E208 | Routine Men’s Health & Jiu-Jitsu Longevity: Why Screenings Matter

Full Transcript

**** Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figueroa-Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing routine men's health. So I had debated whether I wanted to do this episode or not, and I felt like it's important enough, but it's not necessarily Jiu-Jitsu related.

**** So, for those of you who want to gloss over it, I completely get it. I understand. But when I tackle things on this podcast, I want to tackle the whole practitioner. So there's going to be elements or episodes that I discuss things that maybe aren't necessarily Jiu-Jitsu related, but your health is important.

**** And our health in general is the reason we can even do what we're doing. So if I don't cover or talk about some of those things, I'm, in my opinion, doing a disservice. This goes for men and women, but specifically I'm going to be speaking to the men. We have a duty as men, leaders, partners, instructors, whatever, to make sure that we're okay.

**** Make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. Make sure that we're doing the extra mile and we're getting our physicals. We're putting in time to make sure that we're getting enough rest, enough sleep. Our diets—they don't have to be pristine, mine isn't—but we have to at least be conscious of it, and then start doing the routine health screenings, specifically when you get to that age.

**** I'm 45 this year. I turned 45 in February. I started getting notifications from my health provider about scheduling a colonoscopy, and I just scheduled and did it last week, Friday exactly. Today is the 17th. I did it just last Friday.

**** Look, as we get older, specifically certain demographics are going to have higher risks of certain things. If your family is high risk, if you know that there's some things that are hereditary, if you know that your parents, your grandparents had certain things, and stuff runs through your family: get it checked out. Get it taken care of.

**** For the women: breast cancer, cervical cancer, and so on and so on. For the men: prostate and colon cancer, big ones. And colorectal cancer specifically is one of the most common cancers out there, yet 90% treatable, and so many of us just don't do it. We neglect it.

**** And I get it. It's scary to think about the process. It's scary to think, "Oh, I got to go in for a procedure. If I don't have adequate medical coverage, that might be a cost that I can't incur." I get all of that. But if we're in a place that we can actually take care of it, let's do it.

**** Let's get out there. Let's do the prep, see your doctors regularly. Because way too many of us are ignoring this, and way too many of us are having health issues, and we're dying way too young, or we're having to overcome more serious odds because we didn't bother going in and getting checked out.

**** We didn't bother getting in and getting our physical, and our blood work, and this test done. We tend to, especially men—and again, I'm speaking mainly to the men—we tend to think that because our muscles are doing well, and we're athletic, we're doing Jiu-Jitsu, or in some cases some of us don't even think we have to do anything, that what we don't know won't hurt us.

**** And we travel through life thinking that we can just continue to do what we're doing and that whatever happens, happens. These cancers are in a lot of ways preventable in the sense of at least if you catch them early. But they're not fun to go through. They are not things that I would wish on anybody.

**** They're not things that I would want my enemies or whatever to go through. Like, I want us to live long, healthy lives and to be in our families' lives, to be fathers, friends, brothers, sons longer, or as long as possible. And just sometimes we have these cultural or these norms within men that we think that we don't have to take care of that.

**** We don't have to take care of our mental health or physical, and we just think we just grit down and bear it, and we just get over whatever comes next. So, for me, when it was time for me to sign up, we've been having some issues with the wife that kind of prolonged me signing up for it. She had some health issues that we were taking care of.

**** So it took me a little longer than I wanted. I wanted to sign up just a couple months after my birthday, but it just didn't happen. I didn't get around to it. So I called up. They told me—I think I called on a Monday or Tuesday—next week we got one on Friday, 8:30 or 8:10.

**** The following week we got one at 3:30. I was like, "You are not getting me in an afternoon." So 8:10 it'll be. It was a quick turnaround. I think I signed up on the 10th day, so I was like 10 days out. There's stuff that you're supposed to do in the meantime. There's benchmarks that they give you: don't eat this past this day, or don't eat this on day three, stop taking certain medications.

**** They lay all that out for you. And then you get closer, you got to go pick up that—it's not even that gross, to be honest with you. You got to pick up the gallon along with these two pills that you chew 4 hours before your procedure.

**** But you got to go pick up that thing with the powder in it, and the day before you start, you fill it up with water to the fill line, and then you shake it up and you let it chill. They got a lemon or lime-flavored packet. I don't know if it's worth it. To me, the thing didn't taste all that gross.

**** The day before you go in for your procedure, you can't eat anything. The days leading up, you got to stop eating anything green, anything that's high fiber. And then the day of, you don't eat anything. All you can do is drink water, clear liquids—so Sprite, 7UP was okay, Powerade and Gatorade as long as they're clear was okay, and then broth: chicken, beef, and I think bone broth were all okay.

**** So that's pretty much all you do. You can get some Jell-O too. It has to be green, lime, whatever flavor that is. And that is pretty much all you do that day. My boss told me, "You need to—I would be remote that day. You're not going to be able to eat, you got to prep. Don't bother coming in."

**** So I was at home working remotely, and I was taking care of this. And it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Like, I'm someone that likes to eat, and I eat regularly. And between the broth, the drinks—I had high electrolyte power drinks that I would take, the Gatorade I would take, and then I would do Jell-O occasionally—so I wasn't that hungry.

**** Don't get me wrong, I would have ate. But it wasn't the worst thing. You just fill up on a bunch of liquids, and they suggest that you hydrate yourself as much as possible because you're going to be losing quite a bit of liquids when you start prepping.

**** 6:00 PM, I set up. I started taking the drink, and within 45 minutes to an hour, you got to be hitting that bathroom. Some people, some friends I've talked to, they were having really bad cramping and uncomfortableness. I didn't have any of that. I had the rumble of like, "Hey, you need to get to the bathroom," but I didn't have any cramping, I didn't have any pain, any uncomfortableness.

**** I was just to and from the bathroom. Now, the annoying thing is that you got to drink half of this tub or this gallon—half of it within, I want to say, 2 hours. Every 15 minutes, you got to drink a glass of it. So I had that with me, and then I had a glass that looked a little more than 8 oz, but I would kind of measure it out.

**** And every 15 minutes, you got to take this down. By the end of the first half, I wanted to puke it up, I'll be honest. It was just forcing so much liquid down that kind of—I don't think it was the taste, and I almost gagged. At that point, it was gross. And it was just you're to and fro, to and fro.

**** You get up, you might watch something for a little bit, and then you walk around your apartment or your house, and then you're back at the bathroom. And there were points where I had to like, "Oh shit, I'm on the toilet, I got to go drink this thing in 2 minutes." So then I would kind of finish up, go drink it, and then within 10–15 minutes, probably no less than that, I'd be back in the bathroom.

**** And there were stretches where you go so often that you'll have a break from the bathroom, but you're still drinking this liquid. You got to drink half of it. And then you got to time when is it safe to go to sleep. Because if you start at 6:00 PM like I did, I had to take the next half at 2:00—2:00 AM.

,: 10:00

**** By that point, you're not going as often because you've let so much go, if you will. And you start looking at what's in the toilet, and it's getting less and less. By that point, I don't think there was anything solid, but the color starts to change. And towards the end of that second half, it starts to look really clear.

**** And I know there's a lot of TMI. It just is what it is. I want to brush away the concern that people have doing this. It was not that bad. The biggest thing was just getting up in the middle of the night and having to do this. But again, I have weird sleep patterns, so it wasn't that bad for me. Like tonight, I slept poorly, so it is what it is.

**** And then I had to chew the pills, which I think were Gas-X, 4 hours before my appointment. And then I couldn't drink anything, anything by mouth. My appointment was at 8:10. I think by 5:00, I couldn't take anything else. I couldn't drink any more liquids, I couldn't eat Jell-O, nothing.

**** And again, not as hungry as I thought I would have been. The process takes a lot, but it wasn't the worst thing. I've eaten things out of certain restaurants that have really put me down and glued me to the toilet. Those were horrible issues, and this wasn't that. This was just, "Hey, I just got to go to the bathroom."

**** Tip: put some Vaseline on it. I know that sounds weird. Put some Vaseline on it early so that the wiping doesn't irritate that area. Buy all your supplies ahead of time. I bought everything on Wednesday so I would have it for Thursday. Don't plan anything.

**** The following morning, we went over. They got me in pretty quick. The nurse was fantastic, hooked me up, answered any questions I had. And then they hook you up to the IV, and she tells you you're going to be sedated. It's going to be one of those twilight sleeps, so you're going to wake up, you go to sleep, you wake up. You're going to know things, hear things, see things, but you shouldn't feel any pain.

**** There might be some discomfort at times because apparently they push air into you. If that's the case, we'll up the meds a little bit and you should be good. So I met with a doctor, she was great. And then they wheeled me in, and she had me position a certain way. And I was laying there, and she said, "All right, so I'm going to start the medication soon, and we'll start shortly."

**** I don't remember when the procedure actually started. I wasn't conscious for it. I fell asleep. And then I woke up, and you're facing the monitor, at least in my setup. So I look up and to my right, and I can see where they're going. They're inside of you, and I could see my insides.

**** And you'll get pictures if your provider's worth anything. So I got a bunch of pictures. And I remember thinking, "Oh shit, that's interesting." And then I fell asleep again. And then I woke up at one point and was like, "All right, it's still going," and then I fell asleep again. And this isn't a long procedure at all. It's just in and out.

**** And I remember waking up at one point and feeling uncomfortable, like I was bloated. And the nurse is like, "Are you okay?" And I was like, "I'm feeling a little bloated, uncomfortableness." She's like, "Okay." And they upped something, and then I was out again.

**** And then the next thing I knew, I was up. They pulled everything, and I was there, and the nurse is waking me up. And she's like, "All right, so procedure's over, we did great. We're going to wheel you into the recovery, and your wife will be there." So they wheeled me, and I'm kind of like half asleep at that point, but I'm waking up.

**** And the doctor comes to you and they were like, "We didn't find anything. We didn't find any polyps, we didn't find anything to be concerned about. You're good—good for another 10 years, unless something happens, obviously." But it was an easy, easy procedure for having some peace of mind. Easy procedure.

**** It's time-consuming in that you got to prep and you got to go in there, so it's not like blood work, it's not something that's instant, it's not a scan, it's none of those things. But it was an easy procedure. And I understand not everybody has it like that. Some people that I've talked to had really bad cramping in the prep.

**** These things aren't 100%. Things do happen, there is accidents that can happen, there are things that could happen during this procedure. So don't get me wrong, nothing is 100%. Any procedure you go under has some kind of risk. But for me, it was easy. It wasn't this terrible thing.

**** Wife came in, and I got dressed. They wheel you out to the car because they don't want you to walk. And I went home. I ordered light breakfast. I had heard conflicting things: some people eat something right away and it doesn't bother them. And what I was reading was ease into your meals for the day.

**** So I eased into it. I had toast, avocado, and some other things. And then the rest of the day, I pretty much was out. I had a hard time sleeping, but I wasn't doing anything. I felt groggy, I felt really tired, I felt sleepy. That night I had ramen. Again, I wanted to ease into what I was eating; I didn't want to have a huge meal.

**** I felt bloated that night, which went away by the next morning. Next morning I went to an open mat because I wanted to support the promotions that they were doing. I didn't train. Again, that following day I still felt sluggish, so I didn't train. I helped, I took some pictures, videos, and congratulated people who were getting promoted.

**** And then I went home, we didn't do anything that day either. I didn't get back to training till that Sunday, which was yesterday. Sunday morning, I felt completely normal. So some people feel completely normal the following day; for me, it took an extra day. Not a big deal.

**** Not the end of the world, not the worst thing. And though we have stigmas about certain procedures and the idea that certain things are going to happen, I didn't feel any pain afterwards. I didn't feel any discomfort afterwards. I didn't have any issues physically with that region or going to the bathroom afterwards, nothing.

**** It was a great procedure. I got answers because I believe my dad had polyps. So I got the answers that I needed, we're good for now, which is a plus, and that's really what we want to do. And so I've been vocal about this and men's health in general, because I want us to take it more seriously.

**** And the more I'm seeing, like, I didn't know a bunch of my friends were having this procedure. They didn't say anything to me until afterwards. So we're sharing our experiences. Go out there, please schedule your appointments, men and women. But men specifically, because we're terrible at this.

**** You have a responsibility to lead a certain way, you have a responsibility to be here, you have a responsibility to make sure that you can continue to be the father, husband, brother, son, coach, training partner that you can be. And if it means a little bit of discomfort for a couple of days so that we can get the answers that we need, and know that we're okay, and then get the help that we need if that's the case, then we need to do that. It's our responsibility to.

Jitsu related questions: @dfm.: 2099

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