Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 366 - I'm Down With Opie Pee

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

Shingles vaccines, "morning wood," ring worm, pepper sneezes, PPIs and mortality, all this and more on this episode of "the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history of broadcast radio!" stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) simplyherbals.net (Dr Scott’s nasal rinse is here!) noom.doctorsteve.com (lose weight, gain you-know-what) tweakedaudio.com offer code “FLUID” (best CS anywhere) bet.doctorsteve.com (Bet DSI! Try to beat my kid!) premium.doctorsteve.com (all this can be yours!)   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Weird Medicine with Dr. Steve on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. I need to touch it. Yo-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. Yeah, me and the garret. I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Ebola, dripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my impetable woes. I want to take my brain now, and blast it with the way.

an ultrasonic, agographic, and a pulsating shave, I want a magic pill for my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen cane, and if I don't get it now in the tablet, I think I'm doomed, then I'll have to go insane. I want to requiem for my disease, so I'm paging Dr. Steve. It's weird medicine,

the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history of broadcast radio, now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal, Dr. Scott. Traditional Chinese medical practitioner keeps the alternative medicine wackos at bay. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. And she who will do most anything for a glass of expensive wine, it's lady diagnosis, everyone. Hey, Dr. Steve.

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We do? Yes, we do. Oh, yeah. For those about to buy at stuff dot Dr. Steve.com, we salute you. No, it was $3,000 thing. Oh, gotcha. You know, that was, I thought you were praising them for their choice and purchase. Well, that's awesome too, but, you know, thank you for making that large purchase on stuff.

Dr. Steve.com. It really does help to keep the show on the air. So we appreciate it. While we're at it, might as well talk about tweakedaadio.com. Use offer code fluid, FLUID, for 33% off, the best earbuds on the market for the price and the best customer service anywhere. And Dr. Scott's website at simplyherballs.net. And if you forget these things, you can go to Dr. Steve.com, and I've got all those links

right there on every show. simply herbals.net I'm you know I said this last time somebody cussed me out on the voicemail because I was talking

about attaining my ideal body weight and I was measuring my BMI which is now like 22 and he was like BMI stupid

and you're just you know walking bones at this point and it's like let me do what I want to do but that's yes

BMI sucks but it's what we got. And it's, you know, compared to when I was a BMI of 30, that's a big deal. So that's all. It just is a relative measurement. It just shows that I've had a significant weight loss. But anyway. Congrats.

And thank you very much. And I did it using Noom, the app. I highly recommend it. I can get you $20, no, I'm sorry, two free weeks and 20% off by going to Noom. Dottersteve.com. You can try it for two weeks. You just don't get the group and group counselor until you pay up.

But unlike Weight Watchers, which will just charge and charge and charge, at least in my experience. And Noom is less expensive and you're only going to do it for three or four months. And that's all you've got to do. So it's self-limited. It's not on and on and on. No points, none of that. And it's a psychology app. It's not a diet.

And I love it. It changed my life. And I even, you know, I splurged today. I had what the hell I wanted to eat today. And go crazy, Dr. Dey. Yeah, it even tells you to do that. It's built into the thing. Today is a no guilt, do whatever the hell you want day.

And you have to learn how to do that so that you don't feel like you're depriving yourself. I never feel like I'm depriving myself. And that's the key. If you say, this is forbidden food, what's going to happen? You want it. You want it. and then you crave it. And then when you actually give in, you're going to go nuts, and then you're going to feel

guilty afterward, and then the cycle repeats. Well, at work, we do how, if someone brings cake or something, someone will say, is it worth cheating for? Yeah. Because sometimes just cake is not worth it. But when you make it worth something, then you have to justify. Well, that's right. Well, yeah, if you plan for it.

Yeah. You know, I can have this, but I'm going to trade it for doing something else. or, yeah, I might gain a pound today because of what I ate for lunch today, but it'll be back off tomorrow. So, you know, I don't worry about it. I don't recriminate anymore. And I was complaining to my counselor, I think I may have said this on the show, that I was gorging or binging on these rice cakes. Quaker makes these rice cakes. They've got a caramel one.

they've got an apple cinnamon one and then they have a cheddar cheese one and they're all the devil and I was complaining you know I just in the afternoon I'm binging on these and right halfway through that conversation with her I realized I was complaining

about binging on rice cakes when back in the day I would binge on French fries and binge on I would eat a whole bag of Snickers hookers so hookers yeah I would like to binge on You know, that shit should be legal, too.

I need to be able to binge on hookers. I'd say, well. The only time I've ever met a hooker was when we interviewed that woman for this show. Yeah. Were you here back when we were doing that? And that's the only time. She's real sweet. Yeah, she's very nice.

But that's the only time. I don't think I've ever even seen a prostitute out in the wild. You wouldn't know. And I think that's what it is. I'm too dumb to know. Just to show you how dumb I am sometimes, just I don't get it because I don't think that way. Someone gave me a pair of candy pants, you know, edible underwear.

And I was like, this is gross, because what I thought you were supposed to do, because what it was was it was a big, the fabric was like a fruit roll-up. And then it tied with the licorice stick. Diane is nodding her head like she's probably doing this multiple times. So in my mind, this is what you did with those is you put it on and then you went and you ran around when he he and then you were supposed to take it off and eat it. And I'm like, that's disgusting. And it was maybe two. Well, what the fuck you're supposed to do with it?

Oh, oh, so good. I'm glad you don't know either. No. I figured that's what you'd have to do. No, so I'll tell you in a second, but two years later, I'm walking down the street, and it just hit me, and I went, do! Two years later, it finally hits me what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to eat them while they're on the person. Oh, sure.

You see? So somebody's wearing it, and then you... Eat through to get to the... Yeah, it gives you something. The prize. Yeah. So somebody gave me that, and I had this really cool girlfriend. I'm not going to say her name, but she knows.

knows who she is. Debbie. No. What's not? No. Well, but two of my ex-wives were Debbie. One was cool and the other one, not so much. But I had this girlfriend and she, somebody gave me some edible underwear.

At this point, I knew what it was for. But she and I, I have smoked then, and so she and I went out to smoke. And she was so cool because, and she was gorgeous too. And when she came back in, she's just twirling the tie as if I had already eaten, you know, hey, and just, you know, everybody was like, ooh, and I was, yeah, she just made me look good, you know. She made me look good just by hanging out with me, but then she would go the extra mile to make my friends think that there was more going on than there was. But anyway, all right. So anyway, check out Noom.com. Two free weeks and 20% off if you do decide to continue.

And, oh, if you want archives of the show, there's two ways now. You can go to premium.com. Use offer code fluid for three months. It's a buck a month. And then after that, it's two bucks a month. You have access to everything in our archives. The best way to do it is to download the Weird Medicine app from the App Store or Google Play. But you can do it.

There's other ways that you can do it. That's premium.org.com. Or you could just go to Dr.steve.com for 30 bucks. I'll burn you a 32 gig thumb drive. That's a deal. So you get a 32 gig thumb drive and you get every show that we've ever done up to the point when I burn it. So that would, you know, if you do it next week, that'll include this show. And, yeah, and it's $30 with shipping.

So there you go. Anyway, all right. What else? You guys got anything? No. Okay. So, you know, I answer questions over on Reddit, at the subreddit's just called DR Steve. And somebody had asked me about this study.

and we're going to need to get our calculators out, Dr. Scott. For this, or we can use our little friend, Alexa, who I need to change her name because people are still complaining every time I talk to her, their Alexa goes off. But I can change it to, I think, Amazon and Echo, which all of those are terrible names. You really ought to be able to name it anything you want. They need to work on that. But anyway, this is a paper. And, of course, there was medical journalism involved, and I'm not even going to dignify the articles that were written about this, saying the PPIs are killing people.

So a proton pump inhibitor, we're talking about one of the most commonly prescribed medications for acid reflux and stomach ulcers and duodenal ulcers. And it was estimates of all-cause mortality and cause-specific mortality associated with proton pump inhibitors. among U.S. veterans. This was a cohort study, and their objective was to estimate all-cause mortality and cause-specific mortality among patients taking protection. Well, okay, it's in the title. So there you go.

They did this in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the participants were new users of PPIs, and there were 157,000 of them, or H-2 blockers, and there were only 56,000 of them. It used to be flip-flop. The H-2 blockers are things like Zantak and Pepsid and stuff like that. Those are histamine receptor blockers,

and they work to reduce acid as well. And, but then when the proton pump inhibitors came out, they worked so well that people, you know, pretty much stopped taking the H2 blockers, or, you know, at least to the extent that they were. All of these things are over the counter, which is really, you know, that's it, you don't know how many people are out there

actually taking them, so it is important to know if they're doing something to somebody. So what they did, did was the main outcome was all cause mortality and cause specific mortality. So they were looking at all the people that died from any reason or also things like cardiovascular disease cancer, stuff like that. So that would be disease cause specific and all causes where you just lump everybody together. Okay. And they report it as a number of attributable deaths per thousand patients. So this is going to make our job very easy when we try to figure out the relative risk versus

the absolute risk. Okay? So, here we go. There were 45.2 excess deaths, and the range went between 28 and 61.4 per thousand patients taking PPI. So the first thing we need to do is, so when they tell you what the excess deaths per hundred, per thousand is, they've already done the part of the math that we normally have to do where we take however many people were in the placebo or the, you know, the cohort that didn't

take PPI's. And then the cohort that did take PPI's, normally we have to divide, you know, get the same common denominator and then subtract them. We don't have to do that with this. We can, or I'm sorry, we could just divide the numerator by the denominator and subtract them and then you get the absolute risk. So they've already done that, but they're doing it per thousand patients. So we want to know what the absolute risk is, is going to be 45.2 divided by 1,000. So I'll get Alexa. Scott's just

looking at me like a deer in the headlight. Alexa, what's 45.2 divided by 1,000? 45.2 divided by 1,000 is 0.0452. Okay. So now what we want to do, of course, that math was pretty easy. I forgot.

She can't remember. So I need you to take 1 and divide it by 0.052. And that will give us the number needed to harm. 0.052. 452.

1 divided by 0. Oh, my God. 22.12. So you have to have 22 people take a PPI before you can report one excess death. So the so the odds of me being harmed by a PPI and when they say excess deaths

they're not really saying what that means they just had in that cohort that more people died in that cohort than the group that didn't take the PPI. But they don't identify what that? Well, we don't know how they were matched for age and all that kind of stuff.

Well, excess means if there were a thousand over here and there were a thousand and ten over in this group, with the same denominator, then there were 10 excess deaths. Okay. So that my odds are one in 22 of being harmed by a PPI. So, again, the risk to me is pretty low. The risk to society, of course, with that, many people taking these things now become somewhat significant. Pretty high, yeah.

You know. All right. So that's all cause. Let's see here. Okay, so infectious and parasitic diseases. So that's what you're looking at are people who are decreasing the acid content in their stomach to the point where they're now more vulnerable to foodborne illnesses. That was 4.2 excess cases. So let's do 4.2 divided by 1,000 would be 0.0042, right?

So let's go 1 divided by 0.0042. and that'll give us the number needed to harm for that particular condition. 238. There you go. So the odds for me are, you know, are 1 and 238. The odds for society, again, you know, if you divide all the people taking PPIs by 238, that's still going to be a big number. Okay.

So anyway, and then they go and look at chronic kidney disease. Let me see, people, I was looking for the H2 blockers, and they really just didn't, don't report that in the abstract. But anyway, anyway, so that again illustrates the difference between medical journalism that reported this as, you know, that basically the sky is falling and the reality of these numbers. It's still a concern, and it's like, why is this? Because everything they looked at, there were excess cases in the PPI section. So I want to see this repeated, make sure that there wasn't some bias introduced, because I'm very surprised that, like, chronic kidney disease or cardiovascular disease, why would that, you know, what's the mechanism of increasing deaths from cardiovascular disease in,

patients who are taking a proton pump inhibitor. I mean, these numbers look pretty good. This is a big study, but we need to find out what that mechanism is. And if we figure out what the mechanism is, we may find that this is a marker and not a cause. You know, people who have bad acid reflux may have other conditions or other reasons to die, and they just are taking PPI because they have it, but it's really something about the reflux that's causing these problems. You know, so it's interesting.

Yeah. I would like, a good study would be to take people who have no GI trouble whatsoever and put them on a PPI and see if they have excess mortality, but that's probably an unethical study. That's the problem. See, it'll be very difficult for us to tease this out and say, yes, it's the PPI or it's the condition for which they're taking the PPI. But how many people honestly have no GI issues? Very few people in this country.

Yeah, I'd say minuscule amounts. Especially in this country, for sure. So their conclusion, taking PPI's is associated with a small excess of cause-specific mortality, including death due to cardiovascular disease. The burden was also observed in patients without an indication for PPI. Oh, so they already looked at that. They thought of everything. Okay, here we go.

Among patients without. documented indication for acid suppression drugs taking PPI's was associated with an excess mortality due to cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease and upper GI cancers

that's interesting that makes no sense at all that's what it's supposed to treat because people are taking you know to not get well yes maybe or they're taking it for no good reason or they may have just had shitty

documentation in the medical record, too. Just because they didn't have an indication doesn't mean they didn't have one, it just wasn't in the medical record, because this was, you know, they were looking back in time, I think. Here you go. Taking PPI's was not associated with an excess burden of transportation-related mortality. So, you know, we've talked on this show before that if enough people get run over by a car during a clinical trial, they kind of have to report that.

And so they said, no, you know, we don't. don't have a bias toward all mortality. So that takes away one of the arguments that I had on this as well. So you can take your PPI and drive safely. Yeah, right. Don't take your PPI's and drive. And they also said death due to Petskulcer disease has, there was no association of, increased association one.

Now that makes sense. So really what they were looking as negative outcome controls. because obviously, if people are taking PPI, they're going to have fewer Peptic ulcers. So they just wanted to see that their methodology was sound enough to show some negative results somewhere. Because if it had showed a significant increase in transportation-related deaths, you would go, there's something wrong with their methodology in this study. So, you know, it's interesting. I would love to get off my PPI.

It's, I'm going to go to the compounding place and see if they can make me a half strength because I'm on this one called Dexlan Soapazol or Dexelon, and it comes in 30s and 60s. I'm going to see if they can make me up 15, see if I can get by. So is it because you've lost weight you're trying to get off? Or has that affected any of your medications? I want to get off as much medication as I can. Scott and I agree. PPI's and statins kind of her, you know, they are good for,

for certain things, but if you cannot have to take them, it would be better. Yes. You know? Agreed. So, all right. But she had a great, she had a great question. I want you, because you have lost weight, there is a chance you can certainly dial down some of your medications.

I may not have as much mechanical reflux. That's true. But are there other problems that you had been taking medication for that you do not have to take now? Like blood pressure, does that change? Yes. I may be able to get off my blood pressure medicine. I've only been on it for a real short period of time.

I've always had blood pressure 120 over 70, and all of a sudden it went up to 150. And so my primary care put me on some medication. Of course, it's the one that got recalled, LoSartin, of course. And so I've been taking my blood pressure recently. It's been really low, so I'm thinking about backing off on that as well. So, yeah. Well, that's good. Yeah.

I'm off of hell. I don't take. I used to, I was addicted to Lunesta, the Ambien cousin of Ambien. For sleep? For sleep. I was taking three a day or three milligrams at bedtime, and I took it for the longest time. And then that all-cause mortality study came out and said people who take hypnotics to sleep are four times more likely to die than people of all things than people who don't take them. So I went three and then two and then one and then a half of one.

And I was stuck on a half of one for a while because I was too nervous to just not take it. And then we went on vacation. I said, screw it. If I can't sleep, I'll sleep during the day. And I just never started them back up again. Cool. Yeah. Perfect.

If you're going to do that, by the way, taper. I didn't have any withdrawal whatsoever. But if you just stop it dead and don't do that. Don't do that with benzodiazepines and those drugs need to be tapered. Okay. All right. You guys got anything? No.

No. All right. Okay. Uh-oh. A quick. They're a nice question for you. Hello, Dr. Steve. Hey, buddy.

Hey, why do I sneeze when I smell pepper? I mean, I don't sneeze if I smell salt or cinnamon or any other sprouts, but for some reason it's just pepper. It doesn't always happen. Is it because it's ground so fine that it gets in the sinuses? Or what's the bilioscadilio? Thank you. Good question. Do you guys know what the medical term for sneezing is?

I'll give you $10 if you know it. No. I love to sneeze, though. I do, too. She's kind of orgasmic. You can say it in Chinese and freak out. Yes. What is it?

Is it? No, I don't know. You could have made it up, but we would never know. Hey, that fucker would have looked it up. You messed up. He would have looked it up. Yeah, he would. So the medical term for sneezing is sternutation.

Sternutation. Yeah. We could just call it sneezing. There is a chemical in pepper called piperine or piperine. It's an irritant. Gets in the nose. Nerve endings inside the mucus membrane are stimulated, and it wants to get rid of it, and so you sneeze, and that's basically it. Histimic response, right?

Well, this is actually a – I think you'll have a histaminic response after that. Because it's an irritant. And so if you have an irritant in your nose, the nose will release histamine or, you know, cells in the nose will release histamine. Histamine opens up blood vessels, which increases fluid flow to the tissues and increased fluid flow increases mucus production. It just washes stuff out. And but the sneeze response is actually a, you know, a nerve pathway. So when you say histamine increases, is that just mean your nose runs? Yeah.

Okay. Yep, and that's why you take an antihistamine when your nose is running. Trying to wash all the shit out of there. Oh, okay. Did you know that your nose produces one to two pints of mucus every day? Pints? Pints. And here's the thing you swallow it most of the time.

Blow it out your nose into a teaspoon and then drink it back. Oh, my God, no. Exactly. But if you're swallowing it from the back of your nose into your throat, it's fine. That's different. saliva is same way i'm doing gallons of saliva every day but spit out just drew out a teaspoon full of saliva onto a spoon and then hold it out and then drink it i know that horrible but you're doing it right now your mouth is full of saliva and that's the spoon is sterile sterilize the spoon even

why is that i don't know it's just that weird Anyway, I don't know why pepper is so good. You could put it pepper on everything, and it's good. I love pepper. Salt and pepper go together. Like peanut butter and jelly. Not related in any way. No.

Nothing about them. I mean, pepper is a plant and salt is, you know, sodium chloride. It's weird. Black and white. Yeah, I put pepper on a lot of damn near everything. Sure. Oh, yeah, I do too. I like it.

Without even thinking about it. it's not bad for you is it no no no it's probably the only thing in the world that's not bad for you but it'll make you sneeze it does make you sneeze says here when the goths histamine production when the goths defeated Rome in 410 they demanded a ransom of 3,000 pounds of pepper along with other valuables such as silk huh huh you all should start charging pepper during the I know thank you I can go buy pepper during the middle ages peppercorns were accepted in lieu of money for dowries rents and taxes.

Huh. That's insane. During the 19th century, Salem, Massachusetts played an important role in the world pepper trade and made some of America's first millionaires. That's pretty cool. There's more facts about pepper. You want some facts about paper? Yoltson.

That's enough for me. Yaltzum. Yeah, okay, that's interesting. Well, shit. I didn't know any of that. All right. come on any more questions

yes are we done that something strikes me that I didn't tell you why I started taking the end of box so I've had seemingly like a freaking sinus infection

for a couple of weeks or upper respiratory or stuff I've been fucking blowing my nose and snotting out fucking big old hunks of green tough shit I'm talking like I'm freaking

trying to get it out like hard After all that Why say fricking at that point? Yeah, a little tickle back there And I'll start working at it Like a fucking cat in the airfall And then up comes this

Big Hard, tough lugi Occasionally as dark Got blood in it Scott Talk about sinus Sinus Sinus

Infection snot, what he should do. Flesh. Don't tell him to drink it. First of all, don't spit it in a spoon and swallow it down. I would suggest, strongly suggest, a daily sinus rinse. You can use the simply herbal nasal sinus spray. You can use Dr. Steve's fabulous nasal.

Pot. What is the pot called? Navaj. Navaj. It's a motorized netty pot. You can do it. don't have to get a weird position, and you can get it at stuff. Dot, Dr. Steve.com.

It's the best 80-something bucks I ever spent in my life. I'd buy the Simply Earbles first. But anyway, yes, first. Absolutely. Dr. Scott's shit is the real deal. Good. And you get at Simplyherbils.com. In all seriousness, if you'll wash that shit out of your head and do it a couple

times a day, typically I tell people to do it at least three times a day, have to do it for bed time because when you lay down at night, all that stuff rolls back in your head and gets clogged up in your throat. Yep. Get it out, clean it out. Yeah. Do it religiously for a couple days and should knock most of it out. Yeah.

And if it's infected, you'll know because it'll come right back and it'll still have color to it. Usually those people will have pain in the maxillary bones, which are the, you know, the cheek bones. And you can tap on them. And if you get pain tapping on those, that's a sign that you could have a sinus infection. persistent discoloration, getting darker, persistent nasal congestion. You've got to really have a lot of that.

So a lot of people get called sinusitis, but only few really actually have. But, yeah, I think every molecule of boogers that you can remove is a molecule the body doesn't have to remove it. And the body's got to do it, you know, kind of one molecule at a time with a bunch of cells in there and just kind of eating away with. Whereas we can use a motorized netty pot or a netty pot or Dr. Scott's nasal rinse, and we can do it much more quickly. Wash it out. Yeah, just wash it out. I do have a question.

My son has ringworm. Where do you get ringworm and what is it? Excellent question. Ringworm is actually a skin infection by a fungus. And you can get that just environmentally. there's these fungire everywhere and when you get it on your body we'll call it tinia

corpus you get it on your head it's tinia capitis So can you get it from a cat He's convinced he got it from a cat Or is it just from Possibly. It's possible You just every once in a while One of these colonies

I mean they're everywhere That's why you can make sourdough bread You leave the sourdough mixer are open and yeast and fungus and, you know, it's in that case, mostly yeast, just comes out of the air. It's everywhere, and it's on your skin now, but every once in a while, one can take hold and start to grow. So why is it in a ring?

That's just strange how it does. Well, it, you know, it has to start somewhere, and then it grows circumferentially out from there. But it doesn't get huge. It's all the little same size circles. There's host factors. It's just interesting. Yeah, there's host factors involved.

No, it's a very interesting question because you're right. Why didn't it just take over? Well, if we were that vulnerable to stuff in our environment, we wouldn't be here as a species. So we have defenses against it. But those defenses are imperfect, obviously. If they weren't, then the ringworm could never get started in the first place. So when the pressure to grow is met by the pressure keeping it in, you know, when I say pressure, just environmental pressure, then it stops growing. So he can just use some antifungal cream.

You can buy it over the counter. Lamacill or ketoconazole, any of that stuff. Lentriman. And use it, yes, use it for at least a week, maybe even two, after it's gone. Because sometimes it'll look like it's gone. It's really not. And then you stop using it. It comes right back.

Got to be consistent. Got to be consistent. Now, if he does that and it doesn't go away, then he needs to go see somebody. and get it checked to make sure that's really what we're dealing with. Hey, do we have time for a real quick, funny story about ringworm? Of course. Hey, so one of our local friends. Do we have time?

Well, you know, I don't know how it was. I'm just killing time. It's all we're doing. We have a friend here, local guy. He's an attorney, and he's a profound hypochondriac. And we're having lunch one day, and he's like, Scott, look at my finger. What the hell is it? I said, oh, hell, buddy, that's, that's ringworm.

He goes, oh, God, damn, is it contagious someone? Oh, my God, it's highly contagious. He goes, well, what the hell I do? I said, first of all, please tell me you hadn't touched your penis. I said, because this stuff grows in a ring. And I said, hell, I almost said, hell, it will grow in a ring. I've seen it growing a ring around the penis, it sluffs off. And he almost lost his mind.

And everybody at the table was about to die. And finally, I was like, hey, man, listen, you're really fine. It's a fungus. You have to rub a lot of cream into it. Yeah, when I tell you, when I tell you, hey, when I tell you who it is, you'll get it. Okay. Oh, my God. That's hilarious.

That's funny. All right. Are we done with that? Let's do it. Okay. Oh, I'm on the wrong mouse. There we go. Okay, one more.

We'll do one more. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is Mike from Pennsylvania. Hey, Mike. I was curious of what age should an adult get a vaccinee? I'll start over. Get what? A vaccine.

A vaccine. Hey, Dr. Steve, this is Mike from Pennsylvania. I was curious with what age should an adult get a shingles vaccination. And I've heard there are a few different types. Can you enlighten me on that? If I may, could I plug my band? No. A beautiful disaster.

We are out of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. He plugged his band once before, didn't he? I've never heard of it. You can visit us at Beautiful Disaster on Facebook to see our upcoming events. Okay, this is like a thing, I guess, that you can call in with a pretty good medical question, which I will answer and then plug whatever you want to use some of time. Thanks, guys.

He's smart. Yeah, I have no problem with it. It's just a bullshit show, so totally fine. Feel free. Shingles, go. Okay. So, I've talked about this new

shingles vaccine. It kicks your ass. And how much you loved it when you got yours. It kicks, have you done yours? The vaccine does? How old are you? How old are you? 51 oh you need to have it it's men over fit or men and women over 50 dude you need to go get it oh 60

no no that was the old one okay how old are you diane 50 are you really when did you turn july remember you were invited and you didn't come oh wait you weren't invited though yeah that was a year so i'll be 51 in two weeks it's a hell party where was i i drinking you were out at the beach okay okay because you're out of town when's your bro the 12th okay oh that'll be be the day before we're leaving okay yeah let's do something Friday let's do something okay well Diane's old I always tell people you know I tell the comedians that I've got a supermodel to pick you up I said she's six and then Diane shows up no and she's six feet tall and blonde and beautiful I said she's a supermodel I say you know admittedly an aging supermodel but a supermodel nonetheless

an aging supermodel is still a supermoder better nothing I think I'll take it. Carol Alt, look up how old Carol Alt is. She's still. It doesn't fucking matter. It doesn't matter. See, it doesn't matter. Christy Brinkley's old and gorgeous.

She's 60 something. She's old. Gorgeous. Yeah. She looks pretty, and she doesn't look all plasticed up. You know, some of these folks, they do just a way, one too many, you know, procedures, and they start looking like they're trying to look young, and they don't really, they kind of look alien but christie brinkley just looks awesome but anyway all right so um so shingles vaccine

so both of you need to be getting this and it will kick your ass and but here's the problem with shingles so if people don't know what shingles is it is chicken pox come back for one last hurrah when you have chicken pox when you're a kid it retreats you know because you don't have it forever it retreats and some of the viruses live in these collections of nerve cells called ganglia that are close to the spinal column and then during a period of stress or for whatever god knows reason they'll come out one more time usually when you're over 50 you can get them before that by the way if you get shingles every three weeks you have herpes you don't have shingles. So as I've had

people say, well, I have recurrent shingles. I get it every three weeks. It's like, no, it's herpes. Good to know. So shingles will always follow that nerve. So that nerve if it's in your chest, you know, will start in the back, and then it will come down and

around following the ribcage and following that peripheral nerve that ganglion is associated with. If it's in your face, though, you can get them in your eye and those to me are the worst

the worst shingles. Most people get it on the abdomen or chest wall but every once in a while you get somebody get it in the face and then it gets in their eye and the bad thing about this is unlike chicken pox that's self-limited, you know, it comes and it goes away and you don't really have anything for whatever reason when these stupid viruses come back

they can stimulate the pain fibers in the skin and they'll just continue to stimulate for years afterward. It's called post-herpetic neuralgia. And if you get it in your eye, there's a small possibility that you can have that pain for the rest of your life. Now,

I will trade four days of feeling like I have a mild flu to not get shingles in my eye. You know? So, and the shingles vaccine is the only way to protect against shingles and this post-herpetic neuralgia.

And the CDC recommends all healthy adults 50 years and older get two doses of the shingles vaccine separated by two to six months so you get it just go do it just go do it do it on a weekend when you don't have anything to do it on Friday you'll be fine by Monday I don't want to waste my weekend being sick I'll go do it on a Monday so you can be sick at work okay okay fair enough everybody has different priorities I like to waste you things but you get it like if you get it today then you wait at least two months and then get it again. And if you wait the full six months, if you go over that, they just say just get it as close

to that as you can. But just put it on your calendar and remind yourself, you can go to any pharmacy in this country at this point and just get a vaccine, take some ibuprofen, you know, it wasn't that, look, it sucked. I felt like I got run over by a truck, you know, metaphorical. That's how you feel. At least that's how I felt. I had pain at the injection site, and I had muscle aches and pains, and I just felt malays.

It just felt bad. It was moderate. It wasn't severe, but it was really noticeable, you know. Started in about, you know, 24 hours after the first injection. But what that's telling you is it works. But the shingricks is more than 90% effective at preventing shingles and post-operatic neuralgia. and it's long-lasting, too. Now, the old Zostovacs was for people 60 years and older,

and it was not nearly as effective as this one has. So does it last 50 years? Because I'm going to live until I'm 100, probably. That's an excellent question. I don't think they know yet. So what they'll have to do is they'll do post-marketing surveillance to see if people continue to have antibodies circulating to the Schingrich's vaccine. And if they don't, then they may recognize.

recommend that you get a booster in 10 years or 20 years. How long has this vaccination been available? This one is new. It's really in the last couple of years. Oh. Yeah. You go first. Now, you should get shingricks, even if you've had shingles.

Because I've had people say, well, I've had shingles. I'm not going to get the vaccine. Get it anyway, because you can get them again. Even if you received the Zostovacs before. And even if you're not sure you ever had chicken. pox because this should prevent you from getting chicken pox if you've never had chicken pox too and you don't want to get chicken pox when you're an adult okay all right yep what else wrap it up well you wrap it up I can't wrap it up all right I forgot I do it let's see

yeah is there being a pea burner and a regular burner and if someone has ed could they still get tea burners and why and how would that happen? Yeah, great question. He's talking about the proverbial morning wood where you get an erection when you have to urinate.

And my hypothesis on this, I've seen several studies or articles about it, not so much studies. My hypothesis is that since in reproduction when we have an erection, you find it impossible to urinate through a full erection. The reason for that is, is when you ejaculate into a vagina so that the, because we forget,

that's really what sex was designed for, you want the sperm to stay in there, the semen to stay in there, and try to find an egg to fertilize. And when you, if you were able to urinate, not only would it be gross and the woman would probably never have sex with you, again, but you're going to wash that semen out and make it less likely that you're going to be able to procreate. So I think that then the other side of it is, it's not good for you when you're a cave person to be, you know, urinating where you're sleeping for lots of different reasons because that scent will draw, say, or two tigers and stuff like that.

So we develop this mechanism where you get an erection so that you can't piss the bed, right? because you can't piss through an erection. So then what causes the pee whitt boner? That, that you've got a full bladder. And you're asleep. That makes your penis hard? Yes, so that you're not pissing the bed. You know, it keeps you from peeing.

What it's doing is, right, it's keeping you from peeing. Okay. Because you, what's really happening is that sphincter is tightening, and there's, the consequence of that is you get an erection at the same time. Okay. You get an erection, the sphincter tightens. You tighten the sphincter. an erection. So there's no real benefit to the erection itself. It's just that that sphincter

is tightening to just give you that extra guarantee that you're not going to piss in the back. And when it does it, it stops the flow of blood coming out of the penis and stops the flow of urine going through the penis. There you go. Gotcha. Makes sense. Give yourself a feel. Very good. All right. Well, let's get out of here. Thanks always go to Dr. Scott. And Lady Diagnosis, you're delightful. Can't forget Rob Sprance, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Kumia, Jim Norton, Travis Teff, Lewis Johnson, Paul O'Charski, Eric Nagel, Roland Campo, Sam Roberts, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Ron Bennington, Fizz Wattley, whose early support of the show has never gone on. Appreciate it.

Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk channel, SiriusXM, Channel 103, Saturdays at 8 p.m., Eastern Sunday at 5 p.m., on demand, and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps, quit smoking, get off your asses, and get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thank you.