It's a Friday afternoon and as you pick up your child from daycare you notice some patchy red areas on her arms. She absentmindedly scratches at them, so you remind yourself to put some lotion on her tonight. But that evening it's a different story: The rash has spread sporadically over her body and it now itches something terrible. The cortisone cream – your typical standby – is having no effect whatsoever. What is this thing?

The nasty rash could be scabies – a very ugly word for a very common ailment.

"Scabies are a mite infestation in the skin," says board-certified dermatologist Dr. Coyle Connolly, founder of Connolly Skin Care in Linwood, N.J. "It's spread rapidly by close skin-to-skin contact usually with other infected children in playgroups and daycare centers. Thousands of children are infected every year."

"It's a nearly epidemic disease that can be transmitted from individual to individual easily and is fairly common in childhood years," says Dr. Joel Schlessinger, a board-certified dermatologist and general cosmetic surgeon in Omaha, Neb., and president of the American Society of Cosmetic Dermatology and Aesthetic Surgery.

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