How to Kill Head Lice: A Step by Step Guide
Filed under Head Lice Treatment
Head lice are parasites that can be found on our heads and although they are not able to spread disease, they spread from one head to another very easily. Head lice is most common among children because they tend to stand so close together and share hair brushes, clothing and other items that can transfer head lice.
Head lice infection is very common and it has been estimated that up to one in every ten children in school acquires head lice at some time.
How to Kill Head Lice
Now that you know a bit more about head lice and what sort of a problem it is, you will need to be aware of how to kill head lice. Of course prevention is the best method but if your child gets infected with head lice you are going to need to learn how to kill head lice and take care of it before it becomes more of a problem.
The process of killing head lice is one that is often very frustrating and time-consuming. If you want to know how to kill head lice, know that the first thing you will need to do is treat the child’s head with lice shampoo. There are several types of this shampoo available, but they are all quite effective.
After shampooing you need to comb the child’s hair with a nit comb because the lice shampoo is only able to kill live lice and not their eggs. You are literally going to have to go through your child’s hair strand by strand, making sure that you get every single nit. They look a bit like dandruff, only with dandruff you can shake it off whereas nits will stick to the hair shaft and cannot be brushed or rubbed off.
If you want to know how to kill head lice, the next step is to saturate your child’s hair with olive oil. Make sure that you only do this once you are sure that you have removed all of the nits, or at least as many as you could see. When olive oil is left in the hair it will smother any lice and nits that may have survived the shampoo.
You should continue checking for lice and nits even after this entire process, because it can be difficult to make sure that you have removed every single lice and nit from the hair and therefore you need to be sure that you catch any that survived as soon as possible, before the entire head is infested all over again.
Do You Need Head Lice Treatment?
Filed under Head Lice Treatment
The first clues that give away the presence of head lice is not itchiness, as is commonly thought. It’s finding black specks on your fingertips and under your fingers whenever you either run them through your hair or do manage to give the odd scratch as you would normally do throughout the course of the day. Those black specks are head lice droppings. You might also find these smudged on your pillow if you never scratch your head.
The next clue will be in the hair that you normally shed. The strands will not just consist of hair. Somewhere along the strand, usually about halfway down, is a teardrop-shaped hard round thing. That thing is a head lice egg. Don’t just let the strand of hair drop onto the floor. Throw it in the trash or burn it.
Then your head starts to really itch. You can’t help but scratch, even though you know the head lice will be waving at you from underneath your fingernails as a result. Things are really bad when you see the adult louses crawling down the strands of your hair.
Getting Rid Of Lice
Head lice are one of the easier itchy conditions you can successfully treat. Put all of your bedding and sleepwear into the dryer (washing isn’t necessary) and run them through for ten minutes. That’s all it will take to kill the eggs laying about. You also need to go buy and use a nit comb and over the counter head lice medications, which do a good job killing your tiny hitch hikers. Have everyone in your family use it.
