Scott Benner 2/12/21 Scott Benner 2/12/21

#440 Defining Diabetes: Stacking Insulin

Scott and Jenny Smith define diabetes terms

In this Defining Diabetes episode, Scott and Jenny explain Stacking Insulin.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 440 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is the defining diabetes with a Jenny Smith.

Episode of defining diabetes is the 30th installment of the series. It goes all the way back to Episode 236 defining diabetes Bolus, and it leads right up to today, Episode 440. Defining diabetes stacking insulin. The defining diabetes series, which exists here inside of the Juicebox Podcast is me and my friend Jenny Smith. Jenny's had Type One Diabetes for over 30 years. She's a certified diabetes educator and an all around delightful person. Anyway, Jenny and I define the terms that you use in a life with diabetes. And we don't do it in some boring way. Like we're not reading to you out of it. That's not like oh, basil. Insulin is defined as we don't do it like that. You have a nice, interesting, reasonably lengthy conversation that will leave you with a full and firm grasp of the definition of the day. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

At the end of this episode, I'll leave you contact information for Jenny in case you want to reach out to her where she works at integrated diabetes comm if you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver to someone with type one, please consider checking out the T one D exchange. Your participation in the T one D exchange will take just a few moments, but the impact of your kindness will last forever. T one D exchanges looking for you type one adults and caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few minutes from your phone or computer. And after you've finished. And trust me, these are simple questions. I did the whole thing in about seven minutes, maybe you'll be contacted annually to update your information. And they may ask you further questions. This is 100% anonymous, completely HIPAA compliant, and it does not require you to ever see a doctor or go to a remote site. And you can opt out whenever you want. The T Wendy exchange began is a nonprofit organization focused on accelerating therapies and improving care for type one individuals. That mission emerged from a heartfelt desire to support a community in need. And the belief that the best way to do that was through a firm foundation of research and cross clinical collaborations from that foundation, the T one D exchange has become a robust Type One Diabetes data platform. And it uses that platform to drive meaningful research and innovation and treatment prevention and hopefully one day a cure. So check them out. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. So the idea of stalking insulin, I want to describe what it what it I want to describe what it is. And I want to talk about why doctors are so fervent about bringing up don't stack your insulin. And then I want to talk about using insulin in more targeted ways that I think mimics stalking to people who don't understand. Does that make sense? Okay, yeah. So So what is stalking influence something?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:40
Absolutely. 100%. That's the correct term. And I think it's one that crosses all everybody with diabetes, for the most part with using insulin, I think they've heard at least the term stalking. And I have not seen an endo that doesn't know what that term means. So it's an across the board understood, I hope.

Scott Benner 4:03
So and so at some point or another, a doctor is always going to tell you and I think very rightfully so. And I have to say I'm not against it. But they just say it like this, you can't stack your insulin, like you can't, because because if you do, you're gonna get super low later, and it's gonna be bad. And I don't that Listen, I purposefully stacked some insulin up on Arden last week. And I knew she was gonna get low later. And she did. But we just got into one of those weird situations where food was piled on top of a site that was bad, like so we were right at the end of a site. And everybody who uses a pump might know this, but you're like in that last, like 30 units that's in the pump. And you're like, this thing is working great. blood sugars are terrific. I can get through one more meal with this thing. And then it just doesn't work out for some reason. And you're like, Ah, so now you have this incredibly sticky blood sugar. It's higher, there's food and you're going up. You've just changed the site. So now you know there's a lag there and basil and everything and you just start like, you know, if you make a small Bolus, it just sits wherever it is 250 is still 250. And I don't want to do the like, little Bolus, little Bolus, little, but I don't stack like that, like, I'm just like, hit it hard. If nothing happens, hit it hard again, and we'll catch if we have to. But if you're not wearing a glucose monitor, or you're not aware that that's gonna happen, something bad on the other side,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:26
and I think you described kind of a good point, too, is that if you hit hard with some corrective, right now, you should see a faster turnaround, because you now have a larger amount of insulin to actually hit the issue, right? And then you're not saying, Okay, I'm gonna take four units right now, and then 20 minutes, if it's not moving, I'm gonna take another four units, right, that's not what you're advocating at all. It's, though, hit harder upfront, see if it's making impact, which that bigger amount should, and then you have less weight. Unfortunately, when you do these little micro pulse boluses. And for some, again, another piece to consider is sensitivity, I mean, three units for an adult who needs three units to correct a high blood sugar or a really resistant teen who might need that a little kid, I mean, that might be their whole dose and whole day, right. So you have to consider the person and sensitivity, but these little trickle boluses over like a three hour time period where you're hanging out high, and you keep adding, adding and adding, and some people get very aggressive with the adding in terms of how many, but the doses aren't very big. So you might do

Unknown Speaker 6:44
point 2.1

Unknown Speaker 6:48
out of every

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:49
15 minutes, and you know, you can see everything in a download, obviously. But you're like, you're not gonna see any change from point one in 15 minutes, right? So but it leads to the stacking component, because the more you do these little incremental doses, now you have each of those little pulses of extra has its own timeline of finish into the future, and peaks. And that's important to understand, right?

Scott Benner 7:17
So if insulin has an initial impact, a peak and a tail, and you go making eight, Bolus is over two hours. There, all of these peaks impacts and tails happening all over you. And then once whatever's holding your blood sugar up there, abates, all these different things. Now, it's like you're being shot from 75 different angles, all of a sudden, you can't get away and blood sugar just starts falling. And then you get into that situation, where how much is going to stop this

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:48
right? How much carb Do I need to intake now? Because how much is left? I mean, and with a pump, your pump has iob visual for you. But the stacking component makes it harder that i o b and the end effect of when is it really going to finish off? And how much do I need to take in to counter it? Is it a lot more? Is it a little bit? It it kind of is a throw your hands up in the air and just write Yes, which we don't really want to be. And

Scott Benner 8:18
so you don't want to stack and it's a it's just a bad idea if you're blind and you don't know what you're doing. And I want to say too, there's other worlds where you end up stacking and you don't mean it in a dehydrated body where you think, oh, the insolence not working. And so your stack, you know it's point, you know, like you said sensitivity could be point one for one person could be three units for another person, there could be a 250 pound adult doing three unit Bolus is every half an hour trying to change something, right. And if it's dehydrated, I don't understand obviously, the physiology of it. But that insolence in there, it's incapable of moving around, but it's still there. And then all of a sudden you get hydrated, and it all just comes at once that I've seen happen to and that's that can be frightening as well. And then again, you get that same position and people have a difficult time seeing my blood sugar's 250. I've now put in, you know, four boluses over the next over the last 90 minutes or so. And now my blood sugar's dropping like a stone, is it safe to count up those bonuses and figure out how many carbs to put in for that. That's basically what I would do minus maybe a little bit for the number, you know, so if I thought in a normal situation, it was going to take a unit to go from 250 to 90 and I ended up using four units and started falling I'd probably put carbs in for three of the units right leave the last unit to to do it. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:41
we usually say about 50 to maybe 70 ish percent is for coverage. Okay. Yes. All right. I think another one in terms of stalking comes in for like sites that have been bad and you finally get it you're like okay, I obviously need to change this site will sometimes that site Like you just said it might have that depot of insolence still under the skin that didn't necessarily get absorbed the way you wanted. Thus, you've got a high blood sugar right now. But for some, when you remove that bad site, sometimes that depot of insulin leaks out, you can actually see it like physically coming out of the site when you take it out. And that you're like, Okay, well, I clearly didn't get any of that last Bolus. So I can definitely heavily correct this high blood sugar right now, because I obviously didn't get any, well, if it's not leaking at the site, you likely still have some of that insulin under the skin. And sometimes moving the site or removing that canula can for some get that kind of absorbing under the skin. And so now you've got this big amount that you've been adding for a higher climbing blood sugar, and now you've injected some or you've added a whole big bolus with your new pump site. So now you might have this like whopping drop lead, because you don't really know how much is there circulate. And that

Scott Benner 11:02
story makes me realize that stalking is a lot more scary in the beginning, before you have much time, because I remember that same thing, like, you know, when Arden was super small, we were using syringes, and I'm like eyeballing up, you know, a quarter of a unit, and, and you put it in, and you push it, and you take it out, and then you see a bubble, a big a big drop of insulin comes back out of the injection hole and you're like, ah, and then you're then used to freeze me. I was like, I now know, I have no idea what to do now. And it takes time for you to realize like, okay, and I mean, how often does the insulin leak out? But when it happens? Are you ever freaked out? I'm sure you haven't done this. But sometimes you have it. Sometimes I see people like they'll push the they get they're pushing the plunger before the before they're actually in like something out of the thing. So there's different ways and you're like, Oh, well, how much did I lose? What do I do now? It all can be confusing. And and it gives you this sort of paralysis where you know, I can't move.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:03
It's actually kind of one of them is kind of with topic, but sort of off topic is. I never used insulin pens. I've never wanted to

Unknown Speaker 12:11
we've never I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:13
don't. And I don't like them. I don't I mean, they work really well for many people. So it's this is not a don't use them. But my experience was always that I always had this background like did I get everything? Because I'd see even holding it in under the skin for 10 second count after you fully injected all blah, blah, blah. When I had tried one when they first came out on the market, I'd pull it out, I'd still have this like drop hanging from the tip of the pen. I'm like, Well, how much insulin Did I just missed? You know, what, what was the purpose of this? Now I might be a half a unit short or a whole unit short. So I think I used it for a couple weeks. And I was like, nope, so sorry, Doctor, I like my files and my insulin syringes back, please. Okay, so

Scott Benner 12:55
now the other side of it. And I've received a number of messages about this over the years, but one that just sticks in my head is from a guy who said when you said it's not stalking, if you need it, it changed my life. And so I say it's not stalking if you need it. But right what I kind of mean by that is, like, first of all, you have to be like things have to be dialed in, like your basil has to be right, your insulin to carb ratio has to be a known quantity, you have to be, you know, good at giving yourself insulin, right. But once you do that, if you Pre-Bolus for a meal, and you it's 40 carbs, and you finish it. And then 25 minutes later you reach across the table and grab a roll out of the basket while you're talking. Well, Bolus for that role, like but but there are plenty of people who would that would then think No, that's stalking insulin.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:53
Yeah, that's entirely not stalking. Right?

Scott Benner 13:55
Right. If you need it, it's not stalking. It's bolusing. It's you know, and so, there's, um, there's just something you have to wrap your head around there. And it seems like it's simple, but in the moment, it's not because because you could see, you could Bolus for your meal, right? And 45 minutes later, your blood sugar might be 75. And you're like, Okay, well, I'm gonna have another role, it's hard for people to then go I have to Bolus for this role because my blood sugar 75 maybe it'll be okay. And that's where you have to trust that what you know is going to happen is going to happen, which is that role is going to go in and it's gonna have its own timeline, its own life, and so will the insulin that you put in with it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:35
And I think that's an important point, obviously, is that if the insulin is needed, you also should be knowledgeable enough to understand why it's needed. And along with that comes things like sensitivity, you know, your sensitivity, you know that you're not just blindly taking four units right now that this much typically brings you down by this much and if you do take extra Insulin, you should see this type of a change, if you're not seeing it, you know, taking some more, but again, not these little like pulse pulse pulse pulse.

Scott Benner 15:10
I think in the end I, I would want people to understand that the difference between just wildly throwing insulin at something hoping and purposefully using it in ways that you know, are needed. Those are two different ideas, but they both to an untrained eye or to somebody who's just trying to keep you from making a mistake, which is law. It's it's a laudable thing, but those two things can look the same. And they're not, those two things have nothing to do with each other.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:41
Right? So they're both stacking, right? But one is a, I'm stacking insulin, but I know how it should impact me. The other one is, I think, sort of along the same lines as like Rachel is saying, it's like, God, darn it, I

Unknown Speaker 15:58
pop it in and hope for the best.

Scott Benner 16:01
Here. Well, it's um, I think I see people it happens to people too, with new infusion sets with pumps too, because they put their pump on and they don't get, you just don't get the right reaction right away when pumps first on and then the creeping blood sugar and then the Bolus that doesn't work. And now it all feels slippery slope p but I don't I mean, when when we change ardens pump, I just put it in insulin right away. I just Bolus something depending on her situation. Right anywhere from I usually do anywhere from an hour's worth of basil to, you know, a correction with that, like, I just like to get something moving. And

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:38
Yep, I usually say that same thing for a new site. kind of know what your basil is, at that time of the day. You know, if it's at point six, eight o'clock in the morning, it's but it's 1.2 at you know, eight o'clock at night. Clearly you're gonna Bolus a little bit different. Ours is always Bolus about an hour's worth of basil with the new site change.

Scott Benner 16:58
I mean, I'd say it all the time. I just like to have a little insulin on my side when I know something's coming. And we'll get we'll move on to another topic in a second. But Arden's You know, we've been messing with different birth control packs, trying to find her right dose. The first two months, I'm gonna have to do a whole episode about the first two months was hellish. And then this third month, this pack seems to be right for her. And it's it's going better. But aside from her blood sugars being incredibly difficult to get on top of her appetite was bizarre. It like at times, it was like she was pregnant. Like, you know, she's like, you know, can I get grapes and rice and like, you're like, wait, what, you know, she's mixing these weird things. And there were times where she'd say, I'm hungry. But I don't want to eat. But I know I'm going to eat and in that in that situation. I'm like, well, just Pre-Bolus 15 carbs, then why? And I don't know, like, I gotta get something moving here. I can't just have her because once she says, Oh, I know what I want. I don't want to slow that. Well, I don't want to slow the process down because it took her 20 minutes to figure out what she wanted. Like if I say okay, let's just Pre-Bolus she'll go Forget it. And that and that'll be the end of it, you know, right. So I just like having some insulin on my side.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:10
Well, and that's kind of a good strategy. And I also use that a lot for kids and teens, especially for like, their lunches at school, that they often don't know what they're going to choose and they get there and then there has been no Pre-Bolus time. And the worry is that always comes up is well if they Pre-Bolus and then they don't end up eating that amount. I'm like, just Pre-Bolus for the minimum that you know, your kid is going to eat 10 grams, 15 grams to me, if your kid constantly eats 100 grams at lunch. A 15 gram Bolus, I guarantee is just a juice box in case they decide not to eat, they're gonna

Scott Benner 18:43
be okay. That's exactly how I talk about pre bossing little kids just get some on your side and there's an amount that you know, you know, they're gonna eat, there's an amount you know, every kid's gonna eat. Okay. My friend Jennifer Smith has been living with Type One Diabetes for well over 30 years. She has first hand knowledge of the day to day events that affect diabetes and its management. And as you've heard time and again on this show, she really is a wealth of knowledge about type one. Jen, he holds a bachelor's degree in human nutrition and biology from the University of Wisconsin. She's a registered and licensed dietitian, a certified diabetes educator, and a certified trainer on most makes and models of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. She's also the person who here with me on the diabetes pro tip episodes, and in all of the defining diabetes episodes, Jenny is just absolutely terrific. And if you'd like to meet up with her in a professional way, Jenny does coaching. You can find her at integrated diabetes.com Don't forget to add your name to the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box every time you complete their survey. It benefits everyone living with Type One Diabetes and it helps out the show T one d exchange.org forward slash juice box. I'd like to also thank Dexcom Omnipod chivo Kibo pen touched by type one and the Contour Next One blood glucose meter for being long time advertisers on the Juicebox Podcast you can check out everyone that supports the show with their ads at Juicebox Podcast comm or right there in the shownotes of your podcast player. And when you support the sponsors, you're supporting the podcast and helping to keep it free.

If you're interested in hearing more of the defining diabetes episodes and can't find them in your podcast player, you can go to diabetes pro tip.com and scroll to the bottom where you'll find all the defining diabetes episodes. You'll also find all of the diabetes pro tip episodes in that same place, diabetes pro tip.com and for all of your other Juicebox Podcast needs Juicebox Podcast COMM And of course you can find us on Instagram at Juicebox Podcast on Facebook at bold with insulin or in that private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast Type One Diabetes

#439 How We Eat: Gluten Free

Type 1 Diabetes, Celiac and Gluten Free Eating

Lindsay is a type 1 who has Celiac and eats Gluten Free.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or your favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 439 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show, I'm going to be speaking with Lindsay. And this episode is another in the how we eat series. So number 400 is how we eat carnivore. Number 373 how we eat vegan cat number 405 how we eat plant based. And today of course, we'll be talking about a gluten free diet, amongst many other things.

Lindsay has had Type One Diabetes for a very long time. She's also had celiac for a really long time, not as long as the diabetes, but still, you'll see. Today she's on the show to tell her story. And of course, we're going to talk about how she eats. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin.

I don't normally do this. But Lindsay, if you're listening, I just went back to see your initial email that you sent me and your life is so full and rich. And we basically didn't talk about any of it. So you can come back on whenever you want. Send me an email.

No kidding. We should never have talked about the celiac Look at all this stuff. Oh, Captain that says firefighter business owner skydiving marathon. does that say? Wait? Hold on a second deckhand. I deckhand on a fishing boat, not a boat, Captain. I mean, I've never been on a boat. So it all kind of seems the same to me. Anyway, before we get started, let me just throw my deep voice and tell you that nothing. No, I was already said that. Oh boy, here we go. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, head over to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to learn more about the CGM that I think is life changing for people who are using insulin. And of course, the insulin pump that my daughter has been using, since she was four years old is the Omni pod. And it is a tubeless insulin pump. Why don't you check it out and even get them to send you a free no obligation demo by going to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box. While you're out there on the internet checkout touched by type one.org, two great little organization that does amazing things for people with type one diabetes, touch by type one.org. And you can find them on Facebook and Instagram. And the person who started touched by type one is going to be on the show in a couple of weeks.

Lindsay 3:01
My name is Lindsay, I live in New Jersey. I've been a type one for a while since I was six years old. So for about 27 years. I just hit my 27th year in July. And I've been celiac for about 16 years. Okay,

Scott Benner 3:23
how did the celiac present itself.

Lindsay 3:27
So when I switched doctors from a pediatric endocrinologist to an adult doctor when I was a teenager, they ran it the celiac test as a random routine test for new patients. And the one marker did come back positive. Of course, when they do the blood work, it'll come back positive but then it has to be confirmed with a biopsy through an endoscopy which was also done and it was confirmed. I I had no idea at the time what it was I'd never heard of it. My mom had never heard of it. And we kind of we started from that point. Totally gluten free.

Scott Benner 4:13
So were you living with type one for about a decade without understanding that you had celiac do you think?

Lindsay 4:19
Yes, I do. And in looking back in hindsight, I always had just kind of like a funky stomach i can't i have no other way to describe it. I'm just very, very agitated I was uncomfortable a lot and I felt like it was a lot more than it should be. So all throughout elementary and middle school I just was in a lot of discomfort and looking back now I do believe that I was celiac positive at that point.

Scott Benner 4:52
I'm trying to decide if you guys come on and try to name the shows while you're talking because I'm very drawn to funky stomach as the title for this episode. Just you You know,

Unknown Speaker 5:00
I love it.

Lindsay 5:01
I think it's I think it's a great title

Scott Benner 5:04
to work towards celiac in there somewhere. So people understand why but I think funky stomach is very strong. Okay, so that that's what you know, it's so funny, you're gonna be great at this because I had a question for you. And you answered the question and just continued talking. I was like, Oh, this is gonna be easy for me, thank God. But um, okay, so let's put a little bit of context to funky stomach so that people who may be experiencing the same thing understand, what what did you notice what was happening?

Unknown Speaker 5:38
What was that?

Scott Benner 5:39
What What did you notice? Like what made you like, you know, did you eat something? And then or were you not connecting the dots in those first 10 years? Did you say

Lindsay 5:48
yours? I don't think I was connecting the dots at all. Nor were my parents. I think we had been to the gastroenterologist, and then to the doctor, and we were always really on top of my health all throughout my entire life, basically. But I think at that point, a lot of people didn't really think celiac, they didn't really think all of these other things, that could be the problem. You know, they just kind of would brush it off and say, Oh, it's, it's a funky stomach, or it's your genes, or, you know, maybe you have a sensitivity but we don't, we're not that concerned about it.

Scott Benner 6:27
So they weren't that concerned with you. They weren't that concerned, because they weren't in the bathroom with you after you ate. I bet you were concerned. Right?

Lindsay 6:34
Well, they weren't living with me. And, you know, I know a lot of other people with celiac and undiagnosed celiac. Say that they struggle like in the bathroom. They really, they really are their lives are affected terribly. And I don't think I was ever at that point. It didn't seem to be that drastic for me. But yeah, I think we just kind of brushed it off for the first 10 years. And then once we put the pieces together, and once we got the diagnosis, I it really all started to make sense. And the symptoms, now that I know their bloating, their discomfort, diarrhea, nausea, I never had any vomiting, but I was often very tired, just kind of lethargic. And those really do fit the bill. Okay,

Scott Benner 7:26
so you eat something that doesn't, let's just say agree with your, with your system. And then what's the timing? How long does it take for symptoms to pop up? How long do they last?

Lindsay 7:38
So for celiac, for me, I would notice symptoms within about a half hour, I would say half hour to an hour. And I really don't know how that's possible. And I've asked this question to my doctor several times, we've kind of come up with an answer, which is a whole other conversation that I can touch on. But the celiac affects your small intestine. So for food to get to your small intestine, it's going to take quite a while. So I'm not really sure how I'm symptomatic in such a small frame of time. But the one the one thing that I was going to mention is that I have figured out some other foods that I've had issues with which has led me to also being on a low fodmap diet, which is an acronym for different types of carbohydrates that are difficult to digest. And that's really where like a lot of different discomfort was coming from as well.

Scott Benner 8:38
Okay. All right. So it's something it hits you pretty quickly. discomfort comes in all the ways that you described, does it last for hours days,

Lindsay 8:49
it will last for days. So if I eat something with gluten in it, I will have severe just exhaustion, achy, achy, Enos almost flu like or mild flu like symptoms, just feeling absolutely terrible. And that will last for me for probably a couple of days. And the only thing I would be able to do to try and help that along is just hydrate, drink a ton of water. I exercise a lot. So I would do my best to really continue exercising. I feel like that can only help and just do your best to filter out whatever toxins. You know, I have in my body. It's

Scott Benner 9:34
crazy. It really is strange. And I'm assuming if you don't understand that this is why it's happening for food reasons. Then you probably eat something that makes it keep going daily, right? There's probably no really getting out of it back before you understand. It's just you just think you have a funky stomach.

Unknown Speaker 9:51
Right, exactly.

Unknown Speaker 9:52
And I say, for me,

Lindsay 9:54
I love food. I've always been a great eater even when I was a baby. So We were eating all sorts of different foods. And when I was little we were traveling and we were just having a ball. And, you know, almost I felt like everything I ate affected me negatively, in some way,

Scott Benner 10:13
because at some point probably in every meal, you had something even if it wasn't everything you had something that was impacting you. Oh, for sure.

Lindsay 10:21
Yeah, absolutely. And now knowing what it is gluten will hide in so many different things that people don't even know it's in. It's really

Scott Benner 10:31
tough. Tell me about that. Where would it exist? Like we think I would think of bread, right? I'd be like, Oh, I guess? I guess Lindsey doesn't eat pizza, and things like that. But where is it that we don't think of it.

Lindsay 10:43
So other things would be different kinds of sauces. So some salad dressings like thick pasta sauces, like a Baka sauce, Alfredo sauce, soups, a lot of soups have have wheat flour and gluten in it. It's really a thickener. It's it's a protein. So it binds food. It makes food sick and yummy and delicious. And unfortunately, you know, those are those are off the table. A lot of people we eat a lot of sushi. So a lot of people don't realize soy sauce has wheat in it. Beer, a lot of different alcoholic beverages if you're over 21 Yeah, and of course, bread. Oh, any any kind of carb karvy? Would it starchy food?

Scott Benner 11:35
Would it be easier to list the things that don't have gluten in it? Yeah,

Lindsay 11:40
it would, it would. And it's, it's really like vegetables, fruit, chicken, fish steak. Those things are naturally gluten free. And then, over the years, and since I was diagnosed, it's become a real market for food. So there's so many different options now. So we have breads and pastas and all sorts of sweet treats and anything we could possibly imagine.

Scott Benner 12:07
Um, it's an autoimmune disease. Is that right?

Unknown Speaker 12:11
It is Yes.

Scott Benner 12:12
Is that your only other autoimmune type? Just type one in celiac?

Unknown Speaker 12:17
Yes.

Scott Benner 12:18
Gotcha. And it so is it. The lining in it? Like I know you said the small intestines, but it's something about the lining in the small intestines is there like flattened out or something like that? or?

Lindsay 12:30
Yeah, so your small intestine has lining, they're made up of small little finger like objects called v lie. And when a celiac patient eats gluten, the gluten, the body attacks that gluten as an invader, and it will the villa will become flattened out. So normally, they're like hair like structures, they absorb things, they catch things as they travel through the small intestine. And it will become they will become flattened out over time. Which really then causes inflammation, damage. And then of course, other things from that point, which would be malabsorption. of anything that you're eating anemia and, and all sorts of different other problems.

Scott Benner 13:23
So then you start with Once this happens once the gluten attacks, that lining and starts flattening it out and causing all these other problems, you're also going to start having trouble absorbing other nutrients as well, correct?

Lindsay 13:37
Yeah, correct. And a lot of patients with celiac who are undiagnosed, are really quite underweight, or just very unhealthy. They obviously, I would think most of them feel terrible. And they're just not they're not thriving.

Scott Benner 13:52
Yeah. That's very interesting and timely for me. Because if you if you listen to the podcast, I don't think I've said it out loud, like completely, because I'm still trying to figure out how to talk about it. But I've learned that it's possible. I have a genetic problem where I can't absorb iron. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 14:09
Yeah. And

Scott Benner 14:11
so I've had a lot of these different tests, you know, and the endoscopy the other way, you know,

Unknown Speaker 14:19
lovely. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:19
I've swallowed a camera that was fun. Or like this purse around my neck for a bunch of hours. And I could just pick it up and look at this little screen and watch the camera go through my system. And oh, my gosh, yeah, kind of cool. Well, yeah, I mean, but the camera came out, Lindsay

Lindsay 14:37
I'm glad it came out, though.

Scott Benner 14:38
Yeah, I'm just saying that part I wasn't as thrilled about and it but it's very interesting that these two things, they do sort of mimic each other. I have just started the process of getting involved in a study for people who don't absorb iron that's happening out of Boston Children's I think, okay, and We might be figuring out that my son has it as well. Oh, wow. But it's just it's very interesting to see to how it affects me. But he being younger and more kind of, you know, vital than I am, obviously, where he can kind of overpower some of the symptoms, unlike this where this would just down anybody. It's just really fascinating that that it's all the idea of your immune system seeing something incorrectly, like just it's seeing the gluten incorrectly. That's the entirety of the problem. Is that really it?

Lindsay 15:33
I believe so. To the best of my knowledge. Yes. And it is. It is very interesting. It's very scary. autoimmune diseases, as you know, there's just so many question marks, and there's so many of them. And nobody really knows why this seems to happen. Yeah, it's quite

Scott Benner 15:51
scary. Why did people stop calling it celiac? sprue?

Unknown Speaker 15:55
Oh, I really don't know. I

Lindsay 15:58
think people, I think people are just getting a little bit more used to it now. So just calling it

Unknown Speaker 16:02
celiac.

Scott Benner 16:03
My wife's grandmother, me and my wife's grandmother had it. Excuse me. And she if you asked her what was wrong, she's like, I've got the sprue

Lindsay 16:12
I think I'm gonna start saying, Yeah, just start telling people you really, really interesting.

Scott Benner 16:18
I have the sprue. I'm gonna read. I'm gonna read for a second an autoimmune reaction to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye over time, the immune reaction to eating gluten creates inflammation that damages the small intestines lining, leading to medical complications, it also prevents absorption of some nutrients. The classic symptoms of like you mentioned diarrhea, other symptoms include bloating, gas, fatigue, low blood count, anemia, osteoporosis, and many people can have this without symptoms. That's interesting. a mainstay of treatment is strict gluten free diet that can help manage symptoms and promote intestinal healing. Okay, so once you figure this all out, and you switch to a gluten free diet, back before it was hip to say you weren't eating gluten. And before it was hip, I'm assuming it was difficult to find things that didn't have gluten in it, what did you do in the beginning,

Lindsay 17:08
I remember it being very difficult. I remember really going through a whole extensive list of foods that I was going to have to eliminate from my diet. And being in high school, I, I was kind of in denial about it. I was like, Oh, this, you know, this isn't really a big deal. I'll figure it out. And maybe I'll have a you know, sneak a cookie here and there. If I really want one that didn't last very long. Because once I realized what I was doing to myself, just with one cookie, I really kind of had like, a total 180 I couldn't continue on that path. So we eliminated and we meaning my parents and I a lot of different foods and and we had to just totally navigate the food store in a different way. At that point, there was some pasta that was out which was made from keen Wah, and maybe some some rice pasta, but other than that, there wasn't much of anything at all. Okay.

Scott Benner 18:13
Yeah, and now there's a ton of stuff, but it's expensive, right?

Unknown Speaker 18:18
Yeah,

Lindsay 18:18
there's a ton of stuff. And it's, it's pretty exciting. And I always tell people, like being celiac for so long now. It really makes food more exciting. If I find like a cupcake that I can eat or a really great bakery. It's just the most exciting day like, of the year so um, it that's that's definitely the positive but one of the negatives is yes, it is very expensive. I but when you when you don't have a choice, you just

Scott Benner 18:49
No, of course, I was wondering if you can't submit your your grocery bill to your health insurance company. That'd be interesting.

Lindsay 18:56
Yeah, that would be interesting. I we can as far as I know, and I think I do still do this. But we can write off gluten free foods from our tax taxes. But you know, your write offs are not super significant with that stuff.

Scott Benner 19:12
Yeah, yeah. write offs are more exciting to talk about than they are when you watch how they kind of come together in your tax situation. Like I did all this. I have this I have that. And then the guy comes back and he's he tells me he's like, Oh, yeah, it's good thing. You sent all this stuff in because it decreased your bill by and I'm like, that's not enough money. Like what do you

Unknown Speaker 19:31
know, it's like $100 there's

Scott Benner 19:34
not exciting. You didn't excite me with it. But that's interesting that you can do that. Okay, so what is a like, what's a day's worth of meals? Like for people who are listening right now who may think they have this and you know, what do you get to eat and did you eventually get accustomed to it? Alright, I feel some fast talking coming on. I'm gonna get through all the ads without stopping here we go. The Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor is a staple in my daughter's life. We make decisions about insulin dosing, direction and speed of her blood sugar, all from the Dexcom g sex, I can watch it on my iPhone. If you had an Android, you could watch it from there as well. Arden loves it. She loves not having to do her finger sticks. She loves being able to see the speed and direction of her blood sugar. She loves that we can Pre-Bolus and make good decisions about her meals that keep her blood sugar's in a stable range. There's no more guessing about where your blood sugar is, or if it's moving when you have the Dexcom because you can see the speed and direction. And a moment ago I said I can see Arden's blood sugar on my phone. Well, that's because she can share her information. If she wants to. With up to 10 followers. This is for Android or iPhone. Please, please take it from me when I tell you that I was not nearly as good at diabetes before Dexcom. As I am now with it, check it out@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. There are actually links in the show notes of your podcast player, and at Juicebox Podcast comm if you can't remember the link now onto the AMI pod. My daughter started wearing it when she was four because I didn't want to send her to school on shots. So we got her on it before kindergarten started. And we have never looked back. She is 16 right now. And she has more than Omnipod every day for the last 12 years. And it's been a friend the entire time. She's worn it while she's swimming while she's running while she's playing softball, taking a shower and doing all of the other things that everyone does every day on the pod gives you the freedom to hide the pot if you want. Or to wear it out where people can see it, it doesn't matter. It's completely flexible with your needs. And there's no tubing, you are not connected to a device or a controller when you're using the Omni pod. And that is an amazing feeling of freedom. My Omni pod.com forward slash juice box on the power be thrilled to send you a free and no obligation demo of the pod right now. We'll send it to your house so you can wear it and see. If you don't like it, it's cool. And if you do, you can just keep going. It's amazing. Miami pod.com forward slash juice box. Speaking of amazing, Elizabeth forest started touched by type one a very long time ago. And she is building an amazing machine over there. A machine that helps people with type one diabetes, I told you earlier Elizabeth is going to be on the show pretty soon. But in the meantime, you can check out what she and the organization are doing at touched by type one.org. As a matter of fact, I'm doing a little thing for touch by type one at the end of February. And if you'd like to come you can just go to their website and sign up. It's absolutely free. Touched by type one.org go to programs then upcoming events. And there it is February 26 bold with insulin life. They're also by the way on Facebook and Instagram. So check them out. I'm on Facebook and Instagram as well. But I didn't buy an ad on the show. So I'm probably not allowed to talk about it here. I should probably ask the boss. I just heard back. And it turns out if I wanted to talk about my Facebook and Instagram here, I'm allowed to make Juicebox Podcast on Instagram and bold with insulin on Facebook. That's the public page. And the private page is Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. And I have a blog Juicebox podcast.com. Actually, there's diabetes pro tip.com as well just want the diabetes pro tip episodes, as well as the defining diabetes stuff. I mean, it's all right there and your podcast player but those are a quicker way to do it. If you're just looking for them. Diabetes pro tip.com.

Lindsay 23:57
Absolutely, I did get accustomed to it. I did. It took me a little while to really get into a groove with what I like to eat and what I didn't like to eat. I mean, right now. There are so many options. So there's so many different choices for people, but a day's worth of food for me. Breakfast I often have like a piece of gluten free toast with almond butter. I eat eggs a lot. So eggs are gluten free. protein shakes, I found some protein that is it's vegan and gluten free and it doesn't upset my stomach. Lunch I eat I eat fruit IE yogurts. I'm also dairy free, so I'm just going to throw that out there. So all my yogurts are coconut and almond and non dairy. And I feel like I have a huge variety of foods that I choose from but I'm like not thinking of all of them right now. I mean, we eat a lot Lot of food in this house, so we're definitely not not eating.

Scott Benner 25:05
What happens like, Are you married?

Lindsay 25:08
Not yet, but hopefully soon. If he's listening from the other room, maybe we can take that as a hand. Oh,

Scott Benner 25:13
okay. Well, I mean, I can try What? What's his name?

Unknown Speaker 25:18
Brian,

Scott Benner 25:18
Brian, buy a ring. What are you doing? There you go, maybe? And but that's my question is the people that you you live with? Do they have to eat this way with you too? Or is it just impossible to not? Or is it? Do you just make two meals? How do you manage,

Lindsay 25:34
so he eats gluten free with me as well. We aren't a totally gluten free household. So he has his own bread, and English muffins, and he has his own beer. So some things are in the house that are not gluten free. But when I make a meal, and I do most of the cooking, I will just prepare gluten free meal. So he enjoys the pasta, he really can't tell the difference. desserts really the same thing. He'll eat everything. And he has no complaints about it. So it just makes it a little bit easier when you're when you're making full meals.

Scott Benner 26:11
you're cooking, and he hasn't bought a ring. That's all I heard. Just in case you're wondering. I would love for someone to cook for me honestly

Unknown Speaker 26:18
is a wonderful guy. I'm

Scott Benner 26:19
sure I just want somebody to cook for me is really what I'm saying. But here's what you get when you're cooking. as near as I can tell, no one knows how much effort goes into it. And if they don't like it, they're very quick to tell you. This wasn't very good. You like oh, well, it still took me three hours. So I really appreciate you saying that. It's seriously,

Unknown Speaker 26:40
it's not fair.

Scott Benner 26:41
Do you find yourself trying to approximate, quote unquote, food from before in a gluten way? In a non gluten way? Or like Like you said, you said there's a pasta that doesn't have gluten in it. But is there a way to just throw away? You know, modern eating? And like, What? How would you do that? Does that make sense?

Lindsay 27:04
I'm not sure I understand. You mean like, if we, if we just didn't have the pasta? Well, no,

Scott Benner 27:12
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a way people think about eating right. Like and you know, you'll say to someone, well, you can't have gluten anymore. And they're like, oh, and they start thinking no bread, no pasta, all these other things. But But is there a way to just walk away from them and go, I just don't eat bread anymore? I don't need a bread that doesn't have gluten in it? What would that look like? If you just walked away from modern foods, and went to things that didn't have gluten in it? Would you just be chewing on sticks and eating steaks or like you don't mean like, I'm trying to understand, like, I'm trying to really understand what a person would do. If they couldn't afford to buy what I'm assuming is a very expensive cupcake so that it actually tastes like a cupcake and doesn't have gluten in it.

Lindsay 27:52
Yeah, it's very true. That that is very expensive. The foods and especially the really well made, desserts and products are expensive. So it is unfortunate that there is a difference there. You know, if somebody was to really just totally eliminate any kind of gluten item, or were you know, trying to buy the gluten free items, you would have all natural and all things made from the earth basically vegetables, fruits, meats, chicken fish. Rice is a big one. I'm not sure you know, I think rice is is pretty easily attainable. But yeah, you would probably eat really, really well as long as you balance things out as much as possible.

Scott Benner 28:42
And just the way that we would consider like clean. Like right, no additives, it is what you see there. This is a This is rice, this is a steak there's nothing else that has been put into it or added there's no anything else to it. This is this is the basics like staples.

Lindsay 28:58
Absolutely, yeah. And it really would be a wonderful way to go about eating gluten free. In my opinion, I think you would really you probably feel better overall, as long as you're choosing the right veggies and fruits and you know, whatever works for you, especially with a type one. I think it would be it would be great. And a lot of people with celiac have kind of like rose colored glasses about the gluten free food. A lot of it is really not great for you. There are other things that have to be added to make it you know, soft and mushy and sweet and this and that. So just because it's gluten free doesn't mean that it is healthy. There are things that you can eat on occasion, but it's not. It's I don't think it's any better for you than the non gluten free option.

Scott Benner 29:52
So I brought that I'm glad you brought that up because when I was going through all the testing to figure out my iron issue the one time the doctor just says to me Look, you don't appear to have a gluten sensitivity at all. He does. But let's test it. I was like, Okay. And so he says, so for a month, eat gluten free. And I did. And I put on weight from the I went broke, I felt like and I put on weight is what is how I felt and didn't feel any differently? Because of course I I'm not, I don't have celiac. So it was, it was it was an interesting month of I didn't find it to be off putting, like there's some bread that's fantastically good that doesn't have gluten in it. Oh, yeah, I feel I figured that out. But then I started learning what you were talking about, which is there's just gluten things that you wouldn't, you don't expect and so but but anyway, it just I did, I gained, I gained a few pounds. And I was like, That's fascinating. Because in my mind, I thought, Oh, I'm eating healthier. Right? And in you just set it it's not necessarily the case. It's there's a lot of other things that are going in, I'm assuming that have calories in them to try to make flavor in different ways. Is that kind of the idea?

Lindsay 31:04
Absolutely. Yeah, I think I can't speak for every single product. But I think a lot of the gluten free products out there are probably more calorie dense than some of the non gluten free counterparts. I think that there's it's not so much bad stuff, but it's just more stuff. Potentially in some some products when people think they are actually doing better for themselves, which if they're eating gluten free they are but of course, you know, loading up on all sorts of different gluten free treats, if not better for you.

Scott Benner 31:34
Yeah, you're sort of trading one problem for another one.

Unknown Speaker 31:37
Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 31:38
Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 31:39
So what is this is one of my favorite words that I don't particularly understand fodmap What, what is what does that mean? When people say I'm gonna do like a low fodmap diet.

Lindsay 31:52
So a low fodmap diet, I don't have all of the words for each part of the fodmap acronym,

Scott Benner 31:59
or you talk

Unknown Speaker 32:01
to bowl,

Lindsay 32:02
Holy Ghost something. There are certain kinds of carbohydrate that just simply are not well broken down and digested also by the small intestine. So a lot of times this food and it's not it's other food like apples and, and different sweeteners, like I think xylitol is one brussel sprouts, all sorts of different foods. They they're not well broken down, and they end up kind of sitting in your intestinal tract. And they start to almost like ferment, which, of course, causes inflammation, bloating, gassiness, discomfort. And the when I was diagnosed celiac, that was one thing and then I ended up eliminating dairy. Several years later, which I was having some issues with. And then a few years after that, I kind of honed in with my gastro on this low fodmap diet. And once I did that, I felt amazing. And it's been quite some time now where I've been on this diet or I don't even like to call it a diet but following this lifestyle and I feel like 100%

Scott Benner 33:22
Okay, let me take a shot at this right. No one laughed at me. fodmap is an acronym for fermentable oligo die mono, sack chlorides and Polly OLS.

Unknown Speaker 33:40
Sounds right, does

Scott Benner 33:40
it that can't possibly be right. But they they are short chain carbohydrates that are poorly absorbed in the small intestine and prone to absorb water and ferment in the colon. I don't think we went anything fermenting in our colon ever. That's um, I'm gonna make that statement right here now.

Unknown Speaker 33:59
No, you don't.

Scott Benner 34:00
So make. So I'm trying to get a feeling for what what would be on a low fodmap diet.

Lindsay 34:10
So the things that I really eat a lot of broccoli, sweet potatoes, those are all low in fodmaps blueberries, raspberries non dairy foods are low fodmap so we drink almond milk in the house and any kind of non dairy

Unknown Speaker 34:32
you know, substance Yeah,

Lindsay 34:34
I'm brown rice, almond a peanut butter.

Unknown Speaker 34:40
Eggs.

Lindsay 34:41
Those are all low fodmap

Scott Benner 34:43
Okay, so I found one now that I'm looking at and it's funny we don't we buy milk that has no lactose in it just for because it seemed like the thing to do and nobody really drinks milk all that often here. But I like how this this this chart I found is It says avoid excess glucose, lactose, a bunch of different vegetables that I guess you wouldn't expect. asparagus, beet root broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, eggplant, garlic, onions, shallots. those are those are avoids.

Lindsay 35:16
Yeah. So I eat broccoli with no problem, which is interesting. But yeah, the like tomatoes and onions. Avocados bother me. I think they're on the list as well.

Scott Benner 35:29
Did you just do what the kids call? What is that called when you're showing off but you're trying to act like you're not? Damn it? I can't think of it. I'm so not a kid. But you were just like I eat brussel sprouts. Like, like you were a superhero.

Unknown Speaker 35:43
I'm so cool. My broccoli over here. Oh,

Scott Benner 35:47
yeah, yeah, broccoli, no trouble here. I get knocked down like it's nothing. A lot of Polly the polyols apples, apricots, avocados. That's really interesting. But then the other side of it says you can enjoy and then it gives you a whole list of things like don't feel bad because you could have a mandarin. The Oh, that's really interesting. The vegetables are more bamboo shoots alfalfa, beet shoots. Celery, celery. Does anyone enjoy Sorry?

Unknown Speaker 36:18
Do you want to say that I

Lindsay 36:19
just said yesterday how much I love celery. And I'm sure everybody's gonna make fun of me for saying that.

Scott Benner 36:23
He loves celery. strong, strong second episode title right there. Oh, parsnips you can finally Hey, listen, everybody, you can finally learn what a parsnip is. Is this your time? Go on Facebook later and tell people about it. I know what a parsnip is. I'm low fodmap you'll make all kinds of friends. But the but the the real story here is that you say you feel amazing.

Lindsay 36:51
I do. Okay. Yeah, I do. I was really, I was really struggling with really the most thing. The biggest thing that I struggled with was the fodmap issue. And if I the one example I can think of is for years, I was having a protein shake after a workout or in the morning for breakfast, and I would put peanut butter and and blueberries and whatever almond milk in it. And it was a couple hours later, I would be just so uncomfortable. I would be so bloated. I'm just uncomfortable, gassy, bloated, whatever. So I was I spent a year trying to figure out what the heck it was. And it was the protein powder. It was the vegan protein powder was made from pea protein, which is I really think it's the most common vegan like plant based protein powder. The pea protein was killing me and I now know that and it's like eliminated so many issues. For me I use rice protein, which doesn't cause any kind of adverse reactions.

Scott Benner 38:01
No kidding. By the way, the thing I was trying to think of earlier humblebrag

Lindsay 38:07
Do you hear my Omni pod beeping in the background here?

Unknown Speaker 38:10
I do. Are you are you putting it on right now? No, I

Lindsay 38:13
had it. Oh, it's expiring. Here we go.

Scott Benner 38:19
That's that. tan tan tan tan like I'm getting up calm down.

Unknown Speaker 38:23
Yeah, relax.

Scott Benner 38:27
All right. Um, so you found a guy who's willing to do it with you not buy a ring, but he's willing to eat gluten free? That's nice. And and you feel 1,000,000%? Better? Talk about a little bit? What is it like to tell another person you're gluten free? Especially when it became chic for a while? Did people look at you sideways? Or do you just keep it yourself?

Lindsay 38:52
I felt that way. Yeah, I felt that people were getting a little judgy with me. Just because I always worry that people think I'm doing it just to kind of get attention or to stand out. And that's, that's not the case at all. I don't want that extra attention and care, like from, you know, random people or from anybody. So that was really my biggest concern, telling people initially, I'm kind of outgoing, so I don't really have a problem talking about it. The same thing with with type one. I really don't have any issues talking about it. But I always do wonder if people think I'm just like, exaggerating something or you know, being difficult

Scott Benner 39:34
right now. I mean, it did really become like she gets the word like everybody stopped eating. Like, I'm not going to eat gluten. I farted once I'm not going to eat gluten anymore. You know, like that kind of thing. And it's a common thing when I was looking earlier, it's there's more than 200,000 cases a year in the US which makes it a common element. But Wow, even when you say that, I mean think of you know, you heard a lot more than 200,000 people tell you they don't eat gluten. I mean More especially online where everybody's like, Oh, I don't eat gluten, I don't do that. And I'm not saying like you even. I mean, it seems to me that even if you don't have celiac not eating gluten might be a really, you know, healthy thing for you to do. Right? Just because, you know, isn't that interesting, like, what we're talking about here is a lot of foods that, you know, are very, and I don't know how to talk about this correctly, but, you know, processing wheat is, is a is not a thing we've been doing forever, you know, like crushing wheat and turning it into flour and processing foods in general, is still a more, you know, hundreds of years, you know, 1000s of years thing, not millions of years thing. And so, I mean, you're there's just a list here of things that, you know, you would eat if you were wandering around in America or somewhere else on the planet and trying to fend for yourself out of trees and bushes and things like that. Seriously. Right, you know, yeah. And then some brilliant guy comes along and figures out puff pastry, and now you know, you can't poop, right? It just, it's not fair.

Lindsay 41:05
It causes a whole bunch of problems. And who knows? A lot of people say that they do think and there's been studies showing that that could be considered part of the problem here. You know, personally speaking, I, I try and avoid as much processed food gluten free food as possible. But I also love to eat and I love to eat well. And and, you know, we it has to balance, it has to be a balance. But with with people going gluten free, just voluntarily. There's a lot of people that do it. And I think a lot of people do it, because they're also having issues. They're having digestive issues. They're bloated. They don't know what the heck is wrong. And hey, why not try it, see if it helps. And if it helps them, whatever it is good.

Scott Benner 42:00
Is that considered like a gluten sensitivity? If you don't have like, the full blown, you know?

Unknown Speaker 42:05
Yeah, like, yeah, so

Lindsay 42:07
gluten sensitivity would, as far as I understand, it would not be considered an autoimmune disease. But something's something's going on with your body just doesn't like the gluten protein. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:19
so that. So that low fodmap way of eating could help with other like gastrointestinal problems, and like irritable bowel, bloating, stuff like that, like it could really address a lot of different issues.

Lindsay 42:31
Absolutely. A lot of people with IBS and Crohn's do follow the low fodmap diet. It as far as I've heard, it helps immensely with those issues.

Scott Benner 42:42
I gotta say anything that stops something from fermenting in my colon, I think is probably a good idea. I, I try really hard. This last year, I've been, I should say, trying hard and succeeding in not eating processed foods. So I just sort of made a blanket statement to myself, like, if it comes in a bag, or a box, I stay away from it. Even down to like, you know, different oils, like I won't, I won't use an olive oil that's heat pressed or processed. I only use cold pressed non processed olive oil to cook with. No, and it's made a difference I am since the beginning of the corona outbreak, and I've said it on here a couple of times. But you know, as as we were all like kind of getting like locked into our houses. I looked at myself in the mirror and I thought, yeah, this isn't gonna go well for you, you know, and you're gonna end bad Oh, my god. I'm like, I don't know if they'll be able to get me back out the door once they get me in the house. Right? And so I was like, I was like, What do I do? And all I did was I cut out certain oils. I only use cold pressed non processed oil that I do use, and I'm eating on a What do they call that? I it's weird that I'm doing it. And I say that to people all the time. And now when I need the word when I'm being recorded, I can't think of it but holy hell, Lindsey I only eat

Unknown Speaker 44:11
organic or it's

Scott Benner 44:13
about the timing. This is embarrassing. Um, I swear I'm actually doing it. What are they everyone listening right now is yelling if this is what it's called, idiot, I don't even do it. And I know what it is. Intermittent fasting, I eat on an intermittent fasting schedule. So I choose eight hours of the day, normally between 11 and seven or if I get pinched in the morning, like from noon to eight and I only eat in that timeframe. Okay, and so beyond taking out processed stuff, and only in that timeframe. I haven't changed anything and I might be close to 30 pounds down since the being a Corona then no,

Unknown Speaker 44:52
wow.

Scott Benner 44:53
not interesting and I'm not limiting myself during the eight hours.

Lindsay 44:56
Good for you. That's amazing.

Scott Benner 44:58
Yeah, I'm But as you're talking, and this whole series that I'm going to do here about different ways that people eat, I've just become very interested in it. Like someone had a Dorito the other day, and I looked at it, and I thought, there would have been a time in my life where I would have seen a Dorito and thought to myself, those things are so fake, and they taste like crap. And then I would have eaten a whole bag of them. And, and now somebody kind of like, held the bag towards me. I was like, Nah, I don't, I would, I just wouldn't eat that. Yeah, you know, it's a, it's an interesting way, you can watch your mindset, sort of, like change. And really, I think sugar is the last Hill for me, honestly, because I still, if I get some sugar in me, I turn into like, I'm like the sugar version of a heroin addict. I'm just like, someone's like, Oh, look, here's a little candy. And you're like, I'm a little candy. It tastes like cherries. And I put it in my mouth. And then I find myself wandering around the house going, where's that bag, a little candies that tastes like Yeah. Find that bag so that I can eat every one of those things and make them go away. So they stopped tormenting me. You know, it did turn into Gollum pretty quickly.

Lindsay 46:12
And that's like, it really is a lot of your mental status and your mental energy. You have to kind of change the way that you think. And once you round that corner, turn that corner with maybe not having sweet stuff every day, or whatever it is. You You change, and you once you start to feel better, then you you're like, wow, this is this is amazing.

Scott Benner 46:37
Yeah. What do you do for? Do you have a sweet tooth? Do you ever get a craving?

Lindsay 46:42
Occasionally, I always say that I think my sweet tooth is like, just very minimal because of type one. We never really have a ton of sweet stuff in my house when I was growing up. And when I was first diagnosed, it was always like just an occasional thing, holidays or whatnot. So I don't really have a sweet tooth. I have a I love salty foods. So it's the same premise. When you when you eat a lot of salt, or add salt, you start wanting more and needing more to taste. So that's something that I have to keep an eye on. Like you just can't get it like

Scott Benner 47:23
enough is never enough,

Lindsay 47:25
right? You just have like popcorn, I could just put salt on the popcorn like crazy. And it would just it and then you feel terrible because you're like all bloated.

Scott Benner 47:35
And you have to keep escalating to get the same high out of the salt. At some point. You're just gonna start licking the salt shaker and then throwing the popcorn into your mouth. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I have a comparison that I'm not gonna make here. But actually, I'm gonna make it and then I'll bleep it out for you. But it's like, right, like, you start. You start with like, Oh, this is nice. The two of them seem to like each other. And then by the end, you're like, Can someone get it? done here? And this just isn't doing it for me anymore.

Unknown Speaker 48:02
It just totally goes off the rails. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:04
yeah. Lindsey Wait, oh, you hear that played back all bleeped out. And you can't figure out what we're talking about. Only you are gonna get to laugh. Isn't that nice?

Unknown Speaker 48:11
I'm honored.

Unknown Speaker 48:12
I cannot wait.

Scott Benner 48:15
Oh, my God, anyway. Okay, so yeah, I think that I think that what I'm learning and what kind of drove me towards because I have to say like, if you do listen to the podcast, I, I really believe that anybody can do whatever they want. And it's possible that one of you out there is doing something that's really unhealthy for you. But that's your decision. I have no business making that decision for you. I just want you to understand how to manage your insulin while you're making the decisions. You're eating about food. That that's really my, like entire goal about the podcast, right? Yes. But I am becoming more interested in letting people describe the different ways that they eat. Because I realized that there's huge segments of people who are going to eat gluten free and the you know, some people are going to do intermittent fasting, and some people are going to do you know, other ideas. And so I've tried to line up a lot of people, I've had a lot of success years as the first one I'm recording but but I want people to come on and talk about their different, you know, food eating styles, and I don't think of them as diets, really just ways of ways of eating that, that end up being beneficial to you. And, you know, that's it. I just, I mean, it could not have been fun the 10 years you spent, you know, struggling like that. And it's really amazing that you found something that works for you. So I guess like spend a little bit of time here and tell me Is there any impact on your type one before you went gluten free and after?

Lindsay 49:52
Not that I can remember. I don't remember having any adverse reactions before I was diagnosed. Before I was gluten free, compared to after, although I was I was younger and it was quite some time ago, but nothing really stands out to me in great detail. I was diagnosed when I was six and I was doing injections for gosh up until about 2007 when I started on the Omnipod Okay, and I I've always been pretty on top of the diabetes Of course every day is different and a challenge but my parents I'm an only child and my parents really took a lot of time with me when I was little to get me on the right track and make sure I understood how things are important or you know how to handle different things and

Scott Benner 50:49
whatnot. So if even though you were bloated and uncomfortable and and making it what I mismatching is just horrible poops. It's just your your blood sugar control didn't suffer it within that situation.

Lindsay 51:03
No, not that I can remember. Nothing that would would have been really directly related to the celiac being undiagnosed.

Scott Benner 51:11
Okay. Hey, listen, now that you're not gluten free. Do you ever stand out from the toilet? Look in there and go, Oh, my God, that thing is perfect.

Unknown Speaker 51:20
No, you've never thought that like I make the greatest. Now like you've never had that thought.

Unknown Speaker 51:27
Although, you know,

Lindsay 51:28
I'm sure I know. I know people do that. And hey, I am not judging you. You should be proud of what you

Scott Benner 51:35
do. I think people should stand up and celebrate and be like, my God, look at that thing. perfect size and shape. came right out.

Unknown Speaker 51:42
healthy.

Scott Benner 51:42
I'm so healthy. My daughter has a friend Sanchez she calls. She goes, she'll say Mr. Benner did you? Do you have a ghost? And I'm like, What? And she goes a ghost. You know, when you don't really have the wife? I was like, wait, that's what that is.

Unknown Speaker 51:58
That's a great name. It's like, Is that an internet

Scott Benner 51:59
thing? Or did you make that up? You're still wiping though, right? And she goes, Oh, yeah. But you know what I mean? I think I do. Yeah, so awesome. I think I do. It's funny that girls vegan, but, but it's interesting, because some of the way she gets the vegan are less than healthy. And if you made me think of her earlier, when you were talking like, you know, you can eat a cupcake and say, you know, like this wrapped in a piece of plastic that you bought in the grocery aisle that you know, could live through a nuclear war and go vegan. Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting. We're gonna dig into all that. Okay, so run me through a day. You get up in the morning, what do you for breakfast.

Lindsay 52:45
So most common breakfast would be a piece of gluten free toast with almond butter or organic peanut butter. Okay. Sometimes I put some blueberries on top of it. And that's really going to be dependent on what my sugar is. What I'm doing afterwards, so that's really what I eat most mornings. Other mornings, I'll have like, eggs and maybe a piece of toast or I love siracha on my eggs, so that's definitely one of my favorites. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 53:18
And then do I'm gonna go through the whole

Scott Benner 53:20
Yeah, like, do you snack mid afternoon? Do you have lunch? Like what happens next?

Lindsay 53:24
Yeah, so um, I usually eat three square meals a day with some snacks mixed in depending on my work schedule, and depending on my sugar, obviously, I'm lunch a lot of times is a protein shake. So we'll have a protein shake with a little bit of dairy free yogurt and a little bit of frozen fruit and some peanut butter. So that that's, that's launched and that's probably I think that's about between 30 and 35 carbs depending on the fruit and a dinner. I mean, we could go crazy. We had sushi last night. We love steak. We love chicken barbeque chicken, sweet potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes

Scott Benner 54:11
sweet potatoes sweet potatoes all rotten without Of course any cheese or milk or anything like that.

Unknown Speaker 54:19
Yeah, you and you

Lindsay 54:20
can make all of those like really good, yummy foods gluten and dairy free. It just may take a little bit more time and energy but yeah, broccoli, salmon, fish, shrimp, crab legs, we

Unknown Speaker 54:34
we love it do all that stuff. I

Lindsay 54:37
do usually have dessert. And of course, again, it's going to be dependent on my sugar and how late it is and a bunch of other things. Did I work out that day? But we'll have how Gosh, I don't even know. A little bit of a gluten free brownie or part of a cupcake or something like that.

Scott Benner 54:57
Yeah. Hey, listen. You remember when we used to go to the movies? What did you get? When you went to the movies, did you bring something with you? Ah,

Lindsay 55:03
that's a really good question. I usually just get popcorn. Oh,

Scott Benner 55:07
because you didn't have that? Yeah, no problem. Got it. You're not do you find yourself smuggling food into places ever?

Unknown Speaker 55:15
Um,

Lindsay 55:16
I do, I have at times, and in the past, it's actually more so been for dinner purposes. So if we go out to eat, and I want to have some kind of pasta dish, I'd bring my own pasta. But there would have to be a conversation there with with the restaurant or with the cook about using a different pot and making sure they're cooking it in a in a separate pot of water, basically, because a lot of restaurants, they'll just cook all their pasta in the same pasta water. And that obviously would not work for someone with celiac. So

Scott Benner 55:54
because all that everyone can imagine making pasta and there's that, like thickness that that happens in the water. That is I guess the gluten, right?

Lindsay 56:02
Yeah, that's the starch that that comes off of that pasta noodle. And that's a whole other thing. I mean, eating out, there's a risk of cross contamination. Always try and let them know. And of course, you know, a lot of places are just more aware of these things right now. But you have to be super careful. And I'm not going to drive myself absolutely crazy. I'm not going to go in and inspect the kitchen and you know, demand all these crazy things. But you have to really be mindful. And you do have to hopefully trust that these people are doing the right thing.

Scott Benner 56:37
Yeah. Is it? Is it one of those things where you can just tell like an hour later, you're just I don't know, let's say farting in the car and you think to yourself, there's no way they wash that pot?

Unknown Speaker 56:47
Yeah, you'll

Lindsay 56:48
know, you'll just just I really wish I thought about this prior to talking to you. Because I really don't know how else to say it other than just being really uncomfortable. Especially as a woman, you know, if you're going out to dinner, and you're with your boyfriend or your friends and you're in a dress and heels or whatever, and you eat something that you shouldn't have, you're just like, super uncomfortable you want to do is just rip your clothes off and get in your PJs and go to bed.

Scott Benner 57:16
What that makes me ask someone to ask you, what's it like to have sort of a gluten issue on top of your period?

Lindsay 57:24
Um, for me personally, I wouldn't really consider it any different than Okay, guess what it should be? Yeah, I don't think there's any any change. There's only

Scott Benner 57:35
there's only so much bloating and uncomfortableness the body can make, I guess.

Lindsay 57:39
Yeah, there's a Yeah, there's a limit there. You know, I try my best to, for me, exercising is what? What eliminates that stuff? Even if I'm super uncomfortable, I try and just keep moving and keep drinking water. And those two things for me seem to help eliminate a lot of those issues. Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:01
Is there any other physical symptoms? Like I don't know, I'm making things up. But joint pain headaches, or does any of that? Or is it all just pretty much stay in your belly and your digestive tract?

Lindsay 58:13
Yeah, there's a whole there's a plethora of other symptoms that people have. Occasionally through my life, I have gotten them. I of course, I wouldn't know 100% if they were celiac related, or if I had eaten gluten at the time, but the most common other symptoms for celiac would be the joint pain. Absolutely, like an arthritic feeling. People start losing hair. People get dizzy and have blurred vision. And there's also a type of dermatitis like a skin rash that would be caused directly caused by gluten so people do break out and rashes and all sorts of different things. I'm on a bunch of different Facebook forums for celiac and celiac type ones. And I see people asking about all sorts of different things you would never even think of.

Scott Benner 59:09
Well, I'm going to ask you this because I'm in the middle of trying to help Arden with something if I said to you, it feels like your bones are bruised. Is that a feeling you've ever had?

Lindsay 59:18
Yeah, yeah, really? Okay. Absolutely. Or maybe for somebody who, who goes out and likes to party maybe feeling a hangover. I think that's another good comparison. Just just exhausted. Terrible. watery eyes. headache. achy kind of just

Scott Benner 59:37
flew like can't get rested. Yeah, Max deafness. muscles are no,

Lindsay 59:44
I'm not so much for me. But absolutely, I've heard it from all these different patients present with all these different symptoms that seem kind of far out there. But I do think that they are all related to celiac if I'm diagnosed

Scott Benner 59:58
as part of me that thinks I should just put are not an IV drip for a month and the letter stop eating, take her back to like zero and start over again. That did you have to do an elimination diet at first it just cut everything out.

Lindsay 1:00:13
We did our best to just cut everything out. I don't remember. I remember having the conversations with my parents, I remember them going through all of these different foods that we were going to eliminate and that we were going to keep. And I don't remember, like throwing out the kitchen at that time. And you know, starting from zero, but I know that that's what pretty much what we had to do.

Scott Benner 1:00:37
Okay. That's interesting. It really is. I appreciate you talking about this. It's obviously personal. But you were really excited to help and I kind of put the call out I and I appreciate that very much. It's something I just don't understand.

Lindsay 1:00:52
I was just gonna say I'm, I love the podcast, I am somewhat new to it. I think it's been a couple months actually, maybe since Corona started. And being a diabetic for 27 years, it has changed so much of the way that I think about things because you do and I know you've discussed this before you do fall into certain patterns and and just you get complacent with with things sometimes. And it really you've you've helped me, so I'm happy to chat here with you.

Scott Benner 1:01:22
It's very nice. I was wondering if we were going to take a couple minutes to talk about how terrific I was. And this is really a good time for it.

Lindsay 1:01:29
Yeah, you've you've been great. I really do appreciate.

Scott Benner 1:01:32
Yeah, I'm kidding. But thank you. And I'm glad. I'm glad I have to say I'm kidding. For the five people who are like don't understand sarcasm, and they're right now running to like a review somewhere. No, this guy is so full of himself. And he just said that he's great. And I'm like, all right, I gotta get out to the east coast once in a while talk to other people. Lindsey knows she's from right around here. We could probably have done this in person, I'm guessing.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:57
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:02:00
Well, I'm really thrilled that the podcast has been helpful for you. And, and the complacency is something that I find in my own life all the time, where you just sort of you get that drift off, and you're like, Oh, it's only 160? Yeah, fine. You know, and then before you know it, it's three weeks later, and you know, you've got some app that tells you you're a one C, you know is gone up, you know, a half a point, and you're you know, your variability is growing and your standard deviation is getting bigger. And you just think well, what should I do? And you're looking at, I just probably need some more basil here, and then you're done. And it's, you know, something that's, it's pretty easy, just hard to see in the moment. You know, it's one of those. It's one of the macro things where you have to step back and see the whole thing and get out of this minute, two minute, you know, fight that you're in and start thinking about the whole war, I guess, for the

Lindsay 1:02:46
Absolutely, yeah, and I think a lot of it is just really how you're how the human brain handles things. You start something and it's kind of working and you go with it. And then it just continues and maybe it gets worse, and nothing, you can always do better. And that's definitely been brought to light.

Scott Benner 1:03:06
Well, how else right? Could you could you put yourself in a situation where you know that having a slice of pizza is gonna send you into like stomach cramps, and you know, two hours in the bathroom and still the next time you see a pizza, just go Alright, let's do it again. You know, start feeling like Well, I guess this is how my life is. And yeah, I guess it doesn't need to be. Especially if you have beet shoots.

Lindsay 1:03:29
I mean, I there's no comparison.

Scott Benner 1:03:31
If I opened your refrigerator, would I just be like, I don't recognize any of these foods.

Lindsay 1:03:36
No, no, you would you would be I'm sure you'd be fine.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:42
This has a face. What is this?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
What is this?

Scott Benner 1:03:47
Oh my gosh, well, I use very nice that your I guess I was gonna say fiance but obviously not your, your, your guy friend, which I'm assuming is what your mom calls them. That boy, it's very nice that he's doing it with you, you know, as much as he can, like, Yeah, I know. You said he has separate foods that are his but but it's it's very cool. And I think that it's um, it's just to have support around this sort of thing. I don't think can probably be undervalued because you probably feel like you probably felt already pretty alone with diabetes, then add this and am I wrong? Or

Lindsay 1:04:25
you're you're right. The support in any situation, diabetes, celiac or anything in life is really just so important. And even not just with him but with with his family and his parents and, and our friends. All of our friends are they know and they're mindful. So it's just nice to know that people it's nice to know when people think about you and maybe go out of their way to get you something or you know, make dinner a little bit more special for you and it doesn't It's just It's lovely.

Scott Benner 1:05:01
Yeah, no, I can see that. Hey, are there people who do a better job with gluten free foods than others? Like you? Sometimes he didn't just like, does your tongue just come out of your mouth and just let it fall out of your mouth thinking like, Okay, this is terrible. Or, like, where do you find a gluten free bakery? I guess I'm saying like, where do you? How did you crack them, there's

Lindsay 1:05:22
a there's a few. There's, there's actually several in New Jersey. There are there's one down south, it's about an hour and a half from me. And there are several up kind of close to the city. And of course, there's a whole bunch of places in the city. So you, I've just found them through talking to people and Facebook. And it's amazing. I mean, I, I will drive an hour and a half, actually, I, I've run a marathon. And after the marathon was on, I had my mom waiting there with a cinnamon bun. But prior to that, we drove an hour and a half just to get a couple of cinnamon buns for the end of the race, because it's just such an exciting venture to have like this gooey, icing covered cinnamon roll.

Scott Benner 1:06:13
See when you simplify your life, small things can be very exciting. And and that's true. That's really cool. Do you see yourself having a breakdown ever? Or do you think this is something you can just easily do your whole life,

Lindsay 1:06:26
it's something that I will do my whole life. I won't ever voluntarily break down and eat something that's not gluten free. Especially now, I am 33. And we you know, not right away. But we would like to have a baby one day and I definitely don't want to jeopardize my health in any way. So this is gonna be this. Is

Scott Benner 1:06:51
it good for you? Well, I think it's interesting to hear you speak and I'm hoping that other people coming on are gonna kind of follow similarly, that you're not a zealot or a lunatic. And you know, because I think I think there are some people could could easily think Oh, you don't eat gluten, this must be a, you know, just a raving loon, you know, and then, yeah, and you're just clearly a very normal, nice person. So

Unknown Speaker 1:07:14
thank you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:15
that's it. Yeah. Well, you're from Jersey. How could you be a bad person? This is true. By the way. Are you from here? because no one's really from here. Are they?

Unknown Speaker 1:07:22
Oh, I'm from here.

Scott Benner 1:07:22
Oh, I didn't think I was born in New Jersey. I thought we just all ended up here somehow.

Lindsay 1:07:28
We just got lost and ended up here.

Scott Benner 1:07:30
Yeah. Well, I always just think it's a job. You know, like, you get a job and you move to New Jersey or you don't want to live in the city. So you're going to commute? Yeah, I just thought of this as like a holding place for other people. But

Unknown Speaker 1:07:42
yeah, yeah. But I guess no, my

Scott Benner 1:07:43
kids are born in New Jersey. So they're from here. You know, yeah. gotta live with that shame. Now.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:51
It's a good thing.

Scott Benner 1:07:52
No, I actually like it here a lot. I don't I don't. I don't have any trouble with the jersey whatsoever.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:59
No, absolutely not.

Scott Benner 1:08:01
We have pharmaceutical companies and banks. And those circles to make left turns with we have all kinds of stuff.

Lindsay 1:08:08
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, all of our roles and driving habits are like, first foreign to the rest of the country. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:08:16
And what about those beaches where the water doesn't get warm? That's lovely. Did we not say anything that you are going to like five seconds from now? When I say goodbye, go, Oh, my God, how did I not say this? Or do you think we did a good job of explaining it to people?

Lindsay 1:08:33
Um, actually, yeah, there was one thing that I did want to want to discuss real quick was that when I was diagnosed, and when I was diagnosed with diabetes, and I know we are you're the podcast has discussed this before. I had chickenpox prior to the type one diagnosis. And the doctors all thought that that was related. When I was diagnosed with celiac, I had been in a stressful kind of life changing and not necessarily negative stress, but a very stressful long term situation. And all of my doctors also felt that that stress did kind of bring out the celiac, it, you know, your immune system was maybe a little bit compromised, and something just clicked and that's how it happened. So I've read that a lot. My doctors have also kind of agreed with that. And I think that's something to just know that that a lot of people say if you're sick, or if you're under a lot of pressure or stress. That may be the cause of some of these things are not the cause but what actually brings it

Scott Benner 1:09:42
out. Yeah, so everyone sit in the middle of a dark room and hum to yourself for the rest of your life. That's it.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:47
Yeah, just just don't do anything.

Scott Benner 1:09:49
No more interacting. Turn the news off to by the way. Oh, please. Yeah, that's it. It is interesting because as we've been working with Arden and she's getting more frequent blood draws is she trying to figure stuff out every once in a while, like her, like, you know, it's like a every No, it's not like on any schedule, but like, you'll see her white blood cells pop up like she's fighting some sort of an infection or something like that. But you don't you don't see it in her in her life like you don't you wouldn't look at her and go, Oh, she's sick right now, or something like that. But she'll have these white blood cells that indicate an infection fight. And then the next time she has the blood draws, everything's perfect again, right. And it's just interesting, you don't know what your body's going through. And, and the way I like to think about food is this, and I'll leave, I'll leave everyone with us. And I'm certainly not the gold standard for this idea. But I'm trying to be just because your body can process it doesn't mean you should eat it. Right? Just because it goes in your mouth and comes out the other side and you're still alive when it's over doesn't make it a good idea. Not all the time. So I'm trying to figure out what those things are for me, and I think everyone should be doing their best to consider what those things are for them.

Lindsay 1:11:01
I agree. I think that's a great way to think

Scott Benner 1:11:03
yeah, go I really appreciate you doing this. Would you hold on for one second, and thank you.

A huge thank you to Lindsay for coming on the show and sharing all that she knows about type one diabetes and celiac disease. Thanks also to Dexcom, makers of the G six continuous glucose monitor and on the pod makers of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. I also want to thank touched by type one, you'll be able to find all the sponsors at Juicebox Podcast comm or in the show notes of your podcast player. But if you want Dexcom it's dexcom.com forward slash Juicebox. Podcast my omnipod.com forward slash juicebox and touched by type one.org

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Scott Benner 2/8/21 Scott Benner 2/8/21

#438 Poop in a Group

A type 1 diabetes journey

Galen is an adult type 1 who was diagnosed with diabetes as a teen.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone and welcome to Episode 438 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show, we're going to hear an adult father who has type one diabetes himself, look back on his younger self, his diagnosis, and how he got to where he is right now.

Hey everyone, today we're going to talk to Galen Galan is an adult who has type one diabetes is diagnosed as a teen. And things didn't go great in the beginning, but they're going better now. And this is a very retrospective look back on that time. Please remember, while you're listening, that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin.

You may have heard about those diabetes pro tip episodes that I have and defining diabetes episodes, if you're looking for them, and it's hard to find them in a podcast player, sometimes you can check out diabetes pro tip.com. That's my website where they're all sort of collected together. And you can get a good feeling for where they're at. Now, if you want to go back in your app after that, and listen, once you know what episode number you're looking for, it's cool. that'll definitely work. And those defining diabetes episodes, I love them. They're shorter episodes that give you a good firm grasp.

Of all the terminology that's used around diabetes, I hear very often from people who are newly diagnosed, that it all just sounds like a foreign language to them. So those defining diabetes episodes are me and Jenny Smith, talking through specific ideas, given some examples and get me out of there. So that doesn't take too long for you to grasp all the new words that exist in your life. Before we start, I just want to let you know that this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, you can find out more about ardens meter at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. I'd also like it if you check out the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. Last but not least, this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. g evoke hypo Penn. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box.

Galen Hensler 2:41
I'm Galen Hensler. I am 32 years old. I've been type one diabetic for 15, almost 16 years now. So October 27, will be the day that I've had diabetes longer than I have not.

Scott Benner 2:56
I live in Boise, Idaho with my wife and two little kiddos. That's interesting, because your name makes it feel like you're from Sweden or something like

Galen Hensler 3:05
that. Yeah, yeah, I was born in Berkeley. So I think that kind of explains the beard name.

Unknown Speaker 3:14
Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about your hippie parents?

Galen Hensler 3:18
I think that covers it.

Scott Benner 3:21
Are they still with us?

Galen Hensler 3:23
Yeah, so my mom is actually a social work professor in Montana. So she teaches at the University of Montana. And then my dad is retired and living in Oregon.

Scott Benner 3:35
I just figured they were both protesting in the street somewhere right now.

Galen Hensler 3:38
Not you know. I think my mom would be. But uh, yeah, she's she's busy teaching.

Scott Benner 3:44
Oh, that's excellent. How did you end up in Iowa?

Galen Hensler 3:48
Or Idaho,

Scott Benner 3:49
Idaho. I'm sorry. Yeah, Boise, that was fine. I know, they're not both the same place. I just heard I and, you know, go ahead. I'm sorry. I don't

Galen Hensler 3:59
know. No. Um, so my wife and I actually moved out here about three years ago for the job. I guess my previous job here. So we were in Missoula, Montana. I'd been there for about 10 years doing undergrad and then graduate school. And then we both graduated I guess I graduated and looked for a job in Boise Idaho was kind of where we ended up

Scott Benner 4:24
and what function of getting us our baking potatoes are you involved in?

Galen Hensler 4:30
I you know, I am involved in the marketing of the potatoes. Are you seriously? No. No, I I do work in marketing but not not on potato

Scott Benner 4:41
chips. There's got me that's something now I listen. What else is going on? And I'd hope but

Galen Hensler 4:46
school me a little bit. Um, it's beautiful. I would say that. It's so I grew up in Salt Lake City before I moved to Montana. And it's close enough to Salt Lake City where I can go and visit Friends and family that are still there. Nice, but not so close that it's every weekend.

Scott Benner 5:07
The same thing coming at you without saying

Galen Hensler 5:11
100%. And it's like, in the middle of nowhere. So like, nobody's just gonna like pass through Boise.

Scott Benner 5:16
So I have a dream, Galen, seriously of living in the middle of nowhere. I don't know if maybe a lot of people have that feeling of like, I want to get away from everything. But I feel like if I didn't have children that I was trying to say central to as they became adults, you know, or maybe I'll get lucky, and they'll just turn out to be, you know, jackasses and I won't want to be near them very much. Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah, that would be beautiful. Because then I would totally try to mimic Harrison Ford's life. Um, you know, try to find some property that's a mile and a half from the mailbox that kind of Yep. Yeah, that's, that seems really quiet to me. I worry about wild animals. Do you want a gun? You have to shoot things ever that come at your house?

Galen Hensler 6:01
No, you know, so we're actually in the city in Boise. So it's not so horrible. I will say in Montana. My parents lived in stevensville, which is like 30 minutes outside of Montana in Missoula, on like a few acres of land, kind of in the middle of nowhere. So we did get like, wild animals rolling around. So I was never worried about it. But there was one day where I came outside, and there were a bear and a few cubs up in the tree. And that did give me a bit of a reason to leave.

Scott Benner 6:41
I would have put myself in a box and FedEx yourself out of there

Unknown Speaker 6:44
immediately. 100% would have to go. I

Scott Benner 6:46
didn't realize there was a bear here. Why didn't someone tell me and that would be the end of it. I'm sure it's not like that. I only have one experience with a bear. We were in a cabin situation out in California, at Yosemite. And we were walking across from I don't know, like a centralized eating area to back to the cabinet. And there was just a bear walking through. And I recognize that the people who work there did not seem to care and they weren't even aware of it. It was it was, you know, it was like a squirrel was walking through. I felt like you know, it's on. Yeah, and I'm like attacking my children and my wife and we stay here till the end. We'll make a run for to the car and go.

Galen Hensler 7:27
Yeah, seriously?

Scott Benner 7:28
No. Anyway. Okay, so you've, you've had type one for about half your life. Tell me about when you were diagnosed you.

Galen Hensler 7:37
So yeah, when I was diagnosed, I was just turned 16. For like, a few months before, I was just like drinking a ton going up, or like getting up in the middle of night to pee, just like all the classic symptoms. Right? My I have a stepbrother, who's 11 days younger than me. So we're super close. And he would always give me a hard time because I couldn't like see the TV. So like we'd be watching TV and I couldn't read like the score of the football game. So all of the classic symptoms. Yeah. I was playing football at the time. And I do I still credit that to basically saving my life. Or at least making sure I didn't. I was diagnosed in my blood sugar was 990. And I credit kind of football everyday with keeping that below 1000. Is it

Scott Benner 8:32
just do you think the activity was holding it back? As much as Yeah, because you were really you were running towards the I'm assuming they told you you were in DK. What was the what was the final thing that happened? couldn't lift your hands fell over what?

Galen Hensler 8:45
So I was actually on a road trip with my mom and we were driving. And I couldn't read the road signs as we passed them. So we came home and she started doing some research and I just I remember one day she picked me up from school. And I got in the car and we drove to this like urgent care I think it was Yeah, and they tested my blood sugar. I just like one of their meters there and it was air or Hi. Hi. Megan said hi. Did you

Scott Benner 9:13
actually mom I can't read the street signs.

Galen Hensler 9:17
Yeah, okay. Yep. Yeah, and she was like, like we road tripped a lot when I was growing up so like we were like really good with like we're getting in the car and we're driving to wherever going even if it's like 12 hours away and we're not stopping how many Femina went out rallies Have

Scott Benner 9:29
you been to? Just kidding I quite a few. Yeah, I was gonna say I don't have any problem with that. I just thinking maybe a little Galan has been been in a couple of seasons of people holding signs once or twice in his life.

Galen Hensler 9:43
You know, it was actually dog shows which isn't that far off. rallies, but yeah, like all over. But for the trips. This last trip I just remember we'd stop like every hour so I could be so we got home. I think my mom did some research. got into the car. And she later told me she was like, your breath smells like, like fruit, like you smelt so sweet. So I remember we went to the urgent care, blood sugar was off the charts there and they're like, you need to go to the ER. My mom was actually working at the Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. So we went there. And it was, like a few days before Halloween, and I just remember, the one thing I'll never forget is the nurse came in and was like, you know, eat whatever you want. This is last time you're gonna be able to eat without taking insulin. So, uh, yeah, I was in the hospital for a couple days and

Scott Benner 10:42
got trained and a lot of people get the the last meal. Yeah, from from medical staff. It's uh,

Unknown Speaker 10:49
it's weird. Yeah.

Scott Benner 10:51
Would you like? Would you like a horrible last meal to? Hi high anything at all you want from the hospital cafeteria? Exactly. Last free meal of your lifetime? Yep. Did you want the jello? It's not good. How did they screw the jello out? By the way? That's fascinating.

Galen Hensler 11:09
But it probably sits there for a couple weeks. Yeah, no, it's bad.

Scott Benner 11:14
What's the What's it like being 16 and suddenly having everything about your life change.

Galen Hensler 11:21
Um, it was hard. So I definitely went through a period of, I'm not diabetic. So for like six months, when I was like, regular seeing my endocrinologist, I was like, really good. And then probably around 17 and a half, like senior year of high school, I just kind of denied it. But for that, first, I would say there's a lot as crappy as diabetes is, I was lucky. Like I said, my mom worked at the hospital. She's a social worker. I said, as a social worker. I had a teacher, who I was taking a class from that was type one diabetic. Like, my endocrinologist was my best friend's uncle. So like, these weird connections, it just, it made my life easier.

Scott Benner 12:14
So a fair amount of support around you. But yeah, yeah, some point you just deny having diabetes. I wonder what that looks like? What does it look like to just say, this is not happening to me? Do you stop taking care of it?

Galen Hensler 12:25
Or Yeah, it's like stop testing, stop giving insulin. At the time, I was on multiple daily injections. And it was I would say I would like take lantis maybe. But not bossing for food. blood sugar's are running, you know, probably in the high, two hundreds, low, three hundreds. And this went on for probably at least a couple months. I'm just not, you know, it's I want to be a senior in high school. I don't want to be different. Just let

Scott Benner 13:01
it go. You just let it go to do the things who Yep, catches that. and turns it back for you? Is it yourself for people around you? How does that happen?

Galen Hensler 13:11
It was it was me and probably my mom. Like my mom, I said, was a social worker, she worked at the Children's Hospital. She's been involved in, you know, just supporting people going through tough times for her career. So

Scott Benner 13:29
it's not hidden. She's aware of your ambivalence at that point.

Galen Hensler 13:35
It took a while. I would say that,

Scott Benner 13:37
okay.

Galen Hensler 13:38
Like she was not. I was 16. So I was obviously giving myself shots, and checking blood sugar myself, like all of that. But I think eventually, it's like when your blood sugar is running it to 50 for two weeks. Like you're not functioning at 100%. And I I get really pissy when my blood sugar's high. Yeah. So I think she caught on, you know, after a while, and then when it didn't get better, she,

Scott Benner 14:05
she stepped in. It's very interesting. I mean, I know you have children who are younger, but I was just speaking about this with a friend of mine the other day, actually, Adam Needleman, who's been on the show before. And I said, it's this, you know, I was talking about my son is like, He's a good kid. And so I don't want to be up as asked all the time. Ya know, and at the same time, you're trying to stay involved, you know, so that you kind of know what's going on, but you don't feel like you're being pushy. And he doesn't feel like he needs it. But at the same time, I'm sure there's a ton about him that I don't know. And yeah, you know, like, so you're just trying to stay your interest. I mean, for me, I'm interested, right, like, and I want to be involved. I don't want him to feel like I'm pushing him or that he doesn't have a little room to figure things out on his own. And that's great in a normal scenario, but not if your blood sugar's 250 all the time, like you know, yeah, then you need somebody to go Hey, go And I was wondering, could you stop being an idiot and, you know, start listing out, but but you're not being an idiot, really, you're trying to give yourself space to do the other things that didn't feel I guess it didn't feel possible to do diabetes and live at the same time is Yeah, it's just

Galen Hensler 15:18
yeah, you know, like I said, I had a stepbrother, the same age, and we, you know, would go out and it's like, I want to be able to go like, eat dinner with friends and not have to worry about running and checking my blood sugar, or running to the bathroom and shooting up. So like, it's easier just sit there and have dinner and hang out. And yeah, ignore it.

Scott Benner 15:40
So it was the it was for you? Was it the actual process of having to test having to inject or did you not want anybody to see? Did you know, that part?

Galen Hensler 15:50
So I didn't really care about that part. Like, from as long as I remember, I've never had a problem with like, whipping out my needles and shooting myself in the arm. It's more of just taking a step back. I remember when I was diagnosis that it was a 62nd. Disease a day. So like, every day, you're dealing with it for like 60 seconds. And I remember, it became clear pretty quick that it's like, there's no way this is 60 seconds. It's like, you know, I was trying to think this morning. It's like, I'm thinking about diabetes. Like, every moment of the day, it's just checking in on how I feel checking my blood sugar, you know, am I gonna eat in a couple minutes? Am I drinking coffee, like, what is what's happening in my body. And that, I think I just got burnt out really quick of, I don't want to have to think about what my blood sugar is doing. I don't want to have to think about giving insulin. I don't want to have to count carbs. I don't have to worry about if I exercise and my blood sugar is gone, though. Like I just want to I just want to get back to normal life.

Scott Benner 16:57
Was there any feeling that you, you know, you got lied to when they said it was a 62nd disease? Was there? Like when that was told you were like, Oh, that's not bad. Like, I'll just do this thing and then I'll be okay. And then you realize that's not the case? Do you feel like there was a bait and switch? Or?

Galen Hensler 17:12
I don't, I don't really feel like there is a bait and switch. I just feel like it's, you know, I think it's something that just doctors would tell people to make it less intimidating early on.

Scott Benner 17:26
I always think they don't want you to drive off a bridge on the way home. So they're like, exactly, I'll be bad. They'll probably hear it soon. Even they'll be fine.

Galen Hensler 17:33
Yeah, within five years, you'll be cured. Don't

Scott Benner 17:35
worry about it just didn't look it Look, inject it into the banana. See how easy that was? That's what you'll remember. I had an orange to get an orange. I remember injecting

Galen Hensler 17:43
into an orange. And but yeah, it's like they they they make it seem like it's not a huge, huge deal. Checking your blood sugar takes five seconds. You know giving insulin takes 30 seconds to drop the insulin and shoot yourself in the arm. Yeah, but it's there's there's so much more to it than that, that people even without diabetes don't get you know, so doctors that are trying to explain this to people just don't really understand unless you've been through it.

Scott Benner 18:12
So did you for the lack of a better term. Did you pull it together before college? Or did this persist into college?

Galen Hensler 18:18
No, I was lucky I kind of got a group in a group before I went off to college. And I kind of bounced around between graduating high school, doing a semester in college in Logan, Utah, and then went back to Salt Lake worked full time for a bit and then my parents went to Montana. I followed them up there and started school there.

Scott Benner 18:46
You know what I'm doing right now while you're talking? Right? I'm writing down poop in a group as a possible race at the end of this story. You come out victorious. This one's going to be called Getting your poop in a group and Okay, it's your fault. Just so you know.

Unknown Speaker 19:04
I'll own it.

Scott Benner 19:05
I never heard anyone say that before. And I was my brain went poop in a group.

Unknown Speaker 19:09
Oh my God. He

Scott Benner 19:10
means together. This is fantastic. That I grabbed my pen. So thank you so much. You guys are all your worst enemies. Just so you know when you're going so true. Yeah. But but that's fantastic. Is that a colloquialism that's local to you.

Galen Hensler 19:30
No, it's me. Try not to swear so my daughter doesn't hear me and repeat it.

Scott Benner 19:34
She's gonna curse Don't worry about it. You can't Oh 100% Yeah. I Arden just asked me about Coronavirus. The other day she goes when the f are we getting out of this house? I was like is it gotten to that point yet? She's like, I really need to get out of here and I was like, Alright, well, I said, sweetie, I'm not sure what's about to happen. But we'll know. I think it's mid July or not quite mid July right now. And There's as much of me that thinks that this is about to get worse, you know? So yeah, yep. Like, oh geez, why don't we wait a little while longer? Find another corner of the house to stare at? You're gonna love it. How old are your kids?

Galen Hensler 20:14
I have a three year old and a one year old. Wow. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:17
yeah, that's kind of better, at least. I mean, maybe not for you and your wife as much as them. But, you know, at least they're not like, Oh, we never get out of here.

Galen Hensler 20:25
Yeah, and we were lucky. We live right behind the school. And obviously the school is out so we can go over there and walk around and play in the field and nice. Get out of the house. But yeah, it's definitely it's been. It's been a long lockdown.

Scott Benner 20:38
Yeah, no kidding. And you can't walk through a potato field because it's all lumpy. So yeah, you gotta go find somewhere else. Really? Yeah.

Galen Hensler 20:44
Yeah. It's Idaho. So it's leaving the state really to find a field. That's not

Scott Benner 20:49
I don't imagine that it's not just border to border. Just Vados? I don't know this. Bruce Willis live there. Where is he? I Oh, damn it. Am I am I I'll figure that out while you answer your next question. Are you so you're in college, you've got your stuff together. It's going pretty well, but I'm looking at your note here a little bit. Do you develop an eating disorder in college? Or how does what happened? Yeah,

Galen Hensler 21:16
so that was, that was I would say, right, when I moved to Montana, I kind of got burned out. Again, this was probably less severe.

But similar, like cutting down on insulin, and I just started basically running a lot.

Scott Benner 21:38
Okay, um,

Galen Hensler 21:40
so I would, I was down to like, 140. So I lost probably like 40 or 50 pounds. Well, I've just giving less insulin. And this was like, I wouldn't say in high school, and I got burned out. It was like basically no insulin. When I moved to Montana, it was more of I'm just going to run a lot and give insulin and try and keep my blood sugar. If I'm hitting 250 that's fine. I just wanted to stay below 250. So yeah, got it just wasn't it wasn't a healthy time.

Scott Benner 22:30
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How often do you think to yourself, hmm, my agency doesn't match what I'm getting with my blood glucose meter. The meter is telling me one thing, but then I get my agency done three months later, things aren't jiving. Or maybe you have a continuous glucose monitor. And it says one thing and the meter says another thing and that just leaves you confused. I remember this happening with my daughter. And it was not fun, just these two different numbers. And they left you feeling unsettled. But since Arden has moved to the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, I don't live through that any longer. And ardens a one sees very closely match our expectations. My point is, is that technology gets better. And you should keep up, especially when it comes to your blood glucose meter because you make so many important decisions based on that number. Head over to Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. And you can learn all about the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. For instance, it uses test strips that offer Second Chance testing, meaning you can touch the blood not get enough, go back and get some more and still get an accurate test. Without wasting the strip. It's possible that you could be eligible for a free meter, it's possible that you could buy the meter in cash and it'd be cheaper than you buying it or another meter through your insurance. There's so much to find out and all the information you need is at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. There's links in the show notes for contour for G Vogue. And for the T one D exchange because I'm going to ask you to head over there as well. P one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. If you're a caregiver, or a type one who lives in the United States, you can add very simple data to what the T one D exchange is doing. They ask you these super simple questions about life or diabetes there Not long answers, I think it must have taken me about seven minutes to do the entire thing. I did it right from my phone, you could do it from your computer. It's easy. And this information helps the T one D exchange to move things for for people living with type one. I give you all the examples all the time, but they're there, read about them at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You could very easily make life for other type ones and yourself much better and support the podcast. Alright, let's get back to the show.

So you were purposefully manipulating the insulin to lose weight? Yeah. Did you feel like you had a weight issue?

Galen Hensler 25:56
Yes. Um,

Unknown Speaker 25:59
yeah,

Scott Benner 26:00
we like 190. What do you five? Five?

Galen Hensler 26:01
I am six foot.

Scott Benner 26:03
How are you at? 190? That seems like a good way for me. No.

Galen Hensler 26:08
Um, it probably was right. But it was more of Yeah, it just, it was a weird period, I would say moving to Montana, not really knowing anybody not really knowing what to do with myself. This was early in my college days. So just just to get in

Scott Benner 26:29
your own head, do you think? Yeah,

Galen Hensler 26:31
yeah, definitely.

Scott Benner 26:32
That's interesting. That's really interesting. Because, you know, obviously, any kind of eating disorder is not I don't think, you know, you couldn't call it sensible. Like, you're like, Oh, I'm, I'm at the perfect weight, but I'm just gonna lose weight, you know, like, so. I mean, obviously, that's that aside, it's just interesting to hear that you were at what I would consider. I mean, a reasonable weight for your height, and especially your age. Yeah. Were you just trying to make yourself inhospitable to bear attack? Perhaps you're like, maybe if I get small enough these things? I think it's not worth the effort.

Galen Hensler 27:03
Yeah. Not worth it. If I just practice running, I can get faster than them. Just outrun the bears.

Scott Benner 27:08
Are you aware of it while it's happening? Are you like I'm manipulating my insulin? I this is not healthy.

Galen Hensler 27:13
Hold on. I think I lost you.

Scott Benner 27:16
Hello. Hello. You say goodbye. Can I say hello? Hello? Hello?

Galen Hensler 27:26
Scott. Can you hear me?

Scott Benner 27:27
I can. Can you hear me?

Unknown Speaker 27:30
Oh, no.

Unknown Speaker 27:32
This is weird.

Scott Benner 27:35
I am going to

Unknown Speaker 27:44
can you hear me?

Unknown Speaker 27:48
What?

Galen Hensler 27:52
Alright, can you hear me now?

Scott Benner 27:54
I can hear you the whole time. Can you hear me?

Galen Hensler 27:56
I can hear you now know what you do. I think vice speaker my airpots died. Oh.

Scott Benner 28:05
Yeah. And when you can't count on $240 small pieces of plastic. What do you really? I can't believe you didn't charge your air pods for this.

Galen Hensler 28:15
I you know, I did her. Eating before

Scott Benner 28:19
hurts my feelings. Just so you know.

Unknown Speaker 28:21
Oh, sorry.

Scott Benner 28:24
No, get yourself situated. And we'll go back.

Galen Hensler 28:26
Okay, I'm gonna have some other speakers. This whole work from home thing is?

Scott Benner 28:38
Yeah, my dining room looks like what I imagined Kelly's office looks like and it's not pleasant.

Galen Hensler 28:44
You know, we, uh, my wife is in graduate school right now. So we turned our walk in closet, in our apartment, into our office. And it is just hot mess.

Scott Benner 28:58
Honey, get in the closet. This is where it's gonna happen.

Unknown Speaker 29:00
Just everyday just come out of closet.

Scott Benner 29:04
It'll be an awakening for you every day. At the end of the work. You'll be like, I'm free again. By the way, Bruce Willis just recently sold his $5.5 million. Idaho ranch. It is beautiful.

Unknown Speaker 29:15
She is

Scott Benner 29:16
new. He lived in Idaho. Because I think I think dummy lives there still and that's not again, I'm not being mean. I believe that's how she wants her name pronounced. Any of you who lived through the 80s and 90s will hear that joke and no one else will understand that there was a time where Demi Moore ran around telling people Her name was to me. So I'm I'm the only one that apparently is gonna remember that but for you all people out there Enjoy your giggle. GALEN gets his headset together while and I figure out if Demi Moore lives in Idaho? Cuz I'm telling you she does who she does Are you rich Galen cuz I have houses seem very expensive.

Galen Hensler 29:55
I wish

Scott Benner 30:00
My gosh. As a matter of fact, but yeah, I can, by the way, as a matter of fact it during the beginning of COVID Bruce went to live with me and her family and I think she's

Unknown Speaker 30:15
Wait, what is this?

Scott Benner 30:17
Oh, and he got split from his current family to stay with Demi's the scary accent behind Demi Moore and Bruce Willis is COVID-19. quarantine. I'm not gonna read that. But apparently Bruce Willis got stuck quarantine with his ex wife instead of his actual life. Photos of the mirror and matching pajamas and oh, that's comfortable. Honey, I'll be honest to this crowd is over. I'm just hanging out with me. Seriously, I wish this is the first time I found myself wishing I could take a phone call to like to see if somebody goes. I remember when she wanted to be called dummy. It was hilarious. My gosh, anyway, you're good. I'm good. All right. So it's a nice interlude. I'm leaving all that in, by the way. Okay, while you could hear me, I was singing it was terrific. So when you're consciously doing that, and so you have you have the sort of, you know, intellectual, emotional, you know, ability to say, I'm doing something that's not healthy for me to get this result. Yep. I mean, that's a weird headspace to be in, is there any way you can explain how that feels?

Galen Hensler 31:32
Um, I think it's thinking long term versus thinking short term. So you know, having your blood sugar, run it to 50 isn't going to kill you tomorrow. And I knew that, and it was me thinking, Okay, I, you know, I want to lose some weight, I want to, you know, just kind of deal with a little bit of burnout right now and not think about it as much. So let me let my blood sugar run high a little bit. Yeah, knowing that it's going to take you know, I won't see the effects of this. Or the major effects. Obviously, there are some short term effects, but I'm not gonna see the effects of it for a while. So it's okay to let it happen for a bit.

Scott Benner 32:19
Did you see it? Looking back? Did you see it as a psychological issue? Like was your appearance was so important to your that the idea that this needed to happen, or you were Joe,

Galen Hensler 32:29
I don't, I don't think it was ever like, worrying about my appearance as much. Because really, I was like, I just moved to Montana, I was living basically in the middle of nowhere. Like, didn't really see anybody except my family. And then, like friends in Salt Lake who like play video games and chat. It was just more of again, just, you know, the burnout of not wanting to deal with it as much and having other I'm good,

Scott Benner 33:02
no, I was gonna say, I guess the real fear ends up being that you could get stuck in that forever. And and that burnout, because then what the high blood sugar's due to your kind of your ability to think about, yes, you could just get stuck there. Like, yeah, like any bad sci fi movie where somebody takes you to a place where you, you just have to realize you're there to get away from it. Yeah. And instead, you just give over to, you know, the good, you know, the quote, unquote, good parts of what you're saying. And you're like, um, I keep my weight down, it's fine. You know, and you can keep saying these are long, long term, like, I can stop it whenever I want. Yeah, I guess the real problem is that a lot of people can't stop it, because they're being pushed more through the psychological impact of being concerned about how they feel, or they have some actual, you know, issue. Totally where, where they feel like they don't look the way they want to, quote unquote, but you know, even if that's not true, and if they're the only one seeing it, we I guess makes it true for them. It's interesting, I didn't know we didn't really feel like we'd be talking about this. So yeah, still wrapping my head around it a little bit. But it's, I'm thinking now, this is gonna sound terrible, but I knew a kid in high school who was really heavy. And he tried and couldn't do anything about it. And you know, he eventually it was keeping in mind, it was the end of the 80s he decided that cocaine was the way to lose weight. And it worked. He was real skinny by the time Yeah, he was done, but his life for the next 15 years was a disaster. Yeah. And thinking of that group of people now. And there's no way any of them are going to listen to this podcast. I feel like I'm good here. They're all a different mass in some way or another and one of them's dead. Yeah, and and had a terrible heart attack when you know in early 40s, mid 40s And if I could describe that his life was exactly how you might imagine somebody who's you know, recreationally and consistently using cocaine through their 20s and 30s. And pulls himself together in his late 30s. Go to school, becomes an attorney is practicing, meets a woman has a baby, and drops that cheese. And so I wonder if when he was 20 if somebody would have said to him, Hey, listen, man, when you're 43, you're gonna die with a newborn? Like, you know, you're gonna go through all this. And I wonder how that would have impacted his first decision. And I? And I don't, you know, obviously, yours didn't go on very. How long did you do this for?

Galen Hensler 35:44
Probably. I would say I got insulin and eating under control within six months,

Scott Benner 35:53
okay. So you're not gonna have I mean, likely have any long term complications from it? But But what if you would have got stuck in it? Yeah. And many people do, right? Yeah. Okay. So you, you get that you put that poop back in or to a group? And Yep, your poop gets scattered a lot.

Galen Hensler 36:12
It does. Yeah.

Scott Benner 36:14
You just got to run around and like, just push it all back together again, and head off again. That's, let's find out where else you get scattered. Let's keep moving forward. When do you meet that lovely girl who you jammed into her closet.

Galen Hensler 36:29
So she was actually a student of my mom's at the university. So she was a social work major. My mom's teaching social work at the time. And we ran into each other a lot, just like around basically, my mom's office slash the social work department. And we were, you know, chat and friendly. And that went on for like, two years. And then a couple weeks before we both graduated, actually sent her a friend request on Facebook, and said, we should hang out. And literally the next day, we got coffee. And I think we hung out every day for like the next

Unknown Speaker 37:15
couple months.

Galen Hensler 37:18
And then propose, like six months later, and got married couple months after that, and been together for five years now married for over five years. Wow.

Scott Benner 37:29
When do you propose when you realize you can't believe she's still with you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, well, this girl's not figuring it out.

Galen Hensler 37:37
Gotta lock it down.

Unknown Speaker 37:38
Why does she not look at me and go, what am I doing here? She's gonna figure it out. Eventually. I gotta do something.

Galen Hensler 37:44
I thought she would. But

Scott Benner 37:47
well, he she's the kind of girl who will accept a closet as an office so amenable to all kinds of things. Yes.

Galen Hensler 37:53
Yeah. No, she's great.

Scott Benner 37:54
It's funny. That's great. Good for you. I don't want to jump around too much. But have you gotten an answer? I'm looking at your notes though. Your daughter had your which daughter, the three year old?

Galen Hensler 38:06
So? Yeah, my three year old? Um, yeah. So this is kind of the ongoing story of our life. And January 2019. So last January. I was at work one day and got a call from my wife during a meeting. I thought it was weird, but I just ignored it. And then I texted her and she was like, No, something's wrong, like call me. From what I can tell. My daughter Berkeley had a hypoglycemic seizure. And my wife was there, she called 911. And then called me I started driving home. Paramedics came, paramedics did not check her blood sugar, which I find weird, took her vitals and said she was fine and left. I got home, probably about 20 minutes later. Berkeley like ran to me when I came in the door. And she just looked off. And had I not been type one obviously, I wouldn't have thought anything. Like we would have just taken her to the ER but she looked, she looked like she was low. So I checked your blood sugar. It was 41 huh? And we started giving her honey. Check your blood sugar again, probably about 10 minutes later and it was 37. So we call 911. Again, paramedics came long story short, we ended up in the ER she saw my daughter had basically was not able to like move the left side of her body and we think probably part of the seizure. Did all the scans were in the ER for a couple hours, did a bunch of scans or a bunch of tests, everything came back normal sent us to the Children's Hospital here. We were there for two nights, I think two or three nights. And basically just ran a bunch of tests. Everything came back normal.

Unknown Speaker 40:23
As it happened to me and since then.

Galen Hensler 40:26
So when we left the hospital, they basically said, like, we don't know what's going on. So my wife and I, again, kind of luck of the draw that I'm type one diabetic. I know about, you know, counting carbs and like different food groups and like, what? Like, I'm more aware of food, I would say than the normal person. Yeah. So we were checking Berkeley's blood sugar. I mean, we we kept a little log, and it was ridiculous. I think we checked her 30 times a day, at least.

I was waking up every two hours in the night to check her blood sugar. Just because we didn't we didn't know what was going on.

Scott Benner 41:12
Were you in a panic, she was just gonna die.

Galen Hensler 41:14
Yeah, 100% pressure comes from 100%. And, you know, again, it's like when my wife calls me and says Burke was having a seizure. This obviously never happened before. So it came out of the blue hit like a ton of bricks. And we did everything we could to like, make sure that didn't happen again. Pretty quickly, we realized that it seemed like dairy, made her blood sugar go down. So we would if she had yogurt or milk, her blood sugar would start to dip. And we'd have to correct. So we basically have been avoiding dairy milk. Is that working? It is?

Scott Benner 42:01
Have you gotten any kind of answer about why that?

Galen Hensler 42:04
No. Nope. And we've had, so she's had genetic tests done. Every like literally every test has come back normal. So she's been charged for, like pre markers for diabetes. Just everything seems to be normal that we've tested for.

Scott Benner 42:25
Wow. Yes. Incredibly odd. I hope you find an answer to that and share it with me, by the way.

Galen Hensler 42:30
Yeah, excuse me know me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:32
that's fascinating. And I know a bit about, like, seeing stuff like that. And just being perplexed by it. I, I've mentioned on the show, I think before, but my body doesn't appear to hold on to ferritin. So like, you give me a CBC, and my blood tests are all my values are perfect. I look fine, like you know, except my ferritin is 13.

Unknown Speaker 42:53
Interesting.

Scott Benner 42:54
And hold on a second. I'm sorry. And then I go get an infusion and it goes back up again. And these symptoms that I have, which are really weird, like, I think it's called paraesthesia. But I get like a little electrical feeling on the right side of my skull lesion. And if that's not painful, or anything like that, it just get like it feels like somebody like touches a nine volt battery to my tongue, but on the side of my head for a split second. When I feel that I start thinking, Okay, my father must be starting to go down, then my muscle tone goes away. Like I've changed nothing else about my life. But however, please don't get me wrong. I'm not lifting weights or anything like that. But, but my normal muscle tone begins to lessen it gets a little jelly ish. And then I start having weird reactions to things. And so what I would say to that is that you know, it, you might just say, I'm overreacting, like if you think of someone who's overreacting, but there's a fogginess that comes around it. And I just sort of something happens. And as I'm responding to it, it's usually like a more tense thing, right? Or, I don't know, you'll say something to me. And where I would not normally be flippant or dismissive. Like I just sort of em, and that if it goes into a conversation, the words coming out of my mouth don't match how I feel or what I'm thinking. It's, it's and I'm not it's not disassociated or anything like that. You understand what I mean, but it's Yeah, it's I have a hard time. Not saying, I guess the worst of all the options of what to say, Sure, I get the ferritin it all just goes away.

Galen Hensler 44:39
Interesting.

Scott Benner 44:40
And so my son's home from school, gets his, um, you know, his well visit. And, you know, the girls have hypothyroidism and, you know, with diabetes and everything, so I just say to the doctor, can I get a baseline on coal when you do his blood tests? He's like, Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So You know, everything's fine. It's thyroid level. I mean, you should see the kids like, seriously, it looks like an underwear model. You can run forever. You know what I mean? Like there's there's nothing about his life that would make you think something's wrong with him. Yeah, physically. And Adam called and we talked about it. Hold on one second, I cannot get my throat clear. It's probably Corona just stuck right there in the back. Sorry. Um, you know, if I end up with Corona, people are gonna be like, you shouldn't have joked about that. Seriously. My joking, it's not gonna stop me from getting sick or getting sick. But, but so I hear back colds blood tests are amazing. He's like, they're better than amazing. He's like, his CBC is absolutely. It's it's like everybody wants the CBC, his cholesterol, his thyroid levels are fine. Everything is good is a one C was five, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is ferritin 20. It's incredibly low. And I'm like, Oh, my God, we there's some genetic thing, but he doesn't have any symptoms of it. So I don't know. Like, it's just a strange thing. when something like that happens to you that that then doctors go. Well, I mean, I wouldn't worry about it. If it's not causing a problem. Yeah, that's a weird answer to get,

Galen Hensler 46:13
you know, yeah. No, it really is. So

Scott Benner 46:15
is that the answer? You got? Like, don't give her milken go live your life. But how do you do that? Yeah,

Galen Hensler 46:22
I mean, that the answer that. So I mean, like, we've traveled like, we've gone down to Salt Lake. We've seen a couple doctors up here. Everybody gives the same answer. Like, everything looks good. Maybe she'll grow out of it. Right. And so it's been 18 months now. And still, you know, she got the day had a not low but you know, in the 60s and acting some dramatic? Like still happening that outgrowing it. It doesn't really give us as parents any peace of mind to be a comfort with that. Yeah, yeah, like, outgrow it when? You know, and that's not an answer. No, it's Yeah, it's like, what are we supposed to do when we send her to kindergarten? Like, just? Like, how do we deal with this throughout her life? Where it's always been? Or it's always gonna be like, Maybe, maybe not? Maybe today, she'll outgrow it? Maybe not.

Scott Benner 47:23
I wonder if her doctor couldn't prescribe a Dexcom Pro study for.

Galen Hensler 47:28
And that's. So we actually have a appointment with her endo, next week. And that's kind of what I'm trying to push for is just give us a Dexcom for her. Yeah, so we can see. Because again, it's like she's three years old. She takes a nap during the day. Sometimes she'll wake up and like below when she wakes up. And it's nice to know.

Scott Benner 47:52
Well, you might be able to find a pattern more of a pattern. Yeah, maybe finding the pattern would point to something. I wish you luck. I'm sorry. We got sidetracked on that. But that's really

Galen Hensler 48:00
No, no, you're fine. It's super. Yeah, it's definitely the case of our family of everybody's trying to figure out what's going on with poor Burke.

Scott Benner 48:09
Well, by the way, this poop in a group thing might get sent away because you're a bit of a hypocrite because you've mocked your mother in the beginning. Being from Berkeley and calling you Galen, and then you named your baby Berkeley. So yeah,

Unknown Speaker 48:21
it's true.

Scott Benner 48:22
GALEN is a hypocrite. But he's now second on my list.

Galen Hensler 48:28
That's fine. We actually Her name is actually Berkeley rose. And there's a Berkeley rose garden. So

Scott Benner 48:34
yeah, that's very nice. I'm just kidding. It's so wonderful. It's a lovely name. It really is.

Galen Hensler 48:38
It is but it's definitely for Berkeley, the city that you know, was born in and grew up in. So

Scott Benner 48:42
how is the one year old? Saskatchewan she okay. Things are good that

Galen Hensler 48:46
a one year old is actually Lincoln?

Unknown Speaker 48:49
and Nebraska.

Galen Hensler 48:51
Yeah, it not Nebraska. It just, honestly, I don't know. We just like the name Lincoln. So we ended up going with Lincoln.

Scott Benner 48:59
I'm not I'm not. I'm not breaking your balls overnight. It's fine. It's easy, like, Link? Is that a is that? Yeah. Yeah. It's not like that. Yeah. Plus, you're not matching anything with your last name. So it doesn't matter. Hey, listen, this is the point in the podcast where I tell you I don't care and it means nothing to me. But because of the podcast history. I'm remise. You've mentioned Utah a number of times any chance you're Mormon?

Galen Hensler 49:23
No, I was raised LDS. But I am not. I would say I am far removed from the church. Ah,

Scott Benner 49:30
gotcha. But you were there at one point.

Galen Hensler 49:33
I was there at one point up until I was 18.

Scott Benner 49:35
I'm counting you on the tally. Just so you know. At some point, one day, I'm getting an answer. I really am. Because this podcast is listened to everywhere. Really everywhere. And I mean, I gotta be up to 10 by now, right? Like I'm getting close. Like I there's Yeah, I don't know something's going on.

Unknown Speaker 49:56
That's weird.

Scott Benner 49:57
I need to study of diabetes and Utah. That's what I seriously. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So, you know, with all this, it's sort of happened to you and and, you know, currently with your daughter and previously with yourself. You mentioned that, you know, when we were talking, you know, through email, you mentioned that you really feel like attitude has a lot to do with diabetes. And I was wondering how that manifested for you and how you put it into practice?

Galen Hensler 50:25
Yeah, so you know, when I was going through, when I first moved to Montana was kind of going through the struggle there. Once I started getting into school, I got a job, I was kind of forced to start taking care of myself again, to basically feel normal. So when your blood sugar's around 250, you're just not feeling great. And just kind of realizing that I feel so much better when my blood sugar is controlled. And being able to, to know that there's a benefit and taking care of yourself. And I think I mentioned this in the email, but I graduated with my undergrad and then moved into law school. I got engaged, my first semester of law school, got married, my second semester of law school. And then we had Berkeley, my last year of law school. So law school was kind of a whirlwind. And I think that's where I kind of really buckled down on, on knowing that you have to put limits on everything. And what I mean by that is, law school takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. But I was also newly engaged, newly married, had a new kid. So I got in a very good habit of really looking at law school, like a job. And you know, from nine to five hours, I was working at law school, and then I would come home and hang out with my wife. And, you know, do that basically every day.

Scott Benner 52:08
And you can't do those things when your blood sugar's high, and you can't focus and all the other problems that it comes exactly,

Galen Hensler 52:15
yep, you really have to, you have to change the my mom's favorite saying is like, change the channel. So you have to, like change the channel of your mind. Like, like diabetes sucks. Like, there's no if ands or buts about that. But there's no like denying it doesn't do anything to help you. Right? I think that's kind of what I really came to. It's like, I cannot take insulin, and I can feel horrible. Or I can just it, I can just suck it up and be like, this is the hand I was dealt. It sucks. And again, I've said this a few times now, but like, I'm lucky, like, I have never had gaps in my insurance. I've always been able to get insulin like I've never felt like I was rationing insulin. Like you said, I had a great support system. My wife has been amazingly supportive. Like as, as horrible as diabetes is a lucky one. And just kind of realizing that it's, it's the hand you're dealt, and you just got to do what you like the best you can.

Scott Benner 53:23
So there's nothing to point to then you can't say that you had an epiphany or you employed a certain thing. I think that's important for people to know, like, you recognize that. And then you just consciously said, I have to change this. Yeah, right. It's not there's no, there's not a book to read, or, you know, a seminar to go to or something like that. You just you, you have to be an adult and look and say, you know, the alternative is not good. If there is going to be long term consequences. If I keep going like this and short term, I'm cheating myself out of the things I'm trying to do. totally right. So but

Galen Hensler 53:58
i think i think there's a there's a power that comes from recognizing it yourself. Versus, you know, like reading a book and changing your behavior because of a book. I think that's fleeting. I think it's, you know, you can watch an inspirational talk and you know, want to change your life, but until you like, internalize it until it's like coming from you. Yeah, it doesn't stick. And, obviously, you know, I've gone through ups and downs where I've taken better care of myself, and not so great care of myself. But at the end of the day, it's like these little periods of, of burnout. They don't last long. Because I know, you know, like, especially now having kids, it's like, I have to take care of my better care of myself. And then just knowing like, you feel so much better when you're in control. And the time it takes to be in control is worth worth taking that time. So I'm not sitting there worrying about, you know what my blood sugar is doing.

Scott Benner 54:57
Well, I think that you by about it like this. I think that's as helpful as anything because you're a person that did it. Like, it's easy to, like, it's easy to say, you know, oh, I read a book, this guy has all these ideas or there's quotes or inspiration that's bold. That's not somebody that did it. That's somebody who's saying it like you did it. And just because you can't exactly quantify how you did, it doesn't mean that that's, that's not inspirational. I mean, just the idea that it can be done, I think is is really more important than anything else. And I have to tell you that while I don't have type one, obviously, the idea of burnout seems reductive to me. Like it seems like an oversimplification of something. And I don't know what it is, but I keep hoping that through these conversations, we're gonna find out. Yeah, you know what I mean? Because, I mean, I don't have, again, I don't have to take insulin, right. I don't have that pressure, that stress in my life, but my life has not been particularly terrific. Along the way, you know, at every step. And there's something about that persistence, that I know I have that persistence, like, I don't give up. Yeah. And and I don't know why that is. And I mean, like, emotionally physically, if things don't look good, I am internally hopeful person. Yeah. And, and I don't know why. But if that's not your case, if you're more pessimistic, and it's funny, I'm incredibly pessimistic about most things, but not the big things. Sure. It's, it's strange, like on on a low level, like, you know, I see something happened, oh, my God, this is gonna go to hell. You know, like, like, I don't see anyone. I don't see any way this is gonna work out. But, but I think overall, it can work out. Yeah. And so the moment might be bad, but I don't think that the journey is a failure. Sure. And I don't know how to tell you that either. Like, I don't know why I felt like that most of my life, other than to say that, you know, knowing you're adopted early on, is it's a little rough to hear, like somebody had you and when whatever. Like, that's, that's hard. But then you meet a family who cares about you? You're like, oh, okay, well, that's good. And then that family gets divorced. And you're like, Oh, well, that's bad. You know, like, and it's just, you know, and then, and then I didn't really have like, stick to itiveness in school. So I had no prospects, like, yeah, coming out of high school. But, and I took a job that was terrible. I worked in a sheetmetal shop for like, six years. And every day I was there, I was being paid nothing. I was killing myself physically. And it did not seem to be a pathway to anything except showing back up the next day and doing it again. And, and it was horrible. Because I felt like, I felt like a, like, I wanted to write a book, I felt like I had all these ideas of things I wanted to do, I'd sit around with guys, they were all lovely. I want to say seriously, that a lot of my life lessons came from those men that I worked with, they all had something about them. Because you don't have a father. There's no way to know how to be a sense. So what I would do is I would look at the people around me. And I would pick out what I thought were their just their best traits. And I'd pay attention to them. There was one gentleman who was just incredibly honest. And there was a guy there who worked really hard. And there was a guy there who had an incredible sense of humor, like I did, and he wasn't afraid for people to see it. And you know, and like, they all had these different kind of bits about them. So being there was an incredible part of my life like to see all of that. And I would just sort of like, I used to joke that like being adopted, it's great, because you it's not even a joke like because you get to decide who you are. No one really tells you who you are, you know? Yeah. So you get the look and you go, you know, this guy over here. He's an earnest, son of a bitch. I like how earnest he is. Yep. Maybe that's a good thing. Instead of watching your parents and just soaking up whatever it is they put out into the world, you know? Yeah. But, but and so maybe that built into it. And that's a long way of saying that not everybody gets to have that experience. So when some other person has, you know, oh, my parents got divorced. They don't go, I bet you we can get through this. Some of them just go well, that's the end. Yeah, you know, and then that it blankets them for a long time. So I don't know the difference between someone like you, and someone who still has that is living with an eating disorder that yeah, that never breaks free of it. Or who doesn't realize I can't do this with my blood sugar because I'm trying to have a family and I love these people and I want to be an attorney. By the way, how the hell did you go from being an attorney to marketing?

Galen Hensler 59:45
I got like halfway through law school and realized I didn't want to be a lawyer. But at that point, you can't drop out of law school you're halfway through so I just stuck it out. And actually got an MBA while I was finishing law school.

Scott Benner 59:58
Yeah, moved into marketing. There you go. See? Yeah, so you just never you never took the bar. Is that how that works?

Galen Hensler 1:00:02
never took the bar. But graduated law school just

Scott Benner 1:00:05
Yeah, you're just like whatever.

Galen Hensler 1:00:06
Yeah, pretty much. It's a good fallback option, like in five years if I'm like, Oh, yeah, I want to be a lawyer now. Yeah. I am one step closer, I guess. But you're not.

Scott Benner 1:00:15
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I understand. I just told that. I just told a story on the podcast recently, I had a counselor in school who's like, I think you'd be a great attorney. And I was like, oh, then I'd be an attorney. Yeah,

Galen Hensler 1:00:24
yeah, exactly. I was like, I like my wife. And I like my kids. I want to hang out with them. So

Scott Benner 1:00:29
yeah, I just couldn't imagine doing it every day. Like, I love the talking, and the rationalizing, and the arguing, but the writing wouldn't be for me, like I that would throw me off,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:39
I think.

Galen Hensler 1:00:40
Yeah. And, you know, I want to actually touch on something that you were just saying, getting back to being able to like, pick and choose, you're saying, Yeah, people around you. And I think one thing that, like, helped me through loss was i'm just i'm very logical, and very black and white. I don't swing high or swing low, usually. And so knowing that about myself, and being able to look at having type one, and dealing with this for 15 years, there's just been so many points in my life, where I'm able to see like, it sucks to have type one, like I've said, Everybody knows that. Yeah. But I think when you get past that hump of like, this sucks. And you can start looking when possible at points in your life, where it's like, okay, it sucks to have type one. But when I was diagnosed, I was in the Children's Hospital. And there were kids, you know, one, two years old, they were having to get their fingers poked. And I know this now having to do it to my daughter, but it's like, they don't understand what's going on. They're just getting poked by their parents. But it's like I was old enough to at least know what was going on. So even though it sucked. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The context was available, at least Yeah, and going throughout my life and seeing that. It's, it's giving me an outlook of, oh, man, like, I'm so lucky that I was raised in a house where I was able to have the support system where I had insurance, you know, where I had the financial ability, like, pay for these things. Even now, it's like, I'm lucky enough to have a have a great job, to be able to get supplies and everything to keep me healthy. It changes your outlook. So it's like as shitty as diabetes is, when you're able to take a step back and kind of change your channel and adjust your view.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:46
It it.

Galen Hensler 1:02:48
For me, at least, it's made me a lot more compassionate. It's given me a lot of just ability to see like, people aren't as lucky as I am. And what can we be doing to basically help those people that, you know, can't afford insulin or are unable to get their insulin or, you know, can't afford their supplies?

Scott Benner 1:03:09
Did other people's situations that were worse off than yours give you the feeling like you can't waste the opportunity that you have to do better with the tools you have? Did you so not thought

Galen Hensler 1:03:20
not just with diabetes? I would say almost not necessarily with diabetes. It's just kind of, you know, hippie, parents. Social Work, mother. Yeah. It's that it's been instilled in me for a long time. GALEN, there are starving kids somewhere your beans. like pretty much. I mean, it's basically like you're given this opportunity. You were like, I wrote my law school. Like application essay. I'm basically like, I'm an upper middle class white male, like I'm starting, like a step away from the finish line. And it would be a disservice to me and everybody else if I didn't try and do as much as I can, right?

Scott Benner 1:04:01
So half assed your way through them exactly. Like I did it. Yeah.

Galen Hensler 1:04:04
Yeah. And diabetes, I would say, gives all of that an extra layer of like, you know, people starting off like, there's there's still things that people deal with. So like, how can we just like what can I be doing to help people?

Scott Benner 1:04:24
Not here? Well, that's a good message, man. It really is. Wow, that was a lot. I didn't expect all that. Good for you. Nice. Well done. Thanks for having a great microphone. So actually, your microphones so great, that are at times when you're quiet. I feel like I can hear a one year old and a three year old trying to kill each other is that Yeah,

Galen Hensler 1:04:41
you probably could. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:46
I feel like the one year old was yelling, your blood sugar's low. Get away from me. Don't pass out on me. I see all this. Yeah.

Galen Hensler 1:04:54
Oh, my gosh. That's why I'm in the closet.

Scott Benner 1:04:57
Are you in the closet office right now?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:59
Yep. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:02
well, things have fallen apart. I haven't. Seriously, I don't know when we're going back to work. I'm starting to think like, it's not gonna happen this year. Just you know, I'm

Galen Hensler 1:05:11
feeling the same way. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:05:13
I don't know if I I don't know if this will come out months from now. I'll think I'll listen and think, Wow, it was right. Or I was I hope I was wrong. But yeah, I just saw some things. recently that made me feel like there's no way this is gonna go away. Right now. It's just people have gone back out. And there's just I don't know, like if if being distant and covering your faces is truly important than what I saw is troubling. So yeah. So we'll see what happens. I don't know. It's just it seems, it seems to me like I'm not as hopeful as I was. Maybe four weeks ago, four weeks, guys, like this is turning. I can see it turning. Yeah, I'm like, Oh, well, maybe not. I guess we all had to get back to five below. Very important. cozy. Yeah, we needed a squishy ball. And now everybody's gonna think again. Anyway, just you know. Anyway, fingers crossed. And hopefully I'll go back and listen to this and be like, I was really wrong. And our lives are all normal couple

Galen Hensler 1:06:11
weeks now.

Scott Benner 1:06:14
We'll see. Again, not. Thank you very much for doing this. Isn't it funny? I just did exactly what I said it was going to do in the short term. I'm not hopeful in the long term. I'm very hopeful. I'm like, this is a disaster, but it'll be okay. Eventually, eventually.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:29
Fingers crossed.

Scott Benner 1:06:30
Would you hang out for a second? I just want to say goodbye to you like a real person. Of course. Thanks. Thanks for doing this.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:36
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Scott Benner 1:06:45
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