Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 471 - A Horse Called Steve

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Dr Steve and Dr Scott discuss: 1. The loss of the great Norm Macdonald 2. "Dr Steve" places at the Mark McDermott Stakes 3. Butt breathing 4. Gabapentin for Covid cough 5. Vaccine truth 6. The need for therapeutics that work 7. The science of yawning (there is none) Check out your old pal on "THE CREEP OFF" this week! Vote for Dr Steve, too! 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 ($30 gets them all!) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) BACKPAIN.DOCTORSTEVE.COM – (Back Pain? Check it out! Talk to your provider about it!) Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now while he’s still cheap!) betterhelp.com/medicine (who doesn’t need a little counseling right now?) 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, O'Bee and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. You haven't been interested in a single fucking medical question. The power's man. I've got the period crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolabovir stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my impetable woes. It's going to take my brain out, blast it with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave.

I want a magic bill. Oh, 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 broadcast radio, now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve. pal, Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medical practitioner, keeps giving the street

grad with the wacko alternative medicine people. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. If you have a question, you're embarrassed to take to a regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call at 347-76-4-3-23. That's 347 Poohead. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine or at DR Scott WN. visit our website at dr steve.com for podcasts medical news and stuff you come by

most importantly we are not your medical providers take everything here with a grain of salt don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking to her with your doctor nurse practitioner practical nurse physician assistant pharmacist chiropractor acupunctrists yoga master physical therapist clinical laboratory scientists registered dietitian or whatever and very good so don't forget to check out stuff dot doctor steve stuff dot dr steve.com for all your online shopping needs we've got everything we've ever talked about on this show that you can buy plus you can just click through and go to amazon it that you really really helps so check out stuff dot dr steve.com and check out newm dot dr steve.com

i'm going to be promoting this for another month or so uh no om dot dr steve.com you can get two weeks free 20% off the best weight loss in my opinion app on the market it's not a it's not a diet it's a psychology app give it a try you can try it for it no risk if you don't like it it just delete it and the hell with it and check out dr scott's website it's simply herbals dot net simply herbals dot net wow i got a email from this guy And I'll just say his, I don't even remember his name now. His initials are MC. And of all the shit that I've said on this show over 15 years, he said, I heard you say

you were a libertarian and it just went off on me. Why do you use roads? Why do you, you know, it's like, okay, I'm not one of those libertarians. And that's an anarchist anyway. But he cursed me up one side and down the other. And said he was never going to listen again, all this stuff. It's like, okay, you know, yeah, you heard all this shit, and you heard that one thing, and that's what triggered you. So I thought it was kind of funny.

I mean, listen, listen, I'm not that kind of libertarian. I'm socially liberal, and I'm conservative when it comes to how big I think how much money the government should. be spending. So what am I supposed to do? You know, if I, if I, you know, vote for one side, well, then they're, you know, and, you know, I'm going to hold my nose. And if I vote for the other side, I'm going to be holding my nose on different things. So you just got to pick and choose. And, you know, I have voted for regular candidates in the past. Sure. You know, so anyway, yeah, you know. Just stop it. It was something I said in passing.

Good Lord. You're getting worked up over things that really don't need to be getting... And I'm a free... My main issue is free speech, and why would anybody be against that? Unless you're a totalitarian and you want to shut people up because you don't like what their views are. Yep. And that I have a problem with. Yeah.

That's no good either. Yeah. Controlling someone there's no good. No, that's very naughty. Naughty. All right. Check out Dr. Scott's website. It's simplyerbils.net.

That's simplyerbils.net. And, you know, as if 20, 21 couldn't be bad enough. We lost our friend, Fez Wattley, this year. And then I had COVID, and then everybody, you know, lots of other people have COVID. And, you know, it's just been a crappy year. It's incrementally better than 2020, but still crappy. And then Norm died. Yeah.

Yeah. Hard to believe. And apparently he had had cancer. Kevin Brandon asked me, you know, what hell cancer can last nine years? And it can happen. I mean, colon cancer is one of those that, you know, they could catch it when it's in the polyp stage, and then it recurs, and then you get a resection maybe and do a little chemo, and then it comes back again. And then, you know, maybe down the road it turns into metastatic, you know, which we've. You call stage four cancer, and then that's the stage that we can't cure anymore.

We can treat it, but we can't cure it, and you can knock it down for a while, and some people live for a long time. My ex-father-in-law lived for, yeah, I'm nine, ten years, you know. And so it was probably something like that. Prostate colon, something like that. Yeah, prostate cancer is another one. Can linger for years. Now, he's pretty young.

He was 61, so that would have meant that. that he was 52 when he was diagnosed. Now, if he had had metastatic prostate cancer at that age, you know, the younger you are, it's very aggressive. I mean, just look at Frank Zappa. So that's going to be my guess. But then there are other, you know, weird little lymphomas and stuff. They're really good at treating.

And one time maybe it comes back and you're not in remission anymore. You can be in remission for years. And then it comes back and then this time maybe they can. can't knock it back. So we, I don't know if we'll ever know. I do know that Norm had an very interesting

perspective on chronic illness. And I just wanted to play this. I guess it's okay if I play it. But anyway. But that's all that'll get you, a heart attack or cancer. That's the other thing, you know. My uncle Bert, he's my great uncle, but we call him

Uncle Bert. He got bowel cancer now. He's dying of it. you know, and, or like some people like to say, now they, see, in the old days, a man could just get sick and die, you know. Now, they have to wage a battle. So my uncle Bert is waging a, a courageous battle. Which I've seen, because I go and visit him, and this is the battle. He's lying in a hospital bed with a thing in his arm watching Matlock on the TV.

instead of that battle I got him the box out of Matlock but it's not his fault what the fuck's he supposed to do I got you it's just a black thing in his bowel and the reason I don't like it

is because in the old days they go hey that old man died now they go hey he he lost his battle that's no way to end your life you know what a loser that guy was last thing he did was

he was lose he was waging a brave battle but at the end I guess he got kind of cowardly was what happened and then the bowel cancer it got brave you got to give it to the bowel cancer you know they were in a battle and then what the fuck

and I'm pretty sure I'm not a doctor but I'm pretty sure if the cancer dies I mean if you die the cancer also dies at exactly the same time so that to me

is not a loss that's a draw that's a you know what I mean it's not like fucking the cancer's going to jump up I'm fucking Uncle Bert's wife where is he I won fair and square

all right good man good man so norm will be greatly missed he was the comics comic but he was also the fans comic never once saw him where he wasn't funny except during the time when they were trying to cancel him oh yeah yeah and he went on a kind of an apology tour and it was just you know he was um i think blown away by that because he just didn't expect it but other than that i never ever saw him not be funny. So, and, you know, his thing about O.J. When O.J. got acquitted and he was on Saturday Night Live, and he said, here, news update, murder is now legal in California. That's one of the funniest things I ever saw anybody say.

You know, also that same time, he said that, he said, yeah, they can acquit, um, acquit O.J. When they, by, um, by ruling him out after taking his blood samples from a crime scene as far as being an accomplished to the murder it was pretty funny it was you'd have to have Norm McDonald say that yeah apparently. Me doing it is not funny apparently no

no it was terrible but when he said it was funny all right hey somebody named a damn horse after me I think. Of course, there's lots

other Dr. Steve's in the world, but I would love to know if this guy, I'm sure it's not me, but anyway, I want to play this for you. And they're off in the Mark McDermick states. Jumping out, you must be a weasley, gets a jump on the field,

but quickly up the rail, just as has been done, and center mid-Maddy moved through to take first and second, into third, the favorite, Dr. Steve. Outside, four days, you must be a weasley after that good start, then up the rail, by design nice weather is there and at the back of the pack are going to be joe johans up on the outside stormy bonnie and back door party it's still justice has been done antonio giardo

with that lead on the outside back door party back door party i'm starting to kind of question this no it's real it's real on the outside dr steve in between horses center mid mattie those two coming after the leader right behind them is you must be a weasley with the drive then towards the inside champion by design and nice weather circling up on the far outside that is going to be jojo hans shortly for center mid mattie but on the outside dr steve is right there east too as they head for home down the center comes champion by design putting in a late bid and also on the outside you must be a weasley it's dr steve center mid mattie to the inside and meanwhile champion by design is looking to roll right by the top pair these three as they head to the wire

by design, Scott Spieth gets the stakes win tonight. In second as Dr. Steve back in third was center mid-Maddy and long shot 41 to 1. You must be a weasley in fourth. On official winning time, 110 flat. There you go. There you go.

Second place, that's not too bad. Yeah, if you bet show. I mean, if you bet plays, you would have won something. How funny. Unfortunately, the guy that turned me on to that said, oh, I got to bet this one to win. And of course, I disappointed them.

as I want to do, but anyway. Well, there you go. And then I found this. Somebody sent this to me, and this is a real blast from the past back when Liam used to come up here and do promos. And he was so young that Ronan Fez thought he was a little girl, but listen to this. You know, we talked from time to time about abusing kids, Fezzi. And you said that you were abused as a kid.

I think I was definitely abused as a kid mentally and, you know, the way I got hit by my mother. I see this as abuse. The way Dr. Steve taught that kid of his to talk. Have you listened? My deity is going to be all right. Listen, let's take

a listen again the way Dr. Steve has taught this young lady to speak. Oh, shit. Dr. Steve. This Saturday, Donna, APM, Easter. The my daddy, Dr. Steve, as he answers questions about your test goals, awful diseases.

This Saturday night, listen to my day to Dr. Sleep, they're going to come. Child Services is going to come and take that kid away from him. You can't have a child speak that way in the year 2008. Sounds like she's working towards being a beauty contestant. This Saturday, my daddy, Dr. Steve, is going to be on radio. That's 2008. Where's that kid going to work? Every kid down here sounds like this.

Exactly. You can't get a job if you talk that way. Maybe if they redo designing women. Okay, whatever. Yeah, they thought Liam was a little girl, but... Oh, funny. That's hilarious. All right.

Well, you got anything? You know, I just saw this little blurb, and I thought you would love it. So this is about alternate ways to get oxygen to your system. Okay. And it's called butt breathing. But breathing. Yeah, evidently, there's a research company that says that there are some mammals that and some sea creatures that actually breathe through the butt, and they're starting

to run some clinical trials. Yeah, but we don't. Well, they hypothesize it if you can do instead, in lieu of using a ventilator on some of these. Get that hell. They're going to plug their, plug, stick a tube of their ass and shoot oxygen in their, yep. Okay. It's a real deal. It's a real thing.

Absorption of oxygen through the colon. Yeah, well, they're talking about running an oxygenated liquid into the colon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then maybe that would help to perfuse the bloodstream. Now, they used to have, I mean, I know they still have it. There was like a fluorocarbon fluid that they could use in those pressure suits for, deep divers and you're actually breathing a fluid yeah and it is hyper oxygenated and you can you can submerge mammals in it including humans from what I

understand and you can breathe this liquid oh my God that makes me have a panic attack I know but the apparently it's it's something you can do okay so here we go mammals can breathe through their intestines some of them not all of them On a good day, things, are you looking at the, okay, on a good day, things exit through the anus. But in rodents and pigs in respiratory distress, oxygen can be absorbed by tissues in the rectum. Well, sure, because there's capillaries there. Well, sure. So anywhere that there's capillaries, you can absorb oxygen.

Even the middle ear. That's why some kids end up with fluid in their middle ear. Well, how in the hell does that happen? Well, every air-filled cavity in the middle ears, one of those, has a conduit to the outside world to stabilize pressure or to equalize pressure. And in the case of the eustation tube, if it blocks off, what will happen is, and that's, you know, when you yawn or you pop your ears, air is going either up or out of that eustation tube to decrease the pressure or increase the pressure in your middle ear according to the outside pressure. Well, anyway, if that thing gets blocked off because you've got allergies or something, then what happens is, the capillaries inside the middle ear will start to draw off molecules of oxygen.

So it's like a little tiny vacuum pump and it's very slow but inexorable. And when you get the, because the Eustation tube is closed off and you're drawing off those molecules, you're going to get a negative pressure in there. And if the pressure gets negative enough, then that negative pressure is going to start to draw fluid

out of those capillaries and now your middle ear fills up with fluid then one sniff, get a couple of bacteria in there and now you've got an ear infection. That's how that happens. So, yeah, because there's capillaries in the rectum and in the colon,

it makes sense that it could absorb a certain amount of air, but, you know, how much? So let's see. Let me see, it looks like a crazy idea. Yes. But if you look at the data, it's a compelling story. Most mammals breathe through their mouths and noses and send

oxygen to their body via the lungs. And the reason the lungs work is that they've got a huge surface area in there, because it just keeps branching and branching and branching until you get to the terminal alvely. And the surface area inside the lungs is like miles, apparently. Look that one up. What's it? Surface area of the alveoli of the lung. Sure. And let me see. A few aquatic animals, including sea cucumbers and catfish, breathe through their intestines. And the intestinal tissues of humans can readily absorb pharmaceuticals.

Well, we know that because we've warned people about champagne animas and stuff like that because the bowel so readily will absorb ethanol alcohol. But, well, and, you know, we can get medicines rectally, too. Well, of course. Yeah, which are very highly absorbable. You have to give lower doses because they're so. Yeah, this is true. You know, Fenigen suppository is real common.

I mean, we give opioids rectally if the patient is vomiting in there and, you know, don't have access to IV medication. So anyway, these people tested several approaches to ventilating the intestines of mice and pigs that were deprived of oxygen. in one group of 11 mice forehead, their intestines scrubbed to thin the mucosal lining. Okay, we're not doing that and improve oxygen absorption. So basically what they did was increase inflammation in there so that they had more blood at the surface of the bowel. And then the researchers injected pure pressurized oxygen into the rectums of the scrubbed mice and four of the seven unscruped ones.

Then they withdrew oxygen from the animals, making them hypoxic. The three unscrubbed mice that received no intestinal oxygen survived for 11 minutes. These poor mice. Yeah, no lot. And the mice with unscrubbed intestines that received oxygen through their anuses lasted 18 minutes, almost twice as long. Only the ventilated mice with brushed intestines lived through the hour-long experiment

with a survival rate of 75%. Wow. Isn't it well? Wow. Cool, huh? So you've got to go in there and scrub. your intestine, though. That would be a little tough.

Okay, so then they wanted to ditch the dangerous process of intestinal scrubbing, because, yeah, that's not going to fly. No. And your colon's full of turds, too, so, you know, they're not going to be able to go in there and scrub it. So then they replace the pressurized oxygen with fluids known as, here we go, perfluo-carbons. I'm going to give myself one of these. There you, Dr. Steve.

Yep, which can carry large amounts of oxygen are often used as a substitute for blood during surgery because they're highly dense perfluorocarbons can also help flush mucus out of the intestine. The researchers injected oxygen risk perfluorocarbons into the anuses of three hypoxic mice and seven hypoxic pigs as control. They flush saline solution into the intestines of two hypoxic mice and five hypoxic pigs. So here we're going to withdraw you from oxygen and we're just going to give you an enema before you die.

So that's great. Whereas blood oxygen levels in the control group, plummeted oxygen levels in the ventilated mice steady to normal levels. Okay, you know what? I'm actually kind of excited about this because one of the problems that we have, say, with COVID-19 is putting people on ventilators. And, you know, there's a shortage not only of ventilators to a certain degree. I mean, we've really right now, we're in pretty good shape on the ventilators, but we don't

have a lot of staff. But to just shove a rectal tube up somebody's ass and put. but perforacarbone's up there. And if that would ventilate, you know, give them enough oxygen so that they wouldn't need to be on the ventilator, and we wouldn't need to be putting these huge pressures on their lungs and the cuff. You know, that tube that they shoved down your throat has got a balloon on the end of it, and they got to blow it up to get a good seal.

And you can only have that for 10 to 14 days before it starts to erode the mucus membrane of the trachea. Sure. So this would be awesome. Be a game change of home. Cool. Yeah, I was just looking. Approximately 700 million avioli and along covering total surface area of about 70 meters squared. That's all.

I wouldn't have thought I'd been more than that. Yeah. That's still huge. That's still huge if you think about it. 70 meters square meters. Yep. Yeah. That's crazy.

I was going to look up the surface area of the colon just out of curiosity. Yeah, it's not nearly as high. but yeah okay yeah cool interesting that's a good one cool cool shouldn't be long lasting effects from enteral ventilation wow and of course it's a bunch of gastroenterologists do it because I want to go look we invented this hey two square meters for the colon yeah that's not quite enough yeah well I mean it's not near the neighborhood of the lungs but right right Right, right. But you're not taking into account the surface area of the villi in the colon.

I guess there's villi. Shit, there may not be villi in the colon. Now, I can't remember. I think so. Well, anyway, but there is more to it than just the surface itself. Sure. But, yeah, if it can readily absorb oxygen from these perfluorocarbons, you know, that might not matter. Because the reason the lung needs the large surface area is because it's trying to do a, you know, a gas exchange.

We have more oxygen on the outside than you do on the inside. And so it tends to drive the oxygen into the blood. But the difference between what you inhale and exhale isn't that much, but it's enough to keep you going. So kind of cool. Yeah. Cool stuff. All right. That was a good one.

So I'll make some forward motion on that. Yeah, I'd be very interested in that. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. All right. Let's see here. Hey, Dr. Steve, it's your pal Jim from Massachusetts. Hey, Jim.

Hey, just first of all, very sorry to hear that you got COVID, but very happy to hear that your recovery was quick. Yeah, thanks, man. Hopefully there's no lingering effects. Well, there already are, but it's... And I also want to thank you for... Okay, I definitely want to hear this next part. This should be good.

This should be good. There are lingering effects. I've got a nagging cough I can't get rid of, and apparently that lasts about eight weeks. And if you have that, and I'm talking to a bunch of people out there that have had COVID that may still have that lingering cough, I did some research, and a medication called gabapentin is very effective for it, and I will have to attest to that. and it's something that they can throw at it if the benzonotates, you know, Teselon and Mucinex-DM and all that stuff. Either you can't take them or they didn't work for you.

And it's what basically gabapentin stabilizes nerve endings. It was initially developed as an anti-seizure medication. But it calms down the signals from the vagus nerve, which is what's probably causing this cough. There's some unresolved inflammation. And so the gabapentin's really helped. Well, I never heard of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's cool. So anyway, yeah, so I was already taking gabapentin for my crappy back, and that's helped that a bunch. And so I had some, and instead of just taking one at bedtime, I took one in the morning as well. And, yeah, I haven't really had a coughing jagged today, knock on wood. So, but anyway, all right, to continue.

And I also want to thank you for, in my opinion, for finally at the end of your last episode, stating emphatically, clearly, get the vaccine. Yeah, no shit. And we've been saying that forever. I know what he's referring to probably is the he who shall not be named episode where I was accused of, you know, allowing him to go on and on about that and de facto promoting his approach, even though I thought I was pretty clear that I didn't approve of what he did. But my thing wasn't, you should do this and fake your vex. card, what I wanted to expose is that if you're going to use vaccine cards as entries to concerts and other things like that, that it's not going to keep you safe.

No. Because there's he and the only one doing this. No, hell no. That was my point is how easy it was. Anyway, but of course nobody got it, but a few, you know, I don't want to say nobody. I think most people got it, but there were some people. that didn't get what I was going for, and I guess I wasn't clear enough about it. But anyway, it's the only way this United States is going to get out of the mess that we're in

with people overloaded with hospitals. And I know the numbers now are starting to decline, and that's great, unless we get another variant. Which we will. And the answer is get the vaccine. I don't disagree with that at all. obviously the vaccine and the monoclonal antibodies together, you know, prevented me from going to the hospital. I mean, I'm 66.

I have hypertension. I am at risk. Now, can I go back in time and not take it and then watch myself on the ventilator? No, I mean, it didn't work that way. But I felt a lot more protected. Now, the monoclonal antibody helped me get over it a whole. whole hell of a lot quicker. But just as that year that I got influenza and I had a temp of 105, I had had the vaccine

that year. And even though it wasn't very effective, it still kept me out of the hospital. So, but anyway, yeah. Now, I don't agree that vaccines, the only thing that's going to get us out of this, though. I've said from day one, literally from day one, that a vaccine. are a huge part of this, and yes, the people that we're seeing in the hospital right now are the unvaccinated. So if all those people had vaccines, they, you know, presumably we would just have the weird

outliers in the hospital right now. Most of, and at least there wouldn't be as many in there. Right. That's right. But therapeutics are the way to go, and they spent so much time and so much money getting these vaccines out, which I agree with, but apparently we can't chew gum and walk at the same time because what we didn't concentrate on, in my opinion,

as much as we could have, is a pill that you can take at the beginning of this thing that will cause you to not progress to serious disease, not go to the hospital, not be on the vet, and not die. And I know people are like, well, you know, there's research going on, okay, but almost all the research in the beginning was on people who were deathly ill in the hospital. And it's like, wait a minute, you should be doing these studies on these people before they get

too sick to keep them out of the hospital. Almost every therapeutic remdesivir, the dexamethosone trial. even the hydroxychloroquine early trials and all that stuff were all done on people who were sick in the hospital. Yeah, really, really sick. And so what happened to Favapyrivere? I still don't know. I predicted that was the one prediction I made

that didn't really come to fruition and not sure what in the hell happened to it. Was it poorly efficacious or was it just dropped because there wasn't money in it. And now, you know, Pfizer's got a pill that they're in phase two slash three trials with. We're two years into this. We're just now doing a phase two slash three trial. And then Molnupiravir is in a phase three trial.

You know, let's move things along here, guys. Because the day, and people are getting sick hearing me say it, but it's too important to not keep saying it. The day that we have a pill that you can take, or a liquid, whatever, you know, but something that you can take where you get diagnosed with COVID-19, they hand you a prescription, you know, someone goes and picks it up for you. You take the prescription, you isolate for seven to ten days, and it's effective enough. It's got to be effective enough to keep the vast majority of people from progressing to severe. illness and make them better quicker. And let's just say it's 90% effective. At that point, really, this thing is over.

If it's more than that, it's dead over. We're done. We can go back to normal the next day. Whereas with the vaccines, we've got to hit them, you know, these benchmark numbers, you know, to get herd immunity. First, it was 56% with the alpha variant and then with this delta variant. Now we're up to 80, 90% before we can hit herd immunity, and there's still a lot of resistance to it and all this stuff.

So, you know, taking a therapeutic. So the one therapeutic we have right now that keeps people out of the hospital is the monoclonal antibody, which is what I had. Freaking awesome. The greatest thing in the world. The problem is it's only for people at high risk, and there are some parts of the country where it isn't the easiest thing to get, so people are getting delayed. in getting their treatment, and by the time they go in to get their treatment, they're too sick to get it.

And treating people early is the key on this. I really think they should just cast away the infusion and just go to the subcutaneous injections, because you can do that literally takes a minute, and you could line people up and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Whereas if you're, you know, you've got to put in an IV and then they've got to stay there for an hour, and then they've got to have their infusion, then they've got to stay there another hour. It takes up too much time. So, you know, if you have a problem with capacity,

do it with the subcutaneous method. But anyway, that's the one therapeutic we have that we can hit people early and keep them out of the hospital. But it's an infusion. Well, you know, and I'm just sitting here thinking and listening to you talk about that and what happens if we get a therapeutic that's an injectable only

and not, you know. Well, that's what we have now. But, you know, but that seems to be the issue. issue with the vaccine. You know, it's an injectable. What if we changed it? There doesn't seem to be the resistance to the monoclonals like there was to the vaccine. It almost makes you want to say, let's quit calling it a COVID vaccine and call it a COVID

treatment, you know, you know what I mean? Just to change the dollar. Yeah, just changes the dollar. Prophalactic. I like him. I like him. No, I look, there's, you know, politics plus medicine equals politics or too much politics. in all of this, but I do, I really feel like this is the answer.

So we have an injectable therapeutic right now that works, keeps people out of the hospital. You know, not 100%, but if everybody who got COVID got this, it would reduce hospitalizations, but the supply is such that they're really only giving it to people with a body mass index greater than 35. I've seen 25 in some places, but, you know, hell, that's somebody my size. Yeah, so much. And then diabetics, people with immunosuppressive, disorders, people over 65. That's how I got it. And so anyway, cancer patients, folks like that that are taking chemo in their immune system and what it should be.

It's just supplemental antibodies. That's all it is. And I should be good for 90 days with this. that hangs around in your body for a long time, and then I'll get a booster shot in 90 days. But anyway, yeah, the therapeutics, that's where it's at, man. Yeah. And we've got to have it. You might look up progress on Mulnew Pieravere while I'm listening to the rest of this guy's thing.

It proves that even if you get COVID, you can recover much quicker. and without hospitalization. Yeah, this is true. And most people who get this will not go to the hospital. But particularly for those at risk, you know, vaccination is a huge component of that. And yeah, no, I think people should get the vaccine. I do. I do.

I'm not in favor of mandating it. You know, someone was posted, and I can't remember who it was, but, you know, are you ready to support no medical, no religious exemptions? It's like, we don't have no medical exemptions for any vaccine. There's no vaccine that doesn't have some medical exceptions. So, no, I'm not okay with that. And anyway, the more I talk, listen, the more I talk about this, you know, You know, the hyper-pro vaccine people get mad, and, you know, and then the anti-vaccine people get mad. And it just, you know, it's too much.

The science is good behind it. We've given billions of doses now. We have, we don't have, yes, we don't have 20-year long-term data on this. That's impossible. But it's been vetted, and it appears. that the benefits far outweigh the risks. That's the best I can say. All right.

Without a drain on our medical system. I only was disappointed when you were saying earlier, about 10 minutes before that, about how the reasons why you recovered so quickly, you name them, and they all made sense, and they all, of course, are true. And I'm sitting there going, but why aren't you saying the reason you recover quickly is because you've got the vaccine? Okay. First off, I had COVID, so I wasn't exactly on my best game that show.

I wanted to get a show out while I was sick so that I could let people know about the monoclonal antibody. But no, he's right. But I'm sure that I brought vaccines up at some point. But anyway, listen, we don't see polio anymore. We don't see measles anymore. except in areas where people aren't vaccinating their kids for measles, rabies. I mean, come on. Yeah.

You know. Vaccines are good things, and this is, this appears to be a good vaccine. Yes, it came to market very quickly. I do not feel it was rushed to market. No, neither are. It's called the Internet. People work together on the Internet all of the world at the same time. Well, I mean, they've been working on MRNA technology for 10 years.

They were just waiting for something to use it for. Now, they were going to try it on Ebola, and that just didn't work out, you know. So they did it for this. There's got to be a first time for everything. So, you know, I'm cool with Nikki Minaj, and she got into it with Joy and with Joy Reed. And, you know, Nikki just said, listen, I'm doing my own research. I'll get the damn vaccine when I'm. I'm good and ready.

I'll probably get it, but I'm not going to have the MET tell me to get it because, you know, they were talking about the MET gala. Oh, okay. And she said, you know, you were required to have a vaccine. You had to have vaccine passport to be able to go to that. And she said, I'm not going to let the MET tell me what to do. So I thought that was okay. Yeah, make up your own mind.

But look at it. But look at it with a dispassionate eye. And I think if you do, you're going to end up choosing to get the vaccine sooner rather than later. But it's your choice. Yeah, what? Well, let's just say, finish his story. I'll give you. No, no, no.

Yeah. You asked me to check out the, let's see, Malnupirvir. Yep. It looks like as of September the 1st, Merck is starting the phase three clinicals. They're actually enrolling participants. who live in the same household as someone with symptomatic laboratory-convermed COVID-19. Okay, so they're looking for prevention, which is cool. And it's an oral, it's a pill.

Yeah, no, it's a pill. Yeah, no, it's pill. Yeah, so that's, at least we're, we got something. Two years into it, we're just now starting the phase three trials on these things. Now you sound like your old buddy, J.B. Come on, man. Come on, man. Are you trying?

All right. So hopefully, though, that trial will proceed quickly, and we can bring this stuff to market. So if they're just now starting phase three trial, you're looking at they need to do about 30,000 people. That should be no problem getting those people set up. Just come to Tennessee. Yeah. We're leading the league. We're number one.

When I keep hearing people, I saw some guy on John. Melendez's podcast yesterday and saying the United States is the worst. We've done the worst for deaths per capita and that's just a lie. It's not true. No, they just like saying shit. People just say things and it's

not true. It's not great that we're number 19 but we're 19th in the world for deaths per capita. Don't believe me. Go to COVID.com.com and then sort the column on deaths per 100,000 in ascending order.

And you will see, no, decent, well, descending order. And you will see that the United States is number 19. And we are behind some, you know, first world countries. Good. You know. So it didn't great be a 19th out of what, 100, however many hundred countries there are. There's a shitload of countries in this world. But, you know, but we are no

in no way the worst when it comes per death per capita. Stop it. With that bullshit. Just, you know, there's lots of things we can talk about, but just making up things bugs the shit out of me. And it's not like stat labs.

I mean, they're taking their data, not even from the WHO. It's from Johns Hopkins. it's unassailable data. All right. Okay, do. See, now I'm getting pissed off again. Don't do it.

Don't do it. All right. All right. Hey, Doc. It's Zach from Oki City. I hope you are well after COVID and everything. Hey, man. Yeah, I'm good.

Got a real simple question for you. What is a yawn? Why do we do it? And why does it seem contagious sometimes to people? Yeah. to people. I appreciate you taking my question. Thank you.

Hey, you know, Mythbusters did a thing on yawning and whether it was truly contagious. Would you look that up? Sure. And it just put yawning contagious myth busters in there and see if they come up with anything. I can't remember. I remember in the beginning of their trial, because what they did is they got people in a room, and then they had somebody pretend to yawn and just to see if other people yawned. And if I remember when they first started, they didn't get that effect within the second trial they did.

They saw something. It's making me want to yawn. Just thinking about it. The thing is, is that yawning is this reflex where you open your jaw wide, taking a deep breath, and then quickly exhale. Nobody knows why we do that. And apes do it. Dogs do it. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Most critters do. There's a lot of theories that it's connected with feeling tired or bored, but that's really probably not true. You know, yawning might help you get oxygen to your brain. But here's, this is from WebMD. They say when you yawn, researchers think you may be communicating how you're feeling. Oh, BS. Come on. That's not it.

Some researchers think that yawning is an empathetic. social skill where we show that we connect with others or you could just talk to people but um you know there's really no specific reason it's a it's a reflex in your body it does happen involuntarily and uh changes in elevation can do it empathy social empathy if you see somebody yawn or even read about yawning like dr scott is you may have the urge to yawn and psychics Psychologists say you're more likely to yawn when you see somebody else do it if you're more empathetic. You know, studies have shown that yawning isn't a sign of feeling tired or being bored. And then an unproven theory is that yawning is your body's way of cooling your warm brain.

That seems stupid. You would pant in that situation. Yeah, I don't believe it. I'm not buying that. But, you know, when you yawn, you sometimes follow that with a larger story. stretch and your body could just be flexing their muscles and stretching your joints. Nobody knows. Now, if you yawn a lot and you can't stop, that's a problem.

And that can be a symptom of an underlying condition. You need to get it checked, you know, just like some people who have intractable hiccups. All right. Hey, so the MythBusters on episode 28. Yeah. called it plausible. They had a test pool of 50 people, and out of those 50, 29% yawned when they were influenced to yawn. Oh, really?

Well, that's pretty damn interesting. Well, Dr. Scott had to leave, and I had a conference call, and that's what that ringtone was. That was Dave Cecil. It was my Dave Cecil ringtone, which is weird when Dave Cecil calls me. and it's him on my ringtone. Anyway, ok-doke, let's see. So that's yawning. So, yeah, that's plausible.

The answer is no one knows. You'd think after all this time, we would know what the hell causes yawning, what it's for, is it contagious, and we still don't really know the answer to these questions, which is just mind-boggling to me. Of course, there's no money in it. That's the problem.

All right, let's see here. Hey, Dr. Steve. I'm from North Carolina. Hey, Bob. How you doing? Good, man. How are you? I don't know why you answer that because it's a voicemail.

Hey, I was just wondering if the vaccine works so well, how come you've got the regeneron or regenerative or whatever it was in addition to the vaccine if 99.999% of the time you don't go to the hospital? Yeah, no, good question, because I was sicker and shit. So what he's asking is, since I had the vaccine and I got it anyway, then why did I turn around and get the regenerate? So here's why. I am at risk.

Listen, it's not that there's zero percent of people going to the hospital, but I was at risk. I'm at risk because of my age for severe disease, and it doesn't mean I'm going to have it. it just means I'm at increased risk. But I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck. And one of the reasons for that was that my vaccine was administered to me during the Pfizer trial. So I'm over a year into it. And when they checked my antibody level, I didn't have any. So we all know that the antibodies wane with this virus.

I think they do with all coronaviruses. And I think one of the reasons for that is that we would, We're exposed to so many coronaviruses during our lifetime. We would just have these huge numbers of antibodies running around all the time. So the body figured, look, this stupid coronaviruses mostly aren't going to kill us so we can just kind of calm down with the antibodies. But keep the cellular immunity. Well, it takes those cells, the cellular immunity, as opposed to the humoral immunity.

So the humoral immunity keeps you from getting infected. The cellular immunity, mostly keeps you from dying. So, yes, I had cellular immunity, but it was going to take about two, maybe three weeks before I build up a big load of antibodies. And when you're 100, well, what was I going to say? When you're 66 and you have a fever of 103, that's not conducive to a decent, not only night's sleep, but day. I mean, the minutes seem like hours, and hours seem like weeks.

So, yeah, I submitted to the regeneron because I met the criteria for it. If you look at the criteria, it doesn't say people who have been vaccinated or excluded from that. So that was the main reason. But now it's a great question. You're right. If I had not had the regeneron, I would probably be fine. I would probably have felt way shittier, way longer. And the fact is, I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow.

Would that have happened if I hadn't had it? I don't know. What I can tell you is on Tuesday, I felt like a Mack truck hit me, fever of 103, got the regeneron. By Wednesday, I woke up at 5 in the morning with a normal temp and normal oxygen saturation. And besides some lingering fatigue, fatigue and a cough that I can't get rid of, I'm 100%. So, yeah, I don't know.

Did I take it away from somebody that maybe needed it more than me? Well, yeah, some unvaccinated person maybe. I don't know what to tell you. But anyway, so the bottom line is the criteria doesn't say if you've had the vaccine and you meet these criteria, you can't have it. So they didn't really give me a choice, to be honest with you. They just said, come on up and we're going to do it. And I was so sick that I wasn't saying no to anything that I thought might help at that time.

Excellent question, though. You're not wrong. All right. Oh, this is, you remember Derek from Texas? This is Tracy from Louisiana. Hey, Dr. Steve. Something I've often wondered about. With urine being a primary way of getting waste out of your body, one of the two main ways,

why is it yellow? I mean, you would think waste and dead cells and everything else would be brown or a dark color. So why is urine yellow? Not a bad question at all, Tracy from Louisiana. Normal urine color can be anywhere from totally clear to a deep amber. And if it's dark brown, that's often a sign of. of elevated Billy Rubin, which means often that there's a problem with your liver. But there's a pigment called urochrome.

And there are other things that cause the color, but that's the main one. And it gives you sort of a yellow pigment. There are other compounds and pigments in foods, though, that can change urine color. So there's like beets and berries and then fafa beans. are among the foods that are really likely to affect color. And there are some over-the-counter prescription and prescription medications that can do it as well. If you want to see really nice urine that is fluorescent yellow, there's a medication called Azo Standard that's basically a urinary tract anesthetic. So for people that burning when they pee, they'll take that.

and it will turn their urine orange. As a matter of fact, it'll stain anything it touches. So you have to be really careful if you're a dude about not splattering or dribbling in your underwear if they're not black. Just wear black underwear. Then you don't have to worry about skid marks and all that stuff. There's another one called, I can't remember what it is, but it's another medication that you can take that will turn your urine. blue and now if you have as I said deep red to brown urine you could have a thing called porphyria if it's deep deep brown you could have hyperbillirubinemia and hyperbilliburamia is a

sign of liver failure so if you have red in other words visible blood in your urine you need to get checked if you have dark or orange urine particularly if you have yellow in your eyes or pale stools, go get that checked out. Pale stools with dark urine can just mean that you have a stone in your bile duct that's obstructing it. And so the bile can't get into the stool, so it turns it's sort of clay-colored pale.

And then, but the pigment, the Billy Rubin will be, build up in your bloodstream and you'll pee it out and it will show up in your skin as jaund us or as we call it in this area yellow janders all right so any kind of weird colors like that get those checked out um all right very good well listen thanks always go to dr scott we can't forget rob sprance bob kelly greg hughes anthony cumia jim norton Travis teft that gould girl Louis Johnson, Paul Off Charsky, Chowdy, 1008, Eric Nagel, the Port Charlotte Horror, and the Saratoga Skag. Roland Campo, sister of Chris, Sam Robert,

she who owns pigs and snakes, Pat Dovey, Dennis Falcone, Matt Kleinschmidt, Dale Dudley, Holly from the Gulf, Steve Tucci, the great Rob Bartlett, Vick's Nether Fluids, Carl's deviated septum, Bernie and Sid, Martha from Arkansas's daughter, Ron Bennington and Fez Wadley, whose support of this show has never gone unappreciated. By the way, I forgot to mention this during the show.

I was on this show called The Creepoff. It's a comedy, true crime podcast. It's the greatest thing in the world. It's like a competition, and these two guys fight to see who is the most heinous criminal, and then their listeners get to vote on it. It was so much fun. Check that out.

The Creepoff. and I'll put it in the on the website so that you can just click a link to it. Listen to our Sirius XM show on the Faction Talk channel. Sirius XM Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern on demand and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure.

Don't forget Ron Bennington and Fez Watley who's support of this show never went underappreciated. Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very 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 you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thank you.