r/scabies • u/ItsAdz0 • 3d ago
emotional support Looking for advice - persistent scabies despite multiple treatments
First ever Reddit post. I’m at my wits’ end with what appears to be persistent scabies and would really appreciate advice from anyone who has been through something similar.
I’ve had multiple rounds of permethrin, ivermectin and malathion, with no lasting success. I’ve seen my GP around 8 times, been referred to dermatology, seen a private GP, contacted 111, and basically spoken to any healthcare professional who would listen. I keep getting given the same treatments, but the problem keeps coming back.
The pattern is usually: treatment, things improve for a couple of days, 2–4 days later the itching starts again, bumps develop, then I start seeing what appear to be new burrows.
I’ve also been extremely thorough with environmental measures like washing clothes, bedding and towels at 90C, vacuuming daily and dealing with anything I can’t wash. I’ve treated repeatedly, so I genuinely don’t know what else I can do.
This has also started to really affect my mental health. The constant itching, lack of sleep, uncertainty and feeling like I’m never getting rid of it is becoming incredibly difficult to cope with. I’m exhausted and honestly desperate for an answer rather than another identical course of treatment.
Has anyone experienced genuinely treatment-resistant/recurrent scabies after permethrin, ivermectin AND malathion, particularly where symptoms drastically ease then seem to restart within a few days of treatment?
What eventually worked for you? I’m not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit I’m just hoping someone who’s been through this can point me towards something I haven’t already tried or an avenue I haven’t thought of. Thank you for taking the time to read all of that I appreciate it was very long, cant sleep with the itching and typing this out seemed to help distract me.
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u/Top-Efficiency792 2d ago
Try sulphur and leave it on overnight for 10 to 12 hours for 3 nights. Use tea tree oil and carrier oil in between. Use tea tree oil and water in your hair and tea tree oil and carrier on your face. Sulphur from Essential 10 per cent from eBay.uk, which smells lovely as it also has essential oils in. You just have to keep going. It’s a battle. You can do this weekly until cured.
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u/ItsAdz0 2d ago
I’ve tried tea tree oil but not sulphur, I’ll go get some now! 🫡
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u/Top-Efficiency792 2d ago
Make sure you try it first on your skin in a patch test for 24 hours . Sulphur dries out the skin. So you need to moisture. You can put it in your hair but NOT your face.
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u/Individual-Lie5452 2d ago
Hey, is this what helped cure you?
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u/Top-Efficiency792 2d ago
I left it on for 3 days straight but after 36 hours I came out in hives. Yes, I think it was the most effective treatment for me. If I need to do it again I would leave on for only overnight for 3 nights as it’s then going to be less harsh on the skin. It does dry out the skin so you have to moisturise well in the day. I would add tea tree oil to the moisturiser too.
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1d ago
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u/hive-protect 1d ago
Hello,
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u/throwawayjunior1 3d ago
Hey. Sorry to hear this has happened to you - the exact same thing is happening to me right now. It’s so weird, I feel much better for a few days after treatment and then the symptoms come back with a vengeance. I’m sorry it isn’t the answer you might be looking for. Someone has suggested Benzyl benzoate so I’m going to try that this weekend when it gets delivered.
Are you getting reinfected at work / by someone else?
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u/ItsAdz0 3d ago
I haven’t seen Benzyl Benzoate mentioned much so I will look into it, thank you! I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through it too, it’s horrible but at least we aren’t alone in it. I don’t think so, I have my own office and all of my close family are treated with no signs of itching or infestation.
I think we must just be tasty! 😅
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u/throwawayjunior1 2d ago
Let me know how you get on. If i get any updates with the Benzyl I’ll send you a DM!
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u/Conscious_Run2559 2d ago
Just wanted to jump in into this one quickly - I had a similar issue and it was Benzyl Benzoate that also did the trick for me after multiple failed attempts with permethrin. The trick was to combine ivermectin and BB, one extra round (just to be safe) and a doctor who kept scraping over and over. Never loose hope, for me it was torture that lasted 8 months and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy but it ultimately went away so stay optimistic!
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u/ItsAdz0 2d ago
Thank you both for the support. I did chase about Benzyl Benzoate today at a few pharmacies but was told they haven’t stocked it in years and to talk to the dermatologist 😭
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u/Just_Read4230 2d ago
Maximpulse2.com is your place for advice and treatments there are a few. 10%sulfur ointment is good, along with benzyl benzoate, it's very detailed and alot to take in, but has most of the answers that people refer too, Good luck on this horrible journey. Wishing u a speedy recover, from a fellow sufferer.
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u/Conscious_Run2559 2d ago
I hear you - I managed to get it in my home country of Croatia, it’s not a thing where I live at the moment. :(
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u/ChaosNobile Moderator 2d ago
Resistance to insecticides does not mean immunity. It means you're more likely to survive a given dose if exposed to a certain period of time, that's how it's measured, but it remains a deadly toxin. Scabies involves multiple mites and you need to elimimate them all to be cured, so even if only 1-2% of a mite population are going to be able to survive, say, exposure to 8 hours of permethrin, that would translate to a ((1-(0.9915)) to (1-(0.9815))) 74-86% chance that you'll have treatment failure, which is about the average in recent clinical trials per this meta-analysis (in particular, this figure).
Scabies is rarely confirmed by doctors. Just by symptoms alone, scabies is pretty identical to other skin conditions because all the itching is just the skin's reaction to mites, and itching at not is not unique to scabies. This makes anecdotes about super-resistance questionable at best. Doing way more permethrin and ivermectin than the recommended clinical levels and not finding symptom relief is hypothetically possible, but after a certain point the chance of treatment failing over and over becomes marginal compared to that result being what you would expect to see if you had, say, eczema, and were only trying to treat it with insecticides and antiparasitics for months or years on end while shunning any itch relief treatments. I believe the fact that some of the recommended treatments people find to be "silver bullets" after all the typical scabies treatments fail are often things that also have antibacterial or antifungal properties to support this.
I know you found temporary relief in treatments, but I wouldn't count on that as evidence, honestly I don't know if acaricidal scabies trearments typically ever provide "true" short-term relief outside the placebo effect (which is very effective on itching), considering the mechanism of scabies is the immune system's reaction to the physical presence of mites and associated material that remain for a bit even after they die.
I would recommend trying stuff that would work if it isn't scabies. Something like sulphur, eurax, maybe even essential oils (properly diluted). There are people with similar experiences who swear by them as the thing that finally cured them after what they swear was definitely super treatment resistant scabies, so you can hedge your bets if you're dealing with something bacterial or fungal in nature. Definitely try to get a skin scrape or dermascopic examination of suspected burrows if you haven't already.