FutureDerm

Back to School? Back to Head Lice Headaches!

Share Article

 

Here’s a scary statistic: every year, 6-12 MILLION children in the USA are affected by head lice! The annual expense of dealing with head lice is estimated to be about 1 BILLION US dollars. Whoa.

It’s safe to say: head lice are no small problem! By now most of us know: it is not completely about cleanliness; lice affects all people from all walks of life. Preventing an infestation is no easy task. Lice have been around for millions of years and they are not going anywhere any time soon. Here are a few points to keep in mind:

 

How Do You Know It’s Lice?

Aside from the itching, small red dots can be seen on the scalp and neck, which last only about a week. If scratching causes a secondary infection, there can also be pain, oozing and enlarged lymph nodes. The child might develop a fever and become restless and lose sleep. The whitish eggs can be seen closer to hair ends (these are already empty), viable eggs are pigmented to match the hair color and are seen about 1 cm away from the hair root.

On the other hand mature lice are grayish and harder to see as they move quickly and shy away from the light. The best way to view them is to use a nit comb and brush hair down onto a white towel.

Who Gets It and How?

It is important for parents to understand and accept that lice can affect just about anyone, as long as there is hair to hair contact.

 

What Prevents It?

Most importantly, teach your child to avoid hair to hair contact, and not to share hair tools or hats.

Misconceptions about Prevention and Treatment

Home remedies aren’t as effective as lice treatments.

Hot water, combing, and shampooing are not enough measures to treat an infestation. Neither is vinegar. On the other hand, mayonnaise, vegetable oils and petrolatum might work to an extent, but are impractical compared to available lice treatments.

Linens, clothes etc, do not need to be washed daily, as lice hate leaving the warmth of the head, so you’re not likely to ever find them on these articles.

Let the School Know

An infestation can spread very easily between classmates. Symptoms might not show for weeks or months after a child catches lice from his classmates. That means if the school isn’t aware, they aren’t making sure everyone is checked — including children with no symptoms.

So you might treat your child only to have him or her go back to school and catch lice again. Let the school know when a child has lice, as the whole class has to be checked, and even family members.

There Is No Prophylaxis

Some mothers use head lice treatments regularly to prevent it. This just doesn’t work. Treatments available do not provide any form of prevention. In addition to that, long term use of lice treatment cause skin irritation, eye irritation, and can lead to lice becoming increasingly resistant to treatment.

 

Treatments

Treatments used to eradicate head lice either paralyze the lice, preventing them from feeding, or prevent oxygen from getting to them, suffocating them. Many treatments only affect adult lice, and not the eggs, and so treatment is repeated ten days later, when the remaining eggs have hatched and can then be affected by the treatment. After treatment, combing the wet hair for 20 minutes with a nit comb ensures a more complete treatment session.

Bottom Line

I suppose the healthiest advice to give is to not allow head lice to be such a social stigma. The response to an infestation is a lot more taxing on a family psychologically and financially than it ought to be. I imagine if more people reported an infestation and dealt with it faster, those scary statistics would start to improve dramatically.

Thank you for reading!

Sources

H. Mehlhorn. Headlice and their Control: A Never-ending Story. Handbook of Hair in Health and Disease. Wageningen Academic Publishers 2012. Human Health Handbooks no.1; 1 (4): 354-84.

S. Albrecht. The Prevention and Treatment of Head Lice in Children. US Pharmacist 2012; 37 (3): 32-6.

Enhanced by Zemanta

You might also like

Product Review: Relastin Eye Silk

Accredited in [easyazon_link identifier=”0553383302″ locale=”US” tag=”cosmeticswiki-20″]The Skin Type Solution[/easyazon_link] by one of my idols, Dr. Leslie Baumann (director, Division of Cosmetic Dermatology and Assistant Professor of

About Myself

Nicki Zevola is the founder and editor-in-chief of FutureDerm.com. Named one of the top 30 beauty bloggers in the world by Konector.com since 2009, Nicki

#Mindey

@mindey