Bryan Betty: How to deal with head lice

Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

Head lice, otherwise known as nits or kutis, is one of the most frustrating medical conditions parents have to face. It’s very common and often seen in school outbreaks.

What are head lice and who gets them?

• They’re small insects found on the head. They live on hair and suck blood from the scalp.
• They lay eggs on the hair – looking like little grains of sand stuck to hair.
• Anyone can get them; it has nothing to do with poor hygiene. They do not carry disease.
• Only humans can get them, and they’re spread through direct head contact. Often found on children who sleep together or play together. Often spread by school outbreaks.
• They can’t live when not on the head and die quickly.

How do you know you have them?

• Sometimes can see live insects moving on the scalp.
• Nits, headlice eggs look like small grains of sand stuck to hair that can’t be brushed out: often found around the ears and back of the neck.
• Intense itch sometimes, kids often scratch at their hair.
• Scratching can cause sores to develop on the scalp.
• Often causes redness, swelling scalp.

What do you do about them?

Two things:

• You need to kill the live adult insects using a special shampoo and get rid of the eggs stuck to the hair.
• Use head lice shampoo ‘Dimethicone’ twice, one week apart. It’s not an insecticide, it suffocates the live head lice.
• You then have to comb out the eggs stuck to the hair, so they don’t hatch.
• A few times every day for 1-2 weeks: use a fine-tooth nit comb, wet comb with the conditioner and comb till no eggs coming free.

Any other things to think about?

• If one child gets infected in the family, check the rest of family and treat with shampoo on the same day.
• Tell your school – school outbreaks are common.
• It’s difficult to prevent.
• Never ever use fly spray or kerosene (sometimes promoted): dangerous!

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