Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland. So
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should Know. Scratching Indigenous Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is one of many. You remember when we did Yawning. Um, well,
Speaker 1: that's the only one I can think of where just
Speaker 1: researching something makes you do the thing you're researching. This
Speaker 1: definitely happened with this one. Yeah. Well we ran across
Speaker 1: that and poison ivy and scabies for sure. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and talked about some of this stuff. But I think
Speaker 1: it we had an itch we needed to scratch with
Speaker 1: this particular topic. Well, I'm glad, um, I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to do this one for a while. Yeah, you did
Speaker 1: a video about this, right, Yes, a short video. No,
Speaker 1: it was three or four hours long. Okay, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, that mean we have to do this. You
Speaker 1: have to be here for the next four hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to just play the whole thing and then
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it for an hour after. Okay. I
Speaker 1: think it was a brain stuff video, isn't it. I
Speaker 1: watched Did it scratch your itch? Yeah, I watched it yesterday.
Speaker 1: Nice work, thank you very much. Just like now we
Speaker 1: finally arrive on what I was after compliment. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was great, thanks man. Um. So I guess the point
Speaker 1: of all that is to say, you guys are going
Speaker 1: you're going right, and my videos are the best. Uh,
Speaker 1: that you're going to scratch, You're gonna feel an itch,
Speaker 1: which is one of the great mysteries of itches. It
Speaker 1: turns out we only very very recently have started to
Speaker 1: get a handle on what itches are, um, and there's
Speaker 1: still plenty of mysteries left to it. Like, for example,
Speaker 1: it's bizarre and there's really no evolutionary reason as far
Speaker 1: as anyone can tell, why just hearing about itches or
Speaker 1: seeing someone else scratch can make you itch. Right, That's
Speaker 1: that's odd, That's that's weird. The video of an ant
Speaker 1: crawling up an arm will make you itch. It will.
Speaker 1: But I mean, think about it. If somebody is sitting there, Um,
Speaker 1: you see a video of some schmo who's got his
Speaker 1: hand like near an oven, and he pulls it away
Speaker 1: really quick. It doesn't hurt your hand, It doesn't make
Speaker 1: you feel like your hand is burned. That doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: I don't even think that would excite mirror neurons like
Speaker 1: a leg break with You're just like, what a stupid idiot,
Speaker 1: that's what it excites. Yeah, I hope that guy's hand
Speaker 1: just burns clean off. That's what I think. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: you sourced a couple of well we've had our own
Speaker 1: article on how stuff works dot com, but you also
Speaker 1: sent this great New Yorker article, um, written by Dr
Speaker 1: a tool go on Day, one of the best names
Speaker 1: in writing today. Yeah, that may be my new hotel name. Well,
Speaker 1: you may be thronged by science right, science fans, because
Speaker 1: that guy's pretty pretty well known. Actually I don't. I've
Speaker 1: never used to alias at a hotel. That's dumb. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if you can. Can you? I guess
Speaker 1: if you're a big shot you can. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: have to be like, I'm not Brad Pitt, I'm a
Speaker 1: tool go on Day right. Uh. But the we'll get
Speaker 1: to some of the uh more interesting aspects of that
Speaker 1: article later, specifically a very specific patient that's quite distressing,
Speaker 1: So calm down for now, a Tool's mom, but get
Speaker 1: to it eventually. He did include a couple of neat
Speaker 1: historical tidbits Uh, like in sixteen sixty there was in
Speaker 1: Germans are all over this thing for some reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know researchers that they're they're all German. They had
Speaker 1: the itch to explain the itch. I guess it right.
Speaker 1: But there was a position in sixteen sixty named Samuel Hoffenruffer.
Speaker 1: Actually that's my new hotel name. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: Uh he kind of well, he defined it by saying,
Speaker 1: an itch is an unpleasant sensation that provokes the desire
Speaker 1: to scratch. Pretty simple, but right on the money it is.
Speaker 1: And actually it's so it's so on the money that
Speaker 1: anywhere you look in the medical literature, whenever they define
Speaker 1: itch word for word, that's the definition they use. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although poor hoff and reference doesn't get credit for it
Speaker 1: all the time, but that's the one. The only expansion
Speaker 1: of that that I've seen is that can occur anywhere
Speaker 1: on the body, which apparently is true. I think haf
Speaker 1: reference he felt that was implied. And it's like it
Speaker 1: goes without saying, yeah, and then I'm scratching right now,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, it's started. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: just noticed more, because as I was doing it, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, well, now, I'm scratching, but I thought, do
Speaker 1: I always scratch this much? Or it's this much? Oh,
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that. I'm pretty sure that I was.
Speaker 1: I don't think I scratched as much as I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you raise a really good question. Maybe we can
Speaker 1: get an intern to follow us around and just record
Speaker 1: our scratching. Right, I'm surprised that that's not already a
Speaker 1: TV show. Frankly, Josh and Chuck scratch just being followed around. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, no one wants to see that. Well, that's
Speaker 1: probably why it's not you're scratching. See, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't think I scratched this much. I don't notice
Speaker 1: it alright. Moving on, um to Dante's Inferno. Uh, it
Speaker 1: was in Dante's Inferno, the burning rage of fierce itching
Speaker 1: that nothing could relieve is how falsifiers were punished. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you know what a falsifiers us? I know really like.
Speaker 1: Isn't that that somebody who like bears false witness, or
Speaker 1: somebody who falsifies a document or is it just a
Speaker 1: fancy name for liar? Maybe? Oh, I thought you were
Speaker 1: gonna tell me you were just wondering. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, all right, I don't know what don
Speaker 1: they meant, but they're they're bad people. Apparently there's a
Speaker 1: special place in health for him literally, well, I guess
Speaker 1: actually not literally figuratively literarily, Oh very nice. Uh So,
Speaker 1: itching um scientifically is known as uh puritis p r
Speaker 1: U r I t I s. It's one of those
Speaker 1: tough to pronounce things for me at least um and
Speaker 1: for well. Actually, they still believe that the evolution of
Speaker 1: the itch was to help humans um survive basically because
Speaker 1: so many things that can kill you, uh, and and
Speaker 1: nature or things like mosquitoes or flies or spiders or
Speaker 1: fleas that can have like malaria or the plague or
Speaker 1: any number of diseases attached to their tiny little insect bodies. So, hey, human, um,
Speaker 1: you've got a mosquito on your neck that could kill
Speaker 1: you. You You might want to slap it or scratch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's still, as far as I know, the the
Speaker 1: evolutionary hypothesis for why we experience itching. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not just us either. What you're scratching like crazy, it's
Speaker 1: found throughout the animal kingdom um from us too, apparently,
Speaker 1: fish have shown scratching behavior. Yeah, that's crazy fruit flies.
Speaker 1: How's the fish scratch? You might ask? It rubs up
Speaker 1: against rocks. It's kind of cute. It is a little cute.
Speaker 1: It's like I remember my dad did like the uh
Speaker 1: who was the Barren Jungle book? Was that blue? Yes?
Speaker 1: He would do the blue or he would get up
Speaker 1: against a tree or a wall. And then I did
Speaker 1: it probably because of that. I'm sure that's where I
Speaker 1: got it and realized that it works. And I still
Speaker 1: do it every now and then. Oh yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: look kind of silly. But do you sing while you do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Bair necessities, that's still my favorite. What else are you
Speaker 1: gonna sing? Like Mambo number five? I'm gonna start doing that.
Speaker 1: Actually you could be like, think something's wrong with yeah. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, though, it was up until almost was seven,
Speaker 1: the mid to late eighties that another German h O
Speaker 1: hand worker UH and his gang um they started to
Speaker 1: do actual like research about it. They were puzzled and
Speaker 1: wanted to solve it right because up to this point,
Speaker 1: up to actually seven, everyone thought that an itch was
Speaker 1: just a low grade pain stimulus. Since they're happy with that,
Speaker 1: that's just what they thought it was. And hand worker said,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's let's find out if this is
Speaker 1: actually true. I'm tired of sitting around just assuming this
Speaker 1: is fine. I'm a hand worker. And he got to
Speaker 1: work or at his hands testing this. Right. So what
Speaker 1: he I know is like Jonathan Strickland level funds um.
Speaker 1: What he did was this is just awful. He introduced
Speaker 1: using like um electrical stimulation. I guess he introduced histamine
Speaker 1: to skin cells. Right. And histamine is a natural I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a protein, but it's it's a natural,
Speaker 1: natural chemical, right that the body releases UH in response
Speaker 1: to certain stimuli, say, for example, like a mosquito bite
Speaker 1: or something, and it triggers the inflammation and immune response
Speaker 1: in that area. Right. So histamine is associated with itch,
Speaker 1: and it had been for a very long time. So
Speaker 1: this guy was using electrical stimulation to introduce histamine in
Speaker 1: increasing amounts in these poor study participants, and it went
Speaker 1: from barely noticeable to this is a quote the maximum
Speaker 1: imaginable itch. And they never felt pain. Yeah, Like, even
Speaker 1: though they ramped it up to eleven, no one ever
Speaker 1: said like, holy crap, that hurts. But they said, please, please,
Speaker 1: for love, God, stop let me out of this. And
Speaker 1: hand worker just cackled and cackled. Right, these men with
Speaker 1: like black leather gloves are holding the participants down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said, this is not worth the five deutsch marks
Speaker 1: that I'm getting for the slousy study. Yeah, that's nice man,
Speaker 1: that's This would have been pre euro I think even
Speaker 1: though the EU was around, I don't think the euro
Speaker 1: was around in eighties seven, right, No, no, because in
Speaker 1: nineties I traveled, Uh, I traveled to Europe in and
Speaker 1: that was I was still on all the weird money. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was a while after that. So now scientists, uh,
Speaker 1: I think this sort of um introduced an itch to
Speaker 1: the scientific community because after hundreds and hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: hand Vuka sort of disrupted the thought process of the
Speaker 1: itch and the scratch, and all of a sudden, scientists
Speaker 1: were like, oh, well, maybe should start looking into this.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can actually isolate the nerve and figure this
Speaker 1: thing out. Yeah, because I mean, if it's not if
Speaker 1: it's not just low level pain sensation, then that means
Speaker 1: it's its own thing. And if it's its own thing,
Speaker 1: it probably has its own system and we need to
Speaker 1: know more about it. So they got to they got
Speaker 1: to study in it. Yeah. What makes I wonder if
Speaker 1: all of this was under the notion that they were
Speaker 1: trying to cure it. I don't know, because from what
Speaker 1: I was reading, UM, and all of this was pretty
Speaker 1: recent stuff. There's a real un medical need in dealing
Speaker 1: and addressing like chronic itch because you know, most people
Speaker 1: who go through life just experiencing it's under normal circumstances,
Speaker 1: right like, say you or me, we're like an itch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they suck for a second and then it goes away.
Speaker 1: Imagine it not going away ever, whether you're asleep or awake,
Speaker 1: or um swimming or an outer space or doom, whatever,
Speaker 1: you're itching constantly. Suppose really, um, it has as much
Speaker 1: of a pronounced effect on a patient's life UM as
Speaker 1: chronic pain does. It's constant, persistent, and agonizing, and it's
Speaker 1: not it's not being met or treated because it's not understood.
Speaker 1: So they're just now starting to get into pain re
Speaker 1: or itch research. I saw UM that somebody put it
Speaker 1: where pain research was about twenty years ago. So it's
Speaker 1: starting to really heat up, but we're still just starting
Speaker 1: to understand it. So I would think that they weren't
Speaker 1: looking to cure it. I think it was just pointed
Speaker 1: out that there was this whole branch of neuroscience that
Speaker 1: was totally not understood. So get to work neurologists. I
Speaker 1: wonder I never really thought about until just now, but
Speaker 1: I wonder what happens when a a performer or somebody
Speaker 1: like that is in the public eye or on TV
Speaker 1: or on stage, or like the president giving a address,
Speaker 1: Like what what what do they do if they have poison,
Speaker 1: ivy or some other kind of contact dermatitis? Have you
Speaker 1: ever thought about that? Like what if Lynn mal went
Speaker 1: Manuel Miranda has like a really bad case of pin.
Speaker 1: I guess they can get an understudy in that case,
Speaker 1: But you can't have an understudy as president, which is
Speaker 1: too bad. You just go out there with your hands
Speaker 1: bandaged up, just holding them up, Like how do you
Speaker 1: fight that on camera? Or like a news anchor when
Speaker 1: they're just like, oh my god, I'm dying. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess the news anchor can tape things, but I'm
Speaker 1: talking about live. What's Tom Petty do? For God's sakes,
Speaker 1: Tom Petty grins and bears it. He had a hard
Speaker 1: scrabble childhood prepared him for that. I'm going to see
Speaker 1: him tomorrow night, Yeah, for coffee. He's not performing. Um anyway,
Speaker 1: I was just curious about that. Um. Well, it's a
Speaker 1: good question. Thanks. Do you remember when Kosta's head red
Speaker 1: eye at the Olympics and it was so dedicated to
Speaker 1: to being the commentator the anchor for the Olympics. They
Speaker 1: finally were like, you have to stop keep writing in
Speaker 1: you're disgusting them. Uh. One thing that made me think
Speaker 1: of that is I had UM recently. You can still
Speaker 1: kind of see it on my forearm that the scars.
Speaker 1: But I did a cement job. Was building this fence,
Speaker 1: putting in a gate at my house, and um, Scotty,
Speaker 1: you know, Scotty and I built Scotti tipping uh. He
Speaker 1: and I built this uh thing together and we sank
Speaker 1: these huge posts for this gate. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: that cement uh could cause contact dermatitis or even burns.
Speaker 1: Never knew this, And we were it was kind of
Speaker 1: a tight spot and we couldn't get shovels in there
Speaker 1: in the hole, so we were literally mixing the stuff
Speaker 1: like up to our elbows with our arms, and I
Speaker 1: was like, this kind of feels good. I even said, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like oatmeal or something. And then two days
Speaker 1: later my right arm was just covered in the nastiest
Speaker 1: dermatitis I've ever seen, and then he got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still like kind of hanging around. So I went
Speaker 1: and got a prescription for steroids, which made me a
Speaker 1: little crazy for a week and a half. Um, trash
Speaker 1: the gate and have to start over. I think I
Speaker 1: was probably not the best husband though over that time period. UM,
Speaker 1: judging from Emily saying, hey, you're real a hole, Get
Speaker 1: off the steroids, Um, get off the juice, I was like,
Speaker 1: shut up, watch this, watch me hit this Homer. So
Speaker 1: long story short, I experienced this recently and it was awful.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine like shooting the TV show or something,
Speaker 1: or like doing anything on or performing live like I
Speaker 1: would have to address it because I would scratch and smack.
Speaker 1: It was what I usually do. That's how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do, not scratch. Well, I guess we'll just cut
Speaker 1: to the chase hairs. Is why everyone's listening. How do
Speaker 1: you scratch a niche? Correctly? You rub it? Yeah I
Speaker 1: didn't do I did you know? What really did? It
Speaker 1: was the uh we have a handheld implement in the
Speaker 1: shower along with the regular shower head and put that
Speaker 1: sucker on the tightest, hardest, most penetrating flow and just
Speaker 1: put that hot water on it. Man, And that was like,
Speaker 1: I think I spent half my days in the shower
Speaker 1: over that week and a half. Are you biting down
Speaker 1: like a broomstick while you're doing that? How it felt
Speaker 1: so good? Man? I was just like I couldn't get
Speaker 1: enough of it. Huh. And then the court of zone
Speaker 1: and all that jump too. So we'll well, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about this because this is you're raising some great points here.
Speaker 1: Well I just kind of that are ruined the spoiler. No, no,
Speaker 1: this is good stuff. We're gonna analyze what was going
Speaker 1: on with your arm after this break? How about that
Speaker 1: sounds good? So, Chuck, you had contact dermatitis, right, I
Speaker 1: thought it was poison ivy because that area has some
Speaker 1: poison ivy. But each of us, Scotty and I had
Speaker 1: it just on the arm that we sunk in sument.
Speaker 1: And then we researched and found out that could happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so lesson learned on that. Yeah. So what happened was
Speaker 1: you like something in the cement and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what it was reacting chemically with the um mast cells
Speaker 1: in your skin, and histamine was released, right apparently, And
Speaker 1: so the histamine UM sent a signal through specialized nerve
Speaker 1: cells called sea fibers. Yeah, which UM. Sea fibers aren't
Speaker 1: just limited to itching. I think only about five handle
Speaker 1: that and most of the rest are for pain. Right,
Speaker 1: So they used the same type of neural pathway as
Speaker 1: pain for itch. It's it's basically it's just like, no,
Speaker 1: these these are just for itches only. And it sent
Speaker 1: a signal through your spinal column, and in your spinal
Speaker 1: column it released a neurotransmitter called UM gastron releasing peptide receptor,
Speaker 1: and so at the skin, the histamine would have released
Speaker 1: a neurotransmitter called what natural uretic polypeptide B Okay, So
Speaker 1: that says it's signal coming your way along those sea
Speaker 1: fibers okay. Uh, it makes it to the spinal column,
Speaker 1: and I guess in about two thousand and seven they
Speaker 1: found that there's another neurotransmitter in the spine that I
Speaker 1: guess UM accepts the the n p PB the invitation
Speaker 1: and says I'm going to transfer this along up to
Speaker 1: the brain. That's gastron releasing peptide receptor that shoots up
Speaker 1: to the brain and it starts this cascade of activity.
Speaker 1: Right because when they, like after hand worker said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, itching is its own thing. The other researchers
Speaker 1: went to town and traced and figured out there that
Speaker 1: there were specific um specific types of its receptors that
Speaker 1: were dedicated just two itches, right, more Germans, more Germans,
Speaker 1: a couple of Swedes, but mostly Germans for good measures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what they found eventually from tracing this pathway, they
Speaker 1: were able to follow it into the Wonder machine and
Speaker 1: apparently they made some people itch and would not let
Speaker 1: them scratch it. And then they had them lay down
Speaker 1: in an m r I and they took a brain
Speaker 1: skin and they found that there's this whole galaxy of
Speaker 1: stuff going on in your brain that combined is the
Speaker 1: itch sensation. Yeah, it was pretty interesting too. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a signature pattern in the brain when you get
Speaker 1: an itch, and uh, a few specific areas light up.
Speaker 1: One is a cortex and it all makes sense when
Speaker 1: you put it together. The cortex, uh, in this case
Speaker 1: just sort of geo locates where on your body. You're
Speaker 1: getting that sensation, so that helps. It's like left elbow, yeah,
Speaker 1: or in my case from right elbow to wrist, right,
Speaker 1: and then a little bit in other places, but not
Speaker 1: too bad. That that was the main area. Is this
Speaker 1: your cortex still saying this, Yeah, very complex conversation going on. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the region I thought this is interesting, the
Speaker 1: region that governments governments that governs emotional response. Um, so
Speaker 1: basically this is your brain saying like, I don't like this,
Speaker 1: this makes me feel bad. It's the worst thing ever
Speaker 1: do something. And then finally the olymbic and motor areas,
Speaker 1: and I thought this was the most interesting. Um, those
Speaker 1: areas process irresistible urges, the same ones that say I
Speaker 1: want to smoke crack or I wanna eat too much cake,
Speaker 1: says you have an itch that is unbearable and you
Speaker 1: need to scratch it and maybe go smoke some crack
Speaker 1: and eat some cake while you're at it because that
Speaker 1: will help. So I just I don't. I thought that
Speaker 1: was all very super interesting. When you can find that pattern, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the that's an itch. And then then it's followed
Speaker 1: by the irresistible urge to scratch it, which Apparently research
Speaker 1: has shown those two do not happen independently. There, they're
Speaker 1: part of a cycle. Yes, there's that is something called
Speaker 1: the itch scratch cycle, right, and so you have an
Speaker 1: irresistible urge to scratch the itch. It's it's weird if
Speaker 1: you think about it. Like, on the one hand, it
Speaker 1: makes sense where you you sense that there's a really
Speaker 1: hot heat source that your hand is really close to,
Speaker 1: so you have an irresistible urge to pull it back,
Speaker 1: But it doesn't feel like an urge. It almost feels
Speaker 1: like an involuntary reflex. It's a scratch is almost like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill this itch. I can't wait to scratch it,
Speaker 1: Like you're almost exacting revenge on the itch for itching you. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's scratches. It's an irresistible urge where it's like
Speaker 1: pulling your hand back from a hot hot or something
Speaker 1: is like an involuntary reflex. It just feels different, like
Speaker 1: a scratches its own thing. Well it is, you know.
Speaker 1: They kind of found that out and and go on day.
Speaker 1: Doctor Gowan day Um pointed out something interesting too that
Speaker 1: I never thought about, is that you can have like
Speaker 1: that short collar rubs against your neck all day and
Speaker 1: you might never notice it. But if there's like one
Speaker 1: little string that's just poking one little area, that might
Speaker 1: trigger an itch. Right, And so you would think that
Speaker 1: you know, it's receptors are super finely tuned and they
Speaker 1: covered just this one tiny like that's what it would
Speaker 1: seem micron of skin as a matter of fact. No,
Speaker 1: Apparently an INS receptor can sense it's stimuli like three
Speaker 1: inches away from it. Yeah, so they're really sensitive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whereas pain receptors are that specific down to like you know, millimeters. Um.
Speaker 1: And the other thing they found out too, is that
Speaker 1: not only can they sense it from a few inches away,
Speaker 1: but it's a very slow acting ing, which um as
Speaker 1: opposed to like heat on the hand, like a candle
Speaker 1: on your hand, almost a candle in the wind. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's super fast. But um that that explains why an
Speaker 1: itch like it's kind of slow to come and then
Speaker 1: slow to resolve by scratching. Yeah, it's not like you're
Speaker 1: scratching you're like, oh, it's all better now. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: helps a little bit. So, so the itching is a
Speaker 1: it's a good strategy. If you think about, um, say
Speaker 1: you're you're there's a mosquito on you, and that's what's
Speaker 1: making you itch. When you go to scratch it, you're
Speaker 1: getting rid of the mosquito, maybe even smushed it or
Speaker 1: something like that. The problem is taken care of. The
Speaker 1: issue is is that that itch scratch cycle eventually becomes
Speaker 1: a vicious cycle because when you scratch. This is what
Speaker 1: they think is going on. This is another mystery with itches.
Speaker 1: We don't understand how scratching alleviates an itch, right, or
Speaker 1: why we scratch really right. What they think the current
Speaker 1: hypothesis is that when scratch an itch, um you're stimulating
Speaker 1: other receptors in the area that aren't itch receptors. So
Speaker 1: I got that, but what does that do to sort
Speaker 1: of like say, hey, Boddy, don't worry about that for
Speaker 1: a minute. I think a pain receptor is now active,
Speaker 1: right exactly. It's it's sending feedback to the brain saying
Speaker 1: it's being taken care of. You can settle down with
Speaker 1: the itch, right. I think the problem is that neurologically
Speaker 1: or neurochemically, when you scratch an itch and you're activating
Speaker 1: those pain receptors in the area pain pressure, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, you're causing um serotonin to be released natural
Speaker 1: pain reliever, right, or at least mood enhancer. And what
Speaker 1: they found is that serotonin, among other neurochemicals, actually exacerbates
Speaker 1: the itch sensation. So you're itch not only comes back,
Speaker 1: it gets worse. So you go to scratch it again,
Speaker 1: and then the same thing happens over and over again.
Speaker 1: That's the itch scratch cycle, which it's not the best
Speaker 1: c go around, No, you get better cycles. Not a
Speaker 1: bad band name, Yeah, it's okay, cute maybe Prague Folk
Speaker 1: Prague They well, they'd have to be German, probably German
Speaker 1: folk pog Okay. Another interesting thing they learned too was that, um,
Speaker 1: I guess we're kind of jumping around, but who cares? Right,
Speaker 1: if you scratch, you don't have to scratch the point
Speaker 1: of the itch to relieve it, apparently, right, Like if
Speaker 1: you have had that itch on my right forearm and
Speaker 1: I could scratch, maybe don't you have to be the
Speaker 1: left forearms. It's not like you have to mirror it. Um,
Speaker 1: but I could scratch like my neck and apparently that
Speaker 1: might help relieve it. Yeah, I tried. It didn't work
Speaker 1: for me. But I think the reason why there's that's
Speaker 1: it's possible that it could have that effect. Is supposedly
Speaker 1: scratching also UM activates like your pleasure center. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: bet it does. But there's different different places where you're
Speaker 1: scratching on your body UM have different amounts of pleasure
Speaker 1: associated with them. Did you know that? I mean, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess so. But interesting, Well yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: think about it. It's like if you scratch your scratch
Speaker 1: your like you're clavical, who cares, it's nothing, right, But
Speaker 1: then you scratch like your head right above and behind
Speaker 1: your ear, it's great. Well, and they I think they
Speaker 1: did find that, like you're back in your ankles supposedly
Speaker 1: or some of the most rewarding places to scratch exactly.
Speaker 1: And I I don't know, I've never really thought about
Speaker 1: the ankles, but um my mom would give me back
Speaker 1: scratches when I was a kid, and it was always
Speaker 1: like one of my favorite things ever. And so I
Speaker 1: don't get those anymore now that i'm a grown up,
Speaker 1: because that's gross. You know, I'm scratch my back right,
Speaker 1: I'm forty six years old, lay down. Uh, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like I think I preferred to backscratch to
Speaker 1: a back rub, even when I was younger, but now
Speaker 1: you know, massage is probably way better. But if they
Speaker 1: if a masseuse could include a little back scratch in there,
Speaker 1: get ready for a huge tip for me. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: does that? What is that sexual? I think it crosses
Speaker 1: a line once they're potentially clawing away skin cells. I
Speaker 1: think that's so longer in the Masseus range or Messur range. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that. One skin cells are involved under the nails,
Speaker 1: then you're a murder suspect, right exactly? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: should we take another break and talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about one of the most distressing, uh articles I've ever read? Uh?
Speaker 1: All right, so we've referenced this article from the New
Speaker 1: Yorker from Dr atul go on day and Um, he
Speaker 1: talked a lot about itching and just had good information
Speaker 1: on the science of it all. But most of the
Speaker 1: article was focused on a patient, a woman in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: H that they named him for the article just M
Speaker 1: the letter M. In other words, you know, she's anonymous, uh.
Speaker 1: And I think she was anonymous because she kind of
Speaker 1: had a rough go after her divorce. Um, she ended
Speaker 1: up getting HIV from getting on heroin kind of spun out,
Speaker 1: it seems like. But then got her life back by
Speaker 1: all accounts, but ended up getting shingles as a result
Speaker 1: of HIV complications, and the shingles went away, but the
Speaker 1: itching did not to the least. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: itching came after the shingles even and that first her
Speaker 1: her physicians were like, well, I mean you must have
Speaker 1: you damage some nerves in there, so t s for you,
Speaker 1: I guess, um. And then eventually after treating it like
Speaker 1: all these different ways and it's still being scratching, they said, okay,
Speaker 1: you're crazy, how about that? And she said, well, whatever,
Speaker 1: I still have this ditch. Do whatever you need to
Speaker 1: to treat it, because I'm literally scratching this itch in
Speaker 1: my sleep. It was on her scalp, wasn't it. It
Speaker 1: was on her head, and she um, she kind of
Speaker 1: managed to control it during the day, but like you said,
Speaker 1: at night, she couldn't control it to the point where
Speaker 1: I think she was like restrained in her sleep. That
Speaker 1: came after after they realized it's a problem because your
Speaker 1: brain is using out of your head. Can you believe
Speaker 1: that she scratched her scalp so much that she scratched
Speaker 1: through her skull and she went into her doctor one
Speaker 1: day and said they've got like this green fluid coming down.
Speaker 1: And then apparently the doctor didn't even say anything, he
Speaker 1: was just she or she was like, excuse me, went
Speaker 1: and called an ambulance and came back and said please
Speaker 1: lay down and don't talk or move or do anything else.
Speaker 1: And they finally told her after she was at the
Speaker 1: e er, you scratched through to your brain, like that's
Speaker 1: your brain you're touching right now. Doctors like very interesting
Speaker 1: and just give me a second here, or oh my god.
Speaker 1: Uh well, they gathered up all the other doctors and
Speaker 1: nurses like sure, yeah, you gotta come see this. She said.
Speaker 1: Also in this article, um, she said that she had
Speaker 1: a uh what do they call him a roommate at
Speaker 1: h Okay a roommate, So, um, she had a roommate.
Speaker 1: While she was like, they treated it, gave her a
Speaker 1: skin graft, and then she she she's scratched away the
Speaker 1: king and then um, they finally were like, okay, you're
Speaker 1: going to an asylum and she's like do they even
Speaker 1: call it that anymore? And they're like, just shut up,
Speaker 1: and they put her in this asylum and restrained her,
Speaker 1: like you said, while she was sleeping, and she had
Speaker 1: a roommate in there. She said in the article she
Speaker 1: if she heard didn't survive. He had scratched through his
Speaker 1: carotid artery and died blood death. Um, so they never
Speaker 1: really got to the bottom of this. She finally got
Speaker 1: a doctor. Like, the doctors are like, it's something that
Speaker 1: had to do with the shingles. This is what we
Speaker 1: think happens. That her doctors that the the nerve endings
Speaker 1: around the area where she had shingles were so devastated
Speaker 1: by the shingles that there were just a couple of
Speaker 1: nerve endings left and it just so happened that they
Speaker 1: were itch receptors itch itch, um, yeah, it receptor, and
Speaker 1: that those were like really exacerbated by the fact that
Speaker 1: there was no other competing sensations. If so, fact though,
Speaker 1: there's your problem, right, So they said, well, let's we'll
Speaker 1: just cut the main nerve to the to your face
Speaker 1: and that should solve the problem. They cut the main
Speaker 1: nerve to her face and um, she said, frank, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the itch came back and she's like, you
Speaker 1: have to be kidding me. So finally she met a doctor.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't think it's your your receptors or
Speaker 1: the nerve transmission. I think it's your brain, not psychologically.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a psychosis. I think there's that
Speaker 1: the actual itch signaling your brain is being set off
Speaker 1: without any stimulation or transmission going on. And UM, apparently
Speaker 1: she was right, but then they were like, good luck
Speaker 1: treating that. You know. I didn't see much follow up
Speaker 1: on this. I did read one article that UM follow
Speaker 1: up with Dr Gawande because there were a lot of
Speaker 1: skeptics after that article came out that said, it's impossible
Speaker 1: with your fingernail because she said she didn't use an implement.
Speaker 1: It's not like she got out of metal file to
Speaker 1: scratch through your skull. And he said that his theory
Speaker 1: was that bacteria it became infected, it had eaten it
Speaker 1: away such that the skull became soft turn into much yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then people also said, and you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have men and women in the same room in hospitals
Speaker 1: or asylums. That's that's false. And he said, uh, that
Speaker 1: it was like the room next door. Um, and quit
Speaker 1: being pedantical. Man. I think people just didn't believe it.
Speaker 1: So all these folks rode into the new Yorker. So
Speaker 1: those coastal elites said, no way, They said, a tool,
Speaker 1: a tool, come on. So the the idea though that
Speaker 1: even if this woman was hypothetical, I think to a
Speaker 1: Gwanda is pretty upstanding cat and didn't make this up.
Speaker 1: But even if I say she was hypothetical, her problem.
Speaker 1: What the doctors initially thought it was, was that she
Speaker 1: had a neuropathic kitch, type of chronic kitch. But then
Speaker 1: the doctor who apparently figured it all out, said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's a neurogenic another type of chronic catch, and it
Speaker 1: has to do with whether it's the brain going off
Speaker 1: or the nerve transmissions going off. Either way, you don't
Speaker 1: actually have an itch, although you're experiencing the itch sensation well.
Speaker 1: And they also then said at some point she had
Speaker 1: a psychogenic itch. Right, So they basically covered three out
Speaker 1: of the four kinds of itches, the last one being uh, man,
Speaker 1: that's such a hard time per receptive, and that's what
Speaker 1: you get from like a mosquito bite or if you
Speaker 1: have a skin disorder like exema or something. So they
Speaker 1: basically ruled out the most common one and at various
Speaker 1: stages said, now you've got this other one for the
Speaker 1: other three finally, and then again they said, we don't
Speaker 1: there's really nothing we can do to treat it. The
Speaker 1: one that they've got down pretty well is per receptive.
Speaker 1: We've got all sorts of stuff to treat that because
Speaker 1: that's that's basically histamine is being released and your your
Speaker 1: skin is itching. So you can treat histamines with anti histamines,
Speaker 1: you can reduce that response and then you're itch will
Speaker 1: go away. Well, I took a ben a drill at night,
Speaker 1: and they also make this ben a drill spray, a
Speaker 1: topical spray that just it really helps. So between that
Speaker 1: and cortisone and then the bene drill at night, I
Speaker 1: did okay, and there's awesome showers. So the like the
Speaker 1: pro receptive itch, we've got treatment for basically the other three,
Speaker 1: you're you're in trouble. It turns out, as far as
Speaker 1: it stands right now, maybe five or ten years from now,
Speaker 1: there'll be something. Apparently there's a lot of movement right
Speaker 1: now on treating this stuff, but it's like they're having
Speaker 1: to figure out how to block some really otherwise important
Speaker 1: chemicals in the body, like that m p p B. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that one, what does it can help, can regulate your
Speaker 1: blood pressure as well, So they off, right, just turn
Speaker 1: off the gene that produces that. You won't itch, but
Speaker 1: you might die early. Not worth it. The one that really,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all sad, but the psychogenic when you
Speaker 1: have a mental illness where you feel like parasites and
Speaker 1: bugs on your skin. Um, they remember our Morgelon's disease. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did you said it? More gallons? Right? And I
Speaker 1: said Morgelon, I can't remember. I know that I said
Speaker 1: it the way everyone else else says it, though, that's
Speaker 1: all I remember, Morgan laws, that's right, That's how I
Speaker 1: said it. Man. But all this stuff just had so
Speaker 1: much empathy for m Yeah, and wanted to follow up
Speaker 1: so bad to see how she was doing, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if she kept scratching holes in her skull, I
Speaker 1: don't know, geez. So there's I read another article called
Speaker 1: Accidental Therapists. It's by a guy named Eric Brudman, and
Speaker 1: it was published on a website called stat and it's
Speaker 1: all about delusional parasite parasitosis but how it's treated sometimes
Speaker 1: by um entomologists, you know, like those um extension services
Speaker 1: at universities, here in the US, like state universities have
Speaker 1: where to call extension services where like uh um, the
Speaker 1: scientists will basically be there for the public to come
Speaker 1: talk to about whatever. Usually it's like household stuff, for
Speaker 1: farm stuff, something like that. Um. And apparently in tomologists
Speaker 1: frequently are approached with people who are like, I've got
Speaker 1: these bugs like crawling all over me. Here's a sample
Speaker 1: of them. And it turns out it's like carpet fiber
Speaker 1: or something like that, and these people just can't stop
Speaker 1: itching or whatever. But it turns out they have a delusion,
Speaker 1: they don't actually have parasites. My question is, is that
Speaker 1: our understanding of it now and in five or ten years,
Speaker 1: where you know that they had neurogenic itches and we
Speaker 1: just treated them like they were crazy even though they weren't,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be like a real blemish on the
Speaker 1: history of neuroscience, or will this idea of psychogenic itches
Speaker 1: you know? Hold up? Yeah, I wonder did you ever
Speaker 1: see the Todd Haynes movie Safe with Julianne Moore. No,
Speaker 1: it was one of his first movies after the Karen
Speaker 1: Carpenter thing he did. Uh that wasn't like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a real movie, but it wasn't released. Um,
Speaker 1: but Safe was very disturbing. It was about a woman
Speaker 1: who kind of slowly drifted into madness from believing that
Speaker 1: the world was poisoning her and like household chemicals and everything,
Speaker 1: and it kind of started slow and eventually she ended
Speaker 1: up at this kind of safe camp for people like her. Um,
Speaker 1: very distressing movie and one of her first movies too.
Speaker 1: Have to check it out. Yeah, it's really good. It's old,
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was early nineties. I think I
Speaker 1: know you're talking about. It's called the Road to Wellville.
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? It's called safe? Check it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good, very distressing. I'm trying to think of anything
Speaker 1: that wasn't necessarily itching. But it was just like that
Speaker 1: psychogenic thing of like I think everything in my house
Speaker 1: is killing me. Yeah. I mean, have you ever like
Speaker 1: stopped and thought about something and thought, there's there's the
Speaker 1: path the madness right there I'm staring down at right now.
Speaker 1: I should probably not keep thinking about this. I don't
Speaker 1: really get like that. Oh no, no, I'm very easily
Speaker 1: kind of led onto the next shiny thing, I guess. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: basically that's probably for the best it is. It has
Speaker 1: its drawbacks. So, uh, what else you got? Well, one
Speaker 1: thing it says in here is that, um, having someone
Speaker 1: else scratch your itch does apparently does not do the trick.
Speaker 1: So you have to scratch your own itch. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean somebody can like obviously, like you know, if you're
Speaker 1: like a little left a little left up up up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See I don't work. Oh man, not you that them saying, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I think it definitely helps. I think what they're saying
Speaker 1: is is it doesn't have quite the same relieving properties
Speaker 1: as if you do it yourself. Yeah, and if you
Speaker 1: could reach that area of your back, it would be
Speaker 1: better than that. I got a pretty good backscratcher now though.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a made of bamboo. No, it's it's metal,
Speaker 1: but it's telescoping, so it's not you know, two ft long,
Speaker 1: but it can be. But it's metal. Yeah. It looks
Speaker 1: like a like what are the bear claw? Not the
Speaker 1: pastry but a real bear claw which actually looks like
Speaker 1: the pastry. Man. I guess that's why they call it that.
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. Why do you think that
Speaker 1: was called that? I actually call it a bear paw.
Speaker 1: It looks more like a bear paw. I'm try and
Speaker 1: bring that, bring that around unless you get somebody who
Speaker 1: like really goes the extra mile and puts almonds on
Speaker 1: the tips to make it look like the claw, yes,
Speaker 1: and not just haphazardly scattered about the bear paw. That's
Speaker 1: the difference between a baker who loves their job the
Speaker 1: one who's just in it for the money. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: A couple more things, Charles. Like we said, there's a
Speaker 1: still plenty of mysteries around itches. Why say, does a
Speaker 1: feather tickle some times but it's other times? Big question?
Speaker 1: They don't know, right, but I'd like to know. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe the Germans will get active on this again, they're
Speaker 1: the only ones who can solve it. Though only the
Speaker 1: Germans can save us. You got anything else? No, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't either. Itching nice work, thanks man, same do you?
Speaker 1: Thank you? And you haven't scratched in a while, so no,
Speaker 1: I'm actually um, I've been scratching the same spot and
Speaker 1: it's starting to get a little tender, so I'm stopping. Man,
Speaker 1: there's nothing worse than a movie, and I've seen it.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen this a few times in
Speaker 1: movies where someone is compulsively like scratching until it becomes
Speaker 1: a sore, and then they're scratching it. It's just like
Speaker 1: through their brain. Well, yeah, so I guess the moral
Speaker 1: of this one is what would Tom Petty do? I'll
Speaker 1: ask him tomorrow. If you want to know more about
Speaker 1: itching or what Tom Petty would do, you can type
Speaker 1: those words in the search part how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said search far, it's time for listener mail. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one of the many emails we
Speaker 1: got on the swearing episode. Do you notice that people
Speaker 1: really seem to like that one? A lot of response
Speaker 1: from mostly from fellow potty mouse, which we're very filthy
Speaker 1: emails too, which were great, and I responded in turn
Speaker 1: by cursing at them and my replies, which I hope
Speaker 1: they enjoyed in all caps M No, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be too aggressive. UM. So this is from Emily Allen. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: a long time listener, first time writing in UM writing
Speaker 1: about swearing. I should start by saying that it's funny
Speaker 1: I'm writing about this episode because I almost never curse,
Speaker 1: and when I do, it's normally not a very offensive swear. However,
Speaker 1: your intro made me think of something interesting I wanted
Speaker 1: to share. You talked about how really censor yourself during
Speaker 1: recording in order to keep your show family friendly, and
Speaker 1: got me thinking about how our jobs really shape our vocabulary,
Speaker 1: how we express ourselves. I noticed a major change in
Speaker 1: the way I speak since becoming a teacher, primarily teach
Speaker 1: kindergarten to second grade students, and I found this really
Speaker 1: changed the way I expressed myself. For example, I try
Speaker 1: to avoid even saying things are dumb or stupid around kids.
Speaker 1: Will often say, well, isn't that silly? Instead? Uh. This
Speaker 1: works in the classroom, but I often get laughs from
Speaker 1: friends and family when I refer to a situation as silly,
Speaker 1: like a disagreement with a colleague or something a politician does.
Speaker 1: There are other expressions I use with the kids that
Speaker 1: often slip into regular conversation as well. The most embarrassing
Speaker 1: when I am out and excuse myself to go potty.
Speaker 1: That always gets a laugh. Anyway, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: share and thank you for all the great work you do.
Speaker 1: Learned so much from listening each week, and I'm always
Speaker 1: excited to see the new episode offerings every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 1: That is from Emily Allen. Thank you ms Allen, very silly. Uh,
Speaker 1: that was a very nice email. Uh. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, like ms Allen did,
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s Y s K
Speaker 1: podcast or josh um Clark. You can hang out with
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us
Speaker 1: an email and stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and has always joined us at our home on
Speaker 1: the web, stuff you Should Know dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
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