If you suspect that you are infected with scabies mites then it’s important to understand what they are, how they live, and how they reproduce.
I could get very scientific here, but I’ll keep things as simple as posible.
Although these mites are very small they have some complex parts that allow them to live in the skin.
Scabies Mite Structure
Mites are related to spiders and contain 8 legs. Some mites are microscopic so they can’t be seen with the naked eye. This includes dust mites as well as scabies mites.
Unlike dust mites, scabies mites have borrowing legs that allow them to essentially make tunnels throughout the first two layers of a persons skin.
How Do They Feed?
The scabies mite borrows into the skin to feed on blood unlike dust mites which feed on dead skin cells on the skin’s surface.
Blood is essential for all stages of their life cycle. Without this blood supply they soon die.
How Do They Reproduce?
Once the male scabies mite has fertilized the female, she begins making her egg laying burrow. In this S shaped burrow, she will lay 2 to 3 eggs a day.
The 4 parts of the scabies life cycle:
The eggs hatch into worm-like larve. The larve make a new borrows and feed on blood until they grow enough to reach the nymph stage.
The nymphs continue to feed until they molt and reach sexual maturity as an adult. This whole process takes 17 days for female mites and about 10 days for Male scabies mites.
How Long Do Scabies Mites Live?
A female scabies mite can live up to 2 months, so if she lays 3 eggs a day, that’s 180 eggs in her lifetime. This is why scabies spreads rapidly if not treated.
What Kills them?
Because they are related to spiders and more generally arthropods, which includes insects, they are susceptible to the ways we kill spiders and insects.
However, because they are in the human body special types of insecticides are used. These pose the least amount of risk to humans.
There are natural remedies that can kill spiders and insects with the same being true for scabies mites, nymphs, larve, and eggs living within your skin. These can be used along with the conventional treatments or on their own.
Click here to learn more about Natural Scabies Treatments.
Source: University of Florida
