#1953 Autism and Type One
Autism and Type One
Sam's son Lucas is autistic and has had type 1 for five years. She talks about sensory limits and food, what the pump does and doesn't do for them, and heading into middle school.
Jump to a moment
- Lucas is autistic and has had type 1 for five years. Sam noticed something around age two — essentially no speech, sounds but no communication, an infant who couldn't be consoled and didn't sleep through the night until four or five. Speech and occupational therapy followed. Her wry observation is that years of three-hour nights meant adjusting to type 1 sleep was not the hard part.
- Sensory issues shaped what he could eat. For a long time his menu was genuinely limited by sensory tolerance, which is a very different carb-counting problem than picky eating. Notably, the diabetes gear itself has not been the sensory battle she feared — hard at first, but with consistent Omnipod and Dexcom use since about six months post-diagnosis, he tolerates it.
- Her husband didn't want a CGM at first. She describes talking through that early resistance after diagnosis, and where they landed. They now run Omnipod 5 with Dexcom, and Lucas's most recent A1c was 6.2.
- She doesn't let the algorithm drive. Sam is candid that Omnipod 5's automation has never quite hit him correctly, so she stays hands-on rather than relying on it. Scott's suggestion is to put the focus into pre-bolus timing and accurately assessing how much he's actually eating. Settings and targets belong with a care team — none of this is medical advice.
- Middle school is the thing keeping her up. She's using the transition as a reason to reassess everything, and she's frank about a school nurse she doesn't have confidence in. The tension she names is real and common: she knows what to do and is at the school constantly, but she doesn't want Lucas to be the kid whose alarms disrupt the class — especially with phones being restricted.
- Diabetes Pro Tip series — Episodes 1000-1025 — settings, pre-bolusing, and food impact, the areas discussed here.
- 504 plan builder — Build a school plan, a substitute-teacher sheet, and responses for the meeting.
- Bold Beginnings series — Scott and Jenny Smith for families early in the process.
Every word of the conversation
Cold open & sponsors0:06
Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Juice Box podcast. On today's episode of the podcast, there will be nothing that you should take as advice, medical or otherwise. So please, please consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Is there anything better than helping the t one d exchange at t1dexchange.org/juicebox? I've been talking about this all month, my friends.
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Meet Sam and Lucas2:02
My name is Samantha. I go by Sam mostly. My son is Lucas Dawson. He is a type one diabetic. He's been type one for five years now, and we live in Central Pennsylvania.
Oh, near where my son went to college. Oh. I love your intake form. What are some themes or you hope to cover in this episode? I don't have a specific theme.
Oh, I didn't necessarily have a specific theme either. I guess just going over what I've been doing over the past five years that's worked for us and our family. But if you have any questions for me, go for
it. I I hope to have listen. I don't If I don't have questions for you, this is gonna get boring really quickly. So Yeah. Let's go back five years.
Why did you pick five years? Is when your son was diagnosed?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he was diagnosed in August of, whatever five years ago was. Jeez. What year is
it now?
Yeah. Yeah. '21. Mhmm. It goes by so quick.
I can't keep up. Yeah. That's when he was diagnosed, and that's August is always our you know, I think about it around this time, so we're getting up on it soon.
Yeah. Actually, August in just a couple of days. Does it make Yeah. Make you feel any certain way at the, you know, at the anniversary?
You know, it just it brings me back to the time when we were diagnosed, which was a really scary time and all those feelings that came up, when it happened. Now we're great, but, you know, back then, it does it does bring that feeling of, like, dread up and how I felt in the hospital. And
How did you feel?
Oh, I was scared to death. I knew nothing. I'm not type one. There's we don't have any type ones in my family. I did, thankfully, grow up with a best friend whose brother was type one, so I kind of knew the signs and symptoms before we got diagnosed.
And so is that how you figured it out, or how did you
Yeah. My son had actually been on a trip with his grandparents to the Washington Zoo at the time, and they were, you know, telling me, he keeps going to the bathroom. And before that, he had kinda started, like, going to the bathroom more frequently. But because he is also on the autism spectrum, I thought maybe it was, like, a sensory thing because he loves to visit bathrooms. So I didn't really think much of it at first when it started happening.
Hey. Quick sidebar, Sam. You you said Sam, people like Sam. Right?
Yes.
What does he like about the bathrooms?
I'm not sure. I think it's just, like, every bathroom's a little different. Everywhere we go, he has to go into the bathroom, see the facilities, wash his hands a dozen times. We just let him do it at this point.
I wasn't sure if it was something about the porcelain or the mirrors.
You know, I I I have no idea. Sometimes he comes up very excited from the bathroom. There would be a mitt in there or something. He has to tell us about it. It was a fancy bathroom.
There's a man in there with towelettes.
And Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's told us words on the walls. What's this mean?
I'm like, dude. Okay. Enough with the bathroom.
Not for nothing. He's gonna love a bathroom at a strip club.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. We've been to the city, and some of those bathrooms, I hear all about them. Can't wait till the strip club days.
They've got the rollers to get the glitter off you. This is all just
from
memory. I don't really I have not been to a strip club in, like, thirty years. I just wanna say, and and the guy will have, towels. He gives his, like, different, like, aftershaves and colognes.
Tell him. I'm like, don't talk to them. They'll want money. And I
Can you imagine he comes out? He's like, I need $40. I bought a couple things in the bathroom. Bathroom.
He would. Luke Luke would figure it out. Like, yeah. That's a situation we would be putting.
The early signs5:43
How old was he when you realized he was on the spectrum?
It was pretty early. Around two years old is when it really was apparent to me that something was a little off. We would we were on through speech therapy and occupational therapy and all that during that time between two and when he started preschool, which was probably around four.
Okay. What what are some early signs of that?
Our early signs, for autism were just complete, like, lack of speech. There was nothing. There was sounds, but he really didn't communicate with us. And as an infant, put him down. He wasn't happy.
Pick him up. He wasn't happy. I had a very inconsolable infant. He didn't sleep through the night until he was about four or five years old. Oh, that must have
been magic.
Every yeah. Every three hours, we were up. So getting used to type one wasn't very hard for me as far as the sleep.
An inconsolable infant, and no sleep6:42
Is he your only child, or are there more?
He is my second. I have an older daughter who's 16.
Okay. Can I ask second marriage?
No. No? First marriage, no.
Just got bored for a long time and then Well,
I have PCOS, so we had a hard time conceding with him. We always wanted a second, but it just didn't come naturally. I've always had PCOS. And into my twenties, it got progressively worse. And I couldn't lose weight.
Weight wasn't coming off. They wanted to put me on metformin, and I decided to have gastric surgery instead, which led me to being able to conceive Luke.
Wow. Yes. Symptoms of PCOS?
Oh, my symptoms were just complete lack of menstrual cycle at some point in my life, but I didn't have a menstrual for two years, weight gain, hair growth on the face. And after my daughter, I had been told through my doctor that I had multiple cysts on my ovaries. So that's the original way we kind of figured that out.
Did you remove the cysts?
No. There was nothing as far as that goes. They were the general thing is just go on birth control, and it will work itself out sort of thing as far as symptoms.
It'll work itself out. You'll stop coming in here and complain to us, then you'll
die. Exactly. Yeah. Not this yeah. It doesn't get worked out, obviously.
Yeah. Just go leave us. Yeah. We're not helping.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. So other autoimmune stuff in your family, let me let me guess. Somebody's gotta have hypothyroidism. Right?
You would think. We've never I mean, my sister was diagnosed with it, but I
I'm counting your sister as your family.
Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Because she's, like, my half sister. She's she's my mom.
So it's like, yeah, she's my sister, but she's the only one that I knew that was ever diagnosed with it. Her daughter has it currently Mhmm. Was diagnosed, isn't taking medication for it, and is pregnant at the moment. Pretty not happy with that.
Sam, I didn't know you were gonna get judgy in the middle of this. That's awesome.
Thank you. No. I the little judgy for family.
I saw that meme recently about three women standing around, and it says, I'm currently deciding if I'm going to, smile or start some So okay. Wait. So now we have two hypothyroidism in the family. Any Yes. Any celiac?
No. Luke also has he has Hashimoto's on top of his diabetes.
And when I said, does anybody have Hashimoto's, how come you didn't go, yeah, three people?
Sorry. I thought you meant, like, outside of, like, our general, like No. No. Nobody in the family outside of Luke. Okay.
I've been tested over and over again. I've got nothing. But yeah.
Okay. How about psoriasis? No. Nobody's got psoriasis. Anybody's fingers get cold?
Get blue?
Mine do. I'm actually going through something right now medically where we're we're trying to get some tests done. I have no blue hands, but I'm just constantly cold. The hands hurt sort of situation.
What's your TSH at when they test it and tell you you don't have hypothyroidism?
Oh, I'm not really sure off the top of my head. I know it's on my chart, and I could look at it, but I'd have to put you on speaker.
I swear I would be happy to wait.
Okay. Give me one second here.
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Five years ago, in August12:06
Check it out.
I know. They just did it. Mhmm. I just got all these tests done.
And they said, nope. It's all good.
Yeah. And that's you know, you hear that, you're like, oh, there's other tests, and they can look deeper, and you might actually have an issue. I've been having issues, but, yeah, they do the test, and they're like, you're fine.
What are your other issues that are hypothyroidism related? Hair falling out, tired all the time, dry skin, weight gain?
I mean, I've had all that my whole life. That's the thing. And currently, I'm on a GLP one, so all that's kind of Getting better. Yeah.
I can't wait to find out if your TSH is over two. I'm ex what
is it? Not. The TSH was 1.01.
Wow. Okay. Alright then. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
So, like, that was good, and I was like, okay.
So then
And you know other stuff.
Shift to the shift to the other stuff. Are you anemic?
No. Oh, I was. Well, because leading back to the weight loss surgery, I'm now dealing with some iron deficiencies and so on and so forth.
Did they zhuzh you up with the infusion?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got that last year, and now I'm on b twelve shots for the rest of my life.
How great is the iron infusion? Like, breakthrough?
I thought I would feel way better than I did, honestly.
How much did give you? They gotta give you all the good juice. You can't just get a little
They they sent me there for three hours. It was it was a three hour ordeal.
So Wait. Wait. What? Mine goes in at forty minutes last time I did it.
Oh, no. No. This was a full blown, like, I basically had zero.
Wow. How many times did you go back?
None. None. So far, none.
Yeah. Wait. Wait. They only they infused you one time. You remember if it was called Venifer?
I don't remember what it was called. I know it was last year. They sat me there for, like, three hours, and I I felt so horrible because I mixed in with all the people that were doing, like, chemotherapy.
It is a sad it is a sad room.
Yeah. I was just like, oh, boy. And I'm just here because I was fat and had weight loss surgery. Now I'm off.
No. I'm sure that's not why you were there. Wait. Wait. Hold on a second.
Say do you know what your ferritin level was back then?
Let me see here.
I love that you have labs.
Oh, yeah. I have tons. Oh, let's see. This was oh, it was only two years ago. Wow.
I'm almost up. 10. I don't know how they do this.
Like, what's the brain? Your was 10?
Yeah. It's like Oh, you must value 10. Yeah. I had, like, nothing.
You must have been passing out.
No. I wasn't. Like, the only symptom was I kept shaking my leg all the time.
Your leg was bouncing?
Yeah. They were like, well, that can be a sign of low iron. I was like, alright. They'll let me say it hasn't really went away since they've done things. So
So so they gave you one iron infusion for a 10 ferritin.
Yeah.
I am gonna tell you that was not enough. May I may I suggest
tell you my ferritin now is much higher.
What what is it now?
One forty seven.
Okay. I mean, it's not terrible.
It's it's not as bad?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. One forty seven is actually, it's fine.
I mean, 70 under 70, we'll call low. One forties I mean, listen. It's not terrible. I would see hematologist, like, six months from now and check it again.
Well, I definitely have to go back in six months because now I have high cholesterol after losing a 130 pounds. Don't ask me how. I don't know.
Your cholesterol went up?
Oh, yeah. Significantly. You lost a 130
pounds on GLP?
I did in eighteen months.
Good. Which one did you take?
Zepbound, and then they changed me to Wagobi because of insurance, and now I'm back. I was on Mounjaro. They changed to Mounjaro, and now I'm on Zepbound again.
Hello, insurance. Yeah. I take the Zepbound. Just took it last night. How much do you take?
What's your injection?
I've been on five consistently for eighteen weeks.
Wow. You lost a 130 pounds on five milligrams.
I did.
Look at you. That's awesome.
But, you know, you also have to factor in the weight loss surgery aspect and all that.
I'll factor in whatever I want. It's my podcast.
And so eleven years ago, so it's not all all all. You know?
Well, let's be clear. You had weight loss bariatric surgery how many years Eleven. And did you lose any weight?
I lost a 100 pounds.
Okay. Did you put it back on?
Over time. Yes.
Okay. So
you Basically, pandemic, I had a lot of stuff happen and yeah.
Yeah. You lost a 100 pounds, put a 100 pounds a 100 pounds back on.
To be fair okay. I lost a 100 pounds in a year, and then a year to the day, I found out I was pregnant with Luke.
Okay. Go ahead. You I mean, you do gain weight when you're so alright. I need I need context. Ready?
How tall are you?
Five three.
Okay. And at your highest weight, you were?
Two sixty.
And now today?
One thirty one. How about that? So about thirty pounds. It's bit shifted. You know?
Better living through chemistry.
Yes.
How about that? Well, how do you talk about what you think the GLP has done for you, if anything.
Oh, goodness. Clarity for one. You can I just my mind is completely different? I feel altered as far as that goes. Because I I will say I have an addictive personality.
Mhmm. There's addiction in my family, but my my addiction was never drugs. It was food.
K.
So that has completely like, the the addictive personality part, food isn't necessarily anything I really think about much other than when I'm hungry and obviously need it, but that that thought process is gone. Inflammation, my body, things don't hurt nearly as much as they used to.
Can I
ask I
Was that was that because people will say, no matter what you say about GLPs, people are gonna go, that's because you lost a bunch of weight? But were did you did the pain go away before the weight went away?
The pain did go away before the weight went away. And, you know, you just feel it's funny because you can feel the inflammation leave your body almost after taking these things. And when I've taken time off of it as well. Like, I'll take a couple weeks off, and you could just feel your body tense back up and that inflammation come back. It's the craziest thing.
Yeah. Why do you take time off?
Sometimes I take time off. I had to take time off because I had surgery recently and just decided I just I didn't wanna, you know, limit myself when I wasn't feeling well off me after surgery, so I took a good three weeks off just so my body could heal properly.
Yeah. I don't know if that's real or not. I I I swear to you, I've had a couple of procedures, and I will time it so that I don't have to skip a dose.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I I I've done it a couple of times. They're like, well, we don't want you on that GLP, and I go, why? Then they don't quite know why other than the package insert tells them to tell me that. And and then I go, okay. I said, well, if the procedure's on Friday, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shoot my GLP on Saturday.
And then on when Friday comes around, I won't have had it for six, almost seven days. They go they go, okay. That's fine. And then I come home, and I go, where's my GLP pen? And then I hit myself with it immediately.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I I'd like to talk about the clarity a little more because I have experienced the clarity piece. Oh, yeah.
Million percent. Like, the
I mean, there's no doubt about it. I I also had spent six years on an SRI, which was new to me. I'd never been on one before and gained a bunch of weight on it, obviously, as well. That wasn't helping. But after I started taking my GLP, like, things just changed.
I've now been off of my SSRI for, like, eighteen months and haven't thought twice about going back to it.
Why were you on it?
Just general depression, anxiety. Like I said, during the pandemic, there was a lot of things happening in my life, and all of it was just kind of a weight that I couldn't bear on my own at that time.
Yeah. And it's gone now.
That Yeah. Yeah. I I've also gotten off of my birth control, which I had been taking that since I was 13 years old.
For the PCOS?
Yeah. For PCOS and PMDD.
What is PMDD?
Gosh. Don't don't oh, okay. I got a thing. Hold on.
Take your time. Yeah. Also, are you from this way? Are you from East and moved to Central PA, or are you from Central PA?
So I am originally from Maryland. We then moved to New Jersey and then to Pennsylvania, but born in Delaware. So all the East Coast here, just a little pocket.
I heard the whom earlier.
Yeah. Yeah. So PMDD stands for, premenstrual dysphoric disorder. I just always tell people during that time of the month, you got people that have PMS, and that kinda comes and goes. But with PMDD, I basically will have one good week out of every month where I feel normal, not
Wait. Wait. What was that one?
Yeah. It's suicidal. But, yeah, it'll give you suicidal tendencies with it sometimes because it it's just one of those things. It's a mental thing that happens during that time of the month that can be way heavier than just PMS.
But none of this is happening now?
No. I've had no. It's just, like, gone. It's the craziest thing, and I have dealt with it my whole life. My daughter currently deals with it.
How come we're not treating her with the with the juice?
Well, because she's 16 and she's not overweight. We we bay we literally weigh the same amount right now.
Here's what I would say some people might tell you to do, certainly not me
Right.
Is to have your doctor put up your dose and then split it and give her some of it. That's not a thing I would do personally.
Look. Just wanna say. At 16 years old, there's a lot of things I would love to do. Because let me tell you, some days I look at her and it's that time of the month, and I go, here's half a gummy. You know, if you just took this, you might feel okay for But I'm not gonna do that.
Why don't you
get high and calm down?
Severe A little bit.
Severe irritability, anger, or conflict with others. Depression, hopelessness, tearfulness, or feeling worthless, anxiety, tension, panic, or feeling on edge, sudden intense mood swings, feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope, trouble concentrating or brain fog, loss of interest of normal activities, fatigue or very low energy, sleeping too much, insomnia, disrupted sleep, food cravings, overeating, appetite change, breast tenderness, bloating, headaches, muscle or joint, and temporary weight gain. That is how PMDD is described. Does that sound
Yeah. Now it's a fun time.
And you're telling me the GLP affects that?
Yeah. I mean, I feel completely
possible because I was online, Sam, and it told me, obviously, you're just fat and you can't control it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
I'm sorry.
The Internet disagreement. I've been fat my whole life. A lot of people on these GLP ones, you know, they don't they don't know what that's like. They haven't been heavy, a lot of them, for their whole lives. So I don't know.
I take whatever anybody says to me over GLP ones with a grain of salt nowadays. I'm living proof to myself. You know?
Oh, me too. I will tell you that I was overweight my whole life, and I I I believe I'm being honest when I tell you that I don't eat any differently now than I did then.
No. Nope.
Yeah.
Nope. I I put in the same amount of effort. I've had a gym membership my whole adult life. I've went to the gym. I've done all the things that I'm doing now.
I've done the calorie count, and I've done the phetermine. I've done the weight watchers, and nothing has ever gotten me anywhere further than maybe fifteen, twenty pounds.
Yeah. I I try to re remind myself all the time that I had done so many different things to try to lose weight, and some of them were, like, fasting ideas. Mhmm. So I once did the baked potato diet
Mhmm.
As I learned it from Penn from Penn and Teller,
who Yes. Yeah.
But was it you're like, I used to be fat, Scott. I know about the baked potato diet and Pennanteller. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Because you're out there desperately looking for something. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
So I do I did that one time, dry baked potatoes for as long as you can do it for, and I made it ten days one time. Oh my gosh. It was horrifying. And I did not lose as much weight as I lost on seven days of my very first GLP shot that, of course, back then was only the the introductory dose, which they they tell you they call it not, it's not even
It's not the therapeutic
dose. Therapeutic dose. Thank you. I couldn't come up with the phrase.
Yes.
It's not a therapeutic dose, and yet I lost 14 pounds on it in seven days.
Yeah. I mean, there's no denying how great the GLP ones are. I I can't even with weight loss surgery, I was not as successful. And I I keep telling people this. I wouldn't have had the surgery had GLP ones been offered to me back then.
Yep. It just wouldn't
have been a thing.
Yeah. Now you you learned a lesson that I learned for sure. For sure. So one thirty five three now. You must not even feel like you're how long did it take you to feel like yourself?
I still don't feel like myself. I think I'm still evolving. We've just gotten to the point where we're we're weightlifting. So
Good
for There's constant change still happening.
The husband doing it too?
No. No. My husband is also on a GLP one. He is type two diabetic. Mhmm.
Does he does he describe any of these things, or is this something specific to your experience?
No. He doesn't. And I you know, he is kinda stuck in his old ways in the way he lives, and, you know, I just kind of move on with myself. He he lost weight with it. He's been on multiple different GOPs.
I think we started with Trulicity. I'm back
with you.
Yeah. Trulicity, but we couldn't get it. It was hard to get, so they moved into Mounjaro. And I think he was also on McGovy for a short period of time.
So he has lost weight on it. Has he kept that weight off?
He's so far. Yeah. He's still he's on he's kinda dosed out almost on the Mounjaro, though. I think he's at twelve.
I do 12 and a half.
Do you? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Love twelve.
But he's been on I mean, he's been on it for probably five years now.
I'd drink it if they needed to. I I advocated for it to be spread out of airplanes. I don't I don't I don't think you should have a choice into whether or not you take it. I'm I'm just kidding. It's it's just been so helpful.
It has. It has. Absolutely.
And And I'd like to point out that it's very likely that the issue that you and I have is not the same issue that your husband has, which is No. Which is which is even more amazing because it's helped him in a completely different way.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. No doubt.
Yeah. We are so close to something. Like, you and I, how old are you?
I'm 36.
Oh my god, Sam. You, for sure, me maybe, are gonna live long enough to see you get a few blood tests, and then they give you, like, a little peptide. I I I I sound like RFK now, but I trust me.
It's not like Oh my gosh. Don't need me.
It's not what I'm talking about. But, like
I go in there.
You're gonna get you're gonna get, like, a you're gonna get, like, a little blend of, like, peptides that are, like, made to fix offset the whatever's going wrong in your body thing.
I would love that. I I literally just asked my doctor. I'm like, is there a vitamin shot I can just take? Just give me the shot for everything.
I'm with you. I I swear to god, I I walked through my living room the other day. I was like, oh, I forgot my shot. Walked out in the kitchen. I went to the refrigerator.
I said to my wife, do you need your pen? And she goes, yes, please. I took two pens out. I like to let them warm to room temperature before I jam them in. Don't even know why.
Just do it. I let mine sit out. And then I think I was pouring a drink for myself, paused, shot that stuff, tossed that thing in the trash, finished pouring my drink, and kept going. And I didn't feel any different than I feel when I am taking my vitamins.
It's true. And, you know, when you describe it like that, it sounds a bit dystopian. But
I know, but it's only because it's not how you think about it. You know, it's funny. Yeah. Isn't it funny to say that that sounds dystopian? But you know what sounded normal?
You unable to get pregnant, significant overweight, pain, trouble concentrating, brain fog, feeling overwhelmed, sudden anxiety, tension, depression, hopelessness. All that, we thought that was normal. But Yeah.
And it's totally not.
But but but because it's getting injected, it seems weird to people. And and because if you could take this thing in a pill, no one would act funny about it. I really I really believe that. I think it's the I think it's the the way it's introduced into your body is the thing that freaks people out. I I this is gonna seem apropos of nothing for a second, but I learned this past week that many people have an aversion to seeing people on T shirt images.
On T shirt images?
Yes. They don't like to see people on T shirts.
Okay.
Okay? It's a thing. And so if that's true, I I say to you, imagine how many other, I don't know, experiences you're having with the exterior world that really, when you stop and talk about them, make no sense. And one of one of one of them is if you take a pill, that's a vitamin. If you inject it, it's you know what I mean?
Surgery or, like, like, something whatever, like, more drastic it is.
Oh, yeah. I mean, even with diabetes, the you think, like, you need it. Oh, yeah. People will stare. You know?
What about yeah. What about all the people who are like, well, I didn't wanna get a CGM. I didn't want something on my body. You'd prefer instead out of whack blood sugars that
We we had that argument, actually. My husband and I, he, at first, did not want to put a CGM on our child after diagnosis.
The CGM her husband didn’t want30:45
Because he didn't want him to be healthy? What was his reason?
I don't know. He just thought it was, like, this weird thing or, you know, it would maybe hurt him. And I'm not sure what the the thought process there was because he never you know, he was the first one to inject him with insulin Mhmm. In the hospital where I couldn't do it.
Yeah.
But it was me going, oh, no. He needs like, I want the CGM on him.
Yeah. Well, if I mean, look. If weird means different than what I'm used to, not completely natural, then okay. Like, I get what he's saying, but you you have to reslot your situation. You can't just Yeah.
You're gonna
do different things him. Like, Luke is maybe a little bit different than most kids that we are around, and he just thought that it would make him even more different. Yeah. Yeah. Cast out sort of thing.
Right. And did that end up being a situation at all?
No. No. Not at all, obviously. Yeah. But, you know, it's something I think sometimes people worry about with their kids.
Is Luke's weight an issue?
Luke's weight has been a bit of an issue. He is a bigger kid. He comes from bigger parents. We try our best as far as weight goes and eating and all that jazz. But, for a long time, because of his sensory issues, we were limited to what we he ate.
Sensory issues and a narrow menu32:04
No. Of course. Also, I'd love to point something out. I hope this Sure. Lands well with you.
We just spent twenty minutes talking about how something is clearly not tuned well in your body. And yet when I asked you about Luke, you said, well, he comes from bigger parents. You didn't you didn't mention that he very well might have a similar issue to what you have.
He may. Yeah.
Why do you think that is?
I'm not sure because I I don't I don't I don't know. I'm not sure.
I'm just I I listen. I'm not I didn't think you'd have the answer. I well, I'm asking you to point out to the people listening. Sam, you are just an avatar so the people listening can hear my thoughts. I don't know if you understand how the podcast works.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. But Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I listen. I know what's going on. Okay.
I just I I think that's incredibly informative. Like, you know how powerful the the replacement of something has been for you. You were angry that someone you love won't take their thyroid medication.
Yeah.
But when I asked you about your son, instead of saying he might have some of these issues, we probably should look into that. You said, well, he's from bigger parents.
Yeah.
As if that's the reason. That's not the reason.
That's not the reason. Yeah. No. You're right.
Because when you're tuned well, you're not a bigger person.
True. True. Mhmm. I guess I've thought more of myself not being tuned right. And when I was his age and in that younger self, I go, well, I'm from a bigger family.
Oh, Sam. Until we learned about the GLPs, it's how I felt.
Oh, yeah.
Like, my dad's heavy. My brother's heavy. That makes
sense. Just what it is anymore. You know?
This is
how we are.
Yeah. I'm just telling you, like, I hope there's a big shift in the way people are thinking.
Oh, yeah. Look. If g o p well, if my parents had offered me g o p one when I was Luke's age, I would have been flabbergasted to take it. And But the world would've known.
Yeah. But the world's different now. Now I know Luke probably has sensory issues, but he also takes an injection for his blood sugar.
Injections, and what he tolerates34:14
Yes. So do you
think he do you think he could handle the
I have thought about it. It is definitely been a thought in my mind again. There is my husband who also has a thought about it, and his is absolutely not in a 100 years.
Cared about your husband's thoughts, Sam, honestly. You know what I mean? Like, I know my wife doesn't care about what I think. So you you don't have to pretend that he gets an equal vote. That's not how this works, Sam.
You're cute and ladylike, and he does what you tell him. This is how the world works. I don't understand why you girls aren't in better charge of things.
It's true. It's true. All we have to do is lift our shirts, and you
guys are not Sam, I don't wanna say it. But if I had breasts, I'd be running the world. I just wanna say. Okay?
It does. You know? People don't think about it. But
I think about it. I was actually
I'm there, but, like, I don't say it.
I actually was looking into there's a a really popular OnlyFans person who has type one diabetes, and I am thinking about inviting her on the podcast.
You've that would actually be a really good story. I mean, we don't you don't have any podcasts like that.
Not yet. I do have one. There was a girl actually, there's a girl on who was, like, exotic dancing. I think I'm supposed to, like, say that, but, like, she was a stripper. And, her story was really interesting, but she was more newly diagnosed.
Anyway, this is not the point. My point is this. Your husband, he doesn't know what he's talking about. And, I make a podcast. You should probably listening to me.
I would tell you I'm gonna try I don't think I can get this person to come on the show. So I will just tell you that I am, like, aware of these people, right, who Right. Husband type two, overweight, whole life, wife overweight, some mental health stuff. Both of the kids, I I call them, like, significantly overweight even through their teens. Right?
Right.
Husband goes on the GLP for the type two, has an amazing experience. A one c lower weight. Looks like a completely different person. Describes a lot of the things you're talking about, not the stuff we're talking about. Not the, like, oh, I have more clarity.
I have like that. So it was for him more about blood sugar regulation. Right?
Right.
The wife says to me, I really think I should try to do this. And she was she was big. You know? Like, she was bursting at the seams, like, big. And not a tall person, you know, all having all kinds of issues, but we can't afford the the GLP.
And I said, I bet that if you have to pay $600 a month for the GLP, I bet you will get most, if not all, of that money back on your food bill.
Oh, yeah. Right. Food is not as important as it once was.
Million percent. And so that person later came back to me a year or so later with a photograph of themselves looking like a completely different human being and a little note that said, thank you for bullying me into taking GLP medication. Aw. So because I did. I was very pushy, but this is in my private life.
And what she ended up doing was increasing, increasing, increasing her her dose, but then splitting it between her kids.
Oh, wow.
And if you could see how wonderful her children look and feel now, it would make you cry.
Now that is the other thing that has held me back from talking to his doctor about it is the fact that I think it's just Wegovy that is now being covered for children. Is that correct? Is any
She tried to get it covered. The didn't want to prescribe it for one of the children. She started giving it to her on her own. Then Right. Then they did the ballsy thing of going to the doctor and saying, alright.
Here she is six weeks into Wow. These injections. She's already lost fifteen, twenty pounds. You need to give her the prescript there was some fighting. Like, it wasn't the doctor did not like being circumvented.
Right? Imagine. Yeah. It didn't it didn't go great at first, but they worked their way through it. And and now the the not only does the girl look better, not only does she feel better, but she's like she's like, that whole personality that I knew she had that never came out, it was hiding below it was hiding behind how she felt about herself.
Right. And 100%. Think one of the things is, like, people forget that mental aspect of trying to lose weight and then not losing weight, and then the difference between that fight and going on a GLP and actually seeing the progress. Yeah. That's addictive.
Yeah. Well, the the son who was the the the holdout who was like, I'm not doing that. I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna like, you know, that that angle, like, I'll overcome it.
That
thing gave into it nine months ago. Looks fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's really it's I think it's beautiful. Like, I I
If they told me that I could put him on Mounjaro or Zepbound tomorrow, I would. But I had a negative experience with Ozempic and Wegovy, which is why I'm just kinda waiting on it to see if things change.
I mean, you're taking five and doing great. Yeah. Imagine if you were taking seven and a half.
But Oh, I don't know if I'd be able to stomach the seven and
a half. No. No. No. No.
But you don't use two and a half of it.
That yeah. I get what you're saying
for him. Right? You hear on
the podcast. Hold on one
second, Sam. Sam, Sam, one second. Nothing you hear on the Juice Box podcast should be considered advice. No. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan.
I'm saying that five a seven and a half probably does him and you.
Yeah. I I'm not even sure, like, how I would do that because it's the auto injector pen.
Like Inject them into a into a
A vial. Right? Like, what do buy it Amazon,
and then you draw it out with insulin needles, and you're on your
Well, I thought about this. Okay.
I know you have. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Tell but tell people why you've thought about it.
Because because I know his struggle. I've been there. I was the kid. I've been a hundred and eighty pounds since I was 10 years old. Luke's currently 10 years old, and he is a hundred and forty pounds.
He has just reached his point where he has not gained any weight for the first time we've been going to the endo in five years. They've seen just a consistent flat line in his weight, and that's mostly because he's gotten taller, I think. But
If you laid out all that happened to you
Oh, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't want my son to go through all that. Yeah.
Right. Do and are there overlaps? Like, do you think that there's some inflammation that could be reduced for him? Does he have joint pain? Is there any those things happening for him?
You can't find that information out from Luke.
Oh, okay.
He he has a hard time with pain. Like, he doesn't he can't really tell if he's in pain, which is hard for lows and highs. We are still struggling to, you know, decipher
Mhmm.
What he's feeling like most days.
I'm sorry.
Oh, no. It's fine. We're getting there. He's getting there. It's it's just some days are better than others with the telling us how he's feeling.
I laughed at the, oh, it's fine. Because how many people have I spoken to who have diabetes or are the parents of someone with type one? And you say, like, something horrible happens to you. I'm so sorry. Oh, fine.
It's okay. I I got small potatoes now.
Real big deal. Don't worry. Jeez. Well, anyway, I I'd like to jump over to how you manage his diabetes. So, was does any of the sensory stuff get in in the way?
What sensory stuff does and doesn’t affect42:17
Like, you're you know, he obviously, the CGM worked for him well. Does he use a pump? Do does he do injections?
He uses it all. We are just getting to the point in our care where he is starting to become more interested in his own self care, taking care of himself a little bit more. He, you know, he doesn't deal with the sensory thing that much with the diabetes. He's kinda gotten used to it over the past five years. At first, it was really hard for him, but, you know, consistently, we've we've had a we've had the Omnipod, and we've had the Dexcom now.
I think he was probably six months in to diagnose us when we got both of them. So
Yeah. What what do you mean he's looking to take on more responsibility? How is that happening?
Middle school is coming43:00
Well, we're going to middle school this year. He has gotten to the point where he knows how to put on his devices by himself now, to camp, which has helped him with that.
Nice.
He goes to that every summer for a week.
And Which camp does he go to?
He goes to a very small camp. It's called Keystone Diabetic Kids Camp in Pennsylvania. And it's very small, and that's probably perfect for him, but he really loves it.
And he's learning things there.
Yeah. Yeah. The last couple this year, they said he was very good with keeping on his diet and watching what he ate, which is impressive for him.
Does he because he doesn't understand consequentially or doesn't have an ability to stop?
A little bit of both. He is getting better at the consequences of things. Like, he sees, okay. Well, I can't eat cereal only because I don't shoot my blood sugar out, but he's also become a little bit of a narc. He comes to the doctors and tells them all about the donuts dad buys.
And
he's he's he's he's giving
you guys up. He's become a narc.
Well, that's good. He means he understands it.
He does. He does. Yeah. He's definitely getting there, and he'll go, well, I don't want to have the bread because I know it's gonna shoot me up, so I'll just take the meat. And I'm like, okay.
It's nice. I I had an opportunity at a donut the other day, and I took a bite. And I thought, oh, this is good. And then I took a second bite, and I thought, oh, I'm done.
Yeah. Yeah. That's the yeah. You're able to stop now.
Yeah. I got the thing. Thank you. This was nice. I don't need to eat the entire thing.
No. It's not half as good as we we build it up to be sometimes.
No. Of yeah. Addiction stuff. So Yeah. Talk I I'm I'm banging around a little bit.
But, you you said there's addiction in your family, but yours yours is around food. Mhmm. Your did do you have what they call the food noise, or was it just
I do.
You do? What what I do. Can you describe it to people?
It's like a pool. Like, the doughnut you're describing. Like, I just I wouldn't have been able to pull myself away before. Mhmm. My mind would have been stuck on that doughnut and not have been able to get off of it.
I would have thought about it, obsessed about it until I got it. And if I didn't get it well, I would have gotten it eventually.
I would have get I would have found a way to the doughnut.
Yeah. I would have found a way. And that's yeah. No. I was the kid sneaking food.
You know? Grown.
And you don't feel like that any longer?
No. No.
That's something. And are you hungry at all?
I have to think like, I do think about I that's the thing. You're not hungry. I literally have to set times for myself throughout the day to eat.
Yeah. I just explained I think I've been on it for, like, over three years now.
Okay.
I just was telling somebody the other day. They were asking me about it, and they said about the hungry thing. And I said, here's the best story I can give you to understand how it shut off hunger. I said I once was sitting at a traffic light, and my stomach started to hurt. And I thought, oh god.
I'm getting sick. Like, I actually thought, like, am I gonna vomit? And and and then I start maybe I got a stomach virus. Like, I was like, I fell down a rabbit hole. Oh my god.
I'm sick. And inside of two minutes, I realized I forgot to take the GLP three days before.
Oh,
no. And I was hungry and didn't know what it felt like because I hadn't been hungry in a couple of years. I'm not even I'm not even kidding.
Yeah. No. I get like that sometimes. I'm like, what is this?
And I hear people who are like, oh, that's horrible. I'm like, it's not it's not horrible at all.
It's not. It's like one of those things, like, with diabetes, you just kind of it's you live with it, and it's just something that's there. It Yeah. You don't think twice about it.
We still went out, to dinner for Arden's, birthday the other night. We had a great dinner. I was excited when I got there. Was like, oh, I know what I'm gonna get. It's gonna be good.
It was awesome. All that. I'm just not like I don't know. Like, I'm not I I the way I usually say this, I have not felt hungry in my stomach or in my head in three years.
Yeah. No. That's true. Yeah. I mean, I take a lot home now.
You just have dinner and you have second dinner later.
Yeah. Your second dinner, third dinner Yeah. Where we had to throw it out. I couldn't eat it all. Right.
Yeah. We it took us a while in the beginning to learn. Like, we we we started by ordering things or making things the way we used to, and they're like, well, this is way too much food. Like like, we and then before you know it, you don't have as much around. It doesn't matter.
Things aren't going bad the same way. Like, it's all just like it's freeing. I know people
think the learning curve though too, especially when you have kids in the house. It's like, you can't not have food even though it's it doesn't bother you.
I well, yeah. They're you're you're a 100% to call it a learning curve, I think, is exactly right because there were there were a stretch of time where the kids were like, are you guys gonna make dinner? And I'm like,
I don't think so.
Yeah. I mean, if you're hungry, you can make something for yourself, but I'm not involved. Now
Right. Going on husband will be downstairs playing games. I'm doing my thing working or whatever. It's been, like, six hours, and the kids are just like, are we gonna eat? I'm like, I don't know.
Why don't you shut up and take some of that GLP? Okay? Yeah.
Take some GLP. Leave me alone. Just go jump on the trampoline. You'll be fine.
So you said about clarity earlier, and I wondered if you meant the same thing that I experienced. I feel differently now in that from the time I open my eyes until the time I have to force myself to go to sleep because I don't wanna go to sleep because there's things I want to do. And and and and I I have what it feels like boundless mental energy now.
Yeah. Is that Yeah. That that's that's pretty much what I go through. Boundless mental energy and just energy in general.
No kidding. Right?
Like, I could stay up all day and do everything. I like I said, I bake from home. So there are days that I wake up at seven, and I'm not stopping until 11:00
at night. And and you'll and you're enjoying it too.
Yes. And then I go around 09:00. I go, shit. Haven't eaten anything all day. Well,
I so listen. I don't wanna tell I don't want people to, like, imagine me, like, strung out in the middle of the night, like, continue. I go to I go to bed. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I I'm an adult.
I go, it doesn't matter if I'm tired or not. It's time to go to bed.
But they do have that. They say that you can become, like you know, you can't sleep well on a GLP one. Do you have that?
No. I sleep like a baby.
You do? Good for you.
Yeah. Fantastic. All that, I had the GERD, that's gone. I had my feet hurt. That's gone.
My back hurt. That's gone.
Yeah. All the ailments are gone.
Yeah. My neck's still stiff, but I think that's
That's age.
Yeah. I think that might be because I'm old and stressed out. But even stress is, I don't really feel stressed that way.
Do know? You know
what I mean? It's fantastic. I don't wanna say it fixes everything, but it might.
And The only thing that I've been deal like, I've become a pretty much I'm not an insomniac, but I have a hard time sleeping. So right now, we're trying to figure out is that perimenopause? Is it your GOP, or is it PCOS? Or, like, something's going on. It shouldn't
be perimenopause in your thirties, should
it? Oh, no. That's when perimenopause starts. Oh, you got a lot to learn. Stop.
Yeah. You girls are
you girls are not set up for
a long haul. Yeah. Yeah. But yes.
I you know what I think I think about when I, because people who listen will know there's, like, a couple of like, I have a few reptiles that I keep. And people talk about you don't just breed them over and over again because you burn them out. It shortens their life. Mhmm. And I really sometimes think nature did not make women to live a long time.
No. It it it made you to, like, make babies and get out of the way Yep. Is almost how it feels, which is Yeah. You know, obviously, not what we're gonna let happen, but, like, I love the fight against fixing that.
Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm ready. Like, bring on the shots, the test shot. Whatever you wanna give me, I'll take it. Sam's doctor was asking.
She's like, well, do you want to go the natural route? Or I'm like, you know what? I I don't wanna go the route where I have to feel anything happening, so let's do that.
What about, like will will you start to look into, like, those different patches to
balance Yeah. No. Give it all to me. I'm give me all the stuff.
Since my wife started doing these things so my wife was kinda thrust into them because of perimenopause. Mhmm. And then she started doing the things. I have to tell you, like, she's a I don't wanna say this out loud. She's a nicer person.
I can't wait.
She really is. She's she's been really lovely
the last couple years. Yeah. I'm not there yet.
You know,
I there
yet? You I mean, not don't get me wrong. Like, you know what mean? Like but, like, some of that stuff you talked about about, like, inconsistencies or feeling a certain way when you don't wanna feel that way. Like, doesn't seem to struggle with that stuff the same way anymore.
I I'm jealous.
Get yourself that hat.
Gripping onto the couch. I got the THC. I got the caffeine. I'm just waiting Yeah. Like for the blood work to come back.
Why won't I calm down? Yeah. Have you have you considered I mean, when you said they put you on an SSRI all those years ago, what was it?
Zoloft.
Yeah. There's there's more mild stuff now that at lower doses seems to help people with, like, anxiety and stuff like that. Have you asked again? Yeah. Or you're not interested?
I'm just not interested. I didn't like the way that any of it really made me feel in the end.
Yeah. No.
That's So I just I'm trying to stay away from it. And the fun thing was now they they've diagnosed me with fibromyalgia, and they go, oh, what's the cure for that? Or, like, what are we gonna do? And they're like, oh, well, an SSRI. And I'm like, well, you know, I guess I'll just keep with the THC.
Her own diagnoses53:07
Is it does that help?
With the pain that I've been feeling. Yeah.
Okay.
It helps.
Yeah. There's yeah. I I can't think of the one. There's one that's basically an SSRI, but they give it in such a low dose that it acts as, like, more of an antianxiety thing. I hear
Yeah. It was probably whatever she was trying to pan off on me. I think it was Lyrica, and I'm not sure if that's what it was. But yeah. Yeah.
That's what the suggestion to me was.
Listen. Whatever works. That's all.
Yeah. Whatever works. We're just gonna we're just gonna, you know, do it. Rough it. Rough life.
You know?
Just bang.
Rough it out.
I'm just gonna bang through it till I'm dead. Alright.
That's it. I mean, I've I've made it this far.
Yeah. I give it up now. Luke count his own carbs? Does he do his own dosing? How do you manage all that stuff?
We we are we're in the process of trying like, he can totally read carbs on the back of the the paper, and he but adding them up in his head, he hasn't quite gotten there yet.
Mhmm. Do you think he will?
Yeah. Maybe eventually. He he doesn't check himself. That's the thing. He constantly needs a reminder.
He's a constant reminder kid. Like, it's in one ear out the other sort of thing. So he's not doing it necessarily on his own yet. I'm like, okay. Well, let's set a timer for an hour, and it'll go off and you check your number.
Does he do it when the timer goes off?
Yeah. He'll do it when the timer goes off because he's being reminded of it. Okay. But like me, I sit here all day looking at numbers. So
A 6.2, and how they got there54:40
Well, what's his, what's his a one c currently?
I believe his a one c last time was at a 6.2.
Oh, you're doing so well. But are you doing well because you're staring?
Probably. I'm a constant bumper. We bump a lot.
Well, what and you're on Omnipod five?
Yeah. So the thing with me is I'm not good with numbers. I'm I I also have learning disabilities growing up numbers, and you don't get along. So we don't rely necessarily on the Omnipod to do it, like, its thing because it never it never has hit him correctly. Like, oh, it's got insulin going into him, but he'll be high.
So I feel like I'm constantly just, you know, multi doing it myself. I don't add the carbs into the little calculator. I just go, oh, he's you know, we're gonna give him six units of insulin.
What's the target set at in the Omnipod five?
Yeah. I don't know.
But you gotta set the target low. So
It was no. It's at a 120. That's what it is.
Alright. So the new pods are are gonna get to you soon with a target of a 100.
Yeah. I'm I mean, I'm hopeful that maybe it'll do its thing, and I don't know. I feel like it changes every day for us. Like, he can, you know, eat the same lunch every day, and somehow it hits him differently.
Well, there's a lot of variables, obviously.
There are. Yeah. There's a lot.
Yeah. And it's not easy to remember what they all are on every day, but I think the big ones, you know, are activity level, what's he eating, and, you know, is this the first or third day of the infusion set?
It seems to be that messes us up the most is, like, okay. We're on day two, and it's starting to, you know, crap out on us. Also, the placement. Sometimes certain places don't hit as well as other places on his body. So that's kinda what we fight with the most.
Yeah. It's just keeping it like, oh, I gotta change it now. Let me just change it before. And, you know, sometimes life happens, and you'll have 35 units, and you're like, well, it's clearly not gonna hit him as well. So it's 35, but it's probably more like 10 units in this reservoir.
Yeah. So listen. You're doing a great job, but we don't want you burning yourself out either.
I know. I have not found the balance yet. And with middle school coming up, I'm not sure what our balance is gonna look like right now, which is really stressing me out.
Pre-bolusing and reassessing57:12
Well, can I suggest, first of all, like, get you to the 100 target pumps as quickly as you can? Yeah. And then put a lot of your focus into pre bolus and making sure you're accurately assessing the amount of food he's taking in. I said Yeah. I think those
things do. I try to do that. Like, I I'll measure. I'm a measure. I'll measure out the food, and we'll count all the carbs correctly.
Mhmm.
And then I just don't use the calculator thing up top, which my endo is always like, why aren't you doing that? I don't know.
So you won't tell the system how much he's eating?
Yeah. I just I mean, I just give him the units most of the time.
But why not why not let it know what's going on? So because you're saying it's not adjusting, but it doesn't know what's going on again.
I think we just lived like this for so long that it's what's normal.
Okay. We'll live like this now. Change.
I know. I will. I have to because I don't think it's gonna, you know, do us any good in middle school.
And, Sam, it's you're so are you having trouble letting go of the control?
I think so. Probably. I I, I'm the mom that's always over at the school. If something goes wrong, I'm there.
Are you worried that it won't work out well, or are you sad that it might not need you?
I'm worried it won't work out well. I mean, there's been we did used to do that. Like, we were adding it all in, doing this and that. And then there would be days where it wasn't hitting him, and I was like, you know, okay. Well, let's give him five units, whatever.
And then it just kind of snowballed into we're not doing that anymore Mhmm. Because it came easier. Became easier to go, oh, well, sometimes Luke, he'll eat a meal and you bolus him for the 60, you know, grams of carb, but then he'll want something right after that.
Yeah.
So in my head, I go, well, I'm just gonna give him, like, seven or eight units to make up for whatever he's having after his lunch.
Why don't you just put in more carbs?
I don't know because it it just seemed easier.
Sam, why are you fighting with me? I'm on your husband's side now. What do you think of that?
No. No. Hey. He doesn't do any of
it. Yeah. So Screw him. That's not
he's not about him.
Mm-mm. Is he, is your husband a little, on the spectrum y?
No. He's not. I think it came from I know they say it comes from the dads, but I I don't tend to believe that on our sit or case.
In our wait. What is it you don't wanna say about your husband right now? Do you not wanna say
about He he's good. He's good. I'm talking about myself. I don't think his autism came from his dad.
But are you saying your husband's, like, too chill? What is it you're saying?
I don't know if he's too chill. It's just he you know, I'm the main person at home all the time. He works outside of the house, and I'm the one that is doing all the stuff. Not to say he doesn't when he's here, but I'm the main provider.
Do you feel overwhelmed?
I used to. Now that we're getting into this older age, it's not as hard. For a long time, yeah, their resentment, all that. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. You were like, I'm doing all this, and you're out there
Mhmm. With your
friends, doing your dumb job.
To date, I think he's only been to one or two endo appointments in five years. So
And and how does that make you feel?
Oh, I mean, you know, main provide you know, you feel isolated sometimes in it by yourself. Of course.
Yeah.
And you want your partner there to know what's going on because he's better with the numbers. So, literally, our endo writes down everything if she changes anything so that I can give it to him later, and he changes it in the pump.
So could you go to your husband and say, hey. I think that we can let this automation do a little more work, and it's gonna be a lot easier on me and better for Luke. Could you help me make some adjustments
here for seven? And I have. We've we've done that. It's just like I said, it's the summer, and I think I just got lazy with it.
Yeah.
But it's school's coming up. It's not going anywhere, and I really have to buckle down and get this going before we get there.
Well, yeah, you're in Pennsylvania. So you where do you guys start? Like, first week of September?
No. August 25.
Really? Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. We get out a little early in June. I think they were done by the June 5. So
Okay. Okay. Well, I think you'll do it. I think I think this is a I mean, because you're using it seems to me you're using the middle school adjustment as, like, a reason to, like, reassess everything.
There's a lot of reassessment right now for him just a lot of things are changing. We we our endo is gone that we loved and relied on. She left us this past month.
Did she break up with you or die, or what happened?
She I don't know what she she's not working in the office anymore. She's just doing the emergency emergency room, room, and I I don't know why.
Oh, like, it's somebody
just left. Life went on, I guess.
Somebody prioritizing their own happiness over yours. Unbelievable.
That's fine. That's fine. But I am gonna miss her. And right now, we have a just a nurse practitioner that we've seen at the endo, and I'm like, this isn't the same kind of care that we were getting with our actual endo. Mhmm.
So Yeah. That's kind of a bummer. That's changed. And then we go into middle school. That's changing.
The nurse, the phone, and the plan1:02:45
The nurse isn't someone I particularly enjoy that works at the middle school. She's
not somebody I particularly enjoy.
No. She came in well, maybe I just got the wrong reading, but I've heard stories. But she did come into an IEP meeting smelling like cigarettes and wearing booty shorts.
So Wait. Booty shorts and cigarettes?
Yeah.
Well, that's can we call your episode booty shorts and cigarettes?
Go for it. I love that.
Alright. That's what we're doing for sure. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, listen.
You gotta decide. Is it about is it about being right? Is it about being winning, or is it about getting what you need?
Yeah. And that's that's kinda where I'm at because for a while, I go, well, you know, we're not gonna utilize the school nurse. I'm just gonna try to text him back and forth and do it that way. And we do do that at home. Like, that's if I'm out of the house, I text him.
You know, we go back and forth. But at school, it's a different setting, and I don't wanna be I don't want him to be the distracting kid in class.
Oh, listen. It's how Arden and I simplified her care by texting it.
I know. Yeah. And now y'all always schools wanna get rid of the phones. And
Well, that know, I just way, they should probably do that, but not for my kid. My kid's gotta Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I do wonder, though, if it's going to make kids with their phones be more outcasted from their peers.
What if it just if it just set you up like a king? You were like, I have mine, you don't have yours.
Hey. That too. Because then you get the popular kids that go, give me your son. I wanna call my mom.
Yeah. Nobody wants to call their mom, by the way. Everybody's
just I don't know. Mine calls me.
They what do they call you and talk about?
Oh, my daughter. She calls me. She's like, come pick me up. Wanna go get lunch? I'm like, girl, go back to school.
She's trying to get out of school. She's
not calling you.
You made it sound like she was calling you. She was calling for a ride.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. They just use and abuse me. That's parenthood.
Right?
I mean, so far.
Yeah.
That's that's what I've noticed so far. I used to my neighbor had two sets of twins when I was younger, and they were older than us. And there were days that I swear that it just felt like cars went in and out and in and out of her driveway. It's fascinating. You know, just absolutely fascinating.
So I was like I was like, where are you going, Joey? I don't know. We're taking them to something and picking them up for something and taking them back to something, and there's four of them. And I was like, oh, you're in trouble.
Yeah. It's it's funny because sometimes the 16 year old, she needs me more than the diabetic does. I'm back and forth to the school all year long. We got chorus and theater and band and I'm just like, okay.
Yep. Well, Sam, I appreciate you coming on here and doing this. I hope that you get these things figured out. I'm thrilled for you that you're feeling better and that you're living better through science. I mean,
that's fantastic. Absolutely. You do.
Thank you. I'm a 100% calling this one cigarettes and booty shorts.
Please do.
Because people the entire time will be like, what's going on? Why is it that?
Get to the booty shorts.
I'm writing it down so I don't forget. But, seriously, I think that I think it's a tough call, right, with the the school nurse and you, you know, you know what you know what to do. And at the same time, you don't wanna be too involved, and I understand all that part. But you just gotta, in the end, do what is best and what Yeah. And what what you find to be easiest, most reliable with the best returns.
And
don't forget to do that and see how it goes and figure it out. I
wish you a ton of luck. Congratulations on all the improvements you've been able to make for you and your family.
Thank you.
You're very welcome, and I appreciate you taking the time to come on here and talk about all this.
Thank you.
Yeah. Absolutely. Can you hold on one second for me?
Yep.
Heck of an episode today, wouldn't you say? Let's thank Dexcom and the Omnipod five for sponsoring. That's right, my friends. We were sponsored today by the Dexcom g seven. Dexcom.com/juicebox.
Head over there right now. Look into that fifteen day Dexcom g seven. Fifteen days a long time. It's like half a month. Don't check my math but I'm pretty sure I'm right.
And let's also thank the Omnipod five. My goodness gracious. Omnipod five tubeless. That beautiful algorithm is updated now with that new 100 target. Get in there, find out more about it.
Omnipod.com/juicebox. You want some tubeless insulin pumping? Yeah. You do. By any chance, have you tried the small sip series?
It's curated takeaways from the juice box podcast voted on by listeners as the most helpful insights for managing their diabetes. These bite sized pieces of wisdom cover essential topics like insulin timing, carb management, and balancing highs and lows Making it easier for you to incorporate real life strategies into your daily routine. Take a deep dive, take a sip, and discover what our community finds most valuable on the journey to better diabetes management. For more information on small sips, go to juiceboxpodcast.com and then go oh, actually we changed the website. Let me see.
Go to juiceboxpodcast.com and from there, there's these two little lines on the right side top, that's the menu, then click that, then click series, then there's pro there's small sips right there, pro tips at the top, all beginnings, bolus four, asks there's a lot of them there. There's actually a little search there too. Could you just type small sips into the search? Oh, wow. That search works great.
Look at that. And then you could go right to, like, all results for small sips. Oh, and that takes you to the FAQ. You should check out the FAQ page too. I think that's juiceboxpodcast.com/jbfaq.
Seriously, that thing's amazing. Actually, the whole website is I mean, have you, like, seen it? You should you should go check out the website. The website rocks. It is a potpourri, a never ending cornucopia of support for you and your diabetes journey.
That's right. It really is. What else we got over here? Oh, I don't like the way that works. I'm gonna fix that.
Note to self. Change the change the masthead on the frequently asked questions page. Yeah. I don't like that. Fix that.
Oh, Claude. Oh, hell. I forgot to say thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back again very, very soon.
What is that noise? Stop it. Stop. Can you hear that? It's my chameleon squeaking.
Are you squeaking? What are you rubbing the branch against the don't tell people I have reptiles. They'll think I'm weird. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the juice box podcast.
Look at me. Get all deep in there with another episode of the juice box podcast. You can hear it. What was that? Oh, I'm getting alarms and alerts on my phone.
I was gonna get real deep and tell you about the juice box podcast.
Read the full disclaimer
© 2007–2026 Juicebox Podcast. All rights reserved.
#1952 Addy Taylor Has Nothing to Teach You - Part 2
Addy Tayler Has Nothing to Teach You (Part 2)
Part two with Addy Tayler: what the algorithm actually rewards, why reach keeps shrinking, and whether any of it adds up to helping somebody — all fit around a full-time job and a toddler.
Jump to a moment
- Neither of them can crack the algorithm, and Addy suspects nobody can. Her working theory is that someone out there knows how it works and won't say. Scott's is that it keeps changing on purpose — and that Facebook in particular went from a community to an ad machine that quietly suppresses anything trying to send people off the platform.
- He watched his own reach collapse. Scott describes an era when a blog post shared to Facebook could pull fifteen or twenty thousand real readers off-platform. That does not happen anymore, and he is candid that saying so out loud makes you sound like a lunatic — while being fairly certain it's true.
- The work is unglamorous and squeezed into a full life. Addy works forty hours a week, has a toddler at home with her and her husband while they work, doesn't own a ring light, and can't film half the day because there's no light. She's honest that she puts minimal effort into production and would try harder if it were her job.
- “The stone and the match.” Scott's image for a decade of daily publishing: the show is a stone he keeps warm by holding a match to it. Take the match away and it goes cold fast, and it's very hard to reheat. He describes watching a once-dominant blogger stop and try to return to a community that no longer knew who they were — which is why he doesn't stop.
- The question underneath the whole conversation. Addy worries about running out of things to say and about aging out of a space full of teenagers making videos. Scott's counter is that diabetes touches everything so the material is unlimited, and that the durable version of this work is helping people rather than chasing the view — because a view you bought with a three-second hook isn't worth anything to anyone.
- Addy Tayler on TikTok — @addytayler — Where Addy posts about life with type 1 — 85,000+ followers.
- Addy on Instagram — @addytayler_t1d — Her type 1 account on Instagram. Note the _t1d — her plain handle there is a separate personal account.
- Diabetes Pro Tip series — Episodes 1000-1025 — the educational spine of the show.
- Listener survey — How the podcast has affected listeners; results at juiceboxpodcast.com/surveyresults.
- Juicebox Podcast Facebook group — The private community, free to join.
Every word of the conversation
Cold open & sponsors0:07
Welcome back, my friends, to the diabetes show that never ends. Remember this, nothing you hear on the juice box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. What's up kids? You should check Addy out on TikTok or Instagram or anywhere you can find her.
Go take a look when you're done here, and don't forget to go to t1dexchange.org/juicebox if you're over 18, a US resident, have type one diabetes, you want to help, fill out the t1dexchange registry right now, and you will be helping. T1dexchange.org/juicebox. Today's podcast is sponsored by US Med and Tandem Diabetes Care. What a pair. I'm a poet and didn't even know it.
This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Tandem MOBI system, which is powered by Tandem's newest algorithm, Control IQ Plus technology. Tandem MOBI has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox. You can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do, and I'm talking about all your favorites, Dexcom, Libre, Omnipod, Tandem, Ilet, much, much more. Go to usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514.
Get your supplies the same way we do from US Med.
“Somebody knows how this algorithm works”1:53
I am convinced that there's somebody out there who knows how this algorithm works, and they just won't spill the secret.
Don't you think they changed it? So I've been so okay. So I'll I'll share some stuff with you. I've been doing this a long time. Okay?
There was a time where I just wrote a blog, but Facebook existed.
Mhmm.
I could write something, put it on Facebook, and watch it leave my my ecosystem and see clicks on my counter go to, like, ten, fifteen, 20,000 views. So that's Mhmm. Those are people who are actually reading it once they get there. Right? Right.
When Facebook stopped sending people out2:29
It was it was huge. And then one day, I feel like what happened was that Facebook went from a community online to an AI powered ad machine. So I don't I don't think that Facebook actually cares what you see as long as you stay in Facebook. So if you leave a link for an episode or if you leave a link to to read something or something that's actually gonna be valuable, it's gonna I I don't like to use the word shadow ban because I don't mean it that way, but you are you are literally your stuff's not being served to people. They don't want you getting anyone to leave Facebook.
And when you say that out loud, you sound like a lunatic, but I'm sure that that's true. And so that's how Facebook operates. Also, oddly enough, for as much as Meta loves reels, they don't promote video on Facebook well. Like, so video Right. Video doesn't do well on Facebook even though it literally, like, cross posts from
Right.
Anyway, for me, at the very least.
Yeah. No. Same.
What each platform actually rewards3:32
Okay. TikTok, I don't I my expects I'm just gonna ask you a straight out question. Do your videos where some of your skin shows do better than when you're fully dressed?
Of course.
Okay. Well, then what am I gonna do?
Of course.
If I pull my shirt up right now, you're gonna disconnect and call the police. So I can't do that. And you'll be horrified. And you probably never have another baby on purpose because you'll be like, I don't know. I saw some stuff.
I'm out. It's just my wife. So but, seriously, like, there's no way around this. Right? I'm gonna make this great content.
No one's gonna see it. Just tell me now.
I don't think that's true. I think they will. I think you will reach the audience who wants to see it and who needs to see it.
What about what you and I have done here today? Is there a world where you feel like this should have been on video? Like, our two dumb heads sitting in this little, like, square not that your heads you know what I mean. Like, we're not doing anything.
You're calling me dumb?
No. You know what I'm saying. And so yeah. Yeah. So, like, this like, no one would sit and watch this for an hour.
Right? You're right. No. I wouldn't.
Right. I mean, I'm going off of my own. My attention span's terrible. I think even if I see a video that's if it's a similar video to mine and it's, like, a pump change and it's over a minute long, I'm like, no one's gonna watch that. Mhmm.
Absolutely not. Like, just have to be, like, so fast paced to keep people's attention, and I try and like, if I know that when I'm editing a video and I can bear like, I can barely bear to sit through my own video, I'm like, nobody's gonna watch this. I can't even watch it. I'm so boring.
So So I know no one's gonna watch this.
Need to, like, hula dance while you're talking or something.
Oh my god. So even if I okay. So two things. I only said that for the old peds out there who are ripping me off, who think that their video is working, and I know you think you're getting 700 views on your Instagram reel. No one's watching that.
Just stop. You're wasting a lot of your time and money. I'm just trying to be helpful. People are gonna say I'm obnoxious, which is a common term thrown around for me. So I, I took one of my I was telling you before we started.
I took a bad review of mine, and I set it to music. I, by the way, I don't dislike watch see, here, I'm making my point now. I have to put on glasses to show you the thing. Okay? Alright.
Don't don't laugh right at me. Okay. So I think this is hilarious, but I also use still images that rotate on it because I don't so I think you're gonna tell me that I'm supposed to, like, put a static image behind me and then react facially to the to this. Not just right. Because here, listen to it for a second.
I think it's
A lot of information. However, there is a lot of repetition, and the host is obnoxious. He is busy talking about himself versus the information needed. It would also be helpful if the titles told the user what the podcast subject is so that they can listen to podcasts about a needed subject. So very obnoxious.
Okay. So, anyway I
love that.
I find that hilarious. But what you're but it's not gonna do well. It'll do okay with certain I mean, if I'm being honest with certain women of a certain age, like, they'll like it. Like, I know how this all works at this point. No one else is gonna care.
It'll do 5,000 real views, and it'll stop. Right? It's literally for me. Like, I just I did it for me. But do you but if I play that exact same song and I'm reacting in it, then people care.
Right? Like, if I sit on is that how this all works?
I wish I could tell you. I really do. I wish I knew the secret, but I I genuinely feel like I am not special. The only reason I have a following is because I post once or twice every day for years.
You really think it's just you're being rewarded for repetition?
Yes. I think just being consistent, that's what they want. They want people on their platforms, and they need content and which, I mean, there's lots of people who have, you know, started theirs later than me and have grown way faster than me.
But Can I
I do feel like the followers that I have that I appreciate so much, like, are good followers? Like, they're real people.
Oh, sure. But why does the algorithm like like, listen. I'm a we don't know each other well enough for me to say this to you. I'm just gonna go out on a limb that you're gonna take me the right way. Okay?
You're pretty, but you're not supermodel pretty.
Right.
Yes. You're you're super pretty for regular people. Do you know that about do you know that about yourself?
Oh, that's nice of you.
But but do you like, seriously, nice skin, bright eyes, dark hair against alabaster, good teeth, lips are full.
Thanks.
Yeah. Cheeks. If you get They're fake. The teeth?
The lips.
Oh, the The
teeth are real.
I would a million percent get my teeth replaced if I didn't think it was hard for I have, like, pointy like, that's also slows me down from making video, by the way. Like, I all all I see is my incisors when I'm on video.
That makes me sad. Does it? I grew up even noticed them.
I grew up a fat kid, so, it's not good. It's it's bad. Without the GLP, I you and I, I would have turned the camera off an hour ago. And so, but but point being is that, like, you have like, I think you are I think you fit a really important mold. You're in shape, but you're not crazy muscular.
You don't make me feel bad about myself. You're pretty, but you're not so pretty that I'm scared of you. Right? Like, do do seriously. Like, you have dark hair in a world where nobody has dark hair and gets on camera.
Like, it's really like, you're you're you're attractive, and you're pleasant to look at. So the algorithm must see that at first. Right? Like, it must come on. Have you not thought about this at all?
You have a lot of success on TikTok. You have not considered why it's working?
I feel like the only ones that work are just clickbaity ones. The ones that are gonna reach the nondiabetic community are the ones that blow up.
I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies, and I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us though for the last few years because we began to use US Med back then, and you can too. Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514 to get your free benefits check. US Med has served over one million people living with diabetes since 1996. They carry everything you need from CGMs to insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and even more than that.
Posting into a void10:17
I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites, Libre three, Dexcom g seven, the pumps like Omnipod five, Tandem, and the Islet pump from Beta Bionics. They have even more than that. You gotta go check them out because the stuff you're looking for, they have it at US Med. (888) 721-1514. Or go to usmed.com/juicebox to get started now.
Use my Slink. Use my Slink. Use my link to support the podcast. That's usmed.com/juicebox. Now let's talk about the Tandem Mobi insulin pump from today's sponsor, Tandem Diabetes Care.
Their newest algorithm, Control IQ plus technology and the new Tandem Mobi pump offer you unique opportunities to have better control. It's the only system with Autobolus that helps with missed meals and preventing hyperglycemia, The only system with a dedicated sleep setting and the only system with off or on body wear options. Tandem OBI gives you more discretion, freedom, and options for how to manage your diabetes. This is their best algorithm ever, and they'd like you to check it out at tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox. When you get to my link, you're going to see integrations with Dexcom sensors and a ton of other information that's gonna help you learn about Tandem's tiny pump that's big on control.
Tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox. The Tandem Mobi system is available for people ages two and up who want an automated delivery system to help them sleep better, wake up in range, and address high blood sugars with auto bolus. And if I don't wanna do that, then it's not gonna work. And then I have to be then I have to count on my my listeners or my viewers to actually be in the app and try to find the content, which they're not gonna do. Right?
I don't know. I really wish I knew.
I'm trying so hard. I could
make this my full time job, but I don't know.
I am trying so hard for you to talk me out of making those videos. That's what I'm working towards. I was like
I think you should. Alright. Mean Fine. You'll get in a groove. It it takes some time to, like, figure out how to edit, but you'll get fast Okay.
Or you'll hire somebody to do it.
Not hiring anybody to do that. There's no
way you do I'm Just make your daughter do it. Your daughter's pretty. She could she would be the great face of it.
And she'll go, I'm not doing that. Leave me alone. And that'll be the end of that. So, I think she's coming to touch by type one with me to help to help me with something in September. And trust me, that is not a thing that I ever thought she would do.
So
Well, she did great in the Omnipod commercial. Oh. So did you.
Thank you. I just looked at the camera and thought, why are they they should not be having me do this. And I kept thinking she because I you can watch the monitor. I was like, she looks fantastic. I'm like a monster standing next door is how it felt.
No. You're again, you're being nice. So, do you feel comfortable? Like, you said you didn't wanna do this and you were nervous. Do you feel comfortable?
Yeah. I mean, you're pretty easy to easy to talk to, but I'm just hoping I didn't say anything that someone's gonna get me canceled over. I'm just doing my best. I'm just a girl with diabetes.
Is that a thing you worry about?
All the time.
I don't think about that ever.
Oh, I mean, that's a big problem on social media. Like, I feel like there's things that I have to steer clear of, and people still get upset. You know? Even something dumb like, I need five units for this. They're like, oh my gosh.
Like, well, I would need 50 units. Like, that's it's just the small things that people get so incredibly upset about, and I I don't wanna be con like, controversial. Like, that's not why I'm here. I feel like there's enough people in our lives as diabetics that are, you know, gonna be mean and say you're doing a bad job or, like, try and make you feel bad. And I'm like, that is never my intention.
What she will and won’t film14:04
Like, share my experience just in hopes that, like, somebody has had a similar experience, and they can feel like, oh, I'm not alone. You know? But it No.
It's great.
Like, I've I've had people tell me they're like, oh, well, like, you're posting they just are trying to make me feel bad, you know, like, for how you manage versus how I manage. And I'm like, it's not a secret how I manage. I very much I don't like to use the word restrictive. I don't feel like it's restrictive. I feel like it's just strategic to be structured in how I eat, when I eat, how I bolus, and it works really, really well for me.
And it makes some people upset, and I just I just want people to know that's not my intention is never to make somebody feel bad.
Like I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you a few of my secrets. I think that is lovely. I don't care what anybody else thinks. That that's that's one thing. Secondly, I think of sharing what's working for you as aspirational.
It is it is the world does people's psyche does not work by being surrounded by other people not doing well and them rising out of it. You need to see someone up ahead of you who's been through this already, knows the pitfalls, and can say to you, hey. Step three to the left here or you're gonna fall in a hole. Right? Like and now come forward.
Come forward. Come forward. Jump over that thing. Do this. Do that.
Hey. You're up here with me in the light now. Like, it's Yeah. It's gotta be aspirational. I am not in charge of how other people feel.
Yeah. I can say whatever I want.
That's good on you to feel that way. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not to that point.
If it makes you feel a certain way, ask a therapist why. Don't yell at me. Okay? And if you yell at me but, also, I have years and years of content. I have a lot of trust within the community.
And the truth is is that, like, if I I'm sure I say something every day that is problematic. Okay. Great. But I really don't care. And and and because I don't first of all, I don't mean it that way.
And secondly, like, when you're talking as much as I do, you often say things that later you go, I wouldn't have said it like that again if I had time to think about it. Right? Like, you're really rolling.
Mhmm.
And I would say this to you. Although it's probably impossible to ignore on TikTok, those people are the minority even though they feel like the majority. Yeah. That's just true. The person who called me a clown yesterday, I'm I'm I'm making light of it because I'm trying to have fun.
But, and it's the summertime. I'm looking for fun things to do. I'm also trying to teach myself how to edit and do other things with their stuff, so I'm practicing. But but that but I know I don't know how well you can track it, Addy, but I have 86,000 active members in my Facebook group. It does a 150 posts every day, like 8,000 likes and comments every day in that group.
I watch people get helped all day long. I watch other people help other people using things I've said out loud. And I know I'm doing a good job for those people. And I assume I'm doing a good job for the other people who I am unaware of. Right?
I I'm I'm very proud of this. I just learned this recently. I've probably said it too many times in the podcast, but fewer than 200 people in the world have made a podcast for as long as I have or have made as many episodes as I have. Right? Like, that go.
That's really awesome. Right? But my point my point is is that if someone comes up and goes, you're an idiot, or I got hit I got hit on TikTok recently, someone said I gave them an eating disorder. Oh. I was like, I don't know how I did that.
I must be a magic person. Okay?
Yeah.
But talking about diabetes, the way I talk about it made them feel a certain way, says them.
Yeah.
I would tell you, go talk to a therapist because other people can make you feel that way. Yeah. And so you're talking about stuff like that. Like, you just don't and, by the way, I don't see myself as controversial at all. Do you?
Do you think no? I don't feel
like you're any of the podcasts I've heard are controversial. They're just educational.
I'm I am talking to you like a a social media godfather because I think you've got legs. I think I think this is I think you're gonna stick. Like, you are sticking, but I think you're gonna stick stick because let's be honest. There's a lot of influencers that we see today that we won't see six months from now. We won't see a year from now.
There were a ton we saw last year. We don't know who they are anymore, but there's something about you that's lovely.
Oh, thank you.
Whether it lasts18:34
And I think you're gonna find a way to expand it and grow it and do that thing you mean to do where you're being and and I'm I'm just I I think it's gonna work. Like and I don't not that it's not I'm not being reductive. It is working now. I think it's gonna work long term. Yeah.
Is that a thing you would want, or are you gonna make so many babies you're not gonna have time for this?
I don't know. I don't know. I think about it sometimes. It's like, at what point is it, like, people are like, who's this old lady? You know?
I think going to Friends for Life, I saw all these, like, teenagers making videos, and I'm like, I'm an old hag. Like, these girls these girls are young and fresh and, like, have all these good ideas. And sometimes it's like, well, posting once or twice a day, you know, it's like, I'm gonna run out of stuff. But I'm like, well, diabetes is always there impacting everything. Like, the
big Yeah.
Technically, the content is unlimited. It's just more of, like, do I wanna take the time to film? And like you said, I don't even own a ring light, and it probably would be really helpful because half the day, I'm like, I can't film. There's no sun. It's dark.
“These girls are young and fresh”19:39
I, I mentioned him for the first time last weekend in a recording. I've never mentioned this guy before. This man named Tony used to have something called a diabetes blog talk radio show. Oh. And to to contextualize that for you, you would call from your home phone to a phone number and so would the other person, and then your conversation would get recorded in very terrible audio quality, then they would put that on the Internet for people to listen to.
And I did his show one time. Tony had type has type one diabetes, and I don't know him anymore. But as I was deciding to make a podcast, I went to him, and I said, hey. He wasn't doing it anymore. I said I said, any advice?
Like, you know, that kind of thing. And he said he said, well, just you know, it's it's gonna be like a live fast, die young thing. He's like, because you're gonna run out of stuff to say. And I got off, and I thought, oh, he doesn't know me that well. I don't think I'm gonna I don't think I'm gonna run
out stuff. Forever.
Like, you could let's just throw three words together, and I could make up a story about them. So, like, I was like I'm like, I think I'll be okay. That was never a concern of mine, but I do get what he's saying. If you're just gonna talk about diabetes, like, very specifically, you are going to have said everything in pretty short order. Right?
And I find that one of the things that I think I'm good at is modernizing but restating in a in a new way, which Yeah. Because once you know the thing helps somebody, what the way I think of the podcast is, like, I think of it as a stone that I'm keeping warm with a match. Yeah. And as long as I hold the match on it, the stone stays hot. And then the minute the match comes off, it goes it goes cold, and then it's very difficult to get it warm again.
Like, I watched a really popular blogger stop blogging back in the day and then tried to come back and start it up again. And not only did it not work, but the community had no idea who this person was.
Oh.
And it must and and it must have been crushing to them because there was nothing bigger than them at one point. Oh. And I thought, like, oh, wow. Like, you can't stop doing this because if you stop, you're done. Like, that's that's it.
The stone and the match21:52
You know? So don't stop. I'm gonna get you a ring light. How much are they?
I have no idea. I did just buy a new camera, so I'm like, maybe I'll film on a camera, but I'm so lazy. I put I put so minimal effort into it. I'm sure if it was my full time job, I would try harder, but I'm like I don't know if, like, people know, like, I work full time. I work forty hours a week.
I have a toddler. My toddler stays home with my husband and I while we work. We don't have daycare.
Yeah.
So it's like
It's a
busy gal.
It's a lot. Well, okay. So then tell me let's go back a second. If you went to Friends for Life and were like, I'm an old would you say an old dried up hag? Is that what you say?
27. And, so then I turned 55 last week. What did I look like there? I looked like somebody's grandfather then.
A dinosaur.
I did. Right? You were like, oh, that old man is it's so nice he can stand on his feet so long. He must be excite must be exciting for me. His his his arches don't hurt.
I did see you sitting quite a bit.
Got well. I was tired.
You said it.
But but, listen. I think there's a it's good to have a blend of people. What would it and and I like that I like that people are there of all ages, like, like but what would I what would you tell what would you say if I told you that a number of older diabetics came up to me and said that they found it off putting that there were so many content creators that are making videos?
I I think that's totally understandable. My husband and I were actually having this conversation the other day. We, like, think it's, like, super tacky when content creators get together and, like, film a bunch of content together. Like, I think it's just super strange. I don't even really like to say I'm a content creator.
Not that I'm embarrassed about having diabetes, but I think about, like, the girls that I went to high school with that had diabetes, and then I got diagnosed as an adult and start making content about it, and they're probably like, this girl is freaking weird. Like, this is all new to her. Who does she think she is? Like, she must think diabetes is, like, her entire personality. I do think people probably think that that diabetes is, like, my entire personality because that is that is what I post.
I have a separate social media for my personal stuff. Mhmm. It's on private, and I have my diabetes pages. And I keep my diabetes pages strictly diabetes, and I do that on purpose because I don't want to share other things of my life. You know?
It's, like, it's a lot of work to film content. I'm not gonna, you know, go out of my way to make other stuff. But, anyways, I'm I'm rambling.
No. You're No. You're not.
I would I would agree, though, which it's it's fun. Like, I don't look at us and see, like, oh, we're a bunch of content creators. You know? Like, we're better than everybody else. Absolutely not.
Like, everybody who came up and said hi and followed me, like, I was just, like, bursting inside. Inside. Like, they're they're just so kind, and, like, I just felt, like, embarrassed that they, like, even know who I am, you know, because I'm like, I'm just a person like you.
I read that on you, by the way. And I don't know if you could tell because I am, as you heard in the song obnoxious, but I feel exactly the same way. Like, when people come up, I'm like, oh, hi. Like, I I just got done talking about an episode recently where I'm like, I have to stop acting like I'm surprised that you're aware of the podcast, but I'm not acting. I'm actually surprised you're aware of the podcast, but I it Right.
It's been pointed out to me that it comes off as as, like, like, false modesty because people are like, well, of course, people know. And I'm like, you don't you're not me. Like, I'm still surprised by it. Like you know?
Yeah. Yeah. Every time, I'm just like it's, like, just so humbling and sweet and, like, I love it. And it's, like, embarrassing, but also, like, this is the coolest thing ever, and I wanna give you a hug. And I appreciate you so much for, like Yeah.
Watching just, you know, my life with diabetes. But, anyways, I feel like I don't know if every other content creator feels the same way. The ones that I feel like I know well, I feel like they agree. Like, they don't feel like they're any better than anybody else. It's just, like, it's part of our life.
Working full time, and a toddler26:01
We just like, it's fun for us to share, and that's kind of like the reunion, where, like, we get to see each other because we all live all across the world or The United States, you know, at least. So it's, we typically get to come together because a lot of us were sponsored to be there. Mhmm. And it's fun. Like, it's the only time we get to see each other.
Yeah. That does make me sad that people are like, oh. I got a lot of comments about that. When I posted a video of a recap, people were like, well, is this, like, only for influencers? And I'm like, I'm super embarrassed that that even came across as, like, a thing.
Because there were so many there were so many
people there. I'm like, it is open to absolutely anybody. Like, anybody can go. Like, I paid to go last year. I wasn't sponsored to be there.
I wanted to go.
And so the one of the people who said it to me, I know that it just felt to them like it was passing them by, and I think that was sad. Like, I think it felt like, oh, there's a generation here that it's not this is not for me. I will never see that thing that they're they're videoing.
And Yeah.
And this thing isn't the thing that because there are a lot of adults there. It's not just kids. There's and or families. There's a lot of adults here that have type one.
I thought it was, like, forty percent adults last year.
Yeah. So, I found that interesting. I Yeah. I appreciate that you're so candid about it. Listen.
I was in a meeting with somebody the other day, and they called me an influencer and apologized for calling me an influencer as they were saying it. And I was like, oh god. I don't think I am that. And they're like, yes, you are. And I'm like Yeah.
Okay. But I don't that's not how I feel. It's not my intention, like, anything.
Right. Yeah. Same.
And it and it also like, hypocrisy of what I'm about to say is not lost on me. Okay? But because I I make a living making the podcast. Yep. But it is weird to see so many people who appear to be just trying to make business relationships.
And Yeah. And I'm like, that that's it's out in the open now. And that's Yeah. That was not lost on other people looking. Like like, it felt like an audition for some people.
Yep. You know what I mean? And then then then somebody will come up wearing a pump, and then you'll see them in a video three weeks later wearing a different pump. And then a month later, like, they're and I'm like, okay. You you you know, like and people notice that stuff.
So
Yeah. It's a hard balance for sure.
No. It really is.
Because, like, I just I just wanna know, like, I want people to know that it's, like, it's so genuine what I put out there. Like, there's no benefit for me. Like, I've never been accused of this, but I've seen other people be accused of, like, working for big pharma.
Mhmm.
And I'm like, I don't even know how that would be a thing. Like, not that I would do it, but, like, dang, I would like a paycheck. It's like, that would be that would be a nice bonus.
About a year ago, someone said someone said, he is clearly being paid by a GLP company to talk like this. And I heard that, and I was like, oh god. I wish they would pay me to talk. First of all, I'm talking about it anyway. I would I'd be happy to take a check over it.
But Right. But I'm like, oh, wow. That's the idea out there is that I'm slipping in GLP conversation because somebody's paying me to. And I was like, that's not happening. Like, I'm completely candid about what my but by the way, think what I do is almost a public service.
And it's a full time job, and I pay for it with the money that come in from the ads. Like, that's Right. Like, the reason I'm not, like, in a position where I'm like, well, maybe I should be, like, charging people for this is, like, because I don't have to. Like, you're not you said it earlier. It's hard to make this content.
You're not getting it if there's not either the either someone's not really enjoying doing it or someone's compensating them in a way that they can such they can pay their bills and keep the lights on and everything like that.
I don't
you know? And I think people younger people understand that don't care about it. But over a certain age, it seems to hit people a little differently.
I agree with that. Yeah. It's like now, like, if I see somebody post an ad, I'm like, oh, I get it. You know? They got bills to pay even if it's a stupid ad or for a dumb product.
It doesn't even relate to what they post about, but I'm like, they have bills to pay. I I don't like to do that. I actually, like, despise making branded content. Like, is that how you actually make money? Yes.
Will I maybe do it occasionally? Maybe. I'm now I'm trying to pay for a baby. You know? But
This kid looks hungry. Yeah. But
I I don't know. I just, like, pride myself on, like what I post is very genuine. Like, I am, like, the worst liar in the world. I can't even put, like I have to put a screenshot of my whole blood sugar chart because if I just put the number, I'm like, someone's gonna think I'm being sketchy and, like, lying about my blood sugar. So I'll have to put the whole thing, and I'm like literally or, like, I'll be on a run and I'll, like, film two miles, like, back to back.
I ran all the miles, but, like, I filmed them on the same spot because I was on, like, a busy road. And I'm like, someone's gonna notice that the background is the same.
They're gonna call out. Running up and down.
Advice she’s been given31:01
That's how fearful I am that someone's gonna be like, content is ingenuine. I'm like, I swear it's not.
If I if I ever have to put a graph up to make a point about something, I make sure to make it at least twelve hours of the graph so that somebody doesn't look at it and go, yeah. You picked the five minutes where this thing looks okay. You you Literally. Yeah. Yeah.
And so I I I hear you. Well, look. I I'll tell you I'll tell you this. I think, again, what you're doing is really cool. I think it's so funny that you feel old while you're doing it.
And I and I think that it's not going away. And I and I really do take your point about your attention span and that you're aware that it's a problem. And I would guarantee that everybody else your age and younger thinks I'm sure Arden thinks it's a problem too. My son deleted TikTok two years ago, and he was like, this is the best thing I've ever done in my life. Yeah.
And but it's not going away, and the and the the onus to do it's not going away. So excuse me. So my message to everybody who's gonna hear this through you who would never have heard this otherwise is this old man thinks, please just get up in the morning and try to help people. I and and we could force the algorithm and to to, you know, to push up content that would really help people because, like, you're doing it, and you're and you're speaking of it pejoratively. You're like, it's gotta be clickbaity.
So Yeah. If you know that, then everyone else knows that. And now everybody's making clickbaity stuff hoping to get an audience big enough so that what? So you can give them more clickbaity stuff? Like Right.
You know what I mean? Like Yeah. I don't know. Like, I feel like if every there's no way this is gonna happen. But if everybody just banded together, like, maybe the people lit like, sure the platform's not gonna change, but maybe the people looking for the content would be driven towards something that was more valuable for them.
I don't know. I feel like I'm I feel like I'm a child talking about, like, I hope Santa comes.
Right. Me too. I wish I knew, and I wish I knew what, like, what more do people want. Like, I feel like I've asked before, like, is valuable to you guys? Like, what can I post that, like, feels like it's actually helpful?
You know? And feel like, oh, just whatever. And I'm like, no. I'm someone who likes, like, one answer. Like, give it to me straight.
Like, tell me what I eat in a day. That's what I wanna see more of. And I'm like, you got it. You know?
Mhmm. You want
me that. Even if it's gonna get no views, it's like, if it's gonna reach five people and it's gonna help those five people, let's do it.
We make a series called bolus four where we we took a list of I think people send in, like, hundreds of different foods, and they wanna hear it talk through bolus thing. And those things are really popular.
That's incredibly helpful.
Yeah.
I need find that one.
Yeah. So, that's it's funny because once you listen to five of them, what you realize is the food's not important. It's fat, protein, carbs. Yeah. Right?
But but then so we tried to stop making them by saying to people like, look. We made 10 of them for you. Just apply it to the thing you're eating now, and people are like, no. I wanna hear about this now. What about the churros?
And what I'm like, okay. So we just we just
That's what's so helpful, though. Like, I posted on my story, like, I ate some pizza, and they were like, okay. Well, like, how many slices did you eat? And where was it from? You know?
And I'm like
Well,
I'm real? But then I'm also like, no. For real. Like, that's actually helpful information to know.
Yeah. So I'm gonna answer one of your questions. I'm a let you go because I think you have to go, like, count numbers or take care of a baby or something like that. But I'm gonna give you something that a 100% a younger person is gonna go, okay, boomer, when I answer. Okay?
When when you wonder what people want, I think you should wonder what they need. If they knew what they wanted, they'd go find it themselves. You have to give them what they need, not ask them what they need because they don't know. That's what that's why they're looking. So I I that's been I mean, I'm I'm sure I've said it out loud before, but I am I am trying to put content out in the world that I think that you need based on what I'm seeing the Internet talking about and what I hear when I'm talking to people.
I think if I ran around doing what you guys were asking for, all you would get is more stuff that wouldn't help you.
Yeah. Well, I need the how to bowl is for. So here's me telling you I need that. So get that out there.
Send in your send in your send in your foods that you want, or just go to the website and type in bolus, the number four, and a ton of stuff will come up.
Perfect.
Yeah. We've made a bunch of them. I can't thank you enough for doing this. I know you didn't want to. I feel like I forced you.
When did you give in? What was the moment where you're like, oh, I'm gonna go make this dumb podcast?
When you called me out in real life. Shoot. Were escape him. We're in line together. I can't leave.
Oh my god. Yeah. We were standing we were were we I was in the wrong registration line at Friends Forever.
Too, and then I had to follow you all the way across the conference center to the other one.
I just heard a voice bot so this is a meta thing, especially for an old person. I hear a voice behind me say something like, you're the guy from the podcast. And I or something like that. And I turn around, and I'm like, oh my god. That's Addie.
Making something that helps36:09
I was like, that girl hates me. I've been messaging her for years, and she will not answer me. Now life like, this is gonna be awkward. She's being polite because she thinks we're gonna see each other. She knows she doesn't and so I immediately chastise you for not coming on the podcast.
And then, I got to watch you over the weekend. I thought you were really delightful. And
Oh, thank you. Yeah. As you hopefully, you saw my video whereas I'm, like, standing behind you, and I'm like, oh my gosh. It's the Juice Box podcast guy. I'm fangirling.
Well, that's
thinking the opposite.
That's hates me. That's where the meta part comes in because then later, somebody tags me in a repost of your thing, and I was like, oh, I was standing there when that happened. I'm so old. I was, like, amazed by that. I was like, oh, a thing that happened to me in real life is on video somewhere.
You saw it.
I saw it. Alright. Listen. Good luck, with everything. Hopefully, you'll have a good experience with this, and we'll come back and do it again.
But I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fantastic, and and I I appreciate too. I appreciate you taking the time. Seriously. Thank you so much.
I'm glad you glad you encouraged me to do it.
Okay. Can you stay with me for two more minutes? Sure. Okay. Teach me how that was the end of the podcast.
Maybe what happens now might be a bonus. I don't know. Teach me how to make a video. So there's gotta be a formula to it. Right?
What if
Do you have, like, an editing app? How do you I don't know how you edit your podcast. I just use CapCut. I take my videos, put them in CapCut, snip out every point one of a second where I'm pausing between words because you'll lose people that quickly.
Okay. So constantly moving.
Always moving.
Right.
I mean, there's definitely, like, hooks that you can use. I try not to use them because I think they're annoying. Like, there's a really common one now you have to pay attention where people start where, like, they start by, like, videoing and they, like, set their phone down so you're, like, moving the first couple seconds of the clip.
Because it grabs your eye. Yes.
I think since I know that it's, like, a click baity thing, I just don't like it. If I see somebody do that, I immediately skip the video.
Mhmm. Oh, you're you're you're mad at them for knowing how to get your attention.
Yes. I'm just like, that's annoying. Like
You're very close to rehab for social media, I think.
For real.
So the motion in the beginning is, like or, like, I'm about to tell you the top five things or that, like, promise deliver promise deliver cadence. Right? There's that whole social, like, psychology part to it.
Or, like, screen on the text so people stay to read whatever it says or, like
Yeah. Or make it hard to read so people, like, get like, oh, what does that say?
Yeah. Even if and read it.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel like I wish I knew. Like, if I knew the answer, all my videos would do well. You know? I was like, it's totally hit or miss.
So produce me for a second. I'm gonna come on and take so here's what I'll do. I've taken each episode of that pro tip series that you listened to, which, by the way, helped you, and it's okay, young people, if you listen to something that's an hour long. Okay? It'll save you hundreds of hours later in your life.
Sure. And I've taken those and already distilled them down into ten or fifteen minute clips. Right? So now I need to go to those ten minute clips and pull out forty seconds a minute of it that's most valuable. And so it's gotta so what is it?
It's a promise, a delivery. Do I even need to tell them where they can hear the rest of it, or they're never gonna look? Right?
They probably won't look.
Right. So so they I
mean, it's in your name. Like, it's the Juice Box podcast. They'll know. They'll know to look. You know?
They'll click on your profile maybe, and it's in your bio probably.
Yeah. Who knows? And so so they have to leave that with an actual piece of advice inside of sixty seconds. No. You
No. I mean, you probably want them to, like, be wanting more. You know? Like, well, what happens next? I mean, I don't really watch listen to podcasts, but there is I've seen a few on TikTok where they just take, like, clips from the podcast.
You know? And it's like, you only get to see this much of it. So then you're like, wait. What happens next? Then you go to their page, and sometimes they'll have posted other parts of the same one.
Sometimes you gotta go to the actual app.
So I gotta do the same thing that my wife did to me to get me to marry her. Is that what you're saying? I show a look. Yeah. You show a little bit, and you wait a little bit.
And then and then before you know it, my name's on the house, and it's too late, I'm screwed. Like that. Like, that's what you're saying to me.
Yep.
It seems horrible. So what alright. What about, like, functional stuff? Is there an angle where I don't look like a monster? Is it over my head, below my head to the left?
Is there a place you hold your phone that you think this is where I look best?
Most often, I put my phone on top of my water bottle
Seriously?
Just like this.
See, this is why your thing is working because you are not thinking this out at all. By the way, never
so lazy. Nothing's planned ahead of time. Like
So okay. Well, then that's the better point is that you're not planning ahead. That's how I make the podcast. If I sit here and decide to plan ahead to make a video, it's gonna just look overproduced like I'm trying too hard, and people are gonna click off to begin with. So I have In my opinion.
What she’d tell someone starting41:14
Oh my god. So I'm you're giving me the advice that I give people when they're making they ask me about making a podcast, which is you go make it. And if people like it, they'll watch it. And if they don't, you'll know and you'll quit.
Yep. You'll know what they like. You'll know what they don't like, what does well. I mean
There's no secret you're telling me.
Sit in front of a window. Get the good light.
Hope you're likable to enough people.
Yeah. Which, I mean, I feel like I just the only reason I feel like people even care what I have to say is I feel like it's mostly parents because they see, like, this girl has it. She still has a family. She has, like, a functioning life, you know, and they want that for their kid. And so, like, I wanna show them, like, yeah.
It is possible. You know? It's different because they've had diabetes since their kid was, you know, five, whereas I didn't get it till I was an adult. But
So you are aspirational to a section of society because
I feel like there's a lot of the diabetes community that I don't resonate with. I feel like other adults who've had diabetes for a long time, like
They don't
like had some, like, they do not like me. Yeah. They think I'm super annoying. They like, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm new to this.
How could I possibly give any advice? Because I'm only, you know, three years in, which I get it. I'm like, I'm not discrediting your experience. Like, every year with diabetes is hard. And I think everybody who's had it for a long time, like, power to you.
Like, I can't imagine. And that's the thing where, like, you could have never done it, you know, years ago before a CGM and before a pump. And I'm like, well, I would have done it like everybody else. You just do it. Yeah.
It that's the only option. You
know? Mhmm.
But I I I have a group of haters. I do. They're there.
I do too. Think they I think they formed a, like, a little club. Mhmm. I know you're too old to know about the Super Friends, but I feel like they have a Justice League online somewhere, but it's, like, the alternate of that, and that they all sit around a marble table and talk about how much they hate me.
You got a subreddit thread, I'm sure,
of your haters. I don't wanna know about that.
I probably do, and I don't wanna know either.
Yeah. Listen. I get a lot of, a lot of people come to me through Reddit. Like, I heard about this on Reddit. So I always say thank you I always say thank you to Reddit because I don't want Reddit mad at me.
I love Reddit.
Yeah. So yeah. Daddy's like, I love everybody on Reddit. But But, no, there's there's a small group of people. You know what?
I'll tell you the same thing that I actually think. Their downloads count just the same. It's fine with me. Right. So alright.
So I agree. Alright. So you're telling me go do the thing the way it occurs to me. It's either gonna work or it's not. Yeah.
That's it.
Give it a shot.
I'm gonna try. Why not? Oh, well, why not? Because I'm busy. I got kids too.
Well, all it's gonna do is drive more attention to your podcast.
He thinks I I do really think there's four people on TikTok that would listen to an hour long conversation with somebody.
That's why you need to just make the clips. But you can make money off TikTok too.
I don't wanna make money off. Oh, god. I don't wanna I got I'm fine. I make enough money. I don't need to make I don't wanna be involved in another thing where I gotta put my I already YouTube, said to me, like, I make, I don't know.
I don't wanna brag, but I I make upwards of a $100 on YouTube every six months. And Woah. Stop.
Big baller.
No. No. No. It's it's I'm crushing it over there.
And I was excited. I thought you're gonna, like, give me some hope for YouTube.
Sure. Sure. And right now, they owe me a $110, and I have to fill a thing out. I'm like, I'm not doing I just I don't I don't wanna do that. I was like, leave me.
I Tell your daughter and she'll tell her she can have half, and she'd do it, I bet.
I maybe. That's a good idea. Listen. I'll say this right now. I'm sure the people at Omnipod are gonna be thrilled.
I did some work for Omnipod while I was at Friends for Life. And Yeah. So they paid my hotel and my my air. Yeah. Right?
I didn't charge them. I shouldn't say this out loud, but I didn't charge I just I just wanted to have my travel covered. And there's some receipts I have that I could turn in. And I gotta be honest with you, that seems like such a hassle. So, hey, Omnipod, you're gonna get to keep that money because I just I don't have the f I don't have it in me to send you a receipt for a sandwich.
Wrapping up45:18
I just don't. So keep it. It's on me. Alright.
That's fair.
Addy, thank you very much. Hold on one second. It seems that the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by Tandem Diabetes Care. Learn more about Tandem's newest automated insulin delivery system, Tandem Mobi with Control IQ plus technology at tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox. There are links in the show notes and links at juiceboxpodcast.com to Tandem and US Med, who also sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast.
Get started with US Med at usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514. Get your free benefits check and get started today with US Med, the same place that we get our diabetes supplies. Usmed.com/juicebox. Links in the show notes. Links at juiceboxpodcast.com.
Click on those links, baby. Support the podcast. The juice box podcast has been in production since January 2015, and in that time, I have amassed just a fantastic catalog of information for you. Defining diabetes, bold beginnings, the diabetes pro tip series, small sips, fat and protein, algorithm pumping, mental wellness, ask Scott and Jenny. The diabetes variables, defining thyroid, after dark.
There's even an Omnipod five pro tip series. Come on, pregnancy, how we eat, grand rounds, cold win, GLP meds. What else do you want from me? And if you'd like to get going now with this podcast, boy, oh, boy, you have not picked a better time. You haven't because we have a diabetes myth series and there's even a type two pro tip series.
All of this all of this is free. Free. That's right, Scott. Free at juiceboxpodcast.com. Go up to the menu, click on a series, they're all right there.
Or you, of course, could use your Apple podcast app, Spotify, or wherever you get audio. Every episode is listed on the website along with its episode number so you can search for it in one of those apps. I've done everything I can do, baby. There's transcripts. You wanna read the podcast?
Go read it. What do I care? I'm not your mother. You do whatever you want. Juiceboxpodcast.com, Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your audio, baby.
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#1951 Addy Taylor Has Nothing to Teach You - Part 1
Addy Tayler Has Nothing to Teach You (Part 1)
Addy Tayler posts about diabetes to 85,000 followers around a full-time job and a toddler, and spent years ducking Scott's invitations because podcasts scare her. Part one: diagnosis at 24, a baby a year later, and vitiligo.
Jump to a moment
- She said no for years. Addy posts about diabetes and reads all her messages — she just found podcasts intimidating and, in her words, mostly annoying. Her stated reason for declining was that she had nothing to teach anybody. Scott's answer is the thesis of the whole show: guests aren't there to teach, they're there to tell what happened, and people take what they need from it.
- How the Pro Tip series was actually built. Prompted by her assumption that it was formally designed, Scott explains the real version — 200 episodes in, people online were telling each other to just listen and their A1c would come down, so he sat down and worked out what the structure inside it had been. He wrote ten touchstone topics, sent Jenny Smith one-line prompts, and she told him they weren't in order. She put them in order.
- Diagnosed at 24, pregnant about a year later. Addy is 27 and will hit four years with type 1 in November. She got pregnant deliberately just over a year after diagnosis, having found a statistic online about the odds of passing it on that changed at age 25 — she has no idea whether it's true, but she waited anyway. Her son is nearly two.
- Vitiligo came along with it. Scott had noticed it before they ever spoke and didn't raise it; she brings it up herself. It's a common autoimmune traveling companion to type 1, and it's part of what she is visibly living with in public every time she posts.
- She learned diabetes as an adult, on her own. Diagnosed as a working adult rather than as a child with a family built around it, she describes assembling her understanding from the internet and the podcast's educational series — which is also why she assumed she had nothing to contribute. Nothing here is medical advice.
- Addy Tayler on TikTok — @addytayler — Where Addy posts about life with type 1 — 85,000+ followers.
- Addy on Instagram — @addytayler_t1d — Her type 1 account on Instagram. Note the _t1d — her plain handle there is a separate personal account.
- Diabetes Pro Tip series — Episodes 1000-1025 — the series Addy names as what she actually listened to.
- Bold Beginnings series — Scott and Jenny Smith for the newly diagnosed.
- Juicebox Podcast Facebook group — The private community, free to join.
Every word of the conversation
Cold open & sponsors0:08
Hello, friends, and welcome back to the juice box podcast. If you don't love today's episode, you can have your money back. You should not, in any way, shape, or form, take anything you hear on the juice box podcast. As medical advice, I'm talking about medical advice, regular advice, any kind of advice. This is a podcast.
Nothing you hear on the juice box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. I cannot stress that enough. Today, we've got a great podcast, and it's sponsored by great advertisers, US Med, the Eversense three sixty five, and Twist. You know about Twist?
It's an insulin pump. I'll tell you all about in a second. I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of the Juice Box podcast is sponsored by the Eversense three sixty five, the only one year wear CGM. That is one insertion and one CGM a year.
One CGM, one year, not every ten or fourteen days. Eversensecgm.com/juicebox. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Twist AID system powered by Tidepool that features the Twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87. Wanna learn more? Go to visit .twist.com/juicebox.
That's visit.twist.com/juicebox, and twist has two i's. Understand? Twiist.com. Visit .twist.com/juicebox. Hey.
US Med is a longtime sponsor of the podcast. It's where we get our diabetes supplies from. You could as well. Usmed.com/juicebox, or you can call (888) 721-1514. US Med, that's where my daughter gets your supplies.
Use the link or the number. Get your free benefits check today and get started with US Med. What's up, everybody? I am here with Addie Taylor. Addie, say hello.
Years of unanswered messages2:22
Hello.
How did I get you to do this? This is insane. I have been messaging you for years, have I not?
You have.
And do you even answer my messages?
No. No. I see them.
Tell me. So that hurts my feelings. I feel I feel like people don't like me when this happens. But tell me why have you not returned my messages, my overtures?
I feel like something that I actually do pride myself on with social media is I do read, and I attempt to respond to all of my messages. Sometimes it's, you know, a little bit late, maybe years late in your case.
“Podcasts just scare me”3:01
But no. But you but tell me what you told me when we met in person about being on a podcast.
They just scare me. I have never I have never been into podcasts. My husband is, like, a podcast guru. He has them playing in the background constantly. And for the most part, I think they're annoying.
I'm like, I don't want to listen to someone's banter. I don't care. But that's one of, like, the things where it's I just I don't listen to them, and I'm sure if I did, I would be like, this is fantastic. And
But did you
I just never gave it a chance.
And what but did you think did you think, oh, that's a thing I don't like, so why would I wanna be a part of it, or did you think I won't be good on it because I don't listen to them? Wait. Did you have nerves about it?
I I felt like more so I listened of your podcast. I mostly listened to the ones that are very educational. Mhmm. And they teach you a lot, and I I learned so much from I can't remember what it's called. Some series that you have.
Pro tips? Bold beginnings?
I think it's the pro tips
one. Okay.
I have a screenshot of it. I could find it. But and I just I felt like there's nothing that I can there's no information that I can give, and there would be no reason for me to be on there because I have nothing to teach anybody.
I see. This is a common misconception of people who come on the podcast. So, yes, the podcast has series that are structured and structured of of really a two if you knew how that pro tip series was made, you would laugh. So I started making the podcast in 2015, and it got to the point where people would just say, like, not me, but people online would say, if you just listen to that podcast, your a one c comes down into the sixes. They wouldn't point to anything specific other than you should just listen.
How the Pro Tip series actually got made4:44
And then one day, I got up to, like, 200 episodes, and I thought, like, it's weird to say to people, just listen to these 200 episodes and your a one c will come down apparently. And so I started thinking about it because my brain doesn't work the way probably yours does or others people's do. Like, I didn't actually know there was a structure inside of it. And so I stopped and I real I sat down one day and I really focused, and I was like, there's a structure in here. I know there's things I do.
When you do those things, the outcomes go the way I expect. And I wrote out a list of these 10 kind of, like, touchstone things that I thought were bedrock. And then I reached to and then I thought about how to record it, and I thought, oh, if I just talking headed, it'll be super boring and nobody will wanna watch that or listen. So I had had Jenny Smith on the podcast once before as a guest, and I really I dug her. I like the way she talked about diabetes.
So I reached out to her and I said, will you help me make this 10 part series? And I and I sent her the topic just I I I know you think that I sent her, like, some long written out. I just sent her one line topics for each of the things. And she's like, these are not in order. And I said, you think there's an order to this?
And she goes, you don't think there's an order to this? And I was like, I don't know. You you know? Like so she's like, can I put them in order? And I was like, sure.
So we put them in order, and then she would pop I don't pay her. Like, she just did it as a favor. She'd pop on. We'd say hello like you and I did, and I'd say, okay, Jenny. Why don't we talk about MDI today?
Why don't we talk about CGMs today? And then we'd just started talking. It was not structured at all. When we got to the end, she was like, we left out some stuff. We should add a couple more things.
So she made a couple suggestions. And then as time went on, people would come and say, hey. I love this series, but you know what it didn't have? It didn't have this. And now I think it has, like, 25 or 27 episodes to it.
But, anyway, that's how that was built, and it's how a lot of people think of the podcast. But the problem is that I think you know about better than anybody is that if I just put that pro tip series in a feed somewhere, it'll it'll it'll wither and it'll die. Like, I have to keep I mean, this is your life. Right? Like, I have to keep the the irons hot to keep people attracted to it so they know it's here.
And I don't just want it to be foofy, so I try to talk to people who don't get a chance to talk about their diabetes ever. But the last thing I'll say about that is at the end of most of those episodes, when I shut the mic off, people go, if you wanna delete that, that's fine. And I go, what do you mean? And they go, I I didn't say anything. And I was like, does the podcast help you?
Like, do you like the other episodes you hear? And they say, yeah. And I'm like, everyone feels the same way when it's over. They all say I didn't add anything. This is useless.
It's okay if you get rid of it. So I understand how you feel. But trust me, you're gonna say some really awesome stuff today, and people are gonna really get something out of it. I promise.
That's nice because that's exactly how I feel. This morning, I was watching a few of the ones you have posted on your Instagram just to see what ones outside of the pro tip series look like, and it was fun. I watched the one with Arnie, and I know him. I ran the marathon with him, but, like, I didn't know his history. I didn't know his story.
And, like, the fact that he didn't get a CGM till 2018, I'm like, this guy's crazy.
See? This is what's gonna happen for you. Alright. Look. And and by the way, you've already done more prep for the podcast today than I've done for it in twelve years.
So so you're way ahead of us.
I do my homework.
Diagnosed at twenty-four8:10
How old were you when you were diagnosed?
I was freshly 24. It was, like, three weeks after my 20 birthday. How old are you now? I'm 27.
Okay. I was gonna say because you still look like you're 18. So
Oh, thanks. Yeah.
It's hard it's hard. You're one of those people, like, I can't discern your age. But I know you had a baby, so I'm like, she could be 30. She could be 18. She could be I don't know how old she is.
So okay. So you you've only had diabetes for, like, three years?
Correct. Okay. It'll be four in November.
How old's your baby?
He'll be two in October.
A baby, a year after diagnosis8:41
Oh, you got pregnant on purpose after you had type one?
I did. It was, like, almost just over a year after diagnosis.
So you did the whole, like, ain't nothing gonna break in my stride thing? I was gonna have a baby. I'm doing it. Is that it?
Pretty much. I mean, when I was first diagnosed, I had looked up what are the odds of giving it to my child, and there's this super random statistic online, no idea if it's true, and it says your your odds are, like, one in twenty five if you're the mom who has it. But if you're over 25 years old, your odds are one in one hundred. Okay. Which not sure how that works.
So I was like, okay. Well, we can't have a baby at least until I'm 25.
We'll just wait till I'm 25 to up our odds.
Yeah. Exactly. I'm like random
thing I saw online is true.
Right? Who knows if it's true? But I was I was gonna go for it.
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Go to eversensecgm.com/juicebox to learn more. So you were planning on having a family prior to the to your diagnosis? Okay. Mhmm. Anybody else in your extended family have any autoimmune issues?
Planning a family around a statistic11:58
I'm talking about, like, celiac or hypothyroidism, vitiligo, anything at all.
So no type one, but my mom has vitiligo, and I do as well. I've actually had it since I was five. So it came, you know, twenty years before type one.
And do you have any other autoimmunes besides the vitiligo and the type one?
Nope. No. Just those two.
And it's funny to prove to you how unprepared I am and how flighty my brain is. I met you in person just a couple weeks ago at Friends for Life. And while you didn't tell me and I didn't say it to you, I did look up and think, oh, Addy has vitiligo. Like, I I noticed. Right?
The vitiligo nobody mentioned12:37
And I and I did I did clock it on the day, but I was not able to hold on to that information for ten days to talk to you now. So I apologize.
It happens.
No. But but isn't that interesting now? Does your husband have any autoimmune on his side of the family?
Nope. Okay. Nothing.
Alright. And you're you planning on having more little babies?
Yes. We actually had to start fertility treatment this week, which is annoying, but something something we're doing.
Oh, okay. Did you need to do that the first time as well? No. No. Endometriosis, PCOS, anything like that?
Nothing. Everything looks totally normal. And then, you know, doing a lot of research online, asking the this nice community that I have, and there's something some other autoimmune condition where, like, your egg reserve is depleted. And so I was like, that's that's what happened to me probably. I'm just convincing myself.
I have all these other autoimmune problems. That's gotta be what it is. And, thankfully, blood work confirmed that's not the problem. There's there's no problem, so we don't really know what's going on.
So what do you do to motivate things to work out? I don't understand how this works.
Right now, I'm just on, like, a fertility drug, so it's just a pill for five days is
all. Okay. Well, good luck. And Yeah. Thank you.
Tell your husband I said, have fun. It sounds like it sounds like there's gonna be a whole stretch of time in there where That's right. It's a big party. So tell him not to do it too fast, you know, because it'll it'll ruin it, for him. You'll be like, oh, it worked, and he'll be like, ugh.
Thought we were doing this for a whole week. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me how you were diagnosed. What did you notice first, and how did it end up, progressing to the the point when you made it to a a physician?
So I got diagnosed November 19. So backtrack to September, like, early, early September. We were living in Arizona, and we drove up to Idaho. It's about a fourteen hour drive for my brother in law's wedding, my husband's brother. And I remember on our drive home, I was like, I am so thirsty.
And when we're in Idaho, my mother-in-law is a great cook. She makes lots of desserts and stuff, and so I just I ate really bad. It was a party. It was a wedding. You know?
So I look it up, and it's like, you might have high blood sugar. And I was like, well, I've just been eating really bad. Like, that that makes sense. It'll go away. And then couple weeks later, I vividly remember my sister and I were walking into the mall, and I was like, I think I have diabetes.
And us being ignorant, having absolutely no diabetes in our life, She's like, what? No. Like, you know, diabetes is for, like, old people. And I'm like, yeah. You're right.
Totally blew it off. Fast forward to the second week of November, we drive back up to Idaho for Thanksgiving because it's the year with man laws. And I remember making it two hours without having to stop, and I was, like, proud of myself, and I made it two hours.
And
then I, like, really thought that, you know, that's not super normal for an adult to only be able to go two hours without going pee. So we finally got to my in laws house. It's been, like, fourteen hours that we've been driving, and I'm like, we need to go buy a glucometer, glucometer, however you say it. And my husband's like, I'm not getting back in the car. Like, we just got we just got out of the car after fourteen hours.
Like, I'm not getting in the car. And I was like, we're going right now. Like, get in the car, which I can drive. I don't know why I didn't just go by myself, but I made him go with me. So we go to our local Walgreens in this little town in Idaho, and I buy one.
And I remember the worker said, good luck with this, as I paid and left. And I'm like, what does that even mean? And I'm like, what horrible foreshadowing that was looking back on it. And so we get back to the house, and we pricked my finger, and it said 486. And my mother-in-law is a nurse, and she she was just like, oh oh my gosh.
Like, that is bad. That is, like, horrible. And I was like, it's gotta be wrong. So we we checked everybody's. We checked my mother in law's, father in law's, my husband.
Everybody's in, like, the seventies. They, like their whole family just is, like, perfect health riding solo. And I was like, let's check it again. And it's at, you know, same thing, high four hundreds. And she was like, well, I think you should probably go to the ER right now.
And I grew up like, we didn't go to the doctor. It was, like, hit or miss if we even had health insurance or not.
Okay.
Like, the doctor was not something we did. And so I was like, no. I'm not doing that. Like, I'm not gonna go I'm not gonna pay for that, you know, being the cheapskate that
I am. I'm not giving those people my money for them to tell me I'm okay.
Right. Exactly. I was like, no. So that was on a Saturday. Come Monday, I had an appointment at we had made an appointment at this, like, just family doctor office.
And so I saw this PA, and she, ran my blood work. And I don't remember what my c peptide was, but it was it was not in the normal range. Like, it was low. My a one c was, like, almost 14. I can't remember exactly what it was.
And they're like, yeah. Like, you gotta be, like, type two. Here's some Mounjaro. Take it once a week. You should be good.
And I was like, wow. Okay. I don't know anything about diabetes. I've never given myself a shot, but, like, whatever. Yeah.
And I'm like, honestly, like, thinking back, this is terrible, but I'm like, I just felt so embarrassed. Like, I didn't wanna tell anybody. I'm like, I just ruined my body because in my head, type two is always caused by your diet and your lack of exercise, which now I know that's not that's not the case. Yeah. But, you know, that was the extent of my knowledge of diabetes.
And I was like, well, that's super weird. Like, I run every single day. I'm, you know, I'm 24 years old. I'm a hundred and twenty pounds. Like, this this isn't adding up.
But
Well, so even though even though you took good care of yourself and Mhmm. Were active, you still Mhmm. You just assumed, I guess, I'm not doing a good enough job if this happened to me. Is that the feeling?
Yeah. I mean, I didn't even know type one diabetes was a thing.
But when you thought when you thought it was type two, though, you just thought, like, I guess I didn't do enough running or because do know what I mean? Like, you you don't fit
the Yeah.
The bill even though the bill wasn't yours, and but it was the one you were imagining.
That's interesting, isn't it? I mean, I I drink soda. I've drank soda my whole life, and I was like, it's the soda. I gave myself diabetes from drinking soda, which I had recently converted to somewhat diet soda. Mhmm.
You know, that's just what you do is you become an adult because why would you waste calories on
soda? Soda And you were like
even if you don't have diabetes.
You're like, I shifted away from Fanta too late. I knew No.
Literally. Literally. I'm like, it's all about Doctor Pepper. It gave me diabetes. That was my thought.
Well, it didn't. Here's what makes Twist different. It measures the volume of insulin delivered with every dose using Soundwave technology. That gives it the ability to recognize a blockage quickly, allowing you to step in and deal with it before things potentially get out of range. It is also the only automated insulin delivery system that can be controlled from an Apple Watch, so you can discreetly check-in, enter carbs, or deliver insulin right from your wrist.
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Learning it as an adult20:26
If you'd like to learn more, go to visit.twist.com/juicebox. That's visit.twist.com/juicebox. Don't forget, Twist has two i's. So how long does it take for them to realize you're not type one? I mean, do you have to get home and go see another doctor?
And, also, Mounjaro, you you at a hundred and twenty pounds, like, that must have been a weird impact on you as well.
Yeah. I mean, so they started me on, like, the very lowest dose, but I took it. And it's Thanksgiving week, you know, but I'm I'm not eating anything because anytime I eat, my blood sugar goes from the constant 300 that it's sitting at up to, you know, 500 plus. I don't know what it was getting to because the meters only read up to 500.
Right.
And so I went, like, an entire week and did not eat a single thing. I had on Thanksgiving, I had, like, one bite of turkey, only turkey. And my brother also got married in Idaho that week. So it was, like, I went to this wedding. I didn't get to, like, eat anything.
I didn't have anything on Thanksgiving. It was just, like, a rough week of I was withering away, having not eating for a week, and, you know, everybody's so skinny when they're first diagnosed because their body's been dying. So then we go the following Saturday. We're only up there for a week. We drive back to Arizona, and, my mother-in-law had told me, she's like, I have a friend who's a diabetes educator.
She thinks this isn't right. Like, she thinks you should go see an endocrinologist. So then I saw an endocrinologist who did the actual testing, tested antibodies off the charts. Mhmm. And then that's when I actually got type one diagnosis.
In that week, would you consider yourself more confused or sad?
I think I was really just, like, more embarrassed Embarrassed. Than anything
Okay.
Which is horrible. And, also, I'm an accountant, so numbers are something that's very important to me. And I remember I just felt horrible for my husband that he was gonna have to, like, bear this financial burden of me. Oh, hell. Because I'm like, diabetes is expensive.
I'm like and my insurance didn't cover the Mounjaro. And I didn't know that that's how insurance works where they cover some medications and some don't. And so I was like, I'm gonna have to pay $500 a month for this Mounjaro for the rest of my life. Mhmm.
How long had you been married at that point?
We got married in 2018, and that was 2023. So we've been married for, like, five years.
Alright. So at 24, you've been married for five years. You've mentioned Arizona and the mill military?
No. LDS or Mormon.
Ah, I got it. Okay. It was one of the other. I was I'm I'm just like, I'm gonna figure it out. It's one of the other.
Yep. Do you this might delight you. I'm huge in the Mormon community. Do you not know this?
I do not know about it.
Oh my god. I am the Mormon community's favorite diabetes podcast. They haven't sent me a T shirt yet, but I expect it any day now. I I don't know why that is. It's just over the years, I've always, like I've actually asked, a number of people, trust me more than you can imagine, and they just talk about, like, community and how they're very they share inside of their community.
That's probably how it moved around But there was, like, a long stretch where, like, every week, somebody would come on there, like and I'd be like, are you are you, like, in the church? They're like, yeah. I'm like, how come so many of you keep coming on the podcast? And they're like,
I'm Maybe this is your sign. This is your sign. You need to go check it out. Oh, really good book.
I'm too late to make, 15 kids. So I I can't I I I can't I could barely the ones I have are trying to kill me. The the one with diabetes text me this morning at 05:30. My pod expired. And I'm like, okay.
I'm sleeping. So I'm like, I'll get it for you. So I went because she's gotta get to work early this morning. And I went and got her a pod. I brought it in and and whatnot.
Like, you know, she put it on and bolus because it had shut off, like, an hour before blood sugar was starting to go up. And bolus gets all set. I get back in bed. Can't go back to sleep. So I've been up since, like, 05:20.
You know? And and so if there were eight more of them I'm just saying, I don't think I could make it. I've I'm I don't know what you're gonna do. Good luck. But
Hopefully, none of them have diabetes. That's that's my hope.
I crossed my fingers for you for sure there. Okay. So the, your the the your mother in law's friend knows somebody who says, blah blah blah, you find out you have type one. Does that shift the embarrassment off of you?
Well, I didn't know anything about type one. You know? I'd I've never known anybody who had it, which now that I know what it is, I do know quite a few people who had it. There's just, like, so many girls from high school that I went to high school with that have it, and I had no idea. And now I feel horrible not knowing Yeah.
That. You know? Because it's a big deal.
You have guilt that other people are going through something you weren't aware of?
Yes. Yes. And I think about that now all the time, like, how many things like, how many other conditions or diseases are out there that I know nothing about?
Yeah.
And it just makes me feel so guilty.
You're not the first person that said that. I hope that's thing a that you can get away from because that's not a thing that you need to be carrying. So pumps, CGMs, this is a thing you jump right into. Do you do MDI? I just got yelled at online recently for, I'm a pump pusher.
Apparently, if I ask somebody who's MDI if they're MDI, and I ask them later, do you ever consider getting a pump? I guess I'm pushing a pump on them.
Oh, heaven forbid.
Yes. I'm sorry. I I'm sorry for asking the follow-up question to your MDI.
Right.
But but how did you start out?
Yeah. So I saw the endo. This is, like, a week after I got my type two diagnosis. And, he prescribes me short acting insulin and long acting insulin and a CGM. And so I was like, okay.
Well, I'm not gonna take the insulin until I have a CGM on. You know, that's crazy. This doctor that I saw so at the time, I lived in Surprise, Arizona, which neighbors Sun City, Arizona, which is a retirement community. So this endocrinologist I saw worked in the retirement community. I was his only type one patient.
I don't think he's ever treated type one before. I don't think he knew how to treat type one. So he just tells me to take fifteen units of long acting and five units of short acting three times a day when I eat. I'm like, okay. You know?
Easy enough. Whatever. So my first meal that I have, I had a salad. K? Mistake number one and took five units, which even to this day, five units is still a lot of insulin for me.
Yeah. And I take it and, you know, going about my day, which I didn't know anything about prevolous things, I take it, and my blood sugar's at 200. And I'm like, well, that's annoying. Like, whatever. I don't know what's going on still.
And I go to Bunco. My mom has, like, a Bunco group with her friends.
Mhmm.
And I'm, like, subbing in for somebody. So I'm playing Bunco with, you know, a bunch of 50 year old ladies. And all of a sudden, my, like, phone starts beeping at me, and I'm like, I feel like I'm dying. Like, what is this? Like, I didn't know what a low blood sugar was.
My doctor didn't warn me about it. I'd never heard about it. Like and my blood sugar is, like, at 40, straight down arrow. And, thankfully, one of the ladies there was a nurse, and she was like, you need some sugar. And I was like
I do? Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Are you are you sure? I have diabetes. Like
I don't know.
But Right. So she gets me this plate of, like you know, now looking back on it also, I'm like, homegirl just loaded me up with, like, 50 grams of carbs to correct this low, which I'm like, that's insane. I would never do that now. So I eat it all, which obviously saved my life. Rebounds again to 200.
What she posts, and why28:09
Still don't know what to do. But to this day, I'm just like, if I would've been at home, I probably would've died. Like, I wouldn't have known what was happening.
I think it's so interesting that the description of, like like, out of nowhere, my phone's making noise, and I feel like I'm dying, but you're context you're contextually unaware of what's happening. Yeah. That's so then there's no way to know what to do next. Right? Because now you're loopy and your blood sugar's falling and you've no no one ever once has even put, like, a an emergency thought into your head.
You know, the good news is is that one day, if you get gout, that doctor will be very valuable to you. True.
Yeah. No. I would never go back to him. I left a nasty Google review on this guy for later problems that occurred.
Tried to kill me with a salad.
No. Literally. So I guess it was, like I I saw him, like, late November, and then I got on Omnipod, like, very early January.
Mhmm.
So I, like, had an appointment, and then I had, like, a follow-up appointment with him. And I was like, hey. I want a pump. Like, I'd seen them on on TikTok because that's that's where I turned to as, you know, a youth does when they have a problem. You go straight to TikTok to learn anything.
My daughter's friend said to me yesterday, she's like, I so she calls me, and she's like, I'm at the store. I've decided to regrow out my tub. I need dad advice. And I was like, okay. So she so I'm walking her through everything, and she had some of the words and everything.
I said, where'd you learn this? And she goes, I TikTok ed it. And I said, I wish you wouldn't use it that way. And she goes, what? I'm like, don't say TikTok ed.
I don't I don't like that.
Like, I googled it, but I TikTok
ed it. Yeah. And I was like and then I and then I realized that I'm I'm also a twenty year two year old girl in my head because I was like, actually, there's a girl on TikTok that does home renovations. I'll send you I'll send her to you. And I and I was like, I'll send this over to you because I was proud of her because she had, like, a lot of she's like, you know what?
My tub is grout is moldy. I'm gonna fix this. I'm tired of it, but she didn't have context for what to do next. So I I don't know. I I'm old.
It's odd to me that you went to TikTok. But you went to TikTok, and you found out about Omnipod there?
Just pumps in general. I remember I saw there was two girls that I saw, like, most of their videos. They were, like, the ones that popped up, and they actually both used tandem, which I remember sitting on the Basement Floor at my in law's house. This was, like, right after I was diagnosed, like, sobbing looking at this. I was like, I cannot have those things on my body the rest of my life.
Like, that's the most miserable looking thing I've ever seen. And, you know, here I am now years later, and you really don't even notice them for the most part.
Yeah.
But just the thought of it just freaked me out so bad, but I could not figure out what the heck was going on with shots. And I was like, everybody says a pump is just like the solution. It does everything for you. I just I gotta get one of these, which I've learned that that's not necessarily the case, but it definitely does help.
So you were you were floundering with with MDI. Things were not going well?
Not not going well. Okay. Every meal, I would hit 200 and then 50 every single meal, and I just I didn't know anything. I didn't know that timing of insulin mattered. Nothing.
You couldn't TikTok that? I guess I'm not big on TikTok.
So No. That was the problem.
We're gonna talk about that later. I I I I I see you out there making these now that I saw it in person at Friends for Life, I was like, I don't know how to I should first of all, I should not be doing that. I don't know how to do it. This seems ridiculous. I know I'm gonna look old from every angle I put that camera at me at.
I don't know how you get in front of a camera without a ring light. I need a ring light just so I look alive. So but but but that's interesting. So you so your MDI, obviously, you don't have great help from health care. Do you think being diagnosed somewhere else and then going home was a problem?
Like, do you think had you been diagnosed at home, you would have gotten a firmer footing, or do you just think that you would have ended up with somebody who just didn't do a good job explaining it to you?
I think maybe if I went to a doctor that knew about type one, not just type two, I probably would have gotten some more information. You know?
How does that not happen? Like, putting yourself I'm not blaming you. I'm asking, like, back in that situation, how do you not end up with a doctor who's functionally ready to help you?
Probably not going to a doctor in a retirement city. That probably wouldn't have been a good start. But, you know, I I didn't know. I've never used my insurance. I didn't even know where to start to find a provider.
I just searched endocrinologist, and it was the first one that popped up, and it said it took my insurance. And in the world of health care is so incredibly foreign to me at that point, and I was like, okay. We'll just we'll start there. You know? They all got they all have to be the same, which I have come to learn is not the case.
Right. There's good endos, and there is bad endos.
Yeah. There's good and bad everything. Yeah. But that's that's super interesting too because my son's 26, and he just had to like, he had to leave our insurance and get his own through his through his work. And so he just all he's trying to do is, like, he has hypothyroidism.
He's trying to switch his his thyroid meds. And, like, on our insurance, you just get a script and they fill it. On his, they need a prior authorization. He doesn't have quite as good insurance as we do. And he's like, what do I do about that?
And I was like, well, he goes, the pharmacy said they'll call my doctor. And I went, oh
That won't happen.
That's not gonna work. He's like, why would the pharmacy say that? I was like, I don't know why they say that. I was like, but do your your doctor's gonna get a fax in '20 you know, 2026 for some reason, and they're that's not gonna be a thing they do anything with. Then you're gonna be out of pills, And then you're gonna go, wait.
Where are my pills? And then you're gonna call the pharmacy, and the pharmacy is gonna go, I don't know. We contacted your doctor. And then you're gonna go, do I have to contact my doc? I'm just like, you're gonna go through this whole I'm like, just call your doctor now.
As I'm explaining it to him, he's making the face I imagine you were making when you when you tried to find an endocrinologist, which is what the hell is going on?
Yep.
Right? Right. Oh, it sucks. Yep. So so you're just shoot what are you doing?
Are you eating then shooting insulin?
I think I was just taking it, like, right as I ate. As I, you know, sit down to eat. I'm like, well, that's what they say. Take it with your meal. You know?
And were you counting carbs? Or you were you still doing the just do this amount of insulin at a meal thing?
Still just this amount. My the Endo never even mentioned he didn't mention the sliding scale. He didn't mention a carb ratio. It was just five units with the meal. Okay.
Was like, cool.
So how do you eventually figure out what to do? Is it is it is it do you figure something out, or do you switch to a pump and then have slightly better outcomes?
It was a mixture of switching to the pump. I feel like I've learned that it's not a lot of people do switch to a pump almost immediately because some doctors think that you need to learn how to do MDI ahead of time, which I think is crazy, but that's just my own thoughts. But, it was also a lot of Facebook. I joined it's called, like, the type one the one and only support group or something like that.
It's got
thousands of members. And I credit like, I learned probably most everything from that Facebook group. I spent hours every day just reading.
Yeah.
Just trying to get, like, learn anything anything I could. Like, I remember not knowing like, I kept seeing people say MDI, and I'm like, what the heck is MDI? What does this mean? Mhmm.
That's why I made a whole series called defining diabetes because I thought because a person said to me one time when I was on the podcast, they were like, I said, so you were MDI? And they go, what's that? And I was like, multiple daily injections. You're injecting your insulin? They go, yeah.
The parts she keeps private36:05
I inject my insulin. And they've been injecting for years. I'm like, you've never heard that term? I thought, wonder what other terms people don't know. Mhmm.
So then we just kinda, like, ran through them all. We should actually just do that again. That's a good idea. Okay. So you are you deciding at that moment no one's coming to help me?
Like, what like, because why because some people just go back to the doctor and go, hey. I don't feel like I understand what's going on. And then the doctor goes, no. You're doing great. And then nothing happens.
Right? So
Yeah.
Are you, like, a dig down, get it done person? Is this the accountant part of your brain jumping in here? Like, what do you think happened?
I am, like, a chronically independent person, like, very much to a fault. I do not like to get help. I don't like to ask for help. And I feel like I'm also, like, very stubborn in that way where I'm like, well, I'm gonna figure this out. Like, if I wanna do something, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna find any way to do it.
And so also maybe, like, a little bit of a competitive side where I was like, I can do this. Like, I'm gonna have a good a one c. I'm gonna stay in range. Like, I have been a straight a student, and that's gonna apply to this as well.
Wow. Aside of the ace, student thing, that's exactly what happened to me when Arden was diagnosed. I was like, I I I finally, like, looked up and thought, we are not having reasonable outcomes. But the doctors kept telling me we were doing okay. And because we were already going to a really good children's hospital, I thought, well, if this place isn't helping, then there is no help.
And then the Internet wasn't the Internet at that point. There was no podcast about it. There was definitely no TikTok. And so I just, like, turned her, like, in my head into, like, a lab experiment till I could figure everything out. And then I got it figured out, and then I started writing it down, like, in a blog.
And Mhmm. And then I started seeing other people having good outcomes based off of what I was saying. And I was like, oh, it's working for them too. That's gotta be meaningful. And then I just went through this whole process.
And, also, I am incredibly competitive. Like, that's that's I I just I'm like, I'll beat this. Like, I and and I would never ask another person for help. Yeah. But why why not?
I don't may I just be clear? Oddly, as this is what I do now as a job, it it'll sound strange, but I don't trust other people. Like Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, what are
you Same.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, what if you tell me something and you're wrong, but you act like you're right, how am I gonna know? Which is by the way, everyone listening should just just listen to me. But
That's right.
But I would never listen to you.
So I feel exactly the same way.
Okay. Alright. Oh, we're very much alike. Okay. So you so you and I kinda took a similar path, and you you dug in.
You got your answers. And then and then how does it proceed from there?
So I use social media so much just to, you know, learn. Mhmm. But I couldn't find on TikTok, like, what I ex was, like, looking for exactly, like, which I know what I was looking for, and I still, like, don't really make content in that direction because it's hard to make. But I'm like, I wanna I wanna see, like, how someone is bolus ing. I wanna know how much insulin they're taking, when, and why.
Mhmm. And, like, people just don't really post that, and now I I know why because, number one, it's a lot of work to to film that kind of stuff. And two, you get some crazy comments. Like, people are like, oh my gosh. You take so much insulin or, like, oh, you know, you take nothing.
Like, that wouldn't do anything to my blood sugar. And so I I do see why people steer clear of it, but that's what I was looking for. I'm like, I just need a baseline. Mhmm. Like, I feel like people are very afraid to post their numbers because they don't want the comments, which is understandable.
But I'm like, as a numbers person, that's what I wanna see. I wanna see, like, why. I just, you know, just a sliver of information so I have a starting point.
Do you think they don't make it solely because it's difficult to make, or do you think also the algorithm wouldn't it wouldn't push it anyway? So, like, once stuff gets too, I don't know, like, thoughtful and long Mhmm. Right, the algorithm is not gonna push it up, and then you're you're doing all this and nobody's seeing it then.
For sure. That is that is a tough balance, I feel like, where, obviously, the very clickbaity videos do better. They reach more people, which is, like it's fun when that happens. You know? It's exciting.
Like, oh, I worked hard on this video, and it's getting views. But, also, it's really sad when you make, like, a really good educational video that you're like, this could really benefit people, and then it gets no views. It's just like, no. Like, that's the one that I want people to see because that's what's helpful. And so I've been you know, it's this never ending battle of, like, how can I make it clickbaity where people will actually still watch, but also it's going to actually benefit them?
Without burning yourself out and Mhmm. Knocking yourself out of the game at the same time.
Yes.
Lend me your, the benefit of your knowledge about about social media for a second. Okay. If you're like, we'll see. But but that you've been at this. Listen.
You've been doing it. When did you start making your TikToks?
2024. I think it was maybe, like, March 2024. I was like, I'm just gonna post every day. I'm gonna post at least once a day, and I've posted at least once a day since then.
Yeah. Tell me, how many people follow you on TikTok now?
I'm at a 102,000 on TikTok.
And Instagram?
Like, 58, I think, maybe.
Okay. When you put up a a post on TikTok that you feel like does well, how many views does that mean?
They if it doesn't get at least 10,000, I feel like I'm like, it flopped. But, like, a good video, I feel like I feel like it's good if it hits a 100,000. When she think, oh, you have a 100,000 followers, it should always hit a 100,000 views, but that is definitely not the case.
Yeah. Half of those people probably aren't even on TikTok anymore. It's true. Yeah. Of, how long are the videos normally?
So I tried to post twice a day. One, that is just, like, a short trending sound, you know, and then another one that's a minute.
Okay. And do people make it through the minute? Like, do you have, like,
this Not very often.
No. You do you have that data?
You can. I try not to look at it. I try not to look at any of my analytics because it just makes me a little bit sad.
I I, I saw something recently where the average watch time on an Instagram Reel is three to six seconds. Oh my gosh. And I don't mean on mine. I mean, on Instagram Reels. And I thought Yeah.
If Instagram just shut off, would anyone notice? Is what I is what I was wondering. But so you're so I feel like we're highlighting a pretty interesting thing, which which is your the people your age, whether you're Nadia, who I don't think I've ever used her name on the podcast, trying to recalk her tub. And by the way, Nadia couldn't say cock. It was very uncomfortable when we were on the phone.
She kept going. Anyway, I was like, no. Cock. And she's like and I'm like, nope. You're not getting it right.
So, like or it's or it's I've noticed that she was a little girl. I'm like, stop saying that. We're gonna fix your tub. I was
like, stop. Without the word.
Yeah. Without the word. Okay. So whether it's her and her tub or you and your diabetes, you guys are going to go to TikTok or to Instagram reels or something like that. Like, it's not you're not gonna go, I wonder if there's an old man with everything I need to know making a podcast somewhere.
Right? Like, I'd so, like, dear Google, you don't even know what Google is. You don't Google anything. Stop it. Right?
Management, and what works44:00
Like, there's no you haven't used Google.
Not anymore. No. Very often.
I don't use Google anymore. Now I'm just like, while I'm talking to AI, I ask it another thing while I'm talking to it. Right? So Mhmm. So that that's all gone.
I very luckily, AI has decided that my podcast is valuable, or I think I'd Clutch. I think I'd be screwed going forward. I was like, but I but I think I'm gonna be okay there with that. But I am a person who has you have a job still. You're an accountant.
And I don't Yes. Know how much money you make from TikTok. I don't care. It's not my mom. I don't I don't care.
But it's a thing you put a lot of effort into. I put a lot of effort into this. I know that if this wasn't my job, you would not be getting the Juice Box podcast. It's just too much. Right?
Like, I worked last night until 09:30. I started at 8AM, and the last thing that happened to me last night is someone called me a clown. And I was like, I have been trying to help you all day. And I was like, and I'm exhausted. I missed my family.
I didn't eat dinner. I know you didn't ask me to, but at the very least, why not not call me a clown when it's over? Okay? For sure. Yeah.
On the same day that someone said, I I you saved I got yesterday, I got you saved my life. You're an idiot. You're a clown. This is such a great resource. I was like.
Balance. All things need balance.
I said to my wife, I was like, can both of these things be true at the same time? Could I have saved that person's life and be an idiot? I I mean, I don't feel like that could be true, but maybe. And so but but but, nevertheless, like, I get up every day, and I think, how do I help people? And I have the luxury to think that way because the podcast makes a living for me.
And I I'm doing fine. I'm not I'm not complaining. This podcast has 22,000,000 lifetime downloads. It has been in the top 30 of its category for eight years. It charts in, like, 45 countries every day.
It's doing great. But there are a lot of people that I don't reach, and I and I do feel bad about that. Or I have people who come to me and go, well, I don't wanna listen to a whole podcast to get the answer. And I'm like, well, I don't know what to tell you. That's how my brain works.
The answer is in there. If you want it, you this is what you have to do. And so I I pivot a couple of years ago, and I make them short content. Right? I basically turn the pro tip series into something called small sips.
It's more like ten minutes. And then and then people go, this isn't really comprehensive enough. I'm like, you sons of. And I was like, I was like
Like, I can't help you anymore this point.
Yeah. So is the answer that the algorithm and the and the platform really doesn't lend itself to this? Because I feel like I'm seeing a lot of people trying to adapt these platforms to diabetes and aside of, like, an entertainment value or a to get I which is not nothing. Or, we're in this together. I have this too, which also I think is a big deal.
I just don't think it's a place where you're gonna teach people to pre pre ball us or something like that.
Like Right.
Do you agree with that, or what is your finding?
I do to a point. I feel like there's there's a lot of us, like, type one creators. There's quite a few. I don't even like to call myself that. I feel like it's an embarrassing thing to say.
It's not, but I'm like, it's it's not my job. You know? It's more of, like, a passion project. Like, I do make money online, but not nearly enough to ever, like, do it as a full time job.
Mhmm.
It's just it's just for fun more than anything. Like, if I paid myself per hour that I spend doing this, pennies, probably. Yeah. But it's almost more of, like, like a like therapy for me. You know?
It's like a journal, this online journal that I get to have. But I feel like there is different us different creators, we have, like, different paths. Like, some of us are, like, pure entertainment. Like, there's some out there that are hilarious. Like, I love them.
I don't like to scroll diabetes content. I have enough diabetes in my life. I don't like to consume it myself, but there's some that are funny. And then there's some that are, like, strictly educational. And I feel like I'm, like, kind of in this, like, odd spot where I want to be educational because I wanna provide value to people, but I'm I'm not a doctor.
You know? I'm not an Yeah. Diabetes educator. Like, I don't have the formal training, and you can technically get in trouble for, you know, giving advice, which I do all the time. I give you know, I'm like, hey.
This is not medical advice. You can all come for me, but, like, this is what I would do. You know? Because that's what I wanted when I was first diagnosed. I'm like, I just need some advice.
I need some help. I need somewhere to start, but I didn't even know that there was, like, these training programs out there that you can buy. You know? Mhmm. Now I do, which I've still never bought one because I I can't stomach spending thousands of dollars for them to probably, at this point, teach me something that I already know.
But I do feel like they could be valuable for some people.
A couple of them will teach you stuff with my words. So Oh. Yeah. That'll be fun for you when you're paying for my when you're paying for somebody else to read you my free podcast. Yes.
So but I listen. I take your point. I just I feel like I see a lot of organizational types or, like, proper adults who think, oh, we're gonna co op this platform and make it work. And as I watched it, I go, oh, that's not gonna work. You shouldn't don't do that.
Like like, you you're 60. It stop. Know, like like, that's and that's why when you said to me, like, why don't you make more stuff on TikTok? I was like, I no one wants me on TikTok. And you said no.
I do.
Yeah. Well, that's you're being polite, I thought, when you said that. No. So so I'm I'm frustrated. And and I'll tell you what, like, you said something earlier.
There's no way you know that you said this and that it's gonna, like it'll it'll ripple through every PR department at every Oh, no. At every device manufacturer that hears it. Right? Because you said I was served a TikTok of a certain pump and then ended up with a different one, that would blow their minds are like, no. No.
We're we want you to see our pump so you get our pump. What do you mean you saw our pump? It got a different pump. Like, that is gonna flip. And by the way, that's no shade on tandem because you easily could have seen an Omnipod the first time and thought, I don't want that thing stuck to me, and you could have gone to something else.
Right? And so, like, even them, they're out there, like, trying to put out imagery or, like, blah blah blah, like or or support people who are doing it. And to think that they might find a way to get to your eyeballs through everything that we just talked about, and then that would make you go, oh, no. Thank you. Yeah.
Well, I like, it it's wishful thinking, I think, when people are like, I just got diagnosed. Which pump should I go on? I'm like, unfortunately, it's not up to you. It is up to your insurance 99 percent of the time. It could easily work.
That's how I ended up on Omnipod. It was the only one that they covered.
Really? Isn't that interesting?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it it just happened this year that I can actually even get a different one if I wanted to Mhmm. Because they moved to pharmacy.
Sometimes children have more options because their parents have good insurance. But often, those people don't have good insurance either or insurance that covers more than one thing. It is it is just really fascinating. Okay. So tell me for a second.
You did eventually find the podcast, like, pro tip series. Was it helpful to you, or had you heard it by then?
No. I found it, like, really early on. It was always suggested in the comments on Facebook, which is where I was, you know, trying to find any anything. I I wish now that I had, like, saved some of those posts that I read and, like, what it was because it's, like, actually terrifying how much I didn't know. I was looking back.
Being seen, and being useful52:00
I remember Mary. She's one of the content creators I found. I remember she posted on her Instagram story that she was going for a high blood sugar walk. And I messaged her, and I said, well, did you take insulin? Like, I didn't understand.
Like, do you need to take insulin and then walk, or will walking just bring your blood sugar down on its own? Mhmm. And I think about that all the time. And I'm like, even when I make videos and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna walk on my walking pad to bring my blood sugar down. Some people actually don't know.
Like, I was one of those people that you still need to take insulin and then you walk.
Mhmm. Yeah. Just any the tiniest little ideas are completely lost on you. You have no context for it whatsoever.
Yes. And even that's, like, something that you don't learn when you're diagnosed even if you are, like, kept in a hospital and a diabetes educator comes and talks to you. You know? Most people think, oh, you can't exercise when your blood sugar is high. You'll get ketones and and die, you know, which I have a lot of strong opinions on that.
But Oh, yes. You your blood sugar's high, don't move?
No. Literally. Way. People tell me that all the time, or they're like, you can't be running. You need to be walking.
I'm like, okay.
There's a so so there's a lot of stuff about type one that gets carried over from earlier. The the easiest one to think about is 15 carbs, fifteen minutes. Right? Oh, yeah. We've actually like, I sat down with Jenny one time.
We broke that down, and she's Jenny, I don't know how well you know of Jenny, but, like, she's had diabetes for, like, I think thirty six years now. Like, a Mhmm. A really long time. And she's like, yeah. Well, back in the day, like, we didn't have CGMs, and testing wasn't all that accurate.
So you fifteen was, like, a hopeful amount, and then fifteen minutes was enough time to, like, get a reasonable understanding of this if it worked or not. And okay. So in the moment back then, that was a good thing to do, but then the doctor practices for thirty years and says it for thirty years and tells for thirty years thirty years worth of people 15 carbs, fifteen minutes. Then they go out in the world and they repeat it to people. Then someone like you comes along or someone like me comes along, and I go, look.
I would just correct with the amount of carbs you need. And Right. You know, and then people are yelling at me. You're gonna kill somebody. And I'm like, you're operating off of a 40 year old idea.
Yep. Yeah. But that doesn't stop them from yelling at you.
Yep. So No. Yeah. There's all kinds of things like that that are just I think people forget that diabetes is so personalized, and you you really do, like, unfortunately, just have to figure out what works for you. But the hard part is it's like, well, that works for you in that situation.
You know? Not to say that's gonna work for you your next low three hours from now.
I'm thrilled that honestly, I love that people do what you do because it's I just think you re you reach a section of people I'm not gonna reach. I think I reach a section of people you're not gonna reach, and there are other people out there Totally. You know, filling in those gaps. And, hopefully, hopefully, between everybody, there's enough coverage that nobody is out there shooting five units of insulin for their salad and going, oh, I think I'm gonna die. Because to to your point and I I listen.
I I'll I'll caveat it and say there are some really great endos and CDEs and and nurse practitioners out there, but it is a crapshoot whether you get one or not. And Totally. You do not know if you're getting one or not. So when you went to the doctor, you're like, this is the doctor. The doctor knows, and then you almost killed yourself trying to eat a salad.
Right?
Mhmm.
You didn't think, oh, this doctor might not know what he's talking about. Why would you think that?
Right.
I think we just have to paper the world with this information. And Yeah. Hopefully, it hits as many people as possible. And I honestly would like, like, look. I mean, there's an argument to be made that anybody who's sharing is giving advice, but, mean, I I do the same thing.
You know, it's gonna be at the end the beginning of this episode. Like, nothing you hear on this podcast is advice, blah blah blah. I am sharing what I do for my daughter or what I've done in the past or what other people have said. I I think of that as a positive thing, honestly.
I I agree. It's what I wanted to see. And, like, those are my favorite my favorite videos that I make. It's like the what I eat in a day or, like, how I bolus for a certain meal Mhmm. Which 99% of the time, they end up, like, failing where I'm high or I'm low.
But people like to see that, And I feel like it's helpful because that's what I wanted to have seen. Like, I learned about split bolusing from a video. I don't even remember who, but I'd never even thought of the concept of, like, oh, yeah. A regular body probably gives insulin in, you know, a few squirts when you eat, not just, like, all up front.
Yeah. And it's amazing to to share like that because the number of times that I've seen someone else's content, and I'm like, oh, those are my words. Like, the and I and I don't think of that as a bad thing. If you're charging somebody for it, I think of the I I'm talking to you. I know you hear me.
If you're charging somebody for it, I think that's wrong. Okay? But if you're out there sharing something you learned that worked for you, I'm saying when I hear it in my cadence, in my words, I think, oh, that's awesome. Like, it made it all the way to that person, and that person's gonna get it to somebody I would never be able to get it to. Like, that this is fantastic.
You
know? Yeah.
Alright. So tell me why why do you think I should make TikTok videos?
I think that mine and many people's brains have been ruined to have an attention span of, like you said, three seconds.
Mhmm.
And I'm I'm one of those people that I'm like, I would not listen to a podcast. Like, I'm not gonna sit here through twenty minutes with somebody talking.
Twenty minutes. You and I have been talking for fifty minutes, by the way. You're, like, twenty minutes. I'm not nearly done talking to you yet, by the way.
Well, I'm talking. You know? I like to talk, but listening, that's another story. But even even when you said you do, like, the short ones that are, like, ten minutes, I'm like, okay. I could probably stomach, like, ten minutes.
But that's too late.
I know that that's a problem. I I'm an adult. You know, I got a DI Pad kid myself before my kid's old enough to to be in that phase himself. Mhmm. But I just think with TikToks, it's like you have one minute, and you can get people to stay for one minute if it's, you know, good stuff.
Where she’s headed58:10
And I feel like you have good stuff that people would stay for one minute for.
Well, I so I I think I have good stuff, and I think I've got it distilled enough that it will fit into a minute. But I just think that I'm not the right person to do shouldn't I just hire, like, a, like, a 24 year old person to do it? Like, it and then I'll just say, like, just say this. And then I'll what what if I walked on camera and I said, hey. Pretend this is me.
And then somebody, like, attractive came on and said
You know, with with AI these days, I'm sure you could probably find a way to do it. But, I mean, to me, it's like, no. Your voice is the Juicebox podcast. It needs to be from you.
Okay. Alright. I okay. I will here's what I'm committing to right now.
Alright.
After my so my studio is almost done. I built a studio in my basement. It's almost finished. If some things hadn't gone wrong this summer, I'd be in it by now. One because right now, you're talking to me in a spare room of my house.
The reason it's blurred out behind me is because that is a parson's chameleon living in a giant tank, and I thought it would freak you out if you knew that I kept reptiles. And so, like, there's nothing visual in here that I can do. But eventually, I'll have a space that'll be it'll be a little more cozy to make the podcast in. I can turn the small sip series into a series of one minute videos.
There you go.
Alright. But now when no one watches them and they and they get 43 views and I feel terrible, you have to call me and make me feel better. Okay?
You know what? That's 43 people that might not have listened to the podcast.
You know it's not really 43 people. It's 43 people who are like, oh, that person is so old and swiped before the word old even came into their head because you would do the same thing. So how do I get around the that? It like, why can't, like, why can't we beat the algorithm?
I would love to know. I have zero years of posting across all the platforms. I still have no understanding. And somehow, the videos do well on different platforms. Different videos do well on different platforms Yeah.
Which I I just don't understand. I I am convinced that there's somebody out there who knows how this algorithm works, and they just won't spill the secret.
Don't you think they changed it? So I've been so okay. So I'll I'll share some stuff with you. To learn more and see if you might be able to get Twist from the pharmacy and try it for free, head to visit.twist.com/juicebox. That's visit.twist.com/juicebox, or give them a call at 18774.
That's +1 (877) 489-4478, and tell them Scott sent you. Twist requires prescription and is indicated for people with type one diabetes six and older. Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from US Med for years. You can as well. Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514.
Many thanks to US Med for sponsoring this episode and for being and for being longtime sponsors of the Juice Box podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at juiceboxpodcast.com to US Med, Twist, and today's other awesome sponsor, the Eversense CGM. They make, of course, the Eversense three sixty five, and that thing lasts an entire year. One insertion every year. Come on.
You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. Eversensecgm.com/juicebox. Check it out. Let's face it. Diabetes is tough, but it's easier when you have a community around you.
So if you're looking for a great community around type one diabetes, check out the juice box podcast private Facebook group. Juice box podcast type one diabetes, but everyone's welcome. Type one, type two, gestational, loved ones, it doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort, or community, check out the Juice Box Podcast private Facebook group. Juice Box Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook.
I promise you it is the most unfacebook like experience that you'll ever ever find. What a great group of people. I don't like saying this usually because it dates the ad, but right now there are 86,000 active members. 86,000 people in there who might have your experience, know what to say, or just be a great shoulder to lean on. Don't be too proud to find a community.
It really does help. And it's completely free. Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. I just wanna say thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juice Box podcast.
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