#191 Shame Cycle

Guilt, Shame and Type 1 Diabetes…

Kathryn speaks honestly about her shame and guilt.

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Guilt/Shame Infographic

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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
You're listening to Episode 191 of the Juicebox Podcast. We are sponsored today by Omni pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes, you can go to my omnipod.com slash juice box dexcom.com slash juice box or dancing the number four diabetes.com to find out more. Today's episode is with Catherine, it is called shame cycle. Today we're going to focus on shame and guilt and the difference between the two. We're also going to take a look into the difference between healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the National Institute for the clinical application of Behavioral Medicine. There's a great infographic there that will show you the difference between guilt and shame. And I'll even show you the difference between unhealthy and healthy guilt. That just in case that all sounds just too serious for you. Don't worry, there's plenty of other conversation here about Katherine and her 10 years with Type One Diabetes. Katherine's even got magic underwear. I mean, this episode easily could have been called Katherine has magic underwear. So don't go thinking it's gonna bum you out. It isn't, you know, this podcast, I'm not gonna bum me out. You also know that nothing you hear that Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And to always consult a physician before making changes to your health care plan.

Katherine Hayes 1:25
I get the same feeling every time I go that this shame just washes over me like I'm not enough. And I realized as I was listening to your podcast that other people were feeling that too. I'm Katherine Hayes. And I've been a type one diabetic for just over 10 years. I was diagnosed in 2007. And I'm 27 now and I have three kids. Wow. It's tough.

Scott Benner 1:56
Well, wait, hold on a second parts tough the three kids the diabetes. Okay, so let's start slow. diagnosed right at the end of high school. Hmm. Um,

Katherine Hayes 2:09
I was in 11th grade 11th grade?

Unknown Speaker 2:11
That's, um,

Katherine Hayes 2:13
yeah, it was tough. There was a lot of I mean, high school just sucks already. So it was it was hard. But

Unknown Speaker 2:23
I don't know.

Scott Benner 2:25
I think I have an idea because my son's a senior this year, and really great student but halfway through this year, he was sort of like, This isn't over yet. Like windows, like I'd been accepted the college like when, when does all this stop and he's doing a great job of plowing through it. But he doesn't have diabetes. And it wasn't dropped on something big and huge wasn't dropped on him at this point in your life where you're sort of like, Hey, I'm finishing something, I've accomplished something. I'm almost an adult, like, happy. You know, so it was your any foresight any in your, in your family or anything like that, that

Katherine Hayes 2:59
well, so the year before I had gotten mono. And that like sent my grades down pretty low. Especially in math, because I kept falling asleep in class. And and like I just couldn't stay awake and I didn't know that. Like that was a sign that I needed to go to the doctor or anything. But um, but so that was tough and then being diagnosed the next year. It was not good for my grades but yeah. made it through

Scott Benner 3:33
strung together though. The Moto hits you and then the diabetes hit you. Yeah. And Oh, geez, that sucks. I I want to tell you a story of it's inappropriate for the mother when I was a kid and the way I the way I got through it was by talking to my girlfriend into believing that if I was happier that the motto would be easier to deal with. And it worked. I felt bad for her but

Unknown Speaker 3:59
nevertheless, did she get moto as well? Did not. And

Katherine Hayes 4:05
well the person that I got it from that they were careful. Alright.

Scott Benner 4:09
Well, that's boys. Oh, yeah, boy, nevermind. Boys. I think that's the lesson here. Also, you you learned that lesson over and over again over the last decade. It's man made you pregnant three times.

Unknown Speaker 4:23
And I don't know how it happened.

Unknown Speaker 4:26
You're really not sure.

Scott Benner 4:29
So when old are your kids? Are they all like a year old? Jim all at the same time?

Katherine Hayes 4:33
No, I have a five year old a three year old and a two year old.

Scott Benner 4:38
Okay. All right. Well, that's it. So would you do you got let's do the math. You get married in your like early 20s.

Katherine Hayes 4:44
I got married when I was 19.

Unknown Speaker 4:46
I was almost 20. Wow, I was young when I married but you have me beat.

Katherine Hayes 4:52
I've been listening to your podcast and surprisingly You talk a lot about marriage.

Scott Benner 4:58
Tries every day to ruin my life. Just like diabetes. I don't give up. A lot of people would have given up by now. Not me. Yeah, yeah. No, um, well I choose my wife was like 22 when we got married and even then I thought this is probably a mistake. But that was like 22 years ago at this point. Yeah. Okay, so 19 so it can do you mind talking about that for a second, even though it might not have anything to do with IBS? Or maybe it did? Did you find somebody who was just a good guy early on and you were like, okay, I shouldn't let go of a decent person. How that works.

Katherine Hayes 5:36
Yeah, definitely. I like I want to say a little bit is I've noticed that you've also interviewed a few different Mormons and I was like, I know you're Mormon even though he didn't say it. But um, but yeah, we we tend to marry a little bit earlier but yeah, I just found someone that was perfect and so I wasn't gonna gonna wait for anything very nice.

Scott Benner 6:02
So there's this funny thing that happens on the pocket so I don't set up if or not whether or not people use tax comps, I just whoever wants to be on the pious doesn't matter me. I don't set up what insulin pump there. I certainly don't set up whether or not they're Mormon. And but but you're right. There's been I've had an X an overabundance of Mormons, lesbian couples, and like somebody coming I don't know how that ends up happening. But it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. But I am proud of myself. Because for all of the Mormons that I've spoken to, I've never once asked about the magic underwear and I very much want.

Unknown Speaker 6:37
But I never been so comfortable. You wouldn't believe.

Scott Benner 6:43
So I didn't. If we end up calling this podcast episode, magic underwear. You're okay with that?

Unknown Speaker 6:49
I'm okay with that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:50
thank you. I will leave that to the people to Google on their own.

Unknown Speaker 6:54
Okay, but let's just say lds.org. That's where you look. Okay.

Scott Benner 7:00
Um, oh, gosh, who was running for president a few years ago?

Unknown Speaker 7:05
Mitt Romney Romney, and they called

Scott Benner 7:06
they hit him on it. And he he answered a little bit, right. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I was. I was like, that's, that's interesting, because I couldn't be somebody asked him I was like, that's fantastic. Anyway,

Katherine Hayes 7:17
Mormons get all kinds of weird questions, and we just try to roll with it.

Scott Benner 7:21
Well, you ruined basketball with that Sean Bradley guy about 20.

Unknown Speaker 7:24
I don't even don't ask me about that.

Scott Benner 7:26
I haven't forgiven Mormon since then. But

Unknown Speaker 7:30
I'm gonna go look it up when

Scott Benner 7:31
we're done me this giant spindly guy that couldn't play. And we drafted No, I and then he went off to do like, service overseas for a year when he came back. He couldn't play basketball. I was like, we got ripped off.

Katherine Hayes 7:44
Hey, but I'm certain there was someone in baseball recently that went on a mission. I can't remember where to like Brazil or something, came back and played baseball in the major leagues and is doing awesome. That's cool.

Scott Benner 7:57
We'll find out about that. All right. So listen, this is not the Mormon podcast. I know. We're gonna jump past that. But but good Anya, and I love that you said that the magic underwear was comfortable. And we're moving on now. So you are on the podcast for a specific reason. Right? So you reach down? Did you reach out over Instagram? You did, right? Mm hmm. Okay. And you told me what? Dancing for diabetes.com dancing the number for diabetes.com How did we start talking?

Katherine Hayes 8:30
Well, I like I had a series of realizations recently. Because, I mean, I my ANC has kind of always hung around seven and 7.2 around there. And unless I was pregnant, and then I was able to get it down. But I just I realized when I went to my last end of appointment that like there was that there was that same feeling I get the same feeling every time I go that this shame just washes over me like I'm not enough. And and I realized as I was listening to your podcasts that other people were feeling that too. And that I know that the only way to stop feeling that and to start progressing and doing better is to talk about it.

Scott Benner 9:27
You've had diabetes for a decade, but you're still young. And those oh my gosh, those kids have got to be a drain because I stopped it too because I was like another one I mean it's just I'm upset I have dogs at this point. Everything once my time serious

Katherine Hayes 9:43
I want a dog but I just know inside I can't do it.

Scott Benner 9:46
Oh my gosh, I would if I was you if you want a dog. Here's my advice. Trade to the kids for the dog. But yeah, but seriously, I love my dogs but they're there. Everything's a time Suck at some point, right? Like the dogs need your time and the kids need your house. And then diabetes needs your time

Katherine Hayes 10:07
and your attention. And it's like, I don't have enough attention to go around.

Scott Benner 10:10
Yeah, no, I definitely am. Plus, you're probably have to be pregnant again soon. So you should have a bat next to the bed. Do you just like, no way, buddy

Unknown Speaker 10:22
in my closet? Take a few steps to get there. That's hilarious.

Scott Benner 10:27
insulin pumps are not all the same. And that might be hard to believe. Because I mean, really, what is it, it's a thing that gives you insulin. It's basically just stopping you from having to inject. And it's giving you you know, control over your background. And so that's the two things in insulin pump spray, no injections, the ability to manipulate your back on insulin. So I mean, if that's the case, just take whichever one your doctor offers you, right? Don't even worry about don't think twice about. No, don't do that. Well, you know what I was kidding. Stop, you need the army pod. Because it's not the same as everyone else shirt allows you to make adjustments. And sure it gives you your insulin without injecting over and over again all day long, like every other insulin pump. But the thing that on the pod has is what it doesn't have. Interesting a little wordplay there. Beyond the pod doesn't have any tubes, it doesn't have a controller that you have to carry with you attached to a tube attached to your body that doesn't exist with the pod on the pod is self contained. It has a controller, but that controller is wireless, you only pick that up a few times a day to make adjustments, push a button, it speaks back to the pod wirelessly and you get your insulin, everything contained in the pod. So while on the surface, it might seem like an insulin pumps insulin pump, trust me, it's not. And to know for sure, all you need to do is go to my on the pod.com slash juice box. There, you can get a free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod, having a free demonstration pod sent to your house couldn't be easier. Go to the links in the show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. We're typing in the way I just told you, my Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox the beauty is you don't have to take my word for it, you can try it for yourself and decide. You just said something in a very specific way. Like you said, You're not enough. And do you have do you have that feeling in other aspects of your life? Or is it just really wrapped around the diabetes?

Katherine Hayes 12:24
I think we all like we're all experiencing it in in so many different aspects of our life, whether it's body image, or just like success, like how well you're doing at your job, or, or, or like self care, or diabetes, or a different illness or anything like that. We're all experiencing it so much. But I felt like I realized that for people with type one, we're experiencing that on another level. And it's like, Yeah, and it's like, it's like, we've got all these different measuring sticks of like how to compare ourselves to whoever else we see. Or whoever we think we should be. And diabetes is like another big fat measuring stick with like, comes with a one sees it comes with judgmental doctors that comes with so much. And, and then I was also thinking about because of you like to have a child with with type one is like another big fat measuring stick. Because, like it adds on to like how well we parent, like how well you're managing your child's diabetes and, and that there would just be so much shame associated with that. And like shame is not not good. It doesn't help you.

Scott Benner 13:47
Well, I, first of all, I think you're really brave for wanting to talk about it just in your private life, I think you're incredibly brave for being able to do it in front of other people. So this is going to help a ton of people. And I appreciate you coming on and doing

Unknown Speaker 14:00
I hope so

Scott Benner 14:01
I get through those moments with just blinding ignorance. I just don't listen or pay attention. Like there's moments when and I know that's not something everyone can do. But let me back up for a second. So you said something really interesting. Measuring sticks. And so that's something I struggled with when I started the podcast, right or how much you're going to share online or what you're going to say. Because your intention is to be is to be inspirational, aspirational, motivational, right like is to say like, Look, because I say it all the time. Like I am genuinely not a very, you know, not an overly smart person. I'm terrible at math. I prove it to you guys almost every week.

Katherine Hayes 14:38
And I just I told you exactly how long I've had diabetes. Listen,

Unknown Speaker 14:44
just so that you didn't have to I appreciate

Scott Benner 14:46
that. That's 27 minus 10. I'm pretty, pretty solid. But but but no. So like it's just but so like once you figure something out, do not share it because if I share it if I say hey, look at this graph, you put the answer In here, you do this, you do that, look how easy it stays flat. That's a lot of people who's who, who aren't you see that and go, Oh, my gosh, I can do this too, but and they, and they're motivated by it or inspired by it. And then some people might be inspired by it, but still have this aspect of, Oh, my gosh, I'm failing. And this person's doing it. And and why can I? And in so which would you rather I'm going to ask you as a person who's impacted that way? Would you prefer if a person like me didn't share it? And so you didn't feel like you weren't? like there wasn't a measuring stick? Or do you think that wouldn't stop it?

Katherine Hayes 15:41
No, I think I think we have to judge but we have to judge fairly. And so you take what someone tells you, and then you compare it to what you want to do. Like it's not, it's not like, this person has an A one C of six. And that means that I'm not enough, and I'm never going to be able to do it. You have to look at it. As it really is, which is not a judgment on who you are. But on what you're capable of. It's a lot like what um, I can't remember her name, but she was she did softball she was talking about

Unknown Speaker 16:18
what is it? Oh, the girl thing over something over outcome. Yeah. Molly FECKNER.

Scott Benner 16:23
Yeah, process over outcome

Katherine Hayes 16:25
process over outcome. Right. So you think about the process, you don't think about the outcome?

Scott Benner 16:30
Yeah. And by God, that's 100%. Right. Some people have a hard time doing that.

Katherine Hayes 16:36
I think that like the service that you provide, by doing the podcast is kind of twofold. Because in one way, you're you're giving like, good information that like I had never heard anywhere else from any doctor anything. And I, and I googled things and couldn't find anything. And, and that's really great. Like to help me try new things and get better agencies and stuff like that. But then at the same time, you're also providing this great emotional support and motivation for people to just try. That's right, because we're not, we're not doing great sometimes at just trying. And when we could be a lot more successful if we did,

Scott Benner 17:21
it's not it's not it's it's most of the time. It's not anyone's fault, though. Like, because look what you just said, No one told me this stuff, these things, these tools, right? And then all they said was, here's your goal, it was backwards. They didn't give you any process, they gave you all outcome. This is what you need to do you need to win the game. Well, what do I do with that bad? I can't tell you that. What's the ball for? I can't tell you that. Like what's gonna happen when I stand next to the diamond thing? I can't tell you that either. But you got to win. If you don't win, you're a loser. And that's ends up being with diabetes is when you don't get the tools. You know, like, you alluded to it, but no one ever explained to you that insulin doesn't work right away when you start when you put it on is that

Katherine Hayes 18:02
I think they told me 15 minutes, but I can't remember at what point they told me. Because I mean, it was like, I just, I like cried listening to Nicole's interview because we were both diagnosed at the same age. And so like, I totally, I could I could feel like exactly how she how she was feeling at that moment. where like, you don't know how to deal with things. But you, you don't think anyone else's responsibility. You don't think it's anyone else's responsibility, but your own right. And so and like, I went to an adult endocrinologist, like not a pediatric one. And the first few appointments, were just like, oh, you're a Wednesday 7.2. And then like, and just like, kind of like, I was, like, the beginning of that wash of shame. And then I think it was like my third or fourth appointment with him, where he like, sat me down and showed me some kind of graph of like, that showed me that if I didn't make it better, that I was gonna die. And it was like a lightful. I mean, in some ways, my brain was like, that's not the right way to talk to me. And I knew that it was wrong. But in other ways, it like really framed internally how I felt about everything.

Scott Benner 19:28
Winner die.

Katherine Hayes 19:29
Yeah. And, and also, and I didn't even realize until I started listening to the podcasts and thinking about like, all the new gadgets, we have now the Dexcom and pumps and stuff, and I was on injections. I had diabetes for like six months. And he was like, if you don't fix this, you're gonna die. And so I was just like, I felt like I was given the least quality care and the highest expectations possible. So, I mean, things have gotten so much better than that. Why? And I was in Canada. Did I already say that? I can't remember.

Unknown Speaker 20:06
If you were diagnosed? Yeah. And they're Mormon, my there are that's what you just,

Scott Benner 20:14
by the way, six times I've changed the title of this episode of my

Unknown Speaker 20:19
Canadian. Thank you, Canada. I mean,

Scott Benner 20:21
I heard I heard, I'm not enough. And I'm like, Oh, that's a good, that's a good title. And then you just said, there are Mormons in Canada. And I'm like Mormons are in Canada, too, is a good title. I don't

Unknown Speaker 20:32
know what to do. Fun fact, is that Mormons were outside. What?

Katherine Hayes 20:38
Where's the pliers in Utah. But there are more Mormons outside of the United States than inside.

Scott Benner 20:45
More Mormons back. There. I'm having too much fun. So well, geez, so Okay. What what was the impact of being told when or die? I'm not going to tell you how we did that.

Katherine Hayes 21:05
It was just constant failure. It was a, it was a state of constant failure, where I just like, I couldn't make it better, because I hadn't been given the tools. And so it was just, it was just, I can't, it was just always I can't do this. I can't fix it. And it was like that for years. And it was actually probably like that until I got pregnant the first time. So what

Scott Benner 21:27
what what was different then?

Katherine Hayes 21:30
I had moved to the states because my husband is American. And will actually in Canada, they This is so dumb. I don't know if they've changed it. But they told me that I couldn't get a pump until my control was better. And I was like, you know, the reason to get the pump is so your control is better, right? That's something

Scott Benner 21:52
people say they say that here to Roberts listening right now he was just mad. Some people get told six months on people tell until you understand it better. There's just I think that all of those statements are born out of luck. We don't really know how to tell you how to use the pump Really? Well.

Unknown Speaker 22:11
That could be it.

Scott Benner 22:12
Why don't you figure it out? And then we'll let you have it. So you don't have any questions for us? Yeah, that that is what I've boiled it down to believe it. I just think that they don't know. So they don't want you to have it, then ask them and have them have to tell you. I don't know. It's sort of like when parents yell at you when you ask him a question. And they're just like, shut up. And you're like,

Unknown Speaker 22:31
why you realize like a decade later,

Scott Benner 22:33
she's your mom just didn't understand what you were asking.

Unknown Speaker 22:36
Yeah, I do that with my own son.

Scott Benner 22:42
Don't ask mommy stupid questions,

Katherine Hayes 22:45
and comprehensible questions about lightsabers, and I just got no clue. I

Scott Benner 22:51
should have said I had moto in 11th grade. I wasn't there. That day leaves me. Yeah. Yeah, and comprehends what, listen, what's the question about the lightsaber? Let's see if we can cobble that together. Right. Do you remember?

Unknown Speaker 23:05
I think it was like, What does the lightsaber

Unknown Speaker 23:11
have? Like that? So

Unknown Speaker 23:13
there's a

Scott Benner 23:15
there's a crystal inside of it. it's specific to each Jedi. But please don't quote me on that. Because

Katherine Hayes 23:22
I think it was it might have even been weirder than that. And it was just like, impossible to answer.

Unknown Speaker 23:28
How old is he?

Unknown Speaker 23:30
He was probably four at the time, but a line about that

Scott Benner 23:32
easily. Just said magic.

Unknown Speaker 23:36
And yeah, I think I did. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:39
A little man go away. Yeah. And we are you. You're in America now.

Katherine Hayes 23:44
No, wait, am I live? I live in Florida right now.

Scott Benner 23:49
That's way better than Canada.

Unknown Speaker 23:51
It's got a better weather. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 23:53
would say that. Right. Oh, good for you. So okay. Well, I'm trying to like frame my next thought. And, and it's not that easy for me, because I'm

Unknown Speaker 24:05
trying I can talk about pregnancy.

Scott Benner 24:07
Yeah. Well, I'm interested like when you got to the pregnancy? Was it the fact that there was another person counting on you is that one,

Katherine Hayes 24:15
that wasn't all of it, because I'd actually we were actually in Arizona at the time, and I had found this amazing physician's assistant, and I want to give her a little shout out her name is Beth prosti offski. And she was she saved my life like several times, and also my kids lives. But how she just she helps she, like part of it was just that she was so good at connecting and not blaming or shaming. And so I was able to go to her with these horrible blood sugars. And she just be like, okay, we're gonna fix this. Instead of Wow. No, like, you're gonna die. Like that, that

Scott Benner 25:03
we think that would be the at least the the very least you could expect from a doctor is not to look at you, right? Wow, you're gonna die. But let me see if I can help. What did what did she do to try to help you?

Katherine Hayes 25:15
like well I started seeing her every two weeks, which I loved. I wish I could do that now because I feel like that's really how you get better control is by really paying attention. And I felt like once every three months or once a month wasn't enough.

Scott Benner 25:32
What do you do? What did you do with her that you couldn't do on your own?

Katherine Hayes 25:36
Well, like she just helped me like, well, first she got me Dexcom right away, which was awesome. And she also got me on the pump. And she just like she made me less nervous about things. So that was good. But um, but she would like we'd put up the Dexcom results, and she'd go over it with me. And we just look at the trend, we'd lay the lines on top of each other, we'd see where I was high or low, we'd make adjustments she really taught me like how to take care of myself, like the stuff that I do for myself. Now she taught me how to do

Scott Benner 26:12
what's just say, I mean, it seems obvious as you're saying it right like that. That's what

Katherine Hayes 26:16
right, but like because I was diagnosed at 17 no one ever helped me with those things. They expected me to do it on my own.

Scott Benner 26:22
It's interesting, too, because you would think that at that age, the expectation from adults around you would be that you needed more help. Not not Oh, she does. She's old enough. We don't have to worry about especially from the doctor. I don't want to I don't know, I don't want to impugn anybody. But did your parents do that? Like what did they do? Did they do the old like I don't you go ahead and take care of it? Or did you seem too old to for them to get involved? Are they scared to kind of trample on your adulthood? Like how did that end up going?

Katherine Hayes 26:51
They were more emotional support. But But I think that was because at the time, like there was there were no, or they didn't know of any help for parents with children with type one. And so and like there weren't any diabetic camp, they went to carb counting classes with me, which now listening to your podcast, I realized this useless.

Unknown Speaker 27:15
I'm mad about that, too.

Scott Benner 27:17
So your parents were sort of like the parents in the stands that it's a little league game. Their kids like wearing their hat backwards picking flowers, like you're doing great, Billy. Like, no, you're not really helping him at all. But I do appreciate the support. It was tough. See, there, you just described people in the same exact situation as you motivated desires to help none have tools to be valuable. Mm hmm. You know, and and it's,

Katherine Hayes 27:45
and I think like with Nicole, she would have, she would have been motivated if she had some emotional support. Yeah, no, I just changes everything,

Scott Benner 27:54
right. And everybody's situation ends up being unique to them, because of who they are the doctor, they're lucky enough to bump into or not bump into the parents they're lucky enough to have or not have, whatever it ends up being is, is just sort of the, it's the soup you get thrown into. And a lot of times, it's just so interesting to me, when you say you, you're out in Arizona and you meet this new person. And and all they're doing for you is giving you some support, letting you lean on them a little bit, taking over a tiny bit of the responsibilities for understanding and then passing that information back to you. It really it really is just another it is just another form of parenting just within the disease. It's It's It's, it's no different than what you would do for for your child. And and and it's it's a it's at the core of what common decency is. And and you would think the very least you could expect from someone

Katherine Hayes 28:51
in the right you know, I felt like with with so many other windows that I had, it was like, Okay, do this for the for this entire month, because I'm not gonna see you just do this. And we'll see how it goes. Yeah, you know, and, and it doesn't Yeah, that doesn't work.

Scott Benner 29:08
Don't Don't test it this time. Don't correct that number. Just put the insulin in. And so when you stop and really think about that, what they're saying is, I'm going to give you this adjustment to make make it then come back and I'll test your Awan see again, and I'll see if my adjustment helped. That is not in any way valuable. Within the hours of the day or moments. Oh man, it's just it's an overall number. And what if the information they gave you just cause you to be low more frequently and your agency debt came down a little bit then when you went back? They'd be like, Oh, it's working.

Katherine Hayes 29:39
I have been like I've had times where I was low every morning for like, a week, because I was waiting for my appointment. Hello, it sucked probably in like the 50s and 40s.

Scott Benner 29:54
And so tell me right there. From from your perspective what stopped you from me? an adjustment on your own?

Katherine Hayes 30:02
Well, I didn't Well, it was probably like since I'd been put on the pump. And I didn't know that I could make changes on my own part of because of your because of your disclaimer, right? Like you need to talk to your doctor before making any changes. That's what I was stuck in.

Scott Benner 30:18
Okay. And you understand why I say that? Because I have to, because risky, right? Yes, I can't, I can't, I'm not a doctor. And I can't. And I'm not giving anybody medical advice

Katherine Hayes 30:33
that I did eventually, like I have learned over the years to just deal with it myself, because no one else is going to hold my hand. Right. But

Scott Benner 30:41
that's the exact right thing to do. It's just, we're stuck in this very interesting situation where I can't really come right out and say that, because I'm, I can't. And at the same time, if I don't share what's happening for us, and what's working for us, then, you know, then listen, let me put it this way. I spoke a few weeks ago at a jdrf event in front of probably 100 people. And I said to them at the very beginning of the thing. I said, Listen, I'm going to tell you what I do with my daughter. If you think any of it sounds like a good idea, you should go talk to a doctor because none of this is medical advice. It is absolutely positively 100% not medical advice. Of course, it's not medical advice. I'm not a doctor, but it is just my experience. Right? It is, it is what I've seen over and over again. Now, here's the difference. How do you know who to trust? How do you know who did who somebody did something once has absolutely no historical data to tell them that it's valuable doesn't know, you know, doesn't know if it's really going to work over and over again, but run to the internet and says it like how do you know the difference. And I hope that my decade were more at this point of time, just sharing in the space, like I hope that has built confidence with people. And because I think that's the only way to know who you can trust and who you can't trust. And at the same time, you still can't trust me. I'm not a doctor, I might say something that works great for my kid, that won't work for you. The last thing I said, when I was speaking before I started the jdrf event, as I said, if you hear anything here today, and go home and do it and kill your kid with it, I don't want to hear about it. You know, like, like, go talk to a doctor first. But at the same time, these are good, but

Unknown Speaker 32:25
also being cautious.

Scott Benner 32:26
Yes, you have to be a little responsible for yourself. Yeah, can't just, you can't just put yourself in a position where you're just like, well, that's up to them to tell me where that's up to this person, there has to be personal response,

Katherine Hayes 32:39
if you're going to make changes by yourself, you have to pay attention to it.

Scott Benner 32:44
Absolutely. You can't walk into a wall, break your nose and sue the builder for putting the wall there. Like you know, you need to you need to be a little responsible for yourself. And at the same time. If you're having, you know, more specifically with diabetes, if you're not having the successes that you want, or that they're even telling you to, you can't look back at them and go What's their fault, because at some point, you've gotten what you're going to get from them, you can't keep expecting, they're going to do more than their than they've shown you they're willing to do. It's not going to magically change your your know you're verbally abusive, father's not going to turn into a decent guy, 10 years now, if you just hold on long enough, you know, I mean, like you have to at some point, you have to see people, whether they're your doctor, or a friend or somebody in between, you have to see them for who they are, what they are, what they're willing to give you what they have to give you. And then if that's not enough, then you have to put it on yourself to go figure out what the right answer is. Or we're getting a position

Unknown Speaker 33:42
where you have to experiment.

Scott Benner 33:44
That's it. But that was not happening for you. Like like you, you really did get. And this is, of course very understandable. But you described yourself in the beginning as feeling like you're not enough. And that became a burden to you. It sounds like to me it sounds like that that was your overwhelming position, which was I did it just hit you when you went into the doctor's office quarterly or did you feel like that at home?

Katherine Hayes 34:13
I think it was like a an undercurrent all the time because I mean, anytime I tested my blood sugar, and it was 300 You know, it was like crap. Like, here I am again, but I'm

Scott Benner 34:27
not even I messed up just I've ended up in this place.

Katherine Hayes 34:32
It was both like, like so one thing that I'd like to just state so for everybody's information is that there's a difference between shame and guilt. And guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am bad. And so when you look at that blood sugar and it's not good part of that can be guilt and be like, Okay, what do I need to do differently and you're going to adapt and you're going to change and it's going To be better because of that, but shame is I suck. And I'm never going to be able to fix this. And that's where you get stuck. And I realized recently that when I feel shame, I freeze, and I just, I'm just immobilized. And so that was kind of what was happening.

Scott Benner 35:21
It's interesting, too, that you don't describe your shame, like depression. So this is not something, maybe I'm wrong, but is it you're not depressed about it? You're just you feel you're shameful about it? Right. Okay. And I think that's interesting and important to point out, because I think there are plenty of people who would go along the same path as you. And their, their brain chemistry might be a little more leaning towards becoming depressed about it. And it's interesting to hear a person who's not depressed, talk about similar impacts. You know what I mean? Like, it's Yes, it really is. Because you think, well, it makes sense that some people there, there may be depressed people to begin with, and they get diabetes, and it makes it worse. And that's understandable. And there's a course to help them. But the rest of us who aren't depressed never feel like that. But that's not a deep, that's totally not true. But it's easy to it's easy to believe that, that you're either in the camp, that it's understandable if this is hard for you, or in the camp, or it's not understandable if it's hard for you. And that's not the case, it's difficult for everyone in some way.

Katherine Hayes 36:31
There's actually research about shame, that shows that it's highly correlated with depression, and addiction and violence, and eating disorders. And I think like, the root is really saying that you need to talk about it.

Scott Benner 36:51
And I am interested in other aspects of your life that aren't diabetes. If your kid comes home with a bad grade or something like that, like do you feel ashamed of those things? Or is that not your default position on other things?

Katherine Hayes 37:04
Well, I think what was so interesting about like, the recent realization, and when I messaged you on Instagram was because I have been learning so much about it, and like how I respond to shame, but like that it was impacting my diabetes, and my self care in that regard. was such a surprise. It was like, like, I normally I'm not feeling same, like day to day, or I thought I wasn't. And then I just I went to the doctor and I listened to your podcast, and I was like, Oh, no, like hear it it. Does it. Awakening

Scott Benner 37:44
does it double back around and get you twice? Do you? Do you have a bad you know, a blood sugar you're not looking for that you don't want that feels bad to you. You feel ashamed about it, then the shame cripples you do then feel ashamed for not acting like can it like double down on you? When is the last time you wondered what your blood sugar was? Or what your child's was? Was it five minutes ago? 10 minutes ago? Was it in the last half an hour? Were you just thinking it now before I said this? Are you wondering now what it is? How wonderful would it be not to wonder anymore? Not to look across the room at somebody and think we should go get the meter. It's been an hour since he ate It's been three hours. I gave him that balls. You know, I'm going to eat the half an hour. I guess it's time for me to look at my blood sugar. Where's my meter? Let me poke a hole in my finger and find out what my blood sugar is. How would you like to never think that way again, ever. That is completely possible. Right now, with technology that exists today. All you need is the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. It's that simple. Make test trips a thing of the past. Go to dexcom.com slash juice box and get started today. It's that simple. No more finger sticks. In addition to no more finger sticks, there's a share feature. Which means that the person you love or yourself, no matter where you are in the world, someone you love can see what your blood sugar is doing. Not just what it is not just the number, but the direction it's moving and the speed it's moving in that direction. dexcom.com forward slash juice box with links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com Dexcom can bring you the comfort you deserve.

Can it like double down on you?

Katherine Hayes 39:53
It can when it's not that I'm not acting it's that I start eating Because I'm an emotional eater,

Scott Benner 40:02
and so then so then it then oh, I say so blood sugar goes higher than you want it to.

Katherine Hayes 40:08
I know like, man, I need to eat a chocolate bar.

Scott Benner 40:11
Shame they couldn't figure out how to do this. You know, it'll fix this chocolate. Yeah, blood. Blood sugar goes back up. And then it's like, yeah, and you're stuck in a cycle. Yeah, yeah, that sucks. I'm sorry. Okay, and so how long ago would you say? You realize what you just talked about? Like, how long? How long? Did you really understand the the kind of cycle of shame that you're stuck in? And how, how, what have you done so far about it?

Katherine Hayes 40:38
Well, I realized it with other things first, like, like body image, and even something as simple as like cleaning my house. And if my house was dirty, I felt like I was a loser. And, and how, like, none of that is really true. Like, like, the whole thing about shame is that it's a lie. And so I realized those things first, and I was working through those things. First, and then it was it was only like, the day that I messaged you that I had that realization,

Scott Benner 41:10
it really did hit you just then. So it's Yeah, it's been more recently. Yeah, I wish people knew, I wish, I wish you could see. But like, social media is such a great example using Instagram, as example, you if you have thousand people following on Instagram, and you put a picture up and 40 of them respond, it doesn't mean that only 40 of them saw it. And sometimes, and I don't know if this will work in the opposite way. Sometimes you'll see like girls will put up a picture of themselves. Like last year, this is me on the beach. And this year, it's me on the beach, and they're thinner this year than they were last year. I wish they knew how often I look and I go, I liked her better when she was in this then, like language, you don't mean like, and by the way, it doesn't matter when I liked her. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't matter which one of them I'm more attracted to than the other. I just think that you get a thought in your head, like, I'd be better thinner. And you don't realize that you were great the way you were. Yeah, I mean, like just maybe not to everybody but to somebody and definitely should, you know to you. And and if and if it's not. And if you're not happy with the the person from last year on the beach, it's not, it's not something to then worry what other people think like, it's just that that would be something for you. I mean, it would be no different than Gosh, I'm struggling for an example. I was terrible. I really was bad at algebra was a kid, you know. And I've now lived my entire life not being good at algebra. And it doesn't bother me. But if it's but I've never once felt bad about being not good. If I did, I might put more effort into understanding. But that would be for me, not for not for someone else. And I just don't know sometimes it doesn't get confused like the difference between what would make me feel like the person I mean to be and what it means to other people. Like if I lost weight, like that person, I'm talking about this random pretend person it would never occurred to me to put a picture up on somewhere to show people Hey, look, I've lost weight, because I don't care if they care or not. Just like just like the other just like yesterday. Oh my gosh, actually the first day of softball practice at Ardennes Middle School. We we messed up that day, nine different ways her spikes didn't fit in the morning. And I was like our bias spikes during the day. And I'll bring them over to the school side to like steal like an insert out of a sneaker and go to the shoe store with the to try to figure out how bigger to buy these shoes. Because, right? And then I get a text from a Don't forget to bring a hair tie. And I need my contact lenses. And I'm like, okay, so I bring all that stuff in. I go in the office of the school with two boxes of spikes, nine and a half and 10. I like to try both these on and we'll see which ones fit. My wife was like, Did people look at you? And I went, I don't know. Like, why would I know if they were like, I don't care. My daughter needs shoes. I don't care what other people think about this, you know, and so and so we By the way, it was the nine and a half they fit her crate and and she grabbed all of her stuff ran to the gym, I drove home, which is luckily not that far. And I get a text message where my contacts and I'm like, my pocket. And so I drove back to the school, and I pulled up on the curb and she kind of ran out of the gym and grabbed them and I went home and I have to be honest with you for whatever reason, or however my mind is wired. I never once was concerned with what other people would have thought of any of that. And I'm just lucky. Like I really and

Katherine Hayes 44:41
you have the added you have the added advantage that you were taking care of your child.

Scott Benner 44:46
Okay, okay, but I would have that And trust me, I would feel like that in any situation. And I didn't realize I used to say and I've even heard me say it on here probably in the past. Like that's just who I am like Maybe I grew up a certain way, whatever. But I never felt lucky about it till I started really talking to people on this podcast because I realized now that my inability to give a crap what other people think, or, or someone else's inability not to have to care, like they just care and they can't stop themselves. That's not something you can kind of take credit for. Like, that's not a decision you make. But I guess at some point, I believe that it was like, I believe that other people could just decide not to care what other people think, and do what's best for them. But I don't know that that's all

Katherine Hayes 45:36
I think you have to care about certain like about what certain people think like, not everybody's your critic, but the people that you care about. Those are the people that you need to, you need to care what they care about.

Scott Benner 45:48
I get Yeah, there has to be some back and forth. You can't Yeah, you can't let your hair grow down to your button, never wash it and your husband not like that very much. Just don't care what you think, buddy. Like cuz you've entered into a contract together, you're gonna live together, raise some children not have a dog, and stuff like that.

Unknown Speaker 46:05
No, one day.

Scott Benner 46:07
Don't get a dog. just telling, you will call me and five years back. I love this dog. But it's Yeah, it's killing me. And so, but, but, but I just it's very confusing. I think that's what this conversation is telling me is that it's not a set answer for anyone. But But how do you figure out what your answer is personally? Like? What? Because you're new to the six? So the understanding the shame, like what do you think you're gonna do about it? or what have you been doing?

Katherine Hayes 46:38
Well, I think like, the first thing is to understand that we all have an inherent worth. And that and like, because shame is this feeling like we're unworthy. And, and so like really believing in your own worth is important. And then also talking about it. And then also, just like transforming shame into guilt, because guilt is what really helps us change our behavior. And so that's what I've been trying to do. I've been so I don't have a Dexcom right now, because I lost my transmitter when we moved. And so I'm in the process of getting the G phi, which I'm so excited about. But I have been having to test my blood sugar like 10 1214 times a day to like, actually get a handle on it. And, and that is tough. And it takes a lot of focus, which I don't always have

Scott Benner 47:42
to remember to do it and serve. Yes, yeah. When you feel okay. There's doesn't feel like there's

Katherine Hayes 47:47
Oh, and but then the other thing is, like, I think two nights this week, I fell asleep without my pump on and woke up like 300 400 and I was like, No, I'm an animist pump. So I'm also trying to get the Omni pod

Scott Benner 48:04
I just want people to know that when you hear me read the ads and I'm like, you know, you can't you'll never take it off for your shower and forget to put it back I know

Katherine Hayes 48:10
I keep I keep thinking about that because it's like two times this week I fell asleep without it on. Oh, and I was like, you know, this wouldn't happen with the pot

Scott Benner 48:20
was this was that really the situation like did you get out of the shower and just forget to put it back on?

Katherine Hayes 48:25
Or I so my clip broke the clip that attaches it to usually my waistband broke and so I have to take it off if I'm not wearing something that I can clip it to. Or like no I can't I can't clip to anything so like sometimes when I get out of bed I just take it off if I have to like go go to the kids or something and get back into bed and forget to put

Scott Benner 48:53
it back on insulin for a while then while that's happy Oh yeah, before you forget to put it back on you don't have okay well listen, it's too late in the show for the Omni pod ad but if you didn't listen to the on the pad early call back and listen to it. You don't have to ever take the Omni pod off it's with you constantly and there's no disconnect disconnect things it's an issue and because you can forget because forgetting is listen to her times I start across the room and by the time I get to the other side I'm like why am I here?

Unknown Speaker 49:26
I forget what I walked over here for and so you only have two kids. Exactly. Exactly. Well

Scott Benner 49:31
you really should be ahead of me though because your your underwear is more magical than mine is but it's still you would think that that would give you some sort of a boost but it maybe apparently doesn't I think it I think it does it just doesn't affect the the insulin pump thing as well. Well. I think that's a good I hear I heard what you said I want you to explain that a little better though. Like you said you need if you feel shame, you have to throw in the shame and the guilt because you won't because guilt you can address is that was that the idea like you

Katherine Hayes 50:00
Yep. Because like I was saying, when I feel shame I freeze. And freezing doesn't do anyone any good. And so if I can transform that into just moving and trying,

Unknown Speaker 50:13
things are gonna get better. So the shame is more crip the shame is crippling. Oh, yeah, where the guilt just feels bad. Yeah, it feels bad, but it can help you see where you want to go? interesting way to think about it.

Katherine Hayes 50:29
I think that like that concept is something that's really misunderstood. Especially in the south, where I'm living right now. Because people kind of use the they think like, shame is gonna help someone change their behavior. And it doesn't.

Scott Benner 50:44
That's that's not a good tool.

Unknown Speaker 50:46
Yeah, it's horrible.

Scott Benner 50:47
You would make this better if you felt ashamed about it. Oh, yeah. Thanks, your thank God, I met you.

Katherine Hayes 50:53
My son's in kindergarten. And people are trying to use shame on him to get him to do his kindergarten work. And it's like, this is not work. Don't do this.

Scott Benner 51:03
No, that's definitely not valuable. And so you don't, so maybe not guilt, the way people are thinking about the word but more as something happened, I could have been in control of it. It's it's within my grasp to be in control of something like that. And so next time, if I make a better decision, it or a different decision, it should go differently, which should alleviate the issue. And and then I wouldn't feel badly that it didn't go well. Whereas, whereas shame is more like, just it just shuts you off. Right away. Yeah. So it goes back to it's probably more of a something it's burned into you from a younger age, I would think do you think it's

Katherine Hayes 51:48
I think it's an all of us.

Scott Benner 51:50
Yeah, no, I do to like the Where do you think it really activated? Do you think it was? Do you think it could have been before you were diagnosed, she really think it was right around the diagnosis and the way you were treated by the doctors at that time?

Unknown Speaker 52:01
Um,

Scott Benner 52:04
did your pair is my question. I'm trying not to ask you because I don't want to insult you. But did your parents like, shame you when you were a kid?

Unknown Speaker 52:12
I don't think so.

Scott Benner 52:14
It's very sarcastic. And there are times where I'm like, Did I just make him feel bad? Because it but then I look, and he's got such a good sense of humor. And I think he takes it and still instill, I told my son the other day, I said, here's the best piece of advice that I got when I was 19 or 20 that I didn't take soon enough in my life. I said, women don't like it. When you're sarcastic with them. They pretend they do. They laugh along. And they're like, aha, I'm like, but it hurts their feelings and don't do it. And so

Katherine Hayes 52:42
that's really good advice.

Scott Benner 52:43
Yeah. Like, I was like, they're trying really hard to be one of the guys, but they're not their girls. And, and that's okay, by the way, that's not just okay. It's, it's great. And, and just don't, don't do that one. I said, if you're doing that one, your girlfriend is just trying to make you feel better. And I was like, don't be sarcastic whether Just tell her how you feel. And tell her what you think about things be honest. Oh, and it's fine to joke. But for some reason, buddy, and I said, I don't know, I'm gonna have to be alive a couple hundred more years before I completely understand the whole thing. Sarcasm is not really good for the ladies you're with. And, and he was like, he's not he looked at me. I was like, I'm telling you, this is a good one. Take this one with you. It's, um, it just there's just some things we don't like, respect, respond to do you know, like, I know, for me, if somebody tells me to do something, you're can be fairly certain I'm gonna do the opposite. Like,

Katherine Hayes 53:39
I'm the same way

Scott Benner 53:42
about myself. And for the person who wrote me an email a couple weeks ago and said that my personal stories get in the way of other people talking. I don't care what you think they're.

Katherine Hayes 53:53
I disagree.

Scott Benner 53:55
It's still got to be a conversation. I can't come on and be like, so Catherine, you're ashamed, huh? I'll talk to you again in an hour at the end, like,

Unknown Speaker 54:03
go on and on and on about fame. No one would listen to that.

Scott Benner 54:06
I'll tell you what, by 20 minutes, and you'd be ashamed that you talk about a lot of luck. You probably shouldn't feel shame. Will so you're in a really interesting position, because you're at the discovery point, like you figured out kind of what's up. And you have an action plan for how to maybe get out of it. But you haven't been at it long enough to really be able to say, this is working for me or are you can you see it working? Please tell me you've been dancing for diabetes.com and that you've gone to their Facebook or their Instagram. you've checked out the incredible pictures of those adorable children. Are you saying You haven't? Are you the one you're the one person left? Come on? What are you doing? Dancing for? diabetes.com do it now?

Katherine Hayes 54:50
Not yet. I have I have an endo appointment this afternoon. So I'm really excited to see what's happened but to be honest, I've only been In my transformative period for a month, so I'm still going to have two months of probably really high a one C. And then my one month will bring it down a little bit.

Scott Benner 55:12
How about sugars by? No, you don't have your CGM right now, but how is your blood sugar spin?

Katherine Hayes 55:17
I think my average has been at times 140.

Scott Benner 55:21
It's pretty good. It's gonna probably put you right around one, like seven, or ish. I'm guessing

Katherine Hayes 55:27
I calculated what I thought it was going to be. And I think it's gonna be an eight.

Unknown Speaker 55:32
Okay. Well, I

Katherine Hayes 55:33
mean, that's, that's if I well, it probably will be less than that. I was assuming that my agency was really, really, really bad. Before. Okay. But I could have been wrong, I might have to spend a dramatic,

Scott Benner 55:47
dramatic, was just talking to somebody the other day in a podcast that we recorded. And I and we talked about how, how you have to avoid being dramatic in your life, but especially around diabetes, like it just it doesn't, it serves no good purpose to be dramatic about the about type one about blood sugar. It's just, it's just a way to pull your focus away from something that might actually help you and, and just distract, you know, yeah. Well, I want we're not up on an hour yet. But I want to know, like, I want I it occurred to me first to just wish you luck on this. But I wondered, instead of doing that, like what would what would help you do you think, succeed with this,

Katherine Hayes 56:32
I'm gonna keep listening to your podcast, because like I said, it, it offers like, really good, like technical advice, as well as just emotional support when you're talking about it and laughing and saying, me too,

Scott Benner 56:48
that's so powerful. Not feeling alone is really powerful. So you're so you're gonna get so what you need is, you need support, like kind of the way you got it in Arizona, from somebody who's like, I'm on your side. And I think this is valuable for you to hear that you can do this. And here's some more tools. Because I do think that really is the long and the short of it is that you need the right tools. You need to know how to use them. And you need to know that you're not alone. I think that just that stuff, just that those couple things are just incredibly valuable. And I'm glad, I'm glad you're getting it anywhere. It's nice that it's coming here, but it's still I'm just really thrilled.

Katherine Hayes 57:30
I honestly don't know of any other source for this. You know,

Scott Benner 57:36
I'm sure that I'm listening. I'm sure there is. It's not as fun as mine. But But still I but

Unknown Speaker 57:42
we need funds, everybody needs funds, there are blogs that people write that are that I'm sure that I would never get through. Because

Katherine Hayes 57:51
I just I don't want to like, sit down and read a blog about diabetes. In my spare time. Honestly,

Unknown Speaker 57:58
I think that what writing lack unless there's gonna be a lot of jokes,

Scott Benner 58:02
you will see, I was gonna say, I think what the writing lacks, because I've done the I've done the writing at length in the past. And it's when you write something, you can't hear someone's voice, and so that they're always very careful to be serious about it. And then by the time you get, like, Well, that was more depressing than anything else. Mm hmm. Maybe I can find myself in that story. But I think what talking like this allows, is for sidebars, for you to stop talking about the serious thing for a minute. And to joke about something else or talking about something else, I realized that that you're more of a, you know, a complete person than this story allows you to express and know and so I do appreciate that it that it strikes you this way. I really do. I hope you realize that. That you listening and anybody else listening gave me the motivation to keep doing it. And it's a it's very, it's very much a circle of life between the people listening and me making it. I know myself if if I would have made it and it would have been good. I could have kept going for a while if nobody was listening. But I needed it to reach more people to like so that it didn't Yeah, like not that helping one person is a waste of time. But it might be hard to imagine how much time it takes to make this podcast.

Katherine Hayes 59:29
Right. The more the more effort you put into it, the more feedback you need to just want to see going to see it

Scott Benner 59:35
come back. I joked earlier about the person who emailed me and didn't like that i interjected so much. But I read their email and I took it to heart. You don't I mean, and I've done that over and over again, this podcast. I just said it recently somebody else made me a better listener. And I'm a better listener. Now I understand things better because I'm not always just hearing key words from you and formulating my thought and moving on like I'm really trying to hear What you're saying? Because, and this has been especially helpful to me, because I don't feel shame the way you describe. And so around diabetes but but you talk about I'm like I am there are things about myself I'm ashamed about. It's it's just I don't give it any weight. And maybe I should a little bit maybe I should be a little more aware of that. And I wouldn't have gotten that if I didn't listen to you.

Katherine Hayes 1:00:26
Yeah, as long as as long as we just turn it into guilt instead of shame.

Scott Benner 1:00:31
And you don't mean that in a bad way. Right? You just know.

Katherine Hayes 1:00:34
So good. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Because, cuz, I mean, we want to change, we don't want to stay exactly as we are. Now we want to get better. And oh, that was something that is so important to me is that I was reading in my journal from like, a few years ago. And I wrote, like, I want to be healthy. And like, I think that, like everybody, I'm pretty sure everybody, maybe everybody wants to be healthy. And we want to take care of ourselves. We want to have good a onesies, we want to be able to do these things. But for some reason, there's always there, there is something in the way, and we need to figure out how to get over that hurdle.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
Yeah, you have to remove I think that one thing that I I'm trying to do here is to remove the hurdles, I think there's already there's a ton of them, then we add more. It needs to be simplified, you know, and I was describing the other day about using insulin to somebody privately. And when I got done, I was like, I'm sorry, if I made that sound overly simplistic. I know you're struggling with it, I said, but in the end, it is really overly simplistic. You're just trying to balance the action of the insulin against the action of the carbs.

Katherine Hayes 1:01:51
I think I listened to that one.

Scott Benner 1:01:52
There's no more to it than that. Really. I mean, there's there is there's other outside influences. But those influences are just trying to influence your blood sugar, which in turn just need you to rebalance your insulin it really added more is is sort of just that. And and I want to expand a little later. And obviously, it's not going to be in this episode. But I think I've just realized too, that we're always talking about, you know, people like bumping and nudging insulin, but you can bump and nudge carbs to like there's, there's a you should be thinking about the carbohydrates the same way you're thinking about the insulin and vice versa. Not it's not a one sided affair. So I don't know, I just and listen, Kevin, we really are we're right up on an hour. But I want to thank you, because then you mentioned at the beginning, which probably won't make it in the podcast, that you have been sick for a while, and you've kind of got a you said, This isn't what my voice usually sounds. But you powered through very nicely, and you sounded fantastic. And I know that might not have been easy for you. So I really appreciate you doing this.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
thank thank you very much. Is

Scott Benner 1:03:00
there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03
Um,

Katherine Hayes 1:03:07
I think just, there was one thing I the the antidote to shame, is empathy. And so that's what really, really we were really talking about is that we need to connect with each other, we need to have a strong diabetes community. And I think you're really contributing to that which I love. But when we, when we connect with each other, we just find the way to act, and to do the things that we need to do to be healthy. And I'm so grateful for that.

Scott Benner 1:03:38
You're very welcome. Do you have somebody in your life personally, that's doing that for you? Is your husband, have you explained how you feel your husband or somebody close?

Katherine Hayes 1:03:45
Yeah, he's got all these plans for like doing experiments on my blood. Like, he's like, okay, you're gonna you're gonna fast from this time to this time, and we're gonna see, like, what your basal rate does. And he's he's got all these plans, and he's been researching. So

Scott Benner 1:04:04
I'll tell him to take those kids out for a couple hours. That'll help you too. And

Unknown Speaker 1:04:08
I know you're pregnant. I know.

Scott Benner 1:04:12
You would think that underwear will protect you from that, but no, I guess, huh?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:15
No, it encouraged because it's so comfy. Yeah.

Katherine Hayes 1:04:22
And attractive.

Scott Benner 1:04:26
to you with everyone. Listen, at the end of this podcast, it's gonna end a second. First you go to my links and click on the Dexcom and the Omnipod links to try out the products. But then you've got to go Google. What should they Google to to get a picture?

Katherine Hayes 1:04:40
Well, it's on lds.org. And you can just type in Garmin.

Scott Benner 1:04:47
Alright, I'm doing it now

Unknown Speaker 1:04:48
called Garmin lbs.org.

Scott Benner 1:04:50
Which stands for what?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:52
Latter Day thing? Yeah, Latter Day Saints? Yeah, is it LDS D.

Scott Benner 1:04:59
I'm like lbs. Yeah. pounds. Hold on a second. Yeah. All right. And then I go to the search and I type in garments. Yeah. Second, Mormon underwear is the temple. Well, it better be coffee because it is not completely stylish. I'm just gonna say that right now. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:19
you got to see it on.

Scott Benner 1:05:22
gotta see it on. Oh my gosh. All right. Well, I know it's gonna take me a while but I'm gonna have to

Katherine Hayes 1:05:30
go down the rabbit hole. I

Scott Benner 1:05:31
have to break up with my wife find out more.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:33
Oh, no, no, you don't think?

Scott Benner 1:05:36
Oh, I don't want to do that. Okay. Catherine, thank you very, very much. Thank you, Dexcom and Omni pod. Thank you dancing for diabetes. appreciate all of your support. Please check them out. There's links at Juicebox podcast.com in the show notes. And I've said the link so many times, you must know them by now. dexcom.com Ford slash juice box, my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box and dancing for diabetes.com. I want to shout out Tyler real quick Tyler. Thanks for letting your mom come on the show last week and tell your story. I really appreciate that. And hey, everyone at the jdrf in southwest Ohio. I'm coming. I'll be there in a few days. We're going to talk about being bold with insulin. It's going to be great

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#190 Stopping the Arrows

T1D Management talk with Jessica…

A type 1 diabetes management conversation with D-Mom Jessica.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - google play/android - iheart radio -  or their favorite podcast app.

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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 and welcome to Episode 190 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today we're sponsored by Dexcom Omni pod and dancing for diabetes. Please go to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Dancing the number four diabetes.com or my omnipod.com forward slash juicebox To find out more about the sponsors. Okay, today's episode is with Jessica. Jessica is a nurse and she's a D mom. And she's really chatty. So she's perfect for the podcast. And we talk a lot about management ideas today. That's why today's episode is called stopping the arrows. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should ever be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before being bold with insulin.

Guys, if you just give me one second, I promised a shout out Libby rose in the United Kingdom. She's six years old, has had Type One Diabetes for a year and she listens to the podcast with her dad. Hi, Libby rose. Hope you have a great day.

Jessica 1:17
I'm Jessica, I guess. Yeah, I'm Jessica. I'm a nurse. I'm a labor and delivery nurse. So I knew very little about diabetes before Type One Diabetes before my son was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 1:29
And how old was your son when he was diagnosed?

Jessica 1:31
He was eight, almost nine and now he's nine. So it was about 10 months ago.

Scott Benner 1:36
Okay, so you're not even quite up to a year now. Okay. And I'm trying to decide if I'm what people okay. So talk to how to tell people how we met.

Jessica 1:49
Oh, I think I just started messaging you over Instagram. Because I just, I was so sick of struggling to find answers. That I thought warrants. We don't curse BS. Right. Right. Um, because I, I remember, I got home from the hospital. And all the overwhelming parts of it sort of settled? I mean, no, I mean, I'm still overwhelmed, but you know, kind of settled. And, and I thought, What does a normal blood sugar look like? You know, in a child of my son's age who's not diabetics, and I typed that into Google, and I couldn't even get an answer for that.

Scott Benner 2:30
Um, that was pretty disturbing. Right off the bat, like, I don't even know what to aim for.

Jessica 2:36
Exactly. And I knew that what they were telling me to aim for, just in set sit right with me. But I didn't have the information behind those feelings to tell them I don't agree with you. It was just sort of a gut and that didn't feel you know, I like if I'm gonna start arguing with somebody cuz I'm actually not very confrontational. So if I'm gonna start arguing something I need to feel like 100% correct. And, and so I didn't, I didn't know. I felt sort of lost because the information I was getting felt like it had good intentions, but it felt like, like, Bs, and and and when I tried to find information that sat right with me, I couldn't find it. Until I found your podcast.

Scott Benner 3:21
Well, that's so both. So when you are out in the world, like basically, someone would say, I think, you know, I keep my kids blood sugar at this number. I aim for this, then people all had different target numbers.

Jessica 3:32
Um, yeah, for the most part, but they were, they were just high and it didn't feel right. Like, somebody told my husband to set his pie at 250 and his low at 80. Because you can have my son's alarming because that way, he can have a warning before it hits 70 because 70 the world and the world is ending, you know? So I was like, No, no, now are high. I knew what you're gonna say you didn't even I didn't even let you get the whole question.

Scott Benner 4:06
So, so let's for the people listening now, like Jessica and I spoke on the phone a couple of times. And Jessica is, Jess, you are, I mean to call you chatty, I think would be an undervalued ability to talk. Right? So there are a couple of people. I it doesn't happen very often to me where I stand in a room and I think I can't get a word in here. But don't be sorry. It just definitely is I've been on the phone with Jess and she's talking and I think to myself, is it necessary that I'm here and but but that's good for this because you will not be at a loss for what you for what you think or how you feel. So that's so anyway, guys, you'll probably hear me talk less or I'll be just as already asked me to throw up a stop sign if I feel like she's getting it. Yeah. So So okay, so we did talk on the phone a couple of times. And I think that the first time for anybody who's ever called privately, I think that what I do is I try to in about 20 minutes, give you what I think is like a high level kind of overview of all the things that we talked about on the podcast. But I try really hard to leave people that I speak with privately with a couple of ideas. hyzer more difficult to deal with. And those are, you know, that you should set if you have a DAX Kami to set your high threshold lowers that you can react sooner that, you know, you need to make small adjustments to insulin whenever you can, because large adjustments end up with lows later and like just these little things, but I try to do it kind of conversationally, and at the same time, I never know, if it's actually valuable for the person I hear back from a lot of people were like, Oh, this has been great. So I kind of think it is. But even as I'm saying, and I think this is a lot of information in a short amount of time. So after we spoke on the phone, did you do it? Was it helpful at all? But

Jessica 5:55
yes, it was so helpful. Because I had those thoughts already. And that's just, you know, no, but but I did, but nobody was supporting them. And so to have your support just gave me the confidence to stand up to my husband who came over to the site this side very quickly, but or to feel confident walking into the endocrinologist office, you know, being able to defend, you know, what they were seeing on our graphs or whatever? Or, or even just to friends who have some children with type one or or friends who don't, you know, who were asking me to educate them. And I felt like Who am I to educate them on one kid? But then I felt like, wait, I know, more solid, yeah, I felt more solid in the things I thought I knew. Because Because you backed me up. So

Scott Benner 6:51
there's two thoughts. And there's one that it is really important for somebody to, you know, kind of echo your, your feelings. Because when you have a feeling about something that you have no basis of understanding for, even though you're you start thinking, you know, I'm seeing this day after day, this makes sense to me, it still is hard to stand up and count yourself as a, you know, for somebody who really knows, and right. And so that's where that really kind of like simple concept that we talked about on the podcast all the time, but you just have to at some point, you have to trust your gut. Like, you know, something makes sense to you, you have to trust that at the same time. The other thing I heard was your husband bumped into somebody who told them 70 to 250. This is the range at 80 to 250. This is the right, yeah. And so and so that's what he heard first. And I think that's maybe, to me, the most important thing about getting good information out quickly, is that the earlier in your diagnosis, you hear good information, that becomes your rule. You know what I mean? So So if someone hits you first with, hey, just try to keep them between 102 50 then you think, Oh, well, then that must be good. That must be okay. Someone just told me that I related very simply to the idea of, you know, we don't use no valade. But when we were when my daughter was diagnosed, we were given no vlog in the hospital. And in my mind, that's what insulin was. It did not occur to me to wonder if there were other insulins I just was like, Oh, this is insulin, the hospital gave it to me. Uh huh. You know, so I think that's important that, that for people to hear that if you do hear kind of good information up front, that can kind of be your frame of reference. And so when you have that frame of reference, what did you do with it? Today, when you're sitting at your desk, and you're kind of zoning out and don't know what to do, and you're just looking for a little break, but you need to look like you're still working? You know what I'm talking about? Go to dancing for diabetes.com. That's dancing, the number four diabetes.com See if little kids with diabetes, dancing doesn't pick your right back up and give you enough energy to get through the day. The frame of reference for like, Hey, I should be a little more aggressive with insulin. I shouldn't be scared of this. I tried it like when you when once you had this? Isn't the comfort what how did you react in in your son's? Oh,

Jessica 9:05
well, first of all, I went from being terrified and freaking out and feeling and that's not my personality. I mean, I definitely have some, some I'm high strung, but I don't have anxiety. It's weird. I'm just hyper, you know. And I became like, anxious, like, I had anxiety for the first time. And I went from that to feeling less scared and feeling more empowered. And, and that was a huge step in taking care of Ty was feeling and for him even to have confidence in me. You know that that? And, and so yes, I was bolder. I love that word. By the way. I was bolder with the insulin. I was. And we were doing MDI forever and we just started our pump two weeks ago, but we were bolder, we experimented and I told him, you know, we're not perfect. diabetes can be unpredictable, and even You know, his activity level or whatever can be unpredictable. But every time that something doesn't go the way we want it, we're just going to learn from it, it's going to become part of our arsenal of weapons against this disease. And, and that was another obviously another philosophy I learned from you, that really was hugely beneficial as well, because then we didn't expect things, we didn't expect to have things go wrong, but when they did, we didn't feel defeated, or, or we didn't take them as the setbacks to then go back to not being bold with the insulin, we just used them as, like, as new information that will make us even better later on. And, and so, so empowered, even by our own mistakes, we're being empowered, you know, and, and just learning all the time and, and, and taking not taking risks. But following our guide, and not being afraid to and knowing that we know how to get out of the lows and get out of the highs, and it'll be all right, and we'll just be better for it. Because we'll have learned,

Scott Benner 11:06
I have to say that in almost 200 recordings, you're the first person to use the word philosophy. And I was like, Oh, that's like, that's fancy. I'm gonna think of that better now. We'll have to say now that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered philosophy. But, but I'm glad that I'm especially striking to me, is the idea of you not being afraid, because I genuinely believe that that's, that's step one. That when you're afraid, everything else we talked about becomes difficult or impossible, because you're always second guessing, erring on the side of caution doing things like that. And you also said that it gave your son the confidence in you that you know what you're talking about. And I think that's undervalued, too, because kids aren't stupid. And when you're faking it, they can figure that out a little bit, you know, and so it is, it is a big deal for them to believe in you. Absolutely. You know what I mean? So and you can't, you can't give off that vibe if you don't genuinely have it. Right. Like, I'm sure there's some people are pretty good actors, but

Jessica 12:13
I'm terrible, terrible, terrible, liar. Awful.

Scott Benner 12:16
I love. I love that you described yourself as high strung. Now I just think of like a cat with not all of its hair. And

Jessica 12:25
it's more, um, I have ADHD. So it's more like an add sort of,

Unknown Speaker 12:30
I don't know, no, no, no, I

Scott Benner 12:31
definitely get what you're saying. Like there's a, if there's a way to be excitable, or, you know, even scattered without being anxious. And anxiety is terrible. Like, I've, I didn't know you were going to bring that up. But I've been thinking about that a lot, the last couple of days, because I was talking to somebody who brought it up, you know, about like, my anxiety, my anxiety, and here I am a person, I don't feel that way. I don't have anxiety, like there's strife or turmoil, and I'm just like, I can see the path to how this works out. So I don't, I don't worry about the other stuff. And, and I tried to say that on here in the past is like, you know, the concept that like, worrying is a waste of your imagination, because you really don't know what's gonna happen in the future. And to pretend that you do, you know, to make a worry in yourself is really just putting something into the future. I mean, if you're going to make something up, you should make up something fun, not not not worrisome that I get that there are some things that are more tangible than others, you know, you know, insulin is dangerous, you know, I understand worrying about that, but not to the point where it causes me anxiety or that but, but that's not everyone's reality, some people are just anxious.

Jessica 13:46
Now, yeah, like, you just get caught in this loop of, I don't know, like negativity, you know, just, oh, you know, this happened to my family, and we got to live with it for a whole the rest of our lives, and then just that thought then goes into it, and oh, you know, all these, these terrible things could happen, and then you just sort of get more and more negative. And so then my usual, high strung sort of just happy, I mean, people used to laugh at me like that I live in this little bubble, you know, of, you know, just I was always like seeing the bright side, even like, as a nurse, you know, all my patients are so sweet and so great. And my friends or my colleagues are like, not all your patients can be that great. We've had some really, you know, and I'm the best in them. I was always like, the cup is half full, like the bright side kind of person. And and this happened. And so all that energy sort of became more negatively.

Scott Benner 14:42
You know, your baseline for expectation. Yeah, something bad's gonna happen.

Jessica 14:46
Yeah, yeah. And, and so, yeah, I sort of just snapped out of that recently, and it just feels it feels so good. And yeah, and part of that is I was getting Tyler his pump that just felt like a huge win, because we fought hard for that. And, and yeah, just feeling more empowered, like really just feeling like, you know, we, we can take this on and and we'll we'll be we'll be good at it, we'll be great at it, you know, we'll just make a positive thing.

Scott Benner 15:17
Yeah, it's interesting how you just put that idea of getting a pump is empowering just because you won the battle not so much about having an insulin pump, but about setting out to take something about diabetes and and kind of slay it and beat it. So do when you ask for a pump initially, did

Jessica 15:32
they tell you you know, kind of Yeah, I mean, you just got this look of I don't know if you're ready kind of thing. Because Tyler, when I asked for it, his insulin requirements were very small. And I was told I think he was on at the time four units of the long acting of basic bar. And they're like, I think he should be he needs to be on at least five in order to get a pump. And and that didn't make any sense to me. Because with a pump you you don't even you can turn off your Faisal, you don't

Scott Benner 16:06
even know you spoke up and you push through with your with your endo, you've you forced their hand.

Jessica 16:14
Um, I tried to it didn't work. I tried to I found so well, I convinced the endo, we were ready for the pump. And then I think that that I want that little battle I won. So then the nurse educators were like, okay, but then you need to wait for a class to open up, they do these pump classes. And I'm like, why do I need a pump class? I've been doing so much research, and I've been listening and and and i also have this amazing friends that we made through my son's a part of trial of, of a study trying to not through chat. Well, they're related. I think it's at the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami.

Scott Benner 17:03
Oh, cool. I'm speaking at a thing that I think is benefiting them in April.

Unknown Speaker 17:08
Oh, really? Cool. Yeah. No, I'm

Scott Benner 17:10
there. I'm using I'll be in Orlando. And I think the I think the proceeds from that go to the ri Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 17:16
I'm pretty sure. Oh, it's

Jessica 17:18
an interesting place. Um, maybe I want to work there one day. I'm hoping well, so

Scott Benner 17:21
I so I just I just got a note yesterday from Robert. And Robert listens to the podcast. And he went to his, you know, went to his son's endo, and said, We want to get a pump. And they said, Well, you know, you can't have a pump until you've had diabetes for six months. And he said, that doesn't sound right to me. And I said I would just I would just go around them. And he immediately did he called the pump company that he wanted to use. And he said, I want to get started on trying to get my son an insulin pump. And my doctor's office is being resistant, and they're gonna help. Oh, really? Yeah. Because it's, I mean, it's tough. It's a leap, because then you're, you know, you're gonna drive a wedge a little bit between what your doctor told you and this, but he's just not willing to wait. So he's gonna try it on his own. I can even just it's, it's, listen, it's an arbitrary thing. Six months? What does that mean? Why six months? Why not? Seven? How come that four months? Why is it not nine months? Like, what is the? What's the, you know? What is that?

Jessica 18:20
What does that mean? And what's the premise? Yeah, is it because they want you to learn insulin through injections first, or? Or? I don't even understand what what what do they think is? Is the value? What are they looking for? Take away the number. What are they looking for?

Scott Benner 18:38
I am not I am at a loss for understanding because people will advocate for it like, Oh, you should have to do it with injections. First, I don't know what the difference is between how the insulin gets in my body? Why is it different? Because I push it a needle or I push on a button. It's

Jessica 18:51
still anything. I'm learning more about insulin, nowadays a pump than I did with injections. If it was just, it was Yeah, I

Scott Benner 19:00
think that there are like sort of some old timey concepts that we hold on to a little too long. And you know, you need to understand how to manage diabetes with a needle before you can do it with a pump. I get the over arching ideas of like, you know, well, what if your pump fails? What are you gonna do then? Like, I probably have them FedEx me a new pump. And

Unknown Speaker 19:22
you know, when you reach that, and plus,

Scott Benner 19:24
yes, then I would have to figure that out. And so why do I have to do it for I mean, you know, for six months or a year, some places say a year, if then for a year before, before, we'll let you think about a pump. It just seems arbitrary to me. If you're really I think when you're ready, you're ready. And yeah, you know, so I don't know why. I don't know why you have to follow the rules of when somebody else's ready. If I'm ready in three months, then I'm ready. Now if it's if it's two weeks, then I'm ready now like what's the point? I don't know.

Jessica 19:55
This animal Yeah, on that, you know, just and then these classes these classes were

Scott Benner 20:00
Well, I just saw someone on Facebook this morning say, hey, my pump arrived at my house, should I just go on YouTube and watch a video and start using it? I was thinking, yeah, you should do that. It's just, it's funny too, because there are different like their brains that work different ways like yours, or the this person I saw on Facebook this morning, like, I've got it, I should start. And then you see other people that before they even have it, they're like, um, could you please list all the things that could possibly go wrong? I'm like, Wow, that's a weird way to think about this. But okay, you know, like, like, so I want to know, everything that could go wrong, or, you know, what, what are the pros and cons of this is like, I, you know, all you're inviting is for people to come on and tell you their problems. And I hate to say, but a lot of problems with anything, forget insulin pumps, it's a lot of times, it's just user error, it's your inability to understand and the only way you're really gonna understand that is to do it a couple of times, you know, so it's, it's interesting, but moreover, that people's minds are like, please, someone tell me what's gonna go wrong. So I don't have to worry where other people think, I can't wait to do this to see what can go right. It is really just a mind get on me.

Jessica 21:10
I do I met and that's where I was at, I was like, I just can't wait to get my hands on it and just start doing things and learning just like before, when we would do things, and if mistakes happened, or it didn't go right, then we would just learn and that's a good thing. You know, I don't need a class, I'm just gonna, you know, I'll read the manual, or whatever, I don't I never, I'll fumble through it. And, and I'll, you know, shoot ideas off my husband and even my son Tyler. And and we'll figure it out. You know, and, and I got to tell you, they're very well intentioned, but I didn't learn anything. I didn't learn anything from that those pump classes and, and they really were just, they were detrimental, I think to my Tyler because they were Monday nights after school from for four hours. So we had to pick him up from school, drop my other two kids off at my sister's and then spend four hours in a windowless room

Scott Benner 22:08
for how many how many Monday nights did this go on for?

Jessica 22:11
That was three Monday through Monday night. 12 hours? Yeah, and no. And then a Tuesday, all day? Well, it was with me all day. But it was I would say I was like probably another four or five hours.

Scott Benner 22:21
So 1617 hours to learn how to use a pump.

Jessica 22:25
But we didn't, but we didn't really

Unknown Speaker 22:27
learn anything.

Jessica 22:28
We learned about carb counting. And so this was a simple, simple carbs versus complex. I mean, things work that were like, it almost felt condescending, you know, those

Scott Benner 22:39
concepts aren't specific to pumpers. those concepts are for everybody. So it's a pump class, where we're now going to go back over diabetes again.

Jessica 22:48
Now, one mention of extended bolusing not one mention of Temp Basal. Both of the things I actually would love to sit down and just like, think learn better, you know, think about Yeah, it's it's gotten like a sort of, you know, because I'm still trying to figure those out. I'm

Scott Benner 23:07
at the end, you can fill out for feedback.

Jessica 23:09
There was and we left early and like, Oh, no, I forgot to turn this in. And then yeah, it wasn't no but fine. It was a time suck. For me. It was difficult finding childcare for my other two kids. But I actually think it was harmful to my son because he he actually had some anxiety, which has always increased by his blood sugar's By the way, which I which is one of my main motivators for keep keeping him hidden low, not low, low, but like, you know, on the lower end, um, and, and he also has my ADHD, or kid, but he is sitting in that room, and they were really just expected to be quiet the whole time. Oh, yeah. And, and caring and seeing all this. And it's sort of not being not being able to move because, you know, he's active, and after being in school all day, and then this, it just was just, I think it was really hard on him, he came home and he he, he did not, he was beaten by it.

Scott Benner 24:12
I can't tell you, he took it took any of the joy he might have been considering coming and he just be pushed into a classroom situation where he wasn't even allowed to participate. And

Jessica 24:26
I think he, they wanted him to participate. But I think they wanted him to participate in that sort of way. That that, like, you know, the dream vision you have of the kids participating in your class,

Scott Benner 24:38
the little adults that raised their

Jessica 24:40
robot you like Yeah, and that's not we these kids really are like, you know, he he wants to tell you a story about one day when blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and everyone's like, keep wasting time.

Scott Benner 24:55
Listen, this is a longer episode today. So I'm not gonna waste your time with these long drawn out ads with the great stories, although they are really good personal stories, but nevertheless, let's get right to it. I think you'd like the Omni pod. And I think the only way to know for sure is to try it. But how do you try an insulin pump without buying it? Luckily for you, Omni pod has a free demo, they'll send you out the pump. I haven't really talked this through in a while, but you get a pump in the mail and on the pod, no, it doesn't work, don't worry, it's not gonna like, give you insulin or anything like that. You can put it on and wear it. And try it for a number of days to see what you think. That's pretty amazing. Because what you're going to find, I'm betting is that when you put it on, you're going to forget that it's there. And that's going to make you feel comfortable moving forward, my expectation, maybe your expectations are different. Maybe your results will be different. I can't be getting to know your life. But I can know that trying is the only way to find out. And it's free, and it has no obligation. So there really is not one reason why you wouldn't do this, all you need to do is go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. There's links in your show notes, there's links at Juicebox podcast.com. And by now I've said it enough, you must remember, go there, fill in the tiniest bit of information. And on the pod, we'll send you out a demo and you can try it for yourself. That's it. Look, I'm done before the music's over Miami pod.com forward slash juicebox. Oh, you know what I did forget one thing, sorry, on the pods on Instagram, now, go follow them. My on the pod on Instagram, tell my center. There's some people are good communicators and some people aren't. So my son was in. He's a senior in high school. And he gets that he texts me the other day. And he says that we're in a opioid thing right now. And I'm like, what he goes they brought the cops in and everything. We're all in the in the you know, in this big auditorium, too. There is a woman up here speaking and, and she's just, like really broken in her delivery. And she doesn't seem to know what she wants to say. And she's stammering and like this whole thing, and he's losing focus. So I jumped back with my text back. I said, Maybe she's a drug addict, and they're bringing them in to show you what could happen, you know, like, and like, and he laughed a lot. I was trying to lighten them up a little bit. And about 20 minutes later, he texts me back and he goes, but you know what, it's actually it's a police officer. And, and she's just a really terrible communicator. And so they brought in just the wrong voice. Like, I'm sure what she was saying was great. But the way she presented it was so off putting that the kids just shut off. And and that's a real concern. And sometimes it's the message. That's the problem. And sometimes it's the it's the way that's delivered. I was at something recently where there was a keynote speaker for diabetes, and I was like, wow, this is terrible. Like I got up and left at some point. I was like, I can't sit here and listen to this. It was a person who was telling me having diabetes is hard, and it's scary. And I was like, Okay, and then I thought okay, like I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I'm like, the next thing they're gonna say is and Here are ways that you can make it less difficult or less frightening, but no, just the delivery of the message to a roomful of newly diagnosed people that this is really scary and really difficult. And I thought what benefit is this?

Jessica 28:28
Like? My huge, that's my problem. That's one of my biggest problems with. With with my experience so far, with my son's diagnosis is, yeah, I just feel like I keep using the word empowered. And it's true. I just feel I feel like most of them, it's, it's, oh, but you better not do this. And you better be careful of doing this and just call me and I'll tell you if it's okay. Like I think that they expect that I learned very quickly after the first week, you know that I didn't have to keep calling them anytime I thought that a little something needed to be changed in in Tyler's care. Yeah, you know, and, and the nurse in me is always like, I need a doctor's order, you know, I need to call so I'm pretty proud of how quickly I got out of that. Because after the first week, I'm like, I can't keep calling and asking if it's okay, if I get more inflamed even though it hasn't been four hours yet, like four hours.

Scott Benner 29:25
I'm like 30 minutes later, I'm like, headset that again. But But you know, it's just it's a really important idea that that that I you know what? I'm going to struggle for exactly how to say this. So the message and the way it's delivered is it's just very I mean, it goes back to the thing we said at the beginning it's just it's very, very important that to not start people's lives with diabetes off in chained down scared, you know, immobile can't make it decision on my own. You know, I am heartbroken by the people that I talk to every day, who sit and watch their kids blood sugar at 300 after a meal, and it's eating at their guts. I know I should be doing something I know I should be doing something. But my doctor told me not to. And or I heard this, and the kids blood sugar's 300 for four hours. And then suddenly, magically, at four hours, they're like, oh, now we can bolus this or now I can give more insulin, except now all that food has been digested. And now all this insulin you're going to get for this 300 isn't necessary anymore. It was necessary three hours ago, it's not necessary now. And then the kid ends up at 40 later. And then and now. And now my life with diabetes is I did exactly what I was told my kids blood sugar went up to 300. It sat there for four hours, I did what I was told again, then his blood sugar went down to 45.

It went up and then someone says, Those words that be so angry, I could curse? Oh, that's just diabetes. And then No, it's not just diabetes, our inability to understand how insulin works. And moreover, the people who tell you those things, just are not good communicators of the information or they don't understand the information. And that is that ends up being the truth when a doctor or a friend or anybody looks at you and says, Oh, you know what? Well, that's just, that's how that is. What they mean is,

Unknown Speaker 31:27
I don't understand how to explain it. I don't know any better, or

Scott Benner 31:30
I don't know any better. Right? Right. Yeah, that's fine, by the way, if they don't know, but the problem is, is when they spread that to the next person, as this is the gospel of diet. Right? Right. And then you get down to people who are like, oh, that shit. It's just what it is. And then that that goes further, by the way, then, then it keeps going, I'm gonna preach, I'm, I'm all lit up. Today is the march for their lie. I don't know when you'll hear this. But say the kids are all doing the march 1 thing. So I think I'm in protest mode. But but so that's the first step, right? Well, nobody, nobody understands how to fix it. So that's just diabetes. And then when your guilt or your shame or your frustration comes around again, and you reach out to into a community and say, I don't know what to do, I feel so bad. My kids blood sugar's that high. Someone else who feels that way, too, will come along and admonished you of that, they will let it go, we'll say, look, there's nothing you can do. You've done everything you can do. And now just in those three steps, we've taken this person who wants nothing more than understand diabetes, so they can help themselves or help them kids. And we've turned them into a passive person willing to accept 300 blood sugars because they genuinely believe that not only is there no way to fix that, but even if there was they couldn't possibly understand it.

Jessica 32:50
Yeah, and they just feel so helpless. And so out of like, just, it's out of your control, you know, just powerless against this and, and it just makes you feel so sad. And, and, and you're just not healthy.

Scott Benner 33:06
No, it's terrible. It's the abs. It's absolutely terrible. And it is but it happens over and over and over again. Every day to newly diagnosed people. Hey, be afraid be scared. This is horrible. Oh, you can't don't give anybody insulin for food. That won't work. Oh, their blood sugar's high. Don't do anything. Wait, now give them a bunch of insulin. Oh, they got low. That's just diabetes.

Jessica 33:31
Or, or there's a lot of and I agree with it. I mean, it definitely plays a huge role. But or there's this emphasis on Well then, you know, you're not competing or what did you feed your child, you're not feeding your child the right thing, which then makes you feel even less, like more inadequate as a parent like, Oh, I let my kid have his favorite. Whatever. And, and now I caused this high blood sugar and it's all my fault and and then you feel like like a kindergartener being scolded by the teacher, you know, all the time. And then you start making a

Scott Benner 34:03
list in your head of foods that apparently we're not allowed to eat anymore.

Unknown Speaker 34:05
Exactly. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:08
none of that being true.

Jessica 34:09
which controls your life even more, you know, and just so let

Scott Benner 34:13
me sound just let me sound like a pompous ass for a second. Okay. Oh, no. So I talk a lot. You know, I've mentioned this a number of times in the podcast right that the people can't miss trust themselves. It is a it's a basic human function. If you walked around Miss trusting yourself all the time. It would be deadly. That's where anxiety comes from. That's where you know, if you're always thinking, Oh, well, I think I should do this. Maybe I'm wrong. That is it's crippling. And so I think it is a basic human thing to believe the thought that pops into our heads. Do you mean like, a problem comes up? This is the way I consider to take care of it. I must be right because I thought of it. And then here we go. And and what you just described is what ends up happening like, you know, All of a sudden somebody's like, Oh, well, you know, his blood sugar wasn't high because of insulin, it's because you let him eat pancakes. It's your fault for giving him a grilled cheese. You know, like, oh, potato chips. That's what you did wrong, you know. And then the next step, the next step their brain thinks is, if you cut out the carbs, and so then they're now their brain thinks low carb is the answer, or their brain thinks something else is the answer, or the first thought that pops into anybody's head they believe to be true. And they probably should, right? That is that does keep the world moving. It keeps everybody going. The problem is that no one ever steps back and diagnosis a thought in levels, then there are levels, the thoughts, there's what occurs due immediately. And then there's the perspective of I don't know, the other person, there's the perspective of an onlooker, there's another perspective of a, someone who's maybe better educated than you smarter than you understands math better, like, it depends on what you're thinking of. But there are plenty of people who would have a different initial thought once when they heard the problem. If you really want to get to the bottom of the of the issue, you have to accumulate all of these initial thoughts from all of these kinds of different minds. And in there somewhere is the answer.

Jessica 36:14
I wouldn't hundred percent agree with you. I mean, it's all about perspective. And learning that yours is not the only one

Scott Benner 36:21
and difficult to do in the moment when you're nervous and upset, and your kid has diabetes, and your husband is at work, and he hasn't really listened to you very much. And there's a pipe between me in the basement and somebody should cut the lawn, and I need groceries, but I don't get paid on Thursday. And when all this other stuff is going on to say to someone I need you to sit down and, and really, you know, put a whiteboard up on your wall and start drawing bubbles and lines and figure this whole thing out. No one has time to do that. And the only thing that will fix that is that is we all have to just kind of believe in our hearts that it's the first thing that pops into our head isn't always the right idea. And that there may be a better answer out there, and we should search for it. It's when you give up the search for that better idea that you get stuck in whatever position you're in. And then I always feel that that's what I feel badly about. Because I'll tell you that a lot of people figure diabetes out and they go off on their world, and they leave the community. And they live this happy life. And that's beautiful. But there are other people who disappear who just gave up. And you can't fault them because they've just been battered with bad information so often that they get to that point where someone admonishes them, and they're out there and they let it go.

Jessica 37:35
And this is where I'm gonna blow some, what's the expression blow some smoke Ana,

Scott Benner 37:41
I don't have a lot to say,

Jessica 37:42
I like clean, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be whatever, I'm gonna fluff up your podcast, because, because that's where your podcast is so important, because that's what gave me what I needed in that where I didn't like the perspectives or the things that I was being told. And then I finally found you and, and I was I was screaming, I would be like, yes, and like, bright. And I'd be talking to you all listening and folding laundry or in my car. And actually, my husband started to, like, make fun of me for it, because he'd hear me upstairs putting laundry away. Like, I know, and he'd be like, Oh, she's listening to the podcast again. Because, yeah, it's just, it's, it's such a wonderful source of have the right kind of, you know, the information that makes you feel I'm kind of my dog, it's fine. Usually, that's like, then he's all excited. Um, but, uh,

Scott Benner 38:42
we'll just That's very nice. Let me stop you. That is very nice. And I appreciate that. But I want people to know that I understand that I'm that it's not like, I just had this, like, I didn't look at diabetes. And just imagine all this at one time. I'm not some I'm not the Great and Powerful diabetes, AWS. I, I because I had the blog, and I was writing about stuff, I have a record of my thoughts. And when I could see things appearing more and more, I kind of in my mind think, well, that's important. You know, not being afraid is important. Pre-Bolus thing is important. Like as I would go along the way I would just hit these things, I'd be like, well, this is important. That's important. This is important. And then once we started talking, once I started talking about it on the podcast, then I could see how people reacted to it more in real time. I was like, okay, that is important, but I should say it more like this. Or, you know, when I say something like you have to trust that what you know, diabetes, that diabetes is going to do what you know, it's going to do, you know, it's almost not English, right? Like you have to trust that what you know, diabetes, it's going to do that thing. You know, when when, when you say that, you know, most of diabetes is just timing of insulin and the amount like you just have to get the amount and the timing right. Once you do that. You can pretty much bolus for anything That's it. That's a hopeful idea. It's not a description of how to do it. But I, but I, when I went through them, I kept going through them. And through them, I whittled them down Actually, I've done a lot of speaking this year. And it's basically just going in and, and it's, it's just kind of like doing a like an overview, but a kind of complete overview of those thoughts. And I was forced to sit down and break them down into slides into like, into thoughts. And I was like, this is it like, this is these, I forget what it was 1815 slides. This is the this is the podcast right here. So a slide will come up, and then I'll talk about it. And then and move on and on and on. And I was like, wow, this really works. So I did it in person, have them that person a number of times, and people are getting that reaction right away. They're coming up afterwards. And like, wow, you know, you fast forwarded me through all these thoughts. And so what I'm going to do, and I don't know if this will come out before that, but I'm going to get Jenny Smith back on the CD that's on a couple of times. Fabulous, we're going to talk about each slide. But then each slide is only going to be a few minute podcast, maybe five or 10 minutes, they're going to go up individually. And then so people can kind of hear them because I think that might be a good way for people who are coming in new to the podcast to kind of catch up a little bit

Unknown Speaker 41:19
like a little Crash Course.

Scott Benner 41:20
Yeah, cuz because there are people listen, I bless you, people who I get notes from who are like, I just powered listen through the entire show. Like I just do 100 episodes. That's amazing, thank you. But for the people who can't do that, this, maybe this will fast forward them into the conversation. constantly hear from doctors, well, you have to have diabetes for a year before we let you do this or six months, or they always want you to have diabetes for a while before you get technology. That's an old fashioned way of thinking. Dexcom shows you the things in days and weeks that it takes someone without a continuous glucose monitor to learn over the years or months. So if you want to fast forward your understanding of how Type One Diabetes works, so that you can make these amazing decisions that lead to better outcomes you need to get started right now. Seriously, you've heard people on this podcast who were diagnosed 10 2030 years ago, they lived in a different world with Type One Diabetes than you do today. The dexcom, continuous glucose monitor it fast forward, you right to understanding. That's the important part, isn't it? It's understanding how the insulin works, how it's going to affect you. It's understanding how your exercise and diet and sleep patterns, how all that's going to affect your blood sugar, so that you can do the things that you hear us talking about in the podcast, with your insulin, and live the life that you're hoping to live instead of one where you're just constantly wondering what's about to happen next, what's about to happen next. Don't be afraid. Open your eyes, see the data, make great decisions. That's what Dexcom is gonna bring you go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box with a link in the show notes or Juicebox podcast.com to get started today. dexcom.com forward slash Juicebox.

Podcast did not mean for you to come on and talk about how much you liked the podcast.

Jessica 43:31
But, but I do. I really think it was a big part in saving my sanity and making me feel like validated. And and

Scott Benner 43:40
so let's say finding community. And good information is what saved your sanity. Right? Like it wasn't me just happen to be me. You could have possibly found a blog that did the same thing for you. I don't know.

Jessica 43:55
I don't know. But finding you and then and one other person that that nurse that I told you we met through the trial my son's a part of Yeah, somebody in real life that you met. She She's amazing. She she's had a she's she was diagnosed with type one in her early. Oh, I remember earlier mid 20s when she was already a nurse. And then she already was sort of making her way into like diabetes research and then she really dove into Diabetes Research and now she works at the d-ri she's she's pretty big bear. And she's just so so she lives it. She teaches it she studies it and and she's so warm and and she really cares and she's phenomenal. And I want you to get her on the show.

Scott Benner 44:45
Please send me some of your if you haven't sent me an if you did, I forgot. But we'll I'll get back to it because there are I also have a list I'm looking at of like have this person on the show. This person plays basketball in college. I did this and I'm like, Brian, I'm like talking people about perfect restall athletes that I want to get on and trying to use the connections, I have to get those and, and it's funny, I said to somebody recently, I'm like, there are days when I think I could put this podcast up a couple times a week, but at the same time, it would be too much. And then, you know, we get lost somewhere, I think weekly is good.

Jessica 45:17
Oh, I don't know, I listened to so many episodes, I just I powered through them. But I guess there's a point where you get the fatigue? I guess? I don't know, I haven't reached it yet.

Scott Benner 45:27
I'm very good.

Unknown Speaker 45:27
I love it.

Unknown Speaker 45:28
Well, I think that,

Jessica 45:30
but I did want to say something that you you, you made me think of when you said that, what you said what this is years of experience, that that you've come to this place where you're able to put all this phenomenal information out there. And, and that's encouraging as well, that, that, you know, you have this, these great tips and, and it all, you know, become better at timing and, and you know, the amount of insulin and all that, and that it's possible, but at the same time, you know, a good portion of, you know, becoming rock stars at this is also going to be just experience and you can't, you can't fake experience. And so even if, you know, you feel like you're being bold, and you're trying your best and and and you have more setbacks than you think you should be focusing on that those are just going to accumulate as part of this experience that over time is going to be so you know, key to your success is, um, it's something that really helped me too, because

Unknown Speaker 46:40
it helps you not

Jessica 46:41
just having a positive attitude. And knowing that it's just it is there's some things that you just can't, you can't skip ahead, there is a long game. And you know, and that helps in feeling at peace with with everything when it's when it's not going

Scott Benner 46:55
the way you want it to. And it's very, yeah, that it's super important to remember two things. I was really, really bad at this for a very long time. So if if I can get here, then anybody can. And that just because Arden's a one C is where it's at. And I'm not, you know, I never mind sharing it, it's been between five, six and six to for over four years. Now. That doesn't mean that she has this super flat Dexcom graph at 87. That's not how it goes. Her blood sugar shoots up a couple of times a day. We'd you know, I see 180 or 200 once or twice. It's

Jessica 47:33
made me feel so much better. Yeah, the way that they were talking, and you said that to me.

Scott Benner 47:37
And I'll tell you this, yeah, and I'll tell you this, too, like, um, yesterday, yesterday morning, I just totally booted the whole thing. I mean, really, really bad. And her blood sugar went to like 330. And I was like, Oh my gosh, all right. And so uh, but immediately she's at school, I immediately did the things that I knew. First of all, we should have done that we we didn't, there was a little confusion a little rushing around in the morning and something got missed. And so we made you know, we added Temp Basal like big time, like doubled her bazel rate for like an hour and a half made large bonuses, and all with an eye on getting her blood sugar back down for lunchtime. And I'm going to tell you that I got her blood sugar from like 320 to 110 in two and a half hours, and not like a falling 110 like I brought it in for a landing on purpose. Because she was because she was at school dancing for diabetes.com go to dancing for diabetes.com. Is it fopr? No, it's not. It's the number for dancing the number for diabetes.com. Or you know what, find them on Facebook or Instagram, actually, they're doing a whole thing on Instagram this month to make you smile. You want to smile, go watch kids dancing. Everything that I talked about on the podcast that leads to most of the time to kind of stable blood sugars and staying ahead of carbs and everything, all those skills were the same skills I use to bring her blood sugar down without making her a lot. And so, even though it's thinks that our blood sugar jumped up like that, and I have to I will very, very honestly tell you, I don't see 300 a handful of times a year, but okay, it happened. And just to your point, didn't panic, I didn't beat myself up about it. I just reached into my bag of tricks and I was like, we're gonna do this, this and this, this is gonna work and it did. And that was awesome.

Jessica 49:41
And I need help with that I need help with. I mean, I'm trying to figure it out with extended bullet saying and with Temp Basal, when to use what and how I'm still, I mean, we're two weeks into the pump, but I'm dying to figure those two out. And I'm with with just No bolusing and with Pre-Bolus saying I feel like I mean, I messed up not mastered a god, I got good at that already before the pump. So I feel like they're there. I'm pretty good. But I don't want to just use the pump for that I want to figure out the extended boluses and the Temp Basal.

Scott Benner 50:19
They're all just extensions of how to like time the insulin. So, you know, yesterday I figured so it happened in segments, right like, we had a she woke up in the morning with a blood sugar that was not commensurate to what her CGM said. And it was a brand new sensor. So it was off a little bit. So we calibrated it got it on, that was good. But she needed food, or carbs at a time in the morning. We didn't we wouldn't usually give them to her. And because I didn't feel like in the moment like that the sensor was working yet. I kind of laid back for a second. Then I came downstairs and the dog made a mess of his bed. So I'm cleaning that up. And I forgot about the carb sheet. And she comes downstairs and I thought as I thought, ooh, jeez, we should probably I should Bolus for that I can't believe I forgot that. She says I'm gonna eat this for breakfast. And I was like, Oh, okay. And we gave her some insulin. But I just didn't consider that the first carbs we used for the low blood sugar, we're going to do what they did. And I should have I knew too, and I just didn't for some reason. And maybe 20 minutes later, she's at school and I see an arrow up. And I'm telling you, I never see an arrow. So I was like, Oh, so I texted her. I was like, Oh, yeah, we got a ball a second. So we both and I thought that should do it. But I was still for some reason erring on the side of caution, which is not something I usually do. I think in the back of my head, I wasn't trusting the sensor. And that was that was throwing me off a little bit. Then the thing that she took the eat this muffin, she took with her hit her so much harder, because there was no Pre-Bolus. And there was no there was no aggressiveness that there usually is. So all of a sudden the one hour goes to two arrows. And now I'm like, okay, I stopped myself and I rethought the whole process. I used this much insulin, but I know I should have used this much. And so I have to get this large amount of insulin Enter. And for this situation, I think it was about six units, like I needed to get six units indoor.

Jessica 52:18
And so so you got that amount from subtracting what you gave, no,

Scott Benner 52:23
I know, I didn't even consider when I gave in the first I put the carbs we use for the low blood sugar, the carbs, I would I should have thought about for the muffin. And I also put into account double arrows up Yeah, where it's gonna go, how much it's going to need when it gets up there and this whole thing. So now I know this is a massive amount of insulin. But if I dump it in all at once, it might stop the arrows a little faster. But it's also going to cause too much of a fall on the other side. And I did not want to compound this problem by having to feed a low later. So instead, I added a temp bazel. And I stretched it out. So some of that instantly stretched out over 90 minutes, I think. And some of it I put in right away. And we slammed it really hard. And then I was able to watch the arrows and how they slowed down. And when they turned to back to level and then when they started to go diagonal down at first and it wasn't I go down or do I did one of those were the the arrows steady, but the numbers falling, you know,

Unknown Speaker 53:20
yeah, that way. Yeah. And then

Scott Benner 53:22
it diagonal down. And then I was on the ski slope. You know what I mean? Like this, this right? And that one that you can't always be sure is going to stop or not. But as I watched it, and I watched and I watch, I was like this one's gonna pull up and stop right where I wanted to. And I'll tell you that when it did, I was so like yesterday I had, we had to go into Arden school to help her to sit with her, her counselor at her lunchtime and pick her classes for high school. So I was going into the school, and I walked in there looking at her blood sugar and I looked at my wife and I was like I have to tell you something. I I'm even a little stunned at how well I handle this one. And and but but not not as like a not a humble brag or not not quite so humble, right? But just I was even like wow, because I wish you could see how little effort I put into stopping that all happened like that was just I talked about that all the time. Like at some point. These things that when they get exploded out so we can talk about them seem like all this time and effort. I saw the arrow made my decision did what I did never thought about it again. I knew I did the right thing every once in a while I look back and check the error to see if it was doing what I expected it to when it was but it wasn't this long. drawn out painful hours do not mean like

Jessica 54:42
I do so do you think that you made it to speed up the effect? Like what so as when you started making these changes? How quickly did you start to see the results of the insulin you're putting in

Scott Benner 54:53
not fast enough, but I had to. I had to I had to trust it though because the carbs had Such a head start on the insulin. I was already when I saw double arrows up and she was 220. In my mind, I already said this is going to get the 300, there's nothing I can do about it, if I'm not gonna be able to start getting to 300, if I give her enough insulin for it not to get the 300, then she's gonna get low later. So I had to put in the right amount. And and wait a little bit.

Jessica 55:22
So you find out when you put in a large amount of insulin, it does seem some I guess,

Scott Benner 55:26
oh, there's enough insulin you could have picked up I could there was an amount of insulin, I could have given her that I could have had her back at 100 and in a half an hour. But then she would have needed to eat our lunch. Right. And there is a worldwide by the way, if that high was coming, as lunch was coming, if I saw 222 arrows up and everything was going on with those carbs that I just talked about before in the lack of insulin, the there would have been a way for me to bolus her 15 units of insulin, stop that thing right away and then get her eating and just use all that insulin as a Pre-Bolus. For a meal. I've done that. That's some high level stuff, though. Because you got to trust that the food, you really got to know what the food is going to do that because you've given a ton of insulin. But um, but yeah, I mean, listen to sometimes the best way to kill a high is to, is to have a meal coming up. And so you can just you can just use so much insulin, and then just use the entire meal to catch the insulin instead of like a juice box or a tablet. You know what I mean? Like it's Yeah, it's it's, the concept doesn't change because the amount of insulin gets bigger. The concept still works, you just have to have the timing of it.

Jessica 56:36
With a bigger amount of influence. I've seen that it just it affects them faster. Oh, shut it down faster. Yep.

Scott Benner 56:43
Yeah, you just have to be is but I'm saying with a with a with a 302 arrows up the amount of insulin that would take to crush quickly. Yeah, definitely need carbs. Late. Yeah. And then there's a trick in there to get the carbs in without causing the bounce.

Unknown Speaker 56:59
And, and,

Unknown Speaker 57:00
but the roller coaster, but but it's.

Scott Benner 57:02
But if you stop and listen to the conversation that we're having right now. It's all just timing. That's, that's all it is. Yeah, just timing. And that comes like you said earlier, it just comes with a lot of experience a lot of over and over again, experience and a lot of messing up and going off. That's not what I wanted to happen. But then instead of beating yourself up about it, you you take something from it. It's just it's a very, it just is what it is. It's a long game. And like you mentioned it earlier, but at the same time once it hits you. It's such a magical spot. Like I can't tell I wish people could have seen that whole thing happened yesterday. Like I wish y'all could have been flies on walls. Because I wasn't panicked. I wasn't upset. I wasn't that, you know, I didn't spend the rest of the next three hours like wringing my hands about it. I just, I was like, Okay, I should have done that. Why didn't do that? And I'm going to do this, this and this now. And it's going to work. And then

Jessica 57:56
and then and then you felt you felt, what's the word? You wanted to be humble about your brag, but I think it's a beautiful thing that you were able to not beat yourself up over, you know, it not going well. And then to feel so great about when it did when what you did worked and what went well, I mean, why shouldn't we make a bigger deal about the positive thing and try to, you know, acknowledge but sort of move past the negative thing versus I took themselves up and then yeah, and then are like humble, I think it's great that I this disease, it can beat you up and to just end to feel to feel that you can brag about something and to feel great about about something you did and the knowledge behind it that it wasn't just this fluke, I think that's awesome. I don't think you've seen, um, well, you're nice. whompin makes me feel like yes, and I'll get there really is

Scott Benner 58:52
the goal of sharing it is to make someone else feel like oh, maybe that's a place I could be. Well, I'll get to that. I could get to that one day. That's what I turned on my wife and I joked I was like, seriously, I did really good with this. And I showed it to her. And she like looks at me and and very sarcastically goes, Hey, you should start a podcast about that. I see what you're doing there. It's fun. But but but no, I and I you do see people online who are sharing their a onesies or their successes. We should all be in there going Wow, congratulations every time I see that I throw a like on something or a thumbs up or something like that. That because that's amazing. Just because I'm not having a good day doesn't mean you're not having a good day.

Jessica 59:32
And it is there. Yeah. And you know, and and if you just have the confidence and the willpower you can get there and and and why not? Why not take this thing that can make you feel really, really down and feel and feel like you rocked it without without it being you know, cuz some people would say well, you can't make it into I don't know, like I get like you're getting you're getting a piece of candy when you succeed or something like that. Like, you know, the I get that, like,

Scott Benner 1:00:01
I don't think of it that way. I think of it just the way you said like if, if we're gonna, if we're gonna say we're supporting people, then somebody with a nine a one c can't see somebody with a six a one C and get mad at them for having a six a one say, you have to say to that person, you have to say to that person Wow, man, that's amazing, good for you. And then try to figure out what they did that you could maybe do. And and instead of being, it's just very important to take the drama out of all this, you don't need to be so dramatic. You know, like, it's it sucks when you're not in the place where you want to be. But other people's success should look like hope not like Exactly, yeah, not like they're kicking in the butts. Yeah.

Jessica 1:00:39
Yes. And that's what I was always looking for. And yeah, that's what I've sort of leaked that onto was, you know, the parents that I found on social media that are that are that have more successes than failures, and that post, you know, they're great agencies, and, and then I, you know, watch what they're doing. And I'm to see the hope and the possibility and to feel like I have some sort of control, or, or power, or something over this disease that can make you feel really powerless. It was was just, I needed that

Scott Benner 1:01:13
I was speaking to my mom, I was speaking to a mom the other day, and I don't want to use her name. But she said that I thought what she said was so brilliant. She said, if my kids don't do well, on a test, I always say to them, what was there somebody in the class that did? And when they say yes, she said, well go find them and find out how they studied for it. And I was like, wow, that's just simple, good concepts. And I've said stuff like that to my son in the past too, which is probably why I agreed with her so much. I was like, well, I've had that thought. But it was, but it's such a it's such a smart idea. Like, if someone's having success that you're not having figured out how I was watching survivor the other night, I am still one of those people who enjoy survivor No, even though it's been on for like, ever. And there was there were the they were putting this puzzle together. This one team's like throwing this puzzle together really fast, the other team can't get it figured out. And finally one of the people who couldn't figure it out, just turned and started watching the one who was doing and I was like, you're never gonna catch up to them. But there was this moment where that guy said to himself, I'm not figuring this out on my own. And the only ex example I have out here is them. Let me stop and look. And sure in the course of the game, it's probably cheating. But but but at the same time, it's it was smart, it was all he had left, he couldn't figure it out on his own. So he just looked at somebody else who had had it figured out ahead of him. And I said that here a million times. This podcast is not an example of me being better at this than you. This podcast is an example of me being farther along in the process than you. That's all you should just I should just turn around every once in a while and yell back, hey, do this. Try that walk around here. And you should maybe say to yourself, well, that guy's already walked up this path, he probably knows where I'm going to twist my ankle. So I'll listen to him and what he tells me to go a little.

Jessica 1:02:53
Yeah, I that's what that's what I did. I mean, I I'm with MDI, which, which I still wanted to talk to you about, but um, you know, I, we started off at 9.9, right? A one C, and then I hit Tyler's first and the appointment after his diagnosis, the three months later, he was 6.5. And then, and then we got it as low when I was still begging them for a pump. It was 5.9 and then right at the pump class apparently they took everyone's a one sees and sort of quietly handed it out after right before the beginning of class and, and I thought we had had some wheat. I thought he went through a growth spurt or I don't know what was going on. But we were fighting some highs, but we thought we you say you know how diabetes got aggressive. You got aggressive back, and I and I listened to you. And I did that. And his agency actually went down again to 5.8. And, and, and yeah, and, and so my point of that, not only is to brag, because I'm sorry, but

Scott Benner 1:03:58
that's really, you should feel good about that. That's amazing to have anyone see like that with MDI, without a bunch of crazy lows, to have the nerve when diabetes pushes to push back. That's all really big stuff. Because I just talked to somebody the other day who had that problem. I talked to him for 20 minutes. In the end, she said, You know, I think you're right. I'm just it's her his insulin requirements have gone up and I haven't moved with it. And that's pretty much it. Yeah.

Jessica 1:04:21
I'm trying to learn to like, you know, that hold let's just watch thing. Like it's like, No, no, let's let's be aggressive back. Let's not just watch, you know, because every every moment you're just watching. It just keeps climbing. Yeah, but but my point was that so you learn that through all these years of experience and yes, you're ahead on the path, but you helped me go from being at the beginning and you're miles ahead to sort of being able to see you on the horizon like, like, I'm catching up and so much faster because because you've really you've made it seem possible and you've given the a lot of good information and and so I mean, 10 months into it and and And here we are, you know,

Scott Benner 1:05:02
I'm good for you. Yeah. And you made me think of that really bad joke from Pulp Fiction. Oh, which one is the mama tomato and the baby tomato, we're walking down the street and the baby tomato starts lagging behind. And mama tomato turns around and says ketchup. We were talking, I was like, there was a moment where I was like, I'm so proud of what you're saying for yourself the

Unknown Speaker 1:05:24
baby tomato,

Scott Benner 1:05:25
like, Oh my god, this is the joke from Pulp Fiction. So maybe I have a little ADHD as well.

Jessica 1:05:35
I diagnose everyone. It's so it's it's so sad. Yeah, I'm totally. But whatever you were, my advantage,

Scott Benner 1:05:43
you realize we've been talking for over an hour now.

Jessica 1:05:45
I don't because you know, me, I

Scott Benner 1:05:49
just I don't know if people believe me. These conversations never have a goal. I sometimes as I'm calling someone and pulling up an email from them and thinking Who is this person even because I want the conversations to be so just organic. And I, I have to admit, because I just put up an episode yesterday, which again, for people will be maybe months ago when they hear this, but it was called it

Unknown Speaker 1:06:19
was the guy and has a guy I just listened. Right.

Scott Benner 1:06:22
And so Jane, Jane comes on and starts talking about all the good things the podcast did for and I thought, Oh, we can't do this the whole time. And then I just I liked I wanted very much for to have her say and I wanted for people to hear what our experience was. And then I feel like I did a really good job of directing the conversation in another way so that we could actually talk about something substantive. That wasn't her telling me that she really loved the podcast. And as I listened back to it, I thought this went really well. And as we're doing this, I think the same thing. I think that I think we really hit on what I think are some really important kind of basic tenants. And I think it's a great spot for people to, to hear again. So I hope everyone understands that it was really cool that Jess loves the podcast and got so much out of it. I don't don't feel the ways you might expect. Like, it's not like a big ego thing for me, I'm happy for you, when I hear you say that, like I'm like,

Jessica 1:07:15
that's the way you gave me about validation to keep doing what I was thinking was the right thing to do. Maybe it's just validation that, you know, you putting all this time and effort into making the podcast is well worth it.

Scott Benner 1:07:27
I mean, think about it that way. Thank you very much. That is really nice. Thank you very much to Dexcom to Omni pod and to dancing for diabetes for their support, please go to my omnipod.com forward slash juicebox dancing the number four diabetes.com or dexcom.com forward slash juice box. You guys left some new ratings and reviews on iTunes this week for the show. Thank you very much. Please don't forget that the way the show grows is when you tell someone else about it. And you take a couple of seconds to explain to them how a podcast works and how they can download it. There will be a brand new episode every week for the rest of 2018. And I am just this close and what you can see as I'm holding my fingers very close apart, but I'm just this close to securing advertising for the next year and beyond. So we're looking at shows until let's be honest, as long as you guys are listening, that's how long the show keeps going. Thank you very much for choosing to spend an hour here

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#189 The Tide is High

Loop, loop skip to my loop…

Tidepool's own Christopher Snider is here to talk about looping with type 1 diabetes. AP baby!

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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.

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hello everyone, today

Scott Benner 0:00
you're listening to Episode 189 of the Juicebox Podcast. We are sponsored as always by Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes. Now you can go to my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box, you can go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box, or dancing for diabetes.com. That's the number four. While you're at the dancing for diabetes website, click on their link to Instagram. They're doing something cool for the next 34 days on Instagram. And while we're speaking about Instagram, let me say this dex comes on there. They do a great job there. But you know who's new on Instagram just this week, on the pod there at my on the pod on Instagram now flood them with messages, give them some likes, let them know you came from the podcast. Today's show is ripped from the headlines. That's right. I saw some news happening breaking in the diabetes community. And I went right to my I just picked up my phone really. And I sent a message to somebody I know. Chris Snyder. You know, Christopher, you know, Christopher Snyder, you will soon anyway, I sent a message to Chris because he works for the company who broke the news. And I was like, Hey, Chris, I know you. Can you come on my podcast? And he said, Yeah, sure. And I was like that easier it? I mean, I like to make it sound like it was bigger than it was. Now why do we want to be talking to Christopher Snyder? Well, that's an interesting question. I'm gonna answer for you right now. Chris has had Type One Diabetes a very, very long time. He is married to a lovely woman who also has type one diabetes, he works for a company called tide pool. Chris has done a lot in the diabetes community over the years. I've known him for quite some time. And he's an amazing advocate for people like you. Today, Chris is on the show, because he's here to talk about looping, artificial pancreas tide pool like this kind of a lot of words that you might be like, I don't know those words, Scott. But don't let this feel technical to you don't need to understand the words. Even though by the end, you will just know this. We are all very close to our Dexcom CGM sending data to an algorithm, a little program. Basically, they're probably live on your cell phone. And that will tell your insulin pump more insulin, less insulin, it'll help you stop getting out, it'll stop you from getting high. That's the near future. That's what Chris is here to talk about. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise and to always consult a physician before making changes to your insulin plan. I think part of my delightful charm is my ignorance. I know tide pull doesn't mean that you work on a cruise ship helping people learn to surf.

Unknown Speaker 2:35
This is true that

Scott Benner 2:36
that much I understand the rest of it. I've never, I'm not embarrassed, but I'm spread a little thin. I've never really delved too deeply into it, because it hasn't. It hasn't been something I've needed. But it is always one of those things that I think Gosh, I'm pretty sure I should understand this better. Like what tide pool is in general. And then you guys came along and started making this announcement about loop. And I was like, Alright, it's time Scott needs to be informed. So can you tell me first what you do at tide pool and and what time pool is?

Christopher Snider 3:08
Sure. So I'm the community manager at Tide Pool, which means I'm responsible for among other things, social media and email communications. So if you do receive typos emails, it's my smiley face at the bottom was in data. Christopher Snyder. title is a nonprofit organization. We create free software to view data from pump CGM. And why do we use meters all in one place? That I mentioned that it's free, it's free for people diabetes their families and clinicians that I mentioned that it's free. That's the thing that I have found whenever I provide demos of our software to Coalition's they are all most often surprised by whenever they see what all this stuff looks like in motion, which is really, really exciting. But that also means that there's a natural follow up of Wait a second, it's free. How do you stay operational as a nonprofit organization to which I say great question, eager person who's paying attention to my software demo. And I said, We are supported in part by grants from Helmsley Charitable Trust and the jdrf. They've been a big supporter of ours from the beginning of time cool. I say ours even I've been a part of the team for a little over a year and a half. But at this point, ours. And also, there's a whole research component to the title platform. And on that side of things, we do charge money. The type of platform can be used as a data back end for clinical studies. So if you've got an idea and you're conducting research and you need diabetes device data type will can help you with that. Additionally, people with diabetes we're using type will have the choice to opt in to something called the typo Big Data donation project. What that means is that we will anonymize and de identify the device data that you upload to title secure servers. And we will license those data sets out to different partners and people with a grand idea. So when you hear things about machine learning algorithms and things like that, the big data, data sets that are coming out of typos can contribute to that. This This program is entirely opt in that type of we believe people diabetes own their data. First and foremost, we don't do anything without their explicit consent. So it's like maybe it is a checkbox that you would have to check to enable that sort of process to begin. But that money that we make keeps us sustainable as a nonprofit, and it's really useful. To work at this company, we are a growing group now as we're about to get into thanks to this typo loop thing. But almost everybody, I think for the exception of one person, a typo on either has diabetes or has a kid with diabetes, I, myself am living with type one, my wife also has type one for what it's worth. And one person who doesn't have type one diabetes, he just loves devices and that sort of technology thing. And he sort of found his way through his own master's thesis into diabetes tech, and then eventually found a better title. So it's like there's, there is a very earnest and sincere obsession with getting this right, because we know what's at stake, because it's our lives. It's our kids lives. It's our spouses lives that are dealing with this stuff, too. And it makes it really impactful to work with this group. And it's been a really special ride for me to be part of this and to ultimately be one of the voices of this company. So that's the data access side. I know is Arden still rocking it? Omni pod?

Scott Benner 5:53
Yeah, Arden uses Omni pod. And she's using g six. Okay, I've never, I've never looked more into it. Because we're having, we're having so much success already. And I end up being one of those people, Chris, who's I wanted to come out of the box and work and I don't want to understand it. Like, like, that's for pretty much any of my technology. I've never been, I don't know, I don't have that gear. And I have to admit, like, at some point when someone said Raspberry Pi, and I saw electronics champion with Tic Tac box, I was like, I'm out. And, and it doesn't matter. It could have been the easiest thing to do. I saw that. And I was like, I'm done. And I think that I reflect I think I really think my opinion is reflected through most people because it is really it comes down to like compute cycles in my day. I just I don't have any more time for anything else.

Christopher Snider 6:46
So buddy, do you have USB cables hanging around your house, of course. And you have you have a google google chrome on your computer? I do. Okay, then you could use fiable, you could sign up for a free typable account right now connect that PDF, and then connect the Dexcom. And you could see all that data in one place, and also potentially donate it to research if you were so inclined. It's as simple as a USB cable. That's all you need to stifle. Yes, sir. Yes, let's do what

Scott Benner 7:10
the most interesting thing ever happened on any podcast. And that's go to the internet. So you're, you're saying I go to tide? pool.org?

Christopher Snider 7:18
I'm working tightwad org. There's a button at the top that says sign up. I see that. You click on that. That'll get you started on the process.

Scott Benner 7:25
No kidding. And then so what So basically, it's going to let me see everything from art and CGM and everything from ardens pump all in one place. Now, tell me something. Is this not? What is this not what? On the pods telling me I'm going to have soon anyway? Or is how is it different? different from what from like other stuff that everyone else is doing? Like what sets this apart? Like, why is because you guys have risen to the top? And I mean, I think when I look into Thank you mean, no, absolutely. I think there's there's a number of companies all sort of like saying, Hey, we this is what we do. I feel like you guys have have have really kind of ascended. And so why do you think that is? Why do you think people lean towards side pull over other options. Option one is your blood sugar's just doing what it's doing. And you can't say option two is it's doing what it's doing. And you can say it, which sounds better, option one or Option two. Option one, your child's at school, their blood sugar's getting too high, you'd like to do something about it, but they don't go to the nurse for three hours. So it just keeps going up and up.

Unknown Speaker 8:29
Option two,

Scott Benner 8:30
your child's at school. They're wearing their Dexcom g six CGM, their blood sugar goes above the number you've designated. It sends a little message to your phone, beep beep. It says to you, your kids, blood sugar's over. For me, it's 120 instead of three hours of a high blood sugar, what you have is an immediate ability to bump that blood sugar back to where you want it. What sounds better, option one or Option two. Option one, you're out for a run in the park. It's a beautiful day you have type one diabetes, and everything's looking good. You've put in the food you expect to handle things. But what you don't know is that 20 minutes from now, your blood sugar is going to drop pretty quickly, under 50. Now option two is the predictive alert on the Dexcom g six tells you Hey, I expect your blood sugar to be under 50 in about 20 minutes. Maybe now's a good time to do something about that. What sounds better, option one or Option two. I want you to go to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Find out more today about the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. I'm putting this ad earlier in the show because the rest of what you're going to listen to it all hinges on having a dexcom it's time to get going. If you think of your life with Type One Diabetes is not having options. I'm here to tell you there are a lot of them and they're pretty great. Dexcom is a huge part of that. Today's the day to get started dexcom.com forward slash juice box. The links in your show notes were the links at Juicebox podcast.com. Why do you think people lean towards side pull over other options?

Christopher Snider 10:05
I think the nonprofit angle definitely helps I think the personal connection and the credibility that the type whole team has built across the years the title has been around, like when you hear our CEO Howard talk about this stuff, his daughter has type one. Like he's, it's clear that he gets it. Obviously, he's the CEO of this of this entire venture. But he speaks in a certain way that is so passionate, and so empathetic about it, that it's hard to not want to run through a brick wall for him, and then know that he will be on the beat or on the other side, with some sort of, you know, EMF service to help you out in case for some reason, you actually did try to run through a brick wall. I think from a technical side of things, it what's really exciting is that there is an ease of use to it. But also there's a standardization to what we do, does that mean data comes in on an animist pump on a T slim on an omni pod on a Medtronic 670 g as those from those individualizes. But we visualize it in the exact same format no matter what the device looks like. So if you have sort of artisan or Omni pod right now, if she switches to a Medtronic for reasons, the data is still going to look the same. So there's no new process for trying to understand how to interpret the data, it's just a matter of changing the upload process a little bit, because it's a different device. And I think that that standardization, and what I believe is an ease of use, and a nice opportunity to interpret and understand your data because it is yours or your kids data in this case, I think that Ease of Access provides a lot of opportunity for people that they didn't necessarily think that they need it because there is, as my cat claws at the wall in the background is gonna make for great audio. There is a great opportunity for for that sort of like there's like a lightbulb moment, we sort of internally call it a typo moment of actually seeing all that data together in the first for the first time. Because if you're uploading your Dexcom stuff that clarity, yes, they clearly does a great job of providing Dexcom specific reports, all their trends, your weekly reports of how often your remains and things like that. That's fantastic. But what are you doing on the insulin side of things? declared can tell you that? But if you put it all together with title, for example, then you can then you have the entire context of your diabetes experience. Hey, Arden went low. What happened before that? Oh, wait, there is a Bolus over here. Was that too much? Was that too little? What's happening over there. And then you can sort of connect those dots as it were, and try to make a little better sense to hopefully, you don't necessarily want to say get it right, but have hopefully a better outcome the next time around. Makes

Scott Benner 12:13
sense. And also, I mean, it's funny, as you're talking, I thought that's not interesting. Like say I have a DVR for my television, and I'm used to the on screen, UI. But there's a better DVR that comes up but it's completely different. Like I can't I have I switch I have to switch I get a new DVR, I get a new UI and that's it. But what you're saying is no matter I can go from pump the pump to pump. My data always looks the same. Yes, sir. That's a great idea. And and how is that? So tell me a little bit about that side of like, how is that possible? Like, why?

Unknown Speaker 12:45
Like, what

Scott Benner 12:46
is it just because you're a separate entity, right? Like it you're not attached to a company. And like when when you tell me tide pool works with all these pump companies, is that something they had to agree to or it doesn't matter. But so for all of the devices that we currently support, with the exception of Medtronic, we have signed agreements for them to share their data protocols with us so that it's easier for us to implement across the board. In the case of Medtronic, they had some different perspectives on data ownership, for example.

Christopher Snider 13:14
And we had to do the work ourselves to build our own Medtronic driver. And that's why it took over a year for us to release support for Medtronic six series pumps.

Scott Benner 13:22
Tomic Sonic, I

Christopher Snider 13:24
have a different view of them to it. Well, it's, you know, it's, you know, everybody has their own perspective on it. And, and we've had plenty of conversations with Medtronic, we still have conversations with them to this day. Ultimately, I think even and I can't speak to the specific conversations, but my, my, my sort of assessment of it is that there are plenty of people at Medtronic that get it and that, you know, in that aren't necessarily believe what we believe, but they, they get it. But ultimately, it comes down to you know, certain people making those decisions. And if certain people don't feel a certain way about or they don't want to sign an agreement that that day, then Okay, and then we'll just see what happens next time. We have another conversation. But that hasn't stopped. title from pursuing conversations with different you know, pumping CGM companies across the board, like we want to work with everything with everybody. Because we believe people diabetes on their database should have unfettered access to it. And we're gonna do everything we can to provide that. And it's, you know, so far, it has been so good, but you know, as more stuff comes out, you know, hopefully we can we can stay ahead of the curve and continue to be the go to place for for data access.

Scott Benner 14:27
I think of data as experiences and I couldn't agree more. I think that everything that I accomplished with my daughter herb, I'm looking right now our blood sugar's 106. It's nice and stable. It's been like this for hours while she's at school this morning. And and the things that people hear on the podcast that then they kind of put into process in their own life and hopefully have similar outcomes. It's all just understanding your experiences, having an experience looking at it, and then making adjustments to it next time, a little sooner, a little later, a little more, a little less. That's really what it boils down to. I think that I think that for me, the cool of managing Type One Diabetes is understanding how insulin works in your body. I think that's, that's the first step to the whole thing. And so obviously more data leads you into that space. I think the word data sometimes scares people, which I think is why I say experiences. But that's what I mean. I mean, you got to go back and look and see what happened and make adjustments. Yeah. Interestingly enough, and this is a little behind the curtain, but I think it's important to know, When, when, when you guys made this announcement about loop, which is something we're gonna talk about in a second. The first thing I did out of respect to the relationships I have is I went on the pod and I said, Is it alright, if I interview tide pool about loop? Like, I don't understand the business of it like, is that somehow getting in the way of what you? Do? You know what I mean? Like, is it a direct competitor, and they very quickly got back to me said, No, absolutely talk to tide pool, that's fantastic. Because what they're what they thought was, there's going to be a way, you know, horizon is gonna come out one day, right, and they're gonna have an artificial pancreas system and everything. But if there's another way to do it, and someone can still use an omni pod and use a different algorithm, or whatever, they're, they're excited for that. They're excited for people to have more options to use their product with. And I think that that is an amazing leap, just in general, that a company would say, Hey, you know, sure, we're gonna have software that does that. But if someone else does you like it better, or works better for you, or whatever, go use that one. Like, that's, that's a great moment. For us. For people, I don't have diabetes, I know, I feel like I do sometimes. But for people living with Type One Diabetes, that's spectacular, that's a company not trying to lock you into their idea. And because their idea might not progress as quickly, because they're busy making insulin pumps, you're busy working on software.

Christopher Snider 16:43
Mm hmm. I think the key word in there that you are alluding to is choice, and providing people with diabetes and their families choice in their therapy. So like, with typo you like we don't necessarily title can dictate, you know, what insurance is going to cover. But we want to provide you the choice and the option and the ability to view that data and an unfettered way through our free software. And and that's that's sort of the vision that we have with Hyperloop is that as, as different ICG M's and AI pumps come to market and they we do establish agreements with these companies to to include them in the title loop, you know, sort of process with our AI algorithm or AI control, I'm not sure what it's ultimately going to be. But the key thing at the end of the day is to be able to sort of pick the pieces of your diabetes management that you want, and then just make it and it will all just work. And that's the promise of it. Obviously, like, you know, as we are recording this, we made an announcement about type polio today, three days ago, on Monday, the eighth and I've been losing my mind and Twitter notifications ever since. So like, you know, we haven't announced obviously, which devices The thing is gonna work with just yet. But we the goal, ultimately is to provide choice to the diabetes community.

Scott Benner 17:50
Over the next few weeks dancing for diabetes, we'll be introducing you to 34 incredible and inspiring young individuals on their Instagram account, please go to dancing the number four diabetes.com right now check out what they're doing. And then scroll to the bottom and click on their link for Instagram. And don't forget if you're local in the Orlando area dancing for diabetes is holding their 18th annual extravaganza at the Bob Carr theater. Let me ask you a question that you may or may not have a thought on and and this would require you to speak for someone else but maybe maybe you can have maybe you can Why did it take tide pool to exist? why don't why didn't accompany have like dinner? I mean, like why wouldn't they do this already? That was the thing that I always like, you know, any of the devices I've seen everybody's pumped. And like you said the information you get back is nice, but it doesn't. It doesn't speak to you know, another device, it doesn't do overlays, there's all kinds of problems and I use clarity every you know, not every day, but I use clarity a lot and it does fine for me. But to your point it doesn't I can't see what I'm doing with insulin and I can only see what the blood sugar is doing. I just as you're as you're describing with high blood, as I'm looking here on this website, what I can think is like why didn't one of them do this? Like why? why did why do you make any sense? It doesn't make sense that you needed to do you know what I mean?

Christopher Snider 19:11
Yeah, um, as I was actually in a roundabout way, talking with our CEO about this a couple of days ago, just sort of like why him Why then why now and a little a little about context. I mean, Howard was VP of software at TiVo and Amazon like, he's a big geek. It's it's kind of remarkable. Like, how, how much of a nerd he actually is about all this stuff. And it just like, you know, fate is not a word that we want to throw around too often. But it just, it was the right place right time for for him whenever his daughter was diagnosed, and she was on a pump and CGM. And it's like this technology is great, but why can't I see all this data? Why can't I make any sense of it? Why isn't it working? And then, you know, being in Palo Alto, he has a different level of access and opportunity and he found some very smart people who had a similar idea. And then together they became the foundation of title and it's evolved and grown. And expanded into what it is today. And it's I hate for it to be a matter of right place right time. But and I in Howard even told me himself that he believed that something like this would have come along. If it weren't for him. I mean, somebody else would have had a similar thought they just happened to be him, he happened to be the right person at the right time to, to spearhead this and then take the lead on it. And then Ever since then, we've done what we can to to move the conversation forward about data access, we've been as part of like the title loop thing, like we published our meeting minutes with the FDA. So you can go to tide pool.org slash documents right now and see everything we've told the FDA about this project to date, which is a level of transparency that I quite frankly, I haven't seen anywhere else, when it comes to diabetes stuff when it comes to FDA stuff, like Howard has believed. I've known him on and off. I mean, I guess before working a title, I've known him for about four or five years. From the beginning, he's always said the FDA is not the enemy, you just have to be willing to engage with them early and often. And and that has benefited us tremendously to the point that I feel like we are regularly punching above our weight in the conversations that we're having across the healthcare industry, not just diabetes space, but across the healthcare space, because of how we're approaching data validation, our process our our quality management system, as far as the level of transparency that we're sharing with the rest of the community, anybody who wants to take a look and see what we're doing our code is open source, the Trello boards that we have for the current work that we're doing and work that we've completed are all open to the community, we know, to the extent that we can share something with with everybody we do that. And it's it's pretty remarkable to be part of that process. Whenever, whenever the like I said, like there hasn't been a lot of history supporting that sort of effort. And we'll see what happens five years from now, like that fighter window for these people is always a tenuous thing. But we'll see what happens if more companies sort of take that approach. I hope that they will. I mean, if I hope that we people see us as a standard setter for this. And in seeing this as not just a fluke or an anomaly, but as like a genuine path forward for how you can approach digital health software.

Scott Benner 21:55
My wife works in drug safety, her whole career pretty much. And she always tells me that the biggest problem that pharma companies have is that they're afraid needlessly of the FDA. Yeah. And she's like, if they would just do what you just said, She's like, everything would just and I just clicked on this, like, this is an incredible collection of everything you guys are doing, made public. But he or she would always say that if they just would just not be scared. And I think the first person I saw diabetes, not be scared, right? was when Sanofi opened up, they're coming, they're kind of community arm and they they were reaching out to people with diabetes more, they were the first person who would, to me just said, Well, let me let me do what we think is right here, have good intentions. And if and, and the FDA will tell us if we've gone too far, instead of instead of pulling back doing less than we think would help people, let's do what we think would help people and then and then maybe that won't be a problem. And it turned out wasn't a problem. And my wife says that all the time. She's like, if you just if you just went forward with good intentions, that's what the FDA wants, they want you to do good work for people. They don't they're not in the business of telling you. No, they're in the business of telling you do do good things for people. Yeah. And so that's, that's really spectacular. I can't tell you that that's going to lead to so much success. I mean, it definitely seems like it will to me, and it looks like it is already. Okay, so tide pool starts out, it's a way to aggregate my data together for my pump, some ice jams and all this stuff. But now the world is I don't know how much people listening really understand. But there are plenty of DIY people in the world. You know, I we've had some of them on here making their own artificial pancreas as with all pumps and algorism algorithms that they wrote themselves. And there's a lot of people sort of on the fringes of diabetes doing this work for themselves that you know, they don't want to wait for a company to do it. They're doing it for themselves. And I hear people tell me all the time, oh, we're looping now. We're looping. And I just think of that movie with Bruce Willis. And that handsome boy and then I don't know, I haven't seen that movie yet.

Unknown Speaker 24:03
Is it really good?

Scott Benner 24:04
You know what, Chris? It's worth it. You'd like it. Okay,

Christopher Snider 24:06
you would Yeah, I'm always down for a good sci fi time travel sort of paradox thing and like it's been like on my Amazon with watch lists, but I haven't actually pulled the trigger because I have no time anymore. But thanks to puppy and just barely watching any of the shows that we normally watch is a whole hassle and there's like a half hour shows. So like trying to watch out for a movie is an impossible task at this point.

Scott Benner 24:26
A couple of things that people may or may not care about one I saw you got a puppy on line. I was like that's adorable. Because I love our dogs and so wish I didn't have them some but but I was like oh Chris and his new wife are gonna have this nice house and whether that dog pees on the floor ones anyway um,

Unknown Speaker 24:47
but

Scott Benner 24:48
But no, I get what you're saying. So looper as a movie review. It falls apart a little bit at one point but not in a way that makes you sad that you watched it. Okay. So and and Bruce Willis does his halfway between his diehard fans. And halfway between his Moonrise Kingdom thing. So he's he's writing his Bruce Willis sweet spot in my opinion.

Christopher Snider 25:07
That's that's fine by me. I'm diehard three all day.

Unknown Speaker 25:09
Yeah. So

Scott Benner 25:10
and then there's that other boy with the three names whose name I can't remember right now.

Unknown Speaker 25:13
Joseph, Joseph Gordon Levitt Joseph Gordon

Scott Benner 25:15
Levitt, who's been I don't think been banned. anything I've ever seen. So, okay, so everybody go watch looper that has nothing to do with looping. You're gonna have to talk to me like I'm for for a second. What is loop? Instead of an on the pod ad right here, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about a note I got last night. It's from a person who said that they let's see. Hey, Scott, I want to thank you for the podcast making diabetes management actually seem manageable. I found the show this summer. When I was looking for details about the Omni pod products that were coming up, I found your interview with them dove into the older episodes. And of course, listened to the classic episode number 11. I honestly never looked at diabetes management that way before. But I changed my mindset completely tweaked my basal rates changed, my ratios changed my dexcom alarms started treating high blood sugars more aggressively. And here I am three months later with my a one c down from seven, one to 5.5. And then she uses an expletive here, which I like, I don't know that my once has been that low and 16 years of having diabetes. This is the great part. I'm getting married in December. Thinking about having kids before I found your podcast, I just don't know if I ever would have felt comfortable enough to try to get pregnant with my one season the seventh. Going to the doctor today and seeing that 5.5 was so exciting. And also a relief, I can do this. Thank you for giving me the confidence to do something about it. I included this story here in this ad for Omni pod because three years ago, when I had the idea to start this podcast, and not one download to show for it. I went to Omni pod I said I need you to back this idea I have to help people. And they did before there was any reason to support it. And here we are now three years later, reading a note like that, about a woman who's about to start a family and have children with the help of something she heard on a podcast, something that three years ago didn't exist, that I couldn't afford to start on my own. Something that ami pod heard about and said, Yes, I'm really gonna let you into this conversation. You think things are about money all the time in business, I told them, Look, I don't know if this is ever going to make any money. But I can tell you that I really believe that it's going to help people. And if Omnipod wants to be part of helping the community, I really would appreciate your support. And they did it based on that, before they even knew if I could ever get it, download my omnipod.com forward slash juice box, try the free no obligation demo today. Try the pump on see what you think and support the company that supports this podcast, while just trying to support you. You're gonna have to talk to me like I'm for for a second.

Christopher Snider 27:53
What is loop? Alright, so we had to take a step back, I got Well, first of all context, which is really exciting. Like there are currently nine people a tide pool that are looping or have used open APS, which for that doesn't really mean a lot. But it's just like a fun little number we can throw around. So you have cgms people know about that the Dexcom thing that does every five minutes your blood glucose value in the people have figured out ways through things like nightscout to get that data elsewhere to have that visibility elsewhere. Some very, very smart people figured out that certain old Medtronic pumps can receive commands through very specific radio frequencies translated from very specific devices to alter basal rates and to do other things that has branched off into a couple of exciting new ventures, Android APS open APS, which people might have heard and loop. Ultimately, we're talking about Dexcom data, going into some sort of algorithm based thing and then sending a command to an insulin pump to say, Hey, I'm a little low, a little less Basal please or ham a little high, a little more Basal please. or, in the case of blue, pay about the eat, give a little more insulin, let's go. People figured this out. They're very, very smart. They have shared this code, it is all open source. And in depending on the route, you want to go with it, you can go open APS, which means that you carry around this thing called an Edison board. It's like the size of a of like a post it note ish. But it is a computer in your pocket that handles all the math to adjust your your insulin dosing based off your CGM data and the settings you were put into it as well. The other path is loop. And that is an iPhone app that you have to build yourself. So you have to have an apple developer license, which is apparently you can just sign up for it's like 99 bucks a year or whatever. And then there's another device called a Riley link. It's about the size of a tic tac box. And what happens is your CGM data goes to your iPhone, the phone does the algorithm stuff and then it sends something to the Reilly link and the Reilly link says hey Medtronic pump do this. And so the right link is basically being a translator for that radio frequency to to adjust insulin dosing from that, again, that is all open source. But as you can imagine, there's effort required to make this happen. You'd have to find a very specific old Medtronic pump and as the months and years have gone on, finding those has become more difficult and more expensive. There is time involved in quality In the code and executing the code, and making all that happen, making adjustments, there is some sort of tech savvy required. The community itself has been tremendous at helping people along and providing guidance and assistance and pointing out things whenever people are looking for help. But you still have to do it on your own to DIY system, do it yourself. Also, there's money involved, you have to buy the Edison board, you have to buy the Reilly link, you have to buy the apple developer license there, there's all this investment up front, before you can get this closed loop system, that you're managing yourself. And all of a sudden, you know, as our VP of product of Biz Dev, Brandon arbeiter, he controls his insulin pump from his Apple Watch, which is both wild and crazy. But he's doing all that and it's really, really cool type of loop. I did my own Monday, typos has, we have announced to the world that we are going to take the loop project and turn it into our own thing, and make it an FDA approved application to work with commercially available pumps and CG items. So we're talking about stuff that that insurance will cover that your doctor will write a prescription for, and they will feel comfortable writing a prescription for because it is FDA approved. And we will be supporting that'd be so DIY loop as we're calling it just draw a distinction will still be a thing will still move forward and will still receive updates and things like that that's not going anywhere. But typo loop, the branch of the project that we maintain and monitor, that's going to be our thing, and it's going to work with it and warranty stuff. So you don't have to go to the gray market. For an old Medtronic pump. You don't have to buy additional hardware, beyond the phone that you already need to make all this stuff work. But the future that we envision as you go, you talk to your doctor get a prescription. And then I'm not sure the exact process but also you're gonna get a prescription to go to the App Store and download this thing on your phone without having to do anything else. And then when you boot it up, you say I've got this pump. I've got the CGM. Here are my settings, loot me, I don't know if that actually is going to be the command. But we're just gonna have some fun right now. But ultimately, like I said, Our vision is that we will be supporting multiple pumps in CGM will be compatible with the software. So you pull up, you got your pump, you got your CGM, you configure your system, you're good to go. And then you can control your diabetes from your phone. And it helps me that'll automate stuff in the background. So it'll adjust your basal rates as your blood sugar's high and low. You'll be able to bolster stuff, you can set different targets whenever you are exercising and things like that. All this will be automated. And in theory, and actually not in theory, because I've actually I because I work with these people. And the system is incredible. I'm quite jealous me and my tandem like, we want to talk about basal IQ for a little bit. Hopefully, the pot sponsors won't get mad, but like, I'm rocking baseline IQ, I love this thing. But to see what happens whenever you have control on the highs and the lows, that peace of mind that has been provided, as I was talking with my co workers about it a few months ago, he's like, he doesn't think of it as diabetes nearly as much as he ever did and improves his quality of life and improves this work and improves his personal life for the relationship with his family. Do you spend more time with his kids all the time that you're spent dealing with diabetes, you still care about he so you know, keep a portion of your brain on it. But there's a huge chunk of that you get back. And then like at this point, like just with basal IQ only managing the lows, like I don't know what to do with that extra portion of my brain now,

it's not a lot. It's enough that I'm like, I'm not thinking about my diabetes right now. No, I

Scott Benner 33:06
we spoke about it recently on the podcast because I was like, This is fantastic. But it really is just the low side it's more of the it's more of the you know, the the don't die alarm. It's not the it's not the whole process but the whole process is so who do you you know someone who's you know a number of people that loop so you're telling me that that I if my blood sugar is thinking about getting low in the future and there's no way I can possibly know that the the loop understands that and it cuts my bazel back so that that hopefully low doesn't happen.

Christopher Snider 33:39
Yes, or it's not as severe and not

Unknown Speaker 33:41
as fair

Scott Benner 33:42
or and if I start getting crazy low and something really is going to go wrong. It just shuts my insulin down so that whatever is happening doesn't get worse. And does it come back it comes back on on its own I don't have to tell it Hey, you know you you sent my bazel down but now put it back on I really there's not a lot to do.

Christopher Snider 33:59
It's relying on that CGM data so as long as that's flowing then you're good to go. So a little bit like I get I get I'm on a T slim I have not looped before. So I can't speak to the specific current loop experience. But the thing is as often as is as automated as it can be, and it is remarkable to see it in action. Okay,

Scott Benner 34:16
so this so loop is no different than it well no different in a basic way than what any of your pump companies are off working on right now on the pods working on their, their algorithm, that's their loop for the lack of a better term. And so and so as I'm assuming tandems gonna try to go from base like you do a full system. I'm assuming they

Christopher Snider 34:35
are. It's called control IQ. I believe they're supposed to be working on. Last I heard from one of their reps at the conference I was at they said something about summer 2019. But that's like, super unofficial I have no idea. I'm,

Scott Benner 34:48
I know I know. Omnipod says like, like the end of 2019 or 2020 or something like that. And at the same time, it's interesting it really is now because because look what Luke did for everybody because I'm now Thinking that, that all these companies who have these target dates way off in the future? Why is that different from you? Like, how are you going to get it? Like, do you imagine yours is going to have FDA approval before these other companies?

Christopher Snider 35:15
We have an aggressive timeline in mind internally that I cannot share with you. I think it is a great question, though, and there is some something of a more substantial answer to it. And part of the reason is that DIY loop already exists. And it is a true is a fantastic sort of foundation for what type of loop will become. And there are a couple of pieces that are gonna be coming into play with this one is an observational study that's gonna be taking place, the Jade center metaphor is going to be looking at current loop users to sort of measure like not just the data, but also do some quality of life stuff to just sort of see how it's going. because there hasn't actually been a substantial clinical trial or clinical study, or, in this case, an observational study done on a DIY system before. And as you will see, in our meeting minutes that we published on type.org, slash documents, we're going to use that data to sort of prove the safety and efficacy of the system. And that's part of the thing that we're gonna be using to submit Hyperloop for FDA approval. And also along the way, there's this whole other thing that we didn't even talk about called the FDA, the digital health software pre certification pilot program. Basically, what that means that the FDA realizes that their process for approving digital software is outdated and ancient, and they would need help and they needed help figuring out what the new process should be a bunch of companies applied to be part of that process. typo was one of the nine companies selected along the likes of Apple, and Google barely and Fitbit and Johnson and Johnson and pair therapeutics and two others, I believe, so we are helping to make an FDA policy with Apple and Google and a bunch of other folks to hopefully provide what we are more simply describing as like a TSA precheck. So it's sort of like a fast lane for approval for digital software so that this stuff can get to market sooner. And part like we're actually going through an FDA audit right now to sort of prepare ourselves down the road for our eventual submission of typo loop. So like, there's a tremendous Foundation, from the code side of things, there's going to be clinical study data we're gonna able to use for our submission. And then with this FDA pre cert thing happening, about two different pieces are at play here, that should help us get this thing out in a much more reasonable timeline than I think people may ever imagined. So cool.

Scott Benner 37:23
No, I mean, no, can you can I suppose for a second, is there a world where you can eventually talk pump complex? So let me ask this question before that. So we the way it's set up right now, you described that my phone has an app that then talks to a little board, I have to hold a key I carry around with me to talk to this Medtronic pump. So how do you get past that say, say you guys sign an agreement with Omni pod? Does Omni pod have to put that board in their pump? How does from the How does it get from the app to the pump, when it's not that old Medtronic that somebody found a radio frequency though.

Christopher Snider 38:00
So there's a whole other FDA, there's a lot of FDA talk here, but it's all really exciting because the FDA wants all this stuff to happen, which I think is the most encouraging thing. So Dexcom recently received a classification for their g six called CGM leave if things are interoperable? I think so I, but basically, it means that it can work me it has been approved to work with other health software with other health applications and things like that, which is why tendons basal IQ got approval with dexcom g six, because it was g six was already certified by the FDA to do this stuff. and Canada said, Hey, we're gonna use g six to do something cool. And FDA said, awesome, go have fun with it. So that's the CGM side of things. On the AI pump side of things. There is yet to be an AI pump out in market yet, but the vision is that an AI pump will be able to receive data from an AI CGM, or to interact properly with CGM to do cool stuff. So you have the AI pump, you have the CGM, and then type a loop would be the AI algorithm or the AI controller, and all these interoperable pieces. Again, you get to pick your pieces of the puzzle. Right now it's just bringing the AI algorithm portion, we just be typing a loop. But I mean, hopefully down the road, we you have multiple CGM to pick from multiple pumps to pick from provided insurance covers and blah, blah, blah. But you get to pick the pump that your kid is most comfortable with. And then you just boot up Hyperloop, and you're good to go. And all that stuff will just with it. So I mean, if ami pod were a company that supports that, then that's great to go. And this is all going to happen. Because the different companies that that we are talking with that we haven't actually had a chance to share who we're talking with and what software is compatible yet. But there's something happening over Bluetooth, and they're all going to be compatible with the IPAM protocol. And once they're all on board, and we signed the agreements to make that happen, then they're sharing their data protocol communication agreement or their data communication protocols with us, so that our software can able to can be able to communicate with their devices. Actually,

Scott Benner 39:48
I can't believe I understood but I really did. So as you were talking I was incredibly impressed with myself because I would

Unknown Speaker 39:55
just fall.

Christopher Snider 39:56
For anything. This is good because I haven't had a lot of chance to talk about Too often so I feel okay that I'm being able to hopefully describe this in a reasonable fashion without getting into the weeds about it.

Scott Benner 40:05
No, absolutely, I'm thinking to boil it down is that Dexcom has added something to G six that allows it to make that communication with pumps that are that are set up to handle the communication. And then I extrapolate a little bit of my brain that I think about the companies who already have an agreement with Dexcom are moving forward, I use on the pod because I know it, I know they're developing their horizon, artificial pancreas system with the Dexcom g six. So it makes sense that they that would be for instance, one of the companies you'd be able to, to talk to, and and tandem the same way, if tandems already got their base like you and they're working on the other IQ system, then it makes sense that tide pool would work well with them and anyone else who has this agreement. So I see I do understand, and it takes away their need for me to carry around a small circuit board and a tic tac box. That really was the sticking point for me, in case you're wondering. Actually, it's funny, I mean, the, you know, in my mind, the real sticking point would have been going to a two pump I, when I heard that I stopped. I was like, Okay, I don't want to do that. But, but let me understand the rest of it. And then as I was like, if I did want to go with this to pump, then what would I have to do and then I like you were talking about earlier like, and I'd have to become a developer and it gets beyond my depth. And I've even had people reach out and say we could set it up for you. And I thought, well, that's great. Except that, you know, when my Wi Fi stops working, I like that I know how to get it working again, like I don't want my daughter to be using an insulin pump system that is dry through some lovely person in Montana who set it up for me who I don't want to have to call two in the morning if it doesn't work. And so in plus, I'm in the very, I guess I'm in the good position of, you know, my daughter's agency and her blood sugar stability is all very well regulated right now, just with just with what we're doing. So I didn't feel a pressure. But that didn't stop me from thinking about the other people who may be listened to this podcast and go, it's great that you're doing that I can't figure it out. Right. And I wish I had something else to do I talk all the time about I think the end of this podcast ends up being when looping and artificial pancreas becomes something that everyone can afford, then I don't see a need for this podcast anymore. I'll do a final six months, make sure everybody understands their artificial pancreas, and then I'm riding off into the sunset. But you know, but prior to that, there's there's more people than just me who can afford to get my daughter and in some competent CGM, and has the time to sit around and think about it, right. And so I try to think about all the levels of people living with Type One Diabetes, their access to health care, their access to technology, their ability to understand it, their ability to implement it, those are those are, you know, there are many, many levels of people in all varying situations like that, I am excited for the day when everybody gets to have a piece of this, you know, in a in a in a meaningful way that leaves you not walking around constantly scared of being low, or not looking at a meal and thinking, I don't know how to handle this, you know, so I'm just not going to eat or I'm not going to eat that. Like That to me is. That's that's the next level that I can imagine. I'm sure that I'm sure there's more past that. But I'm gonna be an old man by then Chris, I don't know, I'm gonna care by then what I think.

Christopher Snider 43:20
But I'm glad I can make you a believer is a nice,

Scott Benner 43:22
dude, you I mean, it's it's not that I didn't be clear, it's not that I didn't see the value in it before. It's just there were too many hurdles. And what I'm here, what I've been waiting for is for the companies to take the hurdles away. But what I'm,

Christopher Snider 43:34
but that's what we're here for you, I believe in the type of mission. Our goal here is to make data accessible, meaningful and actionable. We already talked about the accessible and meaningful part with the access regardless of the device and meaning, because it'll look nice and pretty on type of software. Now we're talking about action, but we're gonna put all this data to good use for you because it is your data, but also, you know, we get all these things happening and you start you start that type of loop process. And hopefully, you know, through that action, life gets a little bit easier, you know, in some marginal fashion, like it's, we're talking before we start recording, like all things considered, life is pretty good for me. But I also recognize that privilege and my ability to save that but you know, diabetes is definitely absolutely part of that equation when it comes to how am I doing and if it just like I said, Just seeing what basal IQ was done for me and my and how I feel about my diabetes and how I balance in turn, improve my life. Adding in more pieces to that control process, be it control IQ or Omni pod horizon or typo loop or whatever open APS continues to become like, all these different options are part of that process to try and make life a little bit easier. And diabetes is gonna go away anytime soon. Like I'm not I'm not sure how I really feel about like a proper biological cure, like give me this pill and all sudden I'm good to go. If we can improve the technology, while also continuing to have conversations about affordability for insulin and things like that, like those conversations aren't going to stop anytime soon. And type was absolutely going to be part of that. Anything else we can do to contribute to that in a positive fashion, it's super exciting to share that news with the world.

Scott Benner 45:08
I found these 10 phrases that they say make hypnosis more effective, I'm going to use them right now over the next 30 seconds, just pretend you've gone to dancing the number for diabetes.com. And the more time you spend there, the happier you feel, every time you go back, that happiness swells. This is what it must be like to be in heaven. Suppose you listen to me, and you remember to go to dancing for diabetes.com. Imagine what it would be like, when you get there, you'll be full of warmth and happiness, and find yourself realizing that you've done the right thing. So whether it's sooner or later, you're going to go to dancing for diabetes.com. Look into my eyes, you're getting sleepy. As you're talking, what I realized is this is you know, we're in October already in 2018. So this whole next year, you know, this whole next year is going to be just a run up to this explosion that's going to happen. You know, throughout all these tech companies wrapped around diabetes, like this is going to be the most exciting 12 months of since my daughter's had type one, and we're up on a dozen years now. So it's starting to feel it's starting to feel like a long time, you

Christopher Snider 46:25
know, and you throw in beta bionics and Bigfoot, like there's a lot happening. And it's, you know, him with all the caveats of access, and affordability and insulin pricing, all that other stuff. It's still a really exciting time right now to be to be sort of looped in on this conversation around where this technology can go and hopefully have you know more and more choice and more, more opportunity for people to seek better control so they can get back to posting their they Juicebox Podcast, doing one of the 15 podcasts that I have, or you know, to knitting whatever you want to do go walk your dog did not worry about this stuff. Just the idea of

Scott Benner 46:59
the free time is so exciting. I like Arden's blood sugar was incredibly stable last night, so I slept, you know, I went to bed earlier than I usually do. And I slept longer than I did. And I feel better today than I have felt all week. And I can't imagine how that would be I sometimes I lay in bed and I think I don't even have it. Like Like, what about every adult that's climbing into bed right now who's like, I'm gonna leave my blood sugar high so that I don't get low, or I'm gonna try harder to keep it where I want it. But then it's and then I got low and it's just it's a sleep is supposed to be this just regenitive restful time. And for so many people who use insulin, it's not it's the opposite. It's like this fearful, scary thing. And just to make that go away is amazing. So yeah, dude, it's very, it's incredibly exciting. I'm so happy that I reached out to you and asked you to explain this to me, because yeah, I was I feel like I was right there. But I was never speaking within about any. I didn't have any real confidence when I was talking. I'm like, I would always like parse, I'd be like, I think what it is, is this, it sounds to me like it says, I'll tell you as you were talking, I realized with all these great companies that are doing this work on their different ends. Dexcom really is the center of all this, isn't it?

Unknown Speaker 48:11
Like had they kind of crazy, right? Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 48:13
without them, like this doesn't exist at all.

Christopher Snider 48:16
But you think about where Dexcom is right now and how the community has pushed all that forward, like you think about what nightscout did to open up access to that data and visibility. And then all of a sudden, Dexcom share became a much more viable thing. And then, you know, the Apple Watch and all this other stuff, like, you know, I mean, the community absolutely deserves credit for moving all of this forward. And you think about I mean, like I said, like the open APS and DIY loop, like this community is driving the conversation. And to the point that we hired peach while the person who designed the Riley link and Katie de Simone, the person who created loop docs.org, the fantastic documentation site for people that are looking to get started with loop. We hired those two people that are working at type one full time to work on loop and loop docks, and also how about and also work on typo loop. So I mean, like you said to me, like it's like they were doing the stuff part time overnight, like they had they had full time jobs. But then there were also doing this loop stuff. And now because of everything that they've done in the community has done to move this conversation forward to put people in a position to make this happen. We can make this their full time job, their dedication to commit to the community has resulted in a tremendous opportunity, not just for them, but also for them, but for all of us. And it's from that from that tireless effort. That is it's just it's so remarkable.

Unknown Speaker 49:29
It's just it's crazy

Scott Benner 49:29
to think that the efforts of just random people scattered all over the globe, that that foisted a company on its shoulders really moved by the way Dexcom I'm gonna charge more for the ads. Now I didn't realize how valuable this was. And it just it No but seriously, it took this great idea and it helped move them forward. Not that they're not a great company and they're not doing good work there. The way they deal with the FDA is is revolutionary, to be perfectly honest with you like that some of the stuff that they've gotten through so quickly was mind boggling. A couple years ago how quickly they jumped from g4 to share from share to font like it was really something, you know, but but just to see that move forward. And for that to be that data, again, it's the data, the data is the hub, the data, helps the pumps do more the data helps you do less the data is it's everything, the experience and the understanding of how that insulin works, is the whole thing. That's fascinating. Well, it really is, and congratulations to everybody, anybody who's listening, who had any part of just, you know, sharing their experience or pushing a company, because I'm telling you, I found myself saying this a lot recently. But if you go back even to like, when you and I met, you know, a number of years ago, it used to just be exciting if a meter came out, like Oh, look at the meter, and everybody's like, Whoa, you know, like, like, that was the extent of like, the excitement in the diabetes world. You know, maybe this pump company will refresh this pump in a decade if we're lucky. Like, that's how it used to feel. And now I feel like I might wake up every day and hear about some amazing accomplishment, some giant leap forward. And it's a great time to it's a great time to have type one diabetes, that's a T shirt. Yeah,

Christopher Snider 51:09
it kind of is. But also Yeah, you may wake up tomorrow and find out which you know, pumps in CGM will actually be properly compatible for typo loop and that's what's coming tomorrow. But you know, this thing is happening and it's gonna happen. And because I mean, I, for anybody who's been following typo bait, people should know, we like to move quickly. And I can leave it with that sort of generous and probably overly aggressive teas

Scott Benner 51:32
like that. I take that so when you have anything else to say you feel free to reach back out. Chris as as we get ready to say goodbye Chris has alluded to he has a podcast of his own that you should be listening to first you want to tell people

Christopher Snider 51:47
and I got three one of them is kind of collecting dust. The other one just talking is the longer running one which is includes an interview with you from like, probably four years ago, whenever you met one Miss Katie Couric just talking podcast.com mostly talking with patient advocates a lot of people with diabetes and then started to branch out to the Legal Health Network to talk with other people, including somebody who has hyperhidrosis excessive sweating, which is the whole thing. And there's there's a lot to unpack, there was a really remarkable conversation. The other one that I have is called mark all that apply. It's a conversation about race between multiracial siblings, my younger sister, and I talk about race related topics. As you can imagine, there's a lot to get into there. But also, it's a lot of fun, because we view our blackness differently, which creates a lot of interesting conversation, but also she's pursuing her PhD and some something in the realm of multi racial studies and culture. So I personally believe as her big brother that doing this podcast will help her her thesis defense down the road, which is where a lot of fun play out. So that means that that is the personal life. And then of course, I pulled out dog. It's food, folks, go check it out.

Scott Benner 52:51
And there'll be Scott. Yeah, I Well, first of all, I will. And secondly, links in the show notes for all everything Chris just talked about. And I can't thank you enough for doing this. Can we throw this together very quickly. As soon as the as soon I think pretty much hours after I saw what happened. I reached out to Chris and I was like, Hey, I really want you to come on the podcast. One last thing. Can

Christopher Snider 53:11
you tell your son, tell your son that he's got a great crow hop still. We talked about this many, many years ago when you're on the podcast about how I love it. Good crow hopper. And you mentioned how fluid his motion is from the outfield. And I've seen some videos you've been posting really isn't that you got yourself a winner over there.

Scott Benner 53:26
I'll tell you what he's poor kid gets to college about six weeks ago. Now. As soon as he gets there, he's there for four days, he gets sick. And it's this horrible head cold that moves into his chest. And he's just he's so beat up. But baseball started for the fall. And I was like, you gotta you have to rest and he's such a type a kid. He won't not go to class. He won't not do his homework. He won't not go play baseball. There's nothing he won't give anything up to feel better. So he's been feeling pretty beat up but not stopping. And he told me he's like, it's I'm not hitting the way I want. He's like, I just I can't quite get rested. I'm not focused. He's like, I just want to feel better, you know? And I said, Okay, that's great. You know, you will Don't worry. And then a couple weeks into it. He said, Well, we have a scrimmage. You know, it's kind of a whole day the parents come if you want to come so I show up and my wife's there and my daughter's there and we're all watching Cole and he runs out into the outfield and the first ball hit to him. Chris was about a I might have to say roughly 280 feet from home plate. There was one out with a man on third called caught the ball and he promptly threw the kid out trying to run home coming

Christopher Snider 54:32
from third. That makes me so happy.

Scott Benner 54:35
I swear to you, I couldn't even make a noise. Thank you, Chris for coming on the show. Don't forget to go to tide pool.org get your data so much together from your CGM from your pump, make it go together squishy so you can see it and what it's doing. You understand and some goes here. This is what happened next. This is the information you need to make better decisions. Thank you dancing for Diabetes. Thank you Omni pod. Thank you Dexcom for sponsoring the Juicebox Podcast. Go to my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box, go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box go to dancing the number four diabetes.com there are links to all of this at Juicebox Podcast comm or in the player that you're listening to right now on your phone, Instagram users check out my Omni pod decks calm and dancing for diabetes. They're all on Instagram. Now go listen to some old episodes. And I'll be back next week. Come on, tell a friend about the podcast download Episode 11. You heard her talking about it or Episode 53 or 65 or 92 or 114 137? What about Episode 617 44? Sick? Look how many there are. There's like 190. I could list all the numbers but I mean, you know all the numbers, right? It's 123 and then it gets to 10. Then it starts building then it's like going back to one then so it's 10 then 11 which 10 is really just 10 plus one and then 12 which is 10 plus two and then 10 plus accounting is actually very simple.

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