#1684 What Are You Running From?

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Natalie, 47, shares her decades with type 1 diabetes—from ketone strips to pumps and GLP-1s—pregnancy pressure, endless hunger, exercise obsession, and finally learning to truly thrive.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.

Natalie 0:13
Hi, Scott. My name is Natalie. I'm so excited to talk to you today, I feel like I'm talking to a celebrity, actually. So I'm 47 I live in Canada. I'm a type one diabetic. I have been since I was 10 years old, and I like to think of myself as somebody that's learned to really kind of thrive with diabetes as much as I can, because I don't see there being any other way. But it didn't, didn't always start like that, and I think that that's kind of what I want to talk about

Scott Benner 0:42
today, just in time for the holidays. Cozy Earth is back with a great offer for Juicebox podcast listeners. That's right. Black Friday has come early at cozy earth.com and right now you can stack my code Juicebox on top of their site wide sale, giving you up to 40% off in savings. These deals will not last, so start your holiday shopping today by going to cozy earth.com and using the offer code Juicebox at checkout while you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, us, med is where my daughter gets her diabetes supplies from, and you could too use the link or number to get your free benefit check and get started today with us. Med, this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five, and at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free, what'd I just say? A free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link. Omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com

Natalie 2:27
Hi Scott. My name is Natalie. I'm so excited to talk to you today. I feel like I'm talking to a celebrity, actually, and from our little conversation we just had, though, I have to say one thing, it feels weird to hear your voice norm, like normal, and not sped up because I listened to so many podcasts, and I want to get all the information in, so I listened to them on like 2.5 sometimes. So talking to you right now was so weird for me.

Scott Benner 2:50
I hope it gets more normal as we're going

Natalie 2:54
right exactly. So I'm 47 I live in Canada. I'm a type one diabetic. I have been since I was 10 years old, and I like to think of myself as somebody that's learned to really kind of thrive with diabetes as much as I can, because I don't see there being any other way. But it didn't, didn't always start like that, and I think that that's kind of what I

Scott Benner 3:15
want to talk about today. No, that'll be exciting. I'd love that you listen to a lot of podcasts. I

Natalie 3:19
listened to a lot of podcasts, and I really got into yours about two years ago, and then I got very obsessed. And anytime I could listen, I listened in the car. I listened while I'm cleaning. I'm listening at work. I'm listening on my walks all the time. And like I said to you earlier today, too, I learned something new every time that I listened to your podcast. So it's been really inspiring for me. It's been really helpful for other people as well, people in my life, people that I'm trying to get to listen to your podcast as well. And just this chronic thing that we have, and we'll have for the rest of our lives is never ending. Like as far as learning goes, there's something to learn all the time, and I found the best way in my 36 years of doing this is finding you guys, finding your podcast. Oh,

Scott Benner 4:06
I'm so happy. Aside of my show, what other kinds like you don't have to give me the titles, but what other kinds of topics do you like to listen to? Oh, lots of

Natalie 4:15
other fitness and nutrition kind of things. Lots of wellness podcasts I also listen to, like Joe Rogan, like, I feel like you're like the Joe Rogan of the diabetes space. I listen to a lot of political things. I listen to a lot of parenting things, just a lot of everything. If I want to learn about something, that's where I go, is to podcasts first, because I know that's where I'm going to find anything out that I want to find. Natalie, I'm going to

Scott Benner 4:38
ask you a question. Okay. Yeah, I've heard that said about me, and people have meant it nicely, and people have meant it terribly. How do you mean it?

Natalie 4:46
Well, I mean it like, I feel like for you, you're a truth speaker as well. You're not afraid to say things that people don't want to hear. You talk about things that are what's the word like you're gonna get you? Mail about, and you're going to be like, I can't believe you're pushing this and stuff like that, kind of like the GLP one space, which I'm thankful you started talking about, because I've been doing it now for over a year, and you're the first place I heard it from. So, you know, just things like that, I guess. And I really like that. You're also very sweet, you know, like, you just come across as really empathetic to people, and it's just a good podcast. Even if you're not diabetic or know anybody, it's a good podcast.

Scott Benner 5:25
Oh, I appreciate you saying that, especially from a person who who listens to a lot of different kinds of podcasts. I really, I take that as a big compliment. Yeah, it's funny, like, I don't have a, I wouldn't care about, you know, somebody's politics or anything like that. But I think there are a couple of people who do it really well, yeah. And by, I just mean by storytelling and, you know, yeah, being interested in things that maybe sometimes people aren't really always interested in, and actually not pretending, but deeply being interested in even just, just, what was it this morning? Oh, quarterback, it's just probably going to not be on your radar. But this guy named Mark Sanchez, I think, drafted by the Jets originally, never really did. Well, bounced around a little bit in the NFL, you know, I get this, this alert on my phone the other day, he's been stabbed. I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's crazy, you know. And then I then, you know, a day later it comes out. It's like, he attacks somebody, apparently, and they stabbed him, apparently, self defense, or, who knows why? And hear the story, and it's building, and I figure eventually we'll get more and more of it. But what I'm most captured by is like, I'm like, I wonder why that happened. Yeah, sucks, that somebody had to stab somebody to defend themselves, or that somebody got into all that aside. Like, how does that happen? How does a guy who extensively, has enough money to live his life and seems to be gainfully employed and, like, does he end up in that situation? Like that, like, deep down, interests me, right? That kind of level of interest I try to apply to everybody I'm talking to, yeah, you know, and even when it's sort of small things that I think most people wouldn't even see that there's a conversation there. I sometimes even listen back to my own conversations that I'm having with people, and I think, oh, there was a sentence spoke right there, and that would have been a good 10 Minute U turn week. We should have split off there and talked about that more. And I'm just generally and genuinely, both very interested in people, so I appreciate you saying that, yeah, and I love getting information that way too, from podcasts. I'm a fan of you know, some people's YouTube content, and you're doing the same thing you're trying to just what I want to ask you here is, when you take in all this information, yeah, how do you parse out what's valuable to hold on to, what doesn't apply to you, and what's bullshit? How do you figure that

Natalie 7:42
all out? Yeah, well, I guess if it, if it really sticks, or if it's something that I'm like, oh my god, that was amazing. Sometimes I even write it down, just like I'm reading an article, and might highlight something, you know what I mean? So just little things like that, that really trigger something in me, yeah, you know. And also interesting when, when you talk to people, your podcasts are for me. Anyways, it's interesting, but light and easy to understand. You're not talking so medically, that somebody that doesn't know wouldn't know. You know what I mean, I don't. That's

Scott Benner 8:14
only because I don't know enough about it to talk about it. But I appreciate that too, because you know where I imagine some people would see that as a negative. I see that as as more of a positive. I think it makes ideas more accessible to people. It allows them to hear something that they maybe would be interested in, then they can go look into it on our own. Like, I It's can't be my job to sit here for 27 hours and explain everything, even if I did understand it, no one would listen to that, right? Like, that's the thing that I'm I'm 100% sure of, right? So, you know, you have an idea or a thought or a wonderment, you say it out loud and you just, you know, I don't, I'm sure I've said stuff on here that's bullshit. Like, I'm sure I've said stuff that if we go back and look at it, you'd be like, Oh, I wasn't right at all. Right? I also know that I've said things that have helped people. You know, I think Apparently you're going to get to it at some point too with the GLP conversation. But I had a man come up to me and hug me recently, yeah, I didn't know who he was. And he says, You don't recognize me. We met last year. And I said, I'm sorry. I don't know who you are. And he said, Oh, it's possible you don't know me because I'm 80 pounds lighter than I was last time you saw they started telling me about that, you know. So, yeah, nevertheless, I really appreciate that, that you're a connoisseur of audio and that you'd like this. So thank you very much. Yeah, you're welcome. Appreciate that. So tell me a little bit about this diabetes thing you're diagnosed. Would you say, like, when you were, like,

Natalie 9:36
I was 1010, okay, yeah, so, and luckily for me, because I did listen to the podcast the other day that broke my heart. Yeah, the man from England, sorry, I can't remember,

Scott Benner 9:47
John's story, came on and yeah, talked about his unbelievable Yeah.

Natalie 9:51
So I feel like I was lucky at the time, because in 1989 my uncle, who was 30 at the time, in the Navy. Got diagnosed, so he had to leave the Navy, and then he had this new life. And you know, when my symptoms started creeping up and stuff, maybe about six months later, my parents knew right away, and I was, fortunately not in DKA. Or, you know, I was sick, but I wasn't so sick that it couldn't be helped. Or I was only in the hospital for about a week, and I remember that first shot of insulin making me feel better, like I remember at 10 years old, how bad I felt and how good I felt after that first shot of insulin, really.

Scott Benner 10:34
Do you know what your E 1c was when you were diagnosed? No,

Natalie 10:38
you know, I don't remember. And I actually kind of went on a deep dive to try to get all my records and stuff, but it's a huge process here, and I just didn't want to bother after but I'm assuming it was probably like 12 or 13, and my blood sugar was probably reading off the Actually, no, back then, we didn't even have the machines. We put our blood on these little strips. They were called precision strips. We wiped the blood off after an hour, and compared the color to the color on the strip, wow, on the container. And I remember mine was very, very, very dark blue, and I had ketones that were very dark red.

Scott Benner 11:09
So, and as soon as that insulin hit you and started to bring your blood sugar down, a relief came over you. It

Natalie 11:15
was like a relief. I just remember, I just felt better. You know? I remember about a week before this happened, I was on a ski trip, and I was skiing, and I went maybe once or twice down the mountain, and I was with school, so I wasn't, you know, my parents weren't there to come and take me home right away, and I kind of laid in the launch most of the time and just drank water because I was so sick.

Scott Benner 11:41
Yeah, so it really is interesting, yeah. Really the most interesting thing you've said so far, and it has actually shocked me, is that you're trying to tell me that Canada has a navy. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah.

Natalie 11:53
So my uncle, you know, he had his whole life, like, 12 years or so, in the Navy, and then he got let go, so he had to take his pension and stuff and

Scott Benner 12:03
start a whole new career. Yeah, they was diagnosed, and they booed him out.

Natalie 12:07
Yeah, and that was in 1989 so, and I don't know if that's still a thing that they do, but they definitely did it. Then it's a

Scott Benner 12:13
thing here, for sure. Yeah, 89 the year I graduated from high school, yeah, oh my gosh. So, wow. So how is your uncle doing today? Well, my

Natalie 12:23
Uncle's not here with us anymore. I think he took that really hard, and he was a closet drinker, like we didn't actually know about his drinking problem until he died. So yeah, and he was very, very, very overweight and obviously didn't take care of himself. And that's what happened. That's what happened to my

Scott Benner 12:41
uncle. So sorry, yeah, but he had type one his whole life. He had,

Natalie 12:45
well, he had type one since about 30 and he died at 68

Scott Benner 12:49
Yeah, I don't know why I was confused by that. Yeah, okay, so, so he lived with it for 38 years,

Natalie 12:54
yeah, yeah, yeah. And as far as I remember, the only complication he had was that he was obese, but he didn't have eye problems, he didn't have kidney problems, he didn't have all the things that we were so scared of happening

Scott Benner 13:08
back then, right? Did the two of you ever talk about your diabetes together? Oh,

Natalie 13:12
a lot. And he always used to give me, Natalie, you can't be eating that. You can't be eating that. And then I find out later that he was a closet drinker, and, you know, but I think he was just trying to protect me, yeah?

Scott Benner 13:23
So, I mean, just because he maybe wasn't doing it doesn't mean he didn't know, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that with me. Thank you, yeah. So you start off with wiping your blood on strips, and look at where we are

Natalie 13:36
today, right? It's incredible, yep, and I'm thankful for these things, like, I can't believe how we used to do it and how we can do it now, you know, and we're still far behind. Like, living in Canada, I am still using, uh, the original Omnipod. We just got the approval for Omnipod five here in Canada, and I can't even get access to it yet because it's not approved in Alberta for the government program that covers our medical stuff. All that stuff is bullshit, all the bureaucracy and where we in Canada are probably the slowest to get all the things. We just got, the FreeStyle Libre, free plus, which I'm really thankful for. I love it,

Scott Benner 14:17
yeah. Well, yeah. So tell me, have you always used the libre, or have you used other CGM? Well,

Natalie 14:23
I've used the libre only because that's the one my insurance covers 100%

Unknown Speaker 14:27
okay. How do you like it?

Scott Benner 14:31
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Natalie 16:57
I like it because, like I said, we went from strips wiping our blood to, you know, blood glucose machines, and this, I mean, sure, it would be nice to have it all integrated into one, and hopefully, eventually I'll get that. But I love it, yeah, I have, I have no complaints, really.

Scott Benner 17:12
Perspective is decades long, yeah, yeah, that thing could, every three of them could fail, and you'd be like, This is the greatest thing that's ever

Natalie 17:21
happened, right? And you know what? I don't ever really get failures with those, like, I don't remember the last time I called them to replace one for me. So I've been either really lucky or just, you know, yeah, works well for me one

Scott Benner 17:32
way or the other. It's a hell lot better than wiping your blood on something and waiting to see what color it turns. Right? How did you even like I guess the management back then really was just about, I mean, were you like, regular and mph or something?

Natalie 17:45
Yeah, yeah, regular and NPH and then just counting our starches. And we didn't even really understand that, because I was thinking about it today, and I was like, you know, I remember we had like, three starch choices, and then we had our protein, and then we had our milk. But back then, nobody knew that protein contributed to glucose as well. And nobody knew that having a glass of milk with your supper contributed to your glucose outcome as well. You know, back then, things just were just not a lot of knowledge, and that my parents did the best that they could, but I don't think they really understood it. And I don't my mom is still with me here today. She's 78 years old, which I don't think she's still she doesn't understand, you know what I mean.

Scott Benner 18:22
So you think to this day she doesn't really get the whole thing. No, she

Natalie 18:26
doesn't. And she'll be like, Oh, I brought you a bag of cookies, Nat and I made the diabetic friendly ones. I'm like, Yeah, but Mom, there's still a ton of carbohydrates in these cookies. They're friendly. No, don't worry. Like, you should have just made them that not diabetic friendly ones, because then I probably know how to count for

Scott Benner 18:42
them better. Yeah, well, I mean that ship sales, she's not going to pick this

Natalie 18:47
up at that point. No, she means, well, you know what I mean, it does occur to

Scott Benner 18:50
me, as you're talking to the concept of, oh, I don't know what's happening with diabetes, like it's all just happening. Like, you know, back then, right? You were, would you say counting starches? Yeah, you didn't have good testing, and so you probably didn't even understand outcomes day to day, right? Like, what did you Oh, never, no, just this thing's the wrong color and what? Yeah, yeah.

Natalie 19:13
And I just knew how I felt if my blood sugar was low, or how I felt if my blood sugar was high, okay? And I also went through a period where I completely lied to my parents about everything I they'd be like, Did you test your blood? Because they kind of left it for me. So I was giving myself shots at 10 years old. I was doing this all on my own, and I'd be like, oh, yeah, I did. I checked my blood and it looked like it was about eight or nine, right? Because those colors had numbers too. So there was times that I didn't even do it for months and months and months and just lied for

Scott Benner 19:44
months. Yeah, yeah. But tell me something, if you got back a certain say you did test it and you got a reading back, did that mean that you bolused again? It didn't mean anything, right? It just

Natalie 19:54
meant that, right? We didn't, no, maybe it meant that I didn't eat one less or one starch, or maybe I went for a quick. Walk around the block and did some jumping jacks at home, like, okay, you know, because I understood enough about that that exercise is going to drop your blood. So if my blood sugar was a bit high, I'd go, you know, put on some Bon Jovi in my bedroom and dance.

Scott Benner 20:15
Bon Jovi. That's

Natalie 20:16
crazy. Yeah, maybe some poison White Snake Skid Row. I don't know I was really into that kind of music back in the day. So, so yeah,

Scott Benner 20:23
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Natalie 21:51
you a little bit disappointed? Could you imagine being like, sharing a father in law to Bon Jovi's son? How cool would that? I

Scott Benner 21:58
mean, either that or doesn't it's like, a lot of work on my part to, like, pretend, you know what I mean? Like, I gotta show up and pretend to be fancy, and then I don't know, or maybe not. Maybe it's cool. Who wouldn't know, right? That's interesting. His music is interesting, as it didn't leave the time that it was popular in, right? You know what I mean by that? Like, if you enjoyed it, then I'm sure you still enjoy it now,

Natalie 22:20
well, it's still played on the radio now, you know, it's one of those timeless things, I guess. Yeah,

Scott Benner 22:25
I just don't think that any 20 year old's gonna, like, decide to pick up like a Bon Jovi obsession at this point. Yeah, it's very specific. Anyway, good for them. I think they're having a baby or rented one or adopted. I'm not sure exactly what they did. Yeah. Okay, so you are growing up through that kind of like that thing. You're Yeah, you're saying, there's times for months you don't test your parents. Don't know, yeah, when you look up and technology shifts and all of a sudden you can test your blood sugar, and you're a little more day to day involved. Where were you at that point?

Natalie 22:58
That was about 2000 the year. 2000 that's when I remember using a Bolus for the first time. That's when I remember going to rapid insulin so, and that's also, I think, when I got my first like insulin pen, instead of using just needles. So that kind of started changing then. And also the blood glucose meters, they would be like a five second meter instead of a 32nd meter. So things like that. And then I had my son in 2010 so I went through my whole pregnancy in 2010 still like that. I didn't have a pump, I didn't have a CGM. I don't even know if they existed in 2010 like I was still using long acting and short acting and checking my blood sugar with a glucose meter, and probably about 20 times a day, because I was completely obsessed with having perfect blood sugars when I was pregnant, which I did. I almost wish now I could go back and have those good blood sugars again. My a 1c was 5.5 my whole pregnancy. It was

Scott Benner 24:01
amazing. So when there's the first shift happens in care, yep. Is that a moment to look back and say, Okay, well, here's what, what's been happening to me. Like, do you know what your a 1c was as care shifted right before it shifted, and what happened to it after you went to daily injections?

Natalie 24:16
No, you know what? The only thing I remember was before I was pregnant, because I knew that I wanted to become pregnant, I really started seeing my endocrinologist and the team that worked with her, and that's when I remember really being obsessed with my a 1c and trying to lower and lower and lower it. And I think when I got pregnant, I started off at an eight, and then, you know, within a month or two, it was right down to the fives, and stayed that way.

Scott Benner 24:43
Are you telling me that you know as regular and mphns, the shift to what I assume was maybe like Humalog in Atlantis? Yeah, it really didn't change a lot about how you thought about your health. It wasn't until the idea of a pregnancy that you drilled down so you had. The ability to drill down for that 10 year period, but you just didn't do it.

Natalie 25:03
And maybe because that's when I really started to understand things, yeah, and also that really put the fear in me about, you know, I'm going to be this mother now. I need to be here for at least the next 4050, years for my son. So I really started like, Okay, I I don't want any complications, you know, I want to be around and I want to be healthy. So that's when I really started shifting. And then a 2014 is when I finally got coverage for a pump, because in Canada, we have government programs that covers it 100% so that's when I finally decided, Okay, I'm going to go on to this pump, and I'm going to start using to start using the FreeStyle Libre too, and that's what I did. And that's when things got even better for me.

Scott Benner 25:47
Would you tell me how old you were when you got pregnant? 32

Natalie 25:51
so I wasn't a full grown adult. You know what I

Scott Benner 25:55
mean? Were you married at that point?

Natalie 25:56
I was married. Yeah, I'm married again now, but I was married.

Scott Benner 26:00
How long were you married before you got pregnant?

Natalie 26:03
A year like we wanted to have a son or a child. We do have, I have a son, but we wanted to right away, because the clock was ticking. And, you know, I was always kind of scared of being pregnant, because there were so many things that could go wrong with being

Scott Benner 26:19
pregnant. Yeah, this is what I wanted to ask you. How much of your fear of all that do you think impacted getting married later, etc?

Natalie 26:27
No, I think that was just timing. I didn't meet this man till I was 26 and then we got married at 30 and then I got pregnant at 32

Scott Benner 26:35
so and then you got rid of him. What six weeks later? How long I wish it was

Natalie 26:39
six weeks? No, it was two and a half years, but I married again to a wonderful man, and our lives, me and my husband and my sons, couldn't be better right now. So

Scott Benner 26:47
that's lovely. Okay, so when you get pregnant, you're able to, magically, you knew everything to do. You just how much does your effort have to shift to go from an A 1c in the eights to an A 1c in the fives, right?

Natalie 27:00
Well, it did. It shifted in I don't even know. I don't even know how to explain it. I know, I think just something in my mind was like, you have to do this. And you know, like I said, I was checking my blood sugar 10 or 15 times a day. I seen my care team all the time. I had the most fantastic OBGYN that I saw every two weeks throughout my pregnancy, and it was more of, I think, a mental thing for me to make sure that I was doing all the right things. And he said to me at one time, Natalie, you're doing better than most of my patients that aren't type one diabetic, so just calm down a little bit, you know, like he was so, so, so supportive of me during that time. But

Scott Benner 27:41
what's the difference in your effort from the higher a 1c to the pregnancy, a 1c like, did you like functionally do more, or do you think you were just same effort different, like, you're putting it in different places.

Natalie 27:53
More effort, more help. For sure, help and yeah, I think that

Scott Benner 28:01
help from help

Natalie 28:03
from the team, help from my endocrinologist, help from this amazing OBGYN that I

Scott Benner 28:07
saw. So the two week check ins, the two week check ins, were key to you, yeah,

Natalie 28:11
and he, himself has a son that was diagnosed a few years before he started seeing me as a patient. So he really invested in me. He really took interest in me, and you know, I think that that helped by having him as such a good doctor for me during that time. So when you're

Scott Benner 28:27
going through that process in that time, are you constantly learning new stuff? Are you like, are you looking up every two weeks, going, I didn't know that before. I didn't know that

Natalie 28:35
before. I didn't know that before, not really, but I just really paid attention and really made sure that my blood sugars weren't going any higher than, say, nine, because here in Canada, we do it differently. I don't know what a nine would compare to in the states, like 180 maybe.

Scott Benner 28:48
Are you telling me it's focused, then you're you shifted your focus to something,

Natalie 28:51
maybe my focus? Yeah, well, it probably was. It probably was like I was just really, really, really obsessed with doing it and doing it.

Scott Benner 29:00
Well, okay, so it was your focus, it was your desire. It was, is there anything you seem like you're a rather in touch with who you are person? Yeah, I'm making a leap. I think that's true. So so sorry to ask you, like, is there a reason that for like, self esteem, that you didn't care to do it for yourself earlier,

Natalie 29:18
before that well, and I think knowledge, and I think I just got used to just living, but not really, not that. I didn't care, but I didn't, I don't know how to explain it. Like, I remember, I've always been into the gym. I've always been the obsessive exerciser, and I still am. But I would go to the gym and my blood sugar would be 20. Like, that's probably what, 300 for you guys,

Scott Benner 29:41
nine is 162 20 is 360 there's a calculator at Juicebox podcast.com if you want to use it.

Natalie 29:48
Yeah. So I would go to the gym at 360 because I was scared to go to the gym any less than that, because I was scared of dropping low. So I'd go work out, and then my blood sugar would. Be half of that when I was done. And I lived that way for a long time. And I'm really shocked now that I don't have complications because of the way I lived. And I think I just got so used to what my blood sugar's being so high that I felt good. Because I remember during pregnancy when they did start to normal out and become, you know, normal in range, I felt like, Oh, I feel hungry. I feel low. I feel, you know, like my blood sugars felt low at a normal number, because I was so used to it running high all the time. It was easy to run high all the time. Maybe that's why I didn't really do anything. It's a lot of work to make it normal.

Scott Benner 30:36
Is it your expectation that if you were diagnosed now, that you would not have gone through the trouble you went through prior. I don't know You follow what I'm trying to get to Natalie like I'm trying, I'm trying to understand, once we figure out that that the how is not that difficult, right? It's, it's almost the the focus and the and the, I don't know, the specificity you apply to taking care of diabetes, like I'm always, I guess, enamored with type one has so much effort that goes into it. Whether you have a 10, a, 1c, A, five, a, 13, an eight, you're all putting a lot of effort into it. I'm hoping that we can put the effort in a place that ends up with the A, 1c, that you want, right, that you're looking for that the variability that you know you deserve and the stability of the number that you decide is good for you. Like, I'm not here to tell you what your blood sugar should be all day. Like, I have my own opinions, and you can do whatever you want, but I'm trying to get across to people that it's not harder to do better, right? This thing's as hard. It's always hard. It's just it's hard at every it's hard at every level, but it isn't harder if you have a 13 than it is if you have a five or vice versa, right? And I keep thinking that eventually someone's gonna say something that gets that across to somebody, right? You know what I mean, like, because, and then I started thinking about, like, the kind of person you are, like, maybe you're just like, you know, sometimes I It sounds like you listen a fair amount, right? So, like, sometimes I'll, I'll, I'll interview those I don't know, 1819, year old kids, and they're just, like, on it, right, on the ball, they've got it together, and you realize it's just who they are, right? Like, it's not, like, Yeah, but you try to pick out of them. Like, what is it about you that that makes this your outcome? Yeah, and that's what I'm wondering about you. Like, would a Natalie diagnosis 10 years ago with a CGM have just been a five, five, a, 1c, or is it something about the age you are now, coupled with your experience, coupled with the pressure of having a baby? Like, is it all the process? Maybe,

Natalie 32:37
right? Well, and yeah, I think who I am now. I'm a completely different person than I was then. Yeah, you know what I mean. And I was never academic. So maybe that has to do with it, too. I know the ones that you've had on the show that do really well, they're academic, like those. I remember the one little girl, she is gonna go far to do something with her life. I never went to university. I never did those things, you know, but I kind of figured it out on my own, I guess. And just some light bulbs went off and I thought, okay, like, I really have to do this, because I want to keep functioning as you know. I want

Scott Benner 33:15
to be healthy. So when you and that care team are thinking about your pregnancy, do you remember what they modeled to you to do. What did they tell you was important that led to that five? Five?

Natalie 33:24
Well, I guess just the changing insulin needs during that time, right? Like I remember I'm now, I use about, say, 20 units ish a day, and I probably did back then, even though I didn't really record anything or or whatever. But my insulin needs went to 100 units a day for a while in my pregnancy. So I just, I just remember how, you know how much it changed, and then it went right back down. And then, you know, and maybe that's kind of how I figured it out, yeah,

Scott Benner 33:54
you get the expectation of, Hey, your insulin needs are really going to go up, and they give you this low target that feels like it's not negotiable. So you use more insulin because your needs go up. You keep using that insulin till you get the target that you want. And then once the baby comes, now you have this new understanding of how varied insulin needs can be. And you continue to adjust as you go. Yeah.

Natalie 34:15
And I remember the day that I had my son, he was cesarean section. I was kind of fighting with the nurses, because they were like, No, you need to take this much insulin, because this is what it says here. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? Like I realized how quick my body went back to not having those pregnancy hormones, and I knew that I needed so much

Scott Benner 34:34
less. Would have crushed you if you took all that. Oh, it wouldn't be 100% it would have just the day after the baby boom, almost that

Natalie 34:42
day, just like starting the GLP one for me. Okay, I swear. I swear, eight hours later or the next day. Because I remember, it was an evening I took it. I was like, wow, I need a fraction of my insulin and I'm not hungry. For the first time in my life. It was amazing. Let me share

Scott Benner 34:59
something funny with you. I went out yesterday. I think I'm the grocery store bitch at my house. I went to the girl. Everybody gets stuck with the job in a family, it's me. I run to the grocery store with the goal of getting back before, I mean, if I'm being honest, I want to get back before the football game started. Football game with my son. Yeah. So I didn't eat before I left. And I ran out with the stores. Come back. I was driving home and I thought, oh, no, am I getting sick? My stomach hurts. And I'm like, I feel nauseous, like this is crazy. I hate the way I feel right now. I'm gonna be sick, like I'm driving and then it hit me out of nowhere. It was Sunday. You gave your shot. My shot was over seven days old at that point. And I was like, Oh, okay. I'm like, Oh, I'm just hungry, right? And I don't recognize what hungry feels like, yeah, and it really was that I was just hungry.

Natalie 35:50
And you know what, speaking of hunger, I think coming back to that question you asked me, what changed so much when I was a kid, from 10 years old until I started taking the ozempic. I was hungry all the time. And I grew up with a family that my mom was is Polish. She cooked good food. We had a lot of protein, we had a lot of variety. We had all the vegetables. But I was always hungry, and I'm lucky that I never ended up really overweight. So for me, taking that GLP one stop that hunger, and it still works for me, for that and I have relief that I never knew would be this good. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like I'm a normal person now, my hunger is normal, like a normal human being. I'm not just starving all the time.

Scott Benner 36:35
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different reasons for hunger with type ones, yeah, and, you know, I don't, I can't just, like, rattle them all off, off the top of my head, but I even just, like, fluctuations of blood sugar, as simple as, like, 90 to 150 Yeah, that if you drop it, I'm sorry, vice versa, 50 to 90, you're dropping, like, your brain can interpret that as like, Oh, I'm like, hunger hormones will kick in, right? So if you're bouncing around all the time, there's a situation where that could, you know, could do the same thing. You got a bunch of, oh, I got, there's something about Lepine, like, there's a lot, I

Natalie 37:07
don't, yeah, five other hormones, I guess that play into that. And we, as a type one diabetes, as type one diabetics, we don't make insulin, but we also don't make those other hormones, as far as I understand. And once I started that, I just that is the main reason that I'll stick to it forever. Like, yes, I needed to lose 10 pounds. It was great. It helped out. Because I, like I said, I've always been in the gym. I've always been, you know, as an adult, a fairly good eater. And I perimenopause came, and that 10 pounds came, and so I got rid of that and the hunger, and I just won the I don't want to ever go back to that feeling again. I

Scott Benner 37:44
agree with you. Do you have anything else going on, like a hypothyroidism? PCOS, I'm trying to figure out.

Natalie 37:48
I don't think so. I mean, here we only get the basic thyroid test. We don't get, like, the full panel, like you could probably get in the States. My What's that other one?

Scott Benner 38:01
The iron, the Yeah, you're you're on, like, ferritin level, yeah,

Natalie 38:05
my ferritin, I think it's not high, but it's not low. So sometimes I'll just take iron for a couple weeks just to see if it helps any. But I think I'm okay, like my thyroid is on the lower end, okay. As far as I know, this, this for me will stay forever. And I almost wish that I had this option as a teenager, because when I was a teenager, say, from like, 16 to 19, I was quite overweight. Oh, okay, if I would have had that option, then I think it would have helped my blood sugars, and I think it would have helped the weight, you know, I remember, I look at pictures now of when I was young, and I'm like, How the hell did that happen,

Scott Benner 38:42
right? You know, but as an adult, you're only about 10 pounds overweight, yeah,

Natalie 38:46
but it bothered me because I'm, like, I said I'm, I'm an obsessive exerciser. I like to stay in shape, I like to look fit, I like to be that person. It's

Scott Benner 38:55
just who I am. Yeah, that's all cool. I was asking because I was trying to figure out, is it the exercise that kept the weight off you. So you gained weight as a child, you knocked it off with exercise. Is that right? Right?

Natalie 39:04
Yeah. And then it probably, that's probably what helped me, you know, till the perimenopause age, where I did gain a little bit of weight. But, yeah, because I exercise so much, how

Scott Benner 39:13
do you end up on a GLP? Then if, I mean, I don't want to say only I know if you only had 10 pounds lose it, and what was the pathway to it?

Natalie 39:19
So I went to my endocrinologist and I said to her, like, I'm listening to this podcast. I've heard other people's stories about how just taking a small amount of the GLP one for type ones could be super helpful with the hunger. That's what I set it for with the hunger. And sure, I want to lose a little bit of weight. My endocrinologist prescribed it for me at the starting dose, but I told her, I'm not going to take the starting dose, so I'm going to click that pen 16 times, which gives me half of the starting dose. And I did that, and like I said, it was immediate results. And I did that for about a year, until I started noticing the hunger come back a tiny bit, and then. Then I decided to go to the full point two, five. So the starting dose, wow. So now that's what I've been doing for about a year, and have no plans to go higher or no plans to go lower. You know what I mean?

Scott Benner 40:11
So initially, speaking, it quelled your hunger. You lost the 10 pounds. How quickly

Natalie 40:15
two months. I remember waking up one day in bed, and I was like, getting ready for work. I'm like, wait, clothes don't fit me anymore, right? Like, and it's not like, I'm super small now. It's just that that little 10 pounds of fluff that I got from perimenopause is gone, yeah. And I just feel better, because maybe if I wouldn't have done that, I would have had 30 pounds by now,

Scott Benner 40:38
yeah, very possibly, and your and your insulin needs have reduced by how much? What do you think

Natalie 40:43
I would say? I don't know percent wise, but I would say at least six or seven units per day.

Scott Benner 40:48
What's your total a day now?

Natalie 40:50
So about 20 to 22 ish, and you're

Scott Benner 40:52
thinking before it was more like 30, yeah, and

Natalie 40:56
the week before my period, because we all know that that week is horrible for us as women with type one diabetes, women or children even, because I was super young when I got mine that week before, my insulin was always like, tripled. Now, is a little bit more every the week before, but it's not quite as much as it was.

Scott Benner 41:16
So you didn't lose a ton of weight. That's not what we can lean on. Is it just hunger? Are you just eating less? Are you using less insulin? Or do you think you have insulin

Natalie 41:23
resistance, so I'm using less insulin? Yes, so I think I had a little bit of insulin resistance, even though I didn't need a lot of insulin, and the hunger, and I just feel like I spike a little bit less after meals.

Scott Benner 41:37
Yeah, correct? Then, no, you kind of got like a catch all effect from it, because you sounds like you lost a little weight, which helps with your insulin use. Sounds like you're eating less, which helps with your insulin use, and it sounds like you maybe had some insulin resistance, probably from the perimenopause, like time of your life, yeah. And it just helped you in those three different areas, and it made a big difference for you. Oh,

Natalie 41:57
I have one more thing to add to that before I forget, because it's very important. I had some shoulder problems, which is very common in type one diabetes, frozen shoulder. Yeah, I think I was heading there. It wasn't quite there yet, but I swear, a week after I started taking that, my shoulder pain went away, and it's still gone. And I had this shoulder pain for about a year.

Scott Benner 42:18
I love that. I don't know how to attribute it, but I could also tell you that I feel much better in a lot of ways that I don't know how to quantify.

Natalie 42:26
Yeah, exactly, because it's supposed to help with inflammation and stuff, right? So yeah, maybe there was some inflammation. Maybe my Yeah, frozen shoulder is a scary thing, so I'm glad that that helped with that.

Scott Benner 42:37
I had another person say to me the other day like, well, I don't want to use this forever. I was like, you think you're thinking about it wrong? Yeah, I think you're still thinking about it like it's a weight loss drug, right? Yeah, you gotta, yeah. You get to see the bigger picture a little bit. Well,

Natalie 42:52
in my my endo told me that day, if you start this, you're gonna have to use it forever. She said that because she's told me, if you stop taking it, you might gain that 10 pounds back, and then you might gain 10 more right away. So you're gonna have to use this forever. And I was like, Well, I don't care. I'm using insulin forever. Anyways, yeah,

Scott Benner 43:09
I was gonna say, was that said to you? Like, it was supposed to be scary or pejorative or

Natalie 43:12
No, I think she was just Woman to Woman, because we're about the same age. We were pregnant at the same time we you know? Yeah, she was saying, like, if you start this Natalie, like, just know that you can't just stop and expect that your body's going to be exactly the same, even though, like, I said I wasn't going to her saying I need to lose weight. I need to, you know what I mean? I really don't think that these GLP ones are just for people that need to lose weight.

Scott Benner 43:37
No, no, I don't either. I fantasize the other day. I want to make sure everyone understands this is a fantasy of mine, that they could put a tiny, tiny bit of it in insulin. You see, you didn't even have to microdose, that they just got a tiny little judge of it every once in a while, like, I don't, obviously, I'm just saying something that's probably never going to happen. Mostly, I don't imagine you could even mix them together. But I look at my daughter and I hear your story, yeah. And I think, like, like, look at you. You started with half of a beginning dose. And people should know that that beginning dose of, you know, we go V Witchers or ozempic. You out ozempic, it sounds like, yeah, right, yeah. The beginning dose of that is almost like, nominal, yeah, you took half of it,

Natalie 44:17
half of it. And I even had side effects, like, for the first few weeks, I didn't feel great, yes, I was not hungry, and that was great. But I was like, I don't know if I can do this for a long time, because I felt nauseous. I kept having a lot of low blood sugars and stuff, but I stuck it out. And after about that three month mark, I had no more nausea, nausea, I had no more, you know, of those side effects. And I was like, Yep, I'm glad that I did that, because maybe my body just needed to get used to it. Somebody

Scott Benner 44:47
in my personal life, so not somebody I spoke to through the podcast was telling me like that. They're like, Well, I've lost 25 pounds already, but like, I don't know, like I feel. And I was like, you will shut up and just keep doing it, yeah, because you're gonna come through the other side. Very likely and acquaintance of mine, somebody I knew a lot better when I was younger, probably three years older than me, went home the other night from dinner, ate dinner, stood up and died, yeah, okay. And you know, last time I saw that person, I did think like, oh, he's looking a little like pale, little heavy, little like something, and I'm sitting there all, like, thin and looking 10 years younger and everything, and he's like, Oh, you look terrific. And I said, I'm just using a GLP medication, yeah. And somebody at the table said, Oh, but aren't you gonna have to take that for the rest of your life? And I remember saying, there, well, it's better than the alternative, which is me probably having a heart attack right exactly now, six months later, he's gone like he was there while we were having that conversation, yeah? Such a hard thing to talk about, because I think we're not gonna have a full grasp of what it's doing for a really long time. And I think the full grasp is only going to come from conversations like this, where people are just telling you, hey, look, I'm seeing my shoulder stopped hurting, yeah? Or the people you want to tell you what the drug does, they're only going to do studies on it if they think it's, it's a valuable thing like and by that, I mean if they can get a lot of prescriptions out of it. So they're never going to do a study as to whether or not that major shoulder stop hurting, right, right? Yeah, that's not going to be a study if there were 80 billion people whose shoulders hurt, then they do a study on it and find out right away, because then they, then they could prescribe it for it, yeah. So a lot of this is going to be just, you know, people telling their stories, and that's what you're going to have to, that's how you're going to have to figure out what this does. But my point is, is that the dosing of it, that's frustrating to me, because Arden doesn't need a whole pen full of it. No, right? And so awesome. We can, you know, we figured out how to micro dose it for but even at that, like, I'd love to know is, like, there is there value in this being like, even less, but every day, like, I'm not asking her to take right seven, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. But haven't you wondered? Like, yeah, how many are you? What do you shoot a week?

Natalie 46:59
Well, now I'm doing the point two five, which is the starting dose, the

Scott Benner 47:03
point two five. But imagine if it was in a vial and you took out, like, I don't know, a small percentage of that every other day. And what if it lessened some of your side effects, or whatever, I don't know. Like, yeah, I think there's so much ceiling there, and we're not going to get to it, because you can't study it that way, because then it's too variable, and if it's variable, then you can't prescribe it like that. Then they can't make right? They can't

Natalie 47:26
make any money. I look at it kind of like it's it's not insulin, but we as diabetics, we don't all have just one dose of insulin, right? That's prescribed to us. We're all so different with our metabolisms and with our needs, and you know what I mean? So I kind of look at it the same. Yeah,

Scott Benner 47:43
I agree. I think that it maybe is uniquely the people with diabetes are uniquely qualified to think about it, because they're one of the few people in the world who's accustomed to taking their medication, opening it up, and deciding for themselves how much of it to take.

Natalie 47:55
Well, exam that we know we're going to take it for the rest of our lives. So that's not a problem like that's not even a thought in my brain. It

Scott Benner 48:02
does really show you the difference between people who have to live with diabetes, or, know somebody living with it, versus somebody who doesn't because that, like, oh, but you'll have to take it forever. And I'm like, What do you care? First of all, yeah. Like, you can see where their consternation comes from. They're not accustomed to that at

Natalie 48:18
all. Right, yep. And for us, also in Canada, we're just, we're lucky, because it's not expensive here. I mean, I have to do it. I don't get it covered through my insurance, because it's, you know, I'm a type one, and that's not a thing yet. But I spend $270 for two months of two months of it. And I guess in January, they're going to start something here where they're allowed make it generically because of some sort of contract that went wrong. Yep. So they're going to be selling it for like 40 to $80

Scott Benner 48:46
a pen. You are going to start getting a lot of biosimilars in Canada. I think, I can't tell you why I know that, but there are going to be more biosimilar GLP medications in Canada in the coming couple of years. Yeah, yeah. I think it's going to become incredibly affordable. Yep, yeah, so that makes me happy. Yeah, no kidding. But even at this moment, what are you paying, like, 20 bucks a week for

Natalie 49:10
it, basically, yeah? Well, maybe a little more, yeah, because what's eight weeks divided by 270

Scott Benner 49:15
I don't know, but in today's economy, that sounds like a bag of Doritos. Like, what is things are so damn expensive now, like three gallons of gas or you Were you

Natalie 49:26
there when we still were allowed to have it compounded. I was getting it compounded, and it was a fraction of that price. So, but then they stopped that here too.

Scott Benner 49:34
So my real hope is that it could be a daily pill at some point and work as well as the injectable. I don't know if that can happen or not, but I hope for that, because I do think you're also missing out a lot of people who are just like, wow, that's a needle, right? Exactly, even last night, I took mine last night and I got it out during the day. I usually let it come to room temperature before I put it in. And I don't even know if that makes a difference. I just think it's just the thing I do. And. I forgot about it, like, I didn't do it for a couple hours, and then yesterday I was kind of like, rushing around the end of the day and the pen sit, and I was like, Oh, let me just do this while I'm thinking about it, I didn't even have time to come up and record and do the whole thing I usually do for the weight loss diary, because also my journey through all this is, like, really changing now, like, I don't want to talk about it here, but you'll hear it at some point in that weight loss diary, like I've lost the weight now. Yeah, it's weird to be where I'm at right now. Yeah, I know I need the thing. And so I grab it, and there's like, a half a second where I hold it up and I'm like, I hope this doesn't hit, like a, like a blood vessel or something, or hurt, or something like that, you know what I mean, like, and I had that pause. I was like, Oh, don't hurt. Then I put it in. I thought, I wonder how many people are stopped by that who would take a pill? If, for sure? Yeah, if it existed, there's got to be a lot of them. Yeah, no kidding. I appreciate you talking about that. It's still a lot of people give people crap about it. So there's still people not wanting to talk about it all the time. So I appreciate that. So yeah, you talked about, in your note about, like, a constant learning and growth with type one diabetes. And I just, I mean, you've had it for so long, and you know, you're, like you said, Now, using a CGM and a pump and using a GLP, like, you're obviously on the cutting edge of this here. You're one algorithm away from being, you know, as cutting edge as possible. Yeah, tell me about the journey. Like, what sticks out in your mind when you think about it? About It? Well,

Natalie 51:23
I just remember so much about being a young adult and a teenager and how differently I lived to now, and I really am proud of myself. Where I, you know, where I've come like, and a lot of people that have issues, I, you know, they're complaining about it all the time, but I just choose to, like, Okay, if this is my life, this is how I have to live, and that's

Scott Benner 51:46
it. Yeah, was there a time in your life where you were complaining about all the time, 100 of

Natalie 51:50
course, I remember being a kid and telling my parents, I wish you guys didn't have me, because this happened to me. It's your fault. You know what? I mean?

Scott Benner 51:59
Awesome. Yeah, I bet you, they're thrilled

Natalie 52:01
well, and I'm sure that that happens with others. Like as a kid, you feel sorry for yourself and you feel you should because, well, not you should. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just, it's it's hard. It's a hard thing for kids. And I guess I'm kind of glad I was in the era of scare tactics. My mom used to tell me, if you don't take care of yourself, I'm going to be walking you down that aisle in a wheelchair. You know, I remember doctors telling me you're going to be blind by the time you're 30, you're going to lose your fingers and toes, like there was a lot of scare tactics. So I think that that's always played in the back of my mind too sticks.

Scott Benner 52:34
Did you ever develop any kind of eating disorders or anything along the way?

Natalie 52:37
No, not eating disorders, just that constant hunger. I think I maybe a disordered exercise. I think that I kind of am, but that's okay. There could be worse things to be addicted to. I guess I would eat and then go exercise as much as I could to try to try to make up for it. But I'm in the gym doing a lot of weight training now, because that's super important at this age. And also using a GLP one, you want to make sure to get as much muscle on your body as you can. But I went through the whole, you know, being addicted to running, being addicted to spin classes, being addicted to yoga, like just everything, and I couldn't really feel good about myself in a day unless I did that. And now it's more of a okay, I'm doing it because it makes me feel good, but also because I want to live long and and I don't have to worry about weight because that's taken care of. Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 53:26
it's a beautiful thing to be lifted off your shoulders, too. Yeah, I can't tell you how much more freeing it is. I'm doing a talk in a couple weeks somewhere. It might be sooner than I think I haven't thought once about like, what I'll look like while I'm doing it, and that's such a great thing to not have to think about. Well,

Natalie 53:44
exactly that was like me. I was in Greece for five weeks this summer, and, you know, I'm 47 years old, and I didn't, at one time, ever think, oh, I don't want to put my bikini on and go to the beach like I was ready, you know, yeah. And that's a nice feeling to have at my age.

Scott Benner 54:01
I sat on the beach in a chase lounge this year, and Arden took my picture. And I didn't like, go, Oh no, don't do that. Yeah. It just happened. And I was like, okay with it, yeah. And I know that sounds like such a small thing, but you know, I think there are things that live in your head. I'll share this here. This happened this morning, yep. And I think people know that. You know, generally speaking, I don't count myself as a very like anxious person or anything like that, right, right? Oh, I see problems. I try to take care of them before that kind of stuff. I have two brothers, and one's five years younger than me, one's five years younger than him, okay? And the middle brother text this morning. We have a chain. We talk together and all the time, and he says he's been using the JLP. Now my brother had pre diabetes, right? As did my mom, my dad, so his mom, his dad, his grandfather, great grandmother. Like a lot of type two diabetes are in my family side. I'm adopted, but yeah, and so he was gaining weight. His a 1c was going up. She. Playing all this stuff. They got him on Metformin. It's making him miserable. You know, he's not his a one. CDE is not going down. It's not helping anything. They finally get him to start a GLP over maybe two years ago now, a year ago, he's talking this morning about, My God, my weights here. It's never been this low before. I feel terrific. Blah, blah, blah. I was finally able to get it for his wife. She's already lost 25 pounds, helping her with some other stuff. I'm just happy to see him texting that he's doing well. Our little brother pops in, congratulates him, etc. Two hours later, I'm doing the dishes and I'm wearing my headphones. I'm listening to a podcast. I don't know how the rest of you have your text set up, but my texts get like, announced and read to me while I'm wearing my headphones, right? And my brother, my youngest brother, has been in the middle of a reorganization of this job for a couple years now. His company bought another company, but somehow the company they bought, that's the leadership they were using, not his like. So his company bought it, but the leadership came from the place that was bought. So he was in a lot of flux. He didn't know where he didn't know where he was going to be with his job, and he texts that he got a job offer today, you know, which was a big deal, because they're going to move him into another position, but moreover, they're planning on keeping him. He was very worried that he wasn't going to get to stay. The text gets right into my ear, and I burst into tears. I don't mean like, a little bit like, I didn't have a tear come out. I got uncontrollably, started crying, huh? I realized, you know, in the in the half an hour afterwards, first of all, Arden walked in the room. Eventually, she's like, Were you crying? And I was like, I wasn't. I did tell her why. And I said, I think I've been worried about my brothers for 40 years, like, you know what I mean, and then in the last year, in the last two years, you know, the youngest ones, like, really worried. He's like, I think I might lose my job here, not even because I'm bad at it or nothing, but because, you know, there's going to be an overlapping and what if I'm not the guy they choose to stay and blah, blah, blah. And I've been worried about him, but I but if you would have asked me yesterday, are you worried about your brother, I would have said, No, right, you know what I mean, like, but I obviously in the background somewhere. I

Natalie 57:02
was, yeah, you weren't consciously aware. And then,

Scott Benner 57:05
I mean, honestly, like, my eyes popped open and water came flying out, and I was like, I had to, like, I was so grateful he was okay, yeah. And then I started thinking, like, how much other stuff in my life is it in there? You know what I mean? Then I started thinking about, God, imagine how much I care about these kids compared to my brother's like, yeah, background stuff that's pressuring you all the time that you never know about, like, what am I gonna look like when I get to this talk and I have to stand up on the stage in front of these right? I think you don't realize that that's probably with you all the time, and just that one thing being lift is really awesome,

Natalie 57:38
well, and it's okay to have those thoughts, you know what I mean, like, it's okay to want to look good and feel good.

Scott Benner 57:45
I do think we probably went through a social time where you weren't allowed to say that. You know, right exactly, but I do think that might be gone now too. Yeah, and I'm not embarrassed to tell you that this is better, Yep, yeah, for sure, for sure. I feel better now. So

Natalie 58:01
I have a girlfriend at work, same age, about the same age as me. She's not a diabetic, but she's wanting to help herself and stuff. And I convinced her to do what I did to start because she tried a GLP one before, and it made her really sick. So I'm like, why don't you try to do it like I did, stick to it. Just take a small dose for a few months, and I bet you, you're going to feel better a week later, she's already like, Yep, I can tell that I've, I've been using it, but I don't have that same sickness. So thank you.

Scott Benner 58:28
Yeah, to my sister in law, 2020, some pounds in like, three weeks. And yeah, and she had to really fight for it too, by the way, I still bumped into somebody the other day. Was like, Oh, are you taking that drug? Because you don't have willpower. And I was like, Wow, awesome. Yeah, just in this conversation, you the person you just told me about that you helped my brother, my sister in law, me, my wife, my daughter's insulin resistance, all the other little things. And trying to keep in mind the idea of, like, all the stuff that you're shouldering mentally that you don't realize from stuff like this, yeah, I don't think anybody could hear those stories and then be pretty about it later. Oh, right, of course. I just think they don't know when they're saying, oh, that's you took that drug because you don't have any willpower. Like, awesome, yeah, yeah, no kidding. Tell me a little more about your mental illness. You were saying about the running. I always think of people who run, oh yeah, yeah, as as hiding something or covering something.

Natalie 59:27
Maybe I was, and maybe it was just, I really do find that exercise gives me that drug that people talk about you get addicted to. It really does okay so, and I really got it with running, yeah, long distances or anything, but I would go push myself for, you know, five, seven kilometers, and be hitting really good times.

Scott Benner 59:47
You know, I like that. You think seven kilometers isn't a long distance, right?

Natalie 59:51
Yeah, but, you know, it for me, it wasn't, and it was great and, and I just find that now in a different way, that's not so so much. Cardio. I need that drug, and that's where I get

Scott Benner 1:00:02
it. Yeah, I'm not saying it's a bad I think exercise is terrific, and I do think it's a great way to, like, relieve stress and anxiety, and I think it does help people with their mental health to a certain degree as well. Yeah, there's a lady I can picture right now running around my neighborhood, and when she's running, I keep thinking, like, what's she running from?

Yeah, yeah. It seems like something.

Natalie 1:00:22
Maybe she's just happy she's not in jail. I don't know

Scott Benner 1:00:26
that'd be great if what she's thinking is, if I wasn't running like this, I'd be killing people. Yeah, my gosh. What else have we not talked about? Like, like, I really want you to, because you're a podcast person, you're gonna know if this sucks. No, I think we did really good. Oh, well, no. I mean, I did terrific, but I know you, you were excellent too. Like you could tell you really pivoted. Well, through this conversation, there's some people who, when I zig and zag, I can hear the pause like they're almost like, Oh, we're not talking about that thing anymore. But you did not do that once. You just kept well, that was awesome, but I don't want to cut you short, though, like, I want to make sure, like, you know, I understand why you came on. I understand your story, understand the value found in different things. Is there anything else to be if a diabetes a long time? Like, I don't want to say something cliche, like, you have a message.

Natalie 1:01:15
I want to kind of give a shout out to to the parents out there, like, this is crazy, and I want all the parents to know that eventually, if you're going through a rough time, it gets better. Like I went through all of that stuff as a teenager, and I kind of needed to figure it out on my own, and I did, you know, like you can't say anything. Like my mom told me, If you don't take care of yourself, I'm going to be pushing you down a down the aisle in a wheelchair? Well, that never happened, and I just had to figure those things out on my own. Yeah, yeah, the key

Scott Benner 1:01:50
to that, because I believe that's completely true. How do you give away the idea that, what if they don't get to it fast enough, or they have a real problem in between, like, how do I how do I keep them healthy now and let them have these experiences so that they can be healthy later as adults? That's like the it's at the million dollar question, right in there?

Natalie 1:02:08
Well, 100% because some of us maybe just had better or had good DNA, right? Like, yeah, maybe if I was somebody else, because I do know of a lot of people that have had things go sideways, maybe just my body let me live through all of that and still be okay. You know what? I mean?

Scott Benner 1:02:26
Yeah, it's funny, because this comes up a lot, and I'm always caught at the crossroads of this idea, like it worked out for you. So that's an easy thing for you to say. Right now, if I found another 47 year old person who said, Oh, you know, it took me 20 years to get to it, I had to it, I had to get to it on my own, but I got to take care of myself. I do have trigger finger now, neuropathy, and I'm starting to have a little trouble feeling my feet right. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, the how you receive that message is, is awfully different.

Natalie 1:02:53
Well, now that you bring that up, I will mention I have, I do have du Pre syndrome, and I've had many trigger fingers. I've had to have surgery on those, but it's been about six years now, and my hands feel great, and I attribute that to taking better care of myself and stuff too. So I think that some of the things that can that come up can be reversed or not made any worse. You know what I mean?

Scott Benner 1:03:19
Yeah, no, I appreciate so by the time you get to me, what do you need me for? Like, I know you enjoy it, but like, didn't you already have the information from the doctors and the pregnancy? Like, what do you take out of this? Then what do

Natalie 1:03:32
I have you for? Well, like I said, just those little tidbits of learning every day. Like, I'm inspired when I listen to the podcast, even if it's, you know, not relevant to my life, or just, I just really like it, and this is where I found most of the information that I enjoy getting. From a young age. I didn't like to go sit with a doctor, because doctors can be very, you know, gaslighting. They can be very demeaning. They can be very I'm sure there's some good ones out there, but I haven't really experienced any, even the one I have now, she's great, but she's very militant, and sometimes I feel like when I'm talking to her, I'm a child, and I don't really like that, you know what I mean? So that's important, and I just really hope that anybody that's struggling finds you and can help, that it can help them as well, you

Scott Benner 1:04:21
know. Thank you. So are you telling me that, like, it keeps you connected? Yeah, yeah. I guess, like, the pregnancy made you focus, and maybe this is keeping you focused. I guess, yeah. Isn't that interesting that you don't really I find that that's so fascinating because I don't know either like, I want to be, I want to be 1,000,000% clear to anybody listening, or to you, Natalie, that I am aware of how valuable the podcast is because of all the feedback that comes from it. Yeah, but if you told me to sit down right now and, like, write out a master plan of why the podcast is valuable, like, I don't know that I even understand that exactly right. You know what I mean? Like, so, like, I almost asked you guys the question, thinking one of you is going to explain to me what it is. I do well, because

Natalie 1:05:01
sometimes you're very hard on yourself and you don't think you do enough, but I don't think you really realize how much you've done for even the old school, you know, old school people like me, honestly,

Scott Benner 1:05:13
that's nice. I appreciate you saying that. You know, yeah, so I'm happy that the podcast I was thinking the other day, actually, you know what? It's super interesting that you're that you said that the way you just said it, because I just put up a post on Instagram, which, by the way, nobody will see because I'm old and nobody follows me on Instagram. But I put up a post. It's a review for the podcast from March of 2015 right along with a review for the podcast from like, two days ago, right? And the truth is, they're the same review, uh huh. And I was super proud of the consistency that I think I've brought to this, yeah, because it's 10 years later, 11 seasons of the podcast. So it's, it's, you know, 10 on the calendar, 11 for my life, making the show. And somebody had an experience two weeks ago that was incredibly positive and rooted in the same things that somebody had that same experience in March of 2015 and I thought, like, that's so cool, but I'm different now. Like, I don't do the podcast the same way as I used to. I'm I'm, I think I'm a better listener. I don't try as hard to be funny. Like, I think there's things I've done over the years that have changed this. But still, there's something at the core of it, and the reason it bothers me so much

Speaker 1 1:06:25
is because I do think we could bottle it right. Like I

Scott Benner 1:06:30
do think there's a way for other people who aren't podcast listeners or are never going to find this or whatever. Like I do think there's got to be like, you know, not your militant doctor, not your mom's trying to scare you like I think there's a mix of the whole thing, a potion that could be brought up, and I think that could be sprinkled over a lot of people, and they could have a lot of great outcomes. And I do think the answer exists inside of this podcast. I just don't know what it is. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And I think that when you hear me being hard on me, it's me trying to figure out what it is before it's too late. And too late can mean anything. Too late could be me getting too old to do it. Too late could mean podcasts stop being a thing. Too Late could mean the advertisers tell me to go to hell and I can't afford to keep making it like there's a lot of things that could bring this to an end that aren't my decision

Natalie 1:07:24
could maybe okay, but it's on the internet, so it's there forever.

Scott Benner 1:07:29
Yeah, I know, but that doesn't work that way. Because if it worked that way, we'd also be watching mash every night, because that show was pretty perfect, I guess. Yeah, if it worked, seriously, go right now and go watch mash. You'll love it. It's awesome,

Natalie 1:07:41
but nobody, no, I hated it as a kid when my dad would always put it on, but

Scott Benner 1:07:45
that's fine. I loved it. Okay, you go find another show that you loved 40 years ago, and I'm telling you, you could still watch it now, right? Yeah, yeah. We keep changing. So one day, this podcast will dry up and blow away like it just will, and there's going to be another person named Natalie who could really benefit from it, and they'll never even know it existed, and that that vexes me. So when you're hearing me be hard on myself, like some version of that story is what's in the back of my head, right? Yeah, okay, yeah. Don't think I'm magical or perfect or I am really trying to tell you that I don't know what the blend is, but the blend works. Yeah, yeah, but I can't remake it. It's almost like, you know, it's like me trying to remake my grandmother's stuffing, right? I don't think I'm doing it. I'm just, I'm just getting close to it, and I and I'm worried that, like, that's what's gonna happen to the podcast one day, is that other people will just be out there going, like, I think this was about what he meant, and we won't know. I don't know. It's a very weird position to be in to create something that's been this impactful for so many people, and that I can't really functionally explain to you what it is. Yeah, it's interesting. So well it it

Natalie 1:08:53
took a strong person like you to make it happen, so that we're all thankful

Scott Benner 1:08:58
you're you're like, Thank you. You're the celebrity of type one, Natalie, I would like it if you walked behind me and said something like that about every 45 minutes. That was nothing. Be Awesome. I'm gonna give you my phone number. You just text me inspirational stuff. That's only for me, right? Exactly, but that'd be a nice business.

Natalie 1:09:17
Well, I need to start my own business at some point, because I have a lot of things on my mind all the time. You know what I mean? I just need to learn how to, how to get it out there.

Scott Benner 1:09:26
I just, can I tell you what my first business idea was, that I'm so always going to be absolutely just distraught that I didn't try. What's that? Dirty greeting cards. Dirty greeting cards, yes, like, really filthy, explicitly not what you expect on a greeting card. Greeting Cards, right?

Natalie 1:09:48
Well, that you could probably still do

Scott Benner 1:09:50
that. Does anybody use a greeting card now? Well, maybe they can start. Can you really shock people at this point?

Natalie 1:09:55
Well, that's, that's, that would be the hard part. You're right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:09:59
I. I don't know my best I can't even tell you it's so disgusting. Natalie, never mind. But anyway, I thought they would sell. Like, great,

Natalie 1:10:06
yeah, yeah. Well, everybody, there's a niche for everything, right?

Scott Benner 1:10:11
Can you imagine that I just said I had an idea and I thought it was so disgusting I couldn't tell you, and I'm not telling you, and that the people who really listen to the podcast, like, usually he says that, then he says it anyway, but he's not gonna say,

Natalie 1:10:22
like, what is he? What is really underneath all of this? Let me just

Scott Benner 1:10:26
tell you what it was. It was, um, I can't, no, it was about Santa Claus and the frequency in which he comes to see you. Oh, anyway, yeah, that's funny. I made one by hand once and gave it to my friend for Christmas. Yeah, and we were pretty young, and his Mom hung it on the refrigerator because she thought it was hilarious, yeah, well, but when I came to the house and it was on the refrigerator, I was mortified.

Natalie 1:10:56
Yeah, that's funny. But did you know Santa only comes once a year?

Scott Benner 1:11:02
Yeah, that was the crux of the joke. There was more setup. The joke was in the setup. I don't really need to explain it all to you, but nevertheless, it was, I think, the greatest Christmas card ever, yeah, and although one year, I did take a classic manger scene and painstakingly photoshopped the faces of my family into the manger scene and sent it out, and it was a beautiful image, like, really, like a gorgeous, rich, lush image, and never told anybody that our faces were in it, right? And so some people noticed, and some people didn't, and it was absolutely fantastic. But my son was the, oh no, our dog was one of the, I don't know, burrows in the or something. There was an animal in the image, and one of them was our dog, and his face was on the animal. I think Arden was like the baby G it was the whole thing. But I really enjoyed the hell out of it. Some people, you're creative outlet. Some people were offended. I just want to say, all right, you're really awesome. I appreciate you doing this. Oh, thank you. I don't know what to call this episode. We didn't even make a name. Yeah, at one point I said, it's a million dollar question. I wondered how much that was in loonies. And then I thought maybe we could call it the whatever loonies question, or we

Natalie 1:12:20
could call it like Did my daughter almost Mary Bon Jovi son, I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:12:24
It gets very wordy. Yeah, Natalie, we can't do it. But hold on a second. How many loonies in 1 million US dollars? Let's see if this maybe it'll be

Natalie 1:12:38
not enough. And let me tell you I was like I said, just in Greece, and our Canadian money compared to the euro is terrible.

Scott Benner 1:12:47
But I could call this episode, apparently, the 1.390 Looney dollar question. You could here's where we do this. Natalie, watch this. This is what would usually happen after we pause the show and I say goodbye to you. But instead, I'll do it before I say goodbye. Okay, watch this. Hey, Rob. We cursed a number of times this. I said for sure. I said a couple of. I might have said bull. You'll decide if it flows or not. And I can't find a title for this one, so if you hear it, can you please pull it out and put it in the notes for me. That's what I would just said after I got done recording so Rob could hear it. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Natalie. Hold on one second for me. Okay.

This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five and at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free What'd I just say a free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com the converse. Conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us. Med, us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, a huge thanks to cozy Earth for sponsoring this episode, don't forget, Black Friday has come early at cozy earth.com right now you can stack my code Juicebox on top of their site wide sale. This is going to give you up to 40% off in savings. And these deals are definitely not going to last. I'm talking about sheets, towels, clothing, everything they have. Get that holiday shopping going right now today. Do it. Do it. Do it cozy earth.com. Use the offer code Juicebox. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really. Help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group Juicebox podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one, type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook. I created the diabetes variables series because I know that in type one diabetes management, the little things aren't that little, and they really add up. In this series, we'll break down everyday factors like stress, sleep, exercise and those other variables that impact your day more than you might think. Jenny Smith and I are going to get straight to the point with practical advice that you can trust. So check out the diabetes variable series in your podcast player or at Juicebox podcast.com the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way, recording, wrong way, recording.com

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#1683 T1D to 100

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

61-year type 1 veteran Joanne Milo about aging with T1D, staying prepared, navigating independence, and building a safer, smarter future for older adults with diabetes.

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

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

Hey everybody. Today on the podcast, I'm speaking with Joanne Milo. She is a 71 year old person with type one diabetes who has just launched a fantastic website for people who are older and living with type one it's called T, 1d to one hundred.com I want you to check it out right now. Whether you're older or younger, it doesn't matter. This website is about being prepared. T, 1d to one hundred.com go check it out. My grand rounds series was designed by listeners to tell doctors what they need, and it also helps you to understand what to ask for. There's a mental wellness series that addresses the emotional side of diabetes and practical ways to stay balanced. And when we talk about GLP medications, well we'll break down what they are, how they may help you, and if they fit into your diabetes management plan. What do these three things have in common? They're all available at Juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu. I know it can be hard to find these things in a podcast app, so we've collected them all for you at Juicebox podcast.com, nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about missed boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses, learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate and waiting for you at contour next.com/juicebox

Joanne Milo 2:10
Hi there. I'm Joanne Milo. I have had type one diabetes for almost 61 years, and it's quite long enough. And I am currently the founder of T 1d to 100 which is a brand new website. It's an informational website to address the issues of T 1d and aging. I was diagnosed in 1965 I was told that I wouldn't live past age 40. I am now 71 I seem to be still alive. And what it has occurred to me is things are different as we age, different for everyone. Everyone's on a journey, but to do it with type one diabetes is quite the challenge. And nobody saw us coming, nobody planned for us. Nobody knows what we need.

Scott Benner 2:58
Oh, joy. You know, I hadn't thought of it that way. So diagnosed at 65 How old were you at the time? I was 11 years old. 11 years old. They're giving you the whole you're not going to live that long. Thing. There was a person on here one time. I've had a couple of stories from older people that some of them really stick to me. Though, one woman was at college, and she was advised to go home, to drop out, because she wouldn't need the education, and no man was going to want her. They said those words to her, right? And I've had other people tell similar stories that are shocking, but it wasn't until the way you just said it that I put it together. Maybe we don't have a plan today for people like you, because they weren't planning for people like you. They didn't think you were going to live this long?

Joanne Milo 3:41
Absolutely, when I first started looking at it, was about 2017 and I talked to Bill Polonsky and Paul Madden, and I said, I'm concerned. Can we talk about this? And Bill said, What's your problem? You get to live longer? I said, No, no, that's wonderful. We're thrilled. We have the technology, but no one saw us coming in. Our needs are different, and there's some very scary stories out here about hospital care, about long term care, about aging, and the things that happen more commonly in T Wendy. And there's been very little research. It's just beginning. Yeah. So I thought we need to know, we just need to know how to do this.

Scott Benner 4:25
I think maybe just on a human level too, like after you've fought for so long to live well, like to think that you could get to a moment where, metaphysically, like tripping is your problem, like this tiniest little thing shouldn't take you out, especially after fighting for so long to stay alive and to be healthy and everything like that. So when you realized nobody was going to be helping or educating you or even thinking about the problems you might have, where does your brain start? That ends with this website.

Joanne Milo 4:51
I gathered a bunch of people in my dining room table, and we sat around about 10 of us saying, what are we scared of? What are our concerns that are specific to us? Took copious notes, and we met several times to kind of identify buckets of what the problems were. There very specific problems, and what were the solutions? I really don't like to look at problems and just leave it there. It does me no good. And what can we do? Because obviously it's up to us, since we're the ones living it,

Scott Benner 5:25
you gave me chills when you said that you put people together at a dining room table, because about two years ago, I started realizing that the people in the Facebook group were so like, there were so many of them that eventually start hearing the same things over and again, and where some people get frustrated with that. I said, No, this must be the core problems. Like, right? These are the core problems. So I started recording them, and then once I had a pretty reasonable list, I put the list back out to the people, and I said, just tell me all of your struggles. And I've been doing that for two years, and we finally just kind of collated it together. And now what my idea was is that now that I have a list of their struggles, and we have 10 years worth of conversations about diabetes, I already know the answers are in the conversations, right? So I know what people's problems are going to be before they have them, if we could educate them ahead of time, then when these things pop up, they might not seem like problems. They might, and you're doing the very same thing, and it made me feel good, because I think you know what you're doing, or it made me feel like I might have done the right honestly, that's how, that's why I got chills. I thought, oh, gosh, maybe I actually did the right thing. What did you learn? What are people struggles at your age?

Joanne Milo 6:36
Yeah, I'm married to an engineer, and he's taught me technologies and ways of thinking of problem solving. He's a problem solver. And so I made the list, and then I it's a mind map. You put all the little pieces out, and then you start to see what's common to it, and then you put it kind of in a chart, and you start to see, is there a form to this? And are there some major topics, which is what we've tried to do on the website, is, what are the topics? Make them places you can go and get information right? And they they tend to be things like, how do I prepare? How do I be a prepared human being? Because it's what they say in my Pilates class, you do this not because you might fall, but when you fall, it's preparing, because, quite honestly, we're in the fourth quarter. I'm not a sports fan, but I know what the fourth quarter is, and life's journey takes us there. Everybody's there. But if you have type one diabetes, it's it's more complicated, and everything that goes wrong is a little more challenging. How do you have a go bag? How do you keep your medical information together? How do you identify your advocates, who's going to be there, and your medical team? How do you prepare for surgeries? Because there's a likelihood you'll have surgeries you fall break a hip. It's stuff you don't plan on, but you can plan Yeah, so we have a whole section on preparedness, and we have cheat sheets, we have lists, and you can print them and customize them and help yourself build. Someone just sent me a message saying so this weekend, I went to Walmart, bought a backpack, and I've made my go pack, and it just made my heart sing, because I thought she gets it. She understands. She is prepared. I feel better. The other thing is, where we live? Can we stay in our own home? Do we need to be in a retirement community? What are the options. I'm learning that lots of these places charge X for if you have type one diabetes, if they take you at all, and then when you get into long term care and nursing homes, it's terribly scary. They have laws and rules and protocols. And what I heard very often is if you have low blood sugar in the middle of the night, they call 911, they don't give you juice because the person on the night duty is licensed. Just give me some orange juice. Give me what I need. And I thought, we need to figure out where these places are. How do we impact their ability to take care of us, yeah, what are the laws that we need to do? How do we be prepared if we want to do that, it can happen. Suddenly, I was talking to a lady. We just connected through somebody, and she was fine, and we just wanted to chit chat. And the next day, I got a text saying, husband had stroke, can't talk now, I said, Okay. And then a couple of days later, I reached out and said, How are we doing? And she said, he passed away. And that completely grabbed me. I thought it could happen just that fast, your partner, your advocate, your life partner gone, yeah, and I watched her, she, I mean. Immediately moved out of her home, moved into a retirement community. Had to figure out passwords on the computer because her husband did all the banking, and it was very, very sober, and we did an interview with her, and I thought this is what we need to prepare for. We need to understand what could happen so that it's not that it'll be shocking, but we see a path, yeah,

Scott Benner 10:25
is that the first step then, is to give them the information and hope that they take the time to absorb it and try to be prepared

Joanne Milo 10:32
Absolutely it's it's knowledge is power. And I don't like to get surprised. I just, I kind of want to know what can happen, and I don't want to obsess about it, but I want to kind of have a plan. We all know we're going to decline, and unless it's sudden, it's a process that you'll be very conscious of. Yeah, so why not at least have a knowledge your body is going to change as you age. It does for everyone. But if you have type one diabetes, your hypoglycemias are different. The way your liver acts is different. Your bone density changes, your dexterity, your mobility, your ability to drive you know, what are you going to do?

Scott Benner 11:16
Even I hear like the simplest things like eyesight, being able to see your your devices being dexterous enough to use them can be an issue. How to put them on. Yeah, I've just, I've heard so many different stories. I did a thing last summer where 100 listeners came with me, and we went on a cruise together, and I didn't know how it was going to go. Joanne, like, when I first, like, put it out there, I was like, I wonder how this is going to be. And it ended up being, I think, the oldest person there was in their mid 70s, and the youngest person there was, like, five, and everywhere in between. People had type one. It was really interesting to watch them all just interact with each other. And we did this mental health seminar with Erica Forsyth, who's a therapist who has type one, who comes to my podcast a lot, and she she was there, and everybody just it got it was interesting. It was a mixed room. And once it got moving, and people started sharing what they were, like, concerned about or had trouble with, or anything turned into, like a it felt like a group therapy session. And then suddenly a woman in her 70s said, you know, puts her hand up, and she's like, I'm all alone. Nobody can follow me. I don't have family that's nearby. And then everyone in the room was like, I'll follow your CGM, you know, like, and just like that, you could see her like, you know, she felt better a little bit, but I realized, like, there's a concern. It's different when you're older, right? Like, if you're 25 or 35 or 45 and you live by yourself, it's one thing, right? But there's a tipping point where you almost you're not sure if you can help yourself, right? And it gets scarier, I would imagine at the same time, contour next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour. Next Gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top, you can click right on blood glucose monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters, click on any of the meters. I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels. And of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips. As if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon. Oh, receive a free contour next gen blood glucose meter. Do tell contour next.com/juicebox head over there. Now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The mini med 780 G automated insulin delivery system anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to an 80% time and range with recommended settings without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for, and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep. They felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts you can't beat that learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by. Visiting Medtronic, diabetes.com/juicebox,

Joanne Milo 15:03
yeah, the technology is amazing, and it has given us longer life, but you miss a step, or you get distracted by your grandchildren, and you get a little rattled, and who do you call? I have this expectation that my husband will outlive me, and he'll be there for me. And I've told him, if he dies first, I'll dig him up and kill him. He has to be there for me, but it's no guarantee. And if that happens, what next? Who right? And what's interesting is, in my demographic, a lot of women were told not to have children. Pregnancy was very, very difficult without the technology we have today. And one of my friends my age, at her wedding her her mom said to her new husband, if you get her pregnant, so help me, God, I'll kill you. And it was that fear of you get pregnant, you will have complications, you will die. So a lot of us don't have kids, which is the assumption is that who will maybe take care of you? It's an interesting demographic. And the question comes to me, people call, what am I going to do? How am I going to get diabetes? Somebody that can help. And we are in a shortage of endos. We're in a shortage of healthcare providers and educators, and they're a little bit slow to pick up on this is a fast growing demographic where there are more adult T Wendy's and children, and it's a little bit of a fight to get attention, because we're not as cute as 10 year olds.

Scott Benner 16:43
Well, I mean that even aside like taking your demographic out of the picture, I've been making this thing for over a decade now, I don't see that anybody's quick to move and get something right and get something fixed to begin with. So when you're in your 70s or 80s and this is your problem, you don't have time for the machine to figure it out and to put a plan in place and etc, and so on. Like, so, I mean, it's hard enough to figure out Medicare. Like, I'm supposed to figure the rest of this out as well. You know, we don't talk about it. Maybe it seems distasteful, but like, should get older too. I would imagine that thinking your way through complicated things is probably becomes more difficult at some point you're more challenged to begin with, and then what do you have higher blood sugars? There's a whole generation of people who are probably told better high than low, right? They might be walking around with a measure of brain fog to begin with. I've interviewed older an older gentleman once who said that even though he got his blood sugars back down and in range, eventually, the brain fog never went away. He's foggy all the time, the way he describes it. You

Joanne Milo 17:45
know, there's a significant incidence of mental decline in t1 DS. It's significant. Their research papers out, and some of it has to do the inflammatory system. I just attended a workshop in in Boston, and there's some discussion of reducing control, lightening up on control. You don't have to have a tighter time and range, because lows are more dangerous. It's harder to come out of hypoglycemia. Things work differently, and so you don't do that. Don't walk with your bifocals on. You're gonna trip. It's there are things that, if you hear it, then you go, Oh, yeah, okay, maybe I can be a little bit safer. When they first said, we're gonna treat a little less stringently, I thought, don't take that away from me. That's, that's what I do. I have tight control, and it makes a lot of sense. Hypoglycemias are dangerous for us, and fall risk is dangerous so and there's beginning to be research, there's beginning to be funding and and the the researchers I met have such a passion to help this community. A lot of it is money based. It's systems that are in place, that need to learn, to change, and that's a slow process, and we don't have the time. As you said, Yeah, you're

Scott Benner 19:08
solving for a different problem. Like when you were 20 and 30 and 40, you're solving for health and longevity. And when you're 75 and 85 you're solving for, I don't want to die today, right? Because I am going to so hard to talk about, but I am going to die sooner than later. Like, what's the average? Right? Is it 83 for women, something like that? Like, something, yeah, so when you're in the last five years of your life, like, my bigger problem right is not falling over today and going, I'm trying to make it the last five years, and a slightly higher blood sugar is probably not going to be the difference between five years and and 10 years. So it's

Joanne Milo 19:44
a hard thing to give up. We were taught the Word control. That was the first word I heard when I was 11. Yeah, and it's been there, and now that we have the technology, we can get tighter and tighter control. At one point, my endo said, Joanne, what's your point? I was like, it's like, well, because I can and I'm supposed to, and I now start to talk to people in our community, and there's a gentleman, he's had a stroke. And I said, could you just lighten up a little bit? Just you don't need an A 1c of 5.2 you don't. And he said, Yes, I do. Well,

Scott Benner 20:19
do you think that it's partially a very human thing of like being told, like it's easy to philosophize that other people won't live that long, but it's hard to think that about yourself, I would imagine, right? Very her, yeah. And you're given away. Who, like this gentleman's example, he's been working very hard his whole life to keep his ANC in the fives. Now, suddenly that's not who I am anymore. People don't shift that easily, yeah? So you almost become your own worst enemy at some point by trying to do, try to do a good job for yourself. Not interesting?

Joanne Milo 20:48
Yeah, yeah. And then the other topic that I'm still trying to get a handle on is coping, resilience. My husband and I liken aging to being in heavy surf with a lot of lumber in it, and you get your footing, and you're standing, and then the wave comes, and then there's a piece of lumber that knocks you over, and you have to get back up, and you have to get up, back up, mentally and emotionally to feel I can take it on again. And diabetes is non stop. It's, it's the definition of 24/7, that you don't understand unless you live it. It's, it's constant. And as you age, you keep losing you lose friends, you lose the ability to drive. You lose your vision may be a little acuity is a little less. You don't hear as well. That's a huge issue. And what that means is, you don't hear your alarms. You don't hear what's around you, and so it becomes a bit more dangerous, right? And it doesn't matter, it still

Scott Benner 21:53
keeps going. Yeah, well, that, I mean, I'm listen, I'm in my mid 50s, and, oh, you're a youngster. Contextually, for me, I don't feel so much like that. But what I've noticed mostly about getting older so far is that the you know, when you're young, like, when you're young, young, you're like, Well, I'm gonna try to get some girl to be interested in me. And then once you figure that out, you're like, well, we'll have some kids. I'll keep these kids alive, right? Like, I'll teach them how to play baseball, and I'll keep them warm, and there's and then they go to college. Like, I can get that done. Then they leave and you're like, what is it I'm supposed to be doing? Exactly what am I getting up every day to accomplish? And as you it's funny, almost, the better positioning you put yourself in in life, the fewer things you have to do. As you get older, and then you start thinking, like, what am I doing? I've had it happen to me with the podcast. The podcast is so successful at this point, like I could just make it on autopilot if I wanted to. But then it gets boring and wandering for me. Then right? And then I'm like, oh god, that's what's happening to life too. Like, I don't have enough to do. And so if you're using your diabetes as your thing to do, and then someone comes along and says to you, ah, let it be six and a half. You'll be all right, I don't know what you're supposed to do there. It's problematic, and who's going to help you. I mean, join. I've interviewed 1000s of people who at every age, 10, 515, 30, they're having a hard time finding a doctor or a professional person to help them with things that are far less complicated than

Joanne Milo 23:17
this. Absolutely and the overwhelmingness continues. It gets a bit much, and yet you can't put it down, because that's that's been your purpose forever. What we say is stay connected. The big talk this day is about Super agers. What is the common thing super agers? And it's they stay connected socially. That is the biggest thing. You keep moving and you connect. And so we have, we have scripts on how to start your own support group, how to moderate a support group, how to keep, you know, keep it going. How do you connect into the community and stay active? It's, it's what gives you a sense of safety and a

Scott Benner 24:03
network. Yeah, it's awesome. I've almost been embarrassed at this point, but when I started that Facebook group, I just did it because people asked me to do it, I didn't really recognize the I understood, like, intellectually, the value of community, but until I watched it happen in front of me over and over again, I didn't really, really understand it. And it's just, I think it could possibly be half of all this is just connection and not feeling alone like that, that sort of thing, feeling like there's someone out there who understands that you could connect with if you needed to. I just watched somebody online have a devastating moment where their friend basically told them, it's enough. I don't want to hear about your diabetes anymore. Diabetes anymore, right? Like, so now that's a person in their 30s or 40s who's got a lifelong friend, and they thought, well, here's one place I can go and talk about this. And the friend was like, No mas, it's enough. You know, stop. And then they said, they told this person, our friendship has run its course. She. Older, and I was so devastated when I saw that, like, I just like, Oh God, I'm so glad this is here that she came here and shared this here, and people jumped right in and had her back right away. Anyway, I've never been prouder to have a community than in moments like that. You know, I've

Joanne Milo 25:15
had that happen, and during covid, I got very active in the open source community. They were very active, and I saw some friends back away thinking she's talking about diabetes a lot. I don't want to. I don't need to, and that's fine. I was doing a purpose that I felt was important and and this is another one that's important, someone brought up early on around the dining room table when I said, What's your concern? She said, physical geography. I don't know what that means. I really had no sense of it. She said, I've been sticking needles in my body for years and years and years, and my skin is getting tired. And I thought, huh, that makes some sense, and the more I studied it, Dr Earl Hirsch, at University of Washington has done a lot of work on skin. And as we get older, our skin gets thinner, our fat layer gets less, and we're still sticking stuff in there, and we need to. That's our portal to our health. It's one of the very few diseases where you have open access to inside of you with your infusion sets and your needles, and the skin takes a beating. And so we've put together a document on what things work to keep your skin a little bit better, and how do you get your devices to hold better? Try this, try that, and it's a put together by the community. It's how we figure might help

Scott Benner 26:44
ourselves. Yeah, it's awesome. I am on your website. I've been since we started. Is it six parts, or is that just the initial is there more to it than it like, how do you have it broken out? I guess the information

Joanne Milo 26:55
I have it broken out, kind of like categories. It's you know how to be prepared. Where are you going to live? How are you going to cope? What happens to your body? What are the changes that happen? And what's the research? Part of my effort is not only get information out, but connect to the research community, which I've been doing, and they want to talk to us, because we're who they're studying. And so we can help direct them, and then when they can prove or validate what we're saying, we can help healthcare providers understand us better. They do not have a clue what to do with us. We take a lot of time. We are complicated. We don't always give the right information, it becomes overwhelming, and we're not that great as we get older to just represent ourselves, and the healthcare provider has 15 minutes to help us. So how do we make that easier? How do we help them understand us and not want to back away at the speed of light, because we need them and but we need the time as well.

Scott Benner 28:03
Do you think that the the information that you've put together would do well to be handed off the doctors too? Do you think it could, it could act as a an educational tool for them?

Joanne Milo 28:13
Absolutely, that's my hope. But they need validation, and that's where the researchers come in. They have to know that it's it's been studied and it's important. They don't listen to us say it's important, but the researchers can validate it with statistics and then push it through standards of care, and then they listen. So that's fine the process.

Scott Benner 28:37
I put a an entire series together a couple of years ago, did something where I went. I went to the community, and I was like, tell me all the things that at diagnosis you heard that was valuable, and tell me all the things that happened to you that was detrimental. And we kind of broke out honestly. We got back between like 80 and 90 pages of returns from people like long stories and everything. We broke it all down and turned it into a series called it Grand Rounds, right? Like so we basically turned it into like a how to it reads both ways when you listen to it, if you're a doctor, it should be a little bit of, don't do this, please do that. And if you're a patient, it reads like this is what you should expect. And if this is happening, maybe you should speak up, right? Like that was the I got endos to come on, who had type one after, after we did the the first initial bit, who supported all the stuff, and I put it out there. And in my heart, I was like, doctors are gonna listen to this? And I thought, then, you know, two years later, you realize, like, no, they're not. So it still helps the people listening, because they know what to expect. But it is hard to realize that even once you pull together the information and you validate it through people who have lived experiences, it's not as easy as just like, sending it off a one sheet to somebody and saying, like, here, look, I'm 75 years old. I have type one diabetes, and this is really important. You should make sure you're you're helping me with this. It's tough to realize that even if the researcher. Pick up on what you're saying and do the research that you might be showing you might be working hard today to help people who are 50 years old right now, right not maybe necessarily yourself or your people

Joanne Milo 30:14
joining who have little kids, they say, I want to know what the future is, and a lot of it is just being aware of it during covid. I asked my local hospital, can I have a paper wristband when I'm anyone's any one of us in the hospital? It says type one diabetes, like allergic to penicillin or fall risk, and I was told it would take five years to get through compliance a paper tag. So I printed them myself. I got 500 for $75 I give them to anybody. And I last time I was in the hospital about four months ago for surgery, I put it in pre op, and they said, You don't, you don't need that. And I said, Well, yeah, I actually do. It would make me feel better. And then they went through their pre op questions. They said, so you have type one diabetes? I said, Yes. They said, so do you need insulin? And I thought, they don't get it. No, they don't. And we have constantly educating so that we're safe, and so it's, it's little things, and it's, how do we be aware of it? And we can help ourselves until the systems maybe catch up. Maybe,

Scott Benner 31:20
yeah. I somebody recently, when I was interviewing them, said they said it more harshly than I've ever thought of it. But they basically said, like, in a world where people are asking me if my kid can eat a cupcake, or did I do this to my child, like, why am I expecting them to understand bigger ideas and be and to be able to implement them? I just saw a guy online the other day, got thrown in jail for a couple of weeks. They took him off his insulin, put him on Metformin, and he didn't. They didn't give him insulin for a week. He had diabetes. They said, You don't need this. Here's Metformin. He had to keep making phone calls and get somebody on the phone to advocate for him. That's even more difficult. But you could say, well, that's jail. I don't think it's any different. Honestly, I can't count the number of nurses and doctors who have come on here who said, like, look, but the extent of my education about type one diabetes is that it exists. There's type one and there's type two, and that's it. And they

Joanne Milo 32:10
probably don't know the difference. Yeah, I'll tell you something sober in which I didn't pay attention to is, and it's not a happy topic. It's end of life. How do you handle end of life. And there is a thinking that you withhold insulin that is about the worst death. It puts people into keto acidosis. It's a terrible way to go. So we have a document saying specify that you do not want insulin withheld. Why would you need to do that? Yeah, but you do. And so it's, I don't want that problem. And, yeah, I didn't

Scott Benner 32:44
realize that. That's horrifying, honestly. So because I'm thinking of the end of my mom's life, you're telling me that, like, if she had type one diabetes in those last few days, they would have just discontinued her insulin on top of everything else.

Joanne Milo 32:58
Yes, well, the thinking is, it'll accelerate. It doesn't accelerate, and it makes it miserable. Why would? Why would you do it? But apparently, there that was the thinking.

Scott Benner 33:09
Yeah, thinking about it. Just hold your hand over my mouth, for God's sakes, like, don't do that. That would be more humane, to be perfectly honest. So oh and that. But to your point, there's another thing you didn't realize you needed to be thinking about, no idea. Yeah, none. How would you and then by the time you get to that point, you know, I mean, imagine if that happens to you when you're 89 that's not on the top of your list to figure it out. It's just gonna, it's just gonna end up happening to you then.

Joanne Milo 33:33
And you don't have that level of control necessarily. You don't things that happen, and we don't know, they didn't know what. They didn't think we'd be

Scott Benner 33:41
here? Yeah, no, really, this is like a 504 plan for people in their 70s,

Joanne Milo 33:48
602 to get into the to assisted living. And it's a plan you make with your doctor, and we're talking about it. How do you prepare that so that you get what you need? You get, you're in a facility, you know she needs something, you get it for her. And how is that done? Are you

Scott Benner 34:05
going to find that people maybe, are going to maybe learn what they need and then voice it and then have the institution tell them, Well, if this is what you're demanding, we can't do it like because there's no, like, legal reason that they'd have to comply with your wishes, is there

Joanne Milo 34:21
no and then in a lot of things, you're going to have to change in the systems that exist right now. And a lot of it boils down to money and liability and enough care providers in a facility. They have to have some I think every hospital should have at least access to a T 1d specialist. So if you end up in the hospital, they have somebody to talk to to get information. There's such little information. I live in a metropolitan area, it's scary, and they should know better. And I think in other areas, they don't have that access. It's a

Scott Benner 34:57
little disturbing to me, like, you know, you. Go to all this trouble to put this information together, and now you're going to be met with a group of people who don't understand it. But your idea there about having one person who understands it, maybe that's more reasonable, at least, like we're never going to train everybody, but could we have one person who understands and then they could go to that person, and that person could end up being the thinking part of the machine, and then you could just go do what they tell you to do. That seems reasonable.

Joanne Milo 35:23
Some of the more advanced hospitals have a team. They actually have a team. I took a friend into the hospital, she had sepsis, and all of a sudden these two big people showed up with backpacks and said, Who are you? And they said, We're the sepsis team. Cool. And they said, we take over. We handle all the the specialists. We are in control. I want one of those team Well, thank God.

Scott Benner 35:49
Something's happening that makes sense. That really does make because, you know, it's not lost to me when people come on and they complain about, you know, any number of things that in a, in a, in a just society, would just happen. I think I'm always the one who's like, you know, listen, I know that sounds right, and it does sound right, but how's that actually going to happen? Like, who's going to pay for that? Who's going to facilitate it, who even knows enough about it to get it set up? You're expecting 1000 employees to get trained on something. I was like, you know, as soon as they hear about that. There's going to be 5 million other people who want to be who want them trained on something else, and they are just people. They're capped on how much they can understand and what they can take in. But yeah, if there's a team that just got just a response team for that great

Joanne Milo 36:33
idea, yeah, and I don't want to be all negative, we also have things for if you're going to be traveling, how do you pack for traveling? You know? What are some things you need to know about air travel and people in their 60s and 70s, as seniors are retired, and they have time to travel. But it's quite a thing to pack. It's quite a thing to have all your devices. It's quite a thing to understand what you need to know as you travel. It's not all negative, it's all useful information. Can

Scott Benner 37:04
I ask you a question? Sure. So, I mean, I don't know what you did for Olivia. You're retired now, but what did you do when you were working?

Joanne Milo 37:10
I had a lot of careers, but I was in technology for a while. I worked for a company that was early into AI, devices, machines. I was marketing, marketing support. So the

Scott Benner 37:22
reason I'm saying it is because you're a thoughtful, I feels well educated person who's thinking about their future, and I'm sitting here wondering about all the people who aren't on your level and are still going to have these problems. How do you find those people and service them well? And do you think your information translates to those people. Or do you think that this is sometimes people say about me? Mo, your podcast is for you know, white ladies in their 30s and 40s who have time to worry about these things, and I it's been said directly to me, and I'm like, Well, I can only, I can only put out the information the way I know how to put it out. But it is always in the back of my head that I'm not reaching everybody that needs it, and yes, is there a way that I could reach them? Or is that on is that? Is that a problem for someone else who maybe understands their their troubles differently? So what do you think? Do you think that your stuff translates, or do you think that they need to

Joanne Milo 38:16
translate through a lot of ways? One, one is directly. They read it, they think of they think about it and think, Oh, yes, I need to know this. We have educators who are joining the group so that they can help their patients. That's a wonderful way, because they can take it to the level of the patient and educate them. Endos in their entire practice should know this stuff so they can help their patients, support groups. Someone will know something and share it with others so it it'll infiltrate in a lot of different ways, some directly, some true people.

Scott Benner 38:51
Yeah. Where did you get that from? Because that's not a thought process out of your generation, and it's not a thought process from an engineer's wife either. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it feels like you're like, you're almost gonna like this, like, yeah, man, they don't find them. I believe that, by the way, I think that's really the only way to make it work. Like, if you make plans and lists and rules that generally doesn't reach people like you really do need it to be out in the ether. You need to help somebody so that they feel positively enough about it that they'd share it with someone else. That really is how that stuff blends. But why do you know that what has happened in your life, that you're that you sound like a hippie when you're talking about this? Are you a hippie?

Joanne Milo 39:28
Maybe I was of that age, absolutely, when I was diagnosed. It's pretty horrifying to me, because I was, I was an introvert, and my parents talk to everyone I was I would die of embarrassment. They would just tell everybody, and they were like, how is this topic? And they would just be talking to people. So I watched that, but what I have seen over the years is people comment, or they make comments to me and what they're struggling with, and I go, that hurts. I feel, I feel the stress that they feel. I'm some sort of Empath, and I feel it. And I think, well, how can that be better for them? Because it's stressful. I tell everyone this disease, I consider it to be an impossible disease. You can't be perfect. You you can't get it right all the time, even if you get it right, devices don't get it right, it just isn't doable. So how do you keep coping with it and being okay with that? It's I feel the pain, I feel the discomfort. I know it, I live it. So it's just it comes it. We need

Scott Benner 40:38
help. That's a very thoughtful way of thinking about the spread of information, what I think it probably sounds like it's blowing in the wind, and hopefully it'll work to a lot of people, but I've been at this a long time. That is really the only way it works, right? It's just you have to put it out there and let people absorb it and pass it around. It really, I mean, it's like a unit.

Joanne Milo 40:59
Scott, I've been talking about go bags since before covid, and a few people in my community. And how are we getting people to do this? Actually, it's so important. It's not because you'll end up in the hospital. They can knock on your door at night and say, there's a gas leak in the neighborhood, get out, and if you don't have a go bag right there at the door ready to go. You're outside your house for hours and hours without your technology. It's not that complicated to understand that, but to do it seems to be a tough step. Yeah, and you know, it's repetition. It's like, why is it someone may donk on your door and say, I have tickets to go to Paris. Leave now. Okay, I guess I can do that. I can go,

Scott Benner 41:47
yeah, just let me take the insulin from the refrigerator, and we're on our way. That's exactly right. We have a small bag, and it's not just for emergencies. It's, you know, sometimes Arden leaves on a Friday and she's like, I'm gonna go to a friend's and we're gonna do this and that. And I go, Are you going to come home? And she just goes, maybe not. And then she grabs that bag and she leaves, right? And it sits in her car. And maybe sometimes the bag goes from the kitchen to the car and from the car back to the kitchen, and nobody opens it. They don't know from what's in it or not, but it doesn't matter. But it's there, right? And it's there. And then that alleviates another thing to be concerned about all the time. I do think that preparation can really lighten your load. So, you know, I think this is great.

Joanne Milo 42:30
I'm beginning to focus on a mini go bag, a little thing that you take with you as you leave the house to go to a doctor's appointment, because we all know doctors can be two hours late and you're sitting there and what if your insulin pump fails? Yep, and you're sitting there for two hours watching your blood sugar rise. If you had this little, little bag, did you just grab with you? And I've heard so many stories. Yeah, we had to go help a friend. We drove two hours, and we realized we didn't have anything and everything failed.

Scott Benner 43:01
Yes, there's a distance from my house or a time of the thing we're doing, and I say you have to bring stuff with you there. Like, I don't want the day to be ruined because you have to leave and drive 45 minutes back to do something. Like, it's not going to kill you, right? But sometimes it happens in the middle of a movie, right? And you're like, still 90 minutes left in this movie, and I don't have insulin. Happen anymore, and I just had popcorn and and do and, you know, after one time having to stand my whole family up and leave, I thought, we don't go to the movies anymore without insulin and a change of supplies. This very morning, I watched Arden, kind of like, I don't know, she does this like thing where she marches around before she goes to school and grabs all the stuff she needs. You can see her going through checklists. In her head, and I watched her stop and pick some stuff up, and then she kind of held it with one arm and then rubbed her hip. And I was like, what was that? And I was making my breakfast, and then she did it again, and I said, Hey, is your hip okay? And she goes, Yeah, it's fine, but that's all she said to me. But then I watched her kind of pull her tights aside and look. And I was like, she's looking at her CGM. That thing hurts for some reason. And I just walked over to her with a box with a g7 I was like, just take it with you. Like, don't even take the whole bag with you. Just take this with you, just in case, and in the past. Like, I love that she's getting older because she just said, okay, and took it two years ago, five years I don't need that. This is a thing. Blah, it's going to be fine, like she's finally been around it long enough, or she knows, like it's better if I just take the damn box with me in case something happens. But I'm even thinking about people in that that world, like you're trying to talk them into putting a bag together, or to be prepared for something, and they think it's not going to happen to me. I've used this example over and over again. My father smoked sometimes three packs of cigarettes a day. I'm healthy. It's no problem. I'm okay. Doctor says I'm good. What kills him? Congestive heart failure. It's not going to happen to me. We all watch the 100 year old lady on the news and think it's going to be us. And the truth is, and now I've seen some. I've seen some actual studies about it, because this fascinates me so much, that lady is going to live to 100 no matter what happens to her. She's some sort of a genetic anomaly, right? But all of us look at her and go, I'll probably make it that.

Joanne Milo 45:14
I don't need to be prepared. I just I don't want to have bad days. I want to have happy, easy days. I want everyone to have less stress, and what it takes to do that is little, and it's just acceptance

Scott Benner 45:32
of it. It's so interesting to see a person like yourself trying to help the population that you're talking about right now, basically saying the same thing that I find myself saying to people, like, small amounts of effort save huge amounts of times and huge huge problems later. Like, just do this little thing right now, and you won't be fighting with a 250 budget or for the next four hours. That's it all the time. I'm like, it takes less effort to do it right than it does to clean up the mess afterwards. Yep. So I'm looking at your website here. I'll put it in another place, but t1, d2, one hundred.com. So it's t, the number 1d, T, o1, zero, zero.com. Yes, awesome. Like websites very easy to see and navigate. And by the way, I love this. I know I'm old because I saw the toggle to make the font size bigger, and I thought, oh, that's brilliant.

Joanne Milo 46:26
I'm working with a young lady on social media, and when she makes a post, she has chunky font, and it's really stylish. I said, people can't read this. My demographic has trouble with it. She goes, Really, it's an awareness,

Scott Benner 46:41
yeah, yeah. Wait till she gets to the point where you're unapologetically. You're telling people you're holding that phone too close to me. I can't say it. Hold it out over here so I can get a better look exactly. Are you prepared? Where will you live? How will your body change? How are you coping? Be a T, 1d aging advocate. What's happening? These are six links right down on the front page. There's a newsletter here you can subscribe to and it looks like you've been doing some seminars and and

Joanne Milo 47:07
we have a kickoff seminar webinar on Thursday with probably the most significant researcher who's been doing this for 20 years. She's extraordinary. She's at Harvard, Joslin, and she's going to talk about the latest research. She is so connected, so passionate, no connection to T 1d but she's a gerontologist, endocrinologist, researcher, and it should be

Scott Benner 47:33
extraordinary good. I'm glad I don't know I want to check to make sure that I haven't left anything out, or there's nothing that you want to say that we haven't. But before I ask you that question, I just have to tell you. Have to tell you, you are awesome. You have an infectious way about you. I've seen you like a bulldog the entire time I've been in this space, like fighting for people. It makes me proud that, like I feel like in some little way, like I think I'm doing the thing you're doing, and I think you're a really great example of it. So I can't thank you enough for continuing thank

Speaker 1 48:02
you for connecting me on all the issues I've come to you with over the years. Please. Can we talk about this? Scott and you do so thank you so much.

Scott Benner 48:11
I mean, I think it's easy to see who's really out there swinging hands and trying to do things I don't see you. I never see you trying to make money off of this. You're not trying to be an influencer. You're not, like, you know, you're not running a coaching service. Like, it's funny, because you're one of the only people that when you reach out and say, I'd like to post about something, or I want to do this, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I don't question. Thank you. I don't even need to know what it is, honestly, if you want to do it, I think it's probably valuable for people with diabetes. So thank you. Bravo. Really lovely. The way you go. Is there anything that we did miss, or anything that we should have said that we didn't

Joanne Milo 48:44
know you've got it. But if anyone has questions, reach out. I'm here, and I'm developing a team that can respond and create more content and stories and information we need. We

Scott Benner 48:58
actually need? Yeah, yeah. This has its own Facebook group,

Joanne Milo 49:02
has a Facebook and Instagram, and we're on LinkedIn, okay, yeah, we're out there slowly growing and actually, not slowly, faster than I thought. And I put out a post over yesterday asking people one word, I just want one word of your fears or concerns, just one word, because a researcher has come to me and said, We're going to talk about this, and I am now one of the top posters in one group, because there are so many responses, yeah, and they're giving me one word and or one phrase. And there are people that say, I have no worries. I have no fears. That's great too. Yeah, yeah, just be prepared.

Scott Benner 49:44
I just had a lady post yesterday, and she said, can we talk about people who don't ever feel burned out. She's like, I never feel that overwhelmed by all this. And when I saw the post, the cynical part of my brain was like, this is going to start a fight. And then I thought, You know what? It's not like. I. Think I have built a community where this conversation is going to happen and it's going to be accepted the way it was intended, and it actually was, and I was just so thrilled, like, because I know that sounds crazy, but she needs support too. Like, she sees everybody else struggling, and she's wondering, like, why am I not struggling? Like, is there something wrong? Like, maybe I'm not doing something, or don't know about something, and everybody gets to say how they feel and have a conversation about it's really, really very valuable. Yeah, your Facebook group is right linked at the top. When you said you're putting together a group to respond. How do you mean that?

Joanne Milo 50:31
It occurred to me the day I launched the website that I need a team around me, because there's so much to do, and there's outreach to do, and there's so much that I want to do. So I've got people. Nothing goes on the website unless it's been checked by two other people for the validity, the accuracy, of what we're putting out there. It takes a team. I did that with loop and learn, and it's a

Scott Benner 50:52
team. Yeah, you have volunteers. People are helping. I

Joanne Milo 50:55
have volunteers. I have no funding on this at all. This is not

Scott Benner 50:58
making you any money, right? Like, yeah, no one stepped up and said, Hey, Joe and take a bunch of money here. Well, you know what to it's none of the devices are really designed for older people, either. So

Joanne Milo 51:13
yeah, if you're over 60, you may have trouble opening, I won't say the names, but there are two of them have their CGM containers. I have trouble. And people call me. I say, Do you have a rubber band? Because sometimes it takes rubber band to get the grippy on opening the sensor case. Yeah, it makes sense to me. People have trouble. So yeah. I

Scott Benner 51:34
started thinking like, well, maybe one of these companies would throw you a little money to put this together. And I thought, I don't think they want anybody looking at how unfriendly their stuff might be to older people too. So, and I don't even know that, like, you know, it's funny, if you put me in the position to, like, say, you put me in that company and said, Hey, our stuff is not that friendly for people. I don't even know how I would go about that. Like, and I'm sure you're a reasonable person. I'm sure you might have a similar feeling, right? Like, yes, it needs to be done. But is it a thing that they could put that kind of money into, or that kind of time or staff? Like, it's not as easy as just it should be like this. So make it this way.

Joanne Milo 52:09
I think if they thought a little better, I was, I did a focus group, brought a bunch of people in for a company that now is owned by a bigger company, and it's for a long term sensor life, or cannula life. And they had us opening the container, and the women did it differently than the men. And they said, Why are you doing that way? And they said, Well, we have nails. And they said, Oh, we never tested it on women. It's this is basic.

Scott Benner 52:38
Yeah, I take your point the amount of websites that I've gone on in my life and thought, did they not try this thing after they designed it? Did no one use it first? Yeah, you do need a small group of people to focus your stuff on it and focus test your stuff on so anyway, you're lovely. Thank you so much for doing this. I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. No, it's a pleasure. It really is. Hold on one second. You I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries, the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour, next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now, for the meter you have, then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links at Juicebox podcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors, thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode, we've been talking about medtronics, mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set, it all comes together to simplify life with Diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox,

hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast if you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome. Type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way. Recording, wrong way recording.com

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#1682 Bolus 4 - Ice Cream

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Jenny and Scott talk about bolusing for Ice Cream.

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