Episode 246 |Unveiling Health Challenges: The Revamped Watts Involved Podcast|

David Watts [00:00:03]:
Hi. I'm David Watts. Welcome to Watts Involved. Now you may or may not know that I'm going to be changing a few things. So what's involved initially, and I think I did about 245 odd episodes, That was originally done as a business show, motivational inspiration, and, as I said, 245 odd episodes, a bit of a labor of love. But now I've decided to change the focus. So instead of what's being involved in, the business and all of those kind of motivational things, I thought this what needs to get involved with his own life, and I need to share my journey with you, explain to you what happened, why I'm changing, the entire way that the podcast works. And the simple answer is going to take a while because it's it's not so simple.

David Watts [00:00:58]:
So I have type 2 the type 2 diabetes, and I've had it for, I don't know, 12, 13, 14 years. And it all started out okay, and I understand if people go, yeah. You got it because you had too much sugar. Fair enough. Hands up. I'll I'll accept that one. But, then it progressively sort of got harder and harder to manage my, diabetes just in in terms of lifestyle, etcetera, etcetera. I was trying to do all the right things, but not happening.

David Watts [00:01:32]:
Anyway, long story short, eventually, I had to go on insulin as well. So there we go. The other thing I heard the other day, which I I didn't know, and and maybe I'm wrong, I haven't Googled it, you see, because Google knows everything. But the other thing that, I heard is that, diabetes is also an autoimmune disease. Why do I say this? Well, there's there's more to come about this. Anyway, so it started off, as most diabetics do, when they get a peripheral neuropathy, that I started to get tingling in my my sort of feet and my toes, etcetera, etcetera. And, when I try to find out about that, initially, I was told to take more vitamin b, which I duly did, and it just kept on getting worse. My my my my feet kept on getting worse and worse and worse, more and more pain.

David Watts [00:02:27]:
The pain was now in, my legs, into my lower legs, and I'd I'd kind of lost all feeling in in my feet and at my legs as well. And the more I try to find out what this was about, why was it doing this, the less it became you know, the less I knew. Because I kept getting told, oh, it's your diabetes. Manage your diabetes properly. So, we went to the extent of of getting a a sort of continuous glucose monitor, which I currently have on. It's it's also not cheap, but it's prevented me having 10, 15 fingerprints a day. So it's just over there, and each one lasts about 2 weeks. So then I just scan with my phone, and I know what I'm doing.

David Watts [00:03:16]:
And eventually, believe it or not, it ended up me going to a podiatrist and her going through everything. And the first thing, that I learned, which I had no idea of, was that your feet are responsible for a lot of your balance. And if I close my eyes, I have a tendency to fall over. So that wasn't fun, but then, she was the one who recommended me to go and see a neurologist. And the neurologist, she said, in her recommendation, maybe do a nerve decompression. So I then went ahead and duly scheduled an appointment with the neurologist, thinking maybe there's going to be a nerve decompression or or maybe she's got some answers for me. Because to that point in time, I mean, the pain was unbearable. It was, like, 247, and I tried just about everything that I could think of, you know, and I wasn't happy with, your diabetes is in control.

David Watts [00:04:20]:
I was like, well, how does neuropathy present in a diabetic patient? Does it does it sort of, you know, get to a point and then stay like that? And they were the people were like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I said, well, mine's getting worse. It's going up my legs. So that is essentially a bit of a a a background as to, why I have decided to to change the format of the show and share my story and and see. Maybe, maybe you are having a similar problem or have had a similar journey, and you'd like to check and we can share ideas. Maybe you have some ideas because that's the one thing I noticed.

David Watts [00:04:57]:
When, when you have an illness or a disease, people are very, very keen and happy to recommend all sorts of things to you, and I don't think they do it maliciously. I think they do it because they're genuinely concerned. As I said, I've tried I've tried some weird and wonderfuls. So as I said, time for this to get involved in his own life. This is going to be my journey. I'm going to tell you about what's happened and and how I got to where I am today. And one thing, as I mentioned earlier, that 245 odd episodes, I was on radio. I've been in radio all my life.

David Watts [00:05:35]:
Okay? And it's it's like my drug of choice, basically, because I absolutely love doing it. But then with these health issues, I got to the stage where I wasn't really able to focus and to do the show I was doing as well as I thought I should. So after much soul searching and everything, I said to the radio station, listen. I'm not going to be able to do the show in its current format anymore. And for some reason, I thought they were going to go, shame. That's that's not not good. Tell you what, thank you very much for letting us know, and and how about, you know, you've you've been with us for 10 odd years. How about us, you know, just doing a bit of a farewell or something? You know, I expected something, and I shouldn't have being in radio because, you know, you're only as good as your last show.

David Watts [00:06:27]:
So I got dropped there like a hot potato and was wondering what now because this pain and everything has affected me to such a level that a lot of the time, I simply can't work. I'd I'd lie in bed and feel miserable. So that's where it's progressed to, and there's other bits and pieces. I seem to be, at the moment collecting these autoimmune diseases. I'll tell tell you more about that next time. But today, yeah, that's that's my journey. That's what I've been on, and I wanna share stuff with you because the more I've tried to find out about this stuff, it's like, you know, do do you wanna do you wanna take the red pill and go all the way down the rabbit hole? The more I find out, the less I know. And it's just an absolute minefield.

David Watts [00:07:20]:
And I cannot neglect the emotional and and and intellectual, toll this has had on me in terms of stress and sleep deprivation and just genuine generally feeling like, you know, I'm now not contributing. I am useless. So maybe that's where where you are. Maybe you got an idea around that. A little bit more context, my dirty little secret that I had carried around for a very long time is that, I have a mild form of of dyslexia, and, also, I have ADD. So I have the attention span of a squirrel at the best of times. Now you add my other symptoms into that, and it's just I I just can't, and I need to figure out how. And I thought if you could join me in my journey and, you know, I could maybe help you, you could maybe help me, then that would be awesome, and I get to do what I love, except for the video part.

David Watts [00:08:27]:
This is, like, one of the first times I've ever been on video. Give me a microphone. I'll talk to anybody and everybody. Put me on video, and I feel like an absolute Charlie. Anyway so, that's it for this edition of what's involved. Thank you so much whether you've been listening or watching. I really do appreciate it. Your feedback is appreciated, and you can you can get hold of me anytime.

David Watts [00:08:51]:
Check out the website, which is what's involved, w a t t s, involved.com. Leave me a voice note. Drop me a message. Drop me a mail. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. So as I said, until next time, look after yourselves. Be kind, and thank you for listening.