How to Beat Stubborn, Resistant Scabies with the Indian Neem Tree

By "Relieved"

What a relief, I am a normal person again!  No one who has not had scabies can imagine what a terrible parasite it is.  24/7 discomfort, embarrassment, shame, with occasional periods of itching that can drive you mad and literally make you want to set your skin on fire just to kill the little monsters.  There is a cure that works so do not despair.  I am familiar with some people living with it for years and struggling with deep depression.

It started with an itchy splotch about an inch long on my stomach, then spreading around in my waist and up, with little bites and more lesions. Anyone who has it knows it's the most horrific affliction imaginable, with itching and creepy crawly sensations all over your body. Around a certain time of day it would feel like something tiny doing a back flip under your skin, then it starts up.

But first, here’s what I tried that didn’t work.  All this may sound familiar since the Internet is full of both home and prescription cures.  It is fairly well-known that the tiny insects - which are in the arachnid family, the same as spiders - are good at building resistances and tolerances to drugs and herbs which used to work in the past.

 – Putting cayenne pepper and turmeric paste straight on the afflicted area.  

– Strong bleach solution

– Nicotine patches in affected area, I read nicotine kills parasites, and a tobacco spray solution is what chicken farmers used to use to kill mites.

– Sulfur powder mixed in vaseline

– The popular sulfur cream with the yellow label

– Hydrogen peroxide in a cotton ball or tissue taped over the big spot, and rubbed around

– Oregano oil, maybe 5-10 drops in any kind of lotion like Jergens, spread all over torso. Burns!

- Also tried sweating in a sauna then putting sulfur cream on the affected area, on the theory that the pores of the skin would be more open and the cream would go in deeper.

To make a long story short, none of this worked.  These things are incredibly hardy  I spent hundreds of dollars on everything under the sun, sprinkled diatomaceous earths in my room and bed, which is supposed to kill them, put my blankets and sheets in a trashbag and then put them outside on freezing cold days to kill them.  Left the windows of my apartment open all day in winter to freeze them out.  

You may start to think you are going to go crazy. These things can impact your mental health. And then knowing you are a pariah, afraid to touch anyone or anything for fear of spreading it makes it worse.

I also experimented with making a balm with 1/3 veterinary pine tar and 2/3 beeswax, mixed in a few drops of oregano oil and some powdered sulfur. They sell pine tar balm but it is very expensive for a little 3 oz. jar, not enough to spread on any substantial portion of your body. This worked on the affected area, but I could still feel flits and flutters, so I knew it was just a matter of time before they found some other place on my body to live.  Then I got bites on my arms and sides.

Oh dear Lord. Yes I prayed. You find prayer during this ordeal. You are always exhausted because the itching keeps you from sleeping at nights. These things are from hell. During the worst of the maddening itching, I found relief by aiming the hot point of a hair dryer at my skin and moving it around in small circles, just short of burning. That gave blessed relief for awhile, but either they weren’t dead or new ones hatched or moved in.

They don't go away by themselves.  You have to do something, so the sooner you take it seriously the better.

Sound bad yet?  But if you have them, or have had them, you know exactly what I am talking about.  As for the common prescription medications, it becomes pretty clear that the bugs have become resistant to many of them, and the ones that might work are powerful neurotoxins that can make you start shaking like you have Parkinson's disease.  Some of these cures mentioned above may work for you.  But it is my belief that some scabies have built more resistance than others.  This is for those people for whom nothing has seemed to work.

Ok now the good news.  Here is what finally worked. After hundreds of hours of Internet research, reading countless personal accounts and recommendations, I read that you have to attack the life cycle.  One thing that does this is a plant called neem, a tree native to India where it is used as a traditional cure.  The neem tree is considered sacred in Indian lore.  All parts of the tree are used.  What you will be using is basically the oil from the nut.  Neem oil is well known to organic gardeners as a potent natural insecticide.

This is the brand that worked for me, so that's all I can report on, although there are other brands.  It's called Dyna-Gro Pure Neem Oil Natural Leaf Polish.  The neem oil doesn’t kill them outright, but as I understand it, there is something in the neem that prevents the scabie bugs from reproducing. You can keep killing them and killing them with various remedies, but you will never get all of them,and they will just reproduce.  At the same time you are killing them, you have to prevent them from reproducing.

I bought the 8 ounce bottle of Dyna Gro online for about eleven bucks.  I put a two caps full of the oil in a hot bath, then swish in any kind of soap as a dispersant.  A little goes a long way, so don't put in too much.  Immerse yourself, including putting your head and hair back in the water, so your entire body is coated at bedtime. I tried to stay in the tub for at last 30 minutes or more, to give the oil time to sink into your pores.  I did this nearly every night for about six weeks.  Your skin should feel a oily from top to bottom when you go to bed.  Your hair will definitely feel oily.  It is a hassle, but the bottom line is it worked.

You’ll also find comments on the web saying the enzyme cleaner Kleen Free works to kill scabies, by causing them to lose their exoskeleton prematurely in the molting process. So I tried that too, and started alternating nights of doing the neem bath, with nights of a Kleen Free bath.  My recipe is 2 cups of Kleen Free for a full tub of water (remember the stuff at this link is a concentrate, so I mean 2 cups of the diluted solution per the instructions.)  Again, try to stay in at least 30 minutes.

By jove, on those nights I could sleep, no itching.  But I knew without the neem to interfere with reproduction, they’d be back, and I'd never be rid of them entirely.  

I'm not saying that the Dyna-Gro neem oil and the Kleen-Free enzyme cleaner are the only brands that will work.  I don't know.  I'm just saying these are the ones I used and they worked.  I always buy the smallest of something if I'm just trying to see if it works.

Bottom line: it is hard to eradicate scabies because they can be anywhere, then they mate and it starts all over. The achilles heel is THEY CAN ONLY LAY EGGS IN YOUR SKIN AND THAT IS THE ONLY PLACE THEY CAN HATCH. So once they are all “sterilized” or prevented from reproducing, if no new ones are being hatched, your “colony” will eventually all die off.

I also started boiling fresh neem leaves (can be bought online) for about 20 minutes and then drinking the tea, a few gulps, every morning. I did try the neem powder you can buy at natural food stores, both as tea and in creams and baths.  But only the Dyna-Gro oil in a bath seemed to finally work, and make it all go away for good. You can tell it is potent because it is stinky, not in an entirely unpleasant way. That’s what you want, that’s a good sign. It means all the chemicals are in there. Alternate Kleen Free and Dyna-Gro baths, rubbing gently with a loofah, and start drinking just a little fresh neem leaf tea a day, or chewing a few fresh leaves if you don’t have time. This should be done on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. You’ll start feeling freer right away.

REMEMBER ALWAYS DO A PATCH TEST WITH ANY NEW CHEMICAL. Put a bit the neem oil and the Kleen Free on your arm for a few hours hours just to make sure you don’t have an allergy before jumping into a bathtub with it.

As for your environment, you can drive yourself crazy washing clothes blankets and pillows all the time. Here’s a neat shortcut. Scabies can't "drink" water.  They have to absorb moisture in the air through their exoskeleton. Get a dehumidifier strong enough to bring your whole house to 30% or less humidity, so it is really, really dry.  If it’s super-dry, they dehydrate and die.

Dehydrate your house and any of them hiding under the bed, wherever, die.

Finally, the end goal is to get your own immune system back, which is why some people get scabies and others don't: weakened immune systems. That is beyond the scope of this post, but if you want the skinny as I see it (and my psoriasis of 30 years has finally gone away): – cut out as many of these as you can: sugar, refined flour, coffee, smoking, alcohol. I was not about to start drinking fruit juice in bars, but I did switch from wine to light beer after studying the sugar content. I still drink coffee but it's a lot less.  I love coffee. But I don’t need so much if it means my immune system is going to be stronger.   Sugar is a real killer.  50-70% of your food should be raw or lightly cooked veggies, deep greens, and fruits. 20% sprouted grains and legumes, then just a little meat and dairy if you don't want to go vegetarian. The rest, whatever you want but not much of it.  Eat an organic lemon a day and a quarter cup of organic apple cider vinegar, in the morning or on an empty stomach.  You will be amazed at how your skin clears up and how much energy you have.  Start drinking only distilled water, and lots of it. I drink nearly a gallon a day.

God bless. Let me know how it goes. I know what it’s like to sit, itch-free and with clear skin again, like other people. Go at yourself with a skin scraper and/or loufah afterwards at bath/shower time, because debris will be coming up for a while.  Then thank God for the good things He has put on this Earth for us to heal ourselves, and care for Mother Earth.