Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 440 - Old Man Rod

Episode Date: January 21, 2021

Dr Steve, Tacie, and Dr Scott discuss alternatives to tranquilizers, Tacie's ennui over her intro, nocturnal tumescence and much more. Finally some non-covid stuff (though still a lot of covid). PLEASE VISIT: 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!) roadie.com (OMG the coolest stringed instrument accessory EVER MADE) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. He haven't answered a single fucking medical question. The boss, man! What's a part, man?

I've got diphtheria, crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolabov stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heart valve, exacerbating my impetable way. bones. I want to take my brain out. I'm clasped with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill.

All my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen cane. And if I don't get it now in the tablet, I think I'm doomed, then I'll have to go insane. I want to requiem for my disease. So I'm paging Dr. Steve. Yo, Dio.

Take a careful. Yo, ho, ho, ho, do the brain. It's weird medicine. the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history of broadcast radio, now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal, Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medical provider. He gives me streetcress with you, wacko, alternative medicine people.

Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. And my wife, Tacey, who will be here in just about three seconds when this intro is over. 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 to your regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else,

give us a call at 3, 4, 7, 7.7. 6-6-4-3-2-3. That's 347. Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news, and stuff you can buy, or you can contact us there, or go to our new merchandise store and now, don't go there. Well, yeah,

cafepress.com slash weird medicine. That's good for you guys. You can get a crystal stool scale, Dr. Steve mug, rate your stools when you have your cup of Joe in the morning, but, you know, we get like, literally, I think it's down to like 25 cents, so don't rush over there. But if you want,

It's pretty cool. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything you hear the grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking over with your doctor, nurse practitioner, practical nurse, physician, assistant, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory, scientists, registered dietitian or whatever. All right. Please don't forget to check out stuff. dot, Dr. Steve.com for all your Amazon needs. And tweakeda audio.com.

Offer code fluid, FLUID for 3.3.000. 33% off the best earbuds for the price and the best customer service anywhere. And if you go to Dr. Steve.com in the middle of the page, you will see a link to get an archive of all of our shows. It's got about 18 gigs of data on it on a 32 gig, hard or a thumb drive. Plus, I have, I think, three or four of these face masks left, and then they're all gone. They're weird medicine face masks. They're horror. I mean, they're very well made.

But, I mean, who would want one? But we got about 100 of them, and we've got three left. I think it's 30 bucks, and I'll ship it to you. I usually get them out within a day or two. I've had a couple that I've delayed, but I'll get them out to you as quickly as I can. Plus, just another stupid thing that we also send with it, which is a surprise. And check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net. Here's Tacey.

Hello, everyone. I actually meant to say hello everybody. See, it's a habit. It's fine. It's a perfectly natural thing to say. It's hello, everyone. No, I didn't say it like that this time, though, did I? No, I did not.

It's fine. He likes it. I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to be better. I don't want to copy anybody. Well, I mean, you know, I used to. Apparently I am in every way. for going to commercials back when we were on, you know, the Saturday Night virus for copying Howard Stern when I said, you know, we'll be right back after these words.

It's just like, you know, if I'm going to copy something, I'll copy, you know, lesbian dilate or something. That's just how, I don't know how else you say it. You know, well, we'll be right back after this commercial, I guess. This here commercial. Yep. Well, I didn't mean to say that yet. Oh, my God. I cannot believe you're obsessing about that.

Oh, my goodness. It's hilarious, and it's adorable. Hello, everybody. Hello, everybody. Hello. Again, it's like Star Trek Discovery where they had this whole bit this last season about, you know, the captain trying to figure out what a cool thing to say when they're on their way. You know, Kirk's cool thing at the end of, I guess it was the first, was it the first next generation where he just said, oh, just go there.

that away or whatever it was and then Picard would say make it so and um so you know it's the same kind of thing you don't if you if you think if you think about it trying to be cool it won't be cool I'm no it's hard to say hello to 10 or 11 people at once very good okay very good you there you go you said a good night time taste all right um I don't have it you guys got any news stories today. I'm having a horrible day. I'm making a video for work. I took an administrative day to make a video. I've been working on it all effing day, and I got it all perfect, except one place, the timing of the text wasn't exactly perfect. And this is where having OCD and being a perfectionist. Sometimes it's a good thing. This is when it sucks, because I could have just let it go,

But no, I had to go fix it. And now I have just effed up the whole thing. Have you ever had a situation where you had a tiny thing that you went to fix and then you just effed it up? Usually it's like a little hole in a wall or something. And then you end up taking the whole wall down. Exactly. It's like our painting the whole thing.

How the hell not do that? Tacey, you got any examples of that? Our marriage. There you go. Funny. Okay, anyway. All right. Yeah, we just tried to fix one little thing and then look at what happened.

Well, it just can just spiral to. It's insane. We were trying to fix that we, it doesn't matter. Never mind. I'm just about to get myself in big trouble making a joke. And we don't want that. So what do you got? Okay.

I have one article. Scott has none. to point that out that you there you that um doubling up on masks adds to obstacle course for covid particles research shows yeah well that makes sense right and this article says that basically wearing two masks can can give you the same protection as an n95 mask oh well why not wear 14 then well it says you you are cautioned against wearing three masks that that may be going too far well why okay Since that could interfere with the ability to breathe. Excellent.

And I work out in a mask, and it is awful. That sucks, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you work out with a mask because where you were going, nobody was wearing them. And then the trainer thought he got, he had the big C, in this case, the big C meaning COVID. Right. Sorry, they had a scare.

Yeah. So do they have any data with this? I mean, that's the thing. I posted something on Twitter recently that actually was a pretty conclusive study that showed that mask wearing actually does decrease transmission. And it was, as I've been saying, it ain't 100%. But it's enough to get the transmission level down far enough. And we're talking about, look, we're not saying drive your car with a mask on.

That's assonide. What we're saying is, when you're in. in a situation where you cannot socially distance yourself or physically distance yourself from people, put a damn mask on. And everybody, if everybody does it, even if it only works 10% of the time, it can decrease the transmission rate enough that we can get rid of this stupid virus, even without a vaccine. Right.

Now, people say, well, these areas are locked down. Yeah, I get it. I'm not in favor of lockdowns. I'm not saying that at all. We're talking about mitigating risk. And right now, while we're waiting for everybody to get a vaccine, Tacey, have you gotten your vaccine? No, because I'm a peon and I'm not ready to yet. And Scott, you got yours?

Yeah. So I get number two this week. And, you know, one thing I've seen is about 50-50 of the people I've seen get the second. The booster shot had some side effects. Some people did. Some people didn't. You know, my brother's in the EP lab at our hospital. Spittal and he got his second shot and not a not nothing and I had another buddy

anesthesiologist he said he was great for about 12 hours and down for about 24 yeah flu-like symptoms yep hopping from subject to subject but that's great though um you know what you asked me about no no we were talking about getting a shot I thought it was interesting no it is interesting we were talking about about mitigating risk through mask wearing and then I just asked you if you'd gotten your shot because the point was tacy hadn't got her shot and everybody else we know except for you and me have not gotten their shots yet would you like to we can certainly discuss discuss the adverse effects from the shot though I mean it is very interesting but but so while we're waiting for all of this the keeping away from

each other not being in crowds and when we can't avoid it putting on a mask are ways that we can decreased transmission, and the science is now pretty conclusive on that. I mean, it's been reasonably conclusive, but these large meta-analysis studies are now showing that it is certainly effective. Because you get people saying, well, mass don't work. No, they don't work 100% of the time, but they don't have to. They don't have to. That's the whole point. When you have a transmission rate of one person gives it to 1.1 person, if you decrease, increase the rate by 10%, you've done what you needed to do. So, okay.

Well, there's no science in this article other than what I said. Okay. All right. And don't wear three. Right. So one's not enough. Two is just right. And three is too many.

According to this article. Well, you know, and Dr. Steve, one of the complaints I hear a lot, and I'm sure you do, too, is people don't want to wear it because they can't bring you through their mask. Yeah. Which there's a lot of science out there. now that's proved that there is no change in your oxygen levels if you're wearing a mask. And even they've, they studied this in surgeons going back decades. And there is a drop, but it's not perceptible. You know, it might be, they went from 96% to 95.4%.

So there is, you can detect a drop, but it's not making a difference. Now, I guess if you were at, you know, 89.9.9. and it dropped it down to 89.2, maybe that way, you know, there's always going to be somebody that's right on that borderline. But for the most part, it is psychological. It is psychological. It's a mask on and, oh, I can't breathe. It's psychological.

It's anxiety and it's panic. And, you know, and really the crudy thing is, as if some of these folks who are the most high risk, the COPD guys and the asthma guys, helping them to wear their mask. safely. Those are the ones who really want to protect. Oh, that's right. You know, those are the guys that say they can't breathe when they have their mask on them. Well, and they may be right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They can't breathe in the first place. No, I don't have a hard enough time. I just, I hate it. Yeah, people who are at risk still need to be protected. Yep. And our kids went back to school because their study recently showed that there wasn't a single transmission of COVID-19 from a kid to a teacher in some large, study doesn't mean it's never happened and it still could happen and then it could

spread like wildfire among the teachers if they're not being careful but in in schools where kids are wearing masks and staying six feet away from each other it's not a problem so our kids are no longer virtual they just went back to school full time and I actually support that yes I support people being able to go to restaurants yes and be and eat inside. I mean, what is New York City doing? You know, I don't know how they're going to come back from this. I really don't.

And all these cities that are closing restaurants so people can't eat inside all of those restaurants. Every one of those restaurants is somebody's dream. Yeah. Yep. You know? And it's their kids' college funds. To be self-employed and to be creative because,

Um, cooking is an art form and, uh, they wanted to, you know, be creative and produce things that people are going to like. And they've just been shut down. And I haven't seen compelling evidence that shows that people eating in restaurants are spreading this virus. Oh, no, if they're mostly eating and drinking, you know, maybe if there's a lot of loud talking. Yeah, bars. And I, I, I, you can even do a bar right, but you got to do it right.

And that's the thing. When people are drunk AF, they don't do things right. But even then, I haven't seen bar-related super spreader events. Now, there may be some. Okay, people could send me some, but it's not overwhelming. It's large crowds. Right. Large crowds that cause the problem.

So, yeah, you could do bars right. You can certainly do gyms right. Your gym is doing it right now. Correct, Tase? Don't you feel, I mean, do you feel safe there now? Well, there's soap in the bathroom. now for the longest time there wasn't even that that was long ago though before COVID-19 no I'm the only one who has a mask on and and my trainer will wear one with me but when I'm not there

nobody wears one okay but are they staying apart from each other though and then and then wiping the equipment down afterward and all that it's just so low attended that yeah you're able to stay apart but wiping it down yeah really don't think it's happening no when we were in South South Kakalaki, I was impressed that, you know, phomite transmission, in other words, transmission of the virus from a person to an inanimate object, and then from that inanimate object to somebody else, like a door handle, somebody snots on their hand,

opens the door, someone else comes, grabs the door, and then sticks their finger in their mouth, because it can't go through your skin. You have to, so that's why hand washing and hand sterilizing makes so much sense in this, because if you want to eliminate fomite transmission, that's the way to do it. Don't stick your stupid hands in your mouth.

Wash your hands before you eat. And, you know, don't put your fingers in your eyes and your nose. Anyway, but when I was down there, you would bring your, if you went to the grocery store, you would bring your cart to this guy, and he would completely wipe the whole thing down. And in our grocery store, you just grab your cart, and then they've got wipes there,

which I think is also just as good. I was just thinking. What? I was just thinking when you said South Kakalaki, I was like, when were we in South California? Oh, mm-hmm. So stupid sometimes. Cagalagallaggy.

Idiot. Yeah. Can you please stop bullshitting and get to the question? No, actually. You know, I'm enjoying this conversation, but what? So anyway, yeah, it's mitigating risk is still where we are. And when we get people immunized either through infection or vaccine, we should see a precipitous drop in cases if we get enough people immune.

In our area, we were very close to running out of not equipment. Got all the equipment. That's one, listen. the previous administration, we had no trouble getting a hold of equipment. You know, ventilators and all that's no problem. What's the shortage of staff? And we were getting precipitously close, but never got there. We still had headroom.

If that thing had kept going, that surge had kept going, there would have been a problem. But now we're down, you know, 100 some cases. inpatient and I mean there's lots of breathing room now yeah just because thanksgiving Christmas and New Year's are over right and now we're what three weeks in yeah we're three weeks after New Year's and that's what we kind of predicted right each of those generations around 14 to 21 days that we'd start to see those numbers coming down we're really seeing them come down we should really look let's go to COVID.stoutlabs.com.

That's our friend Daniel Stout's website. The best, and I'm biased because he's a friend, but it's absolutely the best data visualization site on the internet. And I will take some credit for that because I, you know, had something to do with how he's displaying the data as far as the Bollinger bands and the simple moving average.

But let's do a 20-day simple moving average and we'll throw those Bollinger bands in there. And indeed, yeah, we're starting, the cases are bouncing finally for the first time in some time against the bottom Bollinger band, which means that we should be seeing a downward trend very quickly. This is still a leading indicator, so it's not perfect. But when you start seeing things bounce against either the top band

or the bottom band, often that will give you an indication that you're in a downward trend and you just can't detect it from the current data because it's just so, you know, it's swinging so wildly. So, yeah, on 11921, which is when we're recording this, the case number actually went below the bottom Bollinger band, so it was two standard deviations below the mean of the simple 20-day moving average. So I'm predicting a leveling off and beginning of a decline of this surge. So that's great. And we can go back 300 days and look at this.

And you can definitely see three peaks. One broad, slow peak at the beginning. One sharper, but still low peak in the middle. And then this monster peak here at the end. And hopefully that'll be the last one. That's what I'm hoping anyway. Uh-oh. All right.

Whose is that? That's me. That you? Oh, do you need to go somewhere? Yes, I do. Well, you're quite delightful. Thank you for being here. You're welcome for my large contribution today.

It was very large. Yes. Thank you. Oh, wait, don't do that. Don't do that yet. Okay. Now you can do it. Thanks, Tase.

She's a good nighting. All right. You're ready to take some questions? Did you have a story, Scott? No, the only thing I found has nothing to do with COVID. Oh, that's okay. No, we're not the COVID show. We just turned into that.

No, I thought, well, this is kind of interesting. I was looking for stuff to read today was, I think it's good news. New study finds eating and drinking and moderation won't save your life. So why not live every day like it's your last? Oh, really? So they're saying, well, you know, what I've always said, Scott, is everything in moderation, including everything, including moderation in other words sometimes you could just got to blow it out your

ass yeah yeah the this guy was it's not a scientific article well he was he was showing it is that um even even eating fried foods and drinking alcohol daily kind of where is that your your system and can be difficult for your heart to battle he says well i'm looking here at fried food consumption and cardiovascular health a review of current evidence Let's just see what the conclusion is. In summary, the current review provides enough evidence to suggest adverse health effects with higher frequency of fried food consumption. There you go.

And while awaiting confirmation from future studies, it may be advisable to the public to consume fried foods in moderation while emphasizing an overall healthy diet. Oh, it's terrible. Well, I mean, yeah, no, you are what you eat. There's no question about that. You know, the old saying, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Well, I hadn't heard that. No, that's a goodin.

That's a goodin right there. Yeah, it's good. Got to eat good. So you, penny, pick it up all the day you'll have a bright, shiny penny. All right. I love it. Let me see here. Okay, does cooking with vegetable oils increase the risk of chronic diseases?

Why would that be? Why would someone postulate that? Based on the results of the studies include in the present systematic review, we conclude that one, the myth that frying foods is generally associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease is not supported by the available evidence. Virgin olive oil significantly reduces the risk of cardiovascular clinical events based on the results of a large randomized trial that included as part of the intervention, the recommendation to use high amounts of virgin olive oil, also for frying foods. There you go. And high consumption of fried foods is probably related to a higher risk of weight gain,

though the type of oil may perhaps modify this association. So there you go. So you can, you know, listen, if you are interested in making a point, you can probably find an article somewhere in the medical literature that will support whatever side you want because this is science. What you're looking for is a preponderance of the evidence and a synthesis of evidence that shows statistically significant benefits one way or the other. And every once while you'll get an outlier and have this person saying,

it looks pretty good. Let's look at some more. Let's see what else we got out here. Okay. Consumption of fried foods and the rest. risk of heart failure in the physician's health study. Okay, this is from the Journal of the American Heart Association, not a crappy, you know, acupuncture journal.

I was just, I mean, just kidding. That's low. That's low. That's low. Okay. Our data are consistent with a positive association. Now, this is where that term positive and negative can be a problem. Yes.

That's a terrible way to start to sense. We use the best word differently than our friends who are listening do because positive always means a good thing when you're out in the real world. To us, it hardly ever means something good unless someone has a positive attitude or a positive balance in their checking account. Our data are consistent with a positive association, fried food intake frequency with incident, heart failure, male physicians oh no how many male physicians we know that only eat you know fried food i mean it's like half well i know a bunch of i do too it's called it's you know what and i think it's all psychological it's just stress eating one of my best friends in the old in the rural town that i that i practiced in a million years ago he was such a funny guy and he was a great guy but really just

did not have good good health habits. He didn't smoke but he drank like a fish and we would bring him to poker games knowing that he would drink a whole thing of, what is the sapphire gin?

Like a whole liter of it? Yeah, but what is the one that? What is that? The square bottle. Yeah, I think it is sapphire, the gin. Yeah, anyway. He would drink, we called it a, oh, some kind of mouthwash. I can't remember. like a scope bottle or something like that.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he would drink the whole thing and we'd take all his money, because by the end of the night, he just didn't know what he was doing. And, but he was so funny, but I would go to the cafeteria with him, and they would have maybe three kinds of meat. Well, let me have two of those sausages, and let me have three pork chops, put that on the plate, and I'll have some of that turkey,

and then put some green beans on the Owen stuffing, but put, you know, dressing on. there and mashed potatoes and I'll take some of those lima beans and there's this is all just mounded up on his plate and then he would tell him just take gravy and pour it over the whole thing oh my gosh yeah it was something to watch him eat and he is no longer with us oh well that's it and it's very sad but you know I remarked on it at the time I'm not saying anything now that I wouldn't have said in public to him when he was still alive oh my goodness all right So, yeah, physicians don't look like they should eat as many fried foods.

No. Well, that's about I. Moderation, baby. I'm looking for any other kind of interesting article in that regard. No, that's it. All right. You about to take some questions? Let's do it.

All right. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. All right. Thank you, Ronnie B. You couldn't be more right. This is Josh, the medical student. Hey, Josh.

Funny story, you wrote me a reference letter a couple years ago, which helped me get us in medical school. There you go. Yeah, I can't remember if I'm surely he had to have done something with us for me to do that. Yeah, I don't, I'm not just in the habit of writing letters for people I don't know. I think he did a research project for us or something. Okay. Anyway. And when I was doing my internal medicine rotation, the doctors were talking about OB and Anthony, and I told them the story.

and they were amazed, and they basically said that I should have had framed a letter from you. Okay, sure. I mean, I'm sure I still have it. You just, it doesn't work that way, and they should know that. What you do when you write a letter of recommendation for a medical student or for a student to get in is you have to send it directly to the school. And when you're doing it for a resident, you know, a medical student to get residency, it goes electronically to this system. and they can't even ever see it. But I'll tell you what, Josh, if you email me, give me your full name, I'll look for that letter.

Hill, yeah, I'll send it to you. Congratulations, by the way, for getting in and getting through it. And that's really, really cool, and whatever a little bit we did to help is awesome. And I got honors on that rotation. I don't know if it was related to that. Of course it was. Anyway, I texted you asking you about how people are going to do with the mental health, the looming mental health crisis that's going to happen.

in the wake of coronavirus with all the jobs lost and existential crises. And I was really interested in your story with anxiety when your brother gave you a antipsychotic, actually. It reminds me of what I learned from a psychiatrist, which he told me that when people are going through grief, when he gives them antipsychotics and their grief goes away, he said it's one of the only times he feels like a real doctor. But I was just wondering. Yeah, it's interesting. You don't want people's grief to go away, though. you want them to process it, but there are people with complex grief or complicated grief where it's affecting their lifestyle.

You know, it's a person that's still hold up in their house. They can't leave their house, and they're crying all the time. Six, seven months later, those people really do need some help. In a vengeance, sure. By the way, if you had a loved one that was in hospice, and it's very uplifting, hilarious show today, but if you had a loved one that was in hospice and you're having difficulty or you know someone that's having difficulty with complicated grief, all hospice agencies are required to offer bereavement care

for up to one year after the patient has gone at no cost to the family. So please avail yourself from that. Did you know that? Okay, there you go. I have any other things that you can share from your experience, how people deal with anxiety, depression, mental health stuff. I'm about to start residency. I'm going to be seeing patience with these issues, and I would love to know from your experience.

Thank you very much, and I love the show. Hey, cool, man. Hey, thanks. Yeah. So Valium and Librium and Xanax and those kinds of things didn't even exist before the 1960s. And, you know, that's what Mama's Little Pill. What's that Stone song? Mama's Little Helper, you know, because there were a lot of women.

They didn't know the doses, right? And I know there were a lot of women back then that were just shit-faced. And, you know, they were a lot more safer, a lot more safer. They were a lot more safer. They were a lot safer. I got a good big Joe story for you, too, remind me. Oh, cool, cool, cool. Then the older drugs, the thing, you know, before that, they would give barbiturates.

Yep. And then they had this drug called Meltdown, which was also its trade name was Mepro Bam. Never heard of it. Well, it was one of the most addictive substances that we had. And it was a tranquilizer, and it worked really well, but it was extremely habit-forming. And then the manufacturers, when it got sort of voluntarily taken off the market, wanted to know what to do with this drug because they'd invest a lot of money in it. Now, I'm just, this part, I'm surmising this is what happened.

And they said, well, we have this program. drug, Carissa Prodol, and they marketed it as a muscle relaxer. And so you can still get this drug, but you have to take the pro drug because it's metabolized by the liver into mepramate. And I believe that is correct. That's the story I've been telling for the last bunch of years, and I just realized I don't really have a whole lot to back that up. So if anybody, look up Carissa Prodol

metabolite, will you? Just so that I know I'm not just saying something completely idiotic and Carissa C-A-R-I-S-O-P-R-O-D-O-L Carissa-P-R-D-O-Metabolites and then there was this other thing called

glutathamide which I've really never heard of and they've been prescribed for years and then, you know, benzodiazepines were really popular but people had issues with with the habit-forming nature of these drugs in the sense that you take them for anxiety,

they work great, and you keep taking them, and then when they wear off, your anxiety just automatically comes back, and it's really your body just wanting more of the benzodiazepine. And so a lot of providers now are loath to prescribe these, because for long-term anxiety, they really don't help. They're okay for short-term. You've got a problem getting on the plane and you take Xanax to get through your, you know, airplane phobia because you have to get on the plane. That's one thing. But to just give them on and on and on and on can be an issue for a lot of people.

They're also really good for muscle relaxation. So diazepam or valium is probably the best muscle relaxer we have. Did you find the answer? So that's Soma. Yeah, I was trying not to say the trade name. Oh, well, I mean, you know. Okay. Everybody else can Google it.

It's not like I do. Well, no, you just said it, so now they don't have to. I'm trying not to get, you know, in trouble with the manufacturer. Well, we're not saying anything bad about it. Well, I just said it. Okay. Anyway, so is it metabolized to mepprobamate? That's my question.

I'm looking. Oh, my God. I'm looking. Okay. You and Joanne. Hey, man, listen. I told you I had never heard of that. I'm looking it up for you.

You were going like you were ready, and I'm like, oh, he's got the answer. And then you just gave an answer I didn't ask for that might get us in trouble, so I'm going to beep it. Anyway, so yeah, the benzodiazepines were commonly prescribed to treat anxiety and panic disorder. But what they found is there are other treatments that are more effective than benzodiazepines without the. without all of the issues that go down with benzodiazepines. The FDA requires benzodiazepines to have a strong warning regarding the risks of dependency addiction withdrawal symptoms. So anyway, so what can we use instead?

There are other medications. What they found was that for anxiety, antidepressants work just as well, if not better, but they work best if you start them first, not try to move somebody off the Xanax onto this. So it's better to try to prevent the, and I see, I've been saying Xanax the whole time, that's a brand name too. So that's, you know, that's on me.

Al Praislam is what I mean to say. And if you start on an SSRI type antidepressant like Certraline or flu of, or fluivine, Uoxetine, it's just as effective and it's safer in the sense that you don't have that habituation. There are other drugs like Buespirone. It is used in the treatment of chronic anxiety. I've had mixed results with it. It's not habit forming. I would say probably about 30% of the people that I put on that actually get a good result,

although 30% isn't anything to sneeze at. No, no. Antihistamines are used for anxiety, but I wouldn't take them chronically because we talked several shows ago that chronic use of antihistamines is associated with an increased risk of dementia. So let's talk about non-pharmacologic stuff. Do you have that answer? Yeah, it does. It's converted inside liver to meprobomate. Yeah, okay.

Yeah. So Carissa prodol is metabolized into meprobamate. So the manufacturer, obviously, it's not like they didn't know that. So we were putting people on that medication, then finding out that people couldn't get off of it. And that was why because of its metabolite. Anyway, it's a very good muscle relaxer. And if you need it, you need it. But talk to your prescriber.

I'm not saying it's good or bad or just describing what goes on with it. Even I never see that anymore. Do you? No. No, my practice is fully. carissa prodol and meprabamate free at this point and has been for some time because there are other things that are out there that work pretty well without the side effects yep yeah so let's talk a little bit about non-pharmacologic treatments for anxiety scott you want to talk about yoga a little bit

sure yoga yoga and of course there's a thousand different kinds of yoga they're just like the medications try the one and use the one it works best for you i'm a huge fan of a style called yin yoga Y-I-N yoga yin yoga you sit and you stretch and you breathe it's no poses there are no really no there's no kind of crazy um that sounds terrible no it's it's for me it's the best because it's it's more meditative much more meditative right um but but you know I love yoga I love I love exercising I think you know walking dogs and things of that nature getting you know and get getting sunshine the early morning sunshine supposedly helps to increase your vitamin D levels more quickly than sunshine in the evening, you know.

The acupuncture, honestly, helps extremely well with anxiety and depression. Really? The needles, when you... I will attest to this, that the way Scott does it, I don't know if everybody does it, the way you do it. But it's, first off, Scott has this really soothing voice. I'm not going to call it sexy because that would be weird. That would be weird.

But a lot of, you know, there are people out there, both men and women who, would characterize it that way. But it's very soft and soothing. He's got a really good bedside manner. And when he puts those needles in, first they don't hurt. And then he turns on like meditation music and turns the lights down and lets you just lay there for 20 minutes. And it's an incredibly relaxing environment.

It's almost like sensory deprivation. You're not floating in a saline bath. Pretty darn close. It's 20 minutes when no. Nobody can interrupt you and bother you. Yep. And I do something. I got to stand.

Most folks don't do, Dr. Steve, is I do, I think called craniosacral manipulation. So I do a really gentle craniosacral massage on the head. Oh, yeah? It's kind of a stretching thing. It's a touch. It's a touch of the, no, no, it's a touch. I can't sit one more minute. Back killing?

No, my ass is killing me. Oh, ass is where, yeah. But the craniosacral. manipulation is a, it's a very gentle scalp massage, lack of a better term, that's kind of how I do it. And that also helps lower anxiety and helps to get people, you know, the touch goes a long way. You know, as well as I do. It's being touched. Yes, just a doctor touching a patient.

I don't care if it's, you know, a pat on the shoulder or just poking on their elbow because their elbow hurts. There have been studies that show that patients who get touched during the encounter, feel better than people who were never touched. Yes. Even if you just put your hand on their shoulder. Yes. And we don't shake hands anymore. But, you know, when I put the stethoscope on or any of that kind of stuff, that actually

has a therapeutic effect, and it's very strange, but people just want that physical connection. It makes a huge sense. Not everybody. Not everybody. But as you said in most cases. So those are great options. You know, Dr. Steve, we've talked a lot about the meditational breathing, sometimes a measure. breathing is good, a square breathing is good.

But, you know, sometimes I teach people not to try and breathe because sometimes the counting stresses them out. Yeah, because they're not counting properly. I'm not doing it right. Was it four seconds or count before? So I don't even do that sometimes. I just talk about. Well, if you, this is a reason to buy a virtual reality helmet as long as it's an

Oculus. This isn't a commercial for them, but it is an endorsement of the highest. degree from me is you can oculus quest or a quest two or if you can dig up an oculus go somewhere and get the trip app t ripp they got a free trial and you can uh that's the focus module but the focus module is still pretty cool and then if you get the whole thing don't get do the month to month just buy the lifetime subscription i think it's 19 bucks or you can pay three bucks a month It is crazy. You know, buy it out.

Just buy the lifetime subscription. Use the offer code, DR. Steve. This is not a commercial. I don't get anything from that. It's just that the owner or the CEO of the company was on our show, and she liked the conversation so much that she created a discount code for our listeners to try it out. And if you use that code, you get 20% off or something like that. But anyway, if meditation sounds too nays. Pambi Pambi for you.

This is not. This is sort of a psychedelic experience. It's a trip. It's an otherworldly experience, but it is also a true meditative experience. And it is, it will take your anxiety level from 10 down to a 2. I, without being too specific, we've used it in the chemotherapy before COVID, when we could take a helmet off of one person. clean it off and put it on somebody else, which I'm loath to do right now until we can get actual disposable, you know, helmet parts.

But we would have people in the chemo suite that were just crawling out of their skin. They were so nervous. They had cancer and they're in this new environment and there's people all around sticking them with needles and stuff. You slap that thing on their head and their anxiety level would go down. It was just as if I gave them a shot of Alprazolam or lorazepam. You know, it's incredibly, yes. So there are a lot of other, a lot of non-pharmacological options that are viable and cognitive behavioral therapy.

I love that. You know, I love that. That's what I did. That was one of, you know, what my brother gave me was this medication called Combid, which had compasine, which is, we use it now as an anti-a-medic, in other words, for an anti-nausea medication. But when it first came out, it was marketed as an antipsychotic. And it had another drug in it, and I can never remember what it was. But that just allowed me to know that I could be normal.

You know, it made me feel so normal without any side effects that I realized, oh, I could be normal again. But then I had to pursue cognitive behavioral therapy to get the, to make it actually go away. So that didn't happen anymore. So cognitive behavioral therapy, just look that up. You want a good PhD, cognitive. behavioral therapist, licensed clinical social workers are okay, too, if they specialize in anxiety. Some of them do more marital counseling and stuff like that. So you just got to ask them, you know, do you treat anxiety? And that can, cognitive behavioral therapy has been found in studies

to be as effective as benzodiazepines, and its impact lasts longer, and there's no adverse effects from it and you let you fall in love with your therapist and then there's a problem yeah that happens it does happen it does happen but you know but that i think empowers people to to like you said it makes you feel like you actually can get better you do have some control yep and that goes a long way to healing yeah and you know there a couple of studies have shown that cognitive behavioral therapy plus drug may be better than either one alone yes And that's certainly true for depression, some for anxiety. But for some patients with anxiety, and particularly those with insomnia, doing it with the drug makes the cognitive behavioral therapy less effective because people know that they can fall back on taking a pill.

So those folks are still better off just doing cognitive behavioral therapy. And that is short-term therapy. We're not talking about Freudian analysis. you're not laying on a on a couch in a fetal position crying yeah right right talking about you know your dreams about your father or anything it's it's you it's short-term talking about in when they say behavioral it's not necessarily external behaviors it's internal behaviors changing those scripts inside your head and that makes the biggest difference that's why you know I use that newm Yes.

Which you can check out at Noom. Dottersteve.com, by the way. But Noom is basically cognitive behavioral therapy in app form for food. And so it's changed my relationship with food. It's changed my internal scripts when it comes to food. You know, I'm doing this, therefore I've got to eat that. Same thing with smoking. I just finished eating.

Now I got to smoke. I just finished, you know, voiding. or emptying my bowels, now I got to smoke, you know. I just woke up, now I got a smoke. Those are all scripts. They're triggers and then scripts. The trigger is, you know, sets an action, and then the script says what the action is. I'm going to light this thing up.

I'm going to inhale it. And I'm going to flick between my legs, and I'm going to, every once in a while, burn the tip of the organ that motivates me the most. Yes. All right? Yes. Okay. Good question, though.

Yeah, good question. Took up 90% of the show. Let's see here. Hey, Dr. Steve, this is the Swinger guy again. I had a question I think about you forget to call you about is right before the pandemic hit the States when my wife and I were in temptation. One thing that I noticed was a lot of the, I guess they were older gentlemen that were taking naps throughout the midday

like had raging erections in their sleep and one question that I had was that most likely due to intake of... Wait, where was he seeing this? On vacation he and his wife? He was seeing other men

having erections while they were sleeping. I got very confused. Yeah, I am too. Is that what he said? We might have to hear that again. I got to run that. That were taking naps throughout the midday. noticed was a lot of the, I guess they were older gentlemen that were taking naps throughout

the midday, like had raging erections in their sleep. Where is he seeing this? I thought he said maybe he and his wife were on vacation, is that right? And there's, he's seeing a holder, man, getting giant rods while they're taking, they're laying by the, they're laying by the pool taking an afternoon nap, maybe. Or they're on the beach. Why is he looking at that? I mean, I've been, okay, well, anyway, I'm going to, let's see, I have O.C.

See where this goes. I have ADHD and I just saw a shiny object. Quirl. And one question that I had was that most likely due to intake of Viagra or Cialis or as I understand that an erection is actually a relaxation of the muscle and maybe that information is incorrect. Is that just what happens when we fall asleep? I mean, I know we wake up a lot of times with, quote-unquote, morning, we would. So that's my question is, you know, is... Yeah, okay, I got it.

So, nocturnal penile tumessence, these are erections that happen throughout sleep, and it tends to happen, well, not tends to. It happens during rapid eye motion sleep, and that's the phase when we dream. And when certain areas of the brain are activated, that stimulate this parasympathetic nervous system. We've got a sympathetic and a parasympathetic nervous system. This is so-called autonomic nervous system. And the way I memorized it in medical school

for the medical students out there is point and shoot. So the parasympathetic nervous system is involved in creating an erection. The sympathetic nervous system is involved in ejaculation. Okay? So you have these two nervous systems next to each other. along with the sensory nervous system and the motor nerves, so there's really four, right? And so when the brain stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system,

you, and then you dampen the sympathetic nervous system. If that nervous system is involved in making erections, you're going to make an erection, okay? And the relaxation he's talking about is the muscles that constrict the arteries going into the penis so that when they open up then more blood flows in less flows out

and so when you put more in than can flow out you get an erection now the the sheath around the penis is cylindrical and it's expansile up to a certain point

of course if it was infinitely expansile you'd just get a big giant balloon deck right but instead it can it will stretch a little bit in one direction and a lot and the other

direction. So you get a cylindrical or roughly cylindrical meaty erection from that activity. And one of the things people will get in the morning is they have to also void their bladder. So in the morning, right before you wake up, or you always had these crazy dreams right before you wake up, right? So people are in REM sleep, but also they've got to void their bladder. and one of the things that the body doesn't want to do is wet the bed because in the caveman days, you know, you wanted to have all your waste products in one place so that the animals wouldn't know where you were sleeping.

So, and it's very difficult if you ever try to do this to urinate through a raging erection. So that is that one mechanism the body can use is give you a giant erection and also helps to clamp down on that sphincter at the end of the bladder so that you're not peeing yourself. Right. So that's kind of what's going on there.

And plus, if they're a bunch of old dudes, maybe they are taking a bunch of vagrant. Well, yeah, but I've been to the beach. I never look at, oh, there's an old dude taking a bath. Let me see if he has an erection. No, no. So unless these guys were, you know, they were grabbing themselves or something.

Yeah, maybe. Okay, don't forget to check out stuff. Dottersteve.com for all your online shopping needs. And the roadie guitar tuner is on. there as well and you can just click on there and get one and it is outstanding if you either you have a stringed instrument mandolin guitar weird tunings you can set up your own tunings you can do open g whatever you want this thing will do it and then they've got the rowdy bass for those of us that are cool that play the bass uh and they're very inexpensive i thought this thing would be

three 400 bucks it's you know it's less than 130 which is outstanding for what it does And you can check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net, too. Don't forget that. And all right. So thanks always go to Dr. Scott. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Tacey. We can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton,

Travis Teft, that Gould Girl, Lewis Johnson, Paul Ophcharski, Chowdy, 1008, Eric Nagel, Roland Campos, Chris's sister, Sam Roberts, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Matt Klein Schmidt, Dale Dudley, Holly from the Gulf, the great Rob Bartlett, Bernie and Sid, Martha from Arkansas's daughter, Ron Bennington, Fez Watley, the Port Charlotte Hoare,

and all of those who supported this show has never gone on appreciated. Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk Channel, SiriusXM Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern on-demand and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to all of you, our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job somewhat easier. Go to our website at Dr. Steve.com for schedules and podcasts, other crap.

Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps. Quit smoking, get off your asses and get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thank you.