Life Cycle of the Louse
First we need to understand the life cycle of the louse. An adult louse can live up to 30 or 40 days on the human host. In this time, the female can lay up to 90 eggs (nits), which will incubate for 7 to 10 days and then hatch. After ten days, the hatched lice mature into adults and the cycle repeats itself.
How Long can Head Lice live off the Human Head?
Typically a louse can live off the human head for 1 – 2 days. Nits can live off the host longer, but rarely become separated, as the female louse “glues” the nit to the hair strand. Nits often look like dandruff because of this, but cannot easily be brushed out of the hair.
How Does A Person Get Head Lice?
Typically head lice are spread by contact in schools, day care facilities and other places where children congregate. Adults working in these environments are more susceptible to getting lice from the children. But lice themselves do not care who their human host is; adults can get lice just as easily as children.
Most often, children spread lice through physical contact (if their heads touch or are close together) and by sharing clothing, hats, or scarves. They then bring the lice home with them, and can spread lice to other household members. Pets do not get lice and do not spread them.
What Do I Do If My Child Has Lice?
If you notice your child is itching their head, check them immediately for lice. Since lice move fast, you should focus on looking for nits, or the lice eggs, which will be attached to strands of hair near the scalp. You may see live lice as well. Take care of your child with the product of your choice. Some parents prefer over the counter lice pesticides while others turn to using natural solutions.
Lice in the Home
While it’s not likely that lice will live in your home, there is still a risk of lice spreading from one person to another. Taking care of your child’s lice immediately, and be sure to wash in hot water all bedding, pillows, blankets, towels and clothing that may have come in contact. Items that cannot be washed can be put into airtight bags for at least 10 days. Other items, such as combs, brushes etc can be put in hot water (150 degrees) or immersed in rubbing alcohol. Vacuum the furniture and car just in case.
Head lice, while a nuisance, are not a sign of uncleanliness or dirtiness. Anyone can contract head lice very easily. If you or your child has head lice, don’t spend time worrying about how you got it, just work on solving the problem.
Licenex – Get rid of head lice and nits with no harmful chemicals.
Sources:
http://www.idph.state.il.us/public/hb/hblice.htm
http://blogs.webmd.com/all-ears/2006/09/lice-not-so-nice.html
http://schoolipm.ifas.ufl.edu/tp2.htm
thank you for this i had to show my friend about lice! thank you ever so much.
My daughter has lice. I thought it was dry scalp like she gets every year this time in the fall. I have cats and seem them scratching, treated them for flees. With her persistent itch and not seeing anything I treated her anyway with RidX. Four days later, my Nanny sees them crawling on her head. I was mortified.. The school nurse told me “if her kids ever had them she would burn down her house”.
What I learned? Heat! It is said to kill more of louses and 90% of the eggs with just 1 blow dry. Using RidX and then conditioner, I combed through her hair and still found live louses.. this why she was still so bad in 5 days. I am going to repeat in 4 more days , but with washing everyday followed by blow drying (said to be 50% better than anything including RidX on the market). I then will comb. I am also washing her sheets ever day for the next 3 weeks and vacuuming the same. They live 2-3 days so this is more a precaution for me. The first sign of lice by the way is a rash on the back of neck and behind of ears. We had that.
thank you so much for the article! My 4yr old daughter just got lice and when I called simply to inform the preschool teacher(thinking I was doing the right thing) about the situation, she acted like my daughter and my whole family had the plague!! She kept insisting and saying that “I guarantee your child didn’t get it from my school” and asking all kinds of questions about our personal and home hygeine!! I was so humiliated and ashamed for my child and our family. We are very clean people and the way this teacher reacted totally shocked me! I’ve been uposet for days about this and reading this article has made me feel so much better about the whole situation. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
The is a lot of ignorance about head lice. Unfortunately it even exists among many who should know. I’m glad the article was able to help you.
I can’t believe a childcare center would do that!! I have 5 children and they not only shared with each other but with me too!! I feel so gross I have my head covered in olive oil 24/7 trying to suffocate them. I called my children’s camp and asked if there had been any other reported cases and they said no, I brought my children into school, where they had already begun taking precautions (there were several children sitting at the front desk waiting to be picked up because they too had it) Only one of my children had nits at that point so I brought him home, my youngest had nits yesterday and I have been having so much trouble getting a handle on it. I have been keeping them out of the pool at camp because i read that they can hold their breath!! I am going crazy with this Please help!!!! We are on day 6 of this!!
At the risk of sounding self-promotional, Licenex is pretty awesome stuff. It’s enzyme based, so there are no industrial pesticides with harmful side effects or residues.
Personally, I’d buy one of the multi-packs and do all my laundry with it too. If you call in your order, we can send it out for next-day delivery.
This article is very helpful. At this very moment I have our house turned upside down trying to make sure all of the lice are gone. This has been a very stressful and humiliating ordeal. I felt like a horrible mother when the lady cutting my childs hair stopped because there were full grown lice bugs in his hair. I kept thinking, what kind of mother misses something like that? We are not dirty, and he has not been in a public school or daycare setting all summer, so I don’t know where they came from. It blew me away.
Knowing that anyone can get it is big relief.
Thank you.
My four year old daughter is going through this right now. Day before yesterday she kept complaining of itching on her scalp. ( mind you we just are getting home from a huge costco trip, we are a family of five)! So I associated it with dandruff and all of the swimming and hot tub trips (daily) that we have been taking. I was on the phone with an old friend and he said, “look at her head in the brightest light you have, and see if anything is moving…….” I looked and saw what looked like a NAT crawl very fast towards the scalp. I freaked out and called my husband right away at work and said ” our daughter has lice, I don’t have the car, take a break and get something”!!!!! He came home with a three step packet from RID. I followed the directions to a “T”, and when I rinsed out step 1, I was shocked to see at least 30 dead bugs come out of my daughters head. I keep a very clean house. I mean, you could eat off of the floor here! I was absolutely disgusted, and that is an understatement. I have been unable to sleep, I even cut her hair extremely short. She is of mixed race ( black and white) and her hair is not exactly the easiest to comb through! All of the lice are gone, but even after excessive combing, there are still some “eggs” that will not come out. I did the three step process from RID ( which has a spray for the home, which I also made a bottle of bleach and water and sprayed it EVERYWHERE)!!!! And I did the vaseline ( saturated her hair in it and covered it for ten hours) then combed out with nit comb. Then washed her hair in flea and tick dog shampoo, dish soap ( to remove vaseline) and rinsed in vinegar! That poor little girl! I am itching everywhere just thinking about it! There are still a few “eggs” in there, that I can’t get out. So we are going to check it three or four times a day and do the RID again in seven days! If anyone has anything else to suggest, I am all ears.
Hi Renee,
Please think seriously about whether you want to put such chemicals in your little girl’s hair again.
The main ingredients in RID are pyrethroids, which may be toxic the the central nervous system (http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/pyrethrins-ziram/pyrethrins-ext.html), and piperonyl, which may be a mutagen or teratogen (http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/pbotech.pdf). If you are pregnant, please stay far away from these two chemicals!
The fact that there are still eggs in her hair leaves you open to the possibility of re-infestation. Not only that, but have you considered treating the sofa, pillows, blankets, etc.?
RID’s website says that if you follow the instructions, you’ll be lice free in 10 days. Part of those instructions include the cleaning of any fomites (sofa cushions, etc.), and using their product as directed.
There are quite a few articles in the MicroNutra Health journal about things like vaseline and mayonnaise not working for people, and the toxicity of chemicals in OTCs.
My suggestion, not just as an employee of the company, but as a fellow parent, would be to give Licenex a try. If I didn’t work here, I wouldn’t know what to do, but our customers love Licenex, and when my kids come home with head lice, I’m ready with a bottle. The ingredients are simple and non-toxic, which is exactly what I want for my children.
Wow… that sounds like quite a process. Just from reading your action mode after finding the lice, I truly believe your floors are clean enough to eat from! You asked for a suggestion though, and I have to say, there is a much easier and safer route to take next time, or even to deal with the nits you are still finding now. And as the post above me described, that solution is Licenex. Seriously, it’s a ten minute gentle shampoo – and the lice AND eggs just completely fall out. OR, you could… stress out, cut hair, nit pick, douse with vinegar, bleach, vaseline, chemicals… yikes! What’s really nice about Licenex, is they’ll overnight it to you when you call, and I’ve heard they give great discounts over the phone too. Plus it’s guaranteed! Can you get the money back that you spent on RID, for not working/potentially harming your child?
I know what I would do!
We just had head lice also, I have 2 boys that share a bed, so both had it. My husband shaved their heads, & his own & I still used the Rid treatment. We have had absolutely not problems since. I know this won’t work for girls, but just a thought for everyone, & you will get some looks, just say mama’s little skin heads. Ha Ha
My question is that i havent had lice for over a year and i have this suitcase and theres two blankets in them and journals and i just received from my parents who may or may not have alice but i know the home is. but i want to know how long can they live off the blankets in the cold outside? and can they jump off a suitcase to me? and can they live off journals? and how long can they really feed off the blankets before finally dying??? please and thank!! =]
Hello All,
After a significant amount of time, i tool the stuff out of the bags and rewashed, redried, then vacuumed, all stuff in the bags.
First off, let me say that I do not blog, have myspace, or have facebook, but i wanted to write this to help all other parents that are going through what we went through. Our daughter complained one day of a itchy neck and we thought maybe it was just a rash. We put some Cordizone on it and it was ok. She complained about it the next day, this time on her scalp and we just thought it. It was not until the school called us and told us she had to come home because she had lice. It turns out she complained of the itching in class and was sent to the nurse to be checked! We were glad that the school had such a good policy that avoided any chances to the other students, but we were mortified that our daughter had lice. We did not understand how she got it and where it came from as we are VERY clean and the house is spotless!!!
Now, as i said below, this is for all those parents that don’t know what to do and are confused and scared for their kid/s….I was one of them, so i just want to help!
I’m a very educated man whom likes to cover all possibilities and decided to go to the internet. I read how heat kills lice and Nits, they need human blood to live, ect. We took all percautions. Below is what we did….be advised…it took hours!
1)Immediatly removed all blankets and anything else that her head may have touched, including our bed sheets.
2) Vaccumed all furniture that she was on, ect.
3) We bought some of Lice Shampoo and Spray that is supposed to kill lice and nits. (first dose was the non-natural one)
4) We put everything everything in the dryer for 30-40min (high heat for 20min should kill all lice and nits)
4) After i took it out of the dryer, we put it in the washer in hot water and re-dried on high heat.
5) After washed, we put them in black garbage bags and tossed them in a unused room and garage for 3-4 weeks. (Nits hatch in 7-10 days and can live 24-48hrs without blood…extra time doesn’t hurt though)
6) Sprays and such were used on unwashable objects and put in bags as well
7) My wife has checked her hair everyday (took about an hour a day) to check her hair and remove anything and we washed her head with an all-natural lice killer 5-7 days after the first washing.
I know this may seem like alot, but all i will say is that they are gone just as fast as they came. It’s been about two months and not a single sign of them after the first 2 days.
I must admit i was a bit worried as i read all these home cases of re-occurence, but we have not had that…I covered all possibilities and it worked.
Choose to use this if you will, be prepared to work, and use alot of time…but in the end, it worked for us.
Hope this helps!
Hi, about 10 days ago I went through all of my 4 kids head. I do this as a precoution every month. I found my 14 year old daughter with it, which is very strange because she is home bound schooled. she hasn’t been any were except for an ER room in the past month. she had no signs of it, no itching or redness. Every one else in the house was NOT infested with it, thank god, just her and I only found nits no live lice.. I used some over the counter Rid treatment 7 days ago. I still have been finding nits in her hair. Every day twice a day I go through it and although their have been fewer, I am still finding them (the nits).To me this is strange because I feel their must be a live lice bug still in her head then, Right?.I read every thing on lice so I know they can’t jump or fly the only crawl. They can only live for 24 hr off it’s host. They die in heat and cold. So the only thing I can think of is that I must be missing them when go through. Thay are small and hard to see, you really have to go through hair, strand by strand.I hope this is the case?? scary and i am freeked out.. .