Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 508 - Content Strike Up the Band

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Dr Steve, Dr Scott, and Tacie discuss: YouTube is a great content partner Square is very fair in the way it deals with its vendors D-Dimer: WTF Smoking cessation withdrawal vaping taper method (one that actually works) Why do we (Dr Steve) shrink when we (Dr Steve) age? Please visit: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) simplyherbals.net  (now with NO !vermect!n!) (JUST KIDDING, Podcast app overlords! Sheesh!) check out our sponsor: betterhelp.com/medicine (we all could use a little help. Maybe a lot of help.) Also don't forget: Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now while he’s still cheap! "FLUID!") noom.doctorsteve.com (the link still works! Lose weight now before swimsuit season!) CHECK US OUT ON PATREON!  ALL NEW CONTENT! Robert Kelly, Mark Normand, mystery guests! Stuff you will never hear on the main show ;-) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to? I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolivide stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my incredible woes. I want to take my brain out and clasped 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 who gives me street cred

the Wackle Alternative Medicine Assholes. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. And my partner in all things, Tacey. Hello, Tacey. Hello. 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 your regular medical provider.

If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call at 347. 766433. That's 347. Who is? Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine, as long as we're still on Twitter. And at D.R. Scott, W.M. visit our website at dr steve.com for podcasts medical news and stuff you can buy most importantly we are not your medical providers take everything you hear with the grain of salt don't act on

anything you hear on this show without talking over with your doctor nurse practitioner practical nurse physician assistant pharmacist respiratory therapist chiropractor acupuncturist yoga master physical therapist clinical laboratory scientist blah blah blah blah blah all right very good thank you dr scott and tacy don't forget to check stuff dot dr steve.com that's stuff dot doctor Dr. Steve.com for all of your internet shopping needs, it helps keep us on the air and keep us semi-independent. Oh, good Lord. We'll talk about that in a minute. And check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net.

And please visit patreon.com slash weird medicine. That's our Patreon channel. That's Tacey and me for the most part. And we have celebrity guests. and we answer Patreon exclusive questions. There's polls. There's all kinds of stuff up there. We did a live stream.

That was kind of fun. And there you go. All right. Check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net. That's simplyerbils.net. And hello, Tacey. Hello. How are you today?

I'm fine. Oh, God. I'm glad. How's retirement? I'm seepy today. She's sleepy. And because of all the things that you did today? I worked out very hard today. Okay. That's good. And then I pretty much laid on the

couch the rest of the day. Excellent. So that's all you should do when you're, and that'll make you tired. Yeah. Maybe that's why. I was tired when I laid down, so. Yeah. Okay. How so it makes sense that when you wake up, you would be tired. Hey, Scott, how are things going with simply herbal? Really will. Good. Yeah, we've been pretty busy. I appreciate all. All the weird medicine folks helping out with that. Oh, Lord. Yeah, without those guys, we'd be in big a pot of trouble. All right.

Well, good deal. Hey, so I need to, listen, Lenny Bruce's career kind of went sideways when after about the 10th time he got thrown in jail for speaking out about, you know, on topics that were considered appropriate at the time. And so he spent the rest of his career standing on stage reading court documents. And people got tired of it, I think. I think there were some people who listened with rapt attention. And, you know, our buddy Carl is in a sort of a war with a certain former Howard Stern stunt boy who, you know, they're in a war. And so now they're going back and forth, and they're going to have legal proceedings.

and all kinds of stuff like that going on. And I don't want to, you know, bore anybody with what I've got going on. But I'm going to be the same damn way here because for at least a little while. I know people are sick hearing from me on Twitter about this already. But we are on Rumble today, live streaming, not on YouTube, because I will not go back on that on YouTube ever again, at least not with this show. And let me tell you what happened.

So I think last show, we were talking about how I was on this show talking about clinical trials and how I had gotten one of my Twitter tweets flagged by Twitter because I was talking about Ivermectin. And I talked about it in the same sentence as the disease called COVID-19. And we, and what I was basically saying was that someone had asked me if there was any validity to people taking Ivermectin for COVID-19. And I said, well, you know, right now we don't have any clinical data that is convincing enough to me to prescribe it, but that the idea itself is not completely out of, you know, it's not insane because just like aspirin, which has. has the ability to relieve pain in a muscle sprain or rheumatoid arthritis, but also can decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Some drugs have more than one activity. Yes, Ivermectin is a, and it is used as an antiparacetic, but it has been demonstrated in the past to have anti-RNA, I'm sorry, RNA antiviral properties. This was an RNA virus or is an RNA virus. So it made sense to some people to at least pull it off the shelf and see if it would do any good. Because nothing else was happening, particularly at the time. Nothing else was happening.

And they were desperate to find something off the shelf that would work. And I said that so from that standpoint, it's not complete assholery to think that this stuff might help. And that what they did to Joe Rogan by saying that he was taking horse paste, which was, by the way, legally prescribed to him by his physician, Joe himself said, I don't know. I'm a dumbass. I'm paraphrasing. But it was, you know, to that effect. I'm a dumbass. I'm not a doctor. It was prescribed to me by my doctor. Now, you may have issues with his provider writing that for him, but that's not Joe's fault. and the fact that he got on, said, I got better. Well, most people got better. He's in great shape. We expected him to get better. He freely admitted this is anecdotal evidence.

But, you know, what was done to him in the press was bullshit. And so we talked about that a few shows back. Anyway, so that was it. And I also, we went on Clinical Trials.gov, and there used to be 73 studies being done by well-intentioned, government-funded researchers on a government website. And this is where the crux of the thing happened, where we were talking about all those studies on there. There are now something like 94.

If you go to clinical trials.gov, put in COVID-19, and then as a keyword, Ivermectin, you'll see it's up to 90-some studies right now. Only some of them are active, but these are studies where people have applied. to get in the clinical trial registry that that's what they're doing. Have you ever once heard me say, oh, you know, the government is trying to suppress, you know, and none of that. I've talked about how terrible medical journalism is, and I've talked about the science behind why people thought that this was the case and why we were pulling stuff off the shelves in the beginning. right and so not only did you know i thought we were just getting a warning but they gave us a content strike and they yanked our video and the video was behind it was it was private no one could

see it they had transcribed it the a i had transcribed our video saw that i used the word covid and i pyrmectin in the same sentence and yanked it and so I appealed it I said listen I mean this happens it was just AI understood it saw those two things in close proximity they thought I was some sort of nut so I appealed it and I said you know I only talk about science that we were talking about clinical trials on a government website and I about three days later I got a letter from YouTube saying that we have reviewed your appeal and we feel that your content was dangerous and misinformation, and we have removed it,

and there is no chance of further appeal. Ugh. What a bunch of shit hits? Yeah. That's really, that's... That's very unfortunate. Now, here's the thing. It's hard to believe to...

So you go, well, so what? You got one content strike. Why do you care? You know, we've been... had this stupid YouTube channel. We just do it so you and I'll have a live audience to bounce off of. You know, it's not like we're... I've never made a big deal.

out of our YouTube channel. We're lucky if we get a thousand views on anything. We're lucky if we get 200. I'm not trying to make this a YouTube thing. We use the PTSD thing from Tacey and I did a Patreon, and I thought the answer that we gave had some general interest. So I threw it up on YouTube so the people that didn't or couldn't afford to sign up for our Patreon, which, by the way, Patreon.com slash weird medicine. Only $5 a month. Right.

What? That's a bargain. That people that weren't subscribed. The person that called in actually called in on, you know, the podcast. So I want to make sure that that person could hear it. So we were using it for that stuff as more utilitarian. But I cannot sit here and be looking over my shoulder, self-editing. I self-edit enough as it is.

That's where all these vocal crutches come from because I'm constantly, constantly scanning the words that I'm getting ready to spew out of my mouth to make sure that I don't say something that might harm somebody. Right. And I mean physically. I'm not talking about emotionally. Right. Because Tasey'll tell you that's never been a big problem. But so, yeah, so I'm already self-editing enough.

I can't self-edit when I'm talking about hard science. Now, I might put up another channel in the future. I thought a fun channel to do what you and I could do would be a more sciencey one, where I would like to calculate the, Tacey will like this one. It would be fun. If you could do this with us and you could just be rolling your eyes the whole time. You could just be rolling your eyes going nerds and stuff. I'd be okay.

I want to calculate the speed of light using first principles by calculating the permeability and permativity of free space. using an experimental model. What do you think about that, Scott? I think that would be fun. Okay, that's fine. That's why it would be fun because I would be all excited and you guys would be, oh, Jesus, really?

Wait, does the speed of light? It's really, you should happen really quickly so it won't take long. That's the good news. That's not how it works, but the experiment itself is sort of interesting. But we could do things like that. I would be fine putting that on YouTube.

Sure. But I'm not putting this show on YouTube anymore. I can't do it. Yeah. Because we will be talking about things. I mean, what's next? You know? You know, it's a shame that, again, we have not done anything but just give people the facts.

You know, it's up to each, every individual to determine, you know, their interpretation of those facts, right? But we just give them the facts. I mean, there's never been anything that we've said that would warrant them kicking us off the YouTube. Yeah, no, I know. But you know, I think Dr. Steve. Well, first they came for the Socialists and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist and then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak out because I was not, you know that thing.

Then eventually they came for me. That was Martin Neemolar and I really don't deserve to be able to quote him. But anyway. But you know what troubles me is what's happening with YouTube? We're having a little bit of us. And it's Nymoeller. Nine Mueller. Nine Mueller.

Yeah. I have a little similar. And we were having this discussion today with, you're familiar with Square. Yes. Okay. So we're having an issue with Square because Square noticed that on our, on our, on our, on our sales, there was a CBD. The word CBD. Yeah.

So they flagged my account. What? And they're keeping all of my funds. What? And will not transfer. And that's the problem. It's just perfectly legal substance, right? Across the board, across the board.

they asked for you're shitting no no it gets better it gets better it gets better they wanted they wanted three months of my bank statements so they could evaluate whether this money was coming from which of course whether you are legit or not right and i declined that of course based on what much they owe you my attorney i like a thousand dollars which is as enough to that's enough to piss me off for real it's the principal and fight for other people it's the principal thing well it's the same thing here it's the same thing but you know what really chapped my ass is the one thing they really wanted was a c oa from the state of Tennessee saying that there was no T.HC of any kind in this C.B.O. Okay.

Would they have accepted a lab thing? Because I can hook you up. It's a lab analysis. I have it. Oh, okay. I turned it in. Okay. They sent me a thing back and said, illegible.

What? And so my problem is, kind of like with you, I can't talk to anybody physically. No, there's nobody to talk to. So I'm trying to go back and forth with this bot that we answer your question successfully. No. Can you sue them? No. We can't sell them. No, you can

sue them. There's somebody to sue. There's got to be somebody. Oh, my God. I mean, for $1,000 but then, so that would be, I guess, small claims, which won't fly. It costs me more than... But, yeah, now it's started, you know, the cost. And now it's restraining your trade because that's

how people pay you, so you can... Who knows how much you've lost because you can't use them anymore. And it is the principle of the thing. Maybe there's a class action thing you can get in. It's just a bugger. It's a bugger. That's a bigger deal than my deal.

Mine, I'm a little butt hurt. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just, it's just a, oh, it's a principal thing. It would just be so nice to be able to contact them and say, hey, listen, guys. Yeah, if I could have, same, go ahead, sorry, I just get so excited. No, it's the same thing with you. It's like, come on, man, here's what we do. This is the content of this show.

And here's what we have. I mean, we've got proof of all these things, but it doesn't matter. Guaranteed it was some 20-year-old that listened to him, went, oh, he said, you know. I started spelling, oh, and I talked about that on the show. Maybe that's what they didn't like. The other thing that pissed me off is they wouldn't tell me exactly what it was I said that they didn't like. I didn't know if it was me talking about masking the word Ivermectin on Twitter, where I spell it with an exclamation point instead of an eye, just so I don't get another tweet flagged for saying, here's the clinical trials.

I'm not pushing Iverman. I never have. But I'm not also going to just shit on it just because. politically, that's what I'm supposed to do, that's not what the science, that's not how we do science. Because they're doing science on it right now, as we're speaking. They're researching it to see if it works. And even if it doesn't, is there not a possible fucking ability that we will learn something

from the research that we are doing on this disease that might be apropos to the next RNA virus? Yeah, exactly. Which, by the way, my friends, Ebola happens to be an RNA. type virus as well yeah so uh kiss my ass on that i'm really effing pissed i haven't been mad about something in a long time and uh i'm still it happened it happened a day after we recorded the last show so it's been a week i'm still mad itself been great week oh really okay uh-huh That sounds sincere. Well, maybe I have been an asshole.

I don't know. No. Oh, okay. I'm an asshole. All right. Man, you are one pathetic loser. All right. We did this one on the Patreon, but I want to do it on the regular show.

And so we're trying out Rumble because I don't know. Look, I can either go to a platform where they will list. listen and use their heads and have some brains about what we're doing or I can go somewhere where they don't give a shit I can't find the first thing yeah so that's why we're on Rumble right now because apparently they they don't give a shit so even if you said the other stuff that I don't say no I don't know I don't know thank you Rumble for letting us be here for right now and we'll see how it goes we'll behave I don't want to behave.

Oh, I can behave over on YouTube. Well, I'll be good. I'll be good YouTube if you'll just not give me another contract strike. I don't want to do that. And then think, well, there's this study on, you know, this moiety of Ivermectin or of hydroxychloroquine that's showing some promise in this one clinical trial. And isn't that interesting? And the people that were rooting against these drugs because they didn't like the people. that were promoting them, you know, they're part of the problem.

That got, you know, I don't want to get in trouble for saying that. I feel like I got sent to the principal's office. Right on. You know, and then my mommy came in and said, and they still said, no, he's still suspended. You can't talk him out of it. And it's like, go fuck yourself. God, I'm so mad. All right.

You want to do some questions? Yeah, we've actually got one from the chat room. Oh, we do? Oh, we have a chat room? Yeah, a chat room. Well, go rumble. Okay, what are we got? We got one in the books.

So Brian says, hey, Dr. Steve, just sent you an email, just thought I'd put it in here. He just, you're going to love this. D-D-Dimer. He just got his D-Dimer back at 5.53. Oh, okay. He's 35 years old and says, should I, he was having some random inner thigh pain in his left leg, should he be concerned. Okay. So here's the thing.

So the D-Dimer test, it looks for a thing called D-Dimer in the blood. and it's a protein fragment that your body makes when clots actually dissolve in the body, okay? And so obviously blood clotting is a big deal, and you get a D-Dimer, you go, oh, God, that means I must have a blood clot in my body. And so it will be positive when you have a deep venous thrombosis. Okay. That it certainly will be, and what that is is a blood clot in one of the large veins, which, which, if it's in one of the big, big veins, it can move, go through the right side of your heart into the lung and cause a pulmonary embolism, which is another time when a D-Dimer will be positive. There are other things that can be positive as well.

The problem is that this damn D-dimer tests may be indicative of a clot. It doesn't show where the clot is located, what kind of clotting problem. there is and they're not always caused by clotting problems so there's other things like pregnancy recent surgery or recent trauma and that kind of stuff so uh it's too non-specific to just go well okay if if somebody came to me and they had thigh pain i wouldn't just order a d-dimer i would order a test that's specific for what i think they might have if i think they have a deep venous thrombosis, I would get a venous Doppler. Like an ultrasound?

Yeah. And then look for it that way because the D-Dimer is just so non-specific. What is the D-D-domer? Well, like I said, it's this protein that clots give off when they dissolve. I was kind of fading out. That's okay. It's okay. Stay with us. Tasty.

I was trying. You know, if you want to just screen, then that's fine. But then now they got to order a Doppler ultrasound. or if they think you're having a pulmonary embolism, which would normally be a acute onset of shortness of breath and chest pain, then they would do CT angiography. So talk to your provider, see what they think it is, and then they're going to do this more specific test after they've done this sort of screening test.

Sounds like it should be done sooner than later. Yeah, I would do it sooner rather than later just to make sure they're not missing something. But they should be calling you. Hey, who said that, Brian, 86S? So, Brian, if you're hearing us in real time, after they gave you that test, what did they tell you to do? So just be monitoring chat for their response. I'm assuming since it's Brian that they're not pregnant, but who knows, it's 2022, I could be completely off base on that. But pregnancy can cause an elevated D-D timer as well.

all right but I definitely follow up on that yes for sure all right yeah they're okay they're five to ten minutes behind so okay all right you could ask them in the chat room though we'll come back to that okay I might have covered this before

but just looking for your advice on quitting smoking tobacco cigarettes and smoking a bait how they Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd like to smoke one right now. I bet you would.

But I'm not known to because it's not that strong anymore. Matter of fact, there's no real craving there that was more for humor than truth, but, you know, it kind of goes through your head. There's a little bit of truth. A little bit of truth there. So I used to smoke three packs a day.

Tacey used to smoke a pack a day. Scott used to dip. Like a feigned. Yeah. Still miss it. So we're going to answer this question, but first, do you have an answer from our other person? Did they just answer you back? Yeah, he sure did.

Yeah. Brian just said that it was a random blood test. He was in a COVID recovery study. And he said, yeah, he said other. Oh, he had COVID? Which is kind of interesting. That's what I was going to say. No, that's another one.

That might be part of it. Yeah. So did he say what they're going to do about it? He said they did not follow up. Nice. Okay. Hey, hey, Doc, I'm bleeding out of my anus. Is that okay?

Yeah, just call me if it gets in the words. Yeah, so that is an interesting thing. And I am, this part I'm not an expert on, but I can become one pretty quickly. COVID-19 is well known for causing some issues with blood clots and inflammation. And it is a predictor for severity in COVID-19. So the reason that they're doing that is to see. see if it correlates with how people did. So I'm assuming Brian had COVID-19 enrolled in this study, and they're doing a bunch of tests

to see what's a good predictor for poor outcome. Now, the reason D-Dimer is elevated in COVID-19 patients is a different mechanism. It's probably due to acute lung injury, and that may be, though, due to small microclots that are thrown to the lungs. So they don't know. They don't know what the hell. But he still could call the principal investigator and say, do we need to do something about this? And they may say, oh, God, dude, we're seeing people with D-Dimers of 10,000.

You don't have anything to worry about. That's fine. That's a relativity that I don't know the numbers, too. But I would still, I would ask them. A phone call needs to be made. Yeah, I would make a phone call. Yeah. Yeah, I think so just to make sure.

But that's what that's about. That's very interesting. See, when you get more information, very often you get, you get closer to the answer. A little closer to the answer. So let's go back to quitting smoking. If you get any more information, we'll just keep touching in with Brian as time goes on. I think they're about five to ten minutes behind, actually. I think it's just Cush.

I think Cush just got on late. Okay. I think, yeah, because Brian answered that pretty quickly. Okay. So Scott used to dip. Yep. I smoked three packs a day. Tacey smoked a pack a day at least.

Tacey quit cold turkey right after 9-11. Yes. Because you saw people suffering and you said, why am I sitting your smoking? My biggest problem was I couldn't stop smoking. Yeah, and so you just went, F it. My professor, my psychiatry professor, talked about quitting smoking. And I remember this. I was in second year medical school.

And this was a thousand years ago. His name was Dr. Bakewell. I knew him pretty well. we were on the admissions committee together. And I just remember him talking about it. He said, look, the worst thing it's going to happen is I'm going to be uncomfortable for a little while. And that really is true of nicotine addiction. It's very different from alcohol addiction where people can become so ill and even get delirium tremens and maybe die.

So they need to be withdrawn under medical supervision. Same thing with benzodiazepine, Valium, Ativan, Zan. Anax or diazepam, lorazepam, lorazepam, or alprazolam. All of those, when you withdraw from high doses of those medications, can cause a very serious withdrawal as well. Opioids cause a serious but usually non-life-threatening withdrawal syndrome, although if you quit cold turkey and go through the full two-week, to four-week thing

with opioids although most of the time it won't kill you unless you aspirate from the vomiting. What it can do, though, is cause a thing called acute post-withdrawal syndrome which could cause depression and malays and esthenia and stuff

for over, you know, for up to two years. Asthenia just feeling ugh, I've been sick, you know, like that. That's esthenia. So, nicotine addiction is a true addiction with a physiological, psychological, and habitual component. It's a three-pronged attack, but it's non-life-threatening.

It just makes you feel uncomfortable. How'd you feel when you quit? I mean, it's uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable, but I mean, it's doable, but it's not easy. No, not easy. No. Not easy for other reasons, though. The physiologic addiction, not the biggest part of tobacco.

Tobacco is very social. The social aspect is something I really miss from it or did miss for a lot. Oh, my God. I would go to hospice, national meetings, and all of the smokers would be immediate fast friends. You sought them out. Okay, it's between classes. Let's go smoke. And one of those people that I went outside to smoke with at one of the national meetings

ended up offering me a job in Nashville at Live Hospice. Yeah. So, yeah, we stayed in touch because we, you know, we were smoking friends. Isn't that crazy? So you do miss that, but then there's the habit, but the psychological addiction is the biggest thing. So how do you quit? How did you quit dipping, Scott? You know, I had just titrated down.

I could not go. I could not go cold turkey. So I just talked. So I went from. Why couldn't you go cold turkey? What would happen to you if you went cold turkey? Oh, God, that's meaner in hell. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, no, it's not, yeah, you're not a nice person when you're quitting. And you were nice, though, when you were quitting, too. Well, she's sweet all the time. You were very sweet and good. Oh, yeah. She seems more sweet than retirement, I believe. She doesn't seem quite as stressed. I don't know.

I don't know. She's found new things to worry about. Yeah, well, she will find. You keep saying that, but I swear to you. She will find something to worry about it. I am so much better off not working. You are. But you keep saying.

don't sit don't now you worry about everything and it's just bullshit okay well I won't you might if I finish my I'll just I'll just I'll jump right back in I'm sorry no you're fine no it's okay no it's it's funny I did I went for five dips a day to four dips a day and just I kept going down a little bit but how long does a dip last oh my gosh a big old dip of Copeland or a skull or something like that heck you can chew on it for hours I used to say I would never put something in my mouth that looks like that does when it comes out. It looks like... It's awful.

Did you do the pouches? It looks like cholera stools when it's coming out. You just did the straight up. Straight up, the hardcore stuff. And the thing about that is, you know, if you're in the middle of a game, you know, baseball game or playing golf or whatever, you just, when it starts getting a little bit old, you just still a little bit more on top of it. Oh, it's awful. It's awful. And then you got it all in your teeth and stuff.

terrible. But I did, but I chewed on a little bit of bamboo, you know, sticks. So that kind of kept my mouth occupied for a long time. That's a big part of it. I did, uh, it mind's an oral fixation, I believe. Cigars. I, I would keep a cigar, like, in my mouth, just for the first little bit. Yeah. Were you still smoking on our honeymoon? Yeah, you had not, yeah, okay, because it was after 9-11 that you quit, and our honeymoon was two months before. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, so. Or there wouldn't have been a honeymoon. Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, we were in Spain and they had Cuban cigars, and I'd never had one.

So I was at the bar at the hotel. I said, I'll just give me one of those. And there you could smoke anywhere you wanted to. And I was worried, though, that I had been quit for long enough that I was concerned. But smoking the cigars didn't flare up my tobacco desire or my desire to smoke. cigarettes, but if I had smoked a cigarette, if they'd had Cuban cigarettes and that was a thing, I would probably still be smoking today. Yeah.

So let's talk a little bit. I was on the show long, long ago, years ago, we talked about this, that that three-pronged attack is what makes tobacco so powerful. Because if you're going frog gigging, you use a gig, you use a trident, or if you're fishing, in the sea with a spear, you use a trident. Why? Because the three-pronged sharp thing makes it, especially when it's barbed, it makes it much harder for something to wriggle off than a single barb.

And it's true for smoking as well. So you have the psychological addiction, and you have the habit, and you have the physiologic addiction. So the physiologic addiction will be gone in two weeks. Plus or minus. If you just don't smoke, the physical symptoms caused by withdrawal from nicotine will take about two weeks. And then the habit takes anywhere from two to four weeks to be done with. Well, you could break a habit in about two to four weeks.

Yeah. But you've got to stick with it. Yeah, yes, of course. For years. Hence the word quitting. But the psychological addiction, that goes on. and on and on and that's the thing I need it I gotta have it oh I used to get so pissed at myself I'd be six weeks into quitting and my wife before this one would piss me off and I go go my god I'll show her I'm gonna smoke a cigarette it's like well I wasn't showing her anything that was the lizard part of my brain going come on come up with the reason to smoke you just need one little excuse come on you know you want to now I've gone, so that's the six weeks.

So you're vulnerable at six weeks, and then we're going to talk about the actual way to do this. At six weeks, and then again, at six months, those are your real vulnerable periods when you've quit. Because at six months, I would go, oh, I've got this beat. You know, I could just have one. I was at Springfield Telescope Makers, which is Stelephane. And my buddy, Jeff Lowe, was there, and we were standing next to the McGregor, observatory which is the largest shipment telescope in the world and you know we built that it was pretty cool and do you need to get something okay yeah go go

and I was standing out there and I remember saying oh just give you know can I bum one of those cigarettes because he was smoking one it smelled good and he said are you sure dude you've been quit for a long time and I was like yeah yeah I've been it's been six months I can handle it right after that went right to the store and bought a pack and I was smoking again stupid I mean just stupid because you're an idiot yeah I know so so complete idiocy so just be careful of that when you quit you cannot smoke again no you're done because you will start right back to that three packs of the day if I had one today it's been 20 something years if I had one today yeah and it would be and you're

You'll smoke more, well, you'll rebound to more. That's how I got to three packs a day because of all the times I tried to quit. So if you've tried to quit multiple times and said, I can't do it. You can because the studies have showed that the more times you try to quit, the more likely it is that you will quit. But for me, you know, I was smoking a pack and then a pack and a half and two packs, then two and a half and then three packs. So that was all because I was rebounding and smoking more. So let's talk a little bit about the mechanism. First off, when you quit, you got to start behaving like a non-smoker.

And if you will act like a non-smoker, you will become one. Agreed. But you've got to do it long enough. You've got to pretend long enough. So how do non-smokers act? They don't allow people to smoke in their car. They don't allow people to smoke in their house. They may not even let people smoke on their property.

You know, they don't, what other things do smokers not do? I don't know. It's not a rhetorical question. He's already asked me this. Hang in out of smokers. They don't hang around smokers. They don't go buy cigarettes. They don't buy, they don't have panic packs.

They don't have lighters. They don't have ashtrays, all of that stuff. So you've got to think, you've got to start thinking like a non-smoker and act like one. Yeah. Change your, you got to change your, you got to change everything. Absolutely. Get rid of it so it's not readily available. And then the other thing is the second you quit, the second you quit, particularly let's say it's in the middle of February and you live in a northern state. Let's say, I don't know, Rochester, New York. And you go outside and you've now, you're on day one of quitting and you see all those assholes huddled outside in minus 14 degree weather, smoking a cigarette because they have to and you can just go look at those stupid sons of bitches you know you can do that and you can oh no oops wrong one this is you you can give yourself applause

you can feel more um superior than those people because you don't do that anymore and it's like getting a big monkey off your back too oh god is it and you won't stink and you think you don't stink, you do. You do. But anyway, so let's talk about how to do it. So he asked about vaping. There are nicotine inhalers that are FDA approved. When I was in Durham, North Carolina in the 70s.

Streaking. Yes. And I was working at Vickers Communications downtown. R.J. Reynolds was very close. Now, where R.J. Reynolds was then is now like shops and stuff. But R.J. Reynolds. had proposed to the FDA that they come out with a quote-unquote safer cigarette. And the safer cigarette was going to have a battery in it, and it would have a red light at the end.

Probably not an LED then. I don't know. Did we have LEDs then? I don't know. But they were going to have a red light. And when you inhaled on it, it was going to trigger a mechanism that was going to heat up a coil. And it was going to create a vapor in a chamber that you would then inhale and they could have some nicotine in it. and they said there would be no tar therefore no cancer there would still be nicotine so it wouldn't be fully safe but it would be safer and the FDA said nope we're not going to let you come out with a cigarette that you're going to market as being quote unquote safer and on top of that we at the same time Wernicke Korskov syndrome with you know the homeless drinking cheap wine on the street was

becoming, you know, to be a big problem. We wanted to put thiamen and folate in wine and they said no to that because then you're going to market it as, quote, safer wine. Okay, but yeah, but now they're going to drink it anyway. Oh, well, then you're just giving it in, giving in to that whole they're going to do it anyway thing. And it's like, yeah, but they're going to do it anyway. Let's protect them from this. I would like the option to have safer wine. Basically, terminal, terminal, brain injury. Look up Wernike Korsakov. There was a person who used to be on this show all the time that used to call in, that is now in a nursing home thinking that they're in the Navy on a destroyer who had, you know, Wernicke Korsakov. And if they would have put thiamen and vitamin or thiamen and folate in Natty light, that person would not be in that situation right now. They'd still have probably have cirrhosis or something. But anyway. So they said no. Well, then, you know, what a decade ago, all of a sudden, these vape pens started showing up.

And then there was popcorn lung and all these problems. And the journalism around those was terrible. And so that really wasn't a viable solution for a lot of people. Although these people with these vape devices, with these giant canisters, Tacey and I were talking about on the Patriot show. Smoke just billowing out. And it looks like a clarinet. and you've got these hipsters out there, I'm going to take a toot off of my vape pin

and then, braw, there's these giant clouds. It just looks cool. No, it doesn't. It just looks like it can't be good for you. You get behind somebody that's doing that giant, it looks like their cars on fire. I think, I mean, I get it. When you start getting that feeling of something going into your lungs,

you want more and more of it. That's how I graduated from, from Maryland. up to, you know, Marlboro lights to Marlboros to Pelmel to Camels. Marlboro Reds were what I smoked on Knott's Out. Yeah. And you couldn't even breathe the next day. No, right. I remember that.

You have that weird pain in there every time you breathe. It was just everywhere. So, but now the FDA has approved actual vape pens. And guess who? RJR. Yep. It's RJR vapor or something like that. So there are FDA-approved vape pens on the market.

As a quote-unquote somewhat safer, alternative or maybe a lot safer as far as cancer is concerned, I'm okay with that as a bridge to just getting off of it all together. The problem is is the Rich Voss problem. The Rich Voss problem is Rich used to smoke and God bless him, he used to do substances and stuff and he's been. sober for 32 years now, whatever it is. And I'm very proud of him. But he used to smoke and he got off of cigarettes by using Nicorette gum. And he still chews Nicorette gum. It's got to be 10, 12 years later. And to the point where his wife gives him hell about it every podcast that they do, why do you have that gum? You're chewing. Stop chewing. And I know it drives him crazy and he really could get off of it. At this point, it's a psychological.

Yeah, oral fixation. But people say, well, so what if it's just nicotine, it's no big deal? Nicotine is still a vasoconstrictor. So you don't want to restrict blood flow to any part of your body, particularly certain parts that when certain stimuli occur, blood flows to those parts of your body, and then they engorge with blood, and you can put them in places and move them in and out.

and stuff comes out. You know, you don't want to impede blood flow to that part of your body. I'm not paying attention. You fucking asshole. No, I didn't even hear what you said. She was taking a nap. She's looking straight at me and not hearing a word. I'm saying, no.

You see how good I am at it? I'm not saying it was that clever. I'm just, you know, I was masking. I was talking about erections, okay? So you don't want to impede blood flow to that. part of the body. Yeah, what a surprise that when I start talking about erection, she tunes out. It's almost like when he starts talking about his sci-fi.

And this is what Tacey hears. Can you like, shut up? Or this. Oh, wow, that is very interesting. Please tell me more. Anyway, yeah, so you don't, and nicotine is a tumor promoter, too. protein kinasee can cause tumors to grow faster, and nicotine is an activator of protein kinasee. So I talk to people who are stage 4 cancer.

They say, why should I even stop now? And it's because, well, there may still be reason to quit if you're so inclined to quit because there is a theoretical concern that nicotine could cause the tumor to grow faster. That's theoretical, but there you go. A lot of stuff we do is theoretical. Be careful what you say. You don't kick us off for something theoretical. He said something against smoking. This is rumble, God damn it.

Sons of bitches. So, yeah, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't take kindly to you. That's right. By God. Talking down our cigarettes. So where were we? Okay, so I'm okay using vague. With a safe product, do your own research as a bridge.

There are nicotine inhalers, but there's a way you can do it without spending any money, without doing any of this. And people talk about the tapering. Dr. Scott tapered by number of dips a day, although it sounds like a dip could go all damn day long if you wanted it too. So I never had much luck. It's like my mom's diet. She eats one mill a day. Yeah. Only eat one meal a day, Taita.

It starts at 7 in the morning, ends at 10.30 at no. Yeah, it certainly does. She told us that bullshit. I don't know why I can't lose weight. I only eat one time a day. And we would watch her literally open a bag of chips at 7 in the morning, or she would eat these dry-ass scrambled eggs that she makes. I know Tacey likes them because she grew up with them.

And then bacon and biscuits and then work on to a snack before lunch and then eats lunch. And then open a bag of chips and then get, oh, we've got to get some dip and on and on. Anyway, that's not conducive to losing weight. So I never could do it by number of cigarettes a day. Okay. Because I'd always cheat. Because I'd get down to three cigarettes a day and it's like, well, I could just have four.

I'd smoke three at until, you know, noon. I'd smoke those three. And then I'm out for the rest of the day. It's like, fuck this. I'm going to smoke. So I did it by time a day So the first day I didn't smoke for the two

I didn't smoke the two before I hit the showers That's it And smoke normally the rest of the day And the next day I wouldn't smoke the two On the way to the showers And I wouldn't smoke the two in the car On the way to the hospital And that was it the rest of the day

Smoked like normal Okay Then when I would get I wouldn't smoke the one to my office Now on the fourth day now I had to start going by time because I would get to my office at 9. And at 9, so now I can't smoke till 10. And then the next day, you can't smoke till 11.

Then 12. And it's easier that way because after you get to that certain point, you can smoke as much as you want. And then you would go all the way around the clock until you would get to the point where your next cigarette was after you went to bed. In other words, you could have one at midnight, but you went to bed at 11. now you've gone 24 hours when you wake up the next day longer than that yeah so now i'm not a smoker anymore that day is when you have to make sure that all that shit is thrown away don't hesitate just take it and throw it in the trash and you are now a non-smoker and now you got to start acting one i'm going okay so that's my philosophy on that and if you are listening to

this and you want you quit smoking and you need somebody to talk to that used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and knows exactly what you're going through. You know, call or email us. Go to Dr.steve.com, click contact. We'll be happy to talk to you about it. How much is a pack of skull now or whatever you call it? Lord, I don't know.

I would say at least $5, $6, $7. I mean, cigarettes are like $8. Yeah, you know, when I first start dipping, it's probably, you know, like a dollar a can. How many dips can you get out of a thing, a tin of skull, though? Probably five-ish. Really?

Five-ish, yeah. Good-sized tips. So that would last you a day. So you're doing five bucks a day? I was doing a can a day. Well, dude, how much did you look at, see how much cigarettes worth, 13 bucks in New York? I didn't look in New York, but it's $8 here. Holy moly.

Echo, what's the average price of a pack of cigarettes in the United States? Recently on Amazon, the price for pack of cigarettes ranged from five U.S. dollars up to 160 U.S. dollars. Okay, that's useless. They're selling cigarettes on Amazon. Okay, thank you, Echo. Yeah, average can of skull, $8. $8. Mama.

That's expensive. That's expensive. That is expensive. This one doing a can a day. I think we looked it up during the Patreon show was $13 a pack in New York. and there's nowhere to smoke them Hey you know what's crazy Dr. Steve too and I'll be interested to see if you guys are feeling the same way

I'm actually getting a little saliva in my mouth right now thinking about getting a dip of Copenhagen I swear I'm really almost a little Pavlovian Oh I'm definitely getting some wine with this sober Yeah I'm getting nothing from that I really am listen and that's the thing y'all

The thing that Tacey and I and maybe Scott I haven't asked him this have in common is we both still dream about smoking do you dream about dipping do you ever wake up and go oh shit I just did a whole can of skull and forgot that I quit no you never do

and that weird it's weird that he's getting the Pavlovian response we're not but we still dream about it I can feel it right now I'll dream that I well I have all kinds of crazy dreams I one time I dreamt that Paris was in my backyard I've never been to Paris

but I wondered why I'd never gone because fuck it was in my backyard this whole time and why would I get on a place plane to go to Paris when it's in my backyard. I'm thinking this. In my brain, I'm smart enough to go, why would I have ever gotten on a plane to go to this place? But I'm not smart enough to realize that Paris being in my backyard is just ludicrous.

That's well. Anyway, I dream about them all the time. And I will dream that I'm smoking a pack of cigarettes in a bar or something. And then I go, fuck, wait a minute. I forgot I quit. And then I'll wake up real quick and then go, I'm glad that was a dream. Tacey, you dream about them periodically. All the time.

All the time. But you never dream about dipping. It's weird. Yeah, it's weird. Strange person. Let's go get some smokes, man. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

I got a quickie here. Hey, hello, Dr. Scott. Hey. Hello. This is Mike from Ohio. Hey, Mike. This is my dilemma. Okay.

When I was 30 years old, my height measured 5 feet, 11 inches. and now at age 70 I measure 5 foot 8 inches if my life beginning to mirror the main character from the 1950s sci-fi movie the incredible shaking man

okay we actually answered this once before but it's not bad I actually measured myself I'm down an inch and a half from my tallest height and the the discs between your vertebrae will start to dehydrate and they get smaller

and you got a bunch of them and you know just a millimeter here and a millimeter there that can do it and I've got scoliosis on top of that so gravity wins yep gravity always wins so does water that's a whole other topic all right you guys got anything else they were good okay and taste welcome to rumble happy to be on rumble yeah we need to get some of our regulars in here but it was good to see uh Richard Kish in here is he's my buddy who

enjoys the Prague rock man and diving tech did bring up a good point about the talk that we did on D-Dimer that the D-Dimer level being out of normal range depends on the units measured

and your local reference range study yes that is absolutely true I was presuming that when they asked me about it they asked me about it because it was elevated So we haven't talked about lab values in a long time. So it does depend, how much it's out of range depends on what the normal is in your lab. And normally, if I had somebody here and they were talking about lab, I would ask them, well, what's the normal range?

Because there are different units, too. And glue gloomun was here as well. Thank you, glue gloomun. And Brian had a good question. And Brian, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Brian, for your D-Dimer. And let us know what happens with that as well.

All right, well, listen, we can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Coombea, Jim Norton, Travis Teft, that Gould Girl, Louis Johnson, Paul Ophcharsky, Chowdy 1008, Howdy Gouplaug, Eric Nagel, the Port Charlotte Hoare, the Saratoga Skag, the Florida Flusi, the St. Pete Barkeep Blower, the Dolly Museum Diddler, the Ballet Bimbo. The girl with a genetic half-sister no one knows about. Percy Dumb. Roland Campo, sister of Chris, Sam Roberts, she who owns pigs and snakes. Pat Duffy, Bill the Cop, Keith the Cop, Dennis Falcone, Matt Kleinschmidt, Dale Dudley, Holly from the Gulf, Christopher Watkins' voice double. Guitarist Steve Tucci, the great Rob Bartlett, Adam Goldstein, Cowgirl Vic.

Thank you for your service. Cardiff Electric, Casey, the Soil Scientist. Carl of the Talippe's equineveris, Carl's. Producer Chris, the subreddit news chick, aka That Broad, Crows and the Bukaki Queen, Jenny Jingles, the inimitable, Vincent Paolino, everybody, Eric Zane, trucker, Andy, Bernie, and Sid, Martha from Arkansas's daughter, Ron Bennington, and of course our dear departed friends. GVAC, Barry the Blade, and Todd Hillier,

who supported this show, was always gracious and always appreciated. Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk channel. Serious XM. Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern on demand and other times at Jim and Claire's pleasure. 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, 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. Thanks, everybody. Bye.