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Scott Benner 0:00
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Today we're going to revisit Episode 531, after dark, diabetes complications. It originally aired on August 25 2001 and I consider to be a seminal episode of the podcast. This is Mike, a long time type one, who is going to thoughtfully and honestly walk you through his life and explain some of the complications that he's had. After you finish with this episode and end up loving Mike, which I believe you will go find his latest episode. 1221 it's called condo shopping. Mike and his wife come on to give an update on his life, and it's very, very interesting. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin, to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com if you're looking for community around type one diabetes. Check out the Juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group, Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes. I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 the only one year where CGM, that's one insertion and one CGM a year, one CGM one year, not every 10 or 14 days ever since cgm.com/juicebox the Juicebox podcast is full of so many series that you want and need after dark, ask Scott and Jenny, algorithm, pumping bold beginnings, defining diabetes, defining thyroid, the diabetes Pro Tip series for type one, the diabetes variable series, mental wellness, type two diabetes pro tip, how we eat? Oh, my goodness, there so much at Juicebox podcast.com head up into that menu and pick around. And if you're in the private Facebook group, just go to the feature tab for lists upon lists of all of the series. Always free, always helpful.

Mike Green 2:32
My name is Mike. I live in San Diego. I've been type one, whoa, over 45 years now. And

Scott Benner 2:43
yeah, how old are you? Mike?

Mike Green 2:46
I just turned 55 today. Oh, really,

Scott Benner 2:49
congratulations.

Mike Green 2:50
Thank you. So I can now eat off the Denny's 55 plus menu.

Scott Benner 2:53
Things are really heading in your direction. Finally,

Mike Green 2:56
you got to take the positives in this world of all the negatives. I

Scott Benner 3:00
didn't know our birthdays were so close to each other's. I

Mike Green 3:03
know happy late birthday. My, uh, my replacement service dog trainer, my replacement service dog the trainer was here working, and we were pretty tied up, so I didn't get to wish you happy birthday. Happy belated birthday.

Scott Benner 3:13
Thank you very much. And happy birthday to you. We are, uh, five years apart and two days. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So Mike, you were on a how we episode for keto, 409-490-6496, there you go. Some of the similar numbers, 496, and I would have to say months had gone by after that, after we recorded it maybe, and I got a really, I thought, passionate email from you, saying that you needed to come back on the show and talk about complications and your and your life in general. So I think that's very brave, and I appreciate you want to do that. Sure.

Mike Green 3:59
I'm I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to, you know, explain to people. It's kind of emotional for me when I start talking about so

Scott Benner 4:10
bear with me. I brought tissues to this one. Do you not have tissues?

Mike Green 4:14
I have? I have short sleeves in the whole bottom of my shirt.

Scott Benner 4:20
I guess, I guess, for people who didn't hear you on how, we just give them a couple of minutes, you know, when about your diagnosis and how things were back then,

Mike Green 4:29
sure. So back in the 70s, when I was diagnosed, there was no meters, no good insulins. There was, well, the I need to back up just a hair there for a quick second. So I was misdiagnosed by a general practitioner for over a year with an ulcer because I had the symptoms of the doubling over stomach cramps. I guess that's when my body. Was attacking the beta cells, or the pancreas, from my understanding. So he diagnosed me with an ulcer, and he diagnosed my mom with being so mentally hard on me, just as a kid in general, in life, that it stressed me out so much that caused me to have an ulcer, which was farthest from the truth. I had a great, loving mom, loving family. The as the as the time progressed, I was getting, obviously losing more and more weight, and they finally took me to the hospital, because I was just skin and bones. They just they couldn't figure it out. Yeah, wasn't a DKA at that point, but I was close. They said I probably had a few more months, and I would have been in DK at that point, but, and it was funny, well, I don't know if it's funny, but we were walking down the hall in the emergency room, and the doctor that was walking the other way looked at me, pointed to me, and told my parents that kid's a type one diabetic. And turns out that's the doctor that came into the exam room and properly diagnosed me so and at that time, things were pretty primitive. Again, like I said, there was no meters, no good insulins. We had beef and pork and in, and you would take the beef or pork insulin until you started getting resistant to it. Then you would switch over to the other that you either or beef or pork until you resistant to that. And you kind of swap back and forth. If you got resistant to both of them, you're pretty much screwed at that point. So I was probably 500 the whole time I was a kid, because at that point they viewed it, if you weren't falling over, you were doing pretty good, right? And you did one shot a day. You'd mix the insulin, then you had exchange rates at that time. Example, breakfast, two starches, a dairy, a fat, and then lunch, to be kind of the same thing, you know, two or three starches, four proteins, and that's how they kind of managed it. So I did. I was on one shot a day for till I was a teenager, and I went to a type one backpacking camp at the doctors there finally switched me over to two shots a day, and again, no meters, no no way to really monitor how much insulin you need. But I just, I can remember it at that point, when they switched me to two shots a day, how much better I felt. So maybe I was what? I came down from 500 to 400 I don't know. We will never know. I

Scott Benner 7:47
wonder. Do you know why they somebody thought to introduce it? Was it just the new way to do it? And you were the old one? Yeah, I

Mike Green 7:54
think there was doctors at the camp. There were younger doctors, and at at the time, from my understanding. Now, of you know doctors and how they treated diabetics, they just, they kept you, they basically kept you from not dying. And they they wouldn't, they couldn't, they wouldn't adjust. But that was their goal, to keep you from dying immediately from a low, but not long term, from complications. They there was just no, there was no way to tell but, but as a teenager, the doctors at that point saw it was pretty antiquated for one shot a day, so they broke it up, so at least you had some more regular to cover dinner instead of just covering dinner with whatever basal might be left over from the in which I don't know if they really know what the peak on that was, whether it was 12 hours, six hours, 24 hours, I don't know. I've looked back on that. I can't find any good, solid documentation that kind of gives the duration of that like linte Now, or, you know, a trashI via that's 48 act down. I couldn't find any data in that, and at this point, doesn't matter. That's that's over. Yeah,

Scott Benner 9:11
it's gone. So what part of the 70s were you diagnosed

Mike Green 9:17
mid 70s, right around 7677 I remember the Freedom Train coming through, and it was like the summer before I was misdiagnosed, and then went through that school year and the summer after, when I was properly diagnosed. And like I said, I've seen pictures from our vacations. We went on family vacation. We were fortunate enough to go for a few weeks every summer. And again, I just, it was just skin and bones, man, my, my, my shirt was just literally hanging off my skeleton, right? And it that's, it was pretty sad. That's

Scott Benner 9:52
over five decades after someone figured out insulin that was, that was still the the same. Situation,

Mike Green 10:00
they had no there was really no way to to there was no home monitoring. I mean, I know hospitals at that time had glucometers, but they're the only ones that really had them. And the reason they had them was, if somebody came in passed out, were you a drunk or were you a type one diabetic?

Scott Benner 10:20
You know, passed out, and they needed this thing to figure that out. Yeah,

Mike Green 10:24
they needed some way to quickly figure that out, so they weren't putting type one diabetes in the drunk tank and then them dying, right? Wow.

Scott Benner 10:32
So you live a long time with a really high blood sugar, correct? And I'm gonna kind of break your life up into segments, I think Sure so in the moment, do you know what's happening, or is it just your life and there's no way to feel it or like, did you know you felt bad when you were on one shot a day? Um,

Mike Green 10:57
I didn't know at the time, because I really had nothing to judge it with, because you I was never in a lower range to feel like, for instance, you know, 120 versus a 500 and your body kind of gets used to it. And then I also remember, as a teenager in high school, originally, I have nothing wrong with private schools, but it wasn't my, let's say, cup of tea, and I wanted to go back to the public school, where all my friends were from growing up elementary school. So my mom agreed to let me go back to the public school, but I had to take up extracurricular activity, so I chose cross country and track

Scott Benner 11:39
perfect. Yeah. And

Mike Green 11:41
I never had a low, I never passed out. So that validates all the doctors of today's that, yeah, you must have been 500 the whole time because we were running, you know, 1050, miles a day. We got up to and here's the wacky noodles part of this. My mom read in a runners magazine that you should carbohydrate load the day before a race. So she'd make me, not knowing this was a problem at the time. Again, loving mother, she'd make me a whole box of mac and cheese that I would eat for dinner the night before, a whole box of pasta. So I was carb loading without covering for insulin, because there was no knowledge of covering it for insulin. Right

Scott Benner 12:21
on top of all that, how did you run like, I guess you really so. So for, I guess, for people listening, who are managing in today's world, the idea that you could be 500 and living for days and days and days, or 400 or whatever, like that, high, high, like that, yeah, is, is probably confusing to them. It's inconceivable, right, right? But really, you're it then, in that moment and for those years, your body's in an advanced state of aging, basically Correct. You're using up your life cycles faster than you should be, correct, and your body had a way of making itself feel normal enough that you could function Correct.

Mike Green 13:05
Yeah. The other thing the doctor that diagnosed me when I was a kid, which I found out later in life, um, that he told my mom that exercise equated to insulin, um, and anywhere I wanted to go, like my friend's house that was several miles away, an arcade at you know, when I asked her, Hey, can you run me over here? Well, ever since my diagnosis, she conveniently could never take me anywhere. She made me ride my bike, which that probably at that time, was one of the best things for me, so which helped me in cross country and track, and I still hold the record for the 100 at Christian junior high to this day. So I was in, I was in top shape. I was just riding everywhere. So go figure i Yeah, we, we talk about that now with some of the like the the therapists they see, you know, Sports Therapy and stuff. And it's just, yeah, I think, I think that her conveniently, but making me go ride for that exercise is insulin thing was probably extended at that time. A lot of things, yeah,

Scott Benner 14:17
bought you more time because she was driving your blood sugar down a little bit with the with the exercise, and with you, with all the running and everything, yeah, which would take you right back to prior to insulin. When they started figuring out what was happening, they would just starve people and move them around. That's yeah, that's how they would that's how they try to elongate your life. If you had type one before, instantly, you know, don't eat anything, and then just keep active. And you're really just doing those things to stay alive. And so you were getting some function from that correct when what happens next? You go away to college. You. No, I

Mike Green 15:00
went to automotive trade school at that time. So first part of my life, I was a ASC certified auto mechanic. And again, just, you know, whatever insulin, single dose they gave me on the day and at night, I was just taken and eaten any and everything, and there was no thought process behind it, because there was still no, no monitoring, no right, I think there was a, I believe there was a meter at that time, but it took, like, two or five minutes to read. And what do you do with the information? Yeah, and at that point, if,

Scott Benner 15:42
if I'm remembering correctly, from our our other conversation is this the point in your life where you get fairly unhealthy in other ways? Yeah, okay. Can you tell people about that?

Mike Green 15:52
Yeah, so, moved to Florida for with a girlfriend and and her family. We love sailing, and it was warm water there. So, you know, we're, we're drinking and, you know, eating whatever, because there's really, I've never been told not to, and there's been no great information to, hey, you need to do these things to take care of yourself. So the doctor I saw at that time because I knew I needed insulin, insulin was life. You could buy syringes over the counter. So I was basically seeing him for the prescription for insulin. And I was really overweight. I'm five 511 I was like, 245 ish, 250 overweight. And he finally, one day, going in to get my prescription, said that you really need to do better in your life. And I'm like, okay, like, you know, get a desk job or something. Cars, yeah. So he said, No, diabetes wise. He said, I'm going to send you to see this person who I'm still lifelong friends with. Today, see this person, and if I get back good information from this person that you're will start taking care of yourself. I will keep prescribing you insulin. We'll check in the hospital. If you, if I get bad information from this person, no doctor in South Florida will see you. I will, I will ban you from seeing any doctor in South Florida through the medical profession or however rewarded it at that time. So I'm thinking, insulin, life and no insulin, not life.

Scott Benner 17:41
This next guy is going to get to tell me whatever he

Mike Green 17:43
wants. Yeah, so, so I went saw the person was at diabetes treatment centers they had at the hospitals at that time, and she scared the beje out of me. If you want to put any other explicit word in there, you could go ahead and do that and bleep it out. So I, I checked. I got checked in the hospital. At that point. They checked in for like, seven days to regulate you, quote, unquote. I'm doing air quotes as you can see, regulate you as best they can. And got my first meter, and I took it serious. I was on multiple injections at that time. MDI insulin pumps were considered experimental. So after that week in the hospital, I continued to strive. I, you know, hung out the diabetes treatment center, the support groups got within at that time in the community, which made me feel really good about things. Started eating healthier, and the next thing was I needed to lose weight. And he said, you know, you gotta start doing some exercise. And I was working for an accurate dealership at the time, and the parts manager raced amateur bicycles, and he invited me to come out and cycle with him, you know, to try to help some lose weight. And so I bought a my first bike that month, uh, rode over, little over 1000 miles and lost like 45 pounds plus that first month. So, jeez, uh, I'm an, I'm an all or nothing guy, in case you anybody that you know I I don't just dabble in anything. Well,

Scott Benner 19:27
let me, let me ask you a couple questions. So you basically are living in your Well, tell me. Tell me how old you are when you met. This the second doctor. I

Mike Green 19:40
was in my early 20s. Okay,

Scott Benner 19:42
so early 20s is you're young, you're a mechanic, you're living, you're sailing, you're screwing around with your girlfriend and eating whatever you want and drinking. You said drinking, I'm assuming you meant beer and stuff like that. Yeah? So, just

Mike Green 19:56
beer. Yeah, just beer. At that point I. I

Scott Benner 20:00
was it a rapid weight gain for you, or no happening through high school? Weight

Mike Green 20:06
gain was at, well, when I was in high school running cross country and track, I was, you know, just a rail and I got in a really bad car crash. I was in the back seat of a little, little, little Honda Civic, I think it was. And we have these mountains out here, and one of the cool thing is to do, which is really not cool, is to go on the mountain, turn your lights out, and scare the crap out everybody in the car, you know, and try to anticipate the curve you made. So this girl was driving, and she wasn't a good driver, but I'm in the back seat, you know, I should have said something. I didn't, because I'm with my friend, trying to protect her. We grew up as as neighbor kids, and we went off the mountain, airborne into a tree, and luckily, the tree, the tree branches. As we landed about mid tree. I went back and looked at it afterwards, and it was probably the tree was taller than a two story, not a two story, but a one story house, so, but between that, so landed in that. The impact lifted me up and, of course, no seat belts at the time, so I broke both my ankles, shattered my shoulder as the car fell down. It was pretty gentle fall through the limbs until we hit the ground. It was in front of somebody's house. You think so we hobbled, hobbled in there and

Scott Benner 21:34
help Mike. Is it possible that Steven Spielberg has stolen a portion of your life story for Jurassic Park and you're owed money?

Mike Green 21:41
I didn't think of that. But anyways, after I healed, I went out, did six miles with the because at that point the the guys team was running 10 to 15, and I was trying to get back into it. I did six mile loop, and I hurt so bad, I never ran after that again. And it was from that progression through my early 20s I started gaining the weight because I was just, you know, right? You know, I could eat a whole large, extra large, deep dish pizza and a setting myself. So when we go to pizzas, we'd get three or four pizzas with the family.

Scott Benner 22:17
Well, okay, so take me into that room in your 20s, what does that doctor who scares you? What is What do they say to

Mike Green 22:24
you? Well, basically, the the doctor, the doctor or the diabetes treatment center, the

Scott Benner 22:29
treatment center, I'm

Mike Green 22:31
sorry. Oh, so she will cut to the quick. Her first statement was, you got a girlfriend. Yeah, you like having sex? Yeah. Well, if you want to keep having sex, you better start taking care of yourself, because that's the first thing is probably going to go, no, not. Probably will go that grabs a young man's attention really quick, like, literally by the short hairs. Like, I

Scott Benner 22:58
did not recognize that erectile dysfunction is going to be what you started with today?

Mike Green 23:04
No. I mean, she just flat out, and it was just, I think I turned 50 shades of white, right? Because it was just like, oh my god, yeah. No, we No, what? No, let's

Scott Benner 23:15
fix this quickly. Yeah,

Mike Green 23:17
that was when can we tuck me into the hospital? Well, we have to have the doctor's note first. Can we call him now?

Scott Benner 23:22
My ankles are fine. Can I go for a walk? So she hit you with that as a side effect of unregulated blood sugars, correct. Okay.

Mike Green 23:34
And she said at that point, it had no age limit. It was just it could happen to you tomorrow. Or, you know, the better care you take of yourself. Let's just say it could never happen, but

Scott Benner 23:46
at your rate, it will in that moment, five seconds before that, did you think of yourself as a person with unregulated blood sugars?

Mike Green 23:55
No, not at all. Matter of fact, I there was you could go through the drive throughs there. I won't say the name of the place, but you could get and I got fried the fried shrimp platter with two cores lights to go through the drive through window on your

Scott Benner 24:09
way to the diabetes treatment center. Yeah.

Mike Green 24:14
So I got fried shrimp, french fries, couple of beer. I didn't drink them while I was driving, but I drank them in the parking lot. And that

Scott Benner 24:20
wasn't a goodbye to health, because you didn't think that's what was happening. This is just a common way you would have eaten,

Mike Green 24:26
yeah, yeah, yeah, not on a work day, but yeah,

Scott Benner 24:28
I have, I have a question or to jump ahead for half a second because I know you now. Yeah, no. I mean, we're not, I don't know you well, but I know you, yeah, we communicate, yeah, right. You don't seem like that person. Was it youth? Was it the high blood sugars? That was just how it lived. It's just how you live. It's just what, how things occurred to you, and that's what you did, yeah,

Mike Green 24:53
because, you know, we take the sailboat out for the weekend, you know, couple of 12 packs of beers. You know, maybe after. So after work, we take the sailboat out, or the motor boat, and, you know, beer was always involved. You know, go out for a pizza, have a couple beers. I will preface this. I never drink and drive drunk. You know, a couple of three beers was about it. But when we be out on the water, we get pretty sloshed, but, yeah, you know, sailboat only goes so fast,

Scott Benner 25:26
so you gotta find your excitement somewhere else. Okay, all right, so she hits you with Ed. Anything else

Mike Green 25:35
that was, that was the opening closing statement. That's all it needed.

Scott Benner 25:39
She started. She's like, there's other stuff. You're like, No, I'm good. I'm gonna do it. So she so they we're good. You want to hear about the heart disease? Nope, don't care. Not gonna make it that far.

Mike Green 25:52
Yeah, no, there was heart disease involved at that point. Learn that later.

Scott Benner 25:56
So they check you in, and they get you basically, it's a blood sugar detox, I guess, for the lack of a better term, did they teach you about food? What happens in that time? So

Mike Green 26:07
they didn't really teach about foods. They were still using the exchange rate at that point. So, you know, starch is, you know, slice of bread. It's, uh, mashed potatoes. That's about the size the palm of your hand, a dinner roll, and you kind of went on that. And so I tried, I diligently again, as I say, I'm all or nothing, if I know better. So I went into it with, you know, eyes wide open, and really focused on doing the best I could. Had a meter. So I was, you know, test before breakfast, lunch and dinner. So, you know, that's what the doctor told me to do. That's what I did.

Scott Benner 26:48
Do? You remember any of those early blood sugar tests?

Mike Green 26:54
Yeah, you know, you know, in the high one hundreds, low two hundreds was not uncommon, and was praised. You know, you're doing great. And then, like I said, I didn't do the two hour test. I didn't I wasn't told to. So I was told I was doing good. I was now in control. I do not remember my a one CS at the time, but they're not what I've got now. They were probably, you know, under 12, maybe 11, I can't remember, but at that time, whatever the ADA recommendation was, I was considered compliant.

Scott Benner 27:35
Okay, and so how long does this phase of your life with blood sugars last

Mike Green 27:42
well. So, because I was riding exercising, and I was no Lance Armstrong, or, you know, Tour de France qualifier, but I held my own, and there was a group there that was out of the mike cycle. Your bicycle store just happened to be and they call themselves the mics group, and it wasn't for me. Those were the hardcore local guys, and they met early, like five in the morning to go train. And they would, you know, you'd get a 40, 5060, mile hardcore workout before work and on the MDI, I'd get up at set my alarm, get up at two, Bolus or inject, go to sleep for an hour, wake up at three. I would eat and then wake up at five, and depending on my blood sugar, I would either go work out, or, you know, I couldn't, because it was kind of out of whack, being either too high or what I thought at that point wasn't high enough to go do the strenuous workout. And by by default of doing the same thing seven days a week, every morning I was able to get my breakfast dialed in so I could do those workouts and then, and this is where I progressed to. I wanted to get an insulin pump because I was taking so many injections throughout the day, because I ride do the hard workout before work. I'd ride my bike to work. I'd go ride, you know, an hour at lunch, hard I'd ride home. So I was doing more and more and more exercises and picking up more and more these little group kind of heavy workouts. And the MDI was getting to be too hard, so I wanted to get on an insulin pump, asking my doctor, and he said, No, no, no, they're just, there's, there's too high risk for, you know, DKA infection and hospitalization, and they're experimental. I don't have anybody on one, so I did. It took me about six months begging and pleading him, and I found the. Only type one diabetes at that time who did the Iron Man in Ohio or Ohio Hawaii that was on an insulin pump, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back of his Okay, I'll let you try this, and it worked out really good. Yeah, um, you know, I still didn't have stellar, you know, anyone sees that we have today, but in that time, that worked out really good, because I didn't have the long acting floating around in there, right? You know, just had the basal, and then kind of make some adjustments. And I ate a lot of Fig Newtons at that time because they're 11 grams of carb beach. I could figure out what that was going to be for the next two hours of, you know, either strenuous or non strenuous workout. I had, matter of fact, I had charts and graphs at that time of just about every food the grocery store sold, what the carbs were, how much insulin it needed. Again, the all or nothing guy.

Scott Benner 30:58
It's funny, you say say that, but I keep thinking, nobody told you and maybe nobody knew. But, I mean, I think you would have done it if you would have known. Oh,

Mike Green 31:08
yeah, had 100% had I known, I would have been doing it. But again, he just, I get my prescription, see Doc, see him, you know, three months, whatever, and until he finally just said, This is insane. This is you're just killing yourself

Scott Benner 31:22
well, so now you're riding your bike and you're in you lost, I mean, it sounds like you lost a lot of weight in one swing, right? Yeah, yeah, okay. And now you're living like this higher a one season than we would think of now as being okay, but it was way better than what was happening. It's a huge improvement. Etc, in your mind, you're out of the woods, right?

Mike Green 31:42
Oh yeah, my mind, I'm golden. I'm I'm going to avoid any complications, any long term effects. And really, at that point, nobody really talked about it. It was, I don't want to say it was the unspoken, but if I look back, it was kind of the unspoken. Nobody talked about it, unless you were, you know, anybody had the amputation. You say what you're, you know, diabetic. You know, my uncle lost his leg. And you can hear that story from everybody. Oh, thanks, great. But you know, being type one at that time, you were considered able to control it. You were the lucky diabetic, because if you wanted to take care of it, you could, which is further from the truth. But

Scott Benner 32:22
so, you know, from your diagnosis to this time, where you're you've got the, I mean, from your diagnosis, from one shot a day to two shots a day to, you know, the weight gain, to the intervention I'll call it to, you know, getting on a pump and having stability at eight. What do you think those a one, CS, back then, were on that first pump, nine, eight.

Mike Green 32:46
I don't think it was eight. It was probably nine, between nine and 11, I would imagine, because, you know, you go out to do a time trial, and you know you might, you know, Jack yourself up to 300 before you go out to do the rot, the the event. Same thing with a mountain bike race. You know, you're not going to start a mountain bike race at that time, at 150 you're, you're, you're going to crash. Okay, so I had a camel back that I had Go ahead. I just

Scott Benner 33:12
wonder how much time it was from your diagnosis to this time in your life, like today time or then to that time, would that pump, those 11, A, one, CS from your diagnosis?

Mike Green 33:24
Oh, I was probably it was pretty quick. So once, even with the multi, the MDI, that time, when I the intervention period, I pretty quickly came down to that it was probably months, once I started exercising and that that, you know, getting into the local amateur bike racing, amateur mountain bike racing, and the weekend group rides. Okay, so, I mean, really physical I could, I was doing 300 plus a week,

Scott Benner 33:54
easily. And you're in your mid 20s by then, or No, still early.

Mike Green 33:59
I remember my late, early, starting on my mid okay,

Scott Benner 34:03
and you're diagnosed again at how old

Mike Green 34:10
it's like eight or nine or between nine and 10, okay,

Scott Benner 34:13
so fair to say, about 15 years of your life is spent at least over an 11, A, 1c, And and going this whole process that you just described. Just described, yes, right now, from that point into I'm sorry, I feel like I'm I feel like the bad guy in this story, for some reason. But from that point until your first complication, how long is it and what is that first one?

Mike Green 34:40
So my first noticeable complication, and I was, I've been a type one diabetic test, test monkey for new drugs and and apparatuses for Oh, 2530 years. And. This has to be, I'm trying to think of numbers here. I'm not so this is before my trophy wife now after I moved back to so this is around there, right around 2000 maybe. One of the studies I was signed up for was people, people with or without neuropathy of known degree. There was a, excuse me, a pill that they were going to give you for a year, or whatever it was to see if, once they measured your neuropathy and your lower, like your ulnar, between your foot and like your calf, they did a measurement. And whatever that was, there was a there was a your IN or OUT parameter, um, kind of go, no go. And they would measure that over the year to see what the improvement was. So they had an electrode on my calf, like it was, what do they call it, acupuncture needle? It's how they had the probe in there on your nerve, and they would fire that nerve, and they measured it somewhere in the bottom of your foot. And I'm not looking at what, you know, because I'm laying on a table, you know, on my belly, and this guy's doing this measurement feet, you know, straight out, you know, knee bent up, and he's doing this and doing this, and spend a little bit time, and he's, you know, he kept asking me, Are you okay? Yeah, yeah, man, I'm fine. And okay. Are you sure you're okay. He said, Yeah, why? And he goes,

Scott Benner 36:45
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Mike Green 37:46
kept asking me, Are you okay? I've got this thing cranked up and I cannot get a response. Well, what does that mean? He goes, you've got serious, serious, serious, lower neuropathy and like that can't be true. I can feel heat, cold, fuzzy carpet. And he goes, No. So my nurse practitioner at that time, who I saw as my doctor, quote, unquote, she also did research with the use the UCSD VA, where a lot of the research was performed, and she kind of just got the result we're talking about. She goes, Man, I'm sorry I didn't know this. Things were that bad. I'm like, What do you mean that bad? And I didn't, the levity of it didn't hit me, because I'm thinking, that's wrong. I can feel, you know, again, hot, cold water, you know, I still, I could feel everything. So I I dismissed it as, you know, kind of whatever. But looking back on that now is, yeah, I guess that was kind of harder to take when I look back at it, but I just, I blocked

Unknown Speaker 39:01
it. Sorry, you're fine.

Mike Green 39:03
I guess I just blocked it out of my mind, thinking this, this is this can't be true. So that was the first. That was the first on record. I guess you could say, Yeah, we results of a test, and that was all because I was, you know, going to do uh, studies.

Scott Benner 39:29
So that's about 25 years into your life with type one, and literally over 20 years ago now. Yeah, yeah. Do the does that progress in a way that's measurable? Or do you just notice one day that it's worse? Or how does that go?

Mike Green 39:48
I It's hard to say. Again, I still dismissed it, thinking that they were wrong. I. But again, it was a machine. They measured it. So, yeah, I don't know. I still did a bunch, you know, dozens of more studies on different drugs and different things, but, but that, that was the first one that had a measurement that couldn't do the study. And then I noticed there was a you know something was going down.

Scott Benner 40:26
Well, okay, what's the next thing that happens?

Mike Green 40:31
Next noticeable, which I didn't know. And in the in the meantime, I've had, do you know what the duplicate contractures are? No so duplicate contracture, a lot of people call it trigger finger, but it's not trigger finger. Trigger Finger is you're using your finger, and it locks. Okay, it's painful. Then, then it, at some point, it straightens up. A duplicate contracture. It's really common in type one diabetes. They don't know why, other than they believe it's something to do with the synthetic insulin, but it's basically a growth of collagen weed that goes around your tendons, nerves and starts pulling your fingers down in a locked so that they won't extend past a certain point. Okay? And I've had several on my left hand and my left pinky. The last one I did I had by done by a hand specialist who turned out to be a butcher, and you can see I don't have a pinky, right? Um, he did the repair, cut the nerve, did it right. It in hand therapy, and the nerve repair popped, and My finger got stuck at an angle, like that, and it would get caught in places, wow. And for the record, for those of you who can't see me, it was bent over more than halfway toward my palm, but it would flex to my palm, but it wouldn't flex past. So as I'm working on a car or something, you squeeze it in somewhere, and your finger can't pull out. Oh my gosh. So now you got to get a screwdriver, something in there, pack the crap out of your finger, trying to get it bit down your palm of pull out. So that's why they ended up amputating that one at the so they took two thirds off. So I got the nub,

Scott Benner 42:28
so you have two thirds of your left hand. Pinky is gone, correct, right? Okay, there it is. Yeah. No, no, I know. I just want to make sure people understand, yeah,

Mike Green 42:38
I believe that's the distal phalange. I think they call it, no, I don't know, but it's one of those phalanges. It's, I can only count to uh, four and a third on my left hand,

Scott Benner 42:52
but if you hold up both of your fingers, you can get the eight and a half. Yeah, yes, because I recently

Mike Green 42:57
lost my other one. But one of the things, the complications I felt next after the feet the finger, is I started getting really bad, frozen shoulder on my right side to start with. So you throw a frisbee or something and be like, you know, just be that thing at different times. Is

Scott Benner 43:24
there anything they can do for that

Mike Green 43:27
when it gets so bad? Well, they can inject steroids. But you know what steroids does to a type one, so they can go in there when it gets to a point you can't move it and clean it out. I went to the shoulder doctor and he said, Oh, also my right bicep, the the part the neuropathy, whatever you want to call it, it crystallizes the muscles, tendons and nerves. So when that happens, and you move your arm out real quick. That rips, and that ripping of that crystallization is just painful. Wow, that that's a problem. And I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to think of the progression of the other complications. So I work with my hands. I'm no longer a auto mechanic, but I'm a piano and instrument repair technician. So I'm still working with my hands, and it was several years ago, my my as I'm working with my hands, my fingers would just lock up in these contorted positions and at any given time, and I would drop the tool I'm working with, um, I'd ask my my hand therapist or not hand my hand doctor, specialist, what? What's causing it? Do I have arthritis? And he says, No, you don't have arthritis. Why is they locking up? He's I have no idea why they're locking up, but that that would get worse. And worse and worse, and then recently diagnosed as severe neuropathy. Yeah, um,

Scott Benner 45:11
when did the brain fog come?

Mike Green 45:13
Oh, gosh. So the brain fog, so here's what, uh, most of my type one buddies my age. We, we call it diabetic dropout. You're talking and, and you, you've, you forget where you were talking about, or the word, or whatever. And that was, that was happened over the years, but that was also, it's basically awesome timers you

Scott Benner 45:56
want to take a break.

Mike Green 45:58
Not all right, it's the the crystallization of your fine blood cells in your in your brain, which they've recently basically, it's, it's, it's basically Alzheimer's. There's nothing you could alright, that's the one that really gets good. I think about that one. They uh. I still haven't had the MRI yet, because I don't. I don't want to know the the I don't want to know the results about what, what the measurement of it is. You can't take Alzheimer's meds because the side effects are harder on you, then what the benefit might be, but that's just years and years of, you know, out of control blood sugars. But there was nothing, nothing we could do. We didn't know about it. They didn't know about it. You know, 2030, years ago, this is something there's there puppies and kittens, puppies and kittens, puppies and kittens.

Scott Benner 47:12
Can I ask you why you wanted to do this?

Mike Green 47:15
Yeah, I hear it so often from from people who are newly diagnosed in the past few years. If there was ever a time to be diagnosed, now is the time, um, sorry, both my sleeves are out wet.

Scott Benner 47:41
Should have went with a long sleeve shirt, but

Mike Green 47:44
hot out, but yeah, so. And it really, what really tied this all together is I used to say, you know, it's pretty good time to be diagnosed with diabetes. I volunteered a lot of kids ski camps. I can't do any more because of my neuropathy, but just letting people know that it's a pretty good time. Now, fast forward, back, forward a little bit. As you know, I started listening to you when COVID hit, and I started, I first off, employed bump and nudge, and I got down to the the high, low six high fives. Just with that regular diet, I was figuring out stuff. And then that's when I decided to go keto, not because of the Juicebox method, but it just seemed like something to do, easier to do. I love barbecue. And then when we did our first recording back in October, I was at, I believe it was five seven. Since then, I've been rocking a solid five five, wow. And then that's when it tied in to to myself and why I wanted to do this so the parents of kids nowadays to give them some relief that by once you learn how to use insulin, and I will say, until I listen to your podcasts, your gift to the world, whatever you want to call it. I never really knew how to use insulin if you really want to take it, because the doctors are, oh yeah, you're seven, you're 8085. You know, it's just right. It's that's still not healthy. That's long term, no good, but by keeping good anyone sees, and keeping in the low fives, even at a low six, my heart of hearts, my belief and talking with my neurologists, you're going to avoid all that. You're not going to have this. This stuff happens to you. You know, when you think about your sand blaster, you know, vision, that's just that just hits home and feeling the salt, the sugar crystals, it's like, Duh. But I really wanted to give some comfort to these new parents. And I see it all the time on the on the Facebook group, you know, diagnosed. You know, four months ago, a 1c, was five, seven. You know, it's like, you can get it, you can grasp it. You can live a life without complications, and there's no doctor in the world that'll tell you that, and that's what's bullshit.

Scott Benner 50:52
Sorry that just No, you're fine, please. You're kidding me. You can say whatever you want,

Mike Green 50:59
but it's it. It took a non diabetic and a non doctor to figure this out and share this with the world. To You know, you can do this without the complications. If you you know, do the ADAs recommendations, seven to eights, you're gonna have something happen to you. Man, yeah. And as of now, 55 years old, I'm having to go out on disability because I I can't work through my shoulders, my hands, so I had to have my my right hand, my right pinky, amputated a few months back, they had fixed that dupe trend several times, and within a year, it kept coming back. The blood supply on the outer finger was compromised, so there was just no way to do another surgery, right? It just it wouldn't live. So now I'm double dubbed, but in that hand therapy, so you do a grip test, and I've always been in the 90 fives, and that's an average, average male between 9095 100 and this last grip test I did, which proves my point, I can't even open a Gatorade bottle. It was 20.

Scott Benner 52:28
Wow. How quickly did that drop off happen?

Mike Green 52:32
It happened over the last couple of years. It started getting really bad, but it was just a progression from all the years gone by, they did a upper and lower neuropathy test where they do the same thing with the acupuncture needle, and they electrically. They start at your hip and they go down. It's on this little speaker. I don't know the name of the procedure, but it's as they're working their way down when the nerves are firing, you hear this noise on the on the speaker, and the closer they got to my knee, the the quieter it got. Once they got below my knee, it was dead silent, right? You know, I used to, we used to walk miles and miles and hike I I can do about two miles, maybe on a walk. I walk with a walking stick now, and that's on hard pavement.

You know, we don't hike anymore. I just can't. Yeah, it hurts too much,

Scott Benner 53:41
is the issues you're having relegated to your extremities, or have you willfully not been looking internally at yourself, or what is the rest of it like? Mean physically or mentally?

Unknown Speaker 53:54
I was gonna

Scott Benner 53:54
get to mentally in a second. I meant physically first, yeah,

Mike Green 53:58
physically, yeah. It's just the neuropathy is so bad at this point. You know, I can step on a it's like the Princess and the Pea, like, step on a little pebble with bare feet. Man, it's just excruciating. Wow.

Scott Benner 54:16
Yeah, I guess, I mean, I feel compelled to ask you about, like, how, how do you manage seeing because, I mean, what's really happening is you're seeing aging happening happen at an accelerated rate.

Mike Green 54:33
Yeah, I thought the wheels wouldn't fall off till my late 60s, early 70s. That happened a whole lot quicker. I had jet fuel to me, I guess.

Scott Benner 54:44
Well, it mean, it even really. I mean, I hate to talk about it like this, but it must be frustrating for you, because now looking back and understanding where your blood sugars are, your body really was resilient, honestly, to get you this far. And. Yeah. I mean, am I wrong? But it can't I hate, I hate asking this, but ask anything, I'm an open book. Do you appear to

Mike Green 55:08
tell all? Be all, whatever people need to hear this. They need to it was hushed and shushed and everything was behind. You know, don't talk about that. So people need to hear the truth and why it is so crucial to live the way you have Arden living and these other people that are in their fives. Yeah, you're going to get to 160 but you're not hanging out there for four or five hours. Not the excursion. It's okay to be 300 for seven hours. No, no, it's not.

Scott Benner 55:41
But do you play what if ever? Do you ever think about like, what if you learned it sooner? Oh,

Mike Green 55:48
100, yeah, every 24 hours a day,

Scott Benner 55:53
you can't avoid it. I imagine, right? You can't.

Mike Green 55:55
Well, it was really bad there. Man, I was, I was so spun out, especially after I lost my but right finger that, Oh, my God, what if, you know what am I going to do? And you know what am I going to do? You know, my wife, what are you going to do when I die? And if, what if I die, it's like I was just such a bad mental place. And you know what's going to happen tomorrow? And God, if this doctor would have told me 20 years and, yeah, I I, I have sought mental help, yeah,

Scott Benner 56:25
I mean, you have to right to, do you see a therapist? Yeah, yeah, so

Mike Green 56:29
I knew I knew after my right amputation. I mean, I just, I spun out, man, I just I spun out because it was it? It threw me off the cliff, and I got so spawned out of, you know, what if? What next? You know, right, if I'm this way now, what's tomorrow? What's next you're gonna bring Yeah, and I just it was so bad. My trophy wife said, If you keep this up, I'm not living this life. That's not what I signed up for. I was, I was always known as the it's all good man, rule number one, rule number two, see rule number one. And I was, I was in a dark, dark, really dark valley that I just the moon wasn't even shining in.

Scott Benner 57:20
So your wife didn't have any trouble with your your health issues. She had trouble with how you were facing them. Correct, yeah, okay, correct,

Mike Green 57:28
yeah. And even when you're dating. So I was in my I wasn't quite 40 yet when we started dating. And you know, you're diabetic and you think you're 40, who's going to want You? You? And so I met her, we kind of the from the first date we went on. We haven't been separated, other than a business trip or something like that. We've never really fought until, I won't say we fought recently. Really recently is when she said, I can't this is not what I signed up for. And this is the funny thing. She has a really close relative who is a nurse, who is type one, who had 911 called on her dozens of times, and knowing that, and she got with me as a diabetic, I'm thinking, what? But, you know, we fell in love, and she's like, it doesn't matter. You know, things happen. Things are going to happen. And thank God I haven't had to have 911 called on me, but, and then, after five or six years later, she asked me why, and I, you know why? Yeah, I test my blood sugars, but I was always higher than lower, because I developed really bad hypoglycemic gun awareness, now, it's paranoid, going low, right?

Scott Benner 58:43
Well, like you're you're shining a light on something. But I contend constantly. I don't say it as out loud, as much as maybe I think it. But everyone who's come into this life, you know, in the in the past handful of years, and seeing technology like it exists. Now, I don't think that a vast majority of them will see the issues that you're having, and I wonder if they don't want to pretend like they don't exist, so they don't have to think about it. And that I understand, but my responsibility becomes such that as the as the podcast grew, and it started reaching more and more people. I thought, I'm not just talking to, you know, moms with good insurance or, you know, you know, kids who grew up well and have dexcoms Like anymore, like I realize now that I'm I realized that then, but as it grew, I'm reaching more people, and my contention is, is that there are way more people like you living in the world right now with type one diabetes than there are the average parent of a child who's got good insurance and found the podcast. You know what I mean. And like, so I don't want to be a boutique show. And I, I mean, I was really grateful that you reached out and wanted to talk about all this. And I have to admit, when you asked, I didn't know how you were going to do it. I have to admit that personally, for me, it, it's Listen, I don't have any of your health issues, you know. And when this is over, I don't have to do whatever you have to do today, but your name being Mike, is hard for me. That's the weirdest thing. But at the same time, Mike, I feel like I missed my friend Mike, and I feel like I missed you too, you know what I mean. So it's a weird thing. It's obviously not, it's, it's not all of your health is not my responsibility, but it's, it's a real it turns up stuff for me, because when I start thinking about my friend Mike, I don't believe that by the time Arden was diagnosed, and I figured this, and by the time I figured this stuff out, it was likely too late for him to begin with, but it would have been cool to see him feel hopeful once, or to hear him talk about his five, five, a, 1c, or something like that. And it's just, it's, it's tough for me to just to hear you describing what's happening to you, because I feel like I I feel like I can see your future already, and I think you feel like you can see it too.

Mike Green 1:01:31
I do, and I I know what you're talking about. I've heard you talk about Mike and it who knows, but I, I truly believe in my heart of hearts now that I'm not going to get better, per se, but hopefully I won't get worse, right? And I will say this, I've always worn glasses to drive at night since I was 18 and since I've been doing, you know, your technique strategies, not medical advice, I know, but employing how to use insulin and how to bump a nudge and pre Bolus and all those, I no longer wear glasses. Oh, that's

Scott Benner 1:02:20
cool. I wish I could do something to get myself to stop wearing glasses. I'll tell you, what, if anybody wants to start a podcast that gets me away from these reading glasses, I'd be really, really grateful. Well, it's

Mike Green 1:02:30
and I talked to my doctor about that, and the eye doctor, and it's because my eyes aren't, you know, shrinking, swelling, shrinking, swelling, shrinking, swelling, shrinking, swelling, the the blood sugars, my my mom wears pretty heavy glasses, my dad, my granddad, nobody else did. So for what that's worth, well, I'm

Scott Benner 1:02:51
Thank you. I know it's a weird I'm sorry that I turned this into you, making me feel better, but I appreciate knowing that I was just Charlie. Give context, really? Yeah, yeah. Like, I know we're in a weird setup right now where I don't have a camera on and you do, but I There are times I've had to look away from you because I'm like, Oh my God, I need to be able to keep this moving and and put a podcast together. We can't both start crying because I don't think anybody would listen to it. Well,

Mike Green 1:03:19
it's the other reason why I was happy to do it, and I knew I was going to break down. But it's, it's, you know, it's sad, it's, it's, it's, you look back and you think, you know what I used to do and what I where I'm at now, but you know what I honestly believe my heart of hearts. How much worse it would have gotten so much faster the other issues had I not found the podcast and been able to employ those tools to hopefully stop the future, you know, and carry on where I'm at. And I, I believe that I'm glad I do, and it's and that was, Well, part of it. Go ahead. I

Scott Benner 1:04:14
didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry. No, I, it's all, you know, I was part of what I was trying to say, and what I've been trying to say about why this all needs to be kind of bulletproof and easy to understand. Because, in my mind, what if the podcast finds you, but it's too convoluted or too difficult, and then you're like, ah, and then you walk away from it, you know, like, it needs to be like, there was, there's a person online last night who put up some graphs, and people were, you know, pretty much it's interesting to watch people from the podcast talk, because they they're like, there's two factions. One of them's right? Okay, this person's this. This person's basal is either not strong enough or they're bad at Bolus thing for their meals, right? It's one of these two things. I saw that post right, right? But the the point is, is that it is definitely going to be one of those two things. But you're talking to a parent of a child, it's a fairly new diagnosis. They don't know what they're talking about yet. They're trying to figure it out. And I think that if I can give myself credit for anything, I can give myself credit for coming up with the idea, the very simple idea, that you first make sure your basal is right, then you learn to pre Bolus, then you learn the glycemic load and index of your different foods and stay flexible. And it's a four step idea that is doable. And no matter whether you're a person whose basal is too weak or you don't know how to bullish your food, if you go through those four steps, you're going to come out on the other side with an answer that's valuable for yourself. And while these people were talking to this person, I realized that the one difference between all of those people, who all had rock solid advice and me, was that I have a concept of what it's like to talk to a person without having all of their information, without really understanding and and knowing that if you go back to get your basal right, make sure you're pre Bolus, etc, etc, that no matter what problem ask what, what problem perspective you're coming from with using your insulin, that will get you to the answer, like, maybe this woman's basal is right for her kid, it could be but, and maybe it's not that far off, but understanding that you can't just look and tell somebody something, because if somebody so somebody to swoop in, in that moment, on that person in that post, and say, Hey, your boluses are way off, which they probably are, but they don't, they don't address the basal first, then these people are going to be making these aggressive Bolus is forever, and they're going to have these lingering highs. And so I came in and I said, Look, your Bolus looks, looks weak to me. People are like, no, no, no, look how stable our blood sugars are. These blood sugars are. It's just high because they're missing on the meals. I'm like, Well, that could be it. But I know enough to say, Well, yeah, maybe where everyone else, where everyone else is like, no, no, this is it. This is it. But they only think that's it because it's what happened to them. And, you know, and so understanding how to deliver this information in a way where everybody comes in, ends up at the same place if they kind of go through the steps, that's the part that's super important, because you miss people. You don't catch them all, if you don't have something that everybody can work out. And I don't know, I just think that it means a lot to me that you found the podcast. It struck you, and it worked, yeah,

Mike Green 1:08:01
and part of it white work. I I understood what you were saying, but you gotta remember, I've never changed my own basal rates or adjusted those. Yeah, I've, I've obviously fluctuated my boluses from what I'm eating, and it was always, never enough. And then the two or three hours later, you're covering for 252, 75 300 and that was just the way of life. So I when, when I first started doing this, I needed somebody there in my corner to agree with what I was seeing and saying and adjusting. So I hired Jenny from Integrated Diabetes as my coach, my my person in my corner, my, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. That's the right thing to do, right? And by having that, that person as my crutch, I got it dialed in, you know, you know, we got it dialed in, you know, because she was there with me too. But it validated everything that I understood to make those adjustments. You know, I could have done on my own, but I was terrified because I again, I'd never made my adjustments. I go see my doctor twice a year, and she had my CDM, and there

Scott Benner 1:09:19
you go, Okay, well, we should make sure people definitely understand what you're saying. So you listen to the podcast, you're like, Oh, that makes sense. Now, how do I pull this trigger on this? Like that, then that's a really difficult thing to do. Whether you're a person who's been living with diabetes for decades or person who's only had it for few weeks. Like the the idea that you could move that number, turn that dial, like, flip that switch is it's it freezes people. And I'm telling you, the only I'm like, give me one more second. The only reason I had the nerve to do it was because in the back of my dark mind, I was imagining things that have happened to you, happening. My daughter and I thought we got to do something like we can't just look at it, you know, but a lot of people get stuck looking at it. Well,

Mike Green 1:10:07
you got to remember that I have 20 some years of a habit in me of never making an adjustment to now, make this adjustment, versus somebody that's a year or two in it, six months in it, you know, oh, yeah, okay, you don't have that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, yeah, just looming over you, you know. And I'm not saying we're, we're, you know, sitting in a great place, but you know, I could afford to hire, as you know, that help, and I know she's a big help to the show, and I knew from listening to her and you that that was going to be what I needed, that help, and anybody that needs it. I mean, it's just, it's such a great ability to have that resource. I mean, you're only one man, you've only got so much time in the data. I know you'll help people, and you do all the time, but I didn't need to bog you down at that point. I could afford to. Does that make sense?

Scott Benner 1:11:15
Yeah. Well, not only that, but Jenny has something that I don't know how much it comes through when she's talking on the podcast, but I know Jenny more personally, and the anger, I think that might be the right word that came out of you earlier when you talked about doctors not helping. Like Jenny has that, like she has that inside she does a good job of masking it, and it might not come out a lot, but she's driven by the desire, in my opinion, to thwart bad information. 100%

Mike Green 1:11:48
Yeah, I, I 100% see that. And after work with her, listening to you, and yeah, 100% and she does a really good job putting the makeup

Scott Benner 1:11:59
over it, right. And she and she really cares about people too, which I there's as soon as I met her and we started to get to know each other, I just thought, like, you know, I joke on the like, you'll hear me joke on the podcast. I'll say I want to have Jenny back on because she agreed with me, but that's just me trying to be funny. I don't know if it works or not, but I guess I like when people agree with me, but that's for a different reason. But what I liked about Jenny was her desire, like I just spoke about. I like her knowledge. I like the practicality of how she thinks about it. And I think the first time I said to her, I don't believe that your diabetes may vary. I believe that everybody's diabetes, at its core, works the same way. And if you had your settings right, knew how to use insulin, it would work out mostly the same for everybody. And she's like, I agree with you. And when she said that, I was like, Yeah, okay, fine, finally, and she validates me. I don't think I don't, I don't know that she ever has thought about it. I've definitely never said it to her, but her being on the show helps me reach more people, because there's a validation that that she agrees, yeah. And when she doesn't agree, she just says so. And when I don't understand, I just say I don't understand that, you know, like, it's it. You gotta have no it's crazy. I'm gonna say this because people will laugh, but you have to have no ego about it. And then once you know you're right, you have to steadfastly defend the fact that you're right, and because other people will come in and say, No, I think it's the basal. I think it's this. So, you know, the this story online that I told earlier, it's not over yet. It's still happening right now. And this person came back and showed a basal rate overnight that held this. This kid's blood sugar super steady, like it was great. And everybody's like, Oh, see. And she, I think she moved the basal from point five to point five, five or something like that. And everybody's like, yeah, the basal is great. And I still was like, well, what's the number? Yeah. And the number was, like, 141, 3140, I'm like, Okay, so the basal is great. It could still take a little more. Like, you could still put a little more maybe point six is the answer. Like, I don't know, I'm not there, but if that basal was right overnight, your blood sugar would be lower. And maybe you're not comfortable there. Maybe she loves one for you, and then, God bless like, right? But if, but if, if not. I mean, Argus blood sugar last night was like 85 all night. Yeah. So you can say that's not a big of a deal. That's 50 points, 50 points every every minute you're alive. That's 50 points less blood sugar, like sugar, like coursing through your blood

Mike Green 1:14:27
is, yeah, it's that sand blasters just trickling. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 1:14:31
a big deal. And I'm not saying, like, Listen, if your kids blood sugar is 140 for a week while you're figuring out, or, honestly, for three months while you're figuring it out, Oh, absolutely, you're gonna be okay. Like, right, but, but what Mike's telling you is, it can't be 10 years, it can't be 11 years. It can't be 20 years. It's no, it's not going to be okay, no, and

Mike Green 1:14:49
it's going to happen. You're going to have sick days, sick weeks, six months, or sick months. You know that that little time periods is not going to do. Uh, you know, long term damage. I and I believe that my heart of hearts, because the body does repair damaged cells, but there's a point where it can't repair it anymore, right?

Scott Benner 1:15:09
You're hoping to hang just to stay stable where you're at, yeah? And you've given yourself the best chance possible. Honestly, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. You're doing an amazing job. Look, man, for people who don't understand what we're talking about still, I mean, if you've listened to Mike and you still don't understand my friend Mike, who was diagnosed in the mid to late 80s, passed a couple of years ago, and I would say that his care mimics yours, but he never, really, until the very last couple years of his life, made it to modern insulin, and he was discussing what to eat for dinner when he stood up and ceased to exist, and that he did not know that was coming. No,

Mike Green 1:15:54
you know. And I've, I've heard from my doctor, it was, it was a was couple years a couple couple years ago, you know, we were making some adjustments, or whatever. And it might have, I don't, it was several years ago. But she goes, Yeah, you know, right now, everybody's dropping down heart attacks. I'm like, like, what? 6070, she goes, No, 40s and 50s and all these long term type ones there that were just, you know, doing their habit, doing their thing, so it but, and I want to preface for everybody's listening by doing right now you're going to avoid that later. Yeah, it

Scott Benner 1:16:34
is very likely not going to be the outcome for most people, 40, no, five years from now. And

Mike Green 1:16:39
I want to stress to these teenagers out there that you think you're invincible. You're not. You know, if you're in college and you go to the mess hall and you come out of that with a 300 for 456, hours, and think it's funny, it's not, you're gonna, more than likely, have problems. And I know the teenage years are tough. I know they're tough. I know the early 20s are tough. You think you're that war, you're brave, you're invincible, you can be take care of yourself. If I can't get any anything across, you gotta do that in those years, because I know when mom and dad's taking care of you. But when you go off to teenage and you want to not be on insulin for a while because you're tired of being a diabetic, trust me, I know what it's like, been there, done that, got the shirt, hat sticker, but you just can't do that. And if I can get any message across, you can't do that, do what's right, you're gonna be fine. Anecdotally,

Scott Benner 1:17:40
I've spoken to enough people now where I have to agree with what you're saying, because you know, you're diagnosed when you're younger, and if you're lucky, you have parents who are on top of it, right? If you're not lucky, I've talked to every, I think I feel like I've talked to almost every version of a person who's out there, right? And by the way, every time I say that, someone sends me kneel down, I was like, I bet you haven't heard this story before. Like, Oh, I haven't. But, you know, say, say you're diagnosed when you're young and you're and you get me, and I'm your dad, and so you're okay. And then you get to college, and you let it go, and a night turns into and these aren't my This isn't me making it up. These are the stories people tell on the podcast. The night turns into a week. A week turns into a year, your turns into grad school. The next thing you know, you're 27 years old, and some girl or guy is telling you, listen. I mean, I want to have kids one day. Are you sure you can do that? And then you go, Oh no, no, no. Jeez, you're right. And then you whip it back into shape. And these are the stories people tell. But in that time, you lose 1819, 2021 2223 24 I don't know what your blood sugars were during there. You don't know either. And as much as it sucks, you don't know what's going to happen and what's going to happen from that isn't going to happen until you're in your 40s. Maybe you know and and if something doesn't, luckily, snap you back into it, which is what I hear from most people. It's usually, it's usually not. It's not usually like a come to Jesus moment, like you just realized, though I should take better care of myself. It ends up being for other people. I hear a lot of women say I wanted to get pregnant, so I got my blood sugar together. Or I got pregnant, I didn't realize I was gonna get pregnant, and I had to pull my blood sugar together. Or I met a guy and I realized I wanted to have a life. Or I met a woman and I realized I wanted to have a life, or vice versa, or whatever, whoever meets whoever the point is, it seems to be the trigger. Seems to be when you suddenly care about somebody else. You realize how much you weren't concerned about yourself, yeah, and then suddenly that love or that connection makes you feel like you want to do better for yourself, almost for other people. Yeah, if 50 people haven't said that to me in the last three years, I'm lying. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's been that many

Mike Green 1:20:02
circle back to the pregnancy thing. When, when they diabetes, wants to get pregnant, the doctors make them get their a one CS below six, and then once they had the baby, they go back to wherever they were. Like, why did you do that? Oh, that's just so exhausting. But I gotta honestly tell you, I've recently taken on a new primary doctor because of my insurance, who is a type one. And when they look at your your AOC, five, five, that's too low. Why is it too low? Well, that, you know, I told him I'm doing the juice box. Well, that's too stressful. Why is it stressful? Well, is aren't you? Are you being stressed? I'm like, honestly, Scott, I think so much less about diabetes every day that I did before I started doing the method, because you'd eat lunch, two hours, three hours, two, seven. Gosh, son of O, that you so now you're fighting that and trying to get that down to what you know should be a good number, yeah, um, my high alarm is at 120 and I told the doctor that he goes, You need to raise that like, why? Because it's too stressful. I go, why is it stressful? I'm pre Bolus saying, Look at my graph if I'm off a little bit. Because, you know, stress, happiness, sadness, a car pulled out in front of the adrenaline. All those things happen every day in life, so that same turkey sandwich is going to be a little different day to day because of those factors. If I hit 120 and Dexcom, if you're listening, I love you, but please put a delta in there. So I gotta go to sugar mate at 120 look at the Delta. If it's plus four, I'll give a couple of tenths a unit. If it's 120 plus zero, I'll watch it. And it usually goes right back down. Um, Jake's

Scott Benner 1:21:47
coming on next week from Dexcom, and he's gonna, please, beg him to put a delta. I think he's gonna tell me what the what the new apps look like. So I'm hoping that that's something. If not, I'll just, I'll have to bring it up again. But please do, yeah, Delta. They have to, they have to realize, and for anybody listening doesn't understand, Mike's talking about rate of change, like, he wants to know if his blood sugar is, like, not just an arrow, like diagonal up. He really wants to know it changed, you know, four points in the last time since the last reading, or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Confirmation. I look at

Mike Green 1:22:19
that religion, it could be 120 minus three, I'm definitely not going to do nothing. But even if the Dexcom says it's a straight arrow, it's a good reference, yeah, but I want to see that delta to know, do I need to be aggressive? Like, is that at two tenths, four tenths of a unit?

Scott Benner 1:22:35
No, I completely agree. It's incredibly important. If I was making an app, it would have it on there. Yeah, don't go high. You won't go low. Maybe we'll maybe there'll be a Juicebox podcast app one day. You can just imagine, I started the app game that's branching out.

Mike Green 1:22:54
I use it well,

Scott Benner 1:22:56
I mean, I do want to ask if there's anything else you want to talk about before we we start to wrap up. I don't, I don't want to leave you without having said the things you want to say. But, well,

Mike Green 1:23:09
I said pretty much everything I wanted to say. If you know, if anybody wants to talk, I'm open. I'm, I'm in the in the Facebook group, I'm, I'm an open book. I don't hide any from anybody, anything from anybody. I talk about, I see a therapist. I'm not mentally and, you know, people think you're seeing a therapist, you're mentally saying, No, I needed help to try to figure this out. I didn't have the tools. So it's not shameful. And I talk about that to anybody, because maybe, and I've had a couple of my friends say, hey, I really appreciate you talking about that. You know what? I need to see somebody because of this that the other and so I talk about it, and they see that what normal is normal, you know, they can equate to that. So I, I'm an big advocate of that. Re educate, re education to keep up with the times, the new technologies I heard you talk about, excuse me, why you don't write a book, Why you don't write a quick notes? Because things are fluid. Things change. The technology changes. You need to re educate yourself with what's new. Don't rely on your doctor. You know. Do your research. You know. You know, look at these drug companies. Go online on form, on the Facebook group, and you know what's new, what? What's the newest and latest and greatest. I got a buddy in Arizona who I've recently met. You'll he's, I'm not going to say his name, just for his privacy, but because I don't know if he'd want me to talk about him, but he's on regular and mph. MDI, it's like there's way better insulin, really. I mean, he just didn't know, because he had it, he didn't know who to talk to reach out. He and I connected to another friend. We texted. Day, and you know he's going to he's doing better. I'm so proud of him. So you Tucson chef, you hear me saying this, man, my heart goes out to you. I'm so proud of how, how hard you working on this. Did you get sorry? Man that didn't think I was going to break down for that one. It just fills my heart with joy that he's getting the help he needs, and he's finding these tools, which it's so sad because so many people are just diagnosed from the doctor that graduated in 1986 and that's a technology they know. Get a new doctor. Ask, what's the latest from your new Doctor? Don't take their word that this old insulin is great. Just go to Walmart. Do that $25 viral insulin. You know, just re educate. Re educate, re educate us. I just, I can't hammer that enough, and after finding the podcast, as I said, I didn't realize. I didn't know how insulin worked. Nobody ever taught me. I never ask anybody, because my doctor got it. So why would you ask? And without the RE education and these better insulins we have, I just, I can't push that enough,

Scott Benner 1:26:14
and you don't want to be the lobster in the pot man, where you're just like, this is all right. It's fine. Everything's good. This feels nice. Actually. I like, not worried about it. And then, yeah, it just, I mean, the way I usually say it on the podcast, right, is you don't want to look back one day and see that you're doing something the way people used to do it.

Mike Green 1:26:33
No, no. And part of my therapy, my therapist, I just want to put this out there. I was so focused on yesterday, what happened 20 years ago, and so worried about what's going to happen in 10 years. The best thing that broke through to me, and I think anybody can relate to this, is you gotta be in The Now. You gotta be in the present. Throw away yesterday. Focus on today and have some concern about tomorrow, but tomorrow, that's when you be the president. Present president, not president, and by to help you set yourself up. But here's the easiest tool that anybody can use, wake up in the morning, get your coffee and focus just on three things you're grateful for that day. And like and what I do, for instance, you know, I teach barbecue, and I got a barbecue store I work with. I volunteer there. I work for product, which I was unaware of this, but when I my first dog, I had to retire because of this, had to have his kidney removed, and she knew I didn't have the dog there to look out for me. She looked out for me. We were at one barbecue competition one time, and I was overheating, so I popped slept in the motor or, you know, kind of, you know, went in the motor home, I took a shower, and I came out, and she says, where'd you go? I go. What do you mean? She goes, You need to tell me if you're going to be out of sight. I got you. I'm watching you. So one of my days of being grateful, I thought about that. So I physically call that person. This is something I do. And I explained her about my Three Things I'm gratitude, grateful for that day. And if it's a particular person, a friend, you know, I want them to know that I'm thinking about them that day and focus on three things. So since I've been doing that, and that buddy of mine in Tucson, he and I will text our three for the day, just to kind of, you know, see how we're doing and checking in. And there's several days that I've been practicing this. What am I grateful today I'm in the present. There's some days I can't think of three. I just feel such gratitude that it's just I can't focus on three, and that has helped me huge and that I got directly from my therapist to as an easy tool to work on. It is so effective. Be in now. Don't worry about 20 years from now, because the asteroid could hit tomorrow and we could all be gone,

Scott Benner 1:29:12
right? Yeah, worry is a waste of imagination, that's for sure. It is. But I

Mike Green 1:29:17
got so spun up in that I couldn't I couldn't pull myself out.

Scott Benner 1:29:20
Yeah, no, I understand happens to people. I don't generally worry a lot. But two days ago, I woke up and I was I was literally worried about the thing I went to sleep, worried about just like it felt like it just started over again. Yeah, I have to say that being positive for other people too, is really valuable, like not just seeing like I talked about when I was talking to the doctor the other day, which I heard you referenced earlier. But I think you you, if you're having success and you want to show your work, that's really great, because someone is going to see it. It and feel hopeful about it. I think it's really important to remember that as we share online, the people you're intersecting with, who you can physically see commenting or liking, there are very small portion of the people who are seeing it. And you know, as you're, I mean, listen, if you're if you're in a if you're in a room with four people and you're talking, you're impacting four people. But I can tell you from my personal experience, I don't even at this point know how many people I'm talking to. I just have to imagine that they're there and and I've now heard from so many different people in so many different walks of life, I understand that they're there. I know they're there, whether I can see them or not, and being positive, not falsely, but but in a tangible way, is very valuable for people, and I'm glad to see that I'm not hearing from so many people anymore that you don't show people when You're doing well, because it makes them feel badly. I think, I think that they'd much rather know that better exists, and even get the idea that reaching for it might be valuable, rather than just to make them feel like this is horrible, and this is what it's always going to be. And look, everybody else agrees with me, so I'm just gonna sit here in this pot and boil. That's all. I don't know why you made me think of a lobster

Mike Green 1:31:24
today. Well, that's like, that's a great analogy. It's like putting the frog in cold water and turning it on, and he doesn't feel the difference, so he doesn't

Scott Benner 1:31:31
know. He's just like, yeah, it's happening, but I don't know it. Yeah, you don't you just, you got to try. You just, I mean, the point really, is that you have a finite amount of time, and even if it all goes perfectly, it's not enough time. So when things start, you know, creeping up, and I think everyone's going to have roadblocks. I think a lot of them are going to be health, even if you don't have type one. And, you know, sometimes you only get stretches of time, stretches of time where you don't have to think about something, but if you don't pay attention to what you're doing and try to address it, those stretches are going to get shorter and shorter and shorter, and they're going to disappear one

Mike Green 1:32:08
day. Yeah, I think when you reference road block, and I'm you look at some of these, like military leaders, or these lieutenants and stuff and and the way they look at things and right there's a roadblock. What's the solution? Don't focus on the roadblock. You sit there and keep looking at the roadblock. That's all you're going to stare at. Yeah, you get caught. What's the solution? Whatever it is, whether it's diabetes, whether it's whatever it is. But that's a, that's what that's a real, valuable message I've got out of, you know, some of these discussions and talks. It's like, don't just and you get these negative numbers that keep focused. What happened? That's like being in yesterday. Why didn't somebody tell me to do better 20 years from now? But that that's gone, right? What's the solution now?

Scott Benner 1:32:53
You got today and forward, and that's it. So, yeah, yeah, right, Mike, I really appreciate this. I can't thank you enough. I I imagined that it wasn't going to be easy for you, and I appreciate what it must have taken to tell everybody all this stuff. Yeah,

Mike Green 1:33:11
I knew it was going to be hard. Like I said, I'm I'm reachable, I'm not I don't know what I can do for anybody, but if somebody's in a dark place or having the same issues or worried about it, you know, I don't know what I can do for money. I'm not Superman. I'm just a a normal guy, but I understand sometimes you need to be able to associate that or talk with that. Or, you know, I'm saying,

Scott Benner 1:33:35
yeah. I'm saying, find somebody who's in a similar situation as you see, if they know how to get out of the hole. Yeah, I have to tell you that I thought early on, when you were describing I was so tickled I knew how serious everything was going to be today, so I didn't make this joke at the time, but it stuck with me through an hour and a half, the image of you walking through a hospital just on death's door as a child, and this doctor kind of like sashay and passed you, and being like, that kid has type one diabetes. I pictured John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. I don't think he's like, swinging his hips with like, his like fancy white suit. He was just like, Hey, kid, handover, yeah. He just kind of like made like finger guns at you. And was like, type one diabetes, and how proud he must have been at himself later, like, you know, there was, like a moment where he was like, I knew that kid had diabetes.

Mike Green 1:34:28
Yeah, oh yeah. It Yeah. You said that. I just had that, that poster image of of the movie poster, it

Scott Benner 1:34:37
might show my age, but you said that, and that's exactly I got. I had a guy strutting down a hallway in my head, and he was like, That kid's got the rickets. That kid's got type one. I can just tell.

Mike Green 1:34:49
Can I say one other thing from a reference from please, the podcast with the doctor, when you were asking her, what's the answer? And she said, 42 and you said, no, no, we're not going there. Her, that was a reference from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the universe.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:03
Oh, no, kidding. I

Mike Green 1:35:05
don't know that one. You've got to watch that movie, because as soon as she said that, I said, Oh, that was a, what a timely reference.

Scott Benner 1:35:13
I wish I would have known that I You see, my level of understanding is just 37 from clerks, which is not appropriate for here, but does turn out to be, like I said to her, when you ask people for a random number between one and 100 more frequently than not, people will say 37 for some reason. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyway, all right, Mike, I really appreciate you doing this. I am going to, I'm going to think about this a lot, and I hope everybody else does too.

Mike Green 1:35:46
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm I'm like I said, I'm happy to spread the story that for people now do due diligence. It's not doom and gloom.

Scott Benner 1:35:56
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, when this goes up, I will put a post on the private Facebook group that talk that announces this episode, and I will tag you in it so people can find you

Mike Green 1:36:07
sure you got to do the John Travolta decided not live movie poster is the picture?

Scott Benner 1:36:14
Oh, for the episode, I have to do the Yeah. All right, damn it. I will. All right, man, thanks so much. Hold on, Scott,

Mike Green 1:36:22
thank you. I really appreciate you and all you doing. And thank you, man,

Scott Benner 1:36:27
it really is my pleasure. I mean, stuff like this makes this not that it's hard to do to begin with, but if it was, this makes it much easier. You said something earlier that. You know, I don't think I'll ever forget, and I know I've said it a number of times, but when somebody who has type one references that I don't have it, but in a positive way, like I can't believe somebody who doesn't have type one was able to talk to me about this. I mean, I'm very touched by that. It's the only real world I have. It means a lot to me that that I don't come off as, uh, as false to you. No, no. So thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:10
Thank you, Scott.

Scott Benner 1:37:18
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