There are a lot of terrific small businesses creating products to help with diabetes management. We've seen families with 3-D printers making insulin vial cases, people who've come up with better ways to make your CGM stick to your body, and creative clothing with places for pumps. What if you could search through those products in one place? That's the question Adam & Celeste Litt decided to answer when they started their online marketplace, The Useless Pancreas.

Adam was diagnosed with LADA a few years ago. He and Celeste share what that diagnosis was like (he was initially misdiagnosed with type 2), how they teach their two boys about dad's diabetes, and what they hope to accomplish with the Useless Pancreas.

In Tell Me Something Good lots of teens and young adults with new jobs and a bunch of sports milestones to brag about.

This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.

Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom!

Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group!

-----

Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! -----

Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go!

Click here for iPhone Click here for Android

Episode Transcription (rough transcription, has not yet been edited)

Stacey Simms 0:00

Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Daria health manage your blood glucose levels increase your possibiLitties by g evoke hypo pin, the first premixed auto injector for very low blood sugar, and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.

Announcer 0:22

This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

Stacey Simms 0:28

This week, lots of people get a diabetes diagnosis themselves or in their family and they create a product or write a book or invent something to help others. Adam and Celeste Litt took a

Adam Littt 0:40

broader view. I just see all kinds of different really cool stuff out there. And I think that's part of the magic as well. Stacy is there's so many questions out there. What is the solution for this? How can I help this and you get shipped to all these different places and sites. It's not really in one place and people don't always really know where to go.

Stacey Simms 1:01

Adam was diagnosed with LADA a few years ago, he and Celeste join me to talk about their marketplace for T1D products and services called the useless pancreas.

In tell me something good. Lots of teens and young adults with new jobs and a bunch of sports milestones to brag about this podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.

Welcome to another week of the show. Are we so glad to have you along. We aim to educate and inspire about diabetes with a focus on people who use insulin. My son Benny was diagnosed with type one right before he turned to more than 14 years ago. My husband that's with type two diabetes. I don't have any kind of diabetes, but I have a background in broadcasting and that is how you get the podcast and Adam Litt who I'm talking to this week. We connected many, many years ago. Well it was a one way connection because Adam used to listen to me on the radio. And it was just funny to think about how you know things like that kind of come full circle. As I always say for the start of every show. You know I have a background in broadcasting here. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I worked in radio here for 10 years. I hosted a radio morning show Charlottes Morning News, the city's top rated morning news show,

basically, I got up in the middle of the night and got to work by four o'clock in the morning to go on at five for four hours a day trapped in a box with a couple other guys. And we had a great time. But I love that. But after 10 years of getting up at 233 o'clock in the morning, I definitely had had enough. But talking to Adam just reminded me about that connection that you have with your listeners when you do a job like that, you know, he commuted into Charlotte and listened every day. And my son Benny was born in 2004. And I was on the radio at that time. So my listeners went through all of that with me. And then they went through his diagnosis with me. So he knew the story. Well before the podcast, it just took me back because I was very lucky to have the career that I really always dreamed about having when I was a kid. I worked in radio first part time. And then I worked in television for more than 10 years as a local reporter and anchor then came that decade in Charlotte doing radio. And then you know, it's funny, I've really I've spent almost the last 10 years and I hadn't realized it, I left the radio station at the very end of 2012. And I did some freelance work. I worked as a multimedia journalist, it's really a one man band, you know, you're shooting your own stuff for about a year after that just for health insurance. But I've been on my own running my own business for a long time. And I hadn't realized how long until I talked to Adam and we figured out when he must have listened to me. I don't miss getting up in the middle of the night and I don't miss some of the nonsense of working at a radio station like the one I was at and that's another long story. I do feel extremely grateful to have been able to kind of create this radio job for myself and to be able to serve you and do this and have listeners all this time. We're coming up on six years this summer and every time I get a Litttle radio reminder like that I just want to take a moment be thankful so I really appreciate having you here

we will talk to Adam in just a moment and his wife Celeste but first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Gvoke HypoPen and you know almost everyone who takes insulin has experienced a low blood sugar and that can be scary. A very low blood sugar is really scary and that's where Gvoke HypoPen comes in. Do you focus the first auto injector to treat very low blood sugar? Gvoke HypoPen is pre mixed and ready to go with no visible needle. That means it's easy to use. How easy is it you pull off the red cap and push the yellow end onto bare skin and hold it for five seconds. That's it. Find out more go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Gvoke logo. Gvoke shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma visit Gvoke glucagon.com slash risk.

My guest this week saw a gap in the diabetes community and like many of us, they jumped into filling. Adam Littt was diagnosed with LADA A few years after being initially mis diagnosed with Type two if you're not familiar with LADA 80 is latent autoimmune diabetes in adults it's also called type 1.5 it presents a lot like type two but it's really type one it's just slower moving is a really good kind of basic definition of it and i link up more information we've done lots of episodes on LADA but i like to explain it you just you know you never know if this is somebody's first time hearing about it adam and his wife celeste have started a new website it's a marketplace for diabetes products called the useless pancreas and i will link that up as well in the episode homepage it is useless pancreas all one word full disclosure my book is listed as one of the products on that website but they don't pay me any extra to list it there and no money exchanged hands for this interview adam and celeste thank you so much for joining me it's great to talk to you today

Adam Littt 5:48

thanks so much for having us yes thank

Unknown Speaker 5:50

you

Stacey Simms 5:51

yeah this is gonna be fun i have so much to ask you about our charlotte connection and your website and the uselessness of everything that you're doing but let's start at the beginning here if we could adam tell me about your diagnosis

Adam Littt 6:06

sure yeah be happy to go into that stacy so i was a ladder diagnosis the you know late onset type and at first and probably probably very similar to a lot of people's stories out there i was diagnosed as a type two and this was around my mid 30s and you know what stacy after that they diagnosed me type two that was a Litttle pudgy and i said yeah i'm just gonna go ahead i'm going to lose weight i'm going to work out i'm gonna get really fit and when i lost weight when i started losing weight i started losing weight at a pretty rapid rates where people started making some comments like well you're you're getting reasonably thin probably a Litttle you know fitter than where you ought to be and i blew this off i completely disregarded it you know i had my a one c's checked for a couple of years and they were maintaining in the mid sixes and you know everything was fine and but i kept getting healthier and healthier as far as weight control and diet...