Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 581 - Hyperkinetic Gallbladder

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Dr Steve, Dr Scott and Tacie discuss: Artificial Placenta Alzheimer breakthrough Pen15 health THC accumulation (?) Nutritional supplements biliary trouble fertility after vasectomy tramadol and drug testing Please visit: simplyherbals.net/cbd-sinus-rinse (the best he's ever made. Seriously.) RIGHT NOW GET A NEW DISCOUNT ON THE ROADIE 3 ROBOTIC TUNER! roadie.doctorsteve.com (the greatest gift for a guitarist or bassist! The robotic tuner!) see it here: stuff.doctorsteve.com/#roadie Also don't forget: Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now because he's cheap! "FLUID!") shoutout1.com/weirdmedicine (either one works!) Keep Dr Steve in Ham Radio! Send a TIP here! Most importantly! CHECK US OUT ON PATREON!  ALL NEW CONTENT! Robert Kelly, Mark Normand, Jim Norton, Gregg Hughes, Anthony Cumia, Joe DeRosa, Pete Davidson, Geno Bisconte, Cassie Black ("Safe Slut"). Stuff you will never hear on the main show ;-) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt, and anything that might not misbecome the mighty sender, does he prize you, aren't? Your show was better when you had medical questions. Hey! Can you please stop bullshitting and get to the question? If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of Weird Medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows, O'Bee and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was

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There were, yeah, well, some news stories this week that are a deal and one of those is extra uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb. And that doesn't sound like much until you translate into English. This is artificial placenta. Oh, wow. Now, we've talked about this quite a bit on this show.

Way long time ago when I was talking about my time in the neonatal ICU, where, you know, we called it baby head. where the premature babies are. And they're not, when they're 23 to 26 weeks, their lungs really not made to work with environmental oxygen. Okay. And their lungs are teeny tiny, plus they're stiff. So you end up pushing through a ventilator. You know, you have to intubate them. Okay.

And you're pushing oxygen at a higher concentration. then it really, they can handle, but you've got to get enough oxygen in there so they'll be transmitted into the bloodstream through the lungs. And then they can have problems with their eyes and all kinds of stuff. And all these parts are not main to be out in the real world. And even then I was saying, you know, what we really need is an artificial placenta

where you could just take the kid and hook it up. There's the umbilical cord has two arteries and a vein and it shares blood with the or gets its blood from the placenta, which shares blood from the mother. And there's some things that don't cross the placental barrier or some things that do. That doesn't matter. That gets way too far into the weeds. But there are two arteries and a vein in that thing. be cool if you could just hook those up to like a dialysis machine sort of thing or something

that would just supply blood and nutrients and oxygen to the kid. And then they would, you know, create their own amniotic fluid. Do you know what amniotic fluid actually is, Dr. Scott? I mean, it's baby piss. As a most of, yeah. Yeah. So as the, as the blood courses into the baby from. the placenta, nutrients and stuff are transmitted from the mother into the baby, and then

its kidneys are functioning. So, you know, they just produce urine, and that's what basically is what amniotic fluid is. So the thing is floating in their own urine, but it's hyper-filtrated. It's, you know, it's not like piss. Yeah, yeah. And they, also, if you have a kid that's got a blockage, in their urethra, they'll get kidney failure in utero, and they'll have what's called oligohydramneos, which means not enough amniotic fluid, because they're not, the kid is the one that produces the

amniotic fluid for the most part. Well, anyway, so if you could do that, it would be awesome. You would take a kid and you'd put them in a vat of saline, hook these things up, and just let them go, and just adjust. And, you know, why don't we have that? Well, it's because it's very complicated. Well, here we go. So this is from nature, not just some shite journal.

This is the real journal Nature Communications. And here's the abstract. In the developed world, extreme prematurity is the leading cause of neonatal mortality. Yes, extreme prematurity babies that come out too soon, or, you know, sooner than they are viable. that there's, you know, the high mortality rate for those, even with our technology today. And morbidity, as we've already alluded to, lung problems, you know, retinal problems, et cetera, et cetera, due to a combination of organ immaturity and iatrogenic injury. Iatrogenic injury means we injured them.

Physician induced or medicine induced? Medicine induced. Medical system induced injury. And again, that comes from requiring oxygen. and at higher levels than the baby's able to handle and, you know, other things like that. Until now, efforts to extend gestation using extracorporeal systems, in other words, efforts to extend the time in the womb, but not really in the womb, using extracorporeal systems, in other words, outside of the body systems, have achieved limited success. So they've been trying to doing research on the artificial placenta for a long. time. Here we report a development

of a system that incorporates a pumpless oxygenator circuit connected to the fetus of a lamb via their umbilical cord interface that is maintained with a closed amniotic fluid circuit that closely reproduces the environment of the womb.

We show that fetal lambs that are developmentally equivalent to the extreme premature human infant can be physiological supported in this extra uterine device for up to four weeks, which may be time enough to get the kid. And, you know, down the road, they'll be keeping kids till term. Sure. You'll get them out as soon as you can, so they'll bring them up to 32 weeks and then be done.

Lambs on support maintain stable hemodynamics. In other words, their blood pressure and all, you know, their vital signs are normal, have normal blood gas. In other words, they're getting enough oxygen and oxygenation parameters and maintain patency of the fetal circulation because that's a problem. What you don't want, patency means it stays open. So what you don't want is hooking them up to something and now they're getting blood clots everywhere and they're throwing clots here and there. That was the problem with the first artificial hurts is they would make blood clots. They would pump blood around, but they'd get blood clots in there and then you get a stroke. So you don't want to bring these kids to.

to full term and then just have them be stroking out all the time. So a lot of challenges. And you don't want this bag of fluid to get infected either, so you have to make sure that they're going to have protocols for all this stuff. If they start detecting bacteria in the fluid, how do you treat that? Can you just dump antibiotics into the fluid or do you have to flush it out and start over? What do you have to do?

With appropriate nutritional support, lambs on the system demonstrate normal, somatic growth. Somatic meaning body growth. So normal body growth. Lung maturation is normal and brain growth. And myelination, in other words, the formation of their central nervous system. So I'm going to give these guys. Now, the reason I bring this up, FDA just approved, or well, sorry, the FDA is considering

allowing human trials. So we're close. We're very close. If this works as well in the human trials as it did in these lamb trials, I predict within five years, and I'm being conservative on that, that we will have artificial placentas in neonatal ICUs. Now, they were calling it artificial uterus in the news article that I read, which brought me to the original article.

Always go to the original article. And these news articles, if they don't cite their source, just skip on by until you find one that does. Because you've got to go to the original thing. This isn't an artificial uterus. The uterus is the thing that encloses the baby. And, you know, yes, the placenta interfaces with the uterus. But this is an artificial placenta. This is a much bigger deal.

Right. So anyway. And if you look at the pictures of them, it just looks like this thing. is in a big sort of trash bag. Wow. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, I imagined it being a little different.

I imagined a big glass, sort of, you know, a glass jar that you dumped the kid. With babies floating in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sort of like Brave New World. You know, if you remember Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's book. Oh, my goodness. There was asexual reproduction of everybody. How boring. Yep.

Yeah, very boring. Intercourse bad. So, my God. good, though. Remember the drug? Soma good. Yes, soma very good. Now, there is a drug on the market called soma. Yes. And they took it from that. Well, they also took it from body. It's a muscle relaxer. My practice is now 100% soma free. The drug is called Carissa Prodol. And

Carissa Prodol is metabolized into either the actual drug or an analog of a drug called Miltdown, which was MeproBamate. One of the most addictive tranquilizers ever made. You think Xanax's habit forming. This stuff was the real thing. Really? And when they sold it to us, you know, so what happened was they take meltdown off the market, right? And they go, well, we've got this drug.

Well, we've got a pro drug. Just repackage it. Yeah. This drug, when it's metabolized, we still have the patent on it. Let's just sell it. So when it's metabolized, it was metabolized into that drug, but it's not the drug, right? So they sold it to us in the 80s as a non-addictive muscle relaxer. We wrote the shit out of this stuff until all of a sudden you started getting phone calls from people.

I need an early refill on my somas. I need this and that. And we were like, okay, well, you know what? We're not going to write anymore. And then you were getting irate phone calls. And people were going through withdrawal. So anyway. I've not seen soma the drug like on anybody.

Well, Soma's a brand name, so we don't – I don't want to trash the brand, but, you know, Carissa ProDol, the drug, is not written much anymore. Yeah, I've not seen it. But it took a long time for me to have a completely Carissa Prudol-free practice. So if we get a cease and desist, I'll deal with it. But anyway, I don't think they can argue with much of what we said. No. So, anyway, all right, Tacey, you got some topic time, I understand. I sure do.

Okay, let's do it. Uh-oh. 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, everyone. Hello.

I have two topics today. One is quite serious. The other one is quite not serious. But since it's most of the time. I'm going to argue about the second one because I know what it is. I think it is the most serious. I know. I was going there since most of our listeners are men.

I think it's going to be quite interesting. It's actually really, it's like if you don't know this, then you don't deserve to have a penis. But anyway, that's the second topic. Okay, fair. So the first topic is a breakthrough in treating Alzheimer's using targeted drug delivery reported in New England Journal of medicine. And it happened at West Virginia University. Okay.

And it's a potential advancement in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, and it was announced today on January 3rd by researchers at West Virginia University. And first inhuman study featured in the latest issue of New England Journal and Medicine. First inhuman study? Yes. Oh. Demonstrates that focused ultrasound in combination with anti-ameloid beta monotermin. monoclonal antibody treatment can accelerate the clearance of amyloid beta plaques in the

brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Okay. Wow. Okay. So does that result in their syndrome getting better? Is this like a flowers for algernon situation in reverse? You're asking me on paragraph one. We got two more pages, don't we?

Anti-emaloid beta monoclonal antibody therapies such as. Okay, aducamob, lichenabab, lachanamab, and domina, do know. You can just say monoclonal antibody cocktail. Okay, can reduce amyloid beta plaques and slow the progression of Alzheimer's. Until now, these promising antibody therapies had limiting research, limiting limitations in reaching the brain due to the blood brain barrier, which you talked about earlier. Correct. And protective barrier between blood vessels and the brain that blocks harmful substances. substances from getting into the brain, but also limits the access of therapeutics.

More than 98% of drugs do not readily cross the blood blame. They just call it the BBB here, so I'm going with that. Triple B. Thus requiring systemic treatments with higher doses and more frequent therapies. So, the scientists used a focused ultrasound system developed by in SOTEC to safely and temporarily open the BBB to allow the anti-ameloid beta antibodies. That's interesting. Increased access to targeted areas of the brain.

So instead of changing the molecule to allow it to cross the blood brain barrier, they actually open up the blood brain barrier. They opened it up. That is, I have some concerns about that. That could be really dangerous. The focused ultrasound system. If it's really temporary, maybe it be okay. MRI-guided treatment helmet holds more than a thousand ultrasound transducer.

which were directed to specific brain regions with high amyloid beta plaques. In this first inhuman proof-of-concept study, three patients, with mild Alzheimer's disease, received six standard monthly infusions of the aducanumab antibody, immediately followed by... Aducanamab, you said it right. Aducanamap. Followed by the mediated BBB opening in regions with high amyloid beta plaques. The results demonstrated the safety of the surprise.

an increased reduction of amyloid beta plex measured by PET scans. After six months of antibody treatment, we observed an average of 32% more reduction in amyloid beta plaques. Can you please stop bullshitting and get to the question? In brain areas with blood-brain barrier opening compared to areas with no such opening. Focused ultrasound is a non-invasive outpatient procedure for BBB opening with great promise for improving drug delivery to the brain. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, there's lots of drugs that we can't use because they don't cross the blood brain barrier. But there's sometimes we use that to our benefit.

As I'll say, that can be really beneficial. For example, and I hate to interrupt days, but if you have an opioid, for example, and it causes constipation, you can add a methyl group to now. naltrexone, which naltrexone is a drug that will reverse the activity of opioid. So if you got someone that's overdosing, you could give them naltrexone. The IV version is naloxone, and it will reverse the activity, and they'll wake them up and actually kick them into withdrawal if they're chronic user. But if you add a methyl group to it, which is just a carbon and three hydrogens, now it can't cross the blood-brain barrier. So you could use that to counteract all the other effects that opioids create that are not, you know, pain relieving and, you know, other, you know, the beneficial effects of opioids. So constipation is a good example of that.

Someone has constipated and you give them methyl naltrexone. They'll actually start pooping because it will block the activity of the opioid at the level of, the bowel but won't cross the blood brain barrier, so they'll still have pain relief. Now, in that person, if they did this thing that Tasey's talking about, all of a sudden, the methyl naltrexone would block the central activity as well, and then they would be miserable. So you're going to have to be careful doing this, but I'm assuming this is going to be a procedure where you go in and they give you the drug to open up the blood-brain barrier, then they give you the infusion of the antibodies and then get out.

Anyway, go ahead. phase of the clinical trial will begin this year to explore how to further accelerate amyloid beta removal in a shorter time with focused ultrasound in combination with lakanamab antibody. Really interesting. So it's the actual ultrasound that's opening up the blood brain barrier? I mean, I don't know. So anyway. Yeah, that's interesting. Because it would probably be, then it would, you'd think it'd be more much of different. And then it goes away. Yeah, and it goes back. It's almost like it's just stretching it. Seems like we've talked a lot about Alzheimer's. recently, and it seems like there's a lot of exciting things going on with it.

Well, they keep coming up with stuff, and then it ends up being disappointing. And so this, I'm hoping that this turns into something. I want to see the data on people getting their memory back. Yeah, that'd be cool. That'd be really cool. And their personalities back. Yeah. Topic number two.

Everything you need to know about penis health. Oh, there we go. Now that's important. When most people think about penis health, they think about sexually transmitted infections and erectile dysfunction. While these conditions can certainly affect the healthier penis, it's about so much more than that. So, let's get started. What affects penis health? Your ability to urinate comfortably.

Your ability to get or maintain an erection and your fertility. Penance health also includes avoiding, yeah, certain booth. Health conditions such as penile cancer and STI's, the following factors can affect the health of your penis. Hormone levels for like erectile dysfunction. Yep. You know, low testosterone, if you're feeling like crap and you can't get it up and keep it up, you know, you really need to go see your doctor because there's no reason for that. You can, there are plenty of ways to fix that. Yeah, you don't have to live that way.

Yeah. Age. As you age, you're more likely to. experience sexual dysfunction like ED, partially because your testosterone liver will naturally decline over time. High blood pressure, diabetes, mellitis, and certain neurological conditions can cause ED. Psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression can also exacerbate ED. So it's not a one-trick pony, I guess.

Yeah. Sex. If you want to have sex without a condom, ensure that both you and your partners are are tested regularly for STIs or remain in a monogamous relationship with someone free of an STI. Otherwise, correctly using a condom every time you have sex is the only way to reduce your risk. Rough sex can also harm your penis. For example, pulling back the foreskin. Howard Stern has sex with a condom every single time he has sex with his wife.

He said that. Why? I don't know. It makes it last longer. Is that why? Oh, that's why he says that? I believe so. I may be wrong.

but I think that's why I think I remember him saying that. I think she's post-menopausal at this point, and they're monogamous, so unless she's worried about something. No, I think it's just to make him go longer? Yeah. She may or may not be thankful for that, just depending. Exactly. For example, pulling back the foreskin abruptly can tear it. So you've got to be careful with it.

Accidentally bending your erect penis can cause a traumatic penis. fracture. Oh, gross. Which causes a broken penis? Yes, which then the result of that will be scarring, which then causes Peronis disease. Oh, yeah, make it crooked. Yep. I talked about traumatic balanitis on Tuki soup today, where if you retract the foreskin,

particularly on the elderly person, if they're not able to unretract it themselves. say you're in a nursing facility and you retract it to clean the glands and all that stuff and you forget to unretract it you've actually created a tourniquet that can cause the tip of the penis to lose its blood supply and if that happens it will slough off necrosis and it's poor i just i know i'm not allowed to say anything about um yeah but i mean you can say you heard or you witnessed or whatever. I have witnessed people who have not had, what do you call it? Circumcision.

Circumcision. Circumcision at a later age in life and they are miserable. Yeah. Because they are unable to clean it. And so they can't retract it because they have fymosis, which is scarring and narrowing of the end of the foreskin so that you can't retract it. The classic example is Sam Roberts, who talked about this. you know, to a great extent on when he was on Opian Anthony and subsequently on Jim and Sam.

But he had fimosis so severe that when he urinated, his foreskin would blow up like a balloon. And then the urine would have to just kind of stream out of the opening that was still there. That's miserable. How many times do you have to do that before you think it's? Well, he finally, right. Before you fix it. Well, he was 16 or something. He was a kid.

Oh, wow. And he probably didn't tell his parents. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought he was like an old man or something. No, no, no. And then he finally did have a circumcision as an adult. Now, Jefferson the Scheister, who used to be on this show all the time, had an adult circumcision. And he played baseball the next day. Yes, he did. So the way that they do it now is different.

Sam Roberts was on the couch for two weeks. Oh, goodness. So they do somewhat of a different procedure now. So if you choose to do it as an adult, don't fear it as much as what you've heard. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah. Okay.

and you've got to watch out what you take because some of your medicine can cause your chances of ED. So if you're getting on a new medication, ask your physician. Yeah. Hygiene. You know what? Come on now. Just keep it clean.

Just wash your horses it up. Yeah. Poor hygiene can cause a buildup of smegma. Oh, yes. An oily, melodorous, and irritating substance that is known to occur below the foreskin, which I've seen. It's like rauclette cheese. I have seen it over and over and over again in my younger years.

Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. You've seen smegma over and over and over and over again. They're like, well, wait a minute. She's married to Dr. Steve. No. If it builds up, it can cause inflammation, of course, and cause something called balinitis. Balinitis.

That's inflammation. of the glands. It can also increase its thought the chronic inflammation can increase risk of penile cancer. But really, penile cancer is the one thing we can point to is HPV for that. Even with a circumcised penis, keep it clean. Yeah. Didn't you tell me that P.A. Jill's dermatologist said only clean. Well, go ahead.

You tell her. Yes. Yes. She, you know, she had dry skin. and her dermatologist said the only places that need soap on your body are the stinky spots like the armpits and the crotch and the feet. Earlobes. Yeah. I mean, you know, just use your brain.

Don't do, I mean, but not your arms, not your legs. And I've been going by that for a couple of years now. My skin is not as dry as it used to be. Huh. That's why they call you old stinky. arms. Oh, stinky, Jay. Oh, stinky pit. Well, she watches her pit. But I started following that two days ago, and I didn't wake up in the middle of the night scratching my itchy legs, which is just, you know, the getting old is bad enough, but to the indignity of being woken up

at three in the morning with your legs itching. And then you scratch them, and then it goes away for like 30 seconds, then comes back worse than it was before. And then I have to get. get up and hobble into the bathroom and put anti-itch lotion on my legs. So since Tacey told me that, that P.A. Jill's dermatologist told her that. I've not been using soap on my legs in the shower. And I will have to say that the last two nights I haven't woken up. I mean, it's something we're trying if you have dry skin. Well, yeah.

I mean, you need those natural oils. I mean, once like a week. We're too clean. I'll clean everything just once a week just to. kind of, but not, you know, it's not typical. So, penis health needs a holistic approach. Taking care of all aspects of your general health is important for the health of your penis. This is especially important since a range of different health conditions can affect your fertility and penile health.

Here we go into the state hydrated, eat a balanced diet, spinach, spinach, spicy food. foods, certain foods may also boost your testosterone levels and improve your fertility. This includes spinach, spicy foods with capsaicin, and avocado. What? Yes, check, check, check. Okay. Yeah. Get regular exercise.

Yeah. I mean, I know, dude, look, I haven't exercised over Christmas and it's been quite lovely. Can I have a hot spinach and avocado salad, please? Make it a double. Yeah, make it a double. Even a brisk walk Every so often can improve your penile health What can do?

Now this is interesting Even a brisk walk can improve your penis This is interesting Practice pelvic floor exercises And you know you think of those for women But they're good for everybody So what you do Is

Basic Kegel exercises You guys can do them too. Squeeze the muscles you use to urinate. Squeeze for five seconds. Relax and repeat for 10 rounds. Eventually work your way up to 20 reps. The muscles I used to urinate, you mean my thumb and first finger? I mean, listen, I'm a little bit out of my realm here.

Do this two or three times a day. Okay. On three, everybody. I'm doing it right now. One, two. And you can do it. Hold, hold, relax. Nobody has to know.

Hold, hold, hold, relax. Oh, I like that. That feels good taste. Yeah. Maintain a healthy weight. Yeah. Practice stress management. That ship cell, too.

Practice stress management. Yeah, I know. I know. That's a joke. That ship'selt. In this world, that's just a joke. But anyway, sleep hygiene. You've got to practice that.

Avoid tobacco. Drink alcohol in moderation. Tobacco is a big one. My penis is in trouble. Well, you don't use tobacco. But tobacco, and I've said this before multiple times on the show, Well, I never was afraid of cancer when I was younger, and I was never afraid of heart disease. But, boy, when I found out that the number one cause of impotence in men over 40 is tobacco abuse, that was the day I threw my cigarettes away.

Three packs a day. Jeez. So long, old friend. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I was going to leave the rest of these. Oh, you're going to do them next time? Yeah, next time. Okay, good job, Tase.

I like that. Give thyself a bell. All right, good job. Very interesting. So is there a penis health quiz, I guess? I wonder if we can take online. Ooh, I thought we could find one. I'll have to check it out.

We did have a super chat, and it was from Joe. Oh, yeah. It says Joe Olive here, but I don't think that's right. Joe Oliveira, maybe. Olver, yeah. Olivera, yeah. And it says F-A-P-R. That means E-A-P-R.

Associate producer Ralph, in joke, do THC gummies build up in the body? So you want to, yours is a THC expert, Dr. Scott, you want to take this one? And I'll check you on your facts. I know the answer. As a general rule, the TACC does can build up in fat cells because it can get stored in fat cells. And over time, if you'll stop taking it, the fat cells will and will push it into the bloodstream, but the bloodstream pushes it through liver and liver filters it out, and you should be okay.

But it can build up, and the more you take, the quicker it can build up in your fat cells. So the rule we sort of use is if you're an occasional user, it'll be in your body for about seven days, but if you're a chronic user, it can be detectable for up to a month, which also demonstrates the injustice that is inherent and you're in drug screening on the workplace. because would you rather have someone that's coked up on Monday but has a negative piss test on Wednesday and they're coked up at work? Or would you rather have someone that a week ago, you know, smoked a, you know, a joint or vape or did a gummy on Saturday night and tests positive on Wednesday? Which one would you rather have in your employee? It's not fair to do it the way that we do it.

So, and if you have a zero tolerance policy, you can kind of kiss my ass on that for that reason. I agree. So anyway, we had a friend who lost his job because they did a urine drug screen when he first signed up. And they said, well, are you on maranol or anything, which is prescription strength? We have two friends. We have two? Yes. Okay, I know one is listening, but I don't know about the other one.

I don't say any. I'm not going to say it. But we probably have more than two. But I know for a fact we have two friends. Wow. Okay. I've got another question from the fluid family and says, Dr. Scott, what's your most commonly prescribed herbal supplement for general wellness? Oh, my God.

Is there anything the average person should consider taking along with a daily multivitamin? Well, first off, don't bother with the daily multivitamin unless you just have a crap diet, in my opinion. I don't think it'll hurt anything. you'll piss out what you don't need, but there's not a lot of evidence that it helps unless you really have a bad diet. But go ahead. The supplements I like are things like taurine

and I like phosphatidylsterein. Those are both, they've both been proven for... Phosphotilcerin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I'm Mr. Mel. Both been proven for brain health. That's how they pronounce it in China. It's right.

Both been good for brain health. You know, and again, we've talked about it other thing before, but I also take the D3 and K2, so I think about it and D. But as far as the Chinese herbal medicines, certainly astragalus is something that I use regularly. Of course. Really? And ginseng and ginseng. I do.

But no other things. For what, though? What is it? A little bit of an energy boost. Okay. Just a very subtle energy boost. Okay. And those are actually in the fatigue reprieve that I have.

But they're just a very same in your fatigue reprieve? Just a little bit, yeah. You can get it simply herbal stout now. That's correct. Just a little bit. And it's, and it's, you know, I think they work extremely well. And there's quite a bit of research out there, especially for other things like ginger and tumor or curcumin as far as anti-inflammatory properties. So I think those are all good.

Yeah. And we know inflammation is an issue. If you're just going to take stuff willy-nilly for just some sort of vague, well, I want to prolong my life. You're looking at the anti-aging stuff and anti-inflammatory stuff may be somewhere. Now, do we have studies to back us up that say if you take. take turmeric every day that you're you know those people live 10% longer i have not aware of data like that but it also likely will not do harm now there are some people that shouldn't take turmeric yes because it is a cox 2 type inhibitor and so people it can thin your blood a little bit yeah it can thin your blood and uh or you know have anti platelet activity and it may even increase

risk of heart attack in some people so talk to your you the the thing that you got to get out of I said, talk to your primary care. And if they're like, oh, well, all supplements are stupid, well, okay, then they're closed-minded about this or not looking at the data. But if you have a collaborator where they could say, this one's okay, but this one I would stay away from because this, this, this and this. If they've got good reasons, then that's somebody you can work with. Yeah, especially if you've got some underlying health issues, like, let's say, you've got

terrible uncontrolled hypertension. You don't want to take a lot of ginseng. Right. You don't want to take a lot of astragalus. You don't want to take these things that can raise your blood pressure. Yeah, and Dr. Scott's not saying that, right. I mean, you just confirm now

that you're not saying everybody should just take this stuff. No, gosh, no, no, no. It's in, everybody's independent. Right. I take quite a few supplements myself. They happen to be in the anti-aging and anti-inflammatory realm. You know, I take, you also take nicotinamide ribicides. I take that.

And, you know, I'm taking, I have peripheral neuropathy, so I take some supplements for that, including clutamine, and all this stuff is on my website. If you're interested, go to Dr.Steve.com, click on the three dots in the upper right hand corner, and it's got some information for people with peripheral neuropathy, if you know anybody. There is some limited data on some supplements that may help to regenerate some of those peripheral nerves. The key is to stop damaging them. So if it's alcohol, you've got to quit or cut back on the alcohol.

If it's your statin, you've got to talk to your primary care about what to do instead of that if you can't take the statins because of adverse effects. But anyway, you know, I take the phosphatidil serine and some other things. I take vitamin D. I've preached on this show. I don't think vitamin D does very much, if anything. It prevents rickets, but it probably isn't going to hurt anything. And I don't get enough sunlight. So what the hell?

Yes, agree. Maybe it helps. I'm okay with things that maybe it will help maybe some small subset of people if the other side of it is it will do no harm. You know, normal dose vitamin D will do no harm. Right. So, okay. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, that's a good question. From the fluid family. All right. What remedy does Dr. Scott have for gallstones? Not a great one. Yeah, I really know. We don't have anything super. great for gallstones.

Yeah, there is a drug that we can use for gallstones, and I'm not seen it used a lot. It's ursodial, and you can take it in the hopes as long as you're not having frequent gallbladder attacks. If you're at risk for those down the road, they can give you this instead of having your gallbladder removed in an attempt to try to prevent you from having to have surgery. Yes, yes. Now, can we talk about the person in our family that has... has. Yes. So our kid has had GI problems for many years, really since he was born.

Yeah. And he has a thing called dumping syndrome, which is where stuff is dumped into his small bowel before it's fully digested by the stomach, and that causes pain and bloating and stuff. Well, recently they did a Haida scan on him, and they found, and Hyda scan, and they found, And Hiduscan is a test of gallbladder function. And his, when they gave him the fatty challenge, emptied out 99%. It's normal's around 60, 70%, where, you know, contraction of the gallbladder. Because you want to retain some bile in there.

And so what happens is his completely empties out, and then it takes a long time for it to fill back up again. So the next couple of meals, he has no bile. And he can't digest fat and he ends up blow. and having abdominal pain and stuff. So it's looking like he may have to have his gallbladder removed at age 20. Yeah. But hyperkinetic gallbladder, it's a rare syndrome. If you know someone that's been through everything and that's one thing they haven't looked at,

you know, just throwing it out there. Possibly, yeah. Because that was not on my differential at all. No. And I'm a pretty smart diagnostician. Yes. Half of the reason it wasn't was because he won't do the, other things that I think he should do before you go this far, you know.

Changing diets and things. Yeah, sure. How about eat a vegetable every once in a while? Or some fruit. And there is a medical food called interagam, which if you know someone that has spastic bowel or spastic colon problems and they've tried everything, this is, what it is is, it's serum bovine immunoglobulins. It's basically, you know, when they kill a cow, and this is not a vegan thing, by the way.

If you're vegan, you can't take this. But when they kill a cow, they use everything, including their antibodies that are in their bloodstream. And these things, you can eat them. I mean, put them in water and drink them, but it's called a medical food. And they will bind to actual toxins in the bowel, things that are causing inflammation in the bowel. They'll bind to those and prevent them from touching the bowel. and therefore not causing the inflammation, therefore decreasing the spasticity of the bile. And your doctor's probably never heard of it.

Half the GIs I know have never heard of it. It was prescribed to me by a genius gastroenterologist that was an out-of-the-box thinker. And I've used it a bunch in my practice with people with chemotherapy-related mucusitis. In other words, people where their mucus membranes are affected by the chemo. give them this stuff and they get better almost immediately. Okay. So, yeah, it's called Enterragam, E-N-T-E-R-A-G-A-M. They're not, you know, sponsors of the show. I wish they were.

I would push them more vociferously if they were. But anyway, that's some pretty neat stuff. Anyway, any other questions from the fluid family before we go? Not yet. And Lovett says problem is most primary docs don't know about supplements. Well, they should because 90% of their patients, that some crazy number are taking supplements. So if you're going to be a health care provider,

you need to know about this stuff. And the other side of it is if you're taking supplements, you need to tell when they ask you, what's your med list? Make sure all your supplements go on there too. Because that's important. There are some things that, as Dr. Scott alluded to, have drug interactions. And if you have a drug, drug interaction,

the doctor may not know, but the electronic medical record brain may know. and it'll flag that saying this person's taking stragglers and they're taking Losarton, maybe that's an issue or whatever. All right? Okay, doke.

Let's see. Where are we? I need to see where we are in the recording because I'm watching the... Oh, we're good. Okay. All right. Let's take some medical questions.

Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. All right. Let's try this one. This is apropos of what we're doing. Hey, Dr. Steve Hill here. Okay, good question. So I had a vasectomy about going on eight years ago.

Okay. I'm curious, instead of reversing the deceptomy that have children, I've heard that they can abstract sperm from your testicles. Correct. My question is, what's the rate of that pulling sperm out and being able to impregnate a woman with it artificially? And is it, are the sperm still active or, and also is there something you can do to keep them active? So they're, you know, kind of like the dough factory shut down. Now we're making them wake up. Yeah.

And hence. So I like to know that. And thank you. Yeah. All right, man. Well, and good luck with the fertility thing. Yes, it's called testicular sperm extraction. Ouch.

Yes. It's a minor surgical procedure and involves removing a small amount of tissue from the testicle to extract viable sperm cells. So they used to do a wedge resection and now they just use a big old 18 gauge needle. So they've got to

numb you up. They get the testicle between their fingers and they just stick a needle in there and extract it. Oh! Yeah. Now it says here, usually performed in office setting under numbing medication or nitrous.

The procedure involves making a small incision in the scrotum, exposing the tunica, which is the lining, excising testicular tissue, expressing tissue, and then examining the tubules for sperm. Usually it takes 15 minutes. And what I read was there's about a 50% chance that men with obstructive infertility, which would include, you know, having a Vasex. have viable sperm that they can use. Now, what the success rate after that is, if they can get enough sperm, it'd be the same as any other, you know, in vitro fertilization thing. Or transferring sperm to a living human woman who is ovulating.

That'd be the other option. Now, it is interesting to note that men continue to create sperm until the, the day they die. And as you get older, they get more goofy looking. I mean, I had two-headed sperm and all kinds of stuff when I did my sperm analysis when Tacey and I were trying to get pregnant. And, but, you know, I had enough viable sperm in there that I was okay. And we, but you should have, be able to have viable sperm.

There will be enough of them in there that can impregnable. somebody up until the day you croak and you know we talked about that person that was brain dead and the woman jacked him off masturbated, manipulated him and got him erect because that's a spinal

reflex and was able to get a sperm sample that way which just demonstrated even brain dead guys you know are still motivated yeah still motivated to have intercourse if that that may explain something to women who don't understand that part of how men think, but they've also done it

where you do a wedge resection of the, of the, you know, testicle to get sperm out that way. So remember, they are microscopic, and it doesn't take a whole lot to get enough sperm to do something with. No. And semen, sperm's only 2% of the ejaculate. Right. So, there you go. Yeah.

Hey, we got a quick question in front of Fluid family. Yeah. Can Ultram show up on a drug screen? And they had a, from Lovett, and she had heard that sometimes if it doesn't show up on a drug screen, that people can be taken off because the doctor doesn't think they're taking their medications. That's right. Which is possible, yeah. So I'm looking it up if it's on the Federal Five.

So there are lots of different ways to do. drug screening. And in the office... And they're not all the same quality. In the office, they use immunosays. And the original immunosay would look for opiates, but was not sensitive to oxycodone. And there were a lot of people who got fired because they were negative for opiates, even though they were taking their oxycodone.

And the thing that pisses me off about this is that the providers who were doing that forgot the first rule of screening tests, that when you get an abnormal screening test, you have to follow it up with a more specific test, because screening tests are designed to be sensitive, but not specific. So if you have a negative test that doesn't mean anything, I mean, if you have an abnormal test, you can't act on it until you do the more specific test. So what they should have done is if someone was on tramadol and they were using a federal 5 type immuno assay that was insensitive to

Tramidol. Because Tramidol is a non-opiate opioid. So it's not derived from the opium poppy, but it does stimulate the opioid receptor. And so it's, but, you know, it's habit forming just like a regular opioid is. But anyway, if you

had someone in your pain clinic or in your office that was taking Tramadol and they show up negative on your chinty, Amazon, you know, immunosay that you bought because you're a jeepskate. You can't fire them for that. You have to send it off for what's called a GC mass spec

or a thin layer chromatography or something that is extremely specific. And then what will happen is they'll show up as positive. The alternate is also true. I get people that show up with amphetamine in their urine drug screens and then you do the follow-up because it's a little old lady. She's said, I ain't never used none of that. I don't know from that.

What is math? That's right. So they ain't never heard of such. They ain't never heard of sales. And it's actually true. When you do the GC mass spec, it was a false positive. So you can have false negatives and false positives in this world. If it's a screening test, and you are getting fussed at for that, you've got to demand that they do a more specific test,

which would be, in this case, GC mass spec. Okay. All right. Well, let's, yeah, let's wrap it up there. Thanks always goes to Dr. Scott. Thanks, Tacey. Thanks to everyone who's made this show happen over the years. Listen to our Sirius XM show on the Faction Talk Channel.

Serious XM Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern, on demand, and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. Go to our website at Dr. Steve.com for schedules, podcasts, and other crap. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps, quit smoking it off your asses, get some exercise, We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thanks, everybody. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Thank you.