Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 393 - Perchance to Dream

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

Dr Steve, Dr Scott, Cliff Andrews, and "Smithsoni-Andy" discuss medical topics of the day. PLEASE VISIT: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) Feals.com/fluid (lab grade CBD products!) TRIPP.COM offer code DRSTEVE (relax and get 20% off!) simplyherbals.net (While it lasts!) 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!) 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-haired. I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolabovir stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heart valve, exacerbating my impetable woes. I want to take my brain now. Blast with the wave, an ultrasonic, agographic, 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 a requiem for my disease. So I'm aging 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, the traditional Chinese medical practice.

who keeps the alternative medicine wackos at bay. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Stee. We also have in the studio today in the old waiting room, so to speak, boo. It's, what do we decide your name is? I think Cliff came up with a pretty big. Yeah, Museum Andy, but Cliff came up with... Smithsoni Andy.

Smithsoni Andy, yes. That's your winner. That's your winner. So it's Andy, the museum curator, but he's now Smithsonian, Andy. So there you go. Very good. Thank you. And then now we've got Cliff Andrews, the – I wouldn't say king of all media,

but he is the master of many different forms of media. It doesn't quite have the rank. Right. Maybe one day. Anyway, good to have you here. The cliff of all media. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. If you've got a question, you're embarrassed to take your regular medical provider.

You can't find an answer anywhere else. Give us a call at 347766-4-3-3-23. That's 347. Pooh-Head. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine at Lady Diagnosis at DR. Scott W.M. And now, what's your, again, Cliff? At Cliff Medicine. At Cliff Medicine. Very good.

Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy or go to our merchandise store at CafePress.com slash Weird Medicine. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything here with the grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear in this show without talking about talking about with your doctor, nurse practitioner, physician, assistant, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga, master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory scientist, registered dietitian or whatever. We're on that's pretty damn good. You know, a good friend of mine since I was 16 years old, you know, speaks a lot to how males get along in relationships, you know, over time. and best of friend

and he just knows I work in a museum and doesn't know what I do so he calls me the feather duster. So he has this image of you going through and taking the dust off of King Tuts sarcophagus. Your job is the beginning of the first Jurassic Park every day.

Yeah. Basically. Well, okay, so Smithsonia Andy is pretty damn good. I like it. It's so stupid. I like it. It's decent, Cliff.

It's not bad at all. Dr. Scott, what's going on with you? What's going on with simply Herbils.net? Have we shut it down yet, or are you still got some stuff over there? No, we're going to try to make it through the end of the end of the end of the year. Through the end of the fiscal year or the end of the calendar? Calendar year. Really?

Yeah. I'm happy to hear that. With what products? Well, right now, just the fatigue. Stress less. Yeah. We're working on it that, just trying to find a better formula for the sinus spray. Okay.

Just to have a longer shelf life. Yeah. And then I'm going to sell it to somebody. Well, you sold it all. out right so yeah oh yeah no we sell the shit of it's just uh it's just you know dr thiev it's it's it's 100% bulk yeah and being a buy it in bulk versus being unbuying small batches yeah and when you're selling something for six bucks it doesn't matter what your profit margin is it's hard to make money it's hard to make money yep yeah it's really hard

and like I said the biggest the biggest issue is being able to to buy in a big enough bulk so you can sell it and have better margins because you know it's just a margin issue sure Of course. That's all right, though. So we're looking for sponsors, Cliff. Cliff, he doesn't have any money. I don't have any money. You know, it's so funny, though.

I've actually, I had had a second interview with them. I'm not going to say the name of the medical company, but it's a small medical company. And we are talking about finding partners. Cool. And like, who knows? Maybe that could be something they have on their shelves. Maybe you guys promote them on the way. You know people.

You know people. And we know Smithsonian Andy, too. He's a professional dust. A professional dust. Smith, Sony, Andy. I love it. All right. Well, anyway, yeah, so Andy, what's new in science?

What's the coolest new science thing that's come across your desk in the last week go? Well, gee, thanks for putting me on the spot here. Well, do you know NASA is hiring astronauts? What? For real? For the first time and a long time. Is that right? Yeah.

Do what? Be an astronaut. Go into space. Do they still go into space? Well, your old buddy, Trump, has decided to have a space force. Oh, right, right, right. And they're going back to the moon. Okay.

Which I'm all in favor. They're calling us the Artemis Generation astronauts. They haven't been to the moon yet. It's all a hoax. Shit. So what's the shining up now? What's the significance of Artemis? Well, I think that's the moon project, right?

Oh, is it? This is going back to the moon. Oh, okay. the moon. Yeah. They found water in these craters that never see sunlight and enough water, apparently, to just keep them going for the longest time. They can crack it and make oxygen.

They can crack it and make hydrogen fuel. They can drink it. They can, you know, use it to flush fecal matter down the moon toilet. I was just saying maybe we could put our current administration. and stuff on the moon first. Oh, well, let's get political on this show. Oh, I know, that's not political. That's a real...

Speaking of medical conditions, not political at all. That's a prescription for success. They have a medical show and then go all political. Food troop. I have nothing to do with him. I said the entire thing, every damn money. That's fair. Well, let's take every single, Paul.

Everyone. The whole of Congress, everybody. I'm a libertarian, and I'm all for getting rid of everybody. And I'm getting closer and closer to being an anarchist. Right. No, I agree. Michael Malice has really kind of turned my head around on some of that stuff. Is it the last name really Malice?

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah, it's probably Malichivik or something. They were Russian. Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know.

Malice, M-A-L-C-E doesn't seem like a Russian name, but he's a Russian, you know, first generation. You'd never know what to listen to him speak because he came here when he was a kid. Would you guys go? But he's really cool. He's got a show on gas digital network called You're Welcome, and he trolls people because it's Y-O-U-U-R-E. And then people go, well, you know, you know, you apostrophe, R-E, and, you know, but he'll say at the beginning of the show, let that be your welcome for the day. So in that context, it's Y-O-U-R well. That is funny.

I get it. Would you guys any? He said he trolls people on Twitter, too. He was talking about Hitler making the Berlin Wall, you know, stuff. It was, you know, it was Stalin and the East Germans, you know. But, you know, and just trolling people. It wasn't Hitler. And then now they end up kind of defending Hitler, sort of.

That is a weird conundrum to find yourself. I know, I know. You've got to be so self-righteous. He's such a great troll. Check him out. It's at Michael Malice. But anyway, what are you going to say, Scott? I was just say, well, going back to astronaut thing,

would any of you guys even consider going into a sports? God, yes. I wouldn't fucking go. I would go tomorrow. I'll do the one-way thing to Mars. If I didn't have, if I get my kids going, you know, if they were a little farther along, I would do that in a second. I think being in orbit would be pretty amazing. You know, it would just give you this profound sense of how big the world is and how small we are.

A profound sense of clusterphobic. Well, sure, but I mean, if we can get over that part of it, you're seeing the whole world. There's no claustrophobia in space. Shit. I would drink some moon water. though I'd be afraid it would make me impotent though but I don't know my mind goes there with moon water I don't know what if there's

no gravity you'll have perfect true oh wait a minute there's no gravity good benefits yeah there is gravity it's one sixth ah it's one sixth of what we have here not yeah not as much so you'd get six times the so your wiener wouldn't fall down as far

yeah that's good no I would do it I would do it tomorrow I would absolutely I was going to be an astronaut Dr. Steve you would do the Mars thing I would yeah If, like I said, if I didn't have to worry about my kids and all that stuff, if I was single and didn't have a 16-year-old and a 15-year-old at home, I would be on that one-way mission to Mars. Absolutely, I would do that.

How cool would that be? I just, I don't know, man. Matt Damon didn't make it look all that fun. You really didn't. I got to tell you. Well, it was a movie. Well. Yes.

And? Right. But it was real. It's real. That happened. So Artemis was the Olympian goddess of the moon. But also chastity, which means, you know, I don't like that. In time, she also became associated with childbirth, yawk.

Oh, wow. And nature. Oh, and she was hunter. So she was a chaste hunter who somehow, despite that, became associated with childbirth. That's interesting. Multitasker. Yeah. Really?

Yeah. So there you go. But anyways, you can go to USAjobs.gov and apply to be an astronaut. Is that right? Yeah. I had a friend who was an astronaut. Really? Yep.

He was a physician, and he always wanted to impress his ex-wife, and, you know, she was into astronomy and stuff, and he figured the best way to impress her was to go into the astronaut corps. So he did, and she was still unimpressed, but he went into space. He went on a space shuttle. He was a physician and did, and then when he got back, things just didn't go well for him. And, you know, he ended up killing himself, which was really awful. Oh, boogers. Oh, man, that was the worst story that I've. No, I know.

He was my, he was, we were inseparable at one point in our lives. I'm sorry to hear that. He's actually the reason I went to medical school. Oh, wow. So I don't think I've ever told this story, but he, I was languishing in a ham radio store selling electronic parts and ham radios wondering what the shit I was going to do with my life because I'd graduated with a degree in radio television and motion pictures and I worked in television but I really got sick of being told what to do by people that were infinitely dumber than me.

It really bothered me. And so this ham radio store was just sort of a play, a sort of a solace where I could just, you know. But in doing that, you know, I learned electronics, which by the way is physics one of If you've ever taken college physics, physics 102 is resistors and inductors and all this stuff in series and parallel. That's all it is, you know, for almost the whole semester. So, you know, I'd learn that. That was the thing that scared me the most was taking physics and stuff. That's why I took such an easy major.

And I was learning Smith charts and impedances and, you know, stuff. So this guy comes in, dumbest guy you've ever met, big, goofy, red-headed, pudgy, dude. And he says, I just, you know, I'm a new ham. Can you help me put my ham radio antenna together? And I'm like, no, but I can show you how to do it because what he wanted was to put up a dipole. So that's like, it's two wires hooked up to coaxial cable in the center, a real simple antenna, but it can be very effective. And I, you know, I said, what bands do you want to be on? Well, okay, so I want to be on 15 megahertz. Well, that's, um, or no, I want to be on 21 megahertz.

Well, that's 15 meters. Here you've got to have a half-wave dipole, so we calculated how far it should be, got them an impedance matcher and all this stuff, and, you know, drew it out, cut the wire to this length, because at that point I was pretty facile with this stuff, and sent him on his way.

It didn't think. Another thing about it, the next day, this absolutely drop-dead, gorgeous woman shows up in the ham radio store, which... That was your first gift away. Wait a minute. I mean, it doesn't happen every day in a ham radio store. I'm dealing with big fat guys, you know, with four teeth going, well, I've got me a saltwater ground.

And, of course, I was selling CBs, too. That's the way God intended it. Yep. And salt water ground in my truck, I get out real good. So, you know, I was dealing with a lot of that. And then this gorgeous woman comes in. And I'm like, well, I hope she comes over here because we had a stereo store on the other side. I figured she must be going over there because no hot woman's come to my side.

And she looks me in the eye and says, are you Steve? And I went, why, yes, I am. And she said, would you help my husband put his antenna up at the house? And I went, why, yes, I will. I'll clock out right now. That son of a bitch had sent her in knowing good and well what the outcome would be. if she came in and asked me to do it. There's no way I was turning her down.

So I went and I did help him. And it was kind of fun, actually. I liked doing that kind of stuff. I just didn't know him, you know? And we started talking. It turned out he was a doctor. And I said, you know what? I'd always wanted to go to medical school,

but I just didn't think I was smart enough to do it because in my family, I was stupid Steve. What? Well, it's bizarre. It's not a testament to how mean my family was. It's how smart they were. It's ridiculous. How smart my family is.

I was the dumb one. So I never really thought I could do it. But this guy, I'm like, if he could be a doctor, I know I can do it. So I went and got an MCAT prep book and started looking through it. It was like, this shit isn't that hard. And I started taking fake tests, you know, sample tests and stuff of the MCATs, which for people don't know, it's the, I can't even remember what it stands for any more medical something. Something, achievement test or something like that.

Or maybe it is aptitude test. And then, yeah, and I had to go and take classes. And I told my dad one night when we were having dinner, this was the second thing that had to happen. He came to visit, and I just said, yeah, I was thinking maybe I'll go to medical school. I don't know. And we just went, well, really? And we just went on with our conversation. Well, when he went home, he sent me a letter.

And he'd like to write longhand letters. And he sent me this long five-page letter and said, look, you said something the other night. If you want to get in, if you want to go to medical school, all you got to do is get in, I'll pay for it. Oh, wow, nice. You know. It was your brother's Dr. Steve. Was he already in? Yes.

My brother was already out. He's 14 years older than me. So he was quite the role model for me, too, because I saw how people, you know, regarded him. I was like, I want that in my life. I don't have that selling. I didn't realize. I forgot he was that much older. selling, you know, CB radio antennas.

You know, I just don't get that sort of regard, and I wouldn't have that regard for myself. And so, you know, yeah. And then, you know, there were some other things that had to happen, but those were the two things because if my dad hadn't been listening and encouraged me right then, I might not ever pursued it. But that day, you know, I got on the phone

and said, what do I got to do to get in? Well, you've got to take these, these, these classes. And, yeah, so I took chemistry. chemistry and physics and calculus and zoology and anatomy and all that. So I took that all at once in two semesters, well, two summer sessions and two semesters. And that was the best prep for the MCATs that you could imagine because that's what it all was. So I was up against when I took the MCATs against people that had taken physics their freshman year to get it out of the way. Well, now they're seniors.

They forgot it all. But I just had it. I just had every class that they tested you on. at that time. And just when I saw that I got double digits on each one of those, I think they scaled them from zero to 15. And any time you got double digits, like we got a 10 or higher, that was considered a really good score.

And so, you know, I don't, I think my lowest score on one of those was an 11. And I scored a 14 on something. And it doesn't matter, but they were all good. When I got that letter, I said, oh, shit, this is happening. Did you ever reach a point where you were like, oh, what did I? What am I doing? No. Just just about four hour ago.

The thing is, once you get in, like, you get through medical school. And there are times when you go, God, if I had known it was going to be like this, maybe I wouldn't have done it. But in residency, for sure, there are times when you go, this is bullshit. You know, why am I here? But you're so, your pot committed at that point. Right. And then, but those were fleeting. And it was usually, you know, at three in the morning, in February, when you're in

intern and you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, by the time, then you become a second year resident, things get a lot easier, and then a third year resident, or even easier still. And then by after January 1st, your senior year, you can see you're starting to look at what are you going to do for the rest of your life. And yeah, then it's all pretty downhill. Now, they've changed medical training quite a bit since my time. And I always hate when I'm talking to them to be that guy, well, you know,

When I was young, we rode ponies to school. I hate to be that guy. We worked 140-hour weeks. But we did. And we liked it. We only have to work 40 hours a week. Yeah. And they didn't feed us, and we had to steal food from the doctor's lounge, which we were not considered doctors.

And, you know, that sucked, but it was a bonding experience. But now they've changed things so much that any job pretty much that they get now, when they graduate from residency, is going to be harder than they're. residency because they're capping how many admissions and how many hours they can work but when you get out you don't have that you know there's none of that so now if you're a resident and look the residents out there just calm down it's you know it's just some old guy talking i just pretend i don't know what i'm talking about because i know they're getting mad but um uh you know when they're on call they get the next day off there's none of that bullshit for real when you're working. Now, a lot of docs now don't take the kind of call that they used to because they

have hospitalists, so it's a little different. But if you are a physician who is primary care and you're taking call for your own patients and you're seeing them in the hospital and stuff, if you work all night, you've got patients to see the next morning. You know, there's no taking that day off. You're right. It's because of, and I really blame, or it's not blame, but I attribute a lot of that change to the change in medical training that happened. And reimbursement coverage, too. You know, when, you know, back in the good old days when there wasn't the insurance and there's a lot of just, you know, pay for service.

My great uncle. You pay for service. The doctors took care of you all the way through from birth to death through hospital stays and everything. Well, because it's. Yeah, and they used to go to the hospital and they'd make rounds from seven to nine in the hospital and then go to their office and then come back after office. And go home to deliver a baby.

Oh, yeah. That wasn't. It wasn't that long ago that that was normal. My great uncle invented a urologic procedure that is done every day now. And he was a urologist, and he was unbelievably rich. I remember I used to go to his house in Chicago, and he had this big tutor, you know, Chicago down, you know, city mansion, one of those things. And, you know, at that time, hell, he couldn't have been making $15. bucks for a procedure, but that's how money was different back then, you know? And, yeah, they didn't

have insurance and stuff. And, you know, they bartered for some things. People paid just they paid what they could. He was at the city hospital. But because he invented this thing, he was fabulously rich. And I remember when I was five, in 1960, I was five. And we went to Uncle George's house. And he would hand all the kids a bag of nickels. And we would go downstairs. The parents would all go upstairs to his giant, you know, fancy, you know, wood, just that old school wood everywhere living room and they'd drink and he'd hand all the kids a bag of nickels and we would go downstairs and in 1960, he had a basement full of pinball machines and one-armed bandits and somebody had that shit back then in their home, you know, except this insanely rich person.

Wow. That's cool. Yeah, it was cool. Old Uncle George. and I remember I hit the jackpot this is how he got to be rich I guess I hit the jackpot on one of his

one-arm bandits and just spewed out a bunch of nickels and I wanted to take him home because I won him I was five I didn't know and he got so mad How you get mad at a five-year-old I know?

He's taking his nickels Get my motherfucking nickels boy I'll fight a five-year-old right now I don't care if I am your uncle That's what it was like He is from Chicago I guess that's fair again They don't play any shit

up there. It's funny. Well, anyway, okay, well, enough of all this, my stupid stuff. Yeah, I'm going to look forward to this Artemis program,

and I'm looking forward to them going back to the moon. I was a little disappointed in the spaceship, though. It looks just like the Apollo spaceship. They're like, oh, we've got this new thing, and it looks just like the Apollo

command module. I'm sure inside it's totally different. Have you guys watched First Man? I've not. You should watch that. It's about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins going to the moon and how they got there.

And it's got some recreations of historical things. And I remember as a kid watching Neil Armstrong almost crash. They had this lamb simulator that actually had jets on it, that he could fly around. And he about died on that damn thing. It just got out of control. He had to eject from it. It was only like 10 feet above the ground.

I mean, it was crazy. And, you know, if it had flipped over and he'd ejected it, would have killed him. So those guys, their computer that they used to land, apparently at one point during the landing had to be rebooted. It only had 4K a memory in it. If it was even that, it might have been like, it was between 1 and 4K in memory. That's nuts.

Yeah. Like I had a little computer, like a Vic, I had a Vic 20. Do you guys remember that? Vic 20 had, I think it only had 6K of memory, maybe, but then I had a Commodore 64, I had 64K of memory. But this thing had like 4K, if that. And had to get them home. It had to get them, yeah. Wow.

And, you know, it is a really tense thing. They had just a couple of seconds left of fuel when they finally touched down and they were going to, this close to aborting that mission. Because the landing space, they weren't landing in the right spot. Yeah, and there was like boulders everywhere, and he was nervous about, you know, and even then they didn't know if when they landed, if they were just going to sink into 20 feet of dust, you know. Oh, that's a good point because it's kind of a toss-up. Like, wow, man, that's nuts to think about. Yeah. Crazy.

So that's a great movie. I think it was first man was the one that I watched that I really liked. Did your friend and mentor have any good medical stories being a physician and an astronaut of like what that was like or just. At that point, we had lost touch. And so the last time I talked to him, I just said, what was it like being in space? He said, you can't even imagine. But that's all I could get out of him, you know. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. He did medical experiments on the astronauts. That was what he was there for. So it was pretty cool, though. Wait, legit medical experiments? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, cardiac output measurements and stuff like that. They'd get them on this treadmill and then measure their cardiac output.

And, you know, just what they're really looking at, those experiments we're looking at, how do people live for a long time in outer space? Because at some point, we may want to live in space. So how are we going to do it? I'm still surprised that they haven't put the big wheel and give it a little spin, you know, like 2001. And so people can walk around on the outside of the wheel. You know, pretty cool. All right. People don't want to hear about what we're interested in.

and they want to hear what they're interested in. And I've got an article about the new coronavirus compared with the flu. This is from seven days ago. And this was from live science by Rachel Retner. She's a senior writer. We'll see if she can write if she's a decent scientific journalist because, you know, I'm always ragging on medical journalism that sucks so bad. But she said the new coronavirus outbreak has made headlines in recent weeks,

but there's another viral epidemic hitting countries around the world called. Oh, and then she says, flu season. Well, that's not an epidemic. That's a season, but influenza is the epidemic. But anyway, so, yeah, another viral epidemic hitting countries around the world, flu season. But how do these viruses compare? Okay, so so far the coronavirus dubbed 2019 NCOV, which listeners to this show will already be very well familiar with,

has led to more than 20,000 illnesses and 400,000. 127 deaths in China, as well as more than 200 illnesses and two deaths outside of mainland China. But it's nothing compared with the flu, also called influenza. This is not good. Also called influenza. In the U.S. alone, the flu has already caused an estimated 19 million illnesses, 180,000 hospitalization and 10,000 deaths this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control. and prevention, you know, that said scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades. So people blow off the flu and they don't get their flu shot, even though, you know, we have a, they

would go out tomorrow and get a coronavirus vaccine and not get a flu shot. It's all about branding, man. Flu is not a catchy name. Coronavirus, though, it's like, oh, man, I could get a, I could get a vaccine or a beer. That's right, or our vaccine and a beer. We should vaccinate people for corona and give them a beer, just as a promotional thing. People will come get vaccinated for this thing. But influenza way scarier, but it's because we've lived with influenza for ages,

and it's kind of the devil we know, so we've become comfortable with it. Whereas this is a new thing, and we've all seen outbreak and contagion and all that stuff, and people are freaked out by it. Hysteria, telling you. So, yeah, 10,000 deaths this season alone. You know, despite the danger of it, we know a lot. about flu viruses, what to expect each season in contrast, very little is known about the 2019 NCOV because it's so new. That means it's a wild card in terms of how far it will

spread and how many deaths it will cause. Right now, with the limited data that we have, it looks like the mortality rate is 2%, which sounds high, except that means 98% of people will not get it. Now, if we look at all of China, which obviously this thing hasn't had a chance to spread all the chances. You're talking about a billion people and they've had how many illnesses so far? Did we say 20,000? Okay. You know, if you do the math right now, not very scary now, but we're still in the early phases of this. I told Anthony on the Anthony Coomia show about two weeks ago that it's going to take three incubation periods before we'll really know where we're going with this. So that'd be six weeks. If the incubation period is about two weeks,

then six weeks, we really should kind of know where we're going. You know, how transmissible is it? Is it really easy to transmit? So if it's easy to transmit, then you'll see, like, one case in California become however many people he came in contact with. So it may become 100 because there's asymptomatic transmission. Is it through the whole thing or is it just the first few days before you get sick? but they know there is asymptomatic transmission, but we don't know yet when that kicks in.

So Cliff has it. He gives it to me. And two weeks later, I get sick. But I was able to transmit it to people. Well, was it just the day before? If that's the case, then it's a little bit more reassuring than it's been 10 days, and I've been typhoid or Corona-Mary walking around giving it to people.

And then how transmissible is it so I can shed it at, say, let's say, seven days. So I'm seven days asymptomatic. How easy is it for me to then transmit it to somebody? Do I have to really cough in their face? Or do I need to snod on my nose and touch a doorknob and then someone else touch it and then stick their finger in their nose like people get influenza? Or is it just a single droplet can do it?

We don't know. And that all affects how virulent this disease is going to be. And I thought that you needed to be more susceptible to respiratory issues as well, and I didn't know if that had something to do with it. Well, it could. So, for example, with influenza, there are at-risk populations. So the swine flu is an interesting one because when swine flu comes around, even though I'm older than you, I'm less likely to die from it than you are because of the 1970-whatever, 72 swine flu epidemic. Right. So I've been exposed to.

to it before the older people. It was the one time when it was, there was an advantage of being older. Being old. Yeah. Was, you know, with the swine flu epidemic because they were noticing that little kids and young adults were getting it worse than the older people who lived through that epidemic. So it just depends on the virus.

Gotcha. You know, and is it host factors? Do you have to have a host factor? In other words, some genetic receptor that allows that virus to grab hold of your cells and really multiply, because some people may not have that. Even during the influenza pandemic of 1918, only 10% of the world's population got it. But 10% of those died. Wow.

So, you know, its mortality rate was 10%. Now, that still meant that 99% of people in the world did not die from influenza that year. If I gave you those odds, you'd take it to two. Vegas and bet on black, you know, because I'm always going to bet on black, but, you know, that's, if we go to, um, uh, those numbers, then it doesn't sound so scary. But when you hear 1% of the Earth's population died, that's a huge ass number. Yeah. You know, so. You know, I've not heard anything more, which is really kind of surprising about how it is transmitted. Have you? Well, no. That's the kind of, don't you think, it's a little bit bizarre? No, not yet. It's really only been, what, two weeks? Three weeks. Three weeks, yeah. We've got to get through these incubation periods before we can see, and now a pattern will emerge. Well, I got it, and I was exposed to that person, you know, 10 days ago. Then that kind of tells you, yes, it can be transmitted early in that asymptomatic period. And you say we need to go through three

of those really to yes to kind of get a feel for how this is going to expand geometrically or is it going to expand you know logarithmically or you know just arithmetically you know is it uh or is it just going to peak and then taper off kind of like SARS

did because SARS kind of came and went yeah and MERS the same way MERS seems really hard to get because there were just a few cases of that let me see how many cases of MERS there were funny enough you mentioned it last time I was here. Our local Walmart in town was actually out of face masks.

Is that right? Yep. No, I'm sure they've gotten them since because it's been a couple weeks. But, like, yep, they were out. Went in there, couldn't buy any. Is that right? Yeah. People buying them and mailing them to China. It's something.

Well, there's, you know, I read something about there is that enterprise out there where people are buying them off Amazon and then they're reselling them internationally and everything else to try to make money. That is the most fucked up. Like, if you're going to get some custom-made ones. We talk about that, getting custom-made, uh, weird medicine face masks i'm into that that's cool that's fine i got all the face masks you'll ever want so if you need face masks you come to me okay uncle steve will take care of you

if you only if you only like game room downstairs he'd be the perfect uncle's right that's right well i don't need a game room anymore i got virtual reality we let us keep our nickels if we went by that's right you try to take my nickel i'll kick your way if i'll tell you you can keep your damn So it looks here, November 2019, there's only been 2,500 cases of MERS since 2012. Oh, wow. So, you know, this one's already kicked its ass, but MERS is a coronavirus. Oh, so they're a different kind. It's a Corona family.

Gotcha. Yeah, this one doesn't even have a specific name yet. Not yet. I think you mentioned a couple weeks ago. Hunan, you know, they're going to, they'll give it a name soon enough. All I was saying call it now is the novel coronavirus. Yep. That is my biggest beef with social media because there's so much hysteria and so much just like Hublub, is that a word?

Hubbub. Hubbub. Yeah. But like, you know, people don't have the facts. But they see a headline or a clickbait title and then that's what they go with. And then they buy all the fucking masks at Walmart. Yeah. Off of no information.

It's like when it's going to snow here, though. We're in Tennessee and it's going to snow. And then you go to the grocery store and all the beautiful. beer and the bread and the milk are gone. It's like anarchy. How much bread and milk are you going to eat in one day before they clear off the streets around here? Yeah, it's the most bizarre thing, isn't it? I've never, it cracks me.

What are they doing with all of that? The milk makes no sense. It makes no sense. I don't even eat bread half the time. I don't know. Well, I've got to stock up on this. I'm gluten-free. Back in the good old days, I used to go to the store and I'd buy as much beer and Copenhagen as I could.

That's hilarious. Because it's like, well, I don't eat no damn bread or milk, but I can't live without Kobe Reagan and beer. Priorities. Man, it's got to have it. Beer and it's chew, man. There's nutrition content. There is. Well, sure, there is.

You can live for years. Tobacco is a plant, too, right? Tobacco is a plant, right? Yeah, there you go. Wouldn't recommend swallowing much of it. It's natural. It's all natural. Yeah, and tobacco.

You can live for a while inside a good oatmeal porter, though. It's got plenty of nutrients to sustain. You can live on water for 60 days. Yeah, especially if you're my size, you can live probably longer than that. That sucks, though. I'd be such a dick at the end of that 60 days. Oh, no, yeah. You won't be a happy camper.

I mean, it's a slow 60-day death. It's not like you're going 60 days and you're great and then you're talking about that. I feel wonderful. I'm fine. My skin's always been falling off like this. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. Well, let's see here.

Why don't we do some phone calls? We'll go from there. And follow my Twitter feed. I try to post a little something about influenza and coronavirus every day. I've been a little slack the last couple of days, but usually there's something on there. Love your show. Listen to you right now. It's 549 Eastern Time.

Okay. On Sunday. I actually don't have a typical comment, but your recording has a weird noise in the back. Oh. It almost sounds like a vacuum. That's Cliff. Kind of going on constantly. It's pretty annoying.

I figure if you guys want to know, it's a... Definitely some kind of line noise or something along those lines. Oh, that's terrible. I usually listen to it. I mean, I was an audio engineer. I'm pretty picky about the audio we put out. Yes, you are. And sometimes when the Weird Medicine Studio gets really hot up here

and, you know, we'll have the air conditioner. Yeah. If you're listening on headphones, that might drive you crazy. Most people tell me they see, even then they can't hear it. And they'll say, you keep complaining about the white noise in the background. but we can't hear it. So, you know, in their car, if you've got even any little bit of white noise in your car,

white noise coming across the radio has to be really loud for you to hear it. This guy must have his radio turned all the way up there. Maybe he always listened with the headphone. So anyway, sorry about that. I'm happy for you guys to critique us on the audio because I want it to be good. Yes.

So, let me, okay, let me see here. Hey, I was wondering if you have your email you answer questions, which helps a lot of people out. Do you ever get sick of some people, not because they're rude or mean or anything like that, but because they ask too many questions. Well, okay, let me, let me, I do have an answer for this. I have their email address to spam. So you know me they answer.

No, I don't ever do that, and I've never really had anybody drive me crazy in that way, knock on wood. We stopped taking live calls because we had a few, people who were calling in. I don't have a call screener and they were just kind of monopolizing the thing, just a little bit. And I just found

I could control the flow of the show a little bit better if we went back to the voicemail thing. Now it kind of sucks because we haven't been doing the live shows for our YouTube channel in a while. Those were actually kind of growing in listenership.

But, you know, maybe we'll do that again sometime. It was fun. It was just So much time. Yeah. It's so much time. Yeah, we were doing three hours every third Sunday. And that's three hours recorded. That's not the time it took to do it.

That's right. That's right. Well, I'd totally be down to help with call screening, by the way. Yeah, it's kind of fun. Yeah, I'd be down with that. I would like to do some live shows again. We've talked about doing live shows for Sirius XM for years, which we would have to do it at 8 o'clock on Saturday night.

Nice. I'd be down with that. Yeah, I know. What am I doing? you know it'd keep me from drinking too much on Saturday shit we'd be liquored up I was gonna stop you from drinking too much on Saturday no shit they ate 15s is bed time it's Dr. Steve's eyes beginning real that's Tasey's bed down

that's when I start getting shit done she goes to bed early and then I'm you know I'm getting stuff done by the way we had really good response to our last show where we had Nanaia Reeves on from trip.com I got lots of people emailing us that they were really interested in the virtual reality, and we have started using it at the Cancer Center. And I took it to the hospice house today,

but didn't really have anybody that could use it except for one employee. Actually, my physician colleague was kind of stressed out. I had her do it. But it's incredible. If you want to check that out, go to Trip, and we don't get anything for this. They just wanted to give our listeners a discount. So, t-R-I-P-P-com, use, if you decide to sign up for it, or if you have an Oculus Go or an Oculus Quest, you can just sign up on the, in virtual reality.

It's so cool. But use the offer code, DR Steve, does Dr. Steve, DR. Steve, you get 20% off. And it's cheap already. Do it. Because I don't think they'll be cheap for long. It is cool as hell. And I want, before you guys go home tonight, if you want to be. Before you guys go home tonight, if you want to try it, it's really neat.

And I do it every night before I go to bed, and I really feel like it's helped. It's given me some clarity in my life, no question about that. That's cool. So although, you know, I've always sort of thought that Pilates, for example, where people are doing yoga with police to pull themselves into these positions and the yoga masters come over here and they go, oh, look what we're doing. they're hooking their leg up to a pulley and then pulling it so they can yank it up real high and they're just horrified by it right these yoga masters this is kind of the pilates of meditation there's no question about that it's it's machine enhanced mindfulness right but it is cool as hell well and your idea of getting grant money and using it for patients too i think is

really cool did my first one uh last week can't really talk about it other than it was a good experience yes very successful hell yeah you got to pick the right people, too. Yeah, because a lot of people aren't ready for it. No. They're not into it. Well, yeah, and you don't want to put it on a little old person with dementia or something like that.

They'll just freak out. Although they have done virtual reality stuff on patients with dementia and just done like nature scenes so that they're getting to see something more than just the four walls. And it's supposed to be really effective in helping people just kind of be less agitated. That's cool. I really like that. Awesome.

And this is just the beginning. This stuff's in its infancy. But I want you guys to try it so we can talk about it next time. All right. Let's see here. Hi, Dr. Steve. Hope you're well. This is just a really short message to say, even though I'm a few weeks late,

thank you for your podcast. I know that you know that it needs a lot to everybody listens, including me. Wait, I want to hear this. I'm a few weeks late in saying that because I've got my head down and I am stuck. Oh, and then she hangs up. Hang on. Okay, sorry. I got to start that over because that was,

I wanted to get Tacey on because what a coincidence that she's calling during the show. It's basically while this chick's calling. I know. Yeah, it's a hot chick and I'm getting ready to go. I know. She sounds awesome. And then, you know, my wife, of course, cock block. Hi, Dr. Steve.

Hope you're well. This is just a really short message to say, even though I'm a few weeks late. What is it about the British accent? I don't know, but, mm. She just sounds gorgeous. It doesn't even matter. No, it doesn't matter. She's, yeah, there you go.

Isn't that something? What is it about that? She ain't from around here. Thank you for carrying on your podcast. I know that you know that it means a lot to everybody that listens. I don't know that, but thank you for saying so. And I'm a few weeks late in saying that because I've got my head down and I am studying my chemistry and then my biology because you are part of the reason why I've been so inspired to do medicine.

Oh, my goodness. I've emailed you this before me again, sorry. That's so cool. At 26, I've realized that's what I want to do. And having your archive podcast. Let me pause her. I was 27, so that's not, and it's not too late. We had a woman in my class was 44.

So if you're called to do it, just go do it. Because, you know, not to get too biblical, but if you're called to do something and you refuse the call, you're going to end up in the belly of a fish. Just ask Joan. I'm just saying. Okay, let's let her finish her. It's just been incredible to listen to.

I love your podcast. It's my favorite. It's such an inspiration to listen to you. I say, thank you. Okay, if all the rest of you assholes out there hate this show, I don't even care because she likes it. I'm cool. Then I'm cool. She didn't notice a hiss.

For continuing it. And I just hope that you know how much you mean to everybody that listens. And I'm sure we've all got that individual, very special connection with you. Even though you don't know any of us, we all know you quite well. And we love your show. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I want to check the authenticity of this phone call. I swear. This is Dr. Steve. I swear, I had nothing to do. Hey, ma'am, you don't mind calling me. The lady diagnosis? Yeah, that's right? There's no way Diane could sound like that.

No. But anyway, no, that's awesome. Good luck in your studies. We can help in any way for real. And we've got Science Andy here and Media Cliff and, you know, Dr. Phil did quack over here. Hey, truth hurts. No, but we're here, we're here for you, and that is awesome. We're here for everybody, but especially hard.

That made my day because I had a really bad day today. Aw. Yeah, there you go. I'm glad you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

What else we got? Hello again from Kentucky. Quickly, can you answer this? I try to look up, and it's kind of hard to find out. Lately I've been seeing, and even Jim Norton has advertised Bluetooth, and there's some other one, the Roman or some crap. It seems like suddenly you can get ED medication online fairly easily, and I'm just wondering they advertise them as having the same ingredients.

Is this legit or is Yeah, so we're running out of time So let me take two seconds to explain how this works So they are legit They're using a technique called telemedicine So there are some states where it is legal To do an initial face-to-face visit with a patient As long as you're not writing a controlled substance

Through this thing called telemedicine The reason this law was created was to broaden people's access to health care. So, for example, I've got, you know, maybe somebody in Russell County, which is a little county, a million miles from the Weird Medicine Studios that need something, you know, specialty evaluation, but we can't get up there quick enough. We could do it through telemedicine.

We put a camera on me, a camera on them. We take a history. The person there can do a physical. They can even allow me to hear their heart and their lungs and stuff like that. that. And then we can make a diagnosis and make recommendations. And so that's what they're doing, basically, is they've got physicians. And I don't know if they're using nurse practitioners and PAs or not. I just don't know it. It may vary by state. Some states, maybe you have to be an MD or a DO. But it doesn't matter. They're using providers. And they take a history and make sure

that there's no contraindications, then they can write it. And then they can sell it to you, too. So if they say it is the same thing that's in Viagra or that they're actually selling you Viagra and Sialis, then that's pretty much on the up and up. It's the ones where they say, well, it has the same effect as that little blue pill. They'll say that. You need to look at the ingredients because a lot of times it's the same old, you know, horny goat weed and Salpile Meadow that's always been in everything. Can I hear a lot of the blue chew ads actually myself? And I'm like, I wonder.

I've wondered if this is, if this would help. Yeah, it's for real. And that stuff is legal. You just got to vet them. If it's one that you're not sure about, just when you call them, you say, hey, am I actually getting sildenafil or tell a whatever sale is teladalphil or whatever the hell it is? And, you know, is that what we're really getting? Read your labels. Say yes, then they, you know, they're being in big trouble with the federal government if they're selling you one thing but actually selling you something.

What are the restrictions on what they can prescribe you as, you know, as far as... Depends on the state, and it depends on the state that they're prescribing in, too. They may, in some of those places may say, oh, well, we can't prescribe in, say, Vermont or so I'm just throwing that out, you know, as an example. So there may be reciprocity requirements. So there's all kinds of just little, I'm not all into all that. The laws, and if I need to become an expert on it for you guys to tell you what the, what's what, I can. I can be an expert in five minutes, but that's the gist of it. And so it is totally legal for them to write prescription drugs.

They can write other things, too, but it makes more sense to do this sort of lifestyle stuff because you're less likely to get sued with that than you would trying to do telemedicine for blood pressure medicine and somebody has a stroke and they're not following up and, you know, that kind of stuff. So that's why they're doing a lot of this lifestyle stuff. Got it. Yeah. So anyway, there you go. Hill.

What else you got? We got 52 seconds. Nothing? Scott? No. Oh, for God, say. He does have something. And watch he'll go now.

He'll go three minutes. We've got 42 seconds. There is a Chinese herb they're using in China right now to help with the treatment of coronavirus. Oh, really? It's an old formula called Gua Zittong. It's a cinnamon-based formula. Yeah. We've got to talk about that next time.

Because I want to know. Yeah. And that's real easy to test. and we can develop a double-blind placebo-controlled study or just an observational study because, you know, you hate to do a placebo-controlled trial when you've got a deadly virus that you're dealing with. So we'll talk about the ethics of that.

Next time, remind me, okay, if you don't mind. Aspirin can prevent colon cancer, particularly in people who are at high risk. So, you know, it's like there may be something in there. Yep. Coffee can help liver cancer. Well, can that? I don't know. No, no, no, no. Now you made a damn statement I can't support it.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying I can't support it. Lowers your risk. Yeah, I've seen the coffee studies. It's like they'll have one study come out and say that, well, it prevents pancreatic cancer, but it increases your risk for bladder cancer. So it's like, what do you want to die on? Yeah.

You know. That's what it all comes down to. Because you're going to fucking die. I'll just drink beer. I'll drink this old style. That's right. really terrible beer, I'm sorry. Let's take another, take another.

Oh, speaking of beer, by the way, you know, the beer run is no more. Right. Where is our cooler and our beer and all that kind of stuff? What's going on with that? Well, the coolers at Johnson City brewery being stored until somebody wants to pick it up. Okay, so it's in, so it's the cooler is gone. Yes, it's being sorted a friend of ours in Johnson City. at a wonderful brewery there that it's ready for if anybody needs a big beautiful cooler

that's the biggest cooler you've ever seen it's beautiful it's nine glass doors 28 taps it is for sale we'll make them a big good deal yeah if anybody needs one to start up a new a new company for sure there you go let us know it's let us know yeah let us know all right yeah that was awesome all right let's see you okay dr see this quick question had a been having this tank kind of in my ractam

below where your tank is that it's just a sharp the year to see 205 years old and I I mean

it comes and goes just curious and stuff that you'd be worried about or not okay so he had pain

in his rectum rectum nearly killed him there you go oh I thought he said it was in the taint area well they first said

wrecked him And then I think he said below his taint. Okay, okay, okay. So that makes me think of spasm on the pelvic floor. I've had that before. Have you ever had a muscle spasm in your taint? Oh, God, it's awful. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Like, if you have a muscle spasm in your foot, you can stretch your foot in the other way. Try stretching your taint in any way. It's really hard to do. So when you get a muscle spasm, I've had that when I've coughed before and you kind of, you know, you, you put. puck her up, and then it just triggers the spasm of the pelvic floor muscles. And if you have that chronically, it can cause, you know, chronic pelvic pain. And it's a real lifestyle, you know, screw her over, you know. So there are some exercises that you can do.

If you are prone to muscle spasms like Charlie Horses of the Taint, you could try to take the quinine because that helps with muscle spasms of all kinds but the only way you can get quinine is in tonic water now

are muscle spasms in that region at all related to hemorrhoids could be really yeah depending on how much pain you've got yeah so what'll happen is fissures you get fissures or hemorrhoids

right so if you have a fissure and then you move your bowels, for example, and you get this horrible pain, you can actually spasm to the point where it rips the fissure even wider, so it sucks. And you never think about your dumb rectum until all of a sudden it hurts 10 out of 10, and then that's all you can think about. So this thing called a pelvic floor dysfunction or levator syndrome. It's abnormal spasm of the muscles of the pelvic floor, and that can happen after bowel

movements or just any old time and patients sometimes will have real long periods of this sort of vague pain and then all of a sudden it can acutely get worse so I'm looking to see if there's anything interesting that I can tell them that they can do right now for this let me see well I think number well you mean yeah go ahead yeah I'll say well you're looking I say a couple things jumping jumping in there and trying to find number one a cause if it is after a heavy bowel movement or if it is after exercise or riding a bicycle or something something under that cause first if there's some prostate issues or if there's some seminal vesicle issues or anything down in your taint area is certainly an issue but

there's some interventional stuff we can do in pain medicine if they have prolapsed rectum you would need surgery yeah but he'd know that yeah that wouldn't be intermittent pain that's right well yeah I mean some people can stuff their rectum back in and just walk Yeah, that's after they've had it for a little while. Until the next time they get fisted and then they get the big old picksock. Yikes. But he would know that I'm, one would assume he would have it. So you said it's not prostate related.

It could be. It could be. It absolutely could be. Any pressure down in that area, depending on the size of the person, could be an issue. Yeah. Sure could. They'll do biofeedback on these people, too, just to stop the spasm. Yeah, we'll do needles on people.

We can do acupuncture. We do anesthesia. You do blocks down there. We get a bunch of things. Yeah. Yeah, the anesthesiologists can go in and give them objections of anesthetics. That's the first point in the Wren channel right there. I mean, I can put needles in.

Don't know what the hell you're talking. Hey, cost extra. Cost extra. God. Can you imagine him putting a damn acupuncture needle in your stupid taint? Exactly. I love it. People look on my, those anatomical charts, and they'll say, do you really put a needle there?

And I'm like, I can. I don't know how I explain that to insurance. Like, you've got to write. He doesn't have to deal with insurance. He doesn't take insurance. Oh, okay. Cash on the barrel head. But I'll tell you what, that's a different model because he doesn't have to employ a bunch of people to file insurance, so he actually can charge less.

Oh, cool. So his actual office visit about the same as a co-pay at my office. Oh, wow. Without the grief. Yeah. Because he's in relative grief. You know, it's not that bad. So, you know.

Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. You avoid an awkward trip to Walgreens. Get that checked. Anyway, just to make sure that you aren't having a problem with, you know, pedendal nerve or something like that, particularly if you're a bike rider. If you are a bicycle ride, let's just say this right now, that the bike seats on these marathon bike rides can put pressure on the pedendal nerve, which runs through the taint. And you end up with either a painful, tingly penis or a numb, non-functional penis. So you always want to get pedendal nerve.

nerve-sparing bicycle seats if you're going to ride for a long time. Because it's not always reversible. Yeah. Oh, so that could be permanent. It can be. It can be if you do it off. That's crazy.

So I recommend they've got some seats that just you sit on your ass bones. Your sits. And that's it. Sit bones. If you feel under your ass where if you're sitting down, you can feel this bone and that's your isheal tuberosity. It comes down from the pelvis and it's like two little

triangles. and you sort of sit on those. And they make bicycle seats that that's the only contact that you have is on those two places, and it doesn't put contact on your taint and pressure where you're just putting the weight of your body out there. So anyway, all right. So there you go. Thanks always go to Dr. Scott and to Smithsonian Andy.

Hope you'll come back for real. That was fun having you here, man. and we're going to be doing some projects together so that's, I'm excited about that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. It'll be a lot of fun. Yep, and then we've got old Cliff who actually was Smith-Soney Andy's employee at one time.

Yeah, so it was pretty cool. How weird was that when you walked up and here's your old boss going, is this Dr. Dane's there? That's pretty much what happened. It is, I was sitting in the car and I'd look at my rear rear rear mirror. I'm like, well, that kind of looks like my old boss.

Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, so that's very cool. Well, anyway, glad to have facilitated your reunion. And if you guys can come back again, let me see who this is. If it's somebody we want to put on the air. Uh-oh. Now, that's my kid's school. I'll probably need to get that at some point.

And that's all right. I'm telling you that schools are closed and more because of the virus. Well, they have been. Yeah, they were closed here for a week. Yeah, man. So anyway, I make that time up. But thank you guys for coming. Don't forget to check out feels.com slash fluid.

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go to noom.doctrsteve.com. This is the lightest I've been since college, and I've actually kept it off all this time. Noom. Dot,rsteve.com is not a diet. It's an app, and you'll get two weeks free, and 50% off, no, not 50% off, some percentage of all.

I think it's 20% off. If you decide to buy it after you start, and it's only a three-month program, No points. None of that. So noom.com. Don't forget, check out Dr. Scott's website. It's simply herbals.net. All right, very good. 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. You know,

Thank you.