Scott Benner 9/16/22 Scott Benner 9/16/22

#755 Bold Beginnings: Exercise

Scott Benner 9/14/22 Scott Benner 9/14/22

#754 Cattle Drive

Natalie has diabetes but she doesnt know which kind.

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Scott Benner 0:00
You're listening to Episode 754 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's program we'll be speaking with Natalie, who is an adult living with diabetes, she just doesn't know what kind. Why don't you listen and see if we can figure it out together. And while you're doing that, why don't you remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Or becoming bold with insulin. My voice sounds incredibly deep right now. Bold within the Juicebox Podcast O T Wendy exchange.org. Forward slash choose box go head over there and take the survey complete the survey, please. T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. I know you tell yourself all the time. Oh, I'm gonna do it. And then you forget, but could you please try not to forget this time? Just go do it. Thank you. I don't really have much else here. But there's a lot of music left. What else? Just wasting time. I don't know what to say. podcast is coming. And here we go.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. today's podcast is also sponsored by us Med and US med is the place where we get our diabetes supplies. And you could to go to us med.com forward slash juicebox to get your free benefits check. If you don't like using the internet. You could also call 888721151 for getting your diabetes supplies doesn't need to be a hassle.

Natalie 2:11
I'm Natalie, I'm 49 years old, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I've been diagnosed as a T two and labeled uncontrolled and non compliant. I've been suspected to have a lot, which is also known as 1.5. And now we don't know what type I am. So I'm a bit of a mystery at the moment.

Scott Benner 2:32
How long ago did this all begin?

Natalie 2:35
Well, gestational started. My oldest son is now 22. I've had three kiddos. So he was born in 99. And then my daughter was born in 2006. And then my son was 2008. And I think the combo of those two, only 17 months apart, really wreaks havoc with my pancreas.

Scott Benner 3:02
Interesting how nature has devised this amazing thing a female and it's it does this thing, but it didn't seem to plan for what would happen as these little human beings like suck the life out of you over and over. Exactly. You should really have like, I mean, listen, I'm not a deity, but if I was designing the whole thing like after you made the baby you'd be able to go like something like an EV charger situation and like charge yourself back up again. Yeah,

Natalie 3:32
magic wand. Just wave it in the body goes back to exactly how it was. Yeah, great. It really doesn't happen that way. No, not

Scott Benner 3:39
at all. It is fascinating, though, isn't it that you that you're an entity? And in order to make another entity which makes complete sense you have to give of yourself in a way that you don't get back again. It's it's unfair. Honestly, the only thing that balances the scales even a little bit in my opinion, this is just me speaking from my personal relationship is that I have to live with my wife Other than that, I don't see where I'm being tortured the way you guys

Natalie 4:05
well, I've already started brainwashing the youngest that you know, when when mom and dad get old, you have to take care of mom and dad, right? Sure, Mom, I'll take care of you. So I figure if we start the brainwashing now then maybe when I need it, one of them will take care of me in my old age.

Scott Benner 4:22
When my kids were younger, I would just sort of like in passing say, Listen, when mom gets sick of me and kicks me out. I don't want to live above like a pizza place or something. You don't mean like I'm going to need help. So let's say my dad I think yeah, well alright, and so you gave to these ungrateful maybe they're grateful kids? I don't know.

Natalie 4:44
It depends on the day I think.

Scott Benner 4:46
I'll tell you as my kids get older I I'm starting to put them in the same category as dogs. I understand that I've gotten something out of it, but overall, I regret the situation. But seriously, like, so you had these kids, you got gestational diabetes? Did it end after the pregnancy was over?

Natalie 5:09
Yeah. So after the youngest was born, things went back to normal. And I went back and looked at my my readings because I was a nerd and made spreadsheets of my readings when I was pregnant. And, you know, we really, even though it was high, for a non diabetic, it wasn't overly high compared to what I know now, right. So I barely, I rarely got over 200 Even without taking insulin, because at that time, they allowed you to take Glyburide during pregnancy, to help keep your sugar's under control. So things went back to normal, although I did have a doctor at one point tell me that, you know, you're at very high risk for getting type two. And I really didn't want to listen to that. I was in a bit of denial, even though diabetes runs pretty strongly on both sides of my family. So I knew at some point, I would, would be at risk for it, which is why then, about 10 years ago, when I was having a lot of trouble with UTIs. And I went in to have a urine test done. They found glucose in my urine. I wasn't completely surprised. So that was, again, about 10 years ago, diagnosed me as type two because I was very much a stereotypical appearing, type two, little bit overweight. And, you know, it runs in the family. So okay, you've got type two, here you go. Here's your Metformin. So I took the Metformin changed my diet, increase my exercise, but you know, I also had three small kids at home too. So started doing a lot better. Got to the point where I was doing so much better that when my prescriptions ran out for my Metformin, and my test strips, I was just like, Ah, I'm good. I don't need this anymore. And so, I did well, for a while, but then I didn't. And I didn't realize how badly I was doing because I wasn't testing. And I didn't have a doctor checking up on me. And I started to get a lot of not very nice symptoms. I was thirsty all the time, to the point where I would have multiple glasses of water on my nightstand for at night. Then subsequently, I was going to the bathroom constantly. I was crabby all the time, I was hot all the time. And what started to wake me up was I started to wet the bed at night as a grown adult. And my rationale was, well, I'm dreaming about going to the bathroom. So that's why I wet the bed, not realizing that my blood sugar was so high. And the my gums started to bleed. And at that point, I don't know what kind of shook me back to reality. Maybe it was having two accidents in bed at night. And one night. I was like, I can't keep doing this. This is wrong. I know better. And so I called the doctor got a refill of my scripts and my test strips and started taking my Metformin, again started testing my blood sugar again. And by the time I got back into the doctor, I know that my numbers had gone down by the time the doctor saw me. But my agency was 10.2 at that point, with a random number of cloud 260 something and the docs like Nat and pretty sure that you've been hitting five and 600 based on all your symptoms. And we've got to take this serious and that was really a wake up moment for me.

Scott Benner 9:22
Yeah, so I have to be honest, not like the bleeding gums sort of got me. Yeah, but the bedwetting I can see what your I mean, it's fascinating just to go back for a second that you knew about this got on top of it. And then the second you felt better you were like I fixed it or you know, I'm going to ignore it now. So such a common thing.

Natalie 9:46
Well, and everybody tells you right with type two that oh well if you just eat right and exercise, you'll fix yourself. This is all your fault in the first place. Because you ate too much. And if you just eat right and control yourself, you'll be fine. And I was never a, I was never a huge sweets person, I do have a weakness for bread. But so I, you know, I had salty carbs, not sweet carbs, but I was never a binge eater or anything like that, and I wasn't terribly overweight, I was in the overweight category, but not beyond that. So. So yeah, I felt a lot of shame and having it even with my dad having it. Luckily, I have access to all the test strips that I would need. So I had absolutely no excuse for not testing. And funny enough, when I started my career, I actually worked helping diabetics with their glucose meters. So when we talk about, you know, the meters that are big as a brick, I didn't work with with the brick, but I worked with the baby bricks that came after that. And that's actually how we found my dad's diabetes is I had taken one of my meters home, to learn how to use it, so that I could help people on the phone. And when we tested my dad, just a random reading, he was 350. And so he got put on oral meds, that very week, so I knew better. And that's the sad, that's the really sad part of it is I saw the symptoms. I knew it wasn't good. But between the feeling like a failure because I couldn't control it myself, despite the changes that I've made in my lifestyle and my habits, and just denial of not wanting to deal with it. And it was about a year that I wasn't taking meds, and it got it got out of control. Looking back at my numbers, I don't think I was below 200. At any given time, for probably six months.

Scott Benner 12:07
I'm trying to I'm seeing this correlation in my mind, and I don't know how to talk through it exactly. Right. But with a number of things, type two diabetes, a great example. Even COVID is a good example. You know, I think it's pretty obvious at this point, the more comorbidities you have, you know, you have a pretty good possibility that COVID could be harsher on you now, not to say that there aren't people who have, you know, significant comorbidities, and you just make it through, you know, but it's, you know, I think it's, it's, it's showing that direction. The idea that when somebody finds out something that's happening in real time, right now, you have type two diabetes, you you know, you have COVID or COVID 's outside your door, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's on its way, just to say to somebody, Hey, lose weight, because if you're in better shape, this is going to go better for you. I think that's true. By the way, I think that the better physical condition you're in, the better chance you're going to have to fight off an illness, or the better chance you might have to not develop type two diabetes is an example. But you can't just tell a person, go lose weight. And then six months from now, when that doesn't happen, tell them go lose weight again, like you're not doing anything for them in the moment, I think it has to be a combination of approaches. You know, yet, listen, let's try to get your body in better order. And in the meantime, maybe these medications will help you. Exactly. You know what I mean? I think it's a layered approach, if it's going to work, because most people go through, I mean, you're a reasonable person, I've been speaking to you for 15 minutes. Now you're well thought out, you're considered you don't appear crazy at all. And, and sometimes I sometimes I'm talking to people, I'm like, oh, this person might be crazy. But that's okay. You know, and my point is, is that this happened to you, you went back started strong, fell off, and then then, like, went off a cliff. Like you didn't just slow down a little bit. You were like, ah, like, right, writing it to the end.

Natalie 14:16
Very much so and, and that's a guilt that I carry. Because yeah, my doctors probably could have done more or said something or followed up, hey, why hasn't this patient come in something? But at the same time, I, I knew better but yet, I still let it go on. And then now I feel when I go back and look at that time period, or I look at my numbers. You know, I worry what did that do for me for long term? How can I help other people to not have to go through that? Because yeah, there was a lot of stress going on at work, whatever, but ultimately, if I was testing my blood sugar? I would have known that this is not right.

Scott Benner 15:05
Yeah. I don't know. It's just, I'm endlessly fascinated and not coming to any quick decisions on what I think, by the fact that we are, I think, as a species, very willing most of the time to just be like, Oh, I wonder what will happen? I'll just wait and see, oh, it's too late. No, well didn't work out for me. You know, like, it's a strange thing. I do it like everyone does it, you know, like, I should, I should hang up with you right now, Natalie, the end of this episode should happen right now. And I should go for a walk. I should go ride my bike, there are things I should do. And in the course of a day, it's funny, I've never ignored one of those things. And said to myself, Oh, I'm not going to ride my bike right now, I'm not going to go for a walk, because I don't feel like it. It's because there are a massive amount of things that I am responsible to do. And then when those responsibilities are done, I'm tired.

Natalie 16:10
At the end, you want to take just a few precious moments for yourself every once in

Scott Benner 16:14
a while. And the irony probably is that if I rode the bike first, I could do most of those responsibilities, and maybe not be as tired in the afternoon. Like, I'm caught in this. In this bad decision making, I don't know scheme. You don't I mean, that is set up to kill me.

Natalie 16:33
And it's so easy to say, well, if it was really important, you just make the time for it. True. But I think having the tools to help you make the time for it. Are a luxury that not everybody has.

Scott Benner 16:49
Right? And I'll speak for me, right as a I mean, I don't know how to put this, I guess like, I have some things going for me right like that, that allow me to make time or you know, see a doctor or whatever, like, you know, I have a lot of that. And instead of like enacting it, in my mind, it's always like, if I could just get this stuff done, then I'll do it. Like, I'll take care of myself and like my knee, which people have heard me mentioned probably for six months over the podcast, I gotta go to the doctor, there's something wrong with my knee. But it's not knocking me over. So instead of going the doctor, I'll record with you keep dealing with right, yeah, I'll take something to my son at school that he needs. I'll go watch my daughter do something. Like I'll just keep saying like, well, let me just get this done. I'll get that went off to college, or I'll you know, get this done. And then but I'm telling you right now, when I get them off to college, the next thing I'm going to think is I gotta clean my office. And then after I get my office, like I'm going to like, do that until my knee falls apart and I fall over and then I'm gonna be like, so you know,

Natalie 17:57
go to the doctor and take care of your knees, Scott.

Scott Benner 18:01
Hey, go lose weight, Natalie. So anyway, there's that, that aspect of who we are. I think it's an I think it's a bleed over of what you need to be to survive being alive. You know what I mean? Like, if we didn't have that, that Oh, push forward feeling inside of us? I mean, I think we'd all be, I don't know, at Plymouth Rock wondering how to get over the first river we saw, you know, yeah, yeah. And instead it's like, go, go, go, go, go. And it's easy to step back and see the big picture and go, Okay, well, this is humanity, some people's nice fall off. And you know, they tumble over on the trail, and their friend shoots him in the head with a six iron, and you know, like, and they keep going, and we that's how we're gonna get to Oregon, for example, people are going to be lost along the way. And I get that I really do. Like, I get that when a pack a will to be run away from a lion one of the Willoughby's die so the rest of them can, can keep going. But when I come in and look at a real micro at my life, I don't care about the will to beast. I don't care if we all get the Oregon I'm trying to stay alive. Yeah. And somehow those that that battle inside of us between keep going don't stop and take care of yourself. It's one of the biggest struggles I've seen people deal with.

Natalie 19:32
Yeah, I would agree there that it's so hard to find where the line is between where do I need to sharpen my saw? And and where do I need to keep cutting down this tree?

Scott Benner 19:42
Yeah, look at you. Would you read that? That's smart.

Natalie 19:46
I'm trying to remember what book that was. sharpening the saw

Scott Benner 19:49
took me 10 minutes to say what you said in three words. Now I'm embarrassed. I feel like an idiot. I was like, Why did I go on like that? I could have just said When do I sharpen the saw? And when do I cut the tree? That's really I'm embarrassed right now. This is what embarrassment looks like on me like, Oh, I'm so wordy.

Natalie 20:10
That's why you're good at the podcast. Well, great,

Scott Benner 20:13
except I'm sitting here now going for a walk. I'll be dead you all be better. How's that gonna be good?

Natalie 20:18
Yeah, cuz we can walk while we listen to you. So there's that.

Scott Benner 20:21
No lie. I'm being taken advantage of by all of you. So anyway, so you anyway, so anyway, after 20 minutes, I'm like, Okay, let that all go. Let's keep talking. What a transition Natalie I'm on fire today.

Natalie 20:39
Let's see after I fell off the cliff

Scott Benner 20:49
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Natalie 24:01
Then I really got serious and by serious I mean I was trying my hardest to manage my diabetes. So I did a lot of research, I would ask my doctor about a lot of things. I tried a lot of things I started liraglutide or otherwise known as Victoza about six years ago and that did help me lose a little bit of weight and we'll talk about that here a little bit more in a second. But it really wasn't changing my A onesies. I was living with a onesies in the eights and nines. And again when prepping for this I was looking back at my A onesies and I didn't realize my agency had gone back up to almost as high as what it was when I first fell off the cliff right so at that point, it was a 10.2 I varied anywhere between about seven and a half, and 9.8. Over those years and, and during that time, I was walking three to five miles a day, five to seven days a week, I was doing half marathons every month, five K's were scattered in between, I was exercising a lot on a regular basis. And trying any medication that the doctor suggested with the exception of insulin. I was very, very resistant to starting insulin. Again, partly due to that mentality that, well, if you just work harder, you'll you'll fix yourself and you won't have to go on insulin. The only type twos that go on insulin are the ones that are failures, right. So I tried just about everything I was looking back at my prescription list, I've taken all kinds of oral and injectable medications. I tried intermittent fasting, I read the diabetes code, I read the obesity code, like I said, was exercising a lot. And my agencies were still staying right around the same. And at one point, the doctor even checked, ordered the test for C peptide and antibodies. So that was probably about five years ago. And my antibodies came back negative. And you'll like this in light of our earlier conversation. I never tested my C peptide, because it required a fasting test. And I lived far enough from where they were drying the blood that I didn't want to have to fess that long. So I never checked my C peptide, which looking back, I absolutely should have known what it was then. Because knowing what I know now, I'm suspicious that my pancreas really wasn't working well. Even back then. So about about five years ago, I was only on the the GLP. One, the liraglutide. And my weight was dropping, but my agency was going up.

Scott Benner 27:32
And I was helping your weight or do you think your high blood sugar was?

Natalie 27:37
Well, at the time, I very much thought it was the medicine and all of my diet and exercise. I mean, I'm getting good at this. I'm losing weight, I'm, you know, losing about two pounds a week. So that's perfect. Well, considering that when the doctor then put me on long lasting insulin, because my agency kept creeping up. I gained almost 20 pounds in four weeks. And so all that all that weight that I had worked for two years to take off, came back on in four weeks. And I did not make any changes to my diet, or my exercise routine or anything that would have in indicated that yeah, you're taking in extra calories. And that's why you're getting this way. So I think I was dangerously close to DKA at that point, and just didn't know it right?

Scott Benner 28:30
Because it certainly wasn't your calorie calorie. Wow. Where did that word like I just lost calorie in my mouth for a second. We know how to explain that. It wasn't it wasn't certainly because you were restricting calories to the point where it would create a weight loss. Correct? Yeah. You were eating through decay, basically.

Natalie 28:49
Yeah. Well, and yeah, that that's, that's what it was. And so so so go on long acting insulin. Again, my numbers didn't get great. It was still in the low in the 8.5 to 7.5 range. Which, at the time, they were like it could be better, but they didn't really impress upon me how terrible that could be long term for me. And so you know, I just kept going along with it. Knowing that, well, this isn't working completely, but I don't know what else to do. I'm trying everything that I could try and my endo she did a great job of listening to me and letting me letting me throw theories at her for different things that we could try, but didn't give a lot of recommendations on how to make things much better.

Scott Benner 29:54
Yeah, it's funny. Arden had an appointment with somebody about a month ago and um The person ran a bunch of blood tests. And then yesterday we had to tell him that to go over the bloodwork, yeah. And the initial consultation that led to the bloodwork was honestly like three hours long. As a private doctor, we paid cash for it, we were in a situation where we felt like she wasn't getting answers from other people. And we thought this would be a valuable use of our money and our time. And it was, I mean, the person gave an immense amount of time to us. Tested for everything under the sun. And yesterday during this call, which, by the way, when depends on how you think of it, but all the big things that were tested for Arden didn't have, which was really exciting. But the reason I'm telling you this story is because they didn't the first five or six minutes of the Talmud yesterday, I watched the doctor, remember who we were. Yeah. And so while I had been living in Oregon, and anybody else who was in that room a month ago, had been living for the last 30 days, with this warm recollection of this doctor that gave a ton of time and effort and you felt like you had a connection with. And then that person looks you in the face and goes, Oh, it's that girl on her dad. And then you can see her look down at her papers go, I remember that. I'm like, Oh, my God, like, she doesn't remember us at all, like this love affair that I thought we were having meant nothing. I don't take that out on her or another doctor. Because in a very strange way, I understand that. Like, you and I are going to have a fascinating conversation today that I'm going to take a ton from. And 30 days from now, if you say to me, Natalie, I'm going to go, I don't know who you're talking about. Yeah, and because I have now I will have spoken to 30 other people 30 days from now.

Natalie 31:48
Exactly. Just the sheer number of people that you're working with and talking to on a daily basis. Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:53
but six months from now, when I edit your episode, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna remember this, like, like it like we're right back on that first date again, and I'm like, I'm excited. And I'm like, Well, I think Natalie's gonna hold my hand. Like, like, it's gonna, like, it's gonna feel like that, again, it's all gonna rush back. I'm gonna put it out. And I swear to you four days later, someone's gonna go online and say, in the episode about blah, blah, blah, and I'm gonna think I don't know what they're talking about. And then I have to go back and make myself right with it. And then I go, Oh, I remember Natalie. And then I can talk about it. So the point is that that happens with your doctors, too. Yeah. And like, you're explaining like, oh, they let me tell them about things and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like you're having you or me or anybody. You're having a relationship with a doctor, that the doctor is not having back with you? Yep, that's all totally agree. Again, again, 10 minutes to say. Alright, well, anyway, I'm comfortable with how this all works. So I'm not gonna stop myself there. So are you a type one being treated as a type two at this point? What do you not even know at this point?

Natalie 33:00
Well, so yeah, so that gets interesting. So back in March of 2021, I decided that I'd had enough I was working really, really hard. It wasn't making any difference in my agency. And I'm like, I think we need to test me again. And so I went and had my antibodies tested, I got my C peptide tested. And my antibodies came back negative again. And my C peptide, though, was like non existent. There was some pancreatic activity, but not very much at all. And so that, to me was a wake up call. It was, Hey, you are working as hard as you can possibly work at this. Your pancreas is not. So we have to give it some help. And so, about this time, I also ended up with a new Endo. My previous endo left the practice. And so I had to find a new one. And I saw her for two visits. And she was awesome. And we'll talk about her a little bit more in a second. But then she also moved locations. So now I have my third endo in the past. Oh, I don't know. 18 months. So that's been a journey too. But the doctor that I saw back in March after I retested my numbers. I told her that I wanted a Dexcom and I wanted an insulin pump. And I want to get on this, you know, as soon as possible, and so she's like, okay, slow your roll a little bit. Let's get you on a Dexcom and then mealtime, insulin, and then we'll figure out the pump. Right. And so I started in March with that with an A one C Have a point three. And then by June, my agency had dropped to a 7.2. So it was, even though I had no idea what I was doing with insulin, they gave me homologue pens, and basically said, take about five units with your meals and keep taking your long acting. Okay? Okay. So looking back at my numbers, there was one time that I took my insulin. And granted, I wasn't below 150, I think ever. But I took my insulin and we'd had Vietnamese food, and I had a boba tea, and my glucose hit 465. Wow. And that was that was on insulin, right. So obviously, I had no clue what I was doing. Started the Omni pod in July. I wanted to start it sooner. But we had an issue with getting a training class scheduled. And they wouldn't let me start it on my own. And I desperately wanted to do it on my own. And I listened to my endo for a change. And she said, No, you really need to wait for trading. And I said fine. And grudgingly waited for training. But I was glad I did. Because my CDE or whatever their initials are, she was really awesome, and gave me a lot of helpful tips and tricks that I wouldn't have known trying to do it on my own. But within about two weeks of starting the Omni pod, I found your podcast, okay. And honestly, Scott, I know you hear this a lot. It truly did change my life. The first episode that I listened to was the was the rough roof, rough episode, something like that. And I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But I really appreciated some of the perspectives that she was giving. And in that episode, you talked a lot about pro tips and the defining diabetes episodes. And so I went back and I found all of those and started listening to them. And I heard the not that type episode. And a misdiagnosed episode. And those really spoke to me, which is part of the reason why I reached out about being on the podcast because you talked about wanting more type twos. And for me, I've lived through just about all kinds of situations, everything from gestational to you know, trying to manage type two with diet and exercise and feeling like a failure all the time, and having people shame you about what you're eating or what you're doing.

To the point where now I know my pancreas doesn't work. And so I'm on an AMI pod, and Adex calm and I'm on full time insulin and then dealing with the same kinds of things that that type ones deal with without the auto antibodies. So long story short to answer your question. We don't know what type I am. I could be a type one that just doesn't have antibodies, there are a few of those types of people. I could be a type three C that has had some sort of trauma or damage to my pancreas. So my my endo that I spoke about when she was going through all my, my numbers. She goes Natalie, I really think that you would benefit from participating in a clinical study. And like, oh, yeah, what's that? She's like, well, it's for rare and atypical diabetes types. And it's called the radiant study. And she's like, I'd really like to recommend you for that if you're interested. And I'm like, Heck, yeah, if I can find out more about this. Yes, please. And so it's basically it's looking for people that don't meet the typical type one or type two criteria. If if you have antibodies, then you're not eligible for the study, because they know that in one form or another, you're type one. So I have had, I'm in the second phase of the trial now and I'm waiting to get my genomic sequencing results back. Hopefully that will tell us more about what type I am. But in the meantime, I'm treated as a type one. My Chart at the doctor's just indicates a typical diabetes. I'm blessed to have insurance that will cover my my technology. So I don't worry about losing my my Dexcom or my Omnipod like a lot of type twos have to worry. So yeah, it's just a mystery.

Scott Benner 39:57
That is pretty new. How like a year old Maybe the trial, the radian study.

Natalie 40:04
Yeah, it's relatively new. And when I talked to my coordinator, I'm like, I'm gonna be on this podcast. And do you want me to talk about it or no? They told me that I can say whatever I wish to say. My understanding is they are still open for candidates. So if you do happen to have a listener that is antibody negative, or has a really strange presentation of their diabetes, they might look into contacting the study, there's information on the website that you can apply.

Scott Benner 40:43
Okay, yeah, I just Googled three words, radiant study diabetes, and I found it Yeah, no trouble. So yeah, cool. Yeah, I think that's, that's a great idea to try to gain more insight and help people understand, but functionally in your life, it kind of doesn't matter, right, you just need to manage the way that your symptoms indicate they need.

Natalie 41:06
Exactly. Okay, as far as my treatment goes, and how I manage it, it doesn't matter what you call it, I know I need insulin. And so figuring out how best to use it, so that I can stay safe and avoid any long term complications down the road is my goal, right? And honestly, the only reason why I might care about what it's called, is a for insurance reasons, making sure that I can always get the tech I need, and then be, if there's any info that comes out of it, that can help other people or can help my kids, then I'd be interested in that, with diabetes running on both sides of my family, and with me having my kids are at risk. And so knowing what they might expect if there is a genetic component, can be helpful to think those

Scott Benner 41:57
kids are going to listen to you when you tell them that or they're going to act like you did back when you were like it don't matter.

Natalie 42:03
One of them will listen, and the other two will probably not

Scott Benner 42:08
know who you are, where you go. You know, you said something earlier about the first episode of the podcast you found actually, when you said it was that one, I was like, Oh, how do I even keep her after that? Because some of them are just made to be entertaining. You know, there's not much more to them. I do try to sprinkle, you know, goodness throughout. But I always wonder about that with so many episodes, like what happens if a person falls on the wrong one. But there's, I've come to realize there's nothing I can do about it. But but it's it's nice that you held on and you waited a little bit and that all that stuff was actually helpful to you. It's I mean, that's got to be a year ago, right?

Natalie 42:52
Yeah, that was almost a year ago at this at this point. Actually, it was last summer. So again, I I started on the on the ducks in July. And my first podcast that I listened to is one of the ones in the middle of July.

Scott Benner 43:09
I'm just I'm kind of thinking about myself for a second how bizarre it is that basically 18 months ago, I had a conversation with somebody. II mean, that that somehow, like grew out the way it did not on purpose that you've you know, you're recording with me now we're out this 40 minutes already. And I'm you can attest, right, we put no pre planning into this whatsoever.

Natalie 43:37
I spent a fair amount of time thinking about okay, what, what is going to be the important things to get across but knowing that this was just going to be a conversation that flowed and it would go where it went,

Scott Benner 43:48
yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, then on my side, let me put it into a different context. I was sipping water and cracking my knuckles like five seconds before you popped on. And I was not thinking, Oh, Natalie, like I looked at your intake form. And I saw like, I even I don't even know that I read it. I keyword it. And I was like, oh, like she doesn't know what kind of diabetes she has. She's a mom, like bah, bah, bah, like, Okay, well together. Like when you said you were 49 as I go Napoli's 49. So like, that's, that's part of the secret of the podcast is that I'm actually learning about you for real while while you while you're explaining It's, um, you know, like on late night TV shows where you see the host go. So I understand something funny happened to you at the zoo today.

Natalie 44:32
Oh, and it's so fake and contrived. Yeah, I think your methods help keep it genuine.

Scott Benner 44:40
And if we miss something, we missed something, but at least everything that comes out is valuable. Like that's how that's how I think about it. But it's cool that you found it and like how did you find it? So you're kind of outside of the age range for podcasts like seriously, what did you do?

Natalie 44:54
Well, I do listen to a lot of podcasts. Now. Granted, most of my other podcasts are like true crime. I'm podcasts

Scott Benner 45:01
always true crime, Natalie, what do you ladies have inside of your brain that you want to hear about how to kill people?

Natalie 45:07
I don't know. But yeah, it's kind of a joke in the family. Oh, mom's listening to her crime show again. And I do have my daughter listening to at least a couple of them now. So that's kind of funny.

Scott Benner 45:17
I'm just saying, your husband shows up dead. Just go back and listen to this podcast. So you figure out how she did it. That's all.

Natalie 45:26
So yeah, I, before COVID, I had a long commute to work. And so I would listen to a lot of podcasts on the way to and from work and just found it through there. And I'm guessing I was trying to found the podcast, I'm guessing it was either looking for groups on Facebook, and then finding someone that had mentioned it in one of the other venues of the Dexcom, or the Omnipod group or, or something. But like I said, once, you were right, that first one was definitely meant to be more entertaining than educational, I think but I finding the data defining diabetes episodes. And then the pro tips. I've had, I've had diabetes in some forum for 25 years. And yet, I thought that I knew all the things that I needed to know. But yet, there was so much good information or different ways of thinking about things to help me apply it in a better way. And so I took that information that I got out of defining and the pro tips and kind of ran with it, I listened to a lot of the how we eat episodes, because I found those to be very helpful as well, just listening to what other folks have have gone through. But one of the moments, okay, in, there's a few key phrases from the podcasts that really stuck out to me and of course, stop the arrows. And just don't worry about why just more insulin and and being willing to take charge and figure it out with the help of your physicians, of course, right. But being able to do that made a big difference. And one of the episodes with that was talking about pregnancy, talked about how it's so important when you're pregnant to maintain such a tight a one C. And it, it struck me that okay, if it's if it's important for the mom and the baby to do that, while they're pregnant, why isn't it important for everybody to be that well controlled all the time? Yeah. And so striving, having a much more aggressive approach to striving to maintain nondiabetic numbers, has made a big difference. And I don't know that I would have had that mindset had I not found the podcast.

Scott Benner 47:59
Appreciate that. I think that what happens is that I mean, doctors are people living the life they can, they can see what they need. But then they don't. They don't know how to follow through. Like, you know, a doctor can say to you, like, oh, Basil is really important. But then they don't do anything about it. They just tell you, it's really important. They don't then show you how to make it better, or talk you through why it's important. It's just this these like, you know what I'm saying? Like he just like, you know what you got to do, you got to do this. And then we stopped talking about it. And then nothing happens. I think I'm in a unique position, where I've been in the space long enough that I've seen things over and over again, so many times that you know, using like Facebook as an example. I can watch somebody post a question. And I already know how the whole thing is going to go. before it happens. Because I've seen it 50 times I've seen it 100 times I've seen people ask this question in one way or another. I know how low carb people are gonna answer it. I know how people are going to answer it who think like, you know, like, well, I can do whatever I want as long as like Bolus for it. Like I know the whole, like, I you might as well just not do it. In my mind. It's already happened. But for everyone else, it's very important to let it play out. And, and I, through watching these things play out over and over again. And through having all these conversations. You put yourself in a unique situation to understand what people need before they understand what they need. And so you can leave bread crumbs for them, and then hope they follow them. And if and by the way, my bread crumbs might not be perfect for you, that's fine, but you gather up what you need. And if you want to shoot off on another path. That's cool, but people need to understand. I mean, it sounds so trite to say like you need the tools and you need to know how to use them and you need to know when to use them because As your sharp Saul's not going to help you if you need a hammer. Right. So I just I'm very appreciative to know how this helped you. Because all I have is my ability to lay it out there the way I think it works, and then wait to see if it happens or not. And I believe that the popularity of the podcasts hasn't proven out pretty well at this point. I'm waiting for other people to figure out that a siloed approach to a siloed approach to medicine isn't going to work. Like you sitting in an office going Basil is really important. And then I leave the office and you don't tell me why Basil is important. That's never going to help anybody that makes you feel better. The person standing in the office, the doctor who goes I told him, but they didn't listen. You don't I mean, like you didn't tell him anything. And you very well may not know how to do it either. Maybe that's why you're not telling them I don't know. But you need a I'm like there's something I'm very like old timey in my thinking today. But you need like a Sherpa, you need to get a guide you need you need, you need the medicine lady in the camp, who knows the whole camp situation, and has time to sit with you and talk to you about basil because that's her job and she doesn't do anything else. I'm an old lady sitting in a teepee. That's what I'm telling you. You know what I mean? I think that's important. I think that's what I'm seeing working. And this medium lends itself to it. Unlike anything else I've seen so far.

Natalie 51:33
Yeah, yeah. Because I could go and find the episodes that were the that spoke to me the most from the titles and and start with there. And then depending on what was revealed in that episode, you know, you find other breadcrumbs to go to and more information. I know that I really didn't start Pre-Bolus thing until I was listening to the podcast. And and then I could see it for myself with my decks to see, oh my gosh, this does work. And it makes sense. But yet, it's scary sometimes to give insulin for something you haven't had to eat yet, especially when you're talking about a kid. So I understand why why people are reluctant to do it. But it works. Yeah,

Scott Benner 52:23
I so it's funny. I don't know what it is, in my mind that doesn't allow me to trade it at least in my thinking about diabetes. I can't trade like safety now for later. Like I'm I almost think about diabetes, like in that Ben Franklin. Is it a Ben Franklin quote, oh, God, now I'm gonna get this wrong. A little bit of security is that not the first we're gonna find out if it was Ben Franklin. So it's a it's a quote about the those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety, Benjamin Franklin, it's attributed to him as far as I know, and the Internet agrees with me. So I think it's been said a number of different ways over the years, it's so my point is, you can't let your blood sugar be 200 Your whole life so that you don't get low today. Because something really bad is gonna happen to you in the future, if you do that. So you have to set you have to set your country up with best intentions. And if along the way, you lose trying to do the right thing. I mean, to me, that's the risk, I'm willing to take, like, I want to, I want long term health for my daughter, not just a little bit of security today. You know, like I want, I want the whole thing. And if she can't have the whole thing. I don't know how to put this, like if I'm not saying like I want her to die. Like I'm saying that like I think there's a way to Pre-Bolus meals and to be more reactive with blood sugars and keep blood sugars lower and stable without hurting yourself. And that could give you a long life, a healthy life, because you might have a I mean less than if my daughter lives 75 years with diabetes and stirrups that and it was as healthy as it could have been. I call that a win. Now some people might argue, well, I made it 63 years, but I was sick the whole time. And I never once worried about getting low. And I'm like, All right. I mean, I guess one might make more sense to you. And one makes more sense to me. But for me this makes sense. And then the tools that I had to sort of develop to make that possible. I think other people can learn and if they want to use them than they should and if they don't want to then they shouldn't like I'm not telling any Hey, Buddy how to live their life. I'm just telling you what I did. And you know if it works for you, that's a bonus to me.

Natalie 55:07
And I think part of the problem too, is that, at least when I was being treated as a type two diabetic, the doctors were willing to let those higher averages just ride. I mean, if I would have acted content with it, they would have said, you might try to eat a little better exercise a little more. But they they weren't telling me about, hey, if your results are over 200 regularly, you're gonna have long term complications. They weren't saying those things, right?

Scott Benner 55:42
Because it becomes a management thing like for them, we have to, then you have to look at their situation, you're not the only person they're talking to. So all right, well, I can't believe how this is all coming together. But watch this. So when the water buffalo or whatever I used earlier in, they have a herd of them. And if they lose 10% of the herd, they still got 90% of the herd to Oregon. And, you know, we're cattle or whatever, I don't know, I think I'm watching 1883. Right now, I think that's what's happening. I enjoyed Yellowstone a lot. So I tried 1883. And I'm very much into this idea of moving cattle across the country and people, but not the point. The point is, is that is that they have a herd. And if they save most of it, they did a good job, because they don't think all the cattle are getting to Oregon. And you in that scenario are one of the cows and and if get to Oregon, yeah. And if one of them gets rustled or shot or falls into a canyon, they go, Okay, well, we still have these other ones. And and, again, macro micro is important because when they're sitting in a room with you, they do not look at you like, Oh, if I lose this lady, it's okay. Like, I'm not saying that. I'm saying when they step back, and they look at the scope of their job, they expect that that's what's going to happen. And if you end up being one of those people, then those are, that's just odds, they're not thinking of you as a person in that moment. They're thinking of you as, Hey, I got 90% of them across, you know, and that's important for people to remember, on the patient side. And I don't mean to be angry about it. Like I don't mean like go in your doctor's office be like this guy don't care about me, like cares about you plenty in that moment. He just knows that not everybody's gonna listen, not everybody's going to do what they're supposed to do. And, and that doctor so far, medicine so far has not found a way to compel people to do the right thing. So they know if they can't compel you the best they can do is tell you and then I think the next thing that happens is it becomes It must feel hopeless to them at some point. Like almost like, you know how they say cops can get they start seeing crime everywhere. The longer they're a cop. Oh, yeah. Right. So I think maybe with with police with police, it bleeds into their personal lives. I know cops, it does believe in their personal lives. They're just like, they don't trust anybody sometimes. And I understand why. Right? Because most of the people they meet in the course of the day are trying to get over somehow. And I think for doctors similar situation. I mean, how many people like you have to stop taking their medication and heading the wrong direction before they start thinking? Like, there's no way I can affect all this? I don't know like it to me, it seems like everybody doing the best they can. Whatever the perfect answer is, it either doesn't exist, or we as people don't seem to be able to accept it and, and stay with it, and run with it. I don't know why. So anyway, after saying all this, I'm still not getting on that bike when I get down with you. What do you make of that? Yeah, I'm as fortunate as the rest of you, how's that?

Natalie 58:56
I do wish that, that perhaps doctors would be especially when dealing with with type twos, instead of just simply labeling the patient as uncontrolled or non compliant. could look into it a little more, like instead of just assuming that they're lying about how much they eat, to have an opportunity to to find out more, because maybe they really are trying the best they can maybe they need to have insulin at this point.

Scott Benner 59:32
Oh, I agree. Yeah. 1,000%. And I'm saying that I think that there's a human failing on the doctor side, just like there's a human failing on everyone's side, like that. No one. No one seems to be able to do the right thing. The thing that they know is going to work over and over again, because at some point that drudgery just doctors have the same thing as everyone else does. There's there's a there's trash that has to be taken out of their house to you know, and so I think everybody gives as much as they can. There's times where I think, you know, I don't want to see a doctor right away, like in the morning, but I would like to see them late morning. But not if they're too hungry and not right after lunch and not at the end of the day when they're tired. Like, you know, like, it's, it's just, it's weird. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's, it's a bunch of flawed organisms trying to help each other. And, but you're right, like, like, functionally You're 100%, right? You can't just look at somebody and go, Oh, they're going to be one of them that I lose. You have to treat everybody like they're the cow that you get over the line. Yeah. And and that's where the that's, I think you're right. I think that's where the failing comes from. And then I think the follow through on their part can't just be hate only the Twinkie, it has to be why, and not just why, but can you afford something better than that? And what is better than that? Because I watched my mom get, you know, started getting borderline type two, a few years ago. And in her earnestness to eat better, she chose foods that were higher in carbs. Yeah. And she didn't know what she was doing. Like she had no idea. And nobody helped her. Because she just told the doctor, I'm eating better now. And the doctor went, Oh, good. That was

Natalie 1:01:15
what really is better? What does it mean to say that your numbers are in control? Because if you would have asked me a year ago, are your numbers in control? I probably would have said yes. But looking back at where my numbers were then compared to where they are now. It's crazy. My last a one C was a six. Oh, and the one before that was a 5.6. No. And I have never, in my diabetes life had numbers that low, you probably feel terrific, though. It feels awesome. I feel so much better. And I didn't realize how bad I felt before

Scott Benner 1:01:46
is your body coming back together with your weight the way you want.

Natalie 1:01:50
It's getting there. It's getting there. We're still working on that. But the it's funny because, again, I have to I'm a weirdo. The doc says that I really don't have a whole lot of insulin resistance, which is what you would really expect if I was a true type two, except when I eat my body seems to have a really hard time processing food. And so if you look at what my like correction ratio is, or my Basal rates, and then take a look at what my carb ratio is, it seems like my carb ratio is crazy compared to what the others are. And it's because I'm so so resistant to insulin when it's food related.

Scott Benner 1:02:29
Ardens is like that i Arden's Basal rates around a unit an hour. Yeah, but her her carb ratio is like one to four and a half, I think.

Natalie 1:02:39
Yeah, that's actually kind of really similar. I run somewhere between point eight and 1.1 on my Basal rates, and then my carb ratio right now is like one to six, or one to eight, depending on the meal.

Scott Benner 1:02:55
Can I ask a personal question? Here? Sure. Can I have your lady parts given up yet?

Natalie 1:03:00
No, they have not interested?

Scott Benner 1:03:04
I thought maybe you were like postmenopausal. I mean, you know, you'd be relatively young for that. But I was just Yes, yeah,

Natalie 1:03:11
yeah, no. And so yeah, I have those changes to look forward to as well. And, you know, before listening to the podcast, I never would have thought that my numbers or rates or anything was, was different based on the time of the month, but I actually have started to notice that I get really it's like, unpredictable. It's, it's not that it's a whole lot more are a whole lot less. It's like, at some moments in the day, I'm going to need so much more insulin, but then later, I definitely don't. And it's all in the same day. So it's like it's like my ratios go crazy. A couple of days a month. Yeah, hormones

Scott Benner 1:03:51
are are just such an impact. It's it's really something. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun figuring all this out over the years.

Natalie 1:04:03
Just probably know, what's more about things that you thought you would never have to know about.

Scott Benner 1:04:08
Trust me if you could meet like 21 year old me and be like, Hey, you have a podcast in the future about diabetes. That person would have thought you were pretty crazy and then got back on their motorcycle and drove away really quickly. So yeah, yeah, it's, uh, I'm happy to do it. I think it's fantastic. I'm doing it for my kid. You know, but it's, it's cool that it's helping other people. Was that gonna say it's gonna say something had a big thought, oh, here it is. I found it. So you are have spoken around on the cusp of an idea that you haven't dove completely into yet. And I'm passionate about it too. So I kind of want to push you there. But the idea of using insulin feeling like a failing and the idea of using more insulin than what I this is a meaningless statement than others. But I think you should be using being something that people have a lot of opinions about or, or that being something that you feel like is a failure. Like, for some reason, you know, using one unit at an hour, Basil seems okay. But if it was two, you'd be like, Oh, I'm using a lot of Basal insulin like like that, that way people feel and we talked about it here as much as possible. I don't like it. Like, I, like, I'm not gonna say, I'm going to seem like I'm gonna come down on two sides of this, like, I get low carb people, I understand them. I understand when their argument is if you eat fewer carbs, you're gonna use less insulin. I think that's right. I think if you do that, you take away a lot of variabilities and things that you need to understand and managing diabetes, low carb is generally speaking easier. It doesn't make it the only answer. And just because those people had trouble for years before they figured out to be low carb doesn't mean that that's not doesn't make that the only answer, it just makes it the answer that worked for them in their timeline I could take them is just gonna sound crazy. But I could lift a person up who's had diabetes for 25 years who lived the through the 80s and the 90s. And then suddenly found low carbon, it straightened everything out for them, which I think is terrific. But if I pick their life up out of the timeline, and move them forward, so that they got diabetes in 2015, and started listening to the podcast, they would likely never go through the things they went through prior to finding low carb. And I'm not none of that makes anybody's experience, you know, any more or less impactful on them or are worth sharing, I think all those need to be shared. But when they start making leaps when people start making leaps and saying, when you use a lot of insulin, it's bad for you. That's dangerous, because then you stop people who need the insulin from using the amount that they need. And so then you're good. You're good intentions, create problems. And maybe you're right, maybe this person should be eating, I don't know, hundreds fewer calories, carbohydrates every day, and they wouldn't need as much insulin. But back to the COVID conversation. Just telling somebody to do something, doesn't mean they're going to do it. And in the meantime, they're still alive, and they still need what they need. So I'm willing to help. Yeah, I'm very much against telling people that using too much insulin is bad. I don't like they need as much as they need. Now, you know, if you need a large amount, because your body just requires it. Versus you need a large amount because you woke up in the morning and drank a Slurpee with one hand while eating like bread dough with another hand like like there's an argument in there. I don't mind having that conversation. But it never gets made that way. It just gets the assumption is you eat poorly. And that's why you need more insulin. Stop it. And that's really I find that to be a dangerous statement.

Natalie 1:08:06
Yeah. And to be honest, Scott, I probably should have been taking mealtime insulin at least five years before I started it, right. And part of it was the doctor really didn't push because my numbers were okay enough. And part of it was I was vehemently against starting insulin, because of all the the type two, I don't know propaganda, but all the type two info that's out there that you can control this with diet and exercise. And if you're not controlling it with diet and exercise, and maybe some Metformin, then you're doing it wrong. You try hard enough. You didn't try hard. Yeah. And I will tell you that the relief I felt when I saw that result from my C peptide test, and I realized that my pancreas for whatever reason, is no longer working. And that it's okay to give it some help. I can't describe that relief. And nobody should have to go through that when they fight. You know, you shouldn't be relieved to find out your pancreas isn't working.

Scott Benner 1:09:16
So those five years create a potential damage for you.

Natalie 1:09:20
Yeah, yeah, because I was. I mean, I wasn't running in the four hundreds all the time, but I was definitely above 150. The majority of the time, most of my averages when I look back, were in the 170 to 180 range as an average.

Scott Benner 1:09:38
And I won't hide the fact that when my mom found out she was like, pre diabetic. I mean, the way I helped her was I put her on an intermittent fasting schedule and and had her limit her carbs. Yeah, like I'm not gonna lie to you like that's exactly what I did. And if it was helpful to

Natalie 1:09:53
her, if that works, if you've got type two, and that works, by all means, go for it and do that. As long as you can, but if you're working as hard as you can work, and your numbers are still not close to a normal range, then you need to do something else. Yep,

Scott Benner 1:10:12
you have to address the symptoms. Yeah. Right. Because you don't have an unlimited amount of time. And you don't get 10 years to make yourself right. Like, this isn't a psychological thing where you're, you know, you don't mean like, how do I mean this, you know, when we're growing up, and we are learning about the world, and we think it's okay, you have time, you'll figure out the friendships important, you'll figure out that kindness is important like that stuff, you have time to figure those things out. This isn't like that, you don't have time to figure those things out. Like you need to understand that you needed insulin and, and five years of you working your way through it. You know, you don't just miss out on a couple of friendships maybe along the way you miss out on longevity, or peaceful or peaceful health in your older age. And in

Natalie 1:11:01
my case, it was definitely health because during that timeframe, I mean, I had all kinds of stuff I had to go in and have an echo and a stress echo because I was having these terrible chest pains that turned out to have no explanation. You know, continued UTI issues that to be honest, since I've lowered my my agency and lowered my expectations for what a proper glucose ranges. I haven't had any. And to be able to say that after, after years of having him is is amazing for me.

Scott Benner 1:11:38
When's the last time you peed on your bed?

Natalie 1:11:40
Oh, gosh. A really long time ago.

Scott Benner 1:11:44
I would take just that as an improvement.

Natalie 1:11:47
That isn't when my husband would say that too.

Scott Benner 1:11:52
Alright, yeah, that must have Did you tell him or did you hide

Natalie 1:11:54
it? Oh, no. Yeah, there was no hiding.

Scott Benner 1:11:58
We need a mattress.

Natalie 1:11:59
It's the middle of the night, change the sheets and hope you've got a really good mattress pad on.

Scott Benner 1:12:06
No hiding it. Just like I'm like, I'm just I don't know, I'm, I'm picturing you just rolling the sheets up and trying to pull them out from under a very slowly, you know,

Natalie 1:12:15
sneakily? Yeah, that's crazy. Is there? I probably could have slept through it. But no,

Scott Benner 1:12:20
I I was just I don't know, it's my point was that if he just fixed that, it's well worth all your effort, you know, but you got much, much more out of it than that.

Natalie 1:12:32
Yeah. And honestly, my relationship with food is better. There were so many things that I wouldn't eat. Or that if I did have some of it, you know, the guilt with with having a piece of birthday cake to celebrate somebody's birthday, or, you know, participating in a family event that involves food and feeling guilty about having that food. Once I started insulin, I'm just like, Okay, well, I'm just doing for my body, what everybody else's body is doing for them. And so it helped me have a healthier relationship with food in general. Now, I'll still decide sometimes, you know, I really don't want to have that food at nine o'clock at night, because I don't want to deal with alarms and corrections, and whatever else I need to do all night. So it's just not worth it for me to have that right now. But it's not that I can't ever eat that.

Scott Benner 1:13:35
You could do it if you want it. So it's your you're making a decision. And it's this lesson, it's the same decision, we should all be making just with slightly different parameters, you're deciding, do I want to do I want to eat this, and then have to deal with what I need to do afterwards for the rest of us should be saying, Do I want to eat this? And you know, or do I? Or do I not save my body? Whatever turmoil it's gonna go through. Because that look, I mean, listen. I mean, this needs to be brought up once in a while by me, I genuinely believe that there's almost nothing that my daughter could eat that I couldn't figure out how to Bolus for. Right. I don't think that means you should eat it all the time. I think

Natalie 1:14:17
of your pop tart example.

Scott Benner 1:14:20
If my daughter never sees a pop tart again and the rest of her life, I'll be very happy about that. Just because I know how to Bolus for cereal without a spike doesn't mean my kid eats cereal constantly. But But I think there's a bigger picture. I think that when you have a five year old that just got diabetes, maybe taking cereal away from his heart, or seems. And maybe it seems cruel to you as a parent, and it's something you want to try to mix in. Now. My hope is that you'll learn how to Bolus for the cereal, but at some point recognize that, you know, crunch berries, probably not the way to go every day for the rest of your life. Right and maybe we'll figure that out and maybe you will Don't figure that out. That's not under my control. But much like with the conversation you're having about your insulin. I think it's unfair for people not to know at least, like, like, because the alternative is, I mean, this whole conversation is just cyclical. Like you're just you're hearing the same things over and over again, if a kid's going to eat cereal is the right answer. Don't eat cereal. Yeah, probably. Okay. But given that that might not happen, or that there might be psychological ties to it, or, or reasonings, or, you know, whatever. You don't just let their blood sugar's before 50. Right? Like, if they're going to eat cereal, they should learn how to Bolus for it. Do I hope one day they figure out that Captain Crunch isn't good for them? Yes, I really genuinely do. And and if they don't, that's not my responsibility.

Natalie 1:15:50
Yeah, because we can't, we can't know all the circumstances for other people. And so to say, Well, you shouldn't eat this or you shouldn't eat that. Maybe there's a valid reason why they want to eat it. And for you to be able to give them the tools that they need to be able to handle the insulin in such a way that it maintains their sugar in a healthy range. And then that's the objective.

Scott Benner 1:16:17
And your point really exploded a little bit to draw it out a little bit. A box of cereals, a few bucks, half a gallon of milk is a few bucks. And now suddenly, I can feed a kid for a whole week at breakfast for five or $6. And a dozen eggs might be two or three bucks. And the time to make the eggs isn't something everyone has. You know what I mean? Like, like, if you are if you live a life where you can get up in the morning and cook, you're lucky. You know, because most people are running out the door at the crack of dawn, trying to go to a job that doesn't pay them very much money. And if they're five minutes late for it, they're gonna get fired. Yep. Right, right. So people situations are a big part of that. And I'm aware of that, even as I'm saying, I hope you don't eat Captain Crunch. But here's the thing, if you have the captain crunch, let's figure out how to Bolus for it. So that you're not eating Captain Crunch and having high blood sugars, let's just pick one. And and maybe your situation will grow from there. And you'll be able to get out from under and maybe it won't put at least your health isn't going to suffer because of your financial situation or the expectations that the world has on you or whatever else is keeping you from you know, poaching an egg. Like right, which is a it's a thing you should be lucky to be able to do if you have that. And the same goes with lunches. And dinners. It's easy to say like, I mean, don't eat things out of bags, don't eat things out of boxes, like that's a pretty easy. I mean, honestly, if you're looking to be healthier, don't eat anything in a bag or a box. That's a pretty that whole food approach. Yep. Pretty fast way to help yourself. I think eliminating oils, like processed oils is a great way to help yourself very quickly. But, you know, if you have 20 minutes to eat in the middle of the day, I get it if you've bought a grab bag of Doritos. Like I understand, so I just don't think you should suffer for with your diabetes health on top of everything else. I don't know that seems like common sense to me, Natalie. But this is a long form conversation that took an hour and 15 minutes. And it's not just somebody ranting at somebody in three sentences online or your doctor visit the last 10 minutes or you know you're at Thanksgiving dinner when your grandmother's like should you be eating that? Like Thanks, Grandma. Thanks, Grandma.

Natalie 1:18:47
In my case, it was thanks to my great aunt but that's another story.

Scott Benner 1:18:52
Great Aunt pain in the ass. I got you. Natalie Natalie's got bread someone stopper.

Natalie 1:18:59
You shouldn't be eating that. And I wasn't even diabetic at the time. It was hilarious.

Scott Benner 1:19:05
Thanks a lot, sweetie. My wife had a grandmother who would look people in the face and go, it'd be so pretty if you weren't so fat. Like literally like a horrible woman, you know? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, just Yeah. And that's if you don't think a lot of people don't grow up with stuff like that. You're out of your mind. You know what I mean? Like there are plenty of people giving bad messages to children and two adults and they're hard to ignore when they're when they're being beaten over your head over and over again. You can try to joke your way through it or you still hurt it, you know? Yeah. So anyway, Natalie, is there anything that we haven't spoken about that you wanted to?

Natalie 1:19:48
I think we covered most of it. I one thing that I did want to mention, you know, we talked about diabetes. I guess I would ask that folks try to just be kind to each other because there are other forms of diabetes besides type one and type two. And maybe just trying to be kind. That's one thing I appreciate about appreciate about your podcast and the Facebook group, it's, you know, for anybody using insulin. So many of the groups get very territorial, if you will. If you're not this type, then you shouldn't be in this group. I think there's, there's room for us to have some understanding with each other, and some kindness to each other. Because not everybody fits into a category. Like me.

Scott Benner 1:20:35
I don't understand why people feel so compelled to be on a team. But God bless them. They really do. I mean, it's like, just make it a different team. If it'll make you feel better blanket team insulin, there are effects that, you know, like, Why do you care? Like I and I don't see it frequently. But when you do see it from somebody, it's fascinating. I've come to wonder to making myself laugh. But there are times when I see people post online, I think I wonder if they're drunk. Get any mean? Like? Yes, we all we all think we're talking to like someone who's upright in a chair having their full form best thoughts, but I'm like, I wonder how many people are like half on the recliner, half on the floor with their phone in one hand and have one eye open? Gone? You don't have type one diabetes, get out of here. You type two person like, I don't know who you're talking to. And you don't either. I would say I see people be very supportive, mostly. But you're right. When it's not supportive. It's vicious. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I don't get I don't understand why you care if someone's getting value from a spacer, and why does it matter if they don't? Exactly if they're not exactly you? You know? I don't know. Completely agree. Yeah. People are out of their minds, some of them, but not most of them. That's the good news. All right, Natalie, let's finish up by saying. I'm incredibly impressed that somehow I took the migration of cattle across the country and related to healthcare. I think I did a great job with that. And if I didn't, if I listen back later and go, Wow, you are not nearly as on point with that as you thought you were. I'm gonna be surprised because I feel really good about it in the moment. What are your thoughts?

Natalie 1:22:19
I think it went well. And yeah, I was quite impressed with how you compare cattle to healthcare.

Scott Benner 1:22:27
As it was happening, I was like, I'm getting so good at this. voice in my head, not like a scary voice, you understand not only where you need to be scared, but I was like, wow, like, I realized Joking aside, that these like, one of the things that will get me struggling to say something nice about myself, I don't want to sound like a jerk. I think that I've been like this my whole life. Like I like thinking about things. And I like seeing connections between things. I think that our minds work very similarly. And for some reason, when you change the color of the conversation, or you change the type of the conversation or something, people lose their minds, not just things have nothing to do with each other. But everything has something to do with something else. And the way people think, or treat each other, or treat people's diabetes or whatever. It's all rooted in the same. I mean, I don't know how many but the same handful of thoughts or feelings or inclinations that people have, like, like, we are pretty common at our core. And the way our, the way our impulses impact. Other things is very similar, like where it goes after that gets different because of variability. But at our core, we're all very similar. And, um, and I think the way we do things is pretty common throughout life. And I think if you could diagnose it in one place, it might make it easier to understand another place. That's all. But I don't know, like that all just came to me today about the migration, actually. 1883 You should all watch it, it's on paramount. Plus, I really like it. And you might look good. Anyway, I'm gonna let this go before I before I say something, I don't mean. So. Thank you very much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Natalie 1:24:23
Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it. And you know, again, just reminding people not to be afraid to start insulin if they're in that situation. And just advocating for themselves and their loved ones because that's so important.

Scott Benner 1:24:36
You need what you need. That's pretty much it. Yeah. See, I am able to make things short and sweet. There you go. I've been saying that through the podcast for years right you need what you need. Yeah, all right. I might have been right let's stop the recording and hold on.

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#753 Calvin and Frogs

Charissa is surrounded by type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 753 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today, Karissa is on the show with us she's going to talk about a number of issues that she's having trouble figuring out. Krista is the mother of a child with type one, the wife of a man who has type one diabetes, and she is the daughter in law, a woman with type one diabetes. diabetes has Karissa surrounded on all sides. While you're listening today. Please remember, please remember, please boy, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, and you're from the United States of the Americas, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, all you need to do is fill out the survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Please go do that now and helps people with type one diabetes. It helps you and it helps me t one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. My voice got very strange, because i Hey, all right. You ready for Karissa?

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes in pen is an insulin pen that does more than you expect. Learn more about it at in pen today.com. The podcast is also sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. Dex comm.com forward slash juicebox. And in the time, it took me to say that URL I picked up my phone opened it up and saw that Arden's blood sugar is 90, you can do that to more information in the ad that is forthcoming.

Charissa 2:12
Hello, my name is Karissa and typically synonymous with a yellow hoodie or a frog hat. I live in rural Missouri, and that's probably enough weirdness to get you started.

Scott Benner 2:27
I'm sorry, frog hat you said?

Charissa 2:29
Yes. When I joined the Guard, the guys did not know what they got themselves into. Because I showed up in a frog hat and rain boots.

Scott Benner 2:39
The the, like the government port like the National Guard.

Charissa 2:44
Yeah, the Air National Guard. Yeah, sub sect of the Air Force there.

Scott Benner 2:48
We fly planes out of Missouri.

Charissa 2:50
No, I actually joined in Vermont, and I was an aerospace ground equipment mechanic.

Scott Benner 2:56
Gotcha. So that was fine. I'll say why are we flying such like extra distance to get to the border? Like why don't we put them closer to the ocean? Shouldn't we?

Charissa 3:04
Well, actually, Missouri does have an Air Guard unit as well, as well as an active Air Force Base. They just have a different mission.

Scott Benner 3:11
Can you tell me what the mission is? Or do you not know?

Charissa 3:14
I don't actually know. I mean, I know it's like flying and stuff. How's that? Different jets? We were at 16. Although they've even the guard unit and Vermont has transitioned to the F 35. So

Scott Benner 3:26
how does that work? Is it it's not a full time commitment right.

Charissa 3:31
Now, um, it was a when I was doing it. It was one weekend, a month, two weeks a year training. And then I got to volunteer for TDY and deployments. And so I got to learn a lot and have a lot of fun with those

Scott Benner 3:43
TDY.

Charissa 3:45
Temporary it's, it's just a two week training. I should know what it stands for. I don't

Scott Benner 3:53
Okay, hold on. That's that's not a big deal. I just

Charissa 3:57
started I thought I knew something here. Like

Scott Benner 3:59
I do TD wise all the time. What do they stand for? I don't know. A big part of my life, though. I

Charissa 4:06
go somewhere for two weeks. And

Scott Benner 4:10
it's fun. Do you think you were the only person to show up that day with a frog hat on or whether, you know,

Charissa 4:16
judging from their expressions, probably guessed. They had other. They had had a few other women in their shop before. And when I when I enlisted, I wasn't the only the only girl in the shop, which was kind of cool. How long before? So I was in. So I enlisted in 2008. And then I took an active duty assignment in 2006 did that for three years, wrecked my back, moved to Missouri and so I'm inactive now, which is why I have good health insurance. But once the paperwork is processed, then you know we'll have to we'll have to shift gears there. So

Scott Benner 4:57
do you have type one are you the parent of someone with type one

Charissa 5:00
I'm a parent. My two year and a half year old son Calvin has type one and his dad has type one and also his grandmother. They were all diagnosed right around the same time.

Scott Benner 5:12
Yes, grandmother, the her son and her grandchild were diagnosed all around the same time.

Charissa 5:19
Yeah, so my husband was diagnosed first, and then like six to nine months later, he walked, my husband walks in the door and says, Guess what? My mom was diagnosed with type one. And it was it was like we had had conversations, you know, if the kids ever get type one, at least I'll be older. We don't have to worry about it. And we miss all the thinking signs. We just thought Calum was growing. He had recently had vaccinations. So you know, we attributed you know, some of the sleepiness to that growing and yeah, he went into DKA. I sent a picture of his breathing to my sister who's an Army combat medic, and she says, you know, that's not right. Take him in. And he had been vomiting and stuff, too, but he had kind of stopped vomiting. So we thought maybe that was a good sign. But yeah, when his breathing went south, that was that was the catalyst there.

Scott Benner 6:08
How old was Calvin was diagnosed. 16 months. Wow. At least two and a half now. Yep. I might call this episode Calvin and frogs. That's awesome. I know. Oh, that would make me happy. I know. Did you name him after Calvin and Hobbes? Yes, I knew you did. And I don't know you at all. And in four minutes of talking to you, I was like she named that cater for that comic.

Charissa 6:32
Oh, yeah. Yeah, my husband's a huge fan too. So it works out.

Scott Benner 6:35
Excellent. You know, I have a fairly massive Calvin and Hobbes tattoo on my leg.

Charissa 6:40
You actually said that on a Facebook post. I was like, that's so cool.

Scott Benner 6:44
You can't see it. It's my it's private. But although I could I could probably sign up with a little bit of like, lotion. Make it look a bit get look summertime ready and get it out for somebody who knows. That's fascinating. I really, I'm so pleased with myself that I figured that out so quickly. I could stop the episode right now and be completely happy with this. You all listening would be like wait, what did I download this for? But I'm completely satisfied at this point. Everything's gonna be a bonus after this. Karissa. How long have you been married?

Charissa 7:16
Um, let's see. We got married at the end of 2017. So not very long. Couple years.

Scott Benner 7:23
Yeah. Okay. Three, four years. You've been married kid? Two and a half years old and the other kids are just this one.

Charissa 7:29
Yep. Phoebe just turned 402 children.

Scott Benner 7:32
Yeah, little girl. Yep. Okay. Well,

Charissa 7:36
I wouldn't ever Phoebe if she was a boy. But

Scott Benner 7:39
listen, I don't know how to judge the world. I mean, I must

Charissa 7:43
mean, you know, if she decides at some point that yeah, gender reassignment is a thing she she could, you know, decide to keep her name and just say Phoebe as a boy. Oh, no.

Scott Benner 7:53
I'm okay with it. I don't have any opinions about anything. Do you think of that? No, that's great. I seriously thought. Okay, so little girl for little boy, two and a half. He's had diabetes since he was 16 months old. That's only maybe a year not even you're not even up to a year yet, right?

Charissa 8:14
It's been a little over a year, diagnosed October 2020.

Scott Benner 8:19
And how long has your husband had it?

Charissa 8:22
A couple of years now. Because he was diagnosed right after we moved to Missouri, it was actually a giant fluke of a thing that we even caught it. So that was 2019. Right? After Calvin was born,

Scott Benner 8:36
how was he died? How was the husband of the husband? How was that boy diagnosed that you're married.

Charissa 8:42
So he, we moved up to Missouri and I wanted to get us all into a clinic near our house. So I made us all go in for checkups, to do the new patient and processing and stuff like that. And they ran as a one C It was Hi. So they diagnosed with type two. He had so my husband is prior military as well. So he went to an appointment at the VA. And the VA nurse said, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you do not fit the picture of a type to get tested for type one. He did and his antibodies came back positive.

Scott Benner 9:17
Okay. And then did his diagnosis lead him to understanding his mom's problem, or does she have her own sort of like, diagnosis story and how old was she when she was diagnosed?

Charissa 9:29
She's in her early 50s. And I don't know a lot about her diagnosis story, but I mean, they caught it early as well. She's still at able to manage with a low carb diet. Just trying to prolong kind of the life of her pancreas. And then I think now she does like a once a week shot.

Scott Benner 9:46
Oh, she's got some sort of a honeymoon going on. That seems.

Charissa 9:50
So they're both allotted. So it's very slow onset.

Scott Benner 9:52
Gotcha. So obviously your husband is Lada as well. Gotcha. Wow. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm stuck. There's so much there. I didn't expect I could feel I could feel my brain reordering everything that you've said.

Charissa 10:11
You know, depending on how much you want to talk about and what aspects your brain might just do this all the time, or like,

Scott Benner 10:19
Well, how was it becoming the wife of a type one? What was that? Like?

Charissa 10:27
So at first, I was kind of a jerk about it. I was like, you know, what, if your thing you deal with it, you don't want me out down your throat because I'm kind of a pain in the butt. Like, for real, I am a pain in the butt. Because I worry about everything. I will fuss about everything until I absolutely understand it. So when Josh was first diagnosed, it was like, Okay, it's your thing. You deal with it. Just let me know if you need me. And then when Calvin was diagnosed, that's when I really dug in. Because, you know, I manage Calvin's care. And so then Josh, Josh kind of got the aftermath of all of that. So I did and getting involved in Josh's care especially because you know, with his blood sugar's he was also kind of neat. Okay, when he wasn't taking care of themselves, so now he has a CGM.

Scott Benner 11:15
So his blood sugar's were high, and he was difficult to be around.

Charissa 11:20
Um, so they were mostly high. And that didn't seem to bother him as much. It's when he would get active and in a project, like a physical project, and he would go low, like he just said, some really mean targeted things that he doesn't realize.

Scott Benner 11:35
Gotcha. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Oh, personal heartful like to everybody, not just you. Um,

Charissa 11:48
I think if he had, like, if he had, if he spoke to anybody else on a regular basis, it would probably be across the board. But ya know, it's Hmm.

Scott Benner 11:59
But lucky you you're there, huh? I know.

Charissa 12:03
And he doesn't even realize it too. He's such a bonehead. Sometimes

Scott Benner 12:06
I understand. So you basically learn things about Calvin's care, and then looked at your husband was like, he needs this help, too. Yeah. Okay. So you initially after saying, you're an adult, you can handle this. You learn more through your son and realize maybe he needs help that he doesn't know about? And then you jumped in? And did you kind of write both the chips? Or how are things going?

Charissa 12:28
So he's still primarily does his own care, he doesn't don't adjustments and his insulin, he doesn't track anything. So the only way I can really look at things is when I pull up his libre app and start sifting through it if I think he, like, if I think he needs something, and he's not doing it on his own.

Scott Benner 12:45
Okay. How often do you look at his stuff?

Charissa 12:49
Maybe once every couple of months, okay, so

Scott Benner 12:51
you're not totally you know, to involve to begin with, but you're also busy because having a two year old with diabetes is not easy.

Charissa 12:57
No, and it's been a monstrosity lately. Calvin was in the hospital about a week ago with a stomach bug. And so, like his body has completely changed in his management. So right now his body is absorbing glucose so slowly that I actually have to give the carbs a lead time before I dose and I'm dosing it in half unit increments, kind of like a pump instead of you know, if he eats so many carbs, I'll give him a unit. I can't do that. It'll crash it, so I have to stagger the half units.

Scott Benner 13:29
Yeah, how much is the way

Charissa 13:32
he was 30 pounds. He lost like we all lost a lot of fluids with this virus except for Josh. Josh actually came out of it. Okay. But when I had it, I had it right before he did, and I had been having some gastrointestinal issues, so I thought it anyway so I thought it was that and then Calvin got sick and I lost like eight pounds of fluids on that Virus.

Scott Benner 13:53
Virus COVID

Charissa 13:56
No, just a stomach bug. We actually had COVID twice already.

Scott Benner 13:59
Look at you. overachievers

Charissa 14:02
I hate it. Like we got vaccinated to like that's the not funny part. Like come on. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:08
You don't you live in the middle of nowhere. How did you meet enough people to get what's going on?

Charissa 14:15
I go grocery shopping once a week.

Scott Benner 14:18
You can't? Yeah, you can't do that. You have to have the food AirDrop. If these people are not going to take it seriously and give you the COVID

Charissa 14:26
Oh, Misery doesn't misery is very, you know, everybody's gonna get it. Why worry about it? And so that's kind of

Scott Benner 14:34
Yeah, was it? Was it any different the first time well, so real quickly, just asking you. You were vaccinated when you got the first time? Yeah. And how was the experience of being sick?

Charissa 14:45
Um, so the first time I was mostly just tired, Josh lost his sense of smell. The second time it really kicked my butt because it kind of just flared up everything I already had going on. So I had muscle aches. I was tired like my joints hurt. or like it was just miserable.

Scott Benner 15:01
Gotcha. Did it last any longer or shorter the first or second time?

Charissa 15:06
I feel like it lasted a little longer than second time too. I had COVID fatigue for an extra couple of weeks after that.

Scott Benner 15:12
How about the kids that began it?

Charissa 15:15
Um, so the first time that kids didn't miss a beat the second time, Calvin's blood sugar's acted like he was sick, but he didn't show any physical symptoms. It was weird.

Scott Benner 15:24
That's interesting. Wow. How old are you? 36. Okay. I don't know why that makes it. Okay. Like if for some reason. If you're in your 20s I'd be like, oh, goodness, but then I was like, alright, she can handle this.

Charissa 15:36
Yeah, well, so here's the other thing. My husband's dad got COVID and he's unvaccinated had some health issues. We found out he had to open right before Thanksgiving. And he ended up dying a week later, Josh had to make an emergency trip out to Arizona. I'm sorry. And his blood sugar's during that period. Were really interesting. Your husband's

Scott Benner 15:56
where? Yeah, from adrenaline and anxiety. You think things like that?

Charissa 16:03
Mostly adrenaline Joash does not typically a debit physical symptoms of being stressed out, but you could see it in his blood sugar. Yeah,

Scott Benner 16:12
you can see it in my face.

Charissa 16:16
I'm still looking at your pictures you don't look particularly stressed right now. And

Scott Benner 16:20
that photo I was I was like six days into a week off. And I I hadn't been around. I hadn't been around diabetes for like, for a while. And I was somewhere where the weather was nice. And my son was having fun and it was a lot going on there that day, but when I'm upset you can you get to see it my face. Yeah, I'm not particularly good at hiding it. I don't believe

Charissa 16:42
Oh, no. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:44
Okay. Wow, there's what made you want to come on the podcast?

Charissa 16:48
I actually wanted my husband to come on, because

Scott Benner 16:53
this is going great, then.

Charissa 16:56
Now it's fine. Um, I just I I get nervous. Clearly. My words I start shaking. Like I'm kind of a hot mess.

Scott Benner 17:06
We Oh, wait, hold on sooner. What do you mean? Clearly you think you've come off as nervous so far?

Charissa 17:11
Yeah. Well, I mean, I like shaking. You're shaking? Yeah, a little bit of coffee.

Scott Benner 17:20
Well, I mean, listen, from my perspective, you're not nervous. That's positive, positive. So you Why did you want him to come on?

Charissa 17:30
Because the story is just really interesting. And so his diagnosis, you know, he was diagnosed and then if mom was diagnosed as son has diagnosed like, it's a different perspective from me because I can still kind of stay disconnected. You know, he had to deal with all of this diabetes while dealing with his own. We're not dealing with his own diabetes, because he wasn't at the time. I mean, that's beside the point. But his onset to so Calvin's birth was actually a little traumatic. We were moving out of base housing out of Florida. And I got preeclampsia. The week we were moving. So we were supposed to move to Missouri on a Friday, I ended up in the hospital and um, on a Monday, Calvin was born by emergency C section on the Saturday, Josh wanted to come be with me and I told him, No, you need to close up this house because we are not staying in Florida. And so he and he had Phoebe with him. She was 18 months all the time. So he was trying to close up the house with a toddler while his wife is in the hospital. Not sure if she was going to be okay. And then his son was born. The hospital called him late. It was

Scott Benner 18:37
a mess. Yeah. That's nice. And so you thought that his perspective on that story was interesting because he got diabetes first, and then got to watch it happen around him to other times.

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Charissa 23:43
Right. And he like in retrospect, he kind of thinks that that whole sequence of events may have been what triggered his diabetes because he didn't get sick or anything like that. Like there was no obvious catalyst except that time of stress.

Scott Benner 23:59
So the birth weight you're seeing around Calvin's birth and the the changing of the house was very stressful for your husband. Yes, obviously. And then he then he gets his diagnosis soon after that. Yep. Gotcha. Are there other autoimmune diseases in his family?

Charissa 24:18
Not so far. Um, he had mentioned. So when we first got together, you know, we had talked about diabetes because my grandpa had type two diabetes, and he had mentioned some of his other family members, like great aunts and uncles. Maybe it's just great uncles. I don't know somebody had something getting dated, but we never connected it because back then diabetes was just diabetes. We never connected it as type one. You're just like, okay, they had diabetes runs on both sides or families.

Scott Benner 24:44
Okay, and this was like some great uncle that might have had type one. Yeah, all right. But you don't see any other stuff celiac? How about people who are like crazy like, allergic to things or not yet. Do you guys talk enough that you would know?

Charissa 25:03
Um, so my family history kind of, I kind of find out things in pieces. And I think his is the same way. So, I was tested for celiac 10 years ago came back negative Calvin was tested at diagnosis and while he was in the hospital, because I guess they do that annually now that he's type one, which is great, that makes me really happy. So, you know, no, no positive. You know, they're just Josh's family history. You know, his dad had some health issues, but they were surrounding his, like blood clots. He had some blood clot issues. So nothing we know about autoimmune there. And then on his mom's side, on his mom's side, it's just the diabetes. Oh, you know what? There is something. So dementia runs on both sides of my family, my grandma on my mom's side, or on my dad's side had Alzheimer's. My grandma on my mom's side had Lewy Body disease, which is another form of dementia. So I know you posted something about the Alzheimer's. That's why I was really, really interested in that.

Scott Benner 26:14
Yeah, I think that those are that there's enough research around that that talks about inflammation that makes you just kind of wonder, get on me.

Charissa 26:23
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And yeah, cuz I did some additional reading and the evidence, you know, connecting all of these auto immunities is pretty damning.

Scott Benner 26:33
Yeah, no, no. Let's see. I'm looking at something about his missus maybe involved in the body Lewy body dementia. Okay, so this is from the NIH T cells, which are key players in the body's immune system may be involved in the degeneration of neurons and Lewy Body. According to an IA supported study, researchers at Stanford, Northwestern identify how a certain type of T cells which is involved in autoimmune disease may travel to the brain to destroy neurons. So good times.

Charissa 27:13
Yeah, I'm gonna lose my frickin mind.

Scott Benner 27:16
Probably not, you know, or maybe whatever.

Charissa 27:20
I'm just rolling with it. It's like, you know what, I'm just gonna be bonkers. When I get old. It's cool. women in my family lives forever. So I'm just not going to know anything.

Scott Benner 27:30
Just be old and like, just like, listen, let me tell you a story. So we were away this weekend. And my mom is 79. She's just gotten her third round of chemotherapy. She's doing well, by all accounts. And she says to me, um, you know, take some pictures while you're out looking at colleges with Arden and send them to me. All right. So I sent her a number of pictures. She's 79. So it's not like she she doesn't hear the ding and go right to her text. Like usually I know if I text my mom, something I might hear back from about it in the day or so. And next day, she I get this phone call from her. She was hey, who's this guy in this photo with Arden. And I'm like, What is she talking about? I was like, What photo mom and she goes, she describes the picture to me and I opened up on my my text messages. That's me, mom. And she goes, that's you? And I said, Yeah, she was oh, I can't believe I didn't recognize you. I was like me either. And then I'm like, I'm texting my brothers. I'm like sending the picture to my brother's like, Mom doesn't know who the guy in this photo is. Like, I think we should start with getting her eyes checked. You know, let's let's hope for that, you know, but I don't know what's gonna be like, I'm sitting here right now telling you I can't I'm not certain why my mom doesn't recognize me in a photograph. I mean, sure. I photograph way handsomer than I am in person, right? I mean, I'm basically a model. But it shouldn't be that confusing. And, you know, I mean, can you imagine if you knew when you were 36 that that might happen one day, who would care? You don't? I mean? Like, like, Who would care? Like it's too far into the future? Screw it. Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Charissa 29:16
No, I really don't. It's just It's something I've kind of accepted as a possibility. There's not a lot of worry there.

Scott Benner 29:25
Good, good. Perfect. Sorry, I'm answering a text. I don't mean to do that. But it's yeah, I'm trying to Well, I guess more like COVID related craziness. We've had a we had a leak in our shower. Oh, no. And, you know, so we contact a lifelong friend who's a builder. And I'm like, Hey, listen. I need my shower fixed. This is July. For context. We're speaking now in the middle of February. And he goes, Yeah, sure, beginning of the year, and I win You can't just fix my shower prior to six months, like like, from now on. He's like, No, I was like, he goes COVID No way, like COVID. I was like, hold on a second. I swear people just using this as an excuse now. Like, what's happening? Exactly. And he said, all of my jobs are behind because I can't get materials. Like, oh, no kidding. That's crazy. And I didn't think of that. You know what I mean? So hold on one second. So he just tried to call me.

Charissa 30:40
Oh, yeah, you don't want to miss that if you're

Scott Benner 30:42
telling my wife

I'm telling my wife, who will almost assuredly say you can just call him when it's I would do the same thing now. You'll be done like an hour. Just call him then. I'm now I've sent her all the information. What happens next? No one knows. But I like it. My wife's been like, since she was 20. Like, she's like, I'll do it and like, go ahead. And she's like

Charissa 31:31
so i There are definitely things I push to my husband just because I can now I had to deal with when I was single. So my tire blew on Friday, like blew on the freeway. I'm on the side of the road. I met, you know, call the tow truck. So the cars been up the shop since then. And this morning, you know, we needed to go bring the keys. And you know, Josh brought up I could do it and I could go get my coffee and or, or you can do it and you can bring the coffee. And he did and it's wonderful.

Scott Benner 32:06
Yeah, I don't have that. I gotta be honest. I at one point this morning, you know, I so we get home last night. Like we drove Thursday 15 hours, like straight shot. Then, you know, ate something we shouldn't have eaten too late at night, went to bed got up in the morning. Did a whole day of like sightseeing. I'm not sure what happened to my voice just then sightseeing going around this college campus trying to figure things out that we got there a day prior to when the tour was so we could you know, kind of get the lay of the land and figure things out. Next day, full tour all day. Massive day my knee sore at the end of the day. Very unpleasant. And oh boy, hold on a second. And then I'm sorry, I'm laughing because my wife just texted me back. Just call him when you're done. It'll be fine. I can't schedule anything. I can't see your calendar. My iPad is like right next to where she is right now. She could pick it up and look at my calendar. But she means it's not on her phone. So anyway, this seems like she doesn't want to be involved in this

Charissa 33:19
as unfair as it is I'm totally on her side though.

Scott Benner 33:22
I would do man she grew up across the street from she's known him her entire life

Charissa 33:29
I just don't do I listen.

Scott Benner 33:31
I see how it is so anyway, all day Saturday do this tour you know eat some dinner go to bed get up drive 15 hours home you know get home last night you know crawl into bed all of us like we all just like it's just me Arden and Kelly we gotten up our bed like we're sitting there like let's just put one TV show on before we go to bed. They pick a TV show I freakin hate. Then I get up this morning. I've got to go get the dogs from the kennel before I talk to you. So I'm rushing around like a lunatic. The lady at the kennel is trying to be like cordial. And I'm like, Honey, I gotta go. running out the door to come speak with you. And then in the middle of it. The guy had been waiting for a phone call from for eight months calls. And I'm like, Hey, can you just text him? She's like, No, I can't do it. And I just want that story to sit here for all the time in memoriam so that any men who might hear it in the future will know what to expect. I drove the entire trip both directions and other people in the car like we could drive we could drive just ask I was like, You don't mean that. So?

Charissa 34:41
Well, I mean. So in my husband case, in my husband's case, he actually won't let me drive because he's terrified of my driveway. He hates it. He would rather just drive to exhaustion because he doesn't want to deal with my stuff. Why is your driving

Scott Benner 34:55
so bad? It's not he's just dramatic. Is his blood sugar was high? Hey, looking back, do you see any things about your husband's diabetes that may have existed longer? Or before you knew he had Lada?

Charissa 35:14
No, because he did mentioned that he was thirsty all the time. But he didn't tell me about it. Kind of did this thing,

Scott Benner 35:20
how long it was, how long did he in hindsight, tell you? He had been thirsty for like years of thirst or months? Or

Charissa 35:29
maybe a month or two? Oh, God, not anything significant.

Scott Benner 35:32
I gotcha. So what do you find interesting about his story? I mean, he's not here. By the way, how did this happen? As you say, you should be on the podcast. He's like, I'm not doing that you do it.

Charissa 35:41
So when I brought it, like when I brought it up on the Facebook page, cuz you had posted looking for people, and I was like, Oh, my husband should do it. That's the weekend. That's the week his dad died, so I never brought it up.

Scott Benner 35:54
Oh, why should you put the cart before the horse?

Charissa 35:57
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I wanted to talk to him about doing it.

Scott Benner 36:02
And then it just never happened that way.

Charissa 36:06
No. And I did, like mentioned much, much later, as, you know, when I told him, but I was gonna do it. I was like, Yeah, I really wanted you to do it. But you know, that's the week you're dead dead. So I didn't feel comfortable bringing it up. And then you posted looking for somebody who had, you know, another autoimmune disease? And I was like, Well, I don't, but I've been tested for everything.

Scott Benner 36:26
Why have you been tested for everything? Because I

Charissa 36:29
have unexplained joint pain and fatigue, and a host of symptoms that I can't even remember in any given date and time unless I'm experiencing it. It's frustrating. Have

Scott Benner 36:40
you had them your whole life? Or are they something that's new?

Charissa 36:42
There, so they kind of, they have different onset times. Like the joint pain started in 2018, after Phoebe was born after. So in 2018, I had an MRI, and they showed a minor back injury. And then I got sent back to work, we can sell the equipment mechanics, and they the doctors on the Air Force Base told me Oh, it'll fix itself. It did not it got worse. So I had to have surgery eventually. But the joint pain started post that. And so I ended up being tested like so even while I was pregnant with Calvin they tested for actually, I have a spreadsheet for this. My memory is not great. So I have a spreadsheet for every No,

Scott Benner 37:30
no, this is crazy of a spreadsheet for your pain. I love it, get it out.

Charissa 37:34
I have a spreadsheet sheet for symptoms, I have a spreadsheet for every bit of bloodwork that I have record of I want

Scott Benner 37:42
to hear about a lot of this. So tell me when it's in front of you. Okay, so I've got it pulled up. Let's see jumping to 2018. You're, like 3233 years old, you would have done this prior to that.

Charissa 38:00
I'm sorry to say that one more time. I

Scott Benner 38:01
said, this was about three or so years ago, but you didn't have any of this pain prior to that. So prior to your early 30s.

Charissa 38:08
Nope. Um, prior to my early 30s, I had gastrointestinal issues. And so that's also been kind of a thing. But I just figured well, so I just figured I had food intolerances like out gluten free for a lot of years. But before I got pregnant, I started eating gluten. Again, just in like small amounts, because I didn't want I don't know if this is logical. But this was my theory at the time. I didn't want my kids to have a reaction to gluten because they hadn't been exposed to it.

Scott Benner 38:39
So you tried to expose them in utero? Yes. Did it make you be pants again? Did you like to bother your belly?

Charissa 38:47
So it really didn't. So I had read that pregnancy is more synonymous with constipation. So I figured they would kind of balance each other out.

Scott Benner 38:59
Crossing your mind kind of mad scientist keep going.

Charissa 39:03
Like for once in my life, my system just kind of worked. I was like, alright,

Scott Benner 39:09
so you're better pregnant things work better when you're pregnant.

Charissa 39:12
Only in that respect, other than that pregnancy was miserable. I hated it. But the kids are cool. So it's alright.

Scott Benner 39:18
Okay. So okay, so you did that. And then after having your daughter, you started experiencing joint pain? Yes. Where what joints? All all of them down to wrists, fingers. ankles. Okay.

Charissa 39:36
Yes. Although in retrospect the knee and ankle pain could actually have been related to the back injury as opposed to actual joint.

Scott Benner 39:47
So the back maybe had your gait off and maybe messed with your other joints? All right.

Charissa 39:53
Yeah. Because I mean from so from, from kind of the waist down well, not the way from The lower back down, you know, I have I have nerve pain issues. And so those will manifest in my knees and my ankles.

Scott Benner 40:09
Hurting. Yes. And for how long and how frequently

Charissa 40:16
so right now it's not as bad. So I have a spinal cord stimulator implant. But before I had the back surgery, it was it was whenever I'd be up and moving. Just the pressure would, you know cause the cause the nerve endings to bottom out and cause pain in those areas?

Scott Benner 40:38
What was the back injury?

Charissa 40:41
It is a two because I mean,

Scott Benner 40:48
I mean, how did you do it? Do you lift something something fallen you like? Oh,

Charissa 40:53
that was actually one of the more frustrating things is it wasn't one event and I had to fight with the VA VA to get disability for it. Because it wasn't one traumatic event that caused the disc bulge and the pull up my health profile here. Give you the technical stuff. It was just repeated. We're in player because I was a heavy Oh, so actually, you don't let me give you some context for this. Before I had kids, I was five foot 220 pounds, working heavy equipment mechanics. So after I had Phoebe, I struggled to lose the weight. And I'm a fluffy girl now. Which is fine. It's not so bad. As long as I can stop gaining the stinking weight. But really? Okay, um I lost my train. Where did I go?

Scott Benner 41:58
Well, I can help you. You're lucky. I've been listening. Even if you have not been. You were trying to give context. You said I was five to 120 before I had the baby after the baby weight was a little difficult to get rid of fluffy now. Not about there's something for you. I think you were looking for body context for me. But you were doing a tough job. Heavy Machine something.

Charissa 42:22
That's what it was. Yeah. So I worked on. So I did diesel mechanics. I worked on hydraulic test stands on combine generator air conditioning units, like big, big equipment. So it was a big job for a little person. And so the wear and tear. If had my back injury had been treated when it was minor. I probably would have been fine. Okay. However it was the doctors just told me it'll fix itself go back to work. And it escalated and

Scott Benner 42:55
got worse and worse and worse mean what did you lose function of?

Charissa 43:00
So I was in pain all the time. I was angry. I you know, I had back pain. hip pain, knee pain, ankle pain, like just constant.

Scott Benner 43:11
Yeah. Do your wrists hurt?

Charissa 43:15
They do. Yeah, shoulders. Yeah, the right one more than the left. Okay, so sciatica right side other spondylosis with raid a que lo pathI lumbar region lumbar degenerative disc disease lumbar facet at I just wrecked my back.

Scott Benner 43:31
Yeah. Just kind of doing stuff. Yeah. You just you kind of weren't ready for I guess and or your body wasn't ever going to be okay with. It sounds like yeah, then it got worse and worse. Did it debilitate you? Is that how you finally got out of it?

Charissa 43:45
Yeah, so I was 30. I was 35. When I got back surgery. I was a 35 year old walking with a cane.

Scott Benner 43:53
That's fine. How old were you when you had Phoebe?

Charissa 43:57
33.

Scott Benner 44:01
Okay. And then you had back surgery and then you had a Calvin.

Charissa 44:05
I had Calvin and then I had back surgery. The reason that we decided to have Calvin when we did is because I was already in pain. Like I already had chronic back pain and chronic joint pain. And I thought if we waited, I wasn't gonna be able to have another kid. And I really like I had my brother and sister growing up. And we're super close. And so I really wanted Phoebe to

Scott Benner 44:28
have that. Yeah, I say do how do you manage the pain now?

Charissa 44:33
spinal cord stimulator. It's awesome.

Scott Benner 44:36
Okay, is it internal or external? Its internal.

Charissa 44:39
So I have two leads that are implanted along the spinal cord and there's a battery pack that's underneath my skin. That feels really funny. And then I have a remote, a cool little remote that lets me adjust the the vibration.

Scott Benner 44:54
It's constant. And what does it do confuse the nerves or

Charissa 44:59
Oh But maybe actually, it just like it. You know how a 10s unit works where it just kind of works things out for you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:09
it's that but internal. So the so is there no pain now with the stimulator?

Charissa 45:16
Very little to none. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:18
No killing. Do you ever have to get up a little bit like does it ever need more? It does? Yeah.

Charissa 45:23
When I'm working, like if I'm doing anything physical, I definitely do. We're gonna build a fence today for my garden. And so I'll probably have to jack it up after that. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 45:33
They need an app for the phone. You don't want to mess with a remote. I'd like to see it right on your phone. That would be nice. And so did that alleviate joint pain, knee pain, hip pain, like what did it fix?

Charissa 45:45
So it helps. So the knees and the ankles may have additional issue wearing tear issues, but I haven't followed up on it. But as far as like the nerve pain, it's cut out the nerve pain. So now you know, I've got like, kind of the grating, you know, just worn out pains. But I still have you know, Shoulder Elbow, wrist hands, my hands are getting kind of obnoxious because they like to swell up when storms are running through.

Scott Benner 46:19
But you don't have RA or anything like that.

Charissa 46:22
My blood work is absolutely stinking perfect. And it's maddening.

Scott Benner 46:28
It sucks. It really does. Really? Does the nerve pain feel like? Let me see some other questions. Have you ever felt like your bones hurt? Yes. If you've had that feeling of like, My bones are bruised or aching.

Charissa 46:43
They ache but there's no physical damage that is, you know, visible from the outside. And if I fuss with my joints, like there's no point where I can touch them that will cause it to hurt. It just hurts.

Scott Benner 46:56
It just hurts. Does this have any? Excuse me just have any relation to your period your cycle at all? No. Okay. pretty regular. I'm sorry. I know. It's like 40 minutes. And I'm like you've pretty regular periods.

Charissa 47:11
I think so I don't really track it anymore. I never really tracked it actually.

Scott Benner 47:16
Not super heavy, though. Or, like less than awkward amount of time, nothing like that.

Charissa 47:22
I mean, they're more frequent than I'd like. Like I get maybe three, three and a half weeks.

Scott Benner 47:27
But okay. Okay. I'm just asking all the questions. Fine. This is why in the old west, you would just eventually, like leave your woman behind. Like showing her out. We'll get another one. Oh my god, it's terrible. A couple of

Charissa 47:44
weeks ago, I told my husband like, I want to blame you if you left me like you did not sign up for this. And he's like, Well, you didn't sign up for my either.

Scott Benner 47:52
What do you say? Like, like abandoned at the Walmart kind of thing. Like just like

Charissa 48:00
at home, I was feeling just terrible. We had a snowstorm come through and those like storms change of season and then when it gets really hot and humid in the summer, those for some reason, like those scenarios just wreck me. And I like I'm just like a puddle. Like just a puddle full of pain.

Scott Benner 48:23
Would you be better? Would you better than like Phoenix Do you think?

Charissa 48:29
Um, maybe. I mean, we're better in misery than we were in Florida. Florida was miserable, humid. Yeah. But you know, the fall times here are pretty dry. And that's one of my worst. One of the catalysts for starting to follow up on it again is a couple of years ago and get ready get the bloodwork done, which all came back normal except for inflammation. Like there was one fall day I woke up and my hands felt like they were being crushed. And that scared me. But check for rheumatoid check for lupus checked for

Scott Benner 49:11
fibromyalgia like fibromyalgia, Lymes disease heavy metals, they do all that

Charissa 49:19
they didn't check for heavy metals. But you know, everything else

Scott Benner 49:24
came back. Hmm, came it all came back clear. Yep. Krista, do you ever self medicate? i

Charissa 49:33
So oh, you know, there is one little thing. There is one little thing. So when I went to the neurologist, they actually gave me a brain scan for Ms. And that came back clear. But they did a vitamin panel, my D, my D vitamin D was low, or actually that was actually a decision. Yes, so that was deficient. And then my B 12. was on the low end so I started a multivitamin that has between Oh, and D. And then I recently started one that added iodine into the mix because I don't eat iodized salt. And I know that can do some, I do listen to your podcasts.

Scott Benner 50:14
Does that happen that that happened to impact anything? Not so far. I keep wondering how many people are we're gonna have to test their vitamin D, and it comes back a little before we start acting like, well, that must be the normal level of people's vitamin D at this point. I mean, like, not that it's not impactful, and that you don't need it. But I mean, it's happening to so many people that it's just, you know, it's crazy. Yeah, so, so question is impacted my question. Do you ever find yourself so badly off that you have to self medicate? Like, how do you manage pain before the stimulator? It's just a weird thing to ask. Because I'm basically asking, it's great not to have anything back. Yeah, like you smoking weed or drinking or like, doing something harder? No, I.

Charissa 51:06
So weed is not my thing. You know, no, no judgment on the people who do it. It's just not my thing. But before I had kids, I like I realized, like, when I was pregnant, and after I had kids, because I wasn't drinking. I realized how much I self medicated with alcohol for a really long time. Yeah, well, I mean, probably for everything. But yeah, that was part of

Scott Benner 51:32
it. What's the other stuff?

Charissa 51:33
What's the other stuff? Oh, just life stuff. You know, life gets hard. I drink a little.

Scott Benner 51:38
You know, it's not my thing. And so I'm fascinated by it. Like, no, yeah, I don't know how to, like, I don't know how to like, I can't commiserate with that. For some reason. Like, when life gets hard, like, I don't know what happens to me. I don't think to do that. But it's, like, not a judgement. I just, I mean, I'm sure if I thought to do it, I would do it.

Charissa 52:01
I mean, it's not a bad thing. Since you know, I've, since I've had kids, and especially now with Calvin's diabetes, I drink even less, because I can't bear the thought of not being in control of a situation if something were to arise. So I've had to come up with other coping mechanisms. So gardening is a big one. You know, bike riding is something I actually started before I had kids so that I've gotten back into

Scott Benner 52:24
you're able to do that. You're able to do that now.

Charissa 52:28
Yes. So that was one of the really cool things about the spinal cord stimulator is that I got to get my bike for free. I'm actually doing a happy dance.

Scott Benner 52:36
How did you find out about the stimulator visit VA or a private doctor?

Charissa 52:41
Private Doctor, I have not done much with the VA Health Care System yet, because I get tired of fighting on the civilian side. I don't want to fight the VA for the rest of my life. Okay, I

Scott Benner 52:53
don't like yeah, okay.

Charissa 52:55
But so my. So first I went to when they found the injury, they sent me to neurosurgery. And they talked about spinal fusion, which is probably what I've should have gotten instead of the spinal cord stimulator. The spinal cord stimulator was an option, because I have two small children. And I cannot commit the time for recovery. For the spinal fusion. Like if I have the spinal fusion, I would be at higher risk for subsequent surgeries. Because, you know, I have two small kids to take care of like, I cannot

Scott Benner 53:30
lift such a scary thing. To me. The idea of having back surgery is if I find it frightening,

Charissa 53:36
I was terrified. I dang near canceled the day before because I was so scared because I read a stinking article about what could go wrong with this thing.

Scott Benner 53:44
Yeah. So you had a bulging disc, and they were in that they think that's where your pain comes from?

Charissa 53:51
Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:54
It's terrible. Like I just it's the worst kind of pain, like because it comes and goes and it feels like it's soft muscle, but it acts like it's structural. Back pain is terrible. It really, really

Charissa 54:05
is. And, like I had gotten to the point where mine just didn't go away.

Scott Benner 54:09
Right? How would you characterize your stress and anxiety level? Why you laugh?

Charissa 54:21
Because if there's a chart, I would be like, over left field.

Scott Benner 54:25
There's a lot of good,

Charissa 54:28
oh, it's just life stuff. But I you know, I deal with it all right. You know, it's just, you kind of take things one step at a time. So there's something that my basic training instructor said, that really sticks with me. And that's, you know, it doesn't get better, you get better. And so that's kind of the mentality that I just roll forward with, you know, every every forward motion counts. And it's okay to backpedal like Take it, take two steps back and just push forward again.

Scott Benner 55:03
That's cool. That's really insightful. Actually. I want to talk to you a little bit about Calvin's diabetes and what you were faced with in the beginning and what you've learned so far and what's working and what's not working. So,

Charissa 55:18
yeah, usually gets really annoyed about how much I talk about Ellen's diabetes.

Scott Benner 55:22
Oh, guess what, this me your time. So, you're gonna you're gonna get this song about it as much as you want. diagnosed, he sends him home he a little kid, they give you a pen.

Charissa 55:35
They did. We had. So they sent us home with the JR, quick pins. And I had, but I so when we first got our prescriptions, TRICARE had us go through Express Scripts, pharmacies. And those stinkers had cancelled the medication, because they said they couldn't get in touch with the endos office. Our endos offense is wonderful. So even early on, I knew that was a load of, you know, right. Um, so we like I was in a stinking panic because Calvin ran out of insulin. And I was like, ready to go down to Walmart with a credit card and just pay for it and the Walmart next to us you know, they we got an emergency authorization through so we could pick it up from Walmart. But Walmart gave us the pens I only had the whole units. So for a month there until we got the junior quick seconds back. I had to modify a 16 month old diet for whole unit dosages. I was so bad.

Scott Benner 56:42
Yeah, no kidding. His half unit syringes and pens are a lifesaver when you have a little really are was was Calvin still. bottles at 16 months.

Charissa 56:53
He had. You know what? He was off bottles at that point. He was still eating a lot of rice cereal and a lot of pure rates starting solid.

Scott Benner 57:02
Okay. So what's the I mean, he's on a slow acting right away.

Charissa 57:08
Yes. Okay. Yep. Yep, he was on land. And

Scott Benner 57:11
a lot of for Calvin. He's not messing around. He's jumping. Right.

Charissa 57:14
I've actually looked into that a little bit, because I remember you saying that Arden's potential honeymoon period was like three days. And, you know, I read, you know, I'm on the I'm on Facebook quite a bit. So I read about other people's honeymoons and Calvin's, whether it's his pancreas taken in, I wasn't sure if a lot of played a factor. But another thought has entered my mind of gastrointestinal issues, which is why I'm glad he gets tested for celiac annually. Because it could be an absorption of glucose that makes this happen or a lack of absorption. But he pretty regularly, like we have to adjust his Lantis like his, his, a lot of times his Bolus stays fine. So I'm inclined to think his pancreas is doing something. But his baseline needs to be adjusted pretty frequently,

Scott Benner 58:06
how drastically from what Allah.

Charissa 58:10
So typically a unit and one of the challenges a lot of a lot of times we get stuck between half units, so we kind of just waffle until he's solid on one or the other, you know whether we want to fight the highs of the lows. But, so, in this last fall, we actually had to back off his Lantis two units. Because I had moved him up because his body was running high. He had needed it. And then, you know, a couple of weeks or a month later, all of a sudden he's just crashing. And it took me a minute to realize what was happening because we've never backed off Atlantis before our kind of understanding was that once you're on, you know this dosage, you just kind of go up from there to see growth, we didn't realize we would have to backpedal. So he would get into a blood sugar of like 131 20 like a really nice spot for him, you know, a little buffer on each side. And he would just start crashing. So his Lantus, you know, he get into that good range, and if Lantis would just yank him. Gotcha. And so we backed off a unit and it was still doing it, but a little bit less, you know, it was on a diagonal instead of a crash. Right, right. Back off again. That's, that's kind of how we figured that out. Yeah. And

Scott Benner 59:28
how much does he weigh now versus how much do you weigh when he was diagnosed?

Charissa 59:32
He is about 30 pounds now. Yeah. When he was diagnosed, he was still a little guy. I honestly can't remember his weight. I don't want to say about half that.

Scott Benner 59:42
Okay. Wow. Okay, so he's gained a significant amount of weight since he's been diagnosed. Good. So are things easier now that he's gained weight?

Charissa 59:54
They were until he got the stomach virus. Yeah. Right.

Scott Benner 59:57
And then that's changed everything. assuming

Charissa 1:00:00
I'm working with a totally different body, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:00:03
how would how was it going? Like, like what? You said your husband uses. Libre does your son use CGM?

Charissa 1:00:12
Yes, the dex calm. So when we first got the dex calm, it was really frustrating. Because it seems like his he just, he had a lot of false readings like there was one day that was particularly scary. And my mom, like, so from the beginning, I've really just kind of honed in on different trends and things. There was one day we were playing outside. And at the time of day, typically he would his blood sugar would start to come down. But his Dex calm, showed that he was going up. And I was like, that's weird. I'm just gonna double check. And he was actually low. Like legitimately low, like, you know, 50s or 60s. And that scares the hell out of me. But you know, since he's turned two and gotten older and gotten a little more meat on him, it's actually been a lot more accurate. And it's saved our lives a couple of times, and especially with the stomach virus, like thankfully, we have a really, really good sensor this last week, so I could actually figure things out.

Scott Benner 1:01:12
Yeah. Well, I mean, I assume that after the virus is completely cleared, you'll see some return to normalcy, that would be my expectation.

Charissa 1:01:20
That's mine, too. But you know, for for right now, we're just rolling with what it is and trying to keep him in range as best we can with with the tools that

Scott Benner 1:01:28
we have. What was his day once he when he was diagnosed?

Charissa 1:01:32
I have no idea. It wasn't pretty. I can tell you that. It wasn't significantly high, either.

Scott Benner 1:01:38
Okay, how about his blood sugar when you got into the hospital? Do you remember?

Charissa 1:01:42
Uh, not really. But I know, again, it wasn't like, it wasn't like outrageously high, but it was definitely high diabetes, because, you know, the nurses checked his blood sugar. And I like, Cust like, just oh my god. And that's when I told the nurses, you know, his dad has type one. You know that. That's what I knew.

Scott Benner 1:02:02
What, um, where's my question? What is a once he's been so far in this first year?

Charissa 1:02:11
So we haven't been great, but we're getting better. In the hospital last week is a Wednesday it was 6.8.

Scott Benner 1:02:18
That's good. That's really good. So you're, you're bringing it down. So you're figuring it out? So you're basically trying to keep him safe. Let him eat. Let him grow and slowly move in the direction you're looking for? Yes, it makes a lot of sense to me. Especially with a little kid like that. And you have another young child too. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot going on, is what I'm saying. Yeah. Are you okay?

Charissa 1:02:43
For the most part, I have my days, like, the other day, I was just like, Oh, my God, hell with this league? Like this is the worst, but

Scott Benner 1:02:53
oh, my gosh, are you working at this point, or no.

Charissa 1:02:56
I'm actually in grad school, library and information science, but it's an online program. So I can work my schedule, aside from deadlines around everything that goes on

Scott Benner 1:03:06
around here. Gotcha. And you're done with the guard.

Charissa 1:03:10
I am in inactive status, for the medical out processing. So I get to keep my health benefits as long as I'm still in there. But you know, I'm not expected to go to Vermont and do drills or anything like that right now.

Scott Benner 1:03:26
Right. And your husband is I'm sorry, is he in the service too, or is he works in the private sector.

Charissa 1:03:32
He's out now he got out before Phoebe was born. And so he was a stay at home with CB for the first year while I was finishing up my active duty assignment.

Scott Benner 1:03:40
Okay, I see. Interesting. All right. Yeah. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to talk about?

Charissa 1:03:48
I mean, I always like talking about gardening. I love my garden. But it can own it loosely relates to diabetes. And it's the only way I can get my kids to eat a steak and vegetable.

Scott Benner 1:03:58
So they'll eat something that they've grown.

Charissa 1:04:01
No, they'll eat something if I'm eating it. Like they'll try something if it's something I'm actively eating, but if I put it on their plate, they won't have anything to do with it.

Scott Benner 1:04:09
So interesting. But they'll eat what you eat. Yeah, that's thoughtful. Yeah, what do you alright, I'll bite What are you growing Chris? So what's what's helping you with your stress out there in the yard?

Charissa 1:04:21
So last year, so I love peppers. Peppers are just everything and the hot peppers actually do help with my inflammation a little bit. I think it has to do with the release of endorphins. So peppers, tomatoes, eggplants. I did okra for the first time. Last year and fresh okra is phenomenal. I can't like I've tried to do greens and I'm gonna try brussel sprouts again. They're a labor of love. They, they're interesting.

Scott Benner 1:04:48
They're difficult to grow.

Charissa 1:04:51
They kind of they just have a really like the seed packet says, you know one thing and then experience tells you something totally different. So I plant them in the spring. Just let them chill out for the summer and then hopefully I'll get a harvest in the fall. That was my experience last year and I am kind of planning for that the same so I started them earlier and I'm gonna put them out earlier. I'm terrible at root veggies. Carrots are supposed to be easy to grow HECM can't do it

Scott Benner 1:05:17
yet. Do a carrot. Not yet, Missouri. They're like, there's like wind come with me down the lane there. Do you get tornadoes? Or am I thinking of the wrong part of the country?

Charissa 1:05:26
Oh, no, you're the right part of the country. Gotcha. That's,

Scott Benner 1:05:30
that's part of the fun too.

Charissa 1:05:32
Um, you know, and it's funny because where we live, it's supposed to be like tornadoes are historically a little bit more active here. But so far knock on wood. Like Bruneau level knock on wood on everything. If you haven't watched in Canada, that won't make much sense. But you know, it's a we've been fortunate so far last year, we really didn't have much of a storm system even though like we're Kentucky got hammered. This this fall to like spring is the typical tornado season, but we actually get a lot of storm activity around the holidays like Christmas that years.

Scott Benner 1:06:14
I'm gonna say here just because it fits. Foods that that they say fight inflammation or tomatoes, olive oil, leafy greens like spinach, kale, collards, fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, nuts like almonds, walnuts, and others. fruits like strawberries, blueberries, oranges and cherries, and foods that they say this is from Harvard. are inflammatory, lard, processed meats, refined carbohydrates, sodas, fried foods. So I don't know have you had any luck impacting your, your information that way?

Charissa 1:06:54
Um, so the peppers, the hot peppers, I found out help. Tomatoes my stomach, not good does not always agree with. Okay, I really have to be mindful of tomatoes. I don't drink soda. I just don't. In my 20s I drank a lot of Dr. Pepper. And I just I felt really sluggish. And I realized that one day once I stopped like once I went through a short stint where I wasn't drinking because I couldn't afford it. I realized I felt better. So I stopped drinking soda. High fructose corn syrup does not exist in this house.

Scott Benner 1:07:27
Good. That's excellent. I was not was but have been always interested. As you travel south on the East Coast. There's a line when you get underneath of it. You can't even find a diet soda anywhere. Not that you like I'm not saying diet soda is better than soda. I'm saying. I'm saying listen, if you want my opinion, don't drink soda. But the it's just interesting how if you're in a store, and you can't find a diet version of a drink? To me that's cultural. Right? Yeah, like these, like, what the store is saying is, look, if I put diet something in here, nobody gonna buy it. So I can't I can't take up any space in my cooler for this, even that I find kind of fascinating around soda sodas. I hear people talk about soda. Like it's like it's a staple in their life a lot. That fascinates me really, that there's not just something that somebody might have once in a while. But it's something that's drank, like consistently throughout every day. I don't know why our brains work that way. We do it with carb counting to see if I can make sense for a second. You put a waffle on a plate, and you're like, how many carbs is this and it has three tablespoons of syrup on it, which is probably like for anybody who's having a waffle. And it's hard to recognize that the syrup probably has more carbs in it than the waffle does. But yeah, but it's smaller, or it doesn't seem as substantial. So I don't think your brain works that way. You know, like, it's just as interesting that people don't tend to count the carbs for condiments, which could very easily like add up quickly if you're having honey mustard or ketchup are things like that. And it's, it's not thought of the same way. And for some reason I think liquids are that too. Yeah, you know, like, oh, how do you eat? I eat great. But, you know, nobody's for some reasons thinking about what's in the soda or what's in the liquid that you're drinking.

Charissa 1:09:29
Yeah, or in that point, like, you know, if you have a salad, there are people out there that will literally soak their salad with salad dressing. And depending on the salad dressing, it's a terrible idea.

Scott Benner 1:09:42
My wife got a salad in a restaurant once and they started bolusing or her and Kelly we're gonna Hernan we're gonna split it as a we should really look this up. I looked it up the salad had like 90 carbs in it. I was like how can a salad of 90 carbs? What does that even mean? But like, like, you're not actually having a salad, You've tricked yourself into believing you're eating something healthy at that point. Anyway, I'm gonna listen, I'm not saying I don't roll into a restaurant once in a while and just completely throw caution to the wind and just like, I'm gonna have this and this and this. But if in your mind, you know, I don't know, it's a cheeseburger and your bolusing for just the bun, and you're not bolusing for the topping, or the fat that's going to slow down digestion and create a, you know, and you don't realize that your body's going to, you know, take protein, something that has no carbs in it, and break it down and store it as glucose like, these are things that, you know, impact your blood sugars that make other people go like, Oh, I it's just diabetes. It's crazy. I don't know what happened. I only ate a cheeseburger. Anyway,

Charissa 1:10:49
yeah. I actually have a story about the learning to when when we knew propane was needed. And it's, it's one of those things that so it's what I call the peanut butter sandwich. Say the

Scott Benner 1:11:06
way say that again, the peanut butter what?

Charissa 1:11:08
So it the the catalyst was a peanut butter sandwich. So typically, so I feed the kids breakfast and lunch with typically very little variation. As long as I know that they'll eat the first two meals of the day consistently, I can experiment with dinner, you know, they'll complain and refuse to eat, and it's okay. Because, you know, they've, they they get enough. Yeah. Yeah. So, typically, I would feed them chicken nuggets. But one day Calvin was coming down, and I was like, you know, it'll be quicker if I do a peanut butter sandwich. So I made some peanut butter sandwiches. And I was talking on the phone with a friend from Vermont, and his little alarm goes off. And I'm like, well, that's weird. You know, never go slow at this time. So I gave him a low snack. No big deal. I keep chatting on the phone. And he's going lower. Just like what I thought Dexcom was off. Its rocker. So I think your poked him and Dexcom was spot on. And so I was like, with my friend, I was like, I gotta go. I gotta, you know. So the next day, well, I thought about it. And I had seen, you know, other moms talking about, you know, foods, like chicken nuggets have a lot of fat. But I looked, flew and I was like, oh, yeah, that's the case. So the next day, I did chicken nuggets. And the expected response happened, no low. So the next day, I tried to peanut butter sandwich again, this time I was prepared. And he hit that low. And so that's when I realized I needed to dose for the protein, like I needed to create the discrepancy between the chicken nuggets and the peanut butter sandwich, that would give me the same outcome. And that's where I started dosing for protein. Well, good

Scott Benner 1:12:56
for you. Oh, wait to pay attention. Very nice. Are you generally I have to go I feel to get my teeth cleaned, actually. But it's a weird thing to say. But I gotta get my teeth clean. Are you generally happy with the direction that Calvin's diabetes is headed in and your understanding of it?

Charissa 1:13:13
Yeah, he's improving. And that's really positive. We have a pump training scheduled for March 7. That would be pretty huge.

Scott Benner 1:13:21
That's great. What kind of hump you getting?

Charissa 1:13:23
We did the T slim. And that actually. So there's an interesting point about that too, because with us having to potentially change insurances in the near future. My husband's insurance is terrible. It has a $6,000 deductible per person per year. I know we're going to meet that and we can't afford it. Yeah, so the T slim the entrance now covered 90% of the T slim. And I asked the rep out of pocket if we had to pay for supplies. What would that be monthly? $150 a month. I was like, Okay, that would suck. But I think I can manage that. So that's why we went with the diesel.

Scott Benner 1:13:55
I would take whatever. I mean, if I was in a financial situation, I would take whichever one was affordable. That just makes sense. So

Charissa 1:14:03
yeah, you have to kind of think ahead about that transition to

Scott Benner 1:14:06
well, he used the control IQ Do you think

Charissa 1:14:09
eventually, um, I, I'm glad we're starting off at the base like you because that'll give me a feel for it. And then, you know, once I can kind of understand how that works, then I'm more I think more able to understand how the algorithm is going to act.

Scott Benner 1:14:25
Okay. Did they did they tell you you were starting with baseline here? Did you ask to start with it?

Charissa 1:14:30
They told us we were starting Basal IQ. Yeah, that's good. All

Scott Benner 1:14:33
right. Got it. Okay. Well, Chris, I had a really nice time talking to you. I think I will look back on this episode and say to myself, I have no idea what we talked about. And yet I enjoyed myself. And I think those are the best ones. So thank you. I really appreciate you putting in the time and and doing this with me. Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, it was wonderful.

I'd like to thank Karissa for coming on the show and sharing this story with us. I also want to thank Ian pen from Medtronic, diabetes, and Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six. You can learn more about the N pen and get started today at in pen today.com. You can also get started with the Dexcom g six@dexcom.com. Forward slash juice box, you may be eligible for a free 10 day trial, head over and find out. While I'm thanking people, let me thank you for listening, supporting, subscribing, and sharing the Juicebox Podcast.

If you're into helping people, especially people with type one diabetes, I'd like to ask you to go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. When you get there, fill out the survey completely. And you've helped somebody, all you need to be is a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, t one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry, complete the survey, help someone with type one diabetes, help yourself perhaps and support the Juicebox Podcast, you will do all of this in the fewer than 10 minutes that it will take to go to that link and complete the survey. The survey is very simple. You'll know all the answers to all the questions. It is also HIPAA compliant and completely anonymous, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at juicebox podcast.com. To all of the sponsors. And to T one D exchange. When you take the time to click on my links or to type them in a browser. You're telling the sponsors that you came from the Juicebox Podcast. And that is a wonderful way to support the show. Are you looking for a vibrant and intelligent community around diabetes? look no farther than the Facebook page, the private Facebook page for the Juicebox Podcast. It's called Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes. The group has over 28,000 members. And those members are responsible for between 70 and 110 new posts every day on the Facebook page. Every conceivable conversation around diabetes is happening at Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, you're gonna see great questions, thoughtful answers, and supportive people. No matter if you're an adult living with type one diabetes, or the caregiver of someone with type one. This group is for you. Doesn't matter if you eat low carb, or high carb or somewhere in between your questions and thoughts are welcome on our Facebook page. I hope you check it out. Last little bit if you're looking for the diabetes Pro Tip series, or the defining diabetes series or any of the other multitude of series that exists within the podcast, you can find them in a number of ways. They are at juicebox podcast.com. They are at diabetes pro tip.com. And if you belong to the private Facebook group, you can find them listed in the featured tab. Now if you're enjoying the podcast, please consider sharing it with someone else that helps the podcast grow more than anything word of mouth is definitely how the show has become what it is. If you have already shared it with everybody you can think of and you've bought it on the pod or index calm or supported one of the other sponsors. You've done the T one D exchange survey. And now you're looking for another way to give back to the podcast. Super simple. A five star rating and a thoughtful review in whichever audio app you listen in would be amazing. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

#755 Bold Beginnings: Exercise

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Test your knowledge of episode 755

1. How does physical activity impact blood sugar levels?

2. How should insulin doses be adjusted based on physical activity?

3. Which types of exercises are beneficial for diabetes management?

4. How should one prepare for exercise to avoid blood sugar fluctuations?

5. What is the role of consistent physical activity in long-term diabetes management?

6. How should blood sugar levels be monitored in relation to exercise?

7. How should low blood sugar episodes during exercise be handled?

8. What are the benefits of incorporating different types of physical activities, such as aerobic and anaerobic exercises?

#754 Cattle Drive

Natalie has diabetes but she doesnt know which kind.

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#753 Calvin and Frogs

Charissa is surrounded by type 1 diabetes.

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