#233 A Rose by Any Other Name
Scott Benner
Call Erin Rose E.R.
E.R. is a mom who came on the podcast to share her life with type 1 diabetes. We talk glucagon, diet and more.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello and welcome to Episode 233 of the Juicebox Podcast. In today's episode, I'm going to be speaking with Erin. Erin is the mother of a child with Type One Diabetes. And we're going to go over a bunch of stuff. Today we're going to talk a little bit about how Aaron's daughter eats, we're going to get into using glucagon for emergencies. And for non-emergencies talk a little bit about DK. This episode really flew right by I just got done editing it and I love that I hope you do too. Today's episode is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes, you can go to my Omni pod comm forward slash juice box dancing the number for diabetes.com or dexcom.com forward slash juice box to find out more. There are also links in your show notes in the Juicebox podcast.com.
longtime listeners know that it goes without saying that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And to always consult a physician before making any changes to your medical plan. Becoming bold with insulin, or I don't know, you know, anything really just talk to a doctor first. This is just a podcast.
Erin Rose 1:23
Hi, my name is Erin Rose, you can call me ER. And my daughter eila is the type one diabetic. He's six years old. And I have been listening to the podcast for a couple of years now. And my daughter has had diabetes for four years. And that's what brings me here.
Scott Benner 1:41
Well, thank you not cool about the diabetes, but it was cool that you listen for. So I'm gonna call you er, and that will. I'm basically training my brain right now just so you know.
Unknown Speaker 1:53
And you come out with something else. That's okay, too.
Scott Benner 1:56
We're the only two people here. So you'll probably respond as I will to almost any noise. Okay, so let's talk for a little bit I let was how old when she was diagnosed.
You, too. Oh, jeez. That's how old Arden was. That's that's not a great time. Not that there's a perfect time. But you know,
Erin Rose 2:22
so it presents its own unique challenges. But like you've said many times, she doesn't really know a life without it. So in that respect, it is easier. I guess if you can call it easier, it just makes it easier to adapt, I suppose.
Scott Benner 2:35
Yeah. But well, there's less to remember and less to lose, right. And then when she gets older, she'll start seeing and I'm sure she already has, she'll start seeing the inherent differences between her and people who don't have diabetes. But at least she's who she is. At that point. You don't I mean, like, it's not like she's got to be apologetic for it. Or I've been corresponding with somebody recently whose 11 year old was just diagnosed, and they're having a really terrible time with it. Really, really just on every level, the child just can't adapt. And so now that that that kids stuck seeing a therapist, which was the right decision, I'm just saying, you know, in his 11 year old life without the diabetes, he probably wouldn't be at a therapist. And and you know, everything's changed for him. And I told the parents, I'm like, you will find your way through this. And it's going to be okay, but even for them, now, they have all this stress and anxiety and things to worry about in costs that they didn't have before. So I agree with you, I don't want to I don't want anybody to get diabetes. But if there's a perfect time, it's either when you're when you're like a Zen master or when you're too young to remember a life without it. So,
Unknown Speaker 3:45
yeah, yeah,
Scott Benner 3:46
yeah. And so how am I, you know, at diagnosis for it four years ago at age two, four years ago, 2014. So in the hospital, I like to ask, you say what did they indicate to you you should be doing for management as far as technology goes at the hospital?
Erin Rose 4:01
Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, I look at it now. And it's a train wreck. And I think about how far we've come and you know, how much we know. So we were admitted in a typical way, the symptoms of deca, etc. You know, it was new to us. We we were clueless, obviously, at that point. And when we were told, okay, she has diabetes, we want you to use MDI, for at least six months, which in hindsight, I think is ridiculous, because at that point, her insulin knees were so small that a pump would have made much more sense, which I know you've alluded to and talks about in the past on your podcast, and with the Dexcom. They mentioned it in passing but said don't worry about it. For now. Just figure out how to use insulin, how to check her blood sugar and get yourself home. They are they offered us to stay several days we stayed I think one night we were like this is her life. We need to figure this out. We're just going to figure it out on the Fly and, and obviously made some mistakes along the way. I learned by doing especially with a two year old that can't really express herself very well. So and then about a month and a half in when we had been been connected and met some other families, I insisted on getting the decks calm and I said I can't imagine a life without it, I need it. Oh, and we were able to get that tool pretty quickly. And then about six or seven months into it, we got her on the Omni pod and since then she's been on the Dexcom and Omni pod and now she's on the e6 and Omni pod.
Scott Benner 5:33
How did how did you know to ask for a CGM?
Erin Rose 5:38
So I had helpfully been connected with some families through the jdrf when I was first diagnosed, and some families had shown me all their cool tech and I was like, what's that? And what's that? And you know, why am I doing this and and I saw the benefits of having it and then I did research and realize I need this in my daughter's life in our lives. And once we got it, you know, it was the light bulb went off and we were like, why did we not have this from the beginning? I truly believe that children in particular should be given it as it is a mandate before leaving the hospital.
Scott Benner 6:16
Um, you know, so it's funny so I come down on like most things I must be a moderate I come down on I come down on like, I understand both sides of the argument. So I get let you find out what it's about make a decision about you one I get the idea of this technology is is so kind of mind bendingly life changing that it should be like you should come through the door, like, you know, like a spaceship movie. And somebody's like, you have diabetes slap, here's this thing slap. Here's this thing. Go. Yeah, you know. And I see I see the value on both sides of the argument. I lean towards the way you're leaning. I think that I think that if you can see the speed and direction of your blood sugar, then that's something you should know about. And I think that if you put it on somebody on day one and told them, Look, this is just part of this now, then maybe fewer people would feel oddly about wearing something like that. Maybe they would just think like this is something I need now. You know, and it really is. Night and day. And I hate to I hate to say it because there's plenty of people who can't afford it. And it is it's if you don't have you know the insurance that covers it. You CGM is expensive. And at the same time, just today, and I know I say this so much that people think I'm lying. But I swear to God just the day an hour ago. Literally an hour ago, I picked Arden up at school. She got a half day today, an hour before that. She was 135 diagonal up her blood sugar just sort of jumped all the sudden, I knew she was going to be home in an hour I made an aggressive aggressive bolus for the 135 stop the deadness tracks. By the time she got home, she was 86. Now at six, I see a little diagonal down I knew she's gonna want to eat when she gets home. She says you know I'm hungry. Does it matter if I have something you know supercar B or not, I'm like, it doesn't matter because we're in a good spot here. As she's saying that arrow turns down. I was like, Hey, you have an arrow down. I'm like, go do whatever you want. Boom, she gets a bowl of cereal. And Arden has a giant bowl of Apple Jacks, which by the way, I did not count carbs for I just Bolus the amount I thought it was right. And her blood sugar right now, two hours after the 135 adjustment, a half an hour since the bowl of Apple Jacks is 94 and stable. Now if anyone thinks they could accomplish that without seeing their blood sugar, I mean, your that would be amazing. But I couldn't have done it. I couldn't do it before. So
Erin Rose 8:51
yeah, I mean, getting getting into this session about having access to tecton. That's a whole nother issue, which obviously is it's a big one. And it's a heated one. And I you know, and I wish there were a way to make it more accessible for everyone, because it really is a life saving tool, and a tool that makes your life so much more functional and easier to just get on with your life basically.
Scott Benner 9:13
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that's such a good point, right? Because in the old model, the idea is go live for six months, some doctor's offices, say a year, you know, go live with this. But that's the other part that I didn't get to and is that while you're, you know, quote unquote, living with diabetes and quote unquote, figuring it out, you're experiencing significant psychological stress. And that's the part that nobody talks about. They always talk about the diabetes like it's this. I don't know, like this structural thing in front of you that you can touch. They don't talk about the rest of it when you walk when your kids blood sugar is 300 or when your blood sugar's 300. And then it's 60. And then it's 50. And you're scared of an email now from someone who's frightened out of their mind because their blood sugar is falling and they don't know why. How is that a valuable lesson to learn? Like, okay, one day, I can figure that out, I don't need to live like that for six months to know that I don't want that. I don't I don't get it and to affordability. You know, access is getting better. I just put up a show yesterday, the other day with Costco, who's trying to make Dexcom less expensive for people who are underinsured or uninsured. And I think but I think that until Dexcom, makes that next leap in their technology where they can shrink the form size of the CGM, I'm assuming bringing their cost down. I think we're stuck at this plateau financially. But I think when that next leap happens, and I obviously don't know anything, but if you put me in charge of a business like that, I would say to myself, look, I can sell these things, you know, you know, and you can sell a cheeseburger for $100 and sell three of them make $300. So you can sell them for $3 and sell 1000 of them, you know, and make a lot more money. So I'm hoping that that's what happens. And I have my fingers crossed for that. When you go to dancing for diabetes.com, now that's dancing, the number for diabetes.com, click on the Contact tab and scroll to the bottom, you can sign up for their mailing list. In the end, really, I just would like you to get connected with them somehow. Maybe it's through their mailing list, their Instagram account on Facebook, really doesn't matter to me, whatever is most comfortable for you, you know, wherever you spend your time. But I would love it if you found out more about dancing for diabetes. And those are just a couple of the ways that you can dancing the number for diabetes.com connect with them today.
So you're out of the hospital and you're on your way it sounds like you dove right in like you told them Look, let me out of the hospital. We want to get to this, what did you find in the early days.
Erin Rose 11:54
I mean, in the early days, obviously eila was honeymooning and we really didn't understand how insulin worked or the timing delivery, the the insulin needs the ratios and also the the types of foods to eat or maybe avoid or plan a little better. So in any given day, you know, we kept her log, we used to keep a manual log because this is where we have the Dexcom and the Omni pod. So for those first few months, we actually had a notebook that I was going to throw away my husband was like, You can't throw that away. That's like a time relic a time piece. I was gonna want to look at that when she gets older and laugh because we would say, you know, 5am 400, you know, 9am 60 and and this is just learning, you know, learning the ropes that we did that evened out pretty quickly. I mean, within the first year or a month, he went down significantly and then after the first year we've been there, she's had an excellent I went see like below 6.5 since then, so it's you know, we learn the ropes. But the first few months is in particular, we you know, the morning we were in the hospital, they gave her she woke up with a blood sugar of 350 and DK a and the hospital offered her for breakfast, banana Cheerios, and orange juice. And this is before I knew anything, and I'm like, okay, honey, here's your breakfast, just here's the insulin for it, you know? And I think about it now and I'm like, how is that even possible? That seems negligent? You know, it seems like, why was there not even a conversation at that point. But that that's another that's another topic for discussion. But I just it does shock me how you go into the hospital, and that you're not really prepared for the obvious thing. I think I think at least in my circumstance, I learned by doing basically.
Scott Benner 13:43
Well, and I listen, I think that's got to be the case. Right? Like so it's nice to say, I wish that someone would have told me and obviously someone should have said, you know, hey, I listen, sweetie special day, we're having bacon and ham for breakfast today or, you know, like, like something like that and then and pulled you aside and said, Look, her blood sugar's really high right now. You know, blah, blah, blah. So let's just do this. But when you stop and think about it, the person that brings the food isn't even the doctor, right? It's just it's that service that they have,
Erin Rose 14:20
Oh, I know, epic, but it should be the doctor's orders, right? It could be the doctors and nurses on a systemic level talking about nutrition and the importance of food and nutrition and you know when to eat certain things. And if this is the case, and maybe don't eat those things, because you're just going to exacerbate the situation.
Scott Benner 14:37
And so if we had a doctor sitting here right now, I'm guessing that they would say, look, you were in the hospital for a day. This was all just happening. We're still trying to get the kids blood sugar to come down. The last thing we're worried about is a piece of toast and some Cheerios. You know, we're not we don't want to skip they would have a reason behind it. And it wouldn't be that crazy when they said it to you. But I think the problem is and maybe the thing they don't see what They say that is that now you, as a person who have no idea what you're doing and don't know anything about diabetes think well, her blood sugar was really high, but they still Feder like this. So it it starts to reinforce the wrong things early on. And I always just uses a basic example, like insulin like Arden uses a pitcher, which we love. But in the hospital, we were given Nova law. And so in my mind in my like, addled crazed, like oh my God, my kid has diabetes mine when someone handed me an overlock, I thought, well, this is insulin, because the hospital gave it to me. And so then for years when no vlog didn't work well for her, I never thought twice about that. until another person who had been at this a little longer than me came around and said, Have you ever considered trying other insolence? And I was like, Oh, no, can I do that? You know, and so yeah, it's funny, what imprints on you early on is what I'm saying. So you could have if you leave there, if you're a different person, you leave there and you don't go out into the world and look into these things. You could have just left thinking, alright, high blood sugar, low blood sugar, doesn't matter, insulin eat, go, you know, it's just it's, I don't think that's I think that's the part that doctors don't pay much attention to is like, what's what's happening in my brain, like, what's deep seating in my brain right now, we're in my stress or my anxiety that they're not going to see when I leave, and it's gonna fight with me every day while I'm trying to deal with diabetes. So you got out of there quickly, you found friends, you looked into, you know, gadgets? And how long before you were in a place where you felt comfortable?
Erin Rose 16:36
I would want to say about a year. I mean, Well, it depends on what you mean, by comfortable by comfortable, I think, you know, her agency is really well managed, we're not seeing these crazy spikes and drops. So I mean, I felt within a couple of months, I had an understanding of what insulin is, and you know, the need to treat a low or treat a high, but it did take about a year to really fully understand her body and her body's needs. And by that point, you know, you've experienced a cold a stomach bug, whatever the case may be, and how to make adjustments. And when dealing with certain foods, you know, not all carbs are created equally. learning that as well.
Scott Benner 17:15
Yeah. And so when you say you had to learn about how the insulin worked, I mean, I think that's the focus of this podcast. If, as a matter of fact, if somebody said to me, what's your podcast about? I would say, it's about understanding how insulin works, that would be my first sentence. And did you learn that because of the dex calm, or did you find that out from other places?
Unknown Speaker 17:35
A combination Yeah, dex, calm and
Erin Rose 17:39
trial and error. Being that, you know, if she's having resistance to insulin, you need a lot more or if he's really active, and it's cold, she's sensitive, you know, a little things like that. Or, if you're going to be eating a pizza, or a bagel Pre-Bolus, extend the bolus, increase your basal rate, you know, all these things that, for me, it was foreign language, to be honest, because when we first got the pump, I didn't even know what a bazel was, you know, first, you know, and it intimidated me. And you know, you've rather the thing, you know, that the thing you don't so first getting on the pump, it was a big adjustment. And then then that's why I'd say she got the pump about six, seven months in, and then it took another six, seven months for me to really understand what the pump is and how it works. And I think you were talking about how, you know, it's like this really powerful rocket launcher or whatever. I think one of your podcasts you were alluding to that back then, that of just using it to do darts or whatever. Yeah, I
Scott Benner 18:35
tell people all the time when I'm speaking to Omnipod privately, and I just did it yesterday, actually. And I said, I always say I'm like you hand people a rocket launcher, and you tell them to kill flies with it. Like it's it. It does so much more than this. It's so much more powerful than this. How can you tell them it's a fly spotter. And an insulin pump is not is not just, it's not just a way to avoid getting injections. It's so much, much more than that. And it's a disservice to pumping to, you know, to think of it that way. Now in pump companies defense, not just on the power, but all of them. They are not doctors, and they're not allowed to give you medical advice. And as soon as they start telling you about like they can tell you look, you can set an extended bolus on this pump, they're allowed to say that their documentation the minute they start telling you when to or why to, that's medical advice, and they can't do that. Right. And so they're stuck, right? They're the company that sells you the pump. And the doctor is supposed to be the person who tells you now let me amend that the doctors the person we expect to tell us how to when to use the insulin how to use it. But if we really stepped back and it's interesting, er, we're gonna go in a direction you didn't expect but kind of behind the scenes. I spend a lot of time pressing the medical community To be more upfront with people early on, and I keep thinking the same thing, I just just occurred to me as we're talking like, it's their job, it's their job, but it's probably not their job. The ER Doc's job is to take your kid with the incredibly high blood sugar, bring her blood sugar back down, safely give you the tools you need, and tell you to go visit an endocrinologist. Like, that's really their job. Right?
Unknown Speaker 20:22
That's it. That's all they do.
Scott Benner 20:23
Now, the question is, when we get to the endocrinologist, why did they then treat us? Like, we can't handle any information?
Erin Rose 20:32
I would have to agree to that I and I, I'm going to just step in for a second. I think this is one of my biggest problems with endocrinologist, you know, we being told what to do what not to do, it took us a while to get on a good rapport and find someone we really like and, and who understands us and who, who gives us the freedom without making us feel guilty. Basically, you know, I wasn't taught how to bazel or even really change your basal rates or, you know, extend the Bolus, these sort of things. I learned this all by doing it by reading blogs, and by listening to your podcast, and you know, just doing my own research and learning as I go. And I agree with you like, Why is this not taught, this should be something, you know, when you get the palm. This is what your endocrinologist should be teaching you what to do.
Scott Benner 21:21
And so the common wisdom is, I can't tell people the first time I meet them, or the first couple times I meet them this incredibly confusing stuff. Because what if they don't follow it? What if they take these ideas home with them and do it wrong. And so I'm gonna go back to something I've said before, because the conversations really leading in that way, in, in society, we look at a classroom with 20 kids in it right, and say, three of the kids are brilliant, and three of them are really challenged, and the rest of the middle, these other 14 kids, they're pretty average kids. We don't teach to the average kids. We don't teach to the brilliant kids, we teach to the three kids who are having trouble, like the idea is, it's a compassionate thing. I don't want to leave those three behind. But what that does is it drags the other 17 down to the least common denominator of the conversation, which is now unfair to them. So the idea is when I don't know which one of you are the three bright kids in the class, I don't know which one of you the three challenged kids in class, I don't know which one of you the 14, you know, average kids in the class. How do I, how do I teach you something like where do I start? And so I think sometimes what they're saying is, look, I need time to figure out if you're able to follow what I need to tell you. And so you're interesting, because you fall right into there's there's pretty much two segments, there's the kind of people who get doctor's advice and follow it blindly to the point where they literally have pains in their stomach, because they see things go wrong in their, you know, with their kids, or whether their blood sugar, and they can't bring themselves to disobey what the doctor said. And there are people like you who were like, well, I gotta go figure this out right now. Because this doesn't seem right. That's a personality situation. And so and so I think that's what it is. But so, you know, that's the question is, how do you, it really is on you to look at the doctor early on and say, Look, I understand you don't know me, but give it all to me right now? And how would you even know that that's something you need to do? So in a perfect situation? Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Erin Rose 23:23
And it's all hindsight, I think, you know, you look at and the doctors are only doing their best and what they can do within their limitations. And with liability, like you said, so I get it, I do get it. Um,
Scott Benner 23:34
but but now personally for you how incredibly frustrating was it?
Erin Rose 23:38
It was, it was very frustrating. And you know, it, we kept lowering eyelids, I went See, and her doctors kept saying, Oh, it's getting below 6.5. Like, I don't like that. And I'm like, Well, if you look at her data, she's, you know, she's in her target, like between 75 and 150, like 80 to 90% of the time, I really don't understand what the problem is, you know, we're not achieving this by having her hang out at 50 all the time. And, and, most recently, once he went down to 5.8, and her endocrinologist who now is an actual type on herself, he's like, you have a once you've someone who's almost not a diabetic for six year old, that's amazing. And it just made me feel so much better to realize, like, I am actually doing really well, like I'm doing this. And I'm not, you know, and not at the detriment of her suffering and being low all the time. Like, there's someone here who gets it. And that's why, you know, and it took a long time to find that.
Scott Benner 24:31
And I think from my perspective, that's just exciting because what it means to me is that if the, my assertion is that if you give people good information up front, those 17 kids in the class will do good things with it. The other three are going to need more direction, but that's how you find out who they are in the scenario by giving them the information and seeing them get a 70 on the test, right like so. identify them early, instead of just almost being inspired. to them and teaching down to what you think their level is figure out what their level is, and then help them get beyond it. Like, it's such a simple concept, but we we always do it. We always do it wrong. Like as a society, we always just err on the side of caution. It's always like, well, we don't want to leave anybody behind. Well, I don't want to leave anybody behind either. But let's find out where we're all starting. So we know what to say to those people. Because those three people need different direction than these 14 and those three, and etc. And so I just, I'm excited that you got good feedback from your doctor, because far too many people will contact me and tell me the opposite. They press they get pressed just like you described the beginning. But then it goes on. And sometimes they buckle to it. Sometimes they don't have the nerve to say to the doctor, look, we're getting this five, eight, she doesn't have any crazy lows. We're in range. You know, this is doable. Yeah, that's terrible, too.
Erin Rose 25:52
That is, yeah. And I'm just I'm really glad we're in a place we are at. And I found, you know, the person we have. She's great.
Scott Benner 25:58
Well, that's and you know, it's funny, it's a little bit of dumb luck, right? Like, it's just it's your personality lent itself for you to be an advocate for yourself. And for your daughter. It's really cool. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's absolutely, it's, it's the goal, it's the hope for everybody. How would you like to make diabetes treatment decisions with zero finger sticks? Well, you can with the Dexcom g six, continuous glucose monitor. And I'd like to tell you more about it right now, if you'd like to listen. What's that? You're gonna listen? That's excellent. Thank you. dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. Here's what's gonna happen. I'm going to do it with you right now. Ford slash juice box. There we go. Oh, it's a pretty little web page that pops up. And all you do is click on the green button that says get started with Dexcom. There's information in pictures, but the green button get started. Here's what it asks me. Personal Information name, email address, phone number, address, patient's birth date? And they can answer Oh, here they go. They ask you a little information about like, what kind of diabetes? Yeah, visit type one or type two? Do you have gestational? Are you currently using insulin injections pills, given insulin pump, managing with diet and exercise, this is for everybody. And then you just tell them about your insurance. I've private insurance, public insurance. And then you submit? Then they get back to you. And you get started. I mean, really, I don't know how much easier it can be. I guess somebody could come to your house. And I click the buttons for you. But I mean, honestly, this is something you can do. And I really think you should do it right now. I want you to imagine a world where you can see the speed and direction that your blood sugar is moving in so that you can make treatment decisions that will move things in the direction that you want, instead of in the direction that diabetes seems to be dictating to you go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box, click on that green button, fill in your information. It's a whole new world when you do now you are achieving the ANC and the levels with the kind of a modified paleo diet. Are you still doing that? Or how do you how do you eat?
Erin Rose 28:10
No, I mean, yes. And I would say I I, I alluded to it in one of my emails. I honestly I can't remember this my vote. Yes. So we do fairly low glycemic, low carbohydrate on during the week. Having said that, if she comes home and says I want popcorn, or let's make brownies, I'm like, okay, we can do that, you know, we'll make it work, we find a way I generally try and do low glycemic and paleo. But there are occasions where she's out with friends and there's pizza, and there's this and she wants to have it, she's going to have it, you know, we just make accommodations, I just know that it's, it makes it a lot easier, and she's more responsive to insulin, you know, the less carbs she has, so I wouldn't say it's completely restrictive. And then on the weekends, we eat whatever she wants, and she eats whatever she wants. So if she wants a bagel, if she wants to go for pizza, if she wants the ice cream, we just you know we do it, we don't even think about it. We just I try and and I look at it more from a health perspective rather than diabetes. And I always tell her that as well. And it because it's me too I eat that way as well. It's not and I don't have type one, you know, it's we try and fuel our bodies with nutrient dense food which is vegetables, whole grains, fruits, lean proteins, you know, lots of water and hydration and lots of activity just to maintain a happy healthy diet and to grow to be big and strong and healthy. And you know, it's not about diabetes, but eating a starchy carb diet is not good for anyone and I'm always you know, reinforcing that point with her and and I think if she gets it because she I think she does get it and you know we watch our twos and things like that so she can understand you know, and read books as well at her level about nutrition and health and she says she understands that it's not mommy saying no carbs, carbs are bad. That's I don't believe that at all. I think that we make the smart choices to eat the right types of carbs that will make us feel good. We call it go food versus Whoa, food. So go food is something that makes you want to go and give you energy and run and play and the World Food is the you know, the sugary, starchy things that maybe you don't feel so good are few weeds.
Scott Benner 30:16
That's so that's excellent. And for a number of reasons. But let me let me say this. I think that when you do a podcast, you say things, trying to give people hope. That's what I do here. Right? Like, if I tell you Arden eight Apple Jacks and her blood sugar, I got her blood sugar to stay at 94. That's not to tell you that our needs Apple Jacks every day. Because there's a box of Apple Jacks in our house, it's probably been here for so long, I'm pretty sure she probably just had stale cereal, you're like they don't mean like it's I use those as examples. Because you know, it's an example of what you can accomplish with the insulin. It's not an example that you should eat Apple Jacks every day. And I kind of think that most people who hear that understand that it's common sense. But there are some people who are so kind of fervently against carbs, that when they hear that they'll you know, contact me privately. I've been attacked openly online a number of times. It's like you're you're telling people to eat a hot a high carb diet. I'm like, I didn't say that. I never said that. Arden had a turkey stuffed pepper for dinner the other night. You know what I mean? Like the night before that was she had chicken that was lightly breaded with broccoli and a tiny bit of rice. It was you know, like that we eat like, like, you know, human beings. And then periodically there's cereal or bagels or stuff like that, or pancakes and that's the stuff when you can understand how to use insulin for those things. Well, then the stuff pepper with you know, is
Unknown Speaker 31:46
right, it's walking apart. Yeah.
Scott Benner 31:48
Yeah. And so, having you say that, to me, makes me think we need to stop labeling how everyone eats. I'm high carb, I'm low carb. I'm you know, I eat moderately, we do a little paleo. We all people are saying in all those regards, there's like, Look, I I'm just trying not to eat pojos all the time.
Erin Rose 32:10
Just trying to be healthy, right? I mean, and, and also you put it in perspective, I was only six weighs less than 50 pounds. So for her 15 carbs of breakfast 30 carbs at lunch and like maybe 30 to 40 dinner is a lot that's me but that but like a normal amount like a healthy growing girl, you know, eating the right sort of carbs. Like we make these choices. We're going to eat keyone vegetables and you know, like you're saying turkey or whatever. We're not going to have box mac and cheese every night. You know? Right? Right?
Scott Benner 32:36
We're very simply years ago, I realized my my son was going to be a chicken person, like the kid was just gonna eat chicken constantly. And when I first had him, I was young. And we were thought to give him a chicken nugget. I went to the grocery store. When the freezer section I bought a bag of chicken nuggets. Now this is an indication that I grew up broke and not well, like the like my family wasn't thinking about health. It took me a few months. And I thought I can't do this. Like why am I don't know what's in those frozen bag of chicken nuggets. So now I go out I buy chicken breast I cut it up into smaller pieces. And I take the time to bread it and cook it in oven. The first number of times I did that my son was like this is not chicken like he fought against. I'm like you better just shut up and eat it. And so he ate it. And it he got accustomed to it.
Erin Rose 33:24
Yeah. Hey, you raise your kid, they develop a taste for real food for real vegetables for different textures.
Unknown Speaker 33:32
And I go ahead I'm sorry.
Erin Rose 33:34
No, I was just, I never catered to the whole, you know, kiddie food. I always was like, you get what you get. You don't get upset, like this is what we're having for dinner. And you know, if you're hungry enough, you'll eat it.
Unknown Speaker 33:46
from the northeast?
Unknown Speaker 33:48
Yes.
Scott Benner 33:52
I agree. And so and I agree, moreover, that the problem, or one of the pitfalls, I shouldn't say the problem, but one of the pitfalls of social media and as interacting with each other and kind of like these, you know, like car accident ways where we don't see each other coming, then all of a sudden we're together in this idea. And then it's over real quick. And we all try to make our point is that we oversimplify conversations. So if you were to tell me that you were not letting your child have any carbs at all, I might say to you as an overarching way to make my point, gosh, what are you going to do when they get to college the first time they want pizza, and they don't know how to Bolus for it. And the problem is that severely oversimplifies my position. Right? Like, I don't care if your kid eats low carb, I don't care if your family's low carb, I think that's there's a perfectly reasonable and healthy way to do that. Just like I think there's a perfectly reasonable healthy way to be a vegan, you know, there's ways to accomplish it. I'm just saying understand the insulin first because you don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring or what five years from now it's gonna bring and when that when it comes. We all need to understand how to do it or you know, All this good work you put into your kids health for the first 10 years is going to go out the window the first time they you know, sit down in the cafeteria college and can't manage themselves. Let's surf the internet together one last time, my a pod.com forward slash juice box Juicebox. Podcast? Well, well, what do we have here, it seems I've missed typed the word juice box. So when you misspelled juice box, you get a picture of a lovely man fishing in a river. Looks like he's wearing on a pod. But when you type it correctly, there we go. When you type in my on the pod.com, forward slash juicebox correctly into your web browser, you're taken immediately to a page that allows you to request a free experience kit, a pack a pod experience kit, you can see it right here on the page, they're gonna send you a little quickstart guide, a non working demo pod that you can actually wear and try for yourself. Yes, sir, a tiny bit of information, name, address, email, phone number, what type of the diabetes you have, you just have to say here that you're over 18 or the parent or guardian and that's that request your experience credit, big red button, git push it. Let's pretend now that you've pushed the red button in your pod experience kit has arrived at your home, you or your child is wearing it now and you're realizing Hmm, I don't even notice I have the song. And then you think to yourself, while wearing this, that would be better than shooting needles into me all day long. I can just push a button and send in the insulin and there's no tubing, I'm not attached to anything. Just little thing I'm wearing and that's it. And then a light bulb goes off in your head. It's as if the angels saying ah like that, except musically. And then you'll realize Scott was right. I should get in on the Miami pod.com Ford slash juice box. Listen, if you get an omni pod, you'll never have to hear me singing again. So I mean, it's a win win. Really? Okay, so er, in your email, you also said you thought it would be really interesting to talk about glucagon. And I do too.
Unknown Speaker 37:07
Hey, guys, great. Have
Scott Benner 37:08
you had any situations where you've needed to use glucagon?
Unknown Speaker 37:13
Yes. So
Erin Rose 37:16
that was the reason why I suggested it. I know it can be scary and overwhelming. And I thought it would be helpful to walk people through it. Because for a lot of people, it's just this red box, it sort of just sits there. And you're told maybe once what to do with it. And then when the time actually comes, you might not be sure or overwhelmed or you know, there might be a lot of there's usually a lot going on at that point in time. That brings you to the point of actually necessitating glucagon. So we've had to use it twice. I can walk you through the two times. And then there was a you know, I just wanted to really talk about what it is how it works, that sort of thing. Absolutely. So these were emergency situations.
Scott Benner 37:58
Yes. Not not like hey, my kids, blood sugar's 50. And a won't come up. I'm going to give them a little bumper glucagon. Like you were thinking this was a seizure or a potential one,
Erin Rose 38:07
almost the first time I Ella that was my daughter, she was three. She had been at a birthday party got Bolus for cake and pizza and all the usual things and candy. And then started, came home and started projectile vomiting. So she had gotten some sort of stomach bug, you know, with his guests. And he wouldn't keep juice down. We tried, we wait to give her water gave her juice. And then if she's you know, she just kept vomiting. And we knew at that point, the monitor was saying low. After finger it just had low so and she was about to go out, you know, she was eyes rolling over that sort of thing. She had just, you know, basically thrown out the entire contents of her her poor little tummy. And so we worked out the glucagon, we administered it. And then we took her to the emergency room and got her zofran which is a caveat I do well, I just was on my mind, I want to recommend everyone should have a prescription for zofran in their house, and anti nausea tablets. So if you encounter a similar stomach bug situation, it can help you prevent flows like this. You can take it and then you can stomach swallowing juice. Okay, you don't that's just a caveat. I didn't want to forget that point. So I want to I want to recommend that to everyone. So we don't go anywhere. Now when we travel we always have to glucagon and zofran. So that was the first occurrence. And then more recently in December actually this just a couple months ago now. I mean, by the time you air it, it might be later but for me in real time was about a month ago eila was fighting a virus so she had just had really stubborn blood sugars and we're not talking seriously high, you know, 180 200 just it wasn't budging for several hours. So we change the pump, and whenever she's high for more than two hours out of practice. I like to give her a shot just to make sure he doesn't stay high for more than two hours. It's just something I like to do. So if she's above 180, for more than two hours, I usually give her a shot anyway as a matter of practice, just to get her down. So we gave her the correction, and we waited an hour and 45 minutes, it's still not budging. And at this point, we're then about to eat pasta for dinner. And we had been traveling, so she was tired, sick, you know, all of these compounded elements, right? That make you resistant to insulin. And so I Pre-Bolus in aggressive corrections, and the end for the pasta. And then she decided I'm not eating the pasta. And at this point, she now had like five units of insulin on board. And for her size, that's a lot, you know, her correction ratio is there. Relative to give you some relative ideas, one unit corrects roughly 70 points and a dinner is one to 20. So five minutes is a lot, you know, we were rushing her blood sugar, we were bolusing for like 50 carbs, a piece of pasta as I wanted. And then side is she eating so I immediately gave her a candy cane suspended insulin and gave her 20 carbs of juice. But at that point, I feel like all the insulin just was a perfect storm came crashing down and I no amount of juice was gonna, you know, stop the drop effectively. So I she had had over 30 carbs, I thought I would cover it enough with the you know, fast acting juice and the candy cane. And he was lying down, she was disengaged. She couldn't she wanted to read and she couldn't. And my husband, like, she's low get the glucagon now and I ran over and just you know, at that point, she could hardly walk her eyes were all gloss over. And she you know, she was about to go. So we had to then give it to her then. So that was the second time. And I yes, those are the two incidents, that we needed to administer it.
Scott Benner 41:57
Right? How did you find the process? Like? So it has to be? You know, I hope everyone's looked at their glucagon. So they understand how to use it. And a great, you know, a definite pro tip would be once they expire. You use them? You know, open them up. Yeah, sounds
Erin Rose 42:11
Actually, yeah, that was something I was gonna say, well, you have the expired ones practice with them, right,
Scott Benner 42:16
you know, and once you're practiced enough given to the school nurses, so they can practice with them too, and proxies at school, because they because it's powder in this in this, you know, in this class tube, then you get the needle, the needle has to the needle has liquid and already the liquid has to go into the powder, you have to mix it up, then pull it back into the needle. You know, it's there's a lot of that a lot of steps.
Erin Rose 42:36
And it's an it's a high stress situation, usually you don't come to use it. And most I mean, unless you're mini dosing, which is another topic I actually wanted to allude to, but if you're many dozing, because you're you know, just not feeling well. It's slightly less stressful situation. But in these, you know, emergency situations, you know, you you have to act quickly, because you don't have minutes to waste basically,
Scott Benner 42:57
do you know that? Maybe I'm just saying something but further that you know, but so when you inject this glucagon into you, there's I think, an idea that the liquid in this powder is what's going to bring your blood sugar back up. But what it actually does is it forces your
Unknown Speaker 43:14
Yeah, right.
Erin Rose 43:16
Yeah, so I was going to explain to that, and that's right, what it does is, the liquid does not bring your blood sugar up, it triggers your liver to release glucose face effectively. And then that will is what brings your blood sugar up. But what happens is it triggers your liver to release pretty much all the glucose reserves you have in your body. So what happens then, as a result, your blood sugar spikes pretty high, obviously. But it's a superficial high and there's a few caveats. So what happens is yes, firstly, it triggers your blood sugar to go very high. But in doing so it releases all the glucose reserves you have in your body. So what that means is for the next several hours, and it could even take a few days for your body to build up their glucose reserves again. So that means you'll be more sensitive to both insulin and sugar effectively. So you have to err on the side of caution and bolus. very conservatively feel like this is not the time to be bold with insulin effectively, if you find yourself in a position where you've had to utilize glucagon, you almost want to do you know, bolus half the carbs and then maybe see where they are within a half an hour, see what their arrows are doing and then make a decision based on that you want to be very conservative, because they have no glucose reserves left in their body at that point in time. And also, after you administer glucagon, it will obviously spike your blood sugar but it will come down as well. So you don't want to treat that blood sugar. So it will it can make you book blood sugar up to 303 50 even for a few hours. But if you watch it, it will go down. So you know you give it like three, four hours. Maybe in the end, I think I remember her and her chronologist eat, maybe you know, you would want to talk to a doctor about this, if you find yourself in a position where you need to use it, you call your endocrinologist obviously. But they had said to us wait at least three hours. And don't correct unless she's above 350 for more than three hours. So because because there's no glucose reserves left in her bloodstream. So, so we had waited three, and I'm like, and she had gone for, like, free ad to like 300. And I was like, You know what, I'm just gonna watch this, and obviously stayed up all night because I was nervous. And then she slowly crept down, and then by four hours later, she was 200 trending down. So I obviously didn't correct anything. And at some point, even in the night, she got low and needed juice. And this was like, eight hours after administering glucagon. So she obviously you just have to ride the wave basically,
Scott Benner 45:49
because, because what you're saying is to be 100% transparent is if you use glucagon. And your liver expels all the glucose that has saved, you can't use the glucagon again, eight hours later, because there's no there's no store of glucose in your liver at that point.
Erin Rose 46:05
And that's, and that's also why you want to eat and drink much as you can stomach basically. So without really reading for it, to be honest, like you don't even want it like you want to have some juice and some slow release carbs, assuming you're not having stomach bugs until at least you're eating food, and you can rebuild glucose reserves as quickly as possible. So it recommends I think you eat at least 15 to 20 carbs after you've had to administer glucagon. So you can build up your glucose reserves. So we ended up at that over the course of that night. She I think she needed like three juice boxes, or something. But she just kept dipping down. And even though we had a lower bazel, you know, we didn't want to have no bazel. So we had to just keep giving her juice throughout the night. And then yeah, and you're super sensitive for the next sort of few days. So you just need to play it safe. You might spike more than you usually do after you eat a meal. But you have to know that this is you know, like a sick day policy. It's not a normal, you know, scenario, you don't treat insulin the same way when you're coming, recovering from the use of glucagon effectively,
Scott Benner 47:06
yeah, now, so you handled it much better than I did Arden many years ago. And she was really little once right after she was diagnosed when she was two years old. And maybe a year or so after that. I saw twice. I gave her insulin that was too much. And she had a seizure. So that was like, you know, gone like just glassy eyed grunting you know, you just scared out of her mind, you couldn't really touch her because everything frightened her. Right, and we've got her out of both of those with glucose gel in her cheeks. Now, that was lucky, because the first time I just I opened up that glucagon. And I realized I didn't even know how to do it. Because that because the doctor says to you, Hey, this is the glucagon it's for emergencies. If they have a seizure, and then the next thing they say is don't worry, you'll never need it.
Unknown Speaker 47:55
Yeah, they do. They say that. Why did they say? Well, because they well, and here's what I share. Yeah, right. That's
Scott Benner 48:00
the psychology behind it. They don't want to send you like you've just been diagnosed. They don't want to be like, hey, look, this is for when you inevitably have a seizure. What they should say is, this is for if you have a seizure, the likelihood of it is really incredibly low, but it could happen. So pay attention while I show you how to use this because as soon as my like, as soon as my brain hurt, it's never gonna happen. I was like, I have enough other stuff to think about. I didn't pay how to reconstitute the, the glue gun, I was completely lost. When I opened it up. I felt like an idiot.
Erin Rose 48:30
So yeah. So you do you do need in practice, like you said, practice with the expired ones. And also it's good for 24 hours. Once you mix up that magical cocktail. You can keep it in your refrigerator, if you need it. Like let's say you're dealing with a stomach bug or the flu or something like that in your mini dosing. You can keep it for 24 hours. And, and to the point of mini dosing. I
Scott Benner 48:54
don't know. I've never done it, so go ahead and tell me about it.
Erin Rose 48:58
So mini dosing is effectively using glucagon to help with like you were saying earlier with like stubborn lows in the 50s. But there's still cognisant aware talking, it's just not coming up. So you effectively make the mixture you you know, you prepare the glucagon as you would regularly but then you use a regular syringe. And this is just good practice, by the way, because the glucagon syringe has been known to break I read about this in certain scenarios. So I always backup regular insulin syringes and Islas diabetes kit. If God forbid, the glucagon syringe, decides that today's the day she needs it and then the syringe is not working. So I, as a caveat, always extra syringes with her. And you use a regular insulin syringe and you dose based on roughly the age so no, baby two two would be like two units, two units using an insulin syringe of glucagon and then you Add a unit for every year on top of that until you get to I think about 15. And then it's about 15 units. So for example, Islas, fix it two units plus an additional six units for each year that makes eight units of glucagon. And what that would do is it will bring your blood sugar up, but it won't completely deplete all of your glucose reserves because it's a smaller amount. And, and it won't make you spike so hard. So I not and I would obviously like you said, you know, you would want to talk to a doctor, you wouldn't want to do this without the advisement of your medical professional. But the the availability is there, the option is there and it works well. If you've had a stomach bug, or you're really sick, and you just can't stomach the idea of more food or juice or whatever.
Scott Benner 50:45
Yeah. Oh, listen, this episode is getting an extra deep voice this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is, you know, not advice. situation. So I because we are talking a lot about stuff that happened to you. It happened to me that are this really specific?
Erin Rose 50:58
Oh, definitely. And yeah, and it, it's very much specific. And it Yeah, absolutely is not advice in any way, shape, or form. And
Unknown Speaker 51:07
it's just what happened to you. Yeah.
Erin Rose 51:10
Just experiences of it. You learn from it, obviously, you know, I think now I look back on it now. And I say, oh, wow, I wish I knew about mini dosing, because when I had her stomach bug, I would have done that and would have prevented going to 20 and almost having a seizure, you know. And now I know about that hindsight is a wonderful thing. We don't, then
Scott Benner 51:29
we don't and so we don't travel with glucagon all the time. But I wouldn't I don't even take insulin or pumps if we don't, unless we're going more than about a half an hour away from our house. So it just if I do, and that's totally fine. People should do whatever they're comfortable with. I'm just saying we don't. But there are times still when I leave and I'm like, I take the glucagon like jam in my pocket before we leave or something like that. But Arden doesn't like have one on her I guess. And you know, you can make the argument that that's bad practice, and maybe it is. But I think that as you live with diabetes longer and longer, you get to the point where you just like, I mean, there's like, what am I gonna do? Like, I'm gonna walk around with a pharmacy with me for the rest of my life. And and if you're in a stable enough situation, you know, now you're just hoping against hope that one of those unforeseen things doesn't happen. But Artem was that I'm in physical therapy for her shoulder last week. And while we were there, her pump just expired. And I was like, how did we like, like we just had gotten past all of us. So we finished up a whole bunch of was like 112. And we finished up probably 20 more minutes of what she was doing a 20 minute drive home by the time we got home or blood sugar was 185. And it was it was rising, you know, just from not having insulin for 40 minutes. And I bring that up because because you you also alluded in your email about discussing ketones and DK, which is also something I've never really talked about on the podcast before. So as a person who doesn't in any way regularly check for ketones unless I know unless she's sick. When do you check for them? And how do you do it? I use a blood meter. How do you do it?
Erin Rose 53:14
To me too, and that's something I wish the hospital told me about sooner because for the first year, I had piano stick
Unknown Speaker 53:21
your fingers so yeah, yeah, pretty much. Um,
Erin Rose 53:27
so yeah, we use the ketone meter. And I like you usually only check if she's sick, or if she's had a fever. But having maybe like she woke up with a fever, or if she's had high blood sugar for more than two hours, which, you know, fortunately, you know, we've got pretty good control, we rarely see her above 200. And if we do, it's almost never above 250 for more than two hours. Like, that's pretty unprecedented. Unless there's some weird scenario, you know, which is, but it's not the norm. But if that does happen, ever reason her pump fails. And then you know, she eats a slice of pizza. And then the next thing I know, she's 300 You know, it happens for whatever reason, those are the scenarios so above, above sort of 220 for more than two hours. Just I think it's good practice check. When she's sick. I checked twice a day. I mean, call me a bit OCD, but idk does scare me and I know it could go from bad to worse at the drop of a hat. So I I act aggressively with it. And yeah, and I think that it just high blood sugar not feeling well fever. You know, the usual scenario is I don't carry the ketone meter around with the I travel with it. You know, whenever we're away for more than a day.
Scott Benner 54:39
We travel with it. We travel with it, but we don't it's not with us. Like you know,
Erin Rose 54:44
yeah, I don't Yeah, it's not like in her day to day she her little you know, diabetes bag or whatever with her, her stuff. It's at home, I know where it is. And you know, and if and when she's sick. I do check twice a day after she's breakfast because you do get elevated status. Raising ketones in the morning. So you usually want to wait at least until after you've bolus for breakfast and had some water and you're hydrated. So like maybe an hour after breakfast, and then any.
Scott Benner 55:10
I'm sorry, I was gonna say I think it's important to say that to know, if you have ketones when your blood sugar is elevated, it becomes important for another reason not just to avoid decay, but because those ketones require insulin to clear, right. So if you have a 200, blood sugar that's been 200 for like, like, are insane for four hours, and you now have ketones present, you know, maybe 1.5, ketones, whatever insulin, you think you need to move your blood sugar down. You also need an amount on top of that to clear ketones.
Erin Rose 55:42
Yeah, yeah. And lots of water. Basic. Right. Right.
Scott Benner 55:45
And so you are gonna have to but and that's a scary proposition. I remember Arden had the flu early on, and she had ketones. And the doctor told me and I didn't know what I was doing. I called the doctor, she's like, you need a unit, give her a unit for those ketones. And back then she was like, seven, you know? And I was like, wait, what she weighs like, you know, 45 pounds, and I was like, she was so little. And I was like you want me to give her She said she's got the flu. She can barely keep anything down. Really. I'm like, you need me to get your ex me to give her another unit of insulin. I was like, I think she's like you have to?
Erin Rose 56:13
Yeah, well, we do it like we try and I actually just got the flu on her birthday.
Scott Benner 56:18
Happy birthday.
Erin Rose 56:19
Yeah, happy birthday. She had 105 fever, and we were in the emergency room with ketones on temuera 13th.
Unknown Speaker 56:24
So that sucks.
Erin Rose 56:26
I did suck a little bit Poor thing. But she was so cute. She thanked all the nurses for taking care of her on her birthday.
Scott Benner 56:34
Did they say nor
Erin Rose 56:35
they didn't think that they did wish her happy birthday. But the point I was making was treating the ketone. So we like to use things like coconut water or Gatorade so at least it has carbs in it but it's also hydrating her so you have less of a worry of them, you know crashing down effectively.
Scott Benner 56:51
Yeah, carry it's what I used so I over Bolus than that. Except at the at the Gator
Erin Rose 56:56
Gator aid or a popsicle or coconut water some sort of like sugary liquid effectively, that will help hydrate them but also give you the sugar so then you're not going to crash. Yeah.
Scott Benner 57:06
And and you know true to form. But exactly what the doctor told me that gives that insulin cleared the ketones away. So
Erin Rose 57:13
that a few hours if you're aggressive with it, and you drink a lot of water, within like two to three hours, you should see a noticeable drop. Yeah. Yeah. And
Scott Benner 57:22
at some point, I mean, listen, also, it's uncommon for me to say your contact your doctor and make sure they understand what's going on. And don't you know, if you're not making headway at it for a while, then you might have to get to the hospital and and like you said, DK comes It's nothing to joke around with it will knock you over, it could kill you. And it could it could last you all day, at the very least.
Erin Rose 57:43
Right? So we I mean, we narrowly escaped that on her birthday, basically. So she had come home with what we thought was a cold and she got progressively worse over the weekend. And by Sunday on her birthday, a few weeks ago, she she didn't want to eat anything she want to drink these she want to open presence. And we had a thermometer that wasn't working. So we thought her fever was only slightly elevated but not crazy high. And then we my mom who was in town visiting for a birthday was like this kid is burning up. And so I checked again and it said 102 and I'm like it must be higher. And then we also talked for ketones at that point I had checked in the morning, but then by the afternoon they were I don't even remember to point something. So obviously I was like we're going to the emergency room. Now we're dropping everything because she could be going into DK within a matter of hours, basically.
Scott Benner 58:30
So I have to ask you, when your mom pointed it out, did you first worry about Iowa's health or did you think Oh great. My mom is here acting like she knows more.
Unknown Speaker 58:41
Maybe a little bit of both.
Scott Benner 58:44
How disappointing was it with your mom was right.
Erin Rose 58:47
I mean, I mean her credit obviously was right. And I knew I needed to take her in because she wasn't drinking and she ketos you know so we didn't really have a choice at that point. I and fortunately you know they hooked her up to IV fluids and gave her a lot of Tylenol and then within a few hours actually she rallied and was able to go home we the doctors were all like I think it's okay i said i think it's a and then somehow she that was her birthday present she it wasn't DGA basically.
Scott Benner 59:16
Yeah, it's funny, Arden's been in the hospital after her diagnosis only twice or only once about diabetes and it was after she had the first seizure when she was like two two and a half years old. You know, we had called a part of the panic we were yelling at my son called 911 for us and so once the you know once the the rescue squad in the cops got there, they were like, Look, take her to the hospital. The second time we needed the glucose gel to stop what was clearly a seizure. We got it stopped and got her stable and put her back to bed. And you know, that was it. Because you know, once you get to the hospital and you're okay the hospital sort of like so you're okay. And I'm like, yeah, and they're like, Oh,
Erin Rose 59:54
yeah, yeah, sure. The second time we use glucagon, we obviously call her endocrinologist to let them know Keep them in the loop. But they were like, don't need to go to the hospital, you've done that. Like, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:05
yeah, I know,
Erin Rose 1:00:06
I know what to do, you know, and we were out of town visiting my, at my parents house actually. And, and I felt comfortable, you know, I knew there was an ER nearby, I knew what to do. And I would just stay up checking her and make sure you know, we had the tools and the resources and the experience. But in the case of the flu, it's different and ketones, you know, you don't want to mess around. So if you have ketones, and if after a few hours, they're not responding, don't, don't, don't delay, please don't hesitate. It's not, you know, it's not the same and you need the you need the help of a medical professional, you need probably IV fluid, you know, a lot more than what you can do at home, basically, to manage it. So that and that was the case with Iowa, like we if we had not gone it probably would have taken too much for her. And then it had and the reason able to go home after a few hours was because we went in and we responded and did what we did. So that's that's the takeaway from that scenario.
Scott Benner 1:01:02
I mean, listen, in dire health situations Better safe than sorry, is, is absolutely the, the word of the day like yeah, you don't you don't want to, you don't want to be lying on your floor dying with an insurance card in your pocket. That's for sure. Like, oh, I could have gone to the hospital. But instead, I thought I'll be okay. And now look at me, like, you know, I mean, like, don't let things get so bad that, right, you know, it sucks that you have to go to the hospital if it comes up, but it's certainly better than the alternative. And at the same time, don't be a person who's running to the hospital constantly yelling, my blood sugar was 150 for two hours.
Erin Rose 1:01:36
I know of course, no no exercise with caution use common sense that sort of thing. But aka is it's a serious matter. And, and don't you know, you don't take it lightly, basically. So if you present those symptoms of being sick and having ketones, and it's not going away, within a few hours, despite all your best efforts, now is the time to go you know, the sooner you go in, the sooner you get out. Basically, I would just separate caveat that also reminded me Tylenol does impair the readings on the Dexcom. So they say that it doesn't I know that they say that was a G six, but that's
Unknown Speaker 1:02:13
false. Okay, so
Scott Benner 1:02:15
I don't have that problem. So you're saying that you're using Tylenol and you're seeing dexcom readings that aren't?
Erin Rose 1:02:22
Yes, it went on the fritz basically. And we only ever utilize it when she has a really high fever. We try and use children's Advil, that reason, pediatric Advil, so it doesn't interfere with their interstitial readings, or that they gather that the dexcom gathers but for some reason. And they said that I and when I spoke with the rep, you know, as I call them from the hospital and explain the scenario when we were there when I had the flu, and they said, Oh, it can still happen. It shouldn't but it can and it was happening, you know, it was okay. And they they obviously replaced the sensor and they said, if you do need to use it, you know, if your fever for the next few days, we recommend just not wearing Dexcom for the next few days. Because it's gonna cause another one to fail, basically.
Scott Benner 1:03:05
Okay, so somewhere between the dehydration and the hot and the high fever and the Tylenol.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:11
So every day
Erin Rose 1:03:14
was obviously having either high fever was severely dehydrated, and then and we, yes,
Scott Benner 1:03:21
no, I mean, listen, in the end, here's what you're saying. In a medical situation like that when things are not normal, like you know, the way you expect day to day, your precautions, you have type one diabetes, your precautions go up, you have to be a little more. You know, vigilant. vigilant is the is the right word, you start you test your blood sugar a little more, don't. Don't just assume that, you know, I mean, listen, I tell people all the time, like I love Dexcom it is absolutely at the core of everything that I do with my daughter. But if her blood sugar is at three for six hours, and the line never moves, I don't think I'm doing a great job. I think I should check that thing. No, now sometimes your blood sugar's at three. But it's just you can't get so complacent that you just saved yourself. This stuff's gonna take care of it. I don't have to think about it.
Erin Rose 1:04:09
You're right, especially when you're sick. Because there are so many things you're running resistant to insulin, you're dehydrated. And there's all the other things and the Dexcom struggles to keep up with what's happening and the rapid rise the rapid drop all that thing. Yep. So with with illness, I you know, I'm I would say we check our finger every few hours, like at least four or five times a day, just you know, just to make sure we're you know, we're where we think we are basically and that's when normally it's like twice a day. If I remember
Scott Benner 1:04:35
this technology is far and away the best ever been on the planet for somebody living with type one diabetes, and at the same time, it's not your 3020 you know, like these this complex sounds a great example they've been at this a decade. You know what I mean? When you look back 50 years from now, the G six will be considered like the infancy of that technology. So it works as well as it works and you know, every time somebody like you has an issue like that They learn a little more about it too. And I'm glad you called them. And I'm glad I'm glad when anybody does, because they need to hear about stuff like that so they can make improvements and make it more efficacious for everybody. You know, as we move forward, I think it's, listen, I think you did the right thing. And I think that I think bringing it up is the right thing to let people know like, if the things acting wonky, it's acting wonky. Like don't just sit back and say, well, they said it was gonna work. Like, that's weird, right?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:29
But people
Scott Benner 1:05:30
do that, by the way, which is why I bring it up. They always bemoaning things like, well, it said it was gonna do that. I'm like, well, it didn't.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:37
So yeah.
Scott Benner 1:05:38
You just gonna sit there and pout like, like getting the game, you know
Unknown Speaker 1:05:41
something about it?
Scott Benner 1:05:44
So are we are over an hour? Oh, wow, this is usually you are such a good talker. This was so easy for me. Thank you. I, I this is usually the point where I asked you if there's anything we didn't talk about that you wish we would have? No,
Erin Rose 1:06:00
I think Thank you. Again, I really appreciate the opportunity. I think it's been helpful. I tried to get through, you know, all the things I could think about, you know, that I thought might be helpful to somebody else. You know, I'm not an expert. I'm not a clinical specialist. But I have some experience and I think I do a pretty good job. So maybe, just like when I listened to everybody else speaking I'm they might hopefully learn something, too. So that's what I hope is that people benefit from this,
Scott Benner 1:06:26
I guarantee they're going to and I and I absolutely appreciate that you came on. But the core of what the podcast is, is people's experiences. So having people on who have different experiences than mine is how we get the conversations to go where they go. Absolutely fantastic episode. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm being serious about this big round of applause for er who came through today with the good information sharing about our life, but type one diabetes in a way that will help you. You know who else we're gonna clap for me, I was fantastic. me. I'm just kidding. Dexcom on the bottom dancing for diabetes, we're looking for dancing the number four diabetes.com you're gonna check them out, you're going to connect with them. You're gonna go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box and get a free demo, insulin pump today, right the pod experience kit, you know you want it. And for those of you who want to Dexcom, the G six continuous glucose monitor, today is the day to get started. There is no day other than today. Unlike today better than today. dexcom.com forward slash juice box, you're going to get the Dexcom g sex and get to see what your blood sugar's doing, how fast it's doing it. So you can make the great decisions that keep you where you want to be. Two weeks from now, Jenny Smith will be back and Jenny and I will talk all about getting your baselines on set the first time just setting your bazel I received a number of notes from people requesting that episode. And so I bring it to you, as you request that. Also, the show is now available on the radio.com app if that's something you're using you like the podcast is there too. I mean, it's honestly pretty much everywhere. It'll be on Pandora soon. yet. Let me roll through it real quickly where you can listen to Juicebox Podcast through Amazon Alexa on your Android app. You can listen to on Google Play Music, I Heart Radio, right at Juicebox podcast.com. On the radio.com app, through radio, public Spotify, tune in radio, and even on YouTube. Of course the shows available on all your Apple devices. You can just say to Syria and listen to Juicebox Podcast or look in the podcast app that's available on your iPhone, iPad and coming to your Mac very soon.
Do you ever do that when you're a kid just like trying to put an orgy handle like it's not breathing and then just the bag?
Way Out of breath. Okay, see you later.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:23
Jeez.
Scott Benner 1:09:28
Are you still here? Do you want more? Okay, I'll go one more time.
I forget too much air
If you're still listening, I want you to seriously like think just stop going to a dark room, close your eyes for a second, sit down and say to yourself, what am I doing with my life? I, I stayed on a podcast two minutes after it was over and listen to a guy basically just make weird noises with the back of his throat. And I am, I think I need help just reach out to a friend or a family member and tell them I don't know when to shut off my podcasts. And I need your help, please just I mean, maybe someone will help you. Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll look at you strangely and think you're an adult, and you just can't. You can't just give up. Like he can't just say, obviously, the guy is now just talking to see if he'll hold on. And why. Like, why would you do that? Like, why wouldn't you say to yourself, the podcast is clearly over. You know, I'm hoping you'll you'll find someone like that in your life and, and that person will help you. Or that maybe this has helped you. Maybe you're just embarrassed at this point. Just enough to say to yourself, you know what, it's right next time the music plays and he tells me who the you know, the ads were from again, and what's coming next week. I'm just gonna stop after that. I don't know what you're gonna know. Honestly, I'm not judging you do whatever you want. But I'm just saying I mean, I mean, if I'm you by now I would have stopped.
Okay, seriously, if you have not shut it off by now, I want you to see a psychiatrist. At least a psychology I mean, whoever your insurance will cover really don't go into a ton of debt. You know, I mean, copay $20 a week, you go and you tell them a little bit about you. You know, when I was growing up, my parents weren't great. And we moved around a lot or whatever your story is. And you know, then the psychiatrists or the therapist or whoever you can find me but go to somebody reputable. It's not just like some like, you know, like, bored housewife with like a degree like you don't want that you want to you want a physician, you know somebody a doctor, I'm thinking and you sit down you say I you know, I don't know what's up. Like this podcast, they told me all this great stuff about diabetes. And then honestly, the guy went on for like, four minutes afterwards, and I never shut it off. I could not stop myself. I don't know what they'll do. I hope they don't medicate you. I don't think you're in the medication for this. But I think maybe they'll just teach you some coping techniques or some breathing exercise or something you might want to do to just you know, help center yourself.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:24
Anyway, that's it.
Scott Benner 1:12:26
You know, the best part of all this is that a minute after I stopped the podcast, you're gonna think it's still happening.
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