March 4, 2010 • 20 mins
Scabies is a contagious skin disease with a bad reputation. Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss this itchy condition -- from the mite that causes it to common cures -- in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Yes, you can call me Montezuma. Yeah,
(00:25):
Chuck's been a tad under the weather. Yes, he's been
out green kool aid. Right, Yeah, it's been awful. Yeah.
As most of you may know, we got back from
our Guatemala trip and uh, apparently Montezuma's revenge can strike
after you return. Yeah, because right when you got back
in the airport. When I got back, I was like,
(00:45):
I can't believe it didn't get sick and then boom
the next day. Yeah, I was pretty vigilant about maintaining
a water tight seal in my mouth when I was showering. Yeah,
and being like a fat smoker, that's more difficult. And
you'd think when you're washing your face or here. Um.
So yeah, I think that last night out that you
declined to go on drinking rum on the rocks and
(01:08):
that it was the ice in the bar. Dude, do
you drink ice? I did. There's your problem, buddy. Yeah, yeah,
it was fun. That was worth it. I'd do it again.
Jerry had the ice as well, and she's fine. Yeah, alright, okay,
moving on. I'm just gonna come out and say it.
My friend Mitch had scabies. I was gonna ask you
why you picked this, and it knew there was some reason,
and I was just praying that it wasn't you, it
(01:29):
wasn't me. No, okay no. But after reading this, it
turns out that the deep, deep shame that Mitch displays
whenever he talks about the scabies uh is is maybe
a bit misplaced. Yeah, it is not necessarily because he
uh is gross and has poor hygiene or or promiscuous.
Promiscuous he maybe those things. I don't know. No, he's not.
(01:51):
But it has nothing to do with scabies, right, which
sounds gross. They should change the name if they want
to get out of that realm of grossness, they should
not call it scaby. Well, they would have to change
the name of the mt that creates the problem of scabies,
the sarcoptis scabi. Yeah, that's where it comes from. But
I mean, that's such a cool name that they're never
going to change scabies. They may call it like um
(02:14):
sex rash, right right, or dirty rash. They could call
it one of those, but they'll probably stick with scabies instead. Right. So,
my dirty dirty friend Mitch, Um, it turns out wasn't
so dirty, and he's one of about three hundred million
people annually who come down with scabies worldwide. Yeah, a
(02:35):
lot more people than you would think. Yeah, because no
one talks about it for reasons that we mentioned, right, Yeah,
I think it's a lot of times equated with lice
um and really, uh, when you catch scabies, you can
be a very clean person because the might the sarcoptis scab.
I Uh. What happens is the female burrows down into
(02:57):
the skin and once she's down there, no soaper, water
is gonna do anything. Yeah, you can do your what
do you call it, the steel wool shower, soap and water,
you can. You can do that till the cows come home,
and you're still gonna have the females under your skin
laying eggs and that's your scabies outbreak, buddy boom. So,
the reason why scabies are so successful and infesting human
(03:21):
beings is because once a female scaby enters your skin
and digs down. And by the way, I strongly recommend
going on the site to read this article, if not
for the first image alone. Yeah, the little model of
the scab, big, full color grossness. So the female scaby
burrows into your skin, uh and begins to lay eggs
(03:44):
and um, the eggs actually mature, they reach sexual maturity
within like fourteen days, and so they start doing the
same thing. So all it takes is one female scabies
might uh to create an infestation under your skin. Problem
is you don't really notice for up to a couple
of months, usually a couple of weeks after the first
(04:06):
one gets into your skin. Yeah, that's where you really
get in trouble because not only can it really be
manifesting itself in your own skin, but you can be
spreading it to your family, anyone that's in contact with
you sexual partners obviously, right, Yeah, because it takes prolonged
close contact. Um. And that can be through spending the
night with somebody. It can be through sharing a towel
(04:28):
with somebody betting. Um, you shouldn't be sharing anyway, no reason.
Another one is, if you like bart, Let's say, I
want to borrow your one of your nice sweaters or
your fancy socks that you wear. Which one's we all
all your socks are fancy, my sock Ninja socks. Yeah,
sock Ninja socks. You wouldn't have to borrow that because
the very magnanimous owner of sock Ninja sent us both
(04:50):
some socks. Sney, that's right. But if we were to
share clothing, which we don't do, then I could pick
up your scabies sure and be itching like crazy. Yes,
there a couple of weeks. You know. The itching is
from I do, but it has a reaction from the uh,
the might and their feces. That's really gross because I mean,
(05:11):
if you're a mite, you gotta poop somewhere, and if
you're burrowed under somebody's skin, that's where you're gonna poop. Yep.
So yeah, you have an allergic reaction to that. Yeah.
And that's the biggest um symptom that you're gonna know
that you have scabies is um a rash, big time itching. Right,
You're gonna have like kind of a pimplee like reddish
bump area that forms like a larger rash. But each
(05:33):
one of those bumps generally represents a MT. Yes, the
average adolescent who has scabies has about eleven and they
could be mistaken for other things like mosquito bites. That's
why they're misdiagnosed sometimes too. You know what the dead
giveaway is for scabies though, what's that? Well, there's two
of them. Um. Sometimes there's a trail along your skin
that actually is represents the burrow that the female might
(05:56):
has dug into you. The one real to giveaway is
that your itching gets worse at night. Yes, scabies are photophobic.
They don't like the light, and so once the sun
goes down and the lights go out, they really become
most active. So if you have like a little pimple
rash that it's just like crazy. But really it's is
(06:17):
at night. My friends, you have scabies, yes, and if
it's on your wrist, we should talk about where you
can get it anywhere on your body, but for adults
the wrist is most common, and then the elbow, armpit, waste, buttocks,
between the fingers, and then the penis and the nipples.
Penis scabies have to be the worst. Yeah, I can't imagine,
(06:42):
That's all I have to say. I just can't imagine well,
kids actually chuck get scabies in slightly different areas. Um,
like you said adults, you listed off the adults with kids. Um,
it's common in the scalp area, the face, neck, palms,
face scabies penis gabies, which is worse. Mm hmm that
(07:02):
I wouldn't want either face gabies. Obviously people are gonna
see so it might cause some embarrassment. I put all
of my money on penis gabies being worse. I'm done
with that, Chuck, Josh. Crusted scabies, Is that where you're going? Yes,
crusted scabies oka a Norwegian scabies. Yeah, I wonder where
makes you wonder what the hell is going on with
(07:24):
the Norwegians? Know they aren't a common which is a
good thing because it's infinitely more gross. I think it's
very severe and it's identified by thick crusts over the skin.
And each of these crusts can contain millions of the
mites scaping mites. Right, Remember we said the adolescent average
adolescent with scabies has about eleven females gaby mites. If
(07:49):
you have Norwegian scabies, you have, like you said, millions
under skin, You're in big trouble. You're highly highly contagious,
but they may not itch. No, and that's one of
the reasons why you you you don't get the scabies
wratch from what I took from the article. Um, you
get the scabies rash in large part from scratching, like
from scratching your skin over and over again. Um, and
(08:10):
you you don't get that rash. And one of the
reasons why people who get Norwegian scabies don't have that
kind of rash and inst they get scaly skin is
because it infects people in large part who can't itch physically,
like the paralyze, the paraplegic. Can you imagine though, like
(08:30):
and not being able to But would you have sensation? No,
that's a good question. Someone will probably right in and
tell us, so, chuck. One of the reasons why scabies
are so insidious, you might say, is because they spread
fairly easily, and because the moment that female scaby starts
(08:52):
laying eggs, you are contagious. So um, even if you
don't know it right right, because like we said it,
it can take weeks and up to a couple of
months for the symptoms of first appier. But the whole
time you're being infested and infested and invested right, Um,
but you're still contagious and it spreads fairly easily. So
places where people live in close quarters, prisons, nursing homes,
(09:17):
institutions for the criminally insane, um, shutter island, right, they
they can have scabies outbreaks fairly easily. Yeah, I think. So,
what happens if you suddenly have a pimply rash on
your penis that starts to it's really badly at night? Well,
after you shriek and terrifying pain and shock and horror,
(09:39):
you should go to a doctor obviously, first things first,
and the doctor will most likely prescribe a scape aside
prescription strength scape aside, and this is UM usually topical.
It will be like a lotion. Let's say you gotta
put all over your body, lay around for like six
or eight hours with this lotion on your body and
(10:01):
hopefully that'll clear it up. Yeah. There's the most readily
prescribed um. Scape aside is called elamite or elamite, very
clever um. There's another one called lyndane, and both of
those are pharmaceutical topical scap sides, and both of them, yeah,
(10:21):
you have to leave on for hours usually overnight and
when you wake up you wash it off, and usually
both are effective after one treatment. The horrible thing about
scabies is the itching can continue for a couple of
weeks after, so you're still freaked out like it didn't work.
It didn't work, so you really have to kind of
white knuckle it after you cover yourself with your stuff
and kind of hope that it worked. But well, you
(10:42):
can do stuff about the itching too, though, and we
should point out that like calamine lotion and these things
that you would get for like poison ivy or something
that will help the itch, but that doesn't do anything
to eradicate the scabies. No, you need to one to
punch it. Same with cool baths. That's h prescribed to
help believe ate the horrible, horrible itching. Um. But yeah,
(11:03):
it's not going to do anything to eliminate the scabies.
So you've got a couple of pharmaceutical options. What's more, UM,
since it is very easy to spread, you shouldn't be
the only one with the lindane or illimite. All of
your family members should do the same treatment. Your betting
should be dusting gasoline and set on fire. At the
(11:27):
very least has to be washed on the hottest setting. Yeah, sanitize.
We have a sanitize setting on that we use quite
a bit at our house. Yeah, well, not for scab
kills anything. We have animals, you know, they'll pee on something,
so we'll wash it on yeah yeah. Um, and you
can also take it to a dry cleaner. And when
I read that line in this article, I started to think, Yeah,
that's true. Dry cleaners actually have fairly dangerous jobs, like
(11:50):
the stuff that gets brought to them. That if you're
bringing your scabies infected clothes, scabies infested clothes to your
dry cleaner, what else is some other guy bringing to him?
You know? I know, wow, Yeah, I never thought about that.
So you've got your family unlockdown, everybody's covered in ointment,
the bed is on fire in the back um at
(12:12):
the very least, it's unsanitized, and in the laundry um.
And you realize, you know what, I'm not really the
kind to use highly toxic pharmaceutical ointments. What options this
person like me have? Josh, there are a couple of options. Um.
There is something called the name tree native to India,
(12:35):
and extract. It's a paste made from extract from that tree,
and in studies and this isn't just a little you
know all shucks. Home Remedy actually have done studies and
found that it's n effective and it's not toxic. So
that's a good option. Yeah, a little a little closer
to home t tree oil. Yeah, well that's the one
that we have that in our house. We use had
a lot. That's a great um, anti fungal, antibiotic, anti bacteria.
(13:00):
It's it's good for a lot of stuff, right, But
if you're going to use it in some sort of ointment,
you want to dilute, dilute, dilute, as adherents of doctor
Brauner are familiar with um, because it will burn your skin. Yeah,
you want to be real careful with that. Actually, the
stuff we use, I didn't think it was too diluted.
It's strong, right, you want to dilute it yourself. What
(13:20):
we don't do? You rub it on your skin like
in large portions, not large portions, like I'll have like
a pimple and Emily will put like some tea tree
on it. Let's try it out or something. So just
like a little little dabble, do you as they say,
you can also use sulfur. Yeah, I saw that sulfur ointment,
that that's good for treating kids if you don't want
to slather your kids in the toxic chemicals. Another study
(13:42):
found that, um, the sulfur ointment was just as effective
in treating children with scabies as the prescribed ointments. So
it does work. But yeah, most of the other folk
remedies out there aren't going to do anything but alleviate itching, right, well,
which is good. Oh yeah, you want that too, but
you also want to get rid of the scabies infestation.
(14:05):
So um, chuck josh true or false. Scabies strikes all
races indiscriminately true. False. Really, for some reason that no
one knows yet, African Americans are not nearly susceptible to
scabies as everybody else. Well, good for them, isn't they cool?
So that's one less thing to worry about. Well, that's good, chuck,
(14:29):
true or false. Chiggers and scabies are the same thing, faults.
Chiggers are different. But they also well, no, they don't
burrow under the skin. That is a falsehood people think
they do. They actually feed on top of the skin,
but they do dig into the skin, inject you with
something to kill your tissue and necrotic enzyme and yeah,
(14:51):
basically they vomit that on your skin to kill the tissue,
and then they feed on that tissue. And I've had
everyone said chiggers. If you've been like to the beach,
I don't know that I have before. Yeah, you probably have.
If you can, like camping in the woods, you probably
had checkers. Yeah, well they got a bitch and feeding process. Yeah,
it's gross. And they itch like crazy too. How many
people out there are scratching right now? Did you notice
(15:12):
that when you were reading the article? Did you itch
a little bit? I'm itching right now. It's like the
contagious yawning one, right, yeah, contagious itching? Um, and then
chuck true or false fault? Right? Yeah? Scabies means you're
a dirty person. Oh faults? Yeah, of course not. Okay,
(15:34):
doesn't mean you're promiscuous, no, mitch. Although they do point
out that intercourse is a common way because that means
prolonged physical physical contact. Well put chuck, very tidy, thank you.
Also it means, in a lot of cases, if you're
not just some jerk, uh, that you are sharing the
bed together too, And betting, as we've seen, is one
(15:54):
way that you can get scabies. And maybe sharing a towel.
Maybe so if it's like a sexy next morning as well,
or if you're a very clean person afterwards. Um, so
that's scabies. I guess right. Yeah, when was this? He's
gonna murder me by the way for this recently? No,
it was a while ago. Then he's all good, Yeah
(16:16):
he's fine. Now did he get a scape aside? I'm
sure he did. He's a Yeah, he's a clean guy. Right,
he's not dirty in any other way either. Good as
far as I know. Um, and yeah he's Does he
know where he caught it? No, he won't admit to
knowing where he got We're gonna get emails from people
that are gonna say, you know what, I had scabies
(16:39):
and don't tell anyone. But I hope, I hope chuck
through this. We've gotten the point across that if you've
had scabies, don't be ashamed. If you know somebody who's
had scabies, it's not that big of a deal. I
don't see a doctor because that's one reason it can
get worse. It's because you're you're so ashamed you'll try
to like knock it out at home without going to
get the scape aside, so just suck it up. Doctors
(16:59):
have seen it all. They definitely have one in a
million shots yet exactly. Yeah, Well, if you have more
questions about scabies or you want to see a truly
truly cool picture type in scabies in the handy search
bart how stuff works dot com. Since I just said that, everybody,
you know, it means it's time for listener mil Yes
(17:19):
it is Josh. And before I read this, I do
want to say quickly so the emails will stop. We
or have been schooled, and we know now that Amish
people love their Walmart. Everybody knows that. We didn't know that.
Apparently in in theory, there's no Amish in Georgia. In theory,
the Amish want to support the mom and pop that
(17:40):
is within their their mindset. But apparently they dig the Walmart,
because hundreds of people have written in and apparently in
Lancaster we've also reor corrected on how to pronounce that
they they have buggy sheds at the Walmart in the
in the shade where they can tie up their buggies
and so the horses can can relax. It's nice for
the horses. And they said that they're in there with
(18:02):
the digital cameras, like looking at them and have you
seen the moose playing in the sprinkler? Is that code
for something? No, it's so cute. Go on YouTube and
type um baby moose playing in sprinkler or something like that.
Somebody in the backyard just says they're sprinkler and these
two baby moose are running through. It's really cute. It's
crazy all right. On the listener mail, This is from
(18:22):
Stephanie in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Yeah, not Autawa, Canada. Hi,
Josh and Chuck and Jerry. I'm a regular listener of
your awesome podcast and I just finished listening to the
podcast on brail. I am totally blind and have been
using brail since the age of four. I thought you
made a lot of good points and ask some really
interesting questions. To answer one of those questions, brail you
(18:45):
generally see in public places, that is, bathrooms, atm machines, etcetera,
is contracted or grade two brail, at least here it
is in Canada. Uh. In English Braille, there are no
contractions for numbers, so they could be read by a
user of any system. Despite the fact that grade two
brail is more commonly seen. I think it is good
to begin with grade one brail, especially for children, as
(19:07):
it ensures that they will have the ability to spell
later on. When using contracted brail, you don't spell out
words full length and so wouldn't learn how they were
spelled if it weren't for grade one brail. Another thing
I thought was interesting was a lack of brail on
the currency in the US. Here in Canada there is
actually a brail system on the currency. We don't have
the numbers, but a different number of full brail cells
(19:30):
on each bill, so for example, the five has one
full cell, the ten has two, et cetera. I have noticed, however,
that despite the effort, the brail eventually becomes faded and unreadable.
So brail currency it's a good idea in theory, but
it only works in the short term and blind people
are back to folding bills before too long. So thanks
for the interesting insight. I look forward to listening to more.
(19:52):
And that's from Stephanie. Thanks Stephanie. Insight from a blind
person on the grade one or two or both debate, Um,
if you have an exciting email for us about anything
at all. I can't think of anything right now, right, Chuck?
Can you anything itchy? Oh, that's a good one. If
(20:14):
you have an email for us about anything itchy, why
don't you wrap it up and shoot it over to
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
(20:35):
out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Yes, you can call me Montezuma. Yeah,
(00:25):
Chuck's been a tad under the weather. Yes, he's been
out green kool aid. Right, Yeah, it's been awful. Yeah.
As most of you may know, we got back from
our Guatemala trip and uh, apparently Montezuma's revenge can strike
after you return. Yeah, because right when you got back
in the airport. When I got back, I was like,
(00:45):
I can't believe it didn't get sick and then boom
the next day. Yeah, I was pretty vigilant about maintaining
a water tight seal in my mouth when I was showering. Yeah,
and being like a fat smoker, that's more difficult. And
you'd think when you're washing your face or here. Um.
So yeah, I think that last night out that you
declined to go on drinking rum on the rocks and
(01:08):
that it was the ice in the bar. Dude, do
you drink ice? I did. There's your problem, buddy. Yeah, yeah,
it was fun. That was worth it. I'd do it again.
Jerry had the ice as well, and she's fine. Yeah, alright, okay,
moving on. I'm just gonna come out and say it.
My friend Mitch had scabies. I was gonna ask you
why you picked this, and it knew there was some reason,
and I was just praying that it wasn't you, it
(01:29):
wasn't me. No, okay no. But after reading this, it
turns out that the deep, deep shame that Mitch displays
whenever he talks about the scabies uh is is maybe
a bit misplaced. Yeah, it is not necessarily because he
uh is gross and has poor hygiene or or promiscuous.
Promiscuous he maybe those things. I don't know. No, he's not.
(01:51):
But it has nothing to do with scabies, right, which
sounds gross. They should change the name if they want
to get out of that realm of grossness, they should
not call it scaby. Well, they would have to change
the name of the mt that creates the problem of scabies,
the sarcoptis scabi. Yeah, that's where it comes from. But
I mean, that's such a cool name that they're never
going to change scabies. They may call it like um
(02:14):
sex rash, right right, or dirty rash. They could call
it one of those, but they'll probably stick with scabies instead. Right. So,
my dirty dirty friend Mitch, Um, it turns out wasn't
so dirty, and he's one of about three hundred million
people annually who come down with scabies worldwide. Yeah, a
(02:35):
lot more people than you would think. Yeah, because no
one talks about it for reasons that we mentioned, right, Yeah,
I think it's a lot of times equated with lice
um and really, uh, when you catch scabies, you can
be a very clean person because the might the sarcoptis scab.
I Uh. What happens is the female burrows down into
(02:57):
the skin and once she's down there, no soaper, water
is gonna do anything. Yeah, you can do your what
do you call it, the steel wool shower, soap and water,
you can. You can do that till the cows come home,
and you're still gonna have the females under your skin
laying eggs and that's your scabies outbreak, buddy boom. So,
the reason why scabies are so successful and infesting human
(03:21):
beings is because once a female scaby enters your skin
and digs down. And by the way, I strongly recommend
going on the site to read this article, if not
for the first image alone. Yeah, the little model of
the scab, big, full color grossness. So the female scaby
burrows into your skin, uh and begins to lay eggs
(03:44):
and um, the eggs actually mature, they reach sexual maturity
within like fourteen days, and so they start doing the
same thing. So all it takes is one female scabies
might uh to create an infestation under your skin. Problem
is you don't really notice for up to a couple
of months, usually a couple of weeks after the first
(04:06):
one gets into your skin. Yeah, that's where you really
get in trouble because not only can it really be
manifesting itself in your own skin, but you can be
spreading it to your family, anyone that's in contact with
you sexual partners obviously, right, Yeah, because it takes prolonged
close contact. Um. And that can be through spending the
night with somebody. It can be through sharing a towel
(04:28):
with somebody betting. Um, you shouldn't be sharing anyway, no reason.
Another one is, if you like bart, Let's say, I
want to borrow your one of your nice sweaters or
your fancy socks that you wear. Which one's we all
all your socks are fancy, my sock Ninja socks. Yeah,
sock Ninja socks. You wouldn't have to borrow that because
the very magnanimous owner of sock Ninja sent us both
(04:50):
some socks. Sney, that's right. But if we were to
share clothing, which we don't do, then I could pick
up your scabies sure and be itching like crazy. Yes,
there a couple of weeks. You know. The itching is
from I do, but it has a reaction from the uh,
the might and their feces. That's really gross because I mean,
(05:11):
if you're a mite, you gotta poop somewhere, and if
you're burrowed under somebody's skin, that's where you're gonna poop. Yep.
So yeah, you have an allergic reaction to that. Yeah.
And that's the biggest um symptom that you're gonna know
that you have scabies is um a rash, big time itching. Right,
You're gonna have like kind of a pimplee like reddish
bump area that forms like a larger rash. But each
(05:33):
one of those bumps generally represents a MT. Yes, the
average adolescent who has scabies has about eleven and they
could be mistaken for other things like mosquito bites. That's
why they're misdiagnosed sometimes too. You know what the dead
giveaway is for scabies though, what's that? Well, there's two
of them. Um. Sometimes there's a trail along your skin
that actually is represents the burrow that the female might
(05:56):
has dug into you. The one real to giveaway is
that your itching gets worse at night. Yes, scabies are photophobic.
They don't like the light, and so once the sun
goes down and the lights go out, they really become
most active. So if you have like a little pimple
rash that it's just like crazy. But really it's is
(06:17):
at night. My friends, you have scabies, yes, and if
it's on your wrist, we should talk about where you
can get it anywhere on your body, but for adults
the wrist is most common, and then the elbow, armpit, waste, buttocks,
between the fingers, and then the penis and the nipples.
Penis scabies have to be the worst. Yeah, I can't imagine,
(06:42):
That's all I have to say. I just can't imagine well,
kids actually chuck get scabies in slightly different areas. Um,
like you said adults, you listed off the adults with kids. Um,
it's common in the scalp area, the face, neck, palms,
face scabies penis gabies, which is worse. Mm hmm that
(07:02):
I wouldn't want either face gabies. Obviously people are gonna
see so it might cause some embarrassment. I put all
of my money on penis gabies being worse. I'm done
with that, Chuck, Josh. Crusted scabies, Is that where you're going? Yes,
crusted scabies oka a Norwegian scabies. Yeah, I wonder where
makes you wonder what the hell is going on with
(07:24):
the Norwegians? Know they aren't a common which is a
good thing because it's infinitely more gross. I think it's
very severe and it's identified by thick crusts over the skin.
And each of these crusts can contain millions of the
mites scaping mites. Right, Remember we said the adolescent average
adolescent with scabies has about eleven females gaby mites. If
(07:49):
you have Norwegian scabies, you have, like you said, millions
under skin, You're in big trouble. You're highly highly contagious,
but they may not itch. No, and that's one of
the reasons why you you you don't get the scabies
wratch from what I took from the article. Um, you
get the scabies rash in large part from scratching, like
from scratching your skin over and over again. Um, and
(08:10):
you you don't get that rash. And one of the
reasons why people who get Norwegian scabies don't have that
kind of rash and inst they get scaly skin is
because it infects people in large part who can't itch physically,
like the paralyze, the paraplegic. Can you imagine though, like
(08:30):
and not being able to But would you have sensation? No,
that's a good question. Someone will probably right in and
tell us, so, chuck. One of the reasons why scabies
are so insidious, you might say, is because they spread
fairly easily, and because the moment that female scaby starts
(08:52):
laying eggs, you are contagious. So um, even if you
don't know it right right, because like we said it,
it can take weeks and up to a couple of
months for the symptoms of first appier. But the whole
time you're being infested and infested and invested right, Um,
but you're still contagious and it spreads fairly easily. So
places where people live in close quarters, prisons, nursing homes,
(09:17):
institutions for the criminally insane, um, shutter island, right, they
they can have scabies outbreaks fairly easily. Yeah, I think. So,
what happens if you suddenly have a pimply rash on
your penis that starts to it's really badly at night? Well,
after you shriek and terrifying pain and shock and horror,
(09:39):
you should go to a doctor obviously, first things first,
and the doctor will most likely prescribe a scape aside
prescription strength scape aside, and this is UM usually topical.
It will be like a lotion. Let's say you gotta
put all over your body, lay around for like six
or eight hours with this lotion on your body and
(10:01):
hopefully that'll clear it up. Yeah. There's the most readily
prescribed um. Scape aside is called elamite or elamite, very
clever um. There's another one called lyndane, and both of
those are pharmaceutical topical scap sides, and both of them, yeah,
(10:21):
you have to leave on for hours usually overnight and
when you wake up you wash it off, and usually
both are effective after one treatment. The horrible thing about
scabies is the itching can continue for a couple of
weeks after, so you're still freaked out like it didn't work.
It didn't work, so you really have to kind of
white knuckle it after you cover yourself with your stuff
and kind of hope that it worked. But well, you
(10:42):
can do stuff about the itching too, though, and we
should point out that like calamine lotion and these things
that you would get for like poison ivy or something
that will help the itch, but that doesn't do anything
to eradicate the scabies. No, you need to one to
punch it. Same with cool baths. That's h prescribed to
help believe ate the horrible, horrible itching. Um. But yeah,
(11:03):
it's not going to do anything to eliminate the scabies.
So you've got a couple of pharmaceutical options. What's more, UM,
since it is very easy to spread, you shouldn't be
the only one with the lindane or illimite. All of
your family members should do the same treatment. Your betting
should be dusting gasoline and set on fire. At the
(11:27):
very least has to be washed on the hottest setting. Yeah, sanitize.
We have a sanitize setting on that we use quite
a bit at our house. Yeah, well, not for scab
kills anything. We have animals, you know, they'll pee on something,
so we'll wash it on yeah yeah. Um, and you
can also take it to a dry cleaner. And when
I read that line in this article, I started to think, Yeah,
that's true. Dry cleaners actually have fairly dangerous jobs, like
(11:50):
the stuff that gets brought to them. That if you're
bringing your scabies infected clothes, scabies infested clothes to your
dry cleaner, what else is some other guy bringing to him?
You know? I know, wow, Yeah, I never thought about that.
So you've got your family unlockdown, everybody's covered in ointment,
the bed is on fire in the back um at
(12:12):
the very least, it's unsanitized, and in the laundry um.
And you realize, you know what, I'm not really the
kind to use highly toxic pharmaceutical ointments. What options this
person like me have? Josh, there are a couple of options. Um.
There is something called the name tree native to India,
(12:35):
and extract. It's a paste made from extract from that tree,
and in studies and this isn't just a little you
know all shucks. Home Remedy actually have done studies and
found that it's n effective and it's not toxic. So
that's a good option. Yeah, a little a little closer
to home t tree oil. Yeah, well that's the one
that we have that in our house. We use had
a lot. That's a great um, anti fungal, antibiotic, anti bacteria.
(13:00):
It's it's good for a lot of stuff, right, But
if you're going to use it in some sort of ointment,
you want to dilute, dilute, dilute, as adherents of doctor
Brauner are familiar with um, because it will burn your skin. Yeah,
you want to be real careful with that. Actually, the
stuff we use, I didn't think it was too diluted.
It's strong, right, you want to dilute it yourself. What
(13:20):
we don't do? You rub it on your skin like
in large portions, not large portions, like I'll have like
a pimple and Emily will put like some tea tree
on it. Let's try it out or something. So just
like a little little dabble, do you as they say,
you can also use sulfur. Yeah, I saw that sulfur ointment,
that that's good for treating kids if you don't want
to slather your kids in the toxic chemicals. Another study
(13:42):
found that, um, the sulfur ointment was just as effective
in treating children with scabies as the prescribed ointments. So
it does work. But yeah, most of the other folk
remedies out there aren't going to do anything but alleviate itching, right, well,
which is good. Oh yeah, you want that too, but
you also want to get rid of the scabies infestation.
(14:05):
So um, chuck josh true or false. Scabies strikes all
races indiscriminately true. False. Really, for some reason that no
one knows yet, African Americans are not nearly susceptible to
scabies as everybody else. Well, good for them, isn't they cool?
So that's one less thing to worry about. Well, that's good, chuck,
(14:29):
true or false. Chiggers and scabies are the same thing, faults.
Chiggers are different. But they also well, no, they don't
burrow under the skin. That is a falsehood people think
they do. They actually feed on top of the skin,
but they do dig into the skin, inject you with
something to kill your tissue and necrotic enzyme and yeah,
(14:51):
basically they vomit that on your skin to kill the tissue,
and then they feed on that tissue. And I've had
everyone said chiggers. If you've been like to the beach,
I don't know that I have before. Yeah, you probably have.
If you can, like camping in the woods, you probably
had checkers. Yeah, well they got a bitch and feeding process. Yeah,
it's gross. And they itch like crazy too. How many
people out there are scratching right now? Did you notice
(15:12):
that when you were reading the article? Did you itch
a little bit? I'm itching right now. It's like the
contagious yawning one, right, yeah, contagious itching? Um, and then
chuck true or false fault? Right? Yeah? Scabies means you're
a dirty person. Oh faults? Yeah, of course not. Okay,
(15:34):
doesn't mean you're promiscuous, no, mitch. Although they do point
out that intercourse is a common way because that means
prolonged physical physical contact. Well put chuck, very tidy, thank you.
Also it means, in a lot of cases, if you're
not just some jerk, uh, that you are sharing the
bed together too, And betting, as we've seen, is one
(15:54):
way that you can get scabies. And maybe sharing a towel.
Maybe so if it's like a sexy next morning as well,
or if you're a very clean person afterwards. Um, so
that's scabies. I guess right. Yeah, when was this? He's
gonna murder me by the way for this recently? No,
it was a while ago. Then he's all good, Yeah
(16:16):
he's fine. Now did he get a scape aside? I'm
sure he did. He's a Yeah, he's a clean guy. Right,
he's not dirty in any other way either. Good as
far as I know. Um, and yeah he's Does he
know where he caught it? No, he won't admit to
knowing where he got We're gonna get emails from people
that are gonna say, you know what, I had scabies
(16:39):
and don't tell anyone. But I hope, I hope chuck
through this. We've gotten the point across that if you've
had scabies, don't be ashamed. If you know somebody who's
had scabies, it's not that big of a deal. I
don't see a doctor because that's one reason it can
get worse. It's because you're you're so ashamed you'll try
to like knock it out at home without going to
get the scape aside, so just suck it up. Doctors
(16:59):
have seen it all. They definitely have one in a
million shots yet exactly. Yeah, Well, if you have more
questions about scabies or you want to see a truly
truly cool picture type in scabies in the handy search
bart how stuff works dot com. Since I just said that, everybody,
you know, it means it's time for listener mil Yes
(17:19):
it is Josh. And before I read this, I do
want to say quickly so the emails will stop. We
or have been schooled, and we know now that Amish
people love their Walmart. Everybody knows that. We didn't know that.
Apparently in in theory, there's no Amish in Georgia. In theory,
the Amish want to support the mom and pop that
(17:40):
is within their their mindset. But apparently they dig the Walmart,
because hundreds of people have written in and apparently in
Lancaster we've also reor corrected on how to pronounce that
they they have buggy sheds at the Walmart in the
in the shade where they can tie up their buggies
and so the horses can can relax. It's nice for
the horses. And they said that they're in there with
(18:02):
the digital cameras, like looking at them and have you
seen the moose playing in the sprinkler? Is that code
for something? No, it's so cute. Go on YouTube and
type um baby moose playing in sprinkler or something like that.
Somebody in the backyard just says they're sprinkler and these
two baby moose are running through. It's really cute. It's
crazy all right. On the listener mail, This is from
(18:22):
Stephanie in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Yeah, not Autawa, Canada. Hi,
Josh and Chuck and Jerry. I'm a regular listener of
your awesome podcast and I just finished listening to the
podcast on brail. I am totally blind and have been
using brail since the age of four. I thought you
made a lot of good points and ask some really
interesting questions. To answer one of those questions, brail you
(18:45):
generally see in public places, that is, bathrooms, atm machines, etcetera,
is contracted or grade two brail, at least here it
is in Canada. Uh. In English Braille, there are no
contractions for numbers, so they could be read by a
user of any system. Despite the fact that grade two
brail is more commonly seen. I think it is good
to begin with grade one brail, especially for children, as
(19:07):
it ensures that they will have the ability to spell
later on. When using contracted brail, you don't spell out
words full length and so wouldn't learn how they were
spelled if it weren't for grade one brail. Another thing
I thought was interesting was a lack of brail on
the currency in the US. Here in Canada there is
actually a brail system on the currency. We don't have
the numbers, but a different number of full brail cells
(19:30):
on each bill, so for example, the five has one
full cell, the ten has two, et cetera. I have noticed, however,
that despite the effort, the brail eventually becomes faded and unreadable.
So brail currency it's a good idea in theory, but
it only works in the short term and blind people
are back to folding bills before too long. So thanks
for the interesting insight. I look forward to listening to more.
(19:52):
And that's from Stephanie. Thanks Stephanie. Insight from a blind
person on the grade one or two or both debate, Um,
if you have an exciting email for us about anything
at all. I can't think of anything right now, right, Chuck?
Can you anything itchy? Oh, that's a good one. If
(20:14):
you have an email for us about anything itchy, why
don't you wrap it up and shoot it over to
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
(20:35):
out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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