10 Head Lice Facts You Need to Know!

10 HEAD LICE FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW 

  1. Head lice is much more common than you think. 1 in 20 U.S. school children get head lice every year.
  2. Equal Opportunity parasites that feed on the human scalp regardless of hygiene, income, age, ethnicity, day of the week, time of the year, or if you have had lice before or not.
  3. Feed on the human blood every 2-3 hours for food. Need the warmth of the human scalp to survive and to lay their eggs.  Pets such as Cats and Dogs do not get head lice.
  4. Lice do not hop, jump, or fly. They have six legs with claws and only crawl.  Head-to-head contact is the predominant way that head lice is spread since they need to be close enough to the another person’s hair to grab and transfer over. Think selfies, sleeping next to each other, and hugging.
  5. Lice have mutated over the years and have developed a resistance to the chemicals in over-the-counter products such as RID and NIX.  These product can kill an adult lice around 40% of the time but they will not kill the lice eggs. Lice eggs have a protective shell outside product cannot penetrate.
  6. A person can have head lice for days, weeks, months, and even years if the infestation is not properly treated.
  7. Lice is a family affair. Just half of the people we treat are children. The other half are parents and older siblings. Moms with children under 12 get lice around 80% of the time.
  8. Lice cannot live off the human scalp for more than 24-48 hours.  Lice need the human blood to feed on and the warmth of the scalp for their eggs to nest on.  Cleaning will make you feel better but is not a vital step in the process of ending your head lice infestation.
  9. Cutting the hair will not end your head lice infestation.  Nits/Eggs live within 1/4 inch of the scalp.  As long as you have hair strands you can have lice.  A bald person is the only person that cannot have lice.
  10. Not itching does not mean you do not have lice. Lice is an allergic reaction to the saliva of lice when they suck human blood. Around 50% of the people that get lice itch, but the other 50% do not itch.