Alright, I’m telling my scabies story. I held off because the very day I found out the diagnosis was when the pie thing started up, and nobody wants to read about pies baked by a leper.
Here’s the deal: I’ve had an itchy, bumpy elbow for a couple of months. It wasn’t a big deal, but every so often it would bother me. I was pretty sure that it was just eczema, but I needed a doctor to tell me if my trying to sand off my elbow in the shower was the right/wrong thing to do. (I went to a dermatologist, to make sure I wasn’t jepordizing my chances to be an elbow model.)
My appointment was on Good Friday, and Lloyd and I joked ahead of time how I would go in and say, “Give it to me straight, Doc. I can take it – it’s elbow cancer, isn’t it?” Mind you, I was super-sure it was eczema. The doctor and I visited about life for a bit, then he looked at my elbow and said, “That looks like a classic case of scabies.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A parasitic mite that burrows under your skin and blah blah blah.” I didn’t hear a word after ‘skin’ because I was about to pass out. When I regained my senses he was prescribing a poison lotion and telling me, “Be sure to wash your bedding.” “Wash it? I’m gonna burn it.” I replied.
So anyway, I’ve spent the past week dousing my body with poison, washing everything I own more than he recommended, and feeling like a pariah. The only way it could be worse is if I had head lice. If I ever, ever get lice, I’ll have to shave my head.
Nothing like the jibblies to wake you up in the morning. That shot of adrenaline will help me get ready for my first day of school after spring break. Thanks!
How on earth do you get scabies?!? I thought that had gone the way of small pox and only samples existed at the CDC! Oh, wait, that explains it…
Are you going to get the cats checked out?
I missed it earlier, but I see you suggested your universal solution in regard to your bedding: To light it on fire. hehe
And now you can worry about your cats too! Ha! Will you be lighting them on fire?
I’m glad you asked, since I’ve recently become an expert on scabies. There are different kinds, and it is a surprisingly common problem. It can be spread by skin-to-skin contact, and is common in hospitals and child-care facilities. (Ding ding ding) Mind you, I am the first known case in the thirteen years I’ve been doing this. (So one of my children is an as-yet unknown. Hey, you have to hold them when they cry.)
The cats are safe, since different kinds of mites affect people and animals. Lloyd is safe, too.
Hey, you can’t reply when I’m carefully crafting a thoughtful answer!
Hehehe I read that as “You have to hold them until they cry.”
Wow, I had heard of scabies before but I thought it was some silly that my husband made up (he does that sometimes)! I wouldn’t have really thought anything about having your before picture, but man, now I’m going to look at every itchy spot differently!
This is the very kind of post that makes me feel itchy and scratchy all over. Excuse me, please, but I need to go check my head for lice now.
Okay, so you’ve been putting a poison lotion on your elbow. Does that mean you now have scabie carcasses under your skin?
Do you remember where you were when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, when Kennedy was shot, when the Challenger exploded, when the Berlin Wall came down and when Lauren was diagnosed with scabies???? I was shopping at Mall of America in Bloomingdales, and if you know me and “germs” it was all I could do to try on clothes someone else may have before me..ooooooooo, scabies!
So why is Lloyd safe? Is he a different kind of animal?
Ad added bonus of drafting Albert Pujols is immunity to all parasites.
You can safely and effectively kill lice with salt water or a sauna -- learn how to kill lice without killing yourself or the earth……
The head louse (Pediculus humanus capitas) (DeGeer), the body louse (Pediculus humanus humanus) (Linnaeus) and the crab louse (Pthirus pubis) (Linnaeus) all occur on humans. All three cause considerable skin irritation as they feed on human blood or crawl on the body.
Human lice can establish and maintain themselves only on humans. A louse cannot hop or jump. They can, however, crawl fast. They are usually transmitted only through close personal contact. They are less frequently transmitted through the sharing of personal articles or toilet seats. For head lice, this includes combs, brushes and other grooming aids, hats, headbands, helmets, caps, headrests, wigs, curlers or other headgear, especially when these items are stored in shared lockers. They spread or infest by crawling, they live by biting and sucking blood from the scalp and can survive for up to 48 hours off a human head, and the nits on a hair shaft can survive from 4 -- 10 days -- so vacuum thoroughly and/or spray/clean with diluted Safe Solutions, Inc. Enzyme Cleaner with Peppermint.
Important Note: Pediculicide POISONS do not remove nits and are dangerous. Among the reactions to poison shampoo or lice “treatments” are seizures, mental retardation, many different allergies and respiratory problems, strange tingling, burning, itching, attention deficit disorders, brain tumors, leukemia, cancer and death.
I have used a sauna and/or salt water to safely and effectiely kill lice (but the nits remain).
I have also used ½ oz. of Safe Solutions, Inc. Lice R Gone® Enzyme Shampoo and/or their Enzyme Cleaner with Peppermint per shampoo-type application to safely remove both lice and nits in a few minutes. These non-poisonous enzyme shampoos make the hair so slick lice and nits can’t stick and lice can not live off the body for very long.
If you are still having lice problems, read the latest chapter http://www.thebestcontrol2.com.
Don’t do this, Lauren. I want to see you with a shaved head. 😉
Let me make it very clear that I do NOT have lice. Repeat: Do NOT have lice.
Only one bug infestation at a time. Right, Lauren?
I’ve had scabies. I slept in a lovely, cheap hotel in a little town in Colombia that apparently wasn’t really careful about their sheets. Or their guests. It took months to get rid of.
Ahhhh!!!! Don’t say months!!!! I’m paranoid enough as it is!!!
I wonder if old, old remedies, like turpentine or kerosene, killed scabies. Probably cheaper than Rx poisons.
Plus it has the added bonus of perhaps catching me on fire! I do love fire, y’know.
Ah, roasted scabies?
Sounds delicious.
I feel the need to wash our sheets (not a pyro, like Lauren) and perhaps vacuum our mattresses, too. Can’t… stop… the… scratching….
That’s how it starts……
Just kidding. Mites can’t live in Foster.
The number of mites probably outnumbers the people population (Foster -- 57).
Lauren, what you need to do to get rid of your three types of lices (louses) is get your head real close to a hardwood floor and beat on one side of your head to dislodge your head lice (Lauren’s Head Lice- LHL). Go ahead and post any picture of Lloyd you want and we’ll know were those blood sucking varmin live- heck with his usually hair pile he can’t tell he gots them LHLs anyway. By the way, the LHLs reproduce by Ma………
Dang, almost forgot you have to squeal like a pig too.
You can also get rid of hiccups this way
The above comment should have the word “high” after usually. Lloyd, is there anyway you can give me access to my comments to edit them- my typing stinks.
Five comments in a row! On Thurday last week I bowled 5 strikes in a row. Ended with a 177 on 9 frames (1hr time limit). Enough about me- We were talking about Lauren’s Head Lice LHL.
Can it, mister, or I’m mailing you some scabies.
Are you sure that’s tennis elbow? It looks like standard bar fight elbow with maybe a dash of arm wrestling fungus mixed it for good measure.
See Lloyd, “…fungus mixed it for good measure.” What the heck? ‘it’ should be ‘in’ Stupid fat fingers! Ubber geek can’t you make so I can talk to this ‘tupid thing. On second thought, I don’t talk or think that well either, or is it either.
I think it’s that you’re so wicked clever, your hands can’t keep up with your brain. Let’s go with that.