#533 Not That Type
24 year old Hailey has type 2 diabetes and she was diagnosed at age 16.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to Episode 533 of the Juicebox Podcast.
Sometimes I like to flip the coin over and look at the other side, we're doing that today, we've had plenty of people on who have been mis diagnosed as having type two diabetes when they're young. But if you ever talked to somebody who was correctly diagnosed with Type two, in their teens, you're about to because Haley is here, and she is super awesome. Really great conversation, slightly different perspective, and yet wonderful information for you. Please remember, while you're listening 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. Haley is an insulin dependent type two diabetic, she's only 24 years old, I think you're gonna really enjoy this. So settle in wherever you are, unless you're driving, if you're driving, please stay focused. And I guess if you're doing the dishes to don't reach in and grab something sharp in the soapy water, that would also be bad. Anyway, let's get started, shall we?
This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, and the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. You know both of those things have something in common, you can use them. If you're using insulin, you don't have to be just type one type twos can benefit from this stuff, just as much. Anyway, I'll tell you more about it later. But for now, you can learn more@dexcom.com Ford slash juice box and find out about that on the pod and the Omni pod promise at Omni pod.com Ford slash juicebox. links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com. Here comes Haley.
Hailey 2:15
My name is Hailey. I live in North Carolina. And I've been a type two diabetic since I was 16 years old. And I'm 24 now so I'm looking at about seven and a half years. Wow.
Scott Benner 2:24
Okay, Haley, thank you. It is not easy to get type twos to come on the show. So I appreciate you doing it. I have long thought that this podcast could be helpful to type two diabetics. And I'm you're on my first step in trying to make that come true for people. So no pressure, but the fate of the world. No, just kidding.
Unknown Speaker 2:50
But well,
Hailey 2:51
it really has been helpful. Last week, I was actually I was listening to a lot of the the keto episodes, and I'm insulin dependent, an insulin dependent since I was 19. So it's actually helpful listening to a lot of the insulin tips you've got to.
Scott Benner 3:08
That's excellent. I'm super excited. Let me dig into this a little bit. Because I feel like it would be that most people would hear that at 16. You were diagnosed with Type two most people with type one would hear that and think Oh, she was probably miss diagnose, and they just don't know yet. And but you've had this diagnosis for eight years, is that right?
Hailey 3:27
Right. And you don't know how many times I've told people I'm type two diabetic, and I'm only 24 years old. And they asked me No, no, you're a type two. I mean, you're a type one, or are you sure you're a type two. And I actually have had the antibody test on the C peptide test. And it all came back normal. So that's pretty much confirmed that I'm type two. Do you know why people
Scott Benner 3:49
would say that? It's because so many type ones are misdiagnosed as type twos. In the beginning?
Hailey 3:55
Yes, I've actually, that's actually what persuaded me to do a little bit of research on it, and then asked my endocrinologist for the blood test to get it done is it's a pretty big percentage of type twos that get diagnosed with especially with later type 1.5. But I think a lot of them are also are mis diagnosed over 30 years old too.
Scott Benner 4:17
You know, I'm just I know this is strange, but I'm fluttering inside. Like I feel like I'm 18 and I saw my Heather Thomas poster for the first time again, which is just the reference no one will get but I'm super excited to talk to you. I'm realizing as you represent the other side of a one way mirror to me, like like, how many conversations have I had with type ones who tell these long stories about you know, they said I was type two, they put me on Metformin, I was miserable for years. You know, all this stuff happened to my health and it's such a I just had someone on recently, you know who had happened to and it's such a terrible story. Never like thinking about The other side of the story and flipping things around and saying to yourself, what about all the people who are diagnosed, that are type two that fit in that space that we never meet and never know about? So tell me a little bit about it. How did type two diabetes present when you were 16?
Hailey 5:17
Well, it actually started when I was a little bit younger, I was 12, or 13. And I can't remember why. But my mom wanted me to get blood work done. So I did. And my ANC came back a little bit high. They told me I was pre diabetic. And then, once a year, I would just go back and get blood work done, get blood work done. And my agency just kept going up and up, and finally reached that threshold of diabetes. And they diagnosed me. They put me on Metformin. It was the August, September, August before I started my senior year of high school. So quite an interesting time.
Scott Benner 5:51
Yeah, nothing like getting something that people think about is like, Oh, yeah, my grandmother has that when you're that age. That must have been really strange, right?
Hailey 6:02
It was really strange. And my mom is type two as well. She's been type two. Oh, gosh, I can't remember how long I was pretty young when she got diagnosed. But I guess that's what sparked care concern. And ever since I was a teenager, I've always been a little bit overweight, and I was my maximum weight when I was diagnosed. So I weighed 225 pounds at 16 years old. So I've since lost quite a bit of that weight. And then I got back on insulin and gained some of that, but it was hard hearing, like, Oh, you got diagnosed, because because you're overweight because you're fat. And whether or not that's true, or whether it's more genetics. That's a different story for a different time, I guess. But when you're 16 years old, it's hard to hear that.
Scott Benner 6:49
Yeah, no kidding. I can imagine. Would you consider your mom overweight?
Hailey 6:55
She is she's, I don't consider either of us obese by any means, but definitely a little bit of extra pounds there for both of us. Yeah, I'm
Scott Benner 7:04
just trying to figure out how familial the entire thing is, so your mom has type two struggles with weight a little bit? You are as well. Can I ask you? For context? At 16? Did you feel like you ate poorly? Or did you feel like the no matter what you did this, this was happening?
Hailey 7:26
A little bit of both. We tried to eat healthy at home. But then you know, I had a boyfriend at the time. And I had lots of friends that I would go out with and we would just eat unhealthy foods when we would go out because you know, you're 16 go get a pizza, you go get burgers or whatever. So it was kind of like a during the week I ate pretty healthy during the weekend. I did not so much. Gotcha. Yeah. And I can't exactly say I did 100% of what I probably should have been doing to try to keep my blood sugar's down at the time. But you know, when you're 16, you don't really understand that.
Scott Benner 8:04
You also weren't eating any differently than your like friend group. Within reason.
Hailey 8:09
That's true. It's not like I spent all day every day shoving, you know, greasy burgers into my mouth.
Scott Benner 8:14
Yeah, no, I just want people to have context. Because if it was just if it was just one thing, or the other than everybody in that group would have the same outcome. You don't I mean, like if it was just as easy as Oh, she didn't eat well. So she got type two diabetes that's on her, then that would have happened all those other people as well. It's not that simple. You obviously have. I mean, it would seem to me a genetic predisposition to it. And, you know, well, how old was your mom when she was diagnosed? You have any idea? She was in her 40s? I can't remember exactly. Which would still be young, I would think if it was, you know, but I don't know, when I was younger. Type Two Diabetes is something that happened to people slowly over time, if it happened to them, you know what I mean? Like, it wasn't like, you didn't hear a lot of people getting it when they were 20. He didn't even hear a lot of people happening in their 30s or 40s was like one of those things that, you know, I hate to say it, but like my grandmother got when she was in her late 60s, you know, like, all the sudden the doctor was like, yo, you're a one sees too high. You have type two diabetes, we're gonna give you some medicine and try to change your diet a little bit. That was literally the beginning and end of it, you know? And then obviously, it's become more than that. And it's prevalent in society right now. You know, we could like you said, you could dig down deep and why if it's, you know, processed foods and, and you know, that kind of stuff that's literally changing people's DNA as as you know, as time goes on. But for us, and why you're here and why I'm excited that you're here. Let me see if this makes sense to you and see how helpful you think you can be in this. You're going to be a little more of a partner than an interviewee in this conversation. Sorry. But so it's my, I maintain that the reason this podcast is valuable for people who use insulin in general, and, you know, I guess it started out for people with type one diabetes, but is that it unlocks concepts and ideas and things that people don't generally talk about in public, or don't have the opportunity to talk about, you can't just go find another type one and start saying about, you know, hey, what do you do about pizza? You know, or how do you Pre-Bolus a meal like these conversations are hard to have, they're hard to find. And even when you go to your physician, you get a lot of out of the manual advice from them, right, which very, very infrequently actually translates to real life. So I've been saying for years and years and years, that part of the reason why the podcast works is because it creates a community of information, where you can be anonymous, so you can show up with your type one, or your insulin dependence here, everything you need to hear and never have to say to another person. I have type one diabetes, I'm struggling, or I don't understand this one piece, you get to stay private, but yet have a public experience. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. Okay. And furthermore, I think that would be a really valuable thing for people with type two diabetes as well. And so I think the first steps of that idea coming to fruition is finding people with type two diabetes who are willing to speak honestly about what it's like to have it so that other people with type two diabetes can listen to that conversation without having to come out of the shadows if they don't want to, so they can still hear the information, but not have to raise their hand and say I have type two diabetes, I think that's the first step two, a, to a good plan for people with type two. So I really appreciate you being willing to do that. And you've already in the first 10 minutes been incredibly honest. So let's keep mining into your honesty, shall we?
Hailey 12:00
Okay, and I agree about about having a space for, for type ones, of course, but also type two is to, you know, have these questions and have answers to them. Because there's still a lot of stigma about type two diabetes. And it's, it's really hard to have conversations with people without it turning into like a negative thing. Sometimes,
Scott Benner 12:21
oh, it's all stigma. I think the stigma is what's stopping people from being healthy? You know what I mean? Like, I think it's just a, it's a bridge too far. It's a wall too high. It's just I can't, I'm having problems with my health. This is very scary. I don't know what to do. Nothing I do seems to work. And on top of that, you mean, I have to walk out in the public and tell people, this is who I am knowing that they're going to look back at me and say, oh, what did you do? How did you cause this, you know, for yourself, and then try to find help through all that? I think it's too much. I really do. Especially when doctors seem to have predisposed ideas that are not necessarily accurate or helpful at times. How did you find your medical help in the beginning?
Hailey 13:08
Well, I was originally just going to like a primary care doctor who was a pediatrician, because I was still a teenager. And then they sent me over to the Children's Hospital in Chapel Hill, which is where I got diagnosed. I hung out there for the first couple of years, because I was still a minor. And then when I turned 18, I started going to the endocrinologist that my mom sees, and I really, really liked her.
Scott Benner 13:36
Okay, so you found decent care in the beginning, and they and so Metformin is first? Can you describe what it's like to take Metformin? Sorry, what was that? What's it like to take Metformin?
Hailey 13:49
You know, a lot of people say that they have stomach issues with it. I think that's the main side effect of it. I'm on the extended release version of it. So I've never really had any problems with it. My biggest problem is it's a big pill, and I hate taking pills. And I know that sounds funny, but that's, I really haven't had any problems with it. That being said, I don't know if it's really helping my blood sugars all that much. I mean, I know it doesn't directly bring your blood sugar's down. That's not how foreman works. But the insolence then more helpful than anything for me,
Scott Benner 14:24
okay. Does Metformin help with weight? I'm really not sure I haven't found that it helps with my weight at all. Okay, I know that Metformin can be used off label for weight loss, and that's why I was wondering if you saw any kind of a, like a boon from it for that. So how long were you just Metformin and what were your a one C's through that time? Well,
Hailey 14:47
I gotta be completely honest here. I did not take care of myself for a long time. I kind of blew it off. I wasn't checking my blood sugar's everyday like I was supposed to I To this day, I'm still terrified. I have a glucometer and pricking my fingers. So I stayed on Metformin by itself for I guess about three years, at which point my doctor put me on long acting insulin. And I was on that for about a year before I started taking short acting. But even then I still just wasn't really taking care of myself. I wasn't taking it seriously. And it's, it's been about a year now I've really been cracking down on it and get my agency down because not a one season as high as up into the 11th.
Unknown Speaker 15:35
Before. Okay, so
Unknown Speaker 15:36
that's not good. Oh, no,
Scott Benner 15:37
let's talk about the beginning. And then we'll get to the to where you're at now. Okay, when they put you on a short acting insulin or a long acting, so you mean like they gave you 11? year lantis, something like that, and you just shot it once a day? Yeah, it was love Amir. And you wouldn't know necessarily how much it was or wasn't helping because you weren't testing along with it. Is that right?
Hailey 16:00
That's correct. And on top of my needle phobia of picking my finger, big surprise, I also have a needle phobia of jabbing myself in the stomach with insulin,
Scott Benner 16:09
you're not big on sticking yourself with metal things. What I want you to know, Haley, before we go any farther that I believe your story to be most people's story about type two diabetes? I really do. I don't think you should be here feeling like I didn't take care of myself. And I let myself down all that I think this is what happens to people with type two, for the most part, like I really do. Now. You know, there's, have you ever heard about using intermittent fasting to help with type two diabetes?
Hailey 16:41
I have. And I actually kind of do that. Now. I don't eat breakfast. So I typically eat between 12pm and 7pm.
Unknown Speaker 16:50
Right? I don't, I don't
Hailey 16:51
know how much it's really helped me maybe I could be a little stricter with it.
Scott Benner 16:56
Yeah, I've I've spoken to some people with type two privately who have gone to a strict intermittent fasting diet, meaning they really stick to those times. And they've eliminated some obvious foods, like some breads, and you know, that kind of stuff. And it's had a significant impact on how much medication they've had to take. And where their blood sugars and a onesies are falling. I'm hoping there's this one person I'm thinking of, I'm hoping I can talk him into being on the show one day, but he's incredibly private about it. But I'm hoping to get him one day to talk about it. But, I mean, those are avenues. My mother just very recently was told the hurry once he's creeping up, she's 78. She is, so they called her type two. And the first thing we did was I went to her house, and I was like, Alright, Mom, look, here's all the food I think you shouldn't buy anymore. And we removed a lot of things that came in packages, boxes, stuff that she thought was good for her that ended up having more carbs in it than you would think. Pre packaged food. And I asked her to try an intermittent diet, you know, pick some times and stick with them. And I think she's down like 23 pounds now from eating intermittently and removing some of those things. And she's 78. And, you know, her amount of movement is, you know, Chair bed shower, like, you know, she's not out running around or anything like that. So it's having a big impact for her, which I think is terrific. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really great. Can you tell me a little more about the ignoring it? Because I think it's common, and I wonder if you know why you did it. And if you can talk about a little bit.
Hailey 18:40
You know, when you're 16 it's really hard to see into the future like, oh, if I don't take care of this, I could lose a limb or I could get kidney disease or I could go blind it's really hard to see that when you're 16 and your visions fine and your legs are fine. For all you know, your kidneys are fine. And even through college. It was still hard to see that and and diabetes is weird because it's it's not like you you're sick. And you take your medicine like like strep throat. For one. You take antibiotics for strep throat and it gets better within a few days. That's not how diabetes works. You know, you you take medicine to kind of prevent all these bad things from happening. You're not really taking medicine to quote unquote, get better. So it was hard for me to take medicine long term and understand that it's it's not really working to necessarily do anything right this moment, but protecting me for the rest of my life. So I guess I just had difficulty wrapping my head around that and it's like, well, I feel fine. And even when my blood sugar is rough in the three hundreds even I didn't feel it. I felt fine. So it's not like, I was like, Oh, I feel terrible. I need to start really working to bring my blood sugar's down, I just kind of carried on with my life like nothing was wrong.
Scott Benner 20:09
I often think about this. And the best I've ever come up with, is that none of us launch into real consciousness like adulthood, believing that a health issue is going to exist in our lives. And I think if you step back and look at the world, you might start to realize that people who skate through completely untouched by health issues are not necessarily the norm. You know, I think it's, it's far more common, like think about, you know, everything that could be, you know what I mean? Like, my daughter has type one, she's got a thyroid thing, my wife has a thyroid thing. You know, my body doesn't seem to hold on to iron for some reason. I've always carried weight around my midsection, no matter what I've done about it my entire life. You know, some people are going to get cancer, some people are going to get into an accident and have a physical injury, you're going to play basketball and break a patellar tendon like, most people are going to experience medical difficulties, the difference between one that can resolve and one that will be ongoing, is that's the part that hurts In my opinion, like, that's the one that gets you is like, Oh, this is going to be forever, I'm just maintaining this, it gives you a feeling that you're on a steady decline. You know, you're heading down a hill on a runaway train, and someone gives you a handle and says, If you pull on this, it'll slow the train down, it's not gonna stop it. But you'll get to stay on the train longer before you crash at the end. Like that's what it feels like to be told you have an autoimmune disease, like, in my opinion, like it just, it feels like you're on a path to something that not going to end well. And I don't think that needs to be the case. Or that it's even true for a lot of people. But when it feels like it's true, it's almost a self fulfilling prophecy at that point, then you just think, well, something bad's gonna happen, it might as well happen. Instead of thinking, I should put every effort I can into learning about this, and doing the best I can with it so that my life's not this slog downhill, but it's a great life that just happens to include, you know, x, y, z, something in it. Are you at that point now?
Hailey 22:31
Pretty much. For the longest time, I just, I guess I just kind of thought, well, I've got this disease, like, if, if it's gonna kill me early, it's gonna kill me early. But I don't want to be wrote down to medications and insulin and checking my blood sugar and having to monitor this thing for the rest of my life. But I've come to realize more that if I do these things, and they're really not that big of a deal, but if I do these things, I can live a lot longer. And I can live a lot healthier.
Scott Benner 23:12
If you listen to this show, you know why you would want a Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. If you had type one diabetes, it's because you can see your blood sugar in real time, the number, the speed, and the direction. You can see graphs for three 612 24 hours so you can get a real idea of what's been happening. You can look back and say, here, I used insulin. And then this happened. Here, I had something to eat. It was you know, this, and then this happened, right? There's a lot of this is and this is you understand, I'm saying you can see what food and insulin is doing to your blood sugar. That's just as important for type twos. It just really is. As a matter of fact, it's kind of hard to figure out what foods doing to your blood sugar by just using a finger stick. So maybe you're a type two, and you're not as worried about getting super low. But I mean, maybe you are maybe you're on some medications and you're using insulin, I don't know your situation. All I can tell you for sure, is that the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor is the best thing you could be doing for yourself. If you have diabetes. And if you're using insulin, especially dexcom.com forward slash juice box Get started today with the Dexcom g six know the speed, direction and number of your blood sugar. At the swipe of your hand. I'm picking up my iPhone swiping up touching my Dexcom follow up and finding out that my daughter is blood sugar is drumroll please. 81 is also stable. It's not rising or falling at any specific rate. It's stable at 81 I could have done that on my Android phone as well. You know, check it out, please. dexcom.com forward slash juicebox don't have phone doesn't matter x comm has a receiver go find out more While you're on the internet, why don't you take a look at the Omni pod? It is a tubeless insulin pump. So again, if you're a person who needs to deliver insulin, this is for you. Actually, you might be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash right now. Head over to Omni pod comm forward slash juice box to find out. But if you're one of those people is like yeah, Scott, I will pretty soon but I'm waiting for that next big thing that Omni pods coming. I understand. But there's no need. Because the next best thing can be yours with the Omni pod promise. What does that mean? Well, the Omni pod promises that you can upgrade to Omni pods latest technologies for no additional cost as soon as they're available to you and covered by your insurance terms and conditions of buy. But you can find out all the details at Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box trust me the Omni pod is wicked cool. My daughter's been wearing it since she was four years old. And she just turned 17 if you're looking for an insulin pump, but you don't want that tubing, you don't want to have to take it off the bay there. Get your tubing caught on doorknobs and stuff like that. If you're looking to get away from insulin, like injections pens are looking to get away from your janky insulin pump that you have now. On the VODs a great choice on the pod.com forward slash juice box. One more quick thing about Omni pod if you're from Australia. Yo guys, it happened on the pods available in Australia right now. Did you know Did you? Did you? Did you know? Did you know? I don't know why I'm doing this. Let me give you the link on the pod.com forward slash juicebox. A you? So if you're from Australia find out more@omnipod.com forward slash juicebox. Au. Okay, let's get back to Haley.
Oh my god, this is taking forever. Am I right? Tell like that was never gonna end? Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I'm obviously I do. I don't know. I don't know how the mind makes that first jump, like, okay, like in your situation, I have type two diabetes, we're just gonna live fast and die. You don't mean like, I'm just gonna burn out quick like I there's nothing I can do about this. Whereas what you've learned is the things that you can do about it. I mean, are, in my opinion, way better than not doing anything and having poor health outcomes that that occurred, you know, more and more frequently and sooner in life than you would expect? I don't like I don't get that idea of. I just don't understand. Do you know what I mean? Like, it just it doesn't? I don't not understand that it happens to people. But I, I don't know why I can't begin to explain to you why somebody built into me. Don't quit, don't stop. You know what I mean? And and that's what you need, like you need a don't quit attitude. Because there is a like, there's a sunny day beyond this. Like somebody can tell you you have type two diabetes. And it's not going to be fun. And it won't be easy. But there is an end to the struggle part where you get into the maintenance part, I think.
Hailey 28:27
Right? And and I've definitely been very particular about keeping my blood sugar's within a certain range and making sure I take my medicine in every day. And I do feel a lot better now.
Scott Benner 28:39
Yeah. Do you that's, that's amazing. So you did find that there? Obviously, there was a difference between a 300 blood sugar and not but you actually can now that you have stability at lower numbers, if you get higher you can you can tell now. Oh, I absolutely feel awful. If I get above about 200. Now, then interesting how your body can try to adapt to something that foreign to itself like a 300 blood sugar like it does its best for you not to notice that that's a problem, even though it is and it will continue to be and get worse it tries so hard to to adapt, you know, it's really it's really something else. How do you manage then so like? Do you can you listen to the podcast and you you're on the forum and stuff like that. So do you consider your day to day management much different than people with type twos? Then type ones Excuse me?
Hailey 29:35
Oh, yes and no. I mean, I fully understand that type two diabetes is a completely different beast than type one diabetes. There's no denying that. That being said, since I'm on insulin now, it's kind of interesting to pick up tips from people who use insulin. You know, for literally everything like type ones do and I I've come to realize that I manage my blood sugars with insulin therapy. Similarly to type ones. I, you know, I don't take a specific amount of insulin I, when I first got put on short term insulin, I was put on a set number no matter what I ate, it was 10 units that slowly crept up to 20 units. But it didn't matter if I ate kale and spinach, or if I ate an entire pizza, I can't eat an entire pizza. That's theoretical. But, you know, it was 20 units no matter what. And since then, I've kind of talked to my doctor about like, getting onto more of a sliding scale. So it's been interesting, I guess, to read the forum and listen to the podcast and see how type ones will take their insulin to carb ratio, which I'm still struggling with that a little bit. I haven't quite figured out maybe, if I should have one? And if so what it should be. I'm sorry, I'm going on a little bit of a tangent here. Just thinking about how I'm super
Scott Benner 31:07
interested. Don't, don't you apologize, you're doing exactly what I was hoping you would do. Don't worry about it. I understand that when you when you are trying to think through something and say at the same time, it can feel like you're fumbling but you weren't. So are you telling me that you get up in the morning and you go to eat something, you don't give yourself insulin, wait a little bit and eat? That's not how it works? Well, that's what I do now. Okay. But when you started, they were just giving you a blanket amount of insulin. So they were basically, Am I understanding when you started, you just always had a higher number, and they were giving you some fast acting insulin, just trying to drag that number down.
Hailey 31:47
Right, and I guess the assumption was that, you know, my pancreas is still producing insulin. So it's just that my body's a lot more insulin resistant than it should be, you know, which is pretty much true for all type two diabetics. So I was just kind of trying to assist my body with producing insulin, so giving it a little bit of artificial insulin to kind of help it bring the blood sugars down. Gotcha. Bring on some reinforcements. Yeah. Okay. Right, basically, I guess, to an extent, that's still what I'm doing. Because I mean, obviously, I'm still making a little bit of insulin are also wouldn't be type two, I guess.
Scott Benner 32:26
Right? And so you're just trying to be more targeted with where you're using the insulin now? Basically, do you have a glucose power?
Hailey 32:36
I mean, I do and I have the flash glucose monitor that I wear. And really, that's been the biggest lifesaver.
Scott Benner 32:43
No, I would imagine like I wore a Dexcom a couple of weeks ago. Did you happen to see that? I put my numbers online live at the same time, like you could see my eye. Yeah. Was that in helpful for you at all?
Hailey 32:57
Oh, yeah. It's super interesting. And it's, it kind of fascinates me as someone who doesn't use insulin super well. To see someone with like, normal blood sugars, where it
Scott Benner 33:10
so what is the protocol? Like from a doctor when you have type two? What do they say to you? Like, what is it you're supposed to, quote unquote, supposed to be doing? Like, what are the masses being told to do about their type two diabetes?
Hailey 33:24
So when I was first diagnosed, you know, the first thing is we're gonna put you on Metformin. Okay, we'll be on Metformin, and then it was you need to fix your diet. Okay, how do I fix my diet? Well, they send you to a nutritionist or a dietitian. And they they pretty much told me to eat a lot of like switching, I guess switching like white bread to like whole grains, things like that. cut back on the fruit because it's super high in sugar. And Excuse me. They also encouraged me to switch for instance, like switch soda to diet soda, and drink like sugar free drink sugar free candy and stuff like that. I have since discovered that that doesn't really work. For me, I get pretty bad headaches from sucralose and I'm just not a big fan of aspartame. So instead, I've just on my own decided to cut out sodas completely. And I live in the south. Sweet Tea is our you know, this other drink
Unknown Speaker 34:29
is sweet tea and
Hailey 34:30
I used to drink sweet tea so often, and I've said switch to unsweet tea. And at first that was really hard and now I actually like it more than sweet tea but I just tried to cut out a lot of excess sugar like that. So I pretty much completely drink sweet unsweet tea and water now. And as far as my diet, they they didn't really tell me to go low carb just to cut down on the carbs. And that's something I've definitely struggled with but I feel like for a type two diabetic, eating really low carb is pretty much the way to go.
Scott Benner 35:07
Have you ever tried something drastic? And by drastic, I mean just like picking a way of eating and trying it for a month to see what happens like just meat? Or like, have you tried carnivore or just to try it or keto or something like that I don't even know all of them. I'm just saying, Have you gone down that rabbit hole?
Hailey 35:25
Not really when I was in college, I learned how to cook for myself. And we cook a lot of low carb meals, I don't know if they were necessarily keto, but I tried to keep the carbs down low. But again, like on the weekends, I would order a pizza or go out with friends or whatever. So I can't say I really faithfully stuck to that low carb diet. But even eating low carb during the week, helped me lose quite a bit of weight.
Scott Benner 35:51
Now, I would imagine, I think a lower carb diet on a fasting schedule would be would be pretty great for you. But you'd have to, you'd have to really be looking at your blood sugars to know like that's the that's the real thing. Like I was talking to someone recently and I said, you know, if you're wearing this Dexcom they have type two diabetes is that if you're wearing this Dexcom, what you would see is how hard these different foods are hitting you and how long they're keeping your blood sugar up and how sometimes you can mix them or take them apart of each other and not get the same impact. One of the like, most fascinating things that I did while I was wearing a CGM, and of course, I don't have diabetes was like I eat a big bowl of cereal. Like I took two servings I actually picked two different cereals, right like I went for I reached back into my childhood memory and I got corn pops and honey smacks. And I was like I got them home. And I was like, which one should I have. And I was like, ah, screw that. I'll have them both. So I took a serving a one and a serving the other I combined them in the same bowl, and I ate them all. And I looked at the CGM. And I thought, you know, my, of course, I'm colored with Type One Diabetes and, and you know, all my experiences with my daughter and other people. And I was like, God, I wonder what this will do to my blood sugar. But you know, it didn't make it go up over like 160. And it did not stay up there very long. It came right back down again. And I was like, Huh, well, that was fascinating. So then I had pizza, two slices of pizza, I was great. When I added the third slice of pizza, it pushed my blood sugar up and held up for a couple of hours. simple sugars, my body could dispense with no trouble if they were by themselves. So I could take like a handful of like gummy candy or something like that. That is like dipped in sugar. And I wouldn't even see my blood sugar move. It was so it was interesting to see where my body struggled more and where it was just like oh, we have insulin. This is no problem. Like you want to eat a gummy bear. Boom, I got it. You know what I mean? You wanna have a slice of pizza, I can take care of that. You want to have three slices of pizza, you're in trouble. Now. I gotta tell you, I gained. I wore a CGM for 10 days and gained nine pounds trying to show people what it would be like, it was just like I was eating foods like I would never eat like three slices of pizza like sort of not me. I do like like sugary candy. So I do like if you put it in a candy bowl, and I walk past it, I'm going to grab one, like that's going to happen. So I try not to put candy and candy walls. So I eat way more food than I normally do. Like I hadn't had a bowl of cereal and like I genuinely don't know how long. But I took the CGM off understanding what hit me and what didn't went back to the way I was eating normally lost the weight in another 10 days. As quickly as it went on, it came right off again. It was it was really interesting. I can't tell you that I felt worse during the 10 days of eating. But I think that if I would have continued it, it would have started to drag me down like I didn't do it long enough for to really impacted me too badly. The whole thing was really, it was it was eye opening. And I found myself thinking anyone with type two diabetes would benefit from seeing this data, you know? Well,
Hailey 39:08
it's funny that you mentioned pizza because that is the one food that I just cannot figure out it. It doesn't matter how much insulin I take to start with. It will spike me and it will spite me for like the rest of the day. And it doesn't matter if I take more insulin, it just won't come down. I've never had that much of a problem with any other food but but pizza seems to be it for me.
Scott Benner 39:33
So the combination, it's the combination of the bread and the cheese. So have you ever listened to the fat and protein pro tip episode? I haven't made it to that one. Yeah, that one's going to help you with the idea of pizza. The cheese slows down your digestion it holds the bread and the carbs in your stomach longer. So the carbs and the glucose are just leeching out for hours upon hours because your body's not dispensing with it. The cheese slows down the digestion it holds the carbs in your system longer is a really basic way of thinking about it. So there is so interesting, yeah, there likely might be an amount of insulin that would topple it, but it's probably enough that it scares you to use it, I would imagine. Do you have that problem? Probably. So do you. Have you ever had lows from using insulin?
Hailey 40:21
I have, um, I sometimes overcorrect. And like I said, I've been very particular about how high I'll let my blood sugar's get. So sometimes it'll start going up, and it'll freak me out. And I'll take some insulin to correct it, and it'll bring it down a little bit too much. So yeah, definitely have a problem with that. It's not as often. It is the highs, I guess. Yeah. But it happens every now and again. Are you still using levemir? No, I'm actually switched to Lantus
Scott Benner 40:54
insurance switched me to try to get them put Yantra CBOE? I see people I've heard a little bit about Tracy, but it's still a mystery to me. I wish I think, I don't know if that's a novo drug. Or I can't remember. I think it's got I don't remember, I think it might be novo drug. But that with people with type one who are doing MDI, I see people have a lot more success with receba than what you would consider to be the older slowing acting and slower acting insulins, which would be lantis 11. Here. So lantis and lever mirror are, I think, a little older technology to Seba, and there's probably another one from another company that I'm not thinking of right now that have more of an overlap, I think 11 million lantis can die out before 24 hours is up. And so do you ever see that? Do you see any extra resistance like 18 hours after you inject that slow acting insulin?
Hailey 41:53
I'll be completely honest, I can't particularly tell that the long acting is helping at all. So what shot there have been days that I've skipped it, and it doesn't seem to have any effect on my blood sugar.
Scott Benner 42:05
So okay, so let's give context to that. Where does your blood sugar most days? Um,
Hailey 42:12
it depends on the time of day, at night, it usually sits around, it sits around like 100 till about 3am. And it dips down and then that dawn effect starts happening to me. And it gets up to about 150 when I first wake up in the mornings, but I like to keep it around 120 ish during the day.
Scott Benner 42:31
Okay, so you can see 150 in the in the morning, then I assume you shoot the Lantus or levemir at around that time of day.
Hailey 42:40
You know, actually take it at night because that's when I take the rest of my like, once a day medicines. Oh.
Scott Benner 42:46
So you really are having like a feet on the floor like surge in the morning that your body can't quell? Does that make sense? Yeah, like I don't know how much of the podcast you've dug into. But the idea of just life like you wake up and your body ramps up for things and starts producing cortisol and adrenaline and things like that your and that tries to make your blood sugar go up in a in a body that's functioning the way it should it would just stop it or wouldn't let it be up. But in a body that's not resisting. Well, that blood sugar can go up and stay up for a while. And then right. So the Lantus or the 11 year I'm sorry, would you say you're on No. Love? Um, Lantus. Lantus isn't helping that in the morning? Does that happen for certain every day?
Hailey 43:31
Pretty much. Yeah, I would say like nine times out of 10, I wake up and my blood sugar's high. And it's funny by about lunchtime, it's gone back down to about 130.
Scott Benner 43:40
You wake up, and it's Hi, what time of day it is. But you don't have a continuous glucose monitor, you only have a flash monitor. So you're not using Dexcom you're using like a freestyle, right?
Hailey 43:51
Yeah, I'm still on the freestyle 14 day. I know the freestyle two's got alarms on it, but they haven't come out with a phone app for it yet. And I love my phone app. And I'm afraid I would lose the reader.
Scott Benner 44:04
So what I'm interested in still using the old way, listen, you do what works. But what I'm interested in is I want to know what time of the morning does your blood sugar begin to go up? Because in my way, I am three every day, no matter what.
Hailey 44:18
No matter what, it doesn't matter what I ate the night before, it doesn't matter what I ate the day before 3am.
Scott Benner 44:25
So where does it try to go to about 150? That's usually about what it goes to. Can you imagine amount of short acting fast acting insulin that would combat that? And have you ever considered waking up at three o'clock in the morning and shooting some to see what would happen? You know, I've never really thought about doing that. I wonder if that would help. Haley if I was Dr. Frankenstein, and you were the monster and I could Try it. I certainly would. By the way, does everyone know that Frankenstein's the doctor and not the monster? The monster is just called the monster, by the way, but I think anyway, that's not the point. The point is, Haley. You're like I'm 24 Oh, really? Hold on a second. Let's go ahead Tell me.
Hailey 45:18
I like I hate when people say Frankenstein in the referring to the monster. It's like,
Scott Benner 45:24
no, it's Frankenstein's monster doctor. Right, right, right. It's Dr. Frankenstein. Frankenstein's monster, the monster actually is just called the monster. Am I wrong? Hold on a second. Is it called just a monster or Frankenstein's monster? I'm looking on the internet. The monster has no name and the novel, it has been said that this omission is a reflection of Victor Frankenstein is complete rejection of his creation. The monster calls himself the Adam of your labors and is referred to as the creature, the fiend, the demon and the wretch. Alright, listen, first of all, I'm not calling you any of those things, just so we can be clear. I was just Anyway, what I was saying is if if, if you put me in charge of the science experiment, that is your life, I would set an alarm for 3am. inject some fast acting insulin and see what where I wake up. And I because I'm trying to think of you as the way I thought about my daughter prior to glucose sensing technology and the things I would have done to try to keep her blood sugar down. Because if you could, I'm interested to know if you could launch into your day at a blood sugar of 80 or 90. Would you have to live with a 120 all day? Or would you sit at a different spot? Like are you just 120 all day because of the 150 bump that happens at 3am? And to me, it's worth trying to figure out?
Hailey 46:53
Which one? Maybe I should look into that because I've never really thought about, like what I could possibly do. I asked my endocrinologist if there's anything I can do to combat the domino effect. And she's like, not really, you could eat like a piece of cheese at night. And that'll keep your blood sugar from going down too low. But like, I'm not super worried about that, because the lowest it ever gets is like, you know, 80 or 90 at night. So that's not really my concern so much. And she said, Well, there's not really anything you can do for the dawn effect.
Scott Benner 47:22
So maybe I should give that a shot. I'm thinking if you try it like manually, and you notice it works. Where would you be on the idea of wearing an insulin pump? Because if you had an insulin pump on, you could jack up your basil at like 2am to stop it and you wouldn't have to wake up anymore. thoughts on that. Haley, are you? I thought I lost you. I think that's it. You broke up a little bit start over again.
Hailey 47:53
No, no. I'm sorry. My mom called on my phone. And I think that made my phone freak out a little bit like what's going on? I don't know
Unknown Speaker 48:01
how to handle this.
Scott Benner 48:02
Please explain to her you're on an incredibly popular diabetes podcast right now. And we cannot have phone calls. That's why I'm like mom, I'm busy. She even would know what a podcast is. She's probably like a what not, that's not so. So would you be amenable to wearing an insulin pump if that was your best option.
Hailey 48:22
I would love to wear an insulin pump. I actually inquired about that with my endocrinologist. And she wanted to put me on the tandem pump. Okay, she thought that would be the best option for me. And I looked into different pumps and turns out my insurance won't pay for one so NBI for now you
Scott Benner 48:42
student still are you? Are you in the working world? What are you doing?
Hailey 48:46
No, I'm a full blown adult. Now I do have a full time job. I graduated in 28.
Scott Benner 48:52
Okay, resolutions. Okay. Yeah, no, of course, listen, having a job in this world right now is a big accomplishment. I look at my son in college. And I was like, how's he gonna get a job? Like when this all like, how do you even apply for a job during Corona? What do you do? You don't I mean?
Hailey 49:09
Well, it's kind of hilarious, actually. Because, well, I had a pretty hard time finding a job. When I first graduated, it took me about a year and a half. And I started this job that I'm working right now back in March of 2020. Which was kind of like the breaking point in America. So I went to my office for a week. And then at the end of that week, they're like, okay, we're sending everybody for a couple of to let the pandemic kind of die out. So you can talk in a couple of weeks, and I said, Okay, so I brought my laptop home, and I've been home ever since.
Scott Benner 49:40
So basically, we're working from home. That's amazing. I know a person who went in for their first day, and then the pandemic, like literally for that company started the next day. He's only ever been in the building one time, one time for one day. Okay, so you can't get Pump yet because of insurance. But if you could, so if you could, my idea would be to ramp up the Basal insulin at a time that would cut off the dawn phenomenon, and then have it come back, I'm telling you right now, if you could find patterns in your blood sugar, then having a pump and the ability to manipulate the Basal insulin, like put it where you need it kind of thing, instead of just laying a blanket over the day, I would think that it would be fairly easy to impact the blood sugars that way. But in the meantime, you could do it with short acting insulin as an experiment. Because if you could just keep a couple of blips down a day, that could probably change your a one C, significantly. Let me What is your agency right now? Would you tell me?
Unknown Speaker 50:50
It's 6.6? All right, cool. So let me look. It's like three weeks old. I think I got it done three weeks ago. Alright, so I'm on
Scott Benner 50:56
my website. Now there's a really cool calculator on my website that does a one C and stuff, it works in many moles, or, you know, all the different ways. So you said 6.6 point six. So you're a one C is 6.6. Your average blood sugar is 143. So if we made your average blood sugar 100 it would take your a one C to 5.1. And I would love to see those numbers. Yeah. So I think the, to me, the experiment is to knock down any long running high blood sugar's because if you think about it from 3am, until whenever, if you're 150. That's five, six hours at six hours just getting to 9am. And then if you get a bump from breakfast that doesn't come back down till noon ish. Is this about what happens to you? Well, I don't eat breakfast. Yeah, I hate breakfast myself. By the way.
Hailey 51:58
I'll feel like that. I'm sorry if this makes people stop listening. But I'm just not a big breakfast person. I know I'm in the minority with that. But can you imagine?
Scott Benner 52:08
Can you imagine someone right now being unbelievable and just pushing the button and shutting it off? No Eggs Benedict ever, boom, I'm out of here. I would think if they were going to leave this episode, it would have been back when I asked you how you ate five seconds into it when you are type two diabetes, by the way. But, but I think anybody who's still listening now is in for the long haul. So I'm glad they're here. I think that I think that your best first option. I mean, if you could just quell that, that that first thing in the morning, if you took 50 points out of that, I think that's changes your a one c significantly. And then you could start to figure out how to put in fast acting insulin for the meals. And obviously while still continuing to look at diet and exercise and see if you can impact things in a different way. Do you think you could? Do you think your situation is escapable? Meaning Is there a world where you could eat so specifically an exercise in such a way that you would change your body and not need insulin anymore? Does the doctor given you any indication around that?
Hailey 53:16
Um, I you know, I haven't talked about it with my doctor in a while, but I know it's possible. I know a lot of type twos can eat well, like super well and exercise well and really get those blood sugar numbers down. And, and they get off insulin. Some of them you can get off Metformin. But that being said, it's that I feel like sometimes I use the insulin as a crutch. And I use it as an excuse to eat things that maybe I shouldn't eat. Okay. And yeah, I don't know if that's the mentality I should have or not. But sometimes it's just nice to be able to enjoy a few carbs and not have to think about it because I'm able to take the insulin. And I know that if I if I really ate super well, I probably wouldn't have to worry about that so much. But at the same time, it's like, do I want to eat really low carb every day for the rest of my life? Like every single meal?
Scott Benner 54:14
Well, would it be? Well, I would ask you Well, first of all, you brought up a meat I have two thoughts here. My first one is that people with type one diabetes I find sometimes can get so good at using their insulin that they forget that the way they're eating is not healthy. They're just so amazed that they can stop it with insulin like oh my god, can you believe it? Like I had a giant cupcake and I washed it down with a milkshake and then I had pizza and look at how flat my line is. I'm so good at using insulin, which is amazing. But you also should be saying to yourself also I should not be eating these things. You know like and especially all together like this like you know a cupcake once in a while a milkshake here and there pizza on Friday. That's all fine. You shouldn't be eating pizza milkshake in a cupcake in one afternoon, right? So you get my point is like big Get so lost and look how good I am at using insulin they forget to think about the just normal everyday nutrition of what they're eating. And and you're almost saying the again, like the mirror side of that, which is, if I can control my eating with insulin and keep my blood sugar down, then that's how the insulin feels like a crutch to you. So you can write off unhealthy, less healthy eating, because you can keep your blood sugar down. Is that how it feels? Am I understanding that? That's exactly how it feels, basically. Alright, but and you know that that's not the way to think about it. But you're saying I would like carbs once in a while, which I don't think I know that. Yeah, I mean,
I'm not I'm not a dummy. I didn't think you were. But but so you're, you're looking for a balance of a regular what you consider to be a pretty regular life? And and how do you so I think that's the, the focus, right is like, how do you have a regular life where you're not just like, you know, some Instagram model who hasn't had four carbs a day in 25 years, you're not looking for that life, right? You, you don't want to be dead. When you're 30, you're not looking for that life, you're looking for something in the middle you're looking for, I have a slice of pizza once in a while, or, you know, I can have you know, these other things, and I'm maintaining a stable situation. That's your goal, right?
Hailey 56:31
Right. And, you know, I know I'll never be one of those super skinny Instagram models or whatever. But I would like to lose some weight, I'm still a little bit heavier than I would like to be. So that's kind of a goal. And I'm pretty confident that along with that is gonna come a little less insulin resistance, which may mean less insulin or no insulin.
Scott Benner 56:53
Okay, so if you so am I hearing from you that your overall goal plan is eat a little better, get a little more exercise, try to use less insulin and get the same results and at the same time, try to understand how to use the insulin. So it benefits you the best. Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. Is that doable?
Hailey 57:17
I think it's doable. And on the exercise front, I kind of struggle with exercise because I hate it. But no, I try to go to the gym at least two or three times a week, and then I'm a pretty big skier. So I in the winter, I'm able to ski, usually, like at least every other weekend, and I know that's not particularly regular exercise, but intense exercises. I have actually found that when I'm my blood sugar stays pretty level, which is awesome. But I could definitely do better on that front.
Scott Benner 57:53
Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm I'm no guru, but I would think getting out going for a walk or, you know, doing some like resistance stuff, even stuff you can get away with in the home. You know, that kind of just bodyweight exercise like I've, I've heard people say that, like bodyweight squats are incredibly difficult, because you're not even holding any weight. You're just doing it like as higher reps with your own weight. I mean, I don't know, I'm not here to explain it to you, obviously. I'm just here to say that, like, thank you for sharing this, this kind of overview of what your life's like with type two. I think it's incredibly honest of you. And I believe that you were really thorough. Giving us looks into kind of the different pitfalls and some of the some of the things that have gone right for you. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to talk about?
Hailey 58:45
Um, I guess not. I think that pretty much covers it. I mean, it i i'm glad we got to talk about kind of be young and be a type two diabetic because you know, like we mentioned at the beginning of this, I tell people I'm diabetic. Oh, what kind? Oh, I'm type two. Oh, no, you're not you're type one. You're only 24 I'm like no, no, I know the majority of people diagnosed younger type one the majority of people diagnosed older type two but I'm a weirdo. What can I say?
Scott Benner 59:21
No, it's good to get it out there that people understand it. I feel the same way about this conversation as I one time interviewed a lady I think who was diagnosed with type one on like when she was 60. And nobody wanted to believe that either. You know like it's everybody gets kind of locked down and well this is how it usually goes. So this is must how must be how it has to be and it's certainly not the case. But I mean seriously Haley like your your you I don't think you fully appreciate what you did here today. You did a really good thing. And it's a real kindness for people listening. Because there are going to be plenty of people who listen this podcast initially who have type one diabetes are just going to be interested in your story, but they're going to know people with type two And they're going to be able to share this episode with them. Because I think far too many people are living with type two diabetes and don't know the first thing about it. That's one of the problems. I think the second problem is there's tools available to them that they don't even know exists, so they don't look into them. And then I think the third thing is just the honesty of what you just said, like, I could move around more I could, you know, I could I could get more exercise. And I know that would help me. And I think that's hard for people to admit out loud. So it's extra encouraging to hear somebody admit it like this very publicly. So I appreciate it.
Hailey 1:00:39
Yeah, and I definitely agree about about people just not knowing I think a lot of people get diagnosed, and they're not really given a whole lot of information, and they're stuck to figure it out themselves. Like, I'm in a few type two groups on Facebook, and all the time all the time. There's posts of people that's like, well, I just got diagnosed. So what can I eat? What pants I eat?
Scott Benner 1:01:01
Yeah, it's that that's how I mean, no, it feels
Hailey 1:01:04
it's gonna be it's gonna be a learning process for the rest of our lives. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:01:09
No, I know, unless you're willing to just do something. So one sided, to see how it goes. Didn't mean like, like, if you were if you were literally willing to not eat a carb for two weeks to see what happens. And to see if your body would adjust to not having sugar, because there are people who eat like that. There's, I mean, there's type ones that listen to this show that I know eat very little, in the way of carbohydrates. And I think it probably started out for them as about their diabetes, but then just kind of became a lifestyle for them. You know, and it's, it's not something that burdens them anymore. I mean, I can tell you that the less sugar I eat, the less I think about sugar. That's for certain, but it's not that, you know, it's not that easy for everybody. And it's it's not always conducive to how some people live like, you know, there's also people are like, this is exactly what I do. It's super easy. Like, your whole job seems to be this, you know what I mean? Like, like, you know, like, Haley's got to go to work, she gotta get up in the morning. And I'm assuming that kind of sucks, but you probably just get up and sit right back down again for your job, right?
Hailey 1:02:12
Oh, yeah, working from home, it's been a little bit of a nice privilege to just wake up at like 730 and clock in at eight o'clock in my pajamas. And I'm good to go for the day.
Scott Benner 1:02:21
But it doesn't exactly get you moving, either.
Hailey 1:02:25
Right. And I would love to have a job where I'm able to move around and walk around and stuff like that a little bit more. But I'm in the legal field. I'm a paralegal. We just sit on the computer pretty much all day. And I love my job. I have a great job. But it would almost be nice to have a job where I could get up and walk around some to write
Scott Benner 1:02:45
No, I agree. I do. I think people are missing that. commuting was exercise. To some degree. Like you get up you hustle in the morning, you run around the house, you run to your car, you drive a little bit you you know, run from a garage, it's not a lot. But it's it's move it's movement. And it's more movement that people are getting at this point who are working from home right. Now I hear you. I really do. This is I'm interesting. I appreciate you doing this. Thank you very much. I I didn't I didn't expect this to go. I didn't have any expectation for how this would go. But I can tell you that I very much one other type twos to contact me and I want to keep having these conversations. I think there's something to be unearthed in here, that could be valuable for people that's beyond what usually happens, which is Hey, fix your diet move around a little bit. That's because that's really what they're saying to you. They can say they send you to a nutritionist, you can say whatever you want, but you're being told, eat differently and get exercise. And while that might be amazing advice. That's it's just not as easy. It's just easier said than done. You know what I mean? For for a lot of people like Joe Absolutely, yes. You don't. I mean, yeah, it just doesn't. Just
Hailey 1:03:57
people who just lead busy lives, like, especially people that are like have kids or have a family. It's like, where do you find time to count arms and to eat healthy every single meal of every single day? Like, I feel like I'm busy and I don't have kids. I don't have a you know, I don't have a family of any kind like that. And I feel like I'm busy. So it always amazes me how people can juggle all those things. And sometimes just adding diabetes to it. It's like, Oh, great, let's
Unknown Speaker 1:04:25
one more thing.
Scott Benner 1:04:26
You don't give enough weight sometimes to cultural and geographical implications as well, which is just like you said, like sweet teas everywhere. Or this is just how I was raised. This is what we drink. This is what we this is what we do. I'm ingrained in it now. It's not just ingrained physically with the carbs in your body and like sugar holding on to your brain. It is that when you think to make something, these are the things you think to make because that's what you've seen happen for decades of your life when you were a child as you got older, like this is food and there are other people eating different foods that are Probably healthier than what I'm eating. I don't even know about them. You know, like, you know what I learned during the pandemic? Of all weird things, a couple of things, what's that I decided to teach myself how to smoke barbecue, like how to, I got a smoker, and I taught myself how to smoke barbecue. I learned that that's much better than any of the other ways that I had been cooking meat my entire life, right. And then I got bored. And I was like, I'm gonna figure out how to make a great pizza at home. And I first learned about the dough and the cooking process and all this stuff. And what I ended up learning through that is, if you hand make dough for pizza, and let it cold ferment for a number of days, it's easier to digest and less impactful on Arden's blood sugar. I never would have figured that out without the pandemic, because I wouldn't have had the time to learn to do it and to try and you know, etc, go over and over again. But as much as we talked about, like, you know, there's places in the world where pizza means Pizza Hut. Pizza means Domino's, and that is pre made stuff that has more preservatives in it. And a pizza from a local pizza joint. And Philly is not going to have as many preservatives, but it still will have some but when you get home, and really you learn that pizza dough is flour, water, salt, and yeast, and it's nothing else. Your body actually does okay with that. It's easier. And so that's a cultural thing. Because somewhere somebody has been eating handmade pizza their entire life. And somewhere somebody thinks of Domino's or you know, as pizza. And I want you all to know that those of us on the East Coast do not agree that that's pizza. It is not it's you're eating fast. You're it's fast food that looks like pizza. You know, right? And so but if you grew up around it, then right now you're thinking Screw you, man, Domino's is amazing. And and, and I understand that. So, you know,
Hailey 1:06:57
it's so funny. Here in North Korea, we get a lot of transplants from the northeast, and on our local Facebook page. Every once a while someone will come on here and be like, I'm from New York. Where can I get a good pizza around here? And other people will get on there and go, Oh, there's no good pizza around here.
Scott Benner 1:07:16
There's a place. There's a place in Tampa that's owned by a New York pizzeria. And they go so far as to ship water in tanker trucks from New York to Florida so they can make better No. And I don't know. Yeah, I it's just But anyway, that's not the point. The point isn't pizza, the points cultural food differences, expectations about what good food means. It's almost like when I asked people about their blood sugar's and I'm like, so did you get high? And they go? No. Or they'll say, Yeah, I got high, how high did you get? I was high. What does that mean? I realized that when I think of high, I think of over 120 when they think of high they think of over 300. So we're not having a balanced conversation. Because when I say hi, I think 120 when they say hi they think 300 just like when you say to people do you eat healthy they go oh my god, yeah. But what is healthy to them versus what is actually healthy. And so you have to have these conversations broken down my mom again the other day, she just texted me and she goes, Hey, beets are healthy, right? My mom likes beats. And I said, I mean, I don't know, I've never eaten a beat in my life. I was like, let me look as I go online, I find out that a cup of beats has 15 carbs in it. And for a person who's trying not eat a lot of carbs. 15 carbs as a vegetable side is a lot. And so I told her how many carbs when she was I love beets. And I was like, aha, she goes, I'll eat less. And I was like, yeah, I'm I'm like, have a half a cop have them less frequently. Like, you know, like, they tried to do that. I'm not telling my mom to never eat beets again. But I gave her a list of 10 vegetables that hardly have any carbs in them. And then, you know, just to realize that my mom at one point thought of beets and those other vegetables as as commiserate. And they weren't but she thought they were because when she was little somebody told her here eat healthy have a beat. And and that was it. And then that's your expectation. I think that is a huge part of the of the load that people with type two diabetes have to haul is that they just don't know the impact of what they're eating and they could make different choices that they probably still be as happy with. They just don't even know what those choices are sometimes. Alright, I talked a lot at the end, Haley, I didn't mean to. I don't know what
Unknown Speaker 1:09:33
that's okay. No, I
Scott Benner 1:09:34
mean, it's okay for you but people listening like let Haley talk. Seriously, anything you want to say that's left because I'm gonna. I'm gonna say goodbye and I don't want to miss anything because I think you've had a lot of good advice today.
Hailey 1:09:48
Yeah, I think that pretty much covers a day in the life of Haley.
Scott Benner 1:09:53
Do people in North Carolina say you have the sugars is that colloquial though
Hailey 1:09:59
they say Well, when they wish they're checking their blood sugar. They'll say like, are like my sugars are high. And my sugars are good and something like that. I always think that's a little bit funny.
Scott Benner 1:10:10
I have the sugars is like my favorite sentence, I think it's like so good durably colloquial to where it gets used. But, Hayley, I think you're on your way to something. So you've only been at this in a better way for yourself for the last year, do you see constant improvement? Um,
Hailey 1:10:32
I don't know, it's kind of hard to say. Because in the grand scheme of things a year is kind of short term. I agree. But I do keep having better and better goals for myself. Like, a year ago, my agency was 10 point. Wow.
Scott Benner 1:10:45
Oh, hell you broke up. It was. It was 8.93 months ago, the six? Oh, no. No, no. Can you hear me? You broke up again. So do it again, for me. 10 point what, how long ago?
Hailey 1:11:00
Oh, sorry. A year ago, my agency was 10.1. Right. And six months ago, it was 8.1. And three months ago, it was 6.9. And then in December, it was 6.6. So
Scott Benner 1:11:11
Haley, then the answer to my question is yes, things are getting better. So good for you?
Hailey 1:11:16
I think so. And I want to continue to see them get better. Because, you know, I don't want to Well, I don't want to get my legs cut off. Because then I can't see anymore. I don't want to go blind because like I said, I can't see it anymore.
Scott Benner 1:11:29
Listen, those long term health effects are real. But I think that a more realistic way to think about it is day to day health. Like how you feel today? Are you being like the best you today can be. And if you are then those long term scary ideas are never going to come to fruition. You know what I mean? So I wouldn't if this happened to me, I would try hard not to live like I'm trying to avoid something terrible happening to me. 30 years from now, I would think about just doing the best I can today. And I think that takes care of 30 years from now. But you're doing amazingly well. If this podcast has had anything to do with how well you're doing. I'm genuinely happy for you. And I hope you keep listening because I think there's more in there about using insulin. And I'd love to check back in with you a year from now and see how it's going. Oh, yeah, of course. Cool. Oh, thank you. All right, well, good luck avoiding the corona and I will. And hold on one second.
First, I'm going to thank Haley, thank you so much, Allie. Very cool conversation. I appreciate you coming on. Second, I'm going to tell you, if you have the type two diabetes, you'd like to come on the show and chitchat about it. Scott would be interested in talking to you. I am Scott sent me an email. Thanks also to Dexcom makers of the G six continuous glucose monitor, find out more@dexcom.com forward slash juice box and Australia, Australia you want that on the bond Omnipod comm forward slash juice box au the rest of you want it on the pod comm forward slash juice box find out more about the Omni pod and see if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. Thank you so much for listening to the Juicebox Podcast and for sharing it with someone else. What else? Anything else? Oh, I got some good reviews recently. Thank you very much for those. Those are excellent. And oh yeah, the show just had its most popular month ever. Wow. Wow. That's right. August of 2021 was the most popular, most popular most downloaded most listened to month in the history of the podcast beating the month before, which was the most popular motion shoot. I'm saying we growing, growing, growing growing because of you because you're sharing because you're listening because you're subscribing in a podcast app. Thank you very much being really serious. The summer is a time where most podcasters go. I don't put out as many episodes you know, because nobody listens in the summertime. Yeah, well guess what? best month ever. Just beat the previous best month ever. And I bet you September. Looking good to be the best month ever because of you. Thank you so much. No joking. Very, very serious. You guys make the show. Thank you again. I'll talk to you soon.
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#532 Dallas Rideshare
Raquel has type 1 diabetes and she once gave me a ride to the airport.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to Episode 532 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show, I'll be speaking with Raquel gal has type one diabetes. She's trying to help people with type one diabetes, and she drove me to the airport. That's pretty much how she got on the show. That's it that easy. Give me a ride to the airport. Get there Come on the podcast. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin.
couple of quick reminders here, please head over to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. And fill out the survey if you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or a US resident, who is the caregiver of someone with type one, you'll be supporting Type One Diabetes Research when you do and you'll be supporting the podcast p one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box.
This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo cuyp open. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox.
Raquel 1:46
Hi, I'm Raquel and some of you might know me as type one day on Instagram. I've had type one for 19 years I wear the tandem t slim pump and the Dexcom. I'm also the founder of type one together we provide resources and products for kids with type one, and also for their parents. And yeah, fun fact I drove Scott to the airport from the duty of Dallas summit to Yeah, he needed to read. So that happened.
Scott Benner 2:11
Oddly, oddly funner fact, I believe I mentioned that for the very first time in an episode that just went up recently.
Raquel 2:17
So you know what? I was listening yesterday. And then I heard that, you know, your wife thought you'd be murdered by me So specifically, not by you know, yeah, someone so funny. I was like, oh, that would be me. I'm not
Scott Benner 2:33
just the person that facilitated the story. You weren't the person I thought might murder me. I have yet people. Actually, I'm gonna interview a woman next week, who I thought was at least gonna punch me at one of the events. And turns out she loves me. So there we go. We're all good. Oh, I think I bring people right. I can see how it can be. It can be scary. For sure. So we're at the very beginning you said your Instagram handle, but I don't think you said it very clearly.
Raquel 2:59
Oh, type one day. So like, taking one diabetes one day at a time was kind of the how I started that years ago. I don't know. Yeah, type one day.
Scott Benner 3:09
It's funny when you look back and everybody's like type one, this T one that blah, blah, blah. And you can't Yeah, I'm it straight. You think when you made it, you're like this is so like, this is the one I used to. I know. I used to joke with people. Like I would go to like blogging conferences used to be a thing. And I've gone to a handful of them in my life. And they'd go around the room and people would introduce themselves. And people would be like, Hi my name is ba and I'm from like diabetes this and diabetes that type one this and you know the sugars and blah blah blah and I begged him Scott it write a blog called Arden's dag and everybody would look at me like the word diabetes isn't in there anywhere. And I mean, that's better this point because you stand out turned out that was true. But in the moment in that room, I was like, Did I mess up by not like putting the word diabetes in my title. And then one at one of them. I made the joke out loud. I was like, obviously, I screwed up not putting the word diabetes in the title. And then I realized later, I don't think people saw that as me joking about myself. I think the people in the room saw me, like mocking them for doing it. And I never meant it that way. But yeah, oh, what am I gonna do? Everybody can't get out. Everyone can't get the humor. So here's what I remember. You told me if I'm right. Dallas, sucked for me, because it didn't give me the opportunity to do what I normally do at things. It was great in a lot of other ways, but I'm very accustomed. So my schedule is if you have me in to speak, I speak in the morning. I speak at lunch. I speak in the afternoon, and then I run and I talk to the kids room. And then I get on a plane and the way I think of that is first of all, I I can't Stand the idea of flying somewhere to talk for an hour, that just seems stupid. And secondly, I think that the ideas that I'm pumping out are probably so far from center for most people that they need a little bit of a primer. So that kind of come in, I'm like, hey, imagine if this could happen. That's the first hour, and then you get enough of them. They're like, that makes sense. And then they show up at lunch, and they listen again, and everybody else is there. And they get to hear it for the first time, too. So the people who didn't come to the first one became to the second one, have an opportunity to come to the third one, because that was just a q&a. I just go in and I answer everybody's questions. And then my, my, my real, like, love of being at these things, is then you go to the kids, because I imagined in my mind that people don't show up at Type One Diabetes conferences, because their blood sugar management is terrific. And they're there to celebrate, right? Like, they're there because they're lost and stuff is not going well. And my biggest fear is that the kids get home, the parents are now armed, what they heard me talking about, they turn to the kids and like, I have an idea I heard I, you know, imagine you're the kid, and you've had diabetes for a year or three years, or whatever, you've had it. And you've watched your parents struggle to figure this out. And they've never once gotten anything, right. So you're just gonna think, wait, why, like, take the insulin a little sooner or like, but that's the so I want to put the kids on board with the ideas. So that when they get together with their parents, it's a nice mash. And that was that's my goal. But I didn't get to do that in Dallas, because I was filling in for somebody.
Raquel 6:36
But yeah, I I wish he were the keynote for sure. But um, but that room was so packed. And I feel like people were so invested in it. And I mean, I've been a panel speaker for a couple of conferences, and you know, people aren't you can tell when people aren't really paying attention. So yeah, I think it's cool that you got to speak to the kids. Sometimes I didn't even realize that. But I still think that it was so impactful for so many people. They had their phones out there taking pictures, they were taking notes. That was really cool to see.
Scott Benner 7:03
Yeah. Well, I did. Um, I mean, I did slip into the kids room. I was like, hey, they're like playing some game. Like, can I just talk to the kids for a minute, the guy running the room was looking at me like, well, I'm like, Okay, I'm wondering if it'll be fine, probably. And so I just gave him like, a quick 20 minutes, showed them some graphs that I had on my phone. And you know, they look at those graphs, and they're like, that's me. That's my life. Like, that's the crap I live with. You don't need me. And I was like, doesn't have to be like this. I'm like, look at this one. Look at that one. All that person did was a few things. You guys could listen to the podcast, or you could talk to your parents about it. I just spoke to your parents upstairs. Like I still did the whole. At that point. I said, I'm going to talk to your parents later, because they helped me to like the end of the day, too. Which was, um, I don't know I was anyway, so I had all this damn time. And you and I got to talk a fair amount, or at least way more than I usually get to talk to people. So it's nice to me.
Raquel 7:59
It's fun. Yeah, I've been such a fan of the podcast for so long now. And it's funny because a lot of the Tiguan community here in Austin, which is where I live, I'm from Dallas originally, um, they just kind of laugh because every time we meet a newly diagnosed person, I'm always like, you have to listen to the podcast. And I think they get annoyed me because I just mentioned it way too much. But it's funny, because I was even on a walk yesterday with one of my type one friends here. And I was like, yeah, I'm recording for the Juicebox Podcast, where they're like, what, like, you talked about that all the time, you're gonna be on it. And I was like, Yeah, I actually got to meet Scott. So it's kind of funny. It's a full circle. moment. And I feel like you just you give people the permission to do those things that doctors don't, you know, tell you. And it's weird, because it's so simple. But it's like, if you don't see other people doing it, you don't think there's any other way? So it's just, it's crazy to me?
Scott Benner 8:46
No, I mean, it's, well, it definitely works. And there's often times that I just feel like my job is like, I'm like the excited coach on the sideline to smash on the acid, you're running away and goes, you can do it, get it, you know, like, go get them. It's just sometimes like you said, it's just the idea that I thought these were the rules. And it turns out, there are no rules, really. And I could try things that make sense to me. That's one of the one of the the speed bumps that I see people get stuck on. It's most heartbreaking to me is the idea of the ones who saw it, and knew they were doing the wrong thing. And almost could imagine the right thing, but just did not have the nerve to break free of what they were being told to try it once. And that to me is like I don't know, like, like, imagine, imagine you're in a room with a closed door. And on the other side of the door is the love of your life. And someone tells you you're not allowed to open that door, and you take that seriously. But every day you have this feeling like the person I'm meant to be with forever is on the other side of this door and you find out five years later, it's true. And somebody else walks in and says you could just go out and open the door. It's no big deal and you owe Open it, and there they are. And now you've lost these five years right of, and you knew you knew what to do. And there's a loss in that feeling that I don't like to know that people go through makes me upset.
Raquel 10:13
Um, I see. Yeah. Especially, just Yeah, all the people I meet, but even with their kids, they, they just want to follow what the doctor is saying, which I totally understand. But it's so sad to think that the doctor's advice could be hurting them more than just, you know, listening to the community or other ways or thinking outside of
Scott Benner 10:31
the box. So we're embracing common sense. A lot of times. Yeah, I know, you know, like, I mean, you really, really stopped to think about what I say sometimes on the podcast, like at some points, I'm like, if you Bolus for something, your blood sugar goes up, and never comes back down. Next time, I Bolus more is that like, earth shattering ideas really, like you know, like, and I know, I've usually I used to break it down by saying like, you know, if you if you learn to drive, and someone told you never push the brake down more than halfway, and you were coming towards a tree or a wall, and you press the brake down halfway, and you still were like, Oh, I'm going to hit the tree? Would you actually say to yourself, I guess I could push harder on this break thing, but the guy told me not like, no, yeah, you'd be like, Oh, God, I gotta stop, you'd push harder. And it really, it's all we're talking about is just finding the right amount of insulin, insulin for the scenario that you're in. I Met Your Mother, why did I meet your mother's?
Raquel 11:31
Yeah, so so I was there. Like I said, I'm from Dallas, I was staying with her. And I actually had a booth for my company type one together at the summit. And so she was just really excited to see me doing that there. And it's a fairly new business. And so yeah, she was there just supporting me and meeting some of my friends. And she got to meet you, too, which is pretty cool. Your mom
Scott Benner 11:54
is an unpaid intern is what you're telling me? Oh, yeah, basically, it's perfect. You're probably an unpaid intern most days, right? Oh, yeah. All the days. So you were you were talking to me? At the time? If I'm correct. About, was it a babysitting thing you were trying to set up?
Raquel 12:12
Yeah. So basically. So to go back a little bit, when I was in college at UT Austin, I was part of the college diabetes network chapter and three, that connected a lot of jdrf. And they would always forward us, you know, all the parents that were looking for babysitters, because college age kids are perfect for that. And I started just kind of meeting all these people in the community and then connecting all these families to other friends that I had with type one who could babysit when I wasn't available. So it became this thing that I was just kind of doing on the side and just saw how much of a need it was, you know, these parents literally hadn't hadn't gone on dates in months, or ever since their child was diagnosed. And it was just heartbreaking. And just having someone there that knew how to get the insulin and do all the things met so much like some of them could go and not even look at their phone, not even look at the Dexcom they could just trust that we knew what we were doing and everything would be fine. So it kind of inspired me to start typing together, which originally was a babysitting connection service for type one family. So I was in Dallas and Austin at the time that we met. And but I launched in November of 2019. So it was a little bit before COVID, I was starting to get momentum there. But then when COVID hit obviously, things just got really complicated on the babysitting side. And there's already a lot of liability because you think babysitting, and then diabetes, and then COVID. And so it just got to be really challenging. And I sort of decided, let me just put that to the side, at least for now. And my true passion. And something I've wanted to do for so long is provide resources to parents and a lot of other ways. Because through babysitting, I started to kind of informally coach a lot of these parents on their child's management because they'd be gone for hours. And I'd have their kids at, you know, at 100 for a while. And when I'm not there, they're, you know, on the roller coaster. So I would start to you know, get coffee with them and talk to them about different methods that honestly, you've you've probably taught me most of them.
Scott Benner 14:15
Yeah, charging people for this because I would like a piece of it. I'm just kidding. What I said, are you people for this? Because I'd like a piece. Yeah, I'll see what I can do. So 10% Yes. Um, so you would talk to them and say, Look, I my imagination says they get home and they're like, wait, why is this kid's blood sugar normal when we're not with him? And this girl leaves and everything goes to hell again.
Raquel 14:44
Yeah, basically, and a lot of it really did come down to fear of, you know, well, the doctor says I should do this. And I'm just nervous to go outside of that, but I would just encourage them to like, make little adjustments slowly and eventually they realize like you said, if you can be at a straight line It 200 and you can be in a straight line at 131 20. so on. So, um, then I kind of shifted years and we have a few really fun products. So we make these diabetes, I actually have a cousin who crochets, these really cute stuffed animals. So we collaborated and we now make these diabetes that have insulin pumps and CGM 's on them. So you can customize like a unicorn, that was our first one we have dinosaur, we have a little penguin that we just did for winter time. And they have a shark. So basically, you can choose whatever devices you want, whatever colors you want, and you can customize all that. And then she'll make it individually, which is really fun. And then recently, I launched a program called Living type one together, which, by the time this comes out, who knows what we'll be doing, but right now we have a three month program set up for parents of type one kids, basically, so that I can, it's a group program. So we have calls each week, and then I have an RD on my team. So we had the nutrition side there, she's a professional, she also has type one, and then I sort of you know, I don't I'm not a doctor, not gonna ever claim that I am. But I do think I have a lot to share from my 19 years of experience. So we do that. And then we have individual calls with the families as well as group calls. So they get the community aspect. And then we have some guest speakers like endocrinologist CDs, things like that. So basically, the goal here is just to fill the gap between endocare and like real life, because, you know, they just don't always look at the whole picture. Like how are your emotions affecting everything? How you know, your stress levels, what you're eating? And, yeah, I don't know where exactly we're going. We have a really cool launch coming out soon. It'll probably be out. By the time this comes out, but, but I'll keep that a surprise. So
Scott Benner 16:42
yeah, so you're just trying to just trying to put good stuff out in the world and see what happens.
Raquel 16:47
Basically, I don't really know what I'm doing. But at the same time, I feel like I'm moving in the right direction. And, you know, I've already connected with so many cool families. And so if this doesn't work out, that is what it is. But I'm trying
Scott Benner 17:00
No, that's a, that's really all you can do. I have to say, just this week, I recorded with someone who I had, I asked to come on because they were misdiagnosed for a number of years. And then they found the podcast before their type one diagnosis was completely made. And so they never had. They never had like any time where they were truly, you know, diagnosed as type one where they didn't understand what the podcast was talking about. And so I said, you know, could you come on and explain to me, like, what what you got out of that. And, you know, I asked her to come on, because part of me wants her to explain it so that the people listening can have a firm grasp of what the podcast could possibly do for different people with different situations. But there's the other part of me that just wants her to explain to me what the podcast is. Because I think like you and probably like a lot of people, I started a thing with an idea in my head. And I'm just, I'm lucky it, it caught on. Because a lot of people start a lot of things that just don't resonate, you know, and there's no real rhyme or reason for that. It's not like you can go figure out what did or didn't work. And, but the podcast has become more than I anticipated. And like sometimes every once in a while I need someone to come tell me what it is to them so that I can almost understand what it is on shepherding if that makes sense. It's
Raquel 18:31
Oh, it does. Like even if I just I talked to a newly diagnosed family, like literally they're a week in and they're like, yeah, I left the hospital without learning how to give an injection. I don't know what I'm doing. I need to talk to someone every day like I you know, and it's like, Okay, this is why I'm trying to do this this is it's just that reminder of like, Okay, what I'm doing is meaningful because when you're putting stuff out all the time it kind of feels like okay, is this doing anything like spending so much time on this but um, but yeah, I totally get what you're saying
Scott Benner 19:02
contents are really interesting. Making air quotes with my fingers which is odd because this is audio you can't sue the business to be in because you can put great content out and just nobody finds it or or you can delude yourself into believing nobody finds it and it turns out they found it and they don't like you. You know what he means like already they don't like that. There's a So recall I've done a number of things during the the the COVID crisis and I just tried to teach myself some new stuff along the way I taught myself how to make like handmade pizza dough that you know you cold ferment for days and you know you cook it a certain way and I at this point now make a pizza as good or better than the ones you can buy in my area which is saying something because I actually live in, I live in. I live in a place where the two most popular pizza establishments in New Jersey exist. And my wife the other day, Kelly, the person I've been married to, for almost 25 years said to me, your pizza is better than the ones we buy. And Kelly's not saying nice things to me easily. So she must, like she wouldn't like a lot of you're out there, like, Oh, I told my husband all the time, he does stuff nice and makes him feel better. My wife never does anything just to make me feel better. So it's, you know, we've known each other too long. So she believes this, which is lovely. I taught myself how to smoke barbecue, I, and now I'm teaching myself to fly a drone. So I bought a really inexpensive drone, somebody gave it to me for Christmas. And I'm like learning how to do it. So I go and look for videos, because I have a real spatial issue. Like once I'm not line of sight with something. I struggled to orient it, you know what I mean? Like, like, I'm not great at video games. And so anyway, so I'm trying to watch these. Here's the point, I'm watching these videos. Okay, Jesus recall, I got wordy there. And there's this guy that makes these videos about flying, the specific one that I have. And his content is fantastic. He's not particularly pleasant to look at. And his voice is grading. But the content is rock solid, right? And so I watch his videos, but his counts is like, you know, his views on YouTube? are, they're paltry compared to other people who are putting out similar videos with not nearly as good content in it. And
Raquel 21:39
that's the game though, you have to figure out how do you get in front of the right people? I'm learning that very fast. Like, it's not half of the battle is what are you offering? But that's almost the easy part. It's like, how do you get how do you get people to find you?
Scott Benner 21:51
And, and the truth is, you can't, you're my opinion, I don't think you can get people to find you. I think you and this is just my opinion, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there might be some like brilliant marketer out there. But I think you make a thing. And that thing resonates or it doesn't. If it does, someone will tell someone else about it. And you can't force them to tell someone else about it. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, get doing a giveaway, you know, like, tweet about me or tell a friend and we're gonna give away, it doesn't work. Like that's the value, do you throw the dice, and they land on your number? Or they don't? And that's how I've come to think of it. And I mean, like I said, there might be some maxwellian way to trick people into doing a thing. But is that really who you want? You know, like, I think that's so true. I think I could hire someone who understood marketing, right? And I could probably, I could probably double the downloads of the podcast if I did that. But then who is it that's listening? It's not people who care. It's not people who are right, you want
Raquel 23:00
the people that want to be there that really value your content? Yeah, no, you're 100%, right,
Scott Benner 23:05
because those people build a core. Because they really want to be there. They really, genuinely want need or enjoy what you're doing. And that creates, I mean, in the, in the short, you know, to say, really quickly, we're like, you have to have a long view of things. My opinion, like you can't, like get rich quick, or make this work real fast. It just flames out too much. Like, I think if you really look around the diabetes community, and say to yourself, who's generating content in 2021, who was generating content in 22,007, I've got to be one of the only ones. So you've definitely done the long game. So that's that's to me is the idea. And that's how now so the podcast aside, that's how you really generate content that helps people write because it's solely focused on them, not on the the growth of the thing you're doing. So that's why that's my advice. It's not great advice for people who'd like to, you know, pay a bill anytime in the next 10 years. But, you know, I did know, I know, it's a slow process. Yeah, I did this for 789 10 1112 I'm counting 13 the most exciting thing to do on a podcast 14. I did this for nine years in writing, and rebuked every offer I ever got for any kind of ad. I would always say No, thank you. At one point, when I was writing, this is you know, so many generations of leadership ago on the pod tried to give me Arden's on the pods for free. And I was like No, thank you. That's like, I I'd rather not like I'd rather just keep our relations Ship separate. And, you know, I'll write for your blog. But I don't want, like, you know, I don't I don't want that. And it was a really kind thing they were, you know, at the time that I don't even know if it was an offer. They were trying to figure out how to do it. I you know, and I was like, No, no, again, I know, other content providers back then that were wearing pumps for free and everything. And I was like, I don't want that. And then I, you know, I was like, Can we give it away to like, less fortunate person? And believe it or not, legally, that was so incredibly impossible to do. I couldn't make that happen. Yeah, so
Raquel 25:34
Well, that's nice. And yeah, I think, you know, I definitely work a lot of other jobs. And I yeah, I have a long vision for this. And like you said, if it brings value people great, and if not, it doesn't, but you know, a lot of is just listening to what people need and responding to that, which I think you've done a really great job of, too.
Scott Benner 25:54
Thank you. And I think too, you have to think of it as like, it's like you started out day trading with $100. Right? Like, if you can make $120 you know, if you can turn your 100 into 120, it's a massive growth increase. If you step back and go, I have $120, that doesn't seem very exciting. But if you can think I increase my my money here by a fifth. That's exciting, then you got to remember the next time you increase it, you might increase it to $140. And, and you have to be willing to go at that pace. Like I'm telling you. My blog used to get 100 150 clicks a month, when I first made it, like 100. Like, imagine what that must have been? What do you think like, maybe 10 people were reading the blog, you know? Yeah. And now, the truth is, now I get millions of clicks on my blog. And I'm like, I don't even worry about it. I don't even think about it. Like when we when I sell ads at the end of the year. Some people are like, Can we get an ad on the blog? And I was like, What do you want that for the podcast? Where do you want your ad? They're like, no, we'd like a clickable ad on the blog, too. And I'm always like, Alright, whatever. And they're just again, I'm like, Yeah, okay. And then one day, I was talking to somebody who does web work, and they're like, you know, you have one of the most popular diabetes blogs in the world. I was like I do. I don't even know. Oh, my God. I'm just like, really, she's like, you could really be selling those. And I was like, that's fine. Like, it should just be a benefit of being
Raquel 27:29
thought about that. Right? Like, I think we both had the same goal in mind. Like we both I definitely I hate even asking for money truthfully, like, I want to do all this for free. I think it's just about helping people. But at the end of the day, I hope that this can be full time so that I can impact more people. So that that takes the money.
Scott Benner 27:47
No, that eventually it certainly does. Like I don't want you to take me the wrong way. If If someone contacted me tomorrow and they're like I am a beneficiary and I would like to you know, buy you Facebook ads or we have a way to grow your podcast where we can find people who really need it. I would want to hear about that. You know like because really until you until you see someone life change like dramatically and drastically for the better in a short amount of time and it stays that way. That's a very it's a lovely feeling. And then you start and then that next thought ends up being there are so many other people who didn't have this benefit. I wonder how I could at least offer it to them and whether they take it or not, I guess is on them but but I'd like to be able to show them that it exists.
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Just the last reminder T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You're a US resident with type one or a US resident who cares for someone with Type One Diabetes. This will take you less than 10 minutes easily. You can do it from from your your sofa, your kitchen table, on your phone, your laptop, your computer, anywhere you reach the internet, really T one d exchange.org forward slash juicebox get there, complete the survey. And that's it. You've helped people with type one through Type One Diabetes Research and you've supported the Juicebox Podcast. There are links to all the sponsors at Juicebox Podcast comm or right there in the show notes of the podcast player you're listening in now. Please tell me you're subscribed in that podcast player to right, you've hit subscribe. Please do if you haven't. Alright, let's get back to Raquel and let them decide. You know, there there are people who, who will tell me that I've actually received notes. I've heard from people, it'll say that if I listen to this podcast, my Awan CEO blah, blah, blah, and you know everything. I don't have time for that. Can you just tell me what to do? Oh, my gosh, yeah, yeah, I can tell you what to do. You listen to the podcast? You put out? Yeah, that's all I have for you. You only come live with you. The guest. Not sure. Although I joked recently that for the right amount of money, I would come to your house and live with you in fiction, but it would be a lot of money. You know, I'd have to abandon my family for a couple of weeks. But seriously, though, it's just that feeling is great. And I think if you have that in you, like if you have the desire to help people, and you have a message that resonates, and you have the patience to grow it, you will end up helping a lot of people. Yes, I agree. And you're a young person, too. Right? How old are you? Yes, I just turned 2014. I was very young. Yes, I know. You're like five in my life?
Raquel 31:37
No, I know. I'm young. I like I've always had a very, like, entrepreneurial kind of mindset. I guess. So. Were you trying?
Scott Benner 31:49
When you were four, where you're like you can you could use this crop to grow flower. That entrepreneurial? Not quite. Can I? Yeah. I have a question. I want to take a little bit of a detour here. Texas, in general does not seem to what is the word I'm looking for? They don't it doesn't seem to as a state be treating COVID-19 the same as other places are? What's the experience living there right now?
Raquel 32:20
Yeah, I mean, honestly, things are very open. We're back, I think 50% capacity for most businesses. But it kind of feels like normal life. Like at least if you're driving around or something like there's traffic again, because Austin traffic is the absolute worst. And you just have to wear a mask everywhere, I think. Yeah, it's it's definitely a weird time in Dallas. It's about the same. I think, here people are a little bit more like aware of it and conscious of it. So I think the cases in Dallas are actually getting worse. But I don't know, it's I haven't been anywhere else since all this started. And so there was a time period, obviously, when everything was shut down. And we were you know, completely at home. But now things are pretty open. I actually do marketing for cycling studio in town. And so I get free classes there. And I haven't been going lately, but I mean, we're at 50% capacity. So that's 22 bikes in a room, you don't have to wear the mask while you're on the bike. But when you're off you do and you know, the classes are filling up. So it's pretty interesting.
Scott Benner 33:25
So when you're really huffing and puffing, you do not need to cover your face, but when you're just breathing normal. You got it. So I'm understanding okay. totally makes sense. Because it seems to me that it's like that's the word on Texas. It's it's pretty wide open. But that cases are pretty high there. Right?
Unknown Speaker 33:44
They are. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Benner 33:45
So it's you. That state has embraced the, we're just gonna see what happens model, I guess.
Raquel 33:53
Yeah, I think they've said they're not like we're not going to shut down everything again. So.
Scott Benner 33:58
So what does that feel like? What does that feel like to you internally? Like are you do you walk outside and think all these I'll just bleep this out later. But all these motherfuckers are dirty and I'm gonna die or like, or do you just feel like do you feel like oh, this is working out? Okay. And like how do you feel about COVID being young and having tight bonds so
Raquel 34:19
I want to be really conscious for other people's sake Truthfully, I think for myself, in my honest opinion, I take really great care of my blood sugar's Of course, that does not guarantee anything, but I feel like I have a strong body to be able to find it if I were to get it, but I want to be careful. So you know, I feel like I'm in that middle stage where I'm like, Okay, I'm going to go to the grocery store when I need to go like I'm not ordering stuff online. But I'm not going out just to go out and I've never been someone that like really loves like going to bars a lot or things like that. And so most I think bars are closed still. Even here, but But yeah, I don't know. I feel relatively safe, but like I was just home with my family for a long time. And so before that, you know, being extra cautious, but really I'm I'm just being cautious in general, if that makes sense. But like we have a dog park in my apartment, I take my dog out there and like, I stay far away from people. We're all outside and I feel fine. Your dog,
Scott Benner 35:15
your apartment has a dog park.
Raquel 35:17
Yeah, it has a dog park in the middle, we have two buildings. And it's very like people move here for this dog park. Because so many people go out there. It's like all fenced in. And I resigned again for next year. And I honestly did that mostly because of the dog park because my dog needs to run around. Like he has so much energy. And it's I love working out but not necessarily going on like multiple hour long walks every day. So
Scott Benner 35:44
that's fancy as well. I was thinking, I was like, I didn't get any apartment I lived in when I was your age. Yeah, it's the pool. We couldn't always women. You know what I mean? Like it was? Yeah, it was weird. Okay, well, I didn't mean to it's, I apologize if I felt like if I could put you on the spot. And and no one wants to say the wrong about COVID. Because someone will call you a COVID denier? And you'll you know, they'll try to cancel you. But no, I think that's a very reasonable response. And I just wondered what it was like, in a place where they were just like, that's it, we're all opening back up again, go. Like, I wonder what that felt like, versus it's funny, I have the same feeling like, I don't believe there's anything I can't do at this point. But we're just kind of meaningfully meaning on purpose, staying away from other people. Like just sort of like living your life, but then going home. And it's done the weirdest thing to my perception of time. And my understanding of what like, like my body and my brain would get accustomed to like, I now see how I could, like, just call this reality. And I'd be okay with it. And it's normal. It's interesting how adaptive we are.
Raquel 37:00
You know, yeah, and then should to see when we get to go back when we'll get to conferences again, because that's the biggest thing I miss is just seeing my friends, like, I'll go on walks with people, but that's about it. So
Scott Benner 37:09
yeah. Well, no, I mean, there's a lot of people around the diabetes space, who really focus their efforts around those conferences and going to places to talk to people and you guys kind of, you know, I've seen people create a little cabal of friendship, and, and I don't, I never use the conferences. I don't mean use, like, I never treated them that way. Like, those were just always extra things. I went and did. That, to me the podcast is the thing. But but it's uh, it's nice. Like I saw, there's like, Oh, you guys have like a whole group of people who knew each other. And, yeah, it was nice.
Raquel 37:48
It really was. It is a really cool community. Because Dallas just tends to be one of the bigger conferences and so a lot of people will be flown in like you were or, you know, however it works, they'll come to speak. And so it just kind of works out a lot of people get to meet from the online space in person there. And I've been to the Dallas on a few times. I feel like I got to meet a lot of like, awesome people in the community.
Scott Benner 38:08
Yeah, I feel very invisible at them. I don't imagine anyone like, I don't know if that's true or not. But when I get there, I just feel like I'm wallpaper and then I just show up and stand up in the front of the room and I leave. But
Raquel 38:22
I feel like people know, but they know your boys like I don't know if people maybe I don't know, because they know what you look like. But I feel like the older like people my age don't listen to the podcast as much, which is interesting. Like, you definitely have more of a parent audience, I would assume. So it's not but I'm the crazy person that's always like Juicebox Podcast.
Scott Benner 38:41
Thank you. It's not it's actually it's not about the people who listen are not broken down by parent or adult with type one. But I would agree with you that younger people, generally speaking are probably the least of the audience. I think the audience sweet spots between like 28 and like 55 in there. Yeah, it's it's so it's not it's funny. It's not. There are as many if not maybe more, like people living with type one listening as there are parents. But the parents are more vocal online, then Oh, yeah. That's right. And, and younger people in general. I think that's the time where you're not paying attention to your health the way you should be. Maybe. I don't know.
Raquel 39:36
Yeah, I think people just think they're invincible and you know, yeah, I mean, I didn't like I didn't get a duck's calm till I was a sophomore in college and so many people wanted me to but I was just like, no, like, I don't you know, you just don't know what you're missing honestly. And it kind of makes it feel like you don't like you don't know what's going on. Right? So it's like not happening. I'm in my my body. definitely gotten used to just being hired before that time. And so I think if people aren't in the community, they're less likely to have Dexcom. I definitely noticed that unless and you know, I think those are starting to or CGM in general, I think endos are starting to push them more. But before it was kind of like if you didn't have if you weren't, if you weren't in the community, if you didn't know that people would type one, like, you're just kind of like, Oh, I use shots, I do whatever. And it's not, you don't really think twice about it. And so I think that was definitely me for a really long time. And then once I started to get more involved, I was like, oh, like these people are actually paying attention to what their blood sugar's are doing. Like maybe I should do that.
Scott Benner 40:36
Well, I can tell you interesting. I'm not a doctor for certain but I can tell you one thing 100% sure about your your health. pretending it's not happening is not a valid a viable way to magic. I don't look it's not there definitely doesn't work. It also doesn't work with serial killers in your closet, by the way, they're going to come in.
Raquel 40:59
exactly when it's scary that your body will adapt whatever is going on with your blood sugar's you'll start to just feel normal, and then you think you're fine. Because you're like, Oh, I feel fine. So I'm fine. But
Scott Benner 41:09
you're not, it's really, it's really your body trying to stay alive as long as it can. That's what it's doing. It's like, Alright, I'll give up on that. And I'll, I'll move the, you know, I'll move some soldiers over here. And you know, but eventually, it is the thing that gets you Whatever it is, you're ignoring your body will do an amazing job of keeping you going through it, but eventually, you can ignore it forever. And you know, it will, it will follow you at some point. I also think that people your age, and I only mean this in the nicest way. When it what I want to say the idea of the diabetes online community, right? Is, is lovely, and valuable. And also in some ways. It's, it's no, it's not real. Because, because if, if I said to you, in any other walk of life, let's just pick a number. Here are 1.8 million people who enjoy cheese, okay? And, and 40,000 of them have an online presence where they talk about their love of cheese, this is the one line cheese community, they really represent. percentage wise, none. Almost none of the 1.8 million cheese lovers. Like there are 1.7 5 million other cheese lovers who do not go on Instagram, don't go on Facebook, and are still loving cheese in a way that you would you would just respect. And that so that's the interesting thing to me is that is that online feels like the place, but it really is just a small segment of people. Yes, that of the of the bigger number. And I probably used to think like that more to until the podcast, because now I can see the podcast downloads. And I can see the interaction online. And the amount of people listening versus the amount of people who say something on Facebook or Instagram. There's a huge, huge difference between those. Yeah, right.
Raquel 43:28
Yeah. And so I mean, I didn't think it was cool to be like, like, for a long time. I was like, Why are there people posting out diabetes? Like, why are people going diabetes events, my mom used to try to drag me to the summit when I was younger, and I refused. So I was like you like want to talk about but I mean, I've seen it make a difference once I started actually meeting people in person. Like that's really the only reason I do it. Like I kind of hate social media, but at the same time, I've actually met really cool people, you know, gotten to do really cool things with them and learned a lot from it more importantly, so that's where it's meaningful to me But yeah, you kind of have to get past that weirdness and honestly, like I have a normal Instagram account and then I type one account and whenever my normal friends normal, you know what I mean? Whenever they find my diabetes account, I'm just like, Oh gosh, why are they gonna follow this? Like they're gonna think it's so boring and whatever but it's cool because a lot of them find it so interesting and it's just such a weird disease to have it's so intricate and people don't realize that so can we
Scott Benner 44:25
start going those other people normally pancreas is that yes, there we go. are normally pancreas to people. But not but don't get me wrong. I please don't. I think it's amazing. I think it's fantastic. And there's a part of me that wishes you could spread it to those other 1.7 million people. But the truth is, those people aren't interested in that, like social media in general is fascinating in that. In that we see like Twitter, running politics, sometimes it feels like right, but the percentage of people on Twitter versus the percentage of people alive is very, very small in, but they have, they appear to have a voice. But the truth is they don't. It's just it's just Anyway, I'm mixing my metaphors here a little bit. But I, my goal has always been to reach people who aren't online. And somehow the podcast has done that, let and so that to me is, is, um, is a real accomplishment. Because those were people who were never going to hear these stories. And so they were just gonna slog along doing what they were doing. You can have an amazing Instagram presence. But you're really, I mean, even think about like, if you got an Instagram picture, and you put it up, what's a lot of like, what's that amount of likes? That makes you go? Oh, holy hell Look at this.
Raquel 45:55
Yeah, I mean, it just really depends on you. on you, right? Count number. Yeah. And on you. But no, I, I totally see what you're saying. That's actually what I was talking about earlier, when you're talking about typing together. I was like, you have to get in front of the right people. It's like Instagram, isn't that you know what I mean? Like, I really realized that over the last few months, like, why am I focusing so much energy on social media, when it's like, you know, these people are getting diagnosed in the hospital, they're not finding these accounts right away. They need, you know, this needs to be in the doctor's office, this needs to be, I don't know, I'm working on that. But like, that's where the real difference when you're actually going to be making a difference in people's lives. Because the truth is, all the people that are connected there, they are connected, they already see all the things, even they don't know everything. It's like they see other people managing different ways. And you know, once you're in it, you're already in it. And so you're only helping those people so much, just like you're saying, so how do you find those people that are outside of that bubble?
Scott Benner 46:45
May I make a suggestion? Because I've been on your website, and those crochet dolls are really adorable. Okay, so thank you, please, I make 1234 510 as many as I can afford to give away. And I, I make a phone call. I talked to the endocrinology department at some major hospitals around the country. And I say I have this doll. And I'd like to donate it for you to give to a newly diagnosed person. And yes, I actually am on that. Yeah, that's 100%. What I would do, I don't have to put as much effort into it. Because what I get to do is I get to tell people Hey, like, tell your doctor about it. And then the doctor listens and the doctors like, Huh, and then the doctor starts telling us about it. I get my smile. That's amazing. Yeah, my word of mouth is easier. But your thing would could do that. You know, you could find yourself going. Oh, yeah,
Raquel 47:39
I'm working on that. I'm in touch with an endo. So I feel good. I'm on a good path. And hopefully, yeah, it'll just keep going. I have a lot of exciting things. So
Scott Benner 47:49
I like how good you know, I like your energy and your intent a lot. So no, please you don't thank me. I'm just thank me. I just did do like I like it. I think I think you're on the right path. I want to see you succeed with it. And, and reach some people because I think you're gonna make a big difference. So I appreciate it. No, I'm listening. I'm gonna get old at some point, you guys, I got a I mean, how much longer you gonna let me do this, like when I'm 60. And I'm like, today, I helped Arden give birth to her first child, and we kept our blood sugar stable, like, like, at some point, you're gonna be like, I can't How long has this guy been making this podcast? I gotta get. So tell me something about that, too. Because you said at the beginning. I listened to a couple of episodes because I haven't listened to as much lately. What's that? Like? Because I imagine when you first found it, you were listening a lot,
Raquel 48:38
right? Oh, yeah. Every single episode. Um, yeah, I still like listening. But yeah, I think now I definitely listen more for just hearing people's perspectives on things and different stories versus like, all the info and tips that you're giving to people directly. So I yeah, I think it's like you get to a point where like, okay, I kind of have this figured out, I'm in a flow that. And you learn things here and there. But, but you kind of have it figured out. So I guess I'm in that place.
Scott Benner 49:10
Now. That's, that's where I want you to be. That's where I want. I still want you to stay. Subscribe in your podcast app and download the app. But but that's what that's my hope for everybody. It's funny. You have to be in a mindset where you realize that this resets constantly. And yeah, and it does, like I will. I am right now in contact with people online, who are fervent about the podcast, I love them. And they don't realize that six months from now, I will be in contact with somebody online who's fervent about the podcast that is not them. And that it just there it's like snakeskin, it just keeps shedding. People come in, they get what they need. And then they become you know, infrequent listeners, or they hit certain episodes, but they get what they need out of it and they move on to me That's the goal. And the problem, I think, in social media, specifically, is that your goal can't be too. So, so stop for a second, instead of thinking of the podcast, as I'm hoping to find a person who needs help give them enough information that they can go live normally. Think of it as, like a business, like take the diabetes out for a second. What business finds a customer? gives them something they want? has them really enjoy it. And their end goal is for them to stop buying it. No business has that angle, right. So these, the delivery system that people are using, is not right, for the, for the for the process, the process wants you to be able to find educate, pass on back to life. But if your social media followers leave you, then your social media becomes less powerful. And then you cycle out and someone else comes back. And it's a it's a weird hump to get over in your head that you have to want these people to age out. where some people Yeah, but
Raquel 51:18
there's always new ones coming into right.
Scott Benner 51:20
Well, that's the that's the sad part. Yes, but But yeah, there's always new people getting type one diabetes. But what I see sometimes not from you, obviously. But what I see sometimes is that people instead of selling like if, again, thinking about it as merchandise instead of selling good information that gets you out of it, they sell fear that keeps you there. Yeah. Yeah, that happens too frequently. And it takes a special person like you to not want to, like not to not be so inner focus that you're like, why I've captured this listener now, or this reader or this person, I need to keep them here. I need to keep them here. And I don't want that I want the opposite. I want you to come and like just go away. Like I want everyone to have the experience I had the other night where Arden had like a massively weird blood sugar thing. And I could have managed it while riding a unicycle and juggling like it just it's just, you know, I mean, it happens for you, I imagine just, you know, you just know what to do. So, right. Did your mom like me?
Raquel 52:29
Yes, she's excited actually called her this morning. I didn't know if we were gonna talk about my diagnosis story, but I was like, can you please tell me like, what it was because I know it. But I also like, forget all the little details that She's so excited. I was just gonna record Finally, I was five. team and I kind of had a weird, a weird story because I actually got diagnosed in a really positive way. I just went to my normal five year old checkup. And they happen to like check something I don't know if it was like a urine sample are they actually pricked my finger, but I went home like everything. You know, they said it was normal, but they called her and they're like, oh, you're your child might have juvenile diabetes, which is what they used to call it. And they were like, bring her back tomorrow, but have her eat a really sugary breakfast before she comes. And so she was like, Okay, no problem, like gummy doughnuts or whatever. And went back tested again. And they're like, Alright, come back tomorrow fasted. So then I came back a third day without eating anything. And they were like, yeah, your child has type one. But there's no space in the hospital right now. So I went home for like a full two days without going to the hospital. I guess she doesn't remember my blood sugar was, but it wasn't super high yet. So I guess they weren't too concerned. And then I finally went to the hospital and was there for a few days. And it was right. Yeah, it was around my fifth birthday. So I had my birthday party scheduled. And my mom had been telling me all week long like, like, oh, you're going to get to go to the go to your birthday party. Like it's going to be so great. Like that was the one positive thing that was like coming up. And then apparently there's like a student doctor there that was working with us. And she told my mom like, sorry, she can't go to her birthday party. And so my mom was like begging my actual endo. She ended up being my endo for years and years. And she's like, Oh, yeah, you're fine. Like you guys are ready to go home. And so we left the hospital drove straight to my birthday party where I was late. Like all my friends are there whenever we were late to my fifth birthday party. And I remember still, I mean, I don't remember much but I remember having to get a shot at my birthday party was just so sad. But I had to like go into a separate room and you know, get my shot for my cake. So yeah, but it was actually it was good because now hearing all the stories of people just not knowing forever and ever. It's like why can't doctors just check blood sugar? It's not that hard. So
Scott Benner 54:48
what's interesting that they it's cool that they figured out there was nothing that led them to look it was just part of the process.
Raquel 54:54
Yeah, nothing she said she she kept trying to figure out like what, you know if there were signs that she Missed and there was nothing. I mean, I did have a virus the week before sometime around there that they think might have triggered it. Who knows. So I had been sick. But other than that I wasn't like carrying water.
Scott Benner 55:12
I don't want a lot of weight. So because lost weight was the one that popped into my head. Like maybe if you Excuse me, I'm dying here. Give me a second. Wow. That was the one that got me. Like, I wonder if maybe you were like, you know, 50 pounds the last time and we're like, 42. And they were like, Oh, you know, but they that's the only thing I can think of. That's just a good office that's checking for things. I guess. Oh, excellent. Yeah, lucky. Lucky. Yes. It feels lucky, doesn't it? Yeah. Lucky, so lucky. I just, um, I like the idea of you like breaking out of the hospital and like going right to a birthday party. It's baller, you know,
Raquel 55:51
yeah, it's pretty great. I'm surprised I didn't just cancel it when all that was going on. But she just, she was telling you this morning. She just wanted me to have that so badly. She was like, I told the doctor, even if we just go to the party and come back, like she has to have this because I'd had the worst week. And the other thing I do remember is asking my mom in the hospital if I was gonna have to get shots for the rest of my life, which I think that was like her worst moment of her life having to tell me Yes. And I was really scared of shots like before, that would be like running away from the nurse. You know, if I was just getting a flu shot or something, like always terrified of needles, and honestly, it didn't get better. For a while. Like I remember every sight change was painful. I feel so bad looking back and like seeing other parents go through the same thing with their kids. I did not make it easy for my parents at all.
Scott Benner 56:37
But a little Listen, try to imagine a three year old Arden with my personality, and a three year olds body is running from shots. Because what happened here all the time, I'd be like, hey, Arden, we just have to give me insulin, she'd look at me and smile and take off. Oh, yeah. Like get back here. And you're so nervous about the whole thing. You're like, this isn't gonna be enough insulin or it's gonna be too much. And, you know, the next hour is gonna be terrible. And our blood sugar's gonna get really low, and I'm gonna be testing all the time. I don't want to test her all the time. And meanwhile, she's being adorable. You know, and you're just like,
Raquel 57:07
I think it's worse for parents. Sometimes. I really do. I mean, it definitely sucks being type one, but like, wow, yeah, the parents are the real. We call them super parents in my, in Taiwan together, we always say they see your parents because they, you just worked so hard. Listen,
Scott Benner 57:23
I'm gonna say this again. Cuz I don't think people are listening. Here's the worst mistakes you can make in life. Buy a dog. That's horrible. have kids get married? Now? Here's why. The dog is just obvious. One day, you're gonna want to do something and you can't because you know, the dog can't come or you can't leave the dog somewhere for so long. It literally changes the course of your life. I love my dogs, not enough to make up for the kennel costs and the amount of times I've picked dog crap off of the floor. And you know, because like, yeah, like you like, you know what I'm going to sleep in tomorrow. Like, Let me treat myself and sleep till nine o'clock and at 830 the dogs just like, Hey, he's usually down here by now. Hmm, I'm just gonna leave this here. Okay, so that that's the first thing. No dogs right. Now, can you get great joy out of dogs? Of course you can. But that's not what we're talking about right now. Children. Okay, you are going to love that kid in a way that is in comparable to anything that you've experienced yet recall. Okay? And their pain. And their struggle will hit you a million times over, it will burden you in your heart. And in your mind, it will kill you to see them in pain. And once you love them, you can't get out of it. Because it's illegal to kill people. Do you understand? Plus, you love them so much you couldn't do it anyway would make you too upset. So the problem is now you've made the baby, it's out. The fun part with the sex is long forgotten. And now this kid is perfect. And even when they're perfect. You worry about them? What's their future going to be like? What are they going to do? Who are they going to meet is someone going to come along and you know, dissuade them from being themselves. But then you make them sick, you give them diabetes or something like that. And it's something you can't just make go away or fix. So worst feeling in the world. It is absolutely the worst feeling in the world. And then obviously my third thing being married is self explanatory. But I just say this because one day I imagined Kelly will listen to the podcast. But, but No, but seriously, like you when you create an attachment to a living thing. You're always letting it down after that, and to not joke too much about dogs. I've never wanted a dog because I feel very responsible for the dog. And then if I don't give the dog the best care that I can. It makes me feel badly. And therefore I know this seems backwards, but I'd never wanted As a dog because I didn't want the opportunity to let the dog down and for me to feel the way that makes me feel. And then that's how I feel about children except about a bazillion times more than that. So why do you say, Wait till some boy tricks you into making a baby? You'll think you're tricking him, but he'll be like, Oh, she can't go anywhere if she has a baby with me. But that's really not how it works either. But that's how stupid boys think that's a different problem. Okay, so are there any dumb boys in your life? Yeah, I've actually been with my boyfriend for seven years. Away from being married, and three years away from having a baby. We'll see. No, I know how this stuff goes. You think your life is random, but step back and look at everyone else's life. It's the way it goes. You're sweet. You're very kind. And you're hard working. Right? Pretty girl. What does this do for a living? What do we got him doing? Is he in college? Still? is he working?
Raquel 1:01:00
Um, he so he was working for a tech startup in Austin. But he did get laid off and is getting his real estate license. So that'll be interesting. Well,
Scott Benner 1:01:11
that's good. I'm glad he's having a problem working because that'll keep him from what no, lock you down. You don't I mean? Like, don't let him and by the way, don't let him give you some ring. If he doesn't have a good job. You understand? The place to live, you understand? It's clean. It's nice. We have upper mobility and a little bit of savings. Otherwise, no thank you, you and whatever his cute faces and why ever you like him? I don't know why. Exactly. And, you know, why do you like him?
Raquel 1:01:42
He's we just have so much fun together. We were best friends for a year before we started dating in high school. So I don't know just like having that friendship first. He's really hard working. He's also just more on the I guess mature side. Like we both are kind of like are we we're not like typical 20 year olds, I guess obviously, I've started a business young as people would say, but you know, we don't like love just going out and drinking. And I don't know, we like being more thoughtful with our time and doing more. I don't know how to put it in a way that people think is crazy. Right? We just we like a lot of the same things. We like going outside a lot, which Austin is grateful for. And yeah, we just have a lot of fun. And it's just nice that we've known each other for so long. So
Scott Benner 1:02:28
you both kind of have an old soul vibe. Because you do yes. There we go. Yeah, Yes, we do. Like I could talk to you and easily believe you're 50. And so, but not now, like you're you know, but there are times when I the things you do and the things that you listen, I appreciate that. I'm not a crazy person either. I don't. I don't have a problem with people who want to run around and party and do all this stuff. I just none of that occurs to me just like a Yeah, seems like a lot of effort. Like my excitement this week is that Kelly's birthday is on Sunday. And I've already made pizza dough to make her a pizza for her birthday. And to me that seems like you would appreciate that,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:07
right? Yes, absolutely. Meanwhile,
Scott Benner 1:03:10
you party girls out there and I know who you are. I talked to some of you moms. I know what you do. I know what you're doing. I see your high cheekbones. You would be like, Ah, so boring. But that's what I got. Yeah, that's what, what, uh, what seems right to me, Well, listen, obviously, you should do whatever you want, and I'm not in charge. But what I will tell you is that once you launch that boat in that direction, it keeps moving in that direction. So be sure you want to be on the SS. We're hitched and going to make a baby have a house before you get on to it you can't get on and get back off again. The worst you can do is like throw one of those orange rings around yourself and throw yourself into the water but that's not a way to live. So thank you yeah, you know I thank you you're like shut up idiot on the mic. You Really? Do you need advice on anything? It's fun. Anything else I could be nice I think I think you've given me lots of advice. Here my thoughts about sneakers and properly supporting your your arch. You want to hear about that? I'll save that for next podcast. tell you right now 20 years now when your feet hurt and you'll be like that guy probably had something to say about that and I wasn't listening Don't let your foot Don't let your feet be flat recount the understand ruin your life got
Unknown Speaker 1:04:24
it ruin your life.
Scott Benner 1:04:27
Is there a there's got to be something we didn't talk about that you were hoping to talk about?
Raquel 1:04:33
Um, no, I really I will say I was a dancer. I was a dance major in college and I went to performing arts high school free dance which definitely like also informed a lot of my just type one it was so hard dancing not much with type one and I still I still am a dancer but with COVID it's it's kind of slow down but just want to put that out there in case anyone who's this and has like a child who is a dancer because I'm always happy to to talk about that life.
Scott Benner 1:04:57
Let me ask you a question. So back then You're dancing, right? And it's before, you know, I'm assuming before your your ideas of how to manage your insulin were were rock solid. Yes. What do you do to drive your blood sugar up so that while you dance that came down and didn't go too low?
Raquel 1:05:14
Yeah, honestly, I think about that a lot. And like, how did I actually do that? I think I remember going to the side of the room and like pricking my finger all the time. This is before I had a CGM. And I'm sitting out quite often, because I had to drink juice or whatever. And luckily, I had really supportive teachers, but it definitely made it. It was just frustrating, because it's like, you know, especially like in front of a choreographer or something like that, if you're auditioning, and just not knowing if they if they're gonna see that am I going to have to run to the side. And that's going to be considered rude, you know, because you don't always get a chance to tell every single person that you're type one. Depending on the situation, even though I would be very upfront about it. And that was a big reason why I didn't want to go to CGM, because it would be more visible on my body. And you don't really want that to be seen in audition, because as much as you want to think that they're not considering that as a factor, like it's definitely it's there, you know what I mean? And like, like, no matter how good I am, like, there's still that question of will they take someone who's equally as talented, but doesn't have to sit out and miss some of the choreography or rehearsal time. So, um, you know, I don't really know, I always had a lot of juice and snacks with me. And somehow I made it work. But I really think I was just on the roller coaster all the time, because yeah, I would start to go up. And then I would come down and have to drink juice, and it's just that cycle. And then when I got to Dexcom, and I got the Apple Watch, that was really nice, because I could leave my stuff on the side of the room and still note my blood sugar was doing and so I started to like micro dosing things. While I would, you know, I'd have my pump off a lot of the time, pretty much all the time, unless I was doing like ballet, something that wasn't like super, like, you're not rolling around the floor, and like, running all over the place. But it would just be too hard to have my pump on and I have cracked my tea slim, before while dancing. So um, but I would start to like, you know, watch the arrows and my ducks calm during class. And then if I was starting to go up a little bit, I just rented side plug in my pump, give myself like point four or whatever it was I thought I needed and then run back. So I don't know, it was it was interesting. I was on the Medtronic 670 for a second did not go well. That's a whole nother story. But like, part of the problem was I wouldn't have my pump on all the time. And so it was like, I had to know in my brain, what am I doing right now? Am I going to be rehearsing for the next four hours? What am I eating today? Like taking all those factors into consideration? And then making the decision I need to give myself point seven not like, you know what my pump wants me to give me so yeah, it was it kind of forced me to, like, learn all that stuff in my brain and figure it out. But I definitely don't have it figured out like I still, you just you never know what's gonna happen. You know, you don't know. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:07:51
I see people all the time. Like, you know, I my son eats apples with peanut butter before we play soccer. And I'm always like, I mean, I guess that that works. That's cool. But I always thought about it as like, how do I manipulate the sensation so that this doesn't happen? Like that was because I went through a number of really frightening lows with art. And when she was much younger, and I didn't know what I was doing, and we didn't have any technology. And one of them was outside of a dance class. And, you know, it was one of the times I was like, she's gonna die. Like, I am not going to catch this fast enough. And, you know, when it was over, I was like, and I knew she was okay. I was completely shaken. Like, I just, I it was, I felt like somebody was shooting at me. And like, it was my job to like, reach up and, like, slap the bullets down to they want to hit Arden. And it just felt like it went on forever. And it was one of the moments that made me think like, there's gotta be a better way to do this, like, this can't really be it, can it you know, like, we're gonna just gonna do this forever. And that's when I started thinking more about the insulin like, you know, there's got to be better ways to use this insulin than what we're doing right now. Don't get me wrong, you know, but I still like, you know, Arden's played softball and played four or five games in a day and stopped for lunch in the middle and you know, she go into a deli and grab a sandwich and soup and chips. And I just bought this for it and sent it back out there. And once you realize that, if you bounce the insulin with the food, it works out. It's just such a it's such a big lever freeing. Yeah. Because that other stuff is so goddamn scary. Like, it's just, oh, I can remember vividly how all that feels. And you know, people, I don't want people to feel that way. So anyway, Raquel, you are delightful. You were delightful when I met you. I really want to thank you for the ride to the airport and for not murdering me. That was lovely. Was there any thoughts of murdering me? In the Yeah, no, that'd be the time to say or did you ever consider kidnapping me or break I will tell you if I was to Wait now like you could just say, may I ask a question before I let you go? I'm sorry. How was it weird when I was like, Hey, can you take me there?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:10
Whoa, it wasn't weird. I
Raquel 1:10:12
mean, I don't think so. Because I, I mean, no, I feel this is weird. I'm sure a lot of people tell you this, but it's like, I feel like I know you a lot better than Of course, you know, me because I hear your voice all the time. Like, even when I've been on this podcast, it's not like, I'm hearing your voice. And I kinda had to remind myself like, I'm talking to him. I'm not just like, washing the dishes and listening to you talk. You know? So I feel like it wasn't that weird. I mean, we had talked all day. And I mean, you've done so much through my life, and I know so many others. And so, you know, I didn't mind at all.
Scott Benner 1:10:44
That was very nice. Yeah. I just wondered from your perspective, like, what's that? Like? Like, if you're in a different generation, like, even then, you know, asking you came because there was a group of people who all went to do something afterwards. And I was invited to come and then they were going to go to the airport afterwards. It's just like, and it seems like a lovely I don't remember what it was anymore. But it seemed lovely. And I was up for doing it. And then I just was like, No, just go the airport.
Raquel 1:11:13
tiring, like, I was so exhausted by the end of that day. I think they were all going to do something but my mom and I were just like, Alright, we're tired.
Scott Benner 1:11:22
Oh, my God, I know what it is. Are they gonna go throw axes? Oh, my, yeah. Am I right about that? Okay, so like, you know, in the middle of the day, when somebody's like, hey, when this is over, we're gonna throw axes and then go to the airport. I'm like, All right. Okay, you should come and I'm like, alright. And then by the end of the day, I'm like, No, I'm not doing that. Like, I just like, I want to throw my ass at a seat in the airport waiting for my plane. I don't want to throw it. I just want to go home. And cuz that was like, that's a long, it was a long flight for me. And oh, yeah, it was the first it was the last time I was ever on one of those big Airbus's. You know, the ones that are like, eight rows in the middle and three on either side. And it feels like you're in a mall that can fly. Have you ever been in one of those?
Raquel 1:12:10
I think so. Yeah. Giant one. Yeah, it's just mass and you lost your iPad, right?
Scott Benner 1:12:15
That's not true. Yeah, I mess up once a trip on something. That was the one when I got there. The the hotel was like, we don't have a credit card on file for you. I was like, well, you better contact the jdrf and get it. And they were, they were like, now you can just give us yours and get the money back from them. And I went, huh? Yeah, I'm not doing that. I'll go home first, just in case you're one. And not because of money. By the way Republic because I don't want to spend the next three months trying to get $150 back from somebody just it's Oh my god, it is my mind even thinking about doing paperwork like that. All right. You were terrific. what's your website?
Raquel 1:12:59
type one together calm and the one is O ne and spelled out?
Scott Benner 1:13:03
Could you be an all proper type one together? Calm? So it's
Raquel 1:13:09
the same on Instagram and Facebook? Just type one
Scott Benner 1:13:11
together? Not didn't work? Right. Like it's a it's not a not for profit? It's
Raquel 1:13:15
correct. I yeah. At least for now. Especially with the babysitting thing. It's just like, what made sense at the time. So as we're evolving, we'll see what happens. But I there's a lot of ways that we are, you know, giving back in other ways to the diabetes community without being a nonprofit, so
Scott Benner 1:13:31
I'm not judging you. Listen, I would never make this but I it's been before like, you know, you could be a nonprofit. Again, it just seems like a lot of work. It's a lot of board of directors and like, you know, like, yeah, I'm gonna build this podcast up and then let someone else be in charge of it. I was like, a weird world or you live in. I actually know someone who started an amazing diabetes charity 10 years ago, that helped a lot of people. And that person ended up getting ousted from it because the board of directors decided they didn't like his direction. Like, yeah, no, somebody's taking your 18 year old kid and going and it's ours now. No, wait, what? So yeah, I'm not into the all that I don't like. I don't play well with others. I don't like listening to other people. So it's working for you. So I just I would if you put me in a room and you were like, now bill gets to talk. I'd be like, who is Bill? Like I don't like bills? The i don't i don't want his opinion. I don't care about his opinion. Like his opinion. Got him on my board of directors. I'm My opinion is the one that made the thing. Like Like, why would you don't I mean, like, that's just a weird world to be involved in. I don't I don't like the idea of it. So yeah, you get it. That's it. Listen to me. I'm like, I don't like charities. You know what else I don't like big plays. Really, this podcast is just me complaining about things. So I I realize now, I Well, I really appreciate you doing this. I hope everything goes well and that you're not overrun by zombies in Texas. And that especially as you Although Texas zombies will have guns. Yeah. Can you shoot a gun? I cannot. I have not done that yet. You've never done. I haven't worn in Dallas. We're in Dallas yet raised in Dallas city. Yeah. ever held one? I think so. Hey, I haven't even hold one. I don't know why I brought that. I just I assume everyone like in my mind. Texas is just like, everyone has three guns. They're taped to their foreheads. Have you been Austin? No, I almost was there once and then it didn't work out. Yeah. One day. Yeah. I'll tell you what. I will push stop and tell you why it is. I never went there. No one else. Good. Thank you. All right. Sounds good. All right, so everybody else you don't get to know what Rukh Khan is goodbye. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. Je Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo hypo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL Uc, ag o n.com. forward slash juicebox. Don't forget to head over to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. And of course the diabetes pro tip series is that diabetes pro tip calm Juicebox Podcast calm and begins in your podcast player at Episode 210. Check them out.
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#531 After Dark: Diabetes Complications
ADULT TOPIC WARNING. Today's guest is an adult type 1 living with significant complications.
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, friends, welcome to Episode 531 of the Juicebox Podcast.
incredibly proud of this podcast. I know that I tried my hardest to talk about every topic I can think of around diabetes, I don't want to leave anything out. But when we get to those things that people don't like to talk about so much the things that you kind of keep private. I put those in a series called afterdark. If you go to Juicebox Podcast comm and scroll down a little, you'll see a ton of afterdark episodes, and I think you should check them out. They're incredibly enlightening. Today's show is with Mike. And Mike has had Type One Diabetes for a very long time, as he will tell you in just a little bit. Mike also has a number of complications. And he is going to share with you his story and his complications today. I want you to be ready that this episode is honest, it's emotional, and it might make you upset. Mike felt very strongly about sharing this with all of you. And I was grateful and honored that he wanted to do it here. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by touched by type one. They're an organization doing wonderful things for people living with Type One Diabetes, find out more about them at touched by type one.org. You can also find them on Instagram, and Facebook. I'm pretty pleased with how my voice sounds. So I'm going to do one more. This episode is also sponsored by Omni pod. And you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. You can find out at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box by the way. There's no reason to wait for the next big thing because Omni pod has the Omni pod promise. And later in the episode, I'm going to tell you exactly what that is. My name is Mike. I live in San Diego. I've been type one. Whoa. Over 45 years now. And yeah. How old are you Mike? I just turned 55 today, okay. Oh, really? Congratulations.
Mike 2:38
Thank you. So I can now eat off the Denny's 55 plus menu.
Unknown Speaker 2:41
Things are really heading in your direction. Finally, you got to take the positives in this world was all the negatives.
Scott Benner 2:48
I didn't know our birthdays were so close to each other.
Mike 2:50
I know happy late birthday my my replacement service dog trainer, or my replacement service dog. The trainer was here working and we were pretty tied up so I didn't get a wish you Happy birthday. Happy belated birthday. Thank
Scott Benner 3:01
you very much and Happy birthday to you. We were five years apart and two days. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So Mike, you were on a how we episode for keto 409 or 96 or 96. There we go. Some other similar numbers for 96. And I would have to say months had gone by after that after we recorded it maybe. And I got a really I thought passionate email from you saying that you needed to come back on the show. And talk about complications and your and your life in general. So yeah, I think that's very brave. And I appreciate you wanting to do that.
Mike 3:45
Sure. I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to you know, explain to people it's kind of emotional for me when I start talking about so. Bear with me.
Scott Benner 3:59
I brought tissues to this one. Do you not have tissues? I have. I have short sleeves and the whole bottom of my shirt. I guess I guess for people who didn't hear you on how he just give them a couple of minutes. You know when about your diagnosis and how things were back then?
Mike 4:17
Sure. So back in the 70s when I was diagnosed, there was no meters no good insolence there was. Well, the I need to back up just a hair there for a quick second. So I was mis diagnosed by a general practitioner for over a year with an ulcer. Could because I had the symptoms of the doubling over stomach cramps. I guess that's when my body was attacking the beta cells of the pancreas for my understanding. So he diagnosed me with an ulcer. And he diagnosed my mom with being so mentally hard on me just as As a kid in general in life, that it stressed me out so much that caused me to have an ulcer which was farthest from the truth. I had a great loving mom a loving family.
Unknown Speaker 5:13
The
Mike 5:16
as the as the time progressed, I was getting obviously losing more and more weight. And they finally took me to the hospital because I was just skin and bones. They just they couldn't figure it out. Yeah. Wasn't a DK at that point. But I was close. Um, they said, I probably had a few more months, and I would have been in DK at that point. But it was funny. Wow, it's funny, but we're walking down the hall in the emergency room. And the doctor that was walking the other way to look at me, pointed to me and told my parents that kids are dying type one diabetic. And turns out, that's the doctor that came into the exam room and properly diagnose me. So at that time, things were pretty primitive. Again, like I said, there was no meters, no good answers, we had beef, and pork, and in and you would take the beef or pork insulin until you started getting resistant to it, then you would switch over to the other that you either or beef or pork until you are resistant to that and you kind of swap back and forth. If you got resistant to both of them, you're pretty much screwed at that point. So I was probably 500 the whole time I was a kid, because at that point, they viewed it if you weren't falling over, you were doing pretty good. And you did one shot a day you'd mix the insulin Can you had exchange rates at that time? example, breakfast, two starches, a dairy, a fat, and then lunch to kind of the same thing, you know, two or three starches for proteins. And that's how they kind of managed it. So I did, I was on one shot a day for till I was a teenager, and I went to type one backpacking camp at the doctors there. Finally switched me over to two shots a day. And again, no meters. No, no way to really monitor how much insulin you need. But I just I can remember it. At that point, when they switched me to two shots a day. How much better I felt so maybe I was I came down from 500 to 400? I don't know, we'll never know. I wonder
Scott Benner 7:35
Do you know why they somebody thought to introduce it? Was it just the new way to do it? And you were like the old one? Yeah,
Mike 7:42
I think there was doctors at the camp. They were younger doctors. And at at the time, from my understanding now of, you know, doctors and how they treated diabetics, they just they kept you. They basically kept you from not dying. And they they wouldn't they couldn't they wouldn't adjust. But that was their goal to keep you from dying. Immediately from a low, but not long term from complications. They there was just no. There was no way to tell but like, but as a teenager, the doctors at that point saw it was pretty antiquated for one shot a day. So they broke it up. So at least you had some more regular to cover dinner, instead of just covering dinner with whatever basil might be leftover from the end. Which I don't know if they really know what the peak on that was whether it was 12 hours, six hours, 24 hours. I don't know. I've I've looked back in that I can't find any good, solid documentation that kind of gives the duration of that like linty now or, you know, a trivia that's 48 hours down. I couldn't find any data on that. And at this point, doesn't matter. That's, that's over.
Scott Benner 8:59
It's gone. So what part of the 70s were you diagnosed?
Mike 9:04
mid 70s right around 7677. I remember the Freedom Train coming through. And it was like the summer before I was mis diagnosed. And then went through that school year and the summer after when I was properly diagnosed. And like I said, I've I've seen pictures from our vacations. We went on family vacation. We were fortunate enough to go for a few weeks every summer. And I just it was just skin and bones man like my my shirt was just literally hanging off my skeleton. Right and that's it was pretty sad.
Scott Benner 9:40
I think that's over five decades after someone figured out insulin that Yeah, that was still the the situation.
Mike 9:48
Did you know there was really no way to, to there was no home monitoring. I mean, I know hospitals at that time. Had glucometers but they're the only ones that really had them. And the reason they had them was if somebody came in passed out, were you a drunk? Or were you a type one diabetic, you know, passed out and
Scott Benner 10:09
they needed this thing to figure that out.
Mike 10:11
Yeah, they needed some way to quickly figure that out. So they weren't putting type one diabetics in the drunk tank, and then them dying. Right? Wow.
Scott Benner 10:20
So you live a long time with a really high blood sugar. Correct. And I'm going to kind of break your life up into segments, I think. Sure. So in the moment, do you know what's happening? Or is it just your life and there's no way to feel it or like, you know, you felt bad when you were on one shot today. Um,
Mike 10:45
I didn't know at the time because I really had nothing to judge it with because you, I was never in a lower range to feel like for instance, you know, 120 versus a 500. And your body kind of gets used to it. And I also remember, as a teenager in high school, originally, I have nothing wrong with private schools, but it wasn't my cup of tea. And I wanted to go back to the public school where all my friends were from growing up elementary school. So my mom agreed to let me go back to the public school, but I had to take up extracurricular activity. So I chose cross country and track perfect. Yeah. And I, I never had a low I never passed out. So that validates all the doctors of today's that. Yeah, you must have been 500 the whole time. Because we were running, you know, 1015 miles a day we got up to. And here's the wacky noodles part of this. My mom read in a runner's magazine that you should carbohydrate load before the day before race. So she'd make me not knowing this was a problem at the time. Again, loving mother, she made me a whole box of mac and cheese that I would eat for dinner the night before. A whole box of pasta. So I was carb carb loading without covering for insulin because there was no knowledge of covering it for insulin right?
Scott Benner 12:09
On top of all that, how did you run? Like, I guess you Really? So so for, I guess for people listening? Who are managing in today's world, the idea that you can be 500 and living for days and days and days or 400 or whatever, like that high high like that. Yeah. Is is probably confusing to them. it's inconceivable. Right, right. But really, you're in that moment. And for those years, your body's in an advanced state of aging. Basically, you're using up your life cycles faster than you should be correct. And your body had a way of making itself feel normal enough that you could function.
Mike 12:53
Correct. Yeah, the other thing, the doctor that diagnosed me when I was a kid, which I found out later in life that he told my mom that exercise equated to insulin. And anywhere I wanted to go like my friend's house that was several miles away in arcade at, you know, when I asked her Hey, can you run me over here? Well, ever since my diagnosis, she conveniently could never take me anywhere. She made me ride my bike, which that probably at that time was one of the best things for me. So which helped me in cross country and track and I still hold the record for the 100 at Christian Junior High this day. So I was in I wasn't top shape. I was just riding everywhere. So go figure I yeah, we we talked about that now with some of the like the just the therapists they see we you know, sports therapy and stuff. And it's just yeah, I think I think that her conveniently but making me go ride for that exercises. Insulin thing was probably extended. At that time. A lot of things.
Scott Benner 14:05
Yeah. But you're more time because she was driving your blood sugar down a little bit with the with the exercise and with you with all the running and everything. Yeah, which would take you right back to prior to insulin. When they started figuring out what was happening. They would just starve people and move them around. That's Yeah, yeah. That's how they would that's how they try to elongate your life. If you had type one before in something, you know, don't eat anything. And then just keep active and you're really just doing those things to stay alive. And so you are getting some function from that. Correct when? What happens next you go to college?
Mike 14:47
No, I went to automotive trade school at that time. So, first part of my life, I was a ASE certified auto mechanic. And again, just, you know, whatever insulin single dose they gave me on the day and at night, I was just taking an eating any and everything and there was no thought process behind it because there was still no. No monitoring, though. Right. I think there was a, I believe there was a meter at that time, but it took like two or five minutes to read. And what do you do with the information? Yeah. And at that point,
Scott Benner 15:30
if I'm remembering correctly, from our, our other conversation, is this the point in your life where you get fairly unhealthy in other ways? Yeah. Okay. Can you tell people about that?
Mike 15:41
Yeah, so moved to Florida, um, for with the girlfriend and, and her family. We love sailing, and it was warm water there. So, you know, we're, we're drinking and you know, eating whatever, because there's really never been told not to. And there's been no great information to Hey, you need to do these things to take care of yourself. So the doctor I saw at that time, because I knew I needed to insulin insulin was life, you could buy syringes over the counter, so I was basically seeing him for the prescription for insulin. And I was really overweight. I'm five 511. I was like 245 fish, 250 overweight, and he finally one day going to get my prescription said that you really need to do better in your life. And I'm like, okay, like, you know, get a desk job or something. To buy cars. Yeah. So he said, No, diabetes wise. He said, I'm going to send you to see this person who I'm still lifelong friends with today. See this person, if I get back good information from this person, that your will start taking care of yourself, I will keep prescribing you insulin will check in the hospital if you if I get bad information from this person. No doctor in South Florida will see you I will. I will ban you from seeing any doctor in South Florida through the medical profession, or however he worded that at that time. So I'm thinking insulin life and no insulin, not life.
Scott Benner 17:29
This next guy is gonna get to tell me whatever he wants.
Mike 17:32
Yeah, so. So I went saw the person it was at diabetes treatment centers they had at the hospitals at that time. And she scared the bejesus out of me. If you want to put any other explicit award in there, you could go ahead and do that and bleep it out. So I, I checked, I got checked in the hospital. At that point, they checked you in for like seven days to regulate you quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes, as you can see, regulate you, as best they can and got my first meter. And I took it serious. I was on multiple injections at that time, MDI. And some pumps were considered experimental. So after that week in the hospital, I continue to strive, I, you know, hung out at the diabetes treatment center, the support groups got within at that time in the community, which made me feel really good about things started eating healthier. And the next thing was I needed to lose weight. And he said, You got to start doing some exercise. And I was working for an accurate dealership at the time. And a parts manager raced amateur bicycles. And he invited me to come out and cycle with them, you know, to try to help them lose weight. And so I bought my first bike that month, wrote over a little over 1000 miles and lost like 45 pounds. Plus that first month so Geez. I'm an I'm an all or nothing guy. In case you anybody that you know, I I don't just dabble in anything.
Scott Benner 19:15
Well, let me let me ask you a couple questions. So you basically are living in your will tell me tell me how old you are when you met this. The Second Doctor? I was in my early 20s. Okay. So early 20s. As you're young, you're a mechanic. You're living, you're sailing, you're screwing around with your boyfriend and eating whatever you want. And drinking. You said drinking I'm assuming you meant beer and stuff like that. Yeah. So just beer. Yeah. Just beer. Was it a rapid weight gain for you or no. through high school?
Mike 19:54
Weight Gain was at Well, when I was in high school running cross country and track I was like, you know Just a rail. And I got in a really bad car crash. I was in the backseat of a little, little Honda Civic, I think it was. And we have these mountains out here. And one of the cool thing is to do, which is really not cool is to go on the mountain, turn your lights out and scare the crap out everybody in the car, you know, and try to anticipate the curve you made. So this girl was driving, and she wasn't a good driver, but I'm in the backseat. You know, I should have said something but didn't because I'm with my friend trying to protect her. We grew up as his neighbor, kids. And we went off the mountain airborne into a tree. And luckily, the tree, the tree branches, as we landed about mid tree, I went back and looked at it afterwards. And it was probably the tree was taller than a two story. Not true story but a one story house. So but between that so landed in that the impacts lifted me up. And of course no seatbelts at the time. So I broke both my ankles shattered my shoulder. As the car fell down. It was pretty gentle fall through the limbs until we hit the ground. It was in front of somebody that we hobbled, hobbled in there and help. Mike, is it possible that Steven Spielberg
Scott Benner 21:24
has stolen a portion of your life story for Jurassic Park and you're owed money?
Mike 21:28
I didn't think of that. But anyways, after I healed, I went out, did six miles with the because at that point, the guy's team was running 10 to 15. And I was trying to get back into it. I did six mile loop and I hurt so bad. I never ran after that again. And it was from that progression. Through my early 20s. I started gaining weight because I was just, you know, right. You know, I could eat a whole large extra large deep dish pizza and was setting myself. So when we go to pizzas, we get three or four pizzas with the family.
Scott Benner 22:05
Well, okay, so take me into that room in your 20s. What does that doctor who scares you? What is what do they say to you?
Mike 22:12
But basically the doctor, the doctor or the diabetes treatment center,
Scott Benner 22:16
the treatment center. I'm sorry.
Mike 22:18
Oh, so she will cut to the quick. Sure. first statement was you got a girlfriend? Yeah. You like having sex? Yeah. Well, if you want to keep having sex, you better start taking care of yourself. Because that's the first thing is probably going to go No, not probably will go. That grabs the young man's attention really quick, like, literally by the short hairs.
Scott Benner 22:46
Like I did not recognize that erectile dysfunction is gonna be what you started with today?
Mike 22:51
No, but she just flat out. It was just I think I turned 50 shades of white. Right? Because it was just like, oh my god. Yeah, no, we know what, no, let's
Scott Benner 23:02
fix this quickly.
Mike 23:04
Yeah, that was when can we check me into the hospital where we have to have the doctor's note first. Can we call him now?
Scott Benner 23:10
Yeah, my ankles are fine. Can I go for a walk? So she hit you with that as a side effect of unregulated blood sugars.
Mike 23:21
Correct. Okay. And she said at that point, it had no age limit. It was just, it could happen to you tomorrow. Or, you know, the better care you take of yourself. Let's just say it could never happen. But at your rate, it will in that
Scott Benner 23:35
moment. Five seconds before that. Did you think of yourself as a person with unregulated blood sugars?
Mike 23:43
No, not at all. Matter of fact, I there was. You could go through the drive thru there. I won't say the name of the place. But you could get and I got fried the fried shrimp platter with two Coors lights to go through the drive thru window
Scott Benner 23:56
on your way to the diabetes treatment center. Yeah.
Mike 24:02
So I got fried shrimp, french fries, a couple of beers. I didn't drink them while I was driving, but I drank him in the parking lot.
Scott Benner 24:07
And that wasn't a goodbye to health because you didn't think that's what was happening. This is just a common way you would have eaten. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not on a work day. But yeah, I have I have a question or a jump ahead for half a second because I know you now. Yeah, no, I mean, we're not. I don't know you. Well, but I know you. And we communicate. Yeah, right. You don't seem like that person. Was it youth? Was it the high blood sugar's
that was just how I live just how you live. It's just what how things occurred to you and that's what you did.
Mike 24:41
Yeah, cuz, you know, we take the sailboat out for the weekend, you know, couple of 12 packs of beers. You know, maybe after after work, we take the sailboat out or the motorboat and you know, beer was always involved. You know, you go out for pizza have a couple beers. I I will preface this. I never drink and drive drunk. You know, a couple of three beers was about it. But when we be out on the water, we get pretty sloshed. But, you know, sailboat and go so fast.
Scott Benner 25:14
So you got to find your excitement somewhere else. Okay, alright, so she hits you with EDI. Anything else.
That was that was the opening closing statement. It's not needed. She started she's like, there's other stuff like, Nah, I'm good. I'm gonna do it. So she said they were good. You want to hear about the heart disease? Nope, don't care. I'm not gonna make it that far. No, there was heart disease involved at that point, learn that later. So they check you in. And they get you basically, it's a blood sugar detox, I guess for the lack of a better term to the day teach you about food, what happens in that time.
Mike 25:54
So they didn't really teach you about foods, they were still using the exchange rate at that point. So you know, a starches, you know, slice of bread, it's a mashed potatoes, it's about the size, the palm of your hand, a dinner roll. And you kind of went on that. And so I tried I diligently again, as I say, I'm all or nothing, if I know better. So I went into it with, you know, eyes wide open and really focused on doing the best I could had a meter. So I was, you know, test before breakfast, lunch and dinner. So you know that that's what the doctor told me to do. That's what I did. Do you
Scott Benner 26:35
remember any of those early blood sugar tests?
Mike 26:42
Yeah, you know, you know, in the high, one hundreds, low 200 was not uncommon and was praised, you know, you're doing great. And then, like I said, I didn't do the two hour test. I didn't, I wasn't told to. So I was told that I was doing good. I was now in control. I do not remember my a one C's at the time, but they're not what I've got now. They were probably, you know, under 12, maybe 11. I can't remember. But right at that time, whatever the ADA recommendation was, I was considered compliant.
Scott Benner 27:23
Okay. And so how long does this phase of your life with blood sugar's last?
Mike 27:30
Well, so because I was writing, exercising, and I was no Lance Armstrong, or, you know, Tour de France qualifier, but I held my own. And there was a group there, that was out of the Mike cyclery bicycle store just happen to be, and they call themselves to Mike's group. And it wasn't for me, those were the hardcore local guys. And they met early, like five in the morning to go train, and they would, you know, you'd get a 40 5060 mile hardcore workout before work. And on the MDI, I get up at set my alarm get up at two Bolus or inject, go to sleep for an hour, wake up at three, I would eat, and then wake up at five. And depending on my blood sugar, I would either go work out, or, you know, I couldn't because it was kind of out of whack. Being either too high, or what I thought at that point wasn't high enough to go do the strenuous workout. And by, by default of doing the same thing, seven days a week, every morning, I was able to get my breakfast style then so I could do those workouts. And then this is where I progressed to. I wanted to get an insulin pump because I was taking so many injections throughout the day cuz I ride do the hard workout before work. I'd ride my bike to work. I go right, you know, an hour at lunch hard. I'd ride home. So I was doing more and more and more exercises and picking up more and more of these little group kind of heavy workouts and the MDI was getting to be too hard. So I wanted to get on an insulin pump. I asked my doctor and he said, No, no, no, there's just there's there's two high risk for, you know, decay, infection and hospitalization and they're experimental. I don't have it anybody on one. So I did. It took me about six months, begging and pleading him. And I found the only type one diabetic at that time. Who did the Iron Man in Ohio or Ohio, Hawaii. That was on an insulin pump. And that was the straw that broke the camel's Back of his Okay, I'll let you try this. And it worked out really good. Yeah, um, you know, I still didn't have stellar, you know, a one sees that we have today. But in that time, that worked out really good because I didn't have the long acting, floating around in there, right? You know, just had the basil, and then kind of make some adjustments, and I ate a lot of Fig Newtons at that time, because they're 11 grams of carb each, I could figure out what that was going to be for the next two hours of, you know, either strenuous or non strenuous workout, and that, in fact, I had charts and graphs at that time of just about every food, the grocery store sold, what the carbs were, well, how much insulin it needed. Again, the all or nothing guy.
Scott Benner 30:45
I it's funny you say, say that, but I keep thinking. Nobody told you. And maybe nobody knew. But I mean, I think you would have done it if you would have known.
Mike 30:55
Oh, yeah. 100% had I know. Yeah, I would have been doing it. But again, he just I get my prescription see naxian you know, three months, whatever. And tell he finally just said this is insane. This and you're just killing yourself?
Scott Benner 31:10
Well, so now you're riding your bike, and you're in you lost. I mean, it sounds like you lost a lot of weight and one swing. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And now you're living like this higher a one season we would think of now as being okay, but it was way better than what was happening is a huge improvement, etc. in your mind, you're out of the woods, right?
Mike 31:30
Oh, yeah, my mind. I'm golden. I'm gonna avoid any complications, any long term effects. And really, at that point, nobody really talked about it. It was, I don't want to say it was the unspoken. But if I look back, it was kind of the unspoken, nobody talked about it unless you were anybody had the amputation? Is that what you're diabetic? You know, my uncle lost his leg. And you can hear that story from every Oh, thanks. Great. Um, but, you know, being type one, at that time, you were considered able to control it, you were the lucky diabetic, because if you wanted to take care of it, you could, which is further from the truth. But
Scott Benner 32:09
so, you know, from your diagnosis to this time, where you're, you've got the mean, from your diagnosis from one shot a day to two shots a day to, you know, the weight gain to the intervention, I'll call it to, you know, getting on a pump and having stability at eight. What do you think those agencies back then were on that first pump? Nine, eight.
Mike 32:33
I don't think it was eight, it was probably nine between nine and 11, I would imagine because, you know, you go out to do a time trial. And, you know, you might, you know, jack yourself up to 300 before you go out to do the right the the event. Same thing with a mountain bike race, you know, you're not going to start a mountain bike race at that time at 150. you're you're you're going to crash. Okay. So I have a Camelback that I had a go ahead.
Scott Benner 33:00
I just wonder how much time it was from your diagnosis to this time in your life. Like today time, then to that time, would that pump those 11 a one sees from your diagnosis?
Mike 33:12
Oh, I was probably it was pretty quick. So what's even what the multi the MDI that time was the intervention period. I pretty quickly came down to that it was probably months. Once I started exercising, and put that getting into the local amateur bike racing, amateur mountain bike racing and the weekend group rides. Okay, so I've been really physical I could I was doing 300 plus a week, easily,
Scott Benner 33:42
and you're in your mid 20s by that or no still early.
Mike 33:47
I'm in the middle, my late early starting on my mid,
Scott Benner 33:50
okay. And you're diagnosed again at how old? like eight or nine and are between nine and 10. Okay, so fair to say about 15 years of your life is spent at least over on 11 a one C and, and going this whole process that you just described? Yes, right now from that point into I'm sorry, I feel like I'm I feel like the bad guy in the story for some reason. But from that point until your first complication, how long is it and what is that first one?
Mike 34:28
So my first noticeable complication, and I was I've been a type one diabetic Test, test monkey for new drugs and, and apparatuses for, oh 2530 years. And this has to be I'm trying to think of numbers here. I'm not. So this is before my trophy wife now. After I moved back to, so this is around. Right around 2000, maybe one of the studies I was signing up for was people, people with or without neuropathy of known degree, there was a beat, excuse me a pill that they were going to give you for a year or whatever it was to see if once they measured your neuropathy and your lower like, your own or between your foot, and like your calf, they did a measurement. And whatever that was, there was a there was a your inner out parameter. kind of go no go. And they would measure that over the year to see what the improvement was. So they had an electrode on my calf, like it was a, what are they called acupuncture needles, it's how they had the probe in there on your nerve, and they would fire that nerve, and they measured it somewhere in the bottom of your foot. And I'm not looking at what you know, cuz I'm laying on a table, you know, on my belly, and this guy is doing this measurement, feats, you know, straight out, you know, knee bent up, and he's doing this and doing this and spend a little bit time and he's, you know, he kept asking me, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, man, I'm fine. It is okay. Are you sure you're okay? So Yeah, why? And he goes,
Scott Benner 36:42
when you use my links for the sponsors, you're helping the podcast. And I appreciate when you listen to the ads. So earlier I mentioned you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash, that's a tubeless insulin pump. All you have to do is go to Omni pod comm Ford slash juice box to find out if you are eligible and to get started. But if you're sitting there right now thinking, that's okay, Scott, I'm going to wait for the next big thing from Omni pod. And then I'm going to get going. Well, here's the thing about that you don't need to. Because of the Omni pod promise, you can upgrade to Omni pods latest technologies for no additional cost as soon as they're available to you and covered by insurance. Now terms and conditions apply. But you can find out more about that as well. At Omni pod comm forward slash juice box. So if you're excited to get started with tubeless insulin pumping with the Omni pod, you don't have to wait. Here's some of the things you're going to get out of this. You can bave or swim with an omni pod on. So that means no disconnecting for those activities, which means no high blood sugars later from not having your insulin. You can also wear it on the pod while you're playing soccer, lacrosse, going for a run a bike ride, making dinner, running through the house yelling it's raining close the windows. I'm just saying you like you won't get tubing cut on like door handles and drawers and things like that. Because on the pot doesn't have tubing. So if you've been waiting, there's no need to wait. And if you're using MDI right now and thinking I would like that, Scott, I'd like to be able to set a Temp Basal increase when I'm having pizza or extended Bolus, or, you know, I don't want to give myself six injections at a big meal because I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna have a little more I give myself a little more than just push a button and boom Here comes right through your Omnipod if that sounds good to you. If you want to use the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing since she was four years old, go to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box there are links in the show notes of your podcast player links at Juicebox Podcast comm where you can just type it into a browser on the pod comm forward slash juice box. Last thing before we go, I want to thank touched by type one for being a longtime sponsor of the podcast touched by type one is an organization who is helping people with type one diabetes. All they want you to do is learn more about them. That's pretty simple. And you can do that at touched by type one.org. Alright, I'm going to get you back to Mike now.
Mike 39:41
He kept asking me Are you okay? I've got this thing cranked up and I cannot get a response. Well, what does that mean? It goes, you've got serious, serious, serious, lower neuropathy. And like that can't be true. I can feel he called fuzzy carpet. And he goes no. So my nurse practitioner at that time who I saw as my doctor, quote, unquote, she also did research with the use UCSD VA where a lot of the research was performed. And she kind of just got the result. We're talking about skills now. I'm sorry, I didn't know this things were that bad. I'm like, What do you mean that bad? And I did it. The levity of it didn't hit me. Because I'm thinking that's wrong. I can feel you know, again, hot, cold water. You know, I still I can feel everything. So I, I dismissed it, as you know, kind of whatever. But looking back on that now is, um, yeah, I guess that was kind of harder to take when I look back at it, but I just I blocked it. I'm sorry. You're fine. Um, I guess I just blocked it out in my mind thinking that this this is This can't be true. So that was the first. That was the first on record, I guess you could say, yeah. Results of a test. And that was all because I was, you know, going to do studies.
Scott Benner 41:23
So that's about 25 years in to your life with type one. And literally over 20 years ago now. Yeah. Yeah. Do the, does that progress in a way that's measurable? Or do you just notice one day that it's worse or how does that go?
Mike 41:43
I it's hard to say. Again, I still dismissed it, thinking that they were wrong. But again, it was a machine. They measured it. So yeah, I don't know. I still did a bunch dozens of more studies on different drugs and different things. But that was the first one had a measurement that couldn't do the study. And I noticed there was a you know, something was going down.
Scott Benner 42:20
Well, okay. What's the next thing that happens?
Mike 42:25
Next noticeable? Which I didn't know. And in the, in the meantime, I've had, do you know what the dupa Chin contractures are? No. So duper contracture a lot of people call it trigger finger. But it's not trigger finger trigger fingers, you're using your finger, and it locks. Okay, it's painful. And then it at some point, it straightens up a duplicate contracture, it's really common and type one diabetics, they don't know why, other than they believe it's something to do with the synthetic insulin, but it's basically a growth of collagen weed that goes around your tendons, nerves, and starts pulling your fingers down in a lock so that they want to extend past a certain point, okay. And I've had several on my left hand, and my left Pinky. The last one I did, I had by done by a hand specialist who turned out to be a butcher. And you can see, I don't have a pinky, right? He did the repair, cut the nerve, did it write it in hand therapy. And the nerve repair popped in my finger got stuck at an angle like that, and it would get caught in places. Wow. And for the record, for those of you can't see me, it was bent over more than halfway toward my palm. But it would flex to my palm, but it wouldn't flex past. So as I'm working on a car or something, you squeeze it in somewhere and you figure can't pull out. Oh my gosh, the now you got to get a screwdriver or something in there, pack the crap out of your finger trying to get it bit down your palm and pull out. So that's why they ended up amputating that one at the so they took two thirds off. So
Scott Benner 44:22
I got the nub to two thirds of your left hand pinky is gone. Correct? Right. Okay. Here it is. Yeah, I just want to make sure people understand.
Mike 44:32
Yeah, I believe that's the distal phalanges. I think they call it No, I don't know. But it's one of those phalanges it's I can only count to four and a third on my left hand.
Scott Benner 44:47
But if you hold up both your fingers you can get the eight and a half.
Mike 44:50
Yeah, yeah, cuz I recently lost my other one. But one of the things the complications I felt next After the feet, the finger as I started getting really bad frozen shoulder on my right side to start with, so you'd throw a frisbee or something. It'd be like, Ah, you know, just be that thing at different times.
Scott Benner 45:18
Is there anything they can do for that,
Mike 45:20
uh, when it gets so bad? Well, they can inject steroids, but you know, steroids does. So a type one, so they can go in there. And when it gets to a point, you can't move it and clean it out. I went to the shoulder doctor, and he said, Oh, also my right biceps. The the part, the neuropathy, whatever you wanna call it, it crystallizes the muscles, tendons, and nerves. So when that happens, and you move your arm out real quick, that rips. And that ripping of the crystallization is just painful. That that's a problem. I'm trying to think of. I'm trying to think of the progression of the other complications. So I work with my hands. I'm no longer a auto mechanic, but I'm a piano and incident repair technician. So I'm still working with my hands. And it was several years ago. My mic, as I'm working with my hands, my fingers would just lock up in these contorted positions. And at any given time, and I would drop the tool I'm working with, I'd asked my hand therapist or my hand, my hand doctor, specialist, what what's causing it? Do I have arthritis? And he says, No, you don't have arthritis. Why is the locking up? He's I have no idea why they're locking up. But that that will get worse and worse. And worse, and then recently diagnosed as severe neuropathy. Yeah.
Scott Benner 47:06
When did the brain fog come?
Mike 47:08
Oh, gosh. So the brain fog. So here's what most of my type one buddies my age. We, we can't diabetic drop out. You're talking and, and you you've, you forget where you were talking about or the word or whatever. And that was that that was happening over the years. But that was also it's basically also if
Scott Benner 47:51
you want to take a break.
Mike 47:53
Now, all right, it's the up the crystallization of your fine blood cells in your, in your brain? which they've recently basically it's, it's, it's basically Alzheimer's, there's nothing you could say, Alright, that's what it really gets for I think about that. But they I still haven't had the MRI yet. Because I don't, I don't want to know that. I don't want to know the results. About what what the measurement of it is. You can't take all simers meds because the side effects are harder on you, then what the benefit might be. But that's just years and years of, you know, out of control blood sugars. But there's nothing nothing we can do. We didn't know about it. They didn't know about it. You know, 2030 years ago. This is something there's there's puppies and kittens, puppies and kittens, puppies and kittens. Um
Scott Benner 49:06
Can I ask you why you wanted to do this?
Mike 49:10
Yeah. I hear so often from from people who are newly diagnosed the past few years. If there was ever a time to be diagnosed, now's the time. Sorry, both my sleeves should have a long sleeve shirt but hot out but yeah, so. And it really what really tied this all together is I used to say, you know, it's pretty good time to be diagnosed with diabetes. I've volunteered in a lot of kids ski camps that I can't do anymore because of my neuropathy, but just letting people know that it's pretty good time. Now, fast forward, back forward a little bit. As you know, I started listening to you. When COVID hit, and I started First off, employed bumping nudge. And I got down to the, the high, low six, high fives just with that regular diet. That's figured out stuff. And then that's when I decided to go keto, not because of the juice box method, but it just seemed like something to do easy to do. I love barbecue. And then when we did our first recording, back in October, I was that I believe it was five, seven. Since then, I've been rocking a solid five, five. And then that's when it tied in. to, to myself, and why I wanted to do this. So the parents of kids nowadays, to give them some relief, that by once you learn how to use insulin, and I will say until I listened to your podcasts, your gift to the world, whatever you want to call it. I never really knew how to use insulin, if you really want to take it because the doctors are Oh yeah, your seven your eight, don't eight, five, you know, it's just, it's, that's still not healthy, that's long term. No good. But by keeping good agencies and keeping in the low fives, even at a low six, my heart of hearts, my belief and talking with my neurologists, you're gonna avoid all that you're not going to have
Unknown Speaker 51:53
this
Mike 51:56
this stuff happened to you. You know, when you think about your sandblaster you know, vision that's just that just hits home and feeling the salt, the sugar crystals, it's like, duh. But I really wanted to give some comfort to these new parents and I see it all the time on the on the Facebook group, you know, diagnosed you know, four months ago, a when he was five, seven, you know, it's like, you can get it, you can grasp it, you can live a life without complications. And there's no doctor in the world that will tell you that. And that's what's both. Sorry, that just No, you're fine. Please, you kidding me? You can say whatever you want. But it's it. It took a non diabetic and a non doctor to figure this out and share this with the world to you know, you can do this without the complications if you you know, do the 88 recommendations seven to eight. You're gonna have something happen to you, man. Yeah. And as of now 55 years old. I'm having to go out on disability because like, I can't work who my shoulders, my hands. So I had to have my, my right hand, my right pinky advocated a few months back, they'd fix that dupa trend several times. And within a year, it kept coming back. The blood supply on the outer finger was compromised. So there's just no way to do another surgery. Right? I just wouldn't live. So now I'm doubled up. But in that hand therapy, so you do a grip test. And I've always been in the 95. And that's an average average male, between 9095 100 and this last grip test I did, which proves my point I I can't even open a Gatorade bottle. It was 20. Wow. How quickly did that drop off happen? Hey, it happened over the last couple of years. It started getting really bad. But it was just a progression from all the years gone by. They did a upper and lower neuropathy test where they do same thing with the acupuncture needle and they electrically they started your hip and they go down and it's on this little speaker. I don't know the name of the procedure but it's as they're working the way down. When the nerves are firing here, this should be noise on the on the speaker and the closer they got to my knee the the quieter it got once they got below my knee it was dead silent you know I used to we used to walk miles and miles and hike I I can do about two miles maybe on a walk. I walk with a walking stick now. And that's not hard pavement. You know we don't hike anymore. I just can't.
Scott Benner 55:34
Yeah, hurts too much. Is the issues you're having relegated to your extremities? Or have you willfully not been looking internally at yourself or what what is the rest of it? Like? mean physically or mentally? I was gonna get to mentally in a second I metaphysically first.
Mike 55:52
Yeah, physically. Um, yeah, it's just the neuropathy is so bad at this point. Um, you know, I can step on a it's like the Princess and the Pea by step by a little pebble with bare feet, man. It's just it's excruciating. Wow.
Scott Benner 56:10
Yeah, I guess I mean, I feel compelled to ask you about, like, how? How do you manage? Seeing cuz I mean, what's really happening is you're seeing aging happening happen at an accelerated rate. Yeah,
Mike 56:28
I thought the wheels wouldn't fall off till my late 60s, early 70s. That happened a whole lot quicker. I had jet fuel to me, I guess.
Scott Benner 56:39
Well, immediate, even really. I mean, I hate to talk about it like this, but it must be frustrating for you. Because now looking back and understanding where your blood sugars are, your body really was resilient. Honestly, to get you this far. And I mean, am I wrong, but it can't hate. I hate asking this but
Mike 56:58
ask anything. I'm an open book do you play or to tell I'll be or whatever people need to hear this. They need to. It was hushed and shushed and everything was behind, you know, don't talk about that. So, people need to hear the truth and why it is so crucial to live the way you have are living and of these other people that are in their fives. Yeah, you're going to get to 160 but you're not hanging out there for four or five hours, not the excursion. It's okay to be 300 for seven hours. No, no, it's not.
Unknown Speaker 57:36
But do you play?
Mike 57:37
What if ever, do you ever think about? Like, what if you learned it sooner? Oh, 100 Yeah, every 24 hours a day. You can't avoid it. I imagine right? You can't Well, it was really bad there man. I was I was so spun out. Especially after I lost my right finger that oh my god would have you know, what am I gonna do? And you know, what am I gonna do? You know, my wife? What are you gonna do when I die? And if What if I die? It's like, I was just a such a bad mental place. And you know what's gonna happen tomorrow? Well, God is this doctor would have told me 20 years and yeah, I, I I have sought mental health. I mean, you have to write to do you see a therapist?
Yeah, yeah. So I knew. I knew after my right amputation. I mean, I just I spun out man, I just I spun out because it was it. It threw me off the cliff. And I got so spawned out of you know, what if what next? You know, right if I'm this way now, what's tomorrow? What was next year gonna bring? Yeah. And I just, it was so bad. My trophy wife said if you keep this up, I'm not living this life. It's not what I signed up for. I was I was always known as a it's all good, man. And rule number one. Rule number two. See rule number one. And I was I was in a dark, dark, really dark valley that I just the moon wasn't even shining in. Your wife didn't have any trouble with your, your health issues. She
Scott Benner 59:17
had trouble with how you were facing them. Correct? Yeah,
Mike 59:21
okay. Correct. Yeah. And even when you're dating, so I was in my I wasn't quite 40 yet when we started dating. And you know, you're diabetic you think you're 40 who's going to want you you and so I met her we kind of the, from the first date we went on, we haven't been separated other than a business trip or something like that. We've never really fought until I won't say we fought recently, really recently is when she said I can't This is not what I signed up for. And this is the funny thing. She has a really close relative who is a nurse who is type one. Who had 911 calls on her dozens of times? And knowing that, and she got with me as a diabetic, I'm thinking, What? But you know, we fell in love and she's like, it doesn't matter. You know, things happen, things are gonna happen. And thank God, I haven't had to have 911 called on me but and then after five or six years later, she asked me why. And I, you know why? Yeah, well, I test my blood sugar's, but I was always higher than lower because I developed really bad hyperglycaemic on awareness. And I was paranoid going low,
Scott Benner 1:00:36
right? Like, you're, you're shining a light on something, but I contend constantly, I don't say it out loud as much as maybe I think it. But everyone who's come into this life, you know, in the in the past handful of years and seeing technology like it exists now. I don't think the vast majority of them will see the issues that you're having. No. And I wonder if they don't want to pretend like they don't exist, so they don't have to think about it. And that I understand. But my responsibility becomes such that as the, as the podcast grew, and it started reaching more and more people. I thought, I'm not just talking to, you know, moms with good insurance, or, you know, you know, kids who grew up well and have DAX coms like any more like I realize now that I'm, I realized that then, but as it grew, I'm reaching more people. And my contention is, is that there are way more people like you living in the world right now with Type One Diabetes, than there are the average parent of a child who's got good insurance and found a podcast. You don't I mean, like, so I don't want to be a boutique show. And I, I mean, I was really grateful that you reached out and want to talk about all this. And I have to admit, when you asked, I didn't know how you were going to do it. I have to admit that personally, for me, it gets less than I don't have any of your health issues, you know, and when this is over, I don't have to do whatever you have to do today. But your name being Mike is hard for me. That's the weirdest thing, but at the same time. Like, I feel like I missed my friend Mike. And I feel like I missed you, too. You know what I mean? So it's a weird thing. It's obviously not it's it's not all of your health is not my responsibility. But it's, um, it's a real, it turns up stuff for me, because when I start thinking about my friend, Mike, I don't believe that by the time Arden was diagnosed, and I figured this the end, by the time I figured this stuff out, it was likely too late for him to begin with. But it would have been cool to see him feel hopeful once or to hear him talk about his five, five, a one C or something like that. And it's just it's, it's tough for me to to hear you describing what's happening to you. Because I feel like I I feel like I can see your future already. And I think you feel like you can see it too.
Mike 1:03:26
I do I know what you're talking about. I've heard you talk about Mike and it, who knows, but I I truly believe in my heart of hearts now that I'm not going to get better per se. But hopefully, I won't get worse. And I will say this. Um, I've always worn glasses to drive at night since I was 18. And since I've been doing your techniques, strategies, not medical advice, I know, but employing how to use insulin, and how to bump a nudge and Pre-Bolus and all those. I no longer wear glasses.
Scott Benner 1:04:14
Oh, that's cool. I wish I could do something to get myself to stop. I'll tell you what, if anybody wants to start a podcast that gets me away from these reading glasses, I'd be really really grateful.
Mike 1:04:25
Well, it's in a talk to my doctor about that and the eye doctor and it's because my eyes aren't you know, shrinking, swelling, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. The blood sugar's my my mom wears pretty heavy glasses. My dad, my granddad, nobody else did. So, for what that's worth while
Scott Benner 1:04:45
I'm Thank you. I mean, that's a weird. I'm sorry that I turned this into you making me feel better, but I appreciate knowing that. I was just Charlie give context. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Like I know we're in a weird setup right now where I don't have a camera on it. You do, but I, there are times I've had to look away from you. Because I'm like, Oh my god, I need to be able to keep this moving and, and put a podcast together. We can't both start crying because I don't think anybody would listen to it.
Mike 1:05:15
And the other reason why I was happy to do it, and I knew I was gonna break down, but it's, it's, you know, it's sad, it's it's, it's you look back and you think you know what I used to do and what I warm at now, but you know what? I honestly believe my heart of hearts, how much worse it would have gotten so much faster. The other issues, had I not found the podcast and been able to employ those tools to hopefully stop the future, you know, and carry on where I'm at? And I, I believe that.
I'm glad I do. And it's. And that was? Well, that was part part of it. We'll go ahead.
Scott Benner 1:06:08
I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry. No, I thought it's all you know, I just part of what I was trying to say, and what I've been trying to say about why this all needs to be kind of bulletproof and easy to understand. Because, in my mind, what if the podcast finds you, but it's too convoluted or too difficult? And you're like, yeah, and then you walk away from it. You know, like it needs to be like there was there's a person online last night, who put up some graphs. And people were, you know, pretty much it's interesting to watch people from the podcast talk because they they're like, there's two factions. One of them's right. Okay, this person, this bait, this person's basil is either not strong enough. Or they're bad apologising for their meals, right? It's one of these two things. I saw that but Right, right, but the point is, is that it is definitely going to be one of those two things, but you're talking to a parent of a child is a fairly new diagnosis, they don't know what they're talking about. And yet they're trying to figure it out. And I think that, if I can give myself credit for anything I can give myself credit for, for coming up with the idea, the very simple idea that you first make sure your basil is right, then you learn to Pre-Bolus, then you learn the glycemic load and index of your different foods, and stay flexible. And it's a four step idea. That is doable. And no matter whether you're a person whose basil is too weak, or you don't know how to polish your food, if you go through those four steps, you're going to come out on the other side with an answer that's valuable for yourself. And while these people were talking to this person, I realized that the one difference between all those people who all had rock solid advice and me was that I have a concept of what it's like to talk to a person without having all of their information without really understanding and and knowing that if you go back to get your Basal, right, make sure your Pre-Bolus etc, etc. that no matter what problem, ask what problem perspective you're coming from with using your insulin that will get you to the answer, like maybe this woman's basil is right. For her kid, it could be, but maybe it's not that far off. But understanding that you can't just look and tell somebody something because if somebody were so somebody to swoop in, in that moment on that person in that post and say, Hey, your boluses are way off, which they probably are. But they don't. They don't address the basil first, then these people are going to be making these aggressive boluses forever. And they're going to have these lingering highs. And so I came in, I said, Look, your Bolus looks looks weak to me. People are like no, no, no, look, how stable are blood sugars are these blood sugars are it's just high because they're missing on the meals. And I'm like, well, that could be yet but I know enough to say Well, yeah, maybe where everyone else where everyone else is like no, no, this is it. This is but they only think that's it because it's what happened to them. And and you know, and so understanding how to deliver this information in a way where everybody comes in ends up at the same place if they kind of go through the steps. That's the part. That's super important. Because you miss people, you don't catch them all if you don't have something that everybody can work out. And I don't know, I just think that it means a lot to me that you found the podcast. It struck you and it worked.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:55
Yeah
Mike 1:09:56
and part of it white work. I I understood what you're saying. But you got to remember, I've never changed my own basil rates or adjusted those. Yeah, I've, I've obviously fluctuated my boluses from what I'm eating. And that was always never enough. And then the two or three hours later, you're covering for 250 to 75 300. And that was just a way of life. So I, when, when I first started doing this, I needed somebody there in my corner to agree with what I was seeing, and saying and adjusting. So I hired Jenny from integrated diabetes. As my coach, my mic person in my corner my Yeah, yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. That's the right thing to do. Right. And by having that, that person as my crutch, though, I got it dialed in, you know, you know, we got it dialed in, you know, cuz she was there with me too. But it validated everything that I understood, to make those adjustments. You know, I couldn't do it on my own. But I was terrified, because I didn't again, I'd never made my adjustments. I go see my doctor twice a year, and she'd have my PDM. And you
Scott Benner 1:11:14
go, Okay, well, we should make sure people definitely understand what you're saying. So you listening to the podcast, you're like, Oh, that makes sense. Now, how do I pull the trigger on this like that, then that's a really difficult thing to do. Whether you're a person has been living with diabetes for decades, or a person who's only had it for few weeks, like the the idea that you could move that number, turn that dial, like flip that switch, is, it's freezes people. And I'm telling you, the only my Give me one more second, the only reason I had the nerve to do it was because in the back of my dark mind, I was imagining things that have happened to you happening to my daughter, and I thought we got to do something. Like we can't just look at it, you know, but a lot of people get stuck looking at it.
Mike 1:12:02
Well, you got to remember that I have 27 years of a habit in me of Never making an adjustment to now make this adjustment versus somebody that's a year or two in it. Six months in it. You know, yeah. Okay. You don't have that. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Yeah, just looming over you. Um, you know, and I'm not saying we're, we're, you know, sitting in a great place, but you know, I can afford to hire as you know, that help. And I know, she's a big help to the show. And I knew from listening to her in you that that was going to be what I needed. That help, and anybody that needs it. I mean, it's just, it's such a great ability to have that resource. I mean, you're only one man, you know, you've only got so much time in the data. I know, you'll help people and you do all the time. But I didn't need to bog you down at that point. I could afford to. Does that
Scott Benner 1:13:08
make sense? Yeah, well, not only that, but Jenny has something that I don't know how much it comes through. And she's talking on the podcast, but I know Jenny more personally. And the anger. I think that might be the right word that came out of you earlier, when you talked about doctors not helping, like Jenny has that. Like she has that inside, she does a good job of masking it. And it might not come out a lot. But she's driven by the desire, in my opinion, to fart bad information. 100% Yeah,
Mike 1:13:44
I 100% see that and after work with her listening to you, and yeah, 100% and she does a really good job putting the makeup over.
Scott Benner 1:13:54
And she and she really cares about people to which I there's, as soon as I met her, and we started to get to know each other. I just thought like, you know, I joke on that, like, you'll hear me joke on the podcast. I'll say I wanted to have Jenny back on because she agreed with me. But that's just me trying to be funny. I don't know if it works or not. But I guess I like when people agree with me, but that's for a different reason. But what I liked about Jenny was her desire, like I just spoke about. Yeah, I like her knowledge. I like the practicality of how she thinks about it. And I think the first time I said to her, I don't believe that your diabetes may vary. I believe that everybody's diabetes at its core works the same way. And if you had your settings right, knew how to use insulin, it would work out mostly the same for everybody. And she's like, I agree with you. And when she said that, I was like, Yeah, okay, fine, finally, and she validates me. I don't think I don't I don't know that she ever thought about it. I've definitely never said it to her. But her being on the show. Helps me reach more people because there's a validation that that she agrees Yeah, and when she doesn't agree, she just So, and when I don't understand, I just say, I don't understand that, you know, like, it's it. You gotta have no, it's crazy. I'm gonna say this because people will laugh, but you have to have no ego about it. And then once you know, you're right, you have to steadfastly defend the fact that you're right. And because other people will come in and say no, I think the Basal I think it's this. So, you know, the this story online that I told earlier, it's not over yet. It's still happening right now. And this person came back and showed a basil rate overnight that held this, this kid's blood sugar super steady. Like it was great. And everybody's like, Oh, see. And she I think she moved the basil from point five 2.55 or something like that. And everybody's together. Basil is great. And I still was like, well, what's the number? Yeah, and the number was like, 141 3140. I'm like, Okay, so the basil is great. It could still take a little more, like, you could still put a little more maybe point six is the answer. I don't know. I'm not there. But if that basil was right, overnight, your blood sugar would be lower. And maybe you're not comfortable there. Maybe she loves 140. And then God bless. Like, right. But if, but if if not, I mean, Arden's blood sugar last night was like 85 all night. Yeah. So you can say that's not a big of a deal. That's 50 points. 50 points every every minute you're alive. That's 50 points less blood sugar, like sugar, like coursing through your blood?
Mike 1:16:23
Is Yeah, it's that sandblasters just trickling.
Scott Benner 1:16:25
Yeah, it's a big deal. And I'm not saying like, Listen, if your kids blood sugar's 140 for a week, while you're figuring out or honestly for three months, while you're figuring it out. Oh, absolutely. You're gonna be okay. Like, right, but. But what Mike's telling me is it can't be 10 years, it can't be 11 years, it can't be 20 years, it's no, it's not going to be okay.
Mike 1:16:43
No, it's going to happen. You're going to have sick days, sick weeks, six months or six months, you know, that that little time periods is not going to do you know, long term damage. I believe that my heart of hearts because the body does repair damaged cells. But there's a point where it can't repair it anymore,
Scott Benner 1:17:04
right? You're hoping to hang on just to stay steady, stable, where you're at? Yeah. And you've given yourself the best chance possible, honestly. Yeah, absolutely. You're doing an amazing job. Look, man, for people who don't understand what we're talking about. Still, I mean, if you've listened to Mike, and you still don't understand. My friend, Mike, who was diagnosed in the mid to late 80s, passed a couple of years ago. And I would say that his care mimics yours. But he never really until the very last couple years of his life made it to modern insulin. And he was discussing what to eat for dinner, when he stood up and ceased to exist. And that he did not know that was coming.
Mike 1:17:49
No, you don't. And I've, I've heard from my doctor was it was a copy your company a couple years ago. You know, we were making some adjustments or whatever. And
Unknown Speaker 1:18:01
it might have
Mike 1:18:03
I don't it was several years ago. But she goes yeah, you know, right now everybody's dropping their heart attacks. I'm like, right, what 6070 she goes no, 40s and 50s. You know, all these long term type ones. They're dead. We're just, you know, doing their habit doing their thing. So it but and I want to preface right base listening by doing right now, you're gonna avoid that later.
Scott Benner 1:18:28
Yeah, it is very likely not going to be the outcome for most people. 40
Mike 1:18:32
No, five years from now. And I want to stress to these teenagers out there that you think you're invincible. You're not. You know, if you're in college, and you go to the mess hall and you come out of that with a 300 for four or five, six hours and think it's funny. It's not, you're gonna more than likely have problems. And I know the teenage years are tough. I know. They're tough. I know, their early 20s are tough. You think you're that warrior, brave, you're invincible. You can be Take care of yourself. If I can't get any, any across. You got to do that in those years. Because I know a mom and dad's taking care of you. But when you go off to teenage and you want to not be on insulin for a while, because you're tired of being a diabetic, just me. I know what it's like, Been there, done that got the shirt hat sticker, but you just can't do that. And if I can get any message across, you can't do that. do what's right, you're gonna be fine. Anecdotally,
Scott Benner 1:19:35
I've spoken to enough people now. Where I have to agree with what you're saying. Because, you know, you're diagnosed when you're younger. And if you're lucky, you have parents who are on top of it, right? If you're not lucky, I've talked to every I think I feel like I've talked to almost every version of a person who's out there, right? And by the way, every time I say that someone sends me an email and I was like, I bet you haven't heard this story before. Like all I have But, you know, say say you're diagnosed when you're young, and you're and you get me, and I'm your dad. And so you're okay. And then you get the college, and you let it go. And a night turns into and these aren't my this isn't me making it up. These are the stories people tell on the podcast and it turns into a week week turns into a year, your turns into grad school. The next thing you know, you're 27 years old, and some girl are guys telling ya, listen, I mean, I want to have kids one day, are you sure you can do that? And then you go, Oh, no, no, no, jeez, you're right. And then you'll whip it back into shape. And these are the stories people tell. But in that time you lose 1819 2021 2223 24. I don't know what your blood sugar's were during there, you don't know either. And as much as it sucks, you don't know what's going to happen. And what's going to happen from that isn't going to happen until you're in your 40s maybe, you know, and, and if something doesn't luckily snap you back into it, which is what I hear from most people, it's usually it's usually not. It's not usually like a come to Jesus moment. Like you just realized though, I should take better care of myself, it ends up being for other people. I hear a lot of women say I wanted to get pregnant. So I got my blood sugar together, or I got pregnant, I didn't realize I was gonna get pregnant. And I had to pull my blood sugar together, or I met a guy. And I realized I wanted to have a life where I met a woman I realized I want to have a life or vice versa, or whatever, whoever meets whoever. The point is, it seems to be the trigger seems to be when you suddenly care about somebody else. You realize how much you weren't concerned about yourself? Yeah. And then suddenly that love or that connection? Makes you feel like you want to do better for yourself? Almost for other people. Yeah, but if 50 people haven't said that, to me in the last three years, I'm lying. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's been that many.
Mike 1:21:57
But circle back to the pregnancy thing. When when they die big ones get pregnant, the doctors make them get their ABCs below six. And then once they had the baby, they go back to wherever they were like, why did you do that? Oh, it's just so exhausting. But I gotta honestly tell you, I've recently taken on a new primary doctor because of my insurance who is a type one? And when they look at your, you're able to see five, five, that's too low.
Why is it too low? Well, that, you know, I told him, I'm doing a juice box. Well, that's just stressful. Why is it stressful?
Well, aren't you? Are you being stressed? I'm like, honestly, Scott, I think so much less about diabetes every day than I did before I started doing the math because you'd eat lunch. Two hours, three hours, like two senators gas said about that. Yeah. So now you're fighting that and trying to get that down to what you know, should be a good number. Yeah, um, but my high alarm is that 120. And I told the doctor that because you need to raise that. Like, why? Because it's too stressful. I go, why is it stressful? I'm Pre-Bolus saying, Look at my graph, if I'm off a little bit, because you know, stress, happiness, sadness, a car pulled out in front of you, adrenaline, all those things happen everyday in life. So that same turkey sandwich is going to be a little different day to day because of those factors. If I hit 120, and Dexcom, if you're listening, I love you. But please put a Delta in there. So I got to go to sugar mate at 120. Look at the Delta, if it's plus four, I'll give a couple of tenths a unit. If it's 120 plus zero, a watch it and it usually goes right back down.
Scott Benner 1:23:42
Jake's coming on next week from Dexcom. And he's gonna beg him to put it down. I think he's gonna tell me what the what the new apps look like. So I'm hoping that that's something If not, I'll just I'll have to bring it up again. But please do yeah, no shelter they have to have to rely on for anybody listening to us understand Mike's talking about rate of change. Like he wants to know, if his blood sugar's like not just the arrow, like diagnol up, he really wants to know it changed. You know, four points in the last time since the last reading or something like that. Yeah, affirmation.
Mike 1:24:13
I look at that religion, it could be 120 minus three, I'm definitely not gonna do nothing. But even if Dexcom says it's a straight arrow, it's a good reference. Yeah. But I want to see that delta to know, do I need to be aggressive? Like, instead of two tenths, four tenths of a unit?
Scott Benner 1:24:30
No, I completely agree that it's incredibly important. If I was making an app, they would have it on there. Don't go high. You won't go low. Maybe we'll maybe there'll be a Juicebox Podcast app one day, you can just imagine. I started a three app game. That's branching out. Is it? Well, I mean, I do want to ask if there's anything else you want to talk about before we we start to wrap up. I don't want to leave you without Having said the things you want to say, but
Mike 1:25:03
Well, I'd said pretty much everything I want to say, um, if you know if anybody wants to talk, I'm open. I'm in the in the Facebook group. I'm, I'm an open book, I don't hide any, from anybody, anything from anybody I talk about I see a therapist. I'm not mentally and you know, people think you're seeing a therapist, you're meant to say, No, I needed help to try to figure this out. I didn't have the tools. So it's not shameful. And I, I talk about that to anybody, because maybe I've had a couple of my friends say, Hey, I really appreciate you talking about that, you know, what, I need to see somebody because of this, that the other. And so I talked about it, and they see that what normal is normal, you know, they can equate to that. So I, I'm a big advocate of that. re educate, re education, to keep up with the times the new technologies. I heard you talk about,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:03
excuse me,
Mike 1:26:05
why you don't write a book, why you don't write a book, quick notes. because things are fluid, things change, the technology changes, you need to re educate yourself with what's new. Don't rely on your doctor. You know, do your research, you know, you know, look at these drug companies go online, on forum on the Facebook group, and you know, what's new? What's the newest and latest and greatest? I got a buddy in Arizona, who I've recently met, you'll, he's I'm not gonna say his name just for his privacy, but because I don't know if he'd want me to talk about him. But he's on regular and mph. MDI is like there's way better insolence. Really. I mean, he just didn't know because he had it. He didn't know who to talk to reach out. He and I connected to another friend. We text every day. And, you know, he's gonna, he's doing better. I'm so proud of him. So you, Tucson chef, you hear me saying this man. My heart goes out to you. I'm so proud of how how hard you work and you're getting Sorry, man. I didn't think I was gonna break down for that one. It just fills my heart with joy, that he's getting the help he needs and he's finding these tools. Which It's so sad because so many people are just diagnosed from the doctor that graduated 1986 and that's the technology they know. Get a new doctor asked what's the latest from you new doctor don't take their word that this old insulin is great. Just go to Walmart do that. $25 vital insulin. You know, just re educate, re educate, re educated. I just I can't hammer that enough. And after finding the podcast. As I said, I didn't realize I didn't know how insulin worked. Nobody ever taught me. I never asked anybody because my doctor got it. So why would you ask him without the reeducation? And these better ensigns we have I just I can't push that enough. And
Scott Benner 1:28:09
you don't want to be the lobster in the pot, man. All right, it's fine. Everything's good. This feels nice, actually. Yeah. Nice. I like not worried about it. And and yeah, it just I mean, the way I usually say it on the podcast, right is you don't want to look back one day and see that you're doing something the way people used to do it.
Mike 1:28:28
No, no. And part of my therapy. My therapist, I just want to put this out there. I was so focused on yesterday, what happened 20 years ago, and so worried about what's going to happen in 10 years. The best thing that broke through to me, and I think anybody can relate to this is you got to be in the now you got to be in the present. Throw away yesterday, focus on today and have some concern about tomorrow. But tomorrow that's when you'd be the president present president president president and by to help you set yourself up and here's the easiest tool that anybody can us wake up in the morning, get your coffee and focus just on three things you're grateful for that day. And like and what I do for instance, you know, I teach barbecue and I got a barbecue store. I work with a volunteer there I work for product which I was unaware of this. But when I my first dog I had to retire because of this had to have his kidney removed. And she knew I didn't have the dog there to look out for me. She looked out for me we were at one barbecue competition one time and I was overheating so I pop slept in the motor or you know kind of, you know what in the motorhome I took a shower, and I came out and she says where'd you go? I go What do you mean she goes, you need to tell me if you're going to be out of sight. I got I'm watching you. So one of my days of being grateful I thought about that. So I physically call that person, there's something I do. And I explained about my three things. I'm gratitude, Greg grateful for that day. And if it's a particular person, a friend, you know, I want them to know that I'm thinking about them that day, and focus on three things. So since I've been doing that, and that buddy of mine in in Tucson, he and I will text our three for the day just to kind of, you know, see how we're doing and checking in. And there's several days that I've been practicing this, what am I grateful today I'm in the present, there's some days, I can't think of three, I just feel such gratitude. That it's just, I can't focus on three. And that has helped me huge and that I got directly from my therapist, to as an easy tool to work on. It is so effective, B. And now, don't worry about 20 years from now, because the asteroid could hit tomorrow and we get I'll be gone.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:07
Yeah, worry is a waste of imagination. That's for sure.
Mike 1:31:10
It is. But I got so spun up in that I couldn't, I couldn't pull myself out.
Scott Benner 1:31:15
Yeah, no, I understand happens. The people. I don't generally worry a lot. But two days ago, I woke up and I was I just literally worried about the thing I went to sleep worried about. So it felt like it just started over again. Yeah, I have to say that. Being positive for other people to it is really valuable, like not just seeing, like I talked about when I was talking to the doctor the other day, which I heard you referenced earlier. But I think you you if you're having success, and you want to show your work, that's really great, because someone is going to see it and feel hopeful about it. I think it's really important to remember that as we share online, the people you're intersecting with who you can physically see commenting or liking, there are a very small portion of the people who are seeing it. And, and you know, as you're, I mean, listen, if you're if you're in a, if you're in a room with four people, and you're talking, you're impacting four people. But I can tell you, from my personal experience, I don't even at this point, know how many people I'm talking to, I just have to imagine that they're there. And, and I've now heard from so many different people in so many different walks of life, I understand that they're there. I know they're there, whether I can see them or not. And being positive. Not falsely, but but in a tangible way, is very valuable for people. And I'm glad to see that. I'm not hearing from so many people anymore, that you don't show people when you're doing well, because it makes them feel badly. I think I think that they'd much rather know that better exists. And even get the idea that reaching for it might be valuable, rather than just to make them feel like this is horrible. And this is what it's always going to be and look, everybody else agrees with me. So I'm just gonna sit here in this pot and boil. That's all. I don't know why you made me think of a lobster today.
Mike 1:33:19
That Well, that's like, that's a great analogy. It's like putting the frog in cold water and turn it on. And he doesn't feel the difference. He
Scott Benner 1:33:25
doesn't know. This is like, tapping, but I don't know it. Yeah, you don't you just you got to try. He just I mean, the point really is, is that you have a finite amount of time. And even if it all goes perfectly, it's not enough time. So when things start, you know, creeping up, and I think everyone's going to have roadblocks. I think a lot of them are going to be health, even if you don't have type one. And you know, sometimes you only get stretches the time stretches a time where you don't have to think about something. But if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, and try to address it, those stretches are going to get shorter and shorter and shorter, and they're going to disappear one day.
Mike 1:34:03
Yeah, I think you reference roadblock and um, you look at some of these, like military leaders or these lieutenants and stuff and in the way they look at things and right there's a roadblock. What's the solution? Don't focus on the roadblock. You sit there and keep looking at the roadblock? That's how you're going to stare at Yeah, you get caught? What's the solution? What ever it is, whether it's diabetes, whether it's whatever it is, but that's a that's a that's a real valuable message I've got out of you know, some of these discussions and talks. It's like, don't just and you get these negative nouns that keep focused on what happened. That's like being in yesterday. Why didn't somebody tell me to do better 20 years from now, but that that's gone? What's the solution? Now
Scott Benner 1:34:47
you got today and forward and that's it. So yeah, yeah, right. Mike, I really appreciate this. I can't thank you enough. I, I imagined that it wasn't going to be easy for you, and I appreciate what it must have taken to tell everybody. All this stuff. Yeah,
Mike 1:35:05
I know it's gonna be hard. Like I said, I'm, I'm reachable, I'm not I don't know what I can do for anybody. But if somebody is in a dark place or having the same issues or worried about it, you know, I don't know what I can do for money. I'm not Superman. I'm just a normal guy. But I understand sometimes you need to be able to associate that or talk with that, or, you know, I'm saying, Yeah, I'm
Scott Benner 1:35:30
saying find somebody who's in a similar situation as you and see if they know how to get out of the hole. Yeah, I have to tell you that I thought early on when you were describing, I was so tickled I knew how serious everything was going to be today. So I didn't make this joke at the time, but it stuck with me through an hour and a half. The image of you walking through a hospital, just on death's door as a child and this doctor kind of like sachet and pasty and be like, that kid has type one diabetes. I pictured john travolta in Saturday Night Fever. I don't
like swinging his hips with like his like fancy white suit. And he was just like, Hey, kids. Oh, handover. Yeah, he just kind of like made like finger guns at you and was like, type one diabetes. And how proud he must have been of himself later. Like, you know, there was like a moment where he was like, I knew that kid had diabetes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Didn't think he said that. I just had that. That poster image of the movie poster might show my age. But you said that and that's exactly i got i had a guy strutting down a hallway in my head. And he was like, That kid's got the rickets, that kid's got type one, I can just tell
Mike 1:36:42
it. Can I say one of the things from a reference from please the podcast with a doctor when you were asking her? What's the answer? And she said, 42. And you said, No, no, we're not going there. That was a reference from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the universe. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:36:58
no kidding. I don't know that one.
Mike 1:37:00
You've got to watch that movie. Because as soon as she said that, I say, Oh, that was a what a timely reference.
Scott Benner 1:37:07
I wish I would have known that I I You see, my level of understanding is just 37 from clerks, which is not appropriate for here. But does turn out to be like I said to her, when you ask people for a random number between one and 100, more frequently than not people will say 37 for some reason. Yeah. So yeah. Anyway. All right, Mike, I really appreciate you doing this. I am going to I'm going to think about this a lot. And I hope everybody else does, too.
Mike 1:37:40
Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I'm I'm like I said, I'm happy to spread the story that for people now. do your due diligence. It's not doom and gloom. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:37:51
Well, I'll tell you what, when this goes up, I will put a post on the private Facebook group, that talk that announces this episode, and I will tag you in it so people can find you.
Mike 1:38:02
Sure. All right. You got to do the john travolta the Saturday Night Live. movie poster is the pitcher.
Scott Benner 1:38:08
Oh, for the episode I have. Yeah. All right. Damn it. I will. Alright, man, thanks so much. Hold on. Was that Thank you, I really appreciate you and all you doing. And thank you, man. It really is my pleasure. I mean, stuff like this makes this not that it's hard to do to begin with. But if it was, this makes it much easier. He you said something earlier, that, um, you know, I don't think I'll ever forget. And I know I've said it a number of times. But when somebody who has type one references that I don't have it. But in a positive way. Like I can't believe somebody who doesn't have type one was able to talk to me about this. I mean, I'm very touched by that. It's a the only world where I have it, it means a lot to me, but that I don't come off as as false, you know, so. So thank you very much. Thank you, Scott. I want to personally thank Mike for coming on the show and sharing all of this with us today. And thank you for listening. I also need to thank touched by type one for their sponsorship of the Juicebox Podcast to remind you to go to touched by type one.org. I'd also like to remind you about the Omni pod promise and say that you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash right now. Go to Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox to find out more. If this is your first afterdark episode, you should go look for the rest of them. Childhood divorce living with bipolar sexual assault and PTSD using psychedelics. Amy, heroin addiction Believe me and depression, divorce and co parents thing, sex from a female perspective sex from a male perspective when you have type one diabetes, depression and self harm, trauma and addiction, smoking, weed, and drinking. Those are the ones we have so far. If you think you can add to the afterdark episodes reach out. Besides all of the great episodes of the podcast, there are other series, those about using algorithm based pumping the defining diabetes episodes. The affer mentioned after dark and so much more. Take a look at Juicebox Podcast calm Oh and don't forget the how we eat series intermittent fasting flexitarian keto fodmap Bernstein, low carb gluten free plant based carnivore vegan so many to choose from find out how other people eat. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to leave a five star rating and a great review wherever you listen. I'll be back soon with another episode.
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