Head lice - all about them

head; lice; headlice; nits; louse; fleas; egg; hair; insect; bite; itch; itchy; scalp;

Contents

• Did you know?
• What are head lice?
• Nits and hatched eggs
• How do head lice spread?
• Pets and head lice
• How to tell if you have head lice
• Exclusion from school
• Preventing head lice
• Resources

Help! You think you might have head lice! Your scalp is itching and you can feel them running around on your head. It is an absolute disaster, and you really do not want anyone to know, not even your mum!!!!!

Did you know?

• Head lice are very common, even among high school students (however they are most common in primary school kids).
• Head lice are easy to catch.
• Head lice do not spread dreadful diseases, especially not HIV or hepatitis. You might get a skin infection if you scratch a lot, but this is not common.
• Head lice do not fly or jump from head to head; they can only crawl.
• Their bites are very itchy.
• Having head lice does not mean that you are dirty. They seem to like clean hair as much as dirty hair.
• If one person in the family has head lice, others may have them too.
• Your friends may also have them.

Head lice need to be treated, so ask mum or dad to get the stuff from the pharmacy or supermarket and get started right away. You can probably put the treatment on yourself, but read the instructions carefully first.

What are head lice?

• Head lice are tiny insects without wings. They are about 2-3 mm long, with 6 legs, each with a claw at the end. They crawl quickly, but do not hop, jump or fly.
  
  
   
• They are able to move fast on the scalp, and so they are often hard to see.
• Usually the way that you can check if someone has head lice is seeing the eggs of the lice, called nits.
• They feed on human blood, and need the warmth of a human scalp to live.
• Each female louse can lay 150 to 300 eggs, starting from about 2 weeks after hatching.
• They cannot live for long away from the human head. Lice found on carpets, bedding or soft toys are either old, sick or dead.
  
  
  A head louse on a fingernail

Nits and hatched eggs

• The eggs (nits) are firmly stuck to the hair, right at the bottom where the hair joins the head.
• They are a yellow-white colour and less than 1 mm long.
• They hatch about 7 to 10 days after they are laid.
• If they are more than 10 to 15 mm from the scalp (further along the hair), they are dead or hatched.
• Hatched eggs stay stuck to the hair. They are white, flat and usually easy to see.
   
  

How do head lice spread?

• Head lice mainly spread through close head-to-head touching.
• They may be spread through sharing brushes and hats.
• They are not likely to be spread through bedding, furniture or carpets, as they cannot live and lay eggs away from a warm human scalp.
• However, wash your pillowcase and cushions, or put them in a plastic bag and into the sunlight for a few hours, just in case! Sunlight will fry the lice.

Pets and head lice

• Human head lice (pediculus humanus capitis) have quite a complicated life cycle and can only feed on human blood. They cannot live for more than a few hours on animals.
• There is no risk of pets and humans infecting each other.

How to tell if you have head lice

• If you think you may have head lice, get someone to look very carefully at your scalp and hair.
• They should look for live eggs and lice, especially around the ears, at the back of the neck, and under fringes.
• A good light (such as sun light) and magnifying glass will help, because head lice and eggs are very small.
• Sometimes you can see tiny spots of black (lice poo) on pillows and collars.
• Eggs may have a gritty feel when fingers are run through the hair.

If you are feeling a bit itchy after reading this, - then have a check but it's probably just your imagination working overtime!

Exclusion from school

• The South Australian Public and Environmental Health Act 1987 says that if head lice are found, students may be sent home from school or other centres, and they must have treatment that kills the lice before being allowed to return. If the treatment is carried out overnight, the student can return to school the next day.
• Although some schools insist that students do not attend while they still have nits, this does not make sense. If there are no live lice, there can not be any risk of passing the lice to other students. Removing nits is difficult (see the topic Head lice - treating them).
• If you have head lice, it would be best if you can tell someone at school, such as your teacher, that you have lice, so that other kids can be checked by their parents to see if they have lice. Your teacher will not tell anyone else who has the lice - what you say will be kept confidential.

Look, we know this is embarrassing, but you should play fair to your friends - and if they have them, they can give them back to you!

Preventing head lice

It is very important to remember that head lice are harmless, but they also cause a lot of distress. If you do the things below, you will be less likely to get head lice, or to pass them on to others - but you don't need to be obsessed about them. Head lice are a pest, but not dangerous.

• Avoid direct head-to-head contact.
• Don't share brushes, combs, ribbons, hats, helmets or hair ties.
• Keep long hair tied back or plaited.

Do not use the chemical treatments to try to prevent getting head lice. They don't work (head lice can be caught again within hours of treatment), and using them often will increase the amount of chemical that you absorb.

• In places where hair is brushed a lot (eg. 100 strokes each day), kids might not get head lice so often.
• People who have very short hair are much less likely to get head lice - but you really don't have to shave your head!!!

Resources

• There is a lot of really good information for students, parents, schools and health professionals on the South Australian Public and Environmental Health site. This includes printable pamphlets, posters, policy drafts, and where to get access to videos, teaching material, and information in many different languages.
  http://www.dh.sa.gov.au/pehs/branches/headlice/headlice-index.htm

The information on this site should not be used as an alternative to professional care. If you have a particular problem, see a doctor, or ring the Youth Healthline on 1300 13 17 19 (local call cost from anywhere in South Australia).