Scott Benner 11/13/20 Scott Benner 11/13/20

#406 Patrolling with Type 1 Diabetes

Sean is a Police Officer living with type 1 diabetes

Sean is a 26-year-old police officer who employs the tips and tricks discussed on the podcast to keep his glucose levels stable so that he is able to more readily respond when his job throws something unexpected at him while he works rolling daytime and overnight shifts, as well as potentially adrenaline-spiking SWAT-team roles. He wants to show other Type 1 diabetics that it is more than possible to join the force if they are interested.

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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 406 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Dexcom, makers to the G six continuous glucose monitor the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, and touched by type one touched by type ones 20th annual dancing for diabetes show is virtual this year. And you can watch it at touched by type one.org. It'll be available on November 14. That's this Saturday, November 14 2020. At 7pm eastern time, I just spoke with Elizabeth the other day, and they filmed the entire event in a huge auditorium said it was really exciting. And definitely worth your time. You know what else is worth your time the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump and you can get a free no obligation demo of that pod sent directly to your home absolutely for the free by going to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box and of course@dexcom.com Ford slash juice box you can find out a lot about the Dexcom g six, like how to get it what it is. And oh by the way, if you get your health care through the VA Dexcom is now covered.

Shawn lives with Type One Diabetes. He's a husband and a police officer. And today we're gonna talk about a little of all of that here on the Juicebox Podcast. Key Imagine if I did it all like that. I'd be like, oh, welcome to the Juicebox Podcast Today Show. Anyway, Sean's a cop. I grew up around a lot of police officers. And so I have a little bit of background about what it's like to be a police officer tiny little bit, a little bit of background. And generally, if you understand I'm saying to Shawn, and I got along very well. He told me how the podcast helped him what it's like to do his job with Type One Diabetes. And he wanted to come on to encourage young people who'd like to be in law enforcement, and who are living with Type One Diabetes, to know that they can. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Searching for Spanish to blooms on the bottom of the oceans are becoming bold with insulin. Oh, I've piqued your interest, haven't I? Let's get to song.

Sean Hunter 2:40
I'm Sean Hunter. I'm 26 years old, from Camden County, New Jersey. I'm a type one diabetic, then diabetic for 17 years. And I'm a police officer also in Camden County, New Jersey. And that's why I was interested in coming on and talking to you, Scott.

Scott Benner 2:58
That's amazing, because I think you're the first police officer that's reached out and said, You know, I I'm happy for you to tell people on police. I think I've interviewed other police officers, but they haven't brought up what they are. Which is interesting sometimes, but I was I was really pleased with the, with your with your note, interestingly, I grew up around, you're gonna be able to tell in a second because I'm gonna say cops instead of police officers because I don't know how often I can say police officers, but I grew up around cops, and right. Just one of my best friends in the whole world with time. And then sort of by proxy, you get drawn into their life a little bit. So you know, I've been at picnics with 40 police officers are going on motorcycle rides with 50 guys that are all cops, you know, in the middle of the night, which by the way, if you've never ridden a motorcycle at midnight with 50 cops gear you're missing.

Sean Hunter 3:50
It sounds like fun.

Scott Benner 3:53
there's a there's a real feeling that we can't get a ticket if you know what I mean. Yeah. Anyway,

Sean Hunter 4:00
yeah, I was sorry, Clay off. I was I was just excited to come on and try and give some, you know, point of view from the law enforcement side, you know, hope play, there's people out there that are type one diabetics that are cops and they're, you know, can listen to this. Or, you know, maybe there's kids out there that are that want to be copson they're kinda skeptical because of the diabetes. I'm trying to, you know, open it kinda

Scott Benner 4:27
possible, right? Yeah. Well, you know, there's a real irony in this that last night, I edited a episode that's going to go up today, with a young woman in Massachusetts, I think she's 26 honestly, when I recorded whether she'd only had diabetes for about a nine months when I recorded with her and she wants to be a police officer. And it's just it's very strange as I didn't you know, I didn't schedule that to happen like that, obviously, but it was it was really interesting. So let's talk a little bit first about being diagnosed when you're nine. So that's old enough to have a memory of it. I imagine. And probably in one of those sweet spots for boys where I don't imagine you were thrilled to find out.

Sean Hunter 5:07
Yeah, so obviously I was not years old. I was it was during the summer, I don't really remember the date. But all I remembers that one of the most distinct memories, I was at a pool party, and, you know, I really couldn't quench my thirst, which is one of those, you know, signs. And instead of drinking water, you know, I'm a little kid, I wanted to drink soda, which obviously was then splitting my blood sugar up higher, which I had no idea about. But then my parents, you know, throughout the night, that the next couple of nights, they were keep an eye on me, they thought I was dehydrated. My dad's an EMT. So he said, you know, pay to my mom on pay, take him to the hospital. Maybe he's just dehydrated, they'll give them some fluids and send them home. When we went to the hospital, I went in told the intake person my symptoms, they brought me immediately back because they know the symptoms of diabetes. And I was kind of in that age group. Yeah. And they tested my sugar and I was 898. Wow,

Scott Benner 6:09
you're well on your way to something. Had you? Do you remember how you felt poorly? For how long prior to that? Did it come on quickly? Or what's what is hindsight then tell you how it was happening? Do you remember,

Sean Hunter 6:20
it was probably like three to five days that I was, you know, feeling really bad throwing up a lot. Obviously, using the bathroom a lot, not keeping any food down. And I my mom said my my eyes were sinking back, you know, just look like I was dying, which I

Scott Benner 6:36
was. Yeah. So you were in decay?

Sean Hunter 6:39
Yeah, pretty much. And I you know, I don't really have I don't really have any memory of that. The only memory I have of being in the hospital is that my mom was so nervous that she went to get her insurance card out of her purse, and she dropped like $300 worth of change on the floor that she had in her purse. was like the last you know, like, yeah,

Scott Benner 6:59
sure, on Vita mom's always have so much change in their purse, like I dated a girl for a long time. She never had a quarter and then suddenly I had a couple babies with her and she's got to fistfuls a change in her purse. I don't understand. Yeah,

Sean Hunter 7:12
I don't know why. But it was it was just a little bit of laughter to kind of break the the seriousness of the situation. Yeah.

Scott Benner 7:17
Now that's, that's amazing. Hey, listen, your voice is cutting in and out on me a little bit. Okay, so when you're pausing, it's you probably have noise cancelling on your headphones. And so every time you stop talking, it wants to take away background noise. So let's try to figure out a way around that. First of all, is that are those The only headphones you have? Do you have like gamer headphones or something like that by any chance?

Sean Hunter 7:40
I don't think so. I can check.

Scott Benner 7:42
Even Apple just on the wire with the microphone in the cord.

Unknown Speaker 7:47
Let me go Look,

Scott Benner 7:48
I don't believe so. Okay, and if not, I have another idea. So your mom has her little moment of levity that kind of breaks the ice a little bit. You go back were you in the hospital long? How long do they keep you

Sean Hunter 8:01
so that night, they gave me fluids brought my sugar back down, I assume you know, insulin and all that stuff. And then they transferred me to chop in Philly. And I stayed there for a week.

Unknown Speaker 8:16
Week.

Sean Hunter 8:18
Yeah, so I was there for a week for education, I guess. And but I specifically remember being there for a week and playing Xbox and doing all this cool stuff at CHOP. You know, it was it was a cool hospital for kids. So

Scott Benner 8:31
they do a nice job there of, of taking care of kids. You know, you and I live pretty near each other right?

Sean Hunter 8:37
Yeah, that's that was another reason I wanted to talk to you is kind of cool. having another new jersey in?

Scott Benner 8:41
Yeah. Yeah, so that's, that's that's Arden's hospital. That's not where she was. Not where she was diagnosed, but it's where her endocrinologist is out of Do you use a an adult endo now in New Jersey?

Sean Hunter 8:54
Yeah. So I use um, Cooper. endocrinology, I just commented on your post in the group actually, the other day use a Dr. Becker from Cooper.

Scott Benner 9:05
It's funny, you were not the only one that brought up that practice. So that's usually a good sign when people are like, Oh, this place this place, you know? Yeah, that's excellent. It's hard to find to a good adult endocrinology. And you would have some feeling about that, too, because you left chop that does a really good job for kids. And did you be able to find Cooper right away? Or was there any struggle in between?

Sean Hunter 9:30
Yeah, so I actually stayed with chop until I think I was 20 or 21. I really didn't want to leave and and I was, you know, I was the really old guy going in and seeing all these little kids. So they kind of pushed me out. But I found Cooper really easily. They referred me there and it was a good transition.

Scott Benner 9:47
It's a funny image, by the way of you just you rolling through like Hey, guys, what's up?

Sean Hunter 9:52
Yeah, on the veteran walking through with these little kids that are diagnosed.

Scott Benner 9:57
So how old were you when you thought You want to be a police officer?

Sean Hunter 10:02
going throughout high school? I think so like in that 14 to 18 range. I grew up with public servants in my family. And, you know, I enjoyed seeing them go out and make a difference in the world. And that's the reason why I wanted to become a cop. So I think as of then, it really, you know, drew my attention, I wanted to go do it. And then I, you know, obviously went to college and studied criminal justice and, you know, started to pursue that career field.

Scott Benner 10:36
And there are two paths, there's two paths to it, am I correct that you can go to college and take a criminal justice track? Or you can just go right to the police academy to is, is that the other option? Or is that not like that anymore?

Sean Hunter 10:49
No, that's true there,

there are a lot of different options, you could actually even pay your own way through an academy, um, without having really any I mean, I think you need some sort of college credits. But you can pay your own way through and then kind of get hired out of the police academy with that, you know, police training, commission certification,

Scott Benner 11:09
so I grew up around a, like I said, a lot of police officers, none of them directly in my family, but good friends, you know, through my, my late teens, who are a little older than me, and I know, scads of great cops, people who want to be cops, for the right reason, do a great job at it. I've been at it for decades. And I've seen a couple who were sketchy along the way. But I have the greatest sketchy story that I'm going to share with you at some point, because it's hilarious. And, and I and I want to, I've never said this on the podcast before. But when I was 18, because of being around these people, and having no real direction in my life, I thought, I'd like to be a police officer, and my local town was hiring three, right. And so back, then they put out a test, and you took the test, and that test would whittle down. And then there was a, you know, interviews and it went down to this process, then they chose from that group of people and sent those people off to the police academy. So I'm barely 19 years old by the time the test comes up. And, Sean, it's weird when you hear me talk on the podcast, because I probably seem like an idiot. But I, I'm bright in strange ways that don't show in regular life, which is right, it was just, it's hard to put into words. But this test ended up basically just being an IQ test. It was a fancy IQ test. And I crushed it. And so when I first told, you know, a friend of mine, who back then was just an officer, you know, that I wanted to do this, the first thing he said was, you mean, you're 19 they're not going to give you a gun. He's like these, like, you're never going to get through this process. He's like, you're old enough, technically, you know, air quotes, but no one's gonna let you be a cop when you're 19. And I was like, I'm gonna take the test anyway. So I take the test and, and just days before the test, the lieutenant comes to my house and says, Hey, listen, we think this is great. But you know, you need to know you're too young, and we're not gonna, you're never gonna make it through. And I was like, okay, and it seems all very, like, you know, I was like, Alright, I understand this. But I did so well on the test that they couldn't weed me out. So the next thing I know, I have an interview. And it's me and want the top 20 people. And you know, you're young, I just figured I must have been the 20th person. And at the end of the interview with some of the lieutenants, and desert in certain designated officers. At the end, they told me how well they thought I did. And of course, that I wasn't going to make it to the next round, because, you know, I'm 19. And then a couple weeks later, the letters come out, and I make it to the next round. And now I'm in the interviews with a 10. By the time it was over, I was top six for that.

Unknown Speaker 13:58
Because I really wanted, you

Scott Benner 13:59
know, well, they they wanted me to be older is what they wanted, you know, but I hadn't done anything yet that made them think we can't just tell him No, like he's doing better in these interviews than people. And he did you know, and so when it got down to the top six, I actually by then I was like, is this gonna happen? Like, even I started, I'm only 19 they probably shouldn't give me a go. Look, I started having that thought. And, you know, it eventually went away gracefully. And people were very nice about it. And you know, the the end result was You're too young to be a police officer in our eyes and but you know, try again, and by the time and you know, like openings don't come that often it was a smaller price. And by the time they did I sort of in my mind moved on. But it was a very strange like nine month period where everyone in the town was like I began to give that kid a gun but it's exactly how it felt for a while. But But you went to college and you got a you know, a criminal justice degree. Did anything in college dissuade you? Or were you like straight on the whole way? Like, this is what I'm gonna do. Um,

Sean Hunter 15:06
so I think originally, before I went to college, I wanted to do something like physical therapy or physical therapy, personal trainer kind of background. I'm really into sports. And you know, I played baseball throughout college. But I really wanted to help people and you know, serve. And that was one of the things that I, I really wanted to do. So I don't think anything really dissuaded me after I went to college. If anything, it pushed me forward, you know, having really good professors who were retired police officers, lieutenants, chiefs and stuff like that, that, you know, really pushed me towards that goal.

Scott Benner 15:47
And you're not, you're not a cop in a, like, a nice little town like the one where I was trying to be a police officer, like, you're, you have a tough job, don't you?

Sean Hunter 15:57
We're in a smaller town, but we are, you know, definitely a pretty busy town with with a lot of different calls for service and, you know, some pretty serious crimes that happen. So it's, you know, it's, we definitely get our share of fun stuff that happens.

Scott Benner 16:11
Yeah, I have an acquaintance from years ago, who's an older gentleman, older than I. And he was, I did a task force in South Jersey serving drug warrants. And he said he could only do it for about a year, he says, most heartbreaking, horrible job he had ever had in his life. And about a year into it, he went back to his chief, and he's like, I can't do this anymore. Like, yeah, it needs to be someone else.

Sean Hunter 16:38
Yeah, I actually started my career in a pretty infamous city down in South Jersey. I worked there for almost three years. And then I switched departments. And I'm in a, like I said, a smaller town now, but still pretty busy.

Scott Benner 16:53
You know, you and I might have a conversation after this is over, because the stories he told me were not they're not appropriate for the show. They have nothing to do with diabetes, but they're horrifying. And, and they've shaped a lot about how I think about some of the jobs people have to do. So you know, so you're, you're into helping people with your father's health, your father knows he's still an EMT.

Sean Hunter 17:16
He, so he slowed down a little bit on the EMT side, he's a paid firefighter, he actually just got promoted to Deputy Chief, he actually works in the same town I work in as a police officer.

Scott Benner 17:25
Isn't that interesting? My dad did volunteer firefighting. When we were kids, he never became professional at it. But he was a dedicated guy who kind of broke the what some people might have is a, I don't know, a vision of what a volunteer fireman is a guy trying to get away from his family drinking beer at the back of a of a building, it has a couple of fire trucks in it, but he really cared about it and, and did really good work. And for a number of years. You know, especially before alarm systems became common, there were a lot more fires, like the realize or not, things don't burn down as much as they used to 20 years ago. But he was a firefighter during a time in our town and surrounding places where things really, really, they needed firefighters and there were some serious building fires. And I actually did it for three years, through my teenagers as well. And I only did it for three years, but I learned a lot about being calm. Okay, and not freaking out when most other people are freaking out. And it's it's an interesting thing until you've stood in a room that is completely on fire, like walls, ceiling, and you've got a hose in your hand and you know, the you went in there to save the building but you realize now you're then there to save yourself. You know, it's a it's a it's a different thing. And and I wonder about that with being a police officer, like how much of your day is spent? Like how hard is that? I guess is my question to go out into the world with a with the idea. I'm out there trying to help other people, but your first thought is always I can't help them. If I'm dead, like is that in your head constantly? What's it like to be on the street? It's my question.

Do you or someone that you love, use insulin? Give type one or type two diabetes? Are you finding that your blood sugar gets low, you become sweaty, disoriented, it gets very high you feel sick to your stomach? Would you like to stop that from happening which like to be able to address those issues with carbohydrates or insulin as necessary and needed without having to poke a hole in your finger a bazillion times a day. You can do that with the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. That's available@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Find out when your blood sugar is on the move because Dexcom will show you not only what your blood sugar is, let's say 125 but it'll show you what direction it's moving in, up or down or is it steady and how quickly Is it moving in one of those directions? Are you moving one point a minute to three Dexcom can tell you I can tell you in real time, and it can show you right there on your iPhone or Android. And if you don't want that information on your phone, you can carry a dexcom receiver with you. Now you tell this receiver or your phone, this is the range I'm comfortable in. But please, when I fall below this number, go above this number. Tell me just like my daughter's just it. My daughter's dex calm is telling me that her blood sugar's over 120 by beeping like that, by 120, because that's where we set it. And you could set your own range and have a better fuller picture of what your blood sugar is doing. dexcom.com forward slash juice box. And by the way, this is new. If you're using the VA, to get your insurance Dexcom is now covered. Go to the link. When it asks you what kind of insurance you have. You just say, VA that easy dexcom.com forward slash juice box, the how you're going to get that insulin? Well, you could use an omni pod tubeless insulin pump like my daughter has been doing since she was four years old. Arden, by the way, is over 16 now, and she's been using an omni pod every day. During that time. It's an absolute friend in life with Type One Diabetes. And if you're using insulin for type two diabetes, same thing, my omnipod.com forward slash juice box, here's the greatest part, they're going to send you if you like a free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod, it'll come directly to your home where you can try it on and wear it for yourself, where you can see what tubeless means not being tethered to something not having to wear a pack with insulin in your belt or your bra or something like that. This thing's all in one tiny, it's compact, easy to wear, you can hide it, or wear it out loud and proud doesn't matter. And when you do need to do something with your insulin, the controller is completely separate from the pump. And it's easy to carry in your pocket or purse on the pod is definitely something you want to look at. If you're considering leaving injections, or you're looking to leave your tube insulin pump my Omni pod comm forward slash juice box, check it out. Last thing of course touched by type ones 20th annual dancing for diabetes show is this Saturday, November 14 2020. At 7pm touched by type one.org. Go check out all the kids and their amazing dance routines. It has to be virtual this year. But everybody has their fingers crossed for next year being back in person dancing for diabetes.org dexcom.com forward slash juicebox my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box the links in your show notes links at Juicebox podcast.com. Now it's time to find out more about living with Type One Diabetes. And being a police officer.

Sean Hunter 23:15
It's definitely in the back of your head. And you always have to think about that. When you're going, you know to calls for service or you're stopping cars or anything like that, you always have to think about their situations and because if you're not thinking about it, and something happens, you're not going to be able to react to it. But it can't let it you know, take over you know your mind and take over the situation you have to obviously we have a job to do. Whether that is to help someone or if we end up having to arrest someone or you know anything like that. Like I said, you can't really let those thoughts take over that situation. But it always has to be in that the back of your mind. I've been to a lot of training. And I've listened to a lot of people talk and they kind of talk to they're talking about it like like flipping your switch, you always have to have a little bit of violence on standby, you know. And that's, that's something that you have to train and you get used to as you gain experience on the job. You know, you can't expect the guy with six months on the job to come in and say, you know, be able to flip that switch. But, you know, maybe a guy with five or 10 years old job he's more acquainted with that violence that he has on standby. He can. If he has to use it, he can, you know,

Scott Benner 24:36
yeah, it's a special person that can kind of walk that line and I have always seen with the people I know who are police officers, that some of the hardest. One of the hardest things they have to do personally, I think is be able to separate I guess I don't know a better way to say it. But I what I noticed is that their entire day is spent with people who are breaking the law or trying to get over or something like that? And then how hard is it not to, in your personal life think that everybody's trying to get over and treat people like people when you're home, but be have enough, you know, I don't know, just, you know, understanding of what the world can be like, you often don't find a job where you're directed at crime constantly, or people who are in that mindset. And I know, you'll still run into citizens who need help, and they're obviously not thinking like that. But when you get there, right, when you get out of that car, like, Who's Who? And how do you figure that out? And you know, and how do you stop yourself from being suspicious of everybody? Do you find that yet? Are you have you not been in it long enough to have that like, feeling?

Sean Hunter 25:51
No. So I definitely, I definitely know where we're coming from its I definitely, you know, see people different, even when I'm not at work, we're just going out with a family stuff like that, you know, you definitely kind of look at people differently. And you kind of, because you have to, you know, especially if you're living in that, that yellow area, where you're trying to react to things, you definitely see people differently. But if you're going to a situation, and you have to find out what's going on that just takes good investigative skills, and, you know, that's all built over time. I would say that I'm definitely you know, getting better at when Sam great, you know, only having five years on the job. But you know, you gain those skills over time. And you get better at finding out who's the good person who's the bad person, just based off of their reactions and their demeanor,

Unknown Speaker 26:47
learn to read people?

Unknown Speaker 26:48
Right? Yeah.

Scott Benner 26:49
So we're gonna get into how this all affects your diabetes or doesn't or how you deal with it in a second. But have you had a moment yet where you thought, No, I don't need to be a cop anymore. Like has anything really frightening happened that makes you rethink it. I mean, one of my close friends always tells me about the first home intrusion he went into that was happening. And he got in the house and the intruder went into the basement. And you know, the homeowners like he went downstairs and my friend standing at the top of the staircase, and he pulls his gun out and starts going downstairs and realizes as he's going down that because of the makeup of the house, that his legs and his entire lower half of his body are going to be visible long before he can get his eyes into the space. And he said there was a split second there where he thought, why don't I just leave? And but he did. He went down and did what he was supposed to do. But he's like, there was that moment where he's like, do I really want to be a police officer? And now's the time? No, you know, have you had one of those yet? Or how's it gone for the first five years,

Sean Hunter 27:49
um, there's definitely been a lot of those, you know, those pucker moments, if you want to call them that, um, I just recently think within the last eight months or so, I was put on our regional county SWAT team. So there's definitely been a lot of those moments where if we are clear, and a house, or we're going into a situation where we're possibly going to go in and find someone you know, you, you kind of think about it like, and this is kind of crazy, like we're the guys that are going in. We're the first people who are going to get hurt if something happens. But I think we kind of wear that as a badge of pride, like, Hey, we're the guys that went in and found this person that were the first were the people that went in and got the job done. And I think it's, it's a little bit crazy sometimes, but I think that's something that you have to have as a police officer to kind of have that, that pride of saying, Hey, I'm, I'm the guy that got that job done. I'm the guy that went out and did that thing, you know?

Scott Benner 28:47
Yeah, no, I hear you. Um, so I have to tell you my funny story, and then I'm gonna get into how diabetes is this? So I grew up in this in a pretty small town. And I'm going to give not enough details especially because the internet back then, you know, you could find it if you tried hard enough, but we I grew up in this small town, you know, the police department have probably 10 or 15 guys, it's grown over the years. And there was this one officer who was just quiet. He went about his business. He wrote his tickets. He didn't really do much else. That was kind of the vibe about him like you don't I mean, like he wasn't gonna wasn't gonna do much and he was just gonna do what he was supposed to do. And, and he just was he was wallpaper he just there he was, and you saw him you never thought twice about him. He's a decent enough guy wasn't a bad guy. Nothing like that. And then one day, he gets arrested. Because, wait, hold on, I swear to you, you're gonna love this. He found out about sunken treasure in the ocean and decided that he was going to die for it. And this was going to be how he's going to live the rest of his life off of these The blooms, okay, but how is he going to get enough money for the dive? Obviously, he's going to start robbing drug houses in the area. So he did, and was fairly successful at it for a while. if my memory serves, until one day, he went into a place, you know, a place where a lot of people were doing drugs, and they were selling drugs out of the place that he knew about. He went in there as a police officer to rob the place, but she had been doing and someone using drugs in the place if I my memory serves the son of a local politician, recognize them. Wow. And that's how he got caught. No lie. This story goes that he went to prison did his time and then got out and disappeared. And people think he went and found that treasure and left because they never got the money back from the robberies. He just he shut up. He did his time he held on to his money. He got out and he and they think he went and got that money somehow off the ocean floor. So I always imagine this man somewhere on an island, just with a big smile on his face with that same sort of like lackadaisical, like, I'm just here. Like, I just think of him as just existing. I don't know if that's actually what happened to him. But in my mind, that's, that's how I like to think of him. But that's not right.

Sean Hunter 31:20
Yeah, I can't even I can't even wrap my head around that. doing that, that's crazy.

Scott Benner 31:26
It was as much about the fact that he was just the quietest guy who was probably at the time, near 50 years old, he probably been a cop 15 or 20 years. Like he just really, it was insane. And it's 100% true. And I know it's true, because I know enough of the details to Google it and I just found two news stories on it while I was talking to you. So I know. It's not just stories that people told. But that was that like, you know, you woke up one day and you're like, Hey, remember, Officer blah, blah? Yeah, you got arrested? How come? He was robbing drug houses to make money to go look for Spanish to blooms on the bottom of the ocean floor? And you're like, Get the hell out of here. Anyway, I hope you don't go that way, Sean.

Sean Hunter 32:06
No, I don't I don't plan on it.

Scott Benner 32:09
What's that I don't think he had planned on it his whole life. And one day he snapped, like, I guess it was just one too many free medium coffees from 711. He was like, I'm done with this. Anyway, what I really want to know about is, you know, we just described a job that is can be, you know, fulfilling, you're off helping citizens. It can go from that fulfillment to anxiety and adrenaline very quickly. You have to be ready at a moment's notice. How do you manage your type one diabetes through that, that's why you're here. I really want to hear how you do that.

Sean Hunter 32:44
Um, so I, I was actually using a Medtronic pump, but I just switched to an omni pod. Okay. And I use the.com g six. Um, so you actually pushed me towards the Omni pod with your ads. Oh, on yours worker show.

Scott Benner 33:03
Excellent. Hey, dex coming on the pod the ads work, keep buying them.

Sean Hunter 33:09
But yeah, so I use Omni pod in the Dexcom. And I kind of just use the principles that you talked about, while I'm at work, you know, pretty bolusing and bumping and nudging are the two big things that I try to use. You know, not trying to, you know, use or have mountains in my, my numbers, you know, what I mean? Just have them be small rolling hills, if I, if they end up getting too high or too low,

Scott Benner 33:41
you know, so is creating that stability, helping you when out of nowhere, you do a car stop, and something looks weird, and you feel that adrenaline kick in does your blood sugar jump up at that time does it try

Sean Hunter 33:54
who I haven't really ever had too much of an effect from adrenaline, just my, my sugar going too high. But it definitely having a more stable blood sugar and more stable numbers throughout the day definitely helps. If something does, you know, go bed and say I'm away from my my snacks or something like that. It definitely helps to have a more stable number. If I, if I'm away from things for a while, you know, see, I

Scott Benner 34:22
think that's interesting what you just said, so that when you and I believe this as well, when you create stability that runs over hours and days, then when something happens that some people see is like, Oh, this thing threw me way off. I think they don't realize the whole picture. Sometimes if their bezels too high or too low, if they're bolusing too much at meals because their bezels too low or whatever the things are. They have this imbalance of insulin running through their life. And then when something happens, it's easier for things to get upside down because so many other things are wrong. So now that you've created the stability when things come up, you're okay, what about? Excuse me? What about you ever have to, like suddenly jump on foot and take off? Do these it in your head? Like, like, I give it to me? Like, are you ever gonna go pull your gun and pull out a candy bar instead? Because you've got stuff on you like, how do you handle like, like, when you're away from the car, I guess? Are you out of that?

Sean Hunter 35:23
Yeah, so I actually always have something with me, I always have like a glucose jellen, I have like two or three in my pocket at work. But like I said, I always try to keep my blood sugar pretty stable. If I feel like I'm going low, I will correct it before it gets, you know, too low. Just in case something like that does happen. And being on, you know, different scenes in different situations. You know, I like I said, I always try and keep stuff on me. There have been situations where if I'm standing outside of the house on the perimeter, and I'm going loads, like, hey, let me you know, I put call the guy up to me and say, Hey, you know, watch this side, I'm gonna just, you know, shoot some glucose real quick. And then I'll, you know, right back in the flight, but like I said, I try to keep everything pretty stable. So I don't have to get into that situation. So I can go an hour or two inside of the house, or on a job and not have to worry about my sugar crashing or spiking.

Scott Benner 36:25
Yeah. So because that's sort of your reality. While you're at work, do you find that your management? I'm gonna say control, although I know some people don't like that idea. But do you find that your control is better while you're working? Because you're more present about it? Or do you carry that into your regular life? Because you do work shift work as well?

Sean Hunter 36:43
Yeah, so we switch each month. So I'm actually working on days, this month, and then next month, we'll switch to tonight work where we work a 12 hour shift. So we work 630 to 630. And, but I actually, like you said, I actually think I have better control while I'm at work. Because, like you said that, that awareness that things could go bad really quick, you know?

Scott Benner 37:12
Yeah. And so the reason I bring it up is because it's a, it's a simple idea that translates to everybody's life. And, you know, you can say it anyway, you know, I've said it a bunch of different ways over the years. But if you pay attention for small moments, you don't get into big problems. It's when you try to ignore diabetes for 346 hours at a time and just hope that it's going to be okay, that you wake up to find, oh, my blood sugar's 200 points higher than I thought, or I've been 50 all night long, or something like that. But when you just look once in a while, it takes a brief couple of moments to say, Oh, I'm good, or I need a little bump here or something and get right back in the game. I'd much rather spend 30 seconds, never getting way out of bounds then pretending for three or four hours that everything's okay. And so I when you're describing how you handle work, I thought I bet you He's, like, really within tolerances. At that time. Where do you set your, your goals that high and low on your CGM.

Sean Hunter 38:15
So before listening to you, I had them wherever Dexcom has been preset, I think it's 70 to like 220 or something like that. Okay. But since listening to you, I bumped it down to originally 70 to 140. And now on 70 to 130. Good for you.

Scott Benner 38:31
You're a one sees probably sub six. We like 5758

Sean Hunter 38:36
as one so I, I just started listening to your podcast in January, I think. And then my next appointment after that, I think was in March. And I was at like 6.1. And I'm excited to go and get my bloodwork done for my next appointment because I'm fairly certain I'm going to be under six.

Scott Benner 38:57
Congratulations. That's very, very well done. But were you prior to finding the show? Do you mind saying

Sean Hunter 39:05
I think I was low low sevens or high sixes I could probably pull it up. I probably like a six, seven to seven. You know,

Scott Benner 39:14
that's a that's a really great adjustment. Do you feel differently by any chance?

Sean Hunter 39:20
I definitely feel better. I'm especially so before even when I would go work out you know, go to the gym, do stuff like that. It was tough trying to keep my sugar in rain. Okay, but then being able to find a good basal rate. I can go out into the gym and work out for an hour and not have my sugar go out of range for that hour, hour and a half. You know, and that's that's something that is, is pretty freeing for me because I work out a lot and that's one of the things I enjoy doing.

Scott Benner 39:52
How did you handle it in college because I know at every level of baseball, it doesn't matter what division you're in the guys They lift a lot they do a lot of hard workouts practices are long. Were you constantly feeding your insulin when you were in college?

Sean Hunter 40:08
Yeah, so I can tell you that I was a terrible diabetic in college. It's one of the things I regret a lot about my life as a diabetic. Probably the last three years, or, you know, the first three years, my senior year, I was definitely more focused on it. But I wouldn't check a lot. I wasn't using a CGM throughout college. So, you know, I was checking my sugar, but I was using the Medtronic pump. But I wouldn't check my blood sugar a lot. I wouldn't really only do it, you know, before bed. And then after I woke up in the morning, you know, and then kind of just ride the feeling I had throughout the day, if I felt low, I would eat if I felt like I was too high, give myself insulin. And, again, like I said, that's that's one of the things I kind of regret about my life as a diabetic is kind of just living that. uncontrolled life for for a few years in my college years.

Scott Benner 41:07
How was it before college when your parents were more involved? Do you remember being similar?

Sean Hunter 41:14
Yeah, I mean, I was, I was pretty good. I wasn't, you know, anything crazy, like I am now you know, where I'm in pretty tight control. But I was more controlled, because obviously, they're looking over my shoulder. And they're making sure that I'm doing things correctly and making sure I'm testing for from meals and giving myself insulin prior to eating rather than after eating and you know, stuff like that.

Scott Benner 41:36
Yeah. Well, I have to say that it's impressive what you've done end on a personal level, I feel like, in an indirect way, I'm protecting South Jersey now. So I feel like I feel like I'm making it easier for you to protect them. And so I'm gonna take credit my own mind, I won't say it. Anybody else except for the 10s of thousands of people that are hearing me say it right now. But that's not the point. Really. I'm joking, mostly. But I'm happy that you're able to do your job better and live a better life just off of a couple of small ideas. Really? You know, right tools. Right job. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to oversimplify it. But it sort of is what it is.

Sean Hunter 42:17
Yeah, that's all it is, man. It's all it is, is just having the right tools and the right mindset to go out and make things work happy.

Scott Benner 42:24
How long have you been married? You said you're a married you seem as although I was married when I was 26? When you said I was too young, but go ahead.

Sean Hunter 42:34
So I've been married for going on three years or four years now. Yeah, four years. We got married in 2016. October 2016. So what's that? What's that? Make me 22? I'm about as good as you at now.

Scott Benner 42:50
Yeah, I don't know if you asked me how old I was. When I got married. Or when I had my children. I have no idea even though the years. I know, like I know when my son's born. But if you ask me how old I was, when he was born, I don't know. And that's even more ridiculous because he was born in 2000. So the math is really simple. And I can't come up with it off the top of my head. But that's neither here nor there. So did you guys know each other a long time?

Sean Hunter 43:16
Yeah, we actually met in college. She's from North North Jersey in Warren County. But we met in college. She was actually my ra my sophomore year of college.

Scott Benner 43:26
I see Sean, he started out trying to get a decent room and then went better. I say I love listen. Interesting. She was from North Jersey when she got to South Jersey. She probably thought she was in Pennsylvania right because people from North Jersey think that think that like Princeton is South Jersey?

Sean Hunter 43:44
Yes Yeah, she's definitely It was definitely a culture shock at first when she moved down here with me

Scott Benner 43:48
it's a very interesting thing so New Jersey sort of split into these three knits North Central and South people in South Jersey think the Trenton area where the capitalist for example they think of that is north but that central the people and the only the people around Trenton understand that there's a north in the south because the people up north by the city just think that by the time you get to Trenton that's the bottom of New Jersey. Right. It's It's interesting how we don't understand the state of

Sean Hunter 44:16
weird though, and there's a lot of different things going on around here.

Scott Benner 44:19
Yeah, well, once you get far enough south, it feels like you're in Philly. Honestly, it feels like you're in a suburb of Philadelphia. Like do you feel like you live in Philadelphia Moreover, or is that taboo to say down there?

Sean Hunter 44:32
Now we're more suburban like you said we're you know, little neighborhood nice little house so it's not really that really city like but we definitely I mean, we're like 20 minutes from Philly so

Scott Benner 44:45
right. Just Just tell everybody for a second not to get off track too far. But explain the joy when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Wasn't that was great. It's just amazing.

Sean Hunter 44:54
Yeah, it was awesome.

Scott Benner 44:55
I never thought I was gonna say it. I thought for sure I would die before it happened. And and It was I just remember sitting in my house for the last 20 minutes of the game thinking like, I think they could win. It's such a strange thing to have no hope ever to grow up with no hope around sports

Sean Hunter 45:14
that in the Phillies in a way, I was more excited about that.

Scott Benner 45:18
I was so thrilled I my son was still kind of young. And if I remember correctly, there was some weather that pushed the game, the last World Series game a day or two. And we were down to like carving pumpkins for Halloween while the game was being played. And I remember Cole being in the kitchen, a little kid carving it, excuse me. A little kid carbon is pumpkin. And I just was like, come out here like you have to watch this. And and he's like, what? Like, it's baseball. I'm like, no, no. And I even remember even though he was that young, he was eight years old. I said the last time the Phillies won the World Series. A, my dad was alive and he's dead now. So I'm going to be dead the next time this happens to stand here. And then of course, the next year, they're back in the World Series. And he's like, I thought you told me this was never gonna happen again, you idiot. But, uh, that was a great baseball team there for for a number of years. So have you heard Sam on the show? Sam's a coach. Oh, yeah.

Sean Hunter 46:20
Yeah, I actually listened to both of his episodes. Okay, cool.

Scott Benner 46:23
Yeah, he's a, he's terrific. And I love that he's in Philadelphia. I was so happy when that felt so random to me when he left the A's and then suddenly was coaching. in Philly. I thought, Oh, this is terrific. You know? It's cool. Yeah. So okay, so you've got this job. The shift work I want to get into for a second, but I have to clear my throat. I apologize. I think it's just like a little Corona back there or something. I'm not sure exactly. But you shouldn't joke about that. shift work. Now, when my buddy was young, they had shifts that you would probably think was crazy. He'd work 5772 threes. The early cut, the early guy was six to two. And then there were three, two elevens, the early guy was two to 10 and then 11 to seven and then there was always an early guy so there was always this one guy that came in an hour before the shift started left an hour before the keep this overlap going. So there's always a car on the street while people are switching over that kind of feeling. But they would work them five on three off five on three off and they would they would I don't know how he did it. Like I there were times I thought it was gonna kill him. He said he'd come out of a midnight into a 303 211. And fella he lost two weeks of his life. And it but you're but you're doing. You're doing 12 hours for how many days in a row.

Sean Hunter 47:53
So we work a Pitman schedule. So I work Monday and Tuesday, and then I'll work all weekend. So I'll work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then it just flips that next week. So after I work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'll be off Monday, Tuesday, work Wednesday and Thursday and then all Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Scott Benner 48:14
Okay, so there's these two days, the keep moving forward on the counter you have off Monday. You'll have off like Wednesday, Thursday, then Monday, Tuesday, Friday, sad like that kind of a thing. But you're always working live.

Sean Hunter 48:26
Yep. So it's easier to think about it. We just we basically we have every other Friday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off every other good schedule. I like it,

Scott Benner 48:36
it is but now how does your management change? Or does it daytime to nighttime days off? How do you do it? Do you find yourself changing basal rates or anything like that.

Sean Hunter 48:47
The only thing that I find is I may have to back my bazel down on a network because I kind of jacked my bazel up I have my babies will setting kind of jacked up at night when I sleep because I tend to rise when I sleep. Um so I kind of use the technique that you've talked about is like the to two hours before I see the rise I've kind of jacked my bazel up and it's helped level out my sugar overnight while I'm sleeping. But But with that jacked up basal rate I kind of just kind of Temp Basal while I'm at work at night. I know I can set up different bazel patterns on the pod, but I think that's more complicated than my brain can handle. You know what I mean? Trying to switch Sorry, guys,

Scott Benner 49:38
no, no, I feel like you could do it but but I think you would need three different three different programs you would need. You'd need a day off, you need your day off program. You'd need a night night work program in a day work program. I would think I would think there's a way to do that. And then you have to just go go into your settings and change from days to nights. But anyway, you're doing great. It's not like you need it. But if it makes it easier for you on day,

Sean Hunter 50:08
yeah, it's definitely just been easier to kind of Temp Basal as I need it, you know, or if I see, if I see a change, you know, looking at my graph, I can just kind of temp it and then deal with it.

Scott Benner 50:19
So now do you ride with someone? Or are you in a single

Sean Hunter 50:23
now, so where we ride solo? Our Town is kind of small enough, where we have a two guy minimum for the street. We work squads of three guys. So a supervisor in two patrolmen. We, like I said, we ride solo, it's easier to cover more area, we have a four square mile town, which is small, but we are still pretty busy with calls for service. Yeah.

Scott Benner 50:51
I was wondering about the guys that you work with? Do you? Have you told each and every one of them? Do you tell each one of them? Or do they just know on their own? Or is it private? Like, how do you handle being diabetic in a setting like that?

Sean Hunter 51:06
So everyone knows. I don't if I'm not mistaken, I don't think it has has to come up really on like a hiring process. I think it I think it's a something that should come up in a job like, like a police officer, you know, it's more demanding than like a desk job, you know, something like that. But like I said, everyone knows, the gods that I work with, know, they're not super knowledgeable on like, what to do in different situations. They kind of know. I'm like, they know what my alarms go off. They look at me like you are, right.

Scott Benner 51:45
Guys are great, aren't they? Just guys, I don't know. Women will never really be able to appreciate this. But when you just get a bunch of guys together. I'm sure you work with females too. But guys are just like, y'all right now. Yeah. All right, good. And then it's sort of like, I wish you knew how little we thought about things. Generally speaking. I get the vibe, but you're saying they check on you a little bit. And that doesn't get old for you like it feels brotherly, I guess?

Sean Hunter 52:12
Yeah, I don't, I don't mind it. I've always been really open about my diabetes. And I really don't care that I have it. It's up sometimes. But, um, it's a part of me. So I think that, you know, people should know that I have it and how to deal with it. You know, especially with being on the SWAT team. I talk to those guys about it. We have a medic on the team who's just specifically assigned to have medical interventions and we need it and I you know, I gave him some glucose Joe and told him like, Hey, listen, if I go down you know, if I pass out or something look at my look at my phone if my numbers right, give me some some glucose, you know, but that's really the

Scott Benner 52:54
extent of it.

Sean Hunter 52:55
Yeah, the extent of knowledge that they really need to know about it.

Scott Benner 52:59
Your is your SWAT team, like my buddies is it made up of guys from a lot of neighboring towns, and when something happens, you all come together?

Sean Hunter 53:07
Yeah, we have about five or six different towns that are on the team. We're like 20 to 22 guys.

Scott Benner 53:15
And then you support all the team supports all those towns in the the the situation where it's needed, how often do you get called for that,

Sean Hunter 53:24
um, kind of few and far between for call outs, especially now, you know, the, the virus and everything that's going around. So we'll get called out every once in a while for like a barricaded subject or, you know, emotionally disturbed person, something like that, where people are barricaded in a house, and we're, you know, obviously the people who are more well trained for those situations. But we also do search warrants, like narcotic search warrants, and high tech crime search warrants, like different stuff like that we do those more, more than we get called out for situations.

Scott Benner 54:04
How has COVID-19 changed how you do your job?

Sean Hunter 54:10
Yes, so we've, I don't know if it's for the better or not, but we've definitely changed the way that we do things. We're handling a lot more calls over the phone. So like, whereas before somebody would call calling like a theft complaint or something like that they're reporting something stolen, we would go out to their house and talk to them and you know, get all their information meishan then do the report. Whereas now we're, you know, handling that call over the phone. So we don't have contact with people.

Scott Benner 54:42
It's gonna be an app one day.

Sean Hunter 54:44
Yeah, I mean, there's there's actually a lot of police departments that are doing it now where you can report like non violent crimes or you know, property crimes on their, their website, you can just go on, put in the information for your report, and then it'll be investigated. The police departments, they're probably really

Scott Benner 55:03
work on the street, they'll just do. Like they'll do crime. digitally. That's really that makes sense, though. I mean, honestly, it's the population explodes. You can't be everywhere constantly, right? I mean, it's just, it just makes sense. And the limiting contact is limiting contact, but but in a, in a real situation. Okay, listen, I know, there's they've probably given you, I don't want to get you in trouble, they've probably given you rules about how to handle yourself. But the fact of the matter is that if something goes down, out of nowhere quick, you're not going to stop to cover your face before you go do your job, right? Like, you're gonna end up doing what you're going to do. I don't see how in some lines of work, that's, you don't mean like, hold on a second, I'm sorry, that guy's hitting you. Let me just get my face mask on before I come over there and help. Like, that's not going to be the case? Do you find yourself somewhere between reality and what a perfect situation would call for?

Sean Hunter 56:06
Yeah, so we actually have a response protocol or continuum that we have, that our command staff put on to us. And that, you know, there's always that, that section that says, If you know, everything in this, you know, policy or whatever is subject to, you know, situations. So if there is a situation like you're explaining where it is, or emergent, like we're pulling up in, someone's getting beat up or something like that, we're not going to take into account the time to put a face mask on or put our personal protective equipment on, you know, we have to go address the situation. And then once everything is calmed down, then we'll go back and we'll put our mask on, and we'll deal with that, you know, but we have a, we have a job to do we have a duty to protect people. And that's what I'm going to do, I'm not going to worry about, you know, there's no time it takes to put that mask on.

Scott Benner 57:01
How do you personally think of COVID-19 in relationship to you having type one are you going with? I mean, I'm sure you're you're being careful as you can, but are you going with I'm healthy, my blood sugar's are stable, they're in a good range, I'm probably no more risk than someone else, or do you have concerns?

Sean Hunter 57:23
I wouldn't say I have a lot of concerns I, I kind of and like you said, I'm, I'm pretty healthy. I think my immune system is pretty good, you know, minus the fact that I have diabetes, but I wouldn't say I'm too concerned about contracting it. And I think if I did contract it, I think I would, you know, I would be okay, fighting it off, you know, or having my body deal with it?

Scott Benner 57:49
Well, as my friend Vicki said, to me, your immune system is pretty toxic, kick the shit out of your pancreas. So it's, it's a very strange situation to be in, though, honestly, you know, you're you're looking and it makes sense, what I'm hearing, I don't disagree with like, I cover my face, when I go out, I don't think I'm sick. But if I am, I don't want to make someone else sick during this time, you know, or wherever, if I can help it. And at the same point, you know, we have to be a little realistic, that you know, moving forward, we're not all going to live inside of our homes for the rest of our lives. It's just not what's going to be, I really hope we get to a point where we protect people who are at risk. And you know, and everyone else sort of gets to go back and do what they're going to do. But yeah, I mean, you're just in a unique situation. You really are. Yeah, I've seen I've seen it happen. Fire calls and rescue calls. I've seen it happen with police officers, there's a moment where you have to make a decision and you can't always do everything, you can always open up the book and follow the steps. Sometimes it has to be, you know, like you said, this is emergent, we needed to act right now. There's a story the other day about a a very, um, you know, dedicated nurse who had a, I forget where it happened, but she had a patient who was in trouble and she ran into the room and it ended up killing the nurse. Like she died a couple of weeks later from Corona. And but she didn't they say she didn't stop. She knew she wasn't unaware of what she was doing. But she felt a calling to help these people. It's what her job was, and she did it. And that's what it called for in the moment. I'm assuming that's how police officers feel as well.

Sean Hunter 59:26
Yeah, there's a like I said, there's a there's a calling like you said, No, we have a purpose. World everyone has a purpose. And you know, my purpose is to go out and help people and make a difference, or at least try and make a difference. And that's what I that's what I do every day I strap on the uniform and strap the vest on I go out and try to fulfill that purpose and make a difference in someone's world.

Scott Benner 59:47
Good dude, man. Like it's a special person who's willing to to take a job like that I think of you know, it's it's really strange because, you know, over the last number of years, you'll hear stories worries about, you know, cops who aren't doing things the right way or, you know, violating people's civil liberties in a way that I think everyone can look at and think that's not okay. I don't want that to be happening. But I always get afraid of just like with everything else, you don't hear enough stories about all the people are just out there doing it, you know, and doing a good job and doing it for the right reason. It's the internet or the news, you know, you hear about the bad stuff, not the good. It's nobody, nobody takes five minutes to click through a picture to find out about, you know, a police officer who stopped in, you know, got a cat out of a tree or helped a woman across the street, not to use a bunch of old, you know, tired ideas, but you don't mean like, just to do the regular everyday things that people need. It's a kindness, and it's their job. And we never hear about that, you know, right. It's, it sucks. It really is. It's terrible, to have bad apples be able to ruin the whole barrel. But, you know, especially when you're out there working so hard and doing such a good job. So I really appreciate what you're doing. And I'm sure everyone else does as well, especially with your circumstances. But moreover, Shawn, I'm really thrilled with how far you've come with your type one and what is basically like six or seven months. That's it? Yeah,

Sean Hunter 1:01:11
I definitely feel better. And I appreciate, you know, you put in the info out there, you've definitely helped me because I, I've known a lot of these things, you know, whether it's Pre-Bolus saying or, you know, using a little bit less insulin if my sugars high and trying to make it come down a little bit more gradually than, you know, then plummeting, you know, I'm getting my basal rates, right. I've known all these things, but kind of hearing it from somebody else and hearing from a podcast, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts is you know, it's definitely helped. And it's definitely pushed me to to make a change.

Scott Benner 1:01:45
I'm thrilled for you. I really wish I understood, I think I you know, in a broad way, have the idea of what it's like, but I still don't like when people like you say what you just said like I knew a lot of this I just didn't do it. Do you have a feeling for what it was about hearing it through a podcast that made you go I'm gonna try this do you think you were just ready? Or did it flip a switch? Do you have any idea even you might not even know,

Sean Hunter 1:02:12
man, I don't really know what like you said I could just be I was ready to do it, you know, kind of just ready to take take them not the risk, but you know, take the risk and just say Screw it, I'm gonna I'm gonna mess with my basal rates. Now I'm gonna do the stuff and see if it works. And you know, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, then I'll just change it. I don't know if you've ever heard of Jocko Willink in his podcast, but he talks about having, you know, being disciplined in your life. And this is how discipline equals freedom and I try to live that way in my personal life and my work life and be disciplined in the things I do. But I wasn't really being too disciplined with my diabetes, I was kind of letting that go to the wayside. So I think it was just me realizing it was time to take control of the diabetes and you know, be in control of everything in my life rather than just letting one thing go

Scott Benner 1:03:07
on. Like, I've got all these other things in line, why am I Why the hell am I ignoring this one thing that's got such impact over you know, everything about me really, like you could be as good at your job or as good at being married or you know, whatever else you're going to be at, but your blood sugar's are bouncing all over the place and you feel like hell and you're hurting your long term health, like what's the point of the rest of it? Like that's got to be first. Right? So and Jacko tacos the the military guy, right? Was he a seal?

Sean Hunter 1:03:34
is a retired Navy SEAL? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:35
is he the guy that puts like the time he gets up in the morning on his Instagram every day. It's like someone godly early time is that the person

Sean Hunter 1:03:43
he takes a picture of his watch, everyone gets up at 430 and works out.

Scott Benner 1:03:46
God bless him, he deserves to be in good shape. If he's up at 430. I try to wake up at 430 and there's gonna be a noise from my knee and my ankle in my lower back. That's like, Brother, you better lay back down. But, but I guess I'd be better off if I was up working out. But let's not. Let's not do too much. So I think what I've learned here is that it's just like when I'm talking to people privately, and you'll talk for like 45 minutes, and sometimes you end up laying, I'll end up laying things out. And I can tell it's the first time they've ever heard them. But in the end, whether it's the first time they've ever heard them, or it's the 50th time and they're finally going to listen, a lot of the times I feel like my role in that moment is just, it's a pat on the bud. It's like you could do this, move your bazel and see what happens. Try this and see what happens. You know, I mean, like I think sometimes people just need a voice to say to them, what's the worst that can happen? Like you're only moving at point one like I said to someone we were doing a zoom the other day and I the lady's like can I move my kids bazel from you know where it is to this? And I was like, Look, I don't know like for certain I can't tell you I'm like but what I can tell you is the kid weighs 40 pounds and you're asking me about moving is bazel point oh five. I'm not a doctor, but always that's gonna kill anybody. Like give it a shot and see what happens. You know, and I said it if it's blood sugar starts going down, put it back. But you don't you know, you're not you don't have to stand there and watch it. It's it's, there's no rules like, Oh, you move it, you got to leave it there. So that's, that's really excellent. And I good for you. I think that's wonderful. I'm gonna, I'm going to say thank you and let you go. And then I just I want to tell you one more thing privately. So if you don't mind, can you hold on one second? Yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much. Hey, huge thanks to Sean for wanting to be on the show, share his story, and give encouragement to younger people who'd like to be of service to others. And thanks to Dexcom, makers of the G six continuous glucose monitor You can learn more about it@dexcom.com Ford slash juice box and of course the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump and it's free. No Obligation demo offer can be found at my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Don't forget to head over to touch by type one.org on Saturday 7pm. Eastern Time, check out that dancing for diabetes program. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

#405 How We Eat: Plant Based

Type 1 Diabetes and Plant Based Eating

Matt is a type 1 who eats a plant based diet for strictly health reasons.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:11
Hello, friends, and welcome to Episode 405 of the Juicebox Podcast today, another in the how we eat series, this time with Matt, a type one who eats a plant based diet. This is the third in the series. It's a new series, we're just getting it off the ground. So far on episode 373 we had a vegan Episode 400 Dr. Paul Saladino came on and talked about carnivore eating, even though he doesn't have type one, he was a good source of information about that style of eating. Today, Matt, who's plant based, but not for any moral reasons. And there are many more coming but I'd like to add your story to the show. If you have a specific particular or interesting way that you eat, and you have type one diabetes, I'd love for you to come on the show and tell people about it. Please remember, while you're listening that 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, or trying a garbanzo bean.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g Vogue hypo pen, Find out more at G Volk glucagon.com Ford slash juice box. And to learn more about the blood glucose meter that Arden uses, all you have to do is go to Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box there you're going to learn all about the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, the apps that are paired with it for Android and iPhone, if you wish to have those apps, you don't have to have them to use this great meter, and so much more Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. And don't forget to add your name to the T one D registry T one d exchange.org Ford slash juicebox. There are links right there in the show notes of your podcast player. And at Juicebox podcast.com. If you can't remember what I just said,

Matt Fouse 2:21
my name is Matthew Fouse. I have been diabetic since age five, which is 31 years. Well,

Unknown Speaker 2:32
a lot of time.

Matt Fouse 2:35
Absolutely. And I'm still continued to be amazed at the advancements. When I was five, I was on humulin n and she Mulan are right. Which when I look back now I'm just like, how am I still alive?

Scott Benner 2:58
Well, it was it was processed. Right? It was you put that in and eat at certain times? And is that how it went?

Matt Fouse 3:04
Absolutely. I remember when I started school because when I was diagnosed, it was a little before kindergarten and snack time and lunchtime had to be perfect. Otherwise, you would run low. And it just continued. I'm, I'm amazed like at the advancements now with like, I'm on fee offs. And Heck, I can forget the Bolus sometimes and I'm still okay. You know,

Scott Benner 3:35
you know what, I'm interested in that because this might be where I end up saying this is we tried fiasco, however, they said, For Arden and she's in the middle of it now meaning she's maybe a violin a quarter into it. And she as soon as we put it on her, she's like, hey, this thing's when your ball is saying. And I was like, Alright, and then she started using the word burns. And I was like, oh, now here's the problem. I'm actually better their blood sugar than I was before, which without being immodest. Not saying something. And and so, so I got better at it. But we're, you know, I gotta say, five or six pods into it. And she says that the sites are sore, they feel bruised. It always things when it goes in. I don't I think we're gonna have to bail on it if it doesn't abate but did you have any of that in the beginning?

Matt Fouse 4:26
The four fiaz I was on novolog. And my endocrinologist was like, why don't you give us a chance. And I did. And I actually did notice little slight stings. And recently, I'm on Omni pod. And I'm looping with Dexcom.

Scott Benner 4:47
I noticed my sights for the pods. were reacting and I'm wondering, I've tried every type of adhesive barrier. Yeah, and I'm wondering if it is a reaction with The I'm not ready to bail yet because of how amazing it is with my sugars. So it's like, Do I want my skin to break out and itch my skin off? Or do I want good sugars and that's something I am glad Arden's not having a, like a dermatology reaction I really am. But at the same time like she was laying on the floor last night, she likes to have her back cracked. And so she's like, Don't touch my thigh, my thigh is sore. And the pods only been on for like a day. And that is not something that happened at all with a pager. And it's not like we were bad at a pager. But your point about the fiasco is, is correct in that there's been twice now since we've been using it. Where one time it was just like a pod change at a really awkward time. So there was a new pod on going into a restaurant, handmade potato chips, and a Belgian waffle with real syrup. And like blood sugar only went to like 165 and it was you know, I think that was the the insulin now could I have done the same thing by just using more a pager? I think I could have and I'm not going to torture her. Like you know, some people have said the stinging comes in about a month that goes away. If she doesn't see it dwindling, we're gonna have to go back and it's not like a head down thing, I think Peters really great. But yeah, it was worth a try. And we weren't trying, by the way, I guess I should say here before we get into why you're here. We didn't switch from a Piedra and try fi s because of a pager being a problem. We were just trying to see, like, we're like, finally picking through Arden's health, like, Is there a filler in a pager that doesn't exist in fiasco? And would a muscle pain or an ache change or something like that? So it's just a lot of, you know,

Matt Fouse 6:46
yeah, you're you always want to advance and even fine tune things, you know, find the you, you want to live your best life, human human nature so you can fill in and you know, better your diabetes management. Well, number one, you'd

Scott Benner 7:02
like me to supplement, right? And he's like, I need to take a sorbic acid, right? And you buy one brand, try a different brand to like maybe this brands not as good as that one or vice versa. But you know, it's you just can't do one thing and stop. So anyway, I don't think it's gonna last much longer. But I'm glad it works for you. And I do agree with you. For the people that I hear it works for they all say what you say, which is it just it seems to act more quickly. And she definitely has not had as many. And again, it's not to say she had a ton of them. But you know, tail and lows like hours after a meal. They don't seem to exist, even at all, which I guess what's leading to more stability through the, through the 24 hours.

Matt Fouse 7:42
Yeah, the the like, if I forget the Pre-Bolus, which, you know, I'm human, and I don't eat on a perfect schedule because it's life. I have a kindergartener right now upstairs doing virtual learning. Yeah, wife is 39 Weeks Pregnant doing online doctor's visit, like I cannot eat exactly on time. So sometimes you forget and with the fee off, it's bam, it's it's right there on for me.

Scott Benner 8:12
I'm sorry. This is gonna be our first detour. You're missing your wife's ob appointment to be on this podcast. That's my first one. Secondly, and I don't mean to be indelicate, but what if she like hopped up on a desk and open her legs in front of the laptop? Or how does that work? Exactly.

Matt Fouse 8:29
So So that part happens last week, the in person visits. With the pandemic going on. That was the first appointment I was allowed to go to. So I got to see the baby for the first time on the sonogram. God, this is actually an appointment for the unborn baby with the pediatrician of like, hey, it's in here. It's coming out you're gonna see it sometimes.

Scott Benner 9:00
Has that been? Well, first of all, I'm glad to hear your wife is not an unwitting partner in a webcam scam. And imagine the baby comes you get the hospital the guy's not there. And they're like, Where's Dr. Philips now? Like, there's no Dr. Philips. But But uh, but so when did she get pregnant? 39 weeks.

Matt Fouse 9:22
So it is not a coronial as I like to call them it is not a coronavirus, baby. It was two weeks previous to when the world shut down. She knew she was pregnant. Okay. So everybody, you know, plays a joke. Well, I know what you guys were doing during the pandemic? No, it was before the pandemic.

Scott Benner 9:43
I hope you're still doing that. But at the same point, I understand. You don't want your child wandering around their whole life going. I only exist because my parents were bored and locked in the same house. Absolutely. I hate to break it to those kids. But that's pretty much why we're all here but nevertheless, nevertheless, yes.

Unknown Speaker 9:58
100% Yeah,

Scott Benner 10:00
well, that's good. And it hasn't been a problem for to do. Like virtually often than in person. It's all worked out. Obviously, she's healthy. And she's doing well, right.

Matt Fouse 10:09
She is amazing. Yeah. Both my daughter and my wife are taking this, like, absolutely the best possible case they could. My daughter is in kindergarten, and she loves it. She is attentive on the virtual learning. And my wife is a nurse and still working. She's, she's a trooper. And she's going to continue. I mean, she might flop it out, you know, taking care of a patient who knows?

Scott Benner 10:45
Well, I always imagined I saw my wife work straight through both of her pregnancies. And in the second one with art, and she, she got home one day, and she said, I was I couldn't move quickly, she was in Manhattan. And she's like, I couldn't move quickly enough to get to the subway in time. So I was late to get on the train. So there were no seats. She's like, I tried to stand but I couldn't. So she sat on the floor for an entire like, like train ride, you know? And, and she's like, no one would give me a seat. I'm so pregnant, and she still kept going. And I think that she showed that determination because she thought, if we leave it just up to that guy to make money for us, we're gonna be in trouble. I I really took more of a shot at me than anything else. But uh,

Matt Fouse 11:29
well, I as well, um, uh, you know, yeah, I'm the basic majority caregiver, I want to say so. God bless the women in our lives.

Scott Benner 11:45
Great. Hawaii has morphed over the last couple of decades. I was a stay at home dad. And when I and that's what they called it. And I was happy to say that. And now you're basically the primary caregiver

Matt Fouse 11:58
changes. I did not like the term sad.

Scott Benner 12:03
The acronym didn't work. That's so funny. I'll tell you back then, when I was when I wrote my book and stuff around Father's Day, I was like, the most popular person in the world because there were very few guys that were would say out loud, this is what I do. And, you know, and had any media contact at all. So I would, I was very popular in June, my mom told me one day she woke up and I was on the front page of her local newspaper. And, and she, she was like, I didn't tell her it was gonna happen. But I also did not expect it to be on the front of the of the section, you know. Now, now, as I'm telling you wondering if people understand that newspapers had sections, but anyway, I was on vacation already. And she called me and she's like, you're on the front page, like the lifestyle section of my newspaper. And I was like, I told him I'm, I'm very famous. so silly. Anyway, so alright, so you have a kindergarten, garden aged child, a wife is obviously a more of a go getter than you are and your cell. You have type one diabetes, is there any other endocrine issues in the family?

Matt Fouse 13:12
I have an older sister who is five years older than me, and she is type one diabetic as well. She got it first, when we were growing up. I so I would have been three, when she got it. Our we grew up in a very small town, in rural Pennsylvania. So endocrinologist, we didn't know they existed. So we had a family practitioner. He was amazing. He kept up to date the best that he could with what he had, where we were. Yeah. And he said, There is no way I would get it. There is absolutely, if I would get it, it would be like getting struck by lightning 10 times. And I got the telltale symptoms. My mom knew it. She still tells a story today of I knew you had it. I didn't want to pack the bags and take you to the hospital. Because then it would be known and I did not want to do it. But here I am my sister and I siblings who I was supposed to not get it and I got it.

Scott Benner 14:25
My mom wasn't supposed to get pregnant, but I have two brothers. So it's funny how doctrine used to work. Like my mother was actually told, you know, it's safe to go ahead and adopt your you know, and you're not going to have children. So they adopt me, and then afterwards, like you don't need to use birth control. And it proved out for a long time. My brothers and I are all five years apart, like like a solid five years apart. So even when my brother Brian was born, they were like, well, that's a fluke. That'll never happen again, which was not good advice because now my mom at you know, 78 years old has a senator in his 30s because she was all like, I can't get pregnant doesn't matter. Wow. Yeah. But But imagine that was actual advice like, oh, can't happen to the second one. He was probably just playing the odds and trying to make your mom feel better. And back. Yeah, backfired on

Matt Fouse 15:17
Yep. Well, so now I'm crossing my fingers, my endocrinologist. I'm very good, like personal friends with him. He said, statistically, with my daughter. It's pretty low. I think he said, 11%. And I'm just like, every time she gets Moody, because she's going through a growth spurt, or, you know, she's like, No, I don't want to do that. I'm like, Oh, she's got diabetes. That's it may check her books or mood change every time she takes a sip of water. Oh, honey, she's got diabetes, we got to check her sugar. So just, I'm crossing my fingers. I mean, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm still here, but it is in the blood in the jeans is gonna say

Scott Benner 15:55
it's working out for you and your sister. Right? So okay, so you're on the show, Matt, because you you responded when I said I want to talk to people who eat in specific in different ways. And which way do you eat?

Matt Fouse 16:10
I am plant based. Okay, wait, which I consider basically, the vegan eating. I don't eat dairy meat. But I hate vegans. I will not call myself a vegan. I do not like,

Scott Benner 16:29
let's not make all the vegans upset. But Okay. Here's what we see. Let me make sure I let me pick through some ideas. You would need an egg? No. Okay. Is this a dietary decision? Or is it a moral decision? Or is it somewhere in the middle?

Matt Fouse 16:45
There is no morals in my decision whatsoever.

Scott Benner 16:49
Are any morals in any of your decisions? Man? No,

Matt Fouse 16:52
I, um, I still hunt. I deer hunt. Um, you know, I fish? I just don't eat it.

Scott Benner 17:02
I just give it to a friend to do that. So that's super interesting. So your whole life recently? How did you make it to this?

Matt Fouse 17:10
About 15 years ago, I was a marathon runner. Free kids bachelor days when I had five hours to do training runs. And I adapted the vegetarian diet. And I noticed with my training that my healing and my any inflammation from stress was significantly less. And then I went back to eating normal food, you know, dairy in me. And then about two years ago, my wife started having issues with eating dairy. So as a household it's much easier to just eat drink oat milk, versus

Scott Benner 18:05
Yeah, no one of you got this card and then everybody's on this one, right?

Matt Fouse 18:09
Yeah, switch. So I cut dairy out and I started feeling really good. Like I still exercise daily, I run just not 20 miles at a time, right. I weight train. I'm a competitive axe thrower, so I'm fairly active. And I noticed like my joints you know, stop. They're not sore. So then I cut meat out again. And it's just been working for me. It I like the way I feel I feel like my mind is clearer. My thinking just kind of like Spry. I guess it's okay energy.

Scott Benner 18:57
Is there um, where are you a sugar Do you eat sugar?

Matt Fouse 19:02
I do so a lot of the plant base as they will label the food now it's like I feel like it's the new craze plant based plant based plant base. A lot of those can be sugary. So I do I eat sugar. And the plant based diet for me is very grain heavy. So when I initially started eating that way full time I was worried about my sugars, you know, because grain whole wheat spaghetti it can be a nightmare. Yeah, as we all know, with spiking your sugar, but I'm with the exercise that I I make the exercise like a prescription basically like six o'clock I gotta do something I get to go on a hike and it's amazing. I was joking with my endocrinologist. Like, why didn't you ever tell me that if you exercise and eat right, that your sugar's kind of do what they should? At least for me, I will say for me, I know that is not for everybody. But

Scott Benner 20:18
um, no, there used to be this online initiative that I don't think exists anymore called the Big Blue test. And it just challenged people with type one diabetes or diabetes in general, I believe, to go do 10 minutes of exercise, like look at your blood sugar, do 10 minutes of exercise, look at it again, and log that and most people experience some sort of a decrease in their blood sugar, especially people whose blood sugar's were, you know, higher, I think I've come to understand it better now. And thinking that if you don't have active insulin in you, you can exercise without dropping, but most of these people had some sort of mistimed insulin in their system. And their blood sugar's were normally higher, and, you know, so exercise and got that insulin working a little better and move it through their system, you know, more efficiently. That's something so I want to understand what it means to eat a plant based diet. So you got up this morning and ate

Matt Fouse 21:17
what I got up this morning, I ate avocado toast with some sea salt sprinkled on it and this seaweed sprinkles, which I love that adds flavor to it. And then a glass of oat milk.

Scott Benner 21:35
Okay, so you and I had incredibly similar and yet completely different breakfast. So I got up this morning, I took bread that I made myself, I made a slice of toast. And then I fried two eggs, and I ate that with toast. But I did sprinkle sea salt on the toast. Either kado is something it's in my house constantly. I watch my girls eat all the time. I've tried it. And I've come to believe that my palate doesn't want. I it's interesting, I have nothing against vegetables. But I don't eat them at all. And it's to my detriment, and I'm aware of it. But there I am very texture based, not just with my eating. But even like I've noticed one thing about Corona, which is interesting now that some stores have kind of opened up a little bit and people were moving around for a while that when I walk through a store, I touch everything that I go past fat fabrics, like tops, things like that, I it's part of my experience to feel something. And very similarly, if I put a pee in my mouth, it doesn't make sense to me that there's a crunchy shell on the top of squishy and then I'm out like it's hard to it's hard to put into words exactly what my problem is. But I eat like a four year old. And, and it's embarrassing. I am genuinely embarrassed. I don't want to eat a plant based, but I do wish I could incorporate more into my into my diet because I end up having to supplement to make up for those things.

Matt Fouse 23:11
Yeah, and if you google plant based diet, you'll probably get 10 different ideas of what that means it is it means but from what I take away from plant based, it is basically the new vegan except it strays away from the moral ethics of like animals. And if you know some, some people will say well plant based you eat vegan, but sometimes you can eat meat when you want to. So for me I like I do not eat it, it would not be the end of the world. Like if something got snuck in there. But um

Scott Benner 24:01
so you'd eat a steak if you wanted a steak you just don't want one and and so am I to understand that it's the the branding for the lack of a better term. Maybe it's not lack of their hair, maybe it's perfect term. Vegan is I eat plant based because either I want to or I have a moral opposition to eating a living. That was a once living thing. You're saying I have absolutely no trouble eating a once living thing. I just don't want to. Is that right? Okay. Okay. Yes,

Matt Fouse 24:30
yes, that that is my interpretation. In my the way I eat Oh,

Scott Benner 24:37
well, that's this whole series is that it's supposed to be about it's about talking to different people about how they eat. I don't give a man Yeah, about any of anybody's politics around food and I could sit here and make a passionate plea to not you know, farm raised cattle and slaughter for food. I think I could make a great argument about that. And, and I still at the same time, I did have a really Wonderful New York strip steak a couple of days ago so I could make a great argument for I think beef in you know in moderation is great for someone's diet too late so and but not for everybody and I think this is what why you're here is to say that I think you should eat the way your body wants you to eat. Like I don't know if like your body kind of tells you what it likes and what it doesn't like, right? Yeah, what it deals better with I'm sure there's vegan choices that you avoid. GMO pipe open has no visible needle, and it's the first pre mixed autoinjector have glucagon for very low blood sugar and adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is Jeeva hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juice box. g Volk shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit g Volk glucagon.com slash risk. Everyone's given a blood glucose meter by their doctor. But did you ever stop to wonder if you got a good one? Is yours one of the most accurate on the market? Does it have second chance test strips? You know what I mean? So like when you touch the blood and it doesn't work? Do your test strips allow you to go back and get more blood without messing up the accuracy of the test? Is yours easy to hold simple to transport have a bright light. Is it easy to read? Do you have the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, go to Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box to learn more about what I think is the gold standard in accuracy. There's a lot going on at Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box. For instance, you may be eligible for a free meter. There's information about test chip programs. And it's possible that buying the meter and strips with cash meaning not going through your insurance could be cheaper than going through your insurance. All of these answers and much more are answered at Contour. Next one.com forward slash juice box. The research that happens at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box has led to increased insurance coverage for blood glucose meter strips, changes in the American Diabetes associations guidelines for pediatric Awan seagulls. And it's also impacted FDA expansion of CGM labeling to include finger stick replacements and Medicare coverage of CGM devices. Here's how it works. You go to T one d exchange.org, forward slash juicebox. You join in something that is 100%, HIPAA compliant, and 1,000,000%. Anonymous, all you have to do is be from the United States, a person who's living with Type One Diabetes with a caregiver of someone who is and then you answer these very simple questions about type one diabetes, the T one D exchange, aggregates that data and comes to conclusions that help move care forward. For people living with Type One Diabetes. I went to the exchange as the parent of a child with Type One Diabetes, it quite literally took me about seven minutes to complete. And that was the end, T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You could help move things forward too. You can find the links to all the sponsors and so much more at Juicebox podcast.com. We're right there in the show notes of your podcast player. I'm sure there's vegan choices that you avoid.

Matt Fouse 28:45
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that I will not eat those weird. Tofu e noodle things that look like spaghetti. I tried them. I'm like, Oh, great, you know, low carb spaghetti. Awesome. And I think I would rather slurp down snot

Unknown Speaker 29:07
wasn't good.

Matt Fouse 29:09
It was not.

Scott Benner 29:11
I remember hearing somebody that Gosh, I wish I could remember I heard this. They were having the opportunity to try genetically. It's a book she just wrote, I'm never gonna think of her name. She's got an opportunity to try genetically manufactured meats. And you know, just trying them in front of the people who develop them and and she said all the you know, you know, people were like, It's good, right? And she was like, Oh, no, it's terrible. Like I can I can see where the technology is going. But this is this does not taste right. It doesn't feel right. Like nothing about it was quite right. I think she was talking about chicken. Like Like literally like lab made chicken.

Matt Fouse 29:50
Yeah, well, now they are toying around with 3d printing meat. Which is kind of weird. It's like I mean, you know I'm the same way though like whatever floats your boat, whatever is right for you. live your best life do whatever makes you feel good. It doesn't bother me, but like, printing out meat. I don't know. It kind of

Scott Benner 30:14
weird. It seems like a strange leap. I'm I am trying so hard to remember her name right now. I just heard her talking about her book somewhere. And now I am for the life of me having trouble. Jenny klieman I found it. So she wrote a book called sex robots and vegan meat adventures at the frontier of birth food, sex and death. Anyway, she was talking about this. And she and she said, You know, like, that just didn't didn't feel right. It didn't taste right. And yeah, not that I but you know, not that it couldn't at some point, or that maybe in the future? Because right? That's the idea. I'm guessing is that, that some people's arguments are going to be that more and more and more people, and you create more and more and more cattle and pigs and you know, everything else? Like eventually, it'll take more space, effort and resources to feed us then then we can, you know, balance, I guess is the idea.

Matt Fouse 31:10
Oh, absolutely. And we just keep growing too. I mean, what are we at now 7 billion or something? I don't even know the number. All those

Scott Benner 31:20
people eat every day, if they're lucky, and a lot of them don't get to.

Matt Fouse 31:24
And that was a worldwide pandemic. So there might be 15 billion next year. Who knows? I don't know.

Scott Benner 31:30
Yeah, I really, I genuinely care for it. We could be it could be doubling another eight months. I genuinely don't have a feeling about how people eat. Nor do I think that I completely understand the science around. You know, whether cow farts are is dangerous is landfills. You know, there's methane gas that comes from landfills. Is that more than cow farts? Maybe? I don't know. Like, and I think that when you hear arguments one way or the other, you're hearing them from people who, you know, if somebody says, oh, the cows aren't the problem, I'm gonna guess those are either people eating meat or people selling meat. You know, and and people were like, it's the cows swamp, I guess don't want you looking in their landfills. I would pretty much guess you know how stuff like

Matt Fouse 32:11
Yeah, yeah. And I think we'll maybe eventually get to a point where everything equals in some sort of magical equalisation point like, your body tells you, the world will tell us. Hey, we're out of me. And then what would that? Well,

Scott Benner 32:31
I'll tell you what, I'll eat peas that day. Matt, I'll smile. So so it's fair to say that if you learned through trial and error that a completely meat based diet for you know, vegetables is what made your body feel right. You'd be doing that. Absolutely, yeah. No, okay, that makes complete sense to me. Okay, so today for lunch, what are you going to eat?

Matt Fouse 32:56
I will have probably 10 pe, I will slice it up, make a wrap. With the I like how you call it branding of plant base, that options are just you can get anything now you can get you know, Manet's

Scott Benner 33:16
all these delicious sauces, so you can make it taste very, very good. So I'll probably have like a 10 pay wrap with some sprouts and lettuce and maybe a salad on the side. I cannot be more honest and to tell you that I am vigorously trying to figure out what the hell temp is online right now hold on.

Matt Fouse 33:38
It's like a grain base block of I don't think it's like it. Maybe it is a meat substitute. Um, but fry it up in a skillet. It's pretty delicious.

Scott Benner 33:52
Okay, hold on. A traditional Indonesian soy product is made from fermented soy beans. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that bind soy beans into a cake form. Matt you're losing me where it says here a special fungus is used. So it's like it's spam, out of soybeans kind of feeling like visually it gets longer. The way they produce it. It looks like to me but I'm assuming you buy it in a smaller block when you buy it.

Matt Fouse 34:23
Yeah, it comes wrapped in usually like a plastic and it's like a rectangular shape and you can slice it. A lot of the fake and bacon as they call it is now 10 pay base like there's there's a bunch of different brands now. Some of them have grains, some are soy, some are flax. And I will say that it makes you regular, you will not have any problems.

Scott Benner 34:59
You don't need Fiber substitute.

Matt Fouse 35:01
Absolutely not wanting a fiber in my diet.

Unknown Speaker 35:05
That's hilarious.

Scott Benner 35:08
And it's it is very, I guess it's a very natural thing. It's probably a very common food in other countries.

Matt Fouse 35:15
I would assume so. Yeah.

Scott Benner 35:16
Because of the rate because it's just not there's not much to it. But the soy bean, I guess. Yeah. I'm looking at vegan bacon right now. Trying to figure out what that

Matt Fouse 35:27
problem if I made you a BLT Mm hmm. Side by side with the most luscious beautiful pig bacon. And faking bacon, right? soaked in liquid smoke and fried in the skillet. I think you'd be pretty.

Unknown Speaker 35:47
I'd be impressed. Pretty shot,

Matt Fouse 35:49
you would be impressed. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 35:51
I'm not gonna say no, I although this recipe I found says it's made in grapeseed oil and I am very, it's funny of all the things I'm not I am very particular about what kind of oils I take in or don't take in. Grapeseed is one of them. I don't I don't eat that so. Okay, so you're telling me that you could get fake bake into a point where it tasted like real bacon. But you mentioned a lot of different things. Do you make it yourself? Or do you buy it somewhere?

Matt Fouse 36:18
A lot of the brands now have the fake and bacon 10 pay ready to go marinated in a little packet. Okay, you throw it in the skillet for five minutes. It's ready to go. God. I do make like, I'll make my own marinades with like liquid smoke. Some oils and spices and leave it in there to marinate in the fridge and it's good. It's um, I made a BLT the other day. It's one of my favorite lunches. Actually, maybe maybe that's what I thought for lunch today. And I was so impressed. It had the most luscious local tomatoes sliced thick with vegan Manet's homemade bread because everybody's making bread right now. Right? Yeah. That's like the thing I made bread today. And I said Hey, honey, try this you're you're gonna be shocked and my wife was like, I'm impressed.

Scott Benner 37:17
She does she eat plant based?

Matt Fouse 37:19
She does not she will eat you know meat. She does it Gary.

Scott Benner 37:26
Tell me about the fistfight about when the baby started eating food. When did you how does that like I'm imagining like you're a Protestant and she's a Catholic and we're trying to decide how like what religion like get it even like when when when the eating thing comes up. How does that work? Like how does your How does your your oldest eat

Matt Fouse 37:47
my daughter? Oh, my daughter eats a normal diet. Okay, um we'll get her regular yogurt and like for the baby I don't care i'm easygoing what like

Scott Benner 37:59
whatever.

Matt Fouse 38:00
I'm not gonna you know, spread my plant base preachings on other people. I don't care how you eat, whatever, whatever makes you feel good. If eating nothing, but steak makes me feel good. Yeah, go for it. But whatever. I couldn't

Scott Benner 38:16
even put throw a soap box in front of you. You couldn't really even get up and preach about plant base. It really is just about what's right for you.

Matt Fouse 38:24
Absolutely. And that that was my decision with eating that way. For you know, my diabetes and for the way I feel actually it's, it's my mind is it feels clearer. I joke that it made me Whittier with my wife, you know, like, I get to the punch.

Unknown Speaker 38:50
But she's laughing more you're saying

Matt Fouse 38:54
Why? That's my bad dad joke. Boy. Hey, hey, I'm funnier. Right?

Scott Benner 39:00
I bet you she doesn't agree with that law. As a matter of fact, I was hilarious the other day in public. Matt, I'm not gonna lie to you. There were people around me just gathered around. Everyone's having a good time. And I looked at my wife and my wife had a look on my face on her face. They said to me, oh, yeah, here this this one's gonna tell this one again that he's gonna roll into that story that and then they're all gonna laugh because they've never heard it before. And I'm stuck here hearing it for the 37th time.

Matt Fouse 39:25
Absolutely. Oh, we are so similar. Yes, yeah. Ah, this whole pandemic you know I'm not we're not rounds are normal group of people because you see one at a time instead of hanging out in a circle and same exact story. Like my white shirt those jokes 100 times and every time I get a chance with a new audience.

Unknown Speaker 39:50
Oh, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 39:51
God,

Scott Benner 39:51
I felt energized. I was like, Oh, hold on. These people don't know me. This will be good.

Unknown Speaker 39:58
The best is when

Matt Fouse 40:01
My wife will tell a funny joke and I won't laugh about it. But then I'll steal the joke around friends. She's like, Wait a second. That's my job.

Scott Benner 40:09
I'm the one that said that and you'd pretended it wasn't funny. And then you're probably upset if she didn't laugh when you thought it. Understand narcissism, Marsha, I gotcha. Well, okay, so all right, let's roll into one more meal. Like tonight for dinner. everybody's having one thing, what are you eating?

Matt Fouse 40:31
I try to stay lower carb for dinners. Okay, um, because I, I can eat anywhere from 7pm to 10. Because I never, you never know what my schedule is gonna be with life. So if I eat later, I just try to stay lower carb. So you know, maybe a salad with some garbanzo beans. And whatever else I whip up, I use the instapot a lot. I'm really big into eggplant. I love eggplant. And I can throw something in the instant pot for 10 minutes. And it's like this magical dinner. I slaved over all day. But you press a button. It's pretty nice. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 41:19
What about like, though?

Scott Benner 41:21
When's the last time you had pizza? I'm imagining you'd have to make it for yourself. And there's some sort of substitute for cheese. Right? But this everything else works. So how do you do that?

Matt Fouse 41:30
So pizza, we will make it home because my daughter loves pizza, she has a five year old. So I would get the dough premade in the bag at the grocery store, we'll roll it out. And my daughter can put her normal cheese on it. And usually what I will do is I will just put the sauce down. Or just olive oil and then put whatever I want on it like veggies or I do not like the fake Jesus. They have a weird consistency. For me. I have yet to find a brand that I think tastes good. So I'll make more of like a flatbread type, and then a little olive oil and vegetables or just Yes, a

Scott Benner 42:18
red sauce and have a tomato pie kind of a thing?

Matt Fouse 42:21
Absolutely. Yes. And that's easy, because you can throw both in the oven and everybody can eat the way they want to. And yeah, it's

Scott Benner 42:29
all good. That sounds nice. It really does. I mean, I I'm just trying to wrap my head around. Because I think the reason I'm asking so much is because I believe that most people's idea would be either a I don't want to just eat vegetables or how hard it would be to eat something new day after day after day. But you'd really don't have that feeling at all. Like you're just

Matt Fouse 42:49
I don't I've been eating like that long enough that you just kind of have these meals in your back pocket. It's kind of like one of your episodes. You were talking about Bolus saying how you just kind of learned, like, well, the moon is a waning gibbous tonight. So I'm going to Bolus this you know, so it's like, you kind of have these things in your back pocket that's like, wow, tonight, I'm having the eggplant with tomato sauce base with some flat bread and then you get used to it, it is harder at first. There's a lot of really good cookbooks out there that will give you ideas because you know, your diet is kind of limited, but there is a substitution for anything you like that is normal eating pretty much or they're like,

Unknown Speaker 43:45
God, I'm sorry. Like, if

Matt Fouse 43:47
you like bacon, there's bacon. If you like steak, there's steak type, consistent things. So it's um, you learn it's a learning process. Yeah.

Scott Benner 44:00
Are there more carbs in plant based eating than people would imagine? Like how like how carb heavy are your meals?

Matt Fouse 44:13
I think I think I'm gonna say yes and no. So if you eat a lot of vegetables, you could eat plant based low carb ish. If you eat the heavy greens and potatoes and spaghetti and wheat and bread, you could be very high carb. So I think that question is, it depends on how you like to eat. Okay, so

Scott Benner 44:44
if it's more vegetables, there's going to be fewer carbs. I guess unless you involve more routes and things like like potatoes and yams and stuff like that. There's a little more there. But otherwise your other options are more flour. Great. based and which are gonna bring carbs with it? Yes. So but even like you could have a potato chip and be vegan and like my daughter has a vegan friend and I am fascinated by how poorly she eats. Because in my mind vegan means healthy. That's, you know, my, my leap and yet she's the kid who's in the snack drawer more than anyone else because she's she's positive. There's no nothing from an animal in that drawer basically.

Matt Fouse 45:29
Oh, absolutely. You can eat like an alley rat and still be vegan got it is actually pretty shocking What? Technically vegan foods can be like, you would never in a million years think but Oreos? are vegan, right? Or am I allowed to say brands,

Unknown Speaker 45:53
whatever you want got

Matt Fouse 45:55
like Pringles are technically vegan. You can eat Pringles for dinner, hovering over the sink,

Scott Benner 46:06
you know, and and tell everyone you're a vegan. So there is a way for me to be an incredibly unhealthy vegan

Matt Fouse 46:14
100%

Scott Benner 46:16
as long as I can be involved, then that's fine. I could be vegan till Finally, I could change my eating habits up and maintain my level of actually, that's not true. As I get older. I just there's fewer, like junk food, I guess type things that I'm willing to tolerate. And they just don't. I've come to believe that as I get older and my body gets older, it's less capable of overwhelming the hell that is the poorly constructed food and you know, things that aren't have any natural ingredients. And then whatsoever. You know, I used to be able to eat a bag of Doritos and it meant nothing to me. And now if I see it or eat Oh, I think I would never eat that. And you know, it's just it's interesting, because I put it in my body and my body would fight against it the whole way through it would just be like this shouldn't be in here. Yep, but that does come with age a little bit. People will find out sadly as they get older.

Drink Coffee.

Matt Fouse 47:16
I drink I live off of coffee. Okay, um, so my job if you want to call it that I'm self employed stay at home dad. So I own a mobile espresso business. So I always have the espresso machine on. I am basically like a caffeine addict. It's nonstop. It's

Scott Benner 47:43
not I didn't mean to like I didn't know if that was something you did or didn't want to share. But I feel like we've hit into something a mobile espresso business you bring me a cup of coffee.

Matt Fouse 47:54
So, yes, I own it's a Vesper Abbaye. It's a three wheeled scooter from Italy

Scott Benner 48:03
Dude, I'm already on your Instagram keep talking.

Matt Fouse 48:05
Yeah, guys. Um, and I fabricated in espresso machine and all that good stuff on it. So I cater to movie sets, weddings, corporate events. Right now work is kind of dead because everything I do is event based. There's no there's no movies being filmed. No TV shows being filmed. So um, but like I got to do some cool things. I did the set of House of Cards and they're filming it around here. Veep a few other movies and documentaries. It's fun. So I you know make espresso for famous people and come home and be like, Hey, honey, Robin Wright today he told me. Hey, Matt, sweetie, your cappuccino is delicious. She's like, well, maybe Robin Wright can pack your lunch tomorrow.

Scott Benner 49:01
I don't think she's going to because she wasn't putting up with Sean Penn. I don't think she's gonna put up with me either. Yeah. That's a really interesting to what part of the country are you in?

Matt Fouse 49:12
I am right outside of Baltimore. Okay. Yeah, wow.

Scott Benner 49:18
Well, that's really I did not expect you to say that. I was just wondering like, my thought process was, most people can't live without coffee. So I want to make sure to ask while everybody's telling me how they eat if it fits into their diet or not. I've never had a cup of coffee in my entire life.

Matt Fouse 49:35
You know, I call you those weirdos I don't know how you live Do you sir coke. What

Unknown Speaker 49:42
do you do? I don't do

Scott Benner 49:43
any drugs. I don't drink and I don't think I'd be in better shape. Even just for that. But it's just it's it's nature's joke against me honestly. Now I don't think I say it on here. Everyone smile. I don't think I've had the equivalent of case of beer in my life maybe, you know and I, my parents drank coffee all the time. There was constantly coffee in a coffee pot in my house. I never remember having any aversion to it. Nothing bad happened. I wasn't burned by a cup of coffee at a young age or something like that. It just never occurs to me. I have an incredible amount of like, mental or intellectual energy. And I when you stimulate me, it goes way too far the other way. Like, I'd be the worst person to be drunk with I think, although, although I'm guessing, and I think if you gave me a cup of coffee, you'd you'd probably get like binding gag me until it wore off. I just I would go on. Like, look how fast I talk now. Yeah, I don't do that. I drink mainly unsweetened iced tea and water. throughout my day. I try not to have too much caffeine or sugar. And I don't know. I don't know. I see. Everybody loves their coffee. You want to love it? You don't I mean? Like, it seems like one of those things. It would be absolutely amazing. It does. Yeah. doesn't strike me for some reason. Okay, so let's talk about bolusing for your diet. So this morning, avocado toast. I'm gonna guess is it one slice of avocado toast and a half of an avocado. I'm going to try to get

Matt Fouse 51:24
it depends on how hungry I am.

Scott Benner 51:27
But sometimes it's too. Okay. So what do I so Okay, so for avocado, I'm guessing at around 14 carbs and depending on the toast you like, somewhere between 15 and 22? Yep. Right, that right there. Okay. And there's fat in the avocado, which people wouldn't think about which would probably stretched out your you need for your boss. Is that true? Does this need like some sort of an extended or something like that?

Matt Fouse 51:54
Correct? Yes. Um, I recently um, thanks to thanks to you, actually, the podcast. Oh, hold

Scott Benner 52:02
on. It clearly. Is this the part where you say something nice about me. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Take your time with me. Because

Matt Fouse 52:10
I recently, you know, went on loop from listening to the looping episode, I think with Katie de Simone, right. It's amazing. And I joined the Facebook group. So now with loop, it's a new way of thinking for me as a diabetic. Because the last 30 years, I thought differently, basically, Thomas so. So now, instead of being like, Okay, this meal has 40 carbs, right. I'm going to Bolus for that. I did this advanced diabetic ninja trick I that has been working amazing for me where I will bolus, like half or three fourths of the suggested Bolus that Luke tells me to because I never know what I'm going to do outside. Like if I'm going to do yard work. So like, previously, you'd have all this insulin on board. And that's it. You got it. It's there. You're getting it. Yeah. Where now with loop, I can do like half of what it suggests I can go outside and mow or pick up sticks in the yard or whatever. And loop kind of, you know, because it adjusts every so often, like what every five minutes it makes a decision. Well, it's getting kind of equalizes itself out where I don't go too low or too high. That's nice. Yeah. And I'm actually going to try to do the auto Bolus branch coming up. I've heard great things about that.

Scott Benner 53:49
I recommend that one. Okay. Yes. For sure.

Matt Fouse 53:53
I made the loop at the beginning of the pandemic. It was like, You know how it is I was all nervous. I sat down, I read all the documents. And I have yet to update, because I'm like, I don't want to lose something great that I had.

Scott Benner 54:11
Well, the great thing about that Auto Bolus branch, in my opinion is that it really the only difference in it is that there's a switch to turn the auto Bolus offer on. So if you put it on and you hate it to shut it off, and you still shut it on, you have the old version then like that, or the functionality, at least if you have the older version, which is an older, it's still being updated. And I think it was just updated recently, actually. And people use it all the time with a lot of Yes. So the podcast has been helpful for you. How long have you been listening to it?

Matt Fouse 54:40
Probably about a year no calm. I would make it my daily habit. When I did go to the gym. I would play an episode and run on the treadmill and lift my weights and but yeah, it is I have to thank you. It's A new way of thinking, honestly, it's like, I like to joke with my friends being like, yeah, Hama, I'm an advanced diabetic. I listened to a podcast,

Scott Benner 55:13
like we're gonna start calling you all juicers or something like that, that might be funny. Well, first thank That's very kind of you to say, and I appreciate it I, I steadfastly maintain, if you were to talk to me privately, and I wasn't being goofy for this, that I shared some tools and you're using them, it's all you, you know, they mean, like, you just heard ideas you hadn't heard before. But the reason I enjoyed hearing that from you, is because you've been diabetic for so long. And everyone I bumped into wants to immediately say, Oh, your podcast must just be listened to by parents of kids with diabetes. Because those people you know, they're more careful, or they're more involved, or Bob, and I'm like, No, I, it's about 5050. I have adults living with and, and parents of, and I get to see that actually, because of the private Facebook group. When people come in, they say what their relationship to diabetes is, which is incredibly helpful for me to know who I'm talking to. And I'm not I'm not surprised by it. I'm surprised by how many people are surprised by it, that they don't recognize that the way insulin works, is the way insulin works gonna work for you the same way it works for my daughter, and people are different within Of course, they're small variables. And some people are different. There's outliers and everything. But most of people, it's the same insulin goes in it has a certain amount of time before it works. You're trying to balance that insulin against you know, the action of the food and you just try to make this this you know, a fair fight between the food, the insulin, that's not specific from me, to you, or from you to my daughter or anything else.

Unknown Speaker 56:52
So absolutely.

Scott Benner 56:52
I'm always I'm always a little weirded out when people like, Oh, that's just for kids. Right? And I'm like, why does it? Like why do you think it matters? timing your bolus is just important for children. Before we move on, and please do be honest, and I'm being serious, to be honest, in your mind, who's more famous me or Robin Wright? Penn go?

Matt Fouse 57:12
Oh, you definitely.

Unknown Speaker 57:15
Definitely.

Scott Benner 57:16
She's a better actress. But I mean, for you personally. I'm more important. I think

Matt Fouse 57:21
she she's better looking. I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker 57:24
Well, yeah.

Scott Benner 57:27
Absolutely gorgeous woman, but I and I can't compete on that level. But I think I'm at least I don't know if more famous is the right way to put it. But I am definitely more important. I'm saying in a rowboat situation with a leak and one of us has to go over to save to others. Robin Wright pens in the water, right?

Matt Fouse 57:43
Oh, 100%. Never, she never taught me about

Scott Benner 57:50
who's gonna help you polish for those coconuts when we get to the desert island. I gotta be honest with you, if you don't push me out of the boat immediately, I'd even be disappointed. I'd be like, What's he doing? I'd push you out and get her back. Nevertheless, alright, so prior to looping bolusing for your way of eating anything special people should know about it.

Matt Fouse 58:19
My bolusing worked fairly the same. I you know, I would Pre-Bolus before a meal. The only difference would be like I said, you would Bolus and you could cancel a Temp Basal on the Omni pod. But it didn't make the decisions based on what you were doing. What is what I love loop for like, if I get on the treadmill and forget to do a override that hey, body, I'm exercising loop most of the times figures it out like after like 10 minutes of running. It's like dudes doing something

Scott Benner 59:09
blood sugar spawn starting we

Matt Fouse 59:11
better cut with our circuit and, and it's very, very seldom that I will go when drop to where I have to get off and

Scott Benner 59:21
drink juice or whatever. Which I see you have starbursts on your desk for our conversation.

Matt Fouse 59:27
That is my go to it's quick and

Scott Benner 59:31
you know I never asked people but and I don't see most of the people you just have a great internet cache and so we're looking at each other but I don't see most people while I'm recording which I'd like to change in the future maybe but but I can hear people eating and checking their blood sugars in the background. I never mentioned it I wonder if people listening can hear like sometimes you'll just hear like you know, like there's a click in the background or something like that. I'm like somebody's checking their blood sugar right now or, or you'll you'll hear a little fumbling around. Some rappers or something, and I leave it in the show because I think it's interesting.

Matt Fouse 1:00:04
Oh, totally, it's real life. I mean, that is what we deal with. So it's like, You know why? Right?

Scott Benner 1:00:11
Okay, so bolusing, you were just using a lot of the skills from the podcast, you were doing Temp Basal increases and decreases and spreading out insulin and that kind of thing, just lining up insulin with the impact and that was working. But what you like about loop is that it can take bazel away when it sees you getting a low, I think that's a no brainer. I think that whether it's tandem, you know, whatever their, their loop, the loop system is called IQ or something like that. Or if it's going to be the forthcoming on a pod five or maytronics. Got another one coming out, you know, next year. I think I think that everyone who wants it and can afford it should at least try it. I think you should think about it the way we thought about fast like, Alright, well, let's see what this does. You know, because maybe you're gonna have a great experience, like method, and it'll change your life a

Matt Fouse 1:01:04
little bit. So absolutely. And I I recently, my endocrinologist was hanging out with me at my house, we're buds and I showed him the loop. And like, you're not gonna make me stop coming to see you. Right? Because technically, it's not FDA approved then. Right? Ah, and he's like, no, like, if we were both discussing as I think within the next decade, pretty much every diabetic will be on the looping system. It's the first thing to happen. That's a huge advancement. It's to me, it's like I say, I'm three fourths cured.

Scott Benner 1:01:55
Sometimes, right? Yeah, absolutely. Like able your blood sugar's can be.

Matt Fouse 1:01:59
I rarely go high. The only times I go high is things that are out of my control, like, a bad site, your Whoops, I forgot the bowl was it's all on me. Right? Um, so I yeah, it's, it's amazing.

Scott Benner 1:02:18
That's Arden's budget, or for the last six hours.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:21
Beautiful

Scott Benner 1:02:22
that you love it. It's just it's between. I mean, it's between 80. And she hit 120. For a second, I'm gonna be honest with you. What happened was she got out of bed. And she went and got cleaned up and got ready for school. And I know she walked away from the Riley link. Yep. So right when she started to drift up because she was feet on the floor, she didn't get a little insulin. And I did nothing, nothing to fix that. And she rose at 759 to 130. And by 839, she was back under 120. And by nine o'clock, she was 100 again. And now now she's 90, and she's been 90 for like the last hour. So that is just that's a weight lifted that. I mean, listen, you want me to make a prognostication right here, you'll have a steak one day. And my podcasts will get put out of business eventually, by algorithms. It really well. And when it ends, it's going to end because of algorithms, I am going to have taught everyone in the world how to use them. And there's going to be no reason to talk about diabetes anymore. Knock on wood, or we can go to the

Matt Fouse 1:03:38
wall. You know, like?

Scott Benner 1:03:40
Yeah, oh, God, please, listen, I love doing this podcast, I hope something else new comes up. But we all have to learn. But, but no, seriously, like not that not that talking about diabetes wouldn't be necessary. Because I think there's a lot of benefit in that part of it too. But just the management side of it, like when you really think about this show over the last six years. This show is is when you're talking about insulin at its core, me explaining the convoluted way that I broke down how insulin worked and how you can put it into practice in your life and how we have. And at some point, if you have a CGM and a pump with an algorithm in it, it's going to be about getting your settings right. And press Pre-Bolus thing on time. And,

Matt Fouse 1:04:25
yeah, that that's the thing too, is like, I like to say garbage in garbage out. You still have to know that. You don't hop in a car. And when you're 16 and just go, you have to learn all the fine you know how to turn but the key and then turn it on it. There'll be some good stuff.

Scott Benner 1:04:45
Yeah, but it just won't be I won't be. Although you know what, in fairness, most people are still not going to be able to afford this stuff. And it is short sighted of me to even say that because while I have a lot of interaction with the people who have pumps have glucose monitors, there are plenty of people listening who do not have those things and don't have a pathway to them either. And, and I think those people are always going to need that conversation. I'm just thinking that there's maybe I'm wishful thinking that one day, it's not going to be necessary for someone like me to sit down and say, Okay, now, you put your insulin in here, and you wait this amount of time, then you start eating, try not to eat that first eat this first because we want the digestion to like, you know, and then we'll spread it out, we'll do a nice extended bolus over two and a half hours. And that should take care of the fat and protein like I'm hoping not to have that conversation anymore. But at the same time, when, if you really asked me to describe it, I haven't just dumbed it down for the show, I genuinely believe this, it's just there's a timeline where the food impacts your blood sugar. And during that timeline, you have to equally impact the food with insulin. And that's just sort of it, you know, I don't see another another, I don't see a reason to think of it in a different way to be perfectly honest.

Matt Fouse 1:06:00
Yeah, insulin always works, you just have to know how to manipulate it with all those variables, which can be like rocket scientists to some people. And second nature. And others.

Scott Benner 1:06:12
I think, if you notice, when I'm talking to Jenny, I'll use a phrase when the insolence doing what I expect it to do. And, in my mind, what that means is, we have a good pathway for the sun to get dark and spotty. So a site that's working well. And then I do something, I know what the insulin supposed to do, based on what I did, like, I'm so aware of the amount I'm using and the timing I'm using, I know what's going to happen. And when that doesn't happen, if there's good insulin delivery, it's easy for me to fix, because the variables that everybody you know, talks about, there's so many variables. There aren't as many variables for me. But it's just because I've seen it so many times. Like, I don't know if you can see this now. And I don't know what this is gonna say, because I haven't seen this in a while. So I'm following five people's blood sugars right now. And with the exception of somebody who I just started talking to yesterday, I've got 9195, a 68, and a 79. And so, and a 91, which is my daughter's. So all those people, all of them are just doing what I do. That's it and they're all having reasonable and one of those lower blood sugars is a person who's switching to a pump today. So they have tresiba leftover in them and they're trying to get a pump going so that Yeah, his low little lower blood sugar is going to come up really soon. And I there's part of me that wants to that wishes I could make that public that you could look and go look Scott's following and helping five I'm just texting with him. I'm not there. I'm not I don't know exactly what the and I'm just like now a little more a little less turned off, turn it down. I talked to him for a couple of days there people sometimes there are people I owe favors to sometimes there are people you know, I just are in such bad ways that I think it's not going to help them if I don't talk to them. Or they get into a bad spot where listening to the podcast is impossible for them for certain reasons. And all I know is you use the tools use them about the way I tell you to use them. And it works. And that's it. Yep. So yep. Hopefully it hopefully that's what happens. All right, what am I not? What are the pitfalls of plant based eating? Tell me one of the things that you really hate about it that you shouldn't even admits other people or anything.

Matt Fouse 1:08:39
Oh, I would say the social aspect of it. Um, like, I won't say peer pressure, but like, you go to a potluck or something. And, you know, Aunt Trudy is excited that she just made these delicious cupcakes and is like, yeah, I gotta try one. He got to try one of these, you know, like, I know, that's loaded with 10 pounds of butter. And then yeah, there's this social aspect of like, I don't want to, like, make somebody feel bad and be like, well, I can't eat that. Yeah. That for me is the hardest part. And then like going to restaurants can sometimes you can be that annoying person and being like, well, what's in this? What's this? What's this?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:34
So

Matt Fouse 1:09:36
we rarely go out to eat, or of course now, we're not going out to eat but when we do, it's the places that I know what the menu is. Right? And honestly with a soon to be six year old and a baby who knows how often we'll go out to eat anyway.

Scott Benner 1:09:58
Everybody suddenly didn't have Corona anymore. You're still not going anywhere for about a year. Yeah. So just the idea of it's, it's different enough that it's noticeable and you might end up like hurting someone's feelings or asking a waiter, like, please make sure you use a pan that hasn't had butter in it or something like that, like you actually would have to say I'm, I'm completely vegan, like, I don't want any animal based stuff. And then do you think that people who don't see, even though it's not your perspective? People who don't think about animals the way like a classic vegan might think about it? Look at you and like, the soft guy doesn't want to see it in a cow. Like the view? Do you think there's that too? Like, do you think people

Matt Fouse 1:10:42
are 100%? Yes. I come across so often have like, I very politely say, Oh, no, no, thank you. I don't want to eat your cookies. One because I'm diabetic. And because our brother in it. Um, and some people just have a difficult time when you are different than what they are used to. It's like, Wait a second, you don't eat butter? Why? Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:11
Why don't you do that? And now you're explaining yourself and you don't want to be telling me but you don't need to explain yourself. Right? Like that must be. Right.

Matt Fouse 1:11:18
Yeah. It's like, well, I choose to not eat this way. Because it makes me feel better. And even sometimes, for some people, they can't grasp that either. Like, you don't eat like me.

Scott Benner 1:11:34
It's no different probably than a lot of social division in a lot of different ways. I would think you're, you're, quote unquote, too different. And so there must be a reason. There's something wrong with you. Or you're making me feel like there's something wrong with me. And then there becomes you know, that kind of like, clash. It's interesting. It really is. Yeah. Do you avoid telling people in situations where you don't need to?

Matt Fouse 1:12:01
Oh, yeah. 100% I am not that person of Hey, did you know I'm vegan?

Scott Benner 1:12:11
in a crowd of 1000 people, do you think you'd have more acceptance telling people you have type one diabetes or that you don't eat meat?

Unknown Speaker 1:12:18
Oh, type one diabetes?

Scott Benner 1:12:22
is wearing a thing on his arm but at least delete a cow. For cows have it happened to them? And are delicious, though. That's the problem. Your meat is too delicious. What are you gonna do? I mean a sauce. Think about a sausage from a pig. Oh my god. It's so good. Is there anything you miss?

Matt Fouse 1:12:46
Yes, like, I I write outside of Baltimore. I love crabs. I always say if I break my diet, though, it will be at a crab feast. I'll be food. One 100% Yes.

Scott Benner 1:13:08
I mean, I imagine there had to be something that you're just I'm interesting when I eat I don't particularly have like you couldn't say to me Hey, let's go here for dinner and make me like oh my God, that's an amazing thing. We have to do that. I'm not a real oddly of food person. I do appreciate good food versus average food. I have learned to like you know, I I use a smoker to smoke some meats. You know, and there's an obvious it's just obviously better. And there's I got making pizza and I I'll make the dough myself and you know, like, like, take the time to cook it at a temperature where it comes up the way you expect it from a from like a you know, from a restaurant. And I can see the difference in that I can see if you like cold ferment pizza dough that it digests easier. Like like, little stuff like that. But having said that, I would eat a slice of pizza from a boardwalk in three seconds and you know, think nothing of it. And then 10 hours later go oh my god, I still don't feel well for that terrible slice.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:13
Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:14
just really, eating is an interesting thing. It just really is that

Matt Fouse 1:14:17
quality makes a difference. You're right though yet.

Scott Benner 1:14:21
Yep. No, I hear it. I really do. So is there anything that you would want to tell people that we haven't talked about?

Matt Fouse 1:14:30
I would say one of the best outcomes which I wasn't even expecting were my labs. My a one C is always been, you know, great in range. But like my cholesterol and triglycerides and everything else. I was hovering at high cholesterol. Hmm. We have chicken pet chickens. So Previous to choosing plant based diet, I would eat like six hard boiled eggs a day. And my cholesterol was I think 190 hovering, like, my endocrinologist was like, Yeah, what's going on here? Like, oh, I have pet chickens. And I don't want those eggs. But, um, after choosing plant based diets, my labs were just the best I have ever seen. Okay. Yeah, my I think my cholesterol last time was like 110 total. In my performance, I'm not anywhere near a professional athlete level. But like, running, I don't get winded is quickly, I can go further. I can go longer. I recover quicker. And I attribute it to the plant based diet. If you had

Scott Benner 1:15:59
your exact diet that you have right now, but three times a week you had, I don't know, chicken or beef or fish. You're saying that you would feel differently physically? Like not as well. I'm assuming like inflammation, aches and pains stuff like that. Is that? Yes, yeah.

Matt Fouse 1:16:18
Yes. Yeah. Like my, I noticed my joints would be sluggish. Like, I am. 37. That's how old I am. Yeah. So you know, I get up in awe. But I don't experience any of that anymore.

Scott Benner 1:16:36
Wow. That's pretty. That's amazing. That's a that is? Definitely. I mean, I'm 10 years older than you and I, I think I'm more than 10. But let's just say I'm 10 years older than you. And I, I know what you're saying, My hands hurt sometimes. And they're achy. And you know, I do I wonder what all that is about? If it's just me getting older, if I'm eating something and taking something in that I don't want. My one of my last questions for you is, do you have to supplement with anything? Is there anything, you're not getting your diet that you have to take through vitamins,

Matt Fouse 1:17:11
I do take a multivitamin, just to make sure that I get all the vitamins and minerals that I need that might be left out. I get plenty of protein. You know, I probably get 90 grams a day, which for my body is just fine. For me.

Scott Benner 1:17:33
I think it's obvious that you found the way to eat that really works best for you. So I assume that's really what everybody should be doing is eating the things that make their body perform the way you know that it should. So that's Yes. It's really cool that I found it. Absolutely. Yeah, it really is. I appreciate you sharing all this with me. And with everybody. I see a very pregnant woman behind you.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:57
That is my daughter. Well,

Scott Benner 1:18:03
is that a boy or girl? Do you know?

Matt Fouse 1:18:05
We don't know? What number two, my wife said that we could find out and when it was time. She did it. And she's gets to make a decision. So we did we so we did it though. With my daughter. We didn't know either. And when she came out the doctor was like dad do you want to call it and she had her little legs closed and it was I say it was like scratching a lottery ticket off. I had to literally get a check. He all the legs apart. I was like girl.

Scott Benner 1:18:42
That's amazing. That is a that's a nice story. It really is. Well, that's it. I was supposed to cut the cord but then I couldn't panic situation something medical. And then when it was over I felt like so disappointed by it. And it stuck with me for a while. I don't know why with coal and then with Arden. I don't know what happened. Now I can't I couldn't tell you for certain if I cut Arden's cord or not. I really don't know. So it becomes a blur. Yeah, get ready for that when you get older everybody just going I vaguely remember being there when the human life came into the world couldn't tell you much about it. Really is a delightful thing getting older. Well, I'm I'm I think it's really cool that you figured this out and that you shared it with people. You're saying there are some really good cookbooks people could try? And I think if they're interested in it, they should give this a whirl. It obviously sounds inexpensive. Honestly, it's cheaper to eat this way. Right or no?

Matt Fouse 1:19:42
I think yes and no, I think you can eat on a very tight budget plant base. And you can eat very expensive.

Scott Benner 1:19:53
Some of the things that are made by companies that are pre packaged and ready to go can be more expensive. Is that Yeah,

Matt Fouse 1:19:59
then there I think it when if Paltrow has a cookbook, and if you dissect the meals, they come out to be like $300. I mean, it's like all these rare spices that are brought in from an elephant train from, you know, this country.

Scott Benner 1:20:18
So I meant for regular people, not people who, yeah, who read the goop website, but yeah. Which we're not going to talk about some of the things like when it says you should do with your vagina, because I think it sounds unsafe. She's got a very strange website. Let's just say that. Anyway. All right, man, I really appreciate you doing this and taking the time. I suppose. This is wonderful for you to do.

Matt Fouse 1:20:42
Thank you so much for having me. And, uh, I appreciate what you do. And you're thank you for being there. For us.

Scott Benner 1:20:51
It's my pleasure. It really is. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, g Volk, glucagon. Find out more about chivo chi popin at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juice box. you spell that GVOKEGL you see ag o n.com. forward slash juice box. I'd also like to remind you to go to the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box help move things forward. And a huge thank you to the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Upgrade your blood glucose meter game at Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box.

A few quick reminders. Are you looking for those diabetes pro tip episodes? You can find them right here in your podcast player beginning at Episode 210. Or at diabetes pro tip.com. Have a great doctor that you use for your type one diabetes care or need one, check out juicebox docs.com. Has the show been particularly helpful to you? Or do you enjoy it? Leave a fantastic five star review on Apple podcasts. And if you're listening in an app, please subscribe. It helps the show and measurably hit subscribe. now. I'll wait while you do it. Hey, done. You got it. Okay, great. If you're looking for an app, there are plenty. And they should be free. Never have to pay to listen to this show. Go to Juicebox podcast.com. Right across the top of the page. You'll see listen on Apple, podcasts, Spotify, get it on Google amazon music available on Pandora, subscribe on your Android, ask Amazon Alexa. And we're actually even on amazon music right now have to add that to the list. And we just got added to Audible. So if you listen to a lot of books on tape, I guess that's how you still talk about them. Even though there's no tape involved. You can also listen to the Juicebox Podcast right there on Audible. There are a bazillion great ways to listen. None of them should cost you anything you should not have to pay for a podcast app. Again, those are right at the top of Juicebox podcast.com. While you're there, check it out. There's a lot going on there. You can get a link to the private Facebook group. There's a great a one cm blood glucose calculator and conversion. It's really wonderful made by a listener. You can like you know, put in many moles, right? Like say you're in Europe, and you're like, listen to the podcast and people are saying my blood sugar was 120 you can type in 120 click on mg dl and it tells you that over there in the Europe that means 216 it even tells you what your average a one c would be. If that was your average blood sugar. It even has an A one c thing, right? So you can put in your a one C of my one C is 5.50. Well, that must be an average blood sugar of 111 if you're in the Americas, or on other places, mm Oh l 6.2. It's a really cool little calculator. It's absolutely free. Check it out right there on Juicebox podcast.com

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Scott Benner 11/9/20 Scott Benner 11/9/20

#404 How would you help a newly diagnosed friend?

People living with type 1 diabetes share their thoughts about what helps a newly diagnosed person.

From the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 404 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by everybody but has no ads.

Scott Benner 0:11
Dexcom makers of the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor and the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. We're also going to thank g Volk hypo pen touched by type one, the T one D exchange, and the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You can find out more about the dexcom G six@dexcom.com Ford slash Juicebox Podcast forget it's covered completely now for veterans. So if you're in the VA, definitely check out the link. You can also get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump at my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box check out Arden's blood glucose meter at Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box g Volk glucagon.com forward slash juice boxes where you'll learn more about g voke hypo pen. And don't forget to touch by type one dancing for diabetes event is coming up very soon touched by type one.org. And you can add your name to the T one D registry very simply, very quickly at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com.

I logged on to the Facebook page recently for the podcast the private one that you can find by searching for Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, when I saw Jenna's post, and it really caught my eye. Please remember while you're listening to Jenna's post, and the hundred and 84 comments that were left behind it, don't worry, I don't think I'm going to read every one of them. Please remember while you're listening, that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin. Jenna's post is really lovely. And I'd like to read it to you now. Hello all. I am not the parent of a type one diabetic. But my very best friend's son was just diagnosed over the weekend. They should be coming home from the hospital tomorrow. And I want to help her navigate this transition home.

Right now she is scared, very overwhelmed, and has information overload. Please give me any advice you could that helped you in the beginning. I want to put together a giant care package with tips, tools, items, or information you wished you had or that helped you. Any input you can share with us will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. D share shared that her biggest concern coming home with her five year old were snacks and she was looking for free snacks you know quote unquote free snacks as she's trying to figure out this insulin thing. So she said string cheese simple, simply smart popcorn, jerky, sugar free jello and olives were some examples of things that helped her transition in the beginning. Joni wanted to share that things will get easier. You should get a Dexcom and join a support group. Jennifer says while you're a great friend, perfect portions makes us scale to weigh foods and it tells you how many carbs that has counting carbs accurately is very important. While you're getting dosages adjusted. She also suggests getting a really cool backpack to carry the supplies around then. And that in the beginning having little bags of snacks pre counted with their carbs makes things easier. Nita popped in to say that she loves the scale she has greater goods, nourish digital kitchen food scale, please know that I have never used any of these products. I'm just reading the while this thread goes on forever. Someone else is amazed that a scale can count carbs. Kelly brings in another scale. This one is the nutria track. Apparently there are a number of these scales. You put something on tell it Hey, this is an apple or whatever. And it tells you the carbs. I wonder how well that works. Oh, well this scale thing freaks out a number of people. And then Julia says this is a wonderful community to start with. Oh, thank you Julia. The podcast that they This group is based on is a wonderful resource. Julia, you're very nice. Episode 11 is a great starting point. And then Julia brings something up that I would have suggested defining diabetes, the series within this podcast that just defines terms is very helpful in the beginning, while people are throwing new words at you, and you don't know any of them. aleena says, be patient with yourself, your child and this empire and this entire process because it will get easier. The first few weeks or months are wacky, and she warns to look out for a honeymoon period. For those of you listening, don't know, a honeymoon period is a time where the body still may make some insulin. And that can get confusing when you're measuring insulin using it, then you get some that's man made and some that's still made in the pancreas, it can make things a little wonky. So look out for the honeymoon period. If you get one, which not everyone does. Nina says that a lot of her friends were actually at home when she got there to support her, they brought, you know more quote unquote free snacks. And they did some stuff around the house that helped. So that the family could settle in. That's really lovely. I have to say that that was done for me to reminding you that I am a stay at home dad. When we returned from our vacation where Arden was diagnosed, a number of family members came and just cleaned our house top the bottom just you know, like put us in a reset in the house. And it was really helpful not to have to worry about stuff like that. In those first couple of weeks. It's a great idea. Becky says to know you're not alone is huge. And if Jenna could do her best to try to understand type one diabetes, that would be amazing. She also says that she wished she found this podcast years ago, and that has changed her life. Oh, Becky, that's really lovely. I'm very happy.

Oh, she also says get an Dexcom I agree with everybody else who said good at Dexcom. Laura says How about a nice cozy blanket. And something for the mom, like a bottle of wine or tea, something that may help comfort her. And educating yourself helps a lot to Laura said that she found the best support came from those that listen without judgment that there'll be good days and bad days. A willing ear is always very appreciated. Kimberly believes that her friend is going to need encouragement, a shoulder to cry on. And she brings up free snacks too. So obviously that's gonna keep coming up. And I want to say that when someone says a free snack, they're talking about food that doesn't need to be covered with insulin. And while there are some things that just have absolutely no carbohydrates in them that don't impact your blood sugar. I'd like to mention here that there are some things that have no carbs in them that people will tell you are free, that could have an impact on your blood sugar down the line. That's a higher level understanding. But we do have an episode about it. It's called diabetes, pro tip fat and protein. That said, in a nutshell, you could eat protein, like, like beef, for example, though, as it gets broken down in your system gets stored as glucose and can raise your blood sugar. Now it doesn't raise it nearly the same as if you you know, had a juice or an orange or an apple. But there is still impact calling it free is a bit of a misnomer, but I understand the inference and the Denise Megan brings up low supplies. So if you're listening and you're newly diagnosed, there are likely going to be times where you use too much insulin or balance it sort of incorrectly with the food impact and your blood sugar may start to get low. In that situation. You're going to need something to bring it up pretty quickly. Sometimes, fruit snacks hit the blood sugar very hard. As do juice boxes. My daughter uses Adam and Eve, the little Burton Ernie ones even though she's 16. Those work great and why Why? Why is my daughter carrying around a burden or any juice box when she's 16 years old, because it has a very little bit of juice in it so you get a little bang for your buck. There's only a tiny bit of juice think it's like four ounces, but it hits my daughter harder. So think about that. You don't want to have to drink 16 ounces of Gatorade 32 ounces of Gatorade to bring your blood sugar up 30 points you want. You want a hard hit. You know what I mean? Like bang, ooh, that worked. I moved 20 points. Just want to get something that you can regulate. A huge mistake I see people make is once they open the bag they eat a law. It's possible you might need to fruit snacks or three fruit snacks to fix your blood sugar. You don't have to eat all of them just because you open the package because eating all of them could bring A low blood sugar and continue to make it a higher blood sugar. Then you get on the roller coaster. And that's not fun. That's you don't want to be shooting up and then shooting down especially in the beginning when you don't understand really how the insulin works. So low blood, low blood sugar supplies, great idea. try really hard not to overdo it. Once you get on that roller coaster, it is hard to get off. David's advice, listen to the Juicebox Podcast and get a continuous glucose monitor, find some good meals and snacks that are lower carb and have the carb count ready. At the beginning, every meal was difficult for David because he couldn't think of any ideas for meals. Now he uses ingredients like vegetables, cheese, eggs, tofu, he said he's a vegetarian. But he knows that meat is also a low impact food. And don't forget about spices that can add flavor to meals. Even having one meal a day kind of prepared and understood as far as its carbon impact goes, can alleviate some of the mental weight of the diagnosis. He also says please listen to your friend because they're scared and overwhelmed. And listening really does help. David also suggest the diabetes pro tip series from this podcast. But he also says to listen at your own pace so that you don't become overloaded. Daniela offered to learn how to give shots and finger sticks.

Knowing a friend can help is a relief. That's simple and good advice. There's a follow up here to that one that was going to be my advice, learning ratios and all you can about specific care to help her out if she needs a break. This would have been so helpful when my son was diagnosed. And even now, eight years later, this would be the best gift in support you could give. Robin says that she's a nurse, and so is Jenna. And she says from one health care professional to another, please know that what we learned in our training about Type One Diabetes could never prepare you to be the parent of a child with type one. That there is a level of complexity in precise science, constant dynamics of change meal prep body's response to meals, response to school sickness, fear sports, these things all have an impact that you couldn't be ready for. Holly says to try to think about numbers you know blood sugar numbers as information and not a measure of personal value. She said she struggled with this personally for a while. In her 45 years as a person living with Type One Diabetes. She was able to help her daughter only think of the number as a piece of information on which to base a decision. I think that is actually great advice. Catherine says listen to the podcast. Thank you, Catherine. Lots of stories of people going through the same thing, plus tips and lots of good real world information, which I discovered it when I was first diagnosed. She also very much likes the book bright spots and land mines by a former guest on the show Adam Brown. Adams writing she says are clearly written and very helpful. Jennifer says here's a big one. And it's difficult to do never judge or react strongly to a blood glucose reading. You're gonna see highs and lows. But there are no bad numbers. Just simply your guide to adjusting ratios. Try to keep strong emotions out of your diabetes decisions. Always being a frustrated, sad angry can obviously lead to bigger issues. Jennifer, I know how you found this podcast. I like the way you think. Rebecca says she wished she knew that some of the older slow acting insulins were more impactful when they were split and used every 12 hours instead of once a day. Gina says she just got a meal that somebody made for and how wonderful it was to receive something that, you know, she didn't have to cook herself. Jodi brings up something here that I'd like to say, which is that putting a time restraint on when you're going to feel better is sort of silly, I did this I've shared it on the podcast before it was a bad idea. I got it into my head that you know, in a year I would really understand diabetes. So don't think oh, it's been a month or it's been a week or it's been a year. I should know all this by now. It takes a lot of time to have the experiences that build the knowledge base that you end up using day to day. They don't just come all at once. And often you'll have the experience and not recognize it as a valuable experience. So you don't save it. Or I also think you can be so freaked out in the beginning that you gret you get this great lesson and it just doesn't register at the time. having patience and not putting timelines on things, I think is a great suggestion. There's a follow up that idea here from Michelle. She said that there was a ton of grieving, discomfort. Don't forget this thing as traumatic. It's a loss of normalcy. There's going to be tears and frustration and anger but she was amazing. That how quickly things like that translated away, as she found things like Dexcom, or learned that there were some foods that didn't, you know, impact blood sugars. And in finding this podcast, she said, Actually, it looks like she found the podcast while she was still in the hospital with her daughter and it helped her a lot. Well, I'm glad Michelle, that's excellent. Michelle says less than 60 days later, she's transitioned to a dexcom g six. She's talked about her diabetes with their teacher and her classmates. And everything is, you know, getting normal, she's even back to playing volleyball, golf, tennis, I think that's a good, that's a really great message too, for anyone that this is not a permanent loss of normalcy. It's a temporary pausing while you figure out how to do things with diabetes. And then soon, you'll realize it's not that big of a deal to go out and play baseball and have type one diabetes, a lot of people do it. You can tell favia says that, of course everyone is different. But for her as the mother of a child with Type One Diabetes, she was mentally physically and emotionally drained after the diagnosis in hospital, say, a friend sent her flowers, and then just let her vent, and that it was a huge help.

Carrie says a 504 plan is a really big help. And for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a care plan that your school has to legally adhere to make. So a lot of things go smoother. Jamie says that her four year old was diagnosed at two and she wishes somebody would have just told her it's going to be okay, at some point, just reassurance that it's going to be okay. Lisa has not to make a lot of plans because there's going to be a lot to do right now. That's insightful and simple. Lee, you're learning Type One Diabetes right now. And it's kind of hard to do that while you're painting the garage. This has been said a couple of different ways but not so specifically, Holly says being able to offer to babysit is a big deal. Just childcare in general. So somebody could take a nap or a bath or just get away for a minute is a really big help. Jeanette says it's not a jail sentence. It's a lifestyle change. That viewpoint really helped. Sarah said it was important for her to have somebody there to support her but not to pretend that they understood what they were going through. This is a deep idea. And emotionally important. I don't think that it's a good idea to say oh my gosh, my aunt has diabetes. I know all about this. That's not great. Empathy, real empathy, not. I know how you feel, or I can't imagine Of course you can't imagine it's great that you can't imagine your kid doesn't have diabetes, right? You You don't have it. But coming in with with honest support, I think is what Sarah's saying, not you know, don't pretend. Bernadette says that her son was diagnosed at 13. And one of the best things that she did was to get him involved in his own care from the beginning. Finger sticks, giving himself an injection. He saw that he could do it believed he could handle it and gained a lot of confidence. And then soon he was telling her to relax that he's got it. It's excellent. A couple people have mentioned the genteel Lance. I guess it's like a suction Lance that people say it doesn't hurt as much I don't know my daughter says her Lance doesn't hurt she has the well how about that my daughter's had diabetes for so long. I can't think of the multi clicks or something clicks. See Li x we love It's terrific. But I guess everybody will find one that they like, ooh, fast clicks. It's called fast clicks.

Unknown Speaker 18:53
Got it.

Scott Benner 18:53
It's cool because it has a drum and you don't have to change it all the time. You'll see if you if you check it out. Lena says that the person asking the question Jenna could listen to the podcast to to absorb some ideas. She's found that meal planning apps can be helpful. And a grocery shopping buddy who helps you read labels. It's nice idea. One person here just says you're just such a lovely friend. And they remember being so lonely and sad. When they came home from the hospital Julia Julia is a frequent guest on the show said you're an amazing friend. I recommend not forgetting to help your friend. From the emotional standpoint she's likely drained and may think she can do it anything you can do to help take that burden off like errands or chores to help her relax would be very helpful. Julia. Cassie reminds us all that sleep is important. So anything you can do to help somebody take a nap I agree napping very important. Natalie said her child was just diagnosed and this post made her cry. Because of what a good friend, Jenna is, Taylor says, This is interesting. We just came home last week, I cried a lot, a lot. make her laugh, she'll cry too. But it'll be good. Don't try to point out the good parts of anything. But if you do point out something good, just reminder that everything is still the same, she can still play sports and eat food. She's still gonna have her first sleep over, go to college. And I'd like to add something here. I didn't find it helpful when people said, Oh, your kid got this because you can handle it. The inference that I am a together person and able to shoulder a burden of a medical diagnosis is not comforting. I think that's a little bit about what Taylor was saying there Don't point out the good parts to me. Don't say stuff like, Oh, well, at least you have health insurance, and stuff like that, because none of that is helpful. Vanessa points out that no one described the differences in carbs to her. And this is something we talk about on the podcast a lot. The glycemic load and glycemic index of different foods, which at its core, and at its very basic nature means that 10 carbs of grapes will impact your blood sugar differently than 10 carbs of a baked potato. And knowing that would be really helpful, especially when the impact dictates how much insulin it needs. So 10 carbs of one thing is not necessarily going to be the same as 10 carbs of another. Jill, I appreciate you bringing that up. Jay brings up something I think happens to a lot of people I wish she says that I knew my daughter could eat whenever she wanted. As long as I gave her insulin, the first day home, I thought she could only eat at certain times. And she sees a lot of moms with that same confusion. I agree. Sometimes when the hospital and the doctor are giving you rules, the rules seem very concrete. And it turns out, they're a lot more flexible than you think. I would say that common sense is a big, big and valuable tool in living with type one diabetes, and not getting brainwashed by something someone said to you one time is really important. Theresa brings up what I think is another great point to remind her that her child is the same person that nothing has changed about who the child is. I struggled in the beginning with not looking at my daughter and seeing diabetes before I saw her very important not to do that. Look at Alexandra jumps in and says give her my information. I'd be happy to talk to her if she needs help. That's really nice. Jennifer brings up my point don't say God knew that she could handle this if she gave her kid diabetes. Yeah, that's a obvious thing you would think but a lot of people say it. Margarita brings up something that I'm going to have a podcast episode about soon as I can. She said that she went through the stages of grieving while her son was diagnosed, and that it's fine. But you have to give yourself some time. Don't forget to take care of yourself as the parent. Very, very, very important. Another vote for a babysitter. Stephen says that once the initial shock of the diagnosis wears off, he found that the words education is the great equalizer are absolutely true. He's telling you to learn about how insulin works. Learn about how food impacts you learn about the quality of food, this one's coming from me. Processed foods are much more difficult to manage with insulin than more natural foods. It's just the truth. You can do it like I could Bolus a pop tart, but you're not going to figure that out on the first day. That's difficult. more votes are sending her friend wine. Cheese. You guys are a bunch of drunks.

Sima says you're an awesome friend for asking. Oh, Kelly, be the person that she doesn't have to be brave for. That's a that's an interesting way of thinking about a shoulder to cry on. You just be a place where your friend can be honest and doesn't have to pretend it's a great idea. Taryn says that someone that can help with the rest of the family, if there are other siblings is a big help. So those kids don't feel like they're just sort of being shelved while you're figuring out diabetes. Andy says this is good and he said that when she was coming home from the hospital, they were given like a packet of papers by everyone that she met with and that they need to be organized and going gone over and sorted out. And that even some of the things that are being said here aren't going to make any sense to her at the moment. She's going to need time to figure it all out. She also says that going to pick up her prescriptions for would be really helpful. Oh, Sarah, you are Oh girl after my own heart office. To do her laundry and bring her coffee, I don't drink coffee. But anyone who would do my laundry is a lifelong friend. Oh, Lois says Get her here on the on the this Facebook page will give her access to all kinds of great information. Thank you, Lois. I think it's a great Facebook page too. All right. Just listen, let her cry. Have her listen to the podcast that changed my life. I'm going through a little quickly now. Tina gave some lists of some carb counts that are, you know, you can kind of download off the internet so you don't have to guess. And Jenna comes in and says thank you This by the way, this thread is now four days old, as Jenna comes in to say thank you again. And Jen has been very responsive and, and Harding everybody stuff and everything. And then this guy comes in and says that the thread is going to become a podcast episode. If you'd like to join the Facebook group, there's links right here in the show notes of your podcast player, and at Juicebox podcast.com. But you can always search Juicebox Podcast, Type One Diabetes on Facebook, to join today. Hey, huge thanks to Jenna for making a post that got such great responses. And thank you to everyone who responded. I genuinely believe that this is the kindest place I've ever seen on Facebook, especially wrapped around type one diabetes. So many listeners, so many wonderful and thoughtful replies.

I'd like to also take a moment to thank the sponsors of the show. Because this is me, you know, going through a Facebook post and reading what I think are really helpful replies, it takes time. I know it'll take you a half an hour to listen to it. But it takes me hours and days to produce this episode and get it to you as it does with all of them. This podcast is absolutely free to the listeners because it is ad supported. So if you have the opportunity to check out one of the sponsors, please do if you're looking, you know for an insulin pump, check out the Omni pod. You don't have to buy it. But check it out, get the free no obligation pump santia. See what you think. If you're thinking about Dexcom, use my link to get there. And this same goes for all of the other advertisers. Every year around this time, they look back and see how many of you clicked on a link. And that's how they decide if they want to sponsor the show for another year. That's how a year from now you'll get another episode. It's how a week from now you'll get it one is actually going to be two more episodes this week. So that'll end up being somewhere around four hours worth of content just this week. It takes me I am the Booker of the show. I am the one who conducts the episodes. I edit, produce, do the technical parts of leveling the sound, getting you the episode, supporting it on social media. I think that each hour of content that you hear probably takes me six to seven hours to create. And I love it like don't get me wrong, this is the best job in the world. But it is ad supported. So click on the link, check out the sponsors. Tell someone else about the show. I mean, really, if if the show continues to grow, then we shouldn't have any trouble keeping the sponsors. You know what I mean? So if the podcast is really been valuable to you, and you meet somebody else who you think it could be valuable to also telling them is maybe the kindest thing you could do to keep the podcast going. So with all that in mind, thank you to the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Find out more dexcom.com forward slash juice box and the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump my Omni pod.com forward slash juice boxes where you can get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod sent directly to you. To learn more about the Contour Next One blood glucose meter go to Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. See what's going on it touched by type one at touched by type one.org. Don't forget that their dance extravaganza is coming up in just a few days. Check out that link for more information. If you're a US resident, add your name to the T one D exchange registry. They're looking for data from you simple, easy type one diabetes related data to help grow care for everyone. It's completely anonymous and 100% HIPAA compliant. T one d exchange.org. Ford slash juice box. No kidding. I Had some computer issues a few weeks ago, those of you who clicked on key Wendy exchange.org, forward slash juice box and filled out the registry questions paid for online backup of my data and on site backup, so I was able to buy some hard drives and get a backup service for the shows that have already been created. I know some of you may know I had like a computer issue, as a bit of a scary didn't lose anything. But there were 63 unproduced, but recorded episodes of the podcast on a computer. And I now have redundancy set up that was paid for by those of you who clicked on T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box in October. It's very cool. It's amazing. People like to learn more about g vo cuyp open G Volk glucagon.com forward slash juice box. last little bits. If you have a great doctor, or you're looking for one, check out juicebox docs.com. That's where listeners of this show are sharing their favorite practitioners. If you have one, send them in through the website. And if you need one, go check it out. We have them all over the United States and all over the world actually more come in every day. Are you looking for those diabetes pro tip episodes. You can find them right there in your podcast player beginning in Episode 210. Or they're all neatly displayed at diabetes pro tip.com. Those of you who are looking for help, because you're newly diagnosed, I hope you'll go back, check out the Facebook page talk with people.

I really think the diabetes pro tip episodes are invaluable as our defining diabetes episodes. And we have some great stuff coming up in 2021. Jenny's gonna take all of the notes that she gets from people. And you know what? That's too soon. Let's just tease that out a little longer. I'm not gonna tell you what Jenny and I are doing yet in 2021. But let's just say yeah, gonna love it. Alright, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. Two more episodes coming this week. The holidays are upon us. I know. It's been a long year for everybody. I hope you're doing okay. But through it all. You've supported the podcast in record numbers. As the show approaches, 3 million downloads. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful that you're here, that you're sharing that you're listening and that you're having the outcomes that you are. It's really heartwarming. And I just want to thank you as we go into the holiday season. I'll see you soon.