Stuff You Should Know - Birthmarks: Probably Not the Mark of the Devil

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

It’s a pretty safe assumption that people have been born with birthmarks since humanity began, and between then and now we’ve come up with some wacky, even dangerous, explanations for them – even a few that survive still today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you've ever been at home and wondered, Josh and Chuck, is it really worth going to see them perform live? The answer is the resounding yes. Yes, and if you live in Vancouver, BC,

or anywhere near there, come on out to the Chan Center on Sunday, March 29th to see us and find out for yourself. And then the next night, if you live around Portland, Oregon, you can go to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and we'll be there ready to go on Monday, March 30th. That's right, you can get all ticket information at sysklive.com. Welcome to Step You Should Know,

a production of iHeart Radios, How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there, and there's Jerry. Jerry's back, everybody. That's right. And all the listeners said, what happened to Josh T? What are we doing?

Did we decide? Yeah, we're going to do birthmarks. Okay, great. Check the title, Chuck. Well, I mean, I have two things in front of me. How you doing? I'm great. How are you?

I'm good. You got any birthmarks? I do. What you got? I've got something under my right armpit. You're like, it looks like Richard Nixon. Yeah, close, it looks like Spiro Agnew. Do you remember when Mad Magazine used to make fun of Spiro Agnew, and you're like, I have

no idea who that is. I think it was the name, maybe. No, it was because they hated his politics. Yeah, well, that too. But then there was a Simpsons where Milhouse is like, they're making fun of Spiro Agnew again. He must work there or something. And I remember specifically thinking that he must work there.

Oh, he referenced Mad Magazine. No, that's funny. So you've got an under your armpit birthmark? Yeah. How about you? I don't think I do, actually. What I have a lot of now, because I'm an old man speeding toward death, are skin tags. Oh, yeah, those are not birthmarks.

Around the neck and armpit, that's where they tend to gather. That's just your skin, you know, really going at it. I used to have them clipped, and I did that for a while, but it's been a while. But now I went in recently, it was so annoying, it was one of these, our medical system is just broken. It was one of those reminders, because I went in to get it taken care of like I usually do, and I got in there, and the guy was like, oh, well, we don't do this now unless you make another kind of appointment.

I was like, well, can I just make this that since I'm here sitting in your office? Right. He's like, no, no, no, those take much longer. These are just 10 minute appointments, and that'll take like an hour. And some of them have their own vascular system, so they need to be cauterized. And I was like, oh, okay, so I'm just leaving, and he was like, yes. He's like, if you want to make that other appointment, and then they refunded the money for that appointment, which was nice.

Oh, there you go. That was nice. The copay. But then said, make the longer appointment if you want to come back. Huh. So are you going to? Yeah, you know, I mean, they're not like medically dangerous or anything, but they're rather unsightly.

It's fine. When they get long and big. Well, long, sure. I mean, how long are we talking like? I mean, some of the ones are like, you know, quarter inch. So, okay, I was just about to say how big that was. Let me see if we can figure it out in metric. It's a few centimeters, I think is what you just did.

Yeah, I want to get them clipped again. So I'm going to make that longer appointment, and I think it will be painful. Is it painful? I've never had one clipped. The regular clipping, the small ones aren't a big deal, because they just hit it with a little quick shot, and then clip it, and this is no big deal. What kind of a shot? Like a, you know, a needle, like a little numbing, numbing thing.

Okay, I got you. Like with a needle. Like lidocaine. Whatever, I don't know. They don't spray it with the, the freezy stuff. No, you're thinking of the stuff for athlete's foot. This is like a shot, lidocaine. But anyway, the ones that are big, that require cauterizing, I'm sure that doesn't feel great

even if they've numbed it up. You just get the acetylene torch out. And imagine I'll have to shave my armpits, because if you're torching something near armpit hair. Plus you just want to look good. Maybe. I've never shaved my pits. Might start that.

Why not? I'll bet that's itchy, though. Yeah, maybe. Anytime you shave something, it starts to grow out, it's itchy, you know what I'm saying? So I used to get warts, actually, when I was a kid, and I remember going into the dermatologist and they'd go into the freezer, put on these huge rubber gloves and pull out like this thermos of, I want to say nitroglycerin, that's not it. No.

You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the cold stuff. Yeah. And it would freeze my wart, basically right off right there. Yeah, yeah. Just kind of sting for a second, and that was it. I never really had warts. Believe me, buddy, you lucked out, because if you're a little kid in grade school and

you have like, it wasn't like, it wasn't coated with them, but you know, like, I'd get one like here between my forefinger and my thumb, or I have one on my elbow or something like that. Just ammo for jerks. Other kids zero in on that stuff, and you're the little weird kid who's already the fat kid now with warts, new and improved. I had freckles a lot more than I do now, because freckles tend to fade as you get older. And freckles are, I guess, a kind of, well, they're not a kind of birthmark, because you're

not born with freckles, but I did look into it. Freckles are just an abundance of melanin, like collected together. Well, that's basically what a mole is, which is a type of birthmark if you're born with it. That's right. I love freckles, though. Freckles are great. Freckles are super cute.

Freckles are great. Moles are great. Birthmarks, especially interesting ones, are great. Warts are great. That's why the term warts and all came about. It's true. Because that's how you should love. It is true, Chuck.

Man, quit making fun of people, kids. Well, that's a thing. You're so mean. Birthmarks have been around since the dawn of humanity, I'm guessing. And people have probably been ostracized because of their birthmarks since the dawn of humanity. For a very long time, people were ostracized for their birthmarks because of some really stupid ideas, like that it meant you were a witch.

Or it meant you were touched by Satan, all sorts of stuff like that. And then over time, it got a little more innocuous. But even still today, there are parts of the world where you can find people who are ostracized because of their birthmarks. And then even in the developed world, the Western world, which is rational and based more on science, you can still find yourself at the receiving end of being ostracized. Maybe not because you're a witch, but just because you have a birthmark or you look different. And so I've seen parents react to it if their baby has like a strawberry mark on their head.

Yes. Like that's seen them feel the need to say like, oh, you know, this is, you know, we'll go away or something like that. I was reading this birthmark support group from Great Britain and they were saying this one mom had cards printed up explaining what her child's birthmark was because sometimes she just couldn't, she just didn't have it together enough to have a conversation with a stranger who'd walked up and been like, what's up with your kid's face and rather than belt him, she would just give him a card and then just probably go home and weep or

something like that. Right. Knowing not for herself, but the life that her kid was going to have to face, not because her kid has a birthmark, but because the rest of the world are schmucks. Yes. That's the, that's the long and short of it. That's right. All right.

Children are mean. I bet a kid. We managed to find a soapbox even in the birthmarks episode. I bet a kid, probably a collection of kids could still make you cry if they start, if they started it or not. I just start kicking, throwing elbows. I just hold my arms out and start twirling around really fast and whatever got hit, got hit.

People would be like, is Josh fighting a bunch of children? And I'd be like, yeah, they made fun of them. Yeah. They'd be like, I shoved one in a grocery store once. Oh man, I'll never forget that lady. So let's talk birthmarks Chuck. It turns out there's a lot to know. Yeah.

They're usually not a big deal. They aren't painful. They're usually harmless. A lot of times they go away. We're going to detail the ones that do and that don't go away and the ones that are of more concern, but generally speaking, science doesn't really know why they come about to begin with, but they are something that doctors will sometimes want to keep an eye on. And that's the intro.

That's intro number seven. Yeah. There's a couple of big categories, vascular and pigmented. And let's talk about some of these. Vascular are usually reddish because they have to do with blood vessels. Yeah. I think reddish is a very common, when you think birthmarks, you think reddish typically. I think brownish.

Brownish too. Apparently they can come in a whole rainbow of colors. Blue, brown, black, pink, white, although I take issue with that, purplish or tan, and I take issue with white because I think white is like a reverse birthmark, although technically it would still count as a birthmark. So the whole rest of your body is a birthmark and that one little spot is okay. That's right. Birthmarks tend to be an aggregation of either pigment or blood, as we'll see, and white

is like an area where pigment is absent. So I guess it still counts as a birthmark, but it's not really a birthmark if you go into a dermatologist's office. Right. They'll be like, no, you got this all wrong. And like we said, the skin tags and freckles and things like that, they come later in life, although freckles can start out very early, but it's still not a birthmark because you're not born with that mark.

Yeah. And even as we'll see, some types of moles don't technically qualify as birthmarks even though they typically fall under the banner of birthmarks. They have to be born with something for it to count as a birthmark. That's right. Although that's not even fully true as we'll see. This is just full of lies. Everybody who studies birthmarks needs to get their stuff together.

So the macular, they're called flat sometimes, macular stains. And we're in the vascular category, right? Yes. Right. This is the non-pigmented. These are usually caused by blood and large blood vessels. These have some cute names that go along with them. I love them.

Angel kisses. Great. I think some of these can be because of where they're found, although I've heard people cross-referencing. Like, I think an angel kiss is usually on the forehead. Oh, really? But not always. A stork bite is usually on the back of the neck.

Oh, that makes sense. But I've also, when you Google stork bite, there are some right on the tip of the nose and people call them that. I took it to me more like that those names were derived from the age, like kids who are born with this, and then it tends to go away at an early age, and that's what it's associated with. You know, like the stork brings the baby. And the angels.

Well, everybody, angels love babies. What about the salmon patch? I don't understand it at all. They are usually above the neck. They usually, or a lot of times, they'll disappear and fade away by the time they're two, three years old. But not always. Sometimes they'll last.

Yeah. But for the most part, if you have a macular, flat, vascular birthmark on your kid, they're probably going to outgrow it is just really no other way, but they outgrow that birthmark eventually. That's right. Most often. Port wine stains are a whole different ballgame. Yes.

They look like kind of what they sound like. They're usually kind of a purplish red where it looks like, well, port or wine has been spilled. I would know nothing about what a wine spill looks like. Sure. Right? Because you never, ever spill all your wine. It all makes it into your mouth.

That's right. I've seen it. So port wine stain, I say that it's like a whole different kettle of fish. It's in the same category as macular because they're vascular. It's like an aggregation of overdeveloped blood vessels kind of close to the skin. But they seem to come from like a whole different place. There's a whole different reason. In fact, we should say this, Chuck, because this is really important.

If you go up to a dermatologist or anybody who would know what they're talking about and you say, hey, where did birthmarks come from? What causes birthmarks? They would say we actually don't know. The closest that they've come is with port wine stains from what I can tell. They figured out that there's a gene where this molecular switch that's supposed to go on and off is locked in the on position. They think that this is what causes port wine stains.

The reason that they found it is because about 6% of kids who are born with the port wine stain birthmark develop something called Sturge Weber syndrome, which is a neurological condition. If you have a port wine stain birthmark, it does not mean you have Sturge Weber, but if you have Sturge Weber, you have a port wine birthmark. Gotcha. 6% of port wine birthmarks cases have Sturge Weber. It's actually a symptom.

But 100% of people with that condition have the port wine stain. In investigating the syndrome and the link between it and the port wine stain birthmark, they found this gene that they think is the culprit. All right. Well, they never go away. A lot of times, they'll get darker as you become older. These are not a big deal health wise either unless it's something near your eyes that can affect your vision and then they might want to take a look at it.

I also saw that in some cases, they can start to get lumpy and actually become disfiguring as you age too. I did see those. And they can also, once they lump, they can scar too. So a lot of people seek treatment for port wine stain birthmarks as we'll see. Yeah. Strawberry marks is what I referenced at the beginning. You might see these on little BBs.

They are Haman geomas. Is that right? Yeah. And these most of the times, I saw even less than 30%, but it says here 30% are visible at birth. Most of the times though, they'll develop between four and six weeks. And I think by the time you hit six months, if you're going to have one, it will be visible by that point.

You won't develop one of these at like the one year mark. No. But again, there's that loophole where it still counts as a birthmark even though you weren't technically born with it. Drives me up the wall. Right. And these are a little more reddish and you've probably seen these like I said on babies before because they're pretty common.

They're raised off the skin. That's kind of one of the differentiators is they're not flat. So like Haman geom, I've said it like five times in my head. Haman geomas? Fifty times probably. Yes. And I can't say it out loud. Haman geomas, macular and port wine stains, like we said.

These are all overdeveloped blood vessels, clusters of blood vessels. They're from blood vessels. That's like the sixth time we said that. Which is why they have that reddish pigment is because the blood is close enough to the skin and it's clustered together. It's kind of almost pooled right there, right? That's right. But it's not like a bruise or anything like that.

The blood hasn't escaped the vessel. There's just a lot of vessels or big vessels all clumped together near the skin. What's interesting about Haman geomas, I did it, Chuck, Haman geomas. Nice work. Thanks. Haman geomas. Oh man. Did I miss it twice?

I think there's an N in there that is being forgotten. What's interesting about what you just mentioned is that in some cases they can extend down into the body and the further they extend down, they won't be reddish, they'll be bluish. Yeah. And they can even be on the organs. That's pretty rare, but it happens. It is. And they can be threatening on the organs.

You don't want to have a cluster of blood vessels on your organs. But back to the blue part. So the reason that they look blue is because, as everybody knows, blood on its way back to the lungs to be oxygenated is blue. That's right. That's not true. I'm sorry to set you up like that. I thought it was true up until this morning.

That's why your veins are blue. It's not. It gets cut and it hits that sweet, sweet oxygen. Right. It just transforms into red. That's what you thought, right? That's not what I thought as an adult, but that's what I thought as a small child. That's what I thought until this morning.

No. Yeah. Come on, you knew that. No. Really? Yes. You thought blood was blue. Yes.

I thought deoxygenated blood was blue. Wow. Okay. Well, do you understand why it appears blue? I mean, no, but I just knew that that was like a playground falsehood because veins are blue. Thinking about how many warts I was covered with to learn this otherwise. You're like, I'm going to draw some sweet blue blood out of that journal with my fists.

The reason it's blue is because the deeper it is, the less blue light is able to penetrate, so the less that can be absorbed and so the light that's reflected tends to be blue more than say like red, which penetrates deeper and is absorbed. That has to do with blue foods too, which is a bit for the next episode. Thank you. Just put a pin in that. Yeah. These strawberry marks though, back to those, they will disappear usually by the time a

kid is like into double digits. If they're large, sometimes you might see a scar. These are around the head and neck as well and are most commonly found on Caucasian girls. But they're not, they don't have a real impact on development either, but if they are really big and puffy, again, they could in around the eyes or ears, they could interfere with hearing and vision and stuff like that. Right. Yeah.

And if they're on your internal organs, it's a problem too. So I think we should take a break because astoundingly we're 20 minutes in and we have not taken a break. So we'll be back to birthmarks right after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step.

Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. You know what? Life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay to recap, remember vascular blood and birthmarks are reddish because of blood vessels. Precisely. If anyone misses that question on the quiz tomorrow, your toast is not our fault. So the other kind of birthmarks are pigmented birthmarks. Anything to do with blood vessels? Well, I don't know.

There could be a blood vessel or two involved, but no, not really. No, this is because like Freckles, like I was talking about, is just a collection of melanin that's brought out by sun exposure. Yeah, and you have melanocytes, melanin cells, melatonin cells, or melanin, one of the two. All over your body, it gives you like the color to your skin. Some people have more, some people have less, but everybody has them. But like you were saying, when they kind of congregate together, that's when they form these pigmented spots that we know as birthmarks.

Right. We are in our house, my daughter's at the age now where she has started to notice skin color, which is something that every parent has to deal with at some point. And that's how it was recommended to us to talk about it with scientifically, being like, hey, everyone's the same. We've got different skin tones because of science. And people have more melanin than other people. Is that why you had me over to dinner and started asking me about that?

Yeah. You just wound me up and knew I'd go, huh? That's right. So, but I mean, that is tricky stuff for parents because what you're really talking about is the first talks of race, you know, and you just, you have to do it in such a way that diffuses it almost towards just like, no, everyone's the same. Some people are lighter skinned, some people are darker skinned. Both of her best friends though are multiracial, which helps because we can say, you know,

your friend, blank, I'm not going to say names, Jerry blank, she has two friends are both named blank. We can just say, you know, her skin is a little darker than yours because, you know, when you see her parents and try to explain on that and kids are like, oh, okay. Yeah. How does this matter? Why does this have to do with Big Bird? Yeah, exactly.

Can I please get back to it? Why is Big Bird yellow? That's a great question. But these have some cute names too, and they're almost, well, that's not true. I was going to say they're named because of what they look like, but really just the one is. Yeah. There's really just two types of pigment and birthmarks or broad categories of it.

Yes. The very Parisian cafe latte. Cafe au lait. Oh, cafe au lait. Sorry. I misread that. It's all right. A latte is different.

This has nothing to do with vascular aggregations of blood vessels. No. And do you get confused on coffee orders or do you know all that stuff? I'm pretty good with it. I don't know what any of them are. Like any time someone... It's all just differing amounts of milk, steamed milk. Yeah, but like when I hear like a macchiato or an americano, I don't even know what these

things are. A shot of espresso or multiple shots of espresso with ultra hot water. Right. That's an americano. I think that's what our friend Chad Crowley drinks. It's just a really, really, really hot black coffee. Okay. That's all.

Interesting. Macchiato, you got me. Yeah, I don't know. Like cappuccino, there's like more foam than milk. I think latte is more milk than foam. Yeah, yeah. I know those two. It's all just milk or foam or coffee.

What's a cafe au lait? Cafe au lait is simply coffee with milk. That's it. Really? That's literally what it means in French. Is that like the, what's it called in Spanish? Cafe con leche. Okay, that's the same thing then.

Coffee with milk. Okay. I am a dummy. I haven't been drinking coffee that long. It's not that. It's just, it's not that. As you can see, I'm still drinking my cafe latte from this morning. Those are great, aren't they?

And it's still hot thanks to, and I'll go ahead and plug it, the Zoji Rushi. I've had to plug this on our page before. If you like your coffee hot all day, get one of these little thermoses. This thing keeps this thing hot for 10 hours. It really does. Yeah. So much so, I have the same one. Yumi has a little pink one, it's cute.

When I pour coffee in, I have to pour the coffee into a mug to let it cool off and have to put it in there. Because you won't be able to drink it. No. Like maybe the next day you could. It keeps it that hot for sure. We need to get them as a sponsor, man. They also make out of this world rice cookers, too.

Yeah. I've got one now. I'm not sure if that's the one I have or another one. Tiger, those are the two best ones, in my opinion. I can't remember. I'll have to look. But all I know is the one I have is very forgiving. You can be pretty off with your measurements, and it still makes perfect rice.

You can use like buttermilk, and somehow it still comes out just great. Oh man, buttermilk rice? Buttermilk rice? That could be all right. Here's a little tip for you. You make sushi rice? Okay. Usually, you just do a one-to-one rice-to-water ratio.

Then go in and just put like a teaspoon, half teaspoon even, depending on how tangy you want to be, of rice vinegar. Oh, well sure. I usually add that after. No, no. You want to put it in. You just mix it together. So you want to cook it with it?

Yes. Okay. I used to make my own sushi rolls, and then I just got the point where I was like, it's not worth it. It's a lot easier to get sushi. Where did you get your seafood? You said shimei, sorry. I would get that at the decab farmer's market.

I would get the tuna there, and the crab sticks, which that's easy, you can get that at Kroger's. And the seaweed there. But then there's also a Japanese market nearby where I would get the eel to bake in the oven. But that's kind of as, you know, you could do spicy tuna, tuna, the eel, and crab stick. That's one of my favorite sushi rolls. I really want some sushi right now. I mean, we both eat a lot of sushi. Yeah.

It's good. Okay. So cafe au lait birthmarks. So that is the cafe au lait. They are the color of a cafe au lait, kind of a light brown. Which means coffee with milk. Yep. And this is to me was, when I think birthmark, I think of these, because it's just a little

brown spot anywhere on the body. Yeah. And that's, I think one of the things we didn't say is with some of the birthmarks, there is kind of specific places that they'll appear. Yeah. Or they're tied to specific places usually. But with cafe au lait birthmarks in particular, they're just, they've got no rules. Forehead, butt cheek.

Wherever. Wherever. And they apparently don't, there's nothing, there's no problem with them. But very much like the, the port wine stain birthmark, the cafe au lait spots are tied to a neurologic, actually a nerve condition. Where if you have six or more of these kinds of cafe au lait birthmarks, especially if they're larger than like a dime in an older kid, you want to go to see a doctor. Because that could mean that you have something called neurofibromatosis.

I said that a million times in my head too. You got to start saying things out loud. Also known as NF1. Yeah. It's easier. But NF1 is not even necessarily, it could be asymptomatic. Like if you, if you're like, oh my gosh, I've got six or more cafe au lait birthmarks on me, maybe I have neurofibromatosis, that's, it's not like a death sentence or anything

like that. It's just go see a doctor. Right. The Mongolian spots are, these look like bruises to me. They can, if you don't know what you're looking at, it can be alarming because you see these pictures of babies that look like they're heavily bruised, kind of at the lower back, upper buttocks area. But it is not bruising.

They're bluish gray though. And like I said, usually on the lower back, I think African-Americans, African-Asian and Hispanic kids, usually with darker skin, have more of them or more commonly have them. And these are the ones that fade out by the time they're like, you know, six or seven usually. Yeah. And they're usually a bluish green because they're clusters of pigment cells together, deep under the skin.

And so you've got that same thing going on like you have with the hemangiomas. Nice. I got it. You got it. There's a good old fashioned mole. This is a pigmented birthmark, multiple of them are Nevis, brown Nevis in EVI because a Nevis is a single mole. Are any of these like band names?

I don't think so, but very fortuitous mentioning of that because of listener mail later. All right. It is Latin for spot and there are three categories. Mole is. Yes. Okay. No, Nevis. I think mole is Latin for spot.

Oh, is it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. I'm glad you know me too. I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad you didn't. Yeah, mole sounds real Latin, wart boy.

So there are three categories of moles, congenital acquired and atypical. The congenital about 1% of babies are born with these and these are kind of all over the map as far as color and size. Some of them are hairy, some of them are not hairy. I saw that basically every congenital mole has a little hair of some sort. Okay. It can be very, very fine. It can be thick.

It can be coarse. It can be very dark. Yeah. Usually they're very dark because they're growing out of pigment cells that are like just pigment away. That's right. And I learned that on the Dollar Shave Club blog and they say also to just kind of pluck because shaving, if you're a man like say you have one on your face or whatever, it

can nick very, very frequently. Yeah. Well, I've got some of those skin tags that I'll be saying on Shave so it's not a problem now. Well, maybe that's why you have skin tags. If you shave, you just shave them off all the time. Trim them down. I don't think that's why.

No. Now, the skin tags come from like clothing, rubbing against the skin. That's why they're around the neckline a lot of times or sometimes around the waistline. So, you know, but again, those aren't birthmarks. Those are old man marks. I got you. Third moles, they come around later in life as well and this is not the same as the skin tag still.

It is still a mole and a lot of doctors think that this is from sun damage. Yes, but not necessarily cancerous, right? Which leads us into the third type of mole, atypical moles. These aren't necessarily cancerous either, but they're the kind you definitely want to keep an eye on. They'll be multiple colors or have some sort of color gradient in them. Their shape will be just kind of amorphous. Yeah, irregular.

They'll be just kind of, you'll be like, that don't look quite right. That's that kind of mole. And those are the kind that you definitely want to have a doctor check out because a lot of people don't know this, but an atypical mole is associated with melanoma and melanoma is no joke. Yeah. I think a lot of people are like, melanoma is nothing, just go get it removed at the doctor.

No, melanoma can spread like lightning through your body and it can be a real problem. It's a very serious thing to keep up with. Yeah, I've got a pretty sad situation with a family member with melanoma that the treatment is going really well, but it has definitely opened my eyes to the fact that it's no joke. Yeah, I had no idea. You me open my eyes, she had somebody that she lost to melanoma and she thought the same thing like, oh, melanoma and nope, that's not at all how it is, which is really weird because somebody's dropping the ball because most people just think it's nothing.

Yeah, on messaging. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with myself, apparently. It's interesting that different kinds of cancer have better or worse PR. Yeah, great product, terrible marketing, right? Yeah. It's kind of what we're dealing with here.

But I know that prostate cancer is often lagged behind breast cancer. Like breast cancer does a bang up job of marketing and press and PR and awareness. So these, like you said, the doctors will want to monitor these over time. What I couldn't figure out was what is the quote unquote beauty mark? Is that an acquired mole? I think a beauty mark is any kind of mole that you're basically like, I'm living with this and I'm loving every minute of it. It's so interesting how that has become a thing.

I was trying to figure out where it went back to. Yeah. Obviously, Marilyn Monroe really kind of popularized that. Right, she had one, didn't she? I think it predated her, like Liz Taylor is at least contemporary if not predating. Did she have one? Yeah. Okay.

She's very famous for one. And then like even still today, Cindy Crawford. Of course. Who else, oh Natalie Portman apparently has them like on her face. Interesting. I went over this list of celebrities. I was like celebrity birthmarks. The only one that comes up though is moles.

And spear rag new. I could not, I couldn't find any like well-known celebrities with birthmarks. Right. Like birthmarks, birthmarks. Yeah. Like facial birthmarks. Yeah. You just, I couldn't think of one either.

I couldn't find any. Well, that's probably because of the prejudice against them. I would guess so. Yeah. Which is sad. Yeah. It reminded me though, Chuck, didn't one of the Fat Albert gang have a birthmark on his face?

I don't know. Was he the guy that had the, pulled his toboggan cap over his face? No, I think that was mush mouth. Because you never see his face at all. Well then how would you know if he had a birthmark? I don't know. I just thought that might have been a like a backstory or something. I think this just went off the rails enough for a message break, don't you?

Sure. Yeah. We'll be back right after this and we'll talk about treatment and what I think is a pretty interesting thing. Superstitions throughout history about birthmarks, green. On the podcast, Paydude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and

dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. Then you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step, not another one, kids, relationships, life in

general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right.

So like we said about most of these birthmarks, usually medical treatment is not necessary, but some are monitored over time. And what doctors will do obviously is examine them, take some pictures and then just sort of follow that over time, that same routine to see if they're changing and to see if they're getting bigger or changing shape or anything unusual. That's a wait and see. Yes, exactly. If you have hemangiomas, they will frequently use like a port wine stain is something that

a lot of people go seek treatment for because it's often on the face, the neck, the head. And it actually responds pretty well to a laser treatment, something called a pulsed die laser. Is this like the same tattoo treatment or no? Probably. Because that's pretty painful, right? Oh yes. Like I can't imagine because it says children a lot of times can be treated with this laser treatment, but man.

I know it's sad, it feels a lot like having like hot bacon grease splashing on your skin. That's what if getting a laser or tattoo removed with a laser. But without the knowledge that like in a couple of minutes I'm going to be eating some sweet bacon. More like the only silver lining to it is that a pig didn't die for you to be in that situation. You know what I mean? Right.

I won't have whatever tattoo I obviously don't want on my body anymore. That's the reward there. Right. So if that is the case then, if it is the same feeling as that then yeah, I feel bad for little kids who get that. But that's the best time to start this treatment is when the child is young. Because again what you're doing is you're using a pulsed die laser which uses a certain frequency or spectrum wavelength of light that is targeted so that that birthmark will

absorb that light. The surrounding skin is a different pigment so it won't absorb that light like the birthmark well and that energy, that light energy is translated into heat energy in the birthmark and there go the cells or the blood vessels that make up the cells and after enough treatments you've hopefully broken up the hemangioma or the port wine stain and like the birthmark will go away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that?

That was me. No, that was me. No, that was mine. Well then we just had a simultaneous stomach growl because my stomach just growled at the same time. Wow. Are we like synced up after 12 years of podcasting together? So if you are getting something removed it's usually a vascular birthmark.

Generally they don't try and get rid of pigmented birthmarks although it's possible I think but usually doctors don't treat that. No, but if you have a child with say a cafe au lait birthmark on their face the doctor is not going to be like, no we're not doing that, they'll probably try to work it out but the results are not nearly as reliable as with vascular birthmarks which have to do with blood vessels beneath the skin clustered together over develop that kind of thing. Or what your doctor might say is you know what this thing's on your forehead, grow your bangs out until you get old enough to where you accept this as like an individual trait

that you're proud of. There's something called the British Association of Skin Camouflage that is dedicated to helping people actually training makeup artists on how to cover birthmarks because for some people they'll just never get used to it, they don't want to have to get used to it, they just rather cover it up and that's their right, that's their prerogative, it's their birthmark, they can do whatever they want with it. And so the average makeup artist doesn't know how to do that, it actually takes special skills apparently and so there's groups who train people to do that.

We should do, I don't know if it's a short stuff or full length but we should do something on vitiligo. Yeah. I had a friend in LA who had vitiligo and again like the same with some of this stuff, it's such a forward-facing thing if it's on your face and it's a big deal to people, it's an important issue because like the bullying like we were talking about or just kids and adults remaining self-conscious about that kind of thing, it's sad. It is sad, agreed.

I think we could all do a lot better at accepting people with facial differences what it's called. Yeah. There's something on facial differences. I don't remember what it was but I know I've mentioned this group before, changingfaces.org. Yeah, it's awesome. Their whole thing is like, hey, actually that's funny, they promote skin camouflage if you want it but they're also, they're big pushes like, hey, rest of society, there's nothing different about these people except for their face.

They're not cognitively challenged, they're not disabled in any way or differently able, their face is different for any number of reasons and it's really kind of on the rest of you to get over it, which I think is the healthiest approach, if you ask me. So the superstitions we were talking about, I know we mentioned a couple early on like that you were touched by the devil, that was real stuff in some cultures. In China, there were some quirky ones like if you have a right foot birthmark, means you're adventurous, it's on the left foot, it means you're really smart, if it's on your tum-tums, it means you're greedy and this is just sort of, you know, culture and

folklore. Sure. And the world around, so because we can't explain what birthmarks or where they come from, all over the world, people, societies have said, it's something the mom did while she was pregnant. Of course. And so we came up with all sorts of dipstick ideas for exactly what the mom did wrong to explain birthmarks.

Yeah. One of my favorites is that the mom was startled and touched her face. Oh, so the baby. And at the exact same moment, the baby's blood vessels at that point in the baby's face formed a birthmark. It's very scientific. It is. Or how about this, if you have a strawberry mark as a baby, it's because mom ate too many

red things. Yeah. Or a pork wine stain, they couldn't lay off the wine. Yeah. Or coffee. They could lay coffee. That's so on the nose, like come on, people. It is.

There's this thing called the doctrine of signs where like if a food looked like a body part, it was associated with helping to heal that body part, like beets are good for the blood or something like that. Or avocados are good for the testicles. Exactly. I was hoping you would bring that up. Let me see. What else?

One, if a pregnant woman looked at a fire or into a flame of some kind, they thought that might cause a burn mark on the baby's skin. Yep. And I think some of these carry forward a little bit even today. Well, the X-ray one is obviously fairly modern. Oh, sure. Like the explanation is that the mom got an X-ray while she was pregnant and it basically left a mark on the baby.

Yeah. That is not true. That is not true. The one that really has always stuck out to me and it reminded me of this case I want to tell you about is this idea that a birthmark is actually a mark left over from a past life. This is pretty neat. Like if you have a birthmark that looks like a bullet hole in your back, that means you were shot in the back in a past life.

And not just like that's what that means. Like there are, I really hesitate to use this word, there are documented cases of this happening supposedly there is this kid in Syria who was born with like a kind of like a slash like birthmark I think on the back of his head and apparently from a very early age when the kid like was able to start to talk, started recounting being murdered with an axe. Oh, interesting. And then started talking about the village where he used to live and who is what his

name was and then the guy that killed him and it was enough allegedly that the village elders where this kid lived were like, we need to go check this out. So they traveled to that other village and they said, does so and so live here and they're like, yeah, he lives over there and it's like, well, did somebody else name this live here once? They're like, yes, he died. He vanished mysteriously and they went and talked to the accuser and he broke down and confessed and showed him where they buried the body that this kid supposedly was in the

past life who was murdered by an axe. There's just no way that that happened, but I love reading about stuff like that. The part of me that's like that's subscribed to that time life books of like paranormal phenomena. Yeah. Still loves stories like that. Yeah. I think you lost me when you said village elders.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because you know, they're the same ones that are like, well, you're a witch because of that. Right. See if she floats. Right. So what else you got any others?

Let me see here. We talked about the devil's mark. Supposedly Ambulin was accused of witch craftery. Supposedly. I saw also that she most decidedly was not. Oh, really? Yeah. I think that's the legend.

All right. Possession by the devil. Yeah. That could be another one. And one thing that we did know was that it definitely did happen historically is from the 17th to the 19th centuries, if you were Russian nobility, you proved it by displaying your birthmark. Yeah.

I guess so. Yeah. What was the family? The Romanovs? Yeah. Pretty interesting, which actually holds water because they think that some birthmarks may be congenital. It's entirely possible that a family line, especially one that kind of kept to themselves,

you know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. Could conceivably pass down something like a birthmark. Yeah. And so unless you, do you have anything else? No, I don't Chuck. Take it away. I think we just should close by really like stressing to any kids listening and parents

of children. That vascular birthmarks have to do with blood vessels under the skin. No, just explain to your kids if there's another kid in their class that has a pretty obvious birthmark, that they're just the same. And don't tease kids for that stuff. If you're a kid that's young and listening, we all look different. We all have different skin tones. Just don't be a jerk.

No, I think that's really great advice. No, I think the golden rule. Think about how you might feel if somebody was making fun of something about your body. That's a good one too. If you want to know more about parenting, well, you could just listen to all of our other episodes and since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. This is from Ryan and Lucy, the aforementioned band name, Ref. They have been to our shows at the Bell House a couple of times, a few times.

And let me see, where are they from here? Road trips between New York and Providence. And then they've seen us at the Bell House and they said, we realize how much we get a kick out of the various band names. And we started to inventory them a few years ago. Since our wedding is next week, we realize that now it's a perfect time to just go ahead and send you the list. I'm not sure why that has anything to do with it.

But Ryan and Lucy, congratulations. For what it's worth, Ryan's favorite is Wormburden from the Hook Worm and Lucy's mouth parts. That's from a lot of episodes. That's a great one. But we'll just buzz through these really quickly just for nostalgia's sake and aspiring bands jump in and take these. And give us some money for them. There's some real gold in here.

Are we doing all those? Yeah. Oh my God. That's right. I'll go through them quickly. I'll go through the neurons, Wormburden, Tub of Pulp. I know you want to comment on everyone, don't you? Just throw in what you think is really good.

I'm just going to sit here like this. Threat Simulation Theory, poor Fred Noonan. I remember that one. Yeah. Sweet. Give me the teat. I don't remember that one. It was from on Canny Valley, but I don't remember saying that was a band.

No. Or even how it would relate to it. This is from Movie Crush, Sick Vandalism. That's a good one. A Flesh on the Chunks, Hot Plastic Injection, Pyrocastic Flow, that's a good one. Flaming Death Bolts, Pintos. That is a legendary one. Conceptual Walls, Framinghem Cohort, Offspring Cohort, Omni Cohort, Third Generation Cohort,

Offspring Spousal Cohort, I don't remember any of those. All those were from that Heart Study. Okay. Oh, that's right. Cortical Hamunculus, that's pretty good. Medieval Synthesis, Magic Bullet. I'm going to retract this next one, because apparently I said Herbal Douches was a good band name.

I'd take that back. Okay. That's terrible. Slaughtered Narwhal, Peck Lube, Sex-Linked Recessive, Manhole Incidents, that's a good one. Graphics Pew, Gross, Nuclear Bulge, Love It, that is a good one. Local Group, that's kind of dumb. I don't know.

I can see that. It's kind of like Scrantonicity. Oh, sure. The Electric Death Commission, I'd love that one. Dr. Foss, Bomb Drop, Michael Dillon, I don't remember exactly what that referenced. Death Masterphile, Mouth Fart, of course the classic Frozen Poop Knife, Sloth Moths, Radioactive Cats, that one's dumb, Static Crush, I like that one, Damage Knight, not bad. The Descriptivists, that's a little haughty, I think.

But that could be kind of like Mumford and Sonzie kind of music, right? Yeah, exactly. Oh, gotcha. It sounds too much like Decembrus, I think, oh my love. That is exactly right. Bathtub Gin, Wasted on Excitement, that's an album title he says, but that's pretty good as a band. Sure.

Mother Culture, Jungle X-Ray, very recent, Wet Record, the album from Jungle X-Ray, Two Whale Bolt from Coteroi, and then Goin' Postal, which he says is a lot of bands are called that. I think you looked that up even, didn't you? I think so. Those are good. We always, always, any time we talk about great band names from episodes, have to give a shout out, especially when Frozen Poop Knife comes up, to Diarrhea Planet.

Well, he had that on the list, I think he didn't quite understand that that is a real band. That is a real band that predates Frozen Poop Knife. I know, I'd like to think that they've been tweeted at over the years. Oh, they've tweeted to us. Oh, that's right, they have, right? They said, hey, sorry, we're going to stick with our corner, and thanks for thinking of us.

Yeah. In other words, shut up. Maybe. I don't know. I think it depends on how you look at the world. Yeah. Okay, so I think that's it, everybody. I don't remember what's going on anymore, but this is the end of the episode.

So if you want to get in touch with us, you can go on to StuffYouShouldKnow.com if you want. You can also send us an email as your stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.com. StuffYouShouldKnow is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody ya everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.