Scott Benner 11/23/22 Scott Benner 11/23/22

#795 Defining Diabetes: Kussmaul Respirations

Scott and Jenny Smith define diabetes terms In this Defining Diabetes episode, Scott and Jenny define Kussmaul Respirations.

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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 to episode 795 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I'm excited to have Jenny back today for another installment of defining diabetes. And today, Jenny and I are going to define qu small respirations. This will be the 45th installment of the defining diabetes series. It's a series that takes the time to define the terms that you use every day with diabetes, from fat and protein rise to brittle diabetes, bolusing and everything in between. Check out the finding diabetes short episodes that let you feel like you know what you're talking about. And bonus, after you listen, you will actually know what you're talking about. There are a number of different series within the podcast. So if you go to juicebox podcast.com, to see a list of them. If you do it on a browser, you'll just see it at the top. And you notice the finding diabetes click on it. If you're on your phone, there's a little menu like the three lines, it's a menu click on that, then it shows you to find diabetes. There you will get a complete list of the episodes, as well as an online player and links to a number of different popular podcast apps and links to the other series like bold beginnings thyroid disease algorithm pumping diabetes variables, ask Scott and Jenny mental health afterdark and the diabetes pro tip episodes. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:46
I like when are my kids going to be home making noise? Okay, so

Scott Benner 1:49
I'm recording. Okay. Jenny, we have finished up with our bowl beginning series. So let us move on or back to maybe I should say, a couple of defining diabetes terms which I've had on the list here for a while. And we have not gotten around to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:06
are these easy ones or hard one? No, I

Scott Benner 2:09
think they're, I mean, they're easy enough. They're just sort of terms that I don't know what happened. Like they, they didn't pop up the first couple of times and what I said to people like what should we define or even when I at the beginning said, what should be defined. There's also stuff on the list that's come up because you and I have been talking along the way and I've realized, wow, I don't know what that means. So I think if I don't know maybe other people don't know why they're. So let's, let's do some there'll be some short ones today. Awesome. Okay, I'll mispronounce some things. And you've you've you've sent me straight and then we'll start talking. What is a coup small respiration?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:51
Ah, that's a very good one. And we've certainly talked about something that would be where you would see this right. And we've talked about DKA. And we've talked about ketones before. Correct. So essentially, it's a really deep, a deep, like, heavy, almost like labored breathing that comes most often with DKA or diabetic ketoacidosis. Right? Because of metabolic acidosis. Essentially,

Scott Benner 3:31
it's interesting. I like watching you pull it out of your head because I'm looking at it written in front of me. And I'm like, okay, so cool that she's just getting this so. Yay. So my experience with it. Is that on the evening, wow. On the evening in 2006 when we realized Arden had diabetes, where we realized we thought she did. It was the end of a number of days where she was just listless. I don't even know how to say it like she was beyond like a zombie. You'd move her from one place to another and she just plopped down you know, she was so young, like two years old just just turned two years old. And that day, we were on a beach vacation. So Kelly took hold of the beach. And I stayed home but in the in the beach house with Arden. And I thought no, no, I'm going to try to get her. I'm going to try to take her to the beach. She'll see the beach in the ocean. She'll get really excited. I got her already. I took her the ocean and we kind of stepped I sat her down and she just I put her in the sand. And she just didn't move out there. Yeah. So we I took her back to the house thinking okay, well, she's still sick obviously. And late late that night, the whole family sitting up playing board games or card game or something was like a big family thing. It wasn't just the four of us. My wife's extended family was there. And I remember like looking across the room, trying to figure out what was wrong with the Arden And she was panting Yeah, even in our sleep like she was sleeping and she was just, like really quickly in out in out panting, panting, panting and I realized now that's what this is, right? This is. And so I have here a small respirations are fast, deep breath that occur in response to metabolic acidosis. Small respirations happen when the body tries to remove carbon dioxide and acid from the body by quickly breathing it out. Diabetic Ketoacidosis is the most common cause of small respirations.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:33
Correct. So it's also a reason that a lot of times when you bring when you would go to the emergency department, they'll usually do like an electrolyte panel, they'll look at something called bicarbonate levels and those types of things because this acid kind of component of the body that comes and causes that labored breathing is really because of the increase in acid production, and the ketones and everything that your body's like, must get rid of this thumb away. You know,

Scott Benner 6:09
it's so interesting that your body tries, I wonder if it works at all? Like, is it? Is it dissipating it a little bit? Or is it like a panic? You don't you mean?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:19
Like? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, you know, the, the breadth of people who have really elevated blood sugars and are in DKA. Oftentimes smells like acetone, right? Or a real sweet fruity kind of smell. So I would expect some of its being expelled. Much like, you know, the body is also the reason people often come in severely dehydrated in DKA, is because the body is also trying to rid those ketone bodies and everything by pulling, pulling pulling fluid from the other parts of the body, dehydrating the body but creating a loss through urine.

Scott Benner 7:01
Okay, yeah, well, I've seen, like these kinds of historical writings, where they said that the Egyptians used to refer to a disease called the Great drain, is that right? And they thought people urinated themselves to death. But historians believe that might be type one diabetes.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:20
In fact, it ages ago, one of the very easy tests was physicians would just taste the urine. Because it was very sweet,

Scott Benner 7:31
right? And then that meant diabetes. It's interesting. When someone asked us to describe the smell from Arden's breath. I described it as metallic, and calm, and Kelly described it as fruity. So it's interesting, good, because it just a little side note here. DKA symptoms may include fruity, scented breath, weakness, vomiting. So Arden was obviously I mean, just based on this conversation, she was in DK at that point. Oh, I would. Absolutely. Yeah. Even though it's funny, because I asked that question of people when I interview them. And oftentimes, they don't know the answer. And now I realized, as I look back, I don't know if anybody ever said that to us or not. And if they did, if I would have even known what that meant. In that moment. You don't I mean, like, or like, now I know to be like, Oh, no. But back then if somebody would have said, Hey, your kids and tk I would have been like, yeah, it's three o'clock in the morning. I don't know what that is. Right. You know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:32
the interesting thing I was curious about your question about whether anything is actually expelled with all of that. So I did a quick look. And it says that the rapid breathing increases the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled, thus lowering the serum carbon dioxide levels and helps to result in some degree of compensation. So there is definitely something coming out that the body is, you know, having this increase in respiration, so so it's helping you not that it's going to definitely help 100% trying to do something

Scott Benner 9:12
else and cracks in the dam and you've got 10 fingers, like, yes, it may be to that level. Well, yes. Hey, listen, if it buys you any kind of time, then thank you, but it really is another it's just really another example because we talked about this sometimes with low blood sugar, right? Like talking about how your body seems to shut down systems in order of importance as your blood sugar gets lower and lower. This is another example that this is your body just like trying to take one more breath. You know what I mean? To stay alive a little longer. super interesting. Okay, so I mean, I don't think anybody who's going to hear this episode is going to hear up before they they know they have diabetes, but if you see this happening, it's it's Dr. Time also there's one other example of why I want to just insert this here since we'll have people's attention. Of course. There's apparently another let's see what two conditions is small breathing associated with disruptions to these compounds can cause small breathing, which is typically associated with conditions that cause metabolic disturbances such as kidney failure, and diabetes. So you could see this in a person and it be kidney failure over diabetes. It's interesting.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:27
Again, because the kidneys are very, very much an expeller of many things, right? I mean, there's a filtration system that kind of ends up going on with the kidneys and when your kidneys are not functioning the way that they that they're supposed to. It leaves more of that to sort of float back into your body rather than be removed.

Scott Benner 10:46
Okay, so All right. Well, all right. Well, thank you for doing this with me, I appreciate it. When you have diabetes and use insulin, low blood sugar can happen when you don't expect it. G voc hypo pen is a ready to use glucagon option that can treat very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes. ages two and above. Find out more go to G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma. Visit G voc glucagon.com/risk. Good. Let's see. That's just one I always think. How do we get past? That's

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:28
one I don't think I have. Honestly, I don't think I have ever used that term in any education I've ever done with anybody. Well, mainly because they come to me and they already have diabetes. Like, pay attention to this. That's not going to happen unless you are really in DK again.

Scott Benner 11:48
Get used online so frequently that I thought, well now people are saying it out loud. If they don't know what it is it's going to be another it's another tripping point if you don't know what it is right? Yeah, okay. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com. Forward slash juice box. And don't forget, there are 44 Other defining diabetes episodes that you can find at juicebox podcast.com. Or by just searching your podcast player. For the words juice box, defining diabetes, they'll all just pop up in front of you.

Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. I want you to know that I got that pop that that cheek pop first trot right in the microphone. If you're lucky, I'll do it for you one more time before I'm done. Thank you again for listening. Please share the show with someone else who you think might also appreciate it. And if you hear teaching yourself definitions because you're newly diagnosed, please don't miss the boat beginning series. It's terrific and great for people who have just learned that they have diabetes. So here sorry. That was pork. That was that was good, right? muttrah too fast. Here we go. Nope. Okay, I'm done. That was terrible. Should I leave that in? Yeah, okay. Oh, shoot. Jenny works at integrated diabetes.com If you want to hire her, she's terrific. Check it out.

#794 Omnipod 5 Reset

Cate's child has celiac and type 1 diabetes and he uses Omnipod 5.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 794 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Kate is here today her child uses Omni pod five, and they've done a reset of the Omni pod five. So it's a big conversation. But somewhere I don't know about 40 minutes in we're going to talk about how they started over with new settings. You'll see. 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 for becoming bold with insulin. If you're looking to start with on the pod five, or you've gotten started and want to know more, I have a three part series that I produced with Omni pod all about it. You can find it at juicebox podcast.com forward slash Omni pod five, or by going to episodes 736 737 and 738. Do you have type one or are you the caregiver of someone with type one? Are you also a US resident? Well, you're in luck, because if you go to T one D exchange.org, forward slash juicebox you'll be able to join the registry. Fill out the survey help people living with type one diabetes, move diabetes research forward, help yourself maybe get involved in research yourself if you want support the podcast so much is going to happen when you go to T one day exchange.org forward slash juice box and complete that survey. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod five, and the Omni pod dash. To get started today. Go to Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box. You can be tubeless and automated with Omni pod five or tube listen. Well not automated. Without the pod dash to grade systems. You take a look see which one's best for you. The podcast is also sponsored today by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. This is my favorite blood glucose meter. The best one I've ever used, held touched, or thought about in my dreams contour next one.com forward slash juice box. There's a number of reasons to love the Contour. Next One, and I'm gonna tell you all about them in just a little bit. Today's show is also sponsored by us med. Get your diabetes supplies the same way we do from us med go to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 When you go to the link or call the number you can get yourself our free benefits check to get started right away. We get on the pod and Dexcom from us Med and you could too as well as a number of other things they'll tell you about me.

Cate 2:50
My name is Kate. I have three children, all boys that are 10. seven and five. I am teacher at the school that they go to. And my 10 year old Grayson has type one diabetes and celiac disease

Scott Benner 3:08
10 Seven, five.

Cate 3:11
Yes. All boys. All boys. Yep.

Scott Benner 3:15
I send you a picture what my mom looks like now because that's your future.

Cate 3:19
Oh my god. Yeah, the hardest part about setting this up is just like making sure like they aren't here so that they don't come in the room a million times.

Scott Benner 3:28
So while you are getting this together. Yeah, we're tiny bit of technical difficulties. I thought that I heard a young man yell. Oh my god, the cat got out.

Cate 3:38
Yeah, that was Grayson. So the little to my younger two boys, I got out of the house because there's I can't function with them here. And my oldest Grayson is still here. So I'm like, you have to take the dog like that's your job, get the dog in your room. And he left the dog out when he was trying to help me with my headphone issues. So.

Scott Benner 3:58
Okay, and when you say the other two, aren't there? Yeah. Are they alive? Because it's, it's early in the morning. Like, where are they at?

Cate 4:07
Yeah, I just told them to go, you know, outside. I locked the door and they'll be fine. They'll entertain themselves for an hour

Scott Benner 4:12
in the street. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Well,

Cate 4:15
I don't know. No. They're there at the museum for the for the morning, which is good.

Scott Benner 4:20
Oh, I'm just putting it together. Now why you can do this. Today's Columbus Day.

Cate 4:24
Yeah. So we're off from school, which is good, because I'm available. I'm not working but also not good because the children are home. So yeah, it's

Scott Benner 4:33
not not a real day off. The boys are by themselves or there's somebody with them?

Cate 4:38
No, they're, there's somebody with them. Okay. They're supervised by an adult who was surprisingly willing to take them and we'll see how that goes.

Scott Benner 4:48
We lived on a very busy road. So okay, yeah, I mean, people might be imagining just like a street where like you But cut through town or something but I'm telling you we lived on a on a five lane road. Oh God, my house. It's terrible. My house was 25 feet from the sidewalk. And if it was constant traffic, and there during the summer as a matter of fact, like when the sun was shining at the at the front of the house if a truck or tractor trailer would go by and it would eclipse the room it would scare the hell out of you like it was like that. And we want through my younger brother, but naked out. So,

Cate 5:30
yeah, that's pretty much what it's like around here. Like, I live in a neighborhood but people drive really fast. Which is crazy to me. I'm kind of like on a curb. So I feel like you really can't see the kids if they were happened to run on the road.

Scott Benner 5:44
Well, if they're Neko

Cate 5:46
Oh, yeah, absolutely. They would be like glaring, but they like last year when I moved in here. I bought this thing on Amazon. It's, it's uh, it looks like the construction gate. And it goes at the end of your drive. It's like this big orange. Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah, Master gate. And so it stops them from like when they're playing basketball, running into the road, like Chase her ball. Now as you come in the neighborhood, like the lady with the gate, like I went to a block party and people like, oh, yeah, you're the house that has like that orange gate.

Scott Benner 6:17
So yes, because my kids will run into traffic. Do you understand? Yeah.

Cate 6:21
Which makes me sound like a really good parent. So

Scott Benner 6:25
let's get this recorded before these kids kill you. Because it's probably not gonna it's not gonna take much longer. Oh, no, for sure. Okay, boy, mom, here we go. Your 10 year old is the type one he also has celiac and tell me his name again. Grayson, right? Yeah, Grayson, yeah. Okay. All right. So how long has Grayson had type one?

Cate 6:45
He was diagnosed in July of 2021. We're like, just over a year.

Scott Benner 6:51
Okay, pretty recently, celiac before or after diabetes?

Cate 6:56
It was they told me, Well, they apparently tested him, like at the diagnosis of the type one, but I didn't know that. And they called me like, 10 days later to tell me that his celiac

Scott Benner 7:07
panel was positive. Had you noticed anything about it before?

Cate 7:10
No. Like he literally had no celiac symptoms at all. It was like, switched on when the diabetes came on?

Scott Benner 7:19
And is he keeping a celiac diet?

Cate 7:22
Yeah, yep. So she's been on that for about a year. Did

Scott Benner 7:25
the rest of the family change with him? Or did you? Yeah,

Cate 7:29
for the most part, yes. You know, and that's like, tricky, because my little boys sometimes don't understand, like, why can't you know, we went to like a farm this weekend, for like a fall thing. And they want apple cider doughnuts, but there's no option that's celiac, you know, friendly. And so that's been a little tricky. But over the course of the year, like, I'm starting to learn how to bake things to to supplement the things that they all want. So if one wants donuts, then we can figure out a way to make a doughnut for gray or find you know, an option. We're lucky to have some grocery stores around that are celiac friendly. So that's been good. But for the most part, we all eat gluten free.

Scott Benner 8:07
Okay. What are his symptoms? If he has gluten?

Cate 8:12
He is like immediately sick, like in the bathroom? Like lots of diarrhea.

Scott Benner 8:19
Well, that'll. That'll make you eat gluten free. That's for sure.

Cate 8:22
Yeah. So that I mean, not that I want him to have those symptoms. But I know like people that don't have bad symptoms, I could see that being hard to stick to, you know, a celiac or gluten free diet, but because it makes him sick, like he doesn't want to do that.

Scott Benner 8:37
Well, Caitlin, I now feel absolutely compelled to say that I have learned through the podcast, that even if you don't have symptoms, you can be doing serious damage to the internal portions of your body, which could lead to things as serious as cancer. And if I don't say that people with celiac will yell at me online. So I now.

Cate 9:02
Yeah, I heard that episode where I appreciated the woman. I can't remember her name, but she came out and I think she had written you an email about how like, you can't just like eat the cupcake. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 9:12
I got the cupcake. I'm not even bringing that up. Caitlin. All right. Well, I'll bring it up. All. All I did was this guy was having serious mental health issues. The Father Yes. And his son, had I got guests gotten a celiac diagnosis but was having from what I understand, like no symptoms whatsoever. So you could either hand listen, if celiac was a thing, he could eat a handle full of it and nothing happened to him. But then obviously there's I said obviously because I do not want to get yelled at but obviously there are there are still impacts that can be had even though you're not seeing them physically, that are fairly serious and up fairly serious up to really serious And I was trying to make the point that while the guy was figuring things out, yeah, maybe just let them have the cupcake. Because also, I would like to say, Kate, that He also described a scenario where the kid wasn't really having cupcakes. It was just this. He was. You have to go listen to it. He was in a panic.

Cate 10:18
And yeah, I heard I heard it. I know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Scott Benner 10:21
It was like he was he was having real trouble. And he, he couldn't add one more thing to his plate. And, and he's like, Well, what about at a birthday party? Like he was crying? Like, what about your birthday party? He wouldn't be able to have a cupcake. And I was like, Well, does he have a lot of cupcakes? And the guys guys like, No, you I'm like, does he go to a lot of birthday parties? He's like, No, I'm like, well, then until you can pull this together. What if you just let him have the cupcake. And then the letters came?

Cate 10:47
Yeah. It's funny, because the reason why Grayson is still here is because he's actually going to a birthday party today. And so he's he's getting picked up in a little while. And like, it is a thing where like, I have to pack a lunchbox with gluten free pizza, the gluten free cupcakes, they're going to a sports place where they're going to drink Gatorade. So I've got it, you know, sugar free Gatorade, and you know it, I could see what he was saying where it like feels like another like another hit that you're like, God, like the diabetes was bad enough. Now this and it's more annoying sometimes. Because I don't want to like, bake and cook all this stuff in preparation for my kid to go to a party. You know,

Scott Benner 11:31
I completely understood which was why he was trying to save him into Yeah, until he was Josh. By the way. Josh has been on twice. He's an incredibly like, open. empathetic, yeah, person. His episodes are called Josh has all the fields. And Josh has added more fields. So go listen to them. And please don't write me a note and yell at me. But yeah, but food quality. I mean, I I listen, it's not the same thing. But Arden has been at college now for about a month. Yeah. And the quality of food at college is not what it was in our house. Right. And we are like fighting with almost every meal Bolus, because the food, the food's just not as good as what she eats at home. So, I mean, there's part of me that feels like I'd like to be walking around behind her hand in her lunchbox every time she went through me.

Cate 12:24
Yeah, you know? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that's the thing in the first year, like, I definitely understand, you know, from listening to so much of your podcasts, like what needs to be done. It's just it takes experience to figure out like, how do I Bolus for this thing that he hasn't eaten before, like yesterday, he had a chocolate pudding. He's never had pudding before. And like, you know, something happens that you don't expect you have to figure out like, how to Bolus for each food. And once you have that, you know, under your belt, I feel like eventually it'll get a little bit easier. But we still are fighting with a lot of, you know, meal Bolus, especially with the gluten free food because it just hits a lot harder.

Scott Benner 13:04
Yeah, gluten free doesn't mean low carb. That's for sure.

Cate 13:07
No, it's like twice the carb when people say they're doing a gluten free diet to lose weight. I'm like, You're crazy. Like you got it wrong.

Scott Benner 13:14
Do you remember me saying on the podcast once the doctor made me go gluten free for a month to test something? And I was like, Oh, I'm eating healthy. I gained 10 pounds. I was like, Wait, yeah.

Cate 13:23
Yeah, it's definitely not good. And like when I say we eat gluten free, like I primarily eat mostly gluten free, but I don't eat any of the gluten free products. You know, Grayson does because he's a kid and he wants a sandwich. And you know, he wants pretzels and things like that. But they they definitely are all made with like rice flour and things that are really hard to Bolus for. So that's been tricky.

Scott Benner 13:45
Yeah, you definitely have to be careful. Gluten Free can also mean processed. Yeah, with a lot of those a lot of those prepared foods anyway. Okay. So, keep that's not really why you're on today. Right? You're on because Grayson has been using on the pod five? Yes. Okay. So how was he managing? I almost said straight out the gate. And I don't know why.

Cate 14:12
No, that's what it's gonna be called, isn't it?

Scott Benner 14:14
Oh, no, I don't think so. Because that's my phone. Because I said, Hey, how was he managing straight out the gate? And then I thought, there's a phrase I've never used before, but, okay, I didn't get a ton of sleep last night. So this could get hairy. But no worries, no worries. But when he was diagnosed, and he and he came home, what do you have?

Cate 14:33
So we left the hospital with pens, you know, pretty much like everybody else. And then I would say within about a month he we got him on to Dexcom which was very helpful. And I'm kind of like the type of person like I don't like to wait when I like make a decision. Like I knew pretty early on that I wanted him to pump and he was a little bit nervous about that. So we you know, It took some time settling in, but I had joined a local support group and I, you know, was talking to them about pumping and how the, you know, the endocrinologist wants you to wait six months or a year or whatever. And the ladies in the support group were like, No, you don't have to do that, like you can. You don't even need to go to the pump training. You just research them on your own, decide what you want and tell them and they'll order it. And I was kind of like, Oh, I didn't realize like, I could just tell them what I want to do and skip, you know, their their rules, per se. So probably within like three months, maybe I think November he started on Omnipod dash.

Scott Benner 15:37
Okay, so in a month Dexcom and a few more months Dash. And then how long ago did you start five?

Cate 15:44
He was he started on the five at the end of May.

Scott Benner 15:48
May, June, July, August, seven months ago. About?

Cate 15:53
Yeah, it's a pendant lamp. Well, June, July, August, September. Yeah, maybe like five months or so

Scott Benner 15:59
five, six months? On the five. Yeah. And all right. So when you first started it, you were pretty some it's it feels to me like you got it right away when it came out. Is that about right?

Cate 16:13
Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I'm not super patient. So you know, I was waiting, I got that email that everybody got from Omnipod saying it was available. And I called my endocrinologist that day. And they were like, What are you talking about? Like, they didn't even know that, you know, it was rolling out. So that was fun. And they didn't know how to prescribe it. They were like, we don't have codes yet. Like you just you've got to wait. So probably a week went by until my endocrinologist put in the script. And then when it got to the pharmacy, then the insurance became an issue. So I had like a two or three week battle with my insurance company to get them to cover the intro kit, which has like the PDM in it, or the controller. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 16:57
think they figured that out that all that coatings figured out by now. But yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Cate 17:02
Yeah. So like I was calling our insurance company all the time, like, trying to figure out why wouldn't go through why were the pods covered and not the controller. And finally, one day, I was just so fed up with it. I just told the people there, you know, they are diabetic experts. Like, they were like, no, no, it has to go through DME like it definitely does it. And you know, we're having this battle. And the lady was thought I was talking about the Dexcom. Like, she was confused. And I was finally like, I just want to speak to your manager, like whoever's above you like, I just, I'm ready to just move on from talking to you. And my kids thought that was hilarious. And like, called me a Karen, they were like, You asked to speak to the manager? I was like, I'll do it. You know,

Scott Benner 17:48
okay, at one time, I said, you know, I need to speak with your manager. And there's nobody here above me. And I said, I find that completely hard to believe you're in charge. Even as I was saying, and I bought it sound like a thick, but whatever. Yeah.

Cate 18:03
Yeah, it's fine. I'm like, if I'm gonna get what we need here, I'm totally fine with owning that Karen status for a little. So eventually, they, they did. I talked to the manager, and he literally was like, I'm just going to override it. It's fine. And I no joke had the pump the next day.

Scott Benner 18:20
He's like, will you hang up? If I do this?

Cate 18:23
I know, I'm like, God, I should ask the manager more often because we got what we wanted.

Scott Benner 18:28
Okay, so on the pod five comes. So the picture we're painting here, because by the way, all those insurance problems that you just described, where we're like a launch issue, it doesn't exist anymore. Like nobody's gonna tell you, you can have the pods but not like your stuff like that. So. But it's an indicator of how early on you were into it. So you had it before I even put out those three episodes about starting on the pod five, right?

Cate 18:55
Yes, sadly, yes. Because we were, I was like, kind of jumping in blindly with what to do with it.

Scott Benner 19:02
So you know, if you go back and listen to those three episodes that I made in conjunction with AMI pot about starting on a pot five, you're gonna hear that the closer your settings are to a 5050 split between Basal and Bolus insulin, the easier time that the algorithm is going to have getting itself set up and straight so when you started it the first time do you remember how you had your settings?

Cate 19:29
Yeah, we definitely I did not put in settings that were aggressive enough for sure. So I think we were definitely also relying on basil.

Scott Benner 19:41
Krishna one job here kale. You know, and I mean, you didn't let him down you got on the on the pod five right away when he needed it. Now. This kid can't hold on to the stock. What do you think he's doing that I thought right or do you think he's ignoring it going? Like I asked my son that take the dogs to take take care of the dogs And I come down. I'm like, Hey, you took the dogs out. You just not yet. I mean, you've been down here for half an hour. Yes. They don't seem to be in a hurry. And I was like, well, when they peed on the floor, or whatever they're gonna do if you don't let them out like, well, you clean that up. And he was like, no.

Cate 20:15
That's about it. Yeah. Well, FedEx truck just pulled up. And so that's what he's barking at. And I'm sure like gray clearly has already forgotten that.

Scott Benner 20:24
He's been talking for 20 minutes. So yeah, I'm sorry. I apologize. So you I'm sorry. So you said you set it up with your settings. How are you? How are you? I guess my first question is when you were on dash, were the settings like super tight? Was he super stable at a low number or were you still working that out? US med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest and CGM, like the FreeStyle Libre three and the Dexcom G six, and we get Ardens on the pods from us med. As a matter of fact, US med is the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor index com customer satisfaction surveys. And they're the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide, you're gonna get better service and better care from us Med and that's what they've given to the over 1 million diabetes customers that they've helped since 1996. US Matt accepts Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers. 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Cate 25:29
I feel like for being in our first year, I was really happy with how we did on dash when he back in April only got to say once T after he had been on dash, you know, for about six months. He was at a 6% which I was happy with. Yeah, and you know, it's not do I think some people run lower? Yes, I would say he was averaging around like 121 30. Somewhere in there. Which you know, for an active 10 year old it was working for him. It was a lot of work though, for us. Like we were doing a lot of like Temp Basal, like constantly trying to adjust and give a little bit more and take a little way to keep him in range, which was difficult,

Scott Benner 26:15
right? Which means you don't know exactly what his settings were because you were adding. Right. Okay.

Cate 26:22
Yeah, yeah. So I, we had done some basil testing. And at that time, I was working with Jenny. So she was really helpful and helping us kind of tweak things here and there. And I felt like we got to a point where we were doing okay, like his setting seemed good. But I do think looking back now we were probably relying a little bit on his Basal. So his ratio, it was not 5050 When he looked back in his settings, so

Scott Benner 26:50
you're saying you had like a heavy Basal rate? Yeah. So yes. Okay. So you were bumping around a lot, because you were feeding the insulin and then going back up? Yes, yeah. Okay.

Cate 27:02
Which I could kind of do at the time because Grayson went to the elementary school that I work at. So I would like to sneak down to his room and like, give him a little more take a little way. Like I was doing a lot of management during the day at school,

Scott Benner 27:15
and the kids who were teaching can't count now, is that correct?

Cate 27:19
Well, I teach reading, so they, they might be able to count but um, they might be below in reading. So

Scott Benner 27:25
I don't know this word but Grayson's Okay, so everybody's,

Cate 27:29
yeah, they totally new like, they do the chaos of like, diabetes. And, you know, sometimes a kid came with me, I'm like, Hey, Grayson's low on the playground, we gotta go find him. You know,

Scott Benner 27:41
let's go on an adventure. Or as I call it at my house, how?

Cate 27:46
They were fine with they're like, Oh, we're getting none of our lesson plan. Right?

Scott Benner 27:49
Yeah, right. Yeah. You're not gonna make me read? I'm down. Yes. So when you start it? I mean, I guess just tell me how it went for you the first couple of weeks.

Cate 28:00
It didn't go great. In the beginning. Like all of a sudden, we were seeing a lot of highs after meals. And you know, we had some lows, the night time was a little bit better. I know a lot of people have said that too. But what I ended up realizing was that his carb ratio was very wrong for the Omnipod. Five. So we ended up switching I think he was at one to 25 when he was on Dash. And we ended up at like one to 15 Eventually. On Omnipod. Five, like Jenny had told me Jenny was like, I would put it down to one to 20 I'm like, what that's like, way too much. That sounds crazy. And she was right. And then some because we definitely needed more insulin at mealtimes, for sure.

Scott Benner 28:44
Yes, she was trying to move you incrementally and you weren't moving. Were you? I

Cate 28:47
was just, I was nervous. I was like, Oh, I'll try like one to 23 like I just did it very slowly.

Scott Benner 28:56
Do you ever think of this from Jenny's perspective, because I just occurred to me like, like, your call ends and she just like smacks her head on the desk and goes

Cate 29:05
I feel like Jedi and I, I feel like we've got each other because there was a couple of times I was on the call with her. And like, all three of my kids are jumping on my bad like she's a boy mom. I'm like, life is crazy over here. You know, she got it.

Scott Benner 29:18
Yeah. It's nice. It's also interesting to hear. She's very good at what she does. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't even know if how well that translates when she's on the podcast. But yeah, having her help you with something is a is a hell of a bonus. That's for sure. Yeah. Okay. So you finally listen to Jenny, you move the carb ratios a little bit. But yeah, I think I'm not gonna say the problem. But the issue here is that the algorithms trying to learn and what you told it up front was pretty far off. I mean, one to 25 versus one to 15. Yeah, it's a big difference. And yeah, and so you were that far off on the carb ratio. How what about the Basal would you tell the bay Isn't wasn't started

Cate 30:01
the Basal I had him set when he was in manual mode for something like I would say 8.5 units a day. Yep. And I would say averaging now when I look through, he's getting like 10. How would you like 10 to 11 units of Basal, I believe,

Scott Benner 30:23
okay. Let's just tell people 8.5 divided by 24 is point three, five ish. And what are you happy now? More like 10?

Cate 30:33
Yeah, like, I would say like 10 and a half to 11 Some days.

Scott Benner 30:37
Let's say 11 For fun. And we divide 11 by 24. And that's point four, five an hour. So an extra point one an hour. Which mean, he's 10 years old. Probably hasn't hit any kind of puberty yet. What he probably what weighs like 85 pounds, like in that space? Yeah, yeah, I

Cate 30:54
think he's 80 pounds right now.

Scott Benner 30:55
Okay, so yeah, so that's a fair amount of change point one an hour for basil. And then this is the a big eater. Like, how many carbs is a meal ish?

Cate 31:09
Um, yeah, he we are definitely not low carb by any means. He's a big eater. He likes to eat all day long. I mean, I don't even want to say it. Like, sometimes the school nurse is like, seriously 120 carbs for lunch, you know? Like, he definitely eats a lot of carbs.

Scott Benner 31:26
Okay, so So that's interesting, because like that many carbs 120 carbs divided by 25 is 4.8 units. But 20 carbs divided by 15? is eight units.

Cate 31:39
Yeah. Which he never yeah, like I was eight units is is probably high for what he gets. But like, I would say on average, I try to pack him for lunch, around 80 grams.

Scott Benner 31:51
Okay, we'll see. It's funny. Kate, you're hearing my statement from a different perspective. You're like, don't tell people he eats a lot. I'm not I'm saying look at the difference between how much insulin a meal needs versus what he was getting. So there was a moment where he was getting 40% less insulin than he needed. And point one an hour basil. And then you're asking the algorithm like keep him steady. But here's what I told you versus here's what he needs. Yeah, yeah.

Cate 32:21
So like, we must have just been doing a lot of corrections and a lot of like, you know, adjustments to his Basal during the day to try to accommodate for all of those things. It felt like a lot of work to keep him in range. And obviously, we just, you know, didn't have his his settings quite right. Yeah. But of course, when you go to the endocrinologist, they saw as a one C six in April, and they're like, Okay, yeah, you're good. Keep doing whatever you're doing. So there's wasn't a whole lot of like, guidance into like, maybe you could change this or that so that you're not having to like, set Temp Basal all the time,

Scott Benner 32:59
where you had you listen to the Pro Tip series of the podcast?

Cate 33:04
Yes, probably like three times through.

Scott Benner 33:06
Because the one you missed was bumping nudge to the one where I say, Hey, if you're bumping and nudging a lot, your settings?

Cate 33:13
Yeah, yeah, a quarter percent? No, I definitely listen to that. What's funny is like, I think I listened to them too early in his diagnosis where I didn't fully understand what everything meant yet. I just like stumbled upon the podcast and started listening. And looking back. Now, if I was gonna do it differently, I was listening to like, the defining diabetes, like really learning what all these things are, and then listening to the protests, but that's why I listened to them more than once. Because six months later, you're in a different headspace where you're like, Okay, now I know what he's talking about. Yeah,

Scott Benner 33:48
I've heard that a lot from people. Okay, I'm just pointing out for people listening, not explaining something UK that you already know, at this point. But if you're forever fixing blood sugars with a little more insulin or a little more food, then there are settings that you could have that would make stability that would keep you from having to make those adjustments so frequently. Yeah. So.

Cate 34:10
And the other issue, I think we had to is pretty quickly into starting on Omnipod. Five, the controller started having app errors. So I don't know if you've experienced that, but it would just like it would almost look like it was on a loading screen. And then when it would go through the little loading almost like it was updating it then it would like be really loud and say app error, call it in. And the first time it happened, I hit okay, like I'm gonna call it in and the screen went, that notification went away. And it was working fine. I'm like, Oh, that was weird. I don't know what that was. And it was already gone. So I'm like, Well, I don't I don't know how to like, call that in, you know,

Scott Benner 34:53
right. Yeah. Go Yeah, it happened. What? Well,

Cate 34:57
that happened many times. And we made the mistake of just waiting too long to, to correct that and get in touch with Omnipod. And we ended up with a new controller in July.

Scott Benner 35:12
Okay. All right. So you fought with the problem you didn't have to fight with, if you were to call them and tell them they would have been like, just give us an update. We'll give you another one. And 100% Yeah, stick with it for a while. We didn't have any errors with the controller. But I do remember it beeping at times where Arden was like, why is it beeping? Yeah, the same thing you did. I was like, I don't know, I don't have time to figure it out.

Cate 35:36
And like, I feel like subconsciously, I knew that if he got a new controller, we had to start all over with the learning. And I was thinking that that wasn't a good thing. I'm like, I don't want to do that again. And he was in July, he was heading to diabetes camp. So I was like, I really don't want to start on a new controller, you know, a week before he goes to camp. And so I waited until he got home. And then we started him on the new controller, which actually ended up being a good thing. Because this time i i feel like i put in more aggressive settings. And the learning happened much faster.

Scott Benner 36:11
Okay. Yeah. So there's the irony, right? You? Yeah, if you want to just call it about the controller, you would have had to restart. So this is this is I think, if I'm remembering correctly, why was excited to have you on because you had this experience of setting up on the pod five with settings that probably weren't so good. And then having to restart which made you rethink your settings? Because I'm assuming when you put them in the next time, you use different settings, is that right? Yes. Yeah. In the end, can I ask you Would it have been as easy as just taking his total daily insulin? Dividing it by five by half? Putting? And then like, I don't know, let's just make up a number. Let's say his total daily insulin was I mean, I guess we could actually figure it out. 10. Let's just say it was 40 units. Let's I'm sure that was a big number. But if his total daily was 40, then you could take 20 of it. divided by 24. Tell him that is Basal rate is point eight ish. And then tell it the total daily insulin is what it asks for. And then that would have been it like just going to a 5050 on total daily, do you think that's pretty close to where your settings were?

Cate 37:20
Where do Yeah, I think I think you could probably do that, like I, I might have made it like far more complicated than it needed to be. When I set up the controller, the second time, I, you know, I want the basil, I can tell you exactly like what hours of the day he runs a little lower and what hours he runs a little higher. So he's never been on like point three, five every hour of the day. So it's like lower between 12 and 2am super high in the morning hours, you know, higher Basal between like eight and 10pm when he gets a little bit of a spike from bedtime snack. So I didn't want to just do that, because I wanted a really good Basal in case I needed to get into manual mode. So I you know, he's still got that like, very adjusted sometimes the Basal tie some hours, it's set low, it still looks like that now, gotcha.

Scott Benner 38:15
No, I I'm, I'm actually just looking at Arden's Basal right now. And hers is running at like, almost double what it says that she's asleep at college, or no, she's on her way to class now. She's probably on her way to class now. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's amazing to watch the algorithm work, right? Like, take it away, give it back, you know, it's a give you extra give you less, it's pretty, it's pretty cool, actually. But, but so in, I don't want to, I don't want to be the one that tells everybody reset your system, if it's not working the way you want it to. Because I don't know, I don't know that that's a cure all. If you're having if you're unhappy with how the algorithms work, and maybe there's other ways that you could be messing this up, too. You can be miscounting carbs significantly, there's, you know, there's you could be eating a lot of fatty foods and not covering it. And, like, so I don't know everybody's situation. But it is interesting to hear that this happened to you. So prior to the controller change. What do you think? Like, Where were your average? I don't know how to ask you to measure. Yeah.

Cate 39:23
Well, so what's interesting is actually he had an appointment at the endocrinologist in July, like, so three months, you know, into being on the system right around the time when we were about to switch controllers. And we got as a one C back because I was like so curious to see like, what's going to happen to his agency like now that we're on this different system. And so going from April to July, he went from a six to a 6.1. Okay, okay. So I mean that a huge,

Scott Benner 39:56
right, it was a creep, like in that direction.

Cate 39:59
Yeah. So which, which makes sense, because, you know, I think we didn't have the settings right, you know, you're trying something new, it's, it's definitely not, you know, just set it and forget it, there's still a lot of, you know, thinking that has to be done, like you said, you know, get a cell card count, right and make sure your settings are right. There's still a lot of variables,

Scott Benner 40:18
putting the putting the six to the six point wine aside for a second. What, what's the variability like? In the beginning? Like, was there a ton of stability? Where you higher than you wanted to be a great deal of time? Are you finding lows? Like, what was the actual usage? Like, before you made the changes?

Cate 40:36
I would say we weren't really fighting a lot of lows. I think the system does a good job of being conservative and avoiding a lot of lows. I mean, the only time we really were seeing lows was like, if he would go swimming, and you know, he. Okay, I lost you. intense activity. Okay, that might have happened. I'm sorry. We were definitely still fighting. So

Scott Benner 41:03
I'm so sorry. I lost you for a second. I lost you after the word swimming.

Cate 41:08
Oh, so like, if you went swimming, you know, and he's in the pool for an hour and was away from his Dexcom. You know, he might come out and end up low, like some things like that, I think are tricky to control. But for the most part, we were still fighting with some highs.

Scott Benner 41:26
Okay. And high being what, like in your mind, what's the number that makes it high?

Cate 41:31
Well, I don't really like him running over 200. But mostly, it's like mostly post a meal spikes. And they would last. Yeah, that would sometimes last. Yeah, that's like I'm looking at his number right now. Like he and part of this too, is just, he's got, we have other factors because we've got the gluten free. We're still trying to figure out how to Bolus right for that. And like so this morning, he ate a friend of mine big 10 muffins, these gluten free pumpkin muffins. And he ate that. And he's at 285 right now, which is obviously not not a great number. I obviously missed the Bolus on the muffin.

Scott Benner 42:16
Also the way you said that was hilarious. You said this morning he ate and you paused and you said a friend of mine. And then you made muffins. And it was great that I loved it because I was like, Well, this morning he ate a person that'll definitely drive up. Yeah, that'll

Cate 42:31
do it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 42:32
I mean, it's not a ton of carbs and people but the adrenaline's gonna be crazy, don't you think? Yeah, yeah.

Cate 42:39
And now he's going to the birthday party. I just saw him leave now. He's gonna go eat like gluten free pizza and cupcakes. And it's probably not going to be a great number.

Scott Benner 42:48
So what do you do? Like you've you've got a big number, because you missed on a Bolus? Do you correct it? Yes. Just let the algorithm do it. What do you how do you handle it?

Cate 42:57
No, I, and this is where your episodes would have come in handy when we were getting on Omnipod. Five. But right away, I definitely corrected a high if I saw that he was high. I'm like, I don't care if the algorithm is going to learn or unlearn or whatever. I'm going to correct it every time. And, and so we always do that. Where things are sometimes tricky is if he's high, and I go to put in a correction, and it tells me he needs nothing. I'm, I'm always like, Okay, so do I just override this? How much do I decide to give him? And I think in the beginning, that was hard for me to figure out like, should I just give him a little bit more? Because I know he needs more? And I think the answer is yes, it's just how much so if I give him too much, I think you can end up stacking because the pump is trying to correct the high as well. You have to be careful, like overriding, I learned that kind of the hard way. So if I'm gonna give him a little extra even though the pumps telling me he doesn't need it, it's usually like point one like I give him you know, I'm pumping and nudging just a tiny bit because I don't want to,

Scott Benner 44:12
well, there's a balance in what you're doing, right? Because the the algorithm is correcting at its own speed that could end up taking longer than you want it to. So you you you say well, I want to push it a little harder. But then you also kind of have that in that moment. Now that you've added extra insulin. You've put in too much insulin, there's going to be a little later at some point, but you have this odd expectation like oh, the algorithm will stop it. But right you've put it into a situation where it can't stop it. Right. And that's that's the one thing about every algorithm based system. It literally like every one of them that people have to understand is that it's not smart. Like you don't I mean, like a sentient being. It's not looking and going okay, well, grace and how Add food at 10. And even though his mom told us that it was 20 carbs, it's looking like it's more. So all. You know, it doesn't do that. It just it, it believes you. Yeah, I mean, 100%. Yeah, it's like the setting say this, they said this, I believe that we are moving forward based on this as being true. And then that means if your settings are wrong, your carb count is wrong, or you're eating something that has more glycemic impact than its carbs might indicate or anything like that, you're not going to get the outcome you're looking for. And the algorithm is not going to just, it can't make a conscious leap after that. It just keeps doing what it's doing.

Cate 45:39
Yeah. And I think we were relying a lot on an extended Bolus to which worked really well, for the high glycemic foods, all the gluten free foods, like he would eat and then I would just toss in like 10 grams and extend it, you know, almost at every meal, he was having something gluten free. And that worked really well. And so that we had to figure out like, how do we deal with that now that we can't use extended Bolus when he's in automated mode?

Scott Benner 46:07
What are you doing?

Cate 46:09
So I think part of it was just the carb ratio issue. Like, I think once we will, of course, like if his carb ratio was set at one to 25, and then I'm adding 10 grams, like, I should have just seen that it was really just a carb ratio issue. So now that he's on a ratio that's better suited for him, he doesn't need that extra 10. Okay, I do still think that when he's eating fat or protein, that's when I also would have used an extended Bolus, and I just set a timer on my phone. And I Bolus for the app for the cat an hour later.

Scott Benner 46:45
Okay, that is definitely what I would do with both of those scenarios. But this is the part where we have to tell people, here's the thing about AMI pod five, you set it up and told it one to 25 carb ratio. Yeah, if you realize, weeks or months later, oh, it should have been 115. Yes, just going in the settings and changing it does not impact the algorithm. It only impacts the settings that you'd be using. If you took the the pump out of the algorithm and used it in manual mode. It doesn't, it doesn't relearn because you change your settings. It's already doing something that I don't think any of us understand, I believe on the pod calls it proprietary information, how it's making decisions. So the only real way to make a big change like that is to start over. And people don't want to do that often. Because it's because they've got this idea in their head like, well, it's a learning system. And it took six months to get us this far or three weeks to get us this far. However long it took them. And so they're like, I don't want to start again. I don't want to go through that learning again. But the learning, I'm guessing the second time was much quicker for you. Am I right about that?

Cate 47:59
Yeah, I would say the second time was I not no joke. Like I think within like four days, I felt like we were we were good. It was i i wouldn't have even really noticed that you had we had reset the controller. If if I didn't know it, like it happened so fast. And it was easy. And I think a lot of people are going to be put in that situation. What eventually there's an app, I'm assuming if you switch from a controller to using an app on an iPhone, it's going to start the relearning over again. Is that right?

Scott Benner 48:35
Oh, good point. So at some point, when it's iPhone compatible, you're saying everyone's gonna bail from their controller for the most part, and everybody's gonna get this experience, then?

Cate 48:45
I think so I feel like Jenny said that that was the case, if you switched over to the app, you would have to start the learning

Scott Benner 48:52
over again. So I can't say that with 1,000% certainty, but I think that's right. And, and the point is, though, if they switch and they still take their bad settings with them, they're just gonna, it's just gonna be the same thing over again. But if they learned like you did, Kate, look at you, right?

Cate 49:08
I know, that.

Scott Benner 49:10
They learned like you did. And it is interesting, isn't it? You're like, I should have just known. It. Just it's so simple. In hindsight, isn't it when you're talking about it? Yes. Yeah. Well, you're in it. Yeah, it's not it's not that simple.

Cate 49:23
No, it's not. But now, I definitely do not feel at all nervous about switching to the app at some point. Because if we go in with good settings, I don't think you're even really going to notice, quote, unquote, a learning period because your settings are going to be right.

Scott Benner 49:41
We should I even Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, you finish your thought.

Cate 49:45
When I set up the basil the second time, what I felt like he normally would use in a day. I even like added a little bit more than that, too. So I like maybe more than I even thought would be cool. racked, because I was like, I just I want it to be aggressive and work from that. And that seems to have worked. So you

Scott Benner 50:05
were doing that method while you're cooking. You're like half a cup of butter plus a little more.

Cate 50:10
Yeah. Exactly. Just add a little more.

Scott Benner 50:14
So, see, you're saying, by the way, nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. But yeah, what you're saying was, you're like, Well, let me just give it a little more to work with. Yes, because your thought was it could take it away, but it has trouble adding. Yes. I don't know if that's something I'm allowed to say out loud, legally, or anything like that. But okay,

Cate 50:35
well, I can say it right. I'm not a doctor by any means. But it seems like I was like, Oh, I think he needs about nine units. So I'm gonna just put in 11 and see what. So and that seems to

Scott Benner 50:46
have worked. Well. What's this a one see now on the system?

Cate 50:49
That's a good question, because we haven't had it tested since July. So I'm not sure. Interesting. What he's out now, but I would say for the most part. He I'm just looking at his Dexcom.

Scott Benner 51:02
Do you not have clarity setup on Dexcom? I do

Cate 51:05
have I'm looking at clarity right now. But it doesn't have.

Scott Benner 51:09
It's not. It's not an estimated anyone see it's an estimated something else.

Cate 51:13
But yeah, it says GMI. And I never like when we went for his first a one C test. Well, that I can remember back in April, the GMI said 6.8. And when they tested as a one C they said 6.0. And I was like are you sure? Like?

Scott Benner 51:29
Yeah, I've heard people say that either that estimate comes very close to what they have, or sometimes it doesn't. So yeah, I don't know how to explain that, honestly. Yeah.

Cate 51:39
I mean, he runs about 85% in

Scott Benner 51:42
range, most of the time, what's your range set?

Cate 51:45
His range is set at 70 to one ad. That's excellent. Which, you know, and I know a lot of people are able to run lower than that. I think the thing that I have found, especially with like a young boy is like, he's so unpredictable. Like, he'll be laying on the couch one day, and I'm like, Oh, he's gonna need more insulin, because he's playing fortnight and he's, you know, just hanging around, and then I'll correct him or whatever. And he goes outside and jumps on the trampoline for an hour and then ends up in a low. So it there's that unpredictability of kids where I feel comfortable with him running, you know, a little higher, then maybe he will choose at some point as an adult

Scott Benner 52:27
in case he suddenly decides to play basketball for two hours.

Cate 52:30
Yeah, and then run past the construction gate into the road you never know.

Scott Benner 52:34
Exactly. And he's the older one. So can you imagine? Yeah. All right. Well, this is this is excellent. I'm glad you're you came on to talk about this. I mean, I've seen people online, they're like, I'm gonna restart it. I'm going to restart it. I listened to those episodes. And now I realized that I didn't Baba blah, whatever they think I didn't do. I'm gonna restart it. I'm gonna restart it. I'm always like, I'm not telling you to do that. But I mean, it goes, see what happens. If somebody's gonna do it and tell me so when I realized you did, and I was like, Oh, this will be great.

Cate 53:08
Yeah, I'm not even sure how you would restart it. Like, if you had a current controller. I don't even know how you go about, like,

Scott Benner 53:14
I'm sure there's a reset button somewhere.

Cate 53:16
There's gotta be there probably is. And, you know, I'm not saying you should do that either. But I think naturally, that's going to happen. I mean, a lot of people have iPhones. I think that's one of the benefits is eventually he's going to be able to Bolus from his phone. Like, I definitely think people are going to start over once. That's an option.

Scott Benner 53:34
No, I, I don't think you're wrong at all. Actually, I think you're gonna see a lot of people hear stuff like this or go back and hear by the way, those episodes are episodes 736-730-7738. They're available. In your podcast player. They're available. I think I have a page for them on the website. juicebox podcast.com, forward slash Omni pod five. I actually think Omni pod has them on their website. is amazing. Yeah. Isn't that cool? I think it's Omni pod.com. Although I mean, just go to mind. You don't I mean, like, no worries. Yeah,

Cate 54:10
just go Yeah, you don't even you don't need to plug them.

Scott Benner 54:13
There's no way they put. If you do juicebox, you end up at my site to start with it.

Cate 54:20
And those episodes were so helpful, like, even just listening to them. After we had already been on it. It it's, it still is helpful. Because I think the thing about new technology that makes it so tricky is there's not a lot of resources. So even the endocrinologist is like not really sure what to tell you. And when I was working with Jenny at the time, she, at that time, hadn't tried it yet. So she was, you know, using her experience with what she's been doing with other families to try to help guide us. Yeah, when you don't, you can't like pull out a book and read how to do it. That was I kind of felt left to just I don't know, figure it out, and hope for the best. So once those episodes came out, I felt like I wish I had had those three months early. I'm

Scott Benner 55:07
glad actually, I wish I had them before Arden started off about five. What do you think of that? Yeah. So an ardent used on the pod five for probably nine or 10 weeks, if I'm right around there. And it worked by the time it learned and we, you know, figure things out. It did exactly what I expected. I was like, this is this is it, this is what they that's what they told me it would be and it is. And but she said, I, she's like, I don't want to carry this controller. And I was like, okay, but she just she had context. From loops. She's like, Look, I I like running this from my phone better. And right now, you can't run this from my phone, she does get back to me when this has my my phone is is covered. I was like, okay, so we switched her back over. But it's neat to see. Interesting to see for me that any problems we might have had, you know, and I don't mean problems, like difficulties. I mean, like, you know, life with diabetes, with with loop, they kind of were almost the same anomaly part five, and then vice versa, right. Like, it's, it's the limitation of an algorithm. Like I said, being stupid at some point and not being able to see, like, oh, he had pizza. This isn't just 15 carbs, it's cheese and sausage and stuff like that.

Cate 56:22
Yeah. And I think, you know, I had talked to some people that were, you know, kind of saying some things like, Well, we still have highs and this still happens, or that still happens. And it's like, well, it's not none of this is ever going to be you just, at least for now. Like you turn it on and you do nothing. There's still a lot of input from the user. And you need, you know, if a high happens, you need to correct it. Like you said, it doesn't. It's not a person. And so I think if I had advice would be like going in with the expectation that like, you're still going to have a little bit of work, but you're going to get a great night's sleep. You know, you should take that and run with it. But you're never going to be able to just turn it on and never think about diabetes ever again.

Scott Benner 57:08
Yeah, no, I mean, listen, Arden. Like I said the earlier in the episode Arden's eating at college now, and it's not great. And so yesterday she had, she had something that drove her blood sugar up, and we fought with it and fought with it. Like she fought with it. I was texting her. And then we got like, super aggressive with it over many hours. And then she sat down to do homework where she's very sedentary, but also kind of like, I think she's a little jacked up still from school. You know what I mean? Yep. So over like six hours, we're pressing against food, and then some adrenaline, and maybe some anxiety even. And then she gets hungry again. And boluses doesn't wait long enough. Now we're six or seven hours into this blood sugar. And I'm like Jesus at this all day. And we finally got the drop. And then she goes to bed. I'm thinking like, she's gonna get low. Like she's Yeah, definitely gonna get low. And, you know, like, three in the morning. She's She texted me, she's like, Hey, I just drank a juice. And I did this. Do you think that's enough. And the loop was trying its hardest. It was like take it saw the drop coming. It had been taken basil away for an hour. At that point, it still couldn't stop like a below 60 blood sugar that she had to hit or something. And then, and then, in the course of being tired, I forgot to tell her to like shut off the part where it boluses without food, like so. So the auto Bolus version of lube can micro Bolus with carbs or without carbs. Okay, we're one or the other or both. And so I should have said to her when she corrected I should have said shut off the corrects without carbs. Because what we don't want is for her to finally get her blood sugar back up and for it to go over like 110. And if you go oh, no, and then Bolus, which of course because we didn't shut it off. That's what it did. Talking about an algorithm being dumb, like, right, like we fixed the low, we're good. Don't give her insulin. And then 90, but not even 90 minutes later, an hour or so later, she started getting low again. So you know, is

Cate 59:20
that like, terrifying for you after her like her prom experience?

Scott Benner 59:24
I mean, Kate, it is what it is. Right? So yeah, yeah, I just Yes. I just didn't sleep very much last night. That's all.

Cate 59:32
Well, that's the thing. Like, that's how I've I feel too, like so Grayson goes back and forth between my house and his dad's house and like, even when he's not here, you know, you're still paying attention to those numbers, you know, and it can be a little bit scary, but for the most part, I feel like Omnipod five does a good job overnight of keeping him from getting low unless there's some other thing happening like last week on Tuesday. I had put on a new I changed his pump and his Dexcom sensor, they just that never happens. But they were both due on the same day. And he was reading high, like over 300 I'm like, What in the world is happening? And this was probably like, between eight and 10 ish PM. And sometimes he does get a little bit high with a pump change. So I was like, Okay, well, maybe just the, you know, the pump is getting on and getting insulin going again. And, you know, so I'm correcting him and, and it's, it was getting corrections, like it was definitely like, giving quite a few corrections and like, okay, you know, who must really need it. And then it occurred to me, I'm like, this seems really weird, because he's not usually over 300 At night, so I start finger picking him, you know, every now and again and realize that the sensor was off. And I'm like, oh, no, you know, the sensor was reading a lot higher than what His fingerprints were reading. Yes. So then I'm like, okay, he's definitely maybe had too much insulin, we need to change the sensor. So this is it. Like midnight, we changed the sensor, and I just didn't sleep for like two hours. You know, I'm waiting for the warm up to happen. And sure enough, I was trying to like calm myself down and be like, I'm just overreacting. He's not going to be low. I'm sure it's probably fine. You know. And when he came back on it, too, am, you know, the Dexcom is just screaming low at me. And I run in there and wake them up. And you know, we're giving them juice. And it was like, after that I'm like, Oh, my gosh, is is great as all this technology is like you still have to trust your gut like, yeah, it's still sometimes not right. And that happens well,

Scott Benner 1:01:45
so the other day, we were fighting with a high blood sugar. And I finally stopped and I thought her blood sugar should be lower than this. Yeah, it's, I did everything. I know what I'm like, I know what I'm doing. And I did the thing. And this isn't where the numbers should be. So I'm starting to decide, is this an insulin delivery problem? Because if it isn't, then oh, hey, Arden, test your blood sugar. And, and in that scenario, her blood sugar was like, I mean, we were breaking a high like 200 and her blood sugar was more like 180. And it was telling us she was like, 220. And I was like, that's not right. And, and that's a big difference, because one ad indicates that we're we've got a fall happening from where we were. Right? Yeah, you have to listen. I there. I mean, I'm a little like, you know, I want to make sure everybody understands, like their sponsors, all these companies, but I'm still going to tell you the truth. Like you know, Dexcom is not always going to be perfect. Your pumps not always going to work, right? You know, like nothing, you know, you might test your blood sugar and be like, oh, you know, it's, it's the best that exists right now. And I think that the podcast is supported through advertising through some of the best stuff that exists. So I'm not like, I'm not apologizing for it. I'm just saying you have to use your own common sense still. Yeah, you know, I mean, take anything self driving car, even Lane Assist cars, you see people like, oh, I don't know what happened. I had an accident. The thing usually tells me if I'm gonna get to the lane, I'm like, that's what you're counting on. Like, you know, like, yeah, keep your hands on the wheel look forward. You know, yeah, yeah. And I

Cate 1:03:25
think, you know, I said to grace in the morning, like, but the good news, I think it was Wednesday or Thursday that the Dexcom released the g7. And some other countries, I'm like, soon there's only going to be a half hour warm up and and then I that probably wouldn't have happened, like I would have seen you dropping and known to treat that faster. So like, it's it's always like progressively getting better.

Scott Benner 1:03:50
Yeah. No, it's It's amazing. I just, you know, you have to listen to an episode once in a while with people who have had diabetes for 50 years and hear them talk about not just not just how they started, but the three generations of technology that came afterwards that right now, if you are you with a kid who was diagnosed, you know, 15 months ago, any of their explanations of diabetes is like, Oh, my God, what? Like, that's insane. You know, and you're like, and you're like, Well, when I switch a sensor, when I switch the thing that sticks to his skin that reads this interstitial fluid and tells us if his blood sugar isn't if it's moving, etc. Sometimes there's a warmup period, and it's not always accurate right afterwards.

Cate 1:04:32
Yeah, yeah, we're definitely spoiled for sure. I mean, yeah, and that's why I wanted to try out a new pad five, you know, right away because I knew it was going to create less work. And his even with a little bit of issue with the controller that I probably should have switched sooner. I mean, it's a one C was still 6.1. So, I mean, we really can't complain about that.

Scott Benner 1:04:57
Would you say overall, you're very happy kind They're happy, like, where are you on the on the scale?

Cate 1:05:03
I think we're, we're very happy with it. And, you know, I definitely wouldn't go back to, to doing manual right now I think, especially for a child who, like I said, is unpredictable. I think it's amazing. And you know, I'm curious about looping. And that's something I've read about and maybe we'll explore at some point in time, but for where we are, is early in his diagnosis. Right now, I think he's on the best option, and just it being tubeless. Like he, he refuses to try anything that has a tube, like he said, right away, I'm not doing that. Which I get because he plays sports. And that's what's important to him. And he doesn't want to feel like something's getting in his way. And Omnipod definitely does not get in his way. So

Scott Benner 1:05:52
well, I can tell you, I would I mean Arden's over 18. And I am I am speaking for her, but I don't think she would leave any kind of an automated system. If loop didn't exist right now. She'd be like, give me that Omnipod five back right now. You know, and all I'll work with the controller. I think that I still believe that moving forward, whatever. I don't know, whatever on the pod five morphs into. I do think that eventually, that's what Arden ends up on. Because not that I don't think lupus is terrific. But I mean, there's just work involved in making it run. And there's things you have to know that most people don't know. And she's not going to at some point in her life, you know, be an app developer, so she can wear an insulin pump. I don't see her being that person. You know?

Cate 1:06:42
Yes, I could see that. Yeah, Grace, kind of like that, too. Like, she makes me laugh when she's on because she's kind of like, this is just my life. Like, what do you want me to say about it? You know, and he's kind of like that, too. Like, yesterday, I introduced him. I was really excited. I introduced him to a friend's daughter, who also has diabetes and celiac. And he just was like, shrugged her shoulders like, Yeah, so like, what? She has it too? No big deal. You know? Great. Like, I don't think he would, you know, he doesn't care about an an app or being a developer or whatever, just to keep himself in control. Like he just wants to use you want. Yeah, he wants to be a kid. No,

Scott Benner 1:07:18
no, I hear you. I listen, I think it's terrific. i It's tough, because I assume that people hear Scott tried on the pod five with Arden. And then they switch back and they think something happened. But it's not the case, like Omni pod five, again, did exactly what I thought it was going to do. It acted exactly the way I expected it to. And I thought it was terrific. I thought it worked fantastic. It's different, like, you know, because it's got that, like learning phase to it. And they don't exactly show you everything that's happening with the insulin. So you're guessing sometimes while you're trying to figure it out, but my expectation is, I mean, I don't know, obviously, I don't work there. But my expectation is they're going to keep fine tuning this thing. And the generations will come in common at one point, you probably won't give a crap what it's doing. Because, you know,

Cate 1:08:08
yeah, you want I know, that is it is hard to not be able to like see exactly how much he's getting. Because I get their point. Like, we don't want you to have to think about it. We don't want it to be work. But I think there's a lot of us, like, just out of curiosity, I want to know what his needs are in case, what if I had to do it? Or what if, you know, we had to switch for some reason. And so that's it is tricky to not have all of that information, but at the same time, it's working well enough for us that I'm like, Oh, it's this is fine. Yes. Good

Scott Benner 1:08:41
in that scenario, and based on nothing, anyone has said to me like this is my supposition. It's that the algorithm is making so many decisions and changes that it doesn't translate right back to your Basal is this and your carb ratio. Is that, like, I don't I wonder if that's not the case. Like if what it's doing just doesn't simply translate back to manual care. Does that make sense?

Cate 1:09:07
Yeah, it does. And the only time

Scott Benner 1:09:11
okay, I'm just guessing. But

Cate 1:09:12
yeah, in the only time like that I have realized that we I do switch him over to manual is the activity mode is excellent. Like if he's going to have a friend over and it's going to be playing or like we went we were hiking yesterday and I popped him over to activity mode. And that worked well. But when he's going to he plays travel soccer and he's had a couple of tournaments where even on activity mode, he just was low the whole day. And we just could not keep him up. Like I was just throwing Gatorade at them. And so I talked to the endocrinologist after that and they were like, you know, you might just occasionally either have to switch over and pause insulin during a game or settle really low Basal profile for that type of day and then switch into manual mode just for that day. And we've done that. And that has worked. And you know, those are extremes. It's like a day when he's gonna have he had like four games in 112 hour period, which is crazy.

Scott Benner 1:10:16
Well, I think that a lot of people are going to find just like with regular diabetes care, they're going to find ways to make these things work for them. And in that, if that works for you, then great. And then somebody else might find a different way to do it or, but it's not going to be I mean, we're not up to perfect we're not up to perfection yet in 2022 Give me yeah, we're up to this is pretty freakin amazing. And, and I sleep more. And there's fewer lows. And that's good stuff, you know?

Cate 1:10:46
Yeah. And it's so for him to be able to sleep through the night like as much as I want myself to be able to sleep. I don't. In the first year he was there were days where he would end up in the nurse's office at school napping. Because I would have had to wake them up to treat a low and you know, he's growing. He's at that age where he wants to sleep more and not having to wake him up constantly. is so nice. Yeah, that's been great.

Scott Benner 1:11:11
I'll share this with you last night. While Arden when I called Arden first she called me. And she's like, Hey, and I'm like, What's up? And she asked her questions. She's like, I did this and this, do you think that's enough? And say, oh, it looks like enough. And then I forgot to tell her to shut off the micro Bolus thing. So you know, anyway, yeah. The next time I had to, I texted her a couple times, she did not wake up. So I called her and woke her up. And it's like, I mean, you know, it's four o'clock in the morning, and she's Yeah. My hay yards. I'm like, we're gonna have to drink another juice. And then, you know, okay. And then I hear this, like, I swear to God in my

head. And I felt I felt terrible. While that was happening. No,

Cate 1:12:02
I know. And then she's got to get up and go to class. Like, that's tough.

Scott Benner 1:12:07
Arden also put herself into something. You know, I don't think we've we haven't talked about it a whole lot. But Arden did something that I don't think a lot of people would do. She's a really good student in high school. And if she were to pursue something on the more academic side, she was thinking about pre law. But instead art and went to school to learn how to design clothes. She was yeah, she went to art school to study fashion. Yeah, and she's not a out of the womb, talented artist. So she's got a lot of vision. And she puts things together, but she did not spend her life drawing or painting or working in charcoal. So Arden, like, willfully gave away an academic pursuit that she would have been good at, to go to try to teach herself something artistic. So she's seated at a desk most of the day, you know, learning how to draw. And in as a as a freshman. And it's a I mean, it's, I don't know if I've couched it so that everybody understands correctly. But, you know, this was this was the this was something this is a person in a lane, who said, I'm gonna go way over here into this different lane and see if I can figure this out. That was a pretty big leap. So, you know, on top of all that,

Cate 1:13:36
yeah, yeah, it's not easy. I mean, she didn't pick the thing that would have bet maybe come naturally, but she's gonna work hard at it. And, you know, and I, I always feel bad when, like, after Tuesday night, I mean, we were up most of the night and I said to grace, and I'm like, I could not go to work that morning. Because that only after a night like that, am I exhausted, but like the adrenaline of all that happening? Yeah. Was it takes a toll, you know, and I'm like, I'm in front of kids all day. I'm like, I can't run on on zero sleep. So I called in for the morning and I told him, he could stay home. And he just was like, no, no, I'm not doing that. He refuses to miss school. You know, he just started middle school. He doesn't. He's like I literally while he's having a low blood sugar, he just computer out. He was trying to do his math homework. I'm like, can you not do that right now? Like he he was like, slurring his words. He asked me What's four plus nine? I'm like, buddy, like, now's not a good time to do that.

Scott Benner 1:14:35
No, I know. Do you know? I don't know if she said this or not in her last episode. But after Arden had that seizure, and she was rebounding from it. It was Sunday morning. You know what I mean? Or Saturday morning, it was very early on and she was she started emailing one of her teachers. Oh my god. She was like, Hey, I'm not going to be able to get this thing done. I just had a seizure. And oh, and she was being she thought she was being rude. responsible? Didn't really mean but she was Yeah. Still a little, like, still recovering. Yeah. And the guy, like I emailed her back and he was like, okay, like, are you okay? And you know, like, he was almost saying like, you really shouldn't be worried about this right now.

Cate 1:15:20
Yes, yeah. And they need to hear that, like, I tried to tell him like when you're like your health is the most important thing. And then school like, I appreciate that. You want to do your math homework, but also you probably can't, you know, obviously a four plus nine, it's, it's hard for you right now. It's like, not a good time to do that. Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:15:40
but I take your point, I've seen Arden do the same thing. I've seen her have long nights in high school. And I'd be like, if you want to just skip a first class and sleep a little longer. You can? Yes, like, No, I'm okay. And I'm like, All right. I mean, listen, I got up this morning. Not gonna lie. Yeah, I slept like four hours last night. Oh, God. And I don't feel terrific right now. But I'm working it out. And by the way, I have to get off with you. Because I'm recording again and a half an hour. So Oh, my God. Okay, set up. So this is me, like, I really wanted to talk to you. And I'm thrilled that you came and gave me this, this explanation of how things went for you and for grace and everything. So I just like get you in to the, to the, to the schedule somewhere. Because right now, it's October 2022. Yeah. And if I gave you my scheduling link right now, like I gave you the VIP link, I think right. So if I gave you if I gave you the scheduling link, you would not find a slot until October 2023.

Cate 1:16:36
Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Well,

Scott Benner 1:16:39
and I wanted this story fresh in your head. So like, I can't wait that long. By the way, man, respect to everybody who contacts me to be on the podcast. And it's not daunted when I send a link and say, Hey, you're not going to find a space for about a year. And they're like, no problem. I always think I always I'm like, thank you so much. It's just so very kind thing everybody does.

Cate 1:17:01
Yeah, I mean, you should feel good about that, like people are willing to wait a year to talk to you. So that's pretty amazing. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:17:07
adults, Kate, who have learned patience, which I am proud to say I have finally learned in my life, are okay with him, like we needed a new refrigerator and I wouldn't the guys like well, I won't be here for two months, I was like, that's fine.

I'd like to thank Omni pod makers of the Omni pod five and the Omni pod dash, and remind you to go to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. I'd also like to thank us Med, go to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 to get started today. And of course, the Contour Next One blood glucose meter is available at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. You may be paying more for test strips right now through your insurance than you would at my link. And of course, let's thank Caitlin for coming on the show today and sharing her story. If you're looking for the diabetes Pro Tip series, go to juicebox podcast.com and hit the menu at the top. Actually, all of the series and the podcasts are now listed there. Don't miss it. And if you're looking for a real supportive place to talk about diabetes, or just watch people talk about it, because sometimes just watching the conversations kind of brings you along with the idea. Anyway, you can do that on my private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it's 100%. Free. It has over 30,000 members in IT people just like you adults living with type one. Caregivers of type ones up jeez, a lot of people who have just become pregnant and gotten that gestational stuff. I type twos are in there any kind of diabetes, you can imagine. They're there. They're willing to talk to you. I really think you should check it out. Thank you so much for listening and for supporting the podcast. I'll be back very soon with another episode. So keep checking that app. You are listening in an app? Aren't you like Amazon Music Spotify or Apple podcasts? Please tell me you are out overcast. There's a lot of free. Look, there are a lot of free podcast apps. A lot of them are terrific. They're great places to listen to podcasts and to subscribe or follow. Please don't be listening online. What do you like you my grandma? You don't I mean? Let's get you. Let's get you an app. Alright, we're on your phone, Apple. Android doesn't matter. Don't know where to get one. juicebox podcast.com. At the top, there's links. Go into the Facebook group. Ask them, you can do it. You too, can be in the cell phone age. I'm just kidding. Most of you listen in apps. I just please subscribe or follow that to actually while we're talking. That's actually a huge help to the podcast. Subscribing and following in an app is a major help. only bested by sharing the show with somebody else. If you really want to help the podcast share the show. Subscribe today. AP support the advertisers when you can take the T one dc exchange survey like there's a lot of ways to do it but Subscribe and follow follow and subscribe please.

#793 Bumblebee On A Leash

Julie has ADHD and a child with type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 793 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast we'll be speaking with Julie she is the mother of a child with type one diabetes. And Julie has ADHD. This is most of the podcast episode. Besides us being delightful together and saying things that are incredibly entertaining and informative. 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 are becoming bold with insulin. As Thanksgiving approaches, please remember that those other podcasts you listen to, they put on rerun, don't play episodes at all, or give you content that they've recorded months ago that they didn't like not Scottie, I don't do that great content all week. leading right up into the new year will will just explode again into 2023 with more of the Juicebox Podcast. If you're thankful for that. Go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box join the registry and fill out the survey. It'll take you about 10 minutes. It will support people living with type one diabetes. It moves diabetes research forward, you can do it from your sofa, and it supports the Juicebox Podcast T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by ag one from athletic greens. With one scoop of delicious ag one you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, Whole Foods sourced ingredients probiotics and adaptogens to help start your day, right? This special blend of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging. All of these things in just one scoop. Learn more. It gets started today at athletic greens.com forward slash juicebox. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox.

Julie 2:15
I don't know. Okay,

Scott Benner 2:17
you don't know. Do you feel? Are you okay? Are you nervous?

Julie 2:21
I am so unbearably nervous that I just stared at that thing at the bottom of the email like reschedule for like an hour while chugging coffee and taking like just a half a Xanax. No, but I feel I'm good now.

Scott Benner 2:37
Okay. You're being recorded. Is that okay?

Julie 2:42
Yeah, it's fine. I know how your role. Tell me your name. We'll

Scott Benner 2:48
see what's going on.

Julie 2:49
Okay, so my name is Julie. I am a mother to my son, George, who is just about to turn 14, type one diabetes diagnosed January 31 2020. And he was 11 at the time. And I have ADHD, and so does my son. And that's about it. As far as the introduction.

Scott Benner 3:19
I'm making a Venn diagram over here, hold on one second. This one's gonna fill them out that way.

Julie 3:29
I'm sorry, it is also it is gonna go that way. I started to make a little like a thing where I'm like, oh, I should write some stuff down. And so far all I have is don't purse. So

Scott Benner 3:40
can I tell you something that I think might make you feel better? Under pressure of like penalty of death? I don't know that I can exactly describe what a Venn diagram is. I was just,

Julie 3:51
Oh, I know what one is because I've had to learn because like my kids were home for like, two years with the with the COVID.

Scott Benner 3:59
So I guess since you know, it's one of those things where I draw like three circles that kind of overlap a little bit.

Julie 4:06
Yeah, it's two circles. And then the middle is what it what's in common. And then on the one side, I don't even know why we're talking about this. On the one side is like, what's going on here and this circle, the other one is going on this circle and what's in the middle is like what's in common?

Scott Benner 4:22
Okay, we're talking about it because I brought it up and I'm in charge Julie? That's true. Yeah,

Julie 4:27
I said I like that. I like that. Okay, because my brain could go in any direction. You bring up

Scott Benner 4:32
obviously, I'm just trying to take the pressure off of you for a second. So okay, so tell me your son's name again.

Julie 4:38
Next time is George.

Scott Benner 4:40
Are there any other kids or is Georgia

Julie 4:42
are other? There are other kids there is my daughter who is now 11 And she does not have type one as of now.

Scott Benner 4:53
Okay. Are you married?

Julie 4:56
I am okay.

Scott Benner 4:58
You have ADHD? What else you got going on?

Julie 5:02
I have, like mentally I mean, there's a lot going on with me. But no.

Scott Benner 5:13
Because I feel like you started breaking yourself up into into like sections in your mind. You're like, oh,

Julie 5:18
there's there's a lot of sections, but we'll just go with ADHD. And we will go with definitely extreme anxiety. And as far as autoimmune I have vitiligo

Scott Benner 5:35
by the way before you had said anxiety had already written it down, just assuming

Julie 5:40
Yeah, I think in my description, I might have put that down, like at least four times.

Scott Benner 5:44
Yeah, I didn't. I didn't read that. But I was gonna look at it in a little bit. Yeah, don't bother. You're all listening to a podcast where the prep that was done for it was the guy's like, I'll probably read it at some point while she's talking. Okay, okay. Julie. How old are you? 47. George, how we'll search. He will be 14 in about seven days. Okay. How old? Was he? Seven. He was 11. Okay. Yeah. All right. Here we go. Are you ready?

Julie 6:22
Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready. All right.

Scott Benner 6:25
Well, he was oh, did you just want to go? You have something?

Julie 6:29
No, no, no, I don't just want to go. Am I going to

Scott Benner 6:33
be fighting with the motor in your brain all day? Yes. Okay. That's okay. Don't worry.

Julie 6:39
I'll explain why later. I don't like explaining why, yeah,

Scott Benner 6:42
we'll get to it. Okay. I almost started with George now I'm gonna start with you. ADHD, how old are you when you realize, like a doctor says, you you have ADHD.

Julie 6:53
I was 25.

Scott Benner 6:56
Somebody that was you your whole life prior to that you just

Julie 6:59
my whole life. But as a girl, or a woman, you know, it presents differently. I think that I was raised at a time in the 70s into the 80s. That was probably they thought I just probably didn't care. I didn't have parents that really pushed me. It created a lot of anxiety. But so like ADHD can just create a lot of anxiety because you don't need to be the way you are. But you just are. And so I was never diagnosed, I really barely thought I was gonna graduate high school, to be totally honest with you. I think they were like, You know what, let's just give it to her. Like, let's just give it a four paragraph.

Scott Benner 7:38
One out, maybe someone will marry her and get her a house.

Julie 7:43
By the way, back in the day, I had had several teachers because you know how they were inappropriate back in the day. But you know, they were like, oh, MySite and because that's my maiden name. You better marry rich, like right in front of the class, or like my science teacher, like, hope you're gonna be able to keep that beautiful smile. Until, you know,

Scott Benner 8:06
give context. Was this the 80s?

Julie 8:10
This was the 80s. Yeah, I was born in 75. So I would say, like I said, all the way up to high school. It really was not, it wasn't a pretty scene.

Scott Benner 8:20
You see, I joke around, I joked around and said, like, you know, we'll let you out of high school. And hopefully some guy will buy your house. But I'm telling you right now, like, that's a joke based in how people thought back then,

Julie 8:31
for sure. Oh, totally. And like said it out loud and didn't get in trouble. No. You can't do that these days. But also, my, my sister is like three years younger than I am. And she was classified and you know, had some things going on. So it's like I just made that cut off before they started, like piecing things together, where they were like, oh, maybe this one needs a little help. I don't know, you know,

Scott Benner 9:00
oh, well, we failed. Julie. Next.

Julie 9:03
Yeah. All right. So let your sister go through but you were gonna give extra help to? Yeah. Okay. So then. So it wasn't until? Just to go back to the original question. My so around 25 My anxiety started, because I had my own apartment and then really add at that point is more like, you have the money but you don't pay the bill. Right? You have the video, old school to return to Blockbuster. And it sits there. But it doesn't get to Blockbuster. You know, I'm like banned from libraries and blockbusters like all over the place. Like this check does not make stuff back. That type of thing. And when I went in there with the anxiety to a psychiatrist, he was like, Hold on before we talk about the anxiety. He's like, just the way you talk. Like, have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD add no ADHD. I'm like now so I took the, you know, tests or whatever. And that was the first time you know,

Scott Benner 9:59
that was my My first experience with the way you talk just meaning wrapping circles jumping around rapidly

Julie 10:06
jumping around, my husband's like, What are you even trying to talk about right now? Like, I don't know, just follow along, it will come to a point at some point.

Scott Benner 10:13
What about keywording? Do you do that? Can you be talking about the Atlantic Ocean? And at some point during it, someone says blue, and then we're talking about the color of your bathroom? Yeah. Okay. All

Julie 10:27
right. Yeah, I do that. And I also just do it to myself. And I also do it when I'm having a like, you know, all start talking about that. And then I'll say a word. And that will trigger a different thought. And then I will go in a different direction. I can do it all by myself. I

Scott Benner 10:42
don't need the rest of us to get out of the earth.

Julie 10:45
Oh, no. And then when I get really real, real chatty, and I'm in a conversation. It's like, it's almost like the person. I think of it as like, maybe you might have said this, but I don't know if it was you, but as somebody, but it was very clever. But like, it's like a tennis serve. It's like they're only talking to like, serve me a ball. You know what I mean? Like, they're saying something like, oh, there it is. I got something to say.

Scott Benner 11:09
Yeah, I can do this with my sister in law. I can just throw out a couple of words, and then just watch her go. It's like, it's like winding up a toy, and then watching it walk into walls? Did that just make me sound girls really? By any chance? Did it?

Julie 11:23
No, it's like, funny. It's like funny, but not funny. Do you know what I mean? Like, it is funny.

Scott Benner 11:28
So now the funny thing when I using my sister in laws and examples, I do believe she knows she's doing it. She just sort of can't stop herself. Does that make you feel that? Like while you're doing it? Are you? Are you like Julie? In your mind? Like stay on topic? Or you're not making sense? Or stop jumping around? Or? Or is it in the moment not aware to you?

Julie 11:53
You know what, I'm not aware, I would say in the moment. But I also not to brag, but I find myself kind of funny. So like, people are going along with me like they're laughing. It's not like, I'm looking I can read body language like if I need to, you know, like I will. So you know what I

Scott Benner 12:14
mean? So you're saying that you think people are laughing with you? Not at you. And so oh my god. Yeah, you're entertaining on top of all that? I think so you believe so? Has anyone ever page.

Julie 12:26
They I have never gotten cash for that.

Scott Benner 12:27
Well, until somebody pays you. I don't know if I can trust your assessment. But I hear what you're saying. And I understand where we're going with this. I'm asking. I'm asking you because I'm also stopping myself from just throwing you up into the air like a sparkler and watching it pop all over the place. Because I'm because I feel like we have such a good time. And yet, the episode would go nowhere. So I tried to stay focused.

Julie 12:55
Don't worry, then just throw it up at the end and see what happens.

Scott Benner 12:57
We'll just lay it all on fire and see what what comes with my real like real question around. And I appreciate you explaining all that and allowing us to make light of it. Because it does seem kind of burdensome and serious. But how does that how does the ADHD first of all, what the hell is the difference between ADHD and ADD? I'll google.

Julie 13:18
Ah, no, no, you don't have to the the so Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. That's more commonly commonly seen in boys. Not always. It's like a combined type sometimes. I don't have the hyperactivity, although, I tend to defer because then you could call hyperactivity in a verbal way, which is also how my son is. So maybe it is ADHD, you know, it's the hyperactive part. You know how some people with ADHD especially as children, they're, they're up, they gotta get out of the seat. They're all over the place. They're very, very impulsive, that kind of stuff. So at 25 That's not what the doctor was diagnosing me with.

Scott Benner 13:58
If I were to tell you right now that you didn't answer the question, do you know that? Oh, do you remember what the question was?

Julie 14:07
Yeah. What's the difference between ATD and ADHD? It's hyperactivity.

Scott Benner 14:11
And so you started when you when you started when you started to define them. You then related the one to it's more often than boys, but then you were like, but not really. And then somehow you got back to yourself. I think you thought about girls, and then you came back to yourself. And then you talked about the hyper part again, and then you related it to your son, but in no way

Julie 14:30
I just talk right out of my brain, and it says not ever really. Yeah, exactly. My husband's advice this morning, he goes, stick to the point, and then get up and let him talk. Like, yeah, well, you know, that's not gonna happen.

Scott Benner 14:43
I don't care. But let's try it again is a focus thing. Oh, tell me what ADHD stands for

Julie 14:51
attention deficit disorder.

Scott Benner 14:53
Okay, more broadly. What does that mean?

Julie 14:59
Difficult He attending to probably specific details in your life, or the way that you may learn or focus, like saying like reading or also sometimes hope hyper focusing. It's a deficit in attention.

Scott Benner 15:18
Okay? Hold on a second. First of all, I have to clear my throat, or this is never gonna go well. I'm just making up this definition. If this tea was any hotter, and it's still yummy, if you hear me yell out any point, it's from the tea, that I'm trying to clear. Webster's right there a reasonable organization that defines things, a developmental disorder that is marked especially by persistent symptoms of inattention, such as distractibility, forgetfulness, disorganization, or by symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity, such as fidgeting, speaking out of turn, or restlessness, or by symptoms of all three that is not caused by any serious underlying physical or mental disorder. Does this define you or no?

Julie 16:06
Oh, pretty much. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:07
Okay. All right, now. Let's try to figure out what ADHD means. Okay. Do you feel like you know what it is? Or do you want me to check?

Julie 16:19
Um, I just think that there's more of an emphasis on the hyperactivity part. I don't know exactly how they define that. It could be like, physically, you know, like getting up. Like I've seen some children that I've worked with that are very hyperactive.

Scott Benner 16:39
psychiatry.org says, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children. ADHD also affects many adults, symptoms of ADHD include inattentive, not being able to keep focused hyperactivity, excessive movement that is not fitting the setting, and impulsivity, hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought and estimated 8.4% of children and 2.5% of adults have ADHD? Well, that's an interesting thing. Because if you start,

Julie 17:08
that's a little bit, not like how I would be, I'm not as impulsive or the movement thing or any of that.

Scott Benner 17:16
Okay, it's more in your mind. Now, in the last three minutes, where we've been focused and serious, has it changed how you feel? No, no. Okay. Because your voice got very serious is that you're? Well, I'm just trying to focus, you're trying to focus. Okay, good. Now, I appreciate you explaining all this. Thank you. All right. So then the anxiety comes from what do you know, failure? How so?

Julie 17:48
You mean, well, you can be perfectly bright, extremely creative. But in a school environment. If you do not know that you have ADHD or ADD, you're going to fail in one way or another, you're going to be embarrassed, probably publicly, I would assume. You couldn't have the best intentions. And you can really think you're doing well. And then all of a sudden, they're like, cool. You did your report. And then you go in your backpack and you're like, Yeah, sure did leave that at home. You know, you've done it and you're just, you're just embarrassed, and it causes just such great. I used to think I had social anxiety. It turns out that's not really the case. I really just believe that it's caused by just repetitive failure without knowing why I say

Scott Benner 18:41
gee, voc hypo pen has no visible needle, and is a pre mixed auto injector of glucagon for treatment of very low blood sugar. In adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Find out more go to G vo glucagon.com forward slash juicebox G voc shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit G voc glucagon.com/risk. In the morning, I get up I get out of bed. I drag a comb across my head and then I take ag one from athletic greens. All I do is take the canister that it comes in and I I take out a scoop I put it in a little shaky container that I drink it from put the water in Shake Shake Shake actually dissolves very easily. And then boom I drink it. That's it goes down super smooth. No weird tastes flavors or aftertastes and I'm on my way

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It's actually interesting because I found myself the other day telling someone that I think that a lot of the pressure that comes from diabetes is because you don't know why things are happening. And so you're trying really hard and you're not getting anywhere close to the result you're looking for. And then there's just such pressure from knowing that you've put so much effort into something and yet it's paying off not at all. And then of course with diabetes, it has health implications. And with you it has personal growth implications. Is that right? Yes, you can't, you can't succeed get a job, people don't take you seriously, I would imagine,

Julie 22:45
I have always been able to get a job. I'm very personable. My jobs are, have been. Let's say they've kind of fallen into my lap. And I actually started working with kids with autism. That was basically handed to me, I didn't even graduate college. And they're like, it doesn't matter. Because four year college students come in here and they've never sat with a child with autism, and they just absolutely don't understand the positive reinforcement, the whole thing. So they're like, We'll train you, I ended up being very, very good at that. A very good with teaching children how to settle down, I think because probably I've experienced a lot of some of these things or how to be social and make eye contact and XYZ. So I also then ditch that whole thing, you know, and then I became an art teacher. I was doing like clay and pottery and teaching adults and children painting and glazing and whatnot.

Scott Benner 23:48
What made an artist I'm going to ask you what made you make that switch in a second. But first, let me just cover for you a little bit. Do you want to look for another adjective other than ditched referring to the autistic kids? Was that was a tough one, actually.

Julie 24:05
Oh my god, delete that. I love children with autism. Like, I fell out of it, I fell out of the I don't recall why. Like, Oh, I lost my I was doing it privately and the child had I was shadowing him and mainstreaming him into a private school. And I think it became too costly for them. They wanted to go back to public where of course you can get your services for you know, that's included. And I kind of was oh, so I was working at this school, this private school, but just for this one family. And then when he went back to his district, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna have to find a new case. That's fine. It's always word of mouth. That's how I got tons of clients and then the school calls one day and they're like, We know you're, you know, you're not working at the moment. Do you want to be a sub for the Montessori class because I also went to Montessori education for a little bit of time and Uh, I said, sure I'll come in, you know, I came in and then the the woman was like, oh my god, the other teacher quit. Would you please please, please work here part time? And I'm like, Well, fine, but I can't be here at 830. I'll come at nine. And then. So I started doing that and I was there for five years. Being a Montessori teacher,

Scott Benner 25:17
what did the kids do between 830 and nine while they were waiting for you?

Julie 25:21
Oh, no, there was three of us. We have three because the main teacher and then the other teacher were there. I just because I had to drop my daughter off at that time.

Scott Benner 25:29
Do you have any feelings for what your co workers how they see you? Have they ever told you? Or is it?

Julie 25:37
Yeah, they like they're both in a new school right now. They just have have really just, they're like, it's not the same without you hear like, positive, positive, all very positive. Even when I would shatter when I worked at a Catholic school for three years. Those teachers were so nervous to have me in their classroom. I'm like, I'm not here to judge you. I'm helping my students. It's all I'm doing. And then by the end of the day, they're like, I don't think that I don't know why teachers don't get someone like you in their classrooms all the time. Like I don't, I don't want to go into next year without having you on my class. I have very, very, very good relationships with everybody that I've worked with.

Scott Benner 26:15
Okay. Well, that's amazing. But you did not finish college. Is that right?

Julie 26:21
I didn't finish any of them.

Scott Benner 26:24
Any of them? Hold on. You graduated from high school. But you believe they passed you through? Because they were like, Oh, get this girl out of here. Right.

Julie 26:34
Let's just put it this way. I know. I didn't pass that last test. They can say what they want, but there's just no way. Yeah. Okay. That was history.

Scott Benner 26:45
Then, you did you try College?

Julie 26:49
Oh, yes. So first, well, first I. So for years, people were like, oh, you should be a model. And I'm like, huh, cool. You know what, that's a nice compliment, whatever. And then when it came to graduating, I was like, Maybe I will try that. So because I don't feel like going back to school yet. So I went to the city got on with an agency did that for like a year, it was a disaster, because you have to have a certain personality that just called like, self confidence. And I have the opposite of that. So that didn't work out. So then I went to where to go next. Then I went to a community college around me. And I was going for a child's like how early childhood education in child psychology, which is really if I thought I wasn't just done, that's what I would have wanted to be maybe a social worker or something like that. And I did that for like a year. And I'm like, I can't do this. You know, it's all the same thing because I hadn't been diagnosed. Yeah, and I just still didn't have any of the skills, honestly.

Scott Benner 27:48
Right. You know, I wondered this whole time how you got somebody to marry you and then you Loki like dropped in I thought about modeling. And I was like I see what's happening now. Okay, I gotcha. Is this what you digitally? Yeah,

Julie 27:59
I'm not I'm no prize, but like, you know, had to have the looks fill in for me back in the day.

Scott Benner 28:03
I am no price. I'm sure. I'm sure that's not true.

Julie 28:08
No, really. But well, organization of the home, let's just start there. That doesn't happen. But anyway. So then I went to Oh, so then I was like, You know what I am? I'm an artist. So but I want to make money. So I'm gonna go in for I went to Parsons School of Design for graphic design and advertising. I don't know why I came up with that. But I stayed there for like, let's say, one semester, you know, like, and then I was like, You know what the problem with this is, I hate computers and technology. So I gotta get out of here. Because I had to drive to the city. And I would get very anxious if I was late. And then I would just leave. If I was even one minute late for

Scott Benner 28:49
the class Parsons, the one in Manhattan or the one in Brooklyn. Manhattan. Okay. All right. The new school. Is that right? Part of that? It's a new school. It's part of that. Yeah, you stay there. How long?

Julie 29:02
Like, one semester, like I loved the color theory. I love the painting part, but

Scott Benner 29:08
you didn't like using the computers and you were there for graphic doesn't know. And

Julie 29:11
I was literally there for that like, because I was too scared. I'm like, how do you turn it on? Like, who could ask that? You know, like, why am I here?

Scott Benner 29:19
So like if you decided not to use it, like if you said to yourself one day I'm gonna go to school to be a pigeon trainer that you got there and said the only real problem with this is these freakin pigeons.

Julie 29:28
Right? Or like, I'm definitely allergic to pigeons or something like that.

Scott Benner 29:31
made me do this. So you so you love the

Julie 29:34
training part. But does it have to be pigeons? Yeah.

Scott Benner 29:37
So prior to that decision, you were not aware that you were not computer oriented.

Julie 29:44
I don't think I thought about that.

Scott Benner 29:45
Okay, okay. That's fine. I'm not judging you. By the way. I'm just these are interesting little tidbits that build the story for us. Total. Okay. So I think we're not going to say but we figured out how you got this. You know, you don't mean like you're not taking the house isn't even clean is what you're saying Julie?

Julie 30:00
Actually, it was clean. But yes, it's clean. It's just I need to I needed to do a lot of spring cleaning. I've done a lot since I started the medication, which is the reason that I think I've been on here right now. But yeah, it's just more of an organizational like a system, you know, people need system to do anything helps

Scott Benner 30:21
you out there. So at what point do you realize I need some medication for this? When does that start?

Julie 30:28
That started after George was diagnosed. I was, I was rocking it. But I started to see where you could lose control. You know, like, you know, some of the hormonal stuff, the middle of the night stuff that they weren't really teaching me. And I saw somebody, well, many people always talked about the juice boss, Fox podcast on all the groups. But, of course, God forbid, I could, like, look that up on my own. But then one day, somebody put it with the clip where you could just click on it and listen. And as soon as I heard that episode, I do not recall which one it was. I just put it down. I called a psychiatrist, it took like two weeks to get in. I said, I need to be put on medication. Because I have 600 525 hours worth of something that I'm going to listen to every word and learn every single bit of, but I'm going to need medication to do it. And so that is what I did I got on medication so that I can listen to your podcast and absorb it.

Scott Benner 31:35
I can't tell you and I hope you can shut up long enough for me to say this, but i You must. On this made me cry. I took me by surprise. I'm Misty as they say. So So let's unpack this for a second. Because it feels like I'm going to be a hero at the end of the story. So I want to take a second. But so first of all, you're not living with meds from the time you're born. Even through the real real problems that started around in your mid 20s. Up to 44. Just not. And then

Julie 32:12
just No, not 44 Yeah, like 40 I started. When I started. I think it was last June. I started listening to your podcast. Maybe it was before that. I'll never know.

Scott Benner 32:22
So 45 Are you breaking my balls over one year here, Julius, this what's going on right now? Two years, two years? Okay, good. I'll shut up.

Julie 32:32
No, it's alright. It doesn't really matter. No. So when I was 25, and I was diagnosed, I was in the middle of like a complete breakdown. And hearing about the EDD and stuff, they did start me on medication. But like, I didn't stick with it, because it had a lot of side effects. I didn't really know what was going on. And honestly, the job I had at that time, which was I believe, like the pottery place and teaching the art and stuff. I was like, oh my god, like nobody needs to cope with this much like I've already made a life that doesn't need focused, you know what I'm saying? So, I don't know, it just felt like a bit much. And I just never I did it for like, like a few weeks. I'm like, it's not for me. And that was alright, not until the podcast part.

Scott Benner 33:21
You are you are you are, you are taxing my ability to focus. But I appreciate it. It's much better today. Because the The really interesting thing that just happened was is that I wanted to move to I was trying to move to an idea. And I was just giving timeline context saying that you hadn't had meds your entire life right up until George was diagnosed, I took the fact that it looks like he's had diabetes since he was 11. But he's 14 now. And then I subtracted three from your age. And then you got super focused on a completely an important part of what I was saying. And then we and then we literally jumped off on a tangent. That's No, I have not finished my thought yet. It's really no, don't be sorry, I'm endlessly fascinated by this. You should not be sorry, you're doing an amazing job of letting people see what this is. So I'm being serious. So. So my point is, is that at that point, your son becomes diagnosed with the type one this thing is difficult. It takes focus, you clearly have set up a whole life for yourself where you don't have to focus, which is probably a brilliant strategy for you know, for self preservation. And then you get into a situation where you care more about George and his health than you do about your comfort. But realize there's no way you can help him while you're in this situation. And you so when you listen to the podcast, it isn't that you heard an episode where somebody was like, I have ADHD and medication helped me. You heard Oh, no, it had nothing to do with that. Right? You heard this might help my son but I don't have the capacity to listen to it.

Julie 34:59
I heard it. And I said, crap. All the answers are here. I can tell. And look at how many episodes. It's like going to college. Yeah. Okay. And you saw how that went. So, yeah, I was like, nope, nope. I need medication. Wow. And I need it to work. And I need it to be good.

Scott Benner 35:23
So Julie, you, you ended up in a in a different way than has ever been described to me in the past, doing what I see so many people doing over and over again, which is they don't help themselves until helping themselves helps a loved one. Fantastic. Yes, yes.

Julie 35:40
And I also was kind of spinning at that time. Because if you think about everything other than management of diabetes, which I was actually doing quite well at. If you think about everything else, it's all my worst things like I do not make phone calls. I cannot make a freakin appointment to save my life. I let every medication run out for like, at least a week before I get it. I mean, you can't do that with diabetes. I've got like three different pharmacies. I think my people and I always have from the beginning on the pod the people that filled up for me, right? Yeah, they call me. It's time do you want to still deliver? Yes. Thank you. And Thank you always for calling me. And doing this for me. And I say the same thing to the Dexcom. Rep. Yeah, like, thank you. Because it's there's no way there's no way.

Scott Benner 36:33
Yeah, Julie's never calling us we need to call her.

Julie 36:37
Yeah. And I think that's just it's that's just what they do. Because they just to get the approval of the copay or, you know, just to let you know that they're sending it out. But I have I go above and beyond.

Scott Benner 36:45
Yeah. Because, yeah, because yeah, because you're super nice is that way. Excellent. No one that was not in question. Ever. Joy. We never thought you weren't super nice. Okay, so how long do you have to be with the psychiatrist? So, are you seeing the psychiatrist just to get the script? Or are you actually going to? Do you actually start talking to them?

Julie 37:08
Well, a psychiatrist, you don't really, I mean, I spoke with him. You have to speak with them to get the medication. I also in addition, started seeing a therapist. So that's like, that's different. They don't prescribe medication. That's more of a talk therapy type of

Scott Benner 37:25
situation. Yeah. And the therapy was about George's diagnosis or about yourself, or what ended up happening.

Julie 37:31
No, it was like, it was about me. But then it was about George and then we just started becoming like, friends. So then she was like, should we like, do this? Like once a month instead? I'm like, Yeah, sure. And then just stop

Scott Benner 37:43
it. Stop. Okay, yeah. Jesus, was this person to this person? I have a degree of any kind. It is just, yeah, she's

Julie 37:50
a psychologist. Alright.

Scott Benner 37:52
I don't know. I gotta be honest with you, Julie. There are days when I think I'm like four classes away from being a psychologist and an admin. Totally. Yeah. But you know, the funny thing

Julie 38:00
to me too. I'm like, you know, I tell my friend, I'm like, if, if, if I had first of all podcasts, never heard of them. Never did a book on tape. never did anything like that. I'm like, do you understand? I probably could have graduated college if it was all on a podcast, really? And I could like do laundry, and like, walk around or do keep my physical body, you know, doing one thing so I can really focus.

Scott Benner 38:27
Okay, so this format works for you because you can busy yourself and hear it at the same time.

Julie 38:33
Yeah, interesting. I don't have to. It's not like I don't I'm not like oh, okay, like I'm gonna listen. Let me go like, I don't know move my body. It's just I like to multitask. You know? Yeah. I sitting down to read is first of all, I can't read. I was in the hospital. I read that. One of those things. The things like a pancreas, which is obviously great. I'm sure. I read the whole thing. I don't know what was what happened there. Wait a minute. Oh,

Scott Benner 39:05
I'm sure think like a pancreas is great. I'm sure meaning I read it, but I don't remember reading it.

Julie 39:11
But I remember reading it and being like, I don't know right now. I'm just trying to think about why when somebody is low, they don't need insulin. Okay, like I just couldn't in the very beginning. I was like, Wait, so when he's low, he needs insulin. They're like, Oh my God, no, they need the sugar when they're low. They need the insulin for the

Scott Benner 39:36
15 years and my mother in law brings art and food when her blood sugar is high. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know about that. I'm fascinated that the format works so well for you because I believe very strongly that I wasn't doing much different when I was writing a blog than I'm doing now. And yet, it just never reach people in the way that this does. And it helped people but very specific people. And, and now, I hear from I hear from so many listeners, and their backgrounds and their learning styles and their education levels are all so incredibly varied. And yet they almost all take the exact same thing away from the podcast. Yeah, amazing. It's crazy. I was telling someone the other day, I standing at a baseball game, at my son's college, pitchers father comes up to me, and we hadn't met before. And we're talking and he's telling me what he does for a living. And then he asks me what I do. And then there's this moment where I'm 50 years old. I'm clearly my son's in college, I must be paying for it somehow, right. And I'm now going to tell another human being another adult, that I'm a podcaster. And yeah, it's weird to say out loud, and so I, you know, you, I ended up explaining it first, before I even say the words. And then I, I kind of got over that part. And then explained to him how it helps people and how I'm really feel blessed. And it's not a word I use lightly because I have no real religious background or affiliation. But I really do feel blessed that I do something that pays my bills that I enjoy. And that helps people. It's a trifecta. I could not have imagined for myself, or I think most people are hard pressed to get those three things in their work life. But then,

Julie 41:34
don't you feel like it's your personality? And the way that you think that got you here?

Scott Benner 41:38
Well, I'm probably the worst person to ask why the podcast works. Because I'm certain that it works because of me. But I'm just being myself. So it's not like I sat down, you know, when you see people now and that you can see them plotting out their social media ideas about how they're going to dominate the world and be like, you know, click mavens and win everything. And I didn't, I didn't start this podcast for to be popular. I started I started it because I wanted to expand on what I was doing. And I knew that the blog helped people. I didn't want to lose the ability to help people and people weren't reading anymore. So this was just the thing I did next, to try to keep this train rolling, basically.

Julie 42:25
Yeah, you're going with the times. And it's kind of probably like, the blog was getting a little less popular. And podcasts were maybe getting more popular. And so you're like, Let me transfer over there.

Scott Benner 42:35
I didn't even know here's what I knew for sure. People read less than they used to. And I liked listening to audio, I like to listen to people speak. So I would prefer to be in the car listening to someone speak than someone saying, when I'm walking around the house, I prefer to hear somebody talking than not I like hearing new things, and ideas and things like that. And I don't know that, you know, I could go listen to a three hour podcast by somebody else. And I don't know that when it's over, you could give me a test on it. But I do feel enriched when it's over. And I do remember the things that I need to remember from it. And so I thought like maybe this would work for that. But the thing I didn't finish thing was the the gentleman at the baseball field. What I told him was it's so incredible to touch this many people's lives with technology that did not exist when I was in high school. And I mean, all of it. I mean, the computers, the internet access, the bandwidth, it's available cell phones, headphones, that, you know, pair easily and people can pop in and out when they're jumping out their car and things like that. Like everything that makes podcasts accessible. Like, literally didn't exist when I was thinking to myself, I wonder what I'll do with my life. And, and he asked me, What did you do back then? And I said I worked in a sheetmetal shop. Right? You know, it's just it's so crazy. I mean, I was the entertaining person at the sheetmetal shop, but a lot of good. That was good. I mean,

Julie 44:05
Sam, would you ever have you? Did you ever have like a nine to five or a desk job or any of that kind of stuff?

Scott Benner 44:12
I graduated from high school and the next day I started working in my uncle sheetmetal shop. I did that I did that for a number of years, until one day. Oh my god, am I going to tell the story? Let's do it. Sure. Until one day, there was a guy that worked in the shop who was my least favorite person is just sort of pompous and hard on people. I'm sure he grew up poorly and there would have been a way for him to anyway, I'm sure there's a reason why but he was a jerk. And it was the early 90s. And I and he would go home every day and his wife would make him lunch. And there was something about that that I found this tasteful for some reason I can't even begin to tell you why just that he she had a job to but that she'd run home to make him lunch at Just it always seems strange to me.

Julie 45:02
And I would definitely rubbed me the wrong way. And I

Scott Benner 45:05
I hung a sign on his back because he left it said his wife's name, comma and it said hold the dog. I'm horny. I don't know why I did that. And I was fired the very next day.

Julie 45:18
Oh my god.

Scott Benner 45:21
Rightfully so. I bounced that

Julie 45:25
a given you one chance? Well, I don't think it was a little bit funny.

Scott Benner 45:29
I'm sure everyone thought it was funny. But I don't think he thought it was funny. And they were you know, defending, hey, which makes sense to me. Even at that. I have to tell you, I was standing at the time clock at six o'clock in the morning punching in and they grabbed me pulled me in the office fired me. And I thought that's fair. And I left. I didn't even Yeah, I didn't even argue. Okay.

Julie 45:50
And also, you're like, I don't have the perks today.

Scott Benner 45:54
And I don't understand why it's 23. I thought that like that humor was funny, but I thought it was hilarious. Anyway. So I don't know what I went from there and went worked for a landscaper for a while I worked at a 711 for six or eight months. I did all kinds of little weird things like that. And then one day, my, my uncle called me back and they had trouble filling my position. And he brought me back. Like a couple years later, I worked there for a while again.

Julie 46:25
I got to sign like an agreement. Like we're not going to do the back sticker thing anymore. Oh, with

Scott Benner 46:30
that guy was still there.

We didn't really ever get along, girl. Great. But that's not the point. So from there, I think I finally realized that I needed to do something else. And a friend of mine, Julie, she was working in a credit card company collecting debts. And she's like, you can talk really well you could do this. And so I started collecting credit card debts. And it was it was great training for speaking to people without knowing anything about them. Because back then what would happen? I'm calling this thing a computer. But that's, I mean, if you could see it, the way I see it, in my mind, it's not the way you're imagining your computer right now. I don't have a computer. But yeah, so I'd be on a headset, and a person's voice would just pop up in front of me somebody be like, hello. And as they were saying hello, and I was orienting myself on the call, their information had not yet popped up in front of me. So you see, you had to kind of you had to kind of like engage them while the information was populating on the screen. And then get them to make a low level credit card payment, which I was incredibly good at. I was so bad at that. I think I moved on to a credit union, where I did it there in a more private setting, which was excuse me, that was like boutique collections. Because these people had the money they just wouldn't send it you know. And one day, one day at that job, the the This is so crazy, you're gonna laugh and it's like the graphic designer up and quit. And I hated collecting debts. It made me feel bad about myself. Yeah, so I ran downstairs in the building to the HR person, I said, I can do the I can do that I can make your like your your stuff, I can do the graphic design. And she said you went to school for that. And I was like, No, not at all I said, but just take me to the computer that the girl used I can show you. And I sat down, knock something out. And then I ran off and took a weekend long course on Photoshop and another Adobe product. I came back Yeah, yep, I came back three days later, I started designing their stuff for them.

Julie 48:51
So you basically did the same thing I did. Which is just went with the flow things came your way you took the opportunity, you use the skills that you've had, you know, instead of any deficits that you may have in trivial housing. Yeah. And until it all like put together and became awesome,

Scott Benner 49:11
right? Yeah, I just I got pushed into it. Like you got pushed into I think through your add and I got pushed into it through my just very poor upbringing and nobody ever thought to send me to college. And I just I was in a broke family and that was what that was, I mean, if you want context, that first job and that sheetmetal shop paid me $4.50 an hour so and I did more damage to my physical self in the five years that I was there than any money they gave me will ever make up for. But but but the point good, please.

Julie 49:43
I was just gonna say so. Yeah, you didn't have the opportunity and nobody like was really pushing you to go to college. So did you do you did well in school? No. You feel like with the opportunity you had the opportunity to be in high school did you do well with like schoolwork and stuff like that, like you think college would have done?

Scott Benner 50:00
Oh, no, I can't imagine I, I put no effort into high school whatsoever. Oh, yeah, I don't know if this, I can try it. I feel like I told somebody this recently, but the first day of my senior year of high school, my English teacher said, you're going to have to do a report. It's not due until the last week of the year, and I raised my hand and said, I'm not going to be able to get that done. And he's like, you have a year and I said, I got a job, man, I can't do that.

Julie 50:31
Oh, you had a real reason. Mine was like, You're gonna have to do this. And it's gonna be an oral report. And then I waited till about a week before it was due. And I just said, Listen. Yeah, I can give it to you written, but I'm not doing an oral report. And she's like, Well, you'll have to take zero and like, I'll take zero. That is so much better than getting up in front of this class.

Scott Benner 50:52
I would I get by in all kinds of weird ways. So there used to be a check system in my middle school, where if you answered a question, the teacher could throw you a check. And you could, you know, kind of pile up the checks and trade them for grades. And every one and every once in a while, a teacher would get like cocky and say something out loud. Like, I once passed a science class and entire year of a science class. Because one day, the science teacher said, hey, 100 checks, which was enough like to just buy your grades to anybody to anybody who knows the name of the first Mickey Mouse movie, and my hand went right up, and I was like Steamboat Willie. And I thought he was gonna say off. Like, he was really like, upset with himself that he put himself in that position, I walked up to his desk and watched him put every one of those 100 checks in there. And I said, Thank you, I'm gonna be using all of them. And he goes, Okay, he walked away, and I passed an entire year of science off off of that one moment.

Julie 51:54
So bring back that system.

Scott Benner 51:57
It was great. We had a the follow up maybe two years later. So funny that I said, I'm just now because the teacher said, anybody who can come up in front of the class and speak for I forget how long it was two or three minutes about anything without saying, um, gets 300 checks. Oh, boy, it was the easiest thing I ever did in my life. I watched I watch people get up there. I'll never forget this one person, this girl, she stands up there, and the teacher goes, go ahead and start and the girl goes. So they're doing it over and over again. And I, I got up there. And I spoke for three, two or three minutes straight, and made sense and never said on. And they a woman gave me the 300 checks. And then I didn't do another thing in her class again that year. So yeah, every time I failed a test or didn't turn into homework, I would just trade it for the checks. And I just kept working off them. That would

Julie 53:00
be like, take it out of my credit. Take

Scott Benner 53:02
it out of credit, baby. I'm all good. Scott, no need to do this. You know, when kids when kids were running around in high school, I have to take the SATs. So I went to work the day I actually looked at it, I thought, oh, I should probably take the LSAT. And then I looked and I was like, Well, I work then. And I just didn't do it. So I didn't I didn't go to college, I would have been terrible in college.

Julie 53:24
Really? Oh, same. Yeah, I was.

Scott Benner 53:28
That's it. I don't think I have ADHD or ADD. I just was a bad student. Nobody was pushing me from home to do better. The expectation,

Julie 53:36
you're like very smart, and you just have a certain personality.

Scott Benner 53:39
The expectation was, you'd go to work, we were all really blue collar. And that was the idea. So I didn't need to go to college to work in my uncle sheetmetal shop and I had no expectations of a better life. Like whatsoever. Right now, the only thing that saved me. I would. I mean, honestly, it's that my wife was able to see through my circumstances and see me when we were dating. Otherwise, I'd be in a I'd be in a I'd live a blue collar lifestyle right now. It wouldn't be anything wrong with it. But I mean, it was just that one person who, like a college person who had bigger hopes for themselves and more desire and somebody behind them telling them you're going to college like that kind of thing. It's just she saw me for who I was and not who you know, and not the life I was leading, I guess. Yeah, that's it. I don't know how we got here, Julie.

Julie 54:37
Sorry. I'm always gonna apologize. It's me.

Scott Benner 54:40
Don't be sorry. 20 minutes later brought you here. I want to ask you about it. So when you when you see your oh my god, I can't believe we're this far away from it. Your son's diagnosed and you go to the psychiatrist you get the medication you start listening to the podcast. What do you figure out for yourself then?

Julie 54:59
Ah, As far as diabetes,

Scott Benner 55:01
yeah, yeah. How did you get like, because you're doing like he's doing well? Am I right?

Julie 55:06
Oh, we were doing great. And I'm not in the same position that I was six months ago when I booked this.

Scott Benner 55:13
Okay, tell me about it, then how did you What did you learn? Where did it take you? And what's happened since?

Julie 55:20
Okay, oh, well, I learned, we were doing very well, we did very well, MDI, you know, he was diagnosed, he was like, 14.3. And then by the next, it wasn't three months, it was four months, actually. appointment, he was 5.6. And we've kind of rocked between 5.6 and 6.1, all the way until our last agency, and, but I learned a lot of what I thought must be the case, which is this thing where I send my numbers to them, and they're gonna make adjustments. Like, I'm gonna have to surpass this, this is not like, oh, it's gonna be, you know, like, I'm gonna need to understand and understand and being like, the bold with insulin, and like, you know, it doesn't always matter why. You just need more insulin, and I'm just hearing everybody's stories. And every, every single, every single thing to be learned, I learned from it from the podcast. You know, but now, George, is the teen year, right? It hit him hard. About like, three years ago, I know, three months ago, and we both kind of were suffering a little bit of burnout. We're both kind of like, whatever. And, I mean, I'm just like, wow, it's like, I learned all of that stuff. And I didn't realize how much his compliance really helped. And so right now, we're in a situation where I'm just like, oh my gosh, like, I know how to do this. I've never ever wanted to do low carb or any of that. I just wanted him to just eat regularly. And that was another thing, learning to know that you didn't have to change your diet was like, Oh, thank God, you know, like, this is amazing. And just listening to all of that. All the pro tips and everything was just so great. And we did I mean, it's not I mean, he had a he had a 520. And he had Burger King. Like, I mean, he did he had it like once every other week, or, you know, and he has pizza lunch at school. You know, he was the master of pizza lunch, two slices, and a big huge deli chocolate chip cookie. Didn't go over 140 Beautiful, we had it all everything was going well. And then, you know, now we're having a little bit more of a battle of wills, if you will. There's like some sneaking of food, which is not sneaking. But I'm like, you know, and he wants independence. And so we're just in like a hard place right now. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 58:03
he got a little older, a little more testosterone. That's all Yeah. And now he isn't as good about Pre-Bolus seeing or listening when you text them or something like that.

Julie 58:14
Yeah. And he's like, you know, there's some lying and I'm like, dude, like, oh, I don't care what you ate. You think I care what you eat? I don't? I don't, you know, but, like, I have to know why your 300 at 4am? Like, just be honest. Because then I know how to treat it. Like, am I really? Am I readjusting? Is this, like, every night thing? Like, are you eating after I go to bed? You know, because now it's like, he's on spring break. And, you know, it's just kind of stuff like that. And he's like, like, I'll text and I'm like, what's with this number? Like, are you? You know, like, can we take care of this? And he's like, I don't know. I'm like, you don't know. Like, I think you know,

Scott Benner 58:52
oh, it's just a stone wall. It's not even like, Hey, I ate something. But I didn't Bolus for it.

Julie 58:58
No, I read it. We'll get there after like a 20 minute conversation. But I mean, he knows the deal. Like he knows, I'm like, I said, I didn't set this, like, learn all of this so that you could have freedom. You know what I mean? We have always Pre-Bolus it doesn't mean like when I stepped foot out of the house to run to the store, you don't have to Pre-Bolus You know what I'm saying? It's kind of like that kind of stuff. And I feel bad because I don't want to be mad. Like, he's the one that lives with this. This is his diabetes. You know what I'm saying? And so, all I can do is teach him what I know and try to be patient. But it's really hard to be really patient when you know that there are long term effects. I mean, I'll tell you, honestly, his three months ago, his agency was 5.8. We went last week. 7.1

Scott Benner 59:50
Wow. Yeah, that's a significant change. That's a clear indication that he's just not doing the basic things that yeah, that you know, Keep his agency down.

Julie 1:00:03
I even got to the point where I told a friend I'm like, you know, I don't think we're ever going to, it's not going to matter, I kind of got to a point where I felt almost like how you would know, you know, ordens not really going to have like a seven a one see it, she's just not you guys know what you're doing. You get it, you give more when you need more, but you, but if one of those people drops out of the race, and especially the diabetic one, it can get control. Like, we're, it's like I told my endo the other day. I'm like, if it was my, my diabetes, it would be different. But it's his you know, and I know things can go up and down. And I don't want to look down on it. But it's just

Scott Benner 1:00:46
does your does your husband get involved in this at all? No, because it occurs to me. And I don't, I could be 100% Wrong, Julie. But you are. So you're scattered like a time. So like, even through conversations and everything. So I wonder if a different voice that comes out in a different way, might not help snap them into back to where he needs to be?

Julie 1:01:13
You know what, like, when my husband does say something, like, What I meant is he doesn't do management. To be honest with you. The man does not even know how to use the poem. He has to wake me up with the sign. I don't hear the alarm. Yeah, and so which is fine. I've come to terms with that it is better if one person is really managing it. But when he says to so his thing is like, Well, why is he even eating carbs in the first place? I'm like, Oh, my God, like what are you talking about? And then my son so he'll say to George, he's like, it's unacceptable as long term health Baba Baba and George looks at me looks at him and goes, you don't get it. With the diabetes dad. Only mom does. That's not how we do it. And I'm like,

Scott Benner 1:01:58
well, well, so I wasn't I wasn't thinking so much about your husband coming in with diabetes advice. I was thinking your husband coming in like it was 1982 and saying, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something right now. It's the only thing that's important. Listen to your mom. Like, do

Julie 1:02:13
you know, you'll say that?

Scott Benner 1:02:15
I know. It's a it's a sexist, though. Older idea. But I don't

Julie 1:02:19
listen, I use it to my son. I said, That's it. That's it. I'm gonna give I'm given dad the reins for a week. And he's like, don't even I'm like,

Scott Benner 1:02:28
Yeah, again, not about the diabetes, just like hey, don't worry, even if it's just a more pleasant conversation where you say, Look, you know, I need you to be respectful. Your mother, I don't care if you don't want to do this. It's not, that doesn't matter to me, you're gonna do it. Yeah. And when she talks to you, we're going to respond, we're not going to drag out conversations and jerk around and make her feel like, like, like, she's like, she's spinning our wheels. You know, this is the least you can do for her. Is be respectful of her. It's got nothing to do with diabetes. Really it? Yeah, you know, it has to mean just deal with, like, the communication that the two of you have back and forth. Like, I get that the kids trying to find his way. And he's probably trying to separate you from him a little bit. And take, that's fine, like you said, but then do it. Like, don't tell me you want control and then get control. And what you do with the control is nothing. You know what I mean? Like if, if you want to be in charge, be in charge and do it. And if you and if you can't, if you can't, then right on, then I'd be happy to continue to help you. But there's no world where we're going to let your agency jump up two points in three months.

Julie 1:03:34
Well, these are the conversations I have within my husband has had conversations with him. Yes, more about just listening to me and trying to work with me because we have a good system, you know, obviously working just that. It's just that he's not doing it. So anyway, I just recently reached out I gotta get him like a therapist, just to because he has had a lot. He's like, I'm very overwhelmed. You know, he's 13. But the kids like six one.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:03
He's just a little does he have any of the anxiety heartbreaker?

Julie 1:04:06
You know? Yeah, he's had a couple panic attacks this year. He's had a couple situations. It's a lot. You know. It's a lot on him, which is why I say I'm like, This is why I just text you at the time to Bolus at school not to annoy you to take it off your plate. The way I look at it is I'm trying to take it off your plate

Unknown Speaker 1:04:29
in my hand. Yeah. Right.

Julie 1:04:31
You know, for as long as I can, and I'm willing to do it. My alarm just went off at 1130 it goes off it's I have I usually text him what his you know, if I ordered lunch or whatever, your lunch is this probably around this many carbs, whatever. Don't forget to Pre-Bolus then he won't answer and then I emphasize it. You know, it's like this whole thing, you know, and I don't mind doing that. I know he's been he's like I'm doing stuff. Busy doing school and like I understand but you don't have to go to the nurse. You don't have to you Don't I'm saying like, I've taken away all of the things that we did when we first started to where you'd have to go to the nurse 20 minutes before, which means you miss part of your recess and this and that. You don't I mean, like, we've come so far. And now we're just dropping the ball all over the place. And it's just, it's like difficult, just really hoping that we can like get past that part.

Scott Benner 1:05:17
I have found all that's come up with Arden and I've just found that perseverance eventually gets you to it. I, the I've gone to in the past, I've gone to saying say, okay, at the end of a text meeting, if you don't respond to me, I'm going to keep assuming you haven't seen this. So say, oh,

Julie 1:05:35
that's exactly what I tell him. I say I emphasize once meaning like just Hola, you know, gives another vibration to the text and then I set and then I'm like, if you're not going to respond, I'm going to call if I call his phone, I have my phone number on override. Just actually ring, okay, okay. Yeah. Even if he has it on silence is my point and he can silence his phone, but he cannot silence my ring. That's interesting. You can do that. Yeah, you can go to emergency override under your name in their contacts. Okay. And I know someone told me that I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. So I get up in the morning, and he has the most annoying thing under my name. It's like Dunkin Donuts. It's so loud. He can't stand it.

Scott Benner 1:06:23
Yeah, he knows the answer. Yeah.

Julie 1:06:25
Well, now he won't. But then I'm like, Hey, calling in five. Like for three. He's like, hey, you know? Like, we're in that it's like a team thing. I just didn't think it was gonna happen so drastically and so fast.

Scott Benner 1:06:42
Oh, yeah. Boys or something. The way they shift.

Julie 1:06:45
Oh my gosh. Oh my god. It's like a moustache involved. I don't know what's happening.

Scott Benner 1:06:49
exactly what's happening. I wish you luck. That sounds terrible. So what do you think? What do you think the first steps are to bring the seven back to the fives.

Julie 1:07:03
Ah. Well, I'm when he starts doing any of the things that we know how to do. That's going to be really helpful. Like, you know, last night he was at a beautiful number. We had a huge like feast of my husband made homemade fajitas and all my everything was so good. Great Bolus didn't really have a lot of rice. So there wasn't a really big situation going on. But I could hear him like, tiptoeing around at like midnight. And I'm like, Oh, my God, don't do it. Like, what are you gonna do? You know? And then I wake up, and I even tell him, like, if you're heading to the kitchen, please Pre-Bolus for whatever it is that you're having, you know, please just do it. And I go to sleep because like, I need sleep at some point. And then the alarms going off. I look like we're like 325 And like, 325

Scott Benner 1:07:57
So you didn't even ever

Julie 1:08:01
he didn't Bolus he didn't Pre-Bolus at all. And whatever he ate must have been sweet. I didn't find it out with him this morning. I was too nervous. Like I didn't want to be like, what was it a

Scott Benner 1:08:15
rocket fuel in it for his blood sugar.

Julie 1:08:18
Something was not good. You know something and it wasn't cereal because I don't have any but it was something along those lines, maybe these muffins or something, I don't know. Just something were like, Okay. And I've even explained to him like I said, George, I have learned even so much that if you really feel that you cannot Pre-Bolus I will over Bolus you. Like there is a way I don't want to get into a habit of it. But I will. I will take into account what this is about to do to you. And we will put it all in there.

Scott Benner 1:08:47
Or just as you're walking downstairs just choose 15 carbs and Bolus for it until you fit because I think that's what happens is they don't know they know they're going to eat they don't know what they're going to eat.

Julie 1:08:59
Right and so I'm always Bolus something you know, I mean, get some

Scott Benner 1:09:03
insulin go until you figure it out, then put the rest of it in. Right that's to me is that's the that's common sense. And, and

Julie 1:09:12
that's what I say a lot of it is it's not I mean, I do know what to think dread because like who the hell wants to have tech wants to have

Scott Benner 1:09:22
Well, you gotta get past that. You got you have to get diabetes like fighting that. That's a different situation. You know, I mean, like you if you're if you're fighting the idea that you have type one that's not the same as ignoring what you're supposed to do. You know, those are two different yeah, those are two different issues.

Julie 1:09:40
Yeah, like a few months ago, I hate when he's gonna be he's in private school right now. Catholic school and I'm not even Catholic, but whatever. And then he and then but he's going back to public for high school. Okay, next year, okay. And he He literally says he's like, it's gonna be so great. He's like, I'm just like, 19. He's like, my whole school knows his whole school. His whole grade is like, 40 kids, it's like nothing. And he was like, I'm not gonna tell anybody I have diabetes. I'm like, oh, please listen to me, you have got to accept this thing, because this is like crazy that that cannot be your plan. You know what I mean? Like, I think in his mind, I don't know, I don't know. It's almost like a delayed denial thing, right? Maybe, I don't know, this is why I'm getting a therapist,

Scott Benner 1:10:31
I just think that you know, an 11, it's different than when you're 14. That's all. You know, your child when you're 11. And what happens happens, you just, you just keep going and keep going. You don't have a ton of at least external feelings, that start impacting stuff where you let your parents the pressure of what your parents want, get you to do it, and then you just at some point, get a little testosterone and you're like, I'm going to push back. And this is pushing back looks like,

Julie 1:10:59
Yeah, I told him, he's got a couple of months with the push back. But once the high school starts, like, well, we're gonna really need to get back to what we're doing. I mean, we're already doing it. So I'm never gonna give up. I'm never gonna be like, this is fine. But

Scott Benner 1:11:11
I would. I would I'm not disagreeing with you. But I think the idea that a break from diabetes means a break in your health is a is a weird precedence to set.

Julie 1:11:24
Oh, no. I don't know that like a break. That's why I said, No, I'm not going to just allow it. But I just meant, like, you don't have much more like, you don't want to go into high school having to like, check in to the nurse. Like, I'm never gonna let it go is my point. So like, if you want to hash it out, we'll hash it out over the summer. I'm not I don't mean by like, I'm not I'm still going to be, you know, having up Bolus and asking you this and that and that. I'm just trying to be a fair and if they're

Scott Benner 1:11:51
difficult to work, it's not nearly as fun as you think it's going to be when you're like, oh, we'll have a baby. This will be fun. Yeah, not really. I mean, it's fun of the beginning when they're little and

Julie 1:12:01
I was even Okay, with the diabetes. I was like, doing all right. And then, and then I think the team thing that's hard. Yeah, he's a sweetheart too. So and we're like, buddies. He's a mama's boy. So I just think I don't know why I was in denial, I didn't think that it was going to hit him. I don't think he was going to be like this.

Scott Benner 1:12:20
If I can do if I can make one public service announcement, I'm going to tell any mom who's listening that your relationship with your son is going to change as they start to mature. So it takes a pretty big shift. And I I mean, it looked shocking to my wife. And as I was trying to, like, kind of coach her through it and be like, Hey, here's what you should be doing right here. Because this is what he's thinking. She just kept seeing him like he was eight. And I'm like, that's not what that what you think is happening is not happening anymore. Right? Yeah. It's it's not it's not difficult to understand boys. But it is difficult, I think, for moms to want to see their boys as men. That's, that's

Julie 1:12:58
well, I'm trying to listen, he actually have to be honest with you. Just can't shares a lot with me. Like he had a girlfriend and then like he went to the mall. I think he has like, he's like, just before the question start. I will just tell you, but don't tell anybody had a kiss. You know? Brian, he tells me the thing

Scott Benner 1:13:23
that's bragging. That's not sharing. Oh, right. Yeah, that might have been bragging. But remember earlier, when you said, you know, I tried modeling for a while they call that? They call that a low key? Brag. So you know, it's

Julie 1:13:36
a low key brag, but I mean, I'm aware of it. So yeah.

Scott Benner 1:13:39
I'm just telling you, it's gonna get worse, like boys aren't. I'm 50 my thoughts aren't much different now than they were when I was 14. So, good luck.

Julie 1:13:53
So I wanted to I don't know how long we're into this right now. But I wanted to say something that was really interesting and how everybody has, it's not interesting. It's interesting to me. You know, everybody has like, oh, their kid got sick, or they think. I mean, the auto immune is already there. He would have done it anyway. But George was on medication for ADHD for three years. And then I took him off June, end of fifth grade. He because you don't really eat it suppresses your appetite a lot. The medication. So when I took him off, he started eating like a maniac, right, like so much. It was unbelievable. And he started gaining weight and everything and he was always really thin. Even my husband I really looked at that stuff is getting a little pudgy. Well, you know, funny, he's really eating a lot. And then that was like a couple months. And then at the end of the summer, let's say it's late August, September, is when he started continuing the eating and then the drinking. Right and I really think that was like, what his trigger. It's like, I really think it like, triggered it like it was so much on his pancreas. Like, he would have gotten it anyway. But like, you know, everybody gets it through this or people say like, Oh, I think it was the this vaccine or this and you know, or they got COVID or they got, you know that he would have gotten it anyway, I just think that was like his trigger was coming off of that and just eating like a maniac. Mania, I'm

Scott Benner 1:15:26
gonna tell you that I am not a doctor, nor am I a scientist, but that doesn't make any sense to me. But you don't think I don't think at all? No,

Julie 1:15:34
I don't think just eating so much high carb. So like, so like I'm saying he already was gonna get it.

Scott Benner 1:15:40
I hear ya, I hear what you're saying. But how family? How would How would? How would calling for more insulin trigger him into type one, it doesn't make sense. Because type ones and auto immune disease. So there's an auto immune response in your body that kills the beta cells, blah, blah, blah, etcetera. Or, you know, whatever word you want to use for what happens to the beta cells. But it's not it's not an overuse situation, where you're asking for too much insulin, and suddenly you've taxed the pancreas that those two things are not

Julie 1:16:10
like you don't think it would speed it up. If you were like eating me like just like a mania. I think it would not speed up a process that was already like maybe slowly coming into action.

Scott Benner 1:16:19
I think if you made me bet $100 of my own money on what you just said, I would bet against what you said being true. But I don't know for sure. That's all it just doesn't see it doesn't it doesn't shake out to me is all I can see that it like cause and effect way. You might have seen it happen. And anecdotally, it feels like that. But I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know, it looks and I can

Julie 1:16:39
I get what you're saying I get what you're saying. That's all in my head. I'm thinking all right. Well, his body was probably already slowly maybe doing this like because who knows? I mean, I don't know. But then I'm like, oh, and then I took them off that medication. Therefore he's like eating like everything under the sun. So in my mind, I guess I was thinking like he was really taxing the pancreas that was already probably starting to struggle. But it could be wrong. I mean, obviously, maybe that does not make any sense. I am not a doctor. Clearly.

Scott Benner 1:17:06
It just felt like you were mixing apples and oranges there and that the apples were type two diabetes and the oranges were type one diabetes. That's all right. That's all Hey, I just I think it's just interesting after everything we've talked about, about George and what is going on with him in the in the moment, and that he has ADHD. It's fascinating, a little bit to hear you talk about yourself and, and have such clarity about why you can and can't do the things that you can and can't do. But when you talked about George, it feels like to you that he's just ignoring you.

Julie 1:17:42
Yeah, well, I have a lot of understanding when it comes to any of that stuff. Regarding school. I have a lot of meetings saying like, listen, he has an IEP, he has ADHD. That means yes, he Yeah, he's gonna, you know, it's Catholic school. They're like crazy. It's like, you know, oh, he keeps not having a pencil. I'm like, well then just provide the pencil like, I don't care. It's he's never going to have a pencil. You know, like, that's how this is gonna work. I just need them to learn. Like, I don't really we're not going to mark off for like, an uncapped like notebook.

Scott Benner 1:18:15
Why is it's just gonna be doodles. Well, why is it different than when he forgets the Bolus?

Julie 1:18:20
Well, I don't, because I'm almost feeling like he's not forgetting to Bolus. I feel like he's not bolusing. So you think that I don't, I don't think he does. Because he's got like, a little bit of a tude he's got he's like, I don't know. Okay, maybe I can't remember. So, like, it's not the same as when he's like, forgetting the pencil. Like, there's been a couple of times at school where I'm like, Oh, buddy, did you forget to Bolus he's like, Oh my God, you know, they'll say like, Oh, I didn't even Bolus like it's alright, just Bolus now. You know, fine. No big deal. This is a little different. Okay. Feels a little more behavioral. Is, is the vibe. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:19:02
I mean, only only you would know. I was just trying to, like I was thinking through at the moment, cuz we are finishing up. And I was thinking, like, if I was listening to this, what questions would I still have one? That was the one I had. So that's it. Really? I didn't know we not talked about anything that you want to talk about. You didn't have a list. All it said was Don't curse and you curse twice. So other than that, we're all good. Did I curse twice? I believe so. Oh, wait, maybe that was me. At 4750. I don't know. I'll figure it out. Oh, my gosh, it might even be the first one to you. The first one's not a big deal. All right. Is there anything you think we should do?

Julie 1:19:38
No, that's it. I just really appreciate the podcast and everything you do. And, you know, I just hope it just continues and continues. I love everybody's stories. Hope this is even any remotely normal type of podcast. I'm not sure.

Scott Benner 1:19:56
Are you kidding? I love that. No, I'm

Julie 1:19:59
not kidding.

Scott Benner 1:20:00
Every one winner on Jesus joy. Every one of these recordings ends and people are like, I hope you use this. And I'm like, what delusion? Are you under that I record a bunch of podcasts that I don't use?

Julie 1:20:12
Well, I know I've heard you say you use them all unless someone were to be like, Listen, you definitely can't do that. Right? I just mean, it's like I blacked out. When I think back. I'm like, I don't recall what we just talked about.

Scott Benner 1:20:22
But that's okay. I'm okay. Trust me if I didn't like what you were saying. I would have redirected you. Okay, cool. Yeah, that's all I just, you know, it to me in this last hour. I don't know. Like, I'm like a lion tamer, like I've got the whip and the chair. And you're like a, like a bumblebee on a leash. And I'm just trying to just trying to keep you're flying in the right direction. That's all. That's all I was doing. I thought you were terrific. I think here's what I think. I think you very succinctly described what it was like to have ADHD. You didn't describe it, because I couldn't get you to describe it. But you showed you showed us an example of it. And I think it's very clear. And it's a it's a great teaching tool for anybody who doesn't know what it is for a DD or ADHD. I think that I think that you gave great examples of pathways that it led you to, I think I told him delightful story in the middle. We heard about a kid who, whose mom jumped into the podcast learned how to do everything, put his a onesie in the fives, then he got a little older and he's rebelling a little bit and it's a once he jumped up, I think it's a an honest thing to say, I think it's going to be good for people to hear. I think that what you do next is, you know, is most important, right? And that everybody gets the feeling that even if I get it perfect, it might not always be perfect.

Julie 1:21:46
That's where I'm trying to. That's where I'm trying to be mentally like, okay, it's a bump in the road. I didn't think we were gonna have it just because we started out real strong for quite a while now. But that's okay. It's still okay. Right. This is what this is what could happen. And we know, we have the tools. That's the thing. We have the tools. We have the podcasts, I can't wait until he's open to listening to the podcast.

Scott Benner 1:22:09
Oh, well, I'm just saying. So you've got off track there that I thought it really, I thought the conversation was really valuable for people and some of the reasons why. So okay, great. I am going to go now and say goodbye. Because I have a phone call for my personal life. And I already have things I need to do. I have a whole life of

Julie 1:22:29
ask you why Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Scott Benner 1:22:33
I really appreciate it. Hold on one second. I'd like to thank ag one from Athletic Greens remind you that if you're looking for a green drink, that doesn't taste like crap, go to athletic greens.com forward slash juice box, use my link please. It's in the show notes of this podcast app you're listening in right now at juicebox podcast.com or by typing it into a browser athletic greens.com forward slash juice box. And don't forget to find touched by type one at touched by type one.org. And lastly, a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. You spell that g v o OKEGLUC. Ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. Thanks so much to Julie for coming on the show and sharing the honesty of her story with her son and herself. I can't thank her enough. And especially at this time of year, I want to say how thankful I am for all of you for subscribing, following listening sharing the Juicebox Podcast it's a huge success and it is completely because of you. Everything that the podcast accomplishes comes directly from you listening, supporting and sharing. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast