Just some takeout

I don't know why this cracks me up so much, but I love it.

FInding your purpose in life

Physiology Fridays: Why you seem to pee more when you go to the movies

It's movie season right now, so today's post is both topical and fairly practical. On a very related note, go see "The Avengers", it is amazing. Seriously, stop reading right now, and go see it if you haven't already. It really is that good.

Also, buckle up your seat belts, this is gonna be a long one. But it's totally worth it. Probably.

Anyway, back on topic. When I go to the movies, I get my coke and my salty popcorn, settle into my cushy seat, and prepare to be entertained. Then about 5 minutes into the movie, I feel like I haven't peed in weeks. So I sneak off to the restroom, take care of business and come back. I get all situated and prepare to enjoy the rest of the movie. A half hour later, it hits again. I have to pee so badly I'm considering urinating in my now empty soda cup because I'm not sure I can make it to the bathroom in time. Once again, I creep past everyone else, empty my bladder, and then stumble around blindly trying to find my seat, where I remain for the rest of the movie. When the credits finally role around, I jump out of my chair and bolt for the restroom one last time. And this happens every movie! But why? Let's take a look at the physiology.

There are two major players here in this crazy game of "Don't Wet Your Pants", the first is water. Most of that 32 oz soda I'm guzzling down is water. When water comes in the body, it also must leave. This part is straight forward.

The other player in this dangerous game of "try to leave the movie seat as dry as when I sat down", is sodium. Sodium makes up half of what we call salt. Salt's chemical compound is NaCl, which means that it is made up of equal parts sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl). And if you are like me, you dump salt all over your popcorn. But sodium isn't just found in salt, there is also a very significant amount in coke (and in most soft drinks).

So we have two ways of sodium getting into our bodies right now, salty popcorn and our soft drink. Why is this important? Sodium loves water. Or maybe water loves sodium. I don't know which it is. All I know is that if you see sodium go to the park, water follows right along and goes to the park too. Or maybe it's that sodium goes to the park and loves water so much that he brings water along with him. And they go to the bank together, and the gym, and to the movies, and grocery shopping, and they go down slides together, and they have nerf gun fights. They really, really like each other, whatever the relationship is.

Anyway, sodium is readily absorbed into the body by the small intestine (specifically in the jejunum). So as sodium is leaving the small intestine, it says to its buddy water, "Come with me, it'll be fun!". So water, being the great molecule it is, follows its pal sodium into the body. (There are plenty of other molecules that bring water into the body with them, like glucose, but today our big focus is on sodium)

Now we just talked about how much sodium we take in at the movies - a lot! All of that sodium pulls in all the water from your intestine into your blood along with it. Now you have an influx of fluid into your blood stream. And this is no turn on the faucet, and fill up a water balloon flow, this is open up the fire hydrant and fill up that same water balloon flow. The good news is that your body knows how to deal with this sort of conundrum. Your body knows that exploding from too much water coming in is a bad thing. And while there are a couple of different response systems, since I just got done with cardiology, we will talk about how the heart response affects things.

The heart has stretch receptors inside of it in a portion called the atrium. These stretch receptors do exactly what they sound like, they alert the body when they are stretched. And the only normal way they get stretched is when excess fluid comes in the heart and pushes up against them. When these receptors get activated, they send out a signal called ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide - atrial = atrium, natriuretic = sodium, peptide = signaling protein). ANP travels by blood to the kidneys where it tells the kidneys to get rid of sodium. The kidneys send sodium into the urine. And like we talked about earlier, wherever sodium goes, water likes to follow. So we send out a ton of water into our urine. The bladder fills up rapidly and then you feel like you have to pee. This will continue to happen as long as the heart feels stretched enough to send out ANP. Or basically until you stop cramming your face with salty popcorn and sodium-filled soft drinks.

So how can we prevent this, or at least lessen the effects of this? The obvious way is to not eat salty popcorn or drink soda. Bam! Problem solved.

But if you are like me, and you love your movie treats, then there are other ways. The first is to limit the salt on your popcorn and drink a soda with less sodium in it (a good rule of thumb is clear sodas have less sodium, colas have more, and diet sodas have more). Or you could try eating a fatty meal right before you went into the theatre. This would slow down the whole digestion process and possibly delay the water absorption for long enough that you could finish your movie in peace. Of course you would suffer for it later, but we aren't dealing with that here. We just want short-term results. Another option is to have a folley catheter inserted, then you could just have your bladder drained while you watch. You could drink 3 or even 4 sodas and have like 20 bags of popcorn and not have to run to the bathroom once.There is the possible complication of a urinary tract infection or other worse things (much, much worse) but it's an option to keep on the table.

The last option is Depends. A pair of adult diapers is both practical and beneficial. I don't know about you, but I usually end up freezing in the movies and it wouldn't be a bad thing to have some extra warmth mid-way through.

However you solve the problem, at least now you know the physiology behind it.

(Also, sorry for the boring stock photo at the beginning. I just couldn't find anything funny that fit and wasn't too inappropriate. So here is a funny pic that is somewhat inappropriate and has nothing to do with the post)

Seems like a good idea

Dinosaurs aren't good climbers

Bring on the science

I would totally watch this

Turn your head and cough

That time of month...

Seems like a bad idea

Why? Just why?

Oh to be Brittish

Don't forget

Titanic

Wow. Two Titanic posts in as many days. I must really love that movie. Nope. Besides the fact THAT YOU KNOW THE ENDING GOING INTO IT, there's also the fact THAT THERE WAS ROOM FOR TWO ON THAT BOARD!!!

Personal space

I have had some situations in the past where this trick would have come in handy. Now I know...

Now in 3D!

Call Jayne Cobb, a Mudder needs help

I remember getting the call from my dad just a few weeks ago, "Your mom has breast cancer." Drawing on my vast knowledge of medicine and doctorly ways, I knew just what to do. I got on Google. Okay, that's not entirely true, I first got out all my medical text books, skimmed half a dozen pages of notes and realized, Google is easier.

The initial diagnosis was DCIS - ductal carcinoma in citu. It's a very treatable cancer in the breast that has a good prognosis. If you have to have a breast cancer, that's the one to have. Or so I thought.

My mom just got done with her first surgery and the new pathology report came back a little differently from the first. According to the biopsy sent for review, my mom actually had Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. "Eek." I thought when I first heard the new diagnosis. That sounds bad. And it is. Unless it's in the breast. You see, normally it affects the salivary glands and when that happens, it is bad news bears. But when it is found in only the breast, then it has an excellent prognosis. In fact, there is no medical literature that records any deaths from ACC. So we went from DCIS, which is pretty good to have, to ACC which is really good to have.

My mom's doctor is excellent. She is a sturdy, hold nothing back, Scottish woman who eats cancer for breakfast. Actually, that's a little weird. I doubt she actually eats cancer with her eggs and toast. But when I saw her, I was reminded of Mel Gibson with his face painted blue, riding a horse towards the English army and calling over his shoulder in his thick accent, "I'm off to pick a fight." I think she hates cancer as much as she hates the English. So I'm glad she's on our side.

However, we aren't in the clear yet. She still has another surgery and then radiation to follow. Just because there are no recorded deaths, we don't want to mess with cancer.

If you want to follow along with my mom's story, she recently started a blog. She hasn't put a lot up yet, but she plans to chronicle her journey there. I'll continue to post updates on here as events warrant.

Litter

Volleyball

I played volleyball in high school and we had to fight for our right to not wear little shorty shorts. Play basketball instead.

Ginger

One of my best friends has red hair. And I still hang out with him. But seriously, having red hair is not a recognized medical disability and is no reason to make fun of someone. With that being said, here is another ginger post.

Coincidence?