- I've seen the comment section.
You guys have a lot of medical questions
and I pulled together
and I'm gonna answer some of the most juicy ones right now.
Huge thank you to ShipStation for sponsoring this video.
Pee-woop!
Daniel von Diego:
"Is it dangerous to sleep next to a WiFi router?"
Do we have evidence that it's dangerous? No.
Do I recommend it? No.
Move it away. Find a different point for it.
Don't keep it next to your brain.
Also, keep your cellphone away from your brain.
And keep your cellphone out of arm's reach
so you don't reach for it in the middle of the night
if you can't sleep 'cause that's the sure-fire way
to disturb your sleep.
"What advice do you have for the partners of people
who work in medicine?
Given the long hours of workload,
it can be difficult to stay connected."
It's very difficult.
Do you know how many relationships end
when someone goes to medical school?
Tons.
But also, do you know how many relationships form
'cause you realize that like sometimes attracts like?
Humans are magnets.
"Is it okay to lick a pen?"
Medically, I wouldn't advise.
Is it okay?
Ethically, morally, I mean, I think it's fine.
Don't lick part of the pen that releases ink.
That's not edible.
The way that I think about pens is the same way
that I think about our fingers.
Our fingers are disgusting.
They have a lot of bacteria on them.
If you touch your phone,
you're essentially touching other people's poop.
There's poop on everything these days:
keyboards, phones, water bottles, it's all over the place.
It's just floating around.
And because of that, it's probably on your pen too.
And if you're gonna put your pet in your mouth,
you're putting poop in your mouth.
So is it okay to lick poop?
No, then not okay to lick your pen.
That's how I'm stating my answer.
"Is drinking my own blood bad for me?
I promise I don't do it on purpose, but it happens a lot."
It is a problem.
Drinking blood is a GI disturber, whatever.
It's not good for your GI system.
In some people it's can cause tremendous constipation.
Because what does blood have in it? Iron.
In others, it can cause inflammation
and irritation of your GI tract, leading to diarrhea.
How do we know this?
In those who have frequent nose bleeds and then do this,
start swallowing a lot of blood,
it can lead to nausea, vomiting,
and/or constipation/diarrhea if it stays there long enough.
"Is it bad to hold in poop?"
You have an anal sphincter for reason.
It's so that you don't just poop while you're sitting there.
If you lose control of your poop,
it's called fecal incontinence,
and that can happen as a result
of all sorts of medical problems.
A common one that we talk about
or learn about in boards
is something called cauda equina syndrome.
That lower end of your spinal cord
actually starts getting compressed,
and it creates such compression
that you you develop incontinence
or decreased sensation in the saddle area of your body.
But holding in your poop is a normal thing for a human.
So just be reasonable with it. Don't overdo it.
Because you could actually hold in your poop so long
that you start developing nausea and vomiting
because you're actually creating a backup in the system.
So don't do that.
"Is it bad to stay up all night several nights a week?"
It is absolutely bad.
In fact, I'm gonna go on record and say,
the uptick in neurological conditions
like Alzheimer's, dementia, et cetera,
I believe is happening due to the fact
that we no longer respect sleep.
We pride ourselves on sleeping less and working more.
We value hustle culture.
We stay up late because of social media and anxiety
and mental health struggles,
and as a result, we're creating brain problems.
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All right, let's get back to the questions.
"Why am I able to play any VR game
for countless hours without getting sick,
but the moment I start driving a car,
I get motion sickness?"
In a VR people get motion sick because there's a disconnect
from what their vision is seeing versus
what their semicircular canals
in their ears are experiencing.
So that sort of disconnect can create nausea in some people
that you can get used to.
In an automobile,
because you're constantly starting and stopping,
you're having the opposite disconnect
where your semicircular canals
are experiencing a lot of activation, a lot of stimulus,
but your vision might be looking at a still object.
So that's a different disconnect
on opposite ends of the spectrum,
and you can have worse motion sickness on one end
but not the other.
"Every time I wake up much earlier than normal,
like to catch a flight, I get really bad indigestion.
Is this just coincidence or is something going on?"
There's something going on.
The central nervous system of our bodies works
on two different systems.
One is the rest, repair, and digest nervous system
that happens and gets activated
when we sleep, when we chill, when we meditate.
And then the flight or flight response system,
which is like what happens if we see a threat.
When we're sleeping, we're in rest/digest.
If you don't get enough sleep,
you don't repair, you don't digest well.
So when you wake up early,
your body has to go into fight or flight mode.
It has to kick in your adrenaline in order to keep you awake
and allow you to function normally.
And also, many people, to combat waking up early,
drink a ton of caffeine
which stimulates acid secretion from your stomach,
which can create gastroesophageal reflux,
which is like traditional heartburn.
"What's the difference between an allergy
and an intolerance?"
Such an important question here
because so many people say they're allergic to things
when they're really not.
And then it creates other problems.
So many of my patients say
that they have a penicillin allergy
when they actually don't.
And as a result, they lose a set of antibiotics
that are actually quite effective
and have a low risk of side effects.
An allergy is a histamine-driven response
where you actually get itchiness, hives,
and you start scratching your skin.
There's eosinophils present.
You could also have an allergic response to anaphylaxis
where your throat starts closing up, you have swelling
because histamine start allowing the swelling of tissues
by making blood vessels more porous.
Then you get cytokines
and all these inflammatory cells come,
and it becomes a big problem
'cause it closes off your airway.
An intolerance is when something
just doesn't sit right with you.
It causes some other malfunction in your body.
For example, if you're lactose intolerant,
it's not an allergy because you don't get a rash,
you don't get anaphylaxis.
But you do have diarrhea,
so it's an intolerance, but not an allergy.
"Why is my pubic hair so curly?"
Okay, Max, did not expect that one.
Pubic hair is a type of hair called terminal hair.
It starts as vellus hair on our bodies when we're babies.
Vellus hair is the type of peach fuzz hair
that we actually still have on our bodies.
And in certain areas due to puberty,
we start developing terminal hair changes
and it becomes deeper, it becomes more coarse,
becomes more curly.
In fact, pubic hair really doesn't grow longer
than six inches because of how often it sheds
and breaks out.
Also, really interesting about pubic hair...
Never thought I would say that.
But I think the reason
that it's curly is because back in the day,
cavemen days/cavewomen days, we had a bush
and that bush helped us have better locking in
of our pheromones, that smell.
It was actually an aphrodisiac at this time
when we all walked around without clothing.
It was an advantage for those
who had curlier pubes to survive.
Also, pubes are great protection from friction.
"What are smelling salts made of?
How do they work?"
You sniff them
and the the nasal receptors get so irritated by them,
it sends a shock response to your brain and it wakes you up.
"Is there a way to minimize the appearance of scars?"
There are things you you can do about scars,
mostly and where I see the best results from,
through lasers and through surgical approaches.
There's very little thing you can do topically
in terms of like putting a cream on it.
There are some creams that do some benefit
in terms of smoothening the scar,
but removing the scar can only really be done surgically
or with a laser,
which is basically a type of surgery, in my opinion.
My friend Dr. Bhanusali does a great job
of this on his Instagram channel.
DarkHighness666:
"I'm a woman and I sneeze too loud, it's embarrassing.
What can I do to not sneeze so loudly?"
Sneeze loudly, just dab when you do it.
Don't let anyone judge you.
The fact that you're worried about this
is worth investigating with your doctor
because you should not feel ashamed
by carrying out a normal human body act in front of others.
Everyone sneezes and it's okay to sneeze.
And if you sneeze loudly, who cares?
"Are there parts of my body I shouldn't shave?"
That's actually a good question
because we shave our faces.
Some people shave their armpits,
benign, but actually can create friction,
especially if you do a lot of running.
The problem with shaving your pube...
I feel like we're covered a lot of pubic stuff
in this video.
The problem with shaving your pubic region
is there has been some research showing
that there are increased STI rates when you do shave
because more skin on skin contact,
so more chance to spread STIs.
Also, when you shave, you can create micro-tears,
leading to openings in the skin,
which can allow body fluids and blood to get into,
thereby creating another infection.
Maybe skipping out shaving the pubes is not a bad idea.
"When you need a knee or hip replacement,
how do doctors know the right size?"
That's a good question for an orthopedic surgeon.
I'm pretty sure there's a measurement they do
prior to inserting the instrument.
A, look at the x-ray and they'll get a general sense,
but then they probably trial different sizes
in the operating room and they see.
Orthopedic surgeons, please chime in.
"Hey, doc, what do surgeons do with tumors
once they've been removed?"
Generally, we send them to pathology
for analysis through microscopy
to see A, what kind of tumor they are,
how differentiated they are, what cells are present.
In some cases like with skin cancers, we do a cutout,
and sometimes we look right then and there
to make sure that we cut out the entire margin of the tumor
to make sure that we didn't leave any cancer cells behind.
"Why do humans randomly to get itchy?
I understand why you itch from hairs or bugs being on you,
but so often I itch when there's nothing touching me.
What gives?" Okay, Theresa, this is very important.
Because if you are itchy like that, to that degree,
perhaps there's a medical condition going on,
perhaps allergic, perhaps otherwise,
but we would need to investigate that further.
There's many reasons why humans get itchy.
Itchiness can come
from something physically bothering your skin
or a chemical reaction bothering your skin.
Both can cause itchiness.
And there's also like the nerve thing.
Nerves misfire and can make it feel
like an itching sensation is present
when it's not really there.
"I'm thinking about becoming a nurse,
but I have a serious fear of needles.
Do you think it's worth pursuing
or should I look into else?"
That is something that you can overcome.
There are legitimate medical treatments
and therapies targeted at those
who have phobias of any kind.
Needles are one that you can definitely overcome.
So if that's the sole thing
that's preventing you from having an amazing long career
that is much needed,
do not let it stop you from having a very productive,
rewarding job because of a phobia that you can overcome.
Is it dangerous to hold in a sneeze? Click here to find out.
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