Head lice facts A female louse lays 3 to 8 eggs (
To survive, adult head lice must feed on blood. An adult head louse can live about 30 days on a person's head but will die within one or two days if it falls off a person. Adult female head lice are usually larger than males and can lay about six eggs each day.
The female louse can lay up to 8 nits per day. The eggs hatch in about a week (6 to 9 days). The baby “nymphs” need a blood meal within minutes of hatching. In another 7 days, they grow to be adults and can start laying eggs.
A nymph must feed on blood to survive. It looks like an adult head louse but is about the size of a pinhead. The adult louse is about the size of a sesame seed, has 6 legs (each with claws), and is tan to grayish white in color. Females can lay up to 8 nits per day.
How many head lice are usually found on an infested person? Typically, 10–15 head lice are found. The number of lice often depends on personal hygiene, for example, how often the person bathes, shampoos, or changes and washes his/her clothing.
In a normal healthy child, an infestation usually involves less than 10 live lice (7). Infestations may be asymptomatic. Itching may occur if the individual becomes sensitized to antigenic components of louse saliva that is injected as the louse feeds (7).
If you spot nits, but do not see any lice, it is possible that they are hiding and scurrying from the light as you search the hair and scalp; they can move quite quickly! Focus your search to their preferred hideouts, behind the ears and at the nape of the neck.
Then use a fine toothed “lice comb” to systematically work through the hair and remove adult lice. Regularly wiping the comb on tissues or paper towel will reveal the dispatched lice. This approach works but must be repeated twice, about a week apart, to break the life cycle of the head lice.
Suffocate the Lice
Soak your child's head in olive oil or coconut oil. Cover with a shower cap for at least 2 hours (or preferably overnight). When ready, remove the shower cap, and separate the hair into small sections, then use a metal nit comb to carefully remove the lice and eggs. Rinse the hair well with shampoo.
As with furniture and carpets, adult lice typically live for around 2 days on pillows and sheets without human contact. Nits will not hatch and will die within a week. People should machine wash any pillows or sheets someone with lice has used in hot water of more than 130°F (54.4°C) .
Lice eggs hatch 1–2 weeks after they're laid. After hatching, the remaining shell looks white or clear and stays attached to the hair shaft. This is when it's easiest to spot them, as the hair is growing longer and the egg shell is moving away from the scalp.
Malathion lotion, 0.5%;
Malathion is pediculicidal (kills live lice) and partially ovicidal (kills some lice eggs). A second treatment is recommended if live lice still are present 7–9 days after treatment. Malathion is intended for use on persons 6 years of age and older.
In fact, it can take up to six weeks for a child or adult to develop the typical itchiness that might prompt a head check. And even then, half the people with lice still won't exhibit any symptoms associated with lice.
Lice eggs are so small you would never know if they hatched or not. The only way to prevent them from hatching would be to remove them with a good metal nit comb, or your fingernails.
Generally, if no live crawling insects are seen three weeks after the treatment, it's safe to assume that they are gone. Nits would have hatched by that time if they were alive.
Once the lice have spread to the person's head, the female louse will start to lay their nits or eggs; an infestation has begun. The first nymphs, or baby lice, will appear 7-10 days later. Nymphs will continue to eat and grow over the next 7-10 days.
Head lice have no wings and do not fly or jump, but they can crawl or run through hair quickly. Most commonly, head lice are spread by direct head-to-head contact with an infested person.
If nits are yellow, tan, or brown, it means the lice haven't hatched yet. If the nits are white or clear, the lice have hatched and just the egg remains. Lice eggs hatch within 1 to 2 weeks after they're laid.
Malathion Ovide Lotion is a prescription-strength lotion that comes highly recommended by experts for treating lice. It's suitable for treating live adult lice and their eggs, known as nits. Malathion is applied directly to the scalp and dry hair.
Combs with flat-faced teeth spaced 0.2 to 0.3mm apart are best for removing head lice, although combs with smaller gaps can be used to remove eggs and nits (egg cases) after treatment. Detection combing can be carried out on dry or wet hair.
Symptoms of Lice Infestation
People have scratch marks, hives, or, if intense scratching has broken the skin, a bacterial infection. These symptoms are especially common on the shoulders, buttocks, and abdomen. Pubic lice bites may also cause bluish gray spots to form on the chest, buttocks, and thighs.
In the United States, infestation with head lice (Pediculus humanus capitis) is most common among preschool- and elementary school-age children and their household members and caretakers.