Mark Leyner - Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini

The machines used for colon therapy are illegal unless used during conventional medical treatment. Colon therapy also can be dangerous. Complications include bowel perforation, heart failure from excessive fluid absorption, electrolyte imbalance, and several outbreaks of serious infections. One case linked to contaminated equipment caused amebiasis, a parasitic infection, in thirty-six people.

11:50A.M.

Leyner:This book is going to ruin both of us. The editor will probably get a huge promotion and we’ll end up in the subway wearing fedoras and playing Andean flute music.

Gberg:Andean flute music sounds appropriate for the theme music in a colonic ad.

11:55A.M.

Leyner:Why are people so interested in colonics?

Gberg:Seems insane to me.

Gberg:Who says it’s supposed to be clean, that is, your colon?

Gberg:I sounded like Yoda there.

Leyner:Me too… part of the wonderful Judeo-Christian legacy of self-loathing… you know… how we’re essentially filthy inside.

Gberg:Putrefaction.

Gberg:I feel like I am rotting inside today.

Leyner:That’s right… If you can’t have a dirty colon… c’mon.

Gberg:Good title for a pop song.

Leyner:Sounds good for Prince.

Gberg:Imagine Britney Spears singing the Mark Leyner version of “If you can’t have a dirty colon… c’mon.”

Gberg:Great video too.

Leyner:I love tracking the doings of aging rock stars.

Gberg:Some celebrity colonoscopy cameos.

12:00P.M.

Leyner:Rod Stewart’s become the new Jim Nabors somehow.

Gberg:What is he up to now?

Gberg:I read something on Page Six about Elton John injecting himself with lamb’s urine to lose weight.

Leyner:Rod’s singing duets with Dolly Parton, Gershwin ballads, and children’s songs… and doing an album with the Wiggles next — wouldn’t surprise me.

Gberg:They also said “Michael Jackson reportedly used to keep his weight down with lots of self-administered enemas, but later needed a tampon to control ‘embarrassing leakage.’”

Leyner:How do you get a lamb to pee in a cup?

Gberg:That is going to be my next job after the book — catheterizing lambs.

Leyner:Jackson should let himself get fat like Elvis did.

Leyner:Is that true about Elton John and lamb urine?

Gberg:Page Six, my friend. Check the New York Post. Isn’t everything in the newspaper true?

Leyner:Yes…

Gberg:Maybe we can add the lamb’s urine question in as an urban legend.

Leyner:Doesn’t something have to be in the public subconsciousness for more than a day to qualify as an “urban legend”?

Here’s one from the June 2004 New England Journal of Medicine . A cream containing an ingredient of human breast milk appears to be an effective treatment for stubborn warts. The key ingredient of the cream is a compound called alpha-lactalbumin-oleic acid. Its Swedish creators have nicknamed the cream HAMLET, for Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made Lethal to Tumor cells.

This may lead to other areas of research as certain types of warts or human papilloma virus (HPV) can be linked to cervical cancer.

No word yet on whether Starbucks will be introducing a tall-decaf-breast latte.

I love a good Western and nothing could be more bad-ass than biting into a snake wound and spitting out the venom. Of course this would be followed by some whiskey and a good gunfight.

Unfortunately, this is no longer an accepted practice. Sucking at a snakebite is not only ineffective but could lead to an infection at the wound site.

According to the American Red Cross, these steps should be taken after a snakebite:

1. Wash the bite with soap and water.

2. Immobilize the bitten area and keep it lower than the heart.

3. Get medical help.

Toxicology experts might also suggest applying a tourniquet loosely above the bite to prevent the venom from spreading. This must be done with caution, as the tourniquet itself can cause problems if it cuts off the blood flow entirely.

The person then needs to be transported rapidly to an emergency room. Antivenin is available for a variety of different snakes. Other treatments include antibiotics and surgery.

Of the estimated one hundred and twenty different types of snakes found in the United States, about twenty are poisonous. Most bites occur in the southwestern part of the nation, but they even occur in New York City. In New York State there are three species of poisonous snakes, the timber rattlesnake, the massasauga rattlesnake, and the copperhead. In the city, however, most bites occur from snakes that are kept as pets.

Doctors are known for using complicated words that make them sound either extremely intelligent or really out of touch with what most people can understand. The medical word for hiccups, singultus, is a perfect example of when physicians sound ridiculous.

Hiccups are caused when the diaphragm becomes irritated and pushes air rapidly up in such a way that it makes an irregular sound.

Some things that irritate the diaphragm and cause hiccups are distention of the stomach from food, alcohol, or air, sudden changes in gastric temperature, or use of alcohol and/or tobacco in excess. Hiccups also can be caused by excitement or stress.

While most cases of the hiccups last only a few minutes, some cases of the hiccups can last for days or weeks. This is very unusual, though, and it’s usually a sign of another medical problem, such as injections near the diaphragm, hiatal hernias, severe gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), or a tumor irritating the nerves in the chest. Hiccups lasting longer than one month are termed intractable or incurable. The longest recorded attack of hiccups is six decades. Doctors sometimes use the antipsychotic drug Thorazine to treat intractable hiccups.

If you don’t want to go the antipsychotic route, you could try one of these simpler but unproven cures:

1. Breathing into a paper bag.

2. Drinking out of a cup from the side opposite your mouth.

3. Holding your breath.

4. Eating a teaspoon of sugar.

5. Sucking on a wedge of lime or lemon.

6. Drinking a glass of water with a straw while you plug your ears with your fingers.

7. Pulling the top of your hair for one to two minutes.

8. Placing a cotton swab in the roof of your mouth and gently rubbing.

9. Pulling hard on your tongue.

For those of you who were watching TV in 1970, you may have seen episode 8 of the first season of The Partridge Family when a skunk finds its way onto the family bus and turns the Partridges into stinkers. Reuben remembers that tomato juice can remove the skunk odor, so the family bathes in it. All is well until the family dog gets them covered again. Without time to take another tomato bath, the band plays their concert at a children’s hospital from inside a glass-enclosed operating room. That’s great TV.