June 23, 2025 • 41 mins
- 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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcomes out these sexys in that radio listeners,
Welcome to edition of the Doctor Levine Medical Hour. I'm
your weekly host, Doctor Levine taking phone calls live from
the studios of kov I hear in Paumart, Texas, cross
the street from park them All take an your phone calls,
just try to help you answer some questions and make
things clear about healthcare and your health and figure out
(00:25):
what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink,
how much to exercise with I should be doing to
feel as well as possible, because it is confusing out
there with all the information that we have every single
day that comes our way, with all the multiple outlets
that we get exposed to help us with trying to
(00:47):
figure out what's wrong or what's right. But it is
confusing even for doctors sometimes we get confused as well. Anyway,
full Nun's open. We love to hear from you. Eight
nine to six klv I went one hundred and three
to three zero kov I. Hopefully you're having a wonderful
Saturday morning. It is bright, it's sunny, and probably should
(01:07):
be fairly warm and hot today. As you know the
Southeast Texas humidity we get our heat wave going here
in the next several couple of months. We're out of
the winter now getting to our heat. So be careful
out there when it comes to that heat. Right, We
(01:28):
don't really recommend you stand that heat all day long.
You have to stay hydrated and you have to protect
your skin. We don't really talk a whole lot about
that here on this show, but certainly when you are
outside most of the day and the sun is bright
(01:49):
and you don't have any cover, especially those guys that
have lost their hair and there's really no hair on
the head and you're outside, man, that scalp can get
really really damaged, really really injured from that sun. So
certainly cover up as much as you can. There's multiple
(02:09):
ginormous amounts of sunscreen products that you have access to
just everywhere, all sorts of sprays and creams and everything.
And yes, the SPF is what we sort of look at,
and it's gotten higher and higher, and that sort of
gives you some idea about how much protection you get.
(02:31):
We normally like to go to the highest SPF that
you can achieve, but certainly just sort of mechanical blocking
of the sun rays is always a good idea. As
well our physical blocking if you will, just wearing a
cap or a hat can be advantageous as well. But sometimes,
(02:54):
like I said, you have to be out there in
the sun if your profession depends on it. Are plant workers,
truck drivers, those who work on the roads, construction, et cetera,
et cetera, just out there in the elements all day long,
and we certainly want you to try and make sure
(03:14):
your skin is protected. And most people are understanding that relationship.
You see a lot of the lawn workers out there.
They have big hats and they have long sleeve shirts
because they sort of understand that being out in that
sun all day can really really tear up your skin
and cause all sorts of blemishes and just accelerate the
(03:39):
aging process in terms of wrinkling, just because the sun
is that damaging with excessive exposure. Some dermatologists, a lot
of dermatologists are recommending that every day you should be
wearing sunscreen, especially doing the hotter months of the year.
(04:03):
Not that most people are doing that, because I don't
think most people are doing that, but that's what they're
advocating because they kind of get it. They sort of
see the writing on the wall. As attains to what
is causing all the damage out there, and the sun
seems to be one of those things. As you know,
(04:25):
I harp a lot about general health, and a harp
about tobacco, and a harp about diet. Again, just because
I see those trends, and dermatologists in a line of work,
they're just they get it. They understand what's going on
out there, and the sun exposure is just one of
those big risk factors that is out there that causes
(04:49):
injury to the skin. And because the products are so
plentiful now and they're normally very affordable, you can wear those.
They're advocating sunscreen every day when you go out, covering
your face and your arms. Probably not so much for guys, right,
Guys really don't care too much about their skin. Not
(05:10):
that they're bad people, just guys, and it's just not
on their radar in terms of their cosmetic appearance. But
most of the time females are more into that. And again,
as you get more of those blemishes on your skin,
the discoloration, maybe some scarring, maybe some lumps, some bumps
(05:31):
that appear, especially in the hands and the arms, maybe
even the corner of the ear, especially if you're outside
the top of the scalp, it starts to look different
in a way that can sometimes be concerning. Being in
primary care. We are a lot of times the first
(05:54):
line of patient asking about some lesion on their skin
and if it's worrisome, if they need to do anything
about it. And a lot of times doctors can sort
of look at a lesion and decide for themselves if
it looks like a high risk lesion or a lower
(06:14):
risk lesion and make some recommendations. But at the end
of the day, if there's any sort of lesion that
you have, we're not quite sure what is causing it,
I just go by your friendly dermatologists, let them take
a look at it. A lot of times they might
do a biopsy, remove it, look at it, look at
it under the microscope, just to be on the safe side,
(06:36):
just because again, sometimes a benign appearing skin lesion can
masquerade is something a bit more terrible, and the only
way to figure that out a lot of times is
to get a bopsy done. As you may may not know,
the big concern with the sun exposure, the skin exposure
(06:57):
is skin cancer, and we do see a ton of
that here in the golden triangle, and the idea obviously
is to catch it as soon as possible, and a
lot of times when it is small or smaller, there
is a good chance that just surgically removing that skin
lesion will give you some surgical cure and you don't
(07:21):
have to worry about anything. But certainly, if it is
allowed to stay there for a long time, it can
cause some significant disfigurement of the particular area, you know, again,
especially on the nose or the upper lip, the face,
the ears. How again, you're busy, you're distracted, you have
(07:43):
a lot of things to do, and you don't necessarily
take time to go get that lesion checked out. You've
seen it there for a while, and you've maybe tried
some over the counter hydro cortisone, or you put some
benadryll on it, or maybe you put some tar on it.
You found something online and you try, right. I mean,
(08:07):
who wants to go to the doctor's office and sit
there for two or three hours and have to pay
a copay and all that jazz, right, Missus Lafin and
I talk about that periodically. Just the frustration of interacting
with the healthcare industry can be very distracting and can
(08:28):
discourage people from actually getting there their bodies checked out, right,
you know, just happened to call and schedule and follow
up and go get your prescription and file this and
file that. It can be something that deters patients from
actually getting checked out, like a lot of times going
(08:49):
to the hospital or going to the emergency department. You
might be sick, but you know it's just going to
be a long wait and you might have to do
all these things and you just don't want to you're
too sick to do it, right, I've heard that refrain before.
Why didn't you come in? Oh, it's too sick, Just
(09:09):
because again you have to do some activities of going
to the er or going to a doctor's office that
can be a little detrimental and you don't have the
time or the energy to sort of fight that activity then,
so you let that skin lesion grow and keep growing.
(09:32):
We've seen that often just patients come in with these
lesions have been there for two or three years, and
they can get pretty large and pretty disfiguring. Again, no
matter where it is, and again it's just because patients
are distracted or they just don't know to go in,
(09:52):
but it's certainly something that we want you to prioritize,
especially during the summer months, is protect that skin. We
don't talk no about it. Remember the skin is the
biggest organ of the human body. We don't think of
it that way, but it is right. It's interacting with
the outside world and it's also interacting with what's going
(10:13):
on inside your body, which is a lot of times
why you can tell just by looking at someone if
they are ill, just because the skin will change in
its appearance and its texture and certainly can be a
sign of an internal illness. And it's interacting with the
(10:34):
chemicals that are floating around in your bloodstream as well
as what you're doing to the outside part of the skin.
So sun exposure as we head into the summer months,
it's something that we would like you to think about
and if you are outside, certainly get some sunscreen. Again,
frequent applications if you're standing outside, often just the sweat.
(10:56):
If you're going to the beach, you're going to the
vacation of people out of school and summer vacations are
popular during this time of your cruises, going to Crystal Beach,
going to Galveston, etc. You're just going to be outside
all day long going to the river. We have several
rivers here around the Golden Triangle area. A lot of
(11:18):
people do that. During the weekend, we had Father's Day
and just all of the celebrating that July fourth is
coming up. You want to just be sure and protect
your skin with all these different products out there, because
it's easy and it's a simple thing you can do
to prevent a big injury. And we're again always concerned
(11:41):
about skin cancer, and if you do have a lesion
that looks suspicious, then certainly go in and get that
checked out sooner rather than later. We're always concerned about
the dreaded melanoma, which is sort of the most aggressive
form of skin cancer. Remember there's about three different types.
(12:01):
There's a basal cell skin cancer, there's a squamous cell
skin cancer. Then there's melanoma, and that's the one that's
most worrisome. If you get diagnosed with that, melanoma can
kill you. Basal cell cancer skin cancer, as well as
squamous cell skin cancer, normally is not the type that
(12:25):
will cause a person to expire from that sort of
skin cancer. It can be disfiguring and it can get
pretty large in terms of the lesion, and a lot
of times if the skin cancer is large it's been
there for a while, it does require a resection or
removal of that part of the anatomy. And again if
(12:49):
it's on your nose, your lip, your ear, it can
be disfigured. You have to remove it, you have to
maybe have to have plastic surgery to fix all that.
But the concern of melanoma is that it can spread,
It can go to vital organs like your brain, your liver,
and it can kill you. Melanoma, yes, and it can
(13:10):
start out as just a small dark illsion that maybe
bleeds or doesn't go away, gets bigger. Sometimes it changes colors.
It's supposed to have as we call irregular borders. You know,
it's not just a circle. It just might be sort
of this oil spill. That's the way most doctors sort
(13:33):
of describe it. And when you've seen an oil spill
in the water, and you know how it's dark and
it just sort of moves in its own way, and
it's not a well deformed circle or square or rectangle.
It's just sort of very irregular. And again, most of
the time it's very dark lesion, black lesion, and sometimes
(13:55):
it bleeds, but it doesn't go away, just sort of
stays there, maybe gets bigger. That is how melanoma normally presents,
and it can present just about anywhere. Some patients have
had melanoma present on the top of their scalboys a
lot of times they can't see, or on the backside
on the torso like your upper back or your lower back,
(14:16):
maybe even your calf on the backside again, which you
can't really see the bottom of your foot, a fingernail,
the eyeball. I mean, this thing can sort of go
where it wants to go and start growing again. If
you're someone who have had a lot of sun exposure
(14:37):
for whatever reason, maybe it's recreational, maybe it was professional.
I mean, it's probably a good idea to go and
be checked out by a skin doctor periodically. I know
that sometimes it's hard because they're not really graduating a
lot of dermatologists and just like everything else, in small
communities such as Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Port out their Orange,
(14:59):
it's just not the volume of practitioners that you might
see in a bigger city like a Houston, Galveston or Austin,
and it can just be time consuming. To find one
and get in to see one might take several months.
But certainly if you're out there in the sun and
getting exposed, even though you wear in your sunscreen, it's
not a bad idea to go and see a skin
(15:21):
doctor on a regular basis. Just like if you are overweight,
maybe you have some diabetes, you smoke, it's always a
good idea to go and get a little check up
from your healthcare professional. You know, get some lab, get
an EKG. Let them take a listen to your heart,
maybe even do some provocative testing like a stress test,
just to make sure everything is working okay. Could you
(15:44):
just never know when it comes to that, and certainly
want to prioritize health maintenance. See what's new out there
in terms of prevention. Maybe there's a new product, maybe
there's some new thought on how to do things better
or to reduce your risk of having a cardiovascal event.
Same thing with skin. You get in a lot of exposure,
(16:05):
you probably need to be seen the skin doctrine a
regular basis. Anyway. Phone lines are open eight nine six
kalv I on one hundred three to three zero kov.
I'll be back in two minutes or right. Welcome back
to the doctor. Living in medical our phone lines are
open eight nine six Kova one one hundred three three
(16:27):
zero kov I love to hear from me talking about
protecting your skin. As we head into the summer months
of the year, a lot of people are outside cutting
their grass, going to holiday events, going on cruises. Maybe
they have a job that requires them to be outside.
(16:49):
And we don't really talk a whole lot about protecting
the skin, but certainly something we need to do very
important organ because it is an organ, it is alive,
and it can change, and it's interacting with the outside
world and the inside world. We have to be sure
and protect our skin as much as possible, and really
(17:10):
the basic idea is to somehow limit exposure to the
sun as much as possible. Sometimes that's hard, and certainly
if you see something on your skin that is concerned
and go get it checked out sooner rather than later.
A lot of times it requires a bopsy to have
that done, just because skin cancer can masquerade us something
(17:31):
benign and only a bopsy will sort of tell you that,
and we want to do it as soon as possible.
But for the most part, hats long sleeved shirts again,
the sprays, the gels, the creams. Man, it's just somebody
out there, and we don't want you to just stay
inside all day. That's no fun. You got to get
(17:53):
outside and get the blood flowing, maybe have a brisk
walk and just enjoy the outdoor nature, etc. But just
be careful with all that. Another idea that we always
talk about here is prevention. That's pretty much what I
do most of the day when patients come in for
(18:14):
visit a general examination, is to try and put them
in a situation where they sort of are being screened
for some of these common illnesses and elements that we
talk about, and one of them is cancer screening. As
you know, cancer is the second most common cause of
(18:36):
more bated to mortality in our country. So there is
a very robust program to screen for cancer. Meaning you
do not have any symptoms, you feel great, but you're
maybe up in age, maybe some family histories. There, there's
a few risk factors that you have that put you
(18:58):
at increased risk above the general population, and we want
to make sure that you're getting your proper cancer screening.
And one of those is lung cancer screening, which is
sort of the new kid on the block. Lung cancer
screening probably been out for maybe eight years or so,
but compared to breast cancer screening, colon cancer screening, it's
(19:22):
sort of the new kid on the block and certainly
something that I feel like was a good move by
the medical community to try and target a population that
has increased risk of lung cancer. As you know, really
the biggest risk is that tobacco exposure in all of
(19:45):
its different forms. Again, in my opinion as a healthcare provider,
based on what I see every day and what I've
read over the years, it is in my opinion at
the pinnacle of a habit that if you are engaging
in that habit, it should be terminated and avoid it
as much as possible. Just the exposure to tobacco every
(20:09):
single day is just very, very detrimental to your health
and pretty much accelerates that aging process and accelerates everything
that's bad for you, such as cancer or cardiovascular disease.
I was talking about skin health and the appearance of skin.
Smokers just get the worst skin. If again, you're doing
(20:34):
that exposure yourself to that every single day, you know,
it will cause the skin to become very thin. It
will cause it to again change colors, it bleeds more,
it's very easily injured, it doesn't heal very well. And
again because of that exposure to the toxic substances, the
(20:55):
carcinogens that gets generated when you smoke all the time,
certainly you're more at risk for skin cancer as it
relates to that. So it's not an easy habit to break.
Most people have their reasons for why they started smoking
years ago. Peer pressure, wanted to be cool, that's just
(21:18):
what everyone was doing. They saw their parents smoking, They
got stressed out one day, and I mean, there's just
sort of a lot of different reasons why they do that.
And for the most part, patients initially feel like it
benefits them. You know, maybe it calms them down, maybe
(21:39):
it gives them energy, it gives them focus. For whatever reason,
it sort of works for them initially. And after being
on the cigarettes for many years, they hear a lot
of different things about cigarettes smoking and yeah, maybe it's
not so good for you. They're getting older, they want
to get off of it, and then they try but
(22:02):
realize that, man, it's really tough to just all of
a sudden stop doing this particular habit, and it does
require an effort to stop, and a lot of times
it's at least my current understanding of not smoking. If
you've been smoking for a while, I say it takes
several attempts, sometimes seven or even eight attempts to quit smoking.
(22:27):
And the good thing as of now is there's more
products available to help smokers decide when they want to stop,
to help them stop, because in my opinion, if you've
been a cigarette smoker for five years, ten years, fifteen years,
it normally will take something something to help you to
(22:50):
get off of the cigarettes. Nothing wrong with that, you know,
whatever it takes, we want you to not smoke and
expose your body to these toxic absences that tend to
accelerate the aging process increase the risk of cancer. So
there's more products available, and these products are a lot
of times without prescription. You can buy these products over
(23:13):
the counter. You can go online and get these products,
and you can sort of use them alone or in
conjunction with other products. Right, that is the big difference
compared to when I be first became a physician. Just
now there's more access to products that can help you.
We do have some prescription medications that can help you
(23:37):
as well, not a lot, but it's more than we
had before. Again because there typically is a large psychological
component to smoking a cigarette, whether it be for with
their breakfast coffee in the morning or after you have
a meal, or it's at noontime when you're taking your break,
(24:01):
or whenever you take your break at work. You get
fifteen to twenty minutes to break. A lot of times
smoking was a part of that. Again, it used to
be very heavily endorsed in our country, just like in
my opinion, a lot of the food items that we
eat now and how it's sort of endorsed to eat
this particular item or drink this particular item because it's
(24:23):
associated with health. Smoking sort of used to be on
that level years years years ago, and the tobacco manufacturers
have had to sort of tamper down the way they
advertise on how they advertise again just to help patients
not encourage them to smoke, and then if they are
to try and get off of the cigarette smoking. The
(24:48):
prescription medications, the one that I like to use the
most is called well buttrin are been out for a
bupropion that's the other generic name be propeon or well,
butuched and is the brand name that's the one I
use the most. Again, it's an anti anxiety medication at
the end of the day. But again, as you know,
(25:08):
most people who smoke, there's normally some depression or some
nervousness or some psychological issue that's happening, and that's the
reason why they're taking the medication or they're smoking, is
to help alleviate those symptoms. And when you take that away,
they're sort of naked or it's like they don't have
(25:30):
any protection like they did before. And this medication has
been shown in my experience, to really help you get
off that habit and to give you some other protection
so that you feel okay when you're not smoking, sort
of like where these diabetious medicines are now. With eating, again,
(25:53):
we're sort of encouraged to eat from the time we
wake up, from the time we go to bed. Just
to eat, eat, eat, eat, drink, drink, drink all day long.
That's what you do. That's what you're taught. The food
is there, you just have to grab it and consume it.
But the human body is just honestly not designed to
(26:14):
get exposed to all that food substance every single day
without you at least expending more energy, which for a
lot of us, we really don't have to be physically
active throughout the day just because of modern conveniences and
modern developments with transportation and some of our behaviors washing clothes,
(26:35):
picking up things, delivering things. You know, we now have
machines and devices that alleviate a lot of that activity.
So we're not really burning a lot of calories every day,
but we're consuming a lot of calories every day in
these various food substances and beverages. So it's hard to
say no to all this stuff when you're sort of
being hammered all day to do it. And so these
(26:58):
diabetes medicines have been popular, like well beutrim, I'm sorry,
o zimbig, the Wagovi, munjaruro righte belsis, all these medicines
that you've heard about. When you take these medicines, it
really takes away that desire to just want to consume
all day and you can go several hours without consuming food.
(27:23):
Is because that's sort of a new experience for a
lot of patients, is to wake up and not eat.
It's twelve noon, not eat and then wait until the
evening time to eat. That's very, very hard to do
for a lot of patients just because of the conditioning
that we've had over the years in terms of how
to eat and drink in this country and what to
eat and drink in this country, that when they realize, okay,
(27:45):
I want to do it, I have to do it.
I went to my doctor, you say that I have
to lose weight, and then when you try to do it, man,
it's almost impossible, which is why these medications have become
so popular. Because it does allow you to go all
day without eating. That's a new experience for a lot
of people. They've never done that before, and they kind
of get angry after several hours goes by and they
(28:07):
haven't had anything to eat. Same thing with cigarettes. Smoking, right,
it's just a habit that you have to break and
it's just hard. And so this well, buttrin or bupropion,
which is a generic medication, it's easily, it's affordable, take
it once a day, comes in a couple of different doses,
something that you can take to help if you are
(28:28):
a smoker, but you want to get off the cigarettes.
You know it's bad. Maybe you're starting to cough, you're
getting short of breath. Maybe you've had a few lung infections,
maybe you've had your first heart attack or your first stroke,
and you know it's a bad habit and you just
got to get off of this this habit. That medication
well buttrin or repropriate it's available. And then there's the
(28:51):
medication called Chantix Cha n Tix that is the name
brand of the medication. There is a generic forgotten starts
with the v I Apologize, But that medication has been
out for many years and did have some pr problems
there for a while and sort of lost some of
(29:12):
its momentum. A lot of prescribers are not prescribing it
because of some concern of emotional disorders, depressions, suicide, things
like that, so a lot of practitioners got away from
prescribing it and the medicine really lost popularity there for
a while. But it's sort of got reintroduced a few
(29:33):
years ago. The marketing as well as the research indicated
maybe those were some false concerns. There's really not an
issue with the product, So now it's sort of back
on the market and practitioners are starting to prescribe it
again because for me, I know most people will need
something that will help them get off of the cigarettes.
(29:56):
Just like with eating, they need something to help two
too hard. A lot of times you just do it
cold turkey. So again, we are screening for lung cancer.
If you are smoker out there, you're fifty five and above,
maybe been on been smoking cigarettes fifteen years, twenty years,
ask your provider if you do qualify for lung cancer screening,
(30:20):
because it is very easy to do. We want you
to be up to date and find that cancer or
that lesion sooner rather than later, because normally there's more
we can do when it's not advance. It's more of
a stage one versus the stage four, and we want
to catch it a sap. Phone lines are open eight
(30:40):
nine to six kalv I win one hundred three three
zero Kalova. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
welcome back to the doctor, B and met. Our phone
lines are open eight nine to six kalva at one
one hundred and three three zero Kaleva. I taking your
phone calls, chatting about lung cancer screening, and there are
(31:04):
other ways to screen for a few other cancers. But
we're particularly talking about lung cancer screening and if you
are a smoker, which is really the population that we
offer the lung cancer screening too. Normally, starting at the
age of fifty five, we sort of assess the patient's
exposure to tobacco and if the exposure hits a certain threshold,
(31:28):
then we do recommend some lung cancer screening. I have
sort of loosened my habits with that and have gotten
a little bit more aggressive with screening our smokers, and
I'm just sort of trying to get into the habit
of preventative care and would like to try and get
(31:50):
my smokers screened more often for lung cancer, because again,
if you catch it in an early stage, a lot
of times the oncologists have a lot more options and
the patient is more successful at getting a cure. If
they do find a small lesion or tumor there in
(32:12):
the lung, there is more that can be done and
the outcome is a lot better. So that's the whole
idea behind screening anyway, for whatever disease process that we're
thinking about, in particular lung cancer. Right now, the most
important thing is to not smoke, right, But we talked
about some of the products that you can get for that.
(32:35):
There's all the Nicicerderm, Nicorette tobacco replacement products out there
on the market that you can go right now to
the pharmacy and get all that. And we do strongly
encourage patients to find a solution to not smoking because
it is such a huge, huge negative impact on your health. Man,
(32:57):
I see it every single day. It is just so
destructive to the human body. Cardiovascular, just cancer, just everything. Pain.
I'll tell you that before if you have chronic pain,
that smokers tend to have the hardest pain to treat,
(33:17):
meaning they don't respond to the medications quite as well.
They normally need more medications to get their pain under
control than non smokers. So it's just one of those
things that we've got to aggressively treat. If I see
a patient office and they may be overweighted, they may
have high pertension, high cholesterol, diabetia, I mean, everything, and
(33:39):
then they smoke. I Mean my message to them is, hey,
let's just leave everything the same, but you gotta get
off the cigarette. How can we help? What can we do?
And again, as it pertains to lung cancer screening, we're
now doing that starting at the age of fifty five,
if you've had fifteen twenty years of smoking a pack
of cigarettes per day, then you sort of meet the
(34:02):
criteria to initiate lung cancer screen. It's basically done with
CT scanning technology and you normally get that once a
year every other year. Again, chest sex rays, which again
have been around for a long time, are just not
as good at picking up the earlier tumors, the smaller tumors,
(34:25):
maybe tumors that are sort of hidden and tucked away
behind the chest, because they can tumors scan hide sort
of in the middle of your chest. There's a lot
of organs there and cancers can be sitting there, but
a chess X ray will not pick that up because
again we're trying to find it as soon as possible,
so we have to use CT scanning technology. But CT
(34:48):
scans do deliver a certain amount of radiation to the
human body. So if you're starting at the age of
fifty five, then theoretically supposed to have these scans annually
for several years. I mean, that's a lot of X
ray radiation exposure. We're not trying to harm you, so
(35:09):
a lot of times these CT scans are called low
dose CT scan. You're not getting as much of the
radiation hit as a normal CT scan, but it's enough
to get some images of your lung tissue, and it's
enough to see maybe a centimeter size lung cancer sitting
there at the top of you lung or on the
(35:30):
middle of your thoracic cavity, something a chess xtray is
not going to see. Again, if you don't want to
go through with the CT scan, yes, you bill means
you can get a chess X ray because it normally
picks up those bigger cancers, you know, stage three or
stage four. We can see that very easily. On chess
X ray. Radiologists can see that. There's again a few
(35:52):
different types of lung cancer somewhat more aggressive than others.
But the main idea is to cut down that exposure
and be screened for that. So if you are a smoker,
you go into your routine annual physical, ask your provider
if you're a candidate for lung cancer screening, and certainly
(36:15):
get that sooner rather than later. Phone lines are opened
eight none six kV I wanted one hundred three three
zero klv I going in a last break all right,
South through Sex is welcome back to the dark wab Medical.
Our phone lines open eight non six kV I one
(36:36):
one hundred and three to three zero KLFI. Toward the
end of the show, Tom goes by so so fast.
We want to thank all of the listeners that tune
in to the weekly show. And again, if there's a
topic that you would like me to talk about, just
give us a call or let us know. We'd be
(36:56):
more than happy to discuss that. But we spend a
little time talking about protecting your skin as we head
into the summer months, wearing sunscreen, big hats, long sleeved shirts. Certainly,
if you see a skin lesion that is of concern
and it's been there, it's not going away. Maybe it bleeds.
We get a lot of skin cancers on the face
(37:19):
a lot of our guys. Maybe after they shave, the
lesion bleeds a little bit. And as you know, most
skin lesions go away, right they heal. But there's this
skin lesion that won't go away. It's getting bigger, maybe
it's bleeding, it may hurt. Just go get it checked out,
maybe get a bopsy of that area and make sure
it's nothing to worry about. Yes, it's Southeast Texas. It
(37:42):
sometimes takes a while to get in to see these guys,
but most of the time it's not an urgent referral
two to three month waiting list, that's fine. Just eventually
go and get your spot and get checked out. And
if you are spinning a lot of time out there,
just do your part and reduce your exposure as much
(38:06):
as possible. But certainly if you're a smoker, remember lung
cancer screening is out there, and you need to ask
your provider to get you plugged in so that you
can start getting your X rays done again. Normally at
the age fifty five, we do those annually just to
see t scan. Sometimes it's every other year. But I
(38:28):
try to be as aggressive I can with the smokers,
just because we want to catch those areas asap and
not at a late stage four, which we still see
that every single day. Just those patients for whatever reason,
don't have access to healthcare, or distracted or just don't
believe in the healthcare industry the healthcare system, and they
(38:52):
never really get checked out until they come in with
later stages. They come in short breath, maybe coughing up blood,
maybe they've lost thirty forty pounds of weight and they
eventually come in and man, it's everywhere by that time,
and you need to participate with your own cancer screening program.
We do have cancer screening for prostate as well as
(39:15):
breast as well as cervical cancer. Don't really have anything
in place for ovarian cancer or things like kidney cancer,
pain credit cancer, but certainly we're trying to do our
best to target those patients that are at higher risk.
Certainly colon cancer can't forget about that. Now have multiple
(39:36):
ways to do that with your good old standard colonoscopy,
but they have these stool kits that come to your
house that you process yourself, do those every three years,
and the company has come out with a blood test
that you can now use to screen for colon cancer. Again,
trying to make this thing more and more convenient and
(39:57):
easy to do, which is again even for colon cancer.
It might be a deterrent in terms of getting a
colonoscoy normally have to take off from work, you have
to sort of drink all that solution, You get some
exposure to some sedatives when you have the colonoscopy. Sometimes
(40:18):
there are some complications with the procedure itself, so there's
a larger thing you have to jump over obstacle to
get that. So we're trying to make screening more convenient,
just like with vaccines, we want to make those more convenient,
have them sort of everywhere, cheap, easy to use, doesn't
require a whole lot of effort. It'd be cool if
(40:41):
they came in tablet form. That would be awesome, right,
And maybe they've worked on that platform to try and
bring vaccines or put in a tablet or a pill
form or liquid form. Wouldn't that be cool? You just
put some powder in a glass and some water and
drinke it and man while you're vaccinated, that would be
super awesome and convenient. Maybe we're getting there, but certainly
(41:04):
do your part to get your screening for the common cancers,
going in and talking with your healthcare provider and having
your yealer review as well as your lab work check
your kidney function, blood counts, thyroid, your electrolytes. Can really
find a lot of different things. Anyway, Enjoy your weekend,
(41:25):
don't drink and dry drinks and water. We'll see guys
next week. Take care
All right, welcomes out these sexys in that radio listeners,
Welcome to edition of the Doctor Levine Medical Hour. I'm
your weekly host, Doctor Levine taking phone calls live from
the studios of kov I hear in Paumart, Texas, cross
the street from park them All take an your phone calls,
just try to help you answer some questions and make
things clear about healthcare and your health and figure out
(00:25):
what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink,
how much to exercise with I should be doing to
feel as well as possible, because it is confusing out
there with all the information that we have every single
day that comes our way, with all the multiple outlets
that we get exposed to help us with trying to
(00:47):
figure out what's wrong or what's right. But it is
confusing even for doctors sometimes we get confused as well. Anyway,
full Nun's open. We love to hear from you. Eight
nine to six klv I went one hundred and three
to three zero kov I. Hopefully you're having a wonderful
Saturday morning. It is bright, it's sunny, and probably should
(01:07):
be fairly warm and hot today. As you know the
Southeast Texas humidity we get our heat wave going here
in the next several couple of months. We're out of
the winter now getting to our heat. So be careful
out there when it comes to that heat. Right, We
(01:28):
don't really recommend you stand that heat all day long.
You have to stay hydrated and you have to protect
your skin. We don't really talk a whole lot about
that here on this show, but certainly when you are
outside most of the day and the sun is bright
(01:49):
and you don't have any cover, especially those guys that
have lost their hair and there's really no hair on
the head and you're outside, man, that scalp can get
really really damaged, really really injured from that sun. So
certainly cover up as much as you can. There's multiple
(02:09):
ginormous amounts of sunscreen products that you have access to
just everywhere, all sorts of sprays and creams and everything.
And yes, the SPF is what we sort of look at,
and it's gotten higher and higher, and that sort of
gives you some idea about how much protection you get.
(02:31):
We normally like to go to the highest SPF that
you can achieve, but certainly just sort of mechanical blocking
of the sun rays is always a good idea. As
well our physical blocking if you will, just wearing a
cap or a hat can be advantageous as well. But sometimes,
(02:54):
like I said, you have to be out there in
the sun if your profession depends on it. Are plant workers,
truck drivers, those who work on the roads, construction, et cetera,
et cetera, just out there in the elements all day long,
and we certainly want you to try and make sure
(03:14):
your skin is protected. And most people are understanding that relationship.
You see a lot of the lawn workers out there.
They have big hats and they have long sleeve shirts
because they sort of understand that being out in that
sun all day can really really tear up your skin
and cause all sorts of blemishes and just accelerate the
(03:39):
aging process in terms of wrinkling, just because the sun
is that damaging with excessive exposure. Some dermatologists, a lot
of dermatologists are recommending that every day you should be
wearing sunscreen, especially doing the hotter months of the year.
(04:03):
Not that most people are doing that, because I don't
think most people are doing that, but that's what they're
advocating because they kind of get it. They sort of
see the writing on the wall. As attains to what
is causing all the damage out there, and the sun
seems to be one of those things. As you know,
(04:25):
I harp a lot about general health, and a harp
about tobacco, and a harp about diet. Again, just because
I see those trends, and dermatologists in a line of work,
they're just they get it. They understand what's going on
out there, and the sun exposure is just one of
those big risk factors that is out there that causes
(04:49):
injury to the skin. And because the products are so
plentiful now and they're normally very affordable, you can wear those.
They're advocating sunscreen every day when you go out, covering
your face and your arms. Probably not so much for guys, right,
Guys really don't care too much about their skin. Not
(05:10):
that they're bad people, just guys, and it's just not
on their radar in terms of their cosmetic appearance. But
most of the time females are more into that. And again,
as you get more of those blemishes on your skin,
the discoloration, maybe some scarring, maybe some lumps, some bumps
(05:31):
that appear, especially in the hands and the arms, maybe
even the corner of the ear, especially if you're outside
the top of the scalp, it starts to look different
in a way that can sometimes be concerning. Being in
primary care. We are a lot of times the first
(05:54):
line of patient asking about some lesion on their skin
and if it's worrisome, if they need to do anything
about it. And a lot of times doctors can sort
of look at a lesion and decide for themselves if
it looks like a high risk lesion or a lower
(06:14):
risk lesion and make some recommendations. But at the end
of the day, if there's any sort of lesion that
you have, we're not quite sure what is causing it,
I just go by your friendly dermatologists, let them take
a look at it. A lot of times they might
do a biopsy, remove it, look at it, look at
it under the microscope, just to be on the safe side,
(06:36):
just because again, sometimes a benign appearing skin lesion can
masquerade is something a bit more terrible, and the only
way to figure that out a lot of times is
to get a bopsy done. As you may may not know,
the big concern with the sun exposure, the skin exposure
(06:57):
is skin cancer, and we do see a ton of
that here in the golden triangle, and the idea obviously
is to catch it as soon as possible, and a
lot of times when it is small or smaller, there
is a good chance that just surgically removing that skin
lesion will give you some surgical cure and you don't
(07:21):
have to worry about anything. But certainly, if it is
allowed to stay there for a long time, it can
cause some significant disfigurement of the particular area, you know, again,
especially on the nose or the upper lip, the face,
the ears. How again, you're busy, you're distracted, you have
(07:43):
a lot of things to do, and you don't necessarily
take time to go get that lesion checked out. You've
seen it there for a while, and you've maybe tried
some over the counter hydro cortisone, or you put some
benadryll on it, or maybe you put some tar on it.
You found something online and you try, right. I mean,
(08:07):
who wants to go to the doctor's office and sit
there for two or three hours and have to pay
a copay and all that jazz, right, Missus Lafin and
I talk about that periodically. Just the frustration of interacting
with the healthcare industry can be very distracting and can
(08:28):
discourage people from actually getting there their bodies checked out, right,
you know, just happened to call and schedule and follow
up and go get your prescription and file this and
file that. It can be something that deters patients from
actually getting checked out, like a lot of times going
(08:49):
to the hospital or going to the emergency department. You
might be sick, but you know it's just going to
be a long wait and you might have to do
all these things and you just don't want to you're
too sick to do it, right, I've heard that refrain before.
Why didn't you come in? Oh, it's too sick, Just
(09:09):
because again you have to do some activities of going
to the er or going to a doctor's office that
can be a little detrimental and you don't have the
time or the energy to sort of fight that activity then,
so you let that skin lesion grow and keep growing.
(09:32):
We've seen that often just patients come in with these
lesions have been there for two or three years, and
they can get pretty large and pretty disfiguring. Again, no
matter where it is, and again it's just because patients
are distracted or they just don't know to go in,
(09:52):
but it's certainly something that we want you to prioritize,
especially during the summer months, is protect that skin. We
don't talk no about it. Remember the skin is the
biggest organ of the human body. We don't think of
it that way, but it is right. It's interacting with
the outside world and it's also interacting with what's going
(10:13):
on inside your body, which is a lot of times
why you can tell just by looking at someone if
they are ill, just because the skin will change in
its appearance and its texture and certainly can be a
sign of an internal illness. And it's interacting with the
(10:34):
chemicals that are floating around in your bloodstream as well
as what you're doing to the outside part of the skin.
So sun exposure as we head into the summer months,
it's something that we would like you to think about
and if you are outside, certainly get some sunscreen. Again,
frequent applications if you're standing outside, often just the sweat.
(10:56):
If you're going to the beach, you're going to the
vacation of people out of school and summer vacations are
popular during this time of your cruises, going to Crystal Beach,
going to Galveston, etc. You're just going to be outside
all day long going to the river. We have several
rivers here around the Golden Triangle area. A lot of
(11:18):
people do that. During the weekend, we had Father's Day
and just all of the celebrating that July fourth is
coming up. You want to just be sure and protect
your skin with all these different products out there, because
it's easy and it's a simple thing you can do
to prevent a big injury. And we're again always concerned
(11:41):
about skin cancer, and if you do have a lesion
that looks suspicious, then certainly go in and get that
checked out sooner rather than later. We're always concerned about
the dreaded melanoma, which is sort of the most aggressive
form of skin cancer. Remember there's about three different types.
(12:01):
There's a basal cell skin cancer, there's a squamous cell
skin cancer. Then there's melanoma, and that's the one that's
most worrisome. If you get diagnosed with that, melanoma can
kill you. Basal cell cancer skin cancer, as well as
squamous cell skin cancer, normally is not the type that
(12:25):
will cause a person to expire from that sort of
skin cancer. It can be disfiguring and it can get
pretty large in terms of the lesion, and a lot
of times if the skin cancer is large it's been
there for a while, it does require a resection or
removal of that part of the anatomy. And again if
(12:49):
it's on your nose, your lip, your ear, it can
be disfigured. You have to remove it, you have to
maybe have to have plastic surgery to fix all that.
But the concern of melanoma is that it can spread,
It can go to vital organs like your brain, your liver,
and it can kill you. Melanoma, yes, and it can
(13:10):
start out as just a small dark illsion that maybe
bleeds or doesn't go away, gets bigger. Sometimes it changes colors.
It's supposed to have as we call irregular borders. You know,
it's not just a circle. It just might be sort
of this oil spill. That's the way most doctors sort
(13:33):
of describe it. And when you've seen an oil spill
in the water, and you know how it's dark and
it just sort of moves in its own way, and
it's not a well deformed circle or square or rectangle.
It's just sort of very irregular. And again, most of
the time it's very dark lesion, black lesion, and sometimes
(13:55):
it bleeds, but it doesn't go away, just sort of
stays there, maybe gets bigger. That is how melanoma normally presents,
and it can present just about anywhere. Some patients have
had melanoma present on the top of their scalboys a
lot of times they can't see, or on the backside
on the torso like your upper back or your lower back,
(14:16):
maybe even your calf on the backside again, which you
can't really see the bottom of your foot, a fingernail,
the eyeball. I mean, this thing can sort of go
where it wants to go and start growing again. If
you're someone who have had a lot of sun exposure
(14:37):
for whatever reason, maybe it's recreational, maybe it was professional.
I mean, it's probably a good idea to go and
be checked out by a skin doctor periodically. I know
that sometimes it's hard because they're not really graduating a
lot of dermatologists and just like everything else, in small
communities such as Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Port out their Orange,
(14:59):
it's just not the volume of practitioners that you might
see in a bigger city like a Houston, Galveston or Austin,
and it can just be time consuming. To find one
and get in to see one might take several months.
But certainly if you're out there in the sun and
getting exposed, even though you wear in your sunscreen, it's
not a bad idea to go and see a skin
(15:21):
doctor on a regular basis. Just like if you are overweight,
maybe you have some diabetes, you smoke, it's always a
good idea to go and get a little check up
from your healthcare professional. You know, get some lab, get
an EKG. Let them take a listen to your heart,
maybe even do some provocative testing like a stress test,
just to make sure everything is working okay. Could you
(15:44):
just never know when it comes to that, and certainly
want to prioritize health maintenance. See what's new out there
in terms of prevention. Maybe there's a new product, maybe
there's some new thought on how to do things better
or to reduce your risk of having a cardiovascal event.
Same thing with skin. You get in a lot of exposure,
(16:05):
you probably need to be seen the skin doctrine a
regular basis. Anyway. Phone lines are open eight nine six
kalv I on one hundred three to three zero kov.
I'll be back in two minutes or right. Welcome back
to the doctor. Living in medical our phone lines are
open eight nine six Kova one one hundred three three
(16:27):
zero kov I love to hear from me talking about
protecting your skin. As we head into the summer months
of the year, a lot of people are outside cutting
their grass, going to holiday events, going on cruises. Maybe
they have a job that requires them to be outside.
(16:49):
And we don't really talk a whole lot about protecting
the skin, but certainly something we need to do very
important organ because it is an organ, it is alive,
and it can change, and it's interacting with the outside
world and the inside world. We have to be sure
and protect our skin as much as possible, and really
(17:10):
the basic idea is to somehow limit exposure to the
sun as much as possible. Sometimes that's hard, and certainly
if you see something on your skin that is concerned
and go get it checked out sooner rather than later.
A lot of times it requires a bopsy to have
that done, just because skin cancer can masquerade us something
(17:31):
benign and only a bopsy will sort of tell you that,
and we want to do it as soon as possible.
But for the most part, hats long sleeved shirts again,
the sprays, the gels, the creams. Man, it's just somebody
out there, and we don't want you to just stay
inside all day. That's no fun. You got to get
(17:53):
outside and get the blood flowing, maybe have a brisk
walk and just enjoy the outdoor nature, etc. But just
be careful with all that. Another idea that we always
talk about here is prevention. That's pretty much what I
do most of the day when patients come in for
(18:14):
visit a general examination, is to try and put them
in a situation where they sort of are being screened
for some of these common illnesses and elements that we
talk about, and one of them is cancer screening. As
you know, cancer is the second most common cause of
(18:36):
more bated to mortality in our country. So there is
a very robust program to screen for cancer. Meaning you
do not have any symptoms, you feel great, but you're
maybe up in age, maybe some family histories. There, there's
a few risk factors that you have that put you
(18:58):
at increased risk above the general population, and we want
to make sure that you're getting your proper cancer screening.
And one of those is lung cancer screening, which is
sort of the new kid on the block. Lung cancer
screening probably been out for maybe eight years or so,
but compared to breast cancer screening, colon cancer screening, it's
(19:22):
sort of the new kid on the block and certainly
something that I feel like was a good move by
the medical community to try and target a population that
has increased risk of lung cancer. As you know, really
the biggest risk is that tobacco exposure in all of
(19:45):
its different forms. Again, in my opinion as a healthcare provider,
based on what I see every day and what I've
read over the years, it is in my opinion at
the pinnacle of a habit that if you are engaging
in that habit, it should be terminated and avoid it
as much as possible. Just the exposure to tobacco every
(20:09):
single day is just very, very detrimental to your health
and pretty much accelerates that aging process and accelerates everything
that's bad for you, such as cancer or cardiovascular disease.
I was talking about skin health and the appearance of skin.
Smokers just get the worst skin. If again, you're doing
(20:34):
that exposure yourself to that every single day, you know,
it will cause the skin to become very thin. It
will cause it to again change colors, it bleeds more,
it's very easily injured, it doesn't heal very well. And
again because of that exposure to the toxic substances, the
(20:55):
carcinogens that gets generated when you smoke all the time,
certainly you're more at risk for skin cancer as it
relates to that. So it's not an easy habit to break.
Most people have their reasons for why they started smoking
years ago. Peer pressure, wanted to be cool, that's just
(21:18):
what everyone was doing. They saw their parents smoking, They
got stressed out one day, and I mean, there's just
sort of a lot of different reasons why they do that.
And for the most part, patients initially feel like it
benefits them. You know, maybe it calms them down, maybe
(21:39):
it gives them energy, it gives them focus. For whatever reason,
it sort of works for them initially. And after being
on the cigarettes for many years, they hear a lot
of different things about cigarettes smoking and yeah, maybe it's
not so good for you. They're getting older, they want
to get off of it, and then they try but
(22:02):
realize that, man, it's really tough to just all of
a sudden stop doing this particular habit, and it does
require an effort to stop, and a lot of times
it's at least my current understanding of not smoking. If
you've been smoking for a while, I say it takes
several attempts, sometimes seven or even eight attempts to quit smoking.
(22:27):
And the good thing as of now is there's more
products available to help smokers decide when they want to stop,
to help them stop, because in my opinion, if you've
been a cigarette smoker for five years, ten years, fifteen years,
it normally will take something something to help you to
(22:50):
get off of the cigarettes. Nothing wrong with that, you know,
whatever it takes, we want you to not smoke and
expose your body to these toxic absences that tend to
accelerate the aging process increase the risk of cancer. So
there's more products available, and these products are a lot
of times without prescription. You can buy these products over
(23:13):
the counter. You can go online and get these products,
and you can sort of use them alone or in
conjunction with other products. Right, that is the big difference
compared to when I be first became a physician. Just
now there's more access to products that can help you.
We do have some prescription medications that can help you
(23:37):
as well, not a lot, but it's more than we
had before. Again because there typically is a large psychological
component to smoking a cigarette, whether it be for with
their breakfast coffee in the morning or after you have
a meal, or it's at noontime when you're taking your break,
(24:01):
or whenever you take your break at work. You get
fifteen to twenty minutes to break. A lot of times
smoking was a part of that. Again, it used to
be very heavily endorsed in our country, just like in
my opinion, a lot of the food items that we
eat now and how it's sort of endorsed to eat
this particular item or drink this particular item because it's
(24:23):
associated with health. Smoking sort of used to be on
that level years years years ago, and the tobacco manufacturers
have had to sort of tamper down the way they
advertise on how they advertise again just to help patients
not encourage them to smoke, and then if they are
to try and get off of the cigarette smoking. The
(24:48):
prescription medications, the one that I like to use the
most is called well buttrin are been out for a
bupropion that's the other generic name be propeon or well,
butuched and is the brand name that's the one I
use the most. Again, it's an anti anxiety medication at
the end of the day. But again, as you know,
(25:08):
most people who smoke, there's normally some depression or some
nervousness or some psychological issue that's happening, and that's the
reason why they're taking the medication or they're smoking, is
to help alleviate those symptoms. And when you take that away,
they're sort of naked or it's like they don't have
(25:30):
any protection like they did before. And this medication has
been shown in my experience, to really help you get
off that habit and to give you some other protection
so that you feel okay when you're not smoking, sort
of like where these diabetious medicines are now. With eating, again,
(25:53):
we're sort of encouraged to eat from the time we
wake up, from the time we go to bed. Just
to eat, eat, eat, eat, drink, drink, drink all day long.
That's what you do. That's what you're taught. The food
is there, you just have to grab it and consume it.
But the human body is just honestly not designed to
(26:14):
get exposed to all that food substance every single day
without you at least expending more energy, which for a
lot of us, we really don't have to be physically
active throughout the day just because of modern conveniences and
modern developments with transportation and some of our behaviors washing clothes,
(26:35):
picking up things, delivering things. You know, we now have
machines and devices that alleviate a lot of that activity.
So we're not really burning a lot of calories every day,
but we're consuming a lot of calories every day in
these various food substances and beverages. So it's hard to
say no to all this stuff when you're sort of
being hammered all day to do it. And so these
(26:58):
diabetes medicines have been popular, like well beutrim, I'm sorry,
o zimbig, the Wagovi, munjaruro righte belsis, all these medicines
that you've heard about. When you take these medicines, it
really takes away that desire to just want to consume
all day and you can go several hours without consuming food.
(27:23):
Is because that's sort of a new experience for a
lot of patients, is to wake up and not eat.
It's twelve noon, not eat and then wait until the
evening time to eat. That's very, very hard to do
for a lot of patients just because of the conditioning
that we've had over the years in terms of how
to eat and drink in this country and what to
eat and drink in this country, that when they realize, okay,
(27:45):
I want to do it, I have to do it.
I went to my doctor, you say that I have
to lose weight, and then when you try to do it, man,
it's almost impossible, which is why these medications have become
so popular. Because it does allow you to go all
day without eating. That's a new experience for a lot
of people. They've never done that before, and they kind
of get angry after several hours goes by and they
(28:07):
haven't had anything to eat. Same thing with cigarettes. Smoking, right,
it's just a habit that you have to break and
it's just hard. And so this well, buttrin or bupropion,
which is a generic medication, it's easily, it's affordable, take
it once a day, comes in a couple of different doses,
something that you can take to help if you are
(28:28):
a smoker, but you want to get off the cigarettes.
You know it's bad. Maybe you're starting to cough, you're
getting short of breath. Maybe you've had a few lung infections,
maybe you've had your first heart attack or your first stroke,
and you know it's a bad habit and you just
got to get off of this this habit. That medication
well buttrin or repropriate it's available. And then there's the
(28:51):
medication called Chantix Cha n Tix that is the name
brand of the medication. There is a generic forgotten starts
with the v I Apologize, But that medication has been
out for many years and did have some pr problems
there for a while and sort of lost some of
(29:12):
its momentum. A lot of prescribers are not prescribing it
because of some concern of emotional disorders, depressions, suicide, things
like that, so a lot of practitioners got away from
prescribing it and the medicine really lost popularity there for
a while. But it's sort of got reintroduced a few
(29:33):
years ago. The marketing as well as the research indicated
maybe those were some false concerns. There's really not an
issue with the product, So now it's sort of back
on the market and practitioners are starting to prescribe it
again because for me, I know most people will need
something that will help them get off of the cigarettes.
(29:56):
Just like with eating, they need something to help two
too hard. A lot of times you just do it
cold turkey. So again, we are screening for lung cancer.
If you are smoker out there, you're fifty five and above,
maybe been on been smoking cigarettes fifteen years, twenty years,
ask your provider if you do qualify for lung cancer screening,
(30:20):
because it is very easy to do. We want you
to be up to date and find that cancer or
that lesion sooner rather than later, because normally there's more
we can do when it's not advance. It's more of
a stage one versus the stage four, and we want
to catch it a sap. Phone lines are open eight
(30:40):
nine to six kalv I win one hundred three three
zero Kalova. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
welcome back to the doctor, B and met. Our phone
lines are open eight nine to six kalva at one
one hundred and three three zero Kaleva. I taking your
phone calls, chatting about lung cancer screening, and there are
(31:04):
other ways to screen for a few other cancers. But
we're particularly talking about lung cancer screening and if you
are a smoker, which is really the population that we
offer the lung cancer screening too. Normally, starting at the
age of fifty five, we sort of assess the patient's
exposure to tobacco and if the exposure hits a certain threshold,
(31:28):
then we do recommend some lung cancer screening. I have
sort of loosened my habits with that and have gotten
a little bit more aggressive with screening our smokers, and
I'm just sort of trying to get into the habit
of preventative care and would like to try and get
(31:50):
my smokers screened more often for lung cancer, because again,
if you catch it in an early stage, a lot
of times the oncologists have a lot more options and
the patient is more successful at getting a cure. If
they do find a small lesion or tumor there in
(32:12):
the lung, there is more that can be done and
the outcome is a lot better. So that's the whole
idea behind screening anyway, for whatever disease process that we're
thinking about, in particular lung cancer. Right now, the most
important thing is to not smoke, right, But we talked
about some of the products that you can get for that.
(32:35):
There's all the Nicicerderm, Nicorette tobacco replacement products out there
on the market that you can go right now to
the pharmacy and get all that. And we do strongly
encourage patients to find a solution to not smoking because
it is such a huge, huge negative impact on your health. Man,
(32:57):
I see it every single day. It is just so
destructive to the human body. Cardiovascular, just cancer, just everything. Pain.
I'll tell you that before if you have chronic pain,
that smokers tend to have the hardest pain to treat,
(33:17):
meaning they don't respond to the medications quite as well.
They normally need more medications to get their pain under
control than non smokers. So it's just one of those
things that we've got to aggressively treat. If I see
a patient office and they may be overweighted, they may
have high pertension, high cholesterol, diabetia, I mean, everything, and
(33:39):
then they smoke. I Mean my message to them is, hey,
let's just leave everything the same, but you gotta get
off the cigarette. How can we help? What can we do?
And again, as it pertains to lung cancer screening, we're
now doing that starting at the age of fifty five,
if you've had fifteen twenty years of smoking a pack
of cigarettes per day, then you sort of meet the
(34:02):
criteria to initiate lung cancer screen. It's basically done with
CT scanning technology and you normally get that once a
year every other year. Again, chest sex rays, which again
have been around for a long time, are just not
as good at picking up the earlier tumors, the smaller tumors,
(34:25):
maybe tumors that are sort of hidden and tucked away
behind the chest, because they can tumors scan hide sort
of in the middle of your chest. There's a lot
of organs there and cancers can be sitting there, but
a chess X ray will not pick that up because
again we're trying to find it as soon as possible,
so we have to use CT scanning technology. But CT
(34:48):
scans do deliver a certain amount of radiation to the
human body. So if you're starting at the age of
fifty five, then theoretically supposed to have these scans annually
for several years. I mean, that's a lot of X
ray radiation exposure. We're not trying to harm you, so
(35:09):
a lot of times these CT scans are called low
dose CT scan. You're not getting as much of the
radiation hit as a normal CT scan, but it's enough
to get some images of your lung tissue, and it's
enough to see maybe a centimeter size lung cancer sitting
there at the top of you lung or on the
(35:30):
middle of your thoracic cavity, something a chess xtray is
not going to see. Again, if you don't want to
go through with the CT scan, yes, you bill means
you can get a chess X ray because it normally
picks up those bigger cancers, you know, stage three or
stage four. We can see that very easily. On chess
X ray. Radiologists can see that. There's again a few
(35:52):
different types of lung cancer somewhat more aggressive than others.
But the main idea is to cut down that exposure
and be screened for that. So if you are a smoker,
you go into your routine annual physical, ask your provider
if you're a candidate for lung cancer screening, and certainly
(36:15):
get that sooner rather than later. Phone lines are opened
eight none six kV I wanted one hundred three three
zero klv I going in a last break all right,
South through Sex is welcome back to the dark wab Medical.
Our phone lines open eight non six kV I one
(36:36):
one hundred and three to three zero KLFI. Toward the
end of the show, Tom goes by so so fast.
We want to thank all of the listeners that tune
in to the weekly show. And again, if there's a
topic that you would like me to talk about, just
give us a call or let us know. We'd be
(36:56):
more than happy to discuss that. But we spend a
little time talking about protecting your skin as we head
into the summer months, wearing sunscreen, big hats, long sleeved shirts. Certainly,
if you see a skin lesion that is of concern
and it's been there, it's not going away. Maybe it bleeds.
We get a lot of skin cancers on the face
(37:19):
a lot of our guys. Maybe after they shave, the
lesion bleeds a little bit. And as you know, most
skin lesions go away, right they heal. But there's this
skin lesion that won't go away. It's getting bigger, maybe
it's bleeding, it may hurt. Just go get it checked out,
maybe get a bopsy of that area and make sure
it's nothing to worry about. Yes, it's Southeast Texas. It
(37:42):
sometimes takes a while to get in to see these guys,
but most of the time it's not an urgent referral
two to three month waiting list, that's fine. Just eventually
go and get your spot and get checked out. And
if you are spinning a lot of time out there,
just do your part and reduce your exposure as much
(38:06):
as possible. But certainly if you're a smoker, remember lung
cancer screening is out there, and you need to ask
your provider to get you plugged in so that you
can start getting your X rays done again. Normally at
the age fifty five, we do those annually just to
see t scan. Sometimes it's every other year. But I
(38:28):
try to be as aggressive I can with the smokers,
just because we want to catch those areas asap and
not at a late stage four, which we still see
that every single day. Just those patients for whatever reason,
don't have access to healthcare, or distracted or just don't
believe in the healthcare industry the healthcare system, and they
(38:52):
never really get checked out until they come in with
later stages. They come in short breath, maybe coughing up blood,
maybe they've lost thirty forty pounds of weight and they
eventually come in and man, it's everywhere by that time,
and you need to participate with your own cancer screening program.
We do have cancer screening for prostate as well as
(39:15):
breast as well as cervical cancer. Don't really have anything
in place for ovarian cancer or things like kidney cancer,
pain credit cancer, but certainly we're trying to do our
best to target those patients that are at higher risk.
Certainly colon cancer can't forget about that. Now have multiple
(39:36):
ways to do that with your good old standard colonoscopy,
but they have these stool kits that come to your
house that you process yourself, do those every three years,
and the company has come out with a blood test
that you can now use to screen for colon cancer. Again,
trying to make this thing more and more convenient and
(39:57):
easy to do, which is again even for colon cancer.
It might be a deterrent in terms of getting a
colonoscoy normally have to take off from work, you have
to sort of drink all that solution, You get some
exposure to some sedatives when you have the colonoscopy. Sometimes
(40:18):
there are some complications with the procedure itself, so there's
a larger thing you have to jump over obstacle to
get that. So we're trying to make screening more convenient,
just like with vaccines, we want to make those more convenient,
have them sort of everywhere, cheap, easy to use, doesn't
require a whole lot of effort. It'd be cool if
(40:41):
they came in tablet form. That would be awesome, right,
And maybe they've worked on that platform to try and
bring vaccines or put in a tablet or a pill
form or liquid form. Wouldn't that be cool? You just
put some powder in a glass and some water and
drinke it and man while you're vaccinated, that would be
super awesome and convenient. Maybe we're getting there, but certainly
(41:04):
do your part to get your screening for the common cancers,
going in and talking with your healthcare provider and having
your yealer review as well as your lab work check
your kidney function, blood counts, thyroid, your electrolytes. Can really
find a lot of different things. Anyway, Enjoy your weekend,
(41:25):
don't drink and dry drinks and water. We'll see guys
next week. Take care
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