Steve-O Is Dying For Your Attention | The Checkup

Stevo is absolutely a legend being on jackass for over a decade and all the stunts that he's pulled as a doctor I'm not even sure how he's still alive but in this podcast we have some really interesting conversations about his health the injuries he's sustained some unique projects He has coming up including him getting double D breast implants as an individual who spends so much time in hospitals getting treated for injuries I thought he would be the perfect guest let's get started people I don't know how much you know about me but I'm a family medicine doctor by training I understand that you are a legit doctor a massive YouTuber hey uh the sexiest doctor yeah it was a no-brainer for me to do this so thank you for the invite yeah no thank you for coming on obviously a legend I've been a huge fan growing up I came as an immigrant from Russia so American culture was very new to me but jackass was almost the beginning of that for me so uh it's so cool is English not your first language correct yeah Russian is my first language it's pretty incredible man like what is it that um allows some people to take on a second language and speak just undetectably uh well you know and we would never know that English is not yours first I think it's age people have different cutoffs but they say if you come before age 10 you generally don't get the accent I say it's probably a little bit younger than that eight seven eight if you come before then no accent undetectable for example my sister she's nine years older than me she has a heavy accent okay yeah so you can hear definitely she's from Soviet Russia wow are you a sparkling water fan or flat I do I like it yeah I don't know where I got that from but now I'm obsessed with sparkling water I think it's because my parents poisoned me with soda when I was a kid right and then I'm like I can't keep drinking soda it's just not healthy now as a doctor uh do you have an opinion about the health of sparkling water versus not I have a few tips when it comes to sparkling water one is if you have issues with acid reflux not a great idea to drink before bed okay because it bubbles makes you burp some of the acid can leak out obviously very uncomfortable I absolutely have issues with acid really and um a long running case of Barrett's esophagus wow okay so that's like a pre-cancerous state in your esophagus and I've I've monitored it very closely with my gastroenterologist yes um regular endoscopies on a yearly basis but my last endoscopy um the doctor said that I've stabilized and do not need another endoscopy for three years fantastic okay yeah I'm glad to hear it because I heard you talking about that on hot ones and then you started pounding hot sauce and I got nervous for you right yeah um well that's interesting yeah so Barrett's esophagus usually occurs with individuals who have long-standing uncontrolled acid reflux so have you had issues with heartburn and pain um yeah I I I did and um I mean just the of the alcohol you know I I just remember I remember times when I was still drinking when my acid reflux was my heartburn was so terribly bad that it would wake me up in the middle of the night I would go to the bathroom and just barf to just try to get ease the pain yeah wow and was there any of her blood not that I recall the reason I ask is in individuals who do drink a lot of alcohol and have issues with their esophagus sometimes you get tears and um you can have a tear in the esophagus or something known as esophageal varices where you get swelling in the blood vessels of the esophagus and they can rupture inside and you could have bleeding inside so I'm glad that never happens right but yeah I mean it's it you're basically a professional patient at this point I'm a professional doctor you're a professional patient um not because of that but because of all your lifelong injuries yeah I've uh said many times that uh if if all of my hospital visits were to the same hospital I would be on that Hospital's Christmas card list you would have a wing yeah yeah I've definitely been to the hospital a lot you haven't no I have oh yeah I've definitely been a lot what do you is the like what I read in your book that you were saying the worst stunt you ever performed was the jet fuel that was the most painful yeah yeah for sure it um it was it was a frustrating question for uh you know for me when people would ask what was the most painful stunt particularly because it was such a frequently Asked question yeah and uh you know it frustrated me because there are really different criteria to the pain there's the duration and then there's the intensity and the type right and um I uh would lean towards um the you know quicker it's over the better but you know it's it's just apples and oranges and then when I had suffered the third degree burns on 15 of my body and needed skin graft surgery that actually checked both boxes the burning relax yeah yeah the duration and the intensity of the pain was uh like just in another world I I went on effectively a tour of burn units after that wow and uh and and heard multiple times that people who have been both shot and stabbed as well as suffered Burns will tell you burns are the worst pain of everything I could see that yeah that's really bad did you feel the pain right away when the burn happened or was this I I did I did it uh it wasn't as bad the next day and then each day thereafter it just got like more and more unbearable and then at day five I was like okay like I got a progressive showing up in the hospital on day five and they're like what the [ __ ] were you waiting for oh you didn't go right away yeah there I thought that it would just get better you know okay and uh and and I showed up on day five and they they explained that I needed emergency surgery wow and the real pisser was that uh their next question was when's the last time you ate and I was like die just ate and before I came so they're like you have to wait eight hours eight hours and I had just um refused um the you know painkiller you know like now I'm a sober guy I don't want any painkiller and then I heard we cannot operate on you for eight hours because you just ate and I said okay give me the painkiller do you know what they gave you I believe it was Dilaudid and um my arms were so burnt they put the IV in my neck wow so you had like a central line put in yeah and um it uh it's it's crazy being a sober guy in recovery like you know how quickly that awakens the Beast you know like oh like are you in pain yes The receptors right away started yeah it's really crazy and and and it was uh it had a real like sort of powerful effect on me like I I you know yes I am still in pain I need more and then what snapped me out of it at one point when I was asking for yet more they said we'll give you more but it's getting to a point where I'd be concerned about your you know getting off yeah and that woke me up and I was like oh yeah like I got it what would your advice be either to yourself in that moment when they initially offered it or maybe to someone else who's facing the same dilemma um I mean there I could be in that uh situation a thousand times and and 100 of the time I would take that pancake the pain was that bad wow um I I uh I'm kind of careful about giving out advice to other people particularly as it relates to addiction but um I know that for me and in my 14 years of sobriety I've never even filled out a prescription for uh for any kind of a painkiller I mean it's been all Advil and Tylenol okay congratulations on that that's a long time yeah I've been in um in horrific pain and uh taken Advil and Tylenol together okay but that's as far as I've gone got it okay and in severe cases we do recommend that uh in the hospital it's unbelievable how effective both of those uh are uh Tylenol and Advil well because they work slightly in different ways so you kind of get a stacking effect of the medicine and again I don't recommend that to most patients because it's largely unnecessary for most people but in certain instances a big example of it is actually dental pain and I've heard you've had a lot of dental is unbelievable amounts yeah yeah and your biggest risk that you say people face is by doing one thing that not Everyone likes to do what is that yeah it's not a risk that uh that everybody faces it's just personally my biggest regret in life like you know in the grand scheme of things my biggest regret is that I was not diligent about flossing and um I uh I think I was genetically predisposed to having poor oral health you know and the teeth and gums department but um part of that and really the worst part of that is that um I was one of those people who I am one of those people who cannot get away with not flossing because not flossing led to uh the presence of a bacteria with a very it's a very distinctive odor when someone has this bacteria and uh the the crazy thing about it is that the person who has that bacteria in their mouth smell doesn't know it yeah doesn't know it and I remember like um you know being uh like in my very early 20s maybe late teens my mom would say oh you're your breath I'm your mom I just brushed my teeth it's just like I don't care your breath is and I didn't get it you know I didn't get it I didn't understand it and um it was just years and years later that uh that a dentist said hey you know um you've got this odor in your mouth like uh you know and and I became a diligent philosopher one time I got in a van with all the jackass guys and and women and women says oh dude Stevo your breath and Knoxville just says saying Stevo has bad breath is like saying wee man is short it's just all the time and and uh that got so many years of my life that uh it was disgusting for people to have a conversation with me because of this odor coming out of my mind and did flossing solve that it did I had a and uh a round of deep cleaning okay and um and and flossed ever since now I have a whole ritual at night um water pick is how I start then I floss then I brush then I tongue scrape okay and I rinse with the fluoride rinse okay I love it so you have like the full cycle going on yeah because I'm just such a horrific gum recession that really it's just an exercise and doing everything I can to preserve what little remains yeah and and if it weren't for my poor oral hygiene with the flawsics it's not just the you know the the bacteria the odor that was emanating from my mouth it like I'd blame the the hardcore gum recession on that too yeah of course and I'm curious did you when you started doing the hardcore Dental Care did you at the same time get the Barrett's esophagus process started I had the um I I had it already but you had it already the reason I ask is because a lot of times acid reflux will present with bad breath wow so I wonder if like as a child yeah were you like a kid uh having early symptoms and that's how you developed Barrett's esophagus from long-standing reflux I wonder uh it sounds like it could have been uh it could be a chicken or the egg thing here because the the um acid reflux presenting is bad breath so like what came first the experience for the bad breath yeah yeah for sure yeah it's crazy and you know what what's what's so uh perplexing is how it's um like in our culture like like you'll tell somebody if uh if they've got like a booger in their nose yeah like if someone's got like oh you've got some food on your face yeah but like nobody and myself included can uh bear to say to somebody dude because I think it's not as easy to be fixed like you can wipe this off but if someone's breaths right and I want to like when I smell that very distinctive bacteria smell coming out of someone's mouth I I I have this inner dialogue I want to tell the person like hey like you know I'm I I don't want to be unkind but I you know I want you to know that that uh I I can smell this thing that that I used to have a problem with and the answer is to to go to the dentist and get a cleaning and then floss and a real tell is that if you floss and smell the floss you can tell that well yeah that that's that's that actually happens to people that are healthy as well if they haven't flossed in a little while right and and uh now as I move forward in my life I I really predict that I'm going to have a whole new biggest regret and that is going to be um not having a very uh disciplined stretching regimen interesting but you are meditating still right you're meditating my ass are you on your uh Streak still yeah a thousand days I think I'm like a thousand and six days it's over three years now you have it not over three years three years is gonna be December 27th see this is doctors aren't good at math but yeah you know yeah I'm on day 1006. wow yeah and you log it religiously daily like yeah for sure it's almost like the act of meditating I could take it or leave it it's getting credit from my app I do it for I love it no it's like a challenge that you've met each day yeah because I I'm such uh an All or Nothing Like no moderation guy like without like the the app to keep the the numbers and just fall up like interesting where do you think that comes from I don't know like you you love getting big viewership numbers any kind of credit anything kind of like well first of all you deserve it well you've had a very unique life like listening to some of the podcasts you've been on before your book uh I mean Ringling Brothers clown school that sounded like a trip um it would have been a really uh crazy and compelling reality TV show The the whole process of clown college I mean it was 1997 when I went to clown college so there really was no such thing as reality TV yet but uh it was basically an elimination show you know like um Survivor of clown school yeah 33 clowns were accepted after Untold thousands um auditions and then of the 33 clowns all 33 graduated but only 10 were awarded with contracts with the circus so it was like kind of you know an elimination Dynamic there was a lot of backstabbing like really so there was drama yeah I mean you might like it would not be shocking if uh somebody got their alarm clock unplugged so that they would be like late and and then have that be frowned upon and you know I never thought I'd say this but there's a lot of similarities to clown school and medical school because there's people that like try and stab you in the back in medical school they're called Gunners they actually have a game wow do you guys have a name for we did not we did not but but nobody was upset if a clown uh you know I had some unfavorable situation they found themselves in Fair yeah um if you think you were coming up at a time like this like early in your career and there's tick tocks it's a great question are you crushing it on Tick Tock right now had I been born 20 years later would I have found success in this new digital landscape it's uh it's an interesting question um because when I came up uh they wasn't even the internet you know but there was like literally they did not have the internet and um you know I recorded my stunts on onto uh video cassette tapes known as VHS tapes and uh I would edit my footage by uh by wiring two VCRs together you know how many of the people listening even know what a VC is a video cassette recorder and then I would physically walk my my video cassette to the Post Office and mail it to whoever I thought might watch it and and that being the the case there was considerably less uh content to compete with you know there's a lot less noise to rise above and um to answer the question um I don't I don't know how I would have done with all of the noise to compete with and try to rise above but I genuinely believe that I am such a persistent son of a [ __ ] such a rabid attention [ __ ] that I just would have been every bit as tireless and and you know I just like I'm a tireless attention [ __ ] to the point where I think I would have risen above the noise no matter when I was born okay I think you would have definitely gotten Shadow bit by the way yeah that's still a concern yes uh yeah the community guidelines violation check right yeah because even I did a reaction video uh to the new Jackass movie talking about the medical situations that could arise in each one of them and it got like age gated it got blocked yeah I don't know I don't doubt that yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it was a copyright claim too from from a Viacom yeah honestly but then again like by doing that you did really clearly uh Fair usage too yeah exactly if you're adding commentary to it that's cool that you're aware of that because a lot of people are like no no don't ever use my stuff right fair use is not a thing Fair uses and and what you're doing by uh analyzing it and giving your own commentary or changing the meaning of it and that's precisely what Fair usage is for exactly and I my thought is I think you would crush it on these platforms if you were born 20 years later not that you're not you're doing amazing now but I worry that with the state you were in at the time when you were younger with alcohol with drugs would you have gone too far for the views um maybe that's just me speculating but I'm curious what you think about that I don't know that uh there was any like limitations and yeah like I mean there was like uh because the world's always on now like I mean the the camera was always that uh you know mystical uh super you know like I worship the video cameras what I'm trying to say and and um I don't know that I could have worshiped the camera or the footage or the audience like any uh more than I already did so going too far for the views I think that was that was going on very much uh I just I really looked to the video camera as like a uh like a religious kind of a thing you know um the The Human Condition is such a a terrible Catch-22 such an awful prank on us you know we've got one Instinct just which is to survive we've got one guarantee we won't survive so it's like how do you handle that mortality is such a [ __ ] and um some people turn to religion to try to wrap their head around their mortality because Heaven's gonna be great and everything will be okay you know another thing is is really popular is you know reproducing because there's something about that that that uh defeats your mortality you're gonna have your your uh Legacy and your children and then there's for me the video camera like leaving footage behind it was my message in a bottle well it's your art right right like cavemen were scrolling stick figures on caves like presumably because they knew that that wall art would outlive them yeah and uh leaving something behind of of permanence you know to be a legacy that's how and I took it so seriously so um so yeah as far as like going too far for views like there's no links that I wouldn't be willing to go to for that VHS video camera because I viewed that footage as just totally permanent that was my way to live forever where do you what do you credit like your high level of insight to because you're very insightful isn't it well thank you um I mean I don't I don't know I I certainly had a really good education in Miami um I lived in Miami among many other places I was I I was raised and uh five different countries yeah so um you were in high school in England College Miami right yeah High School in England and college uh you know what what little I I made it through I was in I was in Miami So when you say you had a good education which one of those are you referencing uh I would say that that the uh the grade school and you know um the the high school that I went to it was in England it was called the American School in London and uh you know I was classmates with like the the American ambassador to England's son like all these like you know just it was an Uber privileged school for uh like uber privileged people and um of my senior uh class 80 of uh my senior class went on to Ivy League schools and I was like effectively a loser for going to the University of Miami which is actually like a pretty good school exactly and you know it's what's particularly interesting in this context speaking with you is that uh my best friend exceeds it I I moved to and from London England multiple times um this school that I went to high school at I also attended um fourth grade there fifth grade and sixth grade then I left and then ended up coming back so the one guy who I've known the longest out of anybody in the world is my buddy Abdullah who I who I met when I when we were nine years old in fourth grade we also graduated um high school together and Abdullah like 80 percent of the class went to uh Brown University he graduated from Brown University with a 4.0 went on to Cornell Medical School um and then went on to become a pediatric surgeon at the Mayo Clinic and literally invented um methods of operating on unborn children still in the womb wow like just like came up with them and then like introduced them into the world and now it's like you can operate on children before they're born because of my buddy Abdullah wow and we could not have taken more different paths yes we just couldn't and uh yeah we've stayed and stayed in touch all these years really okay yeah what has he made like I'm curious what a doctor who's your friend feelings are on what your journey has been like he uh he's all about it I mean he's super supportive of uh of of me and what I do I remember uh I remember him being really uh emphatic you know above anybody else like when you're like if you you know wear a condom you don't want to know you know you don't want to know wear a condom like yeah okay like really emphatically you're jumping off a building right uh I mean he he was uh you know seemed to be privy to some information that made him feel very strongly about that okay um and uh yeah it's interesting too that um you know he was my best friend when when I was in fourth grade like in high school you know like we were really close and um my dad was a super successful businessman and um as such like as I grew up the house my family lived in grew larger and larger and I was just for some reason very self-conscious of that you know like I I don't know why but but I was like you hated the wealth like that I was I was embarrassed of it you know like I I don't know why but um but I was embarrassed of it like to the point where um in high school I um my intention was to ride my skateboard to school but that took some time and if I overslept or was running late for any reason then I was out of time to ride my skateboard to school my dad would be leaving about the same time so I wouldn't be forced to catch a ride with my dad who was chauffeur driven and just sitting in the backseat reading a newspaper and uh when that was the case I would ride in the front passenger seat and then when I got dropped off at school I would hug the driver because I was like embarrassed was it everyone else wealthy in this world yeah I mean and and that's a very good point too but I was just embarrassed of being a rich kid I I I hated that and I um hated the idea of uh of bringing like schoolmates over to my house because it was like a big ass house you know and I was I was self-conscious about that so um I I didn't bring a lot of people over to my house I was just always at abdullah's house you know and and in fourth grade I remember like abdullah's family was super religious you know Muslim family from Sudan and I would join Abdullah in in praying to Mecca and stuff oh my gosh I was just like all right this is what we're doing it's cool you know Abdullah very um highly evolved like super and spiritual Guy and um when he was at the Mayo Clinic my comedy tour brought me to Minneapolis where the Mayo Clinic is and um Abdullah and I went out to to go get lunch we were at like a bar playing pool because we used to play pool when we were kids over this game of pool I was expressing to Abdullah that I um do not want to have children and he was not understanding this I said you know like my rationale is uh on top of uh my genetic predisposition to addiction you know and just sort of like the all that comes with that I look at the world and I see the the increasing disparity of wealth you know that the age Gap is just really stopped being funny a long time ago like that I said to Abdullah you know when when our parents graduated from a university that meant placing in a career of your choosing and then for us like our generation not quite so much like it was viewed as very helpful to have a University diploma but it didn't guarantee you anything and then now for for our kids I mean it's just being bogged down and in Crazy amounts of debt you know like the the opportunity in this world has dwindled and dwindled and I just cannot bring myself to create a human being to fight against this struggle wow okay that's dark I take I mean yeah I think I I take it seriously I really respect the idea of it and it is dark um abdullah's response to all of this I'll never forget it it was it was so intense he says in Africa with all of the poverty the famine the disease do you think people are any less happy my gut reaction by everyone well yeah yeah I do but intellectually I get what Abdullah was saying which is that you can strip from somebody they're you know everything really their health their you know food they could like you can take everything away but one thing that you cannot take away from somebody is their capacity to love another and it is from the capacity to love another from the act of loving another that happiness truly is derived so to to abdullah's point people are not less happier if anything they're arguably may be happier in Africa yeah but I still got the vasectomy wait not that day not that day okay you didn't go from pool not that day but uh but I went through with the vasectomy Olympics do you think you consider yourself more of a pessimist than an optimist then um probably really I take you as such an optimist you're like high on life right now you're logging meditation hours absolutely but um in in my new book you know and this isn't just for the sake of uh shamelessly promoting it but but this is something that I think is pertinent here and the final the final chapter of the book begins with the question in quotes are you happy and then I I go on to say that question just has always made me super uncomfortable it makes me just I I like I I find it's one thing to say you know like hey yeah dude how's it going you know that's super casual and yeah but are you happy is a much much more uh serious question and and my my natural instinct my my gut reaction to that is like if I think about it no I'm not you know like I I I consider myself uh largely gripped by anxiety fear and stress and I I uh I believe that my natural default uh feeling position is just that that everything's not okay or if it's okay now it's not gonna be okay and that like I've gotta hurry up and do something to make it so that everything will be okay I've gotta hustle I gotta hurry I gotta work I gotta accomplish and um and that's just my Perpetual state um and the question bothered me because I feel genuinely that that's my Perpetual state and as I just kind of chewed on it and and processed it I arrived at no I'm not happy and that's okay because I don't want to be happy I I believe that it follows that to be happy is to be content to be content is to not need anything and to not need anything is to be [ __ ] lazy and and potentially interesting that you read into it that way yeah I mean that I now I wish that I could work work work and then have a switch that I can Flipboard now I'm not working and now I'm perfectly comfortable and happy but I don't have that switch sure it's funny that you use the word content because have you ever seen a show it's canceled now I thought it was really good called Magic City on Stars about how the casinos were potentially going to leave Cuba and come to Florida in like I've not seen that but isn't the crazy when you said it's canceled now how powerful the word canceled funding I think it was an issue okay but uh there was a scene where one of the mafia guys gets asked are you happy and he goes howdy doody's happy I'm contented wow okay and I'm like okay kind of a similar message I mean I I would I would submit that happy and content are synonymous I bet if you like jump into thesaurus you would yeah the way that I look at it as a doctor is based on research and what we've seen is pessimistic people in comparison to optimistic people are usually more accurate in predicting the future I bet because they are more realistic versus optimistic sure this is gonna probably relate very well to you their health status is usually worse okay uh because of the immense worry and anxiety that comes along with yeah worrying that it's not good for you yeah and then chronically right like long term it's not good for you um yeah and it's a pisser it's a pisser and and I wish that on some level I could change I mean I do take Zoloft okay um I uh but that's like more than anxiety that's um I think that I shouldn't say I think I know for a fact that if I'm not taking Zoloft I go into Dark Places very easy it it takes only a minor disturbance for me to go straight into suicidal ideation and it's super scary I don't think that I've ever been particularly suicidal I think that the the travesty of all that is just the the constructive the the time that's wasted on just fantasizing and just being in this dark morbid place and what I'm taking it all off that I don't ever go you know I I I'm taking this all out I do not think about killing myself and that's bonus that's powerful not the book that's intended no yeah it's intended but I don't know I don't want to come up like a Zoloft commercial and I'm sure everybody's different you know but it's an SSRI it's a type of medication that we prescribe for anxiety or depression and uh what's interesting about those medications and how I speak to them with my patients before I prescribe them is a lot of patients have a fear that it's gonna make them not feel things like make them go blank and the goal of it is just to tone down the intensity of those negative or very positive emotions because anxiety is considered a positive emotion it brings your energy level up like there's a lot of okay energy there with um depression you're down usually and as a result you have low energy so with a medicine like an SSRI the idea is to take off the highs and lows to give you better control in those moments and that's essentially what you're saying when you're saying it helps you have um less chance of having suicidal ideation yeah yeah I I swear about it I I really ah I feel that Zoloft is very important to me and um you know other than that the uh you know like the the kind of Perpetual like scrunching of my that I just feel like I hold all this tension and anxiety and I kind of just consider that to be the fire under my ass you know to uh to strive to to accomplish things well so many times the things that make us really special and do great things are oftentimes our weaknesses at the same time sure it's it's hard to imagine that uh that there's any such thing as other than that yeah like I have patients come in and say well I don't want to be less angry that helps me keep my Edge at work and I'm like well can we find a way where it's not going to get you arrested and then you can keep working well yeah and it's that fine line of always balance and coming back to that Center Point which have you done any reading on Buddhism I'm curious absolutely what are your thoughts there's a bunches about Buddhism in this book about how uh the uh the philosophy of Buddhism and Buddhism Buddhism is much less of a religion than it is a philosophy and that uh all of human suffering is um caused by craving where it it follows that um if you're in pain then it's natural to Crave for that pain to end or uh be lessened and by the same measure whatever situation we find ourselves in if we're in some situation that's that's pleasurable we will crave for that pleasure to last longer or to intensify so like the the thrust of Buddhism as I understand it is that no matter what our circumstances in as as humans we will crave for those circumstances to improve that's just the nature of our of our ego that's the nature of us as an organism and because that's the case there is no state that we can be in where we're actually going to be satisfied we're always just going to want more and more and more and more more and and and it's that craving of more and better and just to improve our circumstance that that causes suffering and so Buddhism uh it it points to um accepting the state you're in as opposed to craving for it to improve and that's easier said than done yeah how do you meditate is that sort of what you try and Achieve Mantra based okay so it's the same as the Transcendental Meditation The Vedic meditation they're the same thing except hilariously the Transcendental Meditation people in The Vedic made meditation people are at like a low-grade war with each other really why they're doing exactly the same thing okay so just claiming who does it better or I mean I'm not necessarily even sure the nature of the thief but I just know that there's a low level meditation beef yeah there's a low level beef because um I I started out um with Transcendental Meditation in 2013 and I was not um it's like one of the funniest things in this damn book I was um I was not particularly uh like diligent about it but I but I would do it and the the place that taught me Transcendental Meditation my teacher um asked me to uh you know if I would be be willing to you know participate in like a fundraising effort to bring meditation to uh inner city schools to try to disrupt the school to prison Pipeline and I was all in I posted this all over my social media I raised all the money I possibly could and that place it's called the David Lynch Foundation they uh that taught me to meditate they didn't follow me back on Twitter they didn't even thank me for the money I donated and I was so incensed by that I despite them I quit meditating I was like funny I swear dude which is so funny because the idea is supposed to be like a spiritual practice and I'm just like [ __ ] them I quit and so uh you know the the the the following years I really did feel that uh I was doing a disservice to myself by not meditating but I still held that Grudge so I I uh ended up finding a new meditation team shirt who just happened to be like of The Vedic you know and so that this is where like I was like wow this is exactly the same thing they taught me last time but like they're beeping with each other and so it just helped me to nurture that Grudge and I got a new mantra and now I do it every day maybe I'm being overly philosophic with this but you know when they say you ask God for patience they give you a complicated problem so maybe you wanted meditation and they gave you this to learn that you really need to find meditation I mean who knows who knows but it's really [ __ ] hilarious that uh you know that that I managed to uh be so resentful and uh you know in this spiritual practice of meditating and um and and despite all that now I'm just so thrilled that that I have a disciplined practice I know too that when um when I got in when I first started with the Transcendental Meditation like you fall off once you know and then it's like just really easy to just fall off all together and that's why I knew going back into it like let me keep it on an app so that it heaven forbid if I break the streak I'll let you know well hopefully if you break it you still go back I that I would be very worried that I wouldn't oh okay that's a fair concern yeah I would be very worried that I wouldn't and my new meditation teacher um any meditation teacher isn't gonna frown on the use of a timer of an app of uh you know of an alarm and and um my new meditation teacher has since come around he he had sent in my screenshots my app and he's like I get it okay I get it I'm actually his star pupil wow okay because of the number of days yeah because like I don't I just don't miss okay you know that's amazing that's like dedication yeah I don't miss and and uh I I have an unshakable faith that um my meditation practice causes the universe to conspire in my favor it's it's it's an arguably outlandish belief but I believe that the Universe responds to um effort to acknowledge to have a relationship with it to plug into the the force I don't think it's outlandish I think it's very accurate I dude you can't you can't tell me otherwise yeah you know you can't I think even medically it makes sense yeah because I got Abdullah was telling me about times when uh prayer healed [ __ ] yeah unhealable [ __ ] well that's why I'm very careful with talking about integrative therapies because people say oh well they mislead people to believe this is the cure right and I that's not what I'm trying to say with a lot of these Therapies but if you're not giving up traditional medicine that actually works and has proven benefits and doing your prayers please that's amazing right because we like to [ __ ] on the placebo effect in medicine right oh that's a placebo that's right why it [ __ ] works yeah yeah like if I give a hundred people a sugar pill and then these hundred people a real pill a pain relief and I tell all of them that it's a real pain pill thirty percent of the people that got the sugar pill will feel pain relief why would I not take advantage of that and allow people to have some great examples it's a fantastic example now that is it more than 30 on the the real pill oh no that's how we do our trials because you can never compare just does this pill work right right you have to compare it to a fake pill right that's the original for the experiment exactly yeah um do you reminded me of uh of a situation again with my buddy Abdullah my sister um her second child was born with both autism and down syndrome and I believe that uh it's common with with um children's Down syndrome there was a hole in uh and the the baby's heart and uh it was a a super upsetting and terrifying situation and I'll be I'll be damned if after not hearing from Abdullah for like the longest time at like uh no communication whatever just and in the in the midst of that situation Abdullah called either me or my sister out of nowhere and said hey you know your baby's gonna be okay and the whole [ __ ] closed like my God that I mean it was it was like that crazy but it wasn't like day after it was it was uh I would have to call my sister and ask her but uh that's when I started looking at a doll a little different you're like all that praying we did earlier wait a second yeah praying to Mecca when we were kids like uh I was like man you know I lied anything you want to tell me man well no there are spontaneous closures of a lot of these sure sure like especially on the upper part of the heart which is between the atrium right uh but yeah it's not unheard of that uh that the whole closes I think that's the the less striking piece of that story it's just that the confidence well the unsolicited call from out of nowhere with with uh how do you know oh wait you don't know I have no [ __ ] clue like uh you didn't ask I think it did ask and it was just like Reagan it's like you're like what happened to patient privacy right it's crazy wow now going back to something you said earlier um in feeling embarrassed by having wealth yeah you've kind of lived your life in a way where you've experienced both ends of the spectrum incredible wealth you were homeless for a period of time and and I was when I dropped out of the University of Miami in 1993 I am was homeless for three years and um I mean homeless is sort of uh I was more of a couch Surfer I think the difference between a homeless person and a couch Surfer is just more of a sort of you're a nomad a little bit of Charisma helps you yeah helps make the difference there but yeah I was very nomadic and and I did not have a place of my own and um there was a point when um I mean dude I was I was I I knew that that uh nothing I was up to and no news that I had to share was the type of news that was gonna like make my my dad feel really happy about it you know like I um had a I just didn't have any and I wasn't doing anything that my dad would have been proud of and I'd kind of had too much pride to uh I just I just fell off the radar which is just the shittiest thing that a kid can do and um I had too much pride to ask for help I had too much pride to uh you know explain my situation I just fell off the radar and during the six months of uh just not communicating with uh with my parents um I entered into a medical study to um for money you know um and as medical studies go the more uh dangerous the study the more they pay so I went in for the most dangerous [ __ ] I could possibly sign up for like what it was uh it was It was a medical study to test on people a drug that that uh they were hoping to make legal to administer to pigs and cows so that the pigs and cows would have um more muscle and less fat it was supposed to work in like an inverse way that steroids might work or uh uh but the purpose being said that they could um have Slaughter the the cattle and and have a leaner meat to appeal to a more health-conscious consumer interesting and by the virtue of the fact that this meat would be consumed by uh by humans a trace amount of this drug being in the meat would enter the human body and as such they if anything's going to come in contact with the human body it needs to be tested yes and it seems that the objective of this study was to determine how much the human body could withstand of this [ __ ] like which seems counter-intuitive but the the the the the goal of the study uh you know the Target that they were aiming to hit was for one of the subjects in the study someone's resting heart rate had to reach 150 beats a minute yeah that was uh that was the nice thing resting heart rate 150 beats per minute whose heart resting heart rate that's what it was dude and I remember like that like the rest I remember I remember like there were only six of us in the study and and typically medical studies are gonna have like way more than that but because it was you know considered a particularly dangerous study they had a smaller number of people in it and I remember like one or two of the guys just being drenched and sweat you know like on the day that they uh that they that they gave it to us or there was one day when they were they did a blood draw on the hour every hour wow yeah I think we gave blood like 10 times in a day I wonder if they're checking sugar levels perhaps I don't know but they also had us on um like the sonogram thing for our heart this this happened and was it anavar no no the drug was called rack dopamine hydrochloride and uh you know the name of them oh yeah I mean we knew the name of it at the time but like you still oh yeah yeah yeah I mean it's just like I mean it was kind of a notch in my belt at that time like I was like I'm gonna be a crazy famous stunt man I'm wild I'm crazy and this was like just part of the course like almost as much did you document it like I did and I did I would have um but uh in my you know in my travels starting out at the University of Miami the video camera I had these those VHS Sons [ __ ] um didn't do well in super hot cars you know like the the rubber the ribbon needs to go around like [ __ ] melted so it sucks so my camera was uh was rendered useless but um yeah this happened and I was in that medical study in January of 1994. and um yeah like I got paid 2 000 bucks well it's good money you're supposed to be 1200 as I recall and uh they didn't get um enough volunteers they didn't get enough heartbeats per minute so so they asked us could we extend the study we're gonna give you more money and then everybody said yes but uh but so they were um it was the the sonogram machine which they'll look at uh babies in the womb with you know like uh the Imaging Imaging and um but they were but they were they lubed it up and they had it on our hearts and I it was so fascinating because uh on the screen the oxygenated blood like you know uh leaving or coming or whatever you would see those Doppler flow yeah yeah and and like the the sonogram or whatever the sonar would detect the oxygen the blood so such that the blood coming in of the heart of one color on the screen and the blood coming out was another color it was just fun well the way that they do it is the flow moving towards is one color flow moving oh gotcha yeah okay I I well one way or another but it looks like a textbook where it's like oh this is the oxygenated blood right the deoxygen because no blood is actually blue here's the other thing too is that uh there was so much free medical attention that we got in this study I remember the the the Doctor Who was operating the the you know sonogram thing um if I'm even using that too the pro please yeah it was an echocardiogram yeah okay but it's the same right the guy who was operating it and you're moving it around and looking at the image on the screen when he looked at my heart he said man what a squeeze and uh this was the first time I learned that I've got like an exceptionally like powerful heart and maybe take my my pulse right now like my normal like normal heart rate is a normal pulse is is like what 72 beats 60 to 100 I'm like 40 to 50. oh is that because you're in great shape right now like people like uh jump to the conclusion that I'm in great ship I'm not really in great shape maybe it's because you had this raccoon I mean who knows but I I have a low ass heart rate you're like Captain America you got the serum yeah I've got a low ass heart rate and uh and and um throughout that whole study the only time my heart rate went over 90 beats per minute was when that same doctor with the echocardiogram was telling me like stories about being in Vietnam and killing people it was some weird one I don't remember what it was but but it was some crazy like battle story and he was like telling me some wild stuff and that was when my heart pounded the fact that's why you had a good pump there going yeah and uh but but but the the uh you know when it sounded like was that um that was that uh the implication was that what a squeeze meant that I have a such a low heart rate in the 40s and and 50s because it just takes less my my heart is powerful enough to be able to do all of the circulation it needs to do without beating as many times yeah so the heart is a really complicated organ because a lot of what we think is good with regular skeletal muscle is not always good for a cardiac muscle I'll give you an example let's say you have high blood pressure throughout your circulatory system right your heart has to pump against that so it becomes essentially diesel right because it's constantly pumping against a higher pressure that's actually bad that your heart your left ventricle which is the lower portion of the left side of your heart that actually pumps blood to the rest of your body that can become bigger which is called hypertrophy of that area and then as a result it doesn't relax well and the cardiac muscle in comparison to most of the skeletal muscle in your body needs to contract and relax well both it needs to be balanced because when the cardiac muscle relaxes is when it fills so if it doesn't relax well it doesn't feel well therefore that when you pump you could actually have a non-successful pump even though it's super strong right because it didn't relax enough to fill up okay so isn't that weird like a heart yeah it's uh yeah yeah it's crazy you know um I'm I want when uh I once went to to the doctor for like a standard checkup to to be cleared for some reality TV show and uh the the the reality TV show in question was uh a mountain climbing show uh in uh in Peru where I found my dog from Peru um it was basically like mountain climbing with the Stars and it was gonna be like more uh you know physically demanding than your average so so in this case they had me like on a on a treadmill like you know they had me like doing all this stuff but it was a more I think comprehensive physical and the doctor called up and he said you have pre-diabetes pre-diabetes and I thought well that's kind of weird you know and he says you're not you're he said like I'm not like an obese guy but he said you are what we refer to as skinny fat you've got fat on your organs what is that yeah what does that mean okay there's a lot to unpack there okay the medical side of things I don't consider that great bedside matter first I have to be critical okay good um it wasn't I mean the guy told me this over the phone it also like he's jumping to a conclusion without probably knowing the full picture sound I did turn around and go to Dr Drew to to get more uh info like what like I went to Dr Drew's medical practice and you know at an echocardiogram and he was like nah dude you're [ __ ] fine this is [ __ ] so this is why I hate looking at lab tests and not really knowing the patient because I'll give you an example if you don't go fasting eight hours like you had to do for your surgery for the blood work your sugar might come up slightly high but that's normal because you're not fasting so you're not pre-diabetic you can't even make a diagnosis of pre-diabetes off of that one blood test right you need multiple uh you need to see that it happens like successive blood tests uh there's another blood test that we do called a hemoglobin A1c this gives me the average range of your sugars for the last three months so it's usually a better picture of what your sugar is like and based off that number we can say oh you're in the range of clear some people fall into the range of pre-diabetes fees and some patients are diabetic once you become into the diabetic range that's for life you even if you control it well with diet alone there was a a vegan documentary that said that type 2 diabetes can be reversible so it's controllable the fact that you've developed it puts you in the higher risk category because it's really just definition right okay so like we can argue the semantics of whether it's cured or treated like in reality like once you hit that threshold your risk lifelong goes up for a heart attack stroke those cardiovascular diseases so is it true that one in three Americans born after year 2000 will develop diabetes I don't know offhand but it doesn't sound unreasonable I I I I've read that statistic and I found it staggering yeah well the reason a lot of folks develop type 2 diabetes not everybody because some people have genetic issues other medical conditions that can lead to it um but it's from over consumption of calories and poor calories like right meaning not good quality ones and as a result if you overeat a few things happen your sugar gets out of control because your body becomes develops insulin resistance right where you have insulin but it doesn't work in your tissues well because there's always so much of it that it becomes ineffective um and then you have uh people who develop actually fatty liver disease where because of the high levels of triglycerides in their blood high levels of cholesterol their liver actually starts becoming inflamed as a result of the fat buildup inside the liver so maybe that's what the doctor was mentioning because he may have seen some liver enzyme elevation but the way that it was explained to you is kind of garbage and yeah I mean I I'll never forget the phone call and it was pretty brief and it was basically what I don't think I mischaracterized it no I honestly that's not out of what ordinary of what I hear from other people right so that's disappointing do you have bad experiences with doctors like uh you ever like screw this I don't know that I have doctor trauma right you know I well then again there was another like a pretty incredibly bad experience um before I got clean and sober and uh actually specifically in 2006. I was good buddies with Dr Drew then um I was uh with him on his radio show Loveline like quite frequently considered my friend and I was like just a goddamn mess I was uh very out of control with drugs and alcohol and my family was uh kind of leaning on me like you know we're concerned about your lifestyle and you know this and that and you know being an active alcoholic and a drug addict my reaction was I said hey guys I I'm gonna go get uh this checkup you know it's fully like it was it was called the UCLA Executive Health program and Dr Drew I'm a fan of those okay no go ahead Dr Drew referred me to it okay um it was described to me as such an overwhelmingly comprehensive physical that they're giving you information that's like just extraneous and as such as [ __ ] not even covered by it it's just not covered by any health insurance because it's considered like unnecessary they're giving you so much extra medical attention it's expensive in this now I heard about that from Dr Drew and I told my family hey I'm gonna go into this Executive Health [ __ ] physical and it's going to be the most comprehensive thing and and and if my results come back uh saying that I'm healthy like you guys can just get off my bed that's why those programs are bad because imagine it came up healthier than you started right so I uh I I said if I come up healthy you can just get right off my back and so I went into the thing it was like it was pretty pretty full day of uh scans scans testing and um I uh got a phone call about the results and the doctor said hey um I want you to come in so we can talk about your results which is like right off the bat like super scary because if you're okay they'll just tell you you're okay on the phone so I'm like oh man what's wrong and I'm just like uh please don't let it be my wiener please like I just didn't want to hear that we don't even have tests for wieners right I did I just didn't want to I was just scared that it was gonna be some weird sexual transmitted disease thing oh okay I got it and uh and I and I um and I go in there and I'm like I don't even think the doctor I've been in his office and like it's actually this is my weiner okay and he's like okay your wiener is fine it's your heart he says uh he diagnosed me with cardiomyopathy he said I had the heart of a 90 year old man and that I wouldn't live to be the age of 40 if I didn't do something or other and and this sounded to me like a crazy death sentence you know alcohol induced probably yeah it was uh and I remember uh I went like straight from there to to love line like with Dr Dre was on the radio I was like wow you know it was like the Steve was dying up his episode you know and like ah and um then ultimately I went to a heart specialist and it was like eh not so much like borderline like not not a big deal and and um so they overread the economy yeah I mean perhaps the like it was just evident like how heavy my drinking was and and uh this was the doctor's attempt to like sort of get through to me and sure so maybe I was like uh over diagnosed somehow like uh but but in any case that was a pretty bad experience yeah so you do you let's say the doctor did that he overread it because he wanted to protect you yeah would you do you like that or no well I mean the the like by definition an alcoholic you know like like what the disease of alcoholism means is that you're powerless so you've lost the power to choose you know like you got an alcoholic in front of the judge and the judge says you know if uh if I see you in here again like it's gonna be prison and then the the alcoholic walk starts like man [ __ ] I'm going to prison you can't you can't do anything about it you tell you tell the alcoholic that uh if they drink again they're gonna die like oh man [ __ ] [ __ ] you know thank God it doesn't do anything how would you have wanted them to deliver the news ah just barely just straight shot yeah I mean like you you've got uh you know uh a borderline case like you're teetering I mean I don't know I mean maybe that wouldn't change anything but I damn well didn't change anything anyway so well that's why I was saying earlier that I'm not a fan of those Executive Health programs because they're checking a lot of things that don't benefit from being checked because a lot of times we can't intervene or shouldn't right so you're saying don't ask a question to which there is no good answer or that you might get a bad answer to I like asking questions uh don't do tests and imaging that you don't have a plan with and I'll give you a simple example of this I had an 80 something year old patient who was bleeding rectally and we were suspecting a tumor in her colon and we said you know we should do a colonoscopy to see if it's that and her response is why would I do a colonoscopy if I'm saying that if there is a tumor I don't even want surgery and she's right why would we check for a tumor if she already knows she doesn't want the surgery I've got I've got a another example um my buddy Tony Hawk okay he uh found out that uh the this um CTE condition with the concussions um chronic traumatic encephalopathy right he found out that there is um like a a gene some uh genetic disposition for Alzheimer's which if you have it or if you don't have it I think if you have it you are considerably more at risk of CTE and and he explained to me that when he found out this information he immediately went to go find out if he had uh this um this Gene this Alzheimer's Gene which put him at risk for CTE and then where I'm coming from it's like hey Tony bro like we've already hit our heads you know like actionable yeah and as I said that so I said to him because I was thinking about it a lot like I've hit my head a lot like God do I want to know this I said I said hey Tony like that thankfully he said he did not have the gene but but uh I I was I asked him um well what were you gonna do and I asked him like considerably later it was just on my mind and then I like reached out reached back out to him like hey Tony like if you had that Alzheimer's Gene like what was your plan he's like oh I don't know right so that's a case of there's nothing actionable about it and uh what are you gonna do with the information if you if you have that Gene like I don't [ __ ] want to know if I have that Gene yeah that's why like a lot of these also send out home tests that check for certain genetic conditions I'm not a fan of because a lot of times they're not checking for all the variants of a certain genetic um situation and as a result people start making life planning decisions about it right so I'm like please see a genetic counselor like speak to an expert on this don't just take a test and say oh I'm either all good or all bad because you need some guidance as to how to read these results that's why doctors are around we're there to help right okay okay how about this I remember I believe I was in high school I believe I was in high school um 1991. you know like like the the I was I was sexually active and like everything I'd learned in school about HIV and AIDS was just top-tier Terror and because I had had unprotected sex like a couple times I went to the family doctor and I was like yo like doctor I want like please test me for uh HIV AIDS you know I'm so I'm so scared like I was just like freaking out about it and the doctor said nope we're not going to do that like uh it and he was kind of like his position he was coming from was that like I was like a young guy like yeah I'm not surprised that you hate this this I didn't but he was like just We're not gonna ask that question because you know like he did the doctor because because like uh I don't know that's weird it's super weird I've got no answer given as to why it was just like um you're not gonna like I mean maybe there was like uh you don't fall into a high risk category like you know based on uh gender sexual orientation maybe I was two years old then so I don't know what medical things existed then but now certainly we wouldn't do right I mean that's [ __ ] [ __ ] up as hell yeah to think that like uh oh I'm gonna you know but then again I've had a lot of buddies that said there's no way to you know as long as you don't get tested you definitely you're definitely clean comfortably I'll give the medical advice that that is wrong right for sure for sure and uh you know I'm just glad that uh but for all of my years you know navigating the Minefield that I came through unscathed does your health insurance company hate you because you meet the deductible probably like uh right because you probably cost them an arm and a leg each year I wonder um like especially filming jackass and wild boys yeah that that that's workman's comp so that's a different level when I'm on uh when I'm injured on a jackass movie I don't even have to produce a medical insurance card and and that's uh um workman's comp um but uh yeah I mean there's been um especially because in the the more recent years of of my career like all of my worst injuries have happened and now the the last six years really yeah is it age-related I I like I think perhaps age is a component but it's just more of a question of trying to raise the bar all the time you know like like you gotta jump higher you know like so like yes I'm getting older and like uh I I felt compelled to take greater risks you know so that's scary oh well so speaking of taking greater risks you're for your next Comedy Tour you're gonna do the gone too far yeah that's my plan yeah and you're gonna show people stunts that you think that they will say you've gone too far correct as a medical professional do you want to tell me some of them and I'll tell you if you've gone too far well yeah I mean there's uh there's there's I've been very candid about my plan for uh breast augmentation surgery okay what is that gonna entail it's just uh yeah I'm gonna get double d boobs okay and um and do what with them wow there's a a few night I don't need to give away all my ideas but the first thing that I intend to do is it like a a statement like a political statement or just as a prank wait then like as far as the statement goes I think there's a a healthy dose of my body my choice in there okay you know which I believe in um there's some just straight curiosity that uh as a heterosexual man who identifies as male um just just go and get it get a boob job all of a sudden me and I can't post pictures on Instagram with my shirt off like that's a question that needs to be answered okay so it's much unlike when you went to your lawyer and asked for jail time it's Verna yeah you're gonna go to prove a point here right and um you know there's just like a lot I think a lot of uh opportunities to um to mine it for compelling content and and and jokes um the motivation for it is uh you know I pictured that whole show the gone too far show ultimately thematically to be an exploration of my experience confronting middle age um you know the the deterioration of my my body and and um in particular with the boobs I I'm I was horrified to see in the mirror that I have officially developing man titties and uh have already distinct underboob I've got dimples underneath my man boobs and uh lashing out at the god that allowed that to happen I'm I'm gonna make big old titties well I'll tell you why you'll have back pain I'll predict that right okay um so your low back's not gonna be happy with that you're going to want to stretch the more important stretch yeah um but I'm not planning on keeping these boobs for more than three months so it's going to be kind of uh like surgically that's going to be tough uh yeah I'm under I I've been I've been told that after three months there's more stretching uh and it's gonna be more difficult to to restore me to to normal interesting I wouldn't even know how to comment on that how did you find a doctor though I I had as a guest on my podcast of botched Fame ah Dr Terry Dubrow got it and uh he said that he would not put in the implants but they'd be happy to take them out and do whatever uh little little bits that need to be done to restore me to to normal and uh perhaps the you know where I end up will resolve the man titty problem you know who knows My worry is as a doctor is going to be that you can develop other problems surgically but I hope that's not the case right I'm not wishing that upon you but they're yeah for sure um now there's of course different types of breast implants that got under the muscle is a more involved situation where you can have uh well what's that uh Condition it's capsular contracture uh that's you looked into it like yeah the risks yeah um but but if you're not under the muscle then the capsular contracture is less of a concern right and like uh so just the the like over the over the top like kind of is more of a super superficial job I'm gonna Venture a guess that you're gonna get them put in outside of the US oh I don't know oh that that sounds like a great time I just don't know if they would do it in the U.S I don't know Dr Terry Dubrow said that they'll be lining up around them really okay you know that that uh yeah this this is gonna be not a problem to find someone to put them in um now like of the like to what kind of the over-the-top thing um that that approach to it it feels somewhat less invasive a little bit more of a superficial procedure and allows more easily for uh um like if if I've got like a colored liquid and it's just saline in that situation or is it silicone it depends I don't know I'm not a plastic surgeon because we could we could uh could perhaps you know if it's like saline or something it could be like a dyed a certain color and you know like I'm just this crazy vision of a like a metal Capri Sun strawberry well no I don't think they were easily that penetratable that would be a problem okay yes I I hope that's not we were also talking about just like uh like an endurance thing like what what can what will it take to to break it you know like that that's it I've seen videos of that do you think yeah like that Dr Terry Dubrow said that they uh had a silicone implant you know and like drove a car over it and everything wow okay so yeah they are terrible yeah um do you think that you'll get uh pushed back by folks uh maybe of the trans Community I'm making light of the situation or no I don't I don't that was my fiance's concern about that and um what I told her I said I just don't like I'm not coming into this with any uh any like mean Spirit the the spirit of what I'm doing it for is not hateful or negative at all and and I likened it to the like the homoerotic humor that's been such a part of Jackass and and my other show wild boys we were never um trying to put down or mock the homosexual Community if anything we were like proactively seeking to make people uncomfortable who are like the kind of jock dude like oh no no you know like that would be our Target and in this case like I'm not out to to mock or or uh Target anybody of the trans Community if anything it would be much the same like I I love the idea of somebody who's particularly transphobic being made uncomfortable by me doing this yeah so that I mean that that's all I know I can only speak for your intent for my intent for the you know I'm I I think there's a larger message of my body my choice which is something that uh that I I loved to but but yeah it's just I'm not doing it to make anybody feel bad sure no that's never what I like that's one thing I never want to do is make people feel bad yeah I think that shines through and you know when it shines through the most I um I was at Harvard yesterday uh on a panel speaking on health policy and there was infectious disease doctor and I mentioned that you're coming on my podcast today and he goes oh my God I was just showing jackass to my 8 and 11 year old like I don't know it's for them but like he was ecstatic and you know you would think doctors very high brow right would be maybe saying oh I'm not going to show that to my children yet but look I mean I um have maintained for the longest time that I'm proud I'm very proud of jackass for how wholesome it is and I know it's counter-intuitive to to describe jackass as wholesome but I feel strongly that it is because there's just nothing mean spirited about it you know you see a bunch of guys giving themselves and each other you know a terrible hard time you know you could liken it to torture just you know self-destructive uh you know self-harm but we're such attention [ __ ] we're begging for the attention we're such willing participants we're so happy to be doing it that that makes it permissible how destructive some of our behavior is and Beyond what we're doing to ourselves and each other there's just nothing mean-spirited about it like we're just doing it to make people laugh and and uh spread Joy yeah I think you hit it right on the nose there it never felt that there was a bullying aspect to jackass on this this most recent movie like that about that the cup test went a little bit apart like that like that might have edged into the the fully aspect yeah that was uh and maybe it's just because I was there for all of it but um but yeah it doesn't it doesn't it's the the spirit of Jackass is just super positive and um and I'm proud of that you know that's awesome that you guys have that camaraderie are you still close with everybody Kenya yeah that's that's the big difference there's a lot of like YouTube channels right now that are struggling because there's groups of people who do well on YouTube they blow up together and then someone in the group says like I've been really bullied in this group for the views and not at my expense versus you guys never had that like it seems like you guys are all very together right you really feel like a family it comes through yeah if you say that I can think of a distinct example of that and that yeah we're not we're all pretty willing participants our buddy danger Aaron who was the subject of the cup test that's definitely been uh you know I would even characterize as bullied but I'm proud to say that I've really never bullied them okay yeah I want to talk a little bit about your comedy your stand-up comedy because you said you've gotten Flack for uh being a comedian and a superstar but you put in the hours I I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily go as far as say Superstar but uh but yeah whenever somebody comes um from one area of the world of entertainment and to stand up they get you know some side eye action you know yeah a little gatekeeping and um it's not uh it's not been like a a particularly pervasive thing but uh but certainly there have been examples of people who are uh even outspokenly opposed to the idea of welcoming Stevo into the world of stand-up comedy and uh you know I'm not gonna say that that didn't bother me but I'm very happy to say that that did not stop me did it encourage you um I would say to an extent it encouraged me for sure um but like I I'm just a guy who's all in no matter what I do I do not know moderation and um you know like I don't know how to not just give something everything and um I think that as it related to my experience doing stand-up comedy like uh this is kind of the results speak for themselves because if you're if you don't belong there if you don't belong in the comedy club if you're not taking it seriously if you're not um you know delivering uh a show that that people are are enjoying then you're not going to come back you know it's kind of it's gonna be short-lived and um in the Comedy Club Circuit I for 11 straight years kept making the the loop and coming back and and that uh indicates that that I did belong you know and so the proof is there and and and I've since graduated from The Comedy Club Circuit to performing in theaters and traveling on a tour bus and dude I love it yeah that's awesome you become is it fair to say that you're become a crossover comedian or do you not like that term I I don't mind I I don't mind one bit if uh someone wants to call me a crossover comedian um I I would just say that I'm an Entertainer you know I'm an attention [ __ ] uh through and through and um I spent 11 years in comedy clubs developing the craft of Storytelling and joke telling and um over the course of that time I I found that my my world's converged and and um now what I'm doing with my comedy is uh is a multimedia Affair so so you've got like me telling stories and then at the end of the story I pay it off by actually showing a video of that story happening so you've hybridized your Your Entertainment it's it's good I've really stumbled upon something like truly unique and original and uh you know the stunts that that I did for my current tour which is called The Bucket List tour across the board like just I mean you'd be fascinated by uh the fact that um two of the the bits in in my bucket list tour two items on the list which each have their own respective videos one of them involved a medical professional in Disguise administering stolen general anesthesia drugs while I was riding a bicycle and uh the drug um was was called etomidate okay because when we were doing our research and speaking with the anesthesiologists they described um an epidemic among just about everybody who has access to propofol rampantly abusing it like Michael Jackson did they said but there's another general anesthesia drug called etomidate which they affectionately refer to as vomitate because it makes you so nauseous you might barf it would be like a overall physically uncomfortable and they said dude it's like a deterrent basically they said nobody would ever use etomidate for fun okay and I was like green light go so you're keeping always that in the back of your head like I got it yeah for sure I gotta protect my sobriety the bid started out as um of a foot race which would start on your mark get set and they shoot tranquilizer darts into our butt cheeks at which point we Sprint for distance but finding out that that involved ketamine was was a you know that shut that down right away and then another one I did for the bucket list it's so great that you get to see these videos like actually and of course on the tour um because I was so concerned and after the automate one I I was like man they said nobody would use it for fun but I thought it felt great and I was like really like questioning my sobriety after doing that stun um and I felt that that was just a a catastrophic failure and and um a guy who introduced himself to me as a doctor said I've got a way you can finish your anesthesia bit without worrying about your recovery I can he says I can put a four inch needle into your spine inject a drug into your spinal cavity that will straight paralyze you from the waist down and we can make that happen while you're in a full Sprint that sounds dangerous oh dude completely like the medication the medical well no I mean he took out the four inch needle and then then I went sprinting got it yeah scary I had like you know 10 seconds like uh to run my ass off before I collapsed like a baby giraffe being born and um [ __ ] [ __ ] was so awesome that [ __ ] was so awesome uh so that's that that's another one of the best so this is sort of like you know coming up with the most just outrageously over the top ideas for for stunts filming them making an act out of it that incorporates stand up and you know uh the footage like that's something that nobody else is doing and you know anybody doesn't like me doing that they can suck a fart out of my [ __ ] no dude like I relate very strongly to you in this sense because uh something you probably don't know is I've become a professional boxer over this last year wow and um a lot of people say oh you're a crossover YouTube Star now becoming a boxer like all these other people and you know it takes a lot of guts to get in the ring to be sparring with other Fighters my next fight actually in four weeks is against a UFC MMA fighter who's uh Chris Avila he's have Nate Diaz's Camp okay and um that's going to be a serious fight for me but a lot of people will like show it's on Showtime pay-per-view and Showtime posted our poster and all the comments are brutal I I I I so I mean I I uh can't even speak to that because I'm still jammed up over the fact that a doctor is pursuing boxing that's like the most counter-intuitive that that file that under oxymoron I think I've lived my whole life though so I was at oxymoron right I mean uh just to uh do you think it's dangerous is that why I mean I I I'm not debating it for this yeah my concern is the the repeated I mean I think that we've learned like factually that boxing is way more [ __ ] dangerous than MMA and uh the um the reason why the way I believe I mean we've just seen it like like nobody dies in MMA it just doesn't happen people die in boxing all the time and it's like it's brain trauma and I think that uh I I uh have an analogy which I think is accurate which is that in today's world CTE is a big thing with helmets or with the football they're wearing helmets crashing their heads all the time and I suspect that back in the day of the leather football helmet that CTE was not an issue because all they had was a piece of [ __ ] leather on their head and as such they didn't like uh bang their heads together so much yeah but now because the helmet the the modern American football helmet is uh it it it's like it allows you to feel like you're hitting your head with impunity so it's just all crash crash crash with the head and that's what the problem is and then now we take uh take that Dynamic to boxing and um the uh the the boxing glove the 10 ounce boxing glove every bit like the football helmet it allows you to throw your fists with impunity and the weight of it and the the impunity for your hand it's like you know you almost feel like you can get hit with that with impunity but but you can it's too heavy and it's uh whereas with the the four ounce glove you know it's uh or or heaven forbid bare knuckle you know you're gonna be a lot more conservative with your bare Knuckles than um and even with the four ounce glove much like with the leather helmet in football it's true repeated trauma in boxing like the repetitiveness of getting sure that is the issue that's why I don't plan to do this for a long time like maybe I got another year left in me so I'm not doing this for a lifelong thing it's my final hoorah in my early 30s to say I try to be a pro athlete super cool and and I like uh you know I've been knocked out completely unconscious like um a handful of times in my life but what what scares me more than anything was uh you know early in my career when I started touring I had this live stage show every time I came out on stage with like a 12-packer or a 24 pack of Budweisers and my entrance onto the stage was always hitting the my head with the beer can until it exploded and then I would take two and hit them both and explode them and then dare to embarrassingly after I got sober and in comedy clubs I'd come out and do it with carbonated water like banging my head and uh you know they were it got to a point where um you know like I felt dizzy getting out of bed you know like uh not good and and just like so much repeat it's it's precisely what you said that repeated yeah not not the biggest hit but the repeat that it was so repetitive that like uh Stupid Act of breaking cans on my head is what I point to is by far my biggest concern for my own brain and and CTE situation a bit you know that you know I heard someone say in similar vein of what you're saying that the best safety feature to put on a car would probably be to put a spike on the steering wheel oh so then you're like oh I gotta drive care I like that yeah I've never heard that I like that right instead of an airbag you put not a safety feature like that you put a threatening feature on it yeah because then you're you're going to be really careful when you drive yeah you ever have guests uh say that they feel like they've been in a conversation with Bradley Cooper no no not this wow the strong resemblance to Bradley Cooper wow okay I've never got a very handsome guy I appreciate that yeah thank you I like that Spike on the steering wheel that's killer yeah that's not mine I can't take credit yeah yeah um who um if you were gonna do sexiest jackass alive Knoxville is always going to be that yeah yeah we wouldn't have uh gotten where we were without like him being the the face of it got it okay yeah it'd be tough to to go second after that you know lots of competition you guys would fight for it yeah I think um yeah I don't know I mean they could get really get into a real fruit basket of apples and oranges and you know like it's gonna be uh so largely subjective and and uh you know up to someone's taste before I get to my little quick lightning round of questions I gotta ask you've accomplished so much you've inspired so many people even uh from your Joe Rogan first episode the amount of people I reached out to you thanking you for how honest you've been with your journey are you proud of all this like this is amazing well for sure um for starters thank you for for the kind words um that I remember my first uh joke my first real Joe Rogan um episode where was heavily focused on on uh recovery and and there was and I mean then the The Staggering number of people who that reached is uh I mean it's intense you know the the audience there and I did get a great amount of feedback from that um for that uh for that and anything related to recovery I think you got to be careful about um using the word proud you know it says in our in our recovery literature that um there's a reason why Pride leads the procession of the seven deadly sins um you know and that uh you want to be careful about being proud of things and and to try to focus more on being grateful for things you know we're not like it doesn't serve us to be proud of our recovery it's much more um helpful to be grateful for it and so if I've been able to inspire people or help people that's something that I'm that I'm grateful for but um you know you guys even be careful about it can you get a little bit of ego you know your ego being involved in like yeah I hope you know and I help people like yeah but you deserve it like if it wasn't deserved I would say yeah I agree yeah the thing about about recovery um is that that we keep what we have by giving it away you know like uh if if we're if we try to help other people uh you know achieve long-term sobriety then that's the the number one thing we can do to to preserve and protect our own sobriety yeah and I wasn't just talking sobriety absolutely from your career-wise I've been super super like to it confounds me at like um the uh you know a career in entertainment is inherently precarious from the onset you know let alone when you're uh your art is is what the [ __ ] I do you know um and then to have longevity and entertainment is very elusive so uh you know to be you know more than two decades into a career the way that I am yeah I mean I yeah it would be an absolute lie to say I'm not proud of that but I'm just overwhelmingly grateful yeah you've done amazing work and I look at all the stuff that you've done and it actually drives me to say look I gotta work hard I got to continue working and learning from individuals without you so much when you described the the boxing you said you spoke of yourself as a YouTuber and uh I found that a little bit odd considering that you're uh you know a practicing physician it's weird we have a medical practice and you know well that's whatever that's the bucket I fall into in the entertainment space like yes I'm Dr Mike but when I'm in the boxing ring it's he's a YouTuber okay yeah so that just ha I think it's because I don't know if you're familiar with like the Jake Paul and Logan Paul of course they've paved their way into that YouTube boxing space and sure that's why I'm sort of put into that bucket it's uh yeah I mean it really um has put a spotlight on the financial compensation of Combat Sports we'll say that yep and uh it's um very interesting how uh it's all playing out and I just love Combat Sports man particularly uh MMA awesome I love it Well yeah if you want to come to the fight it's actually I'm fighting on Jake Paul's event love is under cards so on the Anderson it's October 29th correct yeah yeah um I'll be in Canada but I appreciate the invite yeah that would have been epic all right so let me give you the lightning Round Here okay that makes me very interested in watching that really okay awesome well I hope I don't let you down I trained this morning really hard I'm running tonight as well so cool the training doesn't stop okay lightning ground first question what's a weird thing your body does that not everybody else's body does ah double joining oh okay and how's this one not going oh I think that counts as double jointed too okay you know it's funny my first guest was Cal pet on this podcast from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle okay and he's at the same exact thing so that's interesting that my first two guests said the same um I'm your second guest yeah wow how about that yeah cool um actually the podcast launched today epic today yeah it was awesome it's doing really well so this will continue the streak nice um what's one stunt you would do if we could guarantee you wouldn't suffer any medical consequences so you'll feel the pain but I as a doctor have the oh um God there's a lot I mean was the first stop Niagara Falls in a barrel I mean I don't know I I was obsessed with that idea for some time and uh my jackass comrade Chris Pontius got me off of it and saying one thing he said dude it's been done it's been done I was like oh yeah you're right um but yeah there's uh like I've got a lot of a fair amount of anxiety and and uh just pure will to um to do something that that I call the the crash capsule where uh it's just effectively um what kind of a survival pod that I'm in if not a uh like just a roll cage with a five-point harness that you know a like a seat lives in and it just goes like rolling down the mega ramp and off the lunch and you know over a waterfall like uh hit by a car you know like a Simpsons yeah yeah and um you know when it comes to like high impact throwing your body around you know like falling Great Heights and you know that's [ __ ] scary man yeah so yeah that I would I would go to town on the crash capsule all right I'm gonna make it happen with my Miracle invention at some point uh what's one silly thing you wish you could change about your body I guess that you're going to get implants right that's um that's a silly thing and it's Gonna Change okay we answered that one um what's one food you don't like you wish you did and one food uh you do that you wish you did it um a food I don't like I don't know that I wish I did like it but I just can't do raw onions they brought raw onions bum me out okay probably also not great for the barretts okay there you go so I'm glad I don't like them is there any food you like that you wish you didn't I mean guilty pleasure I I like does anybody like uh not wish they didn't like candy which candy what's your goat it's sugar like I have like terrible trouble with sugar oh my God you know I I I'm in and out of a food program I've actually uh since June 4th I've been uh good about no obnoxious and sugar okay okay so sugar uh which stun do you think brought you closest to death not pain um I think uh I was in in legitimate danger of uh the bends on uh on a scuba diving thing um just kind of ignorant and uh our underwater cameraman like grabbed my fin and by the time uh when we got up to the top he was super exasperated he was just just very angry said she said you [ __ ] almost died and I almost died trying to save you wow like I had just been you know kind of blissfully ignorantly just and I was like dude they told me the Sharks were on the bottom yeah the Benz is serious if it happens yeah so um yeah I I understand that that was uh like genuinely yeah I I think it's it's a anti-climactic answer but uh no it's true your blood literally begins to Bubble so like that's a problem um last but not least what's your favorite stunt you've never been allowed to do my favorite stunt that I've never been allowed so I like my My ultimate like wish list uh do you have to clear with the insurance company of like the shoot oh I mean no I I uh I've been pretty reckless in that um and and whenever whenever uh like MTV would would say no like we won't give you permission to do that I would typically just turn around and do it on my own okay and uh you know like in the early days of my career I had a um uh like a too hot for TV DVD series okay I just found a home for all the footage that they wouldn't show and went out of my way to shoot footage that they wouldn't show and I put it out on my own and then now with uh with my like my bucket list tour and then again with the gone too far like oh I can't do it for Jackass okay cool just do it yourself yeah well it's it's almost like they add one Streetball like do you remember that one that came about no but there's there's uh I just watched it yeah it's good yeah it's really good well worth watching okay good then uh I'll I will add that to my queue for sure cool all right thank you so much I appreciate you and uh continued success on gone too far yeah on all your Ventures and uh everybody grab my book available everywhere books are sold and podcasts we need all the subscribers wow Stevo was an absolute blast of a guest I had a great time talking to him but now I get to answer your medical questions remember that if you do leave a five star review which is incredibly important to help this podcast you can in the body of your review ask me a medical question and I'm going to try and get to some of them right now so let's start with the first one here CC Gomez asked I've been boxing for the last two years and noticed my wrist stability seems to be getting weaker any explanation as to why and what preventive measures that can take to avoid injury is this a common phenomena for a repetitive movement Sports CeCe Gomez when you have a ballistic activity like boxing going on where you're making contact in unpredictable ways because when you're punching a human body where there's elbows there's ribs you're never going to get a clean punch you're always going to land at somewhat different angle and when that happens you have a higher rate of injury especially of the wrist which tends to be one of the weaker joints now exercises for this really focus on wrist strengthening arm strengthening like elbow work but in reality if you're noticing continued weakness a few things need to happen one you probably need to take a break from boxing to figure out what's going on or to see if it just improves on its own and then B go see a doctor have them perform a few special tests see where the problem is coming from the last thing I want you to continue doing is boxing if you have something like a fracture going on or a torn ligament next we have Samantha blocker I used to work in the OR and love everything about the human body in medicine I'm currently a home mom raising my two babies really cute I wanted to stay up to date on the latest where would you suggest I find quality and accurate articles or resources of the latest research being done or new procedures happening or newest medical guidance okay there's a lot of questions there Samantha and all really good questions actually I really like using the general organizations like the who CDC for the majority of my Guidance the National Institute of Health but there is a great uh organization I'm actually going to look it up right now um okay it's called familydoctor.org there's a lot of information about diseases and conditions prevention and wellness family health and resources for you there's even a symptom checker which I'm not a huge fan of but it's a great website so visit familydoctor.org again run by the American Academy of family physicians flower one two girl three four why are some kids prone to chronic ear infections I had this issue as a kid and had to get tubes put in my ear my husband Joe and I love you shout out to you flower girl one two girl sorry flower one two girl three four and Joe appreciate your support chronic ear infections happen because of the shape of ear canals um the size of ear canals um immune system health and also immunizations children who are not fully immunized have higher rates of infections because they're more susceptible to certain types of bacteria so it's hard to answer why specifically your kids seem to be more prone but this is a great question to bring up at your pediatric visit or family medicine doctor visit because doctors love asking answering questions when they know exactly what's going on they can individualize the advice directly to you Mia Ashley asks what are the benefits of cupping therapy now I've actually had cupping therapy done to me um I don't think it's a miracle cure I think a lot of things that it's being used for right now is not evidence-based people say pulse toxins out all these sort of miraculous things that don't really mean anything where I like it for is to bring circulation to an injured area perhaps loosen up some myofascial restrictions because remember your body has one large fascia that connects your entire body this is that layer that thin layer that sits below your skin and really prevents your body from falling apart and your organs from falling out so as a result restrictions there can cause pain and discomfort I have seen cupping therapy work sometimes for that but again ignore the miracle cures um Dr Von is it healthy for a teen 14 to 18 I'm assuming that's the age to have abs is it healthy I wouldn't say it's unhealthy I don't think it's mandatory I think as long as you're at a healthy weight you're eating healthy you're sleeping well that's more important than actually looking at whether or not someone has abs if you enjoy working out keeping a low body fat I think it's great I don't think it's problematic um Tristan Batts how would you advise a patient with low vitamin D levels well it would depend on a few factors is my patient having symptoms how low is their vitamin D level what led me to check it um and are they already supplementing with vitamin D because if a patient has a true vitamin D deficiency where their vitamin D levels like 10 absolutely I would recommend supplementing but there are certain foods like fatty fish eggs some dairy products that do contain vitamin D and I would probably strive to increase those as well Nikki V does organic food matter when cooking non-GMO non-GMO I'm not a huge fan of I don't think that really means anything because GMOs have not been proven to be harmful to your health by any means um attractive and proven to be quite safe and does organic food matter um I think in certain fruits and vegetables where they you know that they use really harmful pesticides it might be helpful but it's not the end of the world if things aren't organic like I don't only buy organic produce I I'll get it if it's available but it's not always the best all right well that brings us to the end of today's questions please leave us a five star review uh on Apple podcast can do it on Spotify but you can give us just five stars I appreciate you and as always again stay happy and healthy

Channel: The Checkup Podcast with Doctor Mike

Views: 333,973

Keywords: doctor mike, dr mike, dr. mike, drmike, mikhail varshavski, doctor mike varshavski, dr mike varshavski, dr varshavski, dr. varshavski, mike varshavski, steve o, steve-o, jackass, knoxville, johnny knoxville, jackass the movie, mtv, jackass 2, jackass 3d, jackass forever, jackass 4ever, bam margera, wee man, skate, skating, skateboarding, stunt, prank, fail, skate tape, interview, pod, podcast

Id: G7Mb03MJvDA

Length: 117min 9sec (7029 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2022