#283 After Dark: Weed Edition

Type 1 diabetes and the Sticky Icky.…

ADULT TOPIC WARNING. Frank discussions about weed with Alex, a type 1 diabetic who smokes daily.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Episode 283 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes, you can find all the sponsors on Facebook or Instagram. But if you want to go right to the source, you got to go to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox or my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Now that's going to be to find out more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. And of course, the tubeless insulin pump and that Arden has been using forever the Omni pod. And if you want to know more about dancing for diabetes, well that's dancing the number four diabetes.com.

In Episode 274, the podcast Mike came on and talked about drinking with Type One Diabetes. And today Alex is here to talk about smoking with type one. Now I hope you understand I'm not talking about cigarettes, right? I'm talking about the doobie. Houdini reefer a spliff. You get what I'm saying here grass but asparagus, your Aunt Mary ganja marijuana pot. Some of you might notice chronic dank, I prefer weed. Anyway, Alex is gonna come on and talk all about his life. He happens to be a frequent

Unknown Speaker 1:24
smoker.

Scott Benner 1:26
This one went way different than I thought it was going to. And honestly maybe one of my favorite episodes.

Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Becoming bold with insulin are sparking up that sticky icky

Alex 2:03
Hello, Alex.

Scott Benner 2:05
Hey, before you even get comfortable, I'm going to test you Okay, I'm going to say three words. You tell me what comes after it. Noise noise noise go.

Alex 2:14
No, each noise noise? I don't know what no Jay and

Scott Benner 2:18
Silent Bob. All right. Okay. You're out ox. Not just kidding. You're just young Alex. That's what you are. I am

Alex 2:25
26

Scott Benner 2:27
No, seriously, how are you doing?

Alex 2:29
I'm doing good. I actually am high right now. I'm not wheat high. But um, blood sugar high. There's gonna be a lot of that. Like, which high am I talking about? But, uh, yeah, I was just I ate something and I always get I after even if I dose to carb ratio thing, but I also um, I have I'm type one diabetic, but I have Addison's disease as well. Okay, which means I don't produce adrenaline. I don't produce cortisol. And I don't produce aldosterone. And I took my pills before I ate. And normally I don't eat this early, though, is kind of messed up, but it's not a big deal. Um, it'll come down eventually.

Scott Benner 3:11
What pill did you take?

Alex 3:13
I took hydrocortisone.

Scott Benner 3:15
And that's what's that help with that's supposed to help with.

Alex 3:18
It's like cortisol replacement. Okay, I have like a baseline of them. And I just take them replace that. I there was a portion of my life or life with Addison's that I. I made my doctor upset. And I told him because he told me that my hydrocortisone ever affected my diabetes. And I disagreed with him because I had researched it before that. And I had another doctor when I first got diagnosed tell me that it does. And this other doctor tried to tell me it didn't. So I challenged him. And he gave me a cease and desist letter. And I'm going to go find another doctor. For my endocrinology. The reason why I chose that doctor in the first place is because he said he would take care of my diabetes in the Addison's together. And unfortunately, he couldn't do that. I found a doctor since then that can't, there was like two years of my life that I didn't have any doctor for either. Because he couldn't handle me revolting. And my doctor now embraces my honesty, and my directness and she, if I have an idea, or if I have a different, you know what I mean, different ideas that she has, yeah, you won't challenge me. She'll just let go go home, look him up. And then on the next meeting, or she'll call me on the next time, and we'll have a conversation about it then rather than immediately saying, No, I don't know that kicking me out or not wanting to have the conversation. Let me ask you,

Scott Benner 4:47
when you talk when you said, revolting, did you mean like, Did you like sail a boat up to his harbor and drop tea in it and stuff like that? Or? Ellen skora. Did you punch him in the head or you just you mean you resisted what he said and yeah, I don't Yeah, gotcha.

Alex 5:01
I yeah, I was just very I'm very direct when I don't agree with something being that this is like my life my choice like the doctor, it's kind of a hard thing being younger, like I got diabetes when I was three years old. And have had it ever since then Addison's when I was 15. So I kind of had to grow up at a young age. And I've got my voice, my, my strength. From that, you know what I mean? Because going into these doctor's offices all the time, doctors kind of want to tell you what they know, rather than I want to hear what I know about it and work together on it. They're more it's more of a one sided type thing. And I don't, I don't rock that way. I want to know what's going on what's going on my body? And do I have to have that. And since like, this time, back in the day, because there was a time for my HPA when C was at 15. And I wasn't taking care of my diabetes. And I've always had this until end of position on my no diseases, that I'm not going to be like, let them get in the way of my life. I'm going to do what I want when I want. And without a sense, particularly when I was diagnosed, I was on when I was 15. It was my 15th birthday that I got out of the hospital. And it was on a Sunday. And that's all I wanted for my birthday that year was to get out of the hospital. Because on that Tuesday, I was supposed to go snowboarding. And I did like, the thing with Addison's is that it's like a life threatening disease. Like if you break your arm or have any serious trauma to your body, got to get a shot and don't potentially die. But the doctor was like, Oh, you shouldn't do that you're new to this disease, you could have an issue and, you know, it could be the end of you. Um, but I was like, Nah, I'm going I'm going to snowboarding and not you know, he's not gonna hold me back. And I got to do what I got to do. Like, I'm still young, I'm still free. There's, these are. When you look at me, you don't see these diseases. I look like everyone else, right? So I'm not going to, like, make it look like I'm, you know, short, or like, less than when I go do what I do. And if it doesn't work out, then at least I'm living.

Scott Benner 7:07
Nice. Hey, so let's ask a couple like baseline questions and get going. You said it a second thought? No, no, you're good. You're diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. How old?

Alex 7:15
Three years old?

Scott Benner 7:16
Three years old? That's 23 years ago, right?

Alex 7:19
Yep. Okay. 23.

Scott Benner 7:21
Was there any existence of type one in your family or other endocrine issues?

Alex 7:26
No, not at all.

Scott Benner 7:28
Okay, not on both sides. Three years old. 23 years ago.

Alex 7:34
It was very different times back then. So you say how did you start? So basically, when I got diagnosed, I was in San Diego. I was in a camping trip with my mom. And I had just been at my grandma's house in LA. And she was cleaning up and like the toilet seat. I was obviously three years old, so I didn't, didn't have perfect aim at the time. And the rim of the toilet seat was like sparkling like dancing like diamonds. My grandma, she's a very clean woman. So he noticed it right away. And when she was cleaning, and it kind of stood out to her she had read a diabetes forecast magazine, her my grandpa and I knew something was up I told my mom and she was like are when we get back from our camping trip, I'll look into it. And on the camping trip I there was a bathroom across the street from our campsite, like across a little road or whatever. And she kept having to walk across the street which it was very noticeable how many times I was going to the bathroom. And we only had so much water at the campsite. So I was consuming all the water and pissing it all out. Wasn't was you know, a red flag for her and long story short, we went to the hospital and they wanted to diagnose me there but being there my mom was a single mom. He couldn't spend her time in San Diego like it wasn't we were only there for like a trip. Yeah. So basically, he denied the doctor's health request or like denied service, whatever. bogie back to Orange County which is like an hour away from San Diego and then did it there and got me diagnosed in orange or in Mission Viejo. And you know, lived with it ever since. But back when I started insulin injections you I mean, long term short term and the whole nine yards. And my doctor was actually in LA too. So we would it was always like a baffling time to handle my diabetes.

Scott Benner 9:21
Let me ask you this, just for a second to clear up to finish up the thought. sparkling sparkling toilet seat was sugar appearing in your urine.

Alex 9:29
Yes, sir. My blood sugar when I was diagnosed was my mom said like 1300 to 1400 Jesus. Yeah, was pretty bad. That's why I was very, like, prominent.

Scott Benner 9:40
No kidding. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's insane. Yeah, that's the biggest number anyone's ever said on here. Just so you know, you've won the prize.

Alex 9:49
Well, I didn't even now like my blood. Thank you for that. I really appreciate that. Or something. Uh, my blood sugar gets high. Like, even with the Insulin, I'm on a pump. You know what I mean? I just get high really quick. Like, I ate a BLT two pieces of bread before, like, I was like at 7am this morning, and my blood sugar shot, like I had pre dosed, you know, 20 minutes before. And it just immediately shoots up. It's like super quick, but I probably already had diabetes for a good while, obviously, since it was so high, right? And I don't really complain on I mean, you just, I've always been wanting to just take heat

Scott Benner 10:28
Aleksander, this isn't while you're on but let me ask you a couple of questions, your print your your Pre-Bolus, in 20 minutes outside of a sandwich, which is crazy. How high are you getting after that?

Alex 10:37
Uh, my blood sugar was 250. On my Dexcom are like, actually 192 right now, but it was 250 on my like, blood sugar, my contour test kit. Um, but there, I've noticed what the Dexcom that they when you're shooting up fast, like when you're flying up. It can't capture the cap, it can't capture, like the top end of where you're about to get at. Before you get there. So you get

Scott Benner 11:04
Yeah, of course. Hey, so let me ask you a question. After you get high like that. Do you come back down on your own? Or do you have to correct with more insulin to get back down?

Alex 11:14
definitely have to correct I definitely have to correct okay. It's been, it's been tough. What my goal, my focus right now, in these three months from the last time I saw my endocrinologist is I have a problem with emotional dosing. Like I'm high, and I'm like, you know, I'm staying high. And I'm trying to step down, try to step down, and it's not coming down. quick enough for me, you know, so I just keep, here's another two units. Here's another unit and just try to like, you know, bring it down. Yeah. And it it eventually ever. No. I mean, if I see it starting to come down, I'll stop. But I just hate being high. Like, No, I'm not. Yeah, but like, thing that I've had it for so long. If I had to choose high or low, I would choose low any day. I've had some, like,

Scott Benner 12:01
how's it go for hours and hours? Yeah, more work than fixing a tough flow. Right.

Alex 12:08
Yeah. And the I've tried the 679. I mean, the closed loop system and all that. Right. And I've I have the tandem now with the basal IQ. And I got the dex calm. And I've you know, I've been with all the new like, tech and whatnot. And the 670 I thought it was gonna be the game changer, you know? And it just

Scott Benner 12:29
didn't help

Alex 12:30
you know, it did not at all and actually sent me to the hospital multiple, multiple times, Hey,

Scott Benner 12:34
you guys can put that in an ad Medtronic. Congratulations. So another Yeah, of course, man. Let me ask you another question. Okay. It's been like, find a time in your mind. It's been a few hours since you ate and a few hours since you've had insulin. Where does your blood sugar sit stable when it sits stable without insult food?

Alex 12:55
It's perfect. 100 you know what I mean? 100. Like, one 100. And it'll vary up to like 110 and then come back down to 100. It's perfect. And that's when I first got to my doctor. Now. That was her first goal. Yeah, let's get a baseline. Don't eat what I mean. And if you do eat, let's see like this. But her thing was don't eat breakfast, don't eat lunch, eat dinner. And then once we figure out dinner, and then we can start with breakfast, don't eat lunch, dinner, only breakfast and see what it does. Yeah, and just have me not eat. And I was totally game for it. Because like I said, there was a time where I didn't care about my diabetes, and I was

Scott Benner 13:31
just living and you're trying to care now.

Alex 13:33
Yeah, I'm really trying to care. Now, like I said, my highest was at 15. And now it's at like, six, five, know what I mean? And it still has room to improve. But that's all me, like, once I took it over from my mom. But I'm almost like my main caretaker for a while. And I was like, I'm gonna take this over. And recently, I've actually paid for everything myself now to is there's that that's a portion of diabetes that is left on or like not really talked about is how expensive it is. for younger kids. I mean, I know. You don't have diabetes, but your daughter does. And I'm sure that right now. She's trying to get a job. She's trying to do her thing, like trying to get her education so that she can afford it one day. But she's being that we have parents, we get it at a young age, that have that hustle and drive to be able to get the money, be able to afford these things. And there's a time where we got to do that too. And I think as these companies progress and technology gets better, and that should be something that I don't I mean, receivable like for everyone, there's this guy that I met playing basketball, and he had a baby and he was probably like 30 or something. And he had a baby and he had a pump. He had a note sensor and all that living his best life. And when the baby came, he couldn't afford the baby and his pump and sensor. Like he couldn't afford both at the same time. Okay, so he, he gave up his pump to be able to afford his kid. Yeah, and I was just like, totally really blew me away cuz I was like I've never even once had to think about giving up my technology, or like someone else's like for money. Let me give you

Scott Benner 15:10
an honest statement from a person who has two children and is probably more than two thirds way done with his life. Don't make a baby till you can afford it. Yeah, exactly. I'll be right there with you. Yes, you can help it don't do that. Yeah. So listen, going back to your Bolus, though, for a second if you're, if you're doing a nice little Pre-Bolus. And you're going to 250 and you have to correct to come back down. In my mind, your insulin to carb ratio for that meal is not right. And so a good place to begin would be to make that sandwich again the next day. Take the bullets that you used and add a good deal of your correction to the initial bolus. And that should stop the spike without making you low. Mm hmm. So it's more sometimes it's more about the impact of the food like Do you ever have a time where you do a Pre-Bolus? Count the carbs, right, and you don't get high? Like do different foods affect you differently?

Alex 16:03
So my BLT is like my, I guess, my glory food at this point. Typically, all I eat is Chipotle, a a chocolate label, and I get the exact same thing in it every time. Okay, because what you're just saying, and my other thing that I eat is blaze pizza, I get to build your own. I actually just switched over to cauliflower crust, um, but I do those meals, if I'm going to eat out those are the two meals that I eat, right? And then I eat salads and stuff at home basically like protein carb ratios. I just got into, like you were saying, like trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, I definitely agree. I just, I'm a sandwich person. I really enjoy sandwiches and sushi. I used to love sushi. But

I've had to kick the bucket. Well,

Scott Benner 16:53
I don't think you can't have a sandwich. I just think you have to figure out how that sandwich is impacting your blood sugar and get the Yeah, the insulin moved. You know, so they kind of the impact of the insulin covers the action of the carbs, or, you know, the actually the insulin covers the impact of the carbs. I mean, yeah, well, they're peaking at the same time and

Alex 17:11
bright the thing today, the thing today was I had just taken my pills, and I went to get a sandwich. So I was doubling up. The hydrocortisone naturally makes me high. And I normally take that around like 10 Yeah, like 10am or whatever. So I was a little bit early on that. So basically, at 10 I'm going to get my I increased bazel with my pills, but I since I already took my pills out, so I'm gonna probably crash down at like 10am. So it's kind of like I was just hungry.

Scott Benner 17:41
I just ate. Do you think the scheduling threw you off more than anything else?

Alex 17:43
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't it like, I, I wake up early, but sometimes I don't eat early. I was just watching the sunrise and going because I can see the ocean from my apartment. Nice. So I was just kind of I normally don't get up this early. So let's just pick a song. Right? Yeah. Good for you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 18:00
I hear you. All right. So Alex, let's tell everybody while you're on the podcast. Yeah. So did you How long have you been listening to the show?

Alex 18:08
Honestly, I had listened to another diabetes podcast, and I'm, when I'm at like, when I work, I listen to podcasts because I'm trying to expand my mind while I'm at the office. Right? Um, but not that long. Not that long. Probably like, three episodes before I heard the after dark one. And I was like, Oh, this is me. Okay, so

Scott Benner 18:25
so you're a pretty new listener, and you hear the episode? Yeah, we're talking about drinking with Type One Diabetes. And I say at some point in there, I need like somebody who legitimately smokes weed a lot. Come on and talk about that. So it's very nice of you to put yourself out like that. Let me let me now the same preamble that I made during the drinking one, I've never smoked weed. Really? Yeah, man. And and so I don't know what I'm talking about. But that's why it's perfect that you're here because you can you can help me understand it and, and we can we can get some kind of context. So let me ask my first question. How old were you the first time you did it? The Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor will make knowledge your superpower it is FDA permitted to allow for zero finger sticks has customizable alarms and alerts smart device compatible Android and Apple. I see iOS, you know, you can share your data with up to 10 followers 10 count them with me 123456789 that's a lot 10 their Siri integration and it's indicated for use in children two years and up. Do you hear Siri? Shut up Siri. Hey Siri, stop. I love it when you tell Siri to cancel and it says there's nothing to cancel but it just asked you something. Cancel me and stop talking to me. It's enough. Being hocked in China by my phone. That's bad pronunciation. By the way, in case you're wondering, back to Dexcom, Dexcom, g six continuous glucose monitor, find out which way your blood sugar is moving right the direction and the speed and doesn't have to just be you like the person with diabetes. It could be a loved one a child, a friend, a sister, a long lost. I don't know milkman like say you're like from the 1920s and used to have a guy that brings your milk and somehow he's still alive, even though he's probably an adult back then. He's 143 now, but he has type one diabetes, and you're still worried about him. That guy's got a dexcom g six. Your milkman from the 1920s and you have like an iPhone or an Android, you could help him know what his blood sugar is, like crazy. That's like time travel right there. You need a dexcom continuous glucose monitor. Please take it from me. Go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to get started today. psych another ad. This one's around the pod the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. Mm hmm. To make me happy thinking about it. My Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Here's something about the Omni pod I've never considered before I saw it online just today. Someone said Do you remember trying to run with your insulin pump and it would pop off your belt. And then it would just be like some swinging sickle of death whipping around from the tubing in the air while you're furiously reaching for it hoping it doesn't pull out your infusion set. I thought I can picture that. But I don't have any experience with it. Because my daughter's always used a tubeless insulin pump the AMI pod. Another reason why Omni pod is terrific is because they'll let you try the system out, they'll send you a free no obligation demo in the mail. You can try it on and see what you think you don't have to just take my word for it. To get that free demo, go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, you fill out a tiny bit of information about yourself on the pod, we'll send you the demo pod right to your house. And don't worry, it's non functioning right. So it's not like it's gonna, you know, can't give you insulin or anything like that. It just gives you the experience of wearing it. You could even shower with it or, you know, do whatever you're going to do with it, to see how it fits into your life. Miami pod.com forward slash juicebox. There's also links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. And after you do that, head over to dancing for diabetes. Find out more about that organization dancing the number four diabetes.com all the sponsors information is available at Juicebox podcast.com. And they're always links in the show notes of your podcast player. dexcom.com Ford slash juice box Miami pod.com. forward slash juice box dancing the number four diabetes.com. All right, no more ads. Lots of show left. Let's get back to Alex. He's gonna tell you by the end. I'm just like this kid. Love him. What do you say?

Alex 22:54
So I knew you're gonna ask this. And it's always the question. Um,

Scott Benner 22:58
let's wait. First, your mom's a lovely person that she loves you. She's a really good parent. How old? Were you last time you got high?

Alex 23:03
Well, I had smoked with my stepbrother when I was in third grade.

Scott Benner 23:07
Okay. Does that make you eight or nine?

Alex 23:10
Something like that? Yeah, I don't know. I just know I was in third grade because I went back to school on Monday. And I was like, No,

Scott Benner 23:18
I demand

Alex 23:20
for basically like my parents were having a party and my stepbrother isn't the best influence. You know what I mean? I took that what you just said, yeah. He, he was like about to leave like the party. And normally like he would stay for him because he likes to party. But he was leaving. And I'm like, David, let me come with you. And as followed him out of the house and walked across the street. We lived right across the street from the school that I went to. My mom always wanted to be close. In case I needed something at the school. She would always be like literally a walking distance map like the school to the house, okay. He walked across the street to the school, went to the lunch yard and he was smoking. just handed it to me. And I smoked I hadn't. I was just one time one puff or whatever. And didn't smoke again till like freshman year. And ever since freshman year, just every day if I can. Do you

Scott Benner 24:06
have a recollection of it when you were nine? That one puff?

Alex 24:10
Uh, I remember everything up to it. But after it wasn't, too. I know nothing really after to clear Yeah,

Scott Benner 24:18
yeah. So and then back to your freshman year that makes you about 14

Alex 24:22
right? Yeah. 1415 Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:25
So my first question, I guess is what do we call it? Like, am I good? was saying smoking weed or do I sound ridiculous?

Alex 24:34
No smoking weed smoking pot. I mean, that works. I call it pot. Yeah, weed. I mean, okay.

Scott Benner 24:38
Yeah. All right. And you're in California. Yes, yes. And is it Have you traveled much? Is there a lot of truth to the idea that the the pot in marijuana in the apartment with a pot in California is at a different level? Power wise.

Alex 24:57
Yes, without a doubt. I got some weed when I was in Indiana, I've got some weed in New York, I got some weed in Georgia. I'm in Tennessee, I got some. Yeah, none of it. None of it was really hitting like that. I mean, if basically, you want some good weed in any of those other locations, you just got to pay more. I mean, like, they'll have a, like, exports, California. I mean, like on the black market, I guess you could say like sending it out to wherever you need it, they'll get it to you. It's just how much you're willing to pay and how much risk you're willing to pay for that. For it to get. Um, but yeah, I, we definitely have an easier and it's easier to get it out here. Like I can have weed in the time that this podcast takes. I can have wheat delivered to me like I don't even have to leave the house and I can literally sit open up another tab and order it. And then you're doing this like I don't have to try to get it you know what I mean? Like Uber smokes something Exactly. We have things called weed maps. And you there's businesses on there that you can just call or they have online menus and stuff. It's super easy to

Scott Benner 26:06
see cell phones are important. Okay, so tell me this because I really don't understand. I have no, I have no context at all. Do you smoke for pleasure? for medical reasons for both for one the other like, what's your main like, when you think about? Like, I'm going to smoke now? It's to do what are you trying to like? What are you trying to accomplish? I guess.

Alex 26:32
Same thing people do when they drink. I mean, I'm not a drinker. For me, I've never been the one to drink. And I enjoy it to like calm down or enjoy myself. But I'll tell you, I'm like a medical standpoint. When I'm high like my blood sugars are and I smoke a blood sugar being high is less. I mean, it's not as demanding on me. Like, for me the when I'm high my blood, or my body just doesn't feel good. You know? I mean, it's tight, right? Just like you're treading water. Um, but we just kind of I can focus on something else, I can do something else. I mean, I'm not having to only focus on my high blood sugar. And there was a time where I was recreational, like, recreationally doing it and enjoying it, abusing it, you could say like, they're like, when I was younger in high school and past that. I used to smoke blunts, like, one after another 1520 in a sitting up box my car like five, six months and open the door and just billowing smoke and it was a good time. You know, like I really enjoyed it. I never thought anything of it. Until like the abuse portion came into play when I was probably like, two or three years ago. I was smoking blunts, you know, consistently just killing them. It was backwoods particularly. I had smoke switchers before that but backwoods were the thing that I was really into, and they like they're good. But I kept throwing up. And I didn't understand why it wasn't necessarily after the blunt. It was more in the morning, like consistently every morning throwing up. And I didn't understand it didn't understand it. My doctor was like, Oh, you have hyperemesis and I'm like, I don't think so yada, yada And long story short, it wasn't the weed. It was the bunch. It was the tobacco usage. It was making me just not have a good morning. And

Scott Benner 28:30
we cut back what you're doing there. If I'm understanding right as you're buying basically going to inexpensive cigar that might be sold at like a convenience store. You're splitting it packing it with wheat and smoking it right.

Alex 28:41
Yes, yeah. Well, the backwoods you don't split them. I'm going to roll them but yeah.

Scott Benner 28:46
And so but you're getting that tobacco from what I'm gonna call like a cheaper car that's probably not meant to be inhaled to begin with. It's probably all right. So you're and how old were you doing that?

Alex 29:02
I mean, any like, freshman year till like a year or two ago, Alex, you have the Constitution

Scott Benner 29:06
of a horse. That's a I can't even imagine me smoking just one of those cigars as a small child and not just turning green and falling over. That's that's something else. Okay. So okay, so

Alex 29:19
I was like,

yeah, the environment that I was in and like it was it was what what you know what I mean, this is what's gonna happen yeah, like I didn't, I wasn't going to drink so like when we're at parties or something like kicking it like out in high school. I'm not a drinker. I was always this like, quote unquote, sober one that was going to drive home so I feel like with when I smoke a blunt at the party, whatever, kick it like, you know what I mean? People rolling up for me, and, you know, we're hanging out and then it's time to go, I'm not going to be the one that's crazy. I'm going to be more level headed and being that I have diabetes as well. Alcohol, like the A woman said on the after dark one of the alcohol, you got to kind of prepare for that an hour, two hours, like From now on, I mean, like, how is that gonna affect me in the future with the weed? It's, you know, I'm going to be the same. Like it's not going to change my alter my mind to the point where I'm in capacity. I mean, yeah, I've had I have drank alcohol, like four times five times on a, like five times where it affected me negatively. And I just wasn't into it. You know what I mean? Like that's,

Scott Benner 30:31
you're not a drinker.

Alex 30:33
Yeah, just not a drinker. And I'm not trying to like, save this is this one's better than that one. But what's the

Scott Benner 30:39
difference? In your tea? In your perspective? What's the difference between the high you get from drinking and the how you get from smoking?

Unknown Speaker 30:46
Um,

Alex 30:48
the first two drinks aren't bad. No, I mean, the first few drinks you're killing like, I remember I was in Vegas one time with like, friends. And I had three Bud Light. platinums. And I was chilling. I mean, like, it was good. I was having a good time. Everyone's smiling. We're all you know, turning up. And the homie came up to me with another Bud Light platinum, those already opened. And it was like a glass bottle. So you had it as soon as it opened. You can't like reseal it. Yeah. So I was like, Yeah, sure. I'll take one and then four turned into two more. So I was six in. And I was just on I mean obliterated. And most people that drink like they build a tolerance and six beers really isn't much. But they are someone that doesn't have a tolerance. It really messed me up. And I didn't take care of my diabetes. And my friends. It was like the morning time and they came into my room and we're like, yo, let's go, let's go get some food. And I wasn't there. And like my friend came in to like him up close on me, was trying to get me to wake up like shaking me and stuff wasn't reacting. And he like, pops open my eyes, like grabs my eyelids and tries to look at them. And he said they're just black, like, black like my pupils weren't overly sized. And so he knew something was wrong. So basically, he was looking for my keys, found them bugging me to the hospital. And it was out of song at Addison's crisis in the low blood sugar. It was just, I mean, a whole situation. Yeah. And

Scott Benner 32:16
that masked by the drinking so you couldn't tell it was happening. Right?

Alex 32:20
Exactly, exactly. And I was already like, quote, unquote, drunk, but I was I passed out. I didn't, I wasn't thinking about that. You know what I mean? Like, and I was too incoherent to push through it and solve the issues with my, my weed No matter how much I smoke, like 1516 blunts, and I'm still able to look at my pump and be coherent and be like, Oh, I'm high, or whoa, I'm low. Like, let's do something about this. And Eve. But even then, with that being said, like, there's been parties that I've been at, like, I remember this one time, I'd got off work. And I've been working since I was 15. And got off work. I've always had money. So I had a car. So I'm going over to that party up over in Coto, which is like maybe 1520 minutes from the house. And I remember pulling into the driveway, going into the house. And that's it. But I guess what I did was I went into the house, I changed and got back in my car drove over to Coto pulled up on the homies, I was like yo Mimi outside and pulling up. And when I when the homies came outside, I guess I was ready to fight them. Like I was trying to fight them, like being real aggressive. And I'm, I'm naturally not an aggressive person. So they're like, what's going on here. And I was like, I was not properly like, my wording was all slurred. It was really terrible. And they knew something was up, I've my, like, I've known for a good, good while at the time, they basically shoved me back in the car in the passenger seat. They drove to the hospital. And, you know, he got me what I needed. But I have no recollection of that. Like at all. They ran red lights, they were really like on their way to the hospital, in a standard car. And I've always told them like, if I'm in like a weird, weird mindset or whatever, run the red light, like enough, a cop pulls you over. Don't pull over, just keep going to the hospital and handle it when you get there. And I'll help you out when I get my mindset back or whatever. Because it's my life is important. And I'm sure the cop will understand. I hope

Scott Benner 34:27
when you're high no anger, no feeling like you want to fight people, you're able to take care of your blood sugar. I mean, you just said earlier, but you're a person who just recently decided like I'm going to take I'm going to take really good care of my diabetes. You have a six and a half a one C which is an amazing, obviously improvement over what you had. You have you have no trouble taking care of it when you're smoking.

Alex 34:48
Oh, and Nope, not at all. I mean, I I smoke much less now. Like I smoke a bomb. And it's you know, I mean maybe point 1.5 and a bowl. It's a big bowl piece but uh yeah No nothing at all and like the only time where it could be an issue is like the time after you smoke like the munchies that you know people talk about. For me, I try to like all smoke, smoke, smoke smoke throughout the night or whatever. And then I'll allocate like, Okay, this is time to eat around like dinner time or whatever time I feel but I don't try to just eat munching on I mean just consistently munching try to find I. Yeah, like I'll allocate it for I've smoked this much. It's time to eat now. Or like if I am trying to snack while smoking or whatever. Let us know what I mean. like celery stuff that isn't carby as well, but I think that I'm trying like a new I'm trying to be healthier diabetic. I didn't know that carrots had sugar in them or like carbs in them. And

Scott Benner 35:48
by eating carrots and yeah, Alyssa Yeah.

Alex 35:51
Yeah. And it was Arab while I was like carrots Really? Like I was trying to be a good person. I didn't know that character could get you like that

Scott Benner 35:57
character. Good. Free. Just need a little insulin for him. But see, figure it out. You do it next time. It'll be Yeah, be less insulin than something. Yeah, that's really heavy with carbs.

Alex 36:08
Yeah, no, it's but I being like, I never used to care about diabetes when I say that, like I never used to care. And I've mean, I would care but it was I wanted sushi. I was going to eat sushi. Like I got my first pump when I was in fifth grade. And it felt like the gates were open. Or I mean, like it felt like freedom is with the insulin needles and the multiple, multiple daily injections and you're kind of like a tethered to you, he's always got to kind of go back to the home base. With the pump. I had three days where I could do whatever I wanted. I still never slept over. I was never into sleeping over because I enjoy the safety of my house or I enjoyed the safety of my mom's house. Um, but the Yeah, freedoms were endless. And I again, I was abusing it. Like I was just going doing whatever, and not really focusing on what the negative impacts could be. And when I got Addison's, it was kind of the same thing like that. I'm just gonna live like, I don't, I don't need to let it hold me back. But there's a fine line with that. I mean, was there a D live

Scott Benner 37:18
thought back then that you weren't going to live as long so you were going to live? Like happily? Or was it not even that well thought out? Was it just,

Alex 37:27
it really was I always I used to always say, like, I have a shorter life expectancy than others. You know what I mean, especially with these two diseases, like I could be, I could be gone tomorrow. But, um, if you like the law of attraction, I've recently like, read the book and like, been more positive about that. Is that a day it's gonna happen? It'll probably happen. So I, I have to live as long as I can. I mean, do whatever I can to live the best life and what they there's like this saying that, find what makes you happy and figure out how to make money doing it. Mm hmm. And I've recently I've been car washing forever, but I love carwash, I love cleaning. And some people may not find that to be enjoyable, but I really love cleaning. Like it makes me feel good. Okay. And specifically, car washing is really enjoyable. For me. Everyone has a car. I mean, most people have a car. And

Scott Benner 38:23
in California, they all seem to have one.

Alex 38:25
Yeah, exactly. But the like getting a little piece of everyone's car being able to wash it. And I specifically love really dirty cars. And, you know, it's just, I love it. And if I can do that once a day, nothing's that serious and finding that able to enjoy that and working in the diabetes around that my Addison's disease around that, because even car washing is really challenging with the diabetes or Addison's like it's really fatiguing on the body. And I used to only be able to do one car, like one car and I was just looked after. Yeah. Now I can do like this. Last weekend, I did four cars. I did three cars on a Saturday and I started a clay bar on a Friday night. And then after the three cars on Saturday, I went back down to San Diego and buffed and polished this one car spent 16 hours on it looks beautiful. And in the course of 24 hours I did four cars you attribute that your blood sugar being lower now that you're able to do more work. Yep, being more like on it. Like when I was down there, the homie that I was doing the work for. He bought me pizza and I love pizza. But I ate my like two pieces or whatever when I first started like those four everything was groovy we're working hard and not blood sugar starts to go back down. So I one more piece of like kick differ a little bit see how it was like reacting to me. And then you know what I mean? Like, more patience with it rather than just binge eating and boring with the aftermath. You know what I mean? Why do you

Scott Benner 39:54
like baby steps, man, it's exciting. It really is

Alex 39:58
just trying to do whatever I can And I think that I do smoke weed, people tend to have this negative connotation around marijuana usage like people are lazy people or bombs or whatever. And realistically, it's your choice. I mean, same with the diabetes, like you can not be a responsible diabetic or whatever, quote unquote. But as long as you're doing your baseline stuff, you can always throw in a little bit more, throwing a little bit more energy, whatever. Do

Scott Benner 40:23
you think you could take the the concept that I'm high, so I'm lazy and will yourself to be lazy a little bit because I'm thinking about these are famous people who have jobs, washing cars, but some of the really productive people in Hollywood are out about their smoking. Kevin Smith, yeah. Joe Rogan. Seth Rogen, maybe? Maybe is everybody named Rogan. Hmm. And you know, like, like, seriously, like those guys are, they're prolific. Like really like Joe Rogan is putting out what is probably the most popular podcast in the world. And not down he does it every day. And if you go listen to it, these are, you know, they're cogent conversations. You might disagree with some of his perspective, but he's not mumbling through a two hour podcast going, Hey, man, you know, they mean like, he's, he's listening to people talk. He's involved in every conversation. He's going, I mean, I don't smoke, but I don't think I have a qualm about it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't listen to you and think, oh, Alec, shouldn't do this. Like you just described to me a life that you seem pretty happy and where you're taking care of your health, you're gonna take getting yourself some money, you're doing something you enjoy. I don't know how to, I don't know how to make a problem with what you just said.

Alex 41:39
Right? You know what I mean? And I definitely agree. And I've thought, by default, like, get other people to, like, believe that and understand that. And you're right, like these thing that it's more public. Now. It's legal people can talk about it. I think that that's the first step. But like, even with this, like I have, I do my car wash. And that's my personal thing. But I have a nine to five like Monday through Friday, like an office job. And we just got actually bought out by another company that's based out of Florida, and Florida. It's not as legal as it is in California. And they they follow the federal guidelines, whatever, go to them. There. You're not supposed to be high at work, or you're not like the average is 50 nanograms, and I asked the HR person I was like, how do I measure how much 50 nanograms is, is for alcohol? It's point 08. Like if you come in to work with the alcohol level of above point 082 and Saturday at home yeah. But I can't measure 50 nanograms four nanometers or whatever it is

Scott Benner 42:39
never heard of it. But I would know

Alex 42:42
Yeah, well, I'm there. They've been trying to get better with it and like actually have specifications on what your limit is. But from what I understand about 50 nanograms, whatever it is that I smoke, what like if I smoke once, and I haven't smoked at all in the 365 days, if I smoke once, in this month, it'll be 30 days before my we love number. Yeah, is below 50 nanograms nanometers, whatever. It's, uh, you know what I mean, it's kind of hard to judge it or to have like, a limit on it and like the business world, and, like, be on the same level as everyone else. Right. And that's the part that I think is kind of a bummer. But as far as medically on I mean, like, it's making big strides, like huge strides. And I'm not trying to be like a weed for everyone advocate or whatever, but it's nice to be able to relax and ponder your mind. I think some people are like afraid of it. I mean, afraid to like see what's in there. What what could come up, they don't get high or whatever. But for me, like being that I've had to deal with diabetes, Addison's for literally like my whole life, and it Addison's at 15. Like That was my freshman year in high school. This was back a big time in your life. Right. And I was focusing on a disease. Yeah, the the weed kind of, you're allowed to venture in your head and, like, sit down and just be you for a little while. And like, I I kind of enjoy being in my head. Not not. Sometimes it can get a little dangerous, but I enjoy kind of puttering around in there, especially like, I read this book by David Goggins. And it. Yeah, he's like a beast. Like this guy. David Goggins is nothing to play around with. And he, it was super inspirational, like, everything is, like, gotta go, like, there's nothing that's going to hold you back. Nothing like the 60% rule or 40% rule, whatever. Yes. Like, when you think you're done, like, you're gonna quit, you're tired of it. You still have like 40% left and or like 60% left in the tank that you haven't even tried to use. Like you there's still more that you can do. And when I feel like I'm weak, I'm tired. I'm not like when I'm high or I'm low, and I'm just like, given up You got you can do more. Yeah. And that's why I do my nine to five work. And then I do my carwash and after, like, go hard, like, this isn't no disease is gonna hold me back like I got a, I got to get my money and I'm gonna be successful in something. And these diseases are very challenging. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, like they they can be very, very difficult. But as long as you have the right mindset, I think mindset is a big thing right now, like mental health is a big thing. taking that time to focus on yourself. And these last two years of my life have really been about that, like, I don't hang out with anyone if I don't need to know what I mean, I'm really about me. And I not letting anything get in the way of it. How is

Scott Benner 45:46
it dating? When you smoke? Do you have to meet somebody who also does? Or is does that make you incompatible? If you don't?

Alex 45:54
Um, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have to have anyone that you know, I mean, I don't. I for for me, I like people that are that can talk to me and they can really have a good conversation. I don't need weed to do that. I just enjoy weed. But I don't like no, it's not a requirement for me at all. I'll just have a conversation if I can have a conversation with anyone have a good one and feel good about it. That's a winner to me. What about

Scott Benner 46:24
my trout? Is this the is the is the pot to you? Is it because of anxiety and pressure and stress in your life? Like there's a like the only like, there's something makes you that like that. Like you're not getting to that place like being in your own head without the without the pot which is I don't like a problem. But so you can you not get to that place without it.

Alex 46:50
Um, if I don't smoke, it's like a frantic, like my I am very analytical. My brain is running all the time. So it allows me to kind of slow down and grab things and be more focused on like, hyper focus on those things. Right. But I don't need the wheat for that. But I think that it does help me and it's also a coping mechanism. Like I said, like when people drink? Yeah, I smoke like it's just the same you wind down at the end of the night or whatever. And you enjoy time. And I'm like watching TV is easier. After like a bowl or like a blonde or something. Because you're

able to just move everything that's in your head.

Scott Benner 47:31
Just make it go away. And then you can Yeah, exist for a little while.

Alex 47:35
And I don't when I say like get it out. I'm not saying like completely ignore it. Like right now I'm about to buy a truck for my car washing. And I need all the like the stuff to go on the back of it to make it like carwash and worthy. When I'm not high, like I can do those things. I'm gonna buy this truck today hot, like not high. But when I it's easily like overwhelmed. Like it's a lot to have to deal with that I got overhead now. But when I smoke I can. Okay, Phil, Let's relax. Let's look at this from a mean, armour standpoint. Yeah, I'm able to make a list of all the things that I need, you know, get it more. It not not as the bigger picture, just focus. All right, this is the stuff I need, right a price for everything and get a goal set, get the truck start hustling out of it, and start knocking off these things on the list. So it's less like when I'm like when I wake up in the morning, and I don't smoke whatever I get my day started I still have the mentality of which I'm high if that makes sense. Like I'm still like, Okay, calm call the start the day chilled.

Scott Benner 48:38
When you Yeah, yeah, smoking gun. But you know, who I imagined in my mind is nodding along with you right now wondering where they can get weed, or the people who get in bed at the end of the night and have to do something to make their brain stop running. And some people just can't do that. Like, you know, it's it's difficult for some people.

Alex 48:57
Yeah, and that's a big thing with like diabetes is that we're always having to focus on something. You know what I mean? There's never really a time when we're just chillin.

Scott Benner 49:05
Yeah. And if you're a person who can't let go, then that's, that's constant. That's a constant pressure on your system to I'll tell you a story that maybe you don't know. So the the film director, Kevin Smith, he had a heart attack maybe two years ago.

Alex 49:19
Yeah, I heard on the podcast, right.

Scott Benner 49:20
And he had what they considered to be like a Widowmaker. Like, they get kills, like something like 98% of people got complete blockage. But he described that while he was going through the heart attack, he was so baked, that he couldn't get upset. And so he didn't freak out. He didn't panic. He said, actually, when he thought about it, he started going through his life and he thought I've had a pretty good life. This seems fair if I die now. So he was that relaxed, and they got him to the hospital, performed a surgery, you know, he's fine. But the doctor later told him, you probably made it through the heart attack because of how high you are. Which is such a crazy thing to say to a person but he was just like, you didn't appear to have any ability to be upset and make it worse. So you could kind of live at this baseline block with this base this blockage until we could get it out for you. It's very, it's crazy. I mean, it's a very unscientific answer, obviously. But that's, that's, I mean, probably a testament to it. Do you? Do you take wheat in any other way? Do you do edibles or vapor? Or do you prefer to smoke? And do you worry about smoking?

Alex 50:27
Um, I have done the edibles. I've baked them myself. I bought them. And I've vape I've dabbed I, I'm not worried about the smoke per se. Although any smoke in your lungs is not good smoke. You don't I mean, anything you're putting in there. Like what even if people say it's clean, we can't kill you or whatever. It's still smoking. Your lungs are not I mean, that's still going to cause damage in some way or another. But I'm not too worried about it. I've been at it for a while now. And the bat The worst thing for you? I would say like because blunts, like amongst the weed community, weed, society, whatever it is. They're really popular. I mean, people are smoking backwards, left and right. And amongst my friends, like all of them smoke backwards, and I I'll poke around with them. But if I can choose not to, or if I can, I mean, just hit a bowl or something. I'm going to do that. I would love to do that. But in a social environment, you got five or six people all trying to smoke. The blunt is just, oh, it's a lot easier. It's more convenient. And you didn't you're not trying to pass a ball around. That's how bongs get broken. But, uh, I'm not really scared of smoke now. Although, although, the popcorn lung with the vaping and stuff. That's a little bit scary. Yeah, a little bit scary. And I have, I just actually replaced my battery on my cartridges. And I was smoking it kind of steady there for a couple days. And my chest was hurting. I was like, man, I don't know if I

Scott Benner 52:01
shouldn't do this. Yeah.

Alex 52:03
Yeah. But the thing with the vaping, like, the little handheld, the cartridge is, it's so much more convenient. If you think about a bomb, you got to break the wheat up. Got to put it in the bomb. And you got this big ol foot long, bigger bottom. That is now in front of you know what I mean? And as far as evidence goes, like, if you're in a car or something, Obama is not the way to go. You know, and like the vape the handheld you can just tuck it and you don't really have it or and like a public place like Vegas or like a public arena, more concealed or like a restaurant and sealed. So it's kind of like for the situation. But uh,

Scott Benner 52:42
yeah, listen, what I've learned from this is blunt save bongs. And I think that would make an amazing t shirt. Well.

Alex 52:49
I mean,

yeah, I guess it's, it's more like the personal preference. Like some people just can't smoke blunts. Like, I've heard stories where someone had a blonde, and their whole mind got messed up. And they're never try to smoke weed again, like off of one blind because they just their chest couldn't take it. And I think it's you got to build a got to build like a tolerance to it or not a tolerance but like a and get used to it. You know what I mean? Because it's sometimes a little tough, but they have joints, they have the papers and stuff. That's probably like the more natural way to smoke it, but the lighter being filled with butane, that butane you're inhaling some of that. So it's kind of like a given a take, but I don't think I'm afraid of it. Because if I was I probably wouldn't be smoking. Hmm.

Scott Benner 53:30
What about other drugs? do you have? Do you use any other drugs? Or is this we'd kind of where you live.

Alex 53:41
weed is the only one that I do. You know, when I was a kid, in high school, I was again, like really a lot of like mental stuff like I was, I have a lot going on in my head. And the school actually told me to take Xanax and Adderall. Like, they really recommended that they had a meeting with my mom and all that. And I took them for 30 days. And I was like, okay, like, I'll do what you say like I've, I tend to be receptive. But if I don't like it, I will stand up and say no, but at the 30 day script, I filled the script. And I didn't take the second round, because it just wasn't, I didn't enjoy it. Like I'd already smoked. And I felt like the Adderall and the Xanax were cool. But if I'm going to be in like a box in my head, I might as well be smoking weed on me because it was like an artificial box that they created. And I just really didn't like it. So I sold the other 60 pills or whatever, the six the 30 Xanax and the 30 Adderall and just never touch them again. And that was right before. Like, I don't know if you're aware of these drugs, but Adderall and Xanax are pretty popular. You know, I mean, like, people use those things. And I just, I couldn't I couldn't do it. Know what I mean? Like I'd rather be a self created box. I don't I mean, like, if I'm going to smoke weed. I can stop at any time. Like there's nothing that's and some people are Really addicted to these annexes and all these street drugs. And I've seen it like cocaine or I mean, I've seen all those things in that like, well, amongst my peers, and it's just not, not cool. Not I mean, like,

Scott Benner 55:12
you made me wonder you made me wonder how many people are walking around with a Xanax prescription who would say that, you know, people shouldn't smoke weed,

Alex 55:20
you know, and the thing like, that's what I was kind of, I was getting going, I hope to talk about with the pumps and stuff like not just because I don't like the Medtronic, 70 or whatever, doesn't mean that someone else can't love it. Don't I mean for spend some time, if that pill works for you, great. But at the end of the day, if you're dependent on something like that's gonna tether you back, like you're not able to see the world. If you're on a 30 day script. You know what I mean? Like, and that's one of the bummers about these pumps and like stuff like that is you're, you're tethered. Know what I mean? Like you had a conversation with someone on on your podcast that, like a world traveler, she was going everywhere. I think it was, like Everest lady, I know that Everest lady had to, like prepare for it. But a woman in India, maybe Yeah, but like, all these people have to like, if they're in a different country, they have to now figure out their supply chain to get those drugs. Not I mean, like not drugs, but just prescriptions like all these, all these things require, like a postal address. And if you're always moving to get those things, and you got to stack up, you got to really prepare for that trip. And I think that when you're addicted to something, whether that's alcohol or pills, because that's really the thing is most of these drugs aren't supposed to be like long term use, other than like insulin or something like that. But then x is supposed to help you for the time being, and you're supposed to wean yourself off of it. And I think that that's the toughest thing for people is to get themselves off of it. But I also grew up. Like I said, my brother smoked with me when I was in third grade. And it's a he had a problem. I mean, like, he's an alcoholic, still has a problem with it. And both of my parents are, quote, unquote, like, alcoholics are both functioning, you know, I mean, they both work. Yeah, they both love it. But as soon as five o'clock hits, and they're both not working, they're quick to open a beer quick to crack a bottle of wine, no judgement here. But it's like, I can't do that for myself. And when I see other people doing it, I don't want to be around them. And that's with the bills too. When you when you don't have

Scott Benner 57:25
pot in your system. Does it bother you? Or are you in charge of the next time you smoke?

Alex 57:32
Um, I'm not like it doesn't bother me now. Like I can. Like I went down, I went on a cruise and the Caribbean or whatever, it was, like seven days. And I didn't smoke the entire seven days. Although I got weed on one of the islands. I didn't even smoke it. You know what I mean? Like, alright, I got it. Or my butchers eating because it's hot. But I got the weed. And I was in the van. And I was just like, do I want to smoke this? I mean, like, it's been probably like, goes by probably like five days at that point, right. I was like, I'm not gonna smoke some dirt weed from an island that they probably imported this weed here. Like, I'm just gonna wait till I get home and get some real weed because this was all like brown. And it wasn't really like the best looking tree. I mean, the guy did me a solid and got it for me. But it wasn't really what you were looking for.

Scott Benner 58:20
Yeah, I mean, because it wasn't quality. You just didn't bother doing it. It's not like you You didn't like your Jones and you have to I The reason I asked is I just was on a plane the other day. And my seatmate got on the plane, sat down, was felt nervous to me, got up, ran to the bathroom, came back was nervous happened, his feet happened his feet. Then he kind of interlocked his hands and started rubbing his wrists with his fingers. And he just I'm like, whatever this guy needs. I hope somebody gets it for him soon, you know. And then the cart came down and he bought a can of tomato juice and two bottles of vodka. He knocked it back real quick. His legs stopped tapping. He wasn't grabbing it himself anymore. And he was okay. He, he was in trouble looking for out. Yeah, you know. And so I think that people, you know, and I don't know why, listen, let me tell you the truth. I have a son who's a sophomore in college, I have a daughter who's a sophomore in high school. I do not want them to smoke. I really directed them throughout their lives not to do it. And if I found out they did it, I think I'd be upset. And I don't know why.

Alex 59:27
So let me say that go ahead. And like, I don't have any kids. I'm 26 and I'm not looking to have any kids anytime soon. I mean, I would love to like don't get me wrong, but I'm trying to get I'm trying to get some life experience of ours. But uh, I think like when I when I first smoked with my brother, he smoked. And he said to me, do you know what you smoked? And I was like, No, I just smoked it because he's

Scott Benner 59:52
gonna say I said, No, I'm nine.

Alex 59:55
Yeah. But he said don't ever smoke something that you don't know. Like, Ask the person or look at it yourself determine what is in that that you're smoking. And he went on, I think he told me a story or something. But I remember that little chunk. That's the only thing that I took from that situation could be a lesson. Yeah. And I think that the, even if you don't smoke your whole life, whatever, smoking once you don't I mean, like, knock on wood probably isn't gonna kill, you know, I mean, try it, see how you like it. But I'm not saying go take a line of coke or, you know, I mean, but I think people should venture out and try new things if they don't like it great. But like, or

Scott Benner 1:00:33
I have no objection to it whatsoever. None. Like I don't even as you say that I you know, I don't think I think I said on the drinking episode that I saw Snoop Dogg and Joe Rogan on the Howard Stern Show. And they were like an advertisement for smoking. I was like, these guys make this seem like a great idea. And, and they looked, listen, they seemed fine to me. Now, having said that, I can't imagine a day where I was always doing something like that. I have to be honest with you. I have a hard time remembering your drink water throughout the day. I don't know that I could remember to smoke. And like even that, I think it's similar reason. I mean, I'm not a cigarette smoker. But even the idea of giving the way the time to it seems odd to me. But then as my pointed out in the drinking episode, I'm not a person who has a trouble relaxing. So I'm not I'm not looking for, like that thing you describe about getting in your own head. I can do that whenever I need to. Oh, really? Right. So I don't have that barrier. If I had that barrier, I cannot understand I can hundred percent think that this would make a lot of sense for me if I was that person.

Alex 1:01:39
But yeah, I can stop and shoot things away. I don't have trouble going to sleep. I'm not stressed out or nervous. Like those kinds of things like some, some fairly bad stuff has happened to me in my life. And maybe I've just trained myself not to freak out. Or maybe I just got lucky. I don't know. But did you? They talk about compartmentalization. Like nothing. It's so low to where you never, it never comes up in your daily life. Nothing triggers it. But when you start to, like, if you smoke, or do some mushrooms, I haven't. I've my bugs that I've ever taken. I've, I've done the Xanax. I've done the Adderall, smoke some weed. I've done two lines of coke. And that's like, that's my, what I've done with that. When you do those things, like I can always start like you dig into yourself, you figure out what's there, what's not. And I think that some people have this like defense mechanism where they just compartmentalize it, like my mom is very much that way. She doesn't even like talk about stuff, or and if she does, it's more stuff that she'll he's willing to talk about. And if it goes too far, she just cuts it off. But being open to those things, I think makes people better. And they're not, like scared about it or scared about their past like, yeah. But the, I think Joe Rogan has talked about like the smoking before, like a certain age, because you're more developed on me smoking before I think 26 is not good for you, being that you're not fully developed, and it starts altering your development stages or whatever. Yes, um, and I, I wish I had heard that when I was super young, so that I did like, I was smarter than my brother, and didn't let him influence me. And then also when I was a freshman in high school, like not to do those things, focus on school more, because in school, I, I wasn't the best student. And I was a good student, like I did my work and stuff. But when it was a time to raise my hand or ask a question, I did it every single time, like I wanted to talk. And I want it to be the center of attention. Now looking back on it. Maybe that wasn't the best thing to do.

Scott Benner 1:03:48
You know what I mean? But if you think you were too mellow to focus on school, like don't think some things in life need a little anxiety? Like the the idea of like, I gotta get this done, or something's gonna go wrong for me.

Alex 1:04:01
Yeah, I mean, I was never to stress about school itself. Like, I didn't care. Like I cared about school. But I was more of like, a, like, if I like I don't I had a limit of questions in classes, like I was, I was allowed to ask three questions in a classroom, because I'd asked like 50 in a class and the teacher started getting upset and didn't, didn't want me to ask questions anymore. Like, I was very involved. Like I had overly participation points to the point where she was like, somebody

Scott Benner 1:04:30
else answer. Yeah,

Alex 1:04:31
yeah. And it wasn't like, I would wait, like if anyone else was going to answer no one did so I was like, Alright, boom, I'll answer. Like, I was very focused on the class, but that was looked at as a negative but also, like, I was also that person in the school. Like there was one time we had a an hour and a half classroom like a classroom session. We had a break right after about to go into another hour and we did block periods. Mm hmm. Um, I went out I got my my food at the right food. sensory thing, whatever. And I went down to sit at the tables, and the janitor guy was spraying off the tables and Lino, and I'm like, you couldn't have done this an hour and a half ago, like we had a whole time where no one was out here. You choose to wash down the tables right now. And he didn't like, like, yeah, spraying them down. So I sat at the end of the tables that he was spraying, I was eating. I'm like, spray me, like, go ahead, if you have $10,000 in your pocket to pay for a new pump does when pumps weren't waterproof yet. Like, and I held my shirt up with my pump in my hand, I was like, spray me, go for it, please. And it created a crowd of people around me. And I got in trouble for that, because he wanted to spray down the tables, and was had no problem spraying me. He did it me what. And you know what I mean? Like I've not type of person to where I think something's wrong. I don't have any problems standing up for it. And I did that in the classrooms as well. And teachers didn't really like that, because I would read ahead. And if the teacher made a mistake, I would challenge her on her mistake and see how she responded. It was always like a test for the teachers. And I know, it is what it is. But looking back on it. I wish I would have just stayed below the radar. You know what I mean? Because being that I was like, really upfront, they didn't really like that. But I had an incident like it was before cell phones. I actually had cell phones in high school, but I was dosing on my pump or like looking at something on my pump. And the teacher walked by, it's going to be real slick, and grab the pump out of my hands and like walk like she grabbed it and kept walking. And I was like, obviously, I'm attached to the pump. So I kept following her. Because I didn't want her to rip it out of me. And like Why are you following? Like, why are you following me? And I was like, Look, it's attached to me, like, Oh, I'm sorry. And I still got in trouble for that. Like, it was just ridiculous. And I was at a brand new school. We're the only class at that school. We're we're the first freshman year, the first sophomore year, like and so on. We had classes below us, but we never had one above us. And we were kind of the guinea pigs for that school. And they just, and I was very direct like with that incident when the teacher pulled the pump out of my hands. He she got an earful. No, I mean, like, I'm gonna defend myself and all costs. But once I once I got older, it was I'm not ruling like I just got a car washing ticket for car washing in the street. Took the dude's hand told him Thank you know what I mean? Like an older man. Hey, listen, you're maturing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's a big thing. But I also think, though, like, with the schools, the the 504 plans and things like that, like, yeah, those are really important. Because Because people understand

Scott Benner 1:07:37
because that woman would have known she couldn't have grabbed your insulin pump.

Alex 1:07:40
Yeah. And like education is very important and not to discriminate for a kid because even when I was 1516, like in high school, they they shouldn't. Like they I got out of the teacher yelled at or whatever. The first thing shouldn't be like, okay, you're suspended. You're this go to the principal's office. It should be what's your blood sugar up? I don't I mean, like, what's your blood sugar at? You have anything? Like? Did you take your pills as well, like real questions that aren't just immediately like, you're in trouble? Like, it shouldn't? Never immediately be like that, like, let's figure out some baseline stuff where you at? And then determine was this a normal Alex type situation? Or was it just your high or you were low, you were frustrated about this like, because I think that the school system being that it's kind of like under budgeted or whatever. The teachers think that they just kind of breezed past certain situations. And I felt like that really affected my education. When I was younger, that I was always out of class. I was basically the last two years of high school senior year, I think junior year is that the last two years, they I went to fresh start, I taught myself in school, because at the end of sophomore year, they asked me like, they told me you're either going to get expelled, or you can go to fresh start come to school, like one day at one class that day. And it's an elective, so you don't have like any, because the English and math and all those stuff. I was too serious of a class like don't like they weren't, like oppressing me and telling me what to do and stuff and I never liked that. But I'd freshman year, or like the fresh start really gave me a freedom. And that allowed me to get a job, like work and really be a functioning member of society. But the school system, they didn't they don't allow freedom. Yeah, they don't allow creativity. They don't allow you to be you. And I think that especially as a diabetic, like I'm not looking for special ed or anything like that. But there should like there should be someone in your court

Scott Benner 1:09:45
understands and yeah, could advocate for you. Maybe in a moment. Yeah, couldn't help yourself.

Alex 1:09:50
And I will say amongst my years in school, like my elementary school, I had a woman named Heidi in the health office and he had my back but she also was a very strong woman. She would call me out like, yo, that was your bad. Like, I can't defend you on that you messed up. It's good. And like in middle schools, a woman named Romeo. He, like really loves Keith Urban. I'll never forget that. But she, she had my back. She always had my back whenever she saw me in the office or whatever it was like, Hey, how you doing? Whatever. It was super cool. And when I high school, I had a woman. Like, when I got Addison's disease, they had to switch all the nurses and the district because I needed a registered nurse to be able to give me my like, emergency injection, okay. And she had my back like, She's like, I have medical alert bracelets. And she's the one that ordered the medical alert bracelets. I didn't order them. She ordered them and told me to give her the money or whatever. And I'm like, that's like, how do you? How can somebody try to ask that? Like, that's like, the best thing you can do over an event? They're doing more

Scott Benner 1:10:53
than eight. Yeah, yeah.

Alex 1:10:55
And she was a cool, like, person. Like, I remember one time, I had to do a drug test at school. And I was like, yo, like, I don't think I'm gonna pass. He's like, okay, just kick it. hang out here for a little while. And do whatever you got to do. Like, she wasn't stressing on it. She was. Just let me do my thing. And it was like, the coolest thing like, I don't know, I just some people really stand out to you. Yeah, type of situation first.

Scott Benner 1:11:18
So I also Oh, I'm sorry.

Alex 1:11:20
The last place, most recent situation that really stood out to me for medical stuff was on my last like hypoglycemic episode, I had the EMTs paramedics like it at my house, whatever, they're rolling me out. And when you're coming off of a low, you're kind of like in and out of it, like, rebuilding your consciousness, whatever. And are, like I was getting pushed through my living room. And the god like, I kept throwing up, like, that's what I do when I'm low. Like, I just throw up. But this guy was like, you've been through this before. Why aren't you being like, like, that was like screaming, my head hurts so bad. And I was throwing up, like, stop, stop doing this. Like, just stop, like, take, like, buckle your shit up right now. So that we can roll you into the bus. So you're not like throwing up on the stairs as we're taking you downstairs. He was like really aggressive towards me. And mind you like I was only my eyes were and yours. Were only awake for that little bit of second. And I heard that and I like pass right back out. And it really, I woke up I still remembered it. So I was like, Oh, this is important. And that's what kind of got me on this healthiness was like, that dude was really mad. Like, he was upset that I was like, yo, like they had come in. In a matter of like, four months, the paramedics had come like four or five times it was when I was on my 670. But uh, I've,

Scott Benner 1:12:41
I've heard of someone I know, as a paramedic in a place there where heroin is a big problem. And they go save people with Narcan all night long, like, it's their whole job. And, and when he talks about it, he, you should just feel how sad he is. When he when he talks about it. It's, it's terrible.

Alex 1:13:03
It really is tough. Like, just on my end, when I wake up and I see all these people's faces. They all have this, like, sour look on their face, when they're watching someone potentially die. Like they don't know if I'm gonna live or not like once they give me the dextrose they can kind of assume that I'll be fine. But, you know, it is tough like and coming out of the like, I've had multiple multiple hypoglycemic episodes, where I'm completely blacked out I have no recollection of, and I when I first look sorry, these people's faces, and they're all just intensely focused on you. And I'm like, What happened?

Scott Benner 1:13:36
Even though it's their job? It's still impacted. Yeah, it's hard for them and but you're you're saying that since How long ago? Was that, that you had that experience that made you think like, I'm gonna do better?

Alex 1:13:46
That one wasn't exactly a year ago.

Scott Benner 1:13:48
And since then, you're on a completely different path with your diabetes.

Alex 1:13:52
Yes, sir. I completely different like, like I said, I used to love sushi. I could eat $100 a sushi by myself. And I would dose like for like for, like 40 units of insulin to eat my, my sushi. And it was I love it. But there's no like what I've dumbed it down to and diabetes. Is it as diabetic, have a carb allergy who are allergic to carbohydrates? Like if you don't have your, your mouth, you know? Yeah, if you don't have your insulin and stuff, you're going to get messed up. So reduce your carb intake. Eat more protein on I mean, eat stuff that isn't going to affect your blood sugar. Right. I see how that works. No, I mean, well, and I

Scott Benner 1:14:35
can I tell you, I think you should try the pro tip series that's inside the podcast. They started Episode 210 That goes for it goes for about 10 or 11 episodes. And it's it's management ideas broken down in real, like easy to understand conversations and I think you would after listening to you, I think you would take a lot out of it. I think you I really think you'd be real would really benefit from it. Can I ask you a couple other questions about this past year before I let you go cuz I've got you longer than I told you, I would.

Alex 1:15:07
Oh, you're good, man. I'm just chilling. Thanks. Thanks.

Scott Benner 1:15:10
So in this last year, and you've got a one see the way you do like, I'm looking for best practices around smoking with diabetes. Like is there anything he said, You don't really have to plan for anything. But you do think about like, when you get munchie later, but is there anything else that that is really helping you keep your blood sugar intact while you're smoking?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:31
Um,

Alex 1:15:33
well, I removing the tobacco, I don't think that tobacco is good. If you don't have a tobacco like if you smoke cigarettes, go for it. But cooking clean, preparing for it like allocating some time. If you if it's like your first time, maybe smoke a little bit earlier in the day, or I mean, and don't as soon as you get that hunger fix. Don't, don't dig into it. You're I mean, wait until you're actually done smoking, you've smoked all the weed, and then give yourself some time to eat. And don't, don't eat the first thing that you see. Know what I mean? Like the first thing that comes to mind, don't eat that. Give a little bit more thought to it. You're not like some people, like allow themselves to get so high that they're just like, spacey or whatever. You know, he you can still be like, coherent enough to be like, Oh, I shouldn't eat that. I mean, there's no amount of weed that's gonna like, destroy you to where you can't know what you're going to eat. Like same stuff that as if you were sober every day, you know? I mean, it's I don't Yeah, I don't really prepare for it. I just what I do. Best practices are getting some good weed. Don't get some poop weed. You know what I mean? Getting get some solid weed. It's not like a poo pie. And, you know, yeah, I don't really because we we didn't have any sugar in it. But you could smoke endless amounts of weed and weed. The weed directly isn't ever going to increase your blood sugar. In fact, you said I feel like it helps it be a little lower. Sometimes probably bone. I wouldn't say lower it just man when I'm high. It's not the does your blood

Scott Benner 1:17:05
sugar is high. You don't feel that? Yeah. feminism. Yeah. Because it's,

Alex 1:17:08
it's taking it away in some way. But I'll tell you the CBD stuff. Yeah, like I've done drop the little droplets or whatever. Does I've never I doesn't really I don't really have a feel for it. You know what I mean? It doesn't doesn't change how I feel or anything. But at the topicals CBD topicals I really enjoy those after a car wash on my legs and my like feet and stuff. I really enjoy that because the CBD stuff. If you get a good milligram it kicks.

Scott Benner 1:17:34
Yeah. Well, so what about the idea of being more relaxed? lowering your anxiety and that might lower your, your blood sugar your your Yeah, needs to? If I could,

Alex 1:17:46
yeah, okay, that could be I had a

maybe like three, three ish years ago, three and a half years ago. I I was like, in a really sour place. You know, I mean, I was just really overwhelmed with life and everything. And I don't want to get too graphic, but I was just done. You know what I mean? Like, I've had this stuff forever. And I was I was just done. So I gave my I did hit the max bullets on my pump twice. Like, I think it was like 50 units, I took an Ambien and I was just ready to go to sleep, and not wake up. And I enjoy weed. So I was like, I'm gonna hit a bowl and then pass out edible. And I was like, it totally changed my mindset immediately. I was like, Man is maybe not the best thing to be doing right now. Like, it totally like, again, like I said, totally changed my mindset on everything. And I start eating, you know, I mean to over 50 units units. I just called me back down. It brought me back to like, a centered place to where I was able to, like live life again. Right?

Scott Benner 1:18:51
That's a fascinating, okay. All right, Alex, I'm gonna ask you to do two things, right? Yeah, I'm going to ask you at the end here to talk me into trying weed and, and then talk me out of wanting to try weed. So start by talking me into it. Like, why would I? Why should I try?

Unknown Speaker 1:19:09
Um,

Alex 1:19:12
well, I've never taught anyone in Dubai. Like,

Scott Benner 1:19:14
everybody here was like, yo, here it is. Let's go.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:17
Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:19:18
But you're talking to a person who has no desire to do it, but doesn't see any problem with it either.

Alex 1:19:23
So the best thing I could say, if you want to, like you drink No, not at all. Oh, wow. Um, I guess it would be like the best like coping mechanism. Like if you've had a long day or whatever, maybe not consistently, but for like a celebration or going to try something new, like on your next vacation or something and you want to have a little bit of a different feel, and maybe try some wheat. Um,

Scott Benner 1:19:48
what about my back hurts with it with that make that go away?

Alex 1:19:52
Yeah, I mean, it's gonna temporarily like while you're high, you're not going to not going to be the main focus, but when you're not high, it's going to come back on I mean, I, it's your personal choice. I wouldn't, I wouldn't tell you to try it. But if you were trying to try it and come smoke, no, I mean that you can come up to the crib and I'll smoke with you. I think that's one of the things like if you're going to be a

Scott Benner 1:20:16
be with somebody I trust, maybe they can help

Alex 1:20:18
me with the wit underscore, like you're gonna need like a shaman like not to need someone to kind of like, hold you back. Because if it climbs, like, there's been times where I haven't like when I haven't smoked for a little while, and I smoked again and you smoke and you're like, Okay, it hasn't hit me yet. I'm going to smoke again. But it's like getting in there where they

Scott Benner 1:20:37
bet it's like stacking until you can stack Yeah, you're telling me?

Alex 1:20:40
Yeah, exactly. Okay. If you're like, you have no tolerance, whatever, but if you have a tolerance, you can. Yeah, yeah. But um, I don't I, I feel weird trying to convince you to smoke. No,

Scott Benner 1:20:53
I mean, I didn't think you were going to I just want to see what Yeah, say

Alex 1:20:56
that I, I will say that I can provide a safe place for you to smoke. And, you know, I mean, real calm, got a lovely view. And that's what I mean, the best thing I can do, but I think it's, you can't abuse it. That's the biggest thing. And this is I kind of going into me talking you out of it. If you do want to smoke, great, do your thing. But when you find yourself at 35 years old, and you've been smoking since you were, you know, 15 or whatever, and you haven't done shit with your life. That's the time where it's time to sober up. Not I mean, that's the time where it's, you got to make the choice like, what what is it for me? That I'm not doing my best? You know what I mean? Like, you're looking into yourself and saying, Is this really the best for me? Can I be better without this? You know what I mean? Or is our blunts not good for me? Maybe I do. What do I got to try the bomb? Nothing. So set in your ways to where everything is? For sure. Do you? I mean, like that's, do you see a time when you don't smoke anymore? Ah, you know, I've always said that. I will always like smoke in some form or another. But recently, you know, like, I've smoked less than less. Just because I haven't had time to or I get home and I'm so tired. I just hit one bowl, and I'm just like, out go to bed. But um, I'm sure there's a time where I was like, kind of slow down. Or I might get like, when I'm 50 or something. I get super into it. You know? I mean, like, it's

Scott Benner 1:22:19
like just starting over again. Yeah,

Alex 1:22:21
yeah, you know what I mean? Like I, I would love to be able to smoke forever. And I don't necessarily get lazy. Like when I was down in San Diego polishing and buffing this car. I was smoking the entire time. You know what I mean? It doesn't make me less than it just sometimes it's kind of a deterrent, like you're talking about with like relationships and stuff. Yeah, maybe that girl doesn't want me to smoke. So I'll give it up for I don't care. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I've been in a relationship where the girl wasn't like she was down like we were smoked together and stuff, but it wasn't best for me. So she's like, yo, maybe you should quit for your doctor like so you can figure out what's going on. Right. And sometimes that's like, someone that you can confide in and you trust and they think that they have the best. What is it best interest for you? Yeah. Yeah, like that's, we know what it may be the biggest thing, what I wonder

Scott Benner 1:23:13
when you're talking is is just the act of getting high and taking away your inhibitions. Just let you go in the direction that you mean to go in any way. Like if you're going to be a person who lays around doesn't do anything. Maybe this takes the guilt away, that you have about sitting around. And so you're just able, and if you're a productive person who wants to get going, maybe it clears the way in your head to get going.

Alex 1:23:34
Yeah, I would say it clears the barriers. Because with my like, even this truck that I'm about to buy, I'm so scared about this truck. Like it's 5900 bucks. It's a POS. But,

Scott Benner 1:23:46
you know, for you it's a big investment. I

Alex 1:23:49
mean, 59 really isn't that much like I can pay that off relatively quickly. It's just it's now pressure to carwash. No, I mean, before I was doing it off the trunk or in the driveway. It was just fun, you know, but now if I get this truck, now I have to pay that 59 back. I have to get the stuff for the bed. But when I smoke, it's like, okay, I don't have to do anything. I get the truck, and I'm gonna watch cars. Normally, it brings me back down to like, this what what needs to happen? What I mean? Like, yeah, for me,

Scott Benner 1:24:19
that pressure keeps me focused. Like, one of the things I love the most about having ads on the podcast is it keeps you know, like, it's a lot of time. And so I'm able to look at my wife and say, Look, there's some money here. Like, it's not like, I'm not like I'm just upstairs being like, I'm gonna help people, which would be nice, but it takes up a lot of time. So it's an income that makes the podcast reasonable to do. But the second thing that I'm really pleased about because I want to do the podcast is that I owe ads to people. And so the other day, uh, two days ago, I had a terrible day, like everything in my life went wrong from every angle, and I still had to get the podcast out.

Alex 1:25:00
So those are some of the best days.

Scott Benner 1:25:01
Yeah, I got a lot done. But But moreover, if I didn't have to if I didn't have those ads, I probably would have just thought, well, I'll just put it out Wednesday. And who knows if that isn't the beginning of the end for like, maybe I'll do it next week. And and I like I like that I have, I think that truck might be that for you. Like, it's, it's gonna make you, you know, get up and go wash some cars to make some payments on your truck. And maybe you'll start seeing a building, maybe, you know, maybe you talk five years from now. And you'll have a fleet of vans running around California, right, you know, cleaning people's cars.

Alex 1:25:33
Yeah. Well, and being that you brought up the ads, what I'll say is, I think it also helps the companies like Dexcom and Omni pod. They're benefiting because, one, they have a paid interest into the podcast. But not only that, they'll probably listen to it, they probably have someone that's dedicated to listen to it, like we paid this money. What are we getting out of it? And it brings them data don't I mean, it brings them real diabetic stories that they can maybe apply to their products, you know what I mean, apply to their marketing plans, see how they can reach the people better? You know what I mean, from there in

Scott Benner 1:26:06
as humbly as I can. I will say that I think this podcast is doing multiple different things for multiple different people.

Alex 1:26:12
Yeah, and I will say that, like the like, being that I got this back in 1995, where literally, the dose, like carb ratios and stuff, I had a sliding scale, like I took a picture of it on my Instagram. But it's a like, it's come a long way. And I like there's some times where I'm really upset. I just want it to be cured already. But there's some times where I'm I'm just super appreciative because it's like coming from a 670 G, where it does it's auto mode, it's branded as auto mode. And then does it do auto mode? is kind of a bummer. Yeah, I mean, like, it doesn't do it very well. But like, I'm I my first pump was a paradigm pump in fifth grade. My second pump was a 530. And the one after that was a 670. I love the paradigm, I love the 530. But they just dropped the ball in the next one. And I was so set, like I was loyal, like Medtronic, and I didn't want to change. I was super happy with them. But I was kind of forced to change. And I'm going into the tandem and the dexcom combo is just killer. You know what I mean? It's not perfect. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. The sensor could be a little bit better. And I've there's a

Scott Benner 1:27:27
I don't think anything's perfect, Alex and I do think it gets better. I think Dexcom of all of the companies Yeah, they are. They're moving like breakneck speed making, making improvements. And I'm just I'm super excited next year for, you know, all these closed loop systems that come out, you know, on the horizon and whatever tandems going to do and like by and hopefully Medtronic will fix their deal. You know what I mean? Like, give people I just think, I just think, being that I've got the short end of the stick with the Medtronic device. And like their response, like after I've gone to the hospital, you know, a couple times. They're like, Oh, just trust it. This trust it. And I was like,

Alex 1:28:06
okay, like, I don't understand how I can trust something that I literally, like, now I still have a problem going to sleep at night. Because I'm afraid I'm not going to wake up because of their device. You know what I mean? Like, that's a tough thing to like,

Scott Benner 1:28:20
lost that edge that trust. It's hard to get that back. Yeah, yeah, you just make that leap.

Alex 1:28:25
With the tandem? Yeah, I, I, I don't use the basal IQ system, I use the auto suspend. So I don't get low, like I get low, but even on their auto suspend, tandem pumps, the brakes, they, they suspend you for a little bit, pull off the suspend, see how you do suspend you for a little bit, pull it off and see what you do. You're never suspended for more than like, five or 10 minutes or 15 minutes at a time. But if they need to, they still have the two hour like they'll suspend you for the two hours to shut it off. But Medtronic is like if they suspend. They don't unsuspend until you're in a different like zone and then but the problem is if you're suspended, and then you calibrate, like like basically if I'm asleep, and it's Ben's auto suspends. It's a two hour max. And then it needs to calibrate. I'm now back in full bazel. And I don't have CGM breeding, so it can't resuspend and I'm sleeping. You know what I mean? Like, that's a recipe for disaster and it has led to disaster multiple times. And how, like, food, what was the test market? I thought that was okay. Know what I mean that like what diabetics were you talking to? That thought that was okay, I say

Scott Benner 1:29:38
this. And I don't find myself defending Medtronic very often. And if they were trying to get it through the FDA, and they were trying to be the first ones, they had to err pretty far on the side of caution to get the FDA to say okay, well, and

Alex 1:29:49
you know, my thing is like now all these other companies are trying to get into the market. But the first thing that should always be the first and every one of these companies minds, is the end user know what I mean? The End diabetic that has to live with this product. Are they going to like, you know what I mean? And I'm not talking about the the two year diabetic that just got diabetes, they're still fresh in that honeymoon period or whatever. I'm talking about the 20 year diabetic that has seen those ups and downs, it knows how that stuff's going to react and can see like, okay, maybe what if we tried this or this, like, the variables, we've seen more variables being that we've had it so much longer, right? You're able to like, troubleshoot them quicker, like, yeah, maybe make

Scott Benner 1:30:28
it a little bit better on your side. Yeah, I completely agree. There's got to be a ton of user definable concepts in the algorithms or then you're just going to be with this one size fits all thing. It's just not going to work for most people. And, and you just like you said, you get somebody who maybe it's just been diagnosed for a little bit there a one sees like eight or 910. And they're like, oh, now it's now it's seven consistently. And they think this thing's amazing. Because that, but you're a person who now I mean, now you're, you're, you're feeling it now. Looks like you're sniffing sixes, you're probably thinking about fives. And you know, to me, like you're starting to think like, I think I could do better here for myself. And I'm gonna keep trying.

Alex 1:31:06
Well, I'll tell you, I wasn't. My doctor is chillin on sixes. She's happy about that. I bet. But when I heard you, and you're like, not you, but like, you talk about your daughter being at like, fives or something. I was like, Huh, can I get two fives? You know what I mean? Like, and I, when I was a kid, I wanted to go to this diabetic camp or whatever, like dumb, get together thing. And my mom was like, you want to go to fat camp? And I was like, No, nevermind, come on.

Scott Benner 1:31:35
I've never put you off.

Alex 1:31:37
Yeah, and I've never been into the diabetes community at all.

Like, you're here. Now again.

Well, that's the thing is I've, I've opened up and I've put it on my Instagram, like I've openly saying, I'm a diabetic, and I'm not I mean, I'm reaching out to people. I got actual, like, friends on Instagram that are diabetics that I can like, yo, how would you think about this or like, and that changes the whole aspect of diabetes for me. And it's a bummer that I'm not like my mom's not diabetic, that I was allowed. I allow allowed someone to get in my head. That's not a diabetic to, you know, put on like, she wasn't trying to make fun of me. She was making a joke about it. But I took it serious, like, what is that fat camp? Like? Is that what I think it is, you know, and I let something like I let her opinion be my opinion, until I was old enough to be like, that's not my opinion, I am going to try that. And I think that that's sometimes being that as a young kid, like people like jdrf, juvenile diabetes, like you get it at a young age, and you're surrounded by your parents that are going like they have diabetes to pretty much at that point. And it's like, if you aren't able to reduce your thoughts or like, reassess some thoughts that you've had, you may not find the treatment, that's best for you know, what I mean, to be able to get into the fives or the sixes, like, that's a the community is huge. I mean, like, it really is. It's just nice to talk to someone. I've actually said that to Dexcom, and tandem and Medtronic that some of the best treatment isn't just like, a key change your basal rates can change your carb ratios, do this or do that. And sometimes it's just talking, I mean, just having an open a line of another diabetic or someone that knows enough about the disease to be able to respond in

Scott Benner 1:33:26
a way that can help you. Yeah, yeah, I was, I think you threw your hat into the ring. I think this is gonna do that for somebody else now. So I sure hope so. I think I really do.

Alex 1:33:36
I don't want to be defined as like a weed, smoking diabetic, but I do smoke weed, don't get me wrong. But I think that for anyone else, like it's not just weed, you could be a yoga, diabetic or whatever, like people are super into yoga right now. And it's like, that could be your thing. That could be what helps you through diabetes, or your Addison's or whatever disease you might have, or whatever, like it's, it's really, whatever works for you. You rock with it. You know what I mean? Like, and for me, I enjoy car washing, but I do the nine to five, you know, I mean, I'm, I do a lot of different things. But when I find like a new like, I love doing random stuff, like I just placed my mom's rubber boots seal on her washer, right? Totally, totally a challenge. But I wanted to challenge myself and it was like kind of a meditation because the whole time I was being challenged, but I had to finish it because I had to do laundry. Like that's, that's pretty serious. But going out of your realm trying something new maybe you want to skydive, you don't I mean, and you haven't really done it yet and you're inching around about it. To take the next step. Like if someone asks you to go jet skiing or something and you didn't think about doing that that day. Maybe that's what could be dirt like what what could be more fun or whatever you got going on.

Scott Benner 1:34:53
Fox I'll tell you what I have to go because I have real I have work to do. But I really love talking to you and I want to say this When I had you on it, when you reached out, we corresponded a little bit back and forth. My my hope was just, absolutely, it just came true. Because I think that people who are not involved in you know, the culture of weed and smoking pot are going to think one thing about you when they start listening. And I think that by the time they get to the end, they're going to realize, like you just said, you're not, you're not just a person who smokes pot, you're not a diabetic, like who smokes pot, you're really a fully realized person who has all kinds of things going on in their lives, is overcoming problems is growing and maturing, and you're a full person. And I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your life like this. So that people who have preconceived ideas, maybe won't have them anymore. This was really helpful in a lot of different ways. Thank

Alex 1:35:53
you very much. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the platform, be able to even do this. I was low key scared to like, come on here. I didn't know what it was gonna be like. But I definitely appreciate it. I would love to do it again, or continue this or if anyone wants to talk or whatever. I'm totally willing to talk about anything. What's your outcome couple. I'm like, ooh, donator. What is the donator is like my main Instagram that I use all the time. fo b, n o h, and then later na D er, majors like my nickname, people. My name is Alexander. But when I got my license when I was 16, the DMV switch the A and the en andere to Nadir was Alex Nadir, all my friends call me that. You can call me that too.

Scott Benner 1:36:37
Later. I appreciate it. If I ever decide to get high, I'm gonna find you.

Alex 1:36:41
Awesome. Sweet. Yeah, and I really enjoyed this. Thank you for having me on here. This was a super cool experience. I think you're really killing it. And I look forward to more of them really more of these after dark, some more of any of your pod.

Here, you have a really great voice

Scott Benner 1:36:54
for it. I have to say, Oh, thank you. Well, Here's what's coming up on afterdark. A sex from a male perspective. I've set up I've got a set up for sex from a female perspective. And I have a now clean addict who's going to talk about living with diabetes, while they were while they weren't clean, while they got clean. And how it almost impacted them to not be cleaning how their diabetes almost impacted them not to be cleaned again.

Alex 1:37:28
Oh, wow. Yeah, those are gonna be attention. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:37:30
So they're gonna, they're, they're really great. I'm very happy for people who are willing to talk about this. This is stuff this is a real thing. You're not the one guy in the world who has diabetes and smokes. Right, right. There's I mean, it's a lot of them.

Alex 1:37:42
We do, like diabetics are still like real people, or I mean, like, we still do real stuff. And I think this, this kind of phase that you have going on with your podcast is going to be huge, like for that that. Like, they're not alone. Like you were just saying, like there's other people that do that, too. And they have questions. And this might be the platform to answer those questions. I mean, for anyone?

Scott Benner 1:38:01
Yeah, I think you just have to let people talk and tell their truth. And yeah, and let them be honest, so that other people can hear because a lot of people are going to hear their thoughts in yours. And it's going to make them feel better. So I could keep talking to you forever. So let's say goodbye. Thank you very much.

Alex 1:38:17
Thank you. Thank you as well.

Scott Benner 1:38:18
Yeah, take care. Have a great day later.

Alex 1:38:20
Good to see you later. Bye.

Scott Benner 1:38:24
Thank you, Nader for coming on the show and sharing all this. I just felt when I was done talking to Alex. I don't know, I felt I felt like my mind was open. I don't know if I'm getting high anytime soon. But I understood his life better. And I think that's amazing. In that vein, I think it's amazing that Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes sponsor the Juicebox Podcast the way they do, I think I can announce that they will be back for 2020 as sponsors of the show. Thank you very much guys. But moreover, I appreciate that they've never once even hinted they'd like to control the content of the show Dexcom on the pod dancing for diabetes, they've never come to me and said, Please don't talk about this subject or you know, somebody says this, don't put it in. No one's ever said that. And that's just one of the reasons why I can put on great content like today with Alex and it's sponsored, keeps the podcast free to thanks so much to Alex for showing the human side of his life on the pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes for their steadfast support of the Juicebox Podcast.

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#282 Ask Scott and Jenny: Chapter Seven

Answers to Your Diabetes Questions…

Ask Scott and Jenny, Answers to Your Diabetes Questions

• Are growth spurts a gradual increase or all at once? Strategies for evening spikes.

• Any tips for being bold with insulin with the Medtronic 670G pump in auto mode?

• Let’s talk about tricks for Loop, being flexible and learning from your experience.

• Let’s talk and compare Control IQ, Basal IQ, Medtronic 670G and Loop.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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
This episode of Ask Scott and Jenny on the Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by companion medical makers of the in pen. To learn more about in pen, go to companion medical.com or click on the links in your show notes, or Juicebox podcast.com. Are you wondering why I want you to visit companion medical.com? Well, that's simple, because in pen is America's only FDA cleared smart insulin pen and app system. When you get to companion medical.com, you'll discover that in pen combines an innovative diabetes management app with a Bluetooth enabled pen injector. This will simplify the constant tracking monitoring and calculating required for insulin therapy within Penn MDI users are able to live life less complicated. Welcome to Ask Scott and Jenny. These are the episodes where Jenny Smith from integrated diabetes services. Now Jenny, you may know has had diabetes for decades. She's a pump trainer. She's a CDE. She's I think once she went to the moon, I don't remember exactly, but she's done a lot of different things, right? She's also a nutritionist. Listen, she's everything you want. Why are you arguing with me? No, you're not arguing me. And anyway, Jenny and I. We answer questions from you guys. They're left on the boat with Vince on Facebook page. I asked for them every once in a while. I do it real slick. I go like this. Yo, does anybody have any questions for me and Jenny? And then people leave questions and then we answer them. Anyway, today we're going to talk about growth spurts, the 670 g from Medtronic loop tips and a little bit about control IQ. What do you think of that? Hmm? Okay, then. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. or becoming bold with insulin.

Laura says kids and growth spurts Is it a gradual increase or an all at once change? Is that something that you notice they need more of all the sudden that she gives her example toddlers for him was five, still close to some still close to the same ratios? ISF and bazel. From when he came out of honeymooning. I know he's gonna hit a growth spurt soon. And I guess she's looking for like, How do I know when it happens? And what do I do? And I think this falls under the auspice of those of the idea that I just want somebody to tell me how much or when, like, you know, do you mean like, give me a number or an idea? And I don't know that there's a specific answer. I have a general answer. But I wonder what you think about and what you see.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:59
Yeah, and my answer is probably similar to your general answer, honestly, there's not a, there's not going to be a specific like, you're always going to see 25% more insulin needed, right. I mean, it could be over several growth spurts that you notice, gosh, he always need like an extra point one added or an extra 25% or whatnot. But it's, it's not that cut and dry by any means. one specific time though, that most parents with kids with diabetes, and parents of teens with diabetes will notice the heaviest impact of growth. With a surge for only, you know, a short amount of time is evening, where their kids go to bed, they've had things really nicely contained. And all of a sudden they get these like spikes. Almost as soon as the kid is snoring, like their head hits the pillow, they're snoring, and up it goes they've been at this beautiful 111. And up it goes and they fight it and fight it and fight it. And it could be an all night fight depending on how strong the growth surge is. And in those instances, it's okay, let's try it. I usually encourage people to try first a temporary bazel increase rather than shooting it with like a dose of three units of insulin and then chasing the drop down. Attempt bazel increase, you know, that might be significant. Maybe it's 50%. Maybe it's 100% more for a time period. See where it levels off? When does it start coming down? You can always shut off attempt it is all right. So and then if you learn from that, let's say two nights in a row, you start to see this surge on the second night when it gets going. You hit that Temp Basal again, similar to the night before if it controlled Well, if it wasn't quite enough, and you still fought a high pump it up even more. But then once that growth spurt is sort of reversed They may need not as much like as the Temp Basal you are giving to offset the rise. But their overnight needs may definitely go up, you know, they were at point to their growth spurt needed a 50% increase overnight for that time period. And now instead of being at point two an hour, now they're at point three or point three, five. And that might be where they sit for a time period until another growth spurt happens is

Scott Benner 5:28
that going to be because there's more body mass, like you've actually grown? There's more of you, or

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:34
potentially or just the changes that right? I mean, in little kids, especially little kids, I sometimes, you know, with mine, especially my almost three year old, sometimes he wakes up in the morning, and I'm like, you grew right? You just like, all of a sudden, he just let you look bigger, you look like your cheeks are slimmer, or you know, he just looks bigger. And, you know, so sure it can I mean, it wasn't technically overnight that he just shot off. But those, you can suddenly kind of see it and people who are attuned to their kids, especially parents, with little kids who you're following so many more things than just which truck they want to play with, you know, staring at them constantly. And, you know, I mean, with diabetes, you pay attention to so many things. So you could like I said, you could see a tremendous need in a spur period, and then it levels off, but it doesn't come back down to where they were before the growth spurt. Right?

Scott Benner 6:32
I have to say, I think the idea of looking for physical clues is brilliant, because I know our son, his calves would get thicker. Like all of a sudden, you'd look at him and his calves would be out of proportion with the rest of his body larger. And then sure enough, he would get taller. It was almost like his body was like, okay, we're getting ready to do this. You know, like, and it would store things in certain places or something would get bigger sooner. It was just really it never failed as he was growing and I have to say to door jamb that you don't mind drawing on with a pencil is great as you have children, a few people have younger kids. I'm sure you're doing this, but it gets really fun. A decade later, when you're like stand there for a second, you know, and and you get to see how they move up. I would say the answer to this question to me, is the core of the of the podcast, right? Oh, hold on a second. Arden needs a little help with their balls for a second.

Unknown Speaker 7:26
That's okay.

Unknown Speaker 7:29
What is six times

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:30
we don't use the door jamb we use a my mother in law when our first was born bought us this like measurement tree, and you put it on the wall and kind of pop it in. And same thing, same idea, you just push the hash marks on to the tree as the child grows. But the nice thing is that we've used one side of the tree for Oscar and the other side of the tree for Conan. So we can see where they both are. And it's kind of fun to now be able to see where was Oscar? And is Conan meted out the same? Or is he getting bigger faster? Or are they growing about the same? It's kind of fun? It really

Scott Benner 8:08
is. I have to say my wife has told me without a doubt if we ever sell this house, she's like, you have to pry that board off the wall and replace it for the new owner because I'm taking it with me. And I was like, Okay, yeah. So anyway, what I was going to say is that I think this is one of those questions that if you just caught me, if you texted me real quickly and asked me this question, I would say to you, this is why the podcast is terrific. Because you are running into an insulin need. And it's saying to you, I need more insulin, give it more insulin. Try not to worry about why just it does. And when's it gonna start? When's it gonna stop? I don't know. It does kind of suck. I'll tell you like, you know, because after four or five nights of this, and it goes away on that six night when you're finally like, I trust this is going to happen, jacking up bagels and bolusing and everything. And then it turns out, the growth spurts over now you're waking up somebody at one of the morning going, hi, would you like a chicken sandwich in the banana? It's a it sucks. But it works well for those six days. And in my opinion, it's better than being high for six days and just saying, oh, it'll come back again. Right. You know, I just think that's how I would handle it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:15
Correct. And anything, you know, you bring in a good point, in just the comment of when it comes back again, because it will little kids grow and grow and grow and grow and even teens, you know, up to a certain point, girls grow for less time than teen boys do. I mean, teen boys can grow up and into even like 18 to 20 years, some boys. I mean, most often majority is done by like 18 years. But most girls are pretty done growing up by about 16 years old. You know, they look

Scott Benner 9:53
so much older than the boys even when they're 1314 like in that range toe,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:57
right. So you know know that In the nature of all the testing and the things that we've talked about in the other podcasts and the figure out the bazel, and figure out the ratios and all that kind of stuff, it's it's not a number that's gonna sit there until they're well into their adulthood, when maybe a variable component of their lifestyle changes, where they will need to make an adjustment. Kids needs change. That's the simplest way to say kids needs change. So don't think you're crazy. If you go for a couple of weeks, you're like, I got this. It looks like it's working magically. And then, like, professionally, I get these emails. They're like, I thought we had this all figured out. It was all working beautifully. And now the last three nights, this is happening again. I'm like, Okay, well, we need to adjust. Right.

Scott Benner 10:47
So Jenny answers those emails by how do you think we stay in business? It's gonna keep it's gonna keep changing. But But no, I genuinely think that's a great answer for that. Okay. Richard says, any tips for being bold with insulin while using Medtronic 670 gene auto mode, you basically can't adjust the bazel other than temporarily turning on the target of 150 bg instead of 120. And it auto calculates bolus based on carbs, BG or a combination of both. It won't do a correction bolus, unless you tell it your BG is above 150. It adds up to great time and range stats for me range being 70 to 180. But I'm spending a lot of time at the upper end of that range. And I'd like to be closer to the 120. I know Arden and Jenny are Potter's but I think Jenny's colleague, Gary uses 670 g maybe? Well, Richard, I don't know how comfortable I am with everyone knowing so much about our lives. But But I am going to have, I finally have some insight into this automated pumping thing. My brain is starting to almost get all around it. But Jenny is going to go first because I've never seen the 670 g before.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:03
Yeah, so the 670 G. M. I said it's hard to sit too long, if it is a long pause, because I have to, I have to be kind of, you know, good in the way that I explain it. Because the 670 g can be phenomenal for some people knock the majority of people. But for some people, it does work quite well. Who does it work quite well for? If you have a pretty structured life, if you have a pretty typical breakfast, lunch dinner, you always go to the gym between four and 5pm. You know, it can be a really good system for holding you a lot more stable, it does do a really nice job, for the most part, again, in those in that type of a life for the overnights, similar to the other, you know systems that do something like this with the augmentation to the bazel and how it goes up and down. But I can see that the 670 for a good majority of people with the variability of today's lifestyle. It doesn't meet need. And for run really specific group. Women in pregnancy it doesn't meet need because it doesn't target the right blood sugar, at least not right now. Nothing Medtronic isn't working on that, from what I understand future iterations will have lower targets and different things to it. But the current 670 You know, it targets the 120. I would say for most people who are having success with it. They're typically getting an average blood sugar of about like 130 ish, not really 120 even though technically it's targeting that. And this question kind of alludes to that piece is that it's really not allowing any corrections unless you're above a higher number than you really want to be at anyway. Right. Right. And it's only correcting you down

Unknown Speaker 14:07
to 150.

Scott Benner 14:08
Yeah. Okay. So it's

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:10
never really getting you too that that technical target. The other component to the system is that it's, it's not using your current manually set bazel profile to work off of with its increasing and decreasing of insulin dosing through the course of the day based on glucose change. It's I we kind of call it the secret sauce of whatever Medtronic has figured out in their algorithm. The system a couple of days of manual mode use gets an idea of your average of insulin need and kind of like a sensitivity and your sensitivity to insulin and what it does, then use it Essentially doses your insulin along the course of time in a day, based on what it is seeing your sensitivity look like. So really the only factor that in auto mode 670 is using is your insulin to carb ratio. If you've got it set at a one to 10, you're going to get dosed off of a one to 10 along with where your blood sugar is, and that kind of stuff. But even your ISF or your sensitivity correction factor, that is not what auto mode is using. So, you know, it's kind of a long,

Scott Benner 15:40
but it's a limit. It's, I mean, I guess you'd call it a limitation of the system. But not a limitation. I guess it's how it was designed to work. It's not working the way and I see the problem. If you're at that top end of that range, or 175, and you're heading up. And without intervention, you're going to get to 240. But it only intervenes enough to try to get you from 175 back to 150, then that's where it won't work, right. Don't forget what companion medical wants you to know, they want you to know about the in pen. The pen is not just this beautiful Bluetooth enabled insulin pen. It's also an app that works in Congress in Symphony in think of another word that means like all together between your app, the pen, and your dexcom continuous glucose monitor. The app is going to give you an at a glance, look at your current status, from last dose to active insulin to recent doses. It has a dosing calculator to help take the guesswork out of dosing. That's a huge help for MDI, right. You'll be able to enter your blood glucose and what you intend to eat. And the correct dose will be recommended to you by the Impact app. I come on. If you're MDI, you got to admit this seems it seems like a leap, right? Here's dosing, reminders and reports and temperature alerts, there's a whole bunch of stuff but you'll learn all about it when you get there. When you get to companion medical comm so for those of you looking to take a pump break, for those of you who are already doing injections, and just wish you had a little more judge get out I mean, in pencil way to go. I want to thank them, of course for sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. And I will thank them by reminding you to go to companion medical comm to find out more. Oh, there's extra time in pen is terrific. Why are you not trying the in pen, go get in pen today. companion medicals.com or on the links to wait hold on a second get even deeper. Check it out today at companion medical.com.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:55
Many people who will complain in auto mode about getting what we call kicked out of auto mode and kicked back to manual. What two scenarios one in the example you give as blood sugar is rising, and the system is micro bolusing. Along the way, they don't call it temp increase, they just call it this micro like bolusing along the way that the system will only micro dose for a set amount of time. Yeah. Before it says Nope, can't help you anymore. And out of auto mode, you get kicked back into manual mode. Okay. So on the opposite end of that if you're like low, and it can only adjust so much in a low time period. So you could get kicked out of auto mode as well.

Scott Benner 18:47
On purpose,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:49
you can you can choose to turn auto mode off going back to manual mode, which is I've got a couple of people that I work with who've been using 670 for a number of years already. And they've figured out the tweaks and the tricks and the things which we actually have on our website. I've got a lot of little tips for you if you are using the 670 These are some of the little nuances and this is how to like do it better essentially. But some of the people I work with just when they see a higher blood sugar and they know that this system isn't gonna adjust it as well. They just go back to manual mode, they add a corrective and they take care of it and then they go back to auto mode once the cyst once you're brought back to where you kind of want to be. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:36
I see with what I see with lupus. I now have figured out two things when it looks like it isn't going to stop arise and how to get out of opening the loop. So as soon as I see that up, then I go Hmm, that's not working. For some reason. I bolus what I think is a significant amount I bolus an hour's worth of her bazel Plus, whatever I think the rise needs to correct. So it'll be sometimes sometimes I'll be like, open the loop and bolus four units, which is, which is a lot of insulin to try to stop. Because what you're really looking at is a 135, diagonal up, which doesn't make any sense to put in for it. But it does if you understand what the algorithm is going to do next. So you're going to open the loop, it's going to go back down to your base, you know, base, I'm going to try to stop the rise anymore, it's just going to go too far. Now, I think it's like 2.4, something like that an hour. So it'll go to that. So I've put in enough insulin to stop the stop the arrow, stop the momentum, bring it back. And then when I get momentum coming back down, I figured out and I can't obviously pass this on to any of you. But I can look at the Dexcom graph and go close know when the court follows it now, right? And so you close it now. And it's almost like, it's almost like flying or landing an airplane without your, without your gauges, I guess like you just look at the ground and you go, I gotta start pulling up right now this is it. And, and it works. I can't believe I can't believe I figured something out about looping, to be perfectly honest, you know, a workaround for it. And it's a workaround, that doesn't cause a problem later. The only way you can get messed up coming out of open loop is if you're if you close the loop, and then go right into a meal again. Because then right, then you'll put in, and this just happened while we were doing this, you'll put in art and just put an ad carbs for a large lunch and had a bagel involved in it. And she said, it didn't give me any insulin because we just came out of open loop. And I was like, That's alright, because I wanted this to be 11 units. So still put in the car absorption is 40 over two hours, 40 over three hours, which by the way, spreading out your carb absorptions stop multiple different stops, it stops it from shutting off bazel because it thinks oh I have to stay on for a long time you trick it. You're smarter than the loop, damn it. And then so you get up 40 and 40. And then I just told her Bolus all 11 units. So now it has the 11 units to work with. It has the absorption times in and then it will make decisions about bazel based off of those other two things. And more importantly, I win Jenny.

Unknown Speaker 22:25
Important. Right? Oh, wait, yeah, Arden wins because she's healthy.

Scott Benner 22:32
I defeated that damn thing. I feel like I beat a robot in a sci fi movie. You know, like, like, it came at me with like a spitting action a torch. And I was like, I'm gonna die. And then it was over. I won.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:42
I was just like, I can't move on. Yeah, but that was I know. And why why are you winning? You're winning, because you've watched and you've learned?

Scott Benner 22:49
Absolutely, it took me a while. I am telling you this in October. And when did Arden go on loop? It's got to be like six months ago a while right? And, and people at that time were like, oh my god the boat with insolent guys looping. We'll all have great directions for looping in just three days. And then you all emailed me for months. Like tell me what to do with looping. I was like, I am still. And so when I tell people, it, they're never mistakes. It's always a learning situation. I that's exactly what I did. I hate to say it because I think it sounds a little douchey. But when I don't know what to do with diabetes, I go back to what we talked about in the podcast, I just, I revert back to the basics. And I go, okay, what's happening to me here, and then I apply one of those protip episodes until I know, it's, it's a little strange, because I'm the one that said it the first time but it's a great example of how in the middle of life, you can forget things you know, you know, like just because it comes at you from a slightly different angle all of a sudden, and it doesn't look the same as you expect it to you panic and you go different thing don't know what to do, and it's over. But I just kept applying the tenants of the podcast until I figured out the loop thing. So I am so close to us doing that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:01
You know the same thing. I mean, I learned I've learned a lot over now two years Actually, today is my two year anniversary of using loop.

Unknown Speaker 24:10
This is your loop version started

Unknown Speaker 24:11
on Halloween.

Unknown Speaker 24:14
Yeah, by the way,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:17
it was what actually you know, to be quite honest, as most people do, you know, I actually I started in closed loop the evening of October 30. And by like the morning of the 31st I was like

Unknown Speaker 24:31
coupon open loop like

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:35
so I closed it and it was it was actually really great. I mean, I got a chance to trick or treating with my boys and whatnot. That evening. It was was really cool to be able to watch the system and I would have usually applied like some type of temporary bazel or just plan to like steal candy out of there like buckets as We are treated along the way. And it was really fun that Halloween because I didn't feel the need to pay attention, nor did I get any alerts while we were trick or treating, because Luke was doing a great job. And so I don't I think it was kind of a fun day to have started it. So

Scott Benner 25:23
don't test yourself a little bit, right? Don't Don't

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:25
Yeah. But again, learning, you know, I learned, you know, like my coffee in the morning, I typically found pre loop I had they have a half a unit of insulin to cover. Well, that wasn't based on carbs. It was just what I had learned to utilize. Right? Well, now in loop, I had to actually go back and figure out how much does that equate to as far as like a carb entry for loop to really cover this? Yep, the right way to offset that like caffeine rise and everything. So there is there's relearning to using these hybrid closed systems, whether it's the six, seven dg or loop or open APS or whatever, there are pieces of things to learn that you weren't applying before. Or maybe you were you just have to learn them in a new way with the system. I

Scott Benner 26:18
think that's that's it. Arden right now is at lunch. She's 75 her blood sugar 75. Here's how the morning when she got up in the morning with a pod that only had a couple of units left in it. So we swapped it running out the door, swap it as she's getting that little bit of a rise from the morning, right. So I see like a 120 is starting to creep up. She was one on one while she was getting dressed all sudden, she's 120. I threw in a unit from the old pod because I didn't want to waste it took off the old pod put on the new pod, looked at what insulin was pending for lube, bolus pending insulin. Then she started we drive into school and I just noticed that I felt the number jumped too much. And I was like open the loop and Bolus two units. So now I'm thinking about pod change insulin right. So we Pre-Bolus two units I comes in perfectly forget to close the loop this morning, I'm running around doing a bunch of stuff we forget to close the loop. So then something hits her where she needs more bazel loops, not closed doesn't work, she starts going back up again. 134 diagonal up at 9am. Now I'm like Oh, she's got to eat an hour and a half. reopen the loop Bolus more 91 diagonal down when she wants to eat. And then you heard the rest. We closed the loop tried to do 80 carbs, it didn't want to it didn't want to give it to her. So I gave him the sweet we set up the the absorption times and gave the insulin anyway. And now she's eating and she 75. And I'm telling you two months ago I don't even know where her blood sugar would be with loop right now it would have been a disaster. But I needed that disaster to happen. So I could wrap my brain around the whole thing really. So I'm very, I'm doing very well with it now. Like I can't wait to see what hurry once he ends up with being three full months of this kind of new space. Alright.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:06
And it kind of goes along with I think one of the last times we did a we did a chat like this there was we kind of both talked about like taking a hit. Right. And so I actually for our newsletter for October newsletter, I actually did an article about what you can gain like taking a step back in order to take two steps forward. You can learn from the hits that you end up taking Well, my blood sugar did do great for, you know, this five mile run that I planned. Okay, well, what did you do? What didn't work and plan accordingly for next time you you can learn from taking some steps back

Scott Benner 28:47
hundred percent you have to stop every once in a while you just have to broaden your scope and stand back and see the whole picture. Because you're just telling the fight. You know, it's funny. The it's a completely strange, I thought but I think in my mind, it's the same thing. Phillies hired a new manager the other day, Joe Girardi he was really successful manager with the Yankees for a decade, you know, left there. And it's been out of baseball for a couple of years. And he said, I heard him in an interview. He goes sometimes when you're in it, it's hard to see it. You know, he's like you're in this fight. And you're so focused on winning, or I guess in this situation, you're so focused on your blood sugar being where you want to be, you don't see how it is you're losing or winning. You don't know why anything is working or not working. You're just swinging hands, you know. And so I think that's a perfect scenario. I think you got to step back and just look at the big picture sometimes. All of these things that have been on T shirts for the last 50 years have been there for a good reason. It had everything we just said about 670 G and looping. does it apply to basal IQ as well?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:55
I think it probably will apply more to control IQ. Okay. Which is basically like you really is only a predictive low glucose suspend, right? So the system is looking for glucose to be less than 80 within the next 30 minutes. And if the trend in glucose is happening such that that's going to be the case, then it predictively suspends the insulin delivery on a basal level. But the interesting thing about it is that it actually doesn't do only bazel suspension. It also suspends an extended bolus. So if you are using bazel, like you, and you have a trend happening, and basal IQ kicks in, and you've got an extended bolus, your extended bolus will be stopped. And so once these like you kick things back on, you have to remember to go back in and either resume an extension of what was missed, or just Bolus for the rest of what was missed, depending on how long bazel iq was kicked off. So that's a kind of a nuance to that system and control IQ will be, I would say, closest in similarity to 670 G. Neither of those systems are by any means close to looping in any sense, you know, loop open APS, Android APS, I, the the current approved, hike, sort of hybrid clothes are just not, I mean, from the basic information about the research of the control, like you, and the people who have used it in the trials, it seems to do a good job. Again, it's conservative, similar to the six, seven dg in what it does, but some of the factors that it uses to adjust. From what I understand it does use your set bazel in the background to adjust off of rather than its own secret sauce of applying a bazel does use your current sensitivity factor as well as your carb ratio. So that, in my opinion clinically, and like if I was going to use it personally, I think that those are big steps beyond 670. Because it's using some things that is, as we've talked about, if you know that your settings are good, why wouldn't you want a system to work off of what you already know, is working to a degree, right?

Scott Benner 32:27
It seems like these systems are, are set up. I'm sure there are people who have been living their lives in the two hundreds and the three hundreds who are on these systems and think this is amazing, right? It's just not the next level of what can be done. Okay, and I'm assuming they were set up on purpose like that. That's what they were made for. And they're probably doing a really good job for the people that are working for.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:46
Correct. Yeah.

Scott Benner 32:53
Huge thanks to em pen from companion medical for sponsoring today's show. And of course, the Jenny Smith from integrated diabetes. Did you know you can hire Jenny, you can go to integrated diabetes.com and then find Jenny. I don't know what you'll do it. You'll figure it out. And then you can email her also right there in the show notes. There's Jenny's email address. That's probably easier. You click on that you send an email. Here's the email says, excuse me. Hmm, I'm composing. Dear Jenny, I heard you on the Juicebox Podcast comma. I love you exclamation point. Can I please give you money to help me question mark, and then you sign your name and she'll get back to you

About Jenny Smith

Jennifer holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Nutrition and Biology from the University of Wisconsin. She is a Registered (and Licensed) Dietitian, Certified Diabetes Educator, and Certified Trainer on most makes/models of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems. You can reach Jenny at jennifer@integrateddiabetes.com

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# 281 Alexi and her Little Red Wagon

Alexi ran the NY marathon with Type 1 Diabetes.…

Alexi Melvin is on the show to discuss living with type 1 diabetes and her recent running of the New York City Marathon.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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, everyone, and welcome to Episode 281 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Dexcom Omni pod and dancing for diabetes, please go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box or dancing the number four diabetes.com. To find out more. There are also links in your show notes. And at Juicebox podcast.com. Today, Alexi Melvin is on the show. And there's a lot about Alexi to know. First and foremost, she's on the show today because she just ran in the New York City Marathon with Type One Diabetes. But she's also got like, so many things about her that are interesting. And I love her spirit and her soul. And I just thought of her right away. When I saw the marathon being run, I thought I want to have somebody on who ran the marathon with type one and Alexi lepta mind, this is going to be wonderful. The one thing I need to tell you about is like a major malfunction of my computer network. So around 18 minutes in, there'll be like a break in the conversation, we'll pick it back up again. But my voice is gonna sound a little different after that. And it's just, I mean, I'll tell you if you want there's only recorded my voice in moto so I had to take two mono tracks and meld them together to make a stereo track. So basically, you were only going to hear my voice out of your left earphone but I fixed it. So it'll also come out of the right but gave up a tiny bit of sound quality and make that happen. Anyway, I apologize. I don't know what maybe it's time for a new computer. I don't have enough money to buy a new computer, but maybe it's time anyway. Anyway, a couple things. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes y'all I tried to beat the music. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. are becoming bold with insulin. Alexi is going to unpack her life in the first bit of the podcast and then we'll get to the marathon at the end. There's a lot of interesting stuff about her. She's really, really a great person. I enjoy knowing her.

Alexi Melvin 2:14
I am Alexi Melvin. I am a writer, voice actress, many, many other things, many forms of art. I wear many hats, and I am also living with Type One Diabetes.

Unknown Speaker 2:30
When were you diagnosed?

Alexi Melvin 2:32
I was diagnosed when I was 14. So that would have been 2003.

Scott Benner 2:37
Wow. 2003 plus 14. Yeah, so then I know your age. Now if I wanted to

Alexi Melvin 2:44
eat well, hey, I'm 30 I'm almost 31. And, you know, I still feel like I'm 14 ish.

Scott Benner 2:49
I was gonna say if it makes you feel good. You look like you're 15. So

Alexi Melvin 2:54
I do hear that often. And it's so weird. Because when I was like, you know, 1716 I looked a lot older. And now I'm like Benjamin, buttoning, I don't know what's happening.

Scott Benner 3:04
Maybe you'll be one of those people who's like perpetually like 29 years old in their face. That would be nice.

Oh, be great. I would take that.

Unknown Speaker 3:12
Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:14
Let's see any other diabetes in your family? No, nothing, just a great surprise. Brothers, sisters, anything like that.

Alexi Melvin 3:23
I am an only child.

Scott Benner 3:25
Very nice. So you were just like a one in a million shot? And how did you how involved are now I know, it's been a long time now. But how involved or not involved were your parents. During the first years.

Alexi Melvin 3:40
I have always felt really supported. But pretty much right from the get go. My mom thought it would be best for me to do everything myself, she would help I remember we had those little old school like, you know, nutrition books where we would figure out the carbs because, you know, googling It was not really a thing back then yet. And she would always help me with stuff like that. But she never gave me a shot or anything. I started doing that myself. Right, right off the bat. But emotionally, you know, I always felt very, very supported.

Scott Benner 4:12
So can I tell you as a person who has never met you in person, but we have talked a little bit in the past. You seem on like, you know, your front facing social media being you seem very confident. And not in a bad way not know like, that girl seems full of herself by not like that, like in a way where you're like, this is me. And I like me and that's it like you have a real like air about you that you were raised well or that you have like mature healthy self confidence. So do you feel like that or are you just taking great selfies like which is it?

Alexi Melvin 4:48
No, that's awesome to hear. I was I mean if you ask anybody who went to school with me from you know middle school, high school, even probably college, they would say that I was very Mysterious would probably be the wrong word kinda, I mean, awkward, I was pretty socially awkward. And I didn't really talk to many people. You know, I just kind of like, Did my work and put my head down. But once I got involved with the type one community, it did kind of build my confidence a lot. You know, it's, I've lived with this thing for for many years, as I've said, and, you know, it's, it's great to see all these other people just putting it out there. And, and, you know, it's something that I like connecting to other people about, it's, it's something that, you know, it's not going away, right now at least. And it's, you know, it's something that's going to be it's going to be around, unfortunately, probably for another another few years, at least. But it's just, it's just nice. I don't know, it's just it does really build my confidence. And, you know, social media has its flaws. But, but in this case, it's, it's very cool. I've made a lot of friends, I've been able to get involved with a lot of really cool things for the community. And I really, I think that's what you're talking about. Honestly, I think like type one has really, it was the source of my my confidence. And that was sort of later in life. I would say

Scott Benner 6:24
when you found the connection with people do you think the connection the knowing they were there that part of it, the community park was what hit you? Well, or do you think maybe it's both? Do you think it was watching other people be kind of open about it that made you feel like I could do that too.

Alexi Melvin 6:41
It was a it was watching people be open about it. Um, it was also just the sense of feeling heard, you know, like, I, you know, I had I had two very, very successful, talkative, friendly, awesome parents that sort of always, you know, we're in the spotlight, and I kind of was never in the spotlight. No, I have this thing that people can connect to. And it kind of, it makes me feel like I have something to say. And that's, that's a good feeling. Because I definitely used to not feel that way.

Scott Benner 7:21
You have. So by the way, I'm gonna have to, like, buckle down here, you're gonna give good answers this whole hour. And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna look up for something else and be like, Oh, god, what did she say? And then try to fill something in. So like, and I'm like picking something on my desk to stare at while we're talking. So a couple of things you felt behind the scenes? Like, did you feel unseen as a child?

Alexi Melvin 7:42
Yeah, Yeah, I did. Um, yeah, the short answer is yes. So

Scott Benner 7:46
I know what your dad does for a living, and we'll share it with people in a second. You said your mom and your dad, what did your mom do?

Alexi Melvin 7:52
My mom, she was a model for a long time. And she's been in the fashion industry. She's really just a great mom. But she kind of stopped working when I was when I was born pretty much, but she's just always the life of the party. People adore her. She always had this natural ability to be social and win people over and I was kind of just, you know, hiding behind her.

Scott Benner 8:16
Okay, okay. I get that. I do. And I think that I think that you can have, like, I think everybody at first feels like that, right? Like that idea of like, I'm sort of just here. I'm the short person behind these taller people and they get to talk and I wait for my opening. But then I think about my mom like my mom was not like, like commanding space. You know what I mean? Like she wasn't walking in and people were like, Oh, my God, Bev's here. Let's all listen to what she has to say. Now, I get wasn't that person. I can imagine that happening because I see it sometimes. I'm just talkative. And sometimes I have to stop myself when my kids and I are on a setting together because I'm like, Oh, I'm sucking the air out of this moment. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like, it's like, nobody sees anybody else because I'm talking. But you can't, but I can stop talking. Your mom can't stop being hot, I guess for the lack of a better term. And so the people that try and people get attracted to that too, like I you know, I do. I'm like, oh, but that person's handsome. And you're like, I wonder what they have to say. We do it all the time. We think British people are smart. And we think handsome people know something. Like it's just, yeah, it's how you're wired. You know? Now, how much time did you spend around your dad's business?

Alexi Melvin 9:33
I've never been, I'm not I I always say I'm not a baseball fan, but I'm supportive. So you know, I'll go to games here and there. I wouldn't say I go to a lot when I was little, you know, I probably thought it was a little more fun. But you know, definitely important games, playoff games, events, I'll definitely be there for but I always loved sort of being around it because I love traveling. So you know, whatever. He was in during the summer, we would always be there. We always had a home base in Arizona. But yeah, I loved it. It was fun. It allowed me to sort of discover my, you know, really my passions, like traveling and then you know, whatever city we would be in my mom would take me to some kind of, you know, arts and culture thing. And I, you know, that's where I discovered that I love Broadway musicals. And you know, it's so it really afforded me a lot.

Scott Benner 10:27
Yeah, I guess if you were just in Arizona, you might discover you love cactuses. And you know, things like that. So it's,

Alexi Melvin 10:35
yeah, that would have been a very different path.

Scott Benner 10:37
Yeah. But it's, it's really something like, you know, I hear people say it all the time. And someone just said it to me recently, like people who think that traveling with your children is a waste of time. It's really not. It's doing things for them that you probably are not getting paid back for in the moment, per se. But yeah, it's building them in great ways. And so I guess, you know, so you don't wake up in the morning. For people who don't have a connection like this. You don't wake up in the morning and think my dad coaches, the Oakland A's?

Alexi Melvin 11:07
No, I can't remember. I can't remember the last time that was my first thought in the morning.

Scott Benner 11:12
Exactly. But it's true. Like it's, I used to joke with people. I met somebody very famous one day, and we walked away. And I said, you know, in the morning, when that guy is given his kids like breakfast, and he's too slow. They don't think oh, my god, there's an all star shortstop feeding me breakfast they think. I think why is dad screwing this up? You know, and, but that doesn't change the impact around him. So was he so when he he so he traveled a lot? You were probably with your mom more than him? Mm hmm. Oh, hundred percent? Yeah, I was tied at the hip with my mom pretty much until I graduated high school. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. So at what age do you say to yourself? Like, I'm gonna get more involved in the diabetes space? And how did that begin?

Alexi Melvin 12:02
Um, you know, I, I was involved, pretty much right away, there were just less opportunities. You know, I I remember seeing flyers for jdrf walks and stuff like that pretty, pretty early on. So I would do things like that. My mom and I would volunteer things, which felt great, but there was still not so much that sense of, you know, connecting, that there is now. So yeah, it was pretty much it was jdrf. You know, for a while, and then that was the first thing and I even at a certain point, kind of did some like volunteer recruitment stuff. And I felt good, I liked it. And then a certain point, beyond type one popped up. And they were kind of doing more of the rock and roll thing, like, you know, like, how does how does type one impact your sex life and they would be posting stuff like that? And I was like, Oh, this is interesting. Yeah. So I wound up just kind of reaching out to them and freelance writing for them. Nice. And yeah. And so from there, I got involved with more things. They're doing Leadership Council, stuff like that. Eventually, they sort of just I just kind of wore them down and they you know, hired me as a staff writer. And Lexi's on

Scott Benner 13:30
here. She Why don't we just let her do something?

Alexi Melvin 13:33
That is exactly yeah, that's exactly their inner monologue a

Scott Benner 13:37
viable way to get a job, by the way, if you can, if you can't get your first foot in the door, just be like, I'm not leaving. So I'm not leaving.

Alexi Melvin 13:43
Yeah. So um, yeah. And I'm the content committee chairperson, which is also cool. Um, yeah, I'm contributing. And that was? Yeah, I guess it was really, when when beyond type one kind of rolled around that I was like, Okay,

this is this is a thing. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:02
Is it still is that is beyond type one a living? Or is it just a piece of how you support yourself?

Alexi Melvin 14:09
I would say it's the most consistent piece a, I get pretty steady work from them. It's not, you know, it's not a ton, but it's reliable, you know? And then otherwise, I do you know, the voice acting stuff and other freelance writing. And yeah,

Scott Benner 14:30
well, I remember when you and I were talking more in the past, it was right around the time where your voice was going to be in a Star Wars movie. And I was like, that's really cool. Yeah, it is. Which movie were you in?

Alexi Melvin 14:42
I was in Rogue One. And I was in last Jedi.

Scott Benner 14:45
And are you allowed to say if you're gonna be in the next one? I'm not allowed to. If you're no, go, Hey, I want to hear how you are around it.

Alexi Melvin 14:54
I will say that they're in within the Star Wars franchise. I might have Some things to announce soon. That's so yeah, I will tell you about it.

Scott Benner 15:05
And this really feeds into your passion too, because you're like a serious like Disney head. Like, I've probably texted you three times in my life. And you've been at Disney in one way or the other.

Alexi Melvin 15:18
Oh, hundred percent. Yeah, I have been a Disney enthusiast since I can remember. And, you know, the dream for me was always to be in a Disney movie. And now I am going to have them but I never in a million years thought it would be Star Wars because, you know, like, it wasn't like, it wasn't it just you know, fairly recently became a you know, officially Disney. Right? Um, it was. So it's just such a weird way that that actually wound up happening, but

Scott Benner 15:45
really cool. I honestly think it's strange that you and I are recording this on the morning that the Disney plus platform, no announces. I just thought like, Well, of course. That's what happened. But correct. Yeah,

Alexi Melvin 15:56
I consciously arranged it that way.

Scott Benner 16:00
You might have been like, let me pick a day in November. What's the best day in November? It's probably this day. Yeah. Well, do you travel when you go to Disney? Like, are you with friends? Do you go by yourself? Do you? I don't even know. Like, are you? You're not married? Do you date like, buddy? Who's with usually doing that stuff?

Alexi Melvin 16:18
Um, yeah, gosh, it varies. I mean, everybody who is close to me knows that Disney is a thing for me. And most of them support it. I think some of them get tired of it more than a little more than others. But my mom loves it. She comes with me a lot. Um, you know, I have maybe like, three really close friends that are all into it. So they'll either you know, meet me there. It's it's a good meeting place. You know, like, I have one friend that lives in New York who will meet me in Orlando to go to Disney World, or, you know, I have. I have several friends that live in. I'm in Northern California. So I have several friends that are in Southern California. And we'll meet there. So it's just, you know, I have options for sure.

Scott Benner 17:01
So, which is the better park?

Alexi Melvin 17:04
Oh, gosh. It's funny, because the first Park I went to was disney world because we, when I was two, we were living in Memphis, Tennessee. So that was way easier to get to. So like, my earliest memories of the parks was, you know, Disney World, and the Epcot ball and, you know, stuff like that. But But I do, you know, disneyland is the original. And you know, it has a little more history in that way. And I feel like it doesn't change quite as much. It's so it's so it's right. So I mean, if I had to pick one Park, I'd have to stay with the original gotcha. Yeah, but but there's a lot to be appreciated about well,

Scott Benner 17:48
so I bring it up. Because I want to understand there's something I see online all the time. It's sort of like fascinating to me. Actually, this the topic doesn't matter. The intent of the question is the same. Right? Do you ever hear people say, I've, you know, I've got diabetes figured out? But how do you do soccer? Or how do you do swimming? Or how do you do Disney? Disney is a big one. Like, I don't know, I'm about to go to Disney for the first time. What do I do when I get on an airplane? I always think like, I don't really think those things are different. But okay, like, if somebody does, like somebody's having that feeling like I'm about to go somewhere different? Is diabetes gonna change? Does your management from the date the way you're in your home, or when you're exercising or getting ready for, you know, for the New York Marathon? Is it any different than how you handle going to Disney for the day?

Unknown Speaker 18:35
Oh, gosh, what do you do things? Are

Scott Benner 18:37
there special plans in place? Do you have contingencies going? Or is it just you leave the house with yourself?

Alexi Melvin 18:44
I feel like you know, the more active I'm gonna be, I guess the more prepared I try to be you know, and I'm still a little bit old school. So I am on long acting and, and fast acting insulin pen. So I'll try to cut down on my long acting if I know I'm going to be walking all day, you know, just little things like that. But otherwise, that seems pretty, pretty routine,

Scott Benner 19:07
right? Yeah, I don't. I always just think of it as the need your body is going to have for the insulin you'll have less need. If you're active, it'll have more need if you're not, and yeah, if it's hot out, you might need a little less like it's just it's okay, that's about where my computer blew up and it's a good time to tell you about on the pod, the world's only tubeless insulin pump. It's very simple. If you're thinking of leaving shots where you want to change pumps, go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box because on the pod is going to offer you a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod. All you do is fill out the tiniest bit of information about yourself. And on the pod will send a demo pod right to your home. There you can try it on and see what you think. You can shower with it exercise, run around the house, rough house with your kids. You know if you're gonna put On one of your kids, maybe you take them and like slide them across the, you know the floor a little bit. They don't hurt them. But I mean like a smooth floor like would you like a manoli some kind of a situation you put like a sweatshirt on, you can just slide on right across the floor. It's completely safe as long as they don't hit the wall on the other end. Anyway, you live your life with the with the pod on you can see what you think that if you like it, you contact on the pod and you say look, I want to keep going with this. I love this thing. Let's give it a whirl. My daughter has been using the on the pod since she was four years old artist 15. Right now, she has been wearing it on the pod every day for all of that time, having amazing success with our blood sugars. And I think you might like it as well check them out my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box or the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com. Live your life untethered with on the pod right not connected to any tubes, not having to carry an insulin pen around that kind of stuff. Oh, also, one last thing, nothing I said about sliding your kid across the floor is endorsed by Omni pod or me to be honest with you, I really don't think it's a good idea. Just something I used to do with my son. And I thought I'd say it here. But then after I sent it, I realized, yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I have an old cell phone video of him sliding across the floor. If I can find that I'll put it online. But I digress. And I jump right into the Dexcom ad Dexcom g six, the continuous glucose monitor from the gods that's passed right down from the stars to you. Here's what you get when you were a Dexcom g six continuous look at what your blood sugar is not just the number, but the speed and direction that it is moving. In valuable information to have when you're making decisions about using insulin, or eating food. The difference between a blood sugar that's 80 and 80. And falling is huge, you know touching an ad that's nice and stable. You looking at that thinking, ooh, I want but if it's falling, you might want a couple carbs Dexcom can make that an easier decision for you a much easier decision. Not only that, they can help you make that decision wherever you are in the world. And by that I mean if you're the parent or guardian of a loved one, even the friend of someone with Type One Diabetes, with an Apple or Android phone, right with any compatible Apple or Android phone you can see someone else's blood sugar no matter where they are. And that is just a comfort that is hard to put into words. So between the speed and the direction, not having to finger stick to find out what your blood sugar is. Being able to see a loved one's blood sugar no matter where in the world they are. I don't know how you argue with Dexcom you got to have it I think Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, get it@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Today, it is an absolutely set up before indispensable part of your life with Type One Diabetes. Last thing, I'm gonna put all the ads here today, dancing for diabetes, check them out dancing for diabetes.com that's dancing the number four diabetes.com they're also on Instagram and Facebook. Please give them a follow. They are a wonderful organization doing incredible things for people living with Type One Diabetes. And now as they used to say in the 50s back to our show. Okay, well that was incredibly weird.

Alexi Melvin 23:24
Sorry about that. The interview was just too powerful.

Scott Benner 23:28
I can't possibly be true, but we're just getting warmed up. So. So I I was about to say that, um, about to say I'm trying to go back to where I was in my head. It's not easy. Why don't we just start over again?

Alexi Melvin 23:43
Oh, god, no, say the park. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:48
I just so I, I feel like that people like unnecessarily get scared about you know, going somewhere. And yeah, and that's, I kind of find it sad a little bit. Like, I'm like, Oh, God, you know, just it's not that bad. You know?

Alexi Melvin 24:04
Yeah, I can understand from people who get really deep into routines. Because, you know, to a certain extent, you can, like you know, how your body's gonna respond to certain things during the day, you know, your blood sugar is going to kind of do a certain foods like I understand that, but it's no fun. You know, you have to sort of get out there and no, you can still have something of routine, you can still know you can still find things that work like, you know, dietary, you know, stuff around the park. It's not that hard. Like you can you can you can do it.

Scott Benner 24:36
Also, you said that you're called yourself old school. Oh, pens and long acting insulin, but you have to use Dexcom.

Alexi Melvin 24:46
Yes. Okay. I'm not a cave person. Yes. So you can use Dexcom.

Scott Benner 24:52
So that's interesting. So tell me about your decision to stay with MDI for all these years. Like it's obviously working for you. So why do you like it?

Alexi Melvin 25:00
I guess that's you just said it. I mean, it works for me. And I, it's not for lack of, you know, appreciation for what, how technology has progressed over the years. I think it's amazing. I mean, I have several friends that are now looping and stuff like that. And it's, it's fascinating.

Unknown Speaker 25:18
I,

Alexi Melvin 25:20
I'm somebody who tends to wait, you know, a year, two years, until something's really more perfected. That's just kind of how I roll. But it's, um, you know, I've tried pumps, and I can see the benefits.

I kind of got paranoid, I think about

you know, with with long acting insulin, you always have something working in you. And, you know, I had way too many instances where, you know, the I had a problem with my site, and I was just getting No, no insulin at all. Yeah, so my blood sugar would just be crazy high, probably more than it was in range. So, you know, I'm not, I would, I would try it again.

Scott Benner 26:09
I'm definitely automation. Is that do you think your next jumping in point? Like some sort of closed loop system or something like that?

Alexi Melvin 26:16
Yeah. If it was perfected, and people were, you know, having great experiences with it, then yeah, I feel like I would try that out.

Scott Benner 26:25
That's cool. I mean, I think you have to do whatever you're comfortable with. And then you know, absolutely. What's it like traveling with pens? Like, you have to keep them cool? And how do you handle all that?

Alexi Melvin 26:37
I mean, the pens you're currently using, you can just have them out in your purse, but you know, I definitely travel with a couple extras. You know, real cooling wallet, things those little, like, that's usually fine for shorter flights. You know, longer trips, I try to, you know, bring an ice pack or something. And I've never had an issue that well, the one the one tricky thing is, if hotel fridge. Hotel bridges are too cold, they can definitely freeze insulin. So that's, that's something for

Scott Benner 27:12
Yeah, there's a person that's listening to this show. It's just happened to them. They were in New York, and they were on social media, like I'm in New York and all my all my insulin got, you know, frozen in the hotel. They're like, yeah, it was very cool. Somebody brought them insulin, like a complete stranger. So

Alexi Melvin 27:29
yeah, I've heard of, Oh, my gosh, yeah, that's another cool thing about the community.

Scott Benner 27:33
That's just, it's just an amazing like, you know, there's, if you get on Facebook right now, you're like, I need an Advil, no one would, no one would bring you up. But if you're like, I needed some people like, Alright, I'll drive the first 50 miles, and then somebody else can pick it up and move it along. And it's very cool. How people jump in action. I Oh, absolutely. He's actually Alright, so let us not let it's not, you know, bury the lead anymore or less. I asked you to come on Aleksey, because you did something that in my mind is insane. And I want to understand why you did it. And I want to know about how it went and how you're prepared for it. So yeah, tell me about the day you thought to yourself, I'm gonna run in the New York Marathon.

Alexi Melvin 28:11
Yeah. Well, the type one has had a team for the New York City Marathon the past two years before now. So this was the third year. And they've done crazy stuff like this, they did, you know, like bike beyond they, you know, did bike to car across the friggin country, you know, and I've always just been, like, wow, more power to those people. But, you know, at a certain point, I, it kind of became clear to me that like, I wasn't really giving myself a shot in terms of athleticism. Ever since I was diagnosed, not that it was ever really that interesting to me. But I sort of realized that I I hadn't ever considered it. You know, partly probably because my dad is the athlete in the family. I'm like, okay, that's his thing. But that was, you know, third year beyond type one, you know, putting together this team, they're starting to sort of release, you know, flyers, calling for submissions and things like that. And I'm like, ah, might actually be kind of interesting. You know, I've always been athletic, I do yoga, I sort of I've been a power Walker my whole life. I've never really like been a runner. But um, you know, I get out there, I feel like I'm in good shape. And then but the thing that really sent it over the edge is that one of my best friends who also has type one, decided to do it. And once she said that, I was like, oh, okay, that might actually be a really cool experience to do this with somebody and you know, sort of hold each other accountable for training and you know, things like that. And I think I also had this kind of misconception that the people that would be on this team would all be kind of Like influencers, you know, like people that we're kind of known in the type one world I don't feel like I'm that, you know, like I'm involved but I feel like people would be like I don't really care about her. But I definitely I definitely realized that was not the case, pretty soon after being accepted onto the team, but

Scott Benner 30:19
regular people,

Alexi Melvin 30:20
a lot of regular people and a lot of really amazing athletes. I mean, there were people that were ultra marathoners and that had done Ironman, like Ironman races, and like, I had no idea. So it was definitely, it was definitely eye opening. But yeah, it was really my It was my friend who, who kind of convinced me in a number of ways to do it.

Scott Benner 30:44
I have to tell you, I find that the idea of influencers to be like, it's a little weird. Like, I wouldn't want someone calling me that. And I don't think of people that way. But I think there are, there are some people who start out thinking I'm going to help them, they get a little bit of notoriety. And they're like, I wonder if there's like money, I could make this or I wonder if I can push this further or help more like it's some people go the wrong way with it. And then they're just, they're just faces, then they're like, Oh, I know that person, I see them and you know, all this stuff. But there are so many more people that you don't know, who are actually involved in the events, actually handing out, you know, food at a jdrf walk like those people there they, you know, there's a million more of them. And there is a, you know, an Instagram model or something like that, who happens to have diabetes?

Alexi Melvin 31:31
Totally agree.

Scott Benner 31:32
And I think that's really the power of the space, honestly. Yeah, I think the influencers could go away. And the people would still exist. I don't I don't think they need, you know, I don't think they need a selfie deity to pray to them. I think they can do another round.

Alexi Melvin 31:49
I think I think probably Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:52
it's just very, I mean, I have nothing like, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people who are doing that. I think that's it's fine. People do whatever they want, they can impact the space. You know, however they think is great.

Alexi Melvin 32:02
It's a way of being able to use your voice. And that's fine. But yeah, it can, it can get messy.

Scott Benner 32:09
It also has a finite life. You don't you don't realize that. But, you know, you can talk about any way you want. I think a running back has a life of two years in the NFL. You know what I mean? Like your dad, your dad played professional baseball for a really long time for. And still, I think he was busy in the league for maybe like nine years as a player, right? And you would think that's not like a long time. But it is it's a massively long time. Most people don't do that. And you know, even thinking about people who you think of is famous, like how quickly they're there, and then they're gone. And you think, oh, they'll be back? That guy's like a great actor, but you never see him again. It's so

Alexi Melvin 32:51
Yeah, exactly. The number of actors that have actual staying power are actually very few.

Unknown Speaker 32:56
Yeah, if you think about it,

Scott Benner 32:57
but if you look at like life like that, too, it's the same thing. Here. There's somebody on Instagram right now, just as an example, it could be anywhere Facebook, Instagram, like so like that, who you think of is like when you think of the diabetes community, think of that person? keep them in mind. And 18 months from now, you will know who they are. Yeah, yeah, it's you know, so I like to people are, it's the trench work like, right, like, it's the hard stuff. It's the actually being in the marathon thing. Not the not the Hey, guys, the marathon is coming up, or you're gonna get involved, because trust me, I'm not doing that. I thought about you this morning. And I thought if someone paid me to run to the end of my street, could I do it without stopping? It's like, not 100%. Certain. Right? But I'm sure I could one day, were you a person who on day one thought like, I can run a marathon? You weren't right?

Alexi Melvin 33:49
No, I up until even up until the day of the race. I wasn't that I was never 100% sure I could finish it. Because I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I've never, I think during my training, I only got up to like 12 miles. So I didn't know what was gonna happen past 12 miles. So I had no idea what my body was going to do. So the marathon, it's 26.2 miles

Scott Benner 34:12
make any sense? What you just said to me, but I appreciate that. How do you train for something like that? Like, just like, do you Google it? Or do you find somebody to help you? or How did you? How did you handle it?

Alexi Melvin 34:21
There are definitely training plans, you can just kind of, you know, loose training plans that tell you how many miles to run each day each week and how it comes sort of gradually goes up. I kind of followed one of those loosely. But the other. The other runners on the team were very helpful. And we all kind of had a Facebook group. We kind of followed each other on the Strava app, you know, so it was you could always ask somebody for help or guidance on in one way or another. But yeah, I just I didn't. I didn't follow any plan to strictly I just kind of my mom had actually run it in 2011. So she had a lot of she I kind of followed the same plan that she did, which was just kind of very basic. If you Google like, you know, training plan to run a marathon, they'll just be that

Scott Benner 35:15
you train. Do you have to change your nutrition? much? Did you have to?

Alexi Melvin 35:19
I, yes. I have been somewhat of a low carb person for you know, six, seven years now, I would say I'm not to where I'm like, on the keto level, but you know, relatively low carb

Scott Benner 35:37
eating a cupcake you just

Alexi Melvin 35:38
like, no, I, you know, I have fun, you know, every now and then, and I'll have carbs but I just kind of gotten to the routine and it kind of, you know, it worked, whatever. But once I started training, I was like, yeah, this isn't gonna work. So, I definitely had to do some, you know, experimenting and and find the carbs that I liked again, and that, you know, it was almost kind of like, nostalgic because I did love carbs before I was diagnosed. And so I was like, Okay, what did I used to love? Like, what did I? What made me feel good? What, what made me feel energized back when I was 1314, you know? So yeah, it was kind of he was frustrating at times, for sure. But also kind of fun.

Scott Benner 36:20
Especially because I guess if you try something, it's not right. You're just like, Oh, I wasted that. Like, I ate this thing that now I wish I didn't eat. And

Unknown Speaker 36:27
yeah,

Scott Benner 36:28
what did you land on? Like, what ended up being sort of a staple of how you feel your body for it?

Alexi Melvin 36:35
Um, I found out that I kind of needed more carbs for breakfast, and a little bit of a lighter lunch, oddly than I usually would, would eat before, but slightly more carbs. And then dinner didn't really change, but kind of like, yeah, breakfast and lunch, I kind of needed a little bit more. You know, I found like a brown rice cereal that I really like, that kind of helped.

Scott Benner 37:08
Yeah, and how long was the process of training?

Alexi Melvin 37:12
I started training. I want to say around. Well, actually, I know exactly it was. It was April, because that's when I got a stress fracture.

Scott Benner 37:23
So the first time your body sent you an email and said, Dear Alexi, we haven't been that active most of your life. I don't know if you've noticed, please stop doing this.

Alexi Melvin 37:31
Yeah, yeah, I definitely I, I didn't even think I was going too hard. But, you know, after it happened, I was like, Okay, I, you know, I always power walked, like I said, which is more, it's a different you're using different muscles, you know, like, you're exerting you know, around the same amount of energy, but it's different muscles. So out of the gate, I was like, oh, I'll just start running. Yeah, that was not good. So I wound up getting a stress, stress fracture in my heel when I did a five K. And so I was four weeks in a walking boot. So that was my first like, okay, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to actually do this.

Scott Benner 38:09
But if that happened in you got out of the walking boot, you're like, I'm gonna try it again.

Alexi Melvin 38:15
Yeah, why I I mean, I didn't put any pressure on myself. But I was like, Okay, I'm going to start you know, just start power walking it again and see, you know, make sure I don't reinjure myself and kind of ease and do it and and if it goes, Well, great. If it doesn't, I'll you know, I'll drop out and everybody will understand. But yeah, I you know, my my power walk winds up being that of like, the pace of like a slow run. So I was like, okay, at the very least I can just do this. Yeah, so I wound up being fine. I didn't get re injured. That was the important thing.

Unknown Speaker 38:52
So

Scott Benner 38:52
did your overall like physical health change? While you were getting ready? Did you find yourself stronger and better shape like just think Wow, this is great. Um, or do we suggest about building up those muscles that you would need for the endurance

Unknown Speaker 39:08
um,

Alexi Melvin 39:10
I did, it didn't change a little bit because I had, I had primarily done a lot of yoga and a little bit of walking before and now is, you know, obviously doing primarily running and walking. So I feel like my my upper body muscles actually kind of went down. And so I kind of had to pay extra attention to that too, because you do use it, you know, you draw from your upper body to when you're tired. So I had to do kind of like extra things to make sure I wasn't like ignoring that part of my body. But apart from that, I you know, I you know, it fluctuated like at certain times, I would feel like I was losing weight that I would have to adjust sort of accordingly with my diet. Because that's not good, you need to sort of like be at a good weight to, to maintain all that. So it was it was never really, there are ups and downs.

Scott Benner 40:09
But I think it's really interesting to talk to you a person who's not necessarily a runner or a distance runner that about doing the marathon because it's interesting while you're talking like to listen to you, you're sort of like, huh, yeah, that did happen. This is what happened after that, like, it's, I prefer talking to you over somebody who's like, I run this thing every year. And let me tell you how to do it. Because it just that's a job to them, then like, this is a thing that you just out of left field, no pun intended, I guess Did you don't mean like, you just sort of you were like, I'm gonna try this other thing now. And in the support of diabetes, like Was that your main goal? Because you were beyond type one, or because people you knew were doing it? Like, what was the? Did you just want to see if you could?

Alexi Melvin 40:53
I think it was all those things I definitely want. I've always wanted to inspire people to try different things and not let type one scare you like, kind of like what you're saying with like going traveling, going to Disney parks, like, you know, it's okay, if I if I am not able to do this thing. At least I tried. Now I know, you know, but it's obviously kind of on a bigger scale. And like I said before, I wanted to see if I was an athlete, like, what if I really did like doing marathons? What if I wanted to really explore running? That's, you know, let me let me give myself this shot. Um, I

Scott Benner 41:32
think about it all the time. I'm gonna cut you off for a second. I'm so sorry. Yeah, like, what if I'm a great piano player? And I don't know, because I've never tried to play the piano. Like, I don't think I am. But I mean, that's my point. Like, what if, right? Like, can I play guitar? And I just have never tried like that. I think you have to be, like, whimsical like that sometimes.

Alexi Melvin 41:53
Yes, exactly. I lost a little bit mad at myself, because I've always been so, you know, in the school of thought that, you know, people with type one should not limit themselves. But I was like, I think I was kind of limiting myself without even really thinking about in school. Like I never, you know, did I never tried to be on a sports team. I never, you know, I even got like a, you know, like a note to get out of PE altogether one year. Like, why did I do that? You know? So,

Scott Benner 42:22
you're like, I need a note that says something to the effect of lexy has a problem with something you fill in the blanks, and she cannot be in gym this year. Did that work? Did you get out of gym? I did. Do you remember a gap where it's a little bit of a sidebar? But do you remember why you wanted to? To get out just because you didn't enjoy it?

Alexi Melvin 42:44
I honestly I think my endocrinologist said like, Oh, hey, if you want to get out of gym, you can, like, oh, okay, well, why not? Then like I can, you know, I can use that time for another class that I really care about, you know,

Scott Benner 42:59
any other things that this diabetes will get me into her out of? Please let me

Alexi Melvin 43:03
right. Yeah, exactly. Because like, oh, sounds good. Awesome. Good plan.

Scott Benner 43:09
Well, that's fascinating. And, and shows a little bit of how far we've come. You know, naming that, that somebody I don't think someone got. I hope somebody wouldn't say that to somebody at this point.

Unknown Speaker 43:20
No, definitely not.

Scott Benner 43:22
Oh, my God, I've been looking at you. You were like, industrious, you're like, Yeah, sure. I'll get out of gym. I'll tell you. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 43:30
Exactly, where you can get Oh, it's so great.

Scott Benner 43:34
Okay, so I, I'm fascinated by something you said earlier. And I'm like, it's keeps popping up in my head, you'd only ever run about 12 miles in practice, the the, you know, the race itself is over twice that distance. When you're standing at the starting line, what's going through your head.

Alexi Melvin 43:53
When I was at the starting line, I really just wanted to get running, to be honest with you. Because the worst part of that whole thing was the start village where you had to go wait for four hours before you could actually start and it was freezing. So I guess in a way that kind of helped, because I was like, okay, just just just friggin get this thing going. I have to get my battery temperature up. I have to start running. Um, so I wasn't really thinking about it at the time.

Scott Benner 44:19
So it was like anywhere is better than where we are right now.

Alexi Melvin 44:22
Yeah, yeah. I wonder if that's actually like a strategy. They I don't really know. But it did. Yeah, it did help.

Scott Benner 44:30
It reminded me of something that's just so sad. I can't even bring it up. But you know, I just Alright, I'm gonna just say it anyway. You know, you know, when you're seeing it's such a sad thought, but you know, every once in a while, like every 20 years, you'll see like a apartment fire. And it's so bad that people jump at the end and you're like, Wow, that's amazing. Like, I am in a place that's so terrible. That something else that's terrible is preferable because at least I can buy myself a little bit of time before. I imagine you in that like, like village I know. It's not an apples to apples thing, but it's popped into my head like going like, I'm freezing. I don't know if I can do this race, I really feel like this is gonna go poorly. Why don't I just start running? So I don't freeze to death? Like I have to try something. Good. Exactly. That's interesting. Maybe they do that on purpose. Okay, so once you're moving in your warm up is your expectation you're going to finish? I mean, does it have to be, I guess, in your mind when you like, you wouldn't have shown up that day if you didn't think you could do it, right. Or No. Yeah.

Alexi Melvin 45:27
I mean, it was I would say, I was like, 60% sure that I could I could finish based on based on knowing my body and just being confident that I would sort of listen to it. And if if you know, something was wrong, I could stop and you know, and really just the excitement to I felt like I had a good amount of energy to carry me through.

Scott Benner 45:53
Adrenaline excited for Lexi, I don't think it would make me run 26 miles. But

Unknown Speaker 45:57
yeah.

Alexi Melvin 45:59
I was surprised that I had that mindset.

Scott Benner 46:02
But was there a point in the race where you thought, I'm gonna do this? Or this isn't gonna work out? What was that? Yeah.

Alexi Melvin 46:10
Oh, several? Yeah, there were so many ups and downs. There are so many. I mean, like, I remember miles, 15, maybe 14 and 15. I was I remember actually calling my mom and going, I don't I don't know if I could do this. This is This sucks. This really sucks. And she was like, I know, I know. It's horrible. But you know, just do what you can do. Don't you know, I think the main thing for me was I didn't pressure myself mentally at all. I was like, I always kind of gave I'd kind of gave myself an out. I was like, if I need to, if I need to stop. If I need to get out. I can get out. There's no, there's nobody pressuring me. Everybody will understand, you know, so that was failure feeling for you. You're just

Scott Benner 46:49
like, Look, I got as far as I could. And,

Alexi Melvin 46:51
yeah. So yeah, like mile 1415 was horrible. And then for some reason, I got this huge jolt of energy, probably around miles 17, I knew that some of my friends were gonna be around a mile 18. And I was really excited to see them. And you know, there are certain parts of the race where people were cheering really loud. So it's, it's the smallest thing can give you a second wind.

Scott Benner 47:16
So I joke about this a lot like the idea of a marathon and not being something I do. But if you really listen to what Alexia is saying, right now, she's talking about life. Like this marathon is just a microcosmos of life. Like, you know, things are hard sometimes. Then somebody comes along and picks you up. You know, sometimes you have energy, you don't know why sometimes you're bummed out. You don't know why keep going. Right? Like just just keep going. And it it can work out now I saw a picture of you towards the end. You did look like you were gonna die. did what was it? Like, first of all, I do want to know, like, what was was there a feeling? Like, did you have enough in you to feel the emotional rush of finishing?

Alexi Melvin 47:59
I do you remember crying a little bit when I was at? I want to say mile 23? Because at that point, I was like, I could oh my gosh, I'm gonna do that. Yeah, um, but yeah, I'm actually going to do this. Um, other you know, other than that, I don't feel like I, you know, I was just so on autopilot. And it was cold. And I was, you know, like, I don't think I had, you know, the capacity to really feel the emotions on that level until that point, but

Scott Benner 48:33
yeah, it's like a survival thing, right?

Alexi Melvin 48:36
Yeah, your, your body definitely goes into survival mode, especially. Especially when you stop like to go to the bathroom, or to check your blood sugar or something like, your body at I can't even explain to you It feels like it feels like I'm gonna die. Like, there's like room spins and like it that's kind of like, Alright, I'm gonna I'm gonna not stop then like, I'm just gonna keep going. I mean, I still I don't feel like this. Yeah, exactly. There was definitely there's definitely that, um,

Scott Benner 49:05
what was the management like, for your diabetes through the, through the race and prior? Like, how did you get ready?

Alexi Melvin 49:12
Um, that was, the worst part is because with all the nerves and the adrenaline, pretty much all of us on the team were spiking, like crazy, like right before the race. And so I kind of had to make a decision to either take more insulin or not, and kind of see, you know, see how it goes. So I decided not to, which is good for me, at least because, you know, I had some long acting in my system. And once I started going, I immediately started dropping and so I never want to see another like shell or energy to for the rest of my life. And luckily, I had a ton of them in my little running belt. So I think I ate all of them that I had. Like, I think I had, maybe like three pretty significant blood sugar crashes over the whole thing, which isn't terrible. Considering how many miles it is, but, uh Yeah, I never had to take any insulin.

Scott Benner 50:12
If ardent gets into one of those, you know, those days where sometimes you're just low and it won't, it won't come back. You don't I mean, like, it's that that this 56 blood sugars and you feed in it turns into a 59 bucks or you're like, wait, no, that's not right. You're like that kind of stuff. There's a moment where if she grabbed like, if you reached out into a new another juice box, she'd be like, I can't. Like there's like it's a sickening feeling the way she describes it of, uh huh. Let's see. So you're choking these down? Because you have to, I guess. Yeah, that's terrible. And so there was also there was Gatorade at like, every every two miles, there's water and little cups of Gatorade. So that helped. It was like just enough, you know, it was just enough like, electrolytes and carbs to kind of like, you know, keep Yeah, keep me going. And I did stop at the medical tent one time to get a bag of pretzels. Because I just could not have another like, gelatinous thing in my body. I'm not gonna suck in another one that whatever the hell this thing is. And I need I need something for my firm to sit in your stomach. Like just want to. Yeah, like sense. Um, how about afterwards effects on your blood sugar? How long did the race impact you?

Alexi Melvin 51:25
Um, that is an interesting question. Because we were all all of us on the team were kind of you know, corresponding about that none of us had the same experience. I was fine. The Night of the night of the race. I I think I had one low in the middle of the night, which wasn't terrible. But it was kind of like a delayed low. You know, ate dinner. I didn't have a spike. I didn't have a crash. It was fine. I think my body is just like in shock.

Scott Benner 51:54
Well, I can't not only that you didn't use insulin.

Alexi Melvin 51:58
So now you got the whole day. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 52:00
you were basically feeding the activity. Yeah, yeah. And and for someone who might have seen that anxiety spike from the adrenaline and bolus that they're still going to have that activity and they have that that insulin active in there. And you know, you so you weren't using a lot of when you think the first time was you gave yourself insulin so you had a pretty normal reaction. Did you go eat afterwards or

Alexi Melvin 52:23
I had dinner after I just I went straight back to the hotel. I didn't go like out or anything. I just needed to like, stop moving. So I had my friend go just grab, you know, something for me at the at the deli across the street, and I just ate I ate it in bed. And after a shower, and I took insulin for dinner. That was the first that was the first time I'd taken insulin.

Scott Benner 52:45
It's really interesting. It's a it's a interesting experience you had for sure

Alexi Melvin 52:50
it is yeah. And so in the days following. I feel like even now it's so it's been it's been over a week. And still I feel like I'm a little higher than I should be. Um, your blood. My blood sugar's Yeah, um, I am still kind of experiencing a little bit of resistance. Not not terrible, though. I was expecting much worse. I was expecting my body to like really rebel against what had just happened. But um, yeah, everybody had a different experience, though.

Scott Benner 53:22
Yeah, did did people who had done it prior tell you that you might have like higher blood sugar's after the race for days.

Unknown Speaker 53:29
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 53:32
I was warned. That's something that's all crazy. And now here's the real question. Would you do it again?

Alexi Melvin 53:40
Yes, that is the craziest part of all this. I you know, as I said, mile 14 mile 15. I was going What am I do? I never again, I am going to be vehemently like telling people to never do this because it's horrible. But now after the fact. I yeah, I would I would limit it like once, once a year, like a full one. But if that maybe once every couple years, but I know this will surprise you. But I'm actually doing the Walt Disney World half marathon in January. And I had I had planned that even before this before I had done the full. Yeah. But now I know I want to do it. So.

Scott Benner 54:23
Yeah. Plus, you can do it like IRS probably. And would you so what would you change? What are you going to change for your next one wrapped around diabetes that you learn from this one?

Unknown Speaker 54:34
Um,

Alexi Melvin 54:37
that's funny. I don't know if there's much I would change to like,

Scott Benner 54:42
yeah, I'm gonna say like, just if you were, if you were a person I was talking to the first The only thing that really hits me is that, you know, a bar like some sort of like oat or not, or something heavy that would sit in your system for a long I don't know how that would be while you're running. But if you

Alexi Melvin 55:00
know what I, yeah, you know what I did have?

I had like one because I remember my my friend who met me at my late team was like, What do you want? I have this and this and this. And I did I had like a kind bar.

Scott Benner 55:13
Right? That's what I was thinking. Yeah,

Alexi Melvin 55:15
yeah, it did help. So I would definitely make sure to have maybe two of those in my in my running belt.

Scott Benner 55:22
It's it's just the job. I mean, it worked out well for you like, you seem happy with how it went, honestly.

Alexi Melvin 55:28
I am. Yeah. Like, when you just ask them that question. I really can't think of that much that I would do differently. Because you really can't, you can't plan that much that like one of the things I really kind of ended up strangely liking about it was that it's, it's freeing in the sense that you can't really plan you can't over analyze, like, I've always been a person that probably is over prepared, you know, like, I, you know, have like a million things in my purse, in case I'm low or I have extra pins or as backup sensors. I definitely am always prepared. But with this, it's almost like, well, this is all I can do. You know, I can fit this much in my running belts. My actually my, my meter stopped working at one point. And I've again, I'm old school. So occasionally I tend to test for accuracy for the CG CGM. It stopped working because it was too cold.

Scott Benner 56:25
So why don't we go inside?

Alexi Melvin 56:27
Yeah, exactly. So like things like that. You can't, you can't plan for and you can't control. And you know, if you want to finish the race, you have to just keep going with what you have. Yeah. So

it was cool. It was a cool feeling.

Scott Benner 56:41
Now, it's just like I said, it's jumping off a cliff, right? You're just like, I'm going and hopefully I'll hit water. And I'll pop back. Yeah. And we'll see. I think, do you think it? Do you think the experience is going to inform how you manage day to day like, do you think you'll be a little looser about it? Or?

Alexi Melvin 57:00
Yes, I definitely think it will impact how I manage just routine things like I do. I feel changed. I don't you know, I? I don't feel as anxious about things that I would have felt anxious about before. I feel like, you know, I just just things I might not have considered before, like, you know, traveling certain places are like, I'm like, Yeah, oh my god, why can't I do that? I can do that. It's I have to my mindset is a little bit shifted.

Scott Benner 57:32
That's excellent. I mean, it sounds like it was a big, that was like a big moment for you. Honestly.

Alexi Melvin 57:38
It was, I think it was for every anybody who does a marathon. It's, it's it's a big thing.

Scott Benner 57:43
Yeah. I'm not gonna do it. Just so you know. You are, I was just, I'm a lot older than you first of all. Really? Yeah. I'm like, 112. And so I just felt like, I'm like, Oh my gosh, like maybe that Windows has, but it did make me feel like there are other things that I should be trying like, like listening to music. There's stuff I could be doing that I'm making excuses about that. I that that I definitely could do. You know, and maybe that doesn't need to be a marathon, right? It could be something any kind of elite for you.

Alexi Melvin 58:16
Yeah, I like Exactly.

Scott Benner 58:18
What I did have one weird question that I didn't ask about the running. Were there glucagon. Was glucagon everywhere. Like, Did everyone have one who was running with type one? or How did they? I'm assuming nobody needed one. But

Alexi Melvin 58:30
no, nobody needed one.

Scott Benner 58:34
Was there What? Like it was there was it there? Did you prepare for the eventuality?

Unknown Speaker 58:40
I mean, there was

Alexi Melvin 58:42
there were medical tents, probably every I've met four or five miles there. So there. I mean, I never I didn't bring any like, you know, obviously I had sugar but I didn't bring emergency glucagon because I my mom had told me and other people who had run it had told me that there are medics at around every corner. So I definitely felt safe.

Scott Benner 59:07
Cool. That's excellent. And you don't, I'm assuming you're trying to be streamline as you're doing this. You're not looking at not looking to run with your iPad.

Alexi Melvin 59:16
No, no, there's a whole bunch of stuff with you. What is that? Is she pulling a wagon? So right? That would have been me like probably five years ago, I would have had my wagon

Scott Benner 59:28
Lexi's little red wagon. Yeah, very well could end up being the title of this episode. Just so that you know.

Alexi Melvin 59:35
Oh, I like it. Okay.

Scott Benner 59:38
I really appreciate doing this. I feel like I've kept you longer than I told I told you. I was

Unknown Speaker 59:42
no sorry for that. Totally fine. It's been great. Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:46
Did I not ask about anything that you're like, Oh, you should be asking about this about what I did during this. Um,

Alexi Melvin 59:56
you know, I guess the only thing I kind of wanted to say was As as a type one, you have to know your body on such on such a level that other people just don't know what that's like, it's almost like having a sixth sense, you know, but I never realized until running the marathon that there's a whole new level. It's you know, you have there's, there's a, there's a, there's like the line between knowing when to stop and knowing when you can push yourself further. is so real. Like, it's you know, so I just that that was just eye opening to me that as much as I already thought I knew my body. There's there's something beyond that. So

Scott Benner 1:00:45
I think what I took most from what you said today is that the there's a decision you can make, like, you can err on the side of caution, or you can err on the side of being bold, you know, anything? Yeah, I think that you'll, you'll get farther, you'll learn more, you'll probably break free of a lot of chains, if you just, you know, kind of move. Yeah, you know,

Alexi Melvin 1:01:04
yeah, I've always that's what I've always respected about you and your mindset and the podcast, and you know, how you are with your daughter, your that's Wait, that's your thing. You're bold. And you know, I feel like I could, I could be bolder and after after the marathon I think I am. So

Scott Benner 1:01:21
that's really cool. Yeah, I just like, as you were talking about the things you didn't bring with you. I always made me consider because Arden's at school right now. And it made me consider at the beginning of every school year, somebody gets online, and there's photos of like, Alright, um, you know, I have a diabetic kid, and this is how we're going to prep and they're, they're taking all of this stuff to the school, like you could keep like, for kids with diabetes alive for five years with the stuff they're taking it. And again, and you know, it's just, it's all pre packaged, and it's labeled, it's all this stuff. And I think my daughter has a juice in her purse.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:55
Yeah. And

Scott Benner 1:01:57
the, and there's some gummy candies in her purse, and then there's juice sprinkled around the building, but not a case of it. There's like one or two in each classroom. And it's really just there. In case the Wonder purse gets used to wherever she is, she can like snatch another one up real quick and put it back in her purse. Right? It's that is the extent of the preparation we do. Yeah, the nurse doesn't have 1000 things. There's not like, it's just, I don't, I don't know, like, there's something about that I get the wanting to feel that way, like protected and safe. But you got to live a whole life with diabetes, and you're not going to spend your whole life, you know, driving out ahead of your kid stashing juices along the way. Yeah. And so you kind of have to, you got to figure out how to exist in the body you have in the situation you have, I think, yeah,

Alexi Melvin 1:02:50
that was I would say my number one takeaway from all this.

Scott Benner 1:02:53
Cool. That's really great. Well, thank you so much. Um, if you hold on for one second, I have a question for you. I don't want to record. Okay, cool. All right. Thank you. Are you wondering what I asked to like, see when I shut out the microphone, I can't tell you. But you might find out one day, if everything works out. Well. Thanks so much to Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes for sponsoring the show. Huge appreciation dexcom.com Ford slash juice box, Miami pod.com Ford slash juice box and dancing the number four diabetes.com. That's where you find out about the sponsors. One more thing. I'm sorry about the audio. It broke my heart. But I love the interview. And I didn't want to scrap it. And I'm so sorry. You may not have even cared after I got going. But I I take a lot of pride in how the show sounds and made me sad. Anyway, we'll be back on Friday with ask Scott and Jenny I think. And then right on to the end of the year. I have some very cool stuff planned for 2020 that's already underway. Can't wait to get that to you. But first we have to live through these weeks and months. I can't fast forward through life. Hey, I want to shout out everybody at the jdrf Kansas City chapter that had me out to speak this past weekend had a fantastic time was wonderful meeting every one of you. And for somebody who left a review on Canadian iTunes just because they wanted a shout out. I happen to see it I don't usually see Canadian iTunes but anyway. Yo, here's your shout out even though I don't remember your name. I'm sorry. But you know, it's you. So you keep that pride in your heart. You let somebody listen this right now go this guy right here. He's talking about me, because I am I'm talking about you.

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