A Brief Overview Of Scabies And Scabies Symptoms

 

Scabies symptoms do not always immediately point to the source of the problem. The primary symptoms are skin rash and itching. Many things can cause rashes and itching, including skin diseases, skin reaction to other diseases, allergies, or contact with a substance that irritates the skin, are but a few examples.

When Scratching What Itches Isn't Enough - People can have scabies for an extended period without even realizing it, until their condition begins to take a turn for the worse. Rashes and itching due to causes other than scabies often come and go, sometimes in the course of a few hours or days, at other times over periods of weeks or months. Scabies symptoms are different in one respect. Once the symptoms appear, they generally remain, and almost always get worse. Itching due to scabies can be relentless, with few if any periods of respite. When we have an itch caused by sunburn or dry skin, it may bother us to the point where it can be difficult to go to sleep. Such a condition waxes and wanes however. In a severe case of scabies, it may be next to impossible to get to sleep, or even to stay asleep, and the condition just does not improve. With scabies, scratching the itch doesn't cause the itch to go away, at least not for long.

Just what is it that is the cause of these extremely uncomfortable symptoms? It's a tiny mite, which has decided that you make a good host or home for it, and it loves to burrow under your skin to lay eggs and raise a family. As the scabies mite goes about its business of making a home for itself, you develop a rash and an itch. Although the scabies mite is visible to the naked eye, though just barely, you really need a microscope to get a good picture of what the scabies mite looks like. It is really not a particularly pretty picture. The scabies mite looks something like a microscopic tank, with eight legs, that has been designed by committee.

Having one or perhaps a dozen of these mites crawling around on you and burrowing in your skin isn't the source of the scabies symptoms however. The source is caused by toxins produced by the mites during the process of laying their eggs. These toxins cause allergic reactions in your system, mild at first, and then increasingly severe. The visible scabies symptoms often appear as small red bumps, or tiny pimples, no doubt caused by the aforementioned toxins and your body's reaction to them. Your skin may also become scaly in places, especially if the scabies outbreak is not treated at an early stage.

While your immune system produces antibodies to counteract the toxins produced by the scabies mite, the antibodies, as powerful as they may be, do nothing to eliminate the mites themselves, so it is somewhat of a losing battle. What a healthy immune system will do, is slow the spread of the disease, and in doing so, hopefully give a person time to have it correctly diagnosed and treated before the symptoms become unbearable.

Scabies Prefer Certain Locations - Visible signs of scabies and the accompanying scabies symptoms of itching and a rash can appear almost anywhere on the body, but are more apt to appear on places where the skin has folds or creases. You can see folds for example on the inside of your wrist when you flex or bend your wrist. That's scabies habitat. Skin areas under a wristwatch band, or a belt are areas where the mite apparently feels quite secure. Other prime areas are between the fingers, around the waist, in the armpits,  for males, around the genital area, including the penis and the scrotum, and for females, under the breasts. There may be places on the body where infection occurs. Infections are not typical scabies symptoms but are most commonly secondary symptoms, cause by scratching and consequent breaking of the skin. (continued...)