Glauc Talk: Checking In On Kristin's ARFID Journey
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Hey, Will. Hey, what's up? I've been thinking, the U.S. healthcare system, it needs some improvement. Yeah, there's room for improvement. Yeah, it's a confusing, scary place for everybody involved. Absolutely. Physicians, families, patients, everybody. Everybody. And I've experienced it from both sides, right? I'm a physician. I've also been a patient. So I wanted to use my platform to give people practical education, really the only way that I know how.

By making jokes. So Dr. Glockenflecken's really fun and super uplifting guide to American healthcare is out. And it's a free resource that includes all my videos from the 30 Days of Healthcare series, alongside deeper explanations, also reliable facts, emphasis on reliable. Yes. All right. Figures, numbers, insights into how each of us can fight for a more humane healthcare.

better healthcare system. Also, it has jokes. Did you mention the jokes? I did. Jokes. Yes, definitely jokes. Well, this guide is great for anyone looking to learn more about U.S. healthcare, but especially if you are experiencing it from the clinician side for the first time. That's right. We really hope you'll check it out. Get the free guide sent straight to your inbox by signing up for our mailing list, glockenflecken.com slash healthcare. Enjoy. ♪♪♪

Knock, knock, hi!

We're your hosts, Will Flannery, also known as Dr. Glock and Flecken. Kristen Flannery, also known as Lady Glock and Flecken. People don't promote their podcasts like that. It's a show. It's a show. That's what it is. Here we are. We're talking. We're doing Glock Talk today. That's right. Got a number of topics that I want to discuss with you. Later, I want to get into your RFID update because you've been holding out on.

Okay. On that. The people want to hear. Do they? That's what I want to know. Tell us if you are interested in this or not. Well, I want to hear about it because I haven't even heard about it. And I live with you. Yeah, we don't get a chance to talk about ourselves. Yeah, just on the podcast. Yeah. Do we talk to each other? But first, I have a question for you. And I need you to be honest with me. That's not a problem. Okay. Have you ever...

You've been lifting some weights. Uh-huh. Not like to become bulky, just like so that I don't. No, but just lifting some weights. Because I am getting to be of a certain age where that's becoming important. Right, like pushing, pulling. Yeah, functional. Yeah. Have you ever accidentally pooped your pants? No. No? Have you? I'm just, like, I'm not asking for nobody in particular. I feel like you're asking for you. No. No. No.

I will say I feel like I might have had a close call the other day. I've been lifting a lot of heavy weights lately. So it just made me think, like, how common is this, do you think? And is it different in men versus women, I wonder? I feel like it might be worse for women.

I could see an argument for that, but I only ever hear about men pooping their pants and maybe that's just because the women keep it to themselves. But I only ever hear about men shitting their pants. Uh, it's, I mean, we are, but we are generally like lifting most men, I would say lift heavier weights than women. Okay. But like proportionate to their body, maybe not. I don't know. You're right. Um,

But also women have birthed babies, which... Some women, some. Not everyone. Yeah, right. But that can also maybe predispose you to not being able to hold it in as well? Maybe, but also...

I think that women place a lot more attention and importance on their pelvic floor than men. You strengthen it. You work on strengthening it a little bit. You're aware of it and you strengthen it? Gotcha. I don't know. It's a good question. I have never once thought about my pelvic floor. Exactly. I have thought about it four times already today. Okay.

Why? I had no idea it was on your mind so often. It's not like on my mind. It's just like, oh, there it is. Well, I'm an ophthalmologist. You want to talk to me about it? About my pelvic floor? Yeah. No, thank you. Maybe I can help? No? No. Okay. I think you're not the one suited to that. It's just like ever since my close call. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It's just now. Let me ask you after your close call. Yeah. Did you have to throw away a pair of underwear? I did not. No, I told you it was a close call. All right. It was fine. But I may like in the moment I was like, oh, I was kind of like, oh, just like, oh, man, that was.

This is how long we've been married, folks. And like, maybe I just had to check, you know, but it was fine. It was fine. But also like every now and then I'll see like weightlifting videos like on social media. So now I'm always thinking like all these like really big, like muscly folks, like how many times have they pooped their pants on accident? I bet more than you would think. I bet. I bet so. And but no one ever talks about it. No.

I mean, that's not surprising. What is it? Embarrassing. So I'm, I'm a, I'm part of this. Um, uh, I use the tonal thing that you got me, uh, which. Explain to the people. Oh, tonal is amazing. Uh, so it's in, uh, by the way, no financial interest in this. This is just, I truly love this thing. Uh, because it goes, it's expensive. That's the downside to it. Um, like the machine itself is like,

two grand or something. Yeah. And then you have like a monthly membership. Kind of like Peloton. It's Peloton, but for strength training. Yeah, exactly. So it goes on your wall. It's got this nice big screen. It's got, it's a cable, like arm cable.

Cable arms. I don't know what you call them. They're arms. They have cables that you can push and pull and that comes with like attachments and stuff. You can have bar. You can have individual hands. It reminds me of back in the day, the Bowflex machine. Remember seeing infomercials for Bowflex? Kind of like, that's what it reminds me of. So it does a lot. You can do a lot of different like movements with it.

And, uh, and it's actually, it really does work. Like, cause I just go down into my garage and I just do like a 45 minute workout and I'm done. And you're watching a trainer. Yeah, it does. It feels like you have a personal trainer, but you don't. Uh, and so, uh, it's, it's honestly, if you can like afford it, it's absolutely worth the money because you do get stronger. It really does work. Um, uh,

So anyway, I'm part of the, I'm in the tonal Facebook group. Yeah, you're really going all in. Oh yeah, I'm seeing like everybody, I'm doing my current program I'm doing is called 12 Weeks to Jacked. Oh, okay.

Yeah. What week are you in? I am. I'm now about to enter my last two weeks. Okay. Is this one you've been doing ever since we got it? No, no. I started maybe about a month after. But I've been doing it for like two and a half months now. Yeah. And you tell me, am I jacked yet? Am I getting there? Can you feel my muscle? Your arms do maybe look a little bigger. Your shoulders. Yeah. See? I see some evidence. See? It's working, folks. And all I had to do was almost poop my pants once. Maybe twice.

But you're in the privacy of your own home. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to accidentally poop yourself in public, which would be so much worse. So anyway, I'm in this Facebook group and I really thought, I think I'm going to ask. I'm curious. I just want to know.

Hey, folks, I'm just general. I'm just spitting this out there. Just curious. Anybody doing the 12 Weeks to Jack program, have you ever accidentally or almost pooped your pants? And see what people say. Yeah. Keep us posted. I think I will. You'll have to do it and give an update. The problem is, like, I'm doing it with, like, my real name. So, like, you know. Well, what do you think you've just done? I trust these people. Yeah.

I trust all of you. Of course, you know what our producers are going to do. What?

They're going to pull this out and post it as a clip on social media. Of course. Which, of course, they should. You know, I'm not ashamed. Okay. By the way, I didn't actually. No one's going to believe me that I didn't actually poop my pants. No, they're not. I don't know if I believe you. I would. I would tell you. I would tell you. You know, I treasure the underwear I have. Oh, boy. Because I don't have enough of it. Because you haven't bought any since, like, college. No.

No, that's not true. I have bought underwear since, but many a pair have holes in them. That's a huge difference between men and women, obviously. Yeah, rather than just go buy more, you'd like to stretch these holey underwear as long as possible. Just because you have a hole in your underwear doesn't mean it's not still a functional pair of underwear. Same thing with socks.

Like there's certain locations for the holes that make it like super uncomfortable to wear. Can't have it on your toe. Can't have it on your toe. I don't like it on the bottom, on the ball of my foot because I can feel that as I walk. Oh, yeah. I don't like that. You can feel the difference in the sole of the shoe on your foot. Yeah. But underwear is different. No one sees your underwear. No one sees it. You can stretch that stuff out.

They probably are stretched out at this point. A little bit. Actually, they're actually getting tighter because I'm... Oh, because you're getting jacked. That's right, folks. All those glute workouts are paying off. So hopefully I've convinced all of you that if you're okay, I'm having a little accident every now and then. Check out the total. It's great otherwise.

Jesus Christ. See, that's how you know this is not a paid advertisement because that would never pass any company's approval process. I don't think we're getting sponsored by Tone. Actually, maybe we should. Maybe we should now because that's like dedication. That actually shows that I am serious about this. I am so serious that I'm willing to lift

heavy ass weight enough to enough to, to where I can, it's like overcoming. Actually, you know what? This is, this is a good question. It is it, does this show that tonal is, is very effective because I'm lifting so much weight that it's overcoming the strength of my external sphincter or is this showing that, that I it's, I'm, I'm not actually strengthening enough.

Because my pelvic floor, my sphincter is not, but you don't really work out your sphincter. Maybe you need to do some kegels. I'm doing them right now. You can do male kegels. Why do you have that look on your face while you do them? Maybe. Oh, you can multitask your kegels? Jeez. Oh, boy. Not everybody is as multi-talented as you are, Kristen.

Goodness gracious. I need to focus on every single aspect of my task at hand. You know that. I can see that in your face. You know that. I do know that. You are a one-track mind kind of person. I get very, you know, that's why I'm an ophthalmologist. Just the eyeball. That's it. You have tunnel vision. That wasn't even meant to be a pun. You know what kind of disease tunnel vision is? What? Oh, you know. No, I don't. Come on. Venture a guess.

Well, what came to mind initially was macular degeneration, but that would be the opposite of tunnel vision. Correct. So I don't know what it's called when you have tunnel vision. It's in my name. Glaucoma. That's glaucoma? Yeah.

So glaucoma is a disease where you have... I know it has like too much pressure. Well, you have not necessarily too much pressure. You can have actually normal pressure and still lose vision from glaucoma, which is a little bit terrifying. But it's basically a pressure in your eye that results in damage to your optic nerve that causes peripheral vision loss.

So you won't actually know. This is why it's important to have eye exams every so often, because you don't know you have glaucoma often until you have actually started losing vision. So it's peripheral vision. If you lose enough of your peripheral vision, you can end up kind of closing in. You get a little tunnel. There's other diseases that will do it, though, like inherited retinal diseases. Tell me more. Man.

This is why we gave you your own eyeball show on Thursdays. Oh, so I talk about pooping my pants. You're interested. The minute I actually show some intellectual thought, then it's... That's right. Yeah. Out to lunch. Only about eyeballs. I like intellectual thoughts about other things. You really haven't ever done that? No, I really haven't. Not even close? No.

Yeah. Maybe the men are just not paying as close of attention. Like, I don't know. That would be really, I feel like it'd be really embarrassing for anybody, but maybe extra embarrassing for women because of the way we're all socialized. A part of that might also be because you're usually your workout clothes are so tight. Yeah. That would probably be more noticeable. It would be quite noticeable. Yeah. I could, I could waddle over to the bathroom and hide it a little bit better. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, let's take a break. Okay. So, Will. Yeah. You're always teaching me things about Demodex mites, your little friends there. Yeah. Let's switch things up a bit. Okay. How about I ask you a couple questions to see how much you really know? Go for it. Okay. Let's do it. What are the only two main species of Demodex mites found in humans? Oh.

Type 1 and type 2? Hmm, got you on that one. Demodex follicularum, which are found in the eyelash follicles, and demodex brevis, which are found in the meibomian glands. Impressive. All right, next question. Why do people with demodex blepharitis often feel itchy eyelids first thing in the morning? I know this because I use it to gross you out. Demodex mites avoid light and they come out mostly at night to mate.

and move between your eyelash follicles. So many people will wake up with that itchy, irritated feeling along their eyelids. So gross. I'm surprised you even brought that up. I know. I know. I'm just trying to get used to these mites since demodex blepharitis is such a common disease and we keep talking about it. Well, that's a big step. And we know there's a prescription eye drop available to treat demodex blepharitis. Yes. A treatment makes me feel much more comfortable about this topic.

To learn more about these mites and demodex blepharitis, visit miteslovelids.com for more information. Again, that's M-I-T-E-S-L-O-V-E-L-I-D-S.com to learn more. This ad is brought to you by Tarsus Pharmaceuticals. All right, we're back. And one last thought. Oh, I thought we were done. No, just one last thing. I just, in defense of myself...

I bet we're going to get some messages from people. Yeah, I'm sure. I've done it. I'm not saying you're the only one. So I want to hear from the people here. Oh, tell me to make me feel better. Tell me about the time where you had a close call working out and really firing those ab muscles, you know, just increasing the intra-abdominal.

Anyway, I wouldn't belabor the point. We get it. Okay. Other news. As if that was news. Other news you should know about in our lives. Our Portland show is coming up. That's right.

Very excited. July 20th. I love Revolution Hall. I do too. It's the best venue in our opinion. We love it. We saw Guster. Yes. You went with me to that one. I did. Yeah. We saw Guster there. That was probably the most recent show. I went to Kishibashi.

Yeah. We saw Kishibashi. Lots of great, great shows that come through Revolution Hall and there's good parking. Love it. Yeah. I mean, is it that? Are we just that old? Oh, yeah. That's why we like that place. Are you kidding me? It's easier to park. Find a place in the Portland metro area. Any big metro area that has decent parking. Yeah. Tell all your friends. Oh, man. You just come for the parking. Yeah. Yeah. I see a show, but come for the parking while you're there. Yeah.

And so we're excited about that. Hometown show, a little bit nervous about it. Oh, really? Because people you know will be there. I'm going to have a lot of people I know there. And, you know, I want to put on a good show. I want to make sure it's... We've done this. We've done it so many times. Yeah, we do put on a good show. We do put on a great show. And so if you're listening, you live in Oregon or Washington, you can come down. Or anywhere and you'd like to visit Portland. Yeah. Who are we to say? I wish we could do...

More shows, more frequently, but occasionally I do have to see patients in clinic. You have this pesky full-time job. I do, yeah. And so, you know, it's a Sunday. It's a Sunday. So I do, even though I'm an ophthalmologist, I do have to work on the weekends occasionally. Yeah. But you chose this one. I did. This is not your regular job. Totally my fault. So by the time, this is coming out probably early June, I'd say, I'm

And so we'll probably still have a few tickets left, hopefully. So anyway, check it out. We hope to see you all there. Get them while you can. It's going to be a great time. By the way, Portland, amazing in the summer. Yeah. Not so great right now in the spring.

Yeah. Well, I like spring here. You know what the saddest- You get some days that are beautiful. You know what the saddest thing? What? Is when I see people, every spring this happens, people have moved to Portland in like the fall or the winter. Hmm.

Or this late summer. And then spring comes around. Yeah. And there's. Oh, they're just allergic to everything. Allergies are miserable. And they're just. Their eyes like weeping. Yeah. Tearing. Sneezing. It's awful. It's like, oh, man. It's going to be like this so much. Yeah. If you have seasonal allergies. Maybe reconsider living here. Or just make sure you get a good medication regimen going. Yeah. Where you can tolerate it. It's really like a. You know, it's like a month or so. People just struggle with it. But.

allergic conjunctivitis you always bring it you always bring it back to eyeballs you don't have allergic conjunctivitis you've never had that surprising why i don't know you seem like someone that would have allergies for things why i don't know what does that even mean i don't even know some reason that felt surprising almost as surprising as you not pooping while you're working out

Anyway. Oh, boy. If there are any listeners left at this point. All right. I want to hear about your eating. Can we talk about that? An ARFID update. ARFID update. So first of all, tell the people that maybe don't know about ARFID. Tell them what that is. Okay. It's called autorestrictive food intake disorder.

Um, kind of just what it sounds like. Um, it is an eating disorder, but it does not have anything to do with body image. Instead, it's about, it's basically a food phobia. So like putting things in intake, the food is the problem. It's been all your life. All my life. Um, I've, I've definitely heard stories of you growing up and, um,

Your parents trying to make you eat and you would just sleep at the table because you refused. They told me I couldn't get up until I ate. And it's not picky eating. No, it's different. It's very different. Right. It's a phobia. Yeah. It's not just like, ugh. Yeah. So you started...

And I wish we had done this sooner, but with your, like, as far as like therapy for this, but it's, it's probably a relatively new thing. There didn't even used to be a name for it. There were, nobody knew it was a thing. Yeah. You just got labeled difficult, picky, things like that. So how does, how's this working? How's this program working? Yeah. So it's, um, a version of cognitive behavioral therapy, basically exposure therapy. Um,

I could tell that my psychiatrist really thought that I could move at a faster pace than I can because I'm still working on the first sets of food. And I think he thought that by now we'd be on like every time we met, we'd add additional foods. And we have not been able to do that yet. I think it's been like three or four sessions. But I have been trying things and it is...

getting a little bit easier to eat them. I still wouldn't say that I love the experience. It's kind of a fight or flight experience. So I'm working on strawberries, watermelon, sweet potato fries, banana, almond butter. I feel like I'm missing one, but I can't think of what it is. All pretty mild foods. Yeah, right. That's the point probably, right? Yeah, you start small, work your way up like any phobia. So what is...

Just to help people kind of wrap their head around, like, what's going on in your head when you, like, try to eat, like, a strawberry? Like, I think strawberries taste delicious. Right. Most people do. But what is it? What's happening in your brain? So the best way I can explain it is just, like, these things don't seem like something you should put in your mouth. Like, that's the experience of the disorder. Like, it just genuinely seems like.

I mean, it's not that different than maybe if you saw like a disgusting looking mushroom out in the woods. Right. Like, I mean, there's some that are OK, but then some like if it looks really gross, you probably will be like, no, I shouldn't eat that one.

you know, that's how most food, that's how I experienced most food. Um, and then if I'm trying, as I'm trying to eat these, the reaction is a fight or flight response. Like it's, I'll get flushed. I get a little, you know, shaky and panicky feeling. I get the, you know, tightness in your chest. Um, it, and, and just sort of want to cry. So you're,

having to overcome, you're teaching your body not to have that response each time you're trying the food. Because you start with like, I'll use strawberries for an example, since you brought that up. I don't know, I think it might be the texture for strawberries that's a problem for me, but I am starting by eating strawberry ice cream.

Okay. And normally if I were eating strawberry, like I like the flavor strawberry. So I think it's the texture. So normally I would pick around the little strawberry chunks in the ice cream. But now my task is, no, eat the chunks. And then as I'm eating them, I need, I'm supposed to be like noticing different things about them. There's an aspect of mindfulness to it. Sure. So you're trying to like associate it with something positive. You don't just want to like

Start eating it and force yourself through, you know, power through. So it's, but it's not just texture or taste. It's the appearance of it. The appearance can be a factor. Smell can be a factor. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It all just seems like alien. Right. So watermelon, watermelon. I thought watermelon was going to be easier than it is mostly water. And everybody loves watermelon. It seems like.

I'm really struggling with watermelon. I'm not a huge fan of watermelon, to be honest. I mean, that's fine. I'll eat it, but I don't seek it out as like a summertime thing. It kind of feels just like, actually, the texture is kind of, I can understand the texture not being quite right for you, but it doesn't have a whole lot of flavor to it. Well, that's another difference.

To me, it does. And I have done these tests. I'm a super taster. So that's another kind of issue that makes eating complicated for me is I'm tasting all these flavors that most people either don't really taste or they're just like very mild. And to me, they're very intense. So to me, watermelon tastes...

I was expecting more sweetness in it. Yeah. But instead, it tastes like, this sounds kind of weird, but it tastes like a cantaloupe smells.

I haven't tackled cantaloupe yet, but I know how it smells. Okay. And that is the taste that I'm getting from watermelon. It's just like this melon-y. Cantaloupe smells. Okay. I got you. All right. You know how you can, you eat a food, you smell it first. Sure. And you're like, I think I have an idea of how this is going to taste based on the smell. It just doesn't add up, does it? It's just. It doesn't go together for you. It's like cantaloupe. Yeah.

So. Okay. What were the other ones? Sweet potato fries is another one. Yep. Well, sweet potato, but I'm using sweet potato fries. Gotcha. Because that's another thing you put like salt and pepper on them. Maybe, you know. You ate sweet potatoes like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes? No. Never have? No. I mean, we have them on the table. Yeah, but you never. Other people eat them. You never eat them. Mm-hmm.

So, yeah, it's going. It's a slow and unpleasant, for the most part, process. But it's getting a little bit easier as I go. Is your goal to actually at some point enjoy the foods or just like eat it like it's a...

Like a pill of nutrients or nutrient paste. Kind of the second one. I mean, I was just talking, I asked the same thing of my psychiatrist the last time we met. I was like, what do people accomplish with this, generally speaking? Like, do you get to where you actually like these foods? And like maybe some, but no, I don't think that's the end goal. It's more like I can eat enough food to get the nutrients that I need to have.

Is there a food that you're like, man, I really hope, I really want to be able to actually enjoy this food? Is there something that... All food. I wish I could. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't have the thing where, you know, you eat something and you're like, wow, this is amazing. And I don't have the thing where I want to share a meal with someone. Like it just, food is a chore for me. That's it. Plain and simple. You know what food I would love for you to be able to, which is a long way away. You're going to say seafood. Yeah, seafood. I don't even know if I can do that on the therapy. Like that is. Right. That would be like, you know, level two.

That'd be like expert level. Yeah. I don't know. I'm still in kindergarten here. I'm not getting my hopes up. I don't really even want to like seafood, to be honest with you. Let me ask you this. Do you ever get so nervous eating these foods that you almost poop your pants? No. I just wanted to ask. You never know. I think you maybe need to go see someone. No, I'm fine. Are you kidding me?

I've got a sphincter of steel. Sounds like maybe not. Maybe this is something in your... As you age, something you're going to be having to deal with. I don't want to derail the conversation. I don't have... You're going to be dealing with it. So...

You're married to me. Oh, yeah. And that's I will be dealing with it. So is this something but you're it sounds like you're feeling positive about. No, I mean, I don't I wouldn't call it that. Well, you're optimistic in terms of like you feel like it's worth like the time and effort to do it. Yes, but it has taken me 40 years to feel that way.

I thought it was just because you didn't have any options. Well, I didn't. Right. I didn't have that option as a child. So who knows what I would have felt if that had been an option. But you're going to keep doing it. You're going to keep going. Yeah. Because I want to be able to be more normal in the world. And I want to be able to eat healthy food. And I do eat healthy food. It's just I have such a limited number of them. You just don't have a lot of options. Yeah. You've you've.

And you and I together have done a good job of trying to hide this. Yeah. I don't want it to like not hide it necessarily, but just like not call attention to it. Because I don't want the kids to pick up on it. If they don't have it themselves, I don't want to like give it to them. I don't even know if that's how it works. I'm more so not even from the kid's standpoint, but more like just in social situations. Yes. It's awful socially. You'll like, you know...

pass things off to me. Yeah, you eat so fast that your plate is completely empty before some of the people have even finished sitting down at the table. And so then I'll eat what I want to eat. I do have manners, by the way. I will wait until people start eating before I start eating. But yes, I do eat very fast. If you have to. Yeah. I do eat very fast. So then I take what I want off my plate and then we just, when no one's looking, we discreetly switch plates.

So that it looks like I'm done. And then you eat the rest of what was on my plate. Yeah, because we end up, especially when we do speaking gigs, places, usually there's dinners and stuff. And so we've figured out a method. Yep.

You know, we're in the buffet line, you know, both getting things on our plates. And then, you know, yours is the like beef steak type stuff. Sure. Yeah. Mashed potatoes. You can get some chicken. Chicken, sure. Maybe a little green beans. Potentially. And a roll. I love a roll. You love a good roll. If there were one food that I have zero problem with, it's bread. Yeah. Yeah.

I love bread. Well, I'm hopeful that, you know, this is going to, you know, just help you. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't think we can expect miracles here, but like some progress. So that's not nothing. Good job. All right. Let's take one more break. Hey, Kristen. Yeah.

Why did we not get life insurance sooner? I don't know, but it's a decision I regret. What was I like? Did I think I was going to live forever? Apparently, I think we just didn't really know about it. And think about it. You know, it's it's it's never too early to get life insurance. That is something I've learned. And let me tell you about Pearson Rabbits. This is great for physicians. This is a physician focused physician founded company by Dr. Stephanie Pearson, former OBGYN and Scott Rabbits, an insurance expert. They understand the unique needs of

and offer support built specifically for physicians. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, it really is. They have years of experience serving physicians and they help guide you through the process of ensuring your family's future is safe and secure. That's so important.

To find out more, go to www.pearsonravitz.com slash knock knock. Again, that's P-E-A-R-S-O-N-R-A-V-I-T-Z dot com slash knock knock to get more information on life insurance for physicians that you can trust. All right, follow up question to your ARFID journey. Okay. What about whenever you're not, we're not traveling together and you have to eat? Like, how do you manage that?

Like if you're going to do a keynote in Washington. Yes, I am. Coming up. Like are you, how much, I guess my question would be, how much anxiety is there around just having to share a meal with a group of people? A ton. Because people really take that very seriously. Like people are...

ab just yeah just unduly interested in what other people are eating like i think there's something that's true i don't know if it's we're socialized that way or we're just naturally that way with your food dear exactly what says are you okay is it is it you know is that what you want this instead like a lot of attention then goes to the fact that you're not eating your food and you're just like don't and i'm like please just don't see me don't see me until this plate is cleared like

Until it's until we're done eating. I don't want any attention. But what I will do is I will get, you know, if there's anything I can eat, I will get, you know, a decent amount of that so that I'm not hungry. But then I will get a few of the other things, but not too much. And then I just sort of push it around on my plate. Yeah. Make it seem like. And then it seems like I had like a decent portion and ate most of it. Do you ever do ghost bites?

Don't really have anything on your fork or spoon, but put it in your mouth. No, I've never done that. There's another option for you. Well, but I don't know if that's... People think you're... They have the illusion in their peripheral vision like you're putting food in your mouth. But then it'd be easy to see that I'm not. So that kind of feels like it could backfire easily. They'd be like, what are you doing? All right, I can see that. I can see that. I think you would have liked...

Actually, no. I've been thinking about going to Australia because we went there. You tried some of the food there. Did you ever try the kangaroo? No. No? No. It's like jerky. I know, but that's too far. Too far. Too far. Okay. Yeah. Maybe someday. You definitely didn't try the Vegemite. No, I didn't. No.

I did like, I was curious about it. I wanted to see what the deal was. So I like, I opened it up and I looked at it and I smelled it. Very yeasty. Very. Yeah. Um,

I didn't tell you about my trip to Australia. I don't know if we've talked much about the reaction to my talk. No, we haven't. I'm very curious because this is a new one. Yes. So I gave, you know, most of the time when I do keynotes, you know, they talk about a variety of different things. But a lot of it's centered on our story with the cardiac arrest, the cancer diagnoses, talk about like social media, the birth of glockenflecken.

That was a hard labor. Extremely long, hard labor. Lots of pooping involved. But this time, they wanted specifically a talk about U.S. health care.

Yeah, because they're kind of, their system is like. So their system, I think I maybe talked about this on Knock Knock Eye episode, but it's

The way it works is they have Medicare, a publicly funded system. Everybody has it, right? Everybody has access to it, but they call it Medicare. And then on top of that, they have a private system that if you can afford it, then you're in the private system. It's like secondary insurance, kind of. And it just helps to decompress the public option. But there's some things that...

People are trying to kind of interested in moving toward privatization. Like what? Like increasing the hate because they have insurance companies because they have a private option. And so, you know, expanding that a little bit, expanding the role of insurance companies. So is this push coming from the insurance companies? Well, I don't know for sure, but I do know like there are just some.

you know, politicians, you know, certain people that are kind of thinking, oh, let's, let's, you know, kind of see what we can do with this, you know, because there's more money involved in that. You can bring in more capital, more investment, more. And so my goal with this talk, which I called the really fun and incredibly uplifting guide to U.S. healthcare was just to show people what happens when you

extreme privatization. Right. Like, this is the road. Yeah. This is where you end up if you go down that road. And they were horrified. Good. I told them all about prior authorizations and peer-to-peer reviews and how your, you know, your peer that you have to

to convince to pay for this thing that your patient needs isn't sometimes hasn't even practiced medicine in 30 years. Right. Or they're not in your field, even in your specialty. Yeah. That, that threw people for, they were like, they could not wrap their heads around that. Right. Because it's ridiculous. Which is absolutely absurd. And so, um, talked a bit about private equity cause they're having some, they've got some private equity involved around. Yeah. And, and really my, my,

My point was, is not that privatization is bad because I, I think there's a role for it. I, I'm in a private, you know, I, I have a private practice. So I think it's, it can be good to,

In that it affords more autonomy for people who are practicing healthcare. It allows people to get in to see doctors a little bit faster. You have more choice of who you see. You can have more choices as a patient. But it gets really tricky when you let that type of system go unchecked and unregulated. I think that's part of the big problem here. So what I told them was like, look,

privatization is okay, but you have to like rein it in. Yeah. You have to have, you can't let it go unchecked. You have to have to have the checks in place to be able to like put a stop to it whenever it starts to get too far into the for-profit, like we're just here to make money and not to take care of patients. When the, when the, the, the vision is not aligned with actual patient care. Right. That's when you get into trouble. Yeah. Because now you're,

Like we're trying to with like trying to pursue prior authorization reform in different states now trying to like scale back PBMs. Trump actually is like an executive order around pharmacy pricing, which I'm actually kind of optimistic that it might actually help take some power away from PBMs. So.

But all these things are like putting toothpaste back in the tube. Right. Right. Like it's already so far gone that now we have to try to legislate our way out of it. Right. So I was like Australians. Prevention would be easy. Yeah. Just have it.

already regulated in place so that you can limit the amount of greed that can come from this. So anyway, I got a lot of good feedback on it. Did they like it? Incredibly depressing talk. I did. I put in some videos in there, tried to lighten the mood up a little bit, but in the end, it sucks. But I got the point across. And so I'm hoping to

To expand on this particular keynote for like international audiences. Because, you know, Canada is kind of a similar boat. They have a private and a public. Yeah. They have these conversations. Well, Canada is actually very much like almost completely public. Right. But they do have private options. Yeah. Yeah. They're just like really expensive. Right. I'm not sure.

what Canada's situation is. I think they're like, as opposed to like Australia, which is very balanced. I think Canada's much more on the public. But yeah, your point is a good one. So I don't know. We'll see. It's fun to give like a brand new talk I've never given before. Yeah. Kind of like, because I don't get nervous for talks anymore, but this one I was like, oh. Right. You got to flex your muscles again. Yeah. I got to. Got to get jacked. Got to get jacked.

and not have accidents on stage, which I didn't. Everything went great. Yeah, it was nothing. That's wonderful. I don't know what would happen if that happened in the middle of the talk. Would you just power through? I guess. It's a great question. You would have to like be very careful about how you stood. Is it a good question? Appreciate that. How you stood. Like you can't turn your back to the audience. You would not want to sit down. You cannot sit down. Right.

Maybe just stay behind the podium. Yeah. And the good thing is you're the only one on the stage and there's space between you and anyone else. So hopefully no one notices the smell. Right. And you have to get backstage. You can't just leave the stage and then have a meet and greet. No. Right afterwards. No. You just, you finish your talk and then you slowly back away from the podium. Real awkward. Like, yeah. Cause you can't move very much. Yeah.

Anyway, if you want. What's the other option? You excuse yourself and. In the middle of a talk? Yeah. No, you can't do that. Right. No, you got. Just like power through, just like the time that we were giving a keynote and we had two people in the audience pass out during our keynote. Remember that? I think there may have been three incidents. Was it three? Three incidents? And two of them passed out. It was. I think there was a third thing that happened. It was always while we were, like, I think I was talking about my testicles. Yeah. Yeah.

And I was like, that was too much for somebody. I felt really bad. They had like vasovagal responses. There were two, at least two vasovagals. Yeah. In the same talk. Yeah. In the same audience. And that has never happened before. So bizarre. I don't know what it was about that. Yeah.

Anyway. Particular crowd, but I don't think we'll be invited back. In the moment, we did stop, but we ended up finishing the talk once we found out the person was okay. But man, that was a challenge. Yeah. Never know what's going to happen when you're on stage. I feel bad about that. Sorry, whoever you were. Yeah, hopefully you're fine. I doubt they're listening to this. They probably don't like us.

He's like, oh, no, he's talking about his testicles again. That's it. That's all I got. All right. Clock talk. Yeah, we did it. Thank you all for listening and for powering through all of our talk about poop accidents today. I don't know what got into me. If we record two in a day, we get a little punchy for the second one. No, no, that's true. You never know.

You can reach out to us. Email us, knockknockhigh at human-content.com. Remember, I want to hear your workout stories. You can also hang out with us and the Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at humancontentpod. Check out all the offerings. Lots of cool podcasts. Thank you to all the listeners leaving feedback and reviews. Go on YouTube. At Glockenfleckens. Leave a review. Here we go. At who?

Oh, gosh. Who you with? Yeah. 9494 on YouTube said, if you have anesthesia, come on. He could show Lady G how to make coffee during one of his breaks. Oh. And then he could give us all some Sudoku tips. Thanks for the smiles. This was from when I attempted to make you coffee, but I don't ever drink coffee. Oh, God. You are so mad at me. You...

I was like, I'm trying to do something so nice. That was the first time you'd ever made me coffee. Not the first time. But with this machine that works differently than our other machine. And then all I did was make fun of you for it. So I totally justified in your thoughts. I just felt a little vulnerable.

we'll video episodes up every week on our YouTube channel at Glockenfleckens I also have a Patreon lots of cool perks bonus episodes direct to medical shows and movies hang out with other members of the Knock Knock High community early on every episode access interactive Q&A live stream events much more patreon.com slash Glockenflecken or go to Glockenflecken.com Patreon community perks new member shout out Gail how you doing Gail

I hope you're having a great day. I hope you're not pooping your pants. Oh, yeah. Please don't. If you have to, you have to. No judgment. It's a thing. Shout out to all the Jonathans. Patrick, Lucia C., Edward K., Mary and W., Mr. Granddaddy, Caitlin C., Brianna L., M.P. Cole, Mary H., Keith G., Parker, Muhammad L., David H., Kaylee A., Gabe, Gary M., Eric B., Marlene S., Scott M., Kelsey M., Dr. Hoover, Sean M., Ryan S., Hawkeye M.D., Bubbly Salt,

Shoddy. Patreon roulette time. Random shout out to the Susan F. Thank you, Susan F. for being a patron and thank you all for listening. We're your hosts, William and Kristen Flanagan, also known as the Glock and Fleckins. Our executive producers are Will Fenner, Kristen Flanagan, Aaron Corny, Rob Goldman, and Shanti Brick. Editor and engineer is Jason Pertizzo. Our music is by Omer Binzvi. To learn about Knock Knock High's... I was told to actually read this.

Program disclaimer and ethics policy, submission verification and licensing terms and HIPAA release terms. Go to GlockOplica.com or reach out to us at knackknackhigh at human-content.com with questions, concerns, or fun medical problems. Knack Knack High is a human content production. Hey Kristen, am I a good multitasker?

Sure. I don't believe you. Oh. That was not very convincing. No? That's okay. I fully admit I'm not the best at it. And the problem is physicians have to do a lot of multitasking. Yeah, that is a problem. Like I'm sitting there, I talk to the patient, I hear all the things, synthesize all the information, come up with a diagnosis, sometimes order medications, and then maybe that has an interaction with a different medication. You got to like figure that out.

You know what can help, though? What? Microsoft Dragon Copilot. Yeah, this is great. You don't have to... You can just use Dragon Copilot in your workflow. You can access information right at the point of care, right there with the patient. And if I wanted to look up a code, a diagnostic code for the encounter, I can use Dragon Copilot. I can look up drug-drug interactions. There's...

an endless number of applications that you can use Dragon Copilot for. That's true. Very true. I think it's good for you as a patient, too. Yeah, I mean... Because it's streamlined. It's streamlined. And you get accurate information more quickly. Yes, exactly. You're taking the words right out of my mouth. To learn more about Microsoft Dragon Copilot, visit aka.ms slash knock knock

Again, that's aka.ms slash knock, knock, hi.