Home Remedies for Scabies
Scabies is a common skin infection which forms small itchy bumps and blisters due to tiny mites that dig into the top layer of human skin to lay their eggs. Scabies is an infestation of the skin with the microscopic mite Sarcoptes scabei. Scabies is dispatched readily, often throughout an entire household, by skin-to-skin contact with an infected person.
Scabies spreads frequently under crowded conditions where there is rapid skin-to-skin contact between people, such as in hospitals, institutions, child-care facilities, and nursing homes. Scabies mites are very meticulous.
They can only live off of a host body for 24 to 36 hours under most conditions. Transmission of the mites includes close person-to-person contact of the skin-to-skin variety. The most common symptom of scabies is harsh itching, which can be worse at night or after a hot bath. Scabies can easily defile sex partners and other household members. Sharing clothes, towels, and bedding may also spread scabies.
Different lotions are available to treat scabies. Lindane has been used in the past to cure both scabies and lice. Apply lotion to a clean body from the neck down to the toes and left nightlong (8 hours). Single dose of ivermectin has been recounted to cure, but is an off-label use; some authorities recommend repeating treatment at 14 days.
The infected person’s clothes, bedding and towels must be rinsed in hot water and dried in a hot dryer. Scabies can be easily prevented and even treated in faint cases by using some of the effective home remedies. Avoid sharing personal articles such as clothing, hair brushes, combs or towels.
Fresh juice of apricot leaves should be collected and applied over the infected area. Permethrin is the favoured treatment option at present although there are a number of alternatives such as gamma-benzene hexachloride 1% lotion or cream. Clothing and underwear should be altered regularly.
Don’t try drastic measures like scrubbing with severe soaps or dousing the hair and skin with kerosene. For itching, try cold soaks, calamine lotion, an antihistamine or pain relievers.
Home Remedies for Scabies
- Fresh juice of apricot leaves should be taken out and applied over the infected area. It has propitious results in the treatment of scabies.
- Make a neem leaf paste with fresh or dried neem leaves and an equivalent quantity of turmeric powder mixed with mustard oil. This should be used on the body and left for an hour or so.
- The dried bark of a peepul tree can be powdered fine, strained throughout a fine sieve and used as a dusting powder on lesions of scabies. Extract the juice from 400 - 500 gm of drumstick leaves. Mix with an equal amount of sesame seed oil, and boil till the water dries up. Cool and store. Apply daily over the infected parts.
- Apply lotions containing gamma benzene hexachloride or sulphur, present in the market under trade names such as scabiol and gammascab.
- Avoid physical contact with envenomed persons and their belongings, especially clothing and bedding.
Filed under: Home Remedies