Head Lice And Children

Prevention is the best cure!

You should always encourage girls with long hair ro keep it tied back in a pony tail, pig tails. plaits or a bun. This will eliminate the lice being transferred froim one child to another.

Other methods of prevention are:

• avoiding physical contact with a person who has lice
• not sharing combs, brushes, hats, scarves, ribbons, or other personal items
• examining and treating members of your household who have had close contact with a person infected with lice
• keeping your child home from school or day care until the morning after treatment for lice

If you find lice, your child should be treated.

If your child has not been treated for head lice before, and you only find eggs, you should consider treating for head lice. However, another option if you do not want to use insecticidal treatments, is to check again the next day using the conditioner and comb technique.

If your child has been treated recently, and you find only hatched eggs, but no lice, you may not need to treat since the eggs could be from the old infection.

You should check your child every week using conditioner, a fine tooth comb, and paper tissue as described on this page.

Chemical free treatment for Head Lice

A simple and realatively inexpensive method of treating head lice:

1. Purchase a bottle on NO NAME hair conditioner
2. Smother the hair with the conditioner
3. Wrap the head in plastic wrap / shower cap and allow the head to "steam" for ten minutes
4. Remove the wrapping and comb through the hair with a fine tooth comb. Dip the comb in a mixture of vinegar and water.

This should remove the eggs, both dead and active and the live lice.

This is a safe way of dealing with this troublesome pest.

"Eliminate your lice problems NOW with this incredible home remedy!"

How Else Can I treat Head Lice?

Head lice live in the hair and come down to the scalp to feed by sucking blood. So head lice formulations must be applied to all parts of the hair. A complete regime consists of two treatments 7 days apart, the first to kill the climbers, and the second to kill the juvenile lice hatched from the eggs over the intervening 6 days. No product currently available kills all eggs.

1. Apply the product to all areas of the head and coat all hairs from roots to tips.

2. If you are using lotions, apply the product to dry hair. For shampoos, wet the hair, but use the least amount of water possible.

3. For long hair apply the treatment formulation near the scalp and then use an ordinary comb to carry the formulation down the hair shaft to the tip. If product is left on the comb after one sweep, it should be wiped onto the same or a new area of hair at the base and the process repeated. By repeating this process several times for hair all over the head, one can obtain an even coverage of all hairs from roots to tip. In addition the hair is tangle free and use of a fine tooth comb is subsequently simplified.

4. Leave the preparation on the hair for at least 20 minutes.

5. Cover the child's eyes while the treatment is being applied. Ask them to hold a towel against their eyes.
   

If you find lice, your child should be treated.

If your child has not been treated for head lice before, and you only find eggs, you should consider treating for head lice. However, another option if you do not want to use insecticidal treatments, is to check again the next day using the conditioner and comb technique.

If your child has been treated recently, and you find only hatched eggs, but no lice, you may not need to treat since the eggs could be from the old infection.

You should check your child every week using conditioner, a fine tooth comb, and paper tissue as described above

Head Lice Products

There are many excellent products available to combat a head lice outbreak. I would suggest you do some research at your pharmacy or have a look around the net for some recommendations. prefer a chemical free method as I have described here, but many other excellent preparations are available.

How Do I know My Child Has Head Lice?

Many head lice infections cause no symptoms, and probably less than half cause itch. So you have to LOOK to find out if your child has head lice. Do not rely on itching and scratching.

Eggs are not difficult to see; use a strong light and look on the hair shafts. Newly laid eggs are usually within 1.5 cm of the scalp while older eggs are higher up the hair shafts. If you are not sure whether an object you find is a head louse egg, try sliding it up the hair shaft using your fingers. Eggs are usually quite difficult to move, whereas hair muffs and other items slide easily.

However, finding live lice can be difficult since the climbers move away quickly from disturbances in the hair, and they are very difficult to see.

An easy way is to find the climbers is to use the conditioner and nit comb treatment

1. Apply conditioner to dry hair aiming to cover each hair from root to tip with a layer of conditioner.

2. Detangle the hair using an ordinary comb.

3. Immediately comb the hair with a fine tooth comb. The best comb for this is the Lice Meister comb. However, plastic nit combs with conditioner are also very effective for detecting climbers.

4. Wipe the conditioner off the fine tooth comb onto a paper tissue and look for lice and eggs.

5. Repeat the combing for every part of the head at least 5 times.

6. Also examine the comb for lice and eggs.

If you find lice, your child should be treated.

If your child has not been treated for head lice before, and you only find eggs, you should consider treating for head lice. However, another option if you do not want to use insecticidal treatments, is to check again the next day using the conditioner and comb technique.

If your child has been treated recently, and you find only hatched eggs, but no lice, you may not need to treat since the eggs could be from the old infection.

You should check your child every week using conditioner, a fine tooth comb, and paper tissue as described above.

If you find lice, your child should be treated.

If your child has not been treated for head lice before, and you only find eggs, you should consider treating for head lice. However, another option if you do not want to use insecticidal treatments, is to check again the next day using the conditioner and comb technique.

If your child has been treated recently, and you find only hatched eggs, but no lice, you may not need to treat since the eggs could be from the old infection.

You should check your child every week using conditioner, a fine tooth comb, and paper tissue as described above.

If you find lice, your child should be treated.

If your child has not been treated for head lice before, and you only find eggs, you should consider treating for head lice. However, another option if you do not want to use insecticidal treatments, is to check again the next day using the conditioner and comb technique.

If your child has been treated recently, and you find only hatched eggs, but no lice, you may not need to treat since the eggs could be from the old infection.

You should check your child every week using conditioner, a fine tooth comb, and paper tissue as described above.

If you find lice, your child should be treated.

If your child has not been treated for head lice before, and you only find eggs, you should consider treating for head lice. However, another option if you do not want to use insecticidal treatments, is to check again the next day using the conditioner and comb technique.

If your child has been treated recently, and you find only hatched eggs, but no lice, you may not need to treat since the eggs could be from the old infection.

You should check your child every week using conditioner, a fine tooth comb, and paper tissue as described above