Scabies is a parasitic, contagious infection of the skin that can spread quite quickly both from one area of the skin to another and from one person to another by simple skin to skin contact. It is caused by very tiny, almost invisible without a magnifying device, mites. These mites live on the skin and cause it to irritate and itch. They also lay eggs and multiply so you need to get rid of them quick if you don't want all your skin to become infected.



You can recognize persons with scabies by the large amount of small red spots on their skin. These dot-like spots appear where the mites burrow under the skin surface to search for food or to lay eggs.

The scabies infection is very nasty and it can lead to unbearable itching, so you need to treat it as soon as you discover that you have it, or you must try to prevent it if you see that one of your friends or family members have it.

You must first consult a doctor who will look at your skin and analyze a sample from an affected area to confirm that it has the mites on it. If the result is positive then the treatment must begin.

There's nothing to worry about the scabies treatments. It's highly effective and it's also simple. The doctor will prescribe you a cream or a lotion that you need to apply all over your body, on both the infected areas and the clean ones, because scabies may have laid eggs that are not visible.

The creams and lotions shouldn't be applied on the skin after a bath because the skin is more absorbant after it's washed and the lotions must stay on the infected areas for a few hours so that they can kill the mites. Some creams must stay for 12 hours on the skin and then they need to be washed away. You need to apply the lotions several times before all the mites go away and then for a few more days to prevent them from re-appearing.

After getting rid of the mites from your skin you need to carefully clean all the clothing that you've worn since the infection, because the mites can remain on them. However, if the clothes are not worn for more than a week the mites will starve, but the best thing to do is wash them at more than 50 degrees Celsius.

Remember that although the mites are dead, the skin will still be very itchy for 2 or 3 more weeks because it is irritated from the mites' dead bodies.

The scabies treatment is very effective, the creams and lotions kill all the mites, but if the scabies wasn't treated for a long time then there may be thousands of them on your skin. In this case a much stronger treatment is needed, but they will die eventually. Remember that you need to visit a doctor as soon as the first signs appear.