#1752 Diabetes Spectrum - Part 1

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Scott talks with Tricia, a longtime healthcare administrator, about missed autoimmune warning signs, “normal” labs masking LADA, and how a system built on checkboxes can fail people who need critical thinking.

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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 (0:0) Here we are back together again, friends, for another episode of the Juice Box podcast.

Tricia (0:16) Testing. (0:16) Testing. (0:17) Testing.

Scott Benner (0:19) Was Tricia, and she is today's guest. (0:21) And this is part one of a two part episode. (0:23) The next one's coming right away tomorrow. (0:25) Go check it out when you're done with this one. (0:28) Nothing you hear on the Juice Box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise.

Scott Benner (0:33) Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. (0:38) If you'd like to hear about diabetes management in easy to take in bits, check out the small sips. (0:45) That's the series on the Juice Box podcast that listeners are talking about like it's a cheat code. (0:50) These are perfect little bursts of clarity, one person said. (0:53) I finally understood things I've heard a 100 times.

Scott Benner (0:56) Short, simple, and somehow exactly what I needed. (0:59) People say small sips feels like someone pulling up a chair, sliding a cup across the table, and giving you one clean idea at a time. (1:07) Nothing overwhelming, no fire hose of information, just steady helpful nudges that actually stick. (1:13) People listen in their car, on walks, or rather actually bolusing anytime that they need a quick shot of perspective. (1:20) And the reviews, they all say the same thing.

Scott Benner (1:23) Small sips makes diabetes make sense. (1:26) Search for the Juice Box podcast, small sips, wherever you get audio. (1:31) The show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the Eversense three sixty five. (1:36) The Eversense three sixty five has exceptional accuracy over one year and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. (1:44) Eversensecgm.com/juicebox.

Scott Benner (1:48) US Med is sponsoring this episode of the juice box podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from US Med for years. (1:55) You can as well. (1:57) Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514. (2:04) Use the link or the number, get your free benefits check, and get started today with US Med. (2:10) Today's episode is sponsored by the Tandem Mobi system with Control IQ Plus technology.

Scott Benner (2:16) If you are looking for the only system with auto bolus, multiple wear options, and full control from your personal iPhone, you're looking for Tandem's newest pump and algorithm. (2:26) Use my link to support the podcast, tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox. (2:31) Check it out.

Tricia (2:32) It's Tricia, and I'm a 51 year old mom, former health care administrator, currently in, getting a master's in professional counseling.

Scott Benner (2:45) You're a former health care administrator. (2:48) What does that mean? (2:49) What did you do?

Tricia (2:50) I worked for a very large health care system in New York City. (2:58) My last I did many I wore many different hats working for chief executive, like, chief executive nurse as a project manager, you know, sort of chief of staff positions. (3:11) And then the last position I had, ironically, in 2020 was working for workforce or import a lot of places call employee health. (3:25) And so we really were supporting the organization in getting n 95 masks, procedures for calling out of work, getting the vaccine, declining the vaccine. (3:38) So that was a large part of my former life.

Scott Benner (3:41) For a while. (3:42) Would you consider what you did more of the business money side or the medical side?

Tricia (3:49) I did everything. (3:51) So I like you know, you just I'm 51. (3:55) You have a long career. (3:56) So for a while, I worked in supporting operation for one one of the academic medical centers. (4:05) So in that regard, managing budget, you know, helping make sure people get, across the different departments at the lab, emergency department, can fund a new MRI machine, things like that.

Scott Benner (4:19) Mhmm. (4:20) Can you give me a couple of, like, I don't know, like, high level takeaways what it's like for a system to be patient centric health related and basically a retail business at the same time? (4:37) Like, what what what are some of the oddities that come when you mix those two things together?

Tricia (4:42) Well, I think what I saw was big changes in the environment because I started working there in 2007. (4:51) Before that, I had been in corporate working for insurance companies. (4:57) Mhmm. (4:57) Very different. (4:58) And when I first started working there, they were only touting that they were patient centric.

Tricia (5:07) And as time went on, I really saw the organization realize that if we don't treat our employees well, that's gonna trickle down to the patient. (5:18) Okay. (5:19) But then at the same time, you know, I went through, like many organizations, there were times when we had to cut staffing. (5:32) You know, we were very impacted with being over the budget. (5:40) And so it was also you know, there were times that you would realize this is the business, and we're letting go, you know, Jane Doe in department x even though she's really great with patient care, and she's been here for twenty years.

Tricia (5:57) So you see those, you know, ebbs flows, and you see also just a lot of bureaucracy and, you know, that the you know, when you're working with individuals in in a c suite, just really how competitive and, you know, stressful their jobs can be.

Scott Benner (6:18) Mhmm. (6:19) Is a hospital more, a, a doctor's office that has to collect a payment or, b, a business that's selling health care?

Tricia (6:30) I'd go with more the latter, but I do have to say that going through many different leaders, I did have one leader who really always emphasized the patient. (6:45) I mean, really Mhmm. (6:47) Genuinely, earnestly, you know, just, you know, it just really permeated through the organization.

Scott Benner (6:58) And that's what was that people's preference, do you think? (7:02) Like, do you think that when it went more like that, the staff was happier?

Tricia (7:06) Yes. (7:06) Because I think, like I said, I saw I started in the beginning where it was all about patients first, and it was like, who cares about you, the employee? (7:16) Mhmm. (7:16) And when you're when your leader cares about the patient, it's generally also gonna be someone who cares about you. (7:26) So it really changed the whole environment.

Tricia (7:31) It's it's contagious.

Scott Benner (7:33) Have you ever lived through an iteration where really it was it it's about the widget? (7:38) Like, the the the health care is just a widget, and we're just here to, like, put them in people's hands as fast as we can so we can send them a bill for it?

Tricia (7:47) No. (7:47) I think I think what I saw more is, especially when I worked for corporate nursing, is just how bogged down you can get in meeting regulatory requirements.

Scott Benner (8:01) Okay.

Tricia (8:01) So, you know, that you're you're taking all of the, you know, data points about, like, pressure ulcers and, you know, smoking cessation and and how you chart in the MRI, and it just gets so bogged down with you know, the Joint Commission can show up. (8:22) The Department of Health can show up at any time. (8:24) And I was in the command center for which we called which is basically you're helping the organization as the surveyors are going, you know

Scott Benner (8:35) Yeah.

Tricia (8:35) Choosing comb for the organization. (8:37) So I think that can get in the way of, patient care is that you're trying to be sold to the letter of those regulations.

Scott Benner (8:45) Mhmm. (8:46) And then how much of the health care people receive is dictated by their by insurance?

Tricia (8:54) You know what? (8:55) I did not work in revenue cycle, but, you know, it was just an absolutely huge focus of the organization.

Scott Benner (9:07) What would happen I mean, is there a world that you can imagine where it could just go back to, like, the way it was? (9:14) Or is it just too is it all too intertwined at this point? (9:19) And do you I

Tricia (9:21) don't mean, right now, it's very very intertwined. (9:24) And even if I tell my own story, I I think one of the reasons I'm sure that contributed is just the insurance model of why I was not diagnosed with type one fully progressing for over sixteen years.

Scott Benner (9:42) Okay. (9:42) Oh, you had you had Lada and what were you being told it was type two? (9:47) No. (9:48) No. (9:48) What happened

Tricia (9:49) to not

Scott Benner (9:50) Go ahead. (9:50) Tell me. (9:50) My story start at the

Tricia (9:51) beginning. (9:52) Story is unbelievable.

Scott Benner (9:54) Let's find out.

Tricia (9:56) I got Hashimoto's at age six. (10:00) I saw an endocrinologist. (10:02) My numbers you know? (10:04) So I was born in 1974.

Scott Benner (10:07) Mhmm.

Tricia (10:07) So, you know, when I'm in grammar school, you know, they're thinking, okay. (10:14) We just treat you with some and off you go. (10:21) What happened is my number started to look better. (10:25) The doctor the endocrinologist I saw said, okay. (10:29) She doesn't have to take Synthroid anymore.

Tricia (10:31) I think I was about 11. (10:33) My parents were moving from a borough of New York to an another suburb in the Tristate area.

Scott Benner (10:44) Mhmm.

Tricia (10:44) And so my he said, you can just you can take her, you know, to the primary her primary care doctor, and then my body never functions properly.

Scott Benner (10:57) You've probably heard me talk about US Med and how simple it is to reorder with US Med using their email system. (11:03) But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. (11:08) They don't just randomly call you. (11:09) But I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email because I don't trust myself, a 100%. (11:15) So one time I didn't respond to the email and the phone rings at the house.

Scott Benner (11:20) It's like, ring, you know how it works. (11:21) And I picked it up. (11:22) I was like, hello? (11:23) And it was just the recording. (11:24) Was like, US med.

Scott Benner (11:25) Doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. (11:27) It said, hey, you're, I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, hey, your order's ready. (11:32) You want us to send it? (11:33) Push this button if you want us to send it. (11:35) Or if you'd like to wait, I think it it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks or push this button for that.

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Tricia (13:21) Functioned properly. (13:23) I had difficulty through puberty gaining weight. (13:30) I would have bouts of constipation. (13:33) My menstrual cycles were extremely irregular and then disappearing, sometimes for eight months. (13:42) I don't you know, I was seeing a primary care doctor.

Tricia (13:46) My own mother was a type one diabetic without much education. (13:52) She herself, at that point when I was a teenager, was going through a lot of high highs, a lot of low lows, a lot of emergency situation. (14:02) I actually, as a teenager, many times had to call 911. (14:06) I saw her turn purple. (14:08) I saw her convulse and start to bite her tongue off.

Tricia (14:11) So here, I have this craziness in my own home, and I march off and my issues keep growing

Scott Benner (14:19) Yeah.

Tricia (14:20) With my menstrual cycle, etcetera. (14:22) So then long story short, around 2011, I start to go to my doctor because I say, hey. (14:32) Starting to get really bad digestive issues.

Scott Benner (14:35) Wait. (14:35) Wait. (14:35) Wait. (14:35) 2011 sounds like twenty four years after they took you off Synthroid. (14:39) Yeah.

Scott Benner (14:39) Okay. (14:40) So

Tricia (14:40) So I go I go off Synthroid and then

Scott Benner (14:43) Have all these problems wait. (14:46) Yeah. (14:46) Hold on. (14:46) Tricia, you go off Synthroid. (14:48) You have all these problems that are easily attributable to not being medicated for your thyroid, and no one goes, hey.

Scott Benner (14:54) We should probably put her back on that Synthroid?

Tricia (14:56) Well, this is what I I think. (14:58) My my pair my mom got diabetes type one when she was 12. (15:06) And think about it. (15:07) It was 1960.

Scott Benner (15:08) Mhmm.

Tricia (15:09) She had very uneducated parents. (15:11) Her mother was, like, a first generation immigrant, and my mother had that mentality. (15:18) So my mother took me to the primary care, didn't ask questions about me, didn't ask questions about myself, except she just said she's thin. (15:27) And I remember the primary was like, is your fan some of your family thin? (15:30) And she said, yes.

Tricia (15:32) And so

Scott Benner (15:32) I was the end of it?

Tricia (15:33) What I yeah. (15:35) What I realized now is, like, we can't look at the care through the lens of now. (15:43) And what happened to me was a perfect storm of an and it shows the impact of type one on the family if there isn't education. (15:54) How? (15:55) So my because my mother would only say this.

Tricia (15:59) You don't have to worry about this. (16:00) You'll never get it. (16:02) You you don't have to worry about this. (16:04) The doctor told us the primary care could just handle you. (16:07) I don't think the primary care literally meant if she starts to have all these issues, you shouldn't bring her back to an endocrinologist.

Scott Benner (16:16) I think Trisha, it it occurs to me that it is so simple that, like I don't know. (16:21) If we threw you in the pool and you started to sink, and we said, oh, no. (16:25) Look. (16:25) She's sinking. (16:26) And someone said, here, give her a piece of Styrofoam to hold on to.

Scott Benner (16:29) And you held on to the Styrofoam, and you didn't sink anymore. (16:31) And then a few years later, they were like, oh, look. (16:33) She's been bobbing around in the pool for a couple of years. (16:35) She's doing good. (16:36) I don't think she needs the Styrofoam anymore.

Scott Benner (16:38) We took it from her, and then you sank again. (16:40) Is the next thought not give her the Styrofoam back?

Tricia (16:45) Well, this is kind of what I'm thinking. (16:46) Right? (16:47) I move. (16:48) I'm seeing new primary care doctors. (16:51) I don't get it.

Tricia (16:52) I'm showing and I still this was then, but I still see elements of it in the health care system.

Scott Benner (17:00) Tell me. (17:01) Tell me. (17:01) Because it's so it's fascinating to me because there had to have been a chart that said you were on Synthroid and then you weren't. (17:06) Somebody had to have read that at some point.

Tricia (17:09) Well, that chart would have been, New York, and it wouldn't have been

Scott Benner (17:15) Oh, it

Tricia (17:15) wouldn't new place I moved.

Scott Benner (17:16) It wouldn't have went with you unless your mom went

Tricia (17:19) Because it was pay it was paper charts. (17:21) So my mom I think the only thing my mom ever did my mom never read about Hashimoto's. (17:27) I remember we had a you know, we're in the information age, so we can get all of this. (17:31) But you have to think, we had a medical book in our house.

Scott Benner (17:34) Okay.

Tricia (17:34) My mom would look at it if we had bronchitis. (17:37) She didn't look up Hashimoto's. (17:38) Mhmm. (17:39) She didn't right? (17:41) Because one of the things I even found in the eighties books was it it can cause irregular menstrual

Speaker 3 (17:49) cycles. (17:49) Right. (17:50) Right.

Tricia (17:50) And, you know, constipation. (17:52) So I'm looking and I'm thinking to myself, oh my god. (17:56) I knew I was different than my friend. (17:58) I was and then the problems are getting worse in my twenties. (18:03) And I'm calling my mother and I'm saying, okay.

Tricia (18:06) Like and she would say things like, I love this. (18:09) That's I guess that's just the way we are. (18:12) I love that. (18:12) That's like a great a a great a great a great old school

Scott Benner (18:18) What what's what's your mind mom's background? (18:20) Is she Italian?

Tricia (18:21) Irish. (18:23) Her mother was first generation Irishman.

Scott Benner (18:26) That's how we are.

Tricia (18:28) Right? (18:28) Yeah. (18:29) So, like, I'm hemorrhaging. (18:31) I'm severely constipated. (18:34) Like, that that's the way we are.

Tricia (18:37) So

Scott Benner (18:37) Mom, the whole the whole where stuff's supposed to come out of, nothing's coming out of it, and the other one's doing the opposite. (18:43) I'm in a lot of trouble here, I'm bleeding a lot. (18:45) And she goes Yeah. (18:46) That's just how we are. (18:47) You were thin when you were little.

Tricia (18:49) No. (18:50) That was the whole

Scott Benner (18:50) thing. (18:51) Right?

Tricia (18:51) And the whole the whole thing, Scott, is that, like, I would have what I realized now is I was having some type of flares. (18:59) Okay. (19:00) Because then maybe the symptoms could get better for six months, and they the solution in the nineties for women, and we're really getting strong women now, is, like, okay. (19:14) Don't just throw me on the birth control pill. (19:16) Why did my cycle disappear when I'm 17 years old for eight months?

Tricia (19:20) My menstrual cycle just that's not normal. (19:23) And then it happened when I was in high school. (19:26) They called me home for I had to go home from college to the doc to the OBGYN, and they knew my cycle had disappeared for eight months when I was 17. (19:37) So they go, oh, we'll just give you a medication, make you ovulate, and then we'll throw you on the birth control pill. (19:43) So it was like no investigation of like, my your my body's screaming, like, hey.

Tricia (19:48) I don't function right.

Scott Benner (19:49) Yeah.

Tricia (19:49) And there's no prevention. (19:52) No no root cause analysis. (19:54) And then I fast forward to my thirties, and I start to get first sign, which I didn't realize now, is I suddenly, I always had beautiful skin. (20:08) I started to get cystic acne when I was about 31 or 32.

Scott Benner (20:14) What what do you And

Tricia (20:15) then the doc oh, go ahead.

Scott Benner (20:16) What do you attribute that to?

Tricia (20:19) And I had a little bit of cystic pimples in my twenties a little bit, so sometimes I wonder so now I know what it is. (20:26) I I'm pretty sure it was, like, a first sign of insulin resistance. (20:33) And then they put me on a drug called, I went to the dermatologist to put me on a drug called spironolactone.

Scott Benner (20:39) Spironolactone. (20:40) Yeah. (20:40) Yeah. (20:41) Yeah. (20:41) Yeah.

Tricia (20:41) Spironolactone. (20:42) That was

Scott Benner (20:42) a big one back then. (20:43) Yeah.

Tricia (20:43) It makes you pee pee. (20:46) By the time I was 33, I'm starting to pee more. (20:49) I think it's the drug. (20:50) I think it's the drug from the because I had a reaction right away to taking it, to peeing more.

Scott Benner (20:56) Mhmm.

Tricia (20:57) So I start to get nocturia. (20:59) Then I'm in grad school. (21:01) I'm working for a chief executive. (21:03) I'm going to NYU at at at night. (21:08) I have a very demanding job.

Tricia (21:11) At first, my job's in New Jersey.

Scott Benner (21:13) Tristan, can I stop you for a second?

Tricia (21:15) Yeah. (21:16) Is

Scott Benner (21:16) your alarm going off somewhere?

Tricia (21:19) Oh, yeah. (21:20) Hold on. (21:20) You can hear that? (21:21) Yeah. (21:21) I'm take gonna get it.

Tricia (21:22) Thanks.

Scott Benner (21:26) Guys, I put a new rock in with one of my geckos. (21:28) He's climbing all over it. (21:29) It's feeling like a good purchase.

Tricia (21:31) So so

Scott Benner (21:33) then What was that alarm for, by the way?

Tricia (21:35) Oh, that's not for anything important.

Scott Benner (21:37) You don't wanna tell me?

Tricia (21:39) For us. (21:40) No. (21:41) For us. (21:41) I usually I take medication, but I I already took it.

Scott Benner (21:44) Okay.

Tricia (21:44) So fast forward before. (21:47) Anyways,

Scott Benner (21:48) spironolactone, peeing a lot, thirties. (21:50) I got you. (21:51) Go ahead.

Tricia (21:51) So, yeah, so I go on spironolactone. (21:54) I start to pee a lot while I'm on it. (21:57) It's controlling my acne, but I noticed I already have I always have heavy menstrual cycles, but now they're off the hook. (22:05) It's like, I went from five or or or, you know, my whole life of being, like, on a scale of, like, one to five, like, being too heavy, maybe, like, five, six. (22:14) Mhmm.

Tricia (22:15) So, like, now I'm, like, an eight. (22:17) I feel like I have the flu every time I get my period. (22:20) So I'm going to the OBGYN. (22:24) I start to get more and more constipated. (22:27) I get married.

Tricia (22:28) I go for fertility treatments. (22:32) They tell me, like, I have polycystic oh, no. (22:35) They told me I had a lot of I don't think at that point I got got diagnosed with PCOS. (22:40) That came later. (22:42) But, so I'm trying to get pregnant.

Tricia (22:46) I'm surveilled all the time. (22:48) They're always taking blood.

Scott Benner (22:49) Mhmm.

Tricia (22:50) Okay? (22:51) Nothing's showing up in terms of my glucose being out of whack, but no one's giving me an a one c. (22:59) My primary never gives me an always a one c in my twenties despite family history. (23:05) My new doctors don't give me an a one c because I'm 45 even though I have family history. (23:14) I go to the primary care back in New Jersey because I'm getting more and more abdominal pain and more constipation.

Tricia (23:23) And I say to him, I'm urinating too much at night. (23:26) I'm like, what could it be? (23:27) I've got all these problem. (23:29) Gynecological. (23:30) You're you're you know?

Tricia (23:32) He goes, I don't know what to tell you. (23:34) He's like, I just go to a woman's doctor about that. (23:38) He treats my mother, who is a type one diabetic who, we can get to this later, only lives for seventy six. (23:47) We lost her last year because she had a kidney pancreas transplant. (23:50) She also was legally blind.

Tricia (23:52) Okay. (23:52) So he's treating her

Scott Benner (23:54) Not well.

Tricia (23:54) But never gives me an

Scott Benner (23:57) And they won't

Tricia (23:58) see you test. (23:58) Yeah. (23:59) Never. (23:59) Yeah. (24:00) And I've been seeing him since my twenties.

Scott Benner (24:02) When you think of a CGM and all the good that it brings in your life, is the first thing you think about, I love that I have to change it all the time? (24:10) I love the warm up period every time I have to change it? (24:13) I love that when I bump into a door frame, sometimes it gets ripped off. (24:16) I love that the adhesive kinda gets mushy sometimes when I sweat and falls off. (24:20) No.

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Tricia (25:03) Hey. (25:04) So then Go ahead.

Scott Benner (25:05) Let me stop you for a second. (25:06) I feel like your voice has gotten farther away. (25:08) Is there a way that we can change? (25:10) Like, is the is your hair covering the headphones, anything like that?

Tricia (25:15) Okay. (25:15) There.

Scott Benner (25:15) Okay. (25:16) Thanks. (25:16) Yeah. (25:16) Keep your hair off the headphones. (25:18) So yeah.

Scott Benner (25:19) So this guy's treat I'm I'm gonna make air quotes around treating your mom. (25:22) He's treating her right into seven horrible complications including blindness and and

Tricia (25:26) Oh, yeah. (25:27) Yeah. (25:27) And she's And a lot of that had started, you know, way before her way before even him, but he didn't I don't know how much he helped.

Scott Benner (25:36) And when you and when you asked him for help, he said, you gotta go find one of those lady doctors.

Tricia (25:41) Yeah. (25:41) And then he said, why are you still coming here? (25:43) You should go in New York. (25:46) And this guy was treating my dad, my brother, and my and my mom. (25:51) Mhmm.

Tricia (25:51) So, you know, I think back in the day, sometimes you really did have that old school family doctor who's like, let me I can keep an eye on this whole family. (26:00) Not him.

Scott Benner (26:01) When you saw your mom, like, struggling, you didn't think, like, is this really the doctor I wanna go to? (26:06) Like, how does that occur to you? (26:07) Because I'm

Tricia (26:08) No. (26:08) We you have to think it's a different time, and we each have her own family culture. (26:14) So my mom's never make not an educated person on type one diabetes, not educated by her parents. (26:22) She said she read a book about type one when she was younger in the library, got scared because it told her in the nineteen sixties that she would be dead by her forties. (26:33) So she you learn my mom's famous expression of what you call it, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Tricia (26:41) So I always look at my story as the perfect interaction between a family that is not talking about the, type one diabetes. (26:54) It's not vigilant, you know, about it. (27:00) And then you have the interface with a nonprevented preventative siloed health care system.

Scott Benner (27:08) Okay. (27:09) How much better do you think so access to information obviously has changed a lot over your your lifetime. (27:16) But do you think it's using your your professional background and your personal experience, do you think it's where it needs to be, or do you just think it's better?

Tricia (27:25) I think from working in the hospital, I love the story. (27:28) They put all the alarms to say the when the page you know, on different pieces of equipment that are in a room with the patient. (27:37) Mhmm. (27:37) So then the nurse nurses or clinicians stop hear them so much that they start ignoring them. (27:43) My husband and I almost fell over when we looked at my chart, my online medical record.

Tricia (27:54) When I because I then started to seek care in New York, and it type one mother, paternal grandmother had Graves'. (28:01) Mother had hypothyroidism. (28:05) Paternal aunt has what is it, hyperthyroid.

Scott Benner (28:10) Oh, yeah.

Tricia (28:11) Father has, some type of autoimmune. (28:15) My dad has some type of autoimmune arthritis.

Scott Benner (28:19) RA? (28:20) Like So He had RA maybe?

Tricia (28:22) He's get it. (28:23) He gets so many different diagnosis.

Scott Benner (28:26) Mhmm.

Tricia (28:26) It's not even funny. (28:28) He he's been told he has five different types of arthritis.

Scott Benner (28:30) Irish too, by the way?

Tricia (28:33) So my father had better health when he was young younger. (28:37) He's more of a mutt, but he does have some Irish

Scott Benner (28:41) Yeah.

Tricia (28:42) On his father's side.

Scott Benner (28:43) It because it sounds like what's wrong with your family is pasty white European.

Tricia (28:48) Well, my brother and I joke. (28:50) What I see with my mom's family is it was too much of the same ethnicity over and over and over. (28:58) And when I look at my dad's family, like, he and his brothers had pretty good health and his mother and paternal and his his mother and his father were

Scott Benner (29:09) more of

Tricia (29:09) a mix together. (29:10) And my dad but my dad's mother with the Graves, she was, like, all Austrian, and there came from Pencil some area in Pennsylvania, and there wasn't a lot of heterogeneity. (29:22) Truly. (29:22) I I

Scott Benner (29:24) yeah. (29:24) I have to tell you. (29:25) I'm like I I think I've talked around this a million different ways, not on purpose, but you're the first person that kinda put their finger on it before. (29:31) Like, you're having purebred problems. (29:34) You're having, like like, you know you know, when you, like, when you say, like, you buy a puppy and they and eventually, like, you know, people say, oh, like, you know, I bought a mutt.

Scott Benner (29:42) It it thing's always healthy, but I got a I got a purebred, and it's got all these different problems because you're keeping the line too tight, and the problems breed too.

Speaker 3 (29:50) That's interesting. (29:51) Oh, yeah. (29:51) No.

Tricia (29:52) I see so many autoimmune. (29:54) My mom's, like, even in her, like, they'll be my second cousins, her first cousins,

Scott Benner (29:59) and

Tricia (29:59) so on and so forth. (30:01) And I'm like, yeah. (30:02) It's like a lot of but not a not a I I'm an avid reader. (30:06) I I remember listening to a podcast in the royal family that they all started to get, like, super messed up and have what is it? (30:13) One of them had hemophilia.

Tricia (30:14) It's like, yeah, not not enough diversity.

Scott Benner (30:17) They can look a little inbred sometimes too. (30:19) How about that?

Tricia (30:20) Yeah. (30:20) Yeah. (30:20) Yeah. (30:21) Like, a little not enough diversity. (30:23) And some of it's I mean, like, a lot of it's, like, stories of the royal family going back way, way, way.

Scott Benner (30:28) Yeah. (30:28) No. (30:29) I understand.

Tricia (30:29) Yeah. (30:30) So

Scott Benner (30:31) Well, I saw Game of Thrones too. (30:32) I know what's up. (30:35) Yeah. (30:35) But I know that's fictional in case people are like, oh god. (30:38) I think he thinks that's real.

Scott Benner (30:39) I know it's fictional, but I think the idea is there. (30:42) Right? (30:42) Like, you just Yeah. (30:43) Yeah. (30:44) Yeah.

Scott Benner (30:44) Well, anyway, because my point is that you hear a lot of these celiac thyroid, diabetes stories out of, like, England, Scotland, like, that kind of area around there.

Tricia (30:55) Yeah. (30:56) And you have to think, like, my brother did not end up getting it and his the y chromosome from my dad was, you know, protective, and I got hit on both with endocrine issues because my dad's mother had Graves'. (31:11) And I think that what I read is, like, they're you need an expert to weigh in on this. (31:16) They're I always look at it the same way. (31:18) Something with the HLA type one and Graves are I they're almost like attached houses.

Tricia (31:25) Okay. (31:25) Like, if you had two houses in a neighborhood that were attached, and then I think a lot of things, like my mom I was told my mom had very high sugars when she was pregnant with me. (31:35) They didn't think I was gonna make it. (31:38) Know, I was a a c section. (31:40) And when I was born, my mom was very sick.

Tricia (31:43) All these things. (31:44) Antibiotics when I was little. (31:46) So, you know, it's it's tons of factors from the environment that program the the stuff to turn off.

Scott Benner (31:55) Yeah. (31:55) They make the decisions. (31:56) So you live in a community. (31:57) The doctors all do the same things. (31:59) People have the same and so you're saying, like, even, like, as an example, like, I had lot a of antibiotics when I was little, and who knows what that did to my immune system long term?

Tricia (32:07) Yeah. (32:08) Yeah. (32:08) It wipes your microbiome.

Speaker 3 (32:09) Like, you know, there's a lot of theories now, and

Tricia (32:11) I'm not the expert. (32:13) But, like, I can see that everything that could go wrong, like, went wrong. (32:19) And even, like, when I probably I believe that I was experiencing symptoms early symptoms of Lada. (32:29) And my doctor actually said he's like, listen. (32:31) They can call it whatever they want.

Tricia (32:33) You're one of the slowest progressing type ones I've ever seen. (32:38) Right. (32:39) Now I say that with a grain of salt because we don't have data on me. (32:43) We don't have the a one c from, you know, around the time that it first happened.

Scott Benner (32:49) Yeah. (32:49) But you live you live through it. (32:51) You know your situation. (32:52) Also, you've said twice now I'm not the expert. (32:54) First of all, this is a podcast.

Scott Benner (32:56) So we you don't need to be an expert. (32:59) You're just sharing your experience. (33:00) Also, you've told a lot of stories about how experts didn't seem to know what they were doing. (33:04) So I I see the value in you just laying out what happened to you so that someone else can maybe pick through it and go, oh, that stuff's happening to me too.

Tricia (33:13) Well, I'm here to advocate for the like, I just got a newsletter from a large academic medical center, and it said there's only type one and type two. (33:26) People are not speaking about the fact that

Scott Benner (33:30) Your voice disappeared again, Trisha. (33:32) Did your did you cover the mic?

Tricia (33:34) No. (33:34) Hold on.

Scott Benner (33:35) No. (33:35) I'm sorry.

Tricia (33:36) Can you hear me?

Scott Benner (33:37) Yeah. (33:37) You just got farther away. (33:38) I don't know what happened.

Tricia (33:39) Okay. (33:39) Alright. (33:40) I don't know. (33:40) I'm adjusting them away from my hair. (33:42) Is that better?

Scott Benner (33:43) Maybe. (33:44) Make sure it's closer to your mouth.

Tricia (33:46) Okay. (33:49) Is that good?

Scott Benner (33:50) I mean, good's a relative term. (33:51) We got Rob. (33:52) He's gonna juice you up and make you sound better. (33:53) But I when you start disappearing into the fog, then I say something usually.

Tricia (33:57) No. (33:58) That's good. (33:58) Okay. (33:59) Okay. (33:59) Am I still disappearing?

Scott Benner (34:00) No. (34:01) No. (34:01) Go ahead.

Tricia (34:01) What what happened for me or why I'm doing this is because people do not know you can have diabetes and have a normal fasting blood sugar. (34:13) You can have you can get start to get type one diabetes and have a normal a one c. (34:21) It there is not just, like, a perfect, you know, diabetes can be a spectrum, and it is not getting enough PR. (34:30) You need to get the message out because I went to a doctor in 2016. (34:36) I was desperate.

Tricia (34:38) I could no longer eat. (34:40) I had lost so much weight. (34:42) I was shaking. (34:44) I was so weak. (34:45) My periods were crazy.

Tricia (34:47) My my iron stores I I think my hemoglobin was 7.8. (34:52) My iron my ferritin was, like, two. (34:55) Okay? (34:55) Which is just basically I had no iron in the bank. (34:58) Yeah.

Tricia (34:59) And when you don't have any iron

Scott Benner (35:01) No. (35:01) I feel like

Tricia (35:02) you have mono.

Scott Benner (35:03) I've had low ferritin in my life, and it's horrifying.

Tricia (35:06) No. (35:06) It's horrible. (35:07) Yeah. (35:08) So I couldn't use my brain. (35:10) I said I had brain fog.

Tricia (35:11) So I go to an endocrinologist based on a referral. (35:14) My primary in the city is really not doing anything for me. (35:19) I'm going from gastrointestinal doctor to gastrointestinal doctor. (35:25) They do colonoscopies. (35:27) They don't do a motility test.

Tricia (35:29) I didn't realize I needed a motility specialist because long story short, I don't know anything about GI, you know, the the specialty. (35:39) And I'm thinking my primary care does, and I was pushing her. (35:43) And after seeing five of them, I said to her, I constantly asked you if my TSH is okay because of my family history. (35:50) I said, let's send me for a full endocrine workup. (35:54) And I was confused because when I had been going for fertility fertility treatment in 2011 and 2012, I was seeing a reproductive endocrinologist who's running a ton of things on me.

Tricia (36:05) So I I said, something's this is I'm desperate. (36:10) So I go to the endocrinologist. (36:12) She says, maybe I'm gonna find something. (36:14) My blood work comes up. (36:16) I had just started maybe four months before a low carb diet because I had been diagnosed with FIBO.

Tricia (36:28) That was my one success out of going to five gastrointestinal doctors.

Scott Benner (36:33) They found out your gut your gut biome was messed up.

Tricia (36:37) Yeah. (36:37) They're like, you have really you have the start of SIBO. (36:41) Like, I I and I had a decent number, not super high. (36:43) Mhmm. (36:44) So then I so I'm diagnosed with SIBO.

Tricia (36:50) I'm on the SIBO diet. (36:52) The doctor takes out a long sheet, the gastrointestinal, and he's like, eat this. (36:57) Don't eat this. (36:58) It's like it gives me a handout. (37:00) So I'm like, oh, maybe I'm gonna, with antibiotics, get get rid of this thing.

Speaker 3 (37:04) Yeah. (37:04) Sourkraut. (37:05) Endocrinologist. (37:06) Right? (37:07) Yeah.

Scott Benner (37:07) I tell you gonna save me.

Tricia (37:10) That's well, that's what you think, especially if your physician is handing you

Scott Benner (37:14) I hear you.

Tricia (37:16) Like, five page recipe. (37:17) Like, eat this. (37:18) Don't eat this. (37:19) I mean, it was, like, crazy. (37:20) Mhmm.

Tricia (37:21) So then the endocrinologist tests my blood. (37:25) She calls me at work, and she goes, you've got a GAD antibody reading. (37:29) She goes, you might have type one. (37:32) And she says to me on the phone, but your a one c and glucose were in the normal range. (37:42) Maybe it's your low carb diet.

Tricia (37:45) I, you know, have a nervous breakdown at at my office at 05:00. (37:50) I'm like, holy crap. (37:51) I have type one diabetes. (37:53) So I have my coworker who's a nurse takes my blood sugar at odd weight. (37:59) Like, I'm in the, like, eighties or something.

Tricia (38:01) Mhmm. (38:01) Like, the high eighties. (38:04) I then go to the next appointment because she said, let's do lab let's go let's just do let's do labs and an adrenal deficiency test. (38:14) So I do that, and everything comes back the same. (38:17) You wanna know what I was?

Tricia (38:19) 97. (38:21) I was in the nineties on my glucose, and my a one c was 5.4. (38:27) Now I had been a runner, and I probably because I worked in New York City, I I had an iPhone, and then I got the watch. (38:38) I walked between 10,012 steps frequently.

Scott Benner (38:44) Yeah. (38:44) No. (38:44) If you're in the city, you're walking constantly. (38:46) Right.

Speaker 3 (38:47) Right? (38:48) Mhmm.

Tricia (38:48) Right? (38:48) So all this doctor does is re redo the blood the labs, and doctors have told me the actual process and processing time generally will make your glucose appear like your your regular fat you know, fasting glucose. (39:05) It could like, 10 lower than it is. (39:07) I've had, like, four or five doctors tell me that. (39:10) You can look it up on the Internet.

Tricia (39:12) So, like, if you get a reading on your lab that was 95 or nine you know, mine was, like, 97, you really could be, like, a 110, a 120.

Speaker 3 (39:22) You know? (39:22) Mhmm.

Tricia (39:23) So she goes, oh, I thought he was gonna find something here, but I I didn't find anything. (39:31) And I said, well, do I should I, you know, come back? (39:35) And she said, no. (39:36) No. (39:37) No.

Tricia (39:37) He's like, I don't know. (39:38) She's like, you have to go investigate what's going on with you, you know, back with a GI doctor or someone else. (39:45) So based on the second lab results, she says you know, I call my parents. (39:51) And now I look back. (39:52) I'm like, how dopey that my own family didn't say, hey.

Tricia (39:57) We've got a glucose sticker.

Scott Benner (39:59) Why?

Tricia (40:00) Well, you know, I'm living apart from them. (40:01) I'm living apart from them. (40:03) Yeah. (40:03) And and I think part of it is too and we'll put this to the side for a minute. (40:08) Psychosocially, type one has such a impact on the family, especially when the family you know, my mother suffered so many complications.

Tricia (40:20) So sometimes I think there was weird psychological component to all of this.

Scott Benner (40:26) But What what do you mean?

Tricia (40:27) Sometimes be on her way.

Scott Benner (40:28) Wait. (40:28) Stop. (40:29) Meaning Yeah. (40:30) Like, that everybody's just, like, a little dazed from this life?

Tricia (40:35) I that my mother didn't want to see it.

Scott Benner (40:39) She didn't want you to have the thing she had that she didn't even understand.

Tricia (40:43) Right. (40:44) And that she got so many complications from. (40:46) So it was like, let's not I don't think it was on a conscious level. (40:51) I think the same thing for me because my my first of all, when you hear bad news, you need I learned a long a hard lesson. (41:01) I always bring my husband with me now to appointments

Scott Benner (41:04) Mhmm.

Tricia (41:04) Because you have, like, an out of body experience. (41:08) And you might have experienced that with your own daughter. (41:10) Like, when you're first told, you kind of, like, need someone to keep your feet on the ground because you're levitating. (41:18) Levitating. (41:19) And I didn't really have that person to be logical.

Tricia (41:24) And then I think my family was acting the same, was a little bit like like that as as well. (41:30) And, of course, there's, what do they call it? (41:32) White coat syndrome. (41:33) So you'd like you you're

Scott Benner (41:35) like You think the doctor yeah. (41:37) You think the doctor knows everything, so you don't say anything. (41:39) I take notes during, like, I just pull up my note app, and I jot things down as people are talking.

Tricia (41:44) Like I go with a notepad Yeah. (41:46) To scare them sometimes. (41:48) So now to intimidate them

Scott Benner (41:50) if my

Tricia (41:50) my husband always comes with it. (41:52) But if I go alone Trish

Scott Benner (41:54) I'm like Yeah. (41:55) Trish, let me say something. (41:56) You've been talking for a half hour. (41:57) Right? (41:58) And Mhmm.

Scott Benner (41:59) What I hear is that you've intersected a number of doctors who have done tests on you, looked at numbers on paper, and if the numbers on paper didn't tell them what to do next, they didn't know what to do next.

Tricia (42:10) There was no critical thinking. (42:12) Yeah. (42:12) If my new endocrinologist said, she needed to react to that dead antibody, use critical thinking.

Scott Benner (42:19) Trisha, hate your mic. (42:20) Trisha, Trisha, I hate your microphone. (42:22) I hate it. (42:22) What can we do? (42:24) You just, like, you just it sound like you're underwater there for a second.

Tricia (42:28) Oh, really?

Scott Benner (42:29) Yeah. (42:29) And then it's

Tricia (42:29) How is it now?

Scott Benner (42:30) And it comes back. (42:31) It comes and goes. (42:32) I don't know what to say.

Tricia (42:34) Oh, I wish I'd known I would have bought something good

Scott Benner (42:36) for it. (42:37) More reliable than your doctors, but it's not great.

Tricia (42:41) Isn't that true? (42:42) Isn't that true?

Scott Benner (42:43) But but

Tricia (42:44) I I think that's my friend who's a physician said some doctors are just, like, book smart, and they're very trained to just look at labs, and then they just, like, won't take

Scott Benner (42:52) Will you do some kind of Will you do something for me? (42:55) Will you go get your Yeah. (42:56) Will you get your AirPods for me?

Tricia (42:58) Yeah. (42:58) Yeah.

Scott Benner (42:59) Okay. (42:59) Alright. (42:59) I'm just gonna sit here. (43:00) I'm gonna talk to the people while you go. (43:04) Hi, everybody.

Scott Benner (43:05) So as you may or may not know, I have these little geckos, and they live in, like, a a hot environment, very a dry, hot environment in a tank. (43:17) And I had this big, like, rock for them to, like, bask on under the under the light where they stay warm. (43:23) And I thought, I think they need more rocks. (43:27) So I, I got some more rocks, and I put them in there now. (43:29) And they are just having a little party on these rocks today.

Scott Benner (43:32) It's making me think, I hate this because I love this one plant that's in there. (43:37) Maybe I should pull that plant out and just put more rocks in. (43:41) Maybe they just love the rocks more. (43:43) You know what mean? (43:44) I mean, you don't know because you're not here, but but the plant looks nice.

Scott Benner (43:49) I can I could probably take that one out, leave that one in, and put a bunch more rocks over there, and then replace that slate with the other? (43:56) It looks so much more natural, the other rock I got too. (44:00) They look so happy. (44:03) I bet you they don't think about their endocrine issues. (44:06) Actually, one of them died.

Scott Benner (44:08) Nothing. (44:09) Just, you know, laid an egg one day and then looked at me and was like, and then and she was gone. (44:14) But the others are doing good. (44:15) They live in a little trio. (44:16) Two ladies and a boy.

Scott Benner (44:17) It's a very progressive, very seventies, very three's company, if you know what I mean. (44:22) And oh, I hadn't thought about that. (44:24) Should I name the male Jack Tripper? (44:27) And then what would the other one be? (44:29) Oh my god.

Scott Benner (44:29) It's Janet and Chrissy. (44:31) Right? (44:31) I'm gonna name my geckos Jack, Janet, and Chrissy. (44:34) But then if I bring in another one, what do I do? (44:37) If I run another male, I could call Larry or mister Roper.

Scott Benner (44:41) Does anyone remember this TV show besides me? (44:44) And she's been gone for a while. (44:45) You think she's okay? (44:47) Tricia? (44:50) Anything could happen.

Scott Benner (44:51) She could've fallen down the stairs. (44:52) Yeah. (44:52) Nope. (44:52) No. (44:53) She's back.

Tricia (44:53) No. (44:53) I'm here. (44:55) Hold on. (44:56) I'm just trying to add the the thing. (44:59) I don't

Scott Benner (44:59) know what time. (45:00) Everything's fine. (45:01) Don't panic. (45:01) I think you have a lot of important things to say, I wanna make sure people hear them.

Tricia (45:06) Yeah. (45:06) No. (45:07) Okay. (45:08) Here we

Scott Benner (45:08) Your experience is very valuable. (45:12) I have a lot of I have a lot of questions too.

Tricia (45:14) It's been frustrating because you feel like you're I mean, you

Scott Benner (45:19) are would imagine. (45:20) Also, you're in your fifties and TikTok. (45:22) You know what I mean?

Tricia (45:24) Oh, yeah. (45:25) And then I'll tell you what happened to my body.

Scott Benner (45:27) Well, hold on. (45:28) We'll get to it. (45:29) Don't you worry. (45:30) But for so do you have those headphones on now? (45:34) The AirPods?

Tricia (45:35) Know what. (45:35) Okay. (45:36) Why I'm trying to add my device. (45:39) I have, like, the new AirPods.

Scott Benner (45:42) You like to you like to jump out of this completely, come back in through your phone wearing the AirPods?

Tricia (45:48) Yeah. (45:48) That's good.

Scott Benner (45:49) Do that. (45:50) Drop drop out. (45:51) I'll let you back in.

Tricia (45:53) Okay. (45:53) Bye. (45:53) Alright. (45:54) Bye.

Scott Benner (45:56) Technology, my friends. (45:59) She didn't drop out. (46:01) I'm gonna kick her. (46:03) Give her the boot. (46:05) Let's see what do I do here.

Scott Benner (46:08) Remove? (46:10) Tricia, I'm removing you. (46:12) Come back in through your phone on the same link. (46:15) She's gone. (46:16) Knocked her right out.

Scott Benner (46:17) Bam. (46:18) Just like that. (46:20) Boom. (46:21) Shocking. (46:23) Listen.

Scott Benner (46:23) I don't know if this part's gonna stay in or not because I don't do the editing anymore. (46:27) But this lady's story is super important. (46:30) You guys really gotta listen through what she's saying. (46:34) There's a big picture situation here that you're all on some level living through and you don't realize it. (46:41) And maybe it works out for some of you, but for some it's not going to.

Scott Benner (46:45) Truth is is thirty years ago, if she would've had like a low level GLP medication, it would've put off her onset even longer, would've kept her insulin resistance down. (46:54) She probably wouldn't had a ton of these problems, would've helped her with those PCOS that she hasn't really gotten to yet. (47:00) And here she comes back. (47:03) Let us all pray for loud noises when we hear her voice. (47:06) Tricia?

Speaker 3 (47:07) Okay. (47:08) I'm here.

Scott Benner (47:08) My god. (47:09) That's so good. (47:10) Leave it like that. (47:11) Dear I

Speaker 3 (47:12) have the new AirPods. (47:13) I don't know how the Air can cancelling

Scott Benner (47:15) Fancy work.

Speaker 3 (47:16) Hopefully, it's better.

Scott Benner (47:17) No. (47:17) It's beautiful. (47:18) When we set it up, if you would've told me you were a fancy lady, I would've said just wear these or

Tricia (47:21) a jacket.

Scott Benner (47:22) So I was just telling the people listening while you were gone, I told them about my my sand geckos, but I also told them about I also told them about I

Tricia (47:32) thought I heard something. (47:33) Yeah. (47:33) Yeah.

Scott Benner (47:33) Yeah. (47:33) They're lovely. (47:34) But I also told them how important your story is because I think that you were just experiencing a mass amount of something that everybody with type one or other autoimmune issues is experiencing on some level, which is that there is a not a complete understanding of what is happening to you, but we treat it like we have a complete understanding of it. (47:56) And then you start having secondary issues, and maybe they're not all gonna be as bad as yours. (48:01) Right?

Scott Benner (48:01) Because you have a bunch of stuff that's layered on top of each other. (48:03) It becomes debilitating. (48:05) But everybody's got something like this going on. (48:07) I just had a conversation with one of Arden's friends this weekend who has type one, and she's having problems. (48:14) She can't figure out what it is, and she asks a doctor and they don't know.

Scott Benner (48:17) Or every woman who has a problem with their period, they just throw a birth control pill at you, and that either helps or it doesn't. (48:22) Or people say to you, like, let's run a thousand tests. (48:25) Let's stick this pipe up your ass. (48:26) Let's do all this other stuff. (48:27) Oh, nothing here.

Scott Benner (48:29) Sorry. (48:30) Sorry. (48:31) I'm still sick. (48:32) And they go, no. (48:34) I don't know.

Scott Benner (48:35) And and, you know, the number on the page, like, you know, how many people have a TSH of three and four and five and a doctor's telling them that's fine. (48:44) That's in range. (48:45) And meanwhile, you have 17,000 hypothyroid symptoms, and nobody will give you a Synthroid.

Speaker 3 (48:51) Oh, yeah. (48:51) And I forgot to advise that when I was going for fertility treatments so, like, oh, you have endometriosis. (49:00) So inflammatory. (49:02) Right? (49:02) Like, total it's showing my whole immune system is not

Scott Benner (49:07) You guys you properly. (49:09) We all have like, I'm gonna throw myself in there too because my kid has type one and my other kid has Hashimoto's. (49:14) And, like, there isn't a level of inflammation existing in us, like people living with autoimmune, that is just higher than the average than the general population, and it makes stuff not work.

Speaker 3 (49:27) And it My brother has low level issues. (49:32) So and we just I made him put on a CGM, and he just caught that when

Tricia (49:36) he eats white, he cannot look at

Speaker 3 (49:38) a white carb. (49:39) He goes well over two two hundred even though he hasn't had the antibody attack. (49:43) And he had severe cystic acne when he was a teen, which now I'm reading can be part of a metabolic, you know, profile. (49:53) And my brother's sons has severe food allergies, and he his a one c or some of his sugars came out a little funny. (50:03) He's on thyroid for Hashimoto's.

Speaker 3 (50:05) It's like

Scott Benner (50:06) Yeah. (50:07) Yeah. (50:08) Problem. (50:08) And nobody understands it is is my point. (50:10) And you don't you don't understand it till you've lived with it for so long that you just you've seen it come at you from so many different angles that you're like, oh, that makes sense now.

Scott Benner (50:18) Like, it doesn't make total sense, but I understand where it came from. (50:21) And I it it's just it's not it's not a broken bone. (50:25) You're not gonna go to a doctor and they're actually gonna my god. (50:27) Your your fibula is broken. (50:28) We will put a cast on that, and it will be better later.

Scott Benner (50:31) Like, it's it it just doesn't work that way. (50:33) And people don't have the expertise. (50:35) They don't have the experience. (50:36) They lean on lab values that they don't understand that apparently don't even have to be right, because it's not a perfected system either from what you were saying earlier about glucose. (50:47) And so, you know and now it's is it fair to them?

Scott Benner (50:50) It's not. (50:51) But what happens at the end of that of the rainbow, you don't get a pot of gold. (50:55) You get like, you slid off the rainbow, we don't have any answers. (50:58) So just keep walking, and good luck, and maybe you'll well, you're gonna die. (51:02) But, like, yeah.

Scott Benner (51:03) That yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:04) That's it. (51:04) Scott, these are the things I was told. (51:07) I had a male physician who stood over me who was a GI doctor, and he said, well, you don't have cancer after a colonoscopy. (51:17) And then I went

Tricia (51:17) to his office after, I

Speaker 3 (51:20) said, I'm still having severe digestive issues. (51:23) And he goes, I don't know what to tell you. (51:25) Do you think it could all be in your head? (51:27) Do you think it could just be

Scott Benner (51:29) They told

Speaker 3 (51:30) me psychological?

Scott Benner (51:31) My wife right? (51:32) My wife's thyroid exploded after she had Arden, and that's not a technical term. (51:37) And but but it's But I like it. (51:40) Is what happened. (51:41) And and they they they everything.

Scott Benner (51:44) You should exercise more. (51:46) She says nothing's changed about my exercise. (51:48) Well, you're you should eat differently. (51:49) Nothing's changed about how I eat.

Speaker 3 (51:51) Oh, should do this. (51:52) My diet. (51:52) The doctor with the diet.

Scott Benner (51:54) And then and then when that stuff didn't work, they said maybe you're depressed. (51:57) And she's like, I'm not I'm not depressed. (51:59) Like, I just and everything. (52:01) So then at some point, get so desperate. (52:03) She's like, she tried depression medication for a while for her thyroid problem.

Scott Benner (52:07) Like, right

Speaker 3 (52:08) I I I totally believe it. (52:10) And

Scott Benner (52:11) She came to me one day, and she goes, I'm taking this thy this medication for I'm not depressed. (52:15) Like, this is ridiculous. (52:16) And I was like, great. (52:17) And seven years, seven years it went on until, by the way,

Speaker 3 (52:21) it was just Yeah. (52:22) 1100%.

Tricia (52:24) Yeah. (52:24) 16. (52:25) Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:25) Out of sixteen years.

Scott Benner (52:27) And and, Trisha, in that time, my wife, she gained an unfair amount of weight that was from not having thyroid medication. (52:33) You know, it it plagued her for most of her adult life until, by the way, somebody came up with a GLP and took fixed it for, you know, in two years. (52:41) Like

Tricia (52:41) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (52:42) They sent her right back again. (52:44) But my point about, I guess, probably where my passion comes from about people sharing their experiences is the only reason we even knew my wife had a thyroid issue is because I shared her problems with Arden's nurse practitioner when Arden was little. (53:01) And the woman just said this offhanded thing to me, and her name was Sakina Boyd, and thank you very much, Sakina. (53:08) And she just said, oh, yeah. (53:11) Autoimmune stuff, like, runs in families, and it doesn't have to be, like, diabetes diabetes.

Scott Benner (53:18) Or it doesn't have to be Hashimoto's Hashimoto's. (53:20) She's like, sometimes you just see, like, a potpourri. (53:22) Like, I don't think she used that word.

Speaker 3 (53:24) Mom's side of the family.

Tricia (53:26) Yeah. (53:26) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (53:26) Right. (53:26) And and then I stopped, I thought, oh my goodness. (53:29) And I started going through Kelly's side of the family. (53:31) Her her grandmother had what they used to call the sprue. (53:35) I don't know if you know about that, but it was celiac because

Tricia (53:37) it was celiac. (53:39) Got it. (53:39) It. (53:39) Got it. (53:40) Got

Scott Benner (53:40) it. (53:40) They'd like, grandma has the sprue. (53:42) The sprue. (53:43) This is what happens when morons talk about technical things. (53:46) By the way, no offense, but she's she's dead and she wasn't that smart.

Scott Benner (53:49) And so, like, and so, like, they're talking about the sprue over here. (53:54) Nobody everybody's shitting all the time. (53:56) Like, nobody can like, everybody gets nervous and runs to the bathroom all the time. (54:00) Like, that's the thing that happens. (54:02) You know, I've got a niece who's sick all the time.

Scott Benner (54:05) Right? (54:06) One and I've got, you know, I've got there's a there's a person who has a lot of, like, issues that he probably would call bipolar, but maybe not. (54:18) It's never been able to be knocked down. (54:20) And then I started making this podcast and asking people all these questions. (54:23) All y'all have these problems in your family.

Scott Benner (54:26) Okay? (54:26) Like, get so, like, I'm like, okay. (54:28) So Sakina shares her colloquial thought, and it makes and it saves my wife. (54:35) Right? (54:35) Because then one day I go into a doctor's office and I'm like, she clearly has hypothyroidism.

Scott Benner (54:40) And he goes, no. (54:41) Her TSH is only whatever it was. (54:43) And I was like,

Tricia (54:43) I don't There you go.

Scott Benner (54:44) I so but see, here's the difference. (54:46) Right? (54:47) I'm an asshole. (54:48) So, like so I looked at him and I said, in not a polite way, will the medicine hurt her if she doesn't have hypothyroidism? (54:55) And he goes, no.

Scott Benner (54:56) And I won't well, then fucking give it to her. (54:58) Like like like, are you out of your mind? (55:01) Like, it's not gonna hurt her to try it for a month, but if it it's the right thing, then this all goes away, and you're saying, no. (55:07) Sorry. (55:07) The number on the paper doesn't indicate this?

Scott Benner (55:10) Like, you're out of your mind. (55:11) You were willing to give her depression a medication. (55:16) You were willing to tell her that she doesn't exercise. (55:19) You were willing to tell her she doesn't eat. (55:20) Right?

Scott Benner (55:20) You were willing to say a whole bunch of things that that weren't true that you were guessing about. (55:25) But this one thing that has the most common sense wrapped around it, this you're not willing to do because the test says, what? (55:32) It's green? (55:33) That's all he said. (55:33) It's in the green, he said.

Scott Benner (55:35) By the way, when someone starts telling you your test is in the green, I think what you should hear is that person doesn't know what the they're talking about. (55:42) And, like like, if they did, they'd have a technical explanation for you. (55:45) Not it's green. (55:46) Green's good. (55:47) Green means go.

Scott Benner (55:48) Like, are you out of your mind? (55:50) Like like so, you know, so then I Kelly gets the thing and she's okay. (55:56) And then I come on the podcast and talk about it more. (55:59) You wanna know, like, I don't know if I get more notes from people who are grateful about having their thyroid problem fixed or about their diabetes being better. (56:07) Like, it's it's rampant, and and and I'm not even mad at anybody.

Scott Benner (56:12) I just think it's

Tricia (56:12) the No.

Speaker 3 (56:13) No. (56:13) No. (56:13) Yeah. (56:13) We have a I feel like we have a broken system. (56:18) And It's not the system.

Speaker 3 (56:21) Me, I ended up at a gastrointestinal doctor telling her my symptoms were getting far and far worse in spite of being put on something called LINZESS. (56:32) Okay. (56:33) I was getting worse. (56:34) And she also told me, and I was like, I'm out of here. (56:38) To distract myself and accept that I was complicated and that I just needed to be on meds, I had told this doctor, this gastrointestinal doctor who was she's probably in her early sixties.

Speaker 3 (56:51) I said, I probably should go back for an endocrinology and consult considering my family history. (56:56) She told me I didn't know what I was talking about. (56:59) And then again, I just needed to accept that I had, you know, these digestive issues and sort of move on.

Scott Benner (57:07) Yeah. (57:08) That that person's a dipshit. (57:09) And so, like, I and and that

Speaker 3 (57:11) She shouldn't she shouldn't this doctor should not be practicing.

Tricia (57:14) Right. (57:14) Right.

Scott Benner (57:15) But but you you just said the system's broken. (57:17) I just think that's a thing people say. (57:19) Forget that. (57:21) You said the real problem earlier. (57:23) It's not that the system's broken.

Scott Benner (57:25) What what was lacking when people had to help you? (57:29) Critical thinking.

Speaker 3 (57:31) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (57:31) But there's not a there's not a systematic issue. (57:33) There's a people issue. (57:35) Like, not everybody's cut out to think through a problem like this. (57:39) And and often and God bless you all who are doctors. (57:43) Like, what makes people good doctors doesn't necessarily make them good at communicating, and it doesn't necessarily make them good at, like, the the investigatory part of it.

Scott Benner (57:53) Right?

Speaker 3 (57:53) Like also realized this doctor would get anxious. (57:56) She couldn't solve a problem, didn't know how to solve a problem, so it was take a drug and get out of my office.

Scott Benner (58:01) Yeah. (58:02) She prob listen. (58:03) She's probably on the spectrum. (58:05) Like, anybody that can sit in college for eight years and learn all that stuff and then remember it, something's up. (58:11) You you you know what I mean?

Scott Benner (58:12) Like, I don't I don't know shit about anything. (58:14) I can't remember anything. (58:15) I've helped more people with type one diabetes than most endocrinologists are going to.

Tricia (58:19) Yeah. (58:20) No. (58:20) Yeah. (58:21) But just

Speaker 3 (58:21) I ended up going to finally to a doctor who was different, and and I was telling her brain fog, etcetera, etcetera. (58:30) We caught on my labs when I went through menopause that my a one c went to 5.7, and I said first, her office did goof up because they're like, oh, maybe you have type two. (58:47) I go, hello? (58:48) My mom has type one. (58:50) Look at my freaking chart.

Speaker 3 (58:52) I finally then got the doctor on the phone, and she said, well, diabetes is a spectrum, can be a spectrum. (59:00) I've seen it.

Scott Benner (59:01) Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:02) And I said, what what do you mean? (59:04) I thought you were either diabetic or you or you weren't. (59:08) You weren't like, like, kind of, like, your story with Arden. (59:11) Like like, you know, you go dramatically to the emergency room.

Tricia (59:15) Yeah.

Scott Benner (59:16) Right. (59:16) Right. (59:16) Oh my gosh. (59:17) But you what you gotta do is listen to that episode with doctor Hamdi where he discusses that, like, in the very near future, you're gonna see people with dual diagnosis. (59:24) This is type one, and insulin resistance is basically a type one, type two diagnosis.

Tricia (59:29) There

Scott Benner (59:29) there's gonna be a lot more versions of diabetes that are gonna get

Speaker 3 (59:33) Like, yeah, like I said, why why does my why can my brother not look at a white carb? (59:38) Like, he doesn't have the antibody attack, but, yeah, he could be a high glucose responder.

Scott Benner (59:43) Not yet.

Speaker 3 (59:44) He could be like

Tricia (59:44) yeah. (59:45) Right.

Speaker 3 (59:45) This could

Scott Benner (59:46) Also Yeah. (59:46) I But well

Speaker 3 (59:47) But nobody's would look at him if I forced him. (59:50) I said

Scott Benner (59:52) Oh god.

Speaker 3 (59:53) Just said, your brother should go get thoroughly checked, and my brother finally did it.

Scott Benner (59:58) Yeah. (59:58) But thoroughly checked for what? (1:00:00) And then what are they gonna do after that? (1:00:02) Like, there's listen. (1:00:03) Yeah.

Scott Benner (1:00:03) I I'm I'm telling you all, like, right now, I probably sound like I don't I don't know. (1:00:07) Like, I guess, I don't care how I sound actually. (1:00:09) But, like, there's the something in that GLP

Tricia (1:00:13) fury.

Scott Benner (1:00:14) Well, no. (1:00:14) But something in that GLP medication is affecting a lot of things for people, and no one understands what it is yet.

Tricia (1:00:21) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (1:00:21) Right? (1:00:21) But I I'm I'll say over I'll say over and over again. (1:00:24) There are a lot of ladies pregnant now on a GLP that weren't pregnant before. (1:00:28) And and I'll and basic and, basically, what happens is that when you say that out loud It's

Speaker 3 (1:00:33) a good thought.

Scott Benner (1:00:34) Common medical wisdom is, well, yeah, they lost weight and they're healthier now, so they got pregnant. (1:00:39) Some of them are getting pregnant weeks after beginning to use it. (1:00:42) They haven't lost weight yet. (1:00:44) Like, right, they start shooting it and then boom, they're pregnant. (1:00:47) And I'm talking about people who've been trying to get pregnant for decades to the point where they don't think about

Speaker 3 (1:00:52) know this.

Scott Benner (1:00:52) Yeah. (1:00:53) They don't think about contraception anymore. (1:00:55) They just bang all over the place because they think it can't possibly happen. (1:00:58) They go, oh, I I I heard I maybe I can be a little thinner on this GLP. (1:01:02) They put it in and, woo, pregnant.

Scott Benner (1:01:04) And there's so many of them that they found each other online and created, like, a giant Facebook group about them, which then made the medical community. (1:01:12) Right?

Speaker 3 (1:01:12) What's going on?

Scott Benner (1:01:13) Think, oh, what's going on? (1:01:15) Now they're gonna start looking into it. (1:01:16) Now they'll take twenty years to figure out what's happening. (1:01:19) And, like and but in the meantime, people talking will know the difference. (1:01:23) Right?

Scott Benner (1:01:24) And so Mhmm.

Tricia (1:01:25) And

Scott Benner (1:01:25) so, like, I'm I'm sitting before you right now. (1:01:28) I'm 70 lighter than I was two and a half years ago. (1:01:31) I don't eat or act or do anything differently today than I did two and a half years ago. (1:01:36) If I I feel bad because Arden has a a needle phobia, so she has a little trouble taking shots. (1:01:42) But if you give Arden a small dose of GLP, not a full dose of it, a small, like, microdose of it, her insulin needs to go down by, like, 30%.

Scott Benner (1:01:52) There's been a man on here who had type one diabetes, all the antibodies, using all the insulin, etcetera, for a couple of years. (1:01:59) They stick him on Mounjaro for weight, and the next thing he knows, he's not using insulin for a while. (1:02:04) Now he's got Oh

Tricia (1:02:05) my god.

Scott Benner (1:02:05) Yeah. (1:02:06) He's got LADA, so it's it'll come back eventually. (1:02:09) But there's also a 15 year old girl that came on that for two years between 15 and 17 was down to, like, one unit of basal a day. (1:02:16) From, like, from, like, fifty units a day of total insulin down to one unit a day had to take her pump off. (1:02:21) But she has and has the antibodies.

Scott Benner (1:02:24) She has type one diabetes. (1:02:25) Right? (1:02:26) And she was using all the insulin, like, she and and gaining weight and all the stuff. (1:02:30) So they put her and her mom recognizes it because her mom used the GLP for gaining weight and some PCOS type symptoms. (1:02:37) So solid in the daughter, put her on the meds, and then all of a sudden, they, you know, they said, hey.

Scott Benner (1:02:42) You might have to turn your base you know, your insulin down a little bit. (1:02:44) It wouldn't stop going. (1:02:45) Her need wouldn't stop going down. (1:02:48) Like, so her situation's not another person's situation. (1:02:52) Like, your your part your point about the spectrum is well taken by me.

Speaker 3 (1:02:56) I only okay. (1:02:57) So first of all, doctors, like, especially in an urban area, I walk to all my appointments. (1:03:04) Right? (1:03:04) Doctors don't have any critical thinking about the labs in an urban area because in New York City, man, you walk. (1:03:11) Okay?

Speaker 3 (1:03:11) Mhmm. (1:03:12) So other things you talked about, like, in terms of I realized during, what you call it, 2020 with all the EMRs, I had one what I you know how you get multiple labs after you go to a doctor and they start to come in your email? (1:03:28) Yeah. (1:03:28) There was one of them I missed with my glucose. (1:03:31) My glucose was one twenty out of range.

Speaker 3 (1:03:33) Doctor never called me about it. (1:03:36) It was an o b g OB GYN. (1:03:37) Mhmm. (1:03:38) Okay. (1:03:38) Never called me.

Speaker 3 (1:03:39) And then number two, for me, having diabetes, being so physically active, not having a car. (1:03:48) And even now, I still exercise amount. (1:03:51) My doctor says, I only take two units of background insulin.

Scott Benner (1:03:55) Yeah. (1:03:55) You are super active.

Speaker 3 (1:03:57) Yeah. (1:03:58) And and, like so she's like, you don't look like my normal average type one

Scott Benner (1:04:06) Yeah. (1:04:06) So keep thinking

Tricia (1:04:07) about it. (1:04:07) Diabetic.

Scott Benner (1:04:08) That's the, like, that's the part I don't get. (1:04:10) Like, like, what oh, you don't look at the average one. (1:04:12) So and then, like, it it just I don't know what to say exactly. (1:04:16) Like, I I I'm not blaming doctors. (1:04:19) They're just people.

Scott Benner (1:04:19) Right? (1:04:20) And we have these experiences and you live with it all the time, so you have more time to think about it. (1:04:25) But not everybody thinks about it. (1:04:26) Some people just do the thing that that lady told you to do, which is just accept that you're a sickly person and be done with it. (1:04:31) And

Tricia (1:04:32) Oh, oh, oh, yeah. (1:04:33) Right? (1:04:33) Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner (1:04:34) And there's just I I don't know the answer. (1:04:36) I really don't. (1:04:37) Like, I don't but there's there's something going on that that nobody's really qualified yet.

Speaker 3 (1:04:43) If you This is my answer.

Scott Benner (1:04:44) Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (1:04:45) And that's what you and I are doing right now. (1:04:48) We have to spread the word.

Scott Benner (1:04:51) Talk about it.

Speaker 3 (1:04:51) You don't just get type one, and then there's type two. (1:04:56) CGMs are showing us that people are high some people are high glucose responders that, you know, you can be a diabetic with that an a one c can hide that you're in the early stages. (1:05:12) I know my endocrinologist now says, like, by the time it's coming out in your a one c, it's been brewing often for a very long time.

Scott Benner (1:05:21) Mhmm.

Speaker 3 (1:05:21) So I think with what you're saying with, the GPL ones, like, we're in an explosion of data and, like, we did not really see what diabetes was

Scott Benner (1:05:32) Yeah.

Speaker 3 (1:05:32) In the past.

Scott Benner (1:05:33) No. (1:05:33) I I I'll tell you right now that if if you if you my my a one c's never been a problem ever. (1:05:40) Right? (1:05:40) It but and if you took my GLP from me run today, I'd go find a Gila monster and I'd French kiss it every day. (1:05:55) This episode was too good to cut anything out of, but too long to make just one episode.

Scott Benner (1:06:00) So this is part one. (1:06:01) Make sure you go find part two right now. (1:06:03) It's gonna be the next episode in your feed. (1:06:08) The podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by Eversense CGM. (1:06:13) They make the Eversense three sixty five.

Scott Benner (1:06:15) That thing lasts a whole year. (1:06:17) One insertion. (1:06:19) Every year? (1:06:20) Come on. (1:06:21) You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not.

Scott Benner (1:06:23) Ever since cgm.com/juicebox. (1:06:28) US Med sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. (1:06:32) Check them out at usmed.com/juicebox or by calling (888) 721-1514. (1:06:40) Get your free benefits check, and get started today with US Med. (1:06:46) Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from US Med for three years.

Scott Benner (1:06:50) You can as well. (1:06:51) Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514. (1:06:59) My thanks to US Med for sponsoring this episode and for being longtime sponsors of the juice box podcast. (1:07:05) There are links in the show notes and links at juiceboxpodcast.com to US Med and all of the sponsors. (1:07:11) If you're new to type one diabetes, begin with the bold beginnings series from the podcast.

Scott Benner (1:07:16) Don't take my word for it. (1:07:17) Listen to what reviewers have said. (1:07:19) Bold beginnings is the best first step. (1:07:22) I learned more in those episodes than anywhere else. (1:07:25) This is when everything finally clicked.

Scott Benner (1:07:27) People say it takes the stress out of the early days and replaces it with clarity. (1:07:31) They tell me this should come with the diagnosis packet that I got at the hospital. (1:07:35) And after they listen, they recommend it to everyone who's struggling. (1:07:39) It's straightforward, practical, and easy to listen to. (1:07:42) Bold Beginnings gives you the basics in a way that actually makes sense.

Scott Benner (1:07:47) Okay. (1:07:48) Well, here we are at the end of the episode. (1:07:50) You're still with me? (1:07:50) Thank you. (1:07:51) I really do appreciate that.

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#1751 Body Grief: Dismissal and Shock

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Dismissal and Shock in body grief, especially with type 1 diabetes, revealing how fear, isolation, and overwhelm show up—and offering grounding practices to rebuild body trust and move forward.

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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 Juice Box podcast. (0:15) Hey. (0:16) Welcome back. (0:16) This is the second installment of the body grief series with myself and Erica Forsythe. (0:22) If you like Erica and you wanna learn more about her, please go to ericaforesythe.com.

Scott Benner (0:28) Nothing you hear on the juice box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. (0:33) Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. (0:43) If your loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear practical perspective, check out the bold beginnings series on the juice box podcast. (0:52) It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over thirty five years of personal insight into type one. (1:00) Our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions.

Scott Benner (1:05) You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. (1:12) You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juice Box podcast. (1:16) The bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juice Box podcast are available in your audio app and at juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu. (1:31) US Med is sponsoring this episode of the juice box podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from US Med for years. (1:39) You can as well.

Scott Benner (1:41) Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514. (1:48) Use the link or the number, get your free benefits check, and get started today with US Med. (1:54) This episode of the Juice Box podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. (1:58) And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox, you can get yourself a free what did I just say? (2:05) A free Omnipod five starter kit.

Scott Benner (2:09) Free? (2:10) Get out of here. (2:11) Go click on that link. (2:11) Omnipod.com/juicebox. (2:14) Check it out.

Scott Benner (2:15) Terms and conditions apply. (2:16) Eligibility may vary. (2:18) Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox. (2:23) Links in the show notes. (2:24) Links at juiceboxpodcast.com.

Scott Benner (2:27) Erica, I'm just gonna say this while we're recording. (2:30) I don't know to I don't know how to start this. (2:31) Like, we'll figure it out together, I guess. (2:33) Okay. (2:34) So so we've done the intro to body grief, and now we're gonna kinda get into the very first episode that, you know, expands on all the ideas that we did the overview for.

Scott Benner (2:43) But I don't I don't know how to introduce it. (2:45) So I'm guessing I'm gonna let you pump her through it for a second. (2:47) Tell me.

Erika Forsyth (2:48) Okay. (2:49) So, yes, in our intro episode, we talked about what is body grief, again, stemming and coming from the book called This Is Body Grief by Jane Mattingly. (3:00) And so just to review that the definition of body grief is the sense of loss and mourning that comes with a with living in an ever changing body. (3:12) So similarly to kind of the general grief that we are more familiar with around loss and death, there are many stages associated with that. (3:22) And with body grief, there are seven stages that we are that we sort of introduced in our first episode, and now we're gonna dive into the first stage, which is called dismissal.

Scott Benner (3:36) Okay. (3:38) Is there something for me to do here, or am I gonna be mostly, like am I mostly gonna be listening and then asking inane questions? (3:45) Is that my job today?

Erika Forsyth (3:46) That that's your job today.

Scott Benner (3:47) Yes. (3:48) Alright. (3:48) Go ahead.

Erika Forsyth (3:48) You can listen and interject and reflect as you do.

Scott Benner (3:52) Go ahead. (3:52) Go for it then.

Erika Forsyth (3:53) Okay. (3:53) So and as a reminder that these stages, these body grief stages are are not linear even though we are announcing them numerically and in an order, you obviously can go back and forth, at any point in your life. (4:09) And we are certainly talking about body grief through the lens of living with diabetes, but this also can be applied to any other issue that occurs within your body. (4:20) So it's just getting a cold. (4:21) You might go through some of these stages or having surgery or changing, you know, going through menopause, you'll experience this.

Erika Forsyth (4:29) So you can kind of listen to these stages through various lenses. (4:34) Yeah. (4:34) But we'll be we'll be applying those, specifically to diabetes also.

Scott Benner (4:38) And I wanna reiterate. (4:40) It's not like it's not like there's certain number of stages, and they happen in an order. (4:44) These things could some of them could happen to you. (4:46) All of them. (4:47) Some of them could repeat, that kind of thing.

Scott Benner (4:49) Right?

Erika Forsyth (4:50) Yes. (4:50) Okay. (4:51) Absolutely. (4:52) And so this first stage dismissal could occur most most definitely at at diagnosis. (5:00) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (5:00) But as we get into it, you'll see where it might show up at any point in your life, as as the both the caregiver as well, but also for the person living with with diabetes. (5:11) So dismissal sounds like I'm fine. (5:16) Everything's fine. (5:17) Like like, when someone says, how are you doing? (5:19) I'm I'm fine.

Erika Forsyth (5:20) Everything's fine. (5:22) But underneath that, if you are in the dismissal stage, what you're really trying to do is stay in control of the narrative when you aren't really sure what's going on in your body. (5:35) Right? (5:36) So you're kind of ignoring, dismissing, and it is a response to fear. (5:43) Now there's a couple different reasons why.

Erika Forsyth (5:47) So you might be fearful. (5:50) When someone says, how are you doing? (5:52) And this is just for the example here. (5:53) And you say, I'm I'm fine. (5:54) Everything's fine.

Erika Forsyth (5:56) Maybe you're fearful of inconveniencing yourself or the other by going into detail. (6:03) And this is where we're gonna get into this point a little bit later when we talk about misconceptions.

Scott Benner (6:08) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (6:09) We might be also fearful of the future. (6:12) Right? (6:12) When someone says, how are you doing? (6:15) And you dismiss how you're actually doing? (6:17) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (6:17) Are you really are you scared of what what is to come? (6:20) You're not really sure. (6:22) Or are you fearful that your body, the way you lived, the way you functioned, will never go back to the way you were before. (6:31) Mhmm. (6:32) So you're responding to some of that fear without maybe even knowing it.

Scott Benner (6:37) Do you think that when someone says, I'm fine, that some people are doing that thing that you just described, like trying not to talk about what maybe they're not fine or maybe they're not sure how they're gonna be. (6:49) Do you think there are some people that just have an out of sight, out of mind mentality and that they really are fine, or do you think that's still something just someone says and they maybe don't consciously realize how they feel? (7:02) That makes sense?

Erika Forsyth (7:04) Yes. (7:04) I think if we're discussing this through, like, the lens of knowing that something just happened majorly to your body, for example, the diagnosis, and you're really feeling the the burden and the grief from that and you're responding,

Scott Benner (7:19) I'm

Erika Forsyth (7:19) fine, I think there are two big drivers of that within the diabetes context. (7:25) One is the fear of not knowing what's actually happening. (7:29) You're trying to just stay keep it together.

Scott Benner (7:31) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (7:31) And the other one is the is the kind of misconception, which we'll get into. (7:35) But in your response or your question, I think sometimes you might just be fine. (7:42) Right. (7:42) And you might not be struggling with how your body is adjusting to something that has happened.

Scott Benner (7:48) Because I've interviewed people who have said that, and I've believed them. (7:52) And I've interviewed people who said that, and I thought, oh, you're lying to yourself. (7:56) Mhmm. (7:56) But I don't know if that's conscious or unconscious. (7:58) But there are there have been some people that I just think you could drop them into any situation, and they're just like, keep going.

Scott Benner (8:04) All good.

Erika Forsyth (8:04) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (8:05) You you know? (8:06) But it's I don't know. (8:08) I always still wonder about those people too. (8:10) I because I think I'm one of those people, and I wonder about me. (8:12) Like, am I really just okay, or am I have I decided that this part we won't think about anymore and, therefore, we can pretend we're okay.

Scott Benner (8:21) I I I I just think it's interesting. (8:23) But I

Erika Forsyth (8:23) It is. (8:24) Yeah. (8:24) Well and I think even just conversationally when you're, like, checking out at the grocery store, how are you doing? (8:31) I'm fine. (8:32) Thanks.

Erika Forsyth (8:32) How are you? (8:32) Right? (8:32) Like, it's such a part of our cultural kind of common exchange, being polite, being social. (8:39) And there also is that caveat too of, like, of course, there are appropriate times to maybe keep it more surface y

Scott Benner (8:45) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (8:45) Or or not.

Scott Benner (8:46) Oh, sure.

Erika Forsyth (8:47) But here, we're kind of focusing in on those moments. (8:50) And and whether it's conscious or not, are you responding, I'm fine, everything's fine, when really underneath the surface, you are freaking out, and you're uncertain about what's gonna happen. (9:01) How is and I'm thinking also through the lens the caregiver, you know, you're you're really worried about what your child's future is gonna be like, and you're and you're maybe longing and missing and grieving the, you know, the past. (9:14) Mhmm. (9:15) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (9:16) So in that space, if you are operating in out of dismissal, it could be that you're fearing once you say the truth out loud, again, that being inconvenient, it might be too troubling. (9:30) It might be even too confusing for the other person and just too painful. (9:34) Right? (9:35) So you're just trying to, like, keep keep things going. (9:37) And are there times when you need to do that?

Erika Forsyth (9:38) Yes. (9:39) But this is kind of, again, if you're operating out of this stage consistently, you might be in dismissal stage. (9:46) Is

Scott Benner (9:47) there a piece of that where you can't you can't get the genie back in the bottle so you gotta kinda keep it there too? (9:54) Like, know what mean? (9:55) Like, once I say it, I can't go back to the part where I pretend this wasn't happening anymore.

Erika Forsyth (10:01) Absolutely.

Scott Benner (10:02) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (10:02) That's that's the part. (10:03) Right? (10:03) So if you you don't wanna acknowledge if you're scared and you don't wanna acknowledge what you were just saying, you don't wanna acknowledge what's happening, that's when this dismissal stage shows up. (10:15) So you're trying to you're just trying to keep it going. (10:16) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (10:17) Right? (10:17) I'm too scared. (10:18) I don't really know what's going on in my body, but I'm gonna try and control the narrative and keep it going.

Scott Benner (10:23) Okay. (10:24) Yeah. (10:25) It occurs to me. (10:26) This is I hope this feels on point. (10:28) But, I mean, as human beings, isn't that this how we have most of our long term successes?

Scott Benner (10:33) Like, at some point, don't you have to, like, turn the other cheek or turn a blind eye or pretend or whatever at some point in all different parts of your life. (10:41) Right? (10:41) Like, so some of it's not just coping. (10:45) I think some of it's you know what I'm saying? (10:47) Like, in every personal relationship that's ever existed, if we all stopped sometime when something happened that was it was actually in a front to us and we put our foot in the in the dirt, it would probably break up all kinds of different things.

Scott Benner (11:01) Like, everybody's gotta take I don't know. (11:03) This is interesting, but do you do it with yourself is what I'm wondering. (11:06) Like, do is that the same idea? (11:09) Like, if I wanna get to the end of this, do I have to dismiss a portion of this? (11:13) But you're gonna tell me if I'm if I'm as you keep going, I think it's gonna come in a picture for me.

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Erika Forsyth (13:25) Yes. (13:26) And I hear this. (13:28) So what we're thinking, it feels confusing maybe a little bit or not as clear because when we're talking about dismissal and I'm fine, everything's fine, in response to there is you are experiencing grief as a result of either the diagnosis. (13:47) And this is a really natural part of going of processing what is actually happening in your body. (13:53) So this isn't like we're we're not this isn't wrong Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (13:56) Or bad, but this is really normal. (14:00) And I think what to to recognize that you are doing it, these are some signs. (14:06) Right? (14:06) So so so signs that you are in dismissal. (14:09) If you're noticing that you don't want to be seen as too much or too needy or too difficult, so you're keeping at real surface level with yourself or with others.

Erika Forsyth (14:19) You might be canceling plans with your friends. (14:24) You're not responding to texts or emails or phone calls because you don't want them to actually see how you're actually doing.

Scott Benner (14:33) Right.

Erika Forsyth (14:35) Conversely, you might overwork, overproduce, overschedule to prove you're you're doing great. (14:42) Like, look at me. (14:43) I can do all these things. (14:43) I'm I'm fine. (14:45) I'm I can keep it going.

Erika Forsyth (14:47) With this is where we're talking about with diabetes and dismissal. (14:53) This is a really common, place of pain and tension for people, particularly diagnosis, but this happens all the time when I feel like dismissals is a tricky and complicated stage because of this duality that we've talked about before with with diabetes. (15:13) Do we wanna do we wanna keep it private, or do we want to explain it to everyone? (15:17) When when someone says, how are you doing? (15:20) And you've been up all night with lows, or you're just burnout.

Erika Forsyth (15:25) You're you're faced with this. (15:27) Do I try and explain it to them how I'm actually feeling? (15:32) Do I keep it private, but then I'm feeling I'm either feeling isolated and alone in it, or I'm gonna try and explain it, and maybe they aren't really gonna get it. (15:42) So I'm gonna feel misunderstood, and their platitudes might not land the way I want them to. (15:49) So then do you revert back to, I'm fine.

Erika Forsyth (15:53) Everything's fine.

Scott Benner (15:54) The other option, really?

Erika Forsyth (15:55) Right.

Scott Benner (15:55) Right? (15:56) Because you're either going to, like, struggle through the explanation, and they'll understand, and then you've had to put out a bunch of energy. (16:02) Or you struggle through it, they don't understand. (16:04) Now you're frustrated that even though they've heard it, they don't seem to get it. (16:08) I just had this person online talk about how, like, one of their best friends just told them their friendship was over because they couldn't handle listening to them about their diabetes anymore.

Scott Benner (16:17) That's horrible. (16:18) Right? (16:18) Like, so you're running that risk. (16:20) Yeah. (16:20) There's a lot of risk in there.

Scott Benner (16:21) But if I'm fine is not the is there an answer besides I'm fine in polite society? (16:29) This is none of your business? (16:30) Like, do I say, hey. (16:31) Why don't you leave me alone? (16:32) Like like, because like, don't make me lie to you.

Scott Benner (16:35) Maybe you should say don't make me lie to you. (16:36) That'd be a great way to respond.

Erika Forsyth (16:39) Yeah. (16:40) I wanna be honest, but can you handle it? (16:42) Yeah. (16:42) Yeah. (16:43) I that's the tricky part.

Erika Forsyth (16:45) And I think this there's this there's the internal fear and avoidance of dismissal, but then this external dismissal, which I would probably just define as as misconceptions

Scott Benner (16:56) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (16:57) May keep us in that place of what you're saying of, like, is there an is there an alternative besides I'm fine? (17:03) So when people are saying things and, like, you know, aren't you grateful it's not cancer? (17:09) Or it's it's easier with that pump and CGM. (17:12) Right? (17:13) I get that all the time.

Scott Benner (17:14) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (17:15) You don't you don't seem sick. (17:17) You don't seem like you have a chronic illness.

Scott Benner (17:19) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (17:20) Or or you're so strong and resilient, you know, the warrior thing. (17:26) And so we're we are faced with those misconceptions. (17:31) And those will land, and they will feel they will sting at any point in our lives because we're human. (17:40) Probably more intensely, I would say, at diagnosis when you're trying to figure out what is your identity with diabetes. (17:50) But left unacknowledged, I feel like this is where we talked about in the intro episode of this is where kind of diabetes distress and and body grief, I think, kind of overlap.

Erika Forsyth (18:03) Okay. (18:03) Right? (18:03) Like, we experience distress when we're constantly being faced with those misconceptions along with all the other things we're having to manage. (18:12) And so we're gonna get to a practice of what do we do with these misconceptions besides trying to educate everyone, which is, you know, impossible.

Scott Benner (18:20) Yeah. (18:20) I I had an experience recently during an interview where a parent kept saying that thing, like, the kids are so they're heroes. (18:27) They're this. (18:28) They're that. (18:28) And I I I did not have the heart, like, to stop and just say, I don't think you should put that on them.

Scott Benner (18:35) Like, because I think maybe you're just trying to talk yourself into believing they're gonna be okay cause they seem okay or they're so tough or something like that. (18:43) And I I just always revert back to, like, what's the alternative? (18:46) Like, you know what I mean? (18:47) Like, people I don't think people are brave because they want to be. (18:51) I think they're brave because they don't have any other choice in those situations.

Scott Benner (18:54) You know what I mean?

Erika Forsyth (18:56) Yes. (18:56) I know I know we've wrestled with this, you know, the phrase of that you're a t one d warrior or, you know, whatever kind of warrior. (19:04) The I think that's that's positive, and I totally affirm and encourage that.

Scott Benner (19:10) Yes.

Erika Forsyth (19:11) And there also has to be space for the kid to say or for yourself to say, this sucks. (19:16) Yeah. (19:17) This is hard.

Scott Benner (19:17) Top line.

Erika Forsyth (19:18) Because I'm a warrior and it is hard.

Scott Benner (19:20) Yeah. (19:20) Top line. (19:21) And and, I mean, that person's intention, I think everybody's intention Yeah. (19:25) Says it, is it's incredibly positive. (19:28) I just think that sometimes you have to look downstream a little bit to see how it might be, you know, perceived by the person who you're describing that way who probably does not feel brave or strong.

Scott Benner (19:39) You you yeah.

Erika Forsyth (19:39) Or or maybe doesn't wanna be.

Scott Benner (19:41) Right. (19:42) Right. (19:42) Or doesn't want to be or is pretending to be or whatever. (19:44) It's just it's a lot to put on another person. (19:48) You know what I mean?

Erika Forsyth (19:49) Yes. (19:51) Yeah. (19:51) And I think that nurturing and encouraging and and and speaking those words out loud is positive because it's a positive thing for for yourself as the caregiver or the person living with diabetes. (20:05) But you always get to acknowledge the other side. (20:08) Or else then it feels like, well, there's no space.

Erika Forsyth (20:11) There's no room. (20:12) I'm not allowed to feel anything else besides I'm brave and resilient and strong. (20:16) But what if I don't wanna be? (20:17) What if I hate being like that today? (20:19) Yeah.

Scott Benner (20:20) No. (20:21) I hear it. (20:21) I and I I also feel it for the people on the other side of it who it's often friends, family, loved ones, your parents, somebody who are is really worried about you. (20:30) And I I I don't think they can handle thinking that you're not somehow a superhero in this scenario. (20:36) Right?

Scott Benner (20:36) Like, I've even I I've said before, like, some of the most together people I've ever met have type one. (20:42) Right? (20:42) Because it feels like they have a ton of perspective. (20:45) But I I think that's true. (20:46) I think they've been through a lot and they have a lot of perspective.

Scott Benner (20:49) I'm not saying they wanted the perspective. (20:51) Like, you know, like, I I say sometimes, like, I feel like I have the perspective of, a 95 year old man. (20:55) I had it when I was, like, 30. (20:57) I didn't want it though. (20:59) Like, you you know what I mean?

Scott Benner (21:00) Like, I would have liked to have learned about life the same way everybody else does, not through 17 horrible things that happened very quickly over a twenty four month period. (21:08) So Mhmm. (21:08) Anyway. (21:09) Okay. (21:09) Alright.

Scott Benner (21:10) Where where do we go from here? (21:11) How do we fix this? (21:12) No. (21:12) I'm sorry.

Erika Forsyth (21:12) We don't fix our budget. (21:15) We have to work through it, Scott.

Scott Benner (21:17) Okay. (21:17) Alright. (21:18) How do we work through it?

Erika Forsyth (21:20) So, well, before we get into the kind of the body residency practice, which we're gonna do in a minute, I think having also a practical tool in the moment when you're wrestling with this, I'm I'm saying I'm fine. (21:36) Everything's fine. (21:37) But underneath, I'm I'm freaking out or I'm really struggling. (21:42) I think with starting from kind of this concept of the misconception of, you know, people think it's easy because we make it look easy. (21:50) But when they make comments, we're not quite sure how to respond.

Erika Forsyth (21:53) So that kind of perpetuates this loop of misconception. (21:56) Mhmm. (21:57) One of my favorite statements that I make and I practice with with my clients is, when they say, you know, how are you doing? (22:04) Or, like or they'll ask questions about the pump and the CGM, and and consider or hope that it's easier. (22:12) Let's see.

Erika Forsyth (22:13) You know, living living with diabetes or living with even with this technology is is way more complex and complicated than I ever imagined. (22:22) And I think in that moment, you're kind of teaching them that, oh, yeah. (22:26) I used to I used to think it was easy

Scott Benner (22:29) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (22:30) Until I got it.

Scott Benner (22:31) Right. (22:31) You put it on

Erika Forsyth (22:32) And then I realized it's really hard.

Scott Benner (22:34) You kinda put it on yourself a little bit. (22:35) Like, you I felt that way too until I I got into it here, and it's it's it's nice. (22:41) You know, it there's value in it, but it's not it doesn't just make it easy. (22:45) You do see people say that about the pumps especially, like, oh, well, it just takes care of everything. (22:49) Right?

Scott Benner (22:50) Like, that's a real interesting mistake.

Erika Forsyth (22:52) I wish.

Scott Benner (22:52) Yeah. (22:53) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (22:53) I wish.

Scott Benner (22:53) That'd be awesome.

Erika Forsyth (22:56) Or have having something prepared. (23:00) And, you know, again, it it it feels really intense in the beginning. (23:06) And I think, you know, wrestling with that, people are not understanding how hard it is. (23:11) So either I'm just gonna say I'm fine when I'm not or when I try and speak something out say how I'm actually feeling, they're not really understanding. (23:18) And they'll say, oh, yeah.

Erika Forsyth (23:19) I I was sick too once, or I, you know, struggle with this other thing. (23:26) And then you're you're just you're left with feeling alone. (23:29) And so deciding in those micro all of these micro moments of how do I wanna respond, it will get easier over time when someone says, oh, you can you eat that cookie? (23:43) And I'll be like, heck, yeah. (23:44) I can.

Erika Forsyth (23:45) I'm gonna have two. (23:46) Or or I'll it'll I mean, I but these moments, I as I've shared these a lot of these examples, I know, over the years, they still stick with me.

Scott Benner (23:55) Right.

Erika Forsyth (23:56) I still remember almost all of them.

Scott Benner (23:57) Do you ever

Erika Forsyth (23:58) But they have sting less.

Scott Benner (23:59) Yeah. (23:59) Ever have two cookies just to show them you can when you don't want one? (24:03) Can you have one of those? (24:04) You're like, I'm gonna grab another one now. (24:06) What do think of that?

Erika Forsyth (24:06) Yeah. (24:07) Yeah. (24:08) Or, you know, just recently, a friend was traveling abroad, and they said, what can you bring back? (24:13) They're going to, I think it it was Switzerland. (24:15) I said, oh, can you bring me back some chocolate?

Erika Forsyth (24:17) And and they said, oh, can can you eat chocolate? (24:22) I said, oh, yes. (24:23) I love I love dark chocolate.

Scott Benner (24:25) Just keep it nice and simple. (24:26) Don't explain it. (24:27) Just Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (24:28) Yes. (24:29) So but then I I wanna validate that that type of comment I've been living with with type one for thirty five plus years. (24:38) I know that that would really bring me down. (24:42) Be like, that person, how do they not know? (24:44) They know me.

Erika Forsyth (24:45) Yeah. (24:45) And and I still feel that. (24:47) I still feel like, wow. (24:47) They they don't. (24:48) But then it's, choosing just to respond to say, yes.

Erika Forsyth (24:52) I can. (24:53) And moving on will feel easier at some times than others.

Scott Benner (24:57) You would have ex you would have, responded differently when you were younger, you think?

Erika Forsyth (25:02) I probably would have shut down and not talked to anybody. (25:05) Yeah.

Scott Benner (25:05) Oh, really? (25:06) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (25:06) But inside would have been really angry or, you know, the shame around that. (25:10) You shouldn't you shouldn't be eating that.

Scott Benner (25:12) Right.

Erika Forsyth (25:13) But I think or and then deciding if it is a good friend to say, well, actually, you know, I I can eat. (25:18) I and deciding, do you wanna explain more? (25:20) How much do you wanna go with that person?

Scott Benner (25:24) Current day, when you ask somebody for to bring you chocolate home from Switzerland as an example, do you know that the follow-up is gonna be that? (25:31) Are you already prepared for when you ask for the chocolate? (25:34) They're gonna say, oh, can you have chocolate? (25:36) Or do you not think of it

Erika Forsyth (25:37) that correctly? (25:38) I was surprised.

Scott Benner (25:38) Oh, it took me as surprised.

Erika Forsyth (25:40) Yeah. (25:40) Okay. (25:40) Yeah. (25:43) Yes. (25:44) So I think that it just it you're I'm kind of constantly surprised around the misconceptions even with my close friends.

Scott Benner (25:52) Are do the levels you know who I always feel the worst for? (25:55) The people whose parents still don't get it. (25:58) That that's just a certain level of, like, just, are you kidding me? (26:02) You you know, like, my mom still doesn't understand this. (26:05) I grew up with this, and she doesn't get it.

Scott Benner (26:07) Like, I've I've I've seen people be, I think, extra damaged. (26:12) It's the word that keeps coming into my head, but, like, extra impacted by that. (26:15) You know? (26:16) So Mhmm. (26:16) Interesting.

Scott Benner (26:17) So as a friend of yours, you expected would not say that, and you got and you said the right thing. (26:21) You said what you meant to say. (26:23) Look at you.

Erika Forsyth (26:24) Oh, wait. (26:24) What?

Scott Benner (26:25) I mean, your your response was, oh, yeah. (26:27) I can have that. (26:27) I love dark chocolate.

Erika Forsyth (26:28) Yeah. (26:28) Yeah.

Scott Benner (26:28) I love I love

Erika Forsyth (26:29) dark chocolate. (26:30) And then we didn't go into it. (26:31) I we I could have, and then it just the the subject changed. (26:36) Mhmm. (26:37) But the fact that I'm bringing it up and I remember it also means oh, yeah.

Erika Forsyth (26:41) It it landed somewhere in my in my heart. (26:44) Right? (26:44) You didn't

Scott Benner (26:45) you didn't go, are you kidding me, Patty? (26:47) Are you out of we have known each other for fifteen years. (26:50) Hey. (26:50) You didn't do that. (26:51) Right?

Scott Benner (26:52) Like, start stomping your feet. (26:53) You know, like, that's it. (26:54) We're done. (26:55) Son of a bitch.

Erika Forsyth (26:56) Yeah. (26:57) So, I mean, it just it it does happen in having prepared responses. (27:03) And over time, you're gonna hear it more. (27:05) And so then you also have that practice. (27:07) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (27:08) Anyway, we sorry. (27:10) We went a little bit off topic. (27:12) But what can you do having those those responses prepared? (27:18) And then secondly, going back to, you know, what so what do you do with that feeling? (27:23) There's one there's one respond you could have that verbal response in the moment.

Erika Forsyth (27:27) But then maybe when you go home and you're just feeling, like, either isolated or misunderstood or invalidate invalidated, You want to engage in that in those feelings. (27:37) You know, I know, Scott, you joke about, like, well, how do we fix this? (27:41) So we can't we can't fix it, but we can feel it. (27:44) And so engaging with the body grief, engaging with the feelings means meeting your body where it's at right now. (27:51) So we're gonna we're gonna do something that if you're driving, I encourage you not to do it.

Erika Forsyth (27:56) So maybe you can pause and listen to this later. (28:00) But we're gonna do a body scan exercise because one of the practices, that is encouraged if you're noticing that you're in dismissal is to practice body residency

Scott Benner (28:11) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (28:12) Which means really kind of like, what maybe some of you already do, like body scans, mindfulness, mindful eating, stretching, yoga, grounding exercises, anything where you are actually pausing and engaging and connecting with how your body is physically feeling, how your body is emotionally feeling. (28:36) And it can be done sixty seconds. (28:39) You could take an hour, but that's what we're gonna do right now. (28:43) Is that okay?

Scott Benner (28:44) Yeah. (28:44) I would love to. (28:45) I I was worried that like, you when said you can't do it while you're driving, was like, I hope this is a pants on thing. (28:49) I don't know what's happening right now. (28:51) Go ahead.

Scott Benner (28:51) Alright. (28:51) So what are the steps?

Erika Forsyth (28:54) Scott. (28:54) Okay. (28:54) So so and and going back to the concept of body trust. (28:59) Mhmm. (28:59) Right?

Erika Forsyth (29:00) Which is this two way street in order to trust our bodies, our bodies need to trust us to take care of it, be kind to it, and nourish it. (29:10) And that is the concept that Jane talks about, that we're always trying to return to body trust. (29:16) Alright? (29:17) So in order to trust our bodies, our body needs to trust us to take care of it. (29:21) So when you're feeling like you're in this dismissal stage, you can check-in and engage with your body, and that is part of processing through the body grief.

Erika Forsyth (29:33) So we're gonna do a body scan right now.

Scott Benner (29:36) Am I gonna close my eyes? (29:37) I'll

Erika Forsyth (29:37) do it. (29:37) Yes. (29:37) You are. (29:38) Okay. (29:38) I'm gonna lead you through this.

Erika Forsyth (29:39) Okay? (29:39) So I'm going to invite you. (29:42) If you can get just take a minute to get to a place where you can sit down and close your eyes and place your feet on the floor. (29:52) Just notice your feet on the floor.

Scott Benner (29:55) Got it.

Erika Forsyth (29:56) Notice feeling your back back up against the chair. (30:00) Mhmm. (30:00) And you can be relaxed. (30:03) And take a deep breath in through your nose and hold and out through your mouth. (30:13) And continuing to take deep breaths, I invite you to place your hands either on your stomach or your heart or your legs.

Scott Benner (30:26) I chose my heart.

Erika Forsyth (30:27) Yes. (30:28) And just feel just notice the warmth of your hands wherever they are. (30:33) Just notice the warmth of your hands over your heart or your stomach or your legs wherever they're resting. (30:40) And just feel that connection. (30:46) And continuing with the deep breath, notice any places of tension in your body.

Scott Benner (30:53) My neck?

Erika Forsyth (30:54) Your neck. (30:55) So you can take a deep breath in, and you can roll your neck around comfortably and slowly. (31:06) For many of us, we keep a lot of tension in our our neck and shoulders. (31:10) You might wanna take a deep breath in and roll your shoulders up and back down and breathe out. (31:23) And keeping your eyes closed and your body relaxed, I'm gonna read some affirmations that you can read to your or read to yourself or say to yourself in your mind.

Erika Forsyth (31:38) It is normal and healthy to grieve. (31:45) It's okay not to have the answers today. (31:52) My body is changing, and I am safe. (32:00) I know my body, and my body is wise. (32:09) And if any of those affirmations seemed to resonate or stand out for you, just take another deep breath in and holding on to those words and exhale.

Erika Forsyth (32:26) And when you're ready, you can open your eyes and return to the room that you're in.

Scott Benner (32:34) That's really nice. (32:36) Seriously. (32:38) I might come back and listen to this again.

Erika Forsyth (32:41) Yeah. (32:42) So that was a bit rushed just for the sake of, you know

Scott Benner (32:47) For this. (32:47) Yeah. (32:47) Sure.

Erika Forsyth (32:48) For this, for being on the podcast. (32:50) But it's something that you can do. (32:54) Honestly, a body scan is something that a lot of people build into their daily rhythm. (33:00) In the morning, you could take sixty seconds and just connect with your body, noticing if comments are coming up from the day, whatever feelings or sensations you have, and just connecting with them. (33:14) So you're not fixing it or doing anything besides just acknowledging them.

Scott Benner (33:18) Yeah. (33:19) Have that Mhmm. (33:20) After I have that after a massage feeling. (33:22) Like, it's not as big yet, but I have I have a little bit of it from that. (33:26) It's really it's kind of astonishing how putting your feet on the floor is really helpful too because Mhmm.

Scott Benner (33:31) When you started, people don't know, but, like, we're recording and I've been, like, really listening to you. (33:36) So I I had my feet up on, like, the bottom of my chair a little bit. (33:40) I crossed my legs, and I was sat way back when you started. (33:42) And I didn't realize you wanted me to sit up and be forward. (33:45) And as soon as I put my feet on the floor, I was like, oh, that makes it makes it feel different.

Scott Benner (33:50) It's interesting. (33:51) You know? (33:51) So that was great. (33:53) My gosh.

Erika Forsyth (33:54) Good. (33:54) Well, yeah, some some people feel more connected and grounded when they have their feet on the floor. (34:00) Mhmm. (34:00) But for some people, they feel more connected and energized when they tuck their feet up in, like, kind of sitting crisscross. (34:08) So just noticing and either way works.

Scott Benner (34:11) Whatever's better.

Erika Forsyth (34:12) Yeah. (34:13) And these affirmations that I read, I I do come from the book, and there are lots more in there. (34:22) But I think having, you know, two two kind of memorized mantras, maybe something to say to people who make comments that are not trying to be ignorant, but maybe land as ignorant. (34:32) Having that ready, but then also having an internal mantra like, know my body, and my body is wise, or my body is changing, and I am safe. (34:42) Having something to kind of ground and comfort yourself, and acknowledging how you're doing and feeling is also really helpful.

Scott Benner (34:49) I I chose the my body is changing and I am safe as my repeat at the end just in case people are wondering. (34:55) So Mhmm. (34:56) That was really lovely. (34:57) That's right from the book, the body grief book?

Erika Forsyth (35:00) Yes. (35:00) Those affirmations are. (35:02) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (35:03) Might sell a couple books because that was that was bizarre. (35:07) Listen. (35:07) As soon as we talked about it last time, I I ordered one for Arden. (35:10) So Yeah. (35:11) You know, put

Erika Forsyth (35:12) it on a good book.

Scott Benner (35:13) On our Christmas gift pile. (35:15) I I think

Erika Forsyth (35:16) So that is dismissal.

Scott Benner (35:17) Yeah. (35:17) Go I if you have time, I'd I think we should go into shock and

Erika Forsyth (35:21) keep going. (35:21) Yeah. (35:22) Let's keep going.

Scott Benner (35:23) Alright.

Erika Forsyth (35:23) Okay. (35:25) The second stage, but again, might not follow dismissal immediately. (35:31) But as we're talking about it, shock sounds like it is. (35:36) And this might if you're speaking it out, might sound like I'm overwhelmed. (35:42) I can't do this.

Erika Forsyth (35:44) This feels intolerable. (35:48) That also to me sounds a little bit like burnout. (35:51) Okay. (35:52) Yeah. (35:52) But if we're thinking about it from either, you know, original, you know, stages of diagnosis or at another point in in your journey with diabetes, it often will show up when there's no more room for dismissal or denial.

Erika Forsyth (36:08) Right? (36:08) Like, there's no you you've said I'm fine one too many times, and you are about to explode.

Scott Benner (36:15) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (36:16) And, actually, Jane calls it the shock is the embodiment of a reality check, which I kind of love that. (36:24) Right? (36:24) Like, you you've been kind of going, going, going, going, going, and there's been all this kind of these feelings that have been percolating underneath. (36:33) And when shock shows up, it can feel very overwhelming, very violent, and almost feeling like, is this is this the end of of life, or is this the end of what I felt like my life was was going to be? (36:46) And oftentimes, there's a fear of allowing yourself to feel shock that you won't come out of it.

Erika Forsyth (36:53) Right? (36:54) Like, if and that's why you kind of are trying to stay in dismissal or denial of, like, how you're actually doing or feeling because you feel like, oh, no. (37:03) If I actually feel what I'm feeling, am I ever going to pull myself out of this shock stage? (37:11) So this this kind of wrestling again, like, with is the shock is that diabetes burnout? (37:19) I don't know.

Erika Forsyth (37:20) But I would I would argue that it might look and feel very similar when you're just so overwhelmed. (37:25) You feel like you can't keep going

Scott Benner (37:27) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (37:27) And you just kinda wanna check out. (37:29) And with burnout, you know, you have all these feelings of dis of really emotional dysregulation and anger and rage and sadness and and just overwhelm. (37:40) Yeah. (37:41) And that's what shock can look like too.

Scott Benner (37:44) That's such a the the shock, it shows up when there's no more room for dismissal. (37:51) That that struck me. (37:53) Mhmm. (37:53) That was so it's just like a it's Popeye. (37:57) Right?

Scott Benner (37:57) What what did he say? (37:59) It's all I can stand, so I can't stand no more.

Erika Forsyth (38:01) Oh, nice. (38:03) Yeah. (38:03) Yeah.

Scott Benner (38:04) And then right? (38:05) Is that Popeye?

Erika Forsyth (38:06) I don't know, but I know that phrase.

Scott Benner (38:08) Yeah. (38:08) I think that I that's what it made me feel like. (38:11) Like, that made me feel like when my wife is like, I can't I've I've taken this shit long enough. (38:18) And I'm like, so but but so in diabetes specifically, you're dismissing, you're dismissing, you're dismissing, And then you can't dismiss anymore, and then you have to give it away. (38:30) And that's when it appears like you're not paying attention any longer.

Scott Benner (38:33) That's the burnout.

Erika Forsyth (38:35) Yes. (38:36) Yes. (38:36) And I think with with signs that you might be in shock, you're you you are kind of surprised. (38:44) Like, you're kind of blindsided by these intense feelings of anxiety, the intense feelings fear of the future. (38:53) And you might notice yourself disassociating more, like, with numbing, you know, with with entertainment, drugs, alcohol, food.

Erika Forsyth (39:02) You might be distracting.

Scott Benner (39:04) Okay. (39:04) You're

Erika Forsyth (39:04) you're maybe just scrolling mindlessly on your social media. (39:09) You're over scheduling, so you're trying to numb the feelings.

Scott Benner (39:13) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (39:14) And it can also feel more intense based on our expectations of life. (39:19) And I and when I say Jane, the author of the book, she makes this point, and I think it's really important, that we've talked about before in a lot of episodes that we are because of our culture, our society, we are kind of born into this mentality that this isn't how life is supposed to be. (39:39) This isn't I'm I deserve a pain free life.

Scott Benner (39:42) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (39:42) And so if that is kind of the narrative that you are living with, you the shock, the feelings around shock are gonna feel more intense.

Scott Benner (39:52) I see. (39:53) Because your expectation sense? (39:54) Your expectation is so big and not realistic. (39:57) And that is really a modern expectation, isn't it? (40:01) Everything should be free.

Scott Benner (40:02) It should work. (40:03) It should be there when I need it. (40:05) I should never be in pain. (40:07) I should never be cold or uncomfortable. (40:08) And if I am, then the world let me down.

Scott Benner (40:11) Everything's let me down at that point. (40:13) Yes. (40:14) Meanwhile, not that this is the conversation, but if I take you back fifty or a hundred years and then, you know and I and I brought one of those people here for a week, they'd be like, I would never complain about this. (40:25) Although, you know, in a month, they'd be complaining about it.

Erika Forsyth (40:28) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (40:28) Yeah. (40:28) Yeah. (40:28) Mhmm. (40:29) So what I I I have such a, like, a a side road I wanna go down. (40:33) It has nothing to do with this, I'll just keep it to myself.

Scott Benner (40:35) But but keep but keep going, please.

Erika Forsyth (40:38) Okay. (40:38) Okay. (40:38) Well, hold hold that if you wanna okay. (40:41) So the the the problem with the disassociating, it can work for a little bit. (40:47) That's why we we go back to it.

Erika Forsyth (40:49) Right? (40:49) Like, when you're you're blindsided by all of these feelings, you go into this numbing these numbing patterns to not feel these intense emotions, and you can feel maybe stuck in these patterns of being in the shock stage Mhmm. (41:06) Because you you feel it, and then you disassociate by numbing. (41:08) And then you feel it, and then sometimes you might go back to, oh, but but I'm okay. (41:13) Right?

Erika Forsyth (41:13) I I'm I'm fine. (41:14) I can keep going. (41:16) So those are those are kind of the signs or signals that you might be in this shock stage. (41:24) Okay. (41:24) So what what can you do?

Erika Forsyth (41:27) And she calls it the one of the the practices is the the shift down perspective. (41:32) And this goes back to that kind of maybe entitlement that we are born into because of our our our culture and society Mhmm. (41:40) That we we deserve a pain free, quote, normal life. (41:47) And so if you acknowledge that, it it might feel like a downer. (41:52) Like, well, maybe I shouldn't have that sense of entitlement, but it actually can become more empowering.

Erika Forsyth (41:58) So taking us to the diabetes lens, when we adjust our expectations, the kind of the shift down perspective of what our bodies can and can't do with with diabetes. (42:14) We that might feel like I'm encouraging dismissal of the pain or feeling like you're missing out. (42:22) But, really, it's saying, okay. (42:24) With with diabetes, I can do pretty much anything anyone else can. (42:29) But there are gonna be times when I'm gonna have to sit and wait for my load to come up.

Erika Forsyth (42:34) There are gonna be times when I have to wait for everyone while I change my sight, Or there are gonna be times when I'm gonna I'm just I'm gonna be stopped at security at the airport. (42:44) I'm just gonna it's just gonna happen. (42:46) And so when when we are operating from that, having more realistic expectations of what our bodies can and can't do, that is she's kind of suggesting that that is a place of empowerment

Scott Benner (43:02) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (43:02) As opposed to placing you and putting you back into this kind of either dismissal dismissal or the shock and rage and and feeling of, wait. (43:14) What? (43:14) This happened again? (43:16) Like, I got stopped at at TSA again? (43:18) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (43:19) How could this be? (43:20) Now with that said, I also wanna highlight that as a teenager, when you're all your friends are running off to the corner store after school and you feel like you can't go or you have to wait and pre bolus or you say, screw it, you're gonna go eat the Slurpee anyway. (43:39) Like, there's there's there's real feelings in that in that space.

Scott Benner (43:42) Right.

Erika Forsyth (43:43) But the more we can adjust our expectations of what our bodies can and can't do, that is going to bring yourself to a place of peace and body trust. (43:55) Right? (43:55) Going back to that, like, trusting our bodies so our bodies can trust us to take care of it. (44:00) Sorry.

Scott Benner (44:01) No. (44:01) You you know, you've said a number of times as we've been doing this that it's that this this applies to everything. (44:08) I think that's some way. (44:09) And I the longer we talk about it, the more I feel like that. (44:13) That that this isn't, like, we can focus this idea on diabetes or on, like, a health struggle.

Scott Benner (44:21) But it really I I mean, metaphysically feels like a bigger idea that I don't have my my brain already, like, completely wrapped around yet. (44:28) That's really just kinda where I am right now going through this.

Erika Forsyth (44:33) Yes. (44:34) Yeah. (44:34) And I think the important like, this lens of body grief, I think, and the stages that are applied from it are, yes, focused on, like, what you experience when you're going through life and something happens physically to your body. (44:54) Mhmm. (44:54) And and you are gonna experience these stages.

Erika Forsyth (44:57) But I agree that, yeah, a lot of this can be applied to a lot of other things or a lot of these concepts.

Scott Benner (45:02) I just feel like after we're done making this series, it's not gonna be for months or longer before I start adapting what we've really said to each other and then, like, seeing how it applies. (45:15) I think I'm gonna see this in other parts of life in the future is what I'm getting at. (45:20) Mhmm. (45:20) You know? (45:20) Just it's it feels like a simple but bigger idea to me at the same time.

Scott Benner (45:24) I don't have my head all the way around it yet.

Erika Forsyth (45:26) Yes. (45:26) No. (45:26) I I agree. (45:27) I I feel that as well. (45:29) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (45:30) Which is why I think this was the book is so great and why I'm feeling so strongly about applying it to diabetes. (45:36) And it just it does feel really significant.

Scott Benner (45:38) Right. (45:39) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (45:39) For sure. (45:40) So in this kind of what can you do when you're in noticing that you're in the shock stage or if we're saying it kind of feels like burnout a little bit as well, I I love this tool of what can you do to feel one to 5% better. (45:57) So when you're feeling so overwhelmed, so either fearful, anxious, or or just burned out. (46:05) Like, what small thing can you do? (46:07) Not to, like, change your life, not to change you know, we can't get rid of diabetes, but what can we do to make yourself feel five one to 5% better?

Erika Forsyth (46:17) And those are small things like, you know, the warm bath, like asking for a hug, playing your favorite song, and dancing in the kitchen. (46:25) Like, something really small that doesn't take a lot of time, effort, or resources.

Scott Benner (46:31) Are those soothing ideas that aren't bad for you? (46:34) Like, because you mentioned soothing stuff before, like like doom scrolling and stuff like that. (46:39) I mean, alcohol, drugs, like, it really did open up a bigger idea in my head. (46:44) Like, if everybody feels like this at some point I mean, you know, the the instance of how many people drink to numbness is huge, right, in in the country and across the world. (46:53) The number of people who use drugs to to disassociate, who gamble online or, you know, I mean, the amount of people I've been intersecting with, like, who describe themselves as having a a a some sort of, like, a a masturbation, thing that they can't break free of or, like, sex addiction.

Scott Benner (47:13) Yeah. (47:14) Addictions. (47:14) Like, my my bigger question was this is unfair to ask of you, so I'm not really asking it of you as much as I'm kinda putting it out there is what happens like, we say those things like they're all bad, and I don't believe that they're not. (47:26) But what if we didn't do them? (47:28) Like, where would people be then?

Scott Benner (47:29) They'd still feel the way they feel, but without the because we're we're saying, like, if everyone was enlightened enough to have these conversations, then maybe you could process this stuff and walk through it. (47:40) But that feels fairly unrealistic to me as I'm sitting here talking. (47:44) Like, so Mhmm. (47:45) If everyone just stopped numbing themselves, like, what what would it be? (47:48) Would it would just be pandemonium in the streets?

Scott Benner (47:50) Like, would we be back to, like, the fourteen hundreds? (47:52) Like, what you see what I'm saying? (47:54) Like Oh, yeah. (47:55) Wonder where it would go.

Erika Forsyth (47:57) It's I think it's a great question. (47:59) And I think the the problem is that the numbing works. (48:03) It works. (48:04) Sure. (48:04) Right?

Erika Forsyth (48:04) Like, when you're feeling overwhelmed and you wanna disassociate with whatever your choice of disassociation activity Yeah. (48:13) It works. (48:14) Because the problem is is that is that all you're doing?

Scott Benner (48:18) Right. (48:18) No. (48:18) You yeah. (48:18) Obviously, you don't wanna just be ignoring yourself into the grave. (48:21) Like, be but if when you stop and even look how people's lives are set up with, like, television, for example, like, just take it big.

Scott Benner (48:27) Forget before social media. (48:29) Mhmm. (48:29) You get to the end of the day. (48:30) You you maybe you're disappointed with your job choices. (48:33) Maybe you're looking across the room at a spouse you wish didn't get married to.

Scott Benner (48:36) You look at your dumb kid. (48:37) Like, who knows what, like, you know, your dog limps, whatever is pissing you off. (48:40) Right? (48:40) You know, like, you know, let me turn on Archie Bunker's place and have a beer and get the hell out of this. (48:45) Right?

Scott Benner (48:45) Right? (48:46) Like, maybe that's and I don't know. (48:48) Like, it just it feels very it feels very human. (48:53) You know? (48:54) Everybody wants I almost said this earlier, then it just didn't fit anywhere.

Scott Benner (48:58) I said, like, well, if you if we went back in time and found somebody brought them up a hundred years, showed them life, they wouldn't complain. (49:05) And I said, oh, you know what? (49:06) They would eventually. (49:07) Because people are, like, hardwired to want better, which I think probably drives society forward in a really positive way. (49:15) I think macro, that's a great human trait.

Scott Benner (49:18) And micro, it's really devastating. (49:20) Like, you know what I mean? (49:21) Like, you you you grow up, you go to college, you learn a thing, you meet a person, they say, I love you, they actually mean it, you make a baby. (49:28) And then instead of sitting and enjoying it, you go, what's next? (49:31) What do I have to conquer now?

Scott Benner (49:33) You you you know? (49:33) And then you can't possibly do that. (49:35) You've pretty much already exhausted what's available to an average person. (49:41) You know? (49:41) Like, you've done all the things.

Scott Benner (49:43) Instead of sitting and enjoying it, you're just mad at yourself for not accomplishing this other faceless, nameless thing. (49:48) You don't even know what it is. (49:49) You just think there's more somewhere. (49:50) Mhmm. (49:51) Like, the desire for more keeps I think it keeps us alive, and it kills us at the same time.

Scott Benner (49:56) I hope that makes sense, or I'm not out of my mind, but that's how it feels to me.

Erika Forsyth (50:01) Yes. (50:01) Yeah. (50:03) The desire for more, yeah, can leave you feeling empty when you achieve the thing that thought you thought was gonna bring you all the pleasure.

Scott Benner (50:12) Yeah. (50:12) It happens to me. (50:13) Yeah. (50:13) Like, when I I I just thought I just got done telling somebody recently, like, I I I feel bored making the podcast recently.

Erika Forsyth (50:18) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (50:19) And it's not the I love making the podcast. (50:22) It's that I've gotten it down to such a a process where it's just it doesn't take as much as my time as it used to. (50:29) Mhmm. (50:29) And now I'm just like, well, what am I supposed to be? (50:31) Like, should I be out conquering something else?

Scott Benner (50:32) I'm, like, in my mid fifties. (50:33) I kinda don't wanna conquer anything else. (50:35) Like, I'm good. (50:36) You you know what I mean? (50:36) But I can't just be happy with it.

Scott Benner (50:39) It's and and that's a, I mean, a real basic idea. (50:42) But, like, when you're looking Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (50:43) You know

Scott Benner (50:44) what I mean? (50:44) Like, when you look across the room at a spouse and you're like, that person loves me. (50:47) But, hey. (50:48) You know what they do? (50:48) They do this thing that I hate.

Scott Benner (50:50) And, like, you know, like, how how is that the thing you get focused on? (50:53) You know? (50:53) I don't know. (50:54) Don't know. (50:54) I think people are in trouble.

Scott Benner (50:55) Like

Erika Forsyth (50:56) and Thanks, Scott.

Scott Benner (50:58) No. (50:58) No. (50:58) No. (50:58) No. (50:59) But I think it's good to know it because then you can do things like this to I mean, that one to 5% better idea, that's an awesome way to think about it.

Scott Benner (51:07) You you know, like, being alive is what it is. (51:10) Can I make it 5% better right now? (51:12) I should take a minute and do that. (51:14) I I that just it makes a lot of sense to me.

Erika Forsyth (51:16) Which I well, I love that you kind of is connected to, the cognitive behavioral therapy, and one of the distortions is all or nothing thinking. (51:26) Right? (51:26) Like, I'm only things are only gonna be better when diabetes is cured or, you know, whatever you can we we we are often stuck in all or nothing thinking.

Scott Benner (51:37) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (51:37) And so I love this. (51:39) The one to 5% better tool kind of eliminates that all or nothing thinking. (51:44) I'm like, okay. (51:44) Yeah. (51:44) You know what?

Erika Forsyth (51:45) I can do this thing. (51:45) I can I can play this song and dance and see what happens? (51:48) Yeah. (51:48) So I think this is our yeah. (51:52) The kind of the the third practice, noticing if you're in shock.

Erika Forsyth (52:00) In order and and you're noticing that maybe you're you're disassociating, you're numbing, you're feeling so overwhelmed, fearful, anxious. (52:09) You have to feel the feelings, and this is it's hard because it is so easy to numb. (52:14) Mhmm. (52:15) But in order to move through it, it is necessary to feel all your feelings. (52:21) But when we're in shock, you know, historically, our bodies are are wired to create safety.

Erika Forsyth (52:28) So we are often trying to flee, fight, freeze, fawn, and move, you know, move away from the feelings in any way possible. (52:38) But in order to move through shock, you have to feel the feelings. (52:44) We have you know, we've done breathing techniques before. (52:48) I can go through those or not. (52:52) We can do do you want me to list through

Scott Benner (52:55) those examples? (52:56) Okay. (52:56) The five four three two one method?

Erika Forsyth (52:58) We've done yeah. (52:59) The five four three two one is the grounding technique that I think we recorded a whole episode on that one. (53:05) Other techniques so when you're feeling like you, gosh, I just want it. (53:09) I wanna numb or disassociate, and the other techniques are not working. (53:14) I know we we all know about breathing techniques, but they they are important because they work, and they can connect you to that feeling.

Erika Forsyth (53:24) So the three ones that I often, teach, the the five finger breathing. (53:29) So when you're holding up your hand, you're tracing with your pointer finger of your other hand up one finger. (53:37) And as you're tracing it up, you're inhaling. (53:40) So your pointer finger is going up your thumb, and then you're inhaling, and then you're pausing and holding at the top of your thumb. (53:48) And then your pointer finger is tracing down your thumb on the other side, and you're exhaling at that point and then pausing at the bottom.

Erika Forsyth (53:58) And then you're tracing your pointer finger up your other pointer finger. (54:03) Am I just I'm usually demonstrating this visually. (54:06) Am I saying this correctly?

Scott Benner (54:07) I'm I'm trying not to look at you so I can see if I can follow you. (54:10) I'm I'm on the right finger. (54:11) I hope that

Erika Forsyth (54:15) okay. (54:15) So then you're inhaling, tracing, and then pausing at the top, and then your fingers tracing down. (54:22) So, basically, you're you're kind of moving your pointer finger up and down in between your fingers and inhaling while you go up, pausing at the top, exhaling when you go down. (54:32) Mhmm. (54:32) You're doing this very slowly.

Erika Forsyth (54:34) And the reason why I like this better than just taking some deep breaths is because your mind you're interrupting your thoughts because your mind has to be intentional with moving your finger up and down the hand. (54:47) Mhmm. (54:47) You're feeling the sensation while then also breathing, which, helps your your nervous system

Scott Benner (54:56) calm down. (54:57) And the sensation's really nice because I think that's not a part that you get touched on very often. (55:01) Like, the sides of your fingers. (55:02) Yeah. (55:02) It's lovely.

Erika Forsyth (55:03) Yeah. (55:03) The side of your fingers and then in between the the do you call this?

Scott Benner (55:06) The crevice?

Erika Forsyth (55:07) The webbing? (55:08) Did you

Scott Benner (55:08) say crevice?

Erika Forsyth (55:09) Yeah. (55:09) The crevice. (55:11) Oh my gosh. (55:12) I gotta work on this to saying this audibly and not

Scott Benner (55:16) just Erica's practicing on us before she charges someone for this.

Erika Forsyth (55:22) No. (55:22) I usually do it with someone sitting in the room.

Scott Benner (55:24) I understand. (55:25) You don't have to be you don't have to be verbal about it when you're show you just show them. (55:28) Right? (55:28) In, hold, down, out. (55:30) I gotcha.

Scott Benner (55:30) Don't worry. (55:31) People understood. (55:31) Also, while you're laughing, the five four three two one method is something that I just suggested to somebody in the Facebook group last night. (55:39) It's episode nine thirteen. (55:41) So and there are people I've I've heard from numbers, a number of people on that episode, but one of them told me that that episode helped them get through the passing of a parent.

Scott Benner (55:51) So, you know, I I think it's a it's a great thing to know about.

Erika Forsyth (55:56) Yes. (55:57) Yeah. (55:57) When the grief is so overwhelming, I think, just looking at, okay. (56:02) What can I do for the next fifteen minutes? (56:05) And then you and you maybe do one of these breathing techniques or the grounding five four three two one, and then you ask yourself again, okay.

Erika Forsyth (56:13) What can I do for the next fifteen minutes? (56:14) Like, really chunking it out In place Slowly.

Scott Benner (56:17) In place of scrolling on TikTok or one of those other things that is less valuable for you personally.

Erika Forsyth (56:24) Yes. (56:25) And there might be a time and place to do that Mhmm. (56:27) To give your mind a break.

Scott Benner (56:30) A shutoff.

Erika Forsyth (56:30) But then but then so yeah. (56:31) And then, like so as you were kind of you know, is there a better way?

Scott Benner (56:36) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (56:37) So perhaps it it's okay to to do some of those, you know, numbing exercise or activities. (56:43) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (56:44) Do you know

Erika Forsyth (56:44) Coming back.

Scott Benner (56:45) Do you know that the person, the guy that invented the doom scroll, he's publicly apologized to society for it. (56:52) Like, seriously, he you used to you used to scroll to the bottom of an app and you'd get to the end. (56:57) And he's the one that said, what if we just it never stopped. (57:01) And he says, now in retrospect, he wished he never would have done that. (57:05) So Wow.

Scott Benner (57:06) Yeah. (57:06) Interesting.

Erika Forsyth (57:07) That's powerful. (57:08) Yeah. (57:08) I don't even know who that

Scott Benner (57:09) is. (57:09) You'd have to look it up. (57:10) I'd literally just saw him talking about it the other day. (57:12) Uh-huh. (57:13) You know?

Scott Benner (57:13) And they were describing I was looking at social media, how it's changed over twenty years, and that it's not it's not really in any way the way it was. (57:23) It used to be like, oh, like, I'll go on Instagram and see my friends' pictures. (57:27) That doesn't work that way anymore. (57:28) Know, I'll go on Facebook and I'll find things that I'm interested in. (57:31) Doesn't really work that way anymore.

Scott Benner (57:32) You get delivered stuff now. (57:33) It's all about keeping you in there so that they can sell ad space off your ass. (57:38) Like, you know? (57:39) And I guess that in the early goings, that they realized that if there was something there, people would keep going. (57:46) It's almost like a slot machine.

Scott Benner (57:48) Like, your your phone's almost like a slot machine. (57:49) You don't have to put a quarter into. (57:51) You just put your life you put your life into it instead. (57:54) And so, anyway, it was just interesting. (57:57) You could probably find him talking about it somewhere.

Erika Forsyth (57:59) Okay. (58:00) Yeah. (58:00) That is interesting. (58:01) Yeah. (58:04) So we want Breathing breathing techniques.

Scott Benner (58:06) Yep. (58:06) I was gonna say breathing techniques. (58:08) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (58:09) One other one I just wanted to say that, you know, there's box breathing, which is fairly simple. (58:14) You could also just look that up. (58:15) It's drawing a box with your or a square or rectangle, whatever you want with your finger, and you're inhaling while you draw up, exhaling while you move your finger across. (58:26) And and, again, let it letting it all go, breathing. (58:29) I also love, like, practicing that at a red light.

Erika Forsyth (58:33) You're just you're inhaling and moving your shoulders up. (58:36) Mhmm. (58:37) And then letting everything down at a you know, just kind of habit sharing. (58:47) That's not the right word. (58:49) Doing things at the same time.

Scott Benner (58:51) I do the double inhale thing to fall back asleep if I wake up in the middle of the night and I I get in that spot where your brain starts racing. (58:58) I actually had this happen to me last night where it was, like, two in the morning, and I thought I should just get up and start living start living again. (59:04) And I was like, no. (59:05) No. (59:05) No.

Scott Benner (59:05) Don't do that. (59:06) So it's like like inhaling, like it's like a certain percentage through your nose, and you kind of add, like, a sniff in and then slowly exhale out, but you kinda push it out. (59:16) Like, I I I to be honest with you, it's like a it's a Andrew Huberman thing that I saw him doing one time about like, he's like, if you if you have trouble falling asleep, like, try this breathing technique. (59:25) And it's just sort of like like, it's a double inhale. (59:29) Right?

Scott Benner (59:29) Like, the second one, like, you push and then you push out really hard. (59:32) And I'll tell you, man. (59:33) I don't know if I'm tricking myself or not, but knock on wood, it works for me. (59:38) So and then and then moving your eyes gently, from side to high side to side behind closed eyelids, I also find that really helpful for going back to sleep. (59:48) So, anyway, look it up.

Erika Forsyth (59:50) A good one. (59:50) Yeah. (59:50) There's also the 467.

Scott Benner (59:53) What's that?

Erika Forsyth (59:54) 467, which I'm giggling too with the, 67.

Scott Benner (1:00:00) Oh, oh, I was thinking 369, the monkey drank wine, but go ahead. (1:00:03) 467,

Erika Forsyth (1:00:08) not to be, yeah, confused with 67, which, you know, all the kids are saying.

Scott Benner (1:00:13) I don't even know what it means. (1:00:14) So

Erika Forsyth (1:00:15) we're Okay. (1:00:15) Yeah. (1:00:15) Yeah. (1:00:16) Okay. (1:00:16) The you're inhaling for four, holding for six, and exhaling for seven.

Erika Forsyth (1:00:23) You're a lot of people's Apple watches will guide you through that. (1:00:26) That's another good one. (1:00:27) Okay.

Scott Benner (1:00:28) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (1:00:28) So why why are we doing breathing techniques, noticing if you're in the shock stage, helping regulate your nervous system so then you can connect with your feelings and remembering that feelings are not facts. (1:00:42) They are designed to encourage you to feel them, to do just that. (1:00:48) Right? (1:00:48) To feel them and not let them drive you. (1:00:52) They are not facts.

Scott Benner (1:00:53) Feelings are not facts. (1:00:55) Mhmm. (1:00:56) What but we feel that's how it occurs to us, though. (1:00:59) I don't wanna keep saying feelings. (1:01:00) Right?

Scott Benner (1:01:01) The way I feel feels like it's a rule. (1:01:03) That rule makes it so that whatever's happening to me externally is being done to me now because it's how I feel. (1:01:10) Is there an example of that that you could use that comes up often for people when they think their feelings are facts?

Erika Forsyth (1:01:15) Right. (1:01:16) So I would go to the the cognitive triangle from CBT. (1:01:20) Right? (1:01:21) So that we feel like, our thoughts well, this is actually true. (1:01:27) Our thoughts impact how we feel Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (1:01:29) Which impact what we do or behave and vice versa. (1:01:33) Right? (1:01:34) So but when we are allowing either our feelings to drive what we think or what we do, like so I'm feeling Ray, I'm feeling, let's say, vic like a vic I'm feeling victimized. (1:01:47) And my thought is either what did I do to get this? (1:01:54) Why me?

Erika Forsyth (1:01:55) Mhmm. (1:01:56) Then my behavior will be I'm just gonna ignore it.

Scott Benner (1:01:59) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (1:02:00) I'm going to versus, okay. (1:02:02) I'm feeling I'm feeling, like, victimized here. (1:02:06) Like, kind of like I'm a bit I'm thinking about diabetes. (1:02:08) Like, I'm feeling like, why did I get this? (1:02:10) I'm I'm feeling sad.

Erika Forsyth (1:02:14) Acknowledging, okay. (1:02:15) I'm feeling victimized or I'm feeling like why me or my thought is why me. (1:02:20) Mhmm. (1:02:21) Say, okay. (1:02:21) That's how I'm feeling.

Erika Forsyth (1:02:22) That's okay. (1:02:23) But I'm not gonna acknowledge that as a fact and respond accordingly. (1:02:28) I'm gonna allow myself to feel it. (1:02:30) So I'm going to cry. (1:02:32) I'm going to journal.

Erika Forsyth (1:02:34) I am going to, let myself engage in that feeling. (1:02:39) Yeah. (1:02:39) Like, punch a pillow. (1:02:42) Talk it out. (1:02:43) Seek, you know, a therapist.

Erika Forsyth (1:02:45) Seek a a safe a friend who you can process that feeling with. (1:02:49) Write it out in a journal, and not letting that drive your behavior of being raging towards anyone who will listen or ignoring your diabetes. (1:03:03) Right? (1:03:04) So those are all things that happen, and that's okay. (1:03:07) So letting instead of acknowledging, okay.

Erika Forsyth (1:03:10) This is how I'm feeling, and this is a fact. (1:03:11) I'm gonna let it drive my behavior. (1:03:12) I'm just gonna feel it.

Scott Benner (1:03:14) Yeah. (1:03:14) Okay.

Erika Forsyth (1:03:15) But that's hard to do. (1:03:16) I noticed I just I'm just going, just feel it.

Scott Benner (1:03:18) Yeah. (1:03:18) Just feel it. (1:03:19) Sure. (1:03:19) Well, I'll I'll tell you. (1:03:21) Just after doing those couple of breathing exercises, I feel more focused on what we're doing right now.

Scott Benner (1:03:26) I know it I I'm not making that up. (1:03:28) Like, I it's not that I wasn't before, but it's a little later in the day for me. (1:03:32) I was a little sleepy when we started, and I don't feel that way anymore. (1:03:36) I it's so much so that I looked it up while you were talking. (1:03:38) Like, what I I asked just, what is what are those breathing exercises doing?

Scott Benner (1:03:42) And it said it regulates your nervous system, amplifies your inner sensing, focuses your attention, changes your physiology, and and it's immediate. (1:03:53) It says it's portable. (1:03:54) Like, you don't need, like, gym equipment for it or a therapist or something like that. (1:03:58) It's something that can help you in the moment. (1:04:00) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (1:04:00) So I I I'm I don't know. (1:04:02) I I wish I would remember that more often. (1:04:05) I don't know how to remind myself to do that. (1:04:07) That's the the my biggest concern is because it I always see it help me in different ways, and then when I could really be using it, it's not it doesn't come top of mind to me all the time.

Erika Forsyth (1:04:18) Right. (1:04:18) Yeah. (1:04:18) And and it's something that we all hear all the time. (1:04:21) Like, practice your breathing. (1:04:22) Do some deep breathing.

Erika Forsyth (1:04:23) I think habit, habit stacking is what I was trying to say earlier. (1:04:27) Connecting these some of these breathing techniques with things you do every day. (1:04:32) Like, don't wait you know, trying to not wait until you're already into that maybe either panic or overwhelm to do it. (1:04:39) Obviously, that helps at that time. (1:04:41) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (1:04:42) But constantly integrating some of these techniques, whether it's with the red light or while you're brushing your teeth, although that might be hard.

Scott Benner (1:04:50) But before you get there, do it before you do it prevent preventatively.

Erika Forsyth (1:04:54) Yes. (1:04:55) Yeah. (1:04:55) Because you're building that into your muscle memory and kind of integrating it into your daily rhythm.

Scott Benner (1:05:01) Yeah. (1:05:02) That makes a lot of sense to me. (1:05:03) Yeah. (1:05:03) Well, I'll try harder. (1:05:04) I don't know if I I don't know what kind of success I'll have, but, I I mean, I've I've changed my cell phone and some other things.

Scott Benner (1:05:10) I think I could do that too. (1:05:11) It really just is like, even as I'm sitting here saying it, like, I do the breathing thing overnight if I can't fall asleep. (1:05:17) Mhmm. (1:05:17) And I know it works for me. (1:05:19) And then I get into a situation where I couldn't maybe employ it.

Scott Benner (1:05:23) Like you said, either it's too late. (1:05:25) But how do you know Erica, how do you know that you need it preventatively? (1:05:30) Because, yeah, I don't know that I'm upset until I'm saying something stupid. (1:05:33) Like, you know what I mean? (1:05:34) Like, if you would if if if five seconds before I pop off like an idiot, you'd said to me, hey, Scott.

Scott Benner (1:05:40) How are you feeling? (1:05:41) I'd be like, oh, I'd say I'm fine. (1:05:45) Are you so how am I supposed to see should I put myself on a on a schedule as the as the British would say? (1:05:51) So it doesn't happen? (1:05:53) You know what I mean?

Scott Benner (1:05:55) What would you do?

Erika Forsyth (1:05:55) Oh, I think that that is, how do you do it before you need it? (1:06:00) I think that's part of the just integrating it into, like, any kind of, you know, behavioral pattern so that your body remembers. (1:06:09) Like, so now you know your body remembers to do it at night when you wake up in the middle of the night because you now have done it a couple times. (1:06:16) And you have maybe found success with it. (1:06:19) So the more you practice during the day, even when you, quote, unquote, don't need it, it it is built kind of into your kind of, basically, your neural pathways of like, oh, yeah.

Erika Forsyth (1:06:30) When I deep breathe, I feel this way. (1:06:32) I feel more alert, more grounded. (1:06:34) My nervous system is more regulated. (1:06:37) So is that gonna also cue you when your your heart rate starts to go and people are making comments and you're wanting to to pop off? (1:06:44) Mhmm.

Erika Forsyth (1:06:45) No. (1:06:45) I mean, that's it's hard to do in the when you're already starting to be elevated and escalated. (1:06:50) But, eventually, the more you can kind of have that awareness

Scott Benner (1:06:57) Yeah.

Erika Forsyth (1:06:57) It's, I mean, it's it's hard to deep breathe when you're about to engage into, you know Yeah. (1:07:02) A conflict.

Scott Benner (1:07:02) It makes you it makes you, wistful for the time when we just punched each other and then it was over. (1:07:07) And so which I didn't live through even. (1:07:10) But and and I'm half joking and half saying that, like, we're, like you know, we, we, like, human beings, are learning stuff, building, growing, moving away from older ideas, and that continually happens over and over again. (1:07:24) You don't get to choose what part you're born in. (1:07:26) Like, you, like, you don't get to choose if you're the, like, six shoot shooters in the street part or if they're the just, like, we'll just hit each other to one of us thighs part and then you win.

Scott Benner (1:07:35) Or if you're in the part where you have to go to therapy and do breathing exercises, like, it makes me wonder, like, what's the part I missed? (1:07:41) Like, what did I just miss by being born in 1971? (1:07:44) Like, if I was born in 2040, like, where would people be then? (1:07:49) Like, because I'm not gonna know. (1:07:50) Right?

Scott Benner (1:07:51) Like, what is that? (1:07:52) Like, fifteen years from now? (1:07:54) I'll be 80.

Erika Forsyth (1:07:55) You'll yeah. (1:07:56) Yeah. (1:07:56) I mean, I'll

Scott Benner (1:07:56) be alive, but, you know, I'm making figure quotes. (1:07:59) And so, like so I'm not gonna be digging into the new things that's going on at that point. (1:08:04) I'm just gonna be, like, wondering how Drew Carey is still running The Price Is Right when he's a 125 years old. (1:08:10) And, like so, like, I wonder I I'm always gonna wonder. (1:08:14) I've said this thing a million times.

Scott Benner (1:08:16) I would give away the last ten years of my life to come back for a year every ten years just to see, like, what's happening, like, moving forward. (1:08:26) And I wouldn't wanna go away in the future because I think it would fry my brain, and I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. (1:08:30) But just for the next hundred years, I'd love to see it just a little bit here and there. (1:08:34) Like, how do things change? (1:08:35) I think I could conceptualize that at least.

Scott Benner (1:08:37) But, anyway, it makes me wonder this. (1:08:38) Like, this is the part you're you're in right now. (1:08:40) Our IQs are at a place. (1:08:43) Our our our emotional intelligence is in a place. (1:08:47) Our societal expectations are in such a place.

Scott Benner (1:08:50) This is right now how we're dealing, but it will it will change moving forward.

Erika Forsyth (1:08:54) Mhmm.

Scott Benner (1:08:54) You know? (1:08:54) There'll be a day you'll look back, not in our lifetime, but somebody will listen to this one day in a time capsule because these idiots thought, like, breathing was the answer. (1:09:02) You you you know? (1:09:03) Like, how come they didn't know about this? (1:09:05) Yeah.

Scott Benner (1:09:06) Yeah. (1:09:06) Anyway, this is I I I really love this. (1:09:09) I'm so glad that you found this book and that you're thinking about how to apply it for people with diabetes. (1:09:14) I'm I'm I'm thrilled we're doing this together.

Erika Forsyth (1:09:15) Thank you. (1:09:16) Me too. (1:09:17) Thank you.

Scott Benner (1:09:17) Seriously wonderful. (1:09:18) I'll talk to you soon.

Erika Forsyth (1:09:19) Okay. (1:09:20) Bye.

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Scott Benner (1:10:49) Click on series, and it'll be right there. (1:10:52) Thank you so much for listening. (1:10:53) I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juice Box podcast. (1:10:57) If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, please do that now. (1:11:05) Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show.

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#1750 Door Pop - Bonus for ep 1749

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.

Bonus episode for episode 1749, Half Nelson to Full Health

+ 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 (0:0) Hello, friends. (0:01) Welcome back. (0:02) This episode is bonus content for episode 1,749. (0:06) If you haven't heard that, go listen first. (0:08) Basically, at the end of my conversation with Connor, he told a bunch of stories about being a police officer, and we put them right here in this short kinda ten, fifteen minute episode.

Scott Benner (0:17) So if you wanna hear about his diabetes and everything else, seventeen forty nine. (0:21) This year, 50 is the bonus to that. (0:25) Nothing you hear on the Juice Box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. (0:29) Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. (0:34) Ever have to draw your gun at work?

Conner (0:36) Oh, I mean, yeah. (0:38) You draw I I guess, like, you know, if you go to alarms and stuff like that, you're clearing buildings, you're you're drawing your gun, you say you're in a pursuit, like, I I draw my gun a a decent amount. (0:52) I guess so. (0:54) I'm in a little bit different of a of a role now. (0:58) Like, I'm not like a a road.

Conner (1:01) I'm not out on the road, like, every single day doing, like, normal police work right now. (1:06) Mhmm. (1:06) But, yeah, I have a dog, I guess. (1:10) I haven't mentioned that.

Scott Benner (1:11) You have a k you think you you run a canine unit?

Conner (1:14) Yeah. (1:15) So I'm I'm a dual purpose canine handler. (1:18) So

Scott Benner (1:19) Oh, nice.

Conner (1:19) My dog, he's trained to alert to the odor of narcotics. (1:24) That's, one one of the things that he does. (1:27) And then the other thing is he's an apprehension dog. (1:30) So, like, someone robs a bank, we we can track them. (1:34) And if needed, we can apprehend them or someone's fighting me and

Scott Benner (1:38) Well, have you ever has that ever happened live? (1:40) Have you ever watched your dog take somebody down?

Conner (1:44) So I I just got a new dog a a few months ago. (1:48) My old dog, he had a whole bunch of issues and

Scott Benner (1:52) I'm sorry.

Conner (1:52) Ended up dying. (1:53) But, yeah, my old dog, he he, he was a star. (1:57) He he definitely took some some bad guys down.

Scott Benner (2:01) So, Connor, even though it's a thing you've seen and you've trained on, when it actually happens, is there a little part of your brain that still goes, oh, damn. (2:08) Like, when it like because it looks like it's it's interesting when you see it on video. (2:13) I've never seen it in person. (2:15) But when the like, the body of, a shepherd, like, hits the body of a person and latches on, like, you realize how, I don't know, defenseless the person is really against the dog. (2:26) You know what I mean?

Scott Benner (2:27) Yeah.

Conner (2:27) No. (2:27) It's it's like I mean, it's it's like watching the YouTube videos in real life.

Scott Benner (2:32) Like, you're like,

Conner (2:34) you you still get the same, like, adrenaline and, like you know, it's it's crazy what what's the the people are thinking because, like, for me and how I was trained and how I I train other people, like,

Scott Benner (2:49) Oh, because you're saying don't run. (2:51) I'm gonna let this dog go, and it's like yeah.

Conner (2:53) Like, I'll give you one one example. (2:56) Like, I'm I'm in a vehicle pursuit, and, you know, vehicle pursuits, they're they're very dangerous. (3:02) And I work for, like, a a sheriff's office. (3:06) So, like, I don't have, like, the backup that, like, normal, like, city police officers normally, like, in the city, like, something happens. (3:13) Like, you got you got backup, like, seconds away.

Conner (3:16) Well, out in the county, like, your your backup could be, like, twenty minutes away.

Scott Benner (3:21) Right.

Conner (3:22) So you're you're in a vehicle pursuit and someone crashes out. (3:26) And I I had one where vehicle crashes out, and I can see the person, like, messing with their car door. (3:37) And I'm like, hey. (3:38) Do not do not get out of the vehicle. (3:40) Do not get out of the vehicle.

Conner (3:41) And they hop out. (3:43) I grab my dog, and they they're looking right at me. (3:46) I'm, like, I don't know, 20 feet away from them. (3:49) Mhmm. (3:49) They're looking right at me.

Conner (3:50) They see me with the dog. (3:52) I'm like, stop or I'm gonna send the dog. (3:54) Stop or I'm gonna like, I literally told them, like, five times.

Scott Benner (3:56) Yeah.

Conner (3:57) And they take off, start running. (3:58) I'm like like, I'm, like, in my brain, I'm like, I cannot believe this is happening right now.

Scott Benner (4:03) It's not what you wanna do. (4:04) Right? (4:04) Like, you're not looking to release the dog on them, but, like, that's yeah. (4:08) I know. (4:08) I it must be so adrenaline filled.

Scott Benner (4:10) Plus, if they've got something to hide. (4:12) Right? (4:12) Like, they do Yeah. (4:13) They get into

Conner (4:13) their head. (4:13) Yeah. (4:14) So, yeah, like, and then, yeah, you send the dog and the dog does its job and gets the apprehension, and you're just like, wow. (4:21) Like yeah. (4:23) It's just like the YouTube video.

Conner (4:24) Or, like, the the another cool thing is, like, on on my vest, like, I have the little button where I can it, like, remotely pops the door.

Scott Benner (4:33) Oh, till you release the dog from

Conner (4:34) a distance. (4:35) Yeah. (4:36) So, like, you know, I had one where I'm I'm out patrolling, and I'm looking for this this guy that has these fairly good warrants, and I I see him walking down the street at, like, one in the morning. (4:50) And I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's the guy. (4:52) So I flip back around and I start talking to him.

Conner (4:55) I'm out on my foot. (4:56) I don't put talking to the guy, and I I've talked to him a bunch of times so I know exactly who he is, and I confirm who he is. (5:04) Let him know he has a warrant, and I'm trying to get him to cooperate with me the whole time. (5:08) And he's just like he's like, man, like, this is stupid. (5:11) Let me go home and tell my wife or whatnot.

Conner (5:14) And eventually, you know, after, like, five minutes of trying to

Scott Benner (5:17) Yeah. (5:18) Nice about.

Conner (5:19) Yeah. (5:19) I go I'm like, okay, man. (5:21) I gotta put you in cuffs. (5:22) And he's like, nope. (5:24) And just boom.

Conner (5:25) Takes off running. (5:26) And I was like, I I had never done a a door pop. (5:31) Well, my last dog I had for probably six years, I had never never popped the door before. (5:37) Mhmm. (5:37) And that time, I I did the door pop.

Conner (5:40) My dog comes out, and it was pitch black and I just took my flashlight and I shined it on the guy and my dog was like it was like a laser beam and

Scott Benner (5:50) took off in. (5:51) I see him, boss. (5:51) I'll be right back.

Conner (5:52) Yeah. (5:53) And then the funny thing is is so my dog's biting the guy right on the butt, and I'm I'm going up to the guy, and the guy's like, man, I'm a dumbass. (6:03) Like, he's called himself a dumbass. (6:04) Knows. (6:05) Yeah.

Conner (6:06) So, like, you you have situations like that where, like, you and you always like, for apprehensions, you're always, like, warning them multiple times. (6:15) Hey. (6:15) You're gonna get bit by my dog. (6:16) Stop. (6:17) You're gonna get bit by my dog.

Conner (6:18) Or, like, when you if someone's hiding in a building, you know, you always you're always giving announcements before you send like, so people know.

Scott Benner (6:26) Yeah.

Conner (6:26) And when we do the training, like like, if I'm the bad guy and they have me in, like, the big marshmallow suit Mhmm. (6:31) Like, if I'm in the house and I'm hearing these announcements and the dogs are barking at the doorway, like, I get scared and I'm in the bite suit, and I know the dog's not gonna do anything. (6:41) So I don't know what's going through these people's minds that

Scott Benner (6:44) they're not have YouTube. (6:46) Right? (6:46) Like, do they not Yeah. (6:47) See like, it's the same thing with tasers. (6:49) Like, we've all seen enough taser videos now.

Scott Benner (6:51) When someone goes, I'm gonna tase you, just go, hey. (6:54) You know what? (6:54) I give up. (6:55) I'm sorry.

Conner (6:55) Yeah. (6:56) Exactly. (6:57) Yeah. (6:57) Like, I I don't know. (6:58) I think drugs probably have a lot to do.

Conner (7:00) They do. (7:01) They're probably high on drugs. (7:02) I but then yeah. (7:03) So, like, you you have that side of of the the police work for the dogs, and then you also have the the the detection, which my dog's narcotics Yeah. (7:15) Detection.

Conner (7:16) So, like, mainly what it is is, like, sniffing the exterior vehicles to get probable cause. (7:21) But, like, one one cool little example that I have is I go I'm watching this car at a gas station, and I know it's it's gonna be a good stop because I knew who the the owner of the car was. (7:37) And I end up stopping the car, and someone in the passenger seat just takes off running after, the car stops. (7:45) So I'm chasing them on foot, but, like, you don't know why they're running, and they hadn't committed a felony yet. (7:52) So I wasn't gonna door pop, and I'm not gonna bite someone for just, like, a a simple misdemeanor or whatever.

Conner (7:57) So I'm chasing him, and I end up I I get him, handcuffed, and I go back to the car. (8:06) And by that time I was in the city when I made that traffic stop, so there was already a whole bunch of backup there. (8:12) And they had all the end up having all the occupants, the rest of the occupants of the vehicle detained. (8:19) So I was like, they gotta have drugs in the car because what why why are they being so weird? (8:24) So I get my dog out, and I go to have him sniff the exterior of the car that I have stopped.

Conner (8:31) And my dog is like, he wants nothing to do with sniffing the car. (8:36) Like, he keeps pulling away from it. (8:38) And I'm like, at this time, I'm just getting, like, pissed off. (8:40) I'm like, what are you doing? (8:42) What are you doing?

Conner (8:42) Why will you not sniff the car? (8:44) And finally, was like, whatever. (8:45) We'll see what he's what what my dog's doing. (8:47) And, like, I'm not joking. (8:49) Like, 20 yards away, he just pulls me straight over this backpack that's, like, 20 yards away from the car in this grassy little area kind of, like, in a commercial by, like, a Taco Bell and all this

Scott Benner (9:01) ran and dumped the pack as he was running from you?

Conner (9:04) No. (9:04) He it's so he lurched to the back the backpack, and I go back and I have to, like I watch my dashcam. (9:12) And as the guy is running, they open up the car door and chuck the backpack out out the car. (9:18) Oh. (9:18) So, like, we never

Scott Benner (9:20) Yeah. (9:21) The the guy running drew your attention and they tossed it

Conner (9:24) back. (9:24) Yep.

Scott Benner (9:25) What was in that backpack?

Conner (9:27) A bunch of methamphetamine and syringes and stuff like that.

Scott Benner (9:30) Okay.

Conner (9:31) Yeah. (9:32) So, yeah. (9:33) Like, I mean, you got stuff like that where, like, you know, dogs, like, their noses are so good, like, you know, doing search warrants on houses and stuff like that. (9:45) And we'll have, like, you know, all the all the police officers that are there search the house, and they think they found all the drugs. (9:54) And they're like, hey.

Conner (9:55) Run the dog through here to see if there's anything else in here. (9:58) And, like, normally, like, you don't really find a a whole lot else. (10:04) But, like, sometimes you do, and, like, the dog goes and he starts, like, alerting to this one area. (10:09) You're like, hey. (10:10) Like, my dog's alerting over here.

Conner (10:11) You guys have already searched the whole thing, and you you somehow find, like, a little secret compartment and, like, just cool little stuff like that where, like, you would never you would never Just to find find

Scott Benner (10:24) it on your own. (10:25) Yeah. (10:25) That's awesome, man. (10:26) Yeah. (10:26) It's a great they're great house.

Conner (10:27) And you you yeah. (10:28) You build and you build a great bond with them. (10:31) Like, they're there they're there for you, you know, if if you need something

Scott Benner (10:35) Dog come home with you?

Conner (10:37) Yeah. (10:37) So my old dog, the dog that died, he was, like, he was the best dog you could ever ask for because, like, he could flip the switch. (10:48) He go to work, and he could apprehend people, sniff drugs. (10:52) And then when we got home from work, like, I could just let him into the house, and he would not tear up the house. (10:59) He would run-in, jump on and, like, I literally, I would get home.

Conner (11:04) I would go take a shower, and my dog would jump up in bed with my wife and cuddle with my wife.

Scott Benner (11:08) Yeah.

Conner (11:09) I'm like, that's the kind of dog my old dog was. (11:12) Like, he he could flip the switch and he was totally fine. (11:15) And, yeah, he they they live with you pretty much twenty four seven.

Scott Benner (11:18) Okay.

Conner (11:19) My new dog is, he's a younger, very, very, very, very energetic dog, and he's he can't be in the house because, I don't know if I would have doors and stuff in my house because he probably would have torn them down already Okay. (11:36) If he wasn't in a garage for most of time.

Scott Benner (11:39) Well, we don't want that. (11:40) Yeah. (11:41) No. (11:41) Man, I I can't thank you enough for sharing your story with me. (11:43) That's really, really fantastic.

Scott Benner (11:45) I'm so happy that you're doing well and that the podcast had a part in helping you. (11:50) And really, man, I'm just I'm I'm super happy for you. (11:54) I I wish you a long, happy, healthy life. (11:57) Really is

Conner (11:57) Thank

Scott Benner (11:57) really wonderful. (11:58) Like, I you're just you're the exact kind of person I'm trying to reach, and I'm thrilled that it found you.

Conner (12:03) Yeah. (12:04) Well, I'm I'm happy that I found you because it's definitely changed my life, and, I'm assuming it's gonna keep changing my life as we keep learning more about, you know, new things. (12:16) Yep.

Scott Benner (12:16) I'm glad, man. (12:17) I really am. (12:18) But, again, congratulations on everything. (12:21) It's really, really fantastic. (12:22) And I I honestly, I'm gonna I'm gonna hang up now and ask you.

Scott Benner (12:26) Seriously, there's you paid the girl or something. (12:28) Right? (12:28) Like, there's something going on. (12:30) I in honestly.

Conner (12:31) I I don't know. (12:32) I got. (12:32) Dude. (12:33) I I definitely got lucky.

Scott Benner (12:34) Yeah. (12:34) You shared a lot, but there's a secret you don't have that you've you've not told us about. (12:38) That's all.

Conner (12:38) Maybe. (12:40) I don't know. (12:40) Alright.

Scott Benner (12:40) Hold on for a second, Connor. (12:42) Thank you.

Conner (12:42) Yep.

Scott Benner (12:50) If you enjoyed this, jump into the private Facebook group and make a post to let me know. (12:55) Maybe we'll do more stuff like this. (12:56) Hope you enjoyed Connor and the Juice Box podcast today. (13:00) Hang out for a couple seconds. (13:01) I'll tell you about some series we have for managing your type one diabetes, and then I'll let you go back to your life.

Scott Benner (13:07) Thanks so much for listening. (13:09) I'll be back soon with another episode of the juice box podcast. (13:13) 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. (13:22) That's why they're also collected at juiceboxpodcast.com. (13:25) Go up to the top.

Scott Benner (13:27) There's a menu right there. (13:28) 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 win, pregnancy, type two diabetes, GLP meds, the math behind diabetes, diabetes myths, and so much more. (13:47) You have to go check it out. (13:49) It's all there and waiting for you, and it's absolutely free. (13:52) Juiceboxpodcast.com.

Scott Benner (13:57) If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juice Box Podcast private Facebook group. (14:04) Juice Box Podcast, type one diabetes. (14:07) But everybody is welcome. (14:08) Type one, type two, gestational, loved ones, it doesn't matter to me. (14:13) If you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort, or community, check out Juice Box podcast, Type one Diabetes on Facebook.

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