it was my unfortunate pleasure to have come into contact with the common head louse a few weeks back. My kids got them, at a party, and it is an unpleasant experience for all. You feel dirty and creepy, when actually the opposite is true. Lice cannot tell the difference between clean hair and dirty hair, and actually find it easier to grip on to clean hair.
what you need to know -
1. they are basically harmless. What you feel in the itch is not them crawling about on you, but rather an allergic reaction to the louse saliva as it chomps down on your scalp. 2. They cannot jump or fly. They are very slow, and travel between heads via head to head contact. This contact needs to be for 30 seconds or more to transfer the louse. 3. chemical treatments have lost their effectiveness, as the lice are building up a resistance to them. 4. the only real way to know that you have lice is if you find a live louse there. having nits (eggs) does not necessarily mean you have lice. 5. you can first try to remove the lice using a special comb, but on its own this is not too effective, as i found out. 6. It is not necessary to clean any hats or bedclothes when they are about. They clamp fast to the hair and do not willingly leave it. They cannot survive off the human head for long, and only move off to get on a new head. Kind of like hopping on and off the tube!!!
Life cycle of the louse -
This is broken down into three distinct stages. These are the egg, or nit, the nymph and the adult louse.
The egg.
The female louse lays six to eight of these a day, each one on a single hair. They are smaller than a pin head, and oval in shape. If they are a light grey colour they have hatched, and if they are a dark colour they are still inside. It can be hard to spot the eggs, as the louse lays them close to the scalp where it is more humid. They can look like dandruff, or other flecks in the hair.
The nymph.
these hatch after 7-10 days, and start to feed on your blood right away. They do this via a tube coming from there head, and it is the saliva from this that makes you itch. These are different from adults as they cannot mate or lay eggs. They must moult out of there skin as they grow, three times before they are adult lice.
the louse.
The adult louse will start to mate and lay eggs within a day. They live around 30 days, and as such can lay up to 100 eggs in the head during there lifespan. Thus they need to be treated quickly. generally the louse is a greyish brown colour, and has a head, a thorax with three sets of legs, and a body for storing your blood. they have two feelers on the head with which they detect changes in the atmosphere, like humidity and the presence of toxins in the air.
The presence of the eggs may not meen that lice are, or will be present. They may be there from an earlier ifestation, or conditions may not have been right for them to hatch, or they could be dead. Of 50 children to have eggs, only around 9 will hatch to become lice.
When i found that we had adult lice on the kids hair, i first tried combing. This is both time consumins, and gross, as you can see the wee buggers crawling. My sister in law had a handy tool that looks like a comb but emits a charge to kill adult lice, while removing them at the same time. Great for a start but, it does not deal with eggs, and you need to get all off or these could hatch into mor lice in about a week. I went out and bought a bottle of full marks solution, feeling a bit wierd and dirty, and brought it home. It works not by the traditional poisoning method, but rather it kind of over hydrates them, and kills them that way. This sounded ideal as i knew that they are in general starting to resist poisons. In the box i got a bottle of solution (100ml), which it says is enough for two treatments, however i found that it was ample for at least three, though this would depend on the length of the hair. Also i got a comb to remove the dead lice.
Full marks -
- eliminates eggs as well as lice - contains no traditional pesticides - is quick and easy to use - has a low odour.
You use the comb to comb the hair and make sure there are no tangles. Then you massage in the solution, all the way through the hair, and especially in around the scalp. You will think that there is not enough to do it but a little goes a long way. You then leave it on for 10 minutes, though i left it a bit longer. There is no real smell from this stuff, unlike the stuff back in my day which was rotten. After ten minutes you comb through the hir thoroughly removing the dead lice and nits. The best way i found to do this is to split the hair into four quarters, and deal with each in turn. This way you will not miss any of the little buggers. After this you rinse the hair, and wash as normal. Due to the life cycle explained above, you shoul treat again in about a week, in case any eggs were left, and are hatching out again. This means you will get them before they are adult, and therefore not able to breed again.
Results -
This stuff did the trick. I did what it said and treated again in a week, but this time nothing was removed from the hair, so i was satisfied there was nothing there. It was easy to use and also the fact that there was no awful smell made it easier to treat the kids. It cost £5.99 in my local chemists, and still had some left just in case. The active ingredients, if they make any sense to you are cyclomethicone, and isopropyl myrisate. I however do not care in the slightest about this. It worked and got rid of the lice, and thats all i worry about. As it is an oil based shampoo, take care to pay heed to the usual safety tips, like not smoking, or exposing the oily hair to a naked flame. However i do not think that many of you are about to set fire to your childs hair. this would perhaps be an extreme form of lice erradication.
Conlusion -
cheap, easy to use, and highly effective, full marks solution is a brilliant product. It worked quickly, and effectively, and had no odour to speak of. Get back at the little bugs with this stuff, they will not stand a chance. definately gets full marks from me (sorry about that, couldn't resist)! G
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