Cause: Tiny insects. A mite, Sarcoptes scabiei causes scabies. A louse, Phthirus pubis causes "crabs" (pubic lice).

Incubation Period: Lice: if this is your first infestation by lice, then it can take up to a week before you start feeling the itching. Scabies: if this is your first infestation by scabies, it can take 1 month to start feeling any itching. With either of these insects, they start to feed off of you as soon as they get on you. You might not be able to tell, at first. If you're infected with either of these bugs a second time, then you'll feel the itching after a day.

Transmission: These insects like to live in the pubic areas (around the genitals) and so intimate sexual contact can transmit them. Skin-on-skin contact is not necessary: just lying in bed with someone can spread them, if the insects happen to crawl over to you. They also live on other hairy parts of the body, so having them doesn't necessarily mean you got them through sexual contact.

What to Look For: Itching. Lots of itching. The scabies mite lays eggs in your skin, whereas lice bite into your skin to suck blood. Either way, these insects cause itching and redness. With scabies, you'll see little bumps, maybe some blisters, and crusting wherever the itching occurs. With lice, you can see the insects or their eggs in your hair. And if you look at the skin under the hair, it may be red and scaly.

Treatment: Scabies take only a few days to treat using a lotion (Kwell) applied to the entire body. They do go away with treatment, but some people continue to have itching for even up to a month.

Pubic lice are also completely curable, using a cream or shampoo (Kwell, lindane, permethrin) that is rubbed into the affected pubic hair. It is the same stuff used to treat headlice, so you can pick it up at any pharmacy and treat yourself without seeing your health provider. Most people assume that by shaving all their pubic hair off they do not give the lice a place to live. But unless a Kwell treatment is used as well, you're only fighting half the battle. Better to do both at the same time.

You might also note that treatments such as Kwell should be repeated after five to seven days after the first to kill any eggs that had been safely incubating during the first treatment. Be sure to follow all the directions and make sure you get checked out for any other STDs.

Once you've been treated for either of these, you've got to make sure that you wash all your clothes and sheets in HOT water, and then dry them on very high heat in the dryer. This way, if any of them are still alive on your clothes, they don't hop back on you (or someone else). It would also be a good idea to vacuum your house and dust off the furniture, too.

Contact your health provider as soon as you think you may have gotten an STD; the sooner you are treated, the better your chances of recovery, and it is likely you will get complications. Also, have your partners checked out, and stop having sex until you get better. Otherwise, you and your partners could keep passing the disease back and forth to each other.

Complications: Scratching too much can cause bleeding and secondary infections by bacteria. But their main complication is that they are a social embarrassment! Have a good sense of humor about it. LOTS of people have had lice or scabies!

Is there a non-perscription, over the counter treatment for scabies? Is kwell perscription or over the counter?

try A-200. Deep Purple wrote a song with that title back in the Sixties! All that stuff is over the counter,same embarassment factor as buying
constipation or erectile dysfunction medicine from that pretty girl at the pharmacy checkout.
a.