Archive for the 'lice information' Category

Why use Head Lice Shampoo AND a Lice Comb?

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

Choosing a Lice Comb - Removing Every Nit (part 2)

headlice December 10th, 2007

Continued from How to Choose a Lice Comb (part 1) 

There are so many different types of combs being marketed for removal of nits. Not all head lice combs are created equal! A proper nit comb must have teeth that are spaced closely enough together to catch every nit. Nits are attached to the hair strand with a very strong glue. Although many lice shampoos claim to kill nits, this simply is not true. Nits are protected by a shell, and our experience at Licenders has shown us again and again, that nits survive even the most potent headlice shampoos. Even in the case of some shampoos that may in fact weaken the glue a bit, the only way to remove nits is to use a comb that catches the nits and literally scrapes them off the hair shaft.

Developing a lice nit comb with closely spaced teeth is not a simple matter. A professional lice comb needs to be manufactured by actually studying lice and nits. This way, it will have teeth specifically spaced for the purpose of removing even the tiniest hair nits. The right lice comb is so accurate, that it will remove Lice, nymphs, and nits, even the ones that you can not see.

Lice in Your Home? Quick and Easy Solutions

headlice November 29th, 2007

If a member of your family has gotten a lice diagnosis, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the prospect of cleaning your home. The truth is, to get rid of head lice in your house, you really only need a vacuum cleaner, and access to a washer and dryer. No special cleansers, chemicals or professional lice removing services are necessary! If you know which areas of the house to be concerned with, you can methodically clean only those places, and then consider your house free of lice.

Here is a quick reference list of previous posts with advice for cleaning your home when your child has lice:

Treating Lice and Nits in the Home - Finishing the Job

headlice November 22nd, 2007

In the past few weeks, we have presented helpful information about cleaning your house when your child has been diagnosed with lice or nits.

We have explained that when dealing with human head lice in the main living areas of your home, you need to be concerned with places where a person is likely to rest their head. When dealing with the bedrooms, linens, toys, and closets need to be addressed as well, because it is more likely that there are stray hairs around with viable nits on them.

To finish up the job of cleaning your house of hair lice and nits, do a quick review of your bathrooms. Remove any used towels and wash them in hot water in the washing machine. Dry them on high heat for at least 30 minutes. Remove visible stray hairs that may contain nits, from bathtubs, sinks and showers by collecting them with a paper towel. Dispose of these hairs by placing them in a knotted plastic bag and toss them in your trash.

You have removed hairs from the head rests of chairs and couches, and treated the relevant items in your bedrooms and bathrooms. The same procedure applies to recently used coats and jackets. If you have a closet with such outerwear, it is only significant if the clothing has been used in the past 2-3 days before the lice diagnosis. In such a case, refer to our previous post on cleaning clothing during a lice infestation.  

Remember that head lice treatment for your house is mostly a matter of removing stray hairs that may contain nits. Human head lice will not survive on floors, or on chairs, or in closets - because they need to feed on human blood a few times a day. As we have stated many times before, a human head louse will die within 24-48 hours off of a human head.

The way to preserve the job you have done ridding your house of lice and nits, is to maintain the lice-free status of your child's head. Once you have used an effective lice shampoo, and methodically combed out all of the nits, you must continue the combing out process every night for about two weeks, to ensure that there are no remaining nits. If this maintenance is not done, having clean linens, sofas, and towels, will not prevent remaining nits from hatching and starting the process all over again!

 

Treating the Toys When Your Child Has Head Lice

headlice November 7th, 2007

During a Lice infestation, most toys do not present a problem at all. Only toys on which a child has likely laid his head are a concern. The main guilty parties are stuffed animals. As we have said previously, lice do not burrow into furry toys by nature. The only concern is a surviving louse that may have strayed off the child’s head directly on to the toy or a stray hair stuck to the toy with a viable nit on it. This only applies to a louse that has had the opportunity to feed on a human head within the past 24 – 48 hours, or a nit that has grown for a few days while on the head, and is likely to hatch soon.

Stuffed toys can often be put into the dryer on high heat. Such toys should be put into the dryer for ½ hour. If the toys have delicate parts, or cannot withstand high heat for any other reason, they should be placed into large garbage type bags, and sealed for 48 hours.

Additional items to pay attention to are headphones from play stations or personal music gadgets, bicycle and sports helmets, and any other toy that is used on your child’s head.  Seal the bags securely with a knot or a tight twist-tie.  As we have explained, in our professional experience treating thousands of families with head lice, 48 hours is a sufficient amount of time to assure that there will be no re-infestation resulting from the toys and protective headgear.

Lice Information and Remedies for the Bedroom

headlice October 31st, 2007

continued from Lice Help - Removing Lice from Bedroom Furniture

Human hair lice could find their way onto bedding, and survive a few hours – long enough to climb back onto a child’s head. Because of this information about head lice, linens from the bed of the infected person must be washed in boiling water. This would include the pillows, quilts and blankets used by the infected child as well. You do not have to ruin your linens in order to remedy head lice problems.  If the linen cannot be washed, then it should be put into the dryer on high heat for at least 20 minutes. The reason this will help, is because of the factual lice and nits information:  lice and nits cannot survive in heat that is too hot for a human being.
 
If the linen absolutely cannot be put into the dryer, there is another option. The linen should be placed into large garbage type bags, and sealed. Tying the top of the bag with a knot or a twist-tie is a sufficient method for this home lice remedy. The purpose of this, is that in the case that there is a live lice bug on those linens, it will die within 24-48 hours because it has no access to human blood.
 
In the case of stray hairs that may have a nit on them, the fact that they are in a sealed bag is an equally beneficial home remedy for headlice.
 
Normally, on the head, once a nit is laid, it will hatch 7-10 days later. This is the reason that some people recommend bagging the linen for 2 weeks. As discussed in a previous post, lice lay their nits near the scalp because they need human warmth to grow. A newly laid nit will likely not grow and remain viable once the hair is off of the head. A nit that is already close to hatching, can theoretically still hatch. Sealed inside a plastic bag, the nymph, or new baby louse is doomed, since it needs to eat blood right away in order to survive. At Licenders, we have professionally treated thousands of families and been to thousands of homes. Our experience at Licenders, is that bagging these items for 48 hours is sufficient. Specially formulated remedies for home removal of head lice are superfluous.
 
Exaggerating the information about home head lice removal, will not remedy the lice problem! Look for information in future blogs about equally simple remedies for removing lice from articles as clothing, accessories and toys.

Lice Help - Removing Lice from Bedroom Furniture

headlice October 30th, 2007

Licenders' years of treating headlice at home for thousands of clients, puts us in the unique position to offer expert head lice help. When you are dealing with lice, help from our professional experience can keep you from getting overwhelmed.

Previously, we have given guidelines for head lice removal in the main rooms of your house during a "lice epidemic". Now we will guide you in removing head lice from the bedrooms, bathrooms and any personal areas of your home. Rooms that are used for sleeping, dressing, or washing by the adults or children who have head lice in your home, need more care than the other rooms. Once you have taken just a few more steps, you will confidently remove all the lice in those rooms too.

We will start with the bedroom. The first thing to recognize is that human head lice are not bed bugs. Lice are completely different than bedbugs in the way they feed, the way they behave, and their life cycles:

Bedbugs can live for several months without feeding. A louse, on the other hand, will die, usually within 24 hours off of a human head! Lice need to be on a human head in order to thrive. They suck blood a few times in any given day.

Another major difference is that bed bugs hide in mattresses, carpets, behind peeling paint or wallpaper, and in crevices in wooden furniture. Bed bugs lay their eggs in cracks and crevices.

Headlice do not embed themselves into mattresses, quilts, pillows or any other such items. You do not have to worry about removing lice from furniture. Lice cannot lay nits (lice eggs) anyplace off of a human head either. Your furniture cannot be infested with lice!

The lice problem in the bedroom is, that sometimes a louse can crawl off of the infected person, and survive on the pillow or linen for a short amount of time. During that time, it is possible for the louse to crawl back onto the head of a person who was already treated, shampooed, and had the lice removed by combing. This would lead to a lice re-infestation in the child, because if they crawl back on to the head, the lice can feed (suck blood) again, and continue to thrive. If there is a surviving louse on the linens of an infested child, it will find a human head again the next time that child lays down on his bed - if that happens within a few hours, before it dies!

Another consideration is that a sibling who did not previously have any lice and nits, may lie down on his sister’s bed. If there is even one louse on the linen of that bed, it can crawl onto the sibling's head, and it could be missed, because that child was already found to be lice free! In this way the child who did not originally have lice at all, can re-infect his family.

In order for maintain the efforts you put into removing head lice from your kid's head, linens from the infected child must be treated properly to remove any possibility of lice re-infestation. It is not difficult to properly treat bedroom linens if your child has lice. We will explain how to do this correctly.

To be continued.

Lice Extermination for your House (Part 2)

headlice October 25th, 2007

Another lice problem in the house is that people typically shed some hair in places that they rest their heads. Such a hair can have a nit on it. Nits are laid near the scalp because they need human warmth to grow. However, a nit that is a few days old, and closer to hatching may not die even if the hair falls off the person. If the nit hatches when the hair is off of a human being, the nymph, or baby louse is doomed, since it needs to eat blood right away in order to survive. But sometimes, stray hairs “attach” themselves to another person’s head via static electricity. These stray, loose hairs will likely fall off within a few hours or in the shower. There is a chance that in the short amount of time that a stray hair with a nit may “hang” onto another person, the nit can hatch into a baby louse, and start the cycle again on the new child! You can prevent this problem of lice re-infestation.

In an occurrence of lice, removal of stray hairs from places where someone typically rests their head is absolutely necessary.
 
The simplest and safest way to eradicate the problem of lice, or fallen hairs with attached nits, from upholstered furniture, rugs, or car seats is to use a vacuum cleaner. Vacuuming the areas that a child or adult has likely rested their head, will remove the hair from these places.  This makes it impossible for a louse or nit to find its way onto another head, and it will die. Pesticides and other forms of insect extermination are completely unnecessary, and will not remove the hairs. Most pesticides contain chemicals, are dangerous, and do not kill head lice successfully anyway! Paying for "professional head lice home extermination" or anything of the sort, is simply a waste of your money. In just a few minutes in each room, the appropriate surfaces can be vacuumed. Save your time and energy for combing out nits from your kid's head.

Bedrooms, and other personal spaces and items do need more specific attention. We will address those parts of the house in another post in this series.

Why My kid?? These are the True Lice Facts (part 2)

headlice October 22nd, 2007

Continued from Why My kid?? Not all Lice Information is true!

We have had very unusual cases, in which some kids do not get head lice, even though their siblings are infested with hundreds of nits or bugs. It is definitely not because those children are cleaner, dirtier, or in any way superior to the other kids. It is unusual, and there is no known reason for this. Our recommendation, based on these facts about lice, is that siblings should be treated for lice anyway (without chemical lice shampoo). In most cases, the fact about headlice is that they spread quickly - by crawling - to any available human head.
 
Despite the erroneous information about lice that has made its way among communities, our professional experience here at Licenders has shown that lice and nits are very happy to set up house in a clean head. Think about it - if you were looking for a hotel, wouldn't you look for a clean one?! Head lice are parasites. To a louse, a human scalp is just like a hotel. Fortunately, with the right products, the right method, and accurate lice information, you can get control of the lice problem and move on!

Headlice facts and information should be based on real, professional experience, not baseless gossip!

Why MY kid?? Not all Lice Information is true! (part 1)

headlice October 18th, 2007

Having your child come home with lice is a very distressing experience. But it should not lead to shame or any feeling of inferiority. People have all sorts of preconceived notions about the causes, and implications of being "diagnosed" with pediculosis. Much of this information about head lice is blatantly false. Other supposed head lice facts are based on a misunderstanding of the actual nature and biology of the human hair louse.

Lice and nits information provided here is based on a powerful resource: our own experience at Licenders. Our clinicians have checked, treated, and combed out many hundreds of girls, boys, women and men of every race, creed and culture. We have had the opportunity to treat lice nits among members of every socioeconomic group. The facts are human hair lice do not discriminate. Anyone and everyone is susceptible to head lice.

to be continued

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