Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Spring Medical Questions Are in the Air

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

It’s time to do a little bit of inbox spring cleaning with all these listener medical questions! Justin reads and Dr. Sydnee answers medical questions about things like healing hickeys, eating all of the meat, tongue-based diagnostics, and tasting with your feet.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

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. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, talk is about books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were sawed 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, a marital tour of Miss guided medicine. This is our theme song. It's always been our theme song. You forgot to say your name. There was a look at the look at the sheet music. I hear what there is no sheet music.

The music I've printed up There's a whole rest right here. There is no I'm Sydney McRoy welcome to saw bones. It's a mario Pretty well covered that we already have a great song. I know, but I just about medicines. That's a It's a leap motif that I'm creating, a theme that I'll return to throughout the show to kind of like score it a little bit. We have an intro, but we don't have like a leap motif.

I thought it was a theme within a theme. Like a dream within a dream. Within a dream. I don't know. That's from the Princess bride. I don't know much about music stuff, but you know what I do know about medicine. No, you don't know. That's from the Princess bride. I don't know much about music stuff, but you know what I do know about medicine. No, you don't know that. You're actually probably no good bit more about music than you do about medicine. That is the sweetest you've said to me all day. I also really appreciate you cleaning the kitchen. Oh, well, you're so I could finish researching. You're welcome. I'm very grateful. Happy spring. Let's spring into spring. That's right. It's my season.

It's it's it's it's season. Not just not spring. It's also ari season. It's my season. Oh, yeah, my birthday's coming up. I mean, yeah, March 27th. It's a very exciting time of year for everyone I know. So what we thought we'd celebrate by a fresh step with some of your questions. Clean out, little spring cleaning of the old inbox to answer your weird medical questions. I love doing these episodes. Everyone loves listening to them. Maybe not everyone, but I think a lot of a lot of so I mentioned in our last questions, I've said that if you think of something randomly and you want to ask don't you don't have to wait until we put out a call for questions, please feel free to send them. And you all are

straight A students, our listeners are gold star students all the way because boy have they done it. I have so many questions. This is in a fraction. Don't do not be discouraged if your question is not answered. I have so many questions and there's so many great ones. We'll do many, many more episodes like this. Yes. These were just some of the ones I could get through and answer.

Okay, here's a question. Are you ready? Turn your brain on. You're ready, brains on. I cut this question in half, because the first section of it was a little bit of personal details. Some intimate details I didn't have

that listener would have included. Whatever the personal details were, that got this person thinking, how do Hickeys go away? Would detached flesh such as removed chest lumps heal a hiki? That's already on them. Gross, where would your mind go there? Well, but no, if you read the first part of the...

Okay. Or would the flesh have to be attached to a person with blood flow to make the marks go away? Thanks in advance. Kai-B. Okay, so first of all, I thought the idea, like what hikis are would be good to talk about first. And then the second part of the question, like, if you have a piece of skin that has a hiki, and now it's been removed for reasons, like a surgery. This

is in return, or not to a surgery. What's a hiki? I'll start there. Yeah. Do you know what a hiki is? Hiki is a contusion that has been caused by the trauma of heavy suction on a part of your body. That's very impressive, Justin. You even use the word contusion. Oh, I guess I do know a little bit about medicine. That is. That is exactly what it is. Also, sometimes biting can be involved. I thought Hickeys were purely the suction action. Like, it's the vacuum action that causes a hiki, but in a lot of the medical journal articles

I read about hikis when researching this, they all said the trauma from either suction or biting. And I thought, okay, all, okay. I think that's the bite though. I don't want to get into this specific. Anyway, so that's what a hiki is. So it's perfectly safe though, not really a big deal. So what was interesting is that like,

so it's basically like a bruise. It's a type of bruise and it will go away with time as your body resorbs the blood. Like it's just blood under the skin and your body will resorb it, no big deal. But it is an interesting question, like post mortem would, I mean, I know in this case,

we were talking about surgically removed tissue, that's not the same as post mortem, but this was, you can't Google that. Can't Google that unless you want it to do some splinting to the authorities. You can look up post mortem bruising though, and there are lots of forensic articles that detail like bruises do change somewhat post mortem bruising, though. And there are lots of forensic articles that detail, like bruises do change somewhat post mortem.

They do evolve to an extent. And also bruises can just spontaneously occur post mortem, which can be really difficult to distinguish from like, if you're trying to figure out like a CSI case cause of death. But all that being said, a bruise isn't going to go away. So a hikki on a piece of skin that's been detached from a human would be there. It might change, but it's not going to go away. I did find the first half of that question was I will wonder for the rest of my days. Do you want me to tell you? No. Okay. I didn't, I mean,

it was all in the email. So I assumed it was all for public consumption, but I don't, it just felt like personal, personal bedroom stuff, that I didn't know if I wanted to share with the world. I know the password. I can get in there and look at the emails. There's no, there's no hip up keeping me out. I don't want to freak you out, but there have been three reported cases of strokes caused by hickies, and one of them was fatal.

Okay. So that's a thing you can just sort of think about. It's highly, highly, highly unlikely. It would be a very... Not necessarily likely Sydney didn't mention it. No. Well, I mean, as I was looking this up, I found these case reports. And I like, I cross reference double check. They appear to be legit cases of hikis causing like blood,

like the like breaking blood vessels and then you get clotting in that area and then you get a clot that goes somewhere. It shouldn't go. Namely your brain. Anyway, it was, it's very rare and it would be very difficult for it to happen. Please do not feel like this is a reason. Hikiaway. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Run the numbers. If that is something you enjoy. Yeah. I mean, I'm in for a mature. Hicky away. Yeah. Well, yeah. Run the numbers. If that is something you enjoy. Yeah. I mean, in a polite way. In a polite way. Yeah. Of course.

Okay. So there's your answer to that question. Here's another one. Can drinking alcohol prevent slash reduced food poisoning if I were to accidentally eat a piece of undercooked slash contaminated food? Could I do a few shots of whiskey and kill off the microbes that can make me sick? I think I would need to be liquor since beer or wine are likely not a high enough alcohol level and I get that it cannot be so much that I get sick slash dead from the alcohol. That's from Matthew.

So okay, so beer we're talking 5% to maybe your beer. Okay, 9% for SIDS beers. No, I just, that sounded worse than it was. I just like craft beers and they tend to be higher gravities. Yeah, I'd be at a triple sea level. You love, you love us. And then, I mean, like wine is I think 14% typically so. And then whiskey. The whiskey is 40% something like that. Around that. Okay. So no, you can't prevent or treat or whatever food poisoning with alcohol.

In fact, I would guess that if you now have been poisoned by your food and are going to be sick soon drinking alcohol and top of it is not. Like ever clear, something like that. poisoned by your food and are going to be sick soon, drinking alcohol and top of it. It's not. Like ever clear, something like that. No, because I mean, what you're talking about is like the alcohol, first of all, like the alcohol is going to be absorbed, the food and the bacteria or whatever the toxin, whatever is in there is also going to be absorbed. You know, it's not.

It's not. It's a tinial man with like plastic esophagus that could be sanitized. Yes. Exactly. Yes. I. Yes. I mean, there's lots of gushy stuff in there. Everything's being absorbed. Stuff isn't like just laying on the surface

of your stomach waiting to be destroyed by alcohol. It's like moving around in there. So I understand the thought process. I think it's an interesting question, but it would not work. And it would probably end up making you say, but like you don't know, I mean, that you don't know that you've been food poisoning the moment you're being food poison. You don't know until later.

So use good food preparation methods. This is why I don't eat raw meat. I mean, not just raw meat. I mean, rare meat. That's what I meant. Nobody's wrong. You used to well, some people, some people, I would not eat rare meat. I don't. I just won't, not my, not my thing. To take it to hamburgers, well done too. Gotta do it. Yeah, if I'm gonna eat meat, I'm, I like it cooked. Why can't eggs be saved by freezing a whole over when it's removed?

Why do you have to go through the whole hormone process to collect them and set? Now, I think I'm, I think I'm a little bit ignorant of the premise of this. Can you walk us into that? Exes in like that make humans. I understand that. I don't like the other stuff.

The hormone process to collect them. Okay, so in order to, okay. So you might want to become pregnant or be part of becoming pregnant, you know, either whether it's you becoming pregnant or a surrogacy situation. You might want to have a child made with your DNA, sometime down the road, but not now. And one thing you could consider doing is having your eggs harvested and frozen, and then you just save them for down the road. When you want to combine them with some sperm and put them back in you or someone, whatever, right?

Okay. The reason that you have to take hormones before that is that you don't want to, I mean, usually you're just producing one egg at a time. That would be, it would be a lot of procedures over and over again every month. And so instead, you're on hormones, a specific combination that will make you produce a lot of procedures over and over again every month. And so instead, you're on hormones, a specific combination that will make you produce a lot of eggs all at the same time. So that they can harvest like 14 and freeze those.

Gotcha. Because there is a procedure involved. I mean, it is an invasive procedure to go in and like stick a needle in through the wall of the vagina, get up to the ovary and suction out, like vacuum out the eggs. Okay. Gotcha.

There's also hormones involved in maturing the eggs to a certain extent. Like they form these big fluid filled cysts around them and they're mature enough to suck out of there. Oh, okay. So all of that has to happen to get the eggs. So the question is, why not just take a hole over

and freeze it. Then you got them. Wouldn't that be easier? So this is an interesting question, and I looked into it because I is like, why not just take the whole over and freeze it? Then you got them. Wouldn't that be easier? So this is an interesting question. And I looked into it because I was like, yeah, you know, that's a good point. I can think of it some different reasons, but as anybody tried this, they do this. Actually, now this is newer. We've we've frozen eggs for a while.

You know, we can collect sperm and free that. Like those things we have frozen for a long time. But it is newer technology, the idea of like freezing the whole egg. And one easy reason is right now your odds of like creating a child from that are not as good yet. Like it can work. There are some studies that have shown like you can take the egg, you can re-implant the egg, or not the egg. You can take the egg, you can re-implant the egg, or not the egg,

you can take the over, you can re-implant the overy, and it will work, and you can have a baby. Wow. Yes. This has mainly been tried in, like, younger patients who have to undergo chemo. Oh, right. That might harm future fertility, and so they have their whole ovary removed in hopes of preserving future fertility if that's what they want.

So again, the subset of patients has been tried in are younger. They won't necessarily have that ovary re-implanted. Like it could just be a couple years down the road. You know what I mean? Right. So like we don't necessarily know that these aren't the same patient populations. Usually what you're talking about when freezing eggs, you're talking about people who are making the conscious decision, like I don't want to have kids yet,

because of whatever various factors in my life. And so I'm going to freeze these eggs for further down the road when I might want to have kids. These are young people who might still be young people. We're talking about totally different patient populations. That's one big difference. The other thing is that it requires a whole surgery to take an ovary out. There's higher risk.

It's more invasive. There's a healing time. It's more dangerous. The eggs also need to mature. Nobody could, all that we're talking about is taking out an ovary and putting the ovary back. Nobody is taking out an ovary and trying to then like create the hormonal milieu to mature the egg and take the egg and combine it in a petri dish with us. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Like so far where we are is, here's the ovary, put it back in a human body and then go for it. Not, here's the ovary, get some eggs out of it.

So I think in order for the whole process to make sense, you'd have to get to that point. So for now, the eggs are just more reliable. Okay. That's good enough for me, said I will abandon my efforts. It's very interesting. It's a newer area of medicine, I mean, newer, I mean, with the last couple decades, but you know, takes a long time for us to know. And the brain's dope of our show that is new.

Yeah. Sure. There is a small ultrasonic cleaner at work that has a timed cycle, but sometimes an item is clean before the cycle is over. Is it safe to just stick my hand in there to grab the clean thing so I can leave the cleaner off for the other items that's cleaning. It tingles in a mildly unpleasant way, but I didn't think much of it until I stuck a finger with a paper cut in. That hurt like the dickens.

Is it actually vibrating my skin off or something? Thanks, Jennifer. Now, I don't know what city's gonna say, but I would say that tingling with mild unpleasantness is nature's way of saying, don't do this thing. Do you know how an ultrasonic cleaner works? I mean broad strokes, probably the myths,

ultrasonic waves. Waves, yeah. Energy is converted into sound waves within the water, within the fluid, water and sometimes a cleaning solvent. Right. And it's usually used in medical or dental offices. You may have seen the little metal trays

with the fluid in them, and they put equipment in them. Or, is it like an autoclave? Is it different? This is different, because an autoclave uses pressure and heat. This is using sound waves. So this is better for removing dirt and heat. This is using sound waves. So this is better for like removing dirt and debris. You would, I think in most cases,

you'd be using this in combination with an autoclave. Like you remove all the, because otherwise if you stick stuff that has like actual debris stuck to it in an autoclave, you run the risk of bacteria like hiding deep underneath stuff and it's still on there. Like an autoclave is not gonna clean that dirt off of it.

So this cleans all the particles off and then you can disinfect it. So it's part of the process. Anyway, jewelers use it, watchmakers, people use little tools. So energy is generated, it's converted into sound waves. That generates millions of millions of little bubbles, okay? Now these little bubbles, okay? Now, these little bubbles have a vacuum inside, so they collapse on themselves. Okay. You're getting inside of that.

And as they do it, they collapse on themselves and smash into the thing you're cleaning. Okay. And that knocks the crap off of it. That's wild. It's wild to think about. Yeah, that's how it removes it. This process is called cavitation. So imagine that on you. And the frequency determines the cleaning process. So a higher frequency produces smaller, gentler bubbles for like fine detail around instruments. If you

have like larger things, like less detailed instruments, you might need a lower frequency to clean that. Now, some of this energy is also converted into heat. This is why you don't want to stick your hand in one, because there are moments where those bubbles are extremely, extremely hot. Now, the whole over, like the fluid overall might not feel that hot to the touch, but there are going to be moments of extreme heat generated

throughout the tub. So you can get burnt from sticking your hand in one of those. It wouldn't happen every time, but you could get burnt. And then also you could like from agitating forces, you could get an abrasion or something, but the burn is the reason that they tell you not to. Okay, that's fair, I won't stick my hand in it. Yeah, I would.

To the list you've prepared for me, you post on many different walls in the house of things I am not supposed to put my hand inside. I've never read about how these work and I was so excited to read this. I've got a weird medical or perhaps nutritional question. So yesterday, after an exam, one of my course mates mentioned she was on the carnivore diet and I implored from more info. He told me try to because apparently it could fix eczema. Then he talked about how carbohydrates in the fiber they contained block the absorption of vitamin C since they are processed by the same part in the intestine. That sounded like

a lot like pseudo horse duki to me. I didn't want to argue since we don't know each other that well, but tell me is there any truth to these claims? When googling Ilyfine testimonies, all claiming it does, but testimonies mean, well, nothing. Kind regards. Eleanor Schoberg. Okay. So I looked up this carnivore diet. First of all, as you have already stated so eloquently, there is no evidence for this. There's just testimonials which don't mean anything. The carnivore diet is exactly what it sounds like. You eat meat, eggs, dairy, and fish, like seafood. That's it. That's it, that's all you. Supposedly, they do skin problems

are one of the big things that they claim at cures. Like other than like all the usual wellness claims. Like acne, psoriasis, eczema, those are all main among the things that they claim it will fix. They say that it does this in two main ways. There's a whole book about it, but like generally, it reduces insulin, which is similar to the keto kind of mindset, right? Like a low-carb kind of thing. I mean, there's no carbs here. And it reduces inflammation, which is wild, since

there are so many people who will tell you that dairy causes inflammation. This is a proponent saying that dairy absolutely causes inflammation. This is a proponent saying that dairy absolutely reduces inflammation. The insulin argument, like I said, is similar to keto. The inflammation part is based on the idea that plants contain anti-nutrients. Ah, this sounds good. And these anti-nutrients can block the absorption

of nutrients. Huh. So you need to not eat plants because of their dangerous anti-nutrients. And I mean, I didn't see specifically vitamin C mentioned, but I think that that falls into the line of thinking, and it might be in the book. I did not read the whole book.

There's a book by a guy, Paul Saladino, who allegedly is an MD, who, I mean, I'm not saying he's not, it's after his name. Sometimes I get frustrated. They I tell you they'll just give these MDs out to anybody. But he is author of the Carnivore code. It looked like he wrote a keto book and now he's writing about this and he claims that it fixed all his skin stuff. His top images him chatting with Joe Rogan, the top image on his website.

That sounds about right. And you can buy his book and there's probably other stuff he'll sell you. I'm sure. And he has some very bad takes on COVID, by the way. I was looking through his Facebook page to learn about this. And there's some really like bad COVID misinformation about, I mean, sort of leaning to that like masks don't work. We should go for herd immunity, don't push vaccines on people because they don't really work anyway. I mean, like really, really, he's an MD. And so it's so frustrating because people will see that

and think like, well, an MD says, and it's, I because people will see that and think like well in MD says And it's I mean really bad COVID misinformation among his carnivore diet So I guess the carnivore diet is maybe the the less harmful thing That he's put out there, but I know of no evidence that says you should just eat meat and and dairy and eggs all the time To fix your skin problems. I'm sure you'll find some people who would say that and you'll find people, by the way, I know people, personally, who said that giving up dairy fix their skin problems.

So I think that the human body is way more complex than just put meat in it, you'll be fine. And there's a lot of data that plant-based diets are associated with longevity over meat diets? So I do not think that the carnivore code has it figured out. I imagine my surprise, Sid, honestly. I want to tell you the question my mom asked me. Okay.

But first, we got to go to the Millen Department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines, the escalate my car for the mouth. I'm a psychic. My name is psychic Carrie. I'm Ross. Oh, what a pleasure to meet you. Of course, I knew your name was Ross, as I'm a psychic, but please take a seat.

Yeah. Well, I was hoping we could talk about my podcast. Yes, I know. It's called Oh No Ross and Carrie. Yes. We investigate from science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal. Normal. You took the words right out of my mouth.

Yes, this whole podcast, it sounds like it's been a real challenge for you lately. Actually, it's a lot of fun. Yes, exactly, because it's so fun! I don't know how you do it. This will be $75. Okay. That seems fair. Oh no, Ross and Carrie. Maximumfund.org.

Don't work. You knew it was a dot org. I have a gift. Shmanners. Now, definition. Rules of etiquette design not to judge others, but rather to guide ourselves through everyday social situations. of applies to everyday life and we take some of your questions. And sometimes we do a biography about a really cool person that had an impact on how we view etiquette. So join us every Friday and listen to Shmanner's

on maximumfun.org or wherever podcasts are found. Manor Shmanner, get it. Welcome to the show, Mary Smirral. I guess virtually speaking, what, what, what a, what a drum homie know. My mom asked, should I get a fourth COVID vaccine? And I thought it was a good question to address generally, because, I mean, I've gotten five.

So, well, yes, we were in a study. So we've gotten a lot. But there is recent, there have been news reports I've seen. I saw like a New York Times article mentioned in, I mean, there, there've been some big articles mentioning that a fourth vaccine is probably going to be needed. Yes. Certainly Moderna and Pfizer both feel that there is because they would. No, don't start that. They've submitted data to when we get to turn back on big farm. Sydney. It's, you know, the problem is complexity is the enemy with good public health

communication. And these are very complex nuance topics. But right now, we just need people to do the best safest thing to save lives. So it's hard to get into it, right? Like it's hard to get into it, right? Like it's hard to get into the weeds with all the complex nuance topics. So they both submitted data to the FDA to request an emergency use authorization for a fourth dose of their vaccines. Pfizer is specifically aiming at the 65-plus population. Modernist would be for all adults. Okay. They are saying that there is a time

period I think like six months-ish, where immunity wanes and we need another booster. So if they just submitted last week, if this is approved, Pfizer would say if you're 65 and older or have certain I'm sure I didn't see that in the article I was reading but they may have some other caveats that you need a fourth booster or a fourth shot and Moderna would say adults need a fourth shot. So not yet do you need a fourth vaccine? Now this is different by the way from some people were put like with immunocompromised Now this is different, by the way, from some people were put, like with immunocompromised conditions were put on a four dose regimen already. They got three main primary doses and then a booster later.

This is a whole other thing. Would this be a booster? This would be another booster. This would be another booster. At some point, when we get into like, a rhythm with this, like, where we don't just have to keep doing emergency youth author the emergency use authorizations. This isn't strange. There are many things that we get multiple vaccines for. Yeah.

Like if you think about the childhood series of vaccinations, you're getting multiple shots for the same disease to prevent the same diseases over and over again throughout your childhood. So this isn't like weird rare. This is building us having it annually. Well, I think that we're figuring that out. I think that we are perfecting the technology. I think that as we as we produce new vaccines, hopefully we will see things that we will find vaccines that can cover more than one strain, more than one variant, I should say, in one.

You know what I mean? So that we know all this will be good against all the next variants that are likely to come out this season, much like we do with the flu vaccine. I would think eventually we'll be in a situation where you would get a yearly COVID, maybe even a combo, COVID flu shot, wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, just get it all at once.

But I do think that vaccines are, but I mean, if it's a vaccine that you get, I don't care how many times a year, if it saves my life. Yeah. You know, yeah. But anyway, you don't need a fourth vaccine right this minute, but I hecked by the time this airs, they may have put out the EUA. So I would pay attention, keep up to date on this. The CDC will announce at the FDA will announce and I'm sure there will be big news stories. I'm sure all your local health departments and public health agencies will be talking about it. But just be aware that there may be recommendations for another booster coming soon.

Sid, why do older people need more fiber? What's up with older people and be immregularly? The age to these problems usually start. What's your take on supplements versus eating more fiber foods? Is your diet already well, not perfect, but healthy of an average? And good luck in your race. Hopefully soon to be set state delegate Sydney. That's from Kirsten.

So there are actually reasons, not just because like, old, no. Just old. What I mean, once you pass 40 or so, your body starts trying to sweep you away to make room for the next generation. This is just another facet of that. So it's actually, this actually, most of these things

don't happen till you're 60s or 70s, but I guess there's more. I'm just gonna say that system specifically. I'm just saying like, the systems start shutting down to try to get you out of the planet. Go on, make room. So some things do happen that are age related. So to move stuff along in your intestines,

it's like a series of waves, peristals, that sort of like squishes the stuff on its way down, that does slow down as we get older. We know that there is some, not for, and it's not the same rate for everybody to the same pace, some people might never have a problem. But generally speaking, it does tend to slow down a little bit, which can lead to some problems

with constipation. Different medications can cause constipation, and as we get older, we're more likely to be taking meds. Some people are younger, but as we get older, most of us will end up needing something. Lack of activity, so if you're also dealing with things that limit your mobility like arthritis or something, movement, getting around is one of the things that

stimulates your bowels to move. So less activity, less bowel movements, changes in diet. As we get, our diet tends to decrease, like our appetite, sorry, tends to decrease a little bit as we get older. So just eating less or eating different foods, decrease fluids. We also tend to, our thirst goes down a little bit. So those are all reasons why it is an issue. Now, as far as where you should get your fiber.

If you're eating plenty of fiber in your diet, there's no need to also take a supplement. But if you think you're eating plenty of fiber in your diet and you're still constipated, then I would take a supplement because maybe you're not. Maybe for you, it's so much fiber that you're just naturally not going to eat that much and you should take a supplement. I would say one is not necessarily better than the other. If we're talking fiber supplements, now if we're talking like laxatives, obviously, if you can get those things moving without the use of a laxative, that's better for your

bals. But bale regularly is really important. I'm a research assistant in a translational research lab while my roommate works for a holistic health doctor. We're on what feels like opposite sides of medicine. She doesn't fully trust modern medicine and I think her boss is a quack. I like this because it sounded like a sitcom. Yeah, we fell in love. Recently she told me that the holistic doctor diagnosed her with three different things based on her tongue alone.

I thought this sounded like bull crap, but I don't know enough about the diagnosis process to back it up. What's the diagnosis process actually look like? Can you properly diagnose someone just by looking at a tongue? Love the show so much, Julia. Okay, so there is a whole branch

of traditional Chinese medicine that is tongue diagnostics. Like that connects different, like the tongue is sectioned out into different organ systems. Like phonology. Or reflexology. Or reflexology more accurately. Like the idea that you can touch a part of your foot and it connects to some part of your body, it's the same idea for the tongue. And so that, I don't know if that's what this holistic doctor may be pulling from.

Maybe. But you can look up their different diagrams for that where it's like different. They actually have the different aspects that they break it down into. It's the tongue color shape, coating, moisture, and spirit or vitality. Test to do with how much it like moves or something. Anyway, and where it is corresponds to problems in those parts of the body. That is not really something that I would have any familiarity with or be able to comment on because it's not part of alopathic medicine, the tradition of medicine that I am fluent in. I would say that there's not a lot of evidence for that. Who write, okay? I would say that there's not a lot of evidence for that.

So, if that is what the holistic doctor's practicing, I wouldn't know of any evidence for that. Now, I will say there is like stuff we can tell from the tongue. Sure. You know? If it's green, the kids probably just had a blue pop, for example. Yes, that, I mean, yeah, that, but also like a pale tongue, you know, and I think that's actually one of them.

They talk about like block, like not enough blood flow or something like that. And I think if you're talking about like anemia, that's not usually something we see, but I guess like if you looked inside the mouth and it was pale, that could be a sign of anemia. Yellow under the tongue could be the first sign of jaundice like liver disease. White patches could be yeast. Red tongue that looks a little swollen could be a B12 deficiency. If we see ridges on the side of your tongue from your teeth, your tongue is enlarged. I don't really don't see that.

So I mean, there are a number of things that we could look at a tongue and say, huh, that is a sign. It's not a symptom because you didn't tell me about it. It's a sign because I noticed it. And it is worth investigating, but I would never diagnose. I mean, unless I saw like my tongue hurts and I looked at your tongue and I saw like an ulcer on your tongue and I was like, yes, you have an ulcer on your tongue. This is why your tongue hurts. There's the diagnosis. Yeah, short of that

No, I would not diagnose a systemic illness of any kind by just simply looking at your tongue It may be a sign that I would want to further investigate But there's no evidence that you can just look at someone's tongue and tell them about other body systems based on that necessarily Hi, Dr. McElroy and Justin. Is it true that if you put garlic on your feet, you can taste it in your mouth. I saw this on a game show and it sounds ridiculous to me. Thanks Andy. No.

I know. It just reminded, we talked about reflexology and tongue diagnosis. It sort of reminded me of that. No, you can't taste it in your mouth. I mean, if there is a garlic, what I would wonder is like, if you cut garlic or peel garlic fresh in the room, like you can have all those volatile sort of compounds released into the air. And garlic is such that when you smell it strongly enough, you are tasting it, you know what

I mean? So like I could see how you could trick somebody into thinking that, but no. No, not really a weird question per se, but I often have the thought, I'm gonna show this episode to people in the case being a vaccine skeptics and deniers. I've been listening to the episodes on measles,

bumps in her belly, and I was wondering if there's entrusted go-to sources I can give to people that scream, cite your information at me when I try to tell them that vaccines don't cause autism and contain less mercury than fish. I know there are studies, medical journals, et cetera, but where can I find them?

Also, I realize these people are probably not going to read my sources, but I'd still be able to like to pull them out when necessary. Thanks, I love and learn so much from your show. It's M. They Them. So this is a great question because I don't think it is feasible to tell most people like, I want you to go find the New England Journal article from this, you know, this year, this date, whatever and read this journal article. I mean, it's just not medical journal articles, as date, whatever, and read this journal article.

I mean, it's just not medical journal articles, as you may imagine, are incredibly dense. And even as somebody well versed in medicine in the medical profession, they can be overwhelming to read sometime and take a while to parse, which is why we do whole journal clubs, where we take articles and sit down and dissect them as a team and go through them so that we learn the most we can from them and see if we like notice flaws or questions we have or things we felt like weren't answered appropriately.

So I think what is for me a good go to, especially to focus on vaccines because that seems to be the main question. The CDC collects articles that specifically address these sorts of misinformation. So like, if you go to the CDC, they have an entire section on autism and vaccines. And not only do they obviously state firmly,

vaccines do not cause autism, they have the links to all of the different studies that have been done through the years, many, many, many that say over and over again, vaccines don't cause autism, the ingredients in vaccines don't cause autism. And they have a list like if you want to read the actual articles, they have them all right there, clickable, you just follow the links and you can find them all. And they have similar stuff for fainting after vaccines. Is it okay to get multiple vaccinations at once?

The historical vaccine safety concerns is on there, thimerasol, vaccines and pregnancy. So all these different things that people might throw up as like, I heard this, I heard that, I heard this. If you feel so inclined, you can go look at one of these topics and there'll be a whole list of articles. So that generally that is where I will first go to combat the misinformation, especially on the show when we're talking about these kinds of things. Because then I can follow those links and read some of the articles. But for most people, you don't really need that. You just need, you know, kind of a place to go and say, look at all the studies. They're probably not going to read them, but you can say, look right here, look at all the

studies. I have a great resource that I'm surprised you didn't highlight because we've raised a lot of money for them over the years. Well, this is a great one. Well, that's a good point, Justin. Well, I guess there's also immunized.org, which is an organization that we've been raising money for with our vaccines, t-shirts, and bumper stickers, and pens, and you name it, immunized.org, formally the immunization action coalition. But if you get immunized.org, they have sections about anything you could want. There's like, this is maybe better for like, layman like myself, but they have stuff for doctors too.

There's like a talking about vaccines area on the header where they have like every possible question they've printable handouts. They have, it's all very well organized and this is all they do. So. And they cover some stuff like religious concerns and things that aren't covered

in some of that CDC information that I saw. So I guess that's a good point. I was thinking where did I find the studies? That's where I found studies. But this is probably a better resource for somebody who's not necessarily a healthcare professional who isn't gonna wanna read a study. Yes, this is a great, like tell them

to go here and poke around and they'll find everything they could possibly want and you can print out some stuff and just slam it down their nests and see. Here, I got this off the internet. And they have sections for health professionals, for the public, for coalition, so there are different tabs you can click on to like, you know, and they have,

look at that, they've even got testimonials. Yeah, they're real. Speaking their language, no, I mean, people on the other side love testimonials. We got evidence and testimonials. We got them both. Hey, thank you so much for your questions. Thanks for listening to our podcast. I love doing these.

I feel like I learned a lot. They're a lot of fun. Thanks to the taxpayers for the use of their song medicines, this is the intro and outro. But that's a little trivia for you. It's both the intro and outro. We wrote a book, it's called The Sobbing's Book, Illustrations by Sydney Sibling Taylor.

They're very, it's a very good book. I think you can buy it wherever you get books. If you go to macrorymerch.com, you can find some sobbing's merchandise as well as we're having a mystery pin sale this month so you can get a, oh, that's actually sold out. I'm sorry, so you got it at fast.

These macrory merchandise goes quick. So you can check that out totally out and that is gonna do for us. So until next time, my name's Justin Macroly. I'm Sydney Macroly. And as always, don't jow a hole in your head. Alright!