Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 650 - Parthenogenesis, Ehler Danlos, Brain Abscess, and Mold

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Dr Steve and Dr Scott discuss: board certification: scam or necessity altered sleep states "virgin" birth in science: parthenogenesis rising from the dead Ehler Danlos and TMJ pressure turned out to be an abscess mold exposure: scam or reality Please visit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠STUFF.DOCTORSTEVE.COM⁠⁠⁠⁠ (for dabblegames at cost and more!) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠simplyherbals.net/cbd-sinus-rinse⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (the best he's ever made. Seriously.) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/weirdmedicine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠x.com/weirdmedicine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fightthedabbler.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ (help Karl and Shuli win their LOLsuit) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/@weirdmedicine ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠(click JOIN and ACCEPT GIFTED MEMBERSHIPS. Join the "Fluid Family" for live recordings!) CHECK OUT THE ROADIE COACH stringed instrument trainer! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠roadie.doctorsteve.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (the greatest gift for a guitarist or bassist! The robotic tuner!) see it here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠stuff.doctorsteve.com/#roadie⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ GET YOUR COPY OF "WET BRAIN: THE GAME OF TROLLS AND LOSERS!" get it here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ dabblegames.myshopify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (a most-fun party game!) DABBLEDICE: Second Edition available NOW! Only $3.50 plus shipping! each shipment comes with some awful tchotchke! we're getting out of the dabbleverse business so everything is sold at COST Also don't forget: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cameo.com/weirdmedicine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Book your old pal right now because he's cheap! "FLUID!") 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

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via rail, love the way.

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit. Play. Post. Taste. View. And enjoy.

Via rail. Love the way. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that.

And enjoy. Via rail, love the way. Man, you are one pathetic loser. Dr. Steve, I hope you're better at prostate screenings than you are at radio screenings. The son of a bitch. If you just read the bio for Dr. Dr. Steve, host of weird medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows,

Opie and Anthony and Ron and Bez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Why can't you give me the respect? I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolivir stripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heartbell, exacerbating my impetable woes. I want to take my brain out

Blast with the wave, an ultrasonic, agographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health 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 to requiem for my disease. So I paid. It's weird medicine, the first and still only, unsensored medical show, and the history broadcast radio.

Now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal, Dr. Scott, the traditional Chinese medicine provider, gives me street cred the wackle alternative medicine assholes. Hello, Dr. Scott. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is a show for people who never listen to a medical show

on the radio and the internet. If you've got a question, you're embarrassed to take to your regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call 347-7-66-4-3-23. That's 347. Pooh-Hid. Follow us on Twitter at Weird Medicine

and at DR Scott W.M. And visit our website, Dr.steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything here with a grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking it over with your health care provider. All right, very good.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyerbils.net. That's simplyerbils.net. I understand that you're retooling. Retooling, trying to figure out a way to keep this thing rolling forward, especially with the nasal sprays. Yeah. Yeah, we're doing it. We're going to figure it out, I think. Okay.

Well, you know, we have the new video studio. Okay. Let's produce a, you know, at least a YouTube commercial. Sure. Sure. That'd be kind of fun. Yeah. I'm getting reasonably proficient in Adobe, not Adobe.

In Da Vinci. Okay. Resolve. I've got the pro version. I've got a little mixer controller slash editor, quick editor thing. Wow. That's high pollutant. I got the camera that normal world made me buy. And then they went, ah.

Yeah, we're closing up. Yeah. What the hell? Thanks. Thanks, Dr. Steve. But, yeah, so we've got all that stuff. So let's just do it. So when's the studio going to be close to rock and rolling? Today. Oh, you're that close?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah. I'll go down and see it. Yeah, I'm getting ready to put the, last touches in today. That's cool. So I hope to produce my first, you know, Dr. Steve Presents

Tomorrow. How fun. Yeah. So, anyway. I knew you were up to some kind of shenanigans over the holidays. I have a new YouTube channel. It has nothing on it, but it will. It's at, it's YouTube.com slash at Dr. Steve Presents.

And it will just be, you know, documentary style or, you know, one-off topic type things. I did a video on borderline personality disorder. I've got one on the difference between light beer and, you know, shots of alcohol and stuff like that. Okay. So I've got, you know, just informative stuff. I'm going to try that. I'm going to give it a year.

And if I can't come up with any interesting ideas and can't make it do anything, then I'm I'm just going to give it up. Sounds fun. Yep. I'm pretty sure you've got plenty of ideas coming in constantly. And the trick is, so anybody out there who's a writer, I used to give people advice because I write. And, you know, I'm published in the medical literature. If you want to be a writer, the only difference between someone who wants to be a writer and a writer is that writers actually write.

and the way to do that is to force yourself, and this isn't my idea. I got this, I don't know from who. Might even been Stephen King, I'm not sure. But, I mean, he's an idiot, but he's obviously very successful. Very successful. And he has some, you know, good ideas on how to write. But what you do is you set yourself a time to do it, and you sit in front of the computer. computer. And you can't do anything else. You can't play games. You have to sit in front of the computer. You either have to write or do nothing.

Okay. And eventually, you'll start writing. And eventually, all the ideas will only come when you're sitting in front of it. You won't be waking up at 2 in the morning. Oh, I've got this great idea and forget it. All of your ideas will come while you're sitting there. You're training your brain to... Correct. So that's what I'm doing with this. I've got a specific set of office hours every week and I have to either produce or I have to just sit there. Okay. And so I'm hoping because I get bored easily, I'm going to produce things. Yes. We'll see. You do get bored easily.

We'll see. Oh, I can't wait to see. But we'll have a little performance venue in there too where we can go in and get, you know, Mike Milhorn and, you know, people like that and set up cameras and do an actual performance kind of thing. It might be fun. It might be fun. Yep.

Might be fun. Yeah, I got it cheap. That's cool. The only problem is there's an elevator right next to the place, and it makes a lot of noise when it goes up and down. So we've got to do stuff either at night when there's not a lot of people there or on the weekends. Okay. Or we'll put us a big little piece of foam over it over there. Yeah, it just doesn't end up to it, really.

It's an old building. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I figured you're going to say it dings when it goes up and down. No, it doesn't do that. Right in the middle of your show. It just rumbles.

Now, some of that I can edit out, particularly voice. One nice thing about Da Vinci, and then we'll get to the stuff people actually listen to us for. It's got a really good voice isolation, AI protocol in it, and you can just click voice isolation and it just knocks out all the noise and stuff. So it's cool. That's cool. All right. Well, you got anything? Nope.

Okay. All right. Well, let's take some phone calls, then. Number one thing, don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. Couldn't be. Hey, Dr. Steve. I had a question for you about pediatricians. I am expecting a baby in June.

It is now January, so I'm just starting my second trimester. And my obstetrician said that. One thing I want to recommend. go to dr steve.com if this is your first and click on the link that says one page baby manual download it learn it it's tacy and i distilled um a carp's happiest baby on the block book it's you know 300 page book i distilled it down to one paragraph because really he had one good idea and then and then fluffed it out to sell books to make it a book yeah um you can can't make a lot selling a little card with an index card.

One paragraph on that right. And then we met with a bunch of different experts and just took notes and then put it all down in one-page baby manual. It's really just basically how to get the kid on a schedule and get them sleeping all night. Okay. Okay. Well, anyway. I should start scheduling babies' newborn appointments now. apparently that's very common for the area where I live.

Do they, does she mean schedule it for June? I guess, yeah. Or do they mean now? Like now? That's silly. No, I think for when she has a baby in June. Yes, okay. That I agree with.

You might as well because some of these people are hard to get into. Yeah, hard to get into. She also said that some local pediatricians will do an introductory appointment, before baby is born. Okay. To just introduce themselves in the practice and answer any questions. Hello. Hello.

Okay. So two questions for you. My local pediatrician that's very close to my home that a lot of local families use and love is not board certified. And I'm wondering if that makes a difference, what are the benefits of having a board certified pediatrician or not? And is it important? He does have 35 years of experience.

He was formerly a chief of pediatric at a local hospital. Okay. So what that tells me is that this person was board certified. And they just, after 37 years, said, I'm not taking the stupid testing. Because right now, a lot of hospitals require you to be board certified. There used to be this thing called board eligible, meaning that you were eligible. to take the exam, but you just hadn't done it. But I don't, that just, board eligible just means you never took the exam.

But I'm going to bet if he was chief of pediatrics, because I'm considering this as well. If he was chief of pediatrics, he almost certainly was board certified at one point. And you can ask him, just ask him. You know, ask him about it. If somebody asked me, if I decide. to forego board certification this time. I wouldn't have any problem with somebody asking me about it. Now, board certification does impact, you know, hospital privileges in some places.

Okay. Now, I talked to my credentialing at the health system that I work for, and I said, But what if I decided not to renew my board certification? They said it wouldn't be any problem because I've been there for 35 years. So that may be what happened. A lot of these boards, I don't know how the American Academy of Pediatrics does it, but they force you to do these things called maintenance of certification. So you have to do a certain number of different modules and all this stuff.

and it's all online and it costs money. And it's a way for them to continue to make money. There is a board called the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons that says all of that's bullshit. It doesn't make you a better physician. And there's no evidence that it does and that recertification, all these different modules and tests that you have to take. before you take the board exam that it impacts your ability to take care of patients in a competent manner, it doesn't have any impact on that. So they board certify people as long as they were board certified once, you know, took the exam, and then have a certain number of CME points every year. Gotcha.

Continuing medical education points. because it is a lifelong learning situation. You can't just get your license and then just never advance. So I think it's okay to ask. It sounds like this person is a very popular pediatrician. They were obviously well regarded by their peers at some point. They made them chief of staff. Yep.

And I'm going to guess that that's just what it was. I will probably continue my primary specialty because on that one I can take 25 questions every three months for three years. And my biggest issue is at 70 sitting in front of these crappy computer screens at these testing places, they don't have the best equipment. Okay. And my eyes just go blurry after two hours of standing and staring at this stupid screen. And it's an eight-hour test. Oh, geez. And they put all the x-rays and pictures and stuff at the very end.

And I can't see that. And I can't see shit. No, no, no, no. That's awful. So I might let my secondary specialty go and just use my National Board of Physician's version just because of that. Sure. Makes sense.

But anyway, let's see if there's anything else to her question. So I would imagine that he's very qualified, but I'm wondering why a doctor would choose whether to be board certified or not. Yeah. Some of it's politics, too, because there are people who just say, I'm not fallen for this bullshit. You know, I went to medical school. I did my residency. I got board certified. I passed the exam.

And all this recertification stuff is garbage, and a lot of people will forego it. Now, there are consequences to that. This particular pediatrician may not be able to see you in the hospital. You have to ask because it's always nice if your own pediatrician can admit you to the hospital. A lot of pediatricians now use pediatric hospitalists where there are people that are only in the hospital, and there were people who were only in the office. I liked the old paradigm. When my kids were young and got norovirus and were dehydrated,

we took them to see their pediatrician. They wrote the orders they came and saw them in the hospital. That was nice. That was 20 years ago, and in 20 years, a lot of things have changed. And you'll see very often you'll see a hospitalist that's affiliated with your pediatrician, but you'll never see it. them again in the hospital. So you just have to ask.

If he's old school, and he may have a situation like I do where they said, I don't, we don't care if you're board certified anymore. You've obviously proven. Yep. Your knowledge and worse. All right.

So ask. Ask him. All right. Okay, doke. Hey, Dr. Steve. This is Adam. Hey. Hey.

I'm not a sleepwalk. or anything, but I had a nightmare the other night where I was kicking somebody or like kicking to get away from somebody and It went on and felt like for a little while and then when I woke up later on the bed was completely wiped of Sheets and blankets like everything was on the floor. I assumed that I kicked everything on the floor But I'm not known to be a sleepwalker. So how can I not be a sleepwalker but yet that still happened? Yeah So when you're asleep, during REM sleep, your body is partially paralyzed for this reason so that you're not acting out your dreams. Okay. And true sleepwalkers, that switch doesn't get turned on fully, and so they'll get up and walk around and, you know, act out their dreams.

Liam, my son, used to, did you ever see that movie paranormal activity where they had the time lapse? and the woman was just standing in front of the bed, you know, for like three hours, just standing there immobile. No, that would like so now. Okay, well, it was pretty creepy. Yeah, I bet. And Liam used to do that. I would wake up and he'd just be standing there like paranormal activity. It's like, Liam, go to bed that's creepy.

How funny. Yeah, funny. Anyway, so that's the one switch. The other switch is the consciousness switch. So every once in a while, people's consciousness will turn back on. but the other switches won't flip on, and so they'll still be paralyzed. And they'll still be dreaming. So they're awake, but they're still dreaming and they're paralyzed.

And these are people who have sleep paralysis or think that they're being abducted by aliens. And the reason I bring that one up is because in his case, the switch, the paralysis switch wasn't fully turned on. So he kicked everything off the bed. And, but it doesn't mean that this is going to happen every night. And it's not necessarily heralding the beginning of something new because I had sleep paralysis. The first time it happened, I think I told this story, I woke up and there was a giant eye floating next to my bed. And it blinked and I had this kind of weird seizure thing. And then I woke up and it was dark in the room.

Whereas before it had been light, I could see everything. It was just the mental map in my brain. And, but I was fully conscious when this was going on, which was crazy. Yeah. And I've had maybe six or seven episodes like that in my life. And the rest of the time, I'm fine. And it hasn't happened again in years and years and years. So this may be just a one-off.

That switch for whatever reason, something you ate, something you drank, maybe something you smoked. I don't know. TV show we saw earlier maybe. And it caused that. that paralysis switch to not fully engage, and so you kick the bed sheets off, but doesn't necessarily herald something. Now, I will say there are people who take Ambien, right? Zolpidem is the generic term for that, and there's another one, Lunasta. And these, every once in a while, people will do wacky,

things on them. Different than like Xanax or lorazepam, Ativan, where they start acting out of dreams. I had a friend and they would do this thing called Big Sex Night and they would take an ambia and then have intercourse and the wife woke up and the husband was up on the second floor washing windows on a ladder, totally asleep. Oh, geez. People have driven to other taxes.

Now, when they say totally asleep, their eyes are open, but when you, quote, unquote, wake them up, they have no recollection of all of this stuff. And when that starts happening with those drugs, it never stops. Okay. It just gets worse. That's what the shrinks tell me. So it has to be stopped. This is not necessarily the same thing. But if he was taking one of those drugs, then this may be heralding.

He's one of these patients that can't take those drugs anymore. Gotcha. Okay. Yep. All right. Very interesting. Yeah, cool. Let us know Adam and Nebraska, if that happens again or if you have any other weird phenomena, we'll talk about it.

All right. Hey, Dr. Steve, it's Matt and Charleston. Hey, Matt. It's Christmas. Yes. I have some biblical medical questions for you. Okay. Number one, if it were to happen medically, how.

How would a virgin birth happen? Well, okay. Could have happened a lot of ways. You can get impregnated without penetration. Now, listen, we're not talking about the capital virgin birth. He's asking today, how could one happen? So I don't want anybody saying, oh, he's talking about, you know, the virgin birth. I'm not.

There are ways you can get impregnated without penetration. You know, sperm cells are, you know, they're very efficient at seeking out, you know, eggs in a birth canal or in the uterus. So there's that. So just getting close to penetration, getting some semen around there. But there also is a thing called parthenogenesis, though. Porthogenesis has not been seen in humans. Let me Google this real quick. It's a form of asexual reproduction where an embryo forms from an unfertilized egg.

And it says right here, essentially, a virgin birth, allowing females to clone themselves without a male partner. It's common in vertebrates like aphids and some vertebrates such as Komodo dragons and sharks. It's mostly rare in mammals. It can occur. What? It can occur in humans, often leading to tumor formation like teratomas. Okay. Yeah, because there's only half of the, yeah.

Half of the genetic material. Exactly, right. So let me see. Interesting. Human eggs can spontaneously activate, but usually stop developing or form ovarian teratomas. These are tumors with tissues like hair or teeth rather than viable embryos. Artificially activating human eggs is used in research for

stem cells and assisted reproduction. So there you go. There you go. What do you think of that? I think that's pretty fascinating. It is fascinating. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy.

Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via rail, love the way. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy.

Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. Welcome aboard, via rail. Please sit and enjoy.

Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that, and enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. Welcome aboard, via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit.

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Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. Fascinating. But let's see if you had something else. Also, if it were to happen,

how would someone? comes back from the dead. What's your theory on that? Well, okay, so reanimation. We see that. There are, but then you have to define, well, were they really dead? So you have to define death. We used to define death as stopping breathing.

And then we developed ventilators, so that wasn't it anymore. And then when the heart stopped, that was death, except we have ACLS protocol, advanced cardiac life support. We do chest compressions and cardioversion and intubation, all that stuff. And about 15% of the time you can bring somebody back from that. So we've defined death as total cessation of brain function. Now, there are children, particularly because they're smaller and their core temperature can drop faster, who have been found at the bottom of an ice-covered lake, who were rewarmed and then brought back, quote-unquote, from the dead, through correct application of advanced cardiac life support in a drowning, you know, a cold drowning victim.

And sometimes, you know, it can be 45 minutes and they're running around totally normal now. So we have a thing called the diving reflex. Humans have it. Whales have it. dolphins have it. All mammals have it, which is interesting, but the whales and the dolphins can slow their metabolism and just slow everything down so that they can stay underwater longer.

And humans have it to a certain degree. We'll use the diving reflex in old school cardiology. When you've got somebody with a superventricular tachycardia, you know, a fast heart rate that's not, you know, the ventricular tachycardia, the one that is so dangerous, so the superventricular just gives you a really fast heart rate, and it can result in complications, but you can take somebody's head and dunk it in ice water

and sometimes break that, and it's because of the diving reflex, where the vagus nerve kicks in and slows everything down, all of a sudden the heart goes back into a normal rhythm. Stimulating your parasympathetic tone. There you go. There you go. Hey, I've got something in her.

So, you know, so are those kids that are at the bottom of the lake? Are they dead? Not well. No, they're just, their metabolism is slowed down so much that you can resuscitate them. So other than that, it would have to be some supernatural thing or uploading someone's consciousness to a computer. Once the brain has become irreparably damaged, there's no bringing it back. with current technology.

I've got a real quick thing I looked up. The longest on record that we have, Velma Thomas, West Virginia girl, 17 hours. What? Cardiac arrests for 17 hours and came back and made a full recovery. What the, what were the circumstances? Highlighting how extreme hypothermia

can protect the brain, okay? Yeah. A gal from a Polish woman, 91-year-old, was declared deceased. She was 91? Yeah, placed in a morgue. And the morgue 11 hours later, they found her and declared that she's like, what are y'all? She wanted some tea.

She wanted a spot of tea. Oh, my goodness. The Lazarus phenomenon, which is where the heart just spontaneously starts again. Yeah. Lazarus phenomenon. And in a hypothermia case, a guy was a 31-year-old was declared dead for eight hours and 42 minutes after accidental hypothermia, eight hours and 42 minutes of being deceased. 17 hours. See, so, you know, suspended animation is a thing.

It is a thing. We could learn from this. And, you know, if you can do it for 17, what do you say, 17 hours? 15 hours. You know, you could apply enough science to this where we could put people in suspended animation for an indefinite period of time. But you think about some of the major surgeries that some people will have to go through. They're kind of in a suspended animation. Well, sure, but their heart's beating.

Of course, of course. But I think as far as their brain being in a suspended state. Oh, it's crazy. How do we reboot like that? Oh, that's great. You know, you shut off consciousness. And, I mean, you've had colonoscopy. Sure, right?

Yep. They go, okay, count back from 10. You go 10, 9, and you go, this isn't working. And when you're saying this isn't working, it's already over. Yeah, and then they're like, no, you're. It's over. It's like a perfect edit. You can wake up now.

10, 9. You know what? I don't think this is, and then that you're in the recovery room. Yeah, I know it's like, no, it's over. What? When are you going to do it? Yeah, I remember the first time that happened to me. Because when you're sleeping, you kind of, I feel like when I'm sleeping, I feel a little bit of time passing.

There is that sort of sensation of time passing. Yes. But under anesthesia, that is not the case. Nope. very interesting. Wow. All right. Let's do this one.

Hi, Dr. Steve. Hello. And we're in medicine team. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. I'm great.

Thanks for asking. Anyway, I have a question about jaw dislocations. I have Ailer's Downlow syndrome. Yep. So, you know, a little bit, sometimes my shoulder will pop out of place or hip. It does cause discomfort, but mostly the one that bothers me is the jaw. It clicks constantly. When I sleep, it'll often fall out of place, at least ones a week, I would guess, and then lock there.

I've tried certain things, but nothing really seems to work, and I heard you talking about Botox for headaches. And I would wonder if that would work at all for... therapeutic use for no okay so Botox works by well it has several mechanisms one is it can deplete substance

P which is great for scar pain people who have scar pain will inject Botox along the scar and it's a neuropathy it's a neuropathic pain and it'll make the pain go away for about four months

by sub by depleting a thing called substance P. But what it is used for mostly medically is to relax muscle tissue. That's the last thing you need is to relax even more because he's got ailer-danlo syndrome. There are several different versions of it, but basically it makes joints more elastic. So using Botox would actually exacerbate this. You can get jaw dislocation. You can get temporal mandibular joint dysfunction. The connective tissue, laxity leads to these sort of hyper-mobile TMJ, and it makes it prone to subluxation, which is a parcel dislocation and complete dislocation popping out.

And so you get clicking, locking headaches, muscle spasms, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, the treatment is physical therapy. seeing a physical therapist and strengthening those jaw muscles tightening them so that they can't go out there are splints and mouth guards you know there are anti-inflammatories for pain

every once in a while they'll do surgery but that's really just to limit joint movement you don't want that no that's after the last choice yeah yeah so anyway

You may have to go to the ER. I've had to do that before where, you know, once it dislocates, now the pain causes it to spasm. And now it's locked in. You can't get it out. And you basically have to put your thumbs and you've got to be very trusting of the person. But you put on, obviously, put gloves on. And you have your hands under the mandible, the jaw and their thumbs go in to the, as far as, far in as you can get them.

Right. And then you just press down with your thumbs right there at that temporal mandibular joint. Yeah, you see you've got your thumbs around the back of the back teeth that you can, bottom teeth, bottom teeth on the back back back. Thank you. And I'm not describing it well. And you just basically, you know, rotate your hand so that the thumbs go down and the fingers come forward on the jaw and it'll usually pop it back out. And sometimes you have to give somebody IV allowing them. Yeah.

Something to relax the muscles, yeah. Yep. Yeah. So I'm thinking exploring some external splints might be a reasonable thing to keep her jaw in place. Agreed. At least a safe, quick option. All right. But try some PT.

All right. Very good. Hi, Dr. Steve. I'm Arthur from Pennsylvania. I spoke to you a year or two ago about this swelling of pressure behind my eyes and nose. Yeah. I did get a cat skin in September, and I found out that I had these two abscess teeth, whereby the infection spread from my gums to my finest. Oh, my goodness.

And I've tried so many different things, so many different doctors. My question to you, can this thing spread to my brain and kill me? So the question is, I wish this was live, so we could ask, is the infection still active? because any infection in the head, particularly the teeth, can cause lots of different things, including heart disease. So this infection's got to be under control. You need to see an infectious disease specialist and an ear, nose and throat specialist, an otolaryngologist. You may have already done that. So, Arthur, call us back or email me and give us more information.

We'll see what we can come up with on this. The brain is pretty well protected from external threats, but every once in a while, something can creep in there. And particularly if you get inflammation in the head, it can cause a blood clot to form in the venous sinuses. And if that gets infected, you've got a real problem. So I'm only throwing that out. I think the odds of that happening are vanishingly small, but obviously not zero. Of course, the odds are not zero that Dr. Scott and I will get hit by a meteor sitting here talking about this. Highly, highly unlikely, but not zero.

So email me, DR Steve 202 at gmail.com, and we'll look at, I'd be even happy to look at your medical records and we'll see what we can come up with. Okay. All right. We've got one. Okay. If you want to do it real quick before we get out of here. So first of all, McCribbs wants to thank you for helping go through the issues with the eyes, had bleeding in his eyes. He wound up is going to need cataract surgery.

Okay. He's going to have two surgeries in 30 days. It was insane but necessary. Oh, they're bleeding. Yes, yes, yes. And so they're going to have to do the cataract surgery so that they can get the laser in there. And Dr. Steve, you were right on track with both. Oh, yeah.

It was nice. First opinion on what will. Thanks, McRibb. Yeah, so good luck with that. Seems to be doing a little bit better. You're really grateful for your help. But here's the question. So Crystal Williams, what are the health risks with mold?

Recently did a home mold test around my house. Oh, boy. And we have some in the process of getting removed, but who knows how long we've been around it and still in it. You know, what do you think? I think a lot of it depends on what kind of mold it is. Correct. And where's the source? If you can fix it pretty quick, you know, you can wind up exposure.

You can get asthma and some other respiratory disorders, maybe lower immune system. Let me give you, let me just give you some red flags for mold scams. because they are out there. Yeah, yeah, good idea. If you get free mold testing and then they propose very expensive fixes if they're the ones that are going to fix it. If they jump straight to air sampling

and not looking at water sources because that's where mold comes from. Of course. A lot of times. Like if you see mushrooms growing in your back, which I've seen, there's a whole subreddit on mushroom identification. That's a bad sign because what that means is that there's a leak somewhere that's causing a mold to grow in the wood of the studs of your house. And then now it's making fruiting bodies.

That's how, because a lot of molds love to eat wood. That's where you're going to find most of the, you know, mushrooms out in the wild are going to be on dead wood steps. Yeah, or trees that are very stressed. And when I grow, you know, certain mushrooms will grow them on those wood pellets. The Trager pellets because they don't, they're not treated. They don't have any chemicals on them. So, and, you know, I'm growing gourmet mushrooms. You know, don't worry about it.

All right. So, you know, golden mushrooms or golden trumpets and stuff like that. All right. I'm saying that wrong. Oyster mushrooms and things like that. Lions main and things that they treat. Lions main particularly likes wood. Yep.

Likes to eat wood. Okay. Now, if they're using high-pressure tactics or exorbitant quotes or demanding immediate decisions, then that's a scam. My mother-in-law fell for. for one of these, where they charged her $8,000 to put plastic in her crawl space. I had somebody do it for me for $150. It was exactly the same thing. Okay.

You know, if the inspectors are lacking proper moisture meters because this is about moisture. Okay. Thermal imaging or relevant certifications, or if they rely on a single insufficient air test, instead of a comprehensive investigation. Suggesting bleach for mold removal, stuff like that, or promising insurance will cover it because a lot of them won't without specific riders. So if you're going to protect yourself, hire people who are independent professionals that have bona fides, but find the water source.

The real professional is going to find the water source and fix that first. Because there's nothing. Spraying stuff on mold or putting plastic up or any of that stuff doesn't do shit unless you figure out where the water's coming from because mold means water. Now, what does it mean long term as far as mold is concerned? Like Scott said, you can have allergic reactions to some molds. There are some pathogenic molds, but most of the things that grow on wood in your house are not dangerous to you. Right. But you can be allergic to them.

I'm allergic to mold. So, you know, I get nasal congestion and stuff like that. You can tell you, as soon as you walk in their room when there's mold. Because a lot of people get hypersensitive to it after they've been exposed to it for a while. You know, there are some, and I've seen advertisements, of course, I don't know if legitimate or not, but there are some pretty high qualified companies that make mold cleaners, like for bathrooms and things of that nature. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, there are some pathogenic molds. One of them is black mold. It's greenish black and causes allergic reactions, rashes, headaches. And it's dangerous to infants. Now, there is another one called aspergillus, which we. can cause pneumonia in vulnerable people. Most of these things that cause asthma or that cause infections are causing them in vulnerable adults or children, basically people on chemo or elderly adults, things

like that. All right. Anything else about that? No, I believe that's what I would do. Does that help? Yeah, most hope so. Yeah, I would do. Definitely, clean that up.

Go to your local hardware store and get you some good quality of mold stuff. At least get the stuff out of the bathroom. But find out where the source is. Find them where the source is. And one thing about bleach, be careful with just plain bleach, you know, because bleach is harsh on metals. Yep. You know, sometimes a bleach-free, you know, mold cleaners a little bit better, just depending on what you're cleaning. But find, yeah, try to find out what the source is.

Because if it's just in your bathroom, and it's just a bathroom. Yeah, then it's the moisture in there. Then you can fix that. Right. All right. Good look, Crystal. All right. Anything else from there?

No, sir. Really? No, it's, that was just, uh, uh, mm-mm. Let's look and see what else. McGrubes was thankful for, uh, for the thing. Oh, wow. Tom had a detached retina also. Oh, is that right?

Yeah, so we've, we got two of them in the house today. Goodness gracious. Well, Crystal, let us know about the, about the, um, mold and yeah Tom Hunt I had cataract surgery in both eyes after a few months I had retina detachment I had to have surgery oh my goodness well

with regard to the cataract surgery my dad was 80 something and he had it done he said it was the greatest thing ever I bet because it just makes a huge difference Tom Hunt 803 became a member of the fluid family there you go thank you Tom

all right my friends well so we'll try to come up We've kind of run out of steam here all of a sudden. We're like, well. Well, happy new year, everybody. Oh, I forgot to tell everybody about what I got for Christmas. I'm not going to show it, but I'll read it. Oh, yeah, yeah.

It says, Dr. Steve, it's a great pleasure to send you best wishes and warmest congratulations on the occasion of your 70th birthday. Signed, M. Carney, Prime Minister of California. Canada, Ottawa, 2025. That's beautiful. This was sent to me by my delightful friend, Cardiff Electric. Thank you, sir. I think he had to pretend that I was a Canadian citizen to get that done.

And then dabble games is no more, but Myrtle's Game Emporium is, and we're going to have a Myrtle-themed game called Pig Nuckle Peanuckle. Oh, funny. And there are these different combinations, like if the cousin's married, then Paul comes in, but you can bribe him to let the marriage go on and stuff like that. And we also have Troy Smith artwork. These things are 8 by 12, and they're foam, and you can just stick them right on the wall. His artwork is fantastic. And we'll have the quantifier of Scat, the Green Furry Monster, and Moon.

head at Jester and a few others. So check that out. Just go to stuff.orgasteev.com and you can see it there. All right. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps. Quit smoking, get off your asses, get some exercise.

We'll see you in, I don't know, 10 days for the next edition of Weird Madison. Thanks, everybody. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip.

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