headlice August 19th, 2008
Strange but true! A Reuter's news item dated Wednesday, April 30, 2008, reported on a group of seven Germans who believe that head lice can be a form of art!
"Art is no longer just a painting on the wall," Milana Gitzin-Adiram, chief curator of the Museum of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, told Reuters. "Art is life, life is art." What that has to do with head lice? It's not really clear at all!
The group of Berliners were living at the Museum of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, as part of an unusual art exhibit. They ate, slept, and bathed in a gallery, while maintaining active lice infestations in their hair. "The idea is that we live in the museum as their guests, and at the same time we are hosting lice on our heads," said artist Vincent Grunwald, aged 23. He was wearing a plastic shower cap to prevent the lice from spreading.
From a professional lice removal perspective… this is just plain silly. Head lice are parasites that live off human blood. Lice cause terrible itching, from the irritation that results when a louse bites its host to suck blood. Lice can not live off of a human head. Lice can not fly. Lice do not jump. Lice aren't interested in living any place other than a human head. The only way that lice spread — which they do quickly — is by crawling from one head to another. Since these folks are apparently all lice infested already, they aren't preventing anything with that shower cap! Lice are small enough to crawl easily crawl under the edges of a shower cap, anyway. Actually, lice nits they are so tiny, that they aren't visible without very close and careful inspection. Which would make head lice irrelevant as hosts on human heads in an art gallery. The only thing a visitor would be able to see, are men in shower caps, possibly scratching their heads.
With all the stress that surrounds a head lice infestation, the absurd idea that there is an artistic element to lice could invite a much-needed momentary lightness!
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headlice June 5th, 2008
"Dr. Hook" a.k.a Dr. John Hong of Charlottesville, Virginia is a reknowned pediatrician who writes medical articles for THE HOOK, a local newspaper. Here is the continuation of his article about head lice, published on 5/15/08, and posted with permission from the author.
Continued from yesterday's LICENDERS post, Lice Information from a Pediatrician
Adult [female lice] are about 3-4mm in length, live about a month, and lay 10 eggs (nits) a day that stick to the bases of hair shafts. The eggs hatch in eight days, and the nymphs mature in eight days. (The crazy ones are called nymphomaniacs– or not.)
These creepy crawlers suck blood from the scalp, eyebrows, and other hairy places on the head and neck. The bites can cause an allergic reaction, like a mosquito bite, leading to itchy bumps. Scratching the bumps can lead to bacterial infections.
The white nits are easier to spot than the mobile lice. If you catch a louse, you might put it in a ziplock bag for the doctor to view under a microscope.
Nits are truly nit-wits because they stick to the hair even after hatching or treatment for lice. So a fine-toothed nit comb is used to wipe them away. Topical medicines like permethrin (Nix), pyrethrin (Rid, A-200, Pronto, Clear), and malathion can be used. A second treatment might be needed a week or two later.
to be continued
© Dr. John Hong, Inc
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headlice April 7th, 2008
continued from Do Head Lice Jump?
Biologically, Head Lice do not jump. Rather, they crawl very quickly from one head to another. Considering this fact about head lice, one may wonder how it is lice nits spread so quickly. Some people mistakenly think that one bug alone can not cause a head lice infestation. The truth is, it only takes one mature louse to begin a rapid lice infestation on the new host!
Like most live creatures, a louse egg must be fertilized in order to produce additional lice bugs. Mature female lice only need one fertilization to produce fertilized eggs for the rest of their life - approximately 30 days. An adult male louse will mate several times in its lifetime, fertilizing numerous females. Therefore almost all mature female lice have mated, and are ready and able to start infesting the hair with nits, at an average of 6 nit eggs per day.
Chances are that a mature louse that crawls on to a new head is in fact fertilized and ready to lay more than 150 nits in the hair over the next few weeks. It doesn't take much to spread a lice infestation.
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headlice April 3rd, 2008
There is actually a woman sitting in a Pennsylvania jail because she refused to come get her lice infested kids from school!
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported yesterday, that Nicole Lynn Holmes was dealing with the head lice infestations since February. The Belle Vernon Area School District has a "no nit policy", and Ms. Holmes was instructed to keep her children at home until the lice problem was resolved. When the kids showed up in school a few weeks later, they were still infested with headlice.
The school called the police, who arrested the mother and charged her with child endangerment. She is in custody, until a hearing on Friday.
The responsible thing to do when there is a lice infestation, is to get control of the lice and nits immediately, before the child has an opportunity to spread it to their schoolmates and friends. Lice spread very quickly. When head lice is treated properly, the lice infestation can be contained within the affected children and their immediate family. Left untreated, a short term inconvenience can become a community wide lice infestation.
The lesson here is clear: Do the right thing. Find out how to effectively remove lice and nits. If the job is too big or tedious for you, call the professionals. Ignoring a lice and nit infestation is selfish. And according to the police in Belle Vernon, PA, failure to treat head lice is a crime!
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headlice March 25th, 2008
There are many kinds of lice combs that are made of metal. As long as the nit comb has properly spaced teeth, a metal comb should work. Unfortunately, sometimes even a metal toothed lice comb will not NIX THE LICE problem. There may be a number of reasons for this.
One problem that is very common, is that the teeth of the metal lice comb are very short. While this may be fine for a very short haircut, most children have a few inches of hair, at least. Short toothed lice nit combs, are surprisingly common. Using shorter metal lice comb teeth can only work if you are combing a section of the scalp as wide as those teeth. For example, if the nit comb tines are 1/2 inch long, you can only comb through 1/2 inch of the scalp at a time! Combing out lice is time-consuming and tedious. Adding time to the process by struggling with a comb with short teeth, is a waste of time and energy. In addition, when trying to NIX a LICE PROBLEM in a child with thick or wavy hair, there is a lot more hair per inch on that child's head. A comb with long enough teeth is necessary to get through even a small section of such hair.
The correct way to ensure that you are using a lice comb properly, is to comb the hair with an effective nit combing method. In order for the nit comb to be get RID of NITS, the comb must move through a section of the hair from the scalp outward in one motion. Live lice crawl incredibly quickly. If the nit comb only gets partially through a layer of hair, the lice may crawl deeper into the layer that is not being combed. If all the hair is not combed through, hair nits will remain, and you will not RID LICE from the hair sufficiently.
Read our previous post where we have explained why a plastic lice nit comb should not be an option; even a "professional" lice removal kit comb is ineffective if it's not metal.
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headlice February 4th, 2008
In an active lice infestation, the number of live bugs may vary widely, depending on the length of time that the hair has been infested.
The first step of lice treatment in an active infestation, is obviously aimed at killing the live bugs, to prevent them from laying more nits. Use of a safe, non-chemical lice shampoo is recommended. An enzyme-based lice killing shampoo kills lice on contact, and avoids the use of poison on your child's scalp. Enzyme-based lice shampoo works, and lice can not become resistant to it, the way they have become resistent to chemical shampoos, such as RIDLICE, NIX, and even prescription products such as LINDANE. Once the mature lice are gone, you need to proceed to step two.
The second step in treatment of head lice is combing out the lice. There is no short-cut. If you do not manually comb out nits, they will continue to hatch. You will be faced with a complete re-infestation if live head lice. The baby lice, called nymphs will mature within 7-10 days, and the head lice shampoo treatment will have been a waste of your time and money. This cycle can continue indefinitely unless you remove every nit.
To be continued
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headlice November 15th, 2007
continued from Cleaning Lice from Hair Accessories - Bedroom, Bathroom and Beyond
Once you have treated your child with a lice shampoo and comb, it is imperative to do all that is possible to prevent re-infestation. Although it is tempting to throw out many items, this is impractical, unnecessary, and can be very upsetting to your children who are already distressed!
Hair accessories can have live lice bugs on them, or hair with nits. Use a comb to remove ALL the hair that you possibly can from the brushes, combs and hair ornaments such as barrettes, ponytail holders, clips, and headbands. Pour boiling water liberally over these items. If the water is too hot for a human being, it will also be too hot for the survival of head lice and nits.
Some people immerse hair accessories in boiling water for a few minutes. However, most of these items have plastic or rubber parts, and they will get ruined. Therefore, Licenders is hesitant to recommend this. Although boiling water can kill live lice, it can also melt the glue on some hair ornaments, so be careful.
Items made entirely from fabric can be washed and/or dried on high heat for at least 30 minutes. The dryer must be hot enough that it could not be tolerated safely by a human being. A hair dryer is generally not hot enough to destroy hair nits.
Any hair accessories that still have hair on them, or could not be properly cleaned using boiling water, or the clothes dryer, should be put into a plastic bag, and sealed inside for 48 hours. In this amount of time, lice will die without access to the blood of a human scalp.
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