To everyone we came in contact with between August 18 - 31st, sorry, but you might have scabies now. Let's think... where all did we go and who did we see?
Gracie spent two nights in San Diego with Katie and Henry. She had a few bumps between her fingers that were itchy when she left, but the day she came home, her left hand and arm were covered in bumps. Her sister was puking and had a fever. What a way to end a sleepover! She really didn't have anything noticeable on her hand or arm until she woke up on Aug 21st.
This is the first day of (noticeable) scabies:
We quickly decided she has eczema. Yup, that must be it. We rubbed cortizone cream on her and went on with our day. We did decide that the rash was too ugly for school, so we went shopping and got her some long sleeve tops. I also bought her some Eczema lotion.
The next day was the first day of school. I had her wear long sleeves, but she insisted on pulling up her sleeves and showing her friends her eczema rash. They all touched it to feel how bumpy her arm was. In hindsight, ewww.
I decided maybe I should take her to the doctor. Eczema is weird, but this was more weird. My husband insisted it was eczema though, and he's usually right about such things. Here it is on Aug 24th:
The doctor said, "Gracie, Your daddy is a smart man and he's usually right. But not this time. It isn't eczema." It was Scabies. I had no idea what that is, so I said, "Hmm, Ok." She prescribed a wash and gave me instructions to spread this wash-lotion all over my child from the neck down right before bedtime. In the morning after the lotion has been on her for 12 hours, shower it off. The rash should go away after that treatment. She also prescribed a steroid cream just in case the wash didn't work. She said if the wash doesn't make it better, then it's probably a contact dermatitis and to use the steroid cream. Give it three days to see if the wash treatment works first. And, she told me that Scabies is very contagious. She was amazed that nobody else in the family had it. Yet.
I dropped off the prescription at the drugstore and went on home to look up what Scabies is. Never heard of it.
Once I googled Scabies and found out that it is little bugs under the skin, I was so grossed out! Disgusting! Ewww! My kid has scabies! AAAAAAA!!!
My husband was equally disgusted, but he knew what Scabies was, just had never seen it before. We looked on Google images. So very gross, but the rash matched what we saw. The worst part is that it is often a venereal disease. Lots of the google images were of body parts we shouldn't have to look at on the computer, especially icky covered in this rash. I can safely say, it's not just a social disease, kids get it too. I suppose, in reality, any rash or virus or anything passed from person to person could be considered a venereal disease. But, this sure made the gross aspect of her rash even more disgusting.
The wash was a tube of lotion and the active ingredient in it was the same as the flea powder for pets. So, I picked up a container of carpet cleaner in the pet aisle for killing fleas. Same ingredient. Basically, we spread a pesticide all over our kid.
After showering and waiting a few hours, her rash looked like this on the 25th: Remarkable difference!
And I tore apart her room in an effort to kill any bugs that might be in the carpet or mattresses. I used a liberal amount of the pesticide carpet powder and let it sit for four hours then vacuumed thoroughly.
Anything washable, went into the wash. All toys, pillows, bedding, clothing, etc was put in the washer on Hotter Than Hot setting and dried the same way. I didn't want any bugs to survive my wrath!
Her rash looked a ton better, but I still had the heebie-jeebies so I repeated the wash just on her arm and hand a couple of days later. The life cycle of a scabe could mean that the next generation would hatch and thrive if the eggs didn't die in the first wash. But, I didn't have enough of the pesticide wash to cover her all over, so I just did the affected area. This wasn't recommended by the doctor, pharmacist, instructions on the lotion, google nor anyone for that matter. But the Mom-Doctor in me thought it was a good idea, so I went with it.
Here is her rash a few days later on Aug 29th:
You can still see that her skin is splotched with what were once bumps and spots. The palm of her hand still had bumps, but none were white like they were before. She was keeping that hand balled up in a fist a lot though, and I wonder if it itched more, plus being in a fist probably made her palm warmer and darker. All the more attractive for the bugs. The little bit of the rash that was left was under my watchful eye, but for the most part the scabies rash was gone. Over the next few days it disappeared all together.
Nobody else ever got it and it never spread beyond her one hand and arm. I never heard anything from any of her friends, so I don't think they got it even though she had her little buddies all touching her arm. And, I didn't hear from the teacher neither. The dog didn't have fleas, so she didn't get it from the dog. Nobody knows where she got scabies or why it didn't spread. But, it was scabies. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have improved after the pesticide wash. Hopefully we never see it again.
It's pretty embarrassing to say, "My kid had scabies" because it's so disgusting. But I decided to post this with full disclosure because I had a hard time finding scabies in kids on google. If anyone is wondering, this is what scabies looks like on a six-year-old. At least, on my six-year-old.
If your six-year-old has a rash like this, I sure hope she's not so loud and bold and tells everyone she meets, "I have scabies. See? Wanna feel it? My dad thought it was eczema but he was wrong." So embarrassing!
