WEBVTT - Tree Man Disease 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:13.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from housetop dot com. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:15.360 Hey you welcome to stop to blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.599 name is Robert Brown and I'm Christian Sager. Hey, Robert, 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.439 have you ever had like a warped or any kind 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:26.200 of I don't know, just weird growth. Um. Yeah, I've 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.920 had things of that nature. I had sort of like 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:33.640 an ingrown hair once that went to the dermatolgist about 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.760 and they're like sliced it out, and yeah, that's like, 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.360 I think, pretty common for most people. In fact, like 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.280 just recently, you know, I'm closing in on forty and 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:43.839 and just recently I went to the doctor and I 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.160 had like this weird growth and like I'm not gonna 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.479 detail where it was, but it was, you know, the 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.839 lower quadrant kind of uncomfortable and uh, did you have 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.080 eyes or amount? No eyes yet? It wasn't there yet, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.680 but I was worried about eyes. And I said to 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.040 my doctor, what is this do I need to worry? 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.679 Is a cancer? And he was like, oh, that's a 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.959 skin tag. Those are super common, don't worry about it. 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.960 And then he like whipped out liquid nitrogen and right 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.639 there just froze it off. My body and burned it off, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.200 and uh, you know, I can imagine just having that 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.199 one little thing. I was like super freaked out of course, 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:25.199 Like the thought is just, oh, it's cancer, right. Uh. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.039 But today we're gonna talk about a disease in which, 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.959 like we're not just talking about like warts or skin 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.240 tags here, but like people's entire bodies overgrow with these 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.800 bark like lesions to the point that they're referred to 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.280 as tree men. Yeah. They're kind of talking about some 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.120 of the well certainly rare, but also like worst case 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.880 um situations in which you have out of control growth 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.800 going on with your body and yet you were continuing 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.360 to live with it. Yeah, and so it's just it's 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.760 it's actually referred to the medical term, let's take it 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:08.359 slowly here, epidermo dysplasia verisiformists, and but most people call 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:10.920 it tree man disease. Yeah, and we may call it 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.120 e V. Yeah this episode, just to keep it simple, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.639 but also maybe not refer to it, uh with this 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.400 more fantastic connotations. And those of you out there, you 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.040 have maybe seen pictures of guys like this before. It's 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.160 not just men. Actually I shouldn't say guys. There have 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.200 been women who have had the disease as well, but 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.560 it's incredibly rare, like super rare. So we're like, we 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.520 couldn't find any statistics on how rare it actually is. 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.079 There's only like three pretty well documented cases and those 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.080 are in the last like let's say, like twenty or 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.200 thirty years. Uh. And but what's particularly interesting about this 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.000 to me and I want to keep in mind as 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.519 like we're going forward and talking about this disease, which 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.280 is fascinating and the medical science curiosity that I think 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.280 is worthy of the show, but also that like there's 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.280 a what I call kind of elephant man syndrome thing 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.760 going on here with these with patients of tree man disease. Yeah, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.240 where you get a little media outlets just swarm on 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.600 these people. Um and in particular, they will take a 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.960 lot of pictures of them, uh, follow them around. In 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.280 one case, there was a guy who I think he 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.880 was He was followed by at least two different TV 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.000 stations that were multiple documentaries made about him. One of 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:26.240 the TV channels UH paid for his medical surgeries because 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.280 there and we'll talk about it. There's treatment available for 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:34.079 people with tree Man disease or e V. But Um, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.600 there's also just a weird kind of Yes, this is 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.480 a medical curiosity, but also like a sideshow barker kind 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:45.080 of gaze to it. Yeah, it is. It is a 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.560 weird area to get into because you know, we were 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.800 as as a population, we're kind of drawn to these 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.720 these examples. We we can't look away. There's a there 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:01.160 is a definite grotesque quality to these to these conditions, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.880 and you know that, like I said that there they 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.960 can be nightmareck to behold, and so we're interested in them. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:09.880 And then also we you know, everyone loves a story 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.880 of somebody overcoming a situation. Everybody loves a story in 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:18.120 which medical science is able to triumph over you know, 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.239 disfiguration and disease. And so yeah, we want we want 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.160 to document these stories. We want to see the stories. 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.479 We want to see that before and after that, you know, 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.760 the marvelous transformation. But on the other hand, yeah, there's 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.040 this exploitive aspect of it as well. I've been watching 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.440 that TV show Penny Dreadful lately. You know what that is. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.120 It's like I watched the first season. Okay, yeah, so 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.000 there's like, you know, no spoilers here, but but it's 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:46.359 set in the late nineteenth century, and there's freak shows 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.040 are sort of a thing that are you know, are 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.719 talked about and and sort of alluded to in the show, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:53.480 especially because some of the you know, some of the 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.480 characters are werewolves and Frankenstein and and vampires and stuff 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.240 like that. So there's there's that kind of alluding Asian 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.920 going on. And they even referenced John Merrick at one point. Uh. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.040 But in It's so I guess maybe I'm hyper sensitive 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:09.640 to it because I'm watching that show. And then I 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.839 was doing the research on this, and I was just like, well, yeah, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.680 a hundred hundred and fifty years ago, the only way 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.960 that these these guys with e V would have gotten 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.840 by is by being in some kind of quote unquote 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.680 freak show, you know. Uh. And then and even then, 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.000 there wouldn't have been any treatment for them. They probably 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.080 would have succumbed to the cause, or rather the symptoms 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.200 of the disease. Yeah, it's one of those situations where 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.440 that the disease does in fact seems so rare that 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.440 when when you look back through different myth cycles trying 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.440 to find examples of where it might have occurred, and 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.640 certainly it's possible cases of of e V occurred and 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.760 we're just misdiagnosed and something like leprosy or some other 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.360 duh deformity. But you don't, I mean, you see some 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.120 examples of people turning into trees, uh and then turning 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.000 into it two would in myth cycle and you know, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.560 and in literature, I mean certainly that the example that 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.200 comes to my mind is the the wood of suicides 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.839 in Dante's Inferno, and uh, and there are a few 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.400 other cases as well, like there's um, you know, you 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.880 can look to the case that the art of Hieronymous Bosh. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.720 You can see speaking trees in various myths. In some 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.799 strains of Authorian legend, Merlin is turned into a tree, 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.800 or he's imprisoned within a tree tree by the Lady 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.080 of the lake. It's but but for the most part, 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.400 you I mean, you have these other examples of petrification 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.480 occurring in myths, but not so much like people becoming 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.480 living trees. Which makes me wonder if like like that 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.039 just underlines how rare it is that they didn't even 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.440 really affect our our folklore and if it's a modern 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.839 condition too, because as we'll discuss, uh, you know, the 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:52.919 things that we that make it worse are somewhat industrial 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.479 in nature, but uh, I don't know. I think of 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.839 like D and D monsters, like dryads and things like 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:03.800 that at or like Tolkien obviously Tolkien's ends, right, but 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.160 those aren't even more than a hundred years old. I mean, 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.120 dryads obviously exist within within myth and fairy tales and 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.360 things like that, but uh, yeah, I don't know. There 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.080 doesn't seem to be a lot of precedent for this, 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:18.840 um And so that's one of the things that's really 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.000 fascinating about this condition is whether or not it's brand 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.520 new or if it's something that's just been hidden away 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:32.600 carefully throughout throughout history. But yeah, it's it's unpleasant. Um. 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.040 I guess let's get into like the details of just 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.200 like what it is exactly, so we're not just kind 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.360 of talking about, you know, the broad strokes of people 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.520 who have barked growing off their bodies. So it's a 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:49.960 condition in which your body becomes extremely suscepti susceptible to 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.600 the human papaloma virus otherwise known as HPV. And what 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.880 happens is you, you know, you take on that that 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.400 virus it causes branch or bark like skin growths to 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.400 develop across your entire body. And in most cases this 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.520 is on the hands and feet. Uh. And they're basically 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.520 malignant skin tumors. Uh. And when I'm saying, I mean, 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:14.679 if you're listening to this and you're trying to picture 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:16.800 it and you haven't seen it before we've posted about 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.000 it on social I'm sure that the thumbnail for this 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.840 episode will have some kind of image that will give 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:24.640 you an idea of what it looks like. There's there's 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.760 photos of two of the guys we're gonna talk about today. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.320 But it's it goes beyond just like your skin turning 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:34.080 to bark. It's it literally looks like roots are growing 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.719 out of your hands and feet and just huge growths 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:42.880 to the point where, uh, these people can't function, they 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.720 can't have jobs, they must be in pain, I would assume, Yeah, 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:48.680 I mean it's it's out of control growth. It looks 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.040 like it looks like some sort of a molding accident 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:57.000 with like a plastic figuring that sort of thing, you know, Yeah, yeah, um. 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.960 And what's also really interesting is some of the research basically, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:02.840 you know, they had come to a point where they 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.160 were like, well, this is a thing that usually happens 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.560 to people who are forty or older, but now most 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.959 of the examples we're seeing are actually happening to people 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.560 in the early years of life, which they think is 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:20.479 because of a combination of uh, industrialized sort of ecosystems 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.000 that we live in and working outdoors, and we'll get 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.480 to that, but basically sunlight makes it worse, and also 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:33.199 renal transplant recipients and immunosuppressed patients have an increased risk 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.320 of developing these allegians that we're talking about here. Yeah, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.720 and it's worth mentioning. So the immunosuppression here too. Obviously, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:41.200 you know, it made me think of this and then 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.520 it does pop up in the literature. But it's a 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.120 lot like HIV in the in the sense that the 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.960 a lot of the literature compares the lesion growths to 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.480 the same kind of lesions that some patients who have 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:58.200 HIV get um, but they don't grow as out of 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.480 control in HIV these case. Um. So, okay, we all 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:05.880 hear HPV get thrown around a lot. There's a lot 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.040 of like anti STD commercials on TV or at least 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.280 at least at least the TV I'm watching. I get 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.720 talked to about HPV all the time, but it's worth 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:18.319 probably revisiting, I think. Right. So, human papilloma virus this 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.800 is the kind of thing. It's a sexually transmitted infection. 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.000 UH in the US. It belongs well, not just in 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.920 the US, UH, it belongs to a family of more 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.400 than a hundred and different strains of virus that can 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.839 cause warts on your toes and your fingers, are all 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.600 throughout your body. UM. Thirty in particular, of these hundred 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.760 different strains are spread as an STD. Those infections are 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.520 generally in the genital area, you know, for obvious reasons. 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:48.959 And you actually mentioned too that we've we've known about 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.480 hand plant are external and ano genital warts since antiquity, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.880 but it's only in the last hundred thirty years we've 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.920 recognized laryn g awards and tream and disease as we're 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.720 discussing here, and only since the sixties and seventies that 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.080 we've made that connection to HPV. Yeah, And what's kind 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.439 of interesting here is is there's a lot of academic 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.079 research into this and it seems like they've pretty much 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:15.640 got it nailed down in terms of like what causes it, 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.480 why we why we get it, but that it's so 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.400 h incredibly rare that there aren't a lot of case 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.480 studies to operate with. Uh so, but with HPV, not 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:31.679 with e V. There's no cure, but there's preventative vaccines 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.800 and physicians can remove the infected tissue right probably the 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.680 same way like I described with the good old liquid 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.680 nitrogen being broken out. I had a wart on my 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.319 finger for the longest time, and they did the same 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.240 thing with that. They broke out the liquid nitrogen and 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.240 then they took like a scalpel and dug out some 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.720 of the stuff out of there. Afterwards, Um, yeah, my 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:53.199 thing I had removed is like was right in the 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.520 middle of my chest and like you can't even tell 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.280 that it was there now, but it was. It was 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.520 weird because that the like after I had it there 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.920 was I had to to like not swim or do 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.520 any kind of like yeah opening exercises, and every time 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.400 I would even imagine it, I would imagine just like 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.960 opening up my trip open, all my skin falling up. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.560 it's weird, especially like it's one of those things where 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.960 it feels like your body is turning against you. And 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.760 I'm just talking about these kind of like first world 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.319 little growths that that you know, I've experienced where it's 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.080 like I can't imagine just like your entire body just 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.680 growing out of control like this. Well, as you get older, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.480 it's like your body changes his priorities where you know, 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.200 you're you're you're asking the body. You're saying, hey, body, 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.400 how about healing up this little you know, elbow injury 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.840 I sustained. Can we get some forces working on that? 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.559 And the bodies like, sorry, I gotta grow this nose 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.760 hair And you're like, how does that make over? Here? 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.960 This is more important? Well, you know, if if you 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.319 don't know a lot about HPV, and I'll be honest, 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.120 I didn't know a ton about it, but it's it's 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.520 actually a pretty common thing. Twenty million America have it. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:02.920 That's why we see these commercials and such as a 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.440 lot of like health warnings about it of sexually active 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.120 people will get it at some point in their lives. 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.760 Six point two million Americans. That's way more than listen 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.480 to our show. But we'll like, we'd like to get 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.200 every person who has HPV to listen to the show. Uh, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.520 they will get a new infection every year. And here's 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.280 the thing, most people who get it don't even know 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.640 it because they don't necessarily display the symptoms. They don't 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.720 all get these growths, right Uh. And in rare cases, 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.360 pregnant women who have HPV can pass it on to 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:40.240 their babies during birth. What often happens in that rare case, uh, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.560 is the infants will get the growths in their throat 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.839 or on their voice box. Um. So that sounds unpleasant, 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.200 but but that's something that's fairly treatable. Like I said, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.960 there's a vaccine. U e V or tree man disease 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.880 is basically like this gune totally haywire, just like the 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.680 extreme exam bowl. And again, we can't emphasize enough how 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.439 rare this is. So rare that it's only in our 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.120 modern Uh. It's only with our modern population and the 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.719 greatest population of humans ever and with our with our 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.240 media integration. Uh that we've been that that that it's 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:21.360 something that the average person might be aware of. Yeah, absolutely, uh. One. 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.160 Just like last comparison with HPV, so in HPV, the 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.360 growths are described as appearing as like soft cauliflower shaped lumps. 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.760 And there's been a strong connection found between HPV, HPV 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.920 and cervical cancer and women. So it is a major 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.000 health concern. Uh, and we know that smoking and recreational 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.520 drug use can make it worse because they suppress the 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.200 immune system. So there you go that that kind of 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.600 ties together with e V. Right, and that uh there's 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:52.040 that suppressed immune system causing the growth to be a little, 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.000 a little out of control. But also I wouldn't describe 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.280 the growths with e V as soft cauliflower from what 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.920 I've seen. Uh, there they look like bark, really looks 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.160 like And there's a lot of scientific terms that will 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.480 get into for like how how the different kinds of 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:13.880 growths are defined, but uh, yeah, it's it's something entirely 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.000 foreign to my experience. Okay. So one article that we 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.160 turned to in particular that was just sort of like 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:27.360 a a general overview of this disease is epidermisplasia varius, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:33.960 aformist colon and early and unusual presentation by Emson and Caballer, 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.000 And they outline basically like a history of what we 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.040 know about this disease and sort of where where we've 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:43.440 gotten to with it. It was first described in ninety 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:48.480 two by scientists lou Lewin Dowski and Lutts, so sometimes 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.880 it's called Lewandowski and Lutts. Uh like dysplasia, I think, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.560 um so if you're having like, if you're looking for 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.160 information about it, I found like obviously tree man disease 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.239 pops up a lot of which is so does epidermis, 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.360 p blajia, verisa formist. But there's also different stuff that's 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.640 titled under the Lewandowski and Lutz heading as well. In 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.960 ninety nine, that's when we found out there there was 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.960 a relationship between it and high risk skin cancer, so 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.720 they kind of put the two together U E. V. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.360 The way that it works is that there are mutations 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.160 on two of our genes in the people who get it, 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.080 ever one and ever two genes, and this is in 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:37.920 particular on chromosome chromosome seventeen Q two five. Now, there 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.200 was a lot of academic literature on the genetics behind this, 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.440 but it went way over my head and I felt 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.800 like it wouldn't be particularly useful to us or to 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.840 the audience. But just know there's a lot out there 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.640 if you're if you know your genetics and you want 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.080 to learn more about this, there's plenty to be found. Um, 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.200 what basically from what I could gather is that it 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.720 causes a defect of cell mediated community and this leads 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.600 the patients to be abnormally susceptible to the HPV uh. 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.600 And in some studies they said that it's specifically HPV 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:14.520 five and eight and then sometimes HPV fourteen, seventeen, twenty 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.280 and forty seven. Those are the ones that tend to 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.640 cause the bark growths. And these mutations have also been found. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.320 There's a lot of research on this, but it was 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.240 also pretty impenetrable to me with my background. Uh. It's 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:31.320 found to inhibit and bote and complicate zinc distribution in 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:33.840 the human body, so that may also have something to 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.640 do with these weird growths as well. So the bark 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.359 here is described as an eruption of macules and papules 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.680 that are war like. So I guess this is where 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.080 like the soft color flower, it may look hard in 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:49.200 the pictures, but it's probably you know, war like in texture. Yeah. 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:50.960 And again, like in the in the research, there was 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.639 a lot of uh, just really in depth description of 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.119 the types of growths using words that I had no 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.600 idea what it or. Uh. So they'll they'll actually also 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.760 be other cutaneous lesions that form as well, and maybe 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.560 some of these are a bit harder. Uh, and these 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.040 are similar to what are found on AIDS patients as 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:15.400 as we've already mentioned scaly patches, etcetera. Now, these malignancies 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.400 don't usually manifest until at least forty years of age, 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.359 but because of more outdoor occupation and sun exposure. And 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:23.919 this is key because we may come back to this 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.800 with some related conditions. It's now beginning to showing younger people. 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.679 So because sun exposure can hasten the transformation, especially if 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.000 the patient is living at a high altitude. Yeah, that 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.159 seems to be another factor that they're concerned about. All Right, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:38.679 we're gonna take a break and we come back. We're 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.720 going to discuss uh what we know about the treatment 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.959 of of e V. And we may also discuss just 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:59.399 a few related conditions that involve hardened skin growths. Okay, 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.560 so we're back. There have been many treatments that have 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.520 been tried on e V or tree man disease, and 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:08.560 I have to be honest that they have either been 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.600 ineffective or had only temporary results. So we've got oral 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:17.320 and topical retinoids that have been used interfere on immunotherapy, 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:23.840 electro desiccation. That sounds brutal. Yeah, this is uh basically 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.680 what this consists of. It's essentially like an electro cauterizing tool, 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.560 so you're you're you're destroying the tissue directly, uh, and 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.320 you're also preventing bleeding from from happening. Okay. That sounds 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.199 kind of like what I had with that war, Like 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:39.800 they scraped it off with a blade and then they 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.720 applied the liquid nitrogen like directly like open skin to 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.720 basically destroy the tissue. Yeah. Yeah, It's apparently a pretty 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.479 common dermatology technique. Okay. And the last one listed here 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.080 is cryrotherapy, which I imagine is what I had, uh 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:59.160 with using the liquid nitrogen. Okay. Some of the research indicates, however, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.280 that if you apply radiotherapy to this, it may actually 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.280 cause the malignant transformations of skin lesions, so it makes 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.040 it worse. So that kind of goes in whether we're 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.080 talking about earlier with the exposure to the fun Yeah exactly, 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:14.920 And this is what led them to think like, oh, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.240 maybe you know these people who have this genetic mutation 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:24.520 combined with working outdoors. Uh is somehow, you know, causing 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.600 these two to overgrow when they normally wouldn't UM. So, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.840 the most effective thing that they have available right now 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.800 is surgical treatment, and it's basically doctors going in and 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.520 exercising the growths and then grafting other skin flaps over 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.800 them as a replacement um. And during surgery, these doctors 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.280 have to be really careful because they don't want to 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.000 hurt any major nerves or cause any other health issues. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:49.720 But I mean, like again, like if you've seen the 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.560 photos of people who are afflicted with this, it's pretty 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.520 hard to tell what you would be carving into, you know. 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.679 I mean I imagine, like, let's take the hand just 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.080 as an example, like the structure of the skeletal structure 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:07.080 and the uh you know, blood and dermis and all 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.040 that that's in your hand would be there. But then 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.680 there's just this massive pounds and pounds of bark like 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.600 growths over it. So you've got to take it pretty slowly. Yeah, 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:18.800 I mean, in a sense, and this is simplifying, you're 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.560 kind of having to to carve the original form out 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:26.919 of the extra tissue. Yeah. So we have two examples 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:28.439 that we're going to touch on today, and these are 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.359 relatively recent during the last like ten years UM. And 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:34.760 from what I could find, other than these two guys, 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.879 there was like one other person that was a named 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.560 case study uh and he was in Romania. And then 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.600 a lot of the other research referred to people that 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.800 they used as case studies. But I imagine that those 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:53.120 patients wanted their identities to be anonymous, so they didn't 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.240 use names, but they would say, like, for instance, like 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.800 one of the big case studies looked at a girl 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.680 who had worked on a farm at a high altitude, 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.639 worked outdoors, been exposed to a lot of sunlight. She 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.720 had tree man disease UH, and they were able to 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.240 they basically walked through like here's how it developed, here's 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.800 how the surgery went with her, YadA, YadA. But they 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.520 never named her. The two big ones that we know of, 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.000 the first is a guy named Abul Bajendra and he's 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:25.920 in Bangladesh and he uh this is relatively recently, slowly 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:30.160 lost his ability to work as these dozens of two 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.680 to three inch roots grew out of his hand uh. 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.480 And he was a bicycle puller. That was his job 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:38.360 and he had to stop doing it. I imagine that's 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:41.479 from my experiences in Southeast Asia. I imagine that's like 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.040