Scabies is a parasitic skin disease. It is one of the 20 most "popular" skin diseases. 1 case of scabies is recorded daily. This means that no one is safe from the parasite.
It affects people of both sexes and any age. Called by female Sarcoptesscabies scabies, which parasitize in the stratum corneum, laying a lot of eggs daily and forming new passages under the skin. If treatment is not started, ticks multiply unlimitedly, striking new surfaces of large skin surfaces. This is accompanied by intolerable itching, especially at night. The disease does not go away on its own. For the treatment of scabies, in addition to drug therapy, you can use traditional medicine. They effectively affect the symptoms of the disease and relieve the condition.
How can you get scabies - transmission routes
You can get a tick only by contact with a sick person. There are several transmission options:
· Contact - household - through general hygiene products, contact with the patient in public transport (now it is believed that the likelihood of infection is low);
· Sexual - in this case, it is not a matter of sexual contact itself, but of prolonged close contact of the bodies.
The development of symptoms of scabies in humans
The incubation period is 10 days. A person does not suspect that he has scabies, and is a source of infection: the tick can be transmitted by contact with the affected skin of the patient. Eggs finish their development after 14 days, the area of skin lesion increases significantly.
To understand the symptoms of the disease, you need to know that the female tick, which is a parasite in the skin, does not show activity during the day and comes to the surface of the skin only at night. If it enters the human body after fertilization, the male dies.
In order for a tick to hit a person, he needs 30 minutes to penetrate the skin - this explains the high contagiousness and rapid infection. But, if after contact with the patient immediately wash their hands thoroughly, the likelihood of infection is reduced significantly.
In the external environment, the tick practically does not survive: at an air temperature of +200 C and a humidity of 50-80%, it dies in a day. At higher temperatures and dry air, the tick dies much earlier.
Scabies - symptoms of the disease
The main symptom of scabies is a severe intolerable itching, significantly worse at night. At night, the activity of the female tick is activated: it gnaws passages in the skin, and in the morning lays eggs. Itching occurs as a manifestation of an allergic reaction to the decay of obsolete ticks and their excrement secreted into the skin, as well as to chitin, which the tick consists of.
Larvae form from the eggs, and in this form the pathogen stays for 10 days. Then they turn into adults and begin to multiply. Males after fertilization, females die immediately. The time of occurrence of the first symptoms of scabies depends on the age of ticks that have come on the skin and the speed of their reproduction.
Itching causes sleep disturbance, irritability, nervousness, mental disorders appear.
Skin symptoms with scabies
In addition to itching, scabies has skin symptoms: paired rashes appear in the form of nodules, as well as thin strips protruding above the skin surface. Their length is 1 - 1.5 cm. They can be straight, crimped or absent - scabies without strokes.
Typical places of their localization are those areas of the skin that do not contain sebaceous glands:
· Interdigital spaces;
Bends of the elbow;
Axillary region;
· Around the nipples of the mammary glands;
Belly
Buttocks
· Skin on the lateral surfaces of the body;
· Genitals (more often in men).
In places with a high content of sebaceous glands (face, neck, interscapular space), the tick does not survive well due to the secreted sebum.
Bubbles are confluent, scattered and multiple, a bullous rash is possible. The resulting bubbles burst after a certain time, pimples remain in their place. Subsequently, they are covered with crusts. If a secondary infection joins when combing, pustules develop. In addition to them, complications of scabies are:
Abscess
Phlegmon;
Sepsis.
Atypical symptoms of scabies
Scabies can occur with atypical symptoms, and then treating it at home depends on the form and stage of the disease.
· Scabies without strokes (pseudocarcoptosis) occurs when infected from animals: these ticks do not breed in humans and are not transmitted to others, and the disease goes away on its own without treatment.
· Scabies incognito - develops in a person who strictly follows the rules of hygiene: the symptoms are blurred, it is difficult to determine the disease without additional research, a smear is needed to clarify the diagnosis.
· Nodular - when nodules form at the site of the rash. This is an allergy to tick products. Nodules persist for a long time after the tick is destroyed.
· Crusty (Norwegian) scabies is the most severe form of the disease. Huge areas of skin are affected. Itching is absent, but the patient is extremely contagious, since several million scabies mites parasitize on the patient’s body. In typical scabies, the number of individuals on the skin is usually about 20. Infection occurs very quickly even when it comes in contact with the patient’s underwear or personal items due to the huge number of ticks. Treatment in such cases should take place in a hospital setting. Most often this leads to non-observance of personal hygiene, low immunity, inaccessibility of medical care.
Scabies - home treatment
Scabies with its many symptoms can be treated at home (with the exception of Norwegian) with special medications. Medicinal herbs are used to treat the symptoms of scabies at home, but as an addition to the main treatment as part of complex therapy. The antiparasitic effect of any used folk remedies for scabies is much lower than pharmaceutical pharmacy drugs. The duration of scabies treatment is at least 5 days. The course depends on the drug used. Treatment of scabies is aimed at the destruction of the pathogen. In addition to the pathogen, it is necessary to act on the eggs and larvae of scabies itching.
Rules for the treatment of scabies at home
When treating scabies at home, several rules must be observed:
· In children under the age of 3 years, the whole body is treated with the drug, in adults, the scalp and face are an exception;
· The remedy for scabies is not applied to the whole body, but only to the affected areas;
· Any treatment agent is applied by hand with a thorough treatment of scabies;
· Taking into account that the symptoms are manifested as much at night, the procedures are carried out in the evening
· During the treatment of scabies, you can not wash and change bedding;
· After the completion of treatment, decontamination of the laundry with its ironing is mandatory.
Some recipes for treating scabies at home
An effective means of preventing and treating scabies at home is to prepare a product that must be used for washing throughout the entire treatment period. To prepare it, the laundry soap is grated, a small amount of water is added and heated, stirring, until a homogeneous mass is obtained. A chopped clove of garlic and a shabby onion are added to it and the mixture is cooled. From it you can roll soap balls for ease of use.
Another popular method for treating scabies at home: pour 6-8 kg of salt with water, bring to a boil in an enameled bowl, pour into a bath of water heated to 370 C. Take a bath for about an hour, do not wipe after it. This is done every day until the symptoms of scabies disappear.
One of the grandmother's recipes includes the use of laundry soap, birch tar, lard and sulfur. Mixes lard, grated laundry soap and sulfur (2 tablespoons each). Add 1 tablespoon of tar. The resulting ointment is enough for treatment, depending on the area of the affected skin for 3-5 days. If necessary, a new portion is prepared to continue treatment.
It is believed that juice from celandine, which is added to petroleum jelly in a ratio of 1: 4 and is applied daily to the skin at the lesion sites, will help cure scabies effectively. Rinse off is not necessary, as the ointment is absorbed.
You can use celandine in dried form. For this purpose, the crushed plant is poured with cream (1: 1) and aged in the refrigerator for 12 hours. It is recommended to lubricate the skin at night, rinse in the morning with warm water. Apply before recovery.
Apple cider vinegar has a good effect, which is recommended to lubricate the affected area without rinsing. Adults can use a mixture of vinegar with crushed garlic. After the mixture is infused for 8 hours, it needs to be filtered and lubricated.
A decoction of buckthorn bark is also used for compresses (1: 2), rubdowns and baths (1: 1). Buckthorn helps to get rid of itching, to drive out the tick. But this is a long-term treatment that requires an integrated approach., Parallel use of other methods and tools.
Despite the fact that there are many recipes for traditional medicine, it is unlikely to cure scabies, using only them. This disease requires at the first sign of an urgent consultation by a dermatologist and a long, rigorous and accurate implementation of all the requirements. This is the only way to cope with the disease and avoid more serious complications.
