#903 Season of the Witch

Nico has type 1 diabetes and she lives in Scott's head.

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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 903 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today we'll be speaking with Nico. She is a type one and a group expert in my private Facebook group. Nico is here today to tell her story, but most importantly so that I can find out why she seems to always know what I'm thinking. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Or becoming bold with insulin. Alright everybody, listen, I need you on this last month we did not do well on our T one D exchange survey we're completions. I was not happy with the number t one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry, complete the survey 10 minutes. All you have to be is a type one who is a US resident or a US resident who is the caregiver of a type one. These questions are simple. You can do it from your phone while you're seated on a stool perhaps 10 minutes to help people with type one diabetes and to move diabetes research forward. That's all I'm asking. T one D exchange.org forward slash juicebox please in your mind, say I'm gonna do that and then do it. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox contour next gen. Actually all the contour meters are amazingly easy to use. They fit well in your hand have bright lights, easy to read screens and they're super super duper super duper Hooper accurate contour next one.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one beautiful organization helping people with type one diabetes. All they want is for you to follow them on Facebook Instagram and check out their webpage touched by type one.org. I will be at their local event I'm not supposed to say when yet but it's this year. Gonna do a lot of speaking there that day. Nice event they actually nice event is an understatement. They put on a beautiful event. You should check it out touched by type one.org.

Nico 2:39
I'm Nico. I am a type one diabetic. But I only found that out maybe in the last six months for sure. And I have two giant dogs who may bark once while we're recording. And I am not an open book but I probably am if you ask the right question in the right way.

Scott Benner 2:56
Okay, well then that puts the pressure on me. It's fine. Miko, how old are you? Oh, gosh. Oh, so it's time for some Scott. I think I'm 4546 this year. You think you're 45? Uh huh.

Nico 3:13
So this year ends in three and the year I was born ends in seven, but I didn't have my birthday yet this year. So I'm 45

Scott Benner 3:20
Oh, okay, you're 45. That's perfect. And you were just diagnosed in the last six months with type one. But you were having what were you misdiagnosed as a two prior something.

Nico 3:31
So thanks to the podcast, I tried to sign up for the radiant study. And they found my antibodies. And so I am officially a type one now. But prior to that, so I went six years, 14 years ago, as a type two, I was on oral meds and extremely strict diet. We could we could talk about my diagnosis story for about an hour and a half at least. But it's really not that interesting. And then, after six years, my agencies were creeping up, and my plate was getting smaller and smaller with only green things and meat on it. And finally, they looked at me and said, You're not making enough insulin. And I said, Thank you. I'm gonna go to him or her now. So that will be eight years this march that I've been on insulin, okay. At that time, they just said I was treated as a type one, but I wasn't diagnosed type one.

Scott Benner 4:26
Okay. Can you move the microphone about a half an inch away from your mouth? I don't know. Is it is it on a headset? The mic?

Nico 4:34
Yeah, I can move it up. I had moved it away from my nose but I'll move it closer to

Scott Benner 4:37
it. Yeah, I think you're, you're when you're breathing out with your mouth. It's it's, it's hitting it. That's all.

Nico 4:42
Are you calling me a mouth breather?

Scott Benner 4:44
No, not at all. I mean, maybe an hour from now. I will be I have no idea. I haven't met you yet. So perhaps okay. So okay, so you live for six years as type two. And then do you? Were you getting insulin at that time or no?

Nico 5:00
No, I was initially on Metformin. And when the Metformin wasn't cutting it, they add, added Januvia. So then I was on Janumet. And then I didn't even remember, but near the end, I was also on something called Prenton. And I wasn't treated like other type twos ever on the podcast, I actually had great education. It just didn't apply to me, obviously. And they kept telling me, you know, do all these things, right? And you'll avoid insulin, you know, the big, bad, scary thing. And oh, my gosh, I wish I had been on insulin so much sooner, because we just kept reducing. I tried everything they said, and took away essentially every carb, every grain, and I literally was eating leafy greens and meat, and couldn't stay under 200. Because my body wasn't making it.

Scott Benner 5:41
Yeah, did you lose a lot of weight during that time.

Nico 5:44
So initially, I did. And that was really the the other piece of my story that may be a little different than others, I weighed 97 pounds when it first started. And you wouldn't think that they would have assumed type two, but I live in a community where everyone is type two. And it's an underserved community. I drive two hours now to an endo. And I had no idea that, you know, juvenile diabetes, of course, so I just believed them. And I went to the classes and I tried harder and harder and harder. And obviously felt like I was failing. And it was actually the complications that developed even though I my agencies weren't terrible. And I you know, you've asked in the group, anyone, this dark group, in your practice, I was a star pupil. For all of my doctors, they loved my agencies, I've had three in the 7.1 to 7.4 range in my entire career as a diabetic and the others were mostly in the sixes with a few in the fives prior to the podcast,

Scott Benner 6:39
but how much weight did you lose off? 97 pounds.

Nico 6:43
So initially, let's so now I'm pretty close to 120. I've gained a little recently we've been working on that, because of my gastroparesis. They kind of want me to keep a little on, but I probably should sit around 114. So 17 pounds, probably. And my family was really concerned they had me weighing in with a psychiatrist. I mean, I was what did we ever figure that out about 30 ish? When this started, and I went a really interesting path. I thought I was crazy. And so I did see a psychiatrist. And that's where we started my my journey was with psychiatry, because mentally I just didn't feel like myself. But I couldn't figure out what's wrong. I was short tempered and moody, and, you know, anyway, but we, I asked the doctors for help. And they started seeing elevated agencies and we followed that path, but it just took a long, long time to get to the right path.

Scott Benner 7:35
Is that disappointing to you?

Nico 7:38
Extremely. Gosh, insulin is not that scary anymore. I mean, even when I first got it, I probably didn't know enough to be that scared. I was just so relieved. I was so hungry. I did put on weight on the oral meds and the diet that I was on. And I almost feel like the gastroparesis may have contributed to that over time, because we don't know why I have gastroparesis. Obviously, I'm diabetic, so they're gonna say that's what it's from. But it developed around the same time that the diabetic diabetes came. And with the food just sitting in my stomach all the time, and I'm telling me eat more high fiber foods because they digest more slowly, and they have lower impact. I kept trying really, really hard plates and plates full of vegetables, and it hurts so much and just sat in my stomach for so long that I think my body just kind of, I don't know, I did get up to about 135 for a while. And so when I finally met an endocrinologist for her to look at me and say, Okay, I have a type two, I'd been treated for probably four years before I met her. And she really, I guess, had no reason to question my diagnosis at that point, because I did weigh significantly more. And I had been treated by other professionals for a long time. But eventually, there was a really cool person in her office her her her Jenny sat down with me and she always loved my food logs and always wanted to know, recipes and loved the things I was eating and wish all of her pain patients ate like me, and then just looked at how frustrated I was that I wasn't succeeding. And first she said, You need insulin. And then one day she listened to me say, you know, food hurts me. And she said, Oh my gosh, you have gastroparesis, and I had never found anyone else who had I started I had an idea but what I always would tell my husband at night is that it felt like I ate rocks. And I actually got to them through physical therapy, which referred me to podiatry and that referred me to endocrinology. So it really was the gastroparesis that eventually got me on insulin. Wow that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I did try it No, not at

Scott Benner 9:46
all. Don't worry. I'll talk once in a while. I bet I can. I can see why you were confused by it.

Nico 9:52
Yeah, it was tough. But you know then they gave me the gastroparesis diet when you know and I looked at that is it but you guys have told me to eat you know High fiber foods and colorful things and, you know, whatever anyway. And so I looked at that list and said, I can't do this this. There's nothing on this list that I'm allowed to eat. But I hadn't on the podcast yet. And I didn't really know how to use insulin very well yet, and that was probably still honeymooning, I seem to have had a an excessively long honeymoon. It wasn't like a scary honeymoon, like, like some of the children have no random inputs, but my body did seem to help with hormonal impacts and slower impacts they fat and protein for a really long time. And then it became more real. And now it's it's extra fun with the gastroparesis and trying to be bold, and now I appear to be in perimenopause. And so this is getting really entertaining.

Scott Benner 10:49
Did you try any of the B, digestive enzymes when I talked about that?

Nico 10:56
So I tried them before. And I did try them again. After talking to you and I, I was I so I don't live near a health food store. Because I live in the middle of nowhere, literally. But I got the ones off of Amazon that are being used in another person in the group as a substitute for Korean, the prescription ones. And I did actually prior to starting them get my enzymes tested. And I do make enzymes because we were wondering I had and I've always wondered, I had my gallbladder out around the time that I developed diabetes. I didn't ever have stones, it wasn't inflamed or infected, it just stopped squeezing. And it really hurt to eat food. And so something caused a lot of this, I would imagine, we just never found a doctor curious enough or informed enough to find another patient like me to say, we know what this is. So I'm not sure that knowing any of that would really change anything in my future. Enzymes gonna do anything at all didn't help. Did I've tried a variety.

Scott Benner 12:02
I'm glad you tried something does food still hurt when you eat?

Nico 12:06
If I stick to, I have some safe foods, I have quite a few safe foods these days. foods that are healthy and colorful foods that Jenny eats don't exist in my diet anymore. They did. And I really enjoyed that part of the beginning of my journey, I learned a lot more variety of food. And I really ended up liking a lot of vegetables that I had never eaten before. I just learned that vegetables out of a can are just not good. And that if I actually grow them and cook them, they're actually really good. Yeah, but they're just not safe for me.

Scott Benner 12:42
Your body just can't digest them.

Nico 12:44
Yeah, it's just not squeezing. And I did have a little bit of a trick for a while where I added acidic beverages with my food. And that seemed to really help but it destroyed my esophagus. And so I kind of have a management issue now of but I've figured out a few tricks along the way. And I've have added more and more say foods over time, a lot of them are just really much harder to Bolus for. As you would imagine, you know, I can eat pumpkin bread pretty well. But there's a lot of sugar in there and it goes fast. But I need calories. And if the calories I can get are high glycemic index spoons, baby food, basically, just just one step below baby food because it does really help if I chew, right? If I chew that helps a lot. If I don't chew, if I drink smoothies and things it just I don't know, feels like it's just plugging the bottom of my stomach and not going to ever go anywhere. But if it starts with something that it could be made into baby food, and I chew it, that usually works pretty well. Okay, so there are a few, a few vegetables on that list. Potatoes work just fine. As long as they're soft, you know if I could match them with my fork, pretty much anything that if I can mash it with my fork and feed it to a baby. I can eat it, but I need to chew it before we imagine it and then it usually digests pretty well. So but I still skip fiber. I skip skins, I skip seeds. I haven't really found many fruits that are safe about animal protein. do great with animal protein, as long as it's kind of like Instant Pot crock pot style, roasted really soft. So those tougher yucky cuts that people don't like that are cheaper. They actually work really great for me because I can just cook them until they're like I said, you're really close to be made into baby food and I chopped them up a little bit to chew him up and that stuff works great. The meat that doesn't work well is ground meat. Because I just can't get each little bitty rock chewed well enough right to digest it.

Scott Benner 14:43
So you may have just talked me into making a stew this weekend too. That was interesting.

Nico 14:51
We do I do use the Instant Pot in the crock pot frequently when I don't know but I do live really far from ingredients.

Scott Benner 14:59
Well, I'm I

Nico 15:01
learned to care about ingredients a lot in those first six years because we were trying anything and everything, the level of care that you went through with art and to try to troubleshoot some of the thyroid issues and some of the ovary issues and some of those other issues that she was having in high school. We went to that level for me trying to figure out what was wrong neurology, all kinds of people, we saw everyone. And even the GI doctor just said, Yeah, this isn't a GI issue. And it was, but you know, I don't know if they're just

Scott Benner 15:35
little failures, and they're like, your gallbladder is gone. Your pancreas was is sputtering. Oh, no, there's Yeah.

Nico 15:42
And you may have seen probably around the time, we scheduled me to be on the podcast, I also don't have a uterus. So that makes me really fun. Because the random inputs from my ovaries, my ovaries are still there. They've been there. But my uterus came out before I was diabetic. And so I don't actually have the one clue that says exactly what the uterus is doing.

Scott Benner 16:04
I have to say, I just stopped myself from laughing because you said I don't have a uterus, which makes me fun. And I thought that's not what she means. Scott. Don't laugh.

Nico 16:15
Yeah, it wasn't married yet, either. So yeah, it doesn't make me fun.

Scott Benner 16:18
But how did what why did you lose? So

Nico 16:22
if I had I don't mess at all, like in a whatever year that was, gosh, almost 20 years ago now, then maybe I would be. I would be telling a different story. But I couldn't stop bleeding.

Scott Benner 16:35
Dmitri osis, or PCOS? Or did they not say

Nico 16:38
never found anything wrong? They took the uterus out and never found anything wrong. And I tried the so the only thing that finally stopped the bleeding was, I think it's called Depo Provera. It's used in prostate cancer treatment. And that basically puts a person into chemical menopause. And that finally stopped the bleeding. Wow, I was so severely anemic. And they did the same thing they did to you, when you rename it. They made me go to oncology, like him oncology stuff. And they just they're like, you're making blood. You're just obviously losing it as like, yeah, we've proven that part. Like I know, I know. I'm losing it. I just need to figure out how to get my body to retain it. And it kind of the similar was like origins knows me. I never had nosebleeds but it seemed like the morning like I got, the more my body malfunctioned and

Scott Benner 17:24
lost more blood. Sure. Now that I believe, yeah, sure. Yeah.

Nico 17:28
It doesn't make any sense. I actually

Scott Benner 17:29
have on my short list to take art into an en t. Because often I want to I want to somebody to look at our nose and see what that if they can see where the bleeding is coming from right there.

Nico 17:41
Or thing. Yeah. But then we tried but you know, pre internet, pre all that stuff. And again, doctors two hours away. And so a lot of bleeding in the car to get to the doctors and a lot of bleeding while having blood drawn lots and lots and lots of vials of blood. And a lot of different birth control pills with the same things went through. Wait. Three weeks, three months. Wait, however long you have to wait for us to prove that you failed this one. Yeah. And eventually I just said, you know, this organ you guys are trying to predict like, I don't think I need it. I don't think I'm gonna live without it. I think I think it needs to go. So after a year of bleeding, they finally took it out.

Scott Benner 18:22
Wow. You live like basically where they film tremors right? Yeah, like that kind of vibe. Like, are you so yeah, desert.

Nico 18:30
I'm in the high desert. Currently snowing. So I've been shoveling snow this morning. I've been shoveling snow every morning this week. Except yesterday. You're not going anywhere.

Scott Benner 18:40
Here. Why are you shoveling snow you're not leaving or you know, we

Nico 18:44
walk our dogs every morning. And we have a nice north facing driveway. So if we walk the dogs on the driveway, we will never get the snow off of it. It'll pack down and we have vehicles worked every day this week. I just took this today off to record.

Scott Benner 18:58
Well, thank you as well I'd find job

Nico 19:01
I didn't. I don't have a full time job I have. Well, it's becoming a little more I can tell you that part too. But anyway, I didn't have a job when we scheduled this. And so all I needed to do that. I thought was walk the dogs. And so I sent my mommy to work for me today.

Scott Benner 19:17
Well, let me um, I mean, I have to. I have a lot of questions for you. And I feel like you're not gonna let me like talk. So I have to get them in. Don't be sorry. So how do you find the podcasts? I want to get you to that so I can ask you my questions.

Nico 19:34
So I found the podcast. It could be a longer story if you wanted it to be but it sounds like you have some talking to do so. I found the podcast because I was bored with the Facebook group I was involved in that was not related to diabetes. Okay, and because the pockets that I used to listen to left my podcast player and I needed to find something else.

Scott Benner 19:53
You just needed something else. Yeah, I

Nico 19:57
wasn't working. I've been practically home bound for what a decade now. And I like to give back. And so if the doctors are going to tell me I need rest, I'm going to try to find something I can do with that rest. And for a long time, what I did was teach people gardening. And then the gardening group that I was an admin in, and that I had participated in, you know, for years, became heavily moderated. I really wish that she understood what you understand about Facebook groups that newcomers need to be able to ask questions, and that we need to have those same seasonal conversations over and over again, in order for the group to actually stay relevant.

Scott Benner 20:34
Yeah, when you get frustrated with new people that to me says you're tired of having a Facebook group.

Nico 20:39
It says to me, you should have a a website that they can just visit if you don't want them to actually have conversations about things. And I was really there to help them all. And you know, I, you've probably seen that I'm really willing to answer newbies questions because I have knowledge that I feel can you know, improve their lives? So why not

Scott Benner 20:56
know Nika? Euro, Euro? Euro, which I think like or something like because the whole first person who said that? Well, because so so. Okay, so you found how long ago? Was this when you found the podcast?

Nico 21:08
I think it was at the end of last January.

Scott Benner 21:11
Okay, so about a year. About a year. Have you heard every episode of the podcast?

Nico 21:16
I have heard every episode of the podcast.

Scott Benner 21:19
So okay, so let's go into this first. I guess we could

Nico 21:23
have scheduled this a little bit sooner, but I hadn't heard every episode.

Scott Benner 21:27
That doesn't matter. Here's what matters. No, no, I

Nico 21:29
it was it mattered to me. Oh,

Scott Benner 21:32
are you wanting to get to it? So you could say that you heard the whole thing?

Nico 21:36
Well, I just wanted to be done. Well, you know,

Scott Benner 21:39
I don't know. Because I don't have that in my head. But like I had to finish first before we did this, and I'm like, I don't know what that means. But I understand how you feel. Oh, I know.

Nico 21:49
There are hundreds of episodes I haven't heard. So I didn't really finish yet. But I had to be caught up.

Scott Benner 21:56
Wait, so you haven't heard them

Nico 21:57
all? The ones you haven't released

Scott Benner 21:59
yet? Oh, the ones that haven't? Oh, yeah. Oh, no, I have plenty that haven't been released yet. Plus this one, which now I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop myself on putting out as soon as we get done recording it. But so here's

Nico 22:10
what I tell you about having anxiety. Does that mean I don't have to wait as long?

Scott Benner 22:14
Anxious people don't say that on here. Don't tell too many people. Well see. That's what I'm talking about. Hold on a second. I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to that. I'm writing it down. Anxiety statement from Nico Hold on a second. Okay. So are you. Okay, let me start blessing. Don't Don't just let me let me let me get this out. So I started. How don't even watch this. How long is my Facebook group and going?

Nico 22:38
Oh, about six years? No, I don't know. I don't know. Okay.

Scott Benner 22:42
So good. You don't know everything. That's good. So the private,

Nico 22:45
everything I could tell you pretty quickly.

Scott Benner 22:49
Yeah, I know. You can. I don't know how. It's not that, like two years old, maybe? Right?

Nico 22:54
Oh, well, because that was what I've been listening to recently been mentioning that they thought they were older than that.

Scott Benner 23:00
So so I might have been pushing people to like a public page at one point. Yeah. But I started a private group a couple of years ago.

Nico 23:10
Well, it's been four years. It hasn't really, three and a half, three and a half,

Scott Benner 23:14
three and a half, four years ago. See how I don't know. That's part of that's part of why I'm absolutely fascinated by you. So I started that group. And I've told this before, so I'll say it very quickly. I didn't want to start it. I was prompted by people listening to the podcast, I am not the person who wants to my back then I was like, I do not want to moderate a Facebook group. That sounded horrible. But they really wanted it. I started it. And they were right. I was wrong. There's like 33,000 people in it now. It gets between 70 and 110 new posts every day. And I used to be the only one answering questions. And I would I would just be like, that's this this is that, you know, and I would answer them out long form sometimes, like do this. Try this look here, you know, had to go through the whole thing. I'm not a doctor, like that thing. And then eventually the podcast. I was like, What am I? Why am I not? Like I used to find myself thinking, Oh, this is covered in this episode. And one day, I'm like, I'm going to start answering people with episodes. And that way, hold on one second. And that way I won't. Because I can't type this all out. Like I just can't like I couldn't keep up with everybody. When it was a couple 1000 people and they were all podcast listeners. It was like easy. And then it got to be more and more and then there's this one day. Hold on one second. Okay, I'll tell you why in a minute. Okay.

I'm sorry, my my sister in law is texting me that she's taking my mom to the ER so I Just want to find out why. I think I know I think she's dehydrated my mom.

Nico 25:05
Oh, but I know that too.

Scott Benner 25:09
I'm so sorry. No, don't be sorry. We've been working on this for a week or so. It was just the other day, I have to make a note to myself to get back to this story. Once this happens. I was I texted my son, my mom was now near my middle brother. And my, my younger brother and I are closer into geography. And I texted him the other day. And I said, Yo, man, have you heard from mom? And he goes, No. And I said, I haven't heard from mom in a couple days. Like, that doesn't make sense. Like my mom and I talk like every 48 hours, usually. And I'm like, that seems wrong. So I called my brother who lives near my mom now. And I said, Hey, is Mom Okay? And he goes, I've been working all week. He's like, my brother works like shift work and everything. And I was like, and I said, he goes, why? And I was like, I haven't heard from her. And when I call her she's not answering. And now she lives in an assisted living place. So she's not alone, you know? And oh, yeah. And I'm just like, and I'm just like, it's just very strange for mom not to call me. So we started doing basically, what you did with your health and what, you know, what I did with his health. And I just started like, asking him questions and going through ideas. And it was interesting how they who they haven't been around, or for very long, they were like, oh, you know, like her personalities changing? Like, I don't know, she's just getting crotchety and I'm like, yeah, that didn't seem right. You know what I mean? Like, so did you say UTI? Yeah, that's what that so that's what we got to eventually. And so last night, I got my brother back on the phone. And I'm like, Look, Mom didn't just go from being who she is to telling a nurse to golf. Like, like, that's like, that's a big leap for three weeks. You know what I mean? Like, I just, you know, the last really long conversation I had with her was two weeks ago, and she was fine. And now you guys are saying she doesn't have any energy. She's falling asleep everywhere, like all this stuff is going on. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense. And so you have to stop looking at her. I said, this is gonna sound strange, but you have to stop looking at mom like a like a person, your age, and start thinking of her as an older person. And moreover, as a science experiment, sometimes, like sometimes you just have to look at her and think why is this happening? He you don't I mean, like, what could be taken at face value just can't. And I said anything she says to you is going to be a lie. I don't go down to dinner because I don't like the people means I can't make the walk. Right? I don't want to go out on this on this excursion because it's too cold means I'm afraid I can't get to the bathroom. If I'm gone. Like you have to assume that she's protecting you and her dignity Every time she's speaking to you from an understanding how she's, how she's struggling, and her dignity because she doesn't want to get caught in a bad position. I was like, you have to have to like think about it that way. So I just texted my sister in law back and she didn't answer. So if you don't mind, can we take a break for one second? I'm just gonna push stop. Sure I'll,

Nico 28:09
I'll grab a sweater. Okay,

Scott Benner 28:10
I'm gonna call her real quick just to see what's going on.

Well, before I begin with the ad, I guess I should tell you that my mom is okay. Sorry for that if it made you nervous. Just to kind of happen in the moment. She did have a urinary tract infection. She did have to go into the hospital. She was there for a week. She had to go to rehab after that. It was a holy mess. But she's doing great today. I will put this caveat in here. If you have a parent in a in assisted facility, you have to pay very close attention to make sure the staff is doing what they are supposed to do. All right now from that bummer to bomb anyway. Alright, I'm just gonna do a contour ad I guess. The Contour Next One, and the contour next gen blood glucose meters are legit. Insane, terrific. Contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. Why do you need that link? All right. It's a fair question. At that link, you can learn all about the meters. You can see everything else they have. You can find out about the test strip program. You can buy these things online or in a brick and mortar store. And you perhaps will pay less money in cash than you do right now through your insurance. That's a possibility like a genuine possibility. Check into it. Contour next one.com forward slash use box but Scott, you say it's just a meter. I don't buy meter. What's it matter? I got a meter. Well, it matters. Good meter, accurate meter. Big difference from junky meter don't work meter. You deserve a good meter. You need a accurate test results. I don't care if you use the CGM, or you don't. There's no excuse to be wandering around with a busted up janky meter. Just 2023 people. Contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. Stop living like it's 1800 with your blood glucose meter. Is somebody out there? I think it's right. Okay, let's get a good one, huh?

So the recording, just so you know, okay. Alright, so I talked to my brother. And she's my mom is just kind of out of it. And like having trouble holding herself up and not answering questions. So they're taking her to the emergency room. But I imagine what we're going to learn is either just dehydration from medication that they switched her to. They also my mom asks for sleeping pill. And I'm wondering if she's not a little loopy from the sleeping pill. And then the third thing is, if she has a UTI, then a lot of this makes sense. So yeah, so anyway, we're gonna, they're on their way. And I'll find out a little bit. Oh, good. So to prove that I'm a professional, this, I will now go right back into our conversation. And keep going on

Nico 31:23
in a moment when the podcast group became its own entity of people who aren't all familiar with the podcast. Yes.

Scott Benner 31:29
And that was the moment the first time somebody said, I saw somebody in a post say, What's this podcast people are talking about? And you have to imagine it. From my perspective, I was like, What the hell? I'm like this thing. This isn't the thing. The podcast is the thing. This is a supporting piece for the podcast. And I got, I really had to think through that, as I recognize that the Facebook group had become its own thing. And that it wasn't, it wasn't contingent on the podcast anymore. But there were enough core people in there who listened that the answers that started coming as the questions picked up and got more frequent. So did the answers. And overall like in stunning fashion, the answers were solid. from other people. They weren't like newbies, you know, what happens in Facebook, like new people don't realize they're talking to other new people. And then they start giving each other their their bad information

Nico 32:27
like back, Joe. And that is why you'll see me sometimes answer relatively quickly, and sometimes not with as much detail but with an episode that says, Hey, I've seen a lot of newcomers this week. And I think I see a lot of those little hand waving guys happening. And I see a lot of the outside of the juice box, diabetic community answers coming quickly this week. So this is the week we want to get more podcast answers out, because some of these people are going to believe that oh, well, my doctor says this answers and

Scott Benner 32:59
that's just is how it goes. So to walk you through this more, I kept up with it for as long as I could. Like, I would just and I'm not smart. Like you would think I'd have a document somewhere with links that were like it. Right? Because I but that's not me, like so I every time I'm like, oh, you know what, that's this episode. I'll go online and find it and put the link there. And, and then one day, gosh, it's over a year ago now. Isn't though. What's that? You got Isabel? Yes, I got Isabel. That's exactly right. I get this note from this lady who's like I and she basically is is offering to help me. And Nika. The thing you don't know is it in the past I've had people offered to help me before and it's often not gone well, or it's very short lived. And so I've gotten to that point where I was like, Look, I can't go through explaining all this to somebody for three weeks from now they go I'm sorry, I got really busy. I can't do this anymore. And because everybody has a lot of energy and they think they want to do it. But then it's it's more work than you think. But Isabelle hurt something about her note was so persuasive, that I actually I got on the phone with her. Because I was like, I'm not getting involved with this or she's a crackpot. Like, I'm just not, you know, and she was so lovely and intelligent, and, and moreover, felt like she was in my head that she knows what I'm doing. But even when I do little things, she's she'll send me a text. Did you do that because of this? And I'll be like, yes. How did you know that? She was I just thought you might have and I was like, Okay, I'm like, Wow, that's fascinating. Like, she knows what I'm doing. So then she gets involved. And she's helping me in all these little ways. She's putting up links and she's making lists of pots. She's like, you have all these seriously. She's the one who told me. She goes you know, you have like a compendium of different series in the podcast and I'm like, No, it's just like no, no, she's like they're, they should be put together somewhere in a collection. Shouldn't I'm like, really? Like, okay, like I gave them all the same title. Is that not enough? So they all say bold beginnings. What is so hard? No. So hard to give them all the same time you can write it was, did it I act I can form because

Nico 35:18
one of those could have been called Jenny's. But and it is not. And it should have been

Scott Benner 35:25
about the other moment when Jenny wouldn't tell her what bra size you are in the middle of defining diabetes episode, which should have been not the point.

Nico 35:33
I heard that was that yesterday, and I thought, you know, I don't think I'd really want to be, you know, anyway. Oh,

Scott Benner 35:40
listen, here's the thing. You don't I didn't expect her to share that. I just said it. Well, I'm sure you didn't expect

Nico 35:44
her to. And I know there are some of us who would, like I said, if you ask the right questions, I'll just back myself into a corner and be telling you

Scott Benner 35:52
just start saying things. Well, I have no interest in

Nico 35:55
Jenny. Jenny does a great job. Yeah. She has the restraint that I don't have. Yeah.

Scott Benner 36:00
So So anyway, so she's a professional. That's why Isabelle really helps pull the group into focus. And then one day, I mean, I don't I can't pay her. You know what I mean? Like, so I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, Look, I sent her a note. That was basically like, it basically said, Listen, if you don't want to date me anymore, you can leave like I don't even like, I don't want to be the I don't want to. I don't want you to feel like your feet are bound and I've got you in the bed. What What movie is that? Oh, Kathy Bates puts Oh, yeah. 50 Shades of Grey? No, Kathy Bates.

Nico 36:37
Oh, I don't know Kathy Bates and James Bond, but I haven't seen that.

Scott Benner 36:41
James Caan not James Bond. Oh, James.

Nico 36:46
Usually, you'll say, you know, nobody knows what that is. And I'm like, Oh, I'm old enough to know what that is. But now Now you've lost. This is fast. Now. I'm too young.

Scott Benner 36:56
Yeah, this is fascinating. Because you are. You're like the Dewey Decimal System for the podcast for the podcast.

Nico 37:03
Yeah, I can do that with pretty much anything but not not movies.

Scott Benner 37:08
Isn't that interesting? Because I just thought you would just it's misery. It's a Stephen King book. Movie.

Nico 37:13
Obviously, and yeah, definitely, definitely not Stephen King. I mean, I have stayed at the hotel in Estes Park, the Stanley Hotel, Stephen King. I don't know, Stephen King. But yeah, I don't do horror.

Scott Benner 37:26
It's a thriller. More of a psychological thriller. Rob Reiner

Nico 37:29
doesn't do any of that stuff. Like Dexcom keeps me awake at night. And now that Dexcom is not keeping me awake at night as often my dogs keep me awake at night, and I don't need any any other help. Not sleeping.

Scott Benner 37:39
Gotcha. So anyway, okay. Anyway, so normally use and so anyway, Isabelle says to me a podcast. Yes. Isabel doesn't break up with me. She just says, No, I want to help. And I'm like, okay, great. So she gives anytime she can, it's way more than than you would expect. And one day, I said, I gotta get you some help. Because I started feeling badly about everything. She was doing. Good. She and she's telling me I want to free you up to make the podcast, which she's done. But then I feel like I'm abandoning her doing this other thing. And, and, and I said, we have got to get you some help. Somehow. I said, is there anyone in the group who can do this? Who would be interested, who'd be good at it? And she said, A Nico would be. And I said, anybody else? And she, she made a short list for me. And obvious that I was available. No, I don't think so. That's not it. I know, you probably feel that it

Nico 38:34
was No, I was available. Like I said, I left another group looking for somewhere else to contribute. Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:40
well, I'll tell you. So we just basically made like a, like a little offer to a few people and said, Look, we'd like to make you a group expert, you do a great job of helping people. And you know, we love the way you drop in links to the podcast and how you talk. And if you're interested, I'm gonna give you this this group expert label, but I didn't give you any expectations or really asked you to do anything. I just

Nico 39:02
how that happened on my end was I logged into Facebook one day, and I had a notification that said, you've been invited to be a group expert in Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes, and I said, Oh, that's interesting. Okay. And I have been a group expert in a couple of other groups, and I might still be one in a few groups. I don't know. So I didn't receive any personal communication. Until I heard from Krista who said, Hey, I missed this thing that happened because I wasn't here for a week and is it Oh, yeah, I don't know. I just accepted. But in the interim, I had been sharing links. I don't want to be the voice in the crowd. That doesn't explain where I'm coming from. i Why would you believe me, you haven't been in my doctor's appointments. You haven't seen my graphs? You don't know my variability. You don't know if what I'm saying has any credence. But if I tell you where I learned it from, then you can decide for yourself if you want to follow that same path or not. Yeah. And so when I'm in a sea of Facebook comments, If I learned it somewhere, I'm going to tell you where. And I was doing that and other groups. And I knew to be cautious because I had heard on the podcast that you could get kicked out of other groups if you do that. And eventually, I stopped going to other groups, because I found the group I wanted to hang out in. And I have a little bit less time to hang out in groups. And so I'm happy where I am. But right around that time I, you made one of your posts, you know, they're infrequent. And they're kind of fun, and often happen when I'm not logged in. And by the time I get there, I'm like, Well, I got to really read this guy in this. This is a little book I need to spend some time with. But it said, I thank you for sharing the links to the episodes when there are episodes that and I said, Wow, okay, now I really have his permission to be sharing the links to the episodes. So I'll definitely do that. Yeah. And if I don't have time to write an answer, I'll say, you know, you're gonna tell me you don't have time for this. But go listen to this episode, because it'll help you.

Scott Benner 40:51
Okay? No, I mean, you're fantastic. Like you are. You are as if someone reached into my heart and mind and made you and put you in that Facebook group. I swear. Like the way you handle yourself in there is exactly right. For my tastes like exactly right. Yeah, no. And but but here's the thing. You appear to know my life better than I do. And that I don't understand. Oh, sorry. No, no, no, no, I love it. I just don't understand that. And that's why you're on I want to understand it. Because like

Nico 41:23
you said, Send chocolate and I said, but the cake pop thing freaked you out. So are you sure you want me to send chocolate? And so I didn't send chocolate. But I mean, I would I don't know, like,

Scott Benner 41:34
little references about the show. I know. Like I listened to a podcast that I like, I don't know that many details about it. And and like you did a thing earlier, right? Yeah,

Nico 41:47
I know. And I'm not trying to give anyone I just I actually am a really like, My husband used to call one of his co workers are nervous Chihuahua. And then I said, But don't you realize you're married to a nervous Chihuahua. And so I do have anxiety. I wasn't trying to give anyone any hints. But I do know that Yeah.

Scott Benner 42:01
No, no, you're misunderstanding me. Like,

Nico 42:04
I know, the anxiety piece that I said, Yeah. You know, I didn't say it to trick you. I said it's because it's true. But I wasn't trying to teach anyone any tricks. No, it's just true.

Speaker 1 42:15
But see, you're talking about it right now. I'm going to explain it. You made. You said if I tell you I have anxiety, well, my episode come out sooner. That's literally a statement or referring to a sentence I spoke in one episode.

Nico 42:30
How do I also know that now we talked about your mom. And so I may not get up for a while because that story may not be one that needs to be out in public yet. So I don't know. I guess we'll see who wins here

Scott Benner 42:42
with how do you know that one thing listeners when

Nico 42:45
and I hope they're gonna you know, I hope there's something and the people in the podcast I? I do, they do need to listen, and maybe not all of it because it's gotten big.

Scott Benner 42:55
No need. They need all of it. I

Nico 43:01
say, download them all. And they can play them all.

Scott Benner 43:04
No, yeah. Even when you're sleeping. You can listen if you want to put the podcast on for your pets while you're gone during the day. I love that. But but no. But so But back to the thing,

Nico 43:14
maybe not the early episodes, because it's crackers. We don't need any help from basil.

Scott Benner 43:18
I know that might confuse him if he heard himself snoring. So early on, I shared with somebody, it takes about six months for your episode to come out. And then I said unless you have anxiety, because then I feel bad about it not coming out while you're anxious about it. And you reference that. So it's such a giveaway, like 20 minutes ago, you were like, Oh, maybe I should say I have anxiety. And then well, I know you do. But your reference you were referencing that statement, though?

Nico 43:49
I know. I was Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:51
You're Miko you. I feel like you're fighting me and you're not at the same time. This is Is this fun?

Nico 44:00
Oh, yeah. So many of you

Scott Benner 44:03
respond to people so swiftly with exactly the right episode. I don't know how you do it.

Nico 44:13
And yet, I still can't find one of the ones that I'm looking for. But that's okay.

Scott Benner 44:17
But how do you do that? Like, what's the whole process? You see a post somebody asks a question, you think, oh, that's this

Nico 44:24
is why I was here. And honestly, it's really not that interesting. You know, how you tell people like that doesn't make an episode. This doesn't make an emphasis. Don't

Scott Benner 44:31
want to know, tell him Okay, so

Nico 44:32
I, the other group I was in I was learning but I didn't really feel like I had the authority to give back to that group the way that I had benefited from it and then didn't feel like my comments really had any credence. So I decided to take the Master Gardener class. And in the Master Gardener class, they taught us how to do research because it's, I don't know, maybe a 10 week class one day a week and it's kind of a college level course but they just can't teach you everything that everyone will ever asked you about gardening, so they teach you how to find information. And so I know how to find information. And for a while I've been well, you almost made it easier for me this week, and then kind of maybe didn't perfectly pick that. And now I know why Stephens episode came out this week is because you followed through with a couple of things that the two of you discussed, and now people should be visiting the website to try out the new search engine, which is much improved, but I liked the one that was there a couple of days ago, more than I liked the one that's there now.

Scott Benner 45:28
I see. But it stopped.

Nico 45:30
I see how things are going. Yeah, I see. I understand. It's reality of life. So if I really, really want to take the time, I can actually just type it into Google and say, whatever I'm looking for what site colon WWW dot juicebox podcast.com. But a lot of times, I just happen to remember, you know, that was covered in a Scott and Jenny and I have the list of Scotland.

Scott Benner 45:55
Understand eco right there. How do you remember that? I don't remember. And I had the conversation.

Nico 46:01
You had the conversation and you had to listen through it again to edit it, but you weren't. You're having the content, you're producing the conversation. But I can't remember it. Like, you know, listening to the conversation, and I'm retaining it because I'm listening. As the patient

Scott Benner 46:16
woman you have my memories. That's what I'm that's what?

Nico 46:20
Well, maybe that's why you don't? I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 46:23
I know. Maybe that is I don't know, like, Is it like the other day?

Nico 46:27
I do live in this like, like, vortex II area if I understood any of that better, you know, like, I mean, if you take Sedona, and I don't know, whatever, all the different mountains around me, maybe maybe I have your memories

Scott Benner 46:38
userland mushrooms. Nico, what are you doing up in those mountains? No, I'm nothing. Because like the other day, somebody asks a question. I I'm gonna get a little wrong. But she basically is like, is there as there ever been an episode with somebody who rides a motorcycle? Oh, yeah. And I read that. And I thought, no, there hasn't been. And then I went, No, wait. Yes, there has been I remember talking to this really deep voice gravelly guy. So now I'm sitting at my desk. I'm editing on this computer, and I'm sitting looking at this computer. And I'm thinking there was there was there was How would I know where that is? And I was like, Oh, I know what I'll do. Hey, Nico. Do we have any episodes with motorcycles? And you respond back and you're like, Yeah, here it is. This one right here. And

Nico 47:26
I responded, you ignored my actual response. Well, no, you're

Scott Benner 47:29
but I didn't like your actual response referenced me to a point that I couldn't understand. That's how deep you are into my mind. And then, and then you were like, you put up another episode. And you're like, Scott talked about riding a motorcycle here. And I'm like, I did. Like, I didn't know I ever brought that up. Except I assume I would have mentioned it in the episode where the guy was riding. But I didn't remember that. And then you found an extra episode where I talked about it and I thought, Oh, my God, I had no idea.

Nico 48:03
Well, your soldier injury came from a motorcycle accident. Motorcycle Accident. Yeah, but you also you talked more in depth about actual motorcycle. And there is another one that I didn't share with him where you talked about why that you know, it was cheaper to ride a motorcycle. So did I really? Yeah, you did your

Scott Benner 48:20
freaking freaking me out, Nico. Are we oh my god, you're freaking me out. Like so you. So I mean, I know that. I don't know if this sounds strange.

Nico 48:33
Retaining that memory and then tracking it down. And the Internet helps me tremendously track down those things. But you still you

Scott Benner 48:40
have enough to go after. I knew I didn't have enough to go after when she just said had someone been on talking about riding a motorcycle. I was like, no, no, not.

Nico 48:51
The other day my counselor from like, LM no middle school, came in and saw me sweeping cookie crumbs off the floor and said, Didn't you go to college? As a matter of fact, I did. And I like selling cookies. So you can What's your degree? My degree so um, my undergrad was psychology and political science. undergrad, you have a master's? I went to graduate school and I got bored around the end of my thesis. Sorry,

Scott Benner 49:21
interesting. You're fantastic. Hey, listen, I'm gonna just ask this in a lovely way. Do you have any mental illnesses? You're not disclosing? I don't think so. Okay, you just like you just have

Nico 49:33
treated. I was treated for mental illness while we were trying to figure out what's wrong with me. Right. But all of that treatment ceased once I got into it. Yeah. Because

Scott Benner 49:43
you were you were looking at all of your, your personality, because I

Nico 49:47
was a psych major. And so what did I know? Calling down? Yeah. And so when my brain was not working, I went to my family doctor and said, I think I have bipolar disorder. And she said You're too kind and too nice to have bipolar. are disorganized and yeah, but like my brain like this is I'm not right. And so you're not with bipolar disorder. What you did? I did. Yeah, I did. I even got myself into a psych ward for a while. And obviously meds weren't helping. And I didn't improve.

Scott Benner 50:18
But do you don't think you're bipolar? Like you're not mad? So no, you are.

Nico 50:23
This is how I am. Yeah. I have energy. Yeah. I mean, this is a little nervous energy. No, I just, I, yeah, I don't get out. Well, I haven't gotten that much in a while. Not everyone did. Well, when COVID hit. Everyone was complaining about being stuck at home. I was like, Yeah, welcome to my world. But I do get out more now. We live in a smaller town now so I can drive a little bit. I just, I don't feed myself nutrients. And so we chase my house for a really long time trying to figure what's wrong with me. And really, I think it just comes down to the fact that I don't eat food. Yeah, I eat. I eat simple carbs. And I don't know, I'm on like a teenager diet.

Scott Benner 51:00
Because I just say I love you know, that's

Nico 51:03
what you're mentioned in the podcast that I've been wanting to ask, you know, okay, go ahead. So, in Arden's lunches in like early high school, she often had pretzels, and I wondered if you made them or if they were store bought in New Jersey,

Scott Benner 51:17
they were store bought. I'm sorry.

Nico 51:20
I just I imagine a world where you can buy put sells in the grocery store.

Scott Benner 51:24
Yeah, that exists here is that you don't have that where you are?

Nico 51:27
No, I have to go to my pantry and get the Potomac or down off of the top shelf. And I gosh, I spent the entire month of December looking for NS and couldn't find it anywhere. So anyway. Yeah. Oh,

Scott Benner 51:38
don't tell me that those exist because there's a world where all by a maker and I don't want that to happen to me. The recipe I'm making art and got me a ninja creamy for Christmas. And I'm making my own sorbet right now. It's so

Nico 51:55
I went through a sorbet phase. Oh, it's gonna be the lotto gelato and sorbet. Yeah, both I had fun.

Scott Benner 52:01
Yeah, I haven't done gelato yet in the machine. So far. I just I made a lemon raspberry sorbet. And I have to tell you, it's fantastic. So

Nico 52:10
I believe I have not yet tried your pizza crust. But I do see periodically people say and I'm like, oh, that's here in the group dog waiting for you.

Scott Benner 52:18
Yeah, I'm thinking about a pizza this weekend, actually. Well, it's like Thursday, right? Is it? No, is it Friday? I'm literally thinking of making a pizza crust when I when I'm done here with you. Okay, cuz that's gonna say you're running late. Yeah. And then I'll make the pizza on Sunday afternoon. Probably. Okay, so. Okay, so back. Well,

Nico 52:38
maybe I will do. Okay, I have the afternoon off my mom's working for me. Why not? How cute is that?

Scott Benner 52:44
That's lovely. And she's selling cookies somewhere for you? Yes. Are the cookies you made?

Nico 52:50
No, I could but honestly. I mean, I do love baking. I don't love cleaning.

Scott Benner 52:56
Are you buying cookies and then reselling them? No, no,

Nico 52:59
no, I have. So my boss will probably hear this. And I don't Yeah, she just joined the group yesterday. Okay. I don't know who that her. And I don't know how, who handles the membership requests. But she her son was just diagnosed over Christmas. And so anyway, but she started storefront for her bakery in November, and she hired me to help run the store. That's wonderful. I have now picked up extra shifts because she is now caring for a type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 53:28
I made some sugar cookies the other day were fantastic. But you'll hear me talk about that on an episode. It was very depressing. I made them I love cooking for my, my family. And right now you make cookies for the kids throughout the year here and there. And then they're both gone right now. And I made them and I'm like halfway through making them and my wife's like, are you okay? And I said I responded. I said it doesn't feel the same. And I was so upset. And she goes what doesn't feel the same? Because she's Irish. She doesn't know. She doesn't know about like feelings and stuff. So I was like,

Nico 54:04
seems like a lovely person. I'm sure

Scott Benner 54:06
she does to other people. No, I'm just kidding. But, but I just I was like, I'm not getting whatever I get out of baking for the kids. I'm not getting it while they're not here.

Nico 54:18
I get that. Yeah, our family had COVID over Christmas. Oh, not us. We had COVID Right after you had COVID. And I joked with you in the group that you were the only person I knew who had COVID at that time. And so I must have gotten it from you through my headphones. But no, we probably got it at a funeral or at an endo visit. I don't know. But we can get my family.

Scott Benner 54:38
You didn't get that I had I had French COVID. So

Nico 54:42
Oh, well. How do I know? Well, I just did an at home test. I don't know what kind of had

Scott Benner 54:46
you don't have an international airport at your house there. Well,

Nico 54:52
a lot of international visitors. Well and like I said funerals so we had a lot of people come from out of from from faraway places, but I don't know if we got friends I have no idea what I got. It wasn't that big of a deal. I did not sound nearly as rough as you sounded. And I am a type one diabetic who takes other meds that don't, you know, aren't kind of my immune system. But yeah, it wasn't too bad. But about a month later, the rest of our family got it. And so we didn't get to see them at Christmas. And so it was a very sad, quiet moment just cooking, baking by myself, and then delivering the cookies to people. It just, it just wasn't the same. I understand.

Scott Benner 55:27
Do you know I just did something on purpose. That's going to be mean. But I'll say that I derailed you on purpose a minute ago to see if you'd get back to the cookies. And you did. That was fascinating to me.

Nico 55:39
Sometimes I will. Sometimes I won't,

Scott Benner 55:41
I pulled you out of the conversation about the cookies and took you towards the COVID. To see if you get back to the cookies.

Nico 55:47
I'll get back to the cookie. And you did love cookies. But I like cake more.

Scott Benner 55:52
There you go. You're trying to change directions. I'm not gonna let you hear. But

Nico 55:57
I mean, there are lots of directions to go. That's what I you know, I did have all the nerves. I really did this. I had no idea what you wanted. I knew what you wanted. I knew that I didn't see how that was an episode. And then, after listening to all the episodes, I wasn't really sure what I had left, that could be an episode. I don't think I'm really like a Nico, you

Scott Benner 56:14
think you help this podcast so much. And you help that Facebook group so much. And people should know that there are other people doing things like that, and you don't like you're not paid for it, you're not an employee of it, you have no responsibility towards it. And you, you take this thing that I made, and it got too big. Like, I can't, I can't wield it by myself anymore, right? It's just, it's too much. And you are helping me to reach so many people on Facebook. And in turn, some of those people are making it back to this podcast, which is growing the podcast and allowing the podcast to continue on. And you're helping all those people. Like when when someone comes on and says, like, you know, somebody will put up a post and be like, I got my agency today. And this is what it is. And thank you, Scott, and the podcast in this group. I get the like, most of the glow goes towards me. And that's not fair. Like it really isn't like, like that person ended up in that group and found the podcast because of the group. And the group is you said it earlier. It's its own entity at this point, like it lives and breathes on its own. It doesn't even need me. The only thing like Isabel will tell me privately, she's like they want you. She'll tell me that I do. Like she'll put a post up. And she'll be like, No one looked at my posts, she puts these amazing posts up, they're so detailed, and they are great for people, and no one looks at them. And then I'll go on and say something completely stupid. And an hour and a half later, it's got 10,000 imprints on Facebook. It's frustrating. You don't I mean,

Nico 57:51
I love for posts, I do. I you know, I know that I know a little a little bit about how the algorithms work. And so I tried to interact with all of her posts, even if I don't always have something incredible to say, I still try to at least interact with them. Because those posts they deserve to be seen by that are wonderful,

Scott Benner 58:07
though, everyone should see them. And I and I feel bad when she puts them up if if they don't get any interactions. And yet there are times that the group is so fast. I don't even see them sometimes. You know what I mean? Like that. That's the one thing about the group, like you have to if you're in the group, and you see something valuable, you have to interact with it. Because if the algorithm thinks no one cares. It just shoves it away. It just disappears. Yeah. And it's gone. Absolutely. And so you have to you have to really and I try my you probably see me at the end of the night, early in the morning, like I tried to interact with as many posts as I can. But the truth is, is that that that would be a 48 hour a day job for me if I was going to do absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Like there's no way

Nico 58:54
there would be no new no new content for us

Scott Benner 58:56
to be wouldn't get a podcast and there just be a Facebook group. And so So tell me some other things like you said something earlier that I really appreciate it coming from another perspective, you like the way I think about managing the group. So tell me why you think that group is successful.

Nico 59:13
That group is successful, because you let it live and breathe. You have you have the podcast if people want something? Well, the podcast isn't stagnant because it's it's evolving in a new episodes every week, but the old episodes are there if people want them, and you have a website if you want them to do that. But that group needs to have new blood that can have old conversations over and over again. And I already do miss the people that were there a year ago when I joined all of the names of the people that I learned to recognize as the voices of reason and the voices of authority. The people who didn't know the podcast and who had been with it a while. I do miss a lot of them and there are a few that I still see. But the newcomers are the reason the group is still relevant, and letting them keep having those same conversations over and over again multiple times throughout the same day. And the group would just stall, if you didn't allow that to happen. And that was what was happening. It was kind of funny, admin assistant was deleting things I was posting, and it was quite hilarious. And I finally said, I'm sorry, but I can't help you with your group anymore. Because the rules have become way too convoluted.

Scott Benner 1:00:24
Like this is your, when your gardening group. Yeah, and my gardening

Nico 1:00:27
group, and I just said, I gotta go find something else to do. And like I said, my podcasts that I like, left my app, and so it just all converged at once with me having some free time. And I do still, my energy is still low. I know it doesn't sound that way right now. That's just my anxious energy that's coming out. But I do. With better glycemic control, I do have more energy, but I still don't get the right calories in at the right time. I'm still pretty malnourished. And so we wandered for a long time, I went through all kinds of different diagnoses. And some of them may be accurate, but I'm just not sure that any of that matters. In reality, I'm not as hydrated as I should be. And I'm not as nervous as I could be. And so I don't have a ton of energy and all the doctors, the one thing they've always told me is that I need to rest. And so when I do need to rest, I can sit down and answer questions online. And I can still feel like I'm giving back. I can still feel like I'm not completely, you know, no, you very

Scott Benner 1:01:27
much. You there's no ego about you. Like that's one thing. One of the reasons when when I we talked about like maybe giving some people like a group expert badge, I was like, Oh, God, like one of them's gonna lose their mind. And I'm, you know, and we pick you and Stephanie, and Krista, and they've been terrific, like really, really, really terrific. And but you specifically, like, I'm not lying, like there are times that

Nico 1:01:55
I joke i She always she says the same things you say about me? And she, we mostly just communicate in the group, but it's the same stuff. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm not a witch. And there's nothing special about me. I just listened and remembered. Yeah, and that's what I do. I just listen, when I'm upright. When I'm washing dishes. When I'm gardening. When I'm baking. When I'm in between customers at work, I listen to the episodes and then I retain that information to relate to others. It's just I practice it

Scott Benner 1:02:21
Miko, it's a special skill there are times I think you're standing behind me. How does she know that? Like? Isabella tends to text me as I'm getting in the shower. Which, by the way, is something my mom does? And I'm like, Oh, I'm getting in the shower right now. Like, how do you how do you how do you know to interrupt me the only 10 minutes for myself, I'm gonna take today in the shower. And, you know, now we laugh about it, but didn't know your, your addition and what you do for? I can't, I can't say enough good about it. Like you're a good person. So

Nico 1:02:57
you've had practice with this. I know how many episodes now of having practice with people talking to you this way. And this part I was not prepared for. And I have not had practice with this. So I'll just sit here blushing at my husband's desk.

Scott Benner 1:03:13
Here's what I can tell you. I've learned a little bit to just say thank you. That's all you got.

Nico 1:03:19
am so happy to help. It is it is. I don't know, the least I could do. I don't I don't have the knowledge. A year ago, I couldn't have created the podcast. But I just can't imagine that if someone does want that information that I could hold it and not let them know where I got it from.

Scott Benner 1:03:37
That's where the motivation comes from. So you feel like I feel like how do I tell that person this I had to? I saw a post the other day, and I didn't have time to respond to it. And that's the feeling I as I left it, I was like, Oh God, I'm gonna let this person down. Like, I know what I could tell them. And so to

Nico 1:03:57
me a lot of times I'm thinking, if it doesn't get answered by not, you know by by someone, me Scott, Isabel Christo, Stephanie, or many of the other people in the group who who have been with you forever and who have listened. It's gonna get answered by one of the other newcomers first. And sometimes those just build momentum so quickly. I just feel terrible when that happens. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:19
they can go there. So it's interesting, isn't it? Like so? How do I do when things get out of hand? Do you think I handled them well?

Nico 1:04:27
So I am not in you know, the admin panel seeing

Scott Benner 1:04:32
Oh, there's nothing to say I do everything publicly.

Nico 1:04:35
Okay, yeah, well, so. Okay. I did see some stuff the other day that seemed like it was weird. And then when Isabel went to look at it later, it was gone. So anyway, but I think those public floggings they're perfect. They're exactly. Think of them. No, no, not at all. But occasionally, occasionally someone deserves one thing. It's one it's really rare, but I saw someone a couple days ago, poking you. And you answered very politely and somewhat succinctly. And then they poked you harder and you're like, Yeah, okay, so, you know, you're poking the bear now, and I'm gonna give you my, my real answer. And here it is. And I totally deserved, you know, and it totally belongs. And the group, the group tone is better for it. You know, it's rare, and people do behave most of the time. There have been a few few people that just feel like just acting up and it just the internet goes in seasons like that. Oh, my

Scott Benner 1:05:35
God, it's so does right as Christmas approaches, everybody loses their minds. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's insane.

Nico 1:05:43
And I saw that in the other group that I mean, I probably was there about six years, and you just have to just know that that's what season we're in, like, I'm expecting, we're gonna have static season right around now, you know, like, it's gonna be pods failing. And people don't realize that that's why as I sit here in a fuzzy blanket, because I don't want my heater to run,

Scott Benner 1:06:02
I have these conversations. Where I, I'll say to Isabel, or my wife, if I'm saying talking about I'll say, there are like five or six people. If I just banned them right now. In the short term, the group would be better off. But I don't want to do that.

Nico 1:06:19
Because that conversation with my husband, too. I was telling him about it on the walk a couple days ago, I said, but if he knows that, if he kicks them out, that they lose, they lose the opportunity to learn, right? And I've seen it and then a few months from now that Yeah, exactly a few months from now. There's one. I'm hoping we'll come back around soon. Yeah, about six months ago, there was one that I've been watching for her to come back. And I hope she does. So anyway. Yeah. What best we could do is just put the information out there and hope, right, I had not banned them all.

Scott Benner 1:06:51
So it's so interesting to hear you talk about like that, to like, that is exactly how I feel because I've seen somebody while I've gotten an email, like a long, like you suck email. Uh huh. And then, like six months later, long, I'm sorry, email. Oh, I was in a bad headspace and blah, blah. Now my agency is this. So what I do is the way I explain to my wife and my wife's like, how do you make these decisions? I'm like, I know what the podcast is. And I know what it does. And if somebody disagrees with it at its basic core, I know they're wrong. And, and but other than that, I listened to people's input. And I tried to think like, am I wrong about this? Or am I not seeing the whole picture? I'm constantly doing that. But at its core, I know that podcasts helps people live healthier. And so if you tell me it doesn't, you have another reason why you're saying that. And I got attacked recently by somebody privately. And then they tried to come at me through the survey, as well, where they and they listened to the podcast intently. And and I guess I said something where I was trying to be flippant about ads. And, and I was I said something like, you know, you got to click on this link. If you don't, I'm gonna end up working at Walmart or something like that, like you I need your support. Right? Yeah. And I am, as I mean, you would tell me if you thought differently, but I am in pletely, transparent about what makes money for this podcast. Like, like, the ads, if I put something online, I'm like, Look, if you click on this, it supports the show, like I'm very, very clear about it. And this person had been a fan for a while, and then all of a sudden, they're like, this is about your ego and money. And I'm like, Look, what am I gonna do? I said to my wife, am I gonna argue with her? I'm like, It's not about that. And I can't. It's about helping people. Does the podcast create a revenue stream that supports my family? It absolutely does. And if you want me to feel bad about that, you're barking up the wrong tree, because I spent my whole life making this podcast. So I'm going to, I'm going to get paid for it. Because if I didn't, I couldn't make it, I still have bills, I'd have to go to something else. And so I don't feel badly about that. I know how many people it helps. I know how it's brought the, the diabetes space forward, I just had a long conversation yesterday with a major institution in diabetes that's going to ask me to come out and speak about something about how I talk to people, they're gonna want me to tell clinicians how to talk to people about diabetes, so I know what it's doing. And, and so you pick through this moment with this person, and you're like, well, there's something happening on their end. It's not about me, this isn't about me. And so I have to let that go. I've become the focus of something. I'm gonna let that go right. And then I'm like, do I block them? Are they going to just like so? Like, because the one thing that people do on Facebook that if you don't know is they they DM behind the scenes, each other like little kids in school? And not everybody but some people do? Yeah, as I wish and I think it's funny. Like for anybody listening who's ever done that, if you think I don't know, you're kidding yourself, because you're telling Somebody you think agrees with you, and that person doesn't agree with you, and then they send me screenshots of your conversations. So it's true, don't type anything, you don't want someone to know. It's so and so. And I've seen it like, I've seen the gamut run. I have, I've only ever kept one of them, because it's so

Nico 1:10:22
a lot of it, you'll see again,

Scott Benner 1:10:25
everything old is new again, in this again, and again, you have to be okay with that, too. But I have one here, I'll never get rid of where the person tells like somebody says, Hey, I don't understand why you deleted my comment about the Juicebox Podcast that started the conversation. And then that that admin lied and said, they knew me personally. And oh, yeah, you mentioned this, and then made up significant lies about me to try to paint the reason why you wouldn't want to go to the pockets. Like, I know, he does this. And I know he does that. And everything they wrote, I'm like, I don't do that. Like, I don't like I don't make money that way. I don't do this. I don't do that. I don't she told them that I counsel people privately and take large sums of money from them for it. I've never done that in my life. But it was fascinating to have. But you didn't listen, I just got to. I just got an email from the Middle East the other day about helping, I think, a fairly wealthy family. And I was like, I don't accept money to help people with diabetes, but I can send you to some episodes, like, like, fly to Dubai and help somebody with their Basal What are you doing? But But anyway, I don't do those things. And then to have somebody come at me and tell me I do. Then you're back into the fate in the internet world, like arguing with them is

Nico 1:11:44
so hard, because I would love to participate more and more of those groups. And I was doing an okay job of giving enough of my own comments, and then periodically throwing in a podcast episode, knowing that if I did too much of what I do in your group, I would shut down other groups. But at some point, it was just

Scott Benner 1:12:03
exhausting. No, it's too much. And from watching them

Nico 1:12:05
suffer and watching them, choose that path. But then really, like I'm actually just busier now. And I would rather make sure I don't miss any of the Yeah, just box group posts that need answers, and then go back about my life. You're wonderful.

Scott Benner 1:12:21
You're wonderful. If my kids weren't grown, I'd make you their godmother. So Oh, my trust me you don't responsibility. But do you think, um, you've heard me talk about in the past about the other groups? Like, it's all about, like, keeping their they want to keep their audience? It's not really

Nico 1:12:40
you have seen so many of them are doing exactly what you said. They're, they're there to make the money.

Scott Benner 1:12:46
And they're siloing everybody, and they don't want them to leave?

Nico 1:12:49
Yeah, and they want the numbers. And it really isn't. If it were about helping people, then it wouldn't matter what information the people were getting, as long as it was just fair and balanced. You know, like, hey, this information is there, you can get this. And then I you know, there are there's so much to it, I'm sure. And I didn't spend very much time there. I joined a couple of groups. I don't even I have no idea. diabetes did get a little bit harder about a year ago, I think my honeymoon probably ended then. And so I didn't know I was looking. But I was looking a little. And then I realized where I could get help. And I didn't need to be there anymore, either. And where do I want to get back? The help is where I got the help from not. But I mean, I still do I go to read it. And and same thing. I answer with my own information enough times that I can then also answer with podcast episodes sometimes, so that they don't look completely crazy. And I don't get kicked out. Yeah, so see, but I don't have to do that in your group. If there's an episode that will help someone. And I don't have the personal knowledge about it, I can just share the episode. And I would rather put a few words with it. But lately, I've been a little busier because I'm working more hours than I anticipated. And I am thrilled to be doing it. I would really love to help this family more. I've I've never had a person in my life who actually had diabetes. And so I mean, I'm not thrilled that he was diagnosed, but I am more than happy to share the information that I have. And so she has looked at my graphs, she was looking at my data the other day, so we had to do that. And it was like it's the podcast was like we should be playing non stop here. I have been Don't you see my headphones.

Scott Benner 1:14:31
Thank you so much. I listened. I'm obviously thrilled that it's helped you but you've now helped more. And it's just I'm the only one stop. I appreciate that very much. I didn't want to say please don't leave me. But

Nico 1:14:50
I don't I am busier. But I don't plan for that to be forever and I you know I do still have some free time and I do still have to sit sometimes. And so if I'm sitting and answer people's questions if I can.

Scott Benner 1:15:01
Do you appreciate the hands off way I deal with you and Stephanie and Krista or do you wish I was more involved? Like you? And you guys have a chat? Right? You and Isabel and the girls will have a chat, right?

Nico 1:15:13
We do. Yeah. And I, I think I treat my Facebook Messenger, like chat section, the way you treat your inbox, and probably less less. So like I really do need to set aside one day a month and go answer messages over there. But I, let's see, we don't write to each other very frequently. And I do appreciate it. Now, when I when I first became an admin in another group I had assumed all along not having ever been one that where there were multiple people on the team. They were all communicating behind the scenes, like you said, Yeah. And then I learned that we weren't once I was doing it myself, I realized that we were just all in our own little space doing our own thing. And the only time we wrote to each other's if we felt like complaining about someone or you know, whatever, having one of those private conversations or just really just felt like having a private conversation. Oh, God,

Scott Benner 1:16:01
never. It never occurred to me. Do you complain about me? No, no, no, I'm

Nico 1:16:06
just assuming people probably think that, that we actually do all interact, and we don't know you have something that needs to be done? And if there's nothing that needs to be done,

Scott Benner 1:16:17
is there a need how everybody's would probably? Yeah, I

Nico 1:16:20
think the group members would appreciate knowing that we're still being our own individuals that we weren't giving any marching orders. We're just people that you trust to help relay your information. Yeah, people with with experience people, you know, with knowledge, and that we're not being told by you what you want us to do at all. We're just helping.

Scott Benner 1:16:42
I'm as hands off with you guys as I am with the whole thing. Like, did you see the note the other day that somebody sent me? And they were like, You need to moderate this group differently?

Nico 1:16:50
Yeah, I saw. No, he doesn't.

Scott Benner 1:16:53
Like oh, that's, that's the wrong tree times tend to bark up with me. I'd prefer to moderate the group less. I really liked the group better when it had one rule. And the rule was, don't be a dead girl shut this whole thing down.

Nico 1:17:05
Yeah. And that was basically how the other group that I was in was it was like, we just talked about gardening stuff. That's fine. Just, you know, don't don't make it political. Don't Don't be a jerk about it. And we'll just all hang out. And then one day, it was like, Yeah, way more specific. And if you ever told us well, I see it both directions. I do sometimes want to share something from a different source, like Integrated diabetes, especially, or somewhere else where I maybe learn something. But I definitely would rather share a podcast episode in the podcast group. If there is one that applies, because listen to us, you gave them to us. And so why would we not give them back to one another? Right?

Scott Benner 1:17:44
It's funny, because I go back and forth with that. Because there are times that like, somebody will be like, hey, I want to know about basil testing, and somebody will like will use this link. And I'm like, that's not the link for the basil testing and the podcast. That's the link for basil testing somewhere else, which I don't care about. If it helps other people. That's the thing I had to get over. Yeah, but it helps people that it's good. But it does make you worry on a micro level, did you just drive someone out of the podcast who now won't make their way back to it? And it's easy to think that Well, there are 33,000 people in there. They all listened to the podcast. But that's not the truth. If everyone in that Facebook group started, started listening to this podcast today. This would be the biggest podcast ever. Like like it would be it would be not just in the diabetes, amazing

Nico 1:18:29
how many podcast listeners that are that aren't in the group? And how many members that are that have no idea that there's a podcast,

Scott Benner 1:18:38
and vice versa and don't care. Yeah, both ways. Yeah. Yeah.

Nico 1:18:42
I do have there's a few times though, that there are people that are just like, No, I don't listen. And I have my, you know, 8.7 ATSC. And I don't listen, and these are the problems that I have. But I've been a member of this group a long time, and I don't listen. And I just I still wonder, like, why not? Is

Scott Benner 1:19:01
that with me, too? She's like, why don't they just listen if they see everybody else, like succeeding? Yes. Like, why would you? Well, I

Nico 1:19:07
mean, because they have Jimmy diabetes, I guess. But I mean, even I have Jimmy diabetes. You know, I have Castro freezes. And I still, I'm not I'm still gonna be bold. I mean, not every single time because occasionally, I'm not digesting that well, and I just have to remember it. And I have hormones that are doing like absolutely ridiculous things to me. Some nights, I use two units of insulin overnight, and sometimes I use six units of insulin overnight. And it's just I have no idea when that's gonna happen. And you know what, I'm still. I'm not gonna give up on tight control.

Scott Benner 1:19:40
You referenced the podcast episode from 28. Yeah, it's one of the best. Is it really?

Nico 1:19:47
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it was I'm pretty sure I put it on the list the other day when you asked and now you guys are asking me again, both in the group and as well as privately and Jimmy diabetes is is definitely definitely one And people should listen to. Because a couple of days ago, you guys were talking about the B word. You talked about that probably eight months ago, but you aired it a couple days ago. And so you rehearsed it a couple of days ago, probably. And I think that's what they're saying. I mean, to me, that's what Jimmy diabetes is about. It's about people thinking that their diabetes is more difficult than other people's diabetes. And for some of us, it is like, I don't digest food productively. So getting my my prediction curve to match what my insulin is going to do is not easy. And that doesn't mean that I have to have a really hate anyone see, I do have more variability than I'd like. Because I am going to sometimes get swings, and I, I'm just going to keep trying, I'm going to reach out. And if there's an episode that maybe when I listened to it, the first time, I wasn't in the place I am now I'll just go listen again. But I have a couple of people in the group are gonna hate me my loop and I are not entirely friends yet. So that's kind of funny. But I do have a new toy. And I'm really excited about it. So I live at elevation, we talked about that a bit. And you've had some elevation episodes. So I am not Jenny, I am your other people. I don't use very much insulin, but I've always live to elevation. So that's all I know, right. And so I finally got my doctor to let me try a Frezza. And the first patient she's ever prescribed it to and it wasn't easy, but I'm really excited about it. The only problem is it comes in four unit cartridges. And a lot of times I don't use four units for anything, but it comes to be good to practice with your own diabetes and figure out how that four units works. And for me, it's really close to three units of Novolog. But faster, okay, so it's fun. But you know, I can't use it for a meal that has meat in it. Because a lot of my meal Bolus does include my fat and protein. And that's going to be gone by the time the fat and protein are there. So I can use it for well, like yesterday, I missed on my mom's birthday cake. And so the Frezza like, fix that problem real fast. is awesome. I'm in love.

Scott Benner 1:22:05
That's excellent. I do want to, it's tough, because I want to talk to more people who use it, but a not many people use it and be the people who use it are sometimes evangelical about it.

Nico 1:22:17
And so that's why I thought I would at least mentioned that I am using it. Because it's kind of cool. And it doesn't have to be completely terrifying. But I definitely couldn't manage strictly with that. It's just not going to be precise enough. I don't really know how people do that honestly. And they do. But I kind of feel like I'm going back to to whole unit pens again. And having like a magic marker when I really want to pencil

Scott Benner 1:22:44
I want I want so badly to I don't think I don't think Arden would try it. But if she would like to me it feels like for sticky highs.

Nico 1:22:52
Like Exactly. It'd be like a pump site failure. Yeah, get that thing right back down, right or Yeah, sticky high or, you know, don't have a lot of time to Pre-Bolus. But don't really want to deal with an over Bolus like but I know, I can use loop to deal with the pizza part of this meal. But I want to fun drink with this meal. That's gonna hit me a lot faster. Let's just don't even tell the loop about the about the drink. Just tell the loop about the pizza. And the Frizzle take care of that. First, like quick impact. Yeah, that's really fun. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:23:20
I definitely want to hear more about it. I just can't be from somebody who's like, the hidden he means like they're probably Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, because they get online sometimes. And they're just sort of like, like, gets the closest thing to a low carb conversation that I've ever seen. Like,

Nico 1:23:36
explicitly, there's no way. I mean, maybe people want to hire insulin needs, but really like, you know, I rely on the point oh, five, like, bumps and nudges. And, and yeah, you can do that, though. Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:23:50
what's your opinion on how I handle the low carb thing? Oh, do you think about it? Do you think about how, like, there

Nico 1:24:00
is, I can't imagine you're handling it any other way.

Scott Benner 1:24:03
That is what I do. I do the same exact thing with it. But it's tough because they try some some very few. But some, like low carb proponents are very much alike. You're doing this wrong. And you shouldn't be doing this.

Nico 1:24:17
But they haven't listened to all of the episodes if they're saying that. Yeah, probably.

Scott Benner 1:24:21
But But I don't want them not to be there. So I'm, like, Isn't

Nico 1:24:27
one that's been missing a little bit lately, and I've been sad about that. Yeah, no, she's got and I would, I was low carb. I did low carb. I had to. And I would do it again. It is easier. I just can't digest that food. So I don't anymore.

Scott Benner 1:24:41
Yeah, no, I just it's interesting that you don't see so you just see any, like waves that are handled as being handled all the same, because I feel that way. But it's tough because people take it personally if it's their wave. Yeah, that's true. It's hard.

Nico 1:24:56
I am not making very many waves and so um, not taking it personally. So I'm just seeing it as an outsider saying, Yeah, you know, you're allowed to talk that way, as long as you're not being nasty about it, then you can bring this up. And if you're being too much of, you know, if you're being a jerk about it, then he's going to ask you to stop it. Otherwise, feel free. It works for you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:25:18
it does work. And I find it, I find it very, I actually, I'm super interested by watching people online, because I know if you can step out of the argument, you're like, Oh, well, they're upset about this, or they're trying to make a point about this. Or sometimes they're trying to sell something. And right, and they're trying not to act like they are. And then they'll like, they'll kind of push back harder. I had that recently with a with somebody from a company who was like, you know, I'm just trying to be part of the group. I'm like, Yeah, that's not what you're doing. No, you're driving, you're trying to drive something to a thing you make money with. And, and that is something I feel very strongly about, too. Like, I've collected all these people together. They're not fish in a barrel. You don't just get the market to them. I get tomorrow, I get to tell them about my ads, because the ads don't get supported. You have no idea the pressure it is to, like have advertisers like and they're not mean about it.

Nico 1:26:10
But that's that's why I don't bake for our bakery. It's the cleaning company level cleaning every day for for the baking. I'm not going to do that. No. But yeah,

Scott Benner 1:26:18
yeah, I can't. You have no idea like you've spoken. I

Nico 1:26:22
have no responsibility. I just share the information. And you have all that pressure behind the scenes.

Scott Benner 1:26:27
Nico, you're perfect. I'll just keep eating up the pressure and you keep doing what you're doing. Can I ask

Nico 1:26:32
you, if you want to have a have a conversation with my husband? I'll have a conversation with your wife. Because yeah, he definitely doesn't think I'm perfect.

Scott Benner 1:26:40
Well, you are for me. So I he's

Nico 1:26:43
been really helpful. It's really cute to see him. You know, he doesn't know diabetes, and he is not on Facebook. But he's really excited to contribute a little here and there. Well, he made kind of looking he made. He did make the shortcut.

Scott Benner 1:26:57
Yeah. So you share, like a fat calculator.

Nico 1:27:02
Yeah. And he's working on another one right now that was to do it in Excel for people who don't have iPhones?

Scott Benner 1:27:09
No kidding. I haven't added your shortcut. And I want to and I have to admit, like, I'm so inept at it. Like, I don't even know how to do it. Yeah.

Nico 1:27:16
I wish we knew how but we're that's one thing. Web Design is not something we do for you.

Scott Benner 1:27:21
Yeah, well, it's still very, I see a lot of people get a lot of great use out of it. And

Nico 1:27:25
yeah, and it's been hilarious to see it evolve. It's really funny. There's been some funny uses of it. Like it was being used for brain poop as a meal the other day,

Scott Benner 1:27:36
you know, I've considered having a developer make a podcast app that also has like, Bolus calculators in it and like everything you would need for diabetes all in one place along with the podcast. But I know the problem is, like, just it's so hard to get people to adopt things that I know in my heart, it would fail at the end. So I don't put too much effort. But that's also by the way, that's also an important skill to have if you're in this, which is to know where, yeah, where to point, your energy, when to go. That's a great idea. But it doesn't matter what a good idea is, if people aren't going to adopt it. And experience

Nico 1:28:11
has helped you with that a little bit. I'm sure. Yeah, no, I know. I know. Fortunately,

Scott Benner 1:28:16
I've I've had a couple of good ideas that aren't actually good ideas. Oh, like, because they would be if you could, like depends on how you define good idea. Well, I defined everything by mass appeal. Yeah. Right. By helping if it helps stainability. Yes, if it helps, good, but then it has to be sustainable. And it has to reach a lot of people. Because I can't. Well, I don't mean to say that helping 5g is not important. But but you know, to what you said earlier, like, if it's going to help those people will help more people, and then we need to get it to them and helping people. Yeah, if I can't figure a way to deliver it to them, then it's not a good idea.

Nico 1:28:54
And not every one of them is going to go sharing it once they've benefited from it. Like you said, most of them move on. Yeah, this this is I just I'm not like that. I just can't do that. I can't walk away from something that has given so much to me. Well, I

Scott Benner 1:29:07
think that's perfect about you, and I'm not gonna change change you about that at all. Like you're you're one of the people, I don't want to go anywhere.

Nico 1:29:13
As long as you keep us being just just perfectly moderated. I'll stick around. And when when it gets to the point that I can't share a podcast episode without it getting deleted. i Oh, that

Scott Benner 1:29:24
wouldn't happen at mine.

Nico 1:29:26
I know. But that's what was so weird about it. It was Yeah. So anyway,

Scott Benner 1:29:29
what else can you but when you tried to do it in other groups, they wouldn't let you

Nico 1:29:33
know when I was No, in my gardening group that I was an admin of yeah, there were comments that were perfectly in line with the conversation we were supposed to be having. And random keywords would trigger because

Scott Benner 1:29:43
the moderator didn't want to actually moderate. That's what happens when they get into pressure from other people. When people are like, You shouldn't let people talk like that. I'm like, you're gonna be the one to leave if that's how you feel about this. Because I I, to be clear, those people are adults. They can do whatever they want. If I'm not in charge them, I don't care, the only thing, the only thing you're going to hear from me on is if you're doing something that's hurting the group, then then you're going to hear from me, if you're doing something that's leading someone down a dangerous path, you're going to hear from me about that. If you're being mean to people, if your food shaming people, if you're insinuating that if you eat carbs, you're going to die. Like things like that. That's, that's not gonna fly. And I'll put a stop to that very quickly. But the rest of it,

Nico 1:30:29
like it's very balanced. I feel as though you would also protect a low carb post as much as you would protect a high carb post. Because I mean, if anyone has any questions about that, there's a whole series where you gave everyone a forum to talk about how they eat. Yeah. The people who are they just looking for something to be upset about? You know, or there's that thing that you're moderating the way that other groups are moderating and not really paying attention? That that's not what you're doing at all

Scott Benner 1:30:57
right. Now. I appreciate you guys. I

Nico 1:30:59
think sometimes you just have to look at all the different ways of well, you know, I didn't find that reference. But once you you mentioned, I think, did you say that? You have to pretend like the person in the car, like has a really urgent bathroom need? I think that's what you said that that's like the benefit of the doubt you get the driver that's being a jerk. I tell my husband, you have to pretend like they have eggs or whatever. But I just have to sometimes look and say, what, what is this really about? Because this isn't about Scott, this isn't about this particular post. This is this is something else, right?

Scott Benner 1:31:24
I let I let everything go until it becomes obvious that you have like sinister motivations. Yeah. And then we're done. And that you're not going to get me past I add somebody? And then you're done. Yeah. Oh, then you're done. It's done. Yeah, I had to. And by the way, that's a, a college commencement address from a famous author who's passed away.

Nico 1:31:45
Okay, so there's an episode for that guy. And it's called this as water.

Scott Benner 1:31:49
But in that he decided he describes that, you know, you can see someone speeding down the road and weaving in traffic and choose to think that they're an asset. Or you could choose to think that, you know, they have a really good reason for doing this. And that you're never really going to know why. But it's better for you, if you choose to believe that they have a good reason. It because in that, in that I do that in the moderation of it. But at the end, when people are being absolutely, like, obviously pimping a business, or something like that I'm not okay with like, when, like everyone uses, there are people who use some version of, here's a picture of a T shirt, I just got this t shirt for my type one all the time, and then three, and then like three, you know, statements down, someone goes, oh my god, it's so cute. Where'd you get it? And they're working together to get out there, I'd see link or something like that, you know, like, I'm like, Alright, we're not doing this. But people do that with low carb websites, too. They they infer something to get someone to ask a question. And then once they ask a question, they go, Oh, it's because I don't eat carbohydrates that I'm so healthy. And then it's and then you they're pushing that's proselytizing. That's not okay. And so I stopped the person from doing that the other day, and they're like, I didn't know I was doing that. And I said, privately to Jenny, or Yeah, I was talking to Jenny about it. And I said, like, I don't care if they know they're doing it, or they don't know they're doing it. It's still happening. It's it's not important to me whether they're sinister, or they're just silly. Like, it's what's happening. You know what I mean? And then I have one other question about a Facebook thing for you, you know, the young girl that comes in and drops a horror bomb and then doesn't respond while everybody runs.

Nico 1:33:41
To save her. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:33:43
I banned that account. The

Nico 1:33:45
uncle has the same name as you. Seriously. Yes. First name?

Scott Benner 1:33:50
Yes, yes. I banned that account. Oh, okay. It hurt me to do it. But oh, you tried. I saw you try. I tried. Well, I sent a private email. And I said, I don't know you. You don't know me. I'm not a doctor. But I will do anything to try to help you. And but you, you can't just keep coming into the group saying something horrifying, and then ghosting the thread. Like, it's like it's not okay.

Nico 1:34:20
And so I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to know what happened there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:34:24
I just find it. So I had a back. I tried to have a back and forth. And then they were like everyone says they want to help me. And I was like, Well, I'm actually trying to help you. So just respond to this. And we'll and then they wouldn't then

Nico 1:34:37
there are so many people who would have jumped at the offer that you gave, you know, so yeah, and they wouldn't respond. So if it's not the right moment, and it's not the right moment.

Scott Benner 1:34:45
I just I said okay, I did my best here, but because because I don't because it this was an extreme case, but I couldn't let that keep happening.

Nico 1:34:55
And there was a misconception in the group and all over or Facebook that that person was a minor? And that person is not a minor. So no, no, that does make a difference. Yeah, most people know that this person is an adult. And like you said, that's where you're catering to adults who have the right to choose.

Scott Benner 1:35:14
After about 20 people that choice was made, and did really helpful things like down to like contacting sending food, or will come get you send food offering to help them. I was like, they're not taking any of this help. So this is just either self flagellation, or it's or it's all bullshit. One or the other.

Nico 1:35:32
Well, I'm in the beginning, it was like, okay, is this person now hospitalized? And we'll hear back in a few days. And, and at some point, you know, because I did periodically go check the agency, did, did that person come back and update any of those threads or reply to any of those offers? And, yeah, nothing just always, like you said, ghosting all of us. So there's something

Scott Benner 1:35:50
wrong with it. And in the end, you just can't, you can't keep running into the room and farting and running out again before I'm gonna lock the door. And it basically it started feeling like that. Yeah. Anyway, now the door's locked. But that one, I don't ban people easily. And that wasn't really like, it bothered me. When I pushed the button. I was like, Oh, I hope I'm doing the wrong thing here. But yeah,

Nico 1:36:13
well, you couldn't really do much more, I don't think tried. It was a

Scott Benner 1:36:18
it was a I mean, it was a significantly to one side situation. It was it was off the charts. So

Nico 1:36:28
and it was exactly like you said, I mean, you offered everyone offered. So yeah, I mean, if he had just been the person without actually trying to help, then maybe we could question the decision. But yeah, you have to question you tried,

Scott Benner 1:36:40
you have to have the bigger picture in mind to like that group is there to capture people give them hope, and lead them in the right direction? And if I always think about like, what if this is someone's first post? Like that? They see.

Nico 1:36:53
Yeah, the first thing they see I try the only one they see that it because they only go to their group feed and not to the actual group itself,

Scott Benner 1:36:59
right? Yeah. No, I know. Yeah. You have to go into the group. But anyway,

Nico 1:37:02
so what Wait, you tried to derail me here. So anyone who wants to actually hear you talk about this as water? You talk about it in swimming, Skittles, which is number 451. So

Scott Benner 1:37:13
that was amazing. Thank you. I loved watching it happen in real time.

Nico 1:37:20
Because we had to go to another really serious topic, but yeah, people should hear that episode.

Scott Benner 1:37:25
How can we have it so you walk behind me when I say something? You go? What Scott's referring to is?

Nico 1:37:31
Oh my gosh. So that's like, um, so I can do a little pop culture reference. There was a little short lived TV show with Ted Danson. It he had a little computer a little robot. Well, not a robot. Well, she was a robot, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:37:48
Because life wait. Yeah.

Nico 1:37:52
With Kristen? Yes.

Scott Benner 1:37:55
Yeah. Cable. Yeah, it's good. It's called The Good Place.

Nico 1:37:59
A good place a good place. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Scott Benner 1:38:01
I love that show. It was it was short. It was only four seasons, but it did very well to like wrap itself up in four seasons. Yeah,

Nico 1:38:08
I can get a little robot.

Scott Benner 1:38:09
i There's part of me that thinks Kristen Bell is not a real person, by the way. She wants to think that seems so delightful. I'm like, I can't be wrong.

Nico 1:38:21
Oh, she seems so very real.

Scott Benner 1:38:24
But yeah, yeah, that's what I need. I need I need you to pop out of like thin air and just go Hey, Scott. Can we make that? Well, I'll tell you what. Artificial Intelligence is leaping right now. So we may get to the point soon where you can go to your AI generator and just say, like, literally tell you? Like, what's that episode of The Juicebox Podcast? Where and it'll come? It's Have you seen it? It's fascinating. You're making me obsolete? No, I'm not making you obsolete. I don't have I still have to type it. So we can't do that. I need you. But um, but Okay, so my last question, I'm gonna let you go. Okay. Was it inappropriate that I sent everyone a Christmas present this year? Or was that okay?

Nico 1:39:10
Well, I appreciate it.

Scott Benner 1:39:12
I was so worried.

Nico 1:39:13
That is still I mean, I would send chocolate I promise.

Scott Benner 1:39:17
No, no, no, no, I don't mean that. Like I wanted to send something that you could just use. And I think

Nico 1:39:22
and I am my confession though solution. I really appreciate it. So yeah, I now have a nice foam mattress topper so you bought a chair. I bought a foam mattress topper and it has greatly improved our sleep. Not because we really needed a more comfy bed but oh my gosh. Dexcom and I just aren't great friends. And so I deeply appreciative you have no idea. Yeah, but there's no well that's there are no words. I think I sent some words. You said most honest words I could send I said Honey I don't know what to do it like I this Here's what I want to say. And he said, Well, yeah, I think that's probably what you should say then and so yeah, like, overwhelmed. And honestly, I just, I have to sit sometimes. So when I said I still want to be contributing,

Scott Benner 1:40:13
but you're very nice I just so I sent a gift card, but I I, I labored over. Not too much. Not too little. Too little insulting too much is insulting. It's also an number I can't afford. Like, you know what I mean? Thank

Nico 1:40:29
you. We're headed towards too much. Okay, away then from too little. But you know why they think I was too little back. Don't get me wrong. I didn't know you were you were far far from too little. And I, but I live in the middle of nowhere.

Scott Benner 1:40:44
So Oh, no, I just do you know what I mean, by that, though, like if you

Nico 1:40:47
know, I do know and gifting is difficult. And I always choose to actually buy a gift because I that that world of gift cards. I don't know how to navigate it. I mean, I know how to spend them. days, and I did so I appreciate these

Scott Benner 1:41:01
talking to my wife texting. Isabel, Is this too much is too I don't want to insult anybody I don't want I also don't want it to be uncomfortable. Like you'd want to send an amount of money where you go, God, I can't accept this.

Nico 1:41:11
I can't. I can't speak for the others. So I but I, you are comfortably deeply grateful. So yeah, just Yeah, it really, really, really brightened our holidays. You can you can Yeah, if you I really hope that would convey that because we were shocked. And we were ecstatic. And we were we were really grateful.

Scott Benner 1:41:33
Yeah, no, I'm i I'm thrilled. I'm glad. And you deserve that. And way more I just to be sure that I got what

Nico 1:41:42
I got. I you know, you paid us in advance. You gave us the podcast. So yeah, I have better health. No, I have I have lower variability. I have better timing range. I had no idea. These things were possible. And so why would I? Yeah. Why would I not want that for anyone else who has any interest in having it? Right?

Scott Benner 1:42:06
Well, I'll tell you, I, I'm going to do my best to keep it going. I think I'm doing alright, so far.

Nico 1:42:12
I like the direction you're headed. I made a few posts recently. Just kind of in that same vein, I really, I mean, just in general, but we're working on my husband's glycemic control. Now. The same path I was on early. This is a type two path he's not diabetic, but he is obviously not managing a CGM, as you know, is line does not look like yours. Looks like I missed it, obviously. But I've heard right, how hard you had to work to get numbers that Yeah. Right. So I do appreciate and I do have a lot of type two people in my life. And I love sharing those episodes with them. So I'm really excited that you're here. There's

Scott Benner 1:42:50
gonna be more Jenny and I are gonna put together a whole series of type two stuff. Yeah, I

Nico 1:42:54
had a few ideas that Yeah, I do need to send you and you had you had told me the email, you

Scott Benner 1:42:59
put them in, I want to know I one word, you told me email you one word, and

Nico 1:43:03
I was like, one word zadina for an email. So I have a few more words now that I can add to that email. And so send an email now I

Scott Benner 1:43:11
appreciate it. We're gonna get it done this year. And, and I'm gonna I'm gonna put it in with the podcast. And I'm also if I if the series turns out the way, I hope I might launch a second podcast for type two. And it won't be updated very frequently. But it'll just be a way where the information sits out there and its own place. I don't know. Yeah.

Nico 1:43:33
Terrible that it's intimidating to come to the type one world as a type two, it's sad to me that we have that division. And I see I see why it's there. But I get really, really touched when I guess maybe just because I was there and I would much rather be on insulin be then be on that other path. And those conversations have really, really enriched the podcasts already. So

Scott Benner 1:43:57
I agree. Well, yeah, and I'm not gonna let like one or two people are like, there, they have type two, don't let them in. They're like, Oh, you don't understand. Like, it's if you use insulin you belong, you know, and that's it.

Nico 1:44:07
So and I don't know how many people don't realize that maybe insulin would improve their outcomes. It's, it's seen as such a such a scary place to go. It's seen as like in a defeat like influenza, the last line of defense, and I feel terrible for those people who don't get on it sooner. I have no idea. I wasn't on a CGM until a few years after I was on insulin. So I don't know what my variability was. But I know I didn't go low very often, because I just didn't have a tool that can get me lower safely. And so they just told me not to use the tool, basically. Yeah. But I do know that I did have complications before I had insulin. And I think my best chance at not having them in the future is using the insulin wisely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:44:50
No, I agree with that. Thank you. Well, no, it's my pleasure. I I'm thrilled you found the podcast obviously for yourself, but for everyone else, too. Like I know a joke and I was like, it helps To me, it helps me you're helping everybody. And it frees me up to make the show. So I'm willing to try. No, yeah, I'm willing to try. There's nothing you need to change, you're fine.

Nico 1:45:12
Well, you know that one conversation like, Oh, I'll regret that we couldn't succeed. Until I hopefully hear that maybe we did even even that, that, you know, so that's why I know you have that same thing in you that you said that while you were describing the story. And so I still feel like I'm trying because I can't help everyone. But I can try. So.

Scott Benner 1:45:33
And that's, that's what we're doing. So yeah, you

Nico 1:45:35
gave you gave me the tool. So I'll just keep using it as best I can. as I can. You are so delightful. Thank

Scott Benner 1:45:43
you, Nico. I know you didn't want to do this. So thank you very much.

Nico 1:45:50
I do not want to I just didn't really know. I like us. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 1:45:54
you weren't with the wrong thing. You did what everybody else did you thought, Well, I'm not gonna make a good podcast episode.

Nico 1:46:00
Well, no. Well, I mean, I worried about everything. Because I do like, really, really do. I am a nervous Chihuahua. And I was just kind of wondering like, which, which piece of this did you want to talk about? And was it really the boring piece of like, I can press Ctrl F, or was it?

Scott Benner 1:46:16
Presidential love? It's, well, that that is a minimization of what you do, and you shouldn't do

Nico 1:46:23
it. It's funny, because I was talking to my husband about that last night. And I said, Honey, like, I don't know, I think he really just wants to, like, I'm thinking about all these different pieces of my story in which one? Do we want the world to know? Which one do we want to fit in an hour, which we didn't accomplish at all. But then I told him, I said, I think it's really just that he wants to know how, how I'm helpful in the group. And isn't it? That's just not a very, that's not an episode. And he's, he said, Yeah, cuz all you do is just press Ctrl F. So it's funny. Yeah. You should talk to him. I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:46:57
That's funny. You can tell him. It doesn't matter to me. As far as I'm concerned. You're, you're a Nobel Laureate. So?

Nico 1:47:05
Yeah, yeah, I have my well, you

Scott Benner 1:47:09
fit perfectly into the need that that you're that you're handling. I mean, honestly, I am happy to help. No, you for a second. Listen to me for a second. You couldn't be more perfect for this. I wish there were 10 of you.

Nico 1:47:29
Oh, well, I mean, I talk enough for at least a couple of

Scott Benner 1:47:33
the online stuff. I wish there were if there were 10 of you. I know I would, I would I'd start a moderating business. And we, and we'd fix countless Facebook pages, wouldn't we? Yeah,

Nico 1:47:49
I would. Countless Facebook pages. I don't know. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:47:53
Oh, by the way, it's so soon. It's so easy. All you have to do is it's a little bit parenting. It's a little bit you have to have like no ego about it. You can't like you can't think anything is about you. And you have to believe that everybody is intrinsically good. They're either having a bad day, or a bad reaction, but that my son said to me something the other day he goes, generally speaking, everybody has good intentions. And I'm like, Yes. 600%. Right. And so everybody just wants to be happy all the time. Yeah. When people want to fight. That's when I'm like, no, no, like, or sometimes I just let them fight. So I'm just like, wear themselves out. Let them go. It's hilarious. That's the other thing too, when I like when people think they're being deep, and they don't realize it. Everyone else looking is like, Oh, God, You're such an idiot. It's my favorite part. That's the part that gives me the biggest smile, like everybody thinks they're being like, like, you know, like, they're, they're a great orator, and everyone else is like, is this person okay? And I'm like that. I also think, by the way, you if you're running a Facebook group, here's another tip don't undervalue that people drunk right on Facebook in the evenings. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And that you you have to work around that a little and in the mornings. Yes. And don't don't also like there are some mental illness in the world to where you have to give people some some grace because they're doing the best they can and they're not coming off the way they mean to and and and some

Nico 1:49:26
people are just not that skilled with a keyboard.

Scott Benner 1:49:29
Oh, just bad bad communicators. There are so many times gonna be just like you people. If you were just slightly better at communicating with each other this would have caught so much wouldn't be

Nico 1:49:37
having this conversation because that's not what that was about. And that's not what that replacement either. Yeah, no 100 guys are not having the same conversation,

Scott Benner 1:49:45
or you're, or they're both saying the same thing differently. And I'm like, how do you not Yeah, but you're both saying the same thing. Exactly. Yeah. It's a great social experiment. It really is. Great. Not great. It's interesting, Scott. All right. All righty guy. Hope you have a great day. Hold on a second for me. Okay. Thank you, Scott. Thank you

I'd like to take a moment to thank the contour next gen blood glucose meter and the entire line of contour meters for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Contour next one.com forward slash juice box head over there now please hit the buy now button if you want to just pick something up online. Super easy. I guess while I'm at it, let me thank the doctors at the emergency room my mom went to and you of course for listening to this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. I can't thank Nico enough and the other people who help her Stephanie, Krista and Isabel they truly hold the Facebook group together and help it to be a more direct and valuable tool for people who listen to the podcast. That group of course is called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes is a private group with nearly 40,000 members. It's for people with type one, type two, Lada any kind of diabetes, you gotta diabetes. You're welcome in my group. links in the show notes, links at juicebox podcast.com. Please support the sponsors. Of course tell somebody you know about the show. And if you're listening in an audio app, please follow or subscribe

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#902 Jessie Inchauspé is a Glucose Goddess

Jessie Inchauspé shares her glucose hacks.

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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 902 of the Juicebox Podcast

I just got back from a weekend long speaking event and we do not want to waste this deepness in my voice from the soreness I'm having in my throat. Let's use it right here, shall we? On today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Today I'll be speaking with Jessie she goes by glucose goddess on Instagram and other places. Jessie is the author of the book glucose revolution and her brand new book which comes out today may 2, glucose goddess method a four week guide to cutting cravings getting your energy back and feeling amazing. While you're listening today. 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of type one and are a US resident, please take a few moments to go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox and complete their survey. When you complete that survey. You were supporting type one research. You're helping yourself and you're supporting the Juicebox Podcast T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox I wish you could all hear how deep my voice sounds in these headphones. Juicebox Podcast T one D exchange the glucose goddess echoing in my ears. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ag one from athletic greens. You can have ag one just like I do every morning. A little bit of water. A delicious scoop of ag one and you're on your way. Athletic greens.com forward slash juice box get a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs at my link when you make your first order. today's podcast is also sponsored by the Omni pod five tubeless algorithm based pumping with the Omni pod five. It's insane. Listen how deep I go get it Omni pod five I commend you Omni pod.com forward slash juice box don't want an algorithm get the Omni pod dash same link Omni pod.com forward slash juice box My daughter has been wearing an omni pod every day. Since she was four years old, she will be 19 this summer tubeless insulin pumping with Omni pod cannot be beat Omni pod.com forward slash juice box links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com, to Athletic Greens on the pod and all the sponsors will use my legs. You're supporting the show.

Jessie Inchauspé 2:46
Hi, Scott. My name is Jessie interest B. I'm a biochemist by trade. And I became somewhat of a scientific vulgar riser in the world of glucose science. So now I spend my days teaching as many people as possible about glucose, how it affects our body or mind. And then easy tips that are all science backed so that everybody can learn to manage it better.

Scott Benner 3:13
Okay. What did you go to? I know what you just said you did. But what did you go to school for? Like, how did you get to this?

Jessie Inchauspé 3:21
So I started by studying mathematics after high school because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Like I had no passions and nothing. So my stepdad told me, give me a really good piece of advice. He said, If you don't know what to do, do the hardest thing you can. So I thought the hardest thing is math. So I went to study math in undergrad. And I hated it. But it was it was actually a really good move. Because then a few years later, when I discovered I wanted to, you know, be in this space of in the field of health, I could then go and do it. You know, if I had studied history and then been like, Oh my God, I want to be a biochemist, that transition would have been much harder.

Scott Benner 3:57
Well, I you know, my son just graduated from his undergrad about a year ago. Oh, thank you. And it was the same thing as he left for school. We're like, what do you want to do? And he said, play baseball. And we're like, is there anything else? Because you know, and he's just very math minded. So he got a quantitative econ degree, which I don't think he enjoyed any moment of and but it came most naturally to him. I think so. I take your point. And so you were with this mathematics background you were able to work go to grad school.

Jessie Inchauspé 4:29
Yes. So in my in my second year of math, I have an accident. I break my back jumping off a waterfall. So that just completely changed my life. I started suffering like crazy physically, but mostly mentally and like my mental health went really really dark. And I was 19 and at that point I just realized okay, like I need to understand how my body and my mind work. I need to understand this machine otherwise like you Living is getting really difficult. So I thought to myself, Hey, I'm gonna go studying the body, I'm gonna go study how this machine works this machine that had become sort of a black box to me. So that's when I decided I'm gonna go to grad school. And I'm going to study biochemistry. So I moved to the US, I was in London at the time, and go to Georgetown to do grad school for biochemistry. And then I wanted to go even deeper into health and what was at the forefront at the time. So I moved to San Francisco. And I work in the field of genetics for five years understanding our DNA, etc. But you know, I mean, that was very interesting. But I was a little bit disappointed because I thought that DNA was going to be much more helpful. To me, I thought that if I understood my DNA, I was going to be able to figure out precisely what I need to do every day to feel good, and to get my mental health back. But that wasn't the case. But while I was there, that's when I discovered glucose. And that's when things really started changing for me.

Scott Benner 5:59
So what's the first thing that you notice back then that makes you think this is worth focusing on?

Jessie Inchauspé 6:06
So, you know, in Silicon Valley, people are always testing technologies, just trying to test everything out there. And so a pilot study was put in place at the company I was working at, and this pilot study was offering five employees to wear a CGM animatronic CGM, as people without diabetes, to sort of like test the technology and see the applications that were happening, you know, in athletes in personalized nutrition, etc. So I raised my hand, I don't know why I just felt very drawn to it. And I raised my hand and starts a big, big deep dive into this data this world. And I start realizing, Scott that the days I have the most spikes, and the most, you know, variable, glucose, the worst my mental health is, and I see a very clear pattern, you know, me as a person without diabetes, who never thought for one second, that I would, you know, that this was appropriate for me or useful, I started really learning a lot about my body and myself, and it truly helped me start the healing process. And because I'm a scientist, you know, I dove into all the scientific papers I could find on the topic. And I found that I wasn't alone, that even in people who don't have diabetes, you know, you can still be experiencing spikes that can still have consequences and need to symptoms, and impact your physical and mental health. So then I went super deep dive. And now it's all I talked about all day,

Scott Benner 7:33
we talk about mental health impacts from a blood sugar spike, for example, you mean just from like, what is the range from moodiness to short temper to like is that what you expect to see with a higher blood sugar?

Jessie Inchauspé 7:46
Yeah, so the more spikes and drops you have, the lower your tyrosine levels in your brain are going to be and tyrosine is something that regulates your mood. And so you might see more moodiness, more anger, some studies are showing that the more variable your glucose is, the more you're going to snap towards, you know, people in your family, your partner, the more you're going to want to punish people around you. And then, you know, I mean, the more spikes you have, even without diabetes, the more you're going to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression, if you're prone to that. And this is all from the scientific studies, right? I'm not inventing anything, this is what I saw in the papers. And then long term, brain fog is a very common symptom of a lot of glucose spikes. Because your neurons, you know, the more spikes there are, the more inflammation there is, and then you feel it as brain fog. And then super long term, we're now starting to see a lot of connections between glucose and dementia. So I was like, Whoa, the brain is really connected to what I'm eating through this variable of glucose. And it was like, it was a real revelation for me, you know, because for 10 years, I had been in a state where I didn't understand at all, how to make my mental health better. I was like, completely clueless about why I was having these episodes of feeling like I left my body and feeling super anxious. And now I started to find a clue. And that really fascinated me.

Scott Benner 9:09
Well, it's interesting to hear somebody who doesn't who has a functioning pancreas right to say that fluctuations help because I mean, what's the fluctuation when you for you? I mean, what would a high blood sugar have been like 151 60

Jessie Inchauspé 9:23
the highest I've ever been was like, 190. But after eating, like a whole box of cookies, right, like that was that was the highest I ever got. But I heard from a lot of people who have diabetes, that they were quite surprised that somebody with a functioning pancreas could even get that high. Right, like so. We're discovering that. Glucose is you know, very variable. And depending on your body, depending on what's going on, you can see readings that are technically, you know, that we used to think that people with a diabetes could not touch so yeah, 190 I got

Scott Benner 9:56
to I wear a CGM, like two years ago. and this one night, I just went online, I said to people like, alright, like, I actually I made my chart available live to people Oh, nice. And I was like, Alright, tell me what the, you know, and I ordered a pizza. And a slice of pizza didn't really touch me two slices crept up at three slices, I got into the 150s 160s. And then I started throwing, like, sugared candy on top of it. And it held on for hours before it would go away. But then I was interested with some things like breakfast cereal, which is I mean, I don't even think it's really food, right. But if you have type one diabetes, or type two, and you're using insulin, and you have a meter, you see how hard it hits you, right. And I was surprised that I couldn't eat enough breakfast cereal to get my blood sugar to go up, really, but I still felt the same way I felt when I ate the pizza. Like sort of just like, you know, like, like, Why did I do that, like, you know, that feeling of like, that could

Jessie Inchauspé 10:54
be the dopamine crash, right? It could be like, the sugar releases dopamine in your brain. And then you know, an hour later, you start getting withdrawals, basically from the dopamine, and that can make you feel really, really bad.

Scott Benner 11:05
Okay, so you. So first of all, you mentioned tyrosine, which I don't understand it's an amino acid.

Jessie Inchauspé 11:12
Yeah, it's also it's, it's used in the brain, essentially, to regulate mood. And this is one of the theories that scientists have to connect variable glucose levels and mood, they think, oh, maybe it's because the more variable your blood sugar is, the more tyrosine is being impacted. And they think that maybe that's then why it affects your mood.

Scott Benner 11:31
Okay. And then you mentioned dementia, later on, is that sort of why they call Alzheimer's, diabetes type? Or do they call it diabetes? Type three,

Jessie Inchauspé 11:40
right? It is. So for a long time, we thought Alzheimer's is, you know, based on this plaque, this plaque thing, and now we're starting to see actually, it might be the case that Alzheimer's is actually just the cells in your brain experiencing insulin resistance. So experiencing type two diabetes, but in the brain, right, of like your cells not being able to get energy into them anymore. And of increased inflammation. And glycation that happens, the more glucose spikes you have. So now, it's seems that Alzheimer's is actually very linked to glucose into your food into your lifestyle, right? I think actually, last week, I can't remember, I think the first person somebody got diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and they were 19 years old. And this was like, you know, the first ever 19 year old with Alzheimer's a bit like back in the day when we thought type two diabetes was adult onset diabetes, and now we can see it even in children. So the more our food landscape is evolving, and the less we really know how to eat, to keep our body thriving, the more of these symptoms and conditions are becoming prevalent. And what I try to do Scott is really just teach people about like, Okay, how, what happens when you eat? How do different types of food impact your glucose levels, and then easy things you can do to really manage that and avoid harming your health too much long term?

Scott Benner 13:06
What is the what is the action that happens? So like, you know, this is a, I wouldn't call this common sense, but I think everyone knows they took a bunch of food, and I don't feel good afterwards. You do it again. Right? So is there a is there a function internally that makes us because we all talk about like, oh, eat sugar, you want more sugary carbs, you want more carbs? What does that? How does that actually work?

Jessie Inchauspé 13:29
So there's this molecule in your brain called dopamine, and it's called also the pleasure molecule. And it's the same molecule you, you get dopamine in your brain, your brain releases dopamine when you eat something sweet. And that molecule of pleasure. Dopamine also gets released when you have sex when you play like the casino when you do illegal drugs, like that substance is highly addictive to the brain. And that's why sugar is addicted. And that's why when you don't feel good, maybe you're having, you know, a difficult day, a difficult week, like if you're tired, you feel like Oh, I'm gonna have something sweet because that's going to make me feel better. What you're after is that dopamine feeling, but a lot of people got confused that feeling with energy. They think, oh, you know, this, this, this cookie is giving me energy because you kind of feel a bit perked up. You're like, whoa, your brain gets, you feel like your brain is waking up. That's just pleasure. That's just dopamine. That's not actually energy. And when we eat something sweet, we're actually hurting our cells ability to make energy effectively. And so there's this big you know, myth around sugar in the morning for breakfast is going to give you energy for the day. That's just not the case. It gives you pleasure for a little bit, but actually hurts your body's ability to make energy on the inside. So over the years, you're having cereal for breakfast with orange juice, yet you feel more and more tired. You know, playing with your kids is exhausting. Carrying the groceries up the stairs is exhausting, but you keep Eating this sugar. And it's because on the inside all that sugar and all those glucose spikes are harming your mitochondria. The mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells responsible for turning glucose into energy. The when we when we eat too much sugar, and we give too much glucose to these little mitochondria, they kind of break down. So over time eating a lot of sugar equals chronic fatigue, which is counterintuitive.

Scott Benner 15:24
You're also oddly describing every addiction to right yeah, like you've you, you have a feeling that's a baseline, you're going for something that feels bigger, and then suddenly, your body can't sustain that. So your artificial input has to get bigger and bigger and bigger to get a lesser and lesser return. And eventually, your body just kind of gives up.

Jessie Inchauspé 15:45
Yeah, you become accustomed to it. Right? You become resistance like coffee, right? Like when I first started drinking coffee, I would have a half an espresso. And that'd be wired for 12 hours. And now I you know, I need a couple of cups of coffee to really feel an effect because my body has gotten used to it. And so your body is very good at getting used to things but then that can have negative side effects,

Scott Benner 16:06
right? I've never had coffee ever in your life. Everybody who listens knows but I've never had coffee. I my parents drank it so much when I was growing up like the smell of it's disgusting to me. And I also commingle it in my head with cigarettes because my dad smoked.

Jessie Inchauspé 16:20
But now it's a thing like you can never ever drink coffee in your life, it

Scott Benner 16:24
would never occur to me to try it. Wow, it's very, it is very strange. There's a couple of things I've never done that throw me off. And you like chocolate. I will use I hope everybody heard me say us. I buy a certain brand of chocolate chips. And I buy some milk chocolate and some dark chocolate. I mixed them together in a container. And when I need something sweet, I take a few of them. But I don't to say that I like chocolate is not fair. Like I like chocolate. Sure, but I don't eat it because I'm like, oh chocolate, I eat it because it's I know it's a kick and I don't get stuck snacking on it. Whereas if I if I wanted like a sweet kick and I went to a hard candy. Yeah, I would just keep eating them. Interesting. So I know that about myself. So I try to you know

Jessie Inchauspé 17:15
that chocolate is a safer place to get some dopamine because it's somehow less addictive to you. Yes, dopamine from candy.

Scott Benner 17:21
That is what I have figured out. Because if I like bought a bottle, let me just I'll let you into my mind if I stopped at a gas station and bought a box of red hots, or something like that. That's just pure sugar. In 20 minutes, the whole box would be gone.

Jessie Inchauspé 17:34
Do you think chocolate kind of makes you a little bit nauseous at the same time. So you don't want to eat too much of it? Or like there's something about it that you don't really like?

Scott Benner 17:41
I don't I don't enjoy the This is so weird. I don't enjoy the thickness that my saliva gets when I eat chocolate. So I don't want to keep eating it because of that. Interesting. Yeah. So I stopped my so I it's basically I've basically found heroin that I can't stand doing, you know what I mean? So it stops me at some point. Amazing. I also have trouble like digesting food. I've recently in the last year added a digestive enzyme to my maintenance and a magnesium oxide. So I learned this through my daughter who has type one, she's almost 19 Now, but she was not eliminating on a regular schedule. And her stomach would hurt very badly. And you know, we did all the kind of I want to say like normal doctoring things you would do about something like this. We, you know, we went to all the doctors we were supposed to. And we ended up at a gastro who just told us that she had gastroparesis. But that's, of course, a very scary word to someone who has diabetes versus if off the street. I just said, Hey, you digest food slowly. So luckily, there's a CD that comes on the show a lot. And she's had diabetes for 30 years. And she and I were talking privately and she's like, you know, I'm not a doctor, but Arden doesn't have gastroparesis, like, something's going on. And we tried an elimination diet that did not help her at all. And we finally I just sort of like took over one day. And I said, I'm going to have you take these digestive enzymes at every meal. And she started taking them in her stomach stopped hurting when she ate, but she still wasn't going to the bathroom. So we added the magnesium oxide, which got everything moving. And then once she had a cycle that was happening every day, we started putting in a probiotic. And she's in a completely different world now. Wow. It's clearly finding that yeah, it cleared her acne it. Her stomach doesn't hurt. She goes to the bathroom, she eliminates every day. And then I realized and like, but I've struggled with that my whole life like I thought of it for her because she has type one I figured maybe her pancreas wasn't helping with the digestion. But then I'm like, I have the same problem. I have trouble digesting protein. Like I can't take in oils. It took me my whole adult life to figure out not to eat oil. And then when I eliminated all that, like things would get better and better, but I would never ascend to a place where I thought like, Oh, this is good still, you know, like I was having to add fiber to my meals and things like that. And the magnesium and the enzyme together have like, have, like, changed my life, too. It's very interesting. Yeah. Anyway, so this is kind of cool. So what do you tell, like, I know, we're gonna get to the part where we're going to try to figure we're going to try to apply what you talked about the people who are using insulin. But for now, like when you talk about this, when you stand in front of a group, or you get on a podcast, what are the things you want people to know?

Jessie Inchauspé 20:39
I want people to know that learning about their glucose levels, whoever they are, and learning to manage it can help them regardless of you know, their life, maybe they have type one, maybe they have type two, maybe they have difficult mental health, maybe they don't sleep well, maybe they have fertility issues, which is very linked to glucose. Maybe they have psoriasis, eczema, difficult menopause symptoms, like we now know from the scientific studies that essentially, if your glucose levels are very variable, it can lead to many different symptoms in your body. And learning these easy hacks to manage it can really make a difference. And so that's the first place I start. And then I teach people all the hacks that scientists across the world have discovered a lot of the times by studying people by studying people with type one first and find that these hacks are working. And so I talked about the hacks, let me go into the hacks because that's really the meat of it all I want to hear. Okay, so first hack.

Scott Benner 21:43
On the pod is an insulin pump. It is a tubeless insulin pump. And there are two of them to choose from, you can get yourself the Omni pod dash, which is an absolutely terrific pump, where you put in your settings, and then make all of your decisions. And then there's the on the pod five, where you put in your settings, and then the algorithm makes decisions for you. You tell it how much you've eaten, it handles the insulin, your blood sugar tries to go down, it handles the insulin, your blood sugar tries to go up, it handles the insulin, it's based on an algorithm called Smart adjust technology. Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. So maybe you want the Omni pod dash, use my link to get started. You have a G six and you want to try the Omni pod five, use my link to get started. Use my link to learn more. Use my link to reach out to Omni pod and say hey, I'm thinking about doing this they'll get back to you, you can start a dialogue, figure out what's best for you. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. When you get to that link, you're gonna be met by a photo of me but don't let that deter you. At least you'll know you're in the right place. Then you can just scroll down a little bit. Do your reading and your learning. You can check on your coverage, you can click to talk to a nominee pod specialist. trust me this is this the place you want to be if you're looking for Omni pod. What's next, athletic greens make something called ag one. That's what you're looking for ag one from athletic greens. I'm going to tell you about my experience with it. I had a lot of trouble with all of the other green drinks that I tried before eg one treble meaning I hated the way they tasted and I couldn't get them down. But I have absolutely no trouble drinking athletic greens. I don't just mean I don't have trouble. I mean, it's a pleasurable, easy experience. I begin every morning with a scoop of athletic greens. In some water actually, they send you a nice little shaker that you can shake it up in and drink it down. And my day is on its way I take athletic greens for vitamins and nutrition that I don't think I'm otherwise getting in my diet. You may have another reason I can feel a crispness in my step. What does that skip in my step? I don't know exactly what I feel. I feel better when I drink athletic greens every day I think is what I'm trying to tell you. Athletic greens.com forward slash juice box Get started today with ag one using my link and you'll also receive a year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order. Ag one contains less than one gram of sugar no GMOs. No nasty chemicals or artificial anything. That's why it tastes so good. It supports better sleep quality and recovery, mental clarity and alertness. And like I said, I just feel crisper when I'm using it. I don't exactly know what that means. But there's a crispness to me. Tons of people taking some kind of multivitamins every day. It's important to choose one that has high quality ingredients stuff that your body will actually absorb. Athletic greens.com forward slash juicebox Get started today get that free vitamin D By the travel packs, you won't be sorry. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now. And links at juicebox podcast.com. If you can't remember, Omni pod.com, forward slash juice box, and athletic greens.com forward slash juice box. Alright, let's get to Jesse's tips and the rest of our conversation, you can find her on Instagram, by the way, I'll put the information at the end

Jessie Inchauspé 25:42
first hack, have a savory instead of a sweet breakfast. So we just talked about dopamine and energy, right? The myth that sugar in the morning is going to give you energy is just it's not true. If you have a breakfast, that's just something sweet or something starchy, which most of us have, right, whether it's like bread with jam, maybe it's fruit juice, maybe it's breakfast cereal, maybe it's oats with some honey, a banana. If you're just having sweet and starchy foods for breakfast, you're going to create a big glucose spike in your body. And we want to kind of avoid the big spike in the morning, because then, even in people without diabetes, it will deregulate your glucose for the rest of the day. So instead, you want to switch to your breakfast that is built around protein, what I call a savory breakfast. So protein, some fats and fiber if you can. And if you want something sweet have like a piece of whole fruit for taste, right. But in the morning, it's really important to have a savory breakfast, to set your glucose up for the day. So that's Hack number one. And it's really kind of like a pillar of study glucose levels. If you don't have that, it's gonna be really hard to study things.

Scott Benner 26:51
Before we move on. Can you tell people what the difference is between eating a piece of fruit and having jelly on their toast?

Jessie Inchauspé 27:00
Absolutely. So first of all, I want people to know something very important about fruit. So the fruit that you see today in supermarkets like you might think, oh, it's natural, it's good. For me, it comes from plants. The thing is, the fruit that we see today in supermarkets has been actually bred for centuries by humans to be extra sweet and extra juicy, to give us more of that dopamine hit. So a little bit like humans bred gray wolves into shiawase. They've bred ancestral bananas into the banana. As you see today, if you look at how fruit was a million years ago, it was not sweet at all, very difficult to eat very fibrous, very, you know, dense and difficult to chew. So all this to say that the fruit you see today in supermarkets has been manufactured. That being said, Scott, in a piece of fruit, yes, there is some sugar. But there's also a very, very, very, very important substance called fiber. And fiber is what you find in most fruits and vegetables. And fiber, as you probably know, when we digest it, it doesn't turn to glucose, it doesn't increase your glucose levels, actually, it's very protective. Fiber makes a mesh in your upper intestine, sort of like protective shields, and it stays there for a couple of hours. And then it prevents your body from absorbing too much glucose, it's very, very important to eat enough fiber when you're having also sugar to prevent that glucose spike. So all this to say that if you want to eat something sweet, a piece of whole fruit is always going to be the best thing to eat because it has that protective fiber. Now the issue arises when we denature a piece of fruit, when we do sit, for example, and we get rid of the fiber, when we turn it into Jam, which is also getting rid of the fiber, concentrating the sugar, maybe adding some table sugar on top of that. Or when we dry fruit, you know, when we drive mango, we're actually reducing the amount of water in the mango. So we're concentrating again, the sugar concentrating that dopamine hits. So whole fruit is fine. But any sort of derivative product, fruit juice for jam, fruit puree, all that stuff, we should consider that dessert. Right? It's really it's a dessert. It's like having a piece of cake or some chocolate. It's really not something that is health promoting. Right, it gives us dopamine, but it's not helpful to our health. So that's really, really key. Because for a long time, you know, I thought as long as it comes from fruit, it's good for my body.

Scott Benner 29:37
Right? No, I know I Jenny is a person I do a lot of episodes with. And she's always saying like don't drink juice. Like don't don't drink fruit juice. And it's just terrible in the glycemic hit from it is insane. And it's devoid of anything valuable at that point. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 29:55
And another hack I have is like Okay, so in the morning you want to avoid eating sweet foods and you want to make a breakfast that's built around protein. And in my book, I have lots of cool recipes. But also, I want to teach people how to eat sugar in a way that's less impactful on their glucose levels. So how do you eat sugar in a way that creates a smaller spike? Because I want a pleasure. I don't want to stop eating chocolate. I love chocolate, right? How do we eat it in a way that doesn't cause too many side effects on our glucose and on our body. So another hack is, when you eat something sweet, make sure it's never on an empty stomach. Instead, make sure it's after a meal as dessert, right. So if you if you want to have your favorite cookie, don't have it first thing in the morning or between meals, have it after your lunch or after dinner. That way you get all the pleasure from it with less of an impact on your glucose levels.

Scott Benner 30:47
I'm going to write down no cookies for breakfast. And that's because your stomach is why what's the value in that?

Jessie Inchauspé 30:56
Because when so let's take the states where there's nothing in your stomach. So maybe you just woke up in the morning, right? Your body is really empty, your stomach is empty, your intestines are really empty. So if you eat something that's high in sugar, well that let's say a cookie, it's going to go really quickly from your mouth, to your stomach to your intestine, to then your bloodstream, nothing is slowing down, nothing is stopping it, it just goes straight through like a roof. And then big increase in glucose levels in your blood very quickly. On the contrary, if you have something sweet after you've had already a meal, let's say I don't know, like some chicken, some broccoli, some rice like a full meal, that meal is sitting in your stomach, right, and that meal is gonna slow down how quickly the cookie is going to arrive into your intestine and into your bloodstream. And one important thing as well that I think a lot of people can relate to is, the more spikes you have, the more you're going to have these very intense hunger moments. You know, if you don't have even if you don't have diabetes, you're going to feel a lot of cravings from a glucose crash. And by eating sugar. After a meal instead of on an empty stomach, you can really reduce those cravings that come on a couple of hours after a meal, and cravings

Scott Benner 32:07
are the dopamine dwindling and your body going. Let's do that again. Right.

Jessie Inchauspé 32:12
Good question. Yes, actually is multifactorial. So scientists have discovered that when your glucose levels are low, the craving center in your brain activates. And this is a part of their brain that is in charge of cravings. And when your glucose levels are low, that part activates and tells you like Scott, you gotta find something sweet to eat, right. And that system, it's really hard to fight against it. So if you're somebody who has cravings, they're probably not your fault, it might be just your brains reaction to glucose levels that are too low, that are going too low. And that's really just, you know, an evolutionary ancestor reaction of that particular creating center of your brain. Of course, when your glucose is low, that's not the only thing that happens. But that's one of the consequences. So if you avoid the spikes, you then avoid such a strong drop that can lead to more cravings. I've heard

Scott Benner 33:03
adults say that, and people who don't have diabetes, so they're not using manmade insulin. They'll say, I feel like my blood sugar is low, but then you test them and they're not. Is that the craving Do you think?

Jessie Inchauspé 33:15
Yeah, so that's another thing. There's so many things. So that's probably so you know, when you have diabetes, you're familiar with the concept of reactive hypoglycemia, right? So like, you spike, and then when your goes drops below baseline, and even in people without diabetes, that can actually happen, of course, to a lesser extent, but you can still feel that drop and that craving, but it can also lead to things like nausea, sweats, palpitations, you know, even with people without diabetes. So yeah, it's a combination of so many things. And when people say I have low blood sugar, actually, what they don't know is that this is not a condition they were born with, right? Where they don't know is that actually, those symptoms are probably caused by just a very short lived crash after a spike.

Scott Benner 33:58
It is two things. It's funny you use the phrasing because my daughter when she was younger, the only way she could describe she would say I could feel the fall. So she would know that she was going to be low before any testing actually indicated that she was slow. And she would say I could feel it falling. But what you just said not to jump around, but what you just said made me wonder, is this why when you hear people and I've done it to forget people, like go on a very low carb like high protein, high fat diet and you suddenly you're like, I feel so much better. But is that just because your your glucose is very stable like that?

Jessie Inchauspé 34:36
It's a very it's a it's probably one of the main reasons Yeah, because a lot of symptoms are caused by being a new glucose rollercoaster. The studies show us that 80% of people without diabetes can still be experiencing this roller coaster on a daily basis right and those leads to many symptoms. So one, it's because you're not having the roller coaster anymore so you don't get all these crazy symptoms and to your body's just functioning better, because with with fewer spikes, your mitochondria are just like, you know, humming along really well. They're able to make energy efficiently. A lot of things fall into place when you're able to study your glucose levels a bit more than they were before.

Scott Benner 35:14
Is there any value to the idea that when you don't overtax one part of your system that there's more to go around for the other parts for your other systems as well, like you don't I mean, like, when you're sitting in, I don't know, convalescing after you have an injury or something like that, like your body's trying, it's putting a lot of effort towards one thing. I don't know, I'm reaching a little bit, but like, I also think that I've eaten, like I said, I've eaten low carb before, and sort of just aches and pains go away. Yeah, like mission,

Jessie Inchauspé 35:42
inflammation reduces. So many, so many symptoms get better when we don't give such you know, violent influxes of glucose to the way that we're eating. Okay, so, so many things, aging also slows down fewer spikes you have the slower your aging, like there's just the consequences are coming by the dozen. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all, that somebody who's on the low carb diets, and who's learning to manage their glucose levels that they would see so many symptoms get better. But also like, I'm not necessarily a proponent of going super low carb and not eating any starches and sugars anymore. I just don't think that's really realistic. And for a lot of people that is for me, like, that's not really what I want to do.

Scott Benner 36:29
You and I get along great, because my next question was going to be, but all that doesn't sound very realistic to me. So how do we

Jessie Inchauspé 36:37
be realistic? And of course, you know, in some instances, it makes a lot of sense, like for sure, if you want to do it, and if it works for you, like go for it, but it's just difficult. And then it's a bit of a like, 01 approach to it all. Like, either I don't eat any carbs, or I'm not on the diet, like what about we learned some principles that allow us to eat whatever we want, in a way that's better for our glucose and our health. And so that's, that's where all the hacks come in. So we talked about savory breakfast, super important, that'll really sought you out for the day. And then if you'd love your sweet breakfast foods and sweet foods, it's totally fine. You can have them but remember, as dessert, after lunch, or after dinner, not first thing in the morning when you're fasted, because that way, you're not going to create such a big glucose spike that's going to stay with you all day.

Scott Benner 37:24
Is that more breakfast question? Yeah. So so if a person that because I went onto my Facebook group before you and I came on, I should find this for you. And, and I said, hey, everybody real quick. Tell me all the meals that you have trouble bolusing for. Okay. And let me say it was an hour and a half ago, let me see where we're at now. Because I'm thinking of one that I saw specifically, where the person said that their child eats a fairly savory breakfast except puts potatoes with it. And then their blood sugar stays high, all day long, and they have trouble getting it down. So they're eating bacon, or eggs or something to that effect, but then also some potato along with it. So you can't just what it's making me think back on is the first time that I found the Atkins diet, like I'm old, you know what I mean? So years ago, and it was in your head that if you ate very low carb, you'd go into ketosis, not the ketosis, like diabetic ketoacidosis. But ketosis, and but it's, but you could eat that way, all day long. And you had this feeling like, well, any of the fat that I'm taking in is going to just pass through me, so it's okay. And then you make one slip up during the day. And I would think, well, one slip up equals ruining this whole day for me, and I would kind of consider it that way. And I'm wondering if adding the potatoes to the Breakfast isn't the same idea, like, overwhelmingly, the breakfast is gonna put you off on the right foot. But once you grab a couple of these potatoes your shot, is that kind of the feeling or no?

Jessie Inchauspé 39:02
I would say no, I think it's more about like balance, right? So what about you kind of like, have one less potato and one more egg and kind of find that balance until you're able to still have some starchy foods that you like, but you might actually use another hack, which could solve this problem. The other hack is eating your food in the right order. So that's very powerful. So if this person is starting the breakfast by eating the potatoes, that will cause a much bigger spike than if they had the potatoes last, okay, you can eat the exact same food, the exact same meal. But if you have this is what the science what science has found. If you have fiber, proteins and fats at the beginning, and starches and sugars at the end, you can reduce the spike of that meal by up to 75% without changing The meal you're eating like without changing the actual foods.

Scott Benner 40:02
Yeah, and I know we've been clear, but I'll say again, this is a study done with people who have a functioning pancreas. Right. Yeah. But still the the, the lesson from it should be very valuable, I would think.

Jessie Inchauspé 40:14
Absolutely, yeah. And by the way, so all the hacks I share, some studies have been done in people with a functioning pancreas. Some studies have been done in type one and type two, like there's actually a lot of replication going on. And the food order study has been studied in type two, I can't recall off the top of my head if it's been done in type one, but I'll look it up for you. Well, but the principles stay the same.

Scott Benner 40:36
Yeah. What I can tell you is that through the years being in the space for the years, and hearing people talk, whether it's a study that's been done or not, it is passed around like campfire folklore, like eat it in this order, your blood sugar won't. I've heard people say that for a decade, they didn't have any science behind it, other than their own trial and error. But I've been hearing people talk like that for a long time.

Jessie Inchauspé 40:58
And that's so interesting, because a lot of the stuff that we're now sort of understanding more deeply with the scientific studies that have been knowledge that's been around for a long time, whether it's cultural, like, for example, another hack we can talk about is vinegar, and how when you have vinegar at the beginning of a meal, it helps reduce the spike of that meal. So many cultures have been having vinegar for centuries. And now we kind of understand why it's so helpful, specifically on your glucose levels.

Scott Benner 41:27
It's interesting, I imagine you must find yourself in the position of over explaining, because some of the things I feel I don't I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out like a word that will mean something to you culturally, but it feels crunchy, a little granola you don't even like like, oh, just drink finger, everything will be fine.

Jessie Inchauspé 41:50
I don't find it to be overextending. Like, my job is I'm, you know, I teach stuff. I share science. So I will explain everything as deeply as you want to go. And I find it really fun and fascinating. Well then wanting to dive into why would that help something I was just waiting for you to ask I was setting you up perfectly. So you can be like, Why does vinegar work? Okay, so vinegar contains a molecule called acetic acid. Acetic acid is very cool. Acetic acid does a few things to your glucose levels. So number one, when you have some vinegar before a meal, the acetic acid in the vinegar is going to hang around in your stomach. And there it's going to slow down how quickly starches break down to glucose. So if you have a little bit of vinegar and some water, before some pasta, for example, that pasta is going to break down into glucose more slowly. So it's going to arrive in your bloodstream more slowly. So it's going to be less of a sharp increase and more of a sort of steadier rise. So that's quite interesting. Number two acetic acid goes to your muscles, and it tells your muscles to soak up more glucose than they usually would. So as a result, you have these two things going on, of glucose arriving in the bloodstream more slowly, and your muscles soaking it up more quickly. So it's pretty, you know, it's pretty amazing in the studies, you see really the impact of that has on the glucose spike of a meal. Super powerful, quite easy to try out. And cheap. And you don't have to change what you're eating. So that's that's a nice a nice one to try out.

Scott Benner 43:31
Have you ever heard this is one that goes through the diabetes community I wonder if you've ever heard about it, cook past the eat it hot. Hit your blood sugar, very hard cook pasta, refrigerate it reheat it does not hit you as hard. Why is this true?

Jessie Inchauspé 43:43
It's because when you cook starches, so it can be bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, and then you call them down some of the starch in that food is going to transform into something called resistant starch, which essentially is like fiber. So it's like it's as if you're increasing how much fiber there is in that pasta or in that potato by cooking it and cooling all the way down. And then once it's done that only does that once. You can then reheat it cool it down as many times as you want. You can eat it however you want. That transformation will be locked in. Yeah, so it's very awesome. I love that one Sunday

Scott Benner 44:21
night. My wife said Wouldn't you love pasta with turkey meatballs for dinner, which I took to mean you should make pasta and turkey meatballs for dinner. And so I did that. And for simplicity just for description. We use a brand dreamfields pasta because we've just learned over time that it hits my daughter's blood sugar easier, right? So we already have what I'm calling a lower glycemic pasta. The sauce is just be taking whole tomatoes and throwing in some garlic right there's not much to it. And the turkey meatballs are just ground turkey. Two hours after we ate My stomach was uneasy. I expect that the digestive enzymes helped me from having I can't believe. I don't know why I started the podcast just so I could tell people things I don't want anybody to know. But the digestive enzymes kept me from having a bathroom emergency, which I would have had if I just ate it straight. But I was still a little uneasy. But I'm also cheap, and I made a lot of pasta. So every day, this week, I've had some pasta with a meal, I have not felt uneasy in the ensuing days, just on the first day.

Jessie Inchauspé 45:33
Amazing, I love that that's resistance starts working for you. Another thing you might try. And this is another hack, and it's probably one of my favorite is at the beginning of a meal, start your meal with a little plate of vegetables, I call this the veggie starter. So it can be you know, any kind of veggie like maybe it's a few cherry tomatoes from the fridge, because that's what you have, maybe it's some leftover roasted, I don't know, cauliflower, maybe it's a bit of spinach. Like when you have vegetables first at the beginning of a meal. And this goes back to the food order thing. The fiber in those veggies, is going to coat your digestive system and really protect you and help you not absorb glucose too quickly afterwards. So that might be another one that helps you if the resistant starch helps you as well. I love the veggie starter one, like it's a non negotiable for me anymore.

Scott Benner 46:19
It feels like a natural way of doing what you know, 15 years ago, there was a big push. Do you remember this Olestra there was going to be a drug that kept fat from being digested, and it would pass through you what, which just made very, like, explosive, oily stools for people. But but it was it's what popped into my I'm older. So it's what popped into my head was the idea of like, coating your system so that some things don't get Yeah, yeah. But in this case,

Jessie Inchauspé 46:49
you know, we're not talking about drought, we're talking about something that all of us should always have, like, we should always have that mesh that's protecting our intestines, but most of us don't, because we just eat so differently nowadays. And so by adding that veggie starter and you're kind of working hand in hand with your body to prepare your body for that meal. It's a it's a really lovely one.

Scott Benner 47:09
So I'm gonna ask you a question, but first, I'm going to tell you something. So you know why I'm asking. Don't judge me, okay. I don't eat vegetables. Is there anything I can do? supplementally To help that?

Jessie Inchauspé 47:22
Yes. So there are a few supplements that can help. You can take some actually right now the best thing you can do is take some fiber supplements, really? Or you can make yourself a little like, Would you drink a little bit of water with like some ground flax seeds in it?

Scott Benner 47:39
Maybe I do a green drink in the morning. I don't want to say the brand because they're a sponsor. Yeah, but I do. And by the way, you said something earlier that really struck me. When I started doing the green drink right away in the morning. Not only did I first I thought I was just feeling hydrated because I'm bad at remembering to drink water. So at least I'm taking like the 16 ounces of water right away in the morning. I thought maybe I'm just feeling the hydration. But I have to tell you like I missed the green drink on some days. And I noticed I didn't have it. And I can't say why bright I just know that I feel I'm going to use a weird word crisper, like a little more brightness a bit sharper. Yeah. Right. And so but okay, so I could do like a, I'm sorry, like a fiber like right before the meal. Yep. Could I do like a tablet of like, like a capsule, or would I want to do it mixed up in a water,

Jessie Inchauspé 48:36
you could do both really, you could do you could do a little capsule of like psyllium husk or like some pretty standard like little fiber supplements you could do a little you could create a little your own little Scott fiber cocktail with some like, you know ground flax seeds, ground chia seeds, that can actually help quite a bit. And then if you don't really want to do any of those things, you can also just start your meal by a little bit of protein and fats. So like half an egg or you know something to just coat your stomach before you're going to take in, for example, pasta or any other starches, you really want to think about preparing your body so that the impact of the meal you're going to have is going to be a bit dampened. And the best way to do that is with fiber from veggies. But even if you want to do it with some proteins from fats, that's still going to help. Okay, rather than doing nothing

Scott Benner 49:29
I just realized we're having too good of a time. Are you stuck to an hour or can we keep going?

Jessie Inchauspé 49:33
Oh, no, we can keep going. Okay, great.

Scott Benner 49:34
All right. So let's get me through more of your hacks you just did the veggies first. I got savory breakfast veggies first.

Jessie Inchauspé 49:43
Breakfast vinegar us we talked about if you want to eat something sweet habit, meal, not an empty stomach. That's super important. Now let's talk about your muscles. So another hack is after meal. Use your muscles for 10 minutes so that can be walking for 10 minutes that that can be my new favorite thing, which is okay, do it with me, Scott. So your feet are on the ground, and you're going to lift your, I can't even explain this, you're going to do like a calf raise. Okay, so you're going on to your tippy toes and your calves are working, and you're up and down and up and down. That's a calf raise. Yeah, yeah. And so your calf has this really cool muscle in it called the soleus muscle, which is very good at uptaking. glucose from the bloodstream is very hungry for glucose. And so when you do these calf raises like this, you're going to be pulling glucose out of the circulation into that calf muscle, and it's going to reduce the spike that you're experiencing from a meal. Super easy. You can do it at work sitting down. Nobody needs to know that any kind of movement after a meal is going to help lower that blood sugar. Because your muscles when they contract, they need glucose for energy.

Scott Benner 50:51
How long would I do these catchphrases for?

Jessie Inchauspé 50:53
So in this studies, I think we do them for three hours, which I don't recommend. 10 minutes is good. Okay, right. So just kind of like, put a little timer on your phone or whatever, and you don't have to be super crazy about them. Right? You can just think, Okay, I'm doing a few like maybe 10 You know, catchphrases per minute for like, 10 minutes, right? But even if you just do one, that's better than not doing any. Okay, so it's really up to you. I think 10 minutes is really good amount to see a big difference. But even just one is already cause for celebration.

Scott Benner 51:26
Oh, wow. Okay, so I so I don't have type one, but I'm still going to try it. Do you think I'm gonna listen just for like, I'm just gonna say giggles I don't know if that's a French term that would like get to you or not, but, but just for fun. Next time my daughter finds herself with a sticky blood sugar. I'm going to say just for fun, do 10 minutes a catchphrase is sitting down, I want to see what happens I'm going to be interested to see.

Jessie Inchauspé 51:50
And walking is also very powerful, of course, very, very powerful. You know that. But it requires a whole organization and somewhere to walk. So cafes is a really good, the study is very interesting. It's

Scott Benner 52:00
crazy. There was a decade ago, a gentleman that did something in the type one community where he just wanted to promote exercise. So we had people record their glucose, go for a walk, come back recorded again. And people saw 50 Point drops in their blood sugars and stuff like that. So we're always telling people, even just the idea of that, that's kind of two prong for a type one, by the way, the way you're describing is just creating a situation where the muscle pulls the glucose in, which is part of what you get out of exercise. But the secondary thing you get when you have type one is the distribution of the insulin through your system. When you're sedentary, you need more insulin, because it just doesn't work as effectively, effectively. So you get people up and you get them moving. And sometimes they'll say exercise makes me drop. But really what they should be thinking maybe a little bit is that exercise makes my insulin work better. I see you know, so it's a it's an interesting hair to split, you know, makes sense? Yeah. Okay. All right. So calf raises. I mean, yeah, you give more or because calf raises seems like that would be the crazy one at the end. But go ahead.

Jessie Inchauspé 53:05
Let's do one last one. Okay, this one is called put some clothing on your carbs. So don't eat any carbs naked. So what I mean by this is, so carbs are starchy foods, so like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, or sweet foods. So that can be anything from a piece of fruit to like candy to the chocolate things that you like. And again, those are carbs. If we eat them naked, the glucose and carbs contain glucose, that's really important, right? Carbs break down to glucose when we digest them. So if we have them on their own, which is what I call naked, then boom, as I explained, the glucose goes really quickly through your digestive system and into your bloodstream and big spike, what we want to do instead is learn to put some clothing on them. So clothing, our proteins, fats, or fiber. When you add some clothes, I'm going to give you some examples. And when you add some clothes to your carbs, you reduce the spike that they create. So for example, let's say you want to have a piece of toast, you have two options. You can have the toast naked, which is going to create a bigger spike than adding, let's say, a slice of ham to the toast or half a mashed avocado, which is fat to the toast, right? So think about dressing your carbs, and not letting them run around naked. Another good example would be you're at a birthday party, you want to have a slice of cake, the cake on its own, that's just naked carbs. Add to it. A few spoonfuls of Greek yogurt, or add to it maybe like a handful of nuts, right. Do you want to have some pasta for dinner? Add to it's a little bit of spinach and I don't eat vegetables, but for people who eat vegetables, like a little bit of spinach, some leftover roasted broccoli, a bit of chicken, you know, so meatballs, like think about not letting your carbs get into your body naked that'll help study your glucose levels.

Scott Benner 54:58
So to put context to this for people listening Have type one. If your blood sugar starts to get low, and you need a quick infusion of glucose, you eat simple sugars, right stuff that your body can absorb very quickly. And you'll find after a while, as matter of fact, emergency like gel, you just rub in the lining of your cheeks, because it's so easy to pull glucose in through your cheeks, right? You would not, you would not get into a panic situation where your blood sugar was changing rapidly going down and say, Oh, I'm gonna eat peanut butter does fix it like that won't work. You want juice, you want simple sugars that get pulled up quickly. And so you just sort of reverse engineer that idea, right? Don't allow your body to just have those simple sugars and you won't see the big spike, even though you've taken in the same thing. So you really do believe there's a way to eat what people want to eat without getting into a situation where your body craves it in an overindulgent way. And it's not impacting your blood sugar's in a way that is damaging the way you described earlier. That's doable.

Jessie Inchauspé 56:01
Absolutely. And I think that's why, you know, my message and my work has been so popular is because this is not about cutting out food groups. This is about learning to eat things you love in a way that still helps your body do its best. And that's just how I want to live my own life. You know, I don't, when I learned that glucose spikes, were triggering these mental health episodes in me, my first thought was like, I can't ever eat glucose ever again. You know, but then I was like, No, I don't want to live like that. Let me figure out how I can eat everything I love with less impact on my body. So yes, I do believe it's possible. And I have actually a lot of readers who have type one, who by using the hacks have been able to learn so much about how their body responds to food, you have been able to incorporate what they love in a different way.

Scott Benner 56:48
Well, I think it's very important. It's why I reached out to you. And you and I don't know each other well, but I think that's why my podcast is popular too. Because I looked at this problem. And I said, How do I keep my daughter's life not feeling restricted at all, and yet not give away your health over it. And so I focused on how to use insulin, and then figured it out, and then figured out a way to simply explain it to other people. And then these people are having these these things too. And then those people give me the gift of finding you and then saying, Hey, you have to go find this girl, Jesse. And I was like, okay, so I went and I thought, Oh, this is great. And just the idea like you and I are doing the same thing from two different perspectives. We're thinking about where the impacts are coming from and how we can hit them off. That really is it right?

Jessie Inchauspé 57:39
Yes, and how we can minimize you know, harm in a way. For me, it's really important to, you know, in in the world of people with a functioning pancreas, something you often might see is like people going on extreme diets, and people feeling really upset at their body or feeling a lot of guilt around cravings and just these relationships to food that become distorted. And I tried to teach people how food actually scientifically biochemically impacts their body. And teaching them these hacks, shows them that they can eat whatever they love, and still help their health at the same time. And I really such a strong believer in that message of like, you can have both, you just need the right information to be able to do it. And this would

Scott Benner 58:21
likely not be valuable to people with type two diabetes, right?

Jessie Inchauspé 58:25
Absolutely. Because type two diabetes in most cases, you can put it into remission, in most cases, and you can reverse pre diabetes, type two diabetes can get better. If you have type one, your numbers can get better when you learn more about how food impacts your glucose levels, right? Like you. There are things you can, as you know very well, there are hacks and solutions and strategies you can put in place to help your body. And yeah, I see many people who reverse type two diabetes in remission after reading my book and applying the science that I share, I have

Scott Benner 58:57
to say how grateful I am for the podcast format. Because this is a thing that once it's, you know, you let it breathe, and you have a long conversation. And you think okay, well, that makes sense. You just said something like how could I as a person? If I'm a person with type one diabetes? How could I do some of these things that might help my blood sugar spikes, and therefore make my day less variable? I might feel better, all these things will come with it. And the problem is, if you don't have like a slow, easy conversation about this, it turns into I saw somebody on Instagram and they said if I drink vinegar, I don't know. I think they said it cures my diabetes, then that makes people angry because obviously that's not true. And then we get caught in this sort of like social media storm, instead of just listening and saying, what would it hurt for me to try a couple of these things to see if it helps. You're not here saying like, drink vinegar, and I'm gonna get taller and magically and I'll be prettier and my blood sugar will be perfect. You're like, here's the function of this. Give it a shot. See if it helps you. Yeah, yeah,

Jessie Inchauspé 59:59
I'm He's trying to communicate this science because when I first started diving into the science of glucose, I was like, wow, there's all these amazing papers and discoveries. And nobody knows about this stuff. Nobody, I mean, not enough, you know. And so I just wanted to give, essentially, the scientific discoveries, more of a voice. And I agree with you that Instagram and social media format is really not good enough. And that's why I wrote books, you know, and that's why I love doing podcasts. Because I feel like that's a much better way to teach and to learn. And for me to Instagram is more like the trailer. And then if you want to see the movie, you have to you have to dive deeper. You know, I try to give as much information as I count on every single Instagram post. But you can never add all the nuance in the context, it's important to have other platforms where you can really get into it.

Scott Benner 1:00:44
Yeah, I have a similar feeling where I think at least I know if I put it down like this, the people who made it through it, they at least heard everything I wanted them to hear. I like on a post or something. I don't know if they read that, or they understood it. Or if it was a scroll, and like, Oh, I like Scott taptap. You don't even like that kind of thing. And so I appreciate you do this. I have many more questions, but but I want you to first talk about because I think this is a good opportunity to stop some outrage that isn't necessary. Can you explain to people how valuable it is to have a continuous glucose monitor to help figure these things out, even if you don't have diabetes.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:01:26
So I would just, you know, caution that by saying I don't tell everybody to work, because monitoring, I don't think it's necessary. I think it's a medical device. And it's, you know, if you're not, if you don't have a care system around you or a doctor to talk to, it can be really confusing to understand the numbers, what I think is very valuable is for everybody to learn how food impacts glucose, and learn these hacks to manage it, even if they don't have diabetes. I think the most pressing thing that's going on right now is that more and more females are experiencing infertility, polycystic ovarian syndrome, you know, a lot of issues around the hormonal systems. Even if you don't have diabetes, I think it's now one in eight females have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a complete dysregulation of your sex hormones. And that's very linked to glucose and to insulin. And so that's why when you learn to study your glucose levels, if you have PCOS, your symptoms usually get much better. And that's why I hear stories, you know, every week of women who had been told they would never be able to get pregnant naturally, who, after using the hacks get their period back are able to conceive like this is important that we're talking about Yeah. And then even if you don't have type one, type two is a growing epidemic. There's a billion people in the world who have pre diabetes or type two. And so preventing that needs to be a top priority for everybody. And in order to prevent that you have to learn about your glucose levels and how they work. And then, as you mentioned, you know, Alzheimer's, mental health, brain fog, energy levels, like 80% of the population who doesn't have type one diabetes, is still probably experiencing glucose spikes. That's what the studies show so we can all benefits and we all have glucose in our bodies. And it you know, learning how to manage it is just such a foundational piece of being able to thrive. And so I just, I think it's so important that everybody knows about this, right?

Scott Benner 1:03:22
Well, it's, you know, I only brought it up because people get upset when they see somebody using a CGM, because they feel like it's taking one from somebody who's using manmade insulin. And I, I'm not not, I understand where that feeling comes from. And but I like what I heard you say is like, Okay, so maybe if I were one once I could see how things impact me, if I don't have diabetes, I don't need to keep learning, I now have that information. And now I can just use these hacks to try to impact those things.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:03:48
Yeah, for sure. And like I understand, you know, at the beginning of my work, I was posting a lot of selfies of myself with a glucose monitor. Like, I didn't understand that that was triggering. And then I had some amazing people with type one reach out to me and be like, hey, Jessie, like, I don't know you. But I just want you to know, like, for community, this does not feel good. Can you please change what you're doing? And I was like, Yeah, of course. And then I had other type ones come to me and say, Oh, my God, now that I see you wearing a good monitor, and you don't even have type one, I feel less, like, you know, embarrassed about wearing because monitor for some people, that's a feeling as well. So, so many things are true. And I think I've found a line where I use a glucose monitor to create the graphs that illustrates the scientific studies. I use it because monitor to be able to create these visuals that are so key in teaching people about how their bodies work. And if you go to my Instagram, glucose goddess, you'll see what I mean like those graphs are fundamental to the education of it'll listen, I'm always learning.

Scott Benner 1:04:47
Yeah, those glad I'm gonna tell you just, you know, I used to be very good at managing insulin. And then glucose monitors came and I got really, really good at it. And then algorithm Just came along, which are making decisions about insulin back and forth and watching them work up my game again, just seeing the different impacts and seeing where the insulin comes in and seeing where the where the spike or the low happens. I sent my daughter a text last night, she's in college. She's not. She's 700 miles from here. And I'm getting in bed last night. And I look at her blood sugar before I go to bed. And I sent her a text and I said, if you were to eat two gummy bears right now, her blood sugar was 110. I said, you're going to avoid a low and about 45 minutes. And she of course is 18 and doing her homework and she ignores me, which I understand. And about 45 minutes to an hour later, her blood sugar dipped under 70. And I sent a text and I said I don't know if you saw my last text. But and, and I'm not teasing her. I'm hoping that she pulls up the graph and thinks what did this old man see an hour ago about this graph that made him know this was gonna happen? I just wanted to learn kind of slowly, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna say something to you. Now. I can't wait to see the look on your face. Because part of me thinks if you know about this, you're gonna be like, Oh, my God, I can't believe you know this to my daughter began to take over assets Hall last year, which has in a city hall and it is oh, SAP Oh, well. Okay, okay. And is it did not say it for me. I don't know how you say it. Actually, I will between us. It's and I own

Jessie Inchauspé 1:06:27
French. But I don't know the American English version of it. So

Scott Benner 1:06:31
my daughter starts to get her period. And it's incredibly heavy. It is happening too long, sometimes 11 days. And sometimes she only gets a two or three day gap before it starts up again. Once a month, she gets a nosebleed one time. Horrible for a couple of minutes. This happens to her for years, so much so that her her iron drops so low, we have to get her iron infusions. Like she's, like just dripping in a pile on a puddle. You know, a number of years ago, we started using an integrative endo from around here to help out him with her. She also has a thyroid issue. So she's hypothyroid. And that person helped her get her thyroid all balanced out. And then we just kept talking and kept seeing her. And one day she said, I really think like we've looked at so many things. I think a lot of the things your daughter is experiencing are hormonal. And try this. So now she takes like a heaping scoop of this and dissolves it and water once a day. Normal periods. Not too heavy, not too long. No more nosebleed. Crazy, right? That's why she comes home from college for a break. kind of loses track of her. Her schedule for a couple of weeks. Data don't feel good. My periods too heavy. Boom, she gets a nosebleed. I'm like, Have you been taking the basketball every day. And she goes now starts to back up again. A month later. She's okay. Again. Fascinating, like really sad. Like, I think we saved her life with it too. Like she was in a desert. And it's it's, it's again, it's one of those things that I think if you just bumped into it somewhere, he'd be like, some hippie told me about a thing I put in water and it makes my period better. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to like, I would have been that person 20 years ago, like, honestly, if you would have come to me and said, I don't know, Scott put the vegetables before this. I'd be like, Oh, but now I hear it. And I think God damn, that all makes sense to me. You know, sounds

Jessie Inchauspé 1:08:31
so fascinating. All the things that you come across in your life, right? And then you just want to share those and maybe in 10 years inositol everybody will know about it. And I hope also the veggie thing. Everybody will be like, Oh yeah, we know that you've written juice first, like Jesse like, shut up. And I hope I don't have a job anymore. I just hope all this stuff becomes super common knowledge.

Scott Benner 1:08:48
I have that thought sometimes, like I tell people that. I think that the goal of the podcast is that you don't have to listen to it anymore. Yeah,

Jessie Inchauspé 1:08:57
you want to become irrelevant. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:08:59
I keep thinking like, like, I don't want this to be your life. This should be a pitstop. Not the whole thing. You know, that kind of idea. Alright, so Alright, so now, I think we've laid out pretty clearly the stuff that you talk about, right? I am. And I'm going to ask about we're going to try to talk through maybe maybe we can go for 20 more minutes, talk through how it might work for people with diabetes. But first tell me you said you had a book, you have more than one, right?

Jessie Inchauspé 1:09:23
Yeah, so my first book came out last year. It's called glucose revolution. And in it, I talk about all the basics of the science and the hacks and how it impacts I have stories of people in it, who have type one who don't have type one. There's lots of cool stuff in it. And I have a new book that's out now that's called the glucose goddess method. And that's basically a four week guide to actually doing some of these glucose hacks that I've been talking about. It's like a fast track to turning the hacks to habits and it has a bunch of recipes. And it has a whole week about veggie starter recipes, Scott. So you You could actually maybe find a veggie starter recipe that you actually like,

Scott Benner 1:10:05
in an I just recorded a net. So Jenny and I are making a type two series right now. And so we're in the middle of recording it, it hasn't been out, it's not out yet. And in the middle of it, I was like, You have to imagine I, I have a real relationship with this person, you know, and I, in the middle of it, I'm like, Oh, God, Jenny, I don't need vegetables. She's like, wait, what I'm like I don't. And I, by the way, I went into it there. It's not important here. But I grew up poorly. And, you know, I was I grew up in one of those situations, like, eat these and they were like crappy French green beans out of a can. I didn't want them. I didn't like the way they felt my mouth. I'm very tactile about food. That's not a thing. Anyone understood in the 70s. I'll tell you that right now. And then my parents would be like, you're eating data, you're not eating anything else. And I just, like the idea of eating vegetables now is probably a psychological problem is anything else for me?

Jessie Inchauspé 1:10:57
The coffee thing is psychological, too, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:00
I don't I my, my parents drank so much coffee that the house smelled like it. And then it was this again, 70s and 80s. Like, we we lived in an apartment, my dad smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. I'm surprised I'm alive. You know? And those are just things I don't, I don't want because of that. Yeah, it's interesting. So okay, so I'm going to tell you something, and then we're gonna see if we can't build a conversation off of it. So many people with type one diabetes often have a lot of trouble bolusing for pizza. So they'll count the cart, the initial mistake is they count up all the carbs, they put in all the insulin, and then they get very low. And then of course, then they treat the low with something fast acting, then they spike up and then they keep spiking up and it stays that way for hours. Before they understand that what happened was that the pizza has cheese on it. And so you, I can't wait to say this to you to see if you agree. So you eat the pizza, your body kind of the digestion gets slowed by the cheese or any meat that might be on it. And so the dough of the pizza sort of gets pushed off to the side for a little bit. Right? Basically, what

Jessie Inchauspé 1:12:09
you're doing is you're putting clothes on that dough,

Scott Benner 1:12:14
right? And ending it from being absorbed. Yeah, exactly.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:12:17
You're slowing down digestion, you're slowing down how quickly food goes from stomach to intestine, then from intestine to bloodstream. If you ate just the dough of the pizza, with nothing else on it, you would get a much faster spike, because then you would just have carbs. But when you add stuff like the fats from the cheese and the proteins, you're putting clothing on that naked carbs, so you're slowing down how quickly the glucose is making its way to the bloodstream

Scott Benner 1:12:43
and type one situation, you've put in a significant amount of insulin for what could be I mean, a slice of pizza is going to be somewhere around 30 carbs, right 20 Or 30 carbs. And now you eat two, you've put in, I don't know, say you're one for 10, you know, a unit for 10. Now you've got six units of insulin going for these two slices. And then the digestion doesn't happen. You crash. You don't Oh, no, eat a bunch of sugar spike up. And then as the spikes going up, then the digestion hits. And now your blood sugar's high for hours afterwards. So the simple fix is for some people. And by the way, here's the interesting thing. Domino's Pizza, or a hand tossed pizza from a place up the street, where a pizza I make it home all have different impacts. Right. So it's not just pizza's pizzas, pizza, but once you figure out where the insulin goes in, so that the so that the the way I talk about it is that you want to match up the action of the insulin with the impact of the carbs. And that manmade insulin doesn't work. It's not a, it's not a light switch, right, you don't put it in, it's just working, you put it in, it starts to work slowly over time, it picks up speed. And then there's an intense part where it's really working hard. And you just have to adjust when the Bolus goes in. So that it matches up with that that food impact. Yeah, and that's if

Jessie Inchauspé 1:14:03
you're slowing down the spike of some carbs. Right, you also need to slow down how quickly insulin is arriving into your bloodstream. So let's take another example, if you're doing like, a piece of cake on its own versus cake in Greek yogurt, right? It is the same number of carbs in both of those instances, but in the plus yogurt part, you're also adding fat and protein. So the glucose is going to arrive more slowly into your bloodstream. So maybe you would need a different strategy, insulin wise.

Scott Benner 1:14:36
Yeah, no, and that's exactly what you end up doing is you just like most, most food takes what what would be colloquially called a Pre-Bolus. Like putting the insulin in a little before you eat so you can find that matchup, not all foods, not all people. And there's also another level of a problem where insulin. Thinking about how it's been made insulin work is it's sort of like thinking about like A time travel movie. Like it's sort of like what we do now impacts us later. Whereas people want to think what's happening now is somehow impacted by now, which it very infrequently is. So you, you kind of get the idea of people like, Look, you got to get the insulin working a little bit, so that it's got a little power when the carbs are trying to drive you up Nansel trying to drive you down. I tell them that, you know, on a glucose monitor, for example, when you see a stable line, when there's food and insulin there, what you're really seeing is the food trying very hard to push up while the insolence for trying very hard to push down. And these are two things caught in a battle that neither can win. And because one can't go up and one can't go down every time he every five minutes, you see your blood sugar just doesn't seem to move, right, it doesn't mean that the reaction is not happening inside. So so this is it, right. So if if, if somebody is seeing a certain spike from a meal, you think it might be as easy as them reordering their food and that spike might change. And then they're going to need to pay attention to that, because they might be making heavy boluses for what they think is going to be a larger spike that might not end up being. So this is very similar to when my daughter started taking the digestive enzymes. Some meals that were requiring a ton of insulin, were suddenly not requiring as much because it was passing through her system more quickly, and not getting stuck in the stomach where it was being leached. Right.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:16:33
Essentially, it's not just about like, what you eat, it's about how you eat it, in which which order which combination with vinegar before, not like, it's not just about the number of carbs in the food or in a meal, you can you really have lots of other levers that you can activate to impact how that food is gonna impact your glucose levels. So like, if you have type one, and you're using insulin, like it's really important to if you're going to try any of these hacks, to be super aware that you might need to adapt things, maybe talk to your doctor to make sure you're doing it all properly. Because the changes can be very drastic, like if you switch the order of the foods in your meal, and you have the veggies first and the carbs last, the impact in your glucose will be vastly different.

Scott Benner 1:17:18
Wow, I'm excited to try it. Yeah, don't worry, at the beginning of the episode, you're going to hear me in a very deep voice say that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, then I say some other stuff. So we're all good. But um, do you have anything that like, is there anything I haven't asked you about that I should have, like roads that you'd like to go down that I didn't get you to?

Jessie Inchauspé 1:17:43
know No, I don't think so. I mean, you know so much about this topic that you know, it's, it's like you're teaching me stuff really? So no, you asked everything. And I think what I want to say is like, in my first book, My intention was really just to explain to people how food works, and what glucose impacts in our body and just kind of give you like, a very easy, very fun masterclass, and just glucose and what the heck it is and how it impacts us and how we can impact and return. And so it's it just, I just want people to know that my intention is really to teach as much as I possibly can on this topic, because it's so important, whether you have type one or you don't. And also you're doing a fantastic job. So I'm just happy that we had this chat.

Scott Benner 1:18:27
I'm glad we met it is really because of a listener of the podcast who came to me privately and they're like, you really should look at this. And I was like, Okay, I will. And then you were kind enough to answer and it's lovely. Let me Can I go back and ask you something more personal. Yeah. You alluded to but didn't deep dive deep into your mental health earlier. And then it got better. Can you describe where you were and where you are?

Jessie Inchauspé 1:18:52
Oh, for sure. I mean, trigger warning, but so after I broke my back, you know, physically, I was fine in a matter of a few months. But then I started getting these really weird feelings of being in a dream or being in a movie and like everything around me was two dimensional. When I looked at my hands, I was like, whose hands are these? When I looked in the mirror it would give me panic attacks because it was like who is that person? Like I was fully not okay. And you know, I found these different terms like depersonalization felt like it fit quite well what I was experiencing some dissociation, a lot of anxiety, depression, and I was just like, I cannot live this way. I felt so broken to my core felt like my brain was so broken. I couldn't be alone at all. Like I could just couldn't take the bus by myself. Like it was impossible. I had to always either be distracting myself with a video game on my phone or be with somebody else. I was terrified and I was not okay for you know, the better part of a decade like I was really not okay. But you know, I just kind of kept going, kept at it. But deep down there was something really not okay with with my brain. And seeing that these spikes were triggering some of these episodes really. It completely changed my life. And I'm so thankful that I've felt that I wanted to raise my hand and say, Yeah, I'll try this CGM for this, you know, experiment thing. Like it just, it gave me so much hope back. I can't imagine if that hadn't happened. Yeah, that's where I would be now. Like, yeah. And then you layer so then I fixed my glucose. And then I layered on top of that, you know, amazing therapy EMDR that really helped me Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, like that really helped me a lot. And today, I'm actually okay, like, I actually I can be alone. I can challenge myself, which, you know, for most people is like, whatever. But for me, like just being able to be in a hotel room by myself for one night is like, I'm like, so grateful that I can do that. Because I was so not okay, well, but ask me any question you want. Like, I'm an open book. Oh, that's fascinating.

Scott Benner 1:21:05
So how do you think the injured Do you think the injury led that to that? Or did you have any of that prior to the injury?

Jessie Inchauspé 1:21:14
Nothing, nothing prior, I think what happened is that during the accident, and then the very intense three weeks pre surgery, and then the surgery where I thought I was gonna die, a lot of stress got stuck in my body. And nobody taught me how to process it, how to move it, you know, I was just like, I was living in London, like, nobody talked about healing from traumatic experiences or like, nervous system, like, just those weren't in my consciousness. So I think my body just held on to so much stress and anxiety and fear. And then, if small things happened around me, it would just go full blown into panic mode. So I found out that the spikes were one of the things that pushed me over and made me go into full blown panic mode. It's as if my baseline was like, super broken. And then any other extra little stress could put me in a horrible, horrible state.

Scott Benner 1:22:07
It's interesting, because I've been making this podcast, this is the ninth year I've made I'm making this podcast. And I appreciate that. But I have not heard the, in the first six years, I didn't hear the word anxiety as much as I have heard it in the last three. But I think people always want to like right off to like, oh, it was COVID. Or it was this or something. But I don't know. Like, I don't like I'm having deeper conversations with people. They're being more honest. And that's part of the reason why I think I'm hearing it. But it just makes me wonder about, you know, the podcast has listeners, because most people have a lot of trouble rakia regulating their blood sugars when they're using insulin right type twos and type ones and even type twos that don't use insulin, they have trouble with this regulation. And I'm just wondering, like, like, after a while, like you start talking to people with autoimmune issues, like you don't know this, but autoimmune issues where maybe you do kind of run in families, and they, they kind of run in groups, like if you have one, you're more likely to have to etc. The amount of people that come on here and are like, I have Raynaud's and type one, and hypothyroidism, and this and that. And the next thing, you know, they've listed seven issues that they have that are diagnosed, that they can feel the impacts from the amount of people who say that they have a bipolar person in the family and a lot of autoimmune stuff. It just like, I I'm fascinated by how many people tell me, I'm anxious, or I get easily triggered by things or you know, like, you know, sometimes when you're in a bubble, you feel like this is the world but I leave this bubble sometimes. And most people don't talk about stuff like this. And it all feels like it just comes back to I mean for me and be clear all that school you went to I barely got through high school, but it all comes back to me to like it's inflammation, right? Like it just that's what it seems like it is that people have autoimmune issues, their immune systems going wild, and they have inflammation, and it's impacting everything from mitochondria in the cells to their wrists hurt, you know, or whatever.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:24:22
Yes, well, I think what's going on is that most of us have bodies that are just in a state of stress, right? Maybe it's biological stress, it's inflammation, stress, it's, it's stress from the food from the environment from just real stress, and the stress causes more stress. And so you get into this cycle where a lot of things can go wrong. And you can get a lot of various different symptoms. I don't know you know why more people are experiencing this. But if you just look, for example, the type two numbers, I mean, they're going up and up and up and up and up and up a billion people in the world. I mean, that's wild and type two is a disease that's caused by food and our food environment. So I mean, it's crazy. But also I feel very hopeful. I'm like, I don't want people to be in the situation that I was in for a decade completely clueless about how I could help myself. Well, yeah, now.

Scott Benner 1:25:15
Yeah, I was gonna say, that's why I was, I was excited by the things you were saying? Because it's the other part of it, right? Like, it's not lost on me, there are a lot of people on the planet, we have to feed them all. We've come up with ways to do it. Obviously, some of them are not valuable, like, but they're still producing food in bulk for people. You can't tell people that foods the problem, they don't know where to go get more, what are they going to do start a farm, you don't eat meat, like, like, what am I doing, I'm gonna I'm gonna start I'm gonna get again acre, I know you're gonna cow and the plants I'm not, I'm going to keep going to the grocery store and keep buying the stock that's available to me. And so giving them the idea that there's at least maybe a way to lessen the impact of of these things that they're eating, you know, because I can

Jessie Inchauspé 1:26:02
also to not fall prey to marketing messages. Because often we make food decisions based on what something says on packaging, or, you know, advertising etc, we have to remember, a lot of food products are driven by profit. So we need objective scientific information, which is hard to come by, that helps you understand what's noise and what's real. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to Okay, guys, like, I know, the package says, like, good for your heart or low in this and good for that. But like, actually, here's how your body actually works. This is what the food turns into. And this, how it impacts you. And then you have the information you're empowered. And then you can start making decisions on the go that you understand why you're making them, you're not just making them because of what something says on a box.

Scott Benner 1:26:47
When I try to make that point to people, I usually use the example of shaved ice like Italian ice, and they're always assigned at an Italian ice place that says fat free. Yeah. And I like I'm like, that's hilarious, because my body is gonna turn that sugar into fat in about an hour or so. Right? But they're not lying. What's in the cup right now? Doesn't have any fat in it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So

Jessie Inchauspé 1:27:10
there's just so there's a lot of misleading marketing. And in my first book, I also go through like, all the things that you might see at the grocery store that are trying to make you buy foods that are actually things you should ignore, like, this is organic, this is gluten free, this is fat free, this is no sugar added, like all that stuff can be abused. What you really need to know is, what the molecules are, what molecules the food contains. And that's what I try to teach people and then you're empowered for life. And that's really freaking cool. Because I don't want just scientists to know this stuff. Like everybody needs to know this stuff. Because we need to be able to operate and navigate in this crazy food landscape that we live in. Like we need to know all of this.

Scott Benner 1:27:49
Yeah, it doesn't say on the package ever. We know some people can't eat gluten. So we've created gluten free cupcakes, but they're so Ultra processed. They're really they have a ton of carbs in them, and they're not going to be good for you at all, but there won't be any gluten in them. So yeah, you know, and it's

Jessie Inchauspé 1:28:06
not people's fault. Like, I mean, you're everybody's just trying to be healthy and be happy and do what's best for them and their family. Like my God. We're bombarded with messages. We don't know what's real than not. It's really intense and difficult. So I really empathize with that. That just despair of like, what am I supposed to eat? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:28:24
this keeps coming up. When when we've been like I told you, I think I'm like five episodes deep into recording this type two series. And it keeps coming up in conversation where I keep thinking, it's no one's fault. Like it's easy to say eat better exercise more. Great. Like, what am I supposed to do about that? My I got a vague, so unhelpful. And I got a family of four and I make $35,000 a year, but you want me to go get a steak and some asparagus like where am I getting that from? You? Me? I gotta feed all these people. And this is what's it just anyway, that made this whole thing feel uplifting, would you? I hate to do this to you, but at the end here, would you mind like in a sentence run through each of the hacks again? Oh, of course.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:29:05
Of course. Let's do it. Okay, savory breakfast instead of a sweet one. Very important. If you're going to eat something sweet to have it as dessert after a meal, never on an empty stomach. After you eat, use your muscles for 10 minutes to maybe you go for a walk. Maybe you do some magical calf raises at your desk. Before at the beginning of a meal, start the meal with vegetables. That's called the veggie starter. And if you can finish the meal with the carbs, vinegar, one tablespoon of vinegar and a big glass of water before a meal helps reduce the spike of that meal. And finally, clothes on carbs. So never eat your carbs naked always put some protein fat or fiber on them. If you want to see the million visual examples of this to actually help you like grasp all these hacks, go to my Instagram glucose goddess or pick up my new book The Ghost goddess method full of amazing read recipes that will help you actually fast track to turning those hacks into habits. And I'm going to send you a copy, Scott,

Scott Benner 1:30:05
Jesse, I feel like we're friends. Thank you, you know, I really like I don't like a lot of people come on, you know, and sometimes they're just like, I'm telling you, I'm amazing. No, no, I just, you know what it was that it felt like, it felt like you and I are on opposite sides of mirror saying the same thing, just for two different perspectives. Like I'm just talking about it around diabetes. And you should and so. Wow, it's just it's so interesting, because this whole sounds like this. I don't know how the system but I'm not blowing my own horn. But I figured this all out by myself. Yeah. And and I only figured it out, trust me, because it was for my daughter. Yep. And then once I had it, I used to write a blog. And the blog was popular. But then people stopped reading and I don't know what happened to all of you, but you don't like to read anymore. And so I was like, Well, how do I do this? I almost stopped. In 2014. I almost stopped writing my blog and just gave up. But I knew I was helping people. But they weren't reading anymore. And to tell you have weird story. I wrote a book about being a stay at home dad. And I found myself on a soundstage in New York being interviewed by Katie Couric. And when it was over, she grabbed me as I was walking away. And trust me, I was just excited to be there. Like I had had a car home. And I was like, Oh, I was so excited. And I'm just walking away. I'm a little jacked up. And she grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me around. And she said, You're very good at this. And I said, I don't know what you're talking about. And she said, talking to people she had there were like, 500 people here. There were other guests. She's like, you didn't feel it when the others were talking. They were just thinking, let that guy talk again. And and I said, Oh, I didn't know I said, I did feel that I had him one time I said something funny. And I watched everybody, like go like this. And it's a weird feeling. Like I felt like a magician for a second. And I said, Okay, thank you. I didn't know what to do with that. But about a year and a half later, when I started thinking like this blog is not going anywhere anymore. I thought, Oh, I wonder if I like Katie Couric did say I was good at talking to people. I was like, maybe I'll start a podcast. And then I got lucky. It was just the first diabetes podcast. So then I kind of was able to build on it. I learned to treat it like a business, not like a hobby. And only by that I mean, like, a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of content, no fluff, like that kind of stuff. And, and now like, I used to get like one or two letters a month from people. And they were like, Hey, your blog helps me. And now I get about like 20 or 30 a day. Oh, super cool. Like, and I think you might be like, in a position where you're doing the same thing? Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:32:53
And you know, it's interesting, because neither of us have diabetes. Yet, we became really fascinated by this topic for different reasons. And I think whatever we can do to help people understand their bodies more is just so incredible. And so I'm so happy that you were able to turn it into business. So you can actually keep doing it. And I'm so happy that and I get paid to do this and write books. So I can keep doing it too. Because it's so important. It's the

Scott Benner 1:33:17
part that sometimes people don't realize is that if I always tell them, like, Look, if the if the podcast didn't have ads, what you wouldn't have as a podcast, because I'd be working somewhere else to pay my bills. And so it's a real, it's just a real great moment in time, where there's actually access to technology that reaches people and a way that to make it viable for you to be a thing you do. You know, it's really lucky. I actually think it's going to push humanity forward and a lot of ways, much quicker than we could before people could pull their phone out of their pocket and listen to something amazing

Jessie Inchauspé 1:33:50
what we can learn these days yet most of us just look at cat videos on the internet, not me.

Scott Benner 1:33:57
I hear I'll tell you something. I opened up Tik Tok this morning to check up to put a post up and I just have my daughter's roommates in college, make videos for the podcast. And then I put them up, right. And I went to put one up, and I don't know what happened, what came up in front of me. But 15 minutes later, I found myself saying Scott, what are you doing? Like put the video up and get out of this app, like, you know,

Jessie Inchauspé 1:34:22
just pulls you in? It's so it's so good. So powerful. And so it's scary.

Scott Benner 1:34:26
It's funny, right? Because you either get something, it's like gambling. It's like a slot machine. It's like either get something you want, or you get something and you think oh, the next one will be better.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:34:36
Hey, and what's that molecule that happens? Dopamine. Yeah, brought

Scott Benner 1:34:40
it back around. Don't worry. I completed the circle. All right. You were really lovely. Thank you so much. Thank you Scott.

First, I'm going to thank ag one athletic greens.com forward slash juice box get a green drink that you can actually drink And of course, I'm the pod makers of the Omni pod dash, and the Omni pod five, get started find out more, all the things you need to do are doable at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. When you use my links, you are supporting the production of the show and keeping it free and plentiful. And last but not least, I want to thank Jessie, check out her new book, The glucose goddess method available right now on Amazon, or wherever you get your books. And Jesse is on the Instagram if you're looking for you want me to tell you where you would think I would have had this information prior to making this recording, but I did not. Instagram Jessie is at glucose goddess. It's that simple. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of my award winning podcast. It's not really an award winning podcast. You know why it's not an award winning podcast? Actually, this just came up the other day. You have a second? I mean, of course you do. Right? You just couldn't move to another podcast or clean the house or something. Go for a walk. You've got a minute. Somebody said to me recently, this podcast talking about different podcasts. They say it's an award winning podcast. And I said well, yeah, all you have to do to win an award is enter into some sort of contest and win it and there are many contests that no one enter into. So say you're the only Aardvark pruning, they prune aardvarks. No, let's try something else. Let's say you're the only sheep shearing podcast in the world. And you submit your sheep sharing podcast that no one else does. Then you win. And you're at our award winning podcast just like that. I don't need to win an award. I've already won my award. Do you know what it is? It's all of you. It's the great way that you embrace the show. Listen, download and share it with others. That's all the award I need. If you ever see that this is an award winning podcast. I got really desperate are really bored one day. Anyway, thanks again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. By the way, I wrote a book a long time ago it won an award. Do you know how it won an award? I publisher sent it out for Awards and won an award. I think it's like the mug here. This is embarrassing. Hold on. I'll find that for a second. Life is short. Laundry is eternal. Not a bad title. Award. Here it is. It won the hilarious but what it does, I don't want to give away the farm but it does that puts a big gold seal on the cover online. It's an award winning book, you know, assault both the 2013 Mom's Choice Award winner. Life is short laundry is eternal Confessions of a stay at home dad by Scott Benner an award winning book award winning podcast at the theater

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#901 Out and About and Full of Doubt

Amanda’s son has type 1 diabetes and she has rheumatic health issues and some other stuff going on.

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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 901 of the Juicebox Podcast

Welcome back, everybody today on the podcast I'll be speaking with Amanda. She is the mother of a child with type one diabetes. And I love the title of this episode. While you're listening to our conversation today, 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes and are a US resident, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, completing the survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox is incredibly valuable. T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Maybe take your 10 minutes to complete the survey. You're going to help diabetes Research type one diabetes research to move forward. Simple questions, simple answers, HIPAA compliant, absolutely anonymous. It will only take you 10 minutes. I think you're basically just sitting on your sofa right now anyway, touched by type one.org. Do me a favor, please complete the survey.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth, you can get the most comfortable and delightful sheets, towels, joggers, and more at cozy earth.com. And when you use the offer code juicebox at checkout, you will in fact save 35% on your entire order. Cozy earth.com juicebox at checkout, you're all done. The podcast is also sponsored today by Dexcom Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G seven and G six continuous glucose monitoring systems. My daughter just got her first delivery of the g7. And just about to embark on her new journey with her smaller, lighter, very accurate, continuous glucose monitor from Dexcom. You can to dexcom.com forward slash juice box.

Amanda 2:25
So I'm Amanda and I live in the east coast of Canada. And I have a son Boyd who was diagnosed July 9 last year.

Scott Benner 2:36
Okay, so let me make sure I understand Boyd is how old nine.

Amanda 2:41
Yes. So he he was just about to turn eight when he was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 2:46
Okay, urine a month ago, 13 months ago, you already said a bit. So that's great. You don't know you did it. But I appreciate your about that was very Canadian. And we're well on our way. Okay. So you have a lot to talk about. I think

Amanda 3:03
I have a very lengthy story. Do you

Scott Benner 3:07
want to? Do you want to start with your story? Or do you want to talk for a little bit and get to your story?

Amanda 3:12
Whichever, wherever you want me to start? Interesting. Okay. Well,

Scott Benner 3:15
let me make sure I understand the backing of the story. So any other kids?

Amanda 3:22
Yeah, I have a daughter, Nora, and she just turned 14. Okay, married, not married. Married my husband Ryan. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:32
Daughter's 14. Any other autoimmune stuff? Oh, yeah, we

Unknown Speaker 3:38
have a lot.

Scott Benner 3:40
At ease with the kids.

Amanda 3:43
I know. This is the first with the kids, but I've battled with different things since I was probably 15 years old. Okay, how old are you know? I am 42.

Scott Benner 3:55
All right. What was your first thing? Well, when

Amanda 3:58
I was about 15, I started with joint pain. And it just got worse and worse. And they diagnosed me with juvenile arthritis. Okay. And I was medicated for that. And it was pretty bad. I had to stop school for a semester. And we did get into remission and I didn't really have a lot of problems until I had Nora on my daughter. And then it was about a year after I had her that I had started having symptoms and stuff again.

Scott Benner 4:40
So the joint pain came back after you gave birth. Yeah.

Amanda 4:43
And they say that that can happen with rheumatoid arthritis. That it causes like a flare up after you have children's so I did go back to my doctor that because I wasn't on any medication or anything for years. And it did take them a while to get me in. And eventually, I did get into a rheumatologist again, and they started me on Plaquenil is what I was taking. Are you Yeah, after

Scott Benner 5:14
her birth? Can I? Yeah, back when you were a kid, what did they give you?

Amanda 5:19
It was the same thing. Plaquenil and then just

Unknown Speaker 5:23
pay like,

Amanda 5:26
went away. And then I stopped taking the medication. I was good through my 20s and stuff.

Scott Benner 5:32
Okay, so you took that? I'm sorry, I think you might have like, flipped out for a second. So you took the plaque when I was a kid for how long?

Amanda 5:42
It was probably about maybe a year or so.

Scott Benner 5:46
And then you stopped taking it because the pain disappeared?

Amanda 5:49
Yeah, I just I thought I first tried to go off it and, and it did come back. And so I stayed on it for I can't even remember how much longer and then went off it again. Months later, maybe? And then it didn't bother me again, like, in my 20s at all, really?

Scott Benner 6:12
And is that your diagnosis of Ra.

Amanda 6:15
Um, they did. When I went back to the doctor, they did more testing, I didn't have a lot of, they've always told me I don't have a lot of inflammation markers. But I did test positive for anti CCP, which is a big marker for rheumatoid arthritis. So that's basically what they diagnosed me with. And then it did go on to like chronic fatigue. And I also got a diagnosis of fibromyalgia as well.

Scott Benner 6:50
Are those is that the, the full host of your issues? Or is there more?

Amanda 6:56
Well, ADHD and anxiety, a little bit of that as well.

Scott Benner 7:00
Okay, so and then I did make a list now. ADHD, I'm going to get out of my anxiety, ra, Fibro. And you said something else, fatigue,

Amanda 7:15
chronic fatigue. Now, when after I had, I did get in pretty good health before I had my son, so there's five years between the two of them. And I was off all medication had my son and then it started up within a few months, I started having joint pain again. And until he was probably I think it was three, like I had a lot of pain issues and back and headaches and stuff. And I ended up for I had my son, I started with a lot of pain and stuff again, within a couple of months. And it just got worse and worse until he was about three and I had a lot of back pain and headaches and like pain down my legs and joint pain. And I my mom was talking to somebody, a relative who had Lyme disease. And she thought, Wow, this sounds a lot like Amanda. So she had told me about it. And then I got in touch with like our local support group. And they put me in touch with a doctor in Maine and he had blood work done on me and I did have some markers that showed that I had exposure to Lyme bacteria. But it's very, like things are very different in Canada. They don't do a lot of testing for it. And a lot of doctors are skeptical about Lyme disease. But I did end up going to him in Maine so I traveled down every three months or so and see him and he gave well he he's probably the only doctor that really actually helped me because at the point when I went to visit him I couldn't even sit in the car like it was it was like four hour drive and I would have so much pain by the time I got there like just my back and the back of my head and stuff and I was in pretty rough shape.

Scott Benner 9:34
So he What do you do for you?

Amanda 9:37
Well, he he treated me for a lot of different things the symptoms like he said so he he's the only doctor that really actually helped me like I remember spending at least four or five hours in the office with him just talking about like the different symptoms and he tested for so many different things that they wouldn't test here in my city. So he thought that I probably had exposure to the Lyme bacteria when I was a teenager. And that's what cause the flare that I had so and then it just kind of goes into remission. But then when your body gets exhausted and tired or stressed, it can flare up and trigger other things to happen. So, I mean, he treated me with some of the same medications and some let me think like any depressants like that for pain as well. And I did do some rounds of antibiotics. And, and that was like injectable antibiotics. And it seems I don't know if it's just a fluke or

Speaker 3 10:59
what, but after that, I did start to get better.

Amanda 11:04
And I was probably at the best I had ever been, just before my son got diagnosed,

Scott Benner 11:11
did his diabetes, the stress of his diagnosis, put you back into an issue, are you okay? Now? You're pretty tired. I might just be diabetes, but I hear what you're saying. So. So diabetes is no secret, not easy to deal with. But Dexcom makes it much, much easier. Being able to see your blood sugar or a loved one's blood sugar in real time is a gift that I don't know that I can quantify. But right now I can see my daughter's blood sugar, and she is 700 miles away from me. I can see the number. I can see the direction it's moving if it's moving, and I can see how fast it's moving. Arden just had a meal. Her blood sugar's elevated right now around 150. And I'm watching it come down. It's happening the way I expected to happen. This is just the greatest comfort to us. And a huge help for her while she's away at college, and managing her own blood sugar. This can be the same for you as an adult, or as the caregiver of someone my daughter's age, or even younger. The speed direction and number at your fingertips right on your iPhone or your Android phone. It's just me, you should just get it dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. It's hard to sell something that, in my opinion is so obvious, right? It doesn't need a sale. I think you just need the PE dexcom.com forward slash juice box, go get it if you can. It's amazing. Seriously, seriously. I don't know. It doesn't require selling, it requires education. Just understanding what it can do for you like seeing in real time right in front of your face in a way that's understandable and easy to digest. I ate something or my kid ate something and I'm watching the blood sugar. I see what happens. I see what happens when I put the insulin in here versus when I put it in over here. I see it and then I can make decisions about it. I can fix it or do it better. dexcom.com forward slash juicebox please take my advice and check it out. While you're out buying things, get yourself some super comfy cozy sheets or towels or sweatpants or scrunchies or so much socks cozy Earth has it all cozy earth.com Premium stuff. I'm not kidding you. Super soft, super like washable and resilient. You're going to love it. I have the sheets in the viscose bamboo. I have some joggers, a sweatshirt and the viscose bamboo. I've got some towels coming. You can't go wrong with quality. And you can't go wrong with comfort. I mean, especially coming out of the shower, like all your bits are available. Should be nice to them. You don't I mean, and when you're sleeping. Oh my goodness, what are you gonna be hot and sweaty while you're sleeping? No, no one wants that cozy earth.com Now here's the thing. You go there, you get whatever you want. You put it in the cart. And then when you check out juice box is the offer code that saves you 35% On your order. I'm telling you 35% That's a lot. That leaves you only paying for 65% of it. Which is that right? 65 Dammit. I might have got that wrong. Give me a second 6535 and I take the five and the five and make it a zero then I put a one over here. So I get a zero, a six three and a one six plus three is nine was 110 Yep, that's right. Cozy earth.com use the offer code checkout to save 35% off your entire order. My math is rock solid

Amanda 15:24
Oh, I'm pretty tired.

Scott Benner 15:26
It's hard. I might just be diabetes, but I hear what you're saying. So yeah, so So for all your stuff. Basically, they gave you kind of high impact antibiotics. They gave you an SSRI for the pain.

Amanda 15:44
Yeah, and I was on neuropathy medication as well, because I had a lot of like, just weird sensations and tingling and pains in my legs and arms. But the doctors Hiro is just stuck with like, it's the rheumatoid arthritis, but they never did. Like I love my doctors here. And they're great, but they just never seem like they really listened. And I always felt like I almost like they thought I was making things up, which happens

Scott Benner 16:15
a lot. Did they tell you just to go have a Molson and take a brisk walk? And you'd be okay. Pretty much. Yeah. Amanda, if you can just get through this a little longer. Yeah, I appreciate you're about still they're really coming fast and furiously. I'm enjoying them very much. It's a good time. Okay, so you, that all happen to you. That's terrible. So in your heart, do you think you have autoimmune stuff? Or do you think you have autoimmune stuff that was kind of kicked into gear by a tick bite? Or do you not even know how to think about it?

Amanda 16:51
I don't even really know. I'm not sure if I have rheumatoid arthritis. I've said that to my doctor. And she's like, No, you're you were positive for the anti CCP. And that's America. And but I don't know if maybe lupus or because that's in my family as well.

Scott Benner 17:13
You have people in your family line that have lupus.

Amanda 17:16
Yeah, yeah, I do. And I do have an aunt on my dad's side who she experienced joint pain and like when she was younger as well, kind of kind of the same thing as me. But I have like on my mom's side, there's a couple of them that had lupus as well. And my sister my niece, they have different joint issues and problems too. But I also have thyroid issues in the family as well.

Scott Benner 17:47
Does any do any of your issues impact your digestion?

Amanda 17:53
My stomach bothers me some I did. That's one of the things that the doctor in Maine helped me with I get on like a gluten free. So I do I eat gluten some just more like if we're out somewheres but and I don't eat dairy. And I eat lower sugar. Unless I'm having treats.

Scott Benner 18:19
Okay. All right. So before we move on, just can you say Out and About for me? Out and About. Thank you. That's so amazing. Thank you so much. Because you don't know what you sound like when you say it. But it's delightful to me. Oh, great. You'd like out and about that fantastic. Thank you made my whole day. Okay, so your son's diagnosed with type one. Is there any other type one in your family line?

Amanda 18:50
Yes, my dad actually was type.

Scott Benner 18:55
Campbell believe you broke up again. Damn it.

Amanda 18:59
And also two adult children. They're adults now. But they would be my cousin's kids. So they're in the same generation line as my son were diagnosed when they were about the same age nine. I think

Scott Benner 19:15
I'm gonna stop you for a second because you started telling me that your dad had type one. I lost you again. So here's what I'm gonna do.

Hey, hi. Hi. Good. All right. Let's cross our fingers that that did something.

Amanda 19:33
Okay, you're way louder now because I got my husband's headset.

Scott Benner 19:37
Oh, you sound much better too, by the way. Yeah.

Amanda 19:40
It's playstation one so.

Scott Benner 19:43
Well, okay, so we're back. We did a little bit of updating to some software. And I asked you if there was any type one in your family and you said yes, my dad and then I

Amanda 19:53
lost you. Okay. Do you want to know but my dad,

Scott Benner 19:57
I want to know about everything you were saying when I couldn't hear you. Okay, yes. So

Amanda 20:01
my dad was diagnosed as an adult, probably in his 30s, I think. And he also are my cousins. on his side of the families. There's two children in the same generation line as my son Boyd. And they were also diagnosed when they were about the same age.

Scott Benner 20:24
Okay. So your father and two other relatives on your dad's side who are your son's age? Yeah. Okay. So that's for now. All right, and you said there's thyroid in the family, too? Who's got that?

Amanda 20:41
Um, I believe that I probably do. I did. That's one thing that I was tested for when I was in the States, and they haven't done any testing here, but I did take like a low dose dose of the Synthroid. For some time. I have my bloodwork stuff out, in case you ask,

Scott Benner 21:04
Are you not taking it now?

Amanda 21:06
No, I'm not.

Scott Benner 21:08
I didn't Well, you're tired.

Amanda 21:10
I'm not sure. I wanted them to test me again here. Before I tried it again. But I did. I don't know if it was too much. Because I was like, sweaty a lot. And just like, I felt like it was too much.

Scott Benner 21:27
Or taking too much. Probably. Yeah, yeah. So you how much do you remember how much you were taking?

Amanda 21:34
It was only 25. Okay, milligrams. Yeah.

Scott Benner 21:38
Were you losing weight?

Amanda 21:40
Uh, no, I was quite heavy at that time. Just because I was also taking something else that was making me gain weight.

Scott Benner 21:49
I wasn't sure if you were hyper maybe like, if you had hyper, if you had taken so much Synthroid that you were too low. Your TSH was too low. That's what I was trying to figure out.

Amanda 21:58
Something like that might, uh, went on, I was looking at my blood work. And the last one that was 2021. My TSH was low. And my T four was

Scott Benner 22:13
up. What was your TSH?

Amanda 22:17
Do they measure it different between Canada? And

Scott Benner 22:20
I don't know you're about to find out. It should be like about like a one to 10 scale.

Amanda 22:24
Yeah. Now secure. You're gonna hear my papers probably.

So point

Scott Benner 22:40
two, six. Yeah. So little high.

Amanda 22:44
And then at that time, because that was in April 21. Oh,

Scott Benner 22:48
wait, two? Not two. Point. 6.26. Yeah, that's what it says. Alright, so

Amanda 22:55
then my T four was 15.9.

Scott Benner 23:03
So your idea now is to go get more blood work done. But are you having trouble getting someone to do it for you?

Amanda 23:09
No, I could probably my family doctor would probably do it. I procrastinate a lot, because I'm so busy with everybody else's issues.

Scott Benner 23:20
Well, take a day and do that for yourself.

Amanda 23:22
Yeah, my grandmother. She has like my mom's mom. She's always had thyroid issues.

Scott Benner 23:29
Okay. So do they medicate for it? Yeah, she takes them through it as well. Your mom's mom's alive, though. Yeah, she's

Amanda 23:37

97. Jesus.

Scott Benner 23:40
That's really old. Yeah, she's

Amanda 23:43
a happy little one now.

Scott Benner 23:46
Probably the cold keeps her going. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Okay. Well, what was Pope was the What led you to believing that your son needed to go to the doctor before his diagnosis?

Amanda 24:04
Well, I always like it's funny, because I always had like this thought like, Oh, what if one of my kids have diabetes, like my dad did. And so I always had it in the back of my mind, and I always watched for it, but I never realized how much I didn't know about it and like, not know what to look for. Now, Boyd has always been a very fussy little guy ever since he was a baby. And I always felt like something was off with him. Like, even when he was an infant, like he had like, sores in his mouth. And I took him to the doctor. I took them to like our dentist, they sent him to an oral surgeon to have a look in his mouth at these sores, canker sores, and they never ever could give me any answer. And I kept saying like They come and they go, and they come and they go. And then eventually, when he was probably over one, we didn't really see many of them. But he was always tired, and just irritable and could never keep up with the other kids. And, and I, one thing why I wanted to be on the show is because I, when I first found the podcast, I listened to some ladies, I tried to find the episode that it was and it was about someone who had a lot of regret and stuff about not seeing the signs and stuff like that. So that's one reason why I wanted to come on because I, I really didn't see what was right in front of me. And I could have took him to the doctor. And I had, I had a hard time with the doctors because I was wrong with me or the kids. So I put it off. And at the end of his, I guess 2021 school year, he was drinking a lot of water. And we just thought that maybe it was hot out and stuff like that. And he was very irritable for a couple of weeks, and I reached out to his old kindergarten teacher. Because I had, I had urine analysis test strips that I had for myself, and I just got him to pee in a cup one day and the glucose on it was like at the highest it could be on the test strip, and the ketones were on the highest as well. So I reached out to her because I knew her son was diabetic. And I just had this weird feeling that something was going on with him and and when I did the urinalysis test strips,

did you get that part? Yeah. That they were at the highest

marker on them, right. So I went and got a meter at the drugstore. And did a test on him without him knowing because he's pretty high anxiety. So he would never let me prick his finger anything. And it said 33 over 33 Actually it said. So she encouraged me like to take them to the hospital. And I was still questioning like, should I take them up there? It's like, during the middle of COVID. Maybe it's not really this and I guess I just it was hard to believe that it could possibly be diabetes, like my dad,

Scott Benner 27:47
even though that's something you worried about? Yeah. Which is funny.

Amanda 27:50
So. So we ended up taking him and it was it was late at night he had fallen asleep. And we took him and he I mean again he couldn't they couldn't even read his blood glucose. It was so high. It just said high on the meter. And they admitted him like right away and started on IVs. And they had to give him Ativan to calm him down because he was so hysterical. And yeah, so he was in DKA. His a one C at that time was I think it was 12.7. So he was a sick little

Scott Benner 28:36
boy. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to talk him, obviously.

Amanda 28:39
Me too. And I thank her like, every day I send her updates all the time. Because she basically, she saved him because I would I think I would have kept doubting that. I don't know why. Because I'm usually very, like, notice everything that's going on. But maybe I was in denial that it could actually be something serious.

Scott Benner 29:06
No, I understand. And so now you're kind of torturing yourself over that still a year later.

Unknown Speaker 29:12
Yeah, I still do. I

Amanda 29:15
I think about it a lot. But I can I remind myself that, like I didn't really know. And he's okay, so yeah, it's still hard. No, I

Scott Benner 29:27
understand. But there was really no way to know. I also think I might name this episode out and about full of doubt.

Amanda 29:35
That's awesome. I'm definitely full of doubt all the time.

Scott Benner 29:42
Well, I mean, you're you're past that now, though. I mean, I don't know what you do to let go of it. All I can tell you is that most of the people I've spoken to in your situation, feel it in the beginning and it lessens over time.

Amanda 29:55
Yeah, and I know I remember. I don't even know how I stumbled upon the podcast, I just seen something and then went to it and started listening. And I just remember standing like crying, because I couldn't believe that there were other parents that felt the same way. Like I thought I was the only one that felt like that.

Scott Benner 30:16
Do you have a real like, conscious thought? Like I'm alone in this? Or is it just a feeling like when somebody says, I found community, I realized other people felt like me, I thought I was the only one who felt like this. Did you? Did you really think that? Did you really have like a conscious thought? Like, I'm by myself? No one else knows how I feel? Or is it just a? Is it just a feeling? Or an Express?

Amanda 30:43
No, I really did. I did. I guess I I didn't know that. So many people would feel the guilt that I felt for not seeing and letting it go on for so long. Kind of thing.

Scott Benner 31:00
Sort of this expectation that everybody's better at something than you are? Yeah, I probably think like that a lot. Yeah, that's probably not true, by the way.

Amanda 31:10
But I I know, I'm good at this. It's taken a while but like, I've surprised myself in like his management. I know I can be really good at it. And I'm learning a lot and I've put everything into it. But I probably wouldn't be where I was if it wasn't for you in the podcast and the whole

Unknown Speaker 31:35
Facebook group.

Scott Benner 31:37
Yeah. You got into that very quickly after diagnosis into the Facebook group. Yeah,

Amanda 31:40
it was September. So and I asked a lot of questions. I was like, Oh, my word people are gonna be so annoyed with me. But there were so many people like strangers that were willing to help out and give advice. Like, I probably sometimes put on three questions a day just to get this support and see what other people were thinking and, and know that I was kind of like on the right track.

Scott Benner 32:09
I'm scrolling through your posts right now.

Amanda 32:13
Oh, no.

Scott Benner 32:14
I'm just like scrolling. They're, they're limitless. I feel like I feel like my fingers gonna get a cramp. If I keep scrolling. You probably will. I don't know if I should be happy. I mean, Amanda. Yes. Sorry. You disappeared again. But sorry, I have no idea what's going on. It's like the last couple of days this is happening. It's not my setup, but might be the internet. Maybe everybody's home from school using the internet and they should stop and go back to what they're supposed to be doing. So I can make my podcast plus your what do you do probably like on like, the tip of an iceberg or something like that. Wherever you live, right? Sorta, yeah. Are you really know? Maybe like, right in the middle of Toronto or so?

Amanda 32:59
No, no, definitely not. Oh, yeah. Those people who? Um, braid on the river,

Scott Benner 33:04
so nice. Well, anyway, so you posted a ton. And as you're thinking, like, Oh, I hope people aren't bothered by this. What I privately think is, this is terrific. Because your questions, got conversations moving.

Amanda 33:25
Yeah. And I did notice that like, and some, they would lead to different conversations between other people in the threads. And then I was able to learn more just from them changing the topic to something a little bit different.

Scott Benner 33:43
Yeah, I had a person one time put a post up. It only happened once. They said, this group is full of information, you should do a search and stop asking questions over and over again. I message that person I was like, Hey, stop it. Like was like you fundamentally misunderstand what this group is. It's not a encyclopedia. Like like people who think that Facebook groups are already have all the answers. So just go find them. That's a quick way to kill a Facebook group.

Amanda 34:13
Yeah, it's, I mean, every day there's a different topic and different people's lives, like what they're going through. And it's you pick something from it. Yeah. And I was really embarrassed at first to share because I'm not like, like, my Facebook page is just like silent. There's nothing on there. But like to open up and share and ask the questions was like, like, I was really nervous about that. But at one point, I was like, You know what, it's for my son. I'm gonna do this and, and it's helped like so much. So I always post whenever there's people like new people always say like, listen to the all the episodes and ask questions.

Scott Benner 35:00
Yeah, it's very, very helpful. It's not just helpful for them. It's helpful for the, for the group to, like, I can't if if I made it my life's work to just manage that Facebook group. Just me. I'd never do anything else. No, probably not. Yeah, average of, I think it's right now 80 to 110 posts a day. That's crazy.

Amanda 35:22
Yeah. And 75 of them are probably mine.

Scott Benner 35:28
And I don't, I'm not even aware that groups at the point now if people tag me, it's even a crapshoot of I'll see it.

Amanda 35:38
But you're there, you're involved. And it's like, really something to see. Like, you comment to things like, because you're taking your time to do that. And you don't see that and a lot of groups and stuff. I'll tell

Scott Benner 35:51
you, there are moments. Like last night, I was sitting here, headphones on editing a show. So listening to a show with with a mouse and a keyboard to my left in case I needed to do something to that. On my right. I was building a web page for content that's gonna go up in a couple of days. And I was talking to people on Facebook saying,

Amanda 36:17
Oh, my goodness, I was like,

Scott Benner 36:20
and then if you go downstairs and ask my wife, oh, don't talk to him while he's doing something. He can't do two things at once. And I'm always like, Yeah, okay. But anyway, it's important, like the group is important. What it does for people is important, and the way it works. Is, is is valuable. If you come on, you don't know, you ask a question. Somebody hopefully steps in and says, Well, let me ask you another question. See if we can get to your problem, or some people will come in with advice. And every once in a while, they're still, you know, there's something happened the other day where I just felt like, there was a moment where I was like, there's like, 20 crazy people in here. If I could just make them leave, this would be better. But yeah, but at the same time, I'm like, It's okay. Like, they were in their own thread. Being crazy. And I was like, yeah, good for them. Like get any like somebody, like, you know, people can report posts. Yes, someone reported it. And it caused me to go read through it. And I thought, Oh, this doesn't matter. Like, let them let them be get an amen. Like they're, they're having their own conversation about something like do I think they're right? I don't do I think they have conspiracy theory issues and should speak to somebody? I do. But it didn't bleed out into the rest of the group. And that just means that there's 109 other posts that day that somebody else can do. And I know it can sound overwhelming, like, wow, there's that many. But it doesn't work that way, the algorithm does a surprisingly good job of pushing down posts that don't find engagement. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's not that people don't get their questions answered. They just don't end up in posts that are like 30 Answers long. If somebody comes in says, you know, asks a question. Next person's like, oh, yeah, this this, this, the other person says, Thank you, and it kind of dies. You know what I mean? But that person still got their, their question answered. So I don't see a better way to do it at this point in time, but the way technology is set up right now, I can't believe I'm saying it. But Facebook groups are perfect for this. So yeah, it's great.

Amanda 38:37
It's, it's my go to for everything. If I have any questions, I'm like, Ah, I'm gonna ask my group. And then they all laugh at me and then gets funny.

Scott Benner 38:47
Well, do you get your answers? Yes, I do. Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. Perfect. And look how you threw yourself into all this for your son. And you really did. So tell people a little bit about like, what the journey has been like, for the first year understanding diabetes?

Amanda 39:02
Um, well, when they told me that he had type one. Like, I was like, Oh my gosh, what? Like, what am I gonna do? He's a picky eater. Like, he doesn't he only has like, 10 things he likes to eat. And just I had even though my dad was type one, I had no idea what it was actually. Like. And we just, I don't even know I just came home and and his blood sugar's were I mean, crazy. In the beginning, I have a book that I looked back and that first little while was just like, above 10 all the time. And, and you can see when I pull up my clarity and stuff, when I started listening to you, and learning more, and there was at some point that I just like I wasn't getting anything for In our local clinic, the group and the podcast was where it was going to learn everything I needed to know. Now Boyd does have a lot of anxiety over pretty much everything. So that was really hard for him. He liked the injections. It was just like crying. Every time he would avoid treats like, because he didn't want to have any more injections than he needed to have. And through the group, I did find one lady had mentioned to me about the Medtronic. They i Poor report. Yeah. Have you ever seen one of those little things? See the picture of it? Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, I'm gonna order that and try it out. So I put them on. Oh, he everything he has on him all his devices we do when he's sleeping. Because he wants nothing to do with it when he's awake. So the decks calm. Whenever we have our Dexcom change night we do it once he falls asleep. He never wakes up sleeps through the whole thing. We do. We did the eye ports that way as well. And he he had said that we made this video one time, I think I sent it to you. I don't know if you've seen it. But we were just sitting at the table. And he was he was like, Can I have a chocolate bar from his Halloween treats. And I was like, Sure, we could just give you the extra insulin for and he had his eye port. So as we were sitting there, he said, you know, my eye port almost makes my life like normal again. Because he didn't have to experience the pain of having the injections. So anything that I could do to make it easier for him. I'm gonna do it. And I'm gonna find a way if there's a way he doesn't like things or bothers him, I'm gonna find a better way to make it more comfortable for him and the eye ports. I highly recommend those. Anyway, great.

Scott Benner 42:04
Is he still using MBR? Now?

Amanda 42:08
No, we're on Omni pod now. Oh, okay. He's been on that since early May.

Scott Benner 42:16
And he's okay with insertion. But it has to happen when he's asleep.

Amanda 42:20
Well, see, I he started with the Omni pod asleep. And we told him you know, it does fail sometimes. So you'll have to do it in the day. The first ones in the clinic, he did do it. And he said it wasn't too bad. But he preferred it when he was sleeping. But the last probably two months, we've had to do Dexcom in the day. And he's doing it awake. He prefers that, like when he's sleeping. But he does do it. And the Omni pod if we need to do that earlier, something he'll do that when he's awake too. So I feel like that I just gave him his own time to get used to, you know, this big

Scott Benner 43:04
life change. And he's making progress now. Yeah, he is he's doing

Amanda 43:08
it all on his own. And

Scott Benner 43:12
that's excellent. Good for him. That's really great. Plus, I mean, how you can't keep that going forever with the sleeping thing. Also, I'm impressed that he can sleep through.

Amanda 43:22
He doesn't but jumped on you if there was some nights we would have to do like Dexcom and Omni pod it would fall on the same night. And we do both of them and he'd stay sound asleep. The whole time.

Scott Benner 43:35
I was making myself laugh while you're talking. I was thinking like what happens if at four in the afternoon, you need to change something? Does he run over on the sofa? Lay down and go to sleep real quick. So

Amanda 43:43
no.

Scott Benner 43:46
But that's really great. I mean, that's terrific. It's in his time you took care of it? Do you really think it was the people say anxiety a lot, especially lately? But do you think it will it's real, like clinical anxiety? Just think it was a nine year old kid was like I really prefer if you didn't stick that needle in me?

Amanda 44:03
No, I think I mean, he's had a history of it with before diabetes, he's just always been anxious and afraid of things and, and scared of new things. And just it's just like that form but it's all once we've get over this hump of like this big life change because you know, he now he used to say like he hated his life and diabetes ruined his life and and you might as well die. He would say he has to have diabetes, and I can't even remember the last time he said that. Like, like he's happy now and he he'll joke about it some and I love insulin. I don't take it all die also. But like he's happy because I think it's because I let him adjust to the new lifestyle on his own. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:02
no, it sounds like he did a really good job, honestly. And you're understanding the diabetes on top of that, like, what's his agency now?

Amanda 45:10
Well, we haven't had an official lab, a one C done. Because of COVID. It was

Scott Benner 45:17
an iceberg. Just stick with the Joe command. Right. And it's too hard to you know, get the dogs together and go all the way to Maine to get your blood test. So okay, now that my sledding dog right, of course, so and what are you going to feed them? They're hungry, and if you they run, they need more food and exactly busy. So but But what are you getting off of clarity?

Amanda 45:42
Yeah, and I did have one done, you can do the meter when like at the drugstores so at his six months, he was five, nine. Wow. And we're actually next week, he's gonna have the lab a one C DME, but still on Claire.

Scott Benner 46:02
We were doing so good. And say it again on clarity he was.

Amanda 46:09
He's still five nine on clarity. Wow. But it was it was up to. But did you ever notice that in? When you look at the summary unclarity of the A one C and then you look in the AGP. Part of it, it's different.

Scott Benner 46:26
Can I be honest? That's what this is. Right? I don't look at those apps very much anymore. Artists, a one C is about where I expect it to be. If we're doing great, it's 56789. If we're doing terrible, it's 6123. Like in there? Well, not three, usually six to eight. And I just don't I just trust that it's going to work out the way I expect it to because it just does.

Amanda 46:57
Yeah. And I honestly, I'm kind of like that as well. They won't see doesn't really, like it means something to me. But it doesn't because I see what happens every day for him. And I see like, I like looking at the standard deviation. If I can keep that tighter that he's not bouncing up and down all over the place. I'm more happy with that. Yeah. Now with the clarity, like, I kind of lost control after we started on the Omni pods. So maybe a little bit before that. And it did say 6.5. But I've noticed, like, in the last months, like I'm getting more control. And I've also find when like there's, I mean, there's your way of management. And then there's the doctors way of management, right. So every time I go, it's like, I get a lot of fear. They put a lot of fear in me of lows, and and I feel like I'm doing something wrong by trying to keep him in such tight control. But when he is in better control, when at better numbers, I can see that he feels better, right? Yeah, I'm not gonna, I just can't do that. I feel like it's my job as mother, right? So I'm not just gonna let him bounce all around. So I kind of get afraid of the insulin for a little while. And I feel like I'm back on track now. And I'm being more aggressive and things are, like doing a lot better. Just in the last month. When you

Scott Benner 48:43
move from MDI, you had you had a way of doing things. You move to a pump, you had to adjust. And now you're figuring that out. Right?

Amanda 48:50
Yeah. And I'm in a good place. And I'm actually I've built the loop app. Okay. So I'm dabbling in that now. But again, it's something new, so it makes me nervous. But I really want to do it. And I've built the app, and I am just waiting for my orange link because I got an emo link and it was It wasn't really working. Right. So I've had to send that back to Robert. And he's gonna look at it for me.

Scott Benner 49:26
I just bought I just bought another orange like the other day.

Amanda 49:29
Yeah. And I was like, I need to anyway, so I'm gonna get the orange link and try that and it should arrive tomorrow or the next day. But it was amazing. Like the little bit I did try it to see what it could do for him. So right now I've been kind of acting like the algorithm myself just from seeing it for only a few days.

Scott Benner 49:51
Isn't it watching watching the algorithm works. You're like, Okay, I see. Like I see or you see I see where more is needed and where less is needed and How much yeah, it is to make decisions when you've, when you've seen it happen when you've seen that algorithm do stuff. You're like, oh, I never would have thought to put insulin here. That's a great Yeah,

Amanda 50:08
yeah. And take it away. I've been doing like Temp Basal Slyke off and stuff. And I've stopped lows. Like, when I knew it was gonna keep going down. Oh, for sure. And it's worked really good. But my my problem is, well, the basil, I'm always questioning the basil, I can't seem to figure that out. And I know I heard you say once that Arden has more basil in the daytime. So I'm wondering if Boyd needs that because I can, like he's only at point two right now. For basil like his, his insulin needs are very low. Like, it's usually be at between 10 and I think 14 units a day. But that's just because we've been having summer treats and extra food. Yeah. So I can leave him if he's gaming, and sometimes till 11 In the morning, but I'll just leave him alone. And he can stay up point to that whole morning and not need anything and be like in the low fives. And then yeah, and but then as soon as he has breakfast. And then Breakfast has been really good lately. Like I think I he only went up to he didn't even really have he went to 6.9 at breakfast, and then stayed up there for a bit and I had to give him a little more. But then lunchtime. And then after lunchtime till bedtime is like the big problem. He just he stays up.

Scott Benner 52:03
Lunchtime. And what happens if you get more aggressive with it? Well, oh, later.

Amanda 52:08
Yeah. But I can't figure it's really hard. What I find to figure out is all the variables that you have to deal with with a child, especially with the activity, because if I don't give them enough insulin, which I've increased or decreased, I guess his his carb ratio, and it will work. But as soon as he starts playing and stuff, he drops right down.

Scott Benner 52:34
Right? So so that is strong enough. If he's, if he's sitting around, it's perfect. And once he becomes active, there's too much insulin there.

Amanda 52:43
Yeah. So which way do I go? Like, I just, I find it very confusing to figure out that like, but in the last week or so I have been, I've been trying the stronger like insulin at lunch. And it's almost like he is taking double the amount if he just sits around, he needs double the amount of insulin. And he, like he'll stay pretty good, like the breakfast there. And I'll keep it at the strongest or stronger insulin. And then if he's gonna do activity or play with a friend, I will judge it on that and take it away. Is that what people usually do? Do you know what I mean? Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:32
yeah, sure. You do like a Temp Basal decrease over, you know, before the activity and maybe during the first two thirds of it or something like that.

Amanda 53:40
So what because I asked a question in the group there just the other day about, like, when is your carb ratio supposed to work? Is it supposed to work? If they're just sitting still? Is that?

Scott Benner 53:58
The answer is that if they're just sitting still, then maybe there's one ratio. And if they're moving around, there's another? And you just have to maybe be aware of that or shoot the middle? Yeah. And, you know, make up for it on either side. Deal with a with more or less, depending on?

Amanda 54:16
Yeah, and I think that's kind of just clicked recently that maybe I should be more aggressive. And work back like that if I need to.

Scott Benner 54:25
Well, 13 months in Amanda. You're doing great. So thank you. Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't beat yourself up about it. Just I mean, it's a what do they say? It's a marathon, not a sprint. Right. So,

Amanda 54:38
oh, it's so much more like I'd never realized what my dad went through or anyone that has type one or a child with type one and a lot of people they, they just they don't understand that it just never stops. Like it's every minute every time Everything he does if he games if he gets upset if he walks the dog, like, every little thing affects his blood sugar.

Scott Benner 55:08
Yeah, it's funny. It's you know what it is, it's um, everything in life is that way, except there are things you can ignore. And or put off till later, right? And diabetes ends up not being one of those things that you can just say like, ah, you know what, I won't pay, like, you know, you get into a fight with like your neighbor, and you walk back in the house you go, I'm not gonna think about that anymore. I mean, they still hate you. And, but it doesn't really impact you in the moment, because you're back in your house. But, you know, when you're doing diabetes, you know, ignoring it, it's funny, right? Because the The goal is not to be paying attention to it constantly. Yeah, the goal is to find stability that exists on its own doesn't need your input a ton. But if you do ignore it, people ignore it on the high side, because they don't want to get low. And then before you know it, you've been in your house for six months, you haven't talked to your neighbor, and you're a one sees eight and a half or nine. And, you know, you've you've done a real disservice to your health at that point. So

Amanda 56:12
yeah, and I'm probably I fear that a lot because my dad isn't with us anymore. He, my dad was great. He was a great dad fun. But he did live, like quite a hard life. He was a truck driver, and he drank and smoked. And and that doesn't really work. Well, type one. So he did have a heart attack and asleep when he was humbled was a 51. Wow, that Moore's around there. But now, the more I have learned, like, I know that it wasn't just the heart attack. I know it was the complications from poor management,

Scott Benner 57:04
and diabetes probably caused the heart attack.

Amanda 57:07
It did. And nobody knew that. And I didn't realize that till I learned so much more like about it, because I know, there was lots of times that we thought that he was just like, on the couch sleeping, but he was probably near diabetic coma or something like he just was all over the place. Yeah. No, it was in their 80s and 90s. So I mean, you didn't? He didn't know in a small town and

Scott Benner 57:39
plus Canada. You know, I'm saying, yeah, no, you have to go all the way to Maine to find out if you have Lyme. Come on Canada do better. Terrible, really bad. You know, I don't want to share somebody's details. But I know a Canadian who's having trouble getting some simple health care right now. It makes me angry. So now

Amanda 57:58
it's different. Yes.

Scott Benner 57:59
Yeah. Well, there's a triage system. Yes, yeah. You call your doctor, you're like, hey, I cut my finger off. Oh, come right in. That's fine. You call your doctor and you say, my finger really hurts. I think it's gonna fall off again. It's fine. You come in about four months? Yeah. So it's and I don't think that the person with a cut off fingers shouldn't get quick treatment. I don't understand why everybody else keeps getting, like why does the system not account for the fact that there are some people in emergency situations, and some people were trying to improve their lives? And we could see them all at the same time? I don't. But I'm right about that. Right. Like, that's how it goes. You kind of get pushed off if your stuffs not as serious. Yeah. You don't want to speak bad about the motherland. I hear what you're doing right now. But it's okay. I'll do it for you. You don't have to say look, there's plenty of problems with the American healthcare system. So but if you have insurance, or cash getting seen isn't one of the problems.

Amanda 59:02
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, it isn't.

Scott Benner 59:05
So I gotcha. All right. Let's see. I was gonna make a big point that I lost it when I got annoyed at Canada. Shoot, shoot. owe you I think you mentioned in your note that you weren't really aware of what can happen when diabetes isn't well managed. That the podcast helped you understand that and I appreciate you telling me that because that was a big moment for me. When I decided like let's just be honest about the whole thing. And not just like the parts that are easier to deal with. Like it's unfair. I just I'm not okay with the idea. What do I want to say here Amanda? I'm aware that there are things happening in my life right now. Physically, emotionally, my my. My communication share with other people. Like, I know there are things that are happening that I'm not aware of. Right. But I think you want to be aware of, of as much of it as possible so that you can make conscious decisions for yourself. Like, I can't imagine your poor father 51 years old, the heart attack took him at 51. Is that right? Yes, 51 years old, and he's dying in his, you know, in his bed for something that didn't have to kill him. Not as though you know, and he doesn't get the opportunity to think like pause his heart attack and go, Oh, gosh, I wish I would have known more about how to manage my blood sugar. But it's, you can't just ignore things like this. You can't ignore anything, it's eventually going to blow up on you. But there's a difference between losing a friend, you know, in a relationship to bad communication and losing your life. Because you don't understand that you need insulin and how it works. It's not okay to me. Yeah, you know. So anyway, so you say it out loud. And then some people are like, well, you make people upset when you say that I was like, you know, when they're going to be more upset, when they're 51 Grabbing their chest, in their bed, that you know, then they're going to be more upset, like, tell them now give them the opportunity to help themselves. So I think of it,

Amanda 1:01:19
it really doesn't like it just It boggles my mind. Like I just can't believe the lack of education for diabetes. Like it's like, I really don't know where we would be without, you know,

Scott Benner 1:01:38
you don't have to say thank you so great.

Amanda 1:01:39
Like, I talked about you all the time. Like, everybody makes fun of me, my family.

Scott Benner 1:01:44
Oh, tell them to shut up.

Amanda 1:01:47
But you know what, now my husband, I got him on the group now. So I'd be like, do you Did you see this and he'll like, finish my sentence, because now he's into looking through it, and seeing all the stories and he'll ask me, Did you see this? And so it's really great. I got

Scott Benner 1:02:04
freaked out. When we get in bed. My wife says, Did you see a post in your group that I'm like, You're in my group. Stay out of there. I was like, What are you doing? She's American banks around. But no, I think that's terrific that your husband's looking at that really fantastic.

Amanda 1:02:17
Yeah, yeah. He listens to like all tell him the episodes to listen to. And it really got him on board with what I wanted to do with Boyd and how I wanted to, you know, keep things tighter for him. Yeah. And, like, we work so good together. Like, we're like a plus team. I think

Scott Benner 1:02:41
for you. That's excellent. Well, alright, so is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to I don't want to miss anything.

Amanda 1:02:48
I didn't want to I wanted to know, like, with Arden and stuff, like a lot of people push, like, oh, they have to be independent and do this on their own. And I get a lot of that from my son's doctors and the teachers at the school. And like, I believe in that. But to me when I look at how you like you push hard and to be independent, but I feel like, am I wrong that you take on most of it? Like just so she can still be a kid? Like when she was younger and stuff. I wanted to talk about

Scott Benner 1:03:32
I was talking to somebody in my private life about this yesterday. Yeah, because there are moments even at 18 years old, where I'll say something to Arden and she puts it off or she's like, Yeah, I will. I will. I will. And there's part of you that wants to say like, come on, like you're 18 Just do it. You don't I mean, and there's part of me that says, Oh, she's only 18. And people, generally speaking, don't have to live with problems like this, you know what I mean? Unless they have an issue, like diabetes and other things. So there's a balance in there in my mind. And the goal is to protect their psyche and their experience. And at the same time, be doing things in the open so they can see them and learn from them. And then the next. It's not a problem, but the next step is to transfer it to them. And I see that transfer is a slow process.

Speaker 4 1:04:35
Yeah, that's what I feel too, right. And it's not

Scott Benner 1:04:39
like you're gonna like you can pull your son aside when he's 12 and go alright, guess what, Boyd you're 12 years old. Now. Here's how you Bolus for fat and protein you better not forget because you eat french fries. You know what I mean? And your blood jolly eats Yeah, and your blood sugar is gonna go to 250 If you don't know how to do this, and it's gonna stay there for three hours or a once he's gonna go to seven and blah blah, blah. My dad had a heart attack, like you don't mean like, you're gonna like you're gonna, it's too much. So it's little bits, little bits, little bits, and then you kind of have to step back and do an assessment once in a while, like, are they coming along the way I expect? I think they are. And then once in a while, you have to realize that they're kids, and they're gonna use that as protection. Like, I don't want to do that, you know? Or it's sometimes it's little stuff like, I got a text from Arne last night. Can you bring me my blah, blah, blah? And I'm like, okay, sure must be a problem, right? So I leave where I'm at, I go to where she is. And I give it to her. And I'm like, you couldn't have got this she was I just didn't feel like getting up. And I'm like, Alright, like, let her have that a little longer. She's leaving for college and four weeks, no one's gonna ever do this for again, you know what I mean? And so art is a one see right now, it's probably around six to actually I looked on the app earlier, it is around six, though. And it's because she's been doing more of the stuff recently. And she's learning Yeah. And she's, she's having her own experiences and learning things. And I'm doing that purposely now, before she leaves for school hoping that when she gets to school, it'll empower you to make good decisions, not just not just try something and go, Oh, hell, that didn't work. You know, we found out yesterday that her her first semester classes are pretty much as far away from her living situation as possible. Oh, really? Yeah. And now there's a bus that runs through the, so the campus is kind of spread out through a town. So there's a busing system that she's going to have to use. But still, it's like a 26, block walk to one of her classes. Oh, wow. So she's obviously not going to walk it. Right. And then your first thought is, oh, I guess we got to find the money and buy her a car. You know, because she doesn't have her own car. She uses Kelly's car, which drives around here. And then I'm like, I'll just let her take the damn bus. Like, she'll be alright. You don't I mean, like, it's only a couple months, the first time she's going to be away. I'm like, let her take the bus. And and figure that out. Because it's another learning experience. Exactly. Yeah. And so I get when people say it, they need to understand it for themselves. And I get when older type ones say it, because I think what they're saying is I didn't understand my care. And then look what happened to me. I think they mean that a little bit. And at the same time, I don't understand why you'd have to give it all to them on day one, or because I've also spoken to people who've had that happen to them. And it has not gone well either. Like, yeah, you're you're talking about extremes. You know, and and I don't know why everybody, I don't understand, like, you ask the question. And you get, you know, a group of people feels like they're holding the flag yelling, it's their disease, they have to understand it, give it to them, blah, blah, blah, like you don't help them. And then the other side, it's like, well, they're just kids. Like, like, where's the middle? Like, how did we lose the middle? Amanda? You don't need me? When did the? I think it happened for me? You're Canadian. So I don't know about your politics are different. But when I was growing up, politicians tried to make the middle seem like you didn't have an opinion. And I don't see the middle is not having an opinion. I see the middle is a blend of both sides. Yes. So that's how I think about this. Like, I mean, and just you just can't let it get away from you. You can't let them take advantage of you, too. Yeah. That's hilarious. Amanda. And, hello. Hey,

Amanda 1:08:52
and not think about the diabetes for just, you know, my knees playing?

Scott Benner 1:08:56
Yeah, I mean, I have to stop you. I spoke for six solid minutes. Then you opened your mouth and we lost your thing. So just start over what you just said. I'll fix it later.

Amanda 1:09:07
Now, I can't remember.

Scott Benner 1:09:10
I said you can't manage. Have you? Oh, and

Amanda 1:09:13
I said that. I don't remember. You're gonna cut that out. Right? Please.

Scott Benner 1:09:24
Oh, maybe who knows. But anyway, I'm sorry. I went online like that and answered your question. Oh,

Amanda 1:09:33
I love listening to you.

Scott Benner 1:09:34
Do you really? I'm so sorry. Yes. Hello. Have I tricked you into liking this podcast? What happened?

Amanda 1:09:40
I don't think so. Okay, just great.

Scott Benner 1:09:42
Oh, stop it. I'm gonna go downstairs and live with people who don't think I'm great in a couple of minutes. And then what am I going to do there like I to me, I love listening

Amanda 1:09:52
to about your bantering back and forth. With your family. It sounds like mine. We're always picking out each gather in teasing and going on?

Scott Benner 1:10:02
Well, I don't know, I think when you're around people all the time, no matter what the situation, you know, you don't. You don't see the whole thing I started, I started to share something with Arden and Kelly yesterday. You know, everyone's talking about this thing. This subject right there talking about God, what were we talking about? We were talking about just oh, how our brains work. Right. So about, like, some people have inner monologues and some people don't? Yes. And so we're talking about it. And I don't have an inner monologue. Like, I don't have a disembodied voice that isn't my voice that, you know, that's, that's directing me. I'm saying this wrong. But Arden does, like artists had when she reads the voice in her head, says the words to her. It's, it's how she describes reading, right? Yes. And she's like, What happens when you read? And I'm like, I don't know, I just know the words. She's like, you're not hearing them in your head? And I was like, No, I don't think so. Like, or maybe who knows, like, maybe her description or my descriptions are exactly the same. And because I'm looking like here, I'm looking at a different computer screen right now. Somebody's talking about blood sugars. And it says here, the algorithm has specific things it learns from, it won't learn from what But now, if I go back and look at it again and read it in my head. I don't hear the words in my head. Right. But Arlen does. And yeah, and so we're talking about that. And then we started talking about how we understand things. And she said that she has trouble watching television with closed captioning on because she hears the actor's voice. And then the voice in her head says the words when she reads them. And I was like, Oh, I could see how that would be confusing. And, and then I joked with her, and I was like, hey, what else do the voices in your head saying? She goes, they're not voices in my head. It's how I hear things when I read, like, like, okay,

Amanda 1:12:06
that's too funny. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:12:08
And then I and then she started talking about how she didn't enjoy taking the SATs, because her brain doesn't work that way. And I would not be good at standardized testing, either. But my son, my son, and my wife would be anyway, this is a long way of saying, then I said, Hey, I'm doing this thing. So I can't tell you what this is exactly. But I'm doing a business thing, right. And I'm working, and I'm working with some people. And it turned out really well. But I'm kind of the one that that told them how to do it. Like, they had pages of notes and ideas. And I got on I got on a call with them with nothing written in front of me. I was like, no, no, do it like this, do this. And this, and this, put this here, this is what's going to work. And they're like, that's great. And I just thought like, I don't know why my brain does that. Like, why did I not need to write it down or go over it or think about it before it happened? And and so people's brains just work differently. Anyway, as I'm telling them that my wife and my daughter start mocking me. Oh, I'm so good at this. I'm like, That is not what I'm saying. They're just they love to tease me. It's unpleasant. Amanda. I don't deserve to funny was literally literally trying to like, expand a conversation we were having at the middle. I talked about my own perspective for a second. They're like, Oh, look who's here. It's the guy with the podcast. I'm like, oh my god, you guys are assholes. So they stopped. And they laughed at me and I stopped talking to him. I was like, Well, now you've enjoyed our conversation. Congratulations.

Amanda 1:13:42
I'm excited. Like, I don't want my kids to grow up. But I'm excited for them to be teenagers like that.

Scott Benner 1:13:48
Yeah. I would like, Tell me more. Why?

Amanda 1:13:54
No, I was just gonna say I like to keep them young and save them.

Scott Benner 1:13:58
I know you feel I've been thinking lately about what it's going to be like to drop bharden off at school. And then take a long ride home. I figure I'll just like devolve into a pool of tears and you probably will swim in. Yeah. Right. Because like, I kept thinking like, how am I gonna leave her there? Like, my son was two and a half hours alive by car. And I could like, I could get up in the morning and think and on a Saturday and say like, I'm gonna go see his baseball game today. I could just I could do it. You know what I mean? get my work done during the week and go do it. I could do that. But Arden is going to be at Best Buy car 13 hours away. Oh, she is Yeah. So that means I'm gonna have to leave her there. And I'm pretty sure I can't do that. So I don't know how to explain to her that when I leave I'm gonna suffer back in the car. Back Oh,

Amanda 1:14:54
yeah, I'd be the same way. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:57
but at the same time I take your point, right. Like I want them to get on older, and I want, it's not like we're going to stop it right. And I want them to have experiences and be happy and sad and do all the things that happen. The thing that bothers me the most Amanda about them getting older. It's the medical stuff. Yeah, I was. I was looking at Arden last night before bed. And I thought I let her down. Like I really did, like, I thought I failed. Like I didn't. I didn't figure out everything that that else or before she left. And then I realized I'm like, Oh, God, is that how I've seen like the last 18 years of her life? That's just trying to get her to a place before she left. You know what I mean? Like to a level or something like that. But I know I didn't do it. Like I tried. And like you said earlier like I everything I tried everything I could think of and we got her pretty far in a lot of places her diabetes is definitely not a not a big concern. Or thyroid stuff is not a big concern. But there's other things that we just didn't come up with answers about. And I hate to say that listening to you earlier about like, stuff like joint pain, even your like it just kind of went away after a while, like I reached

Amanda 1:16:18
a certain certain have joint pain, though. Did you say that one time?

Scott Benner 1:16:21
She does sometimes. Yeah, she gets like her kneel hurt or hip. It seems to fluctuate around her hormones, but you can't really tell, you know, stiff necks, which cracks her neck a lot. She'll get headaches once in a while. You know, just like, I'll see her rubbing her hands, like things like that. And we've had her tested for just everything, you know, to the point to the point where I feel bad even taking her to a doctor sometimes to get out, like, you know, like, because they're gonna want a blood test. And then she's like, this isn't gonna do anything. And she ends up being right most of the time.

Amanda 1:17:00
Yeah. You know, that's, that's, that's just like how I am. Yeah. Well, I say to my husband sometimes. Does your feet hurt like this? Or does your back hurt like this all the time? Like, is this just what it is to be normal? But I don't feel like it is. And that's one of the reasons why I don't think, like, I don't feel like I have RA but apparently that's what they say I do. But it just bounces around and just things a Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:30
I wish I know. I don't know how to fit like my back. My lower back is hurt for ever. Like, I like it's just my whole mindset. And, and recently, I had to take a steroid pack for something. And I took it in for 10 days on this steroid pack my back loose as a goose. It was amazing. Yeah. And little things like my digestion works off and on. Well, and for 10 days, perfect. My back didn't hurt. I was eating and using the bathroom the way I imagined a person, you know, exists. I was it going on long enough that I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. It's a real turn. And I stopped taking that steroid pack. And immediately my back started hurting again. You know, and I was like, okay, my back's gonna hurt. I guess that's just what happens to me. Do I have some inflammation? And that, you know, maybe, like, that makes sense. You know? Like, I You have no idea. I do not. Oh, are you talking about it? And yeah, and I've had a stomach since I was like, I don't know. 13. But it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Luckily, it doesn't make any sense at all. So I have no idea. I assume I'll just fall over one day, and somebody else will take my place on the planet and hopefully their back won't hurt. We'll keep going.

Amanda 1:19:05
I think you'll be around for a while.

Scott Benner 1:19:07
Yes. I don't know. You know what I did the other day, so bummed me out. I contacted homeless. My mom is trying to call me. Give me a second. Mom. Let me call you back in a few minutes. Okay. All right. Her doctor is not doing a good job of managing her blood pressure.

Amanda 1:19:30
Well, is she doing better?

Scott Benner 1:19:32
She is my mom had her cancer removed. Yes. When all through chemotherapy, she got remission. Good designation, and now we are getting ready to move her to where she wants to go live. So Oh, that's good. Yeah, unless her heart explodes because her blood pressure is really high. Trying to try to get people to stop that from happening. Oh my gosh. What was I gonna say? Oh, shoot. Right before she called What was I gonna say?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:05
I forget. Amanda, you are

Scott Benner 1:20:07
no help with us.

Amanda 1:20:09
Ever No, I

Scott Benner 1:20:10
I forget a lot. Forget what you said to Oh my gosh.

Amanda 1:20:16
Oh, what you were gonna do? You were doing something, weren't you?

Scott Benner 1:20:20
I was gonna do four. Oh, yes. Thank you Good job well done. Yeah, I contacted the company that hosts this podcast the other day. And I said, I have a slightly morbid question. I'm sorry. And there's no reason I'm asking this. So please don't worry. It's not like a health thing. I've just found myself wondering. I said, I have a podcast that helps people with their health. And what happens if I die? How do I keep it online? Right, so I'm gonna put this, so I'm gonna put this in here, Amanda. So everyone knows. Okay, you contact the company that hosts my podcast for me. It's called Libsyn. And you tell them, hey, the host of my podcast that I love dropped dead. And he said, you would continue to host it for free after his passing. So somebody has to remember to do that when I die.

Amanda 1:21:15
Okay, but I don't like talking about this kind of stuff.

Scott Benner 1:21:19
Amanda talking about dying doesn't make people die. Don't worry about you're fine. If the way people spoke about things made it so you'd be living on an iceberg. And your son would be riding a beaver to school? Because that's where that's what happens to you. So yeah, no. Anyway, I thought that was really nice. Yeah. Like, we'll just host it. The it will host it for as long as we're in business for free. Wow, the guys like don't die. I was like, alright, well, thank

Amanda 1:21:47
you. Yes, don't die. So.

Scott Benner 1:21:49
But anyway, I thought that was good. And I don't know when this like, when this thing stops being helpful to people, like I'm sure at some point in the future technology or insulin will shift. And a lot of what we talked about here won't be as I don't know it valuable, probably. But for now. No,

Amanda 1:22:07
Scott, I think it always will be. Because it's the truth you like you've lived it's nobody gets taught this way of how to really live with diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:22:22
I hope so. I mean, we've put a lot of time into it by now. Hopefully, it's not just, it's not throw away, you know?

Amanda 1:22:29
Oh, it's good. I started. I was trying to find the episodes that I one of the first ones I listened to this morning, but I went and I was listening to the fear of insulin. One like, that was one of the early ones. But then it reminded me how much I really liked that episode. And just and how much it like reminded me too, yeah, don't be afraid to use insulin. So now I'm going to go back through because I listened to a lot of the same ones over and over. But I'm gonna go back to those early ones. And that one, and what was the other one? Great after I just started?

Scott Benner 1:23:11
Oh, there's the ones on the Quickstart list. Maybe the roller coaster?

Amanda 1:23:15
Yeah, stop the roller coasters, something like that. And just, whenever I think I made a comment one time about, like listening to them. It feels like you're like speaking to me. Like I'm always saying like, how did he know that? How did he know to post that episode?

Scott Benner 1:23:34
You know, I have to tell you, that although I think you just I have to tell you that. Um, I get that comments so much from people. Do you? Yeah. How did they like how did he put up an episode today that was so specific to what I'm going through? And I think really, it's just an indication that you're all going through similar things. Yeah. You know, but I know how it feels like it does feel like like, because it happens to me every day. You always hear me say somebody asks a question. I go, Oh, we were just talking about this the other day, you know, and it's not like, it's not like, I'm not making it up. But it's just, it's the world you live in. You know, I can't wait to for Arden to go away to college and to find out. What I'm going to learn next because of our situation changing because we're clearly going to you know, we're clearly not going to stop talking. Oh, yeah. And she's going to have to get through a situation. You know, where she can say to me like, look, I'm good, and I don't think she feels that way yet. Yeah, I listened. Can I be honest, I don't feel that way. I'm pretty good at diabetes. And there's still days where I'm like, What is like, why is this happening?

Amanda 1:24:48
She, she needs you and I actually somebody said to me like, oh, it won't always be like this. You won't be stressed out like he's gonna be looking after it. Like he'll know what to do some day. And I was thinking like, so all this stress and everything, I'm just going to hand over to him. And now this is going to be like his problem to deal with. Like, it's always going to be the ups and downs and downs and dealing with. Yeah, The Rise and Falls, like, I'm not happy about handing that over, I'm always gonna be there to help him. And I'll always educate myself, as long as he wants me to.

Scott Benner 1:25:28
I feel the same way. I don't, I don't want to feel like that. I'm shouldering all this in one day, I'm just gonna look at it and go, hey, guess what happened? You turned 25 years old. Here's all the crap I've been worried about for the last 25 years. Good luck. You know, like, yeah, although I do think there will be an age that I hit, where, like, I watched my mom. And she just doesn't have the bandwidth to like, touch talk about all like, you know, when you're 40 and 30. And you know, your cousin does something weird. And you talk to your sister about it. You know about your sister's problem with her husband, and you know about your brother's problem, boss, like it's all in your head like that. You do get to an age where you just like, I can't, I can't worry about all this. And I don't think it's a conscious decision. I think it just happens because there are things that my mom used to be interested in and concerned with that she just does not talk about anymore. Oh, no. Yeah, so maybe, maybe. So that's the good news. Amanda. Maybe at the end, when you have to lean on something with wheels to get to the bathroom. You won't have to worry about diabetes anymore.

Amanda 1:26:35
That might be soon with me, though.

Scott Benner 1:26:39
Well, I hope that I made I really appreciate you doing this with me. Thank you so much.

Amanda 1:26:44
It's awesome. I'm so it's so exciting. Good.

Scott Benner 1:26:48
You had a good time.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:48
Yes, absolutely. Can

Amanda 1:26:50
we talk once a week now?

Scott Benner 1:26:52
No, we can't. I mean, I'm very busy. Do you know I have to answer an email right now from a person who wants me to call their friend on their birthday and wish them happy birthday. That's funny. Yeah, I can't do that. Amanda. That's a thing. Like I actually at one point, she's like, can you record a video message for my friend? And I was like, no, no, I can't do that. Well, that I get more than you think. But you guys can see. The world of cameo must give. Give people that idea. I'm like, I don't have like I'm working and I have a life and everything. I can't stop and make videos for people. And I said, I really can't do that. I said, I said, Look, why don't you just tell me figure out a way I can talk to her for two minutes on the phone her birthday. And I'll say and then she sends me the date and it's literally in the middle of Arden's moving to college. So I obviously can't Can you imagine if I walked out of Arden's dorm room or like hey, I'll be right back. I have to say hello to somebody for their birthday. My but they wouldn't even let me back in the room. If not, yeah. So now I have to send this email and say I'm very sorry, I can't do this. So I feel bad. But it is not the only it is not the only call. I got like that. Anyway, all right. Well, it was great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Yeah, hold on one second. Sure.

Well, I'm embarrassed to say I did end up making that phone call and saying happy birthday to somebody, I just felt so bad. I couldn't not do it. Anyway, let's thank Amanda for coming on the show and sharing such a terrific and open story with us. And of course, we're going to thank Dexcom makers of the Dexcom G six and G seven continuous glucose monitors. dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Get over there. Get started. Let's do it. Speaking of doing it, you can get really comfortable luxury sheets for your bed at cozy earth.com. And then do whatever you want to do them. use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 35% on those sheets, the joggers and so much more cozy Earth. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for supporting the sponsors. I couldn't do this without you. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Keep listening, sharing. And of course please subscribe and your favorite audio app. If you're not subscribed, but you're listening, subscribe. Just hit follow like in the Apple podcast app or, I don't know, Spotify, wherever you get audio

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