May 23, 2016 • 33 mins
Chiggers are tiny little mites capable of making your life miserable. Worse than mosquitoes? Maybe. But they aren't insects - mites are actually part of the arachnid family and behave a little like ticks. Learn all about these nearly invisible pests in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know Fronhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, so you should know Jerry's
head chiggers. Yeah, me too, I have not. I'm really glad.
(00:23):
I was like sigger. It seems like Tracy is making
a pretty big deal out of this in this article. Yeah,
Tracy Wilson of Stuffy Mission History class wrote this, who
recently got married? Congratulations Tracy. Yeah, and she wrote if
you've ever heard her say the word mouth parts in
the show, Tracy wrote it, chances heart she wrote it.
She wrote ticks and mosquitoes. H did she write bees?
(00:48):
She did a whole insect sweet. She spent a lot
of time knee deep in insects. Yeah, and this is well,
this isn't even an insect spoiler. Oh, well, you just
removed the fact of the podcast. You think I think so,
I don't think you did. I'm just teasing. Okay, I'll
bet I know what you think it is because I
think the same thing. All right, Well we'll see, Okay,
(01:09):
I challenge you, I challenge you back. We throw down
the Gauntlet, which is glove. So Tracy did make a
big deal out of checkers, but apparently it's a big deal,
right Well, sure like if you ever had them, they're
no fun. No. The deeper I got into the um article,
the more I was like, oh, yeah, this does sound
really kind of awful. Yeah, and it's this is just
(01:31):
one everyone, there's another itch inducing episode. And speaking of
I got my first little bow to poison ivy. Congratulations. Yeah.
I was clearing out stuff over the weekend and I
was in poison ivy and I knew it. I was like,
you know, I've never had it before. This sounds very
familiar and um. But I was still I'm no dummy.
(01:53):
I know how Murphy's law works. So I said, I
just said that out loud. Well you just said that
out loud or you just said I I'm not allergic
to I thought you were saying like that. I'm no dummy.
I said that too, um, And I said, so you
know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be careful and I'm
gonna go take a shower pretty soon afterwards. Um. And
so it's not bad, but there are probably five or
(02:16):
six little, tiny little sets of bumps on each leg pustules. Yeah,
they're not bad though. And I looked at him and said,
you know what, that's freaking poison ivy after all these
years finally got you. Yep, but not too bad. Like
my dad always said, poison Ivyll gets everybody one day,
said his big saying, uh so, anyway, speaking of itching,
(02:39):
that's my itch story of the day. And this will
make you itch because it made me itch while reading it.
I think you're right, so um, it's actually that's funny.
It didn't make me itch, maybe because I've never had it.
You're scratching yourself from pointing to myself, no weird place.
I'm pointing my finger to my skin and moving it around,
but I'm not scratting your so um. Everybody knows that
(03:03):
chiggers are insects that burrow into your skin and suck
your blood. Um. And I'm sorry you're being coy, my friend,
because you just lied three times. Burrow Oh, insects that
burrowind skin, that suck your blood. That's right, those are
there's three lies in there. This is like a highlights
(03:24):
We have to go pick out what's wrong with this picture.
Chiggers are not insects. They are erectnans. They are the
larvae of the harvest mite. They do not burrow into
your skin and suck your blood. But then are the bumps.
Well you're being coy again. But what they are actually
doing is maybe even grosser than sucking your blood. They
(03:45):
are liquefying your cells into a slurry that they can
drink from a straw made of your body. It's pretty
Is that the fact for you? Yeah? Alright, but we'll
get there the same one first one. First of all,
the first time we've ever high fives in an episode?
(04:05):
Is that? Right? Sure? I I would have imagined that
you could make like a video montage of us like
high fiving during episodes. I guess not. No, So you
said that, um, these things are the larva of harvest mites, right,
and harvest harvest mites are arachnets. They're related to spiders,
so they're not insects. But you can understand why people
(04:26):
would think that um, siggers are or are insects, because
chiggers have chiggers. The larva of the harvest might have
six legs, so you'd be like, well, it's an insect. No,
this haven't grown their adult legs yet apparently, Yeah, I
guess to get those two more legs at some point. Um,
they the adults are red and the little um larvae
(04:48):
are red. But um, you're not gonna see. That's one
of the problems with chiggers is you're not gonna see
like a mosquito landing on you or a flea, even
like you think a flea is small, a chigger is
like a tiny little dot that you will would never
notice and you may not even be able to see
it all with your eyeballs, all right, but sometimes you
(05:08):
can see several of them together basically forming a clump. Yeah,
like the party together. Yeah, one of them has kid
from Kid and Plays haircut or Aman Schumpert's more contemporaneously.
Oh yeah, that is a total kid and play haircut.
Did you know that Amman Schumpert delivered his own child
in his apartment on purpose? Accidentally. The kids just came
(05:31):
very quickly and like he the U nine one one
dispetchd to talk him through how to do it. But
he delivered his own child and his wife or girlfriend
right there and there and everything was good, totally great. Wow,
that's great news. He's a basketball player. By the way, people,
oh yeah, people like who's amun schumper? He plays for
the boo, for the calves boo. So if you're an
(05:53):
adult harvest mite and you've grown up from a chigger
into an adult, you're gonna eat It's actually a beneficial
little are rac need to have around because they're gonna
eat the eggs of other pests like mosquitoes. Right, so
you want the adults around as an adult or um
as the second step the nymphs right after the larva.
It's the larva that suck. They don't suck. Well, yeah,
(06:17):
but the larva, you know, you gotta have them, but
you know, hopefully they just stay in the yard. Although
these things are holy terrors to see if you are
on their scale, Like if that thing's coming after you
and your eggs, I'll bet it's just really terrifying. They
are parasitic though, um, they don't. The larva are. Yeah,
(06:38):
they don't eat the blood though, like we pointed out,
like the fleas and the ticks and the mosquitoes know
they eat your skin cells. Right, So here's what happens.
Larva hatch um. Apparently, an adult female harvest might will
go into the dirt and be like, there's a bunch
of eggs, iman chumpert is there to around for them
(07:02):
to hatch, so we can hasten their birth. Um, And
then the eggs do hatch and the harvest mite female
tends to layer eggs all in one place. So if
you are familiar with chiggers, if you've ever had them
in your yard, like one little patch of grass can
be totally overrun with chiggers, but then you just turn
a few degrees to your left, there's another patch of
(07:24):
grass that is totally devoid of them. Yeah, I get
the feeling. They don't get around too quickly either. You know, no,
they know. They're pretty stupid low level animals if you
ask me. So, the eggs are laid in one place,
they hatch, and the little larva come out, and they're
like blood meal, Give me a blood meal that's not
actually made of blood. That's basically what they say. Okay, Uh.
(07:49):
They hatch pretty much any time during the year except
for the hard winters, and um, like you said, they
want that first meal. And the reason they want that
first meal is not just because they're ravenous little jerks. Um.
They actually cannot progress to that nip stage, which and
then grow up to be adults. Unless they have a
complete first meal. They can have they can have half
(08:12):
a first meal, they have three quarters seven eight and
get and get scratched off the body or brushed off
the body, and that's pretty much it. They generally will
not go back and finish that meal, so there's no
starting over. They're just like, well, that's it, that's the
end of millhouse. Had one chance and um. So it's
like a complete lose lose situation when a chigger bites
(08:35):
a person, because once you start itching as a person,
you go to scratch the area and there goes the chigger.
They don't latch onto your skin, they don't burrow into
your skin. To the moment your your finger makes contact
with them, they're gone. Um. The well they leave behind
is there and persists for a while, but they didn't
finish their their meal and they die. But you still
(08:59):
get the scratch or the horrible itch. It's lose loose.
They need to stay away from humans. Well they do
because there are a lot of animals that don't mind
the chigger on their body. So they can get their
full meal deal there and go on to live. A
great and healthy life without getting scratched off. So, um,
they don't. They don't want to be on a human
And I mean you would think, like how long does
(09:22):
could their meal possibly last? We're talking like but they
level length of time four days, I think about it.
That's time for us, Like how long is four days
to a harvest? Might larva? You could probably do the math.
(09:42):
It's like seven eight days. Figure out chigger years or
probably it's probably most of their life. Yeah, you know. So, Um,
there's a bunch of different kinds of chiggers around the world. Um,
and they're actually I mean they are pests, they are parasites.
But um, there's only like at least one as far
as this article says, that is really problematic for humans,
(10:05):
the Lepo Trobidium delience might. It's common to Asia, and
it can carry typhus, a form of typhus which can
kill you if it's untreated. Yeah, it's cured with antibotics
pretty easily. But um, if you're out in the middle
of nowhere, it can kill you. But don't worry unless
you um or in certain parts of Asia, not a problem.
(10:28):
Chiggers will just annoy you. Yeah, that's it. They're basically
just a total annoyance, and by annoying humans, they die.
It's stupid. All right, Well, let's take a little break
here and we will come back and talk about some
of the wonders of the chigger. All right, we've covered
(11:05):
Do we cover fleas? Yeah? I want to say, yes,
they definitely need a blood meal. We've covered fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, scabies,
did we Oh? Yeah? Man, I just it's really getting
a little too much to try and remember now. Yeah,
you know, I mean there's like lost episodes just because
(11:26):
we forgot them. It's officially especially getting out of hand.
I guess we should stop. No, we keep going, my friend, um,
brain hurt so bad, chuck. All right, So what I
was talking about was the wonders of the chigger. They
have a lot of little things that they have about
them that make it um and make them able to
perform this, uh surgery on your skin. It is kind
(11:52):
of like surgery. It is um, but again, they aren't
latching on. They're just kind of hanging around. And when
you get a chigger on your skin, it actually will
spend usually hours looking for a good place to go
try to get a meal because um, they have these
little tiny mouth parts. There's the word that makes the appearance,
(12:12):
which lets you know it's a Tracy Wilson joint. Right. Um,
But they don't peer skin very easily, at least not
human skin. Uh, tough skin that you would find most
on most places of your body. Chugger can't bite through.
But which is why you will get chigger bites in
places like the back of your knee, like in your armpit,
places where the chigger can can get its mouth parts.
(12:35):
What are they called celisera celiserai clisserai clisserai clisser I
explains it all, Um, that's why you'll get those bites
in those areas, because that's where they can get their
clissera into. That's right. They're light sensitive, which means they're
gonna hang out in the shade mostly if it was
up to them at least. Um it's uh, the sun
(12:59):
is gonna dry out their boddie. So that's why they
head towards the shade. I mean he can like kill
them basically. Uh. And so also when a host um
comes near, there's like your dog casting a shadow. The
chiggers go, we'll over there. I think it's pretty clever.
There's a shadow, Let's that means something is alive with skin.
That means that, in some weird way, chiggers are aware
(13:21):
of shadows. That's right. I mean like some dogs aren't
aware of shadows or don't understand them. I think probably
most dogs. Have you ever seen that? Like baby two
three year old toddler um who sees her shadow for
the first time just starts for freaking out, trying to
get away from it. It's really cute. So it was
a possessed baby kind of that's sad, it's cute. I
(13:45):
saw that movie that was The Exorcist, so I'm talking
about Uh. They are very temperature sensitive as well. So
when they coming to contact with a host and the
host is the thing that it's gonna feed on, it's
gonna detect that it has like you know, it's not infrared,
but it's gonna detect that body heat, right and say,
(14:06):
all right, there's something I can try and latch onto.
So it's like predator in that respect. Yeah, a little
bit kind of. No dreadlocks, No, those are those are
a nice edition. If you ask me what else, um,
I think it's hilarious. Tracy called it upward mobility. They
like to climb to the tops of stuff. And I
remember this one from Ticks. Yeah, remember that the ticks
(14:29):
were just like grasp things, like little tiny lobsters just
stand there and wait for something to pass by, and
as it does, they grab it. Um, they don't stand
there with their arms out stretched the whole time. Now
that's a stress position. Um. There's something called the questing response,
which is another hilarious term. They're questing. Yeah, they get
up on their tippy toes. They're they're standing up with
(14:51):
their their arms raised up towards the heavens for a
meal of human cell. Imagine John Cusack can say anything
but take away the boom box. Right, that's a questing position. Yeah.
The chickers are there in their little overcoat and their
spiky hair and their bad attitudes. Um, I just saw,
(15:11):
you know John Roderick, a friend of the show, John Roderick, Yeah,
great Seattle musician. He tweeted the other day about silverfish,
you know, the little insects. He said, why don't we
call silverfish what they were clearly meant to be called?
Sink lobsters. It really struck me as funny Yeah, they
don't look fishy at all. Silver sure sink lobster. That's
(15:32):
a great one. Yeah. Right, And finally, they are touch sensitive.
They have these little hair like sensory organs on their
body to help basically to help them find everything from
hosts to each other. There. Yeah, you know, they're like,
let's get together and really do some damage on this
guy's armpit. Yeah, or you see that waist band. It's
(15:53):
a great place to hide underpant's band. Yeah, underpant's band. Yeah,
so what is said in here? No, that's uh, but
that is a great place to hide because, like we
said a few times, you'll easily scratch them off. So
they want to go somewhere where you may not be
thinking about scratching. Yeah. I was surprised that they go.
(16:13):
I could see kind of the outside of the armpit,
back of the knee, the waist band, underpant's band. Um,
they're protected there, they are, But at the same time,
it's warm there and their temperature sensitive. So sure, who
think since they're seeking shade, they would go to a
cooler spot, But there's probably not too many cool spots
on the human body that are protected. Not really, I
(16:36):
just said a bunch of contradictory stuff. So all these
things help the chiggers find their hosts. But as Tracy
points out, that's that's half the battle. Yeah, and when
you find a chigger on you, it's probably sorry that
it chose you as it's one four day meal. Because
they don't like humans. They'll they'll climb onto anything, just
(16:57):
about any vertebrate animal. Snakes, yeah, turtles, birds, poor little birds, chipmunks.
They don't like us because we take hot showers every day,
that's right. And a lot of these animals don't have
any kind of response to being bitten by a chigger.
So the likelihood of the chigger being undisturbed for four
days while it's having its meal fourth meal is what
(17:20):
we're gonna call it. Like taco bell. Do you remember
that they try to invent another meal. Um, they're they're
so they're not gonna get brushed off on these things.
Humans almost invariably brush chiggers off because right when we
start scratching again, it removes the chigger. Um, So they're there.
They don't seek us out as prey. It's just it's
(17:42):
just total happenstance. Yeah, And like you said, since they
need that thin skin. Um, little kids are more likely
to get bitten by a chigger than an old, leathery,
old sea captain, let's say. Yeah, and little kids who
can't take being teased really are vulnerable to chigger button
because they're thin skin, very nice. You know, the ones
(18:04):
who were like shorts with knee socks pull all the
way up. You're those kids. Yeah, and their their knows
are always running because they're crying. They just stopped crying,
those kind of kids. Uh So, like I said, a
hot shower, uh is a is a great way to
kill It's it's great for a lot of reasons. A
great way to kill chiggers. It's a great way to
keep your body clean. It's a great way to unwind
(18:26):
at the end of a long day working in the yard,
because that's where you're gonna get your chigger bites most likely. Yeah,
in the yard. Yeah, especially if you are the type
of gets like letters from the neighborhood association saying mow
your lawn you might have chickers. I will never live
where there is a neighborhood association. No way, no way. Yeah,
(18:50):
you know, in some place, because it's not my thing.
In some places, a neighborhood covenant supersedes local law. Yeah, unbelievable.
Like your mailbox has got to be like this. You
can't paint your house that color, not not for me,
and you gotta pay us a certain amount of money
to boss you around every month. Nope, yep, that's why
(19:12):
I have a stack of car batteries aside my house
with like old wood that I haven't used still in
it's like Sanford and sun out and then like and
paint with a brush. It says, welcome children on the
side of your Alright, So, uh, should we take another
(19:32):
break and talk a little bit more about the weird
fact of the day. Yes, all right, buddy. We talked
(20:01):
about the mouth parts. So what they do is they
get that calissari and they make a hole in your skin.
Normal enough, they inject saliva, which contains digestive enzymes that
make a slurry of your skin cells. Talked about other
insects that do similar things like this, so it's still
pretty like, all right, no big deal. Then it gets weird.
(20:25):
It does. And I don't know if it's because they
have like specific enzymes or something, but I didn't see
this happening with anything else. Did you know? But no,
you drop it on them. You you refuse, all right,
So what happens is they have in these secretions. What
happens is they break your they break your skin cells down,
which makes that slurry, which is good, slurp it up.
(20:48):
But then the surrounding tissue hardens and it actually creates
a tube, a little hard straw in your skin in
the wound. Yeah, called a styla stone. What do they
do with that? They drink out of it. They use
to slurp up your wrecked cells. Yeah, and the longer
(21:08):
they're in there, the longer the straw is the style
of dome. The style of dome. Yeah, I saw a
paper from two thousand four and in the abstract that
said it's something like it seems that style of domes
form as a reaction to chiggers. So I don't know
if they thought, like, maybe this was part of a
chigger or something like that, but I guess it's a
(21:28):
recent finding that that style iss domes form, and that's
how chiggers actually eat because they don't have any probiscus
or anything like that. They're pretty much really weak proboscis
one of those um they're just not great insects or
aracnus at all. Yeah, they're not. They can't bite very easily,
(21:50):
they can't suck anything out. They um, they're just they're useless.
But your body just happens to help them out. Well,
they have that that magic juice. I guess that's pretty cool,
you know. Yeah, uh so with that magic juice, that's
gonna be one of the two reasons you're gonna be
itching a lot. Some people react quite adversely to that juice.
(22:12):
Other people it's not that bad. Um, But it's still
gonna itch no matter what. And it's not just the
juice you're reacting to. I think that's probably what first
gets your attention. But the thing that causes the persistent
itch is that stylist dome, your body's own reaction, which
seems to be forming basically a hollow tube of temporary
scar tissue in this wound area, and then that actually
(22:35):
causes some sort of itch reaction as your skin heals,
and that can take a very long time to heal.
This is the point where I was like, oh, having
chiggers actually does suck terribly. Yeah. I think if you
had a chigger that was able to complete its full
four day meal. Your toast means you haven't showered for
four days. Yeah. Uh, that's when your style of dome
(22:58):
is gonna be at its peak of hardness and length, right,
and it's gonna have the worst reaction, right, So what
can you do? Uh? There are home remedies you've heard,
maybe like painting over chigger bites with a clear nail polish, right,
or any kind of nail polish. Really, I think, well, yeah, sure,
(23:18):
if you got flair, I'll get to put some dots
on my armpit, and then why not, I'll put them
around my eye as well. So what's the deal there?
You're just choking it out. Um. A lot of people
would say, yes, you're covering up this the chigger that's
burrowed into your skin and it is now suffocating to death.
(23:39):
It's like choke on choke on your meal. But that's
wrong because again, chiggers don't burrow into your skin, right,
and Tracy points out very acutely, by the time you
even notice it, it's very likely the chigger is not
there any longer. Right, So if you're painting something over
your skin, um, really, what you're doing is protecting the wound.
Area from um the air contact with the air, which
(24:01):
can aggravate it. So it does help. But Tracy says,
just use anti itch cream. It's way better. Yeah, like
cortisone or something, so what it is. Yeah, yeah, Um,
don't try to I don't know why she felt they
need to put this in here, but we might as
well say it. Don't try to remove the style of dome.
I could see people doing that, trying to dig it out. Yeah, no,
(24:23):
you don't need to know. I can definitely see people
doing that. I think that was worth it. Um. She
also says, don't use turpentine. You I've never heard that. Yeah,
people do all sorts of dumb stuff. Yeah. I mean
I guess if you could soak in a tub of
gasoline and that would probably kill it, lighted on fire. Yeah,
most of these home remedies would you should just shy
(24:44):
away from. I think yes, only use remedies approved by
modern Western medicine. Modern western medicine. It's the only treatment
you need. Um. The name chigger, they believe you ever
heard of sand fleas huh, like in Florida or anyone? Yeah,
these those are Chico fleas c H I G O
(25:07):
E UM and another name for that is the jigger
flee And they think that chigger came from just sort
of matching those two names together, even though it's not
the same thing. No, it's not. Those actually do burrow
into your skin and they lay eggs there, and then
the eggs like the feast on you. So not good.
But I guess there's just nothing but confusion surrounding chiggers. Yeah, nothing,
(25:28):
so chuck. If you want to protect yourself against chigger
invasions in your armpits and your underpants bands, what do
you do? Well? If you're working, if you work in
your yard and your garden a lot um, you wear
long sleeves, wear pants to you know, cover up as
much body as you can physically. Um, you can wear
(25:50):
deep if you want, or any other kind of insect repellent.
This is. You can also use sulfur. I've never heard
of that. I haven't either. I wonder if you like,
you just burn into scenar you or something. I don't know.
It would smell like bathing egg water. Yeah, God, your
bathing like that? You know what? Just I will never
ever try because I hate pickled things anyway, But pickled
(26:12):
eggs they're they're not bad. They're usually a little too sweet.
There's to see those things floating in a jar, and
it's like I feel like I'm in a hospital, the
like where you found the head. Yeah, the the I
think it's the Chinese, probably Japanese and Korean. Two. There's
a type of pickled leggs where they soak them in
(26:32):
a brine like and it's the saltiest thing will ever eat.
And they're mucky and brown. Those are those are not good.
The other ones are fine. They're just not they don't
taste that great. I think I don't want food soaked
in liquid. I think pickled stuff is really good for you.
I mean I hate pickled things, but just love pickled
(26:53):
every period. Like soaking something in a solution, I just
don't want. I don't even like marinades. I'm a dry
rub guy. Are you really? Yeah? You know I didn't
know that about you. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know like
sauces of any kind or is it the pre soaking,
like pre cooking soaking that well, pre marinating I don't like.
(27:15):
I mean, if you're if you have a quality French
saucier at your disposal, I'll take a little alright, but
put it on the side in a plastic cup. But
I don't. I don't like. There was this place near
Emily Shop that was it's now closed. I kind of
feel bad for saying this, but I think I know why.
Because they used too much sauce. Dude. They had this delicious,
crispy crispy fried chicken that they dumped this gravy sauce
(27:38):
on top. They never just put it on the side. No,
and by the time it got to the table it
wasn't Crispy fried chicken anymore. I just don't get it. Huh.
But yeah, I'll I'll eat a sauce. It's yeah, you're
describing a smothered chicken. That's totally different. But it was fried. Huh,
fried and smothered. I can't do that. Those two things
(27:58):
are never supposed to come together. Um. If you want
to see if you have chiggers on your property, um,
Tracy says, you can take a piece of black paper,
black construction paper, maybe from your child, right, give me that,
you stupid kid, and go out and lay it on
the ground, uh, near where you think there might be chiggers,
(28:19):
and you might see little, tiny, tiny red things. She
doesn't just say that. She says to take a piece
of paper into five physics by standing it up on
its edge, and then the chiggers will follow their natural
urges and climb to the top of the paper. Like,
what world does Tracy live? Well, and I mean you're
you know, you're in the grass. You can stand a
piece of paper up in the grass. Maybe not if
(28:42):
you take care of your grass. This isn't like that
Twilight Zone episode where Darren from the Which like flips
the coin and it lands on its side. Oh man,
you know what happened in Pe in college one time?
My pe teacher basketball teacher through a pin and remember
the paper mate pens that had the the cap with
(29:03):
the just sort of flat top. Yes, he just flipped
it up in the air, meant to catch it, didn't
It hit the ground and bounce and landed completely straight
up and down on its cap. That's exactly like that
Twilight z Own episode. He could hear everyone's thoughts after
that point. Now, well, I drop that class immediately. That's smart.
Come out of here, very smart. Where you like which
ran out the door and you could do in Satan's work?
(29:27):
Oh man, all right, well that's chiggers. Oh we didn't
say if you really want to control chiggers in your yard,
just take care of your yard. They will go away.
They won't want to hang out there. There won't be
long stalks of grass for them to climb up to.
In quest from that's right. If you want to know
more about chiggers, horrible, horrible little things, you can type
(29:47):
that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com.
And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener. Hey,
before I read the listener mail, actually, um I start
he did a fitness club for stuff you should know listeners,
because um, I have my weight struggles and so I
needed some help and it's always better to do this
(30:09):
with other people. So I started. I looked into some
different apps and my fitness Pal was what I went with.
So if you want to join my fitness Pal, or
if you're already on it, just go to uh search
groups and s y s K Fitness Club is one
of the groups. And we've already got like three fifty
people there and we're just gonna band together. Man, it's
really neat, and um there's group discussions and we're gonna
(30:33):
have group goals and it's just gonna be a very cool,
supportive community for people that feel like they need to
make some positive health changes in their life. So anyway,
s y sk Fit Club at my fitness pal and uh,
now here's my listener mail. Hey guys, I'm a new fan.
I must admit I'm getting addicted. Recently listened to the
Anesthesia podcast and I heard the listener mail the Harvard
(30:55):
student and needed five numbing injections to the nasal cavity.
You're breaking your nose. Terrible. She thinks she can went
up it here. It's not bad. I know. I'm sorry. Uh.
In one in college, one of my molars became infected.
I need a root canal. The day of the procedure,
the dentist gave me shots in the gum, which Chuck
said was the worst thing ever in life. After a
few numbing shots, he got to work drilling uh into
(31:18):
the infected tooth. Unfortunately, he didn't give me enough. Once
he got down to the root, I felt it and
it felt awful, So I said to the dentist, Hey,
I learned the dentist. He then pulled out what must
have been the largest needle in existence. He gave me
a shot directly into the infected root of my Oh, man,
I think that has the nose. Uh, this made me
(31:40):
She said that she takes pain well, she said, but
this made me sob uncontrollably. It was ten years ago,
and I can still vividly recall the flash of blinding
pain when the needle made contact. To make matters worse,
that evening, my gum swelled dislodged the temporary crown. I
had to go back the next day to have it refitted.
So that's my injection story. Like I said, I'm not
if it's worse than the five in the nose. I'd
(32:02):
say both were pretty terrible. I hope you enjoyed the read.
Julie yeaste from Honolulu, Hawaii. It's a lot for that, Julie, Man,
I'm making air quotes when I say thanks. That's like scarring,
you know, But she'll remember that for the rest of
her life. Well, way to go, h If you want
(32:23):
to try to gross this out, it's gonna be tough
to top that one. But let's keep it going, shall we.
You can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast.
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(32:49):
more on this and thousands of other topics, does it
how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff you should know Fronhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, so you should know Jerry's
head chiggers. Yeah, me too, I have not. I'm really glad.
(00:23):
I was like sigger. It seems like Tracy is making
a pretty big deal out of this in this article. Yeah,
Tracy Wilson of Stuffy Mission History class wrote this, who
recently got married? Congratulations Tracy. Yeah, and she wrote if
you've ever heard her say the word mouth parts in
the show, Tracy wrote it, chances heart she wrote it.
She wrote ticks and mosquitoes. H did she write bees?
(00:48):
She did a whole insect sweet. She spent a lot
of time knee deep in insects. Yeah, and this is well,
this isn't even an insect spoiler. Oh, well, you just
removed the fact of the podcast. You think I think so,
I don't think you did. I'm just teasing. Okay, I'll
bet I know what you think it is because I
think the same thing. All right, Well we'll see, Okay,
(01:09):
I challenge you, I challenge you back. We throw down
the Gauntlet, which is glove. So Tracy did make a
big deal out of checkers, but apparently it's a big deal,
right Well, sure like if you ever had them, they're
no fun. No. The deeper I got into the um article,
the more I was like, oh, yeah, this does sound
really kind of awful. Yeah, and it's this is just
(01:31):
one everyone, there's another itch inducing episode. And speaking of
I got my first little bow to poison ivy. Congratulations. Yeah.
I was clearing out stuff over the weekend and I
was in poison ivy and I knew it. I was like,
you know, I've never had it before. This sounds very
familiar and um. But I was still I'm no dummy.
(01:53):
I know how Murphy's law works. So I said, I
just said that out loud. Well you just said that
out loud or you just said I I'm not allergic
to I thought you were saying like that. I'm no dummy.
I said that too, um, And I said, so you
know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be careful and I'm
gonna go take a shower pretty soon afterwards. Um. And
so it's not bad, but there are probably five or
(02:16):
six little, tiny little sets of bumps on each leg pustules. Yeah,
they're not bad though. And I looked at him and said,
you know what, that's freaking poison ivy after all these
years finally got you. Yep, but not too bad. Like
my dad always said, poison Ivyll gets everybody one day,
said his big saying, uh so, anyway, speaking of itching,
(02:39):
that's my itch story of the day. And this will
make you itch because it made me itch while reading it.
I think you're right, so um, it's actually that's funny.
It didn't make me itch, maybe because I've never had it.
You're scratching yourself from pointing to myself, no weird place.
I'm pointing my finger to my skin and moving it around,
but I'm not scratting your so um. Everybody knows that
(03:03):
chiggers are insects that burrow into your skin and suck
your blood. Um. And I'm sorry you're being coy, my friend,
because you just lied three times. Burrow Oh, insects that
burrowind skin, that suck your blood. That's right, those are
there's three lies in there. This is like a highlights
(03:24):
We have to go pick out what's wrong with this picture.
Chiggers are not insects. They are erectnans. They are the
larvae of the harvest mite. They do not burrow into
your skin and suck your blood. But then are the bumps.
Well you're being coy again. But what they are actually
doing is maybe even grosser than sucking your blood. They
(03:45):
are liquefying your cells into a slurry that they can
drink from a straw made of your body. It's pretty
Is that the fact for you? Yeah? Alright, but we'll
get there the same one first one. First of all,
the first time we've ever high fives in an episode?
(04:05):
Is that? Right? Sure? I I would have imagined that
you could make like a video montage of us like
high fiving during episodes. I guess not. No, So you
said that, um, these things are the larva of harvest mites, right,
and harvest harvest mites are arachnets. They're related to spiders,
so they're not insects. But you can understand why people
(04:26):
would think that um, siggers are or are insects, because
chiggers have chiggers. The larva of the harvest might have
six legs, so you'd be like, well, it's an insect. No,
this haven't grown their adult legs yet apparently, Yeah, I
guess to get those two more legs at some point. Um,
they the adults are red and the little um larvae
(04:48):
are red. But um, you're not gonna see. That's one
of the problems with chiggers is you're not gonna see
like a mosquito landing on you or a flea, even
like you think a flea is small, a chigger is
like a tiny little dot that you will would never
notice and you may not even be able to see
it all with your eyeballs, all right, but sometimes you
(05:08):
can see several of them together basically forming a clump. Yeah,
like the party together. Yeah, one of them has kid
from Kid and Plays haircut or Aman Schumpert's more contemporaneously.
Oh yeah, that is a total kid and play haircut.
Did you know that Amman Schumpert delivered his own child
in his apartment on purpose? Accidentally. The kids just came
(05:31):
very quickly and like he the U nine one one
dispetchd to talk him through how to do it. But
he delivered his own child and his wife or girlfriend
right there and there and everything was good, totally great. Wow,
that's great news. He's a basketball player. By the way, people,
oh yeah, people like who's amun schumper? He plays for
the boo, for the calves boo. So if you're an
(05:53):
adult harvest mite and you've grown up from a chigger
into an adult, you're gonna eat It's actually a beneficial
little are rac need to have around because they're gonna
eat the eggs of other pests like mosquitoes. Right, so
you want the adults around as an adult or um
as the second step the nymphs right after the larva.
It's the larva that suck. They don't suck. Well, yeah,
(06:17):
but the larva, you know, you gotta have them, but
you know, hopefully they just stay in the yard. Although
these things are holy terrors to see if you are
on their scale, Like if that thing's coming after you
and your eggs, I'll bet it's just really terrifying. They
are parasitic though, um, they don't. The larva are. Yeah,
(06:38):
they don't eat the blood though, like we pointed out,
like the fleas and the ticks and the mosquitoes know
they eat your skin cells. Right, So here's what happens.
Larva hatch um. Apparently, an adult female harvest might will
go into the dirt and be like, there's a bunch
of eggs, iman chumpert is there to around for them
(07:02):
to hatch, so we can hasten their birth. Um, And
then the eggs do hatch and the harvest mite female
tends to layer eggs all in one place. So if
you are familiar with chiggers, if you've ever had them
in your yard, like one little patch of grass can
be totally overrun with chiggers, but then you just turn
a few degrees to your left, there's another patch of
(07:24):
grass that is totally devoid of them. Yeah, I get
the feeling. They don't get around too quickly either. You know, no,
they know. They're pretty stupid low level animals if you
ask me. So, the eggs are laid in one place,
they hatch, and the little larva come out, and they're
like blood meal, Give me a blood meal that's not
actually made of blood. That's basically what they say. Okay, Uh.
(07:49):
They hatch pretty much any time during the year except
for the hard winters, and um, like you said, they
want that first meal. And the reason they want that
first meal is not just because they're ravenous little jerks. Um.
They actually cannot progress to that nip stage, which and
then grow up to be adults. Unless they have a
complete first meal. They can have they can have half
(08:12):
a first meal, they have three quarters seven eight and
get and get scratched off the body or brushed off
the body, and that's pretty much it. They generally will
not go back and finish that meal, so there's no
starting over. They're just like, well, that's it, that's the
end of millhouse. Had one chance and um. So it's
like a complete lose lose situation when a chigger bites
(08:35):
a person, because once you start itching as a person,
you go to scratch the area and there goes the chigger.
They don't latch onto your skin, they don't burrow into
your skin. To the moment your your finger makes contact
with them, they're gone. Um. The well they leave behind
is there and persists for a while, but they didn't
finish their their meal and they die. But you still
(08:59):
get the scratch or the horrible itch. It's lose loose.
They need to stay away from humans. Well they do
because there are a lot of animals that don't mind
the chigger on their body. So they can get their
full meal deal there and go on to live. A
great and healthy life without getting scratched off. So, um,
they don't. They don't want to be on a human
And I mean you would think, like how long does
(09:22):
could their meal possibly last? We're talking like but they
level length of time four days, I think about it.
That's time for us, Like how long is four days
to a harvest? Might larva? You could probably do the math.
(09:42):
It's like seven eight days. Figure out chigger years or
probably it's probably most of their life. Yeah, you know. So, Um,
there's a bunch of different kinds of chiggers around the world. Um,
and they're actually I mean they are pests, they are parasites.
But um, there's only like at least one as far
as this article says, that is really problematic for humans,
(10:05):
the Lepo Trobidium delience might. It's common to Asia, and
it can carry typhus, a form of typhus which can
kill you if it's untreated. Yeah, it's cured with antibotics
pretty easily. But um, if you're out in the middle
of nowhere, it can kill you. But don't worry unless
you um or in certain parts of Asia, not a problem.
(10:28):
Chiggers will just annoy you. Yeah, that's it. They're basically
just a total annoyance, and by annoying humans, they die.
It's stupid. All right, Well, let's take a little break
here and we will come back and talk about some
of the wonders of the chigger. All right, we've covered
(11:05):
Do we cover fleas? Yeah? I want to say, yes,
they definitely need a blood meal. We've covered fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, scabies,
did we Oh? Yeah? Man, I just it's really getting
a little too much to try and remember now. Yeah,
you know, I mean there's like lost episodes just because
(11:26):
we forgot them. It's officially especially getting out of hand.
I guess we should stop. No, we keep going, my friend, um,
brain hurt so bad, chuck. All right, So what I
was talking about was the wonders of the chigger. They
have a lot of little things that they have about
them that make it um and make them able to
perform this, uh surgery on your skin. It is kind
(11:52):
of like surgery. It is um, but again, they aren't
latching on. They're just kind of hanging around. And when
you get a chigger on your skin, it actually will
spend usually hours looking for a good place to go
try to get a meal because um, they have these
little tiny mouth parts. There's the word that makes the appearance,
(12:12):
which lets you know it's a Tracy Wilson joint. Right. Um,
But they don't peer skin very easily, at least not
human skin. Uh, tough skin that you would find most
on most places of your body. Chugger can't bite through.
But which is why you will get chigger bites in
places like the back of your knee, like in your armpit,
places where the chigger can can get its mouth parts.
(12:35):
What are they called celisera celiserai clisserai clisserai clisser I
explains it all, Um, that's why you'll get those bites
in those areas, because that's where they can get their
clissera into. That's right. They're light sensitive, which means they're
gonna hang out in the shade mostly if it was
up to them at least. Um it's uh, the sun
(12:59):
is gonna dry out their boddie. So that's why they
head towards the shade. I mean he can like kill
them basically. Uh. And so also when a host um
comes near, there's like your dog casting a shadow. The
chiggers go, we'll over there. I think it's pretty clever.
There's a shadow, Let's that means something is alive with skin.
That means that, in some weird way, chiggers are aware
(13:21):
of shadows. That's right. I mean like some dogs aren't
aware of shadows or don't understand them. I think probably
most dogs. Have you ever seen that? Like baby two
three year old toddler um who sees her shadow for
the first time just starts for freaking out, trying to
get away from it. It's really cute. So it was
a possessed baby kind of that's sad, it's cute. I
(13:45):
saw that movie that was The Exorcist, so I'm talking
about Uh. They are very temperature sensitive as well. So
when they coming to contact with a host and the
host is the thing that it's gonna feed on, it's
gonna detect that it has like you know, it's not infrared,
but it's gonna detect that body heat, right and say,
(14:06):
all right, there's something I can try and latch onto.
So it's like predator in that respect. Yeah, a little
bit kind of. No dreadlocks, No, those are those are
a nice edition. If you ask me what else, um,
I think it's hilarious. Tracy called it upward mobility. They
like to climb to the tops of stuff. And I
remember this one from Ticks. Yeah, remember that the ticks
(14:29):
were just like grasp things, like little tiny lobsters just
stand there and wait for something to pass by, and
as it does, they grab it. Um, they don't stand
there with their arms out stretched the whole time. Now
that's a stress position. Um. There's something called the questing response,
which is another hilarious term. They're questing. Yeah, they get
up on their tippy toes. They're they're standing up with
(14:51):
their their arms raised up towards the heavens for a
meal of human cell. Imagine John Cusack can say anything
but take away the boom box. Right, that's a questing position. Yeah.
The chickers are there in their little overcoat and their
spiky hair and their bad attitudes. Um, I just saw,
(15:11):
you know John Roderick, a friend of the show, John Roderick, Yeah,
great Seattle musician. He tweeted the other day about silverfish,
you know, the little insects. He said, why don't we
call silverfish what they were clearly meant to be called?
Sink lobsters. It really struck me as funny Yeah, they
don't look fishy at all. Silver sure sink lobster. That's
(15:32):
a great one. Yeah. Right, And finally, they are touch sensitive.
They have these little hair like sensory organs on their
body to help basically to help them find everything from
hosts to each other. There. Yeah, you know, they're like,
let's get together and really do some damage on this
guy's armpit. Yeah, or you see that waist band. It's
(15:53):
a great place to hide underpant's band. Yeah, underpant's band. Yeah,
so what is said in here? No, that's uh, but
that is a great place to hide because, like we
said a few times, you'll easily scratch them off. So
they want to go somewhere where you may not be
thinking about scratching. Yeah. I was surprised that they go.
(16:13):
I could see kind of the outside of the armpit,
back of the knee, the waist band, underpant's band. Um,
they're protected there, they are, But at the same time,
it's warm there and their temperature sensitive. So sure, who
think since they're seeking shade, they would go to a
cooler spot, But there's probably not too many cool spots
on the human body that are protected. Not really, I
(16:36):
just said a bunch of contradictory stuff. So all these
things help the chiggers find their hosts. But as Tracy
points out, that's that's half the battle. Yeah, and when
you find a chigger on you, it's probably sorry that
it chose you as it's one four day meal. Because
they don't like humans. They'll they'll climb onto anything, just
(16:57):
about any vertebrate animal. Snakes, yeah, turtles, birds, poor little birds, chipmunks.
They don't like us because we take hot showers every day,
that's right. And a lot of these animals don't have
any kind of response to being bitten by a chigger.
So the likelihood of the chigger being undisturbed for four
days while it's having its meal fourth meal is what
(17:20):
we're gonna call it. Like taco bell. Do you remember
that they try to invent another meal. Um, they're they're
so they're not gonna get brushed off on these things.
Humans almost invariably brush chiggers off because right when we
start scratching again, it removes the chigger. Um, So they're there.
They don't seek us out as prey. It's just it's
(17:42):
just total happenstance. Yeah, And like you said, since they
need that thin skin. Um, little kids are more likely
to get bitten by a chigger than an old, leathery,
old sea captain, let's say. Yeah, and little kids who
can't take being teased really are vulnerable to chigger button
because they're thin skin, very nice. You know, the ones
(18:04):
who were like shorts with knee socks pull all the
way up. You're those kids. Yeah, and their their knows
are always running because they're crying. They just stopped crying,
those kind of kids. Uh So, like I said, a
hot shower, uh is a is a great way to
kill It's it's great for a lot of reasons. A
great way to kill chiggers. It's a great way to
keep your body clean. It's a great way to unwind
(18:26):
at the end of a long day working in the yard,
because that's where you're gonna get your chigger bites most likely. Yeah,
in the yard. Yeah, especially if you are the type
of gets like letters from the neighborhood association saying mow
your lawn you might have chickers. I will never live
where there is a neighborhood association. No way, no way. Yeah,
(18:50):
you know, in some place, because it's not my thing.
In some places, a neighborhood covenant supersedes local law. Yeah, unbelievable.
Like your mailbox has got to be like this. You
can't paint your house that color, not not for me,
and you gotta pay us a certain amount of money
to boss you around every month. Nope, yep, that's why
(19:12):
I have a stack of car batteries aside my house
with like old wood that I haven't used still in
it's like Sanford and sun out and then like and
paint with a brush. It says, welcome children on the
side of your Alright, So, uh, should we take another
(19:32):
break and talk a little bit more about the weird
fact of the day. Yes, all right, buddy. We talked
(20:01):
about the mouth parts. So what they do is they
get that calissari and they make a hole in your skin.
Normal enough, they inject saliva, which contains digestive enzymes that
make a slurry of your skin cells. Talked about other
insects that do similar things like this, so it's still
pretty like, all right, no big deal. Then it gets weird.
(20:25):
It does. And I don't know if it's because they
have like specific enzymes or something, but I didn't see
this happening with anything else. Did you know? But no,
you drop it on them. You you refuse, all right,
So what happens is they have in these secretions. What
happens is they break your they break your skin cells down,
which makes that slurry, which is good, slurp it up.
(20:48):
But then the surrounding tissue hardens and it actually creates
a tube, a little hard straw in your skin in
the wound. Yeah, called a styla stone. What do they
do with that? They drink out of it. They use
to slurp up your wrecked cells. Yeah, and the longer
(21:08):
they're in there, the longer the straw is the style
of dome. The style of dome. Yeah, I saw a
paper from two thousand four and in the abstract that
said it's something like it seems that style of domes
form as a reaction to chiggers. So I don't know
if they thought, like, maybe this was part of a
chigger or something like that, but I guess it's a
(21:28):
recent finding that that style iss domes form, and that's
how chiggers actually eat because they don't have any probiscus
or anything like that. They're pretty much really weak proboscis
one of those um they're just not great insects or
aracnus at all. Yeah, they're not. They can't bite very easily,
(21:50):
they can't suck anything out. They um, they're just they're useless.
But your body just happens to help them out. Well,
they have that that magic juice. I guess that's pretty cool,
you know. Yeah, uh so with that magic juice, that's
gonna be one of the two reasons you're gonna be
itching a lot. Some people react quite adversely to that juice.
(22:12):
Other people it's not that bad. Um, But it's still
gonna itch no matter what. And it's not just the
juice you're reacting to. I think that's probably what first
gets your attention. But the thing that causes the persistent
itch is that stylist dome, your body's own reaction, which
seems to be forming basically a hollow tube of temporary
scar tissue in this wound area, and then that actually
(22:35):
causes some sort of itch reaction as your skin heals,
and that can take a very long time to heal.
This is the point where I was like, oh, having
chiggers actually does suck terribly. Yeah. I think if you
had a chigger that was able to complete its full
four day meal. Your toast means you haven't showered for
four days. Yeah. Uh, that's when your style of dome
(22:58):
is gonna be at its peak of hardness and length, right,
and it's gonna have the worst reaction, right, So what
can you do? Uh? There are home remedies you've heard,
maybe like painting over chigger bites with a clear nail polish, right,
or any kind of nail polish. Really, I think, well, yeah, sure,
(23:18):
if you got flair, I'll get to put some dots
on my armpit, and then why not, I'll put them
around my eye as well. So what's the deal there?
You're just choking it out. Um. A lot of people
would say, yes, you're covering up this the chigger that's
burrowed into your skin and it is now suffocating to death.
(23:39):
It's like choke on choke on your meal. But that's
wrong because again, chiggers don't burrow into your skin, right,
and Tracy points out very acutely, by the time you
even notice it, it's very likely the chigger is not
there any longer. Right, So if you're painting something over
your skin, um, really, what you're doing is protecting the wound.
Area from um the air contact with the air, which
(24:01):
can aggravate it. So it does help. But Tracy says,
just use anti itch cream. It's way better. Yeah, like
cortisone or something, so what it is. Yeah, yeah, Um,
don't try to I don't know why she felt they
need to put this in here, but we might as
well say it. Don't try to remove the style of dome.
I could see people doing that, trying to dig it out. Yeah, no,
(24:23):
you don't need to know. I can definitely see people
doing that. I think that was worth it. Um. She
also says, don't use turpentine. You I've never heard that. Yeah,
people do all sorts of dumb stuff. Yeah. I mean
I guess if you could soak in a tub of
gasoline and that would probably kill it, lighted on fire. Yeah,
most of these home remedies would you should just shy
(24:44):
away from. I think yes, only use remedies approved by
modern Western medicine. Modern western medicine. It's the only treatment
you need. Um. The name chigger, they believe you ever
heard of sand fleas huh, like in Florida or anyone? Yeah,
these those are Chico fleas c H I G O
(25:07):
E UM and another name for that is the jigger
flee And they think that chigger came from just sort
of matching those two names together, even though it's not
the same thing. No, it's not. Those actually do burrow
into your skin and they lay eggs there, and then
the eggs like the feast on you. So not good.
But I guess there's just nothing but confusion surrounding chiggers. Yeah, nothing,
(25:28):
so chuck. If you want to protect yourself against chigger
invasions in your armpits and your underpants bands, what do
you do? Well? If you're working, if you work in
your yard and your garden a lot um, you wear
long sleeves, wear pants to you know, cover up as
much body as you can physically. Um, you can wear
(25:50):
deep if you want, or any other kind of insect repellent.
This is. You can also use sulfur. I've never heard
of that. I haven't either. I wonder if you like,
you just burn into scenar you or something. I don't know.
It would smell like bathing egg water. Yeah, God, your
bathing like that? You know what? Just I will never
ever try because I hate pickled things anyway, But pickled
(26:12):
eggs they're they're not bad. They're usually a little too sweet.
There's to see those things floating in a jar, and
it's like I feel like I'm in a hospital, the
like where you found the head. Yeah, the the I
think it's the Chinese, probably Japanese and Korean. Two. There's
a type of pickled leggs where they soak them in
(26:32):
a brine like and it's the saltiest thing will ever eat.
And they're mucky and brown. Those are those are not good.
The other ones are fine. They're just not they don't
taste that great. I think I don't want food soaked
in liquid. I think pickled stuff is really good for you.
I mean I hate pickled things, but just love pickled
(26:53):
every period. Like soaking something in a solution, I just
don't want. I don't even like marinades. I'm a dry
rub guy. Are you really? Yeah? You know I didn't
know that about you. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know like
sauces of any kind or is it the pre soaking,
like pre cooking soaking that well, pre marinating I don't like.
(27:15):
I mean, if you're if you have a quality French
saucier at your disposal, I'll take a little alright, but
put it on the side in a plastic cup. But
I don't. I don't like. There was this place near
Emily Shop that was it's now closed. I kind of
feel bad for saying this, but I think I know why.
Because they used too much sauce. Dude. They had this delicious,
crispy crispy fried chicken that they dumped this gravy sauce
(27:38):
on top. They never just put it on the side. No,
and by the time it got to the table it
wasn't Crispy fried chicken anymore. I just don't get it. Huh.
But yeah, I'll I'll eat a sauce. It's yeah, you're
describing a smothered chicken. That's totally different. But it was fried. Huh,
fried and smothered. I can't do that. Those two things
(27:58):
are never supposed to come together. Um. If you want
to see if you have chiggers on your property, um,
Tracy says, you can take a piece of black paper,
black construction paper, maybe from your child, right, give me that,
you stupid kid, and go out and lay it on
the ground, uh, near where you think there might be chiggers,
(28:19):
and you might see little, tiny, tiny red things. She
doesn't just say that. She says to take a piece
of paper into five physics by standing it up on
its edge, and then the chiggers will follow their natural
urges and climb to the top of the paper. Like,
what world does Tracy live? Well, and I mean you're
you know, you're in the grass. You can stand a
piece of paper up in the grass. Maybe not if
(28:42):
you take care of your grass. This isn't like that
Twilight Zone episode where Darren from the Which like flips
the coin and it lands on its side. Oh man,
you know what happened in Pe in college one time?
My pe teacher basketball teacher through a pin and remember
the paper mate pens that had the the cap with
(29:03):
the just sort of flat top. Yes, he just flipped
it up in the air, meant to catch it, didn't
It hit the ground and bounce and landed completely straight
up and down on its cap. That's exactly like that
Twilight z Own episode. He could hear everyone's thoughts after
that point. Now, well, I drop that class immediately. That's smart.
Come out of here, very smart. Where you like which
ran out the door and you could do in Satan's work?
(29:27):
Oh man, all right, well that's chiggers. Oh we didn't
say if you really want to control chiggers in your yard,
just take care of your yard. They will go away.
They won't want to hang out there. There won't be
long stalks of grass for them to climb up to.
In quest from that's right. If you want to know
more about chiggers, horrible, horrible little things, you can type
(29:47):
that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com.
And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener. Hey,
before I read the listener mail, actually, um I start
he did a fitness club for stuff you should know listeners,
because um, I have my weight struggles and so I
needed some help and it's always better to do this
(30:09):
with other people. So I started. I looked into some
different apps and my fitness Pal was what I went with.
So if you want to join my fitness Pal, or
if you're already on it, just go to uh search
groups and s y s K Fitness Club is one
of the groups. And we've already got like three fifty
people there and we're just gonna band together. Man, it's
really neat, and um there's group discussions and we're gonna
(30:33):
have group goals and it's just gonna be a very cool,
supportive community for people that feel like they need to
make some positive health changes in their life. So anyway,
s y sk Fit Club at my fitness pal and uh,
now here's my listener mail. Hey guys, I'm a new fan.
I must admit I'm getting addicted. Recently listened to the
Anesthesia podcast and I heard the listener mail the Harvard
(30:55):
student and needed five numbing injections to the nasal cavity.
You're breaking your nose. Terrible. She thinks she can went
up it here. It's not bad. I know. I'm sorry. Uh.
In one in college, one of my molars became infected.
I need a root canal. The day of the procedure,
the dentist gave me shots in the gum, which Chuck
said was the worst thing ever in life. After a
few numbing shots, he got to work drilling uh into
(31:18):
the infected tooth. Unfortunately, he didn't give me enough. Once
he got down to the root, I felt it and
it felt awful, So I said to the dentist, Hey,
I learned the dentist. He then pulled out what must
have been the largest needle in existence. He gave me
a shot directly into the infected root of my Oh, man,
I think that has the nose. Uh, this made me
(31:40):
She said that she takes pain well, she said, but
this made me sob uncontrollably. It was ten years ago,
and I can still vividly recall the flash of blinding
pain when the needle made contact. To make matters worse,
that evening, my gum swelled dislodged the temporary crown. I
had to go back the next day to have it refitted.
So that's my injection story. Like I said, I'm not
if it's worse than the five in the nose. I'd
(32:02):
say both were pretty terrible. I hope you enjoyed the read.
Julie yeaste from Honolulu, Hawaii. It's a lot for that, Julie, Man,
I'm making air quotes when I say thanks. That's like scarring,
you know, But she'll remember that for the rest of
her life. Well, way to go, h If you want
(32:23):
to try to gross this out, it's gonna be tough
to top that one. But let's keep it going, shall we.
You can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff.
You Should Know. You can hang out with us on
Instagram at s y s K podcast. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works
dot com, and it's always joined us at at home
on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com For
(32:49):
more on this and thousands of other topics, does it
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