All you need to know about head lice

The head louse is an insect that looks very much like an ant but a lot smaller. The head louse only lives in the hair on the head of humans, and has a life span of roughly six weeks.

Head lice move from human head to human head and use their host for nesting and food. The eggs are laid very close to the scalp and are practically glued on so they will not fall away from the head, even with combing. Head lice feed on the human blood by biting into the skin on the scalp and sucking on the blood.

The term “nits” refers to the empty or dead eggs left in a person’s hair, not the actual incubating eggs or head lice themselves.

The eggs of a head louse are the size of a grain of sand and take about seven days to incubate till they are ready to hatch.

The head lice are called nymphs from the moment they are born until they pass through three different stages of metamorphoses, where they shed their exoskeleton and mature into an adult, which take about twelve days. The nymphs are also unisex until they mature and the sex of the louse becomes apparent.

The female head louse is bigger than the male head louse and can lay up to 210 eggs in her lifetime, which means that if you do not treat the condition as soon as it is found then you may cause your head to be riddled with hundreds of head lice.

The only way to remove infestation and kill the life cycle of head lice on a host is to remove all eggs, nymphs and head lice, if any eggs, nymphs or lice are left on the host then the life cycle will resume.

Even with treatment with insecticides, if the treatment is not carried out correctly the head lice will become immune to the treatment so another treatment will need to be used to try and remove all trace of the insect.

The most successful treatment can be the simplest, a study completed by British medical scientists shows that using olive oil on the hair and a simple louse comb, which is a comb with fine teeth that are extremely close together. This method, if done correctly can remove the infestation. To get the full benefits of the treatment it is best to carry it out once a day for three or four days.

Facts you may not know

A lot of people believe that head lice do not like dirty hair and only go for clean hair that is washed regularly, this is not the case, and they do not discriminate on cleanliness.

A lot of schools in the United Kingdom carry policies that say a child with nits may not attend until the infestation has been cleared up but nits does not represent infestation, actual head lice in the hair proves infestation.

Head lice are vulnerable once taken away from hair; they are harmless and will die within 48 hours if they do not find the hair of another host.