#1502 Melissa is not Michelle

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Melissa has kept her A1C around 5.2 for three decades—yet was fired by her endo for refusing strict carb‑count rules.

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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.

Speaker 1 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Melissa 0:14
Hi, my name is Melissa. I live in California, and I'm from the East Coast.

Speaker 1 0:20
Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink. AG, one.com/juice box to get this offer, check out my algorithm pumping series to help you make sense of automated insulin delivery systems like Omnipod five loop Medtronic 780, G twist tandem control IQ and much more. Each episode will dive into the setup features and real world usage tips that can transform your daily type one diabetes management. We cut through the jargon, share personal experiences and show you how these algorithms can simplify and streamline your care. If you're curious about automated insulin pumping, go find the algorithm pumping series in the Juicebox Podcast, easiest way. Juicebox podcast.com, and go up into the menu, click on series and it'll be right there.

Speaker 1 1:45
This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour, next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juice box. Today's podcast is sponsored by us, med, us, med.com/juice box. You can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do. And I'm talking about Dexcom, libre, Omnipod, tandem, and so much more. US, med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the twist A I D system powered by tide pool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juice box, that's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box, get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juice. Box. That's t, w, i. I s t.com/juice. Box. Hi.

Melissa 2:53
My name is Melissa. I live in California, and I'm from the East Coast. Melissa,

Speaker 1 2:59
why would you not tell me, while we were talking for the last five minutes that I'm calling you Michelle and your name is Melissa. I

Melissa 3:05
only heard you call me Michelle at the very end, and that, for some reason, people name Melissa always get called Michelle, really. People name Michelle never get called Melissa, because I have no idea why. Oh,

Speaker 1 3:17
wait, I know what happened. First of all, this has nothing to do with that, I am recording tomorrow with Michelle, and when I set your file up, I was looking at my calendar and looking at tomorrow, not today.

Melissa 3:30
Okay, no matter what the reason is, it happens all the time. That's

Speaker 1 3:33
crazy that it happens all the time, and I just happened to be talking to Melissa today and Michelle tomorrow.

Melissa 3:39
Maybe that's always happening every time. Is it possible that

Speaker 1 3:43
everyone you speak to has just spoken with someone named Michelle?

Melissa 3:48
It's a very common name, so yeah, I guess it's possible. Okay,

Speaker 1 3:51
that's awesome. So now just know that the only thing in front of me says Michelle. So I'm gonna try to cover it so that that I don't look at it again, and then, okay, I should be okay, awesome. I'm very sorry, that's ridiculous. Anyway, you have diabetes or something like that.

Melissa 4:09
Yeah, I do. I've had diabetes since I was nine, eight years old, since I was eight years old in 1991 eight years

Speaker 1 4:15
old in 91 which is roughly 25 years

Unknown Speaker 4:19
ago. No, it's more like 32 years ago. Why is my bad math?

Speaker 1 4:23
Hold on. So take 91 you had 10, that's 2001 then 10 more. Oh, I forgot the 2000 10s, right? 11 would be 2021. Would be 30. Then it's like 24 years ago.

Unknown Speaker 4:36
34 Yeah, it's about 34 years ago. This

Speaker 1 4:39
isn't going well, right? I almost, by the way, Melissa, I almost called you Michelle on purpose just now to be funny, but then I thought, people are gonna think I was really doing that. So, all right, so you've had diabetes for a good long time. You're in your 40s now, yeah. All right. Anybody else in the family? Sisters, brothers, mother, father, grandmother, have type one diabetes?

Melissa 4:58
Nobody. Not even type two diabetes.

Speaker 1 5:01
Do you you have a thyroid thing or anything else like that? Nothing awesome. Anybody else in the family have like, celiac thyroid? No, no, not a thing. You don't have a bipolar uncle. Well,

Melissa 5:15
my grandmother on my mother's side was schizophrenic. My grandmother on my father's side, she had Guillain Barre Syndrome. Whoa, the what? Who like? It's, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Guillain Barre Syndrome, and it is a an autoimmune condition that's sort of similar to multiple sclerosis. I think, really, I could be, I'm not 100% on the family. This isn't something that's greatly talked about, but I'm pretty sure that she had that, and that it led to a fall that led to her death, but, but that's it. That's the only autoimmune condition in the family, and then the only other health conditions in general, I mean, not even type two diabetes. And the only condition there's been is cancers. You know, people have had cancer, or do

Speaker 1 5:59
have cancer, apparently, is it frequent with frequency? People in your family?

Melissa 6:03
My mother had cancer, and she was a smoker. She had oral cancer, but it's very strange. So I don't know if you ever read this book called diabetes rising.

You know there are audio books. I don't know if there is an audio book of this one, though, because I read this way back. Yeah. What's the book called? But yeah, in the book, diabetes rising, one of the things that's about type one diabetes, and it's about how incidents of it has has increased dramatically, you know? And this was written about 20 years ago, but even then, then the amount of cases have gone up a lot. It went into quite a lot of detail, looking into like, what are the various causes that might exist for type one diabetes? And there are no causations, obviously, that they can, like, determine, but what they have are correlations that are stronger or weaker. And one of the stronger correlations is just where on earth you're located, and where you and I are from, has very high incidence around New Jersey, Philadelphia, that area, very high incidence in that area, but especially right in my cul de sac. I lived in a cul de sac in west of Philly. There are three type one diabetes in my cul de sac. They're all up and down that street, just tons of cancer. And also a super fund site. You know what that is? No, a super fund site is just a place where there's a thing called the super fund that places can use to clean up especially toxic dirty areas, really. Yeah, that

Speaker 1 7:41
sucks. Have you ever gone back there and knocked on doors and been like, Hey, do any of your kids have type one diabetes?

Melissa 7:46
Well, we've, you know, I mean, they're our neighbors, so, oh, you're still there. I'm sorry. Well, I'm not anymore, but my family, my father and his wife, and they still live there. And they're dogs,

Speaker 1 7:59
they're dogs, they're dogs, which are, do they have any super dogs? All have diabetes, no, just kidding, and there's seven diabetic dogs. Scott,

Melissa 8:09
growing up, my babysitter, who was in our cul de sac, she had diabetes, and she still does, obviously. And I was we, you know, I had a wedding in my parents front yard recently, you know, about a year and a half ago, the

Scott Benner 8:23
bride room on the cake, I heard a Dexcom

Melissa 8:24
go off, and I was like, what? What's going on? And it turns out, I it was one of the one of my other neighbors who I always knew there was another type one there. I guess there were three type one diabetes besides myself, because there was the babysitter, her father, and then this other person who was at the wedding, and she was just ignoring her Dexcom, just like, that's fine. Which I was like, You're giving me anxiety. You got to treat this.

Speaker 1 8:47
Can you bowl this lady so I can go on with my wedding? Exactly? You just got married?

Melissa 8:53
Yeah. I mean, we've been together for over a decade, but yes, we recently got married.

Speaker 1 8:57
What happened? Did it get hard to do the taxes or something like that. I

Melissa 9:02
mean, to some extent, yes, obviously it's like, I'm just a deeply unconventional person. And I just was never like, we need to get married. You know that just like, wasn't really something where I was like, this is important to do, right? But then just one day, I think we were watching a TV show, somebody was like, unsure whether or not somebody would say yes to their marriage proposal, and I just said that, oh, man, I'd never just turned you down for a marriage proposal. If you did that, I would say yes. And he was like, really? And then he asked me, like, shortly after, I need to, like, drop all the hints in our relationship to make things happen, but it's fine. You made

Speaker 1 9:38
him ask you to get married after being together for 10 years. I

Melissa 9:41
didn't even mean to make them, No, I just, I just mentioned that that, like, I think there was a part of him that was just like, I don't know if she'd want that. She's deeply unconventional. You give off that vibe. Oh, well. I mean, I am. I mean, yeah, I guess, yeah, for sure. You

Speaker 1 9:56
think he thought if he asked you, you'd like, leave him instead. Yeah. The brand new twist. Insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case, that one got you twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design. Twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've Bolus. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is coming very soon. So if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juice box. That's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box. Links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com You've probably heard me talk about us Med, and how simple it is to reorder with us Med, using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works? And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, us, med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying? It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at us, med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com, to us, med and to all of the sponsors. The contour, next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show. I

Melissa 13:38
don't know what he thought. You know, he just, he's a really great guy, like, the most top notch man you could ask for a but, okay, but he's not like, super brave, you know? And whereas I'm like, all bravery, oh, I'm like, 100% bravery. And so there's, to some extent, I have to lead the way in certain things, he's really responsible and reliable and extremely kind. Like, I'm not as kind, I'm not very kind. I

Speaker 1 14:06
love how you started going I'm not as kind, and you were like, actually, that's too much credit. I'm not that kind.

Melissa 14:13
Yeah, I'm not super kind. I mean, I try. I want to be, I don't know, I should meditate on it and become kinder, but I'm but I don't know. There's just something about me, and a whole lot of that, like this, like deeply unconventional way of living, is so much of what I want to talk about in regards to my diabetes experiences, right?

Speaker 1 14:32
Well, listen, it's possible, possible, Melissa, that you're unkind because of pollutants like heavy metals, lead, mercury, industrial chemicals, PCBs, dioxins and radioactive materials. I

Melissa 14:45
know that you just put that into chat, GPT, I asked our friend,

Speaker 1 14:49
and this is what they said. Super fun site was EPA designation, identifies, investigates and ranks sites using the national priorities list to prioritize cleanup. So there. They're actually sites that need to be cleaned up, right? Oh my gosh, abandoned factories, industrial plants, landfills leaking toxic waste, old mining sites with heavy metal contamination, chemical storage and manufacturing plants, military bases with hazardous waste. Is type one diabetes. I haven't done this in a while. Oh

Melissa 15:21
boy. I was thinking, as I was listening to the podcast, I was like, I hope he doesn't start chat. GPT, well, just

Speaker 1 15:26
this one thing I just, I want to see, because you said the thing, and I want to see, like, if there's anything out there that, okay, say it says there's no definitive, large scale study that provides the direct link exactly,

Melissa 15:38
there's nothing, I mean, so I actually, I mean, I could talk more about what's in that book, diabetes rising. Yeah, please. Some of the stronger correlations, they're not that interesting. The ones that you always hear about are, like, the weakest correlations, like, like, cows milk. That's an extremely weak correlation. A lot of the stronger ones I've got going on. So geographically, like, there were a lot of kids in my school who had type one diabetes, and you know where I lived, there was a whole diabetes floor of the hospital where I went to also like your birth order, the the higher up in your birth order that you are, the more likely you are to have diabetes. And whether or not you were breastfed, if you weren't breastfed, then you have higher incidents, but I was breastfed and I was the second child, so I wasn't even the first. But I don't know if you realize this, but every time a woman gives birth, every child, the first one gets, like the highest of her her toxic load, and then each successive child has less of the toxins that have built up, like from eating fish or whatever else, all of that, you get less and less of that. Oh,

Speaker 1 16:47
I've never heard anyone say that before. That's interesting. That's true. So you should make, like, three and throw them away, and then really get started, right? Yeah, just, just start over. Get out your toxic toxic load. Get your toxic load out. And then, yeah, oh, gosh, I didn't realize that. No, no, it's so awesome. Thank you. I

Melissa 17:04
mean, who knows? Maybe things have changed since that book was written, but it was a fascinating book.

Speaker 1 17:09
Yeah, it's interesting, by the way, even though it says here that there's no studies about the super fun sites, it does go over a number of different ways how one of those sites could impact auto immune diseases and type one diabetes. So wait, wait, you were saying something and I shifted you crap. Hold on. It was

Melissa 17:26
just about being a deeply unconventional person. Yeah,

Speaker 1 17:30
no, thank you. So Wow, good memory. I got up very early this morning. I can't believe I'm gonna say this on this podcast. I got up very early this morning to sit with Arden's new puppy, oh, so that she could sleep for a couple extra hours. I know that I've given what is rock solid advice that I didn't listen to. And my rock solid advice, of course, is don't get married, don't have kids, don't get a dog. If you can avoid these three things, your life will probably be sadder but easier. But anyway, our dog, I

Melissa 17:57
won't have kids. Why not? Well, I mean, first of all, I'm 42 Oh, that's gone over to reason. So that's a good reason in and of itself. But no, I decided when I was pretty young not to have children, but I am a nanny and a babysitter for a living, and so, I mean, I love kids, and I am really good at taking care of them and understanding them. However, like, it's almost like a physical need to be with children. For certain people, I feel like if I didn't work with kids, I would have that need very strongly, because I get so much out of it, like my nanny baby after the holidays, and I didn't see him for three weeks, and then when I came back to him, he was asleep, and when he woke up, I went and I got him out of his crib, and he just hugged me for 20 minutes. You know, he just didn't want to do anything but hug me. And that feeling like is very difficult to replicate if you don't have any access to children. And I can see like having a hunger for them for that reason. But I've been doing this for so long, working with the with children and babies, that I get all of that from my work so

Speaker 1 19:04
interesting, like when you work in a bakery and you don't want sweets Exactly, yeah, access to children, by the way, out of context, very weird statement. Well, you know, in that context, I understood exactly what you meant. How long have you been doing that kind of work since

Melissa 19:21
2011 Wow. Before that, I used to work as a like a paralegal, which is not work I recommend, because so you know, I think Karl Marx said that work robs you of your species. Being like, it makes you feel like you're, you're not part of the species. You're You're just like. It's early to me too. It's only it's 930 for me, that's early because I, like I said, I'm a deeply unconventional person, so I don't really keep regular hours. So some work very much robs you of your species being and I feel like the work that I do now, it does not rob me of my species being. It i. Makes me feel fulfilled, whereas working as a paralegal has it just makes you feel dead inside. It's it's not good.

Speaker 1 20:09
You're not you're disconnected from it by yourself, indoors, all that.

Melissa 20:13
Yeah, that. And I mean, I'm sure it has a lot to do with the culture of the different places that you work, but I think that attorneys and doctors, most notoriously, sort of like, have egos about what they do. And, you know, I think, I think in some small part, even the desire to be those things in our culture has something to do with, like, wanting to feel higher than other people, not necessarily. I don't want to put that out there as a an overarching thing, because I know a lot of you know, there are a lot of attorneys who go into it to become public defenders, and, you know, do good work and but you know, if you're going to be working as a paralegal, most likely you're going to be like me and doing slip and falls and things that are a lot less noble.

Speaker 1 21:01
Did you feel like you were part of a system that was stealing from people? Well, no,

Melissa 21:05
I actually so the last, last place I worked as a paralegal, I think was actually doing very good work, but it's still, it still wasn't a great place to work. But we used to, we sued nursing homes. I used to look through the documents of the people who were suing the nursing homes. I remember looking and seeing there was this woman who had type two diabetes, and she was taking as much insulin in a day as I took in, you know, over a week. And I said, you know, those are the people who are using all the insulin. And I was like, I don't even think that's effective. I'm not even sure why you're doing it that way. I don't know why you don't like give them, you know, fruits and vegetables instead, but whatever, what

Scott Benner 21:46
makes you want to come on the podcast,

Melissa 21:47
I want to talk about what it has been like to live in a very unconventional way, pretty much without doctors. And yet, I've figured out diabetes since well before I had the technology. So I was in college in the year 2000 till 2003 when I dropped out. During that time, I was still on regular insulin and NPH, or human still in 2000 in 2000 Wow. And nobody had ever mentioned changing anything partially, I'm a victim of my own success. All right. So for one thing, it always surprises me to hear that people have never heard of Pre Bolus saying, because, again, I was diagnosed in 1991 and you know, they had a pretty good program, I guess, at Montgomery hospital, because they definitely told us you're supposed to give yourself insulin a half hour before you eat. That was always the role, always. I mean, this was on regular insulin. I didn't always do it, and to this day, I still don't always do it, and that's one of the reasons why. Like, if I can convince myself to find an endocrinologist and go to one, I would love to get some a phrase, but I really struggle with having to beg doctors for what I need,

Speaker 1 23:04
I made an ENT appointment yesterday for myself that I should have made two years ago. Oh yeah, I just got up one day and I was like, I'm not why am I struggling with this? Why don't I just do it?

Melissa 23:13
Well, I just don't have an endocrinologist at the moment, because my last endocrinologist, like, she fired me, she doesn't want to see me anymore, which is wild, because, like, you know, she really should be asking me for advice about how I do what I do, but she was angry because I don't do carb counting, and I don't put carb counts into the pump, and she wants me to do things by carb counts, but I have had diabetes for so long, and I got so good at it that my ability to know how much insulin I need for the food that I eat is like preternatural. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 23:45
just know. Why was she insisting on you doing that? I

Melissa 23:49
don't know how long, so I mean, that was one of her issues with me, was that I refused to she was really upset about my inability to provide a carb count. I said, I know you need to put something in your chart, so just put one to 10. Because I don't care what she puts on the chart. She was like, Well, I don't like that. And I was like, Oh, I'm sorry. Like, I think I must have probably said something to her about how I was like, you know, well, I've been doing this for a really long time, and I know how to do it. And my time in range is 93% and my a 1c is 5.4 I think it was. And I'm just like, you know, I don't know what you're complaining about.

Speaker 1 24:24
Yeah, was she new to you? Were you guys just just now? No, she was

Melissa 24:28
so she was the one who finally put me on a pump. I need you to understand I didn't even have, I didn't have a CGM. I always wanted a CGM. Like, I remember, like, through the many, many years of having figured out on my own how to do diabetes. I remember, I've thought to myself, if there was just some device that would track your blood sugar all the time, test it all the time, and then it would talk to a pump. I mean, I remember, I literally, I thought that's as good as a cure. That was what my thought was at the time. I was like, that's like, that would be so great. Big deal. Yeah. And then. I knew that, like such a thing existed, but I just had always been doing so well, and I didn't have health insurance for most of my life, like when I worked as a paralegal, I did not have health insurance. I worked at a small practice for most of that time, and then I did finally get health insurance at the last place that I worked as a paralegal, and that was when I switched to Lantis. So we're talking about, like 2008 or something, when I switched to Lantis.

Speaker 1 25:27
So tell me what you mean by I figured it out the other way. So like you started with, did you start with RNN? Was that your first instance? I started with RNN. Okay. And doing what like shooting in the morning and at night, or how did

Melissa 25:40
you handle it? Yeah, and I was figuring out my own doses pretty much. I mean, I still remember, like I used to give myself eight units at night and three in the morning, or maybe it was the other way around. That doesn't matter to the audience.

Speaker 1 25:57
You don't have to edit, Melissa, you can just keep talking. That's fine. You were having outcomes back then that were like the ones you're having now, or just you were doing you were in the fives. Yes,

Melissa 26:06
5.2 usually, because I was I would go low but, but I don't want you to think that God was low all the time. I could always feel my lows. Some people live their lives in fear of lows, but I do not live my life in fear of lows. I realized very early on that having diabetes type one is sort of like you are jumping out of an airplane and there's a target on the ground, and you need to get into the bulls eye target, and the closer you are to that bulls eye target, it's more like you need to get into the bulls eye, but not in the center, like you just don't want to be in the center. You just want to be on that target, but not right in the center. But the whole world outside of that target is huge. So it's really easy to end up nowhere close to the target, but if you are consistently in that target, you're much more likely to occasionally hit that bulls eye by accident. You know, I just embraced like, Okay, well, I'm not afraid of lows. If I start to feel low, I'll just eat some sugar and I'll be okay. And so because of that, I just, I kept my plus sugars, like, fairly in range with some lows, which is not to say that I didn't have dangerous lows, because I did. They were all as a result of drinking alcohol and then going to sleep. I called an ambulance one time, pretty sure that my my deceased mother, like, visited me in a dream to get me to wake up give myself some sugar. I definitely had some dangerous loves, like, I'm not going to pretend like everything my life was perfect. Were they frequent? I mean, I would say that during that time. I mean, it's hard to know, because I didn't have a CGM. I was testing my blood sugar like 10 plus times a day, and I want you to understand something. So when I went to college, I still had health insurance. This was before the Affordable Care Act, and so I did not get to stay on my parents insurance until I was 24 and as soon as you dropped out of college, you lost your insurance. Right when I did that, I did as best as I could. I was always testing, and I was always I had a mantra, test and treat, test and treat. I repeat test and treat. I just like I honestly did, like a pump style regimen, but with MTI, where I would, I would give myself, like, the smallest bit of insulin. I, you know, on those syringes they have, like, you could get ones that have a half unit, and I used to get those, and I would just, like, I would give myself, like, a little tiny triplet of insulin. So I was giving myself a ridiculous number of shots for so many years, and I destroyed the fat

Scott Benner 28:43
on my body. Were you just shooting at the same place all the time? No,

Melissa 28:47
no, I was doing my all over my thighs and all over my stomach, and that's about it. I would love to be able to use different parts of my body, but for some reason, nobody can explain this, but my sites fail. They just fail all the time. Like, I mean, you can try to explain it, but I've never heard anyone on the podcast say it, and I've also no one's ever heard of what happens with me, but like the true steel, which is the ones that are supposed to not occlude ever. Those occlude constantly for me, non stop. And the only ones that work for me, the only infusion sites that work, are the autosoft 30s. Who makes that? That's tandem, but they these are the ones that go in at a 30 degree angle, right? And let me tell you, they scar. They really do. They scar, but they work, and so I use them. Do you have

Scott Benner 29:42
problems when you were injecting? You

Melissa 29:44
know, it's hard to say, because there were times when I felt like that shot didn't even make a difference, and it felt a lot like what used to happen with what happens when I would use, like, true steel or whatever, where I'm like, for some reason at this site, I'm getting. No absorption. I think that it's possible that that was an issue, but it's also it's, again, it's really hard to tell because, because I didn't have a CGM, and so I was just testing a lot, and I would just give myself many shots. So if one didn't work, the next one might Okay, jeez. Just kind of

Speaker 1 30:20
want to, like, refocus for a second on the RNN time you were managing tests correct test that testing correct you were doing with that. Yes, okay, yeah. And

Melissa 30:29
I did that. And, you know, I'm, honestly, I'm so thankful that I had that time doing that, because I know that no matter what happens if I was extremely broke. I mean, now I have health insurance through my husband, but if I had no health insurance and I had no money, I can totally survive off of Walmart from pretty minimal cost and not just survive, but thrive. And I could keep my my blood sugars at, you know, a 5.2 a, 1c, and I'd probably do better at it now, even then, now that I understand more due to having had a CGM for a while. Is

Speaker 1 31:06
there an eating style at play here? Or do you just eat what you want? Yeah, what's your style? I've

Melissa 31:12
been a vegan for a long time, a very long time, and but the thing is, sometimes I'm a healthy vegan, and other times I'm a junk food vegan. I find junk food vegan is veganism. It's the same as when I used to just, like, eat, you know, pizza and everything, you know, just when I used to just, you know, prior to that, I ate, like, whatever I used to eat, like, a lot of like, frozen chicken from a bag that would stick in the oven, like, I know,

Speaker 1 31:37
a junk food vegan, like, so it's interesting, they're like, I don't eat meat, but no, I don't really eat vegetables either. I eat mostly potato chips. My gotcha, yeah,

Melissa 31:46
I love me some potato chips. And actually, though, if you're gonna eat like that, like if you're gonna eat junk, really, in a way, you know, humil and R is great

Speaker 1 31:54
because you're grazing and it's spread out and that kind of, yeah, there

Melissa 31:58
was a long time, even after I switched to finally having humolog, I still kept some R. I used to keep both on hand, and I was able to get humologue. I was able to get humologue through Lily cares. You know, Lily used to get the program, yeah, I used Lily cares for a long time for that, but they don't make a lance, so I was just using n and cum log.

Speaker 1 32:24
So you have any eating style, it's not what I thought. I thought you're gonna say I'm, like, more low carb or something like that. But

Melissa 32:28
okay, so I used to try, I tried everything, but I actually I was using way more insulin when I was low carb, way more insulin. So, like, if you eat a healthy vegan lifestyle where you like, are eating pretty low fat. I eat my five servings of fruit and vegetables a day. And for sure, I have like, regular foods that I eat, which is also helpful. Mostly, what I eat is like, I eat like a whole unprocessed grain, like quinoa, or, you know, I use, like the most brownish rice you can find like, that's grown in India, because the ones grown in China have arsenic. If you eat, like a whole grain, like a vegetable, like some something Leafy, like a mix of like a nice, delicious sauce of some sort, that isn't, like, super sugary, but even if it is sugary, it's that's okay, because I find that a meal like that. It's just so easy to dose for I don't struggle with that at all. And if you eat like a raw food, I mean, I'm not a raw food diet or anything like that, but the easiest foods by far, like, if I'm gonna go out to eat and not struggle to dose, I really recommend a raw food restaurant, which sounds gross, but it's actually like, usually delicious. Melissa, are you a hippie? No, not at all. I'm more like a rock and roller like a punk. Okay,

Speaker 1 33:48
all right, we can bleep this out. But would you have a different last name in my Facebook group than you have on this? Yes, okay, get ready to have your mind blown. Okay, I searched for you just to see who I'm talking to about five minutes ago. Okay, the last post you put up has a reply from Do you want to

Unknown Speaker 34:13
guess who? Sure, no, I don't know

Speaker 1 34:15
who the Michelle that I'm recording with tomorrow. Oh, isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 34:26
I couldn't believe it, like you popped up, and I'm like, Oh, this is definitely her. And then I looked down and the last comment in your last post is from that person. I can't believe that. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I don't understand. How does the world work? How does it know? You

Melissa 34:42
know you can, you can do the gateway tapes and try to figure that out.

Speaker 1 34:46
And did you just mention Lily a minute ago? Well, the Eli Lilly really cares. That person used to work there.

Melissa 34:55
What's gonna I own quite a lot of stock in Eli Lilly. Do you understand quite well? For me, yeah, you're in the market. Are you? Yeah, I am. And I don't normally own individual stocks. Mostly I just do like whole market ETFs. But when I first got started, I was just like, I'm just gonna buy a bunch of individual stocks of companies that I like. And I was like, I just like Lily because they helped me out for so many years, and so I bought a bunch of stock, and then that stock looks skyrocketed, still doing well. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's, like, just gone, even for like, maybe a year or so. But when I bought it, it was pretty cheap. And then, I guess, because of Z bound and everything, it really has skyrocketed, we're not giving stock advice. I think we have to say that, yeah, yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't have any stock advice. My stock advice is, invest in a mutual fund. I was

Speaker 1 35:47
gonna say, I know for a fact you're the first person to say whole market. ETF on the podcast, for sure, yeah. Well,

Melissa 35:55
that is honestly the most rational. That's what, like any, anybody will tell you to do if you're just like a casual investor. I mean, everybody needs to be invested in order to horse hire. Hopefully you're invested to retire. I

Speaker 1 36:08
am trying my hardest. Yes, thank you. I sure hope so. Should you should have been doing it for years. We have been putting money into a 401 K since the first year my wife, yeah. But then

Melissa 36:18
did you invest with that 401 K? Because a lot of people just put their money into these accounts thinking that it's being invested, but it's not so it's just sitting there. It's just savings. We have a

Speaker 1 36:28
person who looks at some the money and makes changes to it as the year goes on. Okay, all right, good, good.

Melissa 36:35
And then they take one you're probably paying them, like, one to 2% I pay

Speaker 1 36:39
them 1% of Oh, my god, yeah, it's terrible. But I

Melissa 36:43
would not see I would just invest in a whole market ETF. It's literally just in like, like, if you invest in an ETF, like, VT or VTi, that is just the entire stock market. And if you look at the entire stock market over time, it's just gone up and up and up and and just that, like that gives you a 10% return a year, basic, you know, on average, yeah, and that beats what individual investors do. It's insane. People make it so complicated, but it's actually so simple.

Scott Benner 37:12
My guys then nine, 10% for the last six years, right?

Melissa 37:15
I know, but it would have been like 11 or, I mean, the market the past, you know, decade has been insane. It's just

Scott Benner 37:22
what's getting ready to jump again. So I don't

Melissa 37:25
know. We'll see. Yeah, it could be. I mean, the thing is, is that everybody is greatly invested in making sure that's the case. I know

Speaker 1 37:33
very little about this, but I've been alive long enough to know that companies seem to do better under Republican presidents. So I'm expecting a little bit of a swing in the in the

Melissa 37:44
I mean, I don't think that's actually technically true. These past four years have been the market has skyrocketed, but it has been very good, and it was great through Clinton, unfortunately, George W Bush crashed the economy, and then, of course, Trump, under COVID, did as well. So there was, like, a huge crash. So I don't really think it makes a difference who's in office as far as the stock market goes, because everybody has a great deal of interest in keeping the stock market continually rising. Yeah,

Speaker 1 38:12
I would say this. I do think that as an adult, the most money I made on any money I had invested in. It wasn't very much then, obviously, but because we were pretty young, but the Clinton years were very positive. Yeah, there was a big leap this year, during these last couple years with during Biden. Yeah, what I'm saying is that when Republicans come in, a lot of times they'll kind of, they'll cut restrictions, and I think it makes everybody believe that there's going to be more money national exuberance, yeah, yeah, right, that's exactly. And everybody gets super excited for a while. The market jumps, a crash, and then about two years in, it usually starts to trend the other way.

Melissa 38:50
Usually, their horrible policies make do, do affect the economy negatively. Eventually, the thing is, is that there's a real economy, and then there's like the economy that just is affecting those who invest and those are different things, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 39:04
And I want to say I would prefer that water and air and stuff like that be clean, but at the same time, like I've noticed over and over again, like you said, when those restrictions get lifted, it does create and the stock market is people

Melissa 39:15
talk about restrictions, but what restrictions are you talking about? Like, do you actually,

Speaker 1 39:19
oh, I don't think anyone knows. I just think that it's the vibe in the world that that's happening, and everybody gets a little more excited with their investing, and then everything kind of pumps up a little bit for a while. And then when, you know, when it doesn't bear,

Melissa 39:32
well, there's also a lot of fraud and dishonesty under you know. So what happens is we get Enron situations when we have an SEC who's not like looking into these companies to make sure that they're actually, you know, behaving lawfully. Yeah? So, yeah, the more fraud and deceit that you have, the higher the stock prices are going to go. But it's,

Speaker 1 39:50
it's irrational. Oh no, for sure, I think everything around the stock market's irrational.

Melissa 39:54
It, I mean, to a huge it's all just vibes. It has very It used to be different. You. Used to be that those things had to do with how well the companies performed and their cost ratio and all these different things, but now it's pretty much all just vibes and so crazy, and who knows what's going to happen? Yeah,

Speaker 1 40:12
by the way, like, politically, I don't really like, I don't have an opinion that I'm I hold enough that I would want to share publicly, because I don't think it probably holds water. That is the vibe is that, like, everyone just gets excited and then things just trend for no reason. It's not like, it's not about profits, not about, like, you said, it's not about cost. It's just about like, Oh, I I think that's a good idea, or I don't like the guy that runs that company, so that, you know, it goes the other way, or that stuff is insane, you know what I mean, right? So, yeah. I

Melissa 40:41
mean, the things that have really skyrocketed are almost just entirely based on vibes, you know, like the the like the ETFs that are just invested in semiconductor stuff, like QQ, these types of ETFs. I mean, my God, those are, those are just like, those companies aren't even turning a profit,

Speaker 1 40:58
you know, no, a lot of those companies are borrowing money to stay going, yeah, they're like, we have an angel investor. I'm like, okay, like you said, meanwhile, there's companies out there. They've got, you know, they treat their employees well. They're following the rules. They're making money, they're not spending too much. They show a profit, and right? Their stock sits, and it doesn't matter. It gives you about a 10% return

Melissa 41:18
a year if you're invested in just like normal things, like, like Lily, you know, these, like blue chip stocks, where it's just like, these are proven companies. They're not going to go bankrupt. They're turning a profit, maybe inventing something that is freaking awesome. Like, you know, I mean, I don't think that Lily, Lily didn't invent zbound, but having a product like that will help your stock price, but ultimately, it's just about running a good company anyway. I didn't mean to get off on that's another

Speaker 1 41:46
thing. It's never happened before, by the way. I will say this though I had a doctor on the other day from Joslyn, and he's on staff at Harvard as well. And he was talking about, he doesn't think injectable glps will be long for the world. He thinks that they're going to get more power for their punch out of an oral medication sooner than you think, sure, yeah. So, yeah,

Melissa 42:07
nobody likes to inject. Yeah. I was just listening to your episode about injection fear, and I was thinking about how, you know, even though I have diabetes, when I watch TV, I can't stand the thought I'm okay with insulin shots. Those don't bother me to even see or to think about. But I can't watch a TV, a needle on TV going into somebody. I mean, I get all my vaccines, but I don't like how they go into my shoulder. One time, I got a breathing thing, you know, I got a nebulizer. It's just the, it's when you get really sick and you have, it's such a common word, but yeah, it's like, I got a vaccine to make sure that you don't your lungs don't fill with water. What the heck is that called? Starts with an A I feel like you've

Speaker 1 42:50
got me going in circles. I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't get off over like, I'm trying to decide how you learned about the stock market and investing.

Melissa 42:57
I'm just very smart, and I do read books. Like, a lot of them, like, like,

Scott Benner 43:01
100 or so a year, really? How many is that a week? Well,

Melissa 43:05
I listen to audio books, and I listen at like, one and 1.5 speed.

Speaker 1 43:10
I got audible recently, and I was like, so there's this book I want to read, and it's just dry, so I'll just let somebody download it into my head through audio, is the way I was thinking about it. And then I'm so spoiled about entertainment because of podcasts. Yeah, I got along. I'm like, this is boring. Well, what book was it? I don't want to say I'm not trying to bad mouth the book I hear that, but I also want to know it could have been the person reading it. Like, I have no idea. But I was like, All right, this sucks. Like, so I'm going to try a different one.

Melissa 43:42
Well, don't use Audible, because that, and then you're paying per book, and you feel bad about it, you know? Just, just get your libraries, get you have a library card, right?

Speaker 1 43:49
No, a library. We don't have a library card. I haven't been to a library since I was nine, yeah.

Melissa 43:54
But you can just go in and just show your ID and get a library card, and then that will give you access to Libby, which is an app, and then you just put whatever audio book you want on hold, and when it's ready, you'll get to take it out of the library and you can listen to it. And then you don't have to feel bad about abandoning it if you hate it. You don't feel like I just paid $15 for the month and I'm out

Speaker 1 44:16
of bowl or whatever. I don't understand what Libby is like. Libby is an app. It's audio listening.

Melissa 44:21
Also, you good. Also, you can get Kindle books as well through it, but, yeah, why do

Scott Benner 44:27
I have to wait for it to be available if it's digital? Because it's

Melissa 44:30
from the library. So there are other people online before you. So

Speaker 1 44:34
it's not digital, it's not like a a link or a file that it's it's an

Melissa 44:38
audio book. It's on, it's on an app. You know, it's just like, it's just like your audible app, except it's called Libby. I don't understand why

Speaker 1 44:44
more than one person can't listen to it at once. Well, because they've cut deals

Melissa 44:48
with the libraries to use the physical books are the same way. Honestly,

Scott Benner 44:52
they're limiting it until somebody else is done with it,

Melissa 44:55
correct, like they have a certain number of copies available, and then. After the library has used up the number of copies that they like, got the right to give, they can rebuy whatever they bought. They have to buy it again. That makes sense. Okay? And then a really popular book, you know, they might originally get 100 copies, but then as the book gets less popular, they're not going to keep buying 100 copies. They're just going to buy, you know, however many they need. I'm

Speaker 1 45:21
going to ask you a question that there's no way you should know the answer to to see if you know the answer, because you're starting to freak me out. Okay, what humidity does my chameleon want to live at? Oh, I have no idea. Okay, God, I was glad, because I thought I was going to just keep saying things that you're going to be like, Oh, I know about that. Like, freaking me out. Oh, my gosh, that's like, Rosemary's Baby. Are you familiar with Rosemary's Baby? I don't do scary movies. Oh my gosh, that's a shame. I don't like they seem silly to me. I've

Melissa 45:50
got Rosemary's Baby, like, memorized and, and, you know, there's a part where this old guy, he says, he says, you name a place, I've been there, name a place. And he's like, sit for Alaska. And he's like, I've been there, great city, you know, like, no matter what, anyway,

Scott Benner 46:05
what's the what's the town in Alaska? I think

Melissa 46:07
I said sit VA, but I'm not sure that's actually a town. Sitka might be the name of

Speaker 1 46:12
the town to find out, because I think that's what your episode is going to be called. Oh no, I hate that. You weren't going to like whatever I picked.

Melissa 46:19
Most famously, he cites Dubrovnik, which is in Croatia, as a place. At the end, Rosemary says, Don't talk to me. You're in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik, yeah. And I think most people don't when they watch the movie, there's a lot of stuff in that movie that you it's really not a scary movie in the way that, like some movies are scary. You know, there's no Gore,

Speaker 1 46:40
I believe you. I should watch it. I know the reference. Isn't that enough? No, it's like one of the best movies, all right, I'll put it on the list of movies that I'll be you

Melissa 46:49
know what? If you prefer you can read the book by Ira Levin. Does

Scott Benner 46:53
it sound like that's gonna happen, which is exactly

Melissa 46:55
the same as the movie, except for one scene. Okay, anyway, let's talk about diabetes. I have so much to say

Speaker 1 47:03
about diabetes, so tell me what you want want to say about diabetes. Then, yeah,

Melissa 47:07
I mean, I just, I have, like, so many experiences, just so much. First of all, you know, when I was growing up, we didn't have all of this technology, and I feel so bad for the parents today, because they are worrying so much because they have so much detail about what's going on with their kids blood sugars and me like so when I was a kid, we didn't even have, like, carb counting or anything. We just had exchanges. You're supposed to have one exchange of carbohydrates and one exchange of protein or whatever. But we never did a good job keeping it any of that, and there wasn't any adjustment to my insulin dose due to blood sugar or like, the adjustment was minimal. And so eventually, I actually spent about two years where I didn't test my blood sugar at all. I never tested my blood sugar because it made no difference. Like, it just felt like it was a way for doctors to yell at you when you went into the office because your blood sugars weren't good. So I was like, Well, why not just make up all of this? All I ever used to do is just invent blood sugars and write them in those little books they would give us, which, like those books, never made sense either, because everybody expects you to be on a schedule. But I just never, even as a kid, I just never could keep to any sort of like, regular human being, schedule. Yeah.

Speaker 1 48:19
Do you think they wanted those numbers in the book to help you, or just because they were supposed to be there and they could say that it was there, I'm sure

Melissa 48:27
that the idea is to help you. I mean, I don't think they just do it to be evil or anything. Like, no, I don't think that, yeah. Like, let's torture them, make them write these numbers in a book. And actually, like, so my father, you know, he's a computer programmer, and he invented the first program to like, he was like, I'm gonna invent something where he used to hook up my one touch two glucometer. I don't know if you've ever seen those on the internet, but the old school glucometer. But he invented something that would pull the data from it and write down all the blood sugars to solve this problem. Wow. How long ago was that? I mean, it must have been in like 1994 jeez. Did

Scott Benner 49:06
he do that just for you, or do you do it?

Melissa 49:07
Yeah, just for me. Oh, that's lovely. He also invented a a program to help me spell. He made a thing where you could record, he could, I could record my spelling words, and then I had to type it in. And so he at first I record my voice, and then it would like give it to me Spelling Bee style. Can

Speaker 1 49:24
you go back to what you think about parents struggling nowadays because, because I want to hear what you're going to say and then I'm going to disagree with you.

Melissa 49:32
Okay, go ahead. You might, but you also might not. I just feel a lot of sympathy for them, because I can see how stressful it is. And like my parents, I don't get the impression that my father was super stressed about it. My mother may have been stressed about it, but I think she mostly just felt guilty, like she felt like it was like a failure as a parent that she got that I got diabetes, okay, which, of course, it was not, and I used to have middle of the night lows. Yes, and that was really the big problem, was that I would have middle of the night lows, and I would wake up, like, screaming. Well, mostly in the middle, mostly the middle of the night lows would wake me up, and I would just go to their bed and, like, wake them. And then eventually I switched to just like, I'll just go downstairs and get get some juice. But at first I used to wake them. I mean, I think what happens when you go to sleep and you have low in your sleep is that you have a nightmare, the low blood sugar nightmares are freaking crazy. I remember I had this nightmare that, like, that low and high were playing tennis, and that low was this, like, big, giant blob, and the tennis was just getting squished. The high sugar was just getting squished, and I was like, Oh my God, and I would wake up screaming. And they would like, we did have glucagon, but at the time, they told us that glucagon was for when you passed out. And I've never passed out, but I have had seizures. One time I had a seizure at a folk festival. I know I said I'm not a hippie, but I did. Used to go to some folk festivals, like the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and I had a seizure at one while I was on a hammock and in the wee hours of the morning.

Speaker 1 51:12
Do you think you and I grew up really close to each other? I think we grew up really close to each other. Yeah, I think so too. I've gotten

Melissa 51:19
that impression so many times listening to the podcast. I'm just like, You are my neighbor. I just know it interesting

Speaker 1 51:25
and listen. I have to ask at this point, do you have ADHD add, I don't know. You have not completed one thought in the last 54 minutes. Oh

Unknown Speaker 51:35
my goodness. Which I think

Speaker 1 51:37
the podcasting is awesome because I enjoy this conversation because I like the way it flows through. But I tried twice to get you to tell me what you think about how parents feel nowadays with technology and we are at a folk festival right now on the second try, right? Yeah, it's awesome.

Melissa 51:51
I mean, I don't know, listen, I work with parents. I mean, I'm constantly in different people's homes, and just the way that parenting is in general, is so different now from when I was growing up, and to some extent, like, my family cannot be blamed for anything in regards to how I was raised with diabetes, because I am a very headstrong person, it's very difficult to influence me, and so I they can't be blamed For, like, not taking stronger control of my diabetes, and, you know, letting these low blood sugars happen or whatever. But I just feel like these days they have Dexcom going off on their own phone and everything. And the worst, the thing that really makes me feel nightmarish when I hear about it is the school stuff, the stuff with the schools, because when I was at school, I wouldn't let them have anything to do with my diabetes, and I used to give myself a shot whenever I wanted. They did try to tell me that I had to go to the nurse's office for things, but I just didn't do that. I just didn't do it because some people are comfortable with breaking rules, and others aren't, and I'm somebody who is comfortable breaking a rule that I think doesn't make sense, that does no harm.

Speaker 1 53:03
When you see people, do you think they're overwhelmed, or they're paying attention to closely, or, like, where's the overwhelmed?

Melissa 53:10
I think that it's information overload. And here's what I really think. I think that children's bodies are extremely resilient. And so, you know, when I was a kid, yeah, my hemoglobin a one Cs were like, I mean, this doesn't sound that bad, but they were like, nine, eight or nine, which for me, that's very high. It seemed like I was very high. But I understand seeing other people's that that might be like a great a 1c to A lot of people nowadays. First of all, kids are not given as much autonomy as they were given when I was younger. I think that's a problem. How do you know that? I think that children need to learn how to take care of their own diabetes, especially they should never, ever be given restrictions on treating their low blood sugar. When I was a kid, the snack that they gave you for low blood sugar treating was always these crinkle crackers that are in, like a six pack, a crinkly six pack, and they had, like, peanut butter or cheese between crackers. And I got so good at opening those crinkly packets extremely silently, like when people were, like, talking or coughing. And like also, like putting the crackers into my mouth, and like, basically letting them melt in my mouth and not chewing too noticeably and not leaving any crumbs. But

Speaker 1 54:24
Melissa, where are you getting the idea that somebody's overwhelmed from, or that kids aren't allowed to treat with the certain way or like or any of the things that you've that you've seen

Melissa 54:32
it in the in the group, all this, in all the groups people are are making these, like, elaborate systems where, okay, so some of the kids, if they're like, super young, they might need some help. I don't know, maybe dosing. I guess probably dosing is what you would need help with. I see so much struggling with the schools, and I'm just like, Oh, my God, I would not let the schools have anything to do with my diabetes care taking. But they

Speaker 1 54:56
might not have a choice. In some situations, the schools might have rules, or they're being risk. This then, and they have to go to lawyers, no,

Unknown Speaker 55:01
and I hate that. I hate that for them, of

Speaker 1 55:03
course. No, I do too. I also want to say that when you were a kid, you were shooting once in the morning and once in the afternoon. No, I

Melissa 55:10
started. So at some point I started to go to to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and they did teach you about carb

Speaker 1 55:17
counting. There you did MDI at some point then yeah, and this is still

Melissa 55:21
an MDI, of course, but yeah, I started to give myself insulin for whatever I ate, right? And also in order to treat high blood sugar. So that was like a revolution for me, when that's

Speaker 1 55:32
awesome, but if I put one of those parents on here and let them talk back to you, and they said, hey, that's awesome, but your a 1c was nine, and my kids a 1c is six, well,

Melissa 55:41
no, well, but then my a 1c so once I learned to carb count and everything. So that was like probably middle school sometimes. So I was in third grade when I started, and it must have been like seventh grade when I finally learned to carb count. After that, my a 1c was has never been. I mean, my ANC hasn't been above six since then, I don't think my whole life.

Speaker 1 56:02
Then why don't you go back to doing it that way? To MDI,

Melissa 56:06
yeah. Well, because the pump is a dream. Are you kidding like so first of all, the pump. I mean, I run it. I run the tandem T slim on sleep mode, 24/7 control. IQ, yeah. And that was another thing that my my endocrinologist hated. She kept asking me, why do you keep it on sleep mode? And I'm like, well, because the target blood sugar is 100 on sleep mode. And she was just like, well, I don't know what she she was just so angry about that. She really did not like me keeping it on sleep mode, but. But the thing is, is that whenever you would ask her, like, specific questions about diabetes, she would be like, Well, I don't know anything about that. Talk to the tandem rep. And so I talked to the tandem rep quite a bit. And the tandem rep was like, Yeah, keeping it on sleep mode. 24/7 is honestly one of the best things you can do. You can you'll have such great blood sugars doing it that way. So they're like, if you're that kind of person, then yeah, that's that's great. I don't

Speaker 1 56:58
think anybody spends more time looking at diabetes communities than maybe I do, and what I think happens is that there are some people who are overwhelmed, or there's some people who are helicoptering, or there are some people who are whatever, like, doesn't matter, fighting with school, whatnot. But those people are, they're not everybody, and as a matter of fact, they're so not even a high percentage of the people. But I think it's what sticks with adults with type one so much your response like, I think it's lovely that you're concerned for people, but your response that, oh my God, those people are doing something that they shouldn't be doing, or don't they're doing something

Melissa 57:40
they shouldn't be doing. To be clear, okay, well, I think they're doing great. I just feel for them, it just feels really it's very difficult to control diabetes. I mean, yeah, you're a different sort of a person, but it's really difficult to control diabetes when you can't feel your blood sugars right. For me, I know what my blood sugar is without looking at the Dexcom. I think it's a really good activity in general. You should know your blood sugars without looking. And you can learn to do that simply by before you look at what your blood sugar is. Just guess what it is. Just take a breath and then look and see if you're right. I know I'm going to go low before the Dexcom is going to tell me that I'm going to go low. I can feel it. And I also, like, I can feel if my blood sugar is over 120 you know, you know, if you're higher,

Scott Benner 58:27
you get cloudy. And

Melissa 58:30
I feel this, this like sort of vague feeling in in the center of my body that feels a little bit like thirst. But it's not true. Thirst interesting. It feels a little different. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 58:39
So I'm misunderstanding you then, like you're not saying, like you're trying too hard or you're paying too close attention, you're just saying, I feel bad because you're aware of all this, and then we got to get through without having to be as aware of all this. You're yourself.

Melissa 58:52
You need to deal with yourself, and your kid eventually needs to learn to deal with themselves as well. I mean, already, parenting is so much like having a physical body outside of yourself as well, and like, you know, to such a large extent, like you are your children, and it's wild. I mean, I can see it with the parents, and I feel for it. It's just it's really stressful, whereas, like when I was a kid, it was kind of like, Hey, as long as she's like, She's kicking, she's doing fine.

Speaker 1 59:22
Listen, I understand also, there wasn't really a way to do better than that, right? I disagree. Is the wrong word, because I don't know if I'm right or not, but the one thing that I'm not willing to take the risk on is, oh, they're little, so it doesn't matter, right? That's not a thing. I think

Melissa 59:38
it matters a great deal, because of how the kids feel if you switch your diet, you know, especially if you do it when you're young, and you start to eat more fruits and vegetables and legumes. People always ignore the legumes. If you eat that stuff, like your body will heal itself. The harm that gets done from inflammation, you know, from the high blood sugars and it's like your your body is going to heal. But the thing that. Doesn't heal. And the thing that is a real struggle is the things that happen to your your mind and your social relationships as a result of varying blood sugars.

Speaker 1 1:00:09
Listen, I agree with all that about the psychological side of it. I don't know that I'm willing to bet my kid's future on a legume. Oh,

Melissa 1:00:18
well. I mean, I wouldn't say you should bet your kids future. I mean, I think, I mean, I think you've done an amazing job. And, I mean, and I'm not concerned for your daughter. No, no, I don't feel like you are. I noticed this across the board, not just with diabetes, but I worry about the about a lot of children's a lot of them seem to lack a preparedness, like an ability to do things on their own, in regards to a lot of things like, I mean, a lot of the times like, I ask the kids, I'll babysit, I'll be like, do you know your address? Like, when I was a kid, we knew, like, our parents phone number and our address, right my heart and like, what if you were kidnapped and you escaped? Do you know your parents full names?

Speaker 1 1:00:57
Wait, you're worried for children of people on a community web board who have diabetes because somebody you babysit doesn't know their address. It's

Melissa 1:01:04
a lot of kids. And it's also listening to teachers. I don't know if you like, listen to what teachers are saying. Not since

Speaker 1 1:01:10
I was little, and I didn't think it was a good idea then, but go ahead. Right, right.

Melissa 1:01:13
Well, I mean, I It's like, get on like, teacher YouTube sometime, and like, watch what's sort of happening with with the classrooms. I mean, COVID certainly didn't help. I think that to a large extent, in general, there's maybe, like an over involvement with kids, where it's starting to have, like a negative effect on children's ability to do things for themselves, and that concerns me. But at the same time, I also recognize that, like, literally, every generation has been like the next generation, you know, they're not, they can't do anything for themselves and but you know, so I'm like,

Speaker 1 1:01:51
I know a moron who's in their 50s, a moron that's in their 40s, a more on their 30s and 20s and 10s. And I know five teachers I wouldn't let help me cross the street? Yeah, I also know great teachers, and I also know wonderful people like what I'm thinking happens is that when you bring a bunch of people together in a community, sometimes more often than not, the people who are struggling speak up more than the people who aren't, and that it gives the impression that everyone is struggling. And I just don't think that's true, because I talk to all the people who are doing really well, whose kids are really thoughtful, and know how to, you know, know what their diabetes address is and all that stuff. Like, I don't even know how to like describe it, but I think your compassion, or other people's compassion, is somehow coupled with like, this is me from like, 1000 yards away, like, just observing, okay, but I think if you grew up with type one and you're doing well now, meaning you don't have trigger finger, you don't have neuropathy, you're not getting injections in your eyes, and you didn't spend a ton of time focusing on data and everything. What your that your takeaway was was, hey, listen, we weren't paying that close attention like you guys are. And I'm doing great. Now I can go find another person who's your age, who has neuropathy or trigger finger or doopingers, whatever, or all the other problems that can come with, like unmanaged type one, and they'll say, You know what? They'll tell me, I wish my parents would have paid closer attention, because maybe my health would be better. Now you have these two perspectives, and then you're looking at a person whose kid was just diagnosed. The people who didn't have trouble are asking them to chill out, and the people who did have trouble are asking them to pay closer attention. Well,

Melissa 1:03:32
I definitely don't think that parents shouldn't try to care for children's diabetes

Speaker 1 1:03:37
by any stretch. No, no, I know you're not saying that. I'm saying this kind of a big, broad conversation, yeah. And I think what happens is, then you're a parent, and then you pivot in, like, one of two different, like, general directions. You either go, that's the kids thing. They're gonna have to learn it because they're gonna be an adult one day. So we'll put it on them, and then out of sight, out of mind, whatever happens. Happens. This is what the Lord wanted, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then there's other people who will say, like, look, I'm going to pay closer attention to this. Give this could a decent launch into life with good health, and hopefully that other stuff will pick up. I mean, honestly, if I blindfolded you and kept you blindfolded for three days and then stood you up and said, Okay, here's the deal, Melissa, there's either a cliff in front of you or there's not. Do you want to step forward? You'd say, No. If there's a cliff there, I don't want to fall off. But, and I think that's where those people are, like, I don't know that. They're certain that all this work and effort is definitely going to lead to good health. Like, right? It's still you could do everything right, and it could still, you could still have a medical issue. But I think they think that it gives them a better than coin flip chance, if they put this effort in now. Now where I completely agree with you is that you can't ignore people's mental health and say, Yeah, but look, they've got a five, two, A, 1c like, that's not okay either. You know what I mean? I

Melissa 1:04:55
mean my I'm not even talking about people with good a one CS who. Who might have mental health difficulties. I guess what concerns me is, I do think that there's a large extent to which kids should learn as soon as possible to have autonomy over their diabetes. I was eight when I got diabetes, which, you know, that's older than a lot of people, you know, the you know, that's older than Arden was, and that's older than a lot of kids, and yeah, and I babysit a lot of eight year olds, and I know what they're like, and I know what what it's like when they're younger. And you know what they may or may not be capable of. I was a smart kid, and I was capable of a lot pretty quickly, although I didn't give myself shots for the longest time, I used to use auto injectors. I don't know if you're familiar with those auto injectors. There were two kinds. One, like, you would put this syringe into this big, giant thing, and you would press this button that was like, and it would like, really fast, like, both inject and give the plunger. And then later they stopped making that and that one broke. And I switched to one where you just press a button and that puts it in for you, and then you push the plunger, yeah, but anyway, and then eventually, actually, it wasn't until college that I stopped using that, and it was because I lost my insurance, I had dropped out, and I was just taking part time classes. And then I had this professor who I'm still in touch with. She was a women's studies professor, and she had diabetes, and she had switched to a pump, and she gave me all of her old syringes. Which syringes was always the most difficult thing to get out of all of the stuff, and the second most difficult thing back then was test strips. Test strips were extremely expensive, and I searched all over the internet, and I found this Canadian pharmacy that had the cheapest test strips for a brand called prodigy auto code and I used to use prodigy auto code strips because they cost similar to what Walmart is today. Okay? And that's how I used to test a million times a day without any insurance, which was really what I meant to talk about this whole time. That's

Speaker 1 1:06:58
amazing. It's amazing that you figured that out. That is true, right? Like, I know that from your notes, that this, everything you were able to accomplish for yourself for a long time was without insurance, right?

Melissa 1:07:08
Yeah, without doctors too, yeah. I mean, I've never found doctors to be particularly helpful, but at the same time, I did need one to get on a pump, which, like, I mean, if I could, if I could make myself less of a stubborn a hole, and switch to a pump earlier I would, unfortunately, the past is the past didn't go that way. I just was so like. I was like, why would I switch? Everything's going great? And then I was like, oh, when everything is going great is exactly when you should switch. Because switching to the pump, it wasn't even an adjustment. I was already doing that, but now I just had to do way less. Right? I never struggled with the basal. The basal was exactly right, immediately.

Speaker 1 1:07:48
Okay, yeah, no. I mean, if you're doing all that work with MDI and it's working out for you like that, then automatically, that's exactly

Melissa 1:07:54
when you should switch. I always see people saying that they're like, everything's going great on MDI, why should I switch? Like, that's why you should switch. Because if everything's going great on MDI, you have no idea how much less work you could be doing for exactly that same result. And they're like, Well, I see people and they struggle, and it's like, well, they're struggling because they don't have their their numbers dialed in yet. They don't have their ratios and everything, right? But if you are already doing good on MDI, that's exactly when you should be able

Speaker 1 1:08:17
to accomplish it. Yeah, maybe get some more sleep too, you know? Oh,

Melissa 1:08:21
I never get sleep. I'm, like, the least sleeping person ever. But yeah, because

Scott Benner 1:08:25
you don't want to sleep, or be not, because you're just, there's just something

Melissa 1:08:28
wrong with me. I don't, I don't need, I don't need as much sleep as other people.

Scott Benner 1:08:31
I slept not enough last night. I just was, I mean,

Melissa 1:08:36
so did I because I had to get up. What for to me, is early to talk to you

Scott Benner 1:08:39
freaking podcast. I know it's horrible. I had to get

Melissa 1:08:41
up. You know what? It's okay, because if I take a little nap later, that's when you're the most likely to lucid dream.

Scott Benner 1:08:47
So you're gonna go nappy. Yeah,

Melissa 1:08:50
I might have a little nappy, nice and and that will help me lucid dream. So that's great. I

Speaker 1 1:08:56
appreciate you doing this very much sincerely. Yeah, no, I think it's a great perspective. Again, I like a free flowing conversation. They're they're more my speed, but I like digging in too. And I see people say the things you said all the time, and it was interesting to hear you pick through what you meant by like, Oh, I'm worried about them. Because I think what can happen online is, hey, I'm worried about you. Blah, blah, blah. And somebody comes back, and they're a little like, well, you don't have to worry about me because I'm doing this thing. And then they go, Well, I grew up with diabetes and I didn't put this much effort into it. I'm fine. And then before you know it, they're like, banging together. I'm like, you two guys, some people aren't fine, yeah, and right. And I'm like and you guys have so much in common that you don't know like that to me, is always the thing I'm trying to get across when adults and parents are talking to each other like you have so much to share with each other that the two of you would benefit from, you know, back and forth, and you have way more in common than you think you do. Well,

Melissa 1:09:51
I think like to a large extent, it also has to do with like, whatever each individual's feelings are about their own childhood sometimes things that people. Say it picks at wounds you have. And you're like, you know, I used to sneak food all the time, you know. And I see other people struggling with that. And what, what seems really wild to me is that those kids, you know, even though they could just press buttons on their pump, they don't Bolus for their food sneaking. And I used to, I mean, I was the biggest food sneaker you could imagine. I used to get, like, a bag of honey nut cheerios. And I, like, I would hide in my closet and read a book with a night with a flashlight and eat honey nut cheerios. I mean, you could just think of it. I mean, my blood sugar must have been 600 but I wasn't testing, you know, if I had known, then, like, oh, all I have to do is give myself some insulin and then I can have this food. Then I would have done it. But I see these parents, their kids are not doing that. They're refusing to do the insulin, and I don't understand why.

Speaker 1 1:10:52
So then when you say these parents, what I'm going to tell you is, you mean four posts over the last six months?

Melissa 1:10:58
Well, no, I think a lot of people struggle with this. I see this a lot, and it's, it's everywhere. I mean, you know, it's not the parents fault, like, because I totally understand the desire to be rebellious as, like, a diabetic youth. Yeah, I feel so bad for them, because, at least my parents, like, they didn't know, but what

Speaker 1 1:11:16
happened to you? Like you, because you just said, like, it's something from your childhood. And I'll tell you right now, like, observation, if a person has, as an adult, grown up with still has or had, at some point, an eating disorder, they are going to freak out. If you say that your kid should eat a certain like, low carb style or something like it just it triggers something in them, very, very visceral, right? I

Melissa 1:11:38
think, I think that makes a lot of sense. Of course, does like, like, I said like, I'm a vegan, but I actually think it's pretty rude to talk about your eating style, just in general. I try to avoid it.

Speaker 1 1:11:48
I don't like it when people tell other people how to eat. I just find it to be a waste of time, and all you're gonna do is rude. What happened to you when you were a kid that makes you have this strong feeling when you see people living in a certain way.

Melissa 1:12:01
I don't really feel like my feelings are that strong about it. I just feel a great deal Well, I feel a great deal of sympathy, and I feel worried about the kids who are who refuse to take on autonomy. I mean, I don't think that is that they're not being allowed to take on autonomy. I'm sure a lot of parents would be very happy to give their children more autonomy if they felt that their children were up to the task. I mean, I guess that the only thing I can say that did happen was that I had a friend whose little brother had diabetes, and he came and stayed with us for a while, and I really tried to talk him into like, just take care of your diabetes, yeah, but he never did, and then he died. Oh,

Speaker 1 1:12:39
it sucks. Maybe that's your thing. What's that? Maybe that's the thing that has you upset,

Melissa 1:12:44
yeah? Maybe. And I'm just like, why did you never just, like, take it on to yourself, like, just, like, care about yourself a little bit. For me, diabetes is like a sixth sense, yeah? Like, not taking care of it would be like, not going to the bathroom, or not ever eating, or not. You know the

Speaker 1 1:13:01
vibe works for you. You know how to you know how to do it. It doesn't upset you to take care of it.

Melissa 1:13:05
I mean, sometimes it upsets me, but yeah, there are things that really upset me. Like, there are times when I, like, I made a deal when I was a kid, like, here, I'll tell you what. Like here, diabetes is like, you just take care of me, always, constantly for the rest of your life, not stop and I'll ruin your life. How's that?

Speaker 1 1:13:23
I think that it's possible that if you take this conversation out of diabetes, you'll see that the same outcomes exist in people's lives about other things too, like some people are just more inclined or interested or able or whatever. It doesn't really matter what the modifying word is right to do a thing than other people are, and some of those people get diabetes, and so some of them, you know, has to

Melissa 1:13:47
do with intelligence, and not just until, you know different types of intelligences. But I'm, like, a highly capable person, like, if I need to learn something like, I will learn it like, you know, I wanted to learn to play an instrument. I was already 30. I learned to play. I've written a lot of stuff. I've gotten short stories published. And I was just like, I'm gonna write some short stories and get some short stories published. And so I was like, I just did it, you know, I just worked at it until

Speaker 1 1:14:13
I did it. I think that's great for people that it works out for. I don't think that people who it doesn't work out for should be, you know, held to the same standard, maybe, like, I think you are who you are, and some situations are vibe better with how some people are built than others, and but those people are all still going to have type one. They're gonna so they're gonna need something. I think it's so

Melissa 1:14:35
great that there are these, like pumps now, where it's just like, all right, if maybe my little, my friend's little brother would have survived if he had had the type of pump where it's like, it doesn't keep you at 100 all the time, but you know, it might keep you around 150 160

Speaker 1 1:14:47
Yeah, imagine that kid with a, like, an eyelet pump, and he just has to say, like, normal meal, smaller than usual, larger than usual, and he'll exactly and end up with a reasonable a one, six. I

Melissa 1:14:58
wish to God. I wish that we could go back in time. And how is that for him, you know? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:15:03
well, I'll share with you. Michelle, finally I looked up, Melissa, I finally looked up at the screen where the word was and just said what I saw in front of me, Melissa, I'll share with you, you know. And I'm sure you've listened and you've heard, like I had that struggle about my friend Mike, who passed away. It's been a number of years now, right? And but he was diagnosed when we were just out of high school, like, right at the end of high school, end of high school, out of high school. And now I look back and I hear all these people's stories, and I see what happened to him regular and mph. Nobody ever transitioned him off of it. He wasn't testing. They didn't take it very seriously. If he was standing up, he was okay. And, you know, and then one day, in his 40s, somebody finally figures out he's not all right. They try to put him on MDI. Nobody tells him what to do. He's having seizures. He's crashing his car. He doesn't like all the terrible stuff that comes with it. He falls out of bed having a seizure. One time, breaks his breaks a limb, you know, like, and then one day, somebody tells him, Hey, man, your your kidneys are shot, and now he's on dialysis. And then, you know, a couple of years later, on dialysis, and he has a heart attack, and he's

Melissa 1:16:04
gone, right? Yeah. I mean, one thing that I feel like with diabetes is, like, even if you're not doing that great, if you're doing something like, if you are, like, just trying, you'll do like, pretty well.

Scott Benner 1:16:16
But he was trying, he

Unknown Speaker 1:16:17
was just, I find he

Speaker 1 1:16:18
was just doing the things that he was told, and those things were not valuable, right? And he never pivoted to new technology or new ideas. And maybe that's because he wasn't interested, or maybe it's because doctors didn't help. Like, I don't know what the reasons were, but I know that by the time Arden was diagnosed, and I got this figured out, and I went to him and I said, Mike, I can, I can help. Like, I really feel like, you know, like, let's get you a CGM, like, I think that's a great place to start, you know. And he was just very resistant, yeah, the truth is, is that by that time, he came off to me, like the adults that I see who want to argue with people online, yeah, like, this is harder than you think, you know, like, I have a person in mind right now who's in the group who, I mean, if you wanted my again, 1000 yard impression of this adult, like, they're in their own way. They've decided that this thing's gonna kill them, and any help, they that anybody tries to put their way like that won't work. I've tried that. Blah, blah, blah, like, always, always resistant, resistant, resistant. That's how Mike was. I mean, I'm

Melissa 1:17:22
like that. I can be like that. So I like I totally get it, and that's how I feel. Like I was being about switching to a pump for so long. I get it because I'm a stubborn person. I feel for them, for sure, me too. But I mean, the best tool that you can be given as a diabetic, and hopefully you'll get it when, when you're a child, is a feeling of autonomy, a feeling that you can you can do this, like that. You are capable of taking care of this, and if you work at it, you will get better at it.

Speaker 1 1:17:55
Oh, for sure. Well, that's true, yeah. And you might be right about the other thing, maybe Mike just didn't feel confident, like, I don't know you know, like, maybe you're the person you knew. Just didn't think they could do it. Maybe they had been through an offer. They were just like, this isn't going to work, no matter what anybody does. And then it becomes a psychological issue. It becomes a human thing, and you just can't get past it. But from my perspective, all I can tell you is that if you have your settings right and you understand how to Bolus for the food you eat, you're very likely going to have reasonable outcomes day to day, right? And that's why I'm making this podcast, is to get people to, like, see that, that there's just some pretty basic things you can do. Make sure your tools are sharp, you know, and then make sure you're using the screwdriver on the screws and the hammer on the nails, like that kind of stuff. You have experiences and you learn as you grow, and before you know it, it's six months later and you're doing it. I just got a really great note today from an adult just very simple, like, you know, I'm going to share it with you because, you know, I'll keep it vague, obviously, but I featured it in the group today. It's an adult who posts and says, 93% range, 3% low MDI, I've had a history of terrible a one, CS, complicated variables from chronic illnesses. I've been working on one thing a month. This month, I worked on candy. I'm 50 years old, and now I can actually eat candy. She says, Thank you, Scott. My diabetes team will be thrilled with this, and shares a chart, 93% in range. That's amazing, 3% low, 3% high, 1% very high. Like, my God, like, you know, and this is a person probably in Europe or Canada, 3.9 to 10 is their range and just amazing. Like, really amazing. But the overall like takeaway from this post is, Hey, I found this podcast, and look where I'm at now versus where I used to be. Yeah, I see that. I said, Though there's an adult who was able to whatever their crap was, they were able to put it aside and say, you know, I'm gonna try this new idea. And that's just kind of what I hope it's really hard

Melissa 1:19:59
to get people. Listen to a podcast, though, that's the only only trouble. I'm doing

Speaker 1 1:20:03
it a lot of people. It's not enough. It is hard to get more. Like I'm not gonna lie to you, people who listen

Melissa 1:20:08
to podcasts will listen to a podcast, and people who don't will not. I just

Speaker 1 1:20:13
I've drug A lot of people into it. There's plenty of people to listen to this podcast, and they don't have another audio interest in the world. I love that

Melissa 1:20:20
that's great. I love to hear that I drag a lot of people. I recommend your podcast to people all the time, and even though, like, I mean, to a large extent, what I mostly find the podcast to be is validating about a lot of my experiences. Because I feel I mean, I don't. I hate, like, buzz words like this, but I sometimes feel like gas lit by the doctors. I have just struggled so much with doctors, and I find that the doctors feel like this is an anti Doctor podcast, and I don't really think that's necessarily the case, but you know, my doctor thought I was condescending to her, and I'm like, I probably was being condescending to her, because, in my opinion, I know better than her, because I've been doing this longer, and I don't think her advice is good. So a large extent, I find it just extremely validating. But I also I find that although I did listen to all the bold beginnings and all and the expert ones, all that I did listen to all that I knew, all that stuff, right, yeah, what I find really helpful is just when every once a while, a guest will say something where I'm like, Oh, wait, let me try that. Never thought of that, especially when it comes to like, specific I forget what it was. It was, it was a it was a mom of a young child, and she said something about tandem. And I wish I could remember what it was now, but whatever it was, I changed because of just this thing she said, and I was like, Holy crap. I think it was about an extended Bolus. And, like, doing an extended Bolus a certain way for something, and now I just do it as second nature, and I don't even think about what it was, yeah, but I learned that from her, you know, and she was just, and that kind of stuff is just like, so I find it endlessly fascinating just to hear people's stories about living with diabetes, me too, because I could literally talk about it all day. And like when I meet a diabetic in the wild, I'm just like, let's talk about it. You know, I

Speaker 1 1:22:13
feel exactly the same way. I'm very happy that you had that experience, and you continue to have that experience. Because, you know, the first time it was said to me, I've said it on the podcast before, but I was surprised the first time when the when a person said to me, like, Oh, I love this podcast. It's, if I don't listen to it, my blood sugars get out of whack and, you know, and all this other stuff. And then I kind of just, like, I did the thing. I leaned into like, Oh, was it the Pro Tip series, like, I was trying to, like, just fish for like, so they could explain what helped them. And they said the same thing. You said, No, I've heard those. They're good. I knew all that already. And I said, What do you get out of this? And she said, I don't even really know. Maybe accountability to myself, like, you know, and so now I've heard people say accountability. I've heard them say community. I've heard them say hey. Once in a while somebody says something like, you just said, like hell, I never thought of that before. I don't even care anymore. People

Melissa 1:22:59
are so full of good ideas, and I hate the internet, I hate Facebook, and I hate how people want to and I feel like, sometimes I'll say something really mild, and people will react really strongly, and then I get this bad feeling in me, and I'm like, why am I on this platform? You just gave me a bad feeling. Let

Speaker 1 1:23:15
me tell you what I told somebody the other night. They asked me. They said, How are you so the way you are online, where you don't fight with people, and even when they're being crappy, you're not crappy back and all this stuff. And I said, I said, what I said, but overall, I just always assume that if we're arguing, we're misunderstanding each other. Because I've met a lot of people, and people don't argue like that in person, and it's fun to say, like, oh, yeah, sure, because they're keyboard warriors. I'm like, I don't even know that that's it. Like, maybe they're just taking you out of context or incorrectly, or maybe you're not saying something

Melissa 1:23:49
about being on the internet that just like, makes you forget that, like the person is like a human and like a complicated human. And it just, yeah, very well. Could be it sort of frees up your darker side to like, to like, come out. I'm

Speaker 1 1:24:03
not saying that's not true, but I'm saying the rest of it is, is that if we got together in a room and you heard me, you might go, Oh, that's not what I thought they were saying. And then you wouldn't say the crappy thing back that you said, and then I wouldn't say the crappy thing that you know, back to you. And then we wouldn't be fighting. We'd actually realize, like, we get along pretty much. I think the whole world's

Melissa 1:24:23
screwed that way. I agree. Yeah, it definitely isn't just like a diabetes No, it's not a diabetes thing. It's far from it. I mean, comparatively, diabetes groups get along pretty well. Melissa,

Speaker 1 1:24:35
I had this experience in the last like, year and a half where I'll just go through this very quickly. But my family bought me a chameleon out like a surprise gift, and I didn't really know what I was doing with it. And I did know enough to know that they're very delicate, and that if I do something wrong, it's not going to be alive very long. I needed to figure out very quickly what to do. And then one day, I thought, well, there must be someone out there doing for chameleon care. What I do about diabetes, I'll go find that person. And I found a number of them, and I honed it down to one or two people. Found this guy running a niche but large community for chameleon keepers, and I dove in, took his information, put it into practice, just like that. I had a chameleon, a 1c in the fives, and I was like, Oh, awesome. Like, and I was kind of done. I was like, All right, I don't really need this anymore. But I hung in for a while, and I kept watching, and then I realized that every hardship he has running his chameleon community is exactly the same hardships I have running a diabetes community. And I was like, Oh, this has nothing to do with diabetes or chameleons or it's just people, right? People are the worst. No, it's a limitation of discussing things in writing.

Melissa 1:25:47
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is a huge part of it. I mean, this is gonna, this is gonna sound pretty hippy dippy, but I feel like there's like a, like a spiritual sickness that's sort of like come down on us as a society, that that makes us feel, like, less connected. I just

Speaker 1 1:26:02
think we're all misunderstanding each other just enough to fight that's it, because I know

Melissa 1:26:07
some pretty fundamental differences. Well, sure, yeah, there's always

Speaker 1 1:26:11
going to be like, Yeah, but still, like, I grew up, my parents had friends who had completely different political views, and, like fundamentally different political views. I never once heard them fight about it or argue about it. They didn't talk about each other behind their backs like nothing. There

Melissa 1:26:27
are some people in particular who are very invested in sewing such divides and turning them really, you know, sometimes violent. And, you know, I find that very concerning. I

Speaker 1 1:26:39
would tell you that what I see is that it's become, it's always been a business to divide people, right? Because you divide them, you put them on your team. Now you're on their team, except, like, it's a, it's a tale as old as time, but it's so much easier digitally. And I agree with you. There are people who are like, I'll just say a thing to get everybody fighting. And then I think people do it with eating online, yeah, like, I think they'll, they'll come on and they'll like, they'll start a fight about whatever to draw attention to it so that the other people who would be mad at it go, oh, look, I found an ally. And I know who to hate. This is awesome. And then they, the people who think they're an ally, will go over there, and then they build up their Facebook group or their coaching service, or whatever it is, they're trying to, like, pump up, right? And I just have an opposite opinion of it. I'm like, Yeah, I think we can all get along and still do what we need to do and share with each other, and I don't need to steal you from someone. Like, if you want to go to another Facebook group out of my Facebook, you should go, yeah. Like, in the beginning, like, people were like, hey, you know, they posted another thing in there. I'm like, that's fine. If that helps them, then that's awesome. Now, if it's their group and they're pimping it, that's not okay, yeah. But if it's a thing that they help, that they feel helped by, then they should share it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not trying to keep people geo fenced, yeah? And in my space, like, I think they should, I hope they go out and find whatever it is that's best for them. Well, I

Melissa 1:28:02
was just, I find it very fascinating people's desire to, I mean, I understand why, why vegans have a desire to, like, get other people to go vegan. Because a lot of vegans are concerned about, like, animal welfare and about, you know, the environment and that sort of thing. And so I guess I can understand their need. For me, I feel like you can't influence people in that way, and so there's no point in trying. I don't have anything that makes me be like I need to. I actually don't even want people to know that I'm vegan. Usually, I'd rather just do it silently.

Speaker 1 1:28:33
I agree with you. I sort of believe that what happens is, is that people feel saved. Then once they feel saved, they want to share it, yeah, then when they share it with you and you don't want to be saved, then they're mad at you for not wanting to be saved. So

Melissa 1:28:45
I do find low carb people, like, will sometimes get super, I mean, it feels like they're like, super invested in this diet in a way that, like, I mean, I think it's great to eat fruit and vegetables, like, can, you know, like, have healthy food, you know? I mean, and I don't feel like that's like, a super big deal. And it also, like, doesn't bother me if you don't eat that way, like, I'm not if I, if I was bothered by that, I would be constantly bothered. You know, I would live a life of just being bothered. I

Speaker 1 1:29:12
don't think of it as low carb people. I think of it as, there are some people in that eat a low carb lifestyle who they proselytize about. And I can't, I can't guess why. Like, it's, I mean, I could guess why, but like, it's not, it's not up to me to figure.

Melissa 1:29:27
I don't understand why they're possible. Because I do understand why vegans do it. I don't agree with it, but I understand why they do it, or what are they getting. It doesn't matter to

Speaker 1 1:29:36
me, if you understand it. What I'm going to tell you is, like, I don't think there are as many of them as you think, I think it's always fringes, of fringes. I would never say low carb people, because I believe that probably 98% of the low car people I've met are lovely, just like 90. Just being quiet about it, yeah, just doing what works for them. Yeah. And then there's 2% of them that feel like and I've had people explain this to me right. From that perspective, I thought this. Saved my kid's life. When I tried to share it with somebody and they disagreed with me, it made me feel like they didn't care about their kid's life. And then that upset me. And then later, I realized there was more than one way to skin this cat, and I was just unaware to say more than one way to peel a potato. I was unaware of what that was. I just came up with that. I don't know. Yeah, I thought you made that up. They say, like, Look, I just thought that the thing that I knew was the only thing. It turns out it's not. But back then, when I thought it was, oh my gosh, I thought those people must be monsters for doing this to their children, right? Again, I don't think, except for the people who are trying to make business out of it, I don't think people are being on purpose almost ever. I

Melissa 1:30:44
agree what bothers me, I guess. I mean, doesn't even bother me that much. I don't want to sound overly bothered, because I'm not. I don't appreciate it when anybody like acts like there's just one way to do things like for me. I mean, I did try the low carb thing, and I was very unhappy eating that way because I love carbs and also, like, I don't know if this is just something that was, like, handed to me by the schools or something, but in my head, like, fruit is healthy to eat like that. That's like, how is race? I was like, we're not it's like, you eat like, you know, fruits and vegetables and like, I'm not gonna like, I'm like, I'm not gonna stop eating like, what to me, sounds like some of the most healthy foods, and also, like my favorite foods, I'm not gonna just, like, stop eating them because of the carb content. And I did try to do that, though, and it just that's just not for me. I just, I also like, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like it satisfies my hunger. Yeah, it's

Speaker 1 1:31:39
not right for you. That's cool, yeah, yeah. And so

Melissa 1:31:43
I'm just like, and also, again, I was using so much more insulin when I ate that way. It was like, I guess it made my insulin resistance really high to like, have I was eating, like, a lot of meat and cheese and just like, fatty foods, I guess. And what I find actually like. So there are studies about this, like, about post prandial blood sugars, or after meal blood sugars. If I eat just one high fat meal, just one then, even then my insulin will resistance will go up just just during that meal, which I think we all know that. We know that, like fat does that? It causes that to happen? Well,

Speaker 1 1:32:16
yeah, I mean, it doesn't work for you. I'm also sure that somebody would who eats low carb, but say, Oh, you're doing it wrong. You know what? I mean, like, who know i and that's all well and good. Like, I think that's, I genuinely don't care how people eat. I mean,

Melissa 1:32:27
this is the other thing, is that I just, I'm never gonna be somebody who can just stick to one thing, like, you can't tell me, like, you can never eat a banana again. You know? Like, and like, that's how not for you. When people tell you to eat low carb. I'm like, like, that would work great if you are good at eating low carb and like, not eating carbs, then eating low carb works like, exceedingly well for blood sugar control. But the problem is, is that your insulin resistance becomes very high, and so if you do, like, eat a banana one time, it's going to take like, five units of insulin or more. I don't know how much insulin, but for me, you know, like a banana is less than the unit of insulin because my insulin resistance is very low, because I'm eating very low fat.

Speaker 1 1:33:12
Was that resistance, or is it just that your settings are way dialed back now from low carb, and then you go to do something in your basal low carb. But you know what I mean, like, if somebody was very low carb and then all of a sudden went to a banana, I would think that their settings wouldn't be set up to handle that.

Melissa 1:33:27
To a large extent. I think that I still have, like, an MDI state of mind. So I'm just, like, I'm just talking about how much insulin you would give yourself to treat something. Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:33:35
you're calling it resistance. I just think that you'd need more insulin, but I don't know that that's resistance. I think

Melissa 1:33:40
if you ate a certain way, let's say you ate very low fat, and then you ate a banana, and it would only take one unit of insulin, but if you ate very low carb, you might eat a banana. That same person, it might take them five units of insulin or whatever. I'm just making up numbers, but it indicates an inability for insulin to take care of carbohydrates and glucose as well as it used to. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad way to eat, because if you're somebody who doesn't have to eat carbohydrates, like to feel good, or whatever, then low carb is, like amazing for your blood sugars. Like amazing, like, if you're somebody who who doesn't want to think about dosing or just finds either unable to think about dosing, then low carb is like incredible.

Speaker 1 1:34:26
I think it's a very reasonable way to manage if you have type one diabetes, for sure, for sure, you were awesome. You really were thank you for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you being in the group and sharing your perspectives and right it was great talking to you. Can you hold on one second for

Unknown Speaker 1:34:42
me? You the

Speaker 1 1:34:45
episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist aid system, powered by tide pool if you want, a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision for peace of mind. The. Want Twist, twist.com/juice, box. Having an easy to use, an accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour, next.com/juice box, that's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from us med for three years. You can as well us med.com/juice, box or call 888-721-1514, my thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode and for being long time sponsors of the juice box podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com. To us, med and all of the sponsors. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, you.

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