Hearing Loss - Still untitled - The adam savage project - 3/11/2014

Norm: Have you watch more True Detective? Adam: No welcome to start title Will: Welcome to Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project, I'm Will. Adam: I'm Adam Norm: And I'm Norm. Will: I'm clipping Today we're in your shop and it's a rainy San Francisco , is it Monday? Adam: It is Monday and it has been raining a lot, which is absolutely fantastic because it's very very needed. Our reservoirs are at 17 or 18 percent capacity Will: I'm looking forward to being able to flush the toilet and maybe water the lawn the summer. Adam: Yeah, it's very exciting, I'd like to take a bath someday. Adam: I do shower, but I prefer baths. I haven't been taking them... Norm: Is that a generational thing? Because no one I know takes baths. Will: Oh, I love a bath. Norm: It could be a generational thing then. Adam: It could be, or maybe you just don't know yet how good baths actually are. Will: You put the Kindle is a ziplock bag Adam: Have you actually done that? Norm: WHAAAAT?!? Will: It's the BEST waterproof case for the hope the best waterproof case for the Kindle. Adam: Norm: Vacuum seal your Kindle! Adam: That is hilarious! You could sous vide that, why not! Adam: So it is a rainy day. Adam: Well, I've been recovering. Will: You went under the knife and there are different levels of under the knife. There's like wisdom teeth out, there's open-heart surgery-- Those are on two different ends of the scale. Adam: Yeah, those are two different extremes. Adam: I was somewhere soldily toward towards the less-invasive portion but I have a... it's known that I have hearing loss I wear hearing aids this is one I just a I just got a brand new pair of these beautiful little ones here Will: and hearing aid, just to be clear hearing aid technology Will: My father has a hearing problem and it is it has been fascinating watching that change over the last twelve to fifteen years Adam: I've had hearing aids for seven years now, eight years and this is my third set hmm and the improvement from each set to its successor what was easily a hundred percent Will: because the thing that I didn't realize until until dad started down that path was that at least in the old days especially they were completely indiscriminate, they amplify everything Will: So when we would go to a restaurant Adam: yes Will: Or something like that even with an expensive in ear hearing aid Adam: It is very difficult for them to prioritize. Will: So it's impossible it was impossible for him to have a conversation Adam: Your brain handles a lot of that on the fly actually reveals to you how impressive a an interpretation machine your brain is about sound Norm: So basically it just has microphone picking up sound and the old ones just amplify that plugin as ear buds. Adam: Pretty much yeah. Adam: So these actually are more advanced, they actually can go through different modes where they can focus only on somebody you're facing. They work together, so the two hearing aids communicate with each other Adam: Now the reason I wear hearing aids and everyone wonders this is not because the explosions or heavy tool use. Will: We get a lot a question about this. Adam: I'm here to answer them. My hearing loss is from a congenital condition in which my Eustachian tubes don't work. My Eustachian tubes, the Eustachian tubes are the extra pressure regulator you have inside your sinuses that-- if you're on an elevator in your ears are popping in you blow you're actually moving air to your Eustachian tubes in order to equalize the pressure in your head. Will: So that mean you can't scuba dive and stuff like that? Adam: No actually do way in which Eustacian tubes don't work is on the other end. I'm amazing at scuba diving cuz I can regulate the pressure in my head without pinching my nose and blowing. I can do it internally Adam: Now that's not necessarily a bad thing unless a you're like me and as a kid I liked I preferred a slightly negative pressure in my head. That means that I was always stretching my eardrums and by the time I finally got them looked at about eight or nine years ago Adam: They actually... this is kinda gross... but they had actually filled my inner ear cavity so picture your eardrum as a balloon membrane--that's a really good analogy--now picture blowing on that membrane and it fills the cavity it's out in front of. Will: So you stretched it out? Adam: I stretched it out. I distended it. It also got... if you get an ear infection in your ear you have to use eardrops because your eardrum is avascular. That means antibiotics that you take orally don't actually get to your eardrums because there's no blood vessels, no capillaries to carry the antibiotics out. Adam: So when you have distended folded eardrums like I had they get infections and you get bacteria in the folds and there's no way you can get to them now this can be a problem because it can lead to Adam: Obviously you can have hearing loss, but if you get an infection that gets all the way inside your brain you could have meningitis. You can have partial facial paralysis, because it turns that all the nerves for your face, your tongue your expressions run through this trunk that are your ears. Norm: This is why you shouldn't stick Q-tips in there. Adam: Yes Norm: Even though that's what we all do. Adam: In addition to the chronic infections I also had lost my ossicular chain--the hammer, anvil, stirrup bones that help transmit the sound from the air drum to your aural nervous system. Interestingly enough I believe Penn Gilette suffers from the exact same condition. He also had the same operation I did, so Adam: A few years ago I had the first set of operations on this ear, which was a rebuilding of the eardrum, or a tympanoplasty Will: OOooh, do you have the air demo 22-year-old now? Will: So supple and full. Adam: And then they put in a prosthesis up the ossicular chain a little titanium hammer anvil stirrup. Now that didn't last They also cleaned up inside my left ear and that was really awesome that they did that. But we had to wait a while just to make sure that the operation took that the infection was totally gone. So when my ear doctor who incidently, if you're an avid watcher of Mythbusters you would know his name is Dr. Larry Lustig and he helped us out during the earwax candle episode. Adam: It was him that saved earwax for six months to see if we can make candle That's still the most disgusting episode we've ever filmed. Will: Who molded the candle? Adam: Kari, Grant, and Tori did it. I think at there were at least two people throwing up if not more during the... Will: I'm not squeamish about stuff, but that sounds terrible. Adam: The smell was overpowering. Will: So, I bet you didn't think we were going to talk about THIS today. Adam: Dr. Lustig is a is a genius and he took a look at my ear late last year it said looks great we're gonna start working on this ear but here's the thing when you when you have the separation it's not necessarily to improve your hearing it is merely to stop a bad situation from getting worse. Will: Right. Adam: Now they always making advances in improving hearing but again that's not the primary goal. So when I had the operation on this ear went from being my good ear to my bad ear. Will: hmmmm Adam: That meant that my right ear was my good ear. Now it's time to work on this ear but I've been delaying that operation because I don't want my my good ear to now become worse than mine bad ear. Honestly, when I don't have my hearing aids in I start to get panicked because I can't hear anything and it's its the world gets very small. Will: Is it the same feeling... I don't know how bad your vision is, but I get the same feeling when I don't have my glasses but I worry that I might break my glasses out of a spare pair glasses or contacts. Adam: Add to that a whole other sense. So when I wake up in the middle of the night when one of my kids comes to the room I like . I've gotta put stuff on my face and strap it to my head. and wait for it to boot. It's a whole thing and it's awful Norm: When you're first learning that you had the hearing loss, what was the thing that prompted you to go get checked. Adam: I knew that I had suffered ear infections for a while, and I knew that things weren't awesome in there and I wanted to get it checked out because early on a Mythbusters they wanted me to go get scuba certified and I wanted to get my ears checked out before I subjected them to underwater stuff because I knew they were very sensitive to water. Adam: That when I uncovered this whole thing anyway this long story comes to a close in that Dr. Lustig said "Well it's my policy not to operate on the good ear so let's operate on your bad ear because it looks like it took the operation well I can do a second tympanoplasty, and I can go right through the ear" Because the first time they did the operation by the way they actually put a slice behind and pulled the ear off you head and worked inside. Norm: I didn't want to know that! Will: That's like when they do nasal surgery right? They cut you up under your gums then pull your face back. Norm: NOPE NOPE NOPE Adam: So this time they went in through the ear They rebuilt the a ossicular chain, gave me a new eardrum, put some cartilage in there from little *** thing on the in my ear there. That little bit. Will: So you had to shave cartilage? Adam: Yeah. So that was Friday, I was home within you know, I went to the hospital 11 and back home by 4. Will: General anesthesia? Adam: General, which is really rough. Really rough. I don't drink I don't smoke. I don't like pain killers. and having propyphol and vicadin and all that stuff coursing through the system it was really rough. I had a very rough weekend. Will: When I may appendix out last year my wife is in the recovery room when I when I was waking up and she said she found out all sorts of super fascinating things about me under the the lingering influence. And I of course, I literally I have no memory of any conversation until I work up in the hotel room. I mean that in the hospital room that hour after she and I were talking Adam: Yeah. Norm: My kidneys are gone! Will: Most expensive hotel room ever. Adam: So I am now in the phase of the post-operative pain was very minimal I only took one Vicadin late on the first night I came home. Adam: Thank goodness because I can't stand that stuff. It's no good. Norm: It should only be used recreationally. Will: No! No! You should never... Adam: It... it... It plugs me up and leaves me groggy and I don't want any of that Adam: I was cranky all weekend. My family will attest I was a bit of a jerk this weekend and I kept on saying "I'm sorry I'm a jerk" and then just going to be a jerk by myself. Will: There's a whole host of things there that affect that affect your your your general good-nature. Adam: Absolutely absolutely. So I'm gonna see Dr. Lustig tomorrow. He's going to pull the wadding out and apparently this should radically improve the hearing in my left ear and make it my good ear and then we can go right back into working on the left ear. Will: So you'll immediately it's not something you have to wait three months and keep coming back for checks you should notice a difference immediately. Adam: I should notice a difference immediately. Norm: I like his policy of not operating on your good ear. Adam: I really do too. I was afraid to tell him why I had been delaying the operation and you know Adam: Having your head operated on is really it's a scary prospect and general just its all Adam: I've been under general anesthesia three times and each time it has kicked my *** in a completely different way. Will: It's just a very unsettling experience. If you've had dental anesthesia or something like that which is completely different thing They'll still make you go to sleep Adam: Yeah, my dentist is a genius with that stuff. Will: Yeah, but it's a different kind of sleepy. Will: Yeah the wake up Will: The turn off the light is super unsettling to me. I just I really don't like it I totally get not not being into general anesthesia. Adam: I have a great story about this. James Randi told me this story James Randi had cancer a couple years ago and he had to go through a certain type of chemo in which they put you under general for a very short period of time. It's apparently, I don't know exactly the details of it but it allows them to guide the poison right to where they want. Adam: So the nurse and you know, Randi is Randi's got that beautiful sonorous voice, but he's a little old man, right. He's in the on the gurney and the nurse says what do you do He says" I'm a magician." He's been a famous magician for seven decades, six decades. "I'm a magician" "You're a magician" she says. "I've got a magic trick for you." Will: Oh no! Adam: This is great. Adam: They were in the... where were they? They were in the pre-operative in the room where they're just taking his vitals right so he's lying on the table, just taking his vitals.So she says "Here's what I want you to do" and she put the IV in and she's been taking his vitals. She says I want you to close your eyes and count backwards from ten. so he closed his eyes 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3,2, 1 and he opened his eyes and he totally jumps because he's in the recovery room. Norm: That's the best magic trick ever. Adam: He said "What happened! What did you do! What alchemy woman?!" Norm: You stole my time! Will: But that's it. and you're all of a sudden like "My stomach hurts" Adam: She said yeah she said that she had learned through long experience, she watches eyes flutter and logs the number that they started fluttering at to remember that number and then as they were bringing him back out in anesthesia she saw the eyes flutter again and started counting from there, so for him there was no break. He said "Full stop that's one of the greatest magic trick that's ever been performed on him." Will: Anesthesiologists have a wicked sense of humor usually. We have a friend whose an anesthesiologist and she's she's, they go to dark places Adam: Well, you have to. Look, there is no way to soft pedal it. Anesthesia is the practice of bringing people to the edge of death and holding them their carefully while you do terrible things to them. Will: Yeah.That's about it. Adam: You know the mechanics about what doctors do especially doctors like Dr. Lustig, he's he's a incredibly skilled mechanic and that is the forefront of what medicine is really good at the mechanics of the body and it's incredible what they do Will: He's operating on something the size of a dime through a straw. Adam: Yes! I know But that's the fact is you've seen operations they're not incredibly gentle so you wake up even though I was not present for the operation, it was clear when I woke up that someone had been punching me in the face for hours. Will: Yeah. Adam: That's what it felt like, well not this time. This time it was very much more minor but still it is a it's brutal. Norm: I have a question about your hearing aid. Having used them for almost a decade now, has that changed your perception of your understanding of people who use hearing aids? Before we were talking about there being a bit of a stigma. Adam:Well I don't understand a stigma for hearing aids I i think that if you are if you think you're hard of hearing, I will tell you please go get checked because hearing aids changed my life they saved my marriage. Honestly, I couldn't believe each new version I've gotten I couldn't believe what I wasn't hearing before. Will: Well, it's it having stigma about that and speaking as someone whose father got hearing aids when I was almost ready to graduate from college I mean, from high school, and it made it possible for us to communicate again. Adam: Right Will: Communicating with him and I love him to death was the most frustrating experience and it was constant, the only way you can have a talk with him that he could hear what you're saying before got the hearing aids was by yelling, and he didn't even have bad hearing loss it was just a specific register, right where my voice lives. Adam: That can be real trouble. My hearing loss is also in that register, in the low register, which is conversational and that actually also turns out to be one of the most difficult registers for hearing aids to replicate. Adam: Since normal damage would get rid of the high end hearing aids have no problem with that stuff. I have learned a couple things and I will tell you if you know someone who has even some minor hearing loss and you're talking to them and they say "What?" so let's say you say something. Will: Wait, I say what all the time. Adam: Let me just put it this way, you say "I put the book on the fridge" Will: What? Adam: And they say "I put the book on the fridge" (in the exact same way) you are doing the wrong thing by repeating what you said precisely as you said it before. Will: Oh, right. Adam: Because the moment I can't perceive what you say I now have aphasia. I've already run a scan analysis on what I heard and i cant get anything from it so if you say the same way again all I'm getting is the same crappy signal. Norm: That sounds like really good advice for communicating in general. Adam: Yes! Adam: So if someone says "What?", stop. Then change the tone and cadence in a different register. Adam: You will get so, I tell you once once my family learned to do this we all got along so much better and now with my new hearing aids... I'll tell you the the second set I got at about three days into having a new hearing aids Julia goes "Okay you're freaking me out, how come you are sneaking around the house?" I said "I'm not sneaking around the house." She said "You're moving like a ninja" Adam: No, it isn't on purpose, I've only just realized how noisy I actually am when I move around the house. Will: Norm: It's all relative. Adam: Me, like Harry and the Hendersons going banging around the house. Will: Just go get checked, it makes a big difference and its not just you, it's your family. Adam: I will say, I have a bone to pick with hearing aid companies now the processor in this is incredibly advanced piece of technology. It is still not worth what they charge for it. Adam: But we understand that about medical hardware More than that this thing has also all sorts of modes that you can't unlock unless you're sitting with your audiologist in a dampened quieted room. So if you go to a bar and you can't hear, you've gotta go make an appointment for you with your audiologist a week later and go sit down and say last week in a bar I had a problem and she says, "Well let's see if we can solve it" She turns some dials and adjusts the primers on this and then a week later you go to a bar and hope that it worked. Adam: This is a terrible system Norm: It's ripe for disruption! Adam: I rail against this system, especially since I have an antenna for these that can connect them up to Bluetooth so why can i activate those modes on my phone? Adam: I recognize that they don't want non-medical professionals doing medical type adjustment on hardware but you can actually give me a bandwidth of have control like changing from the 360-degree sound mode to the short bulleted where my face is pointing mode. Will: Or give you a dial you can use... Adam: Give me a dial I can twist until the Will: until the sounds you don't want go away Adam: Yes, exactly! Adam: It's crazy to me that these companies are charging thousands and thousands of dollars for these things and don't give me the ability to adjust them. Adam: It's a system that's ripe for hacking Will: Just to be clear, thousands and thousands of dollars is a lot for that too. Adam: Yes, I recognize that. I make good money right now, and I bought the best hearing aids I possibly could. That was I have the luxury of doing that right now. And they don't all costs that much there are a lot of cheaper options, but you know, even with those cheaper options, activating those mods should absolutely be a smartphone moment, because we could all live a lot better that way Will: We have the software Adam: Yes! Will: The tools are there. Do you use the fancy Bluetooth modes that let you hook your phone into it and use it for conference calls and all that or not so much? Adam: I have all that I have all that material, I have started to use it a little bit it is it is somewhat problematic. For instance it doesn't work in the car because it doesn't close down the hearing aid channel. It allows you to still hear the world while you're on the phone Will: That's probably a good thing. Adam: I agree with that, but I prefer the Apple in-ear buds for for when I am doing hands-free in the car Adam: I also have, and I have yet to use it... You know, I'm old us we don't go out as much but... I have a lavalier microphone on a necklace that connects with the hearing aids using Bluetooth so if I'm in a noisy restaurant with my wife I can clip it on her and hear her directly. That's beautiful. Norm: These all sounds like super powers! Adam: They do and again they're doing really cool stuff with hearing aids they just need to open it up and let my phone start to work with it. Will: And more than glasses and contacts and vision impairment, because this is hardware and software there's such an opportunity to give you superpowers there is no reason not to. Adam: I'm sure there are reasons not to . I'm sure we'll hear about some of them but there should not be any stigma about hearing aids. I've never hidden the fact that I wear them Adam: Yes, in the middle of the night I will admit, it is the oldest I feel when it takes me a full minute to get up and running because of all the devices I have to stick on and in my head That is definitely the moment which I feel old Will: You're just augmented man Adam: I am! Adam: And I really appreciate that... Look, I got rid of contact lenses years ago because to me they're not survival oriented. I lose one in the field and I'm screwed but glasses you know, I have many pairs at any given point, so I never run out and I know if I lose one I can I can replace them easily. Will: And they give a little protection too Adam: They do, they absolutely do Adam: But if you think you have hearing loss or if you know someone who is hearing loss go get them checked. It really will radically, radically improve your life immediately. Will: It's inexpensive. There are a lot of clinics that will do free screenings... Adam: Yes. Will: ...to least let you know where you stand a lot of times people go get the hearing checked it turns out they just have something like wax buildup and the problem is a five minute fix. The doctor gets something horrible out of your ear and everything's cool Adam: Totally. Will:So yeah Highly recommended it, and I think that's it. Adam: That's the longest... I've never fully told the whole story of my ears Adam: There it is, everything you never wanted to know. The story of my ears. Will: And we got some horrifying glimpses at ear candles. Adam: Still crazy after all these years Will: If you want to support the podcast, you can subscribe to us that's always a good thing you can leave a comment or review on iTunes, rate us on iTunes, or post a comment on the YouTube channel. We also have premium membership we post all sorts of exciting behind-the-scenes raw video: stuff that you wouldn't see otherwise Adam: Yup Will: You can find out about that at http://tested.com/premium Will: What else? What am I forgetting? Is that everything we plug at the end here? Adam: I think that's everything. Norm: Yeah Will: So that's it for us this week. We'll be back next Tuesday with another episode. Will: Bye! Adam: Bye! Norm: Bye!