My Battle with Scabies Mite

This short 1 week holiday break has been utilised to its fullest.

My company had a teacher's day retreat to Batam. Which was what I really need. It was a 2 day trip but it was worth it. I did a full body massage for 2 consecutive days at the hotel. 

I wasn't sure if IT WAS the cause of something nasty or perhaps it has been earlier. 

You see, I was viciously attacked by a group of scabies mites. The doctor reckoned it was from dirty mattress sheets. Most common in hotels or massage parlours. 

But my husband travelled weeks before and stayed in a hotel as well. It can spread easily by close body contact (10-15 minutes of contiuous touch), sexual intercourse, usage of same mattress, towels etc from the person who has scabies mites. 

It is extremely itchy and painful. Perhaps my skin is acting up worse towards its allergic reaction to the mites. They feed on human skin scales. They actually breed by creating a burrow in MY SKIN and their eggs hatch into larvae every 3-4 days.

Most of the symptoms of scabies are due to your immune system's response to the mites, or to their saliva, their eggs or their poo (faeces). In other words, the rash and the itching are mostly caused by your body's allergic-like reaction to the mites, rather than the mites themselves.

The doctor prescribed malathion lotion. I used it for 3 days. And stopped when the ithcing stopped. Then about 4 days later it appeared again. And I used it again. The next day, my face swell up accompanied closely with rashes. 

It went on for 4 days. I have visited the same GP during this time. But the pain and swelling intensifies. 

Idros rushed me to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. 

The swelling was so bad. That the folds around my neck was excreting out yellowish liquid every few minutes.

    As you can see. I expanded like a helium balloon. 

My 'normal' face, before the expansion.

It was not pus. But it was sticky and painful. My skin was all cracked and dry. The doctor injected the IV drip into my skin. It immobilised and drugged me for a few hours. Idros helped by using stacks of tissues and wiping away the yellow liquid off of my neck.

The doctor came back and told me , "You will be warded. The drip does not seem to be effective."

I came to the Accident and Emergency department at 11am. Doctor told me I will be warded at 4pm. I only reached my ward at 9pm. I was at the observation ward the entire time.

I had to wait at the waiting area at one point of time, there were other patients there. They saw me, and made a quick getaway. No one wanted to sit anywhere NEAR me. They looked scared. I don't really blame them. But I was hurt by how I was treated.

In fear of scabies, the hospital isolated me in 13A Suite. Which was really nice. Really. I had my own bathroom. I walked around the room slipperless.

But the moment they left me, I bumped into certain things accidentally. Because of the swelling, I could not open my eyes fully, nor was I able to move my neck around much.

A guy from delphin had come over to my house to disinfect it totally when I had the scabies mite. He is a real professional and a really good sales man. I will recommend him to everyone. He ensured my ENTIRE house was clean, eventhough it was a 'free' visit. U.K. Singh is his name. If you need any friendly cleaning advice and servives, give HIM a call. I think I need to engage his services 1 more time. Just in case. And on that note, I have threw out my queen-sized mattress. We ALMOST threw out the children's two single mattresses as well, in fear of the mites. But thankfully, the doctors said that I was clear of scabies.

Nontheless, I am still vacuuming the mattress with my mattress vacuum cleaner, washing the sheets daily with warm water and disinfecting the matresses and sofa bed daily.

If your house is infested with mites/bugs on your mattress or anywhere else for that matter, you might want to do the following routine. I did this for close to 2 weeks and it has really helped.

1. Wash your bedsheets with 60°C water, dettol (on top of the normal detergent and softener), DAILY.

2. While your sheets are in the washing machine, in a spray bottle dilute dettol, with bugs away and lice away essential oils (I used bleu therapeutique's! Works wonders!)

Visit them at https://bleutherapeutique.com

And spray this onto your mattress/sofa beds/pillows.

3. Open up your windows. Let the sun rays do its natural wonders of drying and killing the germs naturally.

4. Once your mattress has dried, use a vacuum cleaner (I am using the Philips Dust Mite Vacuum) to clean up the mattress. I do this DAILY. Initially you might need to do both sides of the mattress and the bed frames. Subsequently, (if yiu really are doing this daily, like me, just vacuum the top part of the mattress). If you own an expensive vacuum cleaner like delphin, rainbow or hyla that is even better, you just need to vacuum one side throughout.

5. Vacuum and mop the floors with dettol regularly.

6. Wash blankets, prayer mats, towels DAILY in 60°C water.

7. Diffuse your room ocassionally with essential oils. I used germ destroyer and germ fighter from 

plant therapy. 

Get their products from https://www.facebook.com/healingessentialproducts/

For itch relief the doctors prescribed Cetaphil Wash and Moisturiser (get it from hospital pharmacies for better rates, because they are EXPENSIVE) 

They smell awful. My husband decided to use it one night, because he saw a lot of improvement on my skin, alhamdulillah. He came out of the bathroom gagging and said that the cetaphil wash stinks.

But they work. I promise.

I hope this little information helps. And if you are going through the same painful experience, hang in there, pray to Allah, istikharah and get your spouse or family to help you do the cycle above.

Alhamdulillah. Doctor said that I am bug free now. And my house is also bug free 😍😍

Organics

I have been having bad reactions to many things. Dishwashing liquid, floor detergents, body gel and so forth.

The skin on my hand acts up, cracks, dries and bleeds.

It is painful. Doctors suspected it to be eczema, which develops at THIS age. I only had sensitive skin to certain products with high use of chemical ingredients. But never eczema. On top of THIS, I have been having a BAD case  of hair fall. I have to vacuum my room and clear out the drain stopper DAILY to get rid of the hair fall. It is so bad. It looks like I just had a hair cut.

My children's skin are also rejecting the 'natural' shampoo and conditioner I bought.

The thing is, it is NOT that natural when you read the ingredients in each product. I find high chemical contents in each product. And our skin are not receptive of it.

One of them that you will find in MOST body and hair care products is

Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)

Also able to irritate skin and eyes, SLES is a close relative of SLS. But the larger issue here is that it is frequently contaminated by 1,4 dioxane, a byproduct of the ethylation oxide used to make harsh petrolum-based ingredients more gentle. 

Which is shocking. Would you use a product that is used to treat PETROLEUM? No wonder my skin is acting up like crazy. 

I saw a pair of Organic shampoo that looks promising. 

Avalon Organic Shampoo and Conditioner. Mine has  a nice peppermint scent (my favourite). 

It has no SLS or SLES. I checked. And re checked. I bought the Avalon Organic Itchy and Flaky Therapy Shampoo for Idros. 

The only thing they have that is CLOSE to SLS or SLES is the

Sodium Decylglucosides Hydroxypropylsulfonate which is actually a natural sugar compound. 

This acts as a gentle cleanser. That is fine by me. Watsons was having a sale. Purchase of 2 of the Avalon products which entitles us to 1 free product. And it wasn't as expensive as the children's shampoo and bodywash. $13.90 for an Avalon Organic. Which is fine. 

Irman has been complaining of 'itchy hair' while Reena's hair is dry and tangly. 

I had to find alternatives. The last thing I want to use on our skin are unsafe chemicals. 

It is harsh on our pockets but it is SAFE. I have went back to what they have been using as babies. Buds Organics. This time for kids. I bought both shampoo and body wash. There are NO nasty chemicals found in the ingredients AT ALL. Perhaps that is why they cost more than my own shampoo. Sighs. 

Read the ingredients here : 

Ingredient	Where it comes from	What it does
Aqua	Water	Product Base
aloe barbadensis leaf juice*	Aloe Vera plant	Soothes and hydrates the scalp
decyl glucoside	Fermentation of corn sugar	Very mild cleanser
sodium lauroyl glutamate	Ameno acid of plant glutamic acid	Very mild plant protene cleanser
xanthan gum	Corn Sugar	Thickens the product
PCA glyceryl oleate	Plant Ingredient	Hair conditioner
citrus dulcis (sweet orange) oil*	Orange	To fragrance the product
parfum	Essential Oils	To fragrance the product
tocopherol	Wheat Germ	Natural Vit E to soften and smooth the hair
helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil	Sunflower	To calm and care for the scalp

*Ingredients from Organic Farming

Parfum made from essential oils
99.4% of the total ingredients are from Natural Origin
10.1% of the total ingredients are from Organic Farming
99.9% of the plant ingredients are from Organic Farming
Natural and Organic Cosmetic certified by ECOCERT GREENLIFE according to ECOCERT Standard available at http://cosmetics.ecocert.com

Let us read what is in our hair and body care products from now on. 

Sacrifices

I was scrolling down old photographs of Reena and Irman when they were babies. Idros and I sacrificed a LOT to provide them with their daily essentials. We wanted them to have the best comfort a baby could have. Reena, being the first, and us being first time parents at that time was naturally fussed more.

I recalled sleepless nights with Reena. She will cry every hour or two and it will be extremely exhausting (especially while I was recovering from c-section) to move up and down to her crib. We ended up letting her sleep with us on the bed. We bought Graco Crib which had an automated self vibrating button and it played lullabies as well. We turned it on if Reena did not cooperate in sleeping. My friends gave us an auto bouncer as a gift. The bouncer bounces and emits lullabies as well automatically at a touch of a button. This worked better in putting Reena and Irman to bed. Despite that, we had a Yao Lan as well to soothe them to sleep.

Irman was an easy baby. He slept through the night. The only problem he had was the 20 minutes demand of milk supply.  I didn't have much milk, but the lactation nurse from Parkway East kept reminding me that a mother's milk is best for newborns until preferably, 6 months. It was quite stressful for me. I took supplements to ensure that Reena and then Irman had sufficient breast milk. I took fenugreek pills and bought teeth tissues to clean their gums after each feeding.

 To boost the milk supply, I expressed while direct latched my children. Was definitely not easy. But alhamdulillah, I managed to breastfeed them for 7-8 months.

I had a funny feeling that I will not have much milk supply, so I geared up some milk powder as well, for this we did our little research and purchased Babynat Organic milk powder from France for Reena, (both Reena and Irman consumed a mixture of milk powder and breast milk), it was a bit difficult at that time to purchase it so we switched to S26, Bellamy's Organic, all of which did not work well for Reena. Then finally, until now, she drinks Friso, Irman drinks the same milk powder brand straight after birth as well ( we were physically and mentally prepared when Irman came along).

We were again, new and overly excited parents, who wanted to ensure that Reena does not get colic or and upset tummy after each feeding, we did our research and bought her Dr Brown's bottles. It was the original creator of bottle vents which supposedly  

• Helps reduce feeding problems
• Helps preserve vitamins
• Helps digestion
• Vent and nipple create vacuum-free feeding

It worked okay, until it came to washing the vents, the vents were extremely narrow which required extra attention during every wash. They even had a special brush to brush down the vent. We find it frustrating and a hassle, Reena was more than happy in drinking from Piegeon brand milk bottles. We then slowly converted her bottles to that.  Irman was relatively easy, he drank using Avent's Natural bottles, up till now.

Then came the question of skin care products. I noticed Reena was allergic to Johnsons' baby products. Did my fair of research, liked Buds Organics the best and restocked Buds Organics proudcts monthly. Reena had a bad case of nappy rash at one time, we used Buds Organics Nappy Rash treatment cream and it worked really well. I even did a good review on their website and facebook page on it. Alhamdulillah.  Even Irman had sensitive skin, Irman initially used Maison Boo's Organics, it was only available at NTUC Xtra at Changi Business Park, which was quite a hassle for me to purchase. We switched to Little Innoscents, which was then discontinued by Mothercare. That was when we switched his skin care products to Buds Organics as well. I love the smell. I love the products. As they grew older and their skin have become more adaptable to other skin care products, I started using Sebamed Baby, which worked quite well, but didn't smell as beautiful as Buds Organics.

Their strollers were a never ending story. Now, the in-thing is baby wearing (I used baby bjorn) but should have considered what mothers' are opting for now, the natural cloth baby wearing techniques, which seems to work much better as compared to baby bjorn. But 4 years back, strollers were widely used as compared to carriers. We bought Hauck stroller and baby seat for Reena. Shortly after we sold it and bought a lightweight Lucky Baby then Mama & Papa's stroller from a friend. When Irman came along, we bought a tandem stroller which was heavy. We finally switched to Quicksmart stroller, lightest and most compact by far. It can be folded and fits nicely into a bag. Which was not fully utilised after Irman was 18 months old. Hence, the seriousness of not buying too many strollers like I did.


                  (Behod, the evolution of strollers)

        The pink pillow is a support pillow called sunggin go to ensure that babies are seated and heads are propped upright on their strollers/car seats/bouncers  

                           

 Looking back, we sacrificed, worked hard and did everything we can to provide the best comfort to both Reena and Irman. We went a little crazy, but learnt our lesson afterwards. Parenting is exhausting, financially strenuous on the pockets, time consuming, but above all rewarding. Reflecting back on what we did, made us realise how much they mean to us, and how much we love them. The most rewarding bit is to see them grow healthily.



                             Reena as a newborn.

                               2 Year Old Reena

3 years old Reena

                                    4 years old Reena

Newborn Irman

                                3 months old Irman

                                   1 year old Irman

                                2 years old Irman

                                 3 years old Irman

Reno expenses

A few friends have or is moving into their long awaited abode.

It is around this time that I have similar questions from them, one of the most common question is "How much in total did you spend on renovation alone without (furniture and appliances)?"

I have blogged about the estimated price of the electrical appliances but never really indulge into the renovation expenses.

I have a few copies of the receipts in my mobile phone and I will attach them into this post.

This is the total renovation amount quoted by the interior designer from I-Bridge Design.

Total is $24,158.46, they deducted $3000 which was an appointment fee. (They charged us that when we confirmed that we would like to have Owen as our interior designer). But we paid the $3K about 3 years before, so we totally forgot about it, until we saw this breakdown.

A reputable company WILL provide you with the beeakdown of the payment needed along with the clause at the back of this paper.

It is MIGHTY fishy if the renovation company demands the full payment before the start of the renovation.

Do not be conned. Do not be trapped into this. Even if the cost of the renovation is below $10K, you will STILL need to pay in stages.

Now comes the fun part. If you are opting for air conditioners installed in your apartment, the interior designers will usually ask you to have it installed before they start on anything. This, from my understanding is because it will be difficult for them to put up the air conditioner later on once the false ceiling has been put up BEFORE the air conditioner.

Initially, we didn't find it necessary to have an air conditioner installed in the living room. But they are days when it gets crazy warm in our sunny island. We contacted Owen again to enquire if there is a possibility to install the air conditioner in the living room. He said it would be extremely difficult as the false ceiling is in the way.

Oh well.

That is the price for our panasonic system 3 air conditioner.

Moving on, IF you are planning to have the washroom revamped, you will need to get the sink, as I was busy and ikea sinks can only accomodate to their own taps, I asled Owen to source one out for me.

Last one on the list, electrical wiring services.

These little things are the ones that will slowly add up.

A good tip is to ask an experienced and honest person the estimated price of what you are purchasing. This way, you will always be on track, your budget will always be on point.

Plant Therapy

I haven't had the time to update of this product but it is something that you SHOULD really try. Plant Therapy and Bleu Therapeutique essential oils.

It really is affordable, (I usually buy 4-5 different types monthly). So you don't really need to worry about it being too expensive on your pockets.

I loved essential oils even before it was in 'trend'. I was quite skeptical about it being able to provide positive effects on our 'health'.  But then my dear friend told me that her son's hand was ever caught in between a door of some sort. His hand became swollen, badly swollen. Since she was residing in another country and her husband was out at work, she applied lavender essential oil over the affected area, and it subsided. Just like that.

I was intrigued. Then I stumbled upon a lady on facebook who sells plant therapy and bleu therapeutique essential oils. I decided to try a few.

My children were constantly unwell. Being in a childcare (air conditioned at that) they are easily exposed to other children's germs which is quite normal. But I was worried as it became quite frequent at one point of time. If it wasn't fever, it was a terrible cough, runny nose, etc.

I applied bleu therapeutique's cough blend along with plant therapy's sniffle stopper on my children's chest, back and soles of feet, then I would put socks on their little feet before bedtime.

The results were amazing. Say goodbye to nasty medicines (which my son literally hate, 90% of those medicines will end up on my face after he spits them at me).

Then I kept coming back for more. When my children were down with fever, I would diffuse plant therapy's germ destroyer in their rooms and apply it topically along with a carrier oil on their spine, joints on their arms and legs before bed time. It really reduces the fever down.

Then there came  problem of having my kids to sleep. That was when I tried plant therpay's nighty night and sweet dreams. I applied it topically along witha carrier oil on the back of their necks or chests. I applied it once on the back of my neck. I woke up at 6.50am when I was supposed to start working at 7am.

Give it a try. It is worth it.