Treatment of scabies
Scabies will not clear without treatment. Your child's health-care provider will prescribe a cream or lotion that will kill the scabies mites. The cream will likely contain 5% permethrin. In general, your child's health-care provider will advise you to treat the scabies with one application of cream to your child's body for about eight hours with a second application one week later. Apply the cream all over your child's body, with particular attention to the spaces between fingers, wrists, armpits and near the genitals. Do not put the cream inside your child's mouth, nose, eyes or genitals.
Your child's health-care provider may also recommend a non-drowsy over-the-counter antihistamine or anti-itch cream to help ease your child's skin irritation. The irritation can go on for several weeks even after effective treatment. A persisting itch after treatment does not mean a child has been reinfected.
Your child can go back to day care or school once the first application is complete.
Since people can be infected for several weeks without showing signs or symptoms, everyone in the household must also be treated even if they don’t have a rash or an itch.
Since mites can live on bedding and clothes for up to 24 hours, it is important to wash clothes, towels and linen in hot water and to dry them in a dryer on a hot setting. Items that cannot be washed can be placed in a sealed plastic bag for 7 days.
