Shownotes

Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt is a urologist and robotic surgeon who is an outspoken advocate for men’s health and wellness. He currently works as the Director of the Personalized Urology & Robotics Clinic at Orlando Health and is a board member of the Florida Urological Society. Dr. Brahmbhatt wants to change the way men value their own health by making an impact on social norms and ideas that influence our perceptions of our health.

In the second part of this two-part series with Dr. Brahmbhatt, we cover various topics, such as UTIs, kidneys and possible conditions, and depression. Thanks for tuning in to our two-part series on men’s health with Dr. Brahmbhatt!

Key Takeaways

• Urinary tract infections and how rare it is in males
• Supplements and natural remedies
• Kidneys and how they get tested
• Depression in men
• How to make scheduling appointments smoother

For more resources, check out our website.

For Dr. Brahmbhatt’s clinic website: https://purclinic.com/

For Dr. Brahmbhatt’s personal website: jaminbrahmbhatt.com

Follow Dr. Brahmbhatt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjaminb/

Transcript

0:00:00.0 S1: Enjoy the second part of the two-part series with Dr. B. Our health is the most important thing that we have and as a married woman of almost 19 years to my dear husband, Andrew and mother of two boys and daughter of my dad, Bill, who's 81, I am acutely aware of the fact that men don't go into the doctor and they don't seek care. In fact, I have an uncle that saw the doctor once in his entire life and died at age 86 of a heart attack while he was climbing a mountain. Men typically have a hard time going into the doctor, and this podcast is for all of you women that care about the men in your life. Whether that's your sons, your dads, your husbands, your brothers, your spouse, your partner. We are covering everything with Dr. Brahmbhatt, a urologist at Orlando Health. We're covering everything from steroid use to infertility, to depression, to prostate exams, to identifying any kidney problems, and what’s the best way to see a physician. We are covering the gamut. Doctor B is incredibly approachable, relatable, he makes things funny and the reason I had this podcast was for all of you ladies that are the caregivers of the men that we love, and it's good to recognize the symptoms, and it's good to be encouraging to our men that we love.

0:01:35.2 S1: With that, let's get into the interview today, you're gonna learn lots, take some notes, I'm gonna have all the show notes with the links of the products that he recommends, and as well as a link to follow Dr. B on LinkedIn and TikTok. And I just hope that you leave with some new ideas on how to incorporate health and wellness into their lives. So with that, let's get into the episode.  

0:02:06 S2: Welcome to the Wellness Essentials Podcast, where we invite you to join the conversation and get inspired to be in the driver’s seat of your health and well-being. On this podcast, you'll get an all-access pass inside the minds of MDs, experts and thought leaders in the industry. No topic is off-limits, and we're asking the questions to get you the answers across the gamut of topics when it comes to optimizing your health. This is the WE Podcast.

0:02:44 S1: So two things that I wanted to ask about, one was UTIs, that was really interesting on our last interview when you talked about UTIs and then supplements to prevent UTIs as well as recognizing any kidney dysfunction, and then the last thing I wanted to chat about was really prostate health and just some tips for wives to maybe suggest or just to know about, educate us on prostate health. So the first thing with UTIs.

0:03:14.6 S2: Okay, so well, I'll give you pretty much a TikTok one minute version on all of these things, so urinary tract infections. Your man should not be getting a urinary tract infection. When men are younger, symptoms of urinary tract infections are usually sexual transmitted diseases, but if you're in a very strong relationship, it doesn't mean he has a sexually transmitted disease, but if they are having symptoms of urinary tract infection, whether it's burning when they pee, blood in the urine, abdominal or bladder pain or fevers, chills, you gotta get yourself checked out 'cause a dude again, should not be having symptoms of urinary tract infections. The reason women, regardless of age, are more prone to it is because your urethras are much shorter, so the bugs from the outside world can get in much quicker, especially if you're post-menopausal. Post-menopausal, that kind of first line army, that's your estrogen and the acidity to that area, is kind of, starts decaying, that's what makes you more prone to infection. Men have the same length urethra and it's longer than the female urethra and the bugs should not be getting in. Usually, the bugs are coming from something on the inside, so when a guy has a urinary tract infection, we do the work up, so is it a kidney stone, is it some blockage in his urethra, does he have scarring there, is he not peeing...

0:04:26.3 S2: Or does he have prostatitis or just chronic inflammation. So there is a very extensive workup that is done to kind of sort through these things, 'cause we don't want him to be getting infections again, but the way you would know he has an infection is the symptoms that I mentioned, a rapid change in urinary symptoms, plus or minus, whole body symptoms as well. 

0:04:48 S1: Really? Whole body symptoms of…

0:04:51 S2: Fevers, chills, fatigue. Now, if he's partied at a bachelor party the weekend before and Monday morning, he's having burning when he pees, it’s probably 'cause he's dehydrated, and if he feels like crap is probably 'cause he hadn't slept. So it can't be a one-off thing. It's like you would know, it's like he's been normal, hasn’t done anything crazy, and then boom. So that's infections, infections in men are treated pretty much the same way in women initially with antibiotics, and then we would kind of take a deep dive and what the cause of these infections is. Now, one really quick thing about urinary tract infections for either gender is when you get the test done for urinary tract infections, it's usually in the office, it's like a dip stick where we quickly just drop something in, and once it's dropped in, then it quickly gets analyzed by a computer or whatnot, that's not the best way to check for infection, you have some markers and triggers, but that's not the best way.

0:05:43.9 S2: The best way to check for infections really is a culture where you actually have your entire urine set up and cultured and where they like to take a deep dive and take a look at things, so that usually is the best way to check for urinary tract infection. I have all these people that come in and say, “Oh, I got checked, blah, blah, my doctor's office and I got an infection.” I'm like, “How do they check for it?”, and it's usually not checked the right way.

0:06:09.4 S1: Interesting, so if we have a UTI test, that's the first line of defense to say, “Hey, it's positive”. When you're at home, it's really a screening then, 'cause if you are positive, you should really go in to your physician to get a full culture.

0:06:27.8 S2: Yeah, whether it's your physician or whether it's your local urgent care center, you could walk into a grocery store or you walk into one of those corner pharmacies and you can get a test on there, there's actually at home test too, but those are not as accurate, but there's definitely different ways to go and get yourself checked out. So that's urinary tract infections in a nutshell, dudes should not be getting it, if they do, get them treated and then get him evaluated, and usually that will lead down the path of seeing a urologist.

0:07:00.6 S1: Okay, and that is what you are.

0:07:02.1 S2: That's what I am.

0:07:04.1 S1: What about the supplements of like a D-mannose supplement? Does that do any good? 

0:07:11.0 S2: I actually am a huge believer in natural remedies and supplements for many diseases, but I would have to see the data on it first. The only supplement that I actually started giving out before the guidelines really promoted it was cranberry. This isn’t cranberry juice, this isn’t cranberry and vodka drinks, this is actually a cranberry supplement. I think the majority of them do work, but you got it, when you get a supplement, the best thing is to look for certain certifications, now, supplements are not regulated by the FDA, so sometimes you don't know what's in them, where they're coming from, so I really promote like go and either see where your doctors recommend you to make sure they're not making a profit off of it, 'cause sometimes things can be biased, but cranberry supplements, most of them are pretty generic. I think they're fine, and I think they work. Now, should you just take it proactively, no, only take it if you're having a problem, don't put something in your body if you don't need it, so this is not one that I recommend taking proactively. But no, absolutely, for urinary tract infections, I think supplements work great.

0:08:11.4 S2: But you know what works better? Drinking water and staying hydrated. That’s the thing. I got some going, “Oh, I got burning, burning, burning.”

0:08:19.5 S2: I’m like, “How much water did you drink today?” “Two classes and a beer and oh, by the way, I went running outside at the beach.” 

0:08:26 S1: And an energy drink. 

0:08:28 S2: I’m like, “Can you just drink water please?”

0:08:32.5 S2: “Can I have Gatorade?” No, that has salt in it.

0:08:36.4 S2: Just drink water, that's gonna help a lot of your burning symptoms, and honestly, like I used to say this, I actually didn't believe it until I had a kidney stone. If you’ve ever had a kidney stone, if you ever had a stent inside of you, it sucks. And I always tell patients, ”The stent doesn't hurt, I just drink water. It'll be fine.” And I realize I should follow my own advice, so it hurts everywhere down there, but when you drink water it does help 'cause it lubricates your bladder or keeps clots away. So it's the same principle, it's like the more hydrated you are, not only are you gonna feel energetic, your skin's gonna look better, you’re gonna glow, but it does help keep urine concentrated and avoids the symptoms and also avoids infections and kidney stones, so supplements, sure.

0:09:23.5 S2: But hydration… 

0:09:26 S1: If their supplements, Checkable wellness supplements, our UTI prevent is D-mannose and hibiscus flower and cranberry extract. So all three and made in the USA, very proud of that.

0:09:42.5 S2: So I love how you're plugging in your product here, so kudos to you.

0:09:48.0 S1: It's a great supplement, our number one seller actually. So from the side of prostate health, we don't hear about it as much as women, get your mammogram, and now it's down to age 40 of men, go get your prostate checked. Can you tell us about that?

0:10:06.8 S2: Men, you don't really need to go see your doctor, get your prostate checked. Yes, you will eventually get one, but if all men felt that way, no one's gonna go see a doctor, 'cause yo dude, I'm gonna go see a doctor is gonna put his finger up my what, so I usually when I see a guy that's really nervous, hesitant, the first thing I say to them is, “Listen, relax, I'm probably not gonna need to check your prostate, you can relax”, and then their sphincter just relaxes, you see them relaxing in a chair, but when it comes to prostate health, the things that women should look out for is changes in urination, you're going from waking up zero to one to three at night, you see them taking longer to come back when they're going on a break during a football game or basketball game. You see them having to push or strain, you see your dude always standing to pee and now he's sitting to pee, ‘cause he's having to really force it out, so there's lots of symptoms, but usually it's something called nocturia where you guys are waking up at night, there's frequency, there's urgency, there's a weak stream, there may be some dribbling afterwards, so there's these things and what we do when we see these patients in the office, they fill out a survey, so we get an objective measure, and then we kind of from there, follow it. What's really interesting on these surveys is the last question is always about quality of life.

0:11:20.0 S2: You may have all these symptoms, but if any bothering you and we do our regular check, there's no point in pushing forward towards something, but there'll be people with minor symptoms in their quality of life…really, really bothered, they can't work, they can't go anywhere. So then we have to get a little bit more aggressive, but when it comes to your guy, he will eventually get a prostate check. The prostate check is part of a screen protocol for prostate cancer, so prostate cancer screening, depending on your family history, could start at 40, could start at 50. You have to kinda talk to your primary care doctor about when you can start based on your family history and other things. So it's a lab test that you get once a year. You get it once a year because that's what insurance covers, unless you have another indication, but that's it, once a year, and then you'll get a prostate exam either now or in the future. I do it maybe once and then I'll do it if there's an issue of suspicion, but really the lab tests and everything else have gotten so good that the need for that has gone down, so guys don't be scared, like that's not the first thing you’re gonna get, but when it comes to your prostate, there's actually some really cool things you can do proactively to avoid having prostate issues, those include having a normal weight, a good diet, exercise.

0:12:33.1 S2: There's been studies done, longitudinal studies that people that lived in countries that had a very healthy diet and then they moved to America, and they pretty much went from no prostate symptoms to now major prostate symptoms. So there is something within that prostate gland that can be affected by diet, but when you have issues, yes, there's medications and there’s surgeries, but just like I mentioned, cranberry for urinary tract infections for your prostate, there's actually some really cool supplements out there now, if you're buying a supplement that you saw on an infomercial at 10 AM at night, and there's a celebrity promoting it, and you gotta sign up for a three-month plan, it's probably a for-profit gimme. Most of these prostate supplements have a combination of things, but usually the main ingredient is saw palmetto. The issue with saw palmetto is again, it's not regulated here, so you don't know exactly what you're getting. Most of what we get here is like the powder extract. The powder extract, you just don't know what the quality is. I'm a big fan of a company called Flomentum, so they actually, it's made right here in my backyard in Florida, and it's a prostate supplement…

0:13:35.5 S2: …that's liquid extract. So in Europe, there were studies done looking at the powder versus liquid extract, the liquid extract has been clinically proven to be very strong towards relaxing your prostate, decreasing inflammation. In Europe, it's actually, you need a prescription, you need someone like me to give it to you. Whereas here in the states it’s actually a supplement, you can buy it on your own, so that is where you can be proactive, like, “Hey, you wanna do something beyond your vitamins, you can take a prostate supplement, no problem”. I'm not recommending this in your 20s, but unless you're getting in your 40s and you wanna do something that you can proactively actually do it. I, in my office, used to just watch these patients. But if they wanna do something, I do something called active management, so it's not really a bother, but I'm actively doing something for this that could become a problem and prostate health is one of those things that I do with supplements in my office.

0:14:25.7 S1: That's so smart, that's actually promotes good health for my guy. Okay, you can monitor it. It's because a lot of times I can't even tell there's no effect, but they wanna see what’s putting in my body helping me and so you can help manage that.

0:14:45.4 S2: Yeah and the cool thing about prostate supplements is most of the prostate medications do have some sexual side effects, whether it's loss of libido or retrograde ejaculation, whereas supplements really don't have that side effect, they may not be as good as medications, but hey, I think it's worth a try. I've become a big advocate since I've seen the benefits of recommending something like Flomentum to our patients, so it's pretty cool. I'm a big fan.

0:15:09.3 S1: That's a very good tip. So the last thing that I wanted to ask you about was if the unrecognized, undiagnosed symptoms of depression in men and what you see from MD side and how to recognize that and suggest to do something about it.

0:15:33.1 S2: So you just have a third question about kidneys, kidney damage, can you feel… I just wanted to do well.

0:15:38.6 S1: You are so good, let's talk about kidneys quick. I thought you…

0:15:42.0 S2: This is gonna be very quick, I know I'm taking too long, but really quickly, for kidneys, there's actually two specialties that manage. I'm the surgeon of the kidneys, if you have a tumor in there, stones, there's actually a medical subspecialty called nephrology, and they manage the medical part of kidneys. So you work as a team, the best way to screen your kidneys for the big stuff is get a lab test where they actually check something called your creatinine and GFR, and they can actually see how well the horsepower of the kidneys is working. For other things, for your kidneys, whether it's a stone or a tumor, that all just kind of depends on what symptoms you have and whether you have imaging order, whether it's a CAT scan, MRI, ultrasound, as a lot of these things get discovered incidentally, in my line work or emergently in the emergency room, where all of a sudden you're having some issue, you get a CAT scan, you find a stone and then boom, you're in the operating room. So proactively, to really protect that kidney, whether it's from stones or medical disease is really just protect your heart really and again, it is so boring, like exercise, diet, avoid salt.

0:16:46.7 S2: But it really is that easy. So that's kidneys in general. So you asked a question about depression in men…

0:16:53 S1: Wait! Quick question now about creatinine. What if you do have a look? What if your,  are your measures low? Are they high? You said creatinine, and what was the other?

0:17:02 S2: Creatinine and glomerular filtration rate. So creatinine, your numbers should be low, and they check the…creatinine and other things, but you're creatinine, your numbers should be low, if it starts going up, that means your kidneys are having some issues or even failing. The confusing thing is the better gauge of what your kidneys are, and the horse power within them and the juice within them is actually the glomerular filtration rate 'cause that takes into account multiple things from about that patient. It even takes into account race in certain cases, so that number is actually opposite, so you should be really high, like close to 80, 100. If that starts going down, then your kidneys are having a problem and I think if it's, it goes down to 15 or 20, that's when you're on the verge of dialysis, you gotta sit on a machine several times a week to basically do what your kidneys do for you naturally, but yes, it's all in the semantics of the lab test.

0:18:03.4 S1: Got it. Okay, I didn't mean to interrupt your… but it was a good explanation. Thank you. Now, onto the depression question.

0:18:11.2 S2: I'm glad you're not gonna use a video 'cause I know it’s cutting off here as I drink my Celsius here. Celsius sponsor us.

0:18:18.8 S1: I do love Celsius myself, except I think I drink it on an empty stomach when I went to a yoga sculpt class the other day at 5:30 in the morning, and I thought I was gonna pass out 'cause my heart rate got so high and it was like a 106 degrees. 

0:18:34.5 S2: I don't know if you know this, but when you drink these drinks where they say zero calorie, and good for you, and all these things, you know they taste great, but one thing you gotta make note of is these things may taste great, but they can be very salty. So when you look at salt, it's not gonna say salt on here, it's gonna be sodium, so this one actually has zero milligrams, which is pretty interesting, but maybe it's all in their proprietary blend, but you gotta be very careful about that. So a lot of people think, “Well, I'm eating healthy, I don't add any salt to my diet”, but then they're either drinking things or eating things out of a bag that have a lot of sodium to them, and that can cause blood pressure, kidney sons, etcetera. So just be very careful what, I think Celsius overall has a very good balance on everything, but a lot of these energy drinks do not. 

0:19:25 S1: Yeah. Like the Monsters with, there’s a Bang with creatine that’s…

0:19:31 S2: Bang is really popular on TikTok. They pay all these influencers to drink it. I mean Bang tastes pretty good, but if you read it, it's like I can't even pronounce half the stuff and I'm like, we're drinking this.

0:19:44.1 S2: You know what people don't realize is like, I used to be addicted to Diet Coke and Red Bull. Just be honest with you, as we're going into our conversation about mental health, I used to drink like three to four Diet Cokes a day and diet, I'm like, always diet, but then you read the sodium and everything else, there's actually studies that show that, and that's why all these companies came out with these new versions of sodas like Coke Zero and then Pepsi Max, so all these artificial sweeteners, we may think like, “Oh yeah, they're good for us, blah, blah”. But these artificial sweeteners can actually change your appetite levels, but also it's been shown that they may not raise your sugars, but they can kind of alter, and I don't wanna sound like an expert, ‘cause I'm not an expert on this, but it can change the way your insulin metabolizes certain things, where you can get, it's not really high sugars and diabetes, but you can get subtle remnants of that where this may be triggering some bad things that may happen in the future, so you gotta be careful. Everything in moderation, I used to drink a lot of this stuff, but then I started going on my fitness kick and switched to water, and now I'm down to one, maybe one and a half, so I still drink it...

0:20:53.6 S2: I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm super healthy, whether to Diet Coke or something like this, but I do it in moderation. So what I was trying to get at is, I got dudes coming in for low testosterone all the time, the reality is, their body has become so, is it tolerant or intolerant, where they're drinking so much Bang and all these Monster drinks, so your body is used to a constant amount of caffeine and taurine and all these things are supposed to energize you, but then you need more and more and more and more and more, so of course you're crashing at night after your seventh thing, or of course the next morning you feel like crap because you're not gonna get anywhere until you drink two or three of these, so that's one of the hardest conversations like, “Hey, you don't really need testosterone, you don't even need to lose weight, you just gotta get off your caffeine kick, 'cause it's hard 'cause I think people do get kind of addicted to some of these things, but I think you gotta be careful with how much of this stuff you're putting in.

0:21:50.9 S1: Yeah, I think depression and men last time we talked, you had said that it goes undiagnosed and that there's a large percent of men that are depressed and things that we can look for, and really what's the best. I feel like, I know you're gonna say diet and exercise, because doesn't it help with everything?

0:22:14.6 S2: But in this case, I think it's more a mental connection, so it's about communication. Dudes really try to treat themselves with alcohol or partying or just sitting by themselves and keeping everything in. Mental wellness is key. We all look at our physical bodies, you forget our mental bodies. I personally have engaged in some of these things to help my mental wellness, and I actually sometimes open up to patients about my own struggles because they come in and they want all these things and after maybe the second or third miss, I’m like, “Listen, bro.” So I put the laptop away, I mean, I'm usually not on the laptop, but I look at him, “Listen, bro, I've been through A, B and C, or listen, I've had this surgery, and blah, blah, blah, this is what you should do”, or you know, it's not perfect, but mental wellness is tough. Depression, anxiety, a lot of people are suffering with this stuff and then they go to all these other addictive behaviors. Depression is, it's easy to screen, but it's also hard to screen, and for you, I'm not an expert at it, but I've gotten so good at it because I see these men, I just know that they have some mental illness, not low testosterone or anything else, but to have that conversation is still very difficult for me.

0:23:36.2 S1: Is it? For you, it's hard to have with your patients?

0:23:39.4 S2: Because they think they're gonna get testosterone or something else, or I'm gonna solve the world, even when they come in for erectile dysfunction like, “Oh, I can't get it up”. I do try to segue into some way about figuring out their relationship status is like, “How long have you been with your wife? Blah blah. Like what's going on? Is it just with her or is it not with your girlfriend?” We get into these deep conversations, and then they usually open up like, “Yeah, she's at menopause and it hurts her”, so I'm like the issue is not really your inability to have erections, it's more you have concern for your partner. Okay, so let's talk about how we can help her, so these are the things I know, we have some doctors here in town that can help her with that problem and let's work on it together. Yeah, but then it's also like they hate each other 'cause the dudes expecting what he sees on YouPorn, ExHamster or that kind of stuff at the age of 80, so you have to have a realistic conversation with them is like, “Listen, you gotta calm down and not be so macho about some of these things”.

0:24:40.5 S2: Let's look at, this is on both sides, and honestly, a lot of the time, people are addicted to porn or they become desensitized to it, personal intimacy, one-on-one touch, because when they watch porn and they can look up whatever they want, and it's like one and done. Quick, let's go. Whereas the other way, you gotta buy some flour, you gotta do foreplay, and you gotta do all these other things, so sometimes a lot of work, but I always tell them like this, you gotta stop watching that stuff because that's not reality. All of these things coming together, I think it all is also part of that mental part is because we could be addicted to certain things or we go to other avenues to just get away from our reality, and what I've learned over the past year or two years, and you just gotta face your reality, it's hard. You got as a guy, you gotta face reality like, this is what's wrong, and the wrong is in me, or if the wrong is in someone else, what can you adjust or change, or how can you just get rid of that person in your life so that you kind of stay on track.

0:25:50.9 S2: I think men, whether they like to admit or not, are actually very influenced by their social circles, we see all these videos of little girls like Justin Bieber and all these things, but I think men are even more influenced by social factors, but they're just not open about it.

0:26:08.3 S1: Yeah, they have an ego that tells them, can’t admit that. 

0:26:12.9 S2: Yeah, are you talking to me personally or…

0:26:14.6 S1: No! I have two teenage boys, and I realized one of them is more influenced than the other, impressionable. And today, this morning, I said he skipped a class yesterday and said, “Oh well, my friends are going to Starbucks and driving around. It was a nice day. So I skipped ceramics”, like you said that you weren't gonna skip any classes and then you skipped.

0:26:41.9 S2: Yeah, but mom, it's ceramics, who puts their kid in ceramic class.

0:26:45.5 S1: My oldest Will is, it's his best class. He is a beautiful, I'm gonna send you some pictures and Will’s my guy that wanted to take steroids, he can bench 250 and he is really good at throwing on the wheel.

0:27:00.1 S2: But maybe he wants to do steroids, but not ceramics, but you're forcing him to do one or the other. No, all jokes aside, I think it's good to be engaged like that. I think guys, I don't wanna say ceramics is feminine, that is not the case, but I think guys should be more accepting of doing whatever they want, all because you like something doesn't make you a certain way or give you a certain title. I wear pink shirts all the time, people used to make fun of me in high school, it's like, but I've always embraced my true self, and I think more guys should do that, just be you, BU, that's where I went to college. Boston University.

0:27:45.0 S1: Oh, you did? I was just in Boston last week.

0:27:47 S2: Oh really? 

0:27:48 S1: Yes, I went to a clinical research conference and the American Telemedicine conference. We stayed in Back Bay, and we went to this place called Select Oysters. If you haven't been there, next time you go, you should go. It was amazing. 

0:28:06.1 S2: Everyone in Boston goes to, I don't eat meat, I’m vegetarian, man what’s it called, now you're gonna kill me. There's tons of them. Very popular place, but yeah, it's a lobster place, but Boston is awesome. I think it's very cool and educational to be there, but mental wellness is key in dudes, I think it's even more important to engage your dude about his mental wellness than his physical wellness, 'cause if he's mentally strong and you guys are on the same wavelength, it's gonna be much easier to get all the other stuff done physically, and I would say utilize your intimacy and what you do in the bedroom as kind of like a way to inspire the other stuff that you want, and I wouldn't do it by force, but there's definitely strategic ways like, Hey, if you go to this then I'll be home even if you're two hours late from your doctor's appointment, but really quickly, some quick things to make doctor's office visits easy for him. Try to get the first appointment block, so whether it's the first appointment in the morning or the afternoon clinic, then usually things are gonna run on time, the second thing is if there's any medical records, just start compiling them.

0:29:13.6 S2: There's some apps that do it, but they suck, but any history that you may have like, just do it. Now, there's gonna be paperwork from the doctor's office, but what I tell my patients is to just create a personal thing that only you have access to you on Excel or Word and just have a running thing, so like the dude can just go, How many times do I see a dude that gets an appointment by a wife, like you Patty, and he has no clue why he's there. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” So give him a list. So early appointment, give him a list, and the third thing is, usually now most people have portals, so you can have access to that portal and you can actually see what was discussed or what orders were put in, and so then you have…Now you're not snooping or anything, obviously, you would get his permission, I'm sure they're gonna be fine, but if you have that, then you're kind of engaged. Sometimes I feel like it's how we engage my kids in school, we know certain things that we give them the independence, but the thing is, once you get started on this track, you can probably just let go and he’ll thrive 'cause you'll see how easy it is, but you gotta kinda set him up for success.

0:30:19.0 S1: Yes, those are great tips. And to make, it's getting out of their comfort zone and to make it more comfortable and smooth sailing for them, they're gonna utilize the healthcare system even more if it's easier that first time. I love the tip about the first appointment and last appointment. That is excellent.

0:30:38.3 S2: Well, the first appointment, both clinics, not the last appointment, if you're doing the last appointment, you're gonna wait a couple hours.

0:30:44.5 S1: Oh, I thought you said first and last, or last...

0:30:47.7 S2: Well, there's usually two blocks, there's morning clinic, afternoon clinic. So the first appointment in the morning or afternoon clinic.

0:30:53.3 S1: Oh, oh, that's good. I see what you're saying. I was wondering, how do you know that you're gonna be on time at a 5 o'clock appointment 'cause...

0:31:02.4 S2: But I'm always running on time, so if you’re my patient, I will always be on time, so don't worry about what appointment you get.

0:31:07.9 S1: Look at that, I love it. Okay… We heard it in the beginning, you have a staff that runs the office so smoothly, so I don't doubt it at all.

0:31:17.4 S1: Well Dr. B, it was so nice to have you on again. Thank you. If our guests want to get a hold of you, really follow you, 'cause you have great tips and you're super relatable, what's the best way to follow you?

0:31:32 S2: There's multiple avenues, depending on what platform you're on. On most social media platforms, I'm on Dr. Jamin B. So Dr. Jamin B. I have a website, jaminbrahmbhatt.com, or you can just google Jamin Brahmbhatt and things will pop up. You'll see my profile at my hospital, your line to health page, you'll see reviews, etcetera. But I'm also on LinkedIn, I'm huge on LinkedIn, so if you're like a professional and wanna engage there, you can just type my name, J-A-M-I-N Brahmbhatt, B-R-A-H-M-B-H-A-T-T. I think I said that too wrong, but you can just look at the show notes or the title and you'll see. But I've become a big fan of LinkedIn and you can engage me there, the only thing is I can't answer your medical questions. I get people sending me pictures and things, and then they get mad.

0:32:19.8 S2: Social media is exactly social media, it's not HIPAA compliant. Yeah, if you wanna engage us professionally in a professional capacity, then we contact the office or I'll give you the number and then you just do it, but I'm not here to offer free advice when it comes to medical stuff, but I do give a lot of free life advice, and then if you just fill in the blanks and you can kind of figure out the rest, so...

0:32:42.8 S1: So good. And I think that TikTok, that's what we should follow you on, if you're growing that.

0:32:48.7 S2: No, my TikTok is very amateur. It's so bad.

0:32:53.8 S1: Well then that's why we should follow you, so then you gotta kick up the game a little bit. 

0:33:00.3 S2: Oh my God. It's like, but it's so hard to stay on top of all these platforms, so it's like, I try my best, but yeah, if you wanna hit me up there, no problem, shoot me a like.

0:33:09.1 S1: Get your girls to help you.

0:33:12.0 S2: They do, listen, whenever I post something with my family, it's always like a major hit, but they're getting of the age where I don't even know if they wanna hang out with me, so...

0:33:22.6 S1: Oh, I'm with you there. My daughter, she’s turning 12 and just had the play the other day, she gave us this look like, “Oh”, painful that we were in the front row with our cameras. We’re like “What?”. We're cool still, aren’t we? Not at all. Well, Dr. Brahmbhatt it was so nice to have you on, a pleasure. Thank you for joining us and we will talk to you next time.

0:33:47 S2: Thank you Patty. 

0:33:56 S1: Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you got a lot out of it. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up-to-date with our latest episodes. Also, you can find us on social media by searching, Checkable Health. We look forward to seeing you again soon.