| The Nitty-Gritty on Head Lice, Part I |
By: Tina Boscha, Columnist, “Kids and Health”
On 1/1/06
I distinctly remember arriving at school one day in fourth grade to find my best friend Emily missing. She seemed fine the day before; not a cough, sniffle, or tummy ache. There wasn’t even a test to fake sick for, but my teacher said she was ill, so I went through the day a little lonely.
| "Lice aren’t that different from chickens; they need a male to fertilize the egg, and there just aren’t that many of them around. This is why you’re mostly likely to see nits rather than adult lice." |
After school I called Emily to see how she was. “I’m not sick,” she whispered, as if someone from school might happen to appear in her kitchen. “I have lice. Don’t tell anyone… or else.”
As bad as I normally was with secrets, I didn’t tell. Having lice was something nobody wanted to advertise. It did puzzle me, though, to learn that Emily had them. I knew she washed her hair regularly. To this day, her mother is the cleanest woman I know; only after her kids moved out did she decide it was okay to vacuum just every other day.
No matter: it was my fourth grade understanding that lice were the result of dirty living. After all, lice are the truth behind the familiar, still-used phrase “You’ve got cooties.” Emily really did have cooties. I kept my mouth shut.
In reality, lice are not a symbol of someone’s “icky-ness”, no matter how icky the lice (bugs) and nits (eggs) themselves are. Head lice are not a sign of poor hygiene, or of being poor. They are a common human parasite that can affect anyone regardless of socio-economic status, race, or ethnicity.
Head lice are simply small parasitic insects that make their home among human hair, usually among the scalp and neck hairs. They very rarely reside in eyebrows and eyelashes, although it is possible. They don’t transmit from pets – they’re people lovers only, moving from human head to head.
Although lice and nits don’t jump or fly, they are highly contagious. Since kids tend to have a lot of head-to-head contact, from sharing hats and combs to huddling together to sleepovers, lice easily migrate. The scalp is the louse’s preferred habitat, since it supplies a ready source of food – blood – taken through small bites, and it also provides a nice cozy temperature for nits to incubate.
The good news is that lice don’t live very long. They lay eggs, which take 7-10 days to hatch. Once hatched, lice mature quickly, needing only about the same number of days to hatch their own eggs. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, although in reality infestations are rarely severe. Adult lice lay several eggs, but most won’t reach maturity. Lice aren’t that different from chickens; they need a male to fertilize the egg, and there just aren’t that many of them around. This is why you’re mostly likely to see nits rather than adult lice.
So what do you do if you receive the dreaded phone call that your child has head lice?
First, determine if your child does, indeed, have lice. According to the National Pediculosis Association and the Harvard School of Public Health many things can appear to be lice and nits, and even behave like them.
Dandruff, dried bits of hairspray and gel, and dirt can all mimic nits, nymphs (baby lice), and the adult louse. Because lice bite the scalp to obtain human blood, their bites can cause irritation and make the scalp itchy. However, an itchy scalp can also be caused by other factors like dry skin.
The best way to tell if your child has head lice is to call a doctor or nurse and have them examine your child. You can also look closely at your child’s scalp under bright, natural light and even better, with a microscope. Using a VERY fine-tooth comb, examine the hair near your child’s scalp, around the ear areas and nape of neck. If your child has an infestation, you’re most likely to see the nits attached to the hair shaft.
Shaped like a sesame seed, only smaller, live, unhatched nits are usually off-white (but can be several shades of brown) and attached to the hair follicle. For a closer look, check out www.headlice.org, which also includes pictures of the lice themselves.
Already hatched eggs without lice or live nits are not considered an infestation, and do not require any treatment beyond manual removal, so this is important to note. Just as you shouldn’t give your child antibiotics for a virus, you don’t want to subject them to unnecessary treatments. If, however, there are nits and/or lice on your child’s scalp, even one or two, then treatment is in order. More on this next week in Part Two: How do I get rid of these things?
Read Part II of this column
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