WEBVTT - Ep. 908: The Lone Star Tick and Alpha Gal Syndrome 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:13.320 If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.319 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening toast, you 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.360 can't predict anything brought to you by first Light. When 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.360 I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light build, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.160 no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer, 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.200 no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.599 first light dot com. That's f I R S T 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:44.120 L I T E dot com. Holy Smokes joined today 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.440 by bercard Builder, the Writer. We're gonna talk about Alpha 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:49.400 Gala syndrome and the Lone Star tack. We we're just 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:50.720 gonna talk about a bunch more your work. And I 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.080 gotta tell you flat out right here, this is embarrassing. 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.320 I've been a fan. I've been a fan of you 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.400 for for over a quarter century. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:04.400 Wow, that's great. 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.000 I like, dude, I'm not kidding you. 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.760 I in nineteen ninety nine or whenever that was nineteen 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.120 ninet niney two thousand, I was a graduate student and 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:20.680 I got the Harper's magazine and it had your piece 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:27.200 on cock fighting, and I was split between I was 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:33.200 split between loving you because it was so perfect in 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.640 wanting to kill you because I was so jealous. I'm 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.200 not kidding you, and I've loved your stuff since. 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:40.759 Man, oh thank you. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.320 Like you're you know, I know you've done books, like 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:45.800 you have a book Noodling for Flatheads, and you kind 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:46.319 of blew that out. 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:47.800 I mean, you like made that whole thing. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.080 In my mind, you took this like esoteric, you know, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.920 backwoods practice and sort of made it to where every 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.640 social media influence around the planet goes out and has 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:01.600 their day noodling flatheads, you know, I mean like you 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:02.920 had found that. 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.000 A familine in Oklahoma made a documentary called Oki Noodling 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.200 with the Flaming nick Lips for the soundtrack, and and 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.320 he and now there's a whole noodling tournament. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.160 But you were out of that stuff. 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.400 Yeah, you were out of that of twenty years like 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:18.440 over twenty years ago. 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.880 Yeah, yeah, there's uh yeah, twenty five, thirty years ago. Yeah. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.040 And another favorite thing, like one of my favorite passages 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:32.760 ever written is you were you were profiling the sort 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.680 of like up and coming bull riders. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:35.919 Explain this people real quick. 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:37.760 Now'll take my favorite passage, but like, how do you 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.359 explain your piece about bull riding? 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.840 Well, it's basically about how young bull riders get made 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.000 and then you know, they get started five or six 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.120 on sheep, and then they go to little calves, and 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:53.359 then they go to small bulls and steers, and and 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.120 that has happened, That has gotten younger and younger, even 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.360 as the bulls have gotten more and more fierce and 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.639 terrifying and destructive. And so it's been a crazy kind 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.160 of collision of two cultures. 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:06.760 And you did mostly reporting for that, and I remember, right, 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.480 was it mostly in Nevada or you. 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.680 Mostly in Oklahoma? Actually in Oklahoma, so I knew a 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.600 lot of and there are a bunch of bull riding 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.839 families down there that I lived, so I met them. 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.440 But you were always tell people this story because you're 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.959 writing a piece about bull riding culture and these young 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.240 kids bull riding, and at the same time that you're 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.960 working on this, in your own neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.120 there's a park where the parents all take their little 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.880 kids to play, and they came in and installed rocks. 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:38.960 In the park. 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.240 I mean flat rocks like two inches high. 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.200 Yeah, So you're writing about the parents who are deeply 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:50.000 upset about the hazard that these rocks would present to 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.640 their children should they get hurt on the rocks, and 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.560 people being like, I can't believe they're real rocks put 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.160 in the park, and you're like, you're living. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.720 In this while also living with these bull rider people. 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.960 Right, No, I mean it was I think it was 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.880 the high point or the nature of the kind of 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.280 helicopter parenting thing. And in park slope where I'm in 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.120 Brooklyn was really intense about that these parents who wanted 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.960 to oversee every single thing create a perfectly safe bubble 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.800 for their children. And then I go to Western Oklahoma 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.280 and and you know, some five year old eight year 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:29.479 old boys getting thrown off bloody face, might have a 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.480 bunch of cuts, and his parents are like, get back up, bore, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.880 get back up, all that thing, you know, and it's 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.919 just like, and I have to say, those kids that 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.440 I was with, those bull riding kids were some of 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:46.760 the best kids I've ever been around. Incredibly polite, focused, 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.000 like good natured, you know. I mean, you know, there 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.000 was a good chance they were going to get grievously 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.200 injured before the age of twenty, you know, and they 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.320 could have headed It was lots of risk and what 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.040 they were doing, but in terms of how they approached life. 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.480 There was so much zest and appetite to it. It 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:04.600 was kind of they were kind of great. 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.600 Yeah, And then now the reason, the reason I wanted 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.719 to hear now is you just wrote a big piece. 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.640 All your stuff is so well reported. You do a 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.920 great job. I feel like you. Usually you seem to 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:19.919 really win the trust of the people you're talking to. 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:23.920 You paint things very fairly. And now you've done a 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:25.440 piece on something that I've been paying a ton of 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:30.680 attention to, which is this what seat you can clarify 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:35.680 what seems to be this explosion in alpha gal syndrome 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:37.880 to where now I've got buddies that have had it. 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:39.520 I've got buddies that got it so long ago they 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.880 got over it. It seems like there's more and more 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.120 of it I went through. I recently was reading the 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.520 writer Nelly Bowles. I recently read a piece she had 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.320 where she called she said that lime disease is a 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.760 chic disease, like people are proud to have had it. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.520 I don't know about that I had. I've had a tickborn. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.640 I had a tickboren illness from lime that I was 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:05.000 treated for and got better and ticks are part of 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.760 the conversation in this country, especially in the outdoor community. Like, 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.240 ticks are a bigger part of the conversation now than 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.320 they've ever been, and it seems like they're only going 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.960 to become more and more and more of the conversation. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:17.159 And there's more and more things to worry about. 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.360 And I didn't realize it, and I'll have you explain it, 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.320 but I recently picked a loan. 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.680 I had a lone star tick right here on my classical. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.279 I called my a friend of mine who's a doctor, 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:30.839 because I thought it was like the kind of thing 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.920 you take an antibiotic for. This is just I mean, 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.200 this is a couple of weeks ago. And she's like, no, man, 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.440 this is a whole other ball game. This is not 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.920 nothing to like, that's not this. And it realized how 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:48.520 little I knew about this but which we're going to cover. 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.080 But to start, like what was it? Like why did 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.719 you get into this idea? Like what what drew you 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.800 to this? This idea of alpha gel syndrome and lone 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:57.360 star tics. 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.200 Well, it's like a lot of stories. I kind of 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.839 zeroed in on it gradually. My first thought was, damn, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.520 we've had this these waves of infestations over the last 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.080 thirty years, you know, lime disease and superlice and bedbugs, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.720 and then there was this huge scabies outbreak in Europe 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:15.960 that might be coming to this country, and screw worms, 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.520 and you know, it's just been like one after the other, 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.520 and I thought, there's got to be a pattern here, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.160 what's going on? And so I started calling. First I 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.360 called pest control people in New Jersey, and then they 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.000 sent me to a bunch of extension folks in Nebraska 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.000 and Kentucky and they said, well, yeah, you know, a 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.280 bunch of those things. We're worried about the screwworm, but 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.760 they haven't come really come across the Texas border yet, 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.360 but everybody here is freaked out about alf gal. And 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.480 I had heard about Alpha goal maybe twelve fifteen years ago, 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.880 but as a kind of a novelty disease. There was 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.800 a piece on Radio Lab about a woman who'd gotten it, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:59.040 and it felt very much like what lime disease was 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.560 in the early days, like maybe something that in a 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.160 small pockets like the Hampton's or martha'svinias, which by the way, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.160 are two of the biggest hotspots for it. Maybe people 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.320 get it there, but it's not that wide spread. And 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.880 then I started to realize, no, it's actually those ticks 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.000 have moved all the way west to the Rockies. They're 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.120 like and they're spreading and multiplying. So it's becoming a 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:20.520 much huger thing than it was. 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.120 You just said that the ticks are spreading. Is it 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.920 that the ticks are spreading or that the pathogen or 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.160 the diseases are spreading, Well. 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.280 It's both, really, I mean in this country, I mean, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.360 if you look worldwide, Alpha g al is all over 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.040 the world now more than thirty countries, six continents, and 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.000 in all these countries, all these continents is carried by 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.640 different ticks, like the BoNT tick in South Africa or 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.760 the castor bean tick in Europe. In this country, it's 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.160 carried by loane star ticks almost exclusively. And the lone 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:01.360 star tick used to be pretty much contained in the southeast, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.360 like up until nineteen fifty, they didn't really go past 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.320 north of Virginia, Okay. And now you look at the 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.599 CDC map of lone star ticks and they're all the 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.000 way to the Oklahoma Panhandle, They're all the way to Maine, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.040 they're all the way to you know, northern Michigan. So 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.280 they with climate change and especially with the kind of 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.360 wetter conditions that often come with climate change, they've kind 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.360 of followed those and spread all across the country. And 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.280 they're so aggressive and so bold and resilient that they've 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:30.760 done really well wherever they've gone. 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.160 Yeah, I want to tell listeners about a thing real quick. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.120 Then why you'd explain elf, like how this alf gal 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.920 thing works. But like, people are very familiar with lime. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.840 We've been talking about lime disease for decades. Lime disease 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.200 is you have a tick that carries like a bacterial pathogen. 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.200 The tick latches onto you and the longer it's on you, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.080 the more it can transmit, and it transmits a bacterial 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.719 infection into your body. Right, it's passing an infection a 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.040 long into your body. You can have the ticks that 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.240 carry it. You have areas where there's a very low prevalence. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.960 Right there's they're a small percentage of the tics are infected. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.120 There's areas where like when I got it, and doing 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.800 my research after getting it, I learned that about three 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.760 quarters of the ticks at that time in Hudson Valley 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:26.960 about three quarters of the ticks carried the bacteria. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:27.720 That causes lime disease. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.199 Yeah, so you know, if you got a tick latched on, 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.320 you had a seventy five percent chance that thing was 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.240 had the capability of bringing it to you. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:35.680 Right. 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.679 This alpha gal deal, which will jump to the kind 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:43.720 of the punchline here, is it causes like a meat 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.439 and dairy allergy. That's how people become aware of they had. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.440 It has a totally different way it functions. Can you 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:54.280 explain to people what's like, what is going on when 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:55.440 you get bit by these things? 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.959 Yeah? Yeah, no, it's true. I mean lime disease, bibiziosis, anaplasmosis, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.040 the ourlikios is all the major tick born diseases are 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:07.240 you know, their bacteria, they're parasites. Alpha gal is different 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.319 and it and it's different two ways, Like every loane 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.160 start tick has alpha gal in its saliva. Right, So 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.120 it's not a question of if you have the bacteria 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:17.520 or not it they all have it. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:19.600 Like they're just born with it. 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:21.560 You're born with they're born with it. And when you 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.000 get bitten, if they latch on and they stay latch on, 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.679 that alpha gel it goes into your system. Now, The 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.480 catch is that, like not that large a percentage of 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.640 people who get the alpha gallu in their system from 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.640 a bite will develop the syndrome. Right, you may even 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.760 have alpha gal anybody's in your body and still not 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.559 get the syndrome. The syndrome means you're getting an allergic 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.640 reaction to it. But if you get bitten by it 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.800 by a lone star ticket, it stays on. You will 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:52.160 get alpha gal in your system. 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.880 And what what is that? Like? Explain that bit about that. 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:04.240 All all meat, like people meat, monkey meat, all mammal meat, Yeah, 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.160 contain something, right. 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:12.440 Yeah, all non primate bodies contain alpha gal and the 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:13.920 most of it if you look at the ones that 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.600 have the highest conscients the organ meat, it's the sinews, 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:20.079 it's it's it's the fibers. But it's also in the meat, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.800 and dairy often has it, almost always has alpha gal 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:23.120 in it. 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:24.360 And what is it? 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.440 It's a type of sugar. It's a type of sugar, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.320 which is another unusual thing. Most most allergies are caused 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.920 by proteins are two proteins, but this case is the sugar, 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.480 which is one of the reasons it took so long 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.559 for it to get identified, but it's it's in this, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.839 you know. And so you know, we eat alpha gal 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.000 all the time, we're eating meat all the time, and 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.840 mostly we don't react to it. So the question is 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.520 why do we And and that still hasn't been totally 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.880 figured out. There's clearly something in the tick saliva, some 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.240 kind of cofactor that's not only we're not only getting 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.560 the alpha gal, but it's triggering the imma immune reaction 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.800 to the alpha gal and the people who get. 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.160 It and then they get it like the tick gets 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.120 it in them, yeah, to some degree. 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.240 Or the body. Yeah, now the human body now reacts 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:10.600 to it. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.080 As immune reaction to that sugar, that foreign sugar that's 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:14.640 in your blood. 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.320 So then you go eat a burger, right, you go 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.160 eat a beef burger, and also in your body lights up. 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.000 Yeah, I mean. And the crazy thing is that most 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.000 dollargies are quick, right, you get bitten by you get 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.240 stung by a bee, and you react right away, you know, 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.320 But alpha gal it can take two to six hours 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:38.040 to manifest. And it seems to be because the alpha 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.680 gal itself is bound up in lipids and fats, or 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.240 it's bound up in these connective tissues and both of 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.960 them these kind of gluey connective tissues, and both of 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.240 them take a long time to digest. And so you know, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.200 you're eating this stuff and no reaction at all, and 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.440 then suddenly at three in the morning, you're starting to 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.880 get terrible stomach cramps or you might get shorten it's 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.080 a breath, your throat's up, be getting rashes or hives, 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.840 and people don't make the connection right. I mean, there 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.040 was a study in two thousand and seven and seventeen 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.960 that looked at one hundred doctors' visits of people who 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:18.280 had alpha galle syndrome, and only one in ten doctors 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.520 identified it correctly. Oh you know, and the people who 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.200 in that study, the median length for to diagnosis was 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.920 seven years. So you think about people having these serious 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.280 allergic reactions to the point of some of them are 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.200 going into anaphylactic shock, you know, they and they don't know, 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.840 and they go to the doctor and the doctor says, well, 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.240 that might be a gluten allergy or I don't know, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.560 maybe you have some heart palpitations. We then need to 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.280 do some heart things. I talked to one guy who 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:49.120 had three heart surgeries because they misdiagnosed alpha Galleson. Really, yeah, 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:53.400 this is a guy in Springfield, Missouri. So that's the 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.200 that's the scary part of it. If you don't identify, 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.440 you start to think, oh, you have irteal bow syndrome. 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.760 You have any number of things it could be that 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:02.560 you could think is causing it. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:03.760 Huh. 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.960 So when what do you what does it mean when 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.680 people say I got one buddy, I don't want to 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:12.720 say his name, say his first name. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.120 His name is Evan. He got it and then he 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.720 got better, right and again. When I first heard I 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.600 should clarify this. When I first heard about this, I 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:24.000 thought it was like I had this. 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:25.920 I had this feeling how many every years ago I 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.360 was there, I had this thing that that can't be true, right, Yeah, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.200 it sounds I mean, I thought it was another And 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.880 I don't in any way want to say there's not 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.400 such a thing. But I don't want to go down 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.760 and being like there's no such thing as gluten analogies whatever. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.240 When I first heard it, what went off in my 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.080 head is it's like a thing that people are becoming 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:51.040 aware of and they're self diagnosing at a at a 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.040 higher rate than people are actually getting it right right, 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.240 because but then I've been friends by. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.480 The way, allergist sent Epodemil was the same way for 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.880 for like ten years. They said, this is this is 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.320 not a thing. Yeah, you're lying. 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.240 That's the feeling I had, Like, I don't know what 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.040 you got going on. You eat a bad burger? What 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:11.360 do you mean you're allergic to burger? 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:12.880 Right? Right, right, right right right? 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:13.400 But what so? 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:15.720 But then my buddy who I know and know him, well, 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.120 you know, he went through it and I can't remember 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:19.920 what it was. It was some I don't know, five six, 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.080 seven years and he said that it started to dissipate. 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:26.200 What's that all about? 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:29.600 Well, I mean that's the I guess. The bright side 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.400 of it is that your anybody levels start to drop, 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.440 and sometimes three four years even you can go back 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:37.080 to getting meat. 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:37.480 You know. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.480 People have all kinds of different reactions that The trick 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.400 is though, and here's the problem is that the more 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.880 tick bites you get, the higher anybody levels go. Right, 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.920 So if you really want to have it dissipate and 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.720 go away, you can't be outdoors very often. You have 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.680 to be incredibly careful. You have to wear you know 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:56.520 about about the way you. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.600 Watch your diet, but it's watching your activities. 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.160 Yeah, you can't eat meat order and you can't get 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:01.760 bitten again. 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.359 Huh. Explain a little bit about like what's this ticks 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.760 kind of groove? Like what what is his life cycle? 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:09.920 What is he doing with his time? 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.119 Well, every sea, every spring season, they they come out 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:16.720 and they want a blood meal, right they want to 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.560 And before that they're spending most of the time and 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.520 send me hibernation right there and leaflet or somewhere not 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.680 bothering anybody. But then they come out in the spring 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.399 and they're looking to suck blood. And they do this 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.040 even as as larvae. And one of the big things 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.160 that people worry about is what they call tick bombs, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:40.280 which are these clusters of two hundred tiny seed like 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.160 lone star ticks that people walk into and you look 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:45.879 and you think you have some dirt on your pants 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.199 and on your leg and you brush it off and 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.400 you've you've had twenty five bytes. 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.879 Well, and those those little larvast suns of bitches to. 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.879 Them can by each of them can give you alpha 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:55.480 gaal syndrome. 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.520 Say, you know, you know what I've I haven't seen that, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:59.080 but you know what I've gotten tangled up with that 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:00.800 comes in those clusters. 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.240 Have you had chi problem with chiggers ever? 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:04.879 That's what I grew up at an Oklahoma. 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.160 Oh that's right, you're from the heartland, that ship man. 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.360 Yeah, no, that's that's what we had. 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.239 Because they get you like a bunch, right, and they 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.360 borrow under your I mean, it's it's an awful Yeah. 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.720 You know what's funny about those chiggers too, is there's 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.359 so much When I first got my first bad tigger 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.959 infestation where I was in I think I was in Missouri. 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.040 I was in Missouri, first time I ever got it bad. 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.159 And the number of remedies that were suggested to me 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:38.040 bathing and bleach, putting nail polish on them, putting epoxy 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.560 on them, rubbing motor oil into them, right, And there's 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.480 so much misinformation that I even went so I got 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.680 so bad. I was having like I was going into 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:48.720 like I was having an allergic reaction to them. 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:49.880 I was getting feverish. 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:55.280 I mean, I was coated, and people are telling me, oh, well, 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.080 it laid its eggs in you and now they're living 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.840 in you. Right, And I quickly, like on my phone, 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.040 I quickly learned that that's that's not what this is. Yeah, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.760 but I go to a medstop, I go to see 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.320 a doctor. I'm like, here's the deal. I'm still covering 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.879 these chiggers, like I need like a steroid shees. Is 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.679 that the thing that lays the eggs in you? I'm like, no, 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:24.200 it doesn't lay eggs, Oh my god. But uh anyhow 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.360 so that so when that tick comes out and he's 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:31.320 got those the little guys, yeah, those will bite you. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.320 Those will bite you, but the big one will bite 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:33.640 you too. 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.440 Big big ones will bite you. I think basically there's 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:38.400 three seasons and every tick, if I have it, right 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.720 to bite you. And and it's pretty pretty restricted to 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.480 the spring and summer. The thing about the Lone Star 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:51.280 tick is it's they're incredibly aggressive. I mean. The funny 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.360 thing is talking to anomologists. You know, usually they love 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.000 their their beasties and they like to talk about the 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.520 things they study. But with Lone Start, every single anomologist 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.159 I talked to you said, I hate that tick. I 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.720 hate that thing. Like one woman said to me, Holly 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:06.960 Gaff she worked at Old Dominion and Virginia, and she 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.840 was like, they're like the bullies. Of the of the 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.320 insect world. They'll beat you up and take your lunch money. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.719 They just they actually pursue people, you know, unlike most ticks, 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.640