What the Heck! When Your Stomach Migrates And Your Joke Lands

“Hiatal hernia” sounds like a problem you should keep quiet about, and “choledocholithiasis” sounds like a spell from a medical musical. We decided to make both terms make sense. I’m Dr. Ben, and I’m joined by comedian and university professor Brynn Daniels plus Dr. Jameil, a general and bariatric surgeon, for a fast, funny round of “What The Heck Is That” where we translate real medical terminology into plain English.

We start with hiatal hernia and get specific: how the diaphragm separates your chest from your abdomen, how the esophagus passes through, and how part of the stomach can migrate upward. We talk about common hiatal hernia symptoms like heartburn, reflux, regurgitation, and trouble swallowing, plus why many cases show up as incidental findings on imaging. Dr. Jameil also explains why only some patients need treatment and what surgeons are trying to accomplish when they repair the anatomy.

Then we tackle choledocholithiasis, breaking down the word and the problem: gallstones that move from the gallbladder into the common bile duct and create a blockage. We cover the classic pain pattern after fatty or greasy meals, right upper quadrant pain that can radiate to the back, and the red-flag sign you should never ignore: jaundice. If you want a smarter way to understand GERD, gallstones, and bile duct obstruction without wading through confusing jargon, this is your shortcut.

Subscribe, share, and leave a review, then tell us: what medical word have you always wanted translated?

THANKS TO OUR GUESTS:

Dr Jameil: IG @drjameil, TT @bariatricbro, www.tennesseestyleweightloss.com

Brinn Daniels: IG @brinn_does_comedy, www.brinndaniels.com

Subscribe wherever you listen, share this with a friend and leave a review so more people can find honest conversations about weight loss, health, and a little comedy along the way.

This episode was produced by Angie Debelak with post-production editing by Ben Hill Sound.

Thanks for listening to Dr Ben and Friends.  Laughter is the best medicine...unless you're treating bowel or bladder incontinence.  See you next time!

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Transcript

Welcome And The Game Setup

Dr Ben 0:10

All right, knock knock howdy folks, Dr. Ben here. Welcome to the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast. Today with me we have the very hilarious Ms Brinn Daniels, comedian, university professor.

Brinn Daniels 0:24

Thanks for having me.

Dr Ben 0:25

Thanks for being here. And the very talented Dr. Jameil, general and bariatric surgeon. Thanks for having me. All right.

What The Heck Is That Begins

Dr Ben, Brinn Daniels, Dr Jameil 0:33

Are you folks ready for what the heck is that? This segment of the I was born to play it! WTH. What the heck is that? So we have Dr. Jameil here, who is gonna show comedian Miss Brinn, who does not have a medical background, medical terminology, and uh Brinn is going to pronounce them and tell us what she thinks what each word means. So are we ready to get started with the first what the heck is that? I'm ready. All right, Dr. Jameil. Okay, I'll give you an easy one first, okay?

Hiatal Hernia Guesswork And Reveal

Brinn Daniels 1:16

Oh, okay. I think I've heard this before.

Dr Ben 1:18

Okay.

Brinn Daniels 1:19

Hiatal hernia.

Dr Ben, Brinn Daniels, Dr Jameil 1:20

Wow, good. She pronounced it correctly. Crushed it! Okay. What is that?

Brinn Daniels 1:24

Uh I I don't know. Okay.

Dr Ben 1:26

What do you think it is?

Brinn Daniels 1:27

Um, I think it's either a is it a low back issue?

Dr Ben 1:32

Okay.

Brinn Daniels 1:33

Maybe.

Dr Ben, Brinn Daniels, Dr Jameil 1:34

Low back issue or like some hernial closer to the in your rear?

Brinn Daniels 1:39

Your rear end?

Dr Ben 1:40

Is that something I should. Listener, what do you think a hiatal hernia is?

Brinn Daniels 1:43

It's a high up hernia.

Dr Ben, Brinn Daniels, Dr Jameil 1:45

High up hernia. Yeah. That's actually because there's a is there a low atal and a hiatal hernia?

Dr Jameil 1:51

We're gonna find the low atal one.

Brinn Daniels 1:54

That sounds like it would hurt, but all right.

Dr Ben, Dr Jameil 1:57

What is a hiatal hernia? Yeah, so it's basically, I mean, it's high up your stomach, part of your stomach goes from the abdomen into your chest. And so that's what's called a hiatal hernia.

Dr Ben 2:08

So what separates your chest from your abdomen?

Dr Jameil 2:11

Uh there's a muscle, it's like a thin sheet of muscle air called the diaphragm. And so it helps us breathe, keeps things in the belly, keeps things out of the chest, um, and your esophagus goes right down from chest into abdomen. And so your stomach can actually migrate or move up into your chest. And so my job as a surgeon is to pull it back down and then recreate that sphincter around the esophagus so your stomach doesn't just go right back up there.

Brinn Daniels 2:38

Migrate. I love when they say migrate. It's not a burp. It's not a pleasant summer stay.

Dr Ben 2:45

It likes to head south for the winter.

Dr Jameil 2:48

Heads north for you know, life.

Symptoms, Diagnosis, And Hernia Types

Dr Ben 2:50

Now, um, for educational purposes, what kind of symptoms would a patient have if they were having a hiatal hernia and how do you diagnose it? I'm like if I had one, what what would I be complaining of?

Dr Jameil 3:00

Most people actually have them and don't even know. Okay. Just go to the ER for something, or they get some sort of image, and all of a sudden they, oh, you have a hiatal hernia.

Speaker 3:09

So you went in for one thing, and then guess what? It's a two-fer finding. It's a two-fer.

Dr Jameil, Brinn Daniels 3:13

Um, so I actually I probably operate on like one out of ten that I see. Okay. But they could have heartburn. I mean, heartburn's a big thing. So, you know, um, heartburn or difficulty swallowing or things getting stuck or coming right back up. I'd call that regurgitation, migrating food coming back up. Migrating. So um that's kind of some of the symptoms that people might have, or like a fast food migration. Yes, yes, you know. Um so that's but I think the big one I'd be worried about is like if you have terrible reflux or swallowing issues, then I'm gonna start working that up and potentially fix it.

Dr Ben 3:49

There are probably various degrees of severity of hiatal hernias, right? There are two or maybe just a little bit of poke at two, or you're having stomachs.

Dr Jameil 3:56

Okay, exactly. So type one, two, three, and four.

Brinn Daniels 3:58

Slight migration.

Dr Ben 3:59

Slight migration, moderate migration.

Dr Jameil 4:01

Yeah. Yep. And uh four is the most migration. You got stomach and friends, and then one is just a simple.

Brinn Daniels 4:07

Why don't we just go in there and build a wall? Like let's uh let's settle it.

Dr Jameil 4:10

Listen here.

Dr Ben 4:10

We're gonna build a wall, it's gonna be huge.

Dr Jameil 4:14

Uh I wish there's that, you know.

Dr Ben 4:17

All right, well, good. We learned about the heatal hernia. What uh what other word can we learn about?

The Hardest Word Enters

Dr Ben 4:24

That was the easy one.

Dr Jameil 4:25

This is a good one.

Brinn Daniels 4:25

Oh boy.

Dr Ben, Dr Jameil 4:26

This is a good one. Okay. It's such a good word, it wouldn't even fit on the whole. Okay, sound it out. Hooked on phonics. You're a teacher.

Brinn Daniels 4:38

Colo dokolithia. So close. Colodocolith lithiasis.

Brinn Daniels, Dr Ben 4:46

That's colodocolithiasis. Colodokolithiasis.

Dr Ben 4:49

And then what does that mean? What the heck is that? What does that mean?

Brinn Daniels 4:53

Is I believe a song uh from a 1940s musical that Disney produced. Yeah.

Dr Jameil, Brinn Daniels 5:00

I believe Santiago means cola doki alpha.

Brinn Daniels 5:03

Yeah, I can I can picture it. No, it's a cola. Oh man, I have it's a condition. Okay, good. Asis. I like words. Yes, words. My Latin is failing me. I don't know.

Dr Jameil 5:15

I can help you break it down. You're close. It's coli doco-lithiasis, but she was very close.

Gallstones And The Bile Duct Explained

Dr Jameil 5:20

Okay. Okay. Is it a musical? It's um well, if there was a medical musical, this would be in it. But basically, so to break it down, coli is kind of referring to your gallbladder and the gallbladder hepatobiliary system. So the way I tell the patients about this, you got a liver. Liver makes a green fluid called bile. Helps us digest fast food and greasy food and food that I like. And then uh goes into your gallbladder from there. And so your gallbladder is um, it can form stones over time. So lith, referring to stones, and iasis, like you said, it's condition. And then doco is the stones don't just sit in the gallbladder, they pop out and go to something called a common bile duct. And so cholidocolithyasis means gallstone that's sitting in the common bile duct, blocking the common bile duct. Common bile duct is a big tube that I never want to touch when I'm operating that goes from the liver down to your favorite organ, the duodenum. Stay away from that one. It's gotta come out.

Brinn Daniels 6:25

All right, so it's not a Julie Andrews classic song, but okay.

Dr Ben 6:29

It could be. It should be.

Brinn Daniels 6:30

It's I'd love to hear her

Pain Triggers And When Jaundice Hits

Brinn Daniels 6:32

say that.

Dr Ben 6:32

And what kind of symptoms would those patients have if they have gallstones that are symptomatic?

Dr Jameil 6:37

Uh pain, tons of pain written right up a quadrant, it radiates the back, especially after you eat something greasier or eat uh, I'll I'll frequently ask them, well, what did you eat before you had these symptoms? And they're like, fried chicken or Mexican or whatever. So literally those kind of foods that fried foods or something just spicier, and then the pain comes on and just doesn't go away. And then really bad colidoclithis. If you start tur turning yellow, we call that jaundice in medical terms, then that's can you know that's pretty bad colitis. That means that stone's big and it's been there for a while.

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Speaker 2 7:10

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