August 11, 2025 • 44 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):
Good morning, Good morning, good morning. This is doctor Levine
of the Doctor Levine Medical Hour, coming to you live
from the studios of KLVI here in Beaumont, Texas, cross
the street from Parkdale Mall on a Saturday morning. Beautiful weather,
so far taking your phone calls answering questions about healthcare,
medicine as we see it, So give us a call.
(00:23):
We'd love to hear from your two way radio. We're
just trying to help you get some answers and figure
out what is the right way to stay alive as
long as possible, as healthy as possible without having to
take a ton of medications or go to the hospital
all the time, or maybe just see a doctor once
a month. Scratch that once a year. Nobody wants to
(00:48):
go once a month. Once a year. Yeah, I just
have that annual and stay healthy and feel good because yeah,
somebody lied to us a long time ago said getting
older the golden years. Let me tell you it requires work,
a little bit of work. You got to put some
work into. You can't just wake up and do things
(01:10):
like you wear when you're nineteen and twenty. That's when
it's real easy. Your body is strong and new and
fresh and growing and heals well and strong. It's got endurance.
As you get older, all that goes away. You have
low endurance. It's a weak sort of machine, and it's
(01:34):
vulnerable to injury. So you've got to put more time
into it. And it's sort of difficult sometime to figure
out what's the right thing to do. So many people
telling you what to do, so much information out there,
it's unclear. So that's what we're here for to try
and help you figure that out. Phone line to open
(01:57):
eight nine to six kilva one hundred three three zero
kill V. I normally that, as you know, we discuss vaccines.
We're getting into flu season next month, and seems like
there's always controversy about that. And this is America. We
(02:18):
love choice, we love discussion, and we don't always agree,
and I think that that's why we love this country
so much. We have the right to disagree and discuss
other options or other thoughts. Keeps everything as honest as possible,
and vaccines is no different. So there's been a lot
(02:41):
of talk about vaccines and the media recently seems like
it never goes away. We got a lot of conversation
during COVID, but yeah, we believe in vaccines, or at
least I do we being the medical community. But even
routine medications, routine procedures, there's always a risk with that.
(03:02):
That's why you have to sort of sign some paperwork
when you go to surgery and making sure that you're
aware that there's always potential for risk no matter what
surgeon you choose, whether it's here or Dallas or Houston
or M. D Anderson, there's always this risk, this little
grimlin risk running around that things may not work out
(03:25):
as discussed. But the thing you have to understand typically
as it pertains to medicine or surgery. You know, if
a surgeon offers you surgery, they're basically saying, hey, I'm
pretty sure I can get this, and you're going to
be in a better situation after this surgery and the
(03:46):
chances of something happening are very low. I mean, that's
really what you should think about when they offer it
to you. But it's nothing wrong with taking your time,
maybe getting a second opinion. Surgeons do that all the time.
They recommend you get a second opinion from another surgeon,
as well as medical doctors. I'm a medical doctor. I
(04:08):
don't perform any operations they recommend sometimes in certain situations,
maybe go to a consultant and see if they think
anything is different, change in medications, maybe do some additional testing.
I mean, it's sort of built into the system, and
I think it protects everyone certainly. It keeps most of
(04:30):
the situations, It keeps everybody happy, It keeps most of
the situations as honest as possible, because I'll be there's
always several different ways to approach one particular problem. And
depending on your practitioners' experience and mindset about a certain
disease process, or their impression about certain medications or diseases,
(04:53):
or how to manage it, which can be impacted by
so many different factors, you might get one answer or another.
I know, I talk to a lot of patients every day,
more so in the hospital, just a lot of times
when patients have an acute crises and acute medical illness
or acute medical trauma, as I say, you know, heart attack,
(05:15):
that's like a traumatic thing. I call that acute medical trauma.
But you know, patients get physical symptoms that sometimes they
don't know what's happening. One day they're good, the next
day they have some physical problem they're not quite sure
what it is, and so they enter the healthcare system
to try and get some answers, and they might go
(05:36):
here and get an answer and get a prescription. Then
it doesn't work, and then they might go back to
the same practitioner, go to different one, get a different
answer and get a different medicine, and so forth and
so on. Or even while they're kind of sitting in
the hospital emergency department, you know, they've seen the er physician,
they may have seen a couple of different nurses, and
(05:57):
there was a decision to put them in the hospital,
and then war doctors come and talking with them. It's
just all these different practitioners. My god, it can be
very very confusing to them and it's frustrating to get
all these different points of view. I know it is
because they just want one solid answer. They just want
(06:18):
to be better and get out of their live. Frank
from Beaumont, how can.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
We help you, hey, doctor Levine. I'm kind of a
beat up athlete like you may be. But yes, sir,
as you say, you're getting older, and of course your
muscle tone goes away and had me replacement, and you know,
you hear about all the different inflammatory medications and vitamins.
(06:48):
You can take word two or three that you suggest,
as far as say a bottoman or even some type
of medication that may help you deal with some of
the joint pain that you have as you get older
or you've had a lot of problems, like an athletes
from the past, just wondering if there's anything that you suggest.
(07:12):
I'll hang up and listen.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Thank you, all right, Frank, appreciate that. Yeah, if you
listen to my show, you know that my main recommendation
or I believe a lot in food as your medication,
and that the same thing with joint pain or fatigue
(07:37):
or most physical complaints that we have. Most of them
come from the fact that, unfortunately in this country, the
types of foods and beverages that we're drinking and consuming
every day tend to generate inflammation. In my opinion, based
on talking with patients and seeing patients, a lot of
(08:00):
it starts with food. Yes, I was a form athlete,
the call it was a form athlete, and yeah, you
get banged up sometimes in high school, college, if you
got to the professional level, you get banged up and
you are left with some joint complaints and you might
require some pharmaceutical medication, whether it be over the counter prescription,
(08:22):
to help you deal with that joint pain at that
joint stiffness. My point of view is if you want
to keep your symptoms to a minimum and you want
to preserve your joint function, then you typically have to
be healthy. If you are unhealthy, and that means eating
(08:46):
processed foods, what they call ultra processed foods. A lot
of the fast food that we eat every single day,
the packaged food that we consume every single day, and
we just, you know, we eat it just because nobody
else is eating it, and it's by two get one free,
and it's inexpensive, and it's convenient, and I just put
(09:09):
it in my air fryer. In five minutes, I got
a whole meal. I don't have to go back and forth.
I can put it in the freezer and just take
my package out. A lot of my elder patients get
to that point. Maybe their spouse died and they retired,
they don't know how to cook, and it's a convenient
way to eat. I get that, but again, a lot
(09:32):
of the experts are talking very heavily about these ultra
processed foods and these beverages that we're consuming that have
all these different chemicals in it to make it smell, taste,
and look a certain way. Even though it's sitting on
the shelf for three months five months a year until
you decide to drink it and heat it up. These
(09:54):
chemicals are starting to cause injury I would say micro
injury to the hum body. The human body don't know
what it is, and because of that, it generates our
turns on the inflammatory system. And one of the symptoms
of inflammatory system being churned on is joint pain, achiness, fatigue.
(10:16):
You know, when you get sick, you get covid, you
get the fluid, you feel you don't feel good, you
don't feel like you have energy, you feel achy. Well,
that's inflammatory system turned on. That's the symptom of the
inflammatory system being on. So when you're eating poorly normally,
it tends to generate inflammation. So, yeah, that knee injury
from football, or that shoulder injury from baseball, or elbow,
(10:39):
whatever the case may be, it gets intensified where all
of a sudden, man it's every day, it's more of
a stronger and because of that it will limit your
function and sometimes not allow you to sleep or use
that joint for whatever reason. Then you have to go
to the pharmacy and get something prescription. I go to
(11:00):
your healthcare professional get something more prescription. But my point
of view, and I truly believe in this because this
is what I see. If you are a healthy person
and you're eating the way you're supposed to be eating,
you're keeping your weight down because again weight gain in
and of itself, being obese, carrying excess calories around every
(11:21):
day another thing that turns on the inflammatory system and
increases joint pain. I have this conversation often in the
hospital and the office. When patients are overweight, they hurt.
They have knee pain, back pain, foot pain, neck pain, show.
I mean, they just hurt all over. They normally are
(11:44):
in chronic pain management. They normally are taking something chronically
for pain, various pain medicines just to treat the pain.
And it all has to do with just being overweight,
you know, because that is a stimulator of the inflammatory system. Obesity,
which a lot of Americans are suffering obesity right now,
(12:07):
which the chronic pain management section of the healthcare industry
is very robust. There's a lot, a lot of pain
out there in this country. Low back pain, that's a
big one. But if you ever find a solution to
lose weight, whether it be a surgery, an operation. The
(12:28):
diabetes medicines right now, the gop one agonists, a lot
of people coming familiar with that term. Gop one agonists
gotten that far right. It's become commonplace for common people
to talk about these medications of zempic munjaro with GOVI.
These are gop one agonists. It's a class of diabetes medications.
(12:51):
They help you lose weight. But when you lose weight,
the pain goes away. The pain goes away, and that's
what I'm saying. The call was asking about vitamins. The
vitamin dietary supplement world is very robust in our country,
very robust. A lot of people go to the vitamin
(13:11):
shop or the vitamin world or wherever they get their vitamins,
get them online, and they start taking vitamins because they know,
kind of in the back of the mind, I'm not
doing everything I can. I don't feel as good as
I can. I need something real, quick, fast, easy that
I can just do every day. It's simple, it's not complicated,
and make myself feel good about what I'm doing. I
(13:34):
guess my point of view on that, based on what
I do as a doctor every day and what I
see every day, is that just by taking this dietary supplement,
whether it be several in that dietary supplement, whether it
be a cream, a gel, a liquid, or spray, an injection,
whatever that is, it's not enough. In my opinion, It's
(13:59):
just not enough. You're going to have to do the
basic things right first. And in my opinion, based on
my understanding of how the human body reacts and behaves
to dietari supplements, you got to be healthy first. And
being healthy first starts with a healthy diet. The number
two being physically active. Those two things must happen. I
(14:21):
don't care what dita supplement you're using. Those two things
must happen if you want to be as healthy as possible.
You want your immune system of work, you want your
cardiovascal system to remain healthy. A dietary supplement that you
purchased over the counter or on a website that was
man made, manufactured, synthesized by some lab somewhere will never
(14:44):
be as good as the real thing. Vegetables, fresh fruit, nuts,
and seeds, I mean, real food and that's my big
answer to this caller. If you have joint pain and vitamins,
what's my top five things that I recommend In terms
of vitamins, I say, you gotta eat real food, and
(15:05):
number one, you gotta prioritize vegetables. That's really where all
those fighting hormones and fighting chemicals are in. All the
vegetables are out there, broccoli and cauliflower and spinach. And
Popeye had it right, right, he told us years ago,
what to do? You know? He just spinach and I
love that program. I'm gonna watched some of that today.
(15:26):
But anytime he needed extra strength, right, he would just
get his spinach, his hit and all of a sudden,
you have all this energy and he could just go
out and defend himself and do what he needed to do.
He had it right years ago. But yeah, back to that,
you gotta eat your vegetables, and you got to stay
away from the trash. The trash will cause more joint pain,
(15:49):
make you feel run down. Phone lines are open eight
nine six kvy. I won one hundred three three zero
O kofy. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
(16:12):
Welcome back to Stokraphy Medical our phone lines are open
eight nine six kov I one hundred and three to
three zero okov I give us a call. We'd love
to hear from your phone lines open. Sitting here talking
about vitamins and joint pain in arthritis. Great conversation and
a great topic. We have a lot of muscular sclar
(16:32):
issues as we get older. It's sort of part of
the aging process, and we get a lot of complaints
there in the office every day about joint pain. And
most of the time he adds back or shoulder or knees,
you know, the major joints, the big joints, and there's
honestly a lot of options sometimes when it comes to
(16:53):
how to manage the joint pain. But in terms of
like I say, of the vitamins that I recommend, vitamins
are in the foods that we should be eating on
a regular basis, and really no one argues about the
importance and the impotency of vegetables, which is what I
try to suggest and recommend to my patients all the
(17:14):
time that in my opinion, you know, our country and
in America, you know, we talk more about the protein
aspect of it. The meat. You know, what sort of
meat am I eating. Is it going to be chicken,
is going to be fish? Is it going to be
red meat or whatever the meat of the meal is
That that seems to be our priority in this country
(17:36):
is just what we're taught, and that's just how we're
set up. But based on my understanding of the human
body and what helps it function as well as possible,
there are just more things in vegetables that tend to
make the body function well, and the body tends to
(17:57):
react to that better in terms of your health. So
I always try to recommend patients prioritize vegetables every single day.
They should be consuming vegetables in some form or another.
And if you go to the produce section of the supermarket,
I mean there's a lot of different vegetables to eat.
We know some of the common basic ones that we
(18:19):
all grew up on. Green beans. I forgot about it.
I mean that's a great potent vegetable and you don't
even have to make it too complicated. I mean, just
to have green beans every day. I mean it's that simple.
I mean you take your ass when every day, you
take your plavix, every day, you take your blood pressure
medicine every day, same medicine, same dose, right, And it's
(18:40):
no different with food. If you can conceptualize as food
as being your medicine that you take every single day
to help your body function, that's really how you need
to think about it, because that's really all food is.
It's just energery, energy and nutrition and calories to make
your human machine operate. Like your vehicle. You know that
(19:02):
you bought your eighty thousand dollars suv. It's the best.
It's the brightest, it looks pretty, it smells good, it
drives nights, it's got all the electronic gizmos. When it
comes to repairing it, your mindset is, hey, I want
the best for my vehicle because I wanted to operate
the best. I don't want it breaking down on me.
(19:23):
I don't want to have to bring it to the shop.
I want to drive it as long as possible. Right,
So the best oil, right, the best gasoline. You invest
a lot of money into making sure this vehicle is
looking and smelling and operating the way it should as advertised.
(19:44):
When you purchased it, you purchased a dream, right, you
purchased an experience of owning this vehicle. But you have
to spend some time and invest some time into ensuring
that experience and making sure it lasts as long as
p right at eighty thousand dollars, it's going to last
a long time. I remember when cars or fifteen thousand dollars,
(20:08):
ten thousand dollars a man. Now they're super high. So
the human body is no different as it pertains to
how to react to your habits right. If you treat
it poorly, then your body is going to be sick
and ill most of the time. You're not going to
look a certain way, you're not going to function a
certain way, and you normally will just not have the
(20:32):
sensation that you want, that that energetic feeling like you
can do everything. You can pick up anything that you
ask your body to do. That requires some investment, normally
on your part as the owner of the body, to
do what you need to do. And consuming vegetables and
eliminating the trashy substances is the one thing that I
(20:56):
recommend to my patience that can be difficult to do
for a lot of different reasons, and that's another discussion.
But you have to learn how to incorporate some of
these items into your dietary habits every single day. And again,
just maybe serving of vegetables like green beans or a
spinach salad can be a good idea, or some serving
(21:22):
of a broccoli or cauliflower. And again, a lot of
times this stuff is very easy to work with. You
just go buy it and you maybe steam it or
maybe put it in a pan and saute it, or
just eat it raw. I do that a lot of
times to get that from Jason Staley. They have a
good salad bar and we'll get broccoli and cauliflower, cucumbers,
(21:45):
radishes and just eat that. And I mean it fills
you up very, very rapidly. I mean it would be
difficult to overconsume this stuff because it's real food. Can
sit down and eat a whole bag of chips and
still feel hungry. You can sit down and eat two
(22:06):
three bowls of breakfast cereal and in a couple hours
you're hungry, you're ready to eat again. And that's the point,
is that that cereal contains a lot of calories, and
every time you're putting something in your mouth, typically it
has calories, and our body only needs so many calories
per day. And if you're over consuming calories, then that
(22:27):
inflames your body, It injures your body, and you will
start to feel bad. That joint pain will start to escalate.
You're not quite sure why you feel the way you do.
It's a little confusing, but again in my experience talking
with thousands of patients every year and with all the
(22:49):
reading and just my exposure to what I see in
the hospital, it makes sense to me that if you
don't feel well, men, you've got to focus on that
diet and see what you can change about that. The
sugary beverages, that's another big area that we all need
to work on, just all the different coffee beverages out there,
(23:11):
the soda beverages, the energy drinks, the sports beverages. I mean,
it's just an enormous industry. But at the end of
the day, to never get away from water, water water water,
right anytime you're drinking sugar every single day, whether it
(23:31):
be the creamer in your coffee or the sugary tea
that you consume at the restaurant, or you go out
and buy your big, huge, humongous container of orange juice
with the pulp that's quote natural or it's organic. You know,
(23:52):
they have all these buds buzzwords out there for us
to look at that will sort of make us buy
just because it says the right thing. Gluten free, sugar free,
calorie free, just all these different terms they put on
the packaging so that you will say, yes, this is
(24:14):
right for me. Again, there's a lot of times hidden
ingredients or the labeling is a little misleading to get
you to purchase the item. But at the end of
the day, you know, if you are consuming sugary beverages,
that's another, in my opinion, habit that will generate obesity,
(24:37):
it will generate inflammation, it will generate a ill filling.
Which is a little bit confusing because a lot of people,
when they want to get healthy, one thing they says,
I'm gonna get some orange juice. I'm gonna get some
juice of this nature, and they're drinking soda. But now
they switch the juice because they think they're doing the
right thing. But juice is no different from soda. The
(25:00):
sugar content, calorie content, it's just sort of this highly
concentrated amount of sugar. A lot of times there's some synthetics,
sugars in there, some artificial sweeteners are in there. And
again every once in a while, I'll find but a
lot of people will start to make this their primary
beverage where they're drinking it every day, multiple times a day,
(25:23):
and that can be not a good thing for you
and generate joint paints. As patient mentioned. So the message
of the day is look at your diet and see
what you're doing, and see if anything can be cleaned
up a lot of times. Again, getting the sugar out
of your life is one step. And again, this whole
(25:45):
concept of intermittent fasting, I don't mention it a lot,
but the idea that you can go several hours without
eating anything, which is hard in our country because there's
so much food available to you within reach that tastes
good that it's hard to not eat it. At the
(26:07):
job site, there's just food everywhere's free. You can eat
as much as you want. No one's monitoring you. Same
thing with beverages. You know, somebody brought some donuts to
the office with some sugary coffee or these sugary beverages
that are out there juice, you know, and you just
go grab it and eat it and drink it. It's
(26:29):
free and you can have as much as you want.
Man it's hard to say no to that stuff, but
certainly the human body, in my opinion, needs a little
rest from the foods and the beverages that we're consuming.
It needs some rest. And when again you're over consuming,
constantly consuming food and beverage throughout the day, I think
(26:51):
it injures the body. You can go several hours without
eating and your body will be fine. The research is
out there. It's very obvious that this fasting state, meaning
you have not eaten in six eight hours, is a
very healthy approach to your health. I know from the
(27:13):
time I was taught about eating and drinking, it's three
meals a day, right, breakfast, lunch, dinner, So it just
sort of got incorporated into us that we have to
eat at these times of day. But in my opinion,
based on what I know now, I think it's too much.
We just don't need it. Our society is set up
so that we don't really need to burn a lot
(27:34):
of calories. Most of the time we're either sitting or
some machine is doing most of the workforce. We're not
expending a lot of energy, and so you don't need
to consume a lot of energy for your body to operate.
Throughout the day. And again when you overconsume, that's what
generates injury to your body. That's what generates the pain,
the fatigue, and the weight gain. And you have to
(27:57):
give your body some time to rest and intermittent fasting
paradigm that's been popular in the past year or two.
I really agree with that, and your body tends to
function better when there's not a whole bunch of food
sitting in your belly. I have that feeling a lot
of times throughout the day. You know, my energy is up,
(28:19):
everything is working, and then the minute I eat something,
I can feel it. Energy just goes down. Could go
down a little bit, but it does go down. Versus
if I kind of push through the day, don't eat,
my energy stays high and focused sharp. That's why a
lot of times where these energy drinks came from about
(28:40):
years ago, people would eat the big lunch, you know,
whether it be a sandwich or chips or whatever the case,
and be they eat about noon, maybe go get that
salad and breadsticks, you know, load up on all those carbs.
Then about two o'clock, man, boom the big fatigue crash, right,
And I think it's the reason for that is just
(29:02):
because your body is reacting poorly to all of these
starches and foods that you are consuming at lunch and
then you sort of fear fatigue sets in or your
energy goes down. You're looking for something to pick you
up right. And that's where the whole energy drink beverage
industry came from, which is very popular. So give your
body arrest. You don't have to eat as often as possible.
(29:25):
That's how these golp one agonists work very well. It
allows you to go several hours without consuming or eating
anything and be happy about it. We've all heard the
term angry right when you hadn't had anything to eat
and to get edgy and angry and just chopp You
just want to eat. You gotta eat that hunger feeling.
(29:45):
For a lot of people is just very uncomfortable. It's
hard to push through that and so they have to
eat something. But these GOLP one agonists would go v
and munjaro o zimpic. They allow you to go throughout
the day and feel fine even though you haven't eaten
all day. Now weight starts coming off, you start feeling better.
(30:06):
PreCure starts falling, cholesterol starts falling, it's amazing. Phone lines
are open eight down six kalv. I won one hundred
three to three zero kV. I'll be back in two minutes.
All right, welcome back to talk with me, matag. Our
phone lines are open eight nine six klv. I won
eight hundred three three zero ki Kov. I would love
(30:29):
to hear from you, Hey, Nick, from self, how can
we help you?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yes, sir. Sometimes I have a bad line on this side,
so if it gets too bad, I may have to
get off of something. But let me tell you what
a problem is that has bothered me for some time,
and I'm sure it's going to bother me again in
the future. I get terrible anxiety whenever I am scheduled
to have an MRI, and I literally literally do not
(30:57):
know how to handle.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
It well most of the time, Nick, in that situation,
because that's common. You know, the MRI is that machine.
It's the tube that you have to go into. There's
the cat scan, which is basically a white circle or
(31:18):
donut is what I call it, meaning it's pretty open.
You just sort of go in and out. The MRI
is as a tube, So a lot of people can
handle going into this tube like that and it's claustrophobic
and sometimes can be dark. They've tried to make it
(31:39):
as easy as possible to tolerate it. They have some
music playing. I think they put some mirrorphones on you
or oh.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
They even have movies and TV set up with some
goggles and everything.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, they have a mirror where you can look out,
and I mean they've done their job to try and
make it tolerable and less claustrophobic. But just like you said,
some people still have anxiety most of the time. Nick
would just give a sedative is what we do, like
valium or xenax or alpraislam, clanza pam. These are what
(32:12):
we call benzo diazepenes. These are sedatives and that's what
we mainly do. So if you know that you're claustrophobic,
you know that it's going to generate some anxiety going
into the machine, then we'll give you a prescription for
a one time tablet of either valium or xenax or
(32:32):
whatever sedative your practitioner likes to use.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
That's what we'll Yeah, I've had that. I've had that
once before and it was I don't really know if
it helped or not. It's just I guess I've got
it's said in my mind that I just can't handle
these MRIs. The claustrophobic feeling is basically what it is,
and I'm sure there's lore MRIs around the corner, and
I want to be able to handle.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It right absolutely. If the sedative that was chosen for
you didn't work, there's others and there's different dosages, so
you might want to talk to a health care provider
about maybe increasing it or changing it to try something
different to get you to relax a little bit more.
And we're not trying to make you go to sleep.
(33:17):
We're just trying to take the edge off with that medication.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Okay, what's the drawback if a patient does go to sleep?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Well, no, let me let me rephrase that. We're not
trying to make you unconscious or knock you out. I
guess that's what I'm saying. Going to sleep, I think
is fine. Going to sleep is fine. I guess I've
used that term incorrectly. What some patients are looking for
is they want to be completely out. They don't want
to be conscious, they don't want to be aware of
(33:48):
what's going on, and that's a deeper sedation that tends
to expose patients to a lot of cardiovascular respiratory risk,
meaning you might style breathing, your blood pressure might fall,
your heart rate might fall, and that's difficult to manage
in an MRI machine because normally you can't have anything
(34:10):
in there. It's just you and the machine, and if
something like that happens, that's sort of a catastrophe. So
we're trying to avoid stuff like that, and we're trying
to find a sweet spot where we give you medication
just sort of takes the edge off, but you're still awake,
you're still breathing, because sometimes the technician of the MR
(34:30):
machine gives you instructions while you're there in the machine
to do this or do that, and if you know,
you can't follow commands and you're too sedated, you're too confused,
and sometimes it can't work that way either. So we're
just sort of looking for a sweet spot. And that's
what I've found works for me is value at that
dose maybe five or ten milligrams. But your practitioner might
(34:53):
have different medications that they can give you. Some patients
have asked if they can be knocked out, like with
Anna Stea. It's not something we normally do. Again, for
the reasons I just mentioned, it's it's not there's no
system set up to do that very easily where we
can sort of knock you out or paralyze you or
make you unconscious. They're in an MRI machine and do
(35:15):
it safely without any complications. We haven't developed that sort
of system yet. And that's now.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Doesn't the dentist have a good record of making people
comfortable when they get in the chair.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
That's right, But the dentist is there with you and
they are trained to dial up the sedation just right
and you're still awake. And these medicines that they're using
have low risk. But when you're in an mr I machine,
(35:49):
it's just you and the machine, like no one else
can be in there typically. And again the more you
try and se data patient, the more risk there is
a respiratory cardiovascular arm And again, we just haven't gotten
to the level where we feel like an MRI is
the right environment to do that. And the dentists have
(36:11):
been using station for many years. But they're right there
on the scene. I mean, they're they're close to you,
and they have to control of the machine and they've
sort of figured that out. We just haven't been able
to do that with MRIs.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
What's the best substitute for MRIs.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Well, normally, if you can't be sedated, then they try
to get what they call an open MRI, which the
concept is that it's not a tube, and if it
is a tube, it's a big tube. They have some
MRIs where you can actually sit upright erect in the
MRI machine. We might have one of those here in
(36:51):
Southeast Texas, but I'm assuming with MRI technology, as it
gets better, yes, they will have more of those options
where you're not in the tube. Maybe it is more
quote open so that you're not anxious. But if an
MRI cannot be done, we normally do CT scan. And
again CT scan is sort of a white circle, so
(37:11):
you're not enclosed, you're just sort of going through this circle.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah, and yes, and.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So normally we'll just settle for a CAT scan and
that a lot of times will give us enough information.
I mean, the MRI gives us extreme clarity when looking
at certain organs and certain organ beds like the brain
and muscles and tendons. I mean you can see it
(37:41):
with clear clarity. Cat scans are are okay, but the
MRIs are the best at giving us a really good
picture of that. Okay, all right, doctor Levin, thank you appreciated. Nick.
These these situations come up every single day in the
hospital setting, of course, as well as the office. We
(38:04):
need to get X rays and we're trying to decide
cat scan MRI, and normally for MRI that's more of
the sort of the soft tissue X ray. CAT scan
is as well, but the MRI is probably the best
at that. Normally, for cat scans when we use those,
(38:27):
it's more of the chest area or the abdominal area.
We use cat scans for that. But if you've ever
had symptoms of a stroke or a headache, you know
you get your CAT scan of your head first because
it's an easier modality, can be done very easily. As
I just mentioned MRI as a tube, and it's just
more prep that you have to go through. It takes
(38:48):
longer to get patients in an MRI machine versus a
CAT scan, So normally cat scans are done faster, quicker, easier.
MRI takes all the time. But we juggle with these
options all the time, and I'm glad we have these
options in this country. If phone lines are open eight
nine six kalvy out one one hundred and three to
three zero kalvy. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
(39:20):
welcome back to doctaby Medical Power phone lens or open
eight nine six kovat one hundred three three zero koa at.
Coming towards the end of the program, time goes by fast, rapidly.
I want to thank all the callers and the listeners.
And again, if there's a topic that you would like
me to discuss, either call my office so you can
call the radio station. And we've been more than happy
(39:42):
to discuss these topics. A lot of topics to talk
about today. We talked about those vaccines, those pesky vaccines,
right blue season's coming up, and all these resiratory viruses
out there. And the main thing is that it offers
you protection is because as you get old, that immune
system gets worse and worse and worse. We become more
(40:03):
immuno compromised, as they say, and as because of the
same reason for aging, the heart doesn't work as well,
the kidneys don't work as well. I mean, the machine
is not as strong. So we need protection and vaccines.
In my opinion, are a form of protection, a way
to lessen the severity of these diseases so that you
(40:26):
don't have to be hospitalized. Maybe get some meds over
the counter, maybe get a few meds from your health
care provider, and then that's it. You're done with, you know,
not in the hospital on the ventilator, on a kidney
machine that really really can knock you down. I hear
this conversation all the time from family members, where hey,
so and so was upcutting his grass, driving high functioning yesterday,
(40:50):
and now he's in the hospital looking pretty bad. And again,
a lot of times it comes down to just being vaccinated.
So go get your vaccines. If you haven't had any,
can get it from a healthcare professional, you can get
it from the local pharmacy. But we do believe in
those vaccines. Yeah, you might have a little arm pain,
you might even have a little fever, but certainly the
(41:13):
risk is lower than the benefit. So there, we're big
believers in that. And certainly, yes, if we also talked
about joint pain, which is super super super common chronic
pain in this country for a lot of different reasons. Again,
in my opinion, some of that is unavoidable, just as
we get older muscle skull system whereas out and we
(41:34):
get a little bit more joint instability, more breakdown of
that joint that need might be unstable, that neck, that back.
And yes, we need little help with sometimes pharmaceutical products,
whether it be topical oral. We all know about motri
and advila leave. There's voltaire in jail, which is a
(41:54):
anti inflammatory gel that you can rub on the specific
joint when it's hurting. That can be of benefit. But
certainly if you're unhealthy, if you're unhealthy because you're eating poorly,
you're overweight, you're smoking, you're drinking alcohol all the time,
you tend to have more severe muscular skeletal complaints that
(42:18):
are refractory to prescription medications a lot of times. And
if you can clean up your diet and clean up
your health a lot of times, that will help control
your joint pain so that it's not as severe, you
don't lose the function of the joint. And no, I
do not agree that you just adding some dietary supplements
(42:42):
in your routine, something you saw online, something of a
friend gave you, or you went to the store and
got it. That does not do it. You have to
do the right things first, and that is eat a
healthy diet and get that sugar, especially those sugary bears
bridges out of your life. It's hard to do because
(43:04):
they're everywhere. They taste good. We grew up drinking it.
I mean, why is it poisoned all of a sudden.
But again, your body changes human dynamically and changes metabolical
as you get older, and it's just a little too
much for the human body and it reacts negatively. That's
when you don't feel as well. So drink that water,
(43:25):
eat it. You come. We'll see you guys next week.
Take care, God bless Uti
Good morning, Good morning, good morning. This is doctor Levine
of the Doctor Levine Medical Hour, coming to you live
from the studios of KLVI here in Beaumont, Texas, cross
the street from Parkdale Mall on a Saturday morning. Beautiful weather,
so far taking your phone calls answering questions about healthcare,
medicine as we see it, So give us a call.
(00:23):
We'd love to hear from your two way radio. We're
just trying to help you get some answers and figure
out what is the right way to stay alive as
long as possible, as healthy as possible without having to
take a ton of medications or go to the hospital
all the time, or maybe just see a doctor once
a month. Scratch that once a year. Nobody wants to
(00:48):
go once a month. Once a year. Yeah, I just
have that annual and stay healthy and feel good because yeah,
somebody lied to us a long time ago said getting
older the golden years. Let me tell you it requires work,
a little bit of work. You got to put some
work into. You can't just wake up and do things
(01:10):
like you wear when you're nineteen and twenty. That's when
it's real easy. Your body is strong and new and
fresh and growing and heals well and strong. It's got endurance.
As you get older, all that goes away. You have
low endurance. It's a weak sort of machine, and it's
(01:34):
vulnerable to injury. So you've got to put more time
into it. And it's sort of difficult sometime to figure
out what's the right thing to do. So many people
telling you what to do, so much information out there,
it's unclear. So that's what we're here for to try
and help you figure that out. Phone line to open
(01:57):
eight nine to six kilva one hundred three three zero
kill V. I normally that, as you know, we discuss vaccines.
We're getting into flu season next month, and seems like
there's always controversy about that. And this is America. We
(02:18):
love choice, we love discussion, and we don't always agree,
and I think that that's why we love this country
so much. We have the right to disagree and discuss
other options or other thoughts. Keeps everything as honest as possible,
and vaccines is no different. So there's been a lot
(02:41):
of talk about vaccines and the media recently seems like
it never goes away. We got a lot of conversation
during COVID, but yeah, we believe in vaccines, or at
least I do we being the medical community. But even
routine medications, routine procedures, there's always a risk with that.
(03:02):
That's why you have to sort of sign some paperwork
when you go to surgery and making sure that you're
aware that there's always potential for risk no matter what
surgeon you choose, whether it's here or Dallas or Houston
or M. D Anderson, there's always this risk, this little
grimlin risk running around that things may not work out
(03:25):
as discussed. But the thing you have to understand typically
as it pertains to medicine or surgery. You know, if
a surgeon offers you surgery, they're basically saying, hey, I'm
pretty sure I can get this, and you're going to
be in a better situation after this surgery and the
(03:46):
chances of something happening are very low. I mean, that's
really what you should think about when they offer it
to you. But it's nothing wrong with taking your time,
maybe getting a second opinion. Surgeons do that all the time.
They recommend you get a second opinion from another surgeon,
as well as medical doctors. I'm a medical doctor. I
(04:08):
don't perform any operations they recommend sometimes in certain situations,
maybe go to a consultant and see if they think
anything is different, change in medications, maybe do some additional testing.
I mean, it's sort of built into the system, and
I think it protects everyone certainly. It keeps most of
(04:30):
the situations, It keeps everybody happy, It keeps most of
the situations as honest as possible, because I'll be there's
always several different ways to approach one particular problem. And
depending on your practitioners' experience and mindset about a certain
disease process, or their impression about certain medications or diseases,
(04:53):
or how to manage it, which can be impacted by
so many different factors, you might get one answer or another.
I know, I talk to a lot of patients every day,
more so in the hospital, just a lot of times
when patients have an acute crises and acute medical illness
or acute medical trauma, as I say, you know, heart attack,
(05:15):
that's like a traumatic thing. I call that acute medical trauma.
But you know, patients get physical symptoms that sometimes they
don't know what's happening. One day they're good, the next
day they have some physical problem they're not quite sure
what it is, and so they enter the healthcare system
to try and get some answers, and they might go
(05:36):
here and get an answer and get a prescription. Then
it doesn't work, and then they might go back to
the same practitioner, go to different one, get a different
answer and get a different medicine, and so forth and
so on. Or even while they're kind of sitting in
the hospital emergency department, you know, they've seen the er physician,
they may have seen a couple of different nurses, and
(05:57):
there was a decision to put them in the hospital,
and then war doctors come and talking with them. It's
just all these different practitioners. My god, it can be
very very confusing to them and it's frustrating to get
all these different points of view. I know it is
because they just want one solid answer. They just want
(06:18):
to be better and get out of their live. Frank
from Beaumont, how can.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
We help you, hey, doctor Levine. I'm kind of a
beat up athlete like you may be. But yes, sir,
as you say, you're getting older, and of course your
muscle tone goes away and had me replacement, and you know,
you hear about all the different inflammatory medications and vitamins.
(06:48):
You can take word two or three that you suggest,
as far as say a bottoman or even some type
of medication that may help you deal with some of
the joint pain that you have as you get older
or you've had a lot of problems, like an athletes
from the past, just wondering if there's anything that you suggest.
(07:12):
I'll hang up and listen.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Thank you, all right, Frank, appreciate that. Yeah, if you
listen to my show, you know that my main recommendation
or I believe a lot in food as your medication,
and that the same thing with joint pain or fatigue
(07:37):
or most physical complaints that we have. Most of them
come from the fact that, unfortunately in this country, the
types of foods and beverages that we're drinking and consuming
every day tend to generate inflammation. In my opinion, based
on talking with patients and seeing patients, a lot of
(08:00):
it starts with food. Yes, I was a form athlete,
the call it was a form athlete, and yeah, you
get banged up sometimes in high school, college, if you
got to the professional level, you get banged up and
you are left with some joint complaints and you might
require some pharmaceutical medication, whether it be over the counter prescription,
(08:22):
to help you deal with that joint pain at that
joint stiffness. My point of view is if you want
to keep your symptoms to a minimum and you want
to preserve your joint function, then you typically have to
be healthy. If you are unhealthy, and that means eating
(08:46):
processed foods, what they call ultra processed foods. A lot
of the fast food that we eat every single day,
the packaged food that we consume every single day, and
we just, you know, we eat it just because nobody
else is eating it, and it's by two get one free,
and it's inexpensive, and it's convenient, and I just put
(09:09):
it in my air fryer. In five minutes, I got
a whole meal. I don't have to go back and forth.
I can put it in the freezer and just take
my package out. A lot of my elder patients get
to that point. Maybe their spouse died and they retired,
they don't know how to cook, and it's a convenient
way to eat. I get that, but again, a lot
(09:32):
of the experts are talking very heavily about these ultra
processed foods and these beverages that we're consuming that have
all these different chemicals in it to make it smell, taste,
and look a certain way. Even though it's sitting on
the shelf for three months five months a year until
you decide to drink it and heat it up. These
(09:54):
chemicals are starting to cause injury I would say micro
injury to the hum body. The human body don't know
what it is, and because of that, it generates our
turns on the inflammatory system. And one of the symptoms
of inflammatory system being churned on is joint pain, achiness, fatigue.
(10:16):
You know, when you get sick, you get covid, you
get the fluid, you feel you don't feel good, you
don't feel like you have energy, you feel achy. Well,
that's inflammatory system turned on. That's the symptom of the
inflammatory system being on. So when you're eating poorly normally,
it tends to generate inflammation. So, yeah, that knee injury
from football, or that shoulder injury from baseball, or elbow,
(10:39):
whatever the case may be, it gets intensified where all
of a sudden, man it's every day, it's more of
a stronger and because of that it will limit your
function and sometimes not allow you to sleep or use
that joint for whatever reason. Then you have to go
to the pharmacy and get something prescription. I go to
(11:00):
your healthcare professional get something more prescription. But my point
of view, and I truly believe in this because this
is what I see. If you are a healthy person
and you're eating the way you're supposed to be eating,
you're keeping your weight down because again weight gain in
and of itself, being obese, carrying excess calories around every
(11:21):
day another thing that turns on the inflammatory system and
increases joint pain. I have this conversation often in the
hospital and the office. When patients are overweight, they hurt.
They have knee pain, back pain, foot pain, neck pain, show.
I mean, they just hurt all over. They normally are
(11:44):
in chronic pain management. They normally are taking something chronically
for pain, various pain medicines just to treat the pain.
And it all has to do with just being overweight,
you know, because that is a stimulator of the inflammatory system. Obesity,
which a lot of Americans are suffering obesity right now,
(12:07):
which the chronic pain management section of the healthcare industry
is very robust. There's a lot, a lot of pain
out there in this country. Low back pain, that's a
big one. But if you ever find a solution to
lose weight, whether it be a surgery, an operation. The
(12:28):
diabetes medicines right now, the gop one agonists, a lot
of people coming familiar with that term. Gop one agonists
gotten that far right. It's become commonplace for common people
to talk about these medications of zempic munjaro with GOVI.
These are gop one agonists. It's a class of diabetes medications.
(12:51):
They help you lose weight. But when you lose weight,
the pain goes away. The pain goes away, and that's
what I'm saying. The call was asking about vitamins. The
vitamin dietary supplement world is very robust in our country,
very robust. A lot of people go to the vitamin
(13:11):
shop or the vitamin world or wherever they get their vitamins,
get them online, and they start taking vitamins because they know,
kind of in the back of the mind, I'm not
doing everything I can. I don't feel as good as
I can. I need something real, quick, fast, easy that
I can just do every day. It's simple, it's not complicated,
and make myself feel good about what I'm doing. I
(13:34):
guess my point of view on that, based on what
I do as a doctor every day and what I
see every day, is that just by taking this dietary supplement,
whether it be several in that dietary supplement, whether it
be a cream, a gel, a liquid, or spray, an injection,
whatever that is, it's not enough. In my opinion, It's
(13:59):
just not enough. You're going to have to do the
basic things right first. And in my opinion, based on
my understanding of how the human body reacts and behaves
to dietari supplements, you got to be healthy first. And
being healthy first starts with a healthy diet. The number
two being physically active. Those two things must happen. I
(14:21):
don't care what dita supplement you're using. Those two things
must happen if you want to be as healthy as possible.
You want your immune system of work, you want your
cardiovascal system to remain healthy. A dietary supplement that you
purchased over the counter or on a website that was
man made, manufactured, synthesized by some lab somewhere will never
(14:44):
be as good as the real thing. Vegetables, fresh fruit, nuts,
and seeds, I mean, real food and that's my big
answer to this caller. If you have joint pain and vitamins,
what's my top five things that I recommend In terms
of vitamins, I say, you gotta eat real food, and
(15:05):
number one, you gotta prioritize vegetables. That's really where all
those fighting hormones and fighting chemicals are in. All the
vegetables are out there, broccoli and cauliflower and spinach. And
Popeye had it right, right, he told us years ago,
what to do? You know? He just spinach and I
love that program. I'm gonna watched some of that today.
(15:26):
But anytime he needed extra strength, right, he would just
get his spinach, his hit and all of a sudden,
you have all this energy and he could just go
out and defend himself and do what he needed to do.
He had it right years ago. But yeah, back to that,
you gotta eat your vegetables, and you got to stay
away from the trash. The trash will cause more joint pain,
(15:49):
make you feel run down. Phone lines are open eight
nine six kvy. I won one hundred three three zero
O kofy. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
(16:12):
Welcome back to Stokraphy Medical our phone lines are open
eight nine six kov I one hundred and three to
three zero okov I give us a call. We'd love
to hear from your phone lines open. Sitting here talking
about vitamins and joint pain in arthritis. Great conversation and
a great topic. We have a lot of muscular sclar
(16:32):
issues as we get older. It's sort of part of
the aging process, and we get a lot of complaints
there in the office every day about joint pain. And
most of the time he adds back or shoulder or knees,
you know, the major joints, the big joints, and there's
honestly a lot of options sometimes when it comes to
(16:53):
how to manage the joint pain. But in terms of
like I say, of the vitamins that I recommend, vitamins
are in the foods that we should be eating on
a regular basis, and really no one argues about the
importance and the impotency of vegetables, which is what I
try to suggest and recommend to my patients all the
(17:14):
time that in my opinion, you know, our country and
in America, you know, we talk more about the protein
aspect of it. The meat. You know, what sort of
meat am I eating. Is it going to be chicken,
is going to be fish? Is it going to be
red meat or whatever the meat of the meal is
That that seems to be our priority in this country
(17:36):
is just what we're taught, and that's just how we're
set up. But based on my understanding of the human
body and what helps it function as well as possible,
there are just more things in vegetables that tend to
make the body function well, and the body tends to
(17:57):
react to that better in terms of your health. So
I always try to recommend patients prioritize vegetables every single day.
They should be consuming vegetables in some form or another.
And if you go to the produce section of the supermarket,
I mean there's a lot of different vegetables to eat.
We know some of the common basic ones that we
(18:19):
all grew up on. Green beans. I forgot about it.
I mean that's a great potent vegetable and you don't
even have to make it too complicated. I mean, just
to have green beans every day. I mean it's that simple.
I mean you take your ass when every day, you
take your plavix, every day, you take your blood pressure
medicine every day, same medicine, same dose, right, And it's
(18:40):
no different with food. If you can conceptualize as food
as being your medicine that you take every single day
to help your body function, that's really how you need
to think about it, because that's really all food is.
It's just energery, energy and nutrition and calories to make
your human machine operate. Like your vehicle. You know that
(19:02):
you bought your eighty thousand dollars suv. It's the best.
It's the brightest, it looks pretty, it smells good, it
drives nights, it's got all the electronic gizmos. When it
comes to repairing it, your mindset is, hey, I want
the best for my vehicle because I wanted to operate
the best. I don't want it breaking down on me.
(19:23):
I don't want to have to bring it to the shop.
I want to drive it as long as possible. Right,
So the best oil, right, the best gasoline. You invest
a lot of money into making sure this vehicle is
looking and smelling and operating the way it should as advertised.
(19:44):
When you purchased it, you purchased a dream, right, you
purchased an experience of owning this vehicle. But you have
to spend some time and invest some time into ensuring
that experience and making sure it lasts as long as
p right at eighty thousand dollars, it's going to last
a long time. I remember when cars or fifteen thousand dollars,
(20:08):
ten thousand dollars a man. Now they're super high. So
the human body is no different as it pertains to
how to react to your habits right. If you treat
it poorly, then your body is going to be sick
and ill most of the time. You're not going to
look a certain way, you're not going to function a
certain way, and you normally will just not have the
(20:32):
sensation that you want, that that energetic feeling like you
can do everything. You can pick up anything that you
ask your body to do. That requires some investment, normally
on your part as the owner of the body, to
do what you need to do. And consuming vegetables and
eliminating the trashy substances is the one thing that I
(20:56):
recommend to my patience that can be difficult to do
for a lot of different reasons, and that's another discussion.
But you have to learn how to incorporate some of
these items into your dietary habits every single day. And again,
just maybe serving of vegetables like green beans or a
spinach salad can be a good idea, or some serving
(21:22):
of a broccoli or cauliflower. And again, a lot of
times this stuff is very easy to work with. You
just go buy it and you maybe steam it or
maybe put it in a pan and saute it, or
just eat it raw. I do that a lot of
times to get that from Jason Staley. They have a
good salad bar and we'll get broccoli and cauliflower, cucumbers,
(21:45):
radishes and just eat that. And I mean it fills
you up very, very rapidly. I mean it would be
difficult to overconsume this stuff because it's real food. Can
sit down and eat a whole bag of chips and
still feel hungry. You can sit down and eat two
(22:06):
three bowls of breakfast cereal and in a couple hours
you're hungry, you're ready to eat again. And that's the point,
is that that cereal contains a lot of calories, and
every time you're putting something in your mouth, typically it
has calories, and our body only needs so many calories
per day. And if you're over consuming calories, then that
(22:27):
inflames your body, It injures your body, and you will
start to feel bad. That joint pain will start to escalate.
You're not quite sure why you feel the way you do.
It's a little confusing, but again in my experience talking
with thousands of patients every year and with all the
(22:49):
reading and just my exposure to what I see in
the hospital, it makes sense to me that if you
don't feel well, men, you've got to focus on that
diet and see what you can change about that. The
sugary beverages, that's another big area that we all need
to work on, just all the different coffee beverages out there,
(23:11):
the soda beverages, the energy drinks, the sports beverages. I mean,
it's just an enormous industry. But at the end of
the day, to never get away from water, water water water,
right anytime you're drinking sugar every single day, whether it
(23:31):
be the creamer in your coffee or the sugary tea
that you consume at the restaurant, or you go out
and buy your big, huge, humongous container of orange juice
with the pulp that's quote natural or it's organic. You know,
(23:52):
they have all these buds buzzwords out there for us
to look at that will sort of make us buy
just because it says the right thing. Gluten free, sugar free,
calorie free, just all these different terms they put on
the packaging so that you will say, yes, this is
(24:14):
right for me. Again, there's a lot of times hidden
ingredients or the labeling is a little misleading to get
you to purchase the item. But at the end of
the day, you know, if you are consuming sugary beverages,
that's another, in my opinion, habit that will generate obesity,
(24:37):
it will generate inflammation, it will generate a ill filling.
Which is a little bit confusing because a lot of people,
when they want to get healthy, one thing they says,
I'm gonna get some orange juice. I'm gonna get some
juice of this nature, and they're drinking soda. But now
they switch the juice because they think they're doing the
right thing. But juice is no different from soda. The
(25:00):
sugar content, calorie content, it's just sort of this highly
concentrated amount of sugar. A lot of times there's some synthetics,
sugars in there, some artificial sweeteners are in there. And
again every once in a while, I'll find but a
lot of people will start to make this their primary
beverage where they're drinking it every day, multiple times a day,
(25:23):
and that can be not a good thing for you
and generate joint paints. As patient mentioned. So the message
of the day is look at your diet and see
what you're doing, and see if anything can be cleaned
up a lot of times. Again, getting the sugar out
of your life is one step. And again, this whole
(25:45):
concept of intermittent fasting, I don't mention it a lot,
but the idea that you can go several hours without
eating anything, which is hard in our country because there's
so much food available to you within reach that tastes
good that it's hard to not eat it. At the
(26:07):
job site, there's just food everywhere's free. You can eat
as much as you want. No one's monitoring you. Same
thing with beverages. You know, somebody brought some donuts to
the office with some sugary coffee or these sugary beverages
that are out there juice, you know, and you just
go grab it and eat it and drink it. It's
(26:29):
free and you can have as much as you want.
Man it's hard to say no to that stuff, but
certainly the human body, in my opinion, needs a little
rest from the foods and the beverages that we're consuming.
It needs some rest. And when again you're over consuming,
constantly consuming food and beverage throughout the day, I think
(26:51):
it injures the body. You can go several hours without
eating and your body will be fine. The research is
out there. It's very obvious that this fasting state, meaning
you have not eaten in six eight hours, is a
very healthy approach to your health. I know from the
(27:13):
time I was taught about eating and drinking, it's three
meals a day, right, breakfast, lunch, dinner, So it just
sort of got incorporated into us that we have to
eat at these times of day. But in my opinion,
based on what I know now, I think it's too much.
We just don't need it. Our society is set up
so that we don't really need to burn a lot
(27:34):
of calories. Most of the time we're either sitting or
some machine is doing most of the workforce. We're not
expending a lot of energy, and so you don't need
to consume a lot of energy for your body to operate.
Throughout the day. And again when you overconsume, that's what
generates injury to your body. That's what generates the pain,
the fatigue, and the weight gain. And you have to
(27:57):
give your body some time to rest and intermittent fasting
paradigm that's been popular in the past year or two.
I really agree with that, and your body tends to
function better when there's not a whole bunch of food
sitting in your belly. I have that feeling a lot
of times throughout the day. You know, my energy is up,
(28:19):
everything is working, and then the minute I eat something,
I can feel it. Energy just goes down. Could go
down a little bit, but it does go down. Versus
if I kind of push through the day, don't eat,
my energy stays high and focused sharp. That's why a
lot of times where these energy drinks came from about
(28:40):
years ago, people would eat the big lunch, you know,
whether it be a sandwich or chips or whatever the case,
and be they eat about noon, maybe go get that
salad and breadsticks, you know, load up on all those carbs.
Then about two o'clock, man, boom the big fatigue crash, right,
And I think it's the reason for that is just
(29:02):
because your body is reacting poorly to all of these
starches and foods that you are consuming at lunch and
then you sort of fear fatigue sets in or your
energy goes down. You're looking for something to pick you
up right. And that's where the whole energy drink beverage
industry came from, which is very popular. So give your
body arrest. You don't have to eat as often as possible.
(29:25):
That's how these golp one agonists work very well. It
allows you to go several hours without consuming or eating
anything and be happy about it. We've all heard the
term angry right when you hadn't had anything to eat
and to get edgy and angry and just chopp You
just want to eat. You gotta eat that hunger feeling.
(29:45):
For a lot of people is just very uncomfortable. It's
hard to push through that and so they have to
eat something. But these GOLP one agonists would go v
and munjaro o zimpic. They allow you to go throughout
the day and feel fine even though you haven't eaten
all day. Now weight starts coming off, you start feeling better.
(30:06):
PreCure starts falling, cholesterol starts falling, it's amazing. Phone lines
are open eight down six kalv. I won one hundred
three to three zero kV. I'll be back in two minutes.
All right, welcome back to talk with me, matag. Our
phone lines are open eight nine six klv. I won
eight hundred three three zero ki Kov. I would love
(30:29):
to hear from you, Hey, Nick, from self, how can
we help you?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yes, sir. Sometimes I have a bad line on this side,
so if it gets too bad, I may have to
get off of something. But let me tell you what
a problem is that has bothered me for some time,
and I'm sure it's going to bother me again in
the future. I get terrible anxiety whenever I am scheduled
to have an MRI, and I literally literally do not
(30:57):
know how to handle.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
It well most of the time, Nick, in that situation,
because that's common. You know, the MRI is that machine.
It's the tube that you have to go into. There's
the cat scan, which is basically a white circle or
(31:18):
donut is what I call it, meaning it's pretty open.
You just sort of go in and out. The MRI
is as a tube, So a lot of people can
handle going into this tube like that and it's claustrophobic
and sometimes can be dark. They've tried to make it
(31:39):
as easy as possible to tolerate it. They have some
music playing. I think they put some mirrorphones on you
or oh.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
They even have movies and TV set up with some
goggles and everything.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, they have a mirror where you can look out,
and I mean they've done their job to try and
make it tolerable and less claustrophobic. But just like you said,
some people still have anxiety most of the time. Nick
would just give a sedative is what we do, like
valium or xenax or alpraislam, clanza pam. These are what
(32:12):
we call benzo diazepenes. These are sedatives and that's what
we mainly do. So if you know that you're claustrophobic,
you know that it's going to generate some anxiety going
into the machine, then we'll give you a prescription for
a one time tablet of either valium or xenax or
(32:32):
whatever sedative your practitioner likes to use.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
That's what we'll Yeah, I've had that. I've had that
once before and it was I don't really know if
it helped or not. It's just I guess I've got
it's said in my mind that I just can't handle
these MRIs. The claustrophobic feeling is basically what it is,
and I'm sure there's lore MRIs around the corner, and
I want to be able to handle.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It right absolutely. If the sedative that was chosen for
you didn't work, there's others and there's different dosages, so
you might want to talk to a health care provider
about maybe increasing it or changing it to try something
different to get you to relax a little bit more.
And we're not trying to make you go to sleep.
(33:17):
We're just trying to take the edge off with that medication.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Okay, what's the drawback if a patient does go to sleep?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Well, no, let me let me rephrase that. We're not
trying to make you unconscious or knock you out. I
guess that's what I'm saying. Going to sleep, I think
is fine. Going to sleep is fine. I guess I've
used that term incorrectly. What some patients are looking for
is they want to be completely out. They don't want
to be conscious, they don't want to be aware of
(33:48):
what's going on, and that's a deeper sedation that tends
to expose patients to a lot of cardiovascular respiratory risk,
meaning you might style breathing, your blood pressure might fall,
your heart rate might fall, and that's difficult to manage
in an MRI machine because normally you can't have anything
(34:10):
in there. It's just you and the machine, and if
something like that happens, that's sort of a catastrophe. So
we're trying to avoid stuff like that, and we're trying
to find a sweet spot where we give you medication
just sort of takes the edge off, but you're still awake,
you're still breathing, because sometimes the technician of the MR
(34:30):
machine gives you instructions while you're there in the machine
to do this or do that, and if you know,
you can't follow commands and you're too sedated, you're too confused,
and sometimes it can't work that way either. So we're
just sort of looking for a sweet spot. And that's
what I've found works for me is value at that
dose maybe five or ten milligrams. But your practitioner might
(34:53):
have different medications that they can give you. Some patients
have asked if they can be knocked out, like with
Anna Stea. It's not something we normally do. Again, for
the reasons I just mentioned, it's it's not there's no
system set up to do that very easily where we
can sort of knock you out or paralyze you or
make you unconscious. They're in an MRI machine and do
(35:15):
it safely without any complications. We haven't developed that sort
of system yet. And that's now.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Doesn't the dentist have a good record of making people
comfortable when they get in the chair.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
That's right, But the dentist is there with you and
they are trained to dial up the sedation just right
and you're still awake. And these medicines that they're using
have low risk. But when you're in an mr I machine,
(35:49):
it's just you and the machine, like no one else
can be in there typically. And again the more you
try and se data patient, the more risk there is
a respiratory cardiovascular arm And again, we just haven't gotten
to the level where we feel like an MRI is
the right environment to do that. And the dentists have
(36:11):
been using station for many years. But they're right there
on the scene. I mean, they're they're close to you,
and they have to control of the machine and they've
sort of figured that out. We just haven't been able
to do that with MRIs.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
What's the best substitute for MRIs.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Well, normally, if you can't be sedated, then they try
to get what they call an open MRI, which the
concept is that it's not a tube, and if it
is a tube, it's a big tube. They have some
MRIs where you can actually sit upright erect in the
MRI machine. We might have one of those here in
(36:51):
Southeast Texas, but I'm assuming with MRI technology, as it
gets better, yes, they will have more of those options
where you're not in the tube. Maybe it is more
quote open so that you're not anxious. But if an
MRI cannot be done, we normally do CT scan. And
again CT scan is sort of a white circle, so
(37:11):
you're not enclosed, you're just sort of going through this circle.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah, and yes, and.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So normally we'll just settle for a CAT scan and
that a lot of times will give us enough information.
I mean, the MRI gives us extreme clarity when looking
at certain organs and certain organ beds like the brain
and muscles and tendons. I mean you can see it
(37:41):
with clear clarity. Cat scans are are okay, but the
MRIs are the best at giving us a really good
picture of that. Okay, all right, doctor Levin, thank you appreciated. Nick.
These these situations come up every single day in the
hospital setting, of course, as well as the office. We
(38:04):
need to get X rays and we're trying to decide
cat scan MRI, and normally for MRI that's more of
the sort of the soft tissue X ray. CAT scan
is as well, but the MRI is probably the best
at that. Normally, for cat scans when we use those,
(38:27):
it's more of the chest area or the abdominal area.
We use cat scans for that. But if you've ever
had symptoms of a stroke or a headache, you know
you get your CAT scan of your head first because
it's an easier modality, can be done very easily. As
I just mentioned MRI as a tube, and it's just
more prep that you have to go through. It takes
(38:48):
longer to get patients in an MRI machine versus a
CAT scan, So normally cat scans are done faster, quicker, easier.
MRI takes all the time. But we juggle with these
options all the time, and I'm glad we have these
options in this country. If phone lines are open eight
nine six kalvy out one one hundred and three to
three zero kalvy. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
(39:20):
welcome back to doctaby Medical Power phone lens or open
eight nine six kovat one hundred three three zero koa at.
Coming towards the end of the program, time goes by fast, rapidly.
I want to thank all the callers and the listeners.
And again, if there's a topic that you would like
me to discuss, either call my office so you can
call the radio station. And we've been more than happy
(39:42):
to discuss these topics. A lot of topics to talk
about today. We talked about those vaccines, those pesky vaccines,
right blue season's coming up, and all these resiratory viruses
out there. And the main thing is that it offers
you protection is because as you get old, that immune
system gets worse and worse and worse. We become more
(40:03):
immuno compromised, as they say, and as because of the
same reason for aging, the heart doesn't work as well,
the kidneys don't work as well. I mean, the machine
is not as strong. So we need protection and vaccines.
In my opinion, are a form of protection, a way
to lessen the severity of these diseases so that you
(40:26):
don't have to be hospitalized. Maybe get some meds over
the counter, maybe get a few meds from your health
care provider, and then that's it. You're done with, you know,
not in the hospital on the ventilator, on a kidney
machine that really really can knock you down. I hear
this conversation all the time from family members, where hey,
so and so was upcutting his grass, driving high functioning yesterday,
(40:50):
and now he's in the hospital looking pretty bad. And again,
a lot of times it comes down to just being vaccinated.
So go get your vaccines. If you haven't had any,
can get it from a healthcare professional, you can get
it from the local pharmacy. But we do believe in
those vaccines. Yeah, you might have a little arm pain,
you might even have a little fever, but certainly the
(41:13):
risk is lower than the benefit. So there, we're big
believers in that. And certainly, yes, if we also talked
about joint pain, which is super super super common chronic
pain in this country for a lot of different reasons. Again,
in my opinion, some of that is unavoidable, just as
we get older muscle skull system whereas out and we
(41:34):
get a little bit more joint instability, more breakdown of
that joint that need might be unstable, that neck, that back.
And yes, we need little help with sometimes pharmaceutical products,
whether it be topical oral. We all know about motri
and advila leave. There's voltaire in jail, which is a
(41:54):
anti inflammatory gel that you can rub on the specific
joint when it's hurting. That can be of benefit. But
certainly if you're unhealthy, if you're unhealthy because you're eating poorly,
you're overweight, you're smoking, you're drinking alcohol all the time,
you tend to have more severe muscular skeletal complaints that
(42:18):
are refractory to prescription medications a lot of times. And
if you can clean up your diet and clean up
your health a lot of times, that will help control
your joint pain so that it's not as severe, you
don't lose the function of the joint. And no, I
do not agree that you just adding some dietary supplements
(42:42):
in your routine, something you saw online, something of a
friend gave you, or you went to the store and
got it. That does not do it. You have to
do the right things first, and that is eat a
healthy diet and get that sugar, especially those sugary bears
bridges out of your life. It's hard to do because
(43:04):
they're everywhere. They taste good. We grew up drinking it.
I mean, why is it poisoned all of a sudden.
But again, your body changes human dynamically and changes metabolical
as you get older, and it's just a little too
much for the human body and it reacts negatively. That's
when you don't feel as well. So drink that water,
(43:25):
eat it. You come. We'll see you guys next week.
Take care, God bless Uti
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