Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 514 - Stupid Lung Tricks

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Dr Steve, Dr Scott and Tacie Discuss: H. Pylori Diagnosis of chronic abdominal pain SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth syndrome) Barrett's esophagus Steve's lung "mass" that wasn't Statins and Co-Q 10 Psychedelics in clinical practice Please visit: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) simplyherbals.net  (now with NO !vermect!n!) (JUST KIDDING, Podcast app overlords! Sheesh!) 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 is over!) 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

What do you get when you cross a broken ice cream truck with impressionist art? Van Goo What did the compost say to the coffee grounds? Let's get dirty. Why don't you ever see Lego trolls on Twitter? They've all been blocked. 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 the period crushing myself. I've got Subolabovir stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my impetable woes.

I want to take my brain out and blast it 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. Steed. From the world-famous Cardiff Electric Network Studios. It's weird medicine, the first and still only uncensored medical show. In the history of broadcast radio, now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal, Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medical practitioner gives me streetcred with the wack alternative medicine ass hats. 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're 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 347-7-76-6-4-3-23.23. That's 347. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine or at D.R. Scott, W.M.

Visit our website at Dr. steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything you hear with the grain of salt. Don't act on anything you can hear on this show without talking over with your doctor, nurse, practitioner, practical nurse. physician assistant, pharmacist, respiratory therapist, acupuncterist, whatever. Check out stuff.com. That's stuff.com. That's stuff.com for all of your, um, what, Amazon needs. Online shopping needs. Hell, they got everything. It really helps keep us on the air. Yep. So stuff.com. Thank you. And, uh, check out, uh, Dr. Scott's website at simply

herbals.net. That's simply herbals.net. And, um, um, Patreon.com slash weird medicine, where Tacey and I will, again, be doing shows now that we're back from vacation. And it's fun. It's a different show. It's completely different content. And then there are some classic stuff that you've never heard before. There is the first time I was ever on Opian Anthony on there. I just put some links up to three major times that I took a.

major thrashing on that show, all in good fun, of course, and it was loads of fun. And particularly the time when I had been giving them homemade wine, and that's where this all started. Steve from Bayshore still shits on me about my homemade wine. I haven't made any wine in, what, 20 years? But back then, I was making wine quite a bit. Well, 20 years is too much. Probably 15. And I sent them some.

And Opie, they were talking about taking gifts from fans. And Opie said, you know, you know who gave me homemade wine? And I love the guy, Dr. Steve. And then here we go. Well, it was made from cyst, you know, aspirated cysts and all this stuff. And, of course, I can't do it justice. And I heard it live. And I remember thinking, oh, God, is this good or bad?

And then the more I listened to it, the funny. or it was. Scott, if you've never heard this, it is really funny. And they were just, it seemed like 45 minutes. It was probably 12, 15 minutes, something like that. But that's on there. And it is quite humorous. And that was the first time, Tacey, and I think you probably remember this, when I realized that I was kind of in the group, even if I was in a very perip, even if I was Pluto to their solar system, I was still felt like I was orbiting. I was part of that sort of the local group, so that was pretty cool because they were just shitting on me so bad.

They wouldn't have done that if they didn't like me. So anyway, all right. And, oh, yeah, and check out cameo.com slash weird medicine. I do them dirt cheap. I'll say fluid to your mama. I had a guy do one for his dad who was 60 and wanted me to just save fluids a bunch.

And so I did that. And I told him the story about Dave Cole with his, his, first auctioneering job where he had to say sickety, sickety, sickety, over and over again because the stupid property got stuck on 60, and they can't say 60 if you're an auctioneer. Because try saying 60 multiple times real fast. You can't do it.

60, 60, 60, 60. But you can say sickety, sickety, sickity, sickity. You can do that real fast. And his wife turned to me and said, yeah, he's making me sickity. I wish he'd shut up. So it was a fun day. But anyway, so I, you know, I do stupid stuff. like that. So it's terrible, but it's terrible in sort of the weird medicine way. So

cameo.com slash weird medicine. So Dr. Scott, we'll get to my medical issues in a minute. We left everybody kind of on a cliphanger last time. But let's talk about yours. You've been having some belly pain. And now, what the fuck? You had a colonoscopy today? No, that's next Wednesday. Today. I'm just foggy because I had an endoscopy. Oh, now the endoscopy I'll do with anesthesia because they can't stick a six-foot snake down my throat without me just puking up my stomach like a dang swordfish that's brought up from the bottom. And that's kind of what it looks like. So I did the propofal, which has got to be the best drug ever. Yeah, it's Michael Jackson's magic milk.

Oh, my God, it's just the most bizarre thing. Yeah. No, it is weird. It's just, you know, because you're, I mean, you're perfectly loose. Yeah. And, you know, the, the anesthesiologist attached me on the shoulder. She goes, honey, you're going to go to sleep here in just a second and see what you're like, yeah, right. And I'm like, you're like, you know, and then you wake up, and I felt really good most today.

I'm just a little foggy, just a little, but not bad, not bad. More like you could do stuff than you really can. And I think that's the problem I got into today we're doing the show. I thought I had everything out of control, and then the computer's not working. I'm like, oh, man. Yeah. My brain's not quite. You lose what they call executive function.

Yes. But it is interesting. And I don't have much to work with either. My experience is they say, okay, we're going to give you the medicine. And I'm sitting there going, this isn't doing anything. But when I'm thinking that, it's already over. I'm sitting there going, well, this shit isn't working. And then they're like, okay, you can get up now.

It's like, wait, I missed the whole thing. Yeah. It is amazing. Yeah. Anyone that fears this, this is not. Do not fear this. It's literally the most, it's the coolest thing I've ever done. It is cool.

It's like time travel. It is. It's just, you just literally just go. You're sitting there having a normal conversation and then you wake up. You're like, well, in the middle of a word and you finish the word. Yeah, yeah. And it's already over. I remember the first time I had it done, we had an anesthesiologist.

His name was Willie Obranica. He was from the Philippines. And he taught me all kinds of disgusting words in Tagalog. So for any of our Tagalog speakers, if you're Tagalog speaking, moms are listening, cover their ears. But, you know, he would, he taught me a puttangina mo. That means you, son of a bitch. And then Malaki Susumo, that's, you have big tits. Ooh.

I don't know when I would ever use that one. No, never know. Right taste. And then, let me see. Mabahuan, Kili, Kili, Mo. That means you've got B.O. Kili, Kili is like stink under your armpits. And then I would always get everybody to teach me how to say, what's that hanging out of your nose? And I can say that in a bunch of different languages.

In Tagalog, it's anong Nakasabetsa Longmo. Now, in Urdu, which they speak in Pakistan, it's Nakachoha. Oh, God. That's a lot better. That's a lot better. Nakachoa. That's a lot better. And then, oh, and I can say it in Romanian, too.

But that's probably enough, though. No. Okay. Oh, he's just showing on. I know you. He's covering for me. Okay, go ahead and tell us. So, anyway, so everybody that's Romanian is just waiting.

They're just waiting. No, no, no, it's fine. That's a clip hanger. They want their, they're so. They said no. They want to be represented to. It's Chitzaterna, didn't it? I knew you couldn't help it.

Well, you said. So, but yeah, so, we. Billy Abrenica, I remember I was terrified that, because I've never been under anesthesia before, that in the middle of it, I would start screaming horrible things. And then there's no saying afterward, well, that wasn't me. I didn't say those, those, because people would be like, mm-hmm, that's the way he really thinks. But it's like, no, no, I'm just, I'm so worried I'm going to scream something inappropriate that, you know, like Malaki Susu, or something like that, and I'm sure that's what it would be, that I was really worried about it. But then I had that exact experience.

They gave it, he said, okay, I'm going to give it to you now. And then I just woke up and it was over. And it's like, what? It's over? And I was like, Willie, you know, I was screaming at him in Tagalog, what an awesome duty was and all this stuff. It was great. That was quite the relief. Yeah, I'm up.

Now, well, that was, this is part one. Now, why are you having this done? Then we'll talk about part two. So just having abdominal, really diffuse abdominal pain for many, many years. And I never told me any of this stuff. You've got other things to talk about. No, I don't. You're my friend, you fucking asshole.

You've got lots of other people to worry about it. Oh, you just don't want me doing it. That's not true. That's not true. No, but we thought it was and still think it's. Who's we? My primary, no primary. You and beardy?

Yeah, you know. Blackbeard. It's his, it's his, one of his minions. Okay, it doesn't matter. But you know who it is. It's like, he's a fancy British accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know who he is. It's South Africa, but I know what you're saying.

But we're, yeah, I just thought it was irritable bowel, really. So what I've done is, and I've changed a lot of things. I've gone primarily to the FodMap diet. Yes. And that has helped a bunch, you know, and just simply cutting out, onions and garlic has made a huge difference you have a hell you grow up thinking all that's good for you you know but there's a lot of other foods and vegetables on the fodbap diet yeah we should talk about fodder very very very very healthy for you but they blow up your tummy yeah so I was just ruling

that you know because there's a bunch of well let's talk about it since you brought it up so we don't have to go back and talk about it we put liam on fadmap diet as well and I'm sort of on it but it stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. These are all short-chain carbohydrates, i.e. sugars, and the small intestine can't absorb them very well. And what happens is, is then you get bacteria that will crack these things, or the body tries to metabolize it, and you get cramping, diarrhea, sometimes constipation, stomach bloating, and gas and flagellants.

So the, and these medication, well, or I'm sorry, these foods include things like milk, yogurt, ice cream, which Liam will not stop. So I haven't, I haven't any of it. Well, he takes lactate, but. And then wheat-based products, so you go gluten-free. But then, yes, like Dr. Scott said, there are some vegetables in there that you would otherwise think are very healthy. onions, garlic, asparagus, artichokes, apples, cherries, pears, and peaches. Yeah, I know. Broccoli, stuff like that.

Yeah, I mean, things that you would think are just wonderful. But they're gas. They have these sugars in them, and the body can't digest them well. And you don't want to be presenting undigested sugars to the bacteria in your gut because they just go, oh, it's a fucking smorgasbord. They love it. They love it. So, yeah, so you have to base your low FODMAP meals around things like eggs and meat, certain cheeses, and thank God, cheddars and their almond milk, rice, quinoa, oats, that kind of stuff.

But you can have vegetables, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers. You can have zucchini. They talk about cucumbers, you know, they have those burpless cucumbers because people have indigestion with them, but those aren't a problem in this. No. But that is, if FODMAP helps you, it makes me wonder since you've had abdominal pain for so long, whether you have small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Sebo, yeah. Have they discussed that with you? So, yeah, so we did a round of treatment.

Right, Faxman. Well, not that because it was $700. You can get it less than that. Flageal cipro combo. Oh, God, that must have torn up your stomach. Not at all. Really? Really?

It didn't bother you? It helped. No, hell, it helped. It's wonderful. Oh, yeah. Well, if it helped, then that's got to be one of the question. And that's what, again, we're just kind of, and I hadn't had a colonoscopy in years, and I just loved the experience. So I thought, have another one. So let's talk about your colonoscopy then. So that's coming up next. So please, I'm going to ask for forgiveness from our friends in advance because next one's the problem, being similar shape. Oh, really? Or you're having it a week from? Okay.

Yeah. So that's awesome. Do it without anesthesia. Try it one time. Try it. Oh, yeah, just try it. No, seriously. It won't hurt. I wrote, if anyone is interested in what I'm getting ready to talk about,

what we're getting ready to talk about, go to Dr.Steave.com and just put in the word colonoscopy in the search bar. And I wrote up a whole article. That was back when I thought I would write a lot of things for the website. A whole article on an anesthesia-free colonoscopy. and well you've heard me talk about it the the downside is yes you have to if you look at the tv screen you will see a six foot rendition of your hairy anus before it goes in but the upside is you can see stuff you can see the transverse colon and you can see the cecum and you can see all these parts of the large bowel which is pretty damn cool and they can talk to you during

it. There is mild discomfort unless it gets stuck and then it hurts like a motherfucker, but for like 30 seconds. And then it's done. And when they pull it out, and they use nitrogen now, which pissed me off because there's not even any post-procedure fletus. I took a fletus flute with me last time thinking, oh boy, I'm going to film this as I expel all this gas and make the flatus flute shoot out of my ass. And go to fletusflute.com, by the way, if you're interested in getting one. It's the whistling bug plug. We have nothing to do with that, but it's hilarious. And I thought that would be cool.

But now they use nitrogen. It just gets absorbed, and there's no post-procedure bloating. BOMs. The bombs. The post-procedure bombs. And the prep, yeah, it sucks, except that you feel so much lighter on your feet with no shit in your colon. Yeah, I don't mind that. I don't mind that part at all.

Yeah. And you never ascribed all this BS, like, like these bowel people on the internet where they're like, oh, and I took this preparation and look at the leathery concretions and they take a knife and they're cutting these leathery things and they're talking about how stool cakes the lumen of the bowel so you only have this little channel. And it's like it makes sense in your head that it would happen that way, but that's not how it happens.

There's none of that. Anyone that's ever seen a colonoscopy knows that this is a lot. And they'll say, well, what about those things that they pull out of their ass? And it's like, that's the thing that they're taking. It's some fiber product that binds together. And then they shit out these giant masses of fibrous stuff. And then go, see, see, and they'll pick them up with a stick. And go, and point it at the camera.

Just, Google, you don't have to go very far to find this stuff. No. Yeah, I've never Googled that. Bowel cleanse. Hey, we've got a, we've got a Keith from L.A. said he tried to do that and they refused. They wouldn't let him take, take his colonoscow. Really?

Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep. Dude. Keith from L.A., well, that's why, because they want to talk about him when he was out and stuff. Well, it's an extra, you know, procedure and money. Well, it is true. They, you save money by doing it my way. That's weird that they wouldn't let you do it. I'm not sure that I'd be okay with that.

That should be optional. Yeah, should be. But anyway, and then when you're done, you just pull up your drawers and you go. You can drive. You just go back to work. You do whatever you want. You don't have to take a whole day off. You don't have to feel goofy and out of sorts from that propofal thing.

And I recommend everybody, if you're going to have one or two colonoscopies in your life, try one of them without anesthesia, unless you just are completely skeved out by the idea. Now, I can do it. Maybe a little quarter of a Xanax or something. Yeah, you could put it under your tongue. Slipp a little twix cheek and gum, don't you know? Between a cheek and gum, I'm thinking that'd be a good thing. That'd be all right, furry. Yeah, well, I might have some other things that might help calm me down before that, too.

I don't know what you're talking about there, Dr. Scott. Well, anyway, so, yeah, so I hope that you feel better. I still would probably do the rife axon. I'm thinking about getting them to put Liam on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Small intestine bacterial overgrowth syndrome, I think, is pretty grossly underdiagnosed. Terribly underdiagnosed. There are tests for it.

Yeah. There's a thing called urine for endocans. Go ahead. Talk about it. Well, and sometimes they'll give you the breath test where they'll have you blow into the bag and after you swallow some stuff. Yeah. So there's a bunch of different things. But the great news is, the great news is I was completely, completely cleared of any kind of gluten allergy.

Yeah. Which I can't wait to get my stomach fixed so I can start drinking beer again. Well, okay, so you may be gluten-sensitive rather than gluten-allergen, which means you can drink beer. They do make gluten-free beer. You and I used to sell it. Yep. Not much of it, though. Yeah, no.

I don't think the flavor was great. Well, it's hard to sell when you got somebody giving it or trading it for pain pills. Yeah, that is true. That's a problem. That put us a little behind there for a while. Oh, shit. Look at the time, Doctor's book. That's good way.

Dacyses just shooting daggers out of her eyes. Yeah, these are daggers. Daggers go both ways. That I said it wasn't going to be my issue, and I wasn't going to worry about it. Yeah. And you violated the second half of that. I did not worry about it that much. No, you did good.

It was, at least we did have a good place to play some music, though. Oh, God, yeah. That's the thing I miss about it. You know, one thing, when you, you know, one thing, when you own a fucking beer garden you get to book the act so we would have some pretty cool people like Dave Cecil

and who are those guys, Kramer's kid, what's his band's called? People need to probably They're actually very good. I know, I was going to say they ought to check him out on YouTube well if you think of it. Anyway, but we had real

musical acts there. We had R-Hat do you could check him out It's A-R-H-T, I think. And he did techno music, and then we had some people do, you know, Dave Cecil does acoustic stuff, and these other people were pretty cool. Donnie and the dry heavers. Yeah, Donnie and the dry heavers.

Check them out on YouTube. And they're getting much better, too. They're playing a lot. And, yeah. I know people who follow them. Yeah, they're very good. Yeah, they're pretty good. Yeah, so they were great.

We had them. And then there was Dr. Scott and Dr. team playing Grateful Dead covers. Free music is one of his cover. That's right. Hey, talk like he's got a great quick question. Is Cbo the same as or similar to H. Polora? Do you want to take that? That is a great question.

Tacey can take this one. No, I was actually going to ask that question. Oh, okay. They're similar but completely different. Well, it's similar but completely different. It's similar in the fact that the H. Polora is a bacteria in the stomach. that's something like in the stomach, yeah. Well, that's what I mean, in the CBO's bacteria in your colon.

That's right. It verses your stomach, yeah. So now, CBO is, by definition, is in the small intestine. Small, okay, not called the small value, I'm sorry. So back when I used to know about this stuff, they did breath tests for H. Pylori. Yep. And then H. Pylori kind of went out of fashion a little bit. Well, they still, they test everybody for it if they do an EGD, you know, endoscopy.

It's just like what I had just wasn't a big. thing. It was a big thing and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, H. Pallory, whatever. Well, the funny thing was, when I was training gastroenterologists, if you said to them, what about this H. Pylori causing stomach ulcers, a bacterium in the stomach causing stomach ulcers, they would literally laugh at you, saying there's no way in hell that a bacterium can survive in the stomach to cause ulcers. And then it was demonstrated through using Koch's principles that, in fact, that is exactly what happens in certain people. And then, yeah, there's this regimen.

Do you remember what it is, taste? It was Clarithromycin, amoxicillin, and Lansoprosol, right? There were three drugs that you had to take to kill this thing. And it was kind of a pain in the ass regimen. but it would kill it. Right. And when you killed the H. Pylori, the ulcers would heal faster. So you get that test every endoscopy you get.

Around here, anyway, I'm sure that's everywhere. It's so cheap. So what about these newfangled products that are out that you were talking about wanting to put our sun on? Okay, now that's for small intestine bacteria. I was wondering if it would kill both. That's an interesting question. I don't think so. so either.

H. Pilari is hard as fuck to kill. Just think about it. It lives in the stomach where the pH is four. It lives in acid. It literally lives in hydrochloric acid, so it's a little harder to kill.

But small intestine bacterial overgrowth is where you, maybe you've been on acid suppression and now some bacteria that can't live in the stomach, now can live in the stomach,

enough of them to get into the small intestine because the small intestine is supposed to be relatively sterile and then you get this kind of slime mold slime layer in the small intestine that's just bacteria going where's the you know where's the chow where's the juice and then you feed it things like bread and things like that and milk and and any sugars that can't make it oh that's one of the problems with lactose intolerances when you know lactose is the sugar in milk, and it is a two, oh, shit, now I've got to look it up. I don't want to say this wrong.

It's a disaccharide. There are two sugars hooked together, and I can't remember if they are both glucose or one is a different thing. God dang it, come on. And I'll add while you're looking for CBO, too. One thing you can tell that I've experienced is with CBO. Sorry, okay, I got it. is that if you drink something carbonated,

that helps to carry the bacteria in that small intestine further down the sweat. Oh, that makes sense, yeah. It sure does. So the bacteria, actually, the bubbles in the carbonation actually carry it down, it makes it worse and worse over time. Yes. And I really, really, it's been a couple months ago, but heck, I just took a little sip out of one of those waters,

the flavored waters are carbonated. And I mean, I thought my, my d'agum stomach was going to just explode. I said, this has got to be. Yeah, that's interesting. And Liam has trouble with carbonation, too, now. So, and sorry, lactose is a dysaccharide, as I said, but it's galactose and glucose. So it's two different sugars together, and what lactase does is cleaves those two. And when you cleave them, they can be readily absorbed in the stomach and very early in the GI tract.

But if you can't cleave them, they can't be absorbed, and they end up in the small intestine. And if there's bacteria in there, they go, we like this stuff, and they'll ferment it. And when products of fermentation are gas and alcohol and stuff like that. And then if those things make it to the bowel where there's just nothing but bacteria, then it's really a problem. It causes bloating and, you know, gut discomfort and stuff like that. So, anyway. And I think a lot of folks don't realize that inside the, especially in the intestines, the stretch fibers in there. Oh, and they don't like it.

Oh, God, no, those stretch fibers, they start getting stretched out with those. So stretch fibers are nerve endings that respond to stretch, and what they're trying to tell you is something is breaking in there. Right. Yeah, something about to blow up. Yep, and so they're not designed to just be stretched taught, and that can cause a lot of discomfort. Also, if you get cramping with it, which you will get with this, because it causes not just inflammation, but just irritability of the bowel, and now you start getting, you know, cramps and those kinds of things as well. So the whole thing sucks, but it may be caused by us taking antacids, and now all of a sudden these bacteria can survive to get into the small bowel. So we use a medication called rifaxamine, usually for that. and it's a kind of broad spectrum antibiotic that kills gut bacteria.

And you want to follow that with something that will repopulate your bowel. And see, it's always tough for me is that you take probiotics, and then, well, they've got to pass from the stomach to get to the colon. So now you're just repopulating that area, but at least you're repopulating it with good bacteria instead of shitty bacteria. Yeah, and I've actually found a couple of products I like. Because, you know, the thing I can't do is like the kombucha. Yeah.

Because it's all carbonated. Right. So it's like. You shouldn't be drinking that crap. It doesn't say I'd like to use. The heck I can't because it blows up. I mean, it fits your personality. It probably smells a lot like me too.

Weed infused kombucha. Wait a minute. New idea. That's actually not a bad idea. We could sell it to all those damn hippies. That's for a bunch of hillbilly hippies. All right. So anyway, so we're going to get an update next.

next week on your colonoscopy. Looking forward to it. Yeah. And to be clear, the great news is, like I told the doctor is when I said, the great news is, is you didn't find anything. That's what I was hoping for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Little gastritis, so there was some little redness in my stomach, but really is crystal clear.

Yeah. You know, no Barrett's esophagus, nothing. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's esophagus being what they call metapagia, where the, the squamous, right, the squamous cells, which are flat cells of the esophagus are replaced by glandular cells from the stomach. And it's a response to acid, right?

Yes, and it is a precursor to cancer. Yeah, so because it's metaplasia, meaning that there are cells there that aren't supposed to be there, and they are subject to more stress because they're not supposed to be there and they can become malignant. So it is a risk factor, and you want to get that checked.

So if you have chronic dyspepsia or acid reflux or heartburn, which we call pyrosis, and you're just treating it with over-the-counter shit, at least tell your primary care provider about it because those folks, we used to say if they took something over-the-counter for six weeks and couldn't get off of it, they needed to be scope just to make sure that we are establishing a baseline. We're not missing anything. That was when they first came out with these things over the counter, I was kind of pissed about it because we had a protocol. We would put people on rinidididine back then. That was the big thing.

Or cymetidine was the first one. And then men were growing boobs and stuff with cymetidine. So we started switching people to renitidine, which now is off the market. And now the only one that's really left is Fomodidine, which is Pepsid. But we would put people on. those, but if after six weeks their symptoms didn't go away, they were going right to the GI and getting scoped.

And I felt like that was a safer sort of paradigm rather than you just sell it. Somebody takes this stuff for 10 years and never tells their primary care about it. It happens a lot. Yeah, at least tell your primary care if you're taking those. Happens a lot. All right. Well, I guess we should probably

give people an update on my thing for those that weren't listening to the last show before we went on vacation. I the day before vacation, my primary care said, we need to get a CT scan on you because the chest x-ray we did showed that you may have some, what we call pulmonary fibrosis. And the reason they did the chest x-ray is because they'd forgotten to re-check the chest x-ray after I had COVID, which showed a weird sort of hazy place in the left lung.

So I said, okay, well, that's fine. Pulmonary fibrosis, you know, if I have that, that's, I mean, often a two-year prognosis if you get the bad kind. And either way, you're going to have some decrease in real challenges. So I was kind of bummed about that. Well, so I get the CT scan, which now takes literally 30 seconds to do. And I kind of bullied the technologist to just show me the films, right? and they start at the top of the lung. And so it's as if your head is behind the screen

and your feet are sticking out of the screen. So your spine is down and your sternum is up and then they're taking cross sections. And so it started at the top of the lung and it was nice and just homogenous with proper looking blood vessels and the little bronchials. I said, well, that looks good.

I don't see any pulmonary fibrosis in there. And then we go down further, no fibrosis. Hey, this is looking good. Looking good, looking good. Oh, so far, so good. What the fuck is that? And the very last, like, ten things, there was this giant crab in the lower part of my left lung. I said, well, show me the coronal views.

And that's where they go, how can I explain that, shoulder to shoulder, okay, cutting you that way. and then I could see it, and it looked like a wedge-shaped piece of shit. Yeah, it looked like almost a jagged stone rock thing. Yeah, bright, white-looking thing that was going from in the left. Lower left. Yeah, it looked like granite, that's right. It really looked like granite, yeah.

So, and that's an artifact of the way that the imaging works. And I'm like, oh, my God. And I was really at the time, I was like, okay, I've got stage. three lung cancer. I came home and told Tacey, listen, this is what's going to happen and I don't want any foot. He said, cut the bullshit. I don't want any bullshit. And I was like, what? I didn't even okay. No, well, and I said, this is what we're going to do. I'm going to drive you down to aisle of palms and then I'm going to turn around. I'm going to stay till 4th of July. I'm going to turn around and come back. I'm going to have a bronchoscopy on Tuesday and then I'll come back

down on Wednesday. Because I can't let this just be hanging over my head the whole time. But I have friends. I've been here for 35 years, and so I've got a really good friend named Kevin, who's a pulmonologist, and I sent a picture to him, because unbeknownst to the technologist, I snapped a little picture of that coronal view. And I sent it to him. I said, what in the hell is this?

And he said, is that you? And I said, yeah, he said, that looks like fibrosis from COVID. We're seeing this all over the place. We're seeing tons of it. And I think that's what it is. But let me call the radiologist and see. And he called the radiologist. And he said, yes, this doesn't look like cancer.

But they kept saying, we're pretty sure it's not cancer. So I've shown it to three other pulmonologists. The last one had a really interesting thing. He said, when you had all that coughing. because I coughed for like six weeks after I had COVID. He said, what might have happened was you might have inhaled like a piece of popcorn or something if you were eating popcorn. And when you take that big breath, when you're going to get ready to do a huge cough, and if you had inhaled that and it got stuck in one of these small little bronchials down there, it would have done the same thing. The bronchial's, you know, it starts with the trachea, the big windpipe, and then it separates into the two major bronchis bronchial.

to each lung and then it divides and divides and divides and divides to get smaller and smaller. And so this piece of popcorn made have gone all the way down to the bottom of my lung and just got stuck and I couldn't cough it up. When that happens, it's just going to kill everything on the other side of that little bronchial that got plugged up and it can look like that. So they're going to repeat it in six weeks and then we'll know, sure and so but I did put if you want to see it check my Twitter feed at Weird Medicine I did put it up there and kind of explained everybody because I knew last time you know I kind of was cryptic about it and I don't think I gave a very good you know discussion on it because I was pretty freaked out anyway so but that's what it is and yeah so you know I can live without that little chunk of lung it's totally Fuck that piece along. But it does give you pause when you think, oh, you're, you know, this is it. I'm going to have to do chemotherapy and, you know, God knows whether I'm going to be here a year from now.

So, but then after a couple of weeks, you just go, oh, shit. Go back to doing what you were doing before. I remember I had a car wreck once and I almost died in it and I was like, oh, I'm going to change my life. It would be a different person. That's like, ah, fuck it. Yeah, that didn't last long. After about a week. Yeah, those scare tactics have been shown to not work at all.

Yeah. I did do some reflection and stuff. And I shut down my social media while we were at the beach. And I just said, listen, I told everybody what's going on because I knew I didn't want anybody to think if I just disappeared that something bad had happened. Because I do care about our listeners. And we have amazing listeners, the support that. that I got after just letting them know I had a health scare was outstanding. And I just want to tell you all, I love all of you.

You know, I really, and I really do appreciate it. All the good wishes. Yeah, no, it was awesome. Well, you know, you ever think of, I'll just pretend I'm dead like Tom Sawyer and then see what people say at your funeral. And now I don't have to, and I appreciate it because people thought I was croaking. But I do appreciate it. That's good story.

Anyway, yeah, so I keep you know. It's a six weeks, son. Yep. That's cool, cool, cool. Yeah, and if it's still there, if it's grown at all, because the third pulmonologist said this could get bigger if this was more recent than we thought. Except it's right in the same place where the COVID hazy place was. So it's got to be that. Yeah, and I was going to ask you that, too, Dr. Steve, is it, did they tell you that other people that they've seen with the COVID lung and the scarring?

does it seem to progress or does it seem to be pretty stable? No. It's just there was so much inflammation that that part just kind of got clogged and it couldn't unclog maybe a mucus plug if you've heard of that. And I

wondered at the time whether I had a mucus plug because I was coughing so bad. Do you remember Tase? I was just coughing my stupid head off. And I thought about a mucous plug and I just kind of went, ah, fuck it. But you know, if I get COVID again and that shit happens again, I'm going to do a special breathing treatment called nacetyl cysteine, and it will break those things up.

And you're going to call me because I have medicines for that. Oh, you do? Oh, to the lung. Mucalytic stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wonderful, yep. What do they do for mucous plugs? Because I think I had one. Yeah, you may have.

A long, long time ago. I remember coughing literally, this is disgusting, a brick up. Oh, yeah. Like it was hard as a rock. Yeah. And I coughed it up. And it was just... A bronchaleth.

Was it shaped like a bronchial? It was just like a... Like a tube? Yeah. And it was just a rock of mucus. Yeah. And I had been coughing and coughing and coughing for months. Yeah.

Yeah, that's probably what that was. I was smoking. Mm-hmm. And in my early 20s. Yeah. You were hot, though, when you were smoking back then, too. Hanging out of the window at the... Thistle, Victoria in England, smoking in a non-smoking room.

Out on the balcony with the gargoyles, it was awesome. God, she was hot. Well, they didn't really mean non-smoking back then. No, they really didn't. It was just a suggestion. It's true. Now it's like $400 fine. Well, it's like I would not stay in a room if I smelled smoking anymore.

That's how bad I've gotten. Or how over it I am. Anyway, yeah, so they can do bronchoscopy, which is where they give you goofy juice, stick a fiber optic scope down into your lungs, and they look around, and when they find the mucous plug, they just suck it out, and they can lavage it with saline, and they'll dump a bunch of saline in there and suck it back out again. You can use this stuff. If it's a new mucous plug, you can do an acetyl cysteine, which is a smelly substance. that has other medical uses as well, including for Tylenol poisoning. But you can breathe it in, and it will dissolve, it will thin mucus like crazy. It's called it a mucalytic.

And then pulmonary toilet, which sounds interesting, but what that just means is cleaning out your lungs through percussion. So those are three kind of ways that you can treat one of those things. so anyway so that's all good news so yeah good stuff thank you all all right very good enough of that uh well you got oh i sent you a bunch of stories over the break well you want to do the one that um oh wait oh johnny long yeah yeah yeah go ahead it was an atorvastatin and um koku unzym 10 um okay well that's not a question you just you just stated two things ago okay he was He was asking if he should take coenzyme Q10. Ator of Staten question again.

I got it. I'm sorry. Oh, it's okay. What he was asking was if he's taking a statin drug for cholesterol, should he take coenzyme Q10 along with it? His prescribing doctor did not. That's right. And here's the thing. I just found an article in the auctioner journal, which is a, It's not a shitty journal.

It's a pretty decent journal, but it's from 2010, but it's old. But it's coenzyme Q10 and statin induced mitochondrial dysfunction. So mitochondria are these little organelles in cells that look like bacteria, and guess what, they probably were bacteria at one point. And we are eukaryotic, you know, human-type cells that had DNA in. in them needed something to generate energy. And so we formed this sort of symbiosis with this bacteria that now divides. It has its own DNA as passed down from the mother.

And these things, you know, they're really interesting little organs, and they produce energy for the cell. And if you have a primary or a secondary, in other words, a secondary deficiency would be one that's caused by something else. primary would be if you just were born that way. But the deficiencies of co-enzyme Q10, you can get neurologic and myopathic syndrome. So one of the hypotheses is that these HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, aka statins, cholesterol medications, interfere with the production of this stuff called mevalonic acid, and that is a precursor in the synthesis of coenzyme Q10. So you think, okay, so you have this HMG COA reductase inhibitor.

You're going to end up with a deficit in coenzyme Q10, and a deficit in coenzyme Q10 can cause neurologic symptoms like peripheral neuropathy, but also myopathic syndrome, which is muscle aches and pains and muscle cell destruction, both of which are known for statins to cause. So it makes some sort of sense. So what they think is that coenzyme Q deficiency is certainly one possible mechanism for statin-induced muscle pain. But what they found is that coenzyme Q10 supplements haven't really been shown to routinely improve that function. So they're saying that further research is warranted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. but I do think that it's okay to take it. I don't see a downside to taking coenzyme Q10 along with your statin. Can I tell that it's helped?

I'll tell you one thing. I don't have the myalgas that I had. I can't say that it's from the coenzyme Q10, although those two things were temporarily related, so that is very anecdotal. But I can also say that my neuropathy, I don't think the coenzyme Q10 helped my neuropathy. What did help my neuropathy was taking all the other supplements like glutamine, alpha lipoic acid, and myoanacetal, those things help. And if you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, if you have a friend that has peripheral neuropathy, just go to Dr. Steve.com, and there's an article there on nutritional supplements for peripheral neuropathy that are backed by, you know, some data. It's not great. I'm not a huge, you know, I don't push it, but I do recommend that people try it because it doesn't hurt and it certainly helped me.

I mean, I couldn't even stand in the shower and close my eyes without falling down. And then when I got on that stuff, you know, it did go away. So that's something. But anyway, so I think, Johnny, it's okay to take it. There are conflicting data in the literature that are newer than this particular. study. I didn't know if you were looking up some, Scott, but, okay. Why would you? I saw you over there typing. I was like, okay, he's looking up some more recent studies. But whenever it's conflicting like that, it tells me that either the studies are poorly done or it might not have a

huge effect. But I don't have a problem with you taking it. And I think the reason that a lot of primary care providers aren't telling people to take it is because it's still in the realm of hasn't been proven yet it's not established science but it makes sense oh yeah so the question is if the CO10 that you take by mouth can actually make it into the cells because if it can't then you can take all of it you want

it's not really going to do any good okay so you have something from the waiting room Yeah, Bob was asking about Barrett's esophis. Bob Bobbbington? Bobby Bobbington, that's right, the Bobbbington, evidently. He was just saying that a friend of his, about a decade ago, had Barrett's esophagus due to acid reflux. Yeah. And at the time, his doctor recommended getting it checked every year with endoscopy due to cancer risk from it.

Yeah. And? I would say that. Well, was there a question? That was a question. Does it disappear? Oh, does it disappear? Sorry.

No, it's okay. Yeah, it can. Yeah, shoot you. It's rare. Yours did? I mean, this today, they didn't say anything about my being there. I was told 25 years ago I had it. See, that's the thing.

These old diagnoses of Barrett's that calls into question the diagnosis in the first place. But there are people that it will resolve in, but it is unusual. Usually it's a chronic condition. So, well, I didn't know that happened to you. Yeah. Wow. Been bailing a long time. Okay.

Yes. Yeah, so Barrett can go. One of the progressions of Barrett's can be dysplasia, or I'm sorry, metaplagia, which is when you have cells, cell types that are in the wrong place. It's supposed to be squamous cell. Now it's ad nomadous. And then you have an adenomidus. Adnominous just means that it's derived from glandular cells.

And then it can go from metaplasia to dysplasia, which is pre-cancerous, and then it can go to the naughty one. The bad to malignant. Okay. All right. But, yeah, it can. If you are good to yourself, every once in a while, one of these things will just resolve on its own. And honestly, I think a lot of it's dietary.

If you can change your diet over time, your body might. corrected that's my thought that's not at the sign no I'm with you losing weight eating fruits and vegetables eating a healthy diet is uh seems to help yep yep lowering stress stress levels yeah good luck

fuck yourself oh god I'm not having any trouble with that all right any other questions in there no that's it I thought you had another one no okay all right oh about the magic mushrooms god damn it Scott well listen

There's 17,000 of them in here. So I'm doing my best. The question was from diesel. Well, okay, let me ask you a question, though. Are you taking notes about the topics that we're talking about today? Or did you forget to do that? No, thank God. So then what you do is you copy and paste onto that,

and then it'll be sitting there right in front of you. You see? Copy and paste, Scott. Copy and paste, no, I'm just saying. While I'm looking up the other thing. Okay. Yeah, all the things you're not looking up while I'm talking about them, flailing my arms, going, Jesus Christ, help me here. That's fine.

I'm just messing with you. I guess I can start looking. No, hell, no, they'll be yelling at you, too. Oh, hell done froze over there, my place. He'll be yelling at you for it, next. I'm not yelling. He'll yell at me. Magic. Hey, Jesus.

I just won't do anything. Diesel Child was asking about, what are our thoughts on the magic mushroom studies? Excellent. Yes, I'd say excellent. I have a bit of a controversial view on this. I think Timothy Leary did us a disservice. I really do. What happened in the 60s was all these kind of conservative thinking, not necessarily right wing,

but conservative thinking people in the United States, particularly those in research at the time, who at that time were wearing. you know, pen protectors and had slide rules and shit, more big, thick glasses and had, you know, flat tops. Right. If you look at the normal sort of lab person, then you see, you know, our brethren, you know, a bunch of fucking hippies at Woodstock all zonked out on acid and you, you know, groovy man. And, you know, if you're going to San Francisco, anyway. That did us a disservice because people were like, okay, we need to make this shit illegal, and we're not going to pay for any research on psychedelics anymore because Timothy Leary just wants people to have trips and alter their consciousness, which at that time was considered a bad thing. It's taken until now for people to start getting grants where they can do research on.

psilocybin oh just psilocybin and you know LSD research is kind of coming back we'll have to go to clinical trials.gov and look that would be a good thing to do hang on let me copy and paste it first and put in PTSD and then just as the keyword put LSD and see if they're doing that and then check DMT as well but they're just now starting to do this stuff again what were we supposed to put in again don't worry about it Just don't put anything in. It's, God, fucking Jesus Christ. I'll just, I'll do it in post.

We'll do it live. Type in, type in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then and then type in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm flipping you double birds. Anyway, but if, did you find anything there on studies? A little bit. Well, how many studies are there? PTSD and then psilocybin as the keyword or LSD is the keyword.

Well, there's a couple pages. Okay, it says at the top how many studies there are. It'll say one to... 7,6008. Whoa, okay, so we're starting to see some research happening again. And that's significant amount of research. So ketamine has hit this... S-ketamine is now commercially sold, and that's a dissociative anesthetic that is now

being sold as a rapid medication for severe refractory depression. We're going to see microdosing of psilocybin manufactured and sold for PTSD and other conditions. And I think that we are finally getting into the range where we're going to start seeing. Because look, we're manipulating neurochemicals all the time with SNSRIs. You know, we manipulate serotonin. We manipulate cannabinoids receptors. You know, why not hit some of these dopamine and other types of receptors in the brain with psychedelics?

And at very low doses, people aren't jumping out of buildings and thinking they're flying and stupid shit like that. It ruined this. You know, the bad trip is what ruined this for everybody. Well, the bad trip and just the image of all our brothers and sisters doing acid in the 60s, completely stifled it. So I really feel like if Timothy Leary had kept things in the laboratory, we would be light years ahead of where we are right now.

It's almost akin to the burning of the library at Alexandria, where we would have had calculus maybe a thousand years before we actually got calculus if that library hadn't been sacked and burned. and, you know, a thousand years of calculus, would we already be traveling between the stars by now? I don't know. And that comes from Spaceship Earth at Epcot. What's that?

That story. Oh, the Library of Alexandria did, but not the part about calculus. Yeah, no. No, that comes from Steve. No, it's Steve who? Oh, nobody. For fuck's sake. No, she's been doing Propofal 2.

That's all right. Can you get rid of it? Oh, yeah, of course. Will you? Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm just holding something over your head. Good to Lord.

Okay, well, let's get out of here. Thanks, everybody. We're just sort of getting back in the swing of things again, and we'll do a better show next time. Well, probably. Definitely check out our Patreon, though. Patreon.com slash weird medicine. It's fun.

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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, get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thanks, everybody.

Goodbye.