There are many things in this word that can make us itch and scabies is probably the last thing people want to admit as the cause.
That was so true for me. When I got my first few itchy bumps, I thought hmmm, must be a masquito. The problem with that theory was that it was Winter. Next I thought it was eczema and although it itched in the shower like eczema, it was somehow different in appearance and itch.
Scabies still hadn’t crossed my mind as I had a history of eczema in the winter but it had cleared up years ago after I started taking fish oil capsules daily. Next, I thought maybe my laundry powder was causing an allergic reaction so I switched to the sensitive skin variety. This didn’t help and the itching just started to get worse and spread.
Still not considering that it was scabies, I searched for other answers because I’m a very clean person and there was no way I could have contracted the scabies mite, right? I next thought it was an allergic reaction to caffeine as a read about it’s similar symptoms. I gave up caffeine, but again no change in the symptoms and they were only getting worse.
At this point I was considering going to the doctor, but the typical male that I am, didn’t want to go, so I put it off. I had a trip to the tropics planned so I thought that a week there in the sun and salt water would certainly clear everything up. At this stage I was considering that I might have scabies but wasn’t ready to admit it yet. The itch and rash did get slightly better after all that prolonged swimming and surfing, but it was nowhere near going away and I still had a lot of restless nights on the trip because of the itching.
Read about the next part of my scabies ordeal in the next post.
