#216 Flying Polar Bears

Dana was misdiagnosed as type 2 as an adult.….

Dana was misdiagnosed as type 2 as an adult before getting a proper type 1 diabetes diagnosis and becoming a low(ish) carb eater. 

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

---

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome to Episode 216 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by real good foods, Omni pod Dexcom, and dancing for diabetes. You can learn more about our sponsors at Juicebox podcast.com. We're in the show notes of the podcast app that you're listening to right now there's links right in there. You can also go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box, my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dancing the number four diabetes.com. And when you place an order at real good foods calm and use the offer code juice box, you'll save 20% on your entire order.

Dana 0:44
I've been power listening to the podcast for about five months. So I'm mostly caught up now.

Scott Benner 0:54
That's something my guest Dana said to me before we started to record. And I hear that from so many of you, I just want to take a second to say thank you for all of you that go back to the beginning and start from scratch. It's amazing. I really appreciate it. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making any changes to your medical plan for becoming bold with insulin. This is Dana she was originally diagnosed as a type two later in life, you know, but she was and she had type one diabetes. She's got a really interesting management style. And I love talking to her she's doing MDI but with dexcom. And she's pretty low carb. This was a fun conversation that went a ton of directions. I'm guessing you imagine that to be true when you saw the title flying polar bears. So sit back and relax, and listen to the Juicebox Podcast. Guys, I ended this the night before I went up. I did fly somewhere The next day, and it almost killed me. It's so late here. I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:59
really tired.

Dana 2:00
I'm Dana Appleby, that I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes almost four and a half years ago, when I was 42. So more than a little bit of a shock.

Scott Benner 2:10
That must have been quite a bad day. Because May I may I say why I think this and maybe you'll have a completely different answer, which we'll hear in a second. I I've said this in the past, but I very unreasonably have set up. milestones for age where I feel like if I pass them, then there's certain diseases I'm not going to get. I don't know why I that trust me, there's no reason for this idea. But I was always like, if I can get out of my 20s without this happening, then that'll never happen. If I get out of my 30s without that happening. I always think if I can get past 50 and I don't get divorced, what would even be the reason to get divorced. And you know, someone would have, you know, over 50 that's when you just like one of us is gonna shoot the other one. We're not but I'm not going through any legal means to get to get rid of you.

Unknown Speaker 2:56
Too much work at that age.

Scott Benner 2:57
No one's gonna put that kind of effort after that kind of time. Right. But I think type one, even though we know obviously, from listening to podcasts and hearing people have been on the past two are diagnosed at 60. It happens it's just not something you expect to happen. So what did you What were your symptoms at first?

Dana 3:16
I always joke that I got diagnosed accidentally, because I was the only symptom I really had was I was losing weight. I lost I don't know, probably 15 pounds in maybe three months, or you must have been so thrilled at first. I was excited but I kept saying I hope I don't have cancer.

Scott Benner 3:30
That's what I would have thought See? You and I share. Yeah, you and I share it right. Like in the 40s losing weight not trying definitely cancer.

Dana 3:39
Awesome. I don't eat ice cream with a friend and I'm like, that was three pounds. That's great.

Scott Benner 3:44
Can I ask you something when you had that initial thought, right of Obviously, I'm not supposed to lose weight in my 40s by eating food. That's ice cream. Did you just live in it for a little bit real like well let me ride this out a little bit because if I do go I want to look really nice at the end are like what was what what did it make you do next?

Unknown Speaker 4:02
Absolutely nothing. That's what I would have probably done too.

Dana 4:06
And it would have spiraled if it weren't for my pancreas isn't the only organ that hates me.

Unknown Speaker 4:13
Okay.

Dana 4:14
So I went to the emergency room, completely unrelated. And it turned out I was anemic. Because my will go with one of your words. My lady parts hated me.

Unknown Speaker 4:27
I get yelled at for

Scott Benner 4:29
social media the other day apparently I said period and this person came up. They're like, thank you. Thank you for saying period and not lady parts. I was like, oh God. Sorry. I felt so bad when it was over. I was like I thought it was funny. But okay, so you were having excessive bleeding that led to anemia.

Dana 4:45
Wow. So I went to emergency room and they informed me that I was anemic and asked how long I had been diabetic.

Scott Benner 4:52
You were like well, you said it three seconds ago so I'm gonna go with four seconds. I've

Dana 4:59
a friend had gone When we we looked at each other, I was like, Wait, what? I'm not diabetic. And my blood sugar was 300.

Unknown Speaker 5:05
Yeah,

Scott Benner 5:06
well, you ate a lot of ice cream. So Wow. So you see you went in for one thing that was I'm assuming pretty scary to begin with. Because anemia is crazy. Like, when your iron gets low, like raising your hand up to tap yourself in the forehead becomes an issue. You're just like, I can't get my hand that high.

Dana 5:26
It was my my heart was just it felt like it was exploding. Which is why my friend talked to me after about three days of it into he really need to see somebody. And they said, you know, after this, you should also go see your doctor about your sugar.

Scott Benner 5:40
Oh, they just thought you were kind of like for the lack of a better term, you will just non compliant with your blood sugar.

Unknown Speaker 5:45
Oh, wow. Interesting.

Dana 5:48
I didn't my age that I had type two. And I just right. Right was lying about what I ate

Scott Benner 5:53
to date. Did you at any point in that conversation? Say I don't understand. This has never been said to me before.

Dana 6:00
I yeah, I was shocked. And my friend actually looked at me and she said, What did you eat today?

Unknown Speaker 6:05
I would have been like, hey,

Dana 6:07
wait, yeah. I started eating low carb before this ever happened. And I said, half of a sugar free protein bar.

Unknown Speaker 6:16
Yeah, I

Dana 6:18
think I kudoz what it would have been if I'd had cookies that afternoon.

Scott Benner 6:23
Between that and the low iron. You must have been dazed. Like

Unknown Speaker 6:27
Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:28
I can't imagine you were probably just like, okay, I don't know what's happening. And I was clueless. So do they? Is that the appointment where they tell you you have type one, you have to go somewhere else to find that out?

Dana 6:38
Oh, yeah. No, that dry gone. So I went, I didn't have a doctor because I was completely healthy. I thought. So you know, I went to my gynecologist to address that problem. And then I made an appointment, there's a clinic, at the company where I work for and I went in and the next day, she left me a voicemail and said, you have diabetes, go pick up this bottle of Metformin and go see this endocrinologist. Right? She seemed type two, type two. Okay. So then I could get an appointment with him for a month. So I just took the pills went had a hysterectomy to cause the need to fix the anemia problem. And after a month, when I went to finally see an endocrinologist, he walked in the room and he said you have no family history. And based on your size. I think you've typed one

Scott Benner 7:22
thing, how many bad bad assumptions were made? You see the you see the clinic? Who because of your age just thinks your type two gives you the Metformin does no real testing just here, take these pills. Yeah. And then you talk to another doctor who says, No, no, no, you're not. You're thin. You're not type two, like wait. Does anyone know what they're talking about? And you probably didn't know at that point, right? You didn't have any context for any of these diabetes in their forums. Did you

Dana 7:48
know my, my context was the only thing I knew about Taiwan was it happened to kids.

Scott Benner 7:51
Mm hmm.

Dana 7:52
You know, there's there's no press there. So I'm like, How on earth did I get type two, but I looked at the woman and I said, I'll have this fixed within a year I'll be off these pills. Right. I was

Scott Benner 8:04
probably sooner, right.

Dana 8:05
Yeah, I you know, I actually my endo hit let me he had me keep taking them for a while. He's like, well, they can't hurt. But they just destroyed my stomach. I mean, it was not a long term medication for me.

Scott Benner 8:17
Yeah. Metformin also gets some gets prescribed off label for weight loss, too. I don't know if you knew that or not.

Dana 8:25
Yeah, that didn't happen. No, I didn't once. Once you stuck the insulin in my stomach. That weight came back pretty quickly. You're like, Oh, there goes the ice cream.

Unknown Speaker 8:36
Yeah. I dream is over the dream. Yeah.

Scott Benner 8:40
Now we're into the nightmare dreams over nightmare time. So So how long until you figured out I shouldn't be taking this Metformin. Oh,

Dana 8:54
gosh, at least six months. I kept taking it. Just because you were told and I had? Because he said well, it may help. Yeah. And you know, insulin resistance and all that. And you know, it was it was it was another nightmare.

Scott Benner 9:09
Right? It just made you it just probably made you really well acquainted with your periodicals in the bathroom probably. So I've been through this People Magazine three topics. I still know I tell her a lot. nors famous. But, but but, but there he is. And I don't know why Taylor Lautner popped in my head. I've never even seen one of those glowy vampire movies, but that's fine. So well. I'm so sorry. So you're using MDI at that point, though, right. And still on?

Dana 9:38
screen? Yeah, four and a half years later, I'm on pens.

Scott Benner 9:40
Okay. And so you're using pens you're using levemir lantis tarsia. Which, which? slower?

Dana 9:47
We made the rounds. I started with Lantus and then he switched me to to Joe. And then my insurance refused to cover either of those. So now I'm on to Seba.

Scott Benner 9:56
Okay. You are taking the tour, the slow acting tour. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 10:01
Wow, that's so wrong

Scott Benner 10:02
if that has anything to do with what we ended up talking about slow acting towards really a good title for the episode, but we'll see where that goes. Just because people look at it go, I don't know what that means. And I think that will make them listen, my wife's like, no, they really would like to be told what they're gonna listen to. I don't like I don't see it that way. She's like, You're an idiot. Anyway, that's my own personal thing. I so you're just doing you're doing injections. But you said you also started eating low carb. But what point your life were you like low carb

Dana 10:30
for the before I started? Yeah, it was before I started around, I think I was 35. And it was for weight loss. And ironically, I thought, you know, this may help me avoid diabetes. Yeah. Didn't quite pan out that way. But I would it broke your uterus.

Scott Benner 10:47
And so just kidding, I don't know. It's fine. If anyone who's listening to this should know that. It's Friday. And I've taken a shower, which I usually get up record early, and then start my day. So I'm like wide awake in a different way. And I'm panicking because Arden has what feels like 97 softball games this weekend. And I will already go and wonder if I could talk her into quitting. Like, like, if I just let her be like, hey, how much would it take for you to just bail on this softball thing? It's at 200. What's the number? Exactly? and and you know, like, do your credit card express or something? Like what would you What does a 14 year old one, right? Because I don't want to get up early on Saturday and drive all the way there and but I'm going to anyway, I think I'm using up my good energy right now. So that I can complain all weekend. I am really at the softball games. I'm the person who if you get a slide just looks at you and goes, Oh my god, this is horrible. What are we doing? This is a disaster. Why am I here? Where are we? Is that a dumpster that I smell? Or is that New Jersey? What

Unknown Speaker 11:51
is it I smell? Well, how

Scott Benner 11:52
did we get here? What a horrible town that's just for three hours. That's if you stand anywhere near that's what I'll do. And I do it for fun. And I have a couple of people who believe in that. The rest of them stay really far away, which was the other option I do it for just to keep people at arm's length a little bit like don't come over here. I'll tell you your kid sucks.

Unknown Speaker 12:10
That's

Scott Benner 12:12
I mean, I'm upset and I've eaten lunch at wah wah which means something to some people who are listening to this and it's upsetting so I'm so sorry. I'm so I'm giddy is what I'm trying to say. Anyway. Um, so Okay, so you are diagnosed you're 42 you're on pansy. Try the Metformin you get off the Metformin, your low carb, and you're doing really well like you you're not having an unexpected result because you're when you say low carb, what does that mean in the course of a day for carbs. As soon as this ad ends, Dana's gonna tell you how many carbs she eats in the course of a normal day. What you can do later is go to real good foods calm and see how many pizzas and enchiladas and poppers Dana could have had with those carbs. It's gonna be a lot more food than you think because real good foods is high in protein and low in carbohydrates. I'm talking about chicken crust pizza, cauliflower crust, pizza, chicken poppers, enchiladas, many pizza snacks, variety packs of all your favorite stuff. It's ugly. I'm looking at it right now. Personal supreme personal pepperoni, personal three cheese. How about Chicken crosspieces. Large three G's large, Supreme, large pepperoni. enchiladas come in cheese pork chicken. And you can get a mixed pack of all that if you want to. Now with the chicken poppers, you can get jalapeno and white cheddar, artichoke and cheese, pepperoni and mozzarella. And again, a mixed case if you like that wonderful cauliflower crust, pizza comes in pepperoni, vegetable, Margarita, and cheese. You know, there's a mixed case of that as well. Don't like like you didn't know. here's the best part. I'm going to skip over a bunch of other stuff that they have here that you'll have to go find out about the rest of it. You're going to get there, see the different foods think to yourself, Wow, that is an incredible amount of protein and a really small amount of carbohydrates. I think I'm going to try some. Now here's the greatest part. When you do that, check out use the offer code juice box. So go to real good foods. com, use the offer code juice box, when you do you will save 20% on your entire order. What that means for people like me who are not good with math, I figured it out earlier before I recorded this and wrote it down. Spend $100 save $20. Right? And then amazing. If you spend $200 you'll save $40. You know, I recognize that my incredible math skills have probably deserved you for a second you're not quite ready to listen to the podcast yet. So let me just remind you about this one other really important thing before we get back to Dana, I need you to go to dancing for diabetes.com it's dancing the number for diabetes.com. They're on Facebook and Instagram where they post some amazing stuff about their work with children with Type One Diabetes. And you definitely want to see that. Then you got to go check out the website because they got something called touched by type one coming up. We'll talk more about that later. Let's find out How many carbs they needs every day?

Dana 15:03
Oh, gosh, I gave me 50 I am trapped in a long time. It's generally pretty low carb. I low carb tortillas. You know, it's not that I it's not that I've gotten rid of everything in my house that you can work with, I eat a ton of Mexican food and put it on low carb tortillas. So the damage isn't as bad.

Scott Benner 15:24
Do you do avoid sugar at all? Have you avoided a little bit? Or is it just

Dana 15:29
as you try to avoid sugar? I'm not I'm just never really a big fan of like bread, rice and pasta. So I wasn't eating them. But other than, you know, pizza on bread, I wouldn't eat a lot of bread to begin with.

Unknown Speaker 15:42
I think like in the first place.

Scott Benner 15:45
Gotcha. So, so you're not I hear what you're saying you didn't make some like, willful like I'm cutting all this stuff out of my life, you sort of weren't that person to begin. It's interesting. I am in a similar situation. If I thoughtfully don't eat sugar for a couple of days, then I might never eat it again. It just it doesn't occur to me. But But last week as I went to visit my son in college, and he's like, can you bake cookies and bring them? And yeah, I went to baking school and I've been a stay at home dad for 20 years. So I was like sure I'll bake cookies. Because apparently this is my job. So I baked these cookies which by the way, if you're wondering, I use a milk chocolate and a semi sweet chip in the same cookie, which really is just a delight. Yes. Because your mouth goes, Oh, semi Oh, milk. It's lovely. And so what happens is I make the cookie. And then I go, hey, these look good. Let me just make sure and I put one in my mouth and then I get a dozen cookies.

Unknown Speaker 16:37
And so

Scott Benner 16:39
but if I but if I didn't eat the first one, I don't run around all day thinking Hmm, a cookie would be good today. It's very well. Yeah.

Dana 16:49
I was never a snacker. So if I had snack food in my house, it would just eventually get tossed.

Scott Benner 16:53
Yeah. And that's something it really is interesting. I've said it. I don't know how many times I've said it here not too often. But I don't love food. And I know that's such a weird statement. Because so many people like oh, my favorite dish or my favorite Russia, I just, if that little pill in the beginning of the Jetsons was real, I think I'd be thrilled. You know, like just takes two seconds and I eat it I don't die. Like that's how it to me, that's how food should be in my opinion. But, but there's something about me, I don't know if it's how I grew up or what it is. But if I hit something crunchy, or cakey then I'm done. And then I retain What are like a pregnant lady. And it's, it's terrible. It's like somebody joking with me. And so like I've meaningfully gone to lose weight over the last couple of weeks because I'm going to speak in Ohio to jdrf thing and I looked in the mirror and I was like I'm gonna have to do something here. So I I went on that potato diet that people use to launch into veganism. I don't know if you've ever heard of it or not, no, basically eat baked potatoes, and as many of them as you want, and that's all that you eat. And you put nothing on them. And it is it's supposed to reset your kind of like your tastebuds and your brain about sugar and everything and I and it teaches you about quantity of food too. Because you have this hunger, you eat a potato that's, you know, half the size of a softball or smaller even. And you go Okay, well I'm full. And you realize horrible, it's terrible. But listen, you know, put salt on it. And I'll put pepper I can't but but it's the potato, you're eating the potato, and you have as many as you want. So the first day you're a little hungry and eat a couple extra the next day you're like, I don't eat all these potatoes, so you don't eat as much then the hunger kind of dissipates. And then you learn about portion size, you learn about how hungry am I actually and I learned this interesting thing about the potato is because if you would have told me baked potato, do you like a baked potato and I thought oh my god, Yeah, a little sea salt and pepper, I cracked that pepper, butter over time. It's fantastic. I realized now the potato is a delivery system for the salt and the butter. I I don't actually like the potato that much. And it was very interesting. And I dropped 15 pounds in nine days. And I was Wow. I was like wow, that really worked. And so completely away. So then I went back to a more sensible, like, you know, diet like I was a little more thoughtful about it. And what that means for me is I eat more because I don't think to eat I get up in the morning I don't eat, I don't really eat, I don't eat, I don't eat. I think my body thinks I'm on a desert island that I'm dying. And it holds on to every ounce of fat that I have, you know, and so I'm eating more, and I continue to lose weight. And I was like, Oh, this is great. So I'm up to 20 pounds. I'm under a number I haven't been under in quite some time. And yesterday, I thought I'm gonna do that potato thing again. But now I'm going to do it for five days and see what happens. And so I started it. Okay, I started on Tuesday, I think this week, and I just jumped on the scale this morning. I'm four pounds lighter than I was on Tuesday. And I was like, That's crazy. This is insane. But and because the Potatoes are a ton of carbs, right. And I would think those cars break down into sugar. I don't know what my blood sugar is, you know, like, but I can tell you that it is it's working incredibly. And so the idea that there are different ways to manipulate how your body reacts, depending on what you take in is becoming clearer and clearer to me as we're talking. And so I'm really interested in the note, the low carb thing, because the only experience I've ever really had with low carb, is that we did try it in our 20s, once like when the Atkins diet was popular.

Unknown Speaker 20:31
And you go back to that time to write and it

Scott Benner 20:34
really worked like it was like, astonishing. But there's a moment there was a moment for me when I said, I can't eat another chicken wing. I can't like I can't like the idea of any grease in any meat just made. You want to like throw yourself out of window at some point. But Mike, I got it, it really did work. But you're sort of the you're in the middle, you're eating carbs, you're just not eating a ton of them, and you're staying away from sugar. What does that do to your insulin consumption? How much? You're an adult? How much insulin Do you use in the course of the day?

Dana 21:05
I'm probably between, you know, citrussy been doing 23 units right now. And for novalogic novolog. It's probably in the 20s. In terms of units today, because I still need it for everything. So I have eggs and bacon for breakfast. And I need novolog Sure. Just to sort of handle the protein factor.

Scott Benner 21:28
That's I think people think about but it is it's incredibly common. And it's not like it's not just commented, it's needed. I think sometimes people think that it's not, they don't realize that the last Bolus they had is still working when they don't think it is and I eat this stuff. And I didn't need any insulin, you probably weren't getting low Anyway, these eggs and bacon may have helped stop that. You don't you don't end up realizing at the time.

Dana 21:54
It's like it's sort of a learning curve over time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 21:57
yeah. Yeah. Wait, because they tell you it's free food at first, right? Or did you get any real? Did you? What kind of direction Did you get after you were finally I mean, from the guy who said you're not heavy. So you can't have type two, he must not have done a ton about

Dana 22:10
diabetes, right? He taught me nothing. I always you know, I'm always so fascinated when I hear the stories about hospital stays, and nurse practitioners and CDs. I did see a CD once she wanted to tell me what a car was. And when I told her I ate a low carb diet. That was the last time we met. And my endo basically showed me how to use a glucose meter. How to do an injection, which by the next morning, I was because I was so blindsided by you have type one, I had to go read the instructions on how to use a pen. Yeah. And that's it. I didn't hear the word Basal or Bolus or ketone or fast acting glucose, like he told me nothing. Everything came off the internet. Honestly, what's your professional background? There's

Scott Benner 22:51
something about your professional background that made them think you would No,

Dana 22:55
no, I analyze data for a living. Yeah. So it's not no medical,

Scott Benner 23:00
because there are medical people that come on all the time who their biggest complaint is that doctors just think, oh, you must know. So they don't tell them anything. And that happens a lot. And they leave and they go I'm not that kind of a doctor. I don't know anything about this. And, and they get that kind of it's extra respect that ends up hurting them. And I didn't know if that was happening. So it's more your age. Right? It's that you're in a you're an adult probably.

Dana 23:23
I think it's part of it. And I and I don't know, you know, I am not sure I have really the greatest doctor in the world. And every time I think about switching, I'm like, but he does write me to prescriptions I asked for in the quantities I want.

Unknown Speaker 23:34
That's what you need really.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
really all I need.

Scott Benner 23:39
anyone sees crazy. And how

Dana 23:42
I'm seeing Yeah, and I just saw him last month. And so that's, I see him every six months now. And that's two in a row that we're under five.

Scott Benner 23:50
Yeah. And how's your variability? You don't have do? Do you have a lot of lows and highs? Are

Dana 23:54
you pretty much on a stable, it's typically fairly stable. He actually asked me he's, of course concerned that I'm going low all the time. And so he was me. So how do you feel when you get low, like in the 70s? And I said, 70s aren't low like 80s? Fantastic for me. Right? Right. And that was the end of the conversation snick got next me wants to see my dexcom clarity. I usually bring I just bring him a 90 day printout off the off the Dexcom. And now he wants me to buy clarity app wasn't working for a while. And he was like, well, you need to reload that. I want to see your data. Okay, that's fine.

Scott Benner 24:30
You should have said I want to see your diploma.

Dana 24:34
I want to see his number. Yeah, that's the thought isn't because you were a deck for a week and show me you know, are you are you hitting 70? Because I'm guessing you probably are of course.

Scott Benner 24:43
Yeah, no, absolutely. My son was sick two weeks ago and he looked right through me like he couldn't see me. I was like, Are you Are you all right? And he was just so sick. I figured his blood sugar must be pretty loud. Like we fed him to kind of like, when he pops back, you know, he doesn't have diabetes, and he was just he was just really really sick? And, and yeah, people's and we talked about it in the past, you know, the first person to bring it up was Terry, there's an episode at the very beginning of the show called Terry lives on a boat, which ironically, which, incidentally, excuse me, not ironically. But Incidentally, Terry does not live on that boat anymore, but I'm not going back and changing the title. Anyway, um, and he Terry's the one that brought it up to me the first time he said, You know, people who don't have diabetes regularly, their blood sugar will drop once or twice a day into the 60s and sit there for a little bit. And I'm like, Ah, so then it's not going to kill anybody. Gotcha. Right. You know, it's the continuing to follow that is the problem. So can you walk me through a little bit just about what what a meal day is like for you like in the morning you get up? What do you eat?

Dana 25:46
eggs and bacon typically. So I take breakfast and lunch with me to work every day just because I don't want to deal with it at home. So I sort of both cook on the weekends. And it's eggs and bacon for breakfast lunches. Usually some sort of chicken something this week, I had I made chicken parm without breading. And then there's a lot of chicken mostly it's chicken for lunch and dinner. But there's a lot of Mexican stuff. I do a lot of stuff with salsa and cheese. Sometimes the low carb tortillas you know, I'll do burgers once in a while. taco meat, that kind of thing. So you get this carbs in sort of the seasoning mixes and things like that. But even Chinese seasoning mixes if you don't throw rice in there, and if you use like an artificial sweetener instead of sugar. It's not really gonna have the hugest impact.

Scott Benner 26:40
Bonus points if you heard the word impact and thought Scott's gonna put it out right here. You were correct. Omni pod people? What are you doing? You wearing a pump right now? Are you Is it an omni pod? Because if it's not, now's the time to give it a whirl. understand what I'm saying? Some common it gonna get warm outside. You don't want all that tubing in the pool. Oh, wait, you can't wear your pump in a pool Kenya or in the shower. But you could run on the pod there. Want To find out more? I think maybe you do. Let's try this my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Let's see what comes up. request a free experience kit. Why that sounds like something you want to do. I mean, it is free. Let's see what it says here. Try a pod for free to experience how liberating it truly can be. I believe that if you're considering insulin pumps therapy, they say the best way to understand the comfort and convenience the pod offers to try it firsthand. Again hard argument. So you can get a free experience kit which includes a sample nonfunctioning pod, you can see what you think. Look, Arden has been wearing an omni pod since she was four years old, and she's about to turn 15. The best i can tell you, from my experience, is that on the pod has been nothing but safe and effective. It's been a friend through this. It's allowed us to do things that honestly we could not have done with other pumps. The no tubing aspect of the pod is just indescribably amazing. Go to my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box, check out the experience kit. I think you're gonna like it. How's your energy from being I found being low carb, I had more energy than I then I recognized I

Dana 28:34
don't even notice it anymore. It's been so long when I did start going low carb. It was amazing. I was jumping out of bed way earlier on the weekend. wanted to do stuff. And now I think it's just sort of the way I you are, you know, it's every day. And you know, I'm getting older. So I don't know. I certainly don't think I have the same energy I had when I was 35. But you know, I go to work. I go to the gym, I come home, you know, this makes for long days, but I certainly had the energy to get through it every day.

Scott Benner 29:01
I woke up the other day and I was laying in bed on my side facing the the outside of the bed thinking Get up, get up, get up. And just I was like, Ah, so I took my foot and I kind of curled it over the side of the mattress, dug my heel into the side of the managers and used my heel to slide my butt towards the end. I was like, I was just like, here we go. Like if I fall off. I'll get up. That's what I thought I thought there's no way I'm going to lay on the floor. So if I just fling myself towards the side of the bed, I bet you I stand up. But and I don't and it works by the way, just in case you're wondering.

Dana 29:39
I may try that. I did not want to get out of bed.

Scott Benner 29:43
So but what I was gonna I was gonna say is I mean in this house. There's no like sense of low carb here. It's not, you know, it just it isn't you know, Arden left this morning. She told me last night. It's funny how this happened. I was eating potatoes all day. So my stomach my stomach was rumbling around nine o'clock last night. While I was watching the Eagles beat the giants and Arden sight was laying with me and she put her head on my chest. She's like, Oh my God, your stomach is making so much noise. And I said, Well, yes, I ate four baked potatoes today. And I said, I'm my body's getting accustomed to that again. And which by the way, it's funny after a couple of days that the hunger really does, it goes away. Okay, when I had that hunger Pang what I was supposed to do is just eat another potato. But it was like nine o'clock and I was like, I can live without the potato. So anyway, she says your stomach's rumbling and made her say, my stomach was really rumbling today. So she's gone into high school now. She's on two different schedules. It's an a day and to be day, one, one of the days she eats actually right now at 1030. But on the other day, which is today, it's not till 1130. So I think that that back and forth day after day, like Brett, you know, lunches at 1030 lunches and 1130 she doesn't aren't is not like a huge eater in the morning. But she's like on those 1130 days, I can hear my stomach too. It's like, Okay, well, I said, well, just, you know, eat something in the morning. I don't care. You know, like, dude, let's let's do that then because I don't force her not for sure. He has a big lunch. And so this morning, kind of unprepared for the idea, yet still wanting to grab something. She took something that looked like a packaged cake with icing on it. And she's like, I'm gonna eat this. And I was like, when and she's like, oh, now and I was like, Wait, what? Okay, so I bolused for it. I over bolused for a little bit. But we're in a an interesting spot. These last. It feels like it's been a year, but it's about the last week and a half. I think Arden has a little underlying cold or she's growing because she's eating so much food and her insulin. So it's a little bit of both right? It started with the cold, which just made me think oh, she's a tiny bit insulin resistant, I'll just keep pushing. Then the cold kind of went away. And I'm like, this is still happening. It's more insulin than I think it's, you know, bigger boluses than I'm used to. This whole thing's going on. She said the other day, am I eating a lot? And I was and I thought you are like you're eating a lot more food than than you're accustomed to? And she said, I said Kelly said she must be growing. And I was like, You know what? That's what's going on here. So yesterday, I took what I had kind of like, kind of sussed out to a basal rate on her pump that was I think three or four different ones a day. There were three during the day that were pretty close to each other. They were just about timing in the day to kind of cut back so she doesn't get low at certain times. And there was one for overnight that was less. And I just started a new bazel program. And I made it one bazel program for 24 hours to the highest level that she's that she was at which for Arden is 1.4 an hour. Okay. And after almost two weeks of like banging my head against the wall and almost not listening to my own advice, right? Like I was bolusing too much. I'm still keeping your blood sugar down. But I'm bolusing too much. And finally I said to myself yesterday, I was like, oh, dummy, you're the one who says it on the podcast, if you're boasting too much. Your Basal is not right. So I just I just jacked your Basal up across the board. And now here she is at school and her blood sugar's at nine and she ate something this morning that I'm fairly certain It's not food.

Unknown Speaker 33:28
So

Scott Benner 33:31
so we're back to good again. And I'm going to stay with that until either it doesn't change. And this is an indication to me that her insulin needs have gone up, or it starts to head back again. And then I can just flip back to the other bazel program and go back to what I'm doing. Okay, but it's a it's such an interesting experience to go through because what it what it tells me to tell other people is can you imagine if you were doing the carb counting thing, like just where this is 30 carbs, and that means this much insulin, and it's two o'clock in the afternoon. So this is what my bazel should be, like Arden's body is trying everything it can to make her blood sugar high right now. And I'm we're getting spikes, and they're not bigger than I'm accustomed to, but they're lasting a little longer than I'm accustomed to. And still, I'm keeping her her average a one c over this time, lower. And and I just didn't know how often do you make changes? Or do you really not have to is it just so kind of concrete and the same over and over again?

Dana 34:36
It does change. There are times that all changed my receive a dose up or down a unit I've just recently I dropped it a unit because it seemed like I was going low overnight every night and I thought about splitting into two doses. And I remember doing that with Lantus. I don't want to have to do it twice a day if I don't have to. Because then I was sort of trying to pick like what our is The hour that I want to do this twice a day every day, do I want to do it at eight o'clock. So I want to do it at 10 o'clock, try to sort of figure out my life. So instead of splitting it, I decided to try dropping it, it seems like it's working. My endo doesn't really give me a lot of guidance when I switch to Tuesday. Oh, he told me, I think your dose will probably go up about 10%. And when I went back three months later, I said, Well, one of 20%. And he said, was nobody seeing that? And I'm like, okay, but mine was 20%. When I went back three months later, he corrected himself. It turns out, everyone else is going up. 20%. So, like, they're throwing up, he's throwing a dart saying, well, but I don't know. The rep probably told him that this, you know, you need 10% more than you do for lantis. And it's the same as you know, you and Arden and the pods, like it's we're guessing. And then if that didn't work, try something else.

Scott Benner 35:53
Isn't that great? He said, they say stuff like it's just that it's this rule.

Dana 35:59
abruptly, it's going to be exactly 10%. And then

Scott Benner 36:01
this is exactly how it is. No one else is having this problem. But you, right? Then you go back and you look at it and go, Wait a minute, that's not true at all. Is it?

Dana 36:11
Right, this is a disease where your body does whatever it wants to whenever it feels like it, but it's absolutely going to be a 10% increase. Oh, sure. Okay. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 36:19
Yeah. Thanks.

Scott Benner 36:20
Thanks a lot for your, your, your stunning insight into this.

Dana 36:25
Yeah, I just don't know. And you've talked about it, like, the people who have the experience and really know how this goes, are the people who just deal with it every day? Yeah, he went to school and learned, oh, there's a problem with the pancreas. And you need to take insulin, right.

Scott Benner 36:39
But yeah, probably not much more than that. And I just I genuinely believe that, you know, at the base of the tenants of the idea of taking care of blood sugar, it's very, it's very simple, you first have to find a way not to be afraid of the insulin, you have to understand completely how the insulin works in your body. When I put it in here, this happens. And you have to stay fluid. There's, the fluidity is, is just perhaps the most important part. You can't can't say to yourself, I did this and no, my budget went up. And, uh, well, like, that's what happened, I guess. Like, no, it's doing something to you do something back to it. But you know, talking about bad advice that people get or pressure from doctors. I don't know this person, but I saw a person online the other day say that their, their kid, they were doing that they were you know, a gave them insulin, my son or daughter, I forget what it was blood sugar went up, I gave him a little more. And the doctor said that they were stalking. And it was dangerous. And if they didn't stop, they would call child protective services on them. Wow, that was I thought, Wow, what an incredible misunderstanding of what it is you're directing these people about, you know, like, just such an incredible insanity. And it doesn't happen often. Like I'm her story is not, you know, common. But I hear it enough here where people get a great result. They're so excited. And they go to their doctor, and instead of you know, instead of getting, hey, well, that's amazing. How did you do that? Which a lot of people get some people get, what are you doing? This is dangerous stop and they get scolded instead. Yeah, and it sounds like your guy wants to scold you, but doesn't know enough about it to actually do it. And you kind of cut him down when he tries.

Dana 38:24
He does because he's I mean, he started so I didn't listen for four and a half years I was about two years in before I got the dex calm. So he had handed me like a paper journal and said, write your sugars down in here. And I found an app pretty quickly so that I at least put it on my phone and was at my agency was in sort of the high fives. It's like I'm just concerned, you're going low too often. So he flipped through the book and not see a ton. And then when I went on the decks, I bring him in that 90 day trend. And he's like, oh, okay, well, this, this looks okay. forgetting that. It's math. And the 90 day average isn't blurring a lot of stuff out of their way. So he was totally fine for about a year. And now now that I'm under five, he's he's back to freaking out again. And he definitely wants to find something he can yell at me about.

Scott Benner 39:08
It's so interesting. So you just basically go in there. You take it so you can get your prescriptions and get out like you like I'm gonna, I'm gonna go take my beating from this guy and get my prescriptions and get out of here. That's such a shame.

Dana 39:20
Yeah, we disagree on a lot of things. I started it three months went to four months, you know, now we're at every six months. And yeah, I think we disagree on a lot of things he wants me to take statens I told him no. He's like line was, well, we'll revisit that after you have a heart attack or a stroke. So let's try to scare the patient. And then he taught me nothing about diabetes or how to live with this. And he's gonna tell me I'm doing it wrong.

Unknown Speaker 39:44
Yeah, well,

Unknown Speaker 39:46
what a pleasant person that he's delightful.

Scott Benner 39:49
I was just gonna say what a delightful man Hey, Effie, have a heart attack. If you're still alive, I'll give you this stat and then what do you write?

Dana 39:56
When I when I'm proven correct and you die. Me You'll take this pill now. Haha. Yeah, like I said, I keep thinking about getting another doctor, we have some great I'm in Cleveland and we have some great hospitals here. But he doesn't give me what I want. And so do I really want to start over with a new guy?

Scott Benner 40:15
I gotcha, gotcha. Hey, if you don't die, we're gonna give you another medication please leave your $40 with Debbie on the way out rock just that's really doesn't surprise me I wish it did I guess I wish she said that and I thought I just was like my jaw hit the desk I was like, Oh my gosh, that's incredible. But I doesn't. I think that it's interesting because you can you can diagnose it. He doesn't have a ton of information. Like he's, he doesn't really know what he's talking about that well. And so he just goes right to that it's really no different than when you're parenting a kid. When you find yourself yelling, you're losing, you know, like you. you've run out of ways to manipulate an eight year old when you're yelling, which by the way is it's not good news for you. And you probably should look into that. But But you know, when you're when you're ranting and raving at somebody, it's because you're basically saying do what I tell you. And I can't tell you why it is that you should listen to me. Because I don't know. But but do it and you know, listen, yeah, once in a while, by the way kids get out of control, sometimes they just need to do something because you're gonna lose your mind. But this doctor situation, this is different this is he should be able to say to you, I'd like you to take this medication. And here's why. based on facts and data and his opinion, it not just do it, because I said so. And if you don't, something really bad's gonna happen again. Haha, like that's just a strange, I you do need to switch doctors. It's such a pain in the butt to own properly. But so but your personality seems as such, though, like, it's funny, you should switch doctors only because nobody should be treated the way you're being treated. But it doesn't really seem to affect you at all. Like, there are people I've spoken to who have gotten talked to by doctors like that it throws them into a funk. But you really are just have the mindset of just let me get what I need and get out of here.

Dana 42:08
Yeah, I mean, I did I learned everything, you know, the internet is out there. Right? It's, we're fortunate to have the text not the technology that we have. And, you know, he gave me a when I was diagnosed, he gave me a prescription for three test trips a day. And within probably five minutes on Google, I thought, that doesn't seem right. I'm sure he based it on people are non compliant, and don't test their sugar. But how would you know what you're doing with three test strips?

Scott Benner 42:34
You wouldn't? You would actually would. It's been years now. But I visited. Well, I went I went I gave a speech in the Dominican Republic. And which was really neat, because I had to speak through an interpreter, which I don't think will ever happen in my life, but was so fancy, anyway. And like so it would be weird to say something you thought was funny, and then hear somebody say something you didn't understand and watch a bunch of people laughing. I was like, oh, that worked in another language. And the lag would be crazy. Oh, you just stand there for a second going? Is this gonna land is this gonna land and they're laughing and I'll move on. And so but but anyway, I was there and you know, incredibly poor place. Overall, there's, there's a huge divide between the haves and the have nots. And they would get government assisted test trips, 30 a month. So people would then make the decision, do I test myself once a day and randomly take a shot in the dark at this? Or what a lot of people did was they use their 30 test trips to take incredibly good care of themselves for a few days. Wow. And then let the rest of the month go away and wait till they got through 30 test trips back again. It just you can't do that's not enough data to figure. I mean, listen, in general, you know, you have a CGM. But once you have the Dexcom, you realize like, the data points are nice. And they're much better than nothing. It's certainly better than having three a day or, you know, 30 a month or whatever. But but it's once you can see, like the speed and the and the direction. And you know, that's the that's the stuff right there. Like that's when you can really figure it out. How much do you end up using Dexcom, though? Because Do you I mean, what's a big spike to you?

Dana 44:21
I will start correcting anything based on the trend. I'll start correcting at 115. Okay, big spikes. I was at 150 yesterday and I haven't for the life of me. I have no idea why. But it I mean, I'll get over 200 like, you know, if I go on vacation, I'm leaving town this weekend. I won't be low carb because I'm going to do what I want to do. So if I go sit and have pizza later tonight. I may chase a number for an hour.

Scott Benner 44:50
Okay. You get it. You'll go aggressively at it. You'll get it back pretty quickly.

Dana 44:55
I will hammer the heck out of it. Yeah. I thought about it when I started listening to the podcast, you know, you talked about fear of insulin. And I thought, why was I never afraid of this? And it's because I didn't, I didn't know enough to know that it could kill me. I had no clue that interesting. I was like, let me just go figure out what amount I need to take for this.

Scott Benner 45:13
You really didn't tell me even people, you know, have had diabetes for a very long time. And you think back to their beginnings and 20 or 30 years ago, and they'll always tell you look, look at me, I'm fine. That is really most of them. Like, look, I'm fine. And I didn't have a CGM, and I didn't know this. I know that I'm like, Yeah, I hear you. But that is where that ignorance is, is kind of blissful. It's like, well, if I didn't die, then I'm okay. You know, and that's not true. Like that's, or at least, it's a very strange way to measure something, you know, like, there's no levels of, of quality, there's just dead and not dead. And, and it's, you don't I mean, like, you know, like, it's so don't you can't give the you can't give away what what today brings us with the data. It's, it's just too, it's too amazing. And, you know, it's just too helpful. I guess it leads you into the right spot. And I feel terrible when I hear people say like, it's overwhelming. And I'm like, oh, you're thinking about it wrong. Like you're, you're thinking about it, like, like a great like, it's this constant grade you're getting, it's not that it's just you look back at it, and you say, Oh, I see what happened here. Like I took insulin at eight o'clock, my blood sugar went to 170 and then it sat there and never came back down. Again. I probably could have just used a little more insulin. You know, my Pre-Bolus look good, but I didn't have enough for even you can see in the in the in the steepness is steepness or word. In the steepness, the incline you can tell by the incline of of the spikes to just skip right over the fact that you can tell by the incline, often I can tell by the incline of the spike on the Dexcom is this timing or amount related? Because Because a timing related spike, you know, kind of gradually goes up like the, like the Swedish Hill climber on the prices, right? It's just it's that gradual, like overload and you're like, Oh, it's gonna stop, it's gonna stop, it never stops, he gets the rolls off the end, and you're just like, oh, then Bob Barker reminds you to take your dog's testicles or something, and it's over. And so like but, but that really gradual climb. to me means it's more about timing, because you almost have the right amount of insulin in there, but the fight is just being lost. And so maybe a little more Pre-Bolus and maybe a little more insulin, but definitely a little more Pre-Bolus would have been the answer. When when you put your insulin in and your blood sugar shoots straight up, that was not enough insulin. Because you didn't even get the insulin didn't even get now you could Don't get me wrong. You could take insulin right the second and start eating from the sugar bowl with a spoon. And even if you took enough insulin, you're gonna see a spike because the the food still going to get ahead of the insulin. But generally speaking, a quick up just means you missed on the amount of the insulin. But you must have pretty similar meals because I hate to say this, but I did eat low carb for a while, like I said years ago. There aren't as many options. Right? Like you're a little limited on options, aren't you?

Dana 48:22
I don't probably I don't know that. I feel like I am a lot of days because I do eat the same stuff a lot. And I live alone. So I both cook on the weekends. And then, you know, for the last week I've eaten a chicken parm dish and a chicken with cheese and salsa dish. You know, one for lunch one for dinner every day.

Scott Benner 48:42
Are you though? I'm sorry? Are you the type of the type of low carb person for like inclined? A my language is shot today? Do you I see some people online. Here's how I should have started. who somehow take like, you know, the husk of a coconut shell and cottage cheese and a pinch of salt and up with bread. And they're like low carb. And I think that myself, but that can't taste good. But But okay, and they're eating it there. They seem incredibly happy and all that but you don't do you go to those lengths to create, like similar foods that have different ingredients.

Dana 49:16
No. I like to eat but I don't like to spend a ton of time cooking. Gotcha. So I bought the cookbooks where you know, you can take flax and all sorts of magic flowers and make all sorts of great things. And the technology really has changed. You can make some of these things. You can bake cookies that actually tastes like cookies. But it's a lot of work. So I'm gonna buy the taco seasoning at the grocery store and throw it in some chicken and drop cheese on it and give it it's also

Scott Benner 49:45
Dana I respect your um, your desire to want to keep a balance. I seriously do. You know absolutely because I see you do see some people who are like, you know, we're low carb or this or you know, even the measurement like the measurement people like I measure everything out. Picture their kitchen everything's like in baggies with like 15 c written on it and 27 C and threes. I'm like, Oh my God, is it really that worth being alive? Like, I'm having a good time at all. But I haven't even seen a great movie in six months, I don't know how much effort it's really valuable. At what point am I spending so much time staying alive? That that's really my life, you know, and it's, it's even my idea with using the way I use insulin, which is I needed to find a way where we were getting great results, but I wasn't spending every waking second with this thing. You know, because at that point, really like, what's the point? You know, like, like, should we maybe just, you know, do our best and go live some like fun life on an island, which now there's global warming islands don't exist anymore because of hurricanes. But that's not the point. By the way, we're all going to be writing polar bears soon. So what's gonna happen is, this is my expectation. And please keep in mind that I don't know a lot about geography or science. But I think the polar ice caps are melting, the polar bears are going to run towards America, when they get through Canada, they're going to be very sick and tired, we're going to be able to easily lasso them and ride them like ponies. And then we'll ride them right into the apocalypse. Because the UN said the other day that in like a decade, the planets going to be seven degrees hotter. So it's a that's the United Nations and B seven degrees seems untenable to me. So I write you might as well

Unknown Speaker 51:30
stop writing polar bear to the hurricane point. Hey, a flying

Scott Benner 51:33
polar bears. So this episode is now called flying polar bears, there's no way I'm going to talk off of that idea. And and I'm going to probably spend a little bit of time like making a polar bear putting wings on it. And and I don't know why if I find enough free time, that is what I'm gonna do. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, that life's going to help and and so you, I'm trying to say you need to, you need to enjoy your life. Like you don't know where we're going, right? Like, you don't know how much time you have left, like, look at you. You were one day like, everything's fine. And then everything wasn't fine. And what if that everything that wasn't fine? wasn't something that's like, Hey, here's some insulin, look, you're fine again, you know, like, what if it was like, hey, go, why don't you go find your loved ones and tell them how much you care about them? Like, you know, and so with that, with life being finite, with the polar ice caps melting with the flying polar bears, and everything else that is happening. I don't want to spend my entire life crushing flaxseed into cookies, or right, or counting or putting food onto a scale, which I tried in the past and found it almost depressing. Like, like, just that, like, everyone's ready, let me just find out how much this noodles is for you. And then No, and I never was right. Anyway, I count the carbs. Perfect. I'm weighing in at this point. Looking on the box. I'm like, Okay, this is 50 carbs. 50 carbs, blood sugar, shoot straight up. Okay. You know, like, now I've depressed everybody. We've reminded everyone before dinner that Arden has diabetes by going, Hey, where's that scale? You know, and so it's just an incredibly it's an oppressive way to live. I'm just against being oppressed at all, unless it is by polar bear overlords, who somehow somehow figure out how to live even though it gets warm. And and so because they would deserve it at that point, Dana? Yeah, if they figured out how to deal with the heat, then they deserve to run things. And I'm not manic, by the way in case anyone wonders, I have a mental illness that I'm aware of episodes going astray. But But No, but seriously like it. I don't want people I don't want myself and I hate to think of other people spending so much time doing things that are preparatory for life, that they're not just living. And I think there's a way around that I think you have found a completely viable way around that. I think I have found a completely viable way around that. Our two ways are, I mean, couldn't probably be much, you know, farther apart, right? Like, right. I'm saying eat whatever you want. You're like, I'm pretty much keeping my carbs pretty low. But you're still you're still in Tell me about this a little bit. Are you still employing the things from the podcast, even though you're lower carbs?

Dana 54:15
It's basically Yeah, it's I'm basically managing everything the same way you do with Arden, just with different tools. And I bought like and I like I said, I didn't start listening to the podcast until the springs. Thank you to Ashley who told me you should contact Scott. wherever you are. Thank you. Um, right. I was at a jdrf event and she said, hey, you're on MDI, you should be on the Juicebox Podcast. And then I listened to the Juicebox Podcast.

Scott Benner 54:43
This is how it gets around. People keep going tell some more people. You know, word of mouth is how I found out about Dexcom. I didn't know anything about continuous glucose monitoring. Until one day my daughter's nurse practitioner brought it up in a story that you've probably heard me tell. But what you don't know is a week or two later, a woman I knew one line asked me about it as well. And then I started thinking, Okay, well, let me find out more about this. You know, now the nurse practitioner brought it up. Lorraine brought it up. I should probably look into it. That was it. There was no grand epiphany. Fireworks didn't go off. There wasn't a big banner hanging outside of my house that said, try continuous glucose monitoring. I just had heard about it enough from people I trusted, and I thought, I'm gonna try this too. I was looking for anything that could make our days with diabetes. healthier, easier, less stressful, less worrisome. I thought, I'll give it a try. Well, could it hurt? And now all this time later, it's the core of what we talked about here on the podcast. I'm looking at Arden's blood sugar right now, it's Sunday night at 10pm Arden's blood sugar 78. We just got home from a movie a couple of hours ago, she had a giant tub of popcorn while we were there. Every time I used insulin in that movie theater, it was based off of the data I was getting back from the Dexcom g six, continuous glucose monitor. You ever tried to Bolus in a movie theater for popcorn while you're watching a movie? I'll tell you right now, I don't know how you do it without a dexcom. Because prior to it, I didn't know how either. But now I know. And you could to DAX, calm calm forward slash juicebox. There's also links at Juicebox podcast.com. Or in the podcast player shownotes you're listening to right now.

Unknown Speaker 56:29
take the leap.

Dana 56:35
It's it and I'm working through the past now. So I listen to you at the gym. I listened to you last night mowing the lawn, you know, I'm working my way through history. And I sort of laughed because it's, it's kind of what I do. And I bought the Dr. Bernstein book and I bought sugar surfing. And I haven't read either of them. But I started the Bernstein book, and I just I had to stop. I didn't like it. And I eat low carb. And I still didn't like it. But it's just constant needles. But I think if I was a parent, and I was doing this with a three year old, that kid would have had a pump the day they'd give it to me, because I can't imagine stabbing a kid all the time. Can you imagine a kid eating low carb? No, but I see them on. I see them online that do it that their parents are very much into cooking at that they do they bake a lot of treats. They just don't have sugar in them.

Scott Benner 57:27
But the problem ends up being is that at some point that kid grows up and you're not going to be there anymore. And and maybe you'll teach them how to cook like that. And it'll be great. But there's still like even you just said, Look, I'm going away. I'm probably having pizza. Like, by the way, by what you said, You're not probably having pizza, you're totally definitely having pizza.

Dana 57:42
But this time we're not we're going to we're going to the goal, a friend and I are going and I'm like I'm going to eat shrimp for three days. That's nice. But early in August, I went up to Detroit, which is where I grew up for a baseball game, and we ate pizza five times in three days

Scott Benner 57:58
and dish and is your ability to deal with that pizza with insulin. Is it not as strong as you'd like it to be? What do you do pretty well.

Dana 58:06
It varies. Sometimes it's it's an absolute disaster. You know, that number hits 250. And I'm like, Alright, so we're just gonna pound on this until it comes down. Other times, I feel like I am a genius. I've solved this problem. But a lot of it is a timing thing. I mean, it really is I had dinner with a friend this week. And when the food came, I said I didn't think that was going to come as fast as it did. And she looked at me and she doesn't know a ton about what I you know, go through Taiwan. And I'm like, it's going to go up. And I'll deal with it later. And she saw me went to a concert, and she saw me reaching for my purse. And she's like, okay, I thought that's what you were doing. Because then I needed another dose, right? Because I can see the number climbing and I'm like, yeah, that's not gonna come back by itself.

Scott Benner 58:47
Yeah. And so do you think that if you ate more carbs, you'd get better? I mean, it stands Yes, you'd get better at it. And so you're sort of making my point about raising a kid with this idea that like carbs don't exist, because one day they might one day that kid might go to college and feel like, Oh my God, why did no one Tell me about this? Right? And then then their tools are like, if you want to learn how to use the insulin and then eat low carb, I think that is I listen, I genuinely I hope people understand I don't care what you don't really doesn't matter to me. But But you know, like, but in my mind, what makes sense to me is you least have to know how to do it because this child could get a bite of a pizza one day. And, and really, and let's be clear, if you're if you're having your kid eat low carbs, and you're smashing flaxseed to make cookies and all that other stuff. When your 18 year old eats a slice of pizza the first time they're not with you, they're going to curse and your name is going to be included in that sentence. Because Yeah, this pizza is so good. And, you know, and and you know, and then that's going to lead them to go, what about a pancake, and you know, and then pancakes, gonna take them to a while on a waffles gonna take him to a big cheeseburger with a beautiful roll. It's just a little crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. And then we're gonna probably never come home again or at the very least They're not going to know what to do with their insulin,

Dana 1:00:02
right? They're gonna come home with an eight, one C of 10. Because

Scott Benner 1:00:05
Because you were like, No, that's not true. By the way, this works for some things. For instance, I am, I don't like soccer. And by the way to the person, there's a person who listens who played soccer at Duke, who always just like, stop using soccer as a reference for things that are boring and not fun. I'm sorry about this, but I don't like soccer. So when my son was little, we drove down the street one day, we stopped at a red light. There were all these people playing soccer on this field kids, like four years old, he goes, What are those people doing? and bless my wife, she looked right at him straight face and said, I have no idea. And we waited for the light to turn green. And we drove away because neither of us wanted our kid to play soccer, which is right or wrong. I don't know You decide. But But the point is, you can't do that with everything. Because Because Because then we later took my son and you're like, here's a baseball hold this, you know, like, and you but that kid's gonna figure out carbs one day, and and maybe they'll hate them and maybe the light them. And maybe you'll have done such an amazing job of laying it out in front of them that they'll they'll just do it themselves. But I saw my son's dorm room. And I don't know where he can crush flaxseed there. So seriously, you can't you got to live in the world you're

Dana 1:01:10
in. Right, he's eating in a cafeteria, he's got to eat what's there. Orlando listeners, I'm

Scott Benner 1:01:15
coming to you soon, I'll be speaking at touched by type one, all you need to do to see me is go to dancing for diabetes.com and go to the Events tab there you'll see touched by type one, it's going to be may 18 2019, from 8am to 5pm. That's right, a full day of diabetes extravaganza, learn more dancing for diabetes.com. You didn't hear me say I was gonna kill the polar bears. Once they're here, I got to adapt. There's an adaption that happens throughout life. And I think that, and I'll get a tiny bit preachy here, Dana, you don't have kids. So you can sit right you don't have children, I do not you don't sit back, you don't have to be a part of this for a second, I can get a tiny bit preachy here about kids, when your children are young, and you have like all this energy, and you're like, I'm 30, and I'm gonna make a smart Baby, it's gonna do smart things be super healthy, that's nice. But that doesn't really you can't keep that going forever. And it's an unrealistic goal. Like, at some point, your kid's gonna go be a real person. And I'm not saying I'm not even painting some horror picture of like, you know, you can do whatever you want with them, lock them in a closet, but they're going to end up a heroin addict. Like, I'm not saying that, I'm saying, I'm saying that there's what you think you're doing right now, by shaping this kid. It's incredibly valuable, and you are going to shape them. And then the minute they leave, they're going to take what you told them, and then they're going to reform themselves completely. And it could go in a completely opposite way that you were imagining. So just give them all the tools it would be like if I didn't, so we don't drink. It's not, it's not a moral decision, my wife doesn't drink, I don't drink, we've just never really been into alcohol. So that could have gone either way for my kids, right? They could have either been like what this is, or this is how we do it. So my son doesn't drink. And he doesn't drink in high school. And then he goes off to college, and actually calls me a couple weeks into college and says, Hey, I got some nice feedback from some older kids on the team. They're really impressed that I don't drink. And I thought and I thought, Oh, that's great, good for you. Like I didn't make a big deal out of it or anything like that. But we still had incredible conversations about it when he was younger, I didn't not tell him anything about alcohol and just hope that what I was leading him towards was what he was always going to do. So there was a moment when you know, a week into his college life. They're having a crab bake at the baseball house or something like that. And he's got to make a decision. Like, is this the day I'm going to pick this beer up? Because I want these guys to like me, or because I feel proud for whatever reason, maybe I just want to try it. And and he had enough conversation enough data, I guess from growing up to say, No, I can stick with this. And I think you just need to do that. If you're gonna you're gonna feed your kid low carb his whole life. They have to be prepared to make that decision on their own. And I would worry about that a little bit. If it was me if it was my son, I'd be worried. What have I done? Have I have I eliminated a part of a realistic part of life that they might have to know how to deal with one day

Dana 1:04:22
I and you're going to have to I mean, it's it's out there you go to you know, I work for a big company. There's work functions where there's food. Yeah, like, you could just not eat holiday events and things like that. We used to have a holiday event every year at an Italian restaurant. I had it written down in my phone so that I would know the next year at the holidays, okay dos about this much. Because I'm going to eat pasta, right?

Scott Benner 1:04:45
I talked to Ryan the other day is an adult who has type one. He's been on the podcast before he said something to me. I never even said to him, but he talked about the pressure of a work function needing to wanting to look normal at the work function. Not now. wanting people to think, oh, there's the guy with the diabetes or not wanting to lower Hey, you know, hear beeping. never even thought about that before as an adult like me No, because Arden is kind of incredibly open with their diabetes. So I've never seen her say something like, you know, don't pull that out here. Don't give me insulin here. She's never had that feeling. But as Ryan said, I thought, boy, a lot of people must feel this way.

Dana 1:05:23
I think it's Yeah, it's a major issue. I hit it. When I was initially diagnosed, I would grab my insulin and go wandering off to the bathroom and do injections there. And that ship sailed A long time ago. But we recently reconfigured where I am at work and the cubicles we're in are much more open. And I made a joke to somebody I said, Well, everyone is going to see me bleed at my desk. Now, at some point, yeah. This means checking my sugar or you know, doing injections. Like, I'm going to be sitting at my desk, lifting my shirt up a little bit, and it's just going to happen.

Scott Benner 1:05:52
Yeah, because I just, I hate the idea of going into a restroom. You know, what's funny, I'm gonna Can I finish with a story? This is incredibly odd. So years and years and years ago, and I mean, a really long time ago, I was in a restaurant with my children, Kelly, Kelly must have been working, we make Kelly work 24 hours a day, because we need things. And so Kelly was working, and I was out to a dinner with my kids. And we were getting done. And leaving, there was this really young girl, and I'm gonna put her age at like 10, maybe. And she was sitting at a table, and she was injecting insulin into our side. And it caught my eye. And then I remember the parents kind of looking up at me, like, I didn't know what they were thinking. But my concern was that they were thinking, Oh, God, don't judge us, or don't say anything or anything. So I just then in that awkwardness, I stopped and I said, Hey, I'm sorry to bother you. My daughter has type one diabetes, too. And they said, Oh, hello. And that was kind of a con that came over them. And I looked at the little girl and I said, I just wanted to let you know, I'm so proud of you for just taking care of your stuff right here at the table and not running off to the bathroom. There's nothing to be ashamed of. And I just, it's so great to see you taking such good care of yourself. And, and, and being brave about it. And being out in the open about it. I said something like that. We talked for a couple seconds, and we walked away.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
Awesome.

Scott Benner 1:07:17
Six months, six months ago, I got jury duty notice. And I called up and I said, Hey, listen, my kids got type one diabetes. And I help her manage her diabetes throughout the day. I said, I don't care about coming to your jury duty or not. I'm happy to do it. But is there a situation where I can always have my phone available to me? And the person said, No, actually, that wouldn't work. But because of the diabetes, I'm happy to give you like a wave or something like that. As a matter of fact, my 18 year old daughter's leaving for college, and she has type one diabetes. And we talked for a couple minutes. And it was the woman from the restaurant from 10 years ago.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:59
Oh my god.

Scott Benner 1:08:00
I was like, Oh, this is incredible. Like, like, wow, I couldn't even believe it. And she and she figured it out. And and and she just goes because it's a it's a local court like so it's not crazy that she might live locally and everything too. And she just she said it out loud. She goes, are you the person from the from the restaurant and she starts telling this tournament? Oh my gosh, that's me. Yeah. And I was like I said, I thought for sure you were gonna say from a podcast that I do. And she goes, wait, that's your podcast. And I was like I said, What? And she goes, the one with the juice box that was like,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:35
oh my god.

Scott Benner 1:08:38
Nice thing like you don't even like and she then she told me what an impactful thing that was for her daughter. Her daughter was newly diagnosed, I didn't realize how newly Oh, and she's like what you said to her, like, kind of shaped how she thought about it after that. And I said, Oh, this is wonderful. Like I just I never felt so nice about something and bonus didn't have to go to jury duty. And and had I known by the way I would have started with like, Hey, I'm the guy that gave your daughter that great advice. Please don't make me come to jury.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:09
I would have been a complete butthead about it.

Dana 1:09:13
But no, it's not. It's not just insane. Like, all the random, multiple interactions with the same person.

Scott Benner 1:09:21
I think it also makes the point that when you say something to somebody at a at an informative time in their life, it is important what you say to them because it really does have a lasting effect. Like that little girl was ready to hear something and she heard it. And what if I was the person who looked there and went oh my god, what are you doing go in the bathroom, like be ashamed of this. Yeah, you know, like that how easily that might have changed her life

Dana 1:09:44
or in a completely different direction.

Scott Benner 1:09:45
You know, it just really struck me after she said that and I got off the phone and my wife's like what just happened? I'm like diabetes just got me out of jury duty, I think but not in the way not in the way that I thought it was going to. and and you know, and but I just it really struck me that like for all the people Here's something kind of crappy at some point. And then you hear them talk on this podcast when they're 35. about something, they're still hiding because of something that happened in their childhood. I actually got to see it, like a sport. And it's it's so important, you know, and how do you protect from seeing a jerk at a restaurant? You know, I don't know. But I love that you don't hide. I love that you're jabbing yourself at your desk. And

Dana 1:10:24
it became a joke now. And as it turned out, there's actually several people that I worked with who have connections to type one. But though I had no idea they didn't know I had it. I didn't know they had connections. And there was a woman who saw my my Dexcom the one day on my arm, which is that a pump? No, it's a CGM. She's like, Oh, my son has type one. And he's he's on a pump, but doesn't want the desk calm. And now she just told me recently his, I think his CD years endo talked him into trying the G six. So I'm curious to see how that goes. Whether he likes it or not.

Scott Benner 1:10:55
Yeah, isn't it funny? There's there's some sort of a level of I get that everybody gets their own opinion. And you know, but, gosh, whether he likes it or not, again,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:06
I you know, I

Scott Benner 1:11:06
haven't said this in a long time. But it's like, if you needed a heart monitor, and you're like, I'll be art without it. Don't worry, I'll just, it'll be fine. You know, I'll plug in every once in a while to see what my heart is doing there. No, no, your heart's pretty weak. I think you need this full time on and I just, I wish that I wish that everybody could lead into the technology in an open moment for themselves, because they think that is what it is like, do they have preconceived notions or built in biases are something that biases biases inclines deep. I'm not doing well today. But they have, but they have like a built in fears or concerns, right. And I wish I wish everybody had the opportunity to try the stuff before they had those. And then if they don't, if they don't like them, then they don't like them. But I hate to hear people who are right off the bat, like, Oh, I don't want that. And I'm like, you don't even know what it is.

Dana 1:11:53
Yeah, right. That's how I was my endo brought up after a year, he brought up Dexcom. And if I analyze data, I look at numbers all day long. I thought I would do nothing but stare at my phone all day, if I had this technology, so I waited another year. And then once I found out about the share feature, and I said I live alone and realized Wait, other people could find out. You know if I might be dying in the middle of the night? That seems like a really good idea. Yeah, I would I wouldn't give it back for anything now.

Scott Benner 1:12:20
Isn't it funny how you got lit into it? You got the it was the don't die alarm that got you're like, Okay, I don't want it. And now you see all the other things that come with it. And it would have been hard back then. He imagined back then if if someone would have sat to you and tried to explain to you like all the benefits of seeing the data, you would have been like what? Shut up?

Dana 1:12:40
You know, so I would have thought I had plenty of data already know I stick my finger 10 times a day. I know everything I need. No, totally wrong.

Scott Benner 1:12:47
It's really something. Well live and learn. That's all okay. I don't know. This was fun. I don't know if we did anything. But I did have her talking to you.

Dana 1:12:57
As good as absolutely fantastic. I really glad we did this. Cool. I

Scott Benner 1:13:01
am too. I'm excited that you're going on vacation because I wish I was. And I feel happy for you.

Dana 1:13:06
But thank you. It got cold here today. So I'm ready to go someplace else.

Scott Benner 1:13:10
It is it happened here too. It was very humid yesterday and hot. And the air conditioner was running. And this morning I got up and I was like wow, it's really cold outside. So somebody flipped the winter switch.

Dana 1:13:20
Yeah, I think you're a day behind us. We had the heat through Wednesday, and now dropped a little bit yesterday. And today I'm walking around my house wandering, wondering where I socks are.

Scott Benner 1:13:29
Tell me something when I come up to Ohio in a couple weeks. Is it going to be cold by then, like really cold?

Dana 1:13:34
You're going to Cincinnati aren't you?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:36
Yes. On the floor.

Dana 1:13:38
It won't be as bad. I'm all the way up in Cleveland. And I think we're supposed to be in the 50s for a while. So I would guess maybe Cincinnati 60 something.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:47
That's great. Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:48
I don't think it'll be terrible.

Scott Benner 1:13:49
It made my day. I was supposed to go to Chicago for something that week after and I ended up not being able to but that even worried me as like, I don't want to be cold.

Dana 1:13:58
I hope I'm not wrong, because then I'll be I'll get called out your live event. Thanks, Dana.

Scott Benner 1:14:05
Yes, indeed. Thank you, Dana, for being on the Juicebox Podcast. What a great time I had talking to you. Yes, thanks indeed Dana, for coming on the Juicebox Podcast. Thank you for being open and honest about your life. And let's be honest, I was a little chatty today. So thanks for being patient with me. Thanks also to Omni pod Dexcom dancing for diabetes. And real good foods. Remember a couple of things, you can always go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box, my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dancing the number four diabetes.com or real good foods calm. Now when you go to real good foods. com use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 20% and when you find yourself at my omnipod.com forward slash juice box, don't forget that you can get a free no obligation experience kit. For those of you enjoying the diabetes pro tip series. Good news. I'll be back next week with more of that series. with Jenny Smith CDE

---

Please support the sponsors

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate