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Nov. 10, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:39
What's Lurking In Your Hair Salon Treatments? | Dr. Oz | S6 | Ep 20 | Full Episode
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Today on Dr. Oz, if you think your hair straighteners and relaxers are 100% safe, think again.
There's new controversy around the chemicals in these treatments.
Before you head to your local salon.
These treatments have been banned in seven countries already.
See what's lurking in your favorite products.
Plus, TV's ultimate survivor, Jeff Probst, with tips to survive an everyday emergency.
Coming up next on Dr. Oz.
And do you think your favorite hair straighteners or relaxers are 100% safe?
Think again.
There's new controversy around the chemicals in these treatments, and new reports claim they could cause cancer.
And when I heard this, I sent investigative reporter Elizabeth Leamy undercover to find out what's really lurking in your favorite hair salon straighteners.
What would you do to get silky, straight hair like this?
That's the promise of keratin hair straightening treatments.
You start off with frizzy, unruly hair like this, and three hours later end up with smooth, shiny hair like this.
Women love the results, but there can be a price for your health.
Most keratin hair straighteners contain formaldehyde, which can cause breathing problems now and cancer later.
To get the straight scoop on straighteners, I met up with natural hair advocate Nikki Walton, otherwise known as hair blogger Curly Nikki.
A lot of people write to you about keratin treatments.
What do they want to know?
They want to know if these products are all natural, like the labels claim, but they're not.
I tell them the truth.
A lot of these products are toxic.
With hidden cameras rolling, I went to New York City salons to ask about possible dangers.
Have you ever had a bad reaction, like itchy eyes or irritated scalp?
No.
That's the one I always highly recommend.
So it's safe?
It's safe.
Most were downright dismissive of any concerns.
I was frightened of two kids still doing it in my kitchen.
Geniuses.
In fact, only two of the salons I visited took serious precautions, like wearing a face mask during keratin treatments.
And I kept hearing over and over that the formula salons were using was formaldehyde-free.
This one does not have formaldehyde.
I've heard about there can be formaldehyde in them.
Formaldehyde-free.
But here's the truth.
Related chemicals in keratin straighteners, when heated, can turn into formaldehyde.
With all the controversy, there were only two salons that expressed health concerns.
It's for mal-type, and when you put heat to it, it's not good for you.
You might get cancer.
It's a chemical.
I'm going to hide.
But even so, both are still doing keratin treatments because customers are still demanding them.
I love it!
Nikki Walton joins us.
These new reports confirm that formaldehyde causes cancer.
Pretty even equation.
So how is it possible we're still using this in our hair products?
Because some women get fabulous results using the formaldehyde-based keratin treatment.
So I'm talking straight hair, frizz-free hair that lasts for months.
So they're overlooking the health concerns and there are plenty of health concerns because these treatments have been banned in seven countries already.
So if you happen to go to a salon and you're not getting a hair keratin treatment because you've seen this show, but you're still in the salon and other people are having it done, are you still at risk?
Absolutely.
It's like secondhand smoke.
So if you're in a salon and a woman is receiving this treatment, it's not just her and the stylist that's at risk, it's everyone in the salon, including if there's any children present.
I want to show folks what we're talking about, but I want to be really clear.
For years, the medical community has suspected formaldehyde to cause cancer.
We've talked about it.
Yes.
But it turned out this summer that the National Academy of Sciences officially declared that formaldehyde, listen carefully, is a known human carcinogen.
So no guesswork anymore.
Let me show you all how we can be innocently exposed to this.
So let's say you're sitting in a salon and someone wants to have keratin treatments done next to you.
Exactly.
So this is the person, not you, but the person next to you.
So you can go ahead and comb for me.
If you open the bottle, just the actual act of opening the bottle actually begins to do this.
Watch.
See this stuff?
Fumes released just like that.
And those fumes begin to spread throughout the salon, just by opening the bottle.
Now, as you apply the keratin, now you've got the material on your hair, and again, it's left there for an hour, oftentimes.
You're just marinating in the fumes.
Exactly.
So, of course, the person getting it is getting a lot of it as well, as well as the technician in the salon, but you're getting this.
Now it's passing over to where you're sitting, far away from the person who actually is getting the treatment.
Exactly.
Now, after a little while, you decide you're going to actually have your hair You have to have it straightened.
Straightened with a flat iron.
With it set to 450 degrees.
And unless you're grilling cheese, you don't need to have an iron set to 450 degrees.
But you've got the formaldehyde on your hair from having the straightener on there.
And you're literally burning it in.
Burning the treatment into your strands.
As you do that, watch what happens.
Now you vaporize it and it's even more active when it's heated.
So now the entire salon is bathed in this product.
Literally, you're in this material and you can't get away from it no matter what's happening.
And again, it's not just one person having the treatment.
These salons are using these products in all kinds of different settings, and the combination is exposing a lot of folks innocently to products even though they're not asking for.
Exactly.
Two of those people are here today, Natalie and Dawn, used to work in salons as keratin specialists, and they say that they had chemical poisoning.
So Dawn, what were your symptoms?
Hi.
My symptoms included dizziness, rashes, headaches, breathing problems, and I also developed chemical sensitivities from being exposed to the formaldehyde.
I'm very sorry.
And Natalie, if you were being exposed to these products and developing symptoms, what do you think it was doing to the people you were treating?
Well, there's no doubt that as a stylist being in the salon all day, you're exposed more so than the average client getting their hair done every few months.
But even one treatment can cause health problems with the client.
Would either of you get keratin treatments of your hair anymore?
No.
No, not for years.
Not for years.
Okay.
Carrie, there's some keratin treatments that apparently contain no formaldehyde.
What do you think about them?
You know, they're not really formaldehyde-free.
Three years ago, labs tested and found very high levels of formaldehyde in a popular straightener called the Brazilian Blowout.
And after that, many manufacturers reformulated theirs so that they would be allegedly formaldehyde-free.
But the thing is, formaldehyde goes by many different names, and some of them actually release Formaldehyde when heated.
So you have to be careful.
So we have a list of ingredients that we're sharing today.
These are things that you should avoid.
All of these are names for or treated as formaldehyde by OSHA. They include methylene glycol, methylene oxide, formalin, methanol.
That's just a few, but learn them and be cautious.
So what if you're watching right now and you want to get straight hair, but you're hearing us say pretty clearly, especially with this new evidence, that you don't want to get a keratin hair straightener treatment.
What should you do?
A very temporary but less damaging way to get straight frizz-free locks at home is to grab a flat iron and a good heat protectant.
And a heat protectant will cost you $15 at your local drugstore, very easy to get, and it will protect your hair during the styling process.
Also, you're going to want to keep your flat iron set as low as possible to achieve straightened hair.
Let's talk about the other big event that's happening, hair salons, which is the use of relaxers.
Yes, yes.
And a lot of folks use them instead of keratin products.
What's the difference, and how do you know which one you want to get?
Yeah, so hair relaxers are used primarily by women with afro-textured hair.
Also, hair relaxers permanently alter the texture of your hair, whereas keratin treatments have a semi-permanent effect.
And that's important because the more permanent a hair care treatment, the more damage it does.
So relaxers can actually be more damaging than the keratin treatment.
So you don't think they're safe at all?
No, they're not safe.
They're very unsafe.
They're full of caustic chemicals.
They have two different categories.
We have no-ly relaxers and lye relaxers.
No-ly relaxers contain calcium hydroxide.
Very nasty stuff.
It's used to treat sewage and water.
But what's worse are lye relaxers.
It contains sodium hydroxide, which has a pH of 12. That's like household ammonia.
So your scalp will burn and your hair will be destroyed.
Let me show you why Nikki is concerned about these relaxers.
And I'm gonna use a lie that's more concentrated than usual, just to make the point.
Let's pretend that these paintbrushes represent our hair.
So you can hold up the normal hair.
I've got the hair that looks normal right now, but we're about to treat.
So you can put your head mask on, your protective garb.
So as I add the water, It'll start making a little bit of a stink.
And so what I'll do is just, again, this is a concentrated lye.
More concentrated than you put on your hair, but similar.
And as I go back and forth, all I'm doing is representing what would happen to your hair.
Now notice the color began to change immediately.
The colors change because we're beginning to actually dissolve the brush.
The brush represents your hair.
Like the chemicals actually break down the hair.
And so if I want to show everybody, and if you don't mind, describe specifically if it was your hair, it would be breaking down the bonds.
The bonds, right.
The free bonds, the disulfide bonds in your hair, which is what makes it curly.
It's what gives your hair texture.
You guys curious to see what happened?
After just a few seconds?
Look at the difference.
It's a dramatic change.
And if I left it in there just a few seconds longer, it would probably dissolve almost all the way.
It would eat the whole brush.
So, if you're going to use a relaxer, no matter what, how can you protect yourself?
My recommendation, can I take the mask off?
If you're going to relax, if you choose to relax, I'd highly recommend that you see a professional, that you stretch your treatments to once every eight weeks, and that you do not wash your hair just prior to the treatments, because you need your protective oils to build up on your scalp and strands.
So we reached out to the FDA and here's what they said in part, that it's very important for manufacturers to provide adequate directions for use, including any warning statements.
I'd just love to hear your honest opinion about what women are doing to their hair.
Because I can tell you, as a guy, we love you any way you are.
But, obviously, that doesn't mean much.
No, not to women.
We like versatility, and that's great.
You know, like, I wish that people would be more cautious.
I want people to be cautious.
Talk to your stylist.
But you know me, Dr. Oz.
I'm a natural hair advocate.
I want folks to embrace their natural texture.
So, you know, reach...
And in that context, look at this.
Yeah.
Think about this the next time you think it was really worth me putting that stuff on my hair.
We'll be right back.
Now that you know what's in your favorite hair salon treatments, Dr. Oz wants to know, will you be going back?
Absolutely not.
I had no idea there were so many chemicals.
I'll do it myself from now on.
Share your opinion on Facebook.com slash Dr. Oz.
Coming up next, would you know how to survive an everyday emergency, like a bloody nose or a knocked out tooth?
TV's ultimate survivor, Jeff Probst, gives us the vital tips on what to do and what not to do in an emergency, next.
All new Dr. Oz.
Legendary model, restaurateur, and TV host Bea Smith on the diagnosis that shattered her world.
I have Alzheimer's.
How did you first begin to figure out there was something going on here?
With her husband by her side.
When she has Alzheimer's, I have Alzheimer's.
How their story inspires others.
And we're gonna fight back.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
The long-running hit show Survivor takes survival to the extreme.
But would you know how to survive an everyday emergency, like a bloody nose or knocked out tooth?
TV's ultimate survivor, Jeff Probst, is here to give me a hand in showing you exactly what you need to know.
Survivor's ready!
It's season 29 of Survivor, and once again, host Jeff Probst has a front row seat to all the mayhem, mishaps, and extreme medical emergencies plaguing his island tribes.
I just watched your heart rate plummet.
An infection that goes into your bloodstream is potentially fatal.
Off the island, Jeff is married with two step kids to raise.
Jeff says he's also learned a thing or two about surviving all the medical challenges everyday family life throws his way.
And he's sharing what he knows today.
Jeff Brooks, please come on out.
Yeah, my goodness.
Nice to see you.
Good to see you, Jack.
The Dr. Oz on Dr. Oz's show.
Very rarely does my son, who's just turned 15, care what I'm doing during the day, but he knew you were here today.
Oh, love it.
Come have a seat.
All right.
I get the show off to him tonight.
29 Seasons.
Yes.
Doing this crazy show, stranded all over the place in remote places that, frankly, are pretty dangerous.
Injuries, I see them all the time on the show.
What are the kinds that you have to deal with most often?
Well, the most often is probably really infections, which seems, I always thought, big deal, infection.
But we've pulled quite, in fact, one of the clips you showed, we pulled a guy for an infection because as I've learned, the infection can get in and can actually kill you.
So you're becoming a world expert on first aid issues now.
You're going to help the audience, help everybody understand some of these.
We're going to give you the everyday emergency survival tips from Jeff Probst.
Come on over.
All right.
Jeff's going to demonstrate how to do things.
And we're going to have to tell Jeff if he did the right thing or the wrong thing.
I never said I was an expert.
I just host a show.
I've just appointed you and anointed you both.
Thank you.
So you're going to pretend.
And I know Jeff doesn't actually know what the right thing to do is.
He's going to play act it.
And all the audience, people at home get to figure out is what you would do.
Do I get prizes?
Yes, big prizes.
Yes, a free examination.
So, the first emergency is the dreaded bloody nose.
So, use the couch.
Show me what you would do.
I just had one when I got back from Nicaragua.
I would go, I would do something like this.
I'd get something cold or a napkin and I'd...
Hold it under.
And I'd go, hey baby, could I get some coffee or something to drink?
I would do this.
I'd put my head back.
Audience, let me see some votes here.
Who wants to talk about this?
Who would do this if this happened to them?
You don't like that?
I would not do that.
Why?
I would.
Thank you.
And why would you not do that?
The blood would go back up.
You could swallow the blood.
You could swallow the blood.
How smart is our audience?
Exactly right.
So what you do is you get You get up because the first thing you want to do is make sure, like any other basic science, you don't want the blood pouring towards where you're bleeding, right?
So if you're lying on your back, your heart's pumping the blood with more aggressiveness because you're flat.
If you sit up, gravity takes the blood away from your head.
You lean forward a little bit so that the blood doesn't go in the back of your nose down your esophagus.
But what about the blood that's running out your nose?
You want that blood out there.
That's not hurting you.
What's hurting you is the blood that goes back into your trachea, your windpipe, causes you to choke and gag.
Plus, you can't tell what's happening.
The worst part about bleeding is if you don't know how much there is.
So as long as you know what it is, so if I'm leaning forward, it's got to come out, then I can pinch my nose like this.
So I'll pinch your nose like that.
It's like a kazoo, but it actually works.
You've got to hold it for, you know, 15, 20 minutes.
And when you do that...
15 or 20 minutes?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
You hold it in five-minute intervals.
Hold it for five minutes.
Every five minutes, try it again.
After 20 minutes or so, if it hadn't worked, then you go off and call somebody.
Really?
That will stop it?
Almost always.
Because it's usually a little vein that cracks.
Someone picked their nose, they got dry air, they were in Nicaragua, in the airplane, something like that.
Okay.
Next emergency.
You're out there trying to save lives, and you break your arm or your leg.
Let's say it's your right arm.
Okay.
Okay?
So, I'm going to demonstrate an idea.
Just an idea that you're going to eventually end up at a doctor's office, but what do you do until then to splint it?
Okay.
So, let's do this together.
Hold it like that.
Okay.
I'm saying you take something from the newspaper, and you put a belt on it.
Very inventive.
I'm down with this.
You're down with this.
Okay.
And then hold that like that if you don't mind.
All right.
That hurt a little bit.
Yes.
Well, that's a question.
Oh, my goodness.
That's a bad scene you just gave me right there.
Okay.
All right.
So, who thinks this makes sense?
I just put a simple little newspaper around a fracture and then put a belt on it.
Thoughts?
You like the idea?
Go ahead.
No, I think that that would work.
And why do you like it?
Well, because it's keeping your arm stiff.
The belt works.
And then I guess with the...
I don't know.
With the paper, I don't know.
Well, newspaper, it's thick.
Okay.
You're the tribal council now.
Thumbs up or down?
Oh, you must have first-hand experience here.
What is this?
I broke my hand.
You broke your hand.
And they stabilized it?
Yeah.
Does it hurt?
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
He's probably on pain meds.
Tribal council, up and down?
Yeah, I'm up.
You're up, too?
Yeah.
Here's why this is so important.
First off, notice that I didn't just splint the broken bone, I splinted the joint above it.
You want to splint the joints on either side if you can.
You don't want it so tight that it hurts, which you pointed out.
You want it loose enough that you've got good blood flow.
Your arm, distal below the fracture, should be nice and pink like that.
Otherwise, just stay like that and go.
It's very, very safe.
That's good.
Okay, put that away.
Now we're getting a bit more challenging.
Okay.
You're out there in the wild of your kitchen.
Very common injury.
You take a knife and you slice your finger.
Now, a lot of folks argue that the first thing to do when you slice your finger is to quickly clean the wound.
Because you don't want to get an infection.
You talked about the infection earlier.
So, whether you're a survivor or in the comfort of your own home, you take some rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, right?
Yeah.
Which one do you use?
I would probably go with hydrogen peroxide.
Who thinks he's right?
Thumbs up or down, Tribal Council?
Most everyone says you're right.
You're wrong.
Really?
You're wrong.
What do you do?
Neither.
Think about this.
You cut your finger with this knife.
You introduce, I don't know, 100 bacteria in there.
Meanwhile, you got a million of your own cells trying to heal the thing.
When you put this stuff on the wound, you kill all the good guys and the bad guys.
But when you kill all this, you napalm your entire hand.
Do you know this stuff always, or do you prep for these segments and learn?
I was born knowing, though.
Of course I prepped.
No, but this is actually something we learned in medical school very early on because most people come to the ER and make that mistake, and we have to then debride the area that they killed with the rubbing alcohol.
So what do you do?
You get a paper towel and you just hold it on it?
A little soap, a little water, run the water on there.
It'll usually help, you know, within 30 seconds you can clean most of it up.
A little soap is okay, but I generally don't like that either.
And then just put pressure on it.
Your body knows how to heal it.
If you have a stab when it goes deep, it's a little more complicated, but anything slicing like that, clean it off and move on.
Okay, I like that.
Last thing.
You're at the last moment of survival.
You're about to win the whole thing.
You hit your head, you crack your tooth, and it falls out.
What do you do with the tooth?
I know what I do.
What do you do?
Oh, with the tooth?
I was going to say, what do I do is I cry for my mom.
Yes, I would cry.
If I knocked a tooth out like that...
So here's the question.
A lot of folks have no idea what to do with this.
The best thing to do is to put it in your mouth.
Because it's lubricated with saliva.
If you can put it back where it fell out from, and then bite in a teabag or something gentle to keep it in location, it keeps it nourished with all those enzymes and liquids in there that are supposed to be around the tooth.
The tooth lives in your mouth.
It wants to be in there.
Now, of course, if you chip the tooth, and so you can't keep it in a safe spot, or if it's a kid, you can't do that.
So then the question is, what are you going to do?
What are you going to do with the tooth at that point?
So I thought long and hard, and I went back to your log of wonderful people who have competed on your show, and I found someone who actually won, won Survivor 23. And now she's, there she is.
Sophie.
Sophie.
And now she's trying to survive a very different challenge, because she's a member of my medical team.
She's a medical student.
Oh, awesome!
Sophie Clark, come in, Sophie.
Sophie!
Hey!
Hi.
Oh, good to see you.
Wait a minute.
You won a million dollars.
Yeah.
You did?
Yes.
Why am I working here?
Why are you working here?
Love you, Dr. Oz.
Well, thank you.
Sophie's very smart.
I mean, that was one of the reasons she did so well.
She was not only good with people, she was just good at thinking through how things should work.
Oh, I know exactly how smart she is.
I depend on...
You asked me how I learned this stuff.
We have a troupe of wonderful medical students and doctors and all who are part of a team, and they actually come up with a lot of the science that we talk about.
So, give us some science now.
If you lose the tooth, let's say it's a kid, you can't put the tooth back in the mouth, what do you do?
So you're headed to the dentist and you want to try to keep it as healthy as possible.
So the best thing is actually to take the tooth and just drop it in a container full of whole milk.
Milk has like a neutral pH, so it's not going to break down.
It's going to keep it good.
Aren't you proud of her?
Pop the tooth in milk, get to the dentist.
And if it's an adult, I don't need the milk because the nutrients in my mouth will get you there.
And you always have saliva.
You don't always have milk.
Okay.
It has been a real pleasure.
Thanks for training, Sophie.
Thanks for having me on.
Great series, though.
Jeff's got a new book for kids, which I've taken to my son.
It's called Stranded Shadow Island.
He loves your books.
It's available now.
You can go see the new season of Survivor Wednesday nights on CBS. I'll be right back.
Woo!
Coming up next, almost every woman will experience the pain and discomfort of a urinary tract infection.
Only a drop comes out and it burns really bad.
What happens when the UTI keeps coming back?
How to break the painful cycle, next.
Almost every woman will experience the pain and discomfort of a urinary tract infection at least once in her life.
But what happens when the problem becomes so chronic, so debilitating, that you feel like you're spending your entire life running to the bathroom?
That's what Trish is going through.
I know a lot of you will relate.
My name is Trisha and I'm 33 years old.
For the past five years, I've been suffering from urinary tract infections and I don't know what to do about it.
When I have a UTI, I feel like I have to urinate every five minutes.
I run to the bathroom, I unbuckle my jeans, and nothing comes out.
Even when I do urinate, only a drop comes out and it burns really bad.
It's a tense pressure with no relief.
My chronic UTIs impact everything I do.
Whenever I'm out with friends, I always have to excuse myself from the table.
I always have to use the bathroom.
I can't even enjoy myself because I'm always on antibiotics.
It's very annoying.
Even when I'm finally off medication, the UTI is back again.
There are many times that I rush home in my car because I don't want to use public bathrooms.
I'm cramping up and there's nowhere you could go.
It also affects my relationship.
Whenever we're intimate, I feel pain.
I always have to urinate.
So it kind of brings the mood down.
Recently, I had to go to the emergency room.
I was in pain.
It was really scary.
I'm so tired of doctors telling me, wipe front to back or pee after sex.
I've also tried natural remedies like cranberry juice, cranberry pills, and lots of water.
Done all those things and nothing seems to work.
Trisha, it sounds like you're on a hamster wheel.
You got the pain, the UTIs, the antibiotics, and the cycle just goes back and forth.
What does that feel like?
It must be frustrating.
It's very frustrating.
I'm very young, and I always get urinary tract infections.
It's painful.
I'm on antibiotics.
It's really bad.
I mean, it stops everything in one minute.
So I want to help you, and I want to help a lot of people because it's a very common problem, but I want to first put you in the truth tube, if it's okay.
Okay.
So I've been collecting information from you.
You've been very kind to share it with us.
I appreciate it.
I know some of it's sort of personal, but this is what we need to do for just about everybody to try to figure out what's going on inside.
So you, thankfully, are drinking a lot of water, about eight glasses a day, from what we can tell.
And if you drink that much water, you should be able to pee out at least 800...
CCs of fluid, right?
That's sort of the milliliters of urine.
That's the ideal.
That's what we sort of expect.
It could be more than that, but it shouldn't be less than that.
So we checked your diary.
You have a pee journal.
How many of you have kept a pee journal?
You were brave enough to do it.
In your pee journal, you actually have about 500 mLs of urine.
So it's substantially less than I would like to see coming out.
I mean, why would that be?
Where would the urine be going?
That's the question.
And I worry that it's not going anywhere.
It's sitting in your bladder.
The old urine's not getting pushed out, and so it just sits there, and so bacteria can grow it.
It becomes a cesspool, basically, for things you don't want to grow, which causes some of the urinary tract infections.
So, the last time that you had a urinary tract infection, you actually had your urine tested.
And so we looked at that test, and it showed us that the bacteria count In a urine that was about as much as that, like one ml, was more than 100,000 colonies.
It's like a lot.
Well, it means you had a real infection.
They really are growing in there.
They like you, those bacteria, but you don't like them.
No.
They're just you covered.
And it's frustrating, I bet, to see that.
Well, how do we get rid of this?
How do we get rid of it?
That's nasty.
It is nasty.
But there's one more thing that it does.
And I'm going to get to how to get rid of it that I want to share with everybody.
I want to show you what that bacteria does to your bladder.
Okay.
What it does to anybody's bladder.
Because you think it's just about the pain.
I'm more worried about other things that are going on inside when you have infections.
So come on over here.
I'll walk you over and show you an example of a study that we can do.
This is an interesting study that looks at the colors of the body and tells us where inflammation is.
So it's looking at the temperatures.
Now notice that you're green up here, right?
You sort of want to be at this cooler temperature.
What's going on down here in the pelvis?
It's red?
Red.
So again, the hips are here.
Belly buttons are about there.
You've got a lot of red, not you, this person, a lot of red down there.
This red spot reflects the fact there's a lot of anger down there.
Anger because you've got inflammation going on, whoever this is.
And then inflammation is often from a urinary tract infection.
So I'm going to show you yours.
You had it done just before the show.
Are you ready?
Put it up there if you don't mind.
It's perfect.
This is your bladder right now, which I'm really happy about.
Me too.
So what we want to do is make it easy for the body to stay in that recovered situation, not have to continue to fix problems that shouldn't be there in the first place.
Yes.
You interested?
Very much so.
And for all the folks out there who have these issues, when we come back, I've teamed up with a leading integrative specialist who has five simple steps to help Tricia and everyone else watching today keep those UTIs away.
Stay with us.
Next.
Burning sensation.
Bathroom urges.
You need to change what's happening down below.
Reset your bladder.
Five simple steps to help everyone keep UTIs away.
Coming up next.
All new Dr. Oz, legendary model, restaurateur, and TV host Bea Smith on the diagnosis that shattered her world.
I have Alzheimer's.
How did you first begin to figure out there was something going on here?
With her husband by her side.
When she has Alzheimer's, I have Alzheimer's.
How their story inspires others.
And we're gonna fight back.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
I've been suffering from urinary tract infections.
My chronic UTIs impact everything I do.
I'm so frustrated because I feel out of control.
I need a way to keep urinary tract infections away.
If you experience urinary tract infections more than once a year, like Tricia, then you've got to pay attention to this.
I want to help make your bladder less inviting to those pesky bacteria.
To do so, I've asked leading integrative medicine doctor Tasneem Bhatia to join us.
Why is it some women get many more UTIs than others?
Dr. Oz, I would love to tell you that Trisha's story is unique, but it's not.
At least 7 million women a year go to their doctor for urinary tract symptoms.
There are a lot of different reasons, but the key is really that their bladders are not a good home for bacteria and can't keep that bacteria balanced.
And what does a chronic UTI really mean?
Chronic UTIs are UTIs that occur three or more times in a given year.
That's a chronic UTI. Having it at all is probably irritating, as we've just been hearing about.
Yes, it's very irritating.
So if you've gotten lots of UTIs in your life and you want to avoid them in the future, Dr. Bhatia has got five things you can do and you can do to break the cycle.
First up is to break the cycle with using bladder hygiene.
You know, Tricia, you've been doing all the common things, right?
Right?
I'm assuming...
Running tobacco, wiping, cotton panties, going to the bathroom after sex, all that stuff.
All right.
Come on back here.
Let's walk through these just in case folks don't know them.
And just make sure we don't have any mistakes going on here.
So, you're drinking the water.
You told me that.
Yes.
All right.
Here are the cotton panties you mentioned.
How about these things?
Talk to you.
So, this is what I call UTI 101. Everyone should be doing these to prevent it.
We talked about water.
These are sort of feminine hygiene products, whether you're douching, using maxi pad, using tampons, doing bubble baths.
Those things should be done in very limited amounts and in limited quantities because they can encourage an environment where you have bacterial overgrowth.
Okay.
I have a question.
Yes.
So, with the napkins.
Some women don't like using tampons.
Right.
So, how would that help?
Like, how does that work?
So, what the key is here is to change them frequently.
Okay.
I was going to ask that question.
That question was the thought of it.
The next step to breaking UTI is to reset your bladder pH.
This is a really important point.
Your pH is perfect, but a lot of folks don't have perfect pH.
Right, so let's talk about this for a second.
You really want your urine to be acidic, almost like lemon juice.
You want your body to be more alkaline, like baking soda.
And it's a very confusing concept for some people, but that balance is what keeps bacteria at bay.
So let's test it out real quickly.
If I take a pH strip, which I use, by the way, all the time in practice, and I see this with my patients, if we take this and dip it, for example, in something like lemon juice, we get a bright red color, which is an acidic pH.
If we then take another one and dip it in baking soda and water, we get green, which is what we want the body to be.
When we hold these together, you can see the difference.
So your goal, remember, the more acidic the urine is, it can fight bacteria, it can get rid of bacteria, it can eliminate it.
The more alkaline your body is, it can keep that balance.
What do you do to achieve that?
So there's some great little tips.
Something like drinking prune juice, believe it or not, three glasses a day will help to reset your pH.
It will help to reset your bladder pH and it also helps to keep your urine acidic.
It'll help with other things too, by the way.
Just in case you're wondering.
Exactly.
I'll leave that one alone.
However, one trick that I'll use in practice with my patients, and they have found it highly, highly successful, is using apple cider vinegar and water.
And what you do there is you take maybe a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, dilute it in about three tablespoons of water.
Again, same concept.
It's helping your body to be alkaline, but helping your urine to be acidic, keeping bacteria in check.
Makes sense?
The next part.
And this is something I notice again.
You like spicy foods, don't you?
Yes.
Do these look familiar to you?
They are very familiar to me.
Can we eat?
Well, first, let Dr. Paddy teach you about the fact that these spicy foods are UTIs.
Then you can eat whatever you want.
Okay.
Yes, I did learn after looking at your records that you love spicy foods, and I do too.
But here's the problem with spicy foods and urinary tract infections.
They will aggravate the whole urethra, the urinary tract canal.
They'll aggravate the whole vaginal area as well.
And so they'll create a lot of heat.
And heat, along with moisture, remember, again, that same two words, bacterial overgrowth.
Now now you want them?
Yeah.
I eat it with everything, though.
I eat bonnet peppers with my eggs, with everything.
Well, I had this curry dish for lunch and I'm burning already.
Come on over here.
The next step I'm burning your UTI cycle is to eat progesterone-boosting food.
How about these things, Dr. Batia?
So the first thing to do is to make sure you're getting enough healthy fats.
So what we've got here are a ton of choices and healthy fat foods that can help you to naturally build your progesterone levels, helping you to prevent UTIs.
So, for example, I hope you like some of these avocados.
We have our sunflower seeds, chia seeds, cashew butter, You know, we've got a wonderful chia seed pudding there.
You know, hopefully you can incorporate some of these into your regular routine and into your diet and really change your hormones and change your UTIs.
Well, I love avocado.
The rest of this stuff, I don't know about.
I tell you, this you're going to love.
I can almost guarantee you.
And when we go to break, you can answer this.
But I ask you one important question.
I don't want to have a lot of chia in your mouth when you're asking this.
What would it mean to you to be free of this burden, of this fear of having UTIs?
A normal life.
Getting my life back.
It's yours to have.
It's yours to have.
Can't wait.
Dr. Badi, thanks for all the advice.
Thank you.
We're going to see you again.
Dr. Badi's going to follow up with you.
I'm going to make sure that you're okay through this.
And we're going to make sure that your story is heard by everybody.
If you'll keep telling us what's going on.
Is that fair enough?
Yes.
Thank you.
You go to dros.com for Badi's tools for your UTI cycle.
You can break them like we just did today.
I'll be right back.
Coming up, he's one of the world's great spiritual healers, renowned expert, Dr. Deepak Chopra.
And he's here to answer your questions.
Important health insight and advice we can all learn from.
Coming up next.
I can't imagine having access to the world's most renowned experts who can help heal your mind, body, and soul.
That's exactly what happens each week on the brand new show, Help Desk, I know.
And it's happening right here today as we welcome one of the world's great healers and my friend, Deepak Chopra.
Welcome to the show.
Folks come up to you all the time asking you about the secrets of health.
What do you think is the biggest mistake we're making?
The biggest mistake we're making is that we don't realize that our lifestyle influences even our gene activity.
So if you sleep well, if you manage your stress, if you meditate, if you exercise, if you follow a good diet and you have healthy emotions like peace and laughter and joy and equanimity, then the genes that self-repair go up.
They get upregulated and the genes that cause inflammation, they get downregulated.
Change the activity of your genes.
Your genes are not your destiny.
It's not your mother's fault anymore.
You can change it.
In their new show, Deepak and his son Gautam set up shop all over the country.
Some of the world's best minds can offer great advice.
When holistic health guru Deepak Chopra and his filmmaker son Gautam decided to collaborate, they came up with an inspired idea.
Take spiritual teaching where it's needed most.
The streets.
The simple truth is that spiritual advice has way more impact when it's given to real people who have real questions.
I hit rock bottom.
How do I live in my truth?
Deepak opened his Rolodex and pulled together an all-star team to staff his help desk.
Then sent them fanning out all across the country.
The only question is, where will Deepak and Gotham set up shop next?
Gotham Chopra is here as well.
There's a question I gotta ask.
What's it like having the very wise Deepak Chopra as your dad?
It was fun growing up.
I mean, I think you heard a little bit of our normal dinner conversation that we had growing up.
It was about these big ideas.
And, you know, I think of it now as a parent.
You know, I've got a seven-year-old son, and I think I appreciate my father's, you know, fathering skills, parenting skills.
Most of all, what he taught my sister and I was, don't take yourself, don't take life too seriously.
And also, don't transfer your stress to your children.
That is wise, Deepak.
Good for you.
All right, so what we're gonna do today is give you all an opportunity to ask Deepak Chopra some advice.
We're turning this desk into the help desk.
It is your lucky day, audience.
Gotham has questions from some of our audience members.
I'll have them take it away.
He'll go up and get some questions, and Deepak, I'll hold down here, and we'll try to tackle him as many as we can, so take it away.
Yeah, so Dr. Oz, our first person is Lisa.
Lisa, if you want to stand up.
She has a question about her weight.
Hi, Dr. Chopra.
Hi, Dr. Oz.
How are you?
How are you, Lisa?
In January, I'm going to be having weight loss surgery, and I really want to get my mind ready for beforehand, but not only beforehand, after, so I don't gain all that weight back again.
Lisa, come join us for a second.
Okay.
Sure.
Let me give you some background on Lisa because we asked a couple of health questions.
She currently is on medication for high blood pressure, Deepak.
She exercises and dies but can't keep the weight off, and she hopes that her weight loss surgery will prevent serious weight-related health issues.
So, Lisa, put your hand over your stomach like this, and everybody else you can follow also, and gauge how full your stomach is.
So, if you're...
Totally empty right now.
Famished.
It's 1. And if you're full, like some of you were after Thanksgiving last time, then that's a 10. Now quickly decide what's your level.
What's your level?
Eleven, I guess.
Eleven.
See?
You should only eat when you're a two or three, and you should stop when you're about a five or six.
Practice body awareness.
Don't fill up your stomach about two-thirds, leaving one-third for digestion.
Practice body awareness.
Gauge your hunger level, and you'll be fine.
Great.
You know, if you have medical problems, as the ones I've listed, that you reported to us, I encourage you to go ahead and get the surgery.
But I think the best point is excellent.
Ultimately, you've got to deal with both the physical issues and, as you already know, the hunger issues.
Thanks for being part of us.
Thank you very much.
Got it.
Take it away.
Dr. Oz, our next question is from Kyla, and she's joining us via Skype from Maryland.
Oh.
Kyla, can you hear us?
Oh, there she is.
I can.
Hi, Dr. Oz.
Hi, Dr. Chopra.
Hi.
I need your advice.
I really have a tough time letting things go when I'm angry.
I hold in the anger and disappointment until I'm ready to absolutely explode.
Do you have any techniques that can help me redirect my anger and really truly let things go?
Kyla, let me give you just a little bit of background on Kyla, if I can.
She's got freaking panic attacks and grinds her teeth at night.
But from what I understand, Kyla, you have no other major medical issues than anxiety.
Take it away, Deepak.
So anger is remembered pain.
So she didn't deal with it in the past, and it's now coming up as anger.
Fear is the anticipation of pain in the future.
Guilt is directing pain at yourself.
And depression is the depletion of energy as a result of the above.
She needs to get in touch with her pain.
Identify it.
Ask herself, where is it?
Remember the episode.
Feel it in her body.
Label it.
Express it.
By the way, just expressing it in writing, it boosts up your immune system.
It gets the issue out.
Which is troubling you subconsciously.
Would that be helpful, Kyla?
Can you write those things down?
I think those are excellent ones, but Dr. Oz, if you'd like to write me a prescription for additional vacation time, I'll take that as well.
We'll do both just in case.
Thank you very much, Kyla.
Deepak, thank you much.
You can see Huff Desk every Sunday at noon and Deepak will be coming to a city near you as part of Oprah's The Life You Want weekend tour.
It's absolutely fabulous.
Check it out.
I'll be right back.
What is your biggest question for Deepak Chopra?
We'd love to hear from you.
I have a question.
How do I find true inner peace and relieve anxiety?
Head over to DrOz.com now to read Deepak's answer and submit your own with hashtag OzQuestion.
All new Dr. Oz, legendary model, restaurateur, and TV host Bea Smith on the diagnosis that shattered her world.
I have Alzheimer's.
How about you first begin to figure out there was something going on here?
With her husband by her side.
When she has Alzheimer's, I have Alzheimer's.
How their story inspires others.
And we're going to fight back.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
That's time for In Case You Missed It.
First, chemicals lurking in your favorite hair treatments.
The concerns about hair straighteners and relaxers that I expressed on today's show are real.
The lie in relaxers can burn your scalp and damage your hair.
So, if you have to relax your hair, because I know some of you are going to do it no matter what I say, do it sparingly, no more than once every eight weeks.
And for straighteners, you can even use some formaldehyde-free top products, but guess what?
They can release dangerous chemicals too.
So I thought you were okay.
Turns out you're really not.
So if you really want to get straight hair, smooth hair, use a flat iron on low heat, and then use a heat protectant.
You can use it at home.
It'll protect your hair.
You get the straight hair you want.
You have to do it more commonly, I know, more frequently, but at least you won't be damaging yourself and your scalp.
Next, if you suffer from more than three UTIs a year, in fact, if you have any UTIs at all, you can follow these important steps to break the cycle.
Focus on bladder hygiene by drinking more than eight glasses of water a day.
Reset your bladder pH with three cups of prune juice daily.
There are other ways of doing it as well, but this will help for both the urine and everything else coming out from down below.
You can eliminate spicy foods because if you might like them, it actually makes the bladder irritated and can predispose you to having more problems with discomfort anyway from the infection.
And our expert on the show today says something really provocative.
She said that low progesterone levels could mean that your bladder is not emptying completely.
So try eating progesterone and boosting foods like avocados.
Nuts are fantastic at this.
All these nut butters work as well as nuts themselves.
And all of them together can help boost the progesterone just a little bit to get you over the edge.
Now I want to close with a warning.
Please be careful about what you buy online, especially weight loss pills.
There are some dubious people online that prey on folks like you who are trying to do the right thing for your health.
And guess what?
Sometimes they try to make it seem like I'm endorsing their products, which, as you know, I don't.
To see a full list of our trusted sponsorship partners, you can go to DrRoz.com.
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