How Do You Know If You Have Lice?

It is very hard to self diagnose because you can’t see the top of your scalp or back of your head very well unless you are looking in a mirror and then it is even more difficult.  You can have another person look at your scalp.  You are looking for three basic phases of lice: eggs, nymphs, and full blown adult lice. Eggs are very small, glued on a hair shaft very close to the scalp. They are often confused with specs of dandruff so if you want to look for eggs you can take a high quality lice comb or even a stick like this and you lift the hair usually starting around the back of the ear or the back of the head and look carefully for little things that are glued to the hair shaft. If those particals move they are dandruff and if they don’t move they are most likely lice eggs. A full blow adult lice can cause a sensation of crawling on your scalp or can cause itching because of the frequent bites that are used to obtain blood which is their food. So if you have an itchy, crawly feeling have someone look for lice eggs that are the size of a grain of sand or try to find a full blown sesame seed adult lice that is crawling around on your scalp.