Dr. Wycoff: “Tell us about your experience with TMS.”

PT: “I’ve had a wonderful result in that dealing with my type 1 diabetes. I am now able to get signals that I wasn’t able to receive because I went straight into like a flight mode when my blood sugar was dropping when I was becoming hypoglycemic and immediately it would start to panic.

Now what I’m doing is I’m actually getting signals like getting shaky, a little sweaty, even a little headachy, which is normal when people are needing some calories and and blood sugar is dropping.

So, I’m not just going straight into my head. I’m staying in my body and able to help myself. taking some deep breaths, working through it, but not having like the heart racing and the panic of like what can happen, what may happen. I’m just dealing with what I need to. And I’m telling myself everything’s okay. I’m safe. There’s people around. I’ve got what I need. I have a phone if I need to call somebody. You know, because you get into that flight mode and you feel like you’re just like there’s nothing around. There’s nothing close by or no one is close by when there actually is. I have neighbors.

I’ve got, like I said, I have a phone. I could call 911 if I had to. I can even ask Siri to do it. Like I’m not helpless and I feel empowered now.”

Dr. Wycoff: “So interesting. So you’re able to stay regulated, emotionally regulated, and feel the physical symptoms and then take the steps rather than go straight into an emotional overreaction.”

PT: “Exactly. Because the emotional overreaction is also exhausting. So when you’re coming up from a low blood sugar, you’re going to be a little bit out of it. A little tired, I want to say not out of it, but tired. I’m now able to It’s like just it just smooths over. I’m there. I help myself and then I’m literally on the other side.

So, it’s wonderful. Um, I’m a good patient. I take care of myself. I make sure I have plenty to eat. I make sure I have plenty of snacks. I’ve never been negligent, but the anxiety made me feel like it wasn’t enough. And now I’m realizing I have enough and I am enough and it’s going to be okay.”

Dr. Wycoff: “Wow. That’s just wonderful. So, it sounds like you’re more attuned to the physical symptoms.”

PT: “Yes.”

Dr. Wycoff: And do you feel like those just you didn’t notice them before? I mean, has the TMS helped heightened your sensitivity to physical cues?”

PT: “I would say it has because I did used to feel these things. It was in the last two to three years they for whatever reason went away and I spoke about it with my endocrinologist and they said that sometimes the signals for a precursor of getting to a hypoglycemic state change and that is true. The signals are not always the same. They can fluctuate. Like sometimes I might just feel a little sweaty all the time. Sometimes I might feel shaky without the sweaty.

But I wasn’t feeling anything like that. And those are all normal responses that your your brain gives to your body. To say like, “Hey, you know what? Like, you need to give me something right now. And I just wasn’t able to receive the signal.”

Dr. Wycoff: “interesting.”

PT: “Now getting the signals back, it’s making me feel empowered and really, I want to say it’s great to feel like normal. I mean, I have a chronic illness. It’s this is just what it is. I need to be able to listen to my body. Because that’s what it’s supposed to do.

And now I’m able to do that at a different level than I have in in years. It’s been at least two to three years since I’ve really felt those signals, you know.”

Dr. Wycoff: “ I would hypothesize given what I know of TMS, TMS increases the connectivity, the communication between the different parts of the brain. That’s part of what it does. So my guess is the brain was sending these signals but for one reason or another it was getting lost in translation.”

Pt: “That makes sense. That makes sense because that that was the other thing was like wow you know I mean if it’s not doing this now what’s going to happen in the future you know that kind of a thing. And this has really done so much more than I thought it was going to do. I was I was looking forward to getting results. I just didn’t know what it was gonna be and I’m so glad I took the step to do it.”

Dr. Wycoff: “Was your primary presenting complaint depression? Anxiety?

PT: “I would say it was anxiety number one and then depression because I just felt like what was going on like I don’t know what’s happening. And to not know what’s happening especially for a diabetic who’s taking care of herself to live. I mean, that’s really what I, you know, my A1C’s are good. I’m like 6.2, 6.3, A1C. I’ve had this 33 years. I’m on my 33rd year.

So yeah, I, you know, I want to do what’s best for me, but I couldn’t get past this barrier. And it was in my mind. It wasn’t what I was eating. It wasn’t how much, you know, how many calories I was eating a day or how much I was exercising or not exercising. Had nothing to do with that. It was something that I couldn’t have done. I could not have done myself because you felt there just wasn’t the control there and you would just kind of panic when you realize you were having hypoglycemic.

Yep. It was just a panic. It was just a panic and I would talk myself through it, walk myself through it. Um but it was like uh like walking through quicksand. Like I knew I was going to get out of it. It’s inevitable, you know. But I didn’t know how long I was going to be there and I didn’t know when it was just going to like stop. And that was what gave me some depression.”