Nick Jonas on living with diabetes, advice for teens who get a positive diagnosis

So tell me about when you first were diagnosed at age 13, what were some of your symptoms? When I was first diagnosed, some of the symptoms were losing weight, urinating all the time, terrible attitude. It was a really tough time. My glucose was over 800 and the target range is anywhere from 70 to 120. So it was a long time living with that higher glucose level and probably two and a half, three months without knowing. It just I think goes to show that there's been so many strides made in awareness even in the 17 years since I was diagnosed. I wanted to be vocal about it from the beginning because I felt like it would be easier for me to live with the disease if I was open and honest about what my experience was and hopefully for someone else who is in a similar position trying to figure out how to navigate a life with diabetes, me speaking about it could be helpful in whatever way. It's been a crazy ride, but I'm in good health now and keeping all my numbers in control. How did you manage it going into your teenage years and you're on the road and you want to do things and try things? Puberty alone is a big hurdle for young people and when you add diabetes into the mix or an autoimmune disease of any kind, it can be really tough. For me it was just about trying to manage my lifestyle with touring and working as much as I was working at that time, traveling and everything else while just trying to figure out how to manage the disease. I'm very grateful to have had a wonderful support system around me, family, friends and an amazing set of doctors who were patient with me and taught me a lot along the way, but most of it is just trial and error. You just have to figure out what works best for you. I think once CGM came into my life and became a part of my management of my disease, things got a whole lot easier. I'm incredibly grateful to be able to have this technology and be in a spot where I'm getting readings so frequently. I think back to the times when I was pricking 10 to 12 times a day and now within every couple of minutes I'm getting a new reading. It just helps prepare for each of those next steps and simplifies things a lot. Tomorrow you're heading off to go on tour on Broadway with your brothers. Going to Broadway, yes. How do you manage your diabetes when you're touring? It really depends. It's no different than being at home and managing it. It's just about staying as on top of it as I can. I don't like the way it feels when my blood sugar is high or low, so I do my best to stay within range. The long-term effects of managing your disease carefully and as best you can, you feel so much better. There are certainly benefits. I think I just try to focus on staying as present as possible and taking whatever steps I can throughout the day to make sure that I'm in the best health I can be. Have you ever had your reader go off while on stage? Quite a few times I've gone low while being on stage, which is not to say that I mismanage something or anything like that, but there are just things that are unpredictable about this disease and the management of the disease. It's just about staying on it as best you can. So then what happens? If your reader goes off on stage, what happens? Well, for me, I just take a juice and try to stay as calm as possible, knowing that anything is harder when you're working through a low glucose, and juice gets it back up. My team also is right there side stage and prepared for any scenario that could pop up. But fortunately, I've never had something really bad happen while on stage. So what are some snacks that you always have with you? You mentioned juice. What are some things that you just have to always have with you? I carry juice with me. I have a glucagon, which is for emergency situations. But other than that, it really is pretty simple. I'm getting so many numbers so frequently that I'm able to kind of predict before something happens or foresee before something could happen and make those changes in real time. Where do you wear your reader? I wear the Dexcom on the back of my arm or arms, and it's super low profile, so you can't really see it's there, but it's right there. So do you change wardrobe based on... No, my whole kind of thought is diabetes is a huge part of my life, but it shouldn't take over my life in any way. I work really hard to not let it kind of interfere or change my ability to participate in certain things. Even the biggest misconception would be about food and things that diabetics can and cannot eat. I've worked really hard to sort of set the record straight on some of those things in my own experience and just educate where I can, but also advocate for those who are in a similar boat. We all have something, whether it's diabetes or not. There's something that we're affected by, and it's all about perspective and the ability to kind of power through. How do you change the narrative that diabetes is a obesity disease, that it's something that somebody did wrong? I don't think that it's just on me to rewrite that narrative. I approach all of this conversation knowing that it's heavily nuanced, and it should be. Everyone's experience is their own, and the misconceptions surrounding the difference or similarities between type 1 and type 2 are out of my control, personally. But I can be a part of a conversation and use the platform that I have to raise awareness for these things. And so I think that when people feel like it's frustrating or disappointing that people don't quite know those differences, or even in some cases make it out to be specifically about one thing, not taking care of yourself, you should have done this, you should have done that, I think the best thing to do, and I've been in these situations where someone says, Oh, you can't have sugar, right? And it's far more complicated than that. I try to take a deep breath and just kind of educate where I can and just say, Actually, it's this, and this is my experience. And it's not on any one person to rewrite that narrative. So when you were a teenager, how did you get your parents and your brothers to not be hovering all the time and worried all the time? It was tough because they all care about me a lot, which is great, and they want to be involved and be helpful. But I think for me, they knew, too, that it was important that it was my journey and that I felt some sense of independence with this thing that was really kind of taking over my life in a way. I felt like I had more control if I was the one sort of spearheading the management of the disease. And they've been incredibly helpful along the way, both in my family and friends circle and now my nuclear family with my wife and her understanding of what to do in certain situations. And more than anything, it's just about the weight of decision-making that I think type 1 diabetics have. It's all about management and surviving and thriving, and that thriving component is the thing of just having to think 10 steps ahead. And as long as you have a grip on that, I think it's possible to thrive in it as well. So what's it like to be a new dad? How has it changed your life? My life has changed in so many ways. Hard to name just one, but it's incredible. The greatest gift, and I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful partner to share this with and share this journey with. So what's next? You're doing this Broadway run with your brothers, and then what? We're off to New York for this Broadway run. It's going to be fun. We have some surprises up our sleeves, but it's basically spotlighting a different album each night leading up to the last night, which will be kind of the unveiling of the album, our new album. And I started on Broadway. I actually performed in the very theater that we're going to be performing in this week when I was 8 and 9 years old in Annie Get Your Gun with Reba McIntyre. So it'll be fun to go back 21 years later, 22 years later with my brothers and share this very special thing with our fans. What questions do you got? So on the panel you talked a little about mental health in conjunction with Type 1. Can you talk a little bit more about maybe some struggles you might have had and how you've overcome them and how those two are related? Yeah, so I think that mental health is obviously a very important conversation, something that really affects every aspect of all of our lives. And when you compound that with something like diabetes, there are naturally going to be things in overlap with that. And I wasn't completely aware of the importance of my mental health journey amidst not only my career and life in the public eye, but also all that it relates to with diabetes. And I think once I started therapy and started doing that just a few years back, I saw through those conversations how much work I could be doing to improve my life as a whole, both mentally and physically. And I think it's important for all people living with this disease to have this conversation and do what's right for them. But also for young men, I think it's a really important thing and something that can often be ignored or overlooked. And so I'm happy to get to speak about it. And my journey with this disease has evolved at the different stages of my life as it's kind of natural that it would. But I think being aware of that and leaning in is important. And what do you see for the future of beyond Type 1? What's next for that? Beyond Type 1 is an amazing org that I co-founded a while back. And we have an amazing team working on a lot of initiatives, both for access and affordability and awareness, which is kind of our key focuses for the org. Along with community outreach within the diabetes community and resources that are helpful for people living with the disease and their family members and friends, which I kind of spoke about on the panel a little bit today. But it's been wonderful to see the reach and the disruption that Beyond Type 1 has had, where conversation around diabetes was very clinical before and honestly a little boring at times. And this has been a great opportunity to bring an artistic touch and approach to just kind of an eye-level conversation around the disease and the management of the disease. And obviously initiatives like CURE, access and affordability, and awareness around CGM and other helpful tools to manage your life with diabetes. What's your best advice for someone who is 13 and getting diagnosed for the first time? Best advice would be to take it one step at a time. Do your best not to get overwhelmed. There's a lot of information that comes at you very quickly. And at the point that I was diagnosed, the internet wasn't really a thing. We couldn't at that point, as easily as we can now with a phone in our hands, look up kind of what you should do in certain situations. So I spent a lot of time just kind of learning and not getting frustrated with myself or the process. And I would encourage people that are newly diagnosed to see it through that lens as well.