Ep. 26 | Joseph Hayes, MD, Internal Medicine, SGMC Health

Transcript

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- Welcome to another

- Episode of What Brings You in Today. I'm Erika Bennett. And I'm Taylor Fisher. And we just wanna thank everybody for tuning in to our podcast and for following us on your listening platforms and for leaving reviews.

- And please be sure to submit your questions or topics you would like to hear us cover at sgmc.org/podcast.

- Alright. Today we are here with Dr. Joseph Hayes Internal Medicine, and Dr. Hayes has been a guest on our show before. So you are officially our first person to come back for a second episode.

- Thank you for having me. I, I'm super excited. And

- That was our award-winning episode. That's

- Right.

- Oh, that's right. Well mean we, let's lower the bar just a

- Little bit. But so today we thought we're gonna keep it real fun. So we found this list of questions. We didn't find it. Taylor wrote it. Okay. It found us. The list

- Found us.

- Well, I, I, I remember before asking for ridiculous questions and

- I've got some for you

- And I thought about it and you know, the, these questions shouldn't be ridiculed, so I have to be

- Yeah. I wanna

- Be really careful about how I word that's

- That's right. Yeah. It's the most Googled questions Correct. Of the year. Some of the

- Yes. Were some of the most Googled questions for the year in the US and then some we just threw in there for fun.

- Okay. And we won't tell you which ones those are. We're gonna keep that a mystery. Yeah. But Dr. Hayes, just for those that have not listened to the previous episode, go ahead and just give us a real quick background of your information about, you know, your specialty.

- Sure. I, I'm an internal medicine physician and I'm from the area, trained in the area, been in Georgia the whole time. Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon and Savannah, residency in Savannah. Started in Valdosta, came back to Valdosta, and now have the privilege of teaching other doctors how to do their doctoring. And it, and it, and it's, it's, it's really a privilege. And, you know, we, we've, we've, we've come a long way here and our, our internal medicine residents and our medical students for Mercer are learning a ton. And we're learning a ton teaching them. And I, I'm excited to help our, our listeners learn a ton now.

- Yeah. Very cool.

- All right, well,

- Let's get to it. Let's go. Who wants to go first? All right. I'm gonna let you go first. Okay. Ms.

- Ms. Barbie, be gentle in the pink, in the pink jacket. I don't think we're gonna go in order. I'm just gonna pick which ones I wanna hear answered. Okay. 'cause there's a lot of them on here. Why do people get motion sickness?

- Oh, well that, that's, that's a very technical one actually. I think, I think to make it as simple

- As I know it's not the funnest one, but I wanna know that one though though.

- Well, well, because I get emotion sick. Well, a lot of people suffer from it. I, I, you know, I, I've got patients that are going on cruises and, and it can be really troublesome. They can zap the fun out of what, what does, what you're experiencing does.

- I can't ride

- Rollercoasters

- And that's terrible. So

- My sons, the last couple times that I've ridden with me, they have both told me separately, this is two different occasions. They're like, like I've been having to take a lot of detours 'cause there's a lot of traffic. And they both have told me around the same location, mom, I don't feel good. My stomach's hurting. I kind of feel I can't, I can't are pretty, they're getting motion sickness from my wild driving.

- Wow. You know, well, I'll say this, I'll say, use you a little bit. Motion sickness is more common in kids and a lot of people kind of grow out of it a little bit. But the gist of it is, yeah, I'm seeing some head shaking. Everybody grows out of it. But, you know, our, our, our, our brains are interpreting signals from all, all, all over the place. Our eyes, right. Help the brain know kind of where we're looking and what we're doing. Nerves and our hands and feet are sending senses back to the brain. And then the vestibular system in the ear is sending signals back. And if they're conflicting with each other, that can confuse you. Oh. So imagine for a moment that you're in a car.

- I

- Dunno if your kids have tablets

- On their tablets and they're on their tablet, electronic devices. So I don't think they would've got it if they weren't. So let's, well,

- That's right's. So imagine you're in a car or in a cruise ship and you're looking at a flat screen or a a, a screen in front of you and, and nothing is moving. Right. You're in the car, you're moving, their heads are bobbing. Right. But they're looking at the screen and things and are staying still, but their ears are sensing, oh,

- The

- Movements, the, the fluid and the hair and the ears are sensing things are moving. It's really, really bad in cruise ships because you're in an entire room that doesn't move. But yet your ears are feeling the movement and it can confuse you. And you know, there, there, there are some ways to mitigate it. Get, you know, if your kids aren't on a tablet, which I think if you're on a long car trip, I mean, I'm not a proponent of tablets by any means. I think Dr. Bloch would get at me for like, I mean sometimes I'm like, just look at his that

- Way. Yeah, yeah.

- But, but in a, in a cruise ship for example, you know, you, you, you've got nothing around your periphery. But if you go out, maybe, maybe if you're, if you're watching the ship go up and down, or if you're in the car and you're seeing the things move, it should be a little bit better. But there is medicine, safe medicine, even for kids that can, can kind of calm the, the or or tone the, the nerve senses down a little bit in the ears, like your

- I to sneeze. Sorry.

- Like your Dr. Amine or your scopolamine patches and such. Yeah. And so you, you, you can use those to kind of mitigate it some

- Well, okay. And I'd probably need to drive a little better, but, you know, ask a more fun questions. I know. I'll, but let, let's get back to our ears sensing real quick. Yeah, sure. Because that's weird. So our ears can sense like the, I think about like a snake or things that don't have eyeballs using the, the animals that use their ears to sense. Okay. Whatever. Maybe they have eyeballs. They don't have ears. No, they do, do they have ears? Okay. Anyways, I digress. I'm not a biologist or a That's okay. Okay. That's okay. Alright. But what are ears sensing? Yep.

- Yes.

- I I mean, you think about touching things, sensing.

- So you ears,

- That's weird.

- So your ears have canals that run in different directions and there's fluid in there and little tiny hairs. And if you move your ears or move your head real quick, the the, the fluid will kind of shift and tickle those hairs. And that helps send the signal back to the brain. Some people even get little stones forming in the ears and it could make people really dizzy

- And you get vertigo. Wow.

- You can get That is correct. Okay. And, and sometimes we do movements in our clinic to, to reposition and get the stones stuck so that they don't get dizzy and, and, and, and woozy or nauseous.

- I get vertigo too.

- Yep. That can happen. That can

- Happen. Okay. All right. I've got a fun one. Okay. I've got a fun one. Okay. What causes hiccups and is there actually a way to stop them instantly?

- Okay, this is another fun one. Well, you've got nerves that, that, that send signals back from the stomach and from the diaphragm. And, and we think that irritation or, or, or overstimulation of those nerves can cause that involuntary contraction. You know, the one that gets the diaphragm, the diaphragm by the way is, is is what pulls your lungs down like an accordion to breathe. And you share a lot of the same, you share a lot of similar nerves with the shoulder and with the stomach. And if you do things like over distend the stomach, for example, really quickly, like with say a carbonated drink, drink a drink a soda really fast, and then it kind of swells and descends the stomach or eat really, really fast. Tho those sorts of things can irritate the, the phrenic nerve and other nerves that are, that are the vagus nerve that, that are carrying signals to and from that diaphragm. And then the diaphragm will try to contract and then the vocal cords will kind of squeeze down. And that's where you get that hit, that hit sound. And it can be really annoying. And sometimes I think like the more you pay attention to it, the worse it gets. At least that's, that's my anecdotal feeling.

- And obviously you get up, you, you take a sip of water, you get upside down and hold your nose and your ears at the same time and swallow it and that gets rid of it. Is that what you

- Do? Does it, does it work for you? I

- Don't think it works. I don't what it, I I just wait, stop. But I have heard that before. I, I think I tried it, but it only

- Works. Sometimes they don't stop. There's there, there's when, when I looked at this, there was a case report, somebody that suffered from this for years.

- I saw 'em on the news. I I saw them on like the, on the Today Show. Well that's never happened. This little girl had hiccup for like a very long time and it was mystifying.

- Imagine the home medical imagine community. Could you imagine that all day, every day? That's,

- That would be horrible.

- Well, you know, there, there're, there're short of medicines that can, if this happens frequently or, or let me just say this to the listeners, if you're having hiccups all the time, talk to your doctor about

- It.

- But I think there's a lot of wives, old wives tales that, that may help with this. I think what what probably helps the most is, is trying to reset that whole distention thing. I think what may help with that the most would be holding your breath for a long, long period of time. Or, or really I think even more effective than that is to, to, is to breathe out for as long as you can and

- Hold it out for as long as possible. And I think you'll find that that'll be very helpful for you. Hmm.

- Alright. Okay. I'll

- Give it a try next time.

- That was a lot more fun than my question. My next question, why do people faint at the side of blood?

- Oh, almost like a fainting

- Drug or, or get sick. So I get sick to my stomach. I think car hope is fainted. I've never fainted, but I do get sick when I see blood.

- Have you fainted?

- I used, I did get lightheaded one time and then I got better. I just decided I was not gonna allow it to let me faint and I mentally got over it. Like, I, I told myself I'm not gonna let this bother me anymore. And I, I would think about different things while I was getting my blood. And so I give blood now, but I have fainted before from giving blood. But now I like mentally I'm like doing,

- We're not all as strong to see you Erika. Some of us are

- Weak, but So tell us what the, I wanna know what the, well lemme say this. I don't think it's a weakness. Well, and because like when you're, if you're gonna have a kid, like when you get pregnant too, like, and you're gonna have a baby, you really gotta get over the medical stuff a little bit. 'cause it's coming

- In, in, in medical school, we, one of one of the medical students fainted during a, a procedure went off and sat up against the wall and just kind of slid down in slow motion

- Does discontinue them from medical school. Well

- They decided they didn't wanna be a surgeon I think at that moment. So, but it can happen.

- Yeah.

- Well, you know, I think what you're experiencing is, is, is a couple things. You know, the, the, the root of it, what I want to get back, what I want to focus on is the, that the, the, the blood pressure in the heart where, where, where you're filling on the right side of the heart is quite low. If you think about your blood pressure when you have it on your arm, you might get a number of 120 over 80, You know, and like millimeters of mercury, the blood pressure where you're filling into that right? Right. Atrium, that area there is 3, 4, 2 millimeters of market. So very, very low. So now imagine if you do something that raises the pressure in your chest, which is normally very, very low. In fact that's, it's usually negative. And so, you know, you take a breath, negative pressure pulls air in. But now imagine that you're, you're squeezing down or you're bearing down, or you're nervous or you're anxious or you're holding your breath. That, that pressure and the chest can exceed the pressure in, in the heart. And when you've got no blood pressure, you can't feed the brain. And there you go. And then you relax when you're passed out and then everything comes back to normal. But so, so what we see for a lot of folks is it's, it starts kind of like with this fight or flight hormone, the sympathetic nervous system starts getting amped up because you're, you're getting nervous and then, and then, you know, you kind of tighten up. That's, that's kind of where it happens. And so calm, breathing and trying to relax, which you ever tell somebody that's not relaxed, just relax. Yeah. It doesn't go over well. But I think what you've learned is you've learned some, some

- Techniques to control the techniques. Some coping mix. Yeah, that's

- Correct. And then that has gotten you through

- It. Yeah. So deep breathing. Yeah. Don't look at it.

- Therapy, - Don't think about it too much. Go to therapy. Either one, you can get it done. You just talk to your therapist about that. You don't need get, we have a lot, lot other things to talk about. I think

- Everybody should have a therapist just by the way, everybody, you know, even athletes perform at their best when they have therapists.

- So Yeah. Let it out. We gotta talk about stuff. We can't keep it all in like nobody's

- Well we're letting it out. That's never

- Yes, exactly. Is it my turn? Yeah. Okay.

- Let it out

- All I am gonna let it out. Let's see. Oh, okay. Why did we cry when we chop onions?

- You feel, you feel bad for the audience, obviously.

- I mean, or you just hate making dinner and you're like,

- Well, have you learned some? It's, do you have any tricks to not, not not cry when you're doing this?

- I have one if you don't have fun. I don't have one. I don't saying which I don't cook often. I need to get better at. That said,

- Last night my husband was chopping onions and he went to the garage and got a pair of safety goggles. I'm sorry babe. And he put them on his eyes and I have a picture what he told me I couldn't show anyone. And he said, so be sure to put it like can post YouTube. YouTube. Could you post that video when she talks about

- This? Let's make

- Sure he said that it did not bother his eyes with the safety goggles on.

- So, so he didn't feel sad for cooking for you

- It sounds like? No, he just looked ridiculous. Yeah,

- That I'm sure that

- Was a good lie.

- Well, I would imagine the onions don't want you to eat them.

- Yeah. That's how I

- Would it. And that's what this is obviously it's a, it's a, it's a volatile compound that

- Gets released. It's because we're peeling back all their layers and they're they're tough.

- That was good.

- They don't like the, you know,

- Well

- We are their therapist.

- Yeah. I think they they need more than therapy after they've been chopped up too.

- Okay. Okay. - So they don't like getting chopped up and, and, and, and that injury releases a, a volatile compound there that irritates the eyes and your eyes say, oh, I don't, I don't like this. And so you start tearing up to flush it out. So goggles was actually a very great idea from your husband if he doesn't wanna be bothered. But you can do some other things too. You can, you can, if you, if you soak the onions or, or wash them, that can help. I don't wanna use the word break up, but it can help mitigate the, the release of those that, that vol the volatile compound. It's got a long name. I didn't even bother trying to memorize it. Yeah. But you can look it up if you wanted to see what it is. Or, or, or cutting them under, like under running water can be helpful, for example.

- Well and they, they smell like the smell on your hands like lingers. Yes. It's like nearly impossible to get

- Well it's, it's getting released. Yeah. That, that the compound is. Hmm. Also, interestingly, a a really, really sharp knife is going to make you cry

- Less. Yeah. Because it's injuring the onion less

- That is Right. It's just a nice,

- Don't feel as much pain. How do we know that onions don't like being chopped up? I mean like how did a how does a

- We don't know. We don't know. We don't know a lot of

- Things. I think we've gotten off track. I don't know. But

- Is to know, we used to not think babies felt pain.

- Okay. We're

- Not,

- This is true. And this isn't exactly remote history, but I that's that's not one of your questions. The listeners can look that up. So,

- But that's crazy. That's terrifying actually. Okay, let's do something less weird than that. Why do we shiver when we have a fever?

- Okay. Do you wanna guess?

- Because your body is hot and we're trying to cool it down. So it's, it's just like the onion that doesn't like to be chopped up. We don't like to be hot. Our body doesn't like to be hot. So it's releasing fluid to cool us off and then it makes us cold. 'cause that fluid gets hits there.

- I mean I follow your logic.

- Okay. I do. What what you

- Got. Actually I would say it's, it's a little different. The body wants to be hotter.

- Oh.

- So when you're sick, part of the response to that illness is to say, well whatever habitat that virus or bacteria is living in, let's make it worse. And so raising the body temperature is one of the defense mechanisms of our immune system. There are certain chemicals that are released in as part of the, the infection or the response to the infection. And then in the brain the hypothalamus sets a temperature. So you have a thermostat and it just turns the thermostat up. The heat and the fever that you get is actually helpful. In fact, I'm not much of a proponent of Tylenol or acetaminophen because there is some evidence that bringing a temperature down can prolong the illness. Right. But you do feel better with it. And, and I also wanna say too, for the listeners that you can get too hot. I

- Mean,

- You know, for me personally, you know, based on the evidence in my practice, I don't get excited about a fever until we, we see 103. I really don't get worried about it until I see 104 damage is above 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Okay.

- So, you know, when I'm in the hospital or when I'm treating my patients, if somebody has a temperature of 1 0 1 or 1 0 2 or even even approaching 1 0 3, my response is if you feel bad and you wanna feel better, you can take some to see nothing. Right. But bringing that fever down is, is not helping you fight the infection.

- It's just helping you be more comfortable.

- Yeah. Helping you be more comfortable. And, and, and to be honest with you, I think I, you know, if I had the flu, I'd probably rather be more comfortable

- Yeah.

- For a little bit long and have the, have the flu for 12 hours longer. You know, so.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Okay. I've got a good one. Okay. They say laughter is the best medicine. Can laughter really improve your health?

- Yes. Yes. - Honestly, I knew that, I knew the answer to

- That. You're gonna find a lot of the, the, the, the questions that that that you have. Or a lot of it's gonna come back to stress, you know, and, and, and so just to kind of lay the groundwork for anything that may come up later, more stress is more cortisol. You know, it's just, that's one of the stress hormones that's released and it's really not very good for us. You know, weight gain and insulin resistance and hair falling out and things like that. Yeah. You know, the truthfully laughing can really, really bring down your stress levels and, and, and it is, it can help to heal you. The mind body connection is a, is a real thing. And oftentimes, you know, feeling better mentally will help you feel better and, and be better physically.

- I've been seeing a lot of ads on my feed about cortisol detox. Cor you know, what, what is that all about? Well

- This is where you tell people to relax.

- Okay.

- Just

- Relax. Just relax.

- But - Can you do a cortisol detox? I mean, how does that

- Well you have, without cortisol you would be dead. You have to have cortisol. Your cortisol levels increase in the morning

- Right.

- As you wake up. And that's part of the waking up response that you have. And then they tend to kind of go down

- During day. That's a stress level. 'cause you're like, I'm awake. Well, it's

- Associated with stress. How about that?

- Yeah.

- You know.

- Okay.

- And, and you need cortisol. In fact, some people that have problems in the brain, we have to give them a replacement of cortisol. Mm. Or else they're, they would feel terrible. They would've headaches and blood pressure would be low. And so you do need cortisol. Yeah. I don't, I think but

- Maybe like excessive cortisol. Like maybe you're feeling bad because you've got too much cortisol.

- Well if you're depressed or have certain medical problems, you can certainly have more cortisol. There's conditions where people make too much cortisol in general and they tend to gain weight and have diabetes and be unhealthy and get heart disease. And so I think there's no drink

- Or anything like that. Anything supplement, anything you can buy to kind of

- Yeah, I think, I think therapy,

- You keep coming back to that. Right. Some natural things

- And, and and, and being active and exercise and socializing. And sometimes that's hard to do if you're not feeling good. But I think the best way to detox is, is, is to try to be involved and be active. And like I said, that's unfortunately, that's like telling somebody that's nervous. Don't be nervous.

- Right. Yeah. Well, and then I've also heard, I've had a doctor tell me before that a lot of heart attacks happen first thing in the morning because the cortisol light pulls are higher. That

- Is correct. That, that is accurate.

- That contend

- That is. And and, and higher cortisol levels lead to more salt retention, higher blood pressure and, and, but yeah, absolutely. One of the most common times to have a heart attack is waking up in the morning. Yeah. Yeah.

- Okay. Mine is less serious than that. Is the five second rule for drop food actually safe?

- I, I like to say it is o only because I, anyway, I shouldn't be admitting that we could scrub that. Right.

- You already went there. You already went there. You can't take it

- Back. But, but, but the, the, the, the, you know, this is something that I looked up not, not to know the answer but to get some nuances here.

- Yeah.

- The first of all, the five second rule is not real. Like, like if you drop your food on this table, that that, and this is a very clean table, but I'm sure there's some bacteria or fungus or something on it. I mean it's everywhere all around us. If you, if you drop a, a piece of steak, it's, it's going to be on the steak. It doesn't matter whether it's there for one second or five seconds. But there is a little truth to the longer it's there. Okay. Maybe the more that you get on on it. So that, that's kind of true. Okay. You know, I, I look back at the origins of maybe where this five second rule came from. And I saw that it started allegedly back with like Genghis Kong and, and the Mongols. And if he dropped his food on the floor, everybody could still eat it. 'cause his food was, was I guess super well prepared, supposedly. Oh. And then Julia child, the, the, I think she was a French cook.

- Don't, she was a British

- British,

- But she cooked French cuisine. Oh.

- So you know about her. Well apparently she had dropped a pancake she was making, or, or tried to flip it and made a comment. And, and I think, I don't think she used the five second rule where she said, but I think that's kind of where it came from.

- Huh.

- So the, the truth is, is if you drop food on the ground, whether it's for one second or five seconds, it's got bacteria on it. And what you do with it after that is probably should be private.

- I think it, it also depends where you drop it. Like if I dropped it in the hospital, I wouldn't need it. But maybe if I dropped it at home and I just cleaned the floor, then I might eat it. And my dogs hadn't been on the floor. We had their clean floor. I dunno, there's a lot of people that walk in the hospital. There's only two people at my house.

- Well, I, I, you know, I've, I've picked up things before and, and you know, and you know, you justify it with I'm building my immune system or you make a joke.

- Yeah. Boys will be boys. That's when my little kids, they eat dirt, you know, back when they were little.

- Okay. Best way I can say this is is

- Sand. I made a sand at the beach

- Is I don't take them dirt. I think what I'd say to this is, is approach dropping the food and picking it back, you know, up and eating it as kind of like driving without a seatbelt you can usually get away with it until you can't, until

- You know. Right. You're just taking your odds.

- You're taking your

- Odds. Yeah.

- Yeah. That's my answer. Okay. And whether it's one second or five seconds, I think you could make the argument five seconds is worse or 10 seconds is worse. Right. But depends on what

- It's all until you get that stomach bug. That's right. Then you'll never do it again. Alright. This one I definitely remember hearing as a child and so I'm interested in this one, but is swallowing gum bad for you? So I remember hearing that it takes seven years. I don't know why seven specifically to digest. And I would just picture that Gump sitting in my stomach for seven years until, you know, whatever.

- How many times did you swallow a gum?

- I mean, several times.

- I mean, like at some point your stomach would be all.

- Well I know. So tell me, so how long does it take? Is it bad for me?

- Well, you know, I actually

- Probably if you swallow a lot of gum like every day it's bad.

- Well I, I don't know how long gum actually takes to digest, but it doesn't digest in the stomach. You just kind of pass it through, you know,

- It just kind of breaks up maybe. And then

- Not really,

- No. It just, it just

- Kind of just

- What is any gum then that we shouldn't be eating it?

- I i types of non-digestible sugars and other things. Well, you know, so what I'd say to that is, is it's, it's almost certainly gonna be harmless. Although there are case reports and there are times where, where particularly kids or young children, the gum can get stuck in the digest and block things.

- Oh.

- And so I certainly wouldn't rec,

- That's why I tell kids that.

- Yeah, you, you definitely don't want your young kids chewing and swallowing gum. I would definitely avoid that, but odds are you're probably not gonna develop any kind of problems and no, you don't digest the, the, the gum. Okay. It just kind kind

- Of passes through that just scare them. So they don't do it just

- Like, like, like with most things in life.

- Yeah. Like with all of the things that you were taught as a child, you know, you find out later on in, in life that that was just your mother trying to protect you or you know, trying.

- Yeah. But there is a a little truth to to not swallow the gum though.

- I gotcha. I've never swallowed gum.

- Really?

- Never.

- I still will if it's a choice between spitting it out somewhere or swallowing

- It. Yeah. 'cause I feel

- Guilty spit it out, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna have to swallow it. Right. Because

- Somebody else might step in it. If I don't have a trash can and put it in now I feel good. Like somebody's gonna step in out and I think I'm gonna step in piece gum. I wouldn't spit it on the ground.

- A lot of people do.

- Yeah. I

- I, I've, I've had a lot of personal fear, personal traumas related to that.

- Okay. Is it bad to crack your knuckles neck or back?

- Oh, I hope not. I hope not. Actually. It's, it's not, it's not, it's really not harmful at all. You've got little gas, gas bubbles that, that, that's kinda what you're hearing. In fact, I'm,

- Yeah, I know I kind

- Of cracking a little bit.

- But I was always told that the more you crack your knuckles that they get like bigger. And so you would have, and maybe that's another thing that my mom taught or someone told me along the line that if you crack 'em, they're gonna get big. And I had a fear that I was gonna have these big knuckles so I wouldn't not pop my knuckles.

- Well as you know, as humans, we like to associate things and there are a lot of people that have enlarged knuckles, you know, from types of arthritis Okay. Or various types, you know, including the wear and tear, the osteoarthritis. And you can, you can get big knuckles from there and perhaps, I'm sure so many people crack their knuckles that somebody might associate associated with that. But just being a normal knuckle cracker, it's not gonna cause any

- Issues. What about your back?

- Fine.

- I

- Would caution you, you against doing that neck stuff, you know, where you're really kind of cranking

- That. That's my favorite thing to do.

- Well, if you've got a healthy spine, it's not gonna do it. You're gonna do

- That myself though. I don't want other people do it.

- Yeah. A healthy spine, you're gonna be okay. But some people can have instability there and many, many folks won't know they've got instability until, until

- It happens.

- Yeah. You,

- That always scares me to have someone like crack your bag for some reason I get like really nervous about that.

- Yeah. I get nervous too. I get nervous too. I I ultimately, you know, as far as the knuckle cracking there, there, there, by the way, there was an individual that just cracked one hand, like the knuckles on one hand for about 20 years. And then there there was no no differences Okay. Between the two hands. And they solely cracked one repeatedly for the purpose of testing

- Question

- Out that

- You guys are, that's such restraint to only do one dedication

- De that was, that was immense dedication. So, so no, just normal routine knuckle cracking. I'm not talking about slamming it down on concrete,

- Trying to, something's I was

- Thinking about something ridiculous, but,

- Okay, this is a good one. I lost it. It was on here. But anyways, it was is can stress turn your hair gray?

- Yeah, sure.

- How

- And make it fall out?

- Is that the cortisol?

- Cortisol, cortisol. So you know, the, the, the cortisol can affect the stages of hair growth. You know, it here has phases where it grows and slows and then sits still for a while and rests and then sometimes falls out and your, you know, cortisol levels and stress can certainly drive that. In fact, when I was in medical school, I hate to tell this story. You know, me, you know, medical school is stressful and every day you're, you're worried that one bad test and everything you've worked for is gone or something, you know? And, and you know, I was in my thirties and I had a shingles outbreak one week in my, my thirties, like right across my head. And, and then, and then my hair was falling out up here.

- Yeah. - And so I was like in the mirror like looking and I'm like, was my hair was, I always receding there. It looks kind of white up there, you know, like it hadn't seen sun in a while. And, and so I've taken pictures. I I still, I'm not gonna show 'em to you, but I I, when you go back and you look, I, I looked 20 years older with, with a strong receding my hairline was, was was back to here. That was stress.

- Well if you look at like college football coaches or people in high stress positions like the president, you can say Sure. If you look at them at the beginning of their term and then after their term, they look significantly older, like decades older sometimes.

- Yeah. Stress, stress can definitely do that. And and as far as the graying part, yes, to a little degree, the, the stress can affect, you know, getting a little bit gray a little bit sooner, but most of that, most of your hair. And as, as far as whether it falls out or it doesn't and what pattern it doesn't or how soon you turn gray, that's like 98% genetics and, and luck or, or bad luck depending on how you view things.

- Interesting. So we're gonna wrap up here in a few minutes, but I think we have time to maybe get two or three more questions in. So what causes pins and needles when a limb falls asleep?

- Oh, that's, that, that's, that's ter you know, in, in in, in our clinic we take care of a lot of patients, you know, some very healthy and some have been through a lot and you know, the pins and needles feeling that you get, could you imagine if you felt like that every day, all day. And so, and that can happen as well. But what you're describing is probably, you know, sitting on the, the toilet for a while and a leg goes numb or, or sleeping wrong or something of that sort. Or, or, or, and, and this has to do with the nerves being irritated. And so if you sit for a, a period of time and compress the blood flow to an area, you're going to irritate everything distal to that, everything further away. You know? So if you were to, to cut the circulation off on your, on, on, on your wrist for example, you know, the fingers may start to feel tingly, perhaps numb. And when you start to get the feeling, when you, when you remove that compression and they start to get the blood flow back, they're, they're, they're quite irritated. And then they may tingle or hurt. And like I said, unfortunately just irritation that that can, that irritation from, from medical conditions related to diabetes or heavy alcohol use or other things that may can damage the nerves permanently. That unfortunately some people suffer from this all the time.

- Right.

- It's terrible.

- Like through after cancer treatment or different things like that.

- Yes, yes. That's correct. Some, some of the cancer drugs that, that help save your life can, can also sometimes affect the nerves.

- Hmm.

- And unfortunately it's the price we have to pay some, you know, to, to save a life.

- Yeah. And on that same note, when you get scared or startled, you know, and you have like that, that sh it's not a chill up almost feels like the needle's, but all the way down, like everywhere. What is that? Because

- Well, that, that one is really complicated and if I, if there's a pass button I would hit

- Pass pass. Okay, that's fine.

- But, but it has to do with the brain and the connections to the muscles. Okay. And the sympathetic nervous system similar to that feeling that you get a falling like

- Yeah.

- Where you're kind of half asleep, not really half asleep. That that's more of a disconnect between the, the, the, the, the signals the body expects to get from the muscles and what they're actually getting.

- It goes back to kind of like the fight, flight, freeze thing. I know when I've gotten really, like I've had a panic attack, gotten really scared, my mouth went numb, my tongue went numb. And it's a very weird feeling. But I think it's kind of the same thing as you're just, signals are all messed

- Yeah. Up. Yeah. And I think it, it goes back and reinforces that the mind and body connection is very, very real.

- Yeah.

- And, and you know, if you feel like you don't feel well, you're, you're probably going to feel worse. And if you feel positive or if you feel like you're doing well or if you feel like you're gonna be, you're going to feel better. But again, you, you can't just say calm down or feel better.

- Well, and I think that's why we're saying a trend towards mental health awareness and because your mental health matters, your mental health plays a role in your entire health. So

- Yes, it does

- Gotta be positive

- Always if you can, but

- Yeah, I know it's not always

- Easy,

- But therapy can help.

- Let's end on a high note. Okay. Let's pick a funny question to, and do you see any

- Stick out? No. All of 'em are sad. Oh, all of them. But I made you laugh. So you're healthier already. No. How about the, how do I stop snoring? Yeah, there you go.

- Okay. That's

- A funny one.

- The, the, the, I know

- That's complicated too,

- But the easy, well now the easiest way to do that is to sleep on your side or, or prop your pillows up just a little bit. That can help with, with the, the snoring that you get. People can snore really the airway's getting obstructed just a little bit. And that could be due just to, to, to anatomy in the, in the mouth or the throat. It could be due to gaining weight and, and having things pushing on, on kind of on your airway here. It could be issues in the brain, but snoring is very, very common and, and other than just like elbowing.

- Yeah. And I was like getting

- Elbows.

- That doesn't work for me. I'm a snore and I did not wake like up.

- Yeah. So, so I, what I would say is lay on your side.

- I do fall asleep on my side, but then my husband says that I snore when I roll on my back. Okay, there you go. And then he tries to get me to roll over, but

- I'm dead. Put like a pillow, like a big body pillow behind your back so you can't like roll orge on

- Your back or a wedge.

- Yeah.

- What I will say is if you snore,

- What about those things you put on your nose

- That's, I have tried them. He says they kind of help, but you know, not completely. It's

- Mostly people don't snore through the nose.

- Okay. Yes.

- Through

- The mouth. It's deep in the back. It's deep in the back. You know, the, if you snore and you're really tired when you wake up and you don't feel like you're getting good rest, talk to your doctor. There may be related to another

- Medical p good luck because sleep health is another serious thing that people don't, you know, often think about if they're truly resting while they're sleeping. It

- You, you wouldn't want to have high cortisol levels when you wake up higher than you should have. Right. And so sleeping can help lower

- Stress. You could get a sleep apnea test at our sleep lab.

- So sleep apnea would be the condition I was referring to to a second ago. You know, you, you snoring does not mean you have sleep apnea. Right. I don't wanna get people worried. Okay. Right. But if you're, if you're, if you feel really tired, like you're gonna fall asleep during the day, you know, folks with sleep apnea often have higher blood pressure and it affects sex drive and it affects oftentimes can give you headaches in the morning, you know, if, if you're checking some of those boxes, talk, talk, talk to your doctor and we've got a great sleep AP sleep lab here. Dr. E is wonderful and, and, and you know, you can get screened for that, but snoring is usually is par for the course with sleep apnea. But just because you snore don't mean you have sleep apnea.

- Okay. I have one more just because we live in South Georgia and this affects everybody. If you've ever been to South Georgia,

- Mosquitoes, allergies. Okay.

- No mosquitoes. It's, it's worse.

- Yeah.

- Mosquitoes. Why do, what causes the mosquito bite to itch and then how can you get it to stop itching so you don't scratch it and cause it to,

- But the itching is related to histamine release in the skin and you know, you, you probably have heard of antihistamines that you can take, you know, with itching, Benadryl and or medicines similar to Benadryl. But you know, Benadryls gonna make you tired.

- You

- Know, and, and as opposed to taking that every time you get a mosquito bite, you know, people say things like rubbing it, that might help a little bit, but really like cold compress the, the, or putting some cold on it that, that can help reduce the blood flow to the area and the delivery of more histamine release. And so if you've just got in a few spots, like a little cold compress or you know, something cold, that, that can be helpful. Aside from taking a medicine, we always like to use as little medicine as possible. So if you don't have to take a pill

- Right.

- And you can get away with something like that, then go

- For it. Well you wouldn't wanna have to take a pill every time you got bit by mosquito.

- No, no. But, but no, but you usually don't get bit once

- Yeah, it's

- Multiple. So they just come, they love me. Yeah. They bite me all over.

- Yeah. That's a whole nother question about why some people, because you have a lot of sugar in

- Your bladder. Well, let's go ahead and answer it. Why do you, do you know that

- I, I know that some people are more fond of getting bit than others. I don't know the mechanism.

- I'm not fond of it. I don't like it. The mosquitoes are fond of meat. One bit me on my forehead once. How rude is that?

- Oh, that's terrible. And you could see the, the phone coming out. That's my daughter. My, I have a teenage daughter. That would be her worst nightmare.

- Yeah.

- All

- Right, well this is fun. That was good. I feel like we could do this all day long. Yeah. But yeah, that was fun. We can't, 'cause I'd be the world's longest podcast.

- Yeah. But we appreciate you.

- Yeah, thank you.

- Taking the time. So thank thank you for having me

- Outta your very busy schedule to treat very serious issues Well and take care of all the people of our community. But like you said, we gotta have fun. Not take everything very serious.

- Hopefully this episode makes some people laugh.

- Hopefully you

- Laughed a little

- Bit. And, and if for any of our patients, if you've got questions like this, ask, ask us in the clinic, we, we love to field stuff like this. We absolutely do. I think nothing we, this was on a previous podcast where, where people Google things and they bring up these questions and, and, and we enjoy it. We, you know,

- The people wanna know. That's right. They wanna know they're asking. So if you have more questions like the ones we ask today or more serious questions that maybe we can try to help you answer, or at least, you know, direct you to one of our physicians, then you can submit them at sgmc.org/podcast.

- Yeah. So thank you all for tuning in and thank you Dr. Hayes for being with us today.