#1502 Melissa is not Michelle

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Melissa has kept her A1C around 5.2 for three decades—yet was fired by her endo for refusing strict carb‑count rules.

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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.

Speaker 1 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Melissa 0:14
Hi, my name is Melissa. I live in California, and I'm from the East Coast.

Speaker 1 0:20
Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink. AG, one.com/juice box to get this offer, check out my algorithm pumping series to help you make sense of automated insulin delivery systems like Omnipod five loop Medtronic 780, G twist tandem control IQ and much more. Each episode will dive into the setup features and real world usage tips that can transform your daily type one diabetes management. We cut through the jargon, share personal experiences and show you how these algorithms can simplify and streamline your care. If you're curious about automated insulin pumping, go find the algorithm pumping series in the Juicebox Podcast, easiest way. Juicebox podcast.com, and go up into the menu, click on series and it'll be right there.

Speaker 1 1:45
This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour, next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juice box. Today's podcast is sponsored by us, med, us, med.com/juice box. You can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do. And I'm talking about Dexcom, libre, Omnipod, tandem, and so much more. US, med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the twist A I D system powered by tide pool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juice box, that's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box, get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juice. Box. That's t, w, i. I s t.com/juice. Box. Hi.

Melissa 2:53
My name is Melissa. I live in California, and I'm from the East Coast. Melissa,

Speaker 1 2:59
why would you not tell me, while we were talking for the last five minutes that I'm calling you Michelle and your name is Melissa. I

Melissa 3:05
only heard you call me Michelle at the very end, and that, for some reason, people name Melissa always get called Michelle, really. People name Michelle never get called Melissa, because I have no idea why. Oh,

Speaker 1 3:17
wait, I know what happened. First of all, this has nothing to do with that, I am recording tomorrow with Michelle, and when I set your file up, I was looking at my calendar and looking at tomorrow, not today.

Melissa 3:30
Okay, no matter what the reason is, it happens all the time. That's

Speaker 1 3:33
crazy that it happens all the time, and I just happened to be talking to Melissa today and Michelle tomorrow.

Melissa 3:39
Maybe that's always happening every time. Is it possible that

Speaker 1 3:43
everyone you speak to has just spoken with someone named Michelle?

Melissa 3:48
It's a very common name, so yeah, I guess it's possible. Okay,

Speaker 1 3:51
that's awesome. So now just know that the only thing in front of me says Michelle. So I'm gonna try to cover it so that that I don't look at it again, and then, okay, I should be okay, awesome. I'm very sorry, that's ridiculous. Anyway, you have diabetes or something like that.

Melissa 4:09
Yeah, I do. I've had diabetes since I was nine, eight years old, since I was eight years old in 1991 eight years

Speaker 1 4:15
old in 91 which is roughly 25 years

Unknown Speaker 4:19
ago. No, it's more like 32 years ago. Why is my bad math?

Speaker 1 4:23
Hold on. So take 91 you had 10, that's 2001 then 10 more. Oh, I forgot the 2000 10s, right? 11 would be 2021. Would be 30. Then it's like 24 years ago.

Unknown Speaker 4:36
34 Yeah, it's about 34 years ago. This

Speaker 1 4:39
isn't going well, right? I almost, by the way, Melissa, I almost called you Michelle on purpose just now to be funny, but then I thought, people are gonna think I was really doing that. So, all right, so you've had diabetes for a good long time. You're in your 40s now, yeah. All right. Anybody else in the family? Sisters, brothers, mother, father, grandmother, have type one diabetes?

Melissa 4:58
Nobody. Not even type two diabetes.

Speaker 1 5:01
Do you you have a thyroid thing or anything else like that? Nothing awesome. Anybody else in the family have like, celiac thyroid? No, no, not a thing. You don't have a bipolar uncle. Well,

Melissa 5:15
my grandmother on my mother's side was schizophrenic. My grandmother on my father's side, she had Guillain Barre Syndrome. Whoa, the what? Who like? It's, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Guillain Barre Syndrome, and it is a an autoimmune condition that's sort of similar to multiple sclerosis. I think, really, I could be, I'm not 100% on the family. This isn't something that's greatly talked about, but I'm pretty sure that she had that, and that it led to a fall that led to her death, but, but that's it. That's the only autoimmune condition in the family, and then the only other health conditions in general, I mean, not even type two diabetes. And the only condition there's been is cancers. You know, people have had cancer, or do

Speaker 1 5:59
have cancer, apparently, is it frequent with frequency? People in your family?

Melissa 6:03
My mother had cancer, and she was a smoker. She had oral cancer, but it's very strange. So I don't know if you ever read this book called diabetes rising.

You know there are audio books. I don't know if there is an audio book of this one, though, because I read this way back. Yeah. What's the book called? But yeah, in the book, diabetes rising, one of the things that's about type one diabetes, and it's about how incidents of it has has increased dramatically, you know? And this was written about 20 years ago, but even then, then the amount of cases have gone up a lot. It went into quite a lot of detail, looking into like, what are the various causes that might exist for type one diabetes? And there are no causations, obviously, that they can, like, determine, but what they have are correlations that are stronger or weaker. And one of the stronger correlations is just where on earth you're located, and where you and I are from, has very high incidence around New Jersey, Philadelphia, that area, very high incidence in that area, but especially right in my cul de sac. I lived in a cul de sac in west of Philly. There are three type one diabetes in my cul de sac. They're all up and down that street, just tons of cancer. And also a super fund site. You know what that is? No, a super fund site is just a place where there's a thing called the super fund that places can use to clean up especially toxic dirty areas, really. Yeah, that

Speaker 1 7:41
sucks. Have you ever gone back there and knocked on doors and been like, Hey, do any of your kids have type one diabetes?

Melissa 7:46
Well, we've, you know, I mean, they're our neighbors, so, oh, you're still there. I'm sorry. Well, I'm not anymore, but my family, my father and his wife, and they still live there. And they're dogs,

Speaker 1 7:59
they're dogs, they're dogs, which are, do they have any super dogs? All have diabetes, no, just kidding, and there's seven diabetic dogs. Scott,

Melissa 8:09
growing up, my babysitter, who was in our cul de sac, she had diabetes, and she still does, obviously. And I was we, you know, I had a wedding in my parents front yard recently, you know, about a year and a half ago, the

Scott Benner 8:23
bride room on the cake, I heard a Dexcom

Melissa 8:24
go off, and I was like, what? What's going on? And it turns out, I it was one of the one of my other neighbors who I always knew there was another type one there. I guess there were three type one diabetes besides myself, because there was the babysitter, her father, and then this other person who was at the wedding, and she was just ignoring her Dexcom, just like, that's fine. Which I was like, You're giving me anxiety. You got to treat this.

Speaker 1 8:47
Can you bowl this lady so I can go on with my wedding? Exactly? You just got married?

Melissa 8:53
Yeah. I mean, we've been together for over a decade, but yes, we recently got married.

Speaker 1 8:57
What happened? Did it get hard to do the taxes or something like that. I

Melissa 9:02
mean, to some extent, yes, obviously it's like, I'm just a deeply unconventional person. And I just was never like, we need to get married. You know that just like, wasn't really something where I was like, this is important to do, right? But then just one day, I think we were watching a TV show, somebody was like, unsure whether or not somebody would say yes to their marriage proposal, and I just said that, oh, man, I'd never just turned you down for a marriage proposal. If you did that, I would say yes. And he was like, really? And then he asked me, like, shortly after, I need to, like, drop all the hints in our relationship to make things happen, but it's fine. You made

Speaker 1 9:38
him ask you to get married after being together for 10 years. I

Melissa 9:41
didn't even mean to make them, No, I just, I just mentioned that that, like, I think there was a part of him that was just like, I don't know if she'd want that. She's deeply unconventional. You give off that vibe. Oh, well. I mean, I am. I mean, yeah, I guess, yeah, for sure. You

Speaker 1 9:56
think he thought if he asked you, you'd like, leave him instead. Yeah. The brand new twist. Insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case, that one got you twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design. Twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've Bolus. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is coming very soon. So if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juice box. That's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box. Links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com You've probably heard me talk about us Med, and how simple it is to reorder with us Med, using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works? And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, us, med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying? It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at us, med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com, to us, med and to all of the sponsors. The contour, next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show. I

Melissa 13:38
don't know what he thought. You know, he just, he's a really great guy, like, the most top notch man you could ask for a but, okay, but he's not like, super brave, you know? And whereas I'm like, all bravery, oh, I'm like, 100% bravery. And so there's, to some extent, I have to lead the way in certain things, he's really responsible and reliable and extremely kind. Like, I'm not as kind, I'm not very kind. I

Speaker 1 14:06
love how you started going I'm not as kind, and you were like, actually, that's too much credit. I'm not that kind.

Melissa 14:13
Yeah, I'm not super kind. I mean, I try. I want to be, I don't know, I should meditate on it and become kinder, but I'm but I don't know. There's just something about me, and a whole lot of that, like this, like deeply unconventional way of living, is so much of what I want to talk about in regards to my diabetes experiences, right?

Speaker 1 14:32
Well, listen, it's possible, possible, Melissa, that you're unkind because of pollutants like heavy metals, lead, mercury, industrial chemicals, PCBs, dioxins and radioactive materials. I

Melissa 14:45
know that you just put that into chat, GPT, I asked our friend,

Speaker 1 14:49
and this is what they said. Super fun site was EPA designation, identifies, investigates and ranks sites using the national priorities list to prioritize cleanup. So there. They're actually sites that need to be cleaned up, right? Oh my gosh, abandoned factories, industrial plants, landfills leaking toxic waste, old mining sites with heavy metal contamination, chemical storage and manufacturing plants, military bases with hazardous waste. Is type one diabetes. I haven't done this in a while. Oh

Melissa 15:21
boy. I was thinking, as I was listening to the podcast, I was like, I hope he doesn't start chat. GPT, well, just

Speaker 1 15:26
this one thing I just, I want to see, because you said the thing, and I want to see, like, if there's anything out there that, okay, say it says there's no definitive, large scale study that provides the direct link exactly,

Melissa 15:38
there's nothing, I mean, so I actually, I mean, I could talk more about what's in that book, diabetes rising. Yeah, please. Some of the stronger correlations, they're not that interesting. The ones that you always hear about are, like, the weakest correlations, like, like, cows milk. That's an extremely weak correlation. A lot of the stronger ones I've got going on. So geographically, like, there were a lot of kids in my school who had type one diabetes, and you know where I lived, there was a whole diabetes floor of the hospital where I went to also like your birth order, the the higher up in your birth order that you are, the more likely you are to have diabetes. And whether or not you were breastfed, if you weren't breastfed, then you have higher incidents, but I was breastfed and I was the second child, so I wasn't even the first. But I don't know if you realize this, but every time a woman gives birth, every child, the first one gets, like the highest of her her toxic load, and then each successive child has less of the toxins that have built up, like from eating fish or whatever else, all of that, you get less and less of that. Oh,

Speaker 1 16:47
I've never heard anyone say that before. That's interesting. That's true. So you should make, like, three and throw them away, and then really get started, right? Yeah, just, just start over. Get out your toxic toxic load. Get your toxic load out. And then, yeah, oh, gosh, I didn't realize that. No, no, it's so awesome. Thank you. I

Melissa 17:04
mean, who knows? Maybe things have changed since that book was written, but it was a fascinating book.

Speaker 1 17:09
Yeah, it's interesting, by the way, even though it says here that there's no studies about the super fun sites, it does go over a number of different ways how one of those sites could impact auto immune diseases and type one diabetes. So wait, wait, you were saying something and I shifted you crap. Hold on. It was

Melissa 17:26
just about being a deeply unconventional person. Yeah,

Speaker 1 17:30
no, thank you. So Wow, good memory. I got up very early this morning. I can't believe I'm gonna say this on this podcast. I got up very early this morning to sit with Arden's new puppy, oh, so that she could sleep for a couple extra hours. I know that I've given what is rock solid advice that I didn't listen to. And my rock solid advice, of course, is don't get married, don't have kids, don't get a dog. If you can avoid these three things, your life will probably be sadder but easier. But anyway, our dog, I

Melissa 17:57
won't have kids. Why not? Well, I mean, first of all, I'm 42 Oh, that's gone over to reason. So that's a good reason in and of itself. But no, I decided when I was pretty young not to have children, but I am a nanny and a babysitter for a living, and so, I mean, I love kids, and I am really good at taking care of them and understanding them. However, like, it's almost like a physical need to be with children. For certain people, I feel like if I didn't work with kids, I would have that need very strongly, because I get so much out of it, like my nanny baby after the holidays, and I didn't see him for three weeks, and then when I came back to him, he was asleep, and when he woke up, I went and I got him out of his crib, and he just hugged me for 20 minutes. You know, he just didn't want to do anything but hug me. And that feeling like is very difficult to replicate if you don't have any access to children. And I can see like having a hunger for them for that reason. But I've been doing this for so long, working with the with children and babies, that I get all of that from my work so

Speaker 1 19:04
interesting, like when you work in a bakery and you don't want sweets Exactly, yeah, access to children, by the way, out of context, very weird statement. Well, you know, in that context, I understood exactly what you meant. How long have you been doing that kind of work since

Melissa 19:21
2011 Wow. Before that, I used to work as a like a paralegal, which is not work I recommend, because so you know, I think Karl Marx said that work robs you of your species. Being like, it makes you feel like you're, you're not part of the species. You're You're just like. It's early to me too. It's only it's 930 for me, that's early because I, like I said, I'm a deeply unconventional person, so I don't really keep regular hours. So some work very much robs you of your species being and I feel like the work that I do now, it does not rob me of my species being. It i. Makes me feel fulfilled, whereas working as a paralegal has it just makes you feel dead inside. It's it's not good.

Speaker 1 20:09
You're not you're disconnected from it by yourself, indoors, all that.

Melissa 20:13
Yeah, that. And I mean, I'm sure it has a lot to do with the culture of the different places that you work, but I think that attorneys and doctors, most notoriously, sort of like, have egos about what they do. And, you know, I think, I think in some small part, even the desire to be those things in our culture has something to do with, like, wanting to feel higher than other people, not necessarily. I don't want to put that out there as a an overarching thing, because I know a lot of you know, there are a lot of attorneys who go into it to become public defenders, and, you know, do good work and but you know, if you're going to be working as a paralegal, most likely you're going to be like me and doing slip and falls and things that are a lot less noble.

Speaker 1 21:01
Did you feel like you were part of a system that was stealing from people? Well, no,

Melissa 21:05
I actually so the last, last place I worked as a paralegal, I think was actually doing very good work, but it's still, it still wasn't a great place to work. But we used to, we sued nursing homes. I used to look through the documents of the people who were suing the nursing homes. I remember looking and seeing there was this woman who had type two diabetes, and she was taking as much insulin in a day as I took in, you know, over a week. And I said, you know, those are the people who are using all the insulin. And I was like, I don't even think that's effective. I'm not even sure why you're doing it that way. I don't know why you don't like give them, you know, fruits and vegetables instead, but whatever, what

Scott Benner 21:46
makes you want to come on the podcast,

Melissa 21:47
I want to talk about what it has been like to live in a very unconventional way, pretty much without doctors. And yet, I've figured out diabetes since well before I had the technology. So I was in college in the year 2000 till 2003 when I dropped out. During that time, I was still on regular insulin and NPH, or human still in 2000 in 2000 Wow. And nobody had ever mentioned changing anything partially, I'm a victim of my own success. All right. So for one thing, it always surprises me to hear that people have never heard of Pre Bolus saying, because, again, I was diagnosed in 1991 and you know, they had a pretty good program, I guess, at Montgomery hospital, because they definitely told us you're supposed to give yourself insulin a half hour before you eat. That was always the role, always. I mean, this was on regular insulin. I didn't always do it, and to this day, I still don't always do it, and that's one of the reasons why. Like, if I can convince myself to find an endocrinologist and go to one, I would love to get some a phrase, but I really struggle with having to beg doctors for what I need,

Speaker 1 23:04
I made an ENT appointment yesterday for myself that I should have made two years ago. Oh yeah, I just got up one day and I was like, I'm not why am I struggling with this? Why don't I just do it?

Melissa 23:13
Well, I just don't have an endocrinologist at the moment, because my last endocrinologist, like, she fired me, she doesn't want to see me anymore, which is wild, because, like, you know, she really should be asking me for advice about how I do what I do, but she was angry because I don't do carb counting, and I don't put carb counts into the pump, and she wants me to do things by carb counts, but I have had diabetes for so long, and I got so good at it that my ability to know how much insulin I need for the food that I eat is like preternatural. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 23:45
just know. Why was she insisting on you doing that? I

Melissa 23:49
don't know how long, so I mean, that was one of her issues with me, was that I refused to she was really upset about my inability to provide a carb count. I said, I know you need to put something in your chart, so just put one to 10. Because I don't care what she puts on the chart. She was like, Well, I don't like that. And I was like, Oh, I'm sorry. Like, I think I must have probably said something to her about how I was like, you know, well, I've been doing this for a really long time, and I know how to do it. And my time in range is 93% and my a 1c is 5.4 I think it was. And I'm just like, you know, I don't know what you're complaining about.

Speaker 1 24:24
Yeah, was she new to you? Were you guys just just now? No, she was

Melissa 24:28
so she was the one who finally put me on a pump. I need you to understand I didn't even have, I didn't have a CGM. I always wanted a CGM. Like, I remember, like, through the many, many years of having figured out on my own how to do diabetes. I remember, I've thought to myself, if there was just some device that would track your blood sugar all the time, test it all the time, and then it would talk to a pump. I mean, I remember, I literally, I thought that's as good as a cure. That was what my thought was at the time. I was like, that's like, that would be so great. Big deal. Yeah. And then. I knew that, like such a thing existed, but I just had always been doing so well, and I didn't have health insurance for most of my life, like when I worked as a paralegal, I did not have health insurance. I worked at a small practice for most of that time, and then I did finally get health insurance at the last place that I worked as a paralegal, and that was when I switched to Lantis. So we're talking about, like 2008 or something, when I switched to Lantis.

Speaker 1 25:27
So tell me what you mean by I figured it out the other way. So like you started with, did you start with RNN? Was that your first instance? I started with RNN. Okay. And doing what like shooting in the morning and at night, or how did

Melissa 25:40
you handle it? Yeah, and I was figuring out my own doses pretty much. I mean, I still remember, like I used to give myself eight units at night and three in the morning, or maybe it was the other way around. That doesn't matter to the audience.

Speaker 1 25:57
You don't have to edit, Melissa, you can just keep talking. That's fine. You were having outcomes back then that were like the ones you're having now, or just you were doing you were in the fives. Yes,

Melissa 26:06
5.2 usually, because I was I would go low but, but I don't want you to think that God was low all the time. I could always feel my lows. Some people live their lives in fear of lows, but I do not live my life in fear of lows. I realized very early on that having diabetes type one is sort of like you are jumping out of an airplane and there's a target on the ground, and you need to get into the bulls eye target, and the closer you are to that bulls eye target, it's more like you need to get into the bulls eye, but not in the center, like you just don't want to be in the center. You just want to be on that target, but not right in the center. But the whole world outside of that target is huge. So it's really easy to end up nowhere close to the target, but if you are consistently in that target, you're much more likely to occasionally hit that bulls eye by accident. You know, I just embraced like, Okay, well, I'm not afraid of lows. If I start to feel low, I'll just eat some sugar and I'll be okay. And so because of that, I just, I kept my plus sugars, like, fairly in range with some lows, which is not to say that I didn't have dangerous lows, because I did. They were all as a result of drinking alcohol and then going to sleep. I called an ambulance one time, pretty sure that my my deceased mother, like, visited me in a dream to get me to wake up give myself some sugar. I definitely had some dangerous loves, like, I'm not going to pretend like everything my life was perfect. Were they frequent? I mean, I would say that during that time. I mean, it's hard to know, because I didn't have a CGM. I was testing my blood sugar like 10 plus times a day, and I want you to understand something. So when I went to college, I still had health insurance. This was before the Affordable Care Act, and so I did not get to stay on my parents insurance until I was 24 and as soon as you dropped out of college, you lost your insurance. Right when I did that, I did as best as I could. I was always testing, and I was always I had a mantra, test and treat, test and treat. I repeat test and treat. I just like I honestly did, like a pump style regimen, but with MTI, where I would, I would give myself, like, the smallest bit of insulin. I, you know, on those syringes they have, like, you could get ones that have a half unit, and I used to get those, and I would just, like, I would give myself, like, a little tiny triplet of insulin. So I was giving myself a ridiculous number of shots for so many years, and I destroyed the fat

Scott Benner 28:43
on my body. Were you just shooting at the same place all the time? No,

Melissa 28:47
no, I was doing my all over my thighs and all over my stomach, and that's about it. I would love to be able to use different parts of my body, but for some reason, nobody can explain this, but my sites fail. They just fail all the time. Like, I mean, you can try to explain it, but I've never heard anyone on the podcast say it, and I've also no one's ever heard of what happens with me, but like the true steel, which is the ones that are supposed to not occlude ever. Those occlude constantly for me, non stop. And the only ones that work for me, the only infusion sites that work, are the autosoft 30s. Who makes that? That's tandem, but they these are the ones that go in at a 30 degree angle, right? And let me tell you, they scar. They really do. They scar, but they work, and so I use them. Do you have

Scott Benner 29:42
problems when you were injecting? You

Melissa 29:44
know, it's hard to say, because there were times when I felt like that shot didn't even make a difference, and it felt a lot like what used to happen with what happens when I would use, like, true steel or whatever, where I'm like, for some reason at this site, I'm getting. No absorption. I think that it's possible that that was an issue, but it's also it's, again, it's really hard to tell because, because I didn't have a CGM, and so I was just testing a lot, and I would just give myself many shots. So if one didn't work, the next one might Okay, jeez. Just kind of

Speaker 1 30:20
want to, like, refocus for a second on the RNN time you were managing tests correct test that testing correct you were doing with that. Yes, okay, yeah. And

Melissa 30:29
I did that. And, you know, I'm, honestly, I'm so thankful that I had that time doing that, because I know that no matter what happens if I was extremely broke. I mean, now I have health insurance through my husband, but if I had no health insurance and I had no money, I can totally survive off of Walmart from pretty minimal cost and not just survive, but thrive. And I could keep my my blood sugars at, you know, a 5.2 a, 1c, and I'd probably do better at it now, even then, now that I understand more due to having had a CGM for a while. Is

Speaker 1 31:06
there an eating style at play here? Or do you just eat what you want? Yeah, what's your style? I've

Melissa 31:12
been a vegan for a long time, a very long time, and but the thing is, sometimes I'm a healthy vegan, and other times I'm a junk food vegan. I find junk food vegan is veganism. It's the same as when I used to just, like, eat, you know, pizza and everything, you know, just when I used to just, you know, prior to that, I ate, like, whatever I used to eat, like, a lot of like, frozen chicken from a bag that would stick in the oven, like, I know,

Speaker 1 31:37
a junk food vegan, like, so it's interesting, they're like, I don't eat meat, but no, I don't really eat vegetables either. I eat mostly potato chips. My gotcha, yeah,

Melissa 31:46
I love me some potato chips. And actually, though, if you're gonna eat like that, like if you're gonna eat junk, really, in a way, you know, humil and R is great

Speaker 1 31:54
because you're grazing and it's spread out and that kind of, yeah, there

Melissa 31:58
was a long time, even after I switched to finally having humolog, I still kept some R. I used to keep both on hand, and I was able to get humologue. I was able to get humologue through Lily cares. You know, Lily used to get the program, yeah, I used Lily cares for a long time for that, but they don't make a lance, so I was just using n and cum log.

Speaker 1 32:24
So you have any eating style, it's not what I thought. I thought you're gonna say I'm, like, more low carb or something like that. But

Melissa 32:28
okay, so I used to try, I tried everything, but I actually I was using way more insulin when I was low carb, way more insulin. So, like, if you eat a healthy vegan lifestyle where you like, are eating pretty low fat. I eat my five servings of fruit and vegetables a day. And for sure, I have like, regular foods that I eat, which is also helpful. Mostly, what I eat is like, I eat like a whole unprocessed grain, like quinoa, or, you know, I use, like the most brownish rice you can find like, that's grown in India, because the ones grown in China have arsenic. If you eat, like a whole grain, like a vegetable, like some something Leafy, like a mix of like a nice, delicious sauce of some sort, that isn't, like, super sugary, but even if it is sugary, it's that's okay, because I find that a meal like that. It's just so easy to dose for I don't struggle with that at all. And if you eat like a raw food, I mean, I'm not a raw food diet or anything like that, but the easiest foods by far, like, if I'm gonna go out to eat and not struggle to dose, I really recommend a raw food restaurant, which sounds gross, but it's actually like, usually delicious. Melissa, are you a hippie? No, not at all. I'm more like a rock and roller like a punk. Okay,

Speaker 1 33:48
all right, we can bleep this out. But would you have a different last name in my Facebook group than you have on this? Yes, okay, get ready to have your mind blown. Okay, I searched for you just to see who I'm talking to about five minutes ago. Okay, the last post you put up has a reply from Do you want to

Unknown Speaker 34:13
guess who? Sure, no, I don't know

Speaker 1 34:15
who the Michelle that I'm recording with tomorrow. Oh, isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 34:26
I couldn't believe it, like you popped up, and I'm like, Oh, this is definitely her. And then I looked down and the last comment in your last post is from that person. I can't believe that. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I don't understand. How does the world work? How does it know? You

Melissa 34:42
know you can, you can do the gateway tapes and try to figure that out.

Speaker 1 34:46
And did you just mention Lily a minute ago? Well, the Eli Lilly really cares. That person used to work there.

Melissa 34:55
What's gonna I own quite a lot of stock in Eli Lilly. Do you understand quite well? For me, yeah, you're in the market. Are you? Yeah, I am. And I don't normally own individual stocks. Mostly I just do like whole market ETFs. But when I first got started, I was just like, I'm just gonna buy a bunch of individual stocks of companies that I like. And I was like, I just like Lily because they helped me out for so many years, and so I bought a bunch of stock, and then that stock looks skyrocketed, still doing well. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's, like, just gone, even for like, maybe a year or so. But when I bought it, it was pretty cheap. And then, I guess, because of Z bound and everything, it really has skyrocketed, we're not giving stock advice. I think we have to say that, yeah, yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't have any stock advice. My stock advice is, invest in a mutual fund. I was

Speaker 1 35:47
gonna say, I know for a fact you're the first person to say whole market. ETF on the podcast, for sure, yeah. Well,

Melissa 35:55
that is honestly the most rational. That's what, like any, anybody will tell you to do if you're just like a casual investor. I mean, everybody needs to be invested in order to horse hire. Hopefully you're invested to retire. I

Speaker 1 36:08
am trying my hardest. Yes, thank you. I sure hope so. Should you should have been doing it for years. We have been putting money into a 401 K since the first year my wife, yeah. But then

Melissa 36:18
did you invest with that 401 K? Because a lot of people just put their money into these accounts thinking that it's being invested, but it's not so it's just sitting there. It's just savings. We have a

Speaker 1 36:28
person who looks at some the money and makes changes to it as the year goes on. Okay, all right, good, good.

Melissa 36:35
And then they take one you're probably paying them, like, one to 2% I pay

Speaker 1 36:39
them 1% of Oh, my god, yeah, it's terrible. But I

Melissa 36:43
would not see I would just invest in a whole market ETF. It's literally just in like, like, if you invest in an ETF, like, VT or VTi, that is just the entire stock market. And if you look at the entire stock market over time, it's just gone up and up and up and and just that, like that gives you a 10% return a year, basic, you know, on average, yeah, and that beats what individual investors do. It's insane. People make it so complicated, but it's actually so simple.

Scott Benner 37:12
My guys then nine, 10% for the last six years, right?

Melissa 37:15
I know, but it would have been like 11 or, I mean, the market the past, you know, decade has been insane. It's just

Scott Benner 37:22
what's getting ready to jump again. So I don't

Melissa 37:25
know. We'll see. Yeah, it could be. I mean, the thing is, is that everybody is greatly invested in making sure that's the case. I know

Speaker 1 37:33
very little about this, but I've been alive long enough to know that companies seem to do better under Republican presidents. So I'm expecting a little bit of a swing in the in the

Melissa 37:44
I mean, I don't think that's actually technically true. These past four years have been the market has skyrocketed, but it has been very good, and it was great through Clinton, unfortunately, George W Bush crashed the economy, and then, of course, Trump, under COVID, did as well. So there was, like, a huge crash. So I don't really think it makes a difference who's in office as far as the stock market goes, because everybody has a great deal of interest in keeping the stock market continually rising. Yeah,

Speaker 1 38:12
I would say this. I do think that as an adult, the most money I made on any money I had invested in. It wasn't very much then, obviously, but because we were pretty young, but the Clinton years were very positive. Yeah, there was a big leap this year, during these last couple years with during Biden. Yeah, what I'm saying is that when Republicans come in, a lot of times they'll kind of, they'll cut restrictions, and I think it makes everybody believe that there's going to be more money national exuberance, yeah, yeah, right, that's exactly. And everybody gets super excited for a while. The market jumps, a crash, and then about two years in, it usually starts to trend the other way.

Melissa 38:50
Usually, their horrible policies make do, do affect the economy negatively. Eventually, the thing is, is that there's a real economy, and then there's like the economy that just is affecting those who invest and those are different things, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 39:04
And I want to say I would prefer that water and air and stuff like that be clean, but at the same time, like I've noticed over and over again, like you said, when those restrictions get lifted, it does create and the stock market is people

Melissa 39:15
talk about restrictions, but what restrictions are you talking about? Like, do you actually,

Speaker 1 39:19
oh, I don't think anyone knows. I just think that it's the vibe in the world that that's happening, and everybody gets a little more excited with their investing, and then everything kind of pumps up a little bit for a while. And then when, you know, when it doesn't bear,

Melissa 39:32
well, there's also a lot of fraud and dishonesty under you know. So what happens is we get Enron situations when we have an SEC who's not like looking into these companies to make sure that they're actually, you know, behaving lawfully. Yeah? So, yeah, the more fraud and deceit that you have, the higher the stock prices are going to go. But it's,

Speaker 1 39:50
it's irrational. Oh no, for sure, I think everything around the stock market's irrational.

Melissa 39:54
It, I mean, to a huge it's all just vibes. It has very It used to be different. You. Used to be that those things had to do with how well the companies performed and their cost ratio and all these different things, but now it's pretty much all just vibes and so crazy, and who knows what's going to happen? Yeah,

Speaker 1 40:12
by the way, like, politically, I don't really like, I don't have an opinion that I'm I hold enough that I would want to share publicly, because I don't think it probably holds water. That is the vibe is that, like, everyone just gets excited and then things just trend for no reason. It's not like, it's not about profits, not about, like, you said, it's not about cost. It's just about like, Oh, I I think that's a good idea, or I don't like the guy that runs that company, so that, you know, it goes the other way, or that stuff is insane, you know what I mean, right? So, yeah. I

Melissa 40:41
mean, the things that have really skyrocketed are almost just entirely based on vibes, you know, like the the like the ETFs that are just invested in semiconductor stuff, like QQ, these types of ETFs. I mean, my God, those are, those are just like, those companies aren't even turning a profit,

Speaker 1 40:58
you know, no, a lot of those companies are borrowing money to stay going, yeah, they're like, we have an angel investor. I'm like, okay, like you said, meanwhile, there's companies out there. They've got, you know, they treat their employees well. They're following the rules. They're making money, they're not spending too much. They show a profit, and right? Their stock sits, and it doesn't matter. It gives you about a 10% return

Melissa 41:18
a year if you're invested in just like normal things, like, like Lily, you know, these, like blue chip stocks, where it's just like, these are proven companies. They're not going to go bankrupt. They're turning a profit, maybe inventing something that is freaking awesome. Like, you know, I mean, I don't think that Lily, Lily didn't invent zbound, but having a product like that will help your stock price, but ultimately, it's just about running a good company anyway. I didn't mean to get off on that's another

Speaker 1 41:46
thing. It's never happened before, by the way. I will say this though I had a doctor on the other day from Joslyn, and he's on staff at Harvard as well. And he was talking about, he doesn't think injectable glps will be long for the world. He thinks that they're going to get more power for their punch out of an oral medication sooner than you think, sure, yeah. So, yeah,

Melissa 42:07
nobody likes to inject. Yeah. I was just listening to your episode about injection fear, and I was thinking about how, you know, even though I have diabetes, when I watch TV, I can't stand the thought I'm okay with insulin shots. Those don't bother me to even see or to think about. But I can't watch a TV, a needle on TV going into somebody. I mean, I get all my vaccines, but I don't like how they go into my shoulder. One time, I got a breathing thing, you know, I got a nebulizer. It's just the, it's when you get really sick and you have, it's such a common word, but yeah, it's like, I got a vaccine to make sure that you don't your lungs don't fill with water. What the heck is that called? Starts with an A I feel like you've

Speaker 1 42:50
got me going in circles. I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't get off over like, I'm trying to decide how you learned about the stock market and investing.

Melissa 42:57
I'm just very smart, and I do read books. Like, a lot of them, like, like,

Scott Benner 43:01
100 or so a year, really? How many is that a week? Well,

Melissa 43:05
I listen to audio books, and I listen at like, one and 1.5 speed.

Speaker 1 43:10
I got audible recently, and I was like, so there's this book I want to read, and it's just dry, so I'll just let somebody download it into my head through audio, is the way I was thinking about it. And then I'm so spoiled about entertainment because of podcasts. Yeah, I got along. I'm like, this is boring. Well, what book was it? I don't want to say I'm not trying to bad mouth the book I hear that, but I also want to know it could have been the person reading it. Like, I have no idea. But I was like, All right, this sucks. Like, so I'm going to try a different one.

Melissa 43:42
Well, don't use Audible, because that, and then you're paying per book, and you feel bad about it, you know? Just, just get your libraries, get you have a library card, right?

Speaker 1 43:49
No, a library. We don't have a library card. I haven't been to a library since I was nine, yeah.

Melissa 43:54
But you can just go in and just show your ID and get a library card, and then that will give you access to Libby, which is an app, and then you just put whatever audio book you want on hold, and when it's ready, you'll get to take it out of the library and you can listen to it. And then you don't have to feel bad about abandoning it if you hate it. You don't feel like I just paid $15 for the month and I'm out

Speaker 1 44:16
of bowl or whatever. I don't understand what Libby is like. Libby is an app. It's audio listening.

Melissa 44:21
Also, you good. Also, you can get Kindle books as well through it, but, yeah, why do

Scott Benner 44:27
I have to wait for it to be available if it's digital? Because it's

Melissa 44:30
from the library. So there are other people online before you. So

Speaker 1 44:34
it's not digital, it's not like a a link or a file that it's it's an

Melissa 44:38
audio book. It's on, it's on an app. You know, it's just like, it's just like your audible app, except it's called Libby. I don't understand why

Speaker 1 44:44
more than one person can't listen to it at once. Well, because they've cut deals

Melissa 44:48
with the libraries to use the physical books are the same way. Honestly,

Scott Benner 44:52
they're limiting it until somebody else is done with it,

Melissa 44:55
correct, like they have a certain number of copies available, and then. After the library has used up the number of copies that they like, got the right to give, they can rebuy whatever they bought. They have to buy it again. That makes sense. Okay? And then a really popular book, you know, they might originally get 100 copies, but then as the book gets less popular, they're not going to keep buying 100 copies. They're just going to buy, you know, however many they need. I'm

Speaker 1 45:21
going to ask you a question that there's no way you should know the answer to to see if you know the answer, because you're starting to freak me out. Okay, what humidity does my chameleon want to live at? Oh, I have no idea. Okay, God, I was glad, because I thought I was going to just keep saying things that you're going to be like, Oh, I know about that. Like, freaking me out. Oh, my gosh, that's like, Rosemary's Baby. Are you familiar with Rosemary's Baby? I don't do scary movies. Oh my gosh, that's a shame. I don't like they seem silly to me. I've

Melissa 45:50
got Rosemary's Baby, like, memorized and, and, you know, there's a part where this old guy, he says, he says, you name a place, I've been there, name a place. And he's like, sit for Alaska. And he's like, I've been there, great city, you know, like, no matter what, anyway,

Scott Benner 46:05
what's the what's the town in Alaska? I think

Melissa 46:07
I said sit VA, but I'm not sure that's actually a town. Sitka might be the name of

Speaker 1 46:12
the town to find out, because I think that's what your episode is going to be called. Oh no, I hate that. You weren't going to like whatever I picked.

Melissa 46:19
Most famously, he cites Dubrovnik, which is in Croatia, as a place. At the end, Rosemary says, Don't talk to me. You're in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik, yeah. And I think most people don't when they watch the movie, there's a lot of stuff in that movie that you it's really not a scary movie in the way that, like some movies are scary. You know, there's no Gore,

Speaker 1 46:40
I believe you. I should watch it. I know the reference. Isn't that enough? No, it's like one of the best movies, all right, I'll put it on the list of movies that I'll be you

Melissa 46:49
know what? If you prefer you can read the book by Ira Levin. Does

Scott Benner 46:53
it sound like that's gonna happen, which is exactly

Melissa 46:55
the same as the movie, except for one scene. Okay, anyway, let's talk about diabetes. I have so much to say

Speaker 1 47:03
about diabetes, so tell me what you want want to say about diabetes. Then, yeah,

Melissa 47:07
I mean, I just, I have, like, so many experiences, just so much. First of all, you know, when I was growing up, we didn't have all of this technology, and I feel so bad for the parents today, because they are worrying so much because they have so much detail about what's going on with their kids blood sugars and me like so when I was a kid, we didn't even have, like, carb counting or anything. We just had exchanges. You're supposed to have one exchange of carbohydrates and one exchange of protein or whatever. But we never did a good job keeping it any of that, and there wasn't any adjustment to my insulin dose due to blood sugar or like, the adjustment was minimal. And so eventually, I actually spent about two years where I didn't test my blood sugar at all. I never tested my blood sugar because it made no difference. Like, it just felt like it was a way for doctors to yell at you when you went into the office because your blood sugars weren't good. So I was like, Well, why not just make up all of this? All I ever used to do is just invent blood sugars and write them in those little books they would give us, which, like those books, never made sense either, because everybody expects you to be on a schedule. But I just never, even as a kid, I just never could keep to any sort of like, regular human being, schedule. Yeah.

Speaker 1 48:19
Do you think they wanted those numbers in the book to help you, or just because they were supposed to be there and they could say that it was there, I'm sure

Melissa 48:27
that the idea is to help you. I mean, I don't think they just do it to be evil or anything. Like, no, I don't think that, yeah. Like, let's torture them, make them write these numbers in a book. And actually, like, so my father, you know, he's a computer programmer, and he invented the first program to like, he was like, I'm gonna invent something where he used to hook up my one touch two glucometer. I don't know if you've ever seen those on the internet, but the old school glucometer. But he invented something that would pull the data from it and write down all the blood sugars to solve this problem. Wow. How long ago was that? I mean, it must have been in like 1994 jeez. Did

Scott Benner 49:06
he do that just for you, or do you do it?

Melissa 49:07
Yeah, just for me. Oh, that's lovely. He also invented a a program to help me spell. He made a thing where you could record, he could, I could record my spelling words, and then I had to type it in. And so he at first I record my voice, and then it would like give it to me Spelling Bee style. Can

Speaker 1 49:24
you go back to what you think about parents struggling nowadays because, because I want to hear what you're going to say and then I'm going to disagree with you.

Melissa 49:32
Okay, go ahead. You might, but you also might not. I just feel a lot of sympathy for them, because I can see how stressful it is. And like my parents, I don't get the impression that my father was super stressed about it. My mother may have been stressed about it, but I think she mostly just felt guilty, like she felt like it was like a failure as a parent that she got that I got diabetes, okay, which, of course, it was not, and I used to have middle of the night lows. Yes, and that was really the big problem, was that I would have middle of the night lows, and I would wake up, like, screaming. Well, mostly in the middle, mostly the middle of the night lows would wake me up, and I would just go to their bed and, like, wake them. And then eventually I switched to just like, I'll just go downstairs and get get some juice. But at first I used to wake them. I mean, I think what happens when you go to sleep and you have low in your sleep is that you have a nightmare, the low blood sugar nightmares are freaking crazy. I remember I had this nightmare that, like, that low and high were playing tennis, and that low was this, like, big, giant blob, and the tennis was just getting squished. The high sugar was just getting squished, and I was like, Oh my God, and I would wake up screaming. And they would like, we did have glucagon, but at the time, they told us that glucagon was for when you passed out. And I've never passed out, but I have had seizures. One time I had a seizure at a folk festival. I know I said I'm not a hippie, but I did. Used to go to some folk festivals, like the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and I had a seizure at one while I was on a hammock and in the wee hours of the morning.

Speaker 1 51:12
Do you think you and I grew up really close to each other? I think we grew up really close to each other. Yeah, I think so too. I've gotten

Melissa 51:19
that impression so many times listening to the podcast. I'm just like, You are my neighbor. I just know it interesting

Speaker 1 51:25
and listen. I have to ask at this point, do you have ADHD add, I don't know. You have not completed one thought in the last 54 minutes. Oh

Unknown Speaker 51:35
my goodness. Which I think

Speaker 1 51:37
the podcasting is awesome because I enjoy this conversation because I like the way it flows through. But I tried twice to get you to tell me what you think about how parents feel nowadays with technology and we are at a folk festival right now on the second try, right? Yeah, it's awesome.

Melissa 51:51
I mean, I don't know, listen, I work with parents. I mean, I'm constantly in different people's homes, and just the way that parenting is in general, is so different now from when I was growing up, and to some extent, like, my family cannot be blamed for anything in regards to how I was raised with diabetes, because I am a very headstrong person, it's very difficult to influence me, and so I they can't be blamed For, like, not taking stronger control of my diabetes, and, you know, letting these low blood sugars happen or whatever. But I just feel like these days they have Dexcom going off on their own phone and everything. And the worst, the thing that really makes me feel nightmarish when I hear about it is the school stuff, the stuff with the schools, because when I was at school, I wouldn't let them have anything to do with my diabetes, and I used to give myself a shot whenever I wanted. They did try to tell me that I had to go to the nurse's office for things, but I just didn't do that. I just didn't do it because some people are comfortable with breaking rules, and others aren't, and I'm somebody who is comfortable breaking a rule that I think doesn't make sense, that does no harm.

Speaker 1 53:03
When you see people, do you think they're overwhelmed, or they're paying attention to closely, or, like, where's the overwhelmed?

Melissa 53:10
I think that it's information overload. And here's what I really think. I think that children's bodies are extremely resilient. And so, you know, when I was a kid, yeah, my hemoglobin a one Cs were like, I mean, this doesn't sound that bad, but they were like, nine, eight or nine, which for me, that's very high. It seemed like I was very high. But I understand seeing other people's that that might be like a great a 1c to A lot of people nowadays. First of all, kids are not given as much autonomy as they were given when I was younger. I think that's a problem. How do you know that? I think that children need to learn how to take care of their own diabetes, especially they should never, ever be given restrictions on treating their low blood sugar. When I was a kid, the snack that they gave you for low blood sugar treating was always these crinkle crackers that are in, like a six pack, a crinkly six pack, and they had, like, peanut butter or cheese between crackers. And I got so good at opening those crinkly packets extremely silently, like when people were, like, talking or coughing. And like also, like putting the crackers into my mouth, and like, basically letting them melt in my mouth and not chewing too noticeably and not leaving any crumbs. But

Speaker 1 54:24
Melissa, where are you getting the idea that somebody's overwhelmed from, or that kids aren't allowed to treat with the certain way or like or any of the things that you've that you've seen

Melissa 54:32
it in the in the group, all this, in all the groups people are are making these, like, elaborate systems where, okay, so some of the kids, if they're like, super young, they might need some help. I don't know, maybe dosing. I guess probably dosing is what you would need help with. I see so much struggling with the schools, and I'm just like, Oh, my God, I would not let the schools have anything to do with my diabetes care taking. But they

Speaker 1 54:56
might not have a choice. In some situations, the schools might have rules, or they're being risk. This then, and they have to go to lawyers, no,

Unknown Speaker 55:01
and I hate that. I hate that for them, of

Speaker 1 55:03
course. No, I do too. I also want to say that when you were a kid, you were shooting once in the morning and once in the afternoon. No, I

Melissa 55:10
started. So at some point I started to go to to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and they did teach you about carb

Speaker 1 55:17
counting. There you did MDI at some point then yeah, and this is still

Melissa 55:21
an MDI, of course, but yeah, I started to give myself insulin for whatever I ate, right? And also in order to treat high blood sugar. So that was like a revolution for me, when that's

Speaker 1 55:32
awesome, but if I put one of those parents on here and let them talk back to you, and they said, hey, that's awesome, but your a 1c was nine, and my kids a 1c is six, well,

Melissa 55:41
no, well, but then my a 1c so once I learned to carb count and everything. So that was like probably middle school sometimes. So I was in third grade when I started, and it must have been like seventh grade when I finally learned to carb count. After that, my a 1c was has never been. I mean, my ANC hasn't been above six since then, I don't think my whole life.

Speaker 1 56:02
Then why don't you go back to doing it that way? To MDI,

Melissa 56:06
yeah. Well, because the pump is a dream. Are you kidding like so first of all, the pump. I mean, I run it. I run the tandem T slim on sleep mode, 24/7 control. IQ, yeah. And that was another thing that my my endocrinologist hated. She kept asking me, why do you keep it on sleep mode? And I'm like, well, because the target blood sugar is 100 on sleep mode. And she was just like, well, I don't know what she she was just so angry about that. She really did not like me keeping it on sleep mode, but. But the thing is, is that whenever you would ask her, like, specific questions about diabetes, she would be like, Well, I don't know anything about that. Talk to the tandem rep. And so I talked to the tandem rep quite a bit. And the tandem rep was like, Yeah, keeping it on sleep mode. 24/7 is honestly one of the best things you can do. You can you'll have such great blood sugars doing it that way. So they're like, if you're that kind of person, then yeah, that's that's great. I don't

Speaker 1 56:58
think anybody spends more time looking at diabetes communities than maybe I do, and what I think happens is that there are some people who are overwhelmed, or there's some people who are helicoptering, or there are some people who are whatever, like, doesn't matter, fighting with school, whatnot. But those people are, they're not everybody, and as a matter of fact, they're so not even a high percentage of the people. But I think it's what sticks with adults with type one so much your response like, I think it's lovely that you're concerned for people, but your response that, oh my God, those people are doing something that they shouldn't be doing, or don't they're doing something

Melissa 57:40
they shouldn't be doing. To be clear, okay, well, I think they're doing great. I just feel for them, it just feels really it's very difficult to control diabetes. I mean, yeah, you're a different sort of a person, but it's really difficult to control diabetes when you can't feel your blood sugars right. For me, I know what my blood sugar is without looking at the Dexcom. I think it's a really good activity in general. You should know your blood sugars without looking. And you can learn to do that simply by before you look at what your blood sugar is. Just guess what it is. Just take a breath and then look and see if you're right. I know I'm going to go low before the Dexcom is going to tell me that I'm going to go low. I can feel it. And I also, like, I can feel if my blood sugar is over 120 you know, you know, if you're higher,

Scott Benner 58:27
you get cloudy. And

Melissa 58:30
I feel this, this like sort of vague feeling in in the center of my body that feels a little bit like thirst. But it's not true. Thirst interesting. It feels a little different. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 58:39
So I'm misunderstanding you then, like you're not saying, like you're trying too hard or you're paying too close attention, you're just saying, I feel bad because you're aware of all this, and then we got to get through without having to be as aware of all this. You're yourself.

Melissa 58:52
You need to deal with yourself, and your kid eventually needs to learn to deal with themselves as well. I mean, already, parenting is so much like having a physical body outside of yourself as well, and like, you know, to such a large extent, like you are your children, and it's wild. I mean, I can see it with the parents, and I feel for it. It's just it's really stressful, whereas, like when I was a kid, it was kind of like, Hey, as long as she's like, She's kicking, she's doing fine.

Speaker 1 59:22
Listen, I understand also, there wasn't really a way to do better than that, right? I disagree. Is the wrong word, because I don't know if I'm right or not, but the one thing that I'm not willing to take the risk on is, oh, they're little, so it doesn't matter, right? That's not a thing. I think

Melissa 59:38
it matters a great deal, because of how the kids feel if you switch your diet, you know, especially if you do it when you're young, and you start to eat more fruits and vegetables and legumes. People always ignore the legumes. If you eat that stuff, like your body will heal itself. The harm that gets done from inflammation, you know, from the high blood sugars and it's like your your body is going to heal. But the thing that. Doesn't heal. And the thing that is a real struggle is the things that happen to your your mind and your social relationships as a result of varying blood sugars.

Speaker 1 1:00:09
Listen, I agree with all that about the psychological side of it. I don't know that I'm willing to bet my kid's future on a legume. Oh,

Melissa 1:00:18
well. I mean, I wouldn't say you should bet your kids future. I mean, I think, I mean, I think you've done an amazing job. And, I mean, and I'm not concerned for your daughter. No, no, I don't feel like you are. I noticed this across the board, not just with diabetes, but I worry about the about a lot of children's a lot of them seem to lack a preparedness, like an ability to do things on their own, in regards to a lot of things like, I mean, a lot of the times like, I ask the kids, I'll babysit, I'll be like, do you know your address? Like, when I was a kid, we knew, like, our parents phone number and our address, right my heart and like, what if you were kidnapped and you escaped? Do you know your parents full names?

Speaker 1 1:00:57
Wait, you're worried for children of people on a community web board who have diabetes because somebody you babysit doesn't know their address. It's

Melissa 1:01:04
a lot of kids. And it's also listening to teachers. I don't know if you like, listen to what teachers are saying. Not since

Speaker 1 1:01:10
I was little, and I didn't think it was a good idea then, but go ahead. Right, right.

Melissa 1:01:13
Well, I mean, I It's like, get on like, teacher YouTube sometime, and like, watch what's sort of happening with with the classrooms. I mean, COVID certainly didn't help. I think that to a large extent, in general, there's maybe, like an over involvement with kids, where it's starting to have, like a negative effect on children's ability to do things for themselves, and that concerns me. But at the same time, I also recognize that, like, literally, every generation has been like the next generation, you know, they're not, they can't do anything for themselves and but you know, so I'm like,

Speaker 1 1:01:51
I know a moron who's in their 50s, a moron that's in their 40s, a more on their 30s and 20s and 10s. And I know five teachers I wouldn't let help me cross the street? Yeah, I also know great teachers, and I also know wonderful people like what I'm thinking happens is that when you bring a bunch of people together in a community, sometimes more often than not, the people who are struggling speak up more than the people who aren't, and that it gives the impression that everyone is struggling. And I just don't think that's true, because I talk to all the people who are doing really well, whose kids are really thoughtful, and know how to, you know, know what their diabetes address is and all that stuff. Like, I don't even know how to like describe it, but I think your compassion, or other people's compassion, is somehow coupled with like, this is me from like, 1000 yards away, like, just observing, okay, but I think if you grew up with type one and you're doing well now, meaning you don't have trigger finger, you don't have neuropathy, you're not getting injections in your eyes, and you didn't spend a ton of time focusing on data and everything. What your that your takeaway was was, hey, listen, we weren't paying that close attention like you guys are. And I'm doing great. Now I can go find another person who's your age, who has neuropathy or trigger finger or doopingers, whatever, or all the other problems that can come with, like unmanaged type one, and they'll say, You know what? They'll tell me, I wish my parents would have paid closer attention, because maybe my health would be better. Now you have these two perspectives, and then you're looking at a person whose kid was just diagnosed. The people who didn't have trouble are asking them to chill out, and the people who did have trouble are asking them to pay closer attention. Well,

Melissa 1:03:32
I definitely don't think that parents shouldn't try to care for children's diabetes

Speaker 1 1:03:37
by any stretch. No, no, I know you're not saying that. I'm saying this kind of a big, broad conversation, yeah. And I think what happens is, then you're a parent, and then you pivot in, like, one of two different, like, general directions. You either go, that's the kids thing. They're gonna have to learn it because they're gonna be an adult one day. So we'll put it on them, and then out of sight, out of mind, whatever happens. Happens. This is what the Lord wanted, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then there's other people who will say, like, look, I'm going to pay closer attention to this. Give this could a decent launch into life with good health, and hopefully that other stuff will pick up. I mean, honestly, if I blindfolded you and kept you blindfolded for three days and then stood you up and said, Okay, here's the deal, Melissa, there's either a cliff in front of you or there's not. Do you want to step forward? You'd say, No. If there's a cliff there, I don't want to fall off. But, and I think that's where those people are, like, I don't know that. They're certain that all this work and effort is definitely going to lead to good health. Like, right? It's still you could do everything right, and it could still, you could still have a medical issue. But I think they think that it gives them a better than coin flip chance, if they put this effort in now. Now where I completely agree with you is that you can't ignore people's mental health and say, Yeah, but look, they've got a five, two, A, 1c like, that's not okay either. You know what I mean? I

Melissa 1:04:55
mean my I'm not even talking about people with good a one CS who. Who might have mental health difficulties. I guess what concerns me is, I do think that there's a large extent to which kids should learn as soon as possible to have autonomy over their diabetes. I was eight when I got diabetes, which, you know, that's older than a lot of people, you know, the you know, that's older than Arden was, and that's older than a lot of kids, and yeah, and I babysit a lot of eight year olds, and I know what they're like, and I know what what it's like when they're younger. And you know what they may or may not be capable of. I was a smart kid, and I was capable of a lot pretty quickly, although I didn't give myself shots for the longest time, I used to use auto injectors. I don't know if you're familiar with those auto injectors. There were two kinds. One, like, you would put this syringe into this big, giant thing, and you would press this button that was like, and it would like, really fast, like, both inject and give the plunger. And then later they stopped making that and that one broke. And I switched to one where you just press a button and that puts it in for you, and then you push the plunger, yeah, but anyway, and then eventually, actually, it wasn't until college that I stopped using that, and it was because I lost my insurance, I had dropped out, and I was just taking part time classes. And then I had this professor who I'm still in touch with. She was a women's studies professor, and she had diabetes, and she had switched to a pump, and she gave me all of her old syringes. Which syringes was always the most difficult thing to get out of all of the stuff, and the second most difficult thing back then was test strips. Test strips were extremely expensive, and I searched all over the internet, and I found this Canadian pharmacy that had the cheapest test strips for a brand called prodigy auto code and I used to use prodigy auto code strips because they cost similar to what Walmart is today. Okay? And that's how I used to test a million times a day without any insurance, which was really what I meant to talk about this whole time. That's

Speaker 1 1:06:58
amazing. It's amazing that you figured that out. That is true, right? Like, I know that from your notes, that this, everything you were able to accomplish for yourself for a long time was without insurance, right?

Melissa 1:07:08
Yeah, without doctors too, yeah. I mean, I've never found doctors to be particularly helpful, but at the same time, I did need one to get on a pump, which, like, I mean, if I could, if I could make myself less of a stubborn a hole, and switch to a pump earlier I would, unfortunately, the past is the past didn't go that way. I just was so like. I was like, why would I switch? Everything's going great? And then I was like, oh, when everything is going great is exactly when you should switch. Because switching to the pump, it wasn't even an adjustment. I was already doing that, but now I just had to do way less. Right? I never struggled with the basal. The basal was exactly right, immediately.

Speaker 1 1:07:48
Okay, yeah, no. I mean, if you're doing all that work with MDI and it's working out for you like that, then automatically, that's exactly

Melissa 1:07:54
when you should switch. I always see people saying that they're like, everything's going great on MDI, why should I switch? Like, that's why you should switch. Because if everything's going great on MDI, you have no idea how much less work you could be doing for exactly that same result. And they're like, Well, I see people and they struggle, and it's like, well, they're struggling because they don't have their their numbers dialed in yet. They don't have their ratios and everything, right? But if you are already doing good on MDI, that's exactly when you should be able

Speaker 1 1:08:17
to accomplish it. Yeah, maybe get some more sleep too, you know? Oh,

Melissa 1:08:21
I never get sleep. I'm, like, the least sleeping person ever. But yeah, because

Scott Benner 1:08:25
you don't want to sleep, or be not, because you're just, there's just something

Melissa 1:08:28
wrong with me. I don't, I don't need, I don't need as much sleep as other people.

Scott Benner 1:08:31
I slept not enough last night. I just was, I mean,

Melissa 1:08:36
so did I because I had to get up. What for to me, is early to talk to you

Scott Benner 1:08:39
freaking podcast. I know it's horrible. I had to get

Melissa 1:08:41
up. You know what? It's okay, because if I take a little nap later, that's when you're the most likely to lucid dream.

Scott Benner 1:08:47
So you're gonna go nappy. Yeah,

Melissa 1:08:50
I might have a little nappy, nice and and that will help me lucid dream. So that's great. I

Speaker 1 1:08:56
appreciate you doing this very much sincerely. Yeah, no, I think it's a great perspective. Again, I like a free flowing conversation. They're they're more my speed, but I like digging in too. And I see people say the things you said all the time, and it was interesting to hear you pick through what you meant by like, Oh, I'm worried about them. Because I think what can happen online is, hey, I'm worried about you. Blah, blah, blah. And somebody comes back, and they're a little like, well, you don't have to worry about me because I'm doing this thing. And then they go, Well, I grew up with diabetes and I didn't put this much effort into it. I'm fine. And then before you know it, they're like, banging together. I'm like, you two guys, some people aren't fine, yeah, and right. And I'm like and you guys have so much in common that you don't know like that to me, is always the thing I'm trying to get across when adults and parents are talking to each other like you have so much to share with each other that the two of you would benefit from, you know, back and forth, and you have way more in common than you think you do. Well,

Melissa 1:09:51
I think like to a large extent, it also has to do with like, whatever each individual's feelings are about their own childhood sometimes things that people. Say it picks at wounds you have. And you're like, you know, I used to sneak food all the time, you know. And I see other people struggling with that. And what, what seems really wild to me is that those kids, you know, even though they could just press buttons on their pump, they don't Bolus for their food sneaking. And I used to, I mean, I was the biggest food sneaker you could imagine. I used to get, like, a bag of honey nut cheerios. And I, like, I would hide in my closet and read a book with a night with a flashlight and eat honey nut cheerios. I mean, you could just think of it. I mean, my blood sugar must have been 600 but I wasn't testing, you know, if I had known, then, like, oh, all I have to do is give myself some insulin and then I can have this food. Then I would have done it. But I see these parents, their kids are not doing that. They're refusing to do the insulin, and I don't understand why.

Speaker 1 1:10:52
So then when you say these parents, what I'm going to tell you is, you mean four posts over the last six months?

Melissa 1:10:58
Well, no, I think a lot of people struggle with this. I see this a lot, and it's, it's everywhere. I mean, you know, it's not the parents fault, like, because I totally understand the desire to be rebellious as, like, a diabetic youth. Yeah, I feel so bad for them, because, at least my parents, like, they didn't know, but what

Speaker 1 1:11:16
happened to you? Like you, because you just said, like, it's something from your childhood. And I'll tell you right now, like, observation, if a person has, as an adult, grown up with still has or had, at some point, an eating disorder, they are going to freak out. If you say that your kid should eat a certain like, low carb style or something like it just it triggers something in them, very, very visceral, right? I

Melissa 1:11:38
think, I think that makes a lot of sense. Of course, does like, like, I said like, I'm a vegan, but I actually think it's pretty rude to talk about your eating style, just in general. I try to avoid it.

Speaker 1 1:11:48
I don't like it when people tell other people how to eat. I just find it to be a waste of time, and all you're gonna do is rude. What happened to you when you were a kid that makes you have this strong feeling when you see people living in a certain way.

Melissa 1:12:01
I don't really feel like my feelings are that strong about it. I just feel a great deal Well, I feel a great deal of sympathy, and I feel worried about the kids who are who refuse to take on autonomy. I mean, I don't think that is that they're not being allowed to take on autonomy. I'm sure a lot of parents would be very happy to give their children more autonomy if they felt that their children were up to the task. I mean, I guess that the only thing I can say that did happen was that I had a friend whose little brother had diabetes, and he came and stayed with us for a while, and I really tried to talk him into like, just take care of your diabetes, yeah, but he never did, and then he died. Oh,

Speaker 1 1:12:39
it sucks. Maybe that's your thing. What's that? Maybe that's the thing that has you upset,

Melissa 1:12:44
yeah? Maybe. And I'm just like, why did you never just, like, take it on to yourself, like, just, like, care about yourself a little bit. For me, diabetes is like a sixth sense, yeah? Like, not taking care of it would be like, not going to the bathroom, or not ever eating, or not. You know the

Speaker 1 1:13:01
vibe works for you. You know how to you know how to do it. It doesn't upset you to take care of it.

Melissa 1:13:05
I mean, sometimes it upsets me, but yeah, there are things that really upset me. Like, there are times when I, like, I made a deal when I was a kid, like, here, I'll tell you what. Like here, diabetes is like, you just take care of me, always, constantly for the rest of your life, not stop and I'll ruin your life. How's that?

Speaker 1 1:13:23
I think that it's possible that if you take this conversation out of diabetes, you'll see that the same outcomes exist in people's lives about other things too, like some people are just more inclined or interested or able or whatever. It doesn't really matter what the modifying word is right to do a thing than other people are, and some of those people get diabetes, and so some of them, you know, has to

Melissa 1:13:47
do with intelligence, and not just until, you know different types of intelligences. But I'm, like, a highly capable person, like, if I need to learn something like, I will learn it like, you know, I wanted to learn to play an instrument. I was already 30. I learned to play. I've written a lot of stuff. I've gotten short stories published. And I was just like, I'm gonna write some short stories and get some short stories published. And so I was like, I just did it, you know, I just worked at it until

Speaker 1 1:14:13
I did it. I think that's great for people that it works out for. I don't think that people who it doesn't work out for should be, you know, held to the same standard, maybe, like, I think you are who you are, and some situations are vibe better with how some people are built than others, and but those people are all still going to have type one. They're gonna so they're gonna need something. I think it's so

Melissa 1:14:35
great that there are these, like pumps now, where it's just like, all right, if maybe my little, my friend's little brother would have survived if he had had the type of pump where it's like, it doesn't keep you at 100 all the time, but you know, it might keep you around 150 160

Speaker 1 1:14:47
Yeah, imagine that kid with a, like, an eyelet pump, and he just has to say, like, normal meal, smaller than usual, larger than usual, and he'll exactly and end up with a reasonable a one, six. I

Melissa 1:14:58
wish to God. I wish that we could go back in time. And how is that for him, you know? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:15:03
well, I'll share with you. Michelle, finally I looked up, Melissa, I finally looked up at the screen where the word was and just said what I saw in front of me, Melissa, I'll share with you, you know. And I'm sure you've listened and you've heard, like I had that struggle about my friend Mike, who passed away. It's been a number of years now, right? And but he was diagnosed when we were just out of high school, like, right at the end of high school, end of high school, out of high school. And now I look back and I hear all these people's stories, and I see what happened to him regular and mph. Nobody ever transitioned him off of it. He wasn't testing. They didn't take it very seriously. If he was standing up, he was okay. And, you know, and then one day, in his 40s, somebody finally figures out he's not all right. They try to put him on MDI. Nobody tells him what to do. He's having seizures. He's crashing his car. He doesn't like all the terrible stuff that comes with it. He falls out of bed having a seizure. One time, breaks his breaks a limb, you know, like, and then one day, somebody tells him, Hey, man, your your kidneys are shot, and now he's on dialysis. And then, you know, a couple of years later, on dialysis, and he has a heart attack, and he's

Melissa 1:16:04
gone, right? Yeah. I mean, one thing that I feel like with diabetes is, like, even if you're not doing that great, if you're doing something like, if you are, like, just trying, you'll do like, pretty well.

Scott Benner 1:16:16
But he was trying, he

Unknown Speaker 1:16:17
was just, I find he

Speaker 1 1:16:18
was just doing the things that he was told, and those things were not valuable, right? And he never pivoted to new technology or new ideas. And maybe that's because he wasn't interested, or maybe it's because doctors didn't help. Like, I don't know what the reasons were, but I know that by the time Arden was diagnosed, and I got this figured out, and I went to him and I said, Mike, I can, I can help. Like, I really feel like, you know, like, let's get you a CGM, like, I think that's a great place to start, you know. And he was just very resistant, yeah, the truth is, is that by that time, he came off to me, like the adults that I see who want to argue with people online, yeah, like, this is harder than you think, you know, like, I have a person in mind right now who's in the group who, I mean, if you wanted my again, 1000 yard impression of this adult, like, they're in their own way. They've decided that this thing's gonna kill them, and any help, they that anybody tries to put their way like that won't work. I've tried that. Blah, blah, blah, like, always, always resistant, resistant, resistant. That's how Mike was. I mean, I'm

Melissa 1:17:22
like that. I can be like that. So I like I totally get it, and that's how I feel. Like I was being about switching to a pump for so long. I get it because I'm a stubborn person. I feel for them, for sure, me too. But I mean, the best tool that you can be given as a diabetic, and hopefully you'll get it when, when you're a child, is a feeling of autonomy, a feeling that you can you can do this, like that. You are capable of taking care of this, and if you work at it, you will get better at it.

Speaker 1 1:17:55
Oh, for sure. Well, that's true, yeah. And you might be right about the other thing, maybe Mike just didn't feel confident, like, I don't know you know, like, maybe you're the person you knew. Just didn't think they could do it. Maybe they had been through an offer. They were just like, this isn't going to work, no matter what anybody does. And then it becomes a psychological issue. It becomes a human thing, and you just can't get past it. But from my perspective, all I can tell you is that if you have your settings right and you understand how to Bolus for the food you eat, you're very likely going to have reasonable outcomes day to day, right? And that's why I'm making this podcast, is to get people to, like, see that, that there's just some pretty basic things you can do. Make sure your tools are sharp, you know, and then make sure you're using the screwdriver on the screws and the hammer on the nails, like that kind of stuff. You have experiences and you learn as you grow, and before you know it, it's six months later and you're doing it. I just got a really great note today from an adult just very simple, like, you know, I'm going to share it with you because, you know, I'll keep it vague, obviously, but I featured it in the group today. It's an adult who posts and says, 93% range, 3% low MDI, I've had a history of terrible a one, CS, complicated variables from chronic illnesses. I've been working on one thing a month. This month, I worked on candy. I'm 50 years old, and now I can actually eat candy. She says, Thank you, Scott. My diabetes team will be thrilled with this, and shares a chart, 93% in range. That's amazing, 3% low, 3% high, 1% very high. Like, my God, like, you know, and this is a person probably in Europe or Canada, 3.9 to 10 is their range and just amazing. Like, really amazing. But the overall like takeaway from this post is, Hey, I found this podcast, and look where I'm at now versus where I used to be. Yeah, I see that. I said, Though there's an adult who was able to whatever their crap was, they were able to put it aside and say, you know, I'm gonna try this new idea. And that's just kind of what I hope it's really hard

Melissa 1:19:59
to get people. Listen to a podcast, though, that's the only only trouble. I'm doing

Speaker 1 1:20:03
it a lot of people. It's not enough. It is hard to get more. Like I'm not gonna lie to you, people who listen

Melissa 1:20:08
to podcasts will listen to a podcast, and people who don't will not. I just

Speaker 1 1:20:13
I've drug A lot of people into it. There's plenty of people to listen to this podcast, and they don't have another audio interest in the world. I love that

Melissa 1:20:20
that's great. I love to hear that I drag a lot of people. I recommend your podcast to people all the time, and even though, like, I mean, to a large extent, what I mostly find the podcast to be is validating about a lot of my experiences. Because I feel I mean, I don't. I hate, like, buzz words like this, but I sometimes feel like gas lit by the doctors. I have just struggled so much with doctors, and I find that the doctors feel like this is an anti Doctor podcast, and I don't really think that's necessarily the case, but you know, my doctor thought I was condescending to her, and I'm like, I probably was being condescending to her, because, in my opinion, I know better than her, because I've been doing this longer, and I don't think her advice is good. So a large extent, I find it just extremely validating. But I also I find that although I did listen to all the bold beginnings and all and the expert ones, all that I did listen to all that I knew, all that stuff, right, yeah, what I find really helpful is just when every once a while, a guest will say something where I'm like, Oh, wait, let me try that. Never thought of that, especially when it comes to like, specific I forget what it was. It was, it was a it was a mom of a young child, and she said something about tandem. And I wish I could remember what it was now, but whatever it was, I changed because of just this thing she said, and I was like, Holy crap. I think it was about an extended Bolus. And, like, doing an extended Bolus a certain way for something, and now I just do it as second nature, and I don't even think about what it was, yeah, but I learned that from her, you know, and she was just, and that kind of stuff is just like, so I find it endlessly fascinating just to hear people's stories about living with diabetes, me too, because I could literally talk about it all day. And like when I meet a diabetic in the wild, I'm just like, let's talk about it. You know, I

Speaker 1 1:22:13
feel exactly the same way. I'm very happy that you had that experience, and you continue to have that experience. Because, you know, the first time it was said to me, I've said it on the podcast before, but I was surprised the first time when the when a person said to me, like, Oh, I love this podcast. It's, if I don't listen to it, my blood sugars get out of whack and, you know, and all this other stuff. And then I kind of just, like, I did the thing. I leaned into like, Oh, was it the Pro Tip series, like, I was trying to, like, just fish for like, so they could explain what helped them. And they said the same thing. You said, No, I've heard those. They're good. I knew all that already. And I said, What do you get out of this? And she said, I don't even really know. Maybe accountability to myself, like, you know, and so now I've heard people say accountability. I've heard them say community. I've heard them say hey. Once in a while somebody says something like, you just said, like hell, I never thought of that before. I don't even care anymore. People

Melissa 1:22:59
are so full of good ideas, and I hate the internet, I hate Facebook, and I hate how people want to and I feel like, sometimes I'll say something really mild, and people will react really strongly, and then I get this bad feeling in me, and I'm like, why am I on this platform? You just gave me a bad feeling. Let

Speaker 1 1:23:15
me tell you what I told somebody the other night. They asked me. They said, How are you so the way you are online, where you don't fight with people, and even when they're being crappy, you're not crappy back and all this stuff. And I said, I said, what I said, but overall, I just always assume that if we're arguing, we're misunderstanding each other. Because I've met a lot of people, and people don't argue like that in person, and it's fun to say, like, oh, yeah, sure, because they're keyboard warriors. I'm like, I don't even know that that's it. Like, maybe they're just taking you out of context or incorrectly, or maybe you're not saying something

Melissa 1:23:49
about being on the internet that just like, makes you forget that, like the person is like a human and like a complicated human. And it just, yeah, very well. Could be it sort of frees up your darker side to like, to like, come out. I'm

Speaker 1 1:24:03
not saying that's not true, but I'm saying the rest of it is, is that if we got together in a room and you heard me, you might go, Oh, that's not what I thought they were saying. And then you wouldn't say the crappy thing back that you said, and then I wouldn't say the crappy thing that you know, back to you. And then we wouldn't be fighting. We'd actually realize, like, we get along pretty much. I think the whole world's

Melissa 1:24:23
screwed that way. I agree. Yeah, it definitely isn't just like a diabetes No, it's not a diabetes thing. It's far from it. I mean, comparatively, diabetes groups get along pretty well. Melissa,

Speaker 1 1:24:35
I had this experience in the last like, year and a half where I'll just go through this very quickly. But my family bought me a chameleon out like a surprise gift, and I didn't really know what I was doing with it. And I did know enough to know that they're very delicate, and that if I do something wrong, it's not going to be alive very long. I needed to figure out very quickly what to do. And then one day, I thought, well, there must be someone out there doing for chameleon care. What I do about diabetes, I'll go find that person. And I found a number of them, and I honed it down to one or two people. Found this guy running a niche but large community for chameleon keepers, and I dove in, took his information, put it into practice, just like that. I had a chameleon, a 1c in the fives, and I was like, Oh, awesome. Like, and I was kind of done. I was like, All right, I don't really need this anymore. But I hung in for a while, and I kept watching, and then I realized that every hardship he has running his chameleon community is exactly the same hardships I have running a diabetes community. And I was like, Oh, this has nothing to do with diabetes or chameleons or it's just people, right? People are the worst. No, it's a limitation of discussing things in writing.

Melissa 1:25:47
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is a huge part of it. I mean, this is gonna, this is gonna sound pretty hippy dippy, but I feel like there's like a, like a spiritual sickness that's sort of like come down on us as a society, that that makes us feel, like, less connected. I just

Speaker 1 1:26:02
think we're all misunderstanding each other just enough to fight that's it, because I know

Melissa 1:26:07
some pretty fundamental differences. Well, sure, yeah, there's always

Speaker 1 1:26:11
going to be like, Yeah, but still, like, I grew up, my parents had friends who had completely different political views, and, like fundamentally different political views. I never once heard them fight about it or argue about it. They didn't talk about each other behind their backs like nothing. There

Melissa 1:26:27
are some people in particular who are very invested in sewing such divides and turning them really, you know, sometimes violent. And, you know, I find that very concerning. I

Speaker 1 1:26:39
would tell you that what I see is that it's become, it's always been a business to divide people, right? Because you divide them, you put them on your team. Now you're on their team, except, like, it's a, it's a tale as old as time, but it's so much easier digitally. And I agree with you. There are people who are like, I'll just say a thing to get everybody fighting. And then I think people do it with eating online, yeah, like, I think they'll, they'll come on and they'll like, they'll start a fight about whatever to draw attention to it so that the other people who would be mad at it go, oh, look, I found an ally. And I know who to hate. This is awesome. And then they, the people who think they're an ally, will go over there, and then they build up their Facebook group or their coaching service, or whatever it is, they're trying to, like, pump up, right? And I just have an opposite opinion of it. I'm like, Yeah, I think we can all get along and still do what we need to do and share with each other, and I don't need to steal you from someone. Like, if you want to go to another Facebook group out of my Facebook, you should go, yeah. Like, in the beginning, like, people were like, hey, you know, they posted another thing in there. I'm like, that's fine. If that helps them, then that's awesome. Now, if it's their group and they're pimping it, that's not okay, yeah. But if it's a thing that they help, that they feel helped by, then they should share it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not trying to keep people geo fenced, yeah? And in my space, like, I think they should, I hope they go out and find whatever it is that's best for them. Well, I

Melissa 1:28:02
was just, I find it very fascinating people's desire to, I mean, I understand why, why vegans have a desire to, like, get other people to go vegan. Because a lot of vegans are concerned about, like, animal welfare and about, you know, the environment and that sort of thing. And so I guess I can understand their need. For me, I feel like you can't influence people in that way, and so there's no point in trying. I don't have anything that makes me be like I need to. I actually don't even want people to know that I'm vegan. Usually, I'd rather just do it silently.

Speaker 1 1:28:33
I agree with you. I sort of believe that what happens is, is that people feel saved. Then once they feel saved, they want to share it, yeah, then when they share it with you and you don't want to be saved, then they're mad at you for not wanting to be saved. So

Melissa 1:28:45
I do find low carb people, like, will sometimes get super, I mean, it feels like they're like, super invested in this diet in a way that, like, I mean, I think it's great to eat fruit and vegetables, like, can, you know, like, have healthy food, you know? I mean, and I don't feel like that's like, a super big deal. And it also, like, doesn't bother me if you don't eat that way, like, I'm not if I, if I was bothered by that, I would be constantly bothered. You know, I would live a life of just being bothered. I

Speaker 1 1:29:12
don't think of it as low carb people. I think of it as, there are some people in that eat a low carb lifestyle who they proselytize about. And I can't, I can't guess why. Like, it's, I mean, I could guess why, but like, it's not, it's not up to me to figure.

Melissa 1:29:27
I don't understand why they're possible. Because I do understand why vegans do it. I don't agree with it, but I understand why they do it, or what are they getting. It doesn't matter to

Speaker 1 1:29:36
me, if you understand it. What I'm going to tell you is, like, I don't think there are as many of them as you think, I think it's always fringes, of fringes. I would never say low carb people, because I believe that probably 98% of the low car people I've met are lovely, just like 90. Just being quiet about it, yeah, just doing what works for them. Yeah. And then there's 2% of them that feel like and I've had people explain this to me right. From that perspective, I thought this. Saved my kid's life. When I tried to share it with somebody and they disagreed with me, it made me feel like they didn't care about their kid's life. And then that upset me. And then later, I realized there was more than one way to skin this cat, and I was just unaware to say more than one way to peel a potato. I was unaware of what that was. I just came up with that. I don't know. Yeah, I thought you made that up. They say, like, Look, I just thought that the thing that I knew was the only thing. It turns out it's not. But back then, when I thought it was, oh my gosh, I thought those people must be monsters for doing this to their children, right? Again, I don't think, except for the people who are trying to make business out of it, I don't think people are being on purpose almost ever. I

Melissa 1:30:44
agree what bothers me, I guess. I mean, doesn't even bother me that much. I don't want to sound overly bothered, because I'm not. I don't appreciate it when anybody like acts like there's just one way to do things like for me. I mean, I did try the low carb thing, and I was very unhappy eating that way because I love carbs and also, like, I don't know if this is just something that was, like, handed to me by the schools or something, but in my head, like, fruit is healthy to eat like that. That's like, how is race? I was like, we're not it's like, you eat like, you know, fruits and vegetables and like, I'm not gonna like, I'm like, I'm not gonna stop eating like, what to me, sounds like some of the most healthy foods, and also, like my favorite foods, I'm not gonna just, like, stop eating them because of the carb content. And I did try to do that, though, and it just that's just not for me. I just, I also like, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like it satisfies my hunger. Yeah, it's

Speaker 1 1:31:39
not right for you. That's cool, yeah, yeah. And so

Melissa 1:31:43
I'm just like, and also, again, I was using so much more insulin when I ate that way. It was like, I guess it made my insulin resistance really high to like, have I was eating, like, a lot of meat and cheese and just like, fatty foods, I guess. And what I find actually like. So there are studies about this, like, about post prandial blood sugars, or after meal blood sugars. If I eat just one high fat meal, just one then, even then my insulin will resistance will go up just just during that meal, which I think we all know that. We know that, like fat does that? It causes that to happen? Well,

Speaker 1 1:32:16
yeah, I mean, it doesn't work for you. I'm also sure that somebody would who eats low carb, but say, Oh, you're doing it wrong. You know what? I mean, like, who know i and that's all well and good. Like, I think that's, I genuinely don't care how people eat. I mean,

Melissa 1:32:27
this is the other thing, is that I just, I'm never gonna be somebody who can just stick to one thing, like, you can't tell me, like, you can never eat a banana again. You know? Like, and like, that's how not for you. When people tell you to eat low carb. I'm like, like, that would work great if you are good at eating low carb and like, not eating carbs, then eating low carb works like, exceedingly well for blood sugar control. But the problem is, is that your insulin resistance becomes very high, and so if you do, like, eat a banana one time, it's going to take like, five units of insulin or more. I don't know how much insulin, but for me, you know, like a banana is less than the unit of insulin because my insulin resistance is very low, because I'm eating very low fat.

Speaker 1 1:33:12
Was that resistance, or is it just that your settings are way dialed back now from low carb, and then you go to do something in your basal low carb. But you know what I mean, like, if somebody was very low carb and then all of a sudden went to a banana, I would think that their settings wouldn't be set up to handle that.

Melissa 1:33:27
To a large extent. I think that I still have, like, an MDI state of mind. So I'm just, like, I'm just talking about how much insulin you would give yourself to treat something. Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:33:35
you're calling it resistance. I just think that you'd need more insulin, but I don't know that that's resistance. I think

Melissa 1:33:40
if you ate a certain way, let's say you ate very low fat, and then you ate a banana, and it would only take one unit of insulin, but if you ate very low carb, you might eat a banana. That same person, it might take them five units of insulin or whatever. I'm just making up numbers, but it indicates an inability for insulin to take care of carbohydrates and glucose as well as it used to. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad way to eat, because if you're somebody who doesn't have to eat carbohydrates, like to feel good, or whatever, then low carb is, like amazing for your blood sugars. Like amazing, like, if you're somebody who who doesn't want to think about dosing or just finds either unable to think about dosing, then low carb is like incredible.

Speaker 1 1:34:26
I think it's a very reasonable way to manage if you have type one diabetes, for sure, for sure, you were awesome. You really were thank you for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you being in the group and sharing your perspectives and right it was great talking to you. Can you hold on one second for

Unknown Speaker 1:34:42
me? You the

Speaker 1 1:34:45
episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist aid system, powered by tide pool if you want, a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision for peace of mind. The. Want Twist, twist.com/juice, box. Having an easy to use, an accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour, next.com/juice box, that's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from us med for three years. You can as well us med.com/juice, box or call 888-721-1514, my thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode and for being long time sponsors of the juice box podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com. To us, med and all of the sponsors. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, you.

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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.

Speaker 1 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Speaker 1 0:15
Ally is Australian. She's 52 years old, and she's here today to tell you that it's going to be okay. Please don't forget 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five, free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink AG, one.com/juice box. To get this offer, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com I created the diabetes variables series because I know that in type one diabetes management, the little things aren't that little, and they really add up. In this series, we'll break down everyday factors like stress, sleep, exercise and those other variables that impact your day more than you might think. Jenny Smith and I are going to get straight to the point with practical advice that you can trust to check out the diabetes variable series in your podcast player or at Juicebox podcast.com this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about mis Bolus is or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses, learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the one year where CGM that's one insertion a year. That's it. And here's a little bonus for you. How about there's no limit on how many friends and family you can share your data with with the ever since now, app no limits. Ever since, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by my favorite diabetes organization, touched by type one, please take a moment to learn more about them at touched by type one.org, on Facebook and Instagram. Touched by type one.org, check out their many programs, their annual conference awareness campaign, their D box program, dancing for diabetes. They have a dance program for local kids, a golf night and so much more touched by type one.org. You're looking to help, or you want to see people helping people with type one. You want touched by type one.org?

Ally 2:57
Hi, I'm Ali. I live in Australia, and I thought I'd like to come on the podcast, because I've had diabetes for a really long time, and I have had an excellent life so far, and plan to continue having an excellent life. And I just thought that might be reassuring to some of the newly diagnosed mums and dads of little kids who are really worried and panicky.

Speaker 1 3:21
That's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate you doing that. Where do you get the feeling that they're worried and panicky?

Ally 3:27
Oh, your Facebook group. Hello.

Speaker 1 3:31
So interesting. I watched this conversation happen half a dozen times a year, right? Yep, a post will start with a group of adults who are just like, my god, you guys are going crazy, like they're gonna be okay. And I'm always like, Yeah, you don't know that you're just okay.

Ally 3:48
True, true. That is, that is correct, yeah,

Speaker 1 3:52
yeah. But tell me how it I'm genuinely interested. How does it make you feel knowing that you had a good life and seeing them worry about it going opposite.

Ally 4:05
It really worries me. I think these poor little kids, they're not going to have the same freedom and just a normal life that I did. Why do you think that? Well, I was basically left to my own devices and had a wonderful time.

Speaker 1 4:26
So in fairness, Ali, because your experience ended well, yeah, you're afraid that people who don't have your experience will end poorly.

Ally 4:36
No, I think they will be very safe and well cared for and possibly have far more delightful glucose than I managed. Okay, but it's the whole, you know, over protected, over helicopter

Speaker 1 4:53
parent thing. I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm going to go back and forth here on this one a little bit. Okay, yeah, yeah, sure. Do you imagine that? People who grew up that there's no one who grew up with somebody paying very close attention to their health that also felt free. I

Ally 5:10
knew some people growing up, and I don't think they had the same experience I did, and I know some people growing up that probably had a very similar experience that I did, yeah, and I kind of know who's got the better mental health.

Speaker 1 5:27
Okay, good point. If you were unwell physically right now, would you still be making this argument? If you had trigger finger and frozen shoulder and neuropathy. Would you be on here? What would you say? Then? Do you think?

Ally 5:45
I don't know. I think I would be in quite a different space. Yeah, no, I know, yeah, yeah. And that. I get it. I get it. People want the best for their kids and the best for themselves, but at what price?

Speaker 1 6:01
I don't know. What's the answer, yeah, that's the question. I

Ally 6:04
don't I don't think there is, I don't think there is one to be honest, I know I have been lucky.

Speaker 1 6:10
That's genuinely how you feel, that you've maybe just lucked out a little,

Ally 6:14
yeah, really. But also, I can say confidently that my control was never awful.

Speaker 1 6:22
Why? How did you accomplish it? First of all, how old were you when you're diagnosed? I was five, five, and you told me before we started, you're 52 so yeah, 47

Ally 6:31
years. Yeah, coming up. 47 years. Good for you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:35
And back then, obviously, well, not even obviously, were you even beef and pork? Pork, pork. Insulin. Okay, and so you've transitioned through you've seen a lot of it, that's for sure. Oh yeah, yeah. What was your parents reaction? Do you know? Have you spoken to them in hindsight? Like, how did they manage? What did they think to do?

Ally 6:56
Oh yeah. My mom diagnosed me. She was not shocked and horrified. She was like, Oh, great. Think the kids got diabetes. Terrific. Here. Pee in this clean glass jar and we'll take it to the GP.

Speaker 1 7:10
Why was she so comfortable around it? Other people in the family

Ally 7:15
have it? No, she's just not a Panicker. None of us are. So, you know, just a few signs, and it was when I I never got sick, I guess I started losing a little bit of weight, and she went, Ah, that's abnormal for this kid. Yeah, drinking and peeing, yeah, kids got diabetes. How

Speaker 1 7:33
many brothers and sisters do you have just me? No kidding. Well, you don't usually. So this is interesting. So your mom is? Your mom is your mom still with us? Yeah, she's fighting fit. What did you wait? What did you say? She is fighting fit, fighting fit. Gotcha, okay, yeah, yeah, you don't normally see the mother of an only child. Be so chill.

Ally 7:55
Yeah. I don't know why she is, but she is, always has been. It's

Scott Benner 7:59
not weed, is it? No, she wasn't a hippie. No. She

Ally 8:04
spent the better part of the 70s trying to get stoned, and it just doesn't work for it.

Speaker 2 8:10
How many times did she try? Oh, quite a few.

Ally 8:15
And then it was only she. She eventually tried a water Bong, and that worked. And all of a sudden, tomato and cheese sandwiches the most hysterical concept ever.

Speaker 1 8:28
That's what I'm saying. Was your mom, like a free spirit, yeah, yeah. How about your father?

Ally 8:33
Less so, less so free spirit, but very chill. Okay, you know, you never let anybody see you're panicking.

Speaker 1 8:41
Do you think that it's more just your mom's but Well, first of all, let me ask this, are you chill like that? Like, what's your Yeah, yeah, you more like her, more like him.

Ally 8:51
Oh, look, people say we're clones, my mom and I, but my brain works probably a little more like my dad.

Speaker 1 9:00
Okay, who had control of the diabetes? Like was there? Was it both of them or one of them? Do you remember from being a kid? Today's episode is sponsored by a long term CGM. It's going to help you to stay on top of your glucose readings, the ever since 365 I'm talking, of course, about the world's first and only CGM that lasts for one year, one year, one CGM. Are you tired of those other CGMS, the ones that give you all those problems that you didn't expect, knocking them off, false alerts not lasting as long as they're supposed to. If you're tired of those constant frustrations, use my link ever since cgm.com/juicebox, to learn more about the ever since 365 some of you may be able to experience the ever since 365 for as low as $199 for a full year at my link, you'll find those details and can learn about eligibility ever since cgm.com/juice box, check it out. Music. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The mini med 780 G automated insulin delivery system, anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to 80% time and range with recommended settings without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for, and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep. They felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts you can't beat that learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by visiting Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Ally 11:06
mom spent the most time with me in in the hospital, learning, obviously, but dad, you know, visited and everything. But the Children's Hospital where I was admitted for education was two and a half hours away from where we lived, so he had to work. And so, yeah, mom did, I guess, most of the learning and education, but day to day, yeah, day to day, day to day, we just, well, I was learning as well. So we counted the carbs and did the injections and peed in the test tubes. And, yeah,

Speaker 1 11:38
that was it. And so, so for people that, how do you manage now? Like, what do you do today? Closed

Ally 11:43
loop. It's a commercial closed loop. I'd actually prefer to use DIY, but the only real option we have is Omnipod, and they don't work

Speaker 1 11:55
for me. Okay, so you're not good, was it? Maybe you think the infusion doesn't work fuel it,

Ally 12:00
yeah, just eat dribbles down my leg or, um,

Scott Benner 12:05
yeah. So I don't think that's the way you want to put that. Allie,

Ally 12:10
okay, fine. There is some leakage of insulin around the infusion site.

Speaker 1 12:16
It's Monday morning, it's early, and where you are is late. I was like, Wait, what is she saying?

Unknown Speaker 12:21
Yeah. Okay,

Speaker 1 12:25
fine. So, you know, you know, modern management and so you have a real, that's my point. Is that you have a real, like feeling for how it's been over the last 50 years, really, yeah, yeah,

Ally 12:34
okay. And I use the latest and greatest now. Well, in Australia, you know the latest and greatest we have access to. I use cam APS at the moment. And look, it's not the best fit for me, but it'll do for now. Okay.

Speaker 1 12:50
How did you go from being like chill to using a closed loop system? What's the progression through that? Like, if you my point, I guess is that if your health was not an issue growing up and your diabetes didn't feel like an issue, like, why did you continue to like, why didn't you just keep doing what you were doing? I guess is my question.

Ally 13:11
Oh, well, because that would be one shot a day of monetard. I didn't

Scott Benner 13:16
mean that far back. I mean,

Ally 13:21
okay, so yeah, I Yeah. I think I needed a little more flexibility as time went on. I only started MDI when I was just about finished university for the first time, and that was because I just needed a little more flexibility in exercise, food, that sort of thing. I needed even more flexibility and fewer 3am hypos. A few years later, I've never gotten along particularly well with long acting. I don't have a huge basal requirement between about, you know, 3am and 6am and that's hypo city a lot for me, and so I, I progressed to a dumb pump, as one does in the early in the late 1990s right? There wasn't a whole lot of technology. But, yeah, I've been using a pump since 9999

Scott Benner 14:14
Wow, are you pretty early on. Then, yeah, you jump. Then

Ally 14:17
reasonably, okay, yeah, I just wanted some sleep. I was like, I need to turn my freaking basal down and get some sleep. So

Speaker 1 14:26
describe to me, like, once you go to MDI, Oh, is there a lot of hypos? Yep. A lot of management, lot of fiddling, yep, okay,

Ally 14:36
lot of fiddling, which I was happy to do. You know, I was okay with fiddling. And I already knew carb counting, because I grew up with the portion system, which was, you know, you have 30 grams for breakfast, and which is three portions and 20 grams for a snack, and then another 30 grams for a lunch, and, you know, that sort of thing. So carb counting was. And unfamiliar to me. A bit of fiddling, okay, and I always preferred to be low than high, so hypos were always a thing.

Speaker 2 15:09
Okay, where did you come up with that plan? I just feel better. You feel better. Okay, yeah, so you went with how you feel. I do not feel good. High. Never have no, I wouldn't expect you to but was the doctor telling you to do that, or that? Was you on your own? That was on my own. What were the doctors telling you?

Unknown Speaker 15:28
Oh, not a great deal to be honest.

Speaker 1 15:30
Okay, sorry, I apologize. Yeah, no, I know, not

Ally 15:34
a great deal like I'm also perhaps someone that doesn't do well being told what to do.

Speaker 2 15:41
Why is that just a personality? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:45
character four. I guess it's a character. Are

Speaker 1 15:51
your parents like that? Too? Little bit? Yeah, okay, do you think it's a little bit about being an only child? I was only child for five years. It was awesome. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You really are accustomed to things going the way you expect them to.

Ally 16:03
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, somebody giving you instructions, and you're like, how about I just work through that and see what actually works now,

Speaker 1 16:13
did you need instruction? How were you doing? Like, I know I feel like we're jumping around a little bit, but like, let's take you to like, your earliest remembrances of a one CS and how they went through the years. Never

Ally 16:26
particularly awful. Like, I think, you know, eight I'm sorry

Speaker 1 16:30
I'm laughing because I think on my 50th wedding, wedding anniversary, I'm going to give my wife a photo book that on the front says, never particularly awful. What a lovely description you're like, it was never particularly awful. So around an eight,

Ally 16:48
yeah, around an eight. And then on MDI, it was sort of low sevens, but a lot of lows,

Speaker 1 16:53
yeah, yeah, quite a few lows. Do you remember the transition back then to to multiple daily injections? I'm trying to understand if this problem of the technology changes and the doctors can't change quickly enough to explain it to you, I think it just probably has been there through every iteration. Yeah, yeah. I mean, how difficult was that? Do you remember it like going from like, one or two shots a day to all of a sudden people telling you, like, you know you're gonna shoot this basal insulin every 24 hours, you're going to cover all your carbs with this other one. Like, oh,

Ally 17:24
I remember it very clearly. Go ahead, yeah, I chose to do that. I went to an endo and said, I need to change this up clearly. You know, this is old technology, the long acting alone with a little bit of fast acting to start with. This is, this is old school. Yeah, I've been doing okay on it, but I think I need to embrace the more modern treatment. The end I went, Yeah, Phil, try this. Did you

Speaker 1 17:54
have your mom's water Bong? Why was he so chill? I don't know, yeah, how did you hear about it back then, like, back then, how did you say to yourself, Oh, I know there's a better way. I've heard about

Ally 18:06
it. Oh, because most of my friends were already. MDI,

Scott Benner 18:10
okay, you

Ally 18:12
had other type one friends. Yeah, I just thought, oh, I don't really need that yet. I don't need that yet. I'm doing okay, yeah, maybe I need that now, how

Speaker 1 18:21
many people did you know with type one when you were growing up?

Ally 18:24
Oh, lots. Really? Yeah, because, well, when I was little, you got chucked into kids camp for a week every year, and you made all sorts of buddies. I don't know

Speaker 1 18:35
if I'm maybe not going to call your episode chucked into kids camp. That's where you made your friend. Okay, so there was, I was

Unknown Speaker 18:40
I was six. The first year I went six,

Speaker 2 18:42
yeah, oh, they sent you right away. Yeah, okay, yeah, all right, not

Ally 18:47
the first year. They thought that might be a bit soon. That would have been like a month after diagnosis or so, okay, so

Speaker 1 18:53
everything you would eventually know about diabetes, you guys would just trade that information amongst yourselves. Yeah. Okay, so they're over their fancy MDI, and you're like, I don't need this. But then one day,

Ally 19:05
yeah, I thought, Yeah, I kind of do okay, because I made that decision, and I presented myself to the end though with, you know, this is what I think I need to do. And he was like, yeah, cool, yeah. Try this insulin. So

Speaker 1 19:21
you get a lower a, 1c from MDI, but you're fighting more lows and then, yeah,

Ally 19:25
yeah, and they were bad. They were bad. And it was the I changed to long acting called Ultra lente, and that just about killed me.

Scott Benner 19:37
What year do you think that was? How well do were you? I can

Ally 19:40
tell you exactly the year it was 1995 Yeah, probably going into 1996

Speaker 1 19:48
thinking about my friend Mike, and how he struggled when they moved him from two shots a day to to that he never could. He just never could figure it out, you know, yeah, why do. You think, is it because you have the idea in your head about how you used to do it, and you're trying to apply that to a new system or,

Ally 20:06
Oh no, it was actually the long acting. Oh, it was the long acting just really did not work for me. I think it was longer than 24 hours, and then it it kind of stacked.

Speaker 1 20:21
Okay, so you felt like you were stacking basal, like every 24 hours. Yeah, okay, so you'd get low I'm sorry. You'd get lows around your injection time for basal. No,

Ally 20:30
anytime, anything, anytime. Yeah, they were bad. They were severe. I've never been hyper unaware, apart from a couple of months shortly after, I switched to MDI, and I was scared, yeah, I was like, This is bad. How

Scott Benner 20:46
old are you then? Are you living by yourself? Yeah,

Ally 20:48
yeah, oh, yes. I was yes, okay, yeah, I was 2425 Are

Scott Benner 20:55
you married now? No, no. So have you lived by yourself the entire time? No,

Ally 21:01
no, I've, I've never been in a long term relationship. I'm not very good at those. But, yeah, I've, I've had flat mates and lived with my best friend off and on for, you know, okay, quite a few years here and there in

Speaker 1 21:16
a couple sentences. Why are you not good at long term relationships? Oh,

Ally 21:20
don't really have a long, terribly long attention span. You're not a supportive partner, not not at all. I realized that pretty early on. Have

Speaker 1 21:33
you ever, I'm sorry, I'm gonna pivot here for a second. Have you ever been with someone that you wanted to be attentive with but just couldn't be? Not really. No, no. Do you think if you found a different, I don't want to say the right person, because it sounds like we're making a rom com, but if you found the right person, do you think it would change, or do you think it wouldn't? Probably not. Okay. All right, probably not. Do you think that's because you're an only child to some degree, a

Ally 22:00
little bit and little bit of little bit of ADHD maybe, you know, yeah,

Speaker 1 22:07
I got you don't worry. Your parents together the whole time. Yeah, yeah, okay. You didn't want to mimic that. You didn't say, like, Oh, that's nice to do that. No,

Ally 22:17
no. And you know what, I think in some ways, my mum would have preferred my sort of life rather than motherhood and marriage. In a way,

Speaker 1 22:29
you think you've gotten a vibe from her that she didn't want to be a mom.

Ally 22:33
She enjoyed motherhood in some ways, but in other ways, she's very she was very pleased when I grew up and moved out.

Speaker 1 22:42
Your dad's crying. Your mom's like, goodbye, goodbye. Oh, I

Ally 22:47
can tell you a funny. I can tell you an absolute funny. I finished school very early, as did my best friend. We were 16 when we finished school, just because that's how it works in our state. At that time, we were both young for our school year, and I turned 17 shortly after I finished school, and she was still 16, she got a job working for the post office, and needed to move to the city, and our collective parents thought it would be a good idea if I got a job in the city. I was working in the country at the time, and they thought, well, you know, it'd be really good idea if, if Ali got a job in the city and moved into fees, flat fees, my best friend and they could share expenses and, you know, look after each other to a degree. I thought, oh, yeah, cool. Yep. And so I applied for jobs in the city, you know, minimum wage kind of laboratory work I was mostly doing then, and I got a job, and I got off the phone having received this job offer, to tell my mom and dad that I got this job, and, yeah, wasn't it fantastic? The next thing I know, I'm in the back of the family car with doonas and pillows being thrown in on top of me, and we're cheering and off to the city. You

Speaker 1 24:14
got off the phone, I was gonna say, You got off the phone. Your mom had already found a bag and was putting stuff in it

Ally 24:19
pretty much, yes, it's leaving

Scott Benner 24:22
honey. Look, yeah,

Ally 24:27
but I mean, she says she was really excited for me, and because I think she'd wanted that sort of adventure.

Speaker 1 24:34
Oh, okay, you were getting what she wanted. Yeah, you

Ally 24:38
know, you know she she had because when she grew up, she had certain expectations. Okay, yeah, did

Speaker 1 24:47
your dad? I don't want to be crass, but did your dad knock her up when they were young, or something? No, no.

Ally 24:53
Okay. I don't think mom ever really intended to get married, but Well, my father was. Quite nice, and she decided that they could go overseas after they'd finished uni or teaching for a while or something. And he said, Oh, I thought maybe we could get married. And she said, Oh yeah, okay, fine. They got married and went overseas. Aren't people

Speaker 1 25:17
funny? Like, you know, like Boys, boys are like that, one's pretty, and girls are like that. One's Nice. That's good, pleasant. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:28
he's a lovely chap.

Speaker 1 25:30
Is he doesn't care too much about football. No, see, that's what she told that's what she liked, that

Ally 25:36
that was the thing. That was the thing. He didn't care about football at

Speaker 1 25:41
time it time to look, talk to her and do things. Yeah, she's like, okay, that makes sense. Okay, so, okay. So hilarious. I love hearing about people's lives, although, um, it makes me sad when you're talking about the MDI and the lows, because it really does make me feel it does. It really does make me think about Mike, and it's so interesting just to hear you have, like, a good role, and back to it being lucky and then, and for some people, it just doesn't go well, like, yeah. So I think that's what stuck in people's minds when they're parenting, right? Like, is, yeah. Like, your mom, listen, your mom had the luxury of ignorance, meaning that they didn't really know a ton about this. You were, you know, shoot this in the morning and the night, you know, 30 carbs here, 30 here, you know, look, look, she's still alive. We're doing it like that. Was it? Yeah, yeah. And,

Ally 26:29
look, I was pretty self caring pretty early. I didn't want a whole lot of input from them. Do you

Speaker 1 26:36
think if you were counting carbs, changing CGM and setting up algorithms.

Ally 26:42
It would be different. Yeah, it would be different and more difficult. But you know what, I'd still probably want to have a bit more autonomy over things, then maybe some kids are allowed, I don't know.

Speaker 1 26:56
See I appreciate your story and others like it that I've heard, and I think it's awesome like that. It went that way for you. But I think it's after speaking to so many people, like, there's a mix of things that I don't even know, that people appreciate while they're living in it, right? Like your personality, your mom's personality, your physiology, how you, you know how you I don't know handled being low that you didn't you weren't scared to go off by yourself, like all those things that make you you turn this out this way?

Ally 27:25
Yeah, they're not typical of everybody. Are they exactly right? And

Speaker 1 27:29
so then what do you do when your kid's six, and now you have all this data, and you understand exactly what's going on and what could happen, and you think, Well, I'm going to try to set this person up for the best possible outcome, yeah? But then the other side of it ends up being the part that you're that you're also talking about, which is just sort of like the Yeah, mental

Ally 27:52
side. Can't stay overnight anywhere, right by the kid's self, you know, kid can't go in school camp. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 27:59
Can't do it well, any Well, yeah. And then then I think it feels like your actions are the reason things are okay. Tarzan is a, is a, is an interesting story. They, uh, dropped that kid in the jungle and it was still alive. Yeah, you start getting into that feeling of like, well, I did this, and things are okay, so I'm keeping things going right? Like, I think that's the fallacy, you know what? I mean, yeah,

Ally 28:24
yeah, yeah. I mean they're just back then there just wasn't that option to to have that much worry about things, because we're talking no finger sticks for the first couple of years. Yeah,

Speaker 2 28:37
you wouldn't have even known what to be worried about. No, we didn't know, and it worked out for you. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome, by the way, congratulations. That's very cool.

Ally 28:49
I could also tell what my glucose was fairly easily. And I know,

Speaker 1 28:54
wait a minute, not one of those, you think you know what your blood sugar is by how you feel. Well,

Ally 28:59
it kind of worked out. Yep, it kind of worked out. We had competitions at the kids camps about who could guess their glucose the closest. Okay, before finger sticking right, and it was to try and convince us that it didn't work. Guessing didn't work.

Scott Benner 29:17
You kept getting it right. Oh, I won

Ally 29:20
so many bottles of freaking shampoo because that was the price

Speaker 1 29:25
ally, you know, they would have given you that shampoo anyway, right? Like, they didn't want you dirt. No,

Ally 29:30
I had, I'd like, six bottles of it, and I'm like, do you want to share it around guys? You know?

Speaker 1 29:35
Hey, listen, I made my living in school on stuff like that. So, like, the teachers would say things like, I once passed an entire half of a year of science because I knew the first Mickey Mouse movie was called Steamboat Willie, because the teacher had thought that they had this piece of like, inane trivia that nobody would know. And he makes this big pronouncement if anybody knows. Was the name of the first Mickey Mouse movie. I'll give you 100 extra points, and then you could use those points in the way you wanted. So what I would do is I would get a bad grade on a on a test, and then move some of my extra points over, or not, do my homework, and then move over the but so I worked, like, like, those extra points were a savings account for me, and, you know, so he's trying to be like, funny. Like, you know, I'll tell the kids something they don't know. But it worked. I popped my hand up, and I was like, steamboat, Willie. And he looked at me like, Hey, what the so I took my points. I walked up to the boat, I walked up to his book, and I was like, I want to see him. Put him in there, and he put them all in and I lived off them for the last half of the year, perfect. Yeah, I didn't just that rest of that year, but I see what you're saying. Like, you Yeah, they're trying to Yeah. They

Ally 30:49
were trying to prove the opposite. And I'm like, it actually kind of works for quite a few of us. You know, some people

Speaker 1 30:55
can tell you, think, yeah, at least you could. Does that still bear out? Now, can you still, Oh, yeah. Like, if I said to you, right now, what's your blood sugar, you think you would know it? Yeah, no kidding, all

Ally 31:06
right. Well, yeah, yeah, I can tell if I get above, you know, 910, millimol, okay, without looking, I mean, because, you know, obviously one uses CGM now, but yeah, and I pick lows coming on pretty early, earlier than CGM does.

Speaker 1 31:23
We're adjusting Arden's insulin right now. I She's doing something. She's using ovacetol Every day. Oh, okay, just a supplement that helps people with like PCOS and women with insulin resistance, stuff like that. And so she'd been using it for a while. It was really helping her, but then they just got away from her. And I got her back home, and I was like, Look, I really think this is a thing you're missing. So as she's been back on it now, she's not micro dosing a GLP, but she's, we're underdosing it, meaning she doesn't get the whole pin once a week. And then this, this ovacet Every day, her insulin sensitivity. I just moved it last night to 110 one unit moves, or 110 Yep. That number had been like in the early like maybe 43 at one point, yeah. And now it's 110 her basal rates are down almost a half a unit an hour. So she clearly has implications from from, you know, from hormones or PCOS or

Ally 32:32
something, yeah, yeah. And she's a young, fertile woman. She is,

Speaker 1 32:36
I assume, yeah. Well, the two of us together, we're adjusting our insulin down and down and down. And so we did it again last night, and we did it after the meal, right? So I guess we all expected her to get a little low still after the meal. But to your point, I'm leaning on the counter doing something in the kitchen. She walks over, opens up a candy dish, takes out a piece of candy, starts eating it. I don't really think anything of it. And I swear to you, 10 seconds later, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, she talks to her phone, and she goes, I know that's why I'm getting the candy. And so, yeah, yeah. So she felt it before the CGM did, yeah,

Ally 33:16
yeah. Shut up. I know I've dealt with it. That is something we all say, I

Speaker 1 33:23
got it. I got it. The timing was just so perfect, because she had just kind of put the candy in her mouth, then it beeped, and she was like, Oh my God. I think she felt good about it. I think she felt like, Yeah, I'm ahead of this. Yeah, you know. But you had that thought done, Yep, yeah. What's the best thing that's happened to you about diabetes management wise, like, what's been the single most impactful thing looping 100% more so than just getting a CGM, they basically

Ally 33:51
went together. I didn't I wasn't particularly interested in CGM when I had to have alerts and alarms. I don't like them. I don't need them. They irritate the crap out of me. So when libre came to Australia, I was like, Oh no, noises. Let me add it. So I got a libre and loved it. And then I decided to use spike, you know the DIY app for iPhone. I remember that, yeah, to read the libre with. I think I had a blue con to put over it, or something like that, or a meow, meow,

Speaker 1 34:33
Alex, let's tell people what we're talking about, just in case it gets away from so when the first libre came out, you had to scan it to get the number. It wasn't giving you a constant number on your phone. No, as a matter of fact, they were calling it a CGM, and people were like, what's not continuous?

Ally 34:48
No, it's not a CGM flash glucose monitor.

Speaker 2 34:51
Yes, but that's what you liked about it. Yes, okay, it

Ally 34:55
didn't make noises, okay? And then I could have more or less continue. Was data if I scan. But I was just a little bit curious. I don't dislike tech at all. So I read about, I think it was a Facebook group or something, and I had a blue con. I thought, Well, I'll see what happens with this spike app. And in the spike app, there was some information about if looping into the following, you know, change the following bit of information. And I'm like, What the hell is looping?

Speaker 1 35:34
Okay? Just like that. That's where, just like your friend told you about MDI almost,

Ally 35:39
yeah, yeah. I was like, Well, I think I need to know more about this. That led me further down the loop pathway. I'm like, oh,

Speaker 1 35:48
oh, I love that. You went from I don't want this thing beeping to I think I could automate this entire system,

Unknown Speaker 35:54
yeah, yeah. And that that happened in about a week. Not a lot

Scott Benner 35:57
of conviction to that I don't want this thing beeping

Ally 36:01
not but I could turn all the alarms off, right? No, I know, yeah, I still didn't want to beep it. Okay, so I need night Scout, right? Let's set that up. Set that up in an afternoon. That was easy back then, it's not so much now, right? I'm gonna build this, build this loop app, and then I was working away at the time, I had a fly in, fly out job in a different state, and I flew home. And then I thought, I wonder if I've got one of these compatible pumps, one of these old pumps. And it turned out I'd had it in my bag the entire time anyway, because it was my backup pump. I had an old Medtronic, 754, okay? And I'm like, Oh, but I need a Riley link. So got a Riley link, and then we're all

Speaker 1 36:48
good. It's funny. I bet you, most people don't even know those words anymore. I know,

Ally 36:52
I know we're talking a while ago, but it's not that long ago. It's only six, seven years.

Speaker 1 36:58
Not at all, not at all, but yeah, but when the DIY systems first came out, you had a very specific couple of pumps that would work with it, and the pump couldn't actually talk to the app on your phone, so you had to have this link in between, which was this, just like a Raspberry Pi, like it's just a little and those are even probably words people barely know. But there was a thing you bought online from a guy he made them, and there was eventually a group of people making them, because there was a call for them, and they'd pump these things out to you, and it would let your phone talk to the link and the link to the pump and vice versa. Yeah, it's awesome. And

Ally 37:34
you know what I had dinner with, alas, just on Saturday night, and she's still using an orange link with her loop setup. The

Speaker 1 37:44
friend of yours is still doing it, yeah? Nice. It's nice that it works. Yeah, you know, yeah,

Ally 37:50
it does, yeah. And that, honestly, that was just like, that was mind blowing, and it put me in contact with people with a lot of knowledge and a lot of ideas and a lot of really good common sense, that was mind blowing.

Speaker 1 38:09
Yeah, it's wonderful. How many people are out there doing stuff like that? Yeah, really is I

Ally 38:14
didn't actually change my HBA 1c much by looping,

Speaker 1 38:17
because you were already doing pretty well, or because it wasn't working that way. Well,

Ally 38:22
I was already low, like, it was quite low. And, yeah, I was doing fine, but it made life easier, yeah, so much easier.

Scott Benner 38:32
Sleep, right? Sleeping overnight,

Ally 38:33
yeah, not having to, you know, think, Oh, crap. I, you know, forgot to Bolus for X, Y and Z, you know? Oh, look, you know, the algorithms actually taken pretty good care of that. And, yeah,

Speaker 1 38:47
yeah, no, I mean the difference between forgetting to Bolus on a, like, a dumb pump, like you said, or on an algorithm. Honestly, it's the difference between, like, a 202 20 blood sugar and a 400 blood sugar.

Ally 38:59
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty awesome. It's amazing. And I don't even get that high. I maybe get to 180 Yeah, maybe 200 I am fairly freakishly sensitive to insulin. You said Arden's was 110 Yeah, Yeah, mine's closer to 180

Speaker 1 39:18
Wow, yeah. Are you very tall? How much do you weigh? Like I

Ally 39:23
am a short, stocky little Muppet, yeah, but I'm also very active. And, yeah, I'm five foot, nothing, and you'd want pounds, wouldn't you? Maybe 150 pounds.

Speaker 1 39:38
Okay, Ali, can I call the episode active Muppet, yeah, why not? Okay,

Ally 39:44
like, you know, I, I mean, for instance, tonight, I finished work, went to two hours of ballet classes. Came home, ate dinner, and yeah,

Speaker 2 39:53
oh, you went your ballet classes. Yeah, that's a

Ally 39:57
couple of hours of ballet classes. I've got three tomorrow night. Three hours.

Speaker 1 40:00
You do it for the dancing or do it for the exercise? I honestly

Ally 40:04
it's for the exercise. Yeah, I'm not a ballerina, but I love the technical nature of it.

Speaker 1 40:11
Excellent. Now we're going to call the episode not a ballerina. Yeah, tell me you have a list here of you're talking about. Let me see what you said here, the disaster that is having type one and trying to access good general health care without people making dangerous assumptions that everything is related to your diabetes, hospital nightmares. What has gone on over the years?

Ally 40:31
Oh, well, I have actually been quite lucky in terms of that sort of thing, but I hear so many horror stories. For instance, young woman goes into hospital for an elective semi cosmetic thing, like a vein stripping. For instance, they take her pump off because that's policy, and don't replace it with anything. Oh, yeah, major public hospital is somebody

Speaker 2 41:03
you know this happened to, Yep, yeah, were they okay?

Ally 41:10
Yeah, she got out, but they wouldn't even bring her her pump

Speaker 1 41:14
back. So do you think they just didn't understand that she had type one? Yeah?

Ally 41:17
They don't. They don't. Once you hit 18, they don't get it,

Scott Benner 41:21
yeah, I guess so, right? Everybody's Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 41:25
oh, you're not eating, you'll be okay. And

Speaker 1 41:27
we don't want this pump on you, because it'll make you low because you're not eating, yeah, yeah.

Ally 41:31
I say they don't understand it. And there's no real sort of oversight in certainly in public hospitals, if you're going in for, say, orthopedic surgery, or, you know, gastrointestinal surgery, the endocrinology team doesn't necessarily get involved. Okay, really, yeah, yeah. They don't, you know, say, if it's a day surgery, oh, wait, in and out. Yeah, in and out, I think, but there's a lot people can stuff up in, you know, five, six hours, sure, you know, I could

Speaker 1 42:05
go wrong. Yeah, no, and, but you've been okay, like, have you been in the hospital and you've just managed it on your own or, yeah?

Ally 42:12
But the only situations I've had around, you know, injuries and orthopedic stuff, okay, I've been very, very healthy, you know, fairly blessed sort of life, yeah, but, yeah, I'm a bit injury pride, then I break things and need to have things put back together. Ali,

Speaker 1 42:35
is this a cry for help, or do you actually get hurt a lot? What's happening? No one's hurting

Ally 42:39
you, right? Martial arts, gymnastics, you know, no kidding, that sort of thing. It's awesome.

Speaker 1 42:44
You know what? You're making not being married sound really attractive to people. It's fantastic.

Unknown Speaker 42:54
It's the best farm. So,

Speaker 1 42:56
you know what I really want to, I'd like to, like talk to you about some more, is that everything you put on your list about that wanting to talk about is stuff that you're worried about for other people. Yeah, you're like, I'm okay,

Ally 43:10
yeah, I am. I legit am. I'm cool, yeah.

Speaker 1 43:14
So is it fair to say that, like your message to people is that try to let it be okay, yeah. And if it is, then great. And if it needs more attention, then give it more attention.

Ally 43:28
Yeah. A lot of people talk about fighting and being a warrior and all of that sort of stuff. I don't actually think diabetes works like that. You kind of got to go with it.

Speaker 1 43:40
I do agree. It's a lot about being flexible, yeah, not not fighting it, but like, yeah, being a part of just responding

Ally 43:48
to it. You know, it's sort of more like a dance than a fight.

Speaker 1 43:52
Yeah? If we're gonna go on with your analogy, I like the idea of it being a dance that you're leading.

Ally 43:59
Yeah, yes, yes. You gotta lead. You've got to tell it where to go. But if you're constantly uptight about it, well, you know that's going to shoot your cortisol up and, you know, mess with things. No, of course,

Speaker 1 44:13
you're not unfeeling for the idea that some people just have anxiety or are more kind of prone to worrying, but,

Ally 44:21
yeah, I don't understand it, but I get it. I mean, no, I don't get I get people are different, yeah?

Speaker 1 44:29
No, I listen. I'm right there with you. I try people. If you listen to this, you hear me. I'm trying very hard to understand that other people that are different than I am, yeah? But yeah, it's one that I have just a hard time wrapping my head around in my personal life, or, you know, here on the podcast, or anything like that. Just it sucks to have a thing impacting you that you don't want that's, you know, not a decision you made, but you also, you think you have a little ADHD,

Ally 44:52
oh yeah, yeah. Not diagnosed, not formally, but I've been repeatedly told. I've

Speaker 1 44:59
been repeated. Totally cold. Yeah. Do you have any other autoimmune issues besides type one? I have psoriatic

Ally 45:04
arthritis, probably off and on since childhood, but it really hit home when I was in my mid 30s. Where do you feel at the most? Hands and feet, mostly. But then, you know, I'll get focuses of, you know, a tendinopathy in the shoulder or something like that.

Scott Benner 45:23
It's a come and go, Yeah,

Ally 45:26
but it comes and it stays for months. It's troublesome. Needs steroid shots occasionally, which is, you know, bit of a disaster glucose wise. But, you know, it can be dealt with. I take biologics for it, which I think has kept me pretty comfortable and active. Which one I take xeljan. It's a Janus kinase inhibitor, yeah.

Speaker 1 45:51
How long you've been doing that? Probably 10 plus years. Okay? And if they're helping you, you haven't had to change meds or anything like that.

Ally 45:58
I have not. That's awesome. No, I'm pretty lucky, like the first one I tried, the first biologic I tried. I'm like, Oh, this is a miracle. Yep. Cool.

Speaker 1 46:06
So your wrists, hands, feet, like, ankles, like that, yep. And then sometimes your shoulder feels like, what shoulder or

Ally 46:16
hip or I've even had knee tendinopathy, which is weird. You know, how'd you get your diagnosis? I came back from a trip to South Africa on a flight, and I'd felt perfectly fine when I hopped on the flight, and when I went to disembark, I couldn't hold my suitcase. My hands were so fat and red and swollen, I thought, Oh, it must just be a reaction to the anti malarial tablets or, you know, whatever. But it didn't go away for months. And I was working in a fairly technical job at the time, and it was quite problematic. And so eventually I saw a rheumatologist, and he looked at my hands and went, Yeah, you've got psoriatic arthritis. Cheers. Take these. Wow,

Scott Benner 47:05
geez. How quickly did it take the medication to work?

Ally 47:08
Well, initially I didn't need a biologic. I just used a disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs, hydroxychloroquine and sulfasalazine, and got a fairly quick remission, so about two months, okay, yeah, and that, that was really good, and then I stayed pretty good for 10 years. And then I broke a finger and needed surgery, and that set everything off again. Do

Speaker 2 47:33
you get the psoriasis as well? No, no, no. Well, maybe,

Ally 47:38
maybe a little patch on my left elbow maybe. Okay, it's not convincing.

Scott Benner 47:45
Sorry. Do you get any fatigue from it?

Ally 47:48
Then I, I, you know, I get tired because I do far too many things and don't sleep that well, um, how long have

Speaker 1 47:57
you not been sleeping? Yeah, wait. Have you not slept well your whole life? Or is this like a perimenopause thing or not a good sleeper? Not a good sleeper. I'm such an awesome sleeper. I'm bragging. Now, I just close my eyes and I go right to sleep.

Ally 48:12
Oh, I wish. Oh yeah,

Speaker 1 48:16
I'm awake right now. Ally, I mean, I know it's late where you are, it's early where I am, right? And I'm awake now. I'm ready for the day. I'm fully, fully energized. I have no, no problem at all. If I lay down right now and thoughtfully tried to go to sleep, I could be asleep in four minutes. Oh, that's

Ally 48:33
irritating. I'm sorry. I know it is. No, no. It takes me an hour, you know, three chapters of a novel, some YouTube clips, three changes of position. Yeah, I

Speaker 1 48:44
know. I watched my wife try to go to sleep. Don't worry. Yeah, I'm just like, I know. I know it pisses her off, but I'm like, Look, I tried to sit up with you for a while, but this is it. Now. I'm going to sleep now. And I'm like, Yes, anywhere, anytime, just let me know where you need me to fall asleep. I'll fall asleep if you if you bet me money, I could probably fall asleep while driving, if I tried hard enough. Oh, oh dear, not like I would just pass out while driving. I'm just saying that if you said to me, Look, there was the opportunity. We'll catch the car. Nothing will happen. But go ahead, like, with the pressure of driving the car, like, could you fall asleep? I probably could. Oh, gosh, yeah, I wish. I'm so sorry for you. That sucks. I'm glad you found the the biologic zones, they're helping because, I mean, otherwise, even, like, early on, hydroxychloroquine, that's a great drug for Yeah, it was like this, yeah. So there's a couple, a couple of drugs that have been around a good long time that help with things like that, that are cheap and easy to get everything like that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 49:41
the biologics are not cheap.

Scott Benner 49:44
No, no, no, no,

Unknown Speaker 49:47
jump through, but yeah,

Speaker 1 49:49
how does the health care system there work? Like is that on you to pay for it? No.

Ally 49:53
If one's rheumatologist fills in the correct paperwork every six months or so. I. Just pay a normal prescription price, which is 30 Australian dollars per month. Awesome. Yeah, so it's but, yeah, we're pretty lucky. Here we we have so much access to insulin. It's not funny. I feel so sorry for your Americans with the health insurance and, you know, not getting things written out properly. So people are running short and, oh yeah, it's dreadful. It

Speaker 1 50:24
sucks, for sure, anybody who's impacted by it, it's just an extra struggle, an extra thing, an extra thing to worry about. And, like, I often wonder, like, when you see people worried about their kids, like that, if it's not part of that too, like, like, we got to take really good care of you and teach you what to do. Because, you know, you also have to learn how to, like, navigate the healthcare system, and you're gonna have to get a job with insurance and, you know, yep,

Ally 50:48
yep, everything, yeah, yeah, such a pressure. Yeah. I

Speaker 1 50:53
want to tell you I think that it's really great to hear you talk long form, because if you see the conversations that we started off talking about online, where somebody's like, look, you know, I just, like, trying to get across, like, just chill out a little bit. Someone's gonna be like, you know, like, go to hell. And then like, you know, like, you're gonna

Ally 51:13
get my precious, sacred little, little puppet, you know, needs my constant attention because they're special.

Speaker 1 51:19
It also doesn't help that you don't have kids and you're an only child when you're talking about

Unknown Speaker 51:28
it, what would I know your

Speaker 1 51:29
kids not that special, but the people listening are thinking, Well, yes, they are, and they're right. They are special. They're I know, yeah, but it's just an interesting like that conversation becomes very contentious. It's predictable by me, because I've seen it. I've seen it so many times and and I understand it from both perspectives, like I want adults to hear what the parents are saying, and I want the parents to hear what the adults are saying, because there's so much value in both of you being in the same group, like so many people, what do I get all the time? There's no adults in here. It's only parents. And I'm like, No, there's a lot of adults in here. They don't talk as much as the parents do. No, I right. And then, you know, when you hear someone come in and leave good advice behind, it's always valuable. Somebody eventually becomes flippant. If somebody eventually becomes flippant, that's not a good path. But I also think that there are plenty of adults who give their advice, and sometimes the parents want to be offended by it. I don't know, like that's a weird

Ally 52:37
way to say it, but their little puppet is sacred and precious. Wait, wait, well, you you

Speaker 1 52:42
feel like you're you're on the moral high ground. I guess while you're having the conversation like I'm just trying to protect the kid, yeah? Which is, yeah, not invalid. I'm not saying that. I also think it works backwards, back and forth, too, because I see a lot of adults who will say, There's nothing here for me. It's just parents talking, except there's a ton to take from that. Yeah, because you guys are older, you live through a different time. You don't have the same focuses, or maybe even the same understanding of it that somebody who's just been dropped into it does. And then on top of that, someone who's just been dropped into it that feels the pull of taking care of their kids, they might have a very specific understanding of something. And if you can get past the argument, like, though they're a kid and I'm an adult, so it's not the same. It is the same. It's how insulin works. Yeah, yeah, the advice is always the same. It works for anybody. You take the nature of insulin and the way diabetes is from someone else's perspective, listen to their perspective, and then try to see how much of it is valuable for you. And that works both ways.

Ally 53:45
Yeah, you know, yeah, because insulin is insulin, exactly.

Speaker 1 53:49
But everybody gets whole like not everybody. Actually, it's not everybody. It's hardly everybody. It's barely every anybody. It's but when it's a couple of voices in a conversation, it feels like everybody. I always try to remind people, like somebody said to me the other day, this group is whatever they say like this. And I say to them, there are 125 new posts every day in here, 8000 comments and likes every 24 hours, 57,000 people as of right now. You saw two people arguing, and you think this is a place where everybody's mean, I don't understand your your logic, like, isn't this a place where 57,000 people are nice and these two people are nudniks? Isn't that and isn't that great, you know? And by the way, too, Ally, those two people aren't even nudniks, because if you got them on the right day and talk to them the right way, like you'd realize they're nice people too, yeah, if

Ally 54:43
they'd had enough sleep because kid wasn't hypo in constantly overnight, yes, you know, yeah,

Speaker 1 54:49
right, right. If they had enough sleep, if it hadn't been a month since they had sex, if it hadn't been like, also, by the way, like as a moderator of a Facebook group, the thing. I hold in more often than not, is, like, you guys should just go get laid and come back. Everybody's got to Calm the down and, like, you know, like, just, just chill. Or, by the way, like, drink o'clock comes up and then everybody wants to talk about their stuff. I'm, like, not a drink o'clock. Don't do that. No, we'll start talking about diabetes with a beer in your hand, you're all going to be shitty. Like, like, just relax a little bit,

Ally 55:23
go and have a quick share, like, a bomb, come back, and they'll all be better,

Speaker 1 55:29
yeah, and you'll realize you know stuff that they don't know, and they know stuff that you don't know, and we'll all be okay. Like, seriously, I swear to you. Like, that's it. There's times that I put this some quote from an episode of mash, which is ridiculous, but it's this line in a TV show from the 70s where this guy, like he just sees everybody upset. They're all having a bad time. And he's a psychiatrist that comes in and out of the camp sometimes, and he stops, oh, yeah, yeah, Sydney, Sydney. And he stops on his way out one day, and he says, Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice, and then he just walks away. Right? I half completely understand what that means, and I half don't know what the hell he's talking about, but it's perfect advice while you're all upset, just go do the thing you do that chills you out right now. Why is arguing with each other the way to go? And again, I want to say for people listening, it is very infrequent. I've done a couple of things right in my lifetime. Not a ton. Not a ton. The way I have that Facebook group set up, I'm proud of it works really well. And there's going to be times like that. It that a couple of people fire shots and people and some people get caught by shrapnel. You know what I mean? Like, but like to to extend this Korean War metaphor for the most part, it's a really lovely place, yeah. And I just want to remind everybody that, if you're only seeing people arguing, the algorithm is feeding you what you're interested in Oh, so, yeah, that's it. Ali, have you ever heard people say, How did the algorithm figure out I was gay before I knew? Have you ever heard someone say that? Yeah. So there are. It's a phenomenon on the internet where people are shown by the algorithm that they have a tendency in one way or the other that they didn't even realize.

Ally 57:21
Well, I wondered about that a couple of years ago, I kept getting advertisements for lesbian or, you know, gender fluid trousers, and I'm like, they're horrible. I don't want those. They're really ugly trousers. Why would I want those? It turns out, I was involved in a project to make bag pipes out of carbon fiber tubing. It was a short lived project, but I was Googling a lot of tools,

Speaker 1 57:54
a lot of what Tell me again, tools, tools, like tools. Oh, my God. So you think the algorithm saw a female your age looking for, like, looking for tools, hand tools, and thought,

Ally 58:07
obviously, I need extremely ugly trousers. I want

Speaker 1 58:11
to say that some people probably think those trousers are lovely, but, um, but either, no, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like, yeah, that algorithm figures out what you care about before you know it, what it is, and it makes assumptions that it can be wrong about as well. Like, don't get me wrong, right? But at the same time, if you're seeing a lot of people fighting online, that means that you are pausing, reading and interacting with people fighting online, and that's the algorithm telling you, whether you know it or not, you like this. You like the drama. I'll share this with you, yeah, very quietly, in case people are listening. Ali, okay, my wife's family are more comfortable when they're fighting, oh, and they're more comfortable when one of them is the bad guy? Oh, they pass the bad guy thing around, and they don't know it. Oh, they take it in turns. Yeah, they don't realize it, but they don't So, and it gets to be one of them for a while, yep. Then that's that's not fun anymore, or whatever, or it calms down, so they give it off to someone else, yeah. And then sometimes, sometimes they get lucky, and one of them actually does something shitty. And then, though they get it, they are the most comfortable when that is happening. If things, I will tell you this, it took me, if my wife heard me put it like this, she would definitely smack me in the head. But it took me decades to get this out of my wife, but she was more comfortable when there was a problem than when things were good. Oh, gosh, yeah, not terrible. The algorithm knows that about you, yeah? And it feeds you the three people that are arguing tonight in my group. And then you go, this place is just people arguing all the time. And I'm like, turns out you're just attracted to it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because I see the whole group alley, and the group is people being lovely to people all the time, yeah, with a couple of people arguing. So anyway, by the way, in my moderating style is getting to, it's starting to, like, slide into my parenting style, like last night,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:15
it's a big family. There's this

Speaker 1 1:00:17
lovely woman. I know she's lovely. I see How lovely she is, but she's going through something right now. Oh, okay, every time she gets into something, she gets offended and starts arguing and yelling at people. And I've tried to moderate anybody through it, but last night, puts up a post that could be just a regular, lovely post asking for advice, and then people give their advice, and then she yells at them and tells them they're wrong. And I'm like, Hey, don't go on the internet and ask people for advice, if what you want is for people to agree with you, okay? And yeah, you might have said something that they don't agree with. And these people, I read through everything they were they saw her as needing help. They gave really thoughtful responses. Nobody was being mean to her. She fired back. Fired back, but it was late at night. I deleted the entire thread and sent a note to the person that says, I hope you're okay. I don't know what's going on, but you have to stop wanting to fight with people. And I just, I just, I can't do this. I gotta sleep too. Ali, you know what I mean? Yeah. Anyway, oh gosh. I think everyone who moderates a Facebook group thoughtfully should be brought together. They could probably fix every problem. They probably know everything that's going to happen before

Ally 1:01:32
it happens. Yep, peace in Gaza get the Ukraine situation sorted out. I would

Speaker 1 1:01:37
have saw it coming six months before it happened. I would have been like that one said that this one responded this way. It must be Thanksgiving. That's, by the way, how it works. Like everyone starts to lose their mind right before Thanksgiving. Oh, okay. And then it travels through into Christmas. They happy up for eight seconds around Christmas, and then

Ally 1:01:59
it and then tails off again at New Year, yep, decompensates, yep, yep.

Speaker 1 1:02:03
And then now, January is almost over, and everyone's coming out of their their haze now and then, yeah, and everybody be a little quiet. February, March, spring will come, and then everybody's as happy as can be, right until they realize their kids are going to stop going to school, and then,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:24
and they've got a whole summer of to deal with.

Speaker 1 1:02:27
Then it gets a little off kilter. But then a lot of people go into like, I don't even know how to put it, the summertime, they just they go away in their heads. They give it away, if that makes sense, yep, and then they're great through the summer, even the fall. People love the fall, but when they sniff Thanksgiving,

Ally 1:02:49
that's when it happens again. That's late November, isn't it? Yep, yeah, we don't have that here.

Speaker 1 1:02:55
No, you're lucky, because all you get is Turkey and potatoes and anxiety, apparently, I don't know, but, like, Yeah, I know how people are going to act in a group based on the time of year. Oh, okay, it's really interesting. So, and it's consistent, because I've been doing it for so long now. Like, it just happens. So we get ahead of it, like, we try to, like, move people in a better direction, give them, like, happier things to look at, like, like, the whole thing, it's really purposeful. So,

Ally 1:03:23
yeah, look, puppies, kittens. Oh yeah, I'm trying to

Speaker 1 1:03:27
help you guys fight against your inner demons, or whatever it is that we've, um, you're a maybe personal human algorithm. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, anything, we didn't talk about what people are, weird people are, yeah. Look, I can look at it that way. There are times I do. There are times that I'll just, I'll be like, Man, what is wrong with that person? Just like, yeah. But then when you really look and you see it is what you talked about, there's a reason. There's a reason. Yeah, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, I don't think there are bad people. I just think there are people that are in so many different bad circumstances that the only reaction, reaction that's left is the one they're having, yeah,

Ally 1:04:08
yeah, you know. And that's just to strike back.

Speaker 1 1:04:11
I think so like i because I've seen really terrible things, and I've seen lesser versions of it. I don't know what I am. Am I a pacifist? Is that possible? Because I look, when I look at them from from 100 yards, you know, when I step way back, I don't see bad people. I just see people in some version of hell and, yeah, this is what they're doing to get through it. Yeah, I don't know it's, it's something anyway, all right. Well, Ally, you've had a great life. I have, I hope it continues. I also think it's interesting, by the way that I didn't even think to pick through if you had anything else going on because of your attitude, because you have such a good attitude about having diabetes. But you know, arthritis is no

Ally 1:04:57
like, this is like. I think I prefer that I have diabetes maybe, than somebody else, really, because I'm okay with it. I mean, it's not fun. Sure, I'd love to get rid of it, but I guess I've been blessed with the physiology and genetics to be able to deal with it reasonably well.

Speaker 1 1:05:19
Yeah, no, I I've come to believe that too, like some people just get a better mix.

Ally 1:05:25
Yeah, yeah. And my parents are and grandparents are ridiculously long lived. So, you know, yeah, I mean, my father is 81 and still working. Do

Speaker 1 1:05:37
you worry about being older with type one? Oh, yeah,

Ally 1:05:41
yeah, yeah, yeah, my friends and I talk about this a bit like, we really need to set up nursing homes, retirement homes specifically for type ones with sensible carers. Yeah, that's a good idea, because that's scary. I

Speaker 1 1:05:58
take your vibe right away, like you're not going to be able to spread enough knowledgeable people around to all the places. So

Ally 1:06:05
no, we're not. We need to consolidate. Yeah, I've one of my school friends has a mom. She's now in her mid 80s, and she developed type one when she was in her late teens. Okay, she's in a nursing home now, because she's physically very frail, but thankfully, she's still able to self care good, yeah, so she's got a pump and a CGM and all of that, but if she had Alzheimer's, no

Speaker 1 1:06:33
now, they put her on a they probably, they probably put her on once a day, yeah, just basal and then let her drift away at her time. This is a thing that a lot of people around me, even privately talk about all the time, like, I don't just, I don't mean personally even like just people, you know, we're always thinking about ways to help people with type one, and, yeah, it's a big concern about people getting older and not being able to see their pumps like pump companies. No pump company puts any effort into a pump that an older person can use easily.

Ally 1:07:03
No, right? No, because, yeah, where's the market? Old people aren't sexy,

Speaker 1 1:07:08
right? And they and they're also not a long live the market. No, either. Yeah. That's why you don't see any cars marketed towards 75 year old people like, yeah, they drive three miles a week, and that's only going to be for another month and a half. Well, that's where the sexiness is, then, is in the home for people with type one. Yeah, right, plenty of people with diabetes, like, why not make a diabetes specific place to help them? Yeah,

Ally 1:07:33
yeah, you know, get sensible carers and, you know, yeah. And you could even extend that into maybe daycare. How do you mean, like, you know, for little kids?

Scott Benner 1:07:46
Oh, yeah. Well, you gotta have enough of them too. You gotta

Ally 1:07:48
Yeah, yeah, right. And that, that could be tricky, but yeah, um, certainly, where I live, there's probably not the population density. Yeah, I live in a capital city, but it's still only a million people.

Speaker 1 1:08:00
Can you imagine the beeping 20 minutes after snack time at a type one daycare? God, yeah, lot of beeping. Hey, can I ask one last question before I let you go? Sure. Do you like me? Like, how do you know about this? How

Ally 1:08:13
do I know about the podcast and all that I first heard about it when I was knee deep in loop territory. Okay? And I didn't really have time then, but then I worked out what podcasts actually were, and started listening. And then I found the Facebook page,

Speaker 1 1:08:36
okay, I've drug A lot of people into listening to podcasts that I don't think ever would.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:40
I didn't know what a bloody podcast was. But,

Speaker 1 1:08:43
I mean, like, I don't have type one. Why is that okay with you? You've got sensible

Ally 1:08:47
advice. Okay? And look, I mean, to be honest, I haven't been through all the, you know, the technical series. Oh, you like the stories. I like stories, yeah, because I've kind of, I've kind of done the technical stuff, I've kind of figured it out. That's not to say there's nothing to learn that I you know. No,

Speaker 1 1:09:09
no, I understand. But yeah, it just, it doesn't feel like a focus for you right now.

Ally 1:09:13
No, no. Awesome. I I love people's stories. Yeah, that's

Speaker 1 1:09:17
awesome. Well, yours was great. I appreciate you adding it. Oh,

Ally 1:09:21
thank you. I look. I just hope I can reassure some of the parents that are really struggling out there that their kid is probably going to have a really good life. Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:09:32
it's funny. The way you put that is exactly how I would say it, like, don't worry too much. It's probably going to be okay.

Ally 1:09:38
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is, we can't predict the future. We don't know what society is going to be like in 20 years. Do we?

Speaker 1 1:09:48
Well, yeah, that's a good point. Like, because, yeah, because, like, using as an example, like, I put up an episode today with this guy using the eyelet pump. Yeah, and he's doing really well. Yeah. Think, you know, doing really well, saying normal meal, smaller than normal, larger than normal. I also put up an episode with that same comp of the company, like, a week before, yeah, I listened to that one, yeah, and I pushed, like, I pushed a little bit. I was like, Are you guys going to keep trying to make this better? Because, yeah, I think you should. And I think it would be a big deal. You know what I mean? Like, if you, if you kept pressing and and you figured out a way to make this better and let AI, you know, like, help you, like, expand it more quickly. Yep, you're not wrong. Like, you could wake up. I hate saying this, because I know people, poor people with diabetes, been told it's going to be cured forever. I don't mean cured, but I mean No, no, of course not. If you look at the sheer number of things that humanity can't figure out. Yeah, you think we're gonna leap over how to not argue on the internet and get right to curing diabetes? Yep, yep, that's it. Yeah, you're all lucky that it's going this well. But my point is, is that if you don't think that five years from now, all these pumps might not be making insanely accurate insulin decisions with less input from you. Yep, yeah, I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility at all.

Ally 1:11:09
You mentioned it in the islet podcast. You mentioned that particular individual who doesn't announce meals. Yeah, I know him quite well, yeah. And I also know his settings quite well, okay? And not everybody can do those settings. No, they are not appropriate for most of the population. My

Speaker 1 1:11:32
imagination is they're very aggressive, right? Yes, yeah, yes,

Ally 1:11:36
and we both use probably a similar amount of insulin per day, but in very, very different ways. Okay, yeah, yeah. So there is no way I could, like, I can get away with not announcing about 20 grams, no more than that, okay, yeah, because my correction factor is so pathetic, yeah?

Speaker 1 1:12:00
Well, exactly I that's what I tell ardent. I was like, now that you know, now that your correction factor, basal rate, etc, is where it is, you're gonna have to be very like vestibious, about, about, about pre bossing too,

Ally 1:12:13
yep, yep, absolutely, yeah. So yeah, but yeah. I mean, for some people, and I'm thinking perhaps middle aged blokes, for some people, that may be doable in the near future.

Speaker 1 1:12:29
Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't see how it can't get at least better. Yeah,

Ally 1:12:35
better, yeah, because, I mean, the islets doing the meal estimations now, yeah, you know, I mean, we're probably not going to get the islet in Australia for another 10 years, but, you know, whatever.

Speaker 1 1:12:49
Well, that's, yeah, a different problem. My thought would be, and I know very little about this, but, but my thought would be, couldn't there one day be an onboard, personalized AI model that's just paying attention to your insulin needs and making adjustments and things like that, yeah, and working

Ally 1:13:11
out your movement patterns. And do you know what I'd like? I would like my pump to identify if I have a different ballet teacher? Oh,

Speaker 1 1:13:23
that's interesting, because, because you get different, like, like, workouts with them, yeah, different workouts, yep, that's something, yeah, yeah. Well, again, somebody would have to put a ton of effort into that. But, like, it really is just an AB model, right? Like, you know, forget the teacher. Like, a, I have this outcome. B, I have this outcome. Walking into ballet class and saying, This is going to be an A experience, or a B experience, like C experience, right? Yeah, yeah. You could put as much into it as you want, as far as efforts, that'd be that'd be great, yeah. I just think it's there. I think the more data we have, the more data can train. And if you had data on yourself, the machine learning was just paying attention to you, I would think that after time, it could make some pretty reasonable guesses. Yeah, so I don't know. Yeah, true. I put it the same way all the time, like I read a news story that led me down a rabbit hole a little bit, and using the idea of, like, self driving cars, yeah? And the the company Tesla, like they had so much data coming from their cars at one point that the computers they had available to them weren't even powerful enough to crunch the deal with the information, yeah. So they pivoted and built their own processors and date and computers so that, like, like they they brought their own computer system together just to date, deal with the data. And once they did that, the ability for the car to drive itself has, like, expanded exponentially over a short amount of time. And that's a. Much bigger problem I would imagine than your blood sugar. So I just wonder how close we are to somebody like thinking that and moving in that direction. I actually have tried to set up an interview right now with a company who's talking about that. Let's hope that, um, they come through and get me the guy. So anyway, awesome. Yeah. All right, I gotta let you go. It's part you're it's probably like two o'clock. What time is it there? It's two o'clock in the morning. Oh, Jesus Christ, go

Unknown Speaker 1:15:27
to sleep. Alright, I've got a late start tomorrow.

Speaker 1 1:15:30
I appreciate you doing this with me so much. Ali, thank you. Well, thank

Ally 1:15:33
you for the opportunity. I just hope I've been vaguely reassuring

Speaker 1 1:15:37
that was awesome. Well, I didn't ask you. I guess if I asked the Canadians that they have a penguin, have you ever sat down on a toilet and there was a snake in it? Frogs, no snake. Have you ever seen a spider that you thought, Oh, I'm gonna die,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:50
yeah, frequently. And snakes, yeah,

Speaker 1 1:15:55
that you think, Oh, that could trick me and then eat me face first. Yeah?

Ally 1:15:59
Yeah. Okay, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I'm staying here, and I worked in the outback for many, many years. There was some scary out there.

Speaker 1 1:16:11
What's more scary? Snakes or crocodiles? Oh,

Ally 1:16:15
snakes might kill you. Crocodiles almost certainly will, yeah, if it's a salt water, okay, canoeing next to a freshie, yeah, they're pretty harmless.

Speaker 1 1:16:25
How about sharks? How many times have you been on a beach and somebody's yelled, shark? Never, awesome, never No, okay, and a kangaroo is a weird animal, right? Yeah,

Ally 1:16:37
I've hit a few, you know, with your car,

Scott Benner 1:16:40
yeah, how do they make out in that scenario?

Unknown Speaker 1:16:44
Not great, nor does the car.

Speaker 1 1:16:48
Our deer are crazy like, yeah. Similar concept, yeah. They'll wreck your car and get up and walk away. Yeah, yeah. Similar concept, yeah. No kidding. All right, thank you. Thank you for verifying what I thought about the spiders and the snakes. I appreciate that. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:03
terrifying, yeah. Hold on a second.

Speaker 1 1:17:13
This episode was sponsored by touched by type one. I want you to go find them on Facebook, Instagram, and give them a follow, and then head to touched by type one.org where you're going to learn all about their programs and resources for people with type one diabetes. Are you tired of getting a rash from your CGM adhesive? Give the ever since 365 a try, ever since cgm.com/juice box. Beautiful silicone that they use it changes every day, keeps it fresh. Not only that, you only have to change the sensor once a year. So I mean, that's better. Thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set, it all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcast and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card if you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast. Private, Facebook group. Juice box podcast, type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one, type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox Podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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#1500 Rub Some Dirt On It

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28‑year‑old Jenn—T1D since age 7—opens up about prepping for pregnancy, wrestling anxiety and disordered eating, and finding footing in therapy amid real‑world struggles.

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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
Welcome back, friends to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Jenn 0:14
Hi guys, I'm Jen. I'm 28 years old. I was diagnosed with type one at age seven, so 21 years ago, and I wanted to come on and talk about planning for pregnancy. Nothing

Scott Benner 0:27
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. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juice, box, or call 88872115, 888-721-1514, us. Med is where my daughter gets her diabetes supplies from, and you could too use the link or number to get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five, and you can learn more right now at my special link, omnipod.com/juicebox

Jenn 2:08
Hi guys. I'm Jen. I'm 28 years old. I was diagnosed with type one at age seven, so 21 years ago, and I wanted to come on and talk about planning for pregnancy. You have other things

Scott Benner 2:22
to talk about too. I think this is going to be a terrific conversation. And I'm a little sleepy today, which means I get a little extra emotional. So just looking at your list of things you sent in, I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna, like, I swear, when I turned this on, I looked at, I want people to understand, like, if you think that I'm like, really well prepared. I came in here. I was working for like an hour, doing stuff on the website, doing back end stuff for the podcast. I looked up somebody texted me. He's like, Hey, can you talk? I'm like, I went, Yeah. And then I went, Oh, no, I can't I'm recording in six minutes. So I set up the file, I moved your notes into the file, and as I was moving the notes into the file, I thought, Oh, I'm gonna cry today. Oh, my

Jenn 3:02
gosh. Okay, well, I might, too. I might. It's definitely possible I might tear up. I have a box of Kleenex right here. Oh,

Scott Benner 3:10
I do too. Don't, don't you worry, Joe, I swear I keep both of us. I read your note and I thought, Oh, I'm a little I don't, I don't think I'm tired, by the way, like I think it's been winter too long. I feel the same way, for sure. I'm a little cloudy, yeah, even though I got good sleep last night, I'm a little cloudy. I feel like, like I'm I feel like I'm not eating right. All of a sudden, like, I usually have a nice couple of eggs in the morning with a little bit of protein. In the last few days, I've been, like, running around and, like, late, and I've got all the, ironically, these doctors appointments to help myself be healthier, but I'm running out the door eating like a bowl of cereal because I'm like, I don't have time to cook anything. And I'm like, this is counterproductive. Anyway. I feel foggy, is what I'm saying. Okay, no worries, we'll get through it. And then your thing pops up, and I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna cry.

Jenn 4:00
Yeah. I mean, right, I was like, I say, I came on to talk about planning for pregnancy, but like, I guess the whole I was kind of trying to prepare a little bit for, like, what I wanted to talk about. And I'm, I'm a big planner. I like to make lists and everything. And I was trying to, like, make a kind of time chronological ordered list, and to help just wrap my mind around, like, all the different topics that I wanted to talk about, and I had to go through it like 10 times because there's just, there is a lot that's just been kind of like the big part of my journey. And like, why I felt like, for me personally, like planning for pregnancy was so much more than just simply that, and like, how much truly went into it, and kind of like, why I wanted to come on and talk about this, because I felt like if I didn't put in all that work ahead of time, I couldn't imagine myself like going for it. And how would I possibly have, like, a safe. Been healthy pregnancy. Let me

Scott Benner 5:01
ask you a question for a second. Is this the first time you sat down and tried to contextualize your life with diabetes? Like, really look at it from, like, from where it started to where it is and and the big steps in between. Have you ever done that before? Is this the first time you've done that?

Jenn 5:15
So, yeah, this is really the first time I've done it. I guess, like, I guess I initially reached out to you, like, about a year ago, and so that was really, like, the first time that I sat down and, like, tried to write out, like, yeah, contextualize my life with diabetes, essentially, and a lot. So you

Scott Benner 5:30
were diagnosed when you were seven. You said, Yeah, okay, 21 years ago, you're seven years old. Do you remember any feelings around that time, anything that stayed with you 21 years?

Jenn 5:44
Yeah, I remember going to the doctor's office that day and getting diagnosed. And I remember being in the hospital for a few days and just for the like initial education, and then afterwards going back home. I stayed home from school for a few days, I think, I guess so we could just adjust a little bit. And I remember, like, going back to school and just feeling like completely in a

Scott Benner 6:08
fog. Yeah, feelings wise, though, scared, sad. Do you? Does any of that linger with you?

Jenn 6:13
No, I, I have an amazing mom who really, like, just completely took charge of my management, and I felt like I, as a during my childhood, really relied on her the whole time for a lot of my management, and so I don't ever really remember like feeling scared or alone really sad about it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:37
you describe yourself in your notes as having anxiety. So do you have a really great mom or a very anxious mom that was paying super close attention?

Jenn 6:46
Very anxious mom who was paying close attention for sure? I get it from her for sure. So I

Scott Benner 6:52
wasn't sure, because, like, there was part of me that thought, like, Oh, I wonder if she's gonna tell me later that her mom doesn't have any of that anxiety, and she was just like this on top of it, lady. Or if she was gonna tell me, like, my mom's you're laughing. Your mom was just worried that her actions were gonna end the planet, so she had to move very quickly.

Jenn 7:09
No, you hit the nail right on the head. Honestly, that's so funny. Yeah, you're so right.

Scott Benner 7:13
So your mom, like, finally found something to point her anxiety at that's really awesome and, like, valuable. So she put her whole ass into that and really got it done. Yeah, yeah. And then does she manage you and take care of injections and measurements and things like that, or is that you? Or how does that work?

Jenn 7:33
Yeah, she did most of my management for, I mean, definitely at least the first year I got on a pump after six months, and I was pretty, like, responsible young child, I guess as far as that can go, I pretty quickly started, like, I mean, she took care of my settings, but like, then when I would eat, by the time I was, like, eight or nine, I was putting in my carbs and doing that kind of stuff. And

Scott Benner 7:54
were you responsible, or were you anxious? You

Jenn 7:56
know, at the time, I don't remember feeling anxious until I hit college, but who knows

Scott Benner 8:03
what about college made you feel that anxiety. I

Jenn 8:07
think college for me was, like, the first time that I was really pushed, or like I struggled. Like classes were hard, everything always came very easily to me, growing up, like sports, school, all that stuff, and college was hard, and I hit a point where I was struggling and my anxiety really came out then, Jen, I'm

Scott Benner 8:26
gonna ask a question that I want everybody to hear before I say I don't mean it in any way that's gonna make you upset, make you feel like you need to social justice warrior me or anything like that. Do you think your life would be different, better or worse today, if you didn't go to college, like, if it was 1950 and you were like, I'm 21 and this man is going to make a baby with me, and I will keep the house clean. Do you think you'd be better off or No, today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omnipod, and before I tell you about Omnipod, the device. I'd like to tell you about Omnipod, the company. I approached Omnipod in 2015 and asked them to buy an ad on a podcast that I hadn't even begun to make yet because the podcast didn't have any listeners. All I could promise them was that I was going to try to help people living with type one diabetes, and that was enough for Omnipod. They bought their first ad, and I used that money to support myself while I was growing the Juicebox Podcast. You might even say that Omnipod is the firm foundation of the Juicebox Podcast, and it's actually the firm foundation of how my daughter manages her type one diabetes every day. Omnipod.com/juicebox whether you want the Omnipod five or the Omnipod dash, using my link, let's Omnipod know what a good decision they made in 2015 and continue to make to this day. Omnipod is easy to use, easy to fill, easy to wear. And I. That because my daughter has been wearing one every day since she was four years old, and she will be 20 this year, there is not enough time in an ad for me to tell you everything that I know about Omnipod, but please take a look omnipod.com/juicebox I think Omnipod could be a good friend to you, just like it has been to my daughter and my family. You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works. And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, US med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it, push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us, med.com/juice, box. Or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits checked now and get started with us, med Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at usmed.com/juice box, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player, and links at Juicebox podcast.com, to us, med and to all the sponsors.

Jenn 11:48
That is such a funny question, because I want to be a part time working, slash stay at home. Mom is my is what I want in life right now. Yeah, can I tell you why? What may be better? Okay,

Scott Benner 12:00
let me tell you why. Yes, I'm almost twice as old as you are, okay? And my wife is a powerful business person, okay? Like she runs large groups of people in high pressure situations. She does an awesome job at it, really awesome. And if you walk downstairs and found her right now and said, Kelly, what do you wish you were doing right now? She would say, taking care of the kids. I'd like to make the house this way. And if I was going to work, I'd like to own a candy shop slash bookstore, type something like that. But I wouldn't want it to be high pressure or something that I needed to have money. And I'm telling you, my wife is 50 years old, and I think if you drug her up here and asked her, she might say, I'm awesome at this job, but I don't know if my brain is wired for it. Does that make sense? Oh,

Jenn 12:52
no, it totally does. And I feel like I growing up was always like, I originally wanted to be a doctor, and I'm like, all for if that is what you want to do, like women empowerment, but and I think a couple years ago, I hit a point where I was just like, that's when I think my internal clock just started ticking, and I was like, I want to have kids, and I there's nothing in the world that would be more important to me than my own kids, and I want to spend as much time with them as I can, and I want to make our house like, like, a loving home. Yeah, and it was wild. I'm

Scott Benner 13:27
gonna back up for a half a second just to reiterate for all the people who are now upset, yeah, I'm sorry. I don't think that your gender or anything about you dictates what you should be doing in the world. I really don't feel like that. I'm just trying to have a conversation around things that I've actually witnessed in my own life. And I'm telling you that if you get into a time machine and take my wife back to being 21 years old and say, Hey, go to college and then go do all the things that you did or don't do that, I don't know what she'd pick. And I bet you she doesn't know either, like, because now, after having lived the whole life of it, and what I've noticed from afar is that that mothering instinct that she has, which is very strong and very loving and wonderful, when she gets into a business situation, she can't really turn it off completely. She just redirects it a little bit, and now she feels guilty for not doing the mothering stuff, and she's trying to oversee like I think it's why she's good at her job. I think the reason that the people who work for my wife love working for my wife, and they genuinely do, I think it's because she's concerned for their outcomes.

Jenn 14:37
Oh, I think that makes the best manager is someone who you feel like really cares about you as a person. So what I'm

Scott Benner 14:44
telling you is, I think in a business setting, my wife's Awesome, yeah, personally, I don't think she's as fulfilled doing this as she would have been doing something different. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn here, like she might come up here and be like, you're an idiot. She'd probably say that no matter what, I've heard her. Ever talk about it. We've talked about it together, and she never dreams of moving up the corporate ladder. That's not where her dreams are. My wife's pretty far up a ladder, and if you asked her, like, are you trying to get to the next rung, she'd be like, I don't know. This is fine. She doesn't care about that stuff. Yeah. No. It's very interesting. Whereas men just kind of, generally speaking, stew internally, let it go, let it out. Move on, have a heart attack and die. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's how it goes, like, right? This anxiety that I see with so many people that I'm talking to, men and women, obviously, but like, I'm always looking for ways that they could avoid it. And I honestly think if my wife didn't have this high pressure job, her anxiety would be lower. I

Jenn 15:45
will say, though I do think if, after kind of reflecting on a little bit, I wouldn't change anything that I have done. So I am, I am glad that I, like, got a degree and have worked so far in my life. So I do feel like even though it did initially bring out my anxiety. I have learned so much from it, and like, become a stronger person, and it has been very valuable. Like, and my job has been very fulfilling, but I feel like I am fortunate in the way that now my my husband has a very strong career, and so I'm able to kind of like, I think going forward, would take a step back on my hours and more focus on our home life. And so I think I was fortunate that I could do all that. And now, like, when we're as we're kind of talking about having kids and stuff, I do want to take a step back. So yeah, let

Scott Benner 16:35
me say this as well. This goes for men as too. In my mind, like, I think there are guys that aren't wired right to be in those business settings either. Yeah. So if you're not wired that way, and then you get put into that fight, and it is a fight like, you know, if you're not wired that way, it can be debilitating and anxiety inducing. And like, I like it, like, when I do the stuff that I do behind the scenes, like the business stuff, like the subtle emails and tiny arguments that people are having between kind words and like, meetings. And he was like, I love that. Like, I come out of it. I'm like, Oh, I won. I got that, or I'll come out of it. Oh, I messed up. Like, I definitely gave up the high ground in that conversation, like that stuff, like, I think it's fun and but my wife does not think it's fun, and by the way, my son's good at it. He doesn't think it's fun, but I like it. I wish the world was set up so that people could do the things that really compliment them that would be so nice. Yeah, yeah. I wonder how much anxiety comes out of very capable, very intelligent, well educated people being put into situations that if they had a choice, they just wouldn't be in you know what I mean? I yeah, I can definitely see that, not about barefoot and pregnant or masculine guys versus not masculine. I don't mean it like that, like, I just like, and I wondered, like, you're describing yourself, like, may I read your list? Yeah, go for it. Overcoming an eating disorder, depression and anxiety, working long shifts at night in healthcare, learning to fail and persevere. Like, that's a lot of crappy stuff. You're only 28 I have a daughter too who went away to college and handled it awesome. Like, grades great. Like, you know, succeed, succeed, succeed. But I don't think it was good for her in general. Like, I think it was a lot, and the net positive isn't there for me. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, I want everybody to be educated. If you're having some crazy thought right now that I'm saying, like, let's keep you know, let's keep people stupid. Like, I'm not saying that. Like, it just like, fitting where you fit, and I mean that from a really loving place, because, as you're launching children into the world, just saying, Well, that's it. You graduated from high school. Now go to college because that's what people do, or go get a job because that's what people do, or, like, whatever you the thing is in your head, like, if it doesn't fit your kid, they're just going to be miserable. And even if they adapt reasonably well, it doesn't mean they're not gonna have underlying issues. And I'm not saying that life should be easy for everybody. I think steel, sharp and steel and like, you know what I mean? Like, you I believe in all Yeah, anyway, all right, I'll stop now. So you're 20, so you go to, I

Jenn 19:15
wish we could solve all the world's problems in mental health. And it's, yeah, it's all, it's

Scott Benner 19:20
life is a lot. No. And Jen, like, you see where I'm coming from, I pre you must. You'll see the podcast, right? Oh, yeah, I feel bad about it. For my children, for my wife, for other people I know. Like, I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, you got thrown in this direction and you had to do this thing, and you're really successful, and you're very good at it, but it's not really right for you, and you know it, but it's what needs to be done. So, yeah, I want to go back to you in college, though, your anxiety starts coming out just

Jenn 19:46
kind of like, what kind of happened from there? Is that what you're asking? Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:50
yeah. What do you think? Like, what happened in that situation? How did it impact your diabetes, and where did you go from

Jenn 19:55
there? Yeah. So okay, I guess take like, one step further back. And so I did. I grew up, I had a pump. I did not have a CGM growing up, was just on the pump. And my senior year of high school, I guess I just had some issues with too much scar tissue or something like it. Just none of my sites were working. So I decided to take a pump break. Went back to MDI using pens. It was supposed to be, you know, like, a short six month break maybe, or something, but I, I liked not being attached to anything, so I went into college just on MDI, okay, no. CGM just, you know, then I started college, pre med biology. I went to a pretty rigorous University, and the classes were just very challenging, and I was doing well, but I was spending, like every single free second of my life studying. I mean, I did social things, I was in a sorority, but between any free second was studying, and it was the hardest I've ever studied. I think I kind of exhausted myself, for sure. So I was just wearing myself out.

Scott Benner 21:04
Are you ignoring your diabetes at that point? Like, or,

Jenn 21:08
you know, I think I at that point, I feel like I just didn't even really, like, know that much about looking, yeah, looking back at my whole life, I was like, I feel like I just, I kind of did what I did, and basically tested my blood sugar before meals and took insulin. And I don't think I really did not have that deep of an understanding of diabetes. Honestly, I was just kind of getting by and without the CGM. It's like, who knows what my blood sugar was doing between meals, but I was, you know, walking all over campus, exercising regularly, like, I think I was active enough that my a one CS stayed pretty good, like there were like, upper sixes, maybe like seven ish at that point, so I wasn't ignoring my diabetes, like saying that I was not managing any differently than I had my whole life, okay. But I do feel like looking back, I have no idea, like, what my blood sugars were doing in between meals, like I said, and I'm sure I was having like, spikes and drops, with how I manage it. Now I can tell that I am my blood sugar is spiking or something. I am completely off, and I feel foggy. And so I do think looking back that affected, like, my ability to think as clearly while I was trying to study and do all those normal college things,

Scott Benner 22:24
if I put you in that time machine, do you wish you would have just left the CGM on in state? MDI,

Jenn 22:28
yeah, I wish I had taken advantage of the technology that was available and, like, actually gotten back on a CGM and pump with the CGM. I first tried one when I was, like, eight, and they were horrible back then. Or, like, you had to calibrate a million times a day. And I just hated having, like, one extra thing on my body. And I just refused my mom, like, let it go. And we, like, never looked back. So looking back, I wish that I had had a pump in CGM at that time. I think it would have helped.

Scott Benner 22:57
Do you have other auto immune issues, anything else, or any complications from type one,

Jenn 23:02
no other autoimmune issues. I have had a history of some, like mild gastroparesis, off and on. I think it has resolved now. And so I think technically that they said that it wasn't from my diabetes, because my a one Cs were never really like over like, the highest I ever had was like one, 8.4 and so they said it wasn't from the diabetes, but looking back, like what I know now, with how much I think I was like on a roller coaster and the spikes, I do think that is was because of my diabetes.

Scott Benner 23:35
You didn't find it to be like some people need, like a digestive enzyme. It wasn't like that. It was you were having bouts of very slow digestion during higher blood sugars, you think?

Jenn 23:45
I think so. I did go through a period which was actually my senior year of high school, also, while I was dealing with like had come off the pump, that I actually did, like a liquid diet for three months and then transitioned back to regular food, and thought that it had self resolved at that point, but I've always just kind of had, like a very sensitive stomach, I think, throughout college, like it was still a little bit there. I just didn't realize it

Scott Benner 24:15
okay, you talk a little bit here about depression, is that something you have that you're dealing with now? Is it something from the past? If so, what'd you do with it? So I

Jenn 24:26
am doing much better now. It kind of followed the anxiety. So my freshman year of college, I mostly dealt with just anxiety, and then I think it got so bad by the end of that school year that over that summer, I started really having feelings of depression, and started seeing someone for it, just a psychiatrist. I don't think I went to therapy at that time, but I saw a psychiatrist and got on some anti anxiety medication and antidepressant as well, and it helped a little bit. I ended up not taking it for super long. I don't think I. I at the time, I didn't love the way it made me feel, and so I just gave up, and not the best way to handle that. But do you remember what they gave you? Like, I think, like Prozac and Gabapentin is what I started on.

Scott Benner 25:12
Did you have any, like, self harm thoughts at that point? No, no. Depression. Felt like, what to you?

Jenn 25:19
Just really sad in general, like, feeling like I was a failure and like I didn't have the energy anymore to, like, continue, like I wasn't as motivated as I used to be.

Scott Benner 25:31
Okay. Your mom have any depression? No, she did

Jenn 25:35
not. My dad had, like, an episode of depression when in his young 20s, because his dad passed away young, but that was really kind of a situational thing for him. But then my younger sister during high school developed really severe depression, yeah, kind of do have it in my family a little bit. Yeah. Was she able to manage it? It was a really long journey for her. It was really hard. She is doing a lot better now, but I think it took like, from when she probably back in 2014 to like 2020 she had some really tough years, and she's doing so much better now. I'm really proud of her. I'm glad, yeah, it was a long journey.

Scott Benner 26:12
Does she have any autoimmune stuff? I

Jenn 26:15
think she has kind of like allergies, but I know that's not really auto immune,

Scott Benner 26:18
but, but she has a lot of allergies. No,

Unknown Speaker 26:20
yeah, okay.

Scott Benner 26:22
How are you doing right now? We're halfway through. Let's make sure people know how you're you're doing at the moment, you feel better. Things are going your way. I'm good,

Jenn 26:29
yeah, no, I I'm in a really good spot mentally now. I feel like, over the last few years, I worked through so much, I went to therapy, I did medication. I'm off medication. Now, doing great,

Scott Benner 26:41
awesome. Okay, so when do you meet this boy that you let marry you?

Jenn 26:47
We met in college, so back in it was like 2017 or something. We went in college through a mutual friend,

Scott Benner 26:54
all right, how long you've been together? Then eight, eight years. A little over eight years. Wow. How long you've been married? Little over three years. Good for you, congratulations. Yeah, he's great. Is he? Is he great?

Jenn 27:09
I love him so much. He is he's funny, he's

Scott Benner 27:12
funny. Yeah, that's interesting, like, so if I said to you, drive your husband funny, I wouldn't even say that's like the main descriptor. Describe him in five different words, oh, goodness,

Jenn 27:25
determined. Hard working, caring always puts me first. Okay,

Scott Benner 27:30
describe your dad in five words, oh, goodness.

Jenn 27:33
They are no. My dad and my husband are so different, they're different, right? But my dad is a very, very caring, compassionate guy. I do think that is, I guess, something they have in common, but they're such different people. It's funny,

Scott Benner 27:47
is your husband super calm or no? Yeah, yeah,

Jenn 27:51
I feel like we balance each other out in a variety of different ways. Like I'm more nurturing. He's like, kind of rubbed some dirt in it while I was working through all of my issues at a certain point, like he was the one who told me, like I needed to figure my stuff out. And I honestly, in that moment, like what I needed was that tough love. And I don't think other I think I would have everyone else just babied me. And I think, like, you know, you need that from some people, but at a certain point, I don't think I ever would have, like, took a internal look at myself and decided that I was gonna go through the work to get everything sorted out if he hadn't been like, I need you to do this because, like, it's affecting our relationship.

Scott Benner 28:36
What do you think the impact on him was? What do you think about you impacted him enough for him to say, hey, whatever this is like, can you figure it out please? Because it sucks.

Jenn 28:47
Yeah, I know I would just like, turned from when we first started dating to, like, a year later, was when my depression got really bad. He was a year older than me, so he graduated, and we were doing long distance. We talked on the phone every day, but every day we were talking on the phone, I was ended up crying and just saying, you know, saying about how depressed I was and wasn't really like doing anything about it. And I, I can't imagine, like, I mean, how hard that would be for the person you love to be just crying on the phone to you every day when you can't do anything about it? Do you

Scott Benner 29:20
think it was breaking his heart? Yeah, yeah. And then what did you do? So you went to you went to a doctor. They gave you meds, but then you were like, No, thank you. I'm not gonna take these anymore. So what do you think actually happened? Like, where's your resolution come from?

Jenn 29:33
That was my freshman year when they prescribed me meds and I start, I tried them and stopped. So this is now a few years later. This was after I was rejected from medical school, and my depression got, like, significantly worse because of that. So then after he kind of gave me that kick in the booty, okay, well, I have to, you know, I will work on whatever I need to work on for my application. At that point, I was still like, maybe I. Study for another year and, like, reapply to medical school or whatever. But I basically, I just started at that point, kind of like I quit seeing my friends. I would go to class and come home and come back to my apartment and, like, sleep, and I was just like a shell of a human being. And after he said that to me, I started, I do think I got back in touch with a psychiatrist and therapist at that point, started doing therapy, and I started just like, you know, even when I didn't feel like it, just going through the motions of, like, normal life, seeing my friends, going to work out, going to class. Eventually, after doing that for long enough, like I actually did feel better, it did take a few years to, like, really work through all of my anxiety and depression and get to a point that I I don't feel depressed anymore. So it overall, it took a few years, but that initial, like, six months when I really went from I kind of just given up on everything to I was at least trying, not

Scott Benner 30:58
giving up on life, just giving up on like, you weren't, like, I'm gonna jump off a building. You were like, I just don't care. I'm just gonna sit around and like, whatever happens, happens. Geez. What did you find yourself like, soothing with? Was it social media? Was it like, food? Like, what did you do when you were like, I just, I'm giving up. You remember what you did? I

Jenn 31:17
think I just, like, sat in my room, in our in my apartment, and, like, watched Netflix.

Scott Benner 31:25
All right, yeah, what was the best show you watched while you were impressed?

Jenn 31:27
I think I was watching Grey's Anatomy for like, the 10th time.

Scott Benner 31:32
For the temp. Thought I've literally watched it so many times. This is the part where kereb says, yeah,

Jenn 31:38
oh yeah. I could quote it at one point, I'm sure. Well,

Scott Benner 31:43
so you're just hiding from the world a little bit. Yeah, did the access to so much entertainment make it feel like you weren't hiding, or did you know you were?

Jenn 31:52
I knew I was, yeah, okay, yeah, right. It affected a lot of friendships, unfortunately. Oh, I'm sorry, but yeah. I mean, like, I said, I'm things have, like, completely turned around, and I am so happy with where things are now. But yeah, and it was my senior year of college, and it just, I, I always looking back, I'm like, that was kind of a stinky way to end my college career, because overall it was, like, a great time, but that year, just, it was rough,

Scott Benner 32:19
not good. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so where does the eating disorder come in?

Jenn 32:26
So it kind of started in high school as well. It was like my freshman or sophomore year of high school, I was never overweight or anything, and I was athletic. I played sports growing up, but kind of like my freshman year of high school, I just started to feel like I was felt like a little chunkier than I wanted to be, and oh, gosh, I still remember I literally just looked like my mom had some of these, like, South Beach diet, like, books or something. And I literally just grabbed one. And like, I was just, like, I just want to, like, lose a few pounds, and like, feel a little like leaner. And I just read it, and I decided I was not going to eat any more carbs, and I ended up kind of developing some anorexia and just not eating enough. Had lost a quite a bit of weight. I went into therapy for that. I recovered. Did fine, really, through the rest of my high school career, but like one thing that one of my doctors said to me that I will always remember is, unfortunately, sometimes with eating disorders like it's kind of like a door that once you open, it is very difficult to like fully shut. So even though I was had recovered and was healthy and had a healthy weight and everything, it kind of came back when I had a little bout of gastroparesis my senior year of high school, and I lost some weight from that, and I was like, Oh, I'm so skinny. I love it. And then through throughout college, I kind of my weight kind of fluctuated a little bit up and down. It was just that door, like, I just couldn't fully close. So I think I I kind of continued to just, like, have a little bit of not normal eating habits,

Scott Benner 34:00
just not eating or just restricting it significantly. Or how did it manifest itself? Okay, so

Jenn 34:06
this actually kind of like comes into one of the big things I had to overcome as I was, like, preparing for pregnancy. But yeah, I was kind of off and on, and then over, I would say, kind of in, like 2021 as I was actually getting ready for a wedding, of course, I wanted to be like looking as good as possible. Unfortunately, that did kind of manifest in starting to over exercise and under eat again. So I was walking or running like four to eight miles a day, and a lot of days I was just completely skipping, not eating until dinner, and I would have just normal to bigger dinner, and so that I was probably, like, a lot of days, maybe not even hitting, like 1000 calories, and lost a little bit of weight, not even anything significant. And at that time, my diabetes was not very well managed. And so I think that. That restarted some of the gastroparesis symptoms, and then it started this horrible cycle of my stomach was upset all the time, gained some of the weight back after our wedding, and a lot of days I just like, was not eating until dinner time. And then that actually evolved into, I guess, at this point, my body was just very unhappy with me. I started, like, waking up in the middle of the night hungry because I had barely eaten that day. Like, I would wake up at like, anytime between one and 3am I consider myself someone with, like, a lot of self control and whatever, but it was something I just it was undeniable, and I, like, couldn't go back to sleep until I, like, got up and had a snack. That, of course, is terrible for your blood sugars to eat in the middle of the night, because your body just doesn't process it the same and you're not moving. And so your insulin isn't really, like, having the same effectiveness. I would take insulin for it. It wasn't ever anything with that. And I would take, like, four times the amount I would normally take for however many carbs I ate, go back to bed, wake up with my blood sugar in the two to three hundreds. Not feel good. Obviously, my stomach was hurting because I had eaten something in the middle of the night and it hadn't digested properly. Then I wouldn't be hungry all day long. I wouldn't eat again until dinner time,

Scott Benner 36:22
and this just kept happening over and over again. It was horrible.

Jenn 36:27
I felt so much shame about it, too. I didn't tell anyone. My husband is kind of a deep sleeper, so he had absolutely no idea this was going on. I tried to talk to my doctors about it, but when I was actually like, in front of them, I couldn't get myself to say, like, what was actually going on? I was so embarrassed

Scott Benner 36:46
tell you, I don't think I've ever been awoken by hunger in my life like that. That seems really like a, like, a vigorous response,

Jenn 36:53
yes, yeah. And then it's disrupting your sleep. I was sleeping terrible. So I overall, like, my health was just kind of crumbling. I felt horrible all the time. This really happened from like beginning of 2022 it was increasing in frequency over that year, and I had recently started my job as an ICU nurse. The schedule that they do for new nurses is you alternate day shift and night shift every six weeks. And so that was not helping my sleep schedule either. And I think I had gotten basically gone on this train with this weird eating situation, and then my work schedule, and I absolutely like, I could not make it stop. I tried different sleep aids, like melatonin, magnesium, nothing worked for me. And I think it was just one of those things, like every single day, like I would go into it with the intention of, like, I'm obviously not ever going to do that again. Like that. I feel horrible. I want to feel better, but then every single night, I would wake up and I just was just so weird as feeling, and I couldn't resist it. And it was so it was never an ending cycle. It felt like,

Scott Benner 38:07
do you look back on it? Jen, I'm sorry and think, like, do you have some hindsight about what happened? Were you just so, like, I don't want to say something silly, but like, Were you just so off kilter and out of step and unbalanced that everything was just impacting everything else. And everything was a problem 100%

Jenn 38:23
I it was totally looking back on it. I think it started out small and and then, like you said, I think several factors went into it and created this black hole of just everything was

Scott Benner 38:36
off. I have to tell you, there are times that I think that I'm having like, or I see people having trouble in their life where I want to just say to them, like, Hey, eat an egg. Okay, in the morning, have a nice little sandwich. In the afternoon, maybe have some protein around five or six o'clock at night, go to bed and wake up in the morning. Do that for a week in a row and see if you don't feel better. Yeah, I feel like I've seen this enough in my life to say with confidence that schedule is very important. Yes, like, just schedule yourself, and it fixes a lot of problems. You know, when you were a kid, and you would spin yourself in a circle and then just run away, yeah, you'd spin, and then you'd run, and you'd run until you fell and then you'd get up again and try to run again. You fall over. I think that happens sometimes. I think sometimes you just need to stop and just start over. Like, right? Like, just stop and start over. Sometimes, I think it's, it could be really good advice, but I want to hear what you did.

Jenn 39:30
Yeah, okay. So then now here we are, January 2023, so this has been happening for over a year now, and, oh, you're in this cycle for a year. Oh, yeah, okay, okay, learn longer. So this was when the thought first crossed my mind that my me and my husband would maybe want to have kids in the next couple years. So I really I knew that type one diabetes and pregnancy like there were extra strict goals and stuff, but I didn't really know exactly what it. Entailed. So I just, I Googled what the pregnancy goals are, and when I read that, it was, I mean, it was, like, a goal of six or less, a, 1c, and I was like, Oh, my goodness, I am, like, so incredibly far away from this. I've had diabetes for 20 years, and I've literally never been that good. And I feel like, you know, every time I go to the end, oh, I've been trying for the past few months to do better, and it I'm always like, quote, shocked by, you know, my ANC is still like, 7.5 I was like, Okay, I'm going to have to make some serious changes. And I 100% knew immediately, like, my biggest problem was that my blood sugars were running in the two to 300 every single night, and I'm like, that's such a big portion of your day. I was like, I have wanted to change this. It had been something I have it. I was like, I just really need to break this habit. But I think it was finally that thought of, I'm not going to be able to have kids if I can't change this, that I was like, Okay, I really need to hunker down and figure out how to fix this. You think you'd

Scott Benner 41:06
still be in that spiral, like, not even a spiral, but just like a dizzying, like experience, if you didn't want to have kids.

Jenn 41:13
I wonder that. And I do feel like I had gotten to the point where, just from, like, my health, I just really wanted to change. I don't think I would have at least gotten to the point that I am now if I hadn't decided I wanted to have kids. Wow, yeah, it was a big motivator.

Scott Benner 41:30
So how long you've been listening to the podcast? A year and a half? This is my takeaway after a decade, over and over again. I guess it's no great like secret to people who really study people, or, you know, psychology or anything like that. But so many people are caught in some sort of a loop right up until they decide that the love for someone else is more important. Yeah, that they want to be better for a person or an idea or a job, or because I want to have children, and I want to be there for them, or whatever. Like that feeling is snap so many people out of it. It's astounding how many people have told me that story of one kind or another. Yeah,

Jenn 42:10
no, it, I mean, it was, it was just like the thought crossed my mind, like, I mean, even if I am able to have kids, or, like, a healthy pregnancy, like, 20 years from now, am I I'm going to have all these complications from how I'm managing my diabetes currently, and I didn't want that. And so it still did take a few months, and I really still felt like I was not making any progress. I finally decided that the next step really needed to be stopping this crazy work schedule of switching day and night shift every six weeks. So I spoke with my manager and decided to apply for a medical accommodation to go straight day shift. That took only about a month to finalize, and fortunately, that was approved, so I now was just working day shift as a nurse, and it did, pretty quickly start. I started to feel better. It's still I did end up finding, like, Z Quill, melatonin, plus chamomile, something that actually, like, kind of helped me sleep through the night. It was kind of a slow progress over, like, a few months, where it was just becoming a little bit at a time, more frequent where I was actually, like, sleeping through the night and then waking up with the good blood sugar that was life changing. It still was where, if I did wake up in the middle the night, I had to use, like, literally, every ounce of willpower. And I think it was that extra motivation for wanting to become pregnant that really helped me break. That's like the will Perry power to, yeah, to stay in bed, yeah. And it was and then my, I think my body just started to get used to sleeping through the night and not feeling hungry in the middle of the night. And then I also did have to really work on, like, trying to eat like a normal person throughout the day, and, like, making sure that I was eating lunch, eating dinner at least, like I was actually nourishing myself and I wasn't waking up at them all night, because my body was like, desperately, like, you need more calories, right? So you

Scott Benner 44:08
got your calories during the day, and then you didn't have to wake up at night. But and tell me again, that whole process of breaking that cycle eating when you're supposed to be eating, etc, how long did that take you? Oh, my

Jenn 44:19
goodness, like months from the time I first started, yeah, at several months, at least from the time I first started thinking about it, to the time I actually, like, felt like I was almost had broken the whole habit was like, eight or nine months.

Scott Benner 44:32
And when you open your eyes at night and realize you were hungry and awake, and did you think, yes, but after you thought that, like, what kept your ass in bed. I

Jenn 44:41
was like, I am doing this for myself and for my husband and our future kids. Felt like

Scott Benner 44:46
you had a bigger purpose. Yeah, can I ask why you didn't work on the eating during the day, before the sleeping through the night? Part was that harder.

Jenn 44:54
I think it was harder and because of a cycle that it had created, of like, if I did eat. In the middle of the night, my stomach hurt so bad that next day that it was it was physically hard to eat.

Scott Benner 45:06
Okay, so you had I got it so you, and you've said that already, but it took me a minute to get it through my head. So you had to stop getting out of bed at night and eating so that you could actually eat during the day. Yeah, gotcha. And then once you were able to eat during the day, then you didn't wake up overnight. Yes, chakra con,

Jenn 45:23
right? I know I was like, what a what a concept, and it will well. And it was hard, because I was like, I have never heard of anyone else like, having this issue. Like, surely I'm not the only one who has ever experienced this. But I tried googling things and, like, I just couldn't find much information, and so I just felt like, I felt it was very isolating. No, no,

Scott Benner 45:46
I can't imagine. And again, your eyes are open. Your husband's not awake. You don't want to wake him up. Like, does he know this about you? He does now, yeah, but you didn't. You weren't excited to be like, Hey, honey, guess what? I wake up in the middle of the night like a crack head. You're not looking to share that with anybody, right?

Jenn 46:03
No, exactly. Yeah. Okay, yeah. It was a secret for a long time to

Scott Benner 46:07
keep this one to myself, because I sound insane. Am I right? Yes,

Jenn 46:12
yeah, I was. I felt so much shame that it was like, until I could prove to myself that I could, like, fix it. I, like, couldn't even bring myself to speak about it,

Scott Benner 46:24
and now you don't feel ashamed to share it with me. No, and I, I'm

Jenn 46:27
really proud of myself for, like, overcoming that. I think that honestly was the hardest part of this entire journey. It was wild. But I also just was like, I don't maybe I literally am the only one of your listeners who has experienced this, and I would not be shocked, but I'm also, like, if there's anyone else out there who is experiencing this, here's what worked for me. And like, it was still really hard, but like, maybe it will at least give someone else, like, a guide point.

Scott Benner 46:55
You know, I said earlier, I have takeaways from having conversations with people. One of my takeaways from my conversations with Erica in the mental health stuff is that shame is a huge part of what holds people back across all different kinds of issues, yeah, yeah. Really, just being ashamed is, yeah, it's interesting how, like, powerful it is. Oh, look at you. Do you feel accomplished now sitting here talking about it,

Jenn 47:18
yeah, I mean, I have to say I do and like, throughout, and at that point that brought my ANC from like, 7.4 to 6.1 simply by doing that, it was

Scott Benner 47:31
crazy and your stomach doesn't hurt anymore. No, it

Jenn 47:35
is so much better. I feel like I I eat on a normal person's schedule. Yeah, it's improved a lot.

Scott Benner 47:41
I think everything is so tied to keeping a tidy schedule. Yeah, I just bought the book make your bed because I was, I was having a conversation with Eric. Eric and I are making a series right now that you haven't heard yet. It'll be out by the time I say this. It doesn't matter. But Eric and I are making a series right now about goal setting and reaching goals the way I got to, got to that idea, like, I reached out to her, and I said, like, this is how our relationship works. Like, I say, Hey, do you want to talk about this? Like, do you have something to say about this? Because I'm interested in this. If you are, like, that's kind of how it goes. I had embroiled myself for a couple of days paying attention to what was very popular in this one segment on YouTube. And I realized that people were taking advantage of other people by telling them, I'm successful and you can be too. It's like, digital snake oil. Yeah, they make themselves successful. Like it would be like if I got up and I made a YouTube channel and I said, Hey, I have a very popular podcast. Here's how I did it, you could do it too. The truth is, you can't do it too. Like it's random that it happened for me. Like you can't just randomize yourself into somebody else's situation. But you hold this thing up in front of people that they want, and you tell them, here are the steps I took for it. And you know, you can do it too. And you get a lot of views that way. Like, a lot of likes, a lot of views, a lot of like, you know, a lot of what people are looking for on social media. Meanwhile, most of the people who are watching it are not going to accomplish that thing. They probably will never even try to accomplish that thing. So I started to asking myself, like, then, why are these videos so popular if it's not really a person who's there and saying to themselves, like, I want to be a popular YouTuber like this guy. Like, what is it they're getting? And I realized it seems like they're living vicariously through that person and through the idea that I am going to be successful too. It's so easy. He's explained it to me. I understand it. It's going to be me. You don't actually do it, but you get the feeling of it. And then I stepped back and I said to Erica, I'm like, I want to talk about goal setting, because it's obviously a very human idea. Like, like, right? Like, I want to set a goal. I want to reach a goal. Goal, and I want to conquer something, and then set a new goal and go again. What the people watching the YouTube videos don't realize is they've lied to themselves into thinking they're going to be whatever the YouTube video is about. But what they're really doing is setting the goal of watching the YouTube video and feeling like it's taught them something and that they're going to do something, and they've pushed their goal setting at something that's simplistic. It's like scrolling like, I don't know how much you pay attention to it, but yeah, the algorithm on Instagram, for example, it helps you to feel like you've completed a task even though you've done nothing. That's why you feel good when you're done with it, because you're like, Oh, I set out to do a thing and I did it. You set a goal and you haven't thought about it like that or but, well, listen, Jen, don't you don't have to think about it that way. Watch any number of documentaries from the people who wrote the algorithms, who are jacking your brain to make you feel like you've accomplished something, right? So crazy, yeah. And so what I said was, is, like, why don't we actually teach people how to actually accomplish something? Yeah, and we'll wrap it around diabetes, like, let them, like, set small goals for their diabetes and feel accomplished and move on. So that's what she and I are doing right now, but you did that for yourself, but you didn't know it.

Jenn 51:09
That's an interesting, like, perspective. I am, like, loving this idea for this new series of yours. Thank you, because I think it is that, like, you can listen to other people's stories, and I, for me, like, personally, like listening to your podcast, like, it helped motivate me, I think, like, I started with, like the pro tips, and then listen to all the pregnancy ones, but then, like, just hearing everyone's story on your podcast, it was, like, motivating, but to overcome, like, my specific issues I was having, Like, I did have to set my own very individual goals. Yeah,

Scott Benner 51:43
no, you have to figure out what yours are. Yeah, and listen. I'm sure there are probably people who are listening to the podcast who, right now, are making themselves feel like they're doing something because they're listening. But I think that the trick here is, is that that actually works for this podcast, because you do learn things along the way. Yes, you set them into motion, even though you don't know you're doing it. And eventually you will be better off once it's over. Whereas, if you're listening to a YouTube video about a guy who's really good at talking to people about how to be a YouTuber, that's not going to help you, because you're not going to be a YouTuber, but you do have diabetes, and you are going to learn how to Bolus if you listen long enough. Yes. Would you talk a little more about that, please, the the idea of listening and how it, how it helped you along. Yeah.

Jenn 52:28
Okay, so then, now I've had, like, made some progress on the whole sleeping thing, but I was looking for, like, something more to help. I was kind of, like, Googling, like, books about diabetes. And then it dawned on me, like, maybe someone's created a podcast about this. So I found your podcast and started with the pro tips. The first one being, like, with, you know this title about start newly diagnosed or starting over. I was like, Well, I'm completely starting over. So this is perfect. And it was so helpful. Because, like I said, I felt like I literally knew, like almost nothing about managing my diabetes other than checking my blood sugar at meals and taking in slim for it. So I listened through all of the Pro Tip series. And I think some of the main themes that I like relearned from it or learned for the first time was literally like the Pre Bolus thing, literally had not done that in years. Yeah, that was a big that was honestly such a big thing for me. And then literally, everything that you talked about in the Pro Tip series continued to help me move my ANC further down from September, was 6.1 and then by the by December, 5.5 and then a couple months later, 5.2 and I've kept it there for the past year. Good

Scott Benner 53:44
for you. Congratulations. It's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, it's really great. Can I ask you, Are you a person who classically can learn this way by listening? Or did you have to make yourself do it?

Jenn 53:57
Yes, I love learning this way. I would just go take a walk or, like, while I was driving to work or something, just have your podcast playing, and I felt like I was just absorbing so much information from it. Earlier

Scott Benner 54:10
with you, I referred to the podcast as we but it's I'm making more written content now out of the podcast, for the people who say, like, I can't listen, like it doesn't work for me, like listening doesn't work for me. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So I'm gonna do that, but I have to be honest with you, I don't think it's gonna matter, because I think people say they want something, and then you give it to them, and often they go, Oh, that's nice. And then you look at the clicks, and you go, Oh, nobody Look at this. So I'm gonna do it, because I want there to be good content for people who learn all different ways. But I also think I've been paying a lot of attention to people who are saying, like, Listen, I'm just not a person who can listen to something auto audibly and then come away with an answer. And it's funny, because I want to tell them, like, I don't think that's how it works. I don't think you listen and then at the. The end of the hour, you just go like, Oh, I know everything I know now. Like, watch me regurgitate it right now. Like, I could write it down in bullet points. Like, I don't think it works that way. Like, I think you listen and your mind remembers bits of ideas, and then you look up six months from Wow, and you're like, Oh, I understand all this. All of a sudden. I sometimes think that people who say I understand there are people who just their brains don't work this way, and listening to something's never going to help them. But I also think there are people who have an expectation that they're going to listen for 20 minutes and then be a genius when it's over. And that's not how that works.

Jenn 55:33
Yes, actually, kind of like on that train of thought. I think over that next, like first three to six months of listening to your podcast. I mean, listen to so much, it was like a continued progress, but like, still, like you said, I mean, you're not going to listen to, like, one episode and gain all the knowledge that you need to know. But then it's also like about practicing and applying that knowledge. Because so I was, had still been on MDI and, like a FreeStyle Libre CGM, when I first started listening to your podcast, I knew I wanted to get on a pump soon in preparation for trying to get pregnant. So I started my pump in October or something that year, and was using, like, a lot of stuff, as I was learning from your podcast to apply to, like, help transition over to the pump and get comfortable with changing settings and stuff, and even like learning about the different types of insulins that you can use in the pump, like I use loom Gen, which is similar to FiOS, yep, eventually switched over to the Dexcom so that I can use the control IQ. I mean, it was just a process of, I think it took a good three to six months of being on the pump to actually be like, really comfortable with using the pump and and then even over that, like next year to be honest, like I feel like I'm sometimes, like, still learning new things about my pump, and I've been on it for a little over a year now.

Scott Benner 56:57
The first time I threw a baseball, I was a child, okay, I played little league baseball. I had catches with my dad and catches with other kids. I played in middle school for a little bit, and then after that, I didn't really play anymore. And then one day I was an adult, sort of and I had a kid, and that kid wanted to throw a baseball with me, and I did it with him. And he got older and older and older, and one day he started throwing a baseball really hard. If I would have stopped and said, Hello, Google. How do I catch a baseball? When someone's throwing it at me really fast, they go, oh, there's five steps here to catching it. It's great. If I would have taken that five steps written on a piece of paper, walked outside and said to my son, throw me the ball. Step one, the ball would have hit me right in the face. Like, right, like, so at some point, you do the thing, and you do it again, yeah, and again and again and again and again, until it just happens. And then one day, 60 feet from you is that jacked up, 20 year old throwing a baseball at you, 93 miles an hour, and you're just like, clunk, clunk, clunk. And you're just catching it, and you don't know how I would get done. Sometimes I'd be like, Oh my god, the ball didn't hit me in the face. I never knew how that didn't happen, right? I was always just like, Oh my God. Like, I can't believe I didn't get hit in the face again. The truth is, I think diabetes is like that. Like, I think, like, there are some people like, don't get me wrong. There are some people who listen. They have great like, like, their brains work a certain way. They pick out details. They sit down and make notes while they're listening. They're like, these are the instructions. They follow the instructions a few times, then they know it, right? I know there are people who are who learn that way. I'm not one of those people. I want to tell you a secret if you think that I could listen to my own podcast, having never heard it before, and then be done with it 20 hours later, at the end of a series, and be like, Oh, I know everything about diabetes. It wouldn't work that way for me. I would listen over and over and over again. I have pets in my house that have really specialized care needs, and I know exactly how to take care of them, and I can regurgitate it to you now exactly, but I did that by listening to videos and audio about how to take care of them over sometimes two and three times. And I hear people say, like, there's a post that went up this morning. This woman put up a picture. She's lovely. She and I, like go back and forth online quite a bit. Nicole, Nicole, I'm shouting out your post. It's of her car. She's driving in her car, and she's listening to Bolus sing for insulin. It's part of the Pro Tip series. She said this episode is worth replaying or listening to for the first time. You can find it as a best of you can find it. It's called Bolus sing for fat. Excuse me, bullying insulin for fat, right? She's listening to it over and over again. It's not step one, look at the ball. Step two, hold up your hand. Step three, point the glove. That's not how it works. It works where you just sit down to eat and there's french fries or an avocado or anything else that might have some fat in it that slows down your digestion, and you just go, Oh, I know that when I do this, I have to. Extend out my Bolus a little bit, yes, or I know I have to Bolus again an hour from now, because these French fries are going to slow down my digestion, and this whole thing's going to hit me, and my blood sugar is going to start climbing. And, you know, I got to get ahead of that. You're not looking like, in my opinion. You're not looking for some encyclopedic, computerized understanding of diabetes you're looking to be in a situation where, when the ball comes at you, you raise your hand and you catch and you don't even know how the it happened. Yeah, that's what, that's what I think you're trying to do,

Jenn 1:00:30
for sure. And I think with like, diabetes, that's, that's like, how you have to be because, like, you've said, like, you have to be flexible, because not every situation is going to be exactly the same. Everyone's body works different, sometimes different times of the day, or depending on what activity you've done that day, everything's gonna work different. And I that was like, kind of, I guess, another reason like that, I felt like I wanted to come talk about this subject, because going into pre like, I can't imagine not have, having, like, this past, like, year of experience of, like, practicing so many different just for so long, like, on my pump and with different diabetes scenarios, kind of and like, getting more comfortable with, like, not every day is going to be the same. It's harder when you're traveling. I just had the flu two weeks ago. Like, that was not fun. But like, I was confident enough with, like, tweaking my settings and stuff that I was like, over 90% time in range the whole week I had the flu with like, an average blood sugar of, like, 112 being able to, like, preparing for pregnancy, I think, is so important, because it is going to be like a whole new ball game. And like, you're going to be facing, like, all those changes with your hormones. And I think like feeling confident going into it that you can be flexible, and that is not going to be easy, but like having the confidence to manage things and make changes quickly as needed.

Scott Benner 1:01:54
So Jen, this is up to you. Okay, do you want to end your story here, or do you want to tell the rest about your pregnancy is, do we have time to keep talking? I make a podcast, like, I just, I have plenty of time if you do.

Jenn 1:02:06
Okay, perfect. Yeah, no, I'd like to kind of like, finish up my story, if that's okay with you. Okay, perfect. So we kind of ended up, like, pushing back when we wanted to actually start trying for, like, a little bit longer after this point where I'm now on my pump, and we had some trips last year and just life things that we kind of pushed back our timeline a little bit, even though, like, my blood sugars were in a comfortable place, and I'd gotten like to go ahead from my doctor, we started trying to get pregnant just this past December. I did not expect it to happen quickly at all, because I feel like I've heard so much like through friends and other people like it can take a while. I went into it definitely prepared for that to happen. I was shocked that the first month we started trying this December, I found out on Christmas Eve that I was pregnant, and sorry, this is maybe where I'm going to get a little teary.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
Don't worry, I've been waiting the whole hour, so go ahead. So we

Jenn 1:03:06
obviously were thrilled. I told my husband on Christmas Day, because I had been working at the hospital Christmas Eve and Christmas and I wanted to be sure, so I got a second positive test on Christmas Day, and told him that evening, after I got home from work. Unfortunately, just a few days later, I miscarried. So I had it was obviously very early. Some times the doctors, like refer to it as a chemical pregnancy. Since it is so early, I guess it just just means an early miscarriage that was obviously devastating I was in, had already been working with the MFM team that I had chosen to handle, like my pregnancy care. So I was speaking with them over the phone while this was happening, and got like blood work to confirm a few days later. And I guess kind of like from what they said, and something like that I take comfort in, is like, as devastating as it was, I think I can take comfort in, or at least from what they said, that I can't get pregnant, it will happen again. And I do believe in that, especially with the timing, oh my goodness, like Christmas and New Year's. Yeah, it was really hard, tough to

Scott Benner 1:04:16
get excited about a a new planter or whatever, because boys buy the worst gifts, is what I'm saying. And yeah, it's like, Oh, awesome. What is this? I know we're so bad at

Jenn 1:04:29
right? So the doctor kind of told us to wait a month after that, get myself, give my body some time to recover, and then we could start trying again this month. Oh, oh, this

Scott Benner 1:04:40
is it. It's gonna happen this month. I hope so. I hope so you're gonna let him try. Yeah, all right, you start on Valentine's Day a couple days from now.

Jenn 1:04:51
I was really hoping that, like, I could end the like my story would be able to end on like, our episode with like, you know. Exciting news that here I was pregnant. I had done all this work and prep and like, you know, everything worked out perfectly. But I also did go into it like, when I reached out to you, I was like, I know anything can happen. I know people who have struggled to get pregnant, whether it takes a long time. I do know other people who, like, have had a miscarriage, and you just don't know how it's going to go. But I take comfort in like, I have done everything that that is in my control, yeah, to set myself up for success. And like, I know that, like when we do get pregnant, I will have done everything I can to prepare to have, like, a healthy pregnancy. Those are the things that are in my control. And that's

Scott Benner 1:05:42
right, that's all you can do. What I've done, yeah, and listen, I'm not certain, but I don't see a reason why you can't have a healthy pregnancy like it you've set yourself up really well. And of course, what happened is incredibly unfortunate, but I don't know that that means indicative of what's going to happen next. You know, right, what do they think the doctors, what did they talk about?

Jenn 1:06:04
Yeah, that's kind of what they said, too. So I think unfortunately, like, early miscarriage is a little bit more common than people realize. Sometimes, a lot of times that people don't even know. I mean, I was testing before I was even due for my period. I

Scott Benner 1:06:19
was gonna say, like you were testing, that's how you found out so quickly, right? There's a world where, if you weren't trying to have a baby, this could have happened. Would it have even made a blip for you? Would you even have noticed? No,

Jenn 1:06:29
I would never have known. Okay, I mean, I did start to have a little bit of some symptoms, like the last two days, but, yeah, I might never have even known, because early pregnancy symptoms. Can really just miss that too, absolutely no so I might never have even known. And so yeah, the doctors were like, just kind of reassured me, like it is, unfortunately, a little more common than people realize, but that they don't think it has any indication of like, it doesn't mean it's more likely for it to happen again. It was just wasn't a viable

Scott Benner 1:07:07
I'll be random, just not a viable pregnancy. Random. Did that trigger any of your anxiety or depression? I

Jenn 1:07:13
am kind of surprised, like I feel like I have handled it very, kind of well,

Scott Benner 1:07:19
unlike how you might have when you were younger, yeah, so you went with, I'll just rub some dirt on it.

Jenn 1:07:24
I think I was, like, appropriately sad and stressed out about it for especially the first couple weeks. I actually started a new job, like the week after. So honestly, that was kind of a good distraction.

Scott Benner 1:07:36
Keep going, keep moving. Yeah? And I

Jenn 1:07:40
think I, yeah, I grieved, and then just trying to, trying to, like, reassure myself that there is still hope for the next time. And, you know, I had my husband there to support me, and I confided in, like, a couple of my close friends, and they have been really supportive of me. And so I feel now like I don't feel like it has, like, re triggered, lovely, my anxiety and depression. Yeah, how

Scott Benner 1:08:03
did Mr. Rub some dirt on it handle the the problem? Great. Question.

Jenn 1:08:08
I think he was very sad too. Um, obviously. And the first this was, like, right around New Year's and stuff, and the weather where we live was has been really cold and

Scott Benner 1:08:20
likes, it's terrible. Let's just say it's terrible. Yeah, yeah. People kind

Jenn 1:08:25
of, yeah. We kind of, like, he had some time off from work because of the holidays, and I had too. So we just, like, kind of hung out and, like, watched our favorite movies, and we went over to a friend's house for New Year's, and I was, I will say about, like, a week and a half after it happened, I was still kind of, like, kind of gloomy. And he did get to a point where he was like, okay, Jen, like, we gotta, like, we can't be talking about this 24/7 anymore. It's like, I do kind of want, I want my wife back. Yeah. And I was like, you know, you're kind of right. I kind of every single conversation that we have had was me either saying that I was bummed about it or, like, talking about something pregnancy related. And it did kind of push me back into okay, I can be sad about this, and I have grieved this, and I'm still grieving a little bit, but kind of need to focus on moving forward. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:20
you have to do regular things again and not feel like those regular things are perspective wise, not important anymore, because I've lost the pregnancy. Have this experience. The experience is so big and powerful that everything else pales in comparison. And so it's hard to say, like, oh, we should go to a movie, because it feels Am I right? It's like, well, we should go to a movie, but I mean, how can we go to a movie in a world where we lost the pregnancy? You gotta stop judging this, this tragedy, against the rest of life, I think

Jenn 1:09:48
exactly. And I think honestly, that first month that we started trying, that's kind of how I was, like, it was kind of all consuming for me. Like I felt like I was thinking all day about, like, oh, like, you. Ovulation strips to track my ovulation and stuff. And so I was, I'm as me being a planner and stuff like, and I was just very excited about it. It did kind of start to, like, kind of consume, like, most of my thoughts. And I was very focused on it. And so I do think too, like coming out of that, and like having him kind of remind me, like I do need to focus on, like, on other aspects of our lives. I do think it kind of like reminded me going forward and now, like, starting this month and kind of moving forward, I feel like I am able to do a better job of remembering that my the rest of my life is not stopping just because we're trying to get pregnant.

Scott Benner 1:10:40
What's the plan now this time? Are you going to just bang a bunch and then wait to not get your period? Are you going to keep tracking with pregnancy strips and stuff

Unknown Speaker 1:10:48
like that? Oh, I'm totally still tracking.

Scott Benner 1:10:51
Ken, this was a nice moment for you to say. I'm just throwing caution to the wind. It'll just be okay, and I'll know when I'm pregnant because I won't get my period. No, no,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:00
my mom

Scott Benner 1:11:02
would be very proud

Jenn 1:11:04
exactly my doctor told me, when I told her, like, we were gonna start trying, she was like, you know, for the first few months, like, don't try tracking your ovulation. Like, just, like, relax and just let it be and don't stress about it. And I was like, girl, do you know me? Because no

Scott Benner 1:11:21
or what if we just use this calendar and have very cold sex on these specific days and times? Okay?

Jenn 1:11:29
Yeah, right. I think that's what she was worried about. And I was like, Okay, if not gonna like for me, I would just rather have more information than not. And I but it's not gonna make it you're not making

Scott Benner 1:11:41
it overly clinical. You're just paying attention. Yes, I'm sure there's nothing wrong with that. That seems fine. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, as long as it doesn't turn into an 80 sitcom where you're like, calling your husband and going, it's two o'clock, meet me in the den. You know what? I mean? Like, it's, I think you're fine. So

Jenn 1:11:55
doing a better job moving forward of not letting it like, consume my every thought, but still just having information for myself and tracking things so that I Well, Jen,

Scott Benner 1:12:07
let me. Let me tell you something. You've said a ton of impressive things in this time we've been talking you've talked about and laid out how you've experienced anxiety and depression and work through it, how you've had eating disorders, and work through it, like you've talked about, like, pulling your life together, because it sounds like you were out of control for a while, like, just the Yeah, with your schedule and how you felt your body constantly. I think that honestly, that's a major win. Like putting yourself back on that schedule, getting up in the morning, making your bed doing the things that are supposed to get done. Like, you know, eating, when you're supposed to eat, sleep, when you're supposed to sleep, that's a big deal. Like, I'm super proud. I don't know you, I'm super proud. Yeah, I appreciate that. No, no, it's a thing that I trumpet around here all the time. My son listened to me. I'm super excited when he was younger, I'd be like, Man, listen to me. I'm gonna say some boring go to bed on time, get up at a certain time, eat some food, get moving exercise. Like, do these things, like they help, like, they make life better. And he does them. And I'm like, awesome if I get everybody else to listen. But by the way, Jen, I wanna tell you a secret. If everybody would just listen to me, they'd

Jenn 1:13:19
be fine. I mean, honestly, yeah, I can't argue with that. No. I mean, I'm

Scott Benner 1:13:24
right, but I don't, doesn't mean I can do it all the time. Like, I talked to Erica too, about, like, some of this mental health stuff, yeah, I should list, you know, I wish you could listen. When we're not talking. Sometimes she's like, I don't know, I have trouble getting this done. Like, the only, like, people are gonna struggle with things. And I'm not saying, Just do what I say, and everything will work out. But what I'm saying is bigger picture. There are ways to do things that give you a much better chance of success. Yeah,

Jenn 1:13:50
yeah. And then, like, I mean, I'm not perfect by any means. Like, my day to day still has I'm still kind of going with the flow. Like on some days I don't have as great as of a blood sugar day or whatever. But I think it is just that, like, yeah, like, I look back and like, look at how far I've come, and I'm just like, wow, I you know, I wish I had done this so much sooner. And like, I mean, it's completely changed my life. And like, how I feel, like, health wise, on a day to day basis, awesome, but I'm not perfect, and I don't want anyone listening to this, to think, like, you have to be perfect to have a healthy pregnancy, or just be healthy in general, like you don't

Scott Benner 1:14:26
need to feel ashamed when you're not perfect either. Like, just, like, expect some like, I'm not saying there won't be, listen, if you don't think there are nights when, like, at two o'clock in the morning I'm like, why am I not sleeping? Like that happens to me generally, like, once in a while. But moreover, like last night, I got tired. I stood up and I was like, I'm going to bed. I could stay up longer. I could hang out here with you guys while you're doing whatever you're doing. Arden's doing homework at midnight or something. Like, I'm like, I'm not doing that. Like, I'm going to sleep. And you know what? I woke up this morning, 650 refreshed. Wow. I'm like, I'm a. Wake I'm good. I had a nice morning. I got things accomplished. I did work. I was supposed to. I had a nice conversation with you. I'm nice and awake now. I'm gonna get done here. I'm gonna go now, Susan, I'm an egg. Understand, just a little egg, the little protein I might maybe I'll poach it, put it over toast. Who knows? Like you know, you're gonna get a little protein, a little bit of food. I'm gonna go work some more. Drink some water, talk to people, try not to impose my will on people online, like a lunatic, like, I see people doing constantly the argument that's going on right now around COVID vaccines. Like, I can't believe it's my job to go moderate that. When you and I are done, I don't want to be involved. But here I am. I'm gonna go explain the difference between an opinion and fact to adults, it's fine, it's part of my job, right? But I'll keep a good attitude about it, and I'm gonna go get my hair cut, like, later this afternoon, and I'm gonna make dinner, and then I'm gonna, like, hang out with my family for a little bit. I'm gonna celebrate the fact that the Eagles beat the living out of the chiefs in the Super Bowl. Get awesome. I don't care if you don't if you're a cheese fan, take it. No, you got your feet. Just live through it. Yep. And then I'm gonna go to bed on time again. And guess what? It works out better that way. It just does the

Jenn 1:16:11
simple pleasures in life. I think at a certain point in adulthood, you realize sometimes going to bed at 830 is the most beautiful thing. Jen, I don't

Scott Benner 1:16:20
want to make over simplify this, but go to sleep and sleep when the lights are off. Okay? Like, it's not that hard, like, and it really, really helps you. And people told me that three years ago, I was telling over you every time I list you, you should have been in my kids here, when he went to college, I'm like, go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Tomorrow, it'll be there again. It'll be there again tomorrow. It'll be there again tomorrow. Like, go to sleep. That is super important. When you're fighting against that, you're fighting against a lot more, and your story is just a, like, an amplified version of it. Like you were just being you were tormented by your schedule.

Jenn 1:16:54
Yes, yeah, my whole body was out of whack. Somebody put you in a trash can,

Scott Benner 1:16:59
a beat on the side of it with a pipe, and then let you out. And they're like, go live. And you're like, I can. I like, I can I feel nauseous. So what do we call this one? Yep, rub some dirt on it. Or, because that was a great thing, you?

Jenn 1:17:09
I like that one. Yeah, I'll have to tell my husband. He his line made the title well,

Scott Benner 1:17:15
because, truth be told, right? Like he's the one who snapped you out of, like, your situation.

Jenn 1:17:21
Oh, he is I, yeah, I love him for it. Oh, God.

Scott Benner 1:17:24
I mean that should buy him some like, how many things can you screw up? Maybe, probably not a lot. Actually. You know what? It's fun now, while you're like, just the two of you, once you have a baby and he pisses you off again, you'll forget about that. You'll be like, yeah, he's letting me and my prince down, or princess, whichever you end up having any chance, if the baby's a boy, will be naming it. Scott, well,

Jenn 1:17:45
when I emailed you initially, I asked, what your I want to know what your middle name is. I don't know if you're willing to share. Yes, you know you Okay, no, okay, that was, like, not a dig. I just like,

Scott Benner 1:17:58
I'm curious. My I have such a terrible middle name, I can't, I can't begin to explain, yeah, you're not naming your baby my middle name, trust me. Okay,

Jenn 1:18:06
okay, fine. Well, I know, but I honestly, because I've heard you ask people that, and I was like, I mean, honestly considering it, like, just if there's a way we can incorporate something, what about

Scott Benner 1:18:18
Ben for my you could use part of my last name, named Benjamin, maybe. Do you like a Benner? Actually,

Jenn 1:18:23
Benjamin is one of my top baby names. I honestly love that. Yeah, if you choose

Scott Benner 1:18:27
Benjamin, please just tell people you named them after a diabetes podcast or and I swear to God, I will. You can come to my funeral. Okay, you can be the you can be

Jenn 1:18:37
the top of my list. So I'll have to email you and keep you updated. Can

Scott Benner 1:18:43
I be Uncle Scott? If this happens, I'll send you a picture. Seriously, I'm coming to the you sound like you're you sound Christian? Is there a dress thing? Yeah, we are. Yeah. I heard it in your anxiety, by the way, in case you're watching,

Jenn 1:18:58
yep, no, you're very insightful. What's your background? Like, Irish and German? Yeah, my husband is, like, he's from a, like, very Catholic family. Is

Scott Benner 1:19:08
he Italian or is he Irish as well? Yes, Italian, yeah. I know how it goes. Don't worry. Yeah. I understand how this all works. Yeah. People really think you're out there living some singular life that's so unique.

Jenn 1:19:21
No, it's not. I was, yeah, well, and I was like, I mean, who knows? Like, if anyone else I had to be like, are there other episodes that, like, have my exact story? I was like, I think we have some unique aspects in here. Everybody

Scott Benner 1:19:33
has listen. Everybody has a unique story. My My point is just that when people think like that, they're so special all the time, like, these things are being repeated over and over again. Like, I didn't guess your husband was Italian, like, because I just picked it out of the air. I'm like, Oh, she's Irish. She's Catholic. She definitely married another Catholic guy. Yeah, usually the real pasty ones don't go together. So you probably picked the guy with the tan, and I went with our went with, oh my

Jenn 1:19:55
gosh, you're literally, I am. So I get a good tan in the summer. But I am so pasty in the winter, and he is tan all year round. How the world

Scott Benner 1:20:04
works, don't worry. Yeah, you're all making basic decisions off of something that's primal. So Nevertheless, I just seem like a genius when I say like this, except the people who don't like me are just like, he's just a pompous asshole. I'm like, Yeah, okay, live your life. No, that's fine. Jen loves me and and her baby's name is going to be Benjamin one day, so go off.

Jenn 1:20:24
Yeah, yeah. No, I really I do like that name, and I mean just to kind of like, thank you. Like your podcast, truly, like it has changed my life, and like my diabetes management, and I truly am so grateful for what you do has made a big impact on me, and I appreciate you now you're gonna make

Scott Benner 1:20:42
me cry. Don't do that. I made it through your pregnancy story without crying. No, although Can I tell you what weird thing happened during your pregnancy story? What I imagined me putting my hand on the belly of my son's wife one day, and it made me sad, like it made me happy sad, like I got teary. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what in the middle of that, my son's not nowhere near having a baby. I don't even know if he wants one. I actually found myself thinking about, like, Oh, I wonder what will happen if my kids have, like, I started feeling parental towards you, and then it made me go like that. So anyway, no, it's a special thing. So no, it's awesome. Very sweet. Well, this is very nice. You don't have to, like, bum it. Like I was trying to joke our way to the end of this, but now, like, I seriously, really appreciate this. Like, if that podcast helped you or anybody else, it's just the greatest thing. I'm okay at taking the compliment. Now, like, I appreciate it, and thank you, and I'm glad. Like, but like, if I stop and think about it too long, it just the happiness that comes from what you said. It really is overwhelming. I think it's why I stopped myself from feeling it so much. When people say it,

Unknown Speaker 1:21:44
no, that's, that's totally fair. Yeah, it's,

Scott Benner 1:21:48
it's just a lot to take in. Sometimes

Jenn 1:21:50
I get sappy occasionally. So I had to, I had to throw that out there because I hadn't said it yet.

Scott Benner 1:21:56
So no, don't be sorry. It's really, it's lovely. I really, genuinely appreciate it. Okay, all right. Hold on one second for me. Okay.

A huge thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode of the juice box podcast. Don't forget us med.com/juice, box. This is where we get our diabetes supplies from. You can as well, use the link or call 888-721-1514, use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us med. A huge thanks to Omnipod, not just my longest sponsor, but my first one. Omnipod.com/ omnipod.com/juice box. If you love the podcast and you love two plus insulin pumps, this link is for you. Omnipod.com/juice box. Earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear, it's free, thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like currently if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana. If you live in one of those states, go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking blue circle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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