Got a scary rash? It could be scabies

  Ben Lee Handler Handler is a fifth-year
student of English and bootycology. E-mail him at [email protected].

The rash covering your groin appeared two days ago, and it shows
no signs of clearing up any time soon. In fact, you think
it’s spreading. It itches, it burns even, and the more you
scratch, the more inflamed, irritated and painful the rash
becomes.

It looks bad. It looks very bad.

Your abdomen, inner thighs and genitals are covered with thin,
pencil-mark-like lines and red bumps, surrounded by skin swollen
and pink from pinching and digging.

I am dying, I must be dying, you repeat as you drive to the
doctor’s office.

You search for any sign of how you could have been infected with
this illness, this sickness that will surely be the end of you. You
remember a string of out-of-the-ordinary events that occurred a few
days ago:

You spent the night at your aunt’s house in Riverside in a
spare bed pulled out from underneath your cousin’s. The
sheets looked and felt dirty and unwashed, but you were tired so
you slept on them anyway. Your legs were so stiff in the morning
from the inadequate bedding that you forced your cousin to massage
them.

Later, your relatives took you out to eat at a fancy restaurant.
You had sex with the waiter in the rest room, and don’t
remember seeing him wash his hands before he served your meal.

On the drive back to your apartment in Los Angeles, you pulled
over to the side of the road for a much-needed urination break. A
passing car honked at you mid-stream, making you stumble into a
telephone pole. Your penis brushed against the post and you got a
splinter.

Finally, after the examination, the doctor says you have
scabies.

Scabies! What in the hell are scabies? Why me? Why now? But your
doctor explains:

Scabies is a contagious skin disease caused by a nearly
microscopic mite: Sarcoptes scabiei, which has been infesting
humans for at least 2,500 years.

The scabies mites, attracted to the warmth and odor, dig into
human skin to store their eggs. The holes resulting from their
burrowing typically form tiny gray lines (which resemble pencil
marks) all over the infected area of the patient’s body.
Usually an itchy rash forms as an allergic response to the
parasite. It becomes inflamed and swollen when agitated by constant
scratching.

You are not going to die.

Scabies is not a serious disease, regardless of how disgustingly
it may manifest itself on your body, and it does not reflect your
personal hygiene. Every one of the more than 300 million people
infected with the disease can continue to be (or not to be)
productive members of society.

They can still run marathons, run for Congress (or even the
presidency), aid in the care of blind children and wait your table
at a fancy restaurant, even if they carry on without visiting a
doctor.

Despite the fact that people can cope with the nagging pain and
extreme discomfort scabies inflicts, it’s still recommended
that carriers be formally diagnosed and treated for the disease due
to its highly contagious nature

And treatment is easy. It consists of a few doctor-prescribed
lotions and shampoos containing active ingredients like lindane,
benzyl bezoate, or permethrin applied usually no more than once to
kill off the infestation. But don’t expect immediate results.
Even after an infestation is eliminated, itching will likely
persist for another two weeks.

How highly contagious is highly contagious?

Let’s say you sleep on a bed with infected sheets, have
your legs massaged by someone with infected hands, have sex with an
afflicted waiter in the rest room of a fancy restaurant or are
stabbed by a splinter hanging from a telephone pole … Any of
these happenings (though probably not the splinter incident) could
have allowed scabies to colonize your crotch area.

You don’t need to have sex with a scabies sufferer in
order to contract it. In fact, in most reported cases, scabies is
not contracted sexually. Direct contact with any infected person
(or clothing or bedding ““ the mite will survive without a
human host for about 24 hours) can allow the bug to make you its
home, so anyone who lives in the same household as a carrier should
undergo the same lotion and shampoo regimen as the polluted
housemate in order to prevent an outbreak.

You breathe easier now; you are relieved. You vow to educate
others on the dangers of casual touching, clothes-swapping and
bed-sharing.

You, to avoid a small, nearly microscopic mite, promise the
world that you will become a cleaner, healthier and altogether
better person.

And the world thanks you.