Ask Dr. Drew - Callers Week, Day 2! Ask Dr. Drew Anything… EXCEPT COVID-19 Questions w/ Dr. Kelly Victory – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 281

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Raise your hand in on Spaces to ask Dr. Drew anything about today’s topic: everything EXCEPT COVID-19. If you haven’t been able to ask your question on a previous episode because most of the calls... were focused on the pandemic, today is your chance! WHY 3 CALLER SHOWS? Producer Kaleb Nation and his wife just had a baby! To prepare for sleepless nights with a newborn, we are not scheduling guests for a week… and instead, Dr. Drew will be taking YOUR calls in 3 special episodes! 10/31: COVID-19, mRNA, Vaccines & Medical Freedom → https://youtu.be/kJ_WSHXMauk 11/1: Ask Me Anything EXCEPT COVID-19 → https://youtu.be/8dbtKfQgkDI 11/2: Ask Me Anything About ANYTHING → https://youtu.be/V0cBLmlpCgQ 「 SPONSORED BY 」 Find out more about the companies that make this show possible and get special discounts on amazing products at https://drdrew.com/sponsors • GENUCEL - Using a proprietary base formulated by a pharmacist, Genucel has created skincare that can dramatically improve the appearance of facial redness and under-eye puffiness. Genucel uses clinical levels of botanical extracts in their cruelty-free, natural, made-in-the-USA line of products. Get an extra discount with promo code DREW at https://genucel.com/drew • PRIMAL LIFE - Dr. Drew recommends Primal Life's 100% natural dental products to improve your mouth. Get a sparkling smile by using natural teeth whitener without harsh chemicals. For a limited time, get 60% off at https://drdrew.com/primal • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at https://twc.health/drew • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get a discount on your first order at https://drdrew.com/paleovalley 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 The CDC states that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and reduce your risk of severe illness. You should always consult your personal physician before making any decisions about your health.  「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/firstladyoflove). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. 「 ABOUT DR. DREW 」 Dr. Drew is a board-certified physician with over 35 years of national radio, NYT bestselling books, and countless TV shows bearing his name. He's known for Celebrity Rehab (VH1), Teen Mom OG (MTV), Dr. Drew After Dark (YMH), The Masked Singer (FOX), multiple hit podcasts, and the iconic Loveline radio show. Dr. Drew Pinsky received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College and his M.D. from the University of Southern California, School of Medicine. Read more at https://drdrew.com/about Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome back, everyone. We're, of course, here at our usual time this week. Dr. Kelly Victory, on her usual day, will join me again. We are taking questions off Twitter spaces. I'll get in there in just a second to make sure we have access. Don't worry. Kayla will be out there. Just I've got to drop in.
Starting point is 00:00:17 And the idea, the conceit of today's show was all things medical other than COVID. Though I'm afraid Kelly and I have a few things hanging over from yesterday we kind of want to get into before we launch into other topics, but Susan's laughing. I also noticed that Susan was in on the Rumble rants talking about whether or not RFK Jr. should have Secret Service coverage from the federal government. Hysterical. We can talk about things like that if you wish.
Starting point is 00:00:44 Those of you who are on Rumble may have just seen an interview with RFK Jr. I was with him over the weekend at a really very interesting presentation. A five-hour afternoon of multiple presenters at San Jose. I thought it was a very productive afternoon and evening. Again, back with your calls. We'll be
Starting point is 00:01:00 on Twitter spaces taking those calls. Raise your hand there. I'll call you up after this. Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for f*** sake.
Starting point is 00:01:19 Where the hell do you think I learned that? I'm just saying. You go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician i observe things about these chemicals let's just deal with what's real and we used to get these calls on loveline all the time educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat you have trouble you can't stop and you want to help stop it i can help i got a lot to say i got a lot more to say I think everyone knows the next medical crisis could be just around the corner, whether it comes in the form of another pandemic or something much more routine like a tick bite.
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Starting point is 00:02:20 Be ready for anything. This medical emergency kit contains an assortment of life-saving medications, including ivermectin, Z-Pak. The medical emergency kit provides a guidebook to aid in the safe use of all these life-saving medications. From anthrax to tick bites to COVID-19, the Wellness Company's medical emergency kit is exactly what you need to have on hand to be prepared. Rest assured, knowing that you have emergency antibiotics, antivirals, and antiparasitics on hand to help you and your family stay safe
Starting point is 00:02:49 from whatever life throws at you next. Go to drdrew.com slash TWC. That is D-R-D-R-E-W dot com forward slash TWC to get 10% off today. Just click on that link. And tomorrow we will have some news about my participation with TWC. I think they're doing a great job of trying to improve access for people that are not so trusting in the medical system anymore. We're trying to rebuild that trust and trying to put
Starting point is 00:03:16 some of the locus of control for healthcare back in the hands of patients. So that is my goal in getting involved with TWC. So keep a lookout for that. I'm pleased with their responsiveness, how they're problem solving, and I think we can do some good there. Dr. Kelly Victory joins me, of course. Kelly is an ER doc. She has public health training. I don't have to, we will undoubtedly, when we come out of commercials next time, there'll be another review of who Kelly Victory is that's all tapped into our automated system. So she'll be there. She'll be promoted again when we take a little break. But I don't want to go to calls just yet because there's a bunch of stuff I want to talk to you about. Let me just talk to you about one thing in particular to start with, because you and I both have kind of a hangover from yesterday.
Starting point is 00:04:02 Some of the calls we took, some of the conflicts we were getting into and stuff. Right. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I was awake for an hour thinking to myself, now wait a minute. How can I question the point of view, the position of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and essentially the Royal Society of Ob Obstetrician Gynecology and essentially the Royal Society of Obstetrician Gynecology and every other society, professional society, particularly that, I've been looking at the pregnancy data lately and trying to understand
Starting point is 00:04:36 it because so much of it is earlier. So much of the great benefit was earlier. I'm trying to understand why the push now. And I just thought to myself, who am I to run afoul of these great and storied professional organizations? I will let you answer that. And then I want to tell you what my next thought was after about 45 minutes. I'll let you answer that first. Right. Well, let me start with this. I think, unfortunately, I think that people underestimate the power of financial incentive. There's no question that the different colleges, just like the medical journals, Drew, are highly supported by the pharmaceutical companies. If you look, for example, at what happened with the average internist, the average internist,
Starting point is 00:05:26 family practice physician in the United States, makes $200,000 a year. The average practitioner has 1,500 patients in his or her practice. Those are just the numbers. The insurance companies incentivized doctors financially to get their patients, for example, vaccinated for COVID. This has never happened before. They didn't do it for influenza. They don't do it for meningitis or for pneumonia, but they did for COVID. And they incentivized people, these doctors, $300 per patient if you had 70% or more of your practice vaccinated. So let me just do the math for you. That means that your average doctor who was making $200,000 a year, if he or she got 70% of their practice vaccinated, 70% of their 1,500 patients, they would have made an additional $550,000.
Starting point is 00:06:25 It would have gone from $200,000 to three quarters of a million dollars last year. Okay. If you don't think that that's an incentive. No, I'm not saying that a doctor says, oh, I don't believe in this, but since I'm getting paid, I'll give it. But when you're, it's really subliminal. It's really when you're going, oh my gosh, I'm motivated to get my patients vaccinated
Starting point is 00:06:49 and you see past, maybe you don't delve into the studies as much as you can. If you're the average guy who could increase his income from 200,000 to 750,000 just for pushing the vaccines, I think you're crazy if you think that doesn't matter. Likewise with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology or the Lancet or whoever it is, when you are looking at losing massive amounts of financial support, I think that makes a big difference.
Starting point is 00:07:21 Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News, said long ago that he really wanted to eliminate pharmaceutical advertising from Fox News, but they provided 70% of all of the advertising revenue for Fox News. Again, this isn't a partisan issue. This is when money speaks, unfortunately. So when you look at the financial incentives, I don't care if you're the University of California, San Francisco, looking at the data that was being thrown around yesterday with regard to cancer rates, they are heavily subsidized by the pharmaceutical companies. The media are, the journals are, and certainly the different medical colleges are. And I think that you cannot underestimate that.
Starting point is 00:08:14 So, and you know, I certainly am interested in support your skepticism, worry about the overreach of regulation and the pharmaceutical industry and how they're cozy. And this is all new information for me because I was, you know, again, I'm still ambivalent about it because I worked with pharmaceutical industries and professionals and have been very pleased with the work they do. But I understand what you're saying in terms of the adulteration of thought process.
Starting point is 00:08:44 Well, here's where my thinking went in the middle of the night was, wait a minute. These were the same guys that told me that if I didn't follow the Women's Health Initiative in 2014, line and verse, I was no different than a witch doctor. Those were their words. And at the time, I remember thinking, wait, something's wrong. Something's wrong. That's not right. That doesn't fit.
Starting point is 00:09:09 That's not, all these women I have on the home replacement therapy are going to be destroyed when I take them off. And then we were required to take them off. These women were destroyed. They went from elongated, upright humans to spheres that were in pain chronically from their osteoporosis. And then, what is it, three years later, they went, oops, we got that one wrong. I today spent about a half hour trying to find both that admonition about being a witch doctor and what they said when they changed course dramatically because that study was so flawed and no one saw it. Can't find it.
Starting point is 00:09:47 The Internet is scrubbed for that, which is very interesting. Right. And the other thing is, I think there's a confluence of these forces, Drew. Because back to your issue about the American College of Obstetrics and gynecology. You've got the doctors at the helm making decisions, and they know that their college is being financially supported by pharmaceutical monies. But they say, let's be real scientists, and they go instead to the journal. They say, well, let's actually see what the studies show. So they read a study that's corrupted because it's also paid for
Starting point is 00:10:19 by the same pharmaceutical company, but that study supports their behavior. So they legitimately have gone to the study. And this, as you know, for me has been the existential crisis. If you can't trust the studies, if you can't trust them because they were bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical company, so it there's a confluence of all of these forces. So just as you saw that they led you to believe. Yeah. It's even weirder. They led you to believe you should do something.
Starting point is 00:10:50 Yeah. And I did it and it hurt my patients. And then I found out I was right. Now, the other circumstance in which every professional society in this country fought me was with the prescribing of opiates. Pain is the fifth vital sign, Dr. Pinsky. Pain is what the patient says it is. Pain controls what the patient says it is. You're going to be guilty of patient abuse if you don't give that heroin addict the Vicodin
Starting point is 00:11:16 he wants or whatever. That was the insanity that was going on back then. Same organizations, both situations. And same thing now. I'm going, something is not right. Oh, it's those guys again. It's the same professional societies again that got it so wrong. So then I started thinking, oh, I got to figure this out. I got it. There's something wrong and I can feel it, but go ahead. It might be money. It might be something else. I don't know. No. And I do an entire presentation on the lack of critical thinking that has taken over medicine.
Starting point is 00:11:53 Here's another. When doctors became entirely employed, and 80 plus percent of doctors are employees now, either of a large hospital system, of a large medical group, or of an insurance company. And I'm here to tell you that you work for the person who pays you. And if you are being paid, if you work for an insurance company or a hospital system, you work for them, not for the patient. And you are going to do what they tell you to do. When I was working full-time at a hospital-based trauma practice and they entered into the and you got incentivized based on your press Ganey results your patient satisfaction
Starting point is 00:12:31 survey so here I am a trauma specialist that's really obvious a random mark right so I'm trying to save people from the clutches of death these are people shot in the chest horrific car accidents accidents, awful trauma. And I'm trying to save them. And I need to worry about the patient satisfaction survey, whether or not they liked my bedside manner. I'm like, how about if I saved their lives? You might incentivize me on that, whether or not I kept them from the morgue. But no, instead, you're going to incentivize. So what do you think happens, Drew, when the mother comes in and says to the doctor in the urgent care, you know, my child has an ear infection, or the doctor says you have an ear infection,
Starting point is 00:13:11 which we know are 98% viral, but mom wants a prescription for amoxicillin. Okay, you're thinking, well, I can either way driving, you know, bacterial resistance, antibiotic resistance, or I can make this mother happy, you know bacterial resistance antibiotic resistance or I can make this mother happy you know and my press Ganey my patient satisfaction I don't care I'm writing a prescription for amoxicillin even though she doesn't need it because when you start incentivizing doctors based on the wrong thing not following the best medical care but making the the patient happy, you're going to give them that prescription for Vicodin.
Starting point is 00:13:47 You're going to give them the prescription for amoxicillin. They want a party favor, you're going to give them a party favor. That's not good medicine, but they set up the incentives that way and doctors are humans and they're going to play to the incentives. And then finally, I've been sort of obsessing about this one article in JAMA, which was vaccinated pregnant women, unvaccinated pregnant women,
Starting point is 00:14:13 and it showed a slight increase in benefits, NICU hospitalizations for the infants, less ICU visits for the infants, less ICU visits for the mom, except that there was a higher incidence of babies coming back to the hospital. These were slight differences in all these issues. And the thing I could not figure out, and I'm still digging into this and asking multiple reviewers to look at this with me to make sure I'm not getting something wrong,
Starting point is 00:14:49 but I can't see that the change in the outcomes in the two populations was related to COVID. Their endpoints were just NICU hospitalization or ICU for the mom, not ICU due to COVID. I couldn't find it anywhere in the paper that they documented what was in the mix of these two populations, the vaccinated, unvaccinated, say mothers in the ICU. There's no criteria. There's no diagnostic information. It could all have been, I don't know, anything. It could have been any kind of misadventure in pregnancy. It doesn't have to have been COVID.
Starting point is 00:15:19 And people are looking at me going, are you here to tell me that the vaccine made some sort of difference that wasn't related to COVID. That's in medical literature all the time. That's why we have to do RCTs because the outcomes are very unpredictable. They can look all kinds of ways and it doesn't have to be doing anything, have anything to do with the desired outcome of the therapeutic you're offering. And if people don't know that and understand that, it seems insane to suggest, well, are you telling me that's not COVID that made the difference when they gave a vaccine? It may be, but it may not be. And they don't specify.
Starting point is 00:15:56 No, that was a horrifically bad study. And as I said, you're pointing out one of the very obvious flaws. I mentioned yesterday that that study was authored by two people who work for the Canadian version of the CDC and a third person who works for Pfizer. Okay. So let's start with that. I'm obsessing about it. I'm obsessing about all this.
Starting point is 00:16:18 I'm trying to figure it out. It's a horrible study. It made no sense. I got to tell you, I'm in like a weird, I agree with you, but I'm in this weird existential sense. I got to tell you, I'm in like a weird, I agree with you, but I'm in this weird existential weird. But I'll tell you, and then before we, and I want to get to calls,
Starting point is 00:16:33 but the last comment I'll make about this is I maintain that the fundamental construct that was violated is that we never, ever give to a group of people, a therapeutic drug intervention and a group of people on whom it was never tested. These vaccines were not tested on pregnant women. They were not tested prior to being launched. And the idea of giving them to pregnant women is absolutely unconscionable. These are studies that will take years to figure out.
Starting point is 00:17:05 There's a reason why vaccines take six to eight years to come to market if they ever make it to market. Because you need to test it on people first. And this is what makes it so difficult. It is a moving target if you're trying to do observational studies because the virus is changing. And so is the population that you're vaccinating. It's not an RCT where you start out with two controls and move forward you're trying to do observational data on a virus that is mutating all the time it is extremely difficult and inaccurate and full of confoundings full of confounding things okay Okay. So. Okay. What? Time to talk about not COVID. Okay.
Starting point is 00:17:46 Okay. Yeah, guys. I told you we had a hangover. We had a hangover from yesterday. Do you want to quickly go over Matthew Perry? You and I have not really ever discussed this together very quickly before we go to calls. Yeah, I do. Because I'm guessing you have some concerns that Matthew Perry might have something remiss, but I don't, but go ahead. Well, I don't know him personally. I know only what I read
Starting point is 00:18:16 of him, and he was a very complex person with a storied history of substance abuse. So I have no idea what actually happened. One has to wonder any time you see a previously healthy person who appears to be quite fit die suddenly in today's world, you do have to wonder about the vaccine, but I would be crazy to jump to that conclusion given his well-known history of substance abuse and mental health
Starting point is 00:18:46 issues and those sorts of things. So I don't know what happened with him. Certainly, the question is out there. And until we have autopsy or are made privy to the results of said autopsy, I don't think anyone can say. Yeah, I agree with you. A couple of things. They're reporting that no meth, no fentanyl.
Starting point is 00:19:04 Those were not his drugs. He was an oral opiate dude. He got probably in some benzodiazepines lately, which is very dangerous for somebody with his history, very dangerous. And he had COPD, I'm hearing, reported from tobacco use, so he also might have coronary disease, right? So this could have been a coronary event.
Starting point is 00:19:22 He played pickleball before. Yeah, who knows? It's very different, Drew, from the soccer player who has a sudden cardiac arrest on the field, or the 17-year-old who's found dead in bed by mom in the morning. That's very different. This is somebody whose history is quite complex, and there are lots of other things that could be out there. I agree. And I just wanted to roll through that. Except to just point this one thing out, my entire career, and I mean my entire career, when people came to me and said, this young, healthy person died or had dehydration and died, whatever their little code was, or went to the hospital for exhaustion and then died.
Starting point is 00:20:09 100% of the time it's addiction. Now I stop and go, there's some other options now, which is weird. That's weird that I think that way. That's odd. All right, let's do this. Let's take a break. Let's get the business out of the way, and then we will go to your calls. Non-please, non-COVID-related calls, if we can limit it to that, it would be very much appreciated. All right, let's do this. Let's take a break. Let's get the business out of the way. And then we will go to your calls.
Starting point is 00:20:28 Non-please, non-COVID-related calls, if we can limit it to that. Please. It would be very much appreciated. We can't seem to resist. So if you can, it will get us on course. So let's do business and then back with calls. Susan and I have been looking for a nutrition-packed, great-tasting greens drink for a while. And then we tried our friends at Paleo Valley's organic super greens,
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Starting point is 00:24:05 It effectively eliminates plaque, harmful bacteria, promotes gum health. Get yours and enjoy 60% off at naturaltoothbrush.com slash D-R-E-W. Some platforms have banned the discussion of controversial topics. If this episode ends here, the rest of the show is available at drdrew.tv. There's nothing in medicine that doesn't boil down to a risk-benefit calculation. It is the mandate of public health to consider the impact of any particular mitigation scheme on the entire population. This is uncharted territory, Drew. And there we have been since.
Starting point is 00:24:48 Kelly, I just ran the latest doing a little journal of medicine which just came out five minutes ago. Interesting article about SARS and early weeks of gestation causing situs inversus. That'll be interesting. Keep an eye on that.
Starting point is 00:25:00 Oh, also, on the restream, they were mentioning how good Kellylly looks right now and i just want to give her a shout out i think that i think the uh paleo valley turmeric and uh genu cells doing its job over there so and there you go you're beaming you're beaming well i i also got a new computer so i have have a new camera. But I think it's the Genu's now. I think it's the Genu's now. All right, James, unmute yourself there, and you're coming on up.
Starting point is 00:25:31 James, go ahead. Oh, how are you? Hi, James. Good. Hello. Hi. Thank you, guys, for everything you guys are doing. Thank you, guys.
Starting point is 00:25:43 You're awesome. Listen, I'm reading a book, Eat to Beat Disease. I'm actually astounded how confusing the topic of nutrition is to keep healthy and so forth. It's such a confusing subject. You know, you got Dr. Berg, obviously. He's got all these followers. What is your suggestion? I did get the spike protein.
Starting point is 00:26:07 Thank you very much. I'm not getting into that area, like you said. Thank you very much for that information. What is your suggestion? What is a good nutritional foundational diet for people to live by? It's a great question. I'm going to throw you back while we try to answer that. I'm going to give Kelly a first slice of the first, what do the Europeans say, bite at
Starting point is 00:26:33 the cake? But before that, I just want to say one thing, which is Kate Shanahan, who we've had on this show, she's a biochemist and she's a family practitioner and she was the nutritionist and doctor for the Lakers for a while. And when I first met her, she goes, nutrition is too spectacularly complex for me to say anything meaningful about the biochemistry, except in very narrow areas, such as healthy fats.
Starting point is 00:26:59 And she had some very specific stuff about healthy fats, and we can talk about that. But in terms of you should be eating X number of blueberries every day or X number of how much weed. But there are some general things I think both Kelly and I can talk about. So go ahead, Kelly. Yeah. And James, first of all, I share your frustration with it because, again, the medical community has done a lousy job. We've ping-p ponged all over the
Starting point is 00:27:25 place. Eggs are good, eggs are bad. Cholesterol is good, cholesterol is bad. High fat, low fat, high protein, it's all over the place. I can tell you, this is a particular area of interest of mine and I know a lot about it. I have come to the conclusion after doing unbelievable reading of my own that the best diet really is one that's, believe it or not, relatively well balanced. I think although you could lose a lot of weight on keto or you could lose a lot of weight on a low carb diet, they're not really sustainable for most people. I've come to the conclusion that processed foods and particularly high sugar processed foods are a problem because they're highly inflammatory. It's not sort of just because they cause you to be fat. Sugar by itself and
Starting point is 00:28:18 rapidly accessible sugar, processed sugars are are inflammatory. And inflammation, I believe, is fundamentally the key to most disease processes. We know that inflammation's a real problem and cutting down on processed sugar is part of dealing with that. Americans in general eat far, in my estimation, too much protein. We have this idea that just because you go to the gym
Starting point is 00:28:44 three days a week and lift some weights that you need to be taking a protein shake and protein bars and additional... Americans eat way more protein than they need. I think a diet that is moderate in protein, relatively high in good fats, meaning your olive oils and your omega-3 fats that come from nuts and from fatty fishes and avocados and those sorts of things are good for you. And then eating complex carbohydrates, really whole grains. So getting back to whole foods.
Starting point is 00:29:22 And I think that sort of, I guess that would be in a nutshell where I'd lead you. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think I would even add to Kelly's list to the sugar, simple sugars, I would add starch. Pure starch is problematic. Which is simple. The quantities we take it, which is sugar, which is sugar. Which is sugar. Yeah. Which is sugar yeah which means you're white flowers and white white rice that kind of stuff yeah if anything take if anything has the consistency of cake even if it's bread or if something is really sweet easy does it easy easy easy yeah it tastes good the other thing i the other thing i'm going to throw in there and i
Starting point is 00:30:02 think it's really i i've done it in the past probably four years, a lot of research on this, is this concept of fasting, intermittent fasting. There's no question. The problem, part of the reason I believe that we see such high disease prevalence in Western countries and in wealthy countries is because we are the people who have access to food all the time. In other areas that have lower disease states, they go for longer periods of time without eating, eating anything at all. The average American eats his last bite of popcorn or pretzels or ice cream at about 10 o'clock at night and then eats breakfast sometime between 6 and 7 in the morning so the longest period of time they go
Starting point is 00:30:48 without eating is maybe 8 hours that is means you are constantly providing sugar to your body and you are not promoting things like apoptosis or autophagia where which is the body's those are fancy words for the body's normal process of clearing out dead cells clearing out the debris fasting even for short periods 12 or 13 or 14 hours meaning you know maybe from 8 o'clock at night until 8 o'clock in the morning or you know 6 o'clock at night until 8 o'clock in the morning, that promotes your body, it puts some stress on the cells, and it allows your body to do what it does under stress,
Starting point is 00:31:30 which is go in and clean up the dead crap, clean up the stuff, the cells that aren't very useful anymore, and that also happens to mean cancer cells, cells that have mutated. So I think that the idea of doing some element of intermittent fasting, meaning at least making yourself eat in a shorter window, maybe a 10-hour window a day, does show some benefits, and the benefits are really quite profound.
Starting point is 00:32:01 Agreed. And a couple other things. When we say inflammation, we're not really talking about the kind people think immediately joints and skin and we're not talking about necessarily though some people do get some benefit the kind of results you see with rheumatoid arthritis or something like that we're really talking about the endothelium the way the body clears the immune system the way it delivers blood. There's a very complex, we don't think of it as an organ system, but our arteries are lined by an organ system. And that organ system interacts with the clotting, the lipid, and the immune
Starting point is 00:32:35 system. And as such, it can be very much affected by what Kelly is talking about. The other thing, a friend of mine, Peter Attia, who's really one of the best longevity experts I think out there, I was sort of pimping him one day. I was like, what about this? What about that? What about metformin? And he looked at me, he goes, look, he goes, vigorous exercise, vigorous exercise.
Starting point is 00:32:55 That is the most significant benefit for longevity and not just longevity, but pushing back that cliff of aging. I forget he has a name for it, but you and I, Kelly, have seen it without exception. It happens to everybody if you live long enough. And if you can push that back really into your 90s and maybe have a way to kind of manage it by not losing too much muscle mass and maintaining your balance and keeping the nutrition up, you can live well, well into your 80s. And then-
Starting point is 00:33:26 Mention V-Shred. Well, V-Shred is- I used to do the protein bar diet, Kelly, with the keto. No, hang on. But Susan- It was so hard. But Susan, losing weight on a prescriptive diet is not what the question was. The question is, what is a healthy diet?
Starting point is 00:33:42 Which is a different question. If somebody really has to lose weight, we go to great lengths we do surgeries and we use ozambic and we use all kinds of unhealthy stuff to get them to more towards a healthy chronic state uh but yes isn't that what it means to be on a healthy diet to get your weight in the right place does it's like go ahead kelly yeah and and it was to say losing weight and maintaining it and what get your weight in the right place? Go ahead, Kelly. Yeah, and it was to say losing weight and maintaining it, and what you were just saying, it's really hard. That's the point.
Starting point is 00:34:12 That was my point, is that although you can lose weight and should, if your weight is above the ideal zone, then you definitely need to get it down because there are innumerable health benefits. But the problem with people trying to stay on these keto diets, for example, is it's very difficult and you end up instead binging. What we see is a lot of people, you know, you eat no carbs, you eat no carbs, and then you eat the entire package of Oreos. And that is, I mean, truly, I mean, believe me, I've tried it.
Starting point is 00:34:44 I know. It happens to all of us because those cravings. So you're better off, I believe, in managing your blood sugar regularly by eating, you know, a moderate amount of complex carbohydrates rather than trying to restrict them entirely. Yes. And keeping in that zone because you really want to avoid those sugar binges because they're highly inflammatory. It's that endothelial inflammation. And we know that it drives not only heart disease but also cancer growth. And Susan is referring to a program that we've been pushing that we have found.
Starting point is 00:35:19 I've lost 14 pounds on. I've found much better for my joints, appropriate for my age. This V-Shred platform, which has different cost-effective ways to manage these things, it's like having a virtual trainer, and I loved it. So I signed up to be a part of it.
Starting point is 00:35:32 Right. I didn't have a lot of weight to lose, but I was having a problem. I was getting closer, like 10 pounds over my comfortable weight. And I always would have to go on Lindora or something and do the bars and the protein and blah, blah, blah. That's a therapeutic intervention.
Starting point is 00:35:48 Or whatever, do keto. And I swear, it was just so hard because I gained the weight back. And this time I've been able to keep it off. Research shows that people rebound above where they were. But the other thing, one last thing about the intermittent fasting, I'm not totally sold on intermittent fasting except there's one aspect of it that no one talks about. And it's an important topic generally, which is appetite management.
Starting point is 00:36:12 Your body tries to stay where it is, wherever it is. If it's way up, if it's way down, it tries to stay there. And it will fight you. And intermittent fasting does kind of help appetite management, in my experience, in the earliest parts of a diet. Oh, I think there's no question. And I am truly a huge believer. If you look at the results on insulin resistance, it's one of the best ways to reverse metabolic syndrome, Drew. And there are lots of ways to do it.
Starting point is 00:36:43 You don't, you know know I live by the you know 16 8 I eat in an 8 hour window every day it's you know I eat generally between noon and 8 if I'm going out to dinner and I know I'm gonna be eating dinner and not finishing until 930 then I don't eat my first meal until 1 30 or 2 in the afternoon I eat in an 8 window. So I go 16 hours a day with no food, and it really markedly improves your insulin metabolism for certain, but it also controls cravings, as you said. Some people choose to do it. You can do two days a week, two non-consecutive days a week where you fast, where you only eat 500 calories,
Starting point is 00:37:25 say on Mondays and Thursdays, and the other days of the week you eat normally. The idea is that by depriving yourself of food for a period of time that is longer than the average eight hours, you put that stress on your cells on purpose because it motivates them to go into autophagia and apoptosis where you're cleaning up dead and really, or malfunctioning or dysfunctional cells. And I think that the data, to me, that the research is really pretty overwhelming. There's a guy out of USC who wrote the book on it, Walter Longo. People might want to look at that. Walter Longo, V-A-L-T-E-R Longo, who's written extensively on the benefits of fasting, and it's worth looking into. Yeah. And again, the diet you'll do, the exercise program you'll do is the best plan for you.
Starting point is 00:38:21 Experiment with things, but the one you will do, the one you're willing to do, the one you enjoy. Yes. I mean, particularly with exercise. I remember when the kids went to a nutritionist and it wasn't, you're going on a diet. It's like, we're going to teach you how to eat healthy. This is just how you're going to, a way of life. But there's different ideas about that. And once in a while you can have a cheat day, whatever, but they would lose weight because
Starting point is 00:38:42 they weren't just eating the junk yeah the most hunter unmute your mic there and let's have at it hey dr june dr kelly victory how are you doing good thanks welcome awesome um i actually had a question for you regarding the uh shooting in lewiston main if that's cool. Sure, absolutely. Okay, cool. So I just wanted to ask, so this horrific shooting and the individual involved, it said that he was in a mental health hospital
Starting point is 00:39:17 over the summer for about two weeks. I guess my question is just simply like, what sort of treatment do you think he received there? And why did he come out still a danger to society or possibly even more of a danger to society after that situation? So Hunter, what, would you know what the diagnosis was yet? Have they told us that? I've heard various things flying around. Do you well he i i do not know it kelly do you the yes well what was what was i've read was reported is that he had a quote history of schizophrenia um so i you might yeah so my concern is this you know clearly he had a long mental health history
Starting point is 00:40:00 it had gone on for a long time and you're correct under that he had been hospitalized. Schizophrenia is extraordinarily complex and difficult to treat and people, it is unlike trying to treat someone for depression or anxiety where you don't reverse it. You can control schizophrenia. It's not curable in the same way that we can get somebody who was depressed to treat them for depression and they may go forward totally normally. I have never in my history, I was a psychologist before I was a physician, I never cured anyone of schizophrenia. So, Drew, you weigh in on this, but I suspect that he remained susceptible to a psychotic break. Oh, for sure. And there's different qualities and kinds of schizophrenia. remained susceptible to a psychotic break. Oh, for sure.
Starting point is 00:40:48 And there's different qualities and kinds of schizophrenia, and some are more intense and worse and more difficult than others. But Hunter, my concern, this is where my concern is. I worked in a psychiatric hospital for 30 years, and I saw our ability to help these patients eroded systematically by the law. The fact is, the earlier you intervene on a schizophrenic patient, the less severe the course of their disease, and you can often restore them to a productive life. And if you do not treat them, they decay systematically and are irretrievable. One of the most bizarre qualities we have in our law,
Starting point is 00:41:25 particularly in California, is if you don't treat a dementia patient and you let that dementia patient run around in the street, you are guilty of patient abuse. And yet that dementia is going to progress no matter what the doctor does. That person is going to be, it's going to progress. While the schizophrenic, if he or she says, I don't want anything to do with you i'm napoleon you're not allowed to go near them you're not allowed to help them and they will deteriorate over time to the point that they will never get better not only that there are long-acting antipsychotics that are extremely effective if we are allowed to give them to these patients. And cognitive behavioral therapy does great guns once their psychosis is under control
Starting point is 00:42:08 to help them identify and see their delusions and their hallucinations so they can identify them and distinguish them from who they are and what reality is. They can do it cognitively, but you have to intervene on these cases or they deteriorate to the point,
Starting point is 00:42:25 just look out on the street. There's just so many people out there. In California, there's tens and tens of thousands. That's my public service announcement about the case. We don't know much about, obviously, we don't know the details of this particular case, but my bet is two weeks is reserved for the most seriously ill. If you get somebody and you're able to lock them up three days, lock them up. Keep them under supervision for three days and then extend that two weeks. You have to have a court come in and commit the patient. A judge has to come to the hospital and commit that person to 14 days. After that, it's conservatorship and you can never get those.
Starting point is 00:43:04 Although they've expanded that a little bit in california just recently so my fear is that this poor man didn't get the help he deserved because of the laws yeah and again i don't know a tremendous amount about this individual other than as i said that he had a history of schizophrenia but the reality is what drew is saying is spot on much of of our issue with homelessness, drug addiction, all the crime, frankly, has to do with the deinstitutionalization of people who should have been in,
Starting point is 00:43:35 really locked in mental health facilities to get the care that they needed, but they weren't. We had a massive deinstitutionalization in the United States in the 1970s. Those people, instead of actually being remanded to care, were put out on the streets where they are now creating, not only living horrific lives themselves and dying of drug overdoses and dying of malnutrition and as victims of crime themselves, but they are perpetrating the crime and they are leading to the huge explosion
Starting point is 00:44:08 that we have with homelessness. And we're using words like locked up and stuff. Look, the psychiatric hospitals now can be social models. They can be the trieste model. They can be beautiful grounds and facilities and vocational rehab and social structures. And these can be halfway houses that move people towards independent living.
Starting point is 00:44:26 The fact is, in your head about what Kelly used the word institutionalization, and I used a casual word locked up. In your head, you're thinking about Ken Kesey and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Number one, that was not a documentary. That isn't what psychiatric hospital were like even then. Number two, that was nearly 70 years ago that that was written. We're approaching 100 years since that book was written and things are very different now in terms of psychiatric care. It's much more humane and it was like quite like that in the first place. So that's our little public service announcement. Hunter, is that helpful at all? Yeah. And I appreciate you
Starting point is 00:45:12 saying that, you know, I myself have bipolar disorder with psychosis and I've been in psych hospitals and I've been court ordered in there and shit. So I know like how it goes. And I think also what you touched on with cognitive behavioral therapy is really important because that's not something that you get taught overnight takes a long time to work on it that's right you know and you can't do that over two weeks you can't do that dude that is so profound and absolutely true and but not only that, is that done properly, again, this is 2000, we're well into the 21st century. Psychiatric care is totally different now. Right.
Starting point is 00:45:52 And treatment tends to work. It works if you can get people and keep them long enough to do the treatment. And so, Hunter, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. Totally. Thanks so much for your responses. Appreciate it. All right. You bet. I mean, it's a complicated topic and it's one I'm very, very frustrated even talking about because, you know, I, you know, having worked in the psych hospital for so many
Starting point is 00:46:15 years, I look out on the streets and go, oh, those are my patients. I could help these people. I could easily help these people. It's not that hard. You just need to, I know exactly how to structure a program. I know how to staff it. I know how to manage it. I know where to put them. I just know what to do. And you're not allowed to. You're not allowed to. So you're running an open-air hospital without doctors and nurses. That's the insanity. Social workers, as wonderful as they are, are not medically trained. It's like literally asking a physical therapist to do orthopedic surgery. That's not their trained. It's like literally asking a physical therapist to do orthopedic surgery. That's not their training. And social
Starting point is 00:46:50 workers are not trained to take care of medically sick brain disorders, medically relevant brain disorders. That's my public service announcement for the day. Okay. We got a few calls here. I'm trying to get to people. There you go this is megan
Starting point is 00:47:09 looking at how we're doing on time here and let me also look at what's going on in this in the chat room susan anything uh in your chats and the rumble i was just telling emily that we you're gonna do russell Brand's show next week. Yes, I am. Sorry, I heard you in the background. I don't know when it's going to air, but I do know I'm going to do it. I think it's live. Is it? I don't know how that works.
Starting point is 00:47:36 And he and I have done public stuff before. Because they always have people talking on his stream. So I think it's a live stream on Rumble and Twitter. He goes on YouTube and then he shuts it off because he hates YouTube like we do. And then he sends everybody over to the other platforms. I think he's on Locals as well.
Starting point is 00:47:54 Any event, he and I have done public events. Tuesday. Or Wednesday, I'm sorry. Thursday. I thought it was Wednesday. Thursday. He and I have done public events. Let me double check that. Wednesday's my day so it's not this thursday it's not tomorrow it is next thursday it's thursday
Starting point is 00:48:13 okay all right um see look that's why i have you around so megan you have to unmute your mic there per caleb's little cartoon hi thank you so much for having me you bet hi hi my question is about ssris um i listened to an episode of your podcast a little while ago where you spoke about ssris and and you were talking about how some people are experiencing um sensitivity issues with coming off of SSRIs. I recently came off of SSRIs after nine years. Yes. And I'm doing fine. I'm doing great.
Starting point is 00:48:56 I'm wondering if your attitude towards SSRIs has changed with some of the recent news that's come out about them. Which particular are you thinking about? I just got off. So I was on for nine minutes. No, no, you said recent information about SSRIs. What particularly were you thinking? It was about the sensitivity issues that were coming off of withdrawals.
Starting point is 00:49:18 Yeah. Yes. So look, we over-medicate people and we under-medicate people that really need it, frankly. And when Sigmund Freud got to America, you'll appreciate this as a psychologist, Kelly. He arrived at the dock, and the reporter threw microphones in his face, said, Dr. Freud, what do you hope to achieve here in America? And he said, well, I hope to come to an understanding of the difference between true psychiatric illness and ordinary misery. Okay?
Starting point is 00:49:54 Ordinary misery is something we have lost track of in this country and we do not tolerate. Ordinary misery does not have to be medicated. And we tend to medicate it. We tend to, primary care doctors tend to medicate it. And you as a psychologist and me as somebody working in a psychiatric hospital, no. Woefully inadequately trained to be doing that. People are left on them for too long. And that particular, and I've seen lots of withdrawal, Megan, the withdrawal syndrome, I've seen it from Zoloft, from Paxil, from Effexor, from Symbalta,
Starting point is 00:50:28 which is a very uncomfortable zapping, feeling up your neck and into your head. And it can go for, I had one person, yeah, yeah. I had one person that was on 8.75 milligrams of Effexor, which is like the tiniest crumb of the tablet. And I could not get her off that. And she just stayed on it because that withdrawal was so awful. So there's withdrawal. There also are sexual side effects, which is something I've been campaigning about for 25 years,
Starting point is 00:50:53 even though the company has originally denied it. Back to the concerns about pharma. Look, I had a Xanax rep, an Upjohn rep come in my office and tell me Xanax was not addictive in 1989. I'll never forget it. So don't even, and by the way, five years later, I had OxyContin reps in my office saying the same thing. I was like,
Starting point is 00:51:10 get out of here. It's just, I can't even talk to you people. So the sexual side effects are profound, can ruin relationships. They can affect any phase of the sexual response cycle from libido all the way to detumescence, any cycle. Now, this podcast I did was about an organization of patients that has gathered together who have persistent sexual side effects after they come off. And it turns out that's a bigger problem than most people knew, that I know. There was a psychiatrist that was sort of in charge of that particular conversation I had. He believes, I actually don't buy this, he believes there's a neuropathy that develops from the SSRIs because there's sort of a numbing of genital responsiveness.
Starting point is 00:51:55 I don't know that that's it. To me, it just seems we should be able to document that if that's what it really is. But suffice it to say, it's very unpleasant and it is persistent. And there's very few treatments for it. So, you know, it's like any medicine, Megan. Medicines are not all good and all bad. That's why I'm so deep in the discussion about vaccines and things. All medicines can be very helpful in certain situations and very problematic in others.
Starting point is 00:52:23 Same medicine. And that's what people just, they can't seem to hold these ideas in their head simultaneously. So like every medicine, the SSRIs, they have seen it save people's lives. I've seen it destroy people's lives. That's on us. That's on the practitioners to get it right. We're supposed to be able to do that so we do no harm. Right. And I think the thing that I would pipe in here and say is less about specifically SSRIs and this issue of that we over treat what is, I think, situational and life-related depression, anxiety, Ordinary misery.
Starting point is 00:53:01 If, or correct. If you look at the three most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States, they're statin drugs for high cholesterol, drugs like Lipitor, Prozac, and sleep medications. We are the wealthiest country on the globe. Okay? Why is it that no one can sleep and everybody is profoundly depressed? All right? And I would submit to you that they aren't, we are not teaching people how to deal with anxiety, regret, rejection, failure, loss. I'm not
Starting point is 00:53:33 talking about people like our last call, Hunter, who has bipolar disease or somebody with schizophrenia or somebody with psychosis or with somebody with an organic depression. I'm talking about that every kid right now is on Ritalin or Adderall for their, you know, for their inability to concentrate. Everybody and their brother is on Prozac or an SSRI or some sort of treatment for their anxiety issues or their sleep issues. And I think I'm not saying that these diseases don't exist, but that we are painting with a very broad brush who needs to be medicated without trying the things that take longer. It's a lot easier for a doctor to whip out the prescription pad and write a prescription than to sit down and do cognitive therapy. Well, back to the patient satisfaction stuff, too. Correct.
Starting point is 00:54:22 And to actually sit and talk with people. To do cognitive and behavioral therapy? Talk about really how to, you know, it's treating someone for a phobia and I know how to do this. I mean, there are ways you treat people behaviorally for phobias. It's a lot easier to whip out a prescription pad and give them a prescription for Xanax so they can get on the airplane rather than actually dealing with their phobia of flying. But I would submit to you-
Starting point is 00:54:46 Back to who you work for, Kelly. Yeah. The insurance companies reinforce that. They either positively enforce it or they punish if you don't do it. So it's a mess. So we end up with people on these medications that are not devoid of side effects, and they certainly aren't devoid of effects when you try to get off of them because the withdrawal is very very real whether you're talking about benzodiazepines
Starting point is 00:55:12 like valium and ativan or SSRIs all of them have your god knows opiates you try to get off of these medications once you're on them and I would submit to you there's a reason that they haven't worked those kinks out because it's in the pharmaceutical company's best interest for you not to get off of them. So there you go, Megan. Any follow-on for that? Or do you want to tell us about your position on all this? That's ours. Yeah, I was on SSRIs for nine years, prescribed by my general practitioner. I was in my mid-20s and going through a lot of life change. I, in retrospect, probably didn't need the dose that I was on. And actually coming off of it was quite difficult because my doctor convinced me that getting off of it would be dangerous. Oh, my.
Starting point is 00:56:10 Were you suicidally depressed when you first went on them or something that makes depression dangerous? When I first went on, yes. Okay. But I hadn't been that way in a very long time. And let me state, if you don't mind, that there's about a, if indeed he was accurate in his diagnosis of major depression back then, if that was true, I mean, you might've had that, right? There's about a 50% chance of recurrence, but you should be off antidepressants in the meantime. You should give yourself a chance to live and then, you know, who knows what circumstances were coming to bear when you're a young adult teenager.
Starting point is 00:56:48 Yeah. I got a second opinion and I just said I don't want to be on this anymore because I just felt like I was chained to it. I didn't feel that that was necessary at the time. Good. Good for you. Good for you. Things are good. You're better off.
Starting point is 00:57:04 Yeah. good good for you good for you yeah this is this is sort of something that kelly and i are obsessed with lately which is getting the locus of control back to the patients because right now the doctors have lost it they're they're employed insurance companies take the insurance company their employers have taken their ability to practice medicine away so we need to get it back to the patients so they can demand proper care from the doctors. And we live in a time where there should be access by multiple means. We have so many options now with the internet. We got to build this system out is what I'm saying. The other thing I would submit to you, and I think it should be really common practice. I
Starting point is 00:57:41 don't think a physician should be allowed to prescribe a psychiatric medication, whether it's an antidepressant or an anxiolytic, you know, without having concomitant treatment, other treatment. If you are on an antidepressant, just the pill, we are simply acting as if we can treat this mental health issue with a pill and that there's nothing else that should go along with it. That's ridiculous. Good luck getting insurance to pay for the proper care. I mean, every study ever done shows the optimum method is medication plus talk, medicine off as soon as possible, continue talk. That's it.
Starting point is 00:58:22 That's optimal. Exactly. So if you're treating your anxiety with a pill and nothing else, you are being mistreated. And unfortunately, as Drew was pointing out, the system drives it that way, but it's wrong. It's malpractice in my mind. Herb Green there has a comment about his brother coming off Xanax. Yeah, at the time in which the Upjohn rep was telling me that my patient wasn't coming off Xanax,
Starting point is 00:58:47 she was having a seizure that day. And his point was, oh, she must have an underlying seizure disorder, or that's just her anxiety coming back. Well, okay, people are really responding to the benzo thing. Benzo epidemic is the one thing left behind. We are on to the opioids, but I'm telling you, benzos are still there. And, you know,
Starting point is 00:59:08 if you, we'll find out what happened to Matthew Perry, but odds are, benzo plus opiate. That's the odds. I'm not, we don't know. We have no idea.
Starting point is 00:59:16 But the odds are, Prince didn't, Prince could be. Prince didn't die because of an opiate overdose. He was on chronic opiates for a long time. He died.
Starting point is 00:59:24 He stopped breathing when they added the Xanax in. That's when people stopped breathing. No, no, no. So anyway, Megan, I'm going to toss you back, okay? Thanks so much. Bye. Okay, you got it. Good luck with everything.
Starting point is 00:59:38 Oh, this stuff makes me upset. Kelly, I end up upset with some of our stuff here. I know, I know. I know. Okay. It's nice to be talking about something other than COVID, so I'm liking it. Yes, it is really nice, isn't it? I really do dig it.
Starting point is 00:59:54 Okay. I don't know if Fight for Freedom has got a medical question, but I'm hoping so. And we are running a little low on time here. So if I have freedom, unmute yourself there. Hi, Dr. Drew and Dr. Kelly. So my name is Ginger in real life. A couple of things. First, I want to say thank you for your show. I've been following alternative media for since right before COVID probably. And just quickly, Dr. Drew, I want to say it has been a fantastic experience watching your progression through this whole thing to see how you've come along to Dr. Kelly's side, I guess. But it's all been a struggle. I understand you're saying progress.
Starting point is 01:00:51 I call it struggle. I'm still struggling. Kelly's not struggling. I'm struggling. I'm pulling him over. No, I can see the struggle. I can see the struggle. And sometimes I listen to you and I go, oh, God, Lord, just let him get there a little faster.
Starting point is 01:01:09 Just, he'll get there. I know he will. Yes. If it's the truth. If it is the truth, I will get there, Ginger. I promise you. Yes. It's just that the truth is not always, I'm cautious.
Starting point is 01:01:22 I'm super cautious. And I know it's frustrating for everybody. It's frustrating for everybody. It's for people I work with and stuff, but I, I'm still very cautious. And I, and I, I go back and forth. I fluctuate. I don't, uh, like last night I was like, oh my God, I am so wrong. I got this all wrong. The professional societies have it right. I was there for a couple hours last night. So, you know, I go back and forth. Yeah. I don't, I think that you should just stick with your gut. I don't know if you're a, I was thinking this last night while I was listening to you guys talk. Um, if you're, are you talking to me right now? Cause I see your lips moving.
Starting point is 01:02:02 Yeah, we got you. No, no, no. Keep going. You keep going. Okay. So last night when I was listening to you, what really came to my mind is that, you know, you guys talk about spirituality and I know Dr. Kelly is a Christian. I don't know exactly where you stand on that, but I feel like if people were to turn to God, they wouldn't be as confused about what's happening because it's hard to
Starting point is 01:02:31 realize the true evil in the world. And I truly believe the evil is there and it is. And if people found God, they would be able to see it more clearly. And that, I tell you what I have been thinking about. I believe, that's fine. And I'm delighted when people feel that way because I've seen it help people. And that's what I'm interested in is helping people.
Starting point is 01:02:55 I have lately been thinking a lot about vice and why religions are so tight on vice. I was been doing, like I said, I'm obsessed with the French Revolution when vice and libertinism was out of control. I think you end up with injured children and therefore more personality disorders and therefore more aggression and violence. I think that's kind of how things turn. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:03:21 I might be wrong, but something along those lines. So to the extent that it helps people live might be wrong, but something along those lines. So, you know, to the extent that it helps people live a good life, I'm up for everything. I'm up for anything. Yes. Yes. And I have just to say this. So you got, oh, sorry, Dr. Kelly. No, no, go ahead. Finish your thought there, Ginger. No, what I was thinking is two things so you guys are talking about um opioids and you were talking about um antidepressants i have been on opioids for 20 years it started when i was in the military and it was like oh well we can't find anything else to do for you so let's just
Starting point is 01:04:02 give you these and do you have chronic pain? Yes, I have chronic pain. Are you still on opiates? I am. I take Dilaudid, two milligrams. If you can, Ginger, listen to my words, do with it what you will. But I have seen so much improvement in chronic pain patients who switch over to Suboxone.
Starting point is 01:04:27 There's been a lot of resistance for that, but literally every case I have suggested do this, they have been, their pain is better controlled, their sense of desperation and irritability and sleep all gets better. All those things you were kind of struggling with, I'm sure right now, because that's what chronic opioids do,
Starting point is 01:04:48 it all gets better. And you still have something that has a great deal of analgesic activity. In fact, it's about 20 times stronger than morphine. So just kind of file that away. Talk to your doctors about it, okay? I'm not telling you what to do, but I'm just sharing my experience with you, okay?
Starting point is 01:05:03 Well, no, that's good because honestly, I was on a bunch of medicine a year ago and antidepressants was one of them. I got off of everything myself except for the opioids. And part of it, I know this about myself, is fear. I am fearful about getting off of them. But understand that's a pathological fear that opiate, people that are opiate dependent have a, particularly if you're
Starting point is 01:05:33 on any methadone, people develop a pathological overwhelming sense of fear. And then when they are coming off for the first three days, an overwhelming sense of desperation. And no one tells you about these experiences but that's part of the deal now it may not be realistic for you to come off everything i like that's why what i do i made my you know my program that's all we did was got people with chronic pain off opiates and their pain magically got better that's not everybody you have to select the right patient for the right treatment. So you can certainly go try abstinence-based treatment if it's carefully managed. It's a little dangerous.
Starting point is 01:06:09 Or talk to your doctor about Suboxone. That would be my recommendation for you. Sharing with you my knowledge. I'm not telling you what to do. This is not practicing medicine. No, I think that's a great idea. I actually wanted to be off of the opioids by the beginning of summer, and that didn't happen. And a lot of it, like all of a sudden, I started going, my pain got worse.
Starting point is 01:06:31 And I'm like, is this something mental? Because I'm thinking about getting off of the pain meds. Well, it could be. So two things, two things, and I'm going to put you back in because we're running out of time here, Ginger, but let's listen carefully here. Two things. The chronic opiates, not Suboxone, interestingly, chronic short-acting opiates like Dilaudid cause hyper algesia. They make all pain more intense over time. So pain is amplified by the opioids over time. Secondly, they send you into states of chronic withdrawal. So the headache and the back pain that you no doubt are also experiencing,
Starting point is 01:07:05 because everyone does, is actually a withdrawal symptom chronically from the opiate on the Suboxone that goes away. And in abstinence that goes away. Kelly, we are down to our last minute here. Do you have anything to tell Ginger? Yeah. The only thing I was going to say is I would just pipe in briefly on the whole issue of religion and spirituality and I am never
Starting point is 01:07:26 one to proselytize I happen to be a Christian but I think the reason that I think faith is important whatever your faith is is we have become a profoundly self-centered society and the concept of something greater than yourself, a being, a force, a spirit that is greater than you, that greater force and for me it is God that will to whom I could look and I can give over some of the weight that is going on in the world otherwise so I'm not fighting this alone I'm for me I I'm never alone I'm not fighting alone and that gives me great strength it allows me to keep from you know internalizing fear and anxiety in these things. And I think much of the fear and anxiety and sleeplessness and drug abuse and things that we are seeing is because
Starting point is 01:08:32 people are taking it all on themselves. They feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Yeah, and I don't. I give mine over to God. They have a grandiose caring, grandiose sense of control, grandiose sense of everything being dependent on us. And the phone reinforces all that, the craziness on social media. Exactly. And the fact is it's getting out of your head, letting up on control, having some sense of something greater than yourself, whatever it is, and look towards empathy and gratitude.
Starting point is 01:08:59 Other people in my world, that's a big piece of the spiritual. So thank you, Kelly. Susan, you came running in here. Did you have something you wanted to say? We have a fun night at the New York Comedy Special, which Drew's really good at promoting. I'm really bad. Yeah, no, okay.
Starting point is 01:09:18 So there it is, drew.com slash New York Comedy, NY Comedy. It's me, Cat Tim, Jimmy Fela. Oh, shit, my phone. Sorry, my phone was on. Okay. I believe Jimmy Fela is going to swing by tomorrow and talk about that. Is that true? Yeah, so Monday, November 6th, if you're in Manhattan and you want to see Dr. Drew,
Starting point is 01:09:37 you can come to the Chelsea Music Hall at 8.30 p.m. and ask him your questions in person and laugh a little bit with our friends who are very funny. Kat Tempf and Jamie Vail. And I'm going to hang out a little bit there. So if you want to ask specific questions, there's time for that. Yeah. So anyways, I don't know if anybody's from New York, but we'd love to see you. It's a Monday night. You probably don't have much planned at 8.30, so come on down. It's a cool club. New York needs us. They need us.
Starting point is 01:10:11 So we're going to try to have some fun. All right. Oh, and by the way, if you want to get 50% off your tickets because you watch the show, just use the code word DREW. There it is. He has it up on the screen there. And your ticket will go from $30 to $15, so it's cheap enough. And you can get dinner too.
Starting point is 01:10:30 Use that code word for the friends we're buying tickets for, Susan. Don't worry. Alright, so we thank you. I know, we have so many comp tickets and nobody's buying any. I'll see you on Tuesday. We do want to see all that.
Starting point is 01:10:45 Yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the schedule coming up really quickly. Caleb, can you put it up there for us? Because we're on the move a little bit next week. We're going to try something new on Wednesday and Thursday from Austin, Texas, which will be very interesting. We have a new studio that we're going to rent and stream to you guys. And Kelly, you'll
Starting point is 01:11:01 be on the Wednesday show, is that correct? I think I'm on Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm not looking at my calendar. Tuesday and Wednesday. And Tuesday is early. I think I'm, yes. I don't have the full schedule set up here. All I have is the schedule of tomorrow's show that's coming up, which is callers
Starting point is 01:11:17 on any topic, including COVID, but any topic, anything that's been left over, they can call in tomorrow. I'm getting tired of COVID. But we've got an earlier show on Tuesday But any topic, anything that's been left over, they can call in tomorrow. I'm getting tired of COVID. No, wait a minute. But we've got an earlier show on Tuesday, which I believe is the 7th. We are at 1130 in the morning Pacific time to accommodate a guest. It may be noon.
Starting point is 01:11:40 Well, yeah, it's earlier. And it's a very interesting guest. We post everything on twitter if you're on local she's from the uk yeah i think it moved from 11 to 11 30 it's i think i can say it can i not can i promote it a little bit who it's going to be you think yeah yeah i think so christine anderson yeah christine anderson you may have seen her she's had some very very very strong videos running around, and I asked our crack booker, Emily Barsh, to get on that,
Starting point is 01:12:11 and she was like immediately booked. And so we're both, and Kelly said she'd like to talk to her too, so we said by all means. And then we're going to try a new studio in Austin. On Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday and Thursday. We'll be in New York on Tuesday. We're moving all around.
Starting point is 01:12:24 Drew can't help himself. He has to book stuff. It's your comedy show. We're in one city and he's got to go to another one the same week. It's your Monday show. I'm tired, Kelly. We've been traveling so much. Guys, it's really sounding like we're going over the schedule again
Starting point is 01:12:40 at the end of the show like we never do. Yeah. I know. We want everybody to tune in. Caleb has babies. over the schedule again at the end of the show like we never do yeah and support our sponsors so the new baby has new shoes there you go there you go she's adorable that's our sweet little press awesome yep congratulations thank you so much for being here today. Thank you, Kelly. I'll see you on Tuesday at noon Pacific.
Starting point is 01:13:08 The end of Tuesday. Be from New York. And Caleb, have a nice weekend. Oh, I'll see you tomorrow. See you guys tomorrow. It's early tomorrow, correct? Early at noon? Yeah, because we're tearing down the studio because I'm remodeling.
Starting point is 01:13:20 We're actually going to make this look better for everybody. So yes, that is noon tomorrow i will see you then see you tomorrow ask dr drew is produced by caleb nation and susan pinsky as a reminder the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care diagnosis or treatment this show is intended for educational and informational purposes only i am a licensed physician but i am not a replacement for your personal doctor and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine
Starting point is 01:13:51 and science is constantly evolving. Though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today, some of the contents of this show could be outdated in the future. Be sure to check with trusted resources in case any of the information has been updated since this was published.
Starting point is 01:14:09 If you or someone you know is in an immediate danger, don't call me, call 911. If you're feeling hopeless or suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. You can find more of my recommended organizations and helpful resources at drdrew.com slash help.

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