I was very happy to find that common table salt in a war...

I have had these nasty little creatures for months!! I am very clean so I was surprised when I found out what it was. Started in my ears. Then took over my chest and part of my face. This was so embarrassing.

I purchased permethrin from the farm store. The kind for cattle. I put2tbsp of it into a large bottle of lotion. Shook it up. After applying this to my skin and then putting peroxide into the rash I was able to scrub them out completely with a strong toothbrush. I even mixed peroxide and permethrin half and half to create a solution which to soak the toothbrush in. I feel better!!! For the first time in over six months I feel better.

Make sure to clean all linen floors and clothes well. I made a solution with a cleaning spray bottle. 3\4 water and the rest permethrin and sprayed my floors every day. These bud bugs will infest your feet hands and webs of both. Causing your feet to become crusty or hardened. Soften the skin with hot water and you can cut the skin and scabies out with a knife or foot egg.

Good luck don't give up.

Yes it took me time to find put how to get rid of these nasty things and Doctors will not tell you this will cure them because of money I went on a trip and swimming in the ocean of sea salt for like an hour they were totally gone just have to make sure everything is cleaned and dryer or just throw it out !! And I really believe table salt will do the trick just do it every night around 7 pm that's when they want to come out and eat like little vampires so kill them with salt !!!

Thank you for posting this. I was going nuts, trying to find something that worked. I've been drowning myself with Aloe Vera Lotion with minor success. Tea Tree oil mixed with Coconut oil, zero effect. A 20min bath with Epsom Salt along with Sulfur Soap, did the trick. No more biting etc. Today was day 1 and 8 hours pasted since my bath. So far so good. Thanks again. 

Today is Monday 3rd April 2017 and I want to share the happy news...........Common table salt DOES work!

I have endured 4 weeks of sheer Hell! (And I know that many sufferers have endured far, far longer.

It began with a faint, irritating itch on my right, outer thigh.   I scratched it and gave it little thought, beyond the temporary and satisfying feeling that scratching an itch provides.

This itch, however, was a little more persistent.  And, furthermore, within a few hours it has spread around my leg and the other leg was also itching.

Over the course of the next few days the itching was all around my thighs and lower back.  It spread to the soft tissue behind my knees and my ankles and my wrists.

I was convinced that I was experiencing an allergic reaction to something.   In my early teens I had developed an allergy to oranges, resulting in rashes of itchy spots lasting several days.   This particular allergy ceased to trouble me after a couple of years but I found myself wondering if it was re-surfacing all these years later.

I began a process of elimination over the next week or so but to no avail.   I finally convinced myself that I was reacting to a particularly hot (and delicious) chilli sauce which I had been eating regularly for a couple of weeks from a local street-food vendor.   When I relucantly cut that out I was at a loss to explain the continued itching.

It was only then that my online research revealed that I was, indeed, infested with the horrible scabies.

Like many other people I tried over-the-counter remedies such as cortisone creams from the local pharmacy.  (Forget trading in Gold as a way of investing in speculative markets; my top tip is to get into pharmaceutical anti-histamine products.  You heard it here first!)

My further on-line research revealed remedies from fellow sufferers who swore by things like applying a pulp made from a mix of aromatic spices and special leaves which are only available in Amazonian rain forests.  

A cursory inspection of my own kitchen cupboard revealed only Chinese 5-spice, Star-anise and some tinned tomatoes.  -  (Who knows; they might have worked! I was prepared to try anything.)

As virtually everyone reading these posts will know, the effect of these nasty little parasites is utterly debilitating.   The itching is SO intense.  I was on the verge of being completely deranged.   I swear that if someone had placed a gun in my hand with one single bullet in the chamber I would have pulled the trigger.   Anything to MAKE.........IT..........STOP!

Today, in the furtherance of my research, I came across the suggestion of bathing in salt water.  Most of the reported experiences were favourable.  Some said that it didn't work for them and, although this was disheartening, there were enough reports which were positive that I was willing to try anything.

This morning I purchased 750g of salt and poured 500g of it into a hot bath.

I soaked myself for 20 minutes and, as advised, did not towel dry myself but allowed myself to dry naturally.  (The prospect of pneumonia being far preferable to the damned itching.)

The symptoms did feel to be alleviated somewhat but I was reluctant to declare success.   -   I went to bed, wrapped in a clean sheet and fell asleep for a couple of hours.   When I awoke, I had a niggling itch on my leg which soon grew into the familiar onset of a full blown attack.

I was convinced, however, that I was on the right track.

Here is what I did:-  

Feeling that perhaps my earlier bath had been too deep, thus diluting the salt solution, I ran another hot bath but not so deep as the first.

Into this I poured another 500g of salt.   Before getting into the bath, however, I scooped at few handfuls of water over my thighs and buttocks and then proceeded to rub handfuls of salt over them.   It stung like hell!   But in a good way because I really felt like it was burning these little mites out of my pores.

Having covered myself in salt I got into the shallow bath and proceeded to rub salt all over me.   Kneeling up, I poured salt over my butt and it felt like fire!  I continued rubbing salt all over me before settling down to soak for a further 20 minutes.

At this point, let me say, I have the greatest respect for all women and I know that scabies doesn't differentiate between genders.   And I know, also, that childbirth is something which we mortal males could never begin to comprehend.  But I'm sorry ladies;  until your ball-sacks are afflicted with this curse, there is nothing upon God's own earth which can possibly come close to the agony of wanting to rip your testicles off and throw them on a fire.

All I can say is that it works!   It has been 8 hours now and the worst of the infestation has been eradicated.   I feel some faint itching but that, I'm sure, is largely because I'm sitting here writing about it.  

I'm sure that there will be some residual hanges-on but I'm going to repeat this every day, twice a day if I have to, for a week.   The relief is beyond words.

When the infestation was at its worst, in the long hours of the night, I recall actually praying to long-defunct gods and promising to be a nicer person from now on if the curse would only go away.  -  And now that it has, I'm almost tempted to think about keeping my side of the bargain!

Please post your own experiences.   And good luck!

Thank you i am definately going to try it today : ) we have been at war with these little critters on and off for nearly 3 years! One doctors dismissed the idea of washhing clothes at high temperatures!!!!.. I dispare at the state of our health system and the unnecessary problems it causes by being so blind to the natural resoures that we have around us.. and have had for thousands of years.

Use A&D ointment on hands. It’s the only thing that helps me!!

How much salt should I use in my bath water

Some clothing u can’t wash in hot water... Use Borax 20 Mule get at Walmart 1 to 2 cups per load... it kills ALL bugs...

Hi I’m looking for some advice . I’ve just treated myself for scabies and washed off solution , where I have been so itchy though I have clawed the areas a lot and I have many scratches and i don’t want them to become infected , could I apply  sudocrem over all these scratches just to keep it clean ? Tia

Interesting conversation which is as loaded with dubious speculation as it is potentially helpful insights. I first picked up scabies when I was 20 years old, from a sexual contact. In the 18 years since then, I have lost count of the number of times I have contracted these mites, from various sexual contacts (I, know, fewer partners, less chance of re-infection).

Since first getting scabies, I have read a lot about the disease, and there is an awful lot of conflicting information, even in medical and research circles. My experiences with scabies do not necessarily reflect the "classic profile" that doctors look for. For example, it has not necessarily been the case that my hands have flared up with tracks, scaly skin, and bite marks. On a number of occasions when I had become infested, other areas of my body had been more strongly attacked than my hands, and my hands were not showing the an obvious scabies effects.

It seems that many doctors go directly to examine the hands, and if they don't see clear evidence of a scabies rash / tracks then they are (some are) happy to conclude that it isn't scabies that you have. This is a mistake. The tracks that the mite leaves can be missed, and the skin might not react very noticeably. I suspect that doctors are taught to examine the hands, because this has usually been the contact area which was most likely to come into contact with an infested person and therefore receive the mites. However, what if the initial contact points are other areas of the body? Are we to believe that the mites will migrate to the hands, or do they tend populate the skin such that they are more proximal to where they climbed onto your body? It would be great if someone who is terminologically-trained could answer this question definitively (Sorry, GPs please don't respond unless the ACTUUALLY know the answer to this question, backed up by hard-evidence and not just speculation)

I'm on this forum now because a friend of mine has been staying in my home. There was no problem until last week after we hugged tightly, and after I had been supine for an hour on my sofa, the evening after the night my friend had slept on it (without a sheet). Within less than 12 hours of contact with him and the sofa, the familiar scabies irritation began to flare up on my skin. I am not absolutely sure, but it appears as though the mites have gone for exactly the same spots, re-attacking already weak spots on my skin that have been bitten and burrowed into many times already. Having been in close contact with my friend about 6 years ago and experiencing the same result, I immediately suspected that the infestation came from him. I had not had close contact with anyone else for many weeks, so there was no reason to suspect that if had come from anyone else. I also have reason to suspect that he is highly likely to come into contact with scabies due to his lifestyle of having many casual sexual partners (not a criticism, but a relevant fact).

I spoke to my friend about it and suggested he use treatment / see a doctor. He does not have the clear skin signs of scabies, but we know that scabies is usually asymptomatic for many weeks before the skin becomes reactive and starts to be strongly affected. Due to my friend's lifestyle, and that I felt certain I'd been infested through contact with him many years ago, I do not suppose that the infestation he has is a nascent, pre-reactive one. I am supposing that his skin is not very reactive to the presence of these mites, and that is why his skin is not exhibiting the strong signs that would be expected. Understandably, without much evidence of this skin condition, he is skeptical and inclined to believe that he does not have it, despite my conviction that he definitely does.

My friend was sensible and went to see a doctor shortly after I informed him last week that I had had to use malathion lotion soon after being in contact with him. I warned him that the doctor would probably not diagnose scabies without the classic signs that they look for, and that they would not try to perform ink-track highlighting or dermal scraping microscopy. As predicted, that is exactly what happened (didn't happen). The doctor speculated that he more likely (based on what evidence other than a probabilistic guess, I don't know) had some kind of fungal infection, and thus prescribed fungicidal gel. I was a bit p****d-off at hearing this because I felt like my well-grounded supposition had been completely disregarded. But anyway, I got over being annoyed fairly quickly and I can appreciate that my friend and doctor should not just take my word for it that he has scabies, even though there is plenty of evidence to support my hypothesis.

It is very frustrating that I have been repeatedly exposed to these things, and that so many people, including doctors, appear not to take it very seriously. I have had doctors insinuate that I was imagining the skin problem. One doctor was incredulous, and exclaimed "you have to be practically sleeping with someone to get it". First of all, he is wrong about that. It is well documented that simply sharing towels and upholstery could be enough, and we know that these mites ARE able to live for at least 3 days off of the body. Secondly, I do sleep with people. Many people sleep with someone else. It's quite normal. What a stupid statement the doctor made. It is very discouraging to find so many doctors so quick to be dismissive and jump to "the most likely" conclusion without so much as a test or even a proper examination, which in some cases might only take a few minutes if they were to bother. This does patients a disservice, and it damages doctors' reputation, leaving them wide open to criticism of being arrogant and not thorough in their duties.

So, the state of play is that if my friend is to be treated for scabies, he will need to supply his own lotion or method to clear it, for the time being, because the doctor would not treat him as a possible case of scabies infestation. The reasons that scabies is so common and readily communicated are complex, but certainly a major barrier to controlling infestation rates is doctors' unwillingness to properly investigate suspected cases and provide treatment.

why would you all suffer for so long???? go to the pharmacy and buy lyclear or another cream that kills scabies in 24hrs... why have you struggled for upto 2 years??? when my son caught them i went to pharmacy straight away and sorted it, i certainly wouldn't have struggled trying home remedies that have taken so long to rid of them...