Ask Dr Karl

I've got lots of questions for you from doctor Carl And this is for doctor Carl Kruzenetski's regular segment. We have this time every Thursday morning called ask doctor Carl if you have a question, And there are so many same, many good ones came through last week and I'm going to ask them now. But if you have a question for doctor Carl for next week, zero four six zero eight seven three eight seven three.

How are you? Oh? Pretty damn good, doctor Phil, Thank you.

I have a couple of questions that came in. One came in from Chris and we were talking about if anybody knows much about alien hand syndrome, because I talked about it on the air and everybody said, you've made that up, and I said, I haven't, but I'll go to a higher authority, and here you are.

It does exist, doesn't it.

Yeah, it's a well known problem that can happen to people.

It's not that common, but it does happen.

And it's sort of a neurological type thing, and so it's.

A rare neurological disorder.

It does happen where somebody experiences that their hand is moving by itself, as though it's acting on its own or it's foreign.

Or alien to them. Now that's not the only part of it.

Also in this syndrome you've got involuntary movements of other parts of the body and also is a mental thing where you're thinking, my left arm belongs to me, but that right arm I don't know where they came from, and you feel a weird feeling of disconnection. It goes way back to the nineteen sixties is term alien hand syndrome, and there were patients who after they'd had brain surgery or strokes or some other sort of neurological events, they seem to have uncontrollable.

Movements and that was it.

The hand was moving uncontrollably and by itself.

And there's different types. So depending on whether you've got damage to the.

Front part of the brain or to the corpus glossum, the bundle of nerves joining the two part or the back part of the brain, you can have different sort of symptoms, ranging from trying to grasp or grope with that hand, or if it's in the corpus gulosum, which joins the two halves of brain, one hand might try to pick up a pen while the other hand will try to put it down, or one hand might try to unbutton a shirt while the other hand is trying to do it, and you've got no control.

And if you got the damage to the back part of your brain, you have.

These weird feelings of I've seen a hand like that before, but that one isn't mine, and I don't know why it's doing it.

And I've got no control over it. And of course you can also have it as a result of a.

Tumor or a head injury as well, and sometimes the people are not really aware of it at all. So weird syndrome, but it's real. The unfortunately, all we got for it is support. There's no cure, so we're trying to do is manage the symptoms and try to improve

The results are variable in all drugs of poisons.

And they might work for you and they might not, and sometimes surprisingly psychological counseling, which you'd expect to have nothing to do with it, can actually help. So it's definitely a brain thing and sometimes you can have some control over it or sometimes not.

Surgery very very rarely.

I like how they've given up the nickname of doctor Strangelove Syndrome two after Peter Seller's character in the Stanley Kubrick film.

He did have a hand that wouldn't obey him. Great movie, especially with the nice endingway.

I'd spoil for anybody, but everybody go and watch the movie Doctor Strange Love.

Fantastic No fighting in the war room. One of my favorite lines film of all time. Let's talk about this came in from Gary. If you're an atheist and you swear on a Bible in court, can you lie?

That depends on the word can, and can is very different from may, so can means you have the physical ability to do it, but may means are you allowed to so. In general, swearing on a bible in court is just a formality related to the religion of the country, and it's sort of a ceremonial like to get you in the mood for being honest, regardless of what you think, and in many cases in various countries. If you do not believe in a deity, you can go for a

You could even have your hand on a copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, for example, and it wouldn't matter.

Yeah, because the court doesn't like being lied to that it doesn't like being held in contempt, and lying under oaths is called perjury.

And it doesn't matter whether you're religious or not.

The act of swearing on the Bible is not legally compelling honesty.

It's just merely giving you.

A hint that your society expects you to be truthful. And so it's not so much that the divine authority, but rather the land that you live in has got specific laws, and part of it is that in this particular case, you have to tell the truth about what happened, and if you do not tell the truth, you're committing perjury, and perjury itself is a crime and can bring with it a fine or a jail sentence.

Right, I feel that Gary's incentive to us this question as he's just trying to get out of the speeding. Fine, So okay, well let's move on to this. My wife is a regular lover of infrared saunas and she's got me into it, and I think they're fantastic. And I'll tell you what, I certainly sweat more than I would with a regular sauna.

But do they work? Are they actually doing anything?

They're doing something in the sense that a regular sauna does good stuff. Anyway, So I've had saunas for thousands of years, and overall they do lead to a slightly or they're associated. They're associated with a slightly better outcome in cardiovascular health and overall mental well being.

But that doesn't mean that they cause it.

So could well be that if you're the sort of person who goes for sauna, well, also, at the same time, you're the sort of person who has friends, and just having friends makes.

Your life better. Right now, there are a.

Few this whole idea of that there is a mental thing about the infrared saunas. No, but will I make you feel better? Sure, regular sauna will make you feel better, And in fact, they use a regular sauna in the Antarctic for people to join the three hundred Club, where they expose themselves to a temperature change of three hundred fahrenheit degrees in a very short period of time.

The three hundred Club got questions about that. I might be even on a completely different tangent. Get you to hang on a second, Doctor Carl, Doctor Carl Krisiniski on the phone talking with our regular segment Doctor Carl and answering your questions. And if you have one for next week for doctor Carl, please text through zero four six zero eight seven three eight seven three.

Roger, this is very good mate.

Why is it that when you see the rims of a tire while the car is in motion, it looks like it's going backwards instead of forwards? Made? That is a very very fine question.

We'll get that. That's a promise.

We'll get that on next week. And this one note came in from David. I'm pretty sure that Peter Garrett is suffering from alien hands syndrome when he's dancing. Maybe it's a question for next week. What is it that Peter Garrett's doing with his dancing? And why do some people what a question?

Why? How do some people come up with their style of dancing.

Damn it, We've already got a couple of questions, but hang on because I've got to get back to part two of our chat with doctor Carl after this, and we've got to find out more information.

About the three hundred Club.

Sixteen to two, coming up to thirteen minutes to two. The questions are coming in thick and fist for next week. Ask doctor Carl. There's some really really good ones. Zero four six zero eight seven three eight seven three if you'd like to send through your question.

Okay, doctor Carl, thank you for hanging on.

Let's get back to something you were talking about a moment ago, because we were talking about infra red saunas and you mentioned the three hundred Club.

So what's that all about then.

Yeah, So they normally do it around the middle of winter and the sauna gets cranked up to a temperature.

Of ninety degrees centigrade, which is pretty hot.

Over ninety so it's over two hundred fahrenheit, And they do this only on a day when the air temperature is below one hundred fahrenheit negative, so in the sauna plus two hundred outside minus one hundred temperature difference more than three hundred crazy, right, Okay, So then what they do is you owing to the sauna naked and they're apart from shoes, and then you sweat away and your

All these people there with lights because of lords, you couldn't see where you're going. And then you just gradually try it, and you've got to have the sand shoes.

You know, we're closed because the ice would freeze from the sweat.

And the ice could cut your and.

You gradually trot your way slowly around the South Pole, the physical South Pole, and then back inside.

And then you remember the three hundred club.

And I've been down to Antarctica seven times, but never.

Did the South Pole.

And one of my friends was telling me about in the corridor in the School of Physics how he'd done it recently, and he was down the South Pole collecting air samples and running at a special in for a telescope.

They have down there.

And then another physicist was passing by and she said, I've done the three hundred club as well, And then the first person said, yeah, but I got a bit cocky.

And so the first time I did it, you know, I just felt fine.

So the second time the next year, I went a bit faster, and I was breathing deeper, and I got a bit of frostbite in my airways as well as a bit frost bite of the tip of the foreskin. And the woman said, oh my god, that happened to me as well. I got a little bit cocky, and so the next year I got a little bit of frost bite of the nip.

A feeling you might go there, but not because of the fact that that story obviously is very important part, an integral part of this. But when you mentioned the three hundred club, my mind immediately went to the mile High Club. And then when you mentioned people in a sauna, I thought, people are going to get unsavory here.

If it gets too hot. But you have bad things happening. So one advantage of the so in a regular sauna, what do you have is either hot rocks or some sort of heat supply, and that heats the air, and then the air kisses against your skin and then the heat is transferred from the air into your skin.

But in an infrared sauna is quite different. Right. What you've got is.

Infrared LEDs or lights, and they give out heat, and that radiant heat can actually penetrate a little bit further into your skin.

It doesn't penetrate to your internal organs. They're lying about that, right.

The way you normally do it in a regular sauna is the sort of just running and go in there. But my understanding was that most of these infrared sorts that you go through a cycle where you get in there and the temperature is fairly low, say forty degrees sea, and then they crank it on and gracuy climbs up to about sixty or something, and then you get out. Then the next person goes through the same cycle. Is that how you do it yours? Or is it just always running into fixed temperature?

No, it goes up and down.

Oh so people come in and out.

No, it goes up and down.

In the little private booth that you have, the temperature is variable depending on whether or not the light, So the light doesn't stay on all the time. It comes on and off, and I mean the temperature. It's still pretty warm in there, but it doesn't seem to be that very It seems to be not that consistent.

So each person gets their own boots in the one that you go.

Yes, that's right, and how much how long does it last?

For charge?

About about around about? It's not cheap.

It would be over sixty bucks and you get a free bottle of water with it.

But you know, I want to ask you this too.

Is it true that when you sweat, you sweat out toxins? And therefore, if you've got a hangover, you can go to the red light sauna and sweat.

Out the alcohol. They're lying, Damn, there go wite Saturday morning.

The thing is to give it to toxins.

You've got this organ called the liver, and that's a really good job of it.

And if you take a.

Poison like alcohol, well you've got to wait for it to go through and be cleared out by your liver.

Can you sweat out colds and flu?

Not? Really? You?

So the thing that the reason you have a bit of a fever when you get an infection is that the bacterium usually has chemicals in the walls that your immune system's warning to recognize it, and it uses the prisons of those chemicals to then tell the hypothalmis in your brain to crank the temperature up a bit, because that both makes it a little bit less comfortable for the bacterium to live in your body, and also it improves the efficiency of your immune system fight it to

But sweating out a flu in a sauna.

I wouldn't go to that if I just take it for this sheer enjoyment that it is good. So and they do operate at the lower temperatures, and they do heat up faster, and if it says is a bit more comfortable, and you do get a bit of more penetration, so if you're a little bit of soreness under the skin, mind happy might help.

But then other people don't like it.

Either one is good, but it does seem like sixty buses are fair bit to charge for an individual.

Session on that set.

And I think you keep the nail on the head when you said when things get hot, it's no fun, because my wife's been using that since we got married. Can I say this a fascinating journey through an immensely changing life of this colorful man. What a life, bold, daring job, hopping from rags to riches and back again. Left me with about a million questions I'd love to ask, but I'll never get the chance, It says Jane, giving a review of your book. And here's another one. Have

Now, oh shut, you are the kindest person. Thank you so much.