Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Why Don’t Edema and Enema Rhyme?

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Justin has gathered all the strangest listeners (questions) to quiz Dr. Sydnee with all of your weird and fun medical questions! Is Gatorade actually salty and NOT sweet? Are people with cat allergies allergic to big cats? Can you fart and spread norovirus? Can a fetus taste? And the most important question of all: who are Justin and Dr. Sydnee's favorite fictional doctors?Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/National Immigration Project: https://nipnlg.org/about/who-we-are

Sawbones 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. Alright, this one is about some books. One, two, one, two, three, four.

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I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. Sydney McElroy, welcome to The Floor. I've gathered all of our weirdest listeners together and they've made a grid of 16 by 16 squares and you, Sydney McElroy, are going to attempt to answer all of their most challenging and thought-provoking questions in a segment I'm calling Weird Medical Questions. Buh-nuh-muh-muh-muh-muh, I'm Rob Lowe.

You're Rob Lowe? In the floor segment. Can I ask you about the West Wing? Yes, you can. I'm always happy to talk about any of my great projects, including Dr. Vegas, the West Wing, or 911. I'd rather talk to you about The Stan. I love to talk about The Stan.

Remember when you were in the original? Yes, I was the great, the great, uh... Nick. Nick in that, and I did this. The great Nick. The great role of Nick in that, and I did such a good job as that role. You did do such a great job in that.

Thank you, Sydney. Thank you for always supporting my work. Now- Do you know Gary Sinise and could I meet him? We don't keep in touch. He's often in space. Oh, Justin, we are gonna do some weird medical questions. It will hopefully not be nearly as tense

as this floor situation you just set up for me. If I had to navigate, I would be bad on the floor anyway. And if I had to navigate a floor full of questions that in theory I know the answer to, but then if you put me on the spot and I miss them, I look like I'm bad at my actual trained profession, that's terrifying. That's right, Sid.

We're going to be taking our listeners' questions and we're gonna be turning them into answers, not actionable ones, though. This is still just for entertainment. But it is. Yeah, these are just fun questions about medical science. I'm not, as always, if you need, if you have a problem or a concern,

and you have, and you need actual medical advice, please see your own healthcare provider who can assess you and know your history and perhaps do a physical exam, I think that's a good, good, good advice. Please see your own healthcare provider who can assess you and know your history and perhaps do a physical exam and then make a diagnostic and treatment plan that is individually suited for you. Hey, Sid, one of my coworkers recently told me,

their doctor told them, Gatorade is only sweet if you're dehydrated. It is salty when you're hydrated. Is that true? How? It's got a lot of sugar in it. How does it become unsweet? Or is it sweet with a touch of salty? I don't understand, help. Thanks for your help, Sejan.

So I'm not really sure what the other doctor would have meant by it's only sweet if you're dehydrated and it's salty when you're hydrate. I don't know any reason why the taste of Gatorade would, like your perception of it would change based on your hydration status. I don't have any evidence for that. I thought it was an interesting thing to point out.

I mean, Gatorade is sweet and salty. It's not really salty, but like there is salt in it, right? I mean, that's a real, you're really, I mean, you're, if you drank water that just had the salt from Gatorade, I think you would be like, I don't know. Like this is a little bit, there's some salt in here. Well, and I think it's, I thought it was a good point to talk about why Gatorade, why would it have salt in it?

And what does that have to do with like oral rehydration solutions? So Gatorade is really good for like, if you, I don't know, if you're playing sports or you're exercising and you're just like normal, like fluid, electrolyte replenishment as you're engaging in activity you know what I mean like nothing nothing has happened to you to cause you to be like clinically dehydrated like pathologically dehydrated right just like being active extreme right and it has more sugar in it than an actual like medically designed

oral rehydration solution we have those ORS oral rehydration solution. We have those, ORS, oral rehydration solutions, where instead of giving you a bag of IV fluids because you're dehydrated, we could give you this medically formulated, balanced electrolyte solution that is good for you to get everything back in your body. The closest thing to that over the counter is Pedialyte.

Pedialyte is a great example of a much more balanced oral rehydration solution. And the difference between the two, I have the breakdown, I found like calories and sugar and sodium and potassium and all that stuff. And if you look at, Justin, I have it here for you to see. If you look at the sugar, there's 21 grams of sugar in Gatorade Frost

versus nine grams in Pedialyte. Much more sugar, Gatorade is sweeter. And then the sodium in Pedialyte, 370 mg's as opposed to 160 in Gatorade. If you drink Pedialyte, you can tell. It's salty. So that does taste salty. I have never drank a Gatorade that I thought tasted anything, If you drink Pedialyte, you can tell. It's salty. So that does taste salty.

I have never drank a Gatorade that I thought tasted anything but sweet or whatever flavor it's supposed to be. Yeah, I remember when I told my dad, bring me a Gatorade with a bitter flavor, and my father looked at me, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that there was no bitter Gatorade.

I will say that if you were just again, engaging in like regular exercise and all that kind of stuff, Gatorade is fine. Pedialyte is fine for adults too and children. If you are actually, you know, you've had diarrhea or vomiting or something else that has caused you to become more dehydrated than you would expect in just like normal activities.

Pedialyte's a better oral rehydration solution. People like to use it for hangovers for that reason. You can drink too much of it and there's no need to drink Pedialyte or Gatorade on a regular basis. Like that's not for the most part, you know, it's not, it doesn't need to be like part of a standard healthy diet. It doesn't have to be. You should also, I will say this question asker. You should know that this question touches on

something that I would like to address now that Sydney has addressed the science. It is still possible, I think it's important to remember that doctors can still hear commercials and doctors can still hear stuff that is not true about flavors of Gatorade from like a friend, right? And if it's not directly impactful to the person's health or wellbeing,

you shouldn't assume that the doctor is gonna run it down and find out for sure if it's not a health related issue. What I'm saying is that doctors can be wrong about lots of stuff all the time. It doesn't, but they usually will check on it if it is about your health. I don't want you to, you know what I mean? Like, this is just someone who maybe has heard

a coach at some point say something, I don't know. But you don't, I would say you need the salty when you are dehydrated, but I don't know why you would necessarily taste it more. This is what I'm saying, right? Like, yes, doctors being confused about it more. This is what I'm saying, right? Like, yes. Doctors being confused about Gatorade flavors is, let's understand.

I once got a call on the mommy line, it's terrible they called it that, the parent line, the guardian line, the caretaker line is what we should call it. It's an after hours call line for the PEDS service, but they asked what flavor of Pedialyte rehydrates a child best. Bitter Mountain Rush.

I said, whatever they will drink. I feel like I've watched the first time I tried Gatorade too many times at this point, and it's like all I can think about whenever Gatorade is brought up. Like the entirety of it fills my consciousness. Hey Sydney, I got another question for you. Do you have the time?

Yes. When making pottery, you sometimes score two clay surfaces and apply slip to apply them to stick together better. Apply, sorry, let me try this question again. There's a lot of unfamiliar terms and I feel like my brain didn't have my pottery glossary loaded up. It had my medical terms glossary loaded up, so I wasn't.

Sure, that happens. Let me try again. Okay, here we go. When making pottery, you sometimes score two clay surfaces and apply slip to allow them to stick together better. Is there any similar technique used to help wounds heal? Would the increased surface area from scoring allow for better recovery?

And that is from Deacon. I thought this was a really interesting question because I couldn't think, I was sitting there trying to imagine what medical procedures already sort of mimic this, and nothing immediately came to mind other than dermabrasion, which isn't wound healing per se,

but when people have dermabrasion done, which is what it sounds like, it's abrading, like irritating the surface of the skin, the dermis. You're irritating and you have it done on your face to smooth out and have a smoother, softer appearance to your face. And it's almost like sanding. It's not literally using a sander,

but it's kind of like a sander. You're sanding off the top surface of your face and then it heals into this, the next layer. You're getting all the dead, dry, irregular layers off. You know where we do this? Nails. Do this on our nail beds, right? Like we've got the first thing they do

whenever they do the work on your fingers is they're like buffing, right? And they're taking away like some of the callus skin and the nail, the outer layer, right? Part of that is a sanding for smoothing, which is not exactly what this person is talking about. But it's also to rough up the surface so that the coat will stick better and whatever, right? Not a medical thing technically, but it is the human body, I guess.

Right. And I guess that's similar. I know that's still not exactly what you're asking, because this doesn't really have to do a surface area per se. I was thinking about wound care. I do a ton of wound care, and certainly debridement is part of wound care. So we do prep a wound bed before we dress it,

or perhaps put a skin graft on it. And I was thinking, is there any way where we abrade it in some way to make it take better not really We need a certain kind of wound bed. There has to be blood supply there It has to be clean. You have to get rid of dead tissue. You have to have good, you know Healthy borders to the whole wound. So there's a lot that goes into that but none of it is exactly this You know the closest I was thinking about it. It's almost worse if you have like inflamed tissues inside the body, let's say we do a surgery inside the body.

And the internal organs, irritated, inflamed from just whatever, from whatever caused the need for the surgery or from the surgery itself, right? The surgery, we're still cutting into you, we're doing it in a controlled sterile fashion, but it can cause inflammation. That can actually make things stick together. Adhesions form.

So connections we don't want, little pieces of tissue that form between two organs that really shouldn't be stuck together. Yeah. Yeah, so that does happen. So it does happen, we just don't want it to happen. But we don't want it to happen, because if you get too many adhesions,

they can cause pain and problems inside your, usually in an abdominal kind of situation, but wherever they form. And then we might even have to go in and do like a lysis of adhesions, meaning we go in and cut the adhesions apart so things aren't stuck together, but the danger of that is it's another surgery, so you might get more. Anyway, so I couldn't think of a reason that it would be good as much as reasons why like we probably don't want that. Let's see here, Sid. What's the deal with mycoplasma genitalium? Is it new or on the rise or something?

Is it included in most STI tests? Should I request it when I get tested? I thought this was a really great question because I don't think a lot of people are as familiar with this sexually transmitted infection. Had you ever heard of it, Justin? Not until this exact moment. So it is less common. I think most of us have heard of,

there's a lot of sexually transmitted infections that I think have entered not just like our kind of common knowledge, but I also feel like media vernacular, you know what I mean? Like we talk about gonorrhea and chlamydia a lot more in, you know what I mean? Like I feel like those are plots on like teen shows

and things. This is not. Right. This is, it has been, we first identified this back in 1981, so it's not new. I would say it's definitely newer than syphilis, for instance, which you you know is an ancient driving princes insane for millennia exactly

But so it is newer in that sense. It's a bacterial infection It is more rare than some of these other conditions We think you know, I believe that the percentage was like one to three percent of people tested positive. What is it Sydney? What is it causes? It's a bacterial infection that you can transmit through either Vaginal or anal sex typically we don't think at this point it can be transmitted through oral sex although It's still rare enough that you know We're not sure but we don't think so and it causes very similar symptoms to other sure, but we don't think so. And it causes very similar symptoms to other sexually transmitted infections you might be familiar with. So you could get

inflammation of the cervix or the urethra or the rectum. You can have vaginal discharge. You could have burning or pain. And there are more serious complications that can arise from this, specifically in people who have uteruses and fallopian tubes, you can experience pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility if it is left untreated long-term, similar to gonorrhea, chlamydia, these other. So the symptoms are pretty similar.

There's not a lot that would initially distinguish I'm having some burning when I pee, I'm having some discharge, maybe my pelvis hurts. It could be any of these things. Right now, our standard is that we don't screen for this immediately. If somebody is either not testing positive for these other sexually transmitted infections

or if they're not responding to empiric treatment, sometimes we just treat. Wouldn't it, what would you take to knock this out? Like wouldn't it be part of the constellation of stuff that you'd like, does it respond to? It does, so right now we have a lot of good antibiotic choices and they're pretty similar to how we treat other sexually transmitted infections.

So in a lot of cases, azithromycin, which is still used for chlamydial infections, we can use. Is that AZC? Or doxycycline? No. That's a totally other, that's an antiretroviral. I have a lot of those letters though. Yes.

Can't fall for that. Azithromycin is the same thing that's in a Z-Pak, which many people are familiar with. Anyway, so azithromycin, moxifloxacin, doxycycline. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and certainly if, and I think it can be really, this is where I think this advocacy can come into play. It can be really awkward or uncomfortable for you to come to a healthcare provider and say, I'm having these specific symptoms. Knowing what it might imply

and knowing how you might have gotten it, I mean, a lot of people get embarrassed about that. First of all, as a healthcare provider, we're not embarrassed, I can tell healthcare provider, we're not embarrassed. I can tell you this, we are never embarrassed. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to shock or, you know, make us offended or there's not, I mean, it just,

it's business as usual. We are, we just want to make you better. We just want to figure out what it is to make you better. But if it doesn't get better, you may think like, oh man, I don't wanna have to go through going back. But it might be something that's a little more rare. And so it is worth going back and saying, hey, my symptoms didn't improve with the stuff you gave me

because maybe we need to do a little more testing and we can test for this and treat it. And obviously partners should be treated as well. Yes, absolutely. Tell you what, Sid, let's have another question. Can you do one more for me right now? Yeah, we can do one more. Why don't edema and enema rhyme?

This really isn't a medical question. No, but yeah, I'd love to have an answer. I thought I would try to dig into the etymology of these words to see if, and this is my suspicion, edema, which is swelling, comes from the Greek word oedema for swelling. One more time, what is it? Oedema?

I believe, yeah, oedema. Oedema? Oedema? It's one word and it is pronounced that way for swelling. I think that probably enema, which, and I mean, if you see these two words, I know right now you're listening to the podcast, but if you write them down, E-D-E-M-A-E-N-E-M-A.

So I get why the question is there, right? I mean, like it's one letter difference and why then do we put the stress on different parts? If you look at the breakdown of enema, which is, you know, do you know what an enema is? Yes, I do. Would you like to describe an enema? Yes, in the film Batman,

Jack Nicholson as the Joker announces this town needs an enema. And what he means by that is that the town of Gotham needs to have itself cleaned out rectally. Yes. With a wash. Yeah, you can flush things out of the, inject it into the rectum and flush things back out.

And there are a variety of ways to do that. And some of them are good medically sound things. And then we've talked about on the show, many things that are not medically sound that you shouldn't squirt up your butt. But anyway. Yes, and that is a surprisingly long list. And this is a very old, talked about on the show many things that are not medically sound that you shouldn't squirt up your butt. But anyway. Yes. And that is a surprisingly long list.

And this is a very old thing. We've been doing enemas for a very, very, very long time. And the ancient Greek, here's where I think this comes into play. There were two separate words, en, meaning en, meaning in, using en. And then to send or throw, henna. And I think that it got combined into henna and then inna na, inna na, and then inna ma. So I think it's because it came from these two separate words,

that's why the stress is different. That is what I'm trying to tell you. Okay, great. Now, this is, okay, full disclosure, I am a medical doctor. I have lots of expertise in that area when it comes to the etymology of different words and breaking down sort of like deconstructing,

why do we say it this way and where did this come from? Obviously, this is not my area of expertise. But just looking at the ancient Greek derivation of these two terms, I think it is because these two words got combined into enema, whereas this word has always just been edema. Would you like to do your section on Candida? As long as we're here in the neighborhood, would you like to duck in on Candida? I don't know why half of people in the healthcare field call this specific kind of yeast Candida,

which is what I was taught, and why the other half call it Candida. I don't know. I don't know who, I don't think anyone's right or wrong. I think it's all fine. Well, I was only ever talking- Yes, you do. You liar.

Just the same way that I think people are wrong about the Oxford comma. I always heard candida in school. I never heard a single professor or doctor or anybody say anything but candida. And then I think the first time I heard it wrong was probably on a TV show. I heard somebody say candida and I was like, man, they never get that stuff right. But then somebody on the podcast, I think, like a listener was like, hey, you say Candida, I've never heard it said that way.

I always say Candida and I don't know. All right. All right. That I cannot answer. We are gonna take a brief break and we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk so much more. The medicines, the medicines that escalate my cough for the mouth.

Welcome back to the show. We hope you are ready to learn even more than you did in the last half, that's my prediction. I have pretty bad cat allergies and I was wondering, are people who are allergic to house cats also allergic to big cats? I imagine if I'm close enough to a tiger to find out, then I have bigger concerns than whether or not I get you.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. All right, Sydney, what's the story? The answer, the short answer is yes. So I had to look this up. I didn't know. I assumed because we're talking about felines, you know, whether tigers and lions, we're talking about other kinds of felines that they probably have similar kinds of proteins and then therefore you may well be allergic.

And yes, the primary cat allergen is called FelD1. It is a protein that's made in various glands on a cat, salivary, sebaceous glands, slinks, oil glands. It's found in their skin and therefore it's in their fur and so that is what you're allergic to if you're allergic to house cats. This same protein, Feldy-1, is indeed found in big cats. So yes, if you're allergic to house cats,

more than likely you'd be allergic to lions and tigers. I imagine, no, bears are not felines. I was gonna say pumas, bears are not cats. Why would I think bears? Well, it's so rich. Now, here's an interesting question. Do bears have the FelD1 protein? I don't know. I don't think so because it's FPL.

Bears don't have enough natural advantages on us, now they're making us sneeze too? These terrible beasts. I think it is exactly what you mentioned. We probably don't talk a lot about people being allergic to lions and tigers. Did you ever tell me about the time I saw a black bear on our road, Sydney? Yeah, well, I mean, I was there. You weren't. I mean, you told me about it after, like I was there that day,

like you came up and said I just saw a bear. No, no, no, no, no, I see you. You're trying to put yourself in, you're trying to retcon yourself into my incredible bear adventure. Okay, I meant I was here that day and you told me about it afterwards. I don't think, I can't find, this is not easy.

I might have called you on the way up the hill. You did. Well don't think, I can't find it. This is not easily Googleable. You did. Well, cause you got out of your car to try to chase the bear or whatever. And I was like, why did you get out of your car? If you want to look at the bear from your car and then drive away from the bear. It's a strange time in my life.

Don't get out of your car to look at the bear. Don't get close enough to a lion or a tiger to find out if you're allergic. That's the official medical thing. My boss is currently talking my ear off about, sorry, it does say taking my ear off. I'm a question asker, I love you. Typos are all right if they're fun.

My boss is currently taking my ear off about how eating a spoonful of Celtic salt every day fixed her blood pressure and stopped her legs from cramping. I've never heard of such a thing, and I'm highly skeptical. And then the boss said to look it up on YouTube. So what's up with Celtic assaults? When I put these questions together,

I actually left this listener's name out because I didn't want your boss to get mad at you. So I'm sorry if, I didn't know if you wanted your name included, but if it felt dicey, it felt risky. What if your boss feels like they're getting put on blast and there's repercussions in the workplace? So here's the thing about Celtic sea salt,

which I had to look up, like, what is the difference between Celtic salt and other salts? All these sea salts, you know how they gather, how they harvest sea salt, Justin? Yeah, they go out to the sea and then they bring back buckets and then they let it evaporate and they take this. And you get salt. So it takes a while to collect these salts.

I would say that's part of the price difference, part of the idea behind them. They are artisanal in that sense. And certainly salts from all over the world are going to be slightly different because the mineral composition of the salt in the water in different parts of the ocean is different. And so every salt will be slightly different. The majority of any of these sea salts is sodium chloride salt, what we think of a salt, right?

Nackel, sodium chloride, I think like up to like 98%. The differences between them are these small amounts of other trace minerals that are slightly different from part of the world to part of the world. Why are you laughing at me? Well, Sid, while you're, I would just want a little bit of equal time here to tell you what some of the ambassadors

of Celtic Seasaw have to say. Like, salt is not to be underestimated. It is a beautiful, pure, powerful, and helpful mineral that Earth provides us with for healing and maintaining excellent health. There are so many fun ways to use Celtic sea salt. Now Jordan disagrees. He says, I've enjoyed using Celtic sea salt

for several years now. It enhanced the flavor of whole foods and provides me and my family with superior sources of trace minerals. So I guess it doesn't improve the flavor of not whole foods, you absolute dorks. I don't know. So like Celtic sea salt, by the way, can come from different locations. Like they make it in Hawaii, Portugal, France. This is also a brand, to be clear. There is a Celtic sea salt brand. That's what I am reading here. It is not, yeah, so not Celtic thinking like

from the Celtic part of the world. It is Celtic, that is, I don't know. Yeah, and I mean, it's comparable. Like if you look at all of the different fancy, like Himalayan sea salt, all the different fancy salts, if you look at the breakdown, they all have like mostly sodium. And then like this one,

for instance, has two milligrams of potassium and a quarter teaspoon and five milligrams of magnesium and they all have different breakdowns of these trace elements, right? The potassium, magnesium, calcium, and then of course mainly, mainly sodium, it's salt. And again, none of the medical benefits that have ever been attributed to these various salts, whether we're talking about Celtic sea salt or Himalayan or I don't know, there's a whole list of all the other salts. We've never found any benefit in any sort of study. The idea that it could, and specifically Celtic sea salt,

I saw people saying it can impact your blood sugar. I don't know, it's not a carb. It can't. Not up or down. So I don't know how that would happen. In terms of cramps, if you have not enough salt in your body, like if your salt is low,

that one of the symptoms you might have are some cramps, muscle cramps. But there is no salt that is superior at helping with that to another salt. Any salt, table salt, all salts, would give you more salt. So that's not really well-founded science. And then blood pressure wise,

too much salt can make your blood pressure higher. So certainly I would not like standardly advise salt as a treatment for blood pressure. No, there's no founding to any of this. All the salts are fine. and I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say,

I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say,

I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say this kind of salt on cooking. Well, but what I'm saying is that it's less

if you're worried about too much salt in your diet. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, you're not saying like adjusting recipes. You're talking about like you would maybe. You would end up using a little less of this because the flakes are bigger. But I mean, I know, I know, I'm trying to, I'm searching for anything.

There's no, I think it's fine if you like this salt, that's fine, but I don't know of any medical reason why this would be better than literally any other salt. You know, I just wanna touch on this because I think talking about this kind of stuff in media literacy stuff like is important. I was talking about meet our ambassadors, right? And I was reading the quotes from the quote unquote

ambassadors who are making the health claims, right? This salt energizes, replenishes electrolytes, fights bacterial infection and aids digestion, right? But it's important to note that there's one ambassador who is the CEO of the company who says, being your trusted source of sea salt has been an honor I cherish and take with the utmost responsibility.

Thank you for trusting the Celtic Sea Salt brand for 40 years now and counting, making no health claims. The CEO does not say that it will do any of that. She leaves that to the uncredited, unqualified. It's the testimonials. Testimonials. It's the oldest trick in medicine.

It's the oldest trick, and I just wanted to, it's like so fun to see it in action. If you know what you're looking for, this is how they're able to get away with this stuff because they have these strangers making these claims and then the boss doesn't make any claims. Just say it's like really good salt. You can always just say that.

For well-being, the sea is the limit. I agree with that, but not for salt. It's just the sea in general, and the healing powers of the sea. But you can't get that in a bottle, Cindy. You gotta get out there. No, you gotta get out there. You gotta get out there. To the sea. Justin, this is a quick one I bet you could answer.

Wow, I know you didn't mean for that to sound how it did, but even you, Justin. My bot, okay, sorry, that was the last one. I just got over Norovirus and listened to your episode on it. I love Justin's rhyme, a fecal oral route with two poof, two mouth from poop chute, gross.

You said that 20 particulates can spread norovirus and that it is contagious for two weeks. You mainly discussed washing hands as a way to avoid spreading it. My question is if a fart could spread norovirus, that's from liquid leaking in Lansing. Justin, can you fart and spread norovirus? Can you fart and spread norovirus that's from liquid leaking in Lansing Justin. Can you fart and spread norovirus? Can you fart and spread norovirus? No

That's correct because the particulate would be caught by your Your BVD in 95 that you're wearing wrapped around your tuck is your double your double layered there Probably it is not is not an airborne particle. Smelling a fart will not make you ill in that. You have not contracted a contagious disease. So no, don't worry, don't worry. Don't worry? That is not a way to get norovirus.

Norovirus is no fun though, folks. So wash your hands before you eat and after you go to the bathroom and then just extra times in between, especially if you're sick or taking care of somebody, helping clean clothes or sheets or whatever if somebody's been sick. Lots of hand washing will save you hours in the bathroom.

I have a chronic pain condition. I regularly take OTC painkillers like Tylenol for. Sometimes I consider taking them before bed, but I've always assumed they wouldn't help because I'd be asleep by the time I felt their effects. This got me wondering if that was actually correct. Could painkillers still benefit me while I'm asleep? They're still, I mean, I think we understand the question.

What do you think, Syd? Yes, and that's from Sylvie. Yeah, they do because this is what I would say. I understand that pain is a complex concept, right? It is not one single thing that's happening in your body. It's a bunch of different receptors and mechanical and also emotional and neurological and There's all kinds of factors involved in the pain response. It's a big complex thing

So how can you experience that when you're asleep? Well, certainly you can still experience pain that would disrupt your sleep Yeah, so and even if it's not wait a waking you to the point where you are aware I'm awake because of my pain it can disrupt your sleep architecture So you may not be going we want you to go through steady waves of the deep Down to the deep stages of sleep and back up and through REM sleep and then down and these like well-defined Sleep cycles are really important for your brain health and so that you feel well rested and for your overall health for the next Day and pain definitely can disrupt that sleep architecture are really important for your brain health and so that you feel well rested and for your overall health for the next day. And pain definitely can disrupt that sleep architecture.

Even though it is, like I said, a complex response and there are probably aspects of it that are quieted by a sleeping brain, there are other aspects that will not be. And so, yes, painkillers are doing something while you are sleeping. Hopefully, they are allowing you to have more restful, restorative sleep. I'm pregnant.

Surprise. Congratulations. No, honey, it's the question. I know. But congratulations to you too. I've been reading a lot about embryonic development, I remember that, those days, seeing all the different fruits the baby was, a lot of fun.

I know that baby develops taste buds, but to what extent can baby taste food in the womb? Does the baby develop preferences to different foods that I eat, and if so, can they communicate that with us? If I eat something that's too spicy for me, is that too spicy for the baby? Thank you for all that you do, Liv. So yes, the baby develops taste buds around eight weeks.

That's when they start, and then they taste buds around eight weeks. That's when they start, and then they're ready at 14 weeks to detect molecules that are floating around in the amniotic fluid. So yes, what you are eating is what becomes these teeny little molecules that are filling the amniotic fluid, and your baby is swallowing that amniotic fluid, so it's tasting it. By 24 weeks, by the way, they also have odor sensing ability

and we know odor is tied to taste. And by 30 weeks, we know that those taste buds have formed the neurological tracks to like communicate that back to the brain. Because right, like there's the sensing the tastes and then what that means to the brain. So by 30 weeks, fetus can taste. It was just making me think about the time

where we went and got hot pot at that Korean place, Pocha 32, I think it was called. And I was. The idea of Charlie like just swimming around went to the spicy hot pot like hot dog slices. And I was indeed 30 weeks pregnant at the time. I remember it was the worst acid reflux I've had in my entire life.

This is not the food's fault. I was just very pregnant and had acid reflux anyway. No, the food was delicious, but I did sit up all night crying from acid reflux. So it was a, yes. And I, but here's the good thing. I did not harm Charlie. There is no evidence that eating spicy foods

is going to like cause, that you can't eat something that's so spicy that the fetus is in distress from the spiciness. So if it wasn't that, what did we do? No, I had acid reflux. No, I mean, if it wasn't the spicy food that messed our kids up, where else do we go wrong? Here's what is interesting.

There are some studies that have looked into if you eat a wider variety of foods while you're pregnant, will that influence your baby's preferences later in life? There was one study specifically on carrots where they were like, drink a bunch of carrot juice while you're pregnant and then we're going to see if your kid likes carrots down the road, which I was, I don't know. Based on the study, they were like, yeah, we think it does influence your carrot preference. So there's a chance that it does influence taste later in life.

One way or another, do not stress about it. I would say of all the things, having been pregnant twice myself, of all the things for you to worry about, making sure your kid likes a lot of different foods later or that you're not eating things too spicy, don't worry about those things. Don't worry about those things.

Take it from me, you're gonna have plenty of time to worry about your kid not eating lots of different foods. You do not need to waste time right now on that. Eat what nourishes your body and your soul right now. You're working hard. Yeah. I got bronchitis a month ago and still coughing up phlegm. People keep saying I need to clear it all out,

but that can't be right, can it? I don't wanna read more of this question. It grosses me out in a pretty major way, but that's from Kat. I thought that it was important this time of year to remind everybody of the post-infectious cough. So you can cough even after you've gotten rid of whatever your illness was, you can have a cough,

and we're talking about upper respiratory stuff, cold, flu, bronchitis, all that stuff. That cough can last for up to eight weeks. They typically don't last that long, but occasionally they do. Now, obviously if it's continuing past eight weeks, please go be reevaluated, we wouldn't expect that. However, if you come in and this happens a lot,

a couple of weeks and you're like, man, all my other symptoms are gone, but I'm still coughing. That is a post-infectious cough. It is caused by, you've got inflammation of those airways. So even though all the germs are gone, the damage they did is still repairing itself. It's still healing.

You've got all those teeny little cilia, the little hair-like things that line your airways that are trying to grow back and clear mucus out. And as they're coming back, they're still clearing out all that mucus. You're still producing more mucus from and as they're coming back, they're still clearing out all that mucus, you're still producing more mucus from all this inflammation and irritation. It takes a while, just because the invading army

of bacteria or viruses is gone, doesn't mean that all the destruction they cause has been completely repaired. This is how I always explain it. All that destruction has to be repaired by your body and it takes a while and part of that process is gonna be coughing. So it's irritating.

Over the counter meds, based on your own medical conditions as appropriate, over the counter meds can be helpful, but time, it's just the tincture of time. Hello, who are some of your favorite doctors in fiction? Lastly, this question asker mentioned Bones McCoy and Dr. Tiana from Lower Decks. I just thought this would be a fun one for us to,

who's your favorite fictional doctor? Oh man, well, hmm, Dusty, you really sprung that on me. You've had all this time to think about it. I know, well, I'll start off. It's hard because it's boring because everybody knows that Hawkeye's my favorite fictional doctor, Hawkeye from MASH. I have lots of doctors that I love.

I love John Carter, is always going to be one of my favorite fictional doctors. I was always kind of partial to, well, I love Dr. Cox from Scrubs, but also Elliot was a great doc. I don't think anybody's, I mean, Dr. Odyssey, come on. Dr. Odyssey. Dr. Odyssey.

But it's always gonna be Hawkeye. He's the doctor that I've been, I think, trying to be my career. Do you know who I'll, if I had to pick, because this person talked about Star Trek and it reminded me of one of my favorite doctors was Robert Picardo. And he was the doctor on Star Trek Voyager,

which was the one that came all grown, but he was a hologram. And I always really enjoyed the idea of a doctor that doesn't have, it was always a really interesting dynamic, because he was the ship's physician, but he was the memory of this other doctor, but it was a hologram, like it was an AI hologram, right?

So, but he would advise them, it would always be this like conflict of, you know, well, you're not even really a human, like, you know, it's very easy for this conflict of, you're not even really a human being. It's very easy for you to say you're not a person, but he did a great performance, and it was probably him. Well, there you go. You picked something more obscure, so I picked something more obvious.

That worked well. Oh, I should have mentioned Christine Yang from Grey's Anatomy. I know I fell off on Grey's Anatomy after a while, but what a great, what a great representation of a woman in medicine. Tough and brilliant. Yeah, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

Oh, well, yeah, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. I didn't watch a lot of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, so it's hard for me to, I mean, I know, it feels- Is it time for a re-watch podcast, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Sydney? I probably should, I probably should. What if that becomes your new thing? What if you're like,

J-Man, I'm six seasons in to Dr. Quinn. Hey, thank you so much for listening. Thanks for all the help in the past two weeks with the Max Fund Drive, for everybody that chipped in there, thank you so much. The Doctor, by the way, on Voyager didn't have a name. It was just the doctor, which is why I couldn't remember his name.

He is based on the form of Lewis Zimmerman, but that is not his name, he's just the doctor. Okay. So there you go. Okay. There you go. That is gonna do it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening.

Thanks to the Taxpayers for Use of Theirself Medicines as the intro and outro of our program, and thanks to you for listening. That's gonna do it using their song, Medicines is the intro to our program. And thanks to you for listening. That's gonna do it for us. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. As always, don't drill a hole in your hand. ["Metal Gear Solid 3D Models"]

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