Scabies/crabs

Posted by June Callahan on August 12, 1999 at 09:28:06
Is scabies the same as crabs- that is sexually transmitted?
Could a man get them from sharing a bag of peanuts/popcorn w/ an infected female/male? Or would more physical contact be required?
JC

Posted by Derm M.D. ASR on August 12, 1999 at 11:00:07
June:
Scabies is caused by a mite, which is a different kind of beast from a crab louse.  Crab lice may be transmitted by sexual contact, but you can also get them from sleeping in bedclothes recently used by a lousy person (lice can live off the body for up to 30 days.)
Scabies mites, by contrast, are very fastidious, unable to live off a warm body fro more than an hour.  For that reason, it takes intimate body contact to pass it on.  This contact may be sexual, but not necessarily --  mothers can pass it on to infants, and so on.
It takes several weeks for a mite infestation to cause the kind of maddening, nocturnal itch which drives scabies sufferers crazy.  If you touch a person with scabies and start itching right away, it's likely to be psychological, as th the mere thought of "bugs" makes people start scratching all over.
In other words, sharing popcorn is OK.
Hope this helps.
Dr. R
keywords: scabies, lice, crabs, STD's, Rockoff
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