Norwiegan scabes?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am being kept away from work today while I am being treated with Elimite for being exposed to a patient with Norwegian scabes. I have never before seen anything like them and never even new such creatures existed. Will one dose of this medicine get rid of them and I don't know if I need to take further precautions for my family. Has anyone out there ever had this pleasure before?

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Norwegian? They can stand the cold better than western scabies?

*sorry*

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Norwegian? They can stand the cold better than western scabies?

Ok, that was funny.

Sorry for your misfortune. Had to deal with head lice last year with my daughter, how pleasant was that!

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This stuff is wicked. I think they could survive a nuclear holocaust, they are heartier than cockroaches. The patient came in with skin that looked as custed and color of a rhino(she was admitted to icu post-op perforated ulcer and did I mention she weighed 400 pounds). Her skin was cracked and bleeding and her hands and feet were so encrusted that they looked like they were about to explode. The family said she had been to dematologist that had biopsied this but could not find out what it was. The whole family had been treated for scabes in the past but no one thought to treat the patient (the source in this case).

Needless to say she was in ICU 2 days when the staff was becoming infested, outbreaks of an unknown rash were reported in the ER (where she came in) and from the lab techs. Finally our Infectous Disease doc was consulted and at first glance told us what it was. Now the hospital is on internal disaster, all the ICU staff is being treated and can not come back to work until 7 days, all the ICU patients had to be treated and moved out leaving the source patient the only one in the unit. All of our families have now been exposed and hard to tell how many more people will need treated. The health department is involved. Is there really any way to stop this stuff is my biggest concern, the patient was majorly infested and I can't imagine how we are going to get her rid of them. Has anyone else even heard of them?

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Never heard of them but now that it's identified treatment can be attempted.

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I googled it looked at a few articles. Highly contagious if you come into contact with the patient or any of their linens or clothing.

Long live DDT!!

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, Emergency, SAFE.
I googled it looked at a few articles. Highly contagious if you come into contact with the patient or any of their linens or clothing.

Long live DDT!!

This confuses me b/c I thought so too. My son got scabies a while back (guessing it was from school) and had it for like 3 months before we got the correct dx (Family doc said it was just dry skin). Afterwards though, he only wanted to prescribe my son the elimite and not the rest of us! I was confused and wasnt sure why he wanted to do that....I fought him on it though, and he finally agreed to give us all the script for it. I also cleaned, washed and scrubbed like never before!! :monkeydance:

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Specializes in Trauma/ED.

Amazing how common these are in the third world countries seems like we could count the people without scabies easier than the ones with them. Try treating it without being able to wash your linen with hot water...ugh!

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Specializes in Surgical Services.

We have had an outbreak in my LTC center. It is only considered Norwiegen in the immunocompromised whereas when a healthy adult becomes infected they would not progress to such a horrible stage (that being considered Norwiegan). The Elimite will treat those exposed but her family and house need to be given a good once over with treatment and cleaning (Everything laundered and the stuff that cant be laundered needs to be sealed in air tight bags to kill the scabies). PM if you want to or just google it.

I can't imagine...I said that if I had the creepy crawlers then someone was going to have to put me in a padded room.

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When I adopted my twins, one of them came to me from a foster home (other was still hospitalized) and she brought with her a case of scabies. It took many sleepless nights because of their twitching and itching before the pediatrician figured out what it was. He left the room, and came back it what looked like full armour. He said it was EXTREMELY contagious and no one in his hospital had seen it before!!! We had to treat both of my scabie babies (term of endearment) along with EVERYONE who handled them (nurse, friends, siblings, grama, greatgrama, etc) and I even had to notify my massuse and chiropractor. The Elimite worked great it was just a pain and really embarassing to explain to everyone. Don't forget ALL of your linens, towels, any and everything that comes in contact with your body. I am glad I can offer some input but it brings back sad memories. Poor babies were twitching in their cribs for weeks...sniff...:o

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It has been 24 hoursd since I applied the ELimite and now I am noticinig a rash on my forearm, I thought 12 hours after the medication was applied that the mites were killed? I am loosing my mind, I am so afraid that my grandbaby that lives with me will come down with this stuff.

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Your skin will probably itch for a few days after the mites are killed.

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