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Podcast Episodes

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

Filtering by Category: Type 1 Diabetes

#1315 I Don't Understand... Arden Three

Scott Benner

Arden and Scott try to figure out why some people can't hear sarcasm.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon MusicGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio PublicAmazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
OmniPod, Welcome back friends, to another episode of The juicebox podcast.

Arden's back today to talk more about what we don't understand. And today's topic is sarcasm we don't understand why some people can't hear it. Nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Guys, the best way to support the podcast, if you're wondering, is to use the sponsors links. They're in the show notes of your podcast player. They're at juicebox podcast.com, and they're repeated throughout the ads. I'm talking about OmniPod, Dexcom, US Med, the contour, next gen, blood glucose meter, GEVO, hypo, pen, cozy Earth, AG, one screened for type one.com. Let's not forget touched by type one, the Eversense CGM, the Medtronic champions. Link and you can go to tndxchange.org/juicebox, and complete that survey. All of these things will support the show, not to mention sharing it with friends and people you meet along the way. And don't forget to join the private Facebook group juicebox podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook, it currently has almost 54,000 active members, and it's adding about 150 new people every 72 hours. This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth. Use the offer code juicebox at checkout at cozy earth.com and you will save 40% off of your entire order. The episode you're about to listen to was sponsored today by ag one, you can drink ag one, just like I do by going to drink ag one.com/juicebox, check it out. Okay, alright, we're back. We're making another episode of I don't understand. But before we get started and I tell people the topic, tell me what you just said. Oh, my

Arden Benner 2:05
Instagram. Yeah, Instagram spoiled. Um, what do you mean?

Unknown Speaker 2:09
What do you mean? I'm like, let

Arden Benner 2:11
me tell you about this problem on Instagram. No, I don't even want to say it now. It's not that

Scott Benner 2:18
big. Five seconds ago, you were like, there's a travesty of justice. Let me tell you about it.

Unknown Speaker 2:22
Come on. Let's just come on. Now. You

Scott Benner 2:25
don't know, people are gonna wonder what you were talking about. No, just let them wonder. It's good to be curious. Okay. Well, speaking of being curious, we were wondering, and this is one that neither of us understand, I guess, is it neither or neither, neither. I don't think it matters. Either, either, neither, neither. I

Unknown Speaker 2:45
don't think it matters. Let's

Speaker 1 2:46
call the whole thing off. You know, the end of the I wish

Speaker 2 2:49
you did tomato, and you just say, tomato, tomato, tomato, Potato,

Arden Benner 2:55
potato.

Scott Benner 2:56
Let's call the whole thing off. I don't know that was a whole thing is that like a song about people dating and then they don't end up get together because they say tomato differently. That's a dumb reason to break up. Topic garden is doing I'm stretching my leg. No one knows that's happening, if you don't mention it, today's topic is something it's difficult for you, and I to to understand, right? Because I think, I mean, I know, for me, I'm dealing on a professional level when it comes to sarcasm. I really am, and I've

Arden Benner 3:34
created sarcasm. You feel like you, you're the one, the creator of sarcasm. So we have quite a hard time understanding this

Scott Benner 3:41
topic. Yes, our topic is, we don't understand why. Some people can't hear sarcasm. Yeah, because it's so obvious, yeah, to me, to you as well. Yeah, it's just like the Yeah, like, we're it's so bad I can't not use sarcasm. They say sarcasm is a dull man's wit, or something like that. But I think that was something that a person who didn't understand sarcasm said, you have to understand, and probably you do that when I'm making the podcast. You know, normally I'm dialing back myself by about like 80%

Unknown Speaker 4:20
like I can't if I just doing that right now too.

Scott Benner 4:23
Oh, I'm still doing it. Or I would say something, or I would say something horrifying to people, yeah, and

Arden Benner 4:27
this podcast would be over on episode three, because we get, we get canceled, for sure, then, uh, we would have no money. Like, like, when we,

Scott Benner 4:37
like, when we just said, I said, Hey, do you want to do this topic? And I was like, Maybe we should wait longer until people really like us before we bring this up.

Arden Benner 4:44
I think the truth of it is, though most people feel the same way about things, but they just like, don't want to be the first one to

Scott Benner 4:51
say it. That I believe is probably true, but I've also learned that there are times where people just they don't hear it at all. Like, like, anything you. Like this thing that whatever done, like things that I think are just obvious. And then I have these sit down long conversations with people, and I realize they're not even they're not hearing this, experiencing this, understanding what I'm saying. Like,

Arden Benner 5:14
I Well, I think a big part of sarcasm is understanding the personality that you're working with. And if people don't know you, then it's like, they don't know if you're being facetious or not, yeah. So like, you have to understand the personality you're working with. But because it's like, obviously, if I made a joke and it involved, like, murder, you'd be like, Oh, Arden's not gonna murder someone. That's she's kidding,

Scott Benner 5:40
no, but some people are be put off by it. Yeah, exactly, because they're not reading the sarcastic and

Arden Benner 5:45
those are people who can't, like, pick up on person, like they don't understand how personalities or this or that,

Scott Benner 5:50
but I don't, but it's not like there's nothing, not like there's something wrong with them, because those people could easily say, like, why don't you guys not be so sarcastic, and then I won't have to feel my way through what you're talking about, but when you're being sarcastic, do you not mean what you're saying?

Speaker 1 6:05
Not always, no, but sometimes Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:10
because, like, you know, like the saying many truth are told in jest. You know that one, no, I do okay. Meaning that people joke about things that they really mean, and then they're like, Oh, I'm just kidding to, like, lighten the the landing of the what is

Arden Benner 6:25
it? Drunk, drunk something or sober thoughts, drunk words, something like that. I don't know the thing they say, like, when you drink and you say something like a truth elixir, yeah, drinking.

Scott Benner 6:38
So when people are. It's so interesting because now I'm trying not to be sarcastic while I'm thinking about it. But I know, for as an example, I don't believe that mom's mother, on any fundamental level, understands me. Okay. I don't like I think anytime I'm joking, she doesn't know I'm joking. Wait, what? And why are you saying this? Because she's an example of a person who I just don't think gets my sarcasm at all. And I know there are other people like that, because I get emails from people listening to the podcast who are like mad at me for something that they perceive that

Arden Benner 7:20
I think is so interesting.

Scott Benner 7:24
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Unknown Speaker 9:19
box. Check it out.

Arden Benner 9:21
For some reason, like not being sarcastic is like the default persona. So if you are sarcastic, it's like you're different because you act like this in this scenario, you know what I'm saying. So it's like you like people will say to a sarcastic person, if they don't like sarcasm, they'll be like, I don't like sarcasm, so you have to stop using it. But why is it not like, Oh, I

Unknown Speaker 9:44
like sarcasm. I

Arden Benner 9:45
understand it. You should use it, right? Such a double standard, I

Scott Benner 9:50
have to tell you, this is a very similar thought that I had after I got married, but not about sarcasm. I want to know what it was about. It's about like. Right? In any interpersonal situation, someone tends to take the moral high ground and illuminate you as the problem, yeah. And now, therefore something that's

Arden Benner 10:14
unique or different anyway, is the problem,

Scott Benner 10:17
right? Yeah. And they feel like, well, because, oh, this is a bigger topic, isn't it? This

Arden Benner 10:22
gets into like, like, race and stuff like that, yeah, like, it's, it's minority. Like, being the minority in a certain setting makes you the one who's wrong. So

Scott Benner 10:31
you're saying, if you're a sarcastic person surrounded by people who aren't, yeah, you're my you being the minority in that situation allows the people who aren't sarcastic to paint you as the problem, yeah,

Arden Benner 10:44
because there's more of them than there is you. So they they think that they must be right, because they're like, they're like, the normal version or something, and we're like the off version of them.

Scott Benner 10:54
Do you think that in an alternate situation when there's eight sarcastic people, eight people with, like, the talent for sarcasm, and two people who don't, does it feel mean to the two people who don't have this skill? Is

Arden Benner 11:07
it a skill? It probably is. But like, think about it like affliction. Think it's like you were in like, a room with comedians or something, and they're all making jokes, and you're not like that is you feel out of place then.

Scott Benner 11:19
So when you hear comedians talk to each other like because now every comedian in the world has a podcast so you can hear their

Arden Benner 11:24
every thought like you. Deb, I have a podcast too, but comedian, I'm not a comedian. You're so funny. Do you think I could do I don't think I could, really. I don't think you could do it either.

Scott Benner 11:34
Yeah. I don't think I could. But my point is this is that when when a bunch of comedians get together, they just break each other's balls constantly.

Arden Benner 11:42
Yeah? And I would love that. I'd love to be in that situation. Mom would start crying four seconds into that conversation because she feels like attack, attacked. Yeah, Cole would too, because they don't hear the sarcastic. It's all jokes. You can't take anything to heart, right? But the thing is, a lot of it's true. You have to deal with the fact that it's true.

Scott Benner 12:03
Are you okay, hearing stuff about yourself sarcastically, that's true. Yeah. Are you sure?

Arden Benner 12:08
Yes, when you're not,

Unknown Speaker 12:10
what do you mean?

Arden Benner 12:11
You're not good with that?

Scott Benner 12:12
I think that everybody thinks you dish it. Don't take it. I think everybody thinks that probably to an extent. Yeah. I think everyone thinks everyone else is bad at it, but they're great at it. No,

Arden Benner 12:23
I don't think anyone's bad at it.

Speaker 1 12:25
I think that you think I can't take it. Oh, you

Arden Benner 12:29
cannot take it. I don't agree with that. You get very defensive. You're already defending yourself. I don't feel defensive. Like, if you told me right now that I can't take it, I'd be like, Okay, I don't know why you think that, but like, Okay, if that's what you think so, but you get defensive right away. This is

Scott Benner 12:43
very interesting because, because I don't agree, I don't agree with the use of the word defensive.

Arden Benner 12:52
I hate this. We're not getting into this next topic. What? Because I we've talked about this at home, and I think it's so ridiculous. I

Scott Benner 12:59
just think it's explaining a perspective. This is just literally

Arden Benner 13:02
wrong. This isn't even like an opinion. This is just wrong.

Scott Benner 13:07
So I'm not allowed to have my own opinion, because you've said I'm wrong, but earlier, you said that if people who don't understand sarcasm,

Arden Benner 13:14
but there's some, there's some stuff, that's just fact and that is just wrong, go ahead, tell them how you view

Scott Benner 13:21
if somebody says something about you that you don't agree with, and you explain it, that person goes, You're being defensive. And I'm saying, No, I'm just trying to give you my perspective.

Arden Benner 13:36
Well, that's completely different, but you can still being defensive doesn't mean like you're giving it being defense. You can give perspective without being defensive. You can say, okay, I don't agree with this situation. I don't agree with how you see it. Here's how I see it. But instead, you're just like, No,

Scott Benner 13:52
you're wrong. Have you not considered that it's because of the incredible onslaught of pressure coming from, let me be honest, you and mom trying to tell me I'm being defensive. You are you? You are being defensive. I don't feel like I am, but when I'm being told I am, it makes me upset, not defensive. It makes me feel like you're not listening.

Arden Benner 14:15
You go into a defensive mode when you're upset. That's how you work. I don't like it when people don't listen, yeah. And you get defensive. I feel like that's very man of you the way you're talking. I think

Scott Benner 14:26
that that feels like a bad word to me. Defensive.

Arden Benner 14:29
Yeah, so it makes you more defensive because you don't like the word. You're just proving my point right now, I don't

Scott Benner 14:37
feel like that well, like, if you're backing me,

Arden Benner 14:41
SUBSCRIBE and COMMENT down below. Is he defensive? Yeah, please. Oh, this

Unknown Speaker 14:46
isn't YouTube, is it? Oh, I

Scott Benner 14:47
mean, it'll be on YouTube. Okay. Yeah, you people do that, but, but I don't see it as defensive. I just see it as you're not understanding my position. And I'm trying to articulate how

Arden Benner 14:58
this feels to me, not to bring up new. All again, but it has so much greatness in it. It feels like the episode of new girl when they're trying to get Ruth into, like, the really good school, and they're trying to teach her about colors or something, and I know about numbers, they're trying to teach her the numbers, and they're like, 1234567, and they get to seven, and she's like, green. And Schmidt is like, what did she just say? Seven was green? And Jess is like, seven is whatever she feels it is. That is how you that is how I feel right now, when you talk about being defensive, I feel like exactly

Scott Benner 15:32
you're not. You're willfully not hearing me so that you can eat me on a defensive footing. No, that's not what's going on. How it feels? Well,

Unknown Speaker 15:43
I feel that you're wrong.

Scott Benner 15:44
Okay, look at you reaching all the way into epic in season seven of New Girl, for reference, Ruth. Look at you that they named after Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I remember I was there. I remember during covid, when you said to me, Dad, you got to watch this show. And you tried to say no at first, I didn't like it at first. Yeah, it felt too um, box at kami in the first you

Arden Benner 16:06
remember the first day that we watched it together? Remember why we were watching it? I do. So

Scott Benner 16:11
here's what I remember about the first day we were up earlier than everyone else. Yeah, so I'm gonna guess we went for a blood draw. We did. We

Arden Benner 16:18
went for a blood draw, but that was the day you remember when we when we went to go get my blood drawn, and she took so much blood, she had to go to another another room, like, looked at each other, like, what? And then

Scott Benner 16:33
that was back when we were trying to figure out all the things that were going on with you. And she was like, I don't have enough booze. She loved the game with more too, yeah, like in her shirt, right? Like she was, she

Arden Benner 16:44
was holding them in her shirt. And we were like, What the hell. And then she came back, and I swear to God, it was like, over 30 tubes that she took. I don't know what was even wrong with me. And then we left, and she, I remember her saying something like, did you eat? And I was like, no. She's like, Yeah, you should probably do

Scott Benner 17:01
that. Then we came back here and nobody was awake yet, and it was like a it was a cold or a wet day, or it was cold, right? And then we sat on the sofa, under blankets, we watched New Girl, and because it was covid, Mom and I were letting you redo your room any way you wanted, yeah, and you decide birthday, because I couldn't do anything for my birthday, we couldn't do anything for your birthday, so you repainted your room, put down different flooring in your room as your birthday present. But you also made this grand pronouncement that watching televisions made your eyes hurt and you needed a projector. Yes, that was the same day. Yeah, you're so right, because the projector screen came that day, and then we put it up in my room. Yes, you

Arden Benner 17:42
know what? The first show I put on was no Grey's Anatomy. Oh, no kidding. And we were watching Grey's Anatomy on the wall. And then Cole did his little dilly dally. Didn't he's like, Oh, what's going on in here? And I was like, I got a projector, bitch. Yeah. You

Scott Benner 17:56
also for people who think that that's a crazy thing. You can get a projector for about $300 and the screen was like 100 bucks, and we put it up in her room, and she pulls down a screen in her room and she wants to watch TV and turns on a projector, yeah, but nowadays you would do it more on a laptop, right? Because I'm downstairs

Arden Benner 18:12
doing homework, but I just got to clean up my room so I can do it. It's hard to do because I broke the little thing that all my clothes are standing on. So do

Scott Benner 18:20
we want to tell people that your closet so full that you have a free standing closet in your middle of your room? No, I

Arden Benner 18:27
don't want to talk about it, because I also have clothes in my basket online right now. So

Scott Benner 18:32
okay, Marta needs this podcast to, like, maybe get some advertisers so she can buy clothes with it. No, I need an education. Okay. So, okay, so that was the day, yeah, and that show is incredibly sarcastic, yes, and you and I love it, yeah. Now here's interesting. Mom cannot watch it. She can't even figure the

Arden Benner 18:51
out. She can't get, like, three episodes in, like, it's just like, it's all right. And I'm like, well, because you don't hear anything that's going on right now, like something sarcastic will happen, and I'll turn my head and smile, and she's just, like, sitting there, and I'm, like, daring, she doesn't get it.

Unknown Speaker 19:07
She did not get it. Did not hear it at all. Yeah, and it's not like, she

Arden Benner 19:10
doesn't think it's funny. She literally does not understand what's going on. Yes,

Scott Benner 19:14
yes, it's not. You're You're right. She didn't hear something funny and decide that, to me, is not amusing. Yeah, she can't identify that. It's funny, yeah, because she's not hearing sarcasm, she's hearing the words and their meaning, and that's

Speaker 1 19:29
it. Yeah, she's so literal, okay, Cole, who is also literal,

Arden Benner 19:35
I think that he's worse than mom and like, like, when you're talking to him, he's worse than mom, but

Unknown Speaker 19:40
he loves new girl. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:43
he loves that show, yeah, but he likes something different about

Arden Benner 19:46
it. Yeah, it's not the sarcasm, it's the the actions, maybe like the like when Nick will moonwalk, or like when Schmidt like acts a certain way. It's not the sarcasm of it. It's not the joke. It's the

Scott Benner 19:59
but this. The actions here this, he hears the sarcasm. I

Arden Benner 20:03
think he hears it. It doesn't affect in the same way, but he likes, like, the things that they do feel

Unknown Speaker 20:09
sarcasm like, Shut up. Do you know what I

Scott Benner 20:12
mean? Like, you can feel it coming when you're watching something you're like, this is, I know this feeling. I was saying to somebody the other day about being sarcastic, that when it's done exactly right, it is indistinguishable from, like, regular speech. It's not there, but people who know it's there, it's like seeing a ghost. Does that make sense? Sometimes

Arden Benner 20:32
I hear sarcasm and what people are saying when they don't mean to be sarcastic. That happens to me too, and like, they don't know that they've done something sarcastic, and I'm just like, oh, like, you don't know why. So, you know,

Scott Benner 20:48
almost like a double entendre way, but not exactly. I say stuff on the podcast that gets I know some people laugh at it for one reason, and other people laugh at it for a different reason, yeah, and they don't hear the two don't hear the joke. Yeah,

Arden Benner 21:04
I can. I will have to learn people like sarcasm from people. It's like when I say something or someone else says something sarcastic. I have to look around a room and see what people's reactions are, because people who hear a joke laugh and people who hear sarcasm nod their head

Scott Benner 21:20
and grin or something, maybe just not along with it. Yeah, yeah. It's true. It's very, very interesting. Do you want to read about why some people can't hear sarcasm? It might surprise you. Okay, cognitive and developmental factors. Individuals with ASD, which is autist autism spectrum disorder often have difficulty interpreting social cues, including tone of voice, facial expressions and context, which are essential for recognizing sarcasm. That's not why somebody wouldn't like

Arden Benner 21:52
I know that's true. I know that people on the spectrum have trouble, but not everybody's on the spectrum Right,

Scott Benner 21:57
right, exactly. So that's that doesn't get our answer. Young children or individuals developmental delays. Okay, that's children

Arden Benner 22:03
can't even walk. What are they gonna get my joke? It's like, Hey buddy, come over. Uh, he can't walk. But let me tell you this funny joke. Is

Scott Benner 22:14
it funny too? As you're talking about sarcasm, if you said to me right now, say something sarcastic, I wouldn't know what to say, right, right?

Arden Benner 22:21
But if we're gonna say, but if you're talking, you can't not say something sarcastic, because that happens to me. I have

Scott Benner 22:27
to stop myself from being sorry. Yeah, when I was first like of dating age, a friend of mine told me at six years old, yes, I had a full beard, and I was dating at six. Now, when I was of dating age. A friend of mine who is older told me, dude, if you ever want to be with a girl, you can't use that much sarcasm. Do you think that's true? No, I

Arden Benner 22:49
don't think that's true at all. Yeah, I would have, I have to date someone who's sarcastic, where I'm just, like, boring,

Scott Benner 22:55
but your boy is very quiet, or is he just quiet around us? He's

Arden Benner 22:58
just, he's very he's just chill, but he's very sarcastic with me, okay, right

Scott Benner 23:03
hemisphere brain damage. Wait what? The right hemisphere of the brain plays a crucial role in understanding non literal language, including sarcasm, social communication disorder. This isn't what I wanted. Hold on. What is sarcasm? So key characteristics of sarcasm are irony, tone and delivery, context, intention and examples, if it's raining heavily and someone says, what a beautiful day, well, that's a that's just lazy sarcasm, but it is an example of sarcasm. Sarcasm can be used to add humor to conversation, often highlighted by absurdity or contradiction. Contradiction is mainly what I think of when I think of sarcasm like the opposite of like you're saying the opposite of the words coming out of your mouth. Yeah, right. It can be a way to criticize or express disapproval without making direct statements. Yeah. I

Arden Benner 23:59
think we do that for sure, 100%

Scott Benner 24:02
among friends, sarcasm can be a form of social bonding, showing familiarity and shared understanding, and people sometimes use sarcasm to deflect criticism. You think you do that.

Arden Benner 24:12
You do that for sure.

Scott Benner 24:13
Oh, so for sure. I do it, but you're not sure if you do it. I

Arden Benner 24:16
don't know. You have to tell me. Here's why. I

Scott Benner 24:18
can't let me just readjust to my seat so I can explain this too. I don't judge you.

Arden Benner 24:23
Oh, no, we're not into this right now. Ah,

Scott Benner 24:27
so I don't have any idea, you

Arden Benner 24:31
know what? If you do that, you know what, you'll have no career once this is over. If you want me to start talking, just so you know, and that, by the way, sir, was not sarcasm, but

Scott Benner 24:40
when I said I don't judge you, I was being sarcastic, and then you got defensive. No, because

Arden Benner 24:45
we've had a real conversation about this, and I think it's craziness. Did

Scott Benner 24:49
you just say no, I was being sarcastic and you got defensive. Was I gaslighting you?

Arden Benner 24:55
I didn't say no, I wasn't being defensive. I am being defensive. I 100% agree. With that statement. But

Scott Benner 25:00
when I'm being defensive, it's a problem. When you're doing it is righteous. No, I

Arden Benner 25:04
just, I'm just saying that you can't admit to being defensive.

Scott Benner 25:07
No, we're back on start. Just now, I was being sarcastic. Yeah, I know you were being you got you attacked me? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:15
yeah. Well, yeah, 100%

Speaker 1 25:18
okay. Ding, ding, ding. Sarcasm

Scott Benner 25:21
is often used to mock, criticize or show contempt. It can be humorous, but can also be hurtful, depending on how it's used and perceived. Oh,

Arden Benner 25:30
I mock

Unknown Speaker 25:32
you're always mocking people. Always mocking people.

Scott Benner 25:35
It's terrible, unrelenting. I love it when you do it and people don't wreck it. What is that? That's a cricket.

Unknown Speaker 25:42
Sorry, you just yell. Stop it. Cricket. Stop it. Cricket, cricket. What's its name?

Scott Benner 25:49
Well, it doesn't have a name because it only lives for a couple hours. But can you maybe tap on that cage once? Oh,

Arden Benner 25:55
that's not gonna happen, just for sure. Well, we can't

Speaker 1 25:57
talk while it's Oh, it's wait. All right, hold on a second. Can

Arden Benner 26:02
it? Can the thing kill it?

Scott Benner 26:03
It's asleep.

Speaker 1 26:06
The chameleons are asleep. They have a very specific bedtime ritual. They know what time it is,

Scott Benner 26:12
which cages. It's the white one if you just tap it, yeah, that's your freak to crack it out long enough do it again. This is the one real drawback of my chameleons being in here, is that sometimes I go to give them a cricket and they don't get it, and then it lives in there for a day or two, and it makes I got it.

Arden Benner 26:29
Oh no, it started again. You

Scott Benner 26:31
imagine if we had to cancel the podcast because of this something just like left your

Arden Benner 26:36
screen. I don't know what it was. It's

Scott Benner 26:37
a screensaver. Oh, it's louder now. It like knows it's coming for you. Get this. Go ahead. Oh, it stopped. It's gonna start again. Probably, when they get to a certain age, they get like paper on their legs, and they I think, Oh, my God. How does a cricket make a noise? What do you mean

Arden Benner 27:00
by that? That that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Do not put that on the Notes app.

Scott Benner 27:04
You don't want to know. You don't want to know how a cricket makes that noise. No, all right, that is for your own time. So I think what's interesting is that we have not been very sarcastic while we're talking about sarcasm. No, you're not. And if you asked me to give you an example of sarcasm right now, I wouldn't be able to do something. But I know my sarcasm is, is like top shelf, like yours is too, by the way, very, very impressive sarcasm, yeah, what

Arden Benner 27:30
is the anaphylactic shock? Is that when you have a allergy, yeah? Where

Unknown Speaker 27:35
did that come from?

Scott Benner 27:38
You were just thinking about anaphylactic shock. Yeah, you said it very wrong. But

Arden Benner 27:44
this, it's not stopping. I think it like it just made a colony or something, and they've started.

Scott Benner 27:48
You think there's more than one in there now, so

Arden Benner 27:51
loud it is really, maybe it's hot. It is hot in here, yeah, like the backs of my knees are dripping.

Scott Benner 28:00
Oh, sexy. You're also wearing a sweatshirt. Guys into that.

Unknown Speaker 28:08
How's that sound? Are you?

Scott Benner 28:13
It really won't stop. Hold on a second. We're gonna pause. Okay, we're back. Let's button this up. So I have a couple of thoughts. Wait

Arden Benner 28:20
before we keep going. I just want you all to know that the Ohio butthole tickling Bandit has escaped custody and is being hunted by the police.

Scott Benner 28:30
The Ohio butthole tickling bandit, that's not real. Um, I'm

Unknown Speaker 28:35
looking at it.

Scott Benner 28:36
How do I wait? How do I get to your butthole. If I'm the bandit, also, I'm not the Ohio uncommented

Arden Benner 28:44
he doesn't penetrate. He only tickles. First

Scott Benner 28:48
of all, I'm nowhere near Ohio. I want to say that right now. Let me about the Ohio butthole tickling bandit.

Arden Benner 29:02
Someone said the fucking who?

Scott Benner 29:06
It's an urban legend. It's a satirical news story that gained some attention on the internet, but it is not based in real events. That's

Unknown Speaker 29:13
no fun. Sorry.

Unknown Speaker 29:15
It's satire.

Scott Benner 29:18
Satire is satire written sarcasm? Yeah, it is done. Satire and sarcasm are related but distinct forms of communication. While they often overlap, they are not the same,

Unknown Speaker 29:34
but isn't satire like only

Scott Benner 29:37
satire is a literary and rhetorical device that uses humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to criticize and expose the flaws, vices or shortcomings of individuals, institutions, society or politics. Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony where someone says the opposite of what they mean, often with a tone of voice that indicates they are not. Being sincere. It is frequently used to mock or convey contempt. I have to tell you something. My favorite part of sarcasm is when you use it without the tone that says I'm kidding. Like, I think of that as, like, old 1950s sarcasm. You know what I mean? Like, like,

Arden Benner 30:21
if someone has a cigar in their mouth and they're

Scott Benner 30:23
like, whatever that is, yeah, there's that, like, big voice in

Arden Benner 30:28
their hand, and they make a joke, and the laugh track is, like,

Scott Benner 30:32
that's how I think of, like, old sarcasm, yes, stupid, yeah. When I think of sarcasm, I am saying something to you I do not mean, and I am saying it in a tone that would make you think I 1,000,000% mean it. Yeah,

Arden Benner 30:47
that's why I'm saying sarca it's not about understanding sarcasm. It's about understanding the person who is being sarcastic,

Scott Benner 30:53
because no one should ever take me seriously, yeah,

Arden Benner 30:57
but if, if someone just met you, how would they 100% know that they wouldn't like, you know, when we go to a restaurant and you're being sarcastic, sarcastic with a waitress and she's like, ah, but you can tell she's like, What the hell did he just say? Yes, yeah, it's because she thinks you're being sarcastic, but she doesn't actually know your personality or who you are, and so there is no way she can know you're being sarcastic 100% and our time is so limited, there's no and as an as a person, she's probably defending herself in a way too. It's probably like a mechanism. So she's an animal, like we're all animals. She's in defense mode now, because she's, you've said something that's probably she's not taking sarcastic. It's uncomfortable. And then she's like, I have to defend myself. Now I never, I don't need to. I'm

Scott Benner 31:39
never sarcastic and mean I am the people you know, to people you know. Would you be sarcastic and mean to a stranger? No,

Arden Benner 31:50
I don't know. No, you know what I I'm very sarcastic to people I know and to people who listen to me. If I'm talking to someone I don't know. Well, I'm an observer, not a I don't talk. I observe. So I talk more, so in a setting in which people know me, because sarcasm is so big, so I have to use that, and if I can't use that with people, yet, if they're strangers to me, I have to listen to them, observe them, and figure them out first.

Unknown Speaker 32:18
Okay,

Arden Benner 32:21
were you more so would get in a situation and you would automatically start talking to someone,

Scott Benner 32:25
yeah, I'm oblivious to the things that you just talked about. Yeah, I know, yeah, I and it's purposeful. I don't

Speaker 1 32:33
care you should. I should, yeah, because, because it helps you, makes you a smarter person, how much smarter can I get? Oh, you could get much smarter, trust me. That was sarcasm. I know it was okay, and so was mine. Okay. Well, yours was better than mine. Is that what you're

Arden Benner 32:52
saying? Apparently, if you can't catch on, it's like an animal kingdom on the lion here.

Unknown Speaker 33:00
Oh, you've never seen the Lion King. No, I

Arden Benner 33:03
have not. Why won't

Scott Benner 33:04
you just sit down and watch the Lion King? It's upsetting. What

Arden Benner 33:07
does he say when you listen?

Scott Benner 33:08
Ah, whatever that is. Oh, no. Like that, that thing. Yeah, that's probably not totally correct. There's no one in our family that can sing.

Arden Benner 33:21
No, none of us. We can't dance, we can't sing.

Scott Benner 33:26
And for as pleasing as my voice is over this microphone, I cannot sing. People tell me all the time, I have a really good, a great voice for this, but

Arden Benner 33:33
I have the worst voice for a woman. You think so? So it's so deep,

Unknown Speaker 33:38
I don't know, I find it nice. Well,

Unknown Speaker 33:40
I'm your daughter.

Scott Benner 33:41
That's not why you don't feel shrill to me ever.

Speaker 1 33:44
What's that mean? You know when Sanj laughs? Sanj, poor Sanj,

Scott Benner 33:49
you know when she laughs and it makes you like you want to cover your ears, makes you want to murder her, yeah, like that. You're never shrill, and shrill even means a little more like, oh god. Almost like, bitchy, like, or,

Arden Benner 34:03
you know what I really like about myself that I don't do and I will never do, and if I end up doing it one day, I would really like someone to tell me girls who end their sentence with

Unknown Speaker 34:15
like, Oh my god. Do

Scott Benner 34:16
you remember when vocal fry was really big? People go, Oh, my God, like that. Somebody told me online that I have vocal fry. What I don't though, I think they just mean my voice is really deep. So sometimes when I'm speaking, I think I just there's like a rumble in my voice. But vocal fry is specifically at the end of a word, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 34:38
I hate that.

Scott Benner 34:40
They say it's a mechanism of trying to sound smarter, like you're being thoughtful at the end. What makes

Arden Benner 34:46
you sound dumber?

Scott Benner 34:47
Don't the Kardashians do them?

Arden Benner 34:49
I don't know if dumber's a word. More dumb, more dumb? Is it? More dumb? Dumb, afied

Speaker 1 34:53
Dummy, Dippy, stupid doofus.

Scott Benner 34:59
Okay? Idiot, Jesus, very vibe. I

Arden Benner 35:02
thought we were like, getting up to that.

Scott Benner 35:05
You got to it too fast. Wait, so why don't so why don't people understand sarcasm? It gave us like, very like, if you're have, oh, my God, what was that? That's what it sounds like when Cole comes home. Oh, Jesus, yeah. Shakes. I

Arden Benner 35:19
thought we just got I thought we were about to get I thought homelander was here.

Scott Benner 35:23
It woke the cricket back up. Oh, my God, it did. Yeah, upsetting. That's

Arden Benner 35:28
how I feel when Cole enters a room. Honestly, you're upset, yeah, oh,

Scott Benner 35:32
he's home from basketball.

Arden Benner 35:34
I know I saw him leave. Okay, he's probably so hot about he's probably like, so hot outside. He runs.

Scott Benner 35:39
He goes out in like, 90 degree heat, plays basketball outside, then runs for, like, runs for like three hours. He looks exhausted when he comes

Unknown Speaker 35:47
back, but she'll watch love Island.

Scott Benner 35:50
Okay, so he should please stop watching Love Island, by the way. It's upsetting. God,

Arden Benner 35:54
they're so dumb. I love it.

Scott Benner 35:56
But okay, so you're watching that. Why?

Arden Benner 36:00
It's like a zoo. It really is. It's just like watching animals interact with each other, because they're

Scott Benner 36:07
not having real experiences even it's just like it's made up,

Arden Benner 36:10
right? They'll be in there for like, a week, and someone leaves and they start crying, and then I'm like, How is that possible? And then, you know, another guy wants to talk to another girl, and other girls, like, I just feel like you formed a connection, and I'm like, you have been there for seven days, and two of them you didn't know them.

Scott Benner 36:28
Does it almost feel like they're being sarcastic? No, it there's no sarcasm in their voice. They can't they're not capable of sarcasm. Yeah, you think sarcasm is difficult? Like, do you think you have to be able to hold two different thoughts in your head at the same time to be sarcastic? Because you know the truth of how you feel and you know what you're what you're saying sounds like opposite of how you feel. Like is that interest? Is that? I wonder what that is you mean. I don't think we figured out why people can't hear sarcasm. It's just people can hear a cricket, that's for sure. Hold on a second.

Unknown Speaker 37:10
Oh, I did it, okay,

Scott Benner 37:13
but so, so just some people hear sarcasm and some people don't, because I didn't mean they know

Arden Benner 37:20
what's really interesting, I will openly say I feel superior to people who, like, are not sarcastic. Okay, you're comfortable

Unknown Speaker 37:30
saying that. No, I

Arden Benner 37:31
am, and you're not being sarcastic. No, I'm being 100% serious right now. Not like, Oh, I'm a better person than you, but like, I feel like there is a part of my brain that understands something that yours doesn't not that like, Oh, you're dumb, but it's just like, that part of me is you like,

Scott Benner 37:48
you have a skill someone else doesn't have. Okay?

Arden Benner 37:52
But I think it's interesting that it's not like, if you're not cricket, I know it's not like, Oh, you're not sarcastic, so you're stupid. It's just like, Oh, you're not sarcastic. But those people probably think that sarcasm is like a coping mechanism, or like a way we have to handle a situation. They probably think they're more superior for being, like, serious and being able to talk about something

Scott Benner 38:16
like we have to, Oh, yeah. So like, there's a misconception that you're only being sarcastic, because almost like when people say, cursing is for stupid people. I've

Arden Benner 38:24
never heard that before, and I love to curse, yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 38:27
hold on a second. Oh, cursing, so fun.

Scott Benner 38:29
What's the saying about why some people are sarcastic? The saying is, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence. So it's easy humor, but I don't understand what that means. Hold on a second. It's gonna explain. Well, you clearly don't have the highest form of intelligence. First of all, go yourself. Bang on that, dad. It's not working. Do it. Tell it to stop.

Speaker 1 38:57
Thank you. We should start an ASMR channel, an ASMR channel,

Arden Benner 39:02
that's all we should just, yeah, and then they like, whisper. They're like, Okay, today we're going to be doing and like, I would like put my fingernails up to the thing. I would just like start collecting them.

Scott Benner 39:14
That's that upsets me when I see people doing that. Well, guess

Arden Benner 39:17
what? A lot of people really enjoy that. So really, okay,

Scott Benner 39:19
so I'll just, lowest form of wit. This part

Arden Benner 39:24
there's something I wish, if there's one thing in my life I regret, it's that I was bringing that conversation that I just spoke at a lower time that needs to stop, right? Okay? Well, under

Scott Benner 39:33
lowest form of weight, it says this part suggests that SARS sarcasm can be seen as a cheaper, easy form of humor. It's often quick biting, and can come across as mean spirited or lazy, because it doesn't always require much thought or creativity be sarcastic. I

Arden Benner 39:49
don't believe the complete opposite of that. I don't believe being quick is really hard to do, really hard. I

Scott Benner 39:55
have what I heard somebody refer to recently. I heard somebody refer to i. Um, this recently is, oh, you have, um, talk show. You're thinking at talk show speed, like, when somebody's on a talk show and it's all very quick and bantery like that, and people can keep up and keep the conversation going, like, I move at that speed.

Unknown Speaker 40:13
You do too.

Scott Benner 40:16
Like you can, you're quick, yeah, yeah. And I see that as, I don't see that as as lazy, uh, highest form of intelligence. This part counters the first by implying that sarcasm actually requires a high level of cognitive interesting

Arden Benner 40:31
is that if people who move quickly and do all this stuff, sarcasm is considered mean, you move quick. I wonder if that's why I've been in the South for so long, that Southern people see northerners as so mean, it's because we're moving so quickly and we're just to the point like we get something done and then we we do the next thing. They do think we're being rude, and they think we're being rude, but we're being efficient. Yeah, move, move, move, go, go, go. And then them, when they take so long and do all this stuff, I'm like OmniPod. And then the way they speak, it sounds condescending to me because of how long they're taking to get their thought out.

Scott Benner 41:07
You think all the gaps and in when they're not talking is like a little you

Arden Benner 41:12
Yeah, a little bit. Because I would totally do that if I was like, you know, almost

Scott Benner 41:16
like they're making you stand there while they're not saying anything.

Arden Benner 41:22
Yeah, it's like, you I feel like you could walk up to a lady in the south and she'd be like, Oh, honey, I love your skirt. But if I said that to someone up here, they'd be like, you

Speaker 1 41:33
asshole, but you think she really loves your skirt. But it's hard to take that way. Yeah, it's really hard to take I

Scott Benner 41:41
understand says, Why are some people sarcastic? People who are sarcastic often have a good grasp of irony, and they are quick thinkers. They can see the incongruity between what is said and what is meant, and they use that to their advantage in communications. Sarcasm can serve as a social tool, allowing people to convey criticism, humor or disdain in a more veiled or socially acceptable way than outright confrontation. Some people use sarcasm as a defense mechanism. I don't I don't like it there as much. There. It feels dirtier

Speaker 1 42:12
to me. It's cheaper, but it's true.

Scott Benner 42:15
And then among friends or within certain social circles, sarcasm can be a way of bonding and showing affection. We heard that earlier, sarcasm can be a part of someone's natural communication style. It might be how they were raised, or the dominant form of humor in their social environment. I definitely grew up around a lot of sarcastic people, and when I don't, there are times when I'm being sarcastic in my personal life, and I stopped myself, and I think I shouldn't be talking like this, um, because I'm not trying to tax people around me and make my

Arden Benner 42:46
whole personality with certain people, especially like parents. I cannot be sarcastic around a lot of people's parents, they do not understand what I'm saying at all. Yeah. And then I'm like, Oh, you're gonna take your children away from me as

Scott Benner 43:00
their friends. Yeah. But the positives are that it can be witty and entertaining, provide a way to interject, indirectly address issues, fosters a sense of camaraderie. The negatives, it can be hurtful or misunderstood, especially if the recipient does not recognize the sarcasm. It may be seen as insincere or passive aggressive, and can erode trust and respect if overused or used inappropriately, I can see where people could find it to be passive aggressive if they didn't understand your intention. Interesting. So it says, In summary, sarcasm could be seen as low effort form of humor, but it's actually requires intelligence and social awareness. I agree I'm intelligent and socially aware. I think that I've had conversations that I mean one way that are taken completely differently by people. I think there are people in the world who have a vision of who I am that is completely incongruous with who I actually am because they don't hear the sarcasm. Do you think there are people walking around who don't really know you? I

Arden Benner 44:03
think most people don't know me. I think that even people who hear this podcast won't follow it, dude. No, that's not I was gonna say, Wow, he thinks poorly of you guys.

Unknown Speaker 44:15
That's not what I meant. Like, still

Arden Benner 44:16
don't understand me. Because, first off, this is, like, basically 35% of who I am is what I'm giving off right now, because you have to hide some of yourself. Okay, it's like, completely true, not because you're an ax murderer or something, no, just because people will interpret something wrong or right. You know, like part of entertainment is like getting people on your side a little bit, and you're trying to make them relate to you in a way. And people aren't always going to relate to like, right? They want to. They want to feel like you like. They want to be like, oh, like, we're similar. Okay, so

Speaker 1 44:51
you have to kind of like vibe with them, but that that's unrelated, so you

Scott Benner 44:57
try to match other people's energy, yeah. No, you try to give them the part of you they think that you think they can handle.

Arden Benner 45:04
Yes, because I've seen like, I've obviously been on the podcast before, and I'll see like, comments people make about an episode or whatever, and they're like, talking about me, and I'm like, wow, you have me really, completely wrong. And they're not saying anything bad, but it's just like, they're not right. Yeah, the way that they perceive me is so off. It's incredible. I recorded

Scott Benner 45:25
an episode today with a woman who's the way she thinks or almost doesn't think about me at all, even though she listens to the podcast. Was so freeing to me. I She said what she said, and I thought, This is great. I will never again. Wonder how people

Arden Benner 45:43
perceive me. I wonder how people perceive me.

Scott Benner 45:45
I realize that it doesn't matter, because so many different people are going to perceive me in so many different ways. Don't

Arden Benner 45:51
you want to know like, what it is like, how they see you? No, because

Scott Benner 45:53
different what I'm telling you is that different people see you different ways. So you're No, I know when people there are people listening, there are enough people listening to you right now while you're speaking, yeah, that you are being perceived in a multitude of ways, yeah, and in some ways that you can't even fathom. And so my point is, is that it's not worth wondering about.

Arden Benner 46:12
I know that's why. Like, sometimes I'll see like people and I don't completely agree with them, or honestly, like, I think less of them, because I'm like, wow, like, I don't agree with what you're saying or this or that, but I'm just like, I don't actually know what I'm like, you have to give them a chance, because you don't actually know, right? You don't know shit about anyone, right?

Scott Benner 46:33
Exactly. Yeah, you're probably wrong about most of the things you think about other people's intentions and their thoughts. Yeah, that's my expectation. Because if I'm holding something back, so is everybody else right? Yeah,

Arden Benner 46:47
I think the only people I'm not that way with is like, like, our family, like, I feel like I understand what our what everyone would

Scott Benner 46:54
say. I don't think that I change very drastically, depending on my surroundings. And, like you said earlier, maybe that's a problem in some places, but in one place where it helps is like, with you, or your friends come over, or Cole's friends come over, like, I think your friends find this house comfortable, yeah, because there's no pretense between us and them. Yeah, I'm not pretending to be like an adult or smarter than that. I

Arden Benner 47:20
don't change who I am. I conceal who I am.

Unknown Speaker 47:25
I don't bother doing that. So like,

Arden Benner 47:28
I'll be, I actually don't think that I've ever been 100% of who I am with anyone. I think only myself. And then I'll give like 95% of myself to people. And then I'll give like 90% of myself, or whatever, like I would say, like our family as a whole probably knows 90% of me. So

Scott Benner 47:45
this is very interesting, because I always think I've made so many episodes of the podcast, and I am genuinely talking while I'm on the podcast, like the things that I say about how I feel about people, or how I feel about helping people, that stuff's all very genuine. Yeah. And I always think I wonder if my family listened to this, if they believe this is me or not. No,

Unknown Speaker 48:07
I believe that. Yeah, it's interesting.

Scott Benner 48:09
I know. I'm never sure exactly. Wait, can

Speaker 1 48:11
I pause this to crack my neck? Why don't you just crack your neck on the microphone and then we'll stop. Go ahead. Wait. Why stop? Oh, okay, then just crack your neck. Okay. Your neck was disturbing. When we're done recording, let's

Scott Benner 48:23
go back to two minutes and and

Speaker 1 48:26
two hours, two minutes and see if we can hear it.

Scott Benner 48:31
I have to admit that on the GLP meds, I was hoping your cracking would get better, because it's, it's um, we'll

Unknown Speaker 48:37
talk about something wrong.

Scott Benner 48:39
We'll talk about on another show, but I'm seeing I'm having all these people on the podcast that are having all these different like, Revelations with their health, or on glps. It's really interesting. Can

Arden Benner 48:49
I tell you an episode I want to do? Yeah, that I just thought about like I was thinking about it like I would say 15 minutes ago. You're gonna be so confused why it just came up. Go ahead. Do you know who Bridget Mendler is?

Scott Benner 49:03
She sings a song that was popular one summer hurricane,

Arden Benner 49:06
hurricane, and she was on Disney Channel and all that. Okay, we need to just talk about Bridget Mendler lore. Is

Scott Benner 49:15
it because you don't understand it? No,

Arden Benner 49:17
it's because it's so fascinating. Okay, she is so fascinating, and it like she was on Disney Channel, but adults who are listening will really enjoy this. She's a she's a full grown adult now. She has a family, she's married, but this girl went from being like a Disney Channel sensation to going to Harvard and MIT. She has like, multiple doctorates. I think people want her to, like, run for president. It's like this whole thing that's interesting, and we need to look into her. All right, we'll do that. She wrote hit song hurricanes.

Unknown Speaker 49:58
Ready on here. Huh, really.

Scott Benner 50:03
Also at some point we're going to do, what happens when you lose weight? Where does it go?

Unknown Speaker 50:08
Okay, all right,

Scott Benner 50:10
does that sarcasm you're okay? Or were you really disappointed on me for changing the subject that harshly? No, neither of those are true. What did the okay mean? I

Arden Benner 50:21
was, I was just gonna say something else, and I didn't say so

Scott Benner 50:24
most people, when they tell me, I love when Arden's on the podcast, because I feel like I can hear her eyes roll back.

Speaker 1 50:33
When you're like, uh, that I'm not an I'm not an iron but you're not an eye roller. I know,

Arden Benner 50:39
but a lot of I'll just look at you and say, okay, but

Scott Benner 50:41
a lot of people say that to me. I can, I can feel Arden's eyes roll back in her head when you're talking wrong. This is

Arden Benner 50:49
what I'm saying. People do not understand me at all.

Scott Benner 50:51
But do we understand anybody? And does anybody understand I will see people

Arden Benner 50:56
comment things like, Oh, my kids do this to me too. I have a 14 year old who says the same thing to me, and I'm like, Oh, you don't understand. I'm kidding.

Scott Benner 51:06
What if their kids kidding? And they don't understand that. Now, if they're kid's serious, you're joking, yeah, I'm

Arden Benner 51:10
kidding. We like, I don't think people understand how similar we are. So there are things that I'm saying, and I mean it on a completely different level than what's coming out of my mouth. But they're thinking, like, oh my kid says that, but I'm like, Oh no, your kid doesn't say this, because what's coming out of my mouth is not what I'm saying right. Now,

Scott Benner 51:27
you and I are incredibly similar, yeah, the way we think, yeah, yeah, okay. All right, well, let's go kill that cricket. All right, okay, all right, we'll find it together. Thank you for doing this with me, helping bye.

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#1314 Simple Minds

Scott Benner

Carrie has had type 1 since she was four years old. 

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and, oh, you know, I just took a vitamin. It feels like it's stuck. I never happened to you. Sorry. Hello friends and welcome to the next episode of The juicebox podcast. For fun, I'm going to use the old music today. Here we go.

Speaker 1 0:22
You got Carrie

Scott Benner 0:25
today. She's had type one diabetes, oh, gee, since she's four and a half years old. She's 50 now, and she hasn't for most of her life with type one known a lot about diabetes, but she's beginning to learn now, nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. When you place your first order for ag one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink. Ag one.com/juice, box. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40 percent@cozyearth.com this vitamin is still kind of stuck. But have you ever burped after taking a capsule and had the dust from the vitamin come out? Very disconcerting, if it ever happens to you, juice What am I supposed to tell you? Oh, if you have type one diabetes, or you're the caregiver of someone with type one and you're a US resident, please go to touched by type one.org/juice box and complete the survey. That's it. US resident who has diabetes or is the caregiver, go complete that survey touched by type one.org/juice box. The episode you're about to listen to was sponsored by touched by type one. Go check them out right now on Facebook, Instagram, and, of course, at touched by type one.org check out that Programs tab when you get to the website to see all the great things that they're doing for people living with type one diabetes. Touched by type one.org. This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by Eversense. The Eversense CGM is more convenient, requiring only one sensor every six months. It offers more flexibility with its easy on, easy off, smart transmitter, and allows you to take a break when needed. Eversense cgm.com/juicebox. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries, gvoke hypopen. Find out more at gvoke glucagon.com. Forward slash juice box.

Carrie 2:33
I'm Carrie Larson, 50 years old, iPad type one since I was four and a half. So that's all I know. It's, it's, to me, it's just,

Scott Benner 2:44
that's all you know about everything. Carrie or you, you mean, diabetes is all you know. That's, that's

Carrie 2:49
all i Yes, diabetes is all I know. It's literally part of my daily life. It was like, sometimes I do feel like that's all I know about everything. Oh, okay.

Scott Benner 2:57
It was like, you put the calm in the wrong place. You're like, and I died in that cell. And I was like, Okay,

Carrie 3:02
I yeah, I tend to do that

Unknown Speaker 3:04
50

Scott Benner 3:06
years old, yeah, so I can help myself here. I was born in 71 so you were probably born in like 72 or 73 three, uh huh, right? And then you were four and a half when you were diagnosed, that was like 77 just missed the bicentennial. Wouldn't that have been lovely, right? Yes. So any brothers or sisters,

Carrie 3:29
I was adopted, so I do not know any family history, which yeah and yeah, and all doctors and everybody I always go to, always look at me like, oh, okay, so you know, but yeah, no, I don't have

Scott Benner 3:41
nothing to say. Do you have any adopted brothers and sisters? No, I do not. Your parents, one kid got you, and they're like, this is enough.

Carrie 3:51
Yeah, you know what I and you know what's funny is, even though I'm a mom of three, my dad still lectures me daily about how it's really smart to only have one child. Even in front of my children, he'll do that, and I'm like, Um, hello.

Unknown Speaker 4:05
How old your father? How old's your father?

Carrie 4:07
He's 8383 he thinks he knows everything. He'll tell you. He's the fountain of knowledge, literally. Well, I

Scott Benner 4:15
don't know how that's possible, and I'm the one who knows everything, but that's fine.

Carrie 4:21
You guys are your own breed, I swear.

Scott Benner 4:23
Has he designated which of your children were the mistakes, or does he not go that far?

Carrie 4:27
No, he doesn't take it that far. Thank God. Now

Scott Benner 4:31
you I told her not to have you

Carrie 4:33
exactly. Yeah, no, he definitely doesn't go that far. It's funny because he has brown eyes, and I always tell him how I know he's so bullish is because His eyes are brown.

Scott Benner 4:43
My goodness, that's fantastic. The kids take this in stride. How old are your children?

Carrie 4:48
So our oldest is our daughter, Miranda. She's 27 and then the middle is Brandon, and he is 24 and the baby is 18, and. Um, he's Charlie. I

Scott Benner 5:01
love your your father's over there going, you guys, look what you've done to her. Like, seriously, yeah, no, she would have had just one. Everything would have been so much better. Meanwhile, how you doing with three kids? Okay, um,

Carrie 5:14
good, yeah, no, good. That definitely keep me on my toes. And, yeah, no, they're in, like, my world. I wouldn't know what to do without them.

Scott Benner 5:23
Of course, any of them have any autoimmune stuff?

Unknown Speaker 5:26
No, no,

Carrie 5:28
I definitely the more I've been learning. It's so funny, because you think after 48 years with the disease, that I probably would have already looked into this. I was taught, actually, for a very long time that the father's gene passes it on. And I don't know, I still don't know if that's true. I don't even do you know. I have no idea.

Scott Benner 5:48
That sounds like made up. But who told you that your dad because he's been wrong about a couple of other things already?

Carrie 5:54
Actually, I did read it, like in a medical journal. I think we used to live in England for a period of time, and I think I was in a doctor's office, and there was like a magazine, and I remember reading it. And I don't know if it was just like a recent study that had been done, type thing, or what, you know, but I just remember reading that. And so for the longest time, that's what I believed. But now that I've been exposed to more, actually, to the juicebox podcast and to just making friends online that are type one. I'm like, this is clearly has never been true and is not true, you know, So anyhow, but it's something I've thought about, is getting them tested.

Scott Benner 6:37
Yeah? I mean, yeah, you could definitely get them tested, but I don't see why it would be from one side or the other. Keeping in mind, I slept through a lot of high school, but I still don't that doesn't make sense to me.

Unknown Speaker 6:49
Never. Right, right?

Carrie 6:50
Okay, yeah, no, yeah, I agree too. Because it's just like, why would that be more dominant than I mean, you know, yeah, I agree. I

Scott Benner 6:59
mean, is that a thing you heard like, 40 years ago, kind of a deal. Um,

Carrie 7:03
it's, oh god, yeah, it's been at least 20 or 30 years ago, definitely, yeah. Oh

Scott Benner 7:08
geez, I would say, yeah. I mean, listen, we don't know what we were doing 30

Carrie 7:13
years ago, right? Oh, well, this is why I'd love to use diabetes for this. Example. Is I feel like I was diagnosed in the dark ages. I mean, no, I wasn't not using glass syringes. But there, maybe we didn't even test glucose level, blood glucose levels at home. You know, all of that was done at home or at the hospital, Children's Hospital, LA is where I was treated for many, many years. And so we, we only used ketone urine sticks, you know. So I feel like now looking at technology and how it's advanced, I just feel like that was definitely Dark Ages, you know,

Scott Benner 7:50
yeah, yeah, that's something I Yeah, you see you missed. I mean, that's a long time ago, 40 some years. You were right. You were definitely like, beef and pork insulin, though, right? Uh

Carrie 8:02
huh. In fact, it was, it was, I want to say it was pork based. It was mph and regular. And the MPH was cloudy. You had to, like, warm it up in your hands and mix it, you know. And then the regular was just like, you could still buy good old fashioned regular nowadays, over the counter without a prescription, I believe, sure, and then we would mix the two. It wasn't two different injections. My mom would draw up one first and then the other, and it was one injection. But that's definitely how it started for me, for sure. You

Scott Benner 8:33
remember when you went to a faster acting and a separate like basal insulin, like Lantus, if you take insulin or Sulfonyl ureas. You are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most, be ready with G voc, hypo pen. My daughter carries G, VO, kypo Pen everywhere she goes, because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar in people with diabetes ages two and above that, I trust low blood sugar. Emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily, jivo kypopen can be administered in two simple steps, even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you store GEVO kypopin and how to use it. They need to know how to use GVO kypopen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why GEVO kypo Pen is in Arden's diabetes toolkit at gvoke, glucagon.com/juicebox, gvoke shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma, or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulinoma, visit gvoke, glucagon.com/risk, for safety information.

Carrie 9:51
You know, I did that, and you know at the time, it was only two injections a day. It wasn't even more than that, which was strange, I didn't I. Moved to four injections a day until much, much later in life. In fact, I want to say my whole teenage years, I stopped going to Children's Hospital, literally when I was 18, they're like, Okay, you you can't come here anymore. And I felt like I had been kicked to the curb. You know, for that many years, 14 years, I was definitely still on two injections a day. I remember my endo at the time trying to talk me into a pump, and I was scared to death of it. It just the thought of it scared me to no end. And so, no, I don't remember when I moved to a faster acting insulin. I think I went straight though from like, I don't remember. I honestly, I can't, I can't even put my finger on it

Scott Benner 10:47
interesting. Do you have trouble with memory, or is it just been that long ago?

Carrie 10:50
I feel like it's just been that long ago, but, but I do feel like my memory does challenging, does challenge me, and I also feel like things that I have been hearing and reading lately, that part of that could be maybe connected to the type one

Scott Benner 11:09
could be, right, yeah, what would you know or recall what your control, your management, was like through your first say, 20 years?

Carrie 11:18
I have no I couldn't give you a 1c numbers. I know that definitely my mom and I always battled my morning. My mornings always ran high in the two hundreds. Without a doubt. I have no idea a 1c wise. I want to say that I like steadily ran in the

eighth. And I know that not terrible, that

it's not great, but back then, it probably was okay.

Scott Benner 11:47
Do you know what okay meant? Like, what were they shooting for? Oh, gosh, I want to say that anything

Carrie 11:57
like eight and under was okay. Like, I don't, I don't remember them ever talking about a low, like being too low, or what normal was.

Unknown Speaker 12:05
Yeah,

Scott Benner 12:07
they were just trying to stop from being too high. Exactly.

Carrie 12:10
It was, in fact, back then, I remember the highs were the focus, and not the lows, so to speak. And now I feel like I've seen several in those throughout my history of having diabetes, that they're definitely more concerned now about lows than they than they are highs. I mean, especially if you I mean, they're concerned about highs, if they're prolonged, but they're their biggest worry are the lows. They definitely they would rather, actually, I think that most indos would rather see you run a little high than too low. And my experience, anyways, yeah,

Scott Benner 12:53
I mean, I think that's basically the perspective they come from. It's interesting, because I don't love that, that mindset, honestly.

Carrie 13:04
Yeah, you know, I don't either, the the more experience I have, and because I've had so many complications, I don't either. And it's really bizarre. I mean, this is I'm really jumping off subject kind of right now, but let's like, eight years ago, I had a heart attack, and it was definitely due to uncontrolled blood sugars. Wow. Yeah, I was 42 years old. He immediately the cardiologist was like, this is definitely why, you know, no doubt about it, because my husband and I were like, what? 42 year old comes in the hospital and, you know, I Yeah, and so it was really scary time in my life. But I really, I learned very quickly that a patient who has had a heart attack, who is type one, a low is actually scarier than running high, because it's harder on your heart. Hmm,

Scott Benner 13:59
okay, wait, we have a lot to pick through here. Kerry, right? I

Carrie 14:04
know, right? I know I've given you a lot at once.

Scott Benner 14:05
No, no, let me start. Let me start with this. So you obviously, you were diagnosed in a different time, and you're using the basically, you know, you were eating at certain times of day. That was it. You weren't, you weren't checking your blood sugar. I don't even know if a 1c were that, like, you know, prominent at that point,

Carrie 14:25
they were actually, they did draw. But you know, my it was my hugest fear when I was a kid going to see the end, though, is I would literally, literally, out loud, vague, not to have my blood drawn because I was so afraid of having it. But anyhow, so he always made a deal with me every other visit. Well, every visit was about every three months, and so we would do that. But so yes, a one C's, I mean, they definitely did draw for them, okay,

Scott Benner 14:50
Ben, but you were shooting for eight.

Carrie 14:55
I think if I remember correctly, yes, I want to say eight sounded. Like something that they were happy to see, gotcha,

Scott Benner 15:01
and then you live like that for how long? Like so question, the real question is like, When do you go to a modern management the first modern management shift? What age? Right? Yeah,

Carrie 15:15
I honestly feel like it was very many years. I think that modern management truly didn't happen for me until late, late teens. No, actually, I'm gonna go ahead and say early 20s. So

Scott Benner 15:32
like college age, like graduating from college age? Did you go to college? No, I did not. Okay, so around around, like Tommy, I

Carrie 15:40
let me, let me back step a little bit. I did. I I went to trade school. Okay, so, yeah, I didn't go to a traditional, you know, like two year or four year program, just, I just did a trade. Do

Scott Benner 15:52
you practice the trade now?

Carrie 15:53
I don't. Ever since I, my husband and I decided to, well, we moved out of the country I couldn't work in the country that we lived in. And so, no, I don't, and I haven't since I had children.

Scott Benner 16:06
You couldn't work in the country you lived in. I know doesn't that sound so third world. What context? Where were you England, and England wouldn't let you work. Because what you were, you didn't have a visa,

Carrie 16:20
a visa, yeah, I was, I was just there as my husband. Well, we weren't even married when we first started going, but we we were engaged, but no they I would have to apply separately from him. And even once we were married, I would have had to apply separately from him, gotcha. So he was the provider, and I just and I that's how they saw it.

Scott Benner 16:44
What trade Did you study? Actually Registered Dental Assisting? Okay, all right, yeah, yeah. So you did that at some point or no, You never actually did it.

Carrie 16:54
I did. I did it, and that was all stateside. I mean, when we, when we lived here in the United States, yes, I did, but when

Scott Benner 17:01
you ran away from the government to England, then you couldn't donate, exactly, right? Yeah, exactly, because you guys are spies. What is the exact real answer?

Carrie 17:09
My husband actually used to race motorcycles professionally, and so that's where it was most popular. Was in England. And it's actually like they he had, he signed a contract to race for a team. It's Team Racing, and it's a season that would generally last from early spring to about October. So we were gone.

Scott Benner 17:32
I'm sorry, you always attracted to dangerous boys, or is this one special? The podcast is sponsored today by Eversense CGM. Eversense cgm.com/juicebox, with Eversense, there's no need for frequent sensor changes, no more sensors falling off, fewer failed sensors and less skin irritations. And that means more comfort with Eversense. You only need one sensor insertion every six months, and there's no need for constant sensor changes, which means less hassle. There's also no need to carry extra sensors with you, so that's less stuff to worry about, and you can say goodbye to unexpected disruptions from sensors falling off or being knocked off, because the Eversense CGM is implantable and the sensor stays comfortably in place for six months. The Eversense sensor is incredibly durable, and of course, that means fewer frequent unexpected sensor errors that happen before the end of the suggested wear time. But what do you really want to know about accuracy? The Eversense CGM performs exceptionally over its six month life. If you'd like more details, or are interested in getting started, use my link, Eversense cgm.com/juicebox, I'll be telling you a lot more about Eversense this year, so make sure you pay attention to upcoming advertisements. There. You'll learn about the implantable sensor, the smart transmitter, and their mobile application. The Eversense CGM lasts up to six months, eliminating the hassle and discomfort of frequent sensor insertions. Simply put, it makes managing your diabetes so much easier, ever since cgm.com/juicebox,

Carrie 19:12
no, this one was definitely special, for sure, for sure. That's funny. Did

Scott Benner 19:17
your parents hate him? No, really, with motorcycles and everything. Yeah,

Carrie 19:22
and my dad's a collector of old cars, and the first time he met Josh, he handed him a set of keys to drive one of his cars, and I my jaw hit the floor, so he definitely loved him. Oh,

Scott Benner 19:31
okay, all right. Well, yeah, yeah, your dad's got a specific opinion, so that's fine,

Carrie 19:36
definitely. Oh, by far.

Scott Benner 19:38
So now I've got you going in your early 20s to probably Atlantis and Humalog or something like that. Yes, and you're counting carbs now, all of a sudden. Was that a big shift that you recall? Or do you not? How do you think of

Carrie 19:51
it? Yes, it was a big shift. The whole carb thing. In fact, I didn't even know that they affected your blood sugar. That's how when. I was diagnosed, I remember, and it's so funny, because I, believe it or not, I can remember my mom, she they did everything by exchanges and just looking at a portion type thing, which I suppose in certain ways. I know it's been years since I've seen a dietitian, but I know, you know, like they use the palm of your hand, like, this is like three to four ounces of protein is ideal for a meal, so to speak. But the carb thing definitely was new to me, and it was kind of like learning diabetes all over again, to be honest.

Scott Benner 20:31
Do you recall what happened there? Did your a 1c, go up or down? How was your control up? Okay?

Carrie 20:37
I mean, I do know. I do clearly remember, like when I was in the hospital and I had my heart attack eight years ago. I was at a maybe even 11, but it was definitely a 10 something and a 1c Yes.

Scott Benner 20:52
So at 42 years old, having had diabetes now for 38 some years, you were Yes. You had an A, 1c in the 10s at least, yes, did you not know how to do it better? Or did you try what I get you there? I

Carrie 21:09
didn't. I actually didn't know how to do it better. And it's not that I didn't care, but like other things in life, were, were more important to me. I know that sounds terrible, but I just, I think I was over it, and I think, and I had started a pump. I've been on a pump for 24 years now, and so I literally got the pump, and I figured, oh, it's giving me insulin 24 hours a day. I still don't need to, like, I could this. Can do all the work for me. I don't need to do anything.

Scott Benner 21:44
Carrie, did you know that wasn't true? Or do you just like to ignore it and hope that it would do something? I

Carrie 21:51
felt like, well, it for one it was a hell of a lot better than just being on two injections a day.

Scott Benner 21:56
So you're judging everything against where you started, instead of against a valuable outcome for your health? Yeah,

Carrie 22:04
I see I said, definitely guilty of that. Okay,

Scott Benner 22:07
where were you during your pregnancies? A one C's, um, England, actually, no, I'm sorry. You're a 1c my fault. Like, where did you keep your a 1c during your pregnancies?

Carrie 22:17
They were in the seven and eight.

Scott Benner 22:20
How did you do that, versus the 10s and elevens? Because

Carrie 22:24
I had really, I was actually pregnant. All three of my pregnancies were in England. I saw really good endocrinologist. One in particular I remember with my middle son, or actually, maybe it was with the baby. He really drilled it into me. He's like, you have got this has got to be at least. And this is funny, because now this is 18 years ago, yeah, you have to be at least an eight or better. He said, I would love to see you like in a seven or six. But he says, You cannot go above an eight.

Scott Benner 22:58
Can you hear Jenny having a stroke right now. Like we said, yeah, right. So, like, so now it's in the they want you in the fives for pregnancy. I

Carrie 23:08
know, yeah, and, and, I mean, I'm, I mean, just FYI, I'm a 6.7 right now, right? And for me, that's, like, one of my that's my lowest a 1c ever. Oh, it's great that I know of Yeah. So it's that's a big deal for me, especially from where I came from, sure. Not that I can't imagine being in the fives. And I would love to get, like, in the low sixes, for sure. Well,

Scott Benner 23:37
I mean, think back when you were 10. Could you imagine being in the sixes? No,

Carrie 23:40
no, yeah, I would have, I probably would have told you. Are you kidding me? I'd be dead on the floor, thinking that was just the mentality. So, yeah, I didn't, and I didn't know better. My mom didn't even know better. Sure, sure. It's funny what I can teach because my mom was very, very involved with my care. It's funny what I teach her now. When I tell her things, and she's like, No, she I mean, if I tell her right now, like, Hey, Mom, oh, my blood sugar's 85 Oh, my God, that's too low. You need to go eat something. And I'm like, I feel fine. And she goes, No, no, you need Mom, mom, I promise you, I'm okay. Like, trying to retrain her brain, like, to be like, that is, I might not even be possible. Let's

Scott Benner 24:19
just have your dad tell her he's right about everything. So it'll be fun. Well, okay, wait a second. What are your complications? Besides the heart attack, which obviously is massive, but like, what else has befell you? Let's

Carrie 24:34
see. So I have retinopathy. I've had several laser surgeries on my eyes, both eyes and every and everything is stable, which I'm, you know, thankful for. And I'm not my my vision is not compromised because of it, but just it was just scary to have it, just have them finally say, Oh yeah, there's definitely signs of retinopathy. I went for many years without those signs up until probably about five years. Go, and then let's see. And then what else I feel like everything I'm learning is definitely related to the diabetes, like with the trigger fingers and dupe trends, disease in my hands. Yeah, that's all related, for sure. And that's once again, under control. I did have surgery on my right hand. Best thing I did to have that stop, and then let's see what else? My God, the retinopathy, the dupu trends, and the trigger fingers, the heart attack.

Scott Benner 25:32
You don't have to add more. That's fair amount. But do you feel like there's other things that have happened that you're not recalling at the moment?

Carrie 25:39
I do. I feel like there's a couple little things I missed I'm missing. Do you have any

Scott Benner 25:42
neuropathy in your feet or your hands? No,

Carrie 25:45
no, okay, and I hate telling you no, because I feel like I'm jinxing myself, just because I feel like, my god after this

Scott Benner 25:53
not how it works. Don't worry. You can't Jinx yourself.

Carrie 25:56
I don't know. I don't know if you anyhow, but I just sometimes I'm like, Oh, okay. I mean, my hand falls asleep when I'm asleep at night, I'm wake up and I'm like, messaging my Endo. Like, oh my god. He's like, Carrie, it's okay. He goes. I really don't think that's what it is okay. Thank you. But yeah, I feel like, now I've had enough complications to where now anything happens. I'm like, it's got to be the diabetes. You know.

Lija Greenseid 26:24
Are you nervous for more to happen? Not

Carrie 26:26
really. To be honest with you, I feel like the heart attack was enough to make me not make me think or believe. And I trust me, I know I'm at higher risk now for having another one just because, simply because I've had one, even though I'm in good control. No, I'm not. I'm not. I feel like at this point, I could handle what was thrown at me, so to speak. I say that now,

Scott Benner 26:55
what did the heart attack reveal? Were there blockages they had to take care of

Carrie 26:59
there? Were, I have, I feel like I really got lucky there too. I only have one stent placed. I didn't have to have, you know, like open heart surgery. I didn't have to have bypass or anything like that. I had one stent placed. But they definitely were quick to tell me that there is another possible, not possible. There is other blockages, but they're not a great percentage enough, and I didn't say that, right, but they're not enough to do anything about yet. At this point, it would be too dangerous to do any it's more dangerous to do something about it than to leave it alone. Yeah, at first, that really freaked me out. But so, I mean, I definitely took, you know, the diabetes, and really, really worked hard for a long time between me and my endo to get that a 1c down. I mean, we were tweaking left and right, and so I'm much more confident about that, hopefully not ever needing to be a problem, or, you know, where they have to go in and do more stents. So, yeah, so I don't think I'm nervous waiting for something else.

Scott Benner 28:10
Can you tell me what it felt like, like? What was the lead up to the heart attack? Did you feel unwell for days? Did it come on quickly?

Carrie 28:18
It was for days, actually. I mean, and then it's so weird when something like that happens to you, you really take the time to sit and look back and think, I've been having signs for a long time that something wasn't right. Yeah, I mean, I want to say for maybe

Scott Benner 28:33
a good three to four months. Oh, no kidding, tell me about it. What was happening. So

Carrie 28:40
it was every time I would eat a big meal and my biggest meal, and still to this day, my biggest meal is dinner, and that's when I would notice it the most. And I would eat dinner, and within a half an hour, I would get this weird pressure from my forearms down to the tips of my fingers on both arms, and it was just like it never pained, but it was just like this immense pressure, and it would take, like, a complete hour for it to dissipate and kind of relax and go away. And so it was just weird, and it was very religious. It did that for, like, I said, a good three or four months. And I remember at one point even saying to my teenage daughter at the time, like, maybe I need to call a doctor and let them know I'm having this symptom. Like, what is this about eating, you know, especially dinner time. And then I recall like we had taken the family to a movie, and we had, we had eaten dinner, gone to the movies, and sitting in the movie theater, and all of a sudden I just wasn't I wasn't nauseous, I wasn't headache, but I something just wasn't right. I just so I felt like I needed to get up and kind of walk around. So I did. I excused myself from the theater and went out and walked a little bit. I. Kind of wouldn't went in the ladies restroom and just kind of stood there like, what the heck? What that actually, I wasn't, what the heck. And I'm like, What the hell is? What's going on, you know? And I don't even remember exactly what I was feeling like. I said it was just something just was off the night that I think that I actually had the heart attack. It was actually Christmas Eve, 2015 and actually the day before, and we had gone out to dinner with the family, and we went back home, and here comes these symptoms in my forearms, and this time it didn't dissipate, and the pressure was worse, and I was really restless. I couldn't get comfortable. Once I tried to go to bed, I just, I couldn't. I was tired, but I couldn't sleep, and just super restless. Something wasn't right. But once again, I didn't know what. Apart from, my arms were aching terribly, both arms, and it like, Yes, both arms. And just like I said, from the form from my elbow down to the tips of my fingers. Never liked up, ever I went through the night tossing and turning, and finally, the next afternoon, or actually that morning, I woke up, and I'm totally sick to my stomach even. So I'm testing my blood sugar like manually, and I think at that point, the highest my blood sugar got was, like, 220 so, I mean, I know for some people, that's like, Oh, my God, that would be kind of a normal high, so to speak, when I get high, right? So I knew it wasn't high, like, something like, Okay, this is definitely diabetes related. I'm like, like, this is weird. You know, there wasn't, like, I was in DKA or something like that, or I just, I So anyhow, I just, and at that point, my husband's like, you know what? Through this, we're going to the hospital. And then I flipped my lid, because I'm scared to death of other people's needles besides my own, and I knew that he would do every test to me known to man. Sure enough, he got me into the emergency room, and as soon as he told them my symptoms, they rushed me straight back. My EKG was completely normal. And it wasn't until they drew blood and got my results back that they saw the blood level or the that I had heart they're like, you had a heart attack, and I'm like, I for one, I didn't believe them. I was in complete denial that that was what happened anyhow, yeah, that's, that's my heart attack story, and it was Gary as hell. Okay,

Scott Benner 32:29
how long did we cover till I was back to,

Carrie 32:34
I mean, I don't know, like a week or so, like, to where I wasn't, like, completely exhausted. And, you know, of course, they put me on all kinds of new meds, and so adjusting to all that, yeah, yeah, I think I was, I was really okay quite quickly, to be honest. I think a lot of it has to do with because they immediately, you know, alleviate that blockage. So it was pretty quick. Probably more than anything, the medication is what mess messes with you more than anything, because they've got you on blood pressure, on cholesterol and all those have so many side effects that they're in their D ones you know care.

Scott Benner 33:11
Can I ask you a question today, years later, what is your understanding of how your diabetes gave you these heart issues

Carrie 33:21
running too high for way too many years. But

Scott Benner 33:24
do you know functionally, how that happens? No, I do. I was just wondering if they told you that's all. No, okay, nope. So what happens is an elevated blood sugar. There's, you know, more glucose in your blood than is supposed to be there, and it right. It rubs veins, arteries, everything, everywhere blood flows is being kind of scraped by the extra glucose in there, okay? And eventually you wear thin somewhere, right, right. Then your body patches it over, okay. And then it wears thin, and it patches it over. And before you know what the patches block, the passageway, gotcha, that's what happens. So when, when people Yeah, yeah. So one has ever explained that to me? Yep, Bob, it's interesting, right? Because if, if it was your vision, right? Oh, I'm losing my vision. Well, that's the same thing as having a heart attack. So interesting. Rub rub through patch over, rub through patch over. More patching, more patching, more patching blocks the flow, and now that suddenly that that pathway doesn't do what it's supposed to do anymore. In the case of a heart attack, it's not delivering blood or returning whatever to your to your heart and in your eyes, it could just be, you know, choking off little capillaries that kind of when it's neuropathy, same thing. Okay, totally.

Carrie 34:45
It makes sense, though. Yeah.

Scott Benner 34:47
So I used to talk about on the podcast more often, but what I would basically say is that when your blood sugar's too high, now listen if it goes up to 150 and comes back down at dinner time, this is not what's happening to you. But if. It's, you know, if it's 150 for the rest of your life, if it's 220 all the time, that kind of stuff, you're sandblasting yourself from the inside out, yeah, pretty much what you're doing. And so, you know, if someone says, you know, at the end of your life, like, oh, they had a stroke, you know, due to type one diabetes, they had a heart attack due to type one diabetes, they lost their foot because of it. They their kidneys stop working. It's all the same problem, too much, too much sugar in your blood, right, right? And not enough sugar in your blood. And you know what happens? Then your brain shuts off. Exactly, yeah? So exactly? What a fun balance, yeah, yeah. Isn't it crazy? Like, basically, the glucose is the it's the energy that your brain runs off of. It's so true. Yeah, too much of it, you get

Carrie 35:46
crazy, yeah? Well, it always, it always blows my mind how long it takes to recover from a low blood sugar, sometimes more than, not longer than others, you know. But, and then it trips me out. Well, it doesn't trip me out. I just feel like they just don't understand that. People don't understand that around me, you know, so

Scott Benner 36:04
far, the most fascinating thing about your story, to me is that you've had diabetes for like, almost 50 years, and you don't know that much about it. You know what? I don't Yeah, you're the only one, Carrie, I'm not coming down on you. Like, this is just yeah, how it is? Yeah,

Carrie 36:19
no, I swear to you, I learned more on because of social media. And, you know, social media gets so shamed and so put down these days, and but my I for me. I'm like bullshit. I've learned I, I feel like my access to learning more about type one would be gone, you know, if I if

Scott Benner 36:43
it wasn't for that, let me share this with you. My father in law ends up in the hospital a couple weeks ago, and he went to a local hospital that I can't believe he went to, because as soon as he got there, I was like, they're going to kill him. And like, not, it's not a great place, right? And so he comes home a few days later with zero answers to any of his questions. But they took him off all of his medications. You know, case one of these is doing it. And you know, some of those medications Carrie he takes because he's in congestive heart failure. 76 years old. He had a heart attack when he was 50. He's a lifelong smoker, till he had his heart attack, you know, like, that kind of stuff. Like, he, he's been kept alive by these medications, right? You know, 76 years old, the, you know, the guy in the white coat told him to take, not take this medicine anymore. He stopped taking it, and not like, three days later, he's back in the hospital. This time we got him to a good one. His body's retaining water. He's got to go on lasix. He's, you know, he's, he's in heart failure, because he's, you know, right? Has congestive heart failure, and the only thing keeping it alive is this medication, so we get them all straight. My wife and I are down there talking to him yesterday, and I just finally thought, like, this is no different than the podcast. I was like, Dad, you understand why this happened? You know, like, thinking it's obvious, right? Like, he's got congestive heart failure, he takes medication to keep it at bay. These new medications for congestive heart failure are freaking amazing. Like, you could, like, right kind of live for goddamn ever with congestive heart failure, it feels like right and but without it, he's gonna die and die pretty quickly, right? He did not know. He didn't understand what the medication was for. I don't know that. He knew that congestive heart failure meant that he would die without the medication. Like it was fascinating to see, like he doesn't know what's happening to him, but then you don't either, so most people don't

Carrie 38:31
know, you know. And it's so funny, because I really consider myself I'm a huge advocate for advocate for yourself when it comes to medical professionals, because I I mean no disrespect, but sometimes I feel like, when it comes to my diabetes, they don't know. I mean, this sounds so disrespectful, but I just feel like, over the years, if I did everything they said, I don't know. I just, I don't agree with a lot of it. Carrie,

Scott Benner 39:06
how much do you think you need to know about congestive heart failure not to take a 76 year old man off his congestive heart failure medication? Yeah,

Carrie 39:13
that's that's me. That blows my mind too. Once I have a grandmother who battled it years ago and died because of it. So I am a little familiar, just a little what the disease?

Scott Benner 39:23
It shouldn't blow your mind at all. Karen, it shouldn't blow your mind at all.

Carrie 39:28
It just, I'm just like, You got to be kidding me. I mean, I've actually been in the hospital for something that wasn't related to my type one, and I literally, I was almost going to discharge myself, because they wouldn't treat a low a low for me, yeah, and I could, and my blood sugar was 50 and dropping, and I'm like, okay, either I go home right now and I'm going to be treating myself as I walk out of here, because I'm going to go find where you keep your apple juice, or you are. Because you have, I can't give you control of my diabetes. I refuse to. I had to actually sign legal paperwork to say that I was in charge. I'm

Scott Benner 40:06
going to tell you that I don't know that it really matters what we're talking about. It could be politics. It could be it could be, you know, your local school district making some very strange decision. It could be my, it could be my, my local municipality who decided that they won't take my recycling if it's in the wrong color bin. And then when I say to them, what am I going to do with all this recycling here? Kara, you haven't heard this. This is the thing I've ranted about in a recording. It hasn't come out yet, but I had all this extra recycling because they didn't take my recycling because it was in the wrong color bin. And I said, Well, what am I supposed to do with all this recycling? You guys only come twice a month? And she said, you know, store it on your property until next month. And I said, Well, I won't. I have no ways to put it, and even if I did, I'll have too much like because I don't have enough bins that are the right color. And as I'm having this ridiculous conversation right about the colors of trash cans, the person on the phone offers to me as a fix, I should just throw out my recycling. And I said, well, then What in God's name, are we doing any of this for? If I can just throw it away? Yeah. I mean, like, what? What are you saying to me? You're the recycling lady that you're you're telling me to throw my recycling away, yeah? And she goes, Well, I mean, if you don't have anywhere to put it. I was like, That's it, huh? That's where your common sense got you. That's fascinating. So whether it's them or it's the highest levels of government, or it's a nurse in a in an ER that doesn't understand your diabetes, or a doctor that would take migraine, no one knows what they're talking about. Okay, no,

Carrie 41:37
no, they sure as hell don't they, sure as hell don't. I've definitely learned that. I mean, oh my god, the kids make my kids make fun of me when I have to call customer service for Dexcom or my insurance company, God forbid, oh God, don't get me started there or I mean, and especially when they send me, which I feel like, to another country to speak to a representative who I can hardly understand, and they're telling me things that I know better. I'm like, I can't my kids, like, literally, are like, Oh my god, Mom, you are so mean. And I'm like, I can't help it when they're being stupid. I can't help it.

Scott Benner 42:16
I don't know if I've been clear enough in the past, but this whole thing, you're just lucky that it works. Like, and I'm talking about society, like, just everything, like, it's all just randomly working, because I think it's your luck. It's certainly not that everybody's carrying their fair share. That's for sure. And like, that's for damn sure, but at the same time. Like, I I'm not even upset about I don't, I don't, not understand what happens. Like, listen, it's very simple. Like, you have a an ability to think, I have an ability to think, everyone does. Our abilities are different, right? You can see in like, simple studies, like, even where your IQ falls, it pretty much shows what kind of job you're going to have, like, right? Like, and the smartest people don't hold the jobs that you think of as being the most like important. So, like, the people with the highest IQs are not doctors. No, generally, generally speaking, Now these aren't. They're not people with the lowest IQs. I'm not saying that, but like, you know, like, you start thinking about like, genius level people, 130s 140s 150s and their IQs. Like, super smart, those people don't generally end up being doctors. It's more people in like, more like, 101 10, 120, IQs end up being doctors and and like, and all different kinds of things. My point is, this is, I feel like I'm all over the place, but just stick with me for a second. I got yelled at recently online for cavalierly saying that people don't use their common sense. And this person made this point to me, like, you know, common sense, like, not everybody has it, and even when they have it, it doesn't work to the level of someone else's. So like, while you're just saying, just use your common sense, like the person said to me, like, you have to have some respect for the fact that you might have more than other people do. And I had never thought of it that way. I just thought common sense. Just gonna say, I've never thought of it, yeah, I never thought of it that way, like you have more common sense than the next person, or, you know, maybe your ability to rationalize it while you're using or whatever. But not everyone's got the same processing power. Is what I've learned to think of it. It doesn't make them bad people, doesn't make them good people. It's just in some situations, they're overmatched. And because we're talking about diabetes all the time, tend to be like, Oh, the medical community, blah, blah. It's not just there, right? Like, I don't it's literally just everywhere. Like, everyone is outmatched by something, and frequently you run into people who are outmatched by the thing they're doing. It's so true, not always, but a lot, a lot. And instead of just saying, like, this is a human issue, we say things like, doctors don't understand, or, you know, politicians don't know what they're doing, or like, the like that. That's the stuff. We say it's people. It's just people, right? We're outmatched, okay?

Carrie 45:02
Yeah, no, it's true. No, it's true. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:05
there's a lot going on, and we can't keep it all straight all the time, right? And so very true. Because, I mean, listen, talking to you now for 45 minutes, you're a lovely lady, you've got three children, you know, like you're making your way through the world. You're doing a great job, and yet, right? You don't understand why you had heart attack.

Carrie 45:22
No, no, I never that is, I mean, literally, had never been explained to me like that. And I've seen more than one cardiologist, you know? Yeah,

Lija Greenseid 45:30
no one stopped and told you no, because, and here might be a good reason to tell you, how about be so it doesn't happen again, right? Right? But no, nothing. Just go you have diabetes. Yeah, okay.

Carrie 45:45
And, you know, and I'll never forget, one the morning I was discharged from the hospital, the nurse came in and literally gave me a packet of printed information. I swear to God, it was two inches thick, and said, definitely look through this, and I'm thinking to myself, the hell and Oh. And then she said, You need to lose weight. And I'm like, okay, but they didn't set up any follow up appointments with like

Scott Benner 46:13
Carrie read this fatty Okay, now get out of here. Yeah, I

Carrie 46:19
swear that's how I was discharged. I'm not even kidding you. I can't even Yeah, yeah, it

Scott Benner 46:26
wasn't Oh, I'm so upset. Like, so like, that's fascinating. Like, really. And trust me, she didn't know what she was talking about either. She just did the things she was supposed to do by giving you the packet, and then probably illegally discharged me. Yeah. And then in her head, she probably thought like, Oh, if this lady lost some weight, she might not have already that. Meanwhile, I don't know if that's true or false. She just it's the thing that occurred to her to say, because obviously that was right, that was an off the cuff statement, exactly, yeah, nobody sent her in there and said, Give him this paperwork and tell her she's to lose weight. That's not what happened. Yeah,

Carrie 47:00
no, she Yeah, no. It still makes me laugh to this day. I'm like, you gotta reach me that that really okay,

Unknown Speaker 47:07
cool.

Carrie 47:08
Peace out. Like I'm out. Carrie,

Scott Benner 47:09
are you in the Midwest?

Carrie 47:11
I'm in California.

Lija Greenseid 47:12
You're in California. This is where the heart attack happened. Yes, Southern, Northern, Southern, Southern, Southern, yeah. Okay, nowhere safe, you know,

Carrie 47:24
literally, because, you know, you look at the I mean, we have some really great medical facilities, you know. But no, I'm just, well, I know, I know it makes you question. I mean, do Yeah, do you I'm thinking, maybe not, you know,

Scott Benner 47:39
sure, you have great medical facilities, but it's, again, it's more about the I have such a hard time parsing my way through this, because I think it's such a big abstract idea. But it's not the facility, it's, it's the way that it's done, right? It's the it's, it's the execution. That's the problem.

Unknown Speaker 47:57
Yeah, right.

Carrie 47:58
I feel like insurance dictates so much of how much time you're allotted as a patient, and the resources you're allowed to get your hands on or not get your hands on, or the trials you're allowed to be a part of and well

Scott Benner 48:17
not be a part of. The way it's all set up is the doctors have no time to be with you, but no but at the same time. Then, instead of just saying, oh, you know the system, and then, you know, that's it here, give her a handout, you know, like, like, why not adjust somehow, or teach the nurses the right thing to say, or right or spend listen. You're a doctor of cardiology. Sit down, record yourself and make your recordings available online so people can go, like, access them later, right? Say, look, I'm gonna, I have a recording. It's a link here. It's gonna explain to you what happened to you. It's gonna explain how to avoid it the next time. Exactly you know. And and and after you're done with that, go over to my my guy over here is an endocrinologist. He's going to explain your diabetes to you, because, you know, Carrie, you're not doing a great job. And like I know, based on where you started, 45 years ago, you're killing it. But, you know, modern execution, you're you're pretty far off. And right, you've already had a heart attack at 42 I mean, you're on the fast track to being dead by the time you're 60.

Carrie 49:23
I know. And I yeah, oh, now see now that that when you said, Are you afraid of more things happening? That is definitely one of my fears, is I I probably won't outlive my husband, and I hope I get to see my grandchildren, you know, type thing. So listen,

Scott Benner 49:38
um, keep after that husband. You'll kill him. That's not hard, you know, like just, just keep pressure in the way you're doing it. He'll give up. But no, but see, Carrie, that's not, I don't think that's the case. I think that, I think that you understand your management now, right? And a lot of these things, and thank God, yeah, a lot of these things that are happening to you, I'm not saying they can be. Verse, but you can kind of freeze them in time a little bit, if you're lucky, right, right? You said you have a six seven. Now, how did you how did you accomplish that? Literally,

Carrie 50:09
by just being well for one the CGM. I was not ever wearing a CGM until eight years ago. I didn't start wearing one. So right after my heart attack, even though I had been exposed to it, it was through Medtronic the first time I was exposed, and it was terrible. I just had a really bad experience with alarms going off constantly, whether it was for too high, too low, too I swear to God, it would tell me if my shoelaces were untied. I don't know. It was just there were these constant alarms, and I just said, Screw this thing. Get it off me. So, but so definitely, the CGM changed my life for like, I mean, for better, by far. And that was what Dexcom, and still is. I actually took the initiative to switch from, let's see who was Medtronic, and I went to T slim, and that's still where I am now, okay, I think even making that this sounds really silly, not that I couldn't have accomplished a better a 1c with Medtronic, but just having switching from one pump company to the other, and having a nurse come in and train me on How to use it. I felt like I learned so much from her, too. Okay, so being more user friendly with my T slim and so then that helped me stay on top of my blood sugars more and bring the a 1c down. But I definitely have to attribute most of it to the CGM without a doubt. Isn't

Scott Benner 51:38
it interesting, too, if you've had it for so long, Everyone just assumes you understand it because you're alive, right? Yeah, you know what I mean, like, you don't need us to explain this to you because you've had this forever, I think so, yeah, and let me ask this as a question, because you were alive and, you know, 20 years ago, not having problems. Did you not think I'm doing a great job?

Carrie 51:58
No, I knew I was never I knew I wasn't doing that. So even though you weren't having

Scott Benner 52:03
initial even though you weren't having problems at the time, you still knew it wasn't going the right way.

Carrie 52:09
I Yeah, and I knew I could do much better. Definitely, What stopped you from doing that? I didn't, I think I didn't know where to start type thing. I felt like I was in so deep I didn't know or taking the time to do it. Who has time to do that?

Scott Benner 52:27
More my attitude, I'm busy. This is, this is, in the end, did you think it was never coming for you? I

Carrie 52:33
felt like I had, well, God, I don't have any complications. It must not be that bad. I think that was my attitude, okay?

Scott Benner 52:39
Because, like, if you told me like a murderer was coming for me, I'd be like, I'm gonna make time to get away from this. But right, yeah, I'd be like, I

Carrie 52:49
guess I never thought of it like that, but I but you know what? I don't know why? Like, What a dumbass. Like, why didn't I think of it like that? Seriously, Harry, can

Scott Benner 52:58
I call this episode? What a dumbass. That's hilarious, actually,

Carrie 53:01
yeah, you, you would never, that would never have been me.

Scott Benner 53:07
No, I appreciate your honesty, though. Like, seriously, because, you know, I think what happens is, is that people with diabetes can get caught up in the idea of numbers. I got a good number, I got a bad number. I'll get a better number next time. Yeah, you never couple together the numbers with the future for some reason. Yeah,

Carrie 53:26
no, yeah, no, I definitely did not, did not, and now without a doubt. Um, that's definitely why I strive to get my numbers better, right, um, and I know, like, I know I can do much better with the A, 1c, at a 6.7 and I, and it's I am comfortable where I am, but I definitely, like I said. I mean, my goal right now is to get it to the low sixes. If I ever saw a five, I probably would fall over. But why? Why do you say? Why? Because I feel like, Well, for one, I never even knew that it was safe for it to be that low. But you know now, thanks, right? Well, yeah, I know now, so, but I mean, I think I would fall over, meaning, like, holy crap. I actually did this. Well,

Scott Benner 54:15
I think you could do it. So listen, We've danced around that a little bit here, but did you learn a lot of this from the podcast? Definitely.

Carrie 54:22
Okay, yeah, no. I mean seriously, to realize, and I, you know, I'm actually still, I'm at the point where I'm a little offended when someone tells me that my a 1c, is high.

Unknown Speaker 54:36
I'm like, okay, because you've

Scott Benner 54:37
had an 11. You're like, I got it to a six, seven. Come on, yeah,

Carrie 54:40
that's when I feel like I want to tell them my story and be like, okay, look, you have no idea where I've come from. Like, this is so for me, like, this is a huge accomplishment, yeah,

Scott Benner 54:49
who doesn't care about that? Who your next heart attack doesn't give a shit about how far you've gone? No, I

Carrie 54:56
know, right. I know,

Scott Benner 54:57
right. So, like, why are you stuck in that?

Carrie 54:59
I don't know. I actually, I can't even answer. I don't know why

Scott Benner 55:04
we answered it a half an hour ago. You just have to apply it together. Okay, I'm trying to bring you full circle here. Go

Unknown Speaker 55:09
ahead, right?

Scott Benner 55:10
It's people. It's just how we handle things. You've done so well for yourself, and you have and you've come so far, and you have that you feel like you're done, even though you're not right.

Unknown Speaker 55:22
Yeah, right.

Carrie 55:24
But I do have my days where I'm like, Damn, how rad would that be, and how good? I mean, I already feel so much better than I did, but there's still I want to feel that much better.

Scott Benner 55:36
Yeah, I don't care how you feel anymore. What I care about is extra sugar in your blood, scraping little holes and things, right? That's what I care about, right, right, you know. And so I know. And is a six seven going to give you a heart attack? I'm not a magic person. I don't understand how everything works, right? What I can tell you is that for my kid, I just shoot for lower, lower, less, better, not too low, right? You might do a six seven your whole life, and keep it nice and steady and live to be 90 years old. Like, I don't see that that can't happen, right? Like, I don't see that that can't happen at all. But I don't know. You don't know. And as long as we don't know, and you think you could do a six, then do a six, what stops you from doing a six? Are you not pre bolusing your meals?

Carrie 56:18
Uh, okay, so I just learned about that. I'm like, pre bolus Okay, well, no, I that makes me sound really behind the times and kind of stupid.

Scott Benner 56:28
Just makes you sound it just makes you sound like you're being honest. Don't worry about that. It's

Carrie 56:32
well, I just Well, I feel like I I've known what pre bolusing is for a long time now, but pre bolusing used to be like 10 minutes. And then listening to some of the Pro Series, I just learned that a pre bolus can be all the way up to 30 minutes,

Scott Benner 56:50
depending on the person on your end, your situation, right? Yeah, and

Carrie 56:54
I and your situation, and I am that person, nine times out of 10, not always, but nine times out of 10. I am that person. Also.

Scott Benner 57:02
I like when people say, like, why pre bolus? But I'm like, but your blood sugar was 250 when you bolus, they're like, yeah. I'm like, that's not a pre bolus a meal. That's a correction for the 250 What about the pre bolus for the meal and the food? Yeah,

Carrie 57:13
exactly no and Right, exactly you have to take. I mean, that's a,

Unknown Speaker 57:16
that's a whole nother category.

Scott Benner 57:20
Carrie. I'm interested, after talking to you, what I'm realizing here is, you're in the infancy of your understanding of your management right now,

Carrie 57:28
literally, yeah, I'm still there's so much to learn that's so exciting for you. Yeah, no, I that's and it's fascinating. It's not discouraging for me. It's like, holy crap. There really is a light at the end of all these tunnels. Yeah, there's more than one tunnel. For one, there's more than one tunnel. And for two, I can definitely see there's a light at the end of them. Let me ask you,

Scott Benner 57:49
based on something you said earlier, do you still have weight to lose? Yes. So in your note, you actually asked about like, ozempic, right? You remember that? Like, is that a thing you've considered? I've taken all

Carrie 58:02
of them. Oh, wait a minute, we haven't even touched there yet. Are

Scott Benner 58:06
using one right now? Yes,

Carrie 58:08
which one I just I feel like, this is now. I feel like, Oh, my God, this could be the end of this tunnel for me. And maybe there isn't like I started years ago with truth, not years ago, five, six years ago,

Scott Benner 58:23
right? And that's

Carrie 58:24
where I got, that's where I was able to, like, cut my doses almost in half, and I lost about 24 or 25 pounds. I kind of, it kind of goes between 2425

Lija Greenseid 58:36
pounds, yeah, any chance you have PCOS Carrie, no one has ever said anything. Do you think you might or no, just insulin resistance? Yes, okay, I

Carrie 58:48
do. I truly believe I do. Okay, and I voice that to my endocrinologist, and that's actually how I got started on these drugs. I also take Metformin. Okay? So, I mean, I'm, I mean, I'm obviously on the pump. I take Metformin, and now I'm using Manjaro.

Scott Benner 59:07
How long for the Manjaro?

Carrie 59:11
It's only been,

I think I'm going on shot seven, so not even a complete two months yet. And of course, they start you at the very bottom, yeah,

Scott Benner 59:22
you're on point five right now. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 59:24
okay, you

Scott Benner 59:25
got one more, one more point five. Then you go to, what do you go to after that? Two and a half.

Carrie 59:29
I think it's seven point No, well, no, I'm on five, so it's 2.55 and and then it goes to seven point half. Yeah, seven and a half, yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 59:39
on seven and a half right now, I'm about ready to move to 10 see

Carrie 59:42
and I I've heard that 10 is where you're going to see your improvement,

Scott Benner 59:48
and what the doctor told me, yeah, so I'm super excited.

Carrie 59:52
So you've been okay. So okay, so me too. I'm like, oh my god, I can't get there quick enough. But everyone's like, No, you have to go through the hoops. You have. To go through four injections of each one, you know, I'm like, Ah,

Scott Benner 1:00:03
yeah, I don't, you could get caught. First of all, it's nice to it's, I'm glad you're tolerating it. That's fantastic. So, right, yeah, just stick to the process. So like, where I'm at right now, and I don't, it's not for diabetes, but obviously it impacts my insulin use, which is helping me lose weight. I've I started at 236 Uh huh, I'm 189 today, okay, but I've been as low as 183 Okay, and so I think in the last month and a month, month, yes, in the last month. So like, I started taking this over the counter supplement to help with my bowel movements. Be better. And okay, they are helping, but I'm gaining weight, so I'm not sure how to, like, figure this all out. And I actually went to the doctor on Saturday, and she's like, you've been putting on a couple of pounds. She goes, yeah. She goes, Don't worry, when we move you to the 10, then you're really gonna say it. I'm like, I've already, like, so I lost, at one point I was up to 50 pounds, but now I'm like, 44 pounds I've lost, right? And she's like, Wait till you see when you get to the 10. And I was like, All right, lady, I'm in like, let's go right. I think I have right now where I sit at 189 I don't know if I don't, maybe have 20 more pounds to lose about there, and then there's not an ounce of fat on my body after that, right? What you care about is that I just booked a recording with a doctor from Austin, Texas, Dr Tom Blevins. He's going to come on and talk about glps, okay, he's a proponent. He's an endocrinologist. He's going to come on and talk about functionally, how they work, and that kind of stuff. And I've had a number of people on this year already, like, from like, little kids, like 13 year old using we go V whose insulin needs, oh, my god. Her insulin needs went from 70 units a day to seven. Wow. She's probably like, still like, she's probably like, honeymooning, probably like a long honeymoon, but had so much insulin resistance, they think from PCOS maybe that, you know, it turned what looked like full blown type one back into like, Oh, this is again. It's infancy still. Wow. You're hearing a lot of people using glps, and their insulin needs going down. So when you started it, did you see a decrease in your insulin when you started the Manjaro? Yeah,

Carrie 1:02:23
that was actually the first thing that started or not, not with Manjaro, not yet when I started with the trulicity. That's what happened to me first. So

Scott Benner 1:02:31
you haven't seen a need in a reduction yet with the it's, by the way, it's bucharo Manjaro. I don't know, why don't they just call it like I ain't fat anymore number one and so, so you haven't seen a dip in the last seven weeks.

Carrie 1:02:44
No, I made a couple tweak, actually, if anything, I've just recently noticed, like the foot on the floor syndrome in the morning when I get up and I'm so pissed off about that, because my morning blood sugars are always for me, are always so good. And now I I'm like, oh my god, I haven't even had a sip of coffee yet, and this is rising. Like, what the heck is going on? Okay? So I've noticed that, so I've had to increase, but then in the late afternoon, I've had to decrease, because I have this bizarre thing that while I'm cooking dinner and doing my evening CHORES, my blood sugar wants to just start dropping like crazy. And I'm like, oh, no, you don't, because I don't want to treat a low blood sugar. I'm just getting ready to eat dinner. Why? Why? Why? You know, anyhow, so I have decreased there, but no, I have not decreased insulin yet due to the Manjaro Oh, I'm

Scott Benner 1:03:36
super interested to see what happens then, like so me too. Yeah, yeah, as to, because I

Carrie 1:03:42
feel like I plateaued. Plateaued with, not with that, definitely with the weight loss. But my first concern and reason for going on all this was the insulin resistance. Yeah, no, I

Scott Benner 1:03:51
hear you for sure. Have you lost weight in seven weeks? No, not yet. Okay, I see, oh, this is interesting. How much do you think you have to lose? Would you share?

Carrie 1:04:00
I would be stoked if I could. I mean, if I could do another 20 i and I'm at 189 too. By the way, we

Scott Benner 1:04:08
can fight Carrie. We're in the same age, age and weight class.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
Oh,

Carrie 1:04:15
don't threaten me with a good time. I love that.

Scott Benner 1:04:18
So funny. So how tall? How can I ask how tall you are? Yeah, I'm five, five. Okay, so you see, isn't it funny how we talk about weight? Because I did this too. I did the like, Oh, I was 236 I was like, I could probably lose 20 pounds. I lost 20 pounds. I was like, drop in the bucket. I lost 30 pounds. I was like, Uh oh, I need to lose way more weight than I thought. And like, you know, watching it go down and down, like, you'll be surprised when it starts moving for you, you'll be surprised my experience, at least as the number falls, you think, Oh, I had a very inconsistent view of myself, inconsistent, inconsistent with reality view of my Yeah. I

Carrie 1:04:56
mean, I think I could definitely lose 40 pounds and not look. Too skinny or too like or not look unwell, you know? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:04
no, I hear you, yeah. Well, I wish you a ton of luck with that. That's that's good news that you were, how did you get your doctor to cover it? Or your insurance? Are

you paying cash for it?

Carrie 1:05:12
No, no, no, my insurance has always covered it from day one. And I feel I keep, I literally, I, swear to you, I'm waiting for the day where they're like,

Scott Benner 1:05:22
What diagnosis that got you? Bajaro, I

Carrie 1:05:27
don't know exactly how he's writing the or, you know, writing for it. So the insurance covers. I could have sworn at one point he told me he goes, Well, you know, you can be type two as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:42
this is the new, this is the new move from some doctors. They're, they're diagnosing you as type one and type two at the same time. Yeah, yeah. There's no way they're not going to catch on to that at some point. Right?

Carrie 1:05:52
That's why. That's why I'm like, Okay, this can't this has got to be too good to be true. Why can't

Scott Benner 1:05:56
he just give you a zeppbound for weight loss? It's the same drug you have. I mean, no offense, your BMI supports it. Like, just do that. Yeah, no, I

Carrie 1:06:07
don't know. I mean, as

Scott Benner 1:06:08
long as it's working, just shut your mouth and do it. But like, if, if they push back, just have the movie, does that bound right?

Carrie 1:06:16
Yeah, yeah, you know what I in fact, and I've never even thought of that. But that's a great and it's so I love my Endo. I swear, anything I suggest, he is not opposed to I mean, as long as it's within reason, I've definitely finally found my my my person is, I mean, as far as for one, he will totally listen to me and let me speak my mind and values my opinion, and actually will ask, okay, are you okay with this? What's your opinion? What do you think? You know, yeah, where, I mean, he's not just because he wears the white coat, he's in charge. And I

Scott Benner 1:06:49
freaking love that. Found somebody alike. That's very important. Yeah, it's

Carrie 1:06:53
a big, big deal, for sure. So anyhow, so he, he would definitely be open to for things for me to try and yeah, I mean, listen,

Scott Benner 1:07:02
if your insurance is willing to cover it, that's fine. My insurance only covers it for weight loss if you don't have type two diabetes. So I so I'm on zepbound, which is manjano. It's just, it's the same drug, it's just labeled differently, right, right? I hope these insurance companies come around the next year or so because, you know, I know they're still, like, they're opening up new manufacturing plants, like all these companies, but this stuff is really valuable for a lot of people.

Carrie 1:07:29
Well, it is. And, you know, for a long time it was frustrating for me when I the reason why I've jumped around to different ones is because I couldn't get them anymore. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:40
no, I you were doing the dance. You were like, I'll try. We go be I'll go to ozempic. Yeah, since you started an injectable, a once weekly injectable, how much weight have you lost? 25 pounds. Okay, that's pretty great. Yeah, yep, no.

Carrie 1:08:00
I mean, I still don't regret, and it's definitely it's a lifetime drug, but you see, for me, I feel like I've also learned that there are very good reasons to keep taking it, not just for the diabetes, but for my heart

Scott Benner 1:08:13
as well. Well, yeah, how about like, the studies are showing people having far fewer heart issues on it too,

Carrie 1:08:19
exactly because of, like, the it's the better for the blood pressure, better for the cholesterol. So, yes, so it's definitely a lifetime drug for me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:28
Carrie, yes, you had high a one C's, but you're also overweight. Like, these are all like factors for

Carrie 1:08:33
heart attack, and I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Has that cleared?

Scott Benner 1:08:38
Yes, my doctor did my vitals on Saturday, and she whispered, whispered like or mumbled under her breath like a kid twice while she was taking my vitals. What really, yeah, because my blood pressure was so good, and my and my um, my BP, and my pulse and my all my everything, she measured, like, manually. She's like, like, a kid, you look like a kid here with these numbers. She kept saying it, that's awesome. I was like, goddamn right lady. I was like, This is it? Like, I'm gonna live forever. I said that she left, right? But I don't think I'm actually gonna live forever. But I actually think I'm gonna live longer than I would've without the GOP, that's for sure. I like when people say it's a lifelong job, I'm like, Yeah, I don't care. So, right?

Carrie 1:09:21
Yeah, no, yeah, that's what, when people are like, but you, you have, you're gonna have to take that forever Goddamn, right? I'm taking it forever.

Scott Benner 1:09:28
Carry Simple Minds. You understand, see, what have I told you that? Listen, I'm not making fun anybody. Like, listen, I seriously, you're walking around with a 95 IQ. I don't judge you. I don't judge anybody. It's all about processing speed. It's like, it's like, it's like, you buy a computer with eight megs of RAM, it can do less work than a computer with 16 megs of RAM. Like, it's right, it doesn't make one a bad computer and a good computer. I'm like, genuinely not coming down on people. I I think what can happen sometimes is we end up putting people in. I think we end up putting eight Meg computers and 16 Meg jobs sometimes, and then we get mad at it for running slow. And that, literally, I think, is the problem. Like I you know, right? I realize there's only so many people to do so many jobs, but I mean, back to my original like example from this one. I don't know how you don't have to be that smart not to take a heart failure patient off their heart failure meds like

Unknown Speaker 1:10:25
that. Just, yeah,

Carrie 1:10:27
I mean, it just that just doesn't make sense. It

Unknown Speaker 1:10:31
has to be, right?

Scott Benner 1:10:34
I don't know. Kara, I can't, I can't because sometimes I just get to the point where I'm like, Ah,

Carrie 1:10:40
yeah, no, yeah, where you like you literally do not know what like you're okay, yeah, just took the words. There are no thoughts right now.

Scott Benner 1:10:47
You stand back and go. Every one of you mothers is trying to kill me. I see what's happening. Yeah? Seriously, yeah. That's what the when people say, advocate for yourself. That's what they should tell you. They should tell you, this is goddamn Mad Max. All right,

Carrie 1:11:04
seriously. Oh, it's not, yeah, no, I

Scott Benner 1:11:06
get out there and fight or someone's gonna drive you over their car, their teeth on the front of it. So yeah, people

Carrie 1:11:13
who say there's no, okay, there's no need to get so upset,

Scott Benner 1:11:17
you're all trying to kill me. That's all, yeah, no, yeah, yeah. From, by the way, from the person who goes, Oh, Carrie, that's a lifelong drug. Is it? Asshole, thanks,

Carrie 1:11:30
reality. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 1:11:31
I appreciate it. You and your deep thoughts. Good job. All right, that's enough of me, Carrie, I'm gonna get myself in trouble. We're done. All right, I appreciate you doing this with me having this conversation. Thank you very much.

Carrie 1:11:44
No problem. It's actually I've actually learned from just talking with you like this. You must meet my dad.

Scott Benner 1:11:50
Oh, please. I'll tell him how wrong he is. What do you think of

Carrie 1:11:54
that? Oh, I would love to hear someone. I

Unknown Speaker 1:11:57
would love it. I

Scott Benner 1:11:58
just want to be clear at the end, there's a mass amount of things I don't understand at all. I just want to be but, but the things I don't understand I know to go find somebody else who does right? That's my that's my thing. Like I you know, you got to know what you don't know. Yes, very important. All right, let me say goodbye. Thank you very much for doing this. I appreciate it. Hold on for one second. Okay, okay. I want to thank the Eversense CGM for sponsoring this episode of The juicebox podcast, and invite you to go to Eversense cgm.com/juicebox to learn more about this terrific device, you can head over now and just absorb everything that the website has to offer. And that way you'll know if Eversense feels right for you. Eversense, cgm.com/juicebox, this episode was sponsored by touched by type one. I want you to go find them on Facebook, Instagram, and give them a follow, and then head to touched by type one.org where you're going to learn all about their programs and resources for people with type one diabetes, a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, gevok glucagon. Find out more about gvokopen at gvoke glucagon.com, forward slash juicebox. You spell that, G, V, O, k, e, g, l, U, C, A, G, O n.com, forward slash juice box. Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them. You're like, Oh, if I bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less? A little more? If you're starting to have those thoughts, you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would. I think I see something here, but I can't be sure. Once you're having those thoughts, you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the juicebox podcast. It begins at Episode 1000 you can also find it at juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group, just check right under the featured tab at the top, it'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The juicebox podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongwayrecording.com, you.


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#1313 Mr. Anderson

Scott Benner

Beth is the mother of a five year old type 1. 

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon MusicGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio PublicAmazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The juicebox podcast.

We got Beth today. She's 32 years old, the mother of four children, including her son, who has type one diabetes. His name is Paul. Paul is using loop. We're going to talk about that and other things while you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Sit back and relax and get ready to listen to Mr. Anderson. Does everybody remember that from the Matrix? Mr. Anderson, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order@cozyearth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40 percent@cozyearth.com when you place your first order for AG, one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink. AG, one.com/juice, box. Guys, don't forget to check out the private Facebook group juicebox podcast, type one diabetes. There's links in the show notes. I think you're going to enjoy it. I appreciate you guys downloading and listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your favorite podcast app.

Today's podcast is sponsored by us med. Usmed.com/juice box. You can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do, and I'm talking about Dexcom libre, OmniPod, tandem, and so much more US med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, this episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the continuous glucose monitor that my daughter wears, the Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juice dot com, slash juicebox. Use my link by typing it into a browser or click on it right there in the show notes of your podcast player. That link is also available at juicebox podcast.com

Beth 2:12
so my name is Beth. I am married to Danny, and we have four kids. My oldest is 10. My next oldest is five. His name is Paul, and he has type one diabetes. And then I have Anna is three, and my youngest is three months.

Scott Benner 2:29
Holy, Oh,

Unknown Speaker 2:30
yeah. You

Scott Benner 2:31
know my first question Beth, right?

Unknown Speaker 2:32
No,

Scott Benner 2:33
you doing this for the Lord? Or why we making all these babies? You build an army?

Speaker 1 2:37
We are Christian family, but I don't know that that's the reason why we have all these kids. My oldest is adopted, so we have grown in different ways. But yeah, we love them all. They're great.

Scott Benner 2:48
Beth you adopted a baby?

Speaker 1 2:50
How long ago? Well, I actually he came to our home when he was almost six through foster care, and then we finalized his adoption last year, when he was 10.

Scott Benner 3:01
So you Alright, hold on a second. So you had wait. I'm trying to why is my brain not working?

Speaker 1 3:09
Well, the timeline is funny. So my five year old Paul was one was was the first in our home, once we did foster before, but he was the first permanent child in our home. So he was born in 2018 and then the next year, my oldest King came to join us when he was almost six. And then the next year, my three year old, Anna, was born in 2020 okay. And then we had a little break. And then three months ago, Lydia, yeah. Wait,

Scott Benner 3:39
hold on a second. Did you say King?

Unknown Speaker 3:41
King?

Scott Benner 3:42
Did you leave that out because of my comment about building a an army for the Lord or No, no,

Unknown Speaker 3:48
it wasn't intentional.

Scott Benner 3:49
Did he have a name leader? I guess, hey, with a kid, you don't get to rename them, right? Like you have to keep a name they come with. It could be a

Speaker 1 3:56
choice that some people make. I would think when they're as old as he was when he joined our family, most people would not

Scott Benner 4:03
make that choice a six year old. Hey, listen, you're Jimmy now, okay, yeah,

Speaker 1 4:08
I would hope they would involve the child in that decision, but I

Scott Benner 4:12
would have a hard time changing an animal's name that I don't think would know the difference. True. Oh, my God. Okay, good times, is that it? Or you just rest in that? I'm just gonna say resting that thing up and you're gonna go one more time. But what's your plan?

Speaker 1 4:26
You know, that's probably it, but we'll see what happens in the

Scott Benner 4:30
future. Wow. Well, that's a it's a nice family. How old are you? Yeah, I'm 32 god damn Beth way to jump in the game and start playing both hands. Well, King was actually

Speaker 1 4:41
making fun of me last night because I had to think about my age for a minute, and he thought that made me seem old, which I guess so, but at least I was practiced for this moment.

Scott Benner 4:49
Yeah, no kidding. I hate when I don't know how old I am, but it happens a lot. All right, so Paul has type one. Does anyone else have any autoimmune issues?

Speaker 1 4:58
I come from a. Large family. So the only one person I can pinpoint is my mom's cousin's son has type one. But I don't know if that's just because there's enough people that it would have happened eventually. There's no no large spread autoimmune you

Scott Benner 5:16
don't see any thyroid stuff,

Speaker 1 5:19
not that I'm aware of interesting Paul. We had a little scare with Paul, but his numbers are back down to normal now, so they bounced a little. Yeah, my endo said it's normal for kids, but we had his, it was around 1.2 when he was diagnosed, and then two years later, when they did the routine check, it went up to three point something. And she wasn't concerned about that, but I kind of was, so we rechecked it again a few months later, and it was 4.9 his TSH, yeah. And then she's and then we rechecked it again, I think a month after that, and it was back down to 1.6 so it's certainly something in the back of my head. But for now, nothing

Scott Benner 5:59
was he symptomatic during that time at all, so

Speaker 1 6:02
nothing major. The only thing that I noticed was he would sometimes be cold more than I would anticipate. Like most kids are cold getting out of the bath, but I feel like he talked about it more, or there was one time he had a snow cone, even though it was hot outside, he was cold for like an hour. Nothing like no tiredness or fatigue or hair falling out or anything,

Scott Benner 6:23
right? Maybe he's just like me. I would have relished the chance to bitch about something.

Unknown Speaker 6:29
I mean, he's five, so it comes with the territory. I'm

Scott Benner 6:31
telling you. I was at a garden center yesterday picking up a couple of small shrubberies. I don't know why that made me laugh and and there were, it was cold. It was like, you know that springtime, I don't know where you live in the country, but there's that part in spring where you like, trick yourself into thinking it's going to be warm, and then you go outside and you're like, why is it's got that cold wetness that that was yesterday here. And there are a bunch of ladies working at the garden center, and they're outside bundled up and just eating lunch. And I said to one of them, I'm so impressed that you're just sitting out here eating. And she looks at me like, like, this woman had a look on her face, like she had been through it. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think you end up working at a garden center in your 50s if, like, Goldman Sachs worked out you just shifted right. So she's like, she looked like she had had a tough life. And she looks at me half crazy, like, What are you talking about? I'm like, it's so cold out here. How do you eat it when it's this cold? And she's like, Hey, you just eat was such a funny like response. And I was like, oh, and she looked at me and I said, I'd be complaining just out of both sides of my face. Yeah,

Speaker 1 7:32
I my I work closely with one other person, and I think several times this week, I told her about how cold it is in the office, and that was indoors.

Scott Benner 7:42
No, I love the bitch. No kidding. Okay, let's see what made you want to come on the podcast. I

Speaker 1 7:49
guess a few motivations. I don't know that our story is necessarily unique or interesting or anything, but I

Scott Benner 7:56
Beth, don't start like that. We want them to keep listening, and the advertisers would really like it if they made it to an ad at least. So go very unique

Speaker 1 8:04
and interesting. So my son was pretty young when he was diagnosed, and you know, that's not statistic wise, the most common thing. So I it is always nice for me to be able to hear from other families who have dealt with diabetes in a child so young, and I guess probably when I reached out to we were having a hard time, and I thought, well, maybe Scott can weigh in on this hard time, but you know, then it's six months later, so I can't even remember what was going on. Isn't that so

Scott Benner 8:31
let's talk about that for a second. Sure. How quickly? So how old was he again, when he was diagnosed,

Unknown Speaker 8:37
he was two, almost three, all right, so

Scott Benner 8:39
you've been at this a couple of years now, a little longer, almost three years. Yeah. So what makes you email a stranger and go, Hey, I need help. What was like? Do you remember what was happening? Or can you think of things that have been happening? Dexcom g7 offers an easier way to manage diabetes without finger sticks. It is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone, your smartwatch, and it effortlessly allows you to see your glucose levels and where they're headed. My daughter is wearing a Dexcom g7 right now, and I can't recommend it enough, whether you have commercial insurance, Medicare coverage or no CGM coverage at all Dexcom can help you. Go to my link, dexcom.com/juicebox, and look for that button that says, Get a free benefits check that'll get you going with Dexcom when you're there, check out the Dexcom clarity app or the follow. Did you know that people can follow your Dexcom up to 10 people can follow you. Right now I'm following my daughter, but my wife is also following her. Her roommates at school are following her. So I guess Arden's being followed right now by five people who are concerned for her health and welfare. And you can do the same thing, school nurses, your neighbor, people in your family, everyone. Can have access to that information if you want them to have it, or if you're an adult and you don't want anyone to know, you don't have to share with anybody. It's completely up to you. Dexcom.com/juicebox, links in the show notes. Links at juicebox podcast.com. I don't know how you guys order your diabetes supplies, like CGMS, pumps and testing equipment. But at our house, we use us Med, and I'm gonna walk you through the entire process right now. I'm looking at the email from us med. It says it's time to refill your prescription, dear Arden, please click the button below to place your next order. Then you click the button that was it. Two days later, I got this email, thank you for your order from us. Med. We wanted to let you know that your order, and it gives you an order number was shipped via UPS ground. You can track your package anytime using the link below, and then there was a link, and then it showed up at our house. Now I'm going to walk you through the entire chain of events. On the 29th which was the Saturday I clicked on the email. On that Monday, the first, I got an email that said the order had been sent. Four days later. On the fifth, the package arrived. If you can do it easier than that, you go get it. But if you can't, us, med.com/juice, box or call 888-721-1514, get started today with us Med, get your diabetes supplies the same way we do.

Speaker 1 11:32
I think it was around the time. I can't remember exactly, no, we've we've had so many changes, but the timeline isn't matching up in my head. So it was probably just all the variables that go into play with diabetes, especially for a child who's growing it was probably just something changed, and it was the fourth change that happened that week, and we were trying to keep up with it. But what led me to reach out and think that this could potentially be helpful is that the podcast has been the most helpful thing in our journey with diabetes, so far, as far as knowing how to manage his care.

Scott Benner 12:06
Okay, all right. Well, we'll get to that for sure, sure. In your note, you say trialing multiple therapies, and you list like, different CGMS, different insulins, different, you know, algorithms. So tell me a little bit about like, what have you been doing? Are you like a mad scientist over there?

Speaker 1 12:24
I'm not a mad scientist, but I am the type of person who's going to try to find the best solution right now. Paul uses loop with OmniPod dash and Dexcom g7 and his insulin is fiasp. We started off just MDI, as everyone does. So we left the hospital with Lantus for his long acting in violin syringe, and then I believe it was Novolog, whatever insulin ass part is, for his fast acting in a pen. So we did that for about two months before, we convinced the endocrinologist to put him on a pump, we were kind of getting the routine we need to do MDI for quite a while first, but since he was so young, we really wanted the micro dosing that the pump could offer, sure, so we switched to OmniPod dash at that time, ultimately switched To OmniPod five as soon as it was available. After he was on OmniPod five, we switched to fiasp, which was another thing I had to kind of bring up with the endo several times she was concerned about, I guess this the clinical trial, when they were bringing FDA clearance for fiasp in young children, noted a slight increase of hypoglycemia. So she was concerned about that, but eventually wrote us the prescription. He did use g6 with the OmniPod five for a while, and then our one of our big motivations to switch to loop was because we wanted him to be able to use the g7 we've had a decent amount of issues with Dexcom, even though it's life saving and not anything we would ever want to give up. We we have ongoing issues with Dexcom, and we're hopeful that switching from g6 to g7 might work, but okay, I think that covers most of it all. Right. Cool.

Scott Benner 14:13
So what makes you go manual, automated, then automated? DIY. How come you switch from OmniPod five?

Speaker 1 14:23
The biggest motivator for us is we wanted him on the g7 and it was not compatible. Still, at this point, is not compatible with the OmniPod five, but we still wanted an algorithm. I also like that DIY includes a few more features that OmniPod five at this time doesn't have available, for example, the caregiver us on our phones being able to see his current insulin on board and carbs on board, and things. And the fact that I just think DIY loop has a better handle on all of the different variables of. OmniPod of diabetes compared to OmniPod five. So the fact that you get to choose kind of how the carbs are expected to impact him with timing, OmniPod five was not as adaptable to the changing needs of our young child as we needed it to be. So for example, you know, let's say Halloween, where he likes to eat, you know, 200 carbs or so, then we'd see OmniPod five being more aggressive over the next week or so, because it saw that his insulin needs rose after that day. Versus, I feel like with DIY loop, we have more of an opportunity to manage and adjust for expected changes. So for me,

Scott Benner 15:45
I'm sorry, almost like if you could just tell OmniPod five, hey, this is an excursion we expected, right? Yes, yeah, this isn't a trend change. This is a this is a steak and a potato and and ice cream like that kind of thing. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 15:58
I certainly don't think DIY loop is for everyone, but for us, it's been great because we're willing to put in the time to learn about all the variables and all of the different insulin to carb ratio and the correction factor, all the different parts and pieces that you have to kind of fine tune. I think for someone who knows and understands those as thoroughly as you can, loop makes a lot of sense, because you can manipulate them in ways that work for your case, or your child versus OmniPod five. You kind of leave a lot of it to the system to handle, which I'm not very good at, and I don't think in our case, worked as well. It's

Scott Benner 16:35
kind of funny that how companies, I'm not even just singling one out here, but how companies sometimes like, you know, we'll take it over, like, we'll automate it. And you're like, I'd like to be able to see the switches and the and the and the knobs, if you don't mind, because I might want to turn one of them. But they, you know, I get their point too, and I also see their perspective. You listen to this podcast, and you would think that everybody that has type one diabetes is out there, just like, I know what to do. I'll make my instant sensitivity 1.5 weaker. And I'm gonna do like that most people are not in that scenario. And, you know, if you can put them in an automated system, it keeps them, you know, in a somewhere in a six, A, 1c, like, Geez, what a godsend, really, you know. And I think maybe that's the market there that they find themselves in and I understand that

Speaker 1 17:23
I'm a health care provider, I'm an audiologist, so I work with families with different medical needs, and so I I kind of understand the spectrum of what caretakers are are taking on in different roles. So I agree with you that for the vast majority of people, the algorithms that are available on the market are fantastic for us, people like me who want a little bit more tweaking and control. Yeah, why is Yeah,

Scott Benner 17:46
you like to have access. I mean, listen audiology. So if you put, I don't know, a hearing aid on somebody who doesn't completely understand how it works, they just missed, like, part of the Rockford Files, you know, like, it's not like their blood sugar is going to get super low or something like that. So, you know, it's, but it is really about people's ability. You can't make a thing for everybody. It just, it just won't work that way. So you make something that's safe for the most amount of, I guess, targeted audience, right? You know, it's, um, but, but I take your point. Look, Arden uses Iaps right now, and if something better came along, I'd go to that. I mean, like, I'd be, like, let me try this. Like, I thought loop was terrific, but Iaps works like, really well. So

Speaker 1 18:33
I've, I've heard a little about that one and considered it, but I haven't done enough looking into it to find out if it would do anything better for us or not, what's

Scott Benner 18:41
your outcomes with loop and g7 like

Speaker 1 18:45
good, I have a hard time keeping up with the changes, and I'm hopeful that as he gets bigger, that might get better, until we hit puberty. Then I'm sure it's going to be crazy for several years. But for us, I feel like we'll nail things down and it's going well, and the blood sugar's doing what you expected to do. And then the next day, he things go crazy. And then two days later, you find out, Oh, he was getting a stomach bug. And then, of course, with a stomach bug, things are messed up for weeks afterwards. And with a five year old in school, I feel like that's constantly happening because there's

Scott Benner 19:17
dirty little I was going to curse, but those dirty little kids are like, they're always getting each other sick.

Speaker 1 19:22
Yes, I think we've had four stomach bugs this year, and that's the worst one to try to manage. So we should

Scott Benner 19:30
be able to rename them without them having a say. That's what I think. At this point, we're

Unknown Speaker 19:36
satisfied with everyone's names.

Scott Benner 19:37
No, I mean even other people's children. I'd like to, like, just walk around and be like, You look more like a hiring. So you mentioned the stomach bugs and things are different afterwards. For you. Is it a lower need of insulin afterwards? Generally?

Speaker 1 19:51
Yeah. So usually, when a stomach bug happens for the few days, he's in it, our insulin needs are very, very minimal, I'd say. A third to a fourth of what he's usually doing, and then we've had stomach bugs where he's been at like half of his insulin needs for four or six weeks after. I don't know if that's typical, but it's definitely been the case for us, or sometimes a few days later, it slowly goes back up to normal, and then we're fine, but you never quite know which one it's going to be.

Scott Benner 20:20
Yeah, you hear that story so much. I wonder if somebody's studying that, you know, trying to figure out what that, what that is. Because, I mean, if we could just keep everybody low level sick,

Speaker 2 20:31
they'd use less insulin. Pros and cons of that, yeah. I mean, you know, the downside, of course, is the nausea and vomiting and stuff like that. When you said you wanted to get to the g7

Scott Benner 20:43
why? Why were you hot to get to it?

Speaker 1 20:45
So I guess I'm a little torn, because I don't know how honest I should be about our Dexcom. Hold on

Scott Benner 20:51
a second. Let me be clear about something I don't care. Just say what happened to you. Like, Listen, if Dexcom or any of my sponsors stopped buying ads because somebody came on here and told their honest opinion of what happened. I would probably call them out on it afterwards. I'd probably say, Hey, you're not going to hear ads from blah blah blah anymore because they had a little fcking, you know, nutty after somebody said blah blah blah because, I mean, these things just don't work the same for everybody. And I say it all the time, Dexcom just works for Arden, yeah, I've talked to people who can't get a decent reading out of a CGM Dexcom libre doesn't know. It's like their body chemistry doesn't work with the CGMS for some reason, so I don't know why, but yeah, tell your story. Go ahead. What would we say in church? Testify. Go ahead. Testify. Got

Speaker 1 21:38
it. Yes. I'll testify. So I do, like you said, I think we're in a very small minority of people, but I do see other stories similar to ours online. So my best guess is that Dexcom just does not jive super well with his body chemistry. For he started Dexcom in May of 2021 so very early on in our diabetes journey, he's been wearing it continually since then, and for, I'd say, three or four months, it worked well. We would get the 10 days aside from adhesive issues, which, with a three year old, things come off. But in the fall of 2021 our our sensors just stopped lasting for 10 days. I'd say, since then, I've had less than 10 sensors that have made it to 10 days. And it's a variety of things that happen for us. The I'd say the most common one is day four or five, but sometimes earlier or later, we just start getting sensor errors that pop on, pop off, pop on, pop off. So then you're not really getting any usable data for several hours. And then, I don't know, we've had a few times where we've waited that out for long enough that it's gotten back on. But sometimes you wait it out and then it ends in the sensor failure. And sometimes you wait it out and just give up. Well, with a sensor error, no. The guidelines I have for myself, as far as calibrating is, I only try to calibrate it if we're getting good, continuous data, and it's like straight as it can be, and if we're having off readings. But this is just with the sensor areas where we're not getting, you know, it'll go for a while, and then it'll just be blank for an hour, 30 minutes, or whatever. That happens most commonly, but we also pretty frequently have sensors that just start reading artificially low. And it's not because of compression. It's just, you know, he's coasting along at 100, 120 or something, but his sensor is reading 4050, and those I do try to calibrate, but sometimes it works, and most of the times it doesn't, and we'll just have it looking like that for hours, and then eventually need to change it, especially with, you know, an automated system that's not helpful. Yeah, with the g6 I'd say on average, sensors would last five or six days for us, and we're switching to something else. Thankfully, Dexcom has always been very good about replacing if we need to pull it early for some reason, but we were hoping switching from g6 to g7 would eliminate the issues, which didn't end up happening. I would say it's better, but we have the improvement that we do see is we don't have to wait the two hour warm up time when we are switching from one sensor to another. So that's been helpful with the g7 to have just a 30 minute warm up, or even shorter at some times. So yeah, that was our biggest motivation. I mentioned in the web page. I think that when I wrote into that, we also did use the FreeStyle Libre for a bit, and mostly we never, we never got off of Dexcom. But we could get the libre and either, like a couple times, our endos office gave us a sample to try, or we would purchase it out of pocket, so that, let's say we were going on a vacation or something where we wanted to not have to worry about the Dexcom issues. We could. Uh, have the Dexcom on him. And then if we started having issues, we would put a libre on him as well, and be able to, you know, track what was going on that. How

Scott Benner 25:08
did you find the libre good? We the libre

Speaker 1 25:11
three was fantastic. It worked really well for him. It's teeny tiny. The thing I don't love about libre compared to Dexcom, is the alerts and alarms, they're not as customizable. And I just, yeah, I don't, I don't feel ready to make a switch. And I know as far as looping goes at this time, it's not as compatible with loop. There are ways to do it, but it's just more of a workaround. So we've stuck with Dexcom, but not sure what the future will look like. We we did not have issues as far as like sensor errors and the readings being off with the libre that we've had with the Dexcom. But I'm not sure if that's just because we only used it occasionally, or Yeah, or whatnot.

Scott Benner 25:56
But How great is it to go into the loop settings and just be like, I'm gonna wear a g6 No, I'm gonna wear a g7 that just like, switches, yeah, yes. And then the other companies are like, we can't get this to work. I'm like, I mean, a guy got it to work,

Unknown Speaker 26:12
you probably could, yeah. I

Scott Benner 26:13
mean, I hope to one day meet the person. But whoever Ivan is, like, he's my go to name. Like, Ivan figured it out. I love it. I just love it when they're like, it's hard to make something work with Android. It's hard to make something work with Apple. It's hard. I'm like, Ah, the guy did it, right? Ivan, he did Yes. Ivan, Hey, Ivan, if you're out there, man, big fan, yes, absolutely. But yeah, isn't that fascinating? Like, just really, like, like, oh, we can't get it straight. I'm like, you can't like, or we can't get it through the FDA, or it's taken forever. I know, listen, I know. Ivan doesn't have to go to a governing body afterwards and say, Uh, hey, this, uh, you guys happy with this and test it with however many people, etc, but, um, have you ever once heard somebody in the DIY community complain about some catastrophic failure, commiserate with what the retail companies are telling you that they're worried about? And no, like, I've never heard someone say like, Oh my God. Like, you know, they made it work with the g7 but it's unreliable, or it's about it just, you know, hold on a second. I have to text Arden sure she thinks she knows something. I just had to let her know she didn't All right, now she knows how she realizes again, that I'm that the parent is always right, yes, that I know things she doesn't know. Oh, she was very, uh, she was very nice about it. That's good. Oh, good. Sometimes they fight. They think, actually, that's more me, my wife's like, you're still arguing. You know you're wrong. I'm like, I know, but I think my argument is rock solid. She's at school. She needed two tires on her car. Hold on a second, and so she took it to a dealership first. And I was like, Oh, don't do that. And they, you know, the price wasn't bad. Can I read this on a podcast recording? I hope she lets me

Speaker 1 28:11
I was gonna say, I think she's gonna say no, based

Scott Benner 28:15
on like, this would be so funny. You know her better. So, so I said, um, they wanted to put the same damn tire on the car that rotted out from under the car, like the first time. And I'm like, no, like, we're gonna go get better, like, better tires. So I told her, I'm gonna send you to a place up the street, I'm gonna have them order tires, and you can have them put on right? And so it's just now she texts and goes, the price here wasn't that much better than the other price. And I said, No, but these are better tires. And and she goes, Okay, gotcha. And then I'm done. Oh God, I want to redo what she just said, Oh my god, okay, I'll go back to it shows if she, I hope she lets me read this. It's so interesting doing stuff like distance wise with her, yeah, you know, because she's very far away. And so I was like, Oh, I'll get I'll take care of ordering them, like I said, I'll move money into your account that you can pay, like, pay with. And she's like, okay, but then, you know, this is her day off, so this is the one day a week she doesn't have classes. Okay, oh, I can read this all right, okay, I'll say thank you. How long until you're home? Okay, so the price here was not that much different. I said better tires than they were, and then they were going to use. Gotcha ready. It is 11:26am on a Friday, and I am at Discount Tire. My makeup from yesterday is on my face. My boobs are half out, and doja cat is playing.

Unknown Speaker 29:49
That's quite a picture.

Scott Benner 29:52
She speaks in words like a pictures. Excuse me anyway. So this is where she's at, not bothering me, by the way, she knows I'm recording. But that didn't seem to stop her. Well, yeah, yeah, they told her that she'd be in and out in an hour, and now they're telling her an hour and a half. Oh, I think she'll live through it, since I'm paying, since I'm paying for the tires, back to the CGM thing. So you tried libre. Liked it, but had limited case, you know, use for you didn't use it a ton. So you didn't, you weren't dissatisfied with Dexcom enough to be like, let's just keep using the libres.

Speaker 1 30:27
Yes, yes. Well, Dexcom, despite the issues that we have, it, is the most flexible as far as connecting to the pump, which is non negotiable for us, and then having different alerts and alarms on his phone versus our phones, and just being able to keep up with, yeah, with the alarm. So we're, we've always been on Dexcom. We're, I will say, so thankful for it. And I know people who have had diabetes for decades like, you know this is a non issue, and I'm sure it is, but, yeah, it's been good to us, despite the difficult.

Scott Benner 31:04
It's interesting to hear people who are more newly diagnosed talk about technology because you don't have like you didn't have to, like your kid, didn't shoot, you know, regular and mph and do the exchange diet or whatever. So this is the world you were dropped into. They tell you, Hey, this is what the thing does. And when the thing doesn't do it all the time, you're like, hey, you told me it did that. And so, I mean, I always say I don't have one piece of technology that really works exactly the way they say it's going to. I have, like, even down to my monitors on my computer, like, sometimes they just won't wake up. I don't know why. I have to pull the video cable out of the back of the back of the computer and plug it back in to get the monitor to come back on. I want to be clear with you, the monitor cost 800 goddamn dollars. It should work. You know what I mean. And if you're like, oh my god, $800 it's big, wide monitor because I'm old and I have to edit on and I can't see a goddamn thing. So don't give me about my monitor being expensive, but it doesn't work all the time, and it my phone freezes for reasons I don't understand, and stuff reboots all the time, and blah, blah, blah. And then when something related to health does that, we're like, oh, like, we're all just like, like, you know, we act like we're a virgin. And we're like, oh my God, I don't believe this is happening. It is what it is like. Should it be No. Do we want it to get better? Yes, but you go ahead and live without a CGM for a year after having one, and tell me if you wouldn't take a couple of false readings? Yep, yeah, absolutely. And the one thing I can never quantify for people is you hear this question a lot from people who are considering algorithms, if I lose my CGM signal, like, what happens, or if it's reading falsely high or falsely low, like, aren't I going to get too much insulin or not enough insulin? And the only answer I've ever had that I know is not satisfactory is my daughter's been doing this a long time. It's never really been a problem.

Speaker 1 32:54
Yeah, yeah. I agree. When we're having issues, we'll just turn off the algorithm for a bit. One thing that's really nice with DIY loop is, if we are having times when we don't have the data we need, we can go in and enter a manual blood sugar, and then it still is kind of considering that when it's making its decision. So that's been nice, but yeah, it's I feel like using the algorithm 90 95% of the time is great. And then when we need to turn it off for a little bit because our technology is being unruly, then, then

Scott Benner 33:27
that's what it is, yeah, and listen, and if it happens all the time, I get it. But you're also, like, I said this once on a recording, but I said it with a guy from Dexcom, so I imagine that cynical people thought I was defending them. But I really think this, like, it's a piece of like technology, like metal and plastic and electronics intersecting with the liquid in your body, right? Like, just be amazed by it. Like you don't even just stand back and go, I can't believe this does this fascinating. And instead, people are like, mine only makes it eight days or something, you know, and then I'll be like, did they send you new ones to go? Yeah, I'm like, so you tell me you had to send an email. Is this the, this is your hardship? Like, so I don't know. I'd like to hear about the diagnosis that you that you had with your son, and because you said it was during potty training, and you said that, like it was specific, I want

Speaker 1 34:23
to know why. Yes, I in my head, I think we, we potty trained him into DKA. It was when you look back, you can see the signs of diabetes. Had already kind of settled in for weeks, but we had scheduled this weekend to do potty training with him, and the method that we used was essentially pumping him full of liquids so that he would have to go to the bathroom a lot and then practice using the toilet. Okay? And so that included juice and, you know, high sugar, things that we didn't usually have around. And so we were just kind of. Was through the potty training process, giving him a lot of extra fast acting carbs that we didn't know were just trying to kill him. So it was a Friday, we started potty training, and then through the weekend, and then that Monday, I believe, was when we finally brought him into the pediatrician and ended up at the hospital after that. And you know, he was not doing well before again, when you look back, you can see the signs, but it was, I think, that extra that made him go into DK and have the by the time we were there, he was having the respirations, the shallow breathing and just was not staying awake and things like that. And I did have some background knowledge of diabetes, but I kept kind of writing it off over the previous weeks. And I do remember at one point in the potty training process, he said that he didn't want the juice anymore. And in the back of my head, I said, Man, if this really is diabetes, then this kid is like evolved enough to know that this is not good for his body. But I didn't. I didn't know I was still writing it off. You know, I didn't know enough about the seriousness of it to actually take the next step. But it was just,

Scott Benner 36:13
you have to tell me why you thought diabetes what it was your background knowledge.

Speaker 1 36:17
I had dated someone when I was 17, 1819, who had type one. So that's another interesting story. Yeah, so that. And then I also, I was in an organization in college, and the the philanthropy that the organization had was JDRF, so I knew, yeah, maybe

Scott Benner 36:36
you've been destined to this for some reason, I

Speaker 1 36:38
guess so. Yeah, I obviously, well, I married someone different from that Boyfriend Back in the day, and ended up still with a child with type one diabetes. The odds

Scott Benner 36:49
can't get away from this Exactly. How long did you date that kid?

Speaker 1 36:53
Um, it was a couple of years. He was young too, so and was not managing his diabetes or handling his diabetes well. So it's very interesting to think about that time versus being in a totally different role and and caring for diabetes. But he was kind of in that stage of he was diagnosed in his teens, and then now this was, he was an old teen or young 20 something, and was in the stage of not wanting to do anything about it, just wanting to ignore it, kind of a thing. So

Scott Benner 37:22
did your experience in that dating experience? Did it make you think diabetes was something that it wasn't or were you even aware back then that he wasn't doing well enough for himself?

Speaker 1 37:32
I was aware that he was not doing well for himself. I'm sure it. It colored how I interpreted diabetes at the beginning, but I think that probably changed quickly as I gathered much more knowledge about it. But at that time he was he was on MDI. He really wanted a an insulin pump, but the way his parents, who were the in the insurance carriers in the family, they wouldn't let him get an insulin pump until he was doing better with his management. So we were in that kind of cycle of, you know, he didn't, he wanted to ignore it, but you can't really, well, you can never ignore it. But with MDI, you have to be pretty, you know, doing the injections all the time. And that was one big thing that he had a hard time with, and just coping with the fact that he had diabetes, is that, you know, every time I have to eat or I want to eat something, I have to take an injection. And so it was, it was not a good situation. I know he was in DKA at least once during our when we were dating. And then he just was always, I think, running high. So of course,

Scott Benner 38:32
I don't ever understand that perspective. I know that if they think somebody's just not taking care of themselves, their concern is, if we take them off MDI and they don't put their pump on, or they let their pump run out of insulin, they're going to go into DKA and drop dead. So at least if they're injecting their basal insulin, they've got something going but, boy, that's such a least common nut denominator way of thinking about things. You know, yeah. I mean, it sounds more to me like this kid just didn't want to inject insulin all the time, but insulin all the time with a needle, like, give him a pump so he could push a button. Yeah. And then people are so certain, like, we're not gonna let you do this until that I'm like, What do you know about anything? You know? You mean, like, everybody's got opinions. I mean, I have a ton of opinions, but, you know, I'm saying, okay, so looking forward. I mean, Paul's pretty young still. Yeah. How involved is he in his management?

Speaker 1 39:27
Pretty much zero at this point. He is welcome to be involved like every once while. I'll see if he wants to do his finger stick or things like that, because he can do it, but he's just not interested. He wants things to be done as quickly as possible so he can move on to something else. The one thing I've been thinking I need to focus on a little bit more with him is having him practice and understand that he can't just eat things without thinking about it ahead of time, because we try to, when we're managing his diabetes at home, we try not to make it a big deal, you know, like. I'm not talking every time before we have a meal about like, Oh, I'm giving your insulin now and things like that. But I think that can have consequences. As far as he could be out and about, and someone could offer him a cookie and he wouldn't think anything, you know, like, if his cousin, when we're visiting gave him a cookie or something, he would just eat it and not think about it. So that's one thing. I think he's ready for some more responsibility. But overall, he's not involved.

Scott Benner 40:22
Are you gonna go with that? Basically, the way I did it, just kind of talk out loud about it until it seems like it's commonplace. Yeah, probably, yeah. I think. I mean, it worked for Arden. I don't know. I don't know if it'll work for everybody else, but yeah, I am stunned at her level of understanding, sometimes based on how little effort she appears to put into understanding it, you

Speaker 1 40:45
know, just became a background of how she lived her life. Just

Scott Benner 40:49
seems like she knows, yeah, to the point where now, if you, like, text her and you're like, Hey, she's like, I gotta leave me alone. Stop. I'm like, All right, fine. Like, she's like, Do you really think she said to me one time? Do you really think my blood sugar's 60 and I'm not doing anything about it? I'm anything about it? I'm like, No,

Speaker 1 41:04
as a parent, though you sometimes do you like, go to worst case scenario, but

Scott Benner 41:08
yeah, no, of course. Like, I'll say no, I genuinely believe you are. But if, for some reason, that CGM is wrong and you're actually 30 and it came on you quickly and you didn't realize it, or you're asleep or something like that, then, I mean, I feel it feels incumbent upon me to do this. And she's like, I took care of it already. I'm like, Okay. She'll be like, I'm fine. This thing's wrong. She'll say that sometimes, though. And I'm like, Just test, uh, test like, Orange. Just test real quick. Fine.

Speaker 1 41:44
Yeah, I do think too about where management will be in 13 years. I you know, I don't anticipate we'll have a cure by then, as I've heard from so many people that that was promised for so long, but I'm sure things will be different. So just thinking about him being off on his own, and who knows how long, it seems pretty far away at this point. I'm sure.

Scott Benner 42:06
I hope that every one of those pump companies is working on an AI based system to Yeah, to learn that can actually kind of learn your situation, learn the variables and make adjustments I'm seeing. So I'll tell you this now, because it's nobody's gonna hear it for six months, and then it's just between you and I, and you seem like I could just tell you, like you're gonna go to hell if you say this and you won't say it. So I've just signed an agreement with a company. It's a startup, but they're going to index my entire podcast, and they have a proprietary AI system that pulls information from the entirety of the podcast, and so you'll get a prompt on a website where you can ask it a question and that it'll It's like, it's like, you're Googling just the juicebox podcast, if that makes sense, yeah. And so I'm hoping that that's going to be a way that people can ask diabetes questions to, you know, to this thing. And of course, you know it's going to be, it's a tough decision that I made, because it could be wrong. First of all, I could be wrong. It could misinterpret something that was correctly said, like, who knows, right? So it's gonna, you know, it's gonna be disclaimer doubts out the ass, basically. But at the same time, you know, when you Google something, nothing says you're gonna get the right answer back, right? You know, I think the world understands that. Now and then, I just entered into something with another company. They are developing an AI doctor. So, I mean, that's actually like a pay like service where you'll be able to, again, ask an AI doctor questions. And they wanted to incorporate the podcast into their database as well. I haven't agreed to that yet. I've entered into an agreement with them to be like, they'll come to me when they have questions with the consultant. I've entered into a consulting agreement with them, in case you're all like, oh my god, it pays nothing. So just be like, switch to I have a quarter percent of a stock if this company goes, you know, to bazillion dollars, then Scotty, then I'll be I'll be rich then. And that's probably not going to happen. No disrespect to the gentleman who's working, you know, his his ass off on it, but it's just, you know, unlikely. But if it goes public and it goes big, I'll make some money that way. This is not a thing where I'm going to make money if somebody uses it or not. I've been thinking about this now for a couple of years. Yeah, you know, I was listening to a couple of interviews with people talking about AI, and I kept thinking, like, what if this large language model was just trained on the podcast like this? I don't imagine. There isn't anything that we haven't talked about in here, right? You know. And one of the biggest problems that I've seen over the last 15 or so years being in this space is these people, like, write these amazing blog posts, and then they're gone. Like, you know, they're read by 20 people, they're read by 100 people, they're, you know, and it's gone. Or somebody puts up this thoughtful post on Instagram, people like, oh my god, that really helped me. And then 24 hours later, it doesn't exist anymore. This keeps happening. We keep you know, I put all this information together. If I stop making the podcast, people like, Why do you put out so many episodes? I'm like, if the podcast doesn't stay popular, the information dies. Like, so I put the podcast out every day so that hopefully it's more of an entertainment thing for people that's mixed in with diabetes, and honestly, then I'm looking to basically trick you into taking care of yourself, or almost the way I tricked Arn into understanding diabetes. Basically, I'm doing to you guys what I did to her, and I'm just talking about diabetes out loud without you feeling like you're being like spoken to by a teacher, I guess. Yeah, the idea. And so I want this stuff to stay behind, and they're telling me that it's not crazy to think that one day you'll ask it a question, and that it'll literally answer in my voice. Oh, and I'm like, that's creepy, but yeah, I do want that. I don't know how they would make that happen, because I've recorded my voice so much it can be sampled, like, like an algorithm will actually be able to just rebuild my voice from the sounds that I've already made. It'll be like, you're a robot, yeah, but my kids will be able to talk to me when I'm dead, even if, as long as they only ask about, No, probably not. Isn't that an interesting question. So are your parents with us? You're young. They are right. Beth. You seem like an older person with your measurements, like your your personality, you come off in your 40s. Are you the person I'm thinking? Are you very responsible and even tempered and that kind of stuff? Yeah, it's how you sound. Did you know people sound like that? I guess

Speaker 1 47:01
I wouldn't say people sound like that, but in having a long enough conversation, I guess you would get that vibe.

Scott Benner 47:06
I get it from you right away, just from the sound of your voice. I'm very happy to jump to conclusion people like you shouldn't generalize. I'm like, that's how I do everything. It

Unknown Speaker 47:14
works a lot of

Scott Benner 47:16
fun. Like you, I shouldn't do that. It's all I do. Yeah. So like, would you go to a prompt at a computer and talk to a dead relative, knowing that it's not really them, but it's got so much of their thoughts and conversations archived that it could approximate how they would answer?

Speaker 1 47:36
So I'm not my first thought in that would be, I probably wouldn't do that for someone like my husband or my parents, who I, you know, spent my life with and got to talk with them regularly, but like maybe my grandmother, who passed away when I was young, just to, like, get more quote, unquote, time with her. But not sure,

Scott Benner 47:59
I think, I think overall, it's interesting and valuable. I think if you got confused into believing you were actually talking to that person, then it would borderline on sad and creepy. But, yeah, but imagine if you had that like, I'm not trying to brush your husband out the door, but imagine your husband's gone right, and you knew that you could ask that prompt certain questions, and it would answer, and he would say something like, Beth, I love you and I miss you, yeah? Like, you might do that, yeah, probably the picture of my mom in my office. It doesn't talk to me, but yeah, I do have some of her voicemails, yeah, and I listen to them sometimes, and it makes me feel nice when she's like, I'll call you later. And I think, Oh, I'm gonna talk to my mom later. Yeah, yeah. And then I know I'm not really going to, but it feels nice for a second. Would my kids jump onto this? Listen? I can say this. I think if there's a portal online that Arden can go ask it diabetes questions as she's growing up, and my voice answers her back, I think it would be really nice. Yeah,

Speaker 1 49:06
yeah. I'm curious to see how that ends up, like what the answers will be, and how the AI will take into account podcast episodes that are older versus newer. You know, because a question could be asked now and the answer would be potentially different than what it was five years ago. But, well,

Scott Benner 49:26
yeah, that would be for you to dig through. But I'm going to tell you, I've seen the returns that come back, and they are astonishingly accurate and valuable, nice, uh, astonishing, yeah. So imagine this too, with the AI doctor, which will be called, I think it's called, it's going to be called Vision AI. It's going to have access to your live CGM data. So how about when I demoed it? It was hooked to a live person, and I said to it, hey, what's my blood sugar? And it said, your blood sugar is currently 78 it's been stable for the last blah, blah, blah, like it. Laid out my blood sugar, and I said, Do you think I'm gonna get low in the next hour? And it said that it didn't expect that we were gonna get low in the next hour, but that if I was concerned about it, I should have this many carbs right now. And I was like, God, damn, really? And this is not, like, fully fleshed out yet, like it's still being built. And I said, um, I'm going to eat a 60 carb meal. How much should I bolus and how long should I wait before I begin to eat? And it gave me a number for both. Well, so if you don't know what you're doing, imagine if it if it knew, and then eventually maybe you'd learn, and you could stop paying for the service and move on. And

Speaker 1 50:43
I guess the hope with AI is that it could incorporate more variables than like the current algorithms do. Oh,

Scott Benner 50:50
yeah, like where you are, what restaurant you're at, what was your outcome the last time you ate at this restaurant on a Friday versus what was your outcome the last time you ate at this restaurant on a Tuesday

Speaker 1 51:00
or even, like your activity low, like your heart rate over the last couple hours, and how that might,

Scott Benner 51:05
right? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. I don't see any reason why it couldn't do that. I was in a meeting the other day about one of these companies, and I asked the question, I can't be specific. I was like, Can it do this? And the guy goes, no, but asked me again in six months, oh, like that, quickly, quickly, yeah. And I was like, okay, he goes six months from now to be able to do that. Wow, my God, damn. What is it? I don't understand that's happening in the world. You know what I mean. So anyway, I don't know good or bad how it's going to be, but I think this is the direction that I'm seeing things going in. I kind of want to be along for the ride to see what happens. Yeah, definitely. We'll see what happens. And I want you all to know if that stock should go public and make me rich. The first thing I'm going to do, and I hope they're not listening, is I'm going to drop all my advertisers, so I don't have to do that anymore. And I'm just going to make the podcast. I'm going to be like, Oh my god, I finally don't have to make those ads anymore. Not that I don't love the advertisers. They're actually all really terrific and very supportive and wonderful. And I'm not saying a bad thing about them. It's just so much extra work. Well,

Speaker 1 52:11
if the advertisers are listening, we did choose OmniPod, mostly because of the juicebox podcast. I was really thinking T slim, but my husband was hooked by that so see, they'll stay on,

Scott Benner 52:23
shut up and send me money. No, I'm just kidding. You should hear how they complain to me, Doc, not OmniPod, but some of them, your clicks are down this month. I'm like, leave me alone. Your blah, blah, blah rate is this one company was like, like, I said, I'm selling these things in the doctor's office, not online. I'm like, No one's buying that online. Like, stop it. Yeah, they get. People get into the doctor's office and they're asked a question, and people go, Oh, you know what I've heard, I'd like try this, please. Like, you think people are going online to buy glucagon? Like as an example, like, who's doing that? You know what I mean? No one, no one. But the world's all metric stuff, anybody who doesn't have to be involved in advertising and all of the pressure that comes with it, like, Count yourself lucky, because, yes, I basically feel like I work for every one of the advertisers, yeah, like so you know, when your boss expects something from you and how much pressure that is, I have 10 people that treat me that way, so it ain't fun. Yeah, Beth, what did I not let you talk about that you wanted to

Speaker 1 53:33
talk about. I didn't want to talk about managing a young child with diabetes. And I know that's a huge, broad topic, but the thing that always comes to mind for me when I'm listening to these episodes of parents who are managing their children is, it seems to me that for a young child who's smaller in stature weight and therefore has generally lower insulin needs for us, one little misstep can impact their blood sugar, and it seems like such a bigger way. So for example, with Paul, especially when he was younger, if we missed by point one units of insulin, you know that was going to impact his blood sugar probably 50 points down the road, versus an older child, I would imagine, like Arden now, maybe wouldn't even point one unit. It wouldn't make a difference, right, right? So I don't know. I've been trying to come up with a good metaphor for it, and the only I'm hoping maybe you have an idea, because the only thing for me that comes to mind is thinking about reality shows like Survivor, where they're trying to do those competitions. And I'm thinking like with a an older child. So the vision in my head is someone trying to balance on, like a flat, like a plate, but it's totally flat, trying to balance the ball without the ball falling off the edges. And I think about an older child being like a pool, like a billiards ball that's heavier. And, you know. Know, even if you shift it a little way, still have a decent amount of leverage to get it back where you needed to go, versus, like a ping pong ball, this small child that's, you know, the wind blows and it's off the edge. But I don't know that's one thing that for me, it's been hard listening to the podcast episodes and trying to compare my situation to others, and just feeling like, even though I'm trying my best we end up so veered off to the side so often, but I do think a part of that is just because he's small.

Scott Benner 55:26
Okay, so my my question is, I get this sometimes, not just on this topic, not just like you know you're talking about this, but my kids younger, I get well, everything seems like you're talking about pumping, but I'm on MDR or, you know, this is outdated, like, this is a conversation about loop from three years ago. I wish people could understand, and they will, after time, it's all the same in one way or another. It's all timing and amount. That really is the truth. Like, everything about managing insulin is using the right amount of insulin at the right time, whether it's point one, you know, or 20 units, or something like that. The basis of the ideas are all the same. Now, what happens afterwards? Feels different when your kid's younger, when they're smaller, when they're more active, less active, etc, when to an adult versus a kid, but the bedrock of it is always going to be the same, yeah, even when it's one day in magic algorithm that is like, oh, you're a Pizza Hut. And the last time you were a Pizza Hut, it took this many units to blah, blah, blah. Like, it's all still going to be timing an amount true. That's it. So the way I figure it is, there's nothing really to say to you as I mean, unless I'm missing the boat, there's nothing I can say to you that's going to help you in the current situation you're in, other than to tell you you're going to have an amazing understanding of how insulin works. He's going to put on weight, and these small amounts are not going to mean the same anymore. Yeah, it'll get better, and that will come more quickly than you believe. Yeah, that's pretty much it like, there, there are some questions around these, these diabetes things that don't have answers. And sometimes the answer is, wait till the honeymoon ends, or wait till you gain 10 pounds, that kind of stuff, like, so I don't know, like, it sucks. I mean, I had a little kid with diabetes. Arden was two when she was diagnosed, and it was, you know, and we used the, I did the whole thing with syringes. Yeah, I didn't even have a pen. As a matter of fact, Arden's never used an insulin pen. And people find that, like, astonishing, but I don't know what happened. Like, nobody ever said to me, do you want to try an insulin pen? I was like, Oh, this is fine. I just got, I just got syringes that did half units. This will be okay, yeah. And when people say the MDI thing, it's frustrating to me sometimes, because I over and over again, I'll say, look, the only difference between MDI and pumping like just regular manual pumping, is that you can't do extended boluses. You can't do temp basals off and on, or higher and lower. And other than that, MDI is pretty much the same thing. Just you'll have to inject more often to accomplish these things. Yeah. And they're like, Well, I want more MDI content. I'm like, that was it right there? Like, that sentence is the MDI content. And I think people don't believe that. I think I think sometimes they think I'm ignoring them, sure, because everybody uses pumps, but the truth is, is most people don't use pumps. Did you know that, like, people with type one diabetes mostly inject, makes sense? Yeah. You just, you're hearing a podcast where people talk about, you know, like, kind of high level management stuff all the time. So you see more people with pumps? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I don't know, feed that kid more. Stretch him out. Get a Time Machine. Jump forward. Yeah. Is he very active? Does he have like, five he's not really doing a lot of sports or anything. Is he No,

Speaker 1 58:53
no organized sports, no. But he does like to run around and get sweaty and, yeah, active.

Scott Benner 58:59
Make his blood sugar go down. Yeah, absolutely. Make you cry in the bathroom. I

Speaker 1 59:04
know the trampoline can be the best and the worst thing, depending on what the blood sugar is at when you start.

Scott Benner 59:09
How would you say that you're dealing with it, like, like, emotionally, generally,

Speaker 1 59:13
good. But I do have times where it seems like everything's changing and we don't have a handle on it, that it feels really hard. I haven't had any times where I would say I was burnt out, or, you know, totally overwhelmed. But there's just, there's days and moments that feel like it's a lot, too much. No, I wouldn't say too much. Just I'm I maybe it's personality thing, but it's kind of just, it is what it is, right? It's not like you can pretend it doesn't exist.

Scott Benner 59:44
Did you grow up in a very blue collar way,

Speaker 1 59:48
moderately? Yeah. Okay, yeah. And I guess to me, one thing that does feel like a big blessing with how young he was diagnosed, is that we as his parents came. Can be the ones shouldering most of the burden. You know, of course, he's the one living it and experiencing in his body, but the fact that we can be the ones who are investing the time and figuring out the right technologies and the right dosages and all of that stuff and that he can just be oblivious to it, I'm thankful for that.

Scott Benner 1:00:20
I agree. I think that they need to understand, but they don't need to be burdened, and especially at five. Like, you know, I mean, what the hell are we expecting from him? Yeah, you know what? I mean, seriously, I love, I love when you hear people's like, well, it's their disease. I'm like, well, she's seven. Like, I mean, she can't get her room clean. We should put her in charge of extended boluses. I'm not sure. Yeah, I think that sometimes people don't see the expanse of time that this process is going to take. Yeah, you know, like you're not trying to get to this by Friday, yeah, and it's not a thing. We're going to have this all straightened out by next summer. Like it's, it's a much slower process than that, true.

Speaker 1 1:00:59
Yeah, I remember listening to the podcasts and being, you know, in the same kind of management role six months and a year into his diagnosis, and just thinking like, well, I already have so much knowledge and information like, how can it possibly get better? But I think just the and, you know, we're three years in now, so I'm hoping in the future, it'll be even more, but just the ability to see something happen over and over again and experience it. But that's almost what makes caregiving and thinking about passing off the caregiving role, either in the future or just to someone else, like at school or to some like a babysitter, hard is that I know I'm not perfect, but it's taken years of experience to get to where I am. So expecting someone else to, yeah, take that on is not easy, but then we get the benefit of having all the remote features and following opportunities and things. So

Scott Benner 1:01:57
yeah, no, it makes it makes the remote management so much easier, even just texting. I remember when I figured that out, I was like, wow, this really just leveled us up. Probably been years since I've said this on the podcast, but it really is about having an experience, learning from it, doing it again, over and over. And I don't just mean a couple days in a row or something like that. I mean over six months, a year, or two years, to the point where, like, I genuinely don't know what could happen with diabetes, that I wouldn't immediately know what the answer was to it, and that just comes from time, like and, and I've tried to explain it like by saying, you know, you don't walk out of a room with a closed door and think about, oh, I'm going To Turn the doorknob as you're walking towards it, right? It just happens. You just literally, you never consider that the room is closed, that the door is closed, and you somehow end up on the outside of it. And that's how diabetes feels to me now, like I just walk through life and whatever I'm intersected with with diabetes, my body, my brain, knows what to do automatically, yeah, but it takes a lot of time, yeah. And I used to have the greatest way of putting it, but at the end of the first Matrix movie, when Neo figures out the matrix and everyone's shooting at him, and suddenly he just freezes all the bullets in there and just kind of walks between them. That's how diabetes feels to me now, yeah, I see all the bullets, but I'm not going to walk into them, so it's not going to be a problem. Yeah. And I just make my way kind of ever slowly through them, just kind of brushing them aside, and then I come out the other end, and then the guy looks at you all weird. What was his name, Mr. Anderson. And then he knows I kicked his ass. And then diabetes is Mr. Anderson. There you go. Oh my God, that's what we're going to call your episode. Diabetes is Mr. Anderson, perfect. I mean, that's a little long. We'll figure it out. That's your job. Yes. Beth, thank you for putting that on my shoulders. Beth, listen to the thing I tell people all the time that's 100% true, is this is hard. It sucks. It's never not gonna suck, and it's never gonna be easy. But one day, you'll be so good at it, it might feel easy, and that's not bad, yeah, so just got to hang in and keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. Hey, you guys are sounds like you're doing great, actually, all right. Well, I really appreciate you doing this with me. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:14
Thank you. You

Scott Benner 1:04:20
on this, Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from us med for three years. You can as well usmed.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, my thanks to us, med for sponsoring this episode and for being long time sponsors of the juicebox podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all the sponsors. Today's episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 which now integrates with the tandem T slim x2 system. Learn more and get started today at Dexcom. Dot com slash juicebox,

if you or a loved one, was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective, the bold beginning series from the juicebox podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, or you can go to juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. I want to thank you so much for listening and remind you please subscribe and follow to the podcast wherever you're listening right now, if it's YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or any other audio app, go hit follow or subscribe, whichever your app allows for and set up those downloads so you never miss an episode, especially an apple podcast. Go into your settings and choose download all new episodes. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The juicebox podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongwayrecording.com. You.


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