Part of a solid scabies treatment plan is using Permethrin cream. However, it’s not always the easiest thing to get without an expensive visit to a doctor or dermatologist. This leaves most people wondering how to buy permethrin cream for their scabies treatment.
What is Permethrin cream?
Permethrin cream is an insecticide cream which is very effective at killing scabies. It is the first line of treatment that your doctor will prescribe to you after a scabies diagnosis. Normally it is sold in a 30g tube as a 5% permethrin lotion.
Permethrin cream is a central part of scabies treatment, and one of the main courses of action in my recommended 30 day scabies treatment plan.
How To buy Permethrin cream?
The easiest way to get permethrin cream is to get a prescription from your doctor. However for many people getting a prescription isn’t always possible, and in some states the cream costs over $100 per tube! That can be quite the bill when trying to treat a family of five.
Below I’m going to give you all the options possible for getting Permethrin cream; hopefully this should give you the information you need to get treat your scabies safely and affordably.
Option 1: Your doctor or dermatologist
If you live in the US and you have insurance, hopefully this should be an easy enough option. If you have a decent doctor, he will look at your skin through his microscope and identify the mites and/or burrows. Then he’ll prescribe you the cream and your insurance should cover it. Hopefully you can get prescribed the Ivermectin treatment too as they work very well in conjunction with each other.
Option 2: Buy permethrin cream online
If you don’t have access to a doctor or your doctor is useless and won’t diagnose you properly, you can purchase the Permethrin online. One store that I have purchased items from in the past is Inhouse Pharmacy. It has been a while since I purchased anything there but I believe they are still legit. I’m not affiliated with them in any way – it’s just the best place I know of to get treatments without a prescription. This is their permethrin cream, which is the same brand I also used during my treatment:
Option 3: Make permethrin cream yourself
The thing about permethrin is, it’s not a rare product. It’s used in all kinds of farming, livestock, industrial, pest control, and many other types of situations outside of scabies.
Therefore, finding permethrin is easy.
In fact, you can buy a whole bottle of it online from a pest store like this and have it delivered to your house by tomorrow.
And as for replicating the prescription permethrin creams – if you look at the ingredients, they’re nothing more than a simple body lotion mixed with 5% permethrin.
When you put two and two together, it becomes clear that permethrin cream is nothing special. You can mix it up in your own bathroom in just a few minutes.
So how do you do this?
What you will need first is some basic permethrin. I would recommend using Martin’s 10% Permethrin which you can get here on Amazon.
Next you’ll need a basic body lotion or moisturizer. A generic moisturizing cream like this is ideal. You don’t want anything with too many added fragrances or chemicals.
If you’re not following the maths here – adding equal parts of 10% permethrin and body lotion means you’re cutting the strength in half. Therefore this will leave you with a 5% permethrin mixture.
You can even see in the Amazon reviews for Martin’s Permethrin that the most common reason people are buying it is to mix permethrin cream for scabies (with good results!). You can read the reviews here.
The bonus of mixing your own permethrin is you’ll never run out of it. One bottle of 10% permethrin is going to last you a long time.
This is perfect because one of the biggest complaints about the prescription tubes of 5% permethrin is they’re not big enough. Treating scabies requires you to cover the whole body in permethrin cream, and often a 30g or 60g tube is simply not enough.
By mixing your own permethrin, you’ll be sure that you have enough to lather over your body and then some. That’s exactly what you need to treat scabies effectively (more on that in a minute).
The other bonus is, when treating scabies you normally need to treat more than one person. Therefore by mixing your own permethrin cream, you should definitely have enough for the whole household, even if there’s four or five of you. That’s really important because if you don’t treat the whole household, it’s very possible (and common) that someone else will have caught scabies and, left untreated, will start spreading it through the house again. This happens a lot so make sure you to treat everyone in the household diligently!
Where to buy permethrin
My first choice would be to buy it from a proper pest control store like Do My Own. That way you can be sure of the source and quality, and the shipping is fast as well.
Amazon will be my second choice. It’s often out of stock, and sometimes sold from unknown sellers, but it’s still pretty reliable.
Please note: This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor or your medical advisor. Mixing your own permethrin cream is not as safe as buying it ready-made from a pharmacy. You follow this advice at your own risk. I advise you to consult your own medical professionals if you have any concerns.
Make sure you use the permethrin properly!
I’ve written about this on the blog before, but I’ll leave you again with a few pointers:
-Permethrin needs to be left on for at least 8 hours, and no more than 12 hours. If you leave it on for less than 8 hours it won’t work, and if you leave it on for more than 12 it can damage your skin.
-The best approach is to put it on after your shower at night, go to sleep, and wash it off in the morning.
-When applying the permethrin, make sure you get it absolutely everywhere! This means between the fingers, under the fingernails, between the toes, between your butt cheeks, behind the ears, under your armpits. I’m talking absolutely everywhere. Scabies can live anywhere on your skin – if you miss a spot, you could miss a mite, and that means you won’t be cured.
-Once you’ve put the cream on, go straight to sleep. Don’t sit around on the computer or go eating a late supper – all you’re doing is letting the cream come off your skin. One of the main reasons permethrin doesn’t work for people is they don’t let it sit and do its job. Maybe you go to the toilet, wash your hands, and go back to sleep. You might not realize it, but you’re washing off all the treatment! In fact, one of the most common places for scabies to hide is under your fingernails, especially because scabies sufferers scratch so much. If you wash your hands an hour after putting your permethrin treatment on, obviously the mites under your nails are going to survive. Then two weeks later, you still have scabies and can’t understand why. My best tip is, as soon as you put the cream on, get into bed and go to sleep! Let the cream work, and wash it off in the morning.
These are the main tips, but before you use your permethrin cream I would highly recommend reading my guide on how to use permethrin properly. You can click here to go there now.
FAQ:
Is it safe to use permethrin cream?
Yes, it is safe to use permethrin cream according to the FDA. It is authorized for use against things like lice and scabies in humans. However, FDA approval is only for ready-made permethrin creams available on prescription, so if you are mixing your own, you do so at your own risk. No safety studies have been done on DIY permethrin creams
Can you buy permethrin cream at Walmart?
Yes, you can buy permethrin cream at Walmart. However if you want to purchase at Walmart you will need a prescription from your doctor. Walmart does however sell 10% permethrin solution such as Martin’s Permethrin if you are planning to make a DIY cream. You can buy it at your local Walmart store, otherwise you can order it online from a place like Do Your Own.
Can you buy permethrin cream at Walgreens?
Yes, you can buy permethrin cream at Walgreens but you will need a prescription. They sell scabicides such as Lyclear. Walgreens has more info on their prescription scabies treatments here. You can also buy other scabies treatments like benzyl benzoate at Walgreens.
Do Walgreens or Walmart sell OTC permethrin creams?
No, Walgreens and Walmart do not sell permethrin creams OTC. You will need to mix your own if you want to use permethrin cream without a prescription.
Other ways to treat scabies effectively
While permethrin cream is the standard prescription treatment for scabies, there are many other proven treatments you can use to help aid your recovery.
In fact, there are various natural treatments that have been shown in studies to have even better cure rates than permethrin.
Some of these are clove oil, sulfur, and tea tree oil.
Therefore, my recommendation to killing scabies quickly and effectively is not to pick and choose treatments, but to use them all in tandem. This gives you the best chance at eliminating scabies from your body without any stubborn mites slipping through the cracks.
Permethrin is great, but permethrin paired with tea tree oil, sulfur, neem, clove oil and ivermectin is much, much better.
This is exactly what I did when dealing with scabies myself, and the results were excellent. Within two weeks I’m sure all mites had been killed, and within a month my skin was completely back to normal.
If you’d like to see the exact treatments I used and how I used them, it’s all detailed in this blog post here. If you’re suffering from scabies, I’d highly recommend checking it out.
Other than that, wishing you the speediest recovery possible.
Jon
Please note: This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor or your medical advisor. Mixing your own permethrin cream is not as safe as buying it ready-made from a pharmacy. You follow this advice at your own risk. I advise you to consult your own medical professionals if you have any concerns.
