Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 485 - Pax Covidiana

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Dr Steve, Dr Scott and Pre-Med Carson discuss: Why would anyone go to medical school in 2021? Paxlovid is finally released. Is the end in sight? WHY WOULD THIS HAPPEN?!! - Balanoposthitis White spots on the nails Unexplained Weight Loss (get it checked) Non pharmacological treatment for perimenopause Correction: 14 year olds in New Zealand Cupping vaccine injection sites - again ketamine and psilocybin in mental health more Please visit stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) Get Every Podcast on a Thumb Drive ($30 gets them all!) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) patreon.com/weirdmedicine (Don't miss our exclusive Patreon feed!) Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now while he’s still cheap!) roadie.doctorsteve.com (If you have a guitar or bass player on your list, BUY THIS) betterhelp.com/medicine (we all need some counseling right now) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why did the baked potato cross the road? To get to the other chives. 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.

Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to? I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolivir stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my incredible woes. I want to take my brain out and plastic with the wave, an ultrasonic, agographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill.

All my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen cane. and if I don't get it now in the tablet I think I'm doomed then I'll have to go insane I want a requiem for my disease so I'm paging Dr. Steve from the world famous Cardiff Electric Network Studios it's weird medicine the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history broadcast radio now a podcast I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal Dr. Scott the traditional Chinese medical practitioner gives me street crack The Wackle Alternative Medicine Assholes. Hello, Dr. Scott.

Hey, Dux D. We also have Carson, the pre-med student. Hello, Carson. It's a pleasure. How are you? Thank. Good to have you in here, man. We'll talk to you in a minute.

This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. You've got a question you're embarrassed to take to your regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call at 347-7-66-4-3-23. That's 347. Pooh-Head. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine or at DR Scott. 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 here with a grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking it over with your doctorate, nurse, practitioner, practical nurse, physician, assistant, pharmacist, pre-med student, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical

therapist, clinical laboratory, scientists, registered dietation or whatever. All right. Well, it only took 14 takes to get here. Thank you for your perseverance. Don't forget stuff. dot Dr.steve.com. Stuff.

Dot, Dr. Steve.com for all of your stuff needs. Anytime you're going to go shopping on the internet, go to stuff. Dottersteve.com. You can click straight through to Amazon. Or you can scroll down and see all the stuff that we talk about on this show,

including the navage, the nasal lavage, which is the greatest thing. If you have anyone, and there's still time, anyone on your list that has bad sinuses or chronic allergies, perennial rhinitis, anything like that, a runny nose, they snore, they drive you crazy, get them a Navage, N-A-G-E, and you can buy one at CVS, you can go to navage.com. It is the greatest device I have ever purchased for under $100. And basically, Carson, it shoots saline up one knowledge. and it sucks it out the other one.

Now, Dr. Scott, you're into traditional Chinese medicine. And I know, I've seen this in the Ayurvedic sites, but I've never seen it in a traditional Chinese site where they will take like a rag and they'll stuff it in one nostril and then they'll wend it through until it comes out the other nostril and they'll just sort of do this with it.

You know? Yes. You know what I'm talking about? Yes, I've seen that after people. I've been using cocaine for many years. Oh, well, that's a little different. Yeah, they can actually go in just partially and come out the other nostril. But, I mean, they go all the way in and then come out.

Is that not a Chinese tradition? Not as I was true. I think it was an Iyer Vedic tradition, I'm not sure, but I've seen people do it. And I've seen netty pots. You can't look cool doing a netty pot. No. Just Google image netty pot, and you'll see a bunch of people looking stupid as shit. Yep.

But, and I can't say you look any more intelligent using the nivage, but you don't look as vulnerable and goofy using it. Yeah, and it's like kind of a cool looking device. It is a cool device. And they have a three-tier drying thing now that is really awesome because back in the day I would just set it all out and let it dry and I'd stuff it back in the box. But now they've got this three-tier thing. It looks like a cruise ship. It does. It's really cool.

And, but anyway, get them in navage, but you can get one at Stuff. dot dr steve.com and tweakeda audio.com offer code fluid for 33% off the best earbuds for the price and the best customer service anywhere. I don't even know if we get anything for telling you that anymore. I haven't heard from tweaked audio and forever, but it is one of the best places to go and that's one of the best discounts you can get on the internet. Use offer code FLUID and just watch that $100 go down to $70 or your $30, go down to $20. And simply herbals.net is Dr. Scott's website.

And today, while we were doing the pre-show, I was playing episode number 20 of our podcast, which predates Dr. Scott, predates GVAC, double vasectomy Todd, had Dr. K, had Dr. who's no longer with us, and it had Jefferson the Scheister on there, and P.A. John, and we were talking about the origin of Myrtle, the character, and how I had called Sam Roberts giving him a happy birthday greeting from an old country woman. You know, well, I hope you had. Anyway, and we talked about the origin, and I also talked about my Terminator eyes when I was coming off of Simbalta.

So there's some cool stuff in that episode. I'm going to throw it up on the Patreon. So if you want to hear some old classic bits or hear shows with Tacey and me and some special guests going forward, and Dr. Scott will be in there some too. Go to patreon.com slash weird medicine. We've got some very affordable tiers, and you get some cool stuff and not just audio, there's stickers and there's mugs at different tiers and stuff like that. So check it out at patreon.com slash weird medicine.

Very good. Don't forget to check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net. That's simply herbals.net. And we've got Carson here in the studio. He is a pre-med. So we've descended from having MDs, PAs, D-O-Ms, to having residents in here and then we had some medical

students. Now we've got a friggin pre-med student. A couple nurse practitioners mixed in there. Yeah, of course. All right down the chain. A couple of biologists and zoologists. Yeah, so we've descended through the food chain. That's exactly what it is. Lower. We're at the bottom of the barrel.

Why in the hell do you want to go to medical school? I just, you know, would I do it again? Yes, I would, but I was called to do it. So that better be your answer, or I'm going to try to talk you out of it. You know, that's a good answer. That's a good question, actually. You know, it all started in high school.

Kind of fell in love with science. You know, I could, wanted to do something in that realm. Yep. Then I went to health care, and I thought I wanted to be a nurse. And then I said, screw that. I wanted to be. I was going to use the old 1980s joke, but you weren't, you realized you weren't gay, but that's not true anymore. What never was true.

Oh, God. That was the joke back in the 80s. And I'm saying I'm not going to say that joke. There's so many men in nursing now, way more than there ever was. I go through the ICU, and it's all dudes now. Oh, really? Well, not all, but I mean, there's a, in one of our ICU's as preponderance of dudes. And I think it's a good thing.

I really do, actually. The funny thing is, if I did go into nursing, I actually kind of want to be a midwife. So, kind of glad that didn't fall on to me. Interesting. Why in the hill? Okay, okay. I think that would be interesting. It is.

interesting. I used to cry every time I delivered a baby and until the last time I delivered one and it was my very last delivery. This was this kid is 30 years old now and so this is not personally identifiable story because nobody will remember this story. But basically I got the head out and I couldn't get the shoulder out and that's called a shoulder distosia. And there's a lot of different maneuvers that you can do, but the first maneuver is to just take the head and put downward pressure on it. You're trying to get that lower shoulder to just kind of move out of the way so the upper shoulder will pop out, right? So I did that, and I hear this crack. And I'm like, and I hear, you know, this in my head, and then I'm thinking, and the kid just came blooping out

at that point, right? And so I said, check this. kid you hand them off because you got to pay attention to the mom case she's breathing bleeding hopefully she's breathing after that and so I handed the baby off to the pediatric staff I said check this baby out I mean everybody in the room heard that and so I'm sewing up a you know a tear and in just sweating it and I'm like how's the baby doing Apgar's 8 and 10, which is good, and they checked the baby. I said, there's nothing wrong with this kid. And I'm like, okay, well, I heard something.

And so I check around on the mom, do you hurt here? Do you hurt there? And she's like, no, I feel fine. And I went, okay. And I never delivered another baby. Because what I realized was that it's either you're crying because it's such a joyous thing or you're shitting your pants because it is a, nightmare and it's either yeah it's it's it's either loads of fun or it's a

just a complete um stressful nightmarish situation I used nightmare twice but I couldn't think of a better word but anyway so yeah so midwifery did you ever do that no no I am about I mean who hasn't watched those you know those birthing videos on YouTube oh really yeah it's okay never watched one Oh, really? No, I have no interest. I've seen it. Well, yeah, I would say.

But for someone who is not able to have that opportunity, I don't know that. And you watched that, and you said, I want to do that. Well, I think it would be fun to participate in the process. I don't know if I could be an OBGYN. I don't think I could be a part of the process. I don't know if I could be the leader in the room. Yeah, I was a really good stage two coach. Take a deep breath.

Hold it. Oh, yeah. I enjoyed that. be fun yeah it was fun and then i got to use my training with my wife when she was pregnant and that was cool no i just i'm not shitting on you for it as a matter of i admire it you know that any any you know how old are you uh 21 21 year old that would look at youtube videos of people having babies and say i want to be part of that i think that's that's awesome just like uh like surgery videos you know it's something yeah yeah yeah okay part of life so

But you don't want to do OB, GYN. Yeah, you know, I don't, I think. But you're going to do family medicines. You're going to be delivering some babies. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. Well, now I am. Yeah.

That's, your first year will be internal medicine, pediatrics, OB, and surgery. Yeah. And then family medicine. Like a lot of the places don't do internal medicine anymore. You just do family medicine service. but and then you'll have to do a second uh dr scott if you would sure look up uh rotation requirements for family medicine residents and you have to do a second year rotation in ob as well i think

and we at the time this was back in the 80s covered the labor and delivery when we were on call for family medicine that most of them well most of them around here don't do that anymore and i can't say most of them other places so if you're really not interested in doing that you want to when you start looking at programs say how heavy is your o b requirement and how many deliveries do you get to do and if they say well we do one or two then that might be for you uh you have to do a certain number for them to be certified and does it say dr scott i'm waiting for to come up i was also looking at a couple of things anyway all right but uh yeah so well welcome Welcome to the studio.

I appreciate it. If you got something pipe up, you can be the lay person for today. Well, the sort of enlightened lay person. Oh, okay. That's what's the one. All right. And, Scott, are you monitoring the feed? I just want to make sure that the audio is okay.

Yeah, at least it sounds good. Okay. So it looks like family medicine or emergency medicine and internal medicine psych preventative medicine. And if you're good at DO school, neuromuscular medicine. Okay. And you can specialize in a disease. addiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But what I'm asking is, what are the required rotations for ACGME certification? Because you want to go to a certified program. Oh, yes, you, Chip. And the worst thing, well, it's not the worst thing that could happen to you. There's lots worse things. But to be in a residency program that loses their certification in the middle of your residency, that sucks. So anyway. I originally wanted to do emergency medicine, but it looks.

It looks like they're graduating so many emergency medicine residents that a lot of people graduating from residency can't find jobs. Really? Yeah, they've been graduating so many EEM residents. Is that right? Well, they're able to find jobs, but they don't want, not in like desirable locations. Right, right, right. Do you want me to tell you one that is in high demand and will be for the next at least 20 to 30 years? Psychiatry?

Yes, that's one. I'll give you this. Give yourself a bill. Palliative medicine. True. Huge shortage because there aren't enough fellowship programs, and they are only, most of those fellowship programs are only graduating one or two fellows a year. So there's, you know, health systems are realizing, hey, we have to have palliative medicine

for people who don't know what palliative medicine is. It deals with symptom management and men. medical decision making in people with advanced illnesses. It's not end of life. I mean, that's part of it. Right. And it isn't an easy field to do. You've got to be called to do that, too.

You've got to really want to do it. But a huge shortage, to the point that we have four physicians in our program and two of them are not board certified. Wow. You know, they just have the heart for it. Because if you wait around to get a board certified person, you're going to be waiting for a long time. So board certified people are in demand, and the only way you can get board

certified is to do a fellowship. Yeah, and I'd say it's super, I'm sure it's a bigger problem even in the rural areas. Yeah, yeah, it is. So going to, if you have some interest in doing that, and we'll get off this topic, because now I'm getting this is, we're getting way too into the weeds.

I'm sure I'm boring the shit out of people, but if you go to God damn, this is about it's boring. All right, all right, all right, all right. All right, all right, all right. Anyway, we'll talk about it later. All right, Dr. Scott, I just had one story I wanted to do,

and we've got a million phone calls to do today. Okay. And here, this is the big one. We are recording this at 353 on Wednesday, December 22nd, and about three hours ago, the FDA cleared the Pfizer drug for high-risk patients, 12 and older. Cool. This is Paxlovid.

And we knew Pfizer had a drug that was kind of under the radar. We were focusing on Mulnupirivir, which at first looked great. And its luster has decreased a bit. It prevented hospitalization by about 30%. But the Paxlovid by Pfizer is about 90% effective in preventing hospitalization. and even more so for death. And they feel that it's likely to work against the Omicron variant as well, although we don't have a whole lot of data yet on that.

But you want to take it as soon as you start feeling sick. And so this is that scenario we've been talking about where you get sick, you go to your doctor, they write you a prescription, you go fill it, and you go to the pharmacy, fill it, isolate for your 10 days, take this pill, and you don't go to the hospital, and you don't die. And if Omicron is less lethal and more contagious, it will take over, and so lethality will decrease. And then we have this pill for people who are at risk of progressing to severe disease. We also have early IV Remdesivir, and we have the old monoclonal antibodies, which sounds funny to say that, old ones like Regenkov, are no longer very effective against this variant. So if you're in an area with high Omicron penetrants, you're going to want to take one of the other IV monoclonal antibody preparations.

And there's one of them out there, and I can't remember the name of it. But it is still effective against the Omicron variant. So you just got to talk to your health care provider about that. And hopefully know the difference. Yeah. Yes. Go in there as an educated person, people. No, absolutely right.

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Well, you look that one up. Yeah. What's the monoclonal antibody that's effective against Amacron? because I'm old and my memory is not what it was and I knew this like five minutes ago

and I can't remember the name of it. But anyway. All right. And besides that, IV stuff is hard to get, you've got to get people in an infusion center to do it. Even though the monoclon

antibodies can be given subcutaneously but the IV remdesivir is, you know, it still requires an infusion center and so you have to have one that you can have ill patients that have a communicable disease. Whereas a pill, you give somebody a prescription, they go fill it and take it home and take it. So this is a big move forward. So it's not over the counter?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not over the counter. But because if it were over the counter, there'd be a run on it. Everybody would just go buy it, and there wouldn't be any for the people who need it. And then there'd be some assholes selling it for $1,000. Well, maybe. Right, after, after, if they'd buy them all out to CVS. Yes, that's true. Yeah.

We sell them on the street corner. Yeah. Not that Stacey would do something like that. Not that Stacey would do that. For $100, he'd be happy to. Oh, he heard that you sigh when I mentioned his name last time, but I do want to play something. Yes, I did.

I do want to, all right. I want to play something from him that is a, uh, a very positive thing. And let's get the same here. Dr. Steve and Scott, just want to throw out a little thank you and appreciation. So it's all the thing from Back Coal Foundation where they received a whole lot of toys on the 11th, the 12th, and on the 13th. And that coincides with the last weird mess and broadcast where you mentioned the

Back Coal Foundation in their toy drive. And so just wanted to say thank you. to the people who have donated and really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, okay, cool. Thanks. Yeah, that's awesome.

We'll give ourselves a good hand. Good job. And there's still time to do that. I mean, there's never a time when kids who are sick don't need things to entertain themselves. So just go to Bat, Kohl, B-A-T-O-L-E dot foundation, and you can donate there. It really is a worthy, you know, people, oh, it's a worthy cause. This one really is a worthy cause.

All right. You got anything before we move on? Did you find that antibody? Yes. Okay, what is it? All right. Okay, here we go. This is going to be good.

Jesus. This is going to hurt. Okay, another one for WATP cringe of the week. Yes, you have Bamlanan. That one. Yes, there you go. Give yourself a bunch of it. B.

Can't they make it something like Joe's, you know, Bo's, L-L-A-M-A-B-A-M-A-M? Spell it. B-A-M-L-A-N-I-V-I-M-A-B. All I can think of is that old song, Bam-Wam-W-E-W-E-A-W-E-E-A-W-E-E-A-G-A-L-E-A-G-A-L-G-A-L-G-A-B-E-B-E-B-E-B-E-B-E-B-O-G-G-E-E-B-E-B-B. Oh, Jesus, now I can't say it. Bamlanivamab. Bamlanivamab. That sounds like that.

There you go. Bamlanibababab. God. They are, that is a mouthful. It is a handful. Yeah. Okay. Well, that one is still good.

So that's the one you want. Yeah. Bamlanmenab. That's what Bamlaminibamab. Yeah. Bamlanivamab. Okay. I got it that time.

And it also looks like I'm not even going to try. You know, it's ridiculous. That's why they have trade names. for these things. Regencove. Name it Joe's. Joe's Monoclono anybody.

Big Joe's. Jim's. Monoclonal antibody. There you go. There you go. Okay, okay.

All right. Want to answer some questions? Let's do it. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio.

All right. Let's do this one. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is so-and-so from so-and-so. Okay, well, very good. Nice to meet you.

So, myself, my aunt. and my mother were in the waiting room. My dad's in the ICU at a hospital here and so-and-so. And a man walked out of the ICU area and comes to assist with his family. And this is what he said. And I quote, well, the penis has retracted into the struttle sack, and they're afraid the head of the penis is going to fall off.

Hmm. What the fuck happens with me? I don't know. Sounds like a... Hey, hey. What the fuck happened to this man? That's it. Just serious.

Like, what could have happened to make your penis retract into your strontal sac? And then the doctors in the ICU are worried about the head of your penis falling off. Oh, that's the clue. I've got this one. Do you? Okay. Shrinkage. It's the shrinkage.

I need to have that as a draw. Everybody is what shrinkage is, right? You know what shrinkage is. Of course, yeah. Yeah, cremaster reflex. Poor old George Costanza. And who hasn't had that experience? Shrinkage.

You're standing there and naked and some woman who you want to have intercourse with walks in and you just got out of the pool or out of the ocean and she looks at your junk and starts laughing. Wait, you guys haven't had this? So anyway. So, and then you have to yell, it's the shrinkage, the shrinkage, as she walks off, never to have sex with you ever. I love it. So, yeah, this guy, the answer is he's in the ICU. So this person probably has a catheter.

And he probably has edema or swelling. of the of the jungle region which can happen under several circumstances there's a there's a an instance called anisarka anisarca is just total body fluid and you can get fluid in and around the tissues of the scrotum it's not like you're just dumping fluid into the scrotum but the whole thing has become massively uh the tissues are engorged with fluid and when that happens yeah the penis can retract into the body and if they let's just say that someone didn't notice that the four and I'm assuming this person has a foreskin the foreskin was retracted when they put the folic catheter in then the head of the penis can just sluff off it just literally and then it's choked

off you get nothing you lose good day so you know that's one of those you get nothing you lose good day sir episodes yeah that's a possibility when that happens it's called balinopostitis oh god you know what that is my favorite thing balinidid no not malinitis this is a worse one oh no balinopostitis oh lord and balinopostitis is when you have inflammation of the head of the penis and the foreskin and that can happen under trauma, any kind of infection, foreign chemicals that get caught between the foreskin and the head of the penis. Any of these things can cause this. But the only thing I've ever seen that caused the head of the penis to sluff off is when there's constriction. And you can get the constriction when the

foreskin has been retracted and then nobody notices it so we're giving a moment of silence for this person's penis good lord can you imagine I love how this guy was getting more and more agitated what could cause

that what could cause someone to come out and say that yes because he doesn't want what this dude had no no you won't you won't that's extremely unusual I've only seen one penis sluff off, a penis head slough off. And it was due to a

retracted foreskin that was forgotten about. Yeah. They could have something similar if they forget a rubber band or a kind of, yeah. Don't put a rubber band around your penis. Matter of fact, you could do the same very similar. We teach our residents and medical students to, if you're going to use a rubber

band as a tourniquet, don't ever just wrap it around that body part. What you want to do is stretch it around the body part end to end and then clamp it with a clamp. That makes sense. That way, you can't forget that. If you're doing a toenail removal and you want to use a rubber band as a tourniquet,

if you wrap it around the toe, there's a non-zero chance that you'll forget to take it off and the person will put their sock on and when they get home, they'll have a dead toe and it will eventually fall off. Whereas there's no way in hell that they'll pull on their sock when they, got a clamp on there. And when we're talking about a clamp, for people out there that haven't seen a medical clamp, it looks like a pair

of scissors, except it's clamp. You know, it's got a ratcheted lever on it that will, you know, the tighter you push the two scissor handles together, the tighter this clamp will clamp, and it'll hold it.

And so you just bring your rubber band, up and you know the two ends and then you go click click click click and you clamp this thing on there and then it's impossible for you to forget that and if you're going to clamp off a penis for whatever reason i i can't imagine why you would do this then you would want to do that the same way so that you don't forget don't ever wrap a rubber band around your finger your toe your penis there's a non-zero chance that you'll yeah or you're

wrist there's a non-zero chance you'll fall asleep because when are you going to do that you're going to do stupid shit like that when you're drinking and then you pass out and then you wake up how long do you think that would take if you put a rubber band around i don't know and not well i mean you know an appendage can last for hours when they when they do a surgery on the arm like hand surgery they'll put a tourniquet on it it'll be bloodless for an hour or two and you know you can do it And then you just take the tourniquet off. The first person that did that had to be a balzy son of a hatch. Mm-hmm.

You know, to just rob a limb of blood supply and think that when I undo this tourniquet, it's going to be okay. It must have been a military thing where they realized when they put tourniquets on people's limbs and took them off in surgery that the limb became viable again. So our limbs can deal with it, but appendages not so much. you know, it's Yeah So, anyway All right All right

We're off to a rousing Hey Mike, it's Mike from New York calling Hey Mike I'm doing well thanks I'm glad you guys are too Oh I believe you that one Hey Mike how are you

I'm doing well thanks There you go Glad you guys are too Yes we're great I stuck my toe a few weeks ago Probably about eight weeks ago Probably about two months ago by now And instead of turning black and blue, it got like a white calcium deposit on top of the nail.

It doesn't hurt, no issues with it. But if I have to look at this for the next seven, eight months while it grows out, I figured I'd find out what the hell it is and have to something I should be concerned about. Yep. Again, it's like a... Thanks, Mike. Do you know the name of this, Dr. Scott? I'll give you $20 right here if you know the name of it.

No. It's okay if you don't. No, no, no. And I know Carson doesn't know that. It's called Leukonikia punctata. Nope. And so Leuco means white. Oniquia means nail.

So white nail and punctata means point or point, you know, punctate. And this is also known as true Lucanikia. This is the most common form. And there's small white spots appear on the nails. And this can happen when you bite your nails or pick at them. or if you have some trauma. So for whatever reason, trauma causes the nail that's normally relatively translucent to just become opaque, and when that happens, you see white spots.

When you see them on one or two toes, it's no big deal. It's most common cause is injury to the base or the nail itself, and those white spots will disappear around 8.5. months that's how long it takes I remember one time I this was the dumbest effing thing I've ever done in my life I was trying to take a sledgehammer to a Christmas tree base because I couldn't get the thing to go on the tree the tree was a little bit too big oh no so I took a sledgehammer to it when I did I it slipped and my thumbnail hit the base of the

of the base. Oh, crap. Oh, that's so hard because I had all that momentum going because of the sledgehammer. And how did I do that? I don't know. It was a real short sledgehammer. It was more like a mallet, I guess. And it hurt like a son of a bitch, and I got blood under the fingernail.

So then I had to go and heat up a paper clip until it was red-hot and plunge it through my nail. to release the blood under the nail because otherwise the pressure is just intense of the pain. And it feels so good. If you do it right, you can't let that red-hot paper clip hit the nail bed underneath or then it hurts like hell because now you've burned the nail bed. So you've got to do it just right.

It should be done by a medical professional. Don't do this yourself. The other thing that we'll do sometimes if we don't have a red-hot paper clip handy is use an 18-gauge needle, which really has a knife edge on it, and you put it over it, and then just spin it. And when you spin it over the area, it will cut in, you know, sort of it'll act like a drill and drill through the nail. And then when you just start to see blood coming out, you stop,

and then you can express it. And that hole in my nail was there for about almost just under a year. It was just right before Thanksgiving that next year, that I finally clipped that thing off. Yeah. Dumbest thing, dumbest thing. Real quick, I'll make it quick. Yeah, no, you have to make it quick.

How we got 20 minutes to kill? And I just put it out there to our friends on YouTube. I was drilling a little piece of a wood to put on a wall. And it was just a small, like a two-inch-by-two-inch piece, and I couldn't get to hold still. So I just thought it would be a great idea to just put it on my knee. I had that darn drill I got

I already know where this is going And that thing caught It was zipped right in there And it went about a quarter inch In my head Just above my knee I'm like

Son of a bitch I think that's the dumbest thing I've ever done I just sat there for a second thing What the hell did I just do Just flipped it around Reverse it out I am too smart

I am smart I am just smart I am smart I am to smart It's a marty Yeah that's awesome That's the bus for I love it

Uh-oh I love it Uh-oh Gonna have to call her back The boss All right Okay doke Well there you go

That's white spots on nails Now There are other white spots on nails There is Luconiquia totalis Can you think of what that might be Carson Uh

I'm trying to think of that second word Totalis Ooh I'm going to take a shot in the dark And say it's related to the toe I thought he was going to say it's related to C-Alas. I'm thinking that's totally. Total. Total.

In total. So it's in totality. It's white. Right, exactly right. It's completely white. And that's usually a result of mechanical trauma. It can also be a clinical sign of low protein in the blood, which will be seen in people with a thing called nephrodite syndrome. It's people with kidney phlegic syndrome.

It's people with kidney. failure, and they're just peeing out protein just constantly. And there are some other things, too. There's a genetic condition that you can take a family, a certain antibiotic can cause this called sulfonamides. Let's see. Then there is Luconiquia striata. You want to take a shot at that one, Carson's? Okay, striae, or striations.

You know what the striation means? It's a line, right. So that will be transverse lukonikia. Those are called meas lines. And that's whitening or discoloration of the nail that run parallel to the lunula, which is the nail base. And that's usually caused by physical injury. It could be disruption of the nail matrix, which is the thing that makes the nail, you know, the nail bed. And again, biting or tapping of the nails.

It can also be seen in lead poisoning. So, you know. Interesting. Yeah. Is that, though? No, he's making all the shit up, Carson. Those things don't even exist. You made him up.

I believe it. All right. It's pretty cool. Pretty cool. I'll get it out. Let's do this one. Hi, Dr. Steve. This is Art from Pennsylvania.

Hey, Art. I love your show and I'm a long-term listener. Thanks, man. I'm a type 2 diabetic. Last time my blood was taken, my in one was under control. Okay. The problem is that I'm losing weight like crazy.

Within the past year, I went from 210 to 170. I ate junk food during the day and fattening desserts at night. Okay. My primary care physician says I'm doing okay, but I still think there's a problem. You're doing okay. Could you please give me some possible scenarios or what could be wrong? Thanks, Dr. Steve. Well, I don't want to do that because there's too many here.

Dr. Scott, this guy's got to add a 40-pound weight loss. Yeah. Now, when he says his blood sugars are under control, I wonder what he means. Is A1C and blood sugar both are under control? Well, that's what he's saying. The A1C is, quote, unquote, under control. Does that mean it's 6.7 or below? If it's not, if it's above that, some doctors have a really kind of wonky threshold for what they think is, you know, a normal.

Under control. Yeah, quote unquote, under control. And if it's anything above that, if it's seven or eight even, which used to be our goal, you may be looking at just you're peeing out your calories. So I would check your urine to see if there is sugar in your urine. And if you're having a lot of glycos urea, which is the term we use for that, then you may be just losing so many calories through your urine. You can't keep them.

But there's other things that need to be checked for sure. The 40-pound weight loss when you're not trying to lose weight is not something to dick around with. So you need to get checked for a lot of things. So if I had you on the phone right now, I would ask you if you are you having diarrhea, in which case I would think maybe celiac disease or some other inflammatory bowel disease. Abdomal pain, you know. Yeah, anything like that. But, you know, hypercalcemia, adrenal insufficiency.

called Addison's disease. There's a test for that as well. And other things. So this needs to be checked. And if your primary care provider isn't taking it seriously, then I'd find another one. And then let us know what they find. The first thing I would check on you is your thyroid and a urine. And I would check a complete comprehensive metabolic panel because if you have Addison's

disease, then your potassium will be off. and other things like that, okay? But get that checked. This needs to be followed up more thoroughly. Yeah, absolutely. Both hyper and hypothyroidism can cause this, but more likely to be hyperthyroidism. Yeah.

And depending on medications he's taking it for his diabetes, those things may need to be altered. Well, that's true. Now, there are some of these medications for diabetes that actually cause you to lose calories through urine. Yeah, they're not absorbing your nutrients. Well, and they actually make you pee out glucose. That's one of the ways that it works.

And those drugs are known to cause weight loss. There's a lot of weight loss, sorry, a lot of diabetes drugs now that people are using for weight loss. Yes, yeah. And a lot of those, well, not a lot of, but I know I've heard of being some side effects from those causing abdominal pains. and things of that nature. Yeah, well, of course, you can say anything about abdominal pain, but semaglutide is one that's also known as OZempic,

and people do lose weight on those, and so maybe that's why your primary care is saying that. Everything's under control. They say you should expect to lose 5% of your starting body weight with these medications, but he's lost significantly more, I'm sorry, he's lost significantly more than 5%. I think, yeah, I've got a real quick one.

Yeah, go. So talk like I kick to you. I asked for other people that did really stupid things. Let's see, she thought it was a good idea to stand on a horse. On a horse pack to reach for something. It fell off and broke both her wrist. All right, that's a good one. I am too smart.

I am too smart. Yeah. I mean, I'm 66. and I'm starting to get to where I don't want to stand on a chair to change a light bulb overhead, but I used to stand on chairs that had wheels on them. I could just sort of balance, but now I'm still getting a little bit, I'm becoming a doddering old fool is what I am, but I would never stupid enough to stand on a living thing to do something.

So that's a pretty good one. That's a good one. I broke my ribs. Shocker. Can you believe that damn horse moved when I stand on time of us? She's a damn genius. Hello. All right.

Oh, my God. Well, here's one for Dr. Scott. Uh-oh. All right. It probably applies to Amy, too. Hey, Dr. Steve, it's Mike in New York. Same guy. Thank you.

Glad you are, too. Okay, yeah, we're fine. This is probably more for Dr. Scott, but I know you cannot use the cyst. A friend of mine is in Perryman. I pause. suffering on aches and pain. Okay, his audio is so terrible. I'm going to cut it loose, but what he's calling about is perimenopause,

but the patient, his friend, doesn't want to take drugs. They don't want to take hormone replacement. Right, no hormone replacement, sure. Yeah, so what do you recommend? We've got a ton of things. We've got a whole bunch of different old Chinese herbal medicines for hot flashes for perimenopause, lakes, and pains, et cetera, et cetera, that are not, that are not hormone derivatives.

Okay. And that work extremely well. Well, like what? Tien men, uh, oh, yeah. It's not just you. I'm going to make it. It's right, but it's both of us. Heavenly Emperor, Heavenly Emperor's Formula is the one I use.

Heavenly Emperor's Formula. A stress list from our favorite, our favorite. Okay. It's actually we use for it, and this is truth, for hot flashes. Because what does it have in it? Well, one of the things it has in it is Moody, which is oyster shell. It's a cooling, it's a cooling mineral. And it has this thing called Chihu, which is an old Chinese herb that helps cool the liver blood.

Works extremely well. It's not easily translated into Western terms, but we have great, great results. Really? So give this person an answer. They can't just go to CVS by Heavenly Emperors. Find someone board certified in Oriental Medicine. in Chinese medicine like me, that actually knows the difference

between all of these different conditions because just like in Western medicine, one type of hot flashes may be different in one person versus another one. Yeah, that's true. Different medications are different. You know, if it's, if they happens only while they sleep or if it happens during the daytime

or sometimes people have them throughout today, it's all, you know, there's a bunch, no, there's just a bunch of different scenarios. Do you use black cohosh? Is there a Chinese version of them? There is, yeah. What is it? I don't know the Chinese name for it, but we do use.

We don't know shit today. Well, shit, I can look it up. Neither one of us. I'm just stumbling over antibody names. I do know, though. We do use black co-wash quite a bit. Okay. But, you know, Dr. Steve, it's really important that make sure that the friend has been worked up appropriately.

And everything is normal in this person. And if so, then find someone that can actually prescribe a Chinese medicine for them. that up them with their menopausal symptoms. I think that's, it'll be perfect for the husband or more. Perfectly reasonable to do in this situation. I'm looking at the Women's Health Research Institute website from Northwestern University and just looking at non-drug things. So no drugs at all because we always want a damn pill.

But there are other things that we can do. And more fruits and vegetables will tell you that for everything. avoiding alcohol I don't like that eliminating cigarettes yes I'll give you that exercise regularly and stay sexually active completely agree with that and now to help with the hot flashes limiting caffeine and even limiting spicy foods because you may get a hot mild hot flash when you eat spicy foods normally but when you're perimenopausal or menopausal it can be even worse and then they sort of practical things just wear later that you can remove easily, you can just say,

well, I'm just going to take my sweater jacket off, and nobody has to know you're having a hot flash. But people don't want to mask it. They want it to not happen. Exactly. And I think a lot of folks get tired of waking up in the middle of night and changing their sheets. Yeah.

Two and three times and changing their clothes because they're sweated through it. Agreed. So we can help you. Yep. We can help you. Okay. All righty. And then they're saying here, cognitive behavioral therapy.

Oh, I guess you're saying all paramedipausal women are crazy. I've got someone I would love for someone to try and talk through your ex-wife. Her paramedipausal. That's not going to do with her being menopausal. Biofeedback might be something. You all ever do any of that? Yeah, some. Do you?

How does that work? We use those magic points or stress points that are associated with. with the ear. Yeah. Typically, it's the same thing they use in a battlefield

acupuncture. It's that protocol. And then we'll do that and kind of walk through some situations depending on what they want to talk about. Okay.

So, yeah. All right. Here's one from, follow up from last show. And can you bring up, do you still have that article about the 14-year-old smoking in New Zealand?

Do you have the ability to pull that back up? I think I can find it. Yes, sir. Okay. I think so, yes, sir. There we go. It's Kevin from Chicago. Hey, Kevin.

I listened to the episode the other day. Dr. Scott was given a piss-poor explanation of the New Zealand smoking law. I just wanted to call in and clarify. The way the law was written, anyone who's under the age of 14 in 2027 will never become legal to buy cigarettes because the law increases the age you need to be by a year, every year from 2027 going forward. so someone who is under 14 in 2027 will never become of legal age to buy cigarettes and it's their way to try to over time phase out cigarette purchases completely yeah thank you for clearing that up we had several several people who call this guy says dr scott's a moron this one says you know so anyway they're right they are right that one was not interpreted and i'll be happy for them to exchange seats would be any time. There you go.

They're welcome to jump in. Yeah, so I think that's a pretty effective strategy if you say, look, we're going to pick one age, and when those people who are born this particular year, they will not be able to smoke at all in this country, and they'll have to card everybody, and if you were born a year earlier, you can buy smokes, but if you were born a year later,

you can't. And what they're trying to, this is an experiment to see if they can eliminate tobacco use in the country altogether by a certain year. So it's a phased approach to that. Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

I think. Thank you for trying it. Well, you know, yeah, I know. Thank you for being a small enough country where you can pull off something like this. Now, we hear a whole lot about they've got some totalitarian sort of ideas in those countries, too, when it comes to their COVID response. And they just really don't want it there. And so a lot of people have had some things to say about Australian, New Zealand.

So this may be, people may say the same. I, as a libertarian or libertarian light, decry any governmental interference when it comes to people's choices that they make. But as a health care provider, I would like to see a smoke-free society. No question about that. Now, people that have stock and RJR, you're going to be fine because they saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. I think RJ Reynolds really, you know, it's RJR Nabisco now. What does that mean?

They've diversified into crackers, things that are not going to be banned. And I really think that even maybe 15 years ago, they thought that someone was going to come along and just banned cigarettes altogether, or they were going to lawsuit them out of. You don't hear about those state lawsuits anymore where they're suing the tobacco companies for billions of dollars. They do have some, because I know one's going through one right now. Is that right? Yeah. Literally are they. Okay.

Well, governments were doing it. Yeah. Now, this is an individual. Yeah. Okay. So it's very interesting. and so if you think, oh, well, my stock is going to go down if they ban cigarettes, it won't because they're just making crackers now.

I really think probably tobacco is a fraction of what, I'm just guessing, a fraction of what they actually are in business doing. I would think so. Yeah, but anyway. They're not dummies. And I don't want to screw up the farmers either, so let them grow pot. Just legalize that. It's wrong with you.

People crazy. Anyway, I don't know. But, yeah, there's oftentimes, the health care provider part of me struggles with the libertarian part of me. And I'm not 100% sure how to get around that. Because smoking sucks. I used to smoke. I smoked three packs a day. I quit.

And it was the greatest thing I ever did. I firmly believe if I didn't quit what I did, I'd be dead right now. How old were you when you quit? Because you weren't smoking to one I mentioned It's been a long time ago I quit in 2000 Oh wow

Okay Yeah Now I didn't smoke all the time I smoked from 15 On and off And then I You know Not so much in high school

And then in college Of course Smoked like a Like a maniac And then I quit When I saw my first patient In third year Medical school

And then I got into a bad crowd In residency My second year a residency and a bad crowd are all people you know. Yes, including the attorney that. Yes, we all know. Yeah, okay. Anyway, but they all smoked and I bum a cigarette.

Oh, just let me bum one. And that is a don't ever do that if you're an ex-smoker. Because then I'd bum them, I bum them and bum them. And then I got known as well, oh, you're going to bum a cigarette, how many cigarettes are going to bum from us tonight? So then you just go and buy a pack so that they can't shame you because you're bumming anymore. And then you're a smoker again.

Well, you're a smoker the second you pick up that first cigarette that you bummed off to somebody, off of somebody, after you've been quit for four years, like an idiot. Yeah. And I was going to bars, drinking, hanging out with loose women. Oh. Yeah, I know. It's terrible. And there's nothing better. Well, anyway.

Carson, don't listen to as you're too young. Yeah. It's bad influence. And talk about it. Is it her 11-year-old son this listing? learning all kinds of good stuff. So it was, yeah, very entertaining, but stupid. And then I smoked again.

I smoked more and more and more until I got up to about three packs a day. And I said, it wasn't, and I've said this on the show multiple times, it wasn't heart disease or cancer that finally made me quit. It was when I read the statistics that the number one cause of impotence in men over 40 is tobacco abuse. and that was enough. The cancer, no. Heart disease, nope, C-O-P-D, nope. That wasn't scary to me.

Losing the old machinery, yes, that scared the shit out of me. And that was enough to make me quit. Didn't know that. Yeah, interesting. Well, now you do. So you've learned the thing. All right, here's something about the cupping. Hey, everybody, a weird medicine.

How's it going? It's going good. I'm glad. Everybody's doing so well. Okay. Hey, I was just listening to your episode, that segment about cupping after the vaccine. Right. If he did, well, don't they?

If people don't remember what he's talking about is they did a study that showed that in animals, if you gave the vaccine and then did cupping afterward, which is this thing where you induce a vacuum into a cup and rub it over the. the skin, and they were increasing the blood flow to the skin and increased the penetrance of that vaccine by almost 100-fold. So, especially when you're talking to stem cells and other injections or medication, don't they factor that in when they talk about the, like, how the strength of the medication or whatever? Yeah, they do.

Do you factor that in? So, like. Yeah, they were just dicking around. I mean, really, they were just seeing, hey, does this do anything? And what they found was at 24 hours post-injection, they saw gene expression was detectable eight times deeper under the skin among the rats that had the cupping than the ones that didn't. So there's no clinical benefit to this now, but maybe in the future we could use a lower dose of vaccine and then do this. Would there be a benefit to that?

I don't know. Maybe. So we'll find out in the future. This will be pursued. Well, okay, so let's take a couple of questions before we get out of here. What do you got, Scott? How about not Cupcake? She's asking if we've seen the Lennox Hill documentary series on Netflix where they're talking about the cancer treatment.

We've already got one shaking his head positive cancer treatment that gets through the blood-brain barrier. And how is that study coming? Have you seen it? I have seen Linux Hill. Oh, good. Oh, good. It was fantastic. So what are we talking about?

Yeah, can you wax poetic on it for us? Yeah, sure. So it follows a team of neurosurgeons, actually, as well as, I think it's an OB and maybe an EM. Okay. And throughout the COVID pandemic as well in the last couple episodes. But yeah, yeah, it's really cool. It's on Netflix. I loved it.

Okay. So good. You loved it. But what about this blood brain barrier business? I have no clue about it. I watched it a year ago, but I mean, it was fantastic. I'm looking at a thing on PubMed. This is from 2020 super selective of intro or.

cerebral infusion of modern chemotherapeutics after blood brain barrier disruption where we are now and where we are going. Anybody can go to PubMed and look this up if there's something interesting. They're basically saying that

delivery may significantly affect the way treatments are delivered to patients with brain tumors in particular glioblastoma multiformi, which sucks. Really fucking sucks. I hate that G.D. tumor and they were using, okay, here we go, Bevacizumab.

Oh, I said that one, okay. You should ask me to say that. That's a monoclone. So you can have it pronounced correctly. That's another monoclonal antibody. And they have trouble with these things because there is this blood-brain barrier that keeps things from getting across that blood-brain barrier for a good reason. You don't want toxins in your bloodstream to get across the, you know. into your central nervous system.

And so there are certain things that just can't cross it. And monoclonal antibodies are one of them. The immune system has a hard time getting across the blood brain barrier. So they're saying that this with revinement and standardization of the techniques, improved drug selection and formulations, development of methods to minimize treatment-related neurologic injury. This therapy may offer significant benefits for the treatment of brain tumors. So, yeah, it looks like it's still ongoing.

We're not doing it regularly yet in the cancer centers that I'm aware of. Maybe they are doing clinical trials. If you have someone that's interested in trying this, go to clinical trials.gov and just put in glialostoma multiforme. And then what you're going to look for is selective intra-arterial cerebral infusion. And you may be able to find studies that, you know, encompass that. So, yeah, very interesting. I'm assuming that's what she's talking. Yeah, and I'll check it out.

We've got a couple days off. Hey, last quickie, and this is Dr. Steve's Willhouse here. This is from Sean. I've got a friend who's been suffering from severe depression, and they're going for ketamine treatments. He was just wondering a little about ketamine treatments. Ketamine's awesome. It's an alternative to electroconvulsive therapy

and people who have just refractory depression that's affecting their ability to function. And right now it's very expensive. The crazy thing is that I can order ketamine suppositories for someone with rectal cancer and rectal pain, and it might cost them $10. Whereas the ketamine nasal spray for depression is like $1,400 a dose.

Yeah, it's crazy. That's not cool. So, but I, that's because it just came out. They're still, they're not experimented. Well, they are still experimenting with it. But it's unfamiliar to most clinicians, and you have to have a risk evaluation and management sort of license to do it. And so there's very few places, relatively speaking, that are doing it still. But it's very effective, whereas a drug like, God.

Dang it. Hang on. EROC, you're on weird medicine. Oh, God. What the hell is that? Uh-oh. He butt-dodged you. Yeah, he did, didn't he?

Yep, that's exactly what happened. Oh, well, I was getting excited. Whereas a drug like Prozac, which is a selective seroton. and re-uptake inhibitor could take up to eight to 12 weeks to work. Ketamine can work within days. So I'm looking forward to using it, particularly in my population, hospice and palliative medicine people, they don't have eight to 12 weeks to wait for their depression to resolve. So you want to have a preparation that will improve their quality of life and their

mentation and their mood very quickly, and ketamine is one of those. So I'm looking forward in the future, seeing that used more frequently. But it is a dissociative anesthetic. And what they found in very low doses, it can be helpful in depression and also in neuropathic pain and all kinds of different kinds of pain. So when I have a suppository for someone with a rectal cancer that's very painful, and it's not effective, just the lytocaine alone, you know, just numbing medication, we'll throw a little ketamine in there.

And you do it at low enough dose so they don't get systemic absorption of it and they're not like seeing diamonds in the sky and stuff like that. But it's very, very effective. So it's great medication. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it used in the clinical setting.

On that same subject, I'm looking forward to psilocybin being used in clinical research. The data is all there that it is effective in a bunch of different syndromes, including depression. And I've got a friend that microdoses is self-medicating herself. Self-medicating herself.

Can I be more redundant when I talk? But she is self-medicating with low-dose magic mushrooms and says it's changed her life. Yeah. I've heard that a number of things really. I can't recommend that. No, no, no, no, I'm not either. but I know for a fact.

Yeah, I can't, again, we're not recommending that you try that. I'm just saying I know this is anecdotal, one person that's doing it, but there is data out there, and we will be using sort of psychedelic medications and very low doses for these drugs going forward, I believe. I believe that they've got enough data that someone will apply for FDA approval for some version of those drugs and will have some great success with it. All right. Got anything else?

I think I'll do it. Okay. Well, listen. Yeah, go ahead. No, just everybody have a wonderful holiday. Yeah, that's right. This is actually coming out Christmas Day. So for those that celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas.

For those that don't. Oh, shit. Happy Saturday. Let me try that again. Let me set that one up again. For those that celebrate Christmas, have a great holiday and Merry Christmas. For those who don't.

You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir. Boo on me for effing that up, so... I've used those two drops too many times today. Well, that's because you're an idiot. So, all right, we can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes. Can't forget Dr. Scott. Thanks for coming, Carson.

That's a pleasure. And don't talk so much next time. Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton, Travis Teff, that gould girl. Lewis Johnson, Paul O'Tarsky, Chowdy, 1008, Eric Nagel, the Port Charlotte Hoar, the Saratoga Skank and the Florida Flusie. And by the way, all three of those are the same person. She called me and she said, no, who's the Florida Flusie? It's like you, you idiot.

Who do you think it is? Okay, Roland Campos, sister of Chris Sam Roberts. She who owns Pigs and Snakes, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Matt Kleinschmidt, Dale Dudley, Holly from the Gulf, Christopher Walkins, double Steve Tucci, the great Rob Bartlett, Vicks, Nether Fluids, Cardiff Electric, Casey's Wet T-shirt, Carl's Deviated Syptum, Jen Santoro, the inimitable, Vincent Paulino, everyone.

Eric Zane, Bernie and Sid, Martha from Arkansas's daughter, Ron Bennington. Of course, our dear departed friend, Fez Wattley, who supported this show, has never gone unappreciated. Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faxon. God. 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 very easy. Now I'm going to go into FM mug. Go to our website at Dr.steve.com for schedules and podcasts and other crap. So I used to talk when I was on WXYC at Chapel Hill, and I had a girlfriend. Well, she wasn't a girlfriend, but I wanted her to be. And apparently she wanted to be too, but we were still at that stage where you didn't talk with each other. And she said, why do you hype your voice like that? And I got all offended because I was way more narcissistic back then than I am now.

And then she just walked out and that was the end of that. But it could have been something I heard later. Go to our website and Jody DeHoney if you're still out there. I'm sorry. And I was extremely interested and I was just too stupid. 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. All right, thanks, everybody.

Thank you.