#923 For the Love of a Timbit

Isha has type 1 diabetes.

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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 00:00 Hello friends and welcome to episode 923 of the Juicebox Podcast Isha is the type one who came on the show to talk about a ton of different things actually, we talked about gastroparesis, pregnancy type one diabetes, having a high stress and busy job with type one the impact type one has on relationships and creating emotional agility. While you're listening today. 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. We're becoming bold with insulin. Hey, if you'd like to save 35% off your entire order at Cozi earth.com. use the offer code juice box at checkout cozy Earth makes luxurious, comfortable and just really soft clothing, bedding and bath supplies cozy earth.com offer code juice box at checkout save 10% off your first month of therapy at my link better help.com forward slash juicebox and you will in fact get a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order of ag one from Athletic Greens when you use this link athletic greens.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the company that makes just in my opinion the best blood glucose meters. Today we're going to be talking about the Contour Next One. And you can learn more about it at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox I love me a contour meter when you're ready.

Isha 01:54 All righty. Am I ready? No. Is this now

Scott Benner 02:00 we are officially started no matter what you say next just

Isha 02:03 I was just checking. So I'm supposed to introduce myself. Hi, everyone. My name is Isha. I'm based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Stella Canadian here. And I don't know.

Scott Benner 02:15 Are you in the farm? You don't have to know anything else. Are you in the private Facebook group?

Isha 02:19 I am for Sam. Isabel is gonna it's funny. I actually joined the group before any but the podcast.

Scott Benner 02:26 We'll talk about that. Yeah, go.

Isha 02:29 It was interesting, because I've been a type one diabetic since I was four. I'm 35 now, and I've never kind of seen proper advice in a group before not to be judgmental of anyone or any groups, you know, usually someone being like, have cinnamon and you know, run up and down and do this. And I think I was struggling with trying to figure out I was pregnant. I think it was like right before I got pregnant. And I was trying to figure out incident rates and just like you know, stages of pregnancy impacting like blood sugars and someone tagged the juicebox group and they were like, This is a great resource. Like I go here for everything. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, and I at that point in time, like I hadn't listened to the podcast and even know there was a podcast. To be honest, I thought it was maybe like a drink to treat low blood sugar. I was like, what is it? Oh, wait, you

Scott Benner 03:17 thought maybe I was like shilling, like a glucose drink or something like

Isha 03:21 that. I didn't know, I just joined the juice box, like Face Book Group. And I was like, What is this? That's horrible.

Scott Benner 03:27 But let me just just say this word here. If there's any company that makes a glucose drink that they want to brand with my name, please let me know.

Isha 03:34 Right, you gotta get all over that. So anyways, when I joined the group, I will say it is probably one of the best communities I've ever seen. And so much so like my brother was recently diagnosed with type one. He's 40. And I literally was just like, you have to listen to this. Like it's the best. And you know, he's a really busy, he's like, I don't have time because I'm like, no, just be part of the group. And he's like, You sound like you're part of a cult. Like,

Scott Benner 03:59 perfect, I'm winning. That's all I hear when I hear that. That's the description you gave and how it felt to him was yes, good. Because it's hard to get people to do stuff like that. And if you're not, if you're not consistent and excited about it, how are they going to believe Alright, let me click on this, you know,

Isha 04:20 I know. But it's interesting because I also find like, it's very hard to change habits, but the group is really good at giving you a very holistic perspective of everything. I think one of the best examples that you've used and like that I've seen is like with diets or with like different types of lifestyles or different professions. It's, you know, it's nobody's a cookie cutter mold. everyone kind of has their own thing. And the group really does a good job kind of catering to whether you're a parent, whether you're diabetic, whether you're a child, whether you're a sibling of someone who's type one, a grandparent like I've really seen such a variety of folks in there and it's it's it's refreshing. It's nice.

Scott Benner 04:57 Yeah, no, I'm glad I think it takes on If I'm wrong about the side when I saw your douche bag, but that's okay. I think it takes on my personality to some degree. This good

Isha 05:08 duty. Yeah. Sounds so nice. The nice thing that's good to be adaptable, right?

Scott Benner 05:14 Yeah, I think it's just, I think that enough people in the beginning. I mean, in the beginning, everybody in that group listen to the podcast. So it's that whole kind of like it's serious and do a good job. But, you know, don't kill yourself over it. And don't make yourself feel terrible. And there's more than one way to accomplish this. And I don't care what you eat, just let's make sure we know how to use the insulin. Like all those kinds of vibes. I think that's how it got built. I mean, I'm not taking credit for that. It just it happened that way. But now that it's so big, it hit 29,000 people. Yesterday,

Isha 05:50 I saw that. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I'm excited for you.

Scott Benner 05:55 I'm like, Jesus, this is getting so big. Control. It's so large now that there are times that I post things and nobody sees them. And I'm like, and I'm like, Oh, God, I'm not I was not interesting, because the algorithm did not push up by my thing.

Isha 06:14 10 things though, I'm sure there's ways around. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 06:17 do. I don't Yeah, but it seems like I don't want to do that with everything I put up. But anyway, it's, it's great. Because I kept I got worried, like, the bigger gets, things are gonna get lost, but they don't get lost. Like if somebody comments, and then it gets pushed up, and more people can see it. And it still works. I mean, people complain about Facebook all the time, but it's a

Isha 06:38 I think it really depends on what you use Facebook for. I know, obviously, with like, teenagers, whatnot, it's probably other social media platforms. But I mean, it makes me sound so old. And I hate that I had to say that. But I think it works really well. Like I know if I ever have a diabetes related question or issue or concern, like, I can search that group or I can go and ask. And I'll get a fast response. You know, it's not like I have to kind of book an appoint with my endo and schedule a call. I literally can get that in five minutes. And it's today's

Scott Benner 07:07 right. You know, speaking of feeling old, Arden's been at school for like three weeks now. And of course, this hurricane is coming right at her. And so she's staying with one of her roommates, and they had to go shopping and the roommate didn't have money and artists like, Hey, can you send her some money? She's buying me some stuff. I'm still in class. I'm like, Sure. So I text her and I say, hey, you know, Nazar, how, how do you want me to get you this money? And I said, I could pay pal or Venmo it and she goes, Do you have Zell and I went, I'm 51 Do you want me to pay pal or Venmo? And I said, it'd be honest, if you had Apple Pay, that'd be better. And she's like, Okay, I could take it through Pay Pal. I was like, All right, like, it's you. You know,

Isha 07:51 isn't it funny how there's certain things that indicate when you've kind of reached that point where you're like, Yeah, I'm an adult. Yeah, I'm not doing that. I'm not learning that. Like, I'm not going there.

Scott Benner 07:59 I can't have 75 Cash apps on my phone. I'm sorry. Like, I'm not doing that. Yeah.

Isha 08:04 No, I refused. And like, I have friends who have Snapchat and I'm like, Nope, I'm not going there. I'm not doing it.

Scott Benner 08:10 That's a good idea. I think, Well, okay, so. Alright, so I want to get dig in a little further. First, I wanted to say because I'm going to completely forget that. I started to say it in the beginning. But when Isabel from the private Facebook group hears that you're from Toronto, she's going to be thrilled. So she said, Oh, yeah. Hi, Isabelle. She's such a proud Canadian. But isn't it interesting? So you're from India and live in Canada.

Isha 08:36 I was born like my parents are from India. I was born and raised in Toronto. My parents originally from North India.

Scott Benner 08:43 Got it. Got it. And Isabel is from France. So it's a little melting pot.

Isha 08:49 It you know, I try? No, I will say and I'm sure you've probably heard is like, incredibly diverse. And it's probably one of the few things like there's many things I love about it. But like that's one thing that I absolutely love. You have every background, every culture, every language, it's pretty good. A lot of good food.

Scott Benner 09:05 Yeah, that's excellent. Very cool. Okay. So tell me when you you get into the Facebook group, and then we'll get away from this. And then it's just a Facebook group, but then you realize it's attached to something else. I'm interested about how you decide I'm going to have this as a podcast, let me go listen to it.

Isha 09:24 I'll be very transparent. So at first, I was like, Okay, I'll start at the very beginning. Because I think for a lot of folks, that's just you start something new, you want to kind of you feel like you want to do it, right. Like I want to start right at the very start and work my way down. But it's not like it's not like a step by step process that way. I remember I listened to the first episode, and I was like, okay, and I started listening and they were great. There were some episodes that definitely intrigued me more than the others. And then I think I saw someone online reference certain episodes that talked about, like, just common themes, I guess, with managing diabetes, like, you know, I don't know like Basal rates Sir, you know, it's under carbery, stuff like that. And then I kind of recognized, oh my gosh, I can listen at any point in time, and it'll still make sense. And that was, I think, really eye opening for me. And then from there, I was like, okay, like, this is kind of a community where you talk about things that will help you in terms of your management, but also in terms of just lifestyle, and just, you know, like an interesting podcast that has benefits to me personally, this is fantastic.

Scott Benner 10:29 Yeah, I, at the time, when I started the podcast in 2015, I think, My God, in January, jeez, a long time ago, when I started it, I didn't quite know what I was doing. What you could expect. And in my, my mind's eye, I thought I was gonna take my most popular blog posts and read them. I know that sounds silly now. And I sat down and did it once and I got a few minutes into it. I stopped the recording. And I thought to myself, like, I wouldn't even listen to this. So why would anyone else. And I started kind of reformulating what I was going to do. And I decided I would just hit on some of the big topics, but I didn't have guests. So it's like, well, I'll just talk to myself, you know, I'll, I'll do that. And as I'm getting that all together, this kid with type one diabetes is on American Idol. And I just sort of like oddly was like, messaged him. And I was like, Hey, I have a diabetes podcast, you want to come on it? And he said, Yeah. And so at the time, I was super excited, because I felt like I had an interview that was like something of interest and, you know, pop culture, and that it might help me get the whole thing started. But now I look back in hindsight, and I think that's a weird first episode for people to hear.

Isha 11:47 I will say, given everything I saw in the Facebook group in terms of discussions, questions, topics, and then hearing the first episode, I think it threw me off a little bit, because I was like, I don't quite get it just yet. Yeah. But I think in and now there's obviously so much in that group where people tell you like, if you want like the Pro Tip series, if you want this, like, if you're a beginner like it, that's very, very helpful. But there's a lot in there to listen to. So it's good.

Scott Benner 12:13 Well, I also don't want to like, totally crap on the fact that I had that guy, I can't even think of his name. That's terrible, that I'll figure that part out. Because I did enjoy talking to him. And so I think that helped me understand, well, sometimes we can talk to people who have diabetes, and sometimes we can talk about managing diabetes. And then I went into the management stuff, I think in the first 10 or so, people actually really love Episode Four on episode 11. And they're like cornerstones of like, how I manage diabetes. But then people started coming on, and started doing interviews, and it gave me a chance to get better at it. But I agree with you that by the time I was like, 200 episodes into the show, I thought there's a lot of information in the show it spread out. And I should consolidate at some places, because I'm noticing that some people are super interested in hearing about, like stories, and some people are super interested in hearing about management. And I can't tell them listen, if you listen to the first 150 episodes of this, I guarantee your agency is gonna go into the sixes, which I think is true. But, you know, seems unreasonable. So that's yeah, that's when we started putting this series together that were more management based. And, and they're

Isha 13:30 great, because they're quick lessons. Like, the thing I like about it is, it's something you can listen to like in the car, or just kind of doing other things, which is nice. I recognize it's really hard to listen to podcasts all the time when you're so busy. But I like that you have things broken down into bite sized information so that it's extremely focused. So if you're looking for just kind of like the Go twos, or you have more time and you want to just, you know, enjoy, listen and kind of get a bit of both, you can

Scott Benner 13:53 Yeah, no, I think it's terrific. I actually, I can't believe that it's so well, is doing two different things, which it really is like it's talking about the management of diabetes. And it's actually a podcast too. And I mean, by that, I mean, people come on and talk and there's no real focus. And a lot of people enjoy that most of my downloads come from the fact that people want to listen to a podcast, and they liked it the like that you have diabetes. But the people who want the management stuff very fervently want the management stuff. It's it's a it's a interesting mix. I don't even know why it works. I'm not asking a lot.

Isha 14:32 Don't argue with it. It's working really well. Exactly. Just keep going.

Scott Benner 14:35 Right. Okay, so you said you got type one when you were four, I

Isha 14:40 guess I was four and a half when I was diagnosed. My I remember at the time, like my mom was like, something's off. Like my daughter has lost a lot of weight. And, you know, at that stage, you know, I think her pediatrician was like, oh, kids are fussy eaters, like you just need to be a little bit more strict with like when she eats and I was like, I don't know something's off and like, you know, typically Besides, like, I thought he was wetting the bed, which wasn't normal. And then my mom literally was like, You need to go and do a blood test. Like, I am not going to leave you alone until you do. And sure enough, they were like, mother's instinct is right.

Scott Benner 15:13 Wow. And then she takes you to the hospital. And we're on our

Isha 15:15 way. Yeah, it was a blur, because even when I was going through all the signs, like, you know, my parents are both from India, and like, they're brilliant, very well versed and, like, have a soldier and a lot of things. But, you know, you think of it, you're like, my kids losing weight. So like, you know, we have family members who were like, You should eat things with higher sugar content, or like, have more carbs. Which looking back at obviously, like, I know, is not what, you know, if you're not taking insulin, and you're having all that you're kind of killing yourself slowly. But you don't know what you don't know, until you kind of have some guidance from, I guess, a medical professional or you know, a little bit more about what you're actually dealing with? Or

Scott Benner 15:54 was there any, any reason to think there might be diabetes, people in the family or anything? Like, no,

Isha 16:01 no one in our family has it. And I think that's why my parents were really shocked. They didn't, you know, like anyone, you don't know about much of it type one until it impacts someone you love, or someone close to. So they were it was very new. And during that time, like now, you know, you listen to the podcast, and you're talking about the sensors and the pump, and like, you know, looping and all these things that just weren't existent at that point. And I remember, like, I still have the meter, it was like massive, like took a minute to test your blood sugar. And you know, you're taking needles, and at that point in time, it was like twice a day. So it wasn't like your carb counting accordingly. It was like you take your morning insulin, and then your bedtime insulin. And that's it. And I remember like my mum and dad woke up multiple times a night to check my blood sugar and just check on me and, like coming to my school to make sure that I was okay. And like, just now I look at parents and even people in that Facebook group, and I'm almost in awe, just the amount of advancements there have been in diabetes. It's it's really, really, really incredible.

Scott Benner 17:00 Yeah, no, it certainly is even. I mean, Arden hasn't had nearly as long as you have. But it's wildly different from when she was diagnosed till now. Like, yeah, just wildly but we, we hit, you know, I almost said we got in, like it was an investment opportunity. And we were there just in time to get the boom. But I don't know why it occurred to me that way. But Artem was diagnosed just a few years before CGM and B started happening. So she wasn't too long without some of that stuff. It didn't work as well back then, as it does now. But

Isha 17:37 of course, there's probably so many advancements. But I mean, like, even that is interesting, because when I was diagnosed, I was four. So I had really good control. My dad was really diligent with like, you know, if I was like, oh, I want ice cream, he's like, you gotta run up and down the stairs 20 times before we have that ice. And I would do it and it would help. And like, my agency, for the longest time was like six, well, growing up with my parents, it was really good. And like, I remember when the pumps came out, my endo was like, I think you'd be really good candidate for this. And I was like, No, I don't want it. And I think I only got a pump a few years before having kids. Because I was just, I had this thing about like, No, I manage it. I don't need a pump to kind of like manage I already do a good job on my own. So I find like those who have kind of come into diabetes where like those tools are there. It's such a great, great tool. Like, I think a lot of people prior to you get stuck in your ways, you know, you're kind of like this works for me, and I don't need to change it by change can be a good thing.

Scott Benner 18:33 Was it? Was it really working? Like I I'm always interested by those statements like this works for me. Was it really working for you? Did you have low variability? Did you?

Isha 18:44 So abs? So great, great question. And I think a lot of it is like you feel like you're doing, you're managing because there's certain benchmarks are like my agency is good. Or like, you know, I know my insulin to carb ratio, and I don't need a pump. But you know, there were so many unknowns, like I remember, you know, you take your insulin, you don't know if you're which direction your blood sugar is going. And you know, if you're going up, you're going down, you're going across, like you don't know how much insulin is in your system. I didn't understand the idea of stacking, like stocking insulin at one point. So I'd eat to give myself like a shot. And then like a couple of minutes. I'm like, oh, yeah, I really want me to eat that too. And I do that and then all of a sudden my blood sugar be crashing and I couldn't understand why. So, you know, overall, I think I had good control. But there were just things that I could have done so much better. And now that I have a pump and I have a sensor, like I rave about it to everyone. I'm probably part of like the cult who's like, you've got to get this.

Scott Benner 19:39 That's fine. Listen, I think that if people can afford technology and they want it, there's a lot of benefit. And it's just I'm not saying you can't manage while with MDI, you certainly can. But I mean, not having to unless it just doesn't bother you and there are some people I talked to that are just like I I don't care how many times I stick myself with this needle doesn't matter to me. So

Isha 20:03 funny you say that, like, you were, you know, we're talking about where my parents are from and all that stuff like so my parents originally from India, I remember when I was younger, we went there. And we think our luggage got lost. And we had a few needles with us. But the rest of my supplies were in my bags, we had like enough for a few days. And my cousin went out. And my parents were like, We need to get these needles, because like, we have to give Isha her insulin. And they got the like, he didn't know and it was it. I remember, like, my cousin felt terrible, but the, the, the needle like units were different than what my parents were using. And I think I ended up taking like, it was just so much more insulin than what I was normally taking, and no one noticed. And I had a really bad really, really, really bad reaction like seizure. And we were all confused. And like, it took them a little while to recognize that the units were actually different. We were in a different country, like it wasn't the same. So you know, don't get me wrong, MDI is fantastic if you can do it, but there's, you know, we're all human. Like, sometimes something gets missed sometimes, like, I just find with a pump that the insight you get from that, like, and especially to the point where you can factor things out like I can change my Basal rate at 3am when I'm sleeping, rather than having to get up and do a shot if I need to. I find that really, really, really incredible.

Scott Benner 21:21 Yeah, we actually did something last night that all right, chat GPT. Let's see if you can write a podcast ad for the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Wow, it works quick, ready. managing your diabetes can be a challenge. But with the contour next gen blood glucose meter, you'll have the confidence and control you need to stay on top of your health. This state of the art device offers exceptional accuracy, ensuring you get the most reliable results every time you test. That's actually true. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by the contour next gen blood glucose meter contour next.com forward slash juice box. It says I should have put a sound effect in of the meter beeping, but I won't be doing that. Let's see the contour. Next Gen blood glucose meter comes with a user friendly app that helps you track your glucose levels. That's actually true. You don't have to use the app. But you absolutely can. And it is pretty fantastic. And the app lets you set reminders and keep an eye on your trends. It's like having your own personal diabetes coach right at your fingertips. Well, it's a lot like having an app but I see what it's getting at. And for your valued our valued podcast listeners. Listen, guys, I got a website. Contour next one.com forward slash juice box. You can learn a lot about the meters there, they really are terrific. They're super accurate, easy to use, easy to hold absolutely fantastic favorite meters my daughter's ever used hands down. So don't let diabetes holds you back. Take charge of your health and experience the freedom and peace of mind that comes with using that contour next gen blood glucose meter. I believe that by the way, it's a great meter, you need accurate tests. It's not mentioning the Second Chance test strips here which I mean blows my mind because that's the best part of the meter. Obviously you can touch the blood not get enough go back get more not impact the accuracy or waste a test strip. Second Test test strips are fantastic. Which is not to say that the meter needs a lot of blood. It's just you know if you mess up you can go back without without you know ruining the stripper the accuracy of the test. seriously fantastic meters. I love them. My daughter has been carrying them for years. They they're great long time sponsors of the podcast contour next one.com forward slash juice box when you click on the links, you're supporting the podcast there's links in the show notes of the podcast player you're listening in right now. Links at juicebox podcast.com. And of course you can just type in contour next.com forward slash juicebox and you will be helping the podcast So aren't you know she's three weeks into college She's actually doing really well with her blood sugar's and everything and she comes home, they're gonna do some dishes and then she's like, I don't know, I was just gonna make something in the room like ramen or something like that. So she gave herself a big Bolus. And she's doing dishes and then some boy from downstairs calls and says, Hey guys, the taco place is still open, we should go and Arden's like Yeah. And she goes and they get there. And she she thought she got there in time and ate but then she got low afterwards because it's just way too much of a Pre-Bolus and then she didn't eat the same thing that she thought she was going to eat. So okay so you know Dexcom catches the low before it happens. I texture okay, you see this? She was Yeah. And I'm like I think this is going to keep going the line has like I said that that line is talking to me. This is trying to go there. out, like, really? You don't I mean, so she's like, okay, so she starts, you know, she does something, she's like, I'll just drink a juice and she drank a juice and it caught it and held it for a while. And then suddenly, it wanted to go lower again. So it was late, and she's like, I want to go to bed. So she ate something more substantial. And then she's like that if I Bolus for what I just ate, it's gonna give me like seven units of insulin. And I thought, That's right. But I don't, but I don't want her to sit up all night. So I said, Okay, I was like, well, instead of telling you it was 40, carbs on she told it was 20 carbs, let it give you the four units that wants to give her something like that. And then we'll go to sleep. And if that's not right, which I don't think it's going to be, the algorithm will stop and bring you back down again. So you might go up, but you're not going to go much past 200. And you can sleep and this thing will level you out. And I have to say she should have just Bolus, probably closer to 40 carbs, not all of them. And exactly what I thought was gonna happen happened, her blood sugar went up like 190. It stayed up there for a while, and then it came back down. But you know, her day off is today. So she's trying to sleep in so Arden's blood sugar right now is 130. And she has not been tending to it for the last eight hours. And so that's the thing, we're back in the day, if you would have done that your blood sugar, gone up to 450. And it was you would have woken up with a 400 blood sugar.

Isha 26:24 Yeah. And you wouldn't necessarily know because again, it gives you a fragment time. It doesn't give you like that big picture of how it is what direction for how long. Yeah, yeah, this thing.

Scott Benner 26:34 So with this technology, I was able to say, Okay, I know we're not going to be perfect tonight. But everybody's going to sleep and our blood sugar is going to be okay in the morning. And that's all technology. It's really

Isha 26:44 incredible. I am I shared with you earlier, I just had my third child like four weeks ago. Oh, wow. And thank you, thank you. And when I was pregnant with my first before I got pregnant with him, my husband was the one who actually pushed me to get a pump. And he was like, because I think he came with me once to my endo appointment, because he just wanted to learn more. And they brought up the pump and he was like, this would be really good for you. I was like, no, like, I got this like, you don't think I can manage my diabetes. Like I came from a very like defensive perspective, which to be honest, was not smart. But anyways, he was like, let's just go and take a look at it. And anyways, I ended up going in the pump. And I will say I don't know how it would have managed pregnancy without an insulin pump. I didn't have a CGM for my first pregnancy. And I managed well, but it was now that I had it for the next two. It was a game changer. Like my insulin needs went up like 75% During my like more than that during my pregnancy. And I managed my my insulin and my blood sugar is during delivery. And it was like a breeze. It was obviously very hard. I'm not going to put that at all. Just because so much fluctuates in pregnancy with blood sugars and how much insulin you need and how your body reacts. But I don't know how anyone would have done that without it.

Scott Benner 27:58 Tell me Wait a minute. You were like pushing out a baby and running your insulin at the same time?

Isha 28:04 Yeah, I did that for all three of my pregnancies. That's so

Scott Benner 28:06 cool. But the first two you did it with them di and at a meter.

Isha 28:10 No, no, no. So with my first I had the pump, but I didn't have a CGM. Gotcha. So I was still testing. And it was great. Like my endo and I came up with a plan. She's like, once you deliver, you're gonna cut back your insulin by this much. Like bring everything down by 50% and 70%. And it was it was so helpful because like, again, unless you're dealing with a specialist, a lot of people don't know the ins and outs of diabetes, like I remember, came across the hospitals. That was phenomenal. Like, they were amazing. But the nurse was like, am I supposed to give you your insulin like every hour? And I was like, No, you'll kill me. Don't do that. I got those. Don't worry.

Scott Benner 28:42 You're a sweet lady. Please go away.

Isha 28:45 I was like, yeah, exactly. I was like, please stay away from me. But you know, when you know something so well, you know how your body reacts. And again, with the pomp and with the CGM like you just, it's just a different. A different level.

Scott Benner 29:00 Yeah. So in your note to me, you mentioned a couple of other things. One of them was that you kind of have a high stress job, is that right?

Isha 29:08 And yeah, it's it's funny, I guess I probably responded A little while back, it was in a different position, a different company at that point in time, but I traveled a lot for work. Prior to having kids, it was like I was traveling at some points, like every week. And like, you know, you're doing presentations, you're meeting with high profile people, and it's a it's busy and stressful and, you know, you kind of have to react accordingly. So with diabetes, it's, it's, it's different. It's hard

Scott Benner 29:37 when you were on a lot of flights. And yeah, and did you have any trouble with that? Or did you find what was the secret to doing it? Well, I guess

Isha 29:46 it's interesting because until like you guys had an episode about this, which I was very grateful for, but I would always have like a significant drop or a significant increase and I would never understand why like to the point where like one time on a plane I was with a colleague And I like I kind of blacked out. And I couldn't understand why I was like, I don't I don't get it. Like what happened. And I remember talking to my Endo, and I was like, Does my insulin pump give me more insulin? Like, will it go down? I'm not on a to like, I want to I want to AMI pod. And they were like, No, there's nothing in here that would indicate it. But after listening to your, I think the episode on it, and then like reading a lot of the comments, it just seemed like a common theme. So you know, I just made sure to like chug a little bit more before going on the on like going into flight, like, suspend my insulin at certain times. And like, I would always keep my blood sugar slightly higher, because I was traveling by myself. Yeah, and just to be safe. And then I knew like what to do once my sugars came down. So it was it, I think when you're in a really busy job, or when you're in a really high stress job. One of the things with having diabetes is like you have to figure it out. And like you just you're kind of learning on the fly too. And I'd have like presentations and like you're super prepared. And then you know, for me, if I get nervous, my blood sugar drops. And then you know, you're going up on stage or you're talking to like, ton of people and then you're like, oh my god, I'm shaking, like how am I supposed to do this? So you kind of have to kind of plan a little bit ahead to be like, Okay, I know, I get nervous, I gotta have an extra juice before going on. You know, my blood sugar might be a little bit high for like 20 minutes afterwards, but then I have it because I'm catching it right in time. So you kind of you kind of look at trends and see how you how you respond,

Scott Benner 31:28 you build you build like guardrails into the moment, right? Absolutely, absolutely. I'm noticing Arden doing that. Even in just a few weeks that she's school times where she would not have been concerned about getting low because she would have said like, first of all, I know this is gonna work. But if I were to get low, I'll take care of it. But now she's not airing like, she's not erring on the side of caution to the point where she's pushing her blood sugar way up. But I do see her thinking about it a little bit. Like she, she caught. She caught a little bit of a drop during a class yesterday. And I was gonna say, maybe we could. I don't even know. Like, I texted her. I was like, What are you going to do here? And she had already done like three things instead, like, you know, I might have said, like, you could try a couple of gummy bears here and see what happens. Or I think it's too late to cut back your basil. Like that kind of stuff. She's like, I cut back my baseline of gummy bear and I drank a half a juice and I was like, Oh, wow, like, you're way ahead of me. Well, not only that, but she's just like, look, I'm by myself. Exactly. This is different. And it hit her very quickly. You know what I mean? So

Isha 32:33 I think that's one of the things when you are by yourself like I'm not gonna when I was with when I lived at home, you know, my parents were always very helpful. But when you're by yourself, you recognize like the world does not know what you have to do and the world does not know how to respond to you. And I had again before being on a pump before being on a CGM. We went a friend a few friends and I went to Buffalo for the day to go shopping. Because first of all, you guys have target. That's freaking amazing. That's a different podcast story. And we gone shopping and we came back and I think on the way we we got like Timbits or like those little donut holes. We have Tim Hortons here they have these things called Timbits. And it was I dosed for like three of them. And one of them fell on the floor. And I just forgot about it. So the example you get with Arden where like her blood sugar is going down, she could see it cuz she forgot I forgot about that template. And I was attending to something and in the duty free I passed out and I hit something and I was bleeding everywhere. And my friends were like freaking out and it was it was bad.

Scott Benner 33:34 For the love of a Timbit you're on the floor. Oh,

Isha 33:37 look at the things I had to go through. But I even just forgot what you're talking about. Because I've just so sleep deprived.

Scott Benner 33:46 What did you make a third baby for the two? Not enough? What were you doing? There's a moto interhouse was like you can do hard things. Okay, well trust me bigger three babies persevere. That's gonna be hard. By the way for the love of a Timbit can we make that the episode title because for the

Isha 34:02 love of the timber. There was a reason I was telling you the story. And now I forgot because I'm like sleep deprived or a reason there was a purpose while we're talking about

Scott Benner 34:10 know what it was. And I'll take you back to it in a second. But let me just tell you this, prior to the Timbits story, I've been sitting here trying to decide if I am a genius and came up with something that no one has ever thought of before. Or if I just thought of something that everyone's thought of before because I thought can we call this episode can Indian? Oh my god.

Isha 34:31 You know, it's funny. So my husband's Jewish and we always call like our kids, little Hindu babies.

Scott Benner 34:37 Well, I can see your last name. And I have to tell you that when you got on and we were chatting before we started recording you're like I'm Indian. I was like well definitely married then because

Isha 34:48 yeah, sure. You can call whatever you want. And why did they tell you that story?

Scott Benner 34:56 I'm almost feel by the way I feel like so powerful. Now that I know what we were Oh, am I at your mercy? I really don't like let me just I'll just manipulate the conversation anyway. I won't because she's stuck. No. So anyway, I just use you know, I was like, Googling while you were like, I wanted to make sure like, what if Ken Indians like a bad word or something like that? And my stupid head just came up with it anyway. No, no, here we go. So we were talking about, you talked about how Arden Bolus for something. Yeah, she forgot about she forgot about it. And then we talked about how being by yourself is much different than being rude people. Remember now.

Isha 35:34 Thank you, Scott. Thank you for being my memory. Yeah, when you're by yourself, like you have to figure things out. And some things sometimes things go sideways, like they really go sideways, but you learn from it. Like I know now when I'm by myself, I don't have that luxury of forgetting. You know what I mean, and with the CGM, and with the pump, it's a different story. You have indicators to tell you if you have. But I mean, when you're by yourself, you have no one else to rely on. Nobody else knows, oh, I know why he was telling us. So I had that I passed out. And my friend really, like ran to go get me a pop. And I didn't have like my glucagon or whatever it was on me. And my other friend who's with us, someone tried to give me my insulin. And my friend had to fight them off me. And she was like, What are you doing? You're gonna kill her. And the person was like, my mom has diabetes, like she needs her insulin. And my friend was like, your mom's probably not a type one diabetic, like she has low blood sugar, like, gotta get the hell away from her. And I remember my friend was shaking for like days after that, because she's like, that person would have killed you if I wasn't there. Or helpful, or somebody is really a stranger because because again, like I had passed out in the duty free, like I was surrounded by blood, it was a pretty intense situation. But it was just a reminder to me that you know, people mean, well, but even with good intentions, people still don't know what we know. You know, you know how your body responds to something. Arden probably knows now, how she responds to certain foods, certain incidents, or like events in her life. Like we all kind of learned as we go when you're diabetic, too, or you have a child who's diabetic, whatever. But a stranger to them a lot. For a lot of people. It's like you're diabetic, you take insulin, like that's what it is.

Scott Benner 37:14 Well, well, in that movie with Julia Roberts, that's definitely what they would have done. Right? They either made her drink juice or gave her a shot. So

Isha 37:20 yeah, it's definitely a huge oversimplification. But I,

Scott Benner 37:25 but that's what people see, though. I mean, because they don't know. Although I am fascinated that a stranger would be comfortable just giving a medication to somebody.

Isha 37:33 Don't worry, that's that's another like, scary thing. I was like,

Scott Benner 37:36 I know what to do. And you're over there, like, bleeding and low. And you don't know, please don't kill me. You don't know what's happening right

Isha 37:44 now? No. And like, I think that, you know, I'm obviously little embarrassed sharing that with, like, so many people who listen to your podcast. But the reason I share that is like, I think if you have a kid who's diabetic, or you're diabetic, you quickly learn that, like, you can prepare them up to a point, but they'll have to learn certain things on their own. And like you really hope obviously, it's nothing that hurts them or damages them in any way. But I think a lot of those events, whether it's passing out are like a high profile job or a high stress job is you're quickly have to figure things out. Like you don't have a choice.

Scott Benner 38:16 Yeah, no, I think to that there's ways to recognize scenarios that are going to be that could be more problematic than others and defend yourself around those like keeping your blood sugar a little higher. If you're on a plane and you know, you get on a plane and you're by yourself. Or you know that I just I realized now that if this were to happen to you again, you'd snatch that die that doughnut hole up off the floor and just eat it dirty you Yeah, I'd

Isha 38:41 be like five second rule. That's fine.

Scott Benner 38:42 I need this. I gotta I'm sorry. No one judge me. I'm eating this doughnut hole.

Isha 38:46 Oh, yeah, for sure. And or, like, I know, like, I could suspend or like put a Temp Basal until I find something like there's so many things. Now I would do differently. If I had those tools back then. Yeah. But even with the with even a pumpkin sensor, like things go wrong sometimes. But I still think that you're kind of given advantage because you kind of, you know, the direction in which things are going.

Scott Benner 39:07 This is a good conversation for me to have at this point in my life, because I made a good decision the other day, but I wasn't certain if I did and talking to you tells me that I did Arden was concerned she was going to get lower, and she's looping. And so she did the she she didn't override and she took her like all the power of the loop away from it for a little while. And I thought I think she's gonna get high after this. But I didn't say anything because I wanted her to run it herself and see what happens. But now I'm seeing that the other benefit of not saying anything, is that she needs to feel free to protect herself.

Isha 39:43 And yeah, and that's tough because like, you know, none of my children are type one. But I mean, I think as a parent, you want to protect your kids, you want the best for them. You never want to see them get hurt, but you also don't want them to be independent and prepared and equipped. And I think finding that balance especially when you have to Ah, that's type one must be so challenging.

Scott Benner 40:03 Yeah. Well, so you said, gosh, did you say this on the recording that your brother was just diagnosed? Yeah, just 40. That's insane. So do you have any other brothers and sisters? And are they? Yeah, I

Isha 40:14 just have an older brother. And it was a huge shock to my brother's amazing. Like, he's brilliant. He's got a great job. He's married with two beautiful kids. And they had just had their second child and they just bought a house. So it was like all stressful things. And I think a lot of everyone would just was kind of like, Oh, he did. He looks really weak. And like, he's last week. And so the signs were clearly there. But I think we just all made excuses for them. We're like, oh, he you know, he looks tired and weak, but like, Oh, he's probably not sleeping as a newborn. And it's like, oh, he looks stressed out. Well, they just bought a house and they're moving like, of course. But his wife pushed him to go get a blood sugar. And it was weird. millimoles per liter here. So like, his blood sugar was like 26. Wow. And I, I went to the hospital with him, like forcibly stayed to just ensure that they tested for the right things like from the Facebook group, I knew like push for C peptide tests, like push for like an antibody test. You know, like, make sure you get the proper diagnosis. Because initially, it was like, Oh, you might have type two diabetes. And that was kind of the first first thing that I was like, no, no, no, no, like you need to get with a proper Endo. Who knows what this is. Everyone else is just going to treat you like, you know, even

Scott Benner 41:29 you standing next to him with type one diabetes. They said maybe he has type two diabetes?

Isha 41:33 Yeah, no. Before it was like I hovered. My brother was like, go home. I was like, I'm not going anywhere.

Scott Benner 41:38 Well, boy, I'll tell you what, that's interesting. I, I'd love to ask him like, did he think his whole life? Do you think I'm getting away with this? Like, he should has it but I don't? Or like, I wonder if siblings I guess my question is, I wonder if siblings that don't have type one. spend their whole life wondering if they're going to get it?

Isha 41:59 You know, I I don't know. I like, I think everyone around was pretty shocked. Because they were like, he's 40, though. And I think it's a good reminder that like, you know, used to be called juvenile diabetes. It's not called juvenile diabetes anymore, right? Or at least I don't think it is

Scott Benner 42:13 no. Reason I believe that I've been. I've no, listen. For some reason. I don't really remember the podcast so well.

Isha 42:22 You understand what I blocked out and I fold totally forgot what I was talking about. You make me feel better.

Scott Benner 42:26 I got a text from Isabel like three days ago. And she goes, What do you want to do with this? And I looked at it and I said, I have no idea what this is. And she goes, What's from a person you interviewed three days ago, and it's it's information she said she was gonna send to you. And I was like, Oh, I don't remember that. I was like, what was it about? Like, because I'm not on the same timeline you guys are. So I, like if you download the podcast this week, you hear stuff I recorded six months ago. And so I don't I don't remember it anymore. Anyway, but getting out what the hell was I gonna say you're rubbing off on me Isha?

Isha 43:04 I know. I know, it was we were just taught using group interviewed a number of people, siblings, like everything like,

Scott Benner 43:11 well, I don't have it written down somewhere. But I would bet that if I took, I don't know, a flowchart, I have probably interviewed somebody who's been diagnosed at every age, like 1234. Like it 5055. Like set, I think I did somebody recently who was diagnosed, like at the end of their 60s or their early 70s. Like, so there's no, I mean, is it uncommon for you to get diabetes? If you're 60? type one diabetes, if you're 69 years old? Maybe. But it could happen. And if you have a sibling who has it, like do you like you? Don't I mean, like, you know, when your father somebody's father dies of a heart attack when they're full. You spend your whole life thinking, Well, I'm not going to live past 40. I don't know. I just I always wonder that

Isha 43:56 it is interesting, though, because I've heard of people who, you know, have multiple kids who are type one, and some who have none. And like, I know, I think if you're a type one diabetic, like you, for me, like I'm always like, when my kids have this, like, is this something that they will have to worry about? I never really thought about it in terms of like other family members, and I feel bad about that. But I will say the silver lining is I'm grateful. Like, I know what I know, because I was able to help my brother out like I brought him a sensor in the hospital. I was like, You're not waiting for anyone like where this is cool. So it gives him an advantage, I think and like I can guide him to the podcast and the Facebook group above the other things that I think are really, really helpful. It's excellent.

Scott Benner 44:37 So do you. I mean, you obviously you just had a third kid. Do you think about that? Do you consider like trial and error?

Isha 44:44 I actually have so I did try that with my son. And I came back clear, which was really nice. I haven't done my daughter yet. She's three now and my son is literally like four weeks old. So he's got some time I'm not gonna He's got to get to be above to write,

Scott Benner 45:01 yeah, I think you have to be a certain age. And then if you get a completely clear no child that won't test you again, if you don't get any antibodies, I think, yeah.

Isha 45:11 So it was nice. Like, I had a conversation with someone, once we're like, what's the benefit of doing that? And I said, you know, it's peace of mind. And I think of it my brother, and I'm like, your sibling who has type one, and everyone around him, even myself, like I feel guilty about that was like, Oh, he just had a kid. Like, that makes sense. You're tired, you've lost weight, because you're not eating and sleeping properly. And, you know, looking back when we pieced together other symptoms, and like, yeah, those are like, textbook symptoms. But I think you know, with your own kids, like, my, my son, we drink a lot of water. And I'm like, Oh, my God, he must have diabetes. And I, my husband would be like, No, it's like, 40 degrees outside, your sun is hot, and he's drink water, like, relax. I think getting that test gave me some peace of mind to be like, okay, he's, you can just be a normal kid, like, not everything has to be a symptom. Or if he was, if he did have the antibodies, at least I know what major things to look out for. So that it doesn't get to a point where it's terrible. You know,

Scott Benner 46:06 people's brains work one way or the other on that. It's either exactly what you just said, or the people are like, Look, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. I'd like to live blissfully ignorant till it happens, like one or the other. You know, like, it's,

Isha 46:17 yeah, yeah. And I hear you. And I think there's, there's advantages to everything. I just think that, you know, sometimes we, we think we'll catch everything. And I think we kind of underestimate like how complex and crazy life gets because you're right, like, you could lose a lot of weight, and attribute it to something completely different. And you could be really thirsty. And you know, maybe it's a side effect of the medication you're on. And I've heard so many stories of people getting diagnosis is take diagnoses, this is how you know, I'm tired. Diagnosis

Scott Benner 46:48 about stuff.

Isha 46:50 Yeah. And then, you know, they're like, I don't know why I didn't see that. My father in law, just had a quadruple bypass, he's doing really well now. But for the longest time, we were like, you're just out of shape. Like, go for another walk, like you probably need to just exert like, you know, get your heart rate up and like, eat better. And now, when we look back, we're like, No, it was because you had this underlying heart condition, and you didn't realize the symptoms. So hindsight is always 2020. But I mean, if there's anything you can do to kind of give yourself markers to look out for I think it's always helpful. But that's my perspective, I reckon recognize teachers on.

Scott Benner 47:24 You know, it's funny when you were stumbling over diagnosis. Here, a guy came up to me that it popped in my head that there's a word I can never remember. And I think I've said it on the podcast recently. And I thought, well, I'm aware that I can't remember it. So I'll think of it right now. And while you were talking, I still couldn't come up with it. So the word means when, oh my god, it's amazing. The word means this is gotta be like, I'm gonna have an aneurysm or something. Like there's gotta be a part of my brain that's like, burned, right? So when you are afraid that if you do something, oh, I got it. Superstitious? Very good. I can't think of the word superstitious when I need it. Isn't that ridiculous?

Isha 48:11 Yeah, it's verbal. I remember there's a term for it. It's like when the neural connections your brain are weak, you have to like strengthen them. So it's things like verbal fluency or something like

Scott Benner 48:18 I, I, I've been in multiple conversations. If you listen, listen, if somebody wants to do a deep dive on this podcast, go back and listen, for every time the word superstition could have been used, and I talk around the word to explain it. Because I can't

Isha 48:33 at least you recognize that you don't remember it. And then you can like make do I always just sit there and I'm like, I don't know what I'm talking about anymore.

Scott Benner 48:39 I'll tell you that this. I think making a podcast like this is really good for your brain. Because Oh, absolutely. There are days that I sit down, I'm exhausted. And I'm like, Alright, Scott, like this is it we're gonna have a good conversation with this person. It doesn't matter that you're tired, like go and I pull it together for an hour. And then I'll leave the room and just be like, I gotta take a nap. Although I'll tell you I did yesterday. I have more questions for you. But I interviewed Jennifer stone yesterday. So she's the girl the redhead from Wizards of Waverly Place. Do you know that show? On Disney?

Isha 49:17 I'm so terrible. I wouldn't heads down for like to be back in society.

Scott Benner 49:22 It's an older show. Like she's older now. She's 29. But she's got type one and she became a nurse. So Wow. So she's in this incredibly popular TV show was Selena Gomez. And she's

Isha 49:33 also That's why her name. So much. Her name sounds so familiar, but don't know who she is. Yeah, that's probably why

Scott Benner 49:38 so I believe she played a character called Harper Finkel in Wizards of Waverly Place, but not the point. The point is, is that I've interviewed a number of famous people who have type one diabetes, and sometimes they're I'm just not I don't think I'm going to say anything. Sometimes they're not a great conversationalist for some reason. but Jennifer was amazing. Like so much so that when it ended, I thanked her for being a person and being able to hold a conversation. Thank you for being here. Yeah, like this was amazing. Like, we stopped recording and I was like, thank you so much. I was like you were thoughtful and articulate and engaged and didn't run away the minute the recording was over. And, you know, like it was. It was it was lovely, actually. Yeah. Anyway, she didn't have any trouble coming up with words while she was talking, I think is where that

Isha 50:30 we all have different skills we need to work on okay.

Scott Benner 50:32 Yeah, well, mine is remembering. Dammit, superstition. There we go. Okay, so do you have gastroparesis?

Isha 50:46 So it's funny enough, actually looked at the notes. And I was like, I don't even want to talk about that anymore. So I actually didn't officially get a diagnosis for many years. I was like, I think I have an ulcer. And then I remember going for like an endo. And they're like, No, you're an endoscopy. And they're like, you're totally fine. And I was like, but I feel like there's a hole in my stomach. And I don't like this is really weird. And I'm, like, bulging and, like, I couldn't get answers. And I remember I did that. Like, there's a test you do, where you eat like a sandwich. And they kind of see how it travels down your system. I was like, am I eating something that's nuclear reactive, like what is happening. But anyways, they were like, you're fine. But I knew like, that's another thing, I think when you live with a medical condition is you really are forced to notice how you feel, you know, like, you pay attention to certain symptoms at times, like pay if something feels off. And finally, I met with a doctor. And this was like, after a few years of pushing, because I was like, this comes and goes and like, I don't know what's happening. And, and he was like, you've had diabetes for over 20 years, like we do see this for and I was like, but I have really good control, like, my blood sugar is really good. Like, I have loads here and there. But like, for the most part, they're great. And he was like, just being like one of the risk factors. Unfortunately, if you live with something for a very, very long time, like you can have it. And anyways, I haven't had a flare up in like years. But I got kind of like an indirect diagnosis from a gastroenterologist. And it was to be honest, kind of like a relief, because it was like, Okay, I'm not crazy. That makes a lot of sense. I have all the symptoms, but like, I don't need to, I don't know if it's because like, my blood sugars are so good. Now, like, I haven't had a flare up, I don't have to control my diet. I do know how to manage it when it impacts my blood sugar now. So if it does kick in, I kind of know to put a Temp Basal on for like a higher rate for a couple of hours to kind of avoid any delay, but to be honest, like how you deal with proteins and fats probably the same way. Right.

Scott Benner 52:39 Right. And so do you have stomach you have stomach pain?

Isha 52:43 Yeah, like I would eat something. And I would like be sitting down the friend and I'd be like, I like I burped. And they'd be like, Whoa, and I was like, I don't know what's wrong with me, like, what didn't happen. So it's like, you belch like you. And I think it's just because you haven't digested food properly for for a little bit.

Scott Benner 53:01 How bad? How did things work? On the other side? Were they coming through? Okay.

Isha 53:05 Yeah. And that's, that's why I think a lot of the times, everyone's like, you're totally fine. Like, we don't see anything. But I had certain symptoms that I was like, No, I know, this is not normal. And I know that something's happening, because I see it reflected in my blood sugars. And, and, you know, obviously did a lot of research and a lot of things that I read is like, you can have a very mild form and like, you know, going through blood sugar control, and it's not you can manage I know, for some, it's, they need to be on medication, and like they have to, like remove certain foods from their diet. And thankfully, I haven't gotten to the right and but I do know if every now and then it kind of slipped like habit creep up, but it's probably been a few years. And I'm grateful for that. But I haven't had that as a concern.

Scott Benner 53:48 Have you noticed any impacts from stress on it?

Isha 53:55 No, no way. Interestingly enough, no, I see it reflected obviously, my blood sugar and other things like the only other health conditions that I have, I have psoriasis. And like, that's something that I see flared up with stress stress. And but other than that, no, and I'm I've kind of forgotten about it until you brought it up was like, oh, yeah, that's a thing.

Scott Benner 54:13 Just because Arden for I mean, a while, like longer than I think could be like, Oh, my stomach hurts. Like, you know, like, she asked us to push on her stomach, things like that. And she was constipated on top of all that. And then we ended up you know, you go through. It's interesting how sometimes you skip over common sense and go to a doctor. Yeah. And so we did everything we could think of he you know, like every test and everything and everything always came back. Okay. So finally we got her, you know, a scope. And the guy comes back and says it's very similar to what you heard. He goes, Well, there's some undigested food in her stomach, that's gastroparesis. And I was like, Well, I just talked about this in another episode as a way, way way. Like, I like what you're talking about, like So, you know, and he's anxious, you know? And so he goes, Well, that's just the term we use for slow digestion. I was like, well call it slow digestion then because I

Isha 55:09 no doubt within that's the thing, like when you get to a certain diagnosis, we all think of things, I think is probably the worst case, or a very, like severe case. Um, so sometimes it's hard to see where we fit into that where you're like, I'm not like that, or like, I'm, you know, I can eat my foods and I'm not in pain curled up on a ball. But it's, I can totally understand that because I, I joined a group online to learn more about it, and I couldn't relate to anything. I was like, Oh, my God, this is terrible. Like, is this what my life is going to be like? Like, you know, these people are incredible what they're dealing with on a daily basis. That sounds so hard. But I kind of recognized as you can have varying forms of things. And again, like it's just slow digestion at time. So I do agree with you, like the name of it probably throws you off.

Scott Benner 55:54 Yeah, I was it because in my mind, I was like, Well, duh. So there's nerve damage and heart and stomach and he goes, Well, no. And I was like, well, then, let's not call it gastroparesis while we're talking because you're, you're messing my head up, like, Yeah, but just, and he's like, okay, so he goes, Well, we're gonna put her he goes, let's put her on a gastro precice diet. And I was like, Are you not following this man? I was like, because you clearly can't hear so. So where I was lucky is that I got to call Jenny, who's a nutritionist and has type one diabetes. And we talked through and she goes, I don't Arden doesn't have gastroparesis the way we're talking about, like thinking about and I was like, oh, yeah,

Isha 56:32 yeah. So and I think I probably have Wait, wait, you saw with Arden? Yeah, times. And I think like, you know, listen, we for those of us who are diabetic, like even with good control, there's just certain things that I think we're probably more prone to, but I think names of things can really mess with your head.

Scott Benner 56:46 Exactly. I was like, wait, because also, he's talking about significantly restricting your diet forever. And putting her on pain medication. Yeah. And instead, she's taking a couple of supplements, and she's okay.

Isha 56:59 Yep. Yeah, exactly what I did. I remember the doctor gave me like, I think I crushed my endo to give me like medication. And I didn't take it. And she was like, Why did you ask me for this then? And I was like, I thought I needed it. But I think I don't and I don't want to take it because I don't want to become I don't want this to become part of my like, I'm not where everyone else is who has got gastroparesis, and I didn't eat it. And it was just, again, like monitoring certain things and being more mindful of how he felt.

Scott Benner 57:25 How about we didn't even ask for the medication. He gave it to us in the first office visit before only talking to us, like, here's some samples. And I'm like, What in the hell you're giving us you're giving like an 18 year old samples of a pain medication before you're actually like you said, Well, I don't want her to be in pain. And I was like, aren't we got up mcaren oranges. I'd rather my stomach just hurt. And I was like, Okay, gotcha. So, it is funny though, after she got the school. And she's forced to eat in the cafeteria the whole time. She's like, hey, my stomach starting to hurt once in a while again. And we went over what she's eating. And I say garden, you have to avoid like fried foods. Like just because you don't eat. You know, she's like, there's french fries here all the time and stuff like that. I'm like, Yeah, you can't like, stay away from it, like oily stuff. And she's like, okay, by the way, my stomach would hurt if I eat fried food all the time. Yeah,

Isha 58:20 absolutely. So it's, it's interesting, like hearing like, just, what you guys how you guys were kind of like, problem solving. With that. I just find, because we were talking about like high stress jobs. I think one of the things that I noticed with everyone who's type one, is that there is this like, you figure it out. You know, I mean, like, it's it's actually like, a skill that I think not everyone has is just that mechanism to be like, Okay, this might be hard, but I'm still gonna figure it out. And I love that.

Scott Benner 58:47 Yeah, I think she's starting to finally get it too. Because when she was younger, and I'd say stuff like, well, it might be this. She'd be like, you're not even hurt. If you listen to her on the podcast recently. She's like, I haven't. Okay, she's like, you know, you're not Dr. House. And I was like, Well, I felt like it. And she goes, he goes like this. I know you did. And I said, Well, I was very proud of myself. But I think that can be annoying. But it's interesting how as soon as she went off to college, and she's by herself, it wasn't like, Oh, don't annoy me with your ideas about what was wrong. She's like, hey, what do you think is wrong here? I think she you know, she switched pretty quickly to being interested in what I thought was like,

Isha 59:24 okay, distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Scott Benner 59:28 I think I think it made her realize she was by herself. And she didn't want to be by herself. You know, like in the thought process even like course

Isha 59:35 and you probably start to look at things differently to like you recognize something may have been annoying because you had access to it all the time. But now you're like, oh my gosh, that was actually giving me insight to figure this out or like to find a solution. So I do think perspective.

Scott Benner 59:49 I'm also like, irritatingly consistent. So, when she I have to find this text from last night because I similar like I said, I saw her going down, she saw herself going down. She was taking care of it. And I said, I almost have it one second. I said, Hey, she goes, Why were you just calling me? I said, I'm checking on you. I don't like the way this drop looks. I said, it's all good. If it's all good, but don't forget, you know, that's it. And testing would be a good idea in this situation, I love you. And she goes, Dad, I know. And I responded, I know, you know, but I'm 13 hours away, and I'm going to worry. So please test your frickin blood sugar, and drink some juice. And I said, again, I love you. And then you know what she did, she tested her blood. She tested her blood sugar, and she sent me the number. So it was just, it was one of those. I mean, anybody who has a CGM knows, like, this wasn't just a fall, like we described earlier, she over I could tell just by the, by the the angle of the line that this wasn't stopping. And I don't know if she can see that yet. So I also said during the text, I was like, look at the I was like, bring up a three hour graph, look at the angle that line that and that line tells me if you don't do something, you're going to be 40. And even though you're 70 right now, and so I'm hoping she learns that stuff to through this experience.

Isha 1:01:19 I think in a lot of those skills, like relating it back to your home, it was work, it's I think all of the skills we get from being diabetic or living with someone who's type one or managing somebody's type one is there a lot of transferable skills that way that I think are so valuable, like so, so valuable, just being able to look at trends, like being able to kind of look two to three steps ahead and be like, Okay, this is going to happen if I do this.

Scott Benner 1:01:44 I understand how people who are maybe newly diagnosed are struggling, don't want to hear this. But diabetes teaches you so many things, like if you if you let yourself have the experiences that are really valuable in a ton of other ways in life, like it doesn't make your diabetes go away. But you do become much more agile

Isha 1:02:07 100% 100% Like Scott, one of the things in our household, like tooth, actually two things, let me backtrack a bit. One, I always struggle when people are like, diabetes doesn't define me. And I'm like, I get that, like, you are so much more than your diagnosis. But when people like it's not, it's not who I am, so much of who I am. And so much of my personality has been shaped by my experiences from being type one, or from my management or from my Outlook, or from just how I kind of navigate it on a day to day basis. Yeah, and a lot of the things we, in our household that we teach our kids are a lot of them are based on my experiences, like we always say in our household, like we can do hard things. Like just because something's hard doesn't mean we don't do it. You know, we always figure things out. Like it's free. It's hard, but we figure it out. There's always like, there's always a way to figure it out. Like that perseverance aspect. You know, like, you may know now that it's stress that impacts your blood sugar's maybe you have a drop in your stress. Now it's like, what are you doing over and over again, to figure out how to avoid that. So you don't have a dangerous low? Yeah. Or with my kids. It's like, okay, you don't get the first time. But we got to keep trying, like, you don't just stop after the first try.

Scott Benner 1:03:12 It forced me to, I'm sorry, cut you off. Good.

Isha 1:03:15 No, no, no, like, I'm just saying, there's so many things. It's why like when people kind of shy away from being like, oh, diabetes is not who I am. And like, but there's so many good things like obviously, you know, in a heartbeat, I would take it away from everyone and anyone but I mean, it really depends on the way you look at it. Like there's so much it teaches you. And there are things that I think that people in general value, you know, like they're valuable skill sets to have it or value to call it qualities.

Scott Benner 1:03:40 It's a big idea that I don't know that I have completely figured through. But diabetes forces you not to ignore things. And it forces you to learn about what's happening to you instead of just drifting through because the consequence, every time the consequence of diabetes of not paying attention is dying now or dying later, sooner than you should you know what I mean? Like, that's always the consequence of them being sick, dying, having like massive trouble. So you're always working to stop yourself from getting to that spot, which seems like dire and terrible. And I guess it is on some level, but I think it works well against human nature where there's something about people that's not in their own best interest. So I think you're born in this like, perfect, like little baby shell, right? And then we all have this kind of expectation that this perfection will last throughout life. And then every time something happens, that's not perfect. We get dinged by it really harshly. Yeah, but these things like, I don't know, I needed glasses when I was seven, or some kid called me fat when I was in eighth grade or like those little things like they're all in my mind. You start with whatever perfect is at 100%. And every time one of these little things happens. You get like a little chip comes off of your, of your perfect stone. You know what I mean? And you lose a little bit us a little bit, but you don't have to, I think we, sometimes we let the chip get taken away. And because you're like, Oh, I was supposed to have a perfect life, and it's not perfect. I'm not as tall as I wanted to be. I don't have as much money as I wanted. I didn't get to go to the school, I wanted to go to people don't talk to me the way I like and whatever it ends up being. But diabetes, if you're going to live well with diabetes, you're not you can't let that happen. Every time every time it dings. You, you have to put your hands up sort of like your friend at the duty free and be like, Oh, no, no, no, no, we're not

Isha 1:05:39 100% Yeah, 100%, my parents used to say to me, like, I remember when I was diagnosed. And I think once or twice, I just have a memory of kind of being annoyed about something. And my dad said to me, this is a good like, diabetes is a good excuse for you to take care of yourself. Some people don't have good excuses to take care of themselves, you do. So there are people who don't have diabetes, and they're in terrible health, because they have nothing to pay attention to, like everything you're paying attention to is just gonna make you better, you're gonna be more in tune with your body, you will be healthier than the average person. And I kind of like to think of it like that. Like, it's not all like rainbows and unicorns, it sucks sometimes for sure. But I really think if you kind of look at it from that perspective, it really changes the way you view these day to day like, chips that you were talking about.

Scott Benner 1:06:21 You were just so much more succinct than I was. But thank you, because I wasn't talking about words I couldn't think of so I don't know why it was so verbose. But it's because I think it's because I mean, your father was very smart. And I think it's 100%. True. I just think that there's something about people's desire for nothing to ever go wrong. That makes everything feel terrible. And so,

Isha 1:06:48 yeah, you're working towards something that's unattainable. Like, nobody's perfect. Right? You know, I mean, like, it's, I think it's just changing. I think it's more like, You got to view it on a day to day like, how, how much better can I get? Like, how much better can I get it at managing this? Or like, How can I do that in different way? That makes me feel better? Yeah, something, you know,

Scott Benner 1:07:10 no, I, I believe in it a lot. And I, for myself, personally, the way I talk to my family, you know, like, Okay, this didn't go right. But we're just gonna let it go. And we're not going to devolve into whatever, terrible, like sinkhole, this thing could pull you in if you let it. You know, it's almost like sometimes people throw themselves into the hole. Instead, instead of just walking around it. I guess. I don't know. And I don't think I think conscious, by the way.

Isha 1:07:39 I don't think so. Of course not. Yeah, not intentionally. No.

Scott Benner 1:07:42 Nobody's saying like, Oh, I give up. Let me just fall into this mud pit and be done. You know, I think it's just, oh, this thing went wrong. And I don't know how to fix it. That's the

Isha 1:07:52 hopelessness like you feel helped. I totally understand that too. Sometimes, like, if you don't know what to do, you feel like, this is how it is forever. Like, this sucks. And I'm stuck here. And I can't do anything about it. But I think if you take a few steps back, you recognize like, this sucks right now. But, you know, climate like you can pull yourself out of that hole. Like, let's try to climb out.

Scott Benner 1:08:13 Yeah, I also think to the secret to it is understanding that you don't know how to fix it. But that's not really the important part. Like, I know, I know that when I started making this podcast, I wouldn't have said this. But I I've had so many conversations with people with mental health struggles, that I think that giving voice to your struggle, I suppose that does sound like, like hippie dippie. But giving voice to your struggle really does alleviate it, like saying out and saying out loud. Something even if it's to yourself personally in your head or in a room that you know, this happens. It takes it away. I'll tell you. It cathartic. It just really is. And it lets you leave it behind. So that you can instead of like, instead of constantly thinking about it thinking about like, how do I fix this? How do I make this better? How do I make people like me? How do I make myself not feel so anxious? Like how do I like just accept that you're anxious and keep moving? Just accept that everybody doesn't like you and keep moving? And I don't know, I think you can leave those things behind on your path. And then look at the things in front of you. And all those things in front of you aren't going to be perfect. But again, you sidestep the ones that don't work for you and stick with the ones that do and

Isha 1:09:25 yeah, I think the big part of what you're saying is like, you got to keep moving. Like that's the inodes and it was hard and obviously like I feel for anyone who's been through anything that's tough, but I think when you put a label to something, it validates that it's real, right? Like it's a thing. It's not just something that's inside your head, it's something that you're actually dealing with and that's okay. Right. But you can keep going Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:45 that sucks. Keep going. That's pretty much it. And I listen, I recognize that everybody's in my situation like I am wearing clothes and I have food and I'm sheltered and things like that. Like I'm I hope nobody thinks that I'm saying You know, if you're homeless, just ignore it and keep going like that. No, of course not like and

Isha 1:10:04 it's, it's, it's it's like it's subject like, again, context is everything. Just to anyone listening, Scott is very in tune with everyone. So my we mean well,

Scott Benner 1:10:14 no, I think I think people get it you know what I mean? It's just obviously that advice doesn't work for everything. But I think it can work for things that burden you psychologically or about diabetes. Like in general, I think diabetes, I think diabetes can easily become a psychological burden, obviously. And so you have to figure out the parts of it that you can work with the parts of it that you can kind of control and the parts of it that you have to just kind of shrug and go. Alright, well, let's see if I can do about that. You start fighting, you start fighting their own battles, you'll be stuck fighting those battles forever, I think,

Isha 1:10:52 Oh, for sure. I actually like, yeah, I was going to mention because you were talking about the whole part of just keep moving or like, you know, trying to fit well, we were talking about trying to figure things out. I remember before listening to your podcast, I would have these like, there was a moment in time where I had these hills, like in my butt, like, you probably know, I'm talking about when you look at your CGM, and it's like, looks like little mountains. And I could never figure it out. And I was getting so upset. Like, this sucks. Like I don't, I think was my husband was like, Well, how are you going to solve that? Like, you just have to keep moving? You can't just sit there and complain about it. Like, is there something you can do? It's baby steps, like I started recording what I ate, and then kind of trying to find patterns. And of course, it came across a few episodes. And I think some screen like screenshots that people shared in your community group that were really helpful. So it's like any little bit you can do to help move yourself forward, even if it's just like an edge is still very, very, very important to kind of factor into progress.

Scott Benner 1:11:45 Yeah. No, I agree. It's, by the way, you about a couple of times you gave me I know.

Isha 1:11:50 I was like someone's gonna bring it up. Go away, everyone. Appreciate.

Scott Benner 1:11:53 I appreciate that. Thank you. It's, um, I don't know. It. Just enjoyed it. So do your parents find

Isha 1:11:59 you? Because do you do you see, I'm gonna ask you something. Because, like, so if you ever did, I don't think you have an accident. But I always find it amazing for like, oh, you say it like this? I'm like, I don't think I say like this because everyone around me says it like this. So it's fine. Oh, do you talk to people who just are not aware of accents? Or is everyone kind of just like, there's something wrong with your voice? Not mine?

Scott Benner 1:12:20 No, I don't think I think most people don't hear any difference in how people speak. Honestly, unless it's really like, I don't know, severe. But and you're like, You're interesting to me, because the abouts were just there was only two or three. And they were very slight. And if I didn't know you're Canadian, I might have like, I might have missed them. They weren't like really, like significant. So

Isha 1:12:49 a plus you have to go further eastern Canada.

Scott Benner 1:12:52 Well, you also have that weird blend. Like I'm trying to decide. Do your parents have Canadian accents or Indian?

Isha 1:12:57 My I'm like what you said sometimes you don't notice it? Like I don't think my parents do. But I think someone who might hear them from like, outside of the family might be like, yeah, there's an accent there a little bit. My mom, like my parents have been in Canada for such a long time. So I would, I don't know. So now I'm gonna record them and listen to them and be like, do you

Scott Benner 1:13:17 my my daughter's friend Santanna? Like, she's incredibly Americanized, but you can hear the Indian in her voice if she starts speaking quickly.

Isha 1:13:26 Yeah, I can see that. There's Listen, we all like our parents will rub off on us. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:13:30 yeah, that's where you hear it with her when she's when her when her speech patterns picks up in speed. It quickly goes like that. But you just sound like you could be from anywhere from the sound. Okay, yeah,

Isha 1:13:42 I should have told you I was from a place that doesn't exist and see if you can figure that out.

Scott Benner 1:13:46 Or try to embarrass me that I don't know that Mesopotamia is not on the map anymore. So I'm actually I

Isha 1:13:51 will tell you a story. And I don't you can cut this out if it's like so it appropriate. But I think it's hilarious. Years ago, I had gone to Sarasota, and in Florida. And I was meeting some friends and I was at the hotel and and I was talking to someone there. And they're like, oh, what's your background? And I was like, I'm Indian. And this guy comes over. He's like, What tribe are you from? And I was like, why? And he was like, What tribe? You're like, no, no, like, my parents are from India. And for the longest time like he couldn't figure that out.

Scott Benner 1:14:18 Oh, he wanted to know if like you were Comanche or something like that.

Isha 1:14:21 Yeah, it was like he thought it was like it like, like, at like, it was native or average. And depending on where you are in America, it's us. First Nations are in and I was like, no, no, like, I had no idea where India was.

Scott Benner 1:14:36 Well, Florida is a special place. Yeah.

Isha 1:14:39 Like what are you talking about? I don't know why that made me think of that.

Scott Benner 1:14:42 Well, no, now that I know you're willing to talk about things like this. I have a last question before I let you go. How hard was it to get your husband's Jewish parents to be okay with this?

Isha 1:14:53 Oh my God, it was they were great. It was funny because it's actually quite sweet when we met. I was like, I don't don't have to work like my parents are from India, like it's very family oriented. They're gonna want to know who your parents are. And like, I don't know, it's work. So my husband like called my inlaws up at the time, it was like a wrap. We have some ages, parents are gonna do dinner. Me like major, our families, like, got to know each other. So my parents were more comfortable with it, his family, parents were totally fine. My parents were like, okay, and then, you know, after that, we were like, Oh, they're two different cultures, like, how are you gonna have this ceremony? So my husband, like, looked at a Hindu, Hindu? Like, it's not even a real thing?

Scott Benner 1:15:29 Is that what you just said?

Isha 1:15:32 Like Hindu customs and Jewish customs, and like, basically, we created ceremony together. So it was quite nice. kind of took a lot of effort to mold both our families together.

Scott Benner 1:15:42 Do you think I'd get in trouble if I called this episode Hindu? connait? Can Indians

Isha 1:15:47 Oh, my God, my, my hashtag for wedding was Hindu 2015.

Scott Benner 1:15:50 It's amazing. So your parents didn't everybody, nobody rubbed up against the cross cultural nature of it. It was okay.

Isha 1:15:58 I think at first, my parents were more again, like my parents came to Canada at a time, I think we're, you know, we don't, there's a lot more exposure now and knowledge and acceptance. But like, my parents hit certain things where people wouldn't give them a like, my dad's an aerospace engineer. And when he came here, like, couldn't get a job. Because again, like, if you weren't a certain, you know, skin color background, they weren't opportunities. And there's Yeah, and I think as a society, at least, we hope things are really progressed. And like my in laws are wonderful. My parents like love My in laws so much. And my husband's like, very protective over if anyone ever is kind of like racist, or just kind of gives pushback or anything. He's quite vocal about it. So we've kind of molded our families together really nicely. It's nice. Yeah, it's really nice.

Scott Benner 1:16:43 I only ask because I have a reasonably personal knowledge of a couple of Indian girls that we've known over the years who got pushed away from their boyfriends by their families. And I'm thinking of a couple, but I know one girl was not allowed to marry her Pakistani boyfriend. Like she could date him. And nobody said anything about it. But when it came time to, to get married, and I think

Isha 1:17:07 I think it exists and like, maybe I'll get like, I don't know if you'll actually play this part or not. But I don't know, use your judgment. But I mean, I think in every culture, there's always this protection of wanting to preserve your customs and traditions. And I think a lot of people feel that if you move away from that you're losing a sense of like years of ancestry and things like being passed down. And I think now, when I see it is like, people are raised differently. Like, I don't see someone and be like, Oh, they're this color in this background. I'm like, Oh, that's so and so like, great, right? Um, whereas they think, you know, a lot of the experiences that my parents generation or their generation went through really shaped their outlook in terms of why they feel that way. Like it was just something you do. Like, they also didn't have options like we have options now. Like you can date someone now who's have any background, any color, any age, whereas if you grew up elsewhere, like you didn't have those opportunities.

Scott Benner 1:18:01 No, I'm, I always think of it as a sad story. Like, I don't know, I'm sure her life turned out fine. I no idea. But I just remember in that moment, thinking, wow, like, she's got to break up with a person she loves now, like, that's it, it's time to get married. Stop seeing that, boy.

Isha 1:18:17 That's hard. And that's really hard. I know of a lot of things I would have my own experience with people who are like, can't be with you because you're, you're Indian, or you're you're not this you're not it's, I happen still a lot today. And I think every group, it is really sad.

Scott Benner 1:18:30 All very frankly. Yeah. And listen, diversity is important. And I'll tell you why. If for no other reason, I now know to get my eyebrows threaded, because of my because of my daughter's Indian friends. So and it's way better, just

Isha 1:18:47 so first off, I need to look at your eyebrows. Now. Second, I'm very impressed. Because not everyone knows about threading and it is a game changer with your eyebrows. So good on you, Scott.

Scott Benner 1:18:56 That's amazing. My daughter used to art nice to get waxed. And one day her friend was like, you really should just get threaded, a it's an insanely cheaper and be it's better. And so we

Isha 1:19:08 get hurt. It's like if you're not used to that someone would start screaming.

Scott Benner 1:19:11 Oh my God, he's just so artists like I'm gonna go I'm gonna try it while you drive me. It's before she had before she had a license. So I drove her to this place. And you know, we went in, and I will say the first time we went in, they looked at us like, why are there white people in here? It was very, are you here? Are you the right place? Okay, the pizza place is right over there. And you know, but like when she sat down, she got threaded. And she did it again. And again. She's like, can you take me to get thread and this became a thing we did together. And then one one day, one day, she's like, You should try it. Your eyebrows are terrible. And I was like, Okay, so I'm just you're a good sport. Oh my god, it hurts so bad.

Isha 1:19:51 Yeah, I was like, I'm impressed that you know what that is because not many people do. Second I'm impressed that you actually like went through it.

Scott Benner 1:19:59 Oh, it hurts so bad. that'd be like your eyes water and like afterwards you're like, Oh my God, but then you look at like, oh, they do look better. Okay, so then she'd go back. And I'd go back to we have little like punch cards, like if we go 10 times to get like a free one. And and then she like, it's one of the last things we did before she left for college.

Isha 1:20:18 So threading is like your thing. I wonder, like, I wonder if Arden like thinks of you anytime. So when gets threaded?

Scott Benner 1:20:24 Well, she's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. When I'm down here. I think I found a place to go get threaded, I'm not sure. And I'm having the feeling like, I don't want to go without her.

Isha 1:20:31 Like, I'll be there in like, four days.

Scott Benner 1:20:35 I'll wait till you get home. We'll do it together. But yeah, it hurts less and less as time goes on. But if you skip, if you skip a couple of like, I don't know, weeks or whatever, and you come back, it's like, Alright, I'm ready. Go ahead, do it. It's absolutely amazing. Anyway, there's the end, by the way, you're getting charged like 30 or $40. If you're a person being waxed, like your lip and your brows, you're paying a lot of money for that. I think threading with a tip is like, eight or nine bucks. Like it's nothing. So

Isha 1:21:05 just so you know, Scott Funny enough, it started off that way. Like I haven't gotten my restaurant in forever, because I think they're just like permanently, like the way they were once they were sorting by and they people start to realize like, it's a desired method of like doing your eyebrows or whatever. And like you like, you can go some places and it's like, $25 I

Scott Benner 1:21:22 can't do that. Like,

Isha 1:21:24 I know. Okay, inflation. Well,

Scott Benner 1:21:27 I will fight against it. I'll pick it. Although I will tell you this one thing when we call to make an appointment. This is so delightful. We must like, literally we must be the only white people that come here. And so like we'll call I'll be like Hi. Like, I used to do it. Like I get a text from art and she'd be at school she'd like, I want to get my eyebrows started this afternoon. And somebody to answer the phone no big Hi. I'd like to come in and bring my daughter and for threading. And and the voice on the phone goes Arden and hike. Yes for art. And she goes okay, we will see her then I was like, Okay, great. And then I hang up the phone. I'm like, I have to be the only Caucasian person who calls here or I'm the only man. Oh, hey, Scott, what's up? Like, like, it got to the point where she got there. And it's in a different town than ours. And a woman's threading Arden and she goes, Do you know, this girl and she brings up a girl's name and and goes, Yeah, I go to high school with her. And she goes, How do you know, I know her. And so obviously what happened was they were together somewhere personally and privately. And they're like, hey, there's a white girl that comes in here and gets her eyebrows threaded. And her name's Arden and the girls like I know her. I go to high school with her. And that actually like Arden, she's it's just hilarious. So that is really funny. We're made home. Now we walk in, we're like, hello, everyone. And they're like, you're here. It's

Isha 1:22:44 like celebrities. They're

Scott Benner 1:22:45 like cheers almost. It's very funny. So anyway, I really appreciate you doing this. Is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have?

Isha 1:22:54 I'm probably so many things, Scott. But I probably will harass you at some point in the future. And I'll be like, Hey, I have things that I remembered. I forgot about.

Scott Benner 1:23:01 I had a wonderful time speaking with you. So

Isha 1:23:04 vice versa. Thank you for giving me a break from newborn life. It's amazing. But it's nice to be able to like use my brain a little bit.

Scott Benner 1:23:11 I'm sure it will come back eventually. Or it won't. There are times there are times when we look at Kelly and we're like, Oh, I think she she slipped over a hill she's not able to climb back up.

Isha 1:23:22 So I'll tell you a quick story quickly that I'll let you go when I had my first kid and everyone's like mommy brain is a real thing. I remember I took him to the family to his pediatrician appointment, and I came back to the car and the trunk was open. The passenger side door was open the front and see through and it was all open. Like I just left it there. And I was like, Oh no.

Scott Benner 1:23:40 My neighbor never closes their trunk. And that's my dad. One day I went over and I I just I couldn't take it anymore had been open for hours. And so I closed it the next time I saw him I said hey, I closed your trunk and he went why? I went it was open for hours because he I don't mind that I was like oh sorry. And then I realized he wasn't forgetful. He just was just didn't want to do he was just cool with this trunk being open. So I was like, Alright, well I won't do that again. I'm

Isha 1:24:06 sorry. Anyway, kind of thing to do though.

Scott Benner 1:24:09 I'm gonna go take out the place where you curse Do you know you're cursed one time? Did I really? Yeah, very small course. But

Isha 1:24:14 you did. I'm sorry. No,

Scott Benner 1:24:16 don't be sorry. i It surprised me that like in a bad way. Just

Isha 1:24:20 it's funny. A lot of people say that to me when I'm like Oh, I'm like I was swearing so much like I could never picture that from you and I was like, thank you but I don't know if I should say thank you for that.

Scott Benner 1:24:28 I am 5926 And you said so check that out and then we're I just set it at 121 So Alright cool. Hold on one second for me. After we got done recording Isha told me her a one C was six with her first pregnancy 5.5 with their second and with the help of the podcast 4.8 with her third pregnancy can Indian is a possibility for the podcast title and no, I can't do the other one. Can Indian it's close or For the love of a Timbit Well, I just thought you might enjoy hearing my notes to myself at the end of an episode. I want to thank Isha for coming on the show and sharing her terrific story with us. And I want to thank the contour next gen blood glucose meter contour next.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast our next is a great meter contour is a great sponsor. Check them out, would you please thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast

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#922 Diabetes Myths: Poof It's Gone

A brand new series examining the myths surrounding diabetes.

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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 00:00 Hello friends and welcome to episode 922 of the Juicebox Podcast Welcome back everybody, this is the fourth episode of the diabetes myth series. Today Jenny Smith and I are going to tackle the myth that your diabetes might just magically get better or disappear. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. Now if you want incredibly comfortable joggers, shirts, sheets, towels scrunchies go to cozy earth.com and use the offer code juicebox at checkout to save 35% If you'd like to save 10% On your first month of therapy@betterhelp.com Just use the link betterhelp.com forward slash juicebox and if you want to get a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order of ag one from athletic greens, use my link athletic greens.com forward slash juicebox. If you're looking for great community around type one type two or any kind of diabetes, you're looking for the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom G seven and Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitoring systems. Both are astonishingly accurate and fantastic to use. My daughter is currently wearing the g7 but she wore the G six for years. With great success. You could to Dex comm.com forward slash juicebox. If you have diabetes, you're not going to do better than wearing a Dexcom CGM. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player links at juicebox podcast.com. Links everywhere to Dexcom on the pod all the sponsors, please click on my links. It really does help the show dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Hey, Jenny, welcome back. We are going to do another diabetes myth series. Today's topic is that your diabetes will just of course, disappear, stabilize or in fact, just get better.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 02:33 When that's what's happened,

Scott Benner 02:35 Oh, it's coming. Don't worry if I had $1 for every time someone has told me that my four year old daughter diagnosed the two will grow out of being diabetic. I would in fact be rich. That's got to be the juvenile diabetes holdover. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 02:51 I would expect so because actually, my my mom was told the same thing. She and my dad, I heard them having a conversation. I don't know it must have been within the year after I was diagnosed I had that I heard them having a conversation that uh, my mom was a teacher. And one of the teachers in her school said in discussion, well, you know, at least she'll grow out of it. Yeah. And my mom was like, so upset and talk to my dad. She's like, people just don't get it. She was just, like, completely overwhelmed with the fact that people aren't that dumb. Right. And I at when I was diagnosed, it was definitely still called juvenile diabetes. Right. I mean, it was type one too, but I think that is a holdover. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 03:36 Yeah. I mean, and now look, your story is 35 years old. And this is from somebody whose kids had diabetes for two years. I think, to me, the the real kind of desire I have for the myth series, is for you to maybe people to realize that this has got a lot less to do with diabetes and just a lot more to do with, you know, misinformation and correct

Jennifer Smith, CDE 03:59 misinformation. That is, as you just said, it's ages old. Why is it with all the new information? All the new technology and everything we have? Why is it still so misunderstood? Why are we still looking at diabetes management like it was in the 1970s or the 1980s? Even Yeah,

Scott Benner 04:19 because it's very human to jump to conclusions. That's why I had a person ask when my son's type one was going to be over. Oh, no, like like the flu right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 04:33 The Oh, right. Like I've got a cold now, waiting for it to be over.

Scott Benner 04:37 When's it gonna kick this? Have you tried matzah ball Sue? Can you imagine? Well, it same thing right? My Type One did not magically disappear when I grew up. This is an adult said oh, somebody told me it was going to and it didn't. That's the part I find. Concerning like you You had to hear your parents have a conversation, where your mom was like, there are people who think that Jennifer's diabetes is gonna go away. And you probably heard that as a little kid, you were like, god damn right. It's gonna go away. Like, yeah, like, Yeah, let's go. And then the conversation keeps going, and your mom's like, it's not going to. And now you're like, oh, like, picked up and dropped and picked up and dropped. That sucks. Yeah, I was told my diabetes would get better, our son would just grow out of it. The quote is, you'll soon get sick of doing this whole insulin thing. We watched it a few months. Oh, wow. Let me start at the beginning and read it straight through. This is a quote, you'll soon get sick of doing the whole insulin thing in a few months, and you won't even bother with it anymore. Where's that? So that, so let's dig into the psyche of the person that said that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 05:56 So is this. This is as if I got it, the person was told this or this is as if

Scott Benner 06:03 they were told this by an acquaintance by adequate. Yeah, so I got this one, though. I got this one. You can eat in a way with type two diabetes, where your blood sugars will be higher, and it will hurt your long term health. But it's not going to hurt you today, but meaning you're not going to fall over and die. So sure you could diet and exercise but just don't, you'll get tired of doing that. And then your life will be what it'll be sort of that. That very accepting, oh, he's got the sugars feeling like there's nothing, it's just the way that it is the way it is. You can't do anything about it. So then that gets translated to a person with type one. And they think that the effort, meaning instead of diet and exercise, the effort is insulin, but if you don't, you don't need to put in that effort. I mean, what are you trying to live forever? I think that's what I'm hearing. That's what I think I hear that. That's the thing to say to somebody. Oh, absolutely.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 07:02 Yeah. Either that or the person was just like, you're just getting get fed up with taking insulin, just stop taking it in that, that it'll just be what it is. I mean, that can be taken a lot of different ways.

Scott Benner 07:17 Oh, yeah. If I wasn't trying to be charitable towards what I think they were thinking, then you could easily take that and probably would, in fact, if you were just blindsided by it, as you'll probably just give up and die. Or let them talking about their kid. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I don't know where you're gonna go with that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 07:33 I mean, again, please think before you say something to somebody, I can't reiterate. I like I can't say that enough. Just please think

Scott Benner 07:44 what if getting it, I don't want to be. I don't want to be like, I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 07:49 wish people without diabetes, were listening to this, like, I wish we could just blast this out, like right in the middle of a city and be like, listen, here.

Unknown Speaker 08:00 If you don't know anything about diabetes, please just dip your lips.

Scott Benner 08:04 Oh, I think just think is, is that because what I was gonna say is I don't want to be critical. But what if this is them thinking? You know, it's different rabbit hole, I don't want to go down. But everybody you bump into is not, you know, Einstein's birthday. So maybe they just don't understand. Again, with the juvenile diabetes thing. It's a great time to talk about how a lovely thing that was done, I think in the 70s ended up having such an unintended impact on things, just by calling it the Juvenile diabetes Research Foundation. You let people who didn't understand believe that you turn 18. And this goes away and probably bolstered by people's understanding of like gestational diabetes to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 08:53 could be it could also be that up until a certain point, and I don't know how many years ago, I would say that it has possibly gotten better. But you know, in the 60s 70s, maybe even the 80s. It was looked at as juvenile because that was the the time period of life that you could get type one, right? And after you reached adulthood, you could no longer get type one, you may still have diabetes, as a person diagnosed as a child, and now you're an adult with juvenile diabetes because that's when it was diagnosed. But I think people were misdiagnosed even eons ago as an adult with type two and they really had type one diabetes. And so at some point, you know, the JDRF I mean, it's still called the juveniles diabetes, right? But it is type one diabetes. There isn't a foundation like Got that I know is called type two.

Scott Benner 10:02 Yeah. Also, they try pretty hard not to use the word juvenile anymore to you really just the JDRF. It's yeah, for I think it's there for historical purposes. But, you know, it's funny, like, these next couple, you'll grow out of it, it'll end and then this word starts popping up. Don't worry, it just hasn't stabilized yet. That's another one. Like, like this person said, My I was in the hospital was told that when I got out of the hospital, they were in the hospital with DKA with a lot of diagnosis. And they were like, flat out told when it gets leveled out. It's fine. Don't worry, it just has to stabilize, even I don't even know like, and that's, it's a static void.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:44 It is because that's a that's a statement as if there is nothing the person has to do themselves in order for that stabilization to happen, right? You're just diagnosed this person sounds like was with Lada, right. And then they go home thinking, Well, I just have to wait for this magical like hour. Yeah, right. It's magical hour, when the insulin that they told me to take, it's just gonna start working the right way. It's almost like the magic wand idea, right? Like, at some point, this is just gonna work all the way that it's supposed to work, I'm gonna count my carbs, I'm gonna take my insulin the way they told me to take it, I'm gonna check my blood sugar. And it's just gonna even out and those of us with diabetes know that that's not me, there's a lot of work that we have to do to get to that stabilization point. And even once you get there, at some point, you're going to have to rethink to get to another stable point,

Scott Benner 11:48 well consider this. We're mostly talking about this from the perspective of somebody who has type one and is, you know, impacted by these statements. But but there are people who believe that who end up getting type one. And that's a completely different problem. And I have spoken to those people throughout my time, where they're just like, oh, you know, it's okay. It's not that bad. I don't have to, you know, I tested a couple times today, they, but they, you can hear them. They're not apathetic, they really don't understand. Right? Yeah. And they have it, where their, their kid has it, I there's a person the other day that came into the Facebook group, whose kid, the kids, like, they had a kid with type one. And the graph was just all over the place. But what struck me was the person said, I'm an adult who has type one diabetes. And I don't know what's happening. I thought, I don't understand, like, how do you not, I don't understand, like, like you. But there, it was, like, it just gets you to the idea that even the success they're having, they don't even know why they're having it. Like they couldn't make like simple meaning

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:59 it's not translatable into helping the child because they don't know how the success they're having is actually being achieved. They

Scott Benner 13:06 really don't understand it yet. It's just weights working for them. So they don't think about it, then somebody else comes along, who obviously has different impacts and different variables affecting them. Smaller body size, and is a different state of life. Yeah, right. Well, that's, that's this here, you know, this person that says, multiple occasions, I've been told that my daughter will outgrow the condition a family friend, and an educator tried to explain to me that as she gets older, her body will just start to level out, and it won't be so crazy. So, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:39 I Yeah. And to some degree, I think that the childhood years and the teen years and even college years, probably where there's still a lot of change, and growing and development and whatnot. I think that they are they're the least stable potential times for most people, because they're the growing years. That's the case. But as you grow into being an adult, there are I think, many more variables. And that could lead to a loss of stability to

Scott Benner 14:13 Yeah, no, I mean this, but you take it from the mother's perspective. She's sitting there thinking, I'm waiting for puberty, because I think this is going to mess everything up. And you're telling me don't worry if they get it. Now listen, I would tell you, if you asked me about a very little kid, I would say Well listen, as their body gets bigger. It gets a little easier to measure insulin. Yeah, that's got nothing to do with their, their age or things like magically like, I don't do people not understand science at all. Like Like, like the it'll stabilize, it's gonna balance like, what does that mean? It's gonna balance.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:50 We're, I think we're thinking about it too, from a perspective of long term understanding. Right? We We just know enough to be able to say that statement is Just so incorrect, like, balance really? Like?

Scott Benner 15:07 I've had several friends asked me if it will settle down. Don't worry, it should clear up after puberty somebody else was told houses diabetes, have the numbers leveled out yet? Oh, is her diabetes under control it just like these these go on and on and on? Oh, you should by the way, then the judgment comes you should have had this under control by now.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:26 Or what also comes in with this is people have heard or seen technology. Right? Don't you have this under control? Now? You got those fancy devices? Yeah. You put? Sure do.

Scott Benner 15:41 Yeah, I put the machine on and it all got fixed straight up, don't you worry. Push the button. And that was it. I saw. It's all better woman today is like, in the group. She's like, I don't understand. I'm on my fifth on the pod five, look how bad my blood sugars are. But not doing any of the things that you need to do. She just thought the magic machine was going to take care of what was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:02 going to take. And that's unfortunately, I think what a lot of people with or without diabetes who haven't had enough, enough information given to them about what the product that they're getting, will and will not do. And the fact that there is still interaction, you still have to know what you're telling it. Because this device is not a learning device. None of them are.

Scott Benner 16:29 Well, that's just Well, yeah, I don't know, there's a lot of misconceptions on both sides. This one here, I just this lovely this person says. I've just learned I just learned she said to say when somebody says how she doing has as she gotten her diabetes under control yet. She says I respond. Yep. Thank you so much for asking. Yeah, that's it, just like I don't like. What does it matter is I think that it's still like infuriating. And I mean, some of the terminology again, like settled down, you imagine,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:02 right, right. And I think to some degree, too, you have to look at the person who's asking. They wouldn't be asking if there wasn't some sense of care, no coming from their side, right? They really do want to know, they're just asking it in an absurd way. They're just like, not understanding.

Scott Benner 17:23 Yeah. And this person's response here gives you a lot of context for being on the other side of it. Like, she's like, I am making mental calculations forever. Like, sure. I've got my kids a one seat, like, amazing. Like, this lady really does this. She's saying the kids a one sees 4.9 She's got less than 2% lows. But that's a person who's putting a massive amount of effort into it. Right? And, and then just to have someone come along and say like, has it stabilized? You'd be like, oh, yeah, sure. It's stabilized. I sleep four hours a night. Thanks for asking. Oh, my gosh. Let's see. Not how it works, but blah. I hate this question. Does she have her diabetes under control? Yeah, it's just it's because you know what, it's funny. Jenny asked me if my daughter's diabetes is under control. You can make better decisions in the moment with the most accurate CGM on the market the Dexcom G seven dexcom.com. Forward slash juicebox. My daughter just moved to the g7 from the G six and she already loves the new smaller size and ease of use. You can learn more and get started today@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Due to recent Medicare changes. Millions more people are now covered for the Dexcom CGM. The g7 is the smallest most accurate CGM system covered by Medicare. And it is easy to use and to get started with no other CGM system is more affordable than the Dexcom g7. For Medicare patients. The g7 is a simple to use system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or your smartwatch. With no finger sticks required. Effortlessly see your glucose levels and where they're headed. So you can make smarter decisions about food and activity in the moment. This amazing tool is going to help you to take better control of your diabetes dexcom.com forward slash juice box whether you're looking for a brand new system, changing from another company, or looking to upgrade that G six dexcom.com forward slash juice box. The new G seven comes with a refreshed app that is just a delight to use. My daughter is 19 years old. She's been using index comm for well over a decade. It is at the core of how we make decisions about in Ceylan food activity. All of the variables that impact diabetes, check it out@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at juicebox podcast.com to Dexcom. At all the sponsors when you click the links, you're supporting the podcast

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:30 Yeah, what is your daughter's diabetes under control?

Scott Benner 20:34 Yeah, it is. Yeah. How about yours? Yes, yeah. So it also matters where you are. It isn't to say that Arden doesn't have a high blood sugar sometimes or a low blood sugar. Sometimes there have days where she's like, my periods coming and I can't, I can't see. Blah, blah, blah, and all that other stuff. But overall Arden's Okay, she is stable. And yeah, under control, like, but then you, you know, people I know, you know, people who the words under control or management, those words piss them off to no end. You know, yeah, it's because of the other things that these people are sharing that it's hard, and you're not seeing all the work that goes into making it under control, you know, quote, unquote, right? Yeah. I mean, if you really asked me to be specific with words, I would not use the words Ardens diabetes is under control. I would

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:32 control control means you have the ultimate manage, you have the ultimate reins, right. It is entirely absolutely contained. There is no further issue. I also don't love the word control at all in terms of diabetes discussion. It's, it's a management strategy. Yeah.

Scott Benner 21:53 Yeah, but the real control the real answer to is Arden's blood sugar under control, the real answer is 15 minutes long. Get it? I mean, it's a it's a very complex answer that ends with so most of the time, things are very manageable. Manageable. Yes. And, and manageable is not a word. If I said to you, Jenny, how's your life going? And you said, it's manageable? That's not an exciting statement. That's not I was at the What's that a ball in where they all dress up? The Met Gala, you know? Oh, it's not it's not I was just at the Met Gala. It's, it's manageable is not is not an exciting way to describe your life. You know what I mean? And no, I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:41 it almost has a hint of it could be a lot better. Just making it. I'm just getting through. It's manageable.

Scott Benner 22:52 We haven't closed the garage door and listen to music yet. Yeah, we're trying. Oh, God, hey, when your kids teacher tells you don't worry, they're gonna grow out of it. That's fun. My 19 month old went into DKA. After dental surgery. The Secretary, the secretary called us while he was in the PICU, to see how he was doing and said, Don't worry, at least they'll grow out of it. Oh, yeah. 19 month old kid in the PICU. You're probably thinking, Oh, my baby's gonna die. And you got to hear from from the from. I got from the receptionist at the dental office who was probably told, please call all those people check on and make sure they know we care. You know what I mean? Yeah. And though, I wonder if you go back there for your dental work after that. chatty, do you know, Jenny says no shake. Oh, this is interesting. There. And we talked about this in the previous episode, this person was told, Well, if you have a normal a one, see you're cured.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:01 Oh, my goodness, I'll cure Oh, silver. Wow. Then I would I would expect that a fair number of your listeners are completely cured. I'm completely here. The people are all cured. It's all good. I mean, I can stop paying for products I can talk to the pharmacy. Yay.

Scott Benner 24:26 The next statement is from a person who was told well, if you're a one C is under control, that means you're in remission.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:33 Oh, where are these here? I don't understand. Hopefully, these are not medical practitioners telling these things.

Scott Benner 24:40 Keep in mind that these responses just came from me making a Facebook post that said, can you tell me some of the myths? misnomers have chairs that you've heard about diabetes and on? I didn't break it down by topics. No, I didn't say tell me this topic and this topic and this topic, the topics that we'll talk about Add an indication of what people mostly here posted. Yeah. And in. Also this post wasn't up for a month and a half. Like I had somebody mine these answers after about 18 hours late, like I was like, that's enough grab them, we can definitely use those in the episode. Yeah, yeah. It didn't end there

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:17 were what was it? 52 pages of evidence, right.

Scott Benner 25:22 Yeah. And this is Isabel paring it down or ripping out like, like, she told me like, I took out all the duplicate answers, because that's the other thing is that she's like, you can start reading one person's answer and another person's answer. And she's like, they're just exactly the same. You know, these people have had the exact same experience with, in most cases, a loved one or a close personal friend or something like that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:47 Yeah, I'd be curious. And I know that it wasn't, you can't filter it that way. But I would be really curious. How many people in the past? Let's call it two years, versus how many people who have had diabetes for a lengthy period of time? 10 plus years, right? What's the difference in the myths that people have heard more recently, versus those that they're pulling from memory? Like my memory of my parents talking about that is eons ago, right? versus how many people these are, these are still circulating types of,

Scott Benner 26:26 well, the cabinet, the pump ones got to be more like, hey, you've got the machine, right like that. That has to be to be more recent. Yeah, yeah. I wish that. Like, I don't have diabetes. But telling me hey, you have a CGM. So it must be so much easier. You have a pump, so it must be so much easier, is like saying, I don't know. Like, I'm, I don't know, like I'm being beaten by a gang in the street. But they played music in the background while it was happening. You like so wasn't it better that they were playing Marvin Gaye while they were kicking your ass? Like, I mean, I guess so. Like, but

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:03 not yes, my ears were pleased. But

Scott Benner 27:05 I take your point, it was better than them not playing Marvin Gaye and kicking my ass little history. But I don't know why that is the thing you would say to somebody that that part is still like, I don't think I'm gonna get through this series and understand that part. And I tried. I talked to I talked to Erica, she talked to me like a really mentally stable, healthy person. And I was still like, I don't know those people. So I'm starting to think this is the last one, Jenny. Okay. She's not surprised, she says, but she thinks it's silly and frustrating to have to correct after being diagnosed as an adult. I was explaining to an old school friend, and she could not for the life of her understand that taking insulin wouldn't just cure me. She kept asking when I'd be able to stop, and when the insulin would make me better. And it took me ages to get her to understand. So that's that one, I think is simple, though. Like I think most people who haven't had a real, like a serious illness, right? Or something that's habitual in their life. Everything else that they get? You take the medicine and the medicine and

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:20 it's all better. You feel great. Yeah.

Scott Benner 28:23 That one I almost just understand. Like, yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:28 yeah. Although I think is simple. What I think is simple explanation should have been Is that Well, imagine if I took your pancreas out of your body or your I shouldn't say pancreas, I should say beta cells, right? What if I took your beta cells out of your body? Now your body no longer has the cells to make the insulin? Right? So what are you going to do about it? Well, I don't know. Right? You're gonna take insulin, which means that my body which now has destroyed beta cells, I have to keep taking insulin, because I keep eating. Right? I mean, doesn't that just make sense? To me, I

Scott Benner 29:10 add a more shocking example. Like if I said, If I said you, your lungs just stopped working. But we put a tube down your throat, and you were breathing again. You're not fixed. We've patched we've patched patch the issue? Exactly. We've given you enough of a crutch that you can go on. But let's not ignore the fact that there's a tube down your throat breathing for you, etc. Like, like, crack. Yeah, that's the I guess that is the harshness of it. I mean, for you, as someone with type one, like we've done three of these episodes now. Like what's the overall feeling you get when you hear this stuff? Is it sadness? Anger, like where does it strike you?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:00 I think that I am most, most sad, I guess, because there is such a lack of understanding. And that because diabetes, whether it's type one or type two, it's very invisible, right? It's invisible outside of the products and the technology and everything else that we wear on our bodies. So it could look to the outsider who has no understanding of life with diabetes, it could look to them as if we just have to do XY and Z. Or you just have to take this technology and put it on and use it. And then it's gonna be all all better for you. Right? Like there's a magic band aid for it. So it's sad to me that in this day and age, with the amount of information that circulates on the internet, that people still have these thoughts that are so old. And so lacking understanding,

Scott Benner 31:06 is that upsetting because you have to deal with it, or because you realize it's never going to end. Because it's not gonna end?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:14 I don't think so either. Yeah, at all. I mean, you can have you can have famous people on the Superbowl wearing their CGM. Right. And either people weren't watching, or they just think, Oh, great. That's new technology. And again, oh, the technology is doing it. Yeah. Fabulous. Right.

Scott Benner 31:32 Well, yeah, yeah. If we, and in fairness, media, social media in general, seeing someone in their best moment in five years, it's not a good way to judge them whether they have diabetes or not. But yeah, I mean, you see Nick Jonas, and he's handsome. And he's standing there gone. I have type one and your life on he's looking at him. I wish I was Nick Jonas. Must be okay. Must be fine. Yeah. Must be fine. I think the only

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:00 mass and or it must take nothing to be an itch, baby. I mean, what I get from that? Watch the Super Bowl door. Did I ever? I don't even think Eagles

Scott Benner 32:09 won the Super Bowl last year, and you should have been watching. But go ahead. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:13 Sorry about that. But I look at it, you know, there's this very famous person. And there are many famous people who have diabetes. But there's this famous person in Gosh, he's living a good life. He's just got this fancy technology. And he puts it out and look at he's still enjoying, he's doing his thing. He's living life. But they don't also see, they don't see the Nick Jonas at two o'clock in the morning, who's got a low blood sugar, right? Yeah, they don't see it, because the commercial highlights only the beautiful piece of his life. And it's funny

Scott Benner 32:49 too, because I see both sides of that, like, it can make people who don't understand diabetes, think exactly what you just said. But it could also take a bunch of people who have diabetes, get them to try that product. And what they would learn in my opinion is, wow, this is a lot better. Like, correct, yeah. And so you're marketing to them trying to get Listen, I am a person who might my life is very odd, like, I make this podcast to try to inform and help people, right. But I can't make it unless it pays my bills. And so like I have to a business thing on the other side of it. It is hard to get people to do things, even things that are really good for them. And I mean, the truth is, if you asked me if if I could get I don't know a 32nd commercial, Nick Jonas telling you to listen to the Juicebox Podcast, if I would take it, I absolutely would. I'd be like, Yeah, you got people over here so they can learn how to Pre-Bolus and etc, and so on. And so it's a weird, it's a weird split. Because I take both sides of that point, like very well, like it does leave people who don't understand what the feeling like, Oh, it must not be that bad. And then it leads to people saying things like, we've been going over? Well, they

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:05 think there is, you know, many of them. There's so many of them now on television. I mean, we don't really even watch television, but when I do catch it, there's so much pharmacy based commercial. Yeah, on television these days that I can definitely say, from seeing other medications advertised. I don't. Because it's not affecting me and my life. I don't even pay attention to what they're talking about, right? I do a channel serve, or I go up, get up and go to the bathroom or something. I don't pay attention. So I see what you're saying in terms of marketing. When something like the commercial for Dexcom comes out. They are marketing to a hopeful group of people that will have will think that they need the product. Yeah, this isn't meant for the general public to see and be like, Well, gosh, I should probably Dexcom things right? They probably walked away and went and got more chips and salsa. I will

Scott Benner 35:09 make your point for you. I'm using weego V for weight loss right now we go via is just those Empik. Okay, yes rebranded for weight loss. I could sing the ozempic song for two years. And I didn't really know what it was, or care, but I was like, Oh, it was and I know this one. Like, you know.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:33 I don't even know that.

Scott Benner 35:35 I never I never looked up and thought, I wonder what ozempic is. And then people listening might be like, that's crazy. Scott, you have a diabetes podcast. But until I started seeing people talk about it in the space, I was like, oh, that's for diabetes. I didn't know Yes. And that's just true. Like, that's 100% True. I did not know what that was. And I could sing the song about it. So, you know, when a famous person stands up and goes, diabetes is hard, but and then the rest of it is a sales pitch. You forget the diabetes is hard part. So you're an outsider, you're not going to leave that going diabetes as hard. You're going to leave that going. Apparently, diabetes, isn't that bad? Because that kid's handsome.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:15 He's got right.

Scott Benner 36:17 Have you seen his ads? diabetes, Basal for you?

Unknown Speaker 36:20 Everybody knows him. So gosh, we're

Scott Benner 36:23 gonna remake this myths thing in five years. Somebody's gonna be like, I think diabetes gives you abs.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:30 That's all they're gonna take out.

Scott Benner 36:32 B, they're taken away from seeing Nick Jonas on TV. They'll be like, I think diabetes gives you abs. And then one day somebody will say it anyway. All right, Jenny, I appreciate you fighting through not feeling well. And doing this.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:44 Can I also say something? You have time for two seconds?

Scott Benner 36:48 Are we recording it? Yes. Okay, then. Yeah, come on. Like not for not recorded?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:55 Oh, no, no, no, we're recording this. It's just a simple thank you, honestly, to all of your listeners. Because of the really just wonderful, wonderful number of comments that I got for my diabetes anniversary. I'm just really, it was really kind of you to post something. And it was just, it was nice to hear all of the comments and, and everything. It just it kind of made my day. So I just wanted to thank everybody.

Scott Benner 37:21 That's wonderful. I'm sure they, they, they're all excited to hear that because they do love you. And I mean, it's Jenny's 35th anniversary today, you know, wish her well, if you want. It didn't stop for like two days. Did you go back to it? It kept going on?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:37 I did I went I mean, it was just all of the comments. So many different I mean, different comments to about things. And so yeah, it made me it just makes me smile. Thank you for your

Scott Benner 37:48 welcome. But you know why? Right? You understand or no?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:53 I, I guess I do understand. I mean, it makes me appreciate also, and I've told you this before, it just makes me appreciate the ability to connect with a community that I didn't have when I was growing up. Yeah, at all. I mean, I don't post or anything. I'm kind of a lurker. But it's it's a good connection. Even with the career that I have that's specific to diabetes. It's a really good personal connection to a community. That means a lot to me. So

Scott Benner 38:25 Well, I think that I think that one of the things that probably overwhelms people, I mean, you were celebrating your 35th year having diabetes. And you and I are sitting on a Friday afternoon doing this and you're sick, and I don't pay you for this. And you really do want to help people. And I do listen, I don't keep there's not much on my desk, but I want you to watch me, I'm just going to reach forward. All right. This is a thank you note you wrote me years ago, about the about the podcast, it's a Christmas note and just the you telling me what, what you were, what you thought of what I was doing and how it was helping people. And I just, I just keep it it's in front of me when I make the podcast like I see I see it all the time. Because yeah, no, because it would be easy to leave the space. Like you don't, you don't need this, like like, I mean, professionally, take that out for a second, you know how to take care of yourself. And yeah, and you and I know that the support is a big deal in the community is a big deal. But there's a lot of work and effort that goes into helping people. And, you know, I mean, we talked about a little earlier in this episode, right? Like it's not that easy to help people. Like you can have all the great information you want the barriers to it, getting to them to them finding you to use saying it in a way that they understand that they can actually put in a process and it's not easy. It's really difficult. And so When you get a note from someone on your birthday, or your diversionary or something like that, where they're telling you, you saved my kid's life, like, that's no small thing, like, oh, yeah, just to get to them, and then for them to actually take all this and put it into practice. And then it's huge. It's just, it's just, it's almost unlikely, you know, and that's why it's such a big deal. I had a converse, I have a lot of conversations about this podcast privately where I'm just trying to keep it going in the right direction and doing the right thing. And so I asked, I asked trusted people last night about just you and I, and like, how we get along together. And even that's completely just, it's random, Jenny, get any more like, it's completely random. Like, you know, I think that you and I equally bring something to these conversations that the other doesn't have. Yes, you know what I mean, and, and not just that, but like the simple things like we can, we can have a conversation and not talk over each other. True, there are people I talked to, I can't find, I can't find a rhythm with them. Like I try and I try and I'm like, I just can't find it. Like they can't find me. I can't find them. It just never works. It's always frustrating. And, and I mean, just think like, what did we say in that post about your diversity? The first time you were on the podcast was in 2015 15? I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:28 think Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a, it was a I know, it was a long time ago. I feel like really, I looked at the date. And I was like, really? 2015 2023? Yes, I know. It was a long time ago.

Scott Benner 41:43 So it's well deserved for you, obviously. And I was happy to wish it to you in public and a place where I can tell you, you listen to everyone who has diabetes deserves to be celebrated like that. I mean, seriously, I really do agree. Yeah. But I mean, it just, it just makes a lot of sense to shout you out. That's for sure. I'm 35 years, Jennifer. That's pretty awesome. Don't you think?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:07 It is pretty awesome. I know. I still have I think he had my 25 I did the Joslin where they said do you like the metal, you know, and I still have it and the little letter that they send and everything. But I looked at it the other day, and I was like, I like 10 years behind. I didn't really feel kind of old. I was like, oh my god, like 10 years ago already? Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:29 it's not easy. It's not it is not easy at all. I just, I got on the scale this morning. To see how much weight I've lost. I am now down. Do you want to guess?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:40 Um, I have to remember the last time you told me I'm 15.

Scott Benner 42:45 I'm up to 18 pounds now. Wow. And I could not find any record of me being this low as like in the last five or so years? Because I would like Like you've heard me talk before. Like I did a baked potato diet one time. Does anybody know I did a big potato fast. One time it really worked. The tall magician. whichever one it is Penner Taylor is the tall one pen.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:11 It is I don't even know. I know the names, but I couldn't tell them apart.

Scott Benner 43:14 I one day was listening to him on a podcast. He's like I lost 100 pounds eating baked potatoes. I was like, Get out of here. I'll try that. And so I did it for as long as I could like muster. And I did lose weight. Like it was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:27 like it was just I'm curious about this. No, just potato. You couldn't put anything on it. It was just baked potato. And that's it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:34 Baked potato. And then I think you called it and then you rewarm and like, if you were to put salt and pepper on it, you were like cheating, if I remember. So, and I'll tell you what it works. It fills you up. You can't eat anymore, because it's the big potato. And it's particularly tasty. So it's not like you're like, oh, you know what I want more big.

Unknown Speaker 43:57 You are big.

Scott Benner 43:59 But that made me realize that, like, how many how many years have gone by even since I've done that? Right? It's really

Jennifer Smith, CDE 44:07 I remember the cabbage soup diet. My mom did the cabbage soup diet like eons ago. And I mean, there are lovely things in the cabbage soup recipe. But that's that's like all you ate was the cabbage soup.

Scott Benner 44:21 Didn't work. Do you remember it working?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 44:23 I do remember my mom. I do remember and she stuck with it for a fair amount of time but she clearly didn't. Long term. I mean, that's one of those things that when you find something that works great, but can you really can you really do this for the next 60 years? Yeah,

Scott Benner 44:40 handful of grass water and a little salt. No, thank you. That's not gonna that's not gonna anyway. Screw all that. That's awesome. Yeah. GLP is works but my point was the time has gone by like so quickly and without you noticing and I have to be honest, like when I saw that one because I had to go do it. I'm like, Oh, let me go. Find out the first time Jenny was on the podcast because I want to say like when when we first met, I was like, wow, that's insane. You know, so but yeah, it was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 45:08 a long time ago, well, and I look at all the episodes, the things that we've done, but the wealth of what you've provided for the community is, is not necessarily the education episodes. It's, I think, bringing a community of people together to, let's say, they they find the episode by doing a search for mental health. And your episode comes up because it includes some of the ones with Erica, right. And that, that's an in for somebody, they listen, and it makes sense. And there's a hint of diabetes in it. But the other piece is that it helps them on an on another level. Because we don't just live with diabetes, we live with all these other things in our life, right? And so then they look for more. And they say, Well, gosh, there's also these education pieces. And maybe I could listen to these I like this guy, like, oh, talks, like maybe I maybe I can get around doing something extra for myself and my diabetes. So I think it's, it's a welcoming place. And it's a place where you can say, I'm gonna pick and choose. And yeah, that was interesting. I'm going to learn more, I'm going to go to this episode, because it's got a touch of this as well. And I think that that's why it makes sense to so many people.

Scott Benner 46:23 I agree. I agree that especially that's very nice to have you, thank you. But I agree very much that you can't just say to somebody, listen to these 10. And it'll be okay. Like, people's minds just don't work that way. So you have to build this world that they come into, and then get lost in and then learn things mostly by mistake. You know, I said to somebody the other day, and I don't mind repeating it over and over again, part of me thinks my job is to almost trick you into taking care of yourself. You know what I mean? Like, it's a good way to bring you in, and like, here's some crazy conversation, and you leave it with a little more knowledge about yourself than you had. And yeah, it just really works. Like there's, there are episodes of this podcast, you can listen to an episode of this podcast where a young girl was diagnosed with type one diabetes on a heroin Bender, and you will learn something about your diabetes. That episode, she jumped out of her grandfather's window to score and while she was out passed out from decay, and it's Wow, one of the it's one of my most favorite conversations I've ever had. I mean that listen to that. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. I just, I just did a search Jenny, your name, the word Jenny appears in 30 episode titles. And that is not all the episodes you're in. So you've just done quite a quite a lovely thing for all these people. So thank you for and for me, by the way, I should say that my understanding of diabetes is deeper and richer, because of you and my understanding of how to talk to people about it. Is just, I mean, you brought a lot to my life. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 48:01 Yeah, so that was very nice. Thank you.

Scott Benner 48:03 Try to try to do it for 35 more years. I got bills to pay. Okay. I mean, we, I mean, we want to help people. We want to help people. Yes, I'm just teasing. Hopefully people can hear the sarcasm. Happy 35th anniversary Jenny Jenny works at integrated diabetes.com You can hire her there. And thank you so much to Dexcom makers, the Dexcom G six and Dexcom G seven continuous glucose monitoring systems. dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Looking for diabetes community Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook is a great place to find it. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it. And leave a beautiful rating and review somewhere. Or I don't know just like yell out the window. I love the Juicebox Podcast but at the very least subscribe or follow in your podcast or audio app. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#921 After Dark: Liv(e)

Liv has type 1 diabetes. Warning. Discussion of attempted suicide.

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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 00:00 Hello friends and welcome to episode 921 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today, I'll be speaking with Liv. She's the young lady who has type one diabetes for about a year. She's here to talk about that, and a lot more. She's had some mental health issues a suicide attempt, and we're gonna break it all down and chat about it. 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, or becoming bold with insulin. If you like saving money, listen to this 35% off your entire order at cosy earth.com with the offer code juice box at checkout because the Earth has amazing sheets that I sleep on clothes that I wear towels that I dry my bottom with, you might like them to use the offer code juicebox at checkout at cozy earth.com to save 35% If you'd like to save 10% off your first month of therapy at BetterHelp just go to better help.com forward slash juice box you'll save that 10% And to get five free travel packs and a year's supply of vitamin D for free with your first order of ag one from Athletic Greens use my link athletic greens.com forward slash juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omni pod five Omni pod.com forward slash use boxes where you're going to learn more and get started with the Omni pod five, or the Omni pod dash. You can wear the exact same insulin pump at Arden does at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Are you nervous?

Unknown Speaker 01:55 A little bit?

Scott Benner 01:57 That's okay. That's probably your voice is being recorded and people are gonna listen to it.

Unknown Speaker 02:02 No way. Yeah, didn't sign up for this

Scott Benner 02:05 box, there are bugs living on your skin and inside of you to I don't know if you do that. Oh, that's

Unknown Speaker 02:09 Wow, that really helps. I mean, everything's so much better.

Scott Benner 02:14 It'd be nice and comfortable. you'll introduce yourself any way you want to be known. There's no reason if you'd use your last name unless you have a reason to. If we talk about other people in your life, it's fine with me if you use their name. Just please don't get to the end of the recording and think Oh, I really shouldn't have said my aunt's name three times. Because it creates a hellscape for me over here. Other than that, I honestly don't care what you say. Okay, all right, Julio, if you're ready to go look at you referencing mid level rappers from the 90s.

Unknown Speaker 02:51 That's my niche.

Scott Benner 02:54 That's where I live right there. I'm down with opp. Let's get going. So what guy just introduce yourself.

Liv 03:02 All right. My name is live without the E. And I got diagnosed with type one a year ago tomorrow.

Scott Benner 03:11 Get out of here. Yeah. Really? Yeah. How are you on the podcast? A year to almost to the day of your diagnosis that on purpose? Um,

Unknown Speaker 03:23 no, actually, I was really surprised that you picked that day. It took me a week to realize that that was actually the day before but um, yeah, I don't know. Just sheer luck. How old are you? I am 21. Wow. Yeah, I got diabetes for my 21st birthday.

Scott Benner 03:45 Were you thinking you were gonna get beer?

Unknown Speaker 03:47 Yeah. But hey, I got both. Don't worry.

Scott Benner 03:52 It took care of everything. So you're going to be 22 tomorrow and you've had diabetes for a year?

Unknown Speaker 03:58 Well, it's not my birthday tomorrow. Oh, the anniversary February but yeah,

Scott Benner 04:03 well, this month ish. Whatever

Unknown Speaker 04:07 person cares. It doesn't matter.

Scott Benner 04:08 If you're making me curse.

Unknown Speaker 04:12 Have that effect?

Scott Benner 04:13 Do a lot of cursing when they're around you? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 04:17 I also just curse really bad. So I think people fall into it, but

Scott Benner 04:22 I find it makes them comfortable. Yeah. What's your favorite word?

Unknown Speaker 04:28 chagrin. Or my favorite curse word?

Scott Benner 04:31 grins. Your favorite word? Grin is

Unknown Speaker 04:33 my favorite word.

Scott Benner 04:34 How did that happen?

Unknown Speaker 04:35 Um, there's this YouTube artist. His name is Peter drawers. And my brother's name is Peter. So they were like my brother really liked him for a long time and I watched his videos and he just was really chill kind of like hippie dude. And he would use that word quite often and every time he said it, it just put a smile on my face.

Scott Benner 05:00 Oh, that's the same much to my chagrin.

Unknown Speaker 05:02 Yeah, along those lines.

Scott Benner 05:05 Yeah, we're just talking in small sound bites for the rest of this. So, I guess I did mean, what was your favorite curse word? Like Which one do you use most frequently?

Unknown Speaker 05:17 Um, probably the effort has to be right. Or, you know, I call everyone the B word all the time.

Scott Benner 05:26 I love how you said you love cursors. But you said the F word and the B word now instead of well,

Unknown Speaker 05:30 am I allowed to curse?

Scott Benner 05:31 I don't know. Just bleep it out. It's fine.

Unknown Speaker 05:34 Yeah, I don't I hate when I hate the beep. So you're gonna

Scott Benner 05:42 you're gonna avoid the beeps for them. That's very considered of, you know, so nice. What about the people who want the curses? And right now we're thinking, much to my chagrin, lived in curse the entire time?

Unknown Speaker 05:55 Well, that's that's a bummer for them. They'll have to live with it.

Scott Benner 05:59 Do we have to look up that phrase so people understand it?

Unknown Speaker 06:02 I mean, it's kind of like dismay. It's how I describe it to people who don't understand what that means. Much to my chagrin, it's like, much to my dismay,

Scott Benner 06:13 distress or embarrassment. And having failed or being humiliated. That's the noun champion favorite words. Yeah. Much to his chagrin wasn't invited. So wait, what did you say? How do you tell people?

Unknown Speaker 06:29 dismay?

Scott Benner 06:32 Yeah, I mean, all right.

Unknown Speaker 06:33 I mean, it's a more lighter version,

Scott Benner 06:38 I think embarrassment or distress. Yeah. And then as a verb you can say he was chagrined. When his friend poured. His friend poured scorn on Him who speaks Yes, por discord on him. Did I just click on the internet from the 19? Like 10s? Like what just happened? What am I? Is this is this a Netflix series where everybody's British? Apparently, please. All right. So you like chagrin? Or like chagrin, cursing you like to say you call people? Yes. Like, yo, what are you bitches doing?

Unknown Speaker 07:18 I'm not like not in a cool way.

Scott Benner 07:24 Like the angry way. Like

Unknown Speaker 07:28 more like when people do something I don't like I jokingly call them a bit.

Scott Benner 07:32 Like if I came up to your car in traffic and tried to wash your windshield like it was 1990 and be like, bitch get off like, Bitch Get away from me. Yeah, but you don't look at your friends and be like, Bitch, what are we doing? Different call your friends hookers?

Unknown Speaker 07:50 No, I can't

Scott Benner 07:55 What are you trying to make sure I have a good time. Thank you very much. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 07:58 Okay. They deserve it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 07:59 i i Sometimes I call my daughter and her friends Booker's. I'm like, wow. Like, what do you hook yourself?

Unknown Speaker 08:07 Yeah, that's a line. I would

Scott Benner 08:11 assume they know. I'm kidding.

Unknown Speaker 08:14 I hope so.

Scott Benner 08:15 I mean, they come back to the house. So I'm not nobody's paying them. So. I mean, they've been here their whole life. So okay. Alright, so you call your friends? Yeah. Are you? Are you jealous of the, like Irish and British type people who use that word as a friendly word?

Unknown Speaker 08:38 Yes. If it wasn't Gervais is is my hero.

Scott Benner 08:42 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. All right, facts. Why are you on this podcast? This is a year ago. But what made you want to do this? So

Unknown Speaker 08:52 I, the original reason I wrote is I had a conversation with my mom about diabetes. And I just decided that I had a perspective I thought someone might want to hear even if it was just one person. Because I come from a history of some very poor mental health. And so my diabetes diagnosis was like a very small thing in the grand scheme of my life.

Scott Benner 09:31 So your mental health stuff hasn't been around longer.

Unknown Speaker 09:37 Yeah, what was say? Since I was about like, 11 it started getting really bad. I had bad depression and anxiety started going to therapy. And it just got progressively worse through middle school and during In my eighth grade year, I, I attempted suicide and ended up in a institution for a while. Ended up on medication. Just a lot of rocky roads. Yeah. For the next until now.

Scott Benner 10:21 You have any brothers or sisters?

Unknown Speaker 10:23 I have an older brother.

Scott Benner 10:25 Are your parents together? Yes, they are just painting a picture. I don't actually care if they're together or not. I can just as easily ask you if you have a pet.

Unknown Speaker 10:34 Right? Yeah, I have a dog. Oh, 622 dogs. I have one in Colorado and one here. Long story.

Scott Benner 10:44 You don't like to let them live together?

Unknown Speaker 10:47 It's they would be fun. But yeah, I'm not taking the one dog out of his super happy environment.

Scott Benner 10:55 Okay. I'm not gonna argue. For context, I guess what is the what? Gosh, I don't understand any of this. You understand my contextually I'm, I'm at a loss here. So what? What creates a scenario where you think that taking your life is the is the way to go?

Unknown Speaker 11:18 Okay, yeah. So I have learned from listening to your podcast for a while that yeah, that you seem to be interested in mental health stuff. Um, it's just spending so long, honestly, believing that your life is worth nothing. That it just gets to a point that it's like, just a fact. And it's just when it's not a question of if you're going to but when I'm so getting to that point, you know, it does a lot to your mind. And like, getting out of it, I'd say is the same long, hard journey of, you know, you spend so long convincing yourself that your life like is worth living, that you find every obstacle after that is just so small in comparison.

Scott Benner 12:26 So because I'm sorry, because

Unknown Speaker 12:29 because it takes so much to convince yourself that like, it's worth continuing on.

Scott Benner 12:37 So does this just come over you in your recollection, like, is there just a day or a week or a month where everything started seeming darker than it did prior?

Unknown Speaker 12:50 It was definitely a progression. I think for a long time, I didn't even know I was depressed. Because I was just so focused on everyone else, I'm very empathetic. So all I cared about was, you know how everyone else was doing and didn't really pay attention until I took a test at my therapists office, there was like the depression scale thing. And was like a 90 or something. And she called my mom that night. And then the next night, I ended up in the hospital. So it was just kind of all happened at once. But at the same time, it was like pretty bad for a long time.

Scott Benner 13:33 Okay. Did did. Did you do other things? outward things before the attempt. Did you cut or? Yeah, try drugs or anything like that for

Unknown Speaker 13:43 a while? Never never done drugs? But yeah, had a history of self harm. Okay,

Scott Benner 13:51 that where does the relief come from that

Unknown Speaker 13:58 it's, have you ever had something just so horrible happen that you don't know how to, like what to do with yourself, and you just end up like crying or watching a show or whatever, pretty much. What self harm does for you is it gives you that outlet of it all goes into that. And then once you do it, you're you can kind of move on, and you don't have that overwhelming feeling of it's just too much to handle too much to deal with.

Scott Benner 14:34 Is it a is it a case of when your mind gets on a path that you can't pull it back off of it?

Unknown Speaker 14:43 I mean, it's an addiction. So, once you start, it just becomes the go to like for alcoholics that would be drinking but for people who self harm it would be self harming.

Scott Benner 14:57 So something happens in your life. Life or something is said or whatever happens, a trigger comes up, and you start moving into a negative space in your head. There's no ability to just say, Oh, well, this is bad. But it mean, this isn't everything. I'll I'll leave this here go back to my life instead, you sort of it's like getting pulled down in a black hole.

Unknown Speaker 15:18 Yeah. And I think it's a lot easier when you're, you know, a teenager, and it really does feel like your whole life, you know?

Scott Benner 15:27 Sure. Yeah. Were you having trouble like exterior trouble at home? Were you being like, harmed were people at school picking on you or anything like that?

Unknown Speaker 15:37 I had some issues with my brother. That were really tricky. He had a hard time when he was younger. And I think his way of coping it when, like, when he got older was kind of taking some of that out on me. And

Scott Benner 15:58 you kind of couldn't take it.

Unknown Speaker 16:00 Yeah, it was just a lot like when you know, you. If you're bullied at school, you can just go home. But if you're bullied at home, you have nowhere to go. Right. Okay. And so yeah.

Scott Benner 16:15 What's the age difference?

Unknown Speaker 16:17 He's two and a half years older than me. And weren't great. Now for for context. were amazing. Yeah, brothers.

Scott Benner 16:25 I wouldn't imagine you'd be on here saying it. If you were like, Yeah, still within the problem. So yeah, but could you? Can you imagine an 11 year old who could have taken your brother's crap? Were you a person for that to be in that situation? Or do you think it would have run most people over? I think

Unknown Speaker 16:48 it would have definitely hit most people. I mean, my friends would come over and see some of his stuff, and they would leave crying. And I'm like, see, you get to go home. I don't get to go. Alright, somewhere else. But yeah. I don't think it was like, I'm just a little weakling.

Scott Benner 17:10 No, I didn't mean to. I don't know, I know. Yeah. I was just wondering, were you on the, on the precipice of a break to begin with? And he, he came behind you and shoved you over? Was it really that?

Unknown Speaker 17:23 Oh, I think it was, I think it was a mix. For sure. It definitely wasn't all him. But I think not having a safe space at home was like, just made it that much worse.

Scott Benner 17:35 Gotcha. Would you I'm so sorry to ask you this. Would you consider your attempt like, like it would have worked? If somebody didn't stop you? Or were you looking for help?

Unknown Speaker 17:49 Um, I think I think for the most part, I was looking for hope, and I just didn't know what else to do. But if it continued in that direction, I honestly believe that I would not be here today.

Scott Benner 18:04 Wow. Okay, yeah. So what turns things around, I mean, obviously, this gets attention, then people are like, Oh, live has problems we weren't aware of, or we didn't understand, or we didn't understand the severity of it, then what happens after that, that helps you move in another direction.

Unknown Speaker 18:23 That's the hardest part for me is, is explaining to other people how they can get through it. Because it's a choice, it is a choice. And if you don't choose that you want better, you will never make it there. That's what I've learned from my years of dealing with this. But I think for me, I spent so long, just really wanting to get to what I had hoped my life would be. And I just did, I didn't want to give up on it. I just didn't believe it would ever be possible. And through seeing other people make it out of their stuff, and I did so much therapy, like nine hours a week at one point. But when you hear people drill into you enough times like that, it's you need to make choices to get your life where you want it to be. I just decided to give it a try. Because when you're that depressed and anomic despair, it's really like you feel like you've done everything, and nothing has worked. But when you have so many people telling you that you haven't tried everything, like you feel kind of silly. And you can either choose not to go down that route and just convince yourself you've done everything or you can actually try every single thing that people give to you and you My mom is is my hero, she came from a really hard background. And her whole thing is like she is the most determined person I've ever met. And so I think a lot of that I can kind of take from my mom and be like, I just didn't you know, I didn't want to quit. And this time with all the help that I had, I was able to reach small goals and slowly progress forward. And you just keep doing that until one day you look around, and you're like, that life that I wanted to have. And I just felt like I couldn't I'm living it.

Scott Benner 20:46 When something goes poorly now for you, or someone is impacting you in a in a detrimental Larry, are you able to reframe it? Do you walk away from it? How do you stop that that process?

Unknown Speaker 21:01 Yeah, um, I would say, at this point, it's impossible for me to get back to as low as I was, with all the knowledge that I have. I, I literally can't go there again. I use every skill that I have ingrained in myself that now it's just habit. You know, I cry, I take a break. I talked to someone, I watch a show for a week long. You know, like, whatever it is I need to get through. I know there is a healthy option. It's amazing. Yeah. And I'm very proud of myself. I can definitely say I earned it.

Scott Benner 21:47 Okay. There was a weird noise behind you just now. But I think it's I think it's gone. Did you did an electronic bug fly pasture had been in here?

Unknown Speaker 21:56 I have a lot of bracelets that might be I don't think it

Scott Benner 21:59 was that. Okay. Well, I mean, it definitely sounds like you. You worked incredibly hard to be happy. Yeah. It's funny, as you're discussing this, I almost almost stopped myself from saying this. But as you're describing, the process you went through, I thought is so similar to getting diabetes and deciding to live with it better?

Unknown Speaker 22:26 That's exactly yeah, I won. When I got diabetes. I, a lot of it was just laughing about it to my mom, because I was like, this is so, so small compared to what I've already gone through. It's just like a lesser version to me. I know not to everyone. diabetes is no small thing. But like, in my life experiences, it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me. And it's just, you know, you either get to choose to get to a point where your habit is having a healthy blood sugar. Or you can fight it and struggle with it for a long time until maybe you realize there's a better way to do it or I need to seek help to have better blood sugar's you know, it's just yeah, how much you put into it, you get out

Scott Benner 23:21 where you got me was about the, the idea of not knowing what to do. But there being something and being able to talk to another person, have them say to you look, you might not know the next step, but here are five things you could try and then be willing to try those things. Yeah, that part kind of really spoke to me.

Unknown Speaker 23:41 And I feel like it's so it's where it's hard with diabetes is like, there are so many things you can try. And it might take so long for you to find the things that work. Because there's so many variables, but the benefit of that is there's always more to trial.

Scott Benner 23:59 Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's why I serve this, the some of the series forward the way I do, because I don't want you to have to, like, some of the things are just going to take repetition and experience and stuff like that. But someone can tell you that, you know, the fat in your french fries makes your blood sugar high, 90 minutes, you know that that's okay, if somebody tells you that having to eat yeah, having to eat french fries 27 times before you go, you know what, I'm seeing a pattern here. Yeah. And not to think that the pattern is not impactful to you know, like, it's it's important and even I mean, again, it's what you were sort of talking about, like there's, there's a way to live, where you don't feel like that. And just because you feel like that now doesn't mean you can't impact it and change it until Yeah, I feel

Unknown Speaker 24:51 like a huge part of what really kind of screws people over is what they get told at diagnosis is so Oh, impactful. And I definitely lucked out. Um, I got set up for success. I mean, I can tell you a little bit about what happened. I was feeling terrible for months, super tired. But I just thought I was depressed. And I have I have thyroid in the family, thyroid issues, all the way down my mom's side hypothyroidism. So I knew I had hypothyroidism actually, when I got hospitalized from the mental health stuff because they tested it and they were like, this might be contributing to your depression. So I started taking thyroid medication way back when

Scott Benner 25:56 I asked Chet GPT to write me an ad for the Omni pod five. And it tells me even puts in where I'm supposed to put music this is interesting. Here's what I'm supposed to say. This episode is brought to you by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod five insulin pump. If you're living with diabetes, managing your insulin levels is a crucial part of your daily routine. That's why Omni pod has designed the Omni pod five, a device that's transforming the way people with diabetes live their lives. But this isn't bad. I'm sorry. Back to the deep voice. The Omni pod five is a tubeless wearable insulin pump that adapts to your lifestyle. It's discreet, waterproof, and designed for ultimate comfort. The state of the art pump automatically adjusts insulin delivery based on your glucose levels and trends. taking the guesswork out of diabetes management once it's good, it should say we used with a Dexcom G six, we've oh my gosh, safety is always a priority. But it's time to experience the freedom and flexibility that comes with the Omni pod five insulin pump, visit Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to learn more and take the first step towards a better life with diabetes. That's Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, make the switch dummy pod five and discover the difference for yourself. That's amazing. The machines are taking over people. That's pretty cool, huh? Anyway, Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, check out the only pod five if you want that algorithm with the Dexcom G six. Or if you want the on the pod dash and you're not looking for the algorithm, you can get started with that as well. At my link, we'll use the links, you're supporting the show. Those links are available at juicebox podcast.com by typing them into a browser or in the show notes of the podcast player you're listening to now. Now let me say just write me an ad for athletic greens. Hold on a second. I might be onto something there.

Unknown Speaker 27:56 So I just thought my thyroid was off. Because I was feeling so tight. You know, I know the thyroid symptoms. Yeah. And so I went my first year at college, in Portland. I was living in a dorm and I went home for winter break and went to the doctor and you know, she sent me home. She's like your thyroids. Fine. I was like, Okay, it's just in my head. I'm crazy. Went back to college. And it started getting worse. And I, you know, would call my mom and I'm like, I don't feel good. And she's like, go to the clinic. And I'm like, I don't want to say I never went, um, I'm stubborn. And I just I honestly thought in my head, that it was something with my mental health, and they weren't going to be able to help me and I needed to figure it out for myself. Yeah. So I was just kind of taking it as it came. But at one point I wasn't going to class anymore. And the most I could do in a day was go down from my dorm to the little Stop and Shop and get some food and go back up. And then I had to sleep for the rest of the 24 hours. Like that is the most I could do in a day. I was drinking more than I ever thought I could and in my head. I was like Oh look at me. I'm hydrating. Silly live silly. A silly live

Scott Benner 29:31 look terrific. My skin's gonna be clear and

Unknown Speaker 29:34 yeah, I was like, oh, man, I'm feeling I'm so healthy drinking all this water.

Scott Benner 29:39 I'm on the health train now baby. I can't get the inside of my head looking right but I'm gonna get the outside.

Unknown Speaker 29:47 And then today last year, well and this year's, it was my roommates birthday. She's, I love my roommate. She was amazing. Um, so I was you know, being In the awesome person I am wanted to celebrate with her and get her gift and all this stuff and I was struggling so hard to wrap her gift, and I was gonna make her cake and I fell asleep, too tired. So we went to her boyfriend's dorm and everyone was partying and having cake and I could barely walk. I was sitting on the couch falling asleep, and everyone's like, louver you can I was like, I'm fine. I just need a nap, like, leave me alone. Because I really didn't want to like take away from her birthday. So I left early. It was like half a block walk to my dorm. So I was walking so slow in heels fallen over. I was like, everyone's gonna think I'm drunk. But I'm not. I couldn't have any of the cake because I was just feeling ill. And I finally get back to my dorm. And I'm laying in the bed with, you know, my shoes on and everything. And I'm like, alright, I'll change my shoes and call 911. That's literally what went through my head is I'll call the ambulance. So I'll change my shoes in just a second. But I fell asleep because that was the kaput. So I wake up the next morning, and I call my mom and I'm like, he was gonna call the ambulance last night. But like, I'm too tired. I just don't think that'll work. And she's like, she, you know, obviously is like, what the heck are you talking about? Like she did not know it had gotten to that point. Yeah. And like what the heck was going on? So she called my roommate who was still over at her boyfriend's was like you need to bring live to the hospital.

Scott Benner 31:56 She's like, it's my birthday.

Unknown Speaker 31:59 And the whole time I'm like, this is such an overreaction, whatever. So I have my mom right now all the symptoms I'm having. So I can show the people so I don't have to talk because I can barely get a sentence out. And so we get to the hospital, and COVID still pretty prevalent, of course. And so the hospital is busy. And I ended up waiting in there for five hours. And the whole time I'm on the phone with my mom. And all I remember from that is being so thirsty in the waiting room. And I'm on the phone with her and I'm talking her about if I should go to a vending machine and get a water or not. Because I don't think I have enough energy to make it to the vending machine. Yeah. And like that was my idea of what five hours was was just being so thirsty. That's all I could think about.

Scott Benner 33:04 But you now have energy to do anything about it.

Unknown Speaker 33:06 Yeah. And I'm just sitting there being miserable and really wanting juice, I really want to juice

Scott Benner 33:13 when were they able to diagnose you in the emergency room.

Unknown Speaker 33:17 So when they triaged me, I was about halfway through the five hours. So I don't really know if I don't think they did. Otherwise, they probably would have brought me back. But once they finally did, it was very immediate. They're like, I think, you know, you're diabetic. Which I was in absolute denial about because as one of the many people who are so ignorant I I was like, there's only one kind of diabetes and I don't have that. So yeah, I can't be diabetes.

Scott Benner 33:59 Tired thing? I could be depressed. I could be like, did you have depression in college at that point? Or had you managed yourself? Like, how do you think of it after your? You know what I mean? Like after your attempts and your move forward? Is there a time where you see yourself as living not as a depressed person in your town?

Unknown Speaker 34:16 I always have depression, it's just varying degrees. Okay. And I get worse, kind of in the holidays. So I figured, you know, it's still kind of the holidays, right? Maybe I'm just big sad. Maybe I just don't like Portland. Which I didn't. But I genuinely I had convinced myself that I was just sad and depressed. Because I that felt like the only option.

Scott Benner 34:44 Had you ever felt like that prior? I mean, looking back, I guess no, but you didn't you couldn't discern it at the time, right.

Unknown Speaker 34:53 I think it was mostly just the fact that my brain couldn't function but it was like, you can't it just went with the simple was dancer because it was like, I don't have enough energy to go anywhere else.

Scott Benner 35:04 So similarly do if your brain said to you look, if we could find a Phillips head screwdriver right now this would all go away and you'd sit the chair. Yeah, I can't do that. Uh huh. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 35:13 exactly. And I was like, it'll, my thought was it will pass like, it will get better. I just need to wait it out. Which obviously, just shooting myself in the foot. But Hindsight is 2020.

Scott Benner 35:27 Well, so far what I've learned is you can't trust kids at a party to college. Because a person your age who's at a party is like I have to nappy now. Like how Yeah, how did someone not go? Hey, Liv might not be okay.

Unknown Speaker 35:41 Because I think it was a thing of like, kind of everyone knew me is like, I am not a huge partier. Like I'll have fun sometimes, but I'm not by no means am I the party girl. Okay. So it wasn't weird for me to let go just chill on my own. And at the time, most of the friends I had made met me when I assume I was already starting like the pre diabetes thing. So they already knew me is like a tired person. I like to nap. I like water. So really the only people who like new new that that might not be like, live were my roommate. And she was checking in on me. But I made it pretty clear to her. I didn't

Scott Benner 36:32 want everyone else. And everyone else already saw you as a sleepy camel.

Unknown Speaker 36:37 Yeah, that's just who I am.

Scott Benner 36:40 She's full of water and taken up. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 36:43 maybe, you know, maybe I was just sick because they hadn't seen me in a week. You know, they were like, Oh, she's just getting over something. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 36:49 So now you're away College? Are you local college? I am in a different state. Your mom come.

Unknown Speaker 36:58 So on the phone in the waiting room for the five hours, my mom's packing a bag. And I'm like, you don't need to fly out. This is ridiculous. You know, whatever. And she's like, No, I'm gonna fly out. I'm packing a bag right now. And I'm like, okay, whatever. I'm fine. Um, but she, my dad was amazing, and was able to get her out that next morning. So, by the time I was allowed to see people, she was there. And that was a lifesaver.

Scott Benner 37:35 Do you feel when you're given the Diag. So you you were given the diagnosis on your own? You were by herself

Unknown Speaker 37:41 while she was at an airport and with her on the phone. Okay. But But yes, I was

Scott Benner 37:48 physically alone, physically alone. And do you have to use the tools you learned in therapy in that moment? Not at all. You're just so beat up? I

Unknown Speaker 37:58 was so out of it. I was like, okay, whatever. That's fine. I don't even know what that means. But sure, I'll take it.

Scott Benner 38:07 Whatever, is this gonna help?

Unknown Speaker 38:09 Because yeah, I was pretty much like, I'm dying. So whatever you need to say, that's cool.

Scott Benner 38:18 Can I ask you when you look back? I know that. I know that what you talked about earlier happened when you were much younger. But when you see yourself as in a scenario in a hospital where you could have died. Do you see your life as valuable then? And like, oh, no, I

Unknown Speaker 38:35 Oh, absolutely. I do

Scott Benner 38:37 not want this to happen.

Unknown Speaker 38:38 Absolutely. Yeah. Ever. pretty much ever since that turn in my mind when I was much

Scott Benner 38:46 younger, just haven't felt that way

Unknown Speaker 38:48 is anything to stay alive. Yeah. Because that's kind of what you have to do you. You have to convince yourself to drink water because your body's worth keeping alive. And so at that point, it's like, hell yeah, I want to be alive. Even though my life isn't great right now, because I'm sleeping all the time.

Scott Benner 39:14 Really tired.

Unknown Speaker 39:16 So worth living, you know, and like, so many people, you know,

Scott Benner 39:21 ya know, it's it's just interesting to hear somebody talk about being on two different sides of that spectrum in the same 10 year period.

Unknown Speaker 39:28 For sure. Yeah, it's definitely night and day. I'm sure if it had happened. I told my mom this a lot and like, Thank God, I was not diagnosed as a teenager. I I don't know what would have happened, but so I think it would have been a thing of like, I'm fighting the diabetes, and that's my nightmare. I'm like, I don't want to fight with it. I just, I just want to coexist and move on.

Scott Benner 39:58 Can I tell you a secret Yeah. Okay. Do you wonder how you got on the podcast so quickly?

Unknown Speaker 40:06 I do i Yeah.

Scott Benner 40:08 Because the schedule is like I saw somebody for

Unknown Speaker 40:12 thought you meant January 2024. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 40:15 here's what happened. It's January 2023. Right now, and that I don't have a podcast recording slot till November, like I am I actually I looked at my calendar this morning, and it made me I was upset. I was like, Oh, my God, I'm, I'm going to die trying to make this podcast for sure. So, but you mentioned the depression and other things in your note. And earlier, I forget exactly what it was been. I'll find out November, early November. Earlier November, I got an email from a person I don't know. And this gentleman was telling me that his daughter passed away. And she wanted any donations that were made in her memory to go to me. Wow. And I couldn't wrap my head around what he was saying. Yeah, you know, and I was like, I don't understand like, like, how would that be? Get, you know, like, so he left his phone number? And I said, Can I just call you? And we spoke on the phone. And he said, you know, your podcast means a lot to my daughter. And then he stopped himself. And he said, meant a lot. And then he said, I'm sorry, she just passed away today. Oh, my God. And I was like, What is like, you don't mean? Like, I'm like, what? I'm trying to put all the pieces together in my head on like, a guy emailed me today, to ask how to make donations to the podcast in memory of his daughter, who has only been gone for a few hours. Like why none of this is adding up. Like none of it made any sense to me. So I spoke to him for a minute now, I realized I'm speaking with somebody who's, like, lost a person, their daughter in this day, you know, and I'm piecing it together, and I get off the phone. And I say to my wife, I think this man's daughter committed suicide. Because why would he know about she wasn't sick? I like it. I'm like, picking through what he said and everything. And then it occurred to me. I'm in someone suicide note. Yeah. And I, I was like, Oh, God, like, I don't have a way to know what to do about that. You know, and so yeah, I got your note. And I was like, I'm not ended up in somebody else's suicide note, this girl is coming on right now and telling her story, because the person I'm talking about Jenna, she was on my schedule.

Unknown Speaker 42:56 Yeah, I heard I heard about that.

Scott Benner 42:59 I just didn't know I swear to you, I got your note. And I was like, we can talk right now. I was like, I'm not getting another call like this in my lifetime. I was like, it was like, I don't like be, you know what I mean? It's

Unknown Speaker 43:10 too much like I honestly. I, it is too much. About a month after I was out of the hospital, from my attempt.

Unknown Speaker 43:27 My lifelong childhood friend, her brother committed suicide, who lived down the street. And my mom being unable to deal with my stuff, obviously, because it's your kid. Seeing that happen, like it's hard to have words for that. But when you have people in your life, even just by a small relation, take their lives. It's it's too big for words. Kind of what that means and how that feels. No,

Scott Benner 44:15 I don't even know. I mean, obviously, I don't even know how he was functioning. And then and then the next day, I'm sitting at my desk working and I'm really, like, I was stunned. Like, I wasn't okay for a couple of days. Right. And it's not like, it's not like she said, You know, I'm doing this because of Scott. Like she was saying the, you know, yeah, she was saying that. I made that the podcasts had made like, a lot of time in her life, very happy and easier and everything. She had a lot of different medical issues. And, but I still like I'm like, I can't take money from this. Like I first of all, not a charity. You know, that's the first thing and secondly, if I took the money, all I would do is like I don't buy microphones with it and stuff like that. I'm like, I'm not I don't write this case. So I was thinking about where do I direct him? Because how do I honor what she wanted. But right, because I'm saying no to it, like she didn't care, like she wanted to go to me. And I felt like I couldn't, I couldn't accept that. It's so I eventually gave the family diabetes Sisters, we are diabetes and touched by type one is valuable places to make donations to.

Unknown Speaker 45:35 But I think it's more of a thing of like, when you're that, in that kind of headspace, the things that bring you joy, are very few and far between. And the people who may represent those things are kind of heroes to you in a way that they'll never know, like, certain singers, you know, you might feel such a deep connection with and they might never know about you. And so I feel like I am in no place to put words in her mouth. But I think that you for a lot of people are just someone who's on their side, when they don't really have anybody, because a lot of people don't tell their friends about type one. And they might not have a community. And so when you are on here talking to all these type ones, all these people who are experiencing similar things to them. And they listen to you like it's a connection that they really need, that they don't have anywhere else.

Scott Benner 46:56 I just wish I could have. I wish she could have come on and told me that, you know, and we we had had a scheduled time that I think if I'm remembering, right, she backed out of and then we I didn't hear from her for a while. And then, you know, I heard from her again, and we rescheduled again, I think part of that was part of some of the things she was struggling with as well. But but the next day, as I was quite literally sitting here, just the more than a little stunned trying to figure out what to do. As far as her request, my phone rang. And it was the number I didn't recognize. It picked it up. And there's a woman crying on the phone. Like she didn't even say hello. She was just crying. And she was doing dishes. And I could hear a woman crying, doing dishes, who was not saying hello to me, but who had called me. And I was like, hello, hello. And then I realized eventually, I'm now talking to this girl's mother, who was just blindly reaching out to me trying to figure out like the days of her daughter's life leading up to this. Yeah. And she said that it wasn't a surprise that she had struggled for a very long time. But I told her I'm like, I have some correspondence that I've done with your daughter over the years, I can find it. And she was just so grateful. She's like, would you share that with me? And I was like, Yeah, sure. So I sent it to her. And she said, I would maybe like to come on the podcast one day and talk about her. And I said, Yeah, that's fine. I said it at any time that you think is appropriate. Would you reach out to me? And we'll we'll figure it out. And she said, I don't think I'm going to remember today. Can you email me? And we talked a little longer and got off the phone. But yeah, it was just I don't know what I was drawn into it suddenly. I didn't understand my place in it. And yet I seem to have a larger place in it than me then I would have imagined but it's just anyway, that's a very sad way of telling you that's why you got on the podcast so quickly because I just I didn't know your I don't know who you are. And like, like, I looked back at her correspondence with me. And nothing I read there told me that this was going to end up being an eventuality.

Unknown Speaker 49:39 See I've found I've been told and I have found that in my life, especially. People have told me that I'm very good at hiding when I am very bad. And I think you just get so used to it. You become a professional at seeming like everything is fine. Because you can't tell just everybody everything that's happening with you. And because it's so much you have to pretend in such a big way that you're okay. That you just get so used to it. And you're just so good at it that you eventually forget to tell people when you're having a hard time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 50:27 That's such a scary thought, as a parent or somebody who, anybody who cares about somebody, because I imagine that that's not just true for this big topic. I bet you it's true for everything. Yeah, you know?

Unknown Speaker 50:42 It's yeah,

Scott Benner 50:44 you just wonder, like, you're looking people in the face. And they're saying something, and, you know, you would do anything for them. But you don't know what anything is, you don't know what it is they need, and they're not going to tell you what they need. And for most things in life, people are going to get through it. Okay. Yeah. But

Unknown Speaker 51:00 I don't think my, my mom had kind of one of those hard realizations when I was in IOP, it's intensive outpatient, it's nine hours a week. And it's a group where you go with other, you know, kids, like adolescents that were in the hospital for whatever their reason was typically the same as mine. And the parents would come to some of it to learn and, you know, experience and at one point, my mom left with me, and she goes, some of the kids in that room aren't going to make it. And I was like, I know. And it's just so hard, because you're sitting next to these kids and their parents, and a lot of them, you know, seem like they are trying to get better. And some of them don't. They seem like they're done. And I think that's kind of when she realized that like, what helped her kind of get to the point of knowing as a fact, like, if that person doesn't want to be here anymore, they won't be, they'll find a way. And that's really hard. I can't even I can't even fathom as a parent, because that's your kid, your loved one, your friend, your whatever. And like, if they've made that choice, like you can't, as much as you feel like you want should have done more, or could have done more anything. You can't it's their, it's their decision. I can say that because I've been there. It was no one's choice but my own. I wouldn't blame anyone for what I did other than myself. And

Scott Benner 52:57 boy, you know, the irony, of course, is that it's, it's the finality of the action. That makes it what it is because what you just described, you know, I have a child, they're on a path, they're going to do what they're going to do, like, in almost any other part of life, that's fine. Yeah, you don't I mean, it becomes not fine when it's you being alive anymore. At the end of it. Are you being a heroin addict at the end of it? Or, you know, like as a reversible, yeah, just something that gets to the point where you're like, wow, I've crossed the line, that there's no coming back from. And other than that, it's actually a fine way to let people live. It's growing up so bizarre, you know? Yeah. So. So when that's the case? How are you supposed to know as the person on the outside that this isn't just a thing that somebody needs to go through? You know what I mean? Like, how do you know when to even when you can see it? How do you know when to involve yourself? How do you know when to step back? How do you I'll tell you right now having children is a huge mistake. I'm just going to it you're you're just attached to a person that you care about more than anything else. And everything they do is beyond your control. And you get ever plan on doing you get confused in the beginning when they're little thinking you have some like, you hold some sway over them.

Unknown Speaker 54:23 Right? It's such a trick. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 54:25 real. They just need your credit card. That's it. And your car. That was hard

Unknown Speaker 54:30 for my mom when I got diagnosed, right because I'm 21 Well, I was 20 at the time, but like I've moved out, I'm going to college. I'm you know, supporting myself as an adult. I make myself food. I've gone through so much water. Yeah, I'm very mature for my age. Like she was ready to watch me fly away. But then she gets dragged back down into this. You need to watch her blood sugar. 24/7 She could go into a coma at night, make sure you know what she's eating. And like, the people at the hospital, there were two groups, there was the group that was like, we're gonna deal with this, how we deal with anyone who gets diagnosed, which is clearly they were used to kids. So they were like, the parent needs to be the hawk, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then there was Vivian, my diabetes educator, my hero, she had type one. She came in there, she calmed my mom down, which is a feat. I can't express but she gave her hope that like, My life wasn't going to be completely different. And she was like, trying to give me more independence, you know, like talking about insulin to carb ratios, which the other doctors were like, No, we're doing meal based Bolus. But Vivian was like, I have type one, I live with it, you know, it's not as big a deal as they're making it. You know, whatever.

Scott Benner 56:08 Gave you a little hope, or a little hope,

Unknown Speaker 56:10 a little? For me. Definitely a sense, because I'm very independent, like, horribly, so

Scott Benner 56:20 no, but I would imagine you've Yeah, your little Bective is different. I mean, you gave it to yourself, almost. But your perspective is different than those around you at your age.

Unknown Speaker 56:31 Yeah, and give like a little more control back to me, which was really nice. But you know, my mom's sitting there, like, I've just let you go. But now I'm supposed to be like, This person.

Scott Benner 56:44 Oh, are you breaking a law? What's going on?

Unknown Speaker 56:47 I live in Seattle. So you know, stuff happens.

Scott Benner 56:53 Like, hippies take over a block?

Unknown Speaker 56:55 Yes. But now she's in this position where she doesn't know how involved to be. Yeah, again, she's already done this with the depression. And she's had to find her place. But now this is different, because this is medical. And this is there are more clear roles, but there also aren't, and we just don't know where we fit into the whole thing. And after diagnosis, I decided I didn't want to do college that quarter, obviously. Um, because I needed to, you know, readjust and figure it out. And so we decided to move all my stuff back home. So we road tripped. from Seattle to Colorado, two days after I got out of the hospital. That was very interesting. They had me on 64 units of Lantis. Which,

Scott Benner 57:51 hey, wait a minute, I know what you look like. That seems like a lot.

Unknown Speaker 57:57 If I took that now, I would probably die. They were like, Oh, you'll be fine. Just take this. And you know, you'll meet with your person in Colorado. And I was like, oh, that sounds great. It was not great. I wasn't great at all. The first low blood sugar I ever had, which I remember because you know, I'm 20 diagnosed a year ago, was in the car. In the first 20 minutes of our drive.

Scott Benner 58:28 Everything's gonna be fine. Here we are. I'm sweating.

Unknown Speaker 58:31 She wouldn't let me drive course. I'm worried about me. She's like, you know, you put your blood sugar up on the dash. So we can see it the whole time. And I'm like, that sounds good. And you know, I'm starting to get a little dizzy. And I'm like, this is weird. And she pulls the car over, gets the whole box of Capri Sun, you know, we're down in juices. And for the rest of my, I think it was two or three weeks. No, I must have been at least a month. I was having at least 10 juices a day, at least.

Scott Benner 59:09 Well, yeah, because that's way too much insulin for you. But you

Unknown Speaker 59:13 know, what's funny is I found your podcast two days after I got out of the hospital because that's just me trying to get all my resources, right, as I've learned, and yours is obviously the most popular type one podcast and I was like, alright, this dude, student sounds chill. And I'm listening to your podcast and I'm like, Mom, I just gotta take more insulin for my meals like this is this is how you do it. You know, you you beat that blood sugar down. Not knowing the whole thing of like you're taking at least four times more basil than you should

Scott Benner 59:48 already Yeah, already. So

Unknown Speaker 59:50 you know, we're driving back and I'm trying to like start being a diabetes ninja or whatever. Am I blood sugars? Like, oh no, you don't. You get juices your new life. So I thought that that was just like my lifestyle for a while until I went in and they were like, you can change this. We're going to change it now. A lot and I was like, Oh, cool. Yeah. Oh, a lot

Scott Benner 1:00:21 like what do you weigh? 120 pounds? I don't know how tall you just get 30 Who cares? I'm 590 Okay, so you're more like 140 ish in that space?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:34 No, I'm like Viking sighs Oh, you're

Scott Benner 1:00:36 okay. But still forget it. Still take a lot less. Yeah, yeah, let me say this. If you weighed 200 pounds, I don't think you would use 64 units of in.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:46 Let's just say on. I'm on the five Omnipod five, right? I my total daily insulin is usually around 60 for you.

Scott Benner 1:00:56 With your bait your Bolus. Oh, I'm just saying like, I'm sorry, I don't care how much you weigh. I'm just saying like, it's way off. You know what I mean? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:05 it was like, I mean, but for being in DK, obviously, like, I get it for the first bit, you need to take more. But I'm like they sent us knowing we were driving on that much without telling us if she's going live a lot, don't do as much late. It's like they didn't tell us we could do that. Sure. So it was, you know, a headache. But with everything else, I would say I was set up for success. They gave us packets. I had like, four days of training with Vivian and she was amazing. And I learned you know all the things. And then, because I found your podcast so soon, I didn't have to sit in that space of like, not knowing what the possibilities were, you know, like, do I have to be this strict? Do I have to whatever, I don't have to do anything. I can do it. However I want to do it as long as I don't die. So. And then going to Colorado, I'm sure you've heard of the Barbara Davis Center. And he interviewed someone from there. Sure. My endo works there. He's a type one. And he is very, very strict. Like one Lifesaver brings my blood sugar up 10 points in 20 minutes strict. And I'm like, that doesn't work for me. I you know, I've lived my life with a fully functioning pancreas for 20 years. So the anticipating when I'm going to eat thing is not something I'm familiar with. It changes every day. What I Eat changes every day. I'm I'm not a habitual. This is what I'm eating person. So figuring out that I could do it however I wanted and make it work was probably my biggest takeaway initially from your podcast, I'm glad effects I would say from that. Moving forward is I just love hearing you know, everybody doing their own different thing.

Scott Benner 1:03:24 Yeah, it. Can you give some context to that for me, like what does it do for you to hear other people just like being regular people?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:35 I think it's, you know, playing into my joy of being independent. And just hearing. I think the first episode My mom and I listened to together in the car. It was about this young gymnast and her mom would come in and like fingerprick her during the night. And she was just starting to get older and maybe go out of town a little bit. And my mom's like, Oh my God, how does she do it? You know, when she's not there. And just all this confusion and the more and more we listen to that episode and others we just learned like you just figure out how to adapt. And hearing how on your podcast different people have learned that is really cool, because everyone adapts differently. So you know, I heard the episode with like the young, sarcastic Russian girl and how her parents just ordered the ex comes online, which I'm like, That's wild. But that's adapting, you figure out how to make things work for you. And the ways that everyone does it differently are just really cool to me. They give me ideas or they just are fascinating. You know, it's kind of like hearing about people who travel the world for a living. It's something that I don't think I could do but it's still really cool to hear about it and learn about it.

Scott Benner 1:05:03 And another girl from Russia moved to America. She really, she's like, much she's much older now. I'm gonna have to have her back on at some point. That's so cool. She was really great, wasn't she?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:15 Yeah, just like, you've had some amazing people on the podcast. My mom kept joking for like weeks that I'd been after dark episode.

Scott Benner 1:05:24 Well, I think you have to be, I was like, come on,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:27 like, mustard is not that rough. Then the more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, if I mentioned it at all, it's pretty much instantly. It's

Scott Benner 1:05:36 tough because I so I don't. I don't personally think of them that way. Yeah, the after dark things I would, I wouldn't give them a distinction or just is it kid friendly? It just makes it like, hey, maybe look up and realize that someone's gonna say, heroin or something during this.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:56 You want your six year old listening to this? Yeah. Like,

Scott Benner 1:05:59 I put up one this week. With a guy. It's such a sweet story. And this guy, Perry, his brother was diagnosed when his brother was like, eight months old, his brother passes away, you know, very young. And it's a major impact on his life, obviously. And then, decade or more later, Perry's diagnosed, but Perry's lack a guy who sold drugs did drugs, you know, was in trouble with the law, you know, told me he was clean. Now, when I pushed him a little longer. He's like, Well, I'm California server. And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, we're going along. And he was just it was, it was really a story about, about how he missed his brother. Yeah, you know, and, but the details of it are, you know, what they were, and his perspective was, for sure, yeah. And his perspective was different. Like, when I at the end of the podcast, I asked him something about, like, if he was afraid of a certain drug, and he's like, Nah, they're just making a big deal out of it. And the media is like, Oh, okay. Okay. Fentanyl is not bad. Nah, not as bad as they make it sound. And I'm like, I'm like, wow, different perspective. You know, what I mean? Like, literally lift a completely different life than I'm aware of. But but a sweet guy. And, and, and told her really touching open story. Yeah, I don't see why it has to be called after dark California. So we're, but it does, because some people would listen to that and be like, I would have skipped this if I would have known. You see, I kind of

Unknown Speaker 1:07:33 see it as like, I'm sitting in a room. And there's all sorts of people there. And I'm like, I would not want to tell this exact story. If there were young children, there are people who could get triggered,

Scott Benner 1:07:47 but you know, yeah, that's how I try to think of it. So but I don't

Unknown Speaker 1:07:51 like to myself, I don't think of my my own story. Is that until I really think about it. And I'm like, yeah, not everyone talks about suicide and self harm all the time late. It's just you.

Scott Benner 1:08:05 Do you feel good about what we talked about? Or do you feel like there's something unsaid?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:11 So pretty good.

Scott Benner 1:08:13 Are you worried now your mom's gonna listen and go see you are crap episode of this.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:19 My mom's gonna love anything I talked about you are her hero she has listened to. She got like one of those Spotify things. It's like, you've listened to so many hours of the Juicebox Podcast.

Scott Benner 1:08:33 Oh, those are great for my ego. Those come out in November. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:37 She listened. She listens way more than I do. She listens. Whenever she gets chance.

Scott Benner 1:08:44 Well, hello to your mom, then.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:46 She loves everything. She loves your perspective. She loves hearing all the stories. And I'm glad that she has an outlet to for this thing that happened to her kid. Because yeah. Not very open

Scott Benner 1:08:59 about my you don't talk about a lot of other.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:02 I talked about it. I just you know, I've got it. So I don't need to be like, Oh, my blood sugar's 103. Right now, what should I do?

Scott Benner 1:09:10 Arden is back at school. And she's such she hasn't been. She already goes back and forth when her hormones get walked around. She can't. She can't eat meat. Yeah, she came home. She takes this stuff called a VAs at all. That keeps her hormones kind of balanced. It's an over the counter thing. Yeah, I've heard this. And so she stopped taking it while she was home on a break because she was just like, lazy. And then she started taking it again. She's like, she's like I'm having weird reactions like like to foods again. And I said, Well, you probably have to just get back on this for you know, be steady and I'm sure you'll feel better. She's like so for now. I've been eating like a lot of salads and stuff. So her insulin sensitivity and I think our basil are a little too strong for her eating style at the moment. Right so she's been kind of fighting with Lowe's a little bit while we been fixing it.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:01 College is hard. Yeah, it'd be hard. Yeah, dorm life because you don't have a kitchen. Like I was eating crackers for half my meals when I went back and I failed that quarter anyways, so

Scott Benner 1:10:19 Well, last night she got low, lower overnight, and I sent her a text. And I said you're low. And she said, I know. And I said, I think you need to test because it was the first day of a CGM. And I was like, why don't you test and she's just said, Dad.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:35 That is so many. I heard Arden's episode and I was like, That is me, like four years ago to a tee. Just the most sarcastic, snarky. Amazing. Go get it? You got it. Person.

Scott Benner 1:10:53 Well, I sent her back a note that said Mom and I are worried. It's scary to be this far away when it says that you're this low. And she said, Dad, I'm aware.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:05 That was sent so many of those. Can I ask what your low alarm is for Arden?

Scott Benner 1:11:12 On my phone? It's 70.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:14 See, my mom's is 55.

Scott Benner 1:11:17 At Ardens I think is at 80. While she's at school. She's usually 70.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:23 Mine was 75. My mom's I just couldn't I could not. I was like, I promise you. I've got it. And if I don't, then yeah, I usually get down 55. And she'll call me. Yeah. Well, my boyfriend's on it.

Scott Benner 1:11:38 Well, silly. That's nice to you have another person and Arden pardonnez roommates who have Dexcom set at 55 for her. But they're also you know, they're lovely people, but they're different than the people who were at the party who were like, hey, live really tired. Oh, well, she was taking a nap. Show me all right. So there's still kids. You know what I mean? They don't understand the whole like depth of it.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:05 Yeah, but which numbers mean come on. Which numbers mean they're fine. Yeah, yeah. Hey,

Scott Benner 1:12:11 do you want to call this episode? too silly.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:17 I would love that.

Scott Benner 1:12:19 I wish I could. I'm sorry. Oh. Perfect. Yeah, I mean, I think people might I don't know. I think people would skip it. But maybe they'd be like, they just rushed to it. I'd have to put a lot of Asterix in the title. There just be a C and an ass I think maybe Yeah, yeah. But I wanted to do justice to your your way of, of cursing. Yeah, try calling your friends hooker. And just see what happens. Just be like, hey, what do you hook us up to today? Don't just breeze right past it and see how they react. You know? Like, I don't need to get punched. I'm also

Unknown Speaker 1:12:59 not using groups of people. So just be like

Scott Benner 1:13:06 I don't know. I think by the way, I think your your generation is pushing past the being really offended thing. I think it's I think it's the other way a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:19 I'm so tired

Scott Benner 1:13:20 of being upset about everything because somebody told you to be

Unknown Speaker 1:13:23 Yeah, I just I get it. Like there's a lot to fight for right now. But sometimes just gotta chill because life's short. And nothing matters. Yeah, we're so small.

Scott Benner 1:13:34 I'm telling you. I think it's going the other way. Long. You're having fun and staying healthy. You know? Yeah. Everything's good. Yeah, I agree. All right. Well, what is what are your goals here? Like you're I'm gonna let you go in a second. But what are you trying to do in the world? You what your lifetime what would you learn to learn to do in college?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:55 Nothing last year. Except that Portland is horrible. But I Sorry, sorry. That's a fact statement. Okay, it might have been cool one point but it went backwards. It's there's no one it's just an empty boarded up city with really horrible, horrible, terrible things happening. Yeah, I'm sorry. You didn't want to go there. But I'm in Seattle now. So it's all good. You can forget about that. Um, my goal is I'm trying to go into UX design. It's like user interface design. So computer science type thing.

Scott Benner 1:14:34 Is it going well? Do you understand it? Is that easy for you to pick up?

Unknown Speaker 1:14:38 Well, considering I'm technically only one quarter in because of getting diabetes? You don't really know. So far so good. Um, yeah, starting overs. Great. I'm feeling good about it. This this go around good. And I also do hope someday I can do some tattoos on people. So that's my real dream. But there's no good insurance in tattooing. Oh, no, I need good insurance.

Scott Benner 1:15:09 Are you? Are you good? Like, are you good at it?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:13 Well, I think I'm an okay artist, but a lot of people have my art on their body already. So maybe that's the way you that's gotta say something.

Scott Benner 1:15:26 I hope it's a part time job as you're learning the other stuff.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:29 Yeah. At some point, I just gotta get that insurance first. You know, that's my main goal.

Scott Benner 1:15:36 It's funny, I, there'll be an episode that goes up in a week or two, with Stephen, who's just an older gentleman who's just brilliant about diabetes. And he talked about how when he was younger, that was the everybody he knew who had diabetes, it was their only focus was to get a job with insurance. That's pretty much what they were worried about.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:58 So I'm, I'm definitely yeah, in that

Scott Benner 1:16:01 headspace. It's Listen, we tell our da all the time. Like you can do whatever you want, as long as it has insurance.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:08 That's true fast. Yeah. Well, you want to hear my one diabetes genius thing that I have figured out. Yeah. It might not be accurate, but it's how I think about it. Go ahead. So say you have you know, a piece of toast that you decide not to Bolus for because you know, you're stubborn and lazy. When your blood sugar gets high, and you're sitting there and you're like, Oh, I'll do a correction. That's, that's wrong. You don't want to do that. You want to Bolus for the bread plus the correction. Because you still ate that many carbs, right? But now your blood sugar's high and sticky. So you need both the amount of bread plus the correction to bring you back down

Scott Benner 1:16:53 to get low after you do that, because the timing gets messed up, or no.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:58 I didn't on MDI. But now on the five since it like auto corrects it definitely will bring you low. Yeah, because you're going up because it's already dosing, you know. So

Scott Benner 1:17:07 can you look at what Omnipod five is put in already and then do a hybrid version

Unknown Speaker 1:17:13 apparent, but it does it every, you know, like, five minutes or whatever, so I can't anticipate what it's going to do. Over that time. So now, I mean, I don't really go pi. Too often. I don't go above 200.

Scott Benner 1:17:27 Yeah, like, is that about where you think of high?

Unknown Speaker 1:17:31 No, I think of high over one. 150.

Scott Benner 1:17:34 Okay. 200 right bike for you.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:38 To hundreds. Like if you're above 200 You got to you got to strap in because that's not fun. I get really tired. I go and take a nap. Every time I go high. I get so sleepy. And I'm like, oh, it's decay all over again.

Scott Benner 1:17:56 I remember be the sleepy well. What am i You have to help me a little bit what do I name this episode? Because it's gonna be after dark like can I call it sleepy camel? No. Oh, look at you. Now your egos in play. You're like no, I don't want that. Because I can't call it like, like, what do you want? Like, you know what I mean? Like, formally suicidal is not going to be good. So we've decided to silly won't make it past the people at Apple podcasts. So what do

Unknown Speaker 1:18:29 we do now? Sad but not about diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:18:33 But you're not good at the title thing at all. It's too long. Neither are you. Great at it.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:41 Yeah, yeah. All right. I never know what the episodes about though. You're just like this is a weird name. And then you're like, This person has diabetes and like that tells me literally nothing but I'm gonna listen anyway.

Scott Benner 1:18:53 Well, don't you think that's part of my mad genius then? Yeah, nice. Nice

Unknown Speaker 1:18:57 pose.

Scott Benner 1:18:58 How about the other day HBA one say did you love that one? Did you see

Unknown Speaker 1:19:06 Yeah, Dad humor Scott.

Scott Benner 1:19:08 What the lady said she kept saying my HPA one see it I'm like damn it. That's the title of this episode. I just I in all seriousness, you can't you can't to specifically title them because of the random way that I talk. Yeah, no one will know if you were famous then it would just be your name.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:31 Yeah, I mean you could call it live without the

Scott Benner 1:19:35 live without the

Unknown Speaker 1:19:36 everyone's trying to spell it with me but

Scott Benner 1:19:40 I don't know Don't you think they're gonna see like a

Unknown Speaker 1:19:43 complete on call it you can honestly Call it whatever you want. I I don't really have a huge preference.

Scott Benner 1:19:54 Can I call it live? Almost, I repeat. No, that would be one All right. That was a movie right? Live die repeat. Yeah. All right. See, there's a problem here because you have to be sensitive. I'm just gonna call it live. Because maybe that's appropriate, because that's what you're doing right?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:18 Yeah. You can call it live apostrophe i n live in.

Scott Benner 1:20:23 What? What if I do it like this? L I V? And then in brackets I put the E. Yeah, no, you didn't.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:37 I mean, that's why I named my I named myself live my legal names, not odus. I mean, it's not live. It's Odessa. And I named myself live after I got out of the hospital. So every time someone says my name, they're reminding me to keep living.

Scott Benner 1:20:51 Oh, that's a great idea. One of my daughter's best friend's name is Olivia. And I say live a lot. But can I do that? What do you think? Oh, IV and then put the E and like, alright, that's okay. We're done. We figured the whole thing. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:07 One question. All right. Before you ask the question, okay. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:21:11 Can I say I think I might start discussing the titles at the end with the people because I go back to edit them. And I'm like, what? Am I gonna call this? I'm gonna do that. Alright, you have a question? Oh, do I get the answer? Yeah, and I'm ready.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:27 Um, if you can, I mean, it's a kind of an arbitrary thing, but I just went in to get my valency of 5.5. Nice. Which sounds great. But you know, clarities like, Bitch, I don't think so. Um, it says I'm in like, a 6.6. area.

Scott Benner 1:21:50 How long have you been on the five? Omnipod? Five, how long have you been on at least

Unknown Speaker 1:21:56 three months? At least?

Scott Benner 1:21:58 What was your agency before the Omnipod five.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:06 It was also low. It was definitely below. Like a 6.2.

Scott Benner 1:22:12 Showing your age here live. Like you're yelling, you're like, I don't remember what that was six months ago. Leave me on. I so you were 6.2. It's as 5.5. Now clarity thinks it's higher. My first thought would be just go three more months. And look again to see if clarity. So I've

Unknown Speaker 1:22:28 had to, it's been 5.4. And now it's 5.5. Both times clarity says like 6.6 is just point seven. And my endo said that maybe I have an iron thing or whatever. All the blood tests came back. Fine.

Scott Benner 1:22:44 What's your ferritin? Level? My what? ferritin. It's part of the iron test.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:51 There are a ton. I don't know. But it's normal. Like all of the ones were in range, except my blood sugar.

Scott Benner 1:22:58 Okay, so in range for iron is kind of arbitrary. Most. So they'll tell you like, between, I don't know, hold on a second, you're gonna make me Google. I'm sorry, we'll do it together they can, they'll tell you that a for like a normal range for blood Farington for men, for example, is 24 to 36 to like 336. Only for women, it's 11 to 307. If your ferritin is 11 You're gonna fall over, especially if you're have what they call menstruating age. So I've had doctors on that said that they would treat a seven different one as low. And and your doctor's point is that low iron could throw off the a one C test and make it look lower than it is. Is that was that your doctor's point?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:54 Yeah. And like I don't believe

Scott Benner 1:23:59 also clarity is not doing anyone see it's doing a What the hell do they call

Unknown Speaker 1:24:03 it Jim? GMI. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:24:07 See if we can figure that out. Which I

Unknown Speaker 1:24:09 know is different. But I mean like looking at my average glucose it does not match a 5.5. So so then you can mind just pretending

Scott Benner 1:24:19 Yeah. So then what I'm saying is, is that maybe you should look harder at your Iron Hold on for a certain range a ones see, I don't want to say anything. Influence of iron deficiency anemia on hemoglobin Kneeland. See, reading, scanning with his eyes. Also being a little anemic, and having some of the other issues you have would not be reasonable.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:50 I mean, my mom isn't even so I wouldn't be surprised

Scott Benner 1:24:56 what's your what's your TSH when you get your thyroid done? Do you know

Unknown Speaker 1:24:59 my My TSH right now is 1.89 and I off the levothyroxine. So really, apparently I'm cured. Yeah, that happened a while ago. I don't take it anymore.

Scott Benner 1:25:11 We did they had hypothyroidism or Hashimotos.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:15 We have never been actually diagnosed with Hashimotos. But considering all the other like, what do you call it autoimmune stuff? I would assume

Scott Benner 1:25:27 so, but are you still tired a lot?

Unknown Speaker 1:25:32 I sleep a lot, but I'm not like

Scott Benner 1:25:35 when you sleep you feel rested when you're done.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:40 So long as I have coffee.

Scott Benner 1:25:41 That's a no.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:46 I I'm not great

Scott Benner 1:25:47 with the sleep. I want, I think, not where I used to be hematologist.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:54 Hematology.

Scott Benner 1:25:55 Yeah. Blood doctor. Normally they help people. They're going to be a lot of cancer patients in his office, but go go to a hematologist, excuse me. And tell them your mom is anemic. You have type one diabetes. And you your energy is low and your agency is reporting falsely low. Okay, and ask him if he would or her see this. Trouble I get into just trying to have a conversation. I don't think that women can't be hematologists or by the way, trans people or anyone else, right? I'm just It just occurs to me to say no, live now we kind of talk about it. When I picture a doctor in my head. I picture my doctor.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:44 That's always the man. Yeah, it's always been a man. Yes. My I don't know. Honestly, many than all the other ones.

Scott Benner 1:26:50 Can I be honest? I don't know if my hematologist has always been a man. I've never asked them. But what I can tell you what I can tell you is is that if if he was a cheeses if he was a woman just now I would have said she because I'm very brave.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:05 I'm literally just I'm just joking. I know. You mean the best? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:27:09 put actually, you know what intention very important. Now. Anyway, I would tell this person this doctor. Yes. That if you're if your ferritin level is under 70. Just ask him if he would consider giving you an iron infusion.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:28 Is are you saying ferritin? I don't know

Scott Benner 1:27:31 what is this like a West Coast, East Coast fight.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:35 Ta m f,

Scott Benner 1:27:38 f e r r i t i n? Okay, well, also, other, like inflammatory markers can impact your agency response to in the test. So my point is, is that you want to know, you think maybe you're seeing your agency reporting back incorrectly. And you want to make sure that it's not a function of anemia of some kind, all right, and if your levels are white, and tell him you're tired all the time, and you need caffeine to function. And because if you can get if you can get your insurance to give you one inject like infusion of of, of iron, you the next time your body makes red blood cells with that new iron rich blood, you are going to like fixed you are going to turn back on. And then you're going to know that that was the case. And then you can look into ways to address it without the without the infusion because if he tells you take an iron supplement, that's it because you're menstruating that may never catch you back. So that's the liver for the rest of my life. I guess that's what they did in the 50s All right, that's it. I'm not a doctor. This isn't advice Good luck. medical advice for other or otherwise, you were not like talking to a person your age.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:07 Or you mean oh you mean Yeah, cuz I'm young.

Scott Benner 1:29:10 Yeah. It felt like you were you don't feel your age? Yeah, I've

Unknown Speaker 1:29:13 been told that many many times. I had the trauma Scott.

Scott Benner 1:29:18 He right up 10 years. Oh, really does. Okay, so if somebody's acting really like childish did I just dangling off a bridge for a minute by their ankles. You think that pose? Well, I

Unknown Speaker 1:29:35 have some sense of doing what they used to do in the 40s. And it worked.

Scott Benner 1:29:39 I don't know if it worked or not, but they definitely used to do you just can't thank live enough for coming on the show and being so honest and open with everybody. Thank you so very much. And thank you to Omni pod for sponsoring this and so many other episodes of The Juicebox Podcast omnipod.com forward slash juicebox. You get to hear a lot of these stories because of the great sponsors. Please support them when you can. If you're looking for community, find the Juicebox Podcast on Facebook Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes is a private Facebook group with 40,000 people in it. Sorry I needed a drink. Doesn't matter what kind of diabetes you have to meet type two type one lot of gestational. You're a parent of somebody, a grandparent, an adult living with. I don't care what you eat. I don't care how you live. You're welcome there. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Please subscribe or follow in and audio app like Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, you know all the podcast apps wherever you do it like wherever you listen, just please subscribe.

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