The Head Lice Life Cycle
The Head Lice Life Cycle
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 head lice eggs – otherwise known as nits – but for the head lice to have departed, and second is that you do not need to be someone with perennially dirty hair to suffer from a head lice infestation as they will inhabit anyone’s head!
Starting with the female adult head lice, 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 head lice 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.
More About Head Lice Cycle
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 head lice do not reach breeding age and begin to create yet more nits.
Understanding this head lice cycle is key to successful head lice 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.
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Head Lice Treatment Choices
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.
How to get rid of Head Lice
How to get rid of Head Lice
The head lice problem is one that affects many millions of people across the world, as these irritating creatures are prevalent across the globe and have been for millions of years. The head louse is a very hardy creature that can be difficult to deal with, although once a routine has been found that appears to be successful the patient can look forward to a louse free existence.
The methods of treatment available differ greatly, but one thing that is always needed is the classic head lice comb: this is a small comb, deeper and shorter than a standard one, that has very closely packed teeth and is designed specifically to drag the lice, and the nits – tiny eggs that are attached to our hairs – from the hair, and whatever alternative method you use there is always the need for a nit comb to play a part.
Further methods involve the use of special medicinal shampoos, and among these one very popular prescription only insecticide shampoo is that known as Ovide; containing the insecticide Malathion in very small quantities, this is a preferred method by many, yet there are those who opt not to coat their children’s hair in chemicals that can have side effects.
The alternative is to use a shampoo that contains a natural substance, and among these Tea Tree oil – an essential oil taken from the tea tree plant native to Australia – is very popular indeed, and many claim it has excellent effect and brings about results.
There are more unusual methods of getting rid of head lice, for a popular head louse treatment method involves smothering them with household products. The head louse breathes through a series of holes on either side of the body, and these can be closed for periods of time to prevent drowning when we wash our hair. However, the louse has to open them at some time, and if we can smother them and prevent them from breathing then they will die.
To do this people use products that may at first seem rather odd – mayonnaise and olive oil are preferred – as these congeal on the lice and prevent it from breathing when it opens the breathing holes. Messy but reportedly successful, a thorough comb through with a nit comb, after a wash of course, is also needed to finalize this effective if unusual treatment regime. Following any treatment, regular inspection is also recommended in order to keep the population from reappearing.
