Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 524 - Really, REALLY Bad Acupuncture

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Dr Steve, Dr Scott, and Tacie discuss: poorly explained hypertension then slightly better explained hypertension urethral sounding taken to the extreme diarrhea after eating and more Please visit: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) simplyherbals.net  (now with LESS !vermect!n!) (JUST KIDDING, Podcast app overlords! Sheesh!) noom.doctorsteve.com (the link still works! Lose weight now before swimsuit season is over!) roadie.doctorsteve.com (the greatest gift for a guitarist or bassist! The robotic tuner!) Please don't forget: Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now while he’s still cheap! "FLUID!") Most importantly! 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

This fall, please be nice to your barista. Otherwise you might end up with a pumpkin, spite, latte. Did you hear about the dirty Easter egg hunt? It was hosted by the Dust Bunny. What did Han Solo name his clone? Han Duo. If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of Weird Medicine on Sirius XM103,

and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, You would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to? I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolivir, stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my incredible woes.

I want to take my brain out, blast with the wave, an ultrasonic, agographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health equipment. 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. Dr. Steve.

From the world famous Cardiff Electric Network Studios, it's weird medicine, the first and still only on the censored medical show. In the history of broadcast radio and now a podcast, I'm Dr. Steve. with my little pal, Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medical practitioner, gives me street cred the whack alternative medicine assholes. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. Hello, and my partner in all things, Tacey.

Hello, Tacey. Hello. This is a show for people. Wow. 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 347766. 4323 that's 347 follow us on Twitter at weird medicine or at d r scott wm and visit our website at dr steve.com for podcast medical news and stuff you can buy most importantly we are not your medical providers taking everything here with a grain of salt don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking it over with your health care provider all right very good oh about choke to death doing the intro and tacy's getting very impatient so I didn't want to start over again so sorry about that everybody I think

Blame it on me. I think most everybody skips over it anyway. Don't forget stuff.com. Stuff. Dot, dot, Dr. Steve.com for all your Amazon needs. Check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyherbils.net. We'll talk about it in a second. And do check out our Patreon at Patreonacom slash weird medicine.

It's a different show. And if you want me to say fluid to your mama or secretions to your daddy, I will do so. He loves it. I love to do it. It's cheap. Camio.com slash weird medicine. Hello, Dr. Scott. Good afternoon.

How are things that's simplyerbils.net these days? Fabulous. Are they? Fabulous. Selling them what's a nasal spray. Do you? Yeah, buddy. Is it weird medicine listeners or is it just everybody all over?

Most, mostly weird medicine people. Oh, that's okay. Cool. Good stuff. We'll check him out. Simplyerbils. dot net simply it's like simply herballs.net if you don't know how to spell simply herbals dot net and um i do want to say uh happy birthday to our the person who does our podcast network

that would be mr cardiff electric we've already gone over this joke yeah well it's not a joke honey it's his birthday you said that last week uh i was doing it when i said we've already gone over this joke i was anticipating his birthday and his birthday is today okay i'm sick of it And we're part of the Cardiff verse. That's what this is called, the Cardiff verse. So, and in that, in that universe, it's his birthday every week. Happy birthday. At least in his mind.

Mr. Cardiff, thank you, sir, for your support. I have a couple of things to talk about. Tacey and I, we went ahead and, so just for our friends out there, because we are adventurous types, went ahead and got our Omicron boosters, our bivalent, not bivalent, as my friend Jimmy Dorr says. Bivalent, it's so crazy.

He's ambivalent. An ambivalent shots. He's ambivalent about the vaccine, but our bivalent omicron boosters. I'm at risk because of my age, and, you know, I've posted this on Twitter, took out one 16th of my lung the last time I had this damn virus

and didn't know it by the way blew 100 that doesn't sound good I blew 120% on my spirometry which is this thing where you you blow into a tube

and you expel all of your lung volume as quickly and as long as you can Is that good? Yes 120% of normal so I always had really good lung capacity.

Even when I smoked three packs a day, I would blow really high numbers on the spirometry. So I just, you know, was born with good lung capacity. And that's good because when you lose one 16th of your lung, you know, it's a non-trivial amount, but we have lots of redundancy. It's why we have two lungs. That's why we don't have to have, you know, we don't live at 100%. So if you lose one percent, all of a sudden you're disabled. You know, you can lose a ton of lung capacity before you enter into that realm of disability.

The human body is an amazing thing, loaded with redundancies. Kidney function, you can walk around with really impaired kidney function. I've got people who have very impaired liver function, and they can walk around. If they stop drinking, hint to some certain people that, that we know and some of our friends make fun of on the Internet, you know, you can regenerate most of your liver capacity as long as it's not completely scarred down.

So it is amazing this body that we're given. And we just fucking trash it. Yep. We do. We wreck it. Eating right off the rails. Eating French fries and calling them vegetables. And they are vegetables, technically.

Putting ketchup on them and that being a vegetable. Yes, and just eating, just shit and not exercising and stuff, and it's amazing. Chee boge, tea, boge, cheap, boge. I used to marvel at the fact that if one molecule is off in your genetic code, if it's the wrong molecule, if it's the wrong molecule, you're never born. You know, it's a catastrophic failure, it's a blighted fetus, or it's never a fetus at all. And, you know, and just the pregnancy never happens. But once you're here, hell, you can do all kinds of shit and get away with it. You know, it is amazing.

It's true. It's amazing. Anyway, if you do it. And if you F your body up slow enough, you can pretty much tolerate all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Even if you just smoke a little bit. Yeah, right. Just don't stop that.

Yeah, just stop the smoke. Don't smoke. Don't smoke. Don't listen to it. That's just not for me. That's what I have edible. Stop, stop. New soundboard.

Isn't that while we make edibles? So we don't have to smoke anything? Yes. Yeah. That's what they're for. Exactly. Tell people through smoking cessation. My niece, I talked about this on the Patreon show, which, by the way, check us out.

It's a completely, well, it's a very different show. Patreon.com slash weird medicine. and every 100% of calls that are sent to that show get read on the air. Although I had a guy just recently say, yeah, I sent you an email or a voicemail, never heard it on the air. I was like, now I'm already lying about it. But that was a mistake. And if you have sent in a voicemail to the show, we're just way behind,

and we will get those on the air very soon. But my niece is 59. years old soon to be 60 oh wait October wait a minute she was born well that's not right oh no she was born 63 so she'll be 50 next year 60 next year 60 next year 60 yeah 60 next year so she's 59 she'll be 59 this October and happy birthday uh Shannon from south Florida that's that's my niece and she's doing okay right now yeah so that's one number one she's getting hammered and she's one of these well we're going to shelter in place type people

well because she has like 30 animals that's the problem she has pigs and snakes and by the way if you ever wondered who she who owns pigs and snakes that was her and that came about because her mother puts out a Christmas newsletter

every year and her sister Christine has a PhD and she's got like five businesses and, oh, Christine is opening up yet another, you know, speech pathology practice, and she's on faculty at... Be careful. What? Easy go.

Okay, she is on faculty at this university, and she owns Ford businesses, and then they get to Holly. Well, Holly owns pigs and snakes, and so that's where that came from, because we would always laugh about how they would minimize Holly and elevate Christine. Well, anyway... She runs a hospital. for dogs. Yes. She's awesome. Yeah. And she's got all these animals and so she

can't leave and that's why she has to show her in place. So I don't want to make it sound like she's a lunatic even though she kind of is a lunatic. But she, the other thing about her is, she is completely thinks that Flatus is the most hilarious

thing. And fart jokes. If she sends you a letter it will have an ass with somebody farting and, you know, put brap on it and he-he-he and all this kind of stuff. She draws turds. Yeah, of course, I do the same thing. So I guess, you know, we were raised as brother and sister kind of. So you can see why we're very similar.

And, yeah, I mean, and a grown man in the medical profession chooses a phone number as, you know, 3, 4, 7 poo hit. So anyway, but she sent me a book for my birthday, the big book of, Farty facts, and I thought what would be fun is we'll just go through and pick a page at random, and I'll read something from this. And this is published by fartboys.com, if you want to check them out. Apparently, they have nothing but fart products. And you can always check out the Flatus flute at fletisflute.com, which, of course, you know, I'm calling her a goon, and I'm the biggest goon that there is.

So let me see. Okay, dreamy farts. This is chapter called dreamy farts. People fart more while sleeping. I'm going to substitute pass flatus since I'm in the medical profession anytime they say fart. But this is because our muscles are more relaxed, including the ones that normally hold flatus in. There are some ways to avoid suffocating yourself or another person at night. Well, first off, Tacey, if she ever passes Flatis, I'm never aware of it. And if she does, it must smell like flowers. So first, don't eat snacks or drink fizzy drinks before bed. Second, don't lie on your abdomen, since your body weight pressures your intestines to push out air.

Can you sleep on your stomach? I can't. Lord, no, never. Who sleeps on their stomach? And I'm assuming women with giant bazongas like Tacey can't sleep on their abdomen. anyway. Third, drink water before sleeping, which calms your digestion, huh? No, maybe warm water, right? Warm, yes.

But the number one best way to pass fletus less in bed is pass fletus more during the day. There you go. There you go. You'll make people laugh. You'll feel better and you won't risk suffocation in a closed bedroom. That one is being read. And that is your farty fact for the day. That's our fletus fact of the day. I like it. I like how Carl says there's no such thing as fun facts. Facts are just facts. They're not fun.

No. We'll have to come up with a good intro tune. I have an app, by the way, on Alexa. I don't think that we've talked about it in a while. No. Echo, ask Dr. Steve for a fun fact. Let's see if she's... The medical term for ingrown toenail is onichocryptosis or pear-on-kia.

Often the offending part of the nail must be removed by a health care provider. For another fact, please say, tell me another fact. That one wasn't fun. To quit say, stop. Tell me a... No. God damn it. Okay.

So, let's talk about this for a minute. To get another fact, you can say, tell me a fun fact. You can say stop or cancel to exit. We can say stop. For more instructions, you can also say, help. Tell me a fun fact. Fingernails grow about one-tenth of an inch a month. If you lose a fingernail, it will take

four to six months to regrow completely. Toneals take a year to a year and a half to grow from cuticle to tip, which is why toenail fungus treatments take so long. What? How long did it take you? The term was initially a medical term

that referred to people. See, this is what happens. How long? Okay, what? She won't shut up. How long did it take you to make this app? Well, Daniel Stout and I

made it. And it took, really, It didn't take that long. It took me an evening to just collect a bunch of stuff. And then you'd run it through there and she mispronounces things. That's why it said paronikia.

Because I had to do that phonetically because if I put it in there as the correct spelling, she said paronica or something like that. But the reason I bring it up is there are a couple of gems nestled in there. There's a couple of Dr. Chip

Chipperson ones. There's a rich boss one that if you hit it, it will make you laugh out loud. And then there's just a bunch of fletus and colon and how long is your colon? How many turds do you make in a year? I was just wondering how much time goes away from our family doing things like this. Oh, don't worry about it. I do this stuff after you go to bed.

Just wondering. Miss, I go to bed at 9.30 every day. She's retired. Give her a break, man. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, none. Zero. The answer is 0.0. Okay.

Okay, Jesus, we're... I got you, taste, don't worry. All right, what does that mean? Well, you got her for what? She's retired. She's retired. Oh, you got her back. I got her back. All right, do you want to do some questions?

Yeah, let's do. All right. Oh, wait, I sent you one that we had to do this week, and it was about an acupuncture needle. Do you have that? No, I've got that. You have that one? Okay. Cool, cool, cool.

All right, let's do that one. All right. I'll go ahead and get this disclaimer out of the way. Number one thing. Don't take advice. from some asshole on the radio. Thank you, Ronnie B. Go ahead and taste. Chinese doctors retrieved three-inch acupuncture needle that 11-year-old boy inserted into his penis

because he was bored. He inserted it to see if it was possible and because he was bored. Yes, it is possible. Don't do it. Just because it's possible, don't do it. He pushed the needle into his urethra himself and was unable to urinate. I'd say. They removed the object during a non-invasive surgery using an endoscope. Yeah.

So the endoscopes, a lot of them, particularly the ones that they'll go to get stones with, will have little pincher things. Yeah, it was like a little claw. So they would have just inserted one of those. I guarantee it didn't go too far up. No. It wasn't floating around in his bladder. It was probably still stuck in his ureuth around.

Well, it was pushed up into his bladder tube. I don't know what that means. Yeah. It was an eight centimeter needle. So eight centimeter, okay, so an inch is 2.5 centimeters. So two inches would be five. So it was about three inches, right? 7.5 would be three inches.

That's pretty good size needle. Yeah. So what do you think? Okay, go ahead. Also. Do you think that made the pain in his knee feel better, Scott? Took his mind off of it. I would think so.

And then last year, a 10-year-old boy with the, sewing needle the same length as a twix he had to have to make a food analogy I don't know had to have it removed through his penis after it got stuck in his urethro yeah guys this is called urethral sounding and it's

people why is it sounding well when you when you have a rope with a bunch of knots on it and you lower it from your boat to see how deep the water is that's called sounding it's a nautical term And that's really what they're doing is, you know, when we used to do urethral sounding, they would take a, you know, it looks like a nail, big long, you know, rod, and with markings on it. And you can see how deep, you know, how deep the urethra was or whatever. And that would be called urethral sounding.

And there are medical reasons for doing that, not just curiosity. but so anything kind of you put in there is called urethral sounding so now it's you know just urethral manipulation but Scott what do you think about acupuncturing the urethra is that something you guys commonly do that's a terrible idea yeah it's terrible no the hope the hope is he put it in with a sharp end first out oh first no because the back in it's got to got the um it's got like a little metal wrap on it make a lot easier to grab with the claws and pull it back out yes yeah yeah Because the other one's slick as a whistle. Because even though they're three inches long, they're still pretty thin.

Yeah. Oh, they're like a little bit thicker in a human hair, right? Yeah, no, that's not something I practice regularly. You don't do urethral. No, sounding. No, I discourage that. And I definitely would not want somebody going to the hospital and telling them I had done that too much. Yeah, and this is one where it's harder to say you sat on it.

Yeah, yeah, no. That'd be an awful accurate or. But you could say... Unfortunate event. You could say, look what that goddamn acupunctrists did to me. A crazy fool. That's right. He told me he's fixing my prox date.

Find one in the phone book and just blame it on that. That's right. That's right. Not a D-O-M, though. Someone that did a two-week course. Terrible idea. It would be more believable. Keep those out of your ether.

Yeah. Okay, thank you. Poor thing. Thank you. That's our PSA for the day. Don't stick acupuncture needles. Up your cock. don't you know what anything I'm I'm not a just say no person I'm for whatever but they

there are things that are made for this but you need to have somebody who knows what they're doing show you how to do it the first time oh yeah well and you shouldn't be 10 no no no no no this is for adults only consenting adults only and be safe out there y'all don't do stuff that's going to hurt you permanently just because there's a hole that mean anything has to be stuck in it that's spoken spoken by it

like a true woman that's bullshit she's right yeah that's it we need to make a coffee mug out of that a tasty quote just because there's a hole

doesn't mean you have to stick something in it she's wise she's a wise she is very wise yeah you know and Doug Doug was just talking about on the chat about prostate issues. You mean in the waiting room?

That's right in the waiting room about prostate issues. I don't mean, that's not ugh for dog. It's just, I call it the waiting room. I guess he goes back in December to see if he has to have the cystoc.

Oh yeah, remind me what's going on with dog. He was just having some trouble with voiding his bladder completely some urgency issues. Yeah. And they're going to do a our favorite procedure. Cisoscope.

Cisoscope. Well, at least they do flexible ones now instead of rigid ones. Speaking of sounding, yeah, yeah, I sounded pretty... I invented cuss words when I had mine. Yeah. Well, I invented hit and run

accidents or, you know, hit and run crimes, apparently. He's the first person. People that don't know what I'm talking about, when I had my cystoscope, I hurt so bad. When I was pulling out, I ran into somebody's car, and I got out and I looked and I didn't see any damage.

I took off, and then somebody wrote down my license plate. And I swear they blamed the other side on me. Well, I didn't hit them that hard. I mean, I just basically tapped them. I got out, I looked, it's like, I don't, there's no damage. I'm just leaving. I've got to get home. And it just, and listen, we don't, Scott and I don't say that to dissuade you from doing it.

If you need to have it done, do it. In the greater scheme of things, it wasn't that bad. Did you guys have the rigid one? No, we had flexible. And it's still hurt like an M ever. Right. But, you know, I'm with Dr. Steve. If I robbed it.

Yeah, if you need it, get it. Yeah. And you're going to be fine. Then you can join our brotherhood of those who survived. Yeah. Like the fellowship in the ring. Oh, Lord. We can ride off to the netherlands with the elves at the end.

You can't torture us. That's right. We've had a cystoscopy. Didn't you say they, they numb it now or something? Yeah, they're doing better now. Okay. So when you have it, Doug, or anyone else that's out there, say, listen, I heard what Dr. Steve said, this putting the numbing stuff on the end of the cystoscope and then jamming it in my urethro.

No, come on. That does nothing. It's just for show. So let's numb it up ahead of time. So what they can do is they can take a syringe with the lydicane gel and just hold it up to the urethro meatus, aka, A, the cockhole, and just sort of fill up your urethra with numbing medicine, let you sit there for five minutes. I've got a better idea.

What? Laughing gas. Why not just a little dose? Just a hand of gas. You know what's crazy about laughing gas? Laughing glass, nitrous oxide. I did it. I've done it twice in my life.

One time when I was having a root canal. It doesn't stop the pain. It just passes the time. And I remember at some point in there, I got the idea that somehow I was married to Janet Jackson when I was on laughing gas. It's the craziest fucking thing.

Don't know where that came from. Maybe they were playing the music in the background or something. I don't know, but that was weird. And then I woke up. And, you know, after all that, they just take it off and go, well, you can go. And it's like, well, can I drive? It's like, yep, you're fine.

And you are. And the second time was when Chanda did plasma-enrich protein and my scalp to see if it would make my hair grow back, which it did. And every time she would stick the needle in my head, it's not that I didn't feel it. It still, I still felt it,

but it was like I saw fireworks go off. Oh, wow. Like the most beautiful fireworks display. Every time she stuck a needle in my scalp and injected plasma in it. And it was very enjoyable. except the pain was there. I just kind of enjoyed it.

So that was, yeah, laughing gas is in. So maybe that would work. Why don't they do that more? Because it would just take it's just a little bit of time. I mean, you just have to get through that one little pinch, as it were. That shit's dirt cheap, too. And Tacey's dentist charges $100 for like $100. $10 minutes for doing laughing gas.

We just go to a dead show and you can just pick up a couple balloons. Can you really? Oh, yeah. What? piece of cake. Let's take it back to your office. Just tell her I brought my own. I brought my own.

I brought my own. I'm not paying your hundred bucks, bitch. We'll take her over there. It would work. Oh my gosh. All right. I think she listens. It's all right.

My teeth look perfect. Perfect. All right. Now what were we doing? Oh, okay. So, yes. So is cystoscopy? So we want to hear how that goes

And just let us know But yeah The cystoscopy itself We talk about it I mean it's a radio show We got to talk it up a little bit But it did suck But it's not

It wasn't the worst thing in the world All right The Omicron booster Kicked my ass Yeah how'd you feel? Felt like shit I didn't feel good the next day Huh

How many days Two days Worse than Tasey felt bad for one day I felt bad for two Worse than a shingles vaccine No No, not even close.

Okay. No, the shingricks. Chingrits wore you out. War me out, but better than having shingles in my eye. Yeah. And when I did end up getting shingles, because I'm fucking stressed out, and I got it anyway, it lasted literally a day. And that is unheard of in shingles world. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So, anyway. Shingles suck. Shingles, yeah, Tasey actually had shingles. When do you get? get your shingles vaccine. Oh, God. Why do you have to ask me that?

Hang on. Schingrich's schedule. I don't want to say it wrong. That's why. No, you asked an excellent question. I should know the answer to this. 50 years and older should get two doses of shingricks separated by two to six months. Now, if you have a weakened immune system because of disease or therapy, you should get it after age 19.

So do both vaccines kick up? about or just one? Oh, you mean both doses? Yes. If I remember correctly, the first one was worse for me than the second one. As a matter of fact, I think I sailed through the second one. Yeah, I don't remember you complained about the

second of the first one was awful. Yeah. Did you have it? No. No? Not yet. Okay. You're not 50, right? Barely. How old are you? Fifty-four. Oh, you are? So why haven't you had the Schingrichs? Well, Some chicken.

I don't want to feel like You had shingles in your crotch once and like I did, you get it. Yeah, you'd by God get it. That's my birthday present next year. I guarantee it. So have you had your colonoscopy? Oh, yeah.

Okay, that's one. I remember I had that a couple of years ago. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, right, right. Okay, so you've had that. So you've had that. Give yourself a bill.

You have not had your shingric shot, which you should have. What about cardiac? Yeah. cardiac just screening stuff cholesterol oh no I don't have any cholesterol issues when was last time you had your cholesterol checked hmm I have it once a year I do have once a year okay our friend too our friend checks it for us okay all right so you're up to date on your screening stuff the only thing you haven't had is your

shingrichs vaccine I should have it yeah I'm pretty good shape of thing and I try to stay hydrated okay good that's great good for you Yeah, with Coors Light, because that's just for hydration. Exactly. Or tequila, or scotch or whatever. All right. So, yes, age 50 years and older. If you're 50 years or older and you have not got your shingricks,

you should talk to your primary care about it, and you can just go to your pharmacy, most places, and just get it. And then it needs to, so if you get one now, you have to wait at least, two months and then get it before it's been six months and you're good. Okay? Yep. And this one yes, it kicks your ass

but it is worth it because it is much more potent than the old Zostovacs or whatever the hell the old one was. I don't even remember the name of it. And I do have a question from the waiting room. Yep. If you'd like one. Yeah, of course. That's why we are a medical

question and answer. We should probably answer some questions at some point. Clinton. Clinton wants to what would cause higher than normal systolic blood pressure. His diastolic is usually normal, but he said his blood pressure runs 140 over 80.

Yeah. Well, he has systolic hypertension. Yeah, but he's just asking why systolic versus diastolic. Yeah, got it. Got it. So people are divided on this. It really is a matter of fluid dynamics.

Right. You know, when you have isolated cystolic hypertension, which is what that is. That's when the blood pressure is less than, you know, 80 and the other, on the lower side, and then the upper side is, you know, 1.30 or higher. It is usually caused by several different causes, okay? So how can you make that upper number go up? Okay.

So you basically have this range. And when you do someone's blood pressure, what you're really doing is you're listening to what's the pressure in the arm when you start to hear heart sounds. And what is the pressure in the arm when you stop hearing heart sounds? So that is the range. And so these two things are not really separate numbers. It's just that's how far the range is. And that helps to sort of understand this. So any artery stiffness, so an inability of the arteries to compress will give you a falsely elevated upper number because you can't compress it enough to quench that number.

You go up 140, 160, 180, and because you're basically, you're basically, listening to a lead pipe, it never compresses enough to stop the sound. And so you get, the numbers can go way high. And on those people, if you do an actual arterial pressure where you stick a catheter in their artery and read the pressure directly, their blood pressure could be normal, but they've just got so much calcification in their artery. Now, Clinton is young, so I'm going to assume

that's not what it is. Any kind of overactive thyroid disease hyperthyroidism can cause isolated systolic hypertension blood sugar heart valve disease if you're overweight and they're using too

small of a cuff you'll get an elevated blood pressure as well you need to use the right size cuff and those things all have markers on them to show you if your arm is too big for the cuff that they're using what about diastolic

If your diastolic is high. So usually the way I think about diastolic blood pressure is if you're, you know, so what would increase that range? One of the things would be if you had vasoconstriction. So if the blood vessels are constricted in your, all over your system, you won't be able to decrease that range. you won't have, the lower level will be higher than it should be. Because they're supposed to relax to a certain degree. That's right. So it's kind of hard to answer in those terms.

Let's go back to our old thing that we've talked about on this show before. What's a good model of the circulatory system? And a decent model would be if you have a water pump and you hook the hose up to the output. And then you take that hose and you turn around and you hook it. back to the input and then you charge the whole thing with water and you turn it on so that the pump is pumping water through it goes through the pump the shit goes through the hose and comes back back to the pump through that same hose okay so it's just a one circuit goes around and somewhere in there you puncture the hose and you put a pressure valve and then you play with it okay so what would

make the pressure go up well if you had if you made the caliber of the hose smaller distal to the gauge okay in other words on the other side of the gauge

let's say the gauge is close to the pump and then you start squeezing or you just make the hose a smaller caliber that's going to create back pressure right and the resistance to flow will go up

and therefore the total pressure will go up. They can see those little gauges on those pumps just start to elevate. It'll elevate. Which one's worse? Are they both just bad? Yeah, it's an excellent question. So the way that they define hypertension is by

looking at both the systolic and the diastolic because again, it's a range. Not two separate things. It's just a top and bottom of the range of how how much pressure is required to basically, again, quench that sound in your arm. I mean, that's really what we're looking at. It's engaged in millimeters of mercury.

It's all very sort of indirect. So normal blood pressure, the top number is less than 120, but the bottom pressure needs to be below 80. and they both have to be below 120 and below 80 respectively together or it's not normal. So elevated would be a top number of 120 to 129 and a diastolic or lower still less than 80. So you can have a little bit of elevation of the systolic but you still have to have a normal diastolic or lower number to be called elevated. And then now it's classified as hypertension if your top number is 130 to 139 or the bottom number is 80 to 89 or both.

If either one of those is true, it's considered stage one hypertension. And then stage two hypertension is when the top number, the systolic is greater than 140 and the diastolic is greater than 90, but it could be either one. So really, you know, having any level of hypertension but you at risk for heart disease and stroke, so it's like saying, well, you know, which alcohol is better to drink vodka or wine, you know, it's... Well, wine. Obviously vodka, the right.

So what if you're running, say, 122, 123. usually with 80 or what if you're running 120 versus 82 83 is that enough to be concerned concerned yes so what remember your heart beats 72 times a minute 60 minutes an hour you know 12 hour or 24 hours a day 360 for years and years and years. So what you're talking about is a little bit of chinks in the armor being taken out every time

and just a little bit of damage it all piles up, these sort of microaggressions on your cardiovascular system. So, yes, if you're running, if you're elevated, it bears lifestyle changes. If it's hypertension,

you can sometimes convince your primary care to say, listen, give me six months to lose some weight and exercise and get my, diet right, and let me see if it comes back down, but they're going to want to treat you. So because I'm retired, I take my blood pressure like 10 or 11 times a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sometimes it's high and then sometimes it's really low.

So is it an average throughout the day? Yeah, pretty much. So I should be averaging it instead of just taking it and freaking out because it's a little high and then I'll take it 10 minutes later and it's a little low. If it's 10 minutes later, then that also calls into question. question which one of those is more accurate. So if it's more off and low and just occasionally elevated, it's one of those things that you can just, most of the time you can monitor that.

We have some patients come in and they have a thing called white coat hypertension. When they come in, there are 180 over 110 and they're freaking out and the, you know, the office is freaking out and they go, no, no, no, I just have isolated white coat hypertension, and it's hard for clinicians to just believe them when they say that because you don't want to send somebody home who may be the reason that they're saying that they have white coat of hypertension because they don't want to take the medication because they heard bad things about it. And by the way, most of the medication now are pretty well tolerated.

So what we can do for those people is send them home with an ambulatory blood pressure monitor. And the ambulance sounds like fun to me. It's not bad. I would have fun with that. Oh, yeah, it is fun. And you walk around for 24 hours with this ambulatory blood pressure monitor and it'll take your blood pressure every X number of minutes and that you can prove if someone has a white coat hypertension by watching their blood pressure go down when they leave and stay down until they come back to get the thing taken off and then goes back up again. So I'm looking at a reasonably new article. in clinical cardiology

about isolated diastolic hypertension. In other words, people who have a normal upper number, but an elevated lower number. Okay. And so these are findings from this thing called the Stanislaus cohort. And this was a cross-sectional analysis

of 1,600 people, which was a large longitudinal study from Eastern France. And what they found was isolated diastolic hypertension was not significantly associated with target organ damage. So they said further studies were needed to clarify the clinical role of this. So they may take data like this and go, okay, we're going to change the definition of hypertension

again because they've changed it a thousand times. When I was in training, it was anything greater than 140 over 90 was hypertension. And we didn't really make a lot of distinctions. you made a distinction if someone had end-organ damage when they came in, that was a hypertensive emergency, if they had dizziness or altered mental status, that kind of stuff. But other than that, we didn't make a huge distinction between hypertension, and now there's all these.

Then there were four stages. Now they brought it back down to two stages. I mean, this shit goes through these consensus panels, and they keep changing it. So this study here may actually change the definition of, hypertension if they decide to take off the ore a diastolic greater than 89 or whatever

so we'll see so hell they don't know so how the fuck am I supposed to know okay got it you know what I mean all right all right anything else yeah let lead shoe Joe oh yeah lead shoe Joe oh let's you

he was old blues blues uh guitarist he sounds like it he uh he was that last little part this question was, does weather affect your blood pressure or just your, just your perception of the blood pressure, or perception of pressure? Well, isn't that interesting. Does weather affect, I would say yes on the front end, at least if you're in a new weather environment, you know, if you're in the middle of a hurricane, I would say your blood pressure

is going to go up. Yeah, but that's caused by circumstance. Yeah, well. Okay, I'm looking here, a blood pressure is generally higher in the winter and lower in the summer because temperatures can cause blood vessels to temporarily narrow. Okay, I'll give you one. Give yourself a deal.

That's what you were thinking of, then, yeah. I don't think, like, Tacey's mom says, well, hell, there's a storm coming, you know, because her knees are a pain in her. Now, I've heard that enough to say that there might be some validity to that. Oh, there's 100% validity. But I've also, okay, but I've also found out

that whatever Joanne says is incorrect. So 100% of the time. 100% yeah. No one, no. No, my knees will tell, both of my knees will tell you it's about to get stormier. I wonder if anybody's ever done a study. Barometric pressure changes on for arthritis. Joint pain and barometric pressure.

Let's just by God see here. I can tell you from experience. Let's see. Changes in barometric pressure may make your tendons, muscles, and any scar tissue expand and contract. And that can create pain and joints affected by arthritis. Right, is okay. There you go. That's from WebMD.

So what I'm looking for is an actual study, and I can't find one. So that's something. Let's put that down for next time. Sounds good to me. And we'll see. I mean, I hear it all the time. So I believe that there is at least some sort of gestalt consensus that it's true. I would like to know, because people also believe that there's more deliveries

in the labor room during a full moon or more admissions for mental illness when there's a full moon. Or just crazy shit in general in offices. Right. And there have been studies that have shown that there is no correlation whatsoever. Oh, come on. That can be true. Yeah, for real. I know.

It's got to be true. No, it doesn't have to be true. It has to. Data, because we think that it's true, doesn't make it true. The data is pretty robust on that one. Yeah, that's cool. Pretty interesting. That is interesting.

Because I would have sworn that there was some correlation as well. But, yeah, zero correlation. All right. Let's take some, you want to take a question? Let's take a question, yeah. All right. Oh, here's one right down our alley. Of course.

Penes question. No, better than that. Hey, Dr. Steve, this is Dave. As I'm getting older, I don't. don't normally eat breakfast, but when I go out and have breakfast Saturday mornings, I'll have something greasy like fried eggs, sausage, and hash browns. And without a doubt, within 20 minutes, I will have volcanic defecations, and it just completely cleans out my system because then I don't use the toilet again for another three days.

When I was younger, you never used to be a problem, but now it is. Is that a problem? What's going on? Is the old age catching up with me? Is there something I should be concerned about? This sounds like a feature, not a bug. You know, that could be, that's an exploitable thing. Dude, a couple of things.

Well, do you want to, he may have some pancreatic insufficiency is what I'm wondering about. Sounds like a gastrocholic reflex. Well, that is a real thing. So, okay, now we're throwing out a bunch of jargon. We better explain it. So one of the mechanisms that the body uses to absorb fat is when, you eat a lot of fat that the gallbladder contracts and it's supposed to put bile into the small intestine. And also the pancreas will inject enzymes into the small intestine that can help to break down fat to make it digestible.

And if you can't do that, what happens is these fat molecules just pass unchanged into the small intestine, which then accelerates because it can't be stopped at that point. Through osmosis, these small molecules will start to draw water in to the lumen of the bowel, and then you basically flush from top to bottom. And, yeah, it cleans you out pretty good. but you get an irritable bowel type situation where you just have voluminous diarrhea, watery diarrhea. And then it stops when all those little solutes or insoluble chunks of partially broken down fat

are finally excreted from the bowel. So it could be that. And the way to know that is if you see fat globules in the water. And I know after you just take a giant water shit, the last thing you want to do is go look at it. But if you see oil floating on the top like you would in your mother's marinera sauce, then, you know, you start seeing those lakes of olive oil and stuff floating to the top. If you see that, that's what it is.

It's fat malabsorption. And that needs to be looked at. So they'll do a 24-hour stool for fat. and see if you need pancreatic enzymes or if there's something going on with your gallbladder, something like that. You know, one of the old adages is, you know, the old joke, you know, the doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Well, don't do that. So if you see this as a problem, stop doing it. Where's the eating, I wonder? Yeah. I don't know. I don't want to say. I have an idea. I know.

So, Scott, what were you going to say? No, that's kind of what I was thinking, too. Just maybe a gallbladder. Getting a little while. Yeah, it could be. Not just absorbing the greasy foods. Maybe it doesn't eat a lot of greasy foods and the body just kind of shits it right out. Or the gastricolic reflex.

You brought that up. That's a reflex when you eat something and these babies have that. Very strong gastricolic reflex. You put food in their stomach they shit to make way for the food that's coming. And sometimes the body will just get conditioned. When you put a bunch of greasy stuff in the stomach, it's like, okay, I got to get cleaned out because we got a big load of hard-to-digest stuff coming. Yeah, yeah.

But he didn't say anything about having pain. No, no, no, no. Okay, good, yeah. No, I think he's just a little metal absorption. Yeah. Well, and he's right. When we get older, it's just harder to do this stuff. Break stuff down like we used to, that's for sure.

Yeah, anyway. So a follow-up question from another person. Hi, Dr. Steve, Dr. Scott. I want to talk about farts. Okay. I come from a long line of farting people. Holly, this question's for you. I've always had, you know, impressive farts, smelly farts.

Excellent. Throughout, you know, a lot of them throughout the day. Nice. The last three years, though, I've been taking like metamusal. Okay. Fiber supplement. And I've noticed a huge decrease. Decrease.

flagellants that I've been producing, both in smell and decibels and the amount throughout the day. But I've always read that taking an increase, having an increase of fiber supplement would make more flatulence. Depends on the fiber. But this seems to be the opposite with me. I've also been eating healthier. So I don't know. Does the fiber supplement have substance? Yeah, but now he's introduced a second variable, so that makes it very difficult to say.

With my decrease in flageolence or my change in diet, maybe you could explain this. It is tough because metamusil is cillium fiber, and it's not the most flatulogenic of the soluble fibers, but it's close. because cillium husk for some people has undigestable, you know, saccharides in it that make, you know, sugar molecules that increase the amount of flatulants that people have. But if you really want to fart your ass off, use something with chicory slash inulin fiber. Chickory and inulin are synonymous. And that stuff, when Opium Anthony, we're going to do. a farting contest, I was going to have everybody take two of those the night before and two of those an hour before the show, and that would guarantee plenty of fun.

And because inulin fiber, it's sold as, I think, benefiber, I'm not sure. I don't want to malign their brand. It's a good fiber. It will dissolve completely in water, so it's completely clear, but it really will cause fletus. And the one that won't is citrus cell. The citrus cell is not digestible by us or by the bacteria, our yeast in our gut, and therefore passes through unchanged. So I can't explain this in him. I think the second variable, the change in diet, may have had more to do with it than the metamusal.

Because normally I would predict someone taking cillium fiber would have an increase in fletus rather than a decrease. So now maybe because he's increasing his fiber. He's passing stool, his transit time. In other words, the time that food is put in the stomach to the time it exits from the anus has decreased. Therefore, stuff isn't hanging around in his gut as long as it used to, giving the bacteria in his gut a longer opportunity to ferment it and create gas. So maybe that's what it is. So if the soluble fiber decreased his transit time, he would have less fletus, because there'd be less bacterial activity

on the undigested food products in his horrible colon. So I'll give myself one of these on that. Give yourself a bill. I think that might be one of this. Exactly. Okay, and before we go, I do want to say,

I don't know if we're coming back to Sirius XM or not. I didn't put this on the Sirius XM show. But if you're listening to this and you like hearing our show on Sirius XM, how about sending them an email? or tweet out to them, and I'll retweet it. Yeah, all four of you. Please do that.

Yeah. But I'll retweet it to Lewis Johnson and them. But Jim McClure is in charge of that. I'm hoping he's just on vacation. Our contract is up very soon. And like Tacey's... It's October, yeah, it is. Yeah, like Tacey said, nothing lasts forever.

I would like to know so we could do like a last show. That would be fun. And I would get a bunch of people to call in and stuff like that. You just hate to just all of a sudden, be on the air anymore. So we'll see. But if we're not, it's been a fun run. It was nice, as I told Carl at the

roast when he said, well, you know, you're the only one of us that's actually a professional broadcaster. I'm not. You know, my inability to cogently describe the difference between systolic and diastolic hypertetic. I thought you did good. You did? Okay. Well, all right. Considering. Well, thank you. Yeah, considering.

but would indicate that I'm not a professional broadcaster. Certainly not the last professional broadcaster, whatever that means. But I do think that it is nice having a show on Sirius XM just so you can say, well, we're not just a bunch of schunks with a podcast like every other 100,000 people out there. But how many years have you done it, Steve? Well, we started in 2005, right? Yep. Is that right?

So Sondfeld didn't last that long. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Well, I mean, Anthony didn't last that long. So, I mean, you know, just it is what it is. If you take the XM years in and also understand that we only did it four times a year in the beginning, and then we were doing it every other week, and then we started doing it weekly, thank you to E. E. Rock for that.

He was the one that got us on weekly. But if you count all of that, then we are the... longest by well even if you don't count that now we're the longest running show on that channel which is crazy the channel hasn't even kept it's night i mean it's just i know it was a good run if it happens it was really good it's nothing to be ashamed of and yeah you should be proud of yourself well we have a good uh a good sizzle reel for when i croak they've got all kinds of crazy shit that they can compile if they even mention that I am dead. They might not mention it.

Probably not. Who's that old codger? Fuck him. That old man that used to come in here. He filled space for an hour. He's boring and unfunny. That's right. Fuck all, you all.

All right. Well, listen, thanks always go to Dr. Scott. And thanks always go to taste. and all the people in the waiting room including, see, I do mine at the end of the show. I don't read all of the names for 10 minutes at the beginning of the show. Bob Bombington and Amanda Davidson

and Richard Kish, Led Shoe Joe. I'm only reading the ones that I can see. I'm sure Sean Pedrick is in there somewhere. Yeah, there he is. Colin Carnes. Yeah, Colin Carnes. And a host of others. Yeah, hang out of.

out with us Wednesdays or Thursdays. Just watch our Twitter feed at Weird Medicine if you'd like to join the waiting room. They have more fun. They're just talking amongst themselves. We're not listening to the show. And I don't blame them. But anyway, thanks to everyone who's made the show happen over the years. Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk channel. SiriusXM. Maybe. Channel 103. I may have to change this script. Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern and on demand, and really at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. Go to our website, 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. See you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.