September 9, 2025 • 43 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, Welcome, Southeast Texas Internet radio listeners. Welcome. This
is another edition of the Doctor Levine Medical Hour. I
am your host, Doctor Levine, coming to you live from
the studios of k LVI here in Beaumont, Texas, cross
the street from Park Down Mall, trying to help you
figure out what is the right way to do things
(00:21):
and the wrong way to do things. So much confusion
out there as it pertains to your health and what
do you need to do to stay alive. Gods, it's
so confusing, especially as you retire. You have all this
time on your hands. You want to be healthy, right.
You don't want to have to be plagued and bothered
(00:44):
with visits and hospitalizations. You want to enjoy it. Wake
up when you want to visit your family, travel, get
a second job, or just sit around the house right
doing house chores. Phone lines are open eight nine six
Kova at one one hundred three three zero kovyea to me,
(01:06):
it's pretty simple. It's pretty simple, and I try to
deliver this message each time I interact with my patients
in the office, not so much in the hospital. A
little distracting, more distracting the hospital. You're normally pretty sick.
Not the time to talk about that, but sometimes there is.
You have your first heart attack, your first stroke. It's
(01:29):
a big event, right, family comes to visit, people from
out of town. It's like, what happened? And how can
we prevent this? Against a scary situation? I mean, I
see grown men break down because it's scary. It's not
something you had to think about before. You're so distracted
(01:50):
with other things that when you're sitting in at ICU,
you have all these tubes poking in you. You don't
feel so good. Got your chest that was wide open
and it closed it. Man, it's really frightening. And what
can I do so I don't have to come back here?
So pretty simple to me, if you listen to my show,
(02:12):
you know what you got to do every single day
as much as possible. Right, take note of what you're
putting in your mouth. Right, that's all you got to do.
Take note of what you're putting in your mouth, and
that pretty much is the major impact of your health.
(02:35):
Family history is certainly important. It is true that certain
diseases running family. So that's why we always ask that
when we talk to patients, we sort of want to
know preemptively what other health issues might be at bay.
And it also helps the individual patient sort of prioritize
(02:56):
their life if they know their mother had it, father
had it, brother, sister, that they may need to be
on the lookout for that and adjust their diet and
lifestyle habits accordingly. So a lot of this, yes, is preventable,
again depending on what you're eating and drinking. And unfortunately,
(03:20):
what's available to us in this country are food and
beverage items that, according to the experts, well chronicled, well
written about, it's all out there. You just have to
dig a little bit, not even a lot, just a
little bit, and you sort of get the idea that
a lot of this ultra processed food that we consume
(03:44):
every single day just as a routine, right, is poor
for your health. And you have to make a conscious
decision to try and limit your exposure to these old,
true processed foods and try to eat as fresh as possible.
(04:05):
And my bias is not as frequently as possible. Yes,
I grew up with the three meals a day triangle
food sort of paradigm. I think it's now a box.
I believe no longer the triangle. Maybe it's a box
four squares. I think in terms of what you should
(04:26):
be eating and drinking, and the idea that yes, you
need to eat three times a day. In my opinion
as a medical doctor is it's excessive based on our
energy expenditure that the average American needs and uses every
(04:48):
day to go about your daily routine. You don't need
a lot of energy consumption every day to help your
body work. You just don't need it. Just modern conveniences
have really helped us out, things like riding lawnmowers and
cars and electric bicycles and washing machines and dishwashers and
(05:14):
all these. Now they have the vacuum little devices that
just go around your room. You just plug it up
and it automatically just goes around the room all day,
so you don't have to vacuum. Remember that the exercise
of vacuuming, having to get the vacuum ount and going
back and forth. I mean that is physical activity, even
though you don't think it's physical activity, or going outside
(05:36):
working in the yard, carrying groceries in the house. Now
we just have some sort of door dash where we
call the grocery store and they put it in the car.
Force and then maybe there's someone that puts it in
the house. Was again, just a lot of our activities
have just naturally been cut down so that we're not
really that active throughout the day. Especially if you're working.
(05:58):
You have a desk job, you just go from one
seated position to the next. Right, you get out of
bed and you get in your car, then you get
to your office and you sit down. That's it. You're
not really bending and picking up anything on a regular basis.
So the aging process then kicks in. Man, it happens
(06:19):
very easily, where before you know it, you can't even
do some simple tasks that you were able to do.
One thing that I've noticed as a doctor is bending
at the knees. Right, It gets hard to bend down
at the knees. You've dropped something and you have to
bend down or you have to go to the floor
to pick that up. That is a treacherous physical move
(06:42):
and a lot of times we lose that ability as
we get old. We just sort of bend at the waist,
We just bend down to pick that up, Whereas when
you bend at the knees, that's much harder for a
lot of people to do. And again that's because of
things like aging and just being physically out of shape,
being overweight, can't bend at the knees, that's difficult. Hey,
(07:04):
we have Frank from Beaumont. What's going on?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Hey, Doc? How you doing? You're talking about bending at
the knee when you've had when you've had knee replacements,
you don't have the flection in the knee anymore. So
that's kind of hard.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Absolutely, As I told you before, I'm an old beat
up athlete like you are. But absolutely, you know, thinking
about without all the medications that are available today that
doctors feed patients today, and you know in many cases
you know side effects, people that research no side effects,
(07:38):
but then sometimes they just willing to try it and
go with it. Besides whether it's going to affect your
delivery or gallbladder whatever, you still do it to try
to get relieved. What are some of the over the
counter medicate not medication, but example icy hot Are they
anything like that? I know there's so many, there's millions
(07:59):
on the market, man. And then some of them you
see or hear about, they get into the blood system
can affect you some way. And I remember one that
came out of it six eight years ago, and I
can't remember the name of it now. My doctor said, look,
I'm going to give you something. It's like gold. I said, okay,
it was a sample. He gave it to me. In
course it was a prescription. Then, Nan, it's over the counter.
(08:22):
And now I'll read a lot about how it kind
of gets in your stream and could affect your blood
system and all that kind of stuff. But I was
just wanting to know if you got anything that is
over the counter that you suggest to them, maybe for
the knee or the shoulder, the elbow or whatever it is,
it could maybe give them a little relief through the day.
(08:42):
And I'll hang up and listen.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Thank you, all right, Frank, We appreciate that question, brother. Yeah,
Muscular skeletal pain is a common reasonist. While a lot
of people actually go to their primary our healthcare professional's office,
my neck hurts, my shoulder hurts, my knee, my back,
(09:06):
my ankle, my feet, my fingers, my wrist, my elbow.
I mean, we get a ton of those complaints over
the weak and again, the muscular scale systems almost like
the skin system, we kind of forget about it, right,
We always talk about the heart and the brain and
the kidney, But that old joint system, it's there, it's alive,
(09:30):
and it goes through its own aging process as well.
And as all of us get older, we tend to
get some sort of joint complaints, some patients more than others.
And certainly the lower back or the lumbar spine is
probably one of the most common and frequent sights of
(09:53):
pain generation. But certainly the knees just because they're part
of our main soul port system, right they hold us up.
We're using it every day just for normal locomotion walking,
And as I mentioned binding and our call and mentioned
knee replacement, most of that comes into play because that knee, yeah,
(10:17):
wears out faster for some wears out to the point
that it just doesn't function and it starts to generate
a significant amount of pain. You lose a lot of mobility,
The integrity and the strength of the knee will start
to weaken, and so it doesn't support normal locomotion. So
(10:38):
you can fall and trip, and certainly can fall and
trip and then break other things or injure other things
like your face, your neck, your clavical, your wrist, as
you're trying to break your fall. We see that every
single day in the hospital. So muscular scheduletal complaints is
(11:00):
a huge, huge problem in our country just we're able
to get to our deeper seventies eighties, and so that's
a common thing. Certainly, as doctors, we try to prescribe
something to you that should not cause harm, or try
(11:21):
not to cause harm. If you listen to my show,
I try to help you understand that no matter if
it's prescription or if it's over the counter, anything you
put in your mouth can potentially cause some potential harm
or adverse reaction that is unforeseen. The pharmacists have done
(11:41):
a better job over the past several years educating the
person who's getting this prescription that, hey, look at these
lists of potential side effects. Probably won't happen, but hey,
be aware of all of this that can happen, because
anything can. We see it every day, and most doctors,
(12:02):
as they mature in their careers, tend to figure out
which medicines do most torm, which medicines do the least
tom In terms of prescribing medicines for certain physical elements
no different from muscular skeletal disease, and for me as
it pertains to what's over the counter and what's probably
(12:24):
the least causing problem medication out there, I would have
to say the topical anti inflammatory medications is one thing
that I believe in a lot that I prescribe a
lot to my patients or recommend. Because it's over the counter,
you don't need a prescription. And I see hot. He
(12:44):
brings that up. He knows that as a former athlete,
played high school ball here for Westbrook four years, went
off to Rice and played there for five years. But
I also played little league baseball south Park little League
Spindle Top out there. I played for many years. I
(13:05):
was a catcher, did a little pitching as well. But man,
there were days where we'd do a double header where
you played two games in one day. I mean, the
arm starts are hurt throwing the ball all day. Man.
We used a ton of icy hot just to help
with the joints, and that stuff's been around for so
many years. As well as ben Gay. I remember that
(13:27):
growing up with some of my grandparents and they were
using bingen had that smell to it, which is how
you knew they were using it. It was a very
strong smell that they use in sort of a topical analgesic.
Those products are relatively safe and you can use those
(13:48):
and I don't know of any significant contraindication to using
those products. Even with CHF or kidney failure or whatever.
Liver you can still use that stuff. It's over the
counter and it does work to some degree. The one
that I like to use, however, it's called voltaine gel,
(14:12):
which the active ingredient is dichlophinac, which is a non
storoidal anti inflammatory drug. Are insaie Inn said. You also
know them as motren advil alive. It's a category of
medications we use a lot in the medical world, as
(14:35):
I've mentioned to all of you, just because most Americans' bodies,
most americans systems are inflamed, and that has a lot
to do with again, what we're eating and drinking. My argument,
if you listen to my show, based on my reading
(14:55):
and talking to thousands of patients on a yearly basis,
is that eating and drinking ultraprocessed foods, sugary beverages tends
to irritate the human body and it generates inflammation as
a reaction to consuming these products, and that will then
(15:20):
start to cause all sorts of physical complaints, and arthritis
is one physical complaint from the inflammatory system being turned
on again from the body's exposure to all of these
ultraprocessed ingredients and foods which have a lot of preservatives
and man made chemicals that really are not designed for
(15:41):
human consumption based on my understanding and my reading. But
as a result of that exposure, constant exposure, if you will,
I mean you're eating and drinking it every single day,
it turns on your inflammatory system, which is really there
to protect you and help you heal, almost like your
immune system is there to fight for you to prevent
(16:04):
infections or if you get infection, to help defeat the
infection when you get it. The inflammatory system is not
supposed to be active all the time, every day, month
after month. It's not supposed to. But when it is,
that's when you start getting physical symptoms. You know about
things like lupus and rumor tartithritis. Again, when the inflammatory
(16:28):
system goes haywire and it tends to start causing injury
to other vital organs, your skin system, your blood vessel system,
your nervous system. Because the inflammatory system is turned on
abnormally to the point that it starts to injure and
damage other vital organs. That's what rumor tartarthritis does, that's
(16:52):
what lupus does, that's what all of the other autoimmune
slash inflammatory disorders do. For whatever reason, and the body
goes haywire and starts to do some damage friendly fire,
if you will. And now we have all these products
that have been provided to us by the pharmaceutical company
what they call biological agents. They've sort of mapped out
(17:17):
the inflammatory system, like how do you get from A
to Z. They've kind of mapped that out, and the
pharmaceutic company has figured out where to block the cascade
of chemical actions that causes inflammation. That's what these biological
agents do. They sort of go to targeted areas along
(17:37):
that cascade of chemical actions and they block it so
that you can't generate these inflammatory chemicals in your body
and so then the symptoms are controlled, but you're not free.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Biological agents can cause other problems. It's a very complicated
integrated system. So if you block one thing, that another
thing starts happening. But they've kind of figured out how
to balance all that. But it's not completely free of
potential problems. So again that's a long list of side effects.
But voltaian gel is what I recommend if you have
(18:16):
any joint complaints, and that's just about for most people.
I don't care about your medical problems because, just like
the call said, yeah, sometimes a little bit leaks into
your blood system, but again it's normally below a threshold
that we need to worry about. Because if you have
certain medical issues like kidney issues, heart issues, liver issues,
(18:39):
we tend to try and stay away from what we
call oral anti inflammatory and anti inflammatory of medications. We
stay away from those because long term use can cause
issues or aggravate those problems. So more of a topical
route which tends to be safer, less systemic, and less
(19:00):
issues with adverse reaction. You can rub this gel or
cream on the affected joint normally three to four times
a day to help control those symptoms and sort of
reduce the possibility of having adverse reactions. Sort of a
good balance. So voltarine gel or diclofinacgel is what I
(19:21):
recommend the most for arthreatic our joint complaints, whether it
be your hands or your wrists or your elbow, that's
what I tend to get into. And then yes, sometimes
if you don't have any chronic medical problems, you can
entertain ibuprofen or motor an advil leave. Those are great products.
(19:41):
Aspirin three hundred and twenty five miligram aspen is basically
a anti inflammatory drug. We use the baby dose to
eighty one milligram dose to help reduce the possibility of
having a blood clotform in your blood vessel. Again, most
of us, as we get other than arthritis, that plaque
(20:02):
starts to show its ugly face and we need to
ward against any sort of blood clot in your artery,
which a lot of times plaque has a lot to
do with that by taking an aspen once a day
eighty one milligrams, because it does sort of interfere just
(20:22):
so slightly with the blood clotting system to make your
blood a little bit more slippery so that it's less
prone to form blood clots, which as we all get older,
because of the aging system, we're all at risk for that.
It's built into us that the blood system is more
thick and because the blood vessel wall just over the
(20:45):
years of our diet and our lifestyle just starts getting
that plaque and that narrowing. So the combination sort of
is what generates these issues with strokes and heart attacks.
So to try and reduce the possibility of that. Yes,
I spent a day. Keeps the doctor away unless you're bleeding.
(21:05):
Bone lines are open eight nine six kalvyt one one
hundred and three to three zero kovy. I'll be back
in two minutes. All right, welcome back to Doctravi Medical
(21:29):
Our bhone lines are open eight nine to six kvy
out one one hundred three three zero kalv I. We
love hearing from you. Give us a call just talking
about joint pain and what is the best way to
alleviate joint pain without a lot of side effects. And
I mentioned the voltairean jail which is normally sold at
(21:51):
most of the pharmacies Walmart, CVS, et cetera. And you
just rub it on there about four times a day
and it's pretty effective. I've had some issues with my
shoulders over the years and I've used that successfully works
very well. Another product that I like to use for
pain for a joint pain is the what they call
(22:13):
Salon Pause patches, which basically has lightokin in the patch itself.
It's a pain patch, if you will, a topical pain patch,
and again we like to use a topical route because
it's less systemic. This call was mentioning side effects safety
and that is a big topic in the medical world
(22:35):
and has been for probably over fifteen years, just recognizing
that delivery of healthcare can sometimes be risky and that
we need to have better systems in place to make
it less risky so that the outcomes are predictably good
and predictably better no matter where you are. So we
(22:55):
work on that sort of thing all the time. And yes,
things like what are the best drugs out there, what
are the best routes of delivery out there to reduce
side effects of medications. Yes, we have built that into
the system currently not wasn't always like that, but yes
it is now. That's a huge, huge topic and a
(23:17):
huge huge priority in the medical world right now. Just
so that you know that, I mean, we meet on
this stuff all the time. There's committees. Normally at any
hospital or any healthcare outlet that you have, there's committees,
their review records. If things sort of fall out of
the normal activity, it gets reviewed and so we can
(23:39):
change it and I mean that's a big, big exercise
right now in the medical world. So we're trying to
figure out what is the best way to do things,
and as it pertains to your joints, the topical medication
Voltaire and Jail as well as Salon Pause. This is
over the counter that come in little different sizes, but
(23:59):
basically it's a sticker patch, a sticker pain patch that
you just put on the affected area. Whether it's your
leg that's hurting you, are your neck that's hurting you,
or your shoulder or your knee, your wrist. You can
just sort of peel this patch and tape it on
and you wear it all day and again, less systemic exposure,
(24:24):
so the issue of side effects is less. Although some
people sort of react to the adhesive sometimes in these
pain patches and they cannot use them. That's a very
unfortunate because again, good products over the counter and can
be an easy way to try and to alleviate your symptoms.
So Voltaiangel, the Salon Pause patches, those are sort of
(24:47):
my top choices for sort of low risk joint pain relief.
But again that whole market of talanol and tal arthritis,
that's a another commonly used product that's over the counter.
Patients can get that whenever they want to. That tends
(25:08):
to be a low risk sort of way to treat
joint pain. Sometimes people get concerned about talinol or a
seed of menifin because of concerns about liver injury liver damage,
and that is real, but normally it has to do
with taking more than what is prescribed for several days,
(25:31):
not maybe one day you forget and maybe you took
more than you should have taken. No big deal. But
if you do that day after day after day, yes
you might get into some toxicity from taking too much
a set of menifin. So as long as you're taking
it as it's prescribed, you don't have anything to worry about.
(25:52):
The only concern would be if you have chronic liver
disease from what we call liver cirrhosis, or maybe you
have chronic hepatitis C. Sometimes experts do recommend limiting the
amount of talenol you have to only two thousand milligrams
per day. Most over the counter talenol tablets are three
(26:14):
hundred and fifty milligrams of acetamnifit, so you'd have to
take several to get to two thousand. So two thousand
is sort of the upper limit of what we recommend
for someone who has chronic liver disease. Whatever reasons to
ross is a very common one, but some patients have
other liver diseases that are taking medicines for their single
(26:36):
liver specialists, So you need to limit the exposure to
a seed of menifit to two thousand, But otherwise, if
your liver is working very well, you can push that
limit up to four thousand milligrams per day. So you
can see very easily you're just taking a three hundred
and fifty milligram tablet, your cap or higher amount is
(26:58):
about four thousand milligrams. It's going to take several doses
of talnol to get to that point, so I don't
come across that often. The only issue that we sometimes
find that scary is consuming alcohol on top of taking
the talanol. That's sort of the double whammy that is
(27:20):
super high risk for causing liver injury, just because the
liver sort of processes talanol and it does have the
ability to break down the components of talanol and clear
them out as long as the liver is working well.
But if you have alcohol floating around in your system,
(27:41):
the system in the liver that processes aceet of benefit
of talanol gets interrupted because alcohol competes with it such
that the byproducts of talanol consumption can sort of build up,
and that those byproducts is what injures the liver. And man,
(28:02):
you don't want to mess with liver failure. That is terrible.
I mean, patients are pretty sick and it can harm you.
It can kill you if the liver injury gets too bad.
We do see this on a regular basis. A lot
of times you have to be transferred to what they
call a liver center where experts who deal with liver
(28:23):
failure acute liver failure can help you get through the
crisis because a lot of things go wrong when your
liver doesn't work. We don't talk a lot about deliver
that much. Again, we hear a lot about the heart
and the kidneys and maybe the lungs, but man, we
don't talk about liver that much. And I think we
don't just because the liver is a tough little organ.
(28:44):
You can damage it and do all sorts of things
to it, and it has a lot of redundancy built
into it. To sort of protect itself, which is a
good thing. But the liver has a lot of different
or serves a lot of different functions of the human body,
such that when it stops working or it's not working efficiently,
a lot of other systems get impacted because the liver
(29:07):
is not working. So patients that only super sick have
to be in the ICU, have to see multiple doctors,
just a lot a lot of support, and again, for
the most part, it takes care of itself. But there
are a few scenarios, like if you have a headache
and maybe you consume some alcohol recently or you're consuming
(29:28):
both in a regular basis, that's when we get into
those toxicity issues. But otherwise, under normal circumstances, talanol is
an extremely safe product to take for your joint pain
or any sort of pain that you have a headache
or some back pain. You could theoretically take talanol. You
could go out and get your salon pause patch and
(29:50):
tape it on your back, and then you may have
some other joints that are bothering. You can rub on
your voltarian gel on the other joints and notch your back.
You could to have all these medicines working for you
over the counter, relatively safe, and get that joint pain
down so that you can bend at the knees. If
(30:13):
the lines are open. Eight done six Scalvy, I want
to hundred three three zero kay, I'll be back in
two minutes. All right, welcome back to the Doc Living
Medical our phone lines or open eight nine six Kalvy,
(30:33):
I want to hundred three three zero Okai talking about
joint pain. All of us get it periodically, right, And
do you have to run to the doc every time? No,
you don't. A lot of times you can treat that
with over the counterproducts. Man, the list is long. Most
of that stuff was prescription at one time. Thankfully, it's
not just because joint pain comes up periodically over your
(30:58):
lifetime and just needs something real quick. You don't have
time to sit in doct Levine's office for three hours
waiting to see him for five minutes. Now, you just
run down to the local pharmacy and get your product
and either ingest something or tape something on your back
or rub something. There's a lot of arthritis products over
(31:19):
the counter, and we're trying to be safe as possible.
The thing also that we like to remind you is
that you want to make sure that there's no disease
that's causing your joint pain. For the most part, it's
just going to be what we call primary osteo arthritis
or rheumatism is what a lot of people call that. Again,
(31:40):
just that wear and tear age related decline of the joint,
whichever joint it is. But there are some more systemic
diseases that affect the joint system that need to be
diagnosed and placed on medications. Normally, these sorts of diseases,
(32:03):
the joint symptoms will be more severe and refractory to
over the counterproducts. Meaning you've been to CVS, you've been
to Walmart, You've taken these medicines and nothing is working.
Maybe the symptoms are worsening. Sometimes it's difficult to walk
or use that joint. I mean it's more of a
(32:23):
severe sort of arthritis or joint pain or joint inflammation.
That's when you know a lot of times this is
something on another level you have to go into your
doctor's office again to do a little work up to
make sure some of these other diseases that plague Americans
is not at play, and some of these diseases. You
(32:44):
know them as slopus, you know them as rheumatoid arthritis,
are gout or sarcardosis is another one. These are very
common in our community. But they start off with joint pain.
Are sometimes rashist, and again I think the common reaction
(33:05):
to that, hey, let me just go get some motrin
or advile, some talentol and let me just knock it out.
But normally these diseases will cause more severe symptoms, they
won't go away, or maybe have other systemic symptoms, maybe
such as like I say, your skin or your vision,
or maybe causing chest pain or shortness of breath. As
(33:26):
these inflammatory diseases such as rhumatartarthritis or a lupus can't
affect your heart function, your lung function, your blood vessel system,
which can cause a disease called vasculitis. So most of
the time you will get other sort of associated symptoms
that lets the person know that something is more severe
and at play. And normally we start off with some
(33:49):
blood work. We normally will do some X rays and
then sort of the inflammatory experts in the medical field
are called rheumatologists, and here in the Golden Triangle area
we do have a handful of rheumatologists, maybe about four
or five that you might be able to get into. Again,
it's going to take a long time, right, you're talking
(34:10):
about Southeast Texas, Golden Triangle. That's a big Area's a
lot of citizens in this area. To just sort of
concentrate and focus on these rheumatologists a lot of times
takes a long time. But a lot of times I
recommend for my patients. You know, Calveston is not that
far away, Baytown is not that far away, and Houston
(34:31):
is really not that far away. You're talking about an
hour and fifteen minutes and you're sort of in another world.
There's just more practitioners available in these areas that if
you can't wait for the local doctors to take care
of you, just hop in your car. I make it
sound so easy, right, just hop in your car, get
somebody to drive you down there. We just a lot
(34:53):
of times need the information for the practitioner. If your
primary needs to make a referral, we just need their
office inf maybe insurance information, and we can make referral.
You can also self refer sometimes a lot of the
consultants out there in these bigger cities, they have self
referral processes. They also have virtual visits that they're now doing.
(35:15):
A lot of my patients have neurologists that are in
Houston and other subspecialists that are in Houston. And because
of COVID and the use of the virtual platform, that
has expanded, and so a lot of these experts are
now offering virtual visits. Right, you can be in Beaumont,
you can be invited orange on your computer talking to
(35:36):
someone in Galveston, Houston, Baytown. It's beautiful, right, So if
you don't want to wait, maybe think about going to
some of these other practitioners. You can get in a
lot faster, just because we just don't have that many
doctors here to sort of take care of all the
needs of Southeast Texas. And that might be a good
(35:59):
solution for especially if it's virtual. I mean, how can
you beat that? And sometimes maybe have to go once
a year just to have a face to one face
to face, or maybe there's some testing, specialized testing that
they want you to do. We can't get done here.
I think in terms of blood work and X rays,
we're on par with any area that you might go,
whether it be Galveston in Houston, so we have a
(36:20):
lot of outlets for blood work as well as MRIs
cats can So that's normally not a big deal, which
is what I hear a lot. They might be following
up with a doctor in Houston or Galveston or Baytown.
They say, hey, get your blood work, get your X rays,
Aaron Beaumont. We can normally take care of that. We
have outlets for that. But in terms of the sort
of expertise and the convenience and the time it takes
(36:44):
to get in to see these doctors, especially neurologists, just
don't have that many here with all the strokes that
are happening every single day. Yes, a lot of times
you might have to step outside of the Golden triangle
at least for a few visits right until things settle
down and then you can maybe see that person annually.
You can just follow with your healthcare professional, especially if
everything that's going well, you're on your meds, you're doing good.
(37:06):
You just sort of need some routine bloodwork and a
basic physical and that's all you need. Sort of make
a day out of it, you know, if you have
to step over to Houston or Baytown, because pretty much
is going to take all day for the most part, right,
just to get over there, get your visit, and then
drive back. I mean probably talking about five or six
hours very easily. And the thing I hear a lot
(37:28):
of times is that traffic, you know, I just more
cars and trucks and motorcycles on the road now, right,
and just stuff's whizzing by. It's just a headache a
lot of times. And having to get on the traffic
and fight all that. Just conveniently driving down from your
house to your doctor's office normally thirty forty miles an
(37:49):
hours the most you do. But getting on the open highway, man,
it can be a little dangerous and cumbersome, you know,
having to do that for a full day. Very come
with some phone lines are open eight nine six kalva.
I want to hundred and three three zero klv I
going in a last break, be right back, all right,
(38:14):
welcome back to the doc Lavion Medical hour. Phone lines
are opened eight nine six kov I want one hundred
and three to three zero kov I. At the end
of the show, we want to thank all the callers
and the listeners. Remember if there is a topic that
you'd like me to discuss, just call my office. Three
four seven, three six two one, or you can call
(38:36):
the station. Leave the topic and we do our best
to talk about it. Certainly, this show is for you,
just trying to get you some answers to some basic questions.
That's really what healthcare professionals try to do every day
is get you some answers to your problems. Most of
the time we are successful and can give you some
pretty good answers pretty quickly, but not always. These situations
(38:58):
can be quite difficul hold and tough to figure out,
but we can use several people. Jim, real quick, what's up?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Any of the over the counter sleep pages?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
You know?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Work with flips everyone? I'll try it doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, I think the most common is melatonin that's very
popular in the medical world. Sometimes ben a drill can
be used for a sleep aid. Those are pretty much
the two over the counter that I prioritize. Sometimes you
have a true insomnia disease problem and you probably would
need some prescription sleep medications. There's several to choose from
(39:37):
that are relatively safe. So again, if the over the
counter stuff doesn't help, just go to your healthcare professional
and see if you can get a prescription and try
one of the sleep aids that are out there.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Well, I was in that for years, but probably are unnamed.
Uh't name the doctor here, mama, but he's set all
the patients basically, also the NBN for example, and you
know that works, should do and that works. That's perfect
on meet forty patients out of it.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, all doctors are different. So if your practitioner is
unwilling or not wanting to prescribe those medications, you certainly
can seek a second opinion and go to a different
physician and are a healthcare professional, nurse practition physician assistant
and see if they're willing to prescribe that medication. As
far as I know, ambient is a relatively safe product
(40:30):
and some people need it. So as long as there's
not any abuse issues, toxicity issues, it is normally okay
to prescribe that medication. Again, your practitioner may have had
some bad experience with it and just doesn't like it
and so they stop prescribing, which is normal.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Okay, Well, you claim that it's that he's got on
a carporate by the powers that be up in ortion
like that. As far as the overseers, you know, stuff
like that's what is the reason for it?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, correct, I mean these sort of organization to the DEA,
which gives us our permission to prescribe certain levels of medications. Yes,
they give us recommendations about medicines that are high risk
low risk and sort of give us some ideas about
we'd like you to prefer these medicines and stay away
from those. And every doctor health care provider is more
(41:19):
sensitive less sensitive to those recommendations. We can always write
we want unless they take that privilege away, which sometimes
they do if we abuse the situation. But again, every doctor,
every healthcare professional has a different position on that. So
for this practitioner, he wants to stay she wants to
stay away from it, so they stop.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I think that's fine, Yeah, yeah, okay, I appreciate appreciate.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Your help, all right, brother Jim. I appreciate that. And
getting a good night's sleep is extremely important. I don't
talk a lot about insomnia or lack of good sleep. Again,
obstructive sleep APANE is a very common reason for that
in our country, just because again we're normally overweight, we
have thick necks, and when we try to go to sleep,
(42:03):
it's hard to breathe and so we develop a reduction
of breathing or lack of breathing. We call that apnea.
So that's the most common cause of that. And if
you're overweight. Being my story above, you should be getting
your sleep study when you're going to your healthcare professionalist office.
They're doing a lot of those with truck drivers now
to get their CDLs is to check for sleep apnea.
(42:27):
But if not, you have a true problem, yeah, just
go into your healthcare profession's office. Try to get a
prescription for a commonly prescribed sleep medicine. Yes, a little risky,
but as long as you're getting your urine check you
otherwise not exhibiting any unusual abnormal behavior. You don't take
a whole lot of other high risk medicines like narcotics,
(42:48):
pain medicines, must relaxers. It's okay, and they're okay with it.
They know Insombia's out there. This stuff is still available
to the open market. You just have to be cautious
about using it, and it works very well. You gotta
get your sleep at night, so if you're not sleeping,
go check with your healthcare professional. Anyway, Thank you for
joining us another edition of the show. Remember don't drink
(43:09):
and drive, Eat some vegetables, drink some water. We'll see
you guys next week. Take care,
All right, Welcome, Southeast Texas Internet radio listeners. Welcome. This
is another edition of the Doctor Levine Medical Hour. I
am your host, Doctor Levine, coming to you live from
the studios of k LVI here in Beaumont, Texas, cross
the street from Park Down Mall, trying to help you
figure out what is the right way to do things
(00:21):
and the wrong way to do things. So much confusion
out there as it pertains to your health and what
do you need to do to stay alive. Gods, it's
so confusing, especially as you retire. You have all this
time on your hands. You want to be healthy, right.
You don't want to have to be plagued and bothered
(00:44):
with visits and hospitalizations. You want to enjoy it. Wake
up when you want to visit your family, travel, get
a second job, or just sit around the house right
doing house chores. Phone lines are open eight nine six
Kova at one one hundred three three zero kovyea to me,
(01:06):
it's pretty simple. It's pretty simple, and I try to
deliver this message each time I interact with my patients
in the office, not so much in the hospital. A
little distracting, more distracting the hospital. You're normally pretty sick.
Not the time to talk about that, but sometimes there is.
You have your first heart attack, your first stroke. It's
(01:29):
a big event, right, family comes to visit, people from
out of town. It's like, what happened? And how can
we prevent this? Against a scary situation? I mean, I
see grown men break down because it's scary. It's not
something you had to think about before. You're so distracted
(01:50):
with other things that when you're sitting in at ICU,
you have all these tubes poking in you. You don't
feel so good. Got your chest that was wide open
and it closed it. Man, it's really frightening. And what
can I do so I don't have to come back here?
So pretty simple to me, if you listen to my show,
(02:12):
you know what you got to do every single day
as much as possible. Right, take note of what you're
putting in your mouth. Right, that's all you got to do.
Take note of what you're putting in your mouth, and
that pretty much is the major impact of your health.
(02:35):
Family history is certainly important. It is true that certain
diseases running family. So that's why we always ask that
when we talk to patients, we sort of want to
know preemptively what other health issues might be at bay.
And it also helps the individual patient sort of prioritize
(02:56):
their life if they know their mother had it, father
had it, brother, sister, that they may need to be
on the lookout for that and adjust their diet and
lifestyle habits accordingly. So a lot of this, yes, is preventable,
again depending on what you're eating and drinking. And unfortunately,
(03:20):
what's available to us in this country are food and
beverage items that, according to the experts, well chronicled, well
written about, it's all out there. You just have to
dig a little bit, not even a lot, just a
little bit, and you sort of get the idea that
a lot of this ultra processed food that we consume
(03:44):
every single day just as a routine, right, is poor
for your health. And you have to make a conscious
decision to try and limit your exposure to these old,
true processed foods and try to eat as fresh as possible.
(04:05):
And my bias is not as frequently as possible. Yes,
I grew up with the three meals a day triangle
food sort of paradigm. I think it's now a box.
I believe no longer the triangle. Maybe it's a box
four squares. I think in terms of what you should
(04:26):
be eating and drinking, and the idea that yes, you
need to eat three times a day. In my opinion
as a medical doctor is it's excessive based on our
energy expenditure that the average American needs and uses every
(04:48):
day to go about your daily routine. You don't need
a lot of energy consumption every day to help your
body work. You just don't need it. Just modern conveniences
have really helped us out, things like riding lawnmowers and
cars and electric bicycles and washing machines and dishwashers and
(05:14):
all these. Now they have the vacuum little devices that
just go around your room. You just plug it up
and it automatically just goes around the room all day,
so you don't have to vacuum. Remember that the exercise
of vacuuming, having to get the vacuum ount and going
back and forth. I mean that is physical activity, even
though you don't think it's physical activity, or going outside
(05:36):
working in the yard, carrying groceries in the house. Now
we just have some sort of door dash where we
call the grocery store and they put it in the car.
Force and then maybe there's someone that puts it in
the house. Was again, just a lot of our activities
have just naturally been cut down so that we're not
really that active throughout the day. Especially if you're working.
(05:58):
You have a desk job, you just go from one
seated position to the next. Right, you get out of
bed and you get in your car, then you get
to your office and you sit down. That's it. You're
not really bending and picking up anything on a regular basis.
So the aging process then kicks in. Man, it happens
(06:19):
very easily, where before you know it, you can't even
do some simple tasks that you were able to do.
One thing that I've noticed as a doctor is bending
at the knees. Right, It gets hard to bend down
at the knees. You've dropped something and you have to
bend down or you have to go to the floor
to pick that up. That is a treacherous physical move
(06:42):
and a lot of times we lose that ability as
we get old. We just sort of bend at the waist,
We just bend down to pick that up, Whereas when
you bend at the knees, that's much harder for a
lot of people to do. And again that's because of
things like aging and just being physically out of shape,
being overweight, can't bend at the knees, that's difficult. Hey,
(07:04):
we have Frank from Beaumont. What's going on?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Hey, Doc? How you doing? You're talking about bending at
the knee when you've had when you've had knee replacements,
you don't have the flection in the knee anymore. So
that's kind of hard.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Absolutely, As I told you before, I'm an old beat
up athlete like you are. But absolutely, you know, thinking
about without all the medications that are available today that
doctors feed patients today, and you know in many cases
you know side effects, people that research no side effects,
(07:38):
but then sometimes they just willing to try it and
go with it. Besides whether it's going to affect your
delivery or gallbladder whatever, you still do it to try
to get relieved. What are some of the over the
counter medicate not medication, but example icy hot Are they
anything like that? I know there's so many, there's millions
(07:59):
on the market, man. And then some of them you
see or hear about, they get into the blood system
can affect you some way. And I remember one that
came out of it six eight years ago, and I
can't remember the name of it now. My doctor said, look,
I'm going to give you something. It's like gold. I said, okay,
it was a sample. He gave it to me. In
course it was a prescription. Then, Nan, it's over the counter.
(08:22):
And now I'll read a lot about how it kind
of gets in your stream and could affect your blood
system and all that kind of stuff. But I was
just wanting to know if you got anything that is
over the counter that you suggest to them, maybe for
the knee or the shoulder, the elbow or whatever it is,
it could maybe give them a little relief through the day.
(08:42):
And I'll hang up and listen.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Thank you, all right, Frank, We appreciate that question, brother. Yeah,
Muscular skeletal pain is a common reasonist. While a lot
of people actually go to their primary our healthcare professional's office,
my neck hurts, my shoulder hurts, my knee, my back,
(09:06):
my ankle, my feet, my fingers, my wrist, my elbow.
I mean, we get a ton of those complaints over
the weak and again, the muscular scale systems almost like
the skin system, we kind of forget about it, right,
We always talk about the heart and the brain and
the kidney, But that old joint system, it's there, it's alive,
(09:30):
and it goes through its own aging process as well.
And as all of us get older, we tend to
get some sort of joint complaints, some patients more than others.
And certainly the lower back or the lumbar spine is
probably one of the most common and frequent sights of
(09:53):
pain generation. But certainly the knees just because they're part
of our main soul port system, right they hold us up.
We're using it every day just for normal locomotion walking,
And as I mentioned binding and our call and mentioned
knee replacement, most of that comes into play because that knee, yeah,
(10:17):
wears out faster for some wears out to the point
that it just doesn't function and it starts to generate
a significant amount of pain. You lose a lot of mobility,
The integrity and the strength of the knee will start
to weaken, and so it doesn't support normal locomotion. So
(10:38):
you can fall and trip, and certainly can fall and
trip and then break other things or injure other things
like your face, your neck, your clavical, your wrist, as
you're trying to break your fall. We see that every
single day in the hospital. So muscular scheduletal complaints is
(11:00):
a huge, huge problem in our country just we're able
to get to our deeper seventies eighties, and so that's
a common thing. Certainly, as doctors, we try to prescribe
something to you that should not cause harm, or try
(11:21):
not to cause harm. If you listen to my show,
I try to help you understand that no matter if
it's prescription or if it's over the counter, anything you
put in your mouth can potentially cause some potential harm
or adverse reaction that is unforeseen. The pharmacists have done
(11:41):
a better job over the past several years educating the
person who's getting this prescription that, hey, look at these
lists of potential side effects. Probably won't happen, but hey,
be aware of all of this that can happen, because
anything can. We see it every day, and most doctors,
(12:02):
as they mature in their careers, tend to figure out
which medicines do most torm, which medicines do the least
tom In terms of prescribing medicines for certain physical elements
no different from muscular skeletal disease, and for me as
it pertains to what's over the counter and what's probably
(12:24):
the least causing problem medication out there, I would have
to say the topical anti inflammatory medications is one thing
that I believe in a lot that I prescribe a
lot to my patients or recommend. Because it's over the counter,
you don't need a prescription. And I see hot. He
(12:44):
brings that up. He knows that as a former athlete,
played high school ball here for Westbrook four years, went
off to Rice and played there for five years. But
I also played little league baseball south Park little League
Spindle Top out there. I played for many years. I
(13:05):
was a catcher, did a little pitching as well. But man,
there were days where we'd do a double header where
you played two games in one day. I mean, the
arm starts are hurt throwing the ball all day. Man.
We used a ton of icy hot just to help
with the joints, and that stuff's been around for so
many years. As well as ben Gay. I remember that
(13:27):
growing up with some of my grandparents and they were
using bingen had that smell to it, which is how
you knew they were using it. It was a very
strong smell that they use in sort of a topical analgesic.
Those products are relatively safe and you can use those
(13:48):
and I don't know of any significant contraindication to using
those products. Even with CHF or kidney failure or whatever.
Liver you can still use that stuff. It's over the
counter and it does work to some degree. The one
that I like to use, however, it's called voltaine gel,
(14:12):
which the active ingredient is dichlophinac, which is a non
storoidal anti inflammatory drug. Are insaie Inn said. You also
know them as motren advil alive. It's a category of
medications we use a lot in the medical world, as
(14:35):
I've mentioned to all of you, just because most Americans' bodies,
most americans systems are inflamed, and that has a lot
to do with again, what we're eating and drinking. My argument,
if you listen to my show, based on my reading
(14:55):
and talking to thousands of patients on a yearly basis,
is that eating and drinking ultraprocessed foods, sugary beverages tends
to irritate the human body and it generates inflammation as
a reaction to consuming these products, and that will then
(15:20):
start to cause all sorts of physical complaints, and arthritis
is one physical complaint from the inflammatory system being turned
on again from the body's exposure to all of these
ultraprocessed ingredients and foods which have a lot of preservatives
and man made chemicals that really are not designed for
(15:41):
human consumption based on my understanding and my reading. But
as a result of that exposure, constant exposure, if you will,
I mean you're eating and drinking it every single day,
it turns on your inflammatory system, which is really there
to protect you and help you heal, almost like your
immune system is there to fight for you to prevent
(16:04):
infections or if you get infection, to help defeat the
infection when you get it. The inflammatory system is not
supposed to be active all the time, every day, month
after month. It's not supposed to. But when it is,
that's when you start getting physical symptoms. You know about
things like lupus and rumor tartithritis. Again, when the inflammatory
(16:28):
system goes haywire and it tends to start causing injury
to other vital organs, your skin system, your blood vessel system,
your nervous system. Because the inflammatory system is turned on
abnormally to the point that it starts to injure and
damage other vital organs. That's what rumor tartarthritis does, that's
(16:52):
what lupus does, that's what all of the other autoimmune
slash inflammatory disorders do. For whatever reason, and the body
goes haywire and starts to do some damage friendly fire,
if you will. And now we have all these products
that have been provided to us by the pharmaceutical company
what they call biological agents. They've sort of mapped out
(17:17):
the inflammatory system, like how do you get from A
to Z. They've kind of mapped that out, and the
pharmaceutic company has figured out where to block the cascade
of chemical actions that causes inflammation. That's what these biological
agents do. They sort of go to targeted areas along
(17:37):
that cascade of chemical actions and they block it so
that you can't generate these inflammatory chemicals in your body
and so then the symptoms are controlled, but you're not free.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Biological agents can cause other problems. It's a very complicated
integrated system. So if you block one thing, that another
thing starts happening. But they've kind of figured out how
to balance all that. But it's not completely free of
potential problems. So again that's a long list of side effects.
But voltaian gel is what I recommend if you have
(18:16):
any joint complaints, and that's just about for most people.
I don't care about your medical problems because, just like
the call said, yeah, sometimes a little bit leaks into
your blood system, but again it's normally below a threshold
that we need to worry about. Because if you have
certain medical issues like kidney issues, heart issues, liver issues,
(18:39):
we tend to try and stay away from what we
call oral anti inflammatory and anti inflammatory of medications. We
stay away from those because long term use can cause
issues or aggravate those problems. So more of a topical
route which tends to be safer, less systemic, and less
(19:00):
issues with adverse reaction. You can rub this gel or
cream on the affected joint normally three to four times
a day to help control those symptoms and sort of
reduce the possibility of having adverse reactions. Sort of a
good balance. So voltarine gel or diclofinacgel is what I
(19:21):
recommend the most for arthreatic our joint complaints, whether it
be your hands or your wrists or your elbow, that's
what I tend to get into. And then yes, sometimes
if you don't have any chronic medical problems, you can
entertain ibuprofen or motor an advil leave. Those are great products.
(19:41):
Aspirin three hundred and twenty five miligram aspen is basically
a anti inflammatory drug. We use the baby dose to
eighty one milligram dose to help reduce the possibility of
having a blood clotform in your blood vessel. Again, most
of us, as we get other than arthritis, that plaque
(20:02):
starts to show its ugly face and we need to
ward against any sort of blood clot in your artery,
which a lot of times plaque has a lot to
do with that by taking an aspen once a day
eighty one milligrams, because it does sort of interfere just
(20:22):
so slightly with the blood clotting system to make your
blood a little bit more slippery so that it's less
prone to form blood clots, which as we all get older,
because of the aging system, we're all at risk for that.
It's built into us that the blood system is more
thick and because the blood vessel wall just over the
(20:45):
years of our diet and our lifestyle just starts getting
that plaque and that narrowing. So the combination sort of
is what generates these issues with strokes and heart attacks.
So to try and reduce the possibility of that. Yes,
I spent a day. Keeps the doctor away unless you're bleeding.
(21:05):
Bone lines are open eight nine six kalvyt one one
hundred and three to three zero kovy. I'll be back
in two minutes. All right, welcome back to Doctravi Medical
(21:29):
Our bhone lines are open eight nine to six kvy
out one one hundred three three zero kalv I. We
love hearing from you. Give us a call just talking
about joint pain and what is the best way to
alleviate joint pain without a lot of side effects. And
I mentioned the voltairean jail which is normally sold at
(21:51):
most of the pharmacies Walmart, CVS, et cetera. And you
just rub it on there about four times a day
and it's pretty effective. I've had some issues with my
shoulders over the years and I've used that successfully works
very well. Another product that I like to use for
pain for a joint pain is the what they call
(22:13):
Salon Pause patches, which basically has lightokin in the patch itself.
It's a pain patch, if you will, a topical pain patch,
and again we like to use a topical route because
it's less systemic. This call was mentioning side effects safety
and that is a big topic in the medical world
(22:35):
and has been for probably over fifteen years, just recognizing
that delivery of healthcare can sometimes be risky and that
we need to have better systems in place to make
it less risky so that the outcomes are predictably good
and predictably better no matter where you are. So we
(22:55):
work on that sort of thing all the time. And yes,
things like what are the best drugs out there, what
are the best routes of delivery out there to reduce
side effects of medications. Yes, we have built that into
the system currently not wasn't always like that, but yes
it is now. That's a huge, huge topic and a
(23:17):
huge huge priority in the medical world right now. Just
so that you know that, I mean, we meet on
this stuff all the time. There's committees. Normally at any
hospital or any healthcare outlet that you have, there's committees,
their review records. If things sort of fall out of
the normal activity, it gets reviewed and so we can
(23:39):
change it and I mean that's a big, big exercise
right now in the medical world. So we're trying to
figure out what is the best way to do things,
and as it pertains to your joints, the topical medication
Voltaire and Jail as well as Salon Pause. This is
over the counter that come in little different sizes, but
(23:59):
basically it's a sticker patch, a sticker pain patch that
you just put on the affected area. Whether it's your
leg that's hurting you, are your neck that's hurting you,
or your shoulder or your knee, your wrist. You can
just sort of peel this patch and tape it on
and you wear it all day and again, less systemic exposure,
(24:24):
so the issue of side effects is less. Although some
people sort of react to the adhesive sometimes in these
pain patches and they cannot use them. That's a very
unfortunate because again, good products over the counter and can
be an easy way to try and to alleviate your symptoms.
So Voltaiangel, the Salon Pause patches, those are sort of
(24:47):
my top choices for sort of low risk joint pain relief.
But again that whole market of talanol and tal arthritis,
that's a another commonly used product that's over the counter.
Patients can get that whenever they want to. That tends
(25:08):
to be a low risk sort of way to treat
joint pain. Sometimes people get concerned about talinol or a
seed of menifin because of concerns about liver injury liver damage,
and that is real, but normally it has to do
with taking more than what is prescribed for several days,
(25:31):
not maybe one day you forget and maybe you took
more than you should have taken. No big deal. But
if you do that day after day after day, yes
you might get into some toxicity from taking too much
a set of menifin. So as long as you're taking
it as it's prescribed, you don't have anything to worry about.
(25:52):
The only concern would be if you have chronic liver
disease from what we call liver cirrhosis, or maybe you
have chronic hepatitis C. Sometimes experts do recommend limiting the
amount of talenol you have to only two thousand milligrams
per day. Most over the counter talenol tablets are three
(26:14):
hundred and fifty milligrams of acetamnifit, so you'd have to
take several to get to two thousand. So two thousand
is sort of the upper limit of what we recommend
for someone who has chronic liver disease. Whatever reasons to
ross is a very common one, but some patients have
other liver diseases that are taking medicines for their single
(26:36):
liver specialists, So you need to limit the exposure to
a seed of menifit to two thousand, But otherwise, if
your liver is working very well, you can push that
limit up to four thousand milligrams per day. So you
can see very easily you're just taking a three hundred
and fifty milligram tablet, your cap or higher amount is
(26:58):
about four thousand milligrams. It's going to take several doses
of talnol to get to that point, so I don't
come across that often. The only issue that we sometimes
find that scary is consuming alcohol on top of taking
the talanol. That's sort of the double whammy that is
(27:20):
super high risk for causing liver injury, just because the
liver sort of processes talanol and it does have the
ability to break down the components of talanol and clear
them out as long as the liver is working well.
But if you have alcohol floating around in your system,
(27:41):
the system in the liver that processes aceet of benefit
of talanol gets interrupted because alcohol competes with it such
that the byproducts of talanol consumption can sort of build up,
and that those byproducts is what injures the liver. And man,
(28:02):
you don't want to mess with liver failure. That is terrible.
I mean, patients are pretty sick and it can harm you.
It can kill you if the liver injury gets too bad.
We do see this on a regular basis. A lot
of times you have to be transferred to what they
call a liver center where experts who deal with liver
(28:23):
failure acute liver failure can help you get through the
crisis because a lot of things go wrong when your
liver doesn't work. We don't talk a lot about deliver
that much. Again, we hear a lot about the heart
and the kidneys and maybe the lungs, but man, we
don't talk about liver that much. And I think we
don't just because the liver is a tough little organ.
(28:44):
You can damage it and do all sorts of things
to it, and it has a lot of redundancy built
into it. To sort of protect itself, which is a
good thing. But the liver has a lot of different
or serves a lot of different functions of the human body,
such that when it stops working or it's not working efficiently,
a lot of other systems get impacted because the liver
(29:07):
is not working. So patients that only super sick have
to be in the ICU, have to see multiple doctors,
just a lot a lot of support, and again, for
the most part, it takes care of itself. But there
are a few scenarios, like if you have a headache
and maybe you consume some alcohol recently or you're consuming
(29:28):
both in a regular basis, that's when we get into
those toxicity issues. But otherwise, under normal circumstances, talanol is
an extremely safe product to take for your joint pain
or any sort of pain that you have a headache
or some back pain. You could theoretically take talanol. You
could go out and get your salon pause patch and
(29:50):
tape it on your back, and then you may have
some other joints that are bothering. You can rub on
your voltarian gel on the other joints and notch your back.
You could to have all these medicines working for you
over the counter, relatively safe, and get that joint pain
down so that you can bend at the knees. If
(30:13):
the lines are open. Eight done six Scalvy, I want
to hundred three three zero kay, I'll be back in
two minutes. All right, welcome back to the Doc Living
Medical our phone lines or open eight nine six Kalvy,
(30:33):
I want to hundred three three zero Okai talking about
joint pain. All of us get it periodically, right, And
do you have to run to the doc every time? No,
you don't. A lot of times you can treat that
with over the counterproducts. Man, the list is long. Most
of that stuff was prescription at one time. Thankfully, it's
not just because joint pain comes up periodically over your
(30:58):
lifetime and just needs something real quick. You don't have
time to sit in doct Levine's office for three hours
waiting to see him for five minutes. Now, you just
run down to the local pharmacy and get your product
and either ingest something or tape something on your back
or rub something. There's a lot of arthritis products over
(31:19):
the counter, and we're trying to be safe as possible.
The thing also that we like to remind you is
that you want to make sure that there's no disease
that's causing your joint pain. For the most part, it's
just going to be what we call primary osteo arthritis
or rheumatism is what a lot of people call that. Again,
(31:40):
just that wear and tear age related decline of the joint,
whichever joint it is. But there are some more systemic
diseases that affect the joint system that need to be
diagnosed and placed on medications. Normally, these sorts of diseases,
(32:03):
the joint symptoms will be more severe and refractory to
over the counterproducts. Meaning you've been to CVS, you've been
to Walmart, You've taken these medicines and nothing is working.
Maybe the symptoms are worsening. Sometimes it's difficult to walk
or use that joint. I mean it's more of a
(32:23):
severe sort of arthritis or joint pain or joint inflammation.
That's when you know a lot of times this is
something on another level you have to go into your
doctor's office again to do a little work up to
make sure some of these other diseases that plague Americans
is not at play, and some of these diseases. You
(32:44):
know them as slopus, you know them as rheumatoid arthritis,
are gout or sarcardosis is another one. These are very
common in our community. But they start off with joint pain.
Are sometimes rashist, and again I think the common reaction
(33:05):
to that, hey, let me just go get some motrin
or advile, some talentol and let me just knock it out.
But normally these diseases will cause more severe symptoms, they
won't go away, or maybe have other systemic symptoms, maybe
such as like I say, your skin or your vision,
or maybe causing chest pain or shortness of breath. As
(33:26):
these inflammatory diseases such as rhumatartarthritis or a lupus can't
affect your heart function, your lung function, your blood vessel system,
which can cause a disease called vasculitis. So most of
the time you will get other sort of associated symptoms
that lets the person know that something is more severe
and at play. And normally we start off with some
(33:49):
blood work. We normally will do some X rays and
then sort of the inflammatory experts in the medical field
are called rheumatologists, and here in the Golden Triangle area
we do have a handful of rheumatologists, maybe about four
or five that you might be able to get into. Again,
it's going to take a long time, right, you're talking
(34:10):
about Southeast Texas, Golden Triangle. That's a big Area's a
lot of citizens in this area. To just sort of
concentrate and focus on these rheumatologists a lot of times
takes a long time. But a lot of times I
recommend for my patients. You know, Calveston is not that
far away, Baytown is not that far away, and Houston
(34:31):
is really not that far away. You're talking about an
hour and fifteen minutes and you're sort of in another world.
There's just more practitioners available in these areas that if
you can't wait for the local doctors to take care
of you, just hop in your car. I make it
sound so easy, right, just hop in your car, get
somebody to drive you down there. We just a lot
(34:53):
of times need the information for the practitioner. If your
primary needs to make a referral, we just need their
office inf maybe insurance information, and we can make referral.
You can also self refer sometimes a lot of the
consultants out there in these bigger cities, they have self
referral processes. They also have virtual visits that they're now doing.
(35:15):
A lot of my patients have neurologists that are in
Houston and other subspecialists that are in Houston. And because
of COVID and the use of the virtual platform, that
has expanded, and so a lot of these experts are
now offering virtual visits. Right, you can be in Beaumont,
you can be invited orange on your computer talking to
(35:36):
someone in Galveston, Houston, Baytown. It's beautiful, right, So if
you don't want to wait, maybe think about going to
some of these other practitioners. You can get in a
lot faster, just because we just don't have that many
doctors here to sort of take care of all the
needs of Southeast Texas. And that might be a good
(35:59):
solution for especially if it's virtual. I mean, how can
you beat that? And sometimes maybe have to go once
a year just to have a face to one face
to face, or maybe there's some testing, specialized testing that
they want you to do. We can't get done here.
I think in terms of blood work and X rays,
we're on par with any area that you might go,
whether it be Galveston in Houston, so we have a
(36:20):
lot of outlets for blood work as well as MRIs
cats can So that's normally not a big deal, which
is what I hear a lot. They might be following
up with a doctor in Houston or Galveston or Baytown.
They say, hey, get your blood work, get your X rays,
Aaron Beaumont. We can normally take care of that. We
have outlets for that. But in terms of the sort
of expertise and the convenience and the time it takes
(36:44):
to get in to see these doctors, especially neurologists, just
don't have that many here with all the strokes that
are happening every single day. Yes, a lot of times
you might have to step outside of the Golden triangle
at least for a few visits right until things settle
down and then you can maybe see that person annually.
You can just follow with your healthcare professional, especially if
everything that's going well, you're on your meds, you're doing good.
(37:06):
You just sort of need some routine bloodwork and a
basic physical and that's all you need. Sort of make
a day out of it, you know, if you have
to step over to Houston or Baytown, because pretty much
is going to take all day for the most part, right,
just to get over there, get your visit, and then
drive back. I mean probably talking about five or six
hours very easily. And the thing I hear a lot
(37:28):
of times is that traffic, you know, I just more
cars and trucks and motorcycles on the road now, right,
and just stuff's whizzing by. It's just a headache a
lot of times. And having to get on the traffic
and fight all that. Just conveniently driving down from your
house to your doctor's office normally thirty forty miles an
(37:49):
hours the most you do. But getting on the open highway, man,
it can be a little dangerous and cumbersome, you know,
having to do that for a full day. Very come
with some phone lines are open eight nine six kalva.
I want to hundred and three three zero klv I
going in a last break, be right back, all right,
(38:14):
welcome back to the doc Lavion Medical hour. Phone lines
are opened eight nine six kov I want one hundred
and three to three zero kov I. At the end
of the show, we want to thank all the callers
and the listeners. Remember if there is a topic that
you'd like me to discuss, just call my office. Three
four seven, three six two one, or you can call
(38:36):
the station. Leave the topic and we do our best
to talk about it. Certainly, this show is for you,
just trying to get you some answers to some basic questions.
That's really what healthcare professionals try to do every day
is get you some answers to your problems. Most of
the time we are successful and can give you some
pretty good answers pretty quickly, but not always. These situations
(38:58):
can be quite difficul hold and tough to figure out,
but we can use several people. Jim, real quick, what's up?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Any of the over the counter sleep pages?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
You know?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Work with flips everyone? I'll try it doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, I think the most common is melatonin that's very
popular in the medical world. Sometimes ben a drill can
be used for a sleep aid. Those are pretty much
the two over the counter that I prioritize. Sometimes you
have a true insomnia disease problem and you probably would
need some prescription sleep medications. There's several to choose from
(39:37):
that are relatively safe. So again, if the over the
counter stuff doesn't help, just go to your healthcare professional
and see if you can get a prescription and try
one of the sleep aids that are out there.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Well, I was in that for years, but probably are unnamed.
Uh't name the doctor here, mama, but he's set all
the patients basically, also the NBN for example, and you
know that works, should do and that works. That's perfect
on meet forty patients out of it.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, all doctors are different. So if your practitioner is
unwilling or not wanting to prescribe those medications, you certainly
can seek a second opinion and go to a different
physician and are a healthcare professional, nurse practition physician assistant
and see if they're willing to prescribe that medication. As
far as I know, ambient is a relatively safe product
(40:30):
and some people need it. So as long as there's
not any abuse issues, toxicity issues, it is normally okay
to prescribe that medication. Again, your practitioner may have had
some bad experience with it and just doesn't like it
and so they stop prescribing, which is normal.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Okay, Well, you claim that it's that he's got on
a carporate by the powers that be up in ortion
like that. As far as the overseers, you know, stuff
like that's what is the reason for it?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, correct, I mean these sort of organization to the DEA,
which gives us our permission to prescribe certain levels of medications. Yes,
they give us recommendations about medicines that are high risk
low risk and sort of give us some ideas about
we'd like you to prefer these medicines and stay away
from those. And every doctor health care provider is more
(41:19):
sensitive less sensitive to those recommendations. We can always write
we want unless they take that privilege away, which sometimes
they do if we abuse the situation. But again, every doctor,
every healthcare professional has a different position on that. So
for this practitioner, he wants to stay she wants to
stay away from it, so they stop.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I think that's fine, Yeah, yeah, okay, I appreciate appreciate.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Your help, all right, brother Jim. I appreciate that. And
getting a good night's sleep is extremely important. I don't
talk a lot about insomnia or lack of good sleep. Again,
obstructive sleep APANE is a very common reason for that
in our country, just because again we're normally overweight, we
have thick necks, and when we try to go to sleep,
(42:03):
it's hard to breathe and so we develop a reduction
of breathing or lack of breathing. We call that apnea.
So that's the most common cause of that. And if
you're overweight. Being my story above, you should be getting
your sleep study when you're going to your healthcare professionalist office.
They're doing a lot of those with truck drivers now
to get their CDLs is to check for sleep apnea.
(42:27):
But if not, you have a true problem, yeah, just
go into your healthcare profession's office. Try to get a
prescription for a commonly prescribed sleep medicine. Yes, a little risky,
but as long as you're getting your urine check you
otherwise not exhibiting any unusual abnormal behavior. You don't take
a whole lot of other high risk medicines like narcotics,
(42:48):
pain medicines, must relaxers. It's okay, and they're okay with it.
They know Insombia's out there. This stuff is still available
to the open market. You just have to be cautious
about using it, and it works very well. You gotta
get your sleep at night, so if you're not sleeping,
go check with your healthcare professional. Anyway, Thank you for
joining us another edition of the show. Remember don't drink
(43:09):
and drive, Eat some vegetables, drink some water. We'll see
you guys next week. Take care,
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