Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Chicken Pox

Episode Date: November 21, 2016

This week on Sawbones, we celebrate the everyday heroism of The Last Chicken Pox Generation. Also, Dr. Sydnee and Justin share your best chicken pox stories. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

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, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello everybody and welcome to Saul Bones bones a metal tour of misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McElroy And I'm Sydney McElroy. I hit all my condolences really well in that intro Sydney I just wanted to know I really put the effort in what you come from a proud tradition of radio radio voices So I expect nothing less from finally. I've come into my own Sydney this is an exciting episode voices, so I expect nothing less from it. Finally, I've come into my own. Cindy, this is an exciting episode for a change. Yes, this is.

I always think it's interesting to see what what my lovely non-medical husband finds interesting because in the medical world, I think our definition of interesting sometimes is, well, it's different and it's also unpleasant. Sydney literally just started an anecdote with, you're not gonna think this is funny, you won't get this. And then truck right on through that bad boy.

All three, lunches, minutes. That's a funny doctor. I'm not even gonna get into it because. We'll test it with the audience. It'll be a special bonus to lead a scene. No, no, no. Any episode could be somebody's first episode, and I can't have that on our program.

This is an exciting episode because we're going to, this is a historic generation because of this topic. I think that, I guess that's true in a way. Yeah, it is. We're talking about chicken pox. Yeah.

And the reason I was excited about I asked people for their stories about it because it occurred to me that like our generation is really the last generation for whom, I mean, obviously, chickenpox won't be like annihilated, but like for whom chickenpox will be like an everyday sort of right of passage. I also like the word annihilated used for a virus thing. You don't think exactly right? You don't annihilate the virus. I used for a virus thing. You only get back here? Well, annihilate the virus.

Oh, the virus. You know, it's interesting. You say that and you're right that I think our generation was the last one that you just expected that everybody was going to get it. Yeah, everybody had it. As a physician, I have already missed. I am the last generation of physicians

who routinely saw chickenpox are older than me. I miss that. Yeah, I have seen, I think, one case of chicken, other than like my own. Oh, wow. One case of chicken pox, my career. Yeah, we just don't, I mean, it's, yeah. So we've got some.

Different landscape. Thank you to everybody who recommended this topic, by the way. Yeah. Including Joanne and Ann and Alyssa and Gabriel and Volinda and Amanda and Carson and Kurt. And to everyone who sent us stories about chicken pox. Kind of a departure for us.

But I figured this episode is a historic, this is our like time capsule episode. In a hundred years, people can come back and listen to this one of the one and know what life was like for the chicken pox generation. For chicken pox. So let's get into it, Sid. So first of all, older people are going to know this already,

but for some of those of you who are younger, you may not. Chicken pox is a viral illness that's caused by varicella, zoster, is the virus. And it mainly affects children, at least it used to. It mainly affects no one these days. Yeah. But typically it used to. It mainly affects no one these days, but typically it affected children. If you got chickenpox, which I did,

which Justin did, a lot of us in our age group did, you would get an itchy red rash. It spreads from your head down. That's always really important. I know I say that and people think, why does it matter how it's spread? It helps us distinguish what rash it might be. Depending on where it's the location. Depending on where it starts and where it goes to. Start from head down, center out, that

kind of thing. And we describe the rash, the blisters you get as a do drop on a rose pedal. That's ludicrous. That has nothing to do with that. That poetic. Yeah, I mean, why? Do you on a rose? But have you ever seen, look, you need to look at a picture of a chicken pox blister, the best of course. I, you know, and I'm actually super good. No, it's not that bad. It looks like a do drop on a rose petal. Perfect. I'll just envision that.

Well, fluid filled, tiny. And it's lovely. Anyway, you can get fever. You get, you know, you feel yucky, you feel malaise, you feel tired. It's very contagious. So typically when somebody in a household would get chickenpox, 90% of household contacts who aren't immune already are also going to get chickenpox. It's crazy contagious. It's

spread by respiratory droplets as well as fluid from the blisters themselves. And it is contagious until it crusts. So until all those little blisters become little crusts, what we probably call scabs, at that point it's no longer contagious, but until then it is. It's much worse in certain populations, people who are under one or over 15,

people with maybe issues with their immune system, pregnant people, it's definitely worse for pregnant patients, which is part of why it was so important for us to try to stop it. You can get some severe complications, things like pneumonia and neurological complications, but those were fairly rare. Most people recover really well in week, 10 days with just supportive care

and try not to scratch. How about a chicken box story? Let's hear a chicken pox story. This one comes to us from Amy. You said, I said your tweet about chicken pox stories and wanted to contribute. I got chicken pox on a family trip when I was four years old, except the trip wasn't just with my family. It was also with some family friends, one of whom happened to be my dad's boss. I

ended up giving chicken pox to my dad and also his boss. I'm 27 years old now and my dad still has the same boss. I'd like to hope he's forgiven me. That's rough. Yeah, that's rough. Chicken pox to your dad. That is. That's also rough because your dad and your dad's boss had rougher, probably had a rougher go of it. Yeah, we've got some other stories about that coming up a little later. Descriptions of a disease that was probably chicken pox stayed back a super long time, ancient Babylonian texts 2,000 years ago.

But it's really difficult as we look back through some of these ancient texts to tell if they're talking about chicken pox, smallpox, syphilis, shingles, herpes, anything where there are spots on you, it gets a little blurry. It's really hard to distinguish what disease they may have been right in a bar. They're names of my broad family of diseases. Not everything I just named, but some of them yes. Okay. Some of them are very closely related. We'll get to that.

But no, I mean like smallpox and chickenpox are definitely not, they're definitely not the same thing. They're very different like viral processes and in the, to the extent that, you know, if you got smallpox, you were very worried that you would die, and most of the time with chickenpox, you don't. But at first, the rash, if you're not that familiar, might look similar. They really don't, but in ancient texts, who knows?

Yeah. In, there's an ancient Ayurvedic text that describes what probably is chickenpox and advises. And especially, you think it's chickenpox too because the things that they advise to treat it are fairly benign. You know, you save your... When you look to ancient texts, if you see a lot of bloodletting, it's probably something worse.

If you tell them, if they're telling them to do something like rub some nemelieves and turmeric on it, that's a little, you know, less severe. Idea being that if the links they would go to to try to cure it are lessened because Exactly. Everything was black. Yeah, so something that people would look at and go, ooh, that's what we would call smallpox today, maybe treated more aggressively. In addition, there were certain, you read these like very specific guidelines, like keep a glass of water near the head of the bed, spread name leaves, this

just, this certain plant name leaves around the house, tie them above the door frame, avoid baths, don't eat any fatty food. This actually probably makes sense scientifically. Why? I know this is weird, but name leaves do have some antimicrobial kind of properties. So like if you were worried about secondary bacterial infections, so like your sores opening up and getting bacteria in them, that's not a crazy thought. It's not going to fix chickenpox, but you know, it's not a crazy thought. If you had a bundle of those tied above the door frame to your house, it was assigned to people not to come in, which is really smart with chicken pox. Right.

Because it's so contagious. Keeping a glass of water near the bed kept you from getting up out of bed because you just drank that water so you didn't spread chicken pox as much. Okay. If you took too many baths and rubbed your skin too briskly,

you would leave yourself up into infection. So that wasn't a great idea back in the day. And also, fatty food is a little more taxing on the digestive system, so it was a way of saying, like, give your body a rest, because it's fighting off an illness. These aren't crazy thoughts, especially for something that mainly requires

support of care. Thank you. So the Ayurvedic were on the money on the slim. This one, these were not bad suggestions. These weren't going to hurt anybody. Okay. Similarly, the Egyptians recommended oatmeal baths. Wow, that's pretty advanced. That one stuck around to now. To now.

People still do that. All right, I want to give that one a certified gold star. Good job everybody. There you go. Although, can I do what I'd be? I do what it be? I do what I hang out with the dude who is first like, excuse me. I've got an idea.

Yes, we're Gerald. What is it? I know this is going to sound weird and everyone's always saying, oh, weird, my ideas are, but listen, hear me out. Oh, me, oh, bath. Okay. Can someone help him out, please? Wait, told all of them. No, I'm crushing it. I love how squishy it feels.

So sweet. So sweet. He was the great, great, great, great, great grandfather and the lady in patch Adams who wanted to swim in the swimming pool of noodles. They were ancestors. They tried that actually in both full of noodles and it just wasn't as a perfect chicken pox.

My chicken pox still sucks. I hate this. In the early 900s, Rosy was able to write descriptions of chicken pox that pretty clearly distinguished it from measles and smallpox. So we had kind of like these are distinct diseases. We saw Giovanni Felipo, right, the first really well documented case description, which is in the 1500s, which is interesting because there's like this footnote as I'm reading about him like that he really hated doing this because he had this thing about people that he thought maybe were dirty. He was also kind of like this

socio-economic elitist where he didn't like to be around people of lower socioeconomic classes. And so like he was real grossed out by the whole thing, but he wrote a really good description of it, just on the side note. That's inspiring. As we often do in medicine, there was like this period where Dr. Richard Morton argued that it was just a milder form of smallpox in the 1600s, even though we already knew it wasn't, and it's back for a while. I'm excited to take a swing at it.

Until in 1767, when William Hebridon proved that it was a different disease, as well as the fact that you remained immune more than likely after you had it once. Oh. So we figured that out all the way back then, that if you had chickenpox once, you probably weren't gonna get it again. Now. So we figured that out all the way back then. But if you had chicken box ones, you probably weren't going to get it again. Now we say probably. And here's a story from Chelsea. She says, uh, per my mother, who I have to believe because I was too

young to remember, I got the chicken box for the first time when I was two. I contracted it from my uncle Ronald who had shingles and it was apparently pretty mild. It's always. It's always. It's always an uncle Ronald. Come on, Uncle Ron. I, please, he prefers Ronald. I do remember the set. Oh, you can just call me Uncle Ronald.

Uncle Jerry, it's Jeremiah. I do remember the second time I had chicken pox at 15, which was terrible. It started as a mild rash, which I thought was a grass allergy. I took a binadural and went to bed. In the morning, I was covered in pox. And my mom took me to the doctor. The doctor had to pull out a huge,

it is a word that we can't say on our show. Huge butt. Huge butt, a buck of fixtures and discussing matches to confirm that it was chicken pox. They said that they hadn't seen a case in over 10 years because, well, vaccines. I'm as two weeks of school and came back to a rumor that I really had herpes. A high school. Oh, that's too bad.

And that's true. It is possible to get it again most, most people don't, but if you don't mount enough of an immune response the first time around. Yep. There you go. Here's the part of sobons where we talk about some unfortunate experiment experiments that were done. They're a required segment.

They're required segment called pre-IRB where we talk about things that were done before we knew what ethics and research were. Rudolph Steiner did some experiments on people in 1875 where he took fluid from the blisters of people with chickenpox and rubbed it into the open skin of healthy people and gave them chickenpox. And then we knew and had a nice dinner with his family, satisfied with the job all done. Proving proving that this was how that this was how you got chicken pot. I don't know. And he was like so proud of himself. He know he's like, Hey, good news, everybody. That's what I figured out. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Um, we, uh, James Von Boquet had

kind of, he was a scientist. Yeah, who and that great name. Who had found the connection he thought between chicken pox and shingles. And we're going to get into shingles, but the two disease processes had been theorized to be related for a long time. He was the first one to kind of connect them. And then there were some experiments, again unfortunate experiments that took place in the 20s and 30s on kids, supposedly in pursuit of vaccinating them. I never found enough specifics on that to feel comfortable one way or the other, but they took fluid from shingles blisters. So from older patients who had shingles and and they rubbed it into the skin of healthy kids. Again, supposedly trying to immunize them

and then gave them chicken pox. You know they lied to them about what it was too. You know they told them it was like, it's okay kids, this is like Mickey cream or something. This is Angel Juice. For the 1920s and 30s. Angel Juice? At Mickey doesn't, at whole weight,

I don't know what kids, I don't know what kids in the 20s were into. This is some, this is like, some candy goo. Candy goo. It'll make you, all your food tastes like candy after this.

Something, I don't know, just rub it on yourself, here's five cents. The, finally in the 1950s, they isolated the same varicella virus from both shingles and chickenpox sores and finally made the connection. If you're interested in why it's called chickenpox, I am. There are a few different stories as to why this happened. Samuel Johnson, and this is one of maybe the most popular rumor, called it chicken pox,

because this was a comparison to small pox. Oh, this is... Because it wasn't a severe of a disease, it's like, that's the chicken pox. Okay, yeah. So that's one theory. Also, because it makes your skin look like a chicken pectet. That's another theory. Another is that it comes from the old English word, Gicken, which is the word for itching. Sounds kind of like chicken.

Yeah, sounds kind of like chicken. So the itching pox, the gicken pox, the chicken pox. It's probably that one. Old etymology is never, like, is an etymology. Anymology? Yeah, etymology. Yeah, entymology is the, an apology. Yeah, an apology. But, okay, it's never satisfying as you wanted to be.

There's always some weird roundabout road there. There's also been this theory that the blister sort of like chickpeas. Gross. I don't really think they, I think that's the strategy. And also they don't. Like that's, yeah, that's why. I kind of like Gickenpox myself.

Sydney, I know we need to get the building department, but here's a quickie from Zach. I had chicken pox on his five I was crushed so bad that I would start bleeding. I still have scars to stop this my parents started duct taping socks to my hands at night Scratch mostly then that is a recommendation from doctors sometimes Your parents are not totally off their rockers, that's okay. Alright, so you're wearing those billing department? Let's go. What movies should I go see this weekend? Should I care about the Emmys?

Is this meme already dead? Is VR cool? What happened to choose your unfun trouble? Are the Kardashians for real? For answers to these questions and so much more, come on over to Paw Rocket, a Paw Culture Roundtable show with me, Guy Brana. Winter Mitchell, Margaret Wopler,

and Oliver Wang. Catch us every Wednesday on MaximumFund.org, or wherever you decide to get your podcast. I'm not gonna judge. Sini, I have a quick story for you from our friend, Michael Sullivan. Oh, what does Michael Sullivan have to tell us? He has one visible scarf in the chicken box. He didn't get it until he was 13 years old and one night as we sat at the dinner table,

my father noticed I had a red plate on my forehead. After some teasing that his little boy had his first zit, my dad tried to pop it. Needless to say, it didn't, but I now have a nice scar to remind me that fathers aren't always right. And you can point to that for the rest of your life and go look what you did to me. Look at this, it's all because of you. Now I've mentioned shingles a few times and you may already be aware that there's a relationship between chicken pox and shingles a very close relationship as in it's the same virus. I've heard this. Yes. So after you have had chicken popox and gotten better, the chickenpox virus, it likes you. It doesn't want to leave you.

It wants to hang around, but not just anywhere. It wants to hang around in the dorsal root ganglion of your nervous system. That's right. I mean, that's where I just... That's where anybody would hang around. The important thing to know is that it can chill there, hidden deep within your nervous system, and be reactivated in times of trauma or stress on your body, like a surgery or an illness,

or just sometimes it just seems to do it randomly. Right. It can cause blistering. You may have seen shingles blisters before. They can look pretty impressive. They look a little worse than chicken pox do. We do not describe shingles as a dew drop on a rose petal. No.

And they can be extremely painful. The thing that really clues you in that this is shingles is that it's in what we call a dermatonal distribution. And that means that it follows the path of a certain nerve root. So it will only be on one side of your body when it occurs. Now, it could reoccur later on the other side, but the important thing is, if it is on both sides of your body, at the same time, it's not shingles.

It's something else, but it's not shingles. It will only be on one side. It'll be kind of a strip, like a line, like a blisters. It can, you can have some numbness, some tingling, swelling, sensitivity. It can be very hard to treat. And like I said, it can be extremely painful. And it can also come back again and again.

You can only get shingles if you've had chicken pox before. If you haven't had chicken pox and somebody has shingles and you're exposed to them, you can get chicken pox. That's confusing. Yeah, but that mean the important thing to know is that it's the same virus. My friend, I have a friend who listens to this program named Russ and he got shingles last week. And I didn't, he said it was excruciating.

And I didn't make fun of him for getting what sounds like such an old man disease. Because it does sound like an old man disease to me. It has a very old man vibe. So I want to make fun of him now here publicly. Take that Russ. I won't make fun of him. I'm sorry Russ, because it's, I have not had shinglesles But I understand and I have witnessed that the pain is is pretty bad. It's common right like one in the three adults Look at shingles in the lifetime is what the sign at Walmart said

Shingles is pretty common If you're wondering about the name shingles, which is terrible by the way I know I don't know how they landed on that one. It comes from the Latin Singulus which means girdle because of like the strip, the pattern in which it will appear. It's same actually with disaster, that's the other, you know, herpes zoster or varicela zoster.

It's the other name you'll hear for shingles. It's from the Greek for belt or girdle, zoster. Okay. Again, just because the way the rash looks. So shingles is pretty painful and you'd rather not have it, and we'll get into how you can't in just second. Now here is where I explain to you why the chicken pox vaccine is important.

I'm prefacing it. If there was like a bold title over this section of the podcast, that's what it would say. So many people ask me, does my kid really need the chicken pox vaccine though? Really, it's just chicken pox. Okay, in the US, prior to the vaccine, chicken pox caused four million cases a year, 10,600 hospitalizations a year,

and between 100 and 150 deaths a year. Now, I know that doesn't seem like a huge number compared to some of the other diseases we've covered, but those are 100 to 150 preventable and maybe kid deaths that it prevented or that the vaccine can prevent. So, that is why the vaccine is important. It was a live attinuated vaccine was developed or that the vaccine can prevent. So that is why the vaccine is important.

It will alive attenuated vaccine was developed in the 1970s in Japan by Dr. Takahashi. In 1995, it came to the US, and it's available now. You get two doses, one at 12 to 15 months, the second at four to six years, and it results in a 90% reduction in your chance of getting the virus, and it also adds to herd immunity, which

of course is the more people around you who are immune, the less likely you are to get it. And that is why we don't see chicken pox anymore. Well, I mean pretty much. It's still out there, but it is incredibly rare. Is there any effort or hope or plan that like this could be like eliminated in the same way that smallpox was? I think, you know, I'd have to read more about all of the hosts to chickenpox.

And if there's anything, I don't know if there's any other animal that can host you, you know, that was the thing about smallpox. Is it smallpox is just purely a human disease. Oh, okay, right. And that's why it was easier to eradicate. Oh, that makes sense.

I am not 100% certain. I mean, I'm assuming chickenpox is the same way, but I don't know that. Oh, that makes sense. I am not 100% certain. I mean, I'm assuming chicken pox is the same way, but I don't know that. I don't know that. So I don't know if chicken pox could be eradicated in the same way smallpox could. Here's it. That's a good question. Here's a nice little chicken pox story from Dana. Dana says, when I was six, I came down with chicken pox the day after my mom and stepdad returned from their honeymoon. My stepdad likes to joke. It was like me saying, oh yeah, just try to love me. Just try it. I dare you to love this itchy spot of mess.

But he took off work and bought me an epic Play-Doh Beauty Shop toy. I'm 33 now and he still text me if he hears I'm even slightly sick. Does he how I'm doing? Oh, sweet. That is a sweet story. Don't. Um, no chicken pox can only be gotten by humans, by the way. Well, let's, come on, y'all. Let's get together on this thing. Um, so there is also a shingles vaccine, by the way. Yes, it's more recent. Yes, a orzoster vaccine. Same thing is developed in 2006.

Um, it's really just for older people. And that's mainly because the complications from shingles That's more recent. Yes, a Orozah sir vaccine. Same thing. It's developed in 2006. It's really just for older people. And that's mainly because the complications from shingles tend to be worse the older you are. So initially it was just for 60 and up. It was expanded to 50 and up for certain populations. It prevents shingles about half the time, like 51% success rate.

That's true. It does reduce the long-term pain complications that can result from shingles by 67%. Ooh. But again, it's still worth it because if you're one of them, it counts. You can get pain from shingles that lasts forever. Try your ass.

Yeah, not everybody does. Not, there's hope. Most people don't. But some people have pain forever after she gets. So I mean, like, this is a big deal. Russ is a good, terrible human being, though. I do hope it wants him for the rest of his natural lives. I don't support any of these statements.

It is a live virus vaccine. Actually, the chickenpox vaccine is a live virus vaccine as well. So these, they're live attenuated viruses. Attenuated, mean made harmless viruses. But the reason that's important to know is that there are certain people with compromised immune system who maybe can't get these vaccines.

So it is, I mean, you do need to talk to your doctor about these vaccines. You can get some chicken pox at the site of the vaccine when you get the Zoster vaccine. It's possible. So not worth getting anything? No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that, not at all. No, I, you know how I feel about vaccines.

Here's another one from Nicole. I got the chicken pox. This is great. I got the chicken pox right into kindergarten, so I missed the last few days. Luckily, I was non-contagious just in time for my uncle's wedding, in which I was a flower girl. However, I still had all my scabs, so that was cute. But the kicker is my grandmother used the chicken pox as

an excuse when she returned the dress that I actually did wear back to the store claiming I was too sick to be in the wedding. Oh no! Savage. That's rough. Spreading chicken pox. Well, she, yeah, that's pretty weird. Yeah, fluid from the blisters. Shoo. Grandma, get the bargains. Any cost. Any cost.

Now, as far as what do you do if you get chicken pox, which hopefully this won't be a problem for you, but just for, maybe for most of us, this is reminiscing. There are some natural remedies that people will recommend, things like honey and baking soda and vinegar, vitamin E. I saw that even in one of the stories. Somebody said vitamin E was recommended for them. Carrot and coriander soup and garlic.

Calamine is pretty widely used. Most people use calamine lotion. That's fine. It suits the skin. People like oatmeal baths. They feel like it's soothing. What you really have to do is don't itch, don't scratch, I mean, you're gonna itch, don't scratch,

don't scratch. They're more likely to scar when you scratch them, and if you scratch them and open them up, and then it'll introduce bacteria, you can get infections. And a histamine might help with the itching. Cool compresses will help with the itching. You can use fever reducers like Tylenol and ibuprofen. If it's appropriate, do not use aspirin.

We've talked about this before. It can lead to a complication called rysendrum and kids. Anyway, the important things don't use aspirin. Stick with ibuprofen and Tylenol, especially in children. And for most people, you just wait and watch, and they'll get better for most people. You may find some people can get blisters like in their mouths or in other mucus membranes, and so then you might want to limit

what kind of foods and things you eat, you know, not to make those worse, but, do you just wait until it gets better? I've got a few more stories. I gotta show you. Oh, and don't spread it. Don't spread it. Speaking of, this is stories from MJ.

I got chicken pox when I was 11 or 12. It was one of those things that traveled down my street teach and every kid that lived there, all 11 of us. You know, it's a quick sidebar. This is something that I think people who weren't in the chicken pox generation, the last chicken pox generation don't understand, but like chicken pox was such a fact of life that if somebody you knew got it

or like some in your family got it, your parents would just let you kick it with them until you got it. Not just let you. Like they would force you to kick it with them because like let's just get it over with. Like let's just get it and get it done. Exactly.

Let's just do it. So this got passed up and down MJ Street. I knew I wasn't allowed to go to my friend's house because she and her sister had it, but I didn't see anything wrong with playing with her through the chain link fence that separated our yards. Of course, I obviously didn't know

that it could be transmitted through the stuffed dog that she and I were passing back and forth. Our respective parents come on to what we're doing around the same time but to stop to it but the damage was done. There actually used to be chicken pox parties that were popular. So if one kid in like a neighborhood or friend group got chicken pox, the moms or dads or whatever parental unit would get all of the kids together and not just have them play together, but you would see like gross things, like pass around suckers for them to share

and share like drinks and things, just to like really make sure that all the kids got chicken pox, just so you could get it. Which, I mean, there is some sound reasoning in the sense that it was safer to get it when you were a kid than it was when you were an adult. And so if everybody was definitely gonna get it,

you'd rather your kid get it when they're, you know, five or six than when they're 20. Right. But still. Last story. I had it because I know we got to wrap it up. Well, I want to hear your chicken pox story too. I really don't remember that much about it. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with anything. We had it. I remember it was miserable. Certainly all three of you boys got it together. Yeah, that has like video of us like lying around with chicken pox, just dying. But you don't remember who was patient zero? It was probably me.

I think it was me, I assume. I don't remember. I don't remember your chicken pox, okay. The emriors? Yeah. You didn't ask me. Give me the read-to-chicken pox, I am. I got chicken pox when I was 14. That's

pretty light. Yeah, I know it was late. My sister Taylor, my sister that was younger than me, and we would have gotten chicken pox at the time. I was young. Got it. Taylor got it. And at school, and my mom had a sleep together and share food and drink, and I never got it. I thought I was immune for a long time. I thought I was immune for a long time. I thought I was like the lucky one, immune patient. And then when I was 14 in high school, heading back from Christmas break, right before I went back to school,

I had a spot on my stomach that I didn't know what it was, but it's like crazy, and I had scratched the heck out of it and opened it up, and my mom took me to my doctor who I now scratched the heck out of it and opened it up and my mom took me to my doctor who I now work with, one of my colleagues who was really cool. He was my family doctor at the time and he looked at it and he said, hold on a second and then he brought me back a dermatology book because he knew I wanted to be a doctor. This doctor becker. And doctor becker brought me back a dermatology book and handed it to me and said Sydney go through this and tell me come find me when you tell me when you know what you have

I sat there looking through this darn book and finally I went and saw them out and said doctor backer Do I have chicken box and he said you got it? So it was awful. It was terrible. I was so crazy sick my rash wasn't terrible But I was so crazy sick and I rash wasn't terrible, but I was so crazy sick. And I missed my first week back of school. Here is this speaking of missing things. This was from Kate. And this is a heroic one. My mom and her sisters planned a once in a lifetime trip to Germany and Austria, one of my sisters and our kids two days into the trip. She called to check in to learn all three of us had the chicken

box. Amy was three months old, I was four years old, and Susie was almost seven. My mom hadn't even left us overnight, and was our full-time caregiver since the day Susie was born. My dad put us all in his undershirts, invested in Kalamine lotion, and listened to us wine and complain for the next 10 days. I had the worst of the three of us spots my nose, ears, mouth, in between my toes. And I also happened to be the whinyest. So all my sympathies went to my dad when I had kids of my own. Kate, by the way, happened to be the one to contract the shingles two years ago at age 33. She said, I learned shortly before that through a blood-jawed learning pregnancy that I had also lost on my MMR immunity,

even though I was up to dinner vaccines. Bodies are weird. They are. And that is, again, the one thing I would stress about chickenpox is that even though chickenpox we look back on as this like fun, like fun childhood ride of passage that we're all supposed to like, oh, everybody gets chicken pox. The thing is for the majority of us, it was just something really annoying.

Yeah. Or maybe like Justin, you don't even remember very well. For me, I remember getting pretty darn sick, but I was still okay. But it can have serious complications. And definitely, especially now, when there is such, there is, you know, there are a lot of people who haven't had chickenpox. Most of them, hopefully, have had the vaccine, but for people who are just protected through herd immunity, it's vitally important that those people don't get chicken pox because as they get older, it can be worse. And certainly for anyone who becomes pregnant, it can be pretty bad.

So get vaccinated. It's a good vaccine. There is a reason that we made it. Yeah, it's good stuff. Get the chickenpox vaccine. If you're eligible, get the shingles vaccine. Talk to your doctor about both. Again, they are live attenuated virus vaccines.

So you do need to talk to your doctor about them. But as long as it is safe, and your doctor says, it's okay, you should get them. I am fully in support of them. It is no different. I see this like divide. There's like all vaccines, and then there are all these waffles out there

who are like, well, I don't know about the flu vaccine, and I don't know about the chicken pox vaccine. A vaccine is good. Get your vaccines. Please, no matter what anyone tells you. Folks, that's gonna do it for us. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks to TaxPayers for Les Users on Medicine.

This is the intro and outro of our program. Hey, we're going to go on a cruise in March. If you want to come, we're going to go cruise through Mexico. It's going to be great. It's the Joe Co. cruise. There's going to be a ton of cool people there. Jonathan Colton, OVS. It's his cruise.

So he gets to go for sure. There's going to be a ton of cool people there. Jonathan Colton, OBS, it's his cruise. So he gets to go for sure. You know how else is going to be there? Max Temkin, creative, Karate of course, like I said, he's going to be there. John Bernstein is going to be there. Amy Mann is going to be there. A nerf herder is going to be there.

Walkman Nightvale is going to be there. It's going to be Craig. There's tons of other people. We'll weatin' at Broodbicker, Reabutcher, Matthew Winer, creator of Mad Men. Everybody's gonna be there. And you can too. Go to jokokrues.com and come with us.

It's going to be fun. I think that's it. It's gonna do for us. And try this episode to late by the way. Sorry, it's cities on hospital service this week. So just long hours working. We'll get better, have fun. We're working in there.

Just stay with us. We'll be here up over here next week. But until then, my name is just Macro. I'm Sydney Macro. And as always, don't drill hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone, Listener Supported

fun.org. Comedy and culture. Artists Don't. Listen or support it.