Dr Levine's Medical Hour 05/31/25--topics include proper diet

• Listen Saturday mornings at 8 as Dr. Msonthi Levine discusses medical issues and takes your calls on News Talk 560 KLVI. Dr Levine is board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. His office is located at 3080 Milam in Beaumont, Texas. He can be reached at 409-347-3621.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome South East Sex's Internet radio listeners. This
is your weekly host. Welcome to the edition of the
show Doctor Levine. Here the doc Levine Medical Hour. We
love hearing from you and we appreciate you joining us
on this beautiful Saturday morning. Heat coming in. As we
all know, the winter is over with and the heat

(00:22):
wave is coming. It's about just getting hot out there warm.
But a lot of times during this time of year
we sort of invite that we're tired of the cold
weather and we want a little heat on our skin.
You can feel that energy hitting your skin when you're
out there in the heat. But as you know, as

(00:43):
we get into those real summer months, man, it gets heavy, heavy,
heavy and harsh. You have to be careful with that
heat out there. Phone lines are open eight nine six
kalv I one one hundred three three zero. We love
hearing from you and entertaining your questions and trying to

(01:06):
get you some information. That's really all we're trying to do,
get you some basic information to help you make better
decisions about what to do and how to do. Its
a lot of confusion out there. Even I get confused
as a doctor, and we're here to try and figure
it out and talk about it and discuss which sometimes,

(01:30):
as we've mentioned before, it's tough doing your doctor visit,
are your healthcare professional, visit, your primary care office visit
time constraints and in trench companies are responding to that
by sending out a what they call mid level or
physician extender out to your home, a nurse practitioner physician

(01:53):
assistant to chat about your health right and really it's
to clean up any sort of deficiencies that maybe were
overlooked in the office, which can happen very easily. There
are topics that come up in the office that press

(02:15):
your time, especially if you go to any primary care
physician's office. Everybody's busy. It's just so much primary care
to do out there, and patients are feeling poorly. I
have a lot of questions every time. It just eats
up your day very rapidly and can very easily just

(02:36):
look over some basic things and sitting out a healthcare
professional to your office to just sort of clarify that.
I think that's a good idea, just because it's normally
at a slower pace. You're in your home, a very
comfortable setting, and they're just hitting the high points. They're

(02:57):
not trying to take over their relationship of your healthcare provider.
They're not trying to do that. So much now of
healthcare delivery is what we call a team approach, which
includes you the patient. You're part of the team, and
being an athlete. Played here in Beaumont for Westbrook, had

(03:22):
good four years, did well, and went off to college,
played some ball at Rice University. Didn't do so well,
but nonetheless you learn about teamwork and getting several people
together for one objective, you know, to win a game.
And that's pretty much what you and your healthcare professional

(03:45):
are trying to do is win this game called life.
And as a song says at the opening of the show,
try to stay alive, healthy, stay out of the doctor's
office and hospital. Who wants to do that? All my
retirees out there looking for something to do. Man, it's

(04:08):
got to be stay healthy and prioritize your health because
a lot of times you're unable to do that when
you're working so many other priorities family, job, wife, husband, retirement,
fun house, things that come up. And most of the
time when guys return and like, well, I don't know

(04:30):
what I'm going to do. It's almost similar when the
athletes retire from their chosen sport and there's this big
gap or void in their day that they used to
fill with all sorts of activities related to their profession.
Now they don't have to do that. What am I

(04:50):
going to do? And really, one of my big recommendations
to my pace is, man, now you have time to
really eat right. I mean, you can literally go to
the store every few days and get that fresh food
and cook it and prepare it and eat it and
incorporate a little activity in your day. Whereas before you

(05:15):
didn't want to cause you had to get up at
four o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning,
whatever it was, and you're on your feet all day
at work, and when you get home you just want
to eat your supper and go to bed and repeat
all day and repeat it the next day. And now
that you don't have to do that, now you have
this whole day where you can just what am I

(05:36):
going to do? And it's fun for a while, but
after a while it gets boring. You got to you
got to get up and do something productive. That's just
how our mind works and how our body works. I mean,
laying in bed all day will kill you. I say
that a lot in the hospital. Just when you get

(05:56):
in the hospital, you know you normally don't feel well,
You're sick, maybe a nauseated, You're weak, and you just
want to lay in bed all day. It's terrible, it's
not good. You got to get out of bed, get
that blood flowing. And again, just remind all your listeners
your exercise does not have to be high intensity. I

(06:16):
think that's a misconception in this country, and it's because
of the way exercise is displayed to us, how it's
advertised to us, what sort of exercise is prioritized, when
we read about it, we hear about it, we see it,
we talk to our friends. It's this sort of high

(06:38):
intensity exercising, which I'm very familiar with. Again, I was
a high school athlete, I was a college athlete. And yes,
if you're participating in some sort of competitive event and
you need to be the best and the strongest and
have the most stamina and stand a lot of stress

(07:02):
for a brief or prolonged period of time, whether you're
a marathon run or triathlete, yeah you might have to
do some odd things in terms of exercising to prepare
your body to withstand this sort of stress or trauma
if you will, from this intense exercising. But for the

(07:25):
average person like me and you, it's really unnecessary in
my opinion, just based on my own experience, what I've read,
what I see, especially when I talk to my ninety
year old patients that come to the office fully functional

(07:45):
with maybe two medicines on their med list. They have
never run a marathon. They have never run a triathlete
or triathlon. They have never been heavy weightlifters in the gym.
But a couple of things that seem to be very
consistent when I'm looking at and reviewing this person is

(08:09):
Number one, they're thin. They are thin, they are not overweight.
So it's hard to carry weight until your deep eighties
and nineties. And this is if you want to live
to that point. Some of my patients are not so
interested in living forever, but most are right. They want
to stay alive and experience life as long as they can.

(08:32):
So Number one, got to keep that weight down. You
don't have to be bony or skinny, as they say.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I know.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Culturally, some ethnicities, including my own African American, Well, they
like to be a little bit more plus sized. They
don't really want to be skinny or bony or super thin.
They feel like they look sick or they just don't
like to look. Especially for guys, they want to be heavy,

(09:01):
be manly if you will, be able to care a
little weight around. And I get that, but it's a
balance when it comes to all those things. Yes, we
don't want you to be super skinny, but certainly most
of my patients to get into their deep eighties nineties
at their goal weight if you will, they're not excessively overweight.

(09:23):
You know, we can calculate our body mass index right
the BMI acronym for short, which you can calculate it
yourself very easy. It's a ratio of weight and heighth
and basically the ideas as you go heavier in your weight,

(09:43):
your what we call comorbid risk factors start to climb.
You start inheriting a lot of those common medical problems.
As an internal medicine doctor, which is what I am,
I start evaluating and seeing Paige since at the age
of eighteen, and we go all the way up until eternity. Right,

(10:05):
I have one hundred and two year old patient that
I'm seeing in the office as well. I mean, that's
probably only one percent of my practice, are even less
than one percent of my practice, So even doing everything right,
you know, the human body does have an expiration date.
You have to understand that. And the process that leads

(10:29):
to your expiration date is the aging process. And it's real.
It is very, very real, which is why we do
our best to counsel patients. Briefly, I don't like to
overwhelm my patients as it pertains to information and try

(10:52):
to really give them a few pearls that they can
take home and help them make that better decision when
they're going to h GB or Walmart, or if they're
on the road, how can I eat better? I'll my
truck drivers out there who, for whatever reason, they're exposure

(11:13):
to these truck stops and these convenience stores and just
where they're dumping off their load. Normally, the foods and
beverages that are presented to them or that's in that
environment are typically very unhealthy. And I would applaud the

(11:33):
licensure authorities licensure. I'm having a hard time pronouncing that
one this morning. You know, where you get your license
your CDL. They have made it morever prior to to
try and improve the health of our truck drivers out
there because they're operating these heavy, dangerous vehicles on these

(11:59):
busy can ingested open roads every day. And just like
our servicemen like policemen and firemen know they need to
have some sort of basic general health. And I know
that all of us, even physicians, healthcare professionals, need to

(12:19):
do their part to sort of look the part, if
you will. It is, I guess hard to interact with
a healthcare professional that is unhealthy or looks unhealthy. We're
all human too. We put our paints on just like
you guys, and we can get health problems, just like

(12:41):
the average American. And we're supposed to have some insight
into what's right and what's wrong because we do it
every day. We're smart and we learn about the human body.
But I've told you before on my show don't mention
a lot, trying not to be a Debbie downer, but

(13:01):
unfortunately most of your doctors, nurse practitioners, physicians, assistants, the
people that are responsible for your health, the people that
you go to for advice about how to live your
life what's wrong, what's right, what's out there recommended, what's

(13:21):
the latest understanding of what generates disease and illness. Unfortunately,
we don't get, in my opinion, what we need to
help you make those decisions, not just from our general training.
And I feel like the biggest absence is the introduction
and understanding of the concepts of nutrition and how it

(13:46):
impacts a person's life and their health and their lifestyle.
We talk about that all this time, all the time, right,
lifestyle modification, right, and most experts are preaching that that
is the biggest influence on your health. But unfortunately, as

(14:07):
it stands now, it's not translated very well into healthcare
information and healthcare education. We just don't talk about it enough.
And I think that's a huge, huge gap, and we're
missing a great opportunity to make a difference. By pumping

(14:28):
out healthcare professionals that are in your face all the
time talking with you. Why are we not getting on
top of that group of people and making sure they
understand the strong connection between how you're treating your body
and the generation of these diseases that they will be

(14:51):
taking care of every single day. I'm in the hospital
every day I'm in my office as often as possible,
and it's very clear to me, me treating the ailments
of Southeast Texans, that the majority of this stuff just
comes from not making the right lifestyle choices. And if

(15:11):
we can get on top of these healthcare professionals, including myself,
and get them to understand that connection and teach them
that connection, with these basic understandings, that way we can
impact our patients and help them make better decisions. Doesn't
mean you can't have pizza and burgers and fries and

(15:35):
pancakes and doughnuts yum. Doesn't mean you can't have that stuff.
As a matter of fact, we endorse that everything in moderation.
You've heard that term, to consume that at a minimum,
keep it to a minimum. Some experts say once a week,

(15:55):
have fun, drink and eat whatever you'd like, and then
the other six days out of the week do the
right thing, do the right thing. But that's super duper
hard when most of the food that's good for us
seems to be more out of reach for various reasons,

(16:16):
whether or not it's not in the right section and
the grocery store are, it's financially limiting, whatever the case,
may be, there seems to be more restrictions on that
versus foods that tend to be more unhealthy for us
that contain more sugars and starches and processed sugars are

(16:39):
more easily available, They are cheaper, They are served in
bigger quantities than what we need just on a routine, right,
driving down the street, driving to Houston, or going out
of town, going on a vacation, going on a cruise,
same thing, right, it's all about the burgers and the

(17:01):
pizzas and the alcohol consumption, and the French fries and
the ice cream and the candy, which again that's only
going to be for five days or so. But in
most areas that we live, that stuff is what is available.
The donut shops. Not that these are bad people, right,
they're in business to make money. They're serving food. You're

(17:21):
eating it. If you weren't eating it, they wouldn't be out,
it wouldn't be in business. But we're eating it. But
we eat it too much and it contains a lot
of ingredients. As experts have chronicled in multiple literatures, publications, books, magazines,

(17:41):
articles that drinking and eating these sort of food items
and beverage items generally brings on poor health in the
form as you know, high pretension, high cholesterol, diabetes, et cetera,
et cetera. Right, and if you're sick, you're ill, you're
not feeling well. You got to look at that diet

(18:02):
and see what you're doing and try to clean that up.
And nine times out of ten that will make you
feel better. Phone lines are open eight none six kalvy
I won one hundred and three to three zero klv
I will go on our first break me back in
two minutes. All right, welcome back to talk to the

(18:35):
medical Our phone lines are open eight nine six klv
I win one hundred three three zero KOVI. I love
hearing from you. And yes, we are getting into the
warmer parts of the year and a lot of us
feel like things like viruses and infections should not be happening,
but we see that stuff year round and again, big

(18:57):
believers and vaccines, go get yours, ask your healthcare provider
about it. COVID boosters are recommending every six months. Remember
that vaccines are not there to one hundred percent prevent
the infection, but certainly they're there to lessen the severity
of the infection so that you do not have to

(19:19):
be hospitalized or remember that about those vaccines and go
get them if you haven't. We sometimes talk about joint
pain on this show, I think a week ago, two
weeks ago, we're talking about low back pain and how
super duper common that is. Again because of the process

(19:40):
called degenitive joint disease that we get as we get older,
it will tend to manifest as joint pain in various areas.
Blowback is probably the most common, but some other common
ones would be the neck area, the shoulders, the ankles,
the toes, the wrists, the hands. I mean, man, it

(20:04):
starts to creep in there and a lot of people
will just basically go to the pharmacy and pick up
some medications, some anti inflammatories metalinol or acetaminifhin. These are
sort of medication has been around for ages, but they

(20:24):
do work for these mild elements for the most part.
It talanol or acetameniphin is honestly in a lot of
the over the counter products that we consume for pain
or cold. Sometimes headache medication can contain talanol are acetaminifhin,

(20:46):
so it is something for those mild symptoms. Certainly, be
careful with talanol and or acetaminifit as it pertains to
your alcohol consumption. Consuming alcohol and acetameniphin talanol can raise
the potency of the talanol and generate liver toxins that

(21:07):
can burn your liver if you're drinking too much alcohol
with talanol or a set of benefit. We don't see
it often, but every now and then we get a
patient that comes into the hospital unfortunately that consume both
of those. But most of the time we go for
the anti inflammatoris right as we call them, are nonstoroidal.

(21:33):
Anti inflammatory drugs are in sades like motrin, advil, leave, Napperson, ibuprofen.
These are the aspirin. Okay, we think of aspen more
as a heart medicine, and that's pretty much where most
people will take. Aspen as a heart medicine. Comes in

(21:53):
some different dosages. The eighty one milligram, which we call
a baby aspen versus an adult aspen, which is considered
a three twenty five milligram tablet, and the adult version
is more of what we call an anti inflammatory, like
a motronadvil. So most people can go get a huge

(22:17):
box of aspen for five bucks. I mean this huge,
like one two gallon container of aspirin for like five
dollars ten dollars, I mean something obnoxiously cheap like that
from most anywhere. But talking about a powerhouse medication, right,

(22:39):
and most of these medicines that you find over the
counter are powerhouse medications. Talonol seedamnifine is one of them.
Aspen is another benadrill just man big time generic medication
has been around for a long time but does so
many different things to the human body they will never

(23:00):
go away. I mean, these mads are wonderful, but as
an aspen and an anti inflammatory, assmen is good. You
can take it like moch You can take it two
or three times a day if you're having chest pain,
or neck pain, or headaches, back pain. Aspen is a
good truck to take. We do have some prescription anti inflammatories,

(23:22):
meloxicam being the most commonly prescribed or popular, but there's
also celebrates. There's a medication called diclofinac, you know it
as voltaan. They have a gel that is now over
the counter that contains diclothinac or this voltarian medicine and

(23:46):
a gel are cream if you would that you can
rub on joints that are bothering you, and it does
give you some of that anti inflammatory impact in treating
the joints, So you can just rub it wherever you
need to and it works pretty well. Remember, your exposure
to ant inflammatories can be compromised by the fact that

(24:06):
it can impact the health of your gas intestinal system,
meaning it sort of interferes with how the jazz system
regenerates and protects itself. Remember, it's got to be a
very strong surface and a very strong organ right the
stomach and the small intestine, because it's sort of the

(24:28):
first line of defense. You're drinking, eating these various items.
Your body has to protect itself from anything that it
comes in contact with. So that layer that we call
the lighting of the stomach is a strong barrier and
prevents a lot of noxious and irritating things to get

(24:50):
inside our system. But when you start sort of messing
around with its normal activity, such as when you take
an anti inflammatory. We've heard about acid reflux medications such
as prolessic or pepsid. A lot of people are taking
this long term because they have general what we call dyspepsia,

(25:14):
meaning they have sort of gi upset, whether it be
abdominal discomfort, nausea or heartburn. And again my point that
I keep trying to make made it doing the first
segment is a lot of times it's just you're eating
and drinking the wrong things. You're not in good health,

(25:34):
and your body is trying to tell you that by
having nausea or abdominal complaints. But those medicines over the counter.
So an easy fix is let me go start popping that.
You pop it, and you don't change anything about your lifestyle.
You're still eating sort of the greasy, heavy, highly processed

(25:55):
food items. You're drinking sugary beverages or energy beverages that
contain a lot of additives and mad made materials, chemicals
and products, and you're wondering why you just don't feel right.
You're struggling to get that figured out. But you go,
you get that acid reflux medicine. It works, and you

(26:16):
just keep taking it because it works. And on the packaging,
I know they tell you try not to take it
more than two weeks. And I think the idea is
if your symptoms are persistent beyond two weeks, and maybe
you need to get checked out just because abdominal pain
or just indigestion, dyspepsia, just that gnoying feeling you get,

(26:39):
just that discomfort right there in the pit of your stomach,
ribular chestbone. Man, there's a lot of different diseases, serious
diseases that present just like that. That's all you get
is just sort of some abdominal upsets, some abdominal discomfort,
and that's all you get. And if you don't do

(27:02):
your due diligence and you just sort of go to
the grocery store, you pop that medicine gets better. You
never really look into it. You might be missing the
opportunity to really get properly diagnosed. The one thing that
I mentioned to Patience more often than not. Now, I
wasn't really taught this, but I've learned to understand it better,

(27:24):
and I've learned to promote that in healthcare again because
of time constraints and limitations with these diseases and how
they present and maybe how you might present yourself to
your health care provider, whether it be in the office
or on a computer screen or in the minor care.

(27:46):
You know, your presentation, your story, the things that you
say or don't say heavily and strongly influence what the
provider will think is wrong with you. And again, we
only have about and I'm serious about this, we only
have about ten different symptoms that pretty much explain every

(28:08):
disease known to man. That's it. So most healthcare providers
are working with two or three complaints and that sort
of is all they have. So a lot of times
your original diagnosis are, the original treatment plan are the
original impression of the healthcare provider might not be accurate,

(28:30):
but those are the limitations of doctoring on the human
body and interacting with a human These factors that you
just cannot control. How is this information presented, how does
it come across? And you might have to get reassessed, reassessed. Yes,

(28:51):
you have to believe in that so much. I hear
from my own patients, patients I see in the hospital
that they went somewhere and got a diagnosis, got a prescription,
and it didn't get better, and they sort of immediately
get a little frustrated with that that you know, why

(29:12):
is this not improving? They that should have worked. This
is what they told me was wrong with me, and
now this is happening, And I guess I like to
reiterate to you the listeners or even my own patients
or patients I see in the hospital, that you have
to keep an open mind that you might have to

(29:34):
get reassessed, and we would strongly encourage that with the
electronic medical record movement. A lot of times when you
get this huge packet of your experience wherever you are,
there is some sort of verbiage on that package, and
somewhere in that package that says, go get reevaluated. If

(29:54):
you don't get better, come back and see us if X, Y,
and Z happens, because that is the truth. High percentage
of the time, wherever you go, whatever happens. Most of
the time they get it. The doctness is correct, you
get on the right medication, everything is wonderful, but there's
still a segment i'd say thirty forty percent that you

(30:18):
have to get reevaluated. Maybe the messine don't work, maybe
it comes back, maybe get a side effect from the medication,
but you have to keep that open mind that you
might have to go back and be seen again by
either your same doctor or a different doctor sort of
follow up on your symptoms and how you're acting to

(30:38):
the medication, just because we just can't predict it and
control it as much as you would like. We try,
but it's impossible no matter how many conferences you go to,
no matter how many books you read, no matter how
many letters you get behind your name, and it's tough

(30:59):
sometimes out there. Phone lines are open eight nine to
six Kovy A one one hundred three three zero Kovy.
I'll be back in two minutes. All right, welcome back
to the doctaby. Medical phone lines are open A nine
to sixth Kalov at one hundred and three three zero Kovy.
I'd love to hear from and give us a buzz.
Talking about various topics while I wait on phone calls.
The one that I mentioned during our first segment was

(31:24):
the mid level or nurse pectution coming out to your home,
sent out by the insurance company to sort of have
a chat with you. We do in our office have
what we call a medicare physical or yearly physical that
the insurance companies do promote where we do the same thing.

(31:44):
It's a good idea. Some patients are a little resistant.
They sort of think they're interfering with their relationship with
their healthcare personal healthcare profession, which they are not. They're
actually trying to compliment that relationship. Just to make sure
you're up to date with all of your screening examinations,
all of your labs that depending on your healthcare I'm sorry,

(32:08):
your medical problems that you have, that you're pretty much
on what they call goal directed therapy or GDT is
what we call that. In a healthcare world whereby let's
say hypertension, high cholesterol, heart failure, chronic lung disease, as
whatever the case may be, there are guidelines that every

(32:30):
healthcare professional should know the basics of those guidelines. These
are the latest understandings of the disease and how to
manage it, and it can change a tweak it every
few years or so based on the latest literature and
the latest information that they have. And because of the

(32:52):
computer industry, healthcare providers have access to that stuff twenty
fours day, seven days a week, very very easy. Just
like most Americans to have access to medical information that
they never had before. I find that it's still heavy
information for them, and it's difficult for them to really

(33:13):
understand what they're reading, and they still need someone like
a doctor or a nurse practitioner to help them figure
out what it actually means. We have ken from vider.
How can we help you?

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yes, sir, I've been on celebricks for a long time
and I heard you talking. Should I stay on them
or get off of them a while or what?

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah. Celebrecs belongs to a category of pain medicine called
COX two inhibitors COXSH two COX two inhibitors, and they
that class came out when I was finishing my medical training.
And remember using celebrates back in the day, as well

(33:59):
as a couple of other ones called ViOS vioxx as
well as Bextra b e x tr and these were
very very potent anti inflammatories and I loved using them, right,
I really did. But because of its mechanism of action

(34:21):
again COX to inhibitor, and that's just an enzyme that
is blocked. That's why it's called a COX two inhibitor.
It tampers down the inflammatory reaction when you get hurt
or you get inflamed, and inflammation generates pain, fever, discomfort.
It started to cause cardiac events as well as neurological events, strokes,

(34:46):
heart attacks. I mean I saw this with my own eyes,
So they took it off the market. Those two that
I mentioned, viox and Bextra and they sort of left
celebrates alone for whatever reason, and it's been on the
market since then, but it's still considered sort of a
risky medication for most practitioners. And my understanding right now, Kenneth,

(35:12):
is if you have any sort of cardiovascular risk factors,
Let's say you've had a heart attack already, you had
a stroke, maybe your diabetes pullar control, higher potential, whatever
the case may be, they're asking us to stay away
from Celebres at least first line, and only use it
if we have to, So it's not the first one

(35:35):
that we grab typically, Kenneth, because of its history with
strokes and heart attacks. But again, if two or three
other anti inflammatories are not working for pain control in
certain situations. Normally, when we're treating musculo scalable pain, whether
it be from a Q trauma or from a chronic arthritis,

(35:57):
we can try the Celebrecs and it comes into a
couple of different dosages as well as frequencies. I think
the most popular is two hundred milligrams once or twice
a day. And even with any of these pain medicines,
these an inflammatories really are what we teach patients or

(36:18):
what we talk to patients about it is if you
can avoid using it every day, then that's the way
we want to go with it. But some patients need
this medication every day, So Kenneth, if you don't need it,
then my recommendation is to not take it. But if
you need it, certainly try to figure out what's the
lowest dose that you can take and what's the least

(36:41):
frequency that you can take to get you that pain relief.
And that's really the objective is to limit your exposure
and try not to expose your body to it for
a long period of time. That's normally when we start
getting into some of the adverse reaction issues with or
any of these other an inflammatories.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Alrighty, what I think I want to do is I've been,
like I said, I've been on it a long time.
I think I'm gonna get off of it a couple
of weeks and see how I feel. And I'm not
hurting real bad.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
I believe I'll stay off with it a while. Yeah,
don't forget about these topical gels. I mentioned one. It's
called Voltarian. They sell it over the counter. They work
very well for sort of some localized focal treatment of
your joint pain. A lot of times, these drugs are
what we call systemic, meaning they're getting into your blood

(37:37):
and impacting your entire body, your entire system, Whereas if
you can just get something topically in a very small area, again,
it reduces your exposure even more to the anti inflammatory
impact and normally can take that more long term than
a medication that's systemic. Okay, okay, I appreciate it, Doc,

(38:00):
all right, brother and man. I was really really disappointed
when those two medicines went off the market, viox and Bextra.
Does anyone else remember those medications? I mean it was
good medication. You talk about strong pain medicine. It stopped

(38:21):
that pain and made you feel good as a practitioner
that you could very easily just write a prescription and
give your patient this drug and voila, their pain is gone.
There back to their previous function and nothing is happening.
But when they come in two weeks later a month

(38:44):
later with a heart attack because of this medication, it's
not so good. And they had to take it off
the market. And I thought cellar breaks would follow, but
I don't hear much about cellar breaks in once almost
sort of staying quiet, and again it's because a lot
of practitioners are not using a lot of it, and

(39:04):
I think that's the reason. Because of that history, we're
just kind of staying away from it. But we do
use it periodically, and I think because we're just not
prescribing a lot, we're just not getting a lot of
the adverse reaction issues. I think if it was being
prescribed heavily, then we probably would get into more of
that and maybe it might get taken off the market.

(39:26):
But it's been out there twenty years and people are
using it. So but even with Motronadville leave tow now anything. Yeah,
try not to stay on this stuff forever, and try
to get off of it as if you can. Phone
lines are open eight nine six kov I one one
hundred and three to three zero kova I. We're going
to last break, be back, all right, welcome back to

(39:59):
Dogravian matter of our own. Lines are open eight nine
to six kova one, one hundred and three to three
zero KOVII. Going to the last few minutes of the show. Again,
remember that even if the medication is over the counter,
it can cause harm. A lot of the medications that
over the counter now were at one time prescription, but

(40:22):
for various reasons, they are not over the counter. You
can go grab them, and I really try and promote
patients to go and get over the counter medications for
most of their ailments. Really, it alleviates a lot of
the frustrations of interacting with the medical world and the
medical community, just all of the checks and balances, as

(40:43):
well as the obstacles of getting a prescription medication. Missus
Lavina and I have jokingly talked about that periodically. Just
prescribing one medication for one patient at a medical office
can have tremendous amount of obstacles just to get that
one medication for various reasons. It's a system, and it's

(41:07):
a it's an imperfect system. And if you can multiply
that every day and the millions of people who are
getting medications we filled now, even with things like sleeping
medicines and sedatives like xanax and value as well as
pain medications, you know that there's just ten or twenty

(41:28):
obstacles that are in front of you to get that
medication that you have to a lot of times give
the practitioner a few days to get the medication too,
and just have an open minded understanding that it's normally
not one person, it's several things, because you have the
provider or prescriber, then you have the pharmacy, and then

(41:50):
you have the insurance company. Sort of this triangle of
players that a lot of times not on the same
page with that. And then every insurance company has a
different system that you have to interact with. They have
what they call a formulay where some insurance companies will
pay for this, but they won't pay for that, and

(42:10):
then next month or next year, and now they pay
for it but don't pay for the other one. I mean,
just terribly frustrating as it pertains to that, which is
why we try to promote doing the right things first
right prioritizing that lifestyle and doing a little exercise and
eating your diet. A lot of people say your medicine

(42:32):
should be your food, right, Medicine is food or food
is medicine, however you say that, but certainly yes, those
fresh vegetables as well as a fresh fruit, nuts and seeds,
herbs and spices, this stuff is powerhouse in terms of

(42:53):
helping you fight disease and illness and keeping your joints
free of pain. So a lot of times when you
are eating a lot of sugar and a lot of
processed foods, it will get those joints to acting up.
Can cause a disease called gout and can increase the
risk of a lot of these inflammatory disorders. So understand

(43:13):
that connection and do your part. We'll preachate all the
listeners and the callers on the doctor a medical Hour.
I enjoyed it. Drinking water, don't drink and drive. We'll
see you next week.