Doctor Reacts to Bizarre ‘Health Hacks’ Videos

Mikhail Varshavski, DO, who goes by “Doctor Mike” on social media, is a board-certified family medicine physician at the Atlantic Health System’s Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey.

In previous videos, Varshavski has reacted to bizarre health posts he’s found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Here he dives headfirst into YouTube’s ocean of clickbait.

Following is a rough transcript (Note that errors are possible):

Varshavski: We’ve covered Facebook. We’ve covered Instagram. We’ve covered Twitter. Now, It’s YouTube’s turn. Let’s see what misinformation lies in the heart of YouTube.

(On video) Lilly’s Friend: Hey, Lilly, I brought some stuff for you.

Lilly’s Friend: Oh my knee!

Lilly: What happened?

Lilly’s Friend: [GROANS]

Varshavski: Oh my god! She touched the luggage and she blew up with a purple bruise. That quickly? Did she have a hemophilia issue?

Lilly’s Friend: How can I go out with this bruise?

Varshavski: Wear pants! First aid hack.

Egg. Is she making a snack? “Wait until it’s warm. Repeat 3 times a day?” Does she want it to hatch, or does she want to fix her bruise? When you have a bruise, that’s essentially a hematoma, broken blood vessels. If you bring warmth to that area, you’re increasing circulation, thereby increasing the bleeding in the broken blood vessels, thereby increasing the bruise size.

You want to do the opposite in the beginning in the acute stages and you want to shunt blood away from it by putting ice and cold. I beg that you do not rub an egg on your leg. #Swegg.

Sinus, Migraine, Tension, and Cluster. Okay. It’s kind of explaining different types of headaches, although the idea of a sinus headache is not a true headache. That’s sort of been debunked.

“Massage for 1 minute.” Yeah. I would like for someone to massage my head for a minute. Yes, facts. #facts #factsnopostalmail. Is that what the kids say? See, I’m a hip. I’m cool. What you cool kids up to?

Oh, sinus headaches. Look at that. Look at that. Here I was treating their sinus infections, but all I had to do is this. Next time a patient comes into my office and complains of headache, I’m just going to go like this. Let’s see how fast I lose my medical license.

Eight Best Acupressure Points to Treat Body Pains and Aches. Okay, let’s see it. What am I treating there? A medial epicondylitis? Reduces high fevers and soothes sore throat?! No, no, no. Literally, they’re making stuff up. They’re not even like…

I think anatomically what’s in this area? What nerves? What muscles? What connective tissue? What organs are … not in this area. But like what organs are in there? What can go wrong with these tissues? Then we start ruling out these diagnoses. BRIGHT SIDE apparently is like, elbow, throat, fever. What’s the connection?

Four fingers above the belly button, pressure point. This is ridiculous. There is no scientific validity to this. Massage clockwise. Massage counterclockwise. If you’re massaging it with one finger, it’s not going to do anything. Like it just won’t. I promise. You might stimulate your bowels just ’cause you’re rubbing the area. They should get in trouble for this. Like YouTube should take this down.

“Eliminates Gas. Deflates the stomach.” No checking why the gas is problematic. No checking to see if the patient has an infection. To see if they have an overgrowth of bad bacteria. No, no, no, no. They’re just like, “Rub clockwise, rub counterclockwise. All good.”

Five Unusual And Useful Secrets About Our Bodies. “If you can’t sneeze, look at a source of bright light.” If you can’t sneeze? Do people walk around wanting to sneeze?

Sam: If like, you’re on the verge of a sneeze and you’re trying to ignite the sneeze …

Varshavski: Yeah.

Sam: … you look at a bright light.

Varshavski: Then what happens?

Sam: It would make you sneeze …?

Varshavski: That’s … the … what?! There has got to be more to it. He is rubbing his … “If you really need the toilet …” OK, scratch the back part of your shin. This will slow the signal from your bladder to your brain.

What in the …?! Who? I realized your strategy: just say the most ridiculous thing ever and people will treat it as if it’s a breakthrough thought. Especially if they’re benign like this — no one is going to get mad at you for saying this. Except me, clearly. Look at my veins. Tell me what I should do for this BRIGHT SIDE?

“If you have a ticklish feeling in your throat, scratch your ear. This will cause a muscle spasm.”

Let’s disprove this guy right here. Oh, no muscle spasm. Try it on yourself. No muscle spasm.

“If you’re feeling really nervous, blow on your thumb. It has its own pulse.” I’m going to see if it will help because I’m really … It didn’t work.

“If your arm has gone numb, move your head around in a circular motion. This will cause the blood to flow in your arm due to the twisting of the nerves in your neck.”

Varshavski: If your arm has gone numb, you could be having a stroke or a heart attack. Number one, I’ll say that as a doctor. Number two, If you move your neck around and your neck was like this, and you were cutting off the circulation to your blood vessel, not your nerve, your arm could have gotten numb.

Will it solve everyone’s problems? If they’re having a heart attack, and you’re going like this and actively causing yourself to pass out? Not a good idea BRIGHT SIDE.

Varshavski: Let’s get back to the video.

OK? There is stress happening. Headache, light sensitivity, perhaps a migraine. Closing the shades, smart. Very painful headache. He is going to give her a massage. “Warm Water. Frozen Product — Pulls blood down from your head-relieving headache.”

What?! I mean, there are so many headache remedies out there. How is this the one they recommend? Who is trying this? If you tried this, please let me know why. Why? I think he just wanted to make the fries, so he was defrosting them using her neck.

“How To Check Your Health in 1 Minute.” Imagine we waste all this time in healthcare struggling to check our patient’s health, but BRIGHT SIDE knows that in 1 minute you can check your health.

“Pass a spoon over the whole surface of your tongue.” Tell me they’re going to send it to the lab. “Put the spoon in a clear packet. Place it under some light.” They’re going to culture your mouth? “After 1 minute, check the spoon. A clean spoon without blotches or an unpleasant smell, no problems with your health.”

Varshavski: If you have like a urinary tract infection but your mouth is clean, then BRIGHT SIDE is like, “You’re all good.” You walk into a doctor’s office, “Doctor, I sprained my ankle. I have this like thing on my leg, and this doctor told me I have a tumor in my tibia. What do you think I should do?” “Oh no. You don’t have any problems with your health. The spoon is clear.” “Doctor. I said, it’s my ankle.” “I work for BRIGHT SIDE. Shh. Shh!”

“It’s sweet — You may be diabetic.” All right. That one like I can get with, like you could have a fruity odor on your breath if you are severely diabetic, but you need to be severely diabetic to have that.

“They’re purple color – bronchitis, poor …” What? I have never … this is not going to work. This will never happen. No person with high cholesterol will lick a spoon and it will turn purple. Statistically, scientifically, medically, mathematically, even in literature this is not real.

“Orange color — kidney problems.” They’re literally just making stuff up. “Oh, guys. What colors?” “Oh, orange” “What do you … what…?” “Kidneys.” “Yeah. You’re right. Good. Kidney.” “Purple? Purple? Oh, cholesterol. Cool. Cool, cool.” No logic.

“Control Your Body!” “Got a headache from eating cold food? Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth.” Brain freeze, also known as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia — talk about a mouthful — can actually be cured by touching the top of your upper palatine area with your tongue because apparently your tongue has a lot of blood vessels so it’s fine. It’s fine, BRIGHT SIDE, you win on that one.

“Can’t stop laughing? Pinch yourself.” Can you imagine? “Can’t stop laughing?” Punch yourself in the face!

“Itchy mosquito bite?” Please be good advice. “Apply some deodorant.” There are treatments for mosquito bites. Put a little corticosteroid on it. My God.

“Can’t get to sleep? Blink fast for 1 minute.” I mean, this is ridiculous. They’re literally just saying stuff.

“Got a headache? Lift up your arm.” “Got a pancreatitis? Lift up your leg.”

“How emotions affect our bodies. Anger weakens the liver.” You can actually say any negative emotion can impact any organ negatively. This has truth to it, but the fact that they are isolating a specific organ is complete BS.

Anger weakens your body if it’s chronic because you’re in this hyper fight-or-flight sympathetic state, and as a result your blood pressure is higher and your stress hormones are higher. Therefore, you’re not recovering and you’re not getting nutrients out of food as well. As a result, your organs kind of suffer chronically, not just your liver.

What do you think your brain is like chilling and your liver is like “[ROAR]”?

“Anxiety weakens the stomach.” OK, anxiety in the stomach actually does have an important connection, because the gut-mind-brain connection is real, and also the stomach is oftentimes the first place where you feel anxiety — the term “butterflies in your stomach,” because of the hypersympathetic state.

Basically, you have two types of nervous systems in your body — parasympathetic and sympathetic. Sympathetic — fight or flight. You see a bear, you run away.

Parasympathetic is rest and digest, which is good for your stomach. You get the circulation going there. If you see a lion or a bear, all the blood flow would leave your stomach … well, not all of it. But most of it will leave your stomach, go to your legs, to help you escape, go to your lungs, and all that stuff. So anxiety does affect the stomach, I vibe with this one.

“Love brings inner peace and harmony. It strengthens our mind and body.” Who is a savage that’s going to disagree with this? Who is going to look at this and be like, “Love — horrible for your organs”?

Honestly, love is horrible for your organs if it’s not reciprocated and your partner leaves you, and they ghost you. Like you text them, but …OK, I’m talking about my problems.

Hold on, I’ve got to sneeze. What was the hack to stop the sneeze? Oh, it was to make yourself sneeze. Like [SNEEZES], oh my God, it worked!

Sam: Take back every single negative thing you said …

Varshavski: Every negative thing I said about BRIGHT SIDE I take back.

Sam: Apologize.

Varshavski: I’m sorry. OK, brush, brush, brush. You don’t want to brush that hard. That looks a little aggressive. Oh, my goodness. Now wait a second. Wait a second. She is doing aloe vera from the plant. She is brushing with aloe vera.

See, I could have helped this individual without the aloe vera. Don’t brush your teeth so aggressively, step number one. Step number two, perhaps you have gingivitis and you need a visit to the dentist. You need to figure out why your gums are bleeding. There are also mouthwashes that have aloe vera in them as part of the ingredients to help with bleeding gums. Unless you cure or attack the source of the inflammation, it’s going to keep happening.

“A heart attack in women does not happen the same way as with men.” The first really good piece of advice from BRIGHT SIDE that I have seen. My God! Because classically, when we look at research articles, they’ve been described by white men who say that they have an elephant sitting on their chest, and we call that classical heart attack symptoms. But that is not the way most humans experience them. We have to think about diversity when we’re looking at research.

“Symptoms: Pain in the chest, shoulders, arm, and neck, and the left arm. Pain in the chest, back, or the jaw.” True. And you’ve got to throw in some other symptoms in there like shortness of breath, diaphoresis a.k.a. sweating. “Cold, heavy sweating” — there you go. “Anxiety, weakness, or tiredness.” Totally. Sometimes it can even feel like heart burn or stomach pain.

“Stomach upset, nausea, digestive upset, heartburn, vomiting, labored breathing, coughing” — we talked about that. “Flu-like symptoms, breathlessness.” Facts. #facts #factsnopostoffice.

“Before a heart attack, there was physical exertion, there was strong physiological stress.” That could actually happen for anybody. Because if you have stress, whether it’s physical or emotional, that raises your heart rate, which increases work on the heart. If you have blockages in the heart, you’re going to exacerbate how much damage is happening in the heart.

“At the slightest sign of a heart attack, see a doctor and perform an ECG.” If you’re having these symptoms, you should absolutely call 911. Especially if you have like risks for heart disease — family history, age, cholesterol issues, diabetes, etc.

But you should also have a good rapport with your doctor for them to be able to perform certain things, to make sure that you are at low risk for developing heart disease.

In fact, we do a calculated test where we look at your cholesterol, your blood pressure, other variables, and we do a calculation on what is your risk to have vascular disease, either a stroke or a heart attack, in the next 10 years. Based off that, we can give some recommendations on some medications.