October 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews Dr. Comfort Ughanze about menopause. Pike also speaks with Erwin Castellanos of Champions Tree Preservation about Fall tree care.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? You remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well? This show is all about you only. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances,
good health, and what to do for fun. Fifty plus
brought to you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging,
Informed decisions for a healthier, happier life.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, there
we go, yet another edition of fifty plus. This will
be nine hundred and something. Hu will yeah, nine hundred
and something. We're not sure, And there were many more
before we really started keeping track of them. Podcast. That's
not something that goes back ten years for this show.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
So my gut tells me we're well in excess of
a thousand based on the years that I've been doing this.
I greatly appreciate each and every one of you for
participating in however you do that, whether it's by listening,
by becoming part of the program, whatever it is. So
a big hearty welcome, a big thank you as always,
(01:27):
and if you are interested in doing this. All you
got to do is email me if you want to
get jumped in jumped on somehow. I don't know what
the terms are these days for joining something. I guess
that just be the way to say it. Feel free.
Our generation really didn't grow up. Well, I take that back.
We had all kinds of nicknames and not secret words,
(01:48):
but just terms that mostly teenagers understood and adults did not,
and that tradition certainly lives on. There's a great, very
funny professor's oratory to a classroom full or an auditorium
college professor speaking to an auditorium full of I guess freshmen,
(02:11):
maybe sophomores, who knows. But the bottom line is he
did his research and scripted out very well ten or
fifteen minutes that were just littered with words that he
should not have known if he being his age, and
the kids just thought it was hilarious. He worked them
(02:33):
in so well.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I have every now and then.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
There was an old producer I had on the morning
show or my weekend outdoor show, Adam.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
He's still around here.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
He's just working I think for KTRH now, and he
would feed me words every now and then that I
could slip it.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Adam is very young.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
He could slip in words for me that I could
use with my son and have him just look at
me in disbelief, like, how did you even know that
it existed? I had fun with that for quite some time.
I gotta tell you, all right, So anyway, if you
want to jump in and be involved in this show
any more than just listening, first of all, if you
have a topic you like you would like to hear
(03:13):
us talk about. If you have a question for me
or any of the guests I have, feel free to
just email me Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot com. Same goes
for if you want to become part of the show
as a sponsor. And I do have a little bit
of room left and I would love to fill it
up with good sponsors such as maybe you who knows
Doug Pike at iHeartMedia dot com. There's that so quickly
(03:38):
off the market we go where everything's coming up roses,
or at least it was a little while ago.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
If roses we're green.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I suppose all four of the major indicators a couple
hours ago looked really really good. Up a couple of
them up more than a whole point earlier this morning,
oil also up unfortunately, but well not if you're in
that industry, you're happy to see it coming back up
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And it could still it could.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Still go north another three or four dollars and not
hurt anything. I wouldn't mind seeing that the oil industry
has to remain functional and profitable lest we have to
start driving around in solar powered cars, which isn't gonna work.
(04:22):
I would guess. I would guess that the forecast for
tomorrow and even late tonight, I don't know, place your bets.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. On tomorrow's forecast for
a one hundred percent chance of rain, which that tells
(04:43):
me that it's coming and there's nothing we can do
to get out of it. It's a it's a front.
It's gonna push through here and it's gonna rain. Who
knows who's gonna get what and how much and where.
All of that's still to be determined. But my best
source says anywhere from one to two inches of rain,
which we should gladly accept. It's gonna start tonight and
(05:07):
then there's gonna be a little break, and then it's
gonna come back tomorrow. Then there's gonna be a break,
and then there's gonna be a little bit more even
through big part of Sunday. In the tropics, where are
we will We're doing all right? Go good, good, good good. Look,
that's something I want to talk about right up front.
In the tropics. This isn't it, but I'm gonna give
it to you, uh not for long. Tropical Storm Melissa,
(05:29):
soon to go hurricane, is about to do a number
on Haiti and Jamaica and Cuba and anything else in
that area. It's gonna spiral up into a major storm,
and that's gonna happen probably in the next thirty six
forty eight hours, maybe even less, and then just kind
of hang around in that region for three or four
(05:51):
days without really moving to give anybody a break. Three
or four days of steady major hurricane conditions. It's going
to be really hard on those people. I feel for them.
There's gonna be serious damage and hopefully no loss of life.
But after a sustained storm of that magnitude, it's not
(06:14):
looking good for those folks.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I just I pray they get through it. I really do. Quickly.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
New scams, be careful when you tap to pay. There's
a lot of ways to steal your money by people
who would love to do that. Some employees in small
shops or big stores, whatever, who don't plan to stay
very long might sell you a twenty dollars item and
charge your account fifty or more for it and then
kind of work it out at the end of the
day when they're balancing their bank of charges in cash.
(06:44):
In another scam, small time vendors like maybe a Round
Events or something like that, selling T shirts. They'll have
one of those portable tap to pay devices and maybe
ask you for a little small donation to a good cause,
or maybe get you to buy a T shirt for
twenty bucks or whatever, and then wait a little while
and go back in and change the amount you paid them.
(07:04):
That's possible, I learned reading what I was reading. And
then you also have to kind of be aware of
recurring charges on your credit card receipts.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
That happened to my wife and me a while back.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
We started seeing these little five dollar charges and she
pays close attention to that stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Wait, is this you or is this our son? Who
is it?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
And nobody would lay claim to those five dollars charges?
One or two usually, and then suddenly it was three
or four. And imagine if you're the crook where you're
sliding these things through under the fraud alert amounts easily
five bucks, who's looking, But they slide them through more
than once, maybe four or five times, like it kind
(07:44):
of happened to us a few times. And all of
a sudden, if you've got thousands of people whose numbers
you've gotten in, whose accounts you're tapped into for five, ten,
twenty bucks a month.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You're doing all right for yourself, not legally, but you're
doing all right.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Speaking of doing all all right, if you have an
enlarged non cancerous prostate, as many men over the ages
of fifty five or sixty or so, do you know
the symptoms are uncomfortable, You know they're unpleasant, and you
know you'd love to get rid of them, and you
can at a late health It's a vascular clinic run
by doctor Andrew Do and that's the procedure he does
(08:21):
most often when he's at work. He also takes care
of fibroids for women. He also takes care of some
head pains. He also takes care of ugly veins and
a dozen or more other procedures that are all done
in vascular clinics. A lot of them I didn't even
realize were done anywhere until I really dug into his
website a while back and interviewed him on all these things.
(08:42):
It would take me a very long time to cover
everything they can do over there. But that prostrate artorymalization,
that's boy, that's a game changer for old folks who
have old men who have them at prostate starts giving
you fits and it just gets worse and words, it's
not going to get better on its own. It's not
going to stop on its own. Let them help you
with that. Much of what they do covered by Medicare
(09:03):
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website a Late Health a la te a latehealth dot
com aged to perfection.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
This is fifty plus with Dougpike. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Thank you for listening on this this day. Thanks for
always really for your time in this segment by popular demand.
Really I've actually gotten some emails about this. We're gonna
take a second swing at the ins and outs of menopause,
since only one week ago it was World Menopause Day,
(09:46):
and ready to answer my questions expertly. As doctor comfort Ugonzi,
Board certified OBGYM with nearly two decades of experience in
women's health and especially menopause management, you're the perfect person
for this interview, Doctor Hugonzi, thank.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
You, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
So for this segment and since we've gone through and
by the way, I'm making note here that the men
in the audience need to hear what you say every
bit as much as the women, because menopause really, in
various ways impacts everybody in the house, doesn't it.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
Absolutely Sometimes women are not going crazy, it's their hormones.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I'm keeping my mouth shut, okay, I'm just gonna ask questions.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So biologically speaking, what's.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Actually happening in a woman's body when what we call
menopause takes place.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
So when we're going through menopause or getting close to menopause,
the ovaries which produce the eggs to allow for pregnancy,
they also produce hormones. They produce estrogen hormones, and we
are born with all of the eggs that we will
ever need, and they just slowly decrease and decrease until
around menopause there's no more eggs and there's no more
(11:01):
there's no more place to produce that estrogen hormone, or
at least it's greatly reduced. So the hormonal levels decrease greatly,
and it just affects the whole entire body, because estrogen
affects the whole body.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah, that's yeah, what about emotion I know it affects
the body emotion or physically, and we'll get to that,
but what about emotionally too? There are rumors doctor Uganzi's
among some men that women can get a little moody
and testy at the onset of menopause.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
Why is that it is so menopause. The hormonal levels
that happen when in menopause are perimenopause, so that's the
period of time right before then affect literally the whole body,
including the brain. So people get mood swings, they get irritability.
It can actually even lead to an increase in depression anxiety.
So this is actually really serious. It's not just hey,
(11:52):
I'm a little irritated. It can really be debilitating for women.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
That's just horrible. I hate that I saw in what
mirrorcent that regular check are helpful for women going through menopause.
Is that the monitoring of the hormones or what would
a regular check up help with?
Speaker 6 (12:09):
So, first of all, just like I said, you know,
sometimes we don't know what it is, right, So women
are like, I just feel a little off, I'm forgetting things.
You know, this is happening. And so seeing somebody who's
familiar with menopause can point to, hey, this is what's
going on, like it's not all in your head. This
is normal, this is what the hormones do. They can
(12:29):
also do hormonal testing to kind of confirm what is
going on. But I would like to stress seeing a
gynecologist who is able to take care of menopause, and
not all of them are comfortable taking care of menopause patients,
So that's important to it.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Doctor comfort of Ganzi on fifty plus plenty comfortable with menopause.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So let's get to where a lot.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Of the women in this audience probably are about now
and talk about the treatment options that can make the
transition less uncomfortable. When they're internal thermostats are flipping back
and forth from ice box to furnace, what can they do?
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Yeah, So there are a lot of options, and that's
so that's why it's really important to speak to a gynecologist.
There are some over the counter treatment options. If you
look in the women's vitamin section, you'll see kind of
menopausal care supplements, So there's some over the counter options.
There's some prescription options, several different prescription options, and then
there's hormonal options as well. So depending on a women's
(13:26):
medical history, their desires, there's a lot of different options.
So women don't have to suffer. I think that's my
biggest takeaway. Women do not have to suffer.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
What about the hormone replacement therapy? What's what's up with that?
How effective is it? How long can women keep replacing
what's gone?
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Hormone replacement therapy is excellent for the for excellent candidates.
It's not for everybody, okay, but for people who are
able to take it with their medical history and their age,
it works really really well to help with the symptoms.
We typically recommend starting it in women under the age
of sixty sometimes we started in women over the age
(14:04):
of sixty, but it's usually in that forty to sixty
age group that we typically will start it. And women
can take it as long as they want to, as
long as they're feeling well and their medical history allows
for it.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, I've read in a couple of places some of
the meds for that can be really really expensive. Are
their generics available and if so, are they are how
close are they to the name brand stuff?
Speaker 6 (14:28):
That is an excellent question. So there's many different formulations,
many different ways people can take hormones by pills, creams, patches,
pellets that are injected into the skin, and there's different
price ranges. So for people who are concerned about pricing,
there are options that are covered by insurance and so
they are very affordable and they're exactly what women need.
(14:49):
They're not like a secondary tier or anything like that.
It's exactly what women need. So there are definitely options
that are affordable.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
On the holistic more holistic side.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Also, there are just basic lifestyle changes even that can
help lessen some of the symptoms.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Talk about that absolutely.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
So for some women who are having hot flashes, decreasing
caffeine intake, can sometimes help with it. Definitely, decreasing alcohol intake,
especially at night can help with those night sweats and
hot flashes. Sometimes even changing what we eat as far
as our diet, decreasing sugars, complex sugars, and increasing protein.
There are some women who get a lot of benefit
(15:29):
from that. And also exercise. I know we always say
diet exercise, but it actually really helps with women in.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
This fantastic Is there a specific amount of time that
the symptoms of menopause are going to last or are
they just with you forever like a hangnail or whatever.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
So for most women, thankfully, it's not forever. Some people
it's just transient. It could be just a few months
to a year. Some people, unfortunately, do have it for
many years, even decades. But that's the minority. I say,
the majority of patients within ten years or less, their
symptoms go away.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
For someone who's been taking hormone therapy, then might it
just be that they could at some point stop the
hormone therapy and see what happens?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Or is that a bad idea?
Speaker 6 (16:15):
I do tell my patients that if they want to
do that, that is definitely an option. Now we have
to remember hormones actually have other benefits other than helping
with the side effects like hopplashes. It actually decreases the
chance of osteoporosis in women, decreases the chance of colon
cancer in women, So there are some other benefits. There
are some studies that say maybe maybe it could decrease
(16:38):
the chance of Alzheimer's or dementia. So there's a lot
of research looking into other benefits other than this is
how I feel fantastic.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
What would you say is kind of the bottom line.
We're at about a minute, So what would you say
is the most important takeaway from what we've just talked about.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
I think the most important thing is menopause is an
natural process that happens in women. But that doesn't mean
it's uncomfortable. It's it's comfortable. Women do not have to suffer, though.
See a gynecologist who is comfortable taking care of women
with menopause and explore all of your options and whatever
you want to do is what can be done.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
And this is something that's kind of try one option
and if that doesn't work, there's another one right.
Speaker 6 (17:21):
There are And then I would encourage people to go
to menopause dot org. Okay, and they can find actually
fine specialists who specialize in menopause in your area. You
can just put in your zip code and they'll pop up.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Oh that's fantastic. I didn't know that I learned something
that I certainly learned today. Thank you so much, doctor
comfort u Ganzi. I really appreciate your time. You are
welcome on this show anytime.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
You're very good. No, yeah, all right, thank you.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
All right, we got to take a little break here,
and on the way out, I'm going to tell you
about Champions Tree Preservation. We're gonna be talking to Irwin
Costellanos in just a few minutes as a matter of fact,
about how to get your trees ready for winter, how
to get your trees ready for next spring, next summer,
next fall, and the winter after that. Make sure they're
healthy so that they continue to bride you with beauty
and enhanced value of your property, wherever that may be.
(18:10):
And however many trees you have, Champions Tree Preservation will
send an arborist to your home to inspect every one
of your trees, make notes about every one of your
trees and let you know whether they are or are
not ready to tackle whatever Texas is going to throw
at them this year and next year. A good healthy
(18:30):
tree can just be such an asset and it looks
so good in your yard, But if it starts to
look kind of puny, there's a good chance it's sick.
And just like if you were sick, it's going to
need to be treated, and Champions Tree can help.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
You with that.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Maybe it just needs some food, maybe it needs a
little pruning, Maybe it needs a bigger limb lopped off
somewhere to balance it out a little bit. Champions Tree
Preservation will send crews to your house to take care
of whatever the arboris recommends at a very fair price
for the quality of work you're going to get. They
have all their own equipment, they use only their crews,
(19:06):
so they know that the job is going to be
done right. And if they have to take a tree out,
they don't like that. But if they have to, they
can offer you a tree from their tree farm, a
native Texas tree that will adapt very quickly and very
comfortably to whatever environment it's placed in in this big
old state of ours. Championstree dot Com is the website
(19:28):
two eight one three two zero eighty two zero one
two eight one three two zero eighty two zero one.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check us words,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike, fifty plus.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Thank you for listening. I certainly do appreciate it. Three
cheers by the way to the clear sky this morning.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That was fun.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
See what happens says we go through a little farther
in this day, up, maybe down, who knows.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
We're talking this segment about our trees and what if
anything needs to be done in the fall to prepare
them for whatever a Southeast Texas winter throws their way,
and to educate us all. I'm bringing in Irwin Costallanos
from Champions Tree Preservation. He a certified arbist who can
spot a dead leaf at one hundred yards.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Welcome, Irwin, How you doing good afternoon?
Speaker 8 (20:24):
Don Fine, It.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Was amazing when you came to my house a while back.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I learned so much and I'm going to try and
shed some of that light back onto the audience here.
But let's start with the seasonal stuff right now. We're
going in to fall, sooner or later. I guess and
maybe a little, maybe a lot, our trees are just
sitting in the yard waiting for whatever's coming. Is there
anything we need to do now to make sure those
trees are strong and healthy in case we get another
(20:48):
big old Arctic blast like we had a couple of
winters ago.
Speaker 7 (20:53):
In late summer, trees begin to prepare themselves for the winter.
What they do they slow down for the sense, and
they stop in a certain way. They stop growing, so
they stop preparing themselves for the long dormant season. What
we can do, it's a little bit premature right now.
In about two or three weeks, we can start slowing
(21:15):
down with the water because in winter you're not going
to be using as much water as they're using steel
right now, So that's the first thing to do. Slow
down the water in about two or three weeks.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Are there outward signs things we can see in a
tree ourselves, Like your eye looks at a tree differently
than mine does. But are there things I should be
looking for this time of year that would indicate a
need for some sort of attention.
Speaker 7 (21:42):
Definitely. You just start seeing the change in lead colors. Slowly,
they're going to start turning yellowish reddish brownish, and some
of the fees that are more egging, you will not
see any new growth at all. So that is the
for a sign that the trees are going dormant. Given
(22:03):
the pine trees which are evergreen, and so they go dormant,
they don't grow throughout the winter months, that's the first
sign that their endornmancy.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
In my yard, those big oak trees shed five million
acorns a day. I think that's about the right number.
I'm not really sure, but it sure seems like when
I'm out there trying to keep that junk off the
driveway in the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Holy cow? Is that normal?
Speaker 7 (22:29):
In years like for instance, like this year, that we
are not having as much rain, the trees are going
to be more stress and they will produce more seeds
or acrons. So that's in this season you're seeing more
acorn production from the lack of rain that we have
had for the last few months.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
So when you and your crew have to take out
a tree, I know you hate that because you like
to fix them rather than take them out, but you
take it out because it's just too far gone. What
percentage of those trees do you think could have been
saved with a little prevent and maiden let's say three
six months before.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
That, oh gous. Based on experience, they probably most to them.
See what happens by the time the homeowner and realizes
that something is wrong and they call us, there's very
little that we can do if they don't keep up
by normal maintenance programs in their trees. So maybe the
(23:23):
tree could have been saved a year or two before,
but they didn't recognize any science or any problems, so
they let it go until they saw that something was
obviously wrong. And when the time they call us, there's
many times very little that we can do to bring
back the tree to life.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
I remember when we talked before. You talked to me
about how pruning these trees like a lion's tale you
call it, where it's just a bare limb out to
about the last six or eight feet and then there's
just this giant cotton ball looking thing of leaves. I
know you taught me that that's important in the summertime
to keep the bright hot sun off of those.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Mainly or main branches. But is it all?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Do those what do they call them, the little skinny
branches that come up whatever they're called, do they also, Yeah,
the little.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
Superstructor growth as we call it. Yeah, it's important to
see now part of the dormancing process and preparing trees
for winter. The weather begins to cool down in probably
two more weeks or so, Now the time to do
the pruning on those trees. Now time to take the
dead woods and reduce the canopies a little bit, because
(24:37):
trees they need those leaves throughout the hot summers that
we have to shave themselves. So now that we're going
into a cooler part of the year, now is the
time to prune. And that also prepares them better for
the winter. So this is the time that you need
to take action to prune the trees.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Well, that just tells me exactly what I need to
know and answers my question about whether or not those
sucker branches also maybe are like little teeny tiny blankets
for the tree.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
They don't need that right.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
Well, definitely, but in during the during the years may
through like September in our area, they definitely need to
protect them themselves for themselves.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
Definitely.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Believe it or not, Irwin, we are Irwin Constelano's here
from Champions Tree Preservation in a minute or least, talk
to me about what you told me about overwatering most
of our trees and why people do it.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
The typical homeowner will see that a tree is stressed,
and many times it's due to overwatering. But the most
common reaction is to give it and give it more water.
And sometimes it's actually the opposite. When we have normal
rain coming and down in our area, the trees themselves
don't need the sprinkers. We watered because we have plants,
(25:55):
we have grass, we have vegetation. But many times trees
don't need the water, so there's a tendency to over
water trees. The only time that I recommend to overwater
a tree is like in the middle of winter when
we know God see big deep deep freese coming twenty
twenty five. Trees water is deeply that night, so they
would protect it as an insulation layer for the freeze
(26:18):
that is coming. That's the only time that you over.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Water and pay am I just learned something very important.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
I'm gonna make a note of that and take it
to the house and take it to the refrigerator. Irwin
Irwin Constelano's from Champions Tree Preservation. Thank you so very
much for your time. That's it's just really informative. I
love doing this with you. I hope we can do
it again soon.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
Thanks Doc, Yes, good day.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Thank you, er Bubba. All right, we got to take
another rak. That's so important. Those trees, if you take
care of them, they're going to take care of you.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You know that.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Oh, just take heed to what Erwin was talking about
about overwatering, about wind of water and wide water, and
then get them out there. Just take a look at
all your trees and make sure that they're good to go.
Ut House Institute on Aging is this fantastic gathering of
more than a thousand people in medicine, every facet of
(27:11):
medicine who are perfectly happy to see seniors because they
have taken it upon themselves to learn just exactly how
they can apply their specific knowledge base to seniors. Maybe
a handful of places in the entire country where this
sort of knowledge is gathered in one location, and it's
(27:34):
here right here in Houston outlying areas. Most of these
people work in the med Center, as you just might imagine,
because that's where that's the epicenter of medicine really in
all of Southeast Texas. And much of the whole state
and half the Louisiana probably. But the bottom line is
what these people do also to make sure that they
(27:54):
can see everybody who wants to see them, do a
little work, usually two or three days a week in
outlying clinics and hospitals and offices and whatnot, so that
if you don't want to drive into the med center,
you don't have to go to the website, look at
all the resources they provide, and then find your way
to a provider who can help you with whatever's bothering
(28:15):
you right now. And there will be somebody who can
do that for you. UT Institute on Aging. The website
is ut dot edu slash aging, uth dot edu slash aging.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
What's life without a net? If I suggest to go
to bed, sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Just wait until the show's over. Sleeping Back to Dougpike
as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Welcome back to segment four, fourth and final segment of
today's show. Thank you all for listening. I really do
appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm going to keep it a little light.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I've got two pages of stuff that I could talk about,
and maybe if I changed my mind in a minute,
I will some of these things in the news that
will really kind of irks.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
There's a there's a Minnesota Supreme Court story. Here's one.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I'll give you support for a good cause. A wealthy
private donor.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Boy, how much money do you have to have to
do this?
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Calls President Trump and says, hey, man, want to help
out with shortages in the military payroll during this shutdown?
You mind if I throw a little money at it,
and say, I'm sure. President Trump said, well, if you
want to throw some money at it, I just I
don't want you to suffer for it. And whoever this
guy was, he had enough that he was cool throwing
(29:38):
in one hundred and thirty dollars to cover the the
shortages in military payroll during this shutdown. That's got to
go a pretty long ways. It's just got to go
a pretty long ways. And whoever that person is, thank
you for doing that. American taxpayers shouldn't have to cover
(30:02):
all kinds of throllways, millions upon millions of dollars of
throwaways of our money. So and so you understand that
Democrats and their standoff in Congress are deliberately they're just
holding us hostage, basically, and we until we concede and
offer to pay up the one point three trillion or
so in ransom the programs that don't benefit a single American.
(30:26):
You got to try to remember that during the midterms,
and by the time the midterms come along, actually we
will have gone through another tax season, and maybe then
you can think about it as well. I found this
interesting Over in London, doctors performed a successful brain surgery
on a woman while she played the clarinet. Now, I've
(30:51):
heard of surgeries like that where they're trying to isolate
a specific part of the brain that that handles such
things is playing the clarinet. What's interesting about that story, though,
is that before she had the surgery, she could only
play the piano. I made that part up, Will, What
do you think of that? Was that it even marginally
(31:12):
humorous a little bit, just a bit.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
You're smiling, you know. That wasn't bad.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
And it's a twist on an old, old joke, but
it's still it was a perfect time to do it.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
That's a good one, and that's not a good one.
Let me go back over here for a second.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
So, man, this is something Will, I'll bet I'll bet
you seventeen cents that you've never heard of this. Have
you ever heard of butt breathing? Honestly you have. I'll
have to see if I have a quarter on me.
I'll pay you more. I don't have any change for
(31:51):
a quarter. I'll find one butt breathing. Actually may I'm
trying to find out if I brought the quarter. I
have a cough drop chapstick slightly used. I'll have to
bring you a quarter. Maybe I have some change at
my desk. I owe you seventeen cents, though, and I
won't forget anyway. This procedure is A doctor from Japan
(32:15):
actually won a prize last year for discovering that we
can breathe, and they breathe in quotes. It's not like
there's inhalation and exhalation as normal respiration goes with the lungs.
Trials are underway too, and actually turtles, this is where
he got his information. Turtles see cucumbers. Several other animals
(32:37):
on this planet already use similar techniques when their lungs
can't gather enough oxygen. And what these what the scientists
are doing now is trying to fine tune the process
where they can put oxygenated liquid into your backside and
(32:58):
if you hold on to it long enough, and that's
something they're working on now. If you hold on to
it long enough, the oxygen in that liquid is absorbed
through the intestine into the bloodstream, kind of like a lung.
At the other end, I hope my lungs hold out
(33:18):
and I don't ever have to do that. But there
are people in the world who have conditions and diseases
that force them to find other ways than their lungs
to breathe. Most of the time, maybe they can barely breathe.
Maybe they can breathe a little bit but need more
oxygen somehow, And maybe that could just be a supplemental
procedure from time to time even to keep them going.
(33:42):
But one way or the other, it's legit, and it's
pretty interesting. Pole found that twenty eight percent of people
with tattoos have at least one tattoo they regret.
Speaker 7 (33:52):
HM.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Maybe that guy up north, what's his name, Pritker something
like that, I can't remember. Found interesting as well about AI.
That's not always right Artificial intelligence, it says here, misrepresents
news approximately forty five percent of the time they get
it wrong. AI gets it wrong forty five percent of
(34:15):
the time, and for the record, for the recal. For
the record, Google's Gemini in this testing performed worst with
significant issues, it says here in seventy six of its responses.
So maybe the humans who are programming this stuff or
are building in some safeguards to keep their jobs. I'm
(34:37):
not really sure, but that's kind of what it sounds like.
Took care of that, took care of that eighty year
old old right down. Oh that much. Okay, so I've
got some time.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
That oh, that big outer Internet outage on Monday bricked
all kinds of things, and one of the things it
ruined and stopped was something called eight sleep, which is
a tilting bed that runs off cloud technology right back
to your house. And a lot of people's beds were
(35:13):
in the upright seated position when it stopped, and they
had to try to fall asleep sitting up, or at
least until the service was restored. Our service is about
to go out for now. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
We'll be back. Audios.
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? You remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well? This show is all about you only. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances,
good health, and what to do for fun. Fifty plus
brought to you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging,
Informed decisions for a healthier, happier life.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, there
we go, yet another edition of fifty plus. This will
be nine hundred and something. Hu will yeah, nine hundred
and something. We're not sure, And there were many more
before we really started keeping track of them. Podcast. That's
not something that goes back ten years for this show.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
So my gut tells me we're well in excess of
a thousand based on the years that I've been doing this.
I greatly appreciate each and every one of you for
participating in however you do that, whether it's by listening,
by becoming part of the program, whatever it is. So
a big hearty welcome, a big thank you as always,
(01:27):
and if you are interested in doing this. All you
got to do is email me if you want to
get jumped in jumped on somehow. I don't know what
the terms are these days for joining something. I guess
that just be the way to say it. Feel free.
Our generation really didn't grow up. Well, I take that back.
We had all kinds of nicknames and not secret words,
(01:48):
but just terms that mostly teenagers understood and adults did not,
and that tradition certainly lives on. There's a great, very
funny professor's oratory to a classroom full or an auditorium
college professor speaking to an auditorium full of I guess freshmen,
(02:11):
maybe sophomores, who knows. But the bottom line is he
did his research and scripted out very well ten or
fifteen minutes that were just littered with words that he
should not have known if he being his age, and
the kids just thought it was hilarious. He worked them
(02:33):
in so well.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I have every now and then.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
There was an old producer I had on the morning
show or my weekend outdoor show, Adam.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
He's still around here.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
He's just working I think for KTRH now, and he
would feed me words every now and then that I
could slip it.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Adam is very young.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
He could slip in words for me that I could
use with my son and have him just look at
me in disbelief, like, how did you even know that
it existed? I had fun with that for quite some time.
I gotta tell you, all right, So anyway, if you
want to jump in and be involved in this show
any more than just listening, first of all, if you
have a topic you like you would like to hear
(03:13):
us talk about. If you have a question for me
or any of the guests I have, feel free to
just email me Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot com. Same goes
for if you want to become part of the show
as a sponsor. And I do have a little bit
of room left and I would love to fill it
up with good sponsors such as maybe you who knows
Doug Pike at iHeartMedia dot com. There's that so quickly
(03:38):
off the market we go where everything's coming up roses,
or at least it was a little while ago.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
If roses we're green.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I suppose all four of the major indicators a couple
hours ago looked really really good. Up a couple of
them up more than a whole point earlier this morning,
oil also up unfortunately, but well not if you're in
that industry, you're happy to see it coming back up
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And it could still it could.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Still go north another three or four dollars and not
hurt anything. I wouldn't mind seeing that the oil industry
has to remain functional and profitable lest we have to
start driving around in solar powered cars, which isn't gonna work.
(04:22):
I would guess. I would guess that the forecast for
tomorrow and even late tonight, I don't know, place your bets.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. On tomorrow's forecast for
a one hundred percent chance of rain, which that tells
(04:43):
me that it's coming and there's nothing we can do
to get out of it. It's a it's a front.
It's gonna push through here and it's gonna rain. Who
knows who's gonna get what and how much and where.
All of that's still to be determined. But my best
source says anywhere from one to two inches of rain,
which we should gladly accept. It's gonna start tonight and
(05:07):
then there's gonna be a little break, and then it's
gonna come back tomorrow. Then there's gonna be a break,
and then there's gonna be a little bit more even
through big part of Sunday. In the tropics, where are
we will We're doing all right? Go good, good, good good. Look,
that's something I want to talk about right up front.
In the tropics. This isn't it, but I'm gonna give
it to you, uh not for long. Tropical Storm Melissa,
(05:29):
soon to go hurricane, is about to do a number
on Haiti and Jamaica and Cuba and anything else in
that area. It's gonna spiral up into a major storm,
and that's gonna happen probably in the next thirty six
forty eight hours, maybe even less, and then just kind
of hang around in that region for three or four
(05:51):
days without really moving to give anybody a break. Three
or four days of steady major hurricane conditions. It's going
to be really hard on those people. I feel for them.
There's gonna be serious damage and hopefully no loss of life.
But after a sustained storm of that magnitude, it's not
(06:14):
looking good for those folks.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I just I pray they get through it. I really do. Quickly.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
New scams, be careful when you tap to pay. There's
a lot of ways to steal your money by people
who would love to do that. Some employees in small
shops or big stores, whatever, who don't plan to stay
very long might sell you a twenty dollars item and
charge your account fifty or more for it and then
kind of work it out at the end of the
day when they're balancing their bank of charges in cash.
(06:44):
In another scam, small time vendors like maybe a Round
Events or something like that, selling T shirts. They'll have
one of those portable tap to pay devices and maybe
ask you for a little small donation to a good cause,
or maybe get you to buy a T shirt for
twenty bucks or whatever, and then wait a little while
and go back in and change the amount you paid them.
(07:04):
That's possible, I learned reading what I was reading. And
then you also have to kind of be aware of
recurring charges on your credit card receipts.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
That happened to my wife and me a while back.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
We started seeing these little five dollar charges and she
pays close attention to that stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Wait, is this you or is this our son? Who
is it?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
And nobody would lay claim to those five dollars charges?
One or two usually, and then suddenly it was three
or four. And imagine if you're the crook where you're
sliding these things through under the fraud alert amounts easily
five bucks, who's looking, But they slide them through more
than once, maybe four or five times, like it kind
(07:44):
of happened to us a few times. And all of
a sudden, if you've got thousands of people whose numbers
you've gotten in, whose accounts you're tapped into for five, ten,
twenty bucks a month.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You're doing all right for yourself, not legally, but you're
doing all right.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Speaking of doing all all right, if you have an
enlarged non cancerous prostate, as many men over the ages
of fifty five or sixty or so, do you know
the symptoms are uncomfortable, You know they're unpleasant, and you
know you'd love to get rid of them, and you
can at a late health It's a vascular clinic run
by doctor Andrew Do and that's the procedure he does
(08:21):
most often when he's at work. He also takes care
of fibroids for women. He also takes care of some
head pains. He also takes care of ugly veins and
a dozen or more other procedures that are all done
in vascular clinics. A lot of them I didn't even
realize were done anywhere until I really dug into his
website a while back and interviewed him on all these things.
(08:42):
It would take me a very long time to cover
everything they can do over there. But that prostrate artorymalization,
that's boy, that's a game changer for old folks who
have old men who have them at prostate starts giving
you fits and it just gets worse and words, it's
not going to get better on its own. It's not
going to stop on its own. Let them help you
with that. Much of what they do covered by Medicare
(09:03):
and Medicaid too. So give a call and see if
you qualify a latehealth dot Com seven one three five
eight eight thirty eight eighty eight seven one three, five
eight eight thirty eight eighty eight, or go to the
website a Late Health a la te a latehealth dot
com aged to perfection.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
This is fifty plus with Dougpike. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Thank you for listening on this this day. Thanks for
always really for your time in this segment by popular demand.
Really I've actually gotten some emails about this. We're gonna
take a second swing at the ins and outs of menopause,
since only one week ago it was World Menopause Day,
(09:46):
and ready to answer my questions expertly. As doctor comfort Ugonzi,
Board certified OBGYM with nearly two decades of experience in
women's health and especially menopause management, you're the perfect person
for this interview, Doctor Hugonzi, thank.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
You, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
So for this segment and since we've gone through and
by the way, I'm making note here that the men
in the audience need to hear what you say every
bit as much as the women, because menopause really, in
various ways impacts everybody in the house, doesn't it.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
Absolutely Sometimes women are not going crazy, it's their hormones.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I'm keeping my mouth shut, okay, I'm just gonna ask questions.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So biologically speaking, what's.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Actually happening in a woman's body when what we call
menopause takes place.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
So when we're going through menopause or getting close to menopause,
the ovaries which produce the eggs to allow for pregnancy,
they also produce hormones. They produce estrogen hormones, and we
are born with all of the eggs that we will
ever need, and they just slowly decrease and decrease until
around menopause there's no more eggs and there's no more
(11:01):
there's no more place to produce that estrogen hormone, or
at least it's greatly reduced. So the hormonal levels decrease greatly,
and it just affects the whole entire body, because estrogen
affects the whole body.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah, that's yeah, what about emotion I know it affects
the body emotion or physically, and we'll get to that,
but what about emotionally too? There are rumors doctor Uganzi's
among some men that women can get a little moody
and testy at the onset of menopause.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
Why is that it is so menopause. The hormonal levels
that happen when in menopause are perimenopause, so that's the
period of time right before then affect literally the whole body,
including the brain. So people get mood swings, they get irritability.
It can actually even lead to an increase in depression anxiety.
So this is actually really serious. It's not just hey,
(11:52):
I'm a little irritated. It can really be debilitating for women.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
That's just horrible. I hate that I saw in what
mirrorcent that regular check are helpful for women going through menopause.
Is that the monitoring of the hormones or what would
a regular check up help with?
Speaker 6 (12:09):
So, first of all, just like I said, you know,
sometimes we don't know what it is, right, So women
are like, I just feel a little off, I'm forgetting things.
You know, this is happening. And so seeing somebody who's
familiar with menopause can point to, hey, this is what's
going on, like it's not all in your head. This
is normal, this is what the hormones do. They can
(12:29):
also do hormonal testing to kind of confirm what is
going on. But I would like to stress seeing a
gynecologist who is able to take care of menopause, and
not all of them are comfortable taking care of menopause patients,
So that's important to it.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Doctor comfort of Ganzi on fifty plus plenty comfortable with menopause.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So let's get to where a lot.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Of the women in this audience probably are about now
and talk about the treatment options that can make the
transition less uncomfortable. When they're internal thermostats are flipping back
and forth from ice box to furnace, what can they do?
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Yeah, So there are a lot of options, and that's
so that's why it's really important to speak to a gynecologist.
There are some over the counter treatment options. If you
look in the women's vitamin section, you'll see kind of
menopausal care supplements, So there's some over the counter options.
There's some prescription options, several different prescription options, and then
there's hormonal options as well. So depending on a women's
(13:26):
medical history, their desires, there's a lot of different options.
So women don't have to suffer. I think that's my
biggest takeaway. Women do not have to suffer.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
What about the hormone replacement therapy? What's what's up with that?
How effective is it? How long can women keep replacing
what's gone?
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Hormone replacement therapy is excellent for the for excellent candidates.
It's not for everybody, okay, but for people who are
able to take it with their medical history and their age,
it works really really well to help with the symptoms.
We typically recommend starting it in women under the age
of sixty sometimes we started in women over the age
(14:04):
of sixty, but it's usually in that forty to sixty
age group that we typically will start it. And women
can take it as long as they want to, as
long as they're feeling well and their medical history allows
for it.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, I've read in a couple of places some of
the meds for that can be really really expensive. Are
their generics available and if so, are they are how
close are they to the name brand stuff?
Speaker 6 (14:28):
That is an excellent question. So there's many different formulations,
many different ways people can take hormones by pills, creams, patches,
pellets that are injected into the skin, and there's different
price ranges. So for people who are concerned about pricing,
there are options that are covered by insurance and so
they are very affordable and they're exactly what women need.
(14:49):
They're not like a secondary tier or anything like that.
It's exactly what women need. So there are definitely options
that are affordable.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
On the holistic more holistic side.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Also, there are just basic lifestyle changes even that can
help lessen some of the symptoms.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Talk about that absolutely.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
So for some women who are having hot flashes, decreasing
caffeine intake, can sometimes help with it. Definitely, decreasing alcohol intake,
especially at night can help with those night sweats and
hot flashes. Sometimes even changing what we eat as far
as our diet, decreasing sugars, complex sugars, and increasing protein.
There are some women who get a lot of benefit
(15:29):
from that. And also exercise. I know we always say
diet exercise, but it actually really helps with women in.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
This fantastic Is there a specific amount of time that
the symptoms of menopause are going to last or are
they just with you forever like a hangnail or whatever.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
So for most women, thankfully, it's not forever. Some people
it's just transient. It could be just a few months
to a year. Some people, unfortunately, do have it for
many years, even decades. But that's the minority. I say,
the majority of patients within ten years or less, their
symptoms go away.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
For someone who's been taking hormone therapy, then might it
just be that they could at some point stop the
hormone therapy and see what happens?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Or is that a bad idea?
Speaker 6 (16:15):
I do tell my patients that if they want to
do that, that is definitely an option. Now we have
to remember hormones actually have other benefits other than helping
with the side effects like hopplashes. It actually decreases the
chance of osteoporosis in women, decreases the chance of colon
cancer in women, So there are some other benefits. There
are some studies that say maybe maybe it could decrease
(16:38):
the chance of Alzheimer's or dementia. So there's a lot
of research looking into other benefits other than this is
how I feel fantastic.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
What would you say is kind of the bottom line.
We're at about a minute, So what would you say
is the most important takeaway from what we've just talked about.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
I think the most important thing is menopause is an
natural process that happens in women. But that doesn't mean
it's uncomfortable. It's it's comfortable. Women do not have to suffer, though.
See a gynecologist who is comfortable taking care of women
with menopause and explore all of your options and whatever
you want to do is what can be done.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
And this is something that's kind of try one option
and if that doesn't work, there's another one right.
Speaker 6 (17:21):
There are And then I would encourage people to go
to menopause dot org. Okay, and they can find actually
fine specialists who specialize in menopause in your area. You
can just put in your zip code and they'll pop up.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Oh that's fantastic. I didn't know that I learned something
that I certainly learned today. Thank you so much, doctor
comfort u Ganzi. I really appreciate your time. You are
welcome on this show anytime.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
You're very good. No, yeah, all right, thank you.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
All right, we got to take a little break here,
and on the way out, I'm going to tell you
about Champions Tree Preservation. We're gonna be talking to Irwin
Costellanos in just a few minutes as a matter of fact,
about how to get your trees ready for winter, how
to get your trees ready for next spring, next summer,
next fall, and the winter after that. Make sure they're
healthy so that they continue to bride you with beauty
and enhanced value of your property, wherever that may be.
(18:10):
And however many trees you have, Champions Tree Preservation will
send an arborist to your home to inspect every one
of your trees, make notes about every one of your
trees and let you know whether they are or are
not ready to tackle whatever Texas is going to throw
at them this year and next year. A good healthy
(18:30):
tree can just be such an asset and it looks
so good in your yard, But if it starts to
look kind of puny, there's a good chance it's sick.
And just like if you were sick, it's going to
need to be treated, and Champions Tree can help.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
You with that.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Maybe it just needs some food, maybe it needs a
little pruning, Maybe it needs a bigger limb lopped off
somewhere to balance it out a little bit. Champions Tree
Preservation will send crews to your house to take care
of whatever the arboris recommends at a very fair price
for the quality of work you're going to get. They
have all their own equipment, they use only their crews,
(19:06):
so they know that the job is going to be
done right. And if they have to take a tree out,
they don't like that. But if they have to, they
can offer you a tree from their tree farm, a
native Texas tree that will adapt very quickly and very
comfortably to whatever environment it's placed in in this big
old state of ours. Championstree dot Com is the website
(19:28):
two eight one three two zero eighty two zero one
two eight one three two zero eighty two zero one.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check us words,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike, fifty plus.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Thank you for listening. I certainly do appreciate it. Three
cheers by the way to the clear sky this morning.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That was fun.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
See what happens says we go through a little farther
in this day, up, maybe down, who knows.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
We're talking this segment about our trees and what if
anything needs to be done in the fall to prepare
them for whatever a Southeast Texas winter throws their way,
and to educate us all. I'm bringing in Irwin Costallanos
from Champions Tree Preservation. He a certified arbist who can
spot a dead leaf at one hundred yards.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Welcome, Irwin, How you doing good afternoon?
Speaker 8 (20:24):
Don Fine, It.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Was amazing when you came to my house a while back.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I learned so much and I'm going to try and
shed some of that light back onto the audience here.
But let's start with the seasonal stuff right now. We're
going in to fall, sooner or later. I guess and
maybe a little, maybe a lot, our trees are just
sitting in the yard waiting for whatever's coming. Is there
anything we need to do now to make sure those
trees are strong and healthy in case we get another
(20:48):
big old Arctic blast like we had a couple of
winters ago.
Speaker 7 (20:53):
In late summer, trees begin to prepare themselves for the winter.
What they do they slow down for the sense, and
they stop in a certain way. They stop growing, so
they stop preparing themselves for the long dormant season. What
we can do, it's a little bit premature right now.
In about two or three weeks, we can start slowing
(21:15):
down with the water because in winter you're not going
to be using as much water as they're using steel
right now, So that's the first thing to do. Slow
down the water in about two or three weeks.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Are there outward signs things we can see in a
tree ourselves, Like your eye looks at a tree differently
than mine does. But are there things I should be
looking for this time of year that would indicate a
need for some sort of attention.
Speaker 7 (21:42):
Definitely. You just start seeing the change in lead colors. Slowly,
they're going to start turning yellowish reddish brownish, and some
of the fees that are more egging, you will not
see any new growth at all. So that is the
for a sign that the trees are going dormant. Given
(22:03):
the pine trees which are evergreen, and so they go dormant,
they don't grow throughout the winter months, that's the first
sign that their endornmancy.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
In my yard, those big oak trees shed five million
acorns a day. I think that's about the right number.
I'm not really sure, but it sure seems like when
I'm out there trying to keep that junk off the
driveway in the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Holy cow? Is that normal?
Speaker 7 (22:29):
In years like for instance, like this year, that we
are not having as much rain, the trees are going
to be more stress and they will produce more seeds
or acrons. So that's in this season you're seeing more
acorn production from the lack of rain that we have
had for the last few months.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
So when you and your crew have to take out
a tree, I know you hate that because you like
to fix them rather than take them out, but you
take it out because it's just too far gone. What
percentage of those trees do you think could have been
saved with a little prevent and maiden let's say three
six months before.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
That, oh gous. Based on experience, they probably most to them.
See what happens by the time the homeowner and realizes
that something is wrong and they call us, there's very
little that we can do if they don't keep up
by normal maintenance programs in their trees. So maybe the
(23:23):
tree could have been saved a year or two before,
but they didn't recognize any science or any problems, so
they let it go until they saw that something was
obviously wrong. And when the time they call us, there's
many times very little that we can do to bring
back the tree to life.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
I remember when we talked before. You talked to me
about how pruning these trees like a lion's tale you
call it, where it's just a bare limb out to
about the last six or eight feet and then there's
just this giant cotton ball looking thing of leaves. I
know you taught me that that's important in the summertime
to keep the bright hot sun off of those.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Mainly or main branches. But is it all?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Do those what do they call them, the little skinny
branches that come up whatever they're called, do they also, Yeah,
the little.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
Superstructor growth as we call it. Yeah, it's important to
see now part of the dormancing process and preparing trees
for winter. The weather begins to cool down in probably
two more weeks or so, Now the time to do
the pruning on those trees. Now time to take the
dead woods and reduce the canopies a little bit, because
(24:37):
trees they need those leaves throughout the hot summers that
we have to shave themselves. So now that we're going
into a cooler part of the year, now is the
time to prune. And that also prepares them better for
the winter. So this is the time that you need
to take action to prune the trees.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Well, that just tells me exactly what I need to
know and answers my question about whether or not those
sucker branches also maybe are like little teeny tiny blankets
for the tree.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
They don't need that right.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
Well, definitely, but in during the during the years may
through like September in our area, they definitely need to
protect them themselves for themselves.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
Definitely.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Believe it or not, Irwin, we are Irwin Constelano's here
from Champions Tree Preservation in a minute or least, talk
to me about what you told me about overwatering most
of our trees and why people do it.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
The typical homeowner will see that a tree is stressed,
and many times it's due to overwatering. But the most
common reaction is to give it and give it more water.
And sometimes it's actually the opposite. When we have normal
rain coming and down in our area, the trees themselves
don't need the sprinkers. We watered because we have plants,
(25:55):
we have grass, we have vegetation. But many times trees
don't need the water, so there's a tendency to over
water trees. The only time that I recommend to overwater
a tree is like in the middle of winter when
we know God see big deep deep freese coming twenty
twenty five. Trees water is deeply that night, so they
would protect it as an insulation layer for the freeze
(26:18):
that is coming. That's the only time that you over.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Water and pay am I just learned something very important.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
I'm gonna make a note of that and take it
to the house and take it to the refrigerator. Irwin
Irwin Constelano's from Champions Tree Preservation. Thank you so very
much for your time. That's it's just really informative. I
love doing this with you. I hope we can do
it again soon.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
Thanks Doc, Yes, good day.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Thank you, er Bubba. All right, we got to take
another rak. That's so important. Those trees, if you take
care of them, they're going to take care of you.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You know that.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Oh, just take heed to what Erwin was talking about
about overwatering, about wind of water and wide water, and
then get them out there. Just take a look at
all your trees and make sure that they're good to go.
Ut House Institute on Aging is this fantastic gathering of
more than a thousand people in medicine, every facet of
(27:11):
medicine who are perfectly happy to see seniors because they
have taken it upon themselves to learn just exactly how
they can apply their specific knowledge base to seniors. Maybe
a handful of places in the entire country where this
sort of knowledge is gathered in one location, and it's
(27:34):
here right here in Houston outlying areas. Most of these
people work in the med Center, as you just might imagine,
because that's where that's the epicenter of medicine really in
all of Southeast Texas. And much of the whole state
and half the Louisiana probably. But the bottom line is
what these people do also to make sure that they
(27:54):
can see everybody who wants to see them, do a
little work, usually two or three days a week in
outlying clinics and hospitals and offices and whatnot, so that
if you don't want to drive into the med center,
you don't have to go to the website, look at
all the resources they provide, and then find your way
to a provider who can help you with whatever's bothering
(28:15):
you right now. And there will be somebody who can
do that for you. UT Institute on Aging. The website
is ut dot edu slash aging, uth dot edu slash aging.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
What's life without a net? If I suggest to go
to bed, sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Just wait until the show's over. Sleeping Back to Dougpike
as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Welcome back to segment four, fourth and final segment of
today's show. Thank you all for listening. I really do
appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm going to keep it a little light.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I've got two pages of stuff that I could talk about,
and maybe if I changed my mind in a minute,
I will some of these things in the news that
will really kind of irks.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
There's a there's a Minnesota Supreme Court story. Here's one.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
I'll give you support for a good cause. A wealthy
private donor.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Boy, how much money do you have to have to
do this?
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Calls President Trump and says, hey, man, want to help
out with shortages in the military payroll during this shutdown?
You mind if I throw a little money at it,
and say, I'm sure. President Trump said, well, if you
want to throw some money at it, I just I
don't want you to suffer for it. And whoever this
guy was, he had enough that he was cool throwing
(29:38):
in one hundred and thirty dollars to cover the the
shortages in military payroll during this shutdown. That's got to
go a pretty long ways. It's just got to go
a pretty long ways. And whoever that person is, thank
you for doing that. American taxpayers shouldn't have to cover
(30:02):
all kinds of throllways, millions upon millions of dollars of
throwaways of our money. So and so you understand that
Democrats and their standoff in Congress are deliberately they're just
holding us hostage, basically, and we until we concede and
offer to pay up the one point three trillion or
so in ransom the programs that don't benefit a single American.
(30:26):
You got to try to remember that during the midterms,
and by the time the midterms come along, actually we
will have gone through another tax season, and maybe then
you can think about it as well. I found this
interesting Over in London, doctors performed a successful brain surgery
on a woman while she played the clarinet. Now, I've
(30:51):
heard of surgeries like that where they're trying to isolate
a specific part of the brain that that handles such
things is playing the clarinet. What's interesting about that story, though,
is that before she had the surgery, she could only
play the piano. I made that part up, Will, What
do you think of that? Was that it even marginally
(31:12):
humorous a little bit, just a bit.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
You're smiling, you know. That wasn't bad.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
And it's a twist on an old, old joke, but
it's still it was a perfect time to do it.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
That's a good one, and that's not a good one.
Let me go back over here for a second.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
So, man, this is something Will, I'll bet I'll bet
you seventeen cents that you've never heard of this. Have
you ever heard of butt breathing? Honestly you have. I'll
have to see if I have a quarter on me.
I'll pay you more. I don't have any change for
(31:51):
a quarter. I'll find one butt breathing. Actually may I'm
trying to find out if I brought the quarter. I
have a cough drop chapstick slightly used. I'll have to
bring you a quarter. Maybe I have some change at
my desk. I owe you seventeen cents, though, and I
won't forget anyway. This procedure is A doctor from Japan
(32:15):
actually won a prize last year for discovering that we
can breathe, and they breathe in quotes. It's not like
there's inhalation and exhalation as normal respiration goes with the lungs.
Trials are underway too, and actually turtles, this is where
he got his information. Turtles see cucumbers. Several other animals
(32:37):
on this planet already use similar techniques when their lungs
can't gather enough oxygen. And what these what the scientists
are doing now is trying to fine tune the process
where they can put oxygenated liquid into your backside and
(32:58):
if you hold on to it long enough, and that's
something they're working on now. If you hold on to
it long enough, the oxygen in that liquid is absorbed
through the intestine into the bloodstream, kind of like a lung.
At the other end, I hope my lungs hold out
(33:18):
and I don't ever have to do that. But there
are people in the world who have conditions and diseases
that force them to find other ways than their lungs
to breathe. Most of the time, maybe they can barely breathe.
Maybe they can breathe a little bit but need more
oxygen somehow, And maybe that could just be a supplemental
procedure from time to time even to keep them going.
(33:42):
But one way or the other, it's legit, and it's
pretty interesting. Pole found that twenty eight percent of people
with tattoos have at least one tattoo they regret.
Speaker 7 (33:52):
HM.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Maybe that guy up north, what's his name, Pritker something
like that, I can't remember. Found interesting as well about AI.
That's not always right Artificial intelligence, it says here, misrepresents
news approximately forty five percent of the time they get
it wrong. AI gets it wrong forty five percent of
(34:15):
the time, and for the record, for the recal. For
the record, Google's Gemini in this testing performed worst with
significant issues, it says here in seventy six of its responses.
So maybe the humans who are programming this stuff or
are building in some safeguards to keep their jobs. I'm
(34:37):
not really sure, but that's kind of what it sounds like.
Took care of that, took care of that eighty year
old old right down. Oh that much. Okay, so I've
got some time.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
That oh, that big outer Internet outage on Monday bricked
all kinds of things, and one of the things it
ruined and stopped was something called eight sleep, which is
a tilting bed that runs off cloud technology right back
to your house. And a lot of people's beds were
(35:13):
in the upright seated position when it stopped, and they
had to try to fall asleep sitting up, or at
least until the service was restored. Our service is about
to go out for now. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
We'll be back. Audios.
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