Lice and scabies are different types of mites that attack humans in different ways, causing itching. Treatment for lice is a medicated shampoo, while scabies requires a cream and can take longer to get rid of. Both are highly contagious, with scabies being more easily spread through furniture and bedding.
Lice and scabies are very different members of the mite family. One of the more obvious differences is that lice are much larger than scabies, which are essentially invisible to the naked eye. Lice and scabies also have different ways of attacking people, with lice drinking blood and scabies digging deep into human flesh to spread by laying eggs. Both also have some similarities as they are easily transferable and sometimes difficult to get rid of.
Different types of lice are adapted to living in different parts of a person’s body. One type lives in the hair of a person’s head, while another tends to live around the genital region and another on the torso. Scabies is generally more uniform in this regard, but it may dig into the skin all over the body, especially around the groin, stomach and hands.
Both lice and scabies tend to cause terrible itching in the areas where they attack, but itching occurs for different reasons. When lice bite people to drink their blood, they cause itchy skin. For scabies, the itching actually comes from the human immune system reacting negatively to the presence of a scabies mite inside the body.
Lice and scabies are also treated in very different ways. For head lice, treatment is usually a simple matter of getting the patient to use a medicated shampoo, and this may need to be done two or three times. With scabies, treatment requires applying a cream to the body, and it can take much longer to get rid of it. There is also a much greater chance of a new scabies infestation and people often have to throw away many of their belongings due to fear of a scabies contamination.
Both lice and scabies are extremely contagious, with scabies being slightly more contagious than lice. People with lice actually have to touch themselves to spread the parasites, but scabies most commonly sticks to people’s furniture and bedding. So, for example, when someone sits on the couch of a person who has been infected with scabies, he or she also has a good chance of becoming infected, and doctors are often extremely concerned that a single case of scabies could turn into a huge outbreak. .
Lice can sometimes linger a bit after they’ve been treated because their eggs are quite resistant against medicated shampoos, but scabies is a slightly different story. They leave body parts inside the person’s flesh and it can take some time for them to be expelled. This can cause the person to have symptoms for several weeks, or even longer in some cases.
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