Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Can I Become the Alpha Period-Haver?

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

It's the last episode of the year, so Dr. Sydnee and Justin set out to answer your important medical questions! How do oral probiotics prevent a yeast infection (or do they)? What's that medicine and ...Sprite combo you drink before a CT scan? Should I talk to the students who practice appointments on me? And does everyone rub their limbs together like a cricket before bed, or is it just Justin?Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, talk is about books. One, two, one, of Miss Guided Medicine. For the mouth. Wow. Hello everybody and welcome to Sobbo. It's a Marital Tour of Miscite and Medicine.
Starting point is 00:01:08 I'm your co-host Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. I tried to do a really normal. Did that sound really normal? Like I was trying to do like a very normal one. Your pitch is higher. It was, yeah, but like, like you're the pitch of your voice is higher right now.
Starting point is 00:01:23 That's energy. That's like a normal. Yeah. Well, but usually when you start saw bones, I feel like you drop into a lower register. Have a look. Yeah, you're right. You do. Yeah, it was a higher register for me.
Starting point is 00:01:34 I don't know why. I don't have a preference. I'm observing. I don't know if I didn't want it to come across like I prefer one or the other. I like all your voices and all of the pitches and all of your tones. I like all your tones too, Sydney. Always have always will. I think my voice has gotten deeper as I've gotten older.
Starting point is 00:01:50 And I'm not sure why. That would be a weird medical question. Yeah, right. But you have no city. I have no city. But doctor, I can't ever see. Leotry. I could look at it.
Starting point is 00:02:01 I do the, my singing voice is lower. I'm a, I'm a bear tone now. Yeah. No, I've dropped from alto lower than that. If you can't tell from the Lucy Goosey nature of this, folks, it's almost candle lights. It's almost the holidays. This will be our, probably our last episode of the year,
Starting point is 00:02:20 I believe. And right. Yeah. Yeah. Because we'll, we'll Because we'll be dark next week. And this will come out the day, I mean, you know what I mean? But you know what, there's still something to bring you joy. What's that? If you are not, we will not have an episode out when this will come out next week.
Starting point is 00:02:41 Right. That's all confusing. They have no idea when we're recording this. No, the chronology is all loosey-goosey. But there will be a week without a sobbing. However, there will still be candlelights available. Yeah, that's true. Bit.no.wifords.lash.candlelights2022 for just $5 or more,
Starting point is 00:02:56 if you would be so kind. Because all of the money that we raise goes to Harmony House. The shelter is very important to sit and very important to unshildered people in our community. And it's a great video spectacular, two hours of skits Harmony House, the shelter is very important to sit and very important to unshelter people in our community. And it's a great video spectacular, two hours of skits and games and songs and learning, cooking, healing, what? Perhaps a movie trailer.
Starting point is 00:03:16 A short 11 minute trailer, like all great trailers. Like all great trailers. It's 11 minutes long for movies that definitely exist. Yeah, real movies. But you can start watching that. Yeah. Saturday. The previous Saturday.
Starting point is 00:03:31 The previous Saturday. This is really putting your noodle through the ringer. Yeah. So we're recording this on Friday. KELOLAND's comes out tomorrow. Tomorrow, the 17. And the 17 comes out on Tuesday. So KELOLAND's already out.
Starting point is 00:03:43 You can go watch it right now. But yeah, please. And anything youth comes out on Tuesday. I'm not sure how you can go watch it right now. But yeah, please. And anything you can give, it's a huge help. We have, as many areas in the country experiencing unprecedented numbers of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, and we really need all the help we can get to provide people the resources for housing and, you know, things like food stamps and Medicaid and all the things people need to live and thrive.
Starting point is 00:04:10 That's a beautiful Sydney. So that is, that's very exciting, but that's not what we're here to talk about today, Sydney. We're here to cut loose with an incredible episode of your medical questions answered. Yes. The challenge at this point has become coming up with names for these,
Starting point is 00:04:27 which thankfully are, our fabulous editor Rachel has had to take on with me, but we used all the permutations. We've also already used, yes, Virginia, there are weird medical questions. So even the holiday theme is pretty well-tapped. And I am unhelpful in this effort as my documents associated
Starting point is 00:04:46 with these episodes are titled Weird Medical Questions and then the date. And that's not a good title. That's not going to get anybody to click through on that, it's bad. I do appreciate and we'll go ahead and say, you all send me emails constantly titled Weird Medical Questions so that I always have plenty of questions
Starting point is 00:05:02 for these episodes. Thank you. If you do have weird medical questions, please always put that in the subject because it makes it so easy to put these together and answer your questions as often as we can. Yeah. Here's question number one.
Starting point is 00:05:15 I suffer from chronic migraines. And I get prescribed nine... Rise a trip, Dan. Rise a trip, Dan. Pills per month to use when I get one. I've been on this for about a decade at this point. And every month, I've noticed that in the days following, refilling my prescription,
Starting point is 00:05:31 I get a lot of migraines. This means I use half my supply of, you can say max salt is the brand name. Max salt. It'll make the end make sense. Okay. And I have to ration my remaining pills and hope I don't get another flare up
Starting point is 00:05:44 before I can get another refill Why am I like this? That's from gotta have my salt in New York So I I can't I can't speak to exactly why your migraines follow that pattern that would be I have to really interesting if I could I have to let all of it But I think this is a good question to answer and to discuss some of the issues that you're bringing up because this is a common frustration for people who have migraines when you fill your prescription of whatever you're kind of you're you're having a migraine. It's not a preventive medicine because there are medicines you can take to try to prevent the frequency
Starting point is 00:06:22 of migraines and then there are medicines you just take when you get a migraine. Usually you don't get 30 pills a month. Generally speaking, they give you less. Because you're probably not having a migraine every day. Yes, and if you are having a migraine, there are a couple of reasons around that. If you are having a migraine every day, we need to talk about a medicine to try to prevent that, right? We need to talk about not just treatment but prophylaxis. The other thing is taking any of these medicines every single day can actually cause rebound headaches.
Starting point is 00:06:57 And this is actually true with Tylenol and ibuprofen. If you take those constantly, especially for headaches, and then you stop them, you'll get rebound headaches, and so you'll take more of them. So it can actually cause problems. So there are reasons for limiting how many you would take. There's also unhelpful bad reasons. That's just all your insurance company wants to pay for, and this is always a fight with what you need versus what our American healthcare system will allow you to have because it's built to make money
Starting point is 00:07:27 and not built to help you, but that's a whole other issue. There was a 2015 study that I thought was really interesting. It looked at people who have migraines who have these, as needed medicines to take. And what they found is that medicines like maxalt, that family, triptans, that family of medicines are effective for most people, not all,
Starting point is 00:07:48 but most people who have migraines, but that a lot of people don't take them when they have a migraine, even if they have them. Because they're rationing? They're rationing. That's one of the biggest problems. I'm wondering if you're noticing that you have migraines more and take your pills more right after you get a refill
Starting point is 00:08:04 because you're also subconsciously aware that you have your resource that you have migraines more and take your pills more right after you get a refill because you're also subconsciously aware that you have your resource that you need. And as the month goes on and your supply wanes, you're more aware of the need to ration, which you shouldn't have to do. But a lot of people do ration. And then what happens is if you delay taking it until you're really sure, okay, yes, this is a migraine, I have to take it. They're not as helpful. It's better if you take them as soon as you start to get those symptoms that tell you a migraine is coming,
Starting point is 00:08:30 they're more effective. So then you end up having more migraine. It's fine. The solution to all this, as we've said so many times on this show, the fix that starts to unmess up the situation is a drone network that can distribute pills as needed from doctors. Is that what you were saying?
Starting point is 00:08:51 No, I was going to say single-payer healthcare, but that's an interesting idea. Maybe we can fold these two together, but I thought you've always been really big on the drone network to distribute pills from doctors and doctors. No, no, single-payer healthcare is the thing that's big for me because there are reasons why it wouldn't be healthy to take a migraine treatment medicine every single day. Certainly, there's a medical reason here, but there's also a financial incentive to prevent you from getting all the drugs.
Starting point is 00:09:17 The drone would decide that you would program it to decide if you get your pills or not. You know what, honey? I don't know which would be worse at this point or current system or a drone who decides. Uh, hello, Sydney. When I was younger and had to have a CT scan, they would make me drink this awful drink when I could only assume most medicine and sprite. I just had a CT and as an adult, the technician, uh, just gave me contrast to my IV. The kids still have to drink that stuff.
Starting point is 00:09:44 Am I just old and emeticent as advanced, past bad drinks? Thank you for your help in making my favorite podcast, Best Wishes Kate. This is a great question. It never occurred to me, and this is Justin, you point this out to me a lot. There are things that,
Starting point is 00:09:57 because I went to school for a very long time, just to know these things. I kind of assume, like, everyone knows, and then why would you? I had to go to school to learn them, you know. There's lots of stuff, I kind of assume like everyone knows. And then why would you? I had to go to school to learn. There's lots of stuff I don't know because I didn't go to school and somebody went to school for, I don't know, farming.
Starting point is 00:10:13 They know all about farming. I don't know anything about farming. Anyway. As I have to repeatedly remind you. Every time I try to farm. Every time you try to farm. So we're looking at different things when we use contrast oral contrasts that you drink versus contrasts that we put in your veins through an IV.
Starting point is 00:10:32 We're looking for different structures, we're looking for different, well, like we know, we're not looking for the structures. I mean, we know where they are. Hopefully we know where they are. Generally, sometimes we know. What's the beaty right? Sometimes there's this big lump right in the middle. But we're trying to visualize, we're trying to highlight different tissues. There we are. Generally, sometimes, sometimes. What's a beady right thing? There's this big lump right in the middle. It's usually beaded.
Starting point is 00:10:45 But we're trying to visualize, we're trying to highlight different tissues. We're looking for specific disease processes with different things. Because sometimes you don't need contrast at all, right? Sometimes we do a CAT scan and you don't need any contrast because what we're looking for is something that you can see without highlighting anything.
Starting point is 00:11:03 For instance, if we're worried, if you hit your head and you're worried that you're bleeding inside your brain, we can usually see that without any sort of contrast on a scan. So just put you in there and look. If we're looking for infection or cancer, we often need contrast. And then if we're trying to look for something happening in your bowels, like let's say we're trying to roll out
Starting point is 00:11:23 on a appendicitis, it's really helpful for you to drink the contrast. We can also, if you're having trouble drinking contrast, we can administer it rectally, but then we're only getting part of the GI tract. So we're just looking for different things. Sometimes you need one, sometimes you need the other, sometimes you need both, for some, especially if it's in the abdomen, some pathology, you need both kinds of contrast, and some you don't need either. So I would say it's just a different kind of scan for a different reason, is why you had to drink it once
Starting point is 00:11:50 and get it through the IV another time. Are we done with an episode on imaging? I think that's, that stuff is so fascinating. I understand it so little. I don't think we have. And it is definitely, and it's a whole other, I will say like I understand a lot of these basics and I can look at images and give you a basic idea,
Starting point is 00:12:05 but I'm not a radiologist, so that's something that I can always learn more about, too, is exactly why we do what we do. Those are the ones I had on my noodle. You had an MRI. That was the pits. That was the pits. Yeah, the MRI is the longer one, the louder one, the one people tend to kind of dread. It's not painful, but you lay very still for a long time.
Starting point is 00:12:25 And it's very loud. And the CT scans are usually quicker. Yeah. There's a probiotic called Refresh, that's 12-R-E-P-H-R-E-S-H, which I enjoy very much for some reason. Refresh, that supposedly prevents yeast infections. Refresh. Does it work?
Starting point is 00:12:43 And if so, how does the bacteria get from the stomach to the vagina? By the way, I'd be interested in a whole episode of ProBodics if you haven't done one already. We probably should. Yeah, that's a complex one, man. It is, and it's complex to me on what we're talking about probiotics for.
Starting point is 00:12:58 ProBodics, the general idea is you put good bacteria in to keep your supply of good bacteria up to help prevent the complications of bad bacteria. And there is truth and value in that concept. Yeah. But like a lot of things in medicine, it has been expanded upon in ways that are made- Creative-created-appointed upon.
Starting point is 00:13:19 That are profit driven as opposed to evidence driven. When it comes to refresh, they have a whole line of products. So I am familiar with their replans, vaginal moisturizer, which can be helpful for people who are experiencing vaginal dryness to know over the counter product that you can buy to help moisturize your vagina. It makes sense. But they also have some other products, and the one that we're referencing here is one with probiotics that are supposed to basically by replenishing the good bacteria in your vagina, which you, I mean, when you swallow a pill with bacteria in it, it will get through all of your GI tract and can populate and grow and eventually make it its way to other places.
Starting point is 00:14:11 So it's not totally unreasonable, although it is going into your GI tract. There is no, the FDA has not evaluated any of these statements and there is no evidence, there is no solid scientific evidence that tells me that this will prevent or treat, certainly it wouldn't treat or prevent a yeast infection. They also sell products aimed at reducing odor. There's an odor eliminating vaginal gel. That's always a giant red flag for me when people are selling products that are telling you how to clean or improve upon of vagina.
Starting point is 00:14:45 Because there's a lot of, we've done a whole episode on this. There's a lot of like shame involved with what someone's vagina looks like, smells like, whatever. And so there's a whole industry that profits off that shame. It should look and smell like this. And here's a bunch of stuff we want you to do to it. It's a self-cleaning, cleaning organ. It doesn't's a bunch of stuff we want you to do to it. It's a self-cleaning organ. It doesn't need a lot of stuff done to it. I looked through, if you can go to their website and look at their various clinical studies,
Starting point is 00:15:13 they link you to clinical studies on their vaginal odor and vaginal pH products, on their fertility, friendly lubricant, on their replans gel, on their probiotics, they have all these studies, they're all incredibly small. They are, and none of them are powered to really tell us for sure that this is superior to other products we use. There are ways to treat things like bacterial vaginosis, if that is a cause of odor discharge.
Starting point is 00:15:42 There are ways to treat and prevent yeast infections and aren't these. Nobody needs to change the odor of their vagina simply to change the odor of their vagina. If there is a pathological process, please seek help from a healthcare provider. But I mean, that's with a lot of these products. It's not FDA-approved and they tell you it's not meant to treat any condition, but yet they'll tell you it's good for a condition. Sydney, what's the deal with period syncing? I once Googled it and Google said it wasn't
Starting point is 00:16:11 real, but many people know I know have experienced it firsthand. So what's going on? It's romantic. I couldn't remember if we'd ever mentioned this before, but just in case. So period syncing is the idea that if people who have periods spend enough time together, their periods will fall in line. They'll sink up. You'll have them at the same time. This is not, and sometimes there is even like this concept that there's one like alpha period haver who everybody syncs up with. There is no proof that this happens. It was originally called the McClendton effect. There is no proof that this happens. It was originally called
Starting point is 00:16:45 the McClendet Effect. There is no proof that this happens. It was originally called the McClendet Effect. There was a researcher named Martha McClendet, who studied 135 college women who lived in a dorm together and thought that she noticed this synchronization of the periods. More recent studies have said, we do not see any evidence that that is. Why would that happen? We don't have evidence that it happens. There was a huge study that Oxford did because now we have period tracking app. So it's a lot easier for us to study this stuff, right?
Starting point is 00:17:19 It was just asking people like when was your period, now you put it in an app and so we can just compare data. So it's a lot easier to do and we don't see any reason why that would happen. The theories behind it initially were things about the moon. Your periods are linked to the moon and so everybody lives together and their moon cycles and their period cycles, that's nothing. And then there's all this like, well, does it have to do with pheromones? Are you sending out pheromones that trigger other people's periods?
Starting point is 00:17:46 No. No. No, I'd say that if you, I'd say it's a common, it's a bias of, you're just noticing it, it's an error of, what am I trying to say? It's a, you notice it. You know the bias I'm talking about. Is that a recency bias? It's a, there's another word for it.
Starting point is 00:18:05 You're just noticing it. It's confirmation bias. Confirmation bias. Yes. Hey, you thought that might happen. You and your roommate, your period happens at the same time and you go, look, it happened and I'm noticing it because I read that that might happen. Whereas all the other times in your life where your periods haven't synced up with somebody
Starting point is 00:18:21 that you've been in close proximity to with, you didn't notice. All right. Let's, uh, let didn't notice. All right. Let's go to the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines, that I skilled at my cards for the mouth. The medicines, the medicines, the medicines,
Starting point is 00:18:36 the medicine that I skilled at my cards for the mouth. Hi, everyone. I'm Adam McLeod, and I'm Alexis B. Preston. And we host a show called Comfort Creatures, the show for every animal lover, be it a creature of scales, six legs, fur, feathers or fiction. Comfort Creatures is a show for people
Starting point is 00:18:55 who prefer their friend's to have paws instead of hands. Unless they are raccoon hands, that is okay. That is absolutely okay, yeah. Yes, every Thursday we all be talking to guests about their pets, learning about pets in history, art and even fiction. Plus, we'll discover differences between pet ownership across the pond.
Starting point is 00:19:11 It's gonna be a hoot on maximum fun. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ My cardiologist works at a teaching hospital, and every year when I go in for my checkup, she'll bring in at least two or three students in residence, have them sit in an employment list in my heart. I have a very prominent murmur, so she likes to use me as a teaching tool.
Starting point is 00:19:33 A man that's gotta be a mixed bag of emotions right there. I guess I do have a very prominent murmur. It is scientifically noticeable. It is worthwhile, it's worth studying. I'm never sure quite how to interact with them. How much or how little am I supposed to talk to them? Is there anything I can do that's helpful for them? As students, I've had 20 years in these appointments
Starting point is 00:19:55 and I still haven't figured this out. Oh, Nora, that's rough. I can get around year 15 like, okay Nora, okay come on, you can do this, just be normal, just say normal things. Why they invest to get your murmur? Listen Nora, I feel that pain, not necessarily for the same reason, but whenever I have to make a phone call,
Starting point is 00:20:16 I made a phone call the other day, I had to tell Justin about it, I was so awkward. I just don't know, what do people say? What was it, oh you're buying a, um? I was trying to inquire about a gift card from a from a bit local business and I said hello. My name is Sydney. Very normal start. I would like to purchase a gift card for the upcoming holiday season. I've heard that once already, but it's still slashing. This is my opener. You think she's selling stuff in all the podcasts,
Starting point is 00:20:51 what you put it literally, I don't know. I heard of it. What was the last time you called the order dead or somewhere, said, I don't know how it made it that day. I don't know, it's been years. I know, I have like, it's because I don't have a persona for that. I got my doctor persona for doctor stuff for the campaign. I had a campaign persona I just don't I what's the what's the calling and inquiring about gift card persona
Starting point is 00:21:11 I don't that's when I use a first son I get into my suit and then I feel more confident because I'm a cool fox That needs to be listen. I will try it if it will make it easier for me to make phone calls anyway First of all Nora. Thank you for letting all these students and residents listen to your heart. I appreciate you doing that really, because as someone who was once a student and resident, it is essential that we hear not only as many typical heartbeats, but as many murmurs and things
Starting point is 00:21:39 we don't normally find as possible, so that someday when we hear them for the first time, we can say, oh, I know what that is. Right, this before. So you are... You know, like, Norris is kind of like a easy, like a easy mode murmur, right? Like you can't miss this one.
Starting point is 00:21:53 Somebody already told you it was there. Yeah, and but it's like very prominent. So it's like this is easy to find, right? They actually have, we rate murmurs on a scale of one to six as to how prominent they are. And they say anything three, three out of six and above is the med student murmur, meaning even a med student can hear this.
Starting point is 00:22:10 Oh wow. This is no offense to your med students. They told me that when I was a med student. They get harder to hear as they get quieter. And anyway, thank you for doing that because it really is essentially not just helping all those students and residents every patient they interact with for the rest of their careers is being helped by you
Starting point is 00:22:27 allowing that to happen. So thank you. The main thing is I would say having been in this position as a learner, I really appreciated a patient who said like, yeah, I don't mind or seemed open or just okay with it, not even like, yes, I'm excited about this, but like, yeah, that's okay. Listen to my heart. That was enough. If you want to tell us anything about what that's like, whatever this condition is that we're
Starting point is 00:22:52 learning from, if you want to tell us your perception, your experience, like, do you notice it? Do you feel it? Do you hear that? Do you, whatever? I mean, not necessarily a murmur, but you know, any information you want to give us is only going to help us. And a lot of the times is a student, especially if you're working with, you know, an attending, you're not going to feel like you have a lot of room to ask questions directly to the patient. You're going to wait and if the doctor tells you like you can ask a question, you might, but generally you're not going to feel like you can. And so if you as a patient are like, hey, let me tell you about this or let me teach you something about that. That is like a giant way to far shoulders
Starting point is 00:23:28 because oh, you're just gonna tell, I don't have to ask a question or upset my preceptor. Any information you wanna share is only helpful. You're never going to like start telling us stuff and it will be like, why did we know that will always be helpful. It could well, unless it's about like boats, you know, or sports, like, there's lots of things
Starting point is 00:23:48 that wouldn't be helpful, right? I don't know. I think that the most, I think that learning the physical exam and practicing on other humans is obviously essential to learning medicine. But just as essential is learning how to sit down and talk and connect with someone so that when you're the only one in the room, you can make people feel like they have trust in you and confidence in
Starting point is 00:24:11 you and like you care about them, like learning how to convey all of that and build that relationship, I would say it's more important in many ways than. Do you feel like I do that as a person? Yes. So I'm like halfway do that as a person? Yes. So I'm like halfway to being like, oh my gosh, that's a nice message. Or those are those. So I could I do two years instead? Could I just bang it out?
Starting point is 00:24:32 Let's do the science and bang it out. No, you couldn't. But thank you, Nora. I said the adjustment of a weird medical question. A friend of mine reposted the image attached to this email. A bunch of folks, including me, commented that we do the same thing. Seriously, what gives with this? Sydney, what, this is our second visual reference.
Starting point is 00:24:49 Why are we? It was somebody tweeting about how they rub their legs and feet together like a cricket before they go to sleep. That was universal, doesn't nobody do that? A lot of people. I don't know if every single person, but this is incredibly common. I hadn't even considered that that would, yeah, I thought.
Starting point is 00:25:04 Why do you think you do it? I don't have a solid answer to this. I have a lot of theories. I've read. There are a lot of theories. Why do you think you do it? I've always, like, from the time I was little, I always use, like, muscle, tensioning and relaxing
Starting point is 00:25:20 to help me fall asleep. It's not like dad taught me, and his dad taught him or whatever. But I think I find that like, it relaxes the, like it's kind of like a crappy massage. Like rubbing the leg with the foot is like, you know, stimulating both low and relaxing muscles, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:25:37 I think a lot of theories have to do with the comfort it provides to the skin-to-skin contact and it's mimicking skin-to-skin contact from another human to rub your feet and legs together. You're getting that sensation on your feet and legs. So it is incredibly common. There are other than like- No, we didn't sleep in separate wings of the estates.
Starting point is 00:25:56 I read this really interesting article from- We sleep in the same bed. We sleep in the same bed. I just don't like to be touched. No, Justin does not like to be touched when he sleeps. I read this interesting psychology today article that was talking about the link between our feet and legs and our limbic system, sort of our innate subconscious response to things or to signal things.
Starting point is 00:26:20 You can tell and feed and they talked about if you're in a hurry to go somewhere, you might notice that your feet are already pointed in the direction of the door. Huh. Like all these sort of subconscious things And so like I don't know I don't know how all that plays into rubbing your feet together when you go to bed But there are like these general kind of innate comfort things. It's triggering probably in most of us There's some specific things I would say like some people for stemming This is their version of stemming. And then there are things like restless like syndrome or periodic limb movement disorder. Yeah, I struggle with that.
Starting point is 00:26:53 You have that. I don't know if you know you have that, but I know it because, well, because I've told you. And because you're awake watching TikTok. Well, I sleep with you and I, you move your legs at night. at night. If this is combined with disrupted sleep, if you're not feeling well-rested, if you have a lot of sleep disturbances, I would talk to your provider about this
Starting point is 00:27:12 because it could be one of those other things I mentioned. But for most of us, it's just a normal, comforting, self-stimulating kind of behavior. Hi there, Sydney and Justin. I have a bad habit of picking at the skin around my fingernails. And I've noticed that when they bleed, my first instinct is always to suck the blood. As an adult, I've been able to fight back this urge and instead clean and banish properly. But I know I'm not the only one who's first in six to suck the blood, whether they compress or clean the area.
Starting point is 00:27:39 What the heck is that? Love the show. That's from bleeding in Boston. I thought this was helpful to discuss Bleeding in Boston because I also pick the skin around my fingernails, my cuticles, until they bleed frequently. Which is not, I'm not endorsing this. This is not me saying.
Starting point is 00:27:59 So like, it is time for the cuticle pickers of the world to rise together and declare it. No, it's not it's not a good habit. I also can't see that special oil. Use your special oil on my cuticles. I do but then when I'm nervous I pick at them especially and I don't know I had some of you I saw in a dermatologic textbook once it called habit tick deformity, which is I picked specifically my thumbnail cuticles with like my forefinger and second finger. I'll do that all the time when I'm nervous. And then my thumb cuticles look terrible like they do right now.
Starting point is 00:28:39 I'm not agreeing with that. I can't see them very well. None of this is very good. You can pick at the skin around your nails and obviously they can bleed, but they can also get infected. Yeah. And that can be really bad. I feel like I should record you saying this and play it back for you later.
Starting point is 00:28:55 Plus, it's not great socially or in my line of work to have blood on your fingernails or open wounds on your fingers is not great either for a variety of reasons. So, but I would say that the sucking the blood thing, because I have done that before, when I am out somewhere and like, uh-oh, I took it too far, uh-oh, it's bleeding. Because what are your options in that moment? If you can't leave the room you're in to go get like a tissue or something to stop the bleeding or a bandaid. You're either going to try to wipe it on your clothing or you're going to stick it in your mouth. This is a closed system. Her body knows what it needs.
Starting point is 00:29:32 No, it's not a closed system. I think it is a convenience. I think it's a way of trying to like stop the bleeding and rid your finger of the bleeding without anyone around you noticing, right? Because you don't want to tell anybody. You just picked your cuticle until blood, cause they're gonna look at you, like you look at me when I do that
Starting point is 00:29:47 and go why did you do that? I would say that's what it is. But you shouldn't do it, I shouldn't either. We shouldn't do it. We shouldn't do it. Knowing that that's blood and it goes inside the body, let's put it back in the body. You don't wanna wipe it on your pants,
Starting point is 00:29:59 cause then you got blood on your pants. Same thing with everybody's like up in arms about picking your nose. You have a hole that is finger shaped and there's bugs up there. We were made for this. It drives me crazy. We were made for that.
Starting point is 00:30:10 I'm not saying I get it. I do. Don't stick things up here. I'm just saying we were made for this. I do the blowing the nose. I'm just saying stick them in your ear or your nose. I'm a sheep. I blow my nose.
Starting point is 00:30:20 We got two more. We got two more. We got two more. Five-docs and you doesn't lately. I've been drinking this vitamin C supplement that claims to provide 1,330% of my daily vitamin C intake. Why is that good for me? Should we stop there?
Starting point is 00:30:32 Because I think my brain. Do you want to take this one? Yeah, man. But it's me, Dustin McGrath, I'm not a doctor. But why would you take 1,000% of anything that is made up? They clearly, like, clearly. This is 13 times more than you need. That's not good. This seems too much.
Starting point is 00:30:50 Well, and that's how you're going to pee all the out. All right. That's, there you go. So that I think our dear listener was more worried about is this dangerous. I'm saying I wouldn't trust a company that's like here. This is a thousand percent of what you need. I wouldn't take this over. So, we've done an episode on Vitamin C before, which, where we outlined some of the roots
Starting point is 00:31:09 of this. There are people out there who, without any scientific evidence, will claim that we should be taking massive doses of vitamin C for a variety of health reasons. There's not evidence for that. If you take too much vitamin C, you pee it out. You have very expensive pee. That's it. And not C, you pee it out. You have very expensive pee. That's it. And not very, I say very expensive. That's always the joke. Most of the time vitamin C isn't very expensive. But you are your pee now cost more. It's not dangerous per se,
Starting point is 00:31:35 but it's unnecessary. There are vitamins you can take too much of. Do you know what they are? Okay. Okay, is one. I'll tell you if you want. It's a DEA in K. DEA in K. That's, I don't know why I remember Deek, but DEA in K are the ones that are fat soluble, so you can store them so you can take too much of them. So you don't want to take a ton of DEA in K. You should talk to your provider if you're worried about those things. See, if you take too much, you just don't need it, you're gonna beat it out. My three-year-old has an extra ridge in one of her ears. If her ear was amazed, she'd have a locked room
Starting point is 00:32:10 where most people have a corridor. I asked her pediatrician about it, and he told me that it was not harmful. It was a result of a cell line that's supposed to die after in fetal development, but didn't like web fingers. Can you tell me about field cell lines that didn't die? Any details about the extra ridge in the air,
Starting point is 00:32:24 in particular, it's proven impossible to Google. Thank you. Unusual oral anomaly in Utah. I just think this is a really interesting thing to talk about because embryology is fascinating and really hard and was one of the most difficult parts of medical school for me. The formation of the human fetus is, I mean, it's quite a thing. And difficult to remember all the stuff that happens because things form and then sort of unform, there are lots of temporary structures and forms in the developing human that are not there in the final product. Does that make sense? Part of that, I think this is.
Starting point is 00:33:02 Like scaffolding. Yeah. There, a lot of this is. Like scaffolding. Yeah. There, a lot of this is due to something called apotosis. It looks like apoptosis. And that's a kind of program cell death. And basically, the idea is there are structures that form, and then they're going to need to fuse with other structures. So the edges of those structures have,
Starting point is 00:33:24 they're pre-programmed for those cells to die off so that everything confused to gather and form something new. Sometimes we'll see remnants of these embryological structures in a developed human. Sometimes they cause no problems. They're just there. It's interesting. You still have that little remnant of something that you had when you were in the, when you were developing fetus and should have gone away But stuck around and causing a problem sometimes we have things like certain heart
Starting point is 00:33:49 Consgenital malformations that can cause problems if they didn't close off like they were supposed to But generally speaking that's what's going on here. There were some cells that were pre-programmed to die and persisted nonetheless And stay and stuck around. And generally speaking, a lot of these things aren't harmful. They're just interesting differences in the vast array of humanity. And we celebrate all of you interesting differences
Starting point is 00:34:16 in the vast array of humanity for listening to our program again. Remember, it's still time to go watch Cana Lights, bit.aui4tslashcanana.net 2022. All proceeds go to Harmony House on that. We've got some, also, if you're listening this in December, or whenever you're listening to it, really, you can go to mackelroymerch.com,
Starting point is 00:34:33 and 10% of merch sales this month go to Harmony House. So those are two different ways you can support us, support Harmony House, and just be a great friend. Speak of great friends, thanks to the taxpayers for using their song Medicines as the Intro Now Trevor program and thanks to you for listening. We're much appreciated. That's gonna do it for us for this week.
Starting point is 00:34:53 Until next time, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Audience supported.

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