Diabetics Doing Bike Beyond with Sid Sharma

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: Welcome to the Diabetics Doing Things podcast. We're back with new episodes in 2017 telling the amazing stories of type 1 diabetics across the world. I'm your host, Rob Howe, and if you'd like to get involved with Diabetics Doing Things, all you have to do is shoot me an email or reach out via Instagram. Hey everyone, before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you for listening. We had a great first year of the podcast, but none of it would have been possible without you and your support. I love getting messages, emails, and comments from type 1 diabetics all over the world. It really makes my day. So keep sharing, searching, and commenting, and I'll keep tracking down the people behind the amazing type 1 stories out there. This episode is sponsored by Tribal. A lot of you know that I frequently do Whole30s. I just finished my sixth one. And the hardest part is finding a Whole30 compliant way to treat a low blood sugar. Tribal makes delicious cold-pressed juices right here in Dallas, so they're local to me, and I thought I'd give them a shot. Not only are their juices Whole30 compliant, only real ingredients, no flavors or sugar added, but they're certified organic and super portable. I just toss a bottle in my backpack or gym bag, and I don't have to worry about getting caught with nothing to treat a low blood sugar. Check them out at livetribal.com or on Instagram at livetribal. That's L-I-V-E tribal. I drink it, I love it, and if you're in Dallas, you can too. They're growing, just like Diabetics Doing Things, so if you're not in Dallas, just be patient and keep an eye on their Instagram to see when they're expanding. Thanks to Tribal for helping me through this Whole30 and for being a great partner. Now, let's get back to the episode. Hello, welcome back to Diabetics Doing Things. We're back with new episodes in 2017, and I'm very excited about today's interview. My guest today, all the way from England, is Sid Sharma. Sid, welcome to the show. Hi, Rob. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for making the time today. Sometimes it can be a little bit tricky with all of the time difference, but I'm glad we were able to get this done.

[00:02:02] Sid Sharma: Yeah, no, the pleasure is mine. Thank you very much for organizing this.

[00:02:06] Rob Howe: So let's talk a little bit about you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we're definitely going to talk a lot about Bike Beyond, but let's get to know you a little bit first.

[00:02:16] Sid Sharma: Sure. So I was born and brought up in India and I left to come to university in the UK at the age of 18. And since then, I've been living here all on my own. And in October 2015, I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Long story behind how I got diagnosed. Maybe we can touch on that later. But But I also have hypothyroidism, which was diagnosed in 2013. And life's been a roller coaster, really. Been playing a lot of sports before and after diagnosis. And I'm an engineer by trade. Did automotive engineering, so working with cars and turbochargers and engines. and now I work in data analytics trying to help my company supply chain improve their global logistics and so on so forth so yeah it's a engineer with a passion for data who is also type 1 diabetic so all those things kind of help with my diabetes as well but it's

[00:03:20] Rob Howe: kind of funny how that works right you know just your life sort of intersecting and a bunch of

[00:03:24] Sid Sharma: different touch points yes and you know as Steve Jobs said you know you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. And I think that's very true in this

[00:03:34] Rob Howe: case. So I definitely want to touch on your diagnosis story. And I think, but before, did you mention that you had hyperthyroidism or hypo? It's hypothyroidism. Okay, great. I also have hypothyroidism. So we're both in line right there in the thyroid and the pancreas, both messed out there. So let's talk a little bit about your diagnosis story. Let's back it up. And I know you're a fantastic athlete and you're specifically in cycling. And I believe, really, I think I heard a story that within one month of diagnosis, you rode your bike from

[00:04:12] Sid Sharma: London to Paris. Is that right? Within the first year, I signed up on the third day after diagnosis. and at the time I couldn't walk. I didn't have a road bike either. So I just wanted to focus on something bigger than type 1 diabetes because I was worried I might get a bit depressed. So yeah, three days after diagnosis, I signed up and about eight or nine months after diagnosis,

[00:04:38] Rob Howe: we did the London to Paris bike ride. And how far is that for those of us who are not up on our European geography. How long of a bike ride is that?

[00:04:47] Sid Sharma: So that was three days and about 80 to 90 miles a day.

[00:04:53] Rob Howe: Wow, so just a shade under 300 miles. That's fantastic. And I love the ambition to like just three days in say, hey, I'm going to do this.

[00:05:02] Sid Sharma: Yeah, I mean, I was so on social media and online just trying to educate and aware myself. And I found so many amazing stories of people running marathons, ultramarathons, cycling. And I thought, hang on, this is a space where I can sort of contribute something in the type 1 diabetes community. So why not? Right. And that's the attitude I had at the time.

[00:05:27] Rob Howe: That's a fantastic attitude to have. So let's talk a little bit about the diagnosis. So in the fall of 2015, kind of walk us through what went down. Because you're 28 years old, correct? Yeah, that's correct. You were diagnosed fairly recently, so you're a little bit of a later in life diagnosis. Yes, yes, pretty much. I mean, I know

[00:05:51] Sid Sharma: a lot of people who were diagnosed very early in their life and don't know life without type 1 diabetes. But I'm also now getting to know a lot of people who were diagnosed in their late 20s or early 30s and the prospectuses are so different which makes it interesting when you interact with them so I think I'll start with 2013 really when I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism because that was a big shock to the system because I went from doing my job playing cricket that's a big sport in the UK and all the colonies that Britain had at the time around the world in India, Pakistan all these countries they all play cricket very much and so I was playing for a local team here in Huddersfield where I live and suddenly I had no energy I was having massive mood swings and I did not know what was wrong I thought I was over exaggerating myself so I stopped going to the gym stopped playing sports and I still couldn't figure out what was going on and eventually some of my close friends they literally came up to my house and they said if you don't go and see your local doctor, you know, we are not talking to you anymore, or we will take you to the hospital ourselves. It was that bad at the time. And so we did a few blood tests, and they said, you've got hypothyroidism, here are some pills, and you have to take them every day in the morning. And I said, okay, to find the right level is very hard. And my daily dosage has changed every few months since my diagnosis and I started from 25 micrograms and now it's up to 175 micrograms. So I take three different pills to make 175 every morning. And throughout that time, I didn't really feel 100%, if that makes sense. Although I was taking a pill, my energy levels were still not what they used to be before diagnosis. And in 2014, 2015, beginning, my body went back into a lot of drain. I had no energy. My workplace is about a 20 minute walk away from where I live. And at the time, I didn't even have a car. So I used to walk to and back from work every day. And that walk became longer and longer. So a 20 minute walk became an hour and 20 minutes with multiple stops because I just didn't have the energy in my legs. My weight was going down considerably. I was drinking a lot of water, you know, all the regular type 1 diabetic symptoms I had in terms of going to the washroom quite a lot. And at the time I was in denial maybe, but I did not know what was happening. And I kept on going back to my doctor and saying, look, my thyroid meds are not correct because I'm not feeling okay. And in March 2015, I was so down and out that I packed my bags, told my boss I'm going to India for a couple of weeks. And I just went to my parents' house and I said, look, you know, something is not right. We need to do something. And my parents were, of course, very shocked and anxious at the time, not knowing, you know, why the hell have I just suddenly turned up saying I am not okay. But we went to a few hospitals and they did some blood sugar tests and my blood sugars at the time were showing 300 400 and my parents were so nervous that they said oh this machine might be wrong or this hospital might be wrong so let's go and get a second opinion let's get going at a third opinion and it just you know they were finding it hard to see how high my blood sugars were and then eventually we went to see a doctor this was a lady doctor she wasn't an endocrinologist she just said oh yeah we think that you have type 1 diabetes. And if I was you, I should forget playing any kind of sports in the future. And, you know, you should just go and walk in the evenings maybe or in the mornings to keep your blood sugars in control. And that hit me very hard probably more than my diagnosis. How dare you tell me that I can't play sports or I can't be active the way I want to be.

[00:09:58] Rob Howe: And that's very important, right? Because you come out of a diagnosis with some predispositions or you want to listen to your doctor, but then also you get a prognosis like that and they tell you, hey, you're not going to be able to do what you love to do. So what was that like? Especially being a little bit older and being able to make those decisions for yourself, what was your mindset coming out of that?

[00:10:24] Sid Sharma: At the time, I was crying when I got back home because sports is such an integral part of my life. If I'm not playing sports, I'm watching sports. and if I'm not watching sports I'm watching movies about sports or reading books about sports so sports is a huge part of my life so for a doctor to say that you can't do that you know any for the rest of your life was a big hit but what they said was you know you go back to England because they understood the NHS system here national health service system and they said okay the GPs there will take care of you so GP is your local doctor and when I came back they said yes we understand you've been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes but looking at your ethnic origin and your age we would want to try you on metformin first so I went and had to take three months of absolutely horrible metformin and then my HbA1c after three months was 14.4 percent oh wow and I was hanging literally hanging off the wall and then I said look these meds are not working. So he got scared and he then consulted me to an endocrinologist here in the UK. And that was a five minute appointment. And, you know, for people to be given insulin is a big shock to the system. At that point, I was so desperate for insulin that I was the happiest guy because I said to the doctor, thank you very much. Can I just have my insulin and go home? So, you know, That journey was very draining.

[00:11:54] Rob Howe: I think as an athlete as well, somebody that is familiar with the way that your body feels when you're at your peak performance, something that always stood out to me on my day of diagnosis, I felt terrible. I went to the hospital and they gave me an insulin drip. I just remember how good it felt. I was like, wow, this must have been what was wrong with me. This is what I needed all along. I feel much better.

[00:12:21] Sid Sharma: Exactly. And that's what my endocrinologist said. He said, Mr. Sharma, everything is fine with you. All you need is insulin. I had a lecture from the nurse for an hour showing me all the meters and insulin pens and what I was supposed to do. Taking that first injection was a bit nerve-wracking, but to be honest, that was a big game changer. Life has improved so much since then.

[00:12:45] Rob Howe: so so from there so from an a1c of 14 uh 14 and a half almost and um to you know three days later signing up for uh the bike ride from london to paris and now um you know participating with uh with beyond type 1 and uh bike beyond tell us a little bit about that like as you've sort of progressed as a type 1 activist and an athlete and got back to feeling like your old self again kind of walk through that process and kind of how you want to create and spread awareness about type

[00:13:21] Sid Sharma: one so I think for for me you know a lot of people in India especially where my most of my family lives they have a lot of stigma around type 1 diabetes and I was getting a lot of advice from my family members saying, you should never tell anybody that you're type 1 diabetic. You know, you should keep it a secret. And I wasn't really feeling great about that. So after my London to Paris sign up, I said, hang on a second, I can't live in denial or I'm not going to hide the fact that I'm type 1 diabetic because it wasn't my fault. It just happened. I didn't do anything to get this condition. So why should I be ashamed of having it? And that was the big mindset change that I needed personally. And that was very empowering. I think people blame themselves or their parents or whoever for their diagnosis. And I was like, look, it's not my parents fault. It's not my fault. It's just the luck of the draw. And I think that empowered me. And like beyond type 1, I love social media. I got a lot of help from people who I didn't know and I was introduced to this parallel universe I honestly did not know that there was so much out there for type 1 diabetes you know like any new diagnosed type 1 diabetic you know we didn't know much about type 1 diabetes before yes you have heard about it but it doesn't hit home until you are diagnosed yourself about the seriousness the complication, the lack of awareness, and so on and so forth. So I think, for me, social media was a good outlet. And I used Instagram quite a lot to sort of document my journey from diagnosis to seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris. And the more I shared, the happier I felt, because people were following, people were liking my photographs, commenting about things. And, and, and I think that also had a positive impact on my diabetes management and the stronger that message got on the social media the the better my health got and the more energy I had on on on Instagram I usually dedicate each ride to a type 1 diabetic community person and that was an idea just so that I could inspire myself because where I live it's very hilly and if you're not fit enough it's hard work to cycle around here. So I was like, how do I get motivation? So my motivation source was other people who I was, you know, came across their page on Facebook or Twitter or, or, or Instagram or Snapchat, wherever. And beyond type 1 at the time was a massive life savior for me actually, because they themselves started around 2015. So I connected to them because my diagnosis was also in 2015, you know, real people with real stories. All the four founders are either type 1 diabetic themselves or have kids who are type 1 diabetic. And that was very important for me was to have an organization who I could trust at that level. And, and, and just the way that they were going about their philanthropy was quite exciting. And I remember, you know, joking with my friend in the office before my London to Paris bike ride saying, hey, wouldn't it be great if we could cycle across America one day? And, you know, he's a triathlete and he said, yes, it will be amazing, but who's going to sort out the logistics? You know, I've got wife and kids, you know, it just might not happened but the idea is great maybe one day when we retire we can do that three months after that I get an email from Sarah Lucas who's the CEO of Beyond Type 1 with a pdf that had bike beyond in it and I was like no way right we were just talking about it three months ago I was just dreaming about it and now it's happening and 10 weeks is a very long time to take off from work so you know i'm i had to take four weeks of paid holiday six weeks of unpaid sabbatical to make this happen but the question was very simple in 10 years time am i going to regret not getting paid for six weeks or am i going to regret not doing this event and so for me the answer was pretty straightforward and bike beyond is uh 4300 miles 60 days 10 weeks 22 riders from US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. And what I like is the difference in the age groups. So the youngest member is 17 years old. The oldest is 52. And between the group, we have 263 years of type 1 diabetic experience. Now for me, as a 15, 16-month-old dia baby, as I like to call myself in the community, you know, meeting these people online for now, it is so empowering. their stories are so incredible and now as the team leader along with Abby you know this team is really going to change the face of type 1 diabetes this summer and I am so proud to be a team member and a team leader and yeah I mean I can go on talking about Bike Beyond forever really but I think the message for people listening would be you know go on the Beyond Type 1 website go to the join us section find Bike Beyond and sign up You know, if you are visiting your state, your city, sign up for an evening event, sign up to host us, sign up to get involved in whichever way possible, because my theme for this event is making the invisible visible. So, for example, when somebody meets you, Rob, they can't look at you and tell that you have type 1 diabetes or they can't look at you and say you have hypothyroidism. Same with me and same with so many other people. And so I want to talk about these things and make them visible. and the fact that it's going to be a documentary which will be coming out on World Diabetes Day this year gives us a great platform, a platform like I don't think any of us ever imagined that we would have to be able to share stories, right? If somebody who is having the same condition like you might look and sound like you can do that and that inspires a kid, that is very inspiring for all of us who are riding on this journey. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's absolutely amazing.

[00:20:02] Rob Howe: Well, I know we're very, very excited for you guys to do that and to, you know, be a part of that journey. Like you said, you know, back a few minutes ago, you know, connecting via Instagram, I think is something that a lot of type ones have, have found really in the last 18 months or so to really connect with each other and share those stories. So it's very interesting. I hadn't heard of Bike Beyond until about six weeks ago. And now every person I talk to is talking about it. So like, I think the awareness is like really coming forward. And I just I can't wait for you guys to like take off. I think it's going to be a huge, huge event. And yeah, I was talking to Neil, Neil Greathouse, who's doing the documentary. And yeah, I'm going to try to see if I can meet up with you guys at some point along along the way. So hopefully, I'll be able to, you know,

[00:20:53] Sid Sharma: drop by in one of those cities like you talked about yeah no definitely uh you know it's it's funny uh we did a recent questionnaire within the team and uh it was questions like what do you want to get out for yourself uh what what do you think the team should get out of this event uh uh you know and uh we haven't met each other yet yet the answers to a lot of the questions were so similar So we are so similar in a lot of ways, yet so different with our experiences in life. And one message is pretty consistent. If we can help one person manage their type 1 diabetes better or take care of their health better, then that's success for us. And as a group, that's what we are aiming for. If we can inspire more than one person, better. But the amount of people who put down on that questionnaire without talking to each other, that's what they want. I think that is very empowering. And I think when we are all cycling across middle parts of the U.S. in 100 or 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and it's a flat road and you don't have the energy, I think statements like that will keep the team going and keep turning the pedals, really.

[00:22:07] Rob Howe: I think it will, too. And yeah, you're going to see more of the U.S. than you ever bargained for, I think, as well. um in that same in that same vein and i and i typically ask this question on interviews um because i i'm very similar i thought i thought when i founded diabetics doing things i thought if i could just make a difference to one person then all the effort would be worth it um and you know i'm very i'm very fortunate to get to interact with a lot of amazing diabetics every day but um If you had one chance, and you, like you said, as a Diababy, as like a newly diagnosed type 1, to say one thing to someone who is just diagnosed, what would that one thing be?

[00:22:52] Sid Sharma: Listen to your body. that's it because i think uh people people get lost in the blood tests and the carb counting and everything else that that we have to do but they forget to listen to their body you know yes the pancreas might not work but the rest of the body you know uh feed your soul feed your mind keep yourself active and so listening to your body is very important it will tell you things i mean as as an athlete i know listening to your body is one of the best training mantras i have i've ever come across you know yes we have to do something but if your body's saying have a rest day have a rest day right so i think people if if they can give themselves a break uh mentally because type diabetes is 24-7, 365 days a year. I think that's what I would say. Just listen to your body. It will tell you things that might help you along the way. Well, and I think in that same vein,

[00:23:58] Rob Howe: because you and I are a lot more alike than I think we even realize still, because I'm a huge believer in listen to your body. Like whether, you know, if it doesn't feel good, don't do it. If it feels good, you know, you're probably all right. But also you have to trust your body and, you know, trust the way you're feeling is right. And I think, you know, your story about, you know, going home to India because you knew something was wrong. And you were going to the doctor and they were prescribing you different medications for hypothyroidism, but you knew something else was wrong because your energy levels and such were so out of whack. So yeah, listen and trust your body. That's fantastic. So Sid, I know we can follow you on Instagram and we can follow your journey through Bike Beyond. I know you gave some links earlier. So where can our listeners connect with you and follow you on this journey over the next few months?

[00:24:54] Sid Sharma: Yeah, I think I have a few social media accounts, but the place where I'm most active is Instagram. So my Instagram handle is @Sid_T1D. And I think because they have started all these Instagram live, Instagram stories, I think that's the one place where I'll be most active for the next few months. So if people want to follow along and be part of the journey, then that's the place to be.

[00:25:26] Rob Howe: Fantastic. Well, Sid, thanks so much for coming on the show today. It was great to meet you. And I'm looking forward to following you guys on the Bike Beyond journey as well.

[00:25:36] Sid Sharma: Yeah, no. Thank you very much for having me. The pleasure is all mine.

[00:25:40] Rob Howe: Thanks for listening to Diabetics Doing Things. Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly emails and behind-the-scenes content. And if you or someone you know has an amazing story to share, send an email to rob at diabeticsdoingthings.com.