Scabies - Mites Dig Deep Under Your Skin
Elizabeth Campbell
Scabies are normally transferred by way of prolonged intimate contact with an infested person. Scabies is a highly contagious skin disease caused by an itch mite and typified by burrows.
The mites cannot fly or jump but just crawl very slowly. They can live for four days outside of their human host. They can reach humans through clothes, linens and other personal items that have been used by an infested person.
The heat and smell given off by the human body attracts the itch mite that causes the scabies. The female mite goes into the skin by actually burrowing a small tunnel approximately the size of a small thread, which sometimes are readily observable without the aid of a microscope. This is where the mites will lay their eggs.
It is transmitted by close contact and direct touch of an infected individual or by touching items, which were contaminated by an infected person, such as a doorknob, or a cup, or if you touch the clothes previously worn by a contaminated person.
The mite can penetrate the skin with ease, particularly in rough wrinkled areas of the skin, such as the knees, elbows, and between fingers.
After laying up to twenty eggs inside the burrowed skin, the female mite will die. The eggs she left under the skin will transform into larva after three days. The larva then crawls out of the tunnel and stays on the surface of the skin until they become adults fourteen to seventeen days after. This is the complete life cycle of the itchy mite and it will continue until they are finally treated and exterminated.
Sarcoptes scabiei contaminate only humans and not animals. In the same manner animal mites cannot infect humans because they cannot thrive and produce eggs on the human body.
Still, they can live long enough on human skin to cause itches, allergies, or produce papules in a few days. As we mentioned before, scabies are very contagious. Parasites can be transmitted to healthy people even after the infected ones have no more symptoms, if they are not treated properly. After the first contamination takes place, several weeks must pass so that the symptoms are back on the skin.
All this time, the patient is highly contagious, because this time is also known as the incubation period. The symptoms as well as the manifestation of the affection become more pregnant after taking a bath or especially during the night. Sometimes they can be mistaken with dry skin, because that is how they look.
The itchy feeling could be caused by the allergic reactions to the toxins released by the mites, their eggs or their waste. Infected children and older people might have more adverse reaction and experience even more severe itch.
The skin will produce pimply rashes at the skin surface. This is because of the tunnels dug under the skin by the mites. A small black spot can be seen at the end of the burrow, which is actually the mite itself.
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