Ask Dr. Drew - Will Smith & Chris Rock: Greg Grunberg (Star Wars) on CBD For Son's Epilepsy & Celebrity Narcissism – Ask Dr. Drew – Episode 84

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Greg Grunberg is an activist and actor who has appeared in Alias, Heroes, and in two Star Wars movies. After his son Jake was diagnosed with epilepsy, Greg began organizing events to raise awareness of the neurological condition, including the launch of https://TalkAboutIt.org in 2009. His latest project is an upcoming series on YouTube called The Care Giver, which focuses on the needs of families who are dealing with epilepsy. Watch the trailer: https://drdrew.com/thecaregiver • In The Care Giver series, actor Greg Grunberg gives the caregivers of these families an unforgettable day of care and learns about their challenges and hopes along the way. [The podcast was originally broadcast on March 28, 2022] Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation ( https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/FirstLadyOfLove). SPONSORS • BLUE MICS – After more than 30 years in broadcasting, Dr. Drew’s iconic voice has reached pristine clarity through Blue Microphones. But you don’t need a fancy studio to sound great with Blue’s lineup: ranging from high-quality USB mics like the Yeti, to studio-grade XLR mics like Dr. Drew’s Blueberry. Find your best sound at https://drdrew.com/blue  • ELGATO – Every week, Dr. Drew broadcasts live shows from his home studio under soft, clean lighting from Elgato’s Key Lights. From the control room, the producers manage Dr. Drew’s streams with a Stream Deck XL, and ingest HD video with a Camlink 4K. Add a professional touch to your streams or Zoom calls with Elgato. See how Elgato’s lights transformed Dr. Drew’s set: https://drdrew.com/sponsors/elgato/  THE SHOW: For over 30 years, Dr. Drew Pinsky has taken calls from all corners of the globe, answering thousands of questions from teens and young adults. To millions, he is a beacon of truth, integrity, fairness, and common sense. Now, after decades of hosting Loveline and multiple hit TV shows – including Celebrity Rehab, Teen Mom OG, Lifechangers, and more – Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio in California. On Ask Dr. Drew, no question is too extreme or embarrassing because the Dr. has heard it all. Don’t hold in your deepest, darkest questions any longer. Ask Dr. Drew and get real answers today. This show is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All information exchanged during participation in this program, including interactions with DrDrew.com and any affiliated websites, are intended for educational and/or entertainment purposes only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to a new week. Boy, it's interesting. You know, we were so preoccupied as the French underground for so long here, trying to make sense of the press and the CDC and the information that was flying out there. And we've tried to broaden out the topics. And today is no exception.

But I just realized Miu Miu was asking, well, I still want to know what love addiction is. And I said, I've got the perfect guest. I'm going to bring her in here. And realizing we are starting to broaden out our topics. You will love this particular uh professional who has expertise in sex and love addiction so that'll be a good show somewhere down the line there alexandra katahakis i used to use her every week on kbc when i did that show and she's somebody i shared the podium with at a one of the most prestigious presentations i'd ever been a part of

and uh i immediately knew this was a i just tell the way she was talking about what she did and the way she actually, she showed footage of actually doing therapy with patients. And I thought, oh, that's the real deal. And so we got to be friendly after that. And she's been a contributor in a lot of my things over the years. And so we've been so preoccupied with COVID, we've not gotten back to our roots. So let's harken back there. Speaking of my roots, Greg Grunberg is an old friend. You can follow him at Greg Grunberg. Also the Twitter, excuse me, at the Instagram.

The Instagram or the Twitter? At Twitter. Did I say the Twitter? Yes. Greg Grunberg with a one G on Greg and Grunberg, G-R-U-N-B-E-R-G. And same thing on the Instagram. The website we're going to talk about is talkaboutit.org. Greg, you know him from Alias, Heroes, a couple of Star Wars films, nothing much.

His son was diagnosed with epilepsy, and he became very active in raising awareness about this neurological disorder and the impact it has not just on the patients but the caretakers as well. Our laws as it pertains to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for f***ing sake. Where the hell do you think I learned that?

I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals. Let'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. You have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help.

I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. Please welcome my good friend Greg Grunberg. Ronnie. Well, well, well. What's happening? Look at you. What's up, Drew? Look at you.

How are you, man? It's a rainy day in Southern California. There's something weird about that. I can see the rain behind you. Exactly. When you have to go out and shut off your automatic sprinklers, you know it's a weird day in Los Angeles. Interesting. So where should we start?

We're going to talk a little bit about... Let me say, your introduction was really interesting. The sex and love addiction. I did a movie that I co-wrote and starred in called Group Sex. I don't even know where to find it. Remember that? I remember it. I watched it even know where to find it. Remember that? I remember it. I watched it.

Yeah, I do. It was good. It was really good. You came on Loveline to promote it, I think, if I remember right. Yes, and Tom Arnold. And it was... Tom Arnold. Yes, Tom was in it.

That's right. Tom was... Yes. Yes, Tom was in it. It was set in the world of sex and love, addiction, and I went to a few meetings and it is, it's really interesting. You and I've had conversations about this over the years, how, you know, gambling and, and sex addicts and also, you know, overeating and, and, you know, the addiction to food. Those are three that are so misunderstood. Don't you think? I mean,

because you can't kidnap somebody and take them to an island and then you know get it out of their system i mean it's just something that's everywhere those three things yes yes it's it's the the food and the sex is the is there the two conditions that you have to come up with some sort of moderation management it's much easier if you can be abstinent it doesn't trigger the reward system, which gives you the momentum. And the good news is with food and with sex, there's sort of extra physiological ways of eating or having sex that are highly arousing that make addicts more prone to go down that path. So it's the extreme behaviors that sort of stimulate the brain in ways that are sort of outside of the normal operation of the reward system, let's say.

You know, also, I'd forgotten about your movie, but there was another series called Love that Judd Apatow put out with Paul Rust and Gillian Jacobs. And that was the other, if you want to learn about these things, it was, I actually moderated a panel with the cast. And I asked Gillian, I said, how did you, you nailed the conflicted feelings of a love, sex, and drug addict. And she said, I just studied it. Just people go out there.

It's your craft, my friend. You could tell me how they do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But outside of my craft, it's interesting to see how many things um you know i'm trying to do a proper segue here that we don't talk about right i mean yes please keep going okay so so so you know jake our oldest run he got epilepsy when he was seven and i i realized there was a stigma attached to it there's a stigma attached to certain things um i i know you probably don't want to talk about this but watching the academy awards last night i was so conflicted first of all

like and i'm talking about the will smith thing you know but first of all it was just absolutely horrible horrible it's it's assault it was terrible but more than anything um he he just is such a child and he it was such a missed opportunity um i i personally believe that jada pinkett smith is is so courageous in how she's dealing with alopecia this is not a little thing this is something so is that wait in how she's dealing with alopecia. This is not a little thing. This is something that she's having to deal with. Let's drill into that a little bit. There's many kinds of alopecia. So everyone's throwing around the term alopecia.

What kind of alopecia does she have? Does she have alopecia areata? Does she have alopecia totalis? Does she have alopecia secondary to hormone? There's all kinds of alopecia. There's alopecia secondary to hormone i mean there's all kinds of alopecia alopecia secondary to trichotillomania and no one has spelled that out so i'm already like kind of i don't know what to do with this yet i don't know what to do about that i'm not saying she should be shamed but i'm saying i i want to know what that is right but i i just from personally

right we have a i have a family member who has alopecia and it's something it's a struggle every single day for her. And she knew I was coming on the show. She just texted me. I love her so much. And she just said, please just mention this. And so I know it's an opportunity to talk about it. I just alopecia. It's important. Does she have alopecia these are all different illnesses every single one is different does she have alopecia totalis i don't know to be honest but i know that she lose her eyebrows eyebrows eyelashes yes everything gone yes okay that's not what jada it does not appear to be what jada has and that is a very what your what your is your cousin who is it a friend of yours uh my sister-in-law. Sister-in-law. I mean, that's a devastating illness. And by the way, you should tell her that they're using monoclonal antibodies and immune suppressive therapies at Yale and having excellent result in restoring people's hair.

So they should look at that. In fact, I'm not going to name names, but a famous comedian got this, and he called me, and he said, what do I do? And I said, I just read the paper from Yale that they're having this great success of treating it, essentially with the medicines you see on TV, all those medicines, O, O, O, whatever, whichever one they have. Right, right, right. Sembic or whatever, any of those drugs, that kind of stuff.

What causes this? It's an autoimmune attack on the hair follicles. And if you express is if you suppress the modulate, that immune attack, you can get it back. That is, that is one kind of alopecia. That is one kind of devastating.

I don't know. I don't know if that's exactly the kind that she has, but I do know that it doesn't appear struggle. It doesn't appear to be. Yeah. It doesn't appear. No, I'm talking about even my eyelashes and have her eyebrows drawn into, you could be, could be right.. Doesn't appear to be. Well, she could have fake eyelashes and have her

eyebrows drawn in too. You don't know for sure. Could be. I mean, it could be. But it looks like she had a faint bout of hair on her head. You have no hair when you have alopecia totalis. It's all gone. That's true. Just completely gone. She obviously, it's a thinning of some sort because she shaved her head.

But all I'm saying is there's an opportunity here. I don't believe chris rock even had that in his head she's wearing green and she had her her head shaved so it wasn't an attack on alopecia but that but he said something that was just out of in bad taste a terrible joke right says it instead of sitting there and going and yelling you can yell all you want you can you can use the f-bomb whatever you want to do and say, she's got alopecia, leave my wife alone. That would have drawn so much attention.

It was a missed opportunity to talk about it. And instead it's look at me. I'm a man. I'm going to go up there. I'm going to use aggression and assault. Just so many of this show that I really did i freeze up did i just freeze yeah you're back you're back though okay i just thought that there were so many elements of of the night that i really loved the inclusiveness and the and the first time for the deaf community

and all this great stuff was happening and then now it's all we're talking about is this and i just again i'm talking out of two sides of my mouth because i think it was a missed opportunity great stuff was happening. And then now it's all we're talking about is this. And I just, again, I'm talking out of two sides of my mouth because I think he, it was a missed opportunity. He, he should have been aggressive in a smart way instead of being, you know, instead of assaulting Chris rock.

Oh, absolutely. And yeah, there's no excuse for that. Even, even if it, if she's sensitive, let her fight her battle. know it's her it's her

head and she did it for a reason but but smacking somebody live in front of millions of people not good form well not for a woman a woman now i'll tell you something i'll tell you something do you see the every time next to him he she looked like what the hell am i supposed to do right now do i smile do i look scared? What do I do? But I have to say, wait, Susan, I have to say every time that there's a stupid epilepsy or seizure joke in a movie, and there are, it's always like, what are you having a seizure when you see somebody dancing or use light and flashing lights and they don't warn the audience i get very emotional this is my son and so you know um julie reached out to me my sister-in-law and she was like what do you

think would have happened if you know if somebody made fun of me jonathan you know my brother-in-law would have just i mean you it's hard to control that rage so i understand i'm the first line of defense in the epilepsy community because i talk about this we're open about it my son is living well with it and i'm trying to celebrate the people in this community. And we'll, you know, get to what I, what I want to talk about the caregiver. I understand, but Chris Rock was, was perfect. He just went, Oh, what did you just do? He didn't strike back. He didn't, he just like shocked and, you know, it could have been a big fight. The, the bouncers could have come out and, you know, but he was just, it's not the, it's not the thing that they're talking about you know you have no reason

to scream horrible things to a comic on stage when they're doing their their you can talk to them afterwards i spoke to a couple of comics today who were fearful that it's now you know it's breaking down the barrier between the performer and the audience so people can feel free to interrupt the show or actually come up on stage and i thought well of course that's what we're doing we've deconstructed everything we've deconstructed gender we've deconstructed philosophy we deconstructed police we've deconstructed everything of course the stage audience uh sort of setting is going to get deconstructed and now here we we are. Here we are.

We're doing it. It's kind of interesting. Well, there have been a couple of videos of Karens in comedy clubs getting up there and, you know, getting on stage, walking right up on stage. I mean, you're at a comedy club. There's only a couple of steps between you and the comedian. You know, this is their job. The comedian's job is to say things that we might be thinking i mean to to silence or you know when and the one thing when when he said get my wife's name out of your

mouth i was like okay and then chris rock goes i will i was like oh i wish he wouldn't have said that actually only because of the fact that it's like i like that he said it was a joke that's one side right one side of me the other side of me was furious because i know what it's like to deal with alopecia but again i don't not me personally but in our family but i don't i don't again it just wasn't right the way he handled it at all so let me quickly just run through the alopecia it is a chance to talk about it and then we'll talk about that next so the common forms of alopecia are actually male pattern baldness as a form of alopecia women as they age can get a diffuse alopecia women on hormone replacement can get male pattern

baldness again the kind of alopecia that people get when they're younger is called alopecia areata it's the one you see after somebody's in some sort of like a car accident, and then all of a sudden a chunk of hair will fall out, and they'll have a bald spot, or our spot will turn gray sometimes. That's a localized autoimmune attack on a piece of hair, a piece of scalp that's often triggered by trauma or stress. And then there's telogen effluvian, which is something where all the hairs time together. Each hair has its own life cycle and timing, and they're always falling out and starting up again. But after pregnancy, you can get something called telogen effluvian, where all the hairs time together and all fall out together.

And so you can have sudden hair loss after pregnancy, and that gets better by itself. The alopecia areata sometimes need treatment. People use local steroid injections. There's alopecia associated with pulling the hair. So trichotillomania causes alopecia and that's actually very common for hair pulling to be a cause of spotty alopecia. And then there can be skin diseases that cause alopecia. So psoriasis causes alopecia. Eczema causes alopecia. Psoriasis causes alopecia eczema causes alopecia psoriasis um seborrhea causes alopecia these are all alopecia is a word like fever it's like yeah they had a fever is it because of tuberculosis covid or staph infection it it's just seizures

are the same way seizures are exactly that's why i want to that's why i want to get into it that's what that's how i want to back into this so by the way, Julie just got back to me. Julie just got back to me. Alopecia universalis. So it's, she said. Yeah, or totalis, right. And that's the devastating one. That one is, that is just wow.

And people are just, they're, I mean, they are rocked when they get that one. But do tell her about the Yale group, the Yale group dermatology group. They're having good results with the immune system yeah um by the way so seizure same thing yeah Amy Schumer just this week came out that she has a a hair pulling condition you just mentioned that that's did you hear about that trichotillomania no but there it is there is very common it's very common I think I do it in my sleep to my eyebrows. Oh, interesting. I scratch them a lot. And then I have to stop myself because my eyebrows get thinner.

Uh-huh. Interesting. I know. Look what you've done to me, Drew. Yeah. So that would be, again, that's an alopecia. That's a hair pull. And then I also have hair loss from my testosterone. So I know how it feels.

My lashes are shitty. That's right. You've had a version of it. My eyebrows are a lot less yes susan has a version of it and she deals with it but if i had to shave my head to look good and looked as good as as jada i swear to god i wouldn't care like and then you just you wear fake eyelashes and you dry your eyebrows in like yeah it rocks people when they lose all their hair yeah but jada is she doesn't need jada's stunning and brave and she's

talked about it she's used this platform to show that she's got wildly successful show she's talked about this stuff to me the smith family is a little too look at me look at me but at the same time when you have got a condition like this and you're not afraid to talk about it i am i am so on your side and i I just applaud her for that. Yeah. But then what bothered me more was that everybody cheered for him. And they should have had somebody else accept the award for him. And he should have been escorted out. Any other normal person. Like if I walked up and hit the person, I'd get escorted out.

And then they spent the whole night enjoying living in their success. And everybody was just like, nothing happened. And maybe because it was, maybe it was just a little thing between Will and, and, and Chris and they're able to let it go. But I don't know. I'm, I'm not, I don't, I don't dig that. So, so listen, here's my, here's a, here's another form of, you know, it's really interesting here. We are all expressing, our discussion about this is a little bit from a position of white and European supremacy.

It turns out, I'm just reading about it very quickly, that women commonly get something called traction alopecia, which occurs when the hair has been pulled too tight from the weaves and other things and it's hard to get it back and i wonder if she has that kind of alopecia and and that's you know it doesn't and that's a that's a rough one right you're you think you're doing something cosmetically and you end up with a serious problem and um no one seems to know what kind of alopecia she has but there's one we left out of our our um you know our i wish we had a different word than white supremacy we need some other word like eurocentrism or white centrism or something you know what i mean because it unfortunately you say white supremacy people think it's skinheads and we're not you might not know it but greg and i are not skinheads

we're not but no we're not we are but we are white men we do have a tendency to miss stuff yeah yeah yeah exactly i mean i want to address hollywood like you work in hollywood you've been in some good movies and you understand the hollywood world greg and how it is and the power and how it's shifted after covet how we're how we're you know getting back into these award shows is something kind of cool again like you know and a lot has happened in hollywood over the years um i just i don't like being a part of something that fake like i people thought maybe this was staged you know because we just couldn't believe it happened um but but the power struggle is on and and i i just can't turn a blind eye because, you know, even when Drew was working in television, like he'd always get scrutinized for everything he says.

And you have to be so careful about everything you do. And to be somebody, you have to go by the rules. But it's like this wasn't in the rule book. I don't see that. And I don't understand why it's accepted. Yeah. But Drew's in a different position than, I mean, it's not shut up and dribble with us, but sometimes I really wonder. You have knowledge that we all need to hear.

You're an educated person. He's being nice to you. and you keep going there. You know what? He's being nice to you. Hang on a second, Greg. Hang on. This is also what happens to me. Whatever lovely things you were saying about me, it all froze.

It all went away. And so that's part of my life too. I know. You're not allowed to say anything nice about Drew. Yeah. No, no. In your position, I think you should be scrutinized a little bit more because it comes from an educated base. You're smarter than a lot of people.

I'm talking about these actors. There's a reason why the ratings have gone down in the Academy Awards because who gives a shit? I'm sorry, but I watched these, and they're trying to balance the entertainment and this self-importance stuff. And I'm not saying it because I have never been up for an Academy Award. I'm just saying that I watch these shows, and it's a double-edged sword. It's an advertisement. It really is. That's what these award shows are.

They want you to go back and watch it. They want you to stream it. They want you to keep these movies alive. And, yeah, we should all be rewarded, but we shouldn't be put on pedestals. We're no more special than anybody else. Right. So if you punch somebody out at an award show,

you should be escorted out by the police. That's what I'm saying. If we were the Dodger game. It's Hollywood. If he did that at a Dodger game, that's a great point, Susan, because I was going to say, if he did that at a Dodger game that's a great point susan because i was going to say if he did that at a dodger game regardless of whether chris rock wanted to press charges or not they

would have taken him out of there and they would have pressed charges you can't do that there so i don't know calling 9-1-1 right on the phone they were calling 9-1-1 and reporting it because they saw it on tv that's what you told me last night i was like you know what that i guess you have well so so let's flip over to another syndrome uh which is seizure disorders and epilepsy drew's going back to the medical stuff he gets nervous when we don't know i just don't know we're here to talk about something else and we can keep talking about it we can i know i'm laughing people on clubhouse want to bring it up i mean drew you have a point of view about this and i know you do it's just it it's been worrying you all day long like i want people to understand that we're not just going oh it's okay my point

of view fundamentally is it seemed to me for a long time like jada and will have been struggling with something i don't know what but something's going on and i am in no position to know what sometimes i can tell somebody's acutely manic or whatever i can tell it's obvious but particularly when it comes to interpersonal stuff we don't know what the hell's going on we have no idea but it looks like there's some major major struggle going on between them that is not making people happy uh in spite of the fact of claiming happiness and claiming you know the look at me thing you you mentioned greg which is part of what they're doing which is trying to try we're trying to gloss something over and i don't know what that something is and i think it kind of bled through

last night whatever it's affecting him or maybe he's got something already going on that she's been reacting i i don't know i think there's a mental health problem well it could be because and which we're not addressing by letting him just go, oh, yeah. It reminded me of when Kanye took over the MTV Video Music Awards. We were sitting right there, and that was clearly an episode. Same thing. Yeah, it felt like that. And Susan was like, literally, we were at the foot of the stage,

and Susan kept nudging me going, you've got to get him off. You've got to go up there. He's sick. Go get him. And I was like, well, another more minute of this and I will. Well, they put the banner up for a couple of minutes because I think they were going to send people up there to give him the hook. That's what I think they were doing.

Did you notice that? When he was giving his acceptance thing, they kept going to the banner. They were probably all like going, what the hell do we do? Do we take him off? Do we keep him up? What are we doing? What might he say? Oh, no, it's getting worse.

Don't let him talk. Let me ask you a question. I've talked to people that get into fights and they go, I remember the beginning of the fight, and then I remember the end of the fight. And it's almost like they black out. He goes back to his seat. He's yelling at Chris Rock the way people yell in private when they can't get their way. I mean, I've been a victim of this. My wife and I will yell at each other, and we're not yelling at each other.

We're pissed off at epilepsy and Jake having a seizure seizure and we're out of control we can't control it and we're just like lock the door then something so stupid yeah yeah so i agree with you there's something going on in their life but he i mean for him to do that at the academy awards it was as if he had blinders on i mean i could and the second time he said it, to raise his voice, it was so scary. I know that I've looked online. People have commented that people that have gone through abusive relationships and things, it's like PTSD for them. That level of anger and outburst.

Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, yeah. Well, Caleb just, I guess he got to the bottom of the banner. He said one of the Williams sisters had a nip slip in the middle of it. Nobody noticed it. Yeah, that's why they put the logo on screen so many times. I saw that on Twitter. Did I send that to you, Caleb? Because I saw it too. I was laughing about it.

I was like, oh my God, that's just terrible. Like, it's getting. Sorry. He was probably saying something nice about me. Just for that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have the Japanese feed, Caleb.

You should be all over that. Oh no. Oh, I did not know that. Okay. That makes sense then. Maybe. I don't know if I believe that fully, Caleb. You got to prove that one to me.

Oh my God. Finding the Japanese feed. They just couldn't get anything right in that group. I did see that there was some sort of slip that that was unnoticed i heard that i saw that on twitter but in any event it's all it makes me kind of sad and and what i don't like is what i don't like is you know it's it reminds me i'm gonna fold it all the way back to anna nicole smith this is not as bad as that but anna nicole smith people made fun of her and laughed at her and i was saying all over the place you were making fun of a woman who's dying in front of our eyes.

She's dying. And don't pretend that by making a joke or by putting an ideological gloss over it, all these deconstruction, post-structuralist bullshit, that is all not real. This is two humans having a real experience. It's affecting both of them. It's affected both of them. It's affected Will last night. The fact that he didn't apologize during the acceptance speech and he was talking about God's special plan for him. That is one tick away from saying, I just talked to God. He told me I'm Jesus. It's one tick away from that. And so that's concerning. I don't know what's

going on that that's happening, but that's concerning. That's all. I feel bad for everybody. We're not making fun of him. Yeah, but he's a vessel of love. I mean, it's like, you just hurt everybody. Yeah, that was his speech before he smacked Chris. No, no, after, Susan.

But he had that written down down and then he had to say it because he wrote it down i don't know i think you're right i was trying to like use a version of his acceptance speech yeah anyway that's actually funny but it's not because i'm we're not making fun of him we're just saying that i was just hoping that he would just go, hey, I'm sorry I did that to Chris. Sorry, dude. To me, the reaction is – I don't know what came over me. The reaction is what bothers me, that everybody signs off on it

and doesn't realize there's something going on here. And just because ideology rules the world now, real people with real phenomenon are getting missed getting but it's also an it's a award show if you've ever been to an award show they put up these signs that say everybody claps so everybody claps right so they tell you when to clap they tell you when to laugh they tell you when to cry and uh he cried through his whole speech and i was like i don't know if he's really crying for over being in the movie i think he's just super like he's really yeah i think he would he's an actor he was treading water he was treading water or he's high or

something i don't know that's exactly right he was he was spooled up emotionally he's spooled up emotionally he's an actor and he could just just pull it all out there and who knows you know trying to he was struggling to turn it into something. Positive. Meaningful and positive. It was not working. But anyway, I feel bad for him. I feel bad for Chris. I feel bad for Jada.

Well, as long as everybody agrees with me that it's not okay to smack somebody anytime. It's not okay, but it's also not okay to be ableist and to make fun of people with bad conditions. And it's just, it's all a mess. It's a freaking mess, bottom line. And so let's not be further ableist by by going another minute without talking about the seizure disorders we want to talk about yeah no here's something i want to point out greg i want to point out sorry i had to bring it back maybe you've never thought about which is you talked about how people uh turn away

from and run away from and recoil from individuals having seizures right i mean i've seen that many seen that many times. It's just a seizure, you know what I mean? But people get weirdly freaked out by seizure disorders. You've noticed that, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, and you were so kind to come on. If people go to talkaboutit.org, you'll see one of the most viewed clips that we have on there is you explaining that it's just an over, you know, too much electricity in the brain. I tell people, I use your example all the time, but I do it in a simple way. Two points of the brain are talking to each other right now. There's electricity going between them. So I'm able to talk to you and all of this, this, this now happens. Electricity is going up here. This electricity is going down and now I'm having a seizure. And until it gets back to this,

that's what's happening I mean it's a simple way of looking at it and I know it's like discharging it's just charging and what I what I like what I like liking it to is the electrical activity in the heart right the heart is bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum and once in a while bum bum bum bum bum bum well that's a little tiny little seizure of the heart it's the same thing and sometimes the heart will do this and that's another kind of a little heart seizure it's just happening in a different organ when it happens in this organ it affects consciousness and our motor activity and some of sometimes our behaviors now Now, that's, though, the part I want to talk about. Have you ever heard of the uncanny valley?

No. You ever heard of that? No, I never heard of that. Okay. I never heard of that. Taylor, have you ever heard of the uncanny valley? Okay. Oh, yes, definitely.

Okay. And so what is your understanding of the uncanny valley? I'm curious how a layperson understands it. Go ahead. The way that I understand it is in uh when you do like cgi and computer graphics and films how you can get better and better quality but as it gets better it's certain it reaches a certain point where it becomes off-putting and scary to people because it's very very close to human like real life but it's not quite there so it throws you off as a viewer viewer. So it's actually better sometimes to use lower quality CGI in some films

because it doesn't throw them as far off until you can get to the super realistic stuff. Correct. That is the videographer's version of this. It actually comes from robotics. And in the robot world, they make robots look more and more and more and more human. We like them more and more and more and more until they look really like they're just maybe human and we become disgusted we pull away we turn we get scared we freak out and i it's i believe that's and it's that is some sort of adaptive evolutionary primitive bullshit from you know seeing people that were ill with infectious diseases or something and maybe if we reco from it, we were less likely to contract it or something.

Who knows what the source of it is? But it's clearly our primitive past because it has nothing to do with reality. You know what I mean? It's a very primitive emotion. So I always pointed out to people to go look for that, and when you're recoiling from somebody with an illness, don't do that. Know that that's just the primitive reaction like the uncanny valley. And serious mental illness people do that, and seizures people do that.

But it's because they're, and I hate to use the word ignorant, but they just haven't educated themselves. They just don't understand what's going on. If you go to the simple explanation that you give on talkaboutit.org or go to any epilepsy foundation website and just do some research. You'll know what to do when someone has a seizure. You'll know never to stick anything in their mouth. You'll notice, turn them on their side. But more importantly, people don't just collapse to the ground. That's very rare in the seizure world. They'll start to have a seizure. Their head will start to nod or they'll say something that does jumbled uh speech they they they they they're disoriented

if that happens be prepared to not let them fall because the seizure is what's going to hurt them when they the actual impact the trauma of the seizures what's going to hurt them yeah not the seizure the fail the fall yeah the fall so um so yeah since we last talked i i don't think i've talked to you about this or maybe I forgot. It seems like it was long enough ago that I must have forgot to talk to you about it. Do you remember when Gary Coleman was in the sort of bullseye of all the afternoon celebrity gossip sort of shows? He'd spoken aggressively to his wife on camera and they had all these yentas come on and go he's abusing his wife he's an abuser he's a violent person look at the look at the look at the uh they were even saying look

at the veins in his forehead they're popping out because he's so aggressive so i went on the insider yeah and i and there was gary coleman i met with him beforehand he was going to come in i said i'll help you defend yourself i'm i'm not I don't know what's going on here, but it's not what people are saying. Well, guess where Gary came from when he met me, he was living in a nursing home on hospice and had missed his dialysis. He was in end-stage renal disease that had missed his dialysis for two weeks. And the reason his veins were popping out on his head is he had, he had accumulated fluid in his body from not having had dialysis. So he still, I said, dude, we got to get you to a dialysis center right now. Because he was on hospice. They were kind of pulling, he had many, many, many other medical problems. His body was

just a jigsaw puzzle of surgeries and things. It was crazy. Poor guy. No, he wants to go in and confront Lisa Bloom, who uh accusing him of all these things oh my god if you remember the insider had this big screen over the panel and lisa bloom comes on the on the screen and starts yelling at him you're i don't care what the problem is you're an abuser blah blah blah and gary and gary poor gary got upset and i could see it he was he got titanic meaning all muscles clenched, and I thought he's going to have a seizure. And I caught him falling out of the chair having a tonic-clonic seizure,

ran him over to a bench, put him on his side. That's what Lisa Bloom does to people. Put him on his side and just got him through it. I love you, Lisa. Isn't that crazy? And he had a calcium of four or something and a magnesium of, I don't know, everything was off. I mean, metabolically he was so off. He did not have epilepsy. He didn't even have a seizure disorder. He had such bad metabolic problems from his, from his renal

failure that he had a seizure. And here's the real interesting comedy. So while I was there sort of attending to him, people started gathering around. They have paramedics on the studio lots, right? They take about a minute to get to an emergency. So when they walked in the door, as they walked in the door, everyone around me's pager went off. TMZ wants a comment. Heard there was a seizure on the insider set with Gary Coleman. Like one minute after the had the seizure it was incredible tmz wants comment no god so so what's what's interesting building

the the this new series that i'm doing um called the caregiver is it's what's really interesting is no matter what condition people have um there is somebody who is trying to help them either it's a parent or a spouse or a brother sister whatever and i realized pretty quickly that these people like i my wife and our caregivers for for our son you know he's an adult uh and and you know when he when he gets married that it's just somebody to you know he doesn't need help but at the same time it's nice to know that somebody's there to help him so um yeah there's a bond there's a there's a commonality between caregivers and those caregivers often put things to the side and you know like a hobby or this and that they need to be rewarded they need to be patted on the back they need to be

talked to and and have a day to themselves um I partnered with Jazz Pharmaceuticals and they're amazing. And this series, we've done a bunch of episodes of it and it's called The Caregiver Series. If you search on YouTube, Greg Grunberg and The Caregiver, it'll come up. It's so wonderful. And it's a great way, we talk about how people are scared of these conditions and they don't know because of the way it's presented. This is presented in a way, just like talkaboutit.org has a bunch of celebrities and hopefully it'll get you to the site and educate you. This is done in a way that we spend time. I mean, I take these cars out

with a guy named John who's got an incredible family. We spend the day with these, I'm a car guy with vintage cars and stuff. And we're talking the whole time. Leslie and I painted and I took her to an art, beautiful art studio and we painted and stuff. It's just a really great fun series. I hope people check it out. Um, and, and thank you to jazz pharmaceuticals for, for getting behind this, because obviously someone has to, you know, partner with you when you want to do something

ambitious like this. Um, but it's been great and it's, it's right in line with what I've been talking about. It's, it's talking about the condition and highlighting those that need recognition. They're doing a good job. They're doing the best that they can do. And again, it's a loved one. So there's so much love in this show. It's great. I really think people are going to enjoy it.

Whether you're part of the epilepsy community or not, please check out caregiver um that we have a lot more episodes coming um and uh good i was going to say is it is it strictly to epilepsy because there's you could spin it out to so many different conditions yeah and that's my hope the the partner that i have in this jazz uh they they treat um you know a ton of different committee they're a huge company. And we're hoping, because I've gotten now a lot of requests. There are people that are nominating their caregivers in all kinds of different conditions. That's cool. It's very, very cool. It's a lot of fun.

We're having a good time. Yeah. I can't tell you how often what I'm saying to to patients family is we've got a sick person here you guys are doing a great job but i don't need another sick person and i will have one soon if you don't take care of yourselves the caretakers need a lot of care also and uh and it's self-care and it's you know it's free time and just sharing about the topic with somebody who can relate i mean listen we're dealing with somebody with alcoholism and addiction, on its core, that's one of the key things codependent recovery is just somebody who's been where you've been that you can share with and sort of get a

connection with. Now that person can support you in ways that are uncanny, but just being able to have somebody that you go, oh my God, my can't i can't do anything about it and another woman says yep i've been there been there i know what that is i know what that feels like yeah these conditions they'll tear couples apart they bring couples together there's this human story and it's extremely relatable one thing i gotta you know in in these conversations there's so many things that we we you know i'll bring a subject up bring something up like when jake was younger you know we have three boys and um jake spent a lot of time in hospitals with overnight eegs and all the studies and stuff and that's special time with dad

well guess what he didn't like that special time and because i was spending time with him i wasn't spending time with my other two and then my wife and I didn't have our nights out, our dates, all that stuff went to the wayside. And just when you get on a plane, it says, put the mask on yourself before you help your child. You need to take care of yourself, just like you just said. So there's this balancing act that so many people feel. I haven't seen a series like this where caregivers get together and share short little episodes.

And as it's just so incredibly rewarding for me, I've been doing this for a long time. Drew, you know, I mean, I asked you to do that. You're always there for me. You're always helping. But I've been doing PSAs and helping the epilepsy community remove the stigma for so long. And I just, there's Jake, there's a great picture. There we are at a walk and it's just, it's I don't know. I, this is one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done and it's really entertaining and it's really fun. So I hope people check it out. That's great. I, I, I'm so proud of you and I'm, and I'm, I'm happy for you.

I'm sure it was very fulfilling, you know, doing something with this kind of purpose attached to it. And let's talk a little bit more. Well, let's do this. Take a little break. Let's take a break. We'll take a two-minute break. And we will talk a little bit more about what epilepsy is and is not.

And then we'll take some calls. How about that? All right? Love it. Yes, thank you. Let me take a minute to tell you about Blue Mics. Over the two years we've been working with our friends at Blue Mics, the world has completely adapted to working and meeting virtually. So whether you know it or not, you probably spent a lot of time in front of a microphone.

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To take your audio to the next level, just go to drdrew.com slash blue. That is drdrew.com slash b-l-u-e. We are back with Greg Grunberg, talkaboutit.org. You love that groovy music? I do and I love the graphic. You remember remember the movie the movie how to get ahead in advertising and the guy had a little head growing on his shoulder that's what it looks like

i'm your little guy you're not talking about the thing the thing with two heads that rosie that's a new effect that caleb just came up lately i like it i like that you know i it occurred to me before we get on with the epilepsy the conversation really quickly you're we used to tell your story a lot of you know what you did as a young person and there are a lot of millennials these days sort of you know drifting do you do two minutes on on what you used to do and you know what your beginning was like when you were back when you were selling frozen yogurt oh my god okay all right so you got to realize i was living with jj abrams right my best friend dearest friend since we were five years old and out of college

we both we he went to sarah lawrence i went to san diego state and we came together we got an apartment together and i was just hustling man i'm an actor i need time during the day to uh to go on auditions but you know as an actor i know i'm an actor you know but you're you need to make a living so i i opened a frozen yogurt store on melrose and that wasn't enough so i started uh i'm frozen oh there we go i started delivering frozen yogurt to hair salons around los angeles in the afternoon then i hired a bunch of actors to go out and sell frozen yogurt door to door i i i worked at a knee brace company um as a um telemarketer for a knee brace company i was a hustler i still am aler. And I think that's what drives my

podcast. Talk about it. My, you know, my career, I don't just sit and wait for the phone to ring. I agree with you. The kids today, kids today, like you hire someone today and they're up and coming. And the first thing they do when they, when they get to your desk or your office or whatever, they say, okay, so what do i have to do and i always say you don't have to do anything but you should want to do stuff you should hustle you should be working your ass off and it's again i just it's my mentality i can't stop no matter how much you know and obviously being an actor how old are you gonna be how long are you gonna go into her 90s she wants to know because 55 i mean how long do you think you'll you'll keep your side hustle she wants to know

because she wants to know how to deal with me no no no i'm just curious because i i know i mean you don't seem like the kind of person that'll stop anytime soon like no he won't well i mean that's the thing about hollywood like you have to and everything in this world like you have to just when something fails you just got to go for something else and and like drew i also go at it he's super i'm the king of like opportunities though and and so if i get an idea like i had an idea for for a mobile coupon app remember this true and i i created the first one app called Yowza. Yeah, that was great. Yeah. And then I sold it.

And then I've been trying to focus and focus more on just the business of entertainment and producing movies and stuff. I'm doing a documentary now that's just blowing my mind. And I'm on a show in Arizona for HBO Max. I'm always working. Thank God. It's great. But I'll tell you something,

Michelle Poe, who works with you guys, who is our mutual friend. When I get an idea, I want to make a prototype. I'm like so excited. And I still do this shit today and I can't stop. I created something that I'll, I don't know if I should share because it's a really good idea, but I had the idea and I didn't know how to make it. Michelle is so handy. I went over to her house and she, with the sewing machine, made these prototypes. People don't realize like when you have an idea,

yeah, you make it. Now you got, now is when the work begins. Now you got to start it. You got to sell it. You got to, you know, a company. It's big. It's a big deal. Drew, have you ever had that?

Yeah, she gets shit done. She does. It is. you got a you know a company it's big it's a it's a big deal drew have you ever had that she does it is have you ever created that that is the creative process man that is creation right literally out of thin air you're out of your brain yeah yep that's very interesting yeah so you could build a building if you said hey michelle i want you to here's a million dollars please build this building she'd start here's ten dollars yesterday she'll do it for ten dollars she built our studio for free yeah she's the best let's talk about let's talk about what uh epilepsy is and is not go ahead help educate people a little bit so people yeah people ask me all the time they're like um what is epilepsy so i you, from the educated layman that I am, I'm not a doctor, but from all of our experience over all these years, I tell people that, you know, epilepsy

is, and I like to talk about seizures more now than epilepsy because that's that word, but epilepsy is really defined as two or more unexplained seizures. So if you have, you have a fever, that's a febrile seizure there's a reason for it if you if you play football i mean drew you know your boys athletes and you remember you telling me that there was a kid who had a seizure on the field and like you know if you if you get hit in the head so hard or or traumatized in some way and you have a seizure that's explained but if you like my son jake all of a sudden before your seven year uh checkup um you know completely i hate using the word normal but normal upbringing and all of a sudden you start doing a staring spell like you're just

five seconds and then you're back um we thought maybe it was he would look out the window of the car if you look at somebody's eyes when they're looking out the window he was you know their pupils follow things that may have been a trigger for him. And we'd be in the car, and I'd ask him a question. And I'd be like, Jakey, Jake, I'm talking to you. And so we would kind of reprimand him in that way going, pay attention, buddy, Mom, just ask your question. Like any parent would. And then we talked to his teacher and his teacher said, Yeah, a couple times he

zones out, you know, in class class we had no idea that a tick could be a seizure an outburst an emotional outburst um a uh you know a staring spell um zoning out any of that stuff can be a seizure when we read our luckily the uh what not to say he said hold on i said everything we lost you oh at jake's seven-year checkup he's on the internet yeah yeah exactly go ahead at jake's seven-year checkup the doctor asked if everything was okay and i told him about these staring spells and he asked jake to hyperventilate and uh he'd never done that before and great jake was breathing in and out in and out and that brought on a seizure and for the first time his head was not was nodding like that and he said i i he knew enough to say i don't i'm not a neurologist but i think that might have been

a seizure and we went to a neurologist a neurologist over med you know medicated jake uh with something that he thought you know would help and um he he, Jake is 25% of the people that don't respond to the first medication. So 75%, one medication will take care of your seizures. Pretty much 25% are difficult to treat. And that's what Jake is. So Jake takes a cocktail of medications, but we've, we've had incredible doctors and, um, we've been through this, what I call the car wash. It's, it's, um, it's been the darkest, hardest hardest at times because you only want to switch places with your child. You want to find that magic bullet that will stop them from having seizures. But after all these years, Jake is doing really well.

I mean, he's second degree black belt taekwondo. He's got a great job. He's a friend. He does everything that a normal 26 year old does he's just you wouldn't know that's the other thing about epilepsy is you don't know someone has epilepsy until if they don't talk about it until you see them have a seizure it doesn't present right so that's that's a difficult thing you know and and seizures can be caused by lots of things they can be caused by infections they can be caused by low oxygen they can be caused by lots of things. They can be caused by infections. They can be caused by low oxygen.

They can be caused by growths and tumors and just all, and nothing. And just like your son, just, just one of those things. And they, and they sort of generally, I mean,

I like to think of them in four broad categories. The three are the primary seizures. So there's an absence seizure, absence seizure, which are often just these literally like what your son had I don't know if they come from a certain part of the brain they come from the deeper structures of the brain is that is that his thing you have absence technically or is it a partial complex he did it he has partial complex so he had absence seizures at the beginning that's

how it started then it evolved into others okay so partial complex seizures are seizures that affect sensorium and often are associated with motor activity or behaviors that are somewhat repetitive. And then motor seizures, pure motor seizures can be just a, just a, you know, let's say your hand starts wiggling and it's, you can't explain why that can be a motor seizure. Any of them can develop what's called secondary generalization, meaning then you can go from this to all of a sudden falling out with a generalized seizure, which is something that can be easily prevented with medication these days. Is he able to drive with the meds? Well, I take him driving, and he, you know, it's funny. We use this term, you know, is he seizure free? I hate talking about it.

I don't want to jinx it. I, you know, but it's been a very, very long time since Jake's had a seizure. But with Lyft and Uber and all this today, he doesn't even, he just doesn't, he doesn't get an aura. A lot of people do get this feeling right before they have a seizure and they can sit down, they can pull over to the side of the road, whatever. Jake doesn't get an aura. So, um, you know, the last time it's a long time ago that he had a seizure, it was either going into sleep or coming out of sleep. That's, you know, um, those are the two areas where he's most vulnerable or when he, when there's a cold in the house, his go-to his body knows to see. So you and I will get really exhausted or whatever we have a cold, he'll start having a seizure. And so he's very careful, you know, about that COVID

obviously really terrified us as far as, you know, really trying to be as safe as possible. So he didn't get it. But he, you know, he's just constantly, he takes a nap during the day. Jake had a brain surgery when he was 12 because he was having so many seizures. We thought that his seizures were generalized, meaning the entire brain is having activity. But it was actually localized. It was actually coming from one spot in the brain. And in Chicago, they had really fast detection when you do in in when when you do an eg and an overnight and everything and they detected that it was coming from a place where there was no other you know

activity they they did something called an f1 resection which is like taking out just a little bit more than the size of your uh fingernail and they were able to localize it and they took it out and his seizures reduced by 80 percent um after that oh that's great fantastic he was also going through a little oh boy no they had to do it yeah i mean they actually yeah it was it was a big bigger scene because they had to they had to do those leads on the brain where they see exactly where it was coming from it was it was it was really terrible that is a lot for speaking of caretakers man uh uh i'll let you get you back speaking of caretaking that is a lot for parents to go through yeah and the two things that we have have have the most questions i get today are now um uh is

everything going to be okay is obviously the first question and i try to be the red phone for people and let them know yes just find the right medication find the right therapy find the right doctor whatever but also with the evidence cbd it's like people are you know cbd is just a miracle it's it's you know you gotta i i i you know it it terrifies me that people would jump into this without talking to their doctors and they shouldn't because now you can get a medication that's fda approved blah blah blah but you know we are coming around there's a there's a beautiful pipeline going on in this community and i think in neurology in general they're really it's fast moving there are a lot of great therapies and a lot of great things coming that you know um we didn't have 15 years ago you know however long it's been for jay so um i i was just looking at

uh jazz's pharmaceutical stuff they got a lot of neurological meds coming down the line that looks ago, you know, however long it's been for Jake. So, um, I was just looking at, uh, uh, jazz is pharmaceutical stuff. They got a lot of neurological meds coming down the line. That looks very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. They make epidiolex, um, you know, which is a, a, a pharma pharmaceutical grade CBD. It's, you know, there's, there's just a lot, it's a very dark thing when you, when you're, you know, again, seizures, like you said, my son's brain is perfect. I've heard that so many times from doctors and, uh, you know, they'll have students come in at a teaching hospital and it's like, how, you know, we, we looked at the, that, that the EK, you know, the EEG and whatever. Yeah. His brain, the MR, his brain is perfect. I'm like, well, clearly it's not. It's like so frustrating because like you said, there's tumor thank god nobody's perfect no but but but

but they want you to know you you don't know the horrible stuff we see that causes seizure and they want you to know this isn't that you know this is don't worry he's going to be he's fine he has this thing and and this thing i agree with you is something that people have a weird recoiling from and need to sort of educate themselves about them and i'm hoping they do and hoping our conversation today really brings people around a little bit let me let me get some calls here somebody on on uh youtube said that the charlie foundation for ketogenic diet therapies for seizures yeah there's some evidence that ketogenic don't no there's no one thing for everybody. That's why we have neurologists. You don't, you work with,

and by the way, you never treat yourself, no matter what your knowledge base is, no matter how much you know, you don't treat yourself. Yeah, everybody's brain is different. You get an expert who's seen tens of thousands of cases to determine the best approach for you. And again, I know how they think.

That's why I know they're coming in going, your son looks great, your son is great. I know these seizures are frustrating, but he's perfect, he's perfect, which is really important. And it's to the point about a lot of people with epilepsy. Are we going to change the terminology around epilepsy, do you think? I feel like the name has a little stigma attached to it. Yeah, I mean, look, it goes back to the word tonic-clonic is a term that we use for a seizure.

We don't use the term grand mal. I've been trying to get rid of it. Grand mal literally means the big bad or the big evil. Way back, people were possessed. Get that out of your head. That's right. Yeah, that's not good. It's funny.

I haven't thought of using the term grandma since uh since really early in medical school so it's been sort of um washed out of my head i think about generalized seizure primary generalized secondary generalized and that's about it you know and i also and then i think of the various causes you go on ebay and they're still selling things called seizure sticks where you to put in someone's mouth oh yeah yeah on ebay like you cannot choke on your own tongue you can maybe i know what you're eating you can choke on you know but chances are you're okay don't stick anything in their mouth when they're having a seizure yes put them on their side roll them on their side yeah roll them

on their side it's all you got to do and maybe a pillow under their head and off you go. Now there is something called a status epilepticus, which is a little more dangerous, which is if the seizures persist, you got to get them to the hospital because they got to get something intravenous to get them to stop right now. If it goes, you know, more than, than a you know without and be careful also when you're around somebody with seizures seizures require a lot of glucose in the brain for all that electrical activity and sometimes seizures will go for a few minutes and stop because they ran out of glucose and the body delivers more glucose and they'll start up again so if you're having that kind of a thing happen also hospital so just know the you i'll tell you you know over the years

it's the rhythm that i see you know when a storm uh is going away it's the lightning than the thunder and then there's more time in between so jake will have a seizure and it'll be like yeah yeah seizure it's like you know when it's just uh uh, uh, uh, uh, and that is the scary, that's what you're talking about. Yeah. And also the other thing that's terrifying and something we don't talk about enough in the epilepsy world is SUDEP, which is sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

And Cameron, Cameron Boyce, a beautiful actor, beautiful person, passed away. And that is something that is not talked about enough because if you talk to a certain neurologist or epileptologist, they'll say, even if it happens in the hospital, we can't do anything about it. It's the brain telling the heart, stop. Stop. Yeah. It happened to Travolta's son too, didn't it? Wasn't that Travolta's son? No, I think he was in a bathtub when it happened.

He had other issues as well. He was like autistic or something. Yeah, this is in your sleep. Yeah, just a lot of problems. Yeah, so back to that point. I always worry when, not to say that it can't happen sporadically like you're describing, but I always worry that people are avoiding getting comprehensive treatment and minimizing what they're dealing with when they get into those sorts of sudden death situations. Like if you're properly treated, I've not seen that really happen.

I mean, it can, but it's just so unusual under proper care for a seizure disorder. It is, but I have to say, you know, Jake had not had a status epilepticus episode ever. And then, and he's properly cared for and everything. And then all of a sudden, we don't know what triggered it. It may have been something he ate. It may have been, you know, Jake stays away from carbs. He stays away from simple sugars and all that sort of stuff. You know, I, i yeah that's good for anybody but when i i know when i have you know donuts and sugar and stuff i sit on the couch

it's it must feel like what a heroin addict feels like i mean i'm just sitting there going whoa you know it's like the the that was that that was that damn frozen yogurt you brought to warner brothers set one day but uh chris do you have a question for greg here i do greg it's so exciting to see you here i've been a huge fan since felicity i used to watch in my dorm room in college oh yeah every time i've seen you in everything ever since i'm like I used to watch in my dorm room in college Oh yeah Every time I've seen you in everything ever since I'm like ah So congratulations on an exceptional career

Thank you Hey Chris Chris I'm going to interrupt before you tell the story One of my favorite Greg Grunberg stories Is Susan and I went to New York We got in at like midnight And we were like we got to find a place to eat Oh my god I don't know if it was that in at like midnight and we're like, we got to find a place to eat. Oh my God.

I don't know if it was that late. We're like, all right. We went around the corner of Broadway, Ben Ash Delicatessen there on whatever it is, 50th or something. And we fall in there. We're the last person to be served.

And we sit down and I look up right next to me is Greg Gunberg and his wife. Nobody else in the entire Delicatessen except us and Greg Gunberg and his wife. California landed. And it delicatessen except us and Greg Gunberg and his wife. California landed. And I was like, what the hell? I can't believe it. And you knew right away you were in a good deli. Yeah, that happens to me all the time

in Milwaukee. If Greg's in the deli, I'm in the deli. So I'm sorry, Chris. Go ahead. I wanted to tell that story. Not at all. Not at all. So I am also a parent to a child with special needs. yeah i was just curious greg as to your experience in your child's education if there were any hurdles that you

encountered um with dealing with uh school systems educators and hurdles trying to get the best education and also the best you know know, learning environment for your son. And in addition to that, I'm also a parent to multiple kids. And I was curious if, I'm sorry for the second question, but when one of your children needs a lot of attention and you have other children, how do you balance that out and remedy that within the family and yourself thanks chris go ahead come on okay first of all this is what the caregiver is all about talking to a fellow caregiver uh okay so uh my wife oddly enough or ironically enough uh is a spe she she studied and got her master's in special education. So those that are given

situations sometimes can handle them. And my wife, Elizabeth, is brilliant and she's so loving and she's got the heart of gold and patience beyond. So she was already ready and she was handling this and dealing with people that had situations, patients. And so she knew what to do. And that is in the education world, all you want to do is you want to normalize your child's education, right? You really don't. It depends on how severe the condition is. But you don't want to have your child ripped out of a classroom.

It's great that the programs are there, but I froze up. Hold on. Hold on. I think we heard you. We heard you. Great. The program's there. You don't want to get ripped out of the classroom.

Go ahead. Yeah. You, you, you want to, you want to be normalized. The child wants to be, you know, your, your child wants to be in a normal class. So the accommodations are really important. And the IEP individualized education plan, you have to advocate for yourself. You've got to just meet with the teachers on a regular basis and let them know what your child needs. Jake needed a little extra time on tests. He needed to be able to have certain tests read

out loud to him because reading, he just had a really hard time connecting the words to his understanding of what was happening on the test at times um so it's that it's that iep and that regular meeting i we had for you know one frustrating situation we met with the the um school counselor and a teacher and the teacher said i've got 30 kids in the class what do you expect me to do and i was like what i mean i couldn't believe it yeah and one side i understand imagine greg imagine during COVID how frustrating this was. I can't even imagine. And yet as a parent, I was like, what are you supposed to do?

You're supposed to help us. You're supposed to work with us. And it was just this frustration that came to a head. We ended up working together. She's a wonderful teacher. I mean, it was amazing. It's just that communication don't you know unfortunately you can't just expect the red regular um curriculum to you know oh no no she chris knows chris knows she she advocates she's all over the place yeah and she's

and she's been she's we've spoken to her before about the frustrations with covid which has just been terrible terrible terrible yeah now on the second question, the second question, Chris, as far as like having time enough for your other kids, I learned a long time ago, my parents did this thing called special nights. And when I was growing up and I never really understood it, special night was, you know, I get to have my parents to myself. And if you ask a kid what they want to do, they will choose the cheapest, the most economic. They just want to spend time with you what they want to do they will choose the cheapest the most economic they just want to spend time with you they want to go to mcdonald's yeah i want to go bowling they want to do whatever it is i want to be outside the house just with mom and dad and leave my brothers

or sisters behind for just for that night we did that right so then cut to my son having this this extra attention you know what medical issue uh brings and then we ended up i thought wait a minute my parents did this so we did special nights with each one of our kids and what really triggered it for me was one of my other boys said to me when he was six he said man daddy i wish i had epilepsy and i was like oh and that yeah that's when it when it really hit home that okay he's equating epilepsy with special time with daddy or mommy. And so you have to find balance. He needed special night too.

That's right. Well, Greg, I've got to wrap this thing up. Yeah. And I could talk to you all day about everything. I would love talking to you. That's a great idea, though. I never ever thought of doing that with the triplets. Special night?

Yeah. We kind of did that. We do now. Yeah, it's true. We still do it's interesting um the the twitter sometimes the by us dinner the twitter is greg runberg g-r-u-n-b-e-r-g the instagram is greg runberg as well talkaboutit.org is where we want you to go and we want you to see the caregiver and is that just you search it on youtube yeah search it on Um, and you'll find it or search it on, you know, follow me on Instagram and Twitter and you'll find out with new episodes coming out all the time. Uh,

search the caregiver and Greg Grunberg, the caregiver series. Uh, it's available now and more episodes coming out. We're shooting a few more episodes too. And then my podcast is called talk about it and it's for the epilepsy community, uh, doctors, caregivers, everybody's on there. Um, so, uh, you know, thanks for listening through. I love you so much, Susan. You too. Thank you. Love you more. Let's come back, come back again and talk about anytime you want. Well, let's do stuff like this and, uh, we miss you and let's do some more,

whatever on the world. See you back in the real world. Yeah. We need a special time yep we need special nights yes we do yes sir if you're going to new york let us know we'll meet you at ben ash i wish i had epilepsy greg i want to see you for dinner all right greg take care buddy thanks my friend bye guys see ya and uh for the everyone else i've got to run off here. I've got to do Kennedy's show, I guess. And Susan is going to pull that together right now. That's my alarm.

There he is. The angels are here. And sorry, we've got to run off, everybody. Thank you to Greg Grunberg. Thank you, Kayla, for producing. Susan, you as well. Michelle, for booking our friend Greg. And also for making our backdrop and there is

this is the week we have a big week coming up jason waller coming in tomorrow talk about recovery a little reframe talk evie pompouris is a secret service agent believe it or not and dr naomi wolf who's been just shit on this year we just want to support her i think she's a smart woman has been a major contributor she's a nice lady ideas and a very One of my daughters. My daughter is one of her biggest fans. Yes, I know. But anyways, I just want to tell everybody, Michelle Poe did the backdrop behind Drew. It's basically these panels you buy at Walmart, spray painted black. And then Caleb brought in his outdoor lighting and pointed it up in the air.

And there you have. And we even have lights behind. Except they don't go all the way across, so we have to. Oh, there she goes. See, there we go. Look at that. Look at that. Thank you, Elgato.

All right. Tomorrow is Jason Waller. We will see you at 3 o'clock tomorrow. Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. As a reminder, the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is

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