No More Acne

Itching is really a great nagging problem when we face it. It hampers our day-to-day life. Suppose you are in a meeting with your boss and you feel an intense itching sensation over your groin. What you will do? Don’t worry. You will know all about itchy skin lesions. There are hundreds causes of itchy skin lesion. First, we shall discuss about the common causes and in my later posts, I shall be covering all the major topics.

According to leading text book of medicine (Harrison’s Principle of Internal Medicine), one of the most common causes of itching is scabies. It is a disease caused by an organism- itch mite. Scientific name is Sarcoptes scabei. Children and young adults are more commonly affected. Incidence is higher in children younger than 2 years of age. Scabies is common to the persons living in small and overcrowded rooms. Often it may infest multiple persons sharing the room or clothes.

Intense itching and visible lesions may occur after couple of days of infection as it takes some before the parasite can break through the skin and procreate. There are three types of skin lesions-

a) Swelling, redness and vesicle formation occurs first. These are most common in finger webs of hands and foot, axilla, elbow and wrists. They may also emerge on the lower part of the body like groins, around your belly button, sex organs and the buttock fold. There may be scattered lesions over the legs, ankles and feet.
b) Small red swelling may be seen over the upper part of the trunk and groins.
c) Linear or serpentine tracks or burrows formed by the female mites are seen over the skin. These are due to locomotion of female mites carrying eggs and try to hatch them. This type of lesion is most commonly seen on the distal arm and wrists or near the axilla. Again, they may be secondarily infected by other bacteria-giving rise to pus formation. The common bacterium responsible is Streptococcus.

Now let us gather some knowledge about the treatment. The best treatment available is application of 5% Permethrin cream. A single time application can cure over 90% of the disease. There is no side effect to the body. After application, you should leave the lotion for overnight.

The medicine should be allowed to remain in the skin lesion for at least 10 hours. Again, repeat it after 1-2 weeks. In children below 2 months of age, sulfur and crotamiton cream are safer. Recent studies show that oral Ivermectin is very effective above 5 years of age.

All of your family members should be treated simultaneously as I said earlier that Scabies is a notorious infectious disease. It must be done even if you cannot find any visible lesion or he/she may not complain of itching at all.

After the treatment is completed, all the clothing and bed linen should be boiled, put on in the sun and subjected to hot ironing.

Filed under: Acne Marks