| Head lice: Symptoms, treatment and Prevention
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Head lice: Symptoms, treatment and Prevention
Head lice are the tiny wingless insects, which live in the scalp of humans as parasites. Head lice cannot jump or fly. They feed on human blood, which they get from blood vessels on the scalp. Head lice are also called pediculosis. Adult lice is called louse. Eggs of lice are small, like dandruff flakes and are called nit. Children of age 3-11 are the most vulnerable to get lice. Head lice are contagious.
How do head lice spread?
They simply walk from one head to another when two heads are touching. It can spread through many things like hats, combs, headphones and hairbrushes. They make the scalp itchy. If lice are away from any head, it can live only up to 3 days. They cannot hatch at room temperature; they need warmer environment.
Symptoms of Head lice:
You can look for head lice and nits at neckline and behind the ears. There are symptoms like frequent itching, feeling of tickling in hair, sores from scratching. Lice are not dangerous and do not spread any disease but they are annoying and give filthy appearance to the head. Constant scratching of head can create skin problems and infection of sorts.
Nits are small brown or pale yellow dot like structures and are laid close to the skin surface near the hair shafts. This place provides them with right temperature. After getting laid, they hatch within 1-2 weeks. Nits are more in number than lice. Adult louse is like sesame seed in size and brown in color. They suck blood every 4 to 6 hours from the scalp.
Treatment for head lice:
There are many products available to treat head lice. You can treat lice with many medicated shampoos, lotion, and creams prescribed by the doctor or available over the counter. All the treatments may not be successful because of resistance of lice to chemical or improper way to use the product.
To get the maximum benefit from these products you should follow the instructions carefully. Another important thing is that these products are insecticides; if you use them more than required, you may harm yourself. You can use the special rinse, prescribed by the doctor, to easily comb out the nits and lice.
By using this medicated treatment, lice get killed but itching takes few more days to stop. This treatment should be repeated in 7 to 10 days to prevent any reinfestation. For a small child, less than 2 years, you should not use medication rather pick lice by hand from hair.
Use a fine-tooth comb after shampooing of hair for 2 weeks. Presence of water in hair immobilizes the lice and it becomes easy to take them out. All the people in family should be treated for lice for completely removing them as occurrence of lice is contagious and can easily move from one person to another.
Some important tips to get rid of lice:
- All the bed linen and clothing, which is used by the infested person, should be washed in very hot water.
- If you cannot wash it, get it dry-cleaned or put it an airtight bag for 2 weeks.
- Regularly vacuum clean carpets and upholstery.
- Clean all the items like combs, hair ties, headbands, brushes, etc in alcohol or medicated shampoo for at least 1 hour.
Some things you should avoid while getting treatment for lice:
- If you have any scalp treatment for lice on your hair, do not use hair dryer as the medication may have some inflammable chemical.
- Before applying medication, do not use cream rinse or conditioner.
- Do not use a medication more than three times on the same person.
- Use one head lice medication at a time.
Prevention of Head Lice:
Occurrence of head lice does not reflect lack of poor hygiene. It can attack people of any age and any socioeconomic level. But it is more common in children. You can prevent your child from getting head lice by taking few precautions:
You should avoid head to head contact at any public place like school, playground or gym etc. Do not share any personal hair items like hairbrushes, combs, hats, scarves, hair ties, barrettes, helmets etc. with any one else irrespective of the fact that they have lice or not. Also do not share bed linens or clothing of the person infested by lice.
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