No Scabies For Me!!

Have you ever bathed with sulfur soap? No? Ok, let’s try another question.
Have you ever covered yourself in permethrin cream? No??

Well, you are certainly missing out on a lot of fun.

 

Last night, I was given the smelly opportunity of both the sulfur soap and permethrin cream.  Even as I went to bed last night, I could still smell myself.  It wasn’t the best aroma in the world, but it was much better than getting scabies!!

Warning: Nerdy medical school knowledge is about to be shared!

For those of you who do not know, scabies (scientific name: Sarcoptes scabiei hominis) is a mite that burrows into a person’s skin and causes an itchy rash.  It basically digs tunnels under the skin and is spread by person-to-person contact.  Scabies does not go away unless it is treated.  Typically, permethrin cream is prescribed.  It kills the mites that are in the skin.  Permethrin can also be used as a preventative measure as well since it usually takes a long time for people to develop the itch or rash from scabies.

And so you know what it looks like under a microscope, here’s a lovely picture for your perusal. (Thank you, Dr. Kunegelis, for teaching me about this!!)

Can you say ugly???

We have found out recently that many of the children have scabies.  Some are on antibiotics for it (TMP/SMX for those of you who are interested).  All of us, whether we have scabies or not, have taken a sulfur soap bath and covered ourselves in permethrin.  Yes, all 45 children and all of the adults.  All bed sheets and clothes have been washed.  It has been an adventure. 

On Wednesday morning, Vanderly and I bathed 8 children between the two of us with the sulfur loveliness.  Fortunately for me, the 4 children that I bathed love water.  I had fun with them.  Getting a couple of them to put clothes on afterwards . . . now that was another story.  Nana and Manda bathed some more of the children.  John took care of the older boys over the past couple days.  He also found out one of the new boys is afraid of water.  It has made for some fun stories.  I’m pretty sure all of us have been peed on now, myself included.

As of today, all of us except for 2 of the teenage boys have been bathed and creamed.  Now we get to wait for all of the scabies to disappear!!  One good thing about scabies treatment is you only have to do it once.  If it’s still around after 2 weeks, some of the children may be treated again.  I’m believing that this treatment will take care of everything!  And those of us who didn’t have scabies will not get it. 

Yeah, I’m having so many new adventures here.  I really am loving it.

¡Jesús es nuestro sanidor!

(Jesus is our healer!)