Diabetics Doing Balance with Jamie Lowe

[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. What's up, everybody? Rob Howe here. Just wanted to throw some gratitude your way this afternoon because we just crossed over 25,000 downloads all time for Diabetics Doing Things. and I owe that all to you. So thank you guys so much for listening. It totally makes my day whenever you tell me that the podcast has affected you positively in some way. So keep listening. I appreciate you to the max. All right, let's get back to the episode. Welcome back to another episode of Diabetics Doing Things. We're back with new guests and today I'm very, very excited to introduce you guys to Jamie Lowe calling from Bristol over in the UK. Jamie, how are you? I'm great. Thanks, Rob. How are you? I'm doing just fantastic. You're, I think, probably our fifth or sixth guest from the UK. Oh, great. I'm just always, first of all, just fascinated by how similar a life of a diabetic in the UK is to the US, and then also how easy it is for us to just hop on the internet and chat. I love that through Instagram or any other web platform that we're just able to connect. It's just really cool and

[00:01:32] Jamie Lowe: gets to broaden our horizons a bit. Yeah, the diabetic online community is pretty strong. There's around 400,000 type 1 diabetics in the UK. So there's a few more to get through, I'm sure, in your upcoming programs. Hey, if I make it to even like 5% of that,

[00:01:49] Rob Howe: I think that would be a huge success for me. So yeah, we're very aware and very grateful and of the UK members in our community and, you know, super glad that we're able to highlight some of the great stories from over there. Yeah, yeah. So Jamie, just to introduce you to our guests, just tell us a little bit about yourself. You specifically have a, I'm really excited for this interview because of your professional background. I feel very, I feel like we're going to have a

[00:02:20] Jamie Lowe: really nice kind of official news style record. Yeah, so I'm 24 currently. I live in Bristol in the UK and I work as a TV presenter on Made in Bristol, which is Bristol's local TV channel. I present a program called The Crunch along with my co-host Chelsea. We're live for two hours, Monday to Friday, with all sorts of news, weather, entertainment, sport, pretty much everything about Bristol we put in The Crunch.

[00:02:51] Rob Howe: Fantastic. So really, this is a local Bristol celebrity that I got on here, right?

[00:02:57] Jamie Lowe: I wouldn't go that far. I wouldn't go that far.

[00:03:01] Rob Howe: Well, I feel like you're being modest. Come on now, it's great. So let's talk about that for a minute. You mentioned you're 24, and when were you diagnosed? Let's talk about your journey with type 1 for a bit.

[00:03:15] Jamie Lowe: So I started my job officially as staff. So I was working freelance before, but I started as staff in September and it was a big job to take on really creating and presenting a program with sort of limited resources. But I was putting out half an hour of TV. This is before the crunch. It was called The Source every night. and then all of a sudden I just started to feel strange. In the mornings I would be really woozy and I would drink lots of water and be really thirsty all the time. And I thought I was just, you know, tired, stressed because of the job. And then it was just, it was really my colleagues who sort of forced, one in particular sort of said, you need to go and check this out. You need to go and get this scene to. And then I found out that I was diabetic. But the interesting thing is, is that I was just out of uni, fresh out of uni that year. And one of my good friends at uni had actually been diagnosed as type 1 diabetic a few months before. We were traveling back from a holiday in Salou on a coach and he was very, very thirsty. And I was getting really annoyed with all the bottles that were collecting by our feet and the constant sort of needing to go to the toilet. And although, you know, I knew the symptoms because I'd sat next to them for a 24 hour coach ride, I still didn't spot them in myself. So it was a shock, but it wasn't the end of the world.

[00:04:46] Rob Howe: Well, and that's that's what's interesting, right, is that the symptoms are they are what they are. They're very clear. And I think whenever everyone's story is, you know, some iteration of the other. right not the small variance right with going to the restroom frequently drinking a lot of water feeling very tired or a little bit disoriented um but funny how like you had just experienced that but uh you know when it happened to you you sort of didn't really notice anything out of the

[00:05:13] Jamie Lowe: ordinary well yeah i think there's a touch of denial there because i remember standing in the shower one morning sort of like grasping onto consciousness trying not to fall over um and thinking in the back of my mind could I be diabetic is this what this is this you know it was it was there in the back of my mind but I didn't I didn't act on it and then I almost like when I was sat in the doctor's room and they tested my blood sugar and ketones I knew before they told me um what was coming and it was sort of like like my my mind didn't want to sort of address what was going on it was it was really strange well it is and I think that's like

[00:05:51] Rob Howe: part of any sort of chronic illness diagnosis, right, is the first reaction is to say, well, this couldn't happen to me. I'm, you know, I'm healthy, or I'm young, or I'm too old to get type

[00:06:01] Jamie Lowe: one diabetes, or whatever the case may be. Yeah, that was the case. I didn't really understand or know a lot about the condition beforehand, apart from, obviously, my friend Danny. But it was Yeah, So in the doctor's office, when I was sat there, I sort of like I knew what was coming, but in a way that it wasn't like bad. It wasn't. Of course, I knew that my life would change dramatically, but I didn't feel like I now have this huge weight on my shoulders. I still felt quite positive about it.

[00:06:38] Rob Howe: Well, and I think that's, you know, obviously that speaks a lot to your character. and I think the way that you handle adversity, right? But I think that at different stages of a diabetic's life, whether right away or years down the road or as they get a little bit older, if they were diagnosed very young, that acceptance and sort of, oh, like, I'm going to be fine. I just need to do a couple extra steps and this isn't going to dramatically change who I am as a person. Yeah.

[00:07:07] Jamie Lowe: so um when so i i just moved to bristol from um bradford up in yorkshire which is the north of the country and you know it's my first time like living away at home living away from home not being in university i i just got my first like full-time job it was it's a really like dramatic change in my whole life and then this on top of it was just sort of and another thing to do it wasn't um I was having to sort of change my life in a lot of ways and adapt and this was just seemed to be part of it it was um not like a shock more like okay let's get on with this as well because my life did change overnight dramatically like and but I think for the better well let's talk about

[00:07:59] Rob Howe: that a little bit because I um in many ways and I was working with um beyond type 1 the uh the organization here in the U.S. that does uh so much great work for type ones around the world yeah I follow them on Instagram actually they're fantastic right and uh and the live beyond campaign I think just spreading awareness about the different types of people is just great but I'm working with them on a on a piece and I was and I and I wrote a piece of content for them and I talked about that like I am who I am because of type 1, right? Not because I am different because of it, but it's just, it opened me up to this world where this is my true self. I can be honest and I can be honest and accepting about it. So what, you know, as you sort of come to that realization, what was your thought process as, you know, besides the sort of acceptance and validation of like, oh, there really was something wrong with me. Now I can get better. What was that kind of transition like for you?

[00:08:59] Jamie Lowe: So immediately sat in the hospital. I was in hospital for about three days. I went in on a Friday and hospitals in the UK sort of the doctors aren't there over the weekend, like to see regular patients that aren't sort of in immediate need. So I was there for quite a while. It felt like a long time um and i i was sort of just like looking forward to what my life would be now so it was a kick up the backside um of the bum or i don't know how i would phrase that in the u.s but um to you know be healthy and i mean when i was ill with dka um I'm sure I think you call it DKA in the US yeah absolutely yep um when i was there with that i i dropped like a stone and a half and i i thought i looked great like my cheekbones were chiseled and i was in really skinny jeans and on the tv i thought i looked great and i didn't know where this had come from i just thought it was natural um but in reality i did look very unwell i mean on my youtube channel there there There was a feature, an item about the week leading up to my diagnosis. And just looking at that footage, it's a dramatic difference. But sat in that hospital, I was sort of looking ahead to a healthier lifestyle. So I began sort of trying to eat as little carbs as possible. And, you know, working with my blood sugar and managing it. And it took me a while to get the insulin dosage right. um i was i'm a panicker so when my i get a spike i would give extra insulin and um in effect overdose and then have to correct later with uh glucose tablets and it was it was a minefield it was a real that was the hardest part for me um not because i i i worried about what the high blood sugar would do to my body so the loss in eyesight the the all the things that can happen to your body when your blood sugar is too high i was worrying about that so i would prefer to be lower than higher and i think that's also something that my dad said to me when because obviously i i went home quite soon after and um they were getting to know this disease too for the first time in their lives so uh they they sort of thought that high blood sugar is not a natural it's not a natural up and down it's it's high blood sugar is bad you need to get it low and correct it as soon as possible so that that was the difficult part for me um but i i mean i tried to be so healthy like so so healthy but i mean i'm like any other person i splurge i you know binge when i when i've had a hard day or it's the weekend or i feel like i need a treat um Um, but I get this like massive guilt after doing stuff like that. And, um, it, that, that's like the, the most difficult part for me, but it sort of inspired me to, you know, live healthier. So I took it running. Um, I'm now doing hot yoga, which is a bit like Bikram yoga, but, um, it's, it's yoga in 44 degrees Celsius. I'm not sure what that is in Fahrenheit. Right.

[00:12:15] Rob Howe: I think it's like over a hundred degrees. I imagine like right at around a hundred.

[00:12:19] Jamie Lowe: yeah so it's really hard it's really tough but it makes me feel great so i i sort of think if i can put the effort in to sort of keep my body healthy and my mind too um exercise is great for sort of relieving stress and worries um i i can like allow myself to live a little bit normally without

[00:12:38] Rob Howe: feeling so bad about it well and i think i really want to touch on i mean you brought up so many great points just in that one like short anecdote there um and obviously like we'll get to the exercise piece and kind of how that helps you balance everything out but okay so you're um you were diagnosed uh after university so you're in your 20s you've got you've got your life that you've sort of already figured out how to live you're working you got your career um as you as you're trying to worry about balance um i i often think like as you were describing it i was thinking of it as when you learn to drive and you're learning to turn uh like over correction and like you know if you're holding on too tight uh you know you always end up having to swerve back after you've turned um and it's very similar with a high blood sugar and a low blood sugar like you can um and i know for for many years i would over correct a low i would i would worry that i would not be getting back up fast enough and then I would cause myself to have a high immediately after. So I think finding those like those swings is always so difficult. So you know how did you how did you wrestle with like the the realization that yeah there is no such thing as a perfect diabetes life like there's going to be those days where it sort of throws you a curveball.

[00:13:57] Jamie Lowe: I mean it sort of happened that it clicked for me when I was sat across from my diabetes specialist nurse in the uk we see see them regularly every every three months or so and we just talk about how how it's going they give a bit of education and um it was when i was sort of getting signed up for a carb counting course um she said to me like don't worry like it this happens your blood sugar will rise naturally and and fall naturally it's it's just how it works um you're more at risk from you know really damaging yourself by being low than by being high and it dropping down naturally i mean i'm still probably in my honeymoon phase so i'm still producing some insulin myself i can eat a little bit of carbs eat a little bit of sugar without having to um take insulin to uh correct um so there's there's all that going on and i just didn't understand I just I was I'm a very much like if I'm gonna so if I complete a computer game I want to complete it 100% I have to sort of strive for my best every day at every opportunity and But I mean just just going back to when the week before I found out I it was my first go at live TV my first little segment on the celebration of the channel being on air for a year and And my mouth was so dry that I almost couldn't get through the link to the item that I was throwing to. And just thinking about how it was then and how I'm managing now, which is a lot better. It sort of gives me a little bit of hope, faith or a sense of achievement. because I'm sure everyone with type 1 diabetes feels that guilt or the stress or, you know, the bad feeling when you have got a high, you feel like you failed. But I just sort of think, okay, well, at least I'm doing something now that that was then and this is now.

[00:15:57] Rob Howe: Well, and it's just rewarding yourself, right? And I think taking that pressure off, it's interesting to me, like people become type 1 at some point, But sometimes type 1 forces you to be a type A personality or to sort of like heighten that sense of type A. I've met so many type ones that are just like very active, like they get in and they want to solve a problem and they want to fix it. And they're very enthusiastic about it and they go gung ho all the way into it. And then realizing that sort of diabetes is not something that works like that. and there's going to be curveballs and there's going to be, you know, days where you just are tired or you, you know, don't know how to explain it. And I think, yeah, kind of rewarding that incremental progress, like, wow, you know, sometimes you don't, you don't see those baby steps as you're going through. But then, like you said, you can look back to a year ago and you say, wow, like I felt so different before. And now look what I can do. What used to be very difficult for me or I used to worry about a lot I can now handle and take in stride yeah I'm I mean it's um

[00:17:02] Jamie Lowe: it's it's I sort of describe myself as a part-time type a so I'll be super super good for 50% of the time and then the other part of the time I'm super super bad and I'm not thinking about my health but I'm trying I'm really trying to sort of stay focused and I'm I'm my next sort of mini series like documentary series is as an exploration into the vegan lifestyle so um i recently found a lot of research that says that meat farming is really impacting um you know the climate and the environment and i i lived before as almost paleo so a lot of protein meat you know animal fat um that that because that was the easiest way to manage i didn't need to take insulin um but now I'm having to change again and you know experiment with a little bit more carbs and see where that takes me and um plant-based proteins which is like it's new science that I'm just stepping into um but you know so that's the the next step for me is is to really keep focused and keep exercising because there'll be I guess two weeks when I won't put my running shoes on and go for a run and because I'm too busy or I'm never too busy. There's always time to do it, but it's the want to do it that is maybe not there. But then I sort of get into a low where I just think, oh God, I've got to clear my head. I've got to get out for a run and it's going to make me feel great. And then after that happens, I'm sort of back on track.

[00:18:38] Rob Howe: Well, and I think for me with my background as an athlete and really for all my life identifying as an athlete, I'm a huge guy. I'm like six foot six. So I guess like 200 centimeters. And, uh, and so I, I physically imposing and that's who I've been my whole life. So I totally identify with like listening to your body and like the need to go move or the need to go throw some weight around. Um, and I think like for diabetics, especially who have this extra insight that normal people don't have into their body, whether it's how they feel when their blood sugar is normal versus when it's high or when it's or having data points throughout the day and just having that extra communication with your body, it sort of manifests itself very interesting. Don't you think, like, whether it's a run or yoga or some other type of exercise, like that extra conversation that you have with yourself?

[00:19:36] Jamie Lowe: Yeah, and sort of learning, you know, how much, like a low mid-exercise. So having to take dextrose tablets in the middle of a hot yoga session is not great. It's, you know, everyone's very focused, very like Zen and meditative. And there I am crunching away on some tablets because I can feel it. I can feel it coming on and I know the warning signs. But so one of the things that's recently happened is I'm starting to worry about nighttime lows. So after a day of exercise, I will sometimes get a nighttime low. And it was after reading something on the Internet, I think Instagram, it was a meme or something like that. And it sort of said that it was it spoke about, you know, going low in the night and trying to stay high, because if you go low, you could die. You could die in your sleep. And that really sort of hit home to me. And then I became worried about that. So it was another piece of anxiety, which, you know, it's manageable. But that's there. And I never worried about that before, because I would usually wake up during a nighttime hypo. But once I read that, once I read someone else's opinion and thoughts and feelings on that, I sort of like, you know, digested, you know, that sort of emotion came into me. And now I sort of took on their anxiety.

[00:20:57] Rob Howe: And that's a trap, right? You know, there's so much information out there. And, you know, as we, especially people our age, we're very prone to just Googling whatever we have and then seeing the worst possible outcome is out there. It's like, oh, no, I could die in my sleep from a hypo. And I actually had a friend's mother when I was in when I was at college and at university, as you guys would say. I had a conversation with one of my friend's parents, and she said that because her daughter was type 1, her youngest daughter was type 1. And she said that when I switched to the pump, which I did during my junior year of college, she said, well, I'm not going to switch my daughter to the pump because I heard about someone who died in their sleep and they were on a pump. And it was because of the pump. And I was like, well, you know, there's plenty of other people out there that didn't have that experience, right? There's so many other factors that go into it. But yeah, you can cause yourself a lot of anxiety or depression if you are constantly thinking about those things that really you have no control over. So I always try to stay very present with my journey in that to avoid any sort of unwanted anxiety or worry or stress.

[00:22:16] Jamie Lowe: But it's hard to avoid that because I'm sure, as you know, working in the media, creating content, there's a lot of things going on in your mind. you're always coming up with ideas and you're always sort of forward planning thinking ahead how how's this piece going to work how am i going to film this how am i going to write this and then this is then the whole diabetes thing is rolling around in your head too there's there's a lot going on up there so um finding something where you can safely sort of step away or you know really ignore it for a bit i think is important because um not not ignoring the sense that okay I'm not diabetic for a bit, although some days I do wake up on a Friday afternoon, Friday morning, sorry, and I think, oh, well, I'm not going to be diabetic today. I'm going to take lots of insulin, eat loads of carbs, maybe have a pizza later on and drink some beer. But I think it's important to, like you said, you're a big guy. I'm not a big guy. I'm quite a small guy. But I still need, you know, something to give me a break, something to sort of take my mind off the ball a little bit so I can, you know, be 100% the next

[00:23:24] Rob Howe: time when I need to. So is that, is your outlet for giving yourself that break and cutting yourself that slack, is that saying, just that self-talk, that conversation with yourself saying, hey, I'm not going to be a diabetic today, I'm going to live, and you know, still going to treat myself with insulin, still going to do that, but I'm going to live as if I didn't have diabetes.

[00:23:45] Jamie Lowe: yeah i mean i don't do it regularly maybe christmas days and um birthdays and special occasions and stuff like that but um just just to not worry i mean of course there's oh i've got to take the insulin i've got to count the carbs i've got to um make sure i test in a couple of hours to make sure i'm not taking too much but just that little bit of a break is really important to um sort of you know it's a it's a bit of like respite it's almost like i've taken a break from my my body in effect my my dodgy pancreas it's almost like i've left it behind um and i can come back to it feeling refreshed and ready to uh fix it i i want to focus on that for a minute because

[00:24:29] Rob Howe: i think you really hit it right on the head how important it is that in that it's a relationship with yourself, right? I mean, and that's the thing is you're a type 1's lifelong relationship with the disease is, hey, it's me. And then here's my diabetes along the side. And we have this relationship and it's always measured by numbers, but you know, really it's a partnership, right? So if you can give yourself a break mentally, I think that's so important from a confidence and a self-acceptance standpoint. And I think I had this conversation. I was very fortunate. I got to shudder around heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield for the weekend a few years ago. And if you're not familiar, he's the most famously Mike Tyson bit his ear. Oh, right. Okay. So he and I, we were driving back from the airport and we were just having like a casual conversation. And I finally it took me about 10 minutes to get like kind of the conversation going because he's like a very famous, very intimidating guy. And he was saying, I remember vividly, like too much of anything is a bad thing. He's like, you know, if you drink too much water, you could drown, you know, so it's like, you know, something even if it's good. So I think like hyper control, like even too much of like, you know, very regimented, rigid control can be detrimental, like to your anxiety, to your mental health. and just, you know, make you exhausted and kind of no fun, right? So I think you have to remember to live.

[00:26:01] Jamie Lowe: Yeah, yeah. And as well, I think you sort of have to be sort of unashamedly type 1, like you're a confident type 1. You can talk about it. You can whack your insulin pen. I'm not on a pump yet. I'm still deciding whether that's right for me. But you can whack out your insulin pen and give yourself an injection, regardless of what people think around you or people might think you're shooting up. or you know these sorts of things and people make jokes but it's it's it's important to open that discussion to because i didn't know my symptoms were there um i was obviously very ill but they were so strange and so sort of like unconnected that i i put myself in a very dangerous position not reacting to my body um but if i can sort of open a discussion and answer questions and talk about it then you know someone might spot the symptoms the signs a bit earlier next time and and not be so you know not get so ill because um i hear stories and it's been reported in the press here in the uk of people that just didn't know that they were type 1 and then the ambulance comes but it's too late and they they've suffered organ failure um because of in high dka like really bad dka um so if i can you know i don't care if someone's like has a phobia of needles like i need to do this or else i'll die so but doing that sort of being unashamedly type 1 and talking about it and you know sort of waving the flag um i think it's it's a really positive thing because like i say there's 400 000 of us in the uk um that's a very small percentage of the entire population which I think just picking a number out my head is around six million 60 million I don't know it's got a six in it either way there's there's not a great proportion of us that I think it's like 10% of all diabetic people type 1 diabetes have type 1 diabetes so if we can talk about it if we can speak about it and and feel confident when we're speaking about it and not be ashamed of it or or you know hide it away then we can sort of say we're here and it's not wrong it's not bad yet yes i might have a faulty pancreas and i'll die if i don't correct it but you know i'm still i'm still a normal person you don't need to be scared of me you don't need to worry about me you don't need to give me insulin when i'm having a low as is often something that i i'm correcting people on um yeah please don't please don't do that yeah exactly um it's just misconceptions and just an uneducated uh public that don't know a lot about this condition and and i think me you know reaching out to you to come on the show and um talking about it and on the television and on youtube and wherever i can wherever i get the opportunity to is um just the way that i can continue that conversation and you know inspire more conversations from that i mean like today we we've sort of left the sort of outline of the interview behind and we we've gone on our own sort of journey and discussion and we've learned a lot about each other and by doing that we're also giving a lot of information that people can take away and learn from.

[00:29:19] Rob Howe: Yeah and I mean I prefer that you know and I think I mentioned that before we got on the on the recording is my favorite my the best interviews here start with a little bit of the rough outline and then they diverge completely off into personal stories that and that's where the real gold is, you know, like because someone out there has had a similar experience to you or identifies with that. And I think what, like you said about spreading awareness, it's important to know that people struggle, that there are, you know, that there are, that we're all in this together. And it's good to know that, you know, not everybody's perfect and that even people, especially with social media, it seems so perfect all the time. And What I think is so great about the type 1 community is the willingness to share when it's not perfect and when it is a struggle.

[00:30:08] Jamie Lowe: I mean, I see I search for the hashtag hashtag T1D sometimes and like some pictures. And I'm sort of it's a nice feeling when people post their highs and they're like, oops, you know, didn't spot that sugar in that pasta sauce or, you know, indulged a bit too much over lunch. and they post a picture of their highs because it sort of levels the playing field. You can talk about your highs, which you're trying to avoid. You've made a mistake in your insulin dosage or something's happened, like it's too hot today or it's too cold and your body's reacted badly. Doing that will not only educate other people without type 1 diabetes that might know or love someone with type 1 diabetes, but it'll also ease the anxiety that we've spoken about a lot today.

[00:30:58] Rob Howe: Well, and I think, too, it's just important for – I think it's a two-way conversation. You feel good about it as you read it. I think they feel better about it as they see people come in. And that, like you said, the community is so strong on social media, and I think that's the reason, the willingness and openness to share. I want to focus on a couple more things. I'm kind of going off topic here I guess going back a little bit I've had a lot of caffeine today so I'm really into this you were diagnosed after university so I imagine age 22 I think you said you're 24 now am I kind of right on? yeah I think 23 okay great so even more recent like an even older age and you mentioned your parents what was that relationship like between you and your parents and your diabetes? What were those conversations like? How did they sort of respond?

[00:31:56] Jamie Lowe: I mean, I couldn't actually contact them whilst I was in hospital because they were away in visiting New York at the time and trying to get a message to them somehow with no phone signal in the hospital or internet was just impossible. Oh, no. So, I mean, I went into hospital once when I was in university for an infected finger and I ended up having blood poisoning and it was all very dramatic but sorted out quite quickly and it was the same sort of thing that it was you know this is my thing and you don't need to worry like I'm an adult now and I'm going to teach you about this condition and here's what you need to know. They're sort of like once removed from it because you know I don't live with them anymore I'm sort of very independent and I go to the hospital on my own and I'm sort of a bit jealous sometimes of people that get diagnosed quite young, you know, talking childhood age, because their parents have sort of held their hand all the way through. And, you know, they they learn first and then teach the child with type 1 diabetes. But I haven't had that. I sort of had to learn on my own, which, you know, there's good parts and bad parts. It's positive and negative in the same time. But, you know, they I just have to make sure that they're not worried about me, that they know that I'm healthy and know that I'm happy. And, you know, I keep going on and doing what I want to do. That's important for them. I think it's more, they obviously worry, they must do. But I obviously try and stop them from worrying because, you know, I'm an adult now. I can look after myself.

[00:33:40] Rob Howe: Well, you bring up a good point because I think conversations I've had with people who have been diagnosed later, I think you articulated it fantastic. And looking at it from your perspective, of course, you know, it's harder to do on your own because you're already living on your own. You have your own career. And I think as well, in the U.S. especially, type 1s who get diagnosed past the age of 20, 21, when they're already kind of on their own, they get less help at the beginning. Doctors are just like, well, here's a pamphlet and here's all your prescriptions and good luck. And sometimes they get put in touch with an endocrinologist or with an organization like JDRF, which does a ton of great work here as well with diabetes education. but I think really there's more focus on children because they need more help, I think and I think that's right, I think that's right but I also, I definitely have a passion for the type ones who get diagnosed later in life when people think that they are, you know think that it's not type 1 and there's a lot of misdiagnoses and there's just not as much literature there's not as much community aspect There's not a diabetes camp that you can go to as an adult that's always immediately presented. And I think it's important that you guys are a part of that community as well. And I just want to open up that dialogue for people who have been diagnosed later in life and need someone to talk to. I think that spreading that awareness that it's out there, that we're here, and we want to share that, I think is really important.

[00:35:20] Jamie Lowe: um so i uh what i wanted to do was meet people with type 1 diabetes i apart from danny who my friend at university who now lives 200 plus miles away um there wasn't that many people who were around me that knew what i was going through so i did reach out to the JDRF in the UK and Diabetes UK um the charities and through them like hosted a few events and um ended up meeting people along the way families um people my age people that have got diagnosed even later in life um and that was really helpful just just getting involved in whichever way i can now obviously i bring a certain skill set within like sort of media training and um producing content um so you know they benefit from it and i also benefit greatly by you know just being around people who I can talk to quite frankly and openly about what the issues are and and what I'm going through and how they sorted this out and um how they deal with this or you know what pump do you use what blood tester do you use my GP won't my that's our doctor um won't prescribe me the new fancy blood glucose meter how do I make sure that they uh give give me that one so it can you know talk to my phone and um track my my data quite easily but um so i i get a lot from sort of investing in the community and doing whatever of course i can't do everything that i'd like to do there's not enough time in the day but um just being where i can and doing what i can really sort of helps both them and and me a lot well and i think that's something important for us

[00:37:04] Rob Howe: to focus on as well. Where can our listeners find you online, whether through your media platforms or through social media? If they want to connect with you or partner with you or create more awareness with you, what's a good place to reach out?

[00:37:22] Jamie Lowe: So there's Twitter at JamieLoweTV. Instagram is the same at JamieLoweTV. YouTube, I think you just Google my name, Jamie Lowe, and I'll pop up. I've got an orange in my mouth in the picture, so it's pretty distinctive. And, yeah, I'm just open to, you know, how we can work together on projects and, you know, do this stuff, whatever it may be, to sort of spread the message, make something fun and shareable and watchable in the process and, you know, have a good time doing it as well.

[00:37:54] Rob Howe: Right. I mean, that's so important with anything, right? If you don't enjoy it, then, you know, you're not going to have that same sort of passion or fuel. Absolutely. I want to focus on, and I often ask my guests this question, and I think I get very similar answers, so I'm going to have to figure out a way to rephrase it as I'm doing more episodes. But for you, somebody who's in your position, if you were able to go back to someone who was just diagnosed, who was 23 to 25 years old, and they are about to embark on an entire new journey in their life with type 1, what's the one thing you would tell that person?

[00:38:36] Jamie Lowe: Don't worry about high blood sugar. It's going to come down. As long as you've taken insulin and don't take too much of it, it's going to come down. Don't stress about it. Your body is probably going to react quite well to having a short period of high blood sugar. Yeah, so don't stress. Don't worry. Don't have that anxiety. Even though it's going to be there, probably, there's no way to get around it. But try and release yourself of it a little bit.

[00:39:04] Rob Howe: Fantastic. Yeah, I think holding on too tight is something that I think we're all guilty of at different points. And, you know, just part of that, you know, six stages of grief or whatever, right? Acceptance is like right there at the end. And, you know, like you said, you go all the way from denial or anger or depression and then you get to acceptance. And like once you do, I think there's that like really healthy balance of just sort of self-appreciation and self-talk that, you know, a lot of people seem to have a lot online. And I think is, you know, hashtag diabetes and hashtag T1D looks like me. hashtag diabetics doing things for the shameless plug there. But there's a lot of like really good stories out there of people who are out there doing it and really spreading that positive message.

[00:39:50] Jamie Lowe: Yeah, and it's important to show the bad as well as the good, the ups and the downs. Because like I mentioned before, it's a way of, you know, making people feel less bad about themselves and making it okay to make a mistake every now and again.

[00:40:04] Rob Howe: It is okay. It is okay to have a high blood sugar. It is okay to make a mistake. where none of us are perfect. This is a long journey. I know if there's amazing technology coming this year and we're all waiting for that cure, but until it gets here, we're just going to have to take it one day at a time.

[00:40:24] Jamie Lowe: Would you take it if there was a cure? Would you sign up straight away?

[00:40:31] Rob Howe: Yeah, I think I would. It's weird because I'm not in a hurry to get rid of my diabetes. I have very good control. I'm very happy. It's like who I am, but nothing would make me happier to be a former diabetic,

[00:40:42] Jamie Lowe: I think, is how I look at it. You see, I sort of, I sort of gain a lot from having diabetes, giving me sort of, you know, an extra confidence, an extra thing to talk about, an extra way to, you know, make myself healthy and track my, my physical health. So I'm not sure if I would actually take the new pancreas if it was offered to me.

[00:41:05] Rob Howe: well I think it's uh it's an interesting discussion right like look I mean me for example my entire platform is built on being a diabetic so um you know if that if that goes away but at the same time I think what I've learned is with this community I think I'll have something in common with everyone who's ever had or continues to have or has been cured of type 1 diabetes. And I think, you know, the people in those relationships that I've built will continue. And that makes me happy, I think. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm 12 years in. So I guess I'm maybe a little bit more tired of it than you. But actually, at the same time, I love that we're in a position where, you know, you found this rhythm and you found this place that you are in your life where, you know this is something that you welcome the challenge that you welcome it every day i think it's such a healthy place to be um you know as a from a type 1 perspective yeah i i mean i i

[00:42:09] Jamie Lowe: don't it's not me saying that i don't want a cure to be found absolutely we we should you know keep plugging every bit of money that we can into research but i just think that there's a lot of positives that i've gained from um my diagnosis as well as a lot of negatives and I don't think I would have got those positives had, you know, the genetics been different had I not been type 1.

[00:42:33] Rob Howe: And what do you think specifically has type 1 given you that you wouldn't have had otherwise?

[00:42:41] Jamie Lowe: A reason to be healthy. It's a reason to, it's a cause to fight for. It's a sense of purpose. it's I I would go through life sort of being um thinking you know I was sort of 100% you know I was um apart from some you know small self-confidence issues I was where I wanted to be and doing exactly what I wanted to be but it's given me like a floor to you know to to work from And it's sort of like a wake-up call in that, you know, I have something that I need to work on and fight for and talk about and, you know, raise awareness and all those sorts of things. it's it's it's hard to explain but um i just think that being type 1 is it's it's almost like a badge of honor it's like i i'm doing this as well as doing other stuff like i'm a diabetic that's doing things um hashtag um you know and it makes you feel good it makes me feel sort of a bit proud that i can manage this condition as well as you know achieve my

[00:43:57] Rob Howe: goals and follow my dreams. That's so powerful, man. I think, you know, wear it like a badge of honor, I think. And like you said, I think giving yourself a purpose, having something to strive for is what most people who really care are looking for anyway, diabetic or not. And when I was looking for, you know, I had a very deep soul-searching moment in the summer of 2015 where I was in Colombia, South America, and I was in my hotel room, and it wasn't safe for me to go out at night. And one of the nights I didn't have my interpreter with me, and I don't speak Spanish, so I just kind of was sitting there thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. And I thought for the first time, because I had always identified as a positive type 1, but I never really encouraged that or broadcast that. And I thought, you know what? I'm missing out on an opportunity to connect with my people. Um, and you know, that's, that's been the best part of all of this is that I get to meet people like you, um, you know, people all over the world, people all over the U S who, uh, are dealing with the same things I'm dealing with and doing and living their best life, um, and accomplishing their goals and chasing their dreams. And, um, you know, I, I can't, I can't say like how much that gives me really fills my cup up to hear people who want to help other people like them and want to continue to build those relationships and continue to spread that positive message. And I'm just grateful for it. It's a fantastic opportunity and, you know, meeting people like you and hearing that positive message, man, just like for the rest of my day, because it's only 1045 here where I am, I'm going to be gassed up for that. So great. It's important. I mean, the prime minister of

[00:45:45] Jamie Lowe: the uk right now Theresa May um her policies aside whatever is going on i don't know i'm trying to follow politics but it doesn't always make sense to me um believe me politics don't make sense to

[00:45:57] Rob Howe: me either i don't know if you're uh if you're uh you know privy to everything here in the u.s but

[00:46:01] Jamie Lowe: i understand well yeah yeah it's you're in a slightly worse situation than ours but um she she's type 1 diabetic and she in in the house of uh commons or wherever the parliament meeting place is with the green chairs and the really old building um she said um that she wants to prove that no matter the who you are or where you are living with type 1 you can do whatever you want to do this is not a disease that can hold you back um it might you know be a little bit of an inconvenience but it shouldn't stop you from doing anything and i think um she her and us are proving that and it's important to spread that message i couldn't agree more and i mean i can't i

[00:46:51] Rob Howe: you know i don't know as much about her politics but i can't agree more with that message that's so true um if you can and that was what was clear to me from diagnosis and my i credit my doctors and my diabetes educators with that that you know they said you know your dreams that you have type 1 or not are still valid are still within your reach if you just chase after them exactly yeah well Jamie man thank you so much for coming on the show this is a fantastic interview I really enjoyed it

[00:47:19] Jamie Lowe: yeah I enjoyed it too it was great to sort of you know chat to someone who you know is in a very similar position to me and has done it for a little bit longer and you're still going at it so you know it gives me a lot of

[00:47:32] Rob Howe: confidence too still out here doing things right yeah that's it and that's you know I don't plan on stopping anytime soon so you know and I look forward to seeing more of the content that you're putting out. And I'll include all the links to your social profiles in the show notes so everybody can find you there. And I wish you the best of luck. And I hope that our paths really cross more often in the future.

[00:47:59] Jamie Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. So a visit to the US must be on the cards because there's a lot more diabetics out there that I need to meet.

[00:48:06] Rob Howe: There's plenty. There's like 1.25 million of us or something. Oh, really? Wow, God. We've got quite a few.

[00:48:12] Jamie Lowe: Amazing. Well, I better start packing and heading over there. Yeah, it might be a long trip. Yeah.

[00:48:19] Rob Howe: Well, all right. Thank you for coming and we'll talk soon. Thanks again for listening to Diabetics Doing Things. I'm going to try a new thing. I'm going to start sending out a Friday newsletter with just my thoughts for the week and some questions that you guys have asked either on social media or that you emailed me. So if you want to do that, just subscribe on the website, diabeticsdoingthings.com. See you again next time.