So it’s happening.

Your kid has come home with scabies.

Now you’re itching too.

Your other son woke up scratching.

Now the entire family is getting covered in red bumps.

IT’S A NIGHTMARE!

And yes, it really is a nightmare when your family gets scabies. But it’s a nightmare that’s manageable. It’s a nightmare you can solve, if you have the right information.

How does your family get scabies?

Let’s rewind a bit and figure out how you would have got scabies in the first place.

Scabies is spread by skin-to-skin contact. This can involve you getting a massage, it can involve your kids play-fighting with other kids at school, it can even involve sitting too close to somebody for a few minutes too long.

Whenever you experience any skin-to-skin contact with someone who has an active scabies infection, you’re at risk of mites moving from their body to yours.

Scabies isn’t uncommon. If your children are in school, chances are someone in that school is going to get scabies each year. And they’re going to pass it to someone else, who passes it along again, until it finally reaches your son or daughter. Scabies have been around for thousands of years, they’ll be around for thousands more.

The message I’m trying to send here is, you didn’t do anything wrong. Scabies happens sometimes, and save for wrapping ourselves in plastic, there isn’t a lot we can do about it.

How to treat your family for scabies

The first rule for when someone in your household gets scabies is: You must treat everybody.

This is so important that I’ll say it again.

You must treat everybody.

Scabies symptoms take a long time to show, sometimes up to six weeks if it’s your first infestation. That means it’s possible you’re carrying mites and you don’t even know it.

If you’re living in the same household as someone who has scabies, there’s a decent chance you’ve caught it too.

The reason you need to treat everybody is there is no immunity to scabies, like there is to say, chickenpox. Once you get scabies, you can very easily get it again.

That means if Mommy successfully treats herself for scabies, but passes it to Daddy in the process, it’s very possible that Mommy will get reinfested by Daddy somewhere down the line. The only way to be sure you’ve eradicated the mites from your entire family is to treat your entire family at the same time.

What is the best treatment?

There are many treatments for scabies, but the most effective one is a combination of several.

Around the internet you’ll hear of people using a treatment their doctor has prescribed and is not working. This is because everyone reacts differently to treatments, and according to all published studies, not a single treatment has a 100% cure rate.

That means to nuke the mites as effectively as possible, you need to combine treatments together to give yourself the best chance of success.

Here are some of the key available treatments:

Permethrin

This is the first recommended treatment. It’s a standard prescription treatment and your doctor should be able to provide it for you. However, if treating a whole family, I highly recommend you mix your permethrin cream yourself. It’s very easy and will save you a lot of money. I have a very detailed guide on how to do that here. It is also imperative that you use permethrin correctly, as most people don’t. Permethrin needs to be applied meticulously all over the body and left on for at least eight hours. Before doing your permethrin treatment, I highly recommend reading my guidelines and following them religiously.

Ivemerctin

This is an oral (pill) treatment that was originally designed to treat mites in livestock, but has since been dosed and approved for human use. Ivermectin provides a good complement to permethrin as it treats from the inside rather than the outside. It has been known to be the difference in wiping out stubborn scabies infestations that have been resilient to topical treatments. When it comes to ivermectin the dosing is quite important, so do read my guide on getting dosed correctly (or talk to your doctor).

Natural treatments

Many natural treatments have been shown in studies to be effective against scabies, such as neem, tea tree oil, clove oil and sulfur.

Using these treatments is an excellent one-two punch to combine with the prescription treatments above, as they are less harsh on the skin and you can use them multiple times (whereas medical treatments need to be used sparingly).

While some people say natural treatments are unnecessary, I believe they are one of the best weapons we have against scabies, especially as mites are beginning to show resistance to permethrin in some areas of the world.

I have a very thorough writeup on the best natural treatments for scabies here.

The Ultimate Scabies Treatment

When I was dealing with scabies myself, I took all the treatments proven in studies and combined them into one effective treatment.

This is a treatment you can do in the comfort of your home, all with ingredients purchased at a local health store or pharmacy, or even on Amazon.

This treatment helped me kick my scabies in around two weeks, and after about a month my skin was totally back to normal.

I have a full guide on the exact treatment I used here. It’s 100% free, so if your family is dealing with scabies, please take a moment to check it out. I really believe it will be helpful. You can click here to go there now.

Treat hard and fast!

Remember, if your family is dealing with scabies, make sure you start treating it right now. I’m not talking about tomorrow, I’m talking about right this very minute!

Scabies does not get better on its own, and the longer you leave it, the harder it will be to treat. Each day mites will lay more eggs and do more damage to your skin, so it’s imperative that you begin treatment as soon as possible.

All the information you need to get started is in the article above. Best of luck, and wishing your family back to full health soon.

Jon