#1592 After Dark: Tripping Through Type 1

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Ashlyn, 27, returns after 3–4 years; she first shared on After Dark 450 about psychedelics, concerts, and diabetes—now reflecting on how they’ve helped her.

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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
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Ashlyn 0:15
Hi, I am Ashlyn. This is my second time on the podcast, I just kind of wanted to reach back out, because I feel like I've come a long way in, like my own understanding of type one

Scott Benner 0:29
if you're living with type one diabetes, the after dark collection from the Juicebox podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about, from drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction and so much more. Go to Juicebox podcast.com. Up in the menu and click on after dark there you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. 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/juicebox 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 Miss boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the twist a ID 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/juicebox that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s t.com/juicebox.

Ashlyn 2:18
Hi, I am Ashlyn. This is my second time on the podcast. I just kind of wanted to reach back out, because I feel like I've come a long way in, like, my own understanding of type one. And then I just wanted to kind of talk about something that I love, which is concerts, music festivals and stuff like that. I'm really active on, like, a lot of different diabetes forms, and I see this, like, question asked a lot, so I just kind of wanted to put my two cents, even if nobody really wanted that, that's

Scott Benner 2:51
okay. I wanted it, or you wouldn't be here. What was your episode? It was the after dark about psychedelics. Yes. Okay, hold on one second. I'm gonna pull it up so people know which one it was? 450 does that sound right? Okay. Episode 450 after dark, psychedelics. Do you remember what we talked about? I mean, beyond the obvious? No.

Ashlyn 3:10
I mean, I, I had reached out to you around this time because I was, I had moved to Colorado, and I was having, like, an extreme amount of lows from just the altitude change, and then I pushed me to get a pump. And now I've been on a pump for, like, I just did my first renewal. So like, five years, four years,

Scott Benner 3:29
that's a while then, right? Are you still using psychedelics?

Ashlyn 3:33
I do on occasion, I just, it's not, it's not something you do frequently. So I have here and there, but not a lot.

Scott Benner 3:42
So can you tell me how you got from in 2021 when we recorded, I guess we probably recorded in 2020 probably went up in 2021 and how did you get from there to where you are now? Like? What was your experience using them that, and how did it shift to this? What are you like, done? Or are you like, No, I

Ashlyn 4:03
don't. I don't think anyone. I mean, you can be done. I don't view my relationship with stuff like that as like, Okay, now I'm done. I mean, if I wanted to, I would, it's just not. I've been so busy as a person that it's just not at the front of my brain. Yeah. So to just like recap, in the last, like, however long, because I think it was 2021 when we recorded, I was living in Colorado, kind of doing, like the bud tending, like working in the weed, cannabis industry stuff. Then I moved back into to Miami. Around 2022 I got into this, like, Music Festival stuff. I ended up landing a job at, like a company that does, like music festival merchandising, so I have to go to a lot of these shows and events

Scott Benner 4:50
for work. Okay, nice. That actually sounds fun. It is

Ashlyn 4:53
fun. My day to day job is emailing, a lot of emailing, but the concert tickets are great

Scott Benner 4:59
because. Yeah. So, okay, so back then you're smoking weed, doing psychedelics. Sometimes, could you tell somebody, like, what got you going with them? And besides your life being busier, what changed?

Ashlyn 5:12
I'm old or older, and I'm also, like, working full time going to school. So that's like a 60 hour a week workload. So less time for fun, less time for psychedelics, I guess still time for weed. I moved back to Colorado, and I work remotely now. So we are in a weed friendly place. We

Scott Benner 5:33
certainly are, and Miami, it does not sound like a place I'd want to live. For some

Ashlyn 5:37
reason, it's terrible. I moved back just to be closer to family, and within like a like, five seconds, I was like, Oh, I can't do

Scott Benner 5:45
so what were you getting from the usage that you either felt like you needed and learned you didn't need or needed and got like, do you see what I'm saying? Like, if it was, yeah, I feel like I remember our conversation. If I would have asked you back, then you would have told me how important all of this was and what it was doing for you. Like, so did that stop, or did you change?

Ashlyn 6:06
No, I think in like, I'm probably not the only one that feels this way. I've seen a lot of people say that you kind of just get to a point where you you kind of know what that does and where it brings you, if that makes sense, like, I feel like a lot of the stuff that I wanted to get out of that, or the things that I was trying to process Emotionally, I kind of processed them in a way, and that couldn't have been done without a the psychedelics and B therapy from, like, a real licensed therapist,

Scott Benner 6:38
right? That is what I'm leading towards, like I'm trying to figure out, because I, you know, I watch from a distance the conversations around like psychedelics for trauma therapy, and I don't know a ton about it, but I am super interested in whether it all works out. And, you know, becomes kind of publicly available easily, so you feel like you had stuff and you got through it.

Ashlyn 7:01
I have been diagnosed with CPTSD, and I do feel like psychedelics and talk therapy and time really helped. And honestly, a lot of that was surrounding type one, so I just kind of had to the only path through that kind of stuff is

Scott Benner 7:21
through it, yeah, yeah. You don't get to skip right or go over, no.

Ashlyn 7:25
And so honestly, what psychedelics did for me is just kind of, like, I wouldn't say, like, remove blinders, but you're able to be in your brain in a way, like it's like a vacation from yourself, is how I've described it. Okay, I'm still me. I'm still, you know, I still have the same problems, but sometimes you're able to see things from a different light and correct me if I'm wrong, like somebody fact check me. But I have seen people saying that it does increase the amount of dendrites in your brain, which is something that, like a lot of people are theorizing that it helps your brain make different connections. Okay? And I feel like a lot of the experiences that I've had, taking psychedelics and dabbling in other things would support that, and I still do psychedelics. It's just not, I'm not sitting there being like, Okay, I need to think about these things. Like, most of the time I'm at concerts, I'm partying.

Scott Benner 8:25
When you say psychedelics, like, specifically, what are you taking?

Ashlyn 8:28
I mean, I've done psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, the only things that I haven't really wanted to try or touch is any kind of ketamine. DMT, anything like that. I feel like anything that messes with, like, my field of vision, like that, I just

Scott Benner 8:44
don't want it. And it's interesting, isn't it, because there are ketamine clinics now, yeah,

Ashlyn 8:48
I know a lot of people who use it recreationally, and they it just, I would do it in a clinical setting, but it just doesn't look like a good time. I mean, you're taking, like, cat tranquilizer.

Scott Benner 9:01
You're like, you found my line I asked our overlords to describe, actually said, explain, in an elementary way how psychedelics can aid in trauma therapy. It specifically points out psilocybin. It talks about what trauma is about, like a deep emotional mark, like you're stuck in a moment, that kind of thing. And it says it gives you four ways that psychedelics may be able to help, and it talks about like helping the brain unstick the trauma. Trauma can get stuck in the brain like a scratch record. Psychedelics may help lift the needle, so to speak, so the brain can play like a new tune. Psychedelics often make people feel more open, safe and connected. This can make it easier to talk about scary memories and therapy without shutting down or panicking. Some psychedelics seem to quiet down the parts of the brain that scream like danger. So even even when you're not in danger, which can help people feel calmer while processing old pain and it helps, it says, to build new pathways. Psychedelics can help the brain build a new thought pattern instead of always thinking, I'm not safe. My fault and things like that, is that your finding

Ashlyn 10:03
so I feel like the last bullet point you just stated is most of what I feel. So it has really just helped me, like, see things in a different perspective, like, something that happens, especially with LSD, is you get this feeling of epiphanies, so you'll you'll have a thought, and you're like, Wow, this is really profound. This is really you know something, and then it kind of leaves you. But I do feel that it allows you to, like I said, like when you when you take a vacation, and you come back and you, you, you walk back in your house, and you're like, damn, as my house always smells like this, like it's very similar to that where you're like, This is the same place I've always been, but now I can kind of see small differences which allow me to process this fully.

Scott Benner 10:48
Yeah, I hear what you're saying that's pretty awesome. I have to tell you, like, I don't feel like I'm burdened by trauma. But every time I hear somebody talk about stuff like this, I think, like, it does sound interesting. I have to admit, it really does sound interesting anyway. So you wanted to talk specifically today about going to concerts with type one and Is that, am I right? I have that? Yeah. Okay, all right. So tell I mean, this is your idea. So tell me why, what made you feel like it needs to be talked about.

Ashlyn 11:16
I, like, I said, on, like, a lot of different like, type one diabetic forums. I'm on your Facebook group, Reddit, other Facebook groups, and I just see this question asked over and over and over again. And I've gone to legitimately 15 or more music festivals, and so I've had everything that could go wrong go wrong. I had a security guard accidentally, like, break a vial of insulin when they was going through security one time. Like, I just anything that could have happened. I've probably

Scott Benner 11:49
done it. You have, like, a checklist. Do you have rules? Do you have things you know to do that help people? Like, what is

Ashlyn 11:55
it I I definitely do feel like I have like a ritual in a way of of what to do, and like, how to prepare, how to pack. I do feel like a lot of people don't realize that they can reach out to like, Ada coordination and stuff like that before an event. I didn't know that for multiple years, and so I until I started working in this field. Now, I kind of do reach out to ADA coordinators just to be like, hey, like, Hi, I'm gonna be there.

Scott Benner 12:20
So at each event, like you're talking about festivals, not necessarily just like a concert at a BAS a basketball stadium or something,

Ashlyn 12:28
I thought, I mean, no, there. There is an ADA coordinator for those as well,

Scott Benner 12:31
everything. So how do I go about that? Let's say I'm gonna go see a comedy show in Jersey. And the venue, you know, I'm is gonna tell me, I don't know. I'm, they're going to want me to put my phone in a bag and lock it up. And I'm like, oh, no, I need that because, you know, it has my CGM on it. What are the steps I take to work that out?

Ashlyn 12:48
So you can definitely just, I would just call the venue and just be like, hey, you know, I have a couple questions. I have a disability, and I'm going to need, like, X accommodations. Do you ever run into a

Scott Benner 13:00
situation where you start explaining it to them and they're just like, them and they're just like, I don't know what you're talking about. And no, we don't do that. And then you or do you find mostly that they understand and and they can help you through it. 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 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 bolused. 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/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com. I

Ashlyn 15:20
reach out prior to an event, usually the admin, who run, you know, whatever email or contact, they'll sometimes they'll be like, Oh, I don't know, or, you know, they'll just bounce me around. The only problems I've ever experienced is, like, going to the event with, like, specific security

Scott Benner 15:41
people. What do you mean? I'm not sure what you mean by

Ashlyn 15:44
that. So like, let's say I'm going, like, one time I went to like a club in Miami, and we went to go, it was like an outdoor event. And so the the lady was like, oh, you know, I have to check your bag, and I have the insulin pump. And then they kind of look at that, and they're like, oh, you know, they don't, they don't experience that often. And so the woman kept telling me, you know, you can't bring that in. You had like, what is that? And so I got into an argument with her, because I was like, No, this is a medical device. Like you I can't take it off. You can't look at it like, you know, like, right? Just let me through. And she was like, No, you have to leave. And I was like, Are you sure you want to do that right now? And so then I was like, let me speak to a floor manager. And so as soon as the floor manager walked over, I explained, and he was like, oh, and he just raised her hands up at her, like, come on. And then I just went through,

Scott Benner 16:30
right? So you just find that you can, if you don't pre plan, there is a possibility you're going to run into somebody that just doesn't get it. And they're just, they have a, you know, they have a thought in their head, like, I'm not supposed to let anybody in with, you know, electronic devices or something like that. And you

Ashlyn 16:45
honestly think it's the holster that makes them nervous,

Scott Benner 16:49
really, on your pump, which, which pump was it? So

Ashlyn 16:52
I had the type one tactical like, holster on my T slim when I had it, I have a Moby now, right? And sometimes they would look at that, because I sometimes they'll be like, oh, you know, like, let me like, when you go to the airport, and they're like, Oh, let me swab it, or whatever, that clicking sound of the holster. Like, I think sometimes that one looks kind of like a gun holster. So it depends on like, the individual person, because 95% of the time I don't need to contact anybody, I just walk through and they're like, go, go, go, right,

Scott Benner 17:21
you know, but sometimes you bump into somebody that's maybe a little more gruff about it and doesn't understand,

Ashlyn 17:27
right? And it's like, I kind of understand from their perspective too. Like you're dealing with so many people that are probably not in the greatest of headspace,

Scott Benner 17:37
yeah, so talk about that a little bit like even you, like you're pretty you're pretty you're pretty reasonable person, but you got into an argument pretty quickly over it. Are you high already when

Ashlyn 17:45
you get there? No. I mean, probably just weed.

Scott Benner 17:47
But I like how you don't, you don't count weed. You're like, no, just weed. That's awesome. Yeah, just just, but you are, like, you're a little altered, and now, I mean, did that help you get into an argument quicker? Do you

Ashlyn 17:58
think? No, no, no, I sober. He probably would have strung the lily

Scott Benner 18:03
up. Oh, you think the weeds, the only thing that saved her is what you're

Ashlyn 18:07
saying. I mean, pretty much I was like, Listen, you know, I'm not trying to be a problem. Let's not make this a problem. And I'm, I don't I listen. I do not have a temper at all. But with stuff like this, because my brain instantly goes to not me, but the newly diagnosed, like family that's going to go to some like baseball event, and then they have the same problem, and I'm like, they don't know how to advocate for themselves in the same way, because I'm an asshole.

Scott Benner 18:36
I watched Arden's bag get tossed in an emergency room the other day she needed IV antibiotics for something that's not really important right now. But like, you know, we came into the ER, her and I, and the guy pulled her aside, and she's like, look, there's, I have diabetes. There's juice boxes in there and, you know, insulin and stuff like that. And he like, took his stick out, and was like, sticking around in it and everything. And he's like, all right, and that was it. But, you know, using that as an example, even though you're at a hospital, he's not a doctor, he and he's the security guy at the door, you know. And you know you're going to, you know, I don't know you're going to a concert. And the person at the front, like they're not the floor manager, they're the person they hired to stand at the front. They gave him a short list of rules. They said, Don't let people in with this, this and this. This and this. And that's what, that's what the person's doing. They don't know, and they don't have what I would call, um, decision making power. Do you know what I mean?

Ashlyn 19:29
No, not at all. And that's what you have to understand. Like, even, you know, working from this side of things, all of those people are temps. Oh, yeah, right. It's,

Scott Benner 19:36
I got a list of 10 Things I wasn't allowed in here. This seems like it falls on my list. I'm gonna make 400 bucks tonight. I just want to get in. And out of here, want to get in and out of here and get this done. They're not looking to understand your insulin pump contour. Next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour. Next Gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top, you can click right on blood glucose. Monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters, click on any of the meters. I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels, and of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips. As if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour, next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon. Oh, receive a free contour next gen blood glucose meter. Do tell contour next.com/juicebox head over there. Now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use.

Ashlyn 20:56
No, no, no, we don't need to. It's just like, it's a medical device. Let's move on. And it really depends. I would say that happens at maybe one out of 30 times. I mean, I've had other times where it's like, they have a metal detector, and I'm always like, Hey, I can't go through the metal detector. And then they're like, oh, just come around. You know, most people are cool. Yeah, most people are cool. The only other thing that you can have to explain sometimes is I tend to bring so much food and that that's something like pre packaged food, like you can't have anything open. And so sometimes they'll be like, Why do you have this whole bag of quest chips with you or whatever? And I just have to be like, Oh, it's medical, you know.

Scott Benner 21:41
And if they give you a pushback on that, it's likely about money. They're trying to sell food is what they're getting.

Ashlyn 21:46
Oh, I'm not paying $20 for a quesadilla. Well,

Scott Benner 21:50
pre case. Oh, well. I mean, listen, when food is medicine, you need to have it with you. That's fair. Like, I mean, if you're in the middle of a concert full of people and you realize you're low, you can't make your way through the crowd. Stand in the line, you know, hope you have $20 it's a long way to go to save your life when your blood sugar is low, you know, it's not a And

Ashlyn 22:10
so no, but I will say, like any bigger event like there, there was a time where my fanny pack got, like, stolen from me, and they do have glucose tabs at the Medical like, tents at all of these events, they have glucose tabs. Yeah, that's nice. The worst comes to worst. I mean, I

Scott Benner 22:27
love that. I think that's great. I just think that again, if you're in the middle of a crowd and you're having an emergent situation, like, going to find the medical tents not exactly the way to go, like, I mean, it's your own, yeah, you want to have it with you, and so you have to be able to explain to that person coming in, this is not me trying to avoid spending money today on food. You have to think of this food as medication for me, because my blood

Ashlyn 22:48
sugar and I, I've gotten extremely petty with people. I remember one time I had a woman kind of just have the whole thing about the food, of like, you know, like, well, you can bring in food, but not this much food, because I bring in so much food, and I literally, like, lifted my skirt, showed her the infusion set. And I was like, Do you think this is a joke?

Scott Benner 23:10
It would be a long way to go to put an infusion set in yourself to get a bag of chips into a

Ashlyn 23:14
concert. Yeah? Usually they, they pipe down real quick, yeah. Well,

Scott Benner 23:19
it's just, you're just pointing out that, like, everybody can't know everything about everything,

Ashlyn 23:24
no, and like, if you don't have to know about diabetes, like, God bless you, live real life,

Scott Benner 23:28
good for you, right? So what happens is, when you're watching people online, you get like, a pang of, like, guilt that you feel like some people aren't going to notice the cup for themselves or not be able

Ashlyn 23:37
to. Well, I think a lot of it is just you're excited, you're going somewhere you really want to be, and then it's like, it's a, it's a temper. It's like, it's a, it's a, it's something you have to consider with type one, and it

Scott Benner 23:50
sucks. Yeah, do you prefer festivals where a bunch of bands come up? Or do you like going to concerts where you just hear a band or two? It

Ashlyn 23:57
depends on who's going to what. You know, like, if it's a bunch of people I like, then it the festivals are great. I will say concerts. Usually, if it's like one specific artist, the crowds are a little bit better. The festivals now it's just they can attract, like, the wrong types of people.

Scott Benner 24:15
What types of people? What are they doing? The people that shove you? Oh, people just pushing and shoving. And, yeah, people who are

Ashlyn 24:22
pushing shoving, they drink their little beatbox juice and they're gonna shove

Scott Benner 24:26
you, and they go crazy,

Ashlyn 24:29
yeah. And, you know, it didn't really, like bother me about the shoving until I got the insulin pump, and it's just something to consider. You know, when you're in a big crowd, I'm always like, honestly, half the time I try to get, like, a fanny pack that has, like, a little bit of a shell to it so it doesn't just, like squish, so if I get shoved or like something, my my insulin pump is a little bit more effective protection.

Scott Benner 24:50
Yeah. What's the best band you ever saw alive?

Ashlyn 24:53
The best band I've ever saw? Yeah, that

Scott Benner 24:55
really did the music justice live. That you were like, wow, this is awesome. That's

Ashlyn 24:59
a hard. Question, I've gone to a lot of red rock shows, and I do think that anyone who enjoys concerts go to Red Rock.

Scott Benner 25:09
It's a great like, it's a great venue. Yeah? The venue is great. Yeah, dead

Ashlyn 25:13
mouse does like a Halloween show every year. It's called a day, day of the dead mouse or something. That was an amazing show. How long

Scott Benner 25:20
does that go for?

Ashlyn 25:22
Maybe, like, four or five hours. Okay. And the great thing about Red Rocks is is they have like, accessibility shuttles and everything to the top. You don't have to do the whole stairs if you don't want to. And you get like, accessibility parking and stuff

Scott Benner 25:35
like that. Okay, I have to tell you, like, how old are you? I just turned

Ashlyn 25:39
27

Scott Benner 25:40
Okay, yeah, I just know that we're, like, significantly different aged, because I know Red Rock is, like, a really cool venue, and, like, I've seen, you know, I've seen enough video of it to know how interesting it is. And I just like to go somewhere for four or five hours to do anything with a bunch of people. I'm like, I wouldn't want to do that. And I don't know if that's personality or age, that's what I can't figure out. Because I love that. You love it. I think it's awesome for anybody that does. But like, it's not, it's so not my vibe that it's hard for me to, like, wrap my head around that you'd want to go to a music festival. I know that sounds crazy.

Ashlyn 26:14
I'm so zero or 100 that I do maybe one or two of these a year and half the time. The other half of my life is just I am

Scott Benner 26:22
so I gotcha. Okay, that's interesting. See, that's an interesting stretch for you. Then what do you think it is about that setting that allows you to break free of how you normally feel, to go do it like, what is it that draws you to

Ashlyn 26:34
it? I like, for me, I'm somebody who like, I'm very drained by socializing, very drained by people. So it has to be an experience that is adrenaline or, like, I, I'm somebody who's zero or 100 for most things in my life. So this is a 100 moment, and after that, I'm going to go home and not talk to somebody for like, a month. Or anyone.

Scott Benner 26:56
Are you getting, like, an an energy in and out thing? Like, is being around the people draining you, but the but the event is so high energy that it's you're not losing. Does that make sense? I just

Ashlyn 27:07
really love music. Like, even if I'm home, working, cleaning, doing anything, I have headphones on, I'm listening to music almost constantly. So just seeing music live is something I've always really enjoyed, even like when I was younger, and going to concerts with my parents and stuff like that. It just, I've always really liked it, and then I got into festivals and stuff like that, and now I go for work and stuff. And it just, it's been a part of my adult life. I think the first festival that I went to, it was like, the week after I turned 18. What kind

Scott Benner 27:40
of concerts did your parents take you to when you to when you're young? My

Ashlyn 27:44
first ever concert was Linkin Park in 2012

Scott Benner 27:50
are your parents the way I picture them? Does your dad have a small goatee and a motorcycle and your mom? Or do they not fit a mold?

Ashlyn 27:57
I don't think my family fits a mold.

Scott Benner 28:01
I mean, Lincoln Park said that's a hell of a first concert.

Ashlyn 28:04
Yeah, it was great. I loved it. And I'm honestly now, with everything that's transpired, I'm so glad I got to go before. You know, people

Scott Benner 28:13
pass away. Yeah, how? How old were you? Then you remember,

Ashlyn 28:19
what? 20? Maybe I it had to be anywhere between 12 to 14.

Scott Benner 28:24
Okay, all right, did their music taste shape yours? I

Ashlyn 28:29
think so. I my dad was really into Lincoln Park, and he's a big like rock, classic rock, like we did Linkin Park. And then that same year, we saw Blues Traveler at Red Rocks.

Scott Benner 28:40
So that sounds like a good concert, actually.

Ashlyn 28:43
Yeah, they do like a fourth of July thing, like almost every

Scott Benner 28:47
year. Okay, see that. I think that I might enjoy. No, it was

Ashlyn 28:51
nice. I mean, that was a little bit more laid back. It was during the day. I love day parties. I really wish that every party was a day party, because I hate being out late.

Scott Benner 29:01
You're like, I like all this excitement, but Why so late?

Ashlyn 29:05
For real, I my energy peaks at like, 2pm and then they're like, oh, this goes until 2am and I'm like,

Scott Benner 29:12
Ashland, like, I'd like to have this concert, have a nice meal around five, and I want to be in my jammies by 730

Ashlyn 29:18
Yeah, I see the like, the day raves for like, kids, and I'm like, I'll go,

Scott Benner 29:23
do you think you'll ever have kids? No, no, why

Ashlyn 29:27
not? I don't see that for me. Honestly, I don't I think that it, it just, it's never been something where I'm like, Yeah, I really want to do that. And I think that for that, I think you have to be one of those. I really want to do that kind of people.

Scott Benner 29:42
Oh no, for sure. But I was just wondering, like, you don't have any desire to take your like, eight year old to dead mouse one day or something like that.

Ashlyn 29:49
I actually have a half sister who is six so But nope,

Scott Benner 29:55
you'll just take it on her. I got you. Well, I will tell you that the best. Live performance of music that I've ever seen in my life, like meaning that I felt like I was listening to the record, even though they were playing it live. In front of me was Guns and Roses, like they did, like an exceptional concert when I was younger, I've seen Metallica do a good job of representing the music on stage, heart and black crows. I really remember going, well, Black Rose was really good. When I got a little, like, older, my wife liked different music, so we ended up at a lot of more, like festival seating stuff to see, like Sting and things like that. Like, more like ballet stuff. He was really good. I like, 100 years old now, I don't know if he can

Ashlyn 30:36
still do it or not. My parents would have loved to go to a sting concert. Yeah,

Scott Benner 30:40
no, it was really mellow and and just like, like, grass seeding and stuff. I know I said I don't like this stuff, and now I'm telling you all the concerts I've been to, but I think it's me as an older person. I'm like, Oh, I don't know. Could sting come to my house. Like, I guess that'd be okay. I don't want to go out anymore. It's been very interesting to grow up with musicians that were so super famous, that are still super famous, and it makes me wonder if more modern music will I don't think I'll live long enough to know like to stand the test of time. Do you know what I mean? Like, like, 85 year old may be like, Oh my God, this dochi is still on the radio. This is crazy.

Ashlyn 31:15
I thought about this, and I don't think that's going to be the case. I think that the internet in the pace that media moves now is so fast. I don't know if you saw but do she has already been, like, having issues like, I don't think, yeah, their video just came out this week of her like, screaming at like her assistant or something before some like event.

Scott Benner 31:39
No one needs to yell on their video cameras. It's not a good idea. Everybody. You don't think the Beatles yelled at somebody. Nobody was filming it. You understand? But I take your point like my kids listen to The Beatles still. Do you know what I mean? It's not because I pushed the Beatles on them. I didn't like my parents didn't like the Beatles. What do you think of that? Like I grew up, my parents thought the Beatles were too like crazy. So I find them in my 20s, my kids, you know, listen to it now. I got in the car the other day and I and Arden is bouncing around on the radio, and she puts Vienna on from Billy Joel, Yeah, but

Ashlyn 32:13
see, I have Vienna on a playlist. I think that because of the way the internet is and especially through like music streaming, like you can find whatever artist so quickly, and it's not like it used to be, like you

Scott Benner 32:26
can, yeah, there's too much, and it's, oh my god, ready, Ashley, this is great because I won't sound like an old man, because you're in your 20s. There's too much and it's too fast. You don't have time to marinate in it and really appreciate it, and you don't have to go to Tower Records on a Friday night and pick through 10,000 CDs to find one that you're gonna take home and try. And by the way, spend your only $20 that week on hoping you're gonna like this damn CD. Like, right? Like, because you don't get to try it first. You don't get to hear it on the internet. You heard one song on the radio, you think maybe the rest of this will be good now that you paid for it. You don't just listen to it once ago. You listen to it a number of times because you're like, Well, I like, let me make sure, you know and you know what I'm saying. Like, sometimes it takes a few times through a song before it really hits you. And you're like, This is awesome well, and I think that's

Ashlyn 33:15
also why we're not seeing, like, albums being released, that you can sit down and listen to the first song all the way through the last song, and it's like a continual album straight through. Feels like there's just now artists release a bunch of different singles, unless it's like something that's purposeful. But I was about to say, like you said the thing about the records, and my brain went to Limewire,

Scott Benner 33:38
yeah, right, because you were downloading music that way, yeah,

Ashlyn 33:42
yeah. And then you'd have to go and be like, Okay, I want this specific song. And it was very, like, purposeful, like, I use a software now, because I track what I listen to, and it tells me that, on average, I listen to 90 different artists a week or something. And I just don't think that people consumed media or music in that way previously. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:04
no, yeah. You're not gonna get to that, right? Like, it's gonna be three or four. In the past, it was three or four things that you listen to. Also, sometimes you just put a CD in your CD player, and you didn't have the energy to take it back out again. So you're just like, All right, well, I guess I'll listen to this now. Or, I mean, like, if you were really fancy, you'd have, like, a five CD changer. Have you ever seen those? Yeah,

Ashlyn 34:23
where it would be like, push one and then the disc would like, move, yeah. You're like,

Scott Benner 34:27
Yeah. That sounds like it's out of a movie to you, but like, I had one of those. And so you'd throw five in, and you'd hit shuffle, and it would like, spin them around and, you know, pop them in and out and play different tracks.

Ashlyn 34:36
But I also think this is why we saw this resurgence of vinyls for a hot minute,

Scott Benner 34:42
yeah? But even that seems like it's gone now too. No, it is, you don't, yeah, you know, it's funny. I brought up doji because I, like, she found me through Tiktok. Like, that's, which is crazy. Like, there's one of her tracks is being used on Tiktok. I don't know how I landed on it, but, like, I'm like, oh, that's catchy. And then. And not five seconds later, my son said, Hey, there's this girl, docci, like, some of her rap is good. Like, check it out. But then he came, but this was six months ago, and then he came to me the other day and he said, Oh, my God, she's so captured by making Tiktok music now, like, she's already gotten away from the rap she was making that I found that I liked. So, like, this is not years. This story goes on. This is like, 18 months, two years. And she went from a more what he would consider, like hardcore rapper that he thought was good to, you know, I guess I'll just make tracks at work on Tiktok, because that's where the money is. Somebody gets a video of her, like you're saying, like yelling, and now, like, people will, like, walk away from her. It's that easy to walk away. I swear to you, if Paul McCartney walked out in the street tomorrow and started running people over this car, I'd be like, All right, yeah, but let it be, but I don't have that feeling if I see, if I see was that, oh, that was sexual. I was going to bring up the thing that was, that girl did, God, who am I thinking of? She made her backup dancers do weird stuff. Lizzo. Lizzo, right? That's a great example. Like, Lizzo is super famous. She's got this song, like, blah, blah, blah. Next thing I know, I'm hearing like, like, famous artists talk about Lizzo. Lizzo plays this thing. She's awesome, you don't know. And five seconds later, there's a story about her being weird with backup dancers. And now, boom, she's gone. It's like that fast. It's insane, how fast it happened.

Ashlyn 36:24
It's cancel culture. And part of it, I feel is justified. Part of it I feel is just out of control.

Scott Benner 36:32
Listen, I don't think you should be letting people like act like lunatics. I'm not saying that for certain, but at the same time, like, there's stuff you find out about that you never would have found out about prior, and you would have kept listening to the music and you didn't know. I mean, like, look at like the allegations about Michael Jackson, right? They're insane. No one who grew up with Michael Jackson music is gonna stop listening to Michael Jackson like they're just not that music is burned in you. But I feel

Ashlyn 36:57
like you have to be a certain caliber of artists to have your fans separate the music from you. Like, if your music is that iconic to where it takes on, it's a life of its own right. So be it. But for people who are tick tock rappers and stuff like that, it's just they don't have that star presence, that iconic. You know, where the music stands alone? Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:21
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, like, I'm not excusing anything, but a great example of that, I think, is Kanye West, because, because he has talked to me about, Yeah, but what I mean, just a fall apart breakdown of monumental, like proportions, right? Like, and I think it feels pretty clear that he has, like, some pretty significant mental issues. He's got all the problems he has the world, but some of those songs are awesome and like and like, so now that's the that becomes the new test, like you get in your car. Do you say to yourself, I don't want to be in any way attached to this, this guy and his weird thoughts, or do I say to myself, I do love this song, and I'm gonna put it on like he's really testing that theory. Do you see what I'm saying? Because, by all rights, everyone should just be like, I'm not listening to that. Like, you know, like he's gone too far for me. I don't want to be involved. But will that happen? Is my question, like, is he the Michael Jackson of my time? I think that

Ashlyn 38:26
Kanye is like a really diversive figure, and a lot of people who enjoy him and like, don't come for me, people, the people that like, Yay, are already people who enjoy holding controversial views, and they kind of, from where I stand, they kind of enjoy being a little edgy and cringe like that, like he literally just released a song called Heil Hitler.

Scott Benner 38:50
That's my point. If you're saying you think maybe people want to be attached to controversy, that's that's a different thought than is my head. My head is I hear that and I go, Okay, well, I'm done. I don't I don't need to be involved anymore. Except these six songs are really awesome. Like, so, like, what, like, what does that person do who feels that way?

Ashlyn 39:09
I don't want to dox where I work, but we have, like, we've tried to do, like, work with yay. And it became, like, this big problem. And a lot of the people who like him, I think it's just some people have that cult of personality, and ye is one of those people. And I think that even if he came to your house and lit it on fire, people would be like, yay.

Scott Benner 39:34
That's what he does. It's awesome. I mean, listen, how strange is it that he had that girl walking around naked

Ashlyn 39:40
for a year, oh, Bianca, since sorry or what? I

Scott Benner 39:44
don't even know her name, like, I couldn't be all I know is he's, I don't know if they were married. I don't know if they were just they, I don't know we were married. Okay, I ain't paying attention that close. What I'm saying is he's got that girl naked. And I'm sure some people be like, well, it was her decision. Like, I don't know if it was or it wasn't. I feel like, now. That she's not with him anymore. I don't think I'm gonna see her walking around in a see through dress anymore, but he still doesn't take the hit over that that I imagine that society would give him.

Ashlyn 40:10
There's another name that we could bring up in this conversation, but I won't

Scott Benner 40:14
really. Why not? I mean,

Ashlyn 40:17
look at Trump. It's the same cult of personality. Okay, I see what

Scott Benner 40:23
you're saying. Like, you don't want to be political. Like, right? But, like, yeah, I will tell you that I sat yesterday with a friend, and the two of us have fairly different political views, and they asked me about that, and all I said was funny, because what I said I think fits with I'll just talk about it. Like, specifically, the Kanye is an example. I'm all for people like stretching boundaries and personal freedom and saying, and, you know, saying what you want. I really am 1,000,000% for that. But there is, like, a part of me inside that, like, sometimes when the boundary gets stretched in a certain way. I think, I don't think that's good for society. I want people to speak their mind, and I want people and I think there's freedom of speech, and I don't think it should be restricted. Like I am really, like, an absolutist on, like, freedom of speech. I just think, like, some people are gonna say, crazy, it's their right, you know, people should fight back by saying, you know, opposite stuff, or calling them out on their bull like, that kind of stuff. But every once in a while I don't understand that people don't say, like, Oh, that is going to take us somewhere that's not good. And I know, like, who am I to say? Like, I'm not obviously, I'm not trying to control people, but that's my personal feeling. Like, Jesus is this taking us somewhere that we can't come back from, that's not going to be a negative for humanity. Like, that's the thing I

Ashlyn 41:47
wonder. I mean, that would require people to do things while thinking critically.

Scott Benner 41:52
Yeah, I don't know. Like, that's the kind of stuff that occurs to me all the time. I think

Ashlyn 41:55
that this is more a conversation about people glorifying people who have, like, dark I don't know if you know what dark triad traits are, like narcissism, Machiavellianism, as a society, we kind of glorify those things. And I think that this is just a symptom of that issue. We glorify people who are dog eat dog. We glorify people who, you know, profit at any expense, and we don't prioritize people who value community, and like you said, things that will benefit society long term.

Scott Benner 42:29
Am I hearing you tell me that there are some people who put on a Kanye song and just go, This beat is crazy. I love this beat. This is musical to me. I like it. And there are some people listening to the words going, Yeah, that's right. Like, let's get those people or do this thing, or whatever, like, so maybe people are listening to music in two different ways. Oh, 100%

Ashlyn 42:51
I mean, people are listening to music in a million different ways. Some people are lyrical. Some people it's the beat. I mean, some people it's both. And I do think that there are, as far as probably yay fans, people who have been listening to him for years and years and years, and they're like, oh my god, like, he's just a genius in the way that he structures lyrics and the way that he structures his beats. And then there are, are the people who are like, I want to listen to this person because they're being divisive and hateful.

Scott Benner 43:20
No, yeah, no, I it's funny. I never think. I don't think of things that way. So it doesn't occur to me like that. So that's a really interesting perspective. I don't even know the words to some of my favorite songs. I've tried to explain this, my family laughs at me. And it turns out this is a thing that actually happens to people. I don't hear the words like words. I hear the words like music. I don't know if that makes sense. So, like, I can,

Ashlyn 43:42
I think I listen to music similarly, I take, I view it as, like, the whole picture. You know what I'm saying? Like, I view it holistically. Like, what is the entire song? And a lot of people, especially people who enjoy, like, rap or something like that, they're like, Oh, these specific bars, or I really like this beat, and I don't pick it apart. I either like the whole thing or I'm not

Scott Benner 44:04
listening right? So to go back to the doji thing, there's one of her songs that I think is really great. And I played it the other day in my car, and Arden was with me, and she goes, Are you listening to what she's saying? And I was like, no. She goes, maybe you should try listening to what she's saying. And I was like, oh, okay, there was some fairly, like, vivid imagery in that song I was completely unaware of, because I just like the way it bounced,

Ashlyn 44:28
if that makes sense, I think I might know the song you're talking

Scott Benner 44:31
about, Nissan, Altima, yeah, and I swear to you, like I didn't know one thing she was saying in that song, but I thought it was good, You know, if I listen to let it be, what I hear is a lot of things happen in the world. You can't change everything. Some things you have to just leave alone, let them play out. Like, that's how let it be seems to me, and I don't even know if that's what McCartney meant when he wrote it, but like, that's how it makes me feel. It makes me feel like the. World is what it is, and people are generally good, and you don't need to pick through everything sometimes, just let it be.

Ashlyn 45:08
But this is why there's music for different moods. Like the Beatles are a little bit more contemplative, a little bit more, you know, laid back. You're not going to play doji in the same

Scott Benner 45:18
game space.

Ashlyn 45:19
Yeah, yeah. So I kind of view music as a way to bolster different emotions, and I think that she does a good job at that, actually.

Scott Benner 45:28
So then, does the kind of festival or kind of concert you're at dictate how you have to manage your diabetes?

Ashlyn 45:35
Oh, yeah. I mean, because I'm not dancing as hard if I don't want to, like, for example, I go, there's like, a bigger rap, hip hop festival that I go to every year for for work. And I'm not the biggest rap or hip hop person. Doji didn't go. So I'm not dancing as much. Rap is not as danceable to me, and I'm mainly trying to avoid mosh pits or getting punched in

Scott Benner 46:00
the face, yeah, so, so I'm assuming, right, there's like, physical activity at some of these there's less physical activity. Others, there's adrenaline, probably from your excitement, from finding a band that you like. And there's also can be adrenaline from you being like, please don't shove me over. Do you see yourself changing your management at these things, or do you just use a regular day management.

Ashlyn 46:21
So I have experimented a lot, and I much as I love tandem exercise mode, I've never once been able to use that successfully for anything, any kind of exercise. It drives me nuts. I don't really mess with my basal as far as like the day before, and if I was, if I was MDI, I probably would my strategy and like, everyone's mileage may vary. I like, gorge myself like a snake every event. I try to limit like IO B so the last one I went to by myself. I went to, like, I don't know if you know about, like, the smart buns. They're like, these almond flour like burger buns. And I love them. I buy them so much. And I went to McDonald's and I bought like, two Big Macs. And I think I just I sat there and I ate like, two Big Macs, like the almond flour bun right before I went because the fats and proteins are really going to be crucial,

Scott Benner 47:24
and they hold you up during the event. Oh,

Ashlyn 47:27
yeah, two Big Macs is, like, what, like, 500 calories of fats and proteins, and you're not gonna, you know, dip as easily from movement or dance, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 47:37
that's smart. Like, so, yeah. So you figured out a way to go to those thick I just interviewed a football player, and he explained to me how he eats before he plays in a professional football game. You're basically doing the same thing. Oh,

Ashlyn 47:47
yeah, you want for me, fats and proteins make my blood sugar more stubborn, right? I'm not gonna have a sudden drop. And even if I do, I have, you know, I carry like, at least, like, 10 rolls of Smarties, like, tucked into every nook and Penny of you know what I'm packing, or I usually bring, like, a full sugar Gatorade and just sip that throughout the night. So you're

Scott Benner 48:13
not driving your blood sugar high. You're just putting your body in a situation where it's processing food that takes longer to process and holds your blood sugar up more stably.

Ashlyn 48:21
No, I went to EDC Orlando last year, and my blood sugar was between like 130 and 119 the whole time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:28
that's awesome. Yeah. No. How long did it take you to figure that out? Do you think

Ashlyn 48:32
I don't think I really sat down and figured it out until 2022 I went to a music festival in Miami called three points, and I went by myself, and I was really nervous to go by myself, because diabetes just logistically, yeah, diabetes logistically, getting in and out of Wynwood by yourself is a nightmare.

Scott Benner 48:55
Am I hearing you right or wrong? Tell me going by yourself. Is that part of being a girl. No, no, because I hear my daughter talk about that sometimes, again, I never know exactly like, like, there are some places like you kind of don't want to go by yourself. Sometimes, oh

Ashlyn 49:10
yes, yes. I thought you meant like, so you meant something else.

Scott Benner 49:14
No, not like, Lady time. I meant like, like, physically being a female by yourself somewhere.

Ashlyn 49:18
Oh yeah. I mean that time I went to three points, I had somebody follow me out of the event, and then I had to be like, No, leave me alone. I'm getting an Uber, you know. Like, I've even in clubs, like, I've seen girls get uncomfortable, and I'll be like, Hey, girl. Like, are you you good? Like, you know, try to be like, you're not alone here. Yeah,

Scott Benner 49:39
we can hang out a little bit and again, give you some more numbers, right?

Ashlyn 49:42
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's, that's a big thing in a festival culture, too. I Everyone is so nice, like, I've gone up to random people. I didn't just talk to them. And usually, by the end of it, I'm not alone.

Scott Benner 49:55
You bring your own drugs to festivals, or do you get stuff there?

Ashlyn 49:59
Oh, I get. I get the festival provided drug? Yes,

Scott Benner 50:03
no, you know. I mean, do buy that there? Like, because I hear people talking about testing all the

Ashlyn 50:07
time, do not buy your your drugs there. Do not,

Scott Benner 50:10
yeah, come, come prepared,

Ashlyn 50:12
yeah. I mean, they're not gonna be like, there's no free love in that arena. Like, I wouldn't trust anybody, as far as you can throw them.

Scott Benner 50:22
Are there testing stations at all the concerts you go to for your for drugs? I've heard people talk about that too.

Ashlyn 50:27
So there are, and I did talk about this on the previous episode. I remember right there's an organization called Dance safe that does test drugs and stuff like that. I haven't seen them at the last few I've been to, I don't really know,

Scott Benner 50:43
interesting. Maybe the drug problem is fixed.

Ashlyn 50:46
I wish there are test kits you can just order right off of Amazon. I think they're like, anywhere between 12 to $15 which to me, is a very low price to pay,

Scott Benner 50:55
yeah, for not dying of a fentanyl overdose. So you said earlier that you've changed with your diabetes, and it sounds like even with your usage, like, everything's changed for you. Like, how has your diabetes management changed over the last couple of years, since I spoke to you last, when I talked to

Ashlyn 51:13
you last, I was a little bit in a mental breakdown over it. I I have, I've had type one since, like, 2006 2007 somewhere in there. But I didn't really have any like moments that put the fear of God into me until around that time, and I think that it just took me so long to, like, figure everything out, because when I was not really paying attention, I didn't realize how much they had just, like, yanked up my basal to compensate for, like, lack of Bolus insulin, and then just trying to figure all that out on my own. Okay? Was just really demanding emotionally, and it kind of caused me to snap,

Scott Benner 51:51
okay, how did you eventually work through it all? Like, did you where'd you get your information, and what were the reasons you found that you needed to focus on it and get it worked

Ashlyn 52:00
out I couldn't live my life. I mean, I had a moment where I blacked out while driving from a low and the diabetes was coming first, because it was just, if you don't have your basal insulin set right, you can't really

Scott Benner 52:12
live, yeah, I know. And so

Ashlyn 52:14
then going to the flexibility of the pump, where, you know, I wasn't tied to, like, a wrong basal rate for a whole day really gave me a lot of wiggle room to trial and error things. And I'm still trialing and erroring things today. I just got the Moby, like, a month ago, two months ago, and I've had to, like, reprogram my basal rates even for

Scott Benner 52:34
that. Yeah, no, I imagine. And you were coming from which pump prior. I'm sorry. I've only been with tandem. So you were T slim, and even going from T slim to Moby, you had to change your settings. Yeah,

Ashlyn 52:45
my endo warned me that some people were a little bit more sensitive. And I've kind of noticed the opposite. I kind of bumped my basal by 15% and it's been good

Scott Benner 52:54
so far. Okay, awesome. Do you like the algorithm generally, though, how it works is that the new one, the plus,

Ashlyn 52:59
oh, yeah, the control IQ update. Yeah, you did. I love it. I love the update. I didn't think it would change much, but the fact that you can actually set a temp basal with control IQ on is amazing.

Scott Benner 53:13
I think so too. Yeah, I think everyone should let that happen in their algorithm. Actually, I think that's a great idea.

Ashlyn 53:19
Well, I was like the queen of being a little bit too stoned, turning off control like you, and falling asleep and then waking up with like, an urgent load or something, and then just being like, Ah, I didn't turn that back on. So for people like me, the 15 minute timer is, like, amazing.

Scott Benner 53:34
Why did stone dash one turn off her algorithm? Sometimes

Ashlyn 53:38
I don't like, I really wish that tandem would allow you to have a lower, like, target blood sugar, because it'll start suspending my insulin after I dose. Or, like, let's say I eat something, I dose, and then it's like, oh, you're at 110 let's suspend and then that will cause, you know, a high for no reason, because it's like, No, you didn't need to suspend my basal. So you're just

Scott Benner 54:01
trying to get ahead of mistakes you think it's gonna make?

Ashlyn 54:04
Yeah, I I'm really sensitive. I don't use a ton of insulin a day, so I think sometimes it'll it'll want to push my blood sugar up to hit that 120 and I'm like, no, no, I want to stay at 110

Scott Benner 54:17
Okay, yeah, I hear you. Anything they can do to give you, if you want it, some control and allow you to continue to use the algorithm, I think is a good idea. I think people like will grow to know if they don't already know. In this scenario, I need more aggressive or less aggressive, like, you know, and there's no way the algorithm is going to know that it's a great feature. So again, I think everybody should put it into theirs well,

Ashlyn 54:42
and the algorithm isn't going to know that, you know, oh, I've been walking around. I just ate, and now I'm going to go lay down, and I'm not going to need that bent, that basal suspension, like I'm

Scott Benner 54:51
Yeah, or this 40 carbs is Captain Crunch, not regular food, like that kind of an idea. It's not always going to be one to one with your setting. Yes. So, all right, that's awesome. I'm glad you're enjoying it. What else have we not hit that we should have? No,

Ashlyn 55:05
I absolutely love the Moby. Love tandem, like I can't, like they've given me my life back, really?

Scott Benner 55:13
Can I say tandem diabetes.com/juicebox? Support the podcast. Use the link. Thanks. Sorry, just, yeah, just slip that in your job a little easier. Thank you. Yeah, let me just slip that in really quickly. What about like for everything you've shared about concerts and festivals? Like, do you feel like you got through

Ashlyn 55:30
everything? Basically, it all boils down to advocate for yourself. Advocate for yourself in every way possible when it comes to music festivals and stuff like that. The people around you usually are there to help. Like, I have had moments where I've had a low or, like, some random person helps me. The environment there is really welcoming, for the most part, depending on where you are, everyone's there to have fun, you know, except the show people, yeah, except the shovel and they can shove.

Scott Benner 56:02
Have you ever been concerned about somebody like dosing you or giving you something without you knowing?

Ashlyn 56:07
I mean that for the average person, should not be a concern. It has happened to me. It

Scott Benner 56:11
happened to you specifically. I'm sorry to ask, like, what was the scenario? I

Ashlyn 56:18
drank something that I didn't realize had LSD in it. And luckily, it was only a little bit, but that's never a good time. And

Scott Benner 56:25
it wasn't somebody trying to get control of you for like, sexual reasons.

Ashlyn 56:29
No, no, I was at a party, and then it was just kind of like, Oh, that was my drink, and I thought it was your drink. And,

Scott Benner 56:36
you know, yeah, I got you. He picked up the wrong cup. Yeah.

Ashlyn 56:41
Yeah. It was just, it wasn't one. This shouldn't happen to anybody in a normal circumstance. It was my fault. Yeah,

Scott Benner 56:47
I hear you. Okay. I was more worried about, like, you know, have creepy guys try to give you something that doesn't happen. I don't, I don't

Ashlyn 56:53
drink alcohol, like, at all. Okay, so most of the time, if I'm at a party and drinking something, I bring my own diet soda that it comes in a can with my little koozie. I know it's my drink. I'm very weird about that.

Scott Benner 57:06
Yeah, do you ever meet somebody at those events that become friends? Oh,

Ashlyn 57:10
a lot. I have. I I've met, you know, tons of people that I still talk to today. I mean, I have friends all over the world, just because so many people come to these events and you can talk, and it's made like lifelong great friendships. I really think that you can go and talk to anybody for the most part, and yeah, have a friend

Scott Benner 57:30
that's awesome. That really is awesome. Are you, do you date? Or are you, do you find yourself single and go into these things by yourself?

Ashlyn 57:37
I find myself going by myself. I mean, even through work, I get like, a spare ticket, but half the time they like, tell me the day before. So then it's like, nobody has time to go with me. And then I just, I'm like, I just, I'm not gonna look back on this and be like, Oh, I didn't go because I didn't have anyone to go with. I'm not gonna wait for anyone. And that has led to me going to a lot of these things with type one by myself, which was really scary at

Scott Benner 58:02
first. Why do you think you're able to do that? If you talked about yourself as, like, introverted, generally speaking, like, Why do you think you're able to make the leap for these

Ashlyn 58:09
events? My fear of missing out is bigger than my social anxiety.

Scott Benner 58:15
All right? That's awesome. That really is cool. Oh, I love that. Tell me just you know, this is weird. I'm doing this in reverse, but because we didn't, because I've spoken to you before, I try to skip over some things. But how old were you when you're diagnosed nine, nine and you're 27 now? You said, Yep, yeah, okay, any epiphanies? After almost 20 years,

Ashlyn 58:37
I wouldn't say epiphanies. I'm not that kind of person. For me, I've always just made diabetes decisions on a gut level, and I don't overthink it

Scott Benner 58:46
okay, but you have made adjustments and figured out that there are some things you need to know. Where did those things come from?

Ashlyn 58:53
So I feel like I probably in, like the I'm in the the camp of, I want to think about diabetes the least amount of time possible throughout my life. And I know everybody's in that camp, but I'm pretty low carb. I try to just not I really want diabetes to be the back burner of my life, and eating low carb just allows me to set it and forget it in a way, okay? And that's obviously not for everybody. It's just the way that I want to live my life.

Scott Benner 59:22
I gotcha. So you made an adjustment to how you eat. You paid closer attention to your settings, because you were being over basal in the past to make up for bolusing. So you're also paying attention to actually bolusing at this point too,

Ashlyn 59:35
right? I mean, when I first got a pump, my my basal rate was like 28 units a day, and through trial and error, it's really only about 15,

Scott Benner 59:44
okay, and that was because you weren't bolusing for meals correctly. Yeah,

Ashlyn 59:49
my carb ratio was, like, completely wrong, like they were telling me that it was like one to 20. And in reality, through trial and error, again, it's like, actually one to like, eight.

Scott Benner 59:59
Oh, my. On, yeah, how much did your parents help you growing up with your diabetes, don't

Ashlyn 1:00:05
I not sending my mom this link? This is something where, like the podcast, actually made me really emotional. Okay, because when I first joined that Facebook group and everything, I felt really overwhelmed. I didn't. My parents always viewed diabetes as this, like, unattainable goal, and so it really took for me to, like, grow up and kind of be on my own for a while, to realize, no having an A, 1c, in the fives is actually something that's possible. Like, my parents really just were like, who cares? You've got insulin. You know, even now, talking to my my family, I I was visiting my dad, and he was like, Oh, I bought, you know, this fruit, you know, you can eat this fruit. And I was like, oh, you know, I don't want to have a banana. I, you know, I eat low carb. And he was like,

Scott Benner 1:00:49
well, it's fruit. Oh, yeah. He doesn't understand, yeah.

Ashlyn 1:00:53
And so, you know, me and my sister are both type one, and I love my parents. They're not the kind of intellectual people to sit down and say, This is a math problem that we can solve. They just kind of threw up their hands, and they were like, we're at capacity as people are ready. You are alive, and we love that. That's great, and that's all we can give you

Scott Benner 1:01:14
know, I'm not figuring anything out past what was said to me.

Ashlyn 1:01:17
Yeah, they never looked past like the advice that was given, and then it was like, I had to spend so much time on fucking myself, because my parents didn't really advocate for me, didn't really care. And, I mean, even now, my sister, she's also type one. Her a one season, the nines 10s, you know. And then my family, they kind of paint me out to be this, like, type a person that's very, you know, oh, Ashlyn in the food, you know, because I don't eat cart

Scott Benner 1:01:47
so you pay attention a little bit to your health. And they're like, Oh, look at this one. Trying so hard.

Ashlyn 1:01:52
Yeah, this is inconvenient. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:01:55
yeah. Oh No, kidding. All right, I'm figuring out what you're saying. That's a shame. I'm sorry. Like, did you say, like, don't let me put words in your mouth. But did you say the podcast helped you with that?

Ashlyn 1:02:04
Well, it made me feel really emotional. Because, you know, every day, there's so many posts from parents that are like, asking the questions that I wouldn't have even thought to ask until relatively recently, and it's just the relationship that I had with type one was so it felt like I was, it was like, learned

Scott Benner 1:02:23
helplessness, yeah, and so emotional. Like, wow, this is great. I didn't know this existed. I'm gonna help myself. Or, Wow, how come my parents didn't do this for me? Or a little of both.

Ashlyn 1:02:39
I think both come in waves, like I do kind of feel jealous, because it's like my relationship with myself, my relationship with food, my relationship with diabetes itself. I had to really carve that out as an adult, and it really broke me to the point where I I've never felt like that before, and so to realize that some people's parents literally care to the point of this level, to where they're sending their kids off to college, and they're still monitoring their Dexcom, and they're still and it's a double edged sword, because sometimes I do see people on there and I'm like, Whoa, you got to chill out. Your kid is not going to live in a bubble.

Scott Benner 1:03:18
I feel you and like some people go too far, but at least they're well intended Exactly.

Ashlyn 1:03:24
And it's like that's a kind of love for your kid that I just I don't think I experienced that even secondhand, until recently, Ashley, you

Scott Benner 1:03:35
almost made me cry. I'm sorry. No, it took me by surprise. I think because of your just kind of, like, laid back hippie nature, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't expect you to like, I don't know why I didn't expect that, but I'm sorry that that happened to you, and I'm

Ashlyn 1:03:50
sure, no, I just I didn't know. Like, you don't know there's another way, until you see it for

Scott Benner 1:03:55
yourself. Yeah, no. And people don't

Ashlyn 1:03:59
realize, especially, I think, for teens, how much like, the ups and downs of blood sugars, cause, like, emotional, like, I feel so much more stable as a human being mentally, and there's no price

Scott Benner 1:04:11
on that. Yeah, no, I agree. And you do, you try to get through to your sister and it doesn't work, or is it not a thing? You approach her about

Ashlyn 1:04:17
my sister is a very interesting human being, and she's going to be the way that she is until she dies. I love her. I sit down with her, and I always tell her, if you ever want to, you know, sit down and talk about this. I'd love to, but she's just not at a point where she's willing to do that. And I honestly think it might be too late for her, and I'm not saying that in like, a morbid way, but she already has, like, gastroparesis. She's at the point now with like, she has like mobility issues in her fingers and hands, like she can't close her fist completely from like nerve damage. How old is she? She's 21

Scott Benner 1:04:53
oh my gosh. And you feel like it's just bad direction. And then a little bit of that. Like vibe from your parents that she has that, that like, I got the sugars, and this is what happens, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Ashlyn 1:05:06
Oh no, she she cannot take accountability for her life in any capacity. And it's not just the diabetes, it's it's more than you would ever believe. But you know, it's just that I refuse to go through life feeling like the things that happen to me are outside of my control. And I think that's really the difference.

Scott Benner 1:05:24
Has your sister done psychedelics or no? Yes, she has. So she didn't get the same come to Jesus stuff that you got?

Ashlyn 1:05:30
No. But we're really, like, fundamentally different people. And I think even for her, like, there's a different motivation for taking these kinds of things, and there's not as much introspection, or even want to have introspection, you have to want, or at least like, be able to think critically and like my sister, she's not somebody who's well educated. I love her to pieces, but she dropped out in the ninth grade. She does not have a GED. She is just raw, dogging life in a way that I could never

Scott Benner 1:06:03
I see. I was gonna, actually, it's funny, that's what you said next, because I was gonna say, does she have a gap somewhere that she can't kind of do all this? And you think that might be it.

Ashlyn 1:06:12
No, she's just not somebody who this is what's valuable to her. Because if it's valuable to her, she'll chase she'll do what she needs to do. But I think in a lot of ways, this is a form of self harm.

Scott Benner 1:06:24
Oh, I see you think she's punishing herself. She

Ashlyn 1:06:27
has a lot going on, like as a person, and I think that she's not somebody who has a good relationship with themselves, and that doesn't mean that can't change, but I think that with the path that she's gone down as a person like she's got a lot going on, and I just think that this is her journey. I'm

Scott Benner 1:06:49
going to say something I have no basis for at all. Do you take after your dad and she takes after your mom?

Ashlyn 1:06:55
Yes. Oh, okay, that's all. Why? What made you go to that conclusion? Oh,

Scott Benner 1:07:00
Ashlyn, are you gonna make me say how my brain works out loud? I don't know if that's important, is it? I don't want to get in trouble. Okay, fair Fair enough. Oh, I don't even know, Ashland, you come off more like a guy that's fair, like a little laid back, like it's gonna work out, man, don't worry about it. Like, that kind of a thing. And then when you started talking about the punishing herself, and she's the way she is, and she's not going to change, like that doesn't seem particularly female to me, but it does seem like I've known a number of people like that, and so far, they've all been ladies. And I also thought that if you're if you went one way and she went another way that you guys must be taking after a parent like one of the other. And I'm trying to imagine what relationship rifts could have happened between your sister and your mom for her to treat herself that way, and I didn't

Ashlyn 1:07:55
feel they have a very like codependent relationship, and it's something that is impacting the whole family. Part of the reason I live so far away is just to kind of have some breathing room with this kind of stuff. I mean,

Scott Benner 1:08:07
yeah, also, your dad tried to help you eat, and even though he was, like, ill, like, his intentions were good with the banana, right? But like, even though he didn't understand it, I have your parents in my head as your dad being the guy who likes Lincoln Park and hanging out and being cool, and he wants to help, but he doesn't know a lot, and he's doing his best, and maybe your mom is a little overbearing and half a teaspoon of crazy. Maybe

Ashlyn 1:08:32
that's a pretty good assumption. It's pretty good. 75% there. They're both crazy. I'm not gonna say better than the other. They're just people, yeah, but no, I had a very divided family growing up, and I think I'm just glad that I am somebody who can function and live and appreciate the days.

Scott Benner 1:08:56
Isn't it crazy that that's the level of success that you got put in, like, you got put into a situation that that description is a level of success to you. I'm grateful to be a person that can function. That really is telling, like, I don't know what we're supposed to do as a society to help people who aren't equipped well to be good parents. But, man, I wish we could try something, because, you know, I just listened to my own podcast this morning. Kind of don't like the way the ads are landing, and I'm listening to it a lot to figure out where I want to put them differently so that they don't break up your listening experience. Like this is literally what I'm trying to do. I was listening to one called, What the hell is it? Called the mom was awesome. Hold on hold on hold on a second. Because, like, people will try to go back, and then they won't be able to find it.

Ashlyn 1:09:45
Yeah, just to, just to give a little bit more context, you do that, I love my sister, but she is currently, like, facing, like, possibly 10 years in federal prison as a type one.

Scott Benner 1:09:56
She's at 21 who'd she shoot? To sell. What she sell? She sold something

Ashlyn 1:10:03
I don't really know. And honestly, I've told her, tell me the least amount of shit possible. Leave me out of this. Well, yeah, leave me out of this. Don't, don't bring up my name.

Scott Benner 1:10:15
Oh, well, she's Listen, I've interviewed people in prison, like, actually, I just interviewed a guy last week who was a little out of control and prison pulled him together. Like, believe it or not, like, and I've also interviewed people who told stories of, like, other people dying in prison because of, like, their problems and having type one diabetes and not being able to get care. Like, it is not a safe place to be, generally speaking, if you don't know how to manage your type one and don't get put into a place that understands and is willing to help you,

Ashlyn 1:10:44
no, and you know, for me, I've done some digging into resources and stuff like that for people who are incarcerated with type one, just out of fear for her. And it kind of seems like it really depends on the individual facility you end up in, and that's kind of the luck of the

Scott Benner 1:11:00
draw. Yeah, no kidding, that's been my finding talking to people as well. It's hard for me to get people on to talk about being in prison. I've had people set up like I get a couple that come in and talk about it, but I've had far more that have set their recordings up and then not done it for a number of reasons. Some of them are for parole reasons. They don't want to admit anything out loud because they're still on parole, so it's hard to get people to share those stories anyway. I'm sorry. Episode 1521 is called fueled by anxiety. That's an hour of just listening to a lady who wants to be a mom, and the it occurs to me, like you could have got her and you didn't, you know what I mean. And I wonder like and I not just not to use specifically, but for everybody, you don't even have to be the greatest mom or dad in the world, right to like really impact your kids. Well, it's not that hard to support people, I don't think, but you really do need to want to do it, or know that it needs to be done. And I think a lot of people don't have that knowledge when they make a baby, and I know it just made me sad, like you made me sad twice. I know you don't mean to like, but just what you said, just now, like that, this is like success to you. Like this should be expected. You shouldn't have to like, aspire to what you just said. It should just be a thing that's, you know, comes at birth, I think, but I know that's not the case.

Ashlyn 1:12:17
No, it really isn't. And half of that is my upbringing, and half of that is looking around at the state of the world, just the fact that, you know, I can support myself think critically, and even the stuff with education being defunded and stuff like that, makes me feel this way. So I'll

Scott Benner 1:12:34
say this Ashton, because I've been alive a lot longer than you have. I know things seem dire sometimes, and trust me, they seem dire to people in every presidency you know doesn't matter, like what side's holding office and stuff like that. There are things that are happening that seem dire. I told you I talked to a friend of mine yesterday at lunch, if we were playing tennis, everything that she said was completely reasonable, and everything I said was completely reasonable, and what we both found ourselves saying is that we wish there was some entity in the middle that people could exist in, so that they didn't have to attach themselves to a side that, you know, goes crazy and, like, in a direction, because it happens on both sides, right?

Ashlyn 1:13:12
Yeah. But I think that the real problem is like media sense, or what is it called, like, centralizing the media, or, like, sensationalism. There we go.

Scott Benner 1:13:24
Yeah. You know what I ended up telling her at the end was that when I was growing up, they they, like, the people in charge, would use abortion as a thing that kept everybody focused right? Like, so, like, don't look at where we're spending the money. Don't look at what we're doing. Go argue with each other about abortion, like that. That's what kind of got I felt like was being pumped into us, like, like, it's not a thing that's trivial. And there are clear opinions on both sides. They both make good arguments. And we'll go send society out to argue with themselves about that, right? That'll keep them off of paying attention to what a missile costs or etc. By the way, I also want missiles, but I'm just saying like, you know, like, that kind of an idea.

Ashlyn 1:14:08
It's the same song and dance. It's just like, different words instead of abortion. It's trans, trans people, and it's distracting us from the 1% versus the 99

Scott Benner 1:14:19
it's another distraction method. Like, you're, you're 100% right? It's either like, like you said, they just pick something. You pick something that both people have good points about, and that makes people upset, and then you just send them off into arguing about it. And then, you know, as the election comes up, you go to your your base, and you say, don't forget, this is what we think. And they're trying to ruin it, and then they do it to you, and they do it through the other side, and you all go, and then everybody votes, that's what this is. And in the end, I don't know that anything oddly different happens from one to the next. It's funny, because during that conversation, this person said to me, there were a lot of illegal aliens that came. Him into the country under Joe Biden, which I believe is true, like I'm not, I'm not arguing with her. And she went on to make the point that, you know, it was her idea, that she thought that if Democrats let in a bunch of illegal aliens, that they would become, eventually, Democratic supporters. And it was funny, because I was watching her make this argument. And I thought I buy into this, but does she know that I heard about this when I was little, when Ronald Reagan did it. I don't

Ashlyn 1:15:27
understand this argument as somebody who, again, like I grew up in Miami, I am still hearing go on down there about ICE raids and stuff like that. If it's between them coming here and becoming a Democrat versus them living in a potentially like, hellscape environment where they're not able to thrive. I really see the problem with that.

Scott Benner 1:15:50
Yeah, like, so beyond the like, the human side of that argument, what I'm saying is, is that every administration does that. It doesn't matter if it's Republican or Democrat. I do think that, like there needs to be, that's

Ashlyn 1:16:03
just, you have to create a call to action, and it always boils down to us versus them, you know, types of messaging. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:16:11
I think my opinion is, is that the tactics are the same, and both sides use them, but when you're in power, you point to the other one to say how bad they are for doing it, and when they're in power, they point to you to say how bad you are for doing it,

Ashlyn 1:16:25
yeah. But I think that again, if you just zoom out of what you just said, that's the whole problem and the solution. There needs to be more than two people to point a finger. Yeah, right,

Scott Benner 1:16:35
right. Yeah. It would be nice if there was a third party, but that wouldn't help what they're trying to accomplish. So that's not going to happen. And I don't mean this in, like, a, I don't know, like, I'm not crazy, right? Like, I just think that this is what I think people in power do this in all sorts of situations, right? They they want to keep you focused on the thing. They want you to stay on their side, because they need to vote, or, you know, support, or whatever. And you know they're going to use what they know makes you the most upset, and that what makes you unable to even consider the other side's point of view, like they have to say something to you to stop you from even considering the other side. And I think, you know, going backwards to abortion, it's a great example of that, because, yeah, people should have autonomy over their bodies. I 100% believe that. And at the same time, if you don't think having an abortion is killing something, you're not being honest either. Like, so, like, like, so one person just plants their flag in the idea of, like, you can't have an abortion because you're killing a baby, and the other person plants their flag. And, you know, I there's personal freedom, and I should be in control of my body. Those are two honest statements, but nobody is willing to talk to the other person on the other side because.

Ashlyn 1:17:46
But my problem with this is that you but you're right, both sides of this are completely correct. Where I draw the line is where you start telling other people what they can and cannot do with their body. If you don't want to get an abortion, you don't want to live your life a certain way, then

Scott Benner 1:18:03
don't and Ashlyn, there it is that makes you liberal, or it makes you a Democrat, or whatever you want to like say, that's your line. The other person's line is you're killing a baby. So that's their line.

Ashlyn 1:18:14
But then what happened to the America is the land of the freedom, like freedom is for everyone, even if you don't agree with it. Do you

Scott Benner 1:18:20
want me to argue the other side? What about the freedom? The freedom for the baby? It's a clump of cells that you found your line. That's all. That's my point. Like I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with you, I'm saying that's your line, and the other side has their line, and they are so opposite that there it doesn't allow for

Ashlyn 1:18:38
convert. It's just we've forgotten about nuance?

Scott Benner 1:18:41
Yeah, well, actually, the truth is, is that this is already a worked out thing, right? Like, people who are pro choice have abortions if they want them, and people are pro life don't. And that's, that's the fix. The fix is, is that you're never going to tell somebody. There's never going to be a rule that everybody has to follow on anything like that's never going to happen. So you've made your arguments. Everybody knows what the what game you're playing now make your decision about which game you want to play, like, what, what field do you want to play on, and then go play your game. That's how society works. Most people, when you talk about most people are in the middle on abortion. Most people are in the middle. They go and do the thing that seems right to them. It's the argument that keeps going that is really just meant to fuel your fire. So this all keeps going. Because how could we have an election if everybody realized we agreed with each other on most things, most times like, then where do you get all the angst? Then, you know, like, it wouldn't even matter, like, who would even come out to vote? Like, hey, we all under agree. Whichever guy really wants it. Like, let him have it. Like, they'll go do the thing we all think. And meanwhile, those people don't get to run for anything because they lack the ability to make people upset, to motivate them to go. Out and do a thing. It's our fault as humans for needing to be upset to be in action. But

Ashlyn 1:20:08
this is this goes back to what we were saying before, about yay, the cult of person.

Scott Benner 1:20:13
In the end, it is what it is, right? So anyway, I don't know what that's got to do with going to a music festival, although I bet you, if you're on psychedelics in a music festival. You wouldn't give a shit about any of this, and that would be awesome. So yeah, anyway, if you're looking for my political stance, which I wish, I don't think I gave here one way or the other, I wish there was a third party in the middle that wasn't busy arguing about all this stuff. Was just talking about paying bills and filling potholes and stuff like that. But as long as I've been alive, that hasn't really worked out, and I don't imagine it's going to, as long as the game really is about fighting and not about fixing. So and you can take this and apply it to almost any argument you see in a Facebook group about diabetes or anything else. It's all the same. We just like to fight. We're good at it. I think it's how we're wired, honestly. So I don't know. Good luck everybody. And Ashley, it's interesting to talk about it with you, because you're half my age and you're not crazy. So I appreciate that too. So because there are plenty of people who say things like you and I talked about this right before we started recording, right? There are plenty of people who will say, like, this is right, do it. And somebody will say, well, like, I can't get that done. And they'll say, it doesn't matter, it's right. That's like arguing with a 12 year old. And you're not like that, which is awesome, because you have your opinions, and they lean in one direction, but you're not saying, Well, you know, I don't care what the other what everyone else thinks. I don't care what everybody else wants. Like, you're saying like, you know, like, there's got to be conversation in here to try to figure it out. And then we identify your line on a subject, and we know where you stand. And then, you know, people can keep talking about it. But if you heard any of this and you're mad right now for either side, like, you know you should be pro choice or pro life, or you should be like You're not listening to what I'm saying, like I'm not arguing for either side of that. I told you what I think. I think people should have choice, and I think abortion is killing something. Those are two very uncomfortable statements that don't jive with each other at all, but I don't think you can ignore them. They're true. So like, if you want to sit and argue, then go plant your flag and argue. And you can go do that the rest of your life. But if you want to have an actual conversation that leads to something, then you gotta, you've got to admit that both sides are true. You got to admit Joe Biden led a lot of illegal aliens into the country. He really did. It probably wasn't good. And now you're going to get an overreaction from the other side. And then that pendulum that we all just want to settle in the middle is just going to swing far right and swing far left, and it's going to keep doing that. And then you know what's going to happen is, you know, a bunch of stuff over reactionary stuff is going to happen this time, and then the next time it'll go back the other way, and those people be like, Ooh, it's a measuring contest. I'm in charge. Now wait, you see what I push through. And then they're going to say something insane, and then that insane thing is going to be the law of the land for four years, or, however, eight years. And then during that time, everybody on the other side is going to get super mad, and it's going to swing back the other way. What we're trying to do, what we should be trying to do is stop that pendulum from swinging all over the place, because it would be nice if it just sat in the middle, where most of us already agree. But good luck with that. Okay. You were awesome. Hold on one second for me. Thank you very much for doing this. You

the episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool. If you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind. You want twist twist.com/juicebox, you Juicebox. I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries, the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour, next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have, then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links at Juicebox podcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors, 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/juicebox. 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. You

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#1591 The Sweetest Irony

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Renee, 66, has lived with T1D for 41 years—ironically, her dad was a Louisiana sugar cane farmer. She wonders if childhood head trauma from a severe bike accident played a role.

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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
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Renee 0:15
My name is Renee, and I've had type one diabetes for 41 years.

Scott Benner 0:21
The podcast contains so many different series and collections of information that it can be difficult to find them in your traditional podcast app sometimes. That's why they're also collected at Juicebox podcast.com go up to the top, there's a menu right there. Click on series, defining diabetes. Bold beginnings, the Pro Tip series, small sips, Omnipod, five ask Scott and Jenny, mental wellness, fat and protein, defining thyroid, after dark, diabetes, variables, Grand Rounds, cold, wind, pregnancy, type two, diabetes, GLP, meds, the math behind diabetes, diabetes myths and so much more, you have to go check it out. It's all there and waiting for you, and it's absolutely free. Juicebox podcast.com. 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. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the twist, a ID 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/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s, t.com/juicebox. 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/juicebox 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 Miss boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Renee 2:25
My name is Renee, and I've had type one diabetes for 41 years. I guess the most ironic part is that my father was a sugar cane farmer in South Louisiana.

Scott Benner 2:35
Your father, your father, farmed sugar cane. Yes. Were you eating it

Renee 2:40
constantly? I would say, every meal in our house had a dessert, lunch, dinner, almost

Scott Benner 2:47
Renee. You can hear the people sitting right now going, sugar doesn't cause type one diabetes. This lady, she's had it for 41 years. She doesn't they don't know you're joking. That is ironic. It really is. It is. What's it like growing up on a farm?

Renee 3:02
You know, when you're young, you don't like it, but in hindsight, looking back, it was really a great

Scott Benner 3:07
life. Yeah, were you involved in the farming at all as the cat? No, no,

Renee 3:12
not at all. I'm the fourth out of five girls. My dad is actually a fourth generation sugar cane farmer, but having no boys, he ended up selling the farm, so it's it, and he's deceased now, so it's no longer in the family, but

Scott Benner 3:26
you're the fourth out of five regrets that he has, because no one can take that business from him, right?

Renee 3:31
Absolutely not he. We always say that we were his princesses and he was our King.

Scott Benner 3:39
That's lovely. Were None of the girls interested in farming, or is it, like, it wasn't a thing, where he's, like, he didn't think, I didn't have a boy, so they can't do it, right? Like you guys just weren't interested, right? Yeah,

Renee 3:49
it's a hard I mean, farming is a hard life, and especially in South Louisiana with hurricanes coming through and, you know, wiping out your crops.

Scott Benner 3:58
So your father's had times where he's seeded an entire crop, brought it up. It's been ripped apart. He's got to take the field back down, put it back together again. You don't make money that time like that. That's happened more than once in your life. Yes, wow, jeez, that's not fun. I do know that I vacationed on St John once or twice in the Virgin Islands, and I think that's they used to grow sugarcane there too. What is it about the humidity? Is that what it likes,

Renee 4:23
it does have to be hot, so like Florida and I think Louisiana are the only states, and maybe a little bit in Texas, that grow sugar in the United States. Now there's lots of states that grow sugar beets, but that's a totally different sugar than sugar cane sugar.

Scott Benner 4:38
Sugar, yep, I want to say, right now, my sister in law's dog is named sugar. Oh, he looks like he's had too much sugar. I just want to say that very fat dog. As a matter of fact, sometimes I see the dog walking around. I think, how is she moving? But that's a different story. 41 years. How old are you now? I

Renee 4:55
am 66 so I was 25 years old when I was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 4:59
First No kidding, did anyone else in the family have type one?

Renee 5:03
No, nobody. My grandfather had type two diabetes, but nobody else in my family has had it

Scott Benner 5:12
other autoimmune stuff. No, not you even. Not any sister, nothing like that.

Renee 5:17
No, now I have. There are 37 first cousins on my dad's side of the family, and one of my cousin's grandsons has recently been diagnosed with type

Scott Benner 5:27
one. How old was he when he was

Renee 5:30
diagnosed? Like seven or eight?

Scott Benner 5:32
Younger child, I'm sorry, how many first cousins? 37 how many of them do you think you could name off the top of your head, if you had

Renee 5:39
to? Oh, well, probably all of them. We just spent some time with one in Switzerland. No kidding.

Scott Benner 5:44
Wow, that's lovely. I don't have that. You're making me jealous.

Renee 5:49
Well, I think growing up on the farm next door to my grandparents, the cousins who lived in California, Wisconsin, we saw them every summer when they would come visit for a month. So and everybody else lived nearby. Oh,

Scott Benner 6:01
so the farm was almost like a resort for the family. Yes, yeah. I guess you kind of come and hang out and do family things that's really, that's really something else that's great. Are all your sisters living?

Renee 6:11
Yes. In fact, out of the 37 of us, only one cousin has passed away.

Scott Benner 6:18
My god, you guys are strong. Yes, seriously,

Renee 6:22
yeah. And now I will tell you my dad, there were eight of them, and two of his siblings died of cancer, two females, two sisters, early in life, and then the rest of them have had Alzheimer's. But I personally think that it's we all think it's environmental, because none of us are showing signs of Alzheimer's.

Scott Benner 6:41
How did they grow up on that farm as well? Yes, they

Renee 6:45
did, but you did as my dad and his siblings grew up pretty much on the farm. What

Scott Benner 6:49
do you think is about the is it like chemicals or what do you think it is?

Renee 6:54
Yeah, I do. And I mean, I don't, haven't done a true study on it, but I mean, I think that when they were young, and they were spraying the fields. They played outside when we were young, and they were spraying the fields we were brought inside. We couldn't play while they were spraying the fields near

Scott Benner 7:10
us. Just that one generational of like, hey, maybe we shouldn't let the kids run through that. Yes, hey, that stuff we're spraying on the ground that seems to kill everything. Why don't we keep the kids out of that. Yes, yeah, no kidding, huh? Oh my gosh.

Renee 7:24
And, you know, Scott, one thing too, is, I don't know if you've heard that there's a correlation between head trauma and diabetes.

Scott Benner 7:31
Really, I know head trauma and like, like behavioral stuff, but about between in type one, yes.

Renee 7:38
And I had a nurse tell me that who was drawing blood. This was years ago, like, probably 30 years ago, but normally it's a quick court like, you know, you'll and Mark, my husband has had two patients who, like, one was hit in the head with a golf club, and a few weeks later, diagnosed with diabetes. I can't remember the situation of the other one, but I mean, I did have head trauma. I was in a bike accident, and I had an eyebrow bone shatter into my brain. I was in the fourth grade, and then I didn't have diabetes until it was 25 so I don't know if there's a correlation, but, you know, the nurse shared that with me, and I thought, hmm,

Scott Benner 8:18
I'm watching our overlords go through it right now. It's going to give you an answer in a second. I found a range of articles. Hold on. Let's see what chatgpt comes up with. It's doing a deep dive on the question, What did you run into with your

Renee 8:30
bike? Our little town of Franklin was having it sesque continuum. I was in a bike racing. Somebody's front tire hooked onto my back tire and threw me onto a parked car, and that's when bumpers were made. That's

Scott Benner 8:43
when they make cars out of metal, not now, this is plastic and plastic, and there's like some metal in the middle, and somehow they're stronger. Now, isn't that crazy? You can have an accident in a car now made out of plastic and be better off than when you were in one of those tanks. Don't get me started, Renee, like I will, just because of your age, I will start a 10 minute conversation with you about how much better automobiles are now than they were before, because I think people who are younger deserve to know what it's like to drive in a car where air is coming up from the ground

Renee 9:15
and and you're sitting facing backwards,

Scott Benner 9:20
air just coming through the cracks the doors, like, right now, I hear people say it's almost silent inside of my car. I'm like, Yeah, imagine you would drive on a rainy day, and you'd look down, there'd be water on your hand, you know? And then it'd be like, Why didn't you guys go anywhere? Go Anywhere. Here's what chat GP came up with. It wants you to know that it thought for one minute and 24 seconds. Oh, does seconds. Oh, physical head trauma, concussions, PBI, skull fractures, etc, has not been shown to trigger the autoimmune attack that causes type one diabetes. Head blows can cause a different disorder called Central diabetes insipidus, a water balance problem that happens if the hypoth. Thalamus, posterior pituitary or damage CDI shows up in about one in six acute head injury cases develop hormone problems. It has nothing to do with insulin or blood sugar control. Psychological trauma or extreme stress is another story. Several population studies, including a 10,000 child Swedish cohort, Link several life events, near death, death in the family, serious accidents, with roughly a three fold higher risk of later type one diabetes, presumably by revving up stress hormones and immune pathways in kids who already carry the right genes for type one Okay, there you go. That's a bit of a cancer, yeah, of course,

Renee 10:37
because I will tell you, I think extreme stress is what triggered mine.

Scott Benner 10:41
Renee. A lot of people come on here and tell stories like that, seriously, a 10,000 person study linking death in the family, serious accidents with roughly a three fold higher risk of later type one diabetes, and that's pretty

Renee 10:55
significant. Yes, yeah, I think I mentioned to you I had just moved back to Louisiana from living in Washington, DC, and it was such a stressful time really, in my life, and that's when I was diagnosed. What

Scott Benner 11:06
were you in DC for? For school? Were you lobbying the sugar lobby? What were you doing up

Renee 11:10
there? No, my dad did that. I was up there. I worked. I moved there after college, and I worked on the Hill for two years, and because my dad was up there so much, this is funny. He said, If you're not married in two years, you're coming home. So guess what? Found the guy, I wasn't married in two years and I moved home, you had to come home. Did

Scott Benner 11:33
you look? Did you take that seriously? Do you like it there enough to think about marrying somebody just to stay

Renee 11:38
No, no, okay, no. That's a whole nother part of my journey, Scott, that I'm just not going to share

Scott Benner 11:43
with you. Oh, okay, that's fine. You don't have to. We'll let it go. I'm sure this is gonna be the best part of the story that nobody hears, but it's okay. I'd love to know what this boy did. Do you have your own kids?

Renee 11:56
I do not have children. Okay? On purpose? Yes, it was a choice because of diabetes and the age that I was, and my husband actually had an Air Force commitment and was sent to a small base, and they said they just couldn't handle somebody with a pregnancy with diabetes, that I would have to go to a bigger base. I was probably, I guess, I was 34 and then by the time he got out, I was 39 so, but that's a whole nother story, and I'm fine not having children. I mean, it's what God has given me. But I do think that knowing how well I've done with my diabetes, that I would have taken that chance you would

Scott Benner 12:38
have done is it a disappointment for you? No, no, okay,

Renee 12:42
no, I have plenty of time to invest in other people's children, and it's just so fun for me. Well, you also have

Scott Benner 12:49
plenty of children to invest in. It sounds like running around there. So it's a lot of kids and cousins, and they must have kids. And, my gosh, okay, all right, now that's fair enough. So talk about being diagnosed 41 years ago. What was management like for you? 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 Meijer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter, then 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/juicebox 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. 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 bolused. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its the. 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/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Renee 15:19
Wow. Wow. It's so different. Scott, as you know, I mean, it was injections. I called it the insulin cocktail. You were supposed to test yourself all the time. In all honesty, I only tested myself about three times a day. I was terrible. I would give myself injections through my pants, and unfortunately, I never developed an infection. But it is so different than having type one diabetes now and how we manage it.

Scott Benner 15:50
Yeah, so you're doing what, cloudy and clear are you mixing like, drawing a little of this up, little that up, shooting it, what, once, twice a day

Renee 15:58
you would combine a long term in a short term,

Scott Benner 16:01
yeah, pop it in, and then you're not really testing, right? You said I tested

Renee 16:06
three times a day with, what, with a testing machine, the good old finger pricks, you

Scott Benner 16:12
needed a bunch of blood. It took a while to come up with it. Like, are we talking about that far back? Yeah, yes. I mean, do you look back now and think, were those devices accurate, or were they good enough? What's the only thing that you knew? Yeah. How would you know? Yeah. Do you know what your outcomes were like back then? How were they keeping track of your health? Well,

Renee 16:31
I mean, we still had hemoglobin a one CS, right? So I'd say back then, my hemoglobins were probably more like, I think the highest my hemoglobin agency has ever been was 8.8

Scott Benner 16:44
Okay, that's not bad at all. I mean, considering the time, right?

Renee 16:48
Yes, yes. But also, I'm fairly active. I think that helps too. But the hard part too is not knowing when you're having a low, because even now, I will be 44 and still fully functioning.

Scott Benner 17:05
You don't have any feeling that you're low that your whole life,

Renee 17:08
none. So that's why the continuous glucose monitor is probably a lifesaver for me at this point. But back then, I would be 40, you know, whatever. I don't even know how low I would get when. Then I couldn't see, I couldn't think, you know where I am. So that was probably, to me, the most scary part. It was the lows, not the highs that were so hard on me before the continuous glucose monitor came

Scott Benner 17:33
about. And how long have you had a CGM for? Oh, gosh,

Renee 17:37
I don't know, maybe just five years.

Scott Benner 17:40
No kidding. Do you think some of the way you came to an eight a, 1c or a seven a, 1c was by being low all the time and not realizing it? Yes, yeah. And I learned that from you. Oh, geez, sorry. Must have been a sad day. No, no, seriously, what does it feel like the day you hear that and go, Oh, I thought I was doing okay.

Renee 18:00
Yeah, I mean, that was an eye opener when you said that.

Scott Benner 18:04
Oh, geez, I feel bad about that, almost. Was it? Did it stick? No, no. Do you have any complications?

Renee 18:11
I have no complications. I was diagnosed in Baton Rouge, and then I moved to DC, and I had a very kind of crazy job there, and my doctor, my endocrinologist there, said, Renee, diabetes is a game, and I can teach you how to play to win. Interesting. What did he teach you? Well, he said, I know. He said, I want you to eat whatever you want. Now, this is probably different than how we would approach it now, but it worked for me back then. He said, I want you to eat what you want. I want you to do. I want you to eat when you want. You should continue being active, he said, but I want you to test more. Wink, wink. And he said, so. I mean, if I was having a late meal at eight o'clock or nine at night, I would wake myself up later, at midnight to see what my blood sugar was. He said, If you're you just need to be testing more after these events to be able to bring it down. Because there was, you know, I mean, it was all testing and adjusting with insulin.

Scott Benner 19:17
So his idea was, live your life, but a couple of hours after you eat, test your blood sugar, and if it's high, give yourself more insulin. Yes, that's pretty thoughtful for back then actually, are you at that point on a faster acting insulin when you or with this doctor, I'm sorry say that again, which insulin were you on at that point? Oh, I was, I was on the cocktail, still the CO Oh, so he would just have you give more of the mix. Yes, okay, yes. This was not like he wasn't talking about Humalog or something like that. Yeah, no, okay, I don't

Renee 19:49
think I went on Huma log until I went on the pump.

Scott Benner 19:52
Really. What would that be like around the 1990 or something like that?

Renee 19:56
See, we had moved to Greenville, so you. No, that would have been probably like 1998

Scott Benner 20:04
No kidding. Okay, so pumps were available for a bit, and that fast tracking insulin was available for a while, and you still weren't using it right. Interesting. So there was no feeling of like I should move up to a faster insulin for the only reason you did it is because you moved to an insulin pump. Yes, interesting, and so did that work? Did the I mean, obviously you're doing well, but like you know, did you keep up with that? I mean, did you wake yourself up after dinner every night? Did you keep testing? Well,

Renee 20:31
not every night, but if it was a late night, there was a big event, and I ate a lot more than I would normally eat. Then, yes, I did.

Scott Benner 20:39
Did you find yourself needing more insulin? Usually, yes, okay, and you gave it to yourself. But did you get low later? Would you wake up in the morning? Low? Usually not. Okay. So not enough to, like, crash down? Yeah. So now, in a more modern world, in 1998 when you get a pump and you're using a fast track to insulin, what's the transition like? Because you did that a good long time with that cocktail. So what's the transition like about counting carbs and covering meals that way? 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,

Renee 22:14
so I went on the mini med originally. I mean, it was just, it was a game changer, Scott, and that was before the continuous glucose monitor, being on a pump was a game changer for me. How just knowing that my body was constantly getting that basal rate of insulin there was it was just a comfort level, I guess, I don't know. I guess I really haven't thought about it, except that, now that you asked me, but it just changed

Scott Benner 22:50
my life, things were easier. Yes, absolutely, yeah, you feel more in control and less like it was happening to you.

Renee 22:58
Yes, and then also, I mean, you know, you're not carrying insulin around with you and syringes all the time because it's on. You get

Scott Benner 23:05
a little pharmacy in your pocket when you were, yeah, before and all that goes away.

Renee 23:10
So much freedom. I just felt there was so much freedom when I moved, even

Scott Benner 23:16
just not having to inject, I would imagine, would have been a big deal, right? Yeah, just to push the idea of pushing the button was probably exciting. Probably exciting. Yes, yeah, I know I hear that. Okay, so that's 98 when do you find the podcast? Oh, gosh. When did you start? I started making the podcast in January of 2015,

Renee 23:36
2015, okay, so let's see. So probably, actually, I think your first podcast I listened to was the third episode. No kidding, a neighbor told me about it. Yes,

Scott Benner 23:50
you've been listening for that long, or you'd started at

Renee 23:52
now, okay, I binge listened. So I listened for a while, then I stopped listening, and then I've listened so but yes, y'all had just, you had just started when I first started listening, and in all honesty, I probably listened a couple of times, and then I didn't listen for a couple of years, and then I would listen again. And I think I told you that I was interested in moving to a keto diet, and I did some research on keto and diabetes, and your podcast was the first one that came up, and that was a year and a half ago, I guess. So I listened by I really binge listened for a couple of months.

Scott Benner 24:31
Oh, so wait, so you listened for a while, stopped, but then, like, looked for information, then found the podcast again and went back to it. Yes. Oh, interesting,

Renee 24:40
yeah. And I do recommend it to anybody I meet with diabetes. I'm like, You need to listen to

Scott Benner 24:45
thank you. I appreciate you running around acting like a crazy person, telling people listen to my podcast. You ever think about it from the other side? They're like, Oh, I have a diabetes. I've had it for 30 years. The lady says a podcast will fix it.

Renee 24:59
I. But you know what, Scott, I think I had told you that, you know, the thing about having diabetes is that it's a disease that you can control. But I want to correct myself on that, because it's a disease that we can manage, not control. Yeah, no, you and Jenny have, I mean, y'all have given me so much insight on the advancements of diabetes and diabetes care and how to play the game to win, you are helping me so much. Just manage the disease in a new way.

Scott Benner 25:38
I'm very glad don't make me cry it's early in the morning. Okay, that's wonderful. I think my motivations, they exist in different spaces, obviously people with kids. I think about us being young and art and being young and us not knowing what we're doing, and I think like, maybe this will stop people from feeling so lost the way we did, and and propel them more quickly into decent information that they can they can figure out and apply to their own lives. But for older people, or people who had type one for longer times, especially those of you who've come out of like, regular mph, cloudy like that world before, CGM before, pumps who were told things like, you know, just shoot it in the morning and then go head up out your day if you get dizzy, you know, drink a coke. Like, if that was your whole life for you guys, I think about my friend Mike, like all the time. Like to hear what you just said is so touching and fulfilling for me, and at the same time it will, like later today, make me feel like, how come I couldn't get Mike to listen to me about this? It's not that I was trying so hard, and he just was like, I'm not listening. I tried a couple of times, and he seemed resistant, and because we had a personal relationship, I did not continue to push him. But I have no trouble jumping on this microphone and being pushy to 10s of 1000s of people listening that I don't have any trouble with, but with him, I I just stopped, you know, like I'd bring something up, I'd give him some good information. And I look back now through the lens of all of you and your and your stories, and I realize, like he wasn't being resistant, like he lived his whole life like that. He didn't know any better. I was saying completely foreign stuff to him, and he wasn't ready to try to do it. And, you know, caught up to it,

Renee 27:21
that's so hard to understand too, because I think I told you that as far as chronic diseases, I just can't complain about having diabetes, because it is one that we can manage. And my friend who diagnosed me when she was in medical school, she ended up dying of lupus. She was diagnosed six months after me, and spent most of her life on disability. And then our 38 year old neighbor next door died of cancer. I mean, those are diseases that you cannot manage, but Scott, you can manage diabetes. Yeah, you

Scott Benner 27:59
have a different perspective. Renee, you have a mixture of personal experience with your friends, and you have the knowledge of like, that hard work that it must take to run that farm. Those are different perspectives, I'll tell you. Like one thing, I was always stunned about Mike. He was so bright and articulate and a reader but but also extroverted, like, he wasn't, like, lost in a book, kind of a guy, you know, like, but he, he read voraciously. Was very intelligent, thoughtfully, had all kinds of good ideas. He never really tried for much. And I think that's the diabetes, and because it hit him when we were, like, right, coming out of high school, and I thought, man, like, Mike was on his way to something, and then all of the sudden, we're adults, and he's working, like in a laboratory, moving results around a computer. And I was like, God, it's weird that this is him, but I wonder how much of that was. Well, there's health insurance here, and it's steady, and I work inside, and I don't have to, like, you know, you mean, like, I wonder, I have always wondered, how much of his diabetes, like, re focused him, you know, and maybe the dumb luck of just when he was diagnosed, right? Like, you're what, you're 19 years old, you don't know what you're doing, like, you know, you're just starting to get out into the world trying to figure stuff out. This gets run over. I remember what he was told, which was nothing. You know, he shot his regular mph twice a day, and Mike was the guy that got dizzy, and we didn't let him drive after five o'clock if we all went out together, because he would inevitably, like, swerve off the road. He just wasn't that person prior to that. And then, you know, there's no, no real good advice from his doctors, no real good advice from his family. They don't know what the hell like. You know, they're not they're not. They don't know what to do. And he just like, I don't know. He just his life changed. And I take hear you say that you know you heard something here that helped you. Makes me think that other people will too.

Renee 29:54
I mean, I think I have a huge responsibility to take care of myself, to be healthy.

Scott Benner 30:00
Healthy, right? I agree.

Renee 30:03
So, yeah, I'm part of that right now. Is listening to your podcast

Scott Benner 30:06
awesome, but, but again, do you think maybe you feel that way because your close friend got lupus and passed, and you've seen disease take people where there was nothing they could do to slow it down? Like you feel like you have an opportunity here that they didn't have, is that, right? Absolutely? Yeah, well, that's

Renee 30:23
perfect, absolutely. And, I mean, I know that there are a lot of complications with diabetes. I told you, I'm 66 and I have no complications. I mean, I've been going to the same ophthalmologist for 3030, years now, and I saw him two months ago, and he goes, wouldn't know you were diabetic. Renee, by looking in your eyes.

Scott Benner 30:45
Say, Thank you. I appreciate that. That's what we're shooting for over here. Yeah,

Renee 30:50
and you know, Dr Weber, when I turned 60, so you know, six years ago, she walked into the room and she said, Hey, I bet when you were diagnosed, they told you that you wouldn't live this long. And I was shocked when she said that, because that is what I was told. And I just looked at her and I said, Yes. And she goes, Well, I'm just telling you, you and Mark, need to continue planning. You've got a long life to live. That's

Scott Benner 31:13
awesome. Hey, listen, there's an episode in this podcast where a lady was, you know, long time ago, decades ago, at college, when she was diagnosed, and her doctor that diagnosed her told her to quit school and go home because she wouldn't live very long. Wasn't going to be part of the workforce, and no man was going to want her. Those are like quotes that's in our lifetime. It's in your lifetime that somebody was told that. So it's just that things change so drastically, you know, and people's understandings, I mean, it's what it is. It's the it's the faster acting insulin, it's better delivery system, and it's glucose monitoring. Those are the things, right? Yeah, yeah. And then now, the idea now is to, like, you have to get that out into the world so that people understand it. That seems to be the slipping point, because, you know, for you and the other people listening, you know, it's great, we all know, but there's far more people living with type one diabetes who don't know anything about this. Like I'm continually stunned by the sheer number of people who tell me that just the idea of pre bolusing for their meals, that how much that changed their life, and that no one ever said that to them before. That means that no one ever discussed with them the timing of their insulin. So they don't know how the insulin works, and they're using it multiple times a day. I don't know how that happens, you know, but it does,

Renee 32:33
right? One of your tips that I use is work from home. I'm not working. I've retired now, but after lunch, if I would get a little bit high, and I would go for what you call free insulin, I would just go for a walk around the block a few times. Yes,

Scott Benner 32:49
take a walk. Let's see the blood sugar come down a little bit. That's something that I'm sure I would have picked up along the way. But I remember the first time somebody said it, and I thought, oh, that really works. That's crazy. Like, I didn't know, like, I didn't know any of the things when it started. You know what? I mean, it's a completely new world. But then there was this guy, Manny, and he starts this thing called the Big Blue Test. And he just went online, said, everybody test your blood sugar, and then go for a walk and then come back and test it again, and then come back online and write it down. And everybody did that. And I was like, Oh, now walking around, major blood sugar go down. Awesome.

Renee 33:22
Yeah. And Scott, you know, of course, you're always talking about Orton's blood sugar, you know, because you follow it. And my husband follows mine too. So he would be at the office at work, and I'm here, and he, he'll text me, your blood sugar's high. You need to go outside for a walk. He's

Scott Benner 33:38
trying to stay alive and do some stuff. I mean, you're you're retired at 66 That sounds nice. I might do that. Can I do that? I would like to do that. How, when did you How old were you when you retired? I was 64 did you do it willingly, like, excitedly, or was it a thing where they were like, Okay, that's enough of you. Renee, no, yes, I did it willingly. Are you enjoying the time?

Renee 34:00
Oh, absolutely. And my husband just retired. Nice, that's lovely. Yeah, yes, he retired a little bit early, just because you never know what's going to happen, right?

Scott Benner 34:11
Yeah, you want to spend time, right? Like times, most it's the only thing you really have. Are you guys traveling? Or are you what are you doing? He

Renee 34:19
retired in March, and we just got back from a three week trip to Switzerland and Germany.

Scott Benner 34:24
See, that's what I want to do. That sounds right. Okay, all right. That's

Renee 34:28
my did. Okay. We walked about 20,000 steps a day, so I did pretty good with my

Scott Benner 34:34
blood sugars. Did you have lows you had to work on? Yes,

Renee 34:38
and some highs, just because, just eating different things that I normally don't eat wasn't quite sure about the carbohydrates and so but it was good

Scott Benner 34:48
41 years later. Does that hurt your time, the time you had on your trip? Like, what do I mean? Like, do you sit down at dinner, at lunch in Switzerland and think, oh, here we go. I don't. Out of Bolus for this. This sucks, or Does it almost feel like a game? Are you sort of, like, I wonder if I get this right, like, is it still, is it impacting you? I guess

Renee 35:08
again, I know I would make, I would try to make good decisions about what carbohydrates I was going to eat. I did. It's hard to stay away from breads

Scott Benner 35:19
because you love bread? Oh, I did,

Renee 35:21
but I wouldn't say it's a constant reminder every time I have to Bolus, but I mean, it is part of what you have to do, right?

Scott Benner 35:30
I'm wondering, is it like, is every meal still like, oh, I have diabetes, or do you not think of it that way? No, I don't think of it that way. Okay, Arden and I sat down to eat yesterday together, and we were talking, so, you know, we were just chatting, and, you know, like you would, and we got caught up in the conversation. And the food arrived, and she picked up her fork and she started eating. And I watched her go, uh, and let not like, disgustedly, just like she remembered. And she picked up her phone, and I said, What's wrong? She goes, I have diabetes. I forgot. And and so she gave herself some insulin and put her phone back down, and then we started eating.

Renee 36:07
That's a beautiful thing. I have diabetes and I forgot. Yeah, it doesn't

Scott Benner 36:11
seem like it burdens or now there are times when it does, like, you know, like, there's times when I

Renee 36:16
Yeah, right. I don't want you to think every day of my life I'm like, I have diabetes. I mean, there are definitely times where it's like, Ugh, this grind, right? And it's that's usually spells of, you know, when I'm high for a few days and can't figure out why, or, you know, whatever. But I mean, overall, again, I'm not going to complain about having diabetes, I try not to complain. Try not

Scott Benner 36:44
so you had a nice trip. You walked around. What'd you keep with you? In case you got low glucose tablets, you just go with the tablets,

Renee 36:50
tablets. And I did, I mean, depending on where we were going and what we were doing, I did have protein bars. Okay, okay, I'm gonna conf. I do have a confession? Okay, go ahead in Europe. So I talked to my endocrinologist, I mean, long discussions about, what do I need to bring in case there's failures of anything? So I do have a backup controller. I always have that with me. And we talked about, you know, she said, Now, Renee, if your pod malfunctions, you've got two hours. So she said, if you're going to be hiking, I want you always to have an extra pod with you. So I'm like, okay, so bought a special purse so that I could, you know, have that with me at all times, Scott, we were going to something called Young foul, and it was a two hour train wide up there, and we were going to spend an hour, and then we were coming back down. We were on the last connecting train when my pod malfunctions, and I realized I had switched purses and forgot to put an extra pod. Why

Scott Benner 37:57
do you ladies switch purses so often? I don't understand.

Renee 38:02
So I told I said, Mark, and it's pretty it was, it's expensive to go up to young foul. And I said, Mark, I mean, he heard it. He's like, is that your pod malfunction? I said, Yes. And I said, we need to go back down.

Scott Benner 38:15
And he said, there's a doctor.

Renee 38:19
You we've spent too much money on these we're going up. He said, You're going to have to figure out a way to stay active. Okay, so, Scott, we get on the train, and there's these three steps to the train. For an hour up the mountain. I just walked those steps, and my blood sugar was 140 when I got on that train. It was 80.

Scott Benner 38:42
You're like, I'll get it down, even without the insulin.

Renee 38:45
And I told him, I said, Okay, when we get to junfrau, we're not taking any elevators or escalator like we're taking stairs. I mean, it was crazy. Scott and I was not scared, for some reason. It was probably the stupidest decision we've

Scott Benner 39:02
ever made in my life. How many hours were you out after the pot expired? About three and a half. Well, so listen, had you had insulin recently before the before it aired?

Renee 39:13
No, but I had just bought a sandwich for us to eat on the train up, but I was waiting, you know, we were waiting to get on the train, and so fortunately, more importantly, I had not had any food. Oh,

Scott Benner 39:25
okay, so is it earlier in the day you hadn't eaten yet? No,

Renee 39:29
that was going to be our lunch. So that this is probably because about 1231 o'clock,

Scott Benner 39:36
yeah, which pump are you using, dash or using Omnipod five? Omnipod five. Omnipod five. Okay, well, I mean, listen, you have some active insulin going, I would imagine, right? And you're active and you didn't eat anything, so that doesn't it makes sense to me, but

Renee 39:52
by the time you malfunction, you can't see how much active insulin you have. That goes away. Oh,

Scott Benner 39:56
okay, so you're just like, Well, I hope there's some in there that's worked. Me, yeah, so

Renee 40:01
anyway, I mean, I stayed real. I mean, we took stairs. I was like, you know, if we were waiting for something, I'd run up and down the stairs a few times. It was crazy. And then when we got back on the train, coming down, I think my blood sugar was about 120 and I told Mark, okay, we're two hours. I'm just gonna let it go. And once or twice I did get up because I was like, oh, that's creeping up fast. But I was 220 when I got back to the hotel.

Scott Benner 40:28
Okay, I mean, and that's without and now you hadn't had insulin a number of hours at that point. Yes. And how did you feel? I

Renee 40:34
felt fine. I was actually kind of excited to tell you the truth that I was able to keep it down

Scott Benner 40:39
and manage all that. Yeah, he felt, felt accomplished, I imagine, yeah, yeah. Hey, listen, I've seen Arden do that before, like, half an hour left in a movie, and she's got a good blood sugar, and you get a failure. And I'm like, we can go, and she's like, it'll be all right. And I'm like, yeah. She goes, No, yeah. And I've seen it be all right. I've seen it be, you know, you get home and, you know, you change a pump, and it wasn't bad. And I've, I've also seen it like, you know, in different scenarios, like shoot up, not so good. But in the end, I mean, I'm not, I'm not a person out there advocating for you not having insulin. I want you having insulin constantly. But there's a lot of people on this podcast don't take insulin for days, you know what I mean? And it's not a thing that I would tell them to do, but a couple hours maybe, and you're heading up to the thing, and I think you did okay. You know, were you nervous

Renee 41:30
at the very beginning? I was, but until I started doing those steps and I realized, Okay, I can't keep it down if I stay really active.

Scott Benner 41:39
Like, keep out the carbs stay active, right? Like and do your but hey, it worked out for you. That's

Renee 41:43
awesome. I'm sure people were going, what is that old lady?

Scott Benner 41:48
We were on the train, and a crazy old woman just kept walking up and down these three steps. Her husband just glared at her, like, he must, he must see this crazy activity all the time. You're like, over there trying to stay alive. Where's your next trip to

Renee 42:02
well, I'm heading to Louisiana next week to take care of my mother, and then we're going to Michigan this summer for a month. Nice look at you getting around escape the heat of South Carolina.

Scott Benner 42:13
Honestly, my only goal in life is to just be able to escape the weather. As I get older, I think that really is like the thing I'm working toward. I put no pieces in place yet, but I would like to be able to be somewhere slightly warmer when it's cold and slightly colder when it's hot. These are my only real goals. Obviously, you're retired like but what do you do for insurance? Then, once you're retired? Is it Medicare?

Renee 42:35
Obama, Medicare now, Scott, which, sorry, I'm not giving a plug for Medicare. It was the hardest thing. I wish I had stayed on my husband's insurance until

Scott Benner 42:44
he had retired. Not a pleasant experience. And

Renee 42:48
so I've been on my husband's insurance. And yeah, oh, it was, it was, it's been a nightmare.

Scott Benner 42:53
Why? Dealing with them or what they cover, or what they don't,

Renee 42:57
dealing with them, and it was definitely more expensive, the supplies more expensive than staying on my husband's income. But now the continuous glucose monitor is considered durable medical so now I don't pay anything for it, so that has helped. But the pods, I used to pay $100 a quarter, and now I pay $800 a quarter.

Scott Benner 43:20
Really, wow. Medicare. Way to go. You turned your $400 insulin pumps into $2,500 insulin pumps. Thanks a lot. Is that a thing you found yourself thinking about through adulthood, like, I'm gonna retire one day I'm gonna need like, were you saving money? Like, just for this, or I don't know what your situation was. No, no, I'm sorry I will

Renee 43:42
tell you I have a great supply of diabetes

Scott Benner 43:45
supplies. You've been stuffing stuff in a closet for a while. Yes, sir. You know, I don't know anything about anything, but like I hear you Dad sells the sugar cane farm. I figure you're all just rich southern ladies now running around, but that's not the case. No, okay, you're not in big camisoles, holding umbrellas and sipping tea on the patio. No. Renee, what happened to the American dream? Your dad was not able to sell that to a giant conglomerate.

Renee 44:19
I've had a very good life. Scott, no, I imagine that's one thing I will tell you. When I was diagnosed, I remember the doctor saying, telling my dad, he said, you know, Pete Renee is very fortunate, because diabetes is an expensive disease. To have it, you have to have the knowledge on to be able to manage it, yeah, and, and she has both, so

Scott Benner 44:40
a little bit of luck along the way doesn't hurt. I mean, the expense part, I don't know what to say about that, or what to do about that. You know, like I said earlier, there are people who, you know, don't know anything about the stuff we talk about in the podcast, but some of those same people also don't have any access to insulin pumps or, you know, CGM, but if

Renee 44:59
they're on. Medicare. I mean, Medicare does have a program for low income people, yeah, so if they want to be on it, there's a way for them to I think, but I don't

Scott Benner 45:10
know, yeah, I don't disagree with you. I just think that when things are difficult to accomplish, that a lot of people will throw up their hands and stop before they get to it. So

Renee 45:18
it's a fight. Medicare has been a bite. Yeah, I mean, it's perseverance to say

Scott Benner 45:24
the least. So I want you to be able to go to the doctor and the doctor say, hey, look, you should have a CGM. You should have this insulin pump. I have insulin, and this is just going to happen. Now. You don't have to call an office or fill out a form or, like, you know, like, do a, like, jump through a bunch of hoops, like, just here, here's the CGM. So, like, we'll pay I don't know why things, I mean, I guess I do understand why, but it would be nice if things were just set up in a more automated way.

Renee 45:48
Yeah, and Scott, why? Pre authorization every year? That's ridiculous. I've hit diabetes for 41 years. It's not going to go away.

Scott Benner 45:55
Yeah, every year you have to tell somebody you have type one diabetes again, as if ridiculous. Yeah, now that that's the little stuff that I mean. Like, you think about the people who don't have the tools or the time to fight the fight, and then they don't get a CGM, and look at what it did for you, you know, like, look what that CGM did for you. It showed you a world that you didn't know existed and allowed you to completely change how you took care of yourself for the better, to the point where your doctor's telling you, like, hey, you know you're going to be around a really good long time. Everybody deserves that. Yes, you do. You know, I don't. I'm not a person who thinks everything should be free, but at the same time, like, what is there, like, 1.8 million people that have type one diabetes? Like, we can't just get them CGM. Is it that crazy? You know, everybody's got a goddamn, uh, DVR. Everybody on the on the planet's walking around with a cell phone. We can't get, like, you know, a couple million type ones, CGM or pumps or whatever they want. And if they don't want it, then fair enough. But they should have the opportunity, and it shouldn't be. It just shouldn't be a fight to

Renee 46:59
get to it. Now, I have an acquaintance who she's a little bit older than I am. She's probably 68 and she has had type one since she was a toddler. And Scott, she refuses to get on a continuous glucose monitor and a

Scott Benner 47:16
pot or a pump. Why do you think? Has she told you why? And she is, has

Renee 47:21
every complication that you can think of. And again, she's an acquaintance. I haven't I've had only brief conversations with her, but she's just not interested. She goes, this is how I've managed it my whole life. It's how I want to continue to manage it. Well, okay. Like,

Scott Benner 47:35
I don't get it. Well, yeah, but her perspective is different, like, so she thinks likely that the things that have happened to her, her complications, are what what happens? I bet you, if I talk to her, she'd say, Well, I have diabetes. So this is what happens. Because to her, this is what happens. She just didn't have the same dumb luck you had for a while. Like she didn't get the doctor who said, Hey, why don't you test after you eat and give yourself more insulin? That's probably the whole difference. Like that guy probably saved you back then, just saying that

Renee 48:04
he because he was my endocrinologist for only two years. But I guess that

Scott Benner 48:09
one statement that probably something pretty impactful, right? That's what I think. I think that one statement saved your bacon. Like, the whole way, like, because you didn't, you were bringing high blood sugars down when, when she probably wasn't. And now all these years later, she's like, look, what am I gonna do? Put this sensor on and find out this thing's all over the place. I've got these effects. They're not gonna go back. She probably thinks there's no way to, like, turn the clock back. And there probably isn't, for most of it, although there have been people on here before, older people who, you know, I think a Mike who came on and talked about, you know, his his vision was just shot, and now he He's fine. He said, All I did was find the podcast, learn how to use insulin, you know, got my blood sugar down and, you know, now my site's better, like that kind of stuff is, you know. So maybe she would get some help from it. But, well, thank

Renee 48:57
you for helping me see her perspective. Because, oops, you hear that?

Scott Benner 49:03
Oh, I didn't hear the beef, but something Did something go wrong. I'm 151 I'm a little high. Are you nervous? No, no, well, yes, so I was nervous at the beginning. Yeah, might be a little adrenaline, damn.

Renee 49:16
Was very nervous at the beginning. Now

Scott Benner 49:19
you feel okay, yeah, okay. Well, go back. Then we're ending. Now that it's almost over, I'm like, this is easy. No, but go back. You were, you were congratulating me on helping you. Go back to that.

Renee 49:30
I tend to see everything through my lens, and didn't even think about her lens. So it gives me a I'll just use the word a little bit more compassion for her,

Scott Benner 49:40
I think it's easy to think that people who aren't doing something are willfully not doing it because they don't care, or as much as I care, or they don't understand the way I understand, but everything is perspective, and I think everything is just luck, like who you intersected. I'm telling you you intersected that one Doctor Who. Who told you not to sit around and stare at high blood sugars, get up and test and give yourself insulin if you're high, I guarantee that saved you. And nobody told her that, or they told her. And she was like, ah, you know, like, That's not important. And nobody knows my friend Mike's not like, he's not running around trying to kill himself. He was working really hard at having diabetes. It was a thing he was constantly putting effort into. I never saw him ignore one time he did it. One time he almost went on strike. I don't know another way to say it. I just got a call from his mom. Hey, Mike's in the hospital, and I went and saw him. I was like, Wait, what happened? And he just told me he goes. I just, I didn't want to have diabetes, and I just, I just stopped for a few days. He just didn't take any insulin, and it obviously put him in DK, and caught up to him pretty quickly. He didn't do it again. But, you know, other than that, he was always working at it. He never went out without his kit. Always had his insulin with him, took care of himself, did what he was supposed to do, was doing everything he was being told. The problem was the things he was being told were not helpful. Maybe they were the best that the doctor had at the time. I'm not saying that otherwise, but it wasn't enough, like you got that one extra thing, that one silly thing. And like, now, I hope the podcast is doing that for other people. I hope they're hearing things that just give them another, you know, another chance or another, you know, five years of not having to worry about something down the road, or maybe there'll be a bunch of people one day or being told like, Oh my God, you're doing great. You're 66 go enjoy your retirement. And maybe one of those people will sit there and think like, I found that dumb podcast all those years ago, and it helped me being in the position I'm in, which is trying to deliver and try to imagine this like you're wherever you are right now. I'm in New Jersey. I'm just in a spare room in my house, right? And I'm trying to, like, find a way to find people, to get them to listen, to have them understand, to let them absorb, so that hopefully they'll fold some of these ideas into their day to day, so that hopefully they'll have better outcomes or an easier life. Like the pathway just to try to get somebody to listen is impossible once they listen, to get them to understand once they understand, to get them to incorporate. Like, I don't know how you're supposed to do all that. And you think back 40 years ago, you went to the doctor and what they said a couple of things to you, and it stuck to you, or it didn't, and it was valuable or it wasn't, and then you go off, and the randomness of the world, you know, writes your story for you. So I don't know, you got lucky. What was that doctor's name Weber?

Renee 52:34
Well, no, Dr Weber is my endocrinologist here, and you know, it's as you've been. And I thought, Oh, he was probably in his 60s at the time, and this was 30 years ago. Oh, okay, so no longer than that, probably 35 years ago. So, but I don't remember his name. He's the one endocrinologist that I don't remember his name. Isn't that funny?

Scott Benner 52:54
Yeah. Well, a nameless Doctor, I'm telling you, he helped you, and now you're like, you're awesome. Now he helped you. You're helping yourself. The technology is helping you. Know you're helping Scott I didn't want to say that because it sounds self serving, but obviously I'm helping Renee, thank you. Yeah, I don't know if you hear my sarcasm or not, because you're from the south, I can't tell I hear it awesome.

Renee 53:17
I hear it. I hear it on the podcast.

Scott Benner 53:19
Awesome. Yeah, you. Like the show, right? Yeah,

Renee 53:22
awesome. That's great. I really appreciate it.

Scott Benner 53:25
I appreciate that you that you found it. Hey, can you drive a tractor? I'm sorry, can you drive a tractor? I've never driven a tractor. You've never driven a tractor. You just point out there. You're like, that, man, he he makes the sugar stuff come in the house, and we're all good to have a lot of pets growing up?

Renee 53:42
Not. We had an outdoor dog and two outdoor cats to keep the mice from coming into the house.

Scott Benner 53:50
That was it. How about horse? Were there horse around? We

Renee 53:53
had chickens and cows when my grandfather was alive, but when he passed away, that was that the pasture pretty much sat empty. Gotcha,

Scott Benner 54:03
you were not that connected to the farm, other than living on it. Is that right? Right? Yeah. Okay. How about your mom? Did she care? Like, or was she busy, like, doing the things like, did you grow up in that world where your mom was cooking all the time and taking care of your father and that kind of stuff?

Renee 54:19
Yes, like every day when we got home from school, there was a fresh baked, hot out the oven snack.

Scott Benner 54:27
Every day, every day I would take that, that sounds nice,

Renee 54:33
yes. So my mom was a stay at home mother, and yes, and

Scott Benner 54:38
she's alive today. She is. How old is she? 95 Wow. Like, got her wits about her 95 or he

Renee 54:46
does. Yeah, she has arthritis, kind of head to toe, but, I mean, she's pretty sharp.

Scott Benner 54:51
No kidding, they got her loaded up on stuff. How does she deal with the pain? It's your mom, high as a kite. What's going on over there? Renee,

Renee 54:57
well, actually, I will tell you, it's funny, mom can. She thinks me having diabetes is her fault, and still, I'm like,

Scott Benner 55:05
Mom, really, yes, I'm like, Mom, it's not your fault. 41 years you're gonna go visit your mother, and she's gonna be like, I'm so sorry about what I did deal with the diabetes.

Renee 55:16
Yes, she just can't understand that it's not genetic.

Scott Benner 55:21
Oh, Renee, I'm going to tell you right now that every mom listening right now who thought one day that mom guilt they had was going to go away, they just deflated in their car. They just went, Oh, it's not going to stop ever. Sorry. Sorry, ladies, you'll be 95 blaming yourself for stuff. Go enjoy yourself. Oh, my God. Oh, the one reason I'm happy to be a boy is because I don't have that seriously, I see you ladies struggle with that is, it's terrible. Like, I watch my wife all the time. Are they okay? Is everything fine? I'm like, Kelly, they're fine. Like every day she asks me, like like, every day she asks me about my kids, as if they're two years old and we lost them at the park for an hour and a half. Are they okay? Did anybody say anything? Like, I'm like, no, they're fine. I say he went to work today, he came home. He's okay. How's Arden? She's fine. Did she say anything? Is she all right? Like, I don't that guilt. Dear God, You dodged a bullet on that one. Renee, I'm gonna tell you that right now. Also, I had an aunt Renee. She never had kids either. Think it's the name, maybe it's the name. Wow, does she spell it R, E, N, E, E, she spells it exactly like yours. Okay, good, good. You're like, there the way it should be, damn it.

Renee 56:42
Spell it, that's right. R, E, N, E is masculine.

Scott Benner 56:46
Spell it, right. I'm gonna let you go in a second. But what made you want to do this?

Renee 56:50
There was a stretch where I was listening and everybody was so doom and gloom about having diabetes, and I just wanted, I just want to share my story with you, but again, I feel like it's a disease that we can manage, and there are so many that you can't. And so I just wanted to encourage other people who have the disease to take care of themselves the best that they can, so that they can have a long, full life.

Scott Benner 57:17
So just get out there and keep trying and get good information and do your best to apply it and keep going, yes, yeah, oh, it's lovely. I'm glad you did that. Thank you. I hope you appreciate that. I didn't ask you any of the questions I had about lobbying for sugar, because I had real serious questions about it, but it didn't seem like a thing you would want to share. So I didn't ask you, but I would be super interested

Renee 57:40
sometime. We can take that off record if you want. Excellent. All right, hold on one second for me. Thank you.

Scott Benner 57:52
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/juicebox having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. It was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool, if you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind, you want twist, twist.com/juicebox,

okay. Well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribe in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me, or Instagram. Tiktok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss, please. You not know about the private group. You have to join the private group as of this recording, it has 51,000 members in it. They're active talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference, this series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control you. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, where you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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#1590 Seventeen Year Old Type 1 Using a GLP

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

Returning guest from 1136, she talks about her now 17-year-old daughter’s success with a GLP—better weight, insulin resistance, and mental health—and how she’s experiencing similar benefits.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

About a year and a half ago in Episode 1136 an anonymous mother came on to talk about her 15 year old type one's use of GLP and how her child's insulin needs drop drastically. That episode was called 15 year old type one using a GLP. Well, that 15 year old is 17 now, and we're going to get an update. Insulin needs are still incredibly interesting. If this is your first time listening to the Juicebox podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management, go to Juicebox podcast.com. Up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. 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. The episode you're about to listen to is sponsored by tandem Moby, the impressively small insulin pump. Tandem Moby features tandems newest algorithm control, iq plus technology. It's designed for greater discretion, more freedom and improved time and range. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox today's podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox 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/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, so anonymous, you and I were just talking before we started recording, and we did not make up a fake name for you last time. So you're just Hello. I'll just use Hi instead of names. Hello, yeah, see that works perfectly. It does now the episode you were on previously. Do you know the number of it by any chance?

Speaker 1 2:31
11? I want to say 1136 maybe check that to be so I could verify real quick,

Scott Benner 2:39
1136 you think? I think so. My God, I make too many. I was gonna say I make a lot of podcasts. 1136 15 year old, type one, using a GLP. That's correct. Okay, so I first think, if you're gonna listen to this and you haven't heard that, you're making a mistake, you should go hear that. Yes, let's just give people like a very short, few minute overview that fast forwards right through that first hour and a half that we talked so your daughter was diagnosed with type one. What? Age 1313, and in two years since then, she was gaining weight, is that right? She

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:22
was gaining weight and using a whole lot more insulin than I thought she should be needing.

Scott Benner 3:28
Meaning, and if I recall up to 70 units a day,

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:32
45 to 50 ish a day at the most.

Scott Benner 3:36
So 13 year old, 14 year old, 15 year old, using that much insulin, because people are going to ask over and over again. She had testing and has markers for type one diabetes

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:48
Correct. She had testing, had tested positive for two antibodies, but also was still supposedly honeymooning, because her C peptide was still in the normal range. So for a kiddo still honeymooning, needing 4550 units a day in my brain just didn't compute. Okay, you

Scott Benner 4:05
know. And, and for more background, you had used the GLP for what

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:10
I had used the GLP for PCOS,

Scott Benner 4:13
okay? And it was valuable for you in that regard,

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:16
absolutely, 100% I'm still on it to this day. That is one medication that I will fight to the death for to never have to give it

Scott Benner 4:24
up. There's nothing I wouldn't do to keep my GLP medication because of all the things that I've seen it do for me, but like, tell me for you, what do you feel like it did for you?

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:36
I mean, for me personally, it resolved all of my bloating. It resolved all of my achiness. I was finally able to lose weight. You know, I had been on the cleanest of clean diets, right? Chicken and green beans three times a day, basically, and was still packing on the weight. And so it has. It's just reversed all of that for me, yeah, and I don't have the the bloating and the tummy issues anymore. I can eat. Be not just chicken and green beans, and I have finally lost about 30 pounds, which has been fantastic, and I just feel good. You know, I don't hurt all the time. I just feel good. I'm much, much happier person.

Scott Benner 5:12
I have to tell you that it's a great explanation for how I feel too, like it really is. It's what I did for me. But more importantly, it did it for you. You looked at your daughter and thought, Is it possible she's having some of this that I'm having? Is that right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 5:26
Right? Well, and it just was, you know, she lost a lot of weight prior to diagnosis, we were trying to help get her healthy. We focus on being healthy. We don't focus on numbers. We are trying to get healthy because, because we weren't when she got diagnosed, and we started the insulin regimen and everything, all of that weight, and then some came back very quickly, and I just wanted her to be healthy. And once one of the glps got approval for use in her age group, I approached her endocrinologist about it, and and our endocrinologist was like, Absolutely, let's try it. Let's see how it goes. And started her on it, and I saw so many benefits that were not expected. That has just been that, I don't want to toss the word miracle around lightly, but has been a miracle medication for her in so many ways. She's happy, healthy. She's down 30 pounds, you know, right at her perfect weight, and has kind of stabilized there for a good while now. And it has just been amazing for her.

Scott Benner 6:31
Go over the things you think it helped her with.

Anonymous Female Speaker 6:32
Well, I mean, it definitely helped her with the weight loss, and it helped her insulin resistance, right? Like, I mean, if you go back and listen to the first episode, it was just matter of days that she started needing less insulin. And that's been the biggest impact for her, is, you know, she'll tell you every day of the week she feels like she's not even diabetic anymore, because she doesn't have to think about blood sugar, she doesn't have to think about carbs, she doesn't have to think about pre bolusing. So that's been obviously the biggest impact for her in that

Scott Benner 7:03
way. Did you also believe, if I remember correctly, that she might have PCOS, too?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:08
I did, and I still do. She is not, you know, with the hormonal testing and everything, she's not testing as PCOS, but I think that's because of this medication. I think this medication is also helping kind of regulate some things for her in that realm as well. Okay,

Scott Benner 7:23
so I think that catches us up now. Episode 1136 went up in February of 2024 it's June now. So it's almost been a year, and maybe almost, you know, get up on a year and a half since you were on the last time. Since then, you will text me periodically graphs or insulin changes, or something like that. So in the last year and change have her insulin needs continued to decrease.

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:50
Her insulin needs did continue to decrease. I was trying to remember, I feel like, towards the time that we recorded the episode, she was on about nine units of basal a day and and no carb coverage, right? No fast acting. Insulin. She's gone down as low as one unit of basal and no fast acting. She's currently at four units of basal and limited fast acting. You know, we just kind of take it day by day. You start to, kind of watch, watch the trends, and see and and sometimes you can see that her body is just getting tired and needs a little bit of help. And so there may be some times where she needs a unit, you know, of fast acting here and there to help out. It's not pre bolusing, it's not counting carbs. It's not, oh, we're going to eat. We need to do insulin. It's it's more reactionary than being proactive for her, because it's not reliable that she's gonna need it.

Scott Benner 8:46
You can't predict what's gonna happen, right? Yeah, but so she goes from a diagnosis to upwards of 50 units of insulin a day, to using a GLP to getting down to nine units of basal a day, to getting down to four units of basal a day, to getting down to one unit of basal a day, and you're not covering meals. Now, what happens when you don't cover a meal? Like people like, oh, but she probably spikes like, what happens at a meal?

Anonymous Female Speaker 9:13
It depends on the meal, right? Because we, we know not, not all carbs are equal. If it's kind of our normal meal, which we tend to do, high protein and maybe moderate carb, she may spike up until like the 150s 160s but comes right back down. If it's a really carb heavy meal, she might hit 180 but again, it's right back down. It's a quick up and a quick down. If we do too many carb heavy things too close together, she might need a little bit of assistance, because she might get stuck in like the 130s 140s

Scott Benner 9:49
but still, that still, I mean assistance from 140 if you stack up too many carb heavy meals, right? This has been a while now, like, have you wrapped your mind? Around what you think is happening?

Anonymous Female Speaker 10:01
I mean, from the very beginning, I felt like what's happening is it's helping preserve the beta cell function that she still had, because she was still testing her C peptide in the normal range, right? And so, like by the labs, she was still honeymooning even two years in when we started the GLP. And even still, at that point, when we started the GLP, her C peptide was like point eight, which was like the lowest end of normal, her most recent C peptide, because we do labs once a year with with our endo and so her most recent labs were in February of this year, and her C peptide was 1.2 and so her C peptide has gone up a little bit. You know, I wouldn't say significantly, but it's gone up a little bit. And to me, that just confirms my hypothesis that this GLP is just helping preserve the beta cell function that she still had remaining.

Scott Benner 10:55
Do you think she's like Lada, but also insulin resistant, like do you think if she didn't have type one, you'd think of her as, like, insulin resistant type two? Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, I do. So she kind of has these two things happening at the same time,

Anonymous Female Speaker 11:11
because, based on the labs, right, honeymooning, she shouldn't have been needing the kind of insulin that she was needing, pre GLP, yeah. And knowing my history, you know, with PCOS, which is insulin resistance. You know, those two go hand in hand, right? I feel 100% that she had some insulin resistance

Scott Benner 11:30
happening. She have any other autoimmune issues. She does

Anonymous Female Speaker 11:33
not yet have any autoimmune issues.

Scott Benner 11:38
People say yet all the time when I ask, they're like, No, not yet,

Anonymous Female Speaker 11:41
not yet, no. Her thyroids testing good. She's not shown any trending, like positive source, celiac or anything like that. So, right, so knock on wood, you know, other than the PCOS, which, again, by the labs, she's not testing positive for PCOS. I think the GOP is helping us there as well.

Scott Benner 11:59
So, is it crazy to think that without the insulin resistance, she'd just be in a very slow onset of type one that you might not even notice? Possibly, possibly. Yeah, it's not as common for me to hear stories of kids with, like, long, lot of presentations, but I do hear it more from from adults, but it does feel like that, like, if you just kind of set the insulin resistance aside for a second because, because basically the GLP squashed that right if her blood sugars were constantly 110 and she had spikes into 140s or 150s sometimes with meals that came back down on their own. Like you wouldn't know that in a otherwise healthy person, correct, unless you ran an A 1c

Anonymous Female Speaker 12:45
right? Yeah. And even then the A 1c wouldn't be high. You know, with those numbers, she she might test as, like, pre diabetic, maybe, yeah, if it had been going on long enough. But

Scott Benner 12:57
Okay, so while I wrap my head around all that, like, switch gears for a second and tell me she's diagnosed type one. She's living full on using 50 units of insulin a day. This GLP comes into our world that she's going the other way, but at some point you imagine this is going to end right, like this. GLP, yeah, this. GLP is not going to do this. You

Anonymous Female Speaker 13:18
just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, right? And even now, you know, she was down to just one unit of basal, and in very little fast acting, you know, just here and there. And the fact that we've gone back up to four units of basal, I'm like, are we, you know, approaching the end of this? Yeah. And I don't think we are, because, you know, she is so steady and stable with the four units of basal and very minimal, um, fast acting, right? And so, and she had to go up on the basal when she got a really bad cold. I think her body just was tired and needed a little extra help. And so, is it possible that she goes back down to, you know, one or two units? Maybe, I don't know. We'll have to, we'll have to wait and see, but that's always in the back of my head. It's like, anytime that we need to do some fast acting, or anytime that we need to increase our basal I'm like, is this ending or is this just, you know, a wave that we're riding at the moment?

Scott Benner 14:14
So setting aside just the medical anomaly of all this and how interesting it is, like, how do you think she handles that like psychologically. Do you think she's just happy for the time, or do you think that when it goes the other way, is she gonna feel a loss again? I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies. I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us for the last few years, though, because we began using us Med, you can too us med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, to get your free benefits. Check us med has served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996 they carry everything you need from CGM. To insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and more. I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites. Libre three, Dexcom, g7 and pumps like Omnipod five, Omnipod dash tandem, and most recently, the eyelet pump from beta bionics, the stuff you're looking for, they have it at us. Med, 888-721-1514, or go to us, med, comm slash juice box to get started now use my link to support the podcast. That's us, med.com/juice box. Or call 888-721-1514, this episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control IQ. Plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today.

Anonymous Female Speaker 16:39
That's a great question. I haven't really like talked to her about that. I know she's definitely happy right now. Sure, it's made life a whole lot easier. You know, we've had some monumental life things happen during this time frame. She's gotten her driver's license right and started driving a car and going off with friends, and a year from now, she's going to college, and she hasn't had to struggle with the driving piece, right? We haven't had to worry about blood sugar with driving. That just hasn't been a problem. She doesn't go low, but maybe once a month, you know, yeah, and she doesn't go high. So, like, that's been really nice for her, and nice for me. I don't have to worry quite so much pre GLP, you know, she really was like, I don't want to go away to college. I want to go to college here so I can stay home and you can help me my diabetes and everything. And now she's looking at a college that's almost four hours away. So, like, it's, it's definitely changed things in her world. So I do imagine, you know, if the other shoe drops, and we have to, you know, start counting carbs and all of that again. I think there probably will be a sadness there, but I also feel like she'll be well equipped to handle it when the time comes. If the time

Scott Benner 17:53
comes, I'm glad because, I mean, it just occurs to me that like being diagnosed once is crazy enough, right? Yeah, twice. Hey, you have type one diabetes. Actually, you know what? If you can just take this injection once a week. Most of the problems that come with this should go away. And then you're like, now, you're telling a 13 to 14 to 15 year old like a person in that age. And how old is she now? She's 1717. Now, wow, she's 17. So it's been going on a good long time where she's had this relief. There's got to be a part of her that just thinks, I bet you it'll stay like this forever.

Anonymous Female Speaker 18:21
Yeah, well, and it's, I mean, so she stopped having to Bolus for food in December of 2023, and so that was just two and a half years post diagnosis for her. So we've been not bolusing for food almost as long as she had to Bolus for food, yeah. And so it really is kind of a distant memory. And she, she says sometimes, you know, I don't even remember what it was like to have to, like, figure out how many carbs were on my plate and figure out how much insulin to take, and then have to wait to eat. Yeah, it is going to be like a brand new thing if and when that happens. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:02
I don't want to think about you like a social experiment, but it is going to be really interesting, absolutely. Like, it will be. I am million percent hope that one day she wants to come on and talk about it because, and I wouldn't pressure, obviously, but like, if she ever had that feeling, I'd love to know, like, all this, this stuff here, I think it's, it's super interesting. I'm looking through your old text messages to me, like, messages to me, like clarity reports that look like, I mean, just look like they're from somebody who doesn't have diabetes. Yeah, you

Anonymous Female Speaker 19:29
know, yeah, it's crazy. Like, I just, you know, in prep for today's call, I pulled her her clarity report and her 90 day average glucose is 114, with the standard deviation of 23, 98% in range. That's

Scott Benner 19:43
it. With a you're using a unit of basal right now, well, anywhere

Anonymous Female Speaker 19:47
from one to four, you know, during that timeframe, okay? And, and that's coming off of, you know, we just went on vacation last week. And in all bets are off on vacation right? Especially when it's all inclusive, and you. Can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. And so we did have to throw a fair amount of fast acting during vacation just to kind of help regulate things a little bit. But by fair amount of fast acting, I mean, maybe, like, three units a day, in one unit increments, here and there,

Scott Benner 20:14
because they spread out over the day too.

Anonymous Female Speaker 20:15
Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, one unit depending on where her blood sugar is. And that's the thing, like, I'm in my brain always trying to calculate, like, what her correction factor would be, or her carb ratio would be. And it can't, because it just varies so much. You know, one unit might drop her 31, unit might drop her 80. It just kind of depends on how long she's been stuck, where she's at, what we have happening, you know, activity, all of that sort of thing. Is she sleeping or is it daytime, right? So toss in one unit even, is kind of scary. Sometimes.

Scott Benner 20:46
Did you ever consider trying a Pres? So because

Anonymous Female Speaker 20:51
she's a minor, Pres is not recommended for

Scott Benner 20:55
her, I see, okay, but that would really be valuable for her, though, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 20:59
I think it would be, you know, and I, I'm, I'm counting down the days, you know, until that 18th birthday. For lots of reasons, you know, I think it might benefit her to transition to, potentially, a different GLP, would love to try a Fraser would love to try ever since, you know, instead of having to do a new Dexcom every 10 days, you know, lots of things open up when she turns 18. So

Scott Benner 21:20
what GLP, she have now, is it we go V, she's on we go V. You prefer to trynjaro,

Anonymous Female Speaker 21:26
Manjaro, or is that bound? I just I, I'm just curious to see what a different one would do, right? Like has, has her body gotten used to this one, because we did try to cut back. So she's on the maximum dose as maintenance, but she was starting to kind of have some bowel issues, and so we backed off to the next dose down, and I noticed a dramatic difference in her insulin needs and her hunger, you know, all the things we only lasted about three weeks on the lower dose before she went back up again. And thankfully, she's not had any more, you know, tummy issues. And so I think it was, is not related, but we just weren't totally sure. So I would just be curious to see, you know, if a different formulation would change anything. The

Scott Benner 22:14
one thing about the step down is it has the G, I P in it as well, and you're not really looking to curb her hunger that much, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 22:21
Correct? No, I'm happy where that's at right now. And she's, she's not losing weight anymore, so she's plateaued, and been plateaued for, you know, probably six months or so now, but at a at a healthy weight, right? Like I'm, I'm not concerned about that anymore, but I'm just curious, you know, because I know sometimes bodies get used to medication over time, and so I'm just curious if switching to a different formulation might

Scott Benner 22:47
just make change something. Change something. I don't know what I would

Anonymous Female Speaker 22:50
be looking for it to change. Like, would it bring us back down to that one unit a day? Or would it, you know, possibly eliminate the need for basal altogether? I don't know. Like, I just

Scott Benner 22:59
just a science experiment that you're interested in finding out more about. Yeah, and

Anonymous Female Speaker 23:03
she'll, she'll tell everybody. She jokes with it all the time. Of you know, she says, I'm just a walking science experiment, but she's cool with it. She, she just throws in every now and then, just, don't let me die mom. Yeah, no pressure. But I would be curious to see what a different GLP, yeah, might do. But we've, we've got about a year until we can look at

Scott Benner 23:22
that. So before the GLP, did she have a voracious appetite that you thought was, oh my

Anonymous Female Speaker 23:26
goodness. And even with the GOP, she can eat, okay, it has, it has curbed her appetite, but she still has a very healthy appetite.

Scott Benner 23:36
Okay, there's part of me that sometimes wants Arden to go back to ozempic Because she's using Manjaro. And the truth is, is that I don't think she really needs the appetite curbing as much as it does that like we have other issues, like Arden's not great with injections. So in my heart, what I'd like to see is, I'd like to see Arden take a significant lower amount every five days, instead of the amount she takes every seven days. And

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:05
I do notice it Wayne on days five and six. So I would love to be able to split dose, yeah, as well. Just can't do that with the WeGO

Scott Benner 24:13
V. We go V is in a is it in a self injector? Correct? Listen, yeah. We inject it into a vial and then draw it out with an insulin

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:22
I've thought about that, and I may broach that at our next indo visit, and just see, see what she thinks for

Scott Benner 24:29
Arden, like she doesn't need the appetite curbing to the degree that it happens to her, like there must be an amount of this drug that she could take that would hold her insulin resistance at bay, help her with like, PCOS, stuff like that, inflammation, all the other things I see it doing for and without it stopping her, like, sometimes she's just like, I'm not hungry, yeah. And then she's forcing herself, you know, and she's eating when she's not hungry, which is not great either. You know, it would be nice if there was, I guess what I'm saying is, is that I think there's a pre. Described amount that these drugs are like FDA tested for. So everybody gets a self injector at a certain number. But I think the truth is, is that if we had a more individualized way to measure your needs, it would almost be like insulin, right where you could say, like, yeah. I mean, I know the the norm is this, but for me, it's a little more like this, little less, you know, right here,

Anonymous Female Speaker 25:22
let's see. And I don't think we need less. I think we need more, because she's on that maximum FDA approved dose right by day like five, she could eat everything, you know, days days one and two, she has less of an appetite. Days like three, four and five, her appetite is what I would consider normal, and then for the last two days, she's like, give me everything. Feed me all of the food, you know. And so, like, I would love to keep the same dose, but do it every five days instead of every seven.

Scott Benner 25:53
It took me a while to figure out that I was getting a pizza on day seven. I don't know. I'm a boy. I don't really pay that closer attention. I think it's happening. I would be like, Huh? Am I getting a pizza like, every week? Like, that's weird. And then I stopped and looked at it. I'm like, Oh, I'm getting hungrier day six and seven.

Anonymous Female Speaker 26:12
Yeah, yeah. And I notice it in her blood sugar numbers too. That's what I'm thinking. There's a direct correlation, like, she's much more stable on the front end of the week than she is on the back end of the week.

Scott Benner 26:25
Yeah, it's interesting, because there's part of me that thinks, if they have the luck with the oral medication that they're working on now, like, that kind of fixes that problem in totality, right, right? They can make it work. I mean, going back, there's been GLP pills in the past, the rebels, us, trulicity, like, stuff like that. They never really worked nearly as well as the injectables like Wego V and Manjaro work. It's clear to anybody who uses Wego V Manjaro, is that bound all that stuff like, you know, there's a waning at the end, yeah. So if you could put it in more frequently? Could it be less, you know, or would it need to be, you know, a larger amount more frequently to cover that? And if they're going to have luck making these oral medications that are as, oh, if aggressive is the right word, but as successful as these new injectable glps are, then maybe that just goes away completely, and you just take a pill once a day,

Anonymous Female Speaker 27:22
right? Well, and that's also where I'm kind of interested, you know, with the Z bound, get go higher dosages than what the we go, V goes. And so I'm curious if even just going up to that next number, you know, solves, solves the issue. Yeah.

Scott Benner 27:37
So what's the level of we go, V that she's on. Now, what is it? She's on the 2.4 and that's the largest one. That's the largest one. Okay, and then, but they, the way it's measured is different, though, like, because I'm on like, 12 and a half of Z bound. So let me I think there's also a 15, which I don't feel like I need. I actually, this morning, I think I was my lowest weight ever this morning. That's exciting, yeah. But surprised me a little though, because I kind of had gotten back into that idea of like, oh, this is going to be my window right here. I'm going to be between 176 and 173 like, that's what I just thought my window was going to be. And I was like, Okay, I guess that. I mean, it's fine, like, if that's what it is. And then this morning, I was like, I'm 172 like, I don't think I've ever been 172 so now I'm wondering what's gonna happen, and if this process that you know is now been two years for me, like, is it? Will I look back on it in five years and see that it was more like a three year process, and I didn't realize it, or, like, I don't know, like, it's all kind of fascinating, right? Sorry, what you're looking back at, what?

Anonymous Female Speaker 28:48
Well, I was trying to look at the wegovy dosages to see, because I know that they the dosages are in, I think milligrams, but that bound is in something different. I think I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It's so confusing. Why they can't all just use the same numbers. We don't want to make

Scott Benner 29:07
anything too easy.

Unknown Speaker 29:08
I know I am

Scott Benner 29:10
looking at a graph you sent me a few months ago. It's a six hour graph where the stability exists overnight right around 90 or 100 and then at 9am maybe 8:30am there's a spike that goes to 180 and then it's back down to 90 by 1030 like so from like 830 it starts. And to call it a spike is wrong. It's a rise to 180 that takes an hour, and then the fall from 180 back to 90 again is maybe an hour and a half. So like it's a window of about two and a half hours. But in that two and a half hours, your text says two bowls of Fruit Loops and a banana.

Anonymous Female Speaker 29:58
Yeah, I was so I was. To ask you if you had the details on what she

Scott Benner 30:01
no eaten. Yeah, she ate two bowls of Fruit Loops. I'm gonna guess that the serving size, it wasn't one cup in one cup and a banana, crazy sugar, and in a two and a half hour period, never went over 180 and was right back to 90 again. Yeah, it's insane, like it feels insane, you know? And she does see impacts, or insulin impacts around, like periods too, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:26
She does. And it's that's when we're more likely to see a little bit more need for some help from some fast acting. Not that she goes high, but she just gets stuck, you know? She might get stuck in the 150s she has her high alarm set at 150 and so when her high alarm goes off, especially during the night at 150 she'll toss a unit at it to help get it back down. But that's typically only a couple of days around her period. Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:55
How long ago does she take her pump off?

Unknown Speaker 30:58
December of 2323

Scott Benner 31:02
it was just like, Wait, this is a waste of time for us.

Anonymous Female Speaker 31:05
Well, when we stopped needing to Bolus for food, she was like, Can I just go MDI? And I was like, I guess I totally didn't think it would last, like, I thought she would get tired of the injections, because she wasn't a fan of them in the first place, right? And so I was like, Okay, fine, whatever. Go off. Because we were using DIY loop with Dash, I figured it would last a couple weeks. So I was like, okay, we can do a couple weeks of it. It'll be awful, and she'll want to go back to the pump. Yeah. Here we are, year and a half later, and I asked her very often, you ready to go back on the pod yet? Nope. I'm happy. I'm like, Well, you want to go on? You know? Moby, nope. I'm happy because in my brain, if we could micro dose would make it so much easier to, like, have even better stability, right? But she's not interested. And I really can't complain. I mean, her last a 1c was 5.3 Yeah, in February. So, like, I really don't feel like I have a leg to stand on to push the issue with her, and she's taken over 100% of her management recently, and so, like, I'm trying to to be more hands off as we're approaching the, you know, adulthood and moving away to college, I want to make sure that she knows what she's doing. Now, we still have conversations about diabetes management, but it's because she's thinking she needs to change something, and she just wants to talk through it first, right? Which I love, because that lets me know, you know, whether she's thinking through things correctly, you know, in the right way, and making the right adjustments, but she's she's done really well with it, yeah, so I feel like I can't push going back on the pump. I feel like it would make life a whole lot easier, but I mean, life is not hard any stretch of the imagination compared to what it was two years ago. Listen, this, though

Scott Benner 32:46
this GLP is ruined. What a great type a diabetes mom you could have been

Anonymous Female Speaker 32:51
I, you know? I mean, we had a 4.9 on on the pod. So it's like, it's really hard for me to let go of that I was so good at it. I'm a numbers person. I had spreadsheets, you know, and now it's like, I was prepping for today's call, and I'm like, I've done really a crap job of keeping track of, like, when we've changed dosages and stuff over the last two years, like, I've written nothing down. I have no charts, I have no spreadsheets. Like, there's nothing to keep track of. There's nothing to keep track of, you know. And I catch myself every now and then complaining about, you know, today's been a hard Diabetes Day, and I'm like, But you know what? My alarms haven't gone off at all. I have slept through the night, you know, 98% of the nights in the last year and a half. I really can't complain, but but that's just, you know, I strive for for perfection, which is impossible with diabetes.

Scott Benner 33:45
I ask you a question pretty frequently, and I feel like it's a little uncomfortable because of what happened. But you are anonymous, so if you're not comfortable talking about this, just stop me. It's fine. But every time I think about this, I think is no one looking into this, like, why isn't, why hasn't the government stolen your child put it in a box, and are there testing her? Why are we not trying to figure out, like, what is happening right here? And by the way, I'm not saying you should, you know, anybody should give themselves over to, you know, anything they're not interested in, but, like, something really unique is happening, yeah?

Anonymous Female Speaker 34:19
Yeah. I mean, I've reached out, you know, just to kind of be like, you know, hey, this is our story, you know, this is how great things have been. I've encouraged, you know, our indo to do the same, and I'm not fully, you know, in the loop on, on what her thought process is, on what she has or has not decided to do, you know, I kind of, I leave that at that level, right? Because I feel like me as just a mom of a type one, I don't feel like I have clout, you know, like, who's gonna listen to me, right? But I do feel like, you know, we're hearing more about it. There are more people because, like, when we. We started this process a year and a half ago, or whenever it was August of 23 I didn't know anybody else who was doing this right, or was experiencing what we were experiencing. And I feel like now, like even just on the Juicebox page, on Facebook, right, I'm I'm hearing more and more stories, and so in my brain, I feel like there's more kind of chatter going on. And I my gut, just tells me that companies are looking into it. We just don't hear about it yet. I feel very strongly that that there is, you know, is interest in research being done, that it just is not published yet.

Scott Benner 35:37
I feel like when I'm looking at people telling their stories online, and even the ones that come on the podcast and talk about it, I feel like what I'm seeing is that if you have insulin resistance, like, not just type one diabetes, because I see people say, like, hey, look, I have type one. I took a GLP. I didn't need to lose weight. And guess what, I used the same amount of insulin as I always used. I think, like, Okay, well, it's not lowering blood sugar or it's it's lowering insulin resistance, but not insulin resistance the way you're thinking about it when you have type one, but insulin resistance the way you should be thinking about it if you're of type two or other kind of metabolic issues like so I feel like what's happening is we're finding people who happen to have type one but also have those other issues, and you can almost split them down the middle, like two different people. It's helping you on the one side of your issue,

Anonymous Female Speaker 36:27
right? It's not getting rid of the type one, right? You have the antibodies positive for them. There's not a blessed thing that you can do about that yet. But I feel like that's almost where the attention needs to go is. Is not necessarily focusing on these glps, but focusing on the fact that it is possible to be type one and have insulin resistance the same time. Because I feel like that is just a knowledge point that is missed. Yeah, so often, like, I feel like folks think about it, is okay, your type two. That's why these medications can help you. But type ones don't have that. And that is absolutely false.

Scott Benner 37:07
The reason you're anonymous is because there's a certain group of people are going to be like, glps, don't help. Type ones, you're an idiot. Like, okay, great, awesome, thanks. That's not what we're saying. Like, hear the whole thing, right? Even. Like, dr, you must have loved Dr, handy. Oh my goodness,

Anonymous Female Speaker 37:21
yes. Like, I was so excited to hear, you know, someone educated and in a position to be able to have influence.

Scott Benner 37:29
It was when I spoke with him, I thought, Oh, this is how this all works. Like a group of people who know what they're talking about, don't listen to nud mix, they just make decisions and then put stuff in play, and then that's how the rest of them decide on treatments afterwards. I'm like, Oh, that's so interesting. Because otherwise you get caught up in anything from, like, you know, YouTubers trying to make clicks on yelling about, like, you're lazy. That's why you're using this, like, all that crap that down to, like, they're giving it the type ones. Now it's dangerous, you know, like, that's not what it's for. Like, just, you know, making an argument off the label or whatever. But, yeah, I mean, that's been my point the whole way, is that there's something happening. It's not happening for everybody. But, you know, if we're gonna sit here, I just listen, I just recorded with somebody, and I said to them, it can't be coincidental that, like, I think the way I put it was, if I did a podcast that wasn't about type one diabetes, I don't think I'd hear from so many people with anxiety. And I think anxiety has something to do with inflammation. I think because you have an autoimmune issue, you have more inflammation. Like these things all kind of like, they coalesce together, they touching each other to some degree or another. We're not good medically, yet, we don't have the expertise to just, like, turn down inflammation, right? So when you see something that does that, I mean, like, you're a great example. Like, you're a person who's eating healthy and you're still gaining weight, and you still have trouble with your, you know, your lady processes, etc, and you put this GLP in, and then poof, all gone nice and fixed, like what happened there? I don't think the understood explanations of what happened there have caught up to what's actually happening, right? You know what

Anonymous Female Speaker 39:12
the medication was intended for and tested for? Right? Right? Is the weight loss aspect of it, and and so all of the rest of this is what I call happy accidents, right? It was not what they were intending to fix or address. It's side effects that just happened to be good ones instead of bad ones. And so now the research has to catch up with that and answer the why. Like, okay, we see this happening, but we need to understand why it's happening so that we can make the right recommendations with the medication moving forward.

Scott Benner 39:46
And my worry is that there won't be enough money in that, or somebody won't see the financial pathway to it, so they'll just ignore it, and they'll just be like, Oh, for the people at Lucky helps, it'll help them luckily. But like, what about the lady who came on and said that? That her bipolar kid had a reduction in a lot of bipolar symptoms on a GLP, you know, if you're going to be reactionary, you go, glps, don't stop bipolar disorder. No one said that. What I'm thinking is is bipolar somehow connected to inflammation, inflammation, right? And then this kid's inflammation went down, and then some of the problems they were having lessened, right? And like, no one's gonna study that you don't mean. And then that makes me sad,

Anonymous Female Speaker 40:26
yeah, because there's so much potential, so much potential to help so many people. I have friends that work in the mental health care industry, and what they've seen as a result of these medications is incredible. That is an area that I feel like we are so far behind the eight ball in research and treatment. And it's, it's a pandemic that's plaguing our people, you know, and it makes me sad when I see something that has the potential to help, but nobody's looking at it through that lens.

Scott Benner 40:58
Yeah, that's my concern too. It's just that. I mean, we tapped into something here, just the benefits that I've seen personally for myself, right? And the one and the ones that you've seen for yourself personally, like, how often is there a medication that will help a female and a male the same medication when it's about like, you have a lessening of PCOS symptoms, I now absorb my iron,

Anonymous Female Speaker 41:23
right? Well, that too for me, you know, because I was anemic and had iron infusions and whatever, and I've not had any like, all my numbers are beautiful, yeah, I just feel good for the first time in I want to say, my life, you know, a lot of these autoimmune things that happened such at an early age that I feel like, you know, now I'm 45 and I finally know what it's like to feel good, right? Like, it stinks that it took this long to get there, but I'm happy I'm there, you know, making the most of it.

Scott Benner 41:53
Yeah, two thoughts, like, I just told my son the other day, I was like, I don't remember the last time I back hurt, and I'm sitting in a chair that you guys bought for me. Like, I don't know if this might be like an old like podcast lore at this point, but one, my back hurts so much.

Anonymous Female Speaker 42:08
Yeah, no, I remember you asking people for suggestions. Somebody suggested

Scott Benner 42:12
chair for me like that might help me. I'm in this chair all the time. My back is killing me, which turned into, like, a lot of lovely people throwing five and $10 into like, a GoFundMe or something like that. Before I knew it, I had 1000s of dollars, and I was like, begging people to stop. I'm like, oh my god, stop. So I'm sitting in an awesome chair. It's steel case, in case you're wondering, it's really great. I still really appreciate the chair. I don't need it anymore. My back does not hurt anymore, and it's not because of the chair, right? The Chair helped, but it's the GLP, and you're like, Oh, yeah. Well, you lost weight, Scott, I don't think it's that my back stopped hurting before I lost the weight, you know, like, I don't think it doesn't not help having less weight, like, joint on my joints, on my body. But I'm gonna tell you is, like, I was six months into glps, and I was like, My back doesn't hurt anymore, right? How come I don't have plantar fasciitis anymore? And some people say, well, it's just the weight. I'm like, I don't know, is it just the weight?

Anonymous Female Speaker 43:04
I mean, it's so many things. It's the weight combined with the fact that you feel good and you can be more active and you have less inflammation, like, it's kind of all of those things. It's not just one, one thing, you know,

Scott Benner 43:16
and not that I was eating crazy, but I'm not eating as much. I'm probably having less processed foods because of it. Because, I mean, honestly, I said to Jenny the other day while we were recording, but like, there's some things that you could offer me, I'd be like, I would not want that, right? And it is food that in the past that would be like, Yeah, that's right. I'll take a little of that.

Anonymous Female Speaker 43:33
Yeah. I mean, I eat far fewer treats when we go to theme parks now, you know, or on vacation, you know, like, we just came off of a five day all inclusive thing, and I didn't go crazy, like, the dessert. There was dessert there, you know, every meal had some aspect of dessert. And I just had, you know, like, half of a dessert after dinner every night. Yeah, yeah. Whereas before, like, I would have just been, like, sweet, sweet sweets all day, you know, it, it changes things. Yeah. We

Scott Benner 43:59
just had this thing. Kelly brought home a few petafores, and I had a vanilla one, right? And I said to her, I'm like, I said, what are these called? Are these called white trash PETA Fores? And she goes, why? I'm like, because they taste like, crimp. It's awesome. She's like, Yeah, you liked it. I was like, yeah. And then I could see on her face, she was like, Oh, I'm not getting any of these pet but the truth is, is I never went back and touch them again, right? One was enough, yeah. And she did ask later, because they got old, and we ended up throwing some of them away. And she goes, How come you didn't finish the white trash metaphors? And I was like, I don't know. I just didn't want it again. Yep, I don't know why. And I think if I would have said to myself forcefully eat one of these every six hours, I would have gotten like, like, through the second one, I would be like, oh, like, I would have got disappointed with myself. And then by the third one, I would have been like, this is nauseating. Yeah, yeah. That is not a thing that would have happened to me before

Anonymous Female Speaker 44:50
the trip. We, very much, like, both of us, hit that nauseating point when we're eating and it's just like, you know you're eating and you're enjoying your meal. And it can even be a healthy meal, right? You're enjoying. Your meal, and then just all of the sudden we hit a wall, and we're like, I can swallow this bite, but I cannot put anything else in my mouth. Yes, you know, it's, I love it when we you know, like, it feels good to hit that point and get full, you know, and recognize that, okay, I've had enough now, you

Scott Benner 45:16
know. And for people who would say like, oh, it's ruining food for you, it is not like food's not being ruined for me. I just it's not, yeah, I'm just not eating an amount that, like, I just don't need. And it there, it bears out in body size, because I'm obviously taking in plenty of calories. Like, I'm not, well, I'm not walking around here, like, going, like, Oh God, I can't hold myself up. I'm taking in the amount of calories my body needs, but

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:39
I'm taking in healthier calories now too. Like, I've never been a foodie. I've always had a sweet tooth, but that sweet tooth is much smaller now, and I need much less. You know, it might have taken four Oreos to satisfy me before, but now I'm good after, like, one or two. Yeah, so I'm putting more healthy things in my mouth and less junk. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:58
it's a lot about how you want to think of it too. Like, I've heard people say, like, it ruined ice cream for me, and I'm like, You're 30 pounds lighter. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you're listening like, I'd prefer to have 30 pounds and need ice cream.

Anonymous Female Speaker 46:09
I mean, there are some things that I used to really enjoy that I just don't enjoy anymore because it nauseates me, but I still don't look at it as ruining that particular food item or treat. You know, I look at it as you know, it's really nice to not crave that all the time.

Scott Benner 46:30
It's nice to not be controlled by something is heavy. It's

Anonymous Female Speaker 46:32
nice to not have to have the willpower to say no to it, because it's just not appealing to me anymore. You know, it's not a fight that I have to fight anymore, which is nice. I cannot say the same thing about my daughter. She still gleefully enjoys absolutely everything, and still has to have some willpower when it comes to sweet things. Because, like I said, it's it's lessened her appetite, but she still has a very healthy appetite where we still have to say, okay, that's probably enough, or you probably don't need to go back for a second helping of that, you know, oh,

Scott Benner 47:07
she's young and she's growing still, yeah, all that. I mean,

Anonymous Female Speaker 47:11
at 17, yeah, young and growing and and a lot of it is social for her too. You know, it's when she gets together with her friends, they go out for pizza, you know, like, it's what they do at this age. And so I try not to harp on it too much. I'm just crossing my fingers when she, you know, moves away to college and is eating in the dining hall that it doesn't all just go to heck. But

Scott Benner 47:32
I'm worried. I mean, listen, I have no, no business being worried for your child. But like, I'm worried for because, like, I think, I think, God, what if it's her sophomore year? Yeah, all of a sudden she just needs the insulin again. You know? Oh,

Anonymous Female Speaker 47:47
yeah. That's that's definitely something that that I think about, and that's something that she's thought about too, because we had that conversation recently of like, what if I get to college and I get all settled and everything, and then all of the sudden my blood sugars just go off the rails. Yeah, and that's where we have the honest conversation of like, well, that's when you call me, and that's when you call the Endo, because we have our lovely concierge indo, you know, who's there at the drop of a hat for whatever we need. You know, we just, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. And I don't even say if we get to it, because I feel like that holds out hope that we might not ever. I tend to be like, you know, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, and then, if we never get there, we're pleasantly surprised, right? Like my typical optimism is living in the pessimistic side right now.

Scott Benner 48:33
Well, I, well, I remember interviewing that the gentleman that had this happen to him, right? He was like, type one for like, six years, but he was clearly Lada, but then he was also had a weight issue. So the doctor threw him on the med for weight, and then his insulin needs went, like, completely away. And I remember trying to say to him, it's not gonna last forever. And I felt like, if I'm remembering it correctly, because it's my takeaway from it, that he was sort of like, well, it might. And I thought, I guess maybe, but like, Yeah, I think you're just on a very slow, lot of progression. I mean, nobody knows, right? Who knows? Like, we're just guessing based on other conversations we've had with people. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 49:10
nobody knows. I mean, I know that there's been that one hell of I want to call it a trial, because it was like 10 people right that I found early on, when we were early in this process, that you know, followed these, these adults for a year, and after a year, you know, six or seven of them were still not on any insulin at all, after previously being on insulin. And so, like, I feel like there's hope for it to last a decent length of time, but past that, I feel like it's nobody knows, right? So it's, it's which way do you care to prepare yourself, right? Do you want to live in the glass half full, you know, like this is going to last for forever? Or do you live in the glass half empty, and then are pleasantly surprised? If it lasts,

Scott Benner 49:55
yeah, longer than you think it will just I, for me, I would just take as much of it as I. Got, yeah, exactly

Anonymous Female Speaker 50:01
like we're loving every minute of it, but are fully prepared, you know, with an action plan of, like, if we start to see, you know, this, right? Or if the A, 1c, hits this number, we'll re evaluate and see what we need to do differently. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I feel like it's honeymoon, right? Like, for folks that that experience the honeymoon, you know, think back to that timeframe of, you know, one day you needed virtually no insulin, and the next day you needed more, right? And that it was this roller coaster, or however long it lasted. I kind of feel like that's what this is, to a certain extent, right? Like it's just we're riding the roller coaster, and some days we have very little need, and some days we have a little bit more. We clearly don't have full need, right, of full insulin support. And so that's the way I'm choosing to look at it, is this is a honeymoon. It's going to end at some point, but I will continue to be thankful for every day that we get in our current reality, just

Scott Benner 51:03
not a honeymoon with, like, drastic, like, Yeah, well, I don't

Anonymous Female Speaker 51:06
know. Like, I feel like it was pretty drastic, having to go from one unit to four, if you think about it, like, that's a huge increase.

Scott Benner 51:13
I meant, like, the big meal spikes that you don't know if you should Bolus for or not, like, that kind of stuff, although you still said, like, you know, I can give her a unit, it's too much, or I can give her a, you know, it's too little, but right, you know, I'm saying, like, people look up during a honeymoon and, like, everything's fine, and then, you know, for four days they their blood sugars are 300 and they get the nerve up the Bolus for it. Then all of a sudden, the pancreas comes back in. Oh, don't worry, it's lows, yeah. Now you're putting in all the insulin,

Anonymous Female Speaker 51:39
yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely not drastic, but that's just the way that I'm choosing to look at it again. Like, definitely thankful that we had this happy accident and discovered, you know, that the GLP did this for her, and happy that it's still working for her. But really, you know, happy that she's healthy from a weight perspective, from a cholesterol perspective, like all the things, like, happy that she's healthy, happy that she's getting this, like, mental break during a time where she has all of these extra stressors, right? Of like driving and being comfortable driving alone, and then driving far distances alone, and then, you know, expanding her horizons and able to think about, you know, going away to school versus staying local for for school. You know, I'm happy that all of the stars aligned as they did when they did. For her sake.

Scott Benner 52:29
Don't let me put words in your mouth, okay, but I have a que. It really is a question. I just, I feel like people are gonna be like, you talk to her privately. You know this already, this is not a thing. I know. It's I'm wondering out loud, do you think if she doesn't see the GLP, if it never comes into her life, is she a severely overweight kid right now? Right now? No, I know. Without the GLP, if the GOP didn't show up, do you think she'd be an overweight person right now? She

Anonymous Female Speaker 52:54
was, I mean, she she, she met the BMI criteria to be prescribed to the GLP, right when she started it, and that number grew, you know, consistently. She was not plateaued by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, you know, to all the naysayers, it wasn't because we ate crap, you know, we kept food journals. We worked with nutritionist, we worked with the Endo. Didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. The one thing that we were not great at was exercise. But she was 13, you know,

Scott Benner 53:30
yeah, I mean, she's still moving around a

Anonymous Female Speaker 53:32
little. Nature is good at going to the gym. Could we have done better in that regard, absolutely. But would it have changed anything I, in my heart of hearts, really think it would

Scott Benner 53:42
not have, yeah, you're just, you're being generous. Right now, prior to

Anonymous Female Speaker 53:46
diagnosis, we both did weightlifting. We started weightlifting when she was eight, and found a gym that would train us together. And she was still a little chunk right at that point, and that was, you know, like we were weight lifting with the goal of doing a weight lifting competition, you know? So it wasn't we were just going to the gym and picking up this and picking up that, like, yeah, like we were doing deadlifts, and the kid at eight years old was dead lifting 140 pounds. Even if we'd have gotten to the gym every day, yeah, I don't think it would have addressed the issue, which I fully believe was the insulin resistance,

Scott Benner 54:24
right? Four years later, at 17, without the GLP, she would have been shockingly overweight. Like, correct? Yeah, I would have seen her and thought like, Oh, what happened to that kid? Like, that kind of thing, right? Yeah. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 54:35
like that. That would have been the kid that, you know, I hate to admit this, but we all do it, right? You look at them from a distance and you judge the parent, yeah.

Scott Benner 54:45
Then you're trying to give the background. Of the background is chicken, green beans, weight lifting, right? We weren't running 20 miles a week, but like, if you're 13 and you've got to be a CrossFit person, just not to be overweight, something, something's not right? I just want. People to, like, think of it that

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:01
way, like, right then we weren't doing the McDonald's every day or the pizza every day. Yeah, you know, we were eating healthy ish. I don't want to come across like we were, like, eating completely clean, high protein, no carbs, because that is far from the truth. But we were eating healthy. Ish, what we were eating should not have put that kind of weight on either one of us. You ate

Scott Benner 55:25
and acted in a way that made her weight surprising. Correct? She shouldn't have been where she was for what she was doing. And that's the thing. Like, I want people to hear and I don't think of it as like a visual thing. Like, I'm not coming from a like, a place of like, what people do or don't find visually appealing. I don't care about that. I'm talking about, like, a healthy amount of weight on your body or not so. And I bring it up because, for people who are listening to this right now who are like, Yeah, you know what? I don't actually eat that poorly, and I do move around a lot. Why is it I weigh 100 pounds more than I should? Like, I'm gonna tell you, it's because, like, there's some setting in your body that's not working quite right, and it sucks to then blame that person for their entire life, or blame their parent, like, Oh, what did you feed that kid, like that kind of crap, when this is just the metabolic misfire, right? Somewhere along the line, right? And also, by the way, isn't it interesting that we can in one side of our mouth have a conversation about all this processed food, what Agra is doing to us all. And like, did you know that, like, a cigarette company owns a food company and like, they're trying to kill you? Like, if that's true, then how come, once it happens to people, we go, Hey, what'd you do to screw this up? Like, wait, what like did you not just tell me all the food I have to eat is killing me? Like, here's what it looks like, you

Anonymous Female Speaker 56:45
know? And the thing too is, like, eating healthy is expensive, you know? And it's, I'm a single parent, right? So, single parent, single parent income. I have a very good job. Don't get me wrong, I get paid very well. We ought to be able to prioritize healthy food, right in our budget. But that's not the case for everybody. You know if, if all you can put on your table is the processed food, people are not going to just not eat. Yeah, what am I going to do? Starve? Right? I think that it's so unfair that that is the reality for so many people in and I hold out hope that we can pivot right and get rid of some of these ingredients that are, you know, causing all of these problems for folks, or lower prices on the healthy stuff. Like, there's got to be a way, right? There's got to be a way to get healthy food in front of people that doesn't cause them to, you know, not be able to pay the electric bill. Yeah, you know that that should not be a decision that anybody has to make, but I fully recognize that that is not the world that we live in, and that that is very much a decision that people have to make. And I hold no judgment right against that, you know, because if you see a kid that is not nourished in the way that you think they should be, you have to understand that there is more than likely, so much more to that story than what you see on the surface. And I just think that that's unfortunate, and I hate it, and it breaks my heart.

Scott Benner 58:15
I feel the same like when people are yelling about personal responsibility, like I'm not unfeeling of the idea that you're in control of your ID, your decisions, like, that's fine, but like you're saying, there's a lot of other implications that lead to the decisions you end up making, right? And then I just find it odd to hear from people you know, the same person who would tell you, like, the government's taking all my money through taxes. Like, you know, like they seem to see the pitfalls of other parts of their life, but like when it comes to this, they don't see the like, I'm broke, or I didn't understand what good health was, or I didn't understand what good eating was, and I got caught in a cycle. And you know, this happened to me, or guess what? I eat fine, but I have a metabolic issue and and it still happens to me, like, I don't understand the judgment part of it, right? I swear to you, the thing that confuses me most about glps is that, I mean, I have a little more, longer of a window. I'm older, right? So I'm 53 I lived through a time when, for a decade, people in media would talk about like, you know, this, you know, weights an issue. It would just be wonderful if modern medicine could figure this out. People just begged for that for

Unknown Speaker 59:25
years. Now, Modern medicine

Scott Benner 59:26
has figured it out. And everybody's like, lazy, mad about Yeah, I'm like, Oh, my God, you people are fickle.

Anonymous Female Speaker 59:32
And the piece that is important to remember too is like, weight is not the only thing, right, right? When you are overweight, you have so many other comorbidities that come along with that, and so it shouldn't matter why I'm the way that I am. What should matter is doing what I need to do to get healthy, because that then impacts heart health, you know, stroke risk, all of the other things. That kind of walk hand in hand with that weight. It's not all about the weight, and that's where I've tried to keep it with my teenager. Is, you know, it's not just the weight, it's health, like we need to be healthy, right? Whatever you need to do to get there. It shouldn't matter. All that should matter is that you get there.

Scott Benner 1:00:20
I don't care how you have to get to happy today. Live a long time. Whatever that is, do that, if it's right. And for some of you, it will be chicken and green beans and sit ups and it's awesome, like, right? But again, you don't I, you know this person's not saying their name because of people who will be like, nasty to her, right? You can hear it like it's one of my questions for you, like you have such a great attitude. Like, I always wonder that about you, like you're a very upbeat person. You're hearing from a person who's being honest with you. They're telling you what happened. They're telling you, look, I didn't eat great, but we ate really well. We tried really hard. We were keeping food journals. We were doing the thing my daughter was still gaining weight constantly. She was on her way to something unhealthy. Er, and what do you care how we got back to it like she's happy and she's healthy and she's on her way? And why would you care if that involves a pill or an injection or and in my mind, it's you're so willing to point at like, red dye number this and say, look, it's killing us. It's okay to agree that when something's added to our diet, that it could be bad for us, but if we can add something to it, that would be good for us, and it's an unnaturally added thing, like, suddenly that's wrong. I don't know where that comes from,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:01:33
and I fully recognize that there are people out there who have terrible, horrible side effects. Yeah, no certain medications, right? And I am so, so, so sorry that that happened to those people. And I promise that if any point in time, myself or my kiddo start having terrible, horrible side

Scott Benner 1:01:54
effects, you come back and tell somebody Yeah, and you would tell somebody to know,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:01:59
like, we figure it out, I it's not one of those things where I'm going to be a lot of people see it as reckless to put these medications into their bodies. And this is not something that I'm even though I am so so so happy with how we are doing with them and how we feel if at any point the tides turn, going to keep, you know, injecting it right? Like I if we're ever given a reason that we need to quit, we figure it out, right? Yeah, I just want to, don't want to minimize the experiences of other people, right? And, and I it sucks that that happened to people thyroid medication, there's one that I have a really crappy reaction to and one that I don't right. And so I'm gonna take the one that works well for me, not the one that I have the crappy reaction to, and the one that I have the crappy reaction to is the one that, like 99% of all the other people take, just fine, you know? And so not every kid, every medication is meant for every person, so I want to acknowledge that too, you know it. And so it's not because a lot of people will come after this and be like, Oh, you're being reckless, you're endangering. You're both of your child, you know? I appreciate your perspective, and I appreciate your opinion, and I appreciate whatever your experiences have been. I'm just sharing ours, right, you know. And if you haven't figured it out, I'm extremely type A and I'm paying very close attention to everything. And so is our doctor, you know. It's not a negligent, you know, throwing caution to the wind type of thing.

Scott Benner 1:03:36
I would tell you the same thing. I also do feel very badly for anybody who you know has heard about any medication and then tried it and had a not a good experience, but a bad experience like that. Sucks that it didn't work for everybody. It really does. Doesn't mean it's not working for you. And I would also say, slightly provocatively, don't tell me I'm being reckless with your vape in one hand and a Dr Pepper in the other hand, because that happens too. Like sometimes I see the people pushing back, and I'm like, You're not exactly the bastion of health over here. See, it almost feels like a political stance to me. This is what I believe, that if you just work out and do a sit up, this will be okay. Sure, I'm overweight too, but it's because I don't do a sit up, and you don't get to cheat your way to the front of the line. Like that whole like that part of the conversation confuses the hell out of me. The rest of it, I understand that part gets me. I don't understand how people have like reactions like that, which I've seen over and over again, and I've seen to my face. I've heard on the podcast, I've heard I've seen it online, like, that idea of like, you cheated, and like, I'm like, oh God. Like, I mean, I'm just trying to stay alive over here,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:04:40
right? See it as a cheat, whatever. But like before, I quote, unquote, cheated. I worked my ass off.

Scott Benner 1:04:46
I tried a lot of things.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:04:50
If you see me indulging in, you know, a slice of chocolate cake, or you don't see me in the gym five days a week, you know, I did. My time. Hey, listen, I

Scott Benner 1:05:02
want to say the pet of four. I was an inch across then an inch high. It was first, right,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:05:06
right? Well, like and we went on our little all inclusive vacation. And you know, the portions that they serve you at those places are tiny, right? Because you can have as much as you want. You might order a piece of cheesecake. It. It's like the teeniest, slenderest piece of cheesecake that could ever possibly serve without it just completely breaking. And I would eat, like, four bites of it.

Scott Benner 1:05:25
We definitely save money sometimes at restaurants, you know, the end of the meal, some they're like, Do you want a dessert? And we're like, we have to come up with one that we can all agree on, because, right, everyone's going to just stick a fork in it for a minute.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:05:38
We definitely save money at restaurants, because we split meals. Now, you know, no no longer ordering, you know, two separate meals. It's we order one and still have some left when we're done. I

Scott Benner 1:05:47
swear to you. Martin and I went out the other day, and I was like, What are you getting? And she said, what she's getting. I was like, I was gonna get that. And she goes, Why don't we just get one and

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:05:55
split it? I was like, that's a good idea. Or, like, kids meals. I'm like, they laughed at me at the vacation place because, like, I was always and forever ordering off the kids menu. Because a I like plain food. I'm not an adventurous eater, but I also know I'm not going to eat very much. And so I would order the kids meal, you know, and they'll, they'll serve a steak and potatoes on the kids meal. And so I would order the kids steak and baked potato and eat, like, you know, three quarters of it and be perfectly content.

Scott Benner 1:06:22
All right. Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you would want people to know about? I don't

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:26
think so. I mean, it's been an interesting journey. I don't know where it will go next, but I know I'm loving living in this moment. You know? I love that my teenager is off with friends at a theme park today, and her blood sugar is currently 85 and I know she's had lots of wonderful treats because she loves the treats. And it's 8 million degrees outside, and the heat's not kicking her butt, and I haven't gotten a Dexcom alarm in, you know, a couple of weeks, awesome, and so I'm loving it. I hope that more people have the opportunity to try this, you know, and see what it can do for them. But the same disclaimer that I left at the end of of the first episode, please don't just go get a GLP from some Med Spa somewhere without knowing how insulin works. How insulin works for you, and fully prepared to pivot and make adjustments quickly, yeah. Because when we very first started this journey, things changed, and things changed fast on a large scale, you know, the the adjustments that we made were not reducing, weakening our carb factor by one, you know, 25 and 30% cuts of basal every two days. You know, like ridiculously fast and so please don't willy nilly, get your hands on a GLP one from somewhere and jump in without being fully prepared and without having resources to help you along the journey. If

Scott Benner 1:08:01
you are one of those people who's having like, significant insulin resistance, you don't realize it. And this GLP jumps in and starts working right away. The amount of insulin you're using could be significantly too much. Yes, make yourself low really easily. I'll have

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:15
to go back and listen to the episode to remember exactly, but I feel like it was like within the first month, we were using half the amount of insulin, and it was quick, and it was, it was scary, and I, I'm type A, I know what I need to do. I have my plans. I have my supplies. I'm constantly have, you know, blood sugar numbers up somewhere visible at all times. And I even got rattled. You know, I'm not saying I'm the end all be, all of diabetes management as far from from the case, but, like, I was 100% involved and invested in my daughter's diabetes management pre GLP one, yeah, and it still rattled me. And so I just, I just want to say that same disclaimer of like, you know, please, if you want to do this and you want to try this, please make sure you have your squad with you, right? Make sure you have somebody to walk the journey with you. Don't just jump in blindly and not know. You know if you're not comfortable making changes to your insulin dosages, do not take a GLP one, unless you have a doctor or someone that's going to hold your hand through the journey, right? Like know that about yourself before you jump in. You are going

Scott Benner 1:09:19
to have to be comfortable making those adjustments and making them pretty quickly. Pretty quickly. So, yeah,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:09:23
yeah. So that's that's just what I want to leave with people. And I know I said the same thing the last time, but I don't want, I want folks to get excited about the possibilities, but I don't want you to get so excited that you don't think it through fully before you jump in.

Scott Benner 1:09:36
Right? I would also tell you, like be prepared to be one of the people who has type one and takes it and goes, this did not change anything for me, right? Like it could, very well could be the case. And like I said, I think it has more to do with what you're going to see become more prevalent over time, which is you're going to start seeing more and more people getting a dual diagnosis of like insulin resistant type two and. In type one. And if that doesn't make sense, you should go find the episode with Dr Hamdi and listen to him describe it. But he says that the way we diagnose diabetes is going to change quickly, and he is one of the people in the medical profession who has a say about how things like that happen. So right, you're definitely going to see more and more of it coming up. So okay, well,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:10:21
thank you very much. The last note I want to leave with people, because you know me, and I'm the eternal optimist, is, if you're listening to this, you are doing a good job. You are investing in your health, or your child's health or someone that you care about. Keep doing that. There are going to be hard days, but there are going to be good days, so don't give up, and be sure to let us know how we can help.

Scott Benner 1:10:43
Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Have a community, be a part of a community. And I think the same thing like, no matter what your outcomes are, it's your effort and your interest. I think that is the most important. I end up saying that to a lot of people when I speak to them privately and they're scared or it's new, and I say, No, you're going to be okay. And they want to know how you how can you how can you tell and I said, Well, you're asking the right questions. You're interested and you're motivated to do something about it that, generally speaking, is what it takes to get there,

Speaker 1 1:11:10
correct? So keep up the hard work. We're all here rooting for you. Cool.

Scott Benner 1:11:13
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yep, bye. You

the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem Moby, with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com, the conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us. Med, us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, 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. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group Juicebox 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, wrong wayrecording.com.

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