Scott Benner 5/27/22 Scott Benner 5/27/22

#689 Ask Scott And Jenny: Chapter Sixteen

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE answer your diabetes questions.

How can I successfully encourage my adult child to manage his type 1 and try technology?

What are your thoughts on service dogs for type 1?
Why and does lack of sleep make blood sugars less stable?

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

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 689 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode of the podcast the 16th episode of the Ask Scott and Jenny series today, Jenny Smith and I will chit chat and answer questions sent in by you, the listeners. While you're listening, please remember 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. We're becoming bold with insulin. If you love Jenny Smith, you actually can hire her she works at integrated diabetes.com. If you're a US resident who has type one, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry, take the survey help people with type one diabetes in fewer than 10 minutes, all while supporting the Juicebox Podcast, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. I got that done so quickly. And in one take. I'm very proud of myself, swell of music. And then we'll get going

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one, head over to touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram. They're a wonderful organization. They're helping people with type one diabetes, and they'd like you to take a look and see what they're doing. Touched by type one dotwork. Today's show is also sponsored by us med. That's right us med is the place where I get Ardens diabetes supplies, and you could to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888721151 for us med wants to give you your free benefits check and get you started today, use the number or the link. Actually, there are links in the show notes of the podcast player that you're listening in right now. Or at juicebox podcast.com. If you can't remember touched by type one.org and us med.com forward slash juicebox.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:33
We're doing questions, right? Just questions. So these are always fun, I like to

Scott Benner 2:39
so I will share with you and I'm recording this so maybe it'll put put me on the spot that in my mind I imagine a scenario where you and I on video live. Do ask Scott and Jenny's online one day. That would be kind of fun. Okay, and I have it's so close to figured out though. Here's the problem.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:59
See, I didn't run away.

Scott Benner 3:02
You didn't click off now. That's enough, buddy. Think bridge too far. Thanks. But no. So yeah, it's it's in the future idea. So what I want to do is like, I would do it in the Facebook group at Facebook allowed for the technology to put your mi video in there live and let people interfere but it doesn't. But there are some third party things like Facebook who do support this. And if people will say, well just do it over zoom the way you always do it. That's nice. But you only get a couple 100 people that way. I think that I imagined my Facebook group with 25,000 members in it. And I think geez, what if even just, you know, a small percentage of them happen to be online, you know, you'd get a few 100 People who RSVP and maybe you'd grab hundreds and hundreds more who happen to be online when it happens. So that's my idea. But the technology needs to catch up to my idea, but I think it's getting close. So cool. Keep your fingers crossed for that. In the meantime, how can I successfully encourage my 35 year old son to manage his type one and try technology? I lost my twin sister who was also type 120 years ago because of mismanagement, and he's following in her footsteps. I don't know how to approach him without causing him to become defensive. And he magic words. He's an ostrich who keeps his head in the sand. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:25
that's a that's a hard one because it's from the standpoint of it being an adult that you're trying to usher some change into their life. People have to be wanting of information to begin with. Right. And sometimes the road to that starts with acknowledging something that's really important to him. That is more directly in his line of vision being impacted by the way that he's currently managed. During his diabetes, write, like your whatever it is, if it was, I really love running. And every time I go out for a run, I'm really frustrated, because I just haven't like figured out that piece, right? If you can find something that he really loves in his life, and bring in how that could be better, especially if he's frustrated with an aspect of that, that may be an in of sorts to getting him to see the ability to even use just a CGM to be able to better follow how he's planning, you know, to move forward through his day. I mean, I would say, certainly, maybe send him some of the podcasts, get an email and say, Hey, this might be a really good one to start with listening to you. But again, for an ostrich in the sand, sort of, you probably wouldn't really click on it. It's a hard, it's a hard situation,

Scott Benner 6:08
let me tell you that we we received as you know, a so many ask Scott and Jenny questions recently, but I chose about five or six of them and move them over to talking to Erica Forsythe about them, because she's a type one forever. She's a therapist on top of that. This was one of them, that I think I'm going to leave in both folders. I'm gonna I think I'm going to ask you this. And I'm going to ask Erica, this one. And I'll tell you why. Because I have no, obviously my oldest child was 22. And even at that age, I understand what this person is saying. Like they're people are adults, whether they're doing something good for them, or bad for them or right or wrong, or however you want to think about it, you've probably lost the ability to impact them by just saying, Hey, you probably should be doing something different, right? Correct. I don't think humans in general learn that way, which is my my go to example from my childhood always was, how many 14 year old girls have to come on Jerry Springer pregnant before other 14 year old girls go, you know, I probably should not get pregnant. And the truth is, it never happens,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:18
right? Like I should maybe not do what's causing the pregnancy,

Scott Benner 7:21
or just look up and think that I don't want that to be my reality. Right. Right. And so my point is, is that even in the in the face of good information, or good fellowship from people who care about you, or even seeing it happen in front of you, and you go on, like, Oh, that's a dumpster fire, it still doesn't stop people, people still have to go through whatever their path is. And some people find their way out, and some people don't. And it's a shame, but I think it's kind of true. And so, when I looked at this question, I related it back to what I tell people with younger kids, because in my mind, this guy is is in some way burned out on diabetes. But my expectation always is that, alright, sure, maybe there are people who are just flatly going to ignore it. But the truth is, they don't completely ignore, because if they did, they'd be in decay. And a couple of days they'd be gone. Right? Right. So they're putting some effort into it. It's my expectation that if the effort translated into reward, that that would be how you'd build more excitement, like they need to see something happen that's positive. And I just think that some people are caught me, you could just take one aspect of diabetes, right? Chasing blood sugars. If you start chasing a blood sugar on day one, and you don't know how to get ahead of it, you could do that your entire life. Correct, right. And I'm sure you see people that happens to all the time, I've seen people that happens to all the time. So if I had any advice in this, and this would be just me, literally reaching into my brain and pulling things out that I've seen before. I would wonder what would happen if this mother went to her son had a launch, sat down privately and said, Hey, I know how much you're struggling. And I see that it's not getting better. And it's got to be incredibly frustrating for you. I've learned how to do a couple of things that I didn't know about when you were younger. But I understand now, let me just lay a couple of ideas out here for you. Can I move in for a week? Can we get into a text chain can like let me be your lifeboat for a little while. I think we could get this going a little better. And then let's see where it takes us from there because maybe even just stopping the bouncing blood sugar, so the high blood sugars might bring more clarity to this this gentleman and maybe then the idea of a Pre-Bolus thing would start to make sense and you go hell if I'm gonna feel this much better. I'll put insulin in 15 minutes before I eat, you know what the heck? Right? I just think that there are times Let me rephrase. I think it's interesting that we would see a person who was addicted to, I don't know math and say, Well, I can't help them, somebody else has to help them, they can't help themselves, we have to take them to a professional. The problem with diabetes is there's no professional where you can drop off your mismanaged loved one. And say, right, can you can you get them straight for me? Right? So I think it's up to this, I think it's up to the person who asks the question, to just say, I'm going to become part of this. In any small way, I'm going to take a long look at this, I am going to help this, I'm gonna help my son chip chip chip away until he gets to a better place, I actually think it's possible just I think it's a lot of work. And you need a really long vision of what it is you're trying to accomplish. You're just not sending somebody a text and saying, listen to episode 11, you know what I mean.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:54
And then also, maybe from an understanding or a knowledge base, as well, right? If this mother has learned more than she knew, in his life, growing up with diabetes, or whatever, and she knows now knows more now, she may also be able to recognize some of the deficit in information that her son hands. And so from an information standpoint, like you said, sitting down and saying, hey, you know, I learned all of these, like new things. And I think, if you're willing, I'd like to help you start here. And or, if you don't want to work with me on it, maybe I can, maybe I know somebody that you could start working with it kind of develop a relationship, again, with a better clinician than he may have, you know, if it and again, that's where I think sometimes clinicians are at a loss because they, they don't have a very long visit. And they don't have a lot of resources, right? For something like this, they just often dump on more insulin, because something might be stuck high, for the most part, in a situation like this. And they think that they can at least smooth things a little bit. But they're not really addressed. It's like putting a bandaid. It's not addressing the issue.

Scott Benner 12:12
You know, I don't think I've ever directly said to somebody, you should go see Jenny. But this is an example where a person like you would be helpful, because even as I say, maybe the mother could do this. I don't know what their relationship is. And I've seen it. I've seen a lot of men walk out the little boys on a baseball field and talk to them and it goes well, and then the minute they walk over to their own son, they're yelling and screaming at each other. Right? So maybe it's not okay, maybe it's best not to coach your own kid. But But yeah, I think you have to think wherever we are, we're so far into it now that a well meaning handwritten note, or Hey, buddy, I love you, you can do it. Like you're beyond that. Now, you know, this person needs to see some stability in blood sugars, that makes them feel better and right. And they're saying they don't want to try technology. I mean, so then, could you talk them into eating a lower carb lifestyle for a couple of weeks, you know, just to just to kind of reset everything and learn about how insulin works first, right? I don't know that this question is any different? Interestingly enough, aside from the part where there's resistance from the person with diabetes, I don't know if this question is any different than how people feel when their kids are diagnosed, and they don't know what they're doing. And it's frustrating. And, but you know, you have little kids, I was talking to this woman the other day, I said that 11 years old, her son was so like, easy to manage, because he did what she told him, and then a little, little bastard got a little bit of testosterone going, you know, then all of a sudden, he's like, I ain't listening anymore. And, and she's like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:48
independence, right? I mean, there's a reason that we move through stages of independence from little on. And that's

Scott Benner 13:55
right. Going back to this example, this lady said, look, here's a kid with a five a one, see, from what I learned on the podcast, hits, you know, a little bit of gets a little older. So armpits start to smell a little bit. And as a once he goes into the sevens, just because he doesn't do the things that they all know we're going to work. So, you know, and then she's going to be there because this is still a smaller child, and she's going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and getting back to where he needs to be. But this is a different situation. I mean, if it is, you know, if this man is 35 years old, I'm guessing his mom's at least 55 years old, most likely in her 60s and, you know, the dynamics

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:35
and may not live close enough. I mean, they may live across the country from each other and she only sees the downward trend. And unfortunately, she has a very bad like, you know, history of seeing I think she said her sister, right. So, that's hard to see, especially in your child. Yeah. Then

Scott Benner 14:59
well, and To your point I take to heart and I want to add to it for the kid. That means that when he was 15 his aunt died of type one diabetes he either had it then or got it at some point. And you know how people think like my dad died at 49 from a heart attack and people then don't expect to live past 49 when that's their story, right? You know, it's, I mean, it's silly but all right, you know, like I understand how it could make you feel that way. I appreciate you talking about this but yeah, okay. Let's do something slightly not as depressing Jenny here's a very simple question

Yeah, to see that common right little ad break us med this place, I love it. US med is the place where you can get your diabetes supplies. You go to us med.com Ford slash juice box or call my 888 number which is 888-721-1514. And us med will give you a free benefits check right now and get you started. US med accepts Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers. They have an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and they carry everything from your insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies the latest and CGM like libre two and Dexcom G six. US Matt is proud to always provide 90 days worth of supplies to you and they give you fast and free shipping. So if you'd like to work with the number one rated distributor index com customer satisfaction surveys, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one specialty distributor for the Omni pod dash, the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. And the place where I just got Arden's on the pod five from you want us met us met.com, forward slash juicebox links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. To these and all the sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. When you click the links, you're supporting the show.

What are your thoughts on service dogs for type ones?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:28
Oh, that's a great question. In a simple answer, I think they can be a really wonderful again, tool, if you will. I do think that there are there are people that they are really valuable for. And then there are people that like I've I've never really considered getting a service dog. I haven't. That's me, that's my personal. But I have a number of friends who have service dogs. And they are a large benefit. And I think not only from the diabetes aspect in terms of acknowledging and alerting. But also from an emotional standpoint, the fact that you have a technology like CGM, that do already give you alerts and alarms. We know that technology can be wrong at times, it can fail, we can fail to hear an alarm, especially overnight, I hear that a lot from kids and teen parents, that the alarms are just if they weren't there, the child would just not wake up to the current alarm, they just wouldn't, right. So from the standpoint of an alert dog that actually works and works and works and works and works until you're physically like up and or some of them can be trained to go and get another person if there's another person in the home. I mean, they're I think they're a positive thing. That's but I also think from knowing about them. I think it's really important to do your homework on where you get the service dog from Yeah. I have, you can not only get ripped off, but you also have to know what, what do you want the service dog for to begin with. And then from a training standpoint, there are places that will do 100% or so of the training for you. You come and you learn how to interact you are almost paired or matched with that service dog. And you learn how to continue and foster the training in order to make sure that they stay alert to you and your needs. There are some service dogs that you can can get where the training is more of an online and it's more the person with diabetes that goes through the majority of the training and, and does it with their service animal. I, I have had I've had friends who have done it both ways. And for them, their decision was right the way that they did it for what they really wanted to use their service dogs for. I've got friends who literally don't go anywhere without their service dogs travel with them on a plane or a train. I have one friend, her service dog actually just passed away said, I know her service dog because I've met her service dog but I mean she is she rode for like the JDRF bike rides and everything. She actually bought a special trailer for her service dog to pull behind her bike Wow, to go along with her. So in that, you know, a guy guess you have to again, consider how much contact do you need or want within your diabetes life, I've got another friend who her service dog is with her. But when she flies or goes to a conference or something, she does not bring her service dog along. her service dog is mostly for her home based area or anytime she drives someplace. So do your homework, get from a really reputable place? And know what you need your service dog for what your what are your expectations that that that will provide for you or for your child or your TN? So Well,

Scott Benner 21:33
I think everything you said makes 1,000% sense. And I kind of agree with you. It's not it's not a thing we ever considered seriously. I do know in the beginning my panic, my wife was like, mate, you know, maybe we should do this. Maybe we should do everything you know, right? I would just say this, I've never done it. I know a couple of people who have them who are absolutely delighted by them. It is a way of life. You know, it's not the service dog, it's not a thing you put on a shelf when you don't want it, you know you've cracked, it's a it's basically another person that exists with you. And you're responsible for them. And there's a ton of upkeep and training and and love and everything else has to go into it. All I'll say is that Arden's Dexcom has never vomited on the carpet in my foyer. So both of my dogs have.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:23
Oh, that's interesting. That's kind of funny. I our current lab has only I think he's almost eight. And he's only thrown up like once in his whole life with us so far, I think so

Scott Benner 22:35
I'm just Dexcom is not gonna poop in,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:39
they won't, or fart in the middle of the night and have this horrid smell.

Scott Benner 22:44
Or if you go back to any number of the beginning years of this episode of the podcast, you will hear them snoring in the background and everything else. So anyway, if I think I think you're right, I think if it's something you want to be involved in, and you understand the level of commitment, and it's something you're willing to do. I see it as being a great, a great idea, you know, but it's also a cost. And I do want to say I've seen people ripped off by training companies that are not reputable. And I mean, the cost is significant, too, right? You're talking about 10s of 1000s of dollars. Am I right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:20
I don't even know honestly, what the cost is, I would have to go back. In fact, you know, for some references to some good places, I can certainly ask my friends where they got their service dogs from for some references. And you know, then I'll give them to you to supply. But yeah, it's expensive in terms of cost. I don't really know what the cost is. But it's it's not $2. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:45
no. Okay. Hey, I think we have time for one more. Cool. Why does lack of sleep make blood sugars less stable, even away from food exercise active insulin, I usually see a lot of 9095 9100s, etc. With lack of sleep, when otherwise on just basil, my numbers are a lot more steady. Well hold on a second. I don't know if I understood. Let's go back to the beginning. Because yeah, I don't think again, I don't understand her explanation. I understand your question. Why does lack of sleep, lack of sleep make blood sugars less stable? Do you think that's true? being tired makes your blood sugar less stable,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:25
less stable. Typically, what we see is with a poor night's sleep or consistent poor sleep, that your blood sugar's will be higher on average. And if that's what's meant by less stable, possibly, you know, especially if their roller coastering up and then you're correcting and they're coming back down. I mean, that could be less stable than what this person sees when they have good sleep overnight. Typically, yes, we see higher blood sugars with less sleep. That's the general

Scott Benner 24:59
I mean, listen, I don't have diabetes, but if I'm tired, I'm more likely to be distant. I get a little foggy, I can be more irritable, right? Like there's, there's a lot of things that come with not sleeping, you need to sleep. Obviously, if you didn't, I mean, life would be twice as twice as long. Right? But, you know, it's just so I'm not understanding the question afterwards. I usually see a lot of 9095 9100s with lack of sleep, when otherwise on just basil, my numbers are a lot more steady. See, I don't understand because 9095 9100 seems to me it would

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:36
be steady and very good. Well, I wonder, yeah, I'm not quite sure. I mean, one big piece in terms of lack of sleep and unsteadiness or again, a rise in insulin is or a rise in blood sugar, excuse me, is relative to what happens to cortisol. Right? When we have when we are sleep deprived, if you will, cortisol increases and with that impact, typically can increase insulin resistance. So it sounds almost like steady numbers on Basil is what the person was trying to say. But with a lack of sleep. The numbers get jumpy. I wouldn't say that the numbers that were stated sound jumpy. They sound actually very stable. But overall answer to Question poor sleep higher blood sugars, insulin resistance, typically, that's the gist of it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:37
it almost makes me feel like when I read her description at the end, she says with just basil. My numbers are a lot more steady. I almost feel like they wanted to say a lot less steady. I I'm trying to decide this person saying that when they have lack of sleep, they have better blood sugar,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:52
better blood sugars. Yeah. Which wouldn't be the case typically.

Scott Benner 26:57
That doesn't make sense. Okay, but so but still lack of sleep can impact your blood sugar's you would normally see it as a rise as a rising.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:05
And if it was a really poor night of sleep, you may actually have a lot of other hormones are, are thrown kind of loopy in terms of the whole rest of the day, you may actually have a change in the regulation of hunger hormones, which might mean that your hunger is disrupted through the course of the day. And you may nibble more. And I mean all of these. Again, we've discussed variables. Yes, all of these variables could have an impact on overall blood sugar, just because of a poor night of sleep. Right.

Scott Benner 27:35
Okay, so All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Yes, with me, sure.

First, I'd like to thank all of you for sending in your questions over on the private Facebook group. That's where I got these questions from Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook 25,000. Members, just like you head on over. I also want to thank Jenny Smith, my friend, and diabetes guru, integrated diabetes.com If you're looking for Jenny, and a special thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode of the podcast, US met.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514. And of course, don't forget, touched by type one.org. I have a link here about service dogs that Jimmy sent me. It is. Oh, it's pretty easy. www care. Es que es.com. So it's C A R E S k s.com. When you get there, you're going to be at Canine assistants rehabilitation education and services. This is the website that Jenny was talking about earlier. Hope if you're looking for a diabetes alert dog, that this will help you. There are like 15 Other ask Scott and Jenny episodes right now if you're looking for a list of them, the private Facebook group is the place to find them. There are these wonderful lists that Isabelle made for me. They're up in the featured section of the Facebook page. And that's pretty much all I have about that rollout theme here a little bit. That's okay. Scotty started a little bit. Tell you what, let's just say this. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#688 Type Two Stories: Jon

Jon has type 2 diabetes and uses insulin.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 688 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Welcome back, everybody on today's show, I'll be speaking with John. John is my second interview in my type two stories series. John has type two diabetes. He listens to the podcast and wait till you find out what using insulin has done for him. While you're listening, please remember 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 becoming bold with insulin. If you have type two diabetes, and you would like to be on the show, please contact me. I'm trying to build a vibrant series of people living with type two diabetes, I would love for you to come on the show and share your story. I hope you reach out. If you have type one diabetes, and you are a US resident or the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org Ford slash juice box and fill out the survey, it will take you fewer than 10 minutes. And when you do it, you'll be helping someone with type one diabetes and supporting the podcast.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod five, and the Omni pod dash. To learn more or to get started today go to Omni pod.com Ford slash juicebox. The show is also sponsored today by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. And to get started with the Dexcom. Again, all you have to do is go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Both Dexcom and Omni pod have different versions of a free offer. You have to go to their lengths to find out if you're eligible. But you could be eligible for a free 10 day supply of the Dexcom G six and you may be eligible for a free 30 day supply of on the pod dash. Go check them out and find out.

Jon 2:20
My name is John kafele. shouldn't give you that like patient presents with a kind of a thing. I'm I'm 61 years old today.

Scott Benner 2:30
Oh my goodness, happy birthday.

Jon 2:32
Thank you very much. And it's been a journey fraught with peril and joy, as most lives are, and I'm I guess I should just kind of give the dump about what my diabetes is. Yeah, sure. Um, I currently weigh 275 pounds at 61 years of age when I was 33, I weighed over 500 pounds. I have weighed over 300 pounds since my early teens. I was raised institutionalized in different kinds of group homes, boys homes, and even a mental hospital. And when I was 16, I self emancipated which means I ran away and hitchhiked across all North America and stuff. And that was a lot of fun. But my health and all the things that go in so I hear you have episodes about body dysmorphia, you have episodes about this, you have episodes of that. And I find myself in so many of them right and in many of them in ways that I haven't fully acknowledged or processed. And so that's something that podcast really helps me with is the great variety of personal experience. And even though I'm not type one, I'll get to that a second. I have found the journey of people with type one, to be very inspirational, especially the parents caring for the children. And given what I've told you so far, you can see that that's probably really important to me. So great, big hurrah to the Daya moms and the dads their forces of nature. And just really heartwarming to see what they go through and what they do. And I'm glad that they found you in this podcast in the community because the magic is there being bold with insulin and facing the challenges and dealing with them takes a lot of courage and a lot of information. So we really get to me I am type two, you can tell because my weight and everything. I've had all the tests for type one, I'm a classic type two. And what happened? Is this going well.

Scott Benner 4:28
Are you kidding me? I'm gonna I'm gonna cry in a second. May I? Can I Can I interject here? I never imagined that the podcast would help somebody with type two diabetes. I hoped it would. But it didn't imagine it would. And let me tell you why and why I think you're such a special person. For the entirety of the time that I've been doing this going all the way back to writing about it and being just aware of people with diabetes, you know, and having scope being able to See many, many people, you know, living at the same time sort of virtually? The one thing that I've thought forever is we could help people with type two diabetes, but they don't have the same drive to be evolved involved in a community. And I, you know, I mean, I don't know why, right? I'm not there with them. I'm not a psychiatrist, I don't have type two. But it always seemed to me that it was a difficult thing to like, raise a flag for, like, it's hard to stand up, I'm imagining and say, I have type two diabetes, because most people are going to think, Oh, well, sure you ate your way to this. And then and then that pushes everything back onto you that you don't want to hear, which might even not be true for you, by the way, but even if it isn't, you know, it's not something you want to hear if it is, with type one. It's a thing that happened to you, and you're fighting back against it. And so I think that's the difference. I think that a type one feels like a thing happened to me. And I can stand up and push back. And with type two, it could feel like I did this thing. And I'm embarrassed. And because of this, is that right?

Jon 6:14
Yeah, very much. No, sorry. My Facebook is doing that thing again.

Scott Benner 6:17
Okay, well, yeah, I'm

Jon 6:19
really sorry. Too many computers, too many things going on. Um, it's very true. And I've had to go through a lot of evaluation and deep thought, to deal with the what I call the the very real chasm, I guess, the gulf between type one and type two. And I have my, my guilt burden, of course, and I, you know, it's like sexuality and other things, is it nature or nurture, and doesn't matter? Right. Ultimately, it's about for me taking responsibility for what I'm doing, and for who I am and learning from well, as we'll see, in this discussion, it became a matter of having the right tools and getting out of the type two, stereotypes and assumptions made by medicine and everything I'll add to your thing about not think not knowing that type, the Juicebox Podcast can be good for type twos. I'm professionally involved in looping right now. And we'll talk a little bit about that if the opportunity arises. I work in medical data networks to one pal, and I work with Ben West. And I have been working professionally on providing Nightscout, a loop to people for nine months. And of course, everybody I work with this type one. And the things you say make perfect sense. I'm sorry, I'm almost starting to ramble so much behind this time wrap. But type ones, in my opinion, have been dealt this hand at various ages, but often very young, and you have to deal with it, you have to incorporate into your life. And with type two, you get a real long tail, right? You can drag it out forever and ignore it. I could go on a big rant, I don't want to.

Scott Benner 7:58
So I'm sure I'm not 100%. Right for every person, right. But I think big picture talking about how to build a community, I think I've got the gist of it. And because you can't build a community around type two, it's hard to get enough type twos together to show them, hey, here's some steps, right? Or some tools or some ideas, they might help you a little bit or a lot maybe. Because you can't do that. No one tries. And so I always just in the back of my heart thought, eventually some type tools, you're going to find the podcast, it's going to help them and then I'm going to bring them on and have this conversation because I believe there's a type two podcast that would be just as valuable to TOS as it would be the ones as this podcast has been the ones and I think you could tailor it to them. And I even know how I want to do it. I've known for years how I want to do it not gonna sit here because someone will rip me off. I'm 100% certain. But the truth is, is until you can bring enough people together to support it, it won't matter. I'll be talking to myself and the person on the other end of the line. So I need to build momentum so that I can bring in more type twos until it becomes its own thing and then I can split it off. That's my idea. I'm trying to stay alive long enough for that to happen, John, and I'll tell you as you can hear me trying to clear my voice maybe it's not gonna happen, but I'm doing my best over here. I really do I see a pathway to it. You just have to get enough people to get started. That's all I'm sorry.

Jon 9:31
No, I'm sorry. Um, I talked a lot over talk sometimes. But you mentioned you hope to be stay alive to do a thing and I just wanted to interject that I have my nephew and niece here and it's not by blood, but it's a really big deal and they are my nephew and niece. And I haven't spent a good amount of time though for them for some years, but they came over and they're spending my birthday here with me at the house. 13 Charlotte and 14. Michael and I'm long ago when They were born, it was my I could get a little weepy here, definitely, I'm a very emotional person. It was like I want to live to see them in their teen years, the same kind of thing you know. And so that gets around to me taking care of my health at night, right? So the touchy thing I don't know if you remember, but when we scheduled this, it's because I reached out all a bundle of fire and flame, to do something to reach out to type twos. And we had this conversation. And I recognize that what you're doing is really good. You have experience in this community, I have a lot of experience in online communities. But I figured, let me learn more about myself and my diabetes and how I can help myself and then I can maybe try to do a group. So I think what you say is very true. There doesn't need to be a space for type twos. And another thing I've learned more than anything in my life, and I've been through a lot of diversity and a lot of diversity. But I've really learn to the diabetic community, how very important is to take everybody on. I don't know if the word is at face value, but to appreciate the differences that everybody has, and not be judgmental or declarative about things and let people express and be themselves within us. And you do a really incredible job of opening that door for everybody to speak and everybody to participate. And informing my thoughts. I had to be not too judgmental. But there is the the thing about type twos have to kind of bring it upon themselves. I call it behavioral or cultural diabetes. And I think even typed ones, and everybody has it because they want you to eat the big gulf, they want you to have the Big Mac, they want you to have restaurant portions that are absolutely insane for everybody. And so that leads to ill health across the board, regardless of whether you're type two or not. When I was very young, I had a oral glucose tolerance test, and they said I was pre diabetic.

Scott Benner 11:54
How old? How old? Were you when that happened?

Jon 12:00
I think I was probably around 12 ish. I'm gonna guess around 12.

Scott Benner 12:06
That's shocking. Yeah, I mean, at that age, it's, you know, let's break you. Let's break you down a little bit so we can tell the story. So you rattled some numbers off at the beginning. But in your teens, you're over 300 pounds. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. By 33 years old, you said you were up to 500? About 540.

Jon 12:25
But I was weighing myself at a feed store. And that's as high as scale that was past the 500. The scale would go. But I linearly interpolated the distance to the stop pin. Okay. Is that crazy? Dang,

Scott Benner 12:40
I didn't expect you to say feed store. John, I actually you got you caught me with that one. I just, I was thinking, as you were saying, as you started to talk, once you get to 500, another 40 pounds is, it doesn't probably even seem like a big deal.

Jon 12:55
Well, I'll tell you what I did at that time, as Lotus 123 had kind of made an appearance. And there were some date of government databases out there. And so I made my own spreadsheet to track him just memory but like 20, micronutrients and other nutrients and macronutrients and everything. And I would model my food. And I would swim a mile a day, every other day at the gym. And that's quite a thing at that weight. But I wasn't trained swimmer as a child. And it's all about form, right? Every lap was the same amount of time, backwards and forwards. When you're moving that much weight around, you don't want it bouncing back into itself. And so my swimming training helped me to do that. And I lost over 100 pounds that year, but then it was on again off again, in the decades since

Scott Benner 13:40
so you could have so you could you could successfully lose 100 pounds in a year. But it would just come back. Well, the 100 didn't

Jon 13:48
come back. So I got down from the five plus to you know, round 420 or so. And then over the years, it gravitated towards about 350. Okay, and then I would make determined pushes, right to get it down. And I got down to like 280 twice, but then rolled back and I gotta tell you, I was before the start of the zombie apocalypse. COVID

Scott Benner 14:11
Oh, I knew. Yeah, I know. Yeah,

Jon 14:12
everybody did, right. I was 280 pounds. I'm 270 ish right now. You know, it goes up and down every day. But I mean, within a pound or two or whatever, but I'm about 270 now, so I'm kind of back where I was then. But even then, my glucose was not good. You know, and I've got certain amounts of issues as a result of that. I don't know I got a little lost. So that's okay. I

Scott Benner 14:41
have questions. That's fine. So that's,

Jon 14:44
by the way, I kind of mentioned somewhere as is that you'll drag out at me what we need to

Scott Benner 14:49
we'll see what happens. If I'm on my game, right. I want to know about I want to know about when's the first time somebody said Do you have type two diabetes about What age was that?

Jon 15:01
That by memory, mind you is some words in my very early 30s,

Scott Benner 15:09
okay. And then

Jon 15:10
I had some sort of a cold kind of thing, whatever, you know, it was getting a bit like, unpleasant and I went to see a doctor. And somehow they decided to do the glucose thing. And it was I think it read the meter read something like, Oh, my God, and they put me on insulin.

Scott Benner 15:28
And that's what I want to know about. So when that happens to you in that in that moment, and you leave that office the first time, do you have any idea what's really going on? I mean, what's the what's the discussion, like the training, What's your understanding, leaving there that day,

Jon 15:44
I was on oral medications for a year or two. And then I'm kind of having to go way back in mind muscle memory. And then I saw this doctor because I was sick. And then he said, You need to be on insulin. And he handed me a pen, and showed me how to use the needle. But he was a really bad doctor. First thing he told me is I had bad pulses, and my feet was going to work. I was going to lose them soon. That was 30 plus years ago, and every doctor I've seen since then says I have my pulses are fine. So you know, and um, he was interesting. Some of the things he told me, I tried to put the little cap back on the pen needle, the little cap. And he was like, no, no, no, you don't do that. And I stuck myself i That's a funny memory I have. But he was he right from the bat told me go ahead and shoot through your pants or through your shirt, and reuse needles, and things like that. Right. Which was, I don't know, it's kind of true, you know. So that was the advice he gave me. And I remember thinking, Wow, is this this is pretty interesting. And

Scott Benner 16:44
how important can this be if I'm allowed to do it through my denim pants?

Jon 16:48
Kind of right. There was the needle go through? Exactly. denim pants? Yeah. And I guess yeah, thank you. You drag that out. It was a sort of a feeling like this is just happenstance. And it's

Scott Benner 17:01
can't be serious. Was there any education about hey, insulin does this it's made your pancreas your resistant? Your any words like that at all? Like,

Jon 17:14
absolutely not. Okay, get exercise, eat better. Take these drugs and get over yourself.

Scott Benner 17:22
See, I have to tell you like that is infuriating to me. What you just said not even the first part of what I was saying. I can't imagine a reasonable person, let alone a medical doctor, looking at a person who weighs three 352 84. Who cares? You don't I mean, like one of those one of those numbers and saying to you, oh, you know what you should do? Once you go for a walk and eat better? Sorry, no, no, no. Right? Because, because when that happens to you, in your mind, you must think oh, my gosh, I wish someone would have mentioned this earlier. Right? So it's not as if you were unaware of your health, or your weight or anything like you're I mean, talk about that for a second, you're not just not unaware, I'm assuming it, even capsules, it must be in most of your day in all of your thoughts, right? Like, I can't even imagine that it must have taken a lot of a lot of courage to go swimming at that weight.

Jon 18:24
You know, so I was raised institutionalized. And all that I've been diagnosed with every mental emotional disorder there is autism seems to be the one I'm most comfortable with. But without delving too far into that my childhood was full of abuse of all different labels that we don't need to go into right now. And my mother, there's, you know, munch houses.

Scott Benner 18:49
Yeah, yeah, sure. I yeah, there's a better

Jon 18:51
word for that, that we use in the diabetes community, especially a scientific word. It's, um, I forget the word is, but it's like when you're faking a low or you know, you're doing these things, right? It's that Munchausen thing and my mother, bless her heart is a piece of work and have a lot of problems. So there was a lot of getting me to be seen by doctors for my mind and my body in everything. So that really made me just very resistant to the whole thing about people meddling with me and telling me what I needed to do and throwing me around and did this or that diagnosis or treatment or whatever my weight problems are and we're very clearly about self image and trying to buffer myself from a lot of the realities of life and just it's a whole thing to unwrap right but it's a thing I did to insulate myself I believe and to avoid things and that's kind of a standard pathology there I think for

Scott Benner 19:49
John Yeah, John, I'm not trying to I you can stop me whenever you want to, obviously, but you you consciously and subconsciously try to make yourself unattractive to other people so that they'll absolutely They'll leave you alone, right?

Jon 20:01
At one. I mean, by the way, I'm here to be honest. And so drag it out, you know, I got no pride, I got pride, but that's not pride, right? I'm here to share. So that's exactly that's exactly the case.

Scott Benner 20:15
Okay, so some of this abuse was sexual

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Jon 24:23
Podcast sexual emotional and physical

Scott Benner 24:25
okay all right. And so you're building a force field around yourself basically and the only way you you can as a child but but I'm still like it's funny I'm now I'm stuck on a bunch of different thoughts but now I'm still stuck back on. I feel like I feel like telling a person in your situation once you get some exercise and eat better would be like coming up to me and saying if you really want to dunk Scott You just have to jump a little higher. And and then thinking that you helped me walking away proud of yourself going I got Scott on the path to dunking, you know what I mean? Well, meanwhile I'm five, nine, I can't get five inches off the ground and nothing you tell me to jump higher is ever going to make me jump any higher. And, and so then having laid it out that way and seeing just how ridiculous it is, my expectation has to be that a doctor who would say that to a person in your situation, what they're really saying is the I'm writing you off. And that's my fear that like, you know how I've been experiencing this with my mom recently. A little bit not anymore. We found the right doctor, but I don't know how much of this I've talked about on the podcast. So just very quickly. At 79 years old, my mother is living on our own, just doing great. And one day just says to us, she's in pain and she can't urinate. We take her to a doctor. Well, we take her to the hospital, it's COVID time, My poor mom sits in the ER, six, seven hours completely by herself in a house coat. You know, because my wall my brother's sitting outside in the driveway, like watching her through a window. My brother finally extracts her from that hospital takes her to another hospital where she seen and they very quickly dismiss her and tell her she has a UTI that happens to older people they say they keep her for a couple days, give her a bunch of medicine a couple days in the hospital, give her a bunch of medicine. She's still not urinating any better. They send her home, still in pain. But on these medications, don't worry, it's a UTI, you're going to feel better. A week later, my mom calls me and says Scott, this is getting no better at all. It might be getting worse, I can't urinate. It's just like it was just coming out of her at that point. She couldn't force it out. But she was so full. It was just come out, took her to another hospital. at that hospital. They did a bunch of scans. And then they drained her bladder for where they removed 1000 cc's of urine from my mom sent her home. It's just a UTI. She's fine now blah, blah, blah. Of course, it wasn't just a UTI. Her bladder fills back up again. We ended up back in a in a in a hospital. This time I'm with her. And I tell them you know as they're making her wait hours in the in the emergency room again. So COVID I took the charge nurse at the desk and I said listen to me. I was like my mom is shutting off. Look at her like she's she's collapsing. I said you have to drain her bladder. Now we'll figure out what's wrong later. Thankfully, I did that because not only did they take 2000 cc's of urine out of my mouth, that's a two liter bottle of soda. My mom comes back to life like literally like a wilted flower that someone put water on, she just rises back up starts talking again. But the big deal was that with the bladder drain, when they did the scans, they were able to see the softball sized tumor that my mom had on her ovary. Oh my god. Okay, so she had now been to two hospitals, her own doctor and a urologist over a month while she's tortured. No one found a softball sized tumor on her ovary. And I'm going to tell you that if I didn't push her to get drained prior to the scan, they still weren't going to see it because the urine was blocking the images. So that's the setup to this story. The rest of it is she now finds herself in the hospital where oncology OB starts explained to us that surgery would be dangerous. He says a lot of things that make you kind of feel like he's on your side and kind of make you feel like he's not going to do anything.

Let's send your mom to rehab for a week, get her strength back and I said to him, Hey, listen, a week before she had 2000 cc's of urine in her. She had plenty of strength. She was living on our own. She just couldn't pee. She doesn't need rehab. She's plenty strong. She needs you to take the cancer out of her. And he says to me over the phone one day, I'm not going to kill your mom on an operating table. So she's got to get stronger before I do this surgery. And that was it for me right there. John. I was like, Okay, this man's plan is to manage my mom into the grave. He is not trying to help her. He has no, he has no considerations about helping her. No, he's lying to us. She's gonna die and he's gonna go off to cancer got her before she could get rehabbed. I'm so sorry. And that was gonna be the end of it. Now, how do we fix this? Well, we get lucky because my neighbor's son grew up to be an orthopedic surgeon. So I call this kid and I asked him Do you know anybody works in this field? And he says, a girl I went to med school with. This is her background. He contacts her she contacts the guy that she works under. He says Bring your mom down. We go see an appointment. He tells my Mom Look, you're gonna be dead in four months. If we don't do anything. This surgery might be really difficult for you. What do you want to do? And my mom says, Why would like to not go down without a fight? And he says great, he scheduled the surgery now. My mom has a complete hysterectomy. On top of the cancer on her ovary, they found more cancer in her uterus. And some of that cancer had jumped to her omentum. I think I'm saying that correctly, which is the lining sort of inside of your body. The surgery took much longer than he expected. And the next day, I'm on the phone with my mother and I'm like, How's it go? Mom? She was, it's great. I'm fine, big, you know, she's cut from stem to stern, basically right down the front of her. And I said, How's the pain? She was no pain. I'm all good. I said, well, they got you on the good stuff, mom. And she goes, No, no, I'm taking Tylenol and ibuprofen. So my 79 year old mother had a complete hysterectomy with complications, right, they fixed a hernia while they were in there. And she's managing the pain on over the counter pain medications. And a month before that, there was a man willing to let my mom die because he said she wouldn't tolerate the surgery. So that's a very, very long story. Well, it segues

Jon 31:03
perfectly into one of the real things I wanted to share. Go ahead, I mean, really perfectly. Um, I had tried at various times in my life to rope things under control, as you can tell about my story about my weight loss. And I'm actually I put together a video of my tide pool stats that I animated across last year. And you can see that even during the dumpster fire portion of that, which I call it, there were weeks where I really, quote unquote, tried. And I would really work hard to modify my diet and everything. But the problem was, I was on an ever, enormously increasing amount of long acting insulin. And so what happens when you're taking 140 units of Lantis, or Joseba, you can't stop eating. And by that I don't mean compulsively or obsessively, I mean, to stay alive. So if I take that much insulin, and then I decide to have a very austere nutritional day, the Westmalle ma rescue squad is going to visit me again. And that happened three times in the last year. But over the years, I would go to my general practitioners. And I would say, because I'm a very smart guy, I pat myself on the back. And I would say I want to reduce my long acting insulin. And I would start like to start using fast acting insulin to Bolus to manage the meal time highs or event highs and not have this. Elephants put on my neck. And always, it was eat right, lose weight and get exercise. And I really appreciate that you call that out? How do you tell somebody between three and 500 pounds to do that

Scott Benner 32:47
do better? Great thing.

Jon 32:49
It's just insane. And especially when this guy is telling you things that map, this makes sense. And

Scott Benner 32:56
in the bigger picture, you don't get the 500 pounds, because you eat too much only right. You get there. But he should be looking at you saying Do you see a therapist? Yeah, a psychiatrist, do you?

Jon 33:09
That was part of the problem originally.

Unknown Speaker 33:11
Right? Right. Yeah. Right. So

Jon 33:12
that's what got me there, you know, was the therapist and the psychologist, but it's not

Scott Benner 33:17
just what it's not just what gets somebody there. It's what holds you there. Right, right. There's there's variables to a person's life, just like there are variables to managing your type one diabetes, or type two diabetes, there's things that happen, that you don't necessarily see that maybe even others around, you don't see. That are main stressors for what's happening. Well, actually,

Jon 33:39
my, my brother, as I call them, and kind of his bro dad, he was a hump. Well, that's a whole nother story. But these are his kids, actually. And we're not related by blood. But there's a lot going on there. And we came up with the phrase that everybody gets what they want, and that it applies in certain ways. So the reason that that was staying there was because it was a mechanism that was serving a need.

Scott Benner 34:00
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I

Jon 34:01
mean, I wasn't fat because I have food. I wasn't fat, because we're predisposition to this or that I wasn't all those things. It was I was desperately trying to cope with stuff. And that was a coping mechanism might come up with

Scott Benner 34:13
100%. And so a doctor telling you stop doing that. Well, that's

Jon 34:18
not doing what I think is working for me. Right, right. Right.

Scott Benner 34:21
keep in your mind, it's saving your life, by the way. And it's the same thing as when my wife had hypothyroidism before anybody would give her medication. Her life was crumbling around her. And they'd say to her, you just get more exercise and eat better. She's telling them like, you don't understand six months ago. I didn't do anything different. This wasn't my situation and you got to get more exercise and sleep, you know, get some more sleep. Are you getting enough sleep? It's just it's, it goes on and on and on. It happens constantly. It's going to happen to you. If you have type one, it's going to happen to you if you have type two, if you've been abused, if your thyroid stops working. It's going to happen to you if you're 79 you have cancer. thing everyone has to remember is that no one cares as much about you as you do. Not not even doctors. And even when you're caring poorly for yourself, right, right, it's exactly, it's not that you're not trying, you're just through forces and variables in your life and your psychology and, and in a number of different ways, you are making the best decisions that you can, and you are following the best paths that you can. And it's super simple to say just shut up and stop eating all that or, you know, you know, be normal, put the cookies away, you know, blah, blah, like whatever crap thing somebody might say to you about any number of anything. It's not about this, it's about everything. I hope that I hope that people listening can understand that what I'm trying to say is that everything we do, is influenced by more than you can see, even when it's you. And so coming up to someone and saying just do it differently. Is it kindred to like, I don't know, like finding a depressed person and saying smile? Well, thanks, because I'm depressed on purpose, because I forgot the smile, because that is absolutely silly. And it is the state of how we care about people, medically, most of the time, and often all of the time, we just don't see it, because it happens to certain people on certain levels. And some of you listening are lucky enough to be driven in the right way, educated in the right way intelligent, which you cannot take credit for. So that you can hear this basic advice. And then you take it home and put it into practice for yourself, really think about it. Who's really doing this for you. diabetes, right? Like it's a common thing. We always people say it all the time, in six months, you will know more about type one diabetes than your doctor does. Well, how though? Should that be real? Like, are you serious? Because I live with it? He's the guy. She's the person. Maybe she should try it? Maybe she should, you know, you know, engulf herself and diabetes till she understands it as well as I do. Wouldn't that make sense? Because the doctor that fixes your heart, they immerse themselves in heart surgery till they understand it better than anybody else. Why is this? Why is this acceptable? And that? The answer is I have no idea. This is how it works. This is this is the state of human beings helping human beings in 2022, this is the best you can hope for. And if you don't advocate for yourself, if you don't do the things that you need to do, and you expect somebody else to do them for you, you are going to come to a bad end. That's all now I'm all upset, John this early in the morning, I'm sorry. Well, you

Jon 37:45
know, I things come to mind, there's things I wanted to make sure to cover in this interview. And I also had in my mind, like, as the shows as the podcast unfold, even if it's something completely unrelated to me menopause, let's say, um, you, you and your guests overall, and expose different thoughts and ideas that are valuable to me. And I'm so I thought to myself, when I'm doing this, like, what do I expect? Also, since you don't pre interview, you don't discuss, there's no images here, you just call in and go. And that's very real in live. And I was like, well, where's that gonna go? Because he's, I'm very controlling. And I find that you know, as I've heard you touch on the right thing. So I want to really quick run through a couple of things. You were right on here, go and kind of the brighter side, like, where does it turn around, because I talked about a lot of kind of, you know, daunting kind of things. And so they would always tell me, you know, take care yourself, blah, blah, blah. And so this time, my GP a nice guy, but the same bad advice, moved out of state, I got a new GP. And this guy was brilliant, because I went to him again with my pitch, right? I want to get fast acting insulin because blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah. And the guy looked at me and almost detached, but not but you know, he said, You need to go see an endocrinologist, would you like a referral. And he was like, we're not really going to talk about that Gaussian, Endo, and not in a bad way. And so I saw her a month later. And I like to tell the story, because what I did is I told her look, I'm the owner operator of this guy here. I'm the captain of my ship. And I'm looking for a chief medical officer. And I'm, I'm interviewing you for that position. And the key here is that you have the keys to the medicine locker. I don't and you have the skills and knowledge to assist and advise me in running my ship. And so can you work with that? She said, Well, hell yeah. And she said, Is your pharmacy such and such I'll send out a prescription for him a lot. And I give and so what she did is she gave me that that chart, I forget what you call it like 150 and above do a unit 250 Do another 200 Do another unit etc. And she sent me on my way to figure it out, not in a bad way he was she is incredibly overworked. And she's a saint, because I'll tell you what happened in that meeting after after she said, I'll send in the prescription for the Himalayan. She said, Have you ever thought about a pump? And I'm gonna take two. And I never thought about a pump. And for me a pump was somewhat akin to a backpack, with hoses sneaking out of it, and you know, some, you know, thing. And I thought, well, that's not for me. But then I thought, hmm. And she said, Yeah, I said, Well, tell me more. And she said, blah, blah, blah. She said, There's tube and tubeless. And I sleep like a blender. There's just no way a tube situation goes to work. And then she mentioned, you know, the tubeless thing. And I don't want to turn this into an advertisement for Omnipod. But I'll tell you what, I live 40 minutes out of town stopped at my pharmacy and picked up the human log. I'm a real smart guy. I'm all about the Google and before the Google the Dewey Decimal. And I learned things. And so I never had filled up my mind with what a pump was. So I got home, and I got the human log in my home, let me check that out. Let me give a dose of that or whatever. And I'm reading about the Omni pod stuff. And I get a call from the from the Omni pod rap. And at the time, I was on Medicaid because my business imploded. And, um, you know, that's COVID story, right? And he said, Well, you're on Medicaid. And the funny thing is what Virginia has done as of like, last month, you're good to go. And we'll ship you out bunch of these zombie pots.

And that was fantastic. And now all of a sudden, I was the owner of a whole new thing, right? fast acting insulin, and now even a pump. And so I was devouring, you know, just screens, pump screens and tabs upon tabs, and I was learning about it. And then the only product rep called me and that happened. And a bad experience with my pump trainer, she got me started said we would talk again the next day on three, three days again later. And it took 10 days to get hold of her. Well, in that period of time. I had read read before about artificial pancreas and I studied up on it. And I built loop and started running loop. And I was running it open loop and fiddling with it. And then I figured well now I'm gonna need a Nightscout. So I'm very data driven. But I was going through crises, you know, the change and everything. And I was I was really going through, I just didn't have time. And I just wanted to get the thing up. And I'm not trying to make this a pitch. But I found a business that offers a prebuilt you just sign up and your Nightscout is there. And I work there now. And I have a small tech support as you're getting started. And I mentioned that in my documents in my tech support tickets. And you know, next thing you know, I'm working there, and I do well, most all the tech support. And I also do engineering. I'm a Unix and systems engineer. But um, it just shows how deep that getting things. So that's a side thing. But the important thing was I was looping right away. And the other important thing is that so I'm working with them last and I'm getting to meet people who are very familiar and intimately involved in the whole thing. And they've told me repeatedly that we never thought this would be something type twos would use. And so here's an interesting thing is I see peptides that I've had now since I'm getting back on to take you realizing I'm a diabetic and that I want to not that I want to live I want to live comfortably until I die. You know I'm saying I mean I want to live but this is just like stop the terror. And I'm in so anyways, there's this thing about we never kind of thought work with type two. So C peptide, right? So I am insulin panic, which is an unusual thing for type twos. Type ones are insulin dependent, which means they don't make sufficient or any insulin as you as we know, you know, it doesn't mean absolutely zero, there's a little bit of variance, but it's pretty much you know, none, but I am in that boat. So I'm at risk of DKA and other things. And I'm learning to understand and live with that. And it may be that, you know what it is is we know that at the end game of type two, you lose beta cell ability, right? And I don't have autoimmune and so things I've come to understand is I don't have the complications of autoimmune. I'm not allergic to this. I'm not allergic to that. Hashi motos, celiac. All the other things I've heard about learned here. Those aren't on my back, right? I can eat poison and do fine. You know, I'm saying I got that kind of cost. I can eat class shards mixed with poison and I'm good. No allergies or nothing. So but I am insulin panic.

Scott Benner 44:45
Hey, John, let's stop for a second just to find that for people just in case that's not a word you hear too often. But it very simply. I want to make sure you're using it the way I understand it. It just means that you're you're just producing an inadequate amount of insulin Right? Correct. Okay. So, and most type twos produce a zone that gets overwhelming amount of insulin, right? That just doesn't get used or, or. Right. And that's why we have 200. And you 500 Right, right. Okay, go ahead. So, hey, so real quick. Let's stop and go backwards for a second before we get too far away from this, please, prior to them putting you on insulin. Your management consists of I'm guessing Metformin, Donald's mix. Where you were taking you were taking Metformin, what was it doing anything?

Jon 45:37
How I mean, how could you even tell us pissing into a tornado?

Scott Benner 45:40
Okay, was there anything else they were giving you besides eat right and go for a walk?

Jon 45:45
No. And but I'll tell you right now, I'm on a GLP. One, I have been for many years as trans transition from what's it to ozempic. And on SG LT two Jardiance. And those are additional drugs that are not indicated for type one, you don't want it for type one. And as an interesting thing there because those can complicate insulin therapy. As you may have heard, Jardiance and stLt. Two can lead to hypos, it very much complicates things.

Scott Benner 46:16
Okay. I'm sorry, I get confused when people say it was that big, because then I hear the jingle in my head. And if I don't, if I don't play it out, in my mind, I can't get rid of it sometimes, but it's gone. Now. I took care of it while you were talking. So

Jon 46:32
you're the ranking that sometimes I'm a little bit envious of type ones. I'm joking, right. But they don't have to dial in those elements, they do have to dial in the attendant on immune world, right. But you're not having to manage those drugs and insulin at the same time. And the other thing I want to point out is my diet, I eat less than 25 grams of carbs a day, all from fresh vegetables. I do not eat anything that I don't prepare and cook in my house from raw foods. I'm not some hippie dippie thing on this. It's just science, pure science. There's hippie dippie elements to me, but this is nothing other than medicine. Okay, and if I do eat a sec, I eat one meal a day. And if I do eat a second meal, it's an omelet in the midday. And that's just what the important thing here is. That's what works for me. When I see your kids out there having chocolate chip waffles and you know who I'm talking about? If you're listening to this, I live vicariously through the chocolate chip waffle. But I've had every card cheap and expensive, deep and rich that you can have in a human lifetime. And I've got memory banks. Cool. I don't need to go there.

Scott Benner 47:41
I'm starting to change that

Jon 47:43
happened to me this time. Yeah. John

Scott Benner 47:45
at 50 years old. I'm starting to understand why older people stop eating.

Jon 47:50
It's a it's a it's a bother. I just

Scott Benner 47:53
I've had it already. I'm good. It's not gonna be surprising when I eat it.

Jon 47:59
That I want to say also, I cook the hell my kitchen is a temple. I do. No, I'm serious. And I love to cook. And I cooked with these kids last night I made the most beautiful Faroe Islands, salmon, and steamed brussel sprouts.

Scott Benner 48:14
I bought two steaks yesterday, which I will smoke tomorrow. And then I've

Jon 48:20
been taking up smoking.

Scott Benner 48:21
Yeah, I will slice them down very thin, and eat them as I walked. But like a couple of times, they'll reach in and pull a couple slices out and eat it like that. And that's the happiest I'll be because I'll be you know, I don't know, like I'm just not snacking on snacky stuff and etc. But But, but I want to understand you start using insulin. You go pretty much right to looping. Is that correct? timewise you're not too damn straight. Yeah. Okay. All right. So insulin on the pod looping. When do you find the podcast in those steps?

Jon 48:55
Right around there.

Scott Benner 48:57
Okay, find the

Jon 48:57
podcast because I'm all I'm a heat seeking information missile.

Scott Benner 49:01
Okay, well, that's beautiful. And then at that, so I want to Timeline this at that moment. When you find insulin, what's your weight?

Jon 49:11
My clinical weight measured in the office was 337 pounds.

Scott Benner 49:15
Alright, so your 337 when you find when you get on insulin, you also make other changes to eating at that point. Where does that come after you start having some success.

Jon 49:26
So you know, the funny thing there is it starts happening right away. But what's really cool is to see continuous process improvement and the results. And so it started really fast. It was really getting dialed in, but now it's much much much more refined. Right? So at the time, I was still doing a thing where I'd be like Look, don't eat compulsively don't eat all the time. Don't eat all don't graze through the night and more like grazie was kind of like a snowplow on the highway. And just knock all that off. But then my comfort was a delicious sourdough sandwich recipe If cheese vegetables, and you know those huge planks of sourdough bread. Oh, there's nothing I love you the one you know, I'm talking about through a big bowl right from the middle slices,

Scott Benner 50:10
I would toast it and throw a little bit of sea salt over top of it to

Jon 50:13
stop it. I could just live a life of that. Of course. Yeah, by the way, right now, right now, in my head. I'm just getting the memory back. I don't need it. But I certainly remember it. I love that sandwich. But that was 50 grams. And I'll tell you another thing. So the CDE, the educator that they hooked me up with their who's dealing with a million people, it has a very conventional outlook, told me I should be eating 50 to 65 grams per meal, three times a day and 215 grams snacks. And when I got to just when I actually had the Bolus for those and watch the effect, oh, I should also tell you that I was using Dexcom for four years to the week before I started this, okay. And all it was was this damn alarm. And I think that my friends would call me out

Scott Benner 51:02
here. Yeah, you suck. John. I bet you that's what it sounds like when it was beeping.

Jon 51:07
Yours. My friends, I'd be on the phone or something like this, or even with some people, I don't get out what it'd be like me, me, it'd be like that look. That will look like it. They were like the extra volume to the alarm. Right?

Scott Benner 51:22
Hey, let's go on to that for a second. So where was that high alarm set?

Jon 51:28
I lived my life between 250 and 350. Okay, so I'll tell you what if I woke up in the morning, under 150, it was a glorious victory.

Scott Benner 51:40
Okay, I've heard people say that wearing a glucose monitor for someone in your situation. Can for some people offer a window into things that they didn't know what was what was happening, and that that could help motivate them towards change. But it may not work that way for you.

Jon 51:58
Here's the important Well, here's the thing. Now, I'm so glad we're here. And I love your interviewing skills. And it's both a matter of knowing the person you're talking to you somewhat listening and your own knowledge about these things. But this is the important part. It didn't. And the reason was because they didn't have the tools. Now here's the glorious thing. So that's why I was getting tea. She said Do you want a pump, right? And then the guy says your pumps are on the way. And then I'm googling what the world of pumping is. What is this stuff? How does it work. And then I got loop where right now I run loop Dev, I run something called a switcher patch. So it allows me to just change the amount of the auto Bolus, there's a level at which auto Bolus switches from Basal adjustments to auto Bolus is also a new negative iob thing. It's all very cool. So for me, it's like science, science science, right? And if I have the data and the tools, and in other words, the knobs and the dials now I can have effect before it was like anesthesia. That's what the treatment was pumped, jam this stuff through your leg and roll and exercise. And so it was this big veil of ignorance and a thing attached to me that would just tell me how bad I was doing. Yeah, yeah. And so the thing that the crucial victory for me was having the tools to adjust the data and to get the data where it needed to be. And to understand that the data was a true reflection of my health in the moment. Is that No, I'm important as I want it to be.

Scott Benner 53:25
It's perfect. It makes perfect sense.

Jon 53:27
And so that, for me was the liberating thing that changed things. And so I told you, I've lost before, right? I've been to at before, but through those journeys, one of them was like this liquid diet thing with the hospital and the whole thing and the other was similar, you know, and the best one was that first 100 pounds I lost. Well, but that was bringing me from the brink of literal death. Right. In other words, I think I dropped down to 400 Because I could maintain that wonder.

Scott Benner 53:54
Yeah, so 500 It's, it's critical mass, like something bad's gonna happen really fast. So you

Jon 54:01
got when you cannot perform basic daily intimate hygiene needs. Are you with me? Can't wipe your ass you can't wipe your Ascot you know, I'm really like out here and i

Scott Benner 54:15
By the way, there's a huge part of me that wants to call the episode can't wipe your ass Scott.

Jon 54:23
Oh, yes.

Scott Benner 54:24
Yes, yes. Yes. And I and I made a note to thank you for saying last year at some point in the episode saying which you said ostheer earlier and I was like, well, there's a word I don't get too often from people. I appreciative of that. But so Okay, so you

Jon 54:42
you overcompensate with vocabulary? Yeah.

Scott Benner 54:44
Well, I like a nice word once in a while. So you dive into this whole thing. How long ago? Is you starting insulin on the calendar?

Jon 54:53
See, that's really hard to nail down. Right. Okay. Because again, it was like a big veil of ignorance. You know, I'm marketing In my life I can remember was where I was when I had a thought 20 years ago, but I can't exactly fix that, right? So you fix it with where that doctor's office was and where you were at the time kind of thing. And in my mind, that's got to be in the early 2000s, like, early 2000s. And I remember the doctor saying, this is some new stuff. And that was Lantis. Now, I know Lantus was kinda like 99 ish or something. I don't know. 995, maybe even I don't know. But I guess it was new to him, right? Because he was like,

Scott Benner 55:36
Well, John, it's funny, I knew this, but he got away from me too. So all of this, any success, I'm making finger quotes that you had over the last 20 years, like, you know, waking up at 150 Being a good thing, most of the time living over 250, that was with a background insulin happening, you had a Basal insulin going on in you, and that was still your outcomes. And you know,

Jon 55:59
it was 60 for a long time. And then it went up and up. And then it was 80. And then it was 100. And then it was 120. And then it was 140. Wow. And that was to have that kind of profile, right. And then I would have an austere day. And I talked to my friends at the end, I'll tell you funny thing about that, um, lows, as you know, lows aren't the same as they were, then I can, I can be 50. And I don't get there. But I could write I mean, I really do a good job of not having lows to my lowest lows. After the first couple, I had a 51 or 52. But my lows now, run 6165. And I actually set my actual range down to 65. Okay, because I'm not too worried between 70 and 65. And I'll tell you think about that, Scott, thank you, I have learned not to fear insulin, because I had tremendous insulin trauma, tremendous and feared the hell out of it. And now I'm making a move to the powerful stuff, right. And, um, it was frightening. And what I got from the podcast got more than anything, was the context to understand the use of insulin. And that you don't have to be afraid of it and that it's a tool that you can use effectively.

Scott Benner 57:16
That's great. It's long been my feeling that you can't possibly take good care of yourself with manmade insulin if you're afraid of it at the same time. And, and that's just I've been, I mean, before the podcast, I would write about it, just trying to get people over fear, etc. So okay, so blanches forever. Now suddenly, you're pumping so you know now your Basal insulin receiver for a while, right, you got to receive and there's

Jon 57:48
receivers even worse for what's going on with me because receivers halflife is double. And you can't get out from under Lantus. But you sure as hell can't get out from underneath receiver. That's something you got to deal with for days. Right.

Scott Benner 58:00
Gotcha. So when we go to pumping, how long ago was that?

Jon 58:05
That would be I started pumping July 1 of last year. Oh,

Scott Benner 58:09
okay. No, yes, yes. July 1, July 2021. At that moment, you weigh what?

Jon 58:16
330 psi. I mean, I 337 like two weeks before that. So let's call it 330. All right.

Scott Benner 58:22
And now we're in April 2022. May, June, July, you're not you're only nine months into this really? Where's your weight now?

Jon 58:29
Under? You know, especially the bigger you are, the more variance you have through the day. So morning weigh ins are always the best. And I'm consistently coming in under 272 For the last four or five days.

Scott Benner 58:40
Wow, that's really something so you're down. Jesus. So yeah, he's a calculator about 6065 pounds maybe. And in nine month, and the end the the change is your managing your hands. It's funny, because I think people would think, Oh, higher blood sugars. You must be that must be better, because you're probably losing insulin, like I don't mean better like that. But I mean, you must be losing weight, because your blood sugars are high all the time. But that wasn't even the case. You know, how since ever even thought of that some eating disorders. You know, I mean, we've talked about it enough. Now, please don't want to do this. But you can manipulate take your insulin away, make your blood sugar higher. And you know, you almost like when you're you know, when people are diagnosed, like I was so skinny, right? They were so skinny because they were in DKA. Probably they needed insulin and they didn't have it. So some of the eating disorders involve you manipulating insulin to keep your blood sugar higher, so you'll lose weight, but my point is, is your blood sugar was plenty high and you are not losing weight. And so now you've got your

Jon 59:46
treating with metformin, McDonald's, you know,

Scott Benner 59:52
yeah, and you're treating with nothing, you're not eating well, and so now you're eating obviously, how many how Do you think about you think about his calories during the day? No,

Jon 1:00:02
I do not give one whit a calories are meaningless to me. All I care about is my carbs and my glucose because everything else will follow. Gotcha. If I'm treating my carbs, right, and I'm not having to use massive amounts of insulin for it, and there's nothing wrong if you're 17 or 35, or whatever the hell and you're not obese and so forth, then you know, have all the cake you can please and think about me while you're having it. But I don't need that it doesn't work for me, right? So part of my metric or as it were, is reduced insulin usage indicates reduced need for insulin, which means less glucose, which means less nutrition. It has to be good nutrition. That's the important thing for me. I cannot spend my my grams on crap.

Scott Benner 1:00:52
Yeah, the glycemic impact from the foods

Jon 1:00:56
that I just can't spend it on crap. If I eat something that has carbs in it, it has to have nutritional value. Good nutritional value, it has to be cauliflower. It has to be broccoli. Carrots are, you know, higher, but they work really well for me, right? I don't do potatoes. I don't do rice. I don't do I will have like two slices of Dave's than sliced bread a month maybe. Because I just the stars line up that I don't have vegetables ready or I didn't go to the market or whatever. So I have an open face. Amber. Yeah. But anyways, yeah, the important answer your question there is I only care about carbs. And I don't have a protein rise. That's interesting. I thought I would get a protein rise because the volume that I'm eating it, right, like we'd have to get it somewhere. And so what I think is going on is there's just so much coming out of my fat.

Scott Benner 1:01:46
Do you have any feeling that your is your own insulin production helping you at all or no? Right? Yeah,

Jon 1:01:52
I mean, still in a panic there. Yeah, there's so really the answer your question is I so part of that answer is where I am right now is I have an agency of five three measured at the lab on Friday and compare ation for this. And my coefficient of variation and standard deviation are both 10. And what's the other factor my time and range? 65 to 120 is 96%. My time and range to 140 is 100. And so that's kind of bragging in Hell yeah, right, take your victory lap, but more, it just reflects the control I've been able to achieve. And you can't really I think you can't really, you have to have minimal variability to do that. Right? I mean, you have to know where your sugars going.

Scott Benner 1:02:42
Yeah, it does. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. I'm gonna say something, please take it away. I mean, not the way it's gonna sound. But the podcast helped you with all this, right?

Jon 1:02:53
You know that. So there's a thing I take comfort, what I get from the podcast, is I enjoy your interviewing, I'm in the car, or whatever, I listened to PBS, I don't listen to music, unfortunately, I do at home. But I'm all about the data. And I'm learning those things. And this has a very, a somewhat, you know, pbse kind of tone to it. It's very informational. There's a rich amount of information. So I get that from and I get community from it. And the funny thing is, this is largely a type one community and even within that, it's largely a family community. And neither of those things am I. And yet, I get a tremendous amount of community from it. And I wanted to do some shout outs here for some names, but I realized I couldn't get them all together. But there are a few people out there that I recognize and hello to you that have typed to, and are not afraid to talk about it and understand that, you know, whatever it amounts to you have take responsibility for your health, right and do this thing. Whatever was unfair, is still unfair, but you're the person that's carrying that burden.

Scott Benner 1:04:01
I'm, I'm incredibly proud of you. I know that that's a weird thing to say, we don't know each other, we've never looked each other in the eye. And when you reached out to me to tell me how you were doing, or when I see you in the Facebook group talking about how you're doing. I mean, if the podcast was valuable to you in any way, like I don't care if it's about using insulin, or if it's about community or if it's just about making you feel better in any way at all. I take a lot of I just take a lot from that. And it makes me feel terrific. And it and it to me kind of proves out the idea that anybody using insulin would find something valuable about the show or those with insulin, Scott. Yeah, that's really

Jon 1:04:41
one of the main things and community and really within that you do a good job in the group and it's not hard. I've run some groups in Facebook that have a few 1000 people very heavy participation for a decade, and we don't tolerate nonsense. You're either in there because you want to be there and you enjoy people. And if you're one of these slike zombies, you just need to go and do that stuff some results. And you're able to actually give people a lot more leash than I would allow in my groups to catch themselves and recover, and then they do. And that's a pretty good feeling, I'm sure. And it's a good feeling as members of the community to see those people understand the vibe in the group, which is to be supportive, non judgmental, and open minded is an important thing. And that's something I get out of all of your, the after dark episodes, we could do a hell of an after dark episode,

Scott Benner 1:05:33
maybe we will one day, John. So it's kind of like those

Jon 1:05:37
60 minutes or whatever interviews where the they're in the shadow and their voice sounds like this.

Scott Benner 1:05:43
I actually, I tell you, what, if I knew how to do that, I have an episode I could release, but I have one recorded. I don't want to say they work in an endos office. And they basically talked all about what they think goes wrong, and it endos office, but it's so obviously this person that I can't release it, they'll get fired, and I can't figure out how to change the person's voice.

Jon 1:06:07
I wish I told you I work with people that are meaning to use Nightscout and loop and not so into building it. Right. And um, so I spend a lot of hours not only do I do engineering, Unix, and TCP IP, you know, networking, all those kinds of things. DevOps, but I also do the support. And I probably spend about 12 to 20 hours a week talking to people about how to use these things and talking about their diabetes, I'm not, none of the advice I give is, should be considered nothing I say should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. But every single one of them I work with, this is the things I tell them about. And I tell them about, I tell them, they need to go to Juicebox Podcast. And I tell them that Integrated diabetes is out there. And the funny thing is, it's not because of you endorsing or doing those things, it's because that's my endorsement, based on my observations of what works and I think that people out there newly diagnosed or diagnosed for a long time, but not on their game or feeling they're not on their game. If they listen to this podcast, if they listen to the Pro Tips series, from beginning to end in the order that's intended. They're just going to come away with with a real journey begins level knowledge of what to do. And then they just practice it and they ask questions and they can go through it. And that's for me what this resource is that you've created. It's an open non judgmental community that teaches people how to use insulin.

Scott Benner 1:07:39
Yeah, you know, Tony, by the

Jon 1:07:40
way, I've been wanting to say this for a long time, Scott, go ahead. I call you. You're gonna chuckle I call you the prophet of insulin.

Scott Benner 1:07:48
But that made me laugh. That's exactly what

Jon 1:07:50
I say. I say Scott Benner is the prophet of insulin.

Scott Benner 1:07:54
I am, I have to tell you, of all the wonderful things you just said, it's possible if I had to rank them in the order that I'm most proud. It's of the part you talked about inside of the Facebook community, giving people time to get through whatever thing is happening to them that caused them to not want to be part of the community the way you described, but be a contrarian, or you know, be difficult. And I and I want them so badly to get to a better place

Jon 1:08:23
than touched on this in a recent episode is that people are so angry at their diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:08:27
dads, and it's so understandable. I can't, I'm not going to be the one. Like, look what you've just explained, right? Or what any number of people talked about coming on the show or what you see online. The success that these people are happening having? I don't who am I to keep them from that? So if they show up in my thing, and they're, I don't know, not not exactly, you know, ready to have conversations or feel good about things or whatever, and they they lash out or they're, they're difficult or trying to stir the pot or whatever it is they end up doing. I don't feel like I'm I'm not the I'm not I'm not the judge. You know what I mean? Like, I don't get to say you don't learn about Pre-Bolus thing. You're gonna be you know, who am I to take that from them? I've just seen so many people, adults, elderly, children, parents, everyone, right, you know, red, yellow, black, green doesn't matter. Like all these people have these experiences and their health gets better. And I am not going to be the one to stop that from happening to them. So I try my hardest to shepherd them through whatever's going on remotely from my desk, and now Isabelle helping in the Facebook page as well. She

Jon 1:09:42
was just wanting to get a break and hi so funny. I was just now waiting for the break so I could mention Isabel

Scott Benner 1:09:50
Yeah. So she she's such a great way she'll be on eventually. I imagine Hold on one second as I text my mom that I'm busy. Give me one second here. Um

I don't, it's got to be back in the oh my god, it's must be over six months. Now, I get a note from this person that basically says, I see what you're doing and I want to help. And that says, That's a scary proposition for me, because you've described that I'm doing okay, you know what I mean? And I know why things work. And I know when to push, and I know when not to push, and how can I bring another person into this? Because they're not gonna understand my sensibility. But I get on the phone, and he or she is a grown person with her own children. And says that, yeah, he she, but she knows what I'm doing. Like, like, I felt like when she started explained to me what she thought I was doing. There was part of me that was like, is she in this room? Like, how she, like, she really just got me and ice and now Now imagine this situation on them? It's not it's not a fun or easy job. I can't pay her. She just does it. Through kindness for other people. And I can't wait. That's why people that's why people write loop. Yeah, no, of course. I mean, John, it's insane, right? For all the doctors and all the institutions and all the companies, your your entire story about how you escaped every medical thing that was happening to you. Basically, all the touch points are aware of nice people in the world who are also struggling with a thing that you have came together and did a thing and made it available to everybody else. And I want to tell you something I might sound angry about in a second. I don't mean to but it just bothers me so badly. When I started this podcast, I got a note from a person who told me that I was going to hurt somebody by telling them to be bold with insulin. And to that person, I say if you if you are here today, and you hear this episode, you please hear that it it saved John, and amen. Yeah. And I know how many people listen to this podcast, and how often it is downloaded and streamed and listened to and I won't say those numbers specifically out loud. But I will tell you that more people will listen to my podcast today, then we'll listen to probably every other diabetes related podcast this month, combined. And so

Jon 1:12:26
you need you know, honestly, though he only reached 100 people.

Scott Benner 1:12:29
Oh, it would be amazing. And it was it used to be amazing. John, I used to trust me first month of the podcast 1300 downloads. I'm going to tell you right now, there better be more than 1300 downloads in that hour. You and I are talking or I'm going to be like, oh, something's wrong. So,

Jon 1:12:45
you know, like some of the time this makes it to the Aerobie a million.

Scott Benner 1:12:48
Oh, please, the show's gonna hit 6 million total, soon, a week or so. And it's very possible that it could be at 1112 13 million in a year.

Jon 1:13:03
And the important thing there is that's an indicator of the reach.

Scott Benner 1:13:07
Forget the reach John, calling it a prophecy makes me uncomfortable. But

Jon 1:13:11
the I use it humorous. probably hear the smile.

Scott Benner 1:13:14
I did. I did. I just got to make sure people don't think I actually think but

Jon 1:13:19
not it's really you're a voice in the woods, telling people insulin is good.

Scott Benner 1:13:29
I'm telling you, if you need insulin, you need to use it. And that's that's that and it's not stalking if you need it. It's not stalking if you need a job. That's Bolus thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, point point is, is that is that people need, they need the truth. What they do with it after that is not my business. Right? If if someone hears bold with insulin, and decides to give themselves 20 units when they need to, John, I don't know what I can do about that or not do about that. But I can tell you that I don't think it's incredibly likely that someone's going to go from a two unit Bolus to a 20 unit Bolus and hurt themselves. But what I think is important, and what I have seen proven out over again, is that part of my job is really just to be a coach. I'm sort of the guy that slaps you on the ass while you're running out on the field and goes, you can do it like that. That's sort of that right? And how are you going to do that? You're going to do it by understanding how insulin works. And you're

Jon 1:14:26
there's your every time that you turn a lap, you're there saying that? Yeah, we're gonna crowd the crowd behind behind him to the side of you is saying that, um, it's hard not to want to finish each lap. And what

Scott Benner 1:14:39
it does is it draws other people in from the sidelines, and then they jump out there and they start running to the dance part. Yeah, it just, it's so the whole thing just makes sense to me, and it always has. I've never understood this idea of like, Don't share your agency. It'll make somebody feel bad. What about for all the people? That's,

Jon 1:15:01
that's that's a thing for me, I find in type two groups, when I share my success, there's some outright blatant hostility that goes down.

Scott Benner 1:15:11
Yeah, but it's helping way more people than the angry people. And I can tell you from my experience that sometimes those angry people, those people who see that and go you like, they basically want to be like, go to hell, you know what I mean? Like, I can't accomplish this, don't rub this in my face. You know how many notes I've gotten from people who said, it says something to that effect. And then six months later, I get a note from that same person who says, Hey, I'm so sorry about the angry note I sent you six months ago, my a one C 6.5. Now, and I understand what you're saying, and it just rubbed me the wrong way at first, but I was in a bad place. It wasn't you it was me is basically what the what it says. And if you don't give people the opportunity to figure that out, then no one's going to figure it out. And sure, we might not save everybody. But isn't it better to? Isn't it better to help five out of 10 people than zero out of 10 people? You know, I just that just makes that makes common sense to me. So anyway, John, I want to ask you if there's anything else you want to talk about, because believe it or not, I'm trying not to make your episode too long. So people don't get scared away by the fact that you have type two diabetes. And yeah, long episode. So I know

Jon 1:16:20
you don't edit much, but I hope I've given of myself well enough to be of use to people. And I'm out here in the community. And I, it's a bless everybody who's might be listening to this, you all are really a blessing to me and part of my victory.

Scott Benner 1:16:37
No, that's wonderful. I just, I can't thank you enough for doing this. And I do believe you'll be back on. But I just really appreciate this, John. Also, it

Jon 1:16:45
was very good that I had to wait eight months or so to be here because my story wasn't well enough formed and didn't have enough substance. So I would say to anybody, you know, who is invited or has an opportunity use those months to learn your story. I guess if that's what worked for me,

Scott Benner 1:17:03
John, that's a that's a secret of the podcast that I don't really say out loud. But I know Yeah, the I'm, I don't use the word blessed very often. But I am blessed that people want to be on the show so much. I do record almost every day. And at the moment, now we're talking APR 12. I'm full for the year. And I'm and I'm going to have to open up 2023 Pretty soon, but I'm trying to wait into the summer a little bit. People sometimes are very motivated. They they you know, they get lit up by something, they learned something or they're seeing something and they want to come talk about it. They don't even realize they're not fully formed yet. And so the six months the six or so months, you have to wait to get on the podcast is the great time for you to compile, compile, compile. So you can tell me Hey, Scott, like you do a great job talking to people all these episodes are really valuable, etc. But part of that secret there is that I don't just let people on who have a wild hair up there button. Want to come on real quick. Like, and I'll tell you three, two I came in. Yeah. Oh, you were shot out of a cannon when you first like reached out to me. And I was super excited for you. But I was like, not yet. And

Jon 1:18:17
put a fork in it. It still came out what

Scott Benner 1:18:19
Yeah, and maybe I'll tell you twice a year I log on. There's no one there. And I go, Okay, fair enough. I made him wait six months. I like that, too. Yeah, but But and then I just added I just spend the time editing. But I mean, there's no shortage of people who want to be on the podcast. And because they have to wait. And they get to, just like you said, they get to really firm up their ideas. That's why you get a good conversation. So I can't thank you enough again, for everything. For sharing yourself in that space. I think we're going to motivate more people with type two diabetes to to see the light for themselves. And and I think you're going to be a part of that. So thank you very, very much.

Jon 1:19:01
Thank you, Scott. And I don't know just keep doing what you're doing. And it's a tremendous honor to have been a part of the podcast and I really is and to share my little part of things and I hope that I this I hope this episode is not too embarrassing and is helpful to people.

Scott Benner 1:19:19
No, it's beautiful. It's a it's a really beautiful thing you did so thank you

I'd like to thank John for coming on and telling his type two story and remind you that if you have type two diabetes, I'd love to hear from you. I also want to thank Dexcom makers of the Dexcom G six and Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod five, go to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox or Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to get started Today where to find out more about their offers, or just read about their products. I want to thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast

actually, I guess if you want to find out about that Facebook group that John's in, it's the Juicebox Podcast, private Facebook group. It's called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. Go check it out.

#687 Go Forth and Be Diabetic

Leigh Anne has type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 687 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I'm just going to admit right now that I don't know how to describe Leann, so Leanne has type one diabetes. She's an adult in her 30s was recently diagnosed when she recorded this. And that's all I'm giving you. While you're listening. Please remember 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 becoming bold with insulin. I have a buy me a coffee page. It's buy me a coffee.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast. And some people are members and with their membership. Usually they're promised the reading of their of their name, which if I'm being honest, I'm woefully bad at doing but recently Donnie became a member and asked me to read you this. A shout out to Nolan and Jen Dean, and everybody remembered, loved and affected by the combination of diabetes and mental illness. Thank you, Dani very much. And thank you everybody who buys me a coffee

this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash Juicebox. Podcast is also sponsored by us med Are you looking for a great place to get your diabetes supplies us med is that place, head to us med.com forward slash juicebox right now to get your free benefits check. And if you don't like the internet, you could use your phone by calling 888-721-1514. And just before we get started, please remember to check out touched by type one.org and find them on Instagram and Facebook. Amazing, amazing, amazing organization doing just you'll see you'll see what they're doing for people with type one, when you visit touched by type one.org

Leigh Anne 2:28
My name is Leanne. I am a unfortunate marathon runner and an accountant former bartender and I recently was diagnosed with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 2:39
You're an unfortunate marathon runner because you're bad at it. Or because

Leigh Anne 2:43
because I just don't know how I ended up being a marathon runner. It happened accidentally.

Scott Benner 2:49
When did it happen accidentally.

Leigh Anne 2:51
I ran my first half marathon in 2017. And I don't know if you know this about runners, but they're a bunch of enablers and I said I would never run a full marathon. And then two years later, I was training for a full marathon and brand one lately. It

Scott Benner 3:11
sounds like you're about to badmouth a big group of people. So that's exciting for me. enablers. What do you mean?

Leigh Anne 3:19
Oh, it's yeah, you I joined a running group. And they know they're enablers. But I join a running group. And I would say I love half marathons, I don't ever want to do a full, there's no reason to run 26 miles, you can do it. And they just kind of like, put little thoughts into your head and they're like, Okay, but you could run a full marathon if you really wanted to. And so, you know, you get a whole bunch of people telling me you can do something you're like, you know what, maybe I'll give it a try.

Scott Benner 3:47
Okay, what's there? When I was a kid, there was this anti drug campaign. And I can remember one of the, one of the sentences from the commercial was like, it'll make you feel good. It was like that. And so is that what they're doing to you? Are they trying to drag you into their hell? What is happening? Yes, yes. Why don't they just stop running? Is it because they bought all those sneakers? What are they doing?

Leigh Anne 4:10
I don't know. I tried to stop running. And then I that's how I learned that I actually really enjoyed it. Because I had to stop for a while, like, right after my diagnosis while I was trying to get things under control. And I was like, wait a minute, what do you mean, I can't go out and just run like I used to? Because, yeah, that was good.

Scott Benner 4:28
I reclined my chair way back. I feel like you and I are gonna have a chill conversation. I want to get in the right mood for this. You tried to stop running? And you couldn't? Yes. Correct. I don't think you understand. So if you just don't run, you've stopped running. So what happened when you stopped running?

Leigh Anne 4:50
I just I went stir crazy and it was just I didn't realize how much I actually enjoyed doing it even though I only enjoy it while I'm running the process of getting ready Need to go for a run is not super fun. Like my wife and I have to go

Scott Benner 5:05
talk my wife was sex. So. Okay, so I shouldn't have said that. I'm gonna end up leaving it in but whatever. So. Okay, so the prep for running sucks. You like the doing it? So what do you just like the I mean, just there's some sort of like an endorphin thing that happens while you're running. Yeah,

Leigh Anne 5:26
I used to think that the runner's high was a myth. I think it's just, there's something about the sense of accomplishment, like the first time I ran a half marathon is just like, I actually did this because I'm not a super fast runner. I average like, maybe a 12 minute mile, which my brother calls jogging. So you don't run you just

Scott Benner 5:49
to him? First of all, that's Yeah. Talk to people that way. Are you an addict? Be honest, in other ways? Yes. Super, is one of the things you're addicted to is being really honest with people. What? What are what are some other things that you maybe do? Is it impulsive, or compulsive or I don't know what the word is.

Leigh Anne 6:12
I just, I think I just really love the race atmosphere. So like this past year to year and a half, two years is kind of sucked because you don't get the excitement of race day and 100 1000s of people running around you doing the same thing happened. And then my running group, we always go drinking after we run.

Scott Benner 6:34
It's just another excuse for people to drink. Is that all this is?

Leigh Anne 6:39
Yes, pretty much.

Scott Benner 6:42
You get the feel healthy, and then get loaded for two days. Yeah, I listen. People are very predictable. You hear what I'm saying? Okay, so that was in 2017. That had nothing to do with diabetes, although I want to try to make the case that running gives people diabetes, we can go down that road, but I don't think it's true. No, so you see you, we should probably talk more about your diabetes. I love it. When I'm like 15 minutes into it. I was like, I think people want to hear about diabetes, too. When were you diagnosed just a year ago?

Leigh Anne 7:15
January 2020 2021. Just this year? Oh, January 2021.

Scott Benner 7:22
What did you do, like get diagnosed and immediately as to be on the podcast? But

Leigh Anne 7:27
pretty much like I well, I found your podcast because I when I was in the ER, I didn't have a room so I didn't have a TV. So I I spent my time on Reddit trying to like figure out what was going on. So I found your like, your podcast immediately. And then I had a very I kind of go into like when I need to learn something about something new. I go into the deep end like it's like, alright, this is my new obsession for the next two months. Everything is about diabetes.

Scott Benner 8:00
We're just having addictive nature. Before we get into that because I have a question about can you pull that bell off that cat or whatever I'm hearing back there? Is it a bell on a cat? It is a bell on a cat. But listen to me closely. I'm a genius. I just spent

Leigh Anne 8:16
like 20 minutes before the show stealing all their toys so they wouldn't make noise.

Scott Benner 8:20
But you didn't tell the people you didn't tell me your tats, right? No, I did not. I don't know if the rest of you are getting this but I might be empathic or something. Or I don't know whatever one of those words. I'm gonna talk over while she's chasing the cat runaway cat run? I don't care if the rest of the podcast is her chasing that cat. Oh used to wait your headphones. Sorry.

Leigh Anne 8:47
Yeah, I have their wireless so I can keep

Scott Benner 8:53
them off. I was bad mouthing you to your face. I mean, not bad. mouthing, I was making fun of you directly to you. I didn't mean that.

Leigh Anne 8:59
No, he was a kitten. So he's hard to rank.

Scott Benner 9:02
I don't want to hear about your problems. I was trying to set up a situation where like six months from now you were listening to your episode and like he was talking crap about me while I was chasing that cat around. But it didn't work out that way. Anyway. I'm getting quite an ear for what's happening in people's homes from doing this podcast. All right. I appreciate that. You didn't hurt the cat, right?

Leigh Anne 9:24
No, I just shut him into a room.

Scott Benner 9:27
You couldn't catch him?

Leigh Anne 9:30
No, he's tiny and wily.

Scott Benner 9:34
Alright, so let's get back into this. Or what was the how was I know my question. I tell you what, I must have slept well last night. I'm very clear headed right now. Reddit. A lot of people tell me they hear about the podcasts on reddit but I don't go on Reddit because the idea of it scares me. Am I generally thought of well there if I'm not gonna tell me make up a lie, but because I'll never go look So just tell me,

Leigh Anne 10:01
yeah, what I did is I made a post on one of the type one, sub Reddits. And I was like I was just diagnosed, tell me what I should ask when I go to the endocrinologist and what you wish you knew at the beginning. And the two things that came up a lot was your podcasts and think like a patriot

Scott Benner 10:22
don't have to bring up what else came up, that's fine. But it's a pretty good book. I can't read. So I'm not sure. But I hear good things about Gary's book for certain and Jenny's on all the time. And Jenny actually works for Gary. So I don't know if people know that or not that Integrated diabetes services is owned by the author of Think like a pancreas. It

Leigh Anne 10:45
took me longer than I would like to admit to put those two together because I was listening to you and reading the book. And then like, three months later, I was like, Oh, wait, hold

Scott Benner 10:54
on. To you. I don't really spoon feed information to people. So there's a way of communicating that I think of is more long form. And I don't just mean like over an hour and a half. I mean, like over the years, like, I feel like we're building a thing here together. And so I think it's weird when people come on and say, obvious stuff. That's not conversational. If stuff comes out in conversation. I'm happy about that. But I don't make like short declarative boring statements. I try not to do that. And like coming on and being like, this is Jenny, Jenny works for Gary. Gary wrote that book, you know, like, I don't talk like that. So. But that's cool. So you went right to Reddit, where I'm generally thought of well, which Thank you, Reddit. I appreciate that. Huge shout, I will never be there. So please don't bother saying You're welcome. I won't say. But. And it's not for any real reason other than I mean, I don't really do social media to begin with. And I think I've read it a social media, right, like it's a message board. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have time. I'm busy. I wish I wasn't though. It sounds amazing. I mean, you went there and got what I'm calling rock solid information. Yes. Okay. So you're in the hospital. Reading. There's no word for reading, like you can is reading, editing. You know, when I say editing, like if I'm sorry, let's just rabbit hole for one second. Sometimes I say to people while I was editing this episode, I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I hate that word. The word editing makes me like when I say it in context, like I'm editing the episode. I'm okay. But when I use it, descriptively Oh, my God, I sound crazy. I have to stop. Nevermind, reading it is. Okay, so you were reading in the ER and heard about a podcast? You start listening to the podcast in the ER?

Leigh Anne 12:48
Yes, actually, I did.

Scott Benner 12:51
Wow, you're insane. But I love it when people do that. So your doctor comes in and you're like, don't worry, you don't have to explain anything to me. I have a stranger on the internet. I heard about through Reddit. He's explaining the whole thing right now.

Leigh Anne 13:05
I was a little bit in shell shock about that whole period because I no one in my family. There's no history of diabetes in my family. And I originally went to patient first because I thought I had COVID.

Scott Benner 13:21
Okay, to

Leigh Anne 13:22
think that, you know, you have something that you potentially will get better from and now you should go to the ER and I was like, do I have can I just go home and take a nap? Like, please go to the ER, yeah, I'm gonna call you tomorrow.

Scott Benner 13:36
Wow. So you go there. They tell you to go to the ER, you go to the ER finally check the Reddit. I went

Leigh Anne 13:46
and took a nap.

Scott Benner 13:47
Went home and took a nap. Sorry. What generation are you and what are they? How do they classify your age?

Leigh Anne 13:54
I been told I'm a geriatric millennial.

Scott Benner 13:58
Oh my god. I don't know what any of that means. I hate the internet. Now. I'm just realizing I it's at the core of what I do. I hate that everything is brand new.

Leigh Anne 14:07
Give me me. Um, yeah, I'm an I'm 33. So Oh, and then my 30

Scott Benner 14:12
year old. Okay, I'm just teasing you you're not old. Do you have a married right? No, no. Okay. Are you like in a significant relationship? Or were you when you were diagnosed?

Leigh Anne 14:24
Not when I was in diagnosed. Look, not when I was diagnosed, but I am now

Scott Benner 14:30
okay. So what? I want to go back to the shellshock part. Do you remember anything doctors were saying to you in the ER?

Leigh Anne 14:39
I'm not really I know. So. My mom's a nurse and her good friends a PA in an in a different era and a different location in the state. And she was the one who I texted her my labs after I left patient first and she was the one who told me to go to the ER and I was like, Well, if she's saying to go, I should go And I, by the time I got a good doctor talk to me it was, I want to say eight or nine hours after I got into the ER. And the like, the intake doctor finally got out to me because I was like, they had just gotten all of their patients that it was like the rush of COVID cases right after Christmas. Okay. And so I was in the lobby for 12 hours waiting for the doctor to get back to me. Like when I first went in, he's like, I want to put you want to IV drip, and reran these labs, it took them two hours just to put me on the IV drip. And then like another four hours, and the doctor came out and talked to me, he's like, we want to keep you here. I was like, like, here in the lobby. I was like, No, well,

Scott Benner 15:52
how long do I have to sit out here with all the COVID people?

Leigh Anne 15:56
Like, he's like, who's like, well, we'll take you into the bat. And he's like, Well, he's like, I can't guarantee you'll have a room, but you won't be out here anymore. And I was like, Okay. And then he very casually is like, you're gonna keep an eye on your labs, your your pH is a little off. He's like, if it if it changes any at all, we're gonna have to take you to the ICU. And I was just like, okay, like, that's a very casual way of saying that.

Scott Benner 16:20
Yeah. You know, I think it sucks. But one of the like, I have a personal story about this, that I'm not ready to tell you. But having to send somebody into the emergency room during COVID was really terrible, especially if they're overwhelmed, you know, or older or something like that. Like, it's just, you need somebody there who's not going through a health crisis to help you listen to what's being said. I think like, I think that sucks. You know what I mean? Because like you said, it's like he's like, just like, you know, and then we'll send you to the ICU and all you're probably thinking is ICU. I've heard those words on Grey's Anatomy, they sound bad.

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You know like what does that mean exactly? At this point do you have any idea what's actually wrong with you or they're just looking at your labs and it doesn't look

Leigh Anne 19:48
um well the the the patient first doctor mentioned, diabetes and metabolic acid It doses in a sentence when I was there, but both of those words went out my head the second I left patient first. So at this point the, this the intake doctor, he did say we suspect that you have acute onset diabetes, and I'm just sitting here like, I don't even know what that means. But that means like, I do think I was far enough ahead. And just general life of knowing like, there's diabetes, and there's two types, and it has nothing to do with eating sugar or not eating sugar or your diet. Like, that's about what you know. That's about what I knew I didn't.

Scott Benner 20:37
So when did they get you out of chairs? Are you vape? Are you vaping? What is that noise? Oh,

Leigh Anne 20:43
no. All right. Okay, that's fine. I have my hand up my hands on your my face with you're not supposed to do during COVID. But you know,

Scott Benner 20:50
don't wait. Are you by yourself? Yeah, I don't think you can give yourself COVID

Leigh Anne 20:56
No, but you're not supposed to touch your face. Oh,

Scott Benner 21:00
I'm not picking my nose right now. No, I'm just kidding. Or if I wasn't, I mean, how would you know? Yeah, God, they

Leigh Anne 21:06
got me into a room in at midnight, and I got. So that's 12 hours after I arrived at the hospital. Okay. And then they, you know, take blood and all that stuff. Around 4am. A nurse comes in and offers, she's like, we have a round, but you have to transfer to this other hospital. And I was like, I have a room. I'm in a room. I don't my cars here because I drove myself to the ER because I again, had no comprehension of like, how bad things were at the time. And, and I was like, No, I'm just, I'm in bed. I'm asleep. So I declined the room, not knowing I saw on the news later that like, every hospital, like south of the river, had no rooms left the night that I was admitted, like, no rooms in the hospital. So like I just passed up a golden opportunity to have like an actual room. Not in the ER.

Scott Benner 22:09
Oh, okay. Yeah. So you're now you're living in the ER.

Leigh Anne 22:12
Now I'm living in the ER. I was lucky enough that the nurse practitioner came in in the morning. And when I still had the room to kind of explain my diagnosis. And she just kind of went through it. She was great. She went through it. I don't remember any of the exact words. She said. I just remember nodding my head. And I'm, I'm a runner. So I have like, I always had like emergency information on my watch that I wear. So like the first question I asked her, I looked at it, I pointed out my Road ID and I was like, Oh, I guess I'll have to update this then. She's like, Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Do you have any questions about diabetes? I was like, I don't even know what to ask you right. Now you have an idea. I'm so when I went to patient first, my blood sugar was 256. But the last time I had eaten, that was that was a Monday morning. And the last time I had eaten was Saturday around four o'clock.

Scott Benner 23:19
Oh, okay.

Leigh Anne 23:23
And my a one C was 13 and a half. 13.5. So, um, and I was in and I was there all by myself because I was an adult. So I couldn't have any family come in

Scott Benner 23:41
all evidence to the contrary, by the way. You would go into an older age, but I mean, not an adult. Did you call anyone in your family or someone like to tell them? Oh, yeah. Yeah,

Leigh Anne 23:58
I call. I called my mom. When I left patient first, like I talked to her a lot, like, very frequently along the way again, because she's nurse. Um, my dad, I didn't call him until they told me they were admitted me to the hospital. I was like, Well, I guess I should call him now. Because while they live close by, they couldn't do anything. Um, my mom did come up to my house and like, bring me a change of clothes. And then like, she stayed at my house and cleaned it, which was really nice.

Scott Benner 24:33
That's what parents do. They're like, Oh, I'll make something easier. Or how bad is your house? Was it really dirty?

Leigh Anne 24:39
Was it wasn't really it wasn't. It's not super dirty. It's just like, I don't do maintenance cleaning. Like,

Scott Benner 24:46
what does that mean? Or they're stuck to things. What are we talking about? are like, Oh, the toilet?

Leigh Anne 24:52
I don't think I don't think my bathroom looks dirty. But she would come in and like scrub the grout. And like, all right, kids. She really like she like cleaned it cleaned it. Oh, thanks.

Scott Benner 25:03
You mentioned the river. Are you in Ohio? Chicago, something like that.

Leigh Anne 25:08
Virginia, Richmond. Oh, so

Scott Benner 25:09
there's a river there. I only know like two other rivers. Obviously there's probably more than two right? Oh, wait, I Rio Grande. I might know more. Let's not do that now.

Leigh Anne 25:22
So I can't call my mom. She was on speakerphone. While I talked to like the nurses in in the nurse practitioner and she asked questions I think she was on she was on her best behavior. And I'm really appreciated that

Scott Benner 25:37
so your mom was trying to pick out information to At what point do you think you solidly understood what was going on? Like how far from sitting in chairs in the ER until you were like I have diabetes? I have to take insulin, there's gonna be meters and testing. Like, how long were you there till you got to that?

Leigh Anne 25:57
I don't. Honestly, I don't think I really comprehended what this was all going to be until like, a month after I got home because it was just like, I so when I was little, I was supposed to take shots every day like growth hormone shots for like, completely unrelated thing. And I didn't do it because I didn't like shots. So the I knew enough about diabetes. I was supposed to give myself insulin, I talked to the doctor and I was like, I hate shots. I can't do needles, like I don't know if I'll be able to give myself shots. And she just looked at me and she's like, well, you're going to have to I was like, Cool. I guess this is my life now. But while in my heart, I was in the hospital for two days. I never pricked my own finger. And I only ever gave myself two shots. The whole time like the nurses did it for me. They were too busy to hold my hand and walk me through it. And then I think when they told me that they were sending me home, that's when i That was the first time I cried because she just looked at Amazon. Can you just want me to go to CVS and pick up this stuff and go forth and be diabetic? And please don't die. Like

Scott Benner 27:18
are you trying to name the episode go forth and be diabetic? You just did because I only had cat nap up until now because of the kitten. And that you took a nap after you left the urgent care. Which is better? Oh my god. Well, that's not can I get I Hold on, let me just stumble over seven words. Sorry, I wanted so badly when the doctor like when you realize you had to take the shots for you to say Do you see that? I'm four feet 10 inches tall. Do you know why that is? Because I didn't want to take growth. I see my brain would work backwards. I would have been like dammit, I should have taken the growth stuff. Because I have to do the shots anyway. I wouldn't be like I messed up. Are you short in stature?

Leigh Anne 28:04
I'm not I'm pretty average five, six. So I don't. Honestly, I don't even know what happened with that. I think they made a mistake. And I didn't need to take those shots after all, because it's a miracle. I'm as tall as I am.

Scott Benner 28:17
Wow. So there was a time in your life where people were like you have to give her this drug. So she's close to a normal size. And now you're five, six. Yeah. Huh? How that would have been like 30 years ago. How long ago?

Leigh Anne 28:33
Yeah, I think I was like eight or nine like I was old enough that my parents thought I was capable of taking shots on my own and didn't pay attention to it, but not old enough to actually be responsible enough to do it.

Scott Benner 28:49
I'm just fascinated that a doctor said you had to do something and then it didn't happen to be net or do you think you'd be like 12 feet tall now if you did that are your family tall?

Leigh Anne 29:04
Yeah, we're all about the average height of like me and my brother the same height.

Scott Benner 29:09
That's not advertised for a guy though. Five, six.

Leigh Anne 29:12
You might be taller than me. I

Scott Benner 29:13
don't know. You don't know. I'm just, I'm just fascinated that like, at some point in your life, someone said like, we're going to pump this kid for this, whatever this is, and then they were like, Nah, and they're like, alright, don't worry about like, I don't I don't know, like that. None of that makes sense to me. It'd be like if someone said to you, hey, you need insulin, or you're gonna die. And you went, I'm not doing they went, okay. Just like I don't get the like how easy they gave up part for some reason?

Leigh Anne 29:37
Well, it was more of like my mom. So around that time my mom was in nursing school and my dad was in the military. So it was probably more something along the lines of did you take your shot today? And I'd be like, Yeah, I did it and they'd be like, okay, cool. And then we moved on

Scott Benner 29:52
with your little liar. When you're a kid. You're just just lying to them. What were you doing with the injections afterwards? Not taking them

Leigh Anne 30:01
just well, they were it was, it was kind of like insulin where you had to pull it up in a syringe. So they wouldn't, huh. All right. I don't know. You just didn't know.

Scott Benner 30:11
I think your mom could have tried harder. Don't let her Don't let her listen to this. Meanwhile, doesn't seem like it was necessary. I know, I'm past all that. We're in the hospital. Do you think how much of the haphazard way that this happened do you think was COVID? I? There's no way for you to know.

Leigh Anne 30:33
Yeah, I mean, I kind of I kind of suspect if it was related, it would be like I had it. asymptomatically

Scott Benner 30:42
I'm sorry. You misunderstood me. I know. I meant like COVID, meaning the hospital was like crazy. And you weren't me? Oh, getting like, clear direction. I'm sorry.

Leigh Anne 30:52
All of it. Oh, we did. They did send a diabetic educator to come talk to me while I was in the hospital, and I was in the hallway. And it was it's kind of adorable how confused she was, I must have been her first patient to that she had to talk to because like, she'll come she came and she sat a chair next to my bed. And she showed me like the different types like the vibe, she went through, like the blood meters and the vials and the pins and how they worked. But at first she was like really fumbling. She's like, usually there's a bedside table for me to put these things on. And I was like, I don't know what to tell you. And

Scott Benner 31:32
adjust, which

Leigh Anne 31:36
she was very nice. She went through all the things. And then while she was talking me, they brought my they brought my lunch by, and they kind of put it on the nurse's station. And so when she was getting ready to leave, she's like, Okay, well, I'll let you you know, go and eat your lunch. I'm gonna come back and talk to you. Again, tomorrow. You seem very confused, overwhelmed. I was like, I am very overwhelmed. I might not have paid it. Like

Scott Benner 32:00
I would have been looking around, listen to your cast aspersions. You couldn't explain a blood glucose meter to me without a table. Those two things have nothing to do with each other. So

Leigh Anne 32:09
she's, she's looking around and like, again, I don't have this table. So she just kind of looks up at the nurses. She's like, are the patient she's just supposed to, like eat on her bed and the nurse looked up at her. She says, yeah, like, and I feel bad because at this point, the only thing that I feel wrong is like I have a headache. And I'm just sitting here in a hospital bed, like watching everyone, like, run around. I'm like, I'm fine. I'm like the problem was low key patient, just like it's fine. I'm here to get what am I?

Scott Benner 32:40
Did you get insulin for that meal?

Leigh Anne 32:43
Ah, um, I think so.

Scott Benner 32:47
Okay, so the inference was, look, there's no table here. There's nothing I can do about it. Cuz it's COVID time and I don't know what the whole tables are. And I'm busy and leave me alone and eat your food. Yeah, yeah.

Leigh Anne 32:59
I mean, I didn't ask I was fine. I was like, I sit on my couch and eat without a table. I feel like a table is not a requirement for eating. But hey, you're

Scott Benner 33:07
a low expectation haven't girl. I mean, you just balanced your trade on your knees and ate in the hospital. But

Leigh Anne 33:18
um, I sat crisscross applesauce with the tray sitting in front of me. It was

Scott Benner 33:23
like anyone's ever said those words on this podcast. Well, there you go. You are you aren't your I guess you don't you don't have a lot of needs. How long have you in the hospital for?

Leigh Anne 33:37
Um, I'm about 36 hours. I left Wednesday at noon ish.

Scott Benner 33:44
And then you went Fourth? Fourth, how did that go? Like, did you literally go to a pharmacy and buy gear and

Leigh Anne 33:53
go? Yeah, they the doctor sent a prescription to the pharmacy. And I went and picked it up. And that was she did a great job. She did get me in with an endocrinologist. Like, like, the next week. So she she because like they didn't. I didn't understand what was going on. But she said they had a hard time getting endocrinologist to come to this particular hospital. So I didn't talk to him and know while I was in the hospital,

Scott Benner 34:27
just nurses I did and diabetes educators.

Leigh Anne 34:31
I talked to a diabetes educator. And she did come back and talk to me the next day before I left which was really nice.

Scott Benner 34:37
Was it helpful? Nice.

Leigh Anne 34:39
It was it was helpful. Like they were very like, honestly, it was the best worst experience like every every nurse I encountered and every professional I encountered in the hospital was very nice like they would have had every right to be rude and angry in

Scott Benner 35:00
But why wait, hold on a second. So you just said something that a lot of people say that I have to be honest flummoxed is me every time. They were very nice, or I love my Endo. Like there's people all the time with like, at once he's like, Listen, don't get me wrong. I love my end. Don't I'm like what your endo is supposed to be helping with your diabetes your agency's needs. Why do you love your Endo? It would be like if I took my car to get repaired, and it came back without wheels on it. But the guy told a great story. While I was there, I was like, I love my mechanic like, why do we like I don't? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, why does that I, it's, I want people to be kind. And a bedside manner is important. But why do we so easily write off people with poor information or poor communication skills? Because they're nice otherwise? Am I being crotchety? I get

Leigh Anne 35:47
what you're, I get what you're saying. Um, everyone at the hospital did a great job of communicating with me. Like, I think the nurses did a great job. I think the diabetes educator did like,

Scott Benner 35:59
but you didn't know what was happening though.

Leigh Anne 36:03
I just, I think I on a logical level, I understood what was happening. I didn't comprehend what it would mean for my life yet.

Scott Benner 36:14
Okay. But could you take care of yourself when you got home? Could you give yourself insulin for me, I'll test your blood sugar, just know what you're supposed to be doing. And what

Leigh Anne 36:21
I did know that like, they did walk me through that. And I, I mastered insulin shots. That was the one of the two shots I gave myself, when I was at the hospital was with one of the evening nurses like the overnight nurses. And she used to work on a pediatric floor. So she's like, I'm gonna have you give yourself your insulin. And she handed me the syringe and I got very nervous and anxious about it. So I was like, You know what, I can't do it. I went to give it back to her. And she just put her hand on mine. And made me do it. Which was, like, everything I needed, because I realized, oh, it it does not hurt like this. This little tiny needle does not hurt. I can do this. Everything is

Scott Benner 37:10
someone to be parental with you for a minute and and guide you Yeah, right.

Leigh Anne 37:15
But I was like, I'm listening to your stories. And just like the amount of time people have spent in the hospital and, like, a lot more hand holding that has happened, I think I would have gotten that if I actually was not in the emergency room. And I was actually like, up on a floor. Or, you know, with nurses who that was there. Like, that's what they were used to were all of the nurses I was dealing with, were used to putting out fires and like literally preventing people from dying. And well, they were preventing me from dying too. But

Scott Benner 37:48
people were retired, doing jobs that you think they didn't normally do.

Leigh Anne 37:53
Yeah. And they were great. It was just more of like, um, the issue I had when I got home was the finger prick. And with the, I have an anxiety about like, pushing a button that I know is gonna launch a needle into my skin. I can't do it. Like I there was like, one of the times I actually had to I ruined I was so mad because I it took me so long to prick my finger that my glucose meter turned off. And I didn't realize it did that. So I had put the blood on the test strip, and then it didn't work. And I was like, Oh man, I have to get I have to do this all over again.

Scott Benner 38:37
You know, that happens a lot to people. It times out and you're like, then now you're balancing the blood on your finger and trying to pull the strip out and let it restart and push it back in again. But I'm saying I hear what you're saying. You went to the blood when it wasn't reading it. It's horrible. Look at your life is terrible. We get all these problems. Just awful. Well, things are better now. Right? Yeah,

Leigh Anne 39:02
no, I um everything's good. Now. I think I have a pretty decent control. I'm already on. I was blessed that I'm like on the Tesla of insurance plans. You don't take insurance pays for everything. So like my insurance has this program. Like if I participate in like coaching, what's the three requirements if I do like the quarterly coaching, I take my medicine as prescribed. And I get my agency tested once a year. They cover all of my they cover all of my diabetes supplies before I hit my deductible. Well, that's cool. So and then this this recent year Dexcom switched to pharmacy so that counts as a Diabetic Supply, which now makes a lot of money yeah free for So like, basically insolence, so that's great. I did have like, the endo that they set up the appointment with that I got to like, which I learned is amazing that I got in with an endocrinologist, like a week after diagnosis. But I did not like her. And

Scott Benner 40:20
please tell me, I get

Leigh Anne 40:23
well, I went in. And again, I had to go alone because you couldn't take people in. Um, she like, the first thing she does is the the sugar is poison lecture of, as Mike told me all of the terrible things that could possibly happen to me now that I'm diabetic, which granted, I feel that I need to know, but I don't think that should be the like, opening act of the play of like, oh, you can go blind, you can lose your feet, you can have your higher risk for stroke and heart attack, like oh, great, thanks.

Scott Benner 40:59
They should sing the song first. Not not not go right into mama fell down the well. I hear you.

Leigh Anne 41:07
And then, um, so then she goes, you know, so we were talking. Um, I asked her cuz she she was a big proponent of the low carb diet. And I was like, Okay, well, I'm a runner. I eat a lot of carbs. Like, how, like, I train for marathons, like, how is that gonna marry what she's like, well, when you when are you running a marathon is like, Well, I think I have one plan for the end of May. She's like, Oh, that's too soon, you're not going to be able to run that. I was like, Oh, okay. And then she wanted to put me on a pump. She's like a pumps for you. I'm going to send in someone to talk to you about it. And then that she immediately sends, like, this is the first day all this information and she's like, I'm gonna put you on a pump. And I'm going to talk about your, your favorite company. So she sends in the Medtronic rep to talk to me about like, their system. And like, went back when I was on Reddit and doing my research, the number one thing that people said is like, get a Dexcom or a CGM. So that's what I cared about. I at this point, had managed doing shots just fine. I felt like I could continue to do that. But the thing that I really wanted to get rid of was pricking my fingers. So I was like, I want to CGM. So I'm talking to this guy. And I was like, Okay, well, I want the Dexcom CGM. And he's like, Oh, well, we, our system is super great. Because it's like an all in one system. And

Scott Benner 42:47
I don't really wrap in. Yes, that's like a sales guy in a closet. She opened up and went out or something like that.

Leigh Anne 42:55
Yeah, apparently, like, like he uses her office as his office. Like, like, that was like one of the selling points is like you have people here to help you on site. We're here every week. You know, I'm here every Tuesday to like, oh, it's like everything you need. And like they did the diabetes education for her and all this stuff. So like, he assures me that there are three choices for pop like, well, actually, he didn't even tell me that I only knew I knew that from listening to your podcast, because like, he sold it as everything is created equal, like, you know, yeah, you have choices. But in the grand scheme of things, everything's about the same. And so I because I'm thinking like, well, I want the CGM. I want to get back to running because I didn't feel safe running without being able to check my blood sugars constantly. Because I'm so new to insulin. And I was, you know, I don't want to go low when I'm out running, especially since I run like, four to five miles, at minimum at a time. So I get pretty far from my house. Yeah.

Scott Benner 44:09
Just very slowly get far from your house. Did you feel like you got pushed into it? Um, we're not I don't want to say

Leigh Anne 44:21
Not at the moment. It was afterwards that I looked back on and I was like, you know, that was kind of like, an aggressive sales tactic. Not even that there's like, so I agreed to it, because it's like, well, this is my chance. You know, if, if this is as good as everything else, why not? You know, I know that some people wait three to six to a year to get on pumps. I'm getting it a week after diagnosis. Why won't why not jump on this?

Scott Benner 44:52
I see. I see you were just sort of your online where people were saying I'd get a Dexcom a five issue and then somebody saying well, here's an Other CGM is just as good. And it comes with a pump. It's a whole system. I'm here to support it and you're like, alright, well, it's happening quickly. I hear other people saying six months a year. bird in the hand and you're like, I'll take it.

Leigh Anne 45:12
Right. Okay. And and the guy, he was super nice. He was he was type one. He'd been type one his whole life. He was just showing it to me. And at this point, I had no idea what TCM look T slim look like, I had no idea what Omnipod look like, I just saw this. And I was like, Oh, this is the technology. Let's go. And so they like overnighted it to me, I got it. They got me into pump training. Like I was like, two days later. And they were gonna put me on the pump first. And I was like, I care more about the CGM, can I? Because they break it up. They're like it's too much to learn in one session. So they only teach you one at a time. So I was like, Can I get put on the CGM first? And they're like, yeah, yeah, let's do that. And they were fine with that. They put me on the CGM. And it was. It was terrible. Like it was not like the only thing that I liked. Better on that was like it had a reusable inserter. But like, you had to calibrate it twice a day, 12 hours apart. So but they also tell you to calibrate it when your blood sugar's are steady. And I'm like, Well, if so if I calibrated at 6am When I first wake up, then I have to calibrate again at 6pm. But I usually eat dinner at five. So my blood sugar's aren't going to be steady. And if it gets wonky, it'll like wake up in the middle of the night and be like, You need to calibrate me. And if you don't calibrate it, it doesn't do readings, and it wouldn't

Scott Benner 46:48
play the part where I go, Hey, Medtronic, sorry, I don't ask people what pumps they use before they come on the podcast and I don't control what they say about your stuff. Is that about the point where I say this? I think it is. Okay. So I do you still have it now?

Leigh Anne 47:03
No, I don't that. I mean, it's

Scott Benner 47:07
only been like eight months. Since you got it. You don't have it anymore.

Leigh Anne 47:11
So I I'm freaking out about this. Because I go online. I'm doing research. I'm stressed because I'm like, this is this is terrible. Like I can't like this is supposed to produce this. And I made a post on your Facebook page. And people came out of the woodwork to be super supportive. And they're like, you have 30 days. Yes, they sent it to you. Yes, you've tried it on, but you have 30 days to say you don't want it anymore. And I was like,

Scott Benner 47:39
Oh, you returned it like a sweater.

Leigh Anne 47:40
I returned it. And the return process was atrocious. But like, I took my next appointment, I took my mom with me. I had I had found a different endo just like because like, even if this I didn't like the lady I didn't like the the coop the the group, the way she she ran things and I just knew it wasn't gonna be a good fit. So I had already set up an appointment with a new Endo, but she couldn't see me for another month. So when I went to my follow up appointment, I, you know, met with the physician's assistant. And I told her I was like, Look, I don't want this system. I don't think it's going to work for me. I want to get the Dexcom and then I want to like research my options between the tandem and the Omni pod because at this point I had finally found some other runners in the area who were type one diabetic I met other people I've just been having conversations about you know what life was like and I I already called my insurance they said we don't have a particular pump that we cover. Like if you want the teeth you want tandem will cover it you want Omnipod will cover it like it is your choice. So it's like, well, if I'm not being forced into this, I don't want this. So I went and I told her and then she kind of looked at me and she's like, Oh well, Dr. So and so only works exclusively works with Medtronic. Then there was just like this really awkward pause in silence between us and I was like, Well, I full disclosure, I have an appointment with another Endo. She's like, Okay, well, I can't tell you what to do. You know, it's your it's your care. So like without so many words that I was basically told, like if you see this doctor, you have to use the Medtronic pump. And I was like, I'm not doing that.

Scott Benner 49:44
I wonder how much setting aside Medtronic for a second I wonder how much that happens. Like I mean, it felt like a little like mob thing right? Like hey, you come here with dinner. You pay for this. You do that? Do what I tell you like that kind of thing. Like don't say Anything use the pump Shut up or you leave? Yeah. Oh, that's unpleasant.

Leigh Anne 50:06
Oh, yeah. And then like, they were super helpful for getting me off, like on the pump. But the second I was like, I don't want this they the med like it

Scott Benner 50:17
was just are you not at this talk anymore?

Leigh Anne 50:21
No, I am at a completely different practice and my new endo is, is, oh, she's great. But she she listens to me and she, I kind of go in and she's like, Oh, your numbers are amazing. Like, do you even she's like, Do you need anything from me? And I was like, I don't know, I I'm kind of just so she'll just thing so she encouraged us. She says I can run G she supports me and what? And you know, wanting to keep tighter ranges. So you have the gear you want. Now what prompted you and I have the gear I want? Yeah. What do you end up with? But I have, um, tandem I have the T slim with a Dex calm

Scott Benner 51:04
or using the control IQ?

Leigh Anne 51:06
I am How do you like that? I I like it. Okay, um, I kind of just default to it right now. Because I'm still trying to like, get a hold of like carb ratios and all of that. I really wish that they would let me set my target lower. Because it right now it just, it defaults at like the target of 110. I was like, Can I have my target at 100? So like to kind of get around it for now. Right? It is the 10 and call me and they did a survey once and one of the guys he was asking the question. I told him that and he's like, we hear that a lot in that. He's like there's works behind the scenes. Like he, he made it sound like tandem is aware. They're hoping that that's something a possibility in the future. Okay, so I'm

Scott Benner 52:06
sorry, you're about to forget I caught you off.

Leigh Anne 52:10
Oh, the returning of the Medtronic.

Unknown Speaker 52:14
Yeah, I had heard that go.

Leigh Anne 52:17
So I had to cancel my second training appointment, pump, pump appointment, and I am very confrontation averse. Like it gives me a lot of anxiety. So I did not want to call this lady and tell her that I had to cancel. So I called her and she didn't answer. I left her a message. I was like, I have to cancel the appointment. And she calls me back and she's like, Oh, I'm so sorry. She's like, when can we reschedule? And I was like, well, actually, I'm I'm gonna

Scott Benner 52:53
What am I? Your pump sounds like it's gonna sell off the shop.

Leigh Anne 53:01
Oh, what's wrong? My insulin stopped. It stopped. I started. Yeah. That's weird.

Scott Benner 53:09
I don't know about that. Because I don't have no money sometimes.

Leigh Anne 53:11
Um, I think it sometimes it detects occlusions that aren't occlusions. So Oh, no, stop the insulin. I just yells at you. And then I check it and everything's, I make sure there's no kinks in my tubes and started yeah, there's

Scott Benner 53:29
because of no to be on on the pod. Like, I'm not familiar with those kinds of like pump issues, but it's okay. So you're okay.

Leigh Anne 53:38
Yeah, it's good. I'm good. So this lady, I tell her I'm like I'm switching from Medtronic. I'm going to I would like something different. And she's like, Well, can you tell me? Can you tell me why you're switching? And I was like, Well, I don't, I don't like all the calibrations. A lot of people had told you couldn't like link it up to sugar mate or anything like that the data was very locked down. So you can only view it on their reports, right? You could only view on a computer, which I did not have a personal computer at that point. Because it's like, I have my phone and I have my work computer like you don't. Yeah, and I was like, it's the data is locked down. It's just it's not going to work for me. And then she kind of I guess she had access to my crap. So she pulled up she's like, Oh, I see that you're not calibrating at the most ideal times. You really need to calibrate when you're when your sugars are level and I'm like I've been diabetic for two weeks. My sugars are not going to be level. Give me Give me a chance. And was she

Scott Benner 54:55
was she selling to you at that point? Do you think she was trying to talk you out of it?

Leigh Anne 55:00
Yeah, I do. Because like, she's like, Oh, well, you know, our, our, our apps aren't as an aesthetic, like, she thought it was talking about the aesthetics of the app, that they've more focused on their algorithm. And that's what they had to sell was their algorithm was the best algorithm and all of this, and I was like, it's, it's not about that. And I was like, you know, it's like you've been in she was when she was setting me up. I was like, you've been super helpful. It's not personal. I, this just isn't the pump for me. And if she goes, Well, you know, I do I do take it a little bit. Personally, at that point, I

Scott Benner 55:42
would have been like, lady, listen, let me be this, I would have been like, like yourself, alright, because I'm setting the ship back to you. Right. Now. Let's stop talking. I don't know what you think you're doing, oh, I would have been like, out of my mind, I love I would have had a great time.

Leigh Anne 55:56
And then she's like, well, there's a process, you're probably gonna have to talk to the, you know, the rep that he's gonna touch base, and you're gonna, he'll probably want to know why you're sending it back. And like, 20 to tell another person. So

Scott Benner 56:10
I would have been like, I'm gonna leave it on the front step on my house, you should come get it. Goodbye.

Leigh Anne 56:14
Right. So then I, so I call Medtronic to initiate the return process, because I have to call the one 800 Number, do that. And I go through the whole thing, I have to explain to this person why I don't want it and they go, okay. They put me on hold. And they're like, Okay, I've put in the request for return. Someone will get back to you in 10 to 14 business days. Okay. And I was like, Okay, I'm sitting there. I'm like, That person was going to tell me what the next steps were. And

Scott Benner 56:50
this Hi, I gotta be honest, I feel badly saying this. But that seems like they slow walk it so that hopefully you'll give up and just, it gets better.

Leigh Anne 57:01
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they do. Because like I A week later, I called a check in and I was like, what, what's the next step in i because I'm back to fingerprints at this point until, because my insurance won't cover Dexcom until I start the system drops off my insurance, because they've in their mind, they've already covered one, right. And so the guy is looking at it. And he's like, I just need a shipping label. Like said, Give me a shipping label. So I can ship this back to you. And he puts me on hold the key for anyone in the future. The key words are Is there any way we can expedite this? Because that's what I had to say every step of the way. So he's, he could talk he's like, Okay, I put in a request to expedite this. Someone will call you back in 24 to 48 hours. Okay, just want a shipping label. Like I'll pay for it myself at this point. Like, just so someone told me about it. She asked me she's like, Oh, I have a shipping label. Do you want us to mail it to you? Or do you want to emails?

Scott Benner 58:15
No. staple it to a telephone pole. And I'll come find it. Like, give me the damn thing right now. What are we doing? Oh, well, you stuck to it. And you said you don't like confrontation. But you found your you found your nerve. Right. And you took care of it?

Leigh Anne 58:29
Yeah, yeah, these I, I have a desk job. I work for the government, I have a lot of time on my hands to sit on hold while I'm working. So I it took eight weeks, from the time that I requested to return the pump, to get it back to them, for them to acknowledge that they received it. And for them to tell my insurance, that they no longer had a claim. And actually, what ended up happening is I called my insurance. And they were like, they were phenomenal. They did a conference call to call Medtronic. An event. Eventually the lady was just like, I don't understand how this process works. Because she's like, it's just a request. It's an email. It's not like you can you have to mail things anymore. Yeah. And so when they put us on hold, she told me she's like I heard them say that they have received the pump back and that they're what they are processing the cheque to return the money to us. She's like, you don't have to wait for this. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna reverse the claims on our end. So she reversed out the claims, so they were no longer on my insurance. So I then could proceed to get the dekstop the Dexcom in the tandem and start going and start with that which so I was I had that like March,

Scott Benner 1:00:02
I want to tell you something. So I joke a lot about like, like I'm talking to Medtronic. Like I always just assume somebody from Medtronic is listening. And that might sound pompous to some of you. But you know, podcasts pretty big. A lot of people listen to it. fair assumption. I recently became aware that they do listen to the podcast. So I hope that I really hope they heard what you said just now. Like, I mean, you told the story? Well, it's arduous. Nobody should have to deal with that. If, you know, if, if they don't like your product, then fair enough. Like what do you why is this how they have to get out of it? And not for nothing? But I mean, if I'm given advice, you know, make a better one, which I think they're on their way to trying to do, honestly. So you know, do something. When people get it, they want to keep it seems,

Leigh Anne 1:00:49
honestly, it wasn't. If I if my choice was MDI, and finger sticks, and Medtronic, I would, I would 100% Pick that Medtronic pump. Like, it wasn't. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't the worst thing in the world. But for me personally, having the options like I was I was bitter because I was never presented the options before I made the choice. Yeah, I don't want to

Scott Benner 1:01:19
started either. Like it's and I don't know, listen, I don't want to put that on Medtronic. The No, no, no, that was Yeah. It could have been the doctor's office like honestly. Yeah, yeah. The way that

Leigh Anne 1:01:33
when my new endo referred me to the the tan on the tandem rapid she was talking to me, she were going back and forth. She was giving me information. And she was like, oh, was your previous endo so and so? And I was like, yeah, like I thought she had like a chart or something. And she's like, Yeah, she's, she's the only endo in the in the in the region that won't even take an appointment with me. Oh, okay. So this Endo, I think she knows Medtronic. And that's what she likes in that I. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:02:08
I mean, if I was my child, I wouldn't want to be hooked to a lady who's, you know, getting you on day one and being like, I mean, first of all, the sugar is poison thing. To look at Sugar is not good for you. I'm not making that argument. But it's a weird place to start, like you said in the conversation like with try to scare tactics. And then to say, look, this is the pump that I use here. So much so that watch this next to my broom in this closet. Here's Jim, Jim's gonna tell you about Medtronic pumps, not like wow, that's freaking weird. That seems like a 60s horror movie to me. You don't I mean, like you walk in the door, and you turn there suddenly somebody standing there. The whole thing just seems ill conceived. And you know what I mean? Like, if you want to, if you want people to use your product, make a product they want to use and and not for nothing. I understand they made this thing and now they have to support it, right? Like it exists. Now. They can't just pretend it doesn't need to be calibrated at an optimum time. Like the lady said, she can't just not say that. But in the meantime, it's weird when it turns into a business thing like, well, we don't want to lose the user. Because maybe, I don't know, maybe six months from now they're going to come out with a, you know, another set, like, what is it? 670 G now? Like, maybe there's a 770 G? I don't know, I really should pay more attention to things. But maybe there's something like that coming out. And they could say to you, look, I know this isn't optimal. But at this point, we're going to have upgrades and we can I don't know what they could do. But this doesn't seem like a great idea. The way this went for you. Is she

Leigh Anne 1:03:39
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was very hard. And it was like it was just like and that's about when I emailed you when I was in the middle of returning this pump. And that's why I felt so passionate about it because up until up until this point, I was a very healthy person like i i did not comprehend like what a chronic illness was. I never like I hardly ever missed work like the only times I when I was bartending and stuff. I never called out sick the entire like for like a decade because I just Yeah, I was a healthy person. So to do to be on this one ad of like, in the weird thing is I still oh, here's the train.

Scott Benner 1:04:24
Train. You promised me a train an hour ago, we finally got one

Leigh Anne 1:04:32
it's gonna get louder before it gets quieter. I was impressed. So it's a quick one. He's gone. Okay. Um, he, like I still felt healthy going up until my diagnosis, like up until the day before, because fun fact all of the symptoms of like the warning signs of diabetes can be confused with Oh, well that's just to an unfortunate side effect of trying to training from for a marathon like I lost weight. Oh, I'm training for a marathon. I'm thirsty all the time. Oh, I'm running a lot. I'm hungry all the time. I'm running a lot. I'm exhausted all the time. I'm running a lot. So like, it never fazed me. And I do think that like, as the amount that I was running, like, extended how long it took me to get diagnosed, I would imagine Yeah. Because when I think back, like June of 2020, my my, my doctor noticed I had lost 15 pounds. She's like, did you change your diet? And I was like, No, I crushed a pint of ice cream last week, like in one city. She's like, Oh, well, it has anything else changed. I was like I trained for and ran a marathon. I'm getting ready to run another one. She's like, make sense. And we moved on. Um, and then like I was, you know, but January of 2020 was like, the first time I was aware of being thirsty. Like, before that I was very much like one of those people. I never carried a water bottle with me. But starting in January, I was like, I'm carrying a water bottle now because I just get thirsty now. So

Scott Benner 1:06:16
it fresh back and see it coming.

Leigh Anne 1:06:20
Oh, yeah. And it's crazy. Because it's like, I in so I also didn't didn't realize how exhausted I was all the time. Because like, it was such a slow onset for me. That like until I started taking insulin and getting my blood sugar under control. It's like, oh, wait, this is what it feels like to have energy again. Right? So um, and it was it was a very hard transition for me once I realized what it meant long term because I was under the assumption of like, okay, I'm gonna listen to this podcast, and I'm gonna do a lot of research. And I'm gonna have this under control right away, and I'm gonna go right back to my normal life. And now that I now that I know what's going on, and now that I have insulin, everything's gonna be fine. But there's still the random bounce of like exhaustion. And there's still like, just times where I can't focus at work. And the threshold for where that starts is a lot lower. No, because I'm no longer used to running super high on

Scott Benner 1:07:33
what blood sugar blood sugar do you get out when all that starts happening?

Leigh Anne 1:07:37
I'm, like, 180.

Scott Benner 1:07:41
Yeah, that's where I would guess. Yeah, I think you just, I mean, having watched my own blood sugar, when, when I were a CGM. Last time, I would say that I could eat my way to 160 if I tried really hard, so and then that's when you start getting that like, feeling that I think people who don't have diabetes associate with like, oh, I ate too much, or, you know, like, had too many carbs like that kind of weird, but it really is, it's like a slowing of fogging. Like that kind of thing. And when it happens to you once in a great while, you can write it off, but if if your blood sugar is bouncing around, and that feeling is coming constantly, I would imagine it's just an unrelenting like water torture right? Just a drip drip drip where you need to get away from it. So how do you what have you been doing to try to avoid it?

Leigh Anne 1:08:34
Um, well I would love to say I've been trying to be better about my diet, but before diabetes my my go to dinner was pasta. My cats are named total Leni and macaroni. And my friends have nicknamed my house the castle of carbs. So like all of that is extra ironic now. But um, yeah, I have my I have my Dexcom alarm set at 130 and I don't let it I don't let it go high. I am probably a little over aggressive on correcting. But I'm not I'm more scared of I'm not scared of the highs but I like what you say with the long term facts and I love your sandblasting analogies like I I don't want to deal with that. I just the lows don't scare me. They probably should but I've also not had very many terrible lows. So I just I I think it's still 150 I'm correcting it. And because I just I can't stand that feeling of the exhaustion and it's really hard for me because my work is super understanding And I'll just, you know, I'll talk to my supervisor and be like, Look, I'm not feeling great today. Yeah, I'm gonna take a couple hours off. I'll make up the time later this evening. And they're understanding about that, but it gives me anxiety because being completely honest and transparent six months before my diagnosis, if someone said I can't do something right now, I'm exhausted. My blood sugar's have been crazy. All day. I would, I would be like, okay, and I would feel sympathetic, but I would also have that thought in the back of my head of like,

Scott Benner 1:10:35
one of my hires, okay, up until, yeah,

Leigh Anne 1:10:39
like, like it? I would, I would feel upset because they were like, are they using their diabetes as an excuse to not do something because I, until it happened to me, I had no comprehension of how much I understand. Yeah, like, like sugar can affect things.

Scott Benner 1:10:56
Listen, I do think it's important right to realize, like, I know that you deserve I'm not saying any of this, right. Like I know that you deserve. You know, you're covered by the ADEA. You know, it's a disability, like all that stuff. But I hear your greater point. Like, that's not how you want to be thought of in the workplace, and probably not how you want to feel personally and physically. So is the real. I mean, are we really saying you either need to get better at bolusing or change your diet?

Leigh Anne 1:11:26
Yeah, I'm, I need to get better at Pre-Bolus ing. I even before diabetes, a poor habit that I've picked up from my bartending days was waiting until it was like I'm super hungry to go eat. It's I don't plan to eat. It's just like, Oh, crap. It's two o'clock and I haven't eaten lunch and my stomach growling I need to go eat right now. But that doesn't work with diabetes. Like, I need to have some sort of thought and I'm not like I'll Bolus and then I'll be like, alright, and it's been it's definitely been enough time. I'm gonna go eat now. And it's only been five minutes. Like, that's not enough time. So

Scott Benner 1:12:05
yeah, I just the other night, Arden said that she thought Oreos would help her study at 11 o'clock. And I said, that's fine. Just Pre-Bolus and then like, half an hour later, her blood sugar is going up. And I went and I was like, what happened? She goes, I Pre-Bolus like how long? I said, because I'm thinking 20 minutes for an Oreo. And she goes, Oh, it wasn't that long. I said, well, then you didn't really Pre-Bolus And she's like, okay, so I mean, it really is a likely I joked about it earlier, but like you gotta like, it's time to like, be an adult, you know what I mean? Like, do stuff you don't want to do. Like all I had to be honest with you. If you had a baby, right now, next year, that was yours, you would understand better what I was saying. Like that idea of like, you have to just, it's, um, I really don't like it when like, like married people say like, Oh, you'll understand when you're married, or parents, like you don't know till you have a baby. But there are some things you won't know until you have a baby, you know, like, and the idea of just like, this isn't what I want to do, but this is what I'm doing. And I better do it and be happy about it, or I'm gonna ruin somebody's life is it's a strong, strong pole. And you're in that situation, like you're going to, you're going to be ruining your life, like you can feel it your is how you've described it, like, you know, you're not feeling well, you're worried about your job, etc, etc. And the the answer to well, what can you do about that was a good Pre-Bolus better, so Pre-Bolus better,

Leigh Anne 1:13:34
you know, and that's another strong motivator for me up until like, maybe a year ago, I was very much a fencer of like, whether I'd ever have kids. And then now that's definitely a possibility in my future, and I look at like, the numbers that you need to have.

Scott Benner 1:13:52
Yeah, you're gonna need to Pre-Bolus Yeah,

Leigh Anne 1:13:55
it's just like, oh, man, this is a lot. It's super hard. And I do try. And then it's, for me, it's a lot of struggle between anxiety and motivation. And just it's a lot of work that I was not prepared for. And yeah, but now that you will streamline things.

Scott Benner 1:14:17
Well, now that you're aware of it, though. I mean, what's the plan? Like do you have? Have you thought through what you need to do to make a change? I guess.

Leigh Anne 1:14:29
I have an eye. It's one of those situations where I know exactly what I need to do. I just need to do it. So like right now I'm at Pre-Bolus in about 50% of the time. And when I was doing MDI, and before I got CGM, I was being very good about my diet. But now that I have the pump, and the Dexcom I'm a little bit lazier about it because it's like, oh, well Oh, it doesn't matter that it's 60 carbs, I can just Bolus for it. Yeah. And, and figure it out later. And pasta is just so easy to cook and you don't have to worry about keeping things fresh. So I like got lazy. But um, my boyfriend's really sweet. He he was like, really, really early on into stating he wanted to learn more about diabetes. And it's funny because I, I went on a couple of days with him like four years ago before any of this. And then when we met up again, we went and I pulled on it, and I was like, Oh, fun fact, I'm diabetic. Now. That's the thing. He was like, what? And I was like, yeah, it just happened. And but he he's been really supportive. He tries really hard to like when he cooks to be considerate of like, how many carbs are in it? Good. But he also has a terrible sweet tooth. So he'll just, he'll have candy or sodas all the time. And I'll be like, hey, maybe maybe you shouldn't drink that much. He's like, No, it's fine. He's like, I'll just finish whatever you can't have. So we'll split desserts, and I'll have two bites, and he'll eat the rest of it. Just, I guess, sweet. I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:16:23
I mean, it sounds opportunistic. But I hear what you're saying. But

Leigh Anne 1:16:27
it works out. But he. So we're getting back into, like, I'm starting to get back into a habit of eating better. And yeah, because I don't want to overwhelm myself. Like I have benchmark goals of like, alright, well, this month, I'm going to try to make you know, 50% of my meals, lower carb meals, and I'm gonna, you know, try to Pre-Bolus So I like I loosened up my ranges on my Dexcom, clarity and on the T slim just to try to like don't know, incentivize me to do better with time and range. And then over the next six months, I plan to kind of like, crank it down slowly. So it's not like, I'm gonna stay between, you know, 70 and 120. Starting tomorrow, I'm gonna good plan, bring that down.

Scott Benner 1:17:27
That's a good point. That's a good plan. i It really is, like, shoot for a goal. Once you find yourself in that goal, tighten the range, keep shooting. And before you know it, you should be in a place where you're not getting those spikes that are making you feel terrible. And you're gonna get there through Pre-Bolus thing and actively watching your blood sugar after your Bolus for a meal and not letting it get out of hand. And you know, it'll become commonplace for you if you want it to be if you want it to become commonplace. And you take those steps. I think it will be. Yeah, yeah. Good for you.

Leigh Anne 1:17:59
I'm excited about it.

Scott Benner 1:18:01
I'm happy to hear better. Yeah, no, I mean, you're doing listen. Let's try to keep in mind. It's November. You've had diabetes for like, 10 months. Yeah, you're doing really well. You know that right? You do?

Leigh Anne 1:18:14
I do. I know.

Scott Benner 1:18:17
But they don't help that.

Leigh Anne 1:18:20
Yeah. So one, one thing I just want to because I know it's gonna drive you, you're gonna think I'm crazy. But for so diabetes Awareness Month, I've decided that because I've gotten lazy I'm running to cause my marathon got canceled. I'm running at least a mile every day this month.

Scott Benner 1:18:39
In celebration of the Awareness Month. Yeah.

Leigh Anne 1:18:42
So I also created a tic tock, which is really dumb, because I don't understand tic tock but I was like, this seems like a place that I can flood with videos of me running that no one will care about. Um, so I'm

Scott Benner 1:18:57
currently using Tiktok incorrectly. But I have content coming for it. But at the moment, I'm not using it correctly.

Leigh Anne 1:19:07
I'm pretty sure I'm using it incorrectly too. But you know,

Scott Benner 1:19:10
well, listen. To use it correctly means setting your camera up and dancing in front of it, which I will not be doing. I'm gonna I think I have some content that will work well on and I'll be giving it a try. But listen, I think first of all, I want to thank you for coming on you were really terrific. I appreciate you telling that story. I do think whether we're talking about Medtronic or anything honestly like anything to do with your health. I appreciate that you tried something didn't work for you. You stuck to your guns got it swapped out. There's a lot of accomplishment in there really. And just in general, like getting through being diagnosed with enduring COVID and the kind of like haphazard way that things began. I really appreciate you sharing this whole story with me today. Thank you very much.

Leigh Anne 1:20:05
Yeah, I loved it. I was. I've been looking forward to this for months.

Scott Benner 1:20:09
Oh, I'm glad that's so nice to hear. And you were good. You weren't nervous or not too bad.

Leigh Anne 1:20:14
I didn't get nervous until like, 1059. And then I was like,

Scott Benner 1:20:19
oh my god, like right before it was gonna start. Oh, yeah, like, like, this will be fine. Wait, maybe what if it isn't? You start freaking out. And then you got on it. My audio wasn't set up. Right. I thought that was my fault. But now we're good. Probably got the cat out. Yeah, let that cat that box that you stuck it in? Or whatever you put. I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong to it. Right.

Leigh Anne 1:20:40
Now. He's just in my bedroom. Right? That seems legal, totally destroying something.

Scott Benner 1:20:44
That's your problem. I gotta go. Well, yeah, I have to, I'm going to get my eyebrows. I'm going to get my eyebrows threaded.

Leigh Anne 1:20:56
That is a delight. That fact brings me a lot of joy.

Scott Benner 1:21:00
It all started because Arden gets her eyebrows threaded. And I'm like her ride. And then my family makes fun of me because they say my eyebrows look sad because they crawl around my eyes too much. And so I'm there one day, and we just aren't I just messed around. I'm like, I'm gonna I'll do it too. Like, I'm just trying to be a good, bad, you know what I mean? And so she's like, you're really going to try this. And I was like, I'll try it. And I did. And it hurt really bad. And she got the one I done. I had a conscious thought I was like, maybe I'll just do the one I was really hurt. But then I went back with Arden. I don't know, some weeks later. And the woman's like, again, and I went, yeah, alright, so I did it again, hurt just as bad. But I have to admit, I looked in a mirror last night. I can't believe I'm saying this. And I thought I have to get my eyebrows threaded. And then I got home and art and goes Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? And I was like, What do you mean? She goes like after you're done with the podcast? What are you doing? I said, you know, I'm gonna edit some more podcasts because I gotta get my eyebrows threaded, you want to go? And I went, Oh my God. Yeah, I just realized I need to do that. And it was an embarrassing moment for both of us. I think that's what I'm doing now. Like, I'm gonna get my eyebrows threaded. And by the way, people should know, way cheaper than waxing. I really know I've never had my eyebrows waxed. But I am a person who was paid for it for other people. And that's expensive. The threadings like five bucks.

Leigh Anne 1:22:32
Maybe I'll have to try that.

Scott Benner 1:22:33
But it's, it's, there's this great Indian salon near us. And we go in there and they just like, it's amazing. Like, I do think that we're maybe the only Caucasian people that go there. Because when we call ahead for an appointment, I'm like, Hello. I'd like to make an appointment for she goes Arden and I'm like, am I the only white guy that calls this? I must be I'm like yes Arden house 330. So, anyway, threading, that's my that's my tip to all of you.

Leigh Anne 1:23:04
Alright, have fun. Um, thanks for having me on. Afternoon YouTube

Scott Benner 1:23:18
a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com. Forward slash juice box. I'd also like to thank us med for sponsoring this episode and remind you to go to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514.

If you're enjoying the show, please tell someone else about it. And if you'd like to get even more support in the form of a really amazing Facebook community. Look for Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. It's a private group with over 25,000 people in it just like you. There's also a public page. It's called Juicebox Podcast public page. If you just want to follow the podcast on Facebook. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.