Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Chuck here, it's May ninth, twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 1: podcast time. I know it's really twenty twenty five, but
Speaker 1: we're going all the way back to May of twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen to talk about itching. Oh boy, just seeing that
Speaker 1: title probably makes you itch, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: deals with itching, if I remember correctly. So I hope
Speaker 1: you dig it, and I hope you're not too itchy
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Speaker 3: Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland. So this
Speaker 3: is Stuff you Should Know Scratching Edition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of many.
Speaker 3: You remember when we did Yawning. Yeah, well, that's the
Speaker 3: only one I can think of where just researching something
Speaker 3: makes you do the thing researching. This definitely happened with
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well we ran across that and poison ivy and
Speaker 1: scabies for sure, Oh yeah, and talked about some of
Speaker 1: this stuff, but I think itch, we had an itch
Speaker 1: we needed to scratch. Yeah, with this particular topic.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad. I've been wanting to do this one
Speaker 3: for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you did a video about this, right, Yes, a
Speaker 1: short video.
Speaker 3: No, it was three four hours long. Okay, if I
Speaker 3: remember correctly, Does.
Speaker 1: That mean we have to do this? Do I have
Speaker 1: to be here for the next four hours?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to just play the whole thing and
Speaker 3: then we'll talk about it for an hour.
Speaker 1: And it was good.
Speaker 3: Okay. I think it was a brain stuff video, wasn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 3: I watched did it scratch your itch?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I watched it yesterday.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, nice work, thank you very much. You're just
Speaker 3: like now we finally arrived and what I was after compliment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it was great, thanks man.
Speaker 3: So I guess the point of all that is to say,
Speaker 3: you guys are going you're going right, my videos are
Speaker 3: the best that you're going to scratch, You're going to
Speaker 3: feel an itch, which is one of the great mysteries
Speaker 3: of itches. It turns out we only very very recently
Speaker 3: have started to get a handle on what itches are. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and there's still plenty of mysteries left to it, like,
Speaker 3: for example, it's bizarre and there's really no evolutionary reason
Speaker 3: as far as anyone can tell why. Just hearing about
Speaker 3: itches or seeing someone else scratch can make you itch. Right,
Speaker 3: That's that's odd. That's that's weird.
Speaker 1: We're seeing the video of an ant crawling up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: an arm will make you itch.
Speaker 3: It will. But I mean think about it. If somebody
Speaker 3: is sitting there, you see a video of some schmo
Speaker 3: who's got his hand like near an oven, and he
Speaker 3: pulls it away really quick. It doesn't hurt your hand,
Speaker 3: It doesn't make you feel like your hand is burned.
Speaker 3: This doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: I don't even think that would excite mirror Neron's like
Speaker 1: a leg break with Now.
Speaker 3: You're just like, what a stupid idiot, that's what it excites. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I hope that guy's hands just burns clean off. That's
Speaker 3: what I think, right right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, you sourced a couple of well we've had
Speaker 1: our own article on how stuffworks dot com. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you also sent this great New Yorker article written by
Speaker 1: doctor A.
Speaker 3: Tool Gowande, one of the best names in writing today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that may be my new hotel name.
Speaker 3: Well, you may be thronged by science right science fans,
Speaker 3: because that guy's pretty pretty well known.
Speaker 1: Actually, I've never used to alias at a hotel. That's dumb,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know if you can, can you,
Speaker 1: I guess if you're a big shot you can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you have to be like, I'm not Brad
Speaker 3: Pitt on a tool Goanda, right.
Speaker 1: H But the we'll get to some of the more
Speaker 1: interesting aspects of that article later, specifically a very specific
Speaker 1: patient that's quite distressing.
Speaker 3: So calm down for now, a tool's mom. But we'll
Speaker 3: get to it eventually.
Speaker 1: He did include a couple of neat historical tidbits, like
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty there was in Germans are all over
Speaker 1: this thing for some reason. Yeah, you know, researchers that
Speaker 1: they're they're all German.
Speaker 3: They had the itch to explain the itch.
Speaker 1: I guess, so yeah, the itch.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But there was a physician in sixteen sixty name Samuel Hoffenreffer.
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, yeah, but right on the money
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: And actually it's so it's so on the money that
Speaker 3: anywhere you look in the medical literature, whenever they define
Speaker 3: itch word for word, that's the definition they use. Yeah,
Speaker 3: although poor Hoff and Refer doesn't get credit for it
Speaker 3: all the time. But that's the one. The only expansion
Speaker 3: of that that I've seen is that can occur anywhere
Speaker 3: on the body, which apparently is true.
Speaker 1: I think hoff and Reffer he felt that was implied.
Speaker 3: Right, And it's like it goes without saying. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I'm scratching right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if I just noticed more, because
Speaker 1: as I was doing it, I was thinking, well, now
Speaker 1: I'm scratching. I thought, do I always scratch this much
Speaker 1: or itch this much?
Speaker 3: Oh? I hadn't thought about that. I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 3: I was. I don't think I scratched as much as
Speaker 3: I don't know. Do you raise a really good question.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can get an intern to follow us around
Speaker 1: just record our scratching, right.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised that that's not already a TV show. Frankly,
Speaker 3: Josh and Chuck scratch just being followed around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, you know, no one wants to see that.
Speaker 3: Well, that's probably why it's not you're scratching. See, that's
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. I don't think I scratched this much.
Speaker 1: I don't notice it all right, Moving on to Dante's Inferno.
Speaker 1: It was in Dante's Inferno, the burning age of fierce
Speaker 1: itching that nothing could relieve is how falsifiers were punished.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you know what a falsifier is?
Speaker 1: Us?
Speaker 3: I no, really, Like, isn't that that somebody who like
Speaker 3: bears false witness or somebody who falsifies a document or.
Speaker 1: Is it just a fancy name for liar?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Oh? I thought you were gonna tell me you were
Speaker 1: just wondering.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I don't know what Dante meant, but
Speaker 1: they're they're bad people.
Speaker 3: Sure, apparently there's a special place in health for him literally,
Speaker 3: well I guess actually not literally figuratively sure, literally.
Speaker 1: Oh very nice. So itching scientifically is known as pururitis
Speaker 1: p r U R I T I S. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of those tough to pronounce things for me at least,
Speaker 1: and for well. Actually, they still believe that the evolution
Speaker 1: of the itch was to help humans survive, basically because
Speaker 1: so many things that can kill you and nature or
Speaker 1: things like mosquitoes or flies or spiders or fleas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that can have like malaria or the plague or any
Speaker 1: number of diseases attached to their tiny little insect bodies. Right. So, hey, human,
Speaker 1: you've got a mosquito on your neck that could kill you.
Speaker 1: You might want to slap it or scratch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's still, as far as I know, the
Speaker 3: evolutionary hypothesis for why we experience itching. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 3: not just us either.
Speaker 1: Well you're scratching like crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's found throughout the animal kingdom, from us to
Speaker 3: apparently fish have shown scratching behavior. Yeah, that's crazy fruit flies.
Speaker 1: How's a fish scratch? You might ask?
Speaker 3: It rubs up against rocks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of cute.
Speaker 3: 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?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: He would do the ballue or he would get up
Speaker 1: against a tree or yeah, and then I did it
Speaker 1: probably because of that. I'm sure that's where I got
Speaker 1: it and realized that it works. And I still do
Speaker 1: it every now and then. Oh yeah, yeah, it look
Speaker 1: kind of silly. But do you sing while you do it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Bare necessities, that's still my favorite.
Speaker 3: What else are you going to sing? Like Mambo number five?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start doing that. Actually, you'd be like, think
Speaker 1: something's wrong with Chuck.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, like you said, though, it was up until almost
Speaker 1: well was it nineteen eighty seven, the mid to late eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that another German h O handworker and his gang, sure
Speaker 1: of toughs. They started to do actual like research about it.
Speaker 1: They were puzzled and wanted to solve.
Speaker 3: It, right, because up to this point, up to actually
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven, everyone thought that an itch was just
Speaker 3: a low grade pain stimulus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess happy with that.
Speaker 3: That's just what they thought it was. And hand worker said,
Speaker 3: you know what, let's let's find out if this is
Speaker 3: actually true. I'm tired of sitting around just assuming this
Speaker 3: is fine. I'm a hand worker. And he got to
Speaker 3: work her with his hands, testing this, right, So what
Speaker 3: he knows, like Jonathan Strickland level, what he did was
Speaker 3: this is just awful. He introduced using like electrical stimulation.
Speaker 3: I guess he introduced histamine to skin cells, right. And
Speaker 3: histamine is a natural I don't know if it's a protein,
Speaker 3: but it's it's a natural, natural chemical, right that the
Speaker 3: body releases in response to certain stimuli, say, for example,
Speaker 3: like a mosquito bite or something. And it triggers the
Speaker 3: inflammation and immune response in that area. Right, So histamine
Speaker 3: is associated with itch and it had been for a
Speaker 3: very long time. So this I was using an electrical
Speaker 3: stimulation to introduce histamine and increasing amounts in these poor
Speaker 3: study participants, and it went from barely noticeable to this
Speaker 3: is a quote, the maximum imaginable itch. And they never
Speaker 3: felt paint.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like even though they ramped it up to eleven,
Speaker 1: no one ever said like, holy crap, that hurts.
Speaker 3: They said, please, please, fore love God stop, let me
Speaker 3: out of this. And hand Wurker just cackled and cackled, right,
Speaker 3: and these men with like black leather gloves were holding
Speaker 3: the participants down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they said, this is not worth the five Deutsche
Speaker 1: marks that I'm getting for this lousy study.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's nice man, that's this would have been pre
Speaker 3: euro I think, oh yeah, even though the EU was around,
Speaker 3: I don't think the euro was around in eighty seven
Speaker 3: right now, No, no, because the nineties I traveled.
Speaker 1: I traveled to Europe in nineteen ninety seven and there
Speaker 1: was I was still on all that weird money.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was a while after that. So now scientists,
Speaker 1: I think this sort of introduced an itch to the
Speaker 1: scientific community because after hundreds and hundreds of years, Hanvoka
Speaker 1: sort of disrupted the thought process of the itch and
Speaker 1: the scratch, and all of a sudden, scientists were like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should start looking into this, Maybe we can
Speaker 1: actually isolate the nerve and figure this thing out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean if it's not, if it's not
Speaker 3: just a low level pain sensation, then that means it's
Speaker 3: its own thing. And if it's its own thing, it
Speaker 3: probably has its own system and we need to know
Speaker 3: more about it. So they they got to study in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah what ma I wonder if all of this was
Speaker 1: under the notion that they were trying to cure itching.
Speaker 3: I don't know, because from what I was reading and
Speaker 3: all of this was pretty recent stuff. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: real un medical need in dealing and addressing like chronic itch. Sure,
Speaker 3: because you know, most people who go through life just
Speaker 3: experiencing itch under normal circumstances. Right, Let's say you or me,
Speaker 3: we're like an itch. Yeah, they suck for a second
Speaker 3: and then it goes away. Imagine it not going away ever,
Speaker 3: whether you're asleep or awake, or swimming or an outer
Speaker 3: space or doing whatever you're itching constantly. Supposedly it has
Speaker 3: as much of a pronounced effect on a patient's life
Speaker 3: as chronic pain does. It's constant, persistent, and agonizing, and
Speaker 3: it's not being met or treated because it's not understood.
Speaker 3: So they're just now starting to get into pain or
Speaker 3: itch research. I saw somebody put it where pain research
Speaker 3: was about twenty years ago, So it's starting to really
Speaker 3: heat up, but we're still just starting to understand it.
Speaker 3: So I would think that they weren't looking to cure it.
Speaker 3: I think it was just pointed out that there was
Speaker 3: a whole branch of neuroscience that was right totally not understood,
Speaker 3: So get to work neurologists.
Speaker 1: I wonder I never really thought about it until just now,
Speaker 1: But I wonder what happens when 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 an address,
Speaker 1: Like what what what did they do if they have
Speaker 1: poison ivy or some other kind of contact dermatitis? Like
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about that? Like what if Lynn
Speaker 1: Mail went Manuel Miranda has like a really bad case
Speaker 1: of POY. I guess they can get an understudy in
Speaker 1: that case, sure, but you can't have an understudy as
Speaker 1: president no, which is too bad.
Speaker 3: You just go out there with your hands bandaged up,
Speaker 3: just holding them up, like how do you fight that
Speaker 3: poison ivy on camera?
Speaker 1: Or like a news anchor when they're just like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm dying. I don't know. I guess a
Speaker 1: news anchor can tape things, but I'm talking about live.
Speaker 1: What does Tom Petty do?
Speaker 3: For God's sakes, Tom Petty and bears it. He had
Speaker 3: a hard scrubble childhood prepared him for that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see him tomorrow night. Oh yeah, waiting
Speaker 1: for coffee. He's not performing anyway. I was just curious
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a good question.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Do you remember when Costas had red eye at the Olympics.
Speaker 3: I was so dedicated to being the commentator, the anchor
Speaker 3: for the Olympics. They finally were like, you have to stop. Yeah,
Speaker 3: no one can look.
Speaker 1: At you, people writing and you're disgusting them. One thing
Speaker 1: that made me think of that is I had recently.
Speaker 1: You can still kind of see it on my forearm,
Speaker 1: the scars. But I did a cement job. I was
Speaker 1: building this fence, putting in a gate at my house
Speaker 1: and Scotty, you know, Scotty and I built huh, Scotty Pippin.
Speaker 1: He and I built this thing together. And we sank
Speaker 1: these huge posts for this gate. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: that cement could cause contact dermatitis or even burns. Never
Speaker 1: knew this. Yeah, 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.
Speaker 3: You trashed the gate and have to start over.
Speaker 1: No, I think I was probably not the best husband
Speaker 1: though over that time period. Judging from Emily saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you're real a hole. Get off the steroids, gotcha, get
Speaker 1: off the juice, I was like, shut up, watch me
Speaker 1: hit this homer. So long story short, I experienced this
Speaker 1: and it was awful. And I can't imagine like shooting
Speaker 1: the TV show or something, or like doing anything or
Speaker 1: performing live, like I would have to address it because
Speaker 1: I would scratch and smack. It was what I usually do.
Speaker 3: That's how you're supposed to do, not scratch. I guess
Speaker 3: we'll just cut to the chase here. This is why
Speaker 3: everyone's listening. How do you scratch a niche? Correctly? You
Speaker 3: rub it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I didn't do I did you know?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 1: Really did? It was the we have a handheld implement
Speaker 1: in the shower along with the regular shower head and
Speaker 1: put that sucker on the tightest, hardest, most penetrating flow
Speaker 1: and just put that hot water on it. Man, And
Speaker 1: that was like, I think I spent half my days
Speaker 1: in the shower over that week and a half.
Speaker 3: Are you biting down like a broomstick while you're doing that?
Speaker 1: Now? It felt so good, man. I was just like
Speaker 1: I couldn't get enough of it.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: And then the court zone and all that jump too.
Speaker 3: So we'll we'll talk about this because this you're raising
Speaker 3: some great points here.
Speaker 1: Well I just kind of ruined the spoiler.
Speaker 3: No, No, this is good stuff. We're going to analyze
Speaker 3: what was going on with your arm after this break?
Speaker 2: How about that sounds good?
Speaker 3: So, Chuck, you had contact dermatitis.
Speaker 1: Right, I thought it was poison ivy because that area
Speaker 1: has some poison ivy.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: But each of us, Scotty and I had it just
Speaker 1: on the arm that we sunk in cement, right, And
Speaker 1: then we researched and found out that could happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Lesson learned on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what happened was you like something in the cement
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure what it was reacted chemically with
Speaker 3: the mast cells in your skin. Yeah, and histamine was released,
Speaker 3: right apparently, And so the histamine sent a signal through
Speaker 3: specialized nerve cells called sea fibers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which sea fibers aren't just limited to itching. I
Speaker 1: think only about five percent handle that, and right, most
Speaker 1: of the rest are for pain.
Speaker 3: Right, right, So they use the same type of neural
Speaker 3: pathway as pain, but for itch it's it's basically it's
Speaker 3: just like, no, these these are just for itches only. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And it sent a signal through your spinal column, and
Speaker 3: in your spinal column, it released a neurotransmitter called gastrin,
Speaker 3: releasing peptide receptor, and so at the skin, the histamine
Speaker 3: would have released a neurotransmitter called.
Speaker 1: What natur uretic polypeptide B.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that says itch signal coming your way along
Speaker 3: those sea fibers, yes, okay, uh, it makes it to
Speaker 3: the spinal column, and I guess in about two and
Speaker 3: seven they found that there's another neurotransmitter in the spine
Speaker 3: that I guess accepts the the NPPB the invitation and
Speaker 3: says I'm going to transfer this along up to the brain.
Speaker 3: That's gastrin releasing peptide receptor that shoots up to the
Speaker 3: brain and it starts this cascade of activity. Right Because
Speaker 3: when they, like after handworker said, hey, you know, itching
Speaker 3: is its own thing. These other researchers went to town
Speaker 3: and traced and figured out that there were specific, specific
Speaker 3: types of itch receptors that were dedicated just to itches.
Speaker 1: Right, more Germans, more Germans, a couple.
Speaker 3: Of Swedes, but mostly Germans for good measure. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: what they found eventually from tracing this pathway, they were
Speaker 3: able to follow it into the wonder machine and apparently
Speaker 3: they made some people itch and would not let them
Speaker 3: scratch it. And then They had them lay down in
Speaker 3: an MRI and they took a brain scan and they
Speaker 3: found that there's this whole galaxy of stuff going on
Speaker 3: in your brain that combined is the itch sensation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was pretty interesting too. There's a signature pattern
Speaker 1: in the brain when you get an itch, and a
Speaker 1: few specific areas light up. One is a cortex, and
Speaker 1: it all makes sense when you put it together. The
Speaker 1: cortex in this case just sort of geo locates where
Speaker 1: on your body you're getting that sensation, so that helps.
Speaker 1: It's like left elbow, yeah, or in my case, from
Speaker 1: right elbow to wrist, right, and then a little bit
Speaker 1: in other places, but not too bad that that was
Speaker 1: the main area.
Speaker 3: Is this your cortex still saying this, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's very complex conversation going on. And then the region
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting, the region that government's governments
Speaker 1: that governs emotional response. So basically, this is your brain
Speaker 1: saying like, I don't like this, this makes me feel bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the worst thing ever do something.
Speaker 1: And then finally in the limbic and motor areas, and
Speaker 1: I thought this was the most interesting. Those areas process
Speaker 1: irresistible urges, the same ones that say I want to
Speaker 1: smoke crack or I want to eat too much cake,
Speaker 1: says you have an itch that is unbearable and you
Speaker 1: need to scratch it.
Speaker 3: Right, and maybe go smoke some crack and eat some
Speaker 3: cake while you're at.
Speaker 1: It because that'll help. So I just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I thought that was all very super interesting when you
Speaker 1: combine that pattern.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the that's an itch, and then then followed
Speaker 3: by the irresistible urge to scratch it, which apparently research
Speaker 3: has shown those two do not happen independently. They're they're
Speaker 3: part of a cycle. Yes, there's something called the itch
Speaker 3: scratch cycle, right, and so you have an irresistible urge
Speaker 3: to scratch the itch. It's it's weird if you think
Speaker 3: about it. Like, on the one hand, it makes sense
Speaker 3: where you you sense that there's a really hot heat
Speaker 3: source that your hand is really close to, so you
Speaker 3: have an irresistible urge to pull it back, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't feel like an urge. It almost feels like an
Speaker 3: involuntary reflex. Yeah, scratch is almost like I'm going to
Speaker 3: kill this itch. I can't wait to scratch it, Like
Speaker 3: you're almost exacting revenge on the itch for itching you, right,
Speaker 3: So it scratches. It's an irresistible urge where it's like
Speaker 3: pulling your hand back from a hot hot source or something,
Speaker 3: is like an involuntary reflex. It just feels different, like
Speaker 3: a scratches its own thing.
Speaker 1: Well it is, you know. They kind of found that
Speaker 1: out and go on day. Doctor Gowande pointed out something
Speaker 1: interesting too that I never thought about, is that you
Speaker 1: can have like that short collar rubs against your neck
Speaker 1: all day and you might never notice it. But if
Speaker 1: there's like one little string that's just poking one little area,
Speaker 1: that might trigger an itch.
Speaker 3: Right, and so you would think that, you know, its
Speaker 3: receptors are super finely tuned, and they covered just this
Speaker 3: one tiny like that's what it would say micron of
Speaker 3: skin as a matter of fact. No, apparently an itch
Speaker 3: receptor can sense itch stimuli like three inches away from it.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they're really sensitive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whereas pain receptors are that specific down to like
Speaker 1: you know, millimeters.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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 thing, which as opposed
Speaker 1: to like heat on the hand, like a candle on
Speaker 1: your hand almost said candle in the wind. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: super fast. But that that explains why an itch like
Speaker 1: it's kind of slow to come and then slow to
Speaker 1: resolve by scratching. Yeah, it's not like you scratch it,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it's all better now. Yeah, it helps
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 3: So, so the itching is a it's a good strategy.
Speaker 3: If you think about, say you're you're there's a mosquito
Speaker 3: on you and that's what's making you itch. When you
Speaker 3: go to scratch it, you're getting rid of the mosquito,
Speaker 3: maybe even smushed it or something like that. The problems
Speaker 3: taken care of the issue is is that that itch
Speaker 3: scratch cycle eventually becomes a vicious cycle because when you scratch,
Speaker 3: this is what they think is going on. This is
Speaker 3: another mystery with itches. We don't understand how scratching alleviates
Speaker 3: an itch, right, or why we scratch really right? What
Speaker 3: they think the current hypothesis is that when you scratch
Speaker 3: an itch, you're stimulating other receptors in the area that
Speaker 3: aren't itch receptors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I got that, but what does that do
Speaker 1: to sort of like say, hey, body, don't worry about
Speaker 1: that for a minute, I think. So a pain receptor
Speaker 1: is now.
Speaker 3: Active, right exactly, it's sending feedback to the brain saying
Speaker 3: it's being taken care of. You can settle down with
Speaker 3: the itch, gotcha, right. I think the problem is that
Speaker 3: neurologically or neurochemically, when you scratch an itch, you're activating
Speaker 3: those pain receptors in the area pain pressure, that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. You're causing serotonin to be released, right, natural
Speaker 3: pain reliever, right, yeah, or at least mood enhancer. And
Speaker 3: what they found is that serotonin, among other neurochemicals, actually
Speaker 3: exacerbates the itch sensation. So your itch not only comes back,
Speaker 3: it gets worse. So you go to scratch it again,
Speaker 3: and then the same thing happens over and over again.
Speaker 3: That's the itch scratch cycle, which it's not the best
Speaker 3: cycle around. No, you can make a better cycles.
Speaker 1: Not a bad band name. Yeah, it's okay, a little
Speaker 1: too cute.
Speaker 3: Maybe progue folk progue.
Speaker 1: They well, they'd have to be German probably.
Speaker 3: German folk progue. Okay.
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing they learned too, is that I guess
Speaker 1: we're kind of jumping around, but who cares. Right, if
Speaker 1: you scratch, you don't have to scratch the point of
Speaker 1: the itch to relieve it, apparently, right, Like if you
Speaker 1: have had that itch on my right forearm and I
Speaker 1: could scratch, maybe then you have to be the left forearm,
Speaker 1: so it's not like you have to mirror it. But
Speaker 1: I could scratch like my neck and apparently that might
Speaker 1: help relieve it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I tried it. It didn't work for me. No, No,
Speaker 3: But I think the reason why there's that's it's possible
Speaker 3: that it could have that effect is supposedly scratching also
Speaker 3: activates like your pleasure center.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you bet it does.
Speaker 3: But there's different different places where you're scratching on your
Speaker 3: body have different amounts of pleasure associated with them. Did
Speaker 3: you know that? I mean, I guess, I guess so.
Speaker 1: But yeah, interesting, Yeah, but I mean think about it.
Speaker 3: It's like if you scratch your scratch your like your clavicle,
Speaker 3: who cares, it's nothing, right, But then you scratch like
Speaker 3: your head right above and behind your ear, it's great.
Speaker 1: Well, and they I think they did find that, like
Speaker 1: you're back in your ankles supposedly or some of the
Speaker 1: most rewarding places to scratch exactly. And I I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've never really thought about the ankles. But my mom
Speaker 1: would give me backscratches when I was a kid. That's nice,
Speaker 1: and it was always like one of my favorite things ever. Sure,
Speaker 1: and so I don't get those anymore now that I'm
Speaker 1: a grown up because that's gross. You know, my mom
Speaker 1: scratched my back, right, I'm forty six years old, lay down,
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was like I think I preferred to
Speaker 1: backscratch to a back rub even oh yeah, when I
Speaker 1: was younger. But now, you know, massage is probably way better. Sure,
Speaker 1: but if they if a massuse could include a little
Speaker 1: backscratch in there, yeah, get ready for a huge tip
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, I guess, or does that? What is
Speaker 1: that sexual? I think it.
Speaker 3: Crosses a line once they're potentially clawing away skin cells.
Speaker 3: I think that's longer in the massuse range or massuur range.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that. Once skin cells are involved, you know,
Speaker 1: under the nails, then your 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 articles I've ever read?
Speaker 1: All right, so we've referenced this article from The New
Speaker 1: Yorker from doctor utsul Goande and he talked a lot
Speaker 1: about itching and just had good information on the science
Speaker 1: of it all.
Speaker 3: Well that's what he does.
Speaker 1: But most of the article was focused on a patient,
Speaker 1: a woman in Massachusetts that they named EM for the
Speaker 1: article just M the letter M. In other words, you know,
Speaker 1: she's anonymous, And I think she was anonymous because she
Speaker 1: kind of had a rough go after her divorce. She
Speaker 1: ended up getting HIV from getting on heroin kind of
Speaker 1: spun out, it seems like, but then got her life
Speaker 1: back by all accounts, but ended up getting shingles as
Speaker 1: a result of HIV complications, and the shingles went away,
Speaker 1: but the itching did not, to say the least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the itching came after the shingles, even
Speaker 3: And at first her her physicians were like, well, I
Speaker 3: mean you must have it damaged some nerves in there.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: Ts for you, I guess yeah. And then eventually after
Speaker 3: treating it like all these different ways and it's still
Speaker 3: being scratching, they said, Okay, you're crazy. How about that, right,
Speaker 3: And she said, well, whatever, I still have this itch.
Speaker 3: Do whatever you need to to treat it because I'm
Speaker 3: literally scratching the itch in my sleep. It was on
Speaker 3: her scalp wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was on her head and she she kind
Speaker 1: of managed to control it during the day, but like
Speaker 1: you said, at night, she couldn't control it to the
Speaker 1: point where I think she was like restrained in her sleep.
Speaker 1: That came after, Oh okay, after they realized it's a
Speaker 1: problem because your brain is using out of your head.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Can you believe that she scratched her scalp so much
Speaker 3: that she scratched through her skull. And she went into
Speaker 3: her doctor one day and said, they've got like this
Speaker 3: green fluid coming down. And then apparently the doctor the
Speaker 3: doctor didn't even say anything, he was just she or
Speaker 3: she was like, excuse me, went and called an ambulance
Speaker 3: and came back and said please lay down and don't
Speaker 3: talk or move or do anything else. And they finally
Speaker 3: told her after she was at the er, you scratched
Speaker 3: through to your brain, Like that's your brain you're touching
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: The doctor's like, very interesting, just give me a second
Speaker 1: here her, Oh my god. Well, they gathered up all
Speaker 1: the other doctors and nurses. Sure, yeah, you got to
Speaker 1: come see this.
Speaker 3: She said. Also in this article, she said that she
Speaker 3: had a what do they call a roommate and okay,
Speaker 3: a roommate, So she had a roommate while she was like,
Speaker 3: they treated it, gave her a skin graft, and then
Speaker 3: she she she scratched away the skin graft, and then
Speaker 3: they finally were like, okay, you're going to an asylum.
Speaker 3: And she's like, do they even call it that anymore?
Speaker 3: And they're like, just shut up, and they put her
Speaker 3: in this asylum and restrained her, like you said, while
Speaker 3: she was sleeping, and she had a roommate in there.
Speaker 3: She said in the article she she heard didn't survive.
Speaker 3: He had scratched through his carotid artery and died bled death.
Speaker 3: So they never really got to the bottom of this.
Speaker 3: She finally got a doctor. Like the doctors are like,
Speaker 3: it's something that had to do with the s this
Speaker 3: is what we think happens. That are doctors that the
Speaker 3: the nerve endings around the area where she had shingles
Speaker 3: were so devastated by the shingles that there were just
Speaker 3: a couple of nerve endings left and it just so
Speaker 3: happened that they were itch receptors. It yeah, itch receptors,
Speaker 3: and that those were like really exacerbated by the fact
Speaker 3: that there was no other competing sensations. Ipso facto, there's
Speaker 3: your problem, right, So they said, well, we'll just cut
Speaker 3: the main nerve to your face and that should solve
Speaker 3: the problem. They cut the main nerve to her face
Speaker 3: and she said yeah, and then the itch came back
Speaker 3: and she's like, you have to be kidding me. So
Speaker 3: finally she met a doctor who said, I don't think
Speaker 3: it's your your receptors or the nerve transmission. I think
Speaker 3: it's your brain, not psychologically. I don't think it's a psychosis.
Speaker 3: I think there's that the actual itch signal and your
Speaker 3: brain is being set off without any stimulation or transmission
Speaker 3: going on. Yeah, and apparently she was right, but then
Speaker 3: they were like, good luck treating that right.
Speaker 1: You know. I didn't see much follow up on this.
Speaker 1: I did read one article that a follow up with
Speaker 1: doctor Gowande because there were a lot of skeptics after
Speaker 1: that article came out that said it's impossible with your
Speaker 1: fingernail because she said she didn't use an implement. It's
Speaker 1: not like she got out of metal file to scratch
Speaker 1: through your skull. And he said that his theory was
Speaker 1: that bacteria it became infected had eaten it away such
Speaker 1: that the skull became soft. Yeah. And then people also said,
Speaker 1: and you know, you don't have men and women in
Speaker 1: the same room in hospitals or asylums. That's that's false.
Speaker 1: And he said that it was like the room next
Speaker 1: door and quit being pedantic. Yeah, really, man, I think
Speaker 1: people just didn't believe it. So all these folks rode
Speaker 1: into the New Yorker. So those coastal elites said, no way,
Speaker 1: They said.
Speaker 3: A tool, A tool, come on. So the idea though
Speaker 3: that even if this woman was hypothetical, I think tool
Speaker 3: Gwande is pretty upstanding cat and didn't make this up.
Speaker 3: But even if say she was hypothetical, her problem. What
Speaker 3: the doctors initially thought it was was that she had
Speaker 3: a neuropathic itch, type of chronic itch. But then the
Speaker 3: doctor who apparently figured it all out, said no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's a neurogenic itch, another type of chronic itch, and
Speaker 3: it has to do with whether it's the brain going
Speaker 3: off or the nerve transmissions going off. Either way, you
Speaker 3: don't actually have an itch, although you're experiencing the itch
Speaker 3: 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
Speaker 1: man such a hard time per ireceptive and that's what
Speaker 1: you get from like a mosquito bite, yeah, or if
Speaker 1: you have a skin disorder like exma or something. Sure,
Speaker 1: So they basically ruled out the most common one and
Speaker 1: at various stages said, now you've got this other.
Speaker 3: One right for the other three, right, finally, and then
Speaker 3: again they said, we don't. There's really nothing we can
Speaker 3: do to treat it. The one that they've got down
Speaker 3: pretty well is per receptive. We've got all sorts of
Speaker 3: stuff to treat that because that's that's basically histamine is
Speaker 3: being released and your your skin is itching. So you
Speaker 3: can treat histamines with antihistamines. Yeah, you can reduce that
Speaker 3: response and then your itch will go away.
Speaker 1: Well, I took benadrill at night, and they also make
Speaker 1: this benadrill spray, a topical spray that just it really helps. Right,
Speaker 1: So between that and cortizone and then the benadrill at night,
Speaker 1: I did okay, right, and those awesome showers.
Speaker 3: So the like the pre receptive itch, we've got treatment
Speaker 3: for basically, Yeah, the other three you're you're in trouble.
Speaker 3: It turns out, as far as it stands right now,
Speaker 3: maybe five or ten years from now there'll be something.
Speaker 3: Apparently there is a lot of movement right now on
Speaker 3: treating this stuff, but it's like they're having to figure
Speaker 3: out how to block some really otherwise important chemicals in
Speaker 3: the body, like that NPPB, Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one? What does It can help regulate your
Speaker 1: blood pressure as well, right, So they can't switch that off?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, just turn off the gene that produces that.
Speaker 1: You won't itch, but you might die early, right, not
Speaker 1: worth it? Right? The one that really, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: all sad, but the psychogenic when you have a mental
Speaker 1: illness where you feel like parasites and bugs on your skin.
Speaker 3: Remember our Morglon's disease? Yeah, how did you said it?
Speaker 3: More gallons? Right? And I said Morgalons.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I know that I said it the
Speaker 1: way everyone else El says it, though, That's all.
Speaker 3: I remember, Morgalons, that's right, That's how I said it.
Speaker 1: Man. But all this stuff, it just had so much
Speaker 1: empathy for m Yeah, and wanted to follow up so
Speaker 1: bad to see how she was doing, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she kept scratching holes in her skull.
Speaker 3: I don't know, geez. So there's I read another article
Speaker 3: called Accidental Therapists. It's by a guy named Eric Brudman,
Speaker 3: and it was published on a website called stat and
Speaker 3: it's all about delusional para parasitosis but how it's treated
Speaker 3: sometimes by entomologists, you know, like those extension services at
Speaker 3: universities here in the US, like state universities have what
Speaker 3: it called extension services, where like a scientist will basically
Speaker 3: be there for the public to come talk to about whatever.
Speaker 3: Usually it's like household stuff, for farm stuff, something like that.
Speaker 3: And apparently entomologists frequently are approached with people who are like,
Speaker 3: I've got these bugs like crawling all over me. Here's
Speaker 3: the sample of them. And it turns out it's like
Speaker 3: carpet fiber or something like that, and these people just
Speaker 3: can't stop itching or whatever. But it turns out they
Speaker 3: have a delusion, they don't actually have parasites. My question is,
Speaker 3: is that our understanding of it now and in five
Speaker 3: or ten years, we're going to know that they had
Speaker 3: neurogenic itches and we just treated them like they were
Speaker 3: crazy even though they weren't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's going.
Speaker 3: To be like a real blemish on the history of
Speaker 3: neuroscience maybe, or will this idea of psychogenic itches? You know?
Speaker 1: Hold up, Yeah, I wonder did you ever see the
Speaker 1: Todd Haynes movie Safe with Julianne Moore. No, it was
Speaker 1: one of his first movies after the Karen Carpenter thing
Speaker 1: he did. That wasn't like I mean, it was a
Speaker 1: real movie, but it wasn't released. But Safe was very disturbing.
Speaker 1: It was about a woman who kind of slowly drifted
Speaker 1: into madness from believing that the world was poisoning her wow,
Speaker 1: and like household chemicals and everything, And it kind of
Speaker 1: started slow and eventually she ended up at this kind
Speaker 1: of safe camp for people like her. Right, very distressing movie,
Speaker 1: and some one of her first movies too.
Speaker 3: I'll have to check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 3: Oh it's old.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was early nineties. I think I
Speaker 1: know you're talking about. No, it's called the Road to Wellville.
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? No, it's called Safe.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good and very distressing.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think of anything.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't necessarily itching, but it was just like
Speaker 1: that psychogenic thing of like, I think everything in my
Speaker 1: house is killing me. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, have you ever like stopped and thought about
Speaker 3: something and thought, there's there's the path to madness right there.
Speaker 3: I'm staring down it right now. I should probably not
Speaker 3: keep thinking about this.
Speaker 1: I don't really get like that. Oh no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: very easily kind of led onto the next shiny thing.
Speaker 3: I guess, oh like a bird.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, basically that's probably for the best it is.
Speaker 1: It has its drawbacks, though, Uh, what else you got? Well,
Speaker 1: one thing it says in here is that 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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean somebody can like obviously, like you know,
Speaker 3: if you're like a little left a little left up
Speaker 3: up up. Yeah, see, I can't work.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. Oh man, not you them saying,
Speaker 1: oh right, like, I think it definitely helps.
Speaker 3: I think what they're saying is that it doesn't have
Speaker 3: quite the same relieving properties as if you do it yourself.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and if you could reach that area of
Speaker 1: your back, it would be better than that. Yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: so I got a pretty good backscratcher.
Speaker 3: Now though, Oh yeah, what's it made of bamboo?
Speaker 1: No, it's it's metal, but it's telescoping, so it's not
Speaker 1: you know, two feet long, but it can be.
Speaker 3: But it's metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a like what are the bear claw?
Speaker 1: Not the pastry, but a real bear claw which actually
Speaker 1: looks like the pastry. Yeah, I guess that's why they
Speaker 1: call it that. I never thought about that. Why do
Speaker 1: you think that was called that? I actually call it
Speaker 1: a bear paw. It looks more like a bear pa.
Speaker 1: I'm trying and bring that, bring that around.
Speaker 3: Unless you get somebody like really the extra mile and
Speaker 3: puts almonds on the tips to make it look like
Speaker 3: the claw.
Speaker 1: Yes, and not just haphazardly scattered about the bare paw exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the difference between a baker who loves their
Speaker 3: job the one who's just in it for the money.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: A couple more things, Charles. Like we said, there's still
Speaker 3: plenty of mysteries around itches. Yeah, why say, does a
Speaker 3: feather tickle sometimes but itch other times? Big question? They
Speaker 3: don't know, right, but I'd like to know.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe the Germans will get active on this again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the only ones who can solve it.
Speaker 3: Only the Germans can save us. You got anything else?
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I don't either. Itching.
Speaker 3: Nice work, thanks man, same to you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: And you haven't scratched in a while, so.
Speaker 3: No, I'm actually I've been scratching the same spot and
Speaker 3: it's starting to get a little tender stopping. Man.
Speaker 1: There's nothing worse in 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: ugh through their brain.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so I guess the moral of this one
Speaker 3: is what would Tom Petty do? I'll ask him tomorrow.
Speaker 3: If you want to know more about itching or what
Speaker 3: Tom Petty would do, you can type those words in
Speaker 3: the search bart howstufforks dot com. And since I said
Speaker 3: search bar, it's time for listener mail.
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? Yeah, they did a
Speaker 1: lot of response from mostly from fellow potty mouths, which
Speaker 1: were very filthy emails too, which were great, and I
Speaker 1: responded in turn by cursing at them. Sure replies, which
Speaker 1: I hope they enjoyed in all caps, No, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be too aggressive. So this is from Emily Allen. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: longtime listener, first time writing in writing about swearing. I
Speaker 1: should start by saying that it's funny I'm writing about
Speaker 1: this episode because I almost never curse, and when I do,
Speaker 1: it's normally not a very offensive swear. However, your intro
Speaker 1: made me think of something interesting I wanted to share.
Speaker 1: You talked about how you really censor yourself during recording
Speaker 1: in or to keep your show family friendly. It got
Speaker 1: 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: change the way I express myself. For example, I try
Speaker 1: to avoid even saying things are dumb or stupid around kids.
Speaker 1: We'll often say, well, isn't that silly? Instead. This works
Speaker 1: in the classroom, but I often get laughs from friends
Speaker 1: and family when I refer to a situations silly, like
Speaker 1: a disagreement with a colleague or something a politician does.
Speaker 1: There are other expressions I use with kids that often
Speaker 1: slip into regular conversation as well. The most embarrassing when
Speaker 1: I'm out and excuse myself to go potty. That always
Speaker 1: gets a laugh. Anyway, just want to share and thank
Speaker 1: you for all the great work you do. Learn so
Speaker 1: much from listening each week and I'm always excited to
Speaker 1: see the new episode offerings every Tuesday and Thursday. That
Speaker 1: is from Emily Alan. Thank you, Miss Allen, very silly.
Speaker 3: That was a very nice email. Yeah, if you want
Speaker 3: to get in touch with us, like miss Allen did,
Speaker 3: you can send us an email and stuff podcast at
Speaker 3: houstuffworks dot com and has always joined us at our
Speaker 3: home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
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