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Short Stuff: The Brain-Bladder Connection · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey you, and welcome to the shorty short stuff, your
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: short short guy, short guys and gals. Everybody so short
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: because this is short stuff, including us, Josh, Chuck, Jerry,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: we're all short. Are you going to make that same
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: similar type joke on all ladies? That's no joke, Chuck.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You know what Randy Newman said about short people what
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I got no reason to live? Remember what? You don't
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: know that song? You know that that just took like
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: such a left turn. I was not expecting that. Shall
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: people got no reason? Really, man, that was a that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: was a top ten hit. My friend, You're crazy when
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I mean, I had to be the seventies. Okay,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: look it up. The only top ten hit of his
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  Speaker 1: that I know is um I Love l A, we
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: love it. That's a great song. All right, So let
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: me ask you something. Have you ever gone home? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: put and felt just all right, and I'm having a
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: good day. I'm home. This is great. Put the key
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in the door. And as soon as you start that process,
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  Speaker 1: you're like, oh m god, I have to be really
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  Speaker 1: really bad. I cannot express to you how many times
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  Speaker 1: this happens to me for real. So you have this yeah, clearly,
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  Speaker 1: and I noticed that it mostly affects women. I'm like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: hum whatever, Um, but I definitely have a big time,
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  Speaker 1: so much so that I've trained myself because there's clearly
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  Speaker 1: something going on with the brain where I'm like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I have so much further before I could possibly pee.
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  Speaker 1: So it's not happening in the next like ten seconds
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  Speaker 1: for sure, So might as well just calm down there,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: bladder and it actually works. Yeah, So it is. That
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  Speaker 1: is a real thing called key in lock syndrome or
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: urge urinary incontinence, And like you said, it apparently does
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: affect more women than men. And um, if you really
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  Speaker 1: have this to a you know, to as decent to
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  Speaker 1: large degree, you kind of have to plan around it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Even Yeah, it's so I didn't understand this. Now I
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  Speaker 1: totally get like those poise ads and depends ads, Like,
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  Speaker 1: I get it now. Um, Apparently as as women age, uh,
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  Speaker 1: they tend to become slightly more incontinent, right, But it's not,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's not strictly women. Um. I think
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  Speaker 1: a quarter to a third of all Americans at any
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  Speaker 1: given point in time have some sort of incontinence problem,
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  Speaker 1: not just this one, but if you start to understand
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  Speaker 1: what the uh what what's behind it, it actually makes
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a lot more sense. But basically, you have what's called
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a um a. The floor of your pelvic muscle, your
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  Speaker 1: pellic muscle or your pellc floor is basically what it is,
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  Speaker 1: and that is what holds your guts and everything up.
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  Speaker 1: That supports basically everything inside your abdomen, and it's it's
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  Speaker 1: like a trampoline of muscle that all that stuff sits in,
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  Speaker 1: and it has a few holes in it. It has
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  Speaker 1: one or your urethra, one for your house and then
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  Speaker 1: if you're a woman, has one for your vagina to
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  Speaker 1: right um. So normally the that muscle is pretty tight
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  Speaker 1: and it's holding all that stuff closed. And then when
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  Speaker 1: you need to pee or your poop or something, your
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  Speaker 1: brain is like, all right, open up, you're going number one,
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  Speaker 1: You're going number two. Here comes a baby, that kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing. And over time this muscle can kind of
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  Speaker 1: get weaker, get looser. Once you have a child, that
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  Speaker 1: can really stretch your muscles out. And so as a
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  Speaker 1: result of this, it's harder to hold impea, especially if
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  Speaker 1: you get a sudden urge to go. Yeah, and and
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  Speaker 1: like you said, it. You know, as you age, this
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  Speaker 1: can increase um. One of the reasons I think it
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  Speaker 1: it primarily affects women, uh, is because childbirth and pregnancy
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  Speaker 1: can play a pretty big role in this. And interestingly, uh,
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  Speaker 1: that's the same as for C section as just a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: good old fashioned vaginal birth. That's really weird. Yeah, because
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  Speaker 1: I would think it has to do with with I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, I guess section. I think there's pressure no
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  Speaker 1: matter what during pregnancy. But it does say that childbirth,
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  Speaker 1: even a C section, they're they're impacted. Well, yeah, then
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  Speaker 1: it must just be for the whole um, the whole pregnancy,
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  Speaker 1: just the baby sitting on that trampoline of muscle. It's
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  Speaker 1: gotta stretch it out a little up and down for sure. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's like settled down there jr. All moms say, well,
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  Speaker 1: they're pregnant, so pregnancy, childbirth age, Uh. Some other uh,
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  Speaker 1: a little more serious causes, although they're not as common
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  Speaker 1: as those are, like infection or bladder cancer, bladder stones
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  Speaker 1: for men, prostate problems right, which I didn't. Did you
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: know what the prostate does? Do? I know what the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: prostate does. That's my question that's out there on the table,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: right now I do, but I don't know right now, Okay,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you. You know at one so you know, semen,
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  Speaker 1: I am sure well acquainted, all right. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: like the sperm that's in semen, you know the other
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  Speaker 1: stuff that's in semen that's made by your prostate, and
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  Speaker 1: women have something to um called the skeins gland and
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  Speaker 1: it makes up basically that for women. So semen minus
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  Speaker 1: the sperm, so your prostrate and your skeins gland are
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  Speaker 1: are um well male and female stuff makers, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: So it's we're dancing around this one for sure. But
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  Speaker 1: so um the prostate and I didn't see it anywhere,
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  Speaker 1: but I would guess if the skeins gland is affected
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  Speaker 1: to um, it could have an impact on incontinence for sure.
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  Speaker 1: But also medicines, two different kinds of medications can make
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  Speaker 1: you be yourself. Well yeah, and it's here's the thing too.
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  Speaker 1: Like a lot of times they don't necessarily come in
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  Speaker 1: and say it's this one thing that's causing it. So
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  Speaker 1: a lot of researchers now think maybe it can be
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  Speaker 1: a combination of things that it's not just the bladder. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there's clearly a brain connection because you can. You can
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  Speaker 1: tell your brain no, it's not time, settle down, and
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  Speaker 1: your brain will be like, oh sorry, false alarm. Just
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  Speaker 1: wait a little longer to your bladder. Unless you've crossed
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  Speaker 1: that threshold, then there's no turning back. And then it's
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  Speaker 1: just like, I wonder what that's all about, actually to
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  Speaker 1: the threshold where you're like no, no, no, there is
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  Speaker 1: no bringing bringing it back. I don't know, like I'm
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: about to pee my pants if I don't find a bathroom,
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  Speaker 1: because really, other than you know, having to take a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: shower afterwards, all your all your breaking is like decorum.
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  Speaker 1: You know. Yeah. I think what it is is your
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  Speaker 1: brains weighing the violation of decorum versus the horrible feeling
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  Speaker 1: that is having endurance. Just like I'm going with this one,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: so long decorum. But um, it is a it's a
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  Speaker 1: it's enough of a an embarrassing problem that people do
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  Speaker 1: seek treatment. But unfortunately, from what I understand and from
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  Speaker 1: what the article that you sent um says is that
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  Speaker 1: there's real, like low level attention paid to solving this.
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  Speaker 1: But luckily there's kind of like this rising school of
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  Speaker 1: thought that's like, no, we we need to study this more.
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  Speaker 1: This is not enough. You can't just tell women to
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  Speaker 1: go do kegel exercises and don't worry about it, or
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  Speaker 1: that they have to wear poise pads for the rest
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: of their life. That's not a solution. That's not an answer.
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  Speaker 1: So let's take a break and we'll come back and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: talk about what you can do when you're about to
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  Speaker 1: pee yourself, because you are opening your door alright, So
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  Speaker 1: the bladder, I'm curious we should maybe do a full
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: one on the bladder at some point, because it's really
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  Speaker 1: interesting to me. I've always been a person that I
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  Speaker 1: feel like I p more than your average person. Me too.
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  Speaker 1: You definitely do, but yours is for one reason. It's
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: because you have a constant flow of liquids coming into
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: your body. Not just liquids, but coffee too. Chuck Wich
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: is a diuretic. Yeah yeah. Emily also is a frequent urinator.
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  Speaker 1: And I've always just suspected that, um that it's not
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  Speaker 1: like people say I have a small bladder. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if that's true or not. Like I think it's
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  Speaker 1: not so much the size of the bladder, but maybe
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: how it relates to the brain. That's kind of And
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  Speaker 1: it seems to be the the The prevailing wisdom that's
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  Speaker 1: developing now is that there's something going on with the
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  Speaker 1: brain bladder connection. Yeah, so that's what happens when you
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  Speaker 1: need to when everything's going great. The bladder sends a
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  Speaker 1: signal to the brain and says, hey, brain, you might
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  Speaker 1: want to find a might want to get this meat
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  Speaker 1: bag to a toilet soon because I have to release
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  Speaker 1: and it's going to happen at some point no matter what. Right.
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  Speaker 1: There also seems to be possibly some connection to vassip pressing,
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  Speaker 1: because the brain floods the um bladder with vasippressing um
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  Speaker 1: to keep it from peeing while you're sleeping um as
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  Speaker 1: a child, as you're developing, and um, you're not peeing
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  Speaker 1: the bed any longer. It's because you're vassip pressing levels
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  Speaker 1: are right rising throughout your lifetime. UM, and I wonder
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  Speaker 1: if they start to go down after you age and
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  Speaker 1: that actually has an an impact on it as well.
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  Speaker 1: It's possible, chuck. Uh. So all right, your brain gets
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  Speaker 1: this signal that your bladder says it's full. Um, if
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  Speaker 1: you're if you're dude, you can run to the urinal,
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  Speaker 1: which I would love to have one of this in
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  Speaker 1: my house by the way, But Emily said, no way.
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  Speaker 1: She was like, you live in a house full of women.
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  Speaker 1: We're not building a urinal for you. Well, you're like,
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  Speaker 1: we can have both one right next to each other.
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  Speaker 1: So you run to the urnal and when you get there,
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  Speaker 1: your your brain sends a signal back that says, all right,
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  Speaker 1: we're here, release the urine. Or if you can't get
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  Speaker 1: to a urinal or a bathroom, your brain says, sorry, bladder,
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  Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to hang in there for a bit.
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  Speaker 1: That's it. That's peeing, Yeah, pretty much. Do you remember
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  Speaker 1: we talked about mix mixturition syncope and I call this syncope.
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  Speaker 1: Know what was that? It's where you faint after you pee,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: right right, because they think there's like changes in your
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  Speaker 1: level of either vast oppressing or nor up and ne friend,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: there's some chemical that tells your muscles to relax around
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  Speaker 1: your bladder causes you to to faint. So what can
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: you do? You can do kegels. If you're a woman
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  Speaker 1: or a man, um you can do you could basically,
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  Speaker 1: I think from what I understand, the first thing you
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  Speaker 1: want to do is go to your doctor and this
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: specialist his name was um Dr Philip P. Smith, and
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  Speaker 1: he's one of these new thinkers about this kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, if your doctors tells you to do
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  Speaker 1: kegels or get used to wearing pads, give yourself another doctor.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Go see somebody else, because there's other stuff you can do.
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  Speaker 1: But if your doctor is worth you know, their salt,
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  Speaker 1: they're gonna say things like, um, yes, do kegels. Try
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to follow a basically a p regiment schedule. Yes. So
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize this and this this person had like
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the greatest quote. Um, we have all heard that voiding
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: on a schedule rather than just when you have to
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  Speaker 1: go is better. I never heard that had me there.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I think the specialist needs to get out of the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: clinic once in a while. I remember when my dad
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: sat me down when I was ten and said, you
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: know it's on you pe at nine, noon, three, seven
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  Speaker 1: and ten and everything will be great. That's supposedly what
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you want to do is go every three hours, um,
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  Speaker 1: whether you have the urge or not, and you're training
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  Speaker 1: your body to be able to hold it. And then
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: paradoxically you want to hold it for an extra five minutes,
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  Speaker 1: then maybe an extra ten minutes, because, as this article
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  Speaker 1: says it not for the opposite, Stretching your bladder actually
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  Speaker 1: allows it to hold more, so you'll have the urgency
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  Speaker 1: less frequently over the day. But I don't know about
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that one. I'm not I'm not banking on it. Did
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: you ever go to one of those dumb college bars
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that had the thing where beer is free until you pee? No? Yeah,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it was a thing at some bars from like five
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: to seven. Beer was free for everybody until the first
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: person in the bar p That's a lot of stress,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and so of course there's always, you know, some stupid
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: frat boy peeing in a beer pitcher under the table
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: just so we can drink a little more. Where was this,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, we both went to college in the same town.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't think. I think they had them
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: at Georgia Southern. I never I never went to one
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: in Athens because I wouldn't have wanted that pressure, because
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I would have been, like, I gotta be guys. Yeah
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: enough said with Georgia Southern. Yeah, so train your bladder.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: If you have to pee, try and stave it off
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: even longer. Five minutes at a time, then maybe ten
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: minutes and before you know it. You get to that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: front door and you're just fine, You're just gonna poop yourself,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: which is a whole other short stuff episode. All tickets right, uh,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And that's it. If you want to get in touch
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: with us, you can go to onto our website. It's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: called stuffy Shado dot com. You can find all of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: our social links there and you can also send us
• 13:46
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• 13:50
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