So, now that the whole household (minus the fish and chinchillas, thank goodness) is itchy and covered in scaly splotches, we are trying everything we can to rid ourselves of this mess. I'd like to share a few things I've discovered:
Firstly, Ringworm is not a worm at all. Surprise! It's actually a fungus (eww) that feeds on your dead skins cells. Also, ringworm itself is not itchy -- the itching is caused by a secondary bacterial infection. Good to know, right? So what do you do about this?
Well, while some people swear by OTC antifungal creams, they didn't do anything for us. On the contrary, I think they made things worse. My bf said that it did help some if you put the cream on and then covered it with a band-aid... but that would take a lot of band-aids...
We scoured the internet for advice, and came upon a few interesting ones we thought we would try. We covered the spots with Tea Tree Oil -- it helped some, but since TTO is EXTREMELY toxic to cats, I didn't want to use this too much. Next, we tried soaking pennies in vinegar and taping them over the spots. This did help (surprised? I was too) but again, that's a lot of band-aids to go through.
I showered with T-gel and then sprayed myself with vinegar... this helped some, but it was more than a tad painful. Burny, very very burny.
Through all this we were sure to be showering daily (remember, the fungus survives off your old, dead skin cells) and washing clothes and towels in HOT water after only one use. Also, washing sheets/blankets and making sure to vacuum regularly is important, as the fungus can last for quite sometime and be passed back to you after you think it's gone.
Eventually we broke down and got a prescription cream from the doctor, which is helping way faster than any home remedy we tried.
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| Back to fore: Stella, Naomi and Gideon at naptime |
