I've been paying attention to this. And I just thought like poor girls. Like you don't even like Jesus and seeing it happen to my daughter, like firsthand. It really does. I mean, if you're, if you're not moved by it, I mean, I don't tease my daughter or my wife about like, Oh, your periods come and you're acting. But I tell you, when I was younger, I probably said it. But now that I've lived around it, I'm like, it's not. I mean, they should just say you should, you should be thanking them, not telling them. Yes, sir. You know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:19
I know, to some degree, and I'm very happy that they have two boys. Because I'm like, You're gonna go to your dad. This is dad's department, go to your father,

Scott Benner 51:29
whatever he says it's not going to start with begin with a clean finger. I can tell you,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:33
nobody asked Bobby about that. And you

Scott Benner 51:35
You're lucky to because you're not going to ever be in this situation that Arden and Kelly are in where your periods are like, No, it just jerking you back and forth on timing. Right? You know what I mean? Right,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:45
right. Because I have, like I said, I have experienced that like in college. But I don't think at that point, I was even while I did a really good job of management as well as I could. That technology at that point was not, I mean, there was no CGM. I was still doing, you know, a lot of darn finger sticks a day to see where things were going. But I don't think I was as attuned to even wanting to pay attention to why something I was just like, I didn't even at that point. I was like, it looks like I just need a little bit more insight.

Scott Benner 52:22
I mean, maybe we're a decade into having the technology where you can break this stuff down a person's next question, I really want to thank them for this. And I don't have her name here, I apologize. Is you know, she brings up what are ways to track it, um, you can track it on a paper calendar, you can track it in an app, it's my intention to just like I said earlier to it a quick, easy way, maybe even colors would work, honestly, you know, green, yellow, red for insulin. I would track insulin needs I would track when the period starting, I would try to figure out as much about ovulation as I could. So you can kind of find that window in there about where it is. And I'll tell you to like it sucks, but you could track your mood. You could track your you know, your sexual desire. Like you can make all those little like clicks there. It's yeah, you don't I found thinking sucked for women the whole time, is that things that from an outsider's perspective seem like choice can be driven so harshly by hormones, which can make you feel like you're not doing things purposefully like it's your body doing it

Jennifer Smith, CDE 53:34
telling you to do you telling you to do Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:37
like, like, I would hate the idea of, I'm on a date. And I'm open to having sex tonight. Not because I want to have sex or because I like this person. But because my hormones are in a state where it's telling me

Jennifer Smith, CDE 53:50
they're kind of telling me to feel this way.

Scott Benner 53:53
Yeah, do this now. Because sperm will live in you for five days, and then we can get you fertilized and give you a good chance that, you know, of bringing this egg along. That's, I mean, it's kind of which brings

Jennifer Smith, CDE 54:07
in a lot of interesting fact, especially for the teenage. Right, yeah, where I mean, the majority of teenagers at this point are not considering conception. They're not they're beyond that, you know, for many reasons, but those are some of the things that your body is supposed to be telling you to do. Right? And you know, what's the reason? Well, eons ago. People were getting married when they were 1415 years ago old and having kids at that point, in fact, you know, if you weren't married by the time you were like 25 was like it was over.

Scott Benner 54:49
Window, right, because you were five years away from dying and probably it's um Well, I mean, I listen. It's beautiful, like you know, in a nature kind of natural ballistic weigh like, it's amazing. I just found myself feeling badly that you could be having feelings or thoughts that aren't the ones that you decided to have. But then I kind of brought it out larger. And I thought, when my iron was lower, I wasn't who I was. Right? I mean, we're all just, you know, some dialed up level of different chemicals and hormones and impacts and everything. And I, you know, I think that I hate to say that I think this episode could have been like, Hey, you should track your period, and then make better decisions about your insulin. Like, I really think that could have been the end of it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 55:36
And then well, I think there's other I checked, there were a couple other questions in here that I think that do go. I mean, they they kind of go into, yes, that's the base, track your insulin, see what you need, and then make the decision on how to make your insulin delivery system. Do what you want it to do before you right, but there were a couple of questions. One of them was on MDI. Che change my diesel in a certain point of my cycle to deal with increased or decreased position resistance. And I should I also focus on adjusting my Bolus is I can say that, absolutely, you'll need to adjust at least your Basal insulin even on MDI. I mean, when I was MDI, and had caught on to the fact of needing more, based on what my blood sugar was doing, I knew that I needed a certain dose, that was three units, I still remember it was three units higher than my baseline dose for the time period of resistance that I needed. So you know, in terms of that, I could always adjust and unless something shifted and changed, you know, I would have maybe used a little bit more, or a little bit less. But overall, it was, it's funny that I still remember three units, where it was always what I use when I had my period. So yes, you could use more. And if your doctor isn't directing you to do that. Our doctors don't direct us to do many things that we end up doing. This is not advice or recommendation to do that, but discuss it with them. But it definitely bring in maybe some of the logs that you've kept and say, Hey, I'm noticing this, would you agree? I'm thinking I need this much more insulin, right? I mean, always check with somebody, obviously, if you feel that you need to boluses could they need to adjust? Absolutely, they could.

Scott Benner 57:32
Well, you know, I just did the math real quick, three units is only like point 125 an hour if you're on a on a Basal program for a pump. So right, it's but but, but it might have been significant for you. Do you remember what your basil was back then?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 57:48
Yeah, I do my basil. And overall was sitting at 12. And I needed 15.

Scott Benner 57:56
Okay, yes. Okay, so that makes a big jump. Even though it doesn't look like a big jump per hour. It is a big jump percentage wise, it was a

Jennifer Smith, CDE 58:03
big jump percentage wise, and it was a bit I mean, it looks like a big jump like Gosh, going from 12, all the way up to 15. Oh my gosh, like, that's a lot more insulin, right, especially when you talk about, like adjusting things. Okay, we're going to add one unit more of your Basal insulin. And we'll see how this manages things over the course of that whole 24 hour time period, right. The other one that I thought was good to focus on would be using algorithm driven pumping systems. As a female, the algorithm was not, it wasn't built for this to deal with hormones. It was not it wasn't built for hormones, it wasn't built for pregnancy, you can successfully use it. If you know how to manipulate settings, right? I I personally find that it's better for me to just adjust my baseline profile in my system. And then the months that I am more resistant on top of that, then a temporary adjustment up using a temporary Basal or an override or you know, whatever your adjustment is for the algorithm that you're using. I adjust up using that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:21
Is this whole conversation really similar to what you would have if you were talking about like, a teenage boy who's going through a lot of growth and hormone changes and stuff like that, like just it's just not on a cycle that you can see as well.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 59:38
Right? It's not on a cycle. That's as I mean, it doesn't seem to be from the team guys that I've worked with. It doesn't seem to be as cyclic. Yeah, predictable, right? It Right, right.

Scott Benner 59:50
This really is predictable, though, within reason,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 59:53
within reason. Yes. And I can even see if you're the person with the irregular sight Goal, let's say 25 days, one month, 29 days, another month back to 30 days and then back down to 25 days. Despite that, the things that you're seeing happen to your blood sugar in that time period will continue to happen for you. Yeah. Right. So even if your cycle length isn't about the same, if you start to see those in a time period that could be soon enough to be close enough to like an early cycle. Or maybe you're gone back beyond that, and you haven't seen changes yet. And up now I see changes.

Scott Benner 1:00:36
Okay, right. Yeah. Well, I was just thinking that you're talking about like variables and inside of variables inside of variables. You can, you know, you know, food, food cravings are not uncommon, right around hormone changes. So you could you could have forever thought, why is it sometimes I'm really good at nachos. And other times, I'm not really good at nachos. And maybe it's because once in a while you have nachos when you want them. And sometimes you want nachos? Because your hormones want them. And you're already in a situation, that's more difficult. And then you add in food, because what made me this was the question here is like, should I eat differently or exercise differently through different phases of my cycle? She's a great question. And it made me think, you know, I'm not into telling people how to eat. But there are definitely foods that are easier on you that take less insulin that you might want to try eating, while you are having an increased need for another reason, because now otherwise, you have to increase needs correct difficult food and your hormones at the same time. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:01:39
And the hormones are driving a desire for things that otherwise you may have very, you may have very easy management around, right. You may love nachos, but your typical serving of nachos is appropriate and, and fine. And if it's a hormone driven time, you know, you might eat much more of your batch.

Scott Benner 1:02:00
You know, while we were adjusting Arden's birth control pills and getting it right, she couldn't stomach meat. She was not a vegetarian kind of person. And for a while she couldn't stomach meat. Like just get it away from me, she couldn't smell it, she definitely couldn't even think about eating it. And then as her as the pill, we found the right pill. And it got kind of like set in stone. Now that's come back a little bit.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:25
It must be something to do with the hormone levels in the birth control she's using because it's actually not uncommon for just thinking about hormones in general. Many women have some aversion to meet during pregnancy. Yeah, many women can't stomach red meat specifically. Okay. So I wonder if it's something hormonally similar. That was weird happening for her before it got regulated.

Scott Benner 1:02:52
I'm running around the house pointing to that my wife's like, that's crazy artists like you don't like Arden just thinks I pay too much attention to her. So she's like, stop paying, like caring. I tried to level up to the OB the OB is like, I don't know, I'm like, god dammit, I'm right about this. I was like, no one's watching these people more than me. You know what I mean? Like, um, they trust me, they'd all be dead without me, Jenny. Like, in one way or another? My wife, like, you know, like with the thyroid stuff, like, I'm the one who's kind of like, stepped back. Like you guys hear me talk about on the podcast, like being micro and macro. Like, on my family on macro. Like I step back, I look for big picture stuff. And I don't worry, but when I start seeing stuff over and over again, I don't know. It's just who I am. Like, I just, I don't know, I worry about people. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:03:36
that's not a bad thing necessarily bad

Scott Benner 1:03:39
for me. It's great for them. You never noticed me worrying about myself. But

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:03:46
was this I think this kind of me answers some of the question. I see and hear about age. Do you how old was Arden when she had her first cycle? Do you remember? Of course you remember?

Scott Benner 1:03:57
No? I don't know if I do. It was a little later than her friends. Okay, maybe,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:04:05
as was, as was I have a couple of questions here. And, you know, just relative to like, When should I expect this in my daughter? Honestly, could be as early as age 10. Wow. Honest, and it could be I mean, I was I was definitely late. I was definitely late in getting my cycle comparative to all of my friends. But I also think, in terms of that, my, my management wasn't then what it could have been if I were diagnosed in today's age, right. So I think that the management style that I had, at that point was not managing well enough to allow my body to actually be consistent enough to start my cycle at the time that it technically should have started. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:57
this is Jenny's third attempt to let You all know to go back and listen to all of the pro tip episodes, you can do a really great job of getting your settings right understanding how to make changes for yourself how to Bolus for meals, how to keep high blood sugars from happening, like she is very artfully telling you, it's the ability and understanding is the is the firm foundation of living with diabetes. She's just, she's so nice about it when she says, Say what Jenny saying, y'all aren't doing a good enough job. You gotta get in there and try a little harder. You know, it's funny, I think Arden was 14 Having just turned 15. And I don't remember the date. I remember the situation we we, along with a number of her friends, were on our way to go swimming. And this was Arden's first time swimming with a period. And a bunch of little girls disappeared upstairs in my house, and came back 20 minutes later, disheveled, sweaty, rocked, and the end the one girl just we couldn't get it in. And apparently, this is apparently at one point like a mechanic

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:06:08
and how funny that they actually like. I mean, they felt comfortable enough with you that they actually announced it to like a guy. I would have been like mortified, telling my dad something.

Scott Benner 1:06:19
No, he just described to me as Arden was a car on a lift, and the girls took turns trying to change oil and couldn't figure out how to do it. Oh, that's interesting. So that's about what happens around here usually. And well. Actually, I gotta say that's not usual. But but it didn't work out. And so I'm thinking it was the end of her 14 right around her 15th birthday. If I'm paying from guessing right? If I'm wrong about that, then it's no, it's not 1516. She's been at this for a while. I think it's 14 to 15. But yeah, like this could like you could have kids getting their periods, all kinds of crazy, just like what I used to hear like the hormones and cow's milk or making girls develop sooner or something like I don't know if any of that's true. But you know, there are girls walking around sometimes where you're like, are they 20 or 10? Or like what you can't tell?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:07:09
Yeah, I know. Yeah. The I mean, I think that that's like a rabbit hole of we could dive in there. But it would be a long, long discussion.

Scott Benner 1:07:18
We should make euphemisms about holes while we're talking about periods. So. So I mean, do you think I'd see it? Do you think there's anything else? Like? I mean, I feel like this is a good conversation. I mean, perimenopause, people are asking about different kinds of birth controls, like there are non hormonal birth control, like, ways, right. So, I mean, there's, I'll tell you, more than two people asked about Plan B. Whether it has an app, whether or not that would have an impact on blood sugar's and I wasn't able to find that out. You know, I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:07:55
that is a really good one. I can actually ask my my old mayor, may MFM, I can actually ask them if they have any reference to that having worked with enough women with type one? I don't know. I mean, the goal of that, obviously, is to not conceive. So it has some level of hormone shift to prevent pregnancy,

Scott Benner 1:08:22
you would think it's an overwhelming of hormones to kind of stop

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:08:26
whether it has an impact on blood sugar? I don't know. It's a really good question. I

Scott Benner 1:08:32
don't know enough about how that works. How about IUDs? Do they impact blood sugars? That I'm sure you've seen in practice? Right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:08:40
Right, those more they seem smoother than other birth control methods. From what I have seen. So do they have impact? They probably have an impact in terms of initially having one and then the outcome of what now your sort of monthly cycle, if there is still one remaining. What does that look like? Do you see any shifts? I've I've seen women who don't actually have any visible cycle whatsoever, right? Who have noticed a minor shift that appears to be cyclic, but most of them tell me that they don't even adjust around it. They just end up taking like a little more corrective at the next mealtime the correction seems to work well enough, kind of gets them, you know, back to where they want to be. And they never make any shifts in their insulin at all.

Scott Benner 1:09:37
I have to say that Ardens OB was pushing, pushing, she wasn't pushing. She was saying if we don't find some stability with blood with birth control pills, she wanted Arden to consider an IUD now Arden's like a little young, like we walked out to shoot, like the first thing she said to me was like, I'm not doing that. And I was like, gotcha, but it was, you know, she's like, you know, in the future, we might have to keep this in mind. Yeah, I don't I, you know, that is another thing I don't know much about. But you look like you have something you want to say, what did you find? No, I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:10:06
was actually just looking up a little bit about whether I could find anything on the plan B and blood sugar specific to type one, but I don't really see anything at all that documents that

Scott Benner 1:10:21
Okay, how about so is PCOS somehow related to diabetes? And or no? Like, why do you use it just because I only apparently at this point in my life, I only talk to people who have diabetes that I I start thinking things are more common or

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:10:37
right PCOS is more common in those with other metabolic shifts that include insulin resistance and PCOS can bring more resistance into the picture, right? Other metabolic things being have more difficulty with weight management, they have higher cholesterol levels may already have higher blood pressure, despite potentially doing all of the healthy lifestyle things to manage those. But PCOS is more common with the type two. But interesting. In the past, I would say five years, I have had more women more normal, like healthy body weight and healthy lifestyle, who have actually been diagnosed with PCOS. And part of the part of the reasoning in terms of like sending them to their back to their doctor to say, hey, I don't understand I am doing everything in the picture of management. And I need so much insulin to keep things where they are. Something else has to be in the picture. So a mine is always Why don't we look for PCOS? Because if that is in the picture, one of the long term even in women without diabetes with PCOS medication that's very common and uses Metformin. Okay, it helps to dial down the resistance. And from the PCOS level, it helps with some of that cystic nature in the ovaries, and it helps with evening some of that out in terms of hormones and everything. So Metformin is definitely a heavily used additional medication that could be, you know, beneficial.

Scott Benner 1:12:35
Yeah, somebody mentioned Metformin. In in one of those, I forget where it was. I didn't bring that question over for some reason, because they were like, because they were talking about like, can I could I just use Metformin during certain times of resistance around like, you can't stop and start it right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:12:56
That's no, that's not the way that Metformin is meant, you know, if you're gonna use it, we started a low dose, evaluate tolerance. I mean, it's one of the older oral medications it typically for most people is well tolerated after you get over some initial like first week or so of like, some stomach upset. And as long as you're tolerating it, it increases to like more of a therapeutic level. And then you continue use of it, you don't start stop it use

Scott Benner 1:13:23
the Advil during one section of your I only, I brought it up here, because if somebody was thinking maybe somebody else was thinking, I did not think that was a good idea. So, okay. I don't know like, there's this moment where I go, Are we good Johnny that I do we do it or?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:13:42
Yeah, I think, you know, I was looking at more of the questions just to make sure that P A mean in terms of talking specific like cycle, I think yes. I mean, I think discussion around things like menopause and that kind of stuff are it's such a transitory time in terms of

Scott Benner 1:14:10
that ever, right? Like menopause can go on for years. It can

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:14:15
go on from very long time. Absolutely. I mean, and that's really perimenopause. Right. Once you're fully in menopause, you have no longer have to cycle for a year's time. Right. Then are you are menopausal. perimenopause starts with many women notice a shift in their cycle. Let's say you have had a regular 30 day cycle consistently, you kind of getting into the age of and what age in general about 50 ish, but women with diabetes have from research sort of proven to start earlier than the typical like age of 50? Let's say. So, any shifts in your cycle, without any lifestyle changes or anything like that, you know, now you're having 25 day, the next month, It's 30 day, this month, you have three days and a really light cycle next month. It's really, really heavy and painful and it's just not your typical. It could be very likely that perimenopause is kind of in the picture. And there aren't. I mean, many women would say, Well, can I, you know, get hormone testing levels done to see in this point of perimenopause, it's not typically recommended. It really isn't until menopause, that they would recommend doing testing of hormones to actually sort of prove the case that they have come to a level without a cycle, you're no longer ovulating. And some women actually haven't done the testing to make sure that they're actually not ovulating. From just like a sexual standpoint, they're just ensuring that they can't get pregnant any longer.

Scott Benner 1:15:53
Yeah. Okay. That's how you imagined having a baby when you're 50. I'd be so tough.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:15:58
I personally, I can't I,

Scott Benner 1:16:01
I would be so tired. That's all I can think of.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:16:04
Yes, I mean, from an age No, I can't.

Scott Benner 1:16:08
So no, my God. Last night, Kelly was like, can you imagine if we had had three kids? And one of them was just a couple years younger than Arden. Wouldn't that be nice? And I was like, No, I don't think so. It's it's 930. And I want to go to bed. How would that be a good thing? That child would end up being feral? I'd be like, just try not to die. I don't know if I'd have the energy to take care of it. I really don't. I don't. I mean, good for you. If you do. I don't think I could. That it were good. I think that's it. You should be good. All right. So thanks. On the whole that's everything.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:16:42
Probably not everything, but you know,

Scott Benner 1:16:44
is it. Alright, cool. All right. Awesome, Jenny. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much. Thank

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:16:51
you. Yeah, you're very welcome.

Scott Benner 1:16:53
I want to thank assenza diabetes for sponsoring the remastered diabetes Pro Tip series. Don't forget you can get a free contour next gen starter kit at contour next one.com forward slash juice box for E meter, while supplies last US residents only. If you're enjoying the remastered episodes of the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast you have touched by type one to thank touched by type one.org is a proud sponsor of the remastering of the diabetes Pro Tip series. Learn more about them at touched by type one.org. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com Ford slash juice box. Jenny Smith holds a bachelor's degree in Human Nutrition and biology from the University of Wisconsin. She's a registered and licensed dietitian, a certified diabetes educator and a certified trainer on most makes and models of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems. She's also had type one diabetes for over 35 years, and she works at integrated diabetes.com If you're interested in hiring Jenny, you can learn more about her at that link. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Now listen, there's 26 episodes in this series. You might not know what each of them are. I'm going to tell you now. Episode 1000 is called newly diagnosed are starting over episode 1001. All about MDI 1002 all about insulin 1003 is called Pre-Bolus Episode 1004 Temp Basal 1005 Insulin pumping 1006 mastering a CGM 1007 Bumping nudge 1008 The perfect Bolus 1009 variables 1010 setting Basal insulin 1011 Exercise 1012 fat and protein 1013 Insulin injury and surgery 1014 glucagon and low Beegees in Episode 1015 Jenny and I talked about emergency room protocols in 1016 long term health 1017 Bumping nudge part two in Episode 1008 teen pregnancy 1019 explaining type one 1020 glycemic index and load 1021 postpartum 1022 weight loss 1023 Honeymoon 1024 female hormones and in Episode 1025 We talked about transitioning from MDI to pumping. Before I go I'd like to share two reviews with you of the diabetes Pro Tip series, one from an adult and one from a caregiver. I learned so much from the pro tips series when our son was diagnosed last summer, it really helped get me through those first few very tough weeks. It wasn't just your explanations of how it all works, which were way better than anything our diabetes educator told us. But something about the way you and Jenny presented everything, even the scary stuff. That reassured me that we could figure out how to deal with us and to teach our son how to deal with it too. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. This podcast is a game changer 25 years as a type one diabetic, and only now am I learning some of the basics, Scott brings useful information and presents it in digestible ways. Learning the Pre-Bolus doesn't just mean Bolus before you eat but means timing your insulin so that is active as the carbs become active, took me already from a decent 6.5 A one C down to a 5.6. In the past eight months. I've never met Scott But after listening to hundreds of episodes and joining him in his Facebook group, I consider him a friend. listening to this podcast and applying it has been the best thing I have done for my health since diagnosis. I genuinely hope that the diabetes Pro Tip series is valuable for you and your family. If it is find me in the private Facebook group and say hello. If you're enjoying the Juicebox Podcast, please share it with a friend, a neighbor, your physician or someone else who you know that might also benefit from the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.