Latest / Mic Drop Comedy / Dr. Thomas Mather a.k.a The TickGuy Shares Tick Prevention Tips _ The Daily Show(MP3_320K)

Transcript

Dr. Thomas Mather a.k.a The TickGuy Shares Tick Prevention Tips _ The Daily Show(MP3_320K) · Mic Drop Comedy

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: You guys are standing up for me, right?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a wild reception for someone who calls
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: himself the tick guy.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I know it. You know?
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Who can figure?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I want to back it up.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: At the very beginning because I'm relatively new to tics.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And I am fascinated by them.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I've been pushing to get you on this show for
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: a very long time.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Wow. Not enough people are having conversations about tics.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: The little bit that I've learned has made me feel
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: a little bit safer. So we have a lot of
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: questions for you. But for a lot of the country,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: they may be asking, what is a tic? Yeah.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: What's a tic?
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a good question.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, that's supposed to be an easy one.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: That should be an easy one.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: You know, I could put my science hat on and
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: tell you all the fancy things about it, but a
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: tick is just a little creature. It has eight legs,
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: and it wants to suck your blood.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, why does it want to suck our blood?
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Well, to grow.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: So it uses the blood in each of its life stages, larvae,
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: a nymph, and an adult, to either grow to the
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: next stage, or when it gets to the adult stage,
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: it takes that great big blood meal so it can
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: lay thousands of eggs and start the whole thing over again.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Wait a second.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: The tick wants what we want. The tick wants to eat.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It wants to reproduce. So we're not that different. No.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: We're not.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Pretty similar, actually.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Pretty similar.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: How did you get involved? How did this happen? How
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: did the tick guy become you?
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that's another good question.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I have great questions. And if you say it after
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: each question, it's going to be a long interview because
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I've got so many good ones.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Years ago, there was, I think, like a Visa commercial
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: that had CEOs on it, and they would say, you
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: don't know me, but you know what I do.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: So like the head of some company.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: And the truth is, I don't really need people to
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: know me, Thomas Mather. What I want them to know is, oh,
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: you're the tick guy, right? Look, it got me on
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: your show.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Why aren't we talking about this more? Why, when I
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: bring up ticks in a social situation or here at
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the show, right, it's funny because no one else does it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Why aren't we having this discussion?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: What is it so viscerally about them that terrifies people?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: People are really creeped out by ticks.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: As an example, the thought that to get on you,
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: to steal your blood, it usually starts low and crawls
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: up across your body. If you find it up on
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: your head, you just want to assume that it dropped
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: out of a tree. I don't know one tick biologist
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: that thinks ticks drop out of their tree. I said
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: that in a social post not too long ago, and
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: some troll came back and said, well, you must not
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: know very many tick biologists.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Because they know, people really, they think they know a
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: lot about ticks. And one time I was doing a
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: television spot in Baltimore, and just before we went on,
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: the guy said, well.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: What do you want to talk about?
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: I said, whatever your producer put on the teleprompter is
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: probably what we're going to talk about.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: And he said, no, no, really.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: And I said, well, you tell me two things you
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: know about ticks. And he said, they drop out of
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: trees onto your head and they die in the winter.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: And I said, and you'd be just wrong enough to
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: still be at risk because while you're looking up there
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: for the ticks falling out of the trees, you're missing
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: the ones crawling up your pant legs. And if they
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: died in the winter, where would next year's ticks come
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: from anyway? And he went like this, big eyes, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: he goes, we should talk about that. Now, we didn't
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: talk about that. We talked about what the producer put
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: on the teleprompter.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I bet you crush at parties. So.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: If one finds a tick on their head, one should
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: assume that it crawled from the feet all the way up.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Or at least sort of at the knee level or something.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: And why don't we feel it crawling on us?
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Well, so some people do.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: But ticks have figured out how to do that in
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: a sneaky way as possible. Because if they let you
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: know that they're there, then you're going to brush them off, right?
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: So they've figured this all out. Same thing with biting.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: Their saliva, the first thing that they do when they
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: start to bite is they spit into you. And that
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: spit deadens your pain reaction. It changes your immune reaction
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: because the last thing that tick wants is a barrier
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: to that.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: It gets rid of the blood clotting with anticoagulants.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Damn. Yeah.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Fascinating.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: They're fascinating.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they are fascinating.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: And for whatever reason, learning about them is making me
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: feel more comfortable, even though you're just telling me they're
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: basically living vampires that steal our blood, numb us, and
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: can make us very sick.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And this is going to be a very bad tick year, correct?
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Well, so, you know, tracking ticks, the Centers for Disease
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: Control sort of keeps record of how many people go
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: to emergency departments for tick removal, and their records are high.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: We have our own tracking where people can send us
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: pictures of the ticks that they find, called tick spotters,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: and our counts are over the moon, really, this year
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: compared to other years so far.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Is that because the Earth is warming? I mean, I
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: remember growing up in Michigan, ticks were not a thing.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe my parents were very negligent also, but it feels
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: like there's more ticks.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Are there more ticks?
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: Well, there are more ticks, and they're moving. The tick
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: picture has changed over the last 20 years, really, and
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: you can blame really one thing, and that is tick reproduction.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: So I think that reproductive hosts, most of the adult
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: stage ticks that we worry about, the black-legged ticks, the
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: lone star ticks, They take their blood meal, that last
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: blood meal, so that they can lay all those eggs
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: from white-tailed deer. And so there are so many more
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: white-tailed deer now than there were 20 years ago, than
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: 50 years ago. So this is made, and they're in
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: places where they.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Didn't used to be. They're not scared of people any longer.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, we used to slow the car down when
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: we would see a deer, to look. And now we
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: speed up.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: LAUGHTER This isn't gonna be all doom and gloom.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: We're gonna get into, you know, what one should do,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: because what I really want to achieve by talking to
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: you is, I think, in today's society and tech and
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: political divisiveness, what we all need and what helps me
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: is to engage with nature.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And what I'm so frustrated by is everyone is so
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: afraid of ticks so much that people are staying indoors.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: And so I want to make sure we understand what
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: we can do to still enjoy the hike, still take
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: all our kids out and playing in nature. So what's
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the first thing that we should do? We have to
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: identify that the tick is on us, right?
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Well, everyone should do a tick check.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: But, you know, I'm just going to back up one
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: more second there and say, I think that the biggest
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: issue is that people just need to know what a
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: tick is and what it looks like. And one of
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: the things that I have learned is that people don't know.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: That ticks have two sides.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: The top side has all of the markings and the
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: stuff that someone needs to recognize them. And the bottom side,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: they all kind of look the same.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: All right, well, I have this.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: You sent this to us, and this may freak the
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: audience out, but what are you looking at? This is
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the top side, and this is the bottom side. Now,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: these are not labeled. Obviously, you know these, but why...
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: First of all, let me just say, it actually is
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: a beautiful creature.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: It's fascinating.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: The markings are beautiful.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And you're beautiful, too. And how do you not know
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: that a.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Tick isn't showing a picture of you going, yeah, yeah, yeah?
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: So it's important that we know what kind of tick
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: is on us.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: And the reason for that is that the different kinds
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: of ticks transmit different germs.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: They don't all do the same thing.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: So like if people say, oh, the ticks are going
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: to be bad this year, I usually stop them and say,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: which tick are you talking about?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I like that. I'm going to use that.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Lyme disease is this complicated, elusive disease that nobody seems
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: to really know about and people are terrified of getting.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: If you get a tick bite, do you get Lyme disease?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: What are the odds here?
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Only if it's a black-legged tick.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, which one's a black-legged tick? They all look like
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: black-legged ticks to me.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: The black-legged ticks are these two, and this is the
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: one that they worry about.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so if that has Lyme disease.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: So one in two of those are carrying Lyme disease
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: germ in the eastern United States.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Less so in the south and less so in the
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: west coast. Around here, 50% of them.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's high.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is high.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: So that's why you want to find the tick pretty
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: quickly to remove it. But the other ticks are just
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: as common, in fact, a little bit more common than
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: the black-legged tick, and they don't carry.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: The Lyme disease.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: So if people are terrified of Lyme disease and they
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: have this tick on their body. No worries.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Have a martini and shut the up.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Now, this is what I mean by learning. Learning makes
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you feel like you have a little bit more power
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: over this. If one in five, if one in two
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: have Lyme disease and I'm bitten by this and it's sucking,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: having a blood meal as you so romantically say, what's
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the chance that I will get Lyme disease from that tick?
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Well, so it depends on a few things, your immunity,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: how long the tick was attached. And I know that's
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: a controversial subject for some people, but in our lab
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: we have, we and many other people have done this
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: to show that they don't transmit an.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Infectious dose right away.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: The bacteria has to move from its stomach up to
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: its salivary glands and then get shuttled out that way.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: So usually you have about a day. I'm sure that
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: if someone's watching this, they're going to take issue with that.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: There are other germs that can be transmitted right away,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: but the Lyme disease germ and one called babesiosis takes
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: a little bit of time of development in the tick
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: in order to be at an infectious level.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: If it's on your body, by the way, we may
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: talk for three hours, but if it's on your body
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: for a long time, two days, three days, will you
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: definitely be getting Lyme disease? If it's infected, yes.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: If it's infected, high chance.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, but the sooner you identify it and remove it,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: the lower chance.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: Right, and in fact, some people think, well, I've had
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: that before, but you can get it again.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: There's not a protective immunity that develops.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about alpha-gal, which sounds like a superhero female movie. Yeah.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: But this is the disease that some ticks can transmit.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: that makes people allergic to red meat or something?
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: What the hell is this? It's mostly attributed to the
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: one in the middle, the lone star tick.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: The lone star tick, I know that. That's the lone
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: star tick.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: Exactly, because you're looking at the top and it has
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: one lone little star.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: No, I'm fully aware of the.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: If you look at the bottom, you see there's nothing
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: very specific about that.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this is the one that can give you alpha-gal.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: And what's the, if this is one in two with
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Lyme disease, what's this one?
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: We don't know what the risk is for alpha-gal. It's
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: a little complicated. So it's not a germ.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: It's a sugar.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: So in its earlier stages, when the lone star tick
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: larvae and nymphs are feeding on deer or whatever they
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: would feed on, It picks up the sugar. It's in
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: all red meat except for in primates. So we don't
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: have that. But in all hooved animals and even those
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: that don't have hooves, they have the sugar. And so
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: it becomes part of the blood meal, but it gets
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: sort of transfigured.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Inside of that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: And then when they spit it in the next stage,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: it stimulates an allergic reaction to red meat because.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Alpha gal. What a bitch. Yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: She penetrates you. Let's talk about... I'm.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Going to go with that in the future.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You like that?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that. All right. Let's talk about ways
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: for people to know if a tick is on their body. Yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: So the first thing you have to think about is
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: doing a tick check. And that sort of scares people, too.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: One, you got to look.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: You got to look at yourself.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Scary. And then, you know, then it's like, where am
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I going to look?
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: And so some people like they don't do it because
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: they think it's going to take them an hour.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Right. Doesn't.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: It takes me about two minutes. I enlist my wife
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: to look at my back. Back in the day when
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: we were first married, she would do this happily now.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Years ago, she bought us the biggest mirror they sold
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: at the furniture store for Christmas.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: And in this corner, it said, good luck.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Right. So she used to inspect every part of your body.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Now there's a mirror. Yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: And as I've gotten older, I realize I can't see
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: some of the places I used to see.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Right. Or some of those places have dropped a little lower.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Where's a little body check hack?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Where do you like to do?
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: Well, so I adhere to sort of my three T's
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: for personal tick bite protection. So tucking, I tuck my
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: pants into my socks when I'm out. I tuck my
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: shirt into my pants and I often will wear treated
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: clothing if I'm at home and I don't want to
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: have to think about it.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: So treated with permethrin.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: And that is really effective.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: We've done lots of studies with outdoor workers and stuff
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: and shown.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: How helpful it is to keep ticks off.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: And then more recently because the lone star ticks have
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: moved into Rhode Island and they're, if, If they ever
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: have tick races that you can bet on, always bet
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: on the Lone Star Ticket.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: It's the fastest tick.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it can move from your knee underneath.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I bet Kalshi is gonna have that soon.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: Well, I should get some benefit from throwing out the tip,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I wanna walk over here because this is a life hack.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: So let's walk over here and this is one thing
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: you have shared, talked about is a toilet is a
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: good place to check yourself for ticks.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You know. Help yourself.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Now, this is not connected to plumbing. Yeah.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: All right. So you're sitting on the toilet.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: 43 years of professional training.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: And here we are.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Here we are. So you're sitting on the toilet.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: So what else?
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: You're checking your.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Phone like every average American. Because what do you do?
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: To do, right?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: You're sitting there. You're kind of.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: Trying to get it ready, making noises and everything. You
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: can actually see all of this behind your knee. You
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: can look at this side.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: That's a common place behind the knee, right?
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very common. Look at both of these. You can
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: sort of look in here.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: They often get up into people's groin areas because if
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: they get past the knee, there's open underneath your clothes,
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: and then they get stuck at your belt line and underwear.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, one of the things that, you know, maybe
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: too much information, I switched.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, are you kidding me? This whole interview's been
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: too much information.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: I switched to, you know, compression underwear so that keep
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: them out of my junk, you know.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: But if you're just sitting there, you can push it
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: to the right, push it to the left.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, great.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: You'd be surprised how much you can see.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I certainly did not ask that question. Why is
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: this a good place to check? Is it because we're
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: already sitting here anyways? And also this is a common
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: spot that we don't normally check?
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I would have, you know, otherwise I'd
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: stand in front of that mirror and I'd have to
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: go like this.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And my glasses would fall off and I can't see.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: It's a mess, really.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: All right, good. And then arms, armpits?
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can stand in front of the mirror and
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: see that pretty well.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: But this is for the lower body.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: This is for the lower body that You know, when
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: you get to be my age, you can't really lean
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: over as well.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, great.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Can I get up now? We'll make sure your team
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: gets this sent to you.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: So.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, when I told the staff that you were coming,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: more people pulled me aside and had tic questions. More
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: than any famous actress, more so world championship athletes. Nobody
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: talks to me when there's a tic guy coming.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Now you're really trying to make me feel good.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't, yeah.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I just feel like there's so many misconceptions.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: So these are questions from our staff, neurotic staff, about tics.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Are there tics in Central Park or Prospect Park? Yes.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: In fact, just two days ago, I had one submitted
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: from someone who claimed they got their tick in Central Park.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: When you say submitted, talk to me about that. What
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: does that mean?
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: To our tick spotters program.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So if somebody has a tick on themselves, they can
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: pull it off and... Right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: So instead of trying to kill it or whatever, burn it,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: that's none of those things. That's what my dad told
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: me to do with ticks.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: The whole thing about touching the back end of the
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: tick with a hot object, I mean... think about it,
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: if they're down there, you really wanna touch that with
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: a tiny little thing, with a hot object? It's never
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: a good idea.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: If I got a hot probe down there, that's not
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: where it's going, you know what I'm saying? All right,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: so we have to talk about how to pull off
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: a tick, but let's take a few more staff questions.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Do I really need to do a tick check every
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: time I go to a park or on a hike,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: or is it just for actual woods and forests?
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it depends on the park. You don't even
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: have to be on a park. I mean, in the
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: little town where we live in, Rhode Island, we collected,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: we stopped at just the roadside where you might be
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: taking a bike ride or something and putting your foot
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: down to take a break or something like that. In
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: 19 out of 20 stops, random stops, we found black-legged ticks.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Hey, good to know.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Good to know.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Maybe you heard here and then you won't get lost.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Disease. You're welcome.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is perfect. Should we kill ticks when we
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: see them?
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Well, you can if you want. There's really no need to.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: I think that that's why they invented Ziploc bags, so
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: that you could put one in the Ziploc bag and
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: throw it in the freezer. then maybe you'll come across
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: the information that, oh, maybe I should take a picture.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: Everybody's got their camera now. But of course, now they
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: know to take a picture of the top side because
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: that's the side that is really.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So we can pull off a tick, put it in
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a Ziploc bag, and we can also send it to you, right?
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Well, you can't send it to me. Just send me
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: the picture.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: There are testing labs, though, that you can, but if
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: you've already thrown it down the toilet or someplace, you
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: don't have it. Who knows what kind it is, right? Oh,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: I had this tick and it was one of those
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: brown ones. And I'm like, okay, that's not very helpful.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Here's another one. Where do ticks habitat mostly? That's a
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: stupid question. We answered that. How paranoid should I be
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: about ticks? If I go to a park, playground, or
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: a trail, should I constantly be checking for ticks?
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think constantly. You don't want to ruin it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: But if you've thought about your clothing repellent, for instance,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: and you're all tucked in, you can sort of enjoy
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: the day. If you're taking a hike, we tell people
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: to walk in the middle of the trail because the
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: ticks are on the edges mostly. So you can, you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: we followed people and they start walking down the middle
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: and before long they're just bouncing off the side and.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: But I like to explore. I don't wanna just walk
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: down the middle of the trail. Middle of the trail is,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I'm a comedian. I'm not going down the middle of
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the trail.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: But can I.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Still live my life the way I want to and
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: then just be super diligent about checking?
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm talking about, bro.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about! Live your life!
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: I've only had Lyme disease once.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: I've only had Lyme disease once, and I've been doing
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: this for 43 years.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: There we go, he's only had it once.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: All right, show me how to take a tick off.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: All right, so the first bit of lesson is, you know.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: That's not a tick.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: It's a juice pouch. A juice pouch, okay. And it
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: has a lot to teach us here, and I don't
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: wanna mess up your.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You kidding me, no one's watching the show at this point.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Anyway, I think everyone knows that when you stick this in.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Here, here, here, here.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it is tricky.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Better you than me.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: This is like identifying a lone star tick instead of
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a deer tick instead of a dog, you know what
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: The common thing is everyone knows what's gonna happen when
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: you stick this in there, right?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: But we'll do it the proper way.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Went through the other side.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: It's hard when you want to do this. On TV,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: it makes things a lot harder.
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Funny way. You get the picture. Stuff pops out.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: So this is the tick.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: This is the.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: Straw that is sticking into your skin. This is a
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: bag of germs. That's a tick, really. And if you
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: squeeze the back end, stuff comes out the straw. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: you don't want to do that. So how are you
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: going to remove the tick safely?
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: You need to grab it. close as possible to your skin,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: so you're squeezing.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Show the camera those exact types of tweezers that you have.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so. Because that's important, right?
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, needs to be pointy so that you can grab
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: it close to the skin and lift up.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Because you don't, you know, a lot of people come
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: at it like this way, and they can't help but
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: squeeze the tick.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Right, so you wanna not squeeze the tick.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, you pull it off, and then what do you
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: do once you pull it off?
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Well, you put it in a Ziploc bag.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: And take a picture of it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Maybe take the picture first.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Sometimes people, people's Ziploc bags these days, they're a little
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: bit cloudy.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: And so it makes it harder to see.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Well, since COVID, supply chain's been a whole thing.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's wrap this up.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This show's never going to let me book my
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: own guest again. I want everybody here, everybody who's watching,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: and me to feel safer when we're outside. What do
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: I do this weekend with myself and my little girls?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: They're six and three.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: How do we engage with nature in a healthy way?
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Well, start by right now we're getting ready to move
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: into the season that the nymphal stage blacklegged ticks are
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: going to be the active ones. They're the size of
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: a poppy seed.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, Jesus Christ. And so you need to know what
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: you're looking for.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Which one is that?
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: That's not on there.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, God.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: It's too small. They're invisible. Here.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: You have ticks with you.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Of course you do.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: Why wouldn't you? These are dead ticks. And which ones
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: are the? Well, so there's little nymphs. There's some little
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: ones towards the top there. It's hard to see, but
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: they're small.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Right? And so they're going to start at your shoe level.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: So the first thing that I recommend that you do
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: is before the weekend, spray everybody's shoes with this stuff.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: It's got permethrin in it.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: That's the key ingredient.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: And it will last on the shoes for about a
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: month against ticks. Once it's on the shoes, it doesn't
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: hurt anything else.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: And so everyone's is like, I don't like chemicals, but curiously,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: everyone's willing to spray their shoes probably because it, walk
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: through God knows what, right? And so get them started
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: with prevention at a place where they're willing to do it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: That's sort of what we.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Well, that's an easy thing right away you can do.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Spray everybody's shoes.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: Once a month, if you have a pet, you're giving
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: them a chew tablet once a month. So same day
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: that you're giving them the chew tablet, remember to spray
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: your kid's shoes.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned my pet, because that's where the
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: ticks come into our house from. But my pet takes
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: a pill that puts insecticide in his blood, so then
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: when the ticks bite him, they die.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Why can't I take that?
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: That's another great question.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe we don't want to put insecticide in
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: our bodies, but I'm doing it to my dog.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's something that.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Has, you're not the first one to think of it,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: For God's sake. And. Give me a little credit around here, huh?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Get a lot of credit for having me here.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I, thank you. I'm so thankful you're here. Thank
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: you for talking to me. Have we covered enough? Is
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: there any one last thing you want to share with anybody?
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: We covered some prevention, getting them off our body. They
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: can take pictures and send it to your lab?
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Or what is it?
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's called Tick Spotters. Just type that in. I
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: think your search engines will find it.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: And.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: 100,000 ticks later, I have 100,000 people's stories in those submissions.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. We really,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: For more information on ticks and Dr.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Mather's work, go to tickencounter.org.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Dr. Thomas Mather, everybody!