Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 430 - A Night of 1000 Questions

Episode Date: November 12, 2020

Dr Steve, Tacie, Dr Scott, and Stacy DeLoach discuss Stacy's new invention (check it out at bargelifeline.com or usamarineconsulting.com), COVID death certificates, living wills, cardiac calcium scores, cardiac risk analysis, and more! Please 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!) wine.drsteve.com (get the best deal on wine…delivered to your home!) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) 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, Opian 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 the period crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolovibis dripping from my nose.

I've got the leprosy. of the heartbells, exacerbating my incredible woes. I want to take my brain out and blast with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen gain. 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.

It's weird medicine, the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history. your broadcast radio, now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal. Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medical doctor who keeps the weird alternative medicine assholes at bay. Thank you, Dr. Scott. Uh-oh, uh-oh. Say it again.

It's a pleasure, Dr. Steve. Thank you, sir. And my wife, Tacey, the professional WebEx attendee. Hello, Tacey. Hello, everyone. And everybody, Stacey Deloge. Yes. here in the studio.

Well, I messed that one. That was pretty pathetic. Yeah, I wasn't very good. I forgot it was on the same soundboard. I'm an idiot. 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. If you can't find one, answer anywhere else, give us a call 347-76-4-3-23.

That's 347. Poohhead. Visit our website at Dr.steve.com for podcast, medical news, and stuff. stuff you can buy or go to our merchandise store. Ah, don't go there. CafePress.com slash Weird Medicine. You can get a Bristol stool scale mug there. That's pretty cool.

I mean, it's Christmas, Steve. Oh, that's true. We make 30 cents on those, but that's fine. Get a Bristol School's stool scale mug. It's not about us. It's about you. It is hilarious, and it's a great, one of those white elephant gifts. And follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine and at D.R. Scott, W.M.

Most importantly, we are not your medical provider. Take anything you have here on this show with a grain of salt, don't act on anything you hear on the show without talking it over with your doctor, nurse practitioner, physical nurse, practical nurse, physician assistant, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory, scientist, registered dietician or whatever. The list gets longer and longer. So, anyway. All right. So Dr. Scott, good to have you back, my friend. You're still doing some simply herbals. Check him out at simplyerbils.net. And don't forget, stuff.doctrsteve.com for all your Amazon needs, stu-u-f.f. dot, dr.steve.com. You can just click straight through and go to Amazon, or you can scroll down and look at all the different things that we have on there

that we've talked about on this show. And if you want the best earbuds on the market, go for the price, tweakeda-o-com, offer code fluid, FLU-U-I-D. You get 33% off. These are great. stocking stuffers and Hanukkah gifts and all that kind of stuff. And then if you want to lose weight, before the holidays get really kicked in, go to Noom, N-O-O-M dot Dr. Steve.com. Noom is not a diet.

It's a psychology program, and it will change your relationship with food, and you will lose weight. I'm closer to my ideal body weight than I've been in the last 20 years, and I'm getting close to what I weighed in college. Well, sorry, not true, right after college when I went from 122 up to 155. So that was some damn thing. And I was at 155. My body mass index was 23, and people were going, wow, Steve's gotten fat. So that's how skinny I was in high school. Anyway.

Oh, God, before we get started, I got another one of those calls today. Hi. This is Emily from Card Member Services. Apple support, Steve. Apple supports called me like six times today. I had one the other day. The guy was obviously, and, you know, I have a lot of partners who are from India, so I know many naughty words in Hindi. And one of these guys called and said, oh, my name is Jeffrey or something like that. And I just went, hey, hey, burrah. And then just started in on him. And then I said, at the end, I said, Hamare do I apkisati, which means God bless you.

and I hung up, but I said some very naughty things that even in Hindi I will not say on this show. So, anyway, that's fun. God bless my Hindi-speaking partners, because they've helped me out in that regard. So anyway, all right. So, Stacey, good to see you, man. Thank you. Good to be here. You've got a new thing going on, right?

You're saving lives and stuff. Give us the Reader's Digest version of it, because when you start, talking about this thing, it really, you know, it gets old pretty fast. That's me. But it is pretty cool. So what you're doing is saving lives for maritime

people. I came up with a little program that's called Shelby for self-help emergency life buoy. And now why do we need something like that? Well, in the inland river maritime system, there's about five people a year fall overboard and die just from drowning, just unaccounted.

And most of the problem is that When they fall over, they get swept away by the river current. And there's nothing to grab, nothing to keep you from getting sucked up under the bow of a barge. So what happens is there's one barge and then there's another barge and another barge. That's the problem. I just think of, you know, when I was whitewater rafting, you get dumped from the boat. You just swim to shore. Right.

Even in the worst things, they would tell you you might be a mile downstream, but as long as you go perpendicular to the current, don't try to fight the current. Just go perpendicular to it. You'd be okay. Right. But when you fall off a barge in the middle of the Mississippi River, it ain't like that, right? At night, and mostly what you're going to have below you is the fleet of more barges, and they're pointed upstream. So you have what's called the rake, which is just a long sloping section that comes up. And there's nothing to grab.

So if you did get washed down to that, the current's going to carry you under this barge. Oh, man. Can you imagine? So you survive falling off the barge. Of course, it's how high are those? There's 12 to 15 feet. But the problem is, if you fall over, did you come? up and hit your head up under the barge if the barge is empty now you're unconscious and now you get

carried down the bar or down the river and you get swept up under there's 10 barges that's 3,000 feet of steel that your body will not survive and live up under oh boy all right so how are you going to save these people you can't put a life ring up because the problem of the life ring is that it's round and so it's caught on stuff yeah trees that come down through their root balls they all get stuck in there yeah so what i came up with it's a torpedo shape it's kind of like if you ever watch Baywatch, and you actually watch the show, not the beauty of the show, but they carry these lifeguard safety cases. Yeah, that David Hasselhoff was very attractive. Hot.

And so what I designed was a system based off of that shape. Yeah. And it's mounted on 6,000 tensile strength rope, and it's 50 feet long. So if you, and it always rides in the current. Sure. Right along the side of the barters. Because the problem is if you fall over, there's nothing to grab. Right.

Until you get swept away. And why can't somebody just throw you a life, you know, I will throw you a thing. Well, two problems is, A, like I said, the shape of it, and B, a life ring is a two-person job. There you go. You have to have a victim, and then you have to have somebody see the victim or hear the victim, then go find a life ring and then try to get to them and deploy it, but they're already floated away. Because what I've heard is that most of the people that die on these, no one ever knew that they fell off. Correct.

They just come up missing because 90% of the time you're working by yourself at three in the morning out there trying to unload, you know, I don't care if it's gasoline, diesel, if it's a pressure. or birds, you're doing, you know, Buda dying or some polymer. And then the dog guy's up there. He's generally nothing against the dog guy, but he's watching TV or Netflix. Yeah, sure. And they can't hear you scream when you fall over. Oh, my goodness. So what this system is.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, they just come out to look at you or your relief shows up. It's kind of, holy crap. Yeah. Where's Stacy? Yeah. Nobody knows. And then you find the body five, six days later.

Oh, my goodness. If you ever find it at all, I bet there's something that don't ever be done. There's something they're never accounted for. I got into this business 20 years ago I took a dead kid's job He'd be on the job for three days There's what's called the duck pond That's where four barges match up

But in that one section There's always a hole right there And what they think of this kid right there to go What we call kicking the toe Which is go step on the wires Make sure all the wires are tight And this kid fell in the duck pond And he just never came back

And it took three days And they finally put divers up under And they found him his life jacket He was still in his life jacket But he was stuck on a piece of torn steel up under the boat. Oh, come on. So he rode there for three days.

That was my first job as I took his place. Oh, that's awful. Just the thought of that. So what this system is, it's like I said, it's called Shelby, self-help emergency life buoy. And the idea is if you fall over, this thing is 50 feet long. It is always trailing right down the edge of the barge in the current.

If you're making your rounds, you know where it's it. Well, and you're going to go right into that because you'll go the same place it does. It's going to carry it to you. Right. And it's all covered in solace, which is safety of life. Let's see, reflective tape. So even at night, it looks like a snake. Yeah.

So you've got something to grab. I'm not using the word rescue because I can't say that you can pull yourself back up 12 feet onto this barge when you're cold. Right. You're scared. You're soaking wet. But you won't die. Right. That's the biggest thing is I don't want you to float away and die.

I don't care if you have to spend six hours because this buoy has 150 newtons of positive lift for about 33 pounds. So you can throw it between your legs, sit on this thing with your life jacket right about your head up out of the water that's got a nylon. strap that you can put around your shoulders in case you're too tired to hold on. You can literally just put this over your shoulders up under your arms and just slide back. Wait until somebody notices that you're missing. There's two lifeguard whistles mounted on

so you can get one of these whistles and blow it to get somebody's attention. Could you hear that? I don't know what that was. What was that? I have no idea. But it being 50 feet long, the barge is 53 feet wide, so worst case scenario, you can kick yourself over to the dock once you calm down and make a plan. Oh, yeah.

Wow. So it just, like I said, there's five to seven people a year come up missing. Yeah. Like a... Well, you save one life with this. Yeah. I mean, good on you. That seems like a big number, quite honestly, you know, quite a bit of...

Why are you sounding so far away? I don't know. But mine is on its... Okay. Well, I move up on. I don't know. I think that noise was a text, but I don't understand why my thing is making noise on your thing. I don't know.

Anyway, sorry. Okay. Wow, that's awesome. That's pretty cool. So let's say we've got someone who owns a barge company who's listening to this. How would they find you? Barge lifeline.com. Barge lifeline.com.

Or usa-marineconsulting.com. They'll take you the same place. Yeah, cool. Like I said, I don't want to, I'm not doing it to get rich. I'm just tired of seeing the people that I know die. Yeah. Well, you know what? How about this?

I'm assuming that when a, you know, a 20-year-old kid falls off, and drowns, their family's going to sue the barge company. Oh, yeah. So, you know, if they're 20 and they would have made a couple million in their lives, then, you know, they're going to be paying at least a fraction of that. Right. As opposed to paying, how much is this thing? $350.

There you go. So one life saved is priceless, and then, but to the barge owner, that just saved them a couple million bucks. Yeah, wrongful death lawsuit, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow, awesome. I appreciate it. I'll give you one of these.

Yay. We didn't really have you on to just plug things because here's the thing about Stacy. If we're plugging stuff, we should plug Dr. Scott's website. You still got Simplyurbals.net going? Yeah, for now. Yeah, for now. What are you going to do after that? Not open a beer store.

You know what? I just paid off the loan that I took for my 401K from that. Yes. So thank you very much. I know, I know. I lost less than you did, but Scott and I boss lost one. It was a total loss, so. Yes, but it was a lot of good beer consumed. It certainly was. It was awesome. It was a great place. I mean, are we still going to take legal action against our landlord? Or are we just letting it go? We're just going to say

namaste and let it go. And we'll learn some of those dirty words in Hindi. Oh, boy, I can teach them to you. I know some I saw some really naughty words in tumble. I have a resident right now who speaks tumble and I'm like, I know a lot of words in tumble and I can't say one of them to you. I can say

poda and that just means hey, what's up? But if you go podanai then it's like what's up dog except dog, it's not like saying dog in this country. No. Like if you went to a bar and went podanai to somebody in tumble reach and they would probably

shoot you, you would have a problem. They bust you the nose. Because you don't call somebody a dog. No, no, no, no. But simply herbal, I'm just kind of, we're just, we're kind of treading water. Kind of like with this. Okay, well, check out, help out Dr. Scott. Come on, bye, bye, bye, bye.

So, Tacey and, well, Stacey and Tacey, but Stacey is known on this show for his incessant phone calls to the show, except that the problem is all of his calls are good questions, so we have to run them. So we have at least one or two Stacey questions every show. The last couple of shows, we haven't had any. And so I just figured it'd be fun to get you in. We'll do nothing but Stacey calls or questions for the rest of the show. Well, I have to start for one thing just because I have to start off with it.

Tacey! That goes through me just like hearing Opie going snowing. That's all the reason why I do it But one thing about your old's beer store They loved it up at XM's Adelight Yeah, yeah, we sent them lots of presents And you delivered them for us So thank you

An old Vic, I know he liked it a lot Well, that was a blow, wasn't it? That was just, yeah, that's just heartbreaking People in Kingsport were heartbroken Because, you know, he came here And he, well, how many people were at that taste 200, 300 people. I mean, it was very well attended.

It was packed. We packed a whole barn because the weather was bad, so we did it inside. We had Jim, oh gosh, James Bird, and we had Cliff Andrews, did the back, you know, some of the people that we have sort of been working with through the new comedian showcase and funniest person in the Tri-Cities. And so they got to open for Vic, and they did very well. and Vic gave him some notes and stuff, and then he came out and just destroyed. He really did. He was perfect for this area.

They loved him, and they were really shocked when he passed away. Just before he passed, before Carl passed, I'd gone up, I was having dinner with Carl, and we're doing moonshine shots that I brought up from East Tennessee. Yeah. And I'm texting with Vic, and Vic wants me to come to his show. It's kind of, dude, I'm too drunk to even get on a subway right now with Carl. Yeah, yeah. So you probably had a hand.

and both of their demise, unfortunately. So with all that much, you were breaking on, but, yeah, we really love that guy. Yeah, but we know when my demise is not going to happen after today. Okay, well, let's talk about that for a second. So, yeah, so Stacey called, said, I want to get one of those calcium scores. Because of my family history. Right. My mom died at 63.

My dad died at 47. Little brothers already had several stents plugged in. Big brother's dead. And so I'm the only one that hasn't had a major. life altering. So let's talk about the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. And then we'll talk a little bit about the calcium score, and then you can talk about your experience. So there's five of them, basically. One of them is a family history of, particularly a family history of early coronary disease. So someone that had an MI before, say, age 55, is, that's a risk factor.

but any family history of cardiovascular disease high cholesterol how's your cholesterol you saw my numbers today but the listeners haven't seen I know that's why I'm asking you I don't right boys don't know they're terrible they're great right now because you're on Crestor

but they were bad before right yeah that's why they put me on Crestor number three diabetes way I went that one too tap two not well under controlled as much as I try it's particularly poorly controlled diabetes and then number four, hypertension.

Are you on a high blood pressure medication? I don't think so. You should be actually on an ACE inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker to protect your kidneys from the diabetes that you're not controlling very well. But that's something we'll talk about. And then number five is smoking. I have smoked in 20 years. And you don't smoke.

So you've got three of the five. Okay. You only need one to get a calcium score. so you went in and let's talk talked about it so we scheduled it that took two minutes but then it took longer to do the paperwork and you get registered than actual test did yep and what they charge him $49 isn't that something that's amazing the girl told me that when they used to do it it was like 300 but under the new system that they've got it was $49 yeah I paid 50 for mine so so they took you through and then just walk us through the thing

You and I, we went back there. We sat out there, waited for a little while. They called us back, went back into the CAT scan lab. I guess that's what you would refer to it as. Sure. Had me, didn't have to change clothes or anything, which was amazing. Just emptied my pockets. Had me lay down, propped up my knees.

The tech was really good. She explained to me ahead of time what was going to happen. Oh, she said to tell you hello to Tacey. Oh. Zub, Terry. Oh. Becky's friend. Yeah, okay.

Okay, yeah. And so set me up in there. She told me, you know, that the machine's, going to talk to me, tell me when to breathe and when not to breathe. Slead me back. It's like, tell me what to do. Yeah, I'm not going to breathe when you tell me not to you. I will not be muzzled.

But anyway. Yeah, so they slid me back in there. It took probably less than two minutes. The machine ran back and forth, circular, I guess, over me. You could hear it. I guess it was getting calibrated for me. And then computer voice told me to hold my breath for about 15 seconds. And it moved back and forward.

We did that, I think, two or three times, and that was it. It was literally two minutes in the machine at the very most. Amazing. The CAT scans, when I first started in the 80s, we had our first CT scanner at that hospital. It took 45 minutes to do one scan. Okay. What's the difference in the CAT scan on an MRI? Well, okay, that's an excellent question.

Well, let's give your, hold that thought. Let's give your results. Okay. So mine was 268. I thought it was 440. Mine was 268. It went from zero to 268 in about eight years. We were going to take bets on this about if somebody taking up,

they need to take out life insurance from me because of my family history. This was less than 100. Oh, wow. Good for you. That's considered normal. I looked at it. And when she was scanned through, I'm like, there's nothing there. And she said, yeah, there's one little ditzel over here.

So. I have no heart. Cold black heart. You have no calcium deposits in the arteries of your heart. The plumbing is good. Well, good for you. That's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll give you one of these things. There's no hairball cloths in your head. You're a big loser, Steve. I know, I am in this regard. I am. He beat me on that. And we celebrate about our... We're still both at not at high risk, but...

Yeah, but mine was so much better than yours. I had a Philly cheesecake and onion ring before you had a salad. He did. That is true. We went out to eat lunch afterward, and he gets this big, greasy, filly cheese steak with onion. But see, that's why it's clear, because all that grease keeps everything flowing through. Yeah, I think so, too. You're just...

lucky, but anyway. Real lucky. And then you lubricated with the wine and he'll push all the grease out. So let's do your Framingham risk scores. So anyway, yeah, go get your calcium scores. If you have one risk factor, you qualify. And it's a lot of hospitals. We'll do it for about $50.

I was thoroughly amazed with it. Yeah. So let's do a Framingham risk calculation on you. You can just Google everyone at home, do this yourself. Google Framingham Risk calculator. So we're going to do that right now. So your gender is male. With a girl's name.

Age. That's right. Age. Well, you know, trans fats, bad. Trans everything else. Yay. I'm all, you know, so age is what, 58? 58.

You look older than your age. Okay. And then. Oh, isn't that sweet. Just kidding. Somebody told me that at Ingalls to me. And I thought I was going to. They said, you look older than your age?

Yeah. He looked at my license and said, well, you look way older than that. Oh, my. And the manager said, did you really just say that to that? I think that's not what he meant. That's what he said. He saw the boobs and he was nervous and he meant to say, oh, she looks way younger. He was very young and very stupid and said something.

But he meant to say you look younger, you know, because I would, you know, and he was hoping you'd go, oh, really? How young do you think I am? And then he had this whole fantasy. And then what came out of his mouth was completely the wrong thing. I'll live with that. But I don't think that's what. It's one thing to think that you're stupid.

It's another thing to open your mouth and prove it. Yeah. Yeah. So total cholesterol was 185. This is on medication. And your HDL was quite elevated at like 55, something like that. I remember it was like 3 to 1. So then your systolic blood pressure, you say, is normal?

Yes. So like 130 to 139. Yes. And you're not on medications for high blood pressure. Correct. And you're not a smoker. but you are you have diabetes

we're trying not to call people label people diabetic anymore we're just going to say you're a person with diabetes isn't that the same time yes yes and no you don't you know it's like you participate it so you get it's labeling people we're trying not to label people right

and then known vascular you're not really bald either states you're just short of hair I'm follically challenged as long as I keep making big racers You've never had a stroke or anything like that. I know they thought you had one at one point, but they ruled it out, right? Correct.

Okay, so no stroke. So, view of results. So your risk factor, well, okay, what in that shit is this? I'm good ahead. Oh, no. Okay. So your estimated 10-year global cardiovascular risk is about 18%. So that's why they have you on the double dose of Rosuvastatin, which is also known as

Christor. Right. and why you probably ought to be on an ACE or an ARB, you should talk to your primary care, but you've got to get your diabetes under control, okay? Well, I think the other website that scared me was deathclock.com. Oh, that sounds like a scary website. Let's do that one.

You probably beat me on that, too. Deathclock.com. I don't know this one. Yeah, but you're really old. Plug it in. Okay, so. It's like older and all three of us combined. It sells more life insurance on this website.

Oh, really? Is that what this is? I don't know, but it's just funny to me. Okay. Because you can change your attitude. Okay, I'm going to put in my day to birth here. Right behind Noah. Okay, I'm optimistic.

And my BMI is 25 right now, and I'm a non-smoker. So check my death clock. Oh, wait, oh, wait. I'm not 5'7, though. I'm 5'9. and I weigh one something 60 something okay all right check your BMI is 25 yes okay check your death clock okay here we go uh oh oh July 28 2040 this isn't good for you Tase it's July 28 2040 now my life insurance will run out before then they actually say yep Saturday July 28 2040

Now, change your attitude. Okay. Oh, okay. And then look at it. You need to be calling. Medicare. No, there are life insurance people because I didn't marry you to be poor at the end. Or to live it that long.

Oh, no. If I change it to pessimistic. I thought if it didn't work out, when I was walking down the aisle, I thought if this doesn't work out, he's 20 years older than me. He'll be dead. It can't last forever. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. She smokes. She won't last forever.

So if you change it to pessimistic, my date of death is April 16, 2009. You're on borrowed time. So this is just bullshit. I know. It's nothing real about it. It's the Internet. What do you expect, the truth? Yeah, exactly.

That is pretty scary, though. That's hilarious. First time I did that is, scared the crap of me. I went to dealers and bought walking shoes and started walking. Just because of that? Yeah. I need some to get some type of motivation. Well, let's take a call off the internet,

and then we'll get back to some Tacey. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. All right, here we go. Hey, your old buddy, Stacy. Got a quick question. Oh, come on. And they asked me about a living will and a power of attorney. How important is it to have that before you have any medical procedures done?

This is another excellent question. Bye, Tase. They are always good. They're always good questions. They really are. They always have to run them. Yeah, but you have to hear the questions that you don't air. Well, that's kind of way.

We have a stack of those, too. But so a living will sometimes referred to as an advanced directive. So in the set of all living wills, advanced directives are inside that. I'm sorry, a set of all advanced directives, living wills are in that set, right? Because there's lots of other advanced directives. If I, if Tacey calls me and says, buy beer and mustard on the way home from work, that is an advanced directive, right? So this is a specific kind of advanced directive where you're talking about what do you want as far as medical care is done if you have a permanent catastrophic assault on your quality of life and you can't speak for yourself. Mine has three days regardless.

Okay. I'd plug me in three days. Okay. You have 72 hours? Chop, chop, let's get moving. You might, but like the Tennessee Living Will, for example, is a lot more specific, and it's broader. It has things like, basically, you say, if I can't speak for myself, who's going to speak for me? So that's the medical power of attorney part.

And then if I'm in a coma that I'm never going to wake up from, the massive brain injury, the neurosurgeons, neurologists have come and said he's never going to wake up, would that be unacceptable to you? And for me, that's unacceptable. Then the next one is permanent confusion, you know, a situation where you have got like terminal Alzheimer's and you're just curled up in a ball making noises all day. Would that be unacceptable to you as far as a quality of life? Yes. And then the third one is permanent dependence, you know, like Alzheimer's, or not Alzheimer's, ALS or a massive stroke where Tacey has to feed me and, you know, change my diapers. and stuff like that. It's like, yes, that's unacceptable to me.

And then the third one, or the fourth one, is just end-stage illness. I'm cool with that. If I've got end-stage illness, I've got a big-screen TV and Netflix. I'm cool. I want to start doing heroin just because I always wanted to. That's acceptable to me. Well, I always said if I had a terminal illness, I'd start smoking again. That was one of the motivations I used to quit smoking.

And now that I've been quit for 20-plus years, I would have no desire to smoke ever again, even if I get a terminal illness. Well, anyway. So then, if you can't speak for yourself and you've fallen into one of those categories that you said would be unacceptable to you, then what do you want? So the question is, if you're in a permanent coma or one of these other things and you die, would you want CPR and to be put on life support in an attempt to bring you back to continue to be that way? And for me, that's an easy hell now. That's your DNR, isn't it? Then you become DNR.

Do not attempt resuscitation or allow natural death, which I like better, because it says that's what you're going to do, not what you're not going to do. You know, do not. You know, do not. Well, we could resuscitate you, but we're choosing not. I don't like that. A&D or allow natural death. But anyway, so the beauty of it is I'm not DNR now, right? If I keel over right here while we're doing this, you guys need to do CPR and call, you know.

call the rescue squad, but I would be C.DNR then. Right. Right. So that's the beauty of the living will is that you're making these decisions ahead of time. And I won't go through the whole thing, but that's basically the gist of it. And you can say, like, do you want tube feedings and stuff like that? Now you go, whoa, I don't need that. Why would I need that?

Well, there's two things. It protects you from having stuff done to you that you don't want. It also protects your decision maker. it's often your spouse, from getting bitched at by family members, go, why, why didn't you feed him, you know, and then you bring this thing out and says, hey, because that's what he wanted. Or letting them, trying to get them to linger on and on and on and on. Right, right, right, right.

Yeah, you got to do everything. Well, no, we did everything. This is doing everything to no end. You're leaving you out to my wishes. To no end, right. So think about it this way. If you think, if you're out there listening to this and you're over. 18. If you're under 18, you shouldn't be listening to this. But if you're over 18 and you're

listening to this, you need a living will. And I'll tell you why. Terry Shivo. A lot of people don't remember her, but Terry Shivo was 24, 25 year old, beautiful young woman, had a stroke, was in a persistent vegetative state, which is a, basically, it's a coma where you sleep and wake cycles, but it's still a coma. You're unresponsive. You can't do anything. You don't recognize people. You can't have a meaningful conversation. with him. And after many, many months of this, her husband said, Terry would not want to live this way, and he wanted to pull the tube. Well, her parents said, oh, hell no. Yes, she would. And they wanted it put back in. So they went to court to get them to put it back in. They were successful.

He goes to court to get it removed again, and he was successful. Then they go to court back and back and forth, working their way up from local circuit court, appellate courts, all this stuff. Congress gets involved. Now it's MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, 24 hours a day news cycle. I believe that this young woman would have been mortified if she had known what was going on. So eventually, you know, the last judge let him pull the tube and that, you know, she expired sometime after that. They made her comfortable in hospice.

But if she had had a living will, we never would have heard of her because it would have said, yeah, I want it or no, I don't. And for those of you out there that are filling out a living will soon, if it asks you about that, be careful about saying, yes, I want indefinite tube feedings because then that becomes the Terry Shivo situation. Make sure that's really what you mean because mine says it's okay to do it for a two-week maximum. And that gives everybody, Tacey and my family, enough time to get used to the idea. And also to make sure that we're doing the right thing. You know, if I haven't improved at all. Now, if you start to improve at 13 days, then there's nothing in there that says you have to take it out at 14 just because it says 14. Those are guidelines.

Remember, the living will is a guideline. People feel like, oh, well, I don't want to get constrained. Well, what if this, what if that? Don't worry about it. The people who are managing your care can use their brain. Right. Okay. All right.

Does that answer your question? I'll give a good example. A coworker of mine three weeks ago, 34 years old, found dead in the kitchen floor. Oh, yeah. At 34, had two kids and just had a daughter like three weeks earlier. Oh, boy. At 34. Oh, boy.

And so now there's the whole thing of what do we do? Yeah. You know. Yeah, sure. So you never know. So we might as well just plan ahead for it. It doesn't take that much time. I didn't mind online.

Literally a living will, if done properly, it will take 10 minutes to do. And when you do it, don't do like the Russians did in Dr. Strangelove and hide it away somewhere, like the doomsday bomb. You remember that? You know, the Americans are going to accidentally drop this bomb over Russia. And the Russians say, wait, if you do that, it's going to explode this doomsday bomb that's going to sterilize. the surface of the earth and the American president's like, what's the good of having a doomsday bomb

if you don't tell anybody about it? So they were going to reveal it at some festival three months later, but it was too late. But anyway, so if you have a living will, don't hide it away. It doesn't do anybody any good. You need to give it to people. The people who make your decisions, anyone

that might take you in the hospital, stick one in your safe deposit box. You know, if it's going to, if you might need it soon, you know, if you're sick, Put it in an envelope and put living will on it and tape it to your refrigerator. Could you leave it with your legal counsel if you hired a lawyer? Absolutely. And that way, somebody knows it is there.

Absolutely, you can. And you should take it to your doctor's appointments and every time you go to the hospital. Even if they've scanned it in, bring it in anyway. All right? Okay. Thank you. All right. There you go.

Let's see. What call is this? Tyson! There you go. I got it. dumb-ass question, I think, but anyway, I deal with acid reflux about once every two years or so

just hits me in the middle of the night, you know, you're pretty sure you're going to suffocate. You are lucky if it only hits you once. Exactly. First time. All of a sudden, your breathing shuts down because the acid that hits me in the throat, and sometimes it gets all open to your mouth sometimes. Oh, this

is a different thing. I know exactly what you're talking about. Anyway, what I got to thinking was, as violent as that acid is, as bad as it burns your throat. What the hell is your stomach lined with it? It doesn't chew up your own internally. Yeah, well, I mean, the stomach, that's a pretty,

Tacey, you know something about this. You want to wax eloquent on the lining on the stomach? No, I do not. Okay. You didn't hear her purring over here while she was. There is a protective layer in the stomach. So the stomach has pumps that, they're called, proton pumps, and they pump naked protons, which, by the way, are quantum objects.

A naked proton is a quantum object. It's three-bound quarks. But yet the body, millions of years ago, figured out how to take a naked proton and pump it by itself into the stomach line, you know, the stomach lumen. That's something. That's incredible, yeah. Because that's how proton pump inhibit. work.

Right. You take Prylasek, it poisons those proton pumps, and then once you poison a proton pump, it's no good again. It has to be, the stomach has to make more. But it can constantly make these protein devices that can move a quantum object from one side of the stomach to the other. Right. It's insane.

Think about that. Before we ever knew anything about wave functions or shrunk, or shrunk. Brodinger equations or quarks or any of that crap, the human body, and not only the human body, I mean the animal kingdom, figured out how to utilize naked protons for its own use. And what that does is, you know, the hydrogen ions will follow those protons, and you get hydrochloric acid. I just know that, you know, every couple of years, the first time this happened. I'm sorry. The naked proton is a hydrogen ion. I'm sorry, the electrons will follow it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just know the first time it happened, it was probably 30 years ago, and I was sure I was dying. And the only thing I could figure out to do was flip over on my hands and knees, get my head down, and just try to breathe very slowly. And then you spend the next 30 minutes burping because you're trying to swallow air because you're trying to get air in there. And anymore, as soon as it starts, that's the first thing I do.

I flip onto my hands and knees and just try to stay. calm. So let me tell you how to, that what you're having is, there is gastroasophageal reflux where you just have acid that just sort of causes heartburn. And if the lining of the stomach is not, doesn't have the integrity that it needs, then you can get an ulcer. You know, it can start eating away. That's what an ulcer is.

Okay. Is when the stomach acid starts eating, eating the stomach lining. But, and you can get failure. of that through lots of different things, either producing so much acid, right, or things that mess with prostaglandins, which would be non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen, stuff like that. People that take a lot of those can get ulcers as well. What else tastes?

Stress can do that. Well, I haven't been paying attention, but did you say chocolate or peppermint? No, we're talking about things that cause ulcers, not things that make of them. Oh, I thought you were talking. See, I told you. Smoking, smoking. Yeah, smoking. Alcohol abuse.

I mean, things like that can. So anyway. But then there's mechanical reflux, and that's when the lower esophageal sphincter, which is the valve at the bottom of the esophagus. It's not really even a valve. It's just a ring of muscle. And when it just opens up in the middle of the night and then all that fluid that's in your stomach goes rushing up. And not only, what else is there, though. Your voice box is.

Yes, so the airway, so this stuff will just start pouring into your airway, and then you will aspirate. And that's where you're getting the coughing and the hacking from. And it's not only is it fluid, but it's fluid with a low pH. It's very acidic, and so it's caustic. And it really causes a lot of pain. You get pain in the back, your throat, your cough, and it's hard to breathe. It's terrible when it happens to Steve. Now, I have not had it happen in years.

In a long time. In years, because I figured out what the problem is. Number one, I don't eat any carbohydrates, particularly gluten-containing, you know, bread and pasta and stuff like that, within about four to six hours of going to bed. Okay. So you, as a diabetic, should be on a low-glycemic diet and maybe even a low-carb diet anyway. But I found that if I eat meat and vegetables or just vegetables alone, salad, that kind of something, never have a problem. But if I was eating bread or pasta or lots of like French fries, this sort of concentrated starch, then within four hours of going to bed, it was a problem. The next thing, even if it just happens twice a year, you don't ever want it to happen.

So you want to prevent it 100% of the time. Take a couple of bricks and put it under the head of your bed. Okay. Because if you put pillows under your back and then you bend yourself up so that you're kind of sitting up, what you're actually doing, since you have a little bit of a gut, not a lot, but a little bit. I haven't seen my feet in years. Yeah, so what happens? So when you bend, that extra weight over your abdomen actually pushes up into the stomach,

increases the pressure on the stomach, and actually makes it more likely to happen. The third thing is to take an acid that floats before you go to bed, and that would be gaviscon. It's the only one that I'm aware of that actually floats. And so it will lay on top of that layer of fluid. And then if it does happen to get into your esophagus and up, at least it's going to neutralize the acid to some degree. So it's less caustic. So that really just helps you if it happens.

But the main thing is preventing it is low carb at dinner. And go easy on the alcohol at dinner, too, because that loosens that lower or esophageal sphincter. If you smoke, like Scott said, stop. And then put brick under the head of your bed. Because I've started just trying to find, because I don't want to go to bed on an empty stomach and wake up, you know, a few hours later starving.

So I've actually started doing fruit smoothies without adding any alcohol, which is really good. Yeah. That may be a problem with this. That's a terrible idea, though, yeah. Yeah, right before bed. I don't know. That may be a problem with this.

No. Especially if it's cold. Right. It's a cold. Of course. No, you want it's got to, you need something warm. And I'll tell you. why the stomach this one this is one of these iervatic kind of chinese things but he's at i think

he's 100% right on this when you say about anything cold like if you fall down the at your elbow we're going to give us an ice pack right your stomach's a muscle putting cold things in there makes it shrink and if it does that it takes away one of the two mechanisms you've got of getting food out of there because motility is the key it's going to decrease peristosis too it's going to slow peristosis so the food's not going to kick out there so the brain says oh we still have food in there kick in more acid, more acid, more acid. That's what people with cold drinks and cold foods have increased acid because it's not getting out of their stomach quick enough.

So if you're going to eat anything really low on the sugar. And not before you go to bed either. And nothing cold. Yeah, just wake up hungry. Who gives a shit? If you're, if you, I mean, Liam says that. Well, I don't want to wake up hungry. And it's like, when you get up, then eat something bad.

But, you need to go to bed hungry. Or, I mean, you need to be hungry at night so that you're, stomach isn't full of stuff. And you may have a little gastroporesis, too, you know, slowing of the emptying of the stomach. That would be an interesting thing for us to do because there are some medications for that that can speed up. We have a friend who has gastroporesis, and when she eats, her stomach just fills up and it just sits there. You know, it takes forever for it to get out. There are medications, but sometimes you're just flogging a dead horse, so they have to put in what they call a gastric pacemaker, which is actually

stimulates the stomach to contract to get the food out of the stomach. It's like a nerve stimulatively put your spine too. But you know what you could eat instead of a fruit smoothie? Just eat like a scoop full of sugar-free almond butter or peanut butter. Something you made yourself. It's room temperature. Right. At least you get some good protein.

It's going to be a lot easier to digest. Or just eat, you know, like a normal person and then go to bed. If you wake up hungry, then roll over and go back to sleep. Yeah, part of it was, I remember listening to an interview with Kevin Smith when he, after his heart attack and he went through, he lost, you know, a ton of weight and everything, and he was talking about, you know, he would get hungry, and then he finally just figure out, screw it, I'm hungry. What you're going to do? It makes you uncomfortable. Right. Yeah. I found that. If I'm a fat, lazy American, I want to be fat. I know, I know. If I'm working and I get hungry, it goes away because I've got something to do. Now, when I come home and if Tacey isn't ready to, you know, hang out or anything, what do I do? I start eating and I start fog eating. You know, I just start cramming stuff in my mouth.

I'm not even that hungry. Right. So I have the same, you know, at least now, thanks to Noom, I'm binging on rice cakes instead of snicker bars, which I used to binge on and chips and dip and stuff like that. Right. But, yeah, that'll prevent that. Okay. Well, there are some other medications that you could take. I used to take metaclopramide, and the metaclopramide increases forward peristolsus,

and it increases the pressure on the lower esophageal sphincter. The problem is, if you take it forever, you can get an adverse effect called tardive dyskinesia. And you ever seen these old crazy people on the street just smacking their lips all the time, just going, they don't want that. That's what that is. Weird kinetic. I always just, you know, thought that was war shock or something like that. Yeah, right.

So, but anyway, so all right, okay. So there's your reflux question. What else you got for us? We had a single word about COVID so far. Okay. What COVID question? Oh, yeah, we need to talk a little bit about that. Yes.

We had some big news this week. Pfizer had reported 90% effectiveness of their vaccine. now here's the thing and this is I'm going to give them one of these and for the scientists who were involved give yourself a bill so they 90% effective this is and one of the articles this is how bad medical journalism is it said well there were 94 participants and they had 90% efficacy and it's like that doesn't even make sense that's not what happened so people are going only 94 that doesn't know this says there were 43,530. Thank you. Thank you. That's right. And 94 of them got infected, and 90% of them were in the placebo group and 10% were in the COVID. I mean, that's simplifying it, but that's basically it. So there was a 90% reduction in infection rate on the side of the vaccine. Now, there's only 94 people. We've talked to. about this from day one. This is the problem that there's so few people. It seems like the whole

world's getting it. They really aren't. You know, right now it's like, what, 2% of the United States so far? Or maybe it's 3%. 98% is not getting it. That's right. So, isn't that something? How about we being positive about a little something? You know, like you and I were talking about it at lunch today when I was having that great big, big, huge Philly cheese steak and you're having your salad. But the America Cancer Society said last year there were 660,000 people died from cancer. Yeah. There's been a little over 200,000 deaths.

That's a horrible number. Yeah. But 200,000. Everyone a tragedy, by the way. Because of COVID. Okay. Which one's bigger? 200,000 or 600,000 or 660,000?

Right. But we're not losing our crap over cancer all of a sudden. Well, but cancer is the devil that we know, right? But the thing is, we know it's there. So why is this other just? Yeah. It does blow my mind that people still smoke cigarettes, you know, knowing what we know about it. But I smoked and I get it.

I was a doctor and I smoked. I knew. The only time that I quit, that I got serious about quitting is when I read a statistic that said that if I don't quit by the time I'm 40, I won't be able to get an erection anymore. And I was like, that's it. I'm done. I didn't care about heart disease and care about cancer. But that one statistic really, yeah. I quit because of to survive.

And when I say that, I was in law enforcement. I was a canine and tactical officer. And me trying to fight. And I just had no win. Yeah. And so I'm fixing to become a statistic with a big blue line down the middle of a flag with my name on if I don't quit smoking. So I started dipping. And then, you know.

That makes a lot more. Oh, yeah. Well, because then I can breathe. And spit in the face of someone when you're arresting him. Well, then see, the next plan wasn't okay. If I'm going to quit that, then I'm going to go to heroin next. I'm going to quit everything. It looks like 3% of the country has been infected that we know of.

Now, there are people that have been infected we don't know of. Define what symptomatic is. Okay, well, people that had symptoms, you know, they had cough, fever. But the ones that don't have it. The ones that don't have any symptoms, but they're still carrying it. They are asymptomatic. Because I've never heard anybody define the difference between what asymptomatic means. Oh, it means they had no symptoms.

Without symptoms. But they have it. They had the disease. They had the infection of the virus. They didn't have the disease. They got infected by the virus, but it had no symptoms. So they found out about it serendipitously afterward. And that's why it's so hard to know.

And I was talking in front of the Bar Association, our local Bar Association, recently. And they said, how come some people say this is a catastrophe and some people are saying it's just like the flu? Well, both of them are kind of right. But it just depends on the numbers that you use. So there is case fatality and there's infection fatality, right? So let's say that you've got a virus where 1,000 people were infected. A hundred of them got symptoms. Five of them died.

Okay. 1,000 people infected. 100 cases. Five died. So the case mortality rate on this particular, you know, artificial virus is 5%. Right. Five people out of 100 people died. That's catastrophic. But the infection fatality rate is 0.5 percent because five out of a thousand died. That's not so bad. So both of the, you can, I can use, so you got to look at both of the numbers. You can't just look at one or the other because if you're at the mind to say this is a catastrophe, you will use the case fatality ratio and you will say 239,671 people died. if you want to say it's not that big of a deal, then you'll use the infection fatality rate, which looks like it's pretty low, about 0.5%.

So they're shaping their numbers for the outcome that they won't? Because this thing has become a political problem. So, uh, because you hear 200 or something,000, okay, how many people died in a motor vehicle accident? Well, yeah, but these are two, okay, so, but they tested positive. They tested positive. So there is some of that. There is some of that.

There is some of that will never be able to ferret out 100% of that. But if you look at the CDC website, you can die with COVID or you could die from COVID, right? Or die without COVID. Someone, right, or you could die without COVID altogether. So if you had a motor vehicle accident and you were asymptomatic and you died in the motor vehicle accident. Blood force trauma. And then your test came back that you got two days before and it was positive. That's not a COVID death.

It shouldn't be listed that way. So, for example, if we would put on a death certificate, viral pneumonia, or respiratory failure, secondary to viral pneumonia, secondary to COVID-19. Okay. Okay. That is a COVID death. Right. Someone who died from COVID-19, the disease that is caused by the virus SARS-COV-2. Have they ever publicly split out the numbers between those that died strictly from COVID?

Yes. Because of respiratory or? And here's what they also do is every couple of months, the CDC will come out with this revised preliminary number. Right. And people will freak out because they'll say only 6% of the deaths were from COVID-19. I mean, what they're talking about is on the death certificates, some dumb-ass doctors, 6% of them. us or dumbasses. They put on the death certificate. COVID-19. That's all they put. That's what they're talking about. No one dies from COVID-19. They die from complications

from the infection. This is like me being in law enforcement. I got a shoot, don't shoot, situation. I had to discharge my weapon. I killed somebody that was a fell back. They hit the head on the curb. Right. So which one killed them? Hitting the head on the curb or about 357, a magnum right well on a death certificate thankfully it's it's you know the logic of it is a little less rigorous okay but um you can't just put covid 19 if you're a doctor out there and you're doing death certificates and you're writing that's the only thing you write on the death certificate you're doing it wrong because they died of respiratory failure or they died of septic shock or they died of you know a bacterial super infection that was caused by septic you know by sepsis caused by

viral pneumonia caused by COVID-19 caused by and then you could put infection with SARS COV-2 if you wanted to but just to put just COVID-19 is not acceptable yes sir everybody you keep hearing die from heart failure yeah doesn't everybody die from heart failure oh yeah okay no not everybody so your heart can stop you're right but and what you can't do is put cardiac what was the word that they don't want us to use because they said don't put the means of death, you want to put the cause of death. Okay, your heart stopped. Everyone's heart stops when they die, so you don't want to put that on there.

But what made their heart stop? And it could be cardiac failure. Now, when they're talking about that, they're talking about pump failure. But doesn't that associate just like COVID in relation to dot-da-da-d-d-d- No, no, because heart failure means a certain thing. And what that means is pump failure. When you have someone that has heart failure, the heart is not pumping out as much blood it is coming into it.

Okay. So when your heart contracts, it should pump out about 65% of the blood that's in it. Because it's not perfect. It's not going to be 100%, right? It's not going to pump itself dry. So 65% pretty good. When it gets down to 20%, now when you walk and you move and you're pumping, you know, all those muscles are pumping blood up to the right side of the heart.

And then it goes through the lungs and then gets dumped into the left side of the heart. the left side of the heart has to pump it back out again, more blood is coming in than going out. So it's like a pump that gets overprived. Right. And now you have fluid backing up into the lungs. And that's why people get pulmonary edema. That's what we call us when the lungs get all wet with fluid that's backed up from the, from the, from the, that's, the whole reason that cliche came up was because you can't talk about medical stuff without talking about.

And there's no other word. No, I know, I know. It's just hilarious. So, but that's how that happened. So when you say heart failure, you're not saying cardiac, you know, arrest. Okay. Right. Heart failure means something to us, and that means pump failure.

Okay. So they could put congestive heart failure. It would be better to put that on there because it would be a little clearer. All right. Okay. Scott, you got anything? I like it. All right.

Have you got anything to plug? No. No. Okay. Tacey. Nope. How about your Twitter, Stacey? Stacey Deloge one.

Okay. With that E, S-T-A-C-Line. Yep. And plug your business again. Barge-Lafline.com. All right. U.S.A.Moreen Consulting.com. There you go.

Thanks always go to Dr. Scott and Tacey. And now Stacey Deloach. Good to have you in here. 100% Stacey questions. We should have gotten our fill, but we'll have three more for next show. Yeah, I'm going to ask you about smoking marijuana can cause a heart attack. Okay. We'll talk about now.

It's good for you. We can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton, Travis Teff, Lewis Johnson, Holly from Florida, Paul Off Charsky, Eric Nagel, Roland Campos, Chowdy, the, from South Florida, Sam Roberts, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Martha from Arkansas's daughter, Matt Kleinshmidt, Dale Dudley, the great Rob Bartlett, Bernie and Sid, Ron Bennington,

and Fez Watley, whose support of this show has never gone on. Appreciate it. Also, Chrissy's sister is in there, too. Listen to our Sirius XM 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. Many thanks. our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. Go to our website at Dr.steve.com for schedules and podcasts, other crap, and check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyherbils.net. 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.

Thanks, everybody. Good stuff. Thank you.