Latest / Privycast / Ep. 53 Poop Logs and Stool Samples
Transcript
- 0:00I think that's usually where I'm at.
- 0:02I think I'm baseline a type 5 on the Bristol scale, and I'm okay with that.
- 0:07I'm willing to live with it.
- 0:15Welcome back to Privy.
- 0:17Privy is a podcast about bathrooms.
- 0:21Recorded in my home bathroom.
- 0:25I am your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
- 0:30Uh just a weekly bathroom check-in this week.
- 0:36I did have um Applebee's again last night.
- 0:42And so uh it actually wasn't bad.
- 0:45I've been doing a bunch of yard work.
- 0:47and thankfully we we got it in right before the rain hit.
- 0:51if in the background of this recording you can you can hear the rain, um it is it is currently in one of those fun uh spring Oregon just super downpours.
- 1:03So um
- 1:05Yeah, it's there.
- 1:07You might hear that pitter patter in the background.
- 1:09Hopefully not.
- 1:11But here's the deal, and Applebee's is not the worst uh offender this week.
- 1:19Because I'm convinced that I probably shouldn't eat red robin anymore.
- 1:24And it's not because red robin isn't delicious.
- 1:27It is.
- 1:28The problem is, is that never ending basket of fries, uh when
- 1:34The basket of fries keeps coming and they don't stop coming.
- 1:39I I keep just putting either too much of those little seasoning salt packets, which nowadays you have to like special request those in the days of COVID.
- 1:49But or I I get too just like dip happy with the campfire sauce.
- 1:56I'm not sure which one it is, uh, but I'm actually I I think the culprit is the campfire sauce.
- 2:02There's something about just the wet
- 2:05nature of the campfire sauce that seems like it's going to rear its ugly head in the bathroom a little more.
- 2:13Um I went to Red Robin with some homies after young adults and man, middle of the night, I was visited by the tummy gremlin just trying to burst forth and it it was about an hour
- 2:26and a forty five minute ordeal to which the the guy who shout out Ian uh who helps
- 2:32lead young adults with me, I texted him in the morning.
- 2:35I was like, hey, here was my adventure.
- 2:36How are you?
- 2:37And he's like, Are you okay?
- 2:38Do you need help?
- 2:39Uh and it but I was fine, you know.
- 2:41Uh maybe a little dehydrated, but it's so bad though.
- 2:46Both an amount and time spent on the pot, as well as the duration of the actual feeling of tummy awfulness.
- 2:55One of the things is, um, and it's it's what we're gonna get into this week, but it turns out
- 3:02That if a person wanted to, they could probably figure out what was causing that, like awful, my stomach feels terrible, and I just have to get this out of me sensation.
- 3:14Um, by running some sort of analysis of that person's turd.
- 3:22And so, without too much further ado, this week we are talking about poop logs and stool tests.
- 3:31What we can learn from the things we leave can be helpful to track our stool, poop logs, and stool samples.
- 3:39A brief history of stool samples goes back to pretty much every like ancient culture that ever existed.
- 3:48You know, and any time we start talking like ancient history of bathrooms, I feel like we either land in Egypt, Greece, or Rome.
- 3:57And or China, but like here we are.
- 4:01But yeah, ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman medicine, all of them, would call on a person uh and had somebody in their vernacular and I guess in their just hierarchy of
- 4:15existence.
- 4:15Could you imagine?
- 4:16Um Yeah.
- 4:19Okay.
- 4:19So imagine you roll up to a doctor and they have a person listed on the little like, who's in this office?
- 4:28Who's working in this office?
- 4:30And they have somebody in there like, yeah, Keegan Seymour, Scatamancer, or Copromancer.
- 4:36Excuse me now?
- 4:37Um, that sounds like some strange Dungeons and Dragons, like weird sorcerer spin-off character class.
- 4:47Uh.
- 4:49It also might sound like someone who has romanced a cop, copromancer.
- 4:54Heh.
- 4:55No.
- 4:56Uh, but it's a fancy way this title.
- 4:59Coppermancer or scatamancer is a fancy way of saying someone who tries to make divination, that is, see the future, tell a fortune, those type things, by looking at a person's poop.
- 5:16All things from color, shape, smell, and for goodness sakes, texture.
- 5:23We're taking in texture.
- 5:26I like to think that this is a texture sample that is taken like by taking like maybe like a tongue depressor, a popsicle stick for the layman.
- 5:37popsicle stick.
- 5:38Where are we seven?
- 5:39Uh a tongue depressor and just getting like swirled up around in there to evaluate the texture of of this little buddy.
- 5:48Yeah, texture, uh was taking to into account to try to determine medical condition.
- 5:56As well as color, shape, smell, all those things that I said.
- 5:59And while today's concerns on the on the podcast uh are primarily with the medical use of stool samples and tracking our poop, it should also be noted that many of these cultures
- 6:13believed that you could tell a person's fortune based on their like poop.
- 6:20Herds.
- 6:21Like could you imagine could you okay.
- 6:25So you roll up, you know you're an LA because nobody is I feel like nobody gets their fortune read anywhere but like a whatever these people do these days.
- 6:35And the dude just hands you a container and says, like, hey, the bathroom's over there.
- 6:41Feel free to leave it and we'll pick it up.
- 6:43We'll be right there to root around in your scoot and tell you your future.
- 6:47Now, I'd be like, sir, don't you have like a crystal ball that you can like glad handle in order to tell me these things?
- 6:53Like
- 6:54Do I really have to deuce in a bag or a cup in order for you to get there?
- 6:58Um, no thanks.
- 7:02But outside fortunes, there has been an understanding that our fecal matter can tell us something about what is going on medically within us.
- 7:11And though people have been doing this for some time, uh, there has been a science refined about how they go about determining medical problems from your stool.
- 7:23One of the most clear uh things they have realized is that purely looking at the turd, just like making eye contact with that that little log, the turd, and seeing its physical
- 7:38traits can tell you some things about what's going on in there.
- 7:43What's going on in your tum tum?
- 7:44Let's take a look at at what you're leaving behind.
- 7:48Before we continue, I can't stress enough.
- 7:51Um
- 7:53I am not a doctor.
- 7:54Ah, so any medical advice that is perceived from this episode is unintentional.
- 8:00I've never pretended to be a doctor.
- 8:02If you have tummy problems, go see your doctor.
- 8:04Don't listen to me.
- 8:05Uh we are simply looking at the phenomenon of studying poop to learn about what's going on inside of our bodies.
- 8:14And so in medicine there is a tool called the Bristol Stool Scale.
- 8:21Uh and this Bristol Stool Scale is used to classify types of feces based on shape and texture and is primarily used and is the main diagnostic tool used to determine irritable
- 8:37bowel syndrome.
- 8:39Now, the chart was first used in modern medical analysis.
- 8:44In nineteen ninety seven, when two scientists from England, Stephen Lewis or Stephen Lewis, not gonna tell him how to say his name, and Ken Heaton suggested it be used as
- 8:57such.
- 8:58Five years after the study, the chart is then first used in modern medical analysis.
- 9:04And in short, their medical analysis in nineteen ninety seven, when two scientists
- 9:12Did this study and then they said, hey, let's do this.
- 9:14Uh their assumption that was the texture of the leavings is determined by how much time the the log spends passing through the like fun chute of the human digestive tract.
- 9:35And so by looking at the stool, you can determine a few things about the digestive tract and
- 9:41And as an extension, the digestive system of that person.
- 9:45And there's actually probably credence to this idea that time spent in the digestive tract affects what the turd looks like.
- 9:52See our wombat episode and their cube shaped dookies.
- 9:56But based off this assumption, they put forth seven different types of poop.
- 10:03And they they range from type one, the most hard and uh I would say like
- 10:11They they range from hard to soft, type one being the hardest, type seven being the like least hard.
- 10:18It's you'll see why I'm like beating around the bush on that.
- 10:21It's not really a solid, so describing it as hard is kinda stupid anyway.
- 10:25Um but type one are these small hard lumps that the Bristol scale describes as quote like nuts.
- 10:34Now can why nuts?
- 10:39There's so many other small round hard things like I don't know, marbles that you don't eat.
- 10:45That you went with nuts, a thing that people love to eat.
- 10:50And these are bigger than peanuts.
- 10:52So don't gosh.
- 10:55I g this is what I call the rabbit droppings.
- 10:57Um they're the ones that man, they take a real work to get going, uh, and then they get the like poop poop uh it sounds like you're dropping an Alcott seltzer underneath your
- 11:07butt into the toilet.
- 11:09Um The type 2 uh the scale describes as lumpy sausages.
- 11:14Now, I don't like again this idea of a food descriptor item to describe the turd.
- 11:23Why a sausage?
- 11:24I mean, I love sausages.
- 11:27I don't like that to be associated with w the way we describe a turd.
- 11:33Type three, back to sausage land, they call it
- 11:36Cracked sausages, and they note these can be black.
- 11:40Now type four is called the perfect stool, is described as a sausage or snake that is smooth with no cracks.
- 11:50It's the gold standard of human leavings.
- 11:53Type four a snake or sausage with no cracks.
- 12:00Type five, soft blobs with clear edges.
- 12:03I think that's usually where I'm at.
- 12:05I think I'm baseline a type five on the Bristol scale and I'm okay with that.
- 12:09I'm willing to live with it.
- 12:12Type six is described as fluffy.
- 12:14Now fluffy is not an accurate adjective for poop ever.
- 12:18Um flaky, maybe.
- 12:23Not solid, definitely.
- 12:26But like fluffy, that's clouds, not poop.
- 12:30Like, and type six is essentially diarrhea light.
- 12:33It's what happens right before you're at diarrhea, which is, of course, type seven, watery.
- 12:38Uh, and that is where I was at with Red Robin this week.
- 12:42For sure.
- 12:44Interestingly enough, um, they found that types one and two, which is equited or equated to being constipated.
- 12:53are more prominent in lady folk.
- 12:56So happy women's month.
- 12:59Um, I'm sorry that if you're a lady, statistically speaking, you are more likely to be constipated.
- 13:06And that's just not fair.
- 13:08Because men are more likely to be at a type five or six baseline, which I'd concur.
- 13:14I agree.
- 13:15I think like I said, I'm baseline five or six.
- 13:18I think I'm closer to the five.
- 13:19And that's just by looking at it.
- 13:22We got this Bristol scale.
- 13:24Outside of look, they can take a stool sample and run a fecal occult blood test.
- 13:30This test, the fecal occult blood test, is designed to detect traces of blood in human stool.
- 13:38Now, I think we can all agree we don't want blood in our stool.
- 13:43It sounds like just a generally bad thing to have found there.
- 13:47Um, but if it is found, the blood
- 13:50In the stool can begin to be used to determine if there is something going on in the gastrointestinal system that is causing the bleeding.
- 13:59Like where are you bleeding at?
- 14:01How how much of this is like what's the oxygen richness of this blood?
- 14:06Um, what is causing the bleeding?
- 14:09And it and it will lead to further testing.
- 14:11The American Cancer Society recommends a fecal colloc Okay.
- 14:17This is me proving that I'm not a doctor.
- 14:20The the American Cancer Society recommends a fecal co-colorectal cancer screening every year for the detection and treatment of possible cancers in persons over the age of
- 14:33forty-five.
- 14:35Pretty much, if there is a growth or polyp or something causing lesions or problems in the tummy tract, that would result in blood.
- 14:43It's this idea that there's a thing there that should not be, and it's causing a wound inside your tumtum, and it's
- 14:49making blood in your stomach, which is not good.
- 14:53Um outside this, uh outside of the uh fecal occult blood test, they can also run a microbiology test.
- 15:02If a person has ascaria as ascariasis, go with that.
- 15:07Hookworms, whipworms, etc., these can be determined through looking at poop under the microscope.
- 15:14Yeah you you brown splat, put it on a
- 15:17Petri dish and you take a look under there, it's like, hey, I see that worm.
- 15:22Woof.
- 15:22If there is unwanted bacteria in your tumtum causing problems, an analysis will show that they have produced unwanted things found during these tests.
- 15:33They can also uh test for intolerances by looking at the pH levels of your of your human brown.
- 15:42It's it's like if your body is not absorbing fats.
- 15:46a fecal fat test checks for whether or not your body is absorbing fats well.
- 15:52If you're not, your body will be passing those fats into your turds.
- 15:59Fecal elastase is an ongoing way of diagnosing pancreatitis.
- 16:05There's medical basis not only for documenting our stool look and in some cases having it tested.
- 16:12In fact, the most famous new awfulness.
- 16:16the the COVID nineteen big Rona.
- 16:19Um also at the day of recording, uh we we dropped the mask mandate here in Oregon.
- 16:25So um let those chins hang free if you want.
- 16:29And if you're not letting them hang free, totally fine.
- 16:32Uh do as you please.
- 16:34But the most famous new awfulness, COVID, can be detected in human poop.
- 16:39And that brings us to a special segment of Pooh in the news.
- 16:49This poo in the news was submitted to me by my friend Chris Luckman.
- 16:53Thank you, Chris.
- 16:54Ah.
- 16:54So after COVID kicked off its stuff in the early parts of 2020, science started to do what it does and began to do studies.
- 17:05And one of those studies found that when you get COVID, it shows up in your poop.
- 17:12A person with COVID has SARS-CoV-2 in their poop, which is just
- 17:17science for COVID 19, um, or for the layman, the big Rona.
- 17:23In response to this discovery, so someone that the labs discover, hey, there's COVID in the the co there's COVID in the brown.
- 17:31We better do something about it.
- 17:33In response to that discovery, the CDC did what they do best.
- 17:38They created a new agency.
- 17:40And that agency is called the National Wastewater Surveillance System.
- 17:45Now, you
- 17:47might have heard the word surveillance in there and gone, excuse me now, I thought this was a America.
- 17:53Uh yep.
- 17:55Forget them tracking you on Pokemon Go.
- 17:59They're tracking your medical concerns through what you flush down the toilet.
- 18:05The reason that they started this agency was through testing of the fecal matter that is produced in human brown
- 18:15If they test it inside of a community, they can begin to trace the uh spikes and valleys of COVID in those communities.
- 18:25And the idea is thus be able to move resources around if there is a serious problem.
- 18:32So that way communities with a high spike of COVID are have access to the resources that maybe they have to pull from a community that didn't need it as much.
- 18:42And they can get ahead of that as they are testing this wastewater.
- 18:45Ah no, this is good because they'd be able to test and detect spikes in COVID.
- 18:51But the downside perhaps is privacy.
- 18:55I guess most people probably don't care if they tele if they test um the collective leavings of their community after they flush it away, but it's still weird to think about.
- 19:07Like you can track COVID and as we heard earlier in the episode, other things through your poop.
- 19:13And what they
- 19:14NWSS, the National Wastewater Surveillance System or Is it System?
- 19:20Yes.
- 19:22what they do is with it in place, and and it has been in place for about a year and a half now, they have been passively seeing if what you flush and all your neighbors flush has
- 19:36traces of COVID in it.
- 19:38Wow.
- 19:39Thanks, COVID and CDC.
- 19:42What a world.
- 19:43You've been testing our turds for a year and a half, just as and my question is, will they stop with COVID?
- 19:51Or is it like are they gonna be able to test this for other traces of things and and find maybe stuff that they shouldn't, or we don't want them to find.
- 20:00Who knows?
- 20:02But like so I know so there's like urine okay, my brain's wandering.
- 20:08There's urine tests to test if someone has drugs and alcohol in their body.
- 20:14Could and I know this is going to a big wastewater place where it is collected for a community, but could they gather a stool sample via the wastewater that you flush down in
- 20:26order to see if you have drugs and alcohol in your system?
- 20:29Do you see what I'm saying?
- 20:30It's kind of weird to think about.
- 20:32Like, where does this stop?
- 20:34Probably with COVID.
- 20:36Let's say COVID.
- 20:38And and in saying COVID, that brings us to the end of Who in the News?
- 20:47One of the other tools in place for medical diagnosis is stool trackers.
- 20:53Some of the stool trackers available are more medical in nature than others.
- 20:57Um and a stool tracker is simply a device or a practice really, like it does take practice to get into the habit of it.
- 21:06in fact, no, I'll do that in a second.
- 21:08Um to keep track of the frequency and other visual things as well as diet and other factors that could affect your
- 21:17backdoor br backdoor bathrooming.
- 21:21And then there are other poop trackers which are purely recreational.
- 21:27And one of the reasons we would keep track of the things that we produce backside is to see how diet and exercise and stress and all and sleep and all these other things affect
- 21:40our bathrooming as well as how on the flip side our bathrooming
- 21:45affects our general well-being and day-to-day feel.
- 21:49It's a wild thing.
- 21:51Like, some people keep a handwritten log.
- 21:55Log.
- 21:57You can use to keep track and probably what it was back in the day was you had a chart and you filled out the chart next to your toilet while you went.
- 22:05But as we've discussed, um here in the modern area, modern area modern era, for goodness sakes.
- 22:15Um, one of the things that people just love doing is they just love being on their phones while they're on their thrones.
- 22:25And so there is no shortage of apps detailing how and when and what it was like to poop when you did it.
- 22:35Poop apps.
- 22:37And today on the show we have a very special installment of Craptastic Apps.
- 22:45Today in Craptastic Apps, we're gonna look at a very special poop tracking app called the Poop Map.
- 22:52Now, this app was first uh sent to me by my homie, who you might be hearing from soon.
- 22:59Uh Jude Domini, I believe, I believe you are who sent this to me.
- 23:03If someone else sent this to me, feel free to embarrass me publicly on the internet at LSM.
- 23:08Uh, but the poop map, uh, there are a lot of poop tracking apps that take into account
- 23:15The medical side of going to the bathroom, but very few poop tracking apps are concerned with all the many places that you poop.
- 23:26And seeing all the places that not only where you've pooped, but where your homies have gone to the bathroom.
- 23:33Now, poop map at its core is a social app where going to the bathroom, more importantly, where you go to the bathroom is the focus.
- 23:45When you boot up the app, you are brought to a map of the world uh where which then you can hit and it focuses in where you're at.
- 23:54Um and you can sort by public, friends, or personal leavings.
- 23:59And in it, when you poop, you can detail on the live map.
- 24:05So I actually have to drop in real time a retroactive one, and it's pretty easy for me to enter because I it was at my parents' house.
- 24:13Um but you click drop poop.
- 24:15Uh, and then you go in and you enter like oh location, description, um, long and hard.
- 24:23Yep.
- 24:24Uh and you can even there there's like little stickers.
- 24:27For me, I need to change the time of this leaving, because I'm going back and retrofitting it.
- 24:33Uh and then you can give it a star rating, and then you save it, and your poop is saved to this map that you then you can see all your poops and your friends' poops.
- 24:43Um
- 24:45If you choose to go public, you can see other people's poops that you don't know.
- 24:49When you poop, you can detail on a live map where the poop was dropped, as well as the description.
- 24:54And the reason I wanted to share this craptastic app with you is because I have been using this app for one full calendar year.
- 25:05Every time I have made a number two in the last year, it is logged within this app.
- 25:10Yes, every single time that I have
- 25:14produced Brown for one full calendar year.
- 25:17I have entered it in this app.
- 25:19And if you want to join up, download poop map, add me.
- 25:22I'm old Jasper.
- 25:24I'm old Jasper on there.
- 25:25Um I'm working on getting the group public so others can join up.
- 25:29Uh we are the privies is the group if you want to search for it or hit me up and I'll try to get you added.
- 25:35But you can view your friends dumps and uh leave comments, that sort of thing.
- 25:41It's it's free.
- 25:43I can't stress that.
- 25:45And in the last year, almost as if to prove the premise of this podcast, I'm gonna give you live so as of right now, and I'm actually uh about two weeks short of one full year on
- 25:58the app, but in the last um we'll call it fifty weeks since I'm two weeks short, uh, I have gone number two seven hundred and seven times now.
- 26:14My and it I mean it's got all your stats right in here and you can view stats for your friends.
- 26:18Um I've actually gone to the bathroom.
- 26:21It says I've gone to the bathroom in three countries, but that's that can't be right.
- 26:24Um it it's a cool app.
- 26:29You have a year in review.
- 26:30You can go in and look at your year in your view, which I I I will try to share some screenshots of that uh for y'all to enjoy.
- 26:38Uh it's a cool app.
- 26:39You can set it to public or private drops.
- 26:42So to stay anonymous if you want, only you can see it if you want.
- 26:47Or if you if you go for it, your friends can also view it, which is kind of fun.
- 26:52I like it.
- 26:53Mostly because and I can't stress this at all.
- 26:58There's nothing medical about this app whatsoever.
- 27:02Um, it's it's purely for the social enjoyment of seeing where other people do poop.
- 27:08And I've learned a lot about myself.
- 27:10Like
- 27:12I have on my map like poop clusters where I frequent and I leave my most dumps.
- 27:20Uh and it's weird.
- 27:23But poop map is great.
- 27:25Our our group is called, like I said, the Privies.
- 27:29I will note that there are some paid promotions.
- 27:32Uh you can pay to remove ads, which I the ads are just essentially a banner at the bottom.
- 27:38It's not like videos or anything.
- 27:41So it's not too bad there.
- 27:43They also have sticker packs and some customizations options customization options that you can buy.
- 27:49Not awful.
- 27:50Um, but I haven't spent a dime on the app, I might, uh, and I've had a thoroughly great time.
- 27:57The only thing that I is is this.
- 28:00So for craptastic apps, personally, I'm giving poop map four golden plungers out of five.
- 28:07I reserved that last golden plunger though, only because.
- 28:11There's some UI things that could get cleaned up.
- 28:14and I would love to be able to change my icon color without paying.
- 28:20Currently you have to pay to change your icon color.
- 28:23The default is red.
- 28:25And I so want that thing to be orange, but I gotta pay.
- 28:28I gotta I gotta fork up some coin.
- 28:30Yeah.
- 28:31You gotta pay to change your color.
- 28:33I gotta fork up some coin if I want that orange marker.
- 28:36It's a fun app.
- 28:37Add me.
- 28:39Old Jasper.
- 28:39Um
- 28:40We'll have a good time with it.
- 28:42People have oh, this is the end of Craptastic Caps.
- 28:45Uh people have been keeping track of and studying their poop uh for for a long time.
- 28:54There's a lot to learn about a healthy diet and li about health, diet, and lifestyle from this.
- 29:00And poop also, as we talked about in the world's largest herd episode, is one of those things that uh when fossilized you can actually study it.
- 29:11To learn about what life may have been like for people in the past.
- 29:15But so whether you're logging your logs medically or just for fun, I hope the experience is fun for you.
- 29:22I'm going on a year and I don't plan on stopping using the app personally.
- 29:26This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
- 29:30Thank you so much for joining us.
- 29:32Uh, I hope that you would connect with us on social media.
- 29:35We're at PrivyCast.
- 29:38Got all sorts of good things going on there.
- 29:39Trying to get some Toilet Tuesday action going on.
- 29:42Feel free to post pictures of your toilet, videos of your toilet.
- 29:46Um, just anything toilet related, tag the show at Privycast and hashtag it toilet Tuesday.
- 29:51Let's get that popping off.
- 29:53Also, um, if you want to see uh send us an email with feedback or episode suggestions if you have something that you're like, man, man, I know about this.
- 30:05Privycast at gmail.com.
- 30:07We'd love to hear from you.
- 30:09We'd love for you to leave the rating on uh leave a rating on the show.
- 30:13Spotify has ratings.
- 30:14It's real easy to do that.
- 30:15The five star option is our preferred.
- 30:17Helps folks find the show.
- 30:19And tell tell somebody, say, hey, I listened to a podcast about bathrooms.
- 30:24Now, just second.
- 30:26I know what you're thinking, but it's also recorded in a bathroom.
- 30:30If anything, it's fun to just see what people's face does.
- 30:33But I hope that
- 30:35If people listen to this, they find that it is as weird as they thought it was gonna be, but hopefully worth it.
- 30:42Yeah.
- 30:44As always, we'd like to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of Barroom Ballet as our intro and outro music.
- 30:53You can find Kevin's music at Incompotech.com, and his music is licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0.
- 31:02Thanks, Kevin.
- 31:04We would also like to thank Poddington Bear for the use of Camp as the Pooh in the News intro and outro music.
- 31:11You can find Poddington Bear's music at poddingtonbear.com.
- 31:16Thanks, Poddington.
- 31:18This has been another episode of Privy.
- 31:20Thank you so much for joining us.
- 31:22Glad you're here in my bathroom.
- 31:25And now, as always, make sure you log it, but after you do, don't forget to flush.