Posts Tagged ‘head lice reproduction’

Every one of us has heard of head lice, and many of us will have endured the unfortunate passage of suffering from itchy head lice, but what do you really know about them? Head lice are actually fascinating creatures that, although unpleasant and irritating, are quite harmless; they do not present any life threatening qualities, and they do not – contrary to popular belief – signify that the host is hygienically challenged, they simply happen to enjoy living on our hair, feeding on our blood and laying their eggs, nits, on our scalp!
What does a head louse look like? If you run a  quick internet search for head lice pictures you will be presented with a variety of depictions of these miniature mites; one thing you will notice is that they do not have wings, and that puts to bed the common misconception that they spread by flight. In fact, they can only do so by walking, hence they are easily spread among children who enjoy a much freer form of physical contact than adults.
It is common, also, to mistake the head louse and the head lice nit for the same thing; nit is the name given to the eggs, perhaps the most troublesome part of the equation as they are difficult to remove. This is because of a combination of factors, in the main their absolutely miniscule size and the fact that they are attached to the hair by remarkably strong natural glue. For the record, nits remain as such for up to a week, after which time they hatch into nymphs, or young head lice, and it only takes one further week for these absolutely minute creatures to grow into breeding adults.
The life cycle is completed by the adult, the female of which will live for up to thirty days in adulthood, and on each of those days will lay somewhere between six and eight nits. These itchy head lice become more, therefore, and as the symptoms can take weeks to occur, and the tiny creatures are often mistaken for dandruff, the head louse population can become rampant in a matter of a few weeks.
Interestingly, the creature breathes through two holes in the side of its body, and this is why the seemingly bizarre ritual of applying mayonnaise or olive oil to the head is actually quite a successful routine: it smothers the lice, hence ridding the host of an irritating companion.

One of the problems associated with head lice, in fact the main symptom and problem, is that of incessant irritation and itching affecting the scalp; this comes about because the scalp is the place where the louse feeds, piercing the skin to feed on our blood, and also where it lives and lays its eggs, the difficult to get rid of nits.
There are different types of head lice scalp treatments, all of which involve washing the scalp in a solution of some sort; it could be that you choose to use the medicinal, insecticide based scalp treatments that are widely available, or that you opt for the natural remedies that make up a good proportion of head lice treatments, but either way the fact remains that the scalp is one area that requires close attention in the fight against the lice.
One problem with the insecticide lotions, gels and shampoos is that they can result in minor side effects, the most common of which can be further irritation to the scalp, and an increase in dandruff; for this reason, sufferers who have this sort of reaction may prefer to try the natural remedies available, particularly those shampoos that include the widely regarded substance that is tea tree oil, an essential oil regarded by the Aborigines of Australia and known to have certain medicinal features.
Further substances that are often applied to the scalp as head lice remedies may seem somewhat unusual; vinegar, for instance, is one substance that is used as it has acidic qualities, and the acid helps to loosen the very strong adhesive that adheres the nit to the hair. Once applied and rinsed, the vinegar helps to make the nit easier to remove.
More unusual still is the use of mayonnaise, whose thick oily properties are utilized to suffocate the lice by filling in their breathing holes, and although a messy and very odd method, this does seem to work; some people, preferring not to appear too bizarre, use the slightly less unusual application of olive oil to achieve the same results.
The scalp is the area that needs to be examined on a regular basis, with hair being pulled clean out of the way for a better view, as it is here that the tell tale signs of moving creatures and tiny nits will be observed, and it is here that the treatment needs to begin in order to rid the head of the unwanted head lice nit.

It is no wonder that people look to wild and wacky methods of defeating head lice when the little creatures are so difficult to find and destroy; yes, there are several insecticide remedies on the market – permethrin head lice remedies are particularly popular – and there are very many home remedies suggested on web sites, but which one should you pick?
It is difficult to advise when there are so many, and perhaps trying some will give you a better idea of what works and what doesn’t, but one that crops up with surprising regularity is the head lice olive oil treatment, a method that may seem odd, even bizarre, at first but which on closer examination is very viable indeed.
A little bit of head louse biology reveals that the creature breathes through two holes on the sides of its body. Using olive oil relies on this knowledge, for the object is to suffocate the creatures and remove the dead carcasses. It works like this: you apply olive oil liberally to the hair, and cover it with a shower cap or similar. It is left for an hour, and as it fills the breathing cavities, the creatures are smothered to death. It is effective, if messy, but not as messy as one alternative which is to use mayonnaise instead of olive oil!
After an hour the substance is rinsed away, and the dead bugs with it; a thorough combing with a head lice comb drags out the last of the dead creatures, and you can be pretty certain that there are no more live bugs left (and you will have very smooth and shiny hair!)
However, as with many such solutions there is one downside: you cannot be sure that all of the nits, the eggs, will have been removed. This is because nits are laid very close to the scalp, and are attached to the hair by a very strong natural glue. They are also very small, and can easily slip through the teeth of the nit comb.
There is a school of thinking that says it is easier to kill living lice than it is to remove nits, and this is why the next few days should include regular washing and combing, as any nits that are left will hatch within a week of being laid, and will not begin laying again for a further week.
This is a simple routine that involves a bit of patience, but it is a method that works and uses only natural ingredients.

Millions of people, primarily children, will suffer from head lice during their lifetime, and it is an irritating experience that makes one feel as though they have become dirty. In fact, having head lice is not necessarily a sign of inefficient hygiene, as the louse will happily live on the cleanest of hair, and as they are so easily spread and difficult to detect, it can be the case that a population has become established before the host notices. Indeed, with the symptomatic itching taking weeks in some cases to manifest, it is easy to see how an infestation of itchy head lice can be easily overlooked.
Nevertheless, there is one important factor that is essential to treating the problem, and that is that the head lice nit is central to the eradication of a colony; the nit is the egg of the louse, as distinct from the head louse itself, and it is a very minute egg that is laid attached to the lower part of a hair, near the scalp, and it is attached by a notoriously strong ‘glue’.
The traditional, and very successful plus highly recommended, method of dealing with head lice is to wet comb the hair with a special head lice comb; indeed every method of treatment will include this routine at some point. The problem is that, while the comb is likely to remove most, if not all, of the live lice, it is also likely it will leave some unnoticed nits behind.
A nit remains in that state for a week before it emerges as a young, very tiny, louse, and just another week down the line it has feasted on enough of your blood to reach adulthood; the problem is clear – if nits are remaining, they must be caught before they hatch and, if not, before they reach breeding age. This is why any routine involves paying extra attention to removing the nits.
One method of making nit removal easier is to apply vinegar – common household vinegar, preferably white – to the scalp, as the acid in the vinegar dissolves the adhesive that holds the nit in place, making it far easier to drag the nit from the hair with the comb.
Nits are so small that even the most in depth examination is unlikely to see them all, so if you do find yourself dealing with a louse infestation, make sure you repeat the process once the lice have been removed.

Ovide – Worthwhile Lice Treatment?

The subject of head lice treatment is one that is fraught with differences of opinion, and may lead to some wildly different paths being followed; there are many home remedies for head lice treatment that are recommended variously on internet forums and websites ranging from the use of essential oils such as tea tree oil, through to the use of vinegar to loosen the nits from their anchors, and the somewhat unusual suggestion that many say has the best result of smothering the lice by way of applying mayonnaise or olive oil to the scalp.

The one method that everyone uses is the wet combing technique, the method of using a dedicated head lice comb to draw out the lice and remove the nits, but what about the prescribed and over the counter insecticide shampoos that are frequently mentioned? Many people vie away from them, but are they really that bad?

One prescription version is the brand known as Ovide, and this very popular treatment has a number of supporters who claim it does the job. But what it is it, and why are people afraid of it?

Ovide is the trademark name of a concoction that is based on the well known and widely used insecticide Malathion; one problem with many of the insecticide products is that over the years head lice have become immune to their actions. Ovide claims not to suffer from this problem, and reckons itself to be the most successful available concoction.

Ovide lotion is applied to dry hair, and firmly worked into the scalp where the lice and the nits are found; it is left to dry naturally and – and this is one problem – is left on the hair for several hours, as many as 12 in some cases, meaning the patient is out of action for that time. After that it is thoroughly shampooed away, and rinsed clean. The routine then involves combing to remove the dead lice and nits, which have been killed by the Ovide.

This method is, as we have seen, subject to a few problems, and there are reported side effects such as an increase in dandruff and possible irritation of the scalp, but it does have a level of success that is worthy of testimony, and if you are happy to go down this route then is worthy of consideration. To find out more about it run a web search for Ovide, or for Malathion, and you will find plenty of information, advice and guidance to help you make up your mind.

Where to find them and why you need them

Head lice – a perennial problem especially among young children, spreading like wildfire among schools and communities as they are difficult to diagnose in the early days and are sometimes mistaken for such as dandruff and other scalp conditions. This is why, when diagnosing a possible head louse infestation, the use of pictures is very important, and we are very fortunate that modern technology has allowed photography to advance to such a degree that we can now see very detailed lice pictures, and video clips, displayed for us in high resolution on a computer screen, an aid to identification that surpasses all others.

There are several ways of creating these miniature marvels – one is to take a standard picture of the louse in real size and enlarge using computer technology, another to actually phonograph the louse using an attachment on a microscope – but there can be no doubt that having life like photographs of head lice, both in actual size and enlarged for detail, has led to easier diagnosis and a better understanding of the different methods of head lice treatment.

Head lice symptoms are also pictured in this way, with examples of the site of a bite and the following infection, and also depictions of what a nit looks like and how to tell if the scalp is infested, and this type of head lice information has led to a much greater understanding of the problem. It is absolutely essential that if a case of head lice is identified, it is treated straight away, and this can be done in a number of ways.

Many people choose to use medicinal shampoos – Ovide, using the Malathion insecticide, is a popular one- yet many choose to steer away from such chemically formulated lotions and treat the head lice problem with home remedies. Indeed, there are many instances of picture guides to these methods, with pictorial instruction on using tea tree oil for head lice, olive oil for head lice and more, and as always the important, rather essential, nit comb is also depicted, with an illustration of how to correctly wet comb the bugs out of the hair.

Indeed, the ability to place high resolution head lice pictures on internet websites has led to easier treatment of the problem, and as public understanding of the phenomenon grows these pictures will no doubt prove their worth beyond all doubt. Modern technology has a lot to answer for, so it would seem.

Head Lice Treatment – A World of Choice

Finding out that you or your child has head lice is not a sign that your personal hygiene is lacking as the louse is just as likely to make its home in the hair of on who washes daily as one who is less frequent in their regime. Furthermore, it can be several weeks before the presence of lice is detected, these creatures are tiny and the itching that is the major symptom has been known to appear after as long as three months, meaning that by the time you make the diagnosis the lice have spread to others.

The various methods of head lice treatment can be wildly different, and while many people prefer to use over the counter, or prescribed, insecticide lotions and shampoos, there are a variety of home remedies for head lice that can be tried.

If you want to search these in depth then run a web search with the words ‘head lice information’ and you will be directed to a wealth of websites dealing in head lice symptoms, the head lice life cycle and more, and even to sites that display some quite amazing head lice pictures.

However, let’s look at a few of the more popular treatments for head lice: one that is essential whether used on its own or in conjunction with others is the wet comb technique, sometimes known as Bug Busting. This involves the use of a special head lice comb, a device with very close teeth that drags the louse from the hair and, hopefully, the nit too.

Another method of treatment is to wash with a shampoo containing the essential oil Tea Tree Oil, which comes from an Australian plant by that name and is known to have certain healing qualities. It is claimed to drive the lice away and, as it is completely harmless, may well be worth a try. Equally harmless is the practice of rubbing vinegar into the scalp, as this loosens the ‘glue’ with which nits are attached to the hair, making it much easier for the nit comb to remove them, but bordering on the bizarre are the smothering methods: in these, a substance such as mayonnaise, or preferably olive oil, is applied to the scalp, and it acts to seal the holes through which the mites breathe, thus suffocating them.

Whichever method you use there is plenty information available on websites, and it is worth reading the testimonies of others before trying out different methods.

Treating head lice involves understanding how these annoying yet strangely fascinating little creatures go about their lives, and part and parcel of that is reading into the interesting quirks of the head lice life cycle.

First, it is important to know a couple of things that people often overlook: the first is that it is entirely possible for a patient to have the eggs – otherwise known as nits – but for the louse to have departed, and second is that you do not need to be someone with perennially dirty hair to suffer from a head louse infestation as they will inhabit anyone’s head!

Starting with the female adult louse, she lives for as many as thirty days, feeding off our blood and scuttling around our scalp and hair. She cannot fly – no head lice can – and moves by walking from hair to hair, this being the reason why they spread quickly among children who enjoy unhindered physical contact with each other, and she lays up to eight eggs a day.

A quick calculation gives us in excess of 200 eggs over her lifetime, and each one of those eggs is laid at the base of a hair follicle, and attached to the hair by a very strong adhesive that comes with it. The nits remain as such for a week, and when hatched they take another week to reach maturity, all this time feeding off the blood to reach the required size – about the size of a pinhead.

Once at adult status, they begin the cycle again, the females laying every day to add to the population of breeding lice. This continued cycle explains why much in the world of head lice treatment involves repeated routines over a period of weeks; it is possible to remove all the adult females in one wet combing session, yet be left with a series of eggs that may hatch in anywhere between one and seven days. This means that regular inspection is necessary in order to make sure the new lice do not reach breeding age and begin to create yet more nits.

Understanding this cycle is key to successful treatment, and with the many information sites that abound on the internet it is even possible to look at some very detailed head lice pictures in order to be able to recognize the creatures, and being able to recognize and correctly identify the presence of head lice is one way of making sure that an infestation does not get out of control.