Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 425 - The Rise of S#!&talker

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Dr Scott returns just in time to discuss the president's diagnosis, also a guy who is apparently a grower-not-a-shower, how to beat bad luck, and genetic mutations in covid risk. First show in months without a Stacey call. Good or bad? You decide. Check Out: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) noom.doctorsteve.com (lose weight, gain you-know-what) Get Every Podcast on a Thumb Drive (all this can be yours!) hellofresh.com/weird80 (fantastic meals, cooked at home!) feals.com/fluid (premium CBD, delivered to your door!) wine.drsteve.com (get the best deal on wine…delivered to your home!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Number one thing, don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of Weird Medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Your show was better when he had medical questions. Hey! I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolovibon.

I'm dripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy. of the heartbone, exacerbating my incredible woes. I want to take my brain out and blast it 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 a requiem for my disease. So I'm paging Dr. Steve. 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, returned from the beyond.

Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, hey, hey, hey, glad to be back. I don't think your mic's on, taste. Did you turn it off? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. If you have a question, you're embarrassed to take your regular medical provider.

If you can't find an answer to anywhere else, give us a call at 347-7664. 323. That's 347 Poohead. And welcome to my wife, Tacey. Can you hear me now? Yes. Thank you. Yay. Or 347 Poohead. If you're listening to us live, which you're not, the numbers 754, 227, 3, 647. That's 754. Bearknip. Bear nip. Thank you. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine at DR Scott WM. And visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy. Importantly, we are 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, practical nurse, physician assistant, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory, scientist, registered dietician, or whatever. So please don't forget to go to stuff. dot dr steve.com stuff dot dr steve.com for all of your amazon needs um you can just go there and click straight through to amazon it really does help keep our show on the air thank you for using that if you do nothing else that's a good one but if you want to try out naked wines dr scott go to wine dot dr steve.com this is the greatest thing in the world by the way tacy i just ordered you another thank god so wine Dr. Steve.com. It's naked wines. It gives you the ability to get in on small batch winemaking from all over the country and the world.

There was a batch in there from Australia this week. And on your birthday, they gave you a free bottle of wine, too. It's cool. They just stuck it in there. Hey, this is for free. It's really a neat thing. You send a certain amount of money every month, which sounds like it's a scam, except that when you buy, then that they deduct that amount. So this is for people who are going to be ordering at least three times a year. And what you're doing is you're funding the wine making up front, and then you get that money back. And it's kind of nice.

It's been really good wine, too. I bought $250 worth of wine. My bill was like $85. So check it out. Wine, W-I-N-E at Dr. S. I'm sorry, whine.dot, dr.steve.com. And don't forget tweakedaio.com. Offer code fluid for 33% off your best earbuds.

And if you want to lose weight with us, and we are both on track doing very well with Noom, N-O-O-M dot Dr.steve.com. You get two weeks free and you get 20% off if you decide to try it. And we're probably going to be wrapping up that promotion here pretty soon, probably by the first of the year. So check it out, noam. Dotts' website

at Simplyurbles.com. I'm down 12 pounds. Oh, that's awesome. So I'm going to have pizza tonight. There we go. But that's the thing you can do that. I'm going to. Yeah.

Good for you. You're going to pay for it. I am. That's the other side of this thing is I pay for your food. All right, very good. All right, very good. So, good to have you back, Dr. Scott.

I'm happy to be back in the saddle again. What you've been up to? Never mind. Nobody cares. Are you still doing Simplyerbils.net? We are. Yeah, we're doing. So check out Dr. Scott's website at Simplyerbils.

We've continued to plug it even though you haven't been here for the last. God, it's been like six months. Six months. I know it's been a bunch of bullshit if you asked me. I like me in here. It's fun. Good, well, we're happy to have you here. Very happy.

Yes. Check out Dr. Steve.com for all the stuff. And then don't forget to check out our podcast at the laugh button or anywhere else where you can get it. We're back on Spotify and we are back on Stitcher. It should be full-time. If you go to Stitcher and it's not coming up. You spelled weird wrong. That happens.

That happens because weird is spelled weird. It's not I after whatever E except after C. It's W-E-I-R-D. The way I used to remember that when I was a kid is it spelled weird. Get it? Because you spell weird in a weird way. And then what else? Oh, yeah.

So if that happens to you, the fix that we've found is unsubscribe, delete that podcast off of your Stitcher and then re-look at it again because we're using a different RSS feed and then it'll repopulate and everything will be fine. So there you go. Cool. All right. Very good. So, gosh, did anything happen?

in the news this week? I can't think of anything. Hell far. Oh, yes. It's like a darn. So we're recording this October 7th, 2020, and the president has just been released from Walter Reed.

Walter Reed Memorial Hospital with a diagnosis of COVID-19, and apparently they had a big old staff meeting and whoever brought it in just kind of gave it to everybody, so they've got a bunch of people that have it. Now, this can happen anywhere. It really literally can happen anywhere. It happens all the time.

That's why we have, you know, X million cases in this country and 200,000 people who have tragically succumbed to this illness. Yeah, Tacey. They're called super spreader events. Well, yes. Yeah. So I wonder what the definition of super spreader event is because they had, what, third, how many people did they have? I'm not sure. It was quite a few.

I always thought the super spreaders were the, well, okay, let's talk for a second about R-sub-zero. The R-sub-0 is the number of theoretical infections that one infected person will inflict on a vulnerable population. And then there's the R-sub. And so for SARS-CO-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the disease, that number is approximately 2.4. So one person will, all things being equal, in fact, about 2.4 people. The R sub T, though, is the real world number, and that varies by location. I think the highest in this country right now is about 1.3,

and most of them are hovering right around 1.1 to 1. And there's about a quarter of the country is back below 1.1. meaning that one person will infect less than one person. So 1,000 people, if it's 0.9, 1,000 people would infect 900, which would then turn around and affect 810, and then 720, et cetera, 630. And that's what we're looking for. We want to get that number below 1. So I would assume a super spreader is anybody that does a multiple of 2.4.

But did you get a definition there? Well, what this is talking about is the September 26th Supreme Court nomination ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Oh, okay. Pegging it as a potential super spreader event because at least 6,000 people attended meetings, rallies, and other gatherings with them within the week of September 26th. Okay, okay. Yeah, that may be. Okay, so I wonder what the definition of a super spreader is. Let's look it up.

I wasn't expecting this to come up, but I'm curious. A person infected with a bacterium virus or other microorganism who transmits it to an unusually large number of people, so they don't really define it. Okay, here we go. Here's COVID-19 super spreaders, definitional quandaries and implications. Okay, this is from Asian Bioethics Review. This is a journal I'm picking up at PubMed. It says on its widest definition, it refers to a propensity to infect a larger than an average number than people. So really, if the average is 2.4 for the R-sub-0, anything greater than that could be defined as a super-spreader.

But that doesn't seem right. You infect three people. You're not really a super-spreader. So that doesn't seem like a very effective definition. Maybe it's just anything greater than a 2.4 number. Well, that's why I just said. Yeah, it seems. It sounds kind of.

You know, if you do three, are you really a super spreader? But, okay, so they're just saying an unusually large number of people. So we kind of know that when we see it, right? An unusually large number. So if one person, if Hope Hicks is patient zero at the White House and infected 16 or more people, then, yes, that would be a super spreader event. Does she get a break because she's really pretty? I don't know.

Is she? I don't know who she is. She's pretty attractive. Is she? Well, good for her and good for you for pointing that out. Oh, just, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. She should get a little break.

All right. Well, maybe we'll get. For being a super spreader. Maybe we'll get her number. She's an over. Here's MIT Technology Review, says what is a super spreader. Let's see what MIT says. They're pretty smart.

The word is a generic term for an unusually contagious individual who's been infected with disease, so it didn't really tell us anything. Typhoid Mary would be an example of a super spreader. Oh, yeah. She had the bacterium colonized her gallbladder and lived in the... crevices of her gallstones, and apparently every time that, you know, she stooled, then she was spreading, you know, typhoid around. So, interesting. Pretty good stuff.

Yeah. Good stuff. Fascinating. So where were we with that? So, yeah, so he was in and out of the hospital pretty quickly. He, it looks like from what I can determine, and this is just from gleaning it from the news, and you know how medical journalism is, that. he got a combination of dexamethosone, remdesivir, and then antibody cocktail.

I couldn't determine whether those were manufactured antibodies or if that was a convalescence serum. Ralphie. I never heard anybody say. Don't get under there, buddy. There's nothing under there for you. Okay. I'm sorry. We're joined by Ralphie and Rosie today.

Hey, Ralphie. Do you want to say something to your fans? Say, no, Dad. I think I'm just going to walk around and knock things over. my wagging tail because he's a good boy. He's a very good boy. He is an F2 Labradoodle, which I cannot recommend that you buy one of those. An F2 Labradoodle is when you breed a Labradoodle to a Labradoodle.

And they don't breed true, so they can go anywhere from full poodle to full lab. Now, Ralphie is pretty Labradootly. Yes, he is. But his sister is 100% golden retrieval. Golden Retriever. There's no Labradoodle in her. And as a matter of fact, she's a genetic weirdo because she's got four shortened limbs. And she, I've never seen anything like her.

She never had her period before we had her spade and all that kind of stuff. So I think I thought she was a Turner Syndrome dog. You know, they're XO. They don't have the second sex hormone. Right. But the veterinarian didn't think so. But she ain't no Labradoodle. Now, we love her, and she's sweet as she can be.

She's sweetest dog we've ever had. But she's not what we paid for. No, she isn't. If you want a quote-unquote real Labradoodle, you want to get one that is bred from, oh, no, he's going to knock that over. Oh, he will. That tail will get it. From a full-bred lab and a full-bred poodle. But not from a puppy mill, though, I guess.

So I didn't know that was a thing. Well, it was a great idea to have them up here during the radio show. It's always a good idea. Well, we killed two minutes. Makes us seem. Now they're barking downstairs. It makes us seem more approachable. Yeah.

So anyway, so he got this combination of those drugs. And, you know, if you're, I've heard people say, well, that must mean that he's sicker than they let on. And the truth of the matter is, if you are at Walter Reed Hospital and you know, you're and your client is the President of the United States, you're not going to treat them the same way. And I know it's crazy, but you've got the leader of the free world in there for better or ill, whatever your opinion of him is. I'm a libertarian. I don't have a specific political opinion about him. But whatever your opinion is, they are going to treat him differently.

Yes. And they're not going to have a president die on the way. their watch if there's anything they can do about it. So they're going to hit them with the kitchen sink. As long as the kitchen sink, the risks aren't greater than the benefits. So there's very little risk to remdesivir, very little risk to a short-term course

of dexamethosone. And then the convalescent serum, there's basically no risk. So and apparently he did pretty well. Now, Scott, you were concerned that he was dyspneic walking up the stairs. Yeah. Yeah, and I want to mention, too, that his physician mentioned he

is taking some supplements that they feel like may have helped for a couple of interesting reasons. Okay. But yeah, yeah, it's kind of interesting. So when he was huffing it up the steps, and of course, he may be shorter breath every time he helps. Yeah, I was going to say, he may be every time. Have you ever seen, have you ever paid attention to him walking up steps before?

No, of course. No, there is video record of it. But I hear all these people say, oh, he's short of breath. He's short of breath. Okay. You do get short winded with this virus, that's for sure. And I've never actually paid attention to how. how tachypneic meaning fast breathing or dyspneic meaning disordered breathing or difficulty breathing

that he has ever gotten when he's walked up I've never seen him walk up those stairs before I get short-winded when I walk up a flight of stairs and if you're wearing a mask you're going to be a little bit more compromised that sucks walking upstairs with that damn mask on is tough and it's not even it's not it just you feel like you're smothering even though you're not and I even did my pulse oxymetry going upstairs just for fun just to see. And even though I felt subjectively like I was more short of breath than usual, my pulse oxymetry didn't change. So I was able to compensate for it.

But anyway. Yeah, but, you know, Dr. C. real quickly. What were the supplements you're talking about? They were talking about it's kind of interesting because I did not know this until the day, but evidently he's taking a daily aspirin. He's taken pepsid and I think the pometidine in it. This is interesting. Yeah, it's kind of intriguing because,

So the combination here. It's famotidine, by the way, but that's how they pronounce it in China. Unless you're in China, famadidine. Right. So the aspirin obviously. It helps their islet sales. Those islet cells are pretty difficult to treating now. But the aspirin, of course, is going to help if someone is to get really critically

with blood clotting, so calm down the blood clots and certainly with inflammation. Yeah, he may be taking it to prevent heart attack. And he might have been on it anyway, daily anyway, is a prophylactic. But they're saying that the combination of these might have helped him get better quickly. They think that for what the the Phamadididine. Phamodidine is an H2 blocker. Right. So it blocks histamine receptor type 2.

And then you can also take an H1 blocker at the same time. So there's some evidence out there for people who have pulmonary complications that it actually helps because you're blocking both histamine receptors. and particularly if someone is starting to turn the corner into that cytokine storm we've talked about before, that may help. If they're otherwise asymptomatic, I can't imagine it really does anything other than, you know. Maybe just quills the storm just enough where the body can kind of keep it suppressed. So let's tell everybody what Fomodidine is. That's over-the-counterpepsid.

Right, Pepsi. And then an H-1 blocker would be satirazine, which is Xertec, or diphthymine, which is zirtec, or diphtromine, which is Benadryl. And so there's a study or two in the medical literature showing that that combination and people with pulmonary complications from COVID did a little better. So that's, you know, that's interesting. We're learning. We've never seen anything like this.

Yeah. Where a disease has emerged and then everyone gets to see the science as it's published. People who have never heard of a pre-publication study are reading pre-publication studies on the Internet. And they're watching all this information unfold, and we have these sort of cul-de-sacs where we get bad information, then that's got to be weeded out. And then we call that from the tree of possible treatments. And all of this stuff is happening in real time. And we're seeing it for the first time. I'm seeing science in action when it's not just, you know.

Science is becoming cool. Yeah, well, yeah, it actually matters. It does better, yeah. Because when you're doing a long-term 20-year study looking at, I don't know, and this is a cool video, by the way, tracking stars that are orbiting around the black hole in the center of our galaxy. By the way, if you've never seen that video, Google it. It's incredible. But that doesn't, if I never knew about that, it wouldn't impact my life.

It's cool. But no one pays attention to that stuff. The actual science is going on. They'll look at the video and go, wow, that's cool. But as far as the science going into that, or figuring out that there's more matter in galaxies than there should be, and so the dark matter, all that stuff is fascinating, but it doesn't really impact our lives very much

until, of course, when they figure out from all of that dark matter stuff, that we can harness dark energy, and then we've got anti-gravity devices and stuff. That would be cool as hell. But, again, people will see the end result of that. They won't be following the science. Now, people are picking apart scientific studies in real time on Twitter. Right.

You know, hey, look at this study. Well, that one is, you know, anecdotal. So it's amazing how people have become pretty sophisticated at that. Also, people have become sophisticated at distorting or presenting statistics in such a way that meets their narrative as well. That's always a problem. That's the key. But last two ones real quick, I'll make it real quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

But the other one was zinc, which has been shown to lessen and shorten the complications of the common cold. Yeah, that's right. And coronavirus is a common cold. So it follows that it should be someone helpful. Again, none of this is said. Well, let's look it up. While you're talking, I'll search it and see. And the other final one is vitamin D.

And the interesting thing, of course, we've talked about vitamin D on this show for a few. 15 years, and they're not saying it's going to make you better, but what they did say, and as we've talked about this, a thousand times on this show, in Italy and Spain, where they had the countries that had the highest mortality rates, they had, they found patients had the lowest levels of vitamin D. Isn't that interesting? Which doesn't mean giving the vitamin D makes them better, but. That's right.

Oh, Dr. Scott. But. Wait. Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Give yourself a bill. That's right. It could just be a marker for susceptibility, not the cause of the susceptibility.

But anyway, but my stance has always been there's no downside to take vitamin D as long as you don't mega dose. Don't take too much. Yep. Go ahead. That's it. Oh, that's it. Oh, that's it. And, of course, he needs some Wang Chi or Straglis, of course.

Of course. He's not taking that, but he should be. So there was a study in Japan that measured zinc levels in the blood of about 30 COVID-19 patients when they were admitted to the hospital. and there was zinc deficiency in 14% of them that, you know, stayed in with mild-de-moderate COVID-19, but 86% of patients that progressed to severe COVID-19. Again, it doesn't mean that if you took zinc, that wouldn't happen. But there was a correlation, which does not imply causation between a low zinc level and progressing into severe COVID-19.

So then there was another one in India, and they looked at four. 49 COVID-19 patients and 45 healthy participants. And when they were admitted to the hospital, the patients had overall lower zinc levels than the healthy group. So it could be that COVID-19 somehow causes your body to, you know, excrete zinc at a higher level, too. We just don't know yet. I don't have a real problem with taking zinc supplements.

I'm not aware. You might want to look and see if there's any adverse offense from that. I know there are adverse effects to zinc if you take it intranasely. The zinc nasal spray caused some people to lose their sense of smell, and for some people it was permanent. So you want to take it in a lozenger or orally if you're going to take it. Now, this one I don't think has been published yet. So this was pre-publication data.

each unit increase in blood zinc levels at admission decreased the risk of death by 7%. And zinc deficiency increased the risk of death by two to three times. So zinc status could be a risk, but not necessarily a causal factor for severe COVID-19. I want to see the studies where people who are, you know, they get sick, and they're taking zinc, or they take it and they don't, and they're either few of them, fewer of them, them get it or fewer of them die. Okay. And that I haven't seen that.

I looked at it. If anybody, yeah, look at that under pub med.gov. Yeah, you do that, Scott. Tacey's so happy on me here. And anybody who wants to look at these studies for themselves, just go to pubmed.gov and you can find all kinds of cool crap in there. There's thousands of COVID-19 studies. And you can find just about one to, if you have a narrative, you can find a study that'll back you off.

It'll fit your narrative, exactly. All right. Did you have anything else? Those are really interesting. Yeah, take a look for that and see if there are any prospective studies on zinc. I'm in PubMed as we speak. Because I used to take zinc for common colds all the time, and it always seemed to help. And there's some data that says it probably shortens the duration of the cold.

Well, the Zinc just helps with common metabolic functions. It helps with healing and wound care. or, you know, if you want to have high levels or at least healthy levels of zinc to help with normal. Well, I would have to see those studies, but that's interesting. I believe you. Trust me.

I'm an expert. All right. Let's see. All right. Well, you want to take some phone calls? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Okay.

Number one thing, don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. And that would be me. All right. Or me. Definitely, Scott. I'm a big fan. I have a question. I go to the gym

And my dick looks like When I'm done When I'm exercising It's the size of an acorn top But everyone else's dick In the locker room looks normal Why every time I exercise Or do any kind of physical work

My dick shrinks up They're like an infant First off, why are you looking at their dicks I just got to ask the question But shrinkage I don't understand Yeah Just stand in the middle and go

It's the shrinkage Is it whether you're worried about? I don't know. No, no. No, hell no. So I'll tell you what's going on, I bet. You're coming straight from working out, and you may not be taking a shower or getting in the hot tub. You're just putting your clothes on, and you have a very active, what's called a kromaster reflex.

And that's a group of muscles that will pull the scrotum up, particularly. Like if you if your scrotum is hanging down and you take a feather and, you know, do like what taste he does, I don't know, I'm just kidding. But if you, you know, rub it across the scrotum, it'll shy away from it. It'll draw up. Or if you're getting cold water, it'll do the same thing. And that is designed to keep the testicles at a constant temperature because they have a narrow temperature range by which they can mature sperm cells in. So if they're too warm, like 986, they can't do it. That's why your nuts have to hang below your taint to get the temperature down just that couple of degrees so that the sperm cells can mature.

And then if they get too cold, then it'll pull it closer to the body. So it's kind of a temperature regulator. And at the same time, it's hard to contract that muscle and not retract your penis at the same time. So what you need to do is get out of your workout clothes, and you can even do it right outside the shower. Jump in the shower, hot water will relax that cremaster muscle, and then you can display your penis for all the men in there, which is, you know, I guess what it's a thing. But you've got to figure, too, you know, as far as vascular supply, that's the last place you need, a lot of blood flow right after workout you're going to have it in your muscles. That's right. It says some of it's been dispersed and sent out.

I'm guessing the guys that are really showing off. They're working out too damn hard. There's always, though. There's always somebody like that in the gym. But I think what they're doing is they're getting in the hot tub after or they're getting in the shower. And then they're coming out and he's seeing them there. Right. And the blood flow's returned back to normal.

That's right. That's right. It's just been diverted. That'd be my guess. Yeah, yeah. He's diverting blood flow away from his GI tract, too. So that's why you don't want to eat right after you've worked out because your blood flow is not adequately hitting your GI track. So, okay. All right.

Well, for some people. Some people can do it. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is Brandon from Michigan. Hey, Brandon. I have a wonderment. Is there possibly a predisposition to being the one in a billion? Okay.

I just thought of something. I've got to get this out before I forget it. There's a guy named Mike, and he emailed me for the short rib, the obstinate daughter short rib recipe. And his, Mike, your email address was incorrect. And when you go through, you know, Dr. Steve.com and click contact, be real careful that you put your email address in exactly correctly, because if you don't, I can't email you back.

And when I tried to email him back, it bounced. So if you want the short ribs and noki, the ricotta noki recipe from obstinate daughter in Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. It's insane. Scott is a vegetarian, and he even loves it. P.A. John said it was the best meal he's ever had in his life, and I made it. So go to doctors. He talked on and on about the flavors. He did. Oh, yeah.

The flavors are exploding in my mouth. It was like double vasectomy Todd when he was talking about those bowls and how vibrant they were. Viber. It was the same thing. This is like an explosion of flavor in my mouth. I'm like, John, I'm glad you like it. I mean, it really makes me feel good, but shut the F up. But anyway, so go to Dr. Steve.com and just put in in the upper right hand corner,

there's a search box and just put in short rib, and it'll be. come up. Okay. All right. Very good. Sorry. For instance, when I was younger, each one and one, and one was going around, my doctor said, hey, you're really sick. One in a million that you have the flu swab, and then, hey, guess what? Well, okay, number one, they're overestimating that. Usually 60 million people will get it. So what's 60 million out of 350 million? Well, $60,000, it would be 20%, so a little less than 20%. So it's not one in a million, okay?

It would be 20 out of 100, which would be, what, one in five, right? It's not one in a million. Okay, so that's first off. At H1N1, later on down the road, I've had multiple back surgeries. And it's a one in a million that this bolt in your back is going to break. And long of a whole, I've had two break on a decade or so. And I'll guarantee you the odds of that. That aren't one in a million either.

No. They're called failed back surgeries. You'll see them all the day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Strike two. And then, um, his, his doctors just need to get a better terminology. Yeah, they need to do a better terminology.

Which one in a million? Well, you're, I guess you're one a million, buddy. Yep. One in a million. Beautiful daughters with my wife. We're covered up. And the doctor says, hey, the doctor says, hey, you know, one in a million of a major complication.

And it resulted in. am infection in my ball. Okay, so that's not a one in a million, but that is a little west call it. It's not one a million. So post vasectomy, let's just look it up. Post-Vazectomy infection. Can I say that I know of a case of that? And it's turned out with some infection and scarring and the testicles swelled up to about the size of a basketball.

oh my goodness okay so it's 4% yeah infection occurs in up to 4% of men who undergo vasectomy so that ain't 1 in a million that's 4 in 100 so that'd be 1 in 25 not 1 in a million but almost yeah yeah this guy's still unlucky oh yeah yeah and almost killed me it's a month in a hospital ooh okay now I'd say that's not 1 and 4 so I I'd say that's not 4% let's say that's 0.1%. Actually, I know, too, that. Yeah. Okay, so that'd be 1 in 1,000.

One in 1,000, ain't one in a million, though. No. So, never won the lottery. So apparently, it only happens with a magnet. I'm just curious. So far. Any kind of a predisposition that you've ever heard of? Okay.

Yes. Well, go ahead, Dr. Steve. I was just going to say, we don't believe in luck, but the insurance companies do. Yes, they do. They have people who are called, quote, unquote, accident-prone, and when they do their actuarial tables, they will jack their premium. That's my understanding. Not health insurance, because that's probably illegal, but, like, auto insurance and stuff like that.

It's just a string of bad luck. Yeah, I think he's just born under, like, the song says, a bad son. He just has a lot of bad, you know, just a bad look. Well, his, if it's infections, and if he had a whole bunch of different, like, post-op infections and stuff, I'd say, have your primary look at your immune system and make sure that there's not a deficiency there. But this is different stuff. This is, you know.

But he's had a couple of high-risk stuff, too, that could go bad quickly. You know what I mean? So he had the back surgeries. Yeah, multiple back surgeries. And then the H1N1, well, that's not one in a million. So this is really the only thing that's unusual, to be honest with you. That's, you know, out of the norm. Yeah, but I think poor guys has got terrible luck.

Yeah. But, you know, we do believe in luck. If you're baseball players, I'll tell you, you know, when I played, I played, what, four years in. Oh, God, they'll wear the same shirt. I wore the same, you know, this is honestly. I wore the same pair of underwear. Yeah. Four years in high school and four more years in college, every game, every game, same pair.

I know that I always washed them, they're clean, but the same pair underwear. My last game, I just took them off and they're just shredded us to them away. Same pair of underwear. But it's all about, it's luck. Well, so in sports, luck, in that regard, it has to. to do with a mental game. Mental, yeah, for sure. Because if you're not wearing them and then you think that you're not wearing,

I'm not wearing my lucky undies, then you're going to play bad. You're going to play poorly, yeah. Yeah. And so then it becomes self-fulfilling. Yeah. We need to, so the guy needs, he needs to have good luck before his next procedure. Yeah, that's right. Good thoughts.

We'll send you good thoughts. We're not freaking hippo violation. Can you, can you, so from a psychological standpoint, could he come see you? Sure. You would give him some good chi that would improve his luck. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I need that, Scott. Yeah, you know what I'll do?

A lot of times if someone's, God, bless America, if someone's going to have a procedure and they're really nervous about it. Sorry, the dog just ran out of here with a cord around her neck. Yeah. Not in a wagging tail. Hey. But what I'll do is actually help them get much more mentally in a pleasant place prior to surgery, lowering anxiety. and I'll do it a lot, especially when gals are going in for infertility treatments specifically.

Well, stress can affect fertility. We know that. Tacey, do you mind if I just tell that reader's digest. Every time we conceived, we were on a vacation. And my doctor actually, I always have a, back then I had a planner with me. And he said, you just need to leave that at home. Because we were having trouble, Tacey was on, I almost had COVID, on Clomack. And, oh, you know, the first time we did it, I mean, when we had Liam, we tried and tried and tried, and I loved it in the sense that, you know, Tacey would go, okay, well, you know, it's time we need to go, you know, try to make a baby, and we're in the middle of a party once, she grabbed me.

And that was awesome, except the crying, you know, for two weeks afterward when she didn't get pregnant. That kind of sucked. been a sociopath that might have added to the, to the whole experience. But no, I'm not. You know he liked it. Yeah. I didn't. I didn't like it when you were crying.

I don't like it. But then, so then we decided to have another kid. And I'm like, oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. You know, and right before we were going to start trying and get her back on the cloment again, because we, how long was it? It was a 15 months or something. It was a long time. She went. And, of course, before they do the.

start the clomet again, you have to do a pregnancy test, she was already pregnant. She came in my office and I'm already, I'm already pregnant. We're good. And we had just been on vacation that time too. No more no more nokey for you, Dr. Steve. Nope. I was old. I live by that to this day.

Hey, Tase, I swear. I'll never forget today. We're walking down the hall in that little clinic we used to be in. Oh, you might have been there. Oh, you were there that day. And he's like, oh, my God, Dr. Scott. we started doing the math do you believe it

I'm like yeah you'll be like 70 yeah that's right you'd be crap oh I know it's hilarious I will be 68 when Beck graduates from high school and I remember calculating that I remember yeah we're getting the hell out of here

yes we are Ed that's right when we started watching all those crazy YouTube videos remember the crazy fat kid that had the he was doing on the Star Wars stuff on the Star Wars kid yeah oh my God it was hilarious if you

this I don't know we were to derailed the shit out of this conversation. But the Star Wars kid's still, to me, one of the greatest things ever done. He was great. They catch this kid videotaping himself and he forgot to erase it. And all his friends were like, no, you know. And so they showed it and they put it up on the internet. Everybody gave this poor kid shit.

And he was pretty funny watching him do it. But then the cool kids, the cool nerds came and put him in like the Matrix. And he was fighting all the Smiths from Matrix 2. and they did all these cool things with him and then they ended up raising money for him and put him through college and all that. Did they really?

That's wonderful. Yeah, the Star Wars kid. I hope he did great. Yeah, me too. Me too. He's having a good time, I sure. He's whipping some ass. Good for him.

He's one of my favorite internet people. Oh, my God. We had so much. Oh, my God. Because you'd never seen anything like it back. It was all new. It was all so new. Yeah.

What are you watching? He goes, come here, you've got to see this. All right, where were we? Oh, bad luck guy. So, yeah, come see Dr. Scott, and he'll load you up with some good chi and see if that doesn't improve your luck. And let's do that with Tacey, too. We can do, yeah, and just just just. But luck is a state of mind.

It is a state. And we did have one of our friends from my middle Tennessee bringing his mom in to see me. For good luck, because she's going to the casino. Yeah, no. Pain. Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, yeah, pain. pain and um just god what a lovely lady oh my god she was great oh that's good it was cool so um you you can never let's talk just about luck just for a second philosophically if you always

hear gamblers talk about oh i'm on a streak i'm on a street you can never say you are on a streak you can always say that you were on a streak because whatever happens if i roll the dice whatever I roll this time it has nothing what I did before has no impact on that the dice don't remember what they rolled so you never do for a six or a seven or whatever but you might roll

a seven if you're playing craps 20 times in a row and you can double up every time you do that if you just let it ride you know and you can say when that's done after you did the 21st time and you lost everything, you say, wow, I was on a streak. That is okay to say because there are streaks. You just can't say you are on one because you can never predict what's going to happen next time.

It could all come crashing down next time. I did an analysis back when I was really into computer programming and on craps. And my thing was that I always seemed to be up a little bit, And then I would, if I lost, I was always up before I lost. So I said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to have this really sort of boring strategy that as soon as I hit, I'm up to, if I start with $1,000, if I'm up $100, I quit. So you go up 10%. So whenever you hit 10%, you quit. So then I set up a simulation in the computer and ran it like a million times.

And what I found was I ended up exactly at the opposite. odds that you should if the dice were fair. And so it's like, if you play perfectly, it's like 51 to 49%. So I would lose 51% of the time, win 49%. Like seriously, who does that, though? Well, okay. I know one person. Yeah, I know.

But I wanted to know why that could happen. And so what I noticed was most of the time you got up 10%. Nine times out of 10, you'd get up 10%. But that last time, you'd start off losing, and then you never got back. again, then you'd lose everything. And that made up for all the other times when you won 10%. And it worked out. It was exactly, you know, the odds that are published in all of the books for craps.

So it was really interesting. So there's no system like that that will really beat the system. And for it to be the same, then that's boring as shit. You want to get in there when the tables on a, is really hot. And you have one of those nights where everybody's high-fiving and you make all this money. And then, you know, you live for. for those nights and just forget the other ones. But anyway, all right.

I don't, yeah, that's on me. So good luck, buddy. Uh-oh. The bad luck guy, good luck. Jeff from Las Vegas. I had a question about COVID-19 and people with the CCR-5 Delta 32 mutation. Okay. I learned about this when I got my 23MDNDone.

Turns out I'm homozygous for the gene deletion, which means I am resistant to most strains of AIDS or HIV. And I was wondering if this might confer any resistance to COVID-19. Okay, that's an interesting question. So we're always looking for people that might be naturally resistant to these infections, right? Sure. And so there is this, it doesn't matter what it is, but there's this allele called CCR-5 Delta-32.

And the people who express a lot of that and have a higher risk, when they just look at epidemiologically, god dang it. Logically. Epidemiologically, thank you, that they will have an increased risk of infection and death. So it does follow that if you have a mutation where you don't. have that receptor, that you would have a decreased susceptibility, but I could not find a single study because I think those Delta 32 delations are more rare. I mean, well, they're rare or uncommon, so they just haven't studied enough people. But it's interesting.

It's very interesting, but I have no information on that. I think it's probably so rare to be hard to study. Yeah, I think it would be. So I wouldn't go crazy, but you might be. And he said he was heterozygous, which means that he's got one normal gene. he's only got one abnormal gene. So he's still got the receptor. And it all depends on how those things are expressed.

You need two full genes to do the full expression, or do you not, don't know the answer to that. If any geneticists out there know the answer to that, that'd be very interesting. All right, let's do something we can all answer. Hey, Dr. Steve, curious on your opinion of a DO versus an MD. Oh, yeah. Okay. To me, the DO seems to make a lot of sense. If it's a bunch of nonsense, then maybe not.

It's not nonsense. No, I don't think so either. It's not nonsense. Okay, so DOs are doctors of osteopathy, and they have the same curriculum. They can go to the same residences as MDs do, but they also get training in osteopathic manipulation. So it's different than chiropractic manipulation. So it is based on pain relief and some science, and they've got some pretty good studies. So they'll, they're initial guy, and I can't remember his name, Still, I think was his name.

AP Still, I was going to say, do you know that you and I know his great-granddaughter? Really? We do. Oh, interesting. Well, tell me later who that is. I'll tell you later. Maybe we can talk about it. It's pretty fascinating.

So one of the first things he came up with was if you have someone that's in pay, pain, find a position that alleviates the pain. If you've got to put them on their stomach and put their hip up in the air and twist it around, but you find that place where they go, no, it doesn't hurt it anymore. I'm a neutral position. And then hold it there. And when you undo it, the pain is lessened. So that was one of the first discoveries that he made, and that actually works.

Can I tell you what he did? Yeah. I'll make it quick. He had neck pain. He tied a little rope. Yeah, because I can't see the clock anymore. He tied a rope between two Because he followed his dad around

He made elixirs And they used to give him to physicians And he had a neck pain Nobody could treat And he tied a rope between two trees That were really close together And laid his head back on the rope And turned it to the right

I guess where he hit that facet It was probably just a hot facet joint And went to sleep And he woke back up And his neck didn't hurt anymore And he was still alive That's one thing But now he was on the ground

That sounds like audio erotic asphyxiation Oh yeah no no no no this is behind his neck Okay okay Yeah, he was not choking. It was a straight line. Okay. So it's like traction we kind of use now. Yeah.

And he, so he came up with this concept to start osteopathic medicine is over in Jonesville, Virginia. Mm. Right down the street from us, right? Virginia wouldn't let him start a medical school. So he went to Kansas. And that's why the first osteopathic medical school is out there. Wow. Yeah.

When I was in Michigan, all of my doctors were D-O's. Yeah. So it's regional. Sure. At one time in this country, or in this state, DO's had a hard time getting hospital privileges. Now, you know, I'd say probably a good quarter of the physicians here at DO's. I think their schools cost a lot more, too, than medical schools. I guess it depends.

Well, you know, that's what the ones I know can tell me. They're all expensive now, right? I mean, they're everywhere now, especially here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, one of my OBGYN professors was a DO. So they're the same. If you see DO or MD after the name, they will have the same knowledge.

They take basically the same exams to become licensed in your state. And they take the, you know, they're basically the same. But a DO can do manipulation, although I know a whole lot of them. Like me with OB, they just cast it away. Maria, you know, Maria, my ex-wife was, she's a DO. Oh, you know, I didn't know that. Sure is. But, yeah, she went to path of.

medicine and never she never did a not a single manipulation well it's like I delivered 250 babies in my career and you know as a resident I never delivered again but it did it wasn't wasted at least you got the knowledge well it wasn't wasted in that I had the knowledge I could deliver one if I had to but also I was really good I done you know if I delivered 250 I probably did 5,000 pelvic exam so I got really good at knowing the normal anatomy and doing a normal pelvic exam. So that was not wasted. Same thing with a DO.

You know, the DOs I know know way more about skeletal anatomy than I do at this point. And do a little better physical exams than some of the guys I precept for tend to be a little better doing physical exams. So, yeah, no, you got it now. If you got a DOM, that's a whole other story. That's what Scott is. It makes you special. But if you're going to go to an acupuncturist, though, find a D-O-M.

Exactly. It's a diplomat of Oriental medicine, right? Yeah, diplomat or doctor of oil medicine. Okay. It's all diplomat is what I prefer, yeah. Okay. Because I like being diplomatic. So a diplomat of Oriental medicine, that's someone that did four-year traditional, you know,

or traditional Chinese medical school. That's not some nut who did a weekend class and then decided, oh, well, you know, acupunctrists can't get licensed in my state anyway, so I'm just going to put my shingle and call myself an acupuncturist. That's, you know. See that everywhere. My thing is, look, it's terrible. If you want to go to an herbalist, I have no problem with it.

If their grandfather was an herbalist and that person's grandfather was an herbalist and it's a long family tradition, they've dedicated their life to it, go to them. It's fine. They're going to know some stuff, but they've dedicated their life to it. it. Dr. Scott has dedicated his life to this, and he went the full road. You know, he paid for four years of school after college to do this. And, you know, set up his own thing, and it's been an advocate for trying to get, you know, these procedures that he does covered by insurance and all that stuff. That I can respect. But if you just want to practice medicine without a license

and go take a weekend class and start doing acupuncture, well, I got an issue. Maybe I'll do that. Terrible. It's terrible. All right. Let's see here. Okay, let's try this one. Uh-oh. Hello. Uh-oh.

Oh, well, okay, I guess we're done answering questions. Let's try this one. Okay. Hey, Dr. Steve. I was diagnosed hopefully four years ago with rheumatic fever, I was hospitalized for a number of days. After I was released from the hospital, my infectious disease doctor recommended and prescribed that I take erythromycin three times a day until I'm 40, which at the time I was 23, I believe,

which seemed kind of crazy to be on a medication for that long. And so I'm just wondering if you would have the same suggestion or if you had... Okay, so I know what happened here. This is a person who got rheumatic fever, so you get stripped throat and you miss it. And then your body produces antibodies and can cause this thing called rheumatic fever. And one of the complications can be heart, you know, valvular disease. So if they catch somebody with rheumatic fever with carditis, and that's young, they'll tell them to take it for 10 years or until they're 40, whichever is longer. So, you know, if you're 35, you'll take it until you're 45.

But if you're 20 something, which he was, he's going to take it until he's 40. A lot of times they can use other things other than erythromycin, though. So there must be a reason why they picked that. I know that they'll use clarithromycin for some people, but he might want to ask them if he could take something like penicillin, because you can take penicillin, you can take sulfadiozine, but yes, you can take the macrolides, which is erythromycin as well. They're just harder to talk, gosh, erythromycin three times a day for 20 years would be tough on my stomach. But he could talk to his infectious disease specialist or his. rheumatologist, whoever put them on it, and say, you know, hey, could we maybe try a different antibiotic? So, but yes, I agree with that if you had carditis. Now, if you didn't, then the

secondary prophylaxis regimens are different. So if you had romantic fever without carditis, you'd take it five years or until age 21. Wow. Okay. So that's, you know, you don't I don't hear much about rheumatic fever because we're so antibiotic happy in this country that would give antibiotics for anything. And we shouldn't be doing that, but you're probably preventing a few cases of rheumatic fever on the way, too. When's the last time you saw it? I haven't seen a case of rheumatic fever in quite some time. I've seen some people, some older people with rheumatic heart disease. I've seen that had it when they were a kid.

And now they're old. I had a gal that she was from another country, and she got it when she was a baby over. there. Yeah. Yeah, but that's that's the only one I've ever seen. Yeah. So, pretty rare. Yeah, we don't want to neglect strep throat. That's one of those things that you do want to treat with antibiotics. And that's not because the antibiotics necessarily make you feel better quicker.

I think they've did a couple. They've did. Well, they've did a couple of studies. And I've seen them. They have done some studies that showed that giving people antibiotics for strep throat really doesn't decrease the severity of the illness very much, but it absolutely prevents rheumatic fever. And that's why we do it. That's the key. Okay.

So anyway, all right, very good. That's all I've got for this week. Many thanks go to Dr. Scott. Welcome back, my friend. Thanks for having me. And Scott's going to try to be here for at least the Sirius XM show and maybe the podcast and going forward. We're going to see how that works out. things changed. So we'll do the best we can, get you your Dr. Scott fix.

Everything's changed. Your pseudo-science fix. We can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton, Travis Tift, Louis Johnson, Holly Gould, Paul Offcharski, Eric Nagel, Roland Campos, Martha from Arkansas, Sam Roberts, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Matt Kleinschmidt, Dale Dudley, the girl named Chowdy, the great Rob Bartlett, Bernie and Sid, Ron Bennington, and Fez Watley, whose support of this show has never gone unappreciated. Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk Channel, SiriusXM Channel 103,

Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern, on demand, and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure, and by the way, we signed our contract for yet another year, which kicks in this Saturday. Did I get a raise? No. Dang it. You get paid? Obvious. Handsomely. He gets plugs. He does it for the plugs. The hair plugs.

Hair plugs. Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. Or as Anthony Coomia calls them, follicles. They're still hair plugs. They're just tiny little hair plugs. Go to our website at 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. You know what I'm going to be.