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" UPDATE, 3/3: On Monday night&amp;#039;s episode of Better Call Saul, &amp;quot;Alpine Shepherd Boy,&amp;quot; Chuck confirms that he indeed does suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. He lands in the hospital after police break down his door, thinking he&amp;#039;s a crystal meth user, and his symptoms incapacitate him. We see Chuck tied down in what may be the psychiatric ward of the hospital, only responsive after Jimmy turns off all the lights and everyone leaves their electronics outside. But when Chuck&amp;#039;s doctor secretly turns on electronics, he shows no symptoms. Though Jimmy believes the condition isn&amp;#039;t real, he feels for his brother and refuses to commit him.  On Monday night&amp;#039;s episode of Better Call Saul, we got a deeper look into the troubled life of Jimmy&amp;#039;s brother, Chuck McGill. When visitors come to his house, they must &amp;quot;ground&amp;quot; themselves by putting their cell phones in the mailbox outside. But when Jimmy doesn&amp;#039;t do that during a drunken bender, Chuck is visibly weakened and upset. What causes Chuck to completely ban electronics? &amp;quot;This strange, kind of psycho-physical problem this man seems to have, it&amp;#039;s been intriguing to research,&amp;quot; Michael McKean, who plays Chuck, told us. But the actor won&amp;#039;t give any details about his character&amp;#039;s condition. &amp;quot;Part of the fun is finding out what it is or learning what it is along with us,&amp;quot; he said. The show hasn&amp;#039;t said anything specific at this point, but given the evidence so far, Chuck might be part of a small group of people suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. It&amp;#039;s a set of physical symptoms blamed on radiation from wi-fi, cell phones, and other appliances that use electricity. The condition is a controversial one, since many researchers say the connection between electronics and physical ailments just isn&amp;#039;t there.  Some researchers call the condition idiopathic environmental intolerance, but for the sake of clarity, we&amp;#039;ll call it electromagnetic hypersensitivity, or EHS. Research on the condition has been limited, but so far there&amp;#039;s been no rigorous study that has proven electromagnetic frequency directly causes sufferers&amp;#039; symptoms. Some experts blame the condition on the &amp;quot;nocebo effect,&amp;quot; in which the suggestion of a problem will make people feel its real-life effects. Double-blind studies have shown that sufferers feel symptoms when they think electromagnetic frequencies are present, even when they aren&amp;#039;t.  Regardless of cause, the symptoms themselves are definitely real. EHS sufferers have a range of complaints, from headaches and itchy skin to blurred vision and heart palpitations. In Monday night&amp;#039;s episode, when Jimmy drinks too much on a date, he stumbles back to Chuck&amp;#039;s house, cell phone still in his pocket. Chuck grabs the cell phone with a pair of wooden tongs and tosses it out the door into the yard. Back in the house, he grabs his arm and cringes in what looks like pain.  The next day, Chuck wraps himself in a metallic &amp;quot;space blanket&amp;quot; because Jimmy had the phone indoors. Jimmy insists he take the blanket off, and he does. Chuck looks pained to do so, his hands shake, and he looks itchy and uncomfortable. His &amp;quot;space blanket&amp;quot; is likely made of silver bobbinet, a fabric that contains silver threads; sufferers often cover themselves with it to effectively create a Faraday cage and keep transmissions out. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s as though you&amp;#039;re insulated,&amp;quot; says Dr. Andrew Tressider, a UK-based physician who has seen a number of patients with the condition. Though Chuck&amp;#039;s electricity-free house is an extreme lifestyle choice, it&amp;#039;s hardly the furthest sufferers go. Some completely isolate themselves from modern technology. A small community has moved to the U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone in West Virginia, which bans most electromagnetic radiation to aid the world&amp;#039;s largest telescope. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve seen cases where [patients have] become virtual hermits,&amp;quot; says Dr. James Rubin, who studies the psychology of emerging health risks at King&amp;#039;s College in London. &amp;quot;It has a devastating effect on some people.&amp;quot;  There&amp;#039;s no clear-cut way to treat EHS, because when you take away the perceived cause, all you have left is a wide variety of symptoms. The World Health Organization recommends doctors focus on sufferers&amp;#039; physical ailments, and not on their so-called connections to electronic devices. So perhaps Jimmy&amp;#039;s command to &amp;quot;take off the space blanket&amp;quot; was the right idea after all.  PLUS: Better Call Saul Is Already Better Than Breaking Bad "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a32673/better-call-saul-chuck-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity/>