Speaker 1: I was making myself breakfast and I fainted and I
Speaker 1: kind of like came to I was really confused, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what just happened, but
Speaker 1: I know that's not normal.
Speaker 2: She was doing all the right things health wise, but
Speaker 2: went through years of struggling that she probably didn't have to.
Speaker 3: She had no way to comprehend what she had to
Speaker 3: do for her disease that affects every minute of every day.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I failed. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: harder I could work. The only thing that I could
Speaker 1: do is like be in a different body.
Speaker 4: How terrifying would it be to fight an unknown enemy,
Speaker 4: one you didn't recognize and didn't coming What if that
Speaker 4: enemy was coming from within a disease that even doctors
Speaker 4: couldn't identify. Nearly half of all Americans suffer from some
Speaker 4: chronic illness, and many struggle for an accurate diagnosis. These
Speaker 4: are their stories. A Lauren Brede Pacheco, and this is symptomatic.
Speaker 4: Mila's energy is unmistakable. She's driven, always one step ahead,
Speaker 4: and her passion for her work is contagious. Her natural
Speaker 4: confidence and ability to connect with others proved invaluable when
Speaker 4: she faced daunting health challenges.
Speaker 5: Tell me a.
Speaker 4: Little bit about yourself outside of work.
Speaker 5: What are your passions.
Speaker 1: I am a total plant lady, So I love being
Speaker 1: out in my terrace garden. I live in the middle
Speaker 1: of Houston, Texas, so we're right in the center of
Speaker 1: the city, and I miss my greenery.
Speaker 5: So we have like a.
Speaker 1: Little composting bin outside on our deck, and we grow
Speaker 1: some of our own produce and some of our own
Speaker 1: food just as something that we found was actually really
Speaker 1: simple to do and really gratifying when it comes to
Speaker 1: cooking and eating. And so I'm just like a nature person.
Speaker 1: I love being out in nature, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: I live in like the fourth largest city in America.
Speaker 4: Have you always had a green thumb?
Speaker 5: I have.
Speaker 1: Both of my parents were working parents. They're both immigrants
Speaker 1: from Jamaica, and so I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with my grandmother when I was younger. Like one of
Speaker 1: my most vivid memories of childhood is going out with
Speaker 1: my grandma to go.
Speaker 5: To our mint bush. We had this like giant mint bush.
Speaker 1: It was probably like nine feet tall, and we would
Speaker 1: pick out mint leaves for our tea and we would
Speaker 1: sit and have tea in the afternoon and talk. So
Speaker 1: if you can imagine like five or six year old
Speaker 1: Mela sitting with her grandmother just like having a cup
Speaker 1: of tea and talking, It's like one of my favorite things.
Speaker 4: Fond childhood memories wouldn't be complete without Mela's best friend, Katie.
Speaker 4: They first met in middle school as friends in passing,
Speaker 4: but by high school their friendship deepened. Over time, they
Speaker 4: grew inseparable, sharing LIFs, ups and downs together.
Speaker 2: We were sitting there at your book and we were
Speaker 2: on our computers next to each other.
Speaker 1: We were journalism nerds, and so in our senior year,
Speaker 1: we're so excited to be editor in chief and layout editor.
Speaker 2: And we realized that we were both going to the
Speaker 2: same university and we were like, oh, do you need
Speaker 2: a roommate? We said yeah, and it was just the
Speaker 2: easiest decision. That kind of gave us a good platform
Speaker 2: and foundation for our friendship now is that we've lived.
Speaker 5: Together, We've seen it all, we've done it all.
Speaker 2: Like we've just lived so close that it's almost like siblings.
Speaker 1: We jokingly say that we're always on the same wavelength
Speaker 1: and we're always reading each other's minds because we're almost
Speaker 1: thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time.
Speaker 1: We have grown so close that we really consider each
Speaker 1: other's sisters. I don't even tell people like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: my best friend, Katie, I say it's my sister.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: For somebody who hasn't met Mela, how would you describe
Speaker 4: her and her personality.
Speaker 2: She's so free spirited. She's creative and driven, and if
Speaker 2: there is something that she is interested in, she will
Speaker 2: stop what she's doing and.
Speaker 5: Just investigate and dig in. And she wants to know everything.
Speaker 5: She wants to help people.
Speaker 2: She's very generous with her time, sometimes to a fault
Speaker 2: where you know, it's let's take care of yourself before
Speaker 2: you help others.
Speaker 4: Mela quickly realized she needed to focus on herself when
Speaker 4: she began noticing subtle signs that something was off. Katie,
Speaker 4: as always, was there from the start, witnessing the onset
Speaker 4: of symptoms that would mark the beginning of a new
Speaker 4: chapter in Mila's life.
Speaker 1: I was about twenty five when I first started to
Speaker 1: notice some of my symptoms, and it really, for me,
Speaker 1: was something.
Speaker 5: That I sort of brushed off. I was thinking, I'm young.
Speaker 1: I work out almost every day, I'm pretty conscious about
Speaker 1: what I eat, I don't drink. I'm in probably the
Speaker 1: best health of my life physically, but I just feel awful.
Speaker 5: I feel really tired all the time.
Speaker 1: I feel like I just don't have any energy, and
Speaker 1: that to me felt really odd and really strange, and
Speaker 1: I remember ignoring those feelings for a long time.
Speaker 2: She was working a really stressful job, so I think
Speaker 2: that was a really easy way to kind of write
Speaker 2: it off as, Oh, I'm just becoming into myself as
Speaker 2: an adult, Like it's stressful.
Speaker 5: I'm tired.
Speaker 2: So it's really easy to chalk all of the things
Speaker 2: up to that, you know, and even doctors when she
Speaker 2: would go just for like a normal checkup, would be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: get some more sleep, get some more exercise.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was in my first real job
Speaker 1: out of college, and I was dragging myself through working
Speaker 1: fifty or sixty hour weeks at times, and I probably
Speaker 1: need to take a vacation, I probably need to drink
Speaker 1: more water, just take a.
Speaker 5: Little bit more care.
Speaker 1: And my partner at the time was really adamant, like,
Speaker 1: this is not normal, and you probably need to go
Speaker 1: and see someone at the very least to go get
Speaker 1: a check up and see what's going on.
Speaker 4: Mila was drawn to her work at a nonprofit focused
Speaker 4: on community development initiatives, where she tackled disaster recovery, health
Speaker 4: care access, and immigration logistics. She faced these challenges during
Speaker 4: one of Houston's most devastating events in recent history, Hurricane Harvey,
Speaker 4: which brought fifty two inches of rain and widespread destruction.
Speaker 1: We were running one of the biggest shelters in the city,
Speaker 1: and that required getting information out so that people knew
Speaker 1: where they could go, how they could be helped, what
Speaker 1: they could do if they just lost everything. And so
Speaker 1: it was a really, really stressful time and I was
Speaker 1: the only one on the team doing social media, so
Speaker 1: I was working around the clock, and in that time period,
Speaker 1: We're getting hundreds of messages every fifteen minutes about where
Speaker 1: people should go, what they should do, and I am
Speaker 1: having to hop on that crisis response.
Speaker 5: And so my job was like that all the time.
Speaker 4: So you're on call basically twenty four to seven, reacting
Speaker 4: in real time to crisis, which puts your life in crisis.
Speaker 4: I'm sure pretty much.
Speaker 1: I felt often like I could lay down and sleep
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours and I would wake up and
Speaker 1: I would still be tired. No amount of rest or
Speaker 1: sleep felt like it helped me stop being tired. And
Speaker 1: then I was also experiencing a lot of physical symptoms,
Speaker 1: so I was extremely thirsty and I could drink like
Speaker 1: two gallons of water a day and still not feel
Speaker 1: like my thirst was quenched. I was losing weight pretty
Speaker 1: rapidly in mass amounts over time, and I at the
Speaker 1: time was like, well, this is good, because you know
Speaker 1: every woman is like, uh, you know, I'm losing weight.
Speaker 1: I look good, I'm fine, but I felt awful. The
Speaker 1: other thing that I kept noticing was that when I
Speaker 1: would sleep, I would wake up like drenched and sweat
Speaker 1: my entire body. And I was just like, maybe it's anxiety,
Speaker 1: you know. I kept thinking like, if I wait long enough,
Speaker 1: it'll pass. It'll just go away and I'll be fine.
Speaker 4: There is a kind of denial that's easier than proactively
Speaker 4: seeking answers. Or you decide I'm healthy, I am doing
Speaker 4: the best I can and this will pass. What for
Speaker 4: you was that wake up call of something's really wrong.
Speaker 4: I have got to see a doctor.
Speaker 1: I was in the kitchen cooking one day, and I
Speaker 1: was by myself and I fainted and.
Speaker 5: I came to I woke up.
Speaker 1: I was really confused, and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what just happened, but I know that's not normal.
Speaker 1: And so I told my partner about it, and he
Speaker 1: was like, book the appointment, take the day off of work,
Speaker 1: go to the doctor, and get checked out, because that's
Speaker 1: really scary, and like, it's not okay that that's happening
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so tell me your first experience with going
Speaker 4: to the doctor and trying to explain what's going on.
Speaker 1: So I walked into the doctor's office and explained to
Speaker 1: him my symptoms. I told him about fainting in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: I told him about just how I was feeling overall,
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, well, it doesn't look like you've
Speaker 1: had blood work done almost ever as an adult, so
Speaker 1: let's start there and kind of get the baseline and
Speaker 1: see what's going on. And that same afternoon, I get
Speaker 1: a call back from.
Speaker 5: The doctor's office.
Speaker 1: And I missed it, but I don't think that they
Speaker 1: call you if everything is okay. I was a bit
Speaker 1: nervous and anxious to make the callback, and when I did,
Speaker 1: I talked to the nurse who had looked up my
Speaker 1: chart and she said, your blood sugars are extremely high.
Speaker 1: They are through the roof is at a dangerous level,
Speaker 1: and you need to come back to the doctor's office
Speaker 1: immediately so he can walk through treatment with you.
Speaker 5: And so at that point, I had no idea what
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 1: And I heard high blood sugar and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means, Like I don't
Speaker 1: even know how I would know my blood sugars.
Speaker 4: Hi Mila spent the night grappling with a heavy sense
Speaker 4: of uncertainty, her mind racing with questions, what could be wrong,
Speaker 4: what could have caused all this? What is she supposed
Speaker 4: to do now?
Speaker 1: And so I rebooked an appointment for the next day
Speaker 1: and sat down with a doctor and he tells me,
Speaker 1: you have type two diabetes and this should not be
Speaker 1: happening to you at this age, and this means that
Speaker 1: you are not doing the things that you are supposed
Speaker 1: to do to live a healthy life. And I was
Speaker 1: just like, this is a lot.
Speaker 5: Of judgment, but also like, you have not even explained what.
Speaker 1: This means to me, and I have no idea what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, or how this even comes up, or
Speaker 1: how you even determine this result. And so the first
Speaker 1: conversation that I'm having about diabetes with this care provider
Speaker 1: is about amputations and about potentially losing my kidneys and
Speaker 1: having to go on dialysis and all of these things
Speaker 1: that are like so shocking and scary. And I walked
Speaker 1: out of there thinking like, am I going to die today?
Speaker 1: Like I had all of these questions, but I felt
Speaker 1: too ashamed to ask them in that moment because I
Speaker 1: was like, well, he's literally telling me that I have
Speaker 1: like ruined my body and ruined my life, so I.
Speaker 5: Don't really know where to go from here.
Speaker 1: I just started bawling because I was so scared and frustrated.
Speaker 4: After she was diagnosed initially, she said that you were
Speaker 4: one of the first people she called. Can you just
Speaker 4: tell me about that phone call and what you felt
Speaker 4: the need to convey.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't think that that's a condition
Speaker 2: that you get when you're in your twenties. You either
Speaker 2: have it when you're a little kid, type one or
Speaker 2: older people usually are diagnosed with type two. That's weird,
Speaker 2: you're twenty six, Like, how is this just now happening
Speaker 2: or happening already? And so I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: that seems like that, right, you know, And she's like, well,
Speaker 2: that's what the doctor said, so you know it's probably true.
Speaker 4: Mila left the doctor's office with a handful of her
Speaker 4: shores and a deep sense of shame. Her blood sugar
Speaker 4: levels were nearly double what they should be. She recalled
Speaker 4: watching her mom manage diabetes with insulin injections and a
Speaker 4: careful diet. Suddenly everything became clear.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I've ruined my life and now
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do, and I don't even
Speaker 1: know where to start and how to make this better.
Speaker 1: I'm just terrified about all of the outcomes that my
Speaker 1: doctor has told me, like this is what's going to
Speaker 1: happen to you because of where you are with your
Speaker 1: blood sugars. I just felt really by myself, and I
Speaker 1: felt like I couldn't quite express what I was feeling.
Speaker 1: But I knew that I wanted to write it down,
Speaker 1: and I knew that I wanted to kind of document
Speaker 1: what I was going through. And then I also wanted
Speaker 1: to find people who were like.
Speaker 2: Me, and so she started Hank grew Woman, which is
Speaker 2: her blog and YouTube channel and Instagram and everything to
Speaker 2: create content to document and also like for her own
Speaker 2: accountability her lived experience with diabetes.
Speaker 5: I was wondering, like, how do other people my age
Speaker 5: balance and manage this? There are millions of people living
Speaker 5: with diabetes. I'm sure somebody is my age and I
Speaker 5: can find them and meet them.
Speaker 4: On that note, being a self proclaimed journalism geek and
Speaker 4: a communications gal, the Angry Woman, where did the name
Speaker 4: come from?
Speaker 1: So the name came from my partner because one of
Speaker 1: the side effects of having diabetes is being angry. It's
Speaker 1: like needing and wanting to eat because your cells aren't
Speaker 1: absorbing the glucose from your bloodstream, and so I, in
Speaker 1: the early stages of my diagnosis was quite cranky all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 5: And so my.
Speaker 1: Partner at the time had said, yeah, you're just like
Speaker 1: such a little angry woman.
Speaker 5: And I was like, that would actually be just like
Speaker 5: a really funny name.
Speaker 2: And she got a lot of positive feedback from that,
Speaker 2: but also there was a lot of negative feedback. And
Speaker 2: you know, you can't judge a person by the way
Speaker 2: they look, but people on the internet do so to
Speaker 2: put herself out there in such an intimate way, like
Speaker 2: your health, your numbers, being so public is brave.
Speaker 4: With the diagnosis in hand, Mila finally had a path forward,
Speaker 4: supported by a growing community desperate for results. She threw
Speaker 4: herself into the fight with determination and focus. I can
Speaker 4: tell what a positive, driven, go get her mentality you have.
Speaker 4: So you set out to be the best Type two
Speaker 4: diabetes patient ever, and what happens.
Speaker 1: Basically it gets worse. And so I am at the
Speaker 1: point where I'm working my hardest. I'm working out twice
Speaker 1: a day, running, walking, biking, skateboarding, like doing everything, getting active,
Speaker 1: being outside and also changing my diet, and I was
Speaker 1: exhausting myself and not eating enough. I wasn't giving myself
Speaker 1: enough energy to get through the day. I was still
Speaker 1: just as tired, just as thirsty, just as sweaty. And
Speaker 1: then I went back for my A and C results
Speaker 1: three months later from my initial diagnosis, and my ae
Speaker 1: C had dropped by one percentage point, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I failed. I don't know how much harder I could work.
Speaker 1: The only thing that I could do is like be
Speaker 1: in a different body.
Speaker 4: The A one C test, also called HbA one C,
Speaker 4: measures your average blood sugar over a two to three
Speaker 4: month time span and is key for diagnosing and managing
Speaker 4: diabetes and pre diabetes. Mela's slight one percent drop is
Speaker 4: now making her doctor skeptical. Back in the office, Mila
Speaker 4: is under scrutiny.
Speaker 1: My doctor said, clearly, you are not doing what you're
Speaker 1: saying you're doing, because if you're coming in here with
Speaker 1: your blood sugar logs that say one thing and your
Speaker 1: AEC says something else, you are not doing what you're
Speaker 1: telling me you're doing. And I was like, I promise,
Speaker 1: I am, Like, I have my my Fitness palalog here.
Speaker 1: You know, you can see everything that I'm doing, everything
Speaker 1: that I'm eating, I'm tracking to my detriment. It's so
Speaker 1: frustrating and so triggering and alarming to have to track
Speaker 1: every single thing you eat, have to prick your fingers
Speaker 1: five or six times a day to draw blood to
Speaker 1: get your readings. Like I'm doing the work, Well, there.
Speaker 4: Comes that shame and guilt, you know, implying that you're
Speaker 4: not being honest as to the actual steps you're diligently taking,
Speaker 4: what went through your mind, your body.
Speaker 1: I think I was just angry, to be quite honest,
Speaker 1: because I felt like with everything else that I had
Speaker 1: ever done in life, I put in the work and
Speaker 1: I get a good result, and I was doing everything
Speaker 1: that I thought I knew how to do, and then
Speaker 1: I got the result back and it was disappointing.
Speaker 4: After seeing little improvement, Mila started medication to lower her
Speaker 4: blood sugar. The medication only managed to drop her blood
Speaker 4: sugar by one more percentage point. Six months after her diagnosis,
Speaker 4: her levels were still not within a safe range. As
Speaker 4: the months turned into years with little improvement, Mila not
Speaker 4: only faced physical challenges but also began internalizing the stigma
Speaker 4: surrounding type two diabetes. Three months later, her levels had
Speaker 4: only dropped by another one percent, still far from safe.
Speaker 2: I think we were ordering pizza, and this person, who
Speaker 2: isn't an acquaintance, not anyone close to her, said really,
Speaker 2: in a snarky tone, are you sure you should be
Speaker 2: eating that?
Speaker 5: And both of us with our head around, like, did
Speaker 5: you just really say that?
Speaker 2: Like, first of all, I don't think anybody should be
Speaker 2: commenting on what anybody else is eating, period. I just
Speaker 2: couldn't believe the audacity of it. And I don't exactly
Speaker 2: remember what happened, but I remember that Mila's attitude towards
Speaker 2: that moment was like it was shocked. But I can
Speaker 2: only imagine how hard that is to be already so
Speaker 2: concerned about all of your data, all of your numbers,
Speaker 2: all of your blood sugars, day in and day out.
Speaker 2: That person doesn't know if she ate nothing for breakfast
Speaker 2: and a salad for dinner, and this is what she's
Speaker 2: calculating to eat for lunch because she knows that she's out.
Speaker 1: Katie, it was probably like the most supportive person that
Speaker 1: I could ever interact with in that moment, because she
Speaker 1: gave me understanding and kind of like hyping me up
Speaker 1: like a best friend does.
Speaker 4: Mila recalled another time when she tried to discreetly take
Speaker 4: her insulin while out to dinner, only to be accused
Speaker 4: of doing drugs at the table. Sadly, this was becoming
Speaker 4: her reality living with type two diabetes. Interochronologist doctor Artie
Speaker 4: Fungado strives to holistically understand her patients, recognizing the effects
Speaker 4: of diabetes go far beyond physical symptoms. Do you remember
Speaker 4: when you first cross paths and your first impressions of Mila? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I had been following along her journey on social
Speaker 3: media for a long time, probably before she ever knew
Speaker 3: who I was. She so poignantly and clearly and honestly
Speaker 3: describes the patient experience, and as a physician, I just
Speaker 3: feel like that is so valuable and important for us
Speaker 3: to see, because the way our healthcare system is now,
Speaker 3: there's this huge divide between doctors and patients, and the
Speaker 3: time to build a relationship in the traditional healthcare setting
Speaker 3: just isn't there. She just so clearly tells her story
Speaker 3: openly and honestly, and so it was several years ago
Speaker 3: that I had heard of her, and then we were
Speaker 3: able to work together.
Speaker 4: After four years of trials, setbacks, and frustration, Mila was
Speaker 4: still searching for a treatment that could bring real relief.
Speaker 4: From battling dangerous blood sugar levels to dealing with the
Speaker 4: social stigma of type two diabetes. She had fought hard
Speaker 4: every step of the way. With no clear solution in sight,
Speaker 4: Mila was growing desperate.
Speaker 1: I know it wasn't like intentional ridicule, but it felt
Speaker 1: like ridicule. It felt like I'm walking into this situation
Speaker 1: where I know I'm just going to be berated because
Speaker 1: my number is not good enough, and so here I
Speaker 1: am thinking like, Okay, this is exhausting, but I'm working
Speaker 1: so hard and I'm doing this and then I.
Speaker 5: Go and it's one percent lower.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I felt so almost embarrassed, and I
Speaker 1: felt stigmatized.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back with sometim a medical mystery podcast.
Speaker 4: Now back to Symptomatic, a medical mystery podcast. Mela initially
Speaker 4: dismissed her exhausting and debilitating symptoms as mere work stress
Speaker 4: before being diagnosed with type two diabetes at an unusually
Speaker 4: young age. Determined to lower her blood sugar levels, which
Speaker 4: were nearly double the normal range, she became obsessive. She
Speaker 4: worked out several times a week and meticulously tracked what
Speaker 4: she ate, but nothing lowered her A one C levels
Speaker 4: more than a couple of percentage points. Four years into
Speaker 4: her quest for relief, Mela had pushed her commitment to
Speaker 4: the extreme.
Speaker 1: There was one point where my A one C numbers
Speaker 1: were better, but my health was not. And it was
Speaker 1: this point where I basically stopped eating because I was like,
Speaker 1: this is the only thing I know how to do,
Speaker 1: and it's the only thing that I feel like is
Speaker 1: going to work. And when I don't eat, my blood
Speaker 1: sugars are in perfect range. So maybe that's what I
Speaker 1: need to do. And I was literally like malnourished, Like
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting enough food, I wasn't getting enough energy.
Speaker 5: I was only drinking water or.
Speaker 1: Tea or coffee, and my brain was just in a tailspin,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't function.
Speaker 4: What did you decide you were going to find when
Speaker 4: you set out to find a new doctor.
Speaker 1: I know that if I find someone who looks like me,
Speaker 1: they will listen to me, and they will be more
Speaker 1: likely to understand where I'm coming from, to understand my culture,
Speaker 1: to understand where I am and what I've been doing.
Speaker 5: And my doctor said, what did you do?
Speaker 1: Like this is a drastic change, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not eating anything and she was like anything and
Speaker 1: I was like, I mean water I and.
Speaker 5: She was just like no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 4: Was there at any point that you thought maybe this
Speaker 4: isn't the right diagnosis.
Speaker 5: I didn't, but my doctor did. She was incredible.
Speaker 1: Once I brought my whole encyclopedia of Mila's diagnosis to
Speaker 1: her and I said, this is the story, this is
Speaker 1: what's happening. We tried a couple of different treatment options
Speaker 1: and they didn't work, and there was a point where
Speaker 1: she said, I think I might be at capacity with you,
Speaker 1: And that's not because of you. It's because I don't
Speaker 1: think that I know enough to correctly provide.
Speaker 5: You a treatment plan.
Speaker 1: And I think that you need to go see a
Speaker 1: specialist so that we can get more information, we can
Speaker 1: understand where you are, and they can give you a treatment.
Speaker 1: And she was like, I'm happy to manage treatment with
Speaker 1: you once a specialist really lays that out.
Speaker 4: The doctor's willingness to listen to Mila's story, acknowledge the
Speaker 4: limits of their expertise, and still take charge her treatment
Speaker 4: gave her the confidence she needed. For the first time,
Speaker 4: Mila felt she had found the right connection to finally
Speaker 4: get some answers. She was referred to a new intercrinologist
Speaker 4: to review her entire symptomatic record.
Speaker 1: I was able to explain, I have this really long,
Speaker 1: almost five year history of having type two diabetes, and
Speaker 1: I have tried oral medications. I have tried not eating,
Speaker 1: I've tried eating basically only lettuce, I have tried exercise.
Speaker 1: I've tried everything that I know how to try, and
Speaker 1: I am still not getting better. My ae C is
Speaker 1: still not in the range that it needs to be.
Speaker 1: And I am so frustrated and so he asked me,
Speaker 1: you know, well, what's frustrating. He was so great about
Speaker 1: just like asking me questions as a human being rather
Speaker 1: than staring at my chart. After I told him everything,
Speaker 1: he asked me when you were initially diagnosed, did they
Speaker 1: confirm your diagnosis? And I was like, I did not
Speaker 1: know that you could confirm it. I just thought you
Speaker 1: get a number and you know whether you're in range
Speaker 1: or not, if you.
Speaker 5: Have diabetes or not.
Speaker 1: And he said, no, it's pretty odd and off for
Speaker 1: you to have a type two diabetes diagnosis, even though
Speaker 1: you have a family history. It's strange for your age,
Speaker 1: and so I want to confirm your diagnosis. And he said,
Speaker 1: I don't think that you have type two diabetes. I
Speaker 1: think that you have something else.
Speaker 4: MELA specialist ordered a blood panel test for four specific
Speaker 4: auto antibodies that appear in response to high A one
Speaker 4: seed blood sugar levels. This test helps determine the type
Speaker 4: of diabetes a person is dealing with and would provide
Speaker 4: Mila with the clarity she'd been seeking for years.
Speaker 1: I get the results back about a week later, and
Speaker 1: it turns out that I have what's called LATTA latent
Speaker 1: to autoimmune diabetes and adults. It's a slow progressing form
Speaker 1: of type one diabetes.
Speaker 2: She was actually at my house and she opened her
Speaker 2: phone when she got the results of the labs when
Speaker 2: she got rediagnosed and that she did have the beta
Speaker 2: cells that prove that she doesn't have type two. And
Speaker 2: I could just see the relief on her body, like
Speaker 2: shoulders drop, and it was just so frustrating because she
Speaker 2: went through years of struggling that she probably didn't have to,
Speaker 2: but also just so satisfying that like, Okay, well now
Speaker 2: at least I know, and I can probably change my
Speaker 2: treatment plan in order to actually start seeing progress.
Speaker 4: The exhausting commitment to treatment, the stigma, the mental roller coaster.
Speaker 4: Mela's entire understanding of her health had been flipped upside
Speaker 4: down by this new diagnosis. Doctor Artie Thungadou, the intercrinologist
Speaker 4: Mela had worked with on diabetes education campaigns, explains the
Speaker 4: various types and treatments of diabetes.
Speaker 3: We are learning that there are types of diabetes that
Speaker 3: we haven't even discovered yet. Diabetes is a complicated diagnosis.
Speaker 3: To most common ones that we hear about are type
Speaker 3: two and type one. Type two diabetes is more connected
Speaker 3: with metabolic syndrome lifestyle related, but there are huge genetic factors.
Speaker 3: It's not like people are choosing to have diabetes, right,
Speaker 3: And so type two diabetes is caused by insulin resistance,
Speaker 3: so the blood sugar gets high and that can wreak
Speaker 3: havoc on basically all of our organs, our heart, kidneys, nerves, feet, eyes,
Speaker 3: things like that. Type two is usually a more gradual
Speaker 3: onset and if treated well and early, it can actually
Speaker 3: be put into remission. So that is the most common
Speaker 3: type of diabetes. And type one is autoimmune diabetes, usually
Speaker 3: where the body has seen the insulin producing cells and
Speaker 3: the pancreas as other and it targets those and destroys them,
Speaker 3: so the body doesn't produce any insulin at a certain point.
Speaker 3: And for these patients they usually present fairly acutely. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they end up in the hospital with a very very
Speaker 3: high blood sugar and they need insulin to survive.
Speaker 4: That's a great breakdown of type one and type two
Speaker 4: diabetes as we often understand them. So what specifically is LATA.
Speaker 3: With latent autoimmune diabetes of the adult, it's a little
Speaker 3: bit more gradual, and so there's a lot of room
Speaker 3: for misdiagnosis with type two, and then it just continues
Speaker 3: to progress to the point of enough beta cells being
Speaker 3: destroyed insulin production being low enough that patients end up
Speaker 3: on insulin within a couple of months as opposed to
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: When I learned that the way to get your diagnosis
Speaker 1: confirmed was a blood draw like I had taken a
Speaker 1: million times, was so mad because I was like, just
Speaker 1: double checking could have changed the trajectory of my health overall.
Speaker 1: And I'm so lucky because over that time I didn't
Speaker 1: go into diabetic keto acidosis, which is when you don't
Speaker 1: have enough insulin in the body, your blood turns into acid.
Speaker 1: It's the way that most people get diagnosed. I didn't
Speaker 1: have to go through that. I don't have any major
Speaker 1: complications of diabetes at this point, but I could have.
Speaker 1: I'm just lucky that my doctor knew what LATTA was
Speaker 1: and that he suspected it from what I told him.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, So at that point, for one sixth
Speaker 4: of your life, basically you have been diligently trying to
Speaker 4: treat something you didn't have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was mind blowing to me. I think
Speaker 1: a lot about the time period that I went through
Speaker 1: in terms of being diagnosed, And I wonder a lot
Speaker 1: if I hadn't walked into the doctor's office as an
Speaker 1: overweight black woman with a family history of type two diabetes,
Speaker 1: would they have asked different questions to make sure that
Speaker 1: I got the right diagnosis the first time? Or did
Speaker 1: I just walk in looking like every patient that they
Speaker 1: have ever seen who lives with type two diabetes?
Speaker 5: They said, the numbers match up. We don't really have
Speaker 5: to check.
Speaker 4: In the case with Mila, because she was diagnosed early
Speaker 4: to mid twenties, Automatically, they went to type two. Is
Speaker 4: that a common misconception because we've spoken about one and two,
Speaker 4: but there are other types.
Speaker 3: So if someone came to my office and they had
Speaker 3: diabetes in their early twenties, there is no way type
Speaker 3: one would not be on my radar because type two
Speaker 3: diabetes is slow and progressive and so unfortunately in Mila's case,
Speaker 3: and I don't agree with these things, but she had
Speaker 3: a lot going against her right, she had race going
Speaker 3: against her body, habit isst going against her, and gender
Speaker 3: going against her. To get great healthcare, I think we
Speaker 3: know that certain racial populations, women women of color don't
Speaker 3: get the same healthcare as our male counterparts are white
Speaker 3: male counterparts, and so unfortunately she was in a situation
Speaker 3: where we as a healthcare community don't do the best job.
Speaker 4: Mila finally had the correct diagnosis, offering her both relief
Speaker 4: and a clear path forward. She began with manual insulin
Speaker 4: injections before eventually transitioning to an insolent pump for greater
Speaker 4: control over her blood sugar levels.
Speaker 1: Personally, it was finally that breath of fresh air, and
Speaker 1: I over time built the confidence to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm cool with wearing a device. I have my watch
Speaker 1: on that like displays my glucose numbers and so I
Speaker 1: can see what's going on and see how I'm.
Speaker 5: Doing and where I need to take ks.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, personally it's made me slow down
Speaker 1: a lot, and it's made me take so much better
Speaker 1: care of myself because I feel like I can actually
Speaker 1: live a relatively normal life and not have to struggle
Speaker 1: with eating or with over exercising, or with like this
Speaker 1: shame of feeling like I have failed, and I actually
Speaker 1: just like I get to live. And that's pretty cool
Speaker 1: because I think about like that five year period where
Speaker 1: I was not living. I was a shell of myself.
Speaker 5: I don't feel.
Speaker 1: Like I had like enough energy to just be myself.
Speaker 4: But you seem to have pulled some energy from the
Speaker 4: community you're created with Angry Woman. What has been so
Speaker 4: rewarding about that outreach and response?
Speaker 1: I think the best part has just been that I
Speaker 1: personally have found that I'm not alone, and I have
Speaker 1: found that other people are dealing with a lot of
Speaker 1: the same things, and they're dealing with it in a
Speaker 1: silo because they maybe don't have a friend like Katie
Speaker 1: that they can talk to or family member who gets it,
Speaker 1: or they feel that same exact stigma, and they're just
Speaker 1: looking for somebody who understands and who's not going to
Speaker 1: judge and who can really just like help them grab
Speaker 1: their bearings. And I think one of the best things
Speaker 1: that ever came out of creating Hungry Woman is the
Speaker 1: community that I have.
Speaker 3: It's connecting the dots and her story. It totally sucks,
Speaker 3: but she has used it to propel her own life forward,
Speaker 3: and she's also been such a vocal advocate for this.
Speaker 3: And so social media is so great in that way
Speaker 3: that there's a whole type one community and I know
Speaker 3: that they hate on doctors all the time, but I
Speaker 3: still love that there's a community out there supporting each
Speaker 3: other who are living with this day in day out
Speaker 3: and giving each other tips and t and support and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So yeah, it's just amazing to see
Speaker 3: the level of advocacy that you can really do for free.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: I do all this myself, and sometimes I'm like, why
Speaker 1: do I even do this, Like doesn't even make a
Speaker 1: difference to anybody, And then I get a message and
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, no, I'm doing the right things for
Speaker 1: the right reasons. And if somebody can walk away with
Speaker 1: a diabetes diagnosis and they can feel excited about the
Speaker 1: future rather than dreading what the future holds, then it's
Speaker 1: all worth it.
Speaker 2: She gets these stories back from people that you know,
Speaker 2: the fact that you've shared this post or you this
Speaker 2: video or this Instagram story is what made me go
Speaker 2: ask the doctor about my own symptoms and I got
Speaker 2: diagnosed and now I have knowledge. And stories like that
Speaker 2: are really like what keeps her going and makes her
Speaker 2: feel so proud of herself for continuing to post.
Speaker 4: What do you hope for the future of diabetes treatment?
Speaker 3: I'll say my biggest overarching hope, because we could get
Speaker 3: really nitty gritty here, but I hope that we move
Speaker 3: to a more empathetic, patient centered approach to diabetes with
Speaker 3: more access to specialists. And my hope is to make
Speaker 3: endochronology a field that is desirable for clinicians to go
Speaker 3: into and physicians to go into, so that we can
Speaker 3: truly utilize our expertise to treat the most pressing chronic
Speaker 3: condition of our time. Diabetes is the most expensive chronic
Speaker 3: condition that we are facing as a country. It is
Speaker 3: so prevalent. So I hope that we recognize the importance
Speaker 3: of diabetes to people's lives, to the economy, and we
Speaker 3: treat it in a specialist forward manner that is patient centered.
Speaker 4: Mila, what do you want people to take away from
Speaker 4: your story?
Speaker 5: Particularly?
Speaker 1: I think really it to fight for yourself and if
Speaker 1: you feel like something is wrong, Yes, your physician and
Speaker 1: your care team are experts, but you live in the
Speaker 1: body that you live in every single day and pay
Speaker 1: attention to those signs, and even if it's frustrating.
Speaker 5: Don't stop pushing. Hopefully pushing gives you an answer in
Speaker 5: less than five years.
Speaker 1: But if something feels off, it's probably off, and it's
Speaker 1: okay to say I disagree, and get another opinion, and
Speaker 1: get another opinion, and get another opinion until either it's
Speaker 1: confirmed for you that you are where you are or
Speaker 1: that it really changes the trajectory of what your health
Speaker 1: looks like.
Speaker 5: And you get to be in a better place because
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 4: You can find more on Mila's story, her online community,
Speaker 4: and many delicious recipes at Henrywoman dot com. In honor
Speaker 4: of World Diabetes Day on November fourteenth, check out Worlddiabetes
Speaker 4: Day dot org to learn how you can support and
Speaker 4: advocate for diabetes awareness every day.
Speaker 1: My name is Mela Clark and I was misdiagnosed for
Speaker 1: five years and I was rediagnosed and properly diagnosed with
Speaker 1: latent autoimmune Diabetes in adults or LATTA, a slow progressing
Speaker 1: form of type one diabetes.
Speaker 4: Next week on Symptomatic, we're back with another edition of
Speaker 4: Symptomatic House Calls. For this house call, we're revisiting case
Speaker 4: number thirteen, Alisha from season two. For those who haven't
Speaker 4: heard this episode, a quick spoiler alert. Alicia was diagnosed
Speaker 4: with plaquoriasis, a chronic autoimmune condition that causes thick raised
Speaker 4: patches of skin. Join us as we catch up with
Speaker 4: Alisha to hear her latest life updates and learn how
Speaker 4: she's continuing to manage her placksoriasis.
Speaker 6: Self esteem and confidence and self worth are universal themes
Speaker 6: that you really have to focus on in your life
Speaker 6: outside of chronic illnesses. It's just so imperative to have
Speaker 6: that love for you in confidence for yourself day to day.
Speaker 4: As always, we would love to hear from you. Send
Speaker 4: us your thoughts on this episode or share a medical
Speaker 4: mystery of your own at Symptomatic at iHeartMedia dot com
Speaker 4: and please rate and review Symptomatic wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4: We'll see you next time. Until then, be well. Symptomatic
Speaker 4: is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. Our show
Speaker 4: is hosted by me Lauren breg Pacheco. Executive producers are
Speaker 4: Matt Romano and myself. Our EP of Post Production is
Speaker 4: James Foster. Our Supervising producer is Cierra Kaiser. Our writers
Speaker 4: are John Irwin and Diana Davis, and our editor is
Speaker 4: Cierra Spreen