Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 603 - Urethral Sounding

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Dr Steve, Dr Scott, and Tacie discuss: Urethral sounding Toad venom and depression Pig Kidney Transplant update Low hanging testicle 17 years of back problems Kratom Steroids for osteoarthritis? Testosterone replacement Organoids/stem cells in the brain Steroid rage large colon polyps Please visit: simplyherbals.net/cbd-sinus-rinse (the best he's ever made. Seriously.) instagram.com/weirdmedicine (instagram by ahynesmedia.com!) x.com/weirdmedicine stuff.doctorsteve.com (it's back!) 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!") GoFundMe for Brianna Shannon (Please help Producer Chris' daughter fight breast cancer!) 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

This is not how sane people act. If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of Weird Medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to? I've got the period crushing my esophagus.

I've got Zabola vibes stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my infectable woes. I want to take my brain now, plastic width of wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments,

the health equivalent of citizen cane. And if I don't get it now in the tablet, I think I'm doomed, then I'll have to go insane. I want a requiem for my disease. So I'm paging Dr. Steve. Dr. Steve. From the world-famous Cardiff Electric Network Studios in beautiful downtown Beddabler City, it's weird medicine, the first of the still only on the censored medical show

and the History of Broadcast Radio, now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal. Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medicine provider, gives me street cred with the whack alternative medicine assholes. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. And my partner in all things, Tacey. Hello, Tacey. Hello.

This is a show for people who had never listened to a medical show. on the radio or the internet. If you're a question, you're embarrassed to take your regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call at 347-766-4323. That's 347. Pooh-Hid. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine or at D.R. Scott, W.M. Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff to goodbye.

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 providers. All right, very good. Please check out stuff. Dr.steve.com. That's stuff. dot, dr.steve.com.

When I have time, I'll make it a little bit better, but still it's usable. I think I don't know if it's actually working because the affiliate links are old, but it's fine. You still get some discounts on stuff. Check it out. Stuff. Dot, Dr. Steve.com. Rode. Dr. Steve.com.

N.P. Melby got her Rody coach in the mail yesterday. And so she's going to plop it on that guitar, and she's going to come in here, and we're going to see in, like, six weeks, what she's learned. Okay, cool. Okay, she's motivated. She's never played anything. She's never played an instrument.

So that's going to be very interesting. And I'm quite confident that the Rody people will not be disappointed. Ed. But she'll have her honest review of it. Yeah. But check it out. Rode, R-O-A-D-I-E dot-D-I-E dottersteve.com. Or you can just go to stuff.

Dotterstee.com and scroll down. It's right there. But they have the Rody Robotic Tuners and then the Rody Coach that just teaches you how to play a damn instrument. Cool. I wonder if it would teach me how to play the mandolin because that's an instrument I have known nothing about.

I'll have to look at that. I'm sure it probably would. I buy one. Anyway. All right. Check out Dr. Scott's website at Simplyherbils.net. Simplyurbles.comnet. Our Patreon has had a lot more stuff going on there.

I uploaded a five segment show from November of 2009. That was an old school one where we were in the Sirius XM Studios. And it was divided up into five commercial segments. and I just uploaded one segment every day for five days. I'm putting all of my Dr. Steve presents stuff on Patreon first. And there may even be some of that that's just for Patreon. We'll see. But the first one is on, well, I talk about it.

I'll talk about it later. But anyway, check that out. Patreon.com slash weird medicine. Tacey and I'll at some point do a, you know, a couple of, of shows again where we answer Patreon only questions. And if you ask a question in the Patreon chat

room or in anything, if you're a subscriber through Patreon, we will 100% answer your question. Cameo.com slash weird medicine. I have fun with that. And I, you know, I drop my price again to like five bucks just so

I can do a bunch of, because I love doing them. They're just so it's fun to do. I like them. I would do them for free if they would Lemmy. And all the proceeds go to a good cause. That being my ham radio hobby. Oh, not more.

All proceeds from the cameo go toward getting a moon bounce station set up with my buddy Dale. So there you go. All right, very good. Don't forget to check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net. That's simply herbals.com. Everything going okay

over there, Dr. Scott. Yes, sir, going well. It is the season for allergies, that's for sure. It's the best CBD nasal spray in the world, in my opinion. That's my opinion. No scientific, you know, studies have been done to back that statement up. We did have somebody call, and I know I was told this story before, that said that they bought some somewhere else and said it sucked. So there you go.

That's all we need. That's all the group of here. Yeah, that's right. All right. Very good. Okay. So, hello, everyone. Hello.

A couple of things. If you look at our Patreon, it's patreon.com slash weird medicine. When I was doing, well, I still am. I'm doing some work for normal world with Dave Landau. Okay. One of the things they send in questions, and then I answer them. I tried to, the last one was on urethral sounding, and I tried to make it as gross as I could, because when they're gross, they can't not talk about it after it's over.

They can't just go, okay, well, let's talk about Kim Jong-un next, you know. It stops the conversation cold. Like, the next one's on asparagus piss. That might engender some discussion about, well, can you smell asparagus piss? But the one on Fornier Gangrene, spoiler alert, being the worst way to die, or this one on urethral sounding, which sounding is when you take some instrument and put it in the urethral meatus,

aka the cockhole, and stick it down into your bladder. Now, the term sounding comes from, and just go watch it on Dave Show. It was on this last Thursday, and I'll end up posting the video, by itself eventually, but sounding comes from the nautical term where they would take knotted ropes and they would put them over the side of a boat and then they'd, and then they could measure

how deep the water was, probably in the sound or whatever. And they could tell if they were in deep water or too shallow to proceed, that kind of stuff. And then in medicine, we use the term sounding any time that we're trying to see how deep something is remotely by sticking a stick in there sort of thing, you know, a rod of some sort, a rod into your rod. And so people started doing this stuff. And then what happens is they go, whoop, and it slips and it's, yep, and then it slips in and they can't get it back out. Now, this is not like shoving something up your rear. and getting it stuck.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you might be able to get it out and avoid a trip to the emergency room. When you let go of something and it goes up your urethra and you can't see the end of it to pull it back out again, it's going to be removed surgically. And that you can't, there's no sort of fiction that we all agree on like we do with ass foreign objects. Because you can just say, well, I've sat on it. Just say you sat on it. Million to one, Doc. No one will. No one will.

No one will. Well, they'll know, but they won't say anything. It's sort of a way to save face. But there's no way you can just say, well, you know, I somehow walked into my cell phone cord and now it's in my bladder. Right. So you're just going to have to say I was messing with myself and lost this thing. Don't do that. They make things.

They even sell them at Amazon. So, no, yes, and they've got a, they have a bulbous end so you can't lose it in your bladder. Some people get sexual pleasure out of this. You can, there is, there are downsides. You can perforate your urethra. You can get an infection in there. There's all kinds of things that you can do. So if you're going to engage in this sort of activity, then read up on it, find out the

safe way to do it if you're so inclined even talk to your primary care if you want to but know what you're doing before you do it and use an instrument that's made for it as opposed to like a stick because people do that

one guy was shoving wasps up his you know urethra and saying why would you do such a thing wasps? Yes just to be weird I thought I thought the plug-in cord for an apple phone was weird enough.

Well, this thing that I did for normal world has x-rays of that. That's like I'm, hey, you think I'm kidding? Here's an x-ray of a guy who shoved his cell phone cable up his urethra. And it had to be removed surgically. Here's a guy that shoved 82 magnetic balls

in there and couldn't get them out. And they had to be retrieved surgically. Do you see a pattern? Yeah, exactly. Was that the record number of metal balls being shot? I think the record number was 87. And it was a 10-year-old kid. Oh, for God, size.

Oh, my goodness. Metal balls can be very dangerous for little kids, by the way. If they swallow one, not a big deal. But if they swallow two and they get separated, like, you know, if they stick together and they go through together, the kid will be okay. But if they swallow one today and then another one tomorrow or four hours later and they get separated, now one of them is traveling in. to the small bowel, the other ones behind it. And when they pass by each other, you know, in different loops of bowel, what's going to happen?

Right. Tink. Yeah, it'll stick. It locks them together and you get a bowel obstruction. So metal balls, don't give those to kids. They're not kidding. That's a swallowing risk. Okay.

Fun fact from your old pal, Dr. Steve. Goodness gracious. All right, Tacey, you got some things for us today? I sure do. Let's do it. It's 10. 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. I probably need to go ahead and just shorten that at some point. I like it. Oh, you do? Go ahead and just grab a cup of coffee today, my friends. Article 1, could this toad psychedelic venom be the next big thing in antidepressants? Uh-oh. Behold the Colorado River Toad.

Okay. Also known as a Sonoran Desert Toad. These bulbous fellows pack of psychedelic punch. Well, make up your mind. You live in the desert or in the river? Just below the surface. Their venom, which can secrete through glands on their skin, contains a hallucinogenic compound, which the scientists behind a new study say could be a potent antidepressant.

Is that right? Psychedelics have received. a lot of attention in recent years for their potential into reading severe depression. Silocybin of Magic Mushrooms fame is a big hitter in this arena, with a growing body of research leading scientists to conclude it could be a game changer

for some of the hardest to treat cases. Wow. Now there's a new psychedelic in town, and it comes all wrapped up in a nice amphibious package. A new study? I'm sorry. The psychedelic is 5M-E-O-E-O-E-E-O-E-E-E-E-O. D-M-T.

If you would let me do, that's in the very next sentence. A new study has investigated a modified form of the compound 5M-E-O-D-M-T. A relative of D-M-T that's extracted from the venom of the Colorado River Toad. It could be an effective treatment option for depression and anxiety. It's long been understood that this toad's venom can cause intense hallucinations and trippy experiments. That's why authorities constantly telling us don't lick them. Right. You remember the Beavis and Butthead when they just cut to them and one of them had a toad in his mouth and he was just, you know, it had his ass end in his mouth and he was just

sucking on it. It's a tryptamine psychedelic. Go ahead. But how the toads produce their psychoactive slime remains a bit of a mystery. And there are questions to be answered about how the compounds act on the human brain. Sure. So they set out to investigate how 5MEODMT interacts with the type of serotonin receptor called the 5HT1A receptor. Yes, and that's a serotonin receptor. You know, what's weird is that there's a plant that makes the exact same thing. So you've got a toad that makes it and then a plant that just shows how nature is pretty,

efficient when it needs, you know, a molecule for something, it doesn't always just reinvent the wheel. Yeah. It's the seeds of, oh, boy, Ananda, Nanthera, Peregrina seeds. Hmm. Yeah. And it's heat, it's heat stable. It can be smoked or insufflated.

In other words, snorted. It lasts between 10 minutes for the former, if you smoke it, or two hours for the latter. And the effects range from radical perspectives, shifting and perception of new insights, euphoria, euphoria, immersive experiences, dissociation, and non-responsiveness. In other words, it makes people, you know, stop talking and responding to people. Sensual and erotic enhancement. Uh-oh. Now, listen, anytime there's a new technology, they will co-opt it for porn.

and if they find out that this stuff enhances sexual pleasure or the ability to function, that's going to be the first thing that gets patented. All the poor depressed and anxious people out there are just going to have to wait if this is the real deal. But anyway. So it says most research on psychedelics up to now is focused on 5HT2A, which is also a serotonin receptor. Right. Because it's key ability to produce hallucinations. Previous research has shown that 5HT1A was worth a closer look when it comes to developing new and improved antidepressants.

But not much was known about how psychedelics interact with the receptor. This stuff's been around for a while. The Church of the Tree of Life, which was a church in California in 19, you know, back in the day in the 70s. They used 5MEO DMT as a sacrament. and it was available to their members, and apparently they smoked it on parsley. It was kind of interesting. They tested this stuff with a mouse model of depression.

I wonder how they do that. How do you know if a mouse is depressed? I don't know. They compared it to LSD as well as existing drugs at Target 5HT1A and found that the toad venom compound had a similar antidepressant and anti-anxiety effect without getting the mice high. Okay, we got to look up. Mouse depra? How do they know that?

See, I don't think just depleting someone of serotonin in your brain is going to necessarily make you depressed, you know what I mean? Well, it's not going to make you feel good. You're not going to necessarily feel good, no. Maybe they just have a strain of mice that they're just, you know, oh, man, they look really depressed. Okay, here we go. Animal model of human behavior represents complex of cognitive and emotional processes. Okay, a behavioral test developed primarily and specifically, to verify and support a theory of cognition or emotion. Okay, this paper reviews tests commonly used in novel drug research,

focuses especially on tests which can evaluate anxiety-like and depression-like behaviors. Okay, forced swim test, a tail suspension test, and a sucrose preference test. So I guess if they figure if they're depressed, then they may want more sweets. They probably eat more sugar. Yep, and then their tail, if they're depressed, they're dragging their tail, yeah. And that's something. That's crazy. You know, I used to go to this place, it was, that doesn't matter.

It's a town not too far from here where they now have a casino. And back in the day, you could put a quarter in this machine, and it would play music, and a chicken would come out and dance. And apparently it was Pavlovian, and they would just feed it corn, and it would scratch, and it looked like it was dancing and put it on a turntable. But then I read that they do these, like, chicken and mouse pain things where they put them on a hot plate, and they see how long it takes them to start dancing around. Oh, that's awful.

Yeah, it is awful. It's awful. It's awful. Yeah, it's poopy. That's not good. All right. That's a good one. Good one.

So we'll look out for 5MEODMT. Yeah. A great one. Toad stuff. So the second one is kind of sad. Well, it is sad. Man who receives first pig kidney transplant dies. Yeah.

So they let him out, and we talked about that. And two months after his operation. What did he die for? He died. Well, he was 62. He was suffering with in-stage kidney disease before undergoing. the operation in March. There is no indication

that the death was the result of the transplant. He was just sick as hell. That's why they did at such an experimental transplant on them in the first place. Transplants of other organs from genetically modified pigs have failed in the past,

but the operation on Mr. Slaman has held as a historic milestone. In addition to kidney disease, he suffered from top two diabetes and hypertension. He had a human kidney transplant, but it began to fail after 5. years.

After his pig kidney transplant on March 16th, his doctors confirmed he no longer needed dialysis after the new organ was said to be functioning. That's incredible. He will be forever seen as a beacon of hope to countless transplant patients worldwide, and we are deeply grateful for his trust and willingness to advance the field of xenotransplantation. It says here that they're quite convinced it had nothing to do with the kidney. I'll say, and surely they could do post-mortem. on the kidney and see if the kidney was functioning pretty well, yeah.

Yeah, he, I'm going to turn Tacey's microphone off for a second. She's getting a phone call. He, they went seven weeks. The family said, you know, hey, we're grateful to seven extra weeks that we got because he was basically dying when they did it. And with all of the things that he had, I'm guessing that he probably had a myocardial infarction. or a stroke. But that is incredible.

Yeah. And you know, do you know how many people are waiting for a transplant right now? Gosh. It's about 100,000. I'll say 100,000. That was my guess, yeah. And thousands will die every year before they get their transplant. So, you know, this is a good step in the right direction to have these genetically modified pigs.

Now, you know, the PETA and the vegans are not going to be happy with just slaughtering pigs wholesale. But we do anyway. I mean, go to the grocery store. Until one of them need a kidney. Well, maybe. Maybe. You know, if they stand by their principles, they won't do it. But this is one step in the right direction.

What we really want is to be able to grow these from our own cells in a vat somewhere. If you've got enough time. If you know you're going to have to have it down the road, then you just grow the damn thing. If it takes six months to grow, then we just have to back up. when we start these things. Wouldn't it be incredible to be able to do genetic testing on someone? So, you know what? When you're 28, you're going to need a liver or...

Yeah, let's get your... Let's go ahead and start it now. Let's get it in the bag. Yeah. Let's get some cells going and... Gosh. I agree. Yeah, that would be cool.

It would be really neat. Or just give us robot bodies. There you go. Yep. You can see Dr. Steve walking out with his head only on a robot body. He'd look like some kind of... A little squeakered legs. No, he would be like have a big muscular legs.

Do you think I would do that? Oh, I know you would. I'm on, like, a hoverboard, just float around, just be a head floating around. Oh, that would be great. Get off my lawn, you shitheads. Well, it says that. This is stupid. Rick said that one of the reasons he underwent this procedure was to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive.

He accomplished that goal, and his hope and optimism will endure forever. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. We really appreciate it. He was a kind-hearted man with a quick-witted sense of humor who was fiercely dedicated to his family, friends, and co-workers. Yeah. So.

Wow. Good man. Two other patients have received pig heart transplants, but those procedures were unsuccessful as the recipients died a few weeks later. Well, that's coming. Yeah, they'll be soon. So, yeah. All right. Good.

Good one, Tate. What else you got? That's all I got. That's all you got? Two for two, Tastes. We like it. Yep. Very good.

All right. You want to answer some questions? Let's do some questions. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. Did you have anything, Scott? No. Okay, because you had sent out a couple of things.

Yeah, sent her one, but I think we're going to pass on that this week. Okay. All right. Well, we've got several that I told the people that we're going to be doing them today, and they may be in the fluid family in the waiting room or with the fluid family in the waiting room. If you want to join, just go to weird medicine. I'm sorry, YouTube.com slash at Weird Medicine. and click subscribe and hit the notify button.

And then when we go live, if you want to, you can come hang out. We're not a video show, but we have a small group of people that hang out with us while we're doing our radio show. So it's kind of fun. The other thing is, is I started talking about the Dave Landau stuff, and I got distracted by the urethral sounding. The reason I was telling you that is that because, I had to, you know, I've been doing this with them. I've learned how to do some editing in DaVinci Resolve, which is the software that they use.

And so I'm starting to do my own. But the first one I did was a little more serious, and it's available to Patreon members first, and it was on a borderline personality disorder. And I'm going to do a series of those just sort of information. things. And then we'll do some more weird stuff. I've got a whole bunch of scripts from Weird Medicine Minutes

that I did for Eric Nagel back, way back in the day, that would translate into video really nicely, and they're short, about a minute long. And our video producer, Andy Heinz, from A. Hines Media. By the way, check him out.

I'll put a link somewhere. If you need anything done, especially with search engine optimization or getting your name out there, he's really quite smart guy and he's really fun to work with and he's very clever. But anyway,

A. Hines, A-H-Y-N-E-S-Media dot com, I think. But anyway, so these things will be more friendly for TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Instagram. So, anyway, check those out. The first one is already in the Patreon. I put it up there this

morning, and I was still learning stuff. I've learned a lot. The next one will be better. And I was hacking and slash, and it's like, this is boring as F, and I took out about three quarters of it. It's still eight minutes long, so anyway. All right.

All right. All right. Here we go. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is Tim. My right testicle hangs much lower in the scrotive than the left one.

I've had a sec to me, so I know that they both work. I have four children, four sons. But why does... Well, you don't know both of them work. So much lower than the other. Yeah. Okay.

No, that's a great question. And the answer is, because that's normal. If you take a mirror and hold it up to half your face and then look in a mirror and then angle it so that this half is reflected onto the other half so that it looks like you're... You look completely different.

Yes. Our faces are asymmetrical. Women will tell you their breast size is asymmetrical. Sure. And you're... You know, for... We're so used to things being equal because we're in a world where we have things

that are engineered. And it would be striking to me if all of our nuts just hung, you know, at the same length because of the way that they're made. Right, sure. Right. Well, you think about most people have a hand that's a little bit longer than the other hand or feet that are a little bit larger than the other one. You don't think about that. Yeah, you don't think about them. And the testicles you'll look at and like, oh, God.

Right. Something's wrong. My foot's a half a size larger on the left, but that's not a big deal. But if my testicles hang in love and that's the issue. Then that's weird. Right. We have a general sort of bilateral symmetry. You know, if you take a line and put it through the top of your head between your eyes,

you know, bisect your nose, there will be some general symmetry. You've got two kidneys. You've got, you know, two iliac arteries. You only have one liver and one spleen, though, and they're on one side of the other. The heart's not symmetrical, but our hands tend to be. But, you know, again, one's maybe bigger than the other, maybe pudgier than the other. Certainly, I can do more things with my right hand than I can with my left. And again, you know, the breast size thing and stuff like that.

So we just tend to be asymmetrical. Think how these things are constructed. You know, they're just held up there with this cremaster muscle and these, you know, ligaments and the vass deference sort of, you know, is a tube that holds these things up. and they're just not ever going to be completely. If I saw somebody their nuts were perfectly symmetrical, I would assume that they were, the only time that's the case is when they're pulled up against the body.

If they're hanging low, just by the nature of how we are constructed, they're going to be asymmetrical. Good, I agree. Yeah, you know, and the funny thing is, but you know, you look at the baby studies about how when they look at a face symmetry, they always go to that symmetry first. So anytime we see anything that's a little bit off,

that makes us make it, wait a minute. Well, we are programmed to see faces. Yeah. So that's why if you take a circle and you put two dots and a line. Semi-circle, it'll look like a face does. Yeah, right. Because that's a biological advantage for us to be able to recognize faces. But it's pretty interesting.

So we see faces and everything. Yeah. You know, clouds and, you know, just any kind of formation. If you look hard enough, you'll see a face in it. Now, with regard to this guy's testicular. issue if he has pain, swelling, redness, kind of weird discharge, anything like that, or if one is growing suddenly or he notices that it's changing size,

that's a different story altogether. Then that needs to be checked out. Some primary cares can handle it. Urologists certainly can handle it. All right. Are we doing the three-minute timer, days? Oh, God. No, I forgot all that.

That's okay. Now, when you weren't here. We are now. When you weren't here, Tase, we instituted a thing where we can request a one minute. Yeah, it's called cheating. No, it's not. It's, no, it's just called having a system. It's vital.

And the system is we're going to do three minutes. No, it's like we have three minutes, but then when we want more, we just take more. We can take one minute. If we can request, just, they do it in Congress, for fuck's sake, we can do it here. You know what you need, Steve? We need, like, in the NFL, we're going to request more time. We'll throw a flag. Yeah.

Well, I think the other two should have to agree. And if one says yes and one says no, then it goes. Well, you know which way I'm going. All right, let's go. Come on. I'm going to vote with her anyway, so it doesn't matter. Okay. Well, that's fine.

Lord and Lady Douchebe. Lord and Lady Douchebag. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. See, that's the things that are coming out of your mouth, child, babbling. Insanity, delusions. Which is why we have the three-minute, Tom. I hear you. All right.

No, I don't remember where the hell we were. Okay. So we did asymmetric hang. Oh, this is a good one for Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is Tony. I have a question about back problems. I was on pain medicine for a long time, 17 years, actually.

Okay. And I got off of them, went out and created them. For about the last four years, it's maintained my back. I've had two back surgeries during those 17 years, and the pain is coming back significantly. Yeah. I'm wondering what my options may be going forward. Thanks, Dr. Steve. Yeah, man.

So he got off of opioids. Can I say we need more time already? Yeah, we're going to need more time on this one. He got off of opioids and went on to Kratum. Do you want to talk about Kratom for a second? I can talk a little bit about it. Well, so you start with the Kratom and then I'll start with the back. Okay.

Well, okay, so it's been used in Southeast Asia for years to treat fatigue and cough and diarrhea and opioid withdrawal and stuff like that. The thing is it's a very interesting molecule that I think deserves to. be studied. And we could go to Clinical Trials.gov and see if anybody's actually doing these studies. But, you know, it was regulated as an herbal product by the FDA. It was considered legal. And several states have, you know, banned the sale and possession. But thing is, is that it does stimulate the opioid receptor, which, you know, by these moieties

called Mitragynines and they are you know anyway they stimulate the opioid receptor so anything that stimulates the opioid receptor like Tramadol which is not technically an opioid causes opioid like effects and when you withdraw

it because of upregulation of the opioid receptor you're going to have withdrawal and so but this stuff is also and my understanding is an alkaloid and so there are some really interesting potential benefits to either Kratum's active ingredient or one of their

analogs. But anyway, go ahead. Probably have a minute and a half. Yeah, I was going to say, I'll make this as quick as I can. But I know why his pain's coming back. Go ahead. At least get that. Well, he's a couple things.

First of all, he's had two surgeries already. We don't know exactly what he's had. Right. But let's just say, let's just hypothesize maybe he had a laminectomy where they removed the part of the bone to give some space for the disc. And let's say maybe he had a fusion, and a lot of times, because that's how it happens in this kind of, you know, time frame, a lot of times you wind up having the disc above where they've had a fusion, that'll start to, that'll start to break down. And they'll wind up having to have extra surgeries. Right.

So not really uncommon. A couple of more surgeries you have, the less likely the next one is going to help. Right. And it's all about load. But a couple of other things he can do maybe prior to, number one, it's going to be imaging, obviously, new imaging. just to see if anything else is going on. Yeah, of course. But there are some other things.

You can do radio frequency ablations, whether you actually go on and cauterrides the nerves. You can do epidurals. Sometimes that'll help depending on it. See, a physiatrist or an anesthesiology pain specialist. Those are the two. Interventional pain medicine. Yeah.

Non-pharmacological stuff. The other thing that may be happening is he's developed tolerance to the cratim. Yeah, and he's getting some hyperalgies. Because that is one of the things that happens with opioid receptor agonists is that the opioid receptor ogenists is that the opioid receptor oreseptor. regulates. In other words, it makes more. Okay, just for interest, it's time.

Okay, thank you. I'll give you one minute. One minute. Thank you. And it, well, shit, I'm wasting my minute. Yes, you are. Thinking.

But, you know, when you're up, when you're up regulated, what happens? Is it ready? I get distracted. I forget what the fuck I'm talking about. Well, when you take those over time, your pain, your pain levels tend to go up and up and up. Well, you need more and more to get the same effect. Right. That's correct.

But anyway. Yeah. That may be what's going. Yeah, and there are a bunch of other options that he can do. I mean, and sometimes, sometimes Dr. Steve, you know as well as I do. Sometimes you don't need another surgery. Maybe one of these non-pharmacological interventions will help, and then you can get back into physical therapy or yoga or whatever.

Or not opioid. Yeah, non-oporish stuff, yeah. Yeah, I've had four epidurals, and the last one I had is lasted a year and a half now. Yeah, and you need a little acupuncture on the neck and a little bit, yeah. Yeah, do everything, but the surgeries are great if you have to have them. And taking opioids. Because opioids for a little back pain, aren't that great? Now, okay, so end the time.

It's one thing I just want to say. Thumbs up. One thing I want to say, and this has anything to do with his thing, so I reserve the right to talk on my own fucking show about what I want to talk about, is that Kratum itself, I don't like the idea that people are having to self-medicate out there. And the reason that they're having to do that is because they can't get help or they feel like they can't get help from the medical profession. And so, you know, they're taking a drug that we don't know a lot about it.

We don't know what the long-term effects are. And it would be nice if we had some research done and then had protocols for this stuff. So we'd know how much to give over what period of time and what beneficial, you know, what are the benefits, alternatives, and the risks to it. Agreed. I agree, agree, yeah. Okay. All right.

Hi, Dr. Speed. Whoa. This is Matt. Hey, Matt. My question for you is, Um, well, I have 100, but I'll just keep it simple for now. Okay. I have an osteoarthritis in my feet caused me a lot of ongoing pain.

Uh, I've never really found anything that will ever help cure it. But then the one thing that's like, say I need to get through a day at Disney World or Disney World or whatever, and, uh, I get to you, uh, press to them. Okay, his audio is terrible, but I can, what he's saying is. is he has terrible osteoarthritis pain. Okay. I'm not starting the answer yet, Taze, so don't start. This is still the question. This is still the question.

And, you know, we got the timer Nazi over there. She's good at it now. That's right. I know. So you have, when he goes to somewhere like Disney World or something, if he takes prednisone, it makes his pain better. And I can relate, because I'm on prednisone. myself, okay, you can start the timer. So do you want to talk a little bit about what prednisone is and why it helps and then what

the alternatives are? Well, certainly, yeah, prednisone is an anti-inflammatory and it is a prescription drug. You hear about non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. This is a steroid. A steroid. It's actually a corticosteroid. Corticosteroid, and it does. It works systemically on arthritis.

And it can be really beneficial on osteoarthritis or, you know, any kind of inflammatory thing. I mean, we'll use a lot for people that get bad. I'm poison ivy. Correct. You know, so it can be used. Inflammatory bile? Yeah.

Inflammatory bile. There are some other things that can actually possibly work similarly and to prednisone, which would be non-pharmaceuticals, which would be something like curcuma, which is turmeric. And that's been shown in clinical trials to have a similar, similar effect on arthritis-related inflammation and pain. Yeah. Yeah, turmeric or turmeric or whatever you want to call it is, does work like a non-steroid landy inflammatory drug, but it seems to have fewer downsides. Especially on the stomach and the gut. You know, prednisone, and Dr. Steve, you can talk a lot more about this, but predizone, oral predizone over a long period of time, has a lot of side effects. Yeah, specifically on the gut, specifically on, you know, taste how much time we got?

You know, just knows something about that. Oh, Tacey, yeah, go ahead, Tacey. Prednisone? Yeah. I don't know Jack about prednisone. Oh, my God. Okay, used to sell a drug that you would give to people that were on prednisone to protect their gut. But anyway, it can irritate the stomach lining, certainly.

It basically, what is it? Tase it reduces the prostate glandin lining in the stomach. I don't even know what drug you're talking about. Predinazone. I see, she's over there reading. She looks at the. at that counter and then tunes everything else. I'm busy over here.

So you've been predizzo can break down the process of that, which is the lining of the stomach, which leads to ulcers. Higher doses over a long period of time, diabetes, Cushing's disease, which you get a big fat face or moon face, and not to be confused with Vinnie Paolino, because that's his nickname by a certain person. Changes in blood sugar. You get a hump in your back and stuff like that. Changes in blood sugar, yeah. Increase your risk of heart attack and stroke and stuff.

stuff. So you want to pulse this stuff over short periods of time if you can. Now, there are some people have to take it every day. Yes, yes. And that's a whole different thing. But we don't recommend that. But, yeah, turmeric does inhibit cyclooxygenase 2 or Cox 2. And, you know, non-toxic concentrations of curcumin have significant effect on, you know, certain cells that, you know, require Cox 2 expressions.

So that's how they know. And, you know, but it seems to not have... Time's up. Oh, rats. The, I can finish my sentence, right? Yes. The effects on heart attack and stroke. You just want me to, okay.

Okay, we'll just, you know, do a big teaser. Good luck with the preface. Right. So, but the most important thing is, time. Okay, well, Tice says we have to move on. So the bottom line is for Austria's rights. Yeah, go ahead. I'll say, yep, so can we have an extra 30 seconds?

Yes, you can. Apparently, you can do whatever you want a day. Well, I'm not married to her, so I get a little bit of a break. But there are, in lieu of prednisone, if he's just, if he, there are a lot of other options out there. And some of those things are dietary changes. Sometimes you can eat, you can eat foods that cause inflammation, and maybe that's, you know, making his osteoarthritis worth.

There's a lot of other things you can do. Yeah. Stretching. Right. Predinazone is great because it works. so well, but there are other things that he could try. And he should experiment with things that

are maybe less. But if he's taking it for two or three days, no big deal. Yeah, call back and give us another question so we can answer the rest of the... Yeah, that's right. Hey, Dr. Steve. I want your unbiased opinion. Okay. No, it will be biased, but it will be biased by

scientific evidence. Getting testosterone replacement. I have high blood pressure. That's my main concern. And yes, I know that they can test, to continuous test to monitor it, but is it risky still anyways? Let me know how it's still going with you. Do you also get used to it and have to do more and more and more, kind of like any drug? No.

Nope. Yeah, it's weird. Let me know. You don't really develop tolerance to testosterone because it, um, you know, you don't really develop tolerance to testosterone. own because you're replacing a hormone that should be there and it's just too low. And so you just take enough to get the hormone levels up to the place you want them to be. There are some doctors and other providers who think and make the argument that you need a cycle.

In other words, you know, two weeks on and two weeks off. So those are the people that advocate doing injections or one week on and one week off. So, you know, you get that peak in the beginning. and then you get a trough and then you get a peak in a trough as you continue to inject yourself. There are others that think that a constant supply is more physiologic. A low dose constantly. So they'll do pellets where you don't have to do anything for six months or, you know, the gel where you put it on every day. Yeah, I've been taking testosterone replacement for at least 15 years.

Yeah. And I know no tolerance changes whatsoever. No, yeah. Same dose of been a matter of fact for 15 years. I thought, hey, I'll just increase my day. And I went from two pumps to three, and that was a mistake. All of a sudden, my red blood cell count was elevated. I had polycythemia, meaning that it was abnormally elevated.

I was producing way too many red blood cells, and my blood pressure was up and stuff like that. So as long as you're bringing yourself to your normal level, then you are, you know, physiologic, and the risk is the same as any other dude who has a normal testosterone level. Right. So there are risks to being male. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And try to figure out some other ways to take care of your blood pressure.

You know, sometimes if you have a high enough testosterone, it makes you one exercise, and that'll help lower your blood pressure. So possibly, you know. Yep. Yeah. But beetroot, I found was very effective for my blood pressure. When I ran out of it and I need to make some more, my blood pressure came back up. So, yeah, and all of a sudden this has turned into, you know, whole food pharmacy, you know, P, A, you know, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, and I'm not really like that, but I have to, I had to find alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs because they were killing me.

Yes. So, yeah, and that interesting, how things turn around, yeah. No, there's, there's uses for all this stuff. Every, absolutely, every drug, of course. Every has some need. All right. Oh, look. 27 seconds.

Okay, we'll add that to our next one. Then we get three minutes. Nope, that's not how it works. I reclaim my time, Mr. President. All right. We get 3.30. All right. Let's see here.

Anything from the fluid family there, Dr. Scott? Let me look back here. Okay. What you look, well, I'm going to do. This one says organoids for Tacey, and I do not know what this means. Oh, no. Yeah, let's see what this is. Hey, Tacey, it's Pete in Connecticut.

I was just listening to your time of topics about the chimeric pigs and thought I'd offer you another topic that you might want to cover, which are these. Chimeric pigs are pigs that have two different sets of DNA. Brain tissue organoids. Apparently, researchers have coaxed skin stem cells into becoming human brain tissue. and organize them into little blobs of brain tissue that then grow their own sort of eye organs. Get the hell out of here. Capable of sensing light they've shown. And now they're implanting them into rats or mice.

No, don't do that. Visual center of their brains chopped out. And these rats are incorporating the human brain organoids into their own. into their own brains and they're vascularizing and possibly restoring sight to these little lab mice. You want to talk about moral quandary. Are these organoids sentient? Do they have the possibility of any self-awareness? And are they even potentially human?

and they're grown in a freaking lab. And now if they're talking about curing blindness with these things, what happens when you put another brain inside your brain to you now have two of you? Okay. Hey, Tacey, it's Pete in Connecticut. Hey, Tacey, it's Pete in Connecticut. Thank you for Pete's time of topics. Wow.

It's very interesting. Okay, so that's not a question so we can wax elegant. No, we're going to. No, no. Three minutes. No. Starting now. No.

Talk fast. Okay. So these are little collections of cells. They may, rather than having whatever, how many cells does the human brain have? A bunch. Yeah, let me, hang on a second. Echo, how many cells does the human brain have?

Oh, she doesn't know. The human brain contains approximately 80 million cells. Although the exact number varies depending on. That's it? 80 million? I don't say that seems really low. Mine has significantly less. Billion.

Well, again, it has way more connections than that. But these organoids, they are grown in the lab from stem cells. And they have different cell types, neurons, glia, and they can make sort of an organized architecture. But they're the size of a grain of rice, and I am going to say that these things, are not sentient. Now, would they be able to augment sentience in somebody?

Like, could you design one of these to increase your ability to do math or to become, to turn everybody into Mozart in the future? You know, it would be able to write symphonies at four years of age, maybe. But the fact that you're taking these stem cells and putting it in someone else's brain to, you know, stimulate their eyesight or something like that really isn't that different than putting a heart in, you know, a heart transplant or something like that. It's just basically a mechanism. These things don't have the memories of the person because memories are not just encoded

in the cells. They're encoded in the connections that the synapses make after the cells form. That's the thing. So it's not really possible that you're going to take someone's personality, although it would make a fun science fiction movie, and I'm already working on the treatment in my head right now. Now, they think that these organoids could be used in artificial intelligence. There was a study published in nature electronics reported that brain organoid tissue can be connected to a silicon computer chip and trained to recognize human speakers. Now, that still is not sentience. That's, you know, pattern recognition and stuff like that.

The large language models that we're using now are not sentient. I don't care how many people talk to these things and get fooled into thinking that they are. The Turing test really isn't a real test for sentience. But they are unthinking left parts of the brain. So the left brain processes speech. you knock it out the person is still alive they can still function to a certain extent but they can't speak anymore if you just take out just the speech section of the brain i'm sorry steve i'm going to have to stop you there's there's no cognition going on but it would be able to process speech these things are

just little circuits that fit in the brain okay cool that's cool though let's get stuff yep hey and i do have a couple questions if you want something okay yeah yeah yeah yeah Hey, let's go back to steroids. So why do I get so ragey if I have to take steroids? Yeah. That's a pretty common thing. Well, there's stress hormones. Yeah.

And look, what we found in the human body, like when you do EMDR, this is a technique for processing information in counseling. And what they found is if you're in REM sleep, your eyes move back. back and forth, right? So you're processing information while you're in REM sleep. But if you just make your eyes go back and forth, you'll still stimulate that circuit to process information. So you can, the tail can wag the dog and it will, you know, have the same effect. So if you are under stress, you'll produce these hormones and you'll have all those

symptoms of stress. But if you take the hormones, that will cause you to have the same symptoms as if you were under stress, even if you're perfectly relaxed. And that's what it is. Those are stress hormones, and they affect people's sleep, may make them eat more and make them more irritable over time. Yeah, it's a really good question.

That's a super good question. You got another one? Yeah, I've got two more good ones. Oh, good. Yeah. So let's see. Hey, Dr. Scott, Dr. Steve, can cervical stenosis cause brain fog? Oh, now. Now that is... Because of the stellate ganglion, maybe.

Depending on the level of the stinosis. Yeah, that's interesting. It would be my first thing. So talk about what they're talking about. Explain it to the lay person. Yeah, so stenosis can happen anywhere in any part of the body. Well, I'm getting there for God's shit. You're not.

It's a narrowing of a space. There you go. Very good. It's a narrowing of a space. It can occur anywhere. Blood vessels, you know, bones, it can occur. But what we're talking about is inside the spinal cord itself. Right.

And the spinal column. And if that space becomes two, in, it's just like I've said before, if you've got a water hose and you grab it and you start squeezing a water hose really hard, there's still water going to be going through, but a lot of that water is going to hit your hand and not pass through and creates a blockage. So what he's asking is if he's got a cervical stenosis, if that can cause brain fog. So real quick, typically...

It's actually known to decrease cognition in certain situations. Because it does. It limits the flow of the stress. cerebrospinal fluid in and out of the brain, it limits the nerves, the nerve impulses that can move in and out of the brain too. And what we'll see a lot of... That's the important thing. Right.

So both of those things can... Limits the brain ability to interpret what the body is sending it. Right. And it ends up getting just foggy because it's getting incomplete information. Right. And if the cervical fluid is not moving in and out of there, which does help with waste that occurs inside the brain also with nutrients getting in and out, medicines or whatever. It certainly can cause brain fog.

I would tell this person to Google cervical myelopathy, M-Y-E-L-O-P-A-T-H-Y, because that's really the condition that causes the, that's thought to cause brain fog when you've got stenosis of the spinal column in the neck. And there are some treatments for spinal stenosis that are non-interventional necessarily. You know, there are some stretches you can do and certainly maybe some light traction depending. But you need... I'm about a traction device. But you've got to have imaging done first. Right.

So we don't want to be tugging or poking on anything that we don't know what we're tugging or poking on. Correct. Because the stenosis could be from anything from a tumor to a, you know, a bunch of other things. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Have it worked up first. Yes. Yeah. And don't, you know, I used to take people's necks and go, and I learned not to do that because there have been a couple of people who had fatal strokes from having that done. So just be done. gentle with yourself, but look up cervical myelopathy, talk to your primary care, and maybe they can help you out.

Lots of inter-engineal. All right. Very good. All right. Before we get out of here, I understand you've got at least one more over there, Dr. Scott. I want to say just one thing about brain fog in general. Yeah, sure. One thing that, and Tacey, you talk about this.

I grew lions, mains, mushrooms. I dehydrated them. I extracted them, dual extraction, with 60% alcohol and then with water and then ultra-filtrated them or ultra-filtered them and combined the two so it ended up with a 30% alcohol tincture

and I guess it's an elixir because we talked about that last time an elixir can be anything but this is technically a tincture because it does have alcohol in it. Tacey's been taking it in a dropper full in her coffee every morning. What?

I just started a couple of days She was going to work She was going to work and said Oh I'm just so tired and I just don't want to do it And I said well try this and see And you know it is there is obviously some placebo Effect possibility And my thyroid was all screwed up

So there's a lot of factors going on Well I'm going to work So what did you think about? I mean it was the 13 hours that I sometimes have to work a week is very difficult It's awful It really is. So it was beneficial when you took?

Do you think? So far, I mean, it's a little early because I changed a lot of things at once, the thyroid medicine and the tincture or whatever. And so I'm not, I'm not sure yet. But I have not felt as foggy. That's a fair answer, yeah. It's a fair answer. Yeah. So, cool.

There are a lot of other things we do for, you know. I highly recommend trying lions. Maine, but make sure it's dual extracted, not lion's mane powder. Mm-hmm. What else? What have you guys got in traditional Chinese medicine? You know what? And if you say Estragalus, I swear to God.

Well, you mean other than estradius, of course. We do, so obviously we'll do acupuncture on the neck and on the head. And I do a little bit of, it's Twina, which is, which is, which is muscle energy. Well, I've never heard you talking about that. What's Twina? Twina is, is almost like a kind of an osteopathic bone setting. No, we're in overtime. So I do, I do like a craniosacral technique for brain fog,

especially if it's a traumatic brain fog. So let's say somebody. Tween as a drug or it's a thing? No, it's a procedure. T-N-O-O-T-O-E-N-A, it's a type of like a... It's stand for. Well, it's Chinese body manipulation. Oh, okay.

It's a tweet T-U-I-N-A. So it's a form of Chinese body manipulation. I see. Kind of like a chiropractic kind of thing or myofacial thing. But I'll do, so like if somebody slips and hits her head, you know, and I say. see it all the time in the winter time. People slip and fall on ice and they'll send them to me

if they still got brain fog and I'll do those things and they normally get better. Well, okay. Yeah. So, yeah, there are a lot of things you can do. Try to figure out what's causing it. T-N-A. T-U-I-I-5,000 years old. There you go.

We call it bone setting. Okay. To be, to keep the chiropractors. Interesting. Okay, you said you had another one? One more question here. This is from Del Lou. Hey, Dr. Steve recently had a colonoscopy. Four out of five polyps were able to be removed. The fifth was too large, and I need to go to another medical center for a second try. Should I be concerned?

Okay, so here's the thing. Some people just make polyps, and they're completely benign. They're called hyperplastic polyps. And my question to Delco Liu, if he can give us, there's a little bit of deliops, and there's a little bit of delay with the fluid family, but were any of those polyps that they took out, the four out of the five, were any of them anything other than benign? And the good news is that the polyp stage is, even if it were, you know, pre-cancerous or emerging cancer, it's so early that most of the time that can be treated right then and there in the colonoscopy suite.

It usually takes a round. I mean, the thought is you get an adenomatous polyp, which is the glandular type of polyp, those are the naughty ones. And it'll take 10 years for it to go from the early polyp stage until it turns into cancer. And then it takes even more time before it invades and then metastasizes. So if you do your colonoscopies, starting at age 45 and, or. Or earlier, if you have a first-degree relative that had it, you know, if you had a first-degree relative that had colon cancer at, you know, 47,

you want to do your first colonoscopy at 37. But anyway, yeah, but 45 is the new 50. Right. And you do these things, and as long as you do them on a regular schedule, they'll catch stuff before it becomes a problem. And that's also why you want to do a really good prep. Follow the prep exactly because if you've got stool covering up a small polyp, then they may miss it that will then have 10 years before you get your next thing,

and now it'll be there. Then it'll be a problem. Maybe a problem. But this thing may have been most polyps are what we call pedunculated. They look like a punching bag. But some of them are cessile, and it's a lot harder to grab one of those. So, you know, if they can't get it, they'll scrape it, look at it under the microscope. If it looks poopy, then they'll go in and they'll just,

take it out. Yes, and he said they have sent, they've been sent for biopsy, so they don't have the result. He doesn't have the result. Well, just email me. I mean, you go to our website at Dr. Steve.com and click contact. I think that still works. If not, I mean, I don't care to give out my email address. It's just, you know, DR Steve 202 at gmail.com.

Okay. Yep. All right. Cool, man. All right. We got anything else. Is that it? That's it.

Taste, you got anything? Thank you. Nope. All right. Well, thanks. Go to Dr. Scott. Thanks to Tacey, thanks to everyone who's made this show happen over the years. Thank you to the fluid family who lies in wait in the waiting room at YouTube.com slash at Weird Medicine.

Listen to our, where Myrtle Manus gives out 20 memberships every month or every week. Listen to our Sirius XM show on the Faction Talk channel, Series 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. These voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. Go to our website, Dr. Steve.com for schedules, podcasts, and other crap.

Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps, quit smoking, get off your asses, and get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. You know,