Scabies torture is hell on earth for many – the professor of dermatology still has a comforting message – 2024-03-01 19:58:10

Scabies came into our family a couple of years ago. I am a single parent with 2 sons. In the beginning, my scabies was treated as hives and many cortisone ointments were applied to it. The doctor didn’t believe in scabies, even though the whole family had symptoms. Medicines took all my savings.

That’s what the name says Sand he’s not the only one.

More than 140 Iltalehti readers told about their scabies. Almost everyone had the same experience. Scabies had caused immense stress and taken away both sleep and money.

Pseudonym Kekkuli says that seven months and 1,000 euros have passed in the end.

At night, I could only sleep intermittently and the itching is ten on a scale of 1-10. The harder you scratched, the more it tickled. Rubbing with the palm of your hand helped the most. There were fingertip-sized holes in the skin and scars remained. This is in the top three worst incidents in my life.

Many also told about their experiences that scabies was only found after many, many months of doctor’s visits. Even the mental health of a person infected with scabies was suspected.

–– The doctor examined and concluded that there is no scabies. About a month passed, another pointless visit to the doctor. Again supervised nights, about a month and a doctor without success. I don’t remember how many times I was at the local health center before being transported to the central hospital for examinations. The doctor at the central hospital instantly diagnosed the disease as scabies, which resulted in pills and ointment. All this earthly hell lasted from August to January.

Based on the experiences of Iltalehti readers, it is not always very easy to get rid of scabies. Adobe stock/AOP

Difficult to find

Specialist in dermatology, professor of dermatology, emerita Erna Snellman says that diagnosing a scabies infection is not at all easy, especially if the scabies has already been treated before coming to the doctor. As a result of scratching, the skin can also become inflamed, making it difficult to make a correct diagnosis.

– If there is untreated scabies, it is easy to find the tick on the skin. On the other hand, scabies that have already been treated a few times can be difficult to verify.

According to Snellman, most dermatologists look for passages made by the mite on the skin with a dermatoscope, i.e. a skin probe, which is used, for example, to examine moles.

– As an old-school doctor myself, I try to get a tick under a microscope with the help of a needle. It doesn’t always work, sometimes the marks made by the tick are few, and then you have to treat according to the symptoms.

Sometimes, for example, the elderly or people with immune deficiencies have scabies that is hard to recognize. There can be hundreds of scabies mites on the skin, but there are rarely passages on the skin where the mite lives. The skin may have a scab-like rash all over.

– There is quite a wide range of what the rash can look like among those infected with scabies.

Slow to explore

According to Snellman, the appearance of a family suffering from scabies at the clinic is always a small temporal disaster, because examination and treatment take a lot of time.

– In a couple of ten minutes, you just have time to verify the infection from one person. Examining the whole family can be difficult in such a short time: examining and calculating medication doses for a large family takes time.

Scabies infection affects children in particular. It can be difficult to examine small children, but the correct diagnosis is important, because if left untreated, scabies spreads effectively in, for example, daycare and the itching can be painful if prolonged.

– Small babies with scabies who can’t sleep due to itching are especially pathetic.

Constant cleaning

Scabies mite eradication and constant cleaning is an operation that requires time and long nerves. If a scabies infection is found, careful house cleaning is recommended.

In connection with drug treatment, clean bed linen is changed and the mattress is vacuumed. Blankets, pillows, clothes and bedding should be washed at 60 degrees. The textiles can also be used in the freezer or outside if the temperature is 20 degrees or more for one day.

Scabies mites die in a week even in a closed plastic bag. Carpets and sofas must also be vacuumed.

Pseudonym Mother of three tells about the cleaning contractor: TEini brought the rug from the night village.– I got three days off work without pay and ran the washing machine 15 hours a day. I cleaned like crazy. The same thing happened again a week later, again €200 for grease and the same cleaning job. An absolutely shocking illness, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

There are similar experiences On the tupuna.

I got scabies at my workplace from a kindergarten where one child had prolonged scabies. I went to occupational health treatment, got the medicine, the scabies didn’t go away the first time, nor the second time, but the third time. Terrible clothes and laundry room, sheets and other bedding.

Leila says that he has been suffering from scabies for many months.

With permethrin several times, no effect. I took ivermectin tablets 7 times and sulfur cream along with it. According to this, the house was cleaned every day for many months, the washing machine ran several times a day, the sofas and beds were covered with garbage bags. I still can’t say if it finally helped, the itching seems to continue even after the last ivermectin and sulfur ointment for three weeks now. I’m going crazy here and I’ve already burned several hundred euros. You can’t sleep at night because of the itching.

The cleaning job is tricky – and many people still can’t seem to get rid of scabies.

Snellman doesn’t think that getting rid of the infection depends on whether a place in the apartment has been left untouched.

– I don’t so much think that the tick stays on clothes or textiles, but rather that the treatment has failed in some way: some part of the skin has not been treated or it is a matter of resistance. It only takes one family member for whom the treatment has failed, and the tick can infect others again.

Even when shaking hands?

The rash caused by the scabies mite starts about a month after infection.

Chief physician of the Institute of Health and Welfare (THL). Leif Feast commented in Iltalehti’s previous story that a short contact is usually not enough to get infected with scabies, but the risk of infection when, for example, shaking hands or hugging is very low.

– Scabies requires frequent, close contact between people.

Snellman disagrees.

– I consider it completely possible that scabies can be caught, for example, by shaking hands. There is no research data on the matter, but when I catch ticks on patients’ skin, they immediately stick to the tip of the needle. It indicates that they move on very quickly.

“There is hope”

In Finland, two different medicines are mainly used to treat scabies, permethrin cream and ivermectin tablets. According to Snellman, their combination usually gets rid of the infection, although it is usually the effect of ivermectin, because permethrin is associated with resistance, according to Snellman.

According to Snellman, in Tays, for example, the use of permethrin for scabies has been abandoned due to apparent resistance based on clinical observations. He himself says that he has stopped prescribing permethrin.

As a topical treatment for scabies, sulfur vaseline is used instead.

– Sulfur vaseline, however, dries the skin immensely, which causes, for example, atopic skin to suffer.

Pseudonym Nix says that treating scabies has been a long road.

Due to the lack of a diagnosis, my husband and I first treated the scabies with cream, which did not help at all. At that time, I asked for the medicine, but according to the nurse, “fat is effective enough on its own.” After that, we got a course of medicine, but still the disease still hasn’t completely gone. It wasn’t until the third attempt that the scabies went away, when both the new course of medicine and the cream were used. All in all, it cost me and my partner well over 500e and, of course, loads of stress from laundry, cleaning and freezing the goods.

Many readers have also said that they have also used benzyl benzoate intended for horses or even an insecticide to get rid of scabies. Snellman emphasizes that they should not be used on humans.

He wants to comfort those struggling with scabies.

– Yes, the scabies will eventually be brought under control. Many have already had time to tell that they got help from sulfur vaseline, and it is also reasonably priced. After the sulfur cream, you must remember to soothe the skin dried from the sulfur with corticoid and moisturizing creams.

Snellman hopes that the authorities will process the sales license of benzyl benzoate cream, which has been found to be effective for scabies, as an over-the-counter drug.

– The preparation has had a good response in Sweden. So you should not lose hope.