Sawbones: Is Nose Ointment a Waste of Time?

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion.

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All right,

Tom is about to books.

One, two, one, two, three, four.

We came across a pharmacy with its windows blasted out.

Pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a luck around the medicines, the medicines, the escalate macabre

Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones a marital tour of misguided medicine.

I'm your co-host Justin McElroy.

And I'm Sidney McElroy.

And I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of doing musical,

making musical magic.

I don't want to do it anymore.

It's a lot of fun.

It's just a lot of work.

Yeah, that's why we missed last week.

Do you understand that?

We're too so busy making magic that, well, actually, it was my fault.

I I was on tour I forgot yeah you were on tour and I was at rehearsal every night and raising our children and being a physician yeah so

I was doing all those things but you were on tour and you're so see you did one thing that's why you're my Shero

no I we're sorry we missed last week we're very happy to be back this week we are uh in the midst of directing and producing and building set for and designing and painting and I yada yada yada a musical called the prom Yeah, it's really good.

And if you, I'm going to do this plug right up top.

I'm going to say, hey, if you, this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, or next Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we'll come to the Huntington and Ritter Park Amphitheater.

You can come.

There's a pre-show at 7:30.

7.

7.

It's at 7.

It's at 7.

Just check the website.

It's at 7.

Okay, we got a pre-show at 7.

We weren't in charge of that.

That's not our department.

And then our show starts at 8:30.

Bring food, bring a chair, bring drinks, bring whatever you want.

It's It's a really good time.

It's a lot of fun.

We'll be there.

Come say hi.

People come in to every single one of these shows from all parts all over and they have a really good time.

We, I hope to see all of our friends from Columbus and all parts unknown, Cincinnati.

We've Cincinnati, parts unknown.

No, parts of known is separate from Cincinnati.

That's how I get coffee.

Obviously, see names, Ohio Cities.

I feel like for those of us living in Huntington, Cincinnati is known.

It's big.

It's where you go for Kings Island.

It's where you go for Great Wolf Lodge.

It's where you go for concerts when you're young and you live in Huntington.

It's a big, fun musical.

It's a great story.

We've got so many really good performers in it, and it makes you cry every night and it makes me laugh several times.

And I think you're going to love it.

It's a really beautiful story.

It's great for Pride Month.

Again, it is an outdoor amphitheater.

So if you come, bring a blanket or chairs or something where you'll be sitting on the grass.

And an umbrella if you just in case.

Just in case.

Just in cases.

If you want to get tickets and you do, go to, you're not going to believe this URL said, you're finding this out for the first time.

Are you ready?

Heartprom.com.

Oh, H-A-R-T.

Yeah.

That's the name of the group.

H-A-R-T.

HeartProm.com.

Yeah.

And I should mention, Justin and I don't make money off of this.

We don't get paid for doing it.

We do.

It's volunteer.

We do it.

We just want you to come because it's a great show and our actors worked really hard and we want you to see this great show.

That's it.

And when people come from far away and they make a big deal about us, it makes the cast think that we are a big deal.

So for Justin's ego, that's my ego.

We don't need money.

We need.

Yeah, Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Anyway, this weekend and next, please come out.

It's really fun.

We need the support.

We need butts and seats so we could use

your presence.

Your presence would be a great present.

Thank you.

All right.

So what else we got to do today on Sawbones?

Well, Justin, we're going to answer some of your weird medical questions is what we're going to do.

Not yours.

Well, you ask them as if they're yours, but that's no, they're not yours.

But before we do that, I did want a brief update.

I promised I would try to any major health, medical, medical health science, you know what I'm saying, news to share and just make sure people are aware of what's happening.

I would say the most important thing is that the

Secretary for Health and Human Services, RFK Jr.,

on this just happened

on June 9th.

fired all the members of the vaccine advisory committee for the CDC.

So what does that mean?

So

the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, ACIP,

is the panel of experts that's made up of epidemiologists and pediatricians and vaccine scientists, infectious disease doctors, all the people who know about vaccines.

And it is a panel that is appointed by administrations, by presidential administrations.

Many of the members of the panel that just got fired were appointed by the Biden administration, which I think is what he's trying to use as his criteria for firing them.

But it is not, in essence, it is not a political body.

Well, it is appointed by

none of this should be political.

No, it is not political.

These are people who know about vaccines who then convene meetings to decide what our immunization recommendations as the CDC should be.

So that is where we get the childhood immunization schedule.

So you can look that up online.

There's a schedule and it's color coded.

And if you're this age, you get this.

And if you have these, whatever, you get this.

And it has, you know, you can look up this chart.

This is where these charts come from, this panel of experts meeting regularly to make updated recommendations when there are new vaccines, when there are new pandemics, for instance, to add them or change them depending on the needs of society at this time.

So he fired them all.

Yes.

saying that it was because they were politically motivated and that they have ties to big pharma and financial conflicts.

A lot of this is not true.

A lot of this is conspiracy theory based on RFK's own personal beliefs about big pharma's undue influence on vaccines specifically and the absolute myth that physicians make a ton of money off of having you immunized or that someone is making tons of money.

Obviously, people who make vaccines make money off of immunizations, but generally speaking, this is not the profit center of medicine.

There are those.

It is not immunizations.

Anyway, they've all been fired.

There is a meeting later in June.

No

new members of this panel have been appointed yet.

He stated that this meeting will happen.

I think it's on like the 25th or something.

I don't know how the meeting will happen when we do not have anybody on this, on ASIP at the moment.

So he will be

president of

the same time.

I'm thinking a bunch of hastily appointed people who do not know what they're talking about, specifically planted there with the intent of making our country worse.

That's it.

That's actually, there's not anything else.

No, I mean, we have to imagine that they will be people whose views on vaccines align with RFK Jr.'s, which is that he is a vaccine denier.

He consistently undermines the science and evidence behind vaccines that says repeatedly they are safe and effective.

So

obviously, everyone is very concerned.

I think this is very alarming.

It doesn't change the facts about the vaccines, right?

Like we've still, the immunization schedule that stands should still stand.

And we can certainly continue to recommend that as healthcare professionals and as parents, you can make those, and guardians, you can make those choices.

I think the concern is going to be that if they're not covered by insurance because they're not recommended by the CDC, then you can't afford them, perhaps.

And perhaps these pharmaceutical companies stop making so many because if nobody can afford them, it's not worth making them.

So you can see where there is concern.

In the meantime, I would not make any healthcare decisions.

I would not trust this new panel at the moment to make good decisions for us, but we will see who is appointed.

We can make our own decisions at that point, but I do think that's worth being aware of.

Can we update?

Yeah, we will update once new once new panel members are appointed and we know who they are and what they're, and there's no beliefs on vaccines.

They're science and there's evidence and they're safe and effective.

So let's answer some weird medical questions.

I got a question question for you.

Hi, Dr.

Sidney and Justin.

I'm working my way through the backlog of sawbones and recently listened to the grapefruit episode.

I was wondering if other citrus fruits affect medications in the same way.

When I was a kid, I had to take iron supplements, but apparently wasn't absorbing them well.

So, the doctor told my mom to give them to me with orange juice.

What about lemons and limes?

Should folks on medications be wary of all citrus?

And then, that's from Katie, and Katie doesn't ask about the obvious question of rickets, but I will and scurvy, but I'll be the one to ask.

Well, those are those are related questions.

Yes.

And everybody is wondering about scurvy.

If we cut them out, what about our scurvy?

Well, yes, we should.

Cut out the limes.

The scurvy will follow.

That's what I say.

That's that's true, Justin.

Well, I mean, there are probably other ways.

There are definitely other ways.

We could get vitamin C.

They sent me back in time.

We can get vitamin C now.

If they sent me back in time to pirate times, I would do the scurvy thing and everybody would be like that's my dude like this guy we're gonna start a whole religion around this guy what a genius what else you got for us the scurvy thing was great what else do you have and i would go so i would really try to be like ah crap i should remember another stuff that was easier to remember like look for there's some trees around that cure malaria if you guys can find them why if you're going back in time anyway why wouldn't you just take these like why wouldn't you take antibiotics with you and because i'm not gonna get them hooked on it and then i don't have any more i don't know how to make more i went back in time i can't go back and forth the limes is easy because i can be like you guys heard of limes no ah crap okay well limes is from another country you go get them you don't get scary anymore well i think if you're gonna go back in time i mean the lime thing is good that's a good one but also like wash your hands and water

can carry disease if it's not clean.

Wash your hands.

I'm not ending it up like civil wise.

I don't need that.

Listen, the Lyme guy wasn't.

I mean, like, that was a problem too.

And look, we're still arguing over fluoride, Justin.

This stuff never ends.

So, so, you know, I had never thought, I know grapefruit is an issue.

We've done a whole episode on how because of

the things in grapefruit, it can interact with some medications, and we've done a whole episode on it.

The other one that I knew was an issue was cranberries and warfarin.

Warfarin is a blood thinner, also known as coumadin.

You may have heard it.

Anyway, it interacts with a lot of things because vitamin K can counteract it.

So you have to work.

Anyway, cranberry and Warfarin was one.

So I think those are the only two that we consider like really clinically significant and worth warning you about.

Now, that being said,

I looked this up.

There are other

fruits that can cause interactions.

A lot of citrus fruits, but oranges, pomelos, pomegranates, grapes, apples, as I mentioned, cranberry.

There's a lot.

And I mean, also in like jams and concentrates, juices, all these things technically do have

components that can interact with medications.

Now, none of them in such an amount that we consider it worth warning you, right?

We don't tell you like, hey, when you start your medicine, stay away from pomelos.

Right.

But, but it is interesting, like potentially, I guess if you had a diet, this would be one of those things, this is like a house case.

Okay.

If somebody comes in and their medicine, suddenly they're becoming like super therapeutic or not responding to their medication anymore.

And then you found out that they like went on on some wild pomegranate only diet and they've been eating nothing but just raw pomegranate for like days

but I think barring that sort of hyperbole yeah generally speaking we don't consider the other ones a problem but they do they do there is a potential for interactions but not to the extent of the almighty grapefruit thank you thank you uh hi dr sidney how come sometimes you don't have hiccups for months and then you get them like six times in two days?

Or is it just me?

Is there anything you can do to prevent hiccups?

That's from Tired of Hiccuping from Kirsten.

So I really, I really liked this question

because

I read it and Cooper had had, I don't know if you noticed this, Justin, she had hiccups

like three times the other day.

Yeah, it was crazy.

So generally speaking, and we've done, I know we've done a whole episode on hiccups.

I love talking about hiccups because

the best thing about hiccups are hiccup cures.

yes i i have lost some of my taste for this city because i fixed hiccups so as someone who has solved the let's call it hiccup issue um i'm i get a little bit insufferable when the topic comes up how do you how do you solve how do you cure hiccups justin do you want me to skip right to the real answer like the true final solution well the question wasn't how do you cure hiccups so if you'd like to go ahead and tell us how you i i was gonna talk about how you prevent hiccups.

Oh, well, if you mess up and you get them.

Yeah.

You bend over.

And I think we've probably talked about this before on our last hiccup thing, but since then, I've solved it.

This is permanent.

You get you stand up, okay?

Imagine yourself standing, and then you pour yourself a cup of water, okay?

Now you want to bend over as far as you possibly can, like you want to fold yourself in half, right, as much as you can, right?

And now that you're doing that, you're going to get the cup, you're going to bring it down to where you're at, and you're going to drink it from

the wrong side, from the side that feels weird to drink it from right now.

But you're going to basically drink upside down.

And when you do this and you take a few gulfs that way, your hiccups will be gone.

That's not a threat.

It works every time.

Sydney, have you ever seen it?

Back me up.

Don't be suspicious of me.

Back me up.

It does work.

It does work.

No, it works.

It works.

Well, I can't, I can't.

I don't have the science to say every time.

I don't have the science to say that.

I love that.

I love that.

No, no, no.

I love that.

You do the science thing.

I love that.

I love that for you.

So there are, generally speaking, these, you know, we know hiccups are these little spasms of your diaphragm.

Yes.

Big muscle helps you breathe.

Yep.

Why would you get a bunch of them like back to back?

Well, they can be triggered by things like if you eat or drink really quickly.

You get air, like an air bubble.

Yeah.

So like that, yeah.

So

when we talk about something like an air bubble.

When we talk about hiccup prevention, one good way to prevent them is to slow down if you're eating or drinking.

You can also, there are some things that tend to be triggers, like carbonated beverages or alcohol, for instance.

And so if you're getting a run of them back to back, it like, did you drink that day?

You know, I mean, there may be some sort of, there's probably some sort of extenuating factor that would contribute to you getting hiccups a bunch, whereas maybe you don't for a while because you're not engaging in whatever that behavior is.

But we don't have, but there's not like

like there's no physical element of this where like air is trapped somewhere right like the fizziness is not like no because it could feel that way but it's not no it's not like that it's just i mean because they're they're typically they're harmless they're temporary they come randomly and they go randomly and or you use justin' sure fire hiccup cure and they go away fails and uh and it's not i mean if they are persistent if you if you get hiccups and they do not go away there can be other more insidious causes and you should go get that checked out generally speaking that's not true about hiccups, right?

I don't want, I don't everybody freak out about hiccups.

Most of the time, hiccups are entirely benign,

but there can be, and I mean, even like we find it associated with times of like great stress or like stress activation could lead to more spasms of diaphragm and more cases of hiccups.

So these could all be reasons why maybe you have a bunch of hiccups for a couple of days and then you don't have hiccups for a long stretch.

Generally speaking, again,

don't worry.

Not a problem.

Most of the time, hiccups are entirely benign and will go away on their own.

Or if you want to try what Justin recommended, you go for it.

Next question.

Well, Justin, I would love to answer the next question.

What?

But before we do that.

We had a lot of preamble, didn't we?

Sid.

Yes.

We must go to the billing department.

Let's go.

Oh, these shorts?

You've noticed them.

Yeah, these are sort of a transitional short.

They go from the warmer months to the more formal short-wearing months of August and September.

When you need a classier short, where did I get them?

Yeah, thank you.

It's very flattering.

Quince is where I get most of my semi-formal shorts like these.

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You know, we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Okay, next question.

Hi, Dr.

McElroy and Justin.

I've been wondering about antibiotic ointment.

Does it actually have any effect in keeping cuts from getting infected?

Should it go on things other than cuts like rashes?

When, slash, how often should it be applied?

Let's do that one first.

This listener had two questions, and I want to take them one.

They're both good questions.

Okay.

Okay.

This is something that I find really fascinating.

And I actually talk about it a lot in the work I do at Harmony House

because antibiotic ointment can sometimes, I think we take that for granted that a lot of us who are housed have a tube of some sort of over-the-counter antibiotic ointment in a drawer, a crusty tube in a drawer somewhere.

Crusty old tube.

You know, you know, you do.

Also, check the expiration date.

I'm not big on expiration dates in general.

I don't really pay attention to them much.

A lot of them are nonsense.

I mean, a lot of them are just made up.

I mean, literally made up.

We've talked about this with medications, too.

But when it comes to gels and liquids and creams and things like that, they do other things.

It's not just about the medicine in it.

They do like the other compounds.

Yeah.

You look for,

it's a real eye-opener when you start, when you learn about that little like 12M or however many month symbol on a lot of the things that you open like that.

There's a symbol just like makeup and stuff.

Makeup, yeah, specifically.

Let's like throw it away.

Throw this away.

Well,

and for makeup, they can like harbor bacteria and stuff, but like the, the, you know, the tubes, they, the creams, they do weird things.

So like check those anyway also maybe you don't need antibiotic ointment so this is a this is an area of medicine where we've kind of evolved our thinking we often will just jump to if you get a superficial cut or scrape go grab your tube of and some brand names you may have are like bacatracin or neosporin or you may have like the generic brands of antibiotic ointment, triple antibiotic ointment, that's very common.

And you throw some of that on there to prevent any bacteria from accumulating in the cut or scrape.

However, we we now think that you probably don't need that.

And in fact,

yes, in fact, you may actually have a reaction to some of the components that are in triple antibiotic ointment specifically that would be counterproductive, that would actually cause some inflammation in the cut.

And you've been banging this trunk forever.

Since we've been together, you've been having me put antibiotic ointment on.

Well, most of the time, it won't do anything bad or good.

I mean,

none of us react to it.

You can understand me feeling a little bit misled by that.

I understand.

I understand.

Well, this is a new area of medicine.

I had read a study where they

head to head, if you use plain old petroleum jelly, Vaseline petroleum jelly, versus antibiotic ointment on a cut, what heals faster.

And there's really no improvement with the additional antibiotic in the ointment.

The thing that helps you most is the vehicle that the antibiotic ointment is delivered in, the petroleum jelly.

That seems to be the thing that is most beneficial to put on a cut to help cover the area, to seal in moisture, to prevent external things, you know, germs and dirt and whatnot from getting into the cut.

That seems to be what is actually beneficial, not so much the antibiotic component.

And like I said, there are specific things in the antibiotic ointment that some people have reaction to, like neomycin or polymyxin.

And in those cases, you may actually be making things worse.

Plus, there was a more recent study that suggested, I thought this was really interesting.

This was a study from 2021 that was looking at,

do we need some of the bacteria that are in the cut to help it heal?

Like, is there some

bacteria-induced skin regeneration via IL-1B signaling is the name of the study.

I don't expect you to go find it and read it, but the point is.

I already read it, so that would, I wouldn't waste my time with it reading it again.

It's gonna be boring under the ending.

Maybe some of those bacteria actually help a little.

So, like, when you get a cut or scrape, you should rot, you should wash it out like we always recommend, right?

We go wash it out, especially if it was dirty, go wash it out.

Go wash it out.

But if it's just a superficial cut or scrape, you may not really need antibiotic ointment.

Some petroleum jelly would probably be fine.

Just a barrier.

Yeah.

And we may be evolving our thinking that moving forward, and that's a lot easier for me to recommend to people.

I have lots of packs of that that I can hand out to people and say, like, hey, you don't necessarily need to keep coating this in antibiotic ointment.

Once it's cleaned out, once the initial cut has been cleaned, you can just put this petroleum jelly on it.

So so this may this is an area of medicine we're evolving i'm not saying throw away your antibiotic ointment i'm not saying everybody go clear out your obviously if you're you're not saying eat it no i'm do not eat it but we may at some point have a standard recommendation you know what just put petroleum jelly on it and most of the time we don't need that stuff and if you're if it seems to be making your cut worse you may be reacting to some of the components in it and you don't need it Also, my mom used to make me eat carrots, saying it'd make my eyesight better.

Given that I had to get glasses in the second grade, despite eating so many carrots, I'm inclined to believe that isn't true.

Can carrots make your eyesight better or at least slow the decline of vision?

Why do we think carrots help with vision, Justin?

Well, it's because I've never seen a rabbit wearing glasses.

Did you really?

I,

Justin!

Did it mess up?

No, that was great.

That was great.

What is in carrots do you know what is in carrots vitamin d orange no beta carotene beta carotene vitamin a vitamin a beta carotene or vitamin a vitamin a so uh yes that is why carrots have this reputation for being good for your eyesight because vitamin a is in carrots now vitamin a is in lots of things right carrots are one vehicle to deliver vitamin A to you.

Vitamin A is in other things.

But we need a certain amount of vitamin A to maintain vision.

Vitamin A deficiency is a major cause of vision loss across the globe,

especially in areas of the world where

obtaining nutrition,

getting a wide range of foods, all of your vitamin, all of those necessary components can be a challenge.

Then we do see cases of people becoming blind because of vitamin A deficiency.

So absolutely, vitamin A is a big component of maintaining good vision.

Now, I think what is interesting,

carrots specifically, because whenever we get to something like this, like, okay, so we need vitamin A, but why carrots?

It's kind of like the whole, like, if

you need potassium, what do we tell you?

You gotta eat banana.

Eat a banana.

That's what we always say, right?

But bananas are not necessarily the most potassium-rich food.

They're not.

There are lots of foods that have potassium.

A lot of times people are an excuse to eat banana.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, we just go to banana.

I think it's like something you could like hand to somebody.

We're like, here, eat this.

It's a banana.

It's good.

Most people like it, whatever.

Maybe that's how I carrot vitamin A.

I looked for a study.

Is there a study where we've actually looked at carrots, not just vitamin A?

There are tons of studies out there that support vitamin A is essential for vision.

Taking vitamin A supplements will maintain healthy vision and can help improve vision if you're in it.

What about carrots, specifically?

Specifically, carrots.

There was a randomized study in 2005, which looked at consumption of 4.5 ounces of cooked carrots six days a week.

I don't know why they had to be cooked.

It's a lot.

Why did they have to be cooked?

I don't know.

You wouldn't need them.

I know.

You wouldn't need them.

Oh, God, what's worse?

What's worse?

How do you ruin a carrot faster?

Oh.

And they put it up against other vitamin A-rich foods, fortified rice, amaranth leaf, goat liver

to address.

Amaranth leaf.

Why is that?

I was going to say, why is that familiar?

He is from a core of foreign roses.

Yeah, I think that's what you're thinking.

Yeah, I think that's what you're thinking.

And it was specifically looking at night blindness in women who are pregnant.

The result was that everything did the same.

But you know what beat them all?

A vitamin A supplement.

Yeah, that's always a problem, isn't it?

Vitamins make it so tricky.

Well,

it's a standard amount.

You know exactly how much people are taking.

It's easier when we can, the thing, it's why we talk about this a lot.

It's why with like herbal, the idea of herbal medications, if we we can, we don't give you, we don't tell you to eat foxglove if we think you need digoxin because we have synthesized the active component, the digitalis, the digoxin, in a, in a lab, and we have just a controlled amount of exactly what you need instead of like eat the plant.

Would you mind writing all that down for me in case I do run into any old-timey people just so I'm like not completely caught with my pants down?

So don't, yeah, I'll put that.

Don't eat the foxglove, make digoxin.

But so, yes, carrots are good for you in the sense that they have vitamin A, but as long as you're getting plenty of vitamin a you don't necessarily have to eat carrots specifically and i will say that there is no evidence at this point that carrots will give you like supervision you know what i mean like we're not

it's not like it's not like you continue the graph doesn't keep going up like the more carrots you eat the better your vision until eventually you have x-ray vision right like that won't happen but vitamin a is important for good vision okay fine

But so is the next question about how you do get supervision or I don't have that answer.

I could use supervision.

Hi, Dr.

Sidney and Justin.

I have a few weird medical questions, so feel free to take your pick.

Jokes on you, we're gonna do them all.

One, when I was young during airplane flights, my mom would put neosporin on the inside of my mind of my brother's nostrils to prevent us from getting sick.

Was this doing anything at all, or did I endure that gross goo up my nose for nothing?

Well, I thought, in light of our previous question,

Justin, you would be able to answer this.

It's just a barrier.

Yeah, there.

Well, and also,

I don't know what that would.

I don't know what that would do.

I would know that.

Neosporin has, so neosporin has antibiotic components in it, as we've talked about.

They can kill bacteria.

Yeah.

But if we're worried about viruses.

Your mom was wasting your time.

And I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I don't know that that would do it.

I don't have a reason that it would hurt you.

I do think it is interesting.

There is a protocol we use.

So this is related.

This isn't this.

I don't recommend to people to do this.

I don't know what it would do.

But there is a protocol we use if we think someone is colonized with MRSA, commonly called MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Less commonly, if you're just trying to stunt on your podcast, it's called that.

I tell people it's super staph.

When people are like, I'm really scared of MRSA, it's just it's staph, it's a staph infection that's really resistant.

Like a super.

Oh, that's a good.

So you make it a little bit easier for less scary by calling it super staph.

Just super staph.

Okay.

Thanks.

It's just really hard to kill staph.

But we have antibiotics that kill it.

I have lots of antibiotics that kill it.

Don't brag.

Buckets of it.

Stop bragging.

Buckets.

Don't worry.

But there is a protocol we can use where we take a specific kind of ointment, not neosporin.

Neosporin won't cut it.

We use something, a prescription, mupiricin or bactroban is the brand name.

Sounds like bacetracin, but it's not.

It's called bactroban.

It's a mupiricin ointment you can put inside your nose.

There's a specific protocol we follow.

You do it a couple times a day for five days.

And anyway, that will help reduce the amount because that's where MRSA lives.

It lives inside your nostrils.

And so if you do this, hopefully we could decolonize you.

There's also a newer swabby thing they do in the hospitals.

But the point is, we do that, and that does reduce the amount of MRSA in people and can sometimes decolonize them.

Then, those of us who work in healthcare often end up colonized again.

Wah, wah.

But that is a use for a type of antibiotic ointment in your nose.

However, neasporn on a plane in your nose,

I don't really have a good reason for.

Sorry.

But there's another question.

Maybe this one.

And listen, don't feel bad about your parents, waste of your time.

If you're, you're, my dad has wasted so much of my time and continues to.

Don't feel bad.

That's just parents for you.

Well, and we come from the generation of kids.

We're like, I don't know about you, Justin, but I was given dimitap all the time.

Our parents didn't have the internet.

So like they were just going off of whatever they heard from at the grocery store, I guess.

Yeah.

And like that wasn't good.

I mean, we know now, we know better now.

When I was a kid, I was playing tetherball and I severely jammed my finger on the ball.

I didn't tell anyone to go to the doctor for some reason and my finger was swollen for about two weeks.

I know you can't diagnose anything, but I'm feeling like I might have broken my finger.

I have zero mobility issues now.

Is it possible for a broken finger to heal fully on its own?

It is, yes.

If you, if you have a non-displaced fracture, it can heal on its own, meaning that like the bones are all still where they need to be.

There's just like a crack or something.

It can't heal on its own.

I do not recommend that.

I don't recommend that I think my finger's broken.

I'll just see what happens.

I will say that you probably did just jam it more than likely.

I don't know.

Can't say.

Can't say.

But it is quite possible that it was a jam or what we call here in West Virginia, a stove.

A stove.

You stoved your finger.

When you compress the joint.

very quickly you know yeah i mean you can you can picture what i'm you're jamming the tip of your finger on something um it it like stretches those

everything around the joint, and it can cause sometimes it can even tear them

if it's a hard enough jam or stove.

Uh, and it can take a while to heal.

It can be quite painful, and it can, you know, temporarily limit some of the mobility.

Um, you can have swelling, all of that, and then it will heal in a couple weeks.

So, it could have been a jam.

It is possible.

Our bodies do heal breaks on their own, but I would not count on that.

If you think something's broken, go get it checked out.

How quickly do veins heal after an IV slash blood draw?

Last year I was having a weird medical problem as a result.

I had two separate blood draws over the course of two weeks.

My skin had healed over between each blood draw, but I'm wondering if my veins healed just as quickly.

It seemed odd to be poking so many holes in such a short time period.

I think so there's two different things.

One, if we're talking about like a standard vena puncture,

which means you just inserted the needle through the skin into one side of the vein, took blood out of it, and then pulled it back out.

The intima, the lining of the vein, is going to take like a week-ish, depending.

You know, there's some variability person to person and caliber of the needle and all that stuff.

But it takes about a week to heal that hole.

The thing is, you're almost certainly not going into the same exact place.

You may even use the same vein, but you're not going to the same place in the vein.

So it takes about a week for the intima of that to heal up.

Now, obviously, like you're, it's not going to be bleeding under the skin continually there, right?

Like, it clots over at the site.

So you're fine.

It can take a little longer if the vessel is blown.

So I think that's another thing to consider.

Then that is when it,

do you know what that means when we say the vessel's blown?

No.

So instead of, it's a tube, right?

Your vein's a tube.

Instead of going into one side of the tube and coming right back out and that's it, we poked all the way through.

Okay.

We poked a hole all the way through the tube.

Does that make sense?

And then you can start having, you know, oozing under the skin.

That's where you get bruising and swelling.

Ooh, and oozing.

Yeah, and it's a, it, you know, it's no fun.

Again, that's going to heal on its own, but that can take a little longer.

So that can take, you know, 10 days, maybe even two weeks.

But generally speaking, takes about a week for it to heal.

But you got lots, the veins, you got lots of space on there.

So don't worry about it.

You can have multiple blood draws in a week and it's okay.

You can always switch arms too.

you know sydney i don't know that leah intended for us to ask all three of her questions and in a way leah i think we may have created too thorough of a biography for you by doing all three

it feels like i feel like i have really a complete picture of leah as well i think about it i thought they were all really good they're all great leah but it's just like i feel like i know you so well at this point you know what i mean i'm very intimate leah if that was too revealing i'm really sorry it was a uh those were good

you got to find questions that are interesting weird but I'm also not getting specific right because I can't I cannot be this isn't just for you Leah this is for everyone out there I cannot be your healthcare provider that's that's you Leah interesting because this is a podcast Sydney says here's your Sydney's review of you Leah it's interesting weird and nonspecific so thank you so much no they're thoughtful and clever and interesting and no I mean these are good they're they were all solid questions.

You're all solid people.

Thank you.

All our sawboners are the best podcast listeners.

I don't call you that.

Justin calls you sawboners.

I refuse.

And hey, once again, we're doing our show, heartprom.com.

It's H-A-R-T.

Come on, see it.

And it's this weekend and next.

And next weekend, if you are closer to Columbus.

Sorry, we're all over the place.

If you're closer to Columbus, you can come see Sawbones before my brother, my brother and me.

If we're going to be performing there in Columbus, Ohio, on let me tell you the exact date.

That's no problem for me.

I'm a professional.

It's June 19th at 7 p.m.

You go to bit.ly forward slash McElroy live.

Bit.ly forward slash McElroy Tours.

Not McElroy Live.

I made that one up.

McElroy Tours.

You can come out and see us.

And we'll be there.

Thanks to the taxpayers for use of their song, Medicines.

as the intro and outro program.

And thanks to you for listening.

That's going to do it first.

Until next time on Southern Buns.

My name is Justin McElroy.

I'm Sidney McElroy.

And as always, don't drill a hole in your hand.

All right.

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