The Vile Corruption Spreads Through Inflamed Red Flesh

[The Vault Dweller]

I have Scabies.

http://www.wikihow.com/Cure-Scabies

Before anyone recoils in disgust please remember I am of good health and hygiene. I shower daily, do laundry weekly, and wash my bed linen about once a month. Since that eliminates an environmental cause (such as living in a victims bed) it must have been contracted via personal contact. I have no personal acquaintances I touch and really the only opportunity is at work where I often handle things passed on directly from someone by hand.

I must serve like around 100 customers a day on average in an eight hour shift. If any of them had scabies it would certainly reside in their hands since wherever else they would get it it would transfer to from scratching it. Then when they hand me whatever objects they need (money, cards, coupons) I get it.

At first I notice some red spots on my skin around my hands and lower arms two days ago. Then yesterday the redness spreads along with itching and clear blisters. Last night the itching intensified (one of the notes of the disease is a vast increase in symptoms at night and remission during the day) kept me awake about a half hour longer than I would normally need to fall asleep. I even woke up two hours early and couldn't go back to sleep. Any attempt at scratching brought short, but intense relief followed by a severe burning sensation.

It's daytime now. I took a double long shower with excessive scrubbing the affected areas and much hotter water followed by cold. The parasites should be scraped dead or at least killed by the rapid change in temperature. I feel better just believing this is true.

Let's see how I feel tonight before bed.

,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Yamu]

Eeee. Parasites. You're a stronger man than I am if you're not lighting yourself on fire and plummeting off the top of a 30-story building as we speak.

Eeegh. Buaaagh. Uhhhhgh. I feel your pain, though fortunately not literally. Good luck on a speedy recovery.

 

[Crni Vuk]

scabies ? Eh. REALLY SORRY NOW. but I had to laugh hard when I have thrown it in my translator

But I really hope things will get better for you.

Anyway. What might help as well is to freeze them to death! Yeah! FUCKING BUGS! eat snow! No I mean seriously. That might help. You might lose the one or other finger in the process but hey. A soldier does not complain! Hehehe letz see how much those parasites love your body when you get in to - 20° or - 30°. Naked of course.

*Edit
Also youre a vault dweller. Be happy it are not the "mutated" form of the scabies. They are not just a "little" bit bigger you know.

 

[Wintermind]

I've been there, man. Have fun cleaning literally everything in your house. You might want to firebomb everything own and move to a different place. The cream you apply every where is pretty unpleasant too.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

Eeee. Parasites. You're a stronger man than I am if you're not lighting yourself on fire and plummeting off the top of a 30-story building as we speak.

Eeegh. Buaaagh. Uhhhhgh. I feel your pain, though fortunately not literally. Good luck on a speedy recovery.

You have no idea how many times today I considered removing large pieces of flesh with a rusty, dull knife if necessary to ease the itching.

Anyway. What might help as well is to freeze them to death! Yeah! FUCKING BUGS! eat snow! No I mean seriously. That might help. You might lose the one or other finger in the process but hey. A soldier does not complain! Hehehe letz see how much those parasites love your body when you get in to - 20° or - 30°. Naked of course.

Actually I tried that in the shower. I would douse an affected area with water as hot as I can get without burning myself then switch to the coldest water on tap. Freakin' painful, but I love the imaginative visions in my mind of them dying from it.

I've been there, man. Have fun cleaning literally everything in your house. You might want to firebomb everything own and move to a different place. The cream you apply every where is pretty unpleasant too.

I'm fearing what you're saying. I couldn't stand to have to wash/clean my bed linen, clothing of that day, and any surface I touched EVERY DAY FOR A MONTH.

I don't know what scares me more...having this for the rest of my life or all the time/money I could lose treating it.

I'm looking up home remedies as we speak. I've just learned that the parasite has a 21 day life cycle with three life stages. If you've had it for a long time all stages are present in various places, but when you've just gotten it all of them are in the same phase. It may be possible to wipe them out this early in the invasion since they should all be in the same stage and all have the same weakness.

Apparently the nymph stage can be forced to flee the body to the surface of the skin with simple household bleach. Unfortunately bleach stings when put on sensitive skin which any affected area will be. Tomorrow I will keep a basin of bleach and apply it and see what happens. If it works and I don't mind the pain enough I might be able to get rid of them all.

Cheers and Wishes from Gritted Teeth,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Yamu]

I know that with a lot of other subcutaneous parasites, you can kill them off by daubing clear nail polish over the site where they penetrated the skin. It doesn't take them too long to suffocate in there. Not sure if that's the way to go with these guys, but it might be something to consider.

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

Screw that home remedy crap, GO TO A DOCTOR. Make him prescribe you one of those hardcore anti-parasite drugs guaranteed to kill them off ASAP.

I feel for ya man, good luck.

 

[Wintermind]

yeah I'm gonna say go to a doctor and maybe hire a professional cleaner/exterminator. Look, man, you've gotta clean everything. Every square inch of carpet. The couch cushions, the arm rests, the backing, everything. Every piece of clothing you own. Any place these fuckers can live, they will live. Call some friends, professionals, anybody if you need the help. Oh, and the interior of your car, too, if you have one.

I speak from experience. Heed my words. Also if you see anybody else in your work itching like aything you've had, warn them and stay the fuck away. You'll have enough issues with being paranoid that every itch is them coming back for the next like five years.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

Okay so I'm going all out on this. I'm going to make a doctors appointment for my next day off (in three days) and do whatever he says. In addition to that I will be doing whatever home remedies I find cheap/easy starting today. I've already bathed with bleach which while it stung very badly wasn't anywhere near enough pain to convince me to stop hoping it would help. I will also wash yesterdays clothes and my bed linen in hot water EVERY DAY. Today I'll also buy sulfur soap and use that in place of normal soap as I've heard it can cure scabies. Oh and of course I'll vacuum my whole house the next day off.

I mean whatever the doctor advises and cleaning the house/washing my clothes does for good any alternatives won't hurt right?

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

P.S.

Thank you all for being so concerned. Especially Wintermute who speaks from experience. I will warn anyone who I think could get it. In fact I'm already wearing latex gloves while at work to prevent the spread to anyone else. Granted my increased cleanliness and carefulness is probably already enough, but chances can't be taken.

 

[iridium_ionizer]

A friend of mine got scabies when he was being fed dinner at a house in a rural town in the Philippines. His host was nice enough to tell him that he was eating dog about halfway through the meal. He kept eating.

A few days later he felt the itching and figured out that he had scabies. Lesson #1: don't ever eat a dog unless you know it's healthy. Lesson #2: don't eat food given to you by people who are half-crazy or just don't care.

Anyway, good luck VD.

 

[Crni Vuk]

just curious if you have not visited a doctor yet how do you know it are scabies ? And not maybe some kind of allergic reaction.

 

[Squall]

ewwwwwwww

 

[Wintermind]

Okay, look. You gotta do it at the same time. They're fuckin' every where, okay? Everywhere. If they were on your hands when you folded your laundry they're on your laundry, and then they went and got on all the laundry in the drawer. They'll chill out in there until you put that shirt on. If you clean your house on monday and put the cream on tuesday, it's moot. The cream we got you had to put on head to toe and leave it on for like eight hours. Pets? They gotta get a washed. Cleaning without cleaning everything AND yourself, it'll just happen again. Don't do anything other than what the doctor says; that cream is fucking designed to murderize the cocksuckers like a P94.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

For everyone's information I'd like to point out that I only discovered this problem a few days ago and didn't at first find it important. I did my own research and have self-diagnosed myself with Scabies. For the sake of being sure and getting a prescription I will set up a doctors appointment tomorrow for as soon as possible. He will probably prescribe an insecticidal cream to cover my skin (Permethrin) and/or Ivermectin a pill (I don't know how a pill can kill something burrowed in the skin though).

In the meantime I've just drastically increased my normal cleanliness behaviors with longer showers and laundry done daily. I've also used bleach in the shower.

Here's a timeline:

-Wednesday: Notice a few small bug bites on hand (about ten total).

-Thursday: More on hand and they itch (ten more).

-Friday: Across whole lower arm and terribly itchy to the point of lesions (fifty more). Took a double length shower with excessive scrubbing to remove dead skin thinking it would remove the parasite.

-Saturday: Advanced half up upper arms and still terribly itchy (twenty more). Took a shower with raw bleach poured on wounds as well as excessive scrubbing.

-Sunday: No advancement beyond yesterdays front. Only a small amount of new bites in previously tainted areas (ten more). Lesions are fully scabbed and healing. Scrubbed vigorously in the shower.

Tomorrow I will again take a longer shower, use bleach, and do extra laundry and housecleaning. I've also spent $15 ordering Sulfur soap with Lanolin (sulfur purges skin and lanolin protects skin) as well as powdered sulfur (to be added to bath water and bathed in). I'm aware those are "home remedies" that probably don't work, but I've been so paranoid that I can't help simply waiting until I see a doctor, but decided to do my own treatment in the meantime. Worst thing that can happen is that none of the folk remedies will work and I'll still follow doctors orders to get better. It's worth spending the small amount more just for the peace of mind up until the doctor of knowing I'm at least trying.

In fact today I spent $4 buying a large container of epsom salts and two large bottles of hydrogen peroxide. Supposedly the salts are good for the skin and the hydrogen peroxide is fatal to tiny critters. I don't know if I want to try it though since both those things are quite strong chemicals.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

P.S.

I have a family member who has a large broad sized freezer. It's only two feet tall, but almost ten feet wide and he uses it to freeze meat from hunting kills. I wonder if I were to stay in it until just before frostbite causes permanent damage then get out would it kill the mites? I mean if the temperature is low enough to cause ice to form in living tissue (which is very warm) then dead tissue (such as the upper layer of skin where the Scabies live) should be much colder. I doubt they would survive being below freezing for even an instant. Oh and of course I would have someone spot me in case I get so cold I can't move or go unconscious.

 

[Wintermind]

You're probably doing my harm than good; the more you fuck up your skin the more they'll enjoy digging in it. You'll typically find them by your joints or any place where you body tends to touch itself and be warm; your fingers, inside of your elbow, inner thigh, etc. They fucking love those places.

Don't do stupid shit like try and give yourself frostbite. Go to the doctor, pay the money for the drugs, clean your house like a motherfucker, that day. Again, until you clean EVERYTHING; and every goddamned mite is dead, you're just doing extra work.

Being paranoid about that shit, when i went back to my closet a couple of months after the cleaning, even though I was pretty sure everything in there was washed, I went and washed everything after not touching it with my hands.

Oh and don't use a hot water; fuckers like it (or they don't and it encourages them to burrow deeper). Don't try to drown 'em in the bath or anything, they really like that. Trust me. Just chill, go to the doctor, and stop the horrific sounding home remedies.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

OH HAPPY DAY!

When this crap first started I considered it could either be poison ivy or scabies. I did the research before going to work, but after returning I had spent my labor time worrying about it being scabies due to the fact it could be expensive and painful for a long period of time. I became so paranoid that I forgot the possibility of it being poison ivy and forgot to do a check of the plants I had worked with the day before the symptom first started.

I've looked at pictures including ones specific to my region before inspecting the plants in my yard. I had broken up and removed two one a small bush with leaves in threes and one a creeping vine with leaves in threes. Visually they both appeared to be poison ivy. I did a spot test by breaking off some parts and rubbing the fluid onto paper. Within minutes the creeping vine fluid turned a dark brown. It was poison ivy.

I had been working outside without gloves in a short-sleeve shirt. I remember picking the soft parts of the vine off hoping it would kill the main branch which was too embedded into the tree to remove. That's how I got it all over my hands and arms.

So it's not Scabies. Besides the information above I woke up today to find no new spots and hardly any itching at all. In fact the redness from the areas that I first noticed it is gone.

Now I don't have to pay to see a doctor or for medicine. That should save me at least $100. Also besides having to miss work to prevent the transmission of scabies and having to clean my house incessantly.

I'm SO relieved. Money saved, time saved, and stress stopped.

Sorry everyone for not checking for poison oak that first day. Just goes to show you how paranoid one can get when you have two options and one is much worse than the other. Pessimism had me pick one so fast I skipped checking to be certain.

,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Hassknecht]

m(

But good thing it's not scabies

 

[Wintermind]

Allow me to say: You lucky prick.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

Allow me to say: You lucky prick.

At this moment as happy as I am to not have scabies I feel terrible for what you had to go through. If it makes you feel better I'd like to gift you a game from GOG.com just to pay back my appreciation for all your advice. Seriously it's less than $10 for most games and that's a fraction of the money I would have had to spend had my affliction not been poison ivy.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Crni Vuk]

So what is so bad about it to "deal" with it ? >_>

anywyy. You really SHOULD have visited a doc before searching the net for what it could be

*imagine you would have really tried to freeze them to death. Not to mention some parasites are actually ... more persevering then humans ever could be. Just look at ticks. Seriously. They are unkillable!