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Chiggers: The Phantom Menace · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know Fronhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
0:11
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:14
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, so you should know Jerry's
0:18
Speaker 1: head chiggers. Yeah, me too, I have not. I'm really glad.
0:23
Speaker 1: I was like sigger. It seems like Tracy is making
0:27
Speaker 1: a pretty big deal out of this in this article. Yeah,
0:29
Speaker 1: Tracy Wilson of Stuffy Mission History class wrote this, who
0:32
Speaker 1: recently got married? Congratulations Tracy. Yeah, and she wrote if
0:37
Speaker 1: you've ever heard her say the word mouth parts in
0:39
Speaker 1: the show, Tracy wrote it, chances heart she wrote it.
0:42
Speaker 1: She wrote ticks and mosquitoes. H did she write bees?
0:48
Speaker 1: She did a whole insect sweet. She spent a lot
0:51
Speaker 1: of time knee deep in insects. Yeah, and this is well,
0:53
Speaker 1: this isn't even an insect spoiler. Oh, well, you just
0:57
Speaker 1: removed the fact of the podcast. You think I think so,
1:01
Speaker 1: I don't think you did. I'm just teasing. Okay, I'll
1:03
Speaker 1: bet I know what you think it is because I
1:05
Speaker 1: think the same thing. All right, Well we'll see, Okay,
1:09
Speaker 1: I challenge you, I challenge you back. We throw down
1:13
Speaker 1: the Gauntlet, which is glove. So Tracy did make a
1:16
Speaker 1: big deal out of checkers, but apparently it's a big deal,
1:19
Speaker 1: right Well, sure like if you ever had them, they're
1:22
Speaker 1: no fun. No. The deeper I got into the um article,
1:25
Speaker 1: the more I was like, oh, yeah, this does sound
1:27
Speaker 1: really kind of awful. Yeah, and it's this is just
1:31
Speaker 1: one everyone, there's another itch inducing episode. And speaking of
1:35
Speaker 1: I got my first little bow to poison ivy. Congratulations. Yeah.
1:41
Speaker 1: I was clearing out stuff over the weekend and I
1:43
Speaker 1: was in poison ivy and I knew it. I was like,
1:46
Speaker 1: you know, I've never had it before. This sounds very
1:48
Speaker 1: familiar and um. But I was still I'm no dummy.
1:53
Speaker 1: I know how Murphy's law works. So I said, I
1:56
Speaker 1: just said that out loud. Well you just said that
1:58
Speaker 1: out loud or you just said I I'm not allergic
2:00
Speaker 1: to I thought you were saying like that. I'm no dummy.
2:03
Speaker 1: I said that too, um, And I said, so you
2:06
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be careful and I'm
2:09
Speaker 1: gonna go take a shower pretty soon afterwards. Um. And
2:12
Speaker 1: so it's not bad, but there are probably five or
2:16
Speaker 1: six little, tiny little sets of bumps on each leg pustules. Yeah,
2:21
Speaker 1: they're not bad though. And I looked at him and said,
2:23
Speaker 1: you know what, that's freaking poison ivy after all these
2:26
Speaker 1: years finally got you. Yep, but not too bad. Like
2:30
Speaker 1: my dad always said, poison Ivyll gets everybody one day,
2:35
Speaker 1: said his big saying, uh so, anyway, speaking of itching,
2:39
Speaker 1: that's my itch story of the day. And this will
2:42
Speaker 1: make you itch because it made me itch while reading it.
2:45
Speaker 1: I think you're right, so um, it's actually that's funny.
2:49
Speaker 1: It didn't make me itch, maybe because I've never had it.
2:51
Speaker 1: You're scratching yourself from pointing to myself, no weird place.
2:56
Speaker 1: I'm pointing my finger to my skin and moving it around,
2:59
Speaker 1: but I'm not scratting your so um. Everybody knows that
3:03
Speaker 1: chiggers are insects that burrow into your skin and suck
3:07
Speaker 1: your blood. Um. And I'm sorry you're being coy, my friend,
3:14
Speaker 1: because you just lied three times. Burrow Oh, insects that
3:18
Speaker 1: burrowind skin, that suck your blood. That's right, those are
3:21
Speaker 1: there's three lies in there. This is like a highlights
3:24
Speaker 1: We have to go pick out what's wrong with this picture.
3:27
Speaker 1: Chiggers are not insects. They are erectnans. They are the
3:31
Speaker 1: larvae of the harvest mite. They do not burrow into
3:34
Speaker 1: your skin and suck your blood. But then are the bumps.
3:38
Speaker 1: Well you're being coy again. But what they are actually
3:41
Speaker 1: doing is maybe even grosser than sucking your blood. They
3:45
Speaker 1: are liquefying your cells into a slurry that they can
3:49
Speaker 1: drink from a straw made of your body. It's pretty
3:55
Speaker 1: Is that the fact for you? Yeah? Alright, but we'll
3:58
Speaker 1: get there the same one first one. First of all,
4:02
Speaker 1: the first time we've ever high fives in an episode?
4:05
Speaker 1: Is that? Right? Sure? I I would have imagined that
4:08
Speaker 1: you could make like a video montage of us like
4:10
Speaker 1: high fiving during episodes. I guess not. No, So you
4:15
Speaker 1: said that, um, these things are the larva of harvest mites, right,
4:19
Speaker 1: and harvest harvest mites are arachnets. They're related to spiders,
4:23
Speaker 1: so they're not insects. But you can understand why people
4:26
Speaker 1: would think that um, siggers are or are insects, because
4:31
Speaker 1: chiggers have chiggers. The larva of the harvest might have
4:35
Speaker 1: six legs, so you'd be like, well, it's an insect. No,
4:38
Speaker 1: this haven't grown their adult legs yet apparently, Yeah, I
4:41
Speaker 1: guess to get those two more legs at some point. Um,
4:44
Speaker 1: they the adults are red and the little um larvae
4:48
Speaker 1: are red. But um, you're not gonna see. That's one
4:53
Speaker 1: of the problems with chiggers is you're not gonna see
4:54
Speaker 1: like a mosquito landing on you or a flea, even
4:58
Speaker 1: like you think a flea is small, a chigger is
5:00
Speaker 1: like a tiny little dot that you will would never
5:03
Speaker 1: notice and you may not even be able to see
5:05
Speaker 1: it all with your eyeballs, all right, but sometimes you
5:08
Speaker 1: can see several of them together basically forming a clump. Yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: like the party together. Yeah, one of them has kid
5:16
Speaker 1: from Kid and Plays haircut or Aman Schumpert's more contemporaneously.
5:21
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that is a total kid and play haircut.
5:23
Speaker 1: Did you know that Amman Schumpert delivered his own child
5:26
Speaker 1: in his apartment on purpose? Accidentally. The kids just came
5:31
Speaker 1: very quickly and like he the U nine one one
5:34
Speaker 1: dispetchd to talk him through how to do it. But
5:35
Speaker 1: he delivered his own child and his wife or girlfriend
5:38
Speaker 1: right there and there and everything was good, totally great. Wow,
5:42
Speaker 1: that's great news. He's a basketball player. By the way, people,
5:45
Speaker 1: oh yeah, people like who's amun schumper? He plays for
5:47
Speaker 1: the boo, for the calves boo. So if you're an
5:53
Speaker 1: adult harvest mite and you've grown up from a chigger
5:56
Speaker 1: into an adult, you're gonna eat It's actually a beneficial
5:59
Speaker 1: little are rac need to have around because they're gonna
6:01
Speaker 1: eat the eggs of other pests like mosquitoes. Right, so
6:06
Speaker 1: you want the adults around as an adult or um
6:08
Speaker 1: as the second step the nymphs right after the larva.
6:12
Speaker 1: It's the larva that suck. They don't suck. Well, yeah,
6:17
Speaker 1: but the larva, you know, you gotta have them, but
6:19
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully they just stay in the yard. Although
6:22
Speaker 1: these things are holy terrors to see if you are
6:25
Speaker 1: on their scale, Like if that thing's coming after you
6:29
Speaker 1: and your eggs, I'll bet it's just really terrifying. They
6:34
Speaker 1: are parasitic though, um, they don't. The larva are. Yeah,
6:38
Speaker 1: they don't eat the blood though, like we pointed out,
6:42
Speaker 1: like the fleas and the ticks and the mosquitoes know
6:45
Speaker 1: they eat your skin cells. Right, So here's what happens.
6:48
Speaker 1: Larva hatch um. Apparently, an adult female harvest might will
6:54
Speaker 1: go into the dirt and be like, there's a bunch
6:57
Speaker 1: of eggs, iman chumpert is there to around for them
7:02
Speaker 1: to hatch, so we can hasten their birth. Um, And
7:05
Speaker 1: then the eggs do hatch and the harvest mite female
7:09
Speaker 1: tends to layer eggs all in one place. So if
7:13
Speaker 1: you are familiar with chiggers, if you've ever had them
7:15
Speaker 1: in your yard, like one little patch of grass can
7:18
Speaker 1: be totally overrun with chiggers, but then you just turn
7:21
Speaker 1: a few degrees to your left, there's another patch of
7:24
Speaker 1: grass that is totally devoid of them. Yeah, I get
7:26
Speaker 1: the feeling. They don't get around too quickly either. You know, no,
7:28
Speaker 1: they know. They're pretty stupid low level animals if you
7:31
Speaker 1: ask me. So, the eggs are laid in one place,
7:36
Speaker 1: they hatch, and the little larva come out, and they're
7:38
Speaker 1: like blood meal, Give me a blood meal that's not
7:41
Speaker 1: actually made of blood. That's basically what they say. Okay, Uh.
7:49
Speaker 1: They hatch pretty much any time during the year except
7:51
Speaker 1: for the hard winters, and um, like you said, they
7:55
Speaker 1: want that first meal. And the reason they want that
7:57
Speaker 1: first meal is not just because they're ravenous little jerks. Um.
8:02
Speaker 1: They actually cannot progress to that nip stage, which and
8:06
Speaker 1: then grow up to be adults. Unless they have a
8:08
Speaker 1: complete first meal. They can have they can have half
8:12
Speaker 1: a first meal, they have three quarters seven eight and
8:15
Speaker 1: get and get scratched off the body or brushed off
8:18
Speaker 1: the body, and that's pretty much it. They generally will
8:21
Speaker 1: not go back and finish that meal, so there's no
8:25
Speaker 1: starting over. They're just like, well, that's it, that's the
8:28
Speaker 1: end of millhouse. Had one chance and um. So it's
8:32
Speaker 1: like a complete lose lose situation when a chigger bites
8:35
Speaker 1: a person, because once you start itching as a person,
8:39
Speaker 1: you go to scratch the area and there goes the chigger.
8:42
Speaker 1: They don't latch onto your skin, they don't burrow into
8:45
Speaker 1: your skin. To the moment your your finger makes contact
8:47
Speaker 1: with them, they're gone. Um. The well they leave behind
8:51
Speaker 1: is there and persists for a while, but they didn't
8:54
Speaker 1: finish their their meal and they die. But you still
8:59
Speaker 1: get the scratch or the horrible itch. It's lose loose.
9:03
Speaker 1: They need to stay away from humans. Well they do
9:05
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of animals that don't mind
9:07
Speaker 1: the chigger on their body. So they can get their
9:10
Speaker 1: full meal deal there and go on to live. A
9:13
Speaker 1: great and healthy life without getting scratched off. So, um,
9:17
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't want to be on a human
9:18
Speaker 1: And I mean you would think, like how long does
9:22
Speaker 1: could their meal possibly last? We're talking like but they
9:27
Speaker 1: level length of time four days, I think about it.
9:33
Speaker 1: That's time for us, Like how long is four days
9:36
Speaker 1: to a harvest? Might larva? You could probably do the math.
9:42
Speaker 1: It's like seven eight days. Figure out chigger years or
9:45
Speaker 1: probably it's probably most of their life. Yeah, you know. So, Um,
9:49
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different kinds of chiggers around the world. Um,
9:54
Speaker 1: and they're actually I mean they are pests, they are parasites.
9:58
Speaker 1: But um, there's only like at least one as far
10:02
Speaker 1: as this article says, that is really problematic for humans,
10:05
Speaker 1: the Lepo Trobidium delience might. It's common to Asia, and
10:12
Speaker 1: it can carry typhus, a form of typhus which can
10:15
Speaker 1: kill you if it's untreated. Yeah, it's cured with antibotics
10:19
Speaker 1: pretty easily. But um, if you're out in the middle
10:20
Speaker 1: of nowhere, it can kill you. But don't worry unless
10:24
Speaker 1: you um or in certain parts of Asia, not a problem.
10:28
Speaker 1: Chiggers will just annoy you. Yeah, that's it. They're basically
10:31
Speaker 1: just a total annoyance, and by annoying humans, they die.
10:35
Speaker 1: It's stupid. All right, Well, let's take a little break
10:38
Speaker 1: here and we will come back and talk about some
10:40
Speaker 1: of the wonders of the chigger. All right, we've covered
11:05
Speaker 1: Do we cover fleas? Yeah? I want to say, yes,
11:10
Speaker 1: they definitely need a blood meal. We've covered fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, scabies,
11:17
Speaker 1: did we Oh? Yeah? Man, I just it's really getting
11:20
Speaker 1: a little too much to try and remember now. Yeah,
11:24
Speaker 1: you know, I mean there's like lost episodes just because
11:26
Speaker 1: we forgot them. It's officially especially getting out of hand.
11:31
Speaker 1: I guess we should stop. No, we keep going, my friend, um,
11:35
Speaker 1: brain hurt so bad, chuck. All right, So what I
11:38
Speaker 1: was talking about was the wonders of the chigger. They
11:41
Speaker 1: have a lot of little things that they have about
11:43
Speaker 1: them that make it um and make them able to
11:46
Speaker 1: perform this, uh surgery on your skin. It is kind
11:52
Speaker 1: of like surgery. It is um, but again, they aren't
11:56
Speaker 1: latching on. They're just kind of hanging around. And when
11:59
Speaker 1: you get a chigger on your skin, it actually will
12:02
Speaker 1: spend usually hours looking for a good place to go
12:06
Speaker 1: try to get a meal because um, they have these
12:09
Speaker 1: little tiny mouth parts. There's the word that makes the appearance,
12:12
Speaker 1: which lets you know it's a Tracy Wilson joint. Right. Um,
12:16
Speaker 1: But they don't peer skin very easily, at least not
12:19
Speaker 1: human skin. Uh, tough skin that you would find most
12:22
Speaker 1: on most places of your body. Chugger can't bite through.
12:26
Speaker 1: But which is why you will get chigger bites in
12:28
Speaker 1: places like the back of your knee, like in your armpit,
12:31
Speaker 1: places where the chigger can can get its mouth parts.
12:35
Speaker 1: What are they called celisera celiserai clisserai clisserai clisser I
12:43
Speaker 1: explains it all, Um, that's why you'll get those bites
12:47
Speaker 1: in those areas, because that's where they can get their
12:48
Speaker 1: clissera into. That's right. They're light sensitive, which means they're
12:53
Speaker 1: gonna hang out in the shade mostly if it was
12:55
Speaker 1: up to them at least. Um it's uh, the sun
12:59
Speaker 1: is gonna dry out their boddie. So that's why they
13:00
Speaker 1: head towards the shade. I mean he can like kill
13:03
Speaker 1: them basically. Uh. And so also when a host um
13:06
Speaker 1: comes near, there's like your dog casting a shadow. The
13:11
Speaker 1: chiggers go, we'll over there. I think it's pretty clever.
13:14
Speaker 1: There's a shadow, Let's that means something is alive with skin.
13:18
Speaker 1: That means that, in some weird way, chiggers are aware
13:21
Speaker 1: of shadows. That's right. I mean like some dogs aren't
13:26
Speaker 1: aware of shadows or don't understand them. I think probably
13:29
Speaker 1: most dogs. Have you ever seen that? Like baby two
13:31
Speaker 1: three year old toddler um who sees her shadow for
13:36
Speaker 1: the first time just starts for freaking out, trying to
13:38
Speaker 1: get away from it. It's really cute. So it was
13:41
Speaker 1: a possessed baby kind of that's sad, it's cute. I
13:45
Speaker 1: saw that movie that was The Exorcist, so I'm talking
13:48
Speaker 1: about Uh. They are very temperature sensitive as well. So
13:53
Speaker 1: when they coming to contact with a host and the
13:56
Speaker 1: host is the thing that it's gonna feed on, it's
14:00
Speaker 1: gonna detect that it has like you know, it's not infrared,
14:03
Speaker 1: but it's gonna detect that body heat, right and say,
14:06
Speaker 1: all right, there's something I can try and latch onto.
14:09
Speaker 1: So it's like predator in that respect. Yeah, a little
14:12
Speaker 1: bit kind of. No dreadlocks, No, those are those are
14:16
Speaker 1: a nice edition. If you ask me what else, um,
14:20
Speaker 1: I think it's hilarious. Tracy called it upward mobility. They
14:24
Speaker 1: like to climb to the tops of stuff. And I
14:26
Speaker 1: remember this one from Ticks. Yeah, remember that the ticks
14:29
Speaker 1: were just like grasp things, like little tiny lobsters just
14:32
Speaker 1: stand there and wait for something to pass by, and
14:35
Speaker 1: as it does, they grab it. Um, they don't stand
14:38
Speaker 1: there with their arms out stretched the whole time. Now
14:40
Speaker 1: that's a stress position. Um. There's something called the questing response,
14:44
Speaker 1: which is another hilarious term. They're questing. Yeah, they get
14:48
Speaker 1: up on their tippy toes. They're they're standing up with
14:51
Speaker 1: their their arms raised up towards the heavens for a
14:56
Speaker 1: meal of human cell. Imagine John Cusack can say anything
14:59
Speaker 1: but take away the boom box. Right, that's a questing position. Yeah.
15:03
Speaker 1: The chickers are there in their little overcoat and their
15:06
Speaker 1: spiky hair and their bad attitudes. Um, I just saw,
15:11
Speaker 1: you know John Roderick, a friend of the show, John Roderick, Yeah,
15:14
Speaker 1: great Seattle musician. He tweeted the other day about silverfish,
15:19
Speaker 1: you know, the little insects. He said, why don't we
15:21
Speaker 1: call silverfish what they were clearly meant to be called?
15:23
Speaker 1: Sink lobsters. It really struck me as funny Yeah, they
15:28
Speaker 1: don't look fishy at all. Silver sure sink lobster. That's
15:32
Speaker 1: a great one. Yeah. Right, And finally, they are touch sensitive.
15:36
Speaker 1: They have these little hair like sensory organs on their
15:39
Speaker 1: body to help basically to help them find everything from
15:42
Speaker 1: hosts to each other. There. Yeah, you know, they're like,
15:46
Speaker 1: let's get together and really do some damage on this
15:49
Speaker 1: guy's armpit. Yeah, or you see that waist band. It's
15:53
Speaker 1: a great place to hide underpant's band. Yeah, underpant's band. Yeah,
15:59
Speaker 1: so what is said in here? No, that's uh, but
16:03
Speaker 1: that is a great place to hide because, like we
16:04
Speaker 1: said a few times, you'll easily scratch them off. So
16:07
Speaker 1: they want to go somewhere where you may not be
16:09
Speaker 1: thinking about scratching. Yeah. I was surprised that they go.
16:13
Speaker 1: I could see kind of the outside of the armpit,
16:15
Speaker 1: back of the knee, the waist band, underpant's band. Um,
16:19
Speaker 1: they're protected there, they are, But at the same time,
16:21
Speaker 1: it's warm there and their temperature sensitive. So sure, who
16:24
Speaker 1: think since they're seeking shade, they would go to a
16:26
Speaker 1: cooler spot, But there's probably not too many cool spots
16:31
Speaker 1: on the human body that are protected. Not really, I
16:36
Speaker 1: just said a bunch of contradictory stuff. So all these
16:38
Speaker 1: things help the chiggers find their hosts. But as Tracy
16:42
Speaker 1: points out, that's that's half the battle. Yeah, and when
16:45
Speaker 1: you find a chigger on you, it's probably sorry that
16:48
Speaker 1: it chose you as it's one four day meal. Because
16:53
Speaker 1: they don't like humans. They'll they'll climb onto anything, just
16:57
Speaker 1: about any vertebrate animal. Snakes, yeah, turtles, birds, poor little birds, chipmunks.
17:04
Speaker 1: They don't like us because we take hot showers every day,
17:07
Speaker 1: that's right. And a lot of these animals don't have
17:10
Speaker 1: any kind of response to being bitten by a chigger.
17:13
Speaker 1: So the likelihood of the chigger being undisturbed for four
17:16
Speaker 1: days while it's having its meal fourth meal is what
17:20
Speaker 1: we're gonna call it. Like taco bell. Do you remember
17:23
Speaker 1: that they try to invent another meal. Um, they're they're
17:29
Speaker 1: so they're not gonna get brushed off on these things.
17:31
Speaker 1: Humans almost invariably brush chiggers off because right when we
17:35
Speaker 1: start scratching again, it removes the chigger. Um, So they're there.
17:39
Speaker 1: They don't seek us out as prey. It's just it's
17:42
Speaker 1: just total happenstance. Yeah, And like you said, since they
17:45
Speaker 1: need that thin skin. Um, little kids are more likely
17:49
Speaker 1: to get bitten by a chigger than an old, leathery,
17:52
Speaker 1: old sea captain, let's say. Yeah, and little kids who
17:56
Speaker 1: can't take being teased really are vulnerable to chigger button
18:01
Speaker 1: because they're thin skin, very nice. You know, the ones
18:04
Speaker 1: who were like shorts with knee socks pull all the
18:06
Speaker 1: way up. You're those kids. Yeah, and their their knows
18:09
Speaker 1: are always running because they're crying. They just stopped crying,
18:12
Speaker 1: those kind of kids. Uh So, like I said, a
18:15
Speaker 1: hot shower, uh is a is a great way to
18:19
Speaker 1: kill It's it's great for a lot of reasons. A
18:21
Speaker 1: great way to kill chiggers. It's a great way to
18:23
Speaker 1: keep your body clean. It's a great way to unwind
18:26
Speaker 1: at the end of a long day working in the yard,
18:29
Speaker 1: because that's where you're gonna get your chigger bites most likely. Yeah,
18:33
Speaker 1: in the yard. Yeah, especially if you are the type
18:37
Speaker 1: of gets like letters from the neighborhood association saying mow
18:39
Speaker 1: your lawn you might have chickers. I will never live
18:44
Speaker 1: where there is a neighborhood association. No way, no way. Yeah,
18:50
Speaker 1: you know, in some place, because it's not my thing.
18:53
Speaker 1: In some places, a neighborhood covenant supersedes local law. Yeah, unbelievable.
19:00
Speaker 1: Like your mailbox has got to be like this. You
19:02
Speaker 1: can't paint your house that color, not not for me,
19:05
Speaker 1: and you gotta pay us a certain amount of money
19:07
Speaker 1: to boss you around every month. Nope, yep, that's why
19:12
Speaker 1: I have a stack of car batteries aside my house
19:16
Speaker 1: with like old wood that I haven't used still in
19:19
Speaker 1: it's like Sanford and sun out and then like and
19:23
Speaker 1: paint with a brush. It says, welcome children on the
19:27
Speaker 1: side of your Alright, So, uh, should we take another
19:32
Speaker 1: break and talk a little bit more about the weird
19:35
Speaker 1: fact of the day. Yes, all right, buddy. We talked
20:01
Speaker 1: about the mouth parts. So what they do is they
20:04
Speaker 1: get that calissari and they make a hole in your skin.
20:09
Speaker 1: Normal enough, they inject saliva, which contains digestive enzymes that
20:15
Speaker 1: make a slurry of your skin cells. Talked about other
20:17
Speaker 1: insects that do similar things like this, so it's still
20:20
Speaker 1: pretty like, all right, no big deal. Then it gets weird.
20:25
Speaker 1: It does. And I don't know if it's because they
20:27
Speaker 1: have like specific enzymes or something, but I didn't see
20:30
Speaker 1: this happening with anything else. Did you know? But no,
20:34
Speaker 1: you drop it on them. You you refuse, all right,
20:37
Speaker 1: So what happens is they have in these secretions. What
20:41
Speaker 1: happens is they break your they break your skin cells down,
20:44
Speaker 1: which makes that slurry, which is good, slurp it up.
20:48
Speaker 1: But then the surrounding tissue hardens and it actually creates
20:52
Speaker 1: a tube, a little hard straw in your skin in
20:56
Speaker 1: the wound. Yeah, called a styla stone. What do they
21:00
Speaker 1: do with that? They drink out of it. They use
21:04
Speaker 1: to slurp up your wrecked cells. Yeah, and the longer
21:08
Speaker 1: they're in there, the longer the straw is the style
21:11
Speaker 1: of dome. The style of dome. Yeah, I saw a
21:13
Speaker 1: paper from two thousand four and in the abstract that
21:17
Speaker 1: said it's something like it seems that style of domes
21:21
Speaker 1: form as a reaction to chiggers. So I don't know
21:24
Speaker 1: if they thought, like, maybe this was part of a
21:27
Speaker 1: chigger or something like that, but I guess it's a
21:28
Speaker 1: recent finding that that style iss domes form, and that's
21:32
Speaker 1: how chiggers actually eat because they don't have any probiscus
21:35
Speaker 1: or anything like that. They're pretty much really weak proboscis
21:40
Speaker 1: one of those um they're just not great insects or
21:45
Speaker 1: aracnus at all. Yeah, they're not. They can't bite very easily,
21:50
Speaker 1: they can't suck anything out. They um, they're just they're useless.
21:55
Speaker 1: But your body just happens to help them out. Well,
21:59
Speaker 1: they have that that magic juice. I guess that's pretty cool,
22:02
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, uh so with that magic juice, that's
22:05
Speaker 1: gonna be one of the two reasons you're gonna be
22:07
Speaker 1: itching a lot. Some people react quite adversely to that juice.
22:12
Speaker 1: Other people it's not that bad. Um, But it's still
22:15
Speaker 1: gonna itch no matter what. And it's not just the
22:17
Speaker 1: juice you're reacting to. I think that's probably what first
22:20
Speaker 1: gets your attention. But the thing that causes the persistent
22:22
Speaker 1: itch is that stylist dome, your body's own reaction, which
22:26
Speaker 1: seems to be forming basically a hollow tube of temporary
22:30
Speaker 1: scar tissue in this wound area, and then that actually
22:35
Speaker 1: causes some sort of itch reaction as your skin heals,
22:38
Speaker 1: and that can take a very long time to heal.
22:41
Speaker 1: This is the point where I was like, oh, having
22:43
Speaker 1: chiggers actually does suck terribly. Yeah. I think if you
22:46
Speaker 1: had a chigger that was able to complete its full
22:49
Speaker 1: four day meal. Your toast means you haven't showered for
22:53
Speaker 1: four days. Yeah. Uh, that's when your style of dome
22:58
Speaker 1: is gonna be at its peak of hardness and length, right,
23:02
Speaker 1: and it's gonna have the worst reaction, right, So what
23:06
Speaker 1: can you do? Uh? There are home remedies you've heard,
23:09
Speaker 1: maybe like painting over chigger bites with a clear nail polish, right,
23:16
Speaker 1: or any kind of nail polish. Really, I think, well, yeah, sure,
23:18
Speaker 1: if you got flair, I'll get to put some dots
23:23
Speaker 1: on my armpit, and then why not, I'll put them
23:25
Speaker 1: around my eye as well. So what's the deal there?
23:28
Speaker 1: You're just choking it out. Um. A lot of people
23:31
Speaker 1: would say, yes, you're covering up this the chigger that's
23:35
Speaker 1: burrowed into your skin and it is now suffocating to death.
23:39
Speaker 1: It's like choke on choke on your meal. But that's
23:42
Speaker 1: wrong because again, chiggers don't burrow into your skin, right,
23:46
Speaker 1: and Tracy points out very acutely, by the time you
23:48
Speaker 1: even notice it, it's very likely the chigger is not
23:51
Speaker 1: there any longer. Right, So if you're painting something over
23:54
Speaker 1: your skin, um, really, what you're doing is protecting the wound.
23:57
Speaker 1: Area from um the air contact with the air, which
24:01
Speaker 1: can aggravate it. So it does help. But Tracy says,
24:04
Speaker 1: just use anti itch cream. It's way better. Yeah, like
24:07
Speaker 1: cortisone or something, so what it is. Yeah, yeah, Um,
24:12
Speaker 1: don't try to I don't know why she felt they
24:14
Speaker 1: need to put this in here, but we might as
24:16
Speaker 1: well say it. Don't try to remove the style of dome.
24:19
Speaker 1: I could see people doing that, trying to dig it out. Yeah, no,
24:23
Speaker 1: you don't need to know. I can definitely see people
24:25
Speaker 1: doing that. I think that was worth it. Um. She
24:28
Speaker 1: also says, don't use turpentine. You I've never heard that. Yeah,
24:31
Speaker 1: people do all sorts of dumb stuff. Yeah. I mean
24:34
Speaker 1: I guess if you could soak in a tub of
24:36
Speaker 1: gasoline and that would probably kill it, lighted on fire. Yeah,
24:42
Speaker 1: most of these home remedies would you should just shy
24:44
Speaker 1: away from. I think yes, only use remedies approved by
24:49
Speaker 1: modern Western medicine. Modern western medicine. It's the only treatment
24:54
Speaker 1: you need. Um. The name chigger, they believe you ever
24:58
Speaker 1: heard of sand fleas huh, like in Florida or anyone? Yeah,
25:04
Speaker 1: these those are Chico fleas c H I G O
25:07
Speaker 1: E UM and another name for that is the jigger
25:10
Speaker 1: flee And they think that chigger came from just sort
25:13
Speaker 1: of matching those two names together, even though it's not
25:15
Speaker 1: the same thing. No, it's not. Those actually do burrow
25:18
Speaker 1: into your skin and they lay eggs there, and then
25:20
Speaker 1: the eggs like the feast on you. So not good.
25:23
Speaker 1: But I guess there's just nothing but confusion surrounding chiggers. Yeah, nothing,
25:28
Speaker 1: so chuck. If you want to protect yourself against chigger
25:31
Speaker 1: invasions in your armpits and your underpants bands, what do
25:36
Speaker 1: you do? Well? If you're working, if you work in
25:39
Speaker 1: your yard and your garden a lot um, you wear
25:42
Speaker 1: long sleeves, wear pants to you know, cover up as
25:47
Speaker 1: much body as you can physically. Um, you can wear
25:50
Speaker 1: deep if you want, or any other kind of insect repellent.
25:53
Speaker 1: This is. You can also use sulfur. I've never heard
25:57
Speaker 1: of that. I haven't either. I wonder if you like,
25:59
Speaker 1: you just burn into scenar you or something. I don't know.
26:01
Speaker 1: It would smell like bathing egg water. Yeah, God, your
26:05
Speaker 1: bathing like that? You know what? Just I will never
26:09
Speaker 1: ever try because I hate pickled things anyway, But pickled
26:12
Speaker 1: eggs they're they're not bad. They're usually a little too sweet.
26:17
Speaker 1: There's to see those things floating in a jar, and
26:19
Speaker 1: it's like I feel like I'm in a hospital, the
26:23
Speaker 1: like where you found the head. Yeah, the the I
26:26
Speaker 1: think it's the Chinese, probably Japanese and Korean. Two. There's
26:29
Speaker 1: a type of pickled leggs where they soak them in
26:32
Speaker 1: a brine like and it's the saltiest thing will ever eat.
26:37
Speaker 1: And they're mucky and brown. Those are those are not good.
26:42
Speaker 1: The other ones are fine. They're just not they don't
26:44
Speaker 1: taste that great. I think I don't want food soaked
26:47
Speaker 1: in liquid. I think pickled stuff is really good for you.
26:51
Speaker 1: I mean I hate pickled things, but just love pickled
26:53
Speaker 1: every period. Like soaking something in a solution, I just
26:56
Speaker 1: don't want. I don't even like marinades. I'm a dry
27:01
Speaker 1: rub guy. Are you really? Yeah? You know I didn't
27:04
Speaker 1: know that about you. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know like
27:06
Speaker 1: sauces of any kind or is it the pre soaking,
27:10
Speaker 1: like pre cooking soaking that well, pre marinating I don't like.
27:15
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're if you have a quality French
27:17
Speaker 1: saucier at your disposal, I'll take a little alright, but
27:21
Speaker 1: put it on the side in a plastic cup. But
27:23
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like. There was this place near
27:25
Speaker 1: Emily Shop that was it's now closed. I kind of
27:29
Speaker 1: feel bad for saying this, but I think I know why.
27:31
Speaker 1: Because they used too much sauce. Dude. They had this delicious,
27:34
Speaker 1: crispy crispy fried chicken that they dumped this gravy sauce
27:38
Speaker 1: on top. They never just put it on the side. No,
27:41
Speaker 1: and by the time it got to the table it
27:42
Speaker 1: wasn't Crispy fried chicken anymore. I just don't get it. Huh.
27:47
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'll I'll eat a sauce. It's yeah, you're
27:50
Speaker 1: describing a smothered chicken. That's totally different. But it was fried. Huh,
27:55
Speaker 1: fried and smothered. I can't do that. Those two things
27:58
Speaker 1: are never supposed to come together. Um. If you want
28:02
Speaker 1: to see if you have chiggers on your property, um,
28:05
Speaker 1: Tracy says, you can take a piece of black paper,
28:08
Speaker 1: black construction paper, maybe from your child, right, give me that,
28:13
Speaker 1: you stupid kid, and go out and lay it on
28:17
Speaker 1: the ground, uh, near where you think there might be chiggers,
28:19
Speaker 1: and you might see little, tiny, tiny red things. She
28:22
Speaker 1: doesn't just say that. She says to take a piece
28:24
Speaker 1: of paper into five physics by standing it up on
28:27
Speaker 1: its edge, and then the chiggers will follow their natural
28:32
Speaker 1: urges and climb to the top of the paper. Like,
28:36
Speaker 1: what world does Tracy live? Well, and I mean you're
28:38
Speaker 1: you know, you're in the grass. You can stand a
28:39
Speaker 1: piece of paper up in the grass. Maybe not if
28:42
Speaker 1: you take care of your grass. This isn't like that
28:45
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode where Darren from the Which like flips
28:48
Speaker 1: the coin and it lands on its side. Oh man,
28:51
Speaker 1: you know what happened in Pe in college one time?
28:55
Speaker 1: My pe teacher basketball teacher through a pin and remember
29:00
Speaker 1: the paper mate pens that had the the cap with
29:03
Speaker 1: the just sort of flat top. Yes, he just flipped
29:06
Speaker 1: it up in the air, meant to catch it, didn't
29:08
Speaker 1: It hit the ground and bounce and landed completely straight
29:11
Speaker 1: up and down on its cap. That's exactly like that
29:14
Speaker 1: Twilight z Own episode. He could hear everyone's thoughts after
29:17
Speaker 1: that point. Now, well, I drop that class immediately. That's smart.
29:20
Speaker 1: Come out of here, very smart. Where you like which
29:23
Speaker 1: ran out the door and you could do in Satan's work?
29:27
Speaker 1: Oh man, all right, well that's chiggers. Oh we didn't
29:31
Speaker 1: say if you really want to control chiggers in your yard,
29:33
Speaker 1: just take care of your yard. They will go away.
29:36
Speaker 1: They won't want to hang out there. There won't be
29:38
Speaker 1: long stalks of grass for them to climb up to.
29:40
Speaker 1: In quest from that's right. If you want to know
29:44
Speaker 1: more about chiggers, horrible, horrible little things, you can type
29:47
Speaker 1: that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com.
29:50
Speaker 1: And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener. Hey,
29:57
Speaker 1: before I read the listener mail, actually, um I start
30:00
Speaker 1: he did a fitness club for stuff you should know listeners,
30:03
Speaker 1: because um, I have my weight struggles and so I
30:07
Speaker 1: needed some help and it's always better to do this
30:09
Speaker 1: with other people. So I started. I looked into some
30:12
Speaker 1: different apps and my fitness Pal was what I went with.
30:16
Speaker 1: So if you want to join my fitness Pal, or
30:18
Speaker 1: if you're already on it, just go to uh search
30:20
Speaker 1: groups and s y s K Fitness Club is one
30:23
Speaker 1: of the groups. And we've already got like three fifty
30:25
Speaker 1: people there and we're just gonna band together. Man, it's
30:29
Speaker 1: really neat, and um there's group discussions and we're gonna
30:33
Speaker 1: have group goals and it's just gonna be a very cool,
30:36
Speaker 1: supportive community for people that feel like they need to
30:39
Speaker 1: make some positive health changes in their life. So anyway,
30:43
Speaker 1: s y sk Fit Club at my fitness pal and uh,
30:46
Speaker 1: now here's my listener mail. Hey guys, I'm a new fan.
30:49
Speaker 1: I must admit I'm getting addicted. Recently listened to the
30:52
Speaker 1: Anesthesia podcast and I heard the listener mail the Harvard
30:55
Speaker 1: student and needed five numbing injections to the nasal cavity.
30:58
Speaker 1: You're breaking your nose. Terrible. She thinks she can went
31:01
Speaker 1: up it here. It's not bad. I know. I'm sorry. Uh.
31:04
Speaker 1: In one in college, one of my molars became infected.
31:08
Speaker 1: I need a root canal. The day of the procedure,
31:09
Speaker 1: the dentist gave me shots in the gum, which Chuck
31:12
Speaker 1: said was the worst thing ever in life. After a
31:15
Speaker 1: few numbing shots, he got to work drilling uh into
31:18
Speaker 1: the infected tooth. Unfortunately, he didn't give me enough. Once
31:21
Speaker 1: he got down to the root, I felt it and
31:23
Speaker 1: it felt awful, So I said to the dentist, Hey,
31:26
Speaker 1: I learned the dentist. He then pulled out what must
31:29
Speaker 1: have been the largest needle in existence. He gave me
31:31
Speaker 1: a shot directly into the infected root of my Oh, man,
31:36
Speaker 1: I think that has the nose. Uh, this made me
31:40
Speaker 1: She said that she takes pain well, she said, but
31:42
Speaker 1: this made me sob uncontrollably. It was ten years ago,
31:45
Speaker 1: and I can still vividly recall the flash of blinding
31:48
Speaker 1: pain when the needle made contact. To make matters worse,
31:51
Speaker 1: that evening, my gum swelled dislodged the temporary crown. I
31:54
Speaker 1: had to go back the next day to have it refitted.
31:57
Speaker 1: So that's my injection story. Like I said, I'm not
32:00
Speaker 1: if it's worse than the five in the nose. I'd
32:02
Speaker 1: say both were pretty terrible. I hope you enjoyed the read.
32:05
Speaker 1: Julie yeaste from Honolulu, Hawaii. It's a lot for that, Julie, Man,
32:11
Speaker 1: I'm making air quotes when I say thanks. That's like scarring,
32:16
Speaker 1: you know, But she'll remember that for the rest of
32:18
Speaker 1: her life. Well, way to go, h If you want
32:23
Speaker 1: to try to gross this out, it's gonna be tough
32:25
Speaker 1: to top that one. But let's keep it going, shall we.
32:28
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32:40
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