Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 546 = Smallpox and Edward Phipps

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Dr Steve, Tacie, and Dr Scott discuss: Smallpox and Edward Phipps Mom swipes left: Earwax comparison Dr Steve is grotesque Tacie Time of Topics: giant leg tumor hairy tumor in stomach 25 lb tumor removed from face ovary removed after turning to stone Pinching to stop micturition Vaping, weed, I forget Please visit: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) ed.doctorsteve.com (for your discount on the Phoenix device for erectile dysfunction) simplyherbals.net/cbd-sinus-rinse (the best he's ever made. Seriously.) roadie.doctorsteve.com (the greatest gift for a guitarist or bassist! The robotic tuner!) Also 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, the O&A Troika, Joe DeRosa, Pete Davidson, Geno Bisconte. Stuff you will never hear on the main show ;-) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why did the cat open Pandora's box? Curiosity, and also, it was made of cardboard. What do you give a basketball player who never washes their jersey? A fragrant fowl. Why did the kittens get in trouble during school? school. They were copycats. 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, my esophagus. I've got Ebola, I'm stripping from my nose.

I've got the leprosy of the heart bowel, exacerbating my infertable woes. I want to take my brain out, and plastic with the wave, an ultrasonic, agographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health equivalent to 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. Stey. 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 medicine practitioner gives me street grad with the wacko alternative medicine assholes. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. And we also have my partner

at all things, Tacey. Hello, Tacey. Hello, everybody. Do you have topic time for today? Yes. Oh, thank you. This is a show for people who have never listened to a medical show in the radio and the internet or on the radio or in the internet. Well, is it in the internet or on the internet? I guess it's on 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 347766-4-323. That's 347. Pooh-Hull. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine or at DR Scott WM. Visit our website at Dr.steve.com for podcast, Medical News. news stuff you can buy. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking

it over with your health care provider. Very good. All right. Please don't forget stuff. Dr. Steve.com. Stuff.com for all of your stuff needs. That's a way to sell it. Dr. Stee. And don't forget the Phoenix, the erectile dysfunction device. that I'm doing a clinical trial with an end of one on myself, just for fun. Check it out at ed.d.doctrsteve.com. If you go there, you can get a discount. You can get it for $29 a month.

It is not cheap, but it is acoustic shockwave therapy, just like you would spend thousands and thousands of dollars for at a medical spa, and you'll have some person holding your jungle region that you don't know while it's trying to shrink into your body because you're mortified and instead of doing that

you just do it yourself at home so check out ed. dot doctor steve.com that's echo delta dot dr.steve.com and check out Dr. Scott's website at simply herbals.net that's simply herbals.net

and patreon.com slash weird medicine. Tacey and I do a show on there and then we do a thing called the exam room and I'm getting ready to One of the reasons we had technical problems this week was because I completely redid all of my OBS templates and then realize that the profile and scene collections are two different effing things.

And I did it all on my profile. I did a new profile and I completely destroyed all of our templates and everything. And we were 45 minutes late getting started today because of that. So I learned my lesson, but anyway, I've got brand new scenes for that. I'm going to be able to pull up articles on the Internet and rail about them. And all I'm going to be doing is raising holy hell and getting angry about shitty medical journalism. And I'm starting with that, gosh darn, almost said a very naughty word, Tacey, article about erythritol. That's going to be the first one.

So it'll be on those will actually go. up on our YouTube eventually, but Patreon subscribers will get them a week ahead of time, something like that. Or I'll get a collection of them, and then I'll throw them up on YouTube after a while. So those will be live streams. That'll be fun. It's coming. So check us out, patreon.com

slash weird medicine. And if you want me to say fluid to your mama, go to cameo.com slash weird medicine. It's cheap, fun, and all the proceeds go toward ham radio. And my buddy Dale

and I have we've amassed enough funds now that we're going to set up a moon bounce. I know Tacey thinks it's hilarious. A moon bounce set up where we will be bouncing signals off the moon and talking to people wherever they can see the moon. Oh, go, you know, it's... I mean, no kidding.

It's fun. You guys are shit heads. All right. Well, very good. Don't forget to check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net, simplyherbils.net. And I do want to make a correction. Last time, we talked about monkeypox and smallpox. And we got, and unfortunately, I did not get this person's name, and I apologize, but they're a PhD or an MD or something.

They said on that episode, some of the information you provided about smallpox and cowpox and monkey pox was slightly inaccurate. This person was being very kind. It was completely inaccurate. And so I'm just going to read his words because I talked about, what a, I'm so stupid. And so I knew when I said it that I was saying something idiotic. and the underlying idea was right, but the history of it was completely wrong. I said that Jonas Sock immunized individuals with cowpox to prevent smallpox. And I'm sorry, but...

You see? You see? You see? You're stupid minds. Stupid. Stupid. The correct individual is Edward Jenner. So we've got to give Edward Jenner credit. In 1796, he noticed milkmaids who contracted cowpox didn't get smallpox. So you have the sort of the landed gentry, and they're all getting smallpox and dying from it.

But the people that they send out to work with their cows and get milk and stuff so that they can feed their privileged children who are also getting smallpox weren't getting it. They were basically immune from it. And so he immunized this nine-year-old boy, and we know the kid's name. His name was Edward Phipps. And he inoculated him with lesions from the hand of a milkmaid on day zero and on day 31. Okay. So on day 60, he tried to give this kid smallpox. Oh, for good to say.

Okay, so he challenged the boy with lesions from an individual suffering from smallpox. Now, this was Ballsy A.F. And I'm wondering if poor little Edward Phipps maybe didn't have, you know, rich parents. I don't know. I don't know this. His parents signed a waiver. Let's look him up. Let's look up Edward Phipps and see who this kid was whose parents had the balls to let this Edward Jenner guy give him inoculations a month apart of monkey, or cowpox.

and then give him smallpox. And he observed that Edward Phipps did not develop smallpox and thus was protected based on immunizations with cowpox. So this was the absolutely first intentional vaccine. And the term came from, the term vaccination came from, he says vaca meaning cow. No, I think the virus was vaccinia, which was derived from cow. now I may not make shit I probably said that wrong too so let's see vodka is

vaccination yes yes yes yes vaca yes yes yes yes yes so vaccinia virus it was named from the cow which was a pox virus similar to smallpox but less harmful so there you go okay so yeah so the term vaccination came from vodka meaning cow. In contrast, Sock developed the polio vaccine. Of course. But what Sok did was really cool was he ran the polio vaccine, which was wild type, into what they, we call, non-permissive cell lines. And what this did was generated the first attenuated version of polio virus. And so he created the first live attenuated vaccine. And therefore, that classroom that was in my school when I was in kindergarten with all the kids in the wheelchairs, nobody remembers that anymore, you know, because of Jonah's sock.

So polio sucked. And it was a real thing. And, you know, measles sucked. took out one of my classmates in kindergarten and people who are, you know, fully anti-vaccine do not remember those days because they only remember how things are now, which is we are not ravaged by those illnesses. And I had somebody the other day say to me,

well, there's more people harmed from the vaccine now than there are harmed from measles. It's like, right. Yes. That's correct. That is the sign of a vaccinated society, right? Because we don't have the disease. Well, now it's coming back here and there. It's crazy. But so if you have zero disease and you're vaccinating millions of people, of course, you'll have more harm done by the vaccine. But you still have to look at that risk benefit analysis. One out of a thousand kids with me. measles will die. And show me the statistics on the vaccines, not anymore even close to that. And, I mean, astronomically, vanishingly, small to the point of being close to zero, okay,

statistically. So, yeah, no, it sucks. Tacey and I knew this. We had two kids. We both were like, oh, the vaccine, okay, well, we're going to do it. But we were holding, you know, we were holding our breath when we were. gave our kids vaccines, you know, praying that they weren't in the one in a jillion that had an adverse reaction.

And even when you know the numbers, as intimately as we do, there's still a little bit of temerity there when you go to give your kids shots. And really the worst for us, knock on wood so far, for our kid, is he now has needle phobia because I remember when he was, however, 18 months or something, they held him down and they had three nurses holding him down and two nurses or three were injecting him simultaneously at different sights on his thighs. And he freaked out and now he's afraid of needles.

You know, understandably so. And doesn't remember why, but it's got to be that. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway. All right. So the person that sent me that, I'm sorry I didn't write your name down. I promised I would remember your name and I forgot it and that's on me.

But thank you very much for correcting me on that one. And I give myself a... Man, you are one pathetic loser. That was for me. Now, you guys are going to be competing for bells the rest of the time, but I have negative 10. So it's going to be a while before I'll catch up. You guys want to do the mom swipes question of the week? Sure.

Okay, let's do it. Tacey, you good with it? Yeah. You didn't hear it last week, did you? No, I did not hear. So that podcast that I was on, Mom Swipes Left, they were quite hilarious and really kind of get the show. And I said, just send in whenever you want to. Send us a question and we'll put it on the air and then plug your podcast.

So here it is. It's time for Mom Swipes Left has questions with Jen and Carol. from the mom swipes lip podcast. Dr. Steve, Carol and I have been talking. So we were comparing earwax detail, yeah, as you do. And Carol's earwax is, Carol? It's like a little bit sticky, yellowy, orangey. There's not a lot of it, but...

Okay, I'm already kind of grossed out. Do you, have you ever seen my earwax other than going, ew, you got earwax coming out of your ear? I mean, you and I are... have been married for how long? Oh. I don't think Tacey makes earwax. Matter of fact, I'm not sure Tacey moves her bowels.

I have no evidence that she does. Right? Yeah, we just don't do that kind of thing. No. So this is, you know, they must be really good friends, but Scott and I are very good friends, and we don't, we've never done this. So, and I don't intend to start. It's, you know, it's like a, it's like thick.

Matter of fact, I'm sure what comes out of Tacey's colon is just smells like flowers. I was thinking roses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It probably looks like roses too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably is roses. Tracy shits out roses. Wait, so how do you get it out of your earhole?

I just put some Q-tip in there? You're not supposed to do that. Well, that's what I do. It's orangey yellowy? Yeah. Does it smell? No, I don't, well, I don't smell it. What's it tastes like?

Okay, I'll save it for you next time. Would you? Yeah. Okay. So my earwax has always been sort of off white and flaky. Okay. And I've never had the chunkers that these people are talking about or the chunkers that I see advertised on my Twitter feed. Right.

Well, those are probably over, over exaggerated. But yeah. Fucking gross. What the hell is a flaky. Flaky off white earwax. Oh, no. Are you asking me? Okay.

Won't be able to eat kidney beans for a while. Me? No, I'm asking him. Oh, yeah. So why? Why does my earwax seem so different than other people's? Or are there different kinds of earwax? You're the best.

Thanks, Dr. Steve. Hey, thank you. So, yes, there is a natural variation amongst humans, and we all have different earwax. I, for example, once every three months have to use the murine ear kit. And we'll talk about that in a second, the best way to clear earwax out of your ear because that's the utility of this very important question. But, you know, once every three months I have to do that. And mine's dark and brown and, you know, globby.

And then other people have to sort of flaky earwax as our caller does. So whether that was Jen or Carol, I still haven't figured that out yet. But the ear canal is lined with these hair follicles, right? And it's got those hair follicles and the skin in there has glands that produce oil, just like our regular skin does. But on your skin, if you could prevent that oil from being swept out to the rest of the world, you would have globs of oil on your skin. And when it dried out, it might look something like earwax.

but they're slightly different. The waxy oil that produces in the ear is called serumin. And almost always makes its way to the opening of the ear and then just disappears. You can sneeze. Are you sneezing? I was going to. I'm sorry. I was trying to turn my head away.

That's okay. No, I appreciate that. But you didn't just sneeze right now. Oh, goodness sake. It's a little all over the million-dollar microphone. But so the earwax normally will sort of migrate out to the ear and then just disappear because it's almost microscopic. But if it blocks up, then, or, I mean, builds up,

then it can block the ear canal. And when it does that, really, it's the most common cause of loss of hearing. When I was doing primary care, people would come in and say, I can't hear out of my left ear. First thing you do, you look in there, and there's a big glob of wax, and I'd get old Wandergully over there, who was my nurse, and she'd get this giant silver syringe full of warm water and she'd love to do it and you'd hold an emis basin under your ear

and tip it toward her and then she would run that thing in there one swipe with that thing because it had a really good flow of fluid through it and she knew how to aim it just perfectly so it would go in and glance along the top of the the ear canal, turn around and bounce down along the bottom part, and it would sweep that serumen impaction with it. And she'd get these big globs of things, and that's a very grateful patient, too.

You know, we talk about the grateful patients that come in with an ingrown toenail that leave pain-free, or a thrombose external hemorrhoid, and they leave pain-free, but also those that are coming in feeling like they're going deaf and come out with full auditory acuity, because you cleared out serumen impaction out of their ear are also very grateful patients, you know, where you could do something immediate like that. All right.

So, yeah, that's the thing is just, you're just different. Some people have oily skin. Some people have oily hair. Some people have dry, flyaway hair, you know, and everybody's different. So that's really all that is. And, you know, in some people, these glands produce way more wax than can be removed. and when that happens, then you get this buildup. And so how are you going to deal with that at home?

You can go to your provider. I think we used to charge $100 for that. Well, it's just a regular office visit. Or you could do it at home. So don't use Q-tips when you cram Q-tips in an ear that has a wax impaction in it. All you're going to do is push the wax further into the ear and to make it more compact.

So what I recommend, the cheapest thing to do is get a thing called a murine ear kit and CVS and Walmart and, well, Walgreens and, you know, other places like that sell generic, their house brand versions of these. Basically, what's in there is a little tube of glycerin that has some peroxide in it. Okay. And so you'll lay down and watch Seinfeld, get the bad ear up and put five, six drops in there. Just fill up your ear canal with this glycerin stuff. Well, that's going to do is soften it. Gotcha. And the peroxide will help to lift off some of the surface goo and maybe even work its way around the side of the impaction

and build up a little bit of gas pocket in there to make it easier to dislodge from the wall. And then after about 30 minutes, so episode of Seinfeld, then you get up and run warm water in a sink and plug the sink up. But it needs to be warm, lukewarm, body temperature. And there's a little bulb syringe in there. And now you turn the bad ear down toward the water and you fill up that bulb syringe with fluid, you know, with water. With the fluid. With the, yes, exactly, with fluid. And then you start to syringe water into the ear.

And you want it to be forceful enough that it'll dislodge it, but not so crazy forceful that you're going to hurt yourself. So if you cause pain, you're doing it wrong. And you want to kind of angle it. You put the tip in just inside, just barely inside the earhole. and then angle it sort of toward one of the walls. So you don't want to shoot it straight in. That doesn't do anything.

That just pushes it in. You might angle it in. So again, it glances against one of the walls of the ear canal and then curls back around and sweeps that wax out with it. It's a bank shot. It's a bank shot. Yes. I'll give you a bell.

Well, I guess I'll have to start paying attention now. Shit. Game on. Game on. So, yeah, Tacey. You get nothing. Yes. So, yes, do the bank shot with the fluid,

and then you'll start to see, if you're lucky, you see a nice big bolus of wax come out, and now all of a sudden you're hearing is back to normal again. So I'll do that if I have to go get a physical, because every time I go in, they look in my ears, they've got to get the

curates out and start cleaning my ear out, and it's embarrassing, it's gross. It's just like if you pull down your pants to do a rectal exam and there's just shit all over your ass. Well, that's not quite the same. Well, to me it is. That's a little different. To me, it's very similar.

I mean, you're gross. It's just being gross. That is true. The gross factors. Yeah. Or if they do a prostate exam and fluid comes out the end and they weren't expecting it. Oh, yeah.

It's not good. Not good. That will happen, by the way, and you're not ejaculating when that happens. It is just fluid dynamics that, you know, if you come in with prostate pain and they bend you over and stick their finger up your rear end, you want fluid to come out. But they're supposed to give you a slide or a petri dish or something to collect it so they can look at it under the microscope. Because when you express fluid from the prostate, if you've got an infected prostate, you'll see white blood cells. Otherwise, you shouldn't see any of that.

Right. That's just somewhat of an aside. Yeah, a little bit. Well, okay, but it's still, it's gross. You know, you're looking in your ear and it's full of wax. They've got to dig that out. And then you pull down your pants. If we're going to judge, there's skin marks.

And then they stick their finger in there and then stuff's coming out of the end of your penis, your horrible, horrible flaccid penis. It's horrible. Yes. Too much fluid dog I know What other gross things Could they possibly be

Just belching when they're examining your abdomen Or going Because you're ticklish And they're examining your abdomen I had that happen to me once But I didn't actually make that sound I was making it in my head But I was kind of jerking

Because it's like, dude, I'm ticklish Oh my God And you know you're 67 years old and you're ticklish. Oh, my God. Touch the bottom of my feet either. All right. Where his back?

Where my back, right? Just don't touch him. Yeah. He's gross. All right. Enough. Okay. Hey, Dr. Steve.

This is Ramsey, the pharmacist, who emailed you. Hello? I'm calling to let you know that I don't remember what you were talking about, but it was something regarding waiting at the pharmacy. and what are they doing back there? How long does it take? No, no, no, no. It was, we were talking about insurance.

Yeah, insurance. And, yeah, why the pharmacists don't just pick up the phone and call if something's not covered by insurance. But also, we were talking about how pharmacists like everyone else are fallible, but not to shit on pharmacists, but to say, if pharmacists are fallible, what about the guy making meth? You know, in the, you know, the trailer out in the parking lot. And speaking of people making meth in the trailer of the parking lot, did you know, this is the craziest effing thing? I'm a notary public, right? I got notarized so that I could notarize living wills because we do a lot of, and we don't even call them living wills. Medical advance care plan.

And did you know. So in my research, I was trying to come up with a one-page universal medical advanced care plan that would be accepted in all 50 states because there are some rules. And in my research, what I found was that if I notarize a medical advanced care plan, and if people don't know what I'm talking about, this is just everybody listening to this needs one where it just says if I'm in a coma and I'm never going to wake up and I die, do I want CPR or do I not? And the answer is you do not. But it's up to you, but that's the right answer. No right or wrong answers, but that's the right answer. But anyway, so if I notarize it, it's not good in like 20 states. Bonded and insured notary public, notarizing someone's signature, they will not accept it in Virginia.

But if you get, again, those same two knuckleheads that are out in your parking lot, cooking meth in a trailer, in your parking lot and you go grab them and bring them in to co-sign someone's signature, totally fine. Hmm. Totally fine. That's kind of bizarre, isn't it? It's idiotic. Anyway, okay, so that's kind of what we were talking about.

Anyway, I have some answers for that. Okay. You can give me a call. Okay, I thought she was going to answer it here. Do we want to have her on and ask her questions about stuff? About

pharmacy, the practice of pharmacy, it's not exactly a weird medicine question, but it has come up. We could do that. I mean, we've done, yeah, we've talked about pharmacies before. Yeah, it'd be nice to have a pharmacist on. Yeah. Okay, so we'll do that. Maybe I'll record her off, you know, the show and we'll just, we'll just edit it in, or we could just do it. No, what the hell?

We'll do it live one day. We'll do it live. We'll do it live. We'll do it live. fucking thing sucks. Not you lady pharmacist. Anyway, if you don't know what that is, then sorry.

All right. Okay, here's a good question. So we will do that in the future. I think that's good. What about Tacey's topic, time? That was where I was going next, if that's okay. Cool. Just wondering.

It's Tacey's Time of Topics. A time for. Tacey to discuss topics of the day. Not to be confused with topic time with Harrison Young, which is copyrighted by Harrison Young and Area 58 Public Access. And now, here's Tacey. Hello. Hello. So I have...

So nice to see you. Oh, yes, lovely to see you. I have five very quick topics today. Excellent. Cool. Just very short, brief little stories. This is where you start generating Bell. I'll tell you that.

Damn it. Well, if you did some homework. Well, no, that's true. So in 2012, in Indonesia, a person had a tumor weighing 72.5 kilograms removed from his leg. Surgery lasted more. 72.5 kilograms. Okay. So it's 2.50 pounds or something?

Echo, how many pounds is 72.5 kilograms? 72.5 kilograms is about 160 pounds. Tass close. Dang. Removed from its leg. Surgery lasted more than 10 hours and a crane was needed to lift the tumor away. A crane?

Yes. Yeah, I don't think it was a construction crane. I think it was a surgical crane. Probably like a Hoyer lift or something like that, don't you think? That's a story from the New York Times. Like an engine lift? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

So that is the first one. on his leg. Oh, goodness gracious. How do you carry that around on your leg? I mean, we've had that person, did we have him on the show, or did we just talk about the person that had the, you know,

100-something pounds scrot him? Well, we talked about it. We didn't have them on the show. We didn't have them on the show. No, we did talk about it. We had horse on the show. Horse was the guy that that made a living with people kicking him

in the nuts and doing, you know. and him jumping off of things onto saw horses onto his nuts. Oh, my God, can you imagine? Anyway, okay, well, that was a good one. I don't know how the hell he carried it around. Probably didn't. I wonder if he had a superpower afterward because he had to adjust to that over time.

They always talk about, oh, if you take a calf and you lift it every day, could you as they grew eventually be able to lift a cow because you're lifting it every day? you get a little bit stronger, it gets a little bit heavier. I wonder if he got to where he could walk normally with that thing, and now he could just run like a mile and not stupid anyway. As soon as it started coming out of my mouth, it was like, no, that's stupid, dude.

Okay. You see? You see your stupid mind. Okay, go. So number two. Yes. In 2011, a woman in the U.S. had a four-pound hairball removed from her stomach. Oh, my goodness.

It grew for 20 years. I need stingers for this. And it caused a lot of weight loss. I think God. New York Daily News. I had a friend that was hoping that she would have a 40-pound baby. I was hoping for that, but it turns out it didn't work. No, it doesn't work that way.

All right. That was a good one. That's a very good one. Okay. Topic number three. Wait a minute. Wait, she had a, this is a human being. She had a hairball removed?

I was just thinking, okay, well, she had trichotillomania. She was eating her own hair. There was a syndrome pulling it out of her head called trichotillomania, and those people will pull their own hair out and they will eat it and they get hair balls because hair is undigestable

and if it can't migrate out of the stomach, if you get enough in there, now it just starts to collect more hair balls. It's a beaver dam of hair. Yes, right. I don't want to give you a bell. Come on, dang it. Give myself a bell. Yes.

That's it, baby. Scott is not getting it for medical knowledge. He's just getting it for good analogies. Yes, exactly. All right. In 2011, a 54-year-old man in the... Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. In the... What? Just make it up. Okay.

In the blank. In the blank. Southern part of France. Had an infection caused from a worm living in his eye. The worm had been living in his eye for two years. That's from BBC, so it must be from the UK. Oh, a worm living in someone's ears. I mean, sorry.

I was looking at the picture of the ear that I brought up earlier, and my brain just went into neutral. So worm in eye. Okay, we've got to see what the hell this is. You really don't want that. Eye worms, a result of infestation with a parasitic worm where the larva adult worm itself moves to the eye. eye. Oh, it's Loa Loa as a filarial nematode that causes Loa loa loa filariasis.

Loa actually means wormworm, but it's commonly known as the eye worm as it localizes to the conjunctiva of the eye. Okay, so this lives on the outside of the eye. Was this found on the inside of his eye? Does not say. Wow. Who cares? Who cares? Regardless, it's terrible. It says living in ah for two years. That is gracious. It almost has to be inside. People can get loyasis if they're bitten by deer flies, also called mango or mangrove flies that carry the parasite. You know, another disgusting fly that can kiss my ass is the bot fly.

And it can cause larvae that grow under your skin. And I remember reading a story when I was a kid about this guy that he had this girlfriend and he was in some tropical country and he thought that she was trying to put a curse on him and she gave him a shirt and told him to iron it before he put it on and he didn't and then he got all these weird skin manifestations he thought that she had cursed him and what it really was was it had botfly larva on it I don't even know if this is possible but he wore the shirt and then the larvae you know wound their way into his skin and then started to grow under the skin. And if you want to see something gross, Google image botfly skin larva and watch them popping these things out of people. They're basically maggot-like things that are growing under their skin. And it looks like zits or something or like an abscess and you pop it open and there's a living thing in there.

Oh, that's disgusting. Yeah, botflies can kiss my ass. Okay. Topic number four. Okay. In 2013, a U.S. man had a 25-pound tumor removed from his face. CBS News. Really?

Mm-hmm. So what was the tumor? There's not a lot of detail with these. Nope. So say it again? In 2013. Just because we've got to kill time. I figure if you say it twice.

A U.S. man had a 25-pound tumor removed from his face. CBS News. From face. Wow. Okay. Okay, here's a, I've got a different one. 12-pound tumor swallows a man's face. I don't like that headline.

12-pound tumor explosive growth of blood vessels that blinded him in one eye and invaded his mouth, making it difficult to breathe and nearly impossible to eat. Do this, y'all. When something like that starts up, go see somebody sooner rather than later. Don't wait until it gets so big that you can't breathe and you can't eat and you can't see. Five pound tumor on your face. I have seen people that have ignored little squamous cell cancers on the skin, which those things will continue to grow. And but they start off tiny and you can just cut them off and you're done.

And I've seen people just leave and go, nah, I'm not messing with it. I'm not messing with it. And then all of a sudden it's eating into a blood vessel in their neck or something. And now it becomes critical. and they have to do something or they're going to die. So just if you see something like that, get it looked at. And if they recommend removing it, just fucking do it. Well, I would hope that they would recommend removing it.

No, I'm just saying when you go, well, okay, some people will go and they've got a mole or something, but it's okay. They don't have to remove that. But if you go and they say this needs to be removed, then please have it removed. Yeah. Do what your doctor says. Pay attention. Not always, but yeah, sometimes it's smart to listen to what they say. Topic number five. This is the big one.

That's a good one here. No, this, yeah. No, this is not the one that you told Scott not to do? No. Oh, when are you going to do that one? Next week. Oh, next week. Oh, okay.

Oh, okay. In 2013, a woman in India had her ovary removed after it turned into a stone. That was over 4.25 inches in size. Largest ovarian stone ever removed. Wow. Medical news today. How big was it? 4.25 inches in size.

I'm looking at one here. 42-year-old woman presented with severe abdominal pain. Now, this is from the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Plain abdominal radiography, so just an x-ray, showed well-defined, calcified mass, four by five centimeters located in the pelvis. Physical examination showed a right at nexel mass. So the way you do that is you get the woman in what we call dorsal lithotomy position, in other words, pap smear position, and you put your feet in the stirrups.

You put two fingers in the vagina, and then two, and then your other hand, the non-dominant hand on the outside, and you push up on either side. hoping that you can feel ovaries and fallopian tubes. And while you don't want to be able to feel fallopian tubes, but ovaries and stuff like that. And so when they did that, there was on the right side. So that would be this side. I'm doing it in my head.

There was a mass accompanied by severe pain and tenderness when you lifted it. So when they took the fingers that are in the vagina and pointed them upward and then compressed it between the two hands, one outside and one inside, There was pain, and they could feel this. So they did a CT scan, and they saw 4.5 centimeters, so five centimeters, two inches. So, you know, it's just under two inch by two inch mass with an extensively calcified shell. They did surgery, and they found an enlarged ovoid pale brown ovary, which looked exactly like an ovary made out of stone. Interesting, which kind of was.

Pathologic findings were compatible with benign chocolate cyst. Now, that sounds... Chocolate. That sounds tasty. With an extensive calcification and ossification. In other words, it was calcified and turned into bone, basically. Pelvic pain resolved completely after the surgery. Well, I'd say not exactly completely.

She probably had pain from the surgery, but that particular pain resolved. How about that? That's a good one. I'm going to give you a medium. This counts for two bells. Harken to thine inner voice and give thyself a bell. There you go. Good job, Tase.

Good job, Tase. So that is, that concludes our topic, time of topics. All right, very good. Cool, man. I don't have an outro for them. All right, here's one. Tacey, I'm going to need you to answer this. And I thought I would return the favor and send this one to Mom Swipes left as well.

We'll see. I just looked at the text of this. I did not listen to the. question, but I said this one is a one for the women in our room here. Hi, Dr. Steve. It's Grant, living in Seattle, Washington. Hey, Grant. And I got a question wondering.

I was looking for an answer. Okay. So, you know how some ladies, I don't know. So anyway, one time I heard. this man and this woman talking and what is Grant listening to in the background the hell is that

sounds like some pointer sisters oh I thought it was like a Chinese opera or something let's see man this woman talking and this the lady said that she had to go to the bathroom and the man said

well just pinch that pinch your pinch it and so I was wondering wait pinch what I was curious can Women don't exactly have anything to pinch exactly. I mean, down there and them nether regions is what I mean. There's plenty to pinch.

Women, can ladies, can women, a woman actually literally pinch the vagina to stop from, to stop from peeing, to not from needing their? Okay, so that's an interesting question. but he's only halfway through. Now I'm curious. Where is this going after this? Because that's kind of the question. I urge to go from stop from needing to go to stop from urinating. I mean, can the muscles in it.

Okay, so he's just expanding on this question. Now, there is an incontinence clamp that for men, that is basically a clothes bin, and the urologist will use. use it for men that are just constantly, you know, pissing in their pants, rather than giving them a catheter, you can put this clothespin-like device. It's a urologic incontinence device, and it's soft. Obviously, it's not just made out of wood and, you know, a spring. Does it look like a clamp? No, but it looks like a clamp.

A wooden clamp. Right, right now. It's soft and it's got Velcro. And you can put more and more tension on it until you stop pissing. yourself. But I don't see how, what, Tacey, you take it. I'm as bum-fuzzled as Grant was asking

this question. Okay, so I'm just going to say, let's just say that women, the younger you are, the more you can hold it. I don't think you pinch it. But you can hold it. Now, could you put a finger on the outside and one on the inside, kind of like a

sea clamp? I mean, I've never tried that. Pinch the urethra? There is urethra there. It would be hard to do that and still walk. Okay She probably could She probably could But Yeah, you could get a couple of looks

That's hilarious The older you get No, I can't hold it at all anymore If I think of a toilet And here we go Then I'm going to have to go to the bathroom Yeah Oh so now you got to go

Do you need to go now Because we mentioned it? No, but I mean It's It depends on how how much longer we have in the show. The doctor's DC clamped. Yes.

Yeah, try it. Try it. No, I'm not going to do that. We'll turn our heads and turn the camera off. Can you imagine my God? No, I can. So, um, stop it. Stop.

No, that's for the next thing. No, it's not. You're being an asshole. Oh, gosh. That's for the next thing. I have bronchitis. You remember it? From the first jackass.

I'm not so sure. Every time the guy had hit the golf ball, they would hit the air horn. And then they'd come after him and go, what the fuck are you doing? He says, I have bronchitis. It's the most non-sequent thing I've ever heard. Good movies. Okay, so pinching your vage, probably not. Well, maybe we get somebody.

If somebody's ever done this call, but I think, It's got to be somebody that wears a skirt and they don't wear their underwear. And then they could walk around and... No. Pinch? No. Well, I guess if you had like a food clamp, I guess. And what would you clamp?

Yeah. I mean... Scott doesn't know the anatomy either. It's not my question. No, I know. I know. That was your answer. You ever seen one, Scott?

I'm pretty sure that Dr. Scott's clamping the answer was a food clamp. That's not going to pinch the inside. I'm still trying to get over the one that you're talking about for us, a clamp for the pain. Okay, so just imagine. That just sounds awful. Okay, so you have a plastic sort of tray that is roughly phallic shaped, right? It's scooped out a little bit, and it's got a, and then it's got a soft, spongy thing in there.

And you put that on the underside of the penis. Gotcha. Okay. And then it has a Velcro strap that comes all the way across. the across the shaft not not long ways but you know um and then you would just sort of cinch it down to apply pressure be just like the same thing if you put your hand in your pants and just squeezed and mechanically squeezed you know made there enough resistance to flow that you could not flow that's how that clamp works and the urologists will use it because you know

And nobody, if all your problem is, is that you've got sort of an incontinent sphincter coming from your bladder to the penis, then why do a catheter for that? The catheter's just going to increase the amount of infections that you have. And then the external catheter kind of sucks. You're walking around with a bag full of urine on your leg. This thing, you just clamp it off. And then when you need to piss, you just unclamp it, piss, and then clamp it back on, go on your way. Amazing Now, if you

Yeah Now, having If you're getting ready to have Intercourse with somebody You don't know them real well Yeah, probably go in the bathroom Get rid of that thing before they see it Yeah, so anyway

All right, so here's this That's the next thing Oh my God Oh, it's part of the next Okay, all right All right Here you go Hey, Dr. Steve, this is John from Washington, D.C.

How are you? Good. This is where I'm supposed to say. I'm just pretend we're having a conversation and say, good, thank you. Oh, good, good. I had a couple questions, actually, about weed. I just turned 40 and trying to give my liver a break and also slim down a little bit, so I have kind of cut out alcohol altogether.

Didn't have a problem with it, per se, but, you know, you know, would have at least one drink every night, and I still want my treat at the end of the day, and I just don't like being alone with my own thoughts. So I recently, at 40, decided to start getting more and more into marijuana. And a couple of questions for you about that. First of all, I'm scared of edibles and their unpredictability, so I've been vaping for the most part. I assume there's no free lunch when it comes to any sort of substances. So while I might be giving my liver a break, is there a real risk associated with frequent vaping with weed or anything like that?

And also, I've noticed, shockingly, that when I get high, I get very hungry, the munchies, all that. And sometimes I end up drinking anyway because it lowers my inhibitions. So I'm just kind of curious, what causes the monkeys to begin with? And is there a way to still enjoy weed without getting them? I know some people who do smoke say that they never get the monkeys, even if we do both smoke the same strain. So thanks for your help. Have a good one. Yeah.

Excellent questions. all. And pot is probably the one where if it doesn't, well, okay, if it doesn't act as a gateway drug for you and you're

able to just do it every once in a while like that, there really is kind of a free lunch with that one because there's not really a known thing like a pot hangover. Some people, I guess, have it.

Everybody's different, but for the most part, I mean, the alcohol hangover is kind of universal. Everybody knows what that is. But when it comes to the pot hangover, that's not really a thing. But obviously using street drugs is an issue that we've talked about just because right now a lot of the street pot is being adulterated in some areas of the country because they're trying to compete with dispensaries and all their different kinds. of marijuana varieties that they have and stuff like that. So if you want one that jazz, yep, put a little meth in it. Oh, shit. And so we're seeing people that are only smoking pot that are getting methamphetamine in their

urine drug screens. And same thing, if you want something that's going to make you a little sleepier, instead of actually having indica, you just put fentanyl and whatever you got. So we're having people having that issue as well. So I'm very cautious to say, Well, yeah, just, you know, street. Well, what about the vaping, though? So we're just cutting that out.

And so let's say this person is in a place where they're buying it and it's legal. From a dispensary. Vaping, for the most part, if they are not using things like vitamin E or weird delivery systems. Or weird liquids to give them flavors and stuff, yeah. Right. Then you probably are, you know, it's generally considered mostly safe. because the byproducts of the properly done vape pen are, you know, water vapor and, you know, whatever else they're using polyethylene or ethylene glycol or whatever that are pretty easily cleared from the system. So check with the place, see what they're using, and then look up the ingredients.

And if you want to send them to me, we'll look them up and we'll tell you what the risk of whatever is in your vape pen is. Um, gummies. Yeah, I understand that. It's hard to control. But most people that I know that have done gummies for a long time have figured it out. You know, you take it. Yeah. Okay. Scott's raising his hand. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Okay. I'll be able to help you with that. Okay. Okay. Okay. When you're ready. Just, no, it's fine. What I meant was we're in a state where it's not exactly kosher. So I'm sure that you're just speaking hypothetically. And I've traveled to the states where it is kosher. There you go. Okay. And buying from a, from a legal, legal. old place. But you just figured out. You know how I had a time to take it. And like in Colorado, for instance, the edibles are 10 milligrams apiece. Right. And that's the, well, that's to consider it a normal adult dosage.

Right. And the thing is, the big difference between edibles and the vaping or smoking is the edibles to have a longer onsets. It takes you longer to feel it. Right. And it's where people tend to screw up. They'll eat one, one till a minute. And 30 minutes later, they don't feel anything.

Like, oh, I don't feel anything. I'll have five more. Two or three more. It's like, oh, God. Now, all that's out the window if your buddy brings over a plate of brownies. Right. And he just made his own. You don't know what the hell is in there.

Right. That's how strong they're going to be in. Vaping, you get that immediate effect. Here's the problem I have with cannabis compared to alcohol. If you're just going to have your treat at night, you drink one bourbon at night or whatever. And it's in and out. And, you know, in 20, 30 minutes, within an hour of your

you're legal to drive, all that stuff. Cannabis just hangs around for way longer than that. Can I speak to that, too? Yes, of course. Because you're right. Because speaking, let's speak in terms of insomnia. Specifically insomnia. You're right. Now, insomnia, then it's beneficial. Right, yeah. Because that's what I was going to say.

Because if you drink, you know, a couple drinks tonight to go to sleep, which a lot of people do. Yeah. Your liver metabolize that liquor in the middle of the night. Then you wake up. And then you're, you know, then you're starting. Ruin your sleep cycle anyway. And the thing about the edibles, because they do take longer to kick in, then they last a little bit longer.

Typically at night time, it doesn't have to be just T.C. It can be, you know, a lot of the hemp, the CBDs. Could be CBD and a nasal spray. I wonder where someone would get something like that. Well, that's because you're an idiot. So, but the CBD. Simply herbals.com. Yes, yes.

The CBD, I've had some really good success, too, with, you know, that is legal in the state of Tennessee. Well, it's basically, it's mostly legal everywhere, depending on how it's made. But I have found a little CBD at bedtime really does help me sleep better. Me too. I can tell the difference. And there doesn't seem to be much of a downside for that. As a matter of fact, CBD is indicated for certain maladies, including. refractory seizures in children, so it seems to be pretty safe as far as what we know right now.

Now, continuing, one thing we didn't do is answer his question on the munchies. So there is some science behind this. Tetrahydro-canabinol, which is THC, binds the cannabinoid receptor type 1, so CB1. We'll call it that from now on. And this can promote overeating and weight gain. And it is detrimental to some people, but it's beneficial under certain conditions. As a matter of fact, we use it in a medication called the brand name is maranol. The chemical name is drinabinol, but it's just because they don't want to call it tetrahydro-canabinol.

And we use that for people who have chemotherapy-induced nausean vomiting. wasting diseases like HIV and stuff like that. It works very well. It works exceptionally well, yeah. So, you know, the cannabis binds to these receptors. They're in our brains. It's because we make cannabinoids. So all of these things that stimulate receptors in our brains, like opium or morphine, you know,

stimulate the mu opioid receptor. That's because we make what we call endogenous molecules. In other words, they're made inside our body that stimulate those receptors. And so all we're doing with these plants is just hyper-stimulating those receptors above where we would physiologically, right? Okay, gotcha. So CB1, the receptor is found in a bunch of different places in the brain. One is a place called the basal ganglia. that's where it enhances eating pleasure.

It's also in the limbic forebrain. There's not going to be an exam, so don't worry, but these are different parts of the brain. Where it enhances the taste of food, okay, because there is a place in your brain where taste can be dialed up or dialed back down because, you know, we eat for pleasure, but we also eat to live. And then it's also CB1 is found in the stomach and the small intestine. And Tacey, you'll know this one because you dealt with this in your job. They regulate graylin. You remember what graylin is? Nope.

You don't remember it? Okay. It's an appetite stimulating hormone that speeds digestion. And so it's a target for some of these weight loss drugs, but also for diabetes, some of the diabetes drugs. you know, a future target for that. And then it also, I remember seeing it in some of your materials when you were, when you were training. But that's okay.

She said, F that. And then also in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. And those things, the hypothalamus helps to regulate food intake. So how about how interesting is that? Now, when you activate CB1, there are a known mechanism. by which appetite is increased. It increases your levels of a thing called peptide tyrosine

tyrosine. So PYY, that increases your levels of graylin and that increases your appetite. What about that? That's cool. That's pretty cool. It's science. There's more to it than that,

but those are the big ones. The graylin one is the one I think is the most important. So yeah, so that's how it causes the munchies and not sure exactly what you can do about that. I think I know that if I ate a relatively low-carb, high-protein meal, and then if I happened to, you know, if someone, I don't know, put a gummy in my food

and I took it by accident, then I didn't ever actually get the munchy as if I got it. You know what I'm saying? Because I would never, of course, take that stuff intentionally. But I found that, that the time. When someone whose name rhymes with Flanda might have slipped something into my food that if I had a high protein meal before that, I didn't get the munchies. But if I didn't, I did. So you could try that. Hey, Amanda was just saying on here that in Colorado.

And it wasn't Amanda. No, no, no, no. That also rhymes with flanda. It does, yes. She was saying that, but to your question, because you made one statement, I guess some of the dispensaries do claim that some of the dispensaries do claim that some of the. of their strains do not cause as much of the munchies as other strains. That would be a fun. Okay, they can

make any effing claims they want to and we need data. Prove it. Prove it. And that would be a fun, an absolutely fun clinical trial to carry out. We'd only need like an end of 20 or three. And some

and some free stuff. At least three of us. Yeah. So if any of you dispensaries, want to make claims like that and you want to actually set up clinical trials, I'd be happy to help you do that. I think I'd be fun. I've got a contact in color. The, this cannabis company,

and they want to come on the show, we can talk to them. Okay, and the thing, I would love to do that. Yeah, because they do this. They actually have biochemists that they employ to do all the tests. Well, biochemists can't do clinical trials. No, we can. But we can.

And the thing is, is, I mean, they can participate in them, but they can't run them. Right. Now, if. Yes, we have a plan. if I oh wow yeah I'm just getting a bunch of different ideas but focus Dr. Steve focus focus yeah and if it turns out that it doesn't do what they say you just bury the study that's what everybody else does eat more Doritos lay off all your employees or they lay off all their employees

because their drug didn't meet FDA muster certainly just speaking about something that hypothetical that didn't actually happen to Daisy no all right but yeah I would love to do that okay so you had a question yeah we've got a question from Evan

from the waiting room from the fluid family if you want to join the fluid family in the waiting room just watch for go to our YouTube channel and click you know notification subscribe and notification then when we go live

it'll let you know go ahead So, I am a binge drinker in my early 30s. I've developed a facial twitch. It's on the right side of my face and cheekbone. It's annoying enough to keep me awake sometimes. What causes this? Question mark, exclamation point.

So it's just one side of the face? He said he does get it during the day and at night sometimes. And he said occasionally, here's a little bit disconcerning. He does get a little numbness too. Okay. You guys want to take a crack at it? I think I know what it is. I do not know what it is.

Well, I was going to say I can think of a number of things, but, I mean, there's a name for it. It's called hemifacial spasm. Now, that is not a, it's not a diagnosis in the sense of, you know, it's just a descriptor. Yep, yep. But hemifacial spasm is where the muscles on just one side of your face will spasm involuntarily. It's usually caused by a blood vessel that's touching the facial nerve. Right. okay and so the facial nerve is the one that controls you know facial muscles and if you have a blood vessel that's up against it and it's pulsating every once in a while it will trigger that damn nerve and the whole facial twitch but it'll only be on half of the face yep so that's probably what it is it can be caused by facial nerve injury and sometimes there's just no known cause sometimes pressure yeah yep who would you see for that maybe uh

neurologist to start with and if you if it happens often enough where you can show them hey it just happened that would be great if not if it's happening take a video take a video of yourself and then take that with you or go to your primary care but they were really a neurologist to be the one that would deal with this i was just wondering too possibly because i mean i was thinking facial nerve stuff too but i mean possibly maybe since he has a binge drinker maybe because he's already said he's going to stop drinking possibly a mineral deficiency calcium deficient potassium, possibly, I don't know. It could be magnesium.

Magnesium, possibly, yeah. Maybe. But I wouldn't take a multivitamin, but I wouldn't take a multivitamin and go, oh, I can keep drinking. No, no, no, no, no. No, he clearly said he was going to stop. But I think that I think that having someone look at it just in case to roll out anything kind of goofy would be a really good idea.

I think so. Yeah. Start with the primary care, Doc. One in six adults binge drink. So you're not alone. No. You know, 25% of those do that at least weekly and it's just

one pattern of excessive drinking but it accounts for nearly all excessive drinking so you know because people on the weekend and then they just start you know knocking them back

you know more common between adults age 18 to 34 more common amongst men than women and it's more common among adults who have higher household income. That kind of makes sense if you got a job and you're holding down a job and then you get off and it's like high pressure and you start slamming from Friday to Monday afternoon.

And so there are some risks. And I'm just going to throw this out here just to help him. Unintended pregnancy is one. And I know we're laughing because he's a dude, but, you know, it's still unintended pregnancy and poor pregnancy outcomes. now sudden infant death syndrome why I don't know why I'm assuming that's due to parental neglect I don't know I'm just now this I'm getting off the CDC so you know chronic disease but the big ones chronic diseases such as high blood pressure stroke heart attack hurt disease and liver disease and certain cancers are associated with binge drinking and memory and learning problems so you know Let's, let's, yeah, if you're binge drinking, let's get off that. If you need help, seek help. We can help a little bit, but we can point you in the right direction.

Go to a meeting. I'll tell you what, I haven't had a drop in, I just quit drinking for the hell of it. And because one day I just woke up, I said, this shit didn't help doing it. It's not doing anything for me. So I've been drinking kombucha instead. And that, for me, I just need it. It turned out I just needed something at night that I could drink that I enjoyed. And I just kind of like the taste of it.

So now we're going on vacation. I might drink. I might not. I'm starting to think I might not. Well? That's totally up to you. That'd be okay. I know.

Yeah. That's the thing. You know, I'm not sober because I was never not sober. But I'm just, yeah, I'm not drinking right now. I went through a period of a couple, two or three years in my past where I just, you know, drink. Then you met me. Oh, I met Tacey. That's what did it.

Good, thank you. That was my fault. No, no, no, no. No, no. I was totally it wasn't Tacey's fault. It was just, well, I mean, it was. It was. But I'm just saying. We would never say it to her. It was my choice. But, yeah, I didn't drink for like two or three years

before she and I met. And then I wanted to be cool because she was younger than me. And, you know, that's one way to be cool is to drink man. I was so stupid. But anyway, yeah. And then, yeah, so I'm just in that phase again.

I can come and go. Anyway. All right. All right. Good luck with that. Who was that? That was Evan. Evan.

Okay, Evan, if you need any, if we can help you with that part of it, absolutely email us, and you can just go to Dr.steve.com and click contact. Or, you know, go to a meeting. If you, you know, if it's something that you're having difficulty doing on your own, and you can do it. You know, the thing is, is it really, if you're binge drinking, you're binge drinking on the weekends, just don't, you know, you're not drinking during the week.

It's just habit at this point. I mean, I make it sound easier than it is, but we would be happy to help point you in the right direction. All right? Well, listen, thanks to everyone who's made this show happen over the years and listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk channel, CIRSXM Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern on demand. Other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy.

And go to our website at Dr. Steve.com for schedules, podcasts, and other crap. And Holly, we'll be seeing you in one week. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps. Quit smoking, get off your asses and get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Goodbye, everyone. See you guys. Thank you.