Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 387 - Heavenly Parole

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

Dr Steve, Cliff Andrews, and Dr Scott discuss panic attacks, agorophobia, and more. In addition, a blast from the past holiday recording! PLEASE VISIT: 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) premium.doctorsteve.com (all this can be yours!) freshly.doctorsteve.com (how lazy are you? Get $40 off, and don’t cook!) 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-he-ho. Yeah, me, garretid. I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Ebola fives stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my impetable woes. I want to take my brain now.

Blast with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All 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 aging Dr. Steve. It's weird medicine, the first and still only on censored medical show in the history broadcast radio. Now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal, Dr.

Scott, the traditional Chinese medical practitioner, who keeps the alternative medicine wackos at bay. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. And the undisputed king of all media. Radio TV, it's the stage. Yeah, I'm talking about you. Cliff Andrews, everyone.

Hello, Dr. Steve. Hello, Cliff. Welcome back. Cliff used to be our intern. He's been our friend for quite some time since. What was the date of that? March 11th? 17, yeah.

2017 when Cliff almost walked away with the funniest person the Tri-Cities Award and should have won the whole thing, in my opinion. It's just what it is. It's right. Well, we had one guy that patted the voting, and they cheated and, you know, well, I'm not going to say that. I think they may have voted a few more times than they were supposed to. Everyone was supposed to get four votes.

I'm not so sure that that was adhered to completely. He got ripped off. But anyway, here, we are. So without that, we wouldn't be sitting here with you today. We really enjoy your company. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or on the internet. If you've got a question, you're embarrassed to take to a regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call. 347-66-4-3-23. That's 347. Pooh-Head. Visit us or follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine or Lady Diagnosis or

DR Scott WM or WM, the intern. He's going to be rebranding, so we'll you know what Cliff's Twitter is later because he's hopefully going to be a little bit more regular. Yes. Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy or go to our new merchandise store at cafepress.com

slash weird medicine. Most importantly, we're not your medical providers. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on the show without talking it over with your doctor. Nurse practitioner, physician assistant, pharmacist, what else? A chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master,

physical therapist, clinical laboratory scientist, registered dietitian, or whatever. So if anyone emails me and says, hey, well, how come you don't mention X profession in, you know, career in medicine that I always tag it on? And then I got corrected about the whole physician assistant thing. I used to call them them physician's assistants, but that's not right because they're not owned or, you know, they are physician assistants. I'm not still trying to dope that in my head how that works. Are they a physician who is an assistant, or are they an assistant to a physician, which is what I thought that was for, and originally thought that, you know, it's something, you know, it's the origin of that calling. I mean, we'll give it 30 seconds anyway. I'm just sort of interested in that and how they look at it.

We used to have two P.A.s on here. I said physician's assistant for, what, many years, eight years. PA John was on the show and never once said anything. about it, but he wasn't paying attention. He wasn't paying attention. That's right. That's true. That's the difference.

Listeners actually pay attention. They're actually listening. That's why we call them listeners, Dr. Scott. That's right. All right. Don't forget stuff. Dot, Dr. Steve.com. The Christmas holiday is over, but there may be other holidays that you need to purchase

things for. Stuff. Dot, Dr. Steve.com is the place to go on the internet to do that. You can scroll down and get all the weird medicine stuff. you have a family member with neuropathy well that's one heck of a Christmas where you know a holiday gift well here's your neuropathy

supplements Uncle Joe or if you've got a clogged up nose you can buy a navage all kinds of things everything that we talk about on the show ends up on there and then or you can just click straight through to go to Amazon and you know even if you don't want something that's off the website if you will

do that that still helps to keep our network on the air helps significantly so go to stuff.com Steve.com. Tweakeda audio.com. So the earbuds that you got in your Hanukkah, you know, day seven, I've already broken. Go to tweakeda audio.com and use offer code fluid. You get 33% off the best earbuds on the market and the best customer service bar none anywhere in the world.

And that's a Tennessee company. So we like them. Check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net. Click. Clip, you got anything online at this point that people should look at? I have a website that's in development, but, yeah, it's not quite there yet. Okay, if you're not ready to promote it yet, that's fine. We'll get it next time.

If you want to lose weight with me, I am basically at my ideal body weight at this point. My BMI is below the overweight for the first time since I left college. Thank you. Thank you. That's right. Yeah, I'll give myself one of these. Uh-oh. Beal.

Bill. Give yourself a bill. And one of these. There you know. Thank you. Go to noem. Dot, Dr. Steve.com, which I attribute all of my success in weight loss to. Noem, N-O-O-M dot Dr. Steve.com.

And look, I'm almost 65, but I'll still have people usually of the opposite gender who come up to me and say, damn, you look good. What are you doing? You know, and that's, when you're my age, you don't get that very often. So what they're really saying, relatively speaking, you look good for you. For that age, yes. They're not saying, oh, you look good for me. I've got to have me.

They're not saying that. But that's okay. I'll take it. I'll take what I can get. If you're lazy like me and you got a couple extra bucks, really, I mean, it's just really a couple extra bucks when you talk about not going to the grocery store. Go to freshly. com. they deliver fresh prepared meals that make eating right super easy you can use my link

at freshly dot dr steve.com there's no e in that except well yes there is there's only one e in that in the obvious place you can use my link to get six dinners for $39 for two weeks that's 20 bucks off each week you try it if you don't like it to hell with it but if you do like it you can continue we get my wife and I get six meals a week so that's you know three nights and we really like it and like last week the delivery was late and we had to trash it

because of snow in the Midwest or something like that they couldn't deliver it and we were kind of bummed on top of that I had to cook you know I actually like cooking but it's kind of you know

on Monday you come home we pop the freshly in and it's really quite good and give it a try and let me know what you think freshly.com and we're going to work out a deal with Swiss Trashley

That's swistracks.com. Scott's seen my garage. Cliff hadn't seen it yet. It's unbelievable. Just go to swistr-a-X.com and look at what they've got. And if you go through me, we haven't worked out exactly how to do this yet, but we can get you a deal because I was so excited when I put this down. I said, dude, I don't want to sound like Alex Jones. My listeners have, you know, whatever.

Now, seriously, I thought my listeners would. really get a kick out of this. If you've been thinking of epoxying your garage floor, this is unbelievable. It's these plastic tiles that are, just go look at it. And it'll save you a shit ton of work. Yeah, it was the easiest thing in the world. Doing an epoxy to a garage cleaning it, and acid washing it, and then bub-la. And then the first time in the winter you drive in there and you got snow and ice in your car, it ruins it.

So this is unruinable. And if you do, for whatever reason, ruin one, you just pop it up and put another one in. So they give you enough spares to do that. So, yeah, it's cool. SwissTracks.com. Email me if you're interested in it. I'll refer you. And I think what they promised was 25% off we'll see.

I can't guarantee you. We're still working on this. But it's cool. I just thought it was cool. That's the only reason. I want to get my, you know, if I find something cool that I think the listeners aren't aware of, I'm going to throw it out. If I can, yeah, if I can make a couple bucks at the same time, that's fine.

But really on this one, it's just like, I want other people to see this. It's neat. Anyway, all right. So, let's see, what have we got? I had a news story. You got a news story, Scott? Did you have one? No.

Okay. Not like I do. Actually, there was one talking about real quick about guys who are long overwork and how their blood pressure rises and how their blood pressure rises and how the detrimental long-term health effects. Yeah, no, I'm going to die early. Physicians die early. Well, they do. You go through, if you do one of those in-depth, when are you going to die things?

It's like they'll ask you all these questions, no, I don't have high blood pressure. My cholesterol is normal. Oh, you're doing good, you know. You see it going up, and then the last question is, what's your occupation? If you say MD or DO, it just drops up. I guess fuck those other questions. That's right. Sorry about that.

It's all stress. It's all stress. And I was just reading on that, just between the break there on how, you know, the silent killer is the blood pressure. But I'm not so sure that even though my blood pressure is pretty normal and your blood pressure is pretty normal. I'm pretty sure the stress is still there. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? The blood pressure is just one part of the pie there.

Well, it's a marker, but it also is a cause. Sure. Oh, of course it is. Yes, yes, of course. But, yeah, stress is definitely a mind killer. and it may it's it's a body killer as well so we need to figure out ways to lead a more stress-free life

and I'll tell you yesterday I about had it I almost walked out oh shit it's just too much just too much going on and being just from all sides yeah from transitions political stuff

yes yeah administrative stuff building stuff yeah we have a lot of you get it from all sides yeah I can see that Yeah. The problem is our building is the same, and they're reconfiguring our building again.

Oh, Jesus. There's more construction. There's much frustration. But anyway, yeah, I believe it. So, yeah, that was my one. So let's talk about things we can do to minimize our stress. Number one, yoga is one. Well, may I start with the...

So, Utah. You're the anti-stress. And I was going to say, first of all. Go to Dr. Scott's website and get stress less. Yes, get some stress. Did you change the name of your stuff? Yeah, it's because that piece of shit down in Atlanta was wanting to sue me because he said he owns the word stress less. He's a fucking.

So now you call it less stress? Yeah, I just call it less stress. That's hilarious. Well, I'm not going to tell you what I was going to call it. I was going to say fuck blankety blank on the website. Yeah, yeah. But I was going to think. The market would have been a little weird on that.

But anyway. But you're just going to let it go. Oh, I did. Yeah, I don't give two shits. But, you know, honestly. Yeah, you can tell you don't care. Well, but, you know, the key is in all seriousness for the stress, identify the causes first.

Yeah. Identify your cause. What's your stress levels? If it's your job or your diet or your lifestyle or whatever it is. All of the above. All of the above. And then start working on it. I will tell you what I've done recently since we have the new puppy is I'll go walking every day.

And that's been a huge difference. I forgot how much I need to exercise some. Yeah. Just low impact exercise. And if you can't walk, you learn to breathe and you do yoga. You don't have to be in like a pretzel to do yoga. There's sitting yoga. There's floor yoga.

There's all kinds of time. Well, they say that even if you can't attain those poses, that you get the same benefit, maybe even more than the people that are sitting there can take their knee and put it next to their ear. Because they're trying. Yeah, because they're not. At that point, they're not even trying. Right. They just look cool. Yeah, you've got to.

And I counsel people every day. You know, the biggest mistake you make when you're attempting to work on your stuff's levels is you try. to fix things you try to relax you try to read if you're trying to breathe unless unless as we're talking about on the other like we're going to we'll talk about later maybe the um the square breathing the um if you're trying to breathe that's the only kind of breathing you need to do because you're trying to accomplish a balance in your oxygen and your so too if you're trying to attain enlightenment you ain't going to get it if you're trying to relax you're not going to relax it has to just happen You have to just let it be, and you have to trust yourself.

And that's one thing I preach to people every day. Well, being mindful, too, you know, that word gets thrown around, but if you're literally in the present, then the future in the past can't affect you. And I watched, you know, this guru talking about people that are worried about things that happened in the past, you know, stuff they can't do anything about now. And then things that are going to happen in the future, they haven't had. happened yet. So you're either worried about something that you can't do anything about or you're worried about something that hasn't happened. And when you do that, you're not experiencing the now. And it's almost a form of insanity because you're worried about just make any sense. You know, about shit that may not even happen. It's like, you know, it's just as crazy as worrying that the sky is blue, but your favorite color is purple, you know, and you want a purple. There's nothing you can do about it. So don't worry about it. Acceptance. You don't have to like it. You don't have to love it. You have to love it. You have to accept it, just accept the fact that things are fucked up sometimes.

Yeah. And you just have to accept it. I don't like it. My shrink, and I guess he got this from a 12-step program, but he said, you know, if you've got one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you're in a perfect position to shit on the present. I was going to say to lose your nuts or to have a split. But you are. You're in a perfect position to just take. You could dump right on the presence.

I've never thought of that. That's amazing. And the other thing that he said to me once, and I made it into a plaque, was I will not should on myself today. You know, in other words, not say I should, I should, or coulda. Woulda, shoulda, coulda, that stuff kills you. Terrible. You know, woulda, should have coulda, coulda, you know, we should have done this. I could have done that.

You know, whatever, dude. Just learn and move. Either fucking do it or don't do it. But keep moving forward. Fine to learn from a mistake. Yeah, yeah. Keep moving forward. So, yeah, Cliff, it's been like a year, man.

It has been a little while. And Cliff, for those that have been around for a while, was our intern for a while. And did you finally get your degree? I got my degree actually last Saturday. Oh, is that right? Way to go, man. I finished it up.

Way to go. Thank you. And one of those credits was for sitting in here talking about dicks and smelly vaginas and stuff. It's crazy. Yeah, I know. 2019. I thought it was for doing all of Dr. Steve's work there.

That was a part of it. He did do some work. One of the projects for the interns is to do a best of. I think you did two of them. I did. Yeah. So it's cool. Yay.

Awesome. Yeah, that's an opportunity to get on the air and be, you know, the focus of attention in between the bits on satellite radio, which is nothing to sneeze at. And then also, I don't have to do a show that week, so it's a win-win for everybody. except maybe the listeners right all right don't forget to check out Dr. Scott's website at simply herbals.net that's simplyherbal's

dot net and check us out at dr.steve.com and listen to our podcast where our podcasts are heard and Cliff you still have Twitter yes I do I'm going to be doing some rebranding though so you're going to change your name

so we won't talk about it yeah not yet that's fine all right so I had a a couple of medical stories for us to go through today, and one of them is just absolutely horrific. So I'll do that one first. This is from India today. A 59-year-old man lost his testicles in the most excruciating manner possible after he contracted

a rare form of salmonella during a Tunisian holiday. Well, no, that's not funny. She shouldn't be like, you know. Goodness. So a type of food poisoning caused by an infection due to salmonella bacterium. This person was admitted to a local hospital due to severe pain in his testicles. When he returned to the United Kingdom, he fell so sick he could not eat properly for weeks. And to quote the person, he says, I woke up at 5 a.m.

with the most excruciating pain in my left testicle, I could barely move, and I was in tears from the agony. before his testicles exploded, David was admitted to a hospital again after he complained of Inman's pain. Well, way to give away this ending of this story. According to David, his testicles grew so much, he had to carry them around in his hands. I was in for 10 days, and the pressure continued to grow.

It got so big I needed to carry it around in my hands. It was the size of a grapefruit. I can't even begin to explain the pain I was in. The temperature was off the scale. He also suffered diarrhea and puking. This is some journalistic language. He suffered diarrhea and puking. However, he was later sent home by the doctors despite his critical condition.

Oh, come on. Well, there's your socialized health care for you. The doctor who attended to David said that she'd never seen anything like it in her 20-year career. So send him home. But go home anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what it is. He says, I got in the bath and it just exploded.

It literally went bang, and that was it. When the doctor saw it later, she said it was like a volcano exploding. David added, oh, wait, wait, that's the wrong music. Hang on a second. Where is my, oh, here we go. There you go. David added, it was leaking so much. I had to get one of my grandchildren's nappies and put it around it to stop the flow.

There was no embarrassment at that point As I just wanted the pain to go away When it happened, I felt like a weight Had literally been lifted for me As I suppose it had It was almost a relief That my testicles exploded Sounds like a really intense orgasm

You really want to get off Talk about bust a nut Well Okay, all right That's what this was all for That's what this was all for Well, it should have been If I was actually a funny person, I would have thought of that before just now.

But anyway, that's why you are funny. Yeah, there you call it, whatever. Thank you, my friend. You're the funny one. So anyway, they don't explain anything of how the salmonella got into his testicles. Scott, you may want to look and see if you can find exploding testicle salmonella and see if there's something a little bit more in-depth about this. I try not to read these two.

to up front testicle I mean I'm just going to put it into because salmonella that's like you know from undercooked meat is that correct? That's right I mean it's you can get it from chicken

particularly that's why they recommend not rinsing chicken in the sink and when you get it don't rinse it just cook it because when you rinse it it sprays salmonella everywhere and they did a study

It was a few years back that showed that almost all the raw poultry in this country has salmonella on its surface. Doesn't mean it's always going to cause illness. Right. But, you know, it's there. And so let's talk a little bit about food safety. When you cook chicken, if you're not going to use a suvede, which is a different thing. We can even talk about suvied for a minute. But we always want to cook it to 160 degree.

internal temperature. You need, if you're going to be cooking a lot of chicken, buying a food thermometer, a decent food thermometer is a smart thing to do. And you just plunge that thing into the meatiest part of the bird and avoid the bone. If it's touching the bone, it'll give you an erroneous answer. And it needs to read at least 160 before you eat it. And you don't want to eat chicken that's sat at room temperature for any length. time.

Even after it's cooked? Well, after it's cooked, it's better. But even then, you know, the food at room temperature, the things that you really can't leave out are things like chicken, you know, because, you know, and there's bacteria floating around in the sky, too. And, you know, I got bacillus serious from room temperature sushi rice, you know, rice that sat around too long. So, no, after you've cooked it, it's better, but you still need to refrigerate. and it shouldn't stay at room temperature for very long. And there's actually, you can, Scott, you might want to look that up. There's rules for chefs, for food safety, for how long you can leave certain things out before you have to throw them away.

And it all has to do with once they've attained room temperature, how long do they sit there before you put it away? And I don't want to say specifically because I can never remember those things. I always have to look it up. The chefs all know this. that's why, you know, we have one of the safest food supplies in the world because, you know, the USDA is pretty good at that and our chefs are well trained in food safety. But anyway, if you touch the raw chicken with your hands, which is almost impossible not to do, then any, as soon as you've put it in the pot, before you touch anything else, you've got to wash your hands. because now anything you touch is going to have salmonella on it

and if you lay it on the counter and then you pick it up that counter now has salmonella on it you put something else on there like you know you're cutting up carrots or something or your bread or whatever now you've got salmonella over that so you need to clean that up

and I like the chlorox clean up for that because it's you know the sodium hypochlorite and the chlorox is oxidizing and it will kill the bacteria that's just scary yeah well yeah we should respect it you know this in no way am i saying don't cook chicken unless you know if you want to be a vegetarian that's fine but um if you're going to you got to be safe about it and people do get sick every year from mishandling food did you find anything scott yeah real quickly they just say there's a they call it the danger zone it's

between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit okay if it's somewhere and below that or above that as far as keeping your food safe that's what's refrigerated or cooked Yeah, they give you a time, like the ones I've seen say, you know, well, 30 minutes at this. Well, that doesn't, this doesn't say it specifically, but it says if you're usually two-hour, it's a two-hour rule, but if it's 90 degrees or above, like if you're in a warm environment, like a hot summer day having a cookout. Or a kitchen. They said less, yeah, less than an hour. So no greater than an hour. Okay.

Yeah, I'm looking at this that says you can safely leave cooked chicken out at room temperature for two hours or one hour if the temperature. temperatures above 90. I guess I'm looking at the same website. That's from the USDA. It's scary, relevant because there's been a, you know, a recent chicken sandwich craze. I won't name any brands, but like, just think like, do you want to try that so bad. Well, I mean, risk your balls exploding if you do. Yeah, your balls might blow up if you. That's right. I'll have two, please. And take me to the emergency room afterwards, please. Well, I found a thing from medical principles of practice. This is a journal.

from 2006, and they reported a relatively uncommon presentation of epididimo orchitis, which is what this guy had. So let's break it down. He had orchitis. He had an infection of the testicles. That's what that's called. So if you get mumps when you are an adult male, you'll get parodotiditis, which is enlargement and inflammation of the parodid gland, which is the glands on the side. That's why they get those big giant cheeks. And they will also get orchitis or inflammation of the testicles.

It does the same thing. They'll swell up. So anytime you see an inflamed, swollen testicle, we will call that orchitis. And epididimo orchitis, that's just the full testicle, including the epididymis, which I'm sure everybody that's listened to this show for any period of time knows the epididimus is that flesy kind of bunch of microtubules on the upper backside of the top. testicle when you're examining your testicles that where sperm matures

after it's created by the testes so now we've got the jargon right to report a relatively uncommon presentation of epididimo urchitis and testicular abscess which is what this guy had that's why it exploded like a volcano

because it wasn't the testicular tissue he had an abscess in there I see caused by Salmonella speech in two immunocompromise patients, so both of these patients were somewhat immunocompromised. Now, that guy could have been low immune system for a lot of different reasons. We induce low immune systems in people when we give them things like Enbrell. You see the commercials for psoriasis and stuff.

And what you're really doing is depressing their immune system. People who have had transplants, we have to suppress their immune system so that they don't reject the organ. but then they are more prone to stuff like this. Wow. So hang on a second. I've got to hit the cough button. Sorry. So here you go.

A 56-year-old man, a known case of systemic lupus erymatosis on azothioprene. So this guy had lupus, which is rheumatologic disease. We don't have to go into what lupus is. But, you know, it causes facial rash. sore joints and other things. Sometimes kidney failure. And azothioprene. So azothioprene is imuran, which is an immune suppressant.

Okay. Makes sense. He's got an autoimmune disease. His immune system's going crazy. They give him a mild immunosuppressant. And he was also on prednisone, which is a steroid, which also can, you know, depress your immune system. It's a stress hormone.

He didn't stand a chance. So he had a double dose. He developed a urinary tract infection followed by bacteremia. meaning that, you know, the bacteria got into his bloodstream and epididimo orchitis. So all of a sudden, he's in the hospital, they've done the blood cultures, and they come back positive for, I guess, salmonella

that we haven't got to that part. They're keeping us in suspense. And then all of a sudden, they walk in, and the guy says, hey, my nuts are swelling up. That's basically how this went down. Both urine and blood cultures yielded salmonella enteridus strains, which is just a strain of salmonella.

Which were, and one of the, oh, by the way, the interesting strain of salmonella is salmonella typhi, which, you know, causes typhoid fever. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Which were demonstrated by pulsed field gel electrophoresis typing method, blah, blah, blah. Oh, what they were doing was they did a genetic analysis to show that what was in his urine and in his blood were identical, which I don't know that they needed to do that. I would have assumed they would have been. The second patient of 55-year-old diabetic, diabetics have their own issues with their immune system,

presented with testicular abscess from which a pure culture of salmonella enteridus was obtained. Both were treated with intravenous piprocylin, which is a, oh, and amicason. This is a very potent combination of antibiotics, followed by oral cyprophloxacin. Oh, geez, which is another in a different class. They really loaded them up. They responded well to the therapeutic regimen, were discharged home well. So our case, you know, who knows what happened to him, he didn't get this good outcome. You know, his abscess got so large that it just exploded.

And, yeah, that's the end of your testicles when they explode, by the way. I just imagine, like, they're like, oh, grapefruit's not come back with the size of a basketball. Yeah, yeah. We can't see you if it's just a grapefruit side. Well, there are those guys that have this thing called, what the heck is it called? massive scrotal edema. Look that one up, Dr. Scott. And these people will have nuts that go down to their knees.

And they have to have a cart. But it's not their testicles that are swelling. It's their scrotum that's swelling. It's a different thing. Their testicles are all compressed and they're probably the size of a pea. Oh, wow. It's really a different, you know, organ or different entity altogether because the ones we're talking about here, their actual testicles are swelling.

In that, the scrotum gets edematous. because of disrupted lymphatic flow. You know, you can pump fluid in, but you can't get it back out again. I see. And they'll just get bigger and bigger and bigger. Google, if you want to see something interesting, just Google image massive scrotal edema.

Of course, nobody listening to the radio can see it. Okay, Scott's just in outer space. No, no, no. I'm just waiting for you to stop talking. I'm waiting for you to say something. Well, forget it. I got another. Oh, well, hell with you there.

All right. If you find some pictures, show them to Cliff. I'd love to see. I did find one case of a guy with Scrotum. They waited at 32 kilograms, which is... 66 some pounds. It's 2.2 pounds per kilo. How many kilos?

32. We haven't given Echo anything to do. Echo, what's 32 times 2.2? 32 multiplied by 2.2 equals 70.4 pounds of testicles. God. And his was related to lymphedema. Yeah. Yeah.

So lymphedema is where you have, you know, we have this other circulatory system. It's clear lymphatic fluid. And it often parallels the regular circulatory system, but it's separate. it. And when you have a situation where you can pump fluid into an area but then can't pump it back out, it's got nowhere to go, just it continues to build up. We use that to our advantage, men do, when we get an erection because we're closing down the ports that release or, you know, allow blood to flow back into the circulatory system while we're still pumping blood into the penis. And then, oh, my, yeah, Cliff is now seeing the picture of massive scrotal edema. I highly recommend that everybody, Google image that. Yes, poor gentleman, his testicles are the size of a beanbag.

That's legitimately the size of a beanbag. I mean, a beanbag chair, you mean. But his actual testicles are just, they're super small. They're super small in there, yeah. They're probably dead. Oh, man. Oh, yeah, they did. And there's no way he can get to his penis.

So what they have to do, you know, the area around where the penis normally would emerge is now subsumed by this giant scrotum. So when they pee, they just pee and then water just sort of dribbles out from the sides from a fold, basically. Yeah, I don't even see where it, yeah. Yeah, no, it's gone. It's in there. It's just massively involuted. They did do the surgery, so they got to take care of. Yeah, now is his penis okay?

Yeah, it looks like it. He's got a catheter, and that's never okay. Ooh, boof. Jesus. Yeah, poor bastard. Yeah. That just sort of stopped us cold. Yeah, well.

We were having a good conversation, and we're like, oh, God. If anyone has ever had, if any male has ever had a catheter, I can't speak for the females, but for a male, it's. Oh, yeah. No, I left the scene of a crime. Yeah. It wasn't really a crime. Dr. Steve broke, was breaking a law. I broke the law because I just had a, it wasn't a catheter.

but it was a fiber optic scope. Yeah, you've had that, right, Scott? Fuck, yeah, hell. Terrible. So I had blood in my semen. It's called hematospirmia. And it only happened one time, but you want to just make, you know,

my rule is if you see blood coming from an orifice is not supposed to come from, you need to get it checked out at least once. And then you can blow it off after that. And so these urologists have this fiber optic scope, it's this long, thin, shiny black tube that they can look in one end

and, you know, it's got the fiber optics so they can image inside things and they go, oh, no, it's fine. We'll put this anesthetic gel on it and they put it on the tip. It just makes them feel better. It doesn't make you feel better because I felt every bit of that

and it felt like they took razor blades like a tube and like there were little razor blades sticking out from it and that's what it felt like because your urethra is not used to touching anything other than urine or semen. Right. You know, every once in a while blood, but that's it. Maybe some saliva, you know, at the tip and stuff.

But it's not used to that. And it really, and it, I, after he pulled it out, and that anesthetic gel did nothing. And by the way, if you have to have this done, this is not to discourage you. You know, Scott and I talk it up. It sucked. It was horrible. Well, I have to say that you have to do what you have to do. You have to do. And it sucked for, you know, a few minutes.

Right. And it's worth doing. So I wouldn't just, I would absolutely do it again. I might see if they could figure out a different way to anesthetize you a little bit. Yeah, I was going to say like a general anesthesia. Well, yeah. Yeah, that would be insane. The ideal, but.

I think the risk would far outweigh the benefit on that. But it seems like they could take a small. a smaller fucking camera. Or, yes, or just have gel in like a bulb and then squirt it up there and let it sit for a minute. Right. Before they shove a DSLR.

Because it doesn't work immediately that, you know, they put it on this the tip of this thing and then just jam it right up there and there's no time for it to numb and mine never did numb. Oh, man. Maybe it would have been worse but it was so bad that as I was pulling out, I ran into

I bumped into somebody's car and I just got out and I looked and I didn't I promise you if I'd seen any damage I would have stayed but I didn't see any damage looked for about 30 seconds and said I got to get the hell out of here and so I went home and laid down

because I was still felt like I was pissing razor blades even though I wasn't pissing and then you know ding dong and there's the police and somebody saw me do it and got my my tag number and he had a photograph that showed that the, like, the rear light was busted. And it was like, I said, that's on the wrong side.

That's not where I hit them, but because I left, I couldn't, you know, it was their word against mine. But I ended up paying, you know, $1,200 for something that they had done before and just decided to pin on me. Man. So don't leave the scene of an accident, even when it's nothing. and talk to your urologist about what can they do about getting you a little bit better pain relief when they're doing that. But anyway, where were we? What were we talking about? Oh, the catheter.

Yeah, catheters, yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah, but anyway, the guy, the guy appeared intact, so post-surgical. Yeah, catheter does suck. It does suck. All right. Now, Cliff, you've been, you've had an issue recently.

I have, yes. Let's talk about that. This is our Christmas show, so we might as well talk about exploding testicles and whatever Cliffs got on his mind. Well, you know, and I'm not sure if it can be described as PTSD, but, you know, you mentioned before, you know, I've done the diagnosis. Right, right. Well, you know, in previous years, you know, I've done comedy. I've been very social. I've gone out and, you know, done the thing, whatever it was.

Sure. In the last, I'd say, you opened for Vic Henley. Yeah, and that was a... Which was awesome, by the way. That was a great time. That was a really good time. And, you know, and honestly, I haven't even done stand-up. And since then, I have not done a single, I've not gotten on stage.

And I think this problem has contributed to that. But I think I had gotten so consumed with, like, you know, the news. And there was, like, a lot of mass shootings and stuff. And I realized that. But you were working at a news station at this time, right? Or am I wrong about that, right? Well, I was working in, I was doing news-related things because I was working on campus at their news station. And then I went over to an actual news station as well.

So kind of, so you were immersed in it. Exactly, I was immersed. And I realized that I was afraid to leave my house. Like, I was afraid to go out in public. Like, I posted on my Facebook recently that I have not been inside of Walmart since September. And that's the longest I've ever gone. And I realized that I was terrified to go inside of, you know, stores that had a lot of people. And I was like, man, I've not even gone downtown to have a drink.

I mean, it's fine. I was drinking a lot. But, like, you know, I don't do anything anymore. And so it's just been this crazy thing where I've, almost been afraid of my own shadow. No, dude, I totally went through this. I've talked about it on the show, so I'm not just going to me too, so, but, and it was crippling when I had it.

So I'll tell you my story. And then I'm, I'm actually over it, so you will get over this, but there's a specific technique that you have to use. What you're getting is incipient agoraphobia, okay, and this is how it happens. People will, I'll talk about it in general, and I'll talk about my case. People will, and this is just sort of a blanket description of agoraphobia, someone will start having maybe a panic attack when they go to, you know, the post office. So they just don't go to the post office anymore.

That's no big deal. So, you know, I'm not going to the post office. Every time I go in there, I get a panic attack. Then, of course, that doesn't make the syndrome go away. So now it happens when they go to the grocery store. So they don't go to the grocery store anymore. And then it happens when they're driving on the highway, so they don't drive on the highway anymore. And their world starts to contract until their whole world is, in the worst cases, just in their bedroom because they can't even leave their bedroom.

This is a very severe form of a panic disorder. I had it. I'll tell you my, what happened to me, I was happy, go lucky, just, you know, I used to walk around New Orleans in the worst parts of the city. At four in the morning, drunk off my, never even think about it, you know, and never had a problem. And so, you know, I felt like I was invincible. And I was in my apartment and in Chapel Hill and my wife's sister was over and we heard a noise on the back porch. And I always left my back porch door, window open, you know, just air conditioning was expensive. I was poor.

And so I left the door open. And we heard something on the back. She said, is the dog out there? And I said, I don't know. I'll go look. And I go out, and there's this guy on my black back porch, right? Now, he didn't have a gun. He didn't have anything.

He was just standing there. And I didn't find out until later we had a peeping Tom in the neighborhood, and it was him. But at the time, I didn't know who he was or why he was there. It just surprised me because I was expecting to see a dog and I see a dude standing there. And I was just like, hey, what's up? And he just went, yeah, man, like that and just, you know, no, like, oh, you know, none of that. Just total calm. yeah man and then he just kind of turned around and real slowly walked away and I don't know what

it was about that but it punctured that balloon of you know that illusion of safety that I had and I started getting panicky everywhere you know and I got to where if I went out I was going to have horrible anxiety I had to go to the emergency room a couple of times because I literally thought I was dying what I was doing was hyperventilating I didn't didn't realize it. And we'll talk about those symptoms, too. And I was getting ready to go to medical school. I'm like, I'm not going to be able to go to school.

You know, I had gotten in at that point. And that probably contributed to this as well a little bit, you know, just the life change that was coming. And when I'd walked down the street, if there was a crowd of people, I would say, I'm walking. I know murderers and people like that have walked right where I'm walking. and I wanted to scream at everybody around me. You all are fooling yourselves if you think you're safe. You know, there's murderers all around us.

And you guys are just going about your business. What's wrong with you? Of course, I was the one who had the problem. And so I went to counseling, and that helped a little bit. But what really helped me the most was not ever, and I don't know where I had the strength to do this, because so many people can't pull this off, but maybe it was just necessity

because I was working. I had to go to work. And there wasn't any other option, and I had to go to school and all that stuff. And I just never allowed it to keep me from doing stuff. I still went to the movies, even though I was intensely uncomfortable. I forced myself to go.

I forced myself to hang out with friends. And I'll tell you where I got cured. And it sounds like you're, You know, agoraphobia is similar to mine in that, you know, you don't like being in a room with a bunch of people. And so I was at the North Carolina State Fair, and I went there because they, I was working at the TV station, I think, at the time or no, I don't know why, but I knew that they had five days worth of fireworks they had to shoot off because it rained for the last four days, and this was the last night of the state fair in 1980, 81, 82, something. like that. And so they had, and I liked fireworks more than I was worried about my anxiety. And again, I was really trying to force myself to just confront it all the time so that I knew my body, I figured my body would eventually learn it wasn't going to kill me, because that's what it is.

Sure. Yeah. So at the end of the fireworks thing, which was awesome, by the way, the finale, you know, where they shoot off everything, went on for like 10, 15 minutes and it was incredible. It was just the sky was just lit up it was a really awesome display and so my adrenaline was already up anyway just from that as we're walking out there's 10,000 maybe more people trying to get out of one door in the fence right so I was surrounded in a sea of people I couldn't see anything but people there were people in front of me behind me and I was just you know shoulder to shoulder we're all just trying to work toward that door and my wife at the time looked at me and said are you okay and i went

you know i got to be yeah and at that moment it was like i either have to get better or i have to die right now and you know my brain decided it was going to get better and you know from that day forward i still had some anxiety for a long time i didn't like walking in front of an open window or a window that didn't have a shade on it that freaked me out part of it was finding out this guy was a peeping Tom, but, you know, still that shell or that illusion of safety, you know, it had been stripped away. But that was it, you know, it got so much better. I never had another panic attack again.

I still had anxiety from time to time, and I'm still a weirdo, you know. I could tell some stories about stuff that gets on my mind that I got to do something to resolve it or it drives me crazy. Like if I think somebody's mad at me, and there never are. They just didn't text me back, you know. And I'm like, oh, good. God, are they mad? What did I do?

And I started mad. That kind of, I still have that. That I can live with. But that crushing anxiety and the agoraphobia I couldn't live with, and it eventually went away. So continuing to challenge it is really the key. If you allow it to win, it will win. But if you don't allow it to win, it will lose eventually.

But it takes time. It might take you one of those sort of trigger events like that, you know. Okay. But anyway. Thank you. That's very, yeah, I would agree that that is basically. exactly what I'm going through. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I've got a couple of articles for you. There's one in U.S. news calling putting agoraphobia behind you. And you don't have full-blown agoraphobia, but it's, you know, you've got a subset of it. And you don't want it to become full-blown. That's the key. That is the key, because those are the, they're so damaged. Yeah, identify it and start working.

Just knowing what it is. Yeah. It helps a lot, just having a name for it. Now, I'll give you a technique because so many people out there suffer. from anxiety, and we've done this before, called square breathing. You may have even been here before, before this happened, but you just didn't pay attention to this. Now it's a little more relevant.

Now it's relevant. So one of the things that causes the symptoms of these panic syndromes is the heart pounding, the tingling around the mouth, the tingling of the hands, the feeling faint. And that's all caused by hyperventilation. But you go, well, I'm not breathing fast. And what my doctor at the time told me was you don't have to breathe fast. by your definition, you just have to breathe faster than your body is needing you to to keep your carbon dioxide level where it's supposed to be. And what you're doing, if you breathe

one time a minute more, you know, if the body needs you to breathe at 12 times a minute and you breathe at 14 because of the anxiety, you'll actually blow off carbon dioxide and your carbon dioxide level and your bloodstream will drop. And that's what causes the physical symptoms of anxiety other than the adrenaline. The adrenaline is what causes the hyperventilation. Then it becomes a vicious cycle because the more you hyperventilate, the more anxious you get. And then the more adrenaline you pump out, the more you hyperventilate, and it just, you

spiral into infinity. So if we could break one half of that vicious cycle, you get better. All right? So this is what you do. You have to increase the carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. Now, there's two ways to do that. One puts a target on your back, and that's having a paper bag and breathing into it. So, like, if you're on the subway and you're getting anxious because you're on the subway,

and then you pull out a paper bag and start reading, everybody knows. Yeah, they know that. You've just put a target on your back, okay? And most people leave you alone, but the people who aren't going to leave you alone, they're going to spot you, and you're the one they're going to go after. Okay. Now, so you can do that, and what that does is as you exhale carbon dioxide into the bag, and then you reinhale it, the carbon dioxide.

level and your body's got to go up. So it's very effective, but it looks stupid. So here's the better way to do it. It's called square breathing. And we'll do it right here. And do this with me. You don't have to. You're an adult. It's a free country, but I'm just saying, if you

want to, you can do this with me. So we're going to breathe in for four beats. Okay, so we're going to go now we're going to hold it for four beats. Now exhale for four beats. And hold it for four beats.

And then repeat. Now, if you do that, first off, you can do that. You don't have to snap and look, you know, you can just count in your head. No one will ever know you're doing it unless you're having a conversation. Right. You know, it's kind of hard to have a conversation that way. But, you know, no one will see you do it. No one knows what you're doing.

So that's sort of empowering. And there's no way you can hyperventilate when you're only inhaling or exhaling one, of the time. It's impossible. So three quarters of the time, you know, three beats of four, you're not inhaling. And three beats out of four, you're not exhaling. So you can't hypermenalate. And your carbon dioxide levels will immediately rise. And within a minute of doing that, all those physical symptoms will go away if you do it right. Cool. Take some discipline when you're having a full-blown panic attack and sit there and count four beats. And, you know, but once you have done it successfully and you see how well it works,

that gives you some power over it. Cool. But try that next time. And then I'll send you some articles too. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope you get better because anytime someone calls in and they've got this, I really empathize with them because it was horrendous for me.

The other thing that made me feel better was there was a medication called Combid. Could you look that up and see what was in that? It's no longer on the market. C-O-M-B-I-D, Dr. Scott. It was Composine and something else. and it's a non-addictive tranquilizer, but we use it for nausea. So compazine was prochloraparazine, or is it profenazine? No, it's prochloroporazine.

And then fenugent is promethazine. Okay, yeah, all right. So prochlorparazine was originally designed as an antipsychotic. But the good thing about them is unlike Valium and so that's the problem. People get down Xanax. It works great. but you develop tolerance to it more and more and more and you get habituated to it so it's hard to get off of it

the good thing about this com bid stuff at the time and they gave it to me because one of my symptoms was just horrendous nausea on top of everything else when I took one all my symptoms went away and matter of fact I functioned normally on this stuff I could do anything and I didn't get that anxiety and I only took a few doses of it but that's really all it took because just knowing

that I could feel normal again helped with my recovery because I knew, hey, you know what? I don't have to live like this. This can be beaten, you know? Okay. So that was pretty cool. Did you find that stuff?

All I see is prochlorparazine. Yeah, but you can't find combid? That's what it says under combid. Oh, is that really? The maker, the maker Smith, Klein, and French. Is that right? So there was nothing else in it. What I'm seeing here,

Prochloroparazine. Huh, okay. And I'm not telling you that. So that's just compasine. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at other websites. That's all I can find, though.

Okay. Wow. You know, it's so interesting. You brought up the, you know, driving down the highway thing because I had to get on the interstate to get here today. Yeah. And it actually, this is, I mean, maybe for the last month or so I've been okay with getting back on the interstate. Yeah. But I haven't left Tennessee basically this entire year because of that.

And I've recently been able to be like, all right, get on the road. It's fine. Yeah. But I'm going to try this square breathing. I've never heard of that. That's very interesting. I have a family member who has a phobia about getting on the highway. So that's kept him or her from driving, you know, places that they really want to go.

Right. Yeah, for sure. And they will get on the highway and then sometimes turn around. I really hope they get better because that's a tough one. Yeah, ComBid now looks like it's an HIV drug. so they've co-opted the name because it's no longer on the market as that other. So that's why we're having trouble finding it. But it was basically prochloroporazine, which is compazine.

All right. Well, very good. Oh, what is this? Oh, never mind. Now, see, that's my ADD. I've just seen things. All right. You guys want to take some medical question.

We've got about 10 minutes left. Let's do it. All right, here we go. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. All right. Hello. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. Oh, this is very professional. Why? This is what they call dead air. I'm listening to your program about the flu shots, and I just wanted to add that now they have flu shots without any preservatives in them. You could get them at Walgreens, and I got it at my doctor's office. So that takes away the discussion about the aluminum.

Thank you. I really enjoy your program. Thank you. Thank you. She's absolutely right. Single dose vials of vaccines will not have preservatives in them. The only reason they have them in the multidose virals is because, you know, you can introduce a, you know, a couple of bacteria. And then you're shooting people up with bacteria-laden vaccine.

So, but if you ask for a single-dose vial, there will be no preservatives in it at all. So for people that are worried about it. that. We, you know, our position has been that the preservatives are not the issue, but if you, that's okay. If you can't get past the idea that preservatives, you know, are in your vaccines, then just ask for the preservative free versions. It's totally fine. You know, I've never thought of that, but I didn't realize you could request a preservative, like, I didn't realize that was something you could even do. Sure. Yeah, I think a lot of people are not aware of that.

So, yeah, if they'll just get single-dose files, it won't have any preservatives. There's no reason to put a preservative in it. Agreed. Yeah. All right, very good. Thank you for calling that in. That's great. Let's see.

Cool. Hey, Dr. Steve. First time, long time. Hey, man. So you were just talking about poison ivy and people misinterpreting it spreading up their arm

with actual just intensity of insult. to the affected area. Yeah, he's right. So just so everybody's up to speed. We were talking about this sort of illusion that poison IV spreads. It starts on your hand and then hits your wrist and then goes up to your arm. And it's not really spreading.

What's happened is that the place that came out first might have gotten 10 parts per billion exposure. And then the wrist may be five and then up the arm maybe one. And they all will have the reaction. But the more, the higher they're going to be the higher. the concentration of the antigen that hits your skin will come out first. So it looks like it's spreading, but there's actually, it's not like you scratched it and then somehow scratched it up unless you're nasty and you haven't taken a bath and the oil, because poison ivy is an oil.

And if it's still on your skin and you've never washed that area after three days when the poison ivy comes out, and then you scratch it, yes, you could spread the oil around. The oil. Okay, and it can stay on clothes, pretty indefinitely, so you've got to wash them. And dogs. Yep, and dogs. And it can actually, people say, well, I just walk by it, and I get poison ivy. They're not lying, actually.

Poison ivy on a real still hot day, because it's an oil, it's volatile, and it will disperse into the air, and it'll sit there as a cloud, and you literally can walk through it, and people who are really sensitive to it can get it that way. Jesus. I got last winter. You remember we had that huge snow last winter. winter that 14 inches of snow and I was having to cut some trees out in my backyard and shit two days later

three days later I got poison heavy all over both my arms and hands. Did we treat you with steroids that time? I don't remember. No no I just I did some topical stuff thank goodness yeah Jesus. Not a fan by the way if you have poison ivy this is really a Christmas show who's going to get poison ivy this time of year but Scott did

yeah I did just call me Lucky that's Mr. Luck. Lucky. The don't use the topical Benadryl. No. Topical Benadryl actually is sensitizing itself. So when you put Benadryl, which is diphenhydrame, it's

an antihistamine on your skin. Sometimes it can cause a rash, an itchy rash of its own. Oh, shit. If you're going to take, if you're itching, take it by mouth. And I know people don't do it because it causes dry mouth and sleepiness and that kind of stuff. Now, your primary care provider can provide you with a

couple of different anti-itch medications that are less sedating than diphymine. But that you can at least buy over the counter. Anyway, all right. So let me see. So now we've got we're all up to speed. Let's see what it's question. It made me think when I was a kid,

I used to get poison oak. I grew up out in California. I got poison oak all the fucking time. And I was so allergic that every time I would get it, it would literally spread to most of my body. Yeah, me too. And I would get it in places like my scalp behind. Yeah, Nutsack. I had a friend, Bruce Donahue, and he and I had this thing called the

cashier's agricultural labor company. We were just two 15-year-olds trying to make money. We've got a buck 60 an hour, I think, if that. And we would sling blade people's hills. Yeah, yeah. And with these damn swing blades. And, you know, now you'd use a machine to do it, but we'd get out there with these damn sling blades. And you would sling that stuff all over you. We would have poison ivy everywhere. My ears, you know, places that I wasn't getting exposed to the poison oak at all. Yeah, you weren't.

I would often have to go to the hospital to get, you know, cortisone shots and stuff to bring down the swelling. So what the fuck? Was I just, you know, bathing in poison oak or rolling around in it and get it all over the place? Well, I don't know that you were rolling around in it, but I guess he really didn't say how he got his exposure. But, again, it's a volatile gas or it can become, it's a volatile oil that can become a gas, and it can go anywhere where those molecules can go. You damn sure don't want to burn it. No, no, it's stable in heat, too.

So when you burn it, it's a problem. You don't want to wipe your ass with it if you're out in the woods and learn to identify it. so it makes it really pretty flower though I had one that a vine of poison ivy that was going up a tree in my yard and it was so huge the the stem whatever was you know probably an inch and a half across oh wow and when it got up to the top it made this real big

sort of fleshy looking flower I never seen anything like it I had no idea of poison ivy flowered anyway I didn't either but yeah that's what you were doing or was it legitimately spreading Nope. Like, you said it didn't do. Well, if I said it didn't do it, then that can't be it. All right, let's see here.

So, yeah, we had another news story about plant-based diets, and I want to just, we did this call once before, but it's good to just talk about this every once in a while. Scott's got an update. I think a quick question for you. I'm not sure exactly this is right. or not. But I went to go see my diabetes doctor, my endocrinologist, and she was smart enough to ask me,

not tell me or demand that I do something, but she asked me if I would consider going on a more plant-based diet. And so the last four or five days I've been trying that, just trying to stay away from bread and everything else. But holy shit, am I just mad? I mean, I get mad at everything real easy. Is that normal and will that subside? I think, you know, the anger comes probably, well, first I want to know how you're implementing a plant-based diet.

If you feel like you're depriving yourself of stuff, that causes stress and anxiety, and that could cause some anger. You need to be on a balanced plant-based diet. You don't need to be missing things. You know, your body before was probably used to these big spikes of carbohydrates. Because he said he took out bread, too. That's part of it. Didn't he say that? Yes.

That's part of a plant-based diet. You can have some bread. Well, unless she's concerned about this carbohydrates or gluten. Well, that's a different thing. You know, if you want to put him on a low-carb diet. Or gluten-sensitive diet or something. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's gluten-free bread and you can have potatoes and stuff like that.

I mean, potatoes are a plant. Just you don't want to eat, you know, it's bad. They say kids in the United States now are eating more vegetables than ever before, but it's potatoes, you know, it's French fries. And that's not, so that's more plant-based stuff, but it's not necessarily, you know, the best thing for you. But anyway, you found something about this, because I'm a big fan of the Beyond Meat. I found it in our grocery store finally in the meat department, and it's in a pack, looks just like hamburger. And so I made, you know, I made something out of it, oh, spaghetti sauce or something.

No, hell no, that's not right. I made meatballs. I used my regular meatball recipe, and I made it with the Beyond Meat meat. And it even looks. It looks like it, yeah. They got the texture absolutely right. The flavor is mostly there. And, you know, if I made a burger out of it, I could probably tell with these, with the Beyond Meat.

But the second that you're putting thyme and basil and garlic and all that stuff into, you know, you cannot tell that it's not meat. No, and I do the same one. I made some sliders the other day with it. They made like a vegan gluten-free slider for those beyond meat burgers. And I also use their sausages, too, which I love. I make like an Italian sausage with it. The sausage is basically Italian sausage. So we bought it.

They're fabulous. It's beyond sausage, they call it. And when you look at them, you don't know if they're brats or what they are. But they're basically Italian sausage. And the second we tasted that, I was like, oh, I know exactly what to do with this. So I cut them up into slices and then sauteed them. That's what I did. You know, tossed them with some garlic and butter or just olive oil if you want to go full vegan.

And some black. So crushed peppers. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And then throw it in some marinera and put that over, you know, pasta. Or I put it over that lentil pasta. Have you had that? That's amazing.

And the cauliflower shells are, I can't tell they're not pasta. And they don't kill me like regular pasta does. Yeah. Because I'm glute. And there's an artichoke pasta, too, that I love. It's unbelievable. Oh, I haven't had that. Yeah, it's wonderful.

Yeah, but these things are really mimicking actual pasta. You know, when you do zucchini, you know, fetichini, it's just zucchini. It's not fooling you. No. But this stuff, I can't tell it that it's not actual pasta. I don't know how they're doing it. No, you know, Dr. Sue, I just thought it was an interesting. A little topic here.

It's talking about a plant-based meat market forecast to reach $85 billion in 10 years. What's the regular meat market? Well, and I didn't look that up, but they're saying that right now it's growing by at least 25% per year. Yeah, my Beyond Burger stock did very well for me until I think somebody said that they thought that there was some chemical in it that was a carcinogen and the stock, you know, it tanked. I wanted to tell my broker, buy more, but she sold it. You know, I still made money, but that's the time to, when there's a false story about something in the stock tanks buy, because it's going to go. The company didn't change. It's going to go right back up.

Yeah, Beyond Meets, their stock went up 700%. Jesus. Yeah, she thought I was crazy. And I'm like, no, I'm telling you, this is going to be huge. Okay, so the United States is projected to produce 27 billion pounds of beef in 2019. It doesn't say how much that is. How much is the meat industry worth? The value was estimated $4.5 billion.

What did you say for that? They said $85 billion. Billion. And tenured with a B, Buffalo. Over ten years? In the next ten years. Well, no wonder the meat guys are freaking out. Right.

That's a pretty big share that they're taking from them. Yeah, it's $11 billion with beyond meat. That's what they're, I guess, their stock was up to. and they had never made a profit until just recently. Wow. 9 billion chickens. 32.2 million cattle and calves, 241 million turkeys, 2.2 million sheep.

It's just a holocaust out there. 121 million hogs and poor old hogs. Well, golly. Hey, Steve, remember we did this years and years and years. 26.3 billion pounds of beef. Hey, wow. But you remember years ago we talked about how many chicken wings were consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, so I googled that again. 1.25 billion chicken wings.

That's 8 million pounds of, and 8 million pounds of guacamole. All turned into human feces within 24 hours. Super Bowl Sunday, yeah. That's 28 million pounds. Well, you just think of it. Just think of chicken wings. So we live in a small town. I mean, it's not really a city, but, you know, I guess it's a really, really small city or a large town.

Everywhere you go, you can get chicken wings. Everywhere you go. That's a mainstack. You can get chicken. Well, if we stick with wings, so you got KFC and then you got Popeyes and you got all these other places, these wing places, plus the grocery store, plus lots of restaurants serve wings. And every local restaurant, every chain restaurant. And this is just one town in the United States. So how many towns are there in the United States?

And it's just this endless supply of these chicken wings and these poor chickens. You know, when you think about it, I mean, it is a chicken Holocaust. Yes, it is. Yes. I think that's what got the GVAC, don't you? They're going to, yeah, it did. Yeah, it really got to him big time. They're going to just rip our arms off and fry them and eat them.

Yep. So, when you think of it's for football. You think of the sheer numbers. It's just insane. Taking one for the team. It's mind-boggling. We can't even conceive of a billion. Right.

And if you take a pen cap and you enlarge it a billion times, you can fit the sun in it. And the reason why that's not, it doesn't, isn't as stunning as it should be, is we can't conceive how unbelievably huge the sun is. Right. Yeah. You know. But anyway, all right. So I am not advocating. that beyond meat right now is healthier than meat.

I'm not, I don't know that it is. We don't know yet. I'm going to guess it's a wash. It might be slightly healthier because of less trans fat. Trans fat bad, trans everything else, totally cool with. But, you know, so there may be that. But as far as calories and how much protein and how much fat you're getting, it's basically the same.

I'm just hoping it's better fat. I don't have a good analysis. That's something. It'd be nice to have maybe somebody from their company break it down. That would not be unbiased, but we would be unbiased. Right. But I think it's fascinating. But as far as the cattle and chicken holocaust, it is, you know,

but we've got to worry there's a whole lot of people making, you know, who have jobs. Right. Dairy farms, cattle farms, chicken farms, you know, they've been handed down from generation to generation you know what do we do if somehow this encroached to the point where we're putting those people out of business we don't want to do that we still want to produce so i don't know the answer i know that the meat guys would like to see this stuff not sold in the meat department or at least labeled separately because i really did when i found my beyond meat it was in the meat department in that refrigerated section where they got those little trays that are kind

of it 30 degrees or whatever. And there was, you know, Johnsonville sausage and then some ground, somebody, some brand beef. And then this was right next to it looked just the same. I could see somebody accidentally picking that up, thinking they were getting meat. So I know in Wisconsin, when I was a kid, you couldn't sell margarine with a yellow food coloring in it because margarine is just white fat, spread. and they put yellow food coloring in it.

And Wisconsin, since it was a dairy state, they had to buy, they had to sell margin. If you wanted margin, they'd sell it to you, but you had to get a little capsule of yellow food coloring. And then you'd have to squirt that in and then mix it up your damn self. Oh, that's so crazy. And I understand why.

Yeah. They wanted that, you know, that's that guild mentality that, you know, we don't want people encroaching in on our business. For sure. But, you know, stuff moves on. Look at Blockbuster. You know, if you had stock in Blockbuster at one, point you were doing great and then no one could have predicted that it would all come crashing

down in the space of just a couple of years yeah and they're going to have to learn some adaptability as well as far as you know the farmers and things like that like what are some ways they can kind of make up some of those losses let them grow pot i mean yeah legalize it let them grow pot they'll make a ton absolutely that gets them out of the tobacco thing and burly and all that stuff and yeah some people may want to transition to that it's a heck of a lot easier and raising a bunch of cattle, I'd guess. Oh, yeah. Now, the prices will fall as supply increases, but, you know, right in the beginning, at least

you think you could make a killing. I don't know. Yeah. Very interesting. I'm a libertarian. I'm cool with whatever, but it is really fascinating. Dr. Scott and I are going to work up a song for next time. This actually is our Christmas show, but we might have a Christmas song next time.

which will come right around the first of the year, still in the holiday. It still counts. Yeah, until January 6th, which is 12th day is still the Christmas holiday. And what we're going to do is we're going to rework a song, and I'm going to play it for you today. But my friend Murray and I worked this song out about 20 years ago.

Now I can't find it. Where the hell is it? I just had it. Did I close? I am an idiot. We worked this out, and it was basically part of sort of like a radio play about this guy who wanted to be a country music star. And so he rents this crummy studio in like the back room of an AM radio studio. And we did these things, and they were purposely bad.

And as a matter of fact, I did a guitar solo on one of them that was so bad that he and I laughed. hysterically because it was just the right amount of bad and if you are interested in this kind of thing go on YouTube and Google Lester Roadhog Moran and the catalog Cowboys

Johnny Mac Brown High School live at the Johnny Mac Brown High School and that's where Big Joe's intro comes from. This is from the Stattler brothers this thing We're missing contains mature contents that may be offended to some listeners.

I'll be right. What did they wrong in? You know, your old's house is like another. It actually takes some skill to play that bad. You have to be trying to miss notes. You have the no chord structure and things. That's right. You've got to know what the wrong notes.

You've got to know what the right ones are to play the wrong notes so that they're funny. But anyway, so here's that song. This is my friend, Murray Reims, who was one of the greatest percussionists I've ever met. He toured with Crackhouse. He toured with Don Preston all over the world. And the guy was and is an incredible percussionist.

And just one of the funniest and more talented people I ever met. And with all that talent, this is what we came up with. So we're going to redo this in Murray's honor because he's not doing music anymore, maybe for next show. or maybe we'll save it for next Christmas holiday, but here it is, Heavenly Parole. Well, Lord, you know it's hard to tell when the life of a man takes a downward turn. And all these messes I've been in,

I just never seem to learn. I freely admit that I've made mistakes. Some things I couldn't help. And Lord, what I was going through was nothing less than hell. Now, Lord, I know that I'm prone to drink and other enemies of the soul. And I know that's why I ended up in this God-forsaken hole. But when I lost my job and my wife got sick, Lord, what else? could I do?

I could take a whole lot, but I couldn't stand there and watch my children with no shoes. So I got me my gun, and I took me a ride down to the convenience, Mark. How could I have known when I came back out that my pickup wouldn't start? The manhunt didn't last too long. They found me hiding down by the crew. Now here I sit at Christmas time, and there's just one thing that I seek. Lord, get me out of prison for Christmas. Lift me from this dark and dirty hole.

Let me see my dying wife and my starving kids. on your heavenly bro. Lord make me feel like Christmas in my soul. Well, they're probably hanging the Christmas lights on the trailer door tonight.

And they're probably baking cookies and singing silent night. And their mama paints up her pale face. and tries to stand up strong and tell them though their daddy loved them that what he did was wrong. Lord, I'm just sitting here staring at that one long, distant light That's reminded me of that old star

That once did shine so bright That led the wise men from their ancient home so far away to worship at the manger where the baby Jesus lay and the spirit of that Christmas Lord is still alive today I've seen it take the worst of men and change their evil way

and I've changed too Lord in my ways this I do believe and that's why I may this one request on this blessed christmasy or get me out of prison for christmas lift me from this dark and dirty hole let me see my died wife and starving kids place me on your heavenly parole Lord make me feel like Christmas

in my soul Oh Lord Please get me out of prison for Christmas Lift me from this dark And in jeho Let me see my Dithe wife and my

starving kids Place me on your heavenly parole. Oh, Lord, make me feel like Christmas in my soul. Yes, Lord, please make me feel like Christmas in my soul. Oh, Lord, yes, make me feel like Christmas in my soul. All right, gentlemen. Thank you. Happy holidays.

Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanza. Happy Boxing Day. Happy, happy, let's say Hanukkah already. Happy Festivus. Fest of us for the rest of us There you go Anyway, it's great hanging with you

And Cliff, welcome back, man Thank you We get to do this more Yes We can't forget Rob Sprantz Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes Anthony Coomia

Jim Norton Travis Tefflewis Johnson Paul O'Charski Eric Nagel Roland Campo Sam Roberts, Pat Duffy Dennis Falcone Ron Bennington and Fez Watley

whose early support of this show has never gone unappreciated Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk Channel Series XM Channel 103

Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern, on demand, and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to go to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. Go to our website, Dr. Steve.com, for schedules and podcasts and other crap. 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.