Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 455 - Nasal Hairs and Passing Joints

Episode Date: May 22, 2021

Dr Steve and Dr Scott discuss the purpose of nasal hair, menopause and testosterone, pain medications "targeting" certain receptors, joint passing hygiene, and more! 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.doctorsteve.com (OMG the coolest stringed instrument accessory EVER MADE) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) BACKPAIN.DOCTORSTEVE.COM – (Back Pain? Check it out! Talk to your provider about it!) Grammarly.com/weird (never write like a dope again!) 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. You haven't answered a single fucking medical question. The Bob, man. I've got the period crushing my esophagus. I've got Ebola dripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heart valve, exacerbating my infertable woes.

I want to take my brain now, blast with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen cane. And if I don't get it now in the tablet, I think I'm doomed, then I'll have to go insane. I want to requiem for my disease. So I'm aging Dr. Steve. It's weird medicine, the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history of broadcast radio. now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little bell, Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medical

practitioner who gives me street cred with the wacko alternative medicine assholes. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. If you're embarrassed to take to a regular medical provider, we can't find an answer anywhere else. Give us a call 347-764323. That's 347 Poohead. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine at DR Scott WM and visit our website at Dr. Steve.com. for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything you're here with a 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, acupunctures, yoga master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory, scientist, registered dietician or whatever. Well, I introduced Dr. Scott, but he'll be here in a minute. He's walking in the studio as we speak, so I'll do the plugs. Don't forget stuff. Dot, Dr.steve.com. That's stuff. dot, Dr. Steve.com for all of your weird, weird medicine needs,

and also your online buying needs. It really helps keep us on the air. And check out backpane. dot, dr.steve.com. That's where I decided I was going to be a little more proactive with my back pain issue, and I got an inversion table. obviously check it out with your primary care or your treating provider before you buy something

like this. But I just wanted you all to see it. It's at backpane.com. You got to spell out Dr. D-O-C-T-O-R-Steve.com. And if you want to lose weight with me, do N-O-O-O-M dot Dr. Steve.com. Not a diet. It's a psychology program. Get two weeks free and 20% off if you decide to do it. It's only a three-month program. It's very well priced. And then you get 20% off on top of that at Noom N-O-O-O-M dot Dr.steve.com.

All right. And don't forget to check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyherbals.net. That's simplyherbales.net. And the perennial question is always, Dr. Scott, do you have nasal spray on your website this week? No.

I should just put that on a cart. And then every week, just play that. It's the same every week. Same with grief. What is wrong with you? I'm going to shut it down. You're going to shut it down? Yeah, the whole simply over there.

Oh, why? I just tired of it. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm getting old. So what is it that you're getting tired of? Because you're not actually doing anything. No, but maintain.

No, but maintain. it and what are you maintaining we you know people have been begging for nasal spray since covid started exactly i'm retiring and thank you thank you for your retroactively thank you for all of your support oh well but that's all so for real you're get you're done with it yeah i'm going to plug am i going to have to start paying you now and money honey doing this for plugs green works i'll come up with something stupid that you can help me with i'm sure because you know that's my history well simply

herbals was awesome similar it is it is us no we're just just I'm growing weary in my old age so all right I mean I guess

nobody gives a shit about this but I do what goes into making your proprietary nasal spray which I have one bottle up downstairs by the way which I used the other night

I mean ingredients well I mean first off you had to figure out what you wanted to put in it, then you have somebody make it for you. And then the label, and then not putting it on your website and then not selling it. But, I mean, what's the barrier there to, you know, those latter two things? No, I think, I think a lot of it, a lot of it was at the beginning of COVID, losing the ability to get everything made in timely fashion. And then, and then, you know, honestly, you know, now shipping is.

become an issue with almost everything. Really? Yeah, you know, trying to ship. How about my ham radio stuff from DX engineering? And, geez, it comes the next day. Well, that may be, but it's not. A little plug for DX engineering, by the way. It's not that with everything.

And then, you know, if something doesn't get there in a day, then people are sending emails like, we're washed up. Where you, yeah, which is constant. The Sarasota Skank keeps giving you a hard time. But what I will do, though, In all seriousness, I just, I'm going to take it off in it, but if anybody ever wants some, we'll have some. Yeah, just email me. They can email me.

You go to Dr.steve.com and click content. We're not trying to sell something. We're not actually allowed to do that. No. If anybody has questions, they'll be happy to help. We'll help you out. Sure. It's, you know, and it's, but maybe one of these days, things will kind of normalize.

So were you getting your stuff from China or was it being made in the United States? Oh, no, it's U.S., yeah. Is that right? Yeah, out of Murphersboro, yeah. Yep. Up there, Murphysburg Highway. You ever heard those crank calls? Yes.

It's called Al White Motors. If you want to hear a guy just go off the deep end, just Google Al White Motors, crank calls. And Murphy's Borough Highway came into the picture many, many times on that. And they called this guy Benny. And they'll put Benny on it. But that's just the southern accent. It's not B-I-N-N-N-Y. It was B-E-N-N-I-E, or B-E-E-N-N-Y.

And the guy's name was B-E-A-A-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-B-A-A-A-R-E-E-A-R-dealhip. and he was wound pretty tight and he had some co-workers that just messed with him for years would call the main number and they could see him. Oh, no. You know, it was in a car dealership

so they're in one of those little offices with the glass and they were watching the guy. And they had him thinking that he had this stalker. And apparently when they were in Vietnam, I mean, their narrative was that he helped this guy and when that guy died, they told this other guy, Jr., or whatever the hell his name was,

that he needed to watch out for Benny. Oh, no, yeah. So he would call him up, say, I'm just watching out for him. Well, I don't need you to watch out. You know, and then it just gets crazier and crazier. And then they had these little mini narratives where they'd call and ask him if they were coming to this rabbit supper. And a rabbit supper for people who don't know is like a place where you get together. It's like a potlock, but you'll have bring game.

You could rabbit, squirrels, you know, that kind of stuff. And so for a month, are you going to that rabbit supper? Oh, my God. And then they, he knew this person was out there because they'd say, I saw you walking around with that blue shirt on. It looks real good on you. And, I mean, now I guess, you know, in 2021, I mean, it was definitely targeted harassment and stalking, but it was pretty funny.

But anyway, so that's the Murphy's Borough Highway. I saw you up there in Murphsboro Highway. Lord. Nothing. I can't make it funny. It's not even funny. There was nothing funny about it except that it went on and on and on. And it kind of went with Opie's theory of annoying comedy, which is you do something and maybe it's mildly humorous.

Then it becomes not funny. And you just keep doing it until it becomes funny again. And that's what they do. It's kind of a hard way to get to humor. It's a lot better to just craft a good joke. It is a form of humor, though. Yes, it is. All right.

Well, you got any articles for us this week? I'm looking at a couple that have some potential. Yeah, we were talking earlier. It's interesting since, thankfully, this COVID thing, at least in the United States, is quietening down quite a bit. It's crazy. You know, we've completely opened up in our area. No mask mandate anymore. I went to the grocery store the other day, and it was weird seeing most of the people not walking around with masks.

And I went to a restaurant, same deal, just packed, totally packed. Yet our cases continue to decline in the hospital. Cases are going up. Hospitalizations are going down. People are still catching it. Yeah, people who were really vulnerable have gotten the vaccine. Yeah, most of them, thankfully. Well, I mean, it's like 75, 80% in this area of people 65 years of age or older who are vulnerable to this thing have been vaccinated.

And that's why when everybody gets together, we're seeing people, lots of cases being reported, and hospitalizations continue to drop. Yeah, which is we peaked out at 450 cases in the hospital, something like that. Dang. And then it went down to. 70, 80, something like that, and then it crept back up as things were opening back up to about 130 and now back down to 60 again. Which is not probably too far out of the norm with a regular virus, you know, something like maybe the flu.

You know? A bad flu. Yeah, bad flu. But let's look, let's go to COVID. Stoutlabs.com. Stout. This is Daniel Stout. website. You can find him on

Twitter at Stout Labs and doesn't seem to be working. Oh, no, here. Okay, here we go. Okay, so let's look at new cases for these United States. We'll compare him to India. India just going up, but actually coming back down again, India peaked out at 412,000 daily cases and now they're down to

281 and I'm looking over the last 100 days the United States has trended slightly downward the last data we got with 16,000 new cases in the United States now let's look at new deaths new deaths

precipitous drop in the United States I'm looking back 100 days peaked out at it looks like 3,000 in a and yesterday was 262. Not 262,000, 262. Still, 200 people still died. Right.

You know, don't think I'm minimizing the fact that every day 200 people are dying from this. But it ain't like it was. And let me look at the peak. I'm going to go back 300 days. And again, we're looking at COVID. com. around January, January 15th, which is what I kind of predicted, was going to happen. It was two weeks after, you know, New Year's, we peaked out at 4,000 deaths per day.

By the way, at the same time, India was down to 151 deaths. So we're very interested to see if this is some variant or if there's just a particular problem in India that has to do with a billion people and only, you know, tens of millions of people being vaccinated. How many people in India have gotten a vaccine? Well, that's an excellent question. I don't know the answer to that. How many vaccinated in India? Okay.

Okay, here we go. Vaccinations in India looks like 140, fully vaccinated is only 40 million. That's 3% of the population. population, at least one dose, 143 million. And so that's at least one dose of a two-dose vaccine regimen. I would guess. Otherwise, why would they say that?

If it was the AstraZeneca or J&J, they would be fully vaccinated after one. Okay, so you're looking at 13% of the population has received at least one dose. So let's see if I can get the same graph for the United States. And sorry for doing research on the air, everybody. Okay, so you're looking at least one dose, 48% fully vaccinated, 37.9. So, you know, it's pretty good, actually. And then when you break it down by age group, the over, as I said before, the over 65 group is well vaccinated.

So there you go. Pennsylvania, 40% of people are fully vaccinated. That's the whole population. It's pretty amazing. So, anyway, all right. What else you got? No, that's it. Okay.

No, it just, it was... It's fucking fascinating, Dr. Scott. No, I just thought it was, it's so in kind of compelling to think what all we used to talk about prior to, The COVID thing, it was always poop and penises and all the cool stuff. Urethro meatous. Urethromedus. Hemorrhoids.

And, you know, you're just saying that you're going back 300 days to look up research. It's just so bizarre. But, you know, I was thinking about how incredible that humanity is to be able to take these changes and to make adjustments to daily life and daily schedules, which does bring up, something that I hope we will eventually get to talk about a little bit is just changing, changing in work status, people's work habits and some of the stressors that's causing at home. I don't ever want to go back to in-person meetings.

No, hell, no. Now that that cat is out of the bag, I mean, I have an ethics committee meeting, and they were like, well, next month we're going to do it in person. It's like, why? Yeah, yeah. I can run home. If it's at 4 in the afternoon, I can run home,

do it from my studio up here and then you know go have a drink or something if I want to or throw some laundry in or whatever yeah yeah before before the meeting instead of being stuck in a meeting that you've got to drive to

yep yeah and it's in a different town it's in a different town and you've got to make combinations for your kids and your dogs and everything and virtual meetings for those kind of meetings makes sense heck yeah

when you're not you know I'm not in favor virtual schooling. My kid has to take one class virtually this next year even. You know, he's going to college this year. By the way, holy shit. I took him to orientation today

and he had some trepidation. Now this is the kid. You know, I changed his diapers until he was potty trained. You know, I did about I would say probably half the diapers. And you know, I helped him with his home where, you know, the whole drill. And you do

all this stuff. And then I took him to orientation he graduated with honors thank you very excellent good job from high school and got some Tennessee diploma of distinction

or something he had to do some other stuff but anyway he so I take him and he had some trepidation about it because he was thinking that college was going to be

just like high school except harder so that he would be going from seven in the morning until 3.30 in the afternoon, just booking it every single day. And so when we met with his advisor, by the way, virtually, which was awesome, there was no reason for us to drive down there and have to see her.

We were just sitting at home. I think I was having a beer. And got his schedule done, and he was like, wait a minute. You mean on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I'm done at 10 o'clock? And it's like, yes, my friend, this is when time management starts to be, you know, an important thing in your life because you've got to figure out how not to just waste all that free time. But he was like, oh, that's cool. Well, so I take him to, take him to, he still had some trepidation.

He hadn't spent a lot of time away from home. And I took him to orientation and he saw all the other kids his age and the place where he's going is beautiful. and this center that they had, they had this gorgeous brand new auditorium and all this stuff. And we got him checked in. I said, you're going to be okay? He said, yeah, I think I'm going to be okay. And I said, do I need to stay?

And he's like, no, I think I got it. And let me tell you something. Looking at that kid, merge from behind. I'm watching him now. He's turned around. He's walking away from me. Merge into that crowd. And all I can see is the back of his head.

and it marks this period where he's now no longer totally dependent on me and he's entering a new phase of his life where he's going to be that kind of effed me up a little bit oh I bet yeah just seeing that big waft of crazy curly blonde hair kind of mixing into the yeah yeah well and you know and I got choked up and it's like I'm not sad yeah but there's not a word in English for what it is that you are when that happens because I'm happy for him I'm proud of him there is some wistfulness because he's not

dependent but it was I like it more too I mean did you did you cry at the end of Rudy oh of course okay why it wasn't sad who does it you cry cry at the end of

it did it in the field of dreams but why it wasn't sad it wasn't sad no it was beautiful no it's somebody's dreams were realized so why do we cry yeah that's a good question

and it's more like that but there's not a word for that either Now, there's a word for when you take pleasure from somebody falling down and breaking their kneecap. You know what that word is? Oh, gosh. No, I don't. Schadenfreude. Oh, Schadenfreude.

No, I did not know that. But, yeah, so there's a word for that emotion. But there's not a word for the emotion when your kid kind of goes from the caterpillar to the effing butterfly and spreads their wings a little bit. bit, and you realize that, you know, I don't know. You know, and that's, it's got to be a word for that. There's got to be a word. You know, the really kind of cool thing is because it's some damn English scholar. Marlon, I'll send you a pen if you give you the right word.

But, you know, marking that space in time is not like marking other things. We, you know, and you've talked about a thousand times. The reason everything's on 10 is because we had 10 fingers, right? Right. You know, dates. Based 10. Dates. We have times.

We have, we know these things happen at these certain times. But that's, and I wonder if, if, if, if, if, you know, if, if, some of that uncertainty and that happening in such a vulnerable time and space, it makes it even more challenging. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about now, but

I do. Well, because it's just a fine time. I mean, it's just kind of this arbitrary thing. All of a sudden, it hits you, you're like, oh, fuck. Well, my first nurse practitioner, the first one I ever worked with, she was probably the nurse practitioner, I'm still, I was the closest to. She was more like my

sister. And when her kid was born. It's the only time I ever weaved a basket was I did it for her to carry him around. I weaved one basket in my life. And I put that on the list of things Dr. Steve

can do it. I know. I can't do it. I had a teacher, but I remember her telling me the first day that she took him to kindergarten and she had that same experience because she took him to kindergarten and they had breakfast at this school.

So, you know, he went through the line and got his little thing of, you know, plate of pancakes, and he was eating them. And she said, were you going to be okay? He's like, yeah, mom, I'm fine. And so she left because they were supposed to leave. She's supposed to just drop him off. And, you know, she just looked back at him sitting there at this table by himself eating pancakes. And she just got that, all that boohoo thing. And the thing is what you don't want, so it's not sadness because what you don't want.

because what you don't want is a kindergartner that can't do that, that's going, no, don't leave, stay, you know, or you don't want an 18-year-old that's still sleeping in your bed. You want them to, but then when they do, then you're like, I don't get it. Why don't you still two years old? I know, I don't understand it. But you wouldn't want them to just still be 10 years old.

That's the thing. No, you don't. It's like, I don't know, dude. It's, anyway. It's kind of bizarre. Nobody gives it a damn shit about it. Please stop bullshitting and get the advice. All right, all right, okay, I got it.

But he is a wonderful child, I'll tell you that. Well, that's neither here and or there. No one that's listening knows whether to believe you or not. So anyway, well, if you're going to have a kid, go to Dr. Steve.com and check out my one-page baby manual. That'll get you on the road to having a well-adjusted kid because a well-adjusted baby becomes a well-adjusted kid. All right. enough all right

what else we got that is that it that's it you don't have any articles no nothing anything good

all right 22 minutes just horrid shit were me and my sentimental I watched

that movie the arrival again cried for 20 minutes at the end of it it would be

interesting to say I mean literally just boohooing you know it would be interesting to

see what all other people that are listening to the show what what some of their

all-time favorite crying movies are my number one what field of dreams okay yeah I did I choked up during field of dreams but crying for 20 minutes in the parking lot with people walking by going what the fuck is wrong with that guy two movies AI artificial intelligence for which I will despise Stephen Spielberg for the rest of my life because there was no reason for that movie to end the way it did. Spoiler, they bring his mother back for 24 hours. And these are these intelligent, you know, robots who, you know, found their progenitor

buried in the ice. And all he wanted to do was, you know, have his mom. That was the, have his mom love him. And he, they had some DNA on a, on a hairbrush. And from the DNA, they recreated the mom. Somehow from the DNA, they created all our memories and all this stuff, too. I think they just programmed it. But it would only last for 24 hours.

And then they could never do it again. Now, if they did it once, how could they not do it again? So this poor effing kid got to spend a day coloring and stuff with his mom for 24 hours. And then that's it for the rest of it. And I cried like, oh, God, it was awful. And it was like, you asshole, there was no reason for that. They could have, they were robots, they could have just made an android. Yeah, make another one for God's sakes.

Or just do it again tomorrow and then the next day and the next day. But you can't, you can't copy the DNA? You're this advanced that you could create a whole human being from a, well, he couldn't come up with a hook that wouldn't make me cry. That was just designed to make me cry. And that pisses me off because it was just emotional manipulation. Yeah, that's true. It's abuse. Now, but the other one was.

Schindler's list. Again, though, another damn Spielberg movie. And for this, I will always love Stephen Spielberg. So there you go. But at the end, when he's like, oh, look at this ring. I could have saved 20. You know, it's like, oh, my God. 20 minutes out in the lobby.

That's a hell of a movie. If nobody's ever seen that, that is a powerful powerful. Both of them, Stephen Spielberg. One, I love him for and one I hate his guts for. So, asshole. Damn. Beautiful asshole. But anyway.

All right. That's wonderful. Why were we talking about that again? Oh, just crying. Crying. Okay. So, AI, Schindler's List, the arrival. Those were my big ones for actually crying.

And the arrival, you know, it's about aliens, but it's not really about that. It's about choices that we make. And if you knew certain things, would you make those same choices? You know, I don't want to, that one I don't want to spoil. That's all I'm saying. That's really what that movie is about. But it's well done. And that Denis Villeneuve dude that made that movie.

He also made the Blade Runner sequel, which was also a really beautiful film. And he's making the Dune movie. Oh, cool. They're redoing Dune. The first book is going to be divided into two parts. They haven't even greenlit the second one yet, so he just did it on faith alone. But this guy makes beautiful films, and that I can't wait to see. That would be good.

All right. All right. enough. My stupid shit. Here we go. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole in the radio. Hi, Casey. Hi, Dr. Scott. I hope you all are good. How are you?

Okay. Great. We should probably rehearse these first, so let's see. But the whole point of this is most of these I've not heard, so let's try that again. Feel prepared. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is John from Chicago. Hey, John. Hi, Casey. Hello. Hi, Dr.

Scott. Hope you all are good. How are you? Hey, we're good. How are you? Great. Hey, Dr. Steve's question for you on nasal hairs. Yes. Do they serve a purpose, maybe preventing certain, you know, virus particles or anything from getting up into the, you know, blood-brain barrier that the nasal passage is near? or are they just some sort of leftover thing from caveman days? I wonder if when I'm trimming them and trying to get rid of all that gross stuff in the nose, is that maybe from a long-term perspective harmful, you know,

or is it, nah, it's cosmetic and you're good. Thanks a bunch. Bye. Well, so as I discovered when I was single, nose hairs that you can see from the outside, Not a good luck. No. They're not decorative.

They're not decorative at all. I had this friend. And I remember I was in her apartment and she was so hot. And I had no idea that I had nose hairs sticking out. You know, you look in the mirror every day. You don't notice things. And she came at me with a pair of scissors and said, oh, my God, I'm going to cut those damn nose hairs. And that's when I realized.

oh, I'm gross. I have nose hairs hanging out of my nose. And she was, this beautiful woman was going to cut them out of my nose. I said, well, I'm never going to get laid with her. No. Because now, if I went, you know, got anywhere closer to her, she's just going to think, oh, this is nose hair guy. I clipped his nose hairs with a pair of, you know, office scissors.

Maybe man escaping is her thing. Yeah, maybe. I don't think it was a, I didn't get the, impression it was a turn on. But so manscape makes a really nice nose trimmer. And you can buy nose trimmers and it's okay to

trim it so that it's not hanging out of your nose. There's no benefit to that. Now, there is benefit to nose hairs, but you'll never pull them all out. No. By the way, a single nose hair follicle will grow six and a half feet of hair

in your lifetime. Wow. Now, they, you know, you grow the hairs to a certain length, and then they fall out, then you generate new ones. But when you get older, your hairs get longer and are definitely more noticeable. And then all of a sudden it's like, what the hell is this? I'm growing hair out of my ear? Okay. Yeah.

So I don't want to be growing hair out of my ear or any other stupid place, but you do, and that's why getting old sucks. Not the only reason, but one of the many reasons. But your nose hairs keep macro particles out of your nose. Not really viruses. Now, if they're wet, they may trap some inhaled really small particles so that if your nose is running and you inhale a load of virus, it's possible that they will adhere to the wet hairs

and, you know, because of the turbulence caused by those hairs during inhalation, they're more likely to get stuck. But that's not really what it's for. I'm just, that's just conjecture on my part. It's really for things like dust and allergens and other small particles, and it keeps them from entering your lungs. And so the hypothesis is if you remove too much, you could be more sensitive to those kinds of things.

But, you know, in our world these days, you don't, encounter as much crap in the air as we once did when we were evolving as a species. Hey, I've got something interesting. Yep, go. It looks like the longest nose hair that I can find online, this guy had the one that was 18 millimeters long. Oh, my, wait, 18 millimeters? That's not very long.

Yeah, still. Do you mean 18 centimeters? It said millimeters, but it looks longer than that. That cannot be the record for nose hair. That's what it said. I don't believe it. I didn't look to hell a lot longer than that. So I'm wondering if they meant centimeters.

Yeah, it's got to be. It has to be. And that's pretty impressive. Okay. Vernon Frenzel, Sr. pulled out his nose hair 18 millimeters long using tweezers. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. 18 millimeters.

It doesn't sound very long. No. That looks longer than that, doesn't it? Yes. Yeah. Hey, point is... This is medical journalism. Yeah.

If it's that long, go ahead and trim it up. man-scaping is a good thing yeah let me see um yeah i'm not i'm not impressed by 18 millimeters because um 2.5 centimeters which is 25 millimeters is one inch so that's less than an inch but still stick but still sticking out of your nose surely to god someone's had one that was you know two feet long yeah i'm looking i'm looking on Guinness okay so So if you pluck your nose hairs, that can be a problem because you're pulling the hair out by the follicle. And then you can get things like ingrown hairs as the hair tries to grow back in a traumatized follicle that's inflamed. Sometimes it can get caught and just curl up in the follicle instead of growing out so you can get ingrown hair.

There's a thing called nasal vestibulitis, which is an infection of, of the nasal vestibule, which is the inside part of your nose that protrudes from your face. The vestibule, it makes sense if you think of a vestibule. It's got the biggest open space in it. And this is sort of a form of impotigo. It's a staph infection of the membranes inside the nose. And it can be caused by any kind of injury, but also just plucking your nose hair or picking your nose. And then if you get an abscess, then it's called nasal fronculosis.

Ooh. And these are abscesses, and this is more common in people who have some sort of immune deficiency, but it will cause pain and swelling and redness and that kind of stuff. All right. Cool. I'm looking at a health line right now. It says nose hairs block dust and allergens from passing through your nasal cavities. Removing too many hairs allows more particles to pass through your nose into your lungs.

For some people, this may increase the risk for developing asthma. So now that sounds like a conjuncture, conjecture, sorry, got conjunction and conjecture in my head. So I'm going to look at this study. By the way, do you know the medical term for nose hair? No. Really? No, I don't. Not right off hand.

Vibrisi. Vibrisi. Yeah. So this is an original paper from the International Archives of Allergy and Immunology. It says does nose hair, parentheses, vibrisi, density affect the risk of a developing asthma in patients with seasonal rhinitis. Wow. So what they're asking is, if you're more dense, the hypothesis would be that you would have, less allergies because you're admitting fewer allergens into your lung and I'm

just going to read the conclusion our findings suggest that the amount of nasal hair providing a nose filtration function has a protective effect on the risk of developing asthma in these patients to the best of our knowledge this is the first report on this subject in the literature so let's see well let's look at the results asthma was detected in 75 patients that was about a third and of those two-thirds also had pollen asthma.

The rate of asthma was 44, 26, and 16 in the few moderate and many groups. Okay, so in other words, the more dense, the nose hairs, the rate of asthma

decreased by by a little bit more than a half. Wow. Well, that's interesting. It makes sense, though. You've got to figure it's just, it's an air filter inside your nose. Yeah.

Yeah. Trying to keep all the, throw it out. I think it does. All right. Very interesting. All right. Hello, Dr. Steve.

This is Mark, and I've got a question several, but I'll try to keep a brief about testosterone plant-based pellet therapy, 48 years old, and my testosterone is down to 300. I recently started the therapy and got up to 1,100, noticed a change, big change. but not like earth-shattering, but I'm able to work out harder, have more stamina, and less anxiety, and I can sleep better. Okay, yeah. Actually, it's really helped. Good.

Trying to get my wife to start the therapy with estrogen and testosterone as well, because she is probably post-menopausal. She started early at 42. Yeah. So I was trying to, you know, see if she would also. participate because I can see all the signs of being menopausal in her and we're not even 50 yet and I'm like man you know it's kind of a drag and I was just wondering what your thoughts were on it thank you bye yeah man so let's talk a little bit about testosterone replacement

for men you're doing the pellet so you get a this is an implantable pellet looks like a little seed, and depending on what dose they want to administer you, they'll do more or fewer seeds. And they implant them under the skin, and your body sort of leaches the testosterone out of those over time, and you end up with a constant amount of testosterone being released into the system. there are other ways to do it and there are some men's health people who advocate doing a shot instead so that you get that peak and other people say well the peak is a problem so when you do a shot you'll have if you do it every two weeks you'll get a peak you'll feel good for a week and then maybe for half of the second week you'll start to feel hey it's time for my shot again and it's up and down up and down and so Some people say, well, that's not good, but we had a men's health expert on this show many years ago that said, no, that's exactly what you want. I'm like, well, okay, do the testicles do it that way? No.

No. I don't know, but he thought that it really, maybe he was improving on nature. I mean, seriously, what the hell do I know? When it comes to women, there have been a lot of different ways to treat women with menopausal symptoms over the years. And initially, whenever somebody went into menopause, we just gave them estrogen replacement. And then we found that we were increasing the risk of blood clots in the legs. and the lungs. And we had an increased risk of breast cancer

was seen with five or more years of continuous estrogen therapy and maybe even earlier than that. And the risk decreased after the hormone therapy was stopped. So, you know, if we had someone that was menopausal and they'd had a hysterectomy, we'd just put them on estrogen.

For years, we did that. When I say we, I mean other people. And the use of estrogen alone for an average of seven years by itself didn't really increase the risk, but what you were doing was going from like one

and 11 women getting breast cancer to 1 and 11.001 so the risk to the individual was relatively low but the risk to society and women in general was pretty significant. So

and there's not a lot of controversy about this. I mean, hormone therapy definitely reduces menopausal symptoms. And, you know, women who have had their uterus removed can generally take estrogen by itself without the progesterone. But, you know, you have to talk to your OBGYN about this. And you want to minimize it. You want to do it for the shortest time possible. And in people who are at high risk, smokers, if you're menopausal and you're a

smoker. I'm not putting you on estrogen because it's more likely to have complications. So, yet another reason to quit smoking. But, so you just got to talk to your OBGYN about that. Now, as far as testosterone in women, there are some studies that suggest that testosterone can help ease menopausal symptoms without increasing breast cancer risk. Now, and they may improve libido as well. One of the treatments for hot flashes in menopausal women are SSRI antidepressants. They work reasonably well.

But the problem is it can kill your libido if you had one left after going through menopause. So this study, let me see if I can find this. This is called the testosterone implant breast cancer prevention study. The researchers wanted to see if using testosterone. Instead of estrogen and progesterone to treat menopausal symptoms would increase the risk of breast cancer. So their end point was incidence of breast cancer. That was the end point of this. We've talked about the importance of what are you studying for?

You can't just do a shotgun study. So 1268 postmenopausal women with no history of breast cancer had menopausal symptoms were treated with testosterone pellet implanted under the skin every three months. none of the women were taking estrogen and they were average of 52 years old when the first pillet was implanted and some of the doctors believe that estrogen could be converted from the or I'm sorry that they could create estrogen

from the testosterone so some of the treatment cohort were treated with pellets that blocked estrogen at the level of the receptor. So they followed the women for 10 years, and we have the results from the first five years of however. They're going to follow them for 10 years.

And as of March, 2013, 8 cases of breast cancer had been diagnosed in the 1268 women for a rate of 0.63%. And that would be 142 cases per 100,000 person years. six of the eight cancers were stage one and five of the cancers were this other thing called herd two negative and so now they looked at cancer rates among people using hormone replacement therapy and there were 380 cases per 100,000 compared to 300, let me see, in people with estrogen compared to 300 per 100,000 people not using estrogen but also not using testosterone. testosterone, right?

And so there were 142 in the testosterone group. So the study seemed to show that using the testosterone implant with or without the estrogen blocker actually lowered the risk of breast cancer. So the study didn't have a control group of similar women. So this isn't a perfect study. These results were promising. I am not aware of more up-to-date results. There may be some. but again, I'm throwing this out there not to make any recommendation that anybody do anything.

Don't do a damn thing because I said it. Just talk to your OBGYN about it because they will be up to date on the most recent stuff. And, you know, my interest is in looking at studies, how do we know things to be true. Right. And studies like this is how we get to that number. All right. Okay, dokey. Dr. Steve.

Okay. Follow up from a few weeks ago. You all were talking? Okay, this is Stacey Deloche, everybody. Hello, Stacey. I still don't have a theme song for him. About pain management, how pain is transmitted. Yep.

On the other end of the spectrum, pain management, how does a pill that I take find its way for pain relief? Because if I take the pill, it's broken down my stomach, goes into the bloodstream. To me, it's like a 1940s kid's selling newspaper, ibuprofen, ibupin, who needs IV. And then you see these people that claim they have targeted pain relief. How the hell would you target something that goes through your bloodstream and train it to know where to go?

Well, okay, that's a good question. A really good question. Just remember there are different receptors in the body. Many different receptors. And they can be in different places and they can act on different things differently. So, for example, this isn't a great example. it doesn't meet the criteria that he laid out, but there's a drug called methyl naltrexone.

Methylnaltrexone is a drug that targets only peripheral mu-opioid receptors. Now, one of the mu-opioid receptors, those are the receptors that are triggered, or we say agonized, but are triggered by opiates. So morphine and that kind of stuff. So what the hell good is this? Why would you want a peripheral one? Well, if you, one of the adverse effects of opioids, or AKA narcotics, oxycodone, hydrocodone, that kind of stuff, is constipation. And it's a opioid receptor mediated effect where the opioid isn't affecting the pain at that point.

it's just it's hit the receptors being triggered slow the peristolsus the contraction of the bowel and you get constipation yes so if you have a peripheral mu opioid receptor blocker like methyl naltrexone what happens is that morphine can no longer paralyze the bowel but the methyl and naltrexone does not block the pain relief part because that's central that's in the central nervous system right so that is a targeted approach you're targeting the peripheral mu opioid receptors and and um ignoring or bypassing those central ones that cause the pain relief so so you can take your hadros or oxies or dalada and uh and get constipation then you take this medication it will relieve the constipation but won't affect the pain

control that you get from that opioid So it's all receptor base. That's what they mean because he's absolutely right. And I'll give him one of these. Give yourself a bill. Because this is the thing I talk to people about all the time. If they've got pain on the top of their shoe of their foot, and I'm sure you counsel your patient's same way,

why would I give them a pill that goes to the tip of their nose and the back of their eyeball? Yes, everywhere. It has to go everywhere, just to get them. it to the tip of the toe when if I could treat it topically by putting some medication actually on the top of the foot, I could make it go away that way. Yep. And that's truly targeted therapy, but it only works when you can get to the place where

the pain is. Yes. Otherwise, we have to do it this way. Do it or or orally, right, or injection-wise, yeah. Yeah, and it has to go to every cell in your body. But many of them don't have the receptors. Right. So it just kind of, or the receptors are swamped or they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't,

accept information like they used to because they've been or that yeah i mean it's but if you know if you go to a red blood cell ibuprofen there's nothing that the red blood cell has that the ibuprofen's going to interact with so so it'll just kind of float on by that but it may have some effect on you know it has those kind of drugs work on up it doesn't matter a a system of prostaglandins. Just don't even worry about it. Really complicated. It is a very complicated cascade.

But, you know, and they can also affect platelet function. Sure. Yeah, thins your blood, depending on what kind of... Well, it causes your platelets to be less able to form a claw. Clots, yep. Yeah, it's... And that sucks, because if you have that problem, and now they also, because of they work on prostaglandins,

which are involved in making the protective lines, of the stomach when you wear that away and then it bleeds and now you've messed with the platelets so that they can't clot now you have you set somebody up for a GI bleed which is why elderly folks really for a lot of folks with bad osteoarthritis pain a low-dose opioid is safer for them it seems crazy is safer for them than a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and ad bill or Tylenol or yeah yeah now Tylenol is not a non-stroyal anti-inflammatory it's an analgesia but it doesn't work for a lot of people right so that's why you'd want to go to dr scott if you get relief from from uh acupuncture or any of those other things

that's fine because you're less likely to get a GI bleed from what dr. Scott does um or a very low dose opioid than you are from ibuprofen or napresin or something like that yes so what are you going to say absolutely no i just agree with you you know it's a great question from Stacy, but man, that is a, that's something we could do a couple of shows on just. Well, yeah, pain is so subjective. Yeah, and the difference between peripheral nerves and central nerves in the way all of those receptors work, it's a pretty complicated, complicated systems. Yep, and I got to go stretch my back.

The thing that's really helped me with my neurogenic claudication, because, you know, we're talking about me again because it's all about me, is. For those that don't know, I've got a really bad set of building blocks in my spine that are all out of alignment, not like a chiropractic out of alignment. I mean, they're just not where they're supposed to be, and they're putting pressure on the nerve that goes to my left leg. And the greatest thing I have found so far, and I still haven't seen Dr. Scott for this, although I need to, is this inversion table. Holy moly, it's the greatest thing ever invented. It takes up a lot of space in your room, but if you want to check one out, you can go to backpane. Dottersteve.com, just look at it.

I mean, I'm not trying to sell you anything at this point. They're not a sponsor or anything like that, but I just, I was so excited about it. I had to make a subdomain so that people could see what the hell I'm talking about. But you spend all day with your spine being compressed in one direction. It's just so nice to take the, not only take the pressure off, but to stretch your spine in the other direction. It really does take the pressure off of my spine. But anyway, yeah, that's good stuff. All right, buddy.

You should get one of those for your office. Just throw people on there, stick a bunch of needles in their nose. There you go. And flip them upside down. The back pain will go away, and you can take credit for it. Let's do one more and get out of here. Let's see here. I think this looks like it might be a good one.

This is Craig from Jersey. So the CDC addresses masks and handshaking, but what about passing joints and blunts and bolts? Where does that fall? Do people still do that? I mean, with vaping and edibles and stuff, do people still pass J's man? At the people's concert in Ann Arbor, man,

they still pass a J. Man, can I buy a lid? How old am I? That was my 60s lingo man. Yeah, no, it's contagious as shit. it was contagious then. People were getting herpes of the lip passing joints around. So it's the same as if you're kissing somebody because it's got their slobber on it.

So if you wouldn't want to kiss somebody, don't drink after them and don't accept a joint from them. And it's like, you know, it's 2021. Seriously, are we still passing joints around? I don't know. you got me on that one so but um that's the rule of thumb if if you don't mind just tongue deep tongue kissing someone then you're fine to share a joint with them otherwise don't do it stupid all right um thanks always go to dr scott thank you sir we can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton, Travis Teft,

That Gould Girl, Lewis Johnson, Paul Uphcharsky, Chowdy, 1008, Eric Nagel, the Port Charlotte Hore, the Saratoga Skank, Steve Tucci, Roland Campo, sister of Chris, Sam Roberts, she who owns pigs and snakes, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Matt Kleinshmidt, Dale Dudley, Holly from the Gulf, the great Rob Bartlett, Casey's Wet T-shirt, Carl's deviated septum, Bernie and Sid, Martha from Arkansas's daughter, Ron Bennington, and Fez-Watley, the always fantastic and delightful. Fez-Watley, whose support of 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 our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job here.

easy go to our website at dr steve.com for schedules and podcasts and other crap until next time check your stupid nuts for lumps quit smoking get off your asses and get some exercise we'll see in one week for the next edition of weird nuts Thank you.