Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Revenge of the Weird Medical Questions

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

Once again, we're putting Justin at peril of being supremely yucked out by your weirdest medical queries: Should your pee smell so good? Why is your earwax that color? Why did your mom choose the name Fred for that blood-filled lump on her leg? Yup, it's a weird one, folks.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.

Come that essence, come that essence, the escalant macaque for the mouth. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Saw Bones, a mayoral group of misguided medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. Sid, it's that time again. It's time when you and I can, you know, I think these are fun. And I think these are usually the most fun I have doing up to some times.

I love to learn, I love to grow, I love to be scared. You do. And sad. The adrenaline rush. A little sad. Wait, wait, wait, wait, scared. Okay, a lot of people enjoy that, but sad. Often sad.

Oh, listen, I'm just saying sometimes the episodes, the soads, as I call them, make me sad or scared or unhappy, but. It's okay to be sad sometimes. And it is, but not today Daniel Tiger says that not us. I mean we agree not today today we are going to have some fun and answer your weird medical questions. It's a segment we like to call weird medical questions. All right, here's our first one from Linnea. I had my daughter almost 11 months ago

and I can still occasionally feel the sensation of baby kicks. Some quick Googling has informed me that there are probably phantom kicks and they can stick around for quite some time. Why does this happen? Is it pretty common? Does it ever get less unsettling?

I am so glad that Linnae asked this question because I'll be honest, I have experienced these and I didn't know that it was a, I didn't know it was a thing. I don't know if you remember this, Justin, but I actually experienced it to the extent that I had a momentary freak out. Do you remember this? Yeah, where you thought maybe? Where I thought maybe I was pregnant again, and I didn't know how that was.

See, I said I like being afraid, and now you brought up this little sobbing's chiller. Now you're having another child. I know, but just the idea is, and then it? You're sending me to a pan-expiral. It was well. Think about a third kid. And it was very much, I mean, Justin, of course, we've discussed extensively as head of a sectomy. I had no reason to think I was pregnant. But my periods are pretty irregular. So you never know. And then I thought, well, could I have not known so long that the quickening has already occurred?

There's no way. So I have experienced these kicks and they really do feel, I mean, in my experience, my, of one, my NF1, exactly like it did early in when you start feeling the baby move, not like the later kicks like towards the very end where you can like see the foot or the hand through the belly, but like those early little flutters definitely felt that way. And apparently, and there isn't a lot of research on this. Surprise, surprise.

Yeah, primarily affects women. So there you go. But if in the limited studies that they've done on this phenomenon, they found that about 40% of pregnant people report that this has happened to them. And it can vary from like once or twice a year to daily. Wow. For some patients, it just depends. So it's pretty common.

For most, it lasts on average about 6.8 years after delivery. Not too much. A long time. One person reported that it lasted 28 years. That they were probably making it up. Don't you think they're pretending for attention? Why Justin?

Why would she lie? I just, no, no, no, I'm a spoke. Let me start over. I would. I was just kidding, it's just jokes. I know. So no answers there. It's just so I know. So no answers there. No good, no hard answers from science.

Why does it happen that our best guess is that it could be some sort of akin to what we think of as like phantom limb syndrome after someone has had an amputation and they still continue to feel their their foot or their hand or whatever. There's but there was so much increased innervation, so many more nerves in the stomach, like in the abdomen, abdominal wall, during pregnancy that perhaps like afterwards, like removing that sensation of the baby moving inside, you'll still feel it. So it could be akin to that. Other people thought maybe it's just like

an at you've experienced it before. So now when you have a feeling from something else physiologic that feels that way, your brain is going to link it to that. So maybe it's more of like an error of attribution kind of thing. But it could I mean, it could very well be a neurological phenomenon. I have experienced it too. It's very strange. Okay. You often hear the, the, the pee of a diabetic smell sweet because they can't process sugar or that you can smell it in your urine after eating aparagus. I love that. But often that's the strangest thing that I do. It makes me so proud of myself. It's like a good reminder of how good I was.

But it doesn't bother me, but it also is not, it's not like something that I'm like, you feel proud. Like I did eat a vegetable. You're right. Body. Thank you for reminding me. Often after I defl, it's not like something that I'm like, you feel proud. Like I did eat a vegetable. You're right, body. Thank you for reminding me. Often after I ate a flavorful meal, like Indian food, jubin or something else with a lot of spices, my pee smells like whatever. I recently ate. It's certainly more pleasant than the standard bathroom smells, but it's certainly odd.

What's going on? Shrewa, Erica. So Erica, there are actually a couple other that, for most of us are going to make our urine smell different. Most notably fish can, garlic can, and onions can. So you said a lot of like spicy foods. It makes sense that you might be noticing that association because those three in particular have been noted to leave a similar smell in the urine.

And it just has to do with what kind of like volatile compounds are in the food that your body processes but still comes out through the urine. If they're still in there, those things that release the scent, you're gonna smell the food that you ate. So if it's things like that, it could just be that simple that you're just noticing those specific compounds. On a side note, this probably has nothing to do with what you what you were experiencing,

but just urine odors in general. There are a whole collection of metabolic conditions. Now, you would know about this from birth. So this isn't something that's been missed. That can cause your urine to smell a variety of variety of ways. Most notable is maple syrup urine disease, which as you may guess, maybe make your urine smell like... That is a wild name for a disease. Maple syrup. They're ones that can make your urine smell like sweaty feet. That's how it's described, sweaty feet.

There's a whole variety, but those are all things that you would find out, like from the jump. They're problems, genetic and worn errors. But generally speaking, if this is something that always happens and you're totally fine, otherwise, it's probably just noticing like garlic or onions or something, but it is important to note that there are a variety of other things like urinary tract infections or some sexually transmitted infections, those kinds of things that can change the odor of your urine. Diabetes is another thing that you've already mentioned. So if you're concerned at all, if you're worried about anything,

if you're having any other symptoms, and you also notice that your urine has changed odor, you may want to go get checked out by a doctor, but otherwise it's probably just something like garlic or onions. I got one from Anders, just putting a bandaid on after a shot, actually do anything. Justin, what do you think?

My guess would be it keeps, it's, I mean, maybe very slightly because it is a point at which germs could get in. It's a hole in your body, but I think by and large, it's just like one, let's people know that you got a shot and so they can move that for you or proud of you if it's a flu shot or two, it like just a case is a little dribble of blood. That's gross. It'll get on your shirt. It's nice to get that little job of blood off. That's really probably the most the most useful thing that a bandaid does is after we give you a shot, some people if you're on a blood thin or something you might actually have a few, a little bit of oozing, but for most of us, maybe a dropper too, either way,

you don't want it on your sleeve, and you don't want to walk out with your sleeve rolled up, just kind of oozing blood, even if it's just a teeny, teeny bit. That's unpleasant, so that's really it. There really is no other function that's not doing. Don't ever tell my kids, but it's not actually making it better.

Karen wants to know what is skin tags happen? Is there any safe way to remove them? So skin tags are very normal about half of adults report that they have a skin tag somewhere. They're usually just at points of like friction somewhere, like in a natural point of friction in your body because of like a skin fold or like a joint or something like that. Or due to where clothes might hit you and cause friction, it's just an overgrowth of skin. It's just like collagen and vessels and things

get trapped in a little bit of skin growth and you get this little, what we call pedunculated, that means it's on a little stalk. Pedunculated? It's a fun word. That's very good. Yeah, that's a good word. But that's a little stalk in the skin tag. They typically are absolutely no big deal, nothing too worry about, but a lot of people don't

like them. I can tell you in my experiences of physician a lot of people come and ask to have them removed just because they don't like them. It's for cosmetic reasons. And if they do get caught on something to pay on where they are, you know, I mean, they can. They can't. They can't drop up in there.

That can happen and that can be irritating. So for those reasons, some people do seek to get them removed and we can do that pretty easily in the office by either numbing them with a little bit of lidocaine, some local anesthetic and then clipping them off. Or actually, I have some patients who have just said, can you just clip it off real fast because the stick and the burn of the lidocaine is actually worse than the feeling of the, if they're very teeny.

Right, just, you have a snip. What I would say is if you want to remove, go talk to somebody to do it under sterile conditions. So you don't end up with like infection or a lot of bleeding or something. Because even though I have patients who try to twist them off, from all the moths and cells,

I know. It will spest me a fine one. And you could probably get away with that a lot of the time, but then that one time you end up with a skin infection or you end up with bleeding and not stopping, then you're in trouble. So just, you know, come talk that's something as a family doctor I did that all the time. Certainly dermatologist can too, but most most primary care doctors can handle that for you. I work as a custodian and a few months ago I got a rash on my hands mainly covering my fingers where my skin became covered in itchy bumps that oozed clear fluid when popped.

Ha, woof, moon on. I talked to a dermatologist and he told me it was a kind of dermatitis caused my wash my hands too much. I was wondering, have you ever had to deal with this being a doctor and you didn't wash your hands a lot too? Do you have any tips for avoiding damaging my hands anymore while also remaining hygienic? Thanks in advance, Sarah. So this is actually not to the extent

that you're describing, Sarah, but this is actually a very common problem in my experience among healthcare providers because we do wash our hands a lot. And a lot of us tend to use the alcohol-based hand sanitizers a whole lot, and that's especially drying to the skin. So while I've never had the adermatitis to the extent that you've described,

I have had very dry cracked, scaly skin. And I know a lot of my colleagues have as well from the frequent hand washing. Number one, and this goes for me too, we should probably, whenever possible, wash with soap and water One because if there is any like visible like debris or oils or anything you actually do a better job getting your hands clean With soap and water than you do with the hand sanitizer So it's always it's actually always preferable to use if you can

I mean if you're in a situation where you can use soap and water do that if all you have is hand sanitizer Of course, that's fine,, but soap and water is probably better for the hands than the hand sanitizers are, so that's one thing. For your condition in particular, I'm betting that dermatologists may have recommended certain like medicated ointments or creams, and that's not for everybody. Moisturizing is what the rest of us can do. So whenever you can, especially maybe after you've just gotten out of the bath or shower and your hands are damp,

not wet but a little damp, putting on a heavy duty unscented moisturizing lotion doesn't have to be anything fancy or expensive, just something heavy duty moisturizing unscented. For most of us can help alleviate that problem and just keep it up even if your hands aren't feeling dry. Especially through like the winter months when you're gonna be washing your hands a't feeling dry. Especially through like the winter months when you're going to be washing your

hands a ton and the air is very dry, that moisturizing can help a lot. I wanted to take this opportunity to note real fast that knowing how to wash your hands appropriately is really important always, but especially right now, we're all talking about it, you should do this all the time. There's a whole campaign from the CDC called Life Is Better with Clean Hands. I didn't know they had a hand washing campaign. But they do. So if you want to go to the CDC.gov slash hand washing and then win how hand washing, they

have an entire section on washing your hands and how to do it and promotional materials and pictures you can look at. But generally, I think most of us know before, during and after you prepare food, before eating, if you're taking care of somebody sick, you wanna wash your hands after you go to the bathroom, if you're taking care of a cut or a wound around animals or garbage,

or if you blow your nose or cough or sneeze, or change a diaper, anything like that. You need to wash your hands and the five steps wet your hands with clean running water, warm more cold or cold is fine. Then apply the soap. Lather your hands by rubbing them together. Lather the back of your hands between your fingers, your nails. I saw a really great video online where somebody practiced with paint so that they could see how to make sure they didn't miss any spots. I'm what the common spots are.

You scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds, and as I think most people know, what song can you sing? Some body wants to tell me the world is gonna, it works, let me finish. So, time me, watch the timer. All right. Watch the timer. Watching. Okay. Somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. I started low. She was looking kind of done with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on our forehead.

Well, I write it well. Actually, 20 seconds. Yeah. 20 seconds. Okay. I was going to say happy birthday, but if you prefer all star by smash mouth. And who doesn't? Uh, for.

Thank you. Do you have a point at that out on Twitter, by the way? We're at the light. What a delight. Now I'm finally watching my hands. It seemed pointless. By the pointed that out on Twitter, by the way. We're at the light. What a delight. Now I'm finally watching my hands. It seemed pointless. By the way, you have to see a heavy birthday twice. So maybe that's another reason why you want to do that.

So I'm going to say, you have to see a heavy birthday twice. A little like the 20 seconds. Rinse your hands with a clean running water and then dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them. If you do use hand sanitizer, which, of course course we've talked about why it can dry your hands, but if that's what you got, use hand sanitizer. It is fine to use. If you don't have soap and water, a big thing is you apply it, make sure you cover your hands, rub your hands together, all over the surfaces until they're dry. Hand sanitizers are working when they're dry. If you

slap it on your hands and then go touch somebody while they're still wet, it hasn't done the job yet. You can read more about hand washing at the CDC.gov. If you need some more info. Let's see here. When I was a kid, my mom will wear it and they've got a cut on her leg, but eventually stopped.

This would have been a totally normal and forgettable thing if it hadn't turned into a monstrous bump on her leg full of blood. It looks like a mole. We thought it was a blood blister, but it's been 10 years and it's still there. She named it. It's called Fred. Why is Fred? That's from Lindsay. I love these questions. One reason I love these episodes is that I learned things. I had not, so I read this and I thought, I don't think I've ever encountered this. Let me look into this. There is something called a chronic expanding hematoma. It typically happens in an extremity, like a leg. And usually there is some sort of history of trauma, maybe a cut or, you know, some sort

of like contusion of bruise or a bump or something. But it's not really clear if it's linked to what happens, which is you get like a collection of blood underneath the skin. That's a hematoma, right? That's what that is. That's what that word means. And it continues to grow instead of just being resored by your body and gets bigger. And then sometimes just gets big and stays there for a really long period of time. It probably has to do with it actually developing its own sort of blood supply in there. So instead of it just being like a fixed collection of blood that slowly gets smaller, more blood could be getting added to it. And then it kind of gets to like a balanced point where this is as big as it's going to

be. But anyway, this sounds to me without looking or knowing anything else about your mom, that this could be a chronic expanding hematoma, which you don't really need to do anything about, but now you know why is Fred. That is why is Fred. And right there, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to head on over to the billing department and we'll be right back with some more questions.

Let's go. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you lift my car before the mouth. Let's waste no time, let's get back into it. I got crazy sick with a virus last year, spent 10 days in the hospital with a fever of just 105. Woof, that's tough.

And all of her body rash, migraines puking, I was rolled out for meningitis, Lyme disease, measles, every infectious disease, no demand, felt like it anyway. Steven's Johnson syndrome, and who knows what else? Completely boggled all the docs, never figured out what it was. A week or so after I got home,

my hair started falling out by the handful. What the heck? Why? It grew back after a few weeks. Thanks, Donna. So, Donna, the detective in me really wanted to try to puzzle out what exactly you may have had, but there is no way I could possibly do that from this information. And that also would not help you at all with your question.

It will keep her up at night. That's what I was like. I will keep thinking about it, Donna. So I will not attempt to do that. I am just glad that you're okay. And that you made it through that awful ordeal, safe and sound. The hair falling out is probably not a clue. Your hair can fall out in response to any kind of extremely like stressful,

especially like physical event, like an intense illness, like a severe illness. It's one that put you in the ICU, any kind of episode like that caused by whatever the mystery illness was can result in you having hair loss afterwards. So whatever the sickness is, unfortunately that can be a consequence down the road.

I'm sorry that that happened. I'm glad that it did grow back, Whatever the sickness is, unfortunately, that can be a consequence down the road. I'm sorry that that happened. I'm glad that it did grow back, but it probably will not clue us in as to what the answer was. This is a wild one. I've never heard this. Is it true that novelty black foods, like the black dyed treats that come out around Halloween, can mess with medications that you're on due to the charcoal content? That's from Stephanie.

This is an interesting question. I had to look into this. It sounds like a, it sounds like a fable to me. So it, you know, activated charcoal is something that we can give you to bind with medications and specifically in poisonings or overdoses or with certain substances. It does not work for everything. There's certain things that you can administer activated charcoal by mouth, and it will bind with the substance and help pass it through the system

so that you aren't poisoned. It's like November 10th, 2017, episode 208 of Soil Bones. Yeah, we did it all on charcoal. So you can learn more about the uses of it medically in that episode. But this is interesting because if we do have like foods, I've seen ice creams that this is popular with, where they have charcoal in the mix, or they're black and they're very striking.

And so I think they were very trendy for a while there to eat foods like that, or to make, you know, if you like, artsy chef, baker, to make them like that. From what I have seen, there is no solid proof that this could work. Like there's no evidence, nobody's had a case of this that I could find

where they had, and like where it seemed like this that actually happened. Certainly nobody's like studying that right now. But theoretically, if there is charcoal in the substance, in the food and you ate enough of it, I think it is theoretically possible that it could inactivate a medication, specifically the one I was reading about

was a birth control medication. And someone was saying, well, I think if you ate this ice cream that has charcoal in it like twice a day every day for weeks, possibly, it would bind enough of the birth control and it would lose its effect. Whoa. Um.

The scares just keep on coming. So I ate too much ice cream and now I have a third kid. No. I have no proof that this happens. And I think that if it's a one off, you eat one of these novelty black foods one time. I have no reason to think that. But if you're concerned at all,

if you're on medications that have like a very narrow therapeutic range. Just eat regular food. Just stay away from them. But again, this is all very theoretical. We don't have any cases of anybody having been harmed by eating charcoal food. Charcoal-lied food.

Uh, since Christ. Why is the air wax in orangey color when most of our bodily juices, like snot saliva, et cetera, are devoid of color if healthy? That's from Keely, who is gritty to max. Nah, your wax is important. Everybody, what, Justin, can you answer me why everybody's so freaked out by earwax?

Everyone's always wanting to take their earwax away from themselves. It feels bad. It feels like your body is doing something gross and you just discovered it. And your body is doing it behind your back, secretly hiding in this little cave, towing away, making it forcing you produce wax.

It's groty. Wax isn't gross. And it's satisfying when you finally use that, you know, ballpoint pen lid to get it out. So, you know, I'm scared. I hate that. Please stop putting things in your ears, everyone. Everyone listening. Don't put things in your ears.

Anything smaller than your elbow does not belong in your ear. You can push the wax further in. You can puncture your ear drum. probably you won't, but you could. Don't do it. And you can scratch the inside of your ear canal and get an infection. That is not the question though. Ear wax, which is totally normal and you're supposed to have some in there because it keeps the ear canal lubricated and it also protects you

like bugs crawling in there. Sure. Important. Ear wax can really know other defense for bugs crawling in there. Sure, important. Earwax can range. There's literally no other defense for bugs crawling in there. Earwax can range from like a really pale, actually almost like whitish, clearish,

yellowish color to orangeish, to dark orange. And all of those colors are normal. And some of that depends on what is in the earwax, like how long has it been in there, and how much bacteria and skin cells and oil and sweat and all that has it collected. And the more of that that it collects, the darker and more concentrated it might look. And so it's going to, it's going to have more of a color to it. There are also genetic differences that determine what color your ear waxes, how dry or wet your ear waxes, how like you could have like little crystally bits or you could all be gooshy and waxy.

All of that. Creamy smell of your ear wax is determined by genetic factors. There are certain compounds that your genes decide if you produce or not. factors, there are certain compounds that your genes decide if you produce or not. Earwax is a fascinating science. And there are tons of different genetic factors that determine why your earwax is exactly like your earwax is. Kids produce more than adults, but some people produce more their whole life. I have to cut you off.

I have to cut you off. I have to cut you off. But it's all the stuff in there that usually makes it different colors. If your earwax is any other colors, you should go get it checked out. Like it is not under normal circumstances going to turn green, black. If it's anything other than a variety of clear to yellow,

to orangeish, to dark orange, you know, have a doctor just take a look. I've been living with a yeast infection for about two years, not knowing what it is I had. I had thought that if anything was wrong with my body, it would have been detected by a pap test. I was recently disused with this idea after speaking with my doctor, and I've since treated the infection,

but I got me thinking, what medical tests are commonly mistakenly assumed to work beyond their actual function from anonymous. So I got this was a great question because this is actually something I've come across a lot in my practice is specifically we do we often will say something like I want to do some blood work as like as your physician we might say well I just want to order some blood tests on you and I don't always I'll tell you the general ideas of what I'm looking for, but not, I mean, unless you ask, if you ask, I'll tell you whatever you want to know.

But sometimes I don't drill down into all the specifics. I have a lot of patients who assume that the blood work, especially if it's like their yearly blood work, checks for anything that could be wrong with them, and that if there is any kind of medical problem It'll show up. It'll show up in that blood work the one I get asked about the most is probably cancer I have a lot of patients who will say well We know I don't have cancer because you did that blood work, right? And it's like well, I can't there is no one blood test that can check for all

Cancer and a lot of people are taking it back by that idea that like the tests I do might look normal despite the fact that there's a problem. So I think that happens a lot actually. The pap smears another example of this. I have a lot of patients who assume that when the pap smears performed anything that could be wrong in that region, whether it's the yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis or sexually transmitted infection, anything like that will show up on the PAP test. And occasionally, depending on who's reading the results,

occasionally somebody will mention if they happen to see one of those things. So I guess that makes it even more convoluted. Occasionally, I'll get that back in a report. Like, everything looked normal in terms of we were looking for cancerous changes or pre-cancerous changes, nothing like that, but we did see some evidence that looked like bacterial vachnosis. Occasionally that'll come back, but not always. And if they don't mention it, it's not because it wasn't there. It's just they didn't happen to see it or maybe they weren't looking for that.

But this happens a lot. I'm a nurse and I've noticed that certain elderly patients get thick twisted toenails. Why is that? anecdotally, I haven't noticed any common diagnosis, diabetes, PVD with PVD. peripheral vascular disease, et cetera, which every patient with non-alien toenails has.

Today, I had a patient whose toenails thanks to beta-diet on his feet, turning them orange look like small cheeto nubs, crunchy, not puffy. I hate feet, Elise. I think Elise, at one point, your question just started turning into you complaining about feet. I noticed that happened. I think the specific kind of toenails that you were talking about, although the specific kind of toenails that you are talking about, although thickened nails, like nails becoming hyper-trophic, like just thick, and this is something a lot of people will actually come in

and think that they have toenail fungus, that it's a fungal infection, but it's actually just thickened, and that can happen to a lot of people, it's usually the big toe, and it can just be friction from like tight shoes and that kind of thing can cause big thick toenails. And they can even look discolored, but it's really just that they're super thick.

But I think what you might specifically be referencing is what is colloquially, colloquially. Why do I always say that word to them? Charging. Colloquially. Colloquially. Colloquially. Colloquially, colloquially. Colloquially.

And layman's terms. It's hard, I can't do it either. Ramshorn nail. The technical name is Anaco Gryphosis. Now why is that easy for me, but colloquially? No. And this actually is, this is more common among the elderly. You can see it in association with certain things like you mentioned, like diabetes,

but it can just happen. And it's related to, we're not exactly sure, but we think it's some combination of probably some trauma to that part of the foot, some peripheral vascular disease, so like limited blood flow is what we're talking about. And just neglect of your toenails, like not, you know, clipping them regularly. Oh, a lot of the time because you're not capable of doing so anymore. But that specific deformity, Ramshorn nail can be seen a lot among the elderly. On my first day as manager, I was tasked with asking an employee to please stop picking

his nose and eating his boogers in view of the other employees. He argued that it helped him build his immunity and then he never got sick. Is this real or just really gross? Gross. That's from Jessica. Can I step in here? Okay. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to do it where I don't care if it makes him like very good at basketball and help him find great parking spots. Like, he could do it in the privacy of his own like bathroom or car or parking spot or wherever.

It doesn't matter. Also, you're whoever told you you had to do that stinks and you need to tell them that they need to go do it because you are not handling that kind of dirty work for them. Jessica, I do agree with what Justin has said. I will take a step further. We do not have evidence that eating your own bookers makes your immune system better. I understand conceptually what he means. It feels right.

Well, but the thing is, let me just throw this out there if we're gonna fall if we're gonna actually address this If we're gonna take it seriously Try if if these germs that are cool. I mean because that's the idea right like your boogers have captured germs Stop them from going up your nose and now you're gonna expose yourself to small amounts of them by eating them So that your immune system will create antibodies. If the germs got stuck in boogers in your nose, some of them probably made their way in your body, right? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So you've probably already been exposed to these germs and built an immune response to them. The idea that your

boogers are so good at trapping germs that every single particle got stuck in your bookers, I mean, I wish our bookers were that great, but they're not. We do get sick sometimes. So there is no evidence that that's true. Moreover, it really feels like a private thing. Private matter. I would just say like, if you feel that strongly and you need to do this, that's just there are lots of things we do for our own health Better private things. Yeah, that you don't have to do in front of other people Dear Dr. Sidney and Justin McRoy my weird medical question is about my blood type I don't know what it is or how to find out what it is

That's from Abby me neither Abby I've learned a lot of times and I think I need to just put it in a card in my wallet or something Because I keep forgetting it. Yeah, I see I always do you remember how I know mine? I've told you before no Mine's a positive. Oh like a plus. It's an a plus. Yeah, I got it. That's what I like to get I like to get the best grade the a plus Grimm and a plus Uh, you know, that's another thing. It's funny after the question we already had about, like, patients misunderstanding what

a test is actually looking for. A lot of patients I have found will assume that I know their blood type because I have ordered some blood tests on them before. It is a specific test. We have to order if I haven't had a reason, like, because you needed a blood transfusion or because you were pregnant. If there was no reason before for me to have looked, I probably don't know your blood type and your primary care doctor may well not either.

If you go to donate blood, they will check it. They won't, you know, you're gonna find out there. So that's one way you can find out. Your doctor can order your blood type. I would be cautious though. If you don't need to know your blood type. I would be cautious though. If you don't need to know your blood type, you're probably better off. I mean, if you're willing and able and you're thinking of donating blood because our system is so messed up, I have to have a reason to order a blood type on you or there's a chance

depending on what insurance you have or if you don't have insurance that you're going to end up having to pay just to find out what your blood type is. I know that's ridiculous. Like I said, there are circumstances where I can type you, especially if you may need a blood transfusion. If you do, on a side note, we'll find out your blood type and cross-in match and make sure that the right type of blood, at least all that should be done before you get blood. But the only way is to actually go ask either when you donate blood or go ask your physician,

hey, can we check my blood type? And they have to order that specific test. I have one more. Yeah, I have a multiple part question about viruses. I was taught in all my middle and high school classes that viruses are not living things. However, you and other medical podcasts, I listened to talk about killed viruses being used to create vaccines. My question is, are viruses alive? And if so, why can we not kill a virus once it is affected a person like we

can do with bacteria, cheers, Cindy. Cindy, I love this question because I always, that was actually one of the first things that drew me to viruses back in the days before I knew I wanted to be a family doctor. I thought about being an infectious disease specialist or perhaps a virologist because I learned that viruses are the living dead. They're like the zombies of the biological world. They have aspects of living things and they have aspects of things that aren't living things. And so they're hard to define. That's why they are living, but not in exactly the sense that we are living. That's why. Yes, I know. They're fascinating, viruses are fascinating. And because of that, I think that they can be a little scary.

So when we talk about vaccines being made using killed viruses, I think that this is a handy term people are using to communicate to patients and the lay public that the virus in this cannot make you sick. Yes. But it has not literally been killed. That usually means that the virus has been modified and engineered in a lab so that the infectious parts of it have been removed.

Okay. But so it's not killed in the sense that we think of a living organism ceasing. It's more like... Right, it's more like action. It's more like neutered. Yeah, that's that's probably a good way to look at it actually. It's a good question because it's not it's not alive in the way that we think of living.

So you can't kill it, but you can just inject pieces of it that will stimulate an immune response. There's only certain parts of a virus or bacteria that our body is going to make an antibody too, right? And so as long as you know what that part is, that's all you need to inject into somebody. You don't need to inject the whole thing for the most part. And if you're going to use the whole thing, you attenuate it, you you harm it in such a way that it is unable to cause disease. But yeah, it's a great question because because you're right, viruses cannot be killed in that they are not alive, but they are sort of alive and we can sort of kill them.

They're very goth. Was that helpful? They're very goth entities. We can't kill, and we do have viruses, we do have some medications, limited medications that can try to hurt a virus, again, I don't use their kill,'re hurt a virus once it's already infected you, but they're they're just widely. They're a lot harder to do that with without

um, harming the cells that they are infecting as well, which like are your cells and we don't want to harm them. Um, folks, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope you have enjoyed yourself so much, because we have sure enjoyed having you on board. Thank you to the taxpayers for the use of their song medicines as the intro and outro of our program. Hey, get pump, max fund drive starts next week. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We got lots of great stuff.

If you head on over to McRoy.family, you can see all the cool stuff that's happening over there, but catch the fever. It's gonna be great. We're gonna have a great, we got a great bonus episode. We'll talk about it next time, but it's good. You'll like it. You're gonna love it. You'll love it. But that will do it for us for this week. So until next time, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't draw a hole in your head. MUSIC

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