The issue is that creaming is very ineffective against ringworm. Spores are shed from a wider area than you apply the cream meaning they can just pick up shed spores and the infection continues….
Bathing is better than creaming as at least that catches the whole body.
We have many piggies on the forum treated with oral treatment successfully and without side effects.
I'm going to tag in
@Wiebke here because I am not sure how an anti fungal shampoo and an ivermectin shampoo (or how effective that is as a single angle of treatment against lice) would work together. I don’t know that you could do them at the same time and this may mean you end up having to do so many baths on them that it could be so much more stressful for them.
Hi
You need to wait each time for 48 hours (2 days) after every bath or spot-on treatment in order to allow it to be full absorbed and not just washed away by the next treatment. This rule applies for both fungal and skin parasites. They do need unfortunately different treatments for each problem. So you have to carefully plan out your bathing/treatment days ahead.
Here is our guide on how to bathe your piggies safely without the risk of freak jumps and accidents:
Bathing (including cleaning grease glands)
Because that is very stressful for both you and your piggies, we generally recommend to have one of the treatments orally (ivermectin can be given orally, as can fungal treatment but neither is licensed for guinea pig and you need to use the right brand, or you can kill) or as a spot-on (ivermectin). Miconazole can be given orally, so you are in luck; licking won't harm your piggy.
Creaming for ringworm is very ineffective as it does not prevent long-lived (over 2 years), highly contagious and species jumping invisibly tiny spores being shed - picked up from their bedding or coats as a secondary infection spot - in their thousands. The time between infection and actual outbreak is 10-14 days. Creaming cannot break this cycles and usually results in a long-running saga.
Oral medication or baths can kill off infections in the skin before they become an acute spot shedding more spores.
Ringworm is less a medical than strict hygiene problem, that also includes disinfecting their habitat and you being very careful about hand washing etc. (including washing your special clothes at a high temperatures after it has been in contact with ringworm piggies as you can transmit ringworm that way as well as via your hands. We have learned all these lessons the hard way and have included effective measures to cut out all possible transmission angles in our Ringworm guide. Ringworm and skin parasites are issues where it really pays to go straight for the kitchen sink; they are sadly far too often underestimated.
Our Ringworm guide takes you step by step through everything you need to do in order to get on top of it. Cutting corners and doing treatment on the cheap (creaming) is false economy as you just prolong the problem and spend a lot of money on ineffective treatments.
Here is the link:
Ringworm: Hygiene, Care And Pictures
A good quality ivermectin course for potential mange mites needs only be done three times at the product specific interval. Vet quality products usually have generally a 2 weeks interval.
Mange mites can kill if left un- or undertreated but unlike ringworm they are species specific. Ringworm is the most infectious species jumping problem you can come across in your pets - it can affect other rodents, rabbits cats and dogs as much as humans.
I hope that this helps you,
@popcornpiggles ? I am very sorry that you are finding yourself in this situation.
I won't bathe Pixie til she's seen a vet.
I will attach a photo later on, but the skin is no longer inflamed and the areas of infection seem to have shrunk slightly. They are still a little dry and flakey, but it certainly appears less sore and crusty than it did before. She has her vet check up on Monday next week, so I will let you know how that goes too, as I will be bringing up the lice with my vet. So glad she's looking better, I was worries as I've never had to treat ringworm before! Thank you for being so helpful and informative. 
