I Don't Know About That - Neurosurgery

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

You won't be brain dead after this episode thanks to our expert Dr. Brian Hoeflinger ( @doctorhoeflinger). Check out his podcast The Hoeflinger Podcast available on all platforms. ADS: BETTERHELP: Visit www.BetterHelp.com/IDK today to get 10% off your first month. ROCKETMONEY: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to www.RocketMoney.com/IDKAT LECTRIC eBIKES: Visit LectricEbikes.com to learn more. And be sure to mention that I Don't Know About That With Jim Jefferies sent you in the post-checkout survey!

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Get involved with that. That's electricebikes.com. Anal sex. Vaginal sex. Which one is better to make children with? You might find out. And I don't know about that. With Tim Jefferies.

Yeah, that was weird because, you know, we're in a new studio. And so we're working out the kinks and stuff, but you could barely hear the music. So it just sounded like you were saying those words. Yeah. I think I timed it well, though. I think you're good. I like the fact I said which one is better to have children with, implying that one of them, they both work.

Right, but one's better. Which one does the better job? Do we ever answer the questions you bring up in the intro? Well, I don't think we've ever done any of them. Part of the joke is that you should already know. Yeah, I guess so. Although, I guess when you're like,

what came first, roof, walls, floor? Yeah. I don't know. Floor. Floor, probably. Oh, maybe roof. You have a roof over a dirt floor but i guess do you create a floor or does the floor already exist and you're actually creating the roof you

don't invent the floor and then is the canopy of the forest the roof that's already there in a cave nature's roof the cave's got the wall and the floor is one thing that's why cavemen pick them first yeah I think so less work what do you reckon the oldest living caveman ever was like how old do you reckon that caveman would have lived to

28 older than that 14 older than that it wasn't old how old do you think they always had beards um

I don't know cool they didn't have the the uh we're going to Australia if you want to see us we're going to Australia if you want to see us we're going to Australia Jack's going to be there

we may even record a live podcast in Australia we're trying to set that up at the Comics Lounge in Melbourne we're looking at recording a live podcast we don't have the date yet

but it would be somewhere near the end of April for that live podcast I assume the topic will be boomerangs yeah I am doing my own shows on the 24th and 26th of april at the factory theater in sydney there's links to that on my website at foreshaw.net or you can go to factory theater in sydney and buy the tickets

24th and 26th of april and then i will also be at the comics lounge i think it's the second third and fourth of may so it'll be right after our podcast that the links aren't up for that yet but i'll put that up and um and we have a live podcast here as well in la on march 5th that's coming up flappers um at flappers that's in two weeks from today at flappers you can uh i'll post some stuff on the instagram with you yes um and we'll post some links to that but you can go to Flapper's Comedy Club website and buy tickets on that. It's Tuesday, March 5th at 8 p.m. The last one was really fun.

We had a really fun time. It was Titanic, but this one is going to be a much sadder topic. Yeah? Yeah. You don't know what it is. I don't know. Why sadder? It can't be more fun than the Titanic.

Titanic was the most fun. That was a fun one. Titanic was really good. It was good. It was really good. So March 5th, buy tickets for that and then buy tickets for my Australia shows and the podcast and then... And I'll be in Australia, but I

don't want you to know why. It'll be revealed at some point. You don't want to reveal yet? I don't want to reveal. It's so stupid. You have shows here you can promote. I've got a tour coming up in Australia, but not in April, but I'm doing something else in Australia in April. March 8th and 9th, you'll be at the Mirage in Las Vegas. Yeah, baby.

March 16th, Grand Ronde, Oregon at the Spirit Mountain Casino. Yeah, sounds like me. Yeah, yeah. March 26th at Des Moines, Iowa. March 22nd, Des Moines, Iowa for the Bats. March 23rd in Kansas City at the Midland Theater. And you'll be in south africa april 12th and 13th spokane denver the la shows have officially been rescheduled to december 14th

december 14th in la sorry there was a there was a conflict there um and in between all these shows i'll be selling my body in the streets of la cool um and go to IDCat Podcast on Instagram. And by the way, we're going to have some new merch. I'm wearing it right now. No, that's not it. But we're getting a little bit of redesign. Is this t-shirt? It's going to be a black t-shirt, probably.

One day we'll show them off. I would say in the next couple weeks here, we'll have merch. We'll have a link for it. We we're gonna have t-shirts and hats right now no mugs all right mugs are tough yes tough to do stuff with i don't know i think that's it you want to say anything else jim i was acting like i was frozen to see if people were upset with well join the conversation it's fun isn't it um yeah come and see me i'll be telling jokes all right jimjeffries.com go there jimjeffries.com foreshaw.net what do you want to promote anything jack uh go to my website jackhackett.com what's going on there doohickeys are going off doohickeys

jack's gonna be in australia i'm gonna be in australia he's gonna be in Australia. I'm gonna be in Australia. He's gonna be in Australia hit me up Jack's the worst at promoting of all of us. Hey girls if you want a nice American boy in your in Melbourne in April Clean deck. I got a guy for you clean deck. I got available 69 or 96 I'm clean dick night at 99 99 because I'm in line and I'm talking to the girl in front of me and she wants to turn around she's turned to white that's right I still have that pillow on my bed clean dick 99

he's respectful very respectful I won't even make you turn around to have a conversation so you going on this ride as well

oh she's got headphones in okay alright do you still have a jersey don't you have a jersey yeah I have a Tottenham Hotspurs jersey You going on this ride as well? Oh, she's got headphones in. Okay. All right. Do you still have a jersey? Don't you have a jersey? Yeah, I have a Tottenham Hotspurs jersey. It's a clean-dick 99 on it. You've got to wear that. We'll get you a rugby league jersey when we're in Australia.

Or we could go to – oh, it's April. Anzac Day. Yeah, we could go to the AFL while we're down there one day. That might be a fun thing to do. Is that the Bears? No, it's the Australian football. But Anzac Day would Yeah, we could go to the AFL while we're down there one day. That might be a fun thing to do. Is that the Bears? No, it's the Australian football. But Anzac Day would be the day, right? Anzac Day will be there.

Because no one will be working. My show, specifically, I know I'm not doing a show on Anzac Day. No one's working. You can't work. You're not allowed to work on Anzac Day. What's Anzac Day again? Anzac Day is our memorial day where we believe in the troops. I was just talking about that.

They just had the Golden Bachelor, right? day is our memorial day where we believe in the troops i was just talking about that like like so they just had the golden bachelor right where they had all like the 70 to 80 year olds dating each other yeah and and they're bringing them back for the regular bachelor now they're bringing back these brassy old women that's like hey you girls i'll tell you how we used to do it back in our day right and uh and it's like it's all gonna be it's all fun and good having these fun sort of golden girls type of ladies on screen until we start having the in memoriam. There'll be episodes, we lost Cyril this week. So Anzac Day, they always march.

Particularly for me personally, this Anzac Day will be a big one. You know what I mean? And the soldiers march. And when I was a kid, when I was little, I remember they'd, you know, you'd go through, you'd see Vietnam, you'd see Korea, then you'd see the Second World War, and then they'd bring out the First World War blokes, right? And there'd always be, there were about 40 of them when I was a little kid.

And then the next year there was, like, they'd drop quickly. The next year there'd be 35. And then the next year, they dropped quickly. The next year, there'd be 35. And then you went straight down to 25. And then there was this one bloke who was like 110. He was like, ah. He's marching down the street. Everyone's tearing up. And he's like, I was just in catering.

You guys definitely celebrate your veterans and the active members way more than this country does. Okay, so I'll say this about America, and this will be a controversial opinion that I believe in, so you do what you want with this opinion. But when my nephew died, I saw Australia come together in a very beautiful way. I saw soldiers and students just in cadets and stuff lining the streets hundreds of them saluting uh the coffin as it went by it was on the news every minute of the day um and uh people were coming up to me in the street to to give their respects and this this anzac day those four men who the last four men to die in service for a very long time, they will be heavily remembered on Anzac Day coming up.

Yeah. Now, in Australia, when Anzac Day happens, young people will go along to see dawn services to hear the last post and watch the sun come up and remember the fallen soldiers right back to the war in Gallipoli and all that type of stuff. And the whole country stops we all gamble there's also fun yeah it's fun we all we all play two up you can gamble in the streets a toss of a coin it was a game that was played in the trenches of world war one yeah and so now it's basically flipping a coin and guessing two out of three heads or tails and every bar that we went we we watched the parade when I was there once a year with you watch the parade we watched Max marching the parade actually and watch right and then you're with you. Watched the parade. We watched Max march in the parade, actually.

And then we went to a place, and there was two guys dressed up like the Crocodile Hunter. Yeah, yeah. Flipping coins. And everybody's gambling. It's like 1130 in the morning. You eat like a sausage sandwich, right? Yeah, sausage sandwich. And a sprig of rosemary on your thing.

Yeah, yeah. They call it a sausage sizzle. It's just a bit of white bread wrapped around a sausage, right? And so everyone's gambling and stuff. But it's a real day of remembrance that people take very seriously. And you have Memorial Day over here, but it's not quite the same gravitas as Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand.

But Americans will do the whole, you're at the baseball, the basketball, and stand up. Or if you're on a plane, we've got a serviceman on the plane and I support the troops and respect the troops of course to anyone who puts their body on the line for my freedom of course i respect them um but you know when my nephew died two weeks later in the same war games in australia a helicopter crashed and i believe six americans died and it fucking hardly made the news. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And I see a lot of war veterans in this country who are homeless, who aren't getting the medical need both mentally and physically they need after returning from war. America, I believe it's one thing to say I support our troops and it's another thing to actually support your troops. There's a lot of lip service that goes on and there should be more action. It looks like you're going to be landing on Anzac Day. That's my two cents for the day. Oh, yeah.

There you go. Clean deck 99. I'll get some people who are angry with me saying that, but I believe that's a positive statement, not a negative. And now let's meet our guest, Dr. Brian Hefflinger. G'day, Dr. Brian Hefflinger. G'day, Dr. Brian Hefflinger. Now it's time to play... Yes, no.

Yes, no. Why not? Let's do it. Here we go. Judging a book by its cover. All right. Was that a different version of that? It seemed like it had a bit more...

I don't know. It sounded a little different, but it's something to do with... I'll fix it in person. ...the new studio. Yeah, I don't know. It sounded a little different, but it's something to do with the new studio. I'll fix it in person. The new studio. The mix was wrong. Okay, I've got to be able to see the doctor. He's in a blurry background.

Top secret. Yeah, top secret background. Are you a doctor of medicine, sir? I am a doctor of medicine. Do am a doctor of medicine yes uh do you have patients i do have patients okay well sometimes you're a doctor of medicine might work at a university or something like that so um do you deal with the brain i do deal with the brain how are you guessing all this well it's either body or brain. I know.

All the two parts of being an actor. Wait, you're guessing this? He doesn't know what we're talking about at all, ever. Are you a psychiatrist? That's pretty good. You a psychiatrist? I am not. You're not?

Okay, but you deal with the brain. You a brain surgeon? I am. Good job. All right. Yeah, that you deal with the brain. You're a brain surgeon? I am. Good job. All right. Yeah, that was easy for you. Usually Dean doesn't guess these stuff. Are we talking about brain surgery?

How did he do that? Because I'm a brain biologist. It's not brain surgery, mate. Yes. Dr. Brian Hefflinger, MD, graduated from medical school in 1992, then went on to study at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellowship. His neurosurgery residency was in Rochester, New York from 1993 to 99. And now Dr. Hefflinger has been a full-time practicing neurosurgeon

in Toledo, Ohio for the past 25 years. That's the home of Klinger from MASH. Toledo is? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, good job. Pacos, Tony Pacos. On social media, Dr. Hefflinger from MASH. Toledo is? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, good job. Pacos, Tony Pacos. On social media, Dr. Hefflinger has been able to introduce people to the world of neurosurgery

as well as bring positive change to the world by highlighting topics important to him and his family. In just over 18 months, he's accumulated over 1.3 million followers and over 100 million views on social platforms. Wow. You can find him. Damn. How did he do that?

You do the TikToks? Well, we'll find out. TikTok. You got the dance? Instagram and YouTube. views on social platforms wow you can find him how do you do that you do the tiktok well he's gonna we'll find out tiktok dance instagram and youtube it's all at doctor spell the word out i'm trying to promote him it's through the brain stuff we need social media tips tiktok instagram youtube at dr hefflinger that's d-o-c-t-o, spell it out. And then Hefflinger is H-O-E-F-L-I-N-G-E-R. And also, he has just started a podcast called The Hefflinger Podcast, which you can find on all platforms. Dr. Hefflinger, tell us a little bit more about your story and how, I know Jim's curious,

how you blew up on social media and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so when we first got on social media what we did is um i do patient videos for my patients so if you come in to have surgery with me most people don't remember much of what i said or what i reviewed so i have patient videos that explain the surgery to them so when they go home they can watch it online their family can meet me they can learn about what we talked about in the office and so the patients like that so much that my son said, why don't you try doing a TikTok on neurosurgery and see if people would be interested. And so that's where it all started. And then from there, you know, my son died in a car accident. Oh, sorry to hear that. 11 years ago when he was 18, he was a drunk

driver and thank God he only killed himself. But, um, you know, I just couldn't let my son die and just let it go without doing something. So we got big into social media 10 years ago and, you know, we just wanted to try to educate kids about drinking and drinking and driving. And, um, we were featured on the Katie Kirk show at that point. And we we've talked to hundreds of high school classes across the country and I'm still a full-time neurosurgeon, but you know, just that's kind of lingered. And then just recently when I got on TikTok and I started getting big and people started following me and I put out some personal stories, Vox Media and TikTok contacted me

and they wanted to do a documentary on us. And they came to our house and spent like 13 hours that day. And they took a lot of footage. And then, you know, over the past six to eight weeks, they've had this commercial that talks about my son, Brian, and underage drinking and drunk driving. And just it's a, you know, public safety announcement kind of commercial, but it's been out there on national television for six to eight weeks now. And, and things have just kind of, it's just like me being on your podcast. You know, it's just things happen, you know, things get put in front of you. And I promised myself I'd never say no when I get a chance to do something positive.

So that's kind of where we've come from and where we're going. And I don't know why people follow me so much on social media. I mean, I think the first two or three weeks we were on, we had 100,000 followers and we're growing on all platforms. And then we thought we'd start a podcast. We got about 20 episodes into our podcast. And I'm just looking forward to the future in social media, actually. Oh, that's great.

It's good that you're doing positive things and this podcast. So, yeah. Some things are just for fun. Yeah. Well, it's good that you're doing positive things and this podcast. So... Yeah, I'm excited. Some things are just for fun. Yeah. Some things you should say no to, Dr. Haflinger. No, I'm kidding. Thanks for being on our podcast.

I know it's been a long time, sir, but I'm sorry about your son. That's terrible. I lost a nephew recently. My best friend died in a car accident when I was 16. It never leaves you. How tough it is. All right. It doesn't, but you can definitely move on and change things for the better.

Yeah. Great. So I'm going to ask Jim a series of questions about neurosurgery or brain surgery, neurosurgery. And he's going to answer them at the end of him answering these dr hefflinger uh you're going to grade him on his accuracy zero through 10 10 is the most accurate uh jack here's going to grade him on his confidence i'm going to grade him on how hungry i am uh at least there's a sandwich for you over there sandwiches right there jackpot sandwiches at the end of that we'll put those all together. 21 through 30, you're a genius, Jim.

11 through 20, Abbey Normal. Jack did these. Zero through 10, smooth brain. Oh, it's from Frankenstein. Young Frankenstein reference, yeah. What is neurosurgery? It's the surgery of the brain. Neurons are the things that transmit the information to make your body move or make decisions and stuff like that.

And so it's the neurological surgery of the brain slash mind. Yeah, okay. What parts of the body make up the nervous system? Your whole ectoskeleton has a neuro system. What was that word? Ectoskeleton. Okay neuro system. What was that word? Ectoskeleton. Okay. What are we, bugs?

Your entire body has nerve systems. What parts of the body make up the nervous system? We'll go the brain, then. Anything else? Fingertips. Fingertips, okay. In the US, how much education or slash training does it take to be able to be legally practicing neurosurgery?

You do your first four initial years and then you would have to specialize and do another three years. I'm going to say it's a seven year degree. Okay. What is the earliest known record of brain surgery? Mary Schelling's Frankenstein. I would say the earliest. It would have been, there would be a lobotomy or something, if that counts as a brain surgery. I guess it would be a brain surgery.

They were lobotomizing people a long time ago. I'm going to say 2000 BC. 2000 BC. Yeah, lobotomizing people. What is trephination? It's when you, when you get to an edge and you go,

oh, I shouldn't walk much further. Okay. When was the first successful brain tumor removed? Um, 1976. Any other information about it?

It was a summer's day. What are some types of surgery a neurosurgeon would perform? Removal of brain tumors, lobotomies, that one where you put the shock therapy. No, that's not brain surgery, is it? There'll be something else to do with... We haven't done...

I wonder how far we are from a brain transplant. And if you get the brain transplant, do you become like the other person? Yeah. Because it's an organ like anything else, right? We've got heart transplants and other ones, the kidney. Do the brain. I think we're a ways off on that one.

Well, I'm thinking of a movie where I'm a hot chick. I'm going to get Rob Schneider to play me. Okay. What is an aneurysm? An aneurysm is like a brain hemorrhage. It's like a bleeding of the brain what is craniotomy uh your cranium is your head uh autonomy is your top of your head craniotomy top your head it's great cranny it's craniotomy craniotomy i'm sorry it's different that's the that's that is different that's the removal of the brain craniotomy, I'm sorry. That's different. That is different. Craniotomy, sorry. That's the removal of the brain.

Craniotomy is removal of the brain. Okay, what about a limb? I'm not a doctor. What about a limb? I went to two years of musical theater university, right? And I reckon there's seven to eight years of this, so I'm going to be pretty far off on these, I reckon. What about a laminectomy?

What? Laminectomy. Lemon? Laminectomy. L-A-M. It's where you laminate a brain. Okay. So that it doesn't hematopen.

What about a dissectomy? Dissectomy is when you dissect a brain. You cut a little bit out. Sure, okay. Why would a patient be awake during a specific brain surgery? So they can tell him what to do. So they go like this, does that bit hurt? Yeah, it's that bit.

What about this bit? Nah, not that bit. That's okay. No, I think they probably need the brain to actually be firing and little things going on so they can see the brain working. And if you're under anesthesia, maybe they can't see it working. Okay. What is a lobotomy, as you mentioned, and how is it performed? A lobotomy is taking a small portion of your brain out of this bit here.

If the Planet of the Apes taught me anything, it's a scar and a little, like a horseshoe scar here. Yeah. And they take a bit of your brain so you're like this. How do they do it? With a scalpel, dude. Okay. What is a cyber knife? That's how they do lobotomies okay is that what you're going with yeah yeah that is a good guess yeah yeah yeah it's it's

i will tell you these i didn't put these next to each other it's things that you buy on black monday it's like friday or whatever it is cyber monday cyber monday i don't. I don't need the specials. I'll do well. Okay. What is a shunt? A shunt is a female cunt. No. Is that your final answer?

Oh, it's when you tell a cunt to be quiet. What's the rating of this show? This is an R. I don't know. Double R. an R. I don't know. Double R. All ages. We don't discriminate. What are-

Little cunts, old cunts, all of them. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce this right. What are craniopagus twins? Is that right? Craniopagus? Doctor? Yeah. Craniopagus twins are more commonly known as Siamese twins.

It's when they're joined at the cranium. And they're very hard to separate once they're joined. The twins are very hard to separate. Yeah. That's very hard. Yeah. They are hard. I imagine.

Ben Carsons was one of the doctors that did it, I believe. He was one of the experts in it. Oh, yeah? R.I.P. Good job. What did Jose Delgado do? Freed the Spanish. Okay.

Doctor... Just a fun fact. Doctor Brian Hefflinger. As well as what you have written down. Doctor Brian Hefflinger. How did Jim do on his knowledge of neurosurgery? Zero through ten, ten's the best. All together?

Yeah. Yeah. His accuracy. I mean, maybe three. Yeah, I got a point for Ben Carson's. That's pretty good. Ben Carson probably did get you. No, the last three got me.

Three points. He was impressed. How do you know confidence? I have to give him a six. He was doing well, but then he went, I'm not a doctor. I don't know these answers. Yeah, nine. So that didn't help.

I'm pretty hungry. The sandwich is right over there. But I'll give you a 10. That's only 19. So you're Abby Normal from back in STEM. Going forward. I never said I was good at brain surgery. I never said that was one of me skills.

Yeah, I didn't think you were going to get this. Three is pretty good from where i thought my medical knowledge is a better it stops at band-aids yeah i don't even think you're good at band-aids i call them sticky squares uh dr hefflinger what is neurosurgery jim said the surgery of the brain i mean he does this thing where he repeats you know neurons transmit yeah yeah he did pretty good i mean so obviously neurosurgery is the surgical treatment of um the brain the spinal cord the peripheral nerve so it's more than just the brain you know neck surgery back surgery carpal tunnel surgery you know those are things that a neurosurgeon treats as well as brain

problems so he had he had part of it right yeah and so the parts of the body that make up the nervous system is, he said, ectoskeleton. The brain and the fingertips. The fingers aren't part of it. But it's the brain, the spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. That's the nervous system. Oh, the spine and the brain. The brain and the peripheral nerves.

And peripheral nerves, yeah. I don't know why I was doing this with my hand that's that's it i don't know it's all the fingers you touch things how i point at people like you sure have a nerve what you got a lot of nerve a lot of nerve yeah okay um the nerve the peripheral nervous this finger that's got a lot of nerve yeah can you see that like can you see nerves like the nerve or like you can't blood, can you see nerves? Like, you can't blood vessels? No, you can't. I mean, no, you can't see nerves. I mean, they're within the body.

So, like, the carpal tunnel nerve, you know, people have carpal tunnel syndrome. When you open up the space for that nerve, it lies under the skin maybe, you know, a quarter of an inch. Oh, that's what I meant when you cut open the skin. So, what does a nerve look like? Yeah, you can see the nerves when you cut open. Like today I did two surgeries and so in the lower back I can see the nerves when I get down to that part of the body. Sorry, are we stopping you from saving someone's life? You are not. I'm not on call right now. We made sure to work with the schedule for the surgeries.

Because I'm meant to be saving someone's life and I showed up. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now around New Year's, we all make New Year's resolutions when we really should be focusing on things that we're already doing right. I'll tell you the things I'm already doing right. I don't stay in bed as much as I used to. I used to wallow in the thing. I make sure I get up and I do things and I have a structure to me life and a bit of order. I've kept on doing that all year and it's made

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see if you're allowed to use them. I use it just as a fun thing. I don't ride into work or anything, but Forrest has been using his to take his dog for a walk. He says, I strap my dog to my back and I get on the bike and I ride as far as I can. Me and Jack aren't sure if we believe him, but he says that's what he's up to.

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Wait, so what do nerves look like? I never really thought about that. God, they're like the nerves nerves of the back like the nerve i saw today was like it's like a pearly white they're round they're round and they're like pearly white i guess like an off-white color yeah we had we had a we had a grandfather who had like a parkinson's type of thing he's a step-grandfather and he was always shaking like that his name was rex and me and my brothers behind his back used to call him Nervous Rex. Just thought I'd add that in.

Okay. Well, if you're hearing this, Rex, we're sorry. He's long dead, Nervous Rex. Nervous Rex doesn't even know what podcasts are. He was dead before the internet, Nervous Rex. Can you see them with your naked eye or do you need like a microscope to see them? Nerves. No, you can see them with your naked eye. I mean need like a microscope to see them? Nerves?

No, you can see them with your naked eye. I mean, some nerves are really small and some are big. But what do they look like? I use magnifying glasses at surgery to see them. Are they like, what color are they? They're all pearly white. Pearly white. Like a pearly white, yeah.

I thought it was like tubes, sort of, but it's balls. Yeah, I don't know. Like a small white chocolate Malteser. Would that be? I don't think he knows what a Malteser is. Or like with those mocap suits. He's been to university, Forrest. What's a Malteser?

It's like a Whopper. In Australia, they call them Maltesers. Malteser's milk ball. They do them with white chocolate as well. That would be a white Malteser. You know we didn't go to medicaleser You've never seen a white Whopper That's true

How about this When your leg or your arm falls asleep Is that for blood circulation cutting off Or is that a nerve thing Asking for a friend Yeah I think You've fallen asleep haven't you Sometimes I'll wake up and your arm, you know,

you can't move it. It's tingly. You've ever had that happen at night? Yeah. Yeah. So you're lying on the blood vessel and it cuts the blood circulation off. And so your arm, you know, you wake up in your panic, you can't move your arm and then you start moving it,

but it's tingly as the blood comes back. So it's a blood flow issue. I have that. Every morning I find it hard to clench my fists. i have that i have that every morning i find it hard to clench my fists i have to do that a few times because they're all like yeah weird and well pinched nerves can cause numbness and tingling too right i mean like carpal tunnel syndrome people wake up with tingling in their fingers so it can be both yeah i get a pinched nerve in my neck and it like radiates down my back or something it's it's occasionally it's so weird how it like

makes you weak all of a sudden it's like i think it's a nerve i don't know is far as got nerve problem surgeon how long does he have i mean i'm trying to sell a game show for forest called nerve damage or stroke we bring forest out and he reads his ailments and we have to decide whether he's hungry or not. He's setting himself up for workman's comp, you know that. We don't have that. That's the grand prize. I'd let him recline. He can lay in a fucking bed if he needs to.

Maybe he can be on one of those inversion tables. What you're saying, I should see a neurosurgeon just for that? I thought a massage or something would help. There's so many doctors you have to see before that. That's like so far in your doctor list. Jim could hire your massage therapist. I always think to myself. Well, you know, we used to like, where we live,

we would house professional women's golfers at our house every year. And they have their own personal massage therapist that travel with them. And that guy would come in, go into the room with her for an hour in our house and then come out, you know, and they would do that every day. That's questionable. Yeah.

Wait, why, why did you house what, what, what's going on in Toledo? There's a big LBJ event there. Why wouldn't you? Yeah.

And second of all, great opportunity. There's not enough hotel rooms is there is that the problem why why are you aren't they aren't they professional these aren't student golfers because i remember i remember that one time i had tiger woods in my house for a week families instead of staying in hotels oh they like to stay with fat yeah so we yeah that's pretty cool why would why would they prefer this i'm not your family seems very nice but why would they prefer to be i like a hotel i i often people write to me and they go hey you're coming to town

me and my wife would like to take you out to dinner i'd rather stab myself in the face they don't make as much money so some of these gals don't make a lot of money so i think it saves the money yeah true true that be my guess i don't know you much money. So some of these gals don't make a lot of money, so I think it saves them money. Yeah, true. True that. Be my guest. I don't know. What about young male? You never house the male ones.

They make money. No, not the good ones. Yeah. If you're on the PGA Tour, you're probably making money. If you're ranked real low, I guess so. Yeah, there's a lot less money in the LPGA, unless you're like Nelly Corder, one of the top golfers. I house local cornhole players.

That's weird. They go into a room. They don't make anybody. They go into a room, no one massages them. I've seen the professional cornhole. I wonder how much they make, a professional cornhole. Man, they're not enough. They're so good.

They're just lobbing them in the hole. Why aren't they basketball players that throw hoops like this uh well because oh it says no professional cornhole salaries range from 50 grand to 75 grand i don't believe that anyway brain surgery i don't believe that okay well i'm going back here in the u.s how much education mind get distracted easily in the u.s how much education and training does it take to be able to legally practice neurosurgery jim said you have four initial years and then there's three years that you have to specialize yeah seven yeah so he did pretty good so but um so it's four years of college right and then you got to do four years of medical school and then neurosurgery is a seven to eight year residency so so it's 15 years of training um

after high school all the new year's i was 30 i was 34 i became a neurosurgeon you were 34 by the time you're done with your education yeah yeah wow yeah so i guess that's why i know a lot of mature age students in your course. No one like, I decided to change professions when I was 50, mix things up a bit. I'm going to finish college and go straight to retirement. But that does check out. That does make more sense than what, I mean,

doctors get paid a lot because it's a stressful job. It's difficult. But you're not getting really any money until you're in your 30s oh no you could do some neuroscience things in college and the athletes are getting paid now and i assume they do as well like a few backyard jobs but think of what i got paid when i was so when i started residency my first year i think i was 27 or 28 i made 15 000 that year and i worked one week um 140 hours or something like that can you imagine what i get paid per hour i mean not like yeah i'm not a mathematician but i reckon if you gave me a calculator i could get that it's

yeah 140 but um and i think i maxed out my chief resident year my last year I was in Seattle I think I maxed out like 28,000 for the year so you don't make a lot of money yeah but you were working all the time you didn't have any time to spend it so it's all the same yeah you get to meet nurses that's got to be fun

what is it? it is fun my wife doesn't think so but how did you meet your wife is your wife a nurse is she in the medical world as well oh yeah so we met between the first and second year of medical school and so she's um a forensic pathologist but she retired but she had a really cool job i was like csi you know she she did all that kind of stuff like doctors and stuff like that's the problem with the world is like so you're a person, so you get to meet other smart people and procreate and make more smart people.

Your kids would be smart. Me, I'm rolling around in my own feces dating actresses. That's true. My kid goes to a good school and I'm like, you don't stand a chance, boys. Just hold your head high and give it a go. Just be funny. We're going to get by on personality here, kids.

What is the earliest known record of brain surgery, Jim said, lobotomy in 2000 BC? 2000 BC. Yeah, so I, because I was looking this up for some reason. can do a tiktok on this um treffination all this stuff and it's it's almost 7 000 years ago they found like 40 skulls in france that had holes in the skull that were that were man-made and so they think maybe they put those holes in people's skulls to let evil spirits out it wasn't for any medical condition but um that's the earliest brain surgery is almost 7 000 years ago there's a lot of a lot of a lot of evidence of brain surgery from the incas and a thousand and two thousand bc but but it dates all the way back to 7 000

years ago so can we argue like with mummification pharaohs and stuff like that a lot of people mummified and so they would drag the brain out from the nose. Does that count as brain surgery because the person's already dead? Well, that's kind of like what a lobectomy is, lobotomy. They used to do that for people with mental illnesses. They would go up through the nose and they would just stir your brain and just destroy it. And then people would become more docile.

That's what a lobotomy was. Wait, that's how a lobotomy was jesus wait that's how lobotomy is performed they just stick some green milk yeah it's like it's like when you get an egg you can't you can't get it back in the show mate once the egg's broken got a nice whisk up there wait i was like what were you saying doctor no i think in the beginning beginnings that's how they did it they would put something up because if you go straight up through the nose you'll go right into the brain so i used to die i used to die to girl years ago who's super into reincarnation and all that rubbish right and um she she used to go on the brain isn't all we think it is because there's

been people who have had heart transplants and then they've been able to speak other languages she's all this bullshit you know what i mean yeah and then like and then they've been able to speak other languages she's all this bullshit you know what i mean yeah and then like and then you know they're different once they have an extra kidney from another person they have memories of that thing and she says that all the organs can you can you prove that that's a load of bullshit for me please if that girl's listening i i would agree that's a load of bullshit. Although, what about that movie? Remember the movie where the eye transplant,

they had the eye transplant, and then she could see what that person used to see, and I think he was a murderer. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, what was that? I did see that, but I don't remember the name of it. It was called I.I., Captain. No, that's not it. Yeah.

Wait, so jumping ahead to the lobotomy, how is it performed today? And what is it exactly, so jumping ahead to the lobotomy, how is it performed today? And what is it exactly? What does that mean, lobotomy? I mean, so there's lobectomy where you could take a whole lobe of the brain out, and then there's lobotomy, which is similar. But I think, you know, a lobotomy, they're not really performed anymore. I mean, that was back in the days of mental illness

and people who had aggression and mental illness problems. And they thought by, you know, destroying the frontal lobe, the part of the brain up here that that it would make people more calm. And it did. But, you know, a lot of people in the early days didn't survive those surgeries. But, you know, I've had people who come in with head injuries who will have injury to both frontal lobes, this part of the front of the brain, and their personality changes completely. They can become more sedentary or sometimes they become more aggressive. So I think when people say lobotomy, I think they're thinking about destroying or hurting that part of the frontal lobe to change the personality. hurting that part of the frontal lobe to change the personality.

I heard somewhere that men, we do get grumpier with age because our frontal lobes shrivel up and women's don't as much. Is that an old wives' tale or is that a real thing? I think so. I've never heard of that. I want an excuse. I didn't know we got more grumpy with age. Just so you got a concussion. You big fucking bloody grumpy. I didn't even ask you the parts of the brain, age. Ah, yeah. Just so you got a concussion. You big fucking bloody grumpy.

I didn't even ask you the parts of the brain, Jim. Front and back. I know. Left to right. That would be a good one. Yeah, the front and back is where you're going with it. Front of lobes, back of lobes, middle lobes. Middle lobes.

Middle lobes. Ultras. Can you name the lobes? Can you name the lobes of the brain? Left. There's four major ones. Right. Rear left, rear right.

No, he's not going to be able to do it. No, it's the oscillate. Oscillate? Isn't that a cat? No, oscillate. Just name one. Oscillate is a chemical I can't have anymore. Yeah, just one.

Just name one. Jerry. Okay, doctor. You can tell us. The frontal lobe. We just said the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe. I said the frontal lobe. You said tell us. The frontal lobe. We just said the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe. I said the frontal lobe.

You said the frontals and the backals. Yeah, the frontals and the backals. What are some other parts of the brain? The bottom is you put a whisk up the nose and scribble eggs. What about other parts of the brain? So there's the frontal lobe, right? That's kind of like your reasoning center and some of your personality then there's the parietal lobe then there's the occipital lobe that's where your

vision is so if you hurt that you can go blind and then there's your temporal lobe and that houses your memory and some of your emotions and my my temporal lobe needs a bit of a revamp it's a bit decayed up there very emotional i don't remember anything i'm very emotional where's the hippocampus hippocampus is on the on the inside of the temporal lobe so the hippocampus is in charge of memory so you ever see that movie um what was it where the guy couldn't remember anything? Memento. Memento. I think it was on 50 dates with... Oh, 50 first dates. 50 first dates.

So if you have bilateral hippocampal injury, then you can be like that. You just can't remember anything. Oh, wow. You can remember long-term memory. You can remember events from the past, but you never make new memories. So you can't remember anything-term memory. You can remember events from the past, but you never make new memories. So you can't remember anything moment to moment.

Is it true that left-handed people rely on their right-handed side of their brain? Because you know when people go, I'm right-brained or left-brained, is that a load of hoopla bullshit? Wait, say it again. What? Okay, so you know how some people go, your right-hand side of your brain is more maths or this or logical thinking, and your left-hand side is more imaginative or

what things like that is that real or is that just a lot of rubbish i mean i think there's some reality to it but not much um i don't think we know why one person has a dominant you know most people you know 90 of the the world is left side dominant. Okay. So, so that, but is that true? So left side dominant means you're right-handed and right side dominant means you're left-handed? Right. Okay. And left side dominant means like,

if you have a stroke in your left side of your brain, you may not be able to speak anymore. You won't understand what people see to you. So when, when I have injuries to the brain and I, I'm deciding, should they go to surgery or should we do something to save their life you know one thing discussed with the family is if you have a dominant hemisphere injury you're more likely to have trouble speaking understanding people your life will be horrible as opposed to a right-sided brain injury where you still be able to speak pretty well and understand people so it makes a difference when we think about what to do with

people for surgery um when it's one side of the brain or the other there's there's a there's a theory that left-handed people are more creative because they use the right hand side of the brain but that might be bored like they always well i think you know jimmy hendrix paul mccartney mozart left-sided are better at math and things like that yeah right-sided people are more musical and spatial i think yeah they believe that is that a lot of rubbish the more musical i don't know i i don't know i don't know the only fix is yeah yeah it's terrible having a stroke terrible i know someone who's had a stroke is in a very vegetated state and all that stuff and doesn't really remember you or anything else it's not

pleasant i have a question so what's the cerebellum then there's different lobes and then the yep so cerebellum is the very back part of your brain so that's in charge of like your balance um so people have cerebellar strokes will be off balance they can't walk right they can't use their fingertips like fine motor movements they can't do very well so it has the cerebellum is mostly to do with balance and fine fine coordinated movements okay they always say that we're only using 10 percent five percent of our brains capacity how would they know that that's got to be rubbish as well right or like i think that's rubbish too yeah so we're using all of it, right? Lucy is the 100% of her brain in that one movie.

Is that what you're referring to? Dr. Hefflinger gets all of his information from movies, by the way. Sometimes he gets that little sore off and he sores the skull off and he removes it and he's like 50 first dates if I've ever seen it.

That's interesting with the strokes. I never really thought about that. So depending on what part of the brain the stroke occurs is how it affects. I just lumped strokes all into one category. Like it was like, oh, it's going to affect. Like the band The Strokes, when they actually get old and have strokes,

do you think that'll still be a cute name for the band? What were you saying, Dr. Eckling, about the strokes? Oh, no, go ahead. I didn't mean it wrong. He was making a joke. Don't worry about it. What were you saying about the strokes and the different, yeah. No, I'm just a big proponent of that because my brother, Eric,

was in a car accident when he was 21, and he had a left-sided brain injury, right? And he was right-handed. And he had to have emergency brain surgery in the middle of the night. And he was in a coma for six months. And, you know, the rest of his life, he could never walk or talk or, you know, speak again and just needed constant care. And he had said a few times, I remember in the early years, he'd say, you know,

on his board, because he had to use a board to speak. And he would say, what did I ever do to deserve this it's very profound but you know he lived like 40 years and then died about 10 years ago but when i talk to families in the middle of the night i i bring him up and i you know it you know if somebody's going to be like that and their quality of life is going to be that horrible i give them i give them the option of not doing anything you know yeah no so it does it does matter what side of the brain it's on yeah i'm a big big fan of euthanasia man i'm like a big fan of it not not young not young asian people i'm talking about like i'm a big fan of uh of uh yeah if you don't want to be around

anyone your quality of life's bloody terrible i reckon you should be allowed to i think that's very unjust because people bring up religion and stuff to stop it and it's like fuck you that's your problem you don't then you don't have to die you bloody hang on forever i don't have to also what is a stroke i i totally i totally agree with you too i think people should have the choice you know if things are that bad who has the right to tell them that they can't you know end it i mean yeah and they don't they do it in other countries i it's nothing like sweden or belgium belgium you barely need to even give them a reason yeah yeah but uh yeah the dutch will do it if you said jack asked what a stroke is i should have asked that as a question yeah i don't even really know yeah what is a stroke

so what a stroke is so um a stroke is when you when you stop getting blood supply through a blood vessel to a certain part of the brain that brain will die and when it dies that's what a stroke is so you know if somebody has a a blood clot in the blood vessel in the brain it stops the flow to the that part of the brain and then say it's the part of the brain that moves your arm and leg. Then you become paralyzed. And is that why cigarettes are bad? Because they clog up arteries?

Yeah. Cigarettes, they cause heart disease and changes in your blood vessels and then like hardening of your arteries. And then that leads to heart attacks, strokes, and things like that. And what's the difference between a stroke and an aneurysm then? We asked an aneurysm. Jim said it was bleeding in the brain. And then that leads to heart attacks, you know, strokes and things like that. And what's the difference between a stroke and an aneurysm? Then we asked an aneurysm. He's Jim said was bleeding on the brain.

Yeah. So, so they are different. So an aneurysm is like a blood vessel off of a ballooning off a blood vessel. So you ever see a hose that has a bubble on it, you know, like a weak spot in the side of a hose. Have you ever seen that? Yeah. Or not really? Yeah.

Okay. So, so, but you know, an aneurysm is a weak spot in the side of a blood vessel that balloons out. And then think of the aneurysm as a balloon. The top of the balloon can rupture. And when it ruptures, you know, blood comes out under high pressure. And, you know, 20% of people die before they even get to the hospital. And another 30 or 40% of people die, even if they make it to the hospital and another 30 or 40 percent of people die even if they make it to the hospital um so a ruptured aneurysm can cause bleeding and i guess it could cause a stroke as well but a stroke is different than an aneurysm yeah and why is it like but you

were right about but jeff i mean jim you were right sorry about that you were right about the aneurysm i mean um it does cause bleeding if it ruptures now why is it um imperative that we uh if you have a stroke that you see attention very quick i know i know someone who's in a very bad state who who had a stroke and wasn't found for hours and hours and hours and it was really not not a good thing but if she was found a lot earlier uh so why why is it bad hard to be fair like isn't the damage already done the bit of the brain dies the end what what why is it important to get caught yeah so like so some people can have what's called a tia you've heard of that right a trans ischemic attack so it's a tia yeah so it's a strike it's a stroke trying to happen but it

doesn't happen and so if you get you know if you if you are starting to have a stroke and you get the hospital quick enough they can give you something called tpa and it's something they give through the blood vessels of the brain that can dissolve the blood clot so i mean there's been people come in who are can't speak they can't move their side of their body and they get this tpa done within like four hours and they all of a sudden they're speaking again and moving their arms so the whole point about getting the hospital quickly is so they can potentially treat you to dissolve the blood clot so you get blood flow back to the brain before the brain dies does that make sense that that that does uh and early signs what what's to watch out is it

i've heard you you meant to smell burning toast. Well, early signs can be anything. It can be trouble with your speech. It can be drooping of your face, weakness of your arm or leg, tingling in your arm or leg, confusion, you're acting confused, any of those things. If you notice anything like that, you can't speak, you can't move your arm, then you've got to hightail it to the ER. That's so Tuesday.

Cool. Now I was just making a joke about my health. What is trepanation? Jim said when you get to the edge and say I shouldn't go much further. I don't think that's right. Close. No, trepanation is, you know know when you put a hole in the skull so if i drill a hole in the skull during surgery or in the middle of the night i need to put a drain into somebody's

brain somebody's been a car accident um i'll drill a hole through the skull that's called treffination so did you watch dharma i did not you gotta watch d. He puts lots of holes in the side of people's heads. And he tried to make them into zombies, and he poured, I don't know, some acid. So he drilled holes, he poured acid, and then they, he wanted to have them alive but not alive so they wouldn't leave him type of thing. And then one guy. Oh, so he did that while they were alive, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did that while, and there was one guy who escaped,

and he was like like he had a hole in his head with acid and then the cops were like oh why is this he's a 14 year old boy and the cops go oh why is this guy like this and he's like oh that's my boyfriend and then they just let him take him upstairs jeez but anyway um if you're listening at home don't do that yeah um good advice you were saying you were saying trephination i try to help where i can if i just save one life this podcast that's right good work well you might have with the stroke actually because the signs of a stroke are important yeah you were saying trephination they found evidence of that in incans or the there was a french skulls too that far back

yeah so trephination so so that's what we're talking about are those skulls too that that far back yeah so trephination so so that's what we're talking about those skulls they found that have the holes in them um those are purposely put holes and those so that those would be trephination that would be they were performing trephination way back when you said they found like 40 skulls was it 40 you said i think i think in france it was the ones that are 7 000 years old i think it was like 40 skulls they found with it. So it wasn't just an accident. I mean, they could tell that these were these holes were purposely made. And so they were doing something and the funny thing is, not funny, but they were saying, did they even use anesthesia in these people or any kind of alcohol or

medicinal stuff or did they just do it while they were awake? Well, maybe that was just a Jeffreyffrey darmer of france and he just did his 40 people could have been like i think it was like you know i mean lobotomy i mean they were just trying stuff yeah one more one more thing with with uh with the strokes i wanted to ask another question about the strokes it was a good one too oh no are you okay? I forgot. Are you confused? All right.

We'll come back. Do you think you're having one? When was the first successful brain tumor removed? Jim said 1976 on a summer's day. Yeah. So I had to look this one up. I didn't know the exact date. I knew it was in the 1800s, but it was 1879. It was actually a Scottish surgeon who did it.

What month was it? You don't need to say that. November. It wasn't even a summer's day. Which hemisphere? Wait, what's my confidence level? What was my confidence level on that? How hungry am I?

I'm pretty hungry. Yeah, it might have happened in New Zealand. Big bloody hook then. What are some types of surgery a neurosurgeon will perform jim said lobotomy removal brain tumors um obviously we've been talking about strokes what else what else do you do so he got one out of a hundred i've got my stroke question i got my stroke question we'll go back i got me so in the brain you can perform surgery for you know blood clots on the brain for aneurysms for arterial venous malformations,

which is a tangle of blood vessels, for tumors, for fluid buildup on the brain, for congenital abnormalities, and the list goes on. But then also, you know, we do surgery on the spine. So we operate over the spinal cord and the lower back. And that can be for trauma, for tumors, and the lower back um and that can be for trauma for tumors um old age for narrowing of the spinal canal for vascular anomalies and then we operate on the peripheral nerves um so those would be like the ulnar nerve and the uh median nerve the radial nerve yeah so it okay this is my question it's a good one is there anything i can do in my day-to-day life for stroke prevention now i know not smoking is a thing um but uh like like i know you can have a heart attack when you're overexerting yourself you're jogging you're running you're fucking too much or you're lifting heavy things you you can do it. What can bring on a stroke and what can I do to avoid the stroke?

I think the best thing you can do is just you got to blood pressure, control your blood pressure, make sure you got good blood pressure. Obviously, exercise is very important. So exercising can help keep you healthy in general. Eating right, right? Because, I mean, eating high cholesterol foods and fatty foods and things like that, that causes buildup of cholesterol in your blood vessels. You know, you get hardening, the common term, hardening of your arteries,

and that can lead to heart disease and stroke. So, I mean, those are the main things. Just, you know, healthy living, healthy eating, exercising. You know, alcohol is something that can lead to let's say that one wasn't doing any of those things what else could one do if if let's just say that i didn't i i i was eating a lot of food are you speaking are you asking for first. I mean, I'm interested. I do not need to know. Eat more spinach, Jim.

Yeah, is it like I should wear more sweatpants? Wear more sweatpants. I got my jeans too tight. You got to lift the part. So if you're going to exercise, I would definitely, I go to like Lululemon, get some good sweat pants. That'd probably help. Okay.

Sweat pants it is. Go to Lululemon, get some stuff. Right, right, right, right, right. Here we go. What is a craniotomy? Did I say it right now? Yeah. So craniotomy is where you take a piece of bone off the side of the skull.

So if I'm going to do brain surgery to take a blood clot off the brain or a tumor out of the brain you have to have access so you have to take a piece of the skull off and that's called the craniotomy okay yeah and then uh laminectomy jim said you laminate the brain i'm assuming that's wrong keep all the juices in yeah so laminating so i did a laminectomy today so laminectomy is where i take the bone off the back of the spine to gain access to where the the nerves are wow and he's only halfway through it he popped over here to do the podcast we'll hear in the background oh he's waking up do you if you're in a room with an orthopedic surgeon do you feel superior to them because i feel like brain surgery i know that's always a joke because I'm not a brain surgeon, but it just seems the hardest.

Mate, if you... Brain and spine. If he checked into a dermatologist, he'd be like, this is not brain surgery. Because those guys are all buffed and big, and I'm not all muscular like they are. The orthopedic surgeons? Yeah, they're usually, a lot of them are just really, you know... What about optometrists

do you look at them like get the fuck out of here optometrists all you do all you're doing is like what about this one look at this one one or two what's better this one this one this one uh you got cataracts there's another bloke who does that i got a specialist for you yeah uh a disc discotomy oh i guess i said this wrong i said disectomy yeah it's a disc yeah it's disectomy now i can get so you know i mean so do you know what the disc is do you know what a disc is yeah he does not yeah i do all right so you tell me and i'll tell you. I hope you do. Jesus. No. So a disc.

Yeah. It's a space in between the two bones of your spine. So people get a herniated. My mother had a slip disc. My mother had a slip disc. And all I heard my whole childhood was, oh, my slip disc. And she used to lay on a wooden board like this. Oh, it's because of me.

Slipped disc. And so we heard about the slipped disc all the time. My back. My back. My back. Right? Although she could whack you with full force. But walking around was hard.

But she could really get a run up to hit you. Well, she needed a discectomy. Yeah. Discectomy. But she had a slipped disc. And then when she became an insulin dependent diabetic, we stopped hearing about the slipped disc. It went away. Went away again.

And then when she got Parkinson's, we stopped hearing about it. Because she could focus on something else, you mean, right? Yeah. When she got Parkinson's, we stopped hearing about the diabetes. And then when she was dead, we stopped hearing. Whoa. Well, a discectomy is what then? Discectomy.

It's a slipped disc. Yeah, so a discectomy is what then? Discectomy. It's a slipped disc. Yeah, so a discectomy is where you take the disc out. Like today I did a discectomy too. I took the disc out completely, and then I put a spacer and fused the spine. Or sometimes you just do a partial discectomy. If you just have part of the disc that's pinching a nerve, you'll just take part of the disc out to unpinch the nerve. Now, do you deal with spinal

spinal injuries people quadriplegics paraplegics and if so i know that's very linked to the brain and the nerve system how far are stem cells coming and and in our lifetime will people start walking again yeah i mean stem cell is still um not there i don't know i mean i'm not up on the latest greatest research on it but certainly they're trying to implant stem cells and spinal cord injury to try to regenerate um you know regenerate the cells of the spinal cord but you know stem cells are um they're much more prominent when we're little babies, right? So stem cells are cells that can turn into anything. They can turn into muscle, skin, your eyes, anything.

And so stem cells are, first of all, hard to get because they're only found mostly in younger people and embryos. And then the stem cells they put in the problem is how does the, you know, when you have a spinal cord injury, how does it know how to connect the right fibers back together to make everything work? You know? And I don't think that's, I don't think that's happened. I think they've had more luck with doing, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Like bypassing the injury. You know, they take a nerve and they place the nerve above and below the injury and try to get the signals to go that way uh why was that could they take out a bit of the spine this

is my idea right you can pass it on to your doctor friends right how about if the bit that's broken you take that bit out disc and all couple of discs a little bit of spine take that bit out and then you redo the two good bits and it's just like you see like some guys like four foot tall and you go you you broke three bits of his back yeah this becomes a short guy well you know they do that with like they do that with peripheral nerve injuries like you have a injury to a nerve in your arm or leg they can splice it back together cut out the injured part and connect the other parts together and a lot of times they get good recovery the spinal cord is just different you know the spinal cord isn't like a peripheral nerve it's different and it doesn't heal the same way why would a patient

be awake during a specific brain surgery jim so said so they can tell them the parts that hurt so you can see the thing's going pew pew pew, pew, pew, pew in the brain. That's why I take Nugenics. Oh, no, that's for testosterone. That's why I take memory pills. All right. Let him answer, please, Jim. No, we did a lot of awake brain surgery during my residency, mostly for epilepsy.

But say you have a tumor that's right in the part of the brain where your speech is or it's in the part of the brain that moves your arm or leg, right? So if you go in and take that tumor out, and you don't know what part of the brain is responsible for your speech or movement, you could paralyze somebody. So what you do is you have the patient awake at surgery, and there's a specific way to do that to get them to that point. And then what we would do is we stimulate those parts of the brain so when the person's awake we would ask them to read a sentence and they would be reading and when they're reading we would stimulate a part of the brain and if they stop talking then we knew that part of the brain is important you can't take it so we put a little mark there a little sticker and we move on to another area and so you map the brain out and then you know where you can –

what you can take away and what you can't, you know, what you can respect and what you can't. They'd get me to read something. If you've ever heard me read ads on this podcast, they'd get me to read and they'd go, obviously this is the bit that takes care of his reading. We can take care of that and then I'm fucking paralyzed. But it was wild.

I mean, you could like – we would stimulate parts of the brain and people you know you'd move their hand or their finger or their leg and you know it's just like a video game and then watch the body part move like a marionette yeah what is a cyber knife jim thought that's what they use for lobotomies no it's cyber monday no he said it was a cyber monday i guess it could be done on cyber monday but um so a cyber knife basically what it is it's it's radio surgery so instead of doing so say you have a tumor in the brain and it's not real big instead of doing a craniotomy and taking the skull off and doing surgery to take the tumor out you can do focused radiation and radiation can kill the tumor over the course

of you know a year or so um so it's focused radiation so it's called cyber knife because it's it's like pseudo surgery right it's it's killing the tumor but you're not actually doing actual surgery you're just you're doing radio surgery that makes sense what's it what's it what's a medical practice that's done in brain surgery uh that's not done anymore that you look back on like fuck i can't believe we used to do that because we're probably lobotomies lobotomies yeah um um what is i don't know i mean there's most most of the stuff that's been done is still being done. Yeah. It's the egg whisking of the lobotomy. The egg whisking of the lobotomy.

We used to open the skull up and piss on it to sterilize it. Yeah, it's very sterile. And then put the leeches on it to suck all the piss away. Well, you know, they used to operate without gloves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something like a long time ago before sterile technique. I mean, they didn't wear gloves when they operated, and there was no sterile technique.

I mean, how people didn't get infections right and left is beyond me. But it's like the Hurt Locker. You want to have the sense with your fingers when you defuse. Yeah, yeah. What is a shunt? I mean. Oh, sorry. So a shunt is, so when you have fluid buildup on the brain,

so people, if you have fluid buildup on your brain, people can die very quickly. They can die within 30 minutes. So a shunt is a tube that we put into the brain to drain fluid off. Oh, I knew that. That's what a shunt is. That's like they have that little hole in the side of their head where their head's leaking, right?

Leaky heads. Yeah, there was a guy, I host a game show, and on the game show, one of the contestants said he had a little drip out the back of his head, and he leaked a Coke can full of fluid every day out the back of his head. What? It was something this guy had too much fluid on the brain. Is that a thing? He went quite far in the show, I think.

But it leaked. Wait, was it leaking on the outside of his skin? I didn't touch him or anything. He said that he collected. There's Australia, by the way. Yeah, he collected it up. He didn't use a Coke can. It could have been any can.

Don't worry. A spray can. Liquid death. I think he was bullshitting you, Jim. I don't know about that. What benefit would he have had to do that I told everyone he said his brain leaks a cocaine a day

he'd get meningitis and die if he had leaking fluid maybe it was an internal leak where does the shunt go it could be an internal leak I guess maybe he had a shunt and it drains it to where inside your body somewhere Where does the shunt go? It could be an internal, I guess. Where does the shunt drain into? Maybe you had a shunt in. Maybe you had a shunt. And it drains it to where? Inside your body somewhere?

Yeah, so most of the time we put a shunt, we'll tunnel it under the skin down into the abdomen, and you'll drain into your abdomen, and your body resorbs the fluid. Sometimes it gets put into the heart. Sometimes they put it into the cavity around the lungs, but mostly we put it into the abdomen. That's what he had. He had one of those leaking into his body. It's a shunt. What is the fluid around the brain? mostly we put it into the abdomen what that's what he had he had one of those leaking into his body so shut what uh yeah what is the fluid around the brain what is it i imagine it's mostly water but what is it like just like a ky jelly type of thing or is it what is it

no it's it's just like water i mean it's your spinal fluid um and it's just a it's like a thin watery fluid and it has um nutrients that bathe the brain. And spinal fluid also kind of protects your brain. So it nourishes your brain, but it protects your brain. It kind of gives a buffer so your brain's floating and not bumping into your skull. Is it true that when you have a hangover, it's because your brain's dehydrated? Part of it is, yes. Part of it is because of dehydration. Yeah, because it's rattling around your head.

It's hitting the sides um the what is a craniopagus what are craniopagus twins jim said siamese twins joined at cranium ben carson so yep he's 100 right i agree with ben carson at john hopkins for residency actually as he's famous for that ben carson was i don't know yeah he was that was he's he is yeah it was his big thing because he said a few stupid things in the campaign and then everyone was like this guy's when we're doing the jim jeffrey show like that guy's an idiot i'm like all right settle down yeah you want to call him an idiot the guy's detaching fucking siamese twins give him a bit of credit yeah yeah i think most of those kids die anyways most of those kids die. Anyways, most of those kids die. They don't survive.

And a lot of them share such important structures in the brain that you can't separate them. And if you do, you'll kill them. I'm a Siamese twin. I have a little man attached to my ass. You share a butt? Yeah, you share everything. Jose Delgado. We have wives together.

Do you know who Delgado is? He freed the Spanish. He freed the Spanish. You freed the Spanish? Jose Delgado Jose Delgado. We have wives together. Do you know who Delgado is? He freed the Spanish. He freed the Spanish. He freed the Spanish. Jose Delgado. Delgado. I think he owns a Mexican restaurant, right? Or a Spanish restaurant.

Yeah, I added this one last minute. He has a restaurant, Decado Bell. I added this one last minute. It said he put electrodes into a bull and he could control the bull. I didn't know if that was a real thing, but. I think it might be bullshit we'll get rid of that like a mechanical ball in a bar yeah like when the men are on he did it real quickly and got him off and then when the women are on he's a bit slow let him ride

oh yeah he's a good man to god who's on it um this is the part of our podcast called Dinner Party Facts. We ask our expert to give us some fact, obscure, interesting about the subject that people can use to impress people. Yeah, something for us. Okay. I got two facts for you. Okay. All right.

First one is, do you think your brain feels pain? I believe your brain does not feel pain. You mean when you touch it? Yeah, the actual brain. I believe it's pain-free. Because you're doing that surgery and they're not screaming. Yeah, but a headache. What's a headache then?

The headache is... Or a brain freeze. The headache, they're not headaches for us. They're little tiny strokes. And when you get them, I want you to think and worry. So the brain actually has no pain receptors in it. So like when we do awake surgery, you have to numb up the scalp with a lot of local anesthetic. And then the patient, you know, they make them sleepy.

So they don't get a breathing tube. I mean, they're just, you know, most surgeries people get breathing tubes. But in this surgery, you don't put a breathing tube, but you just make them sleepy. You I don't get a breathing tube. I mean, they're just, you know, most surgeries, people get breathing tubes, but in this surgery, you don't, you don't put a breathing tube, but you just make them sleepy. You numb up the scalp, you expose the skull, take the skull off, open the covering of the brain, which has pain receptors, the dura, that's, that's the covering of the brain has pain receptors. And then once you have all that done, then you wake the patient up and then you operate on the brain. And so your brain doesn't have pain receptors, so it doesn't feel pain while you're operating on the brain itself. But all the structures around the brain, they have pain receptors.

Yeah, it's because your headache is just scalping because of your dumb brain bashing into it. It's just bumping around. A lot of the headaches come from the covering of the brain. The blood vessels dilate and they and they pulse and they cause headaches so what's what's a migraine i believe it's an excuse for my wife not to talk to me for three hours is that what it is yeah she just wants to sit in a dark room and not take care of the kid and she

hates me for a while i've got got a migraine. Goodbye, everyone. You said you had another day. No, no. What is a migraine? Oh, you want to know? So a migraine is a type of headache, and usually a migraine will have specific qualities to it. Like some people, I don't know if you're a wife,

some people will notice that they can smell or taste things before it comes on, or they might have flashing lights in their eyes before it comes on. And then a migraine can be, you know, a throbbing headache, you know, where it's just your head feels like it's going to explode and it can last for, you know, minutes to hours to days and, um, you know, specific medications, but a migraine is just a type of headache. When you get hit remember cartoon characters they get hit and then stars around but you do that thing when you fall over you

get up too quickly and you get those little tiny twinkly things in your eyes is that your eyes or your brain doing that yeah i don't know i mean i i've actually have you ever got up too quickly yeah and you have that happen yeah yeah i got up I think it's because your blood pressure drops for a minute. I think your brain gets less blood flow to it, maybe the occipital lobe where your vision is, and sometimes it can cause those little things that you see. I don't think we know for sure, but I think it's something along that line. Now, whenever you look at brain scans, okay,

so they've looked at brain scans of people, and they see those fuzzy purpley and blue sort of meshy lights and they say this person's yeah got you know okay so they get a serial killer and they go we want to examine the brain to see why this person was like how they are right or you get some you get einstein we want to examine the brain Is that a load of bullshit? When you cut into a brain, do you go, this guy's intelligent? No, you can't tell that in any way, shape, or form.

All brains pretty much look the same for the most part. Then why did they want to keep Jeffrey Dahmer's brain then? They wanted to get... There was a whole thing about it. I heard a podcast on Einstein's brain and some people believe that they want to keep him and study him, but

the podcast I was new to was an NPR podcast. They said that there wasn't anything that you could tell different about. Because the mother and father had a big fight because they were like, well, we should find out why he was like how he was. But if they look at it, they're going to look at it genetically and they're going to look at it on their microscope

and they'll probably look at, you at, does he have a certain number of cells, a bigger area, like the hippocampus, is this hippocampus bigger or smaller? I think that's what they're doing. I hear Hitler's brain had a little mustache on it. Any of that works out. Huh? I hear Hitler's brain had a little mustache on it. It's true.

It's like people who are autistic. What do their brains look like? I don't know. Well, I'll tell you this, because I used to work with dolphins, and with autistic kids, they would do therapy with them, and they said that somebody, one of the doctors was saying the cerebellum is less developed, I think, or something, and the dolphins would be able to scan and see that their brain was developed differently

and they would treat them differently. I would watch them treat them differently. My new drag name is going to be Sarah Bellum. Yeah. That's good. You said you had one more dinner party fact, Dr. Hefflinger. Oh, yeah. So this is, I just like, I like boats.

So you ever hear of the SS United States? The SS United States. What about the United States? I know all about the United States. No, ever hear of the SS United States? The SS United States? What about the United States? I know all about the United States. It's called the SS United States. Oh, no, I don't know that one. It was a 1,000-foot ocean liner, and the United States built this. It's the only ship like that the United States ever built,

so it's kind of like the Queen Mary of the British. Remember the Queen Mary during the war used to transport troops back and forth? So the United States built this 1 to have a party ocean liner and they they wanted it they built it in 1950 i think and they wanted it to be in case they needed a ship for war to transport troops and so it was a it was a passenger liner and it could hold i think 1900 people and 900 crew but the thing could go 50 miles an hour and we know it could go at least that fast but it was top secret so they think it could even go faster and um they the purpose of it was if they were going to transport troops they didn't want submarines to be able to hit this ship

um and they wanted to be able to effectively transport troops so can you imagine i mean a thousand foot ship like one of these cruise ships today going 50 miles an hour? Oh, wow. I think it's pretty incredible. I tell you, this is a bit sort of, okay, so I flew into Afghanistan in the middle of the war, right? Fun. With the soldiers. And they were all going off to Afghanistan for the first time as well.

I was going out there to tell fucking jokes. And when we landed, they turned off every light in the plane. The plane couldn't intervene. Our outdoor lights, our indoor lights, it was pitch dark. Even the bathroom and the seatbelt lights, fucking gone, right? And it was just, anyway, it was just an interesting thing because they were transporting troops. Having a stroke?

Wow. All right. A little burnt toast. Dr. Brian Hefflinger. It's a sandwich. Dr. Brian Hefflinger, thank you for being here. Find Dr. Hefflinger on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube at Dr. Hefflinger. We have it down there below, but it's D-O-C-T-O-R-H-O-E-F-L-I-N-G-E-R.

And the Hefflinger podcast is available on all platforms. So make sure to download that and listen to that. That's how I found you on TikTok, Dr. Hefflinger, and your posts are great. And I encourage everybody to go follow you and listen to the podcast. And thank you for being here. Thank you, doctor.

I appreciate you being on the podcast, mate. We learned a bit of a thing or two. If you're at a party and someone comes up to you and goes uh uh i think i'm having a stroke go i don't know about that run away because you don't have any medical experience yourself good night australia