Sarcoptes scabiei… ( 2 фото )

Four pairs of limbs, on an eyeless sphere
Tortoise-like, yet striking fear
Its shell-less surface is littered with spines,
Smaller than small, an old nemesis of mine
Limbs that bristle, limbs that grip
Ensnaring deep, inside your skin...
Mite burrows
Mite blisters
Mite festers
An insatiable itch,
Ever increasing in pitch Unsettling the soul,
Unnerving your world
Nights thrown asunder,
By that stealthy plunderer
Of sleep now broken,
And peace long forgotten.
The great pretender Confuses and confounds.
Many an experienced clinician,
Even the best stand united
In their shared mortification.
Mite burrows
Mite blisters
Mite festers.
Yet if you want want a simple test,
through a shining lens-Jet-planer,
hang-glider rests,
A broken arrow clings
To the edge of its home
In the stratum corneum.
But where all other tests may fail
Histopathology, can still prevail
A chitinous exoskeleton may be seen
Solid pink fragments, with an eosinophilic sheen
Egg-shell remnants as pink pigtails (Figure 2),
Lymphocytes and eosinophils infiltrate.
Mite burrows Mite blisters
Mite festers
Half a millimetre long and even less as wide
Yet a worthy foe, Sarcoptes scabiei…


*** Happy easter Dermatologists!!***