Not all coal tar shampoos are equal when it comes to head lice. To effectively kill head lice you need to use an extra strength coal tar shampoo. Most “normal” strength brands have a 0.5% coal tar content. You’ll need something stronger so read the labels. The strongest types are often referred to as being “therapeutic”.

To kill head lice simply use the coal tar shampoo as normal but the lather on for 15 to 30 minutes. Then rinse through thoroughly. Use a nit comb afterwards to comb through the wet hair. Do this for three consecutive days. Then use twice a week after that with daily combing until the head lice have completely gone.

Some parents claim that by using the shampoo once a week their children seem less prone to being reinfected by head lice. Others use the shampoo as a precaution whenever they receive a head lice letter from school even if their children don’t already have an infestation.

Is coal tar safe to use as a head lice remover? In high concentrations (over 5%) coal tar is a known carcinogen. Therapeutic strength shampoos can contain concentrations of 2.5% and some now carry a warning about the carcinogenic properties of coal tar on the label.

But the risk is very small risk. The National Psoriasis Foundation claims coal tar is a “valuable, safe and inexpensive treatment option” and coal tar products have been used for a very long time. There is feeling that the benefits far outweigh the small risks involved. All of the over the counter head lice shampoos come with a health risk attached. Coal tar is no different but coal tar is an effective way to kill head lice, it has been used safely for many years and should have negligible risk when used only occasionally.

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            One practice that you should employ when shopping for a head lice treatment is to read the disclaimer. This short little message provided by the manufacturer can tell you a lot about how the treatment is going to work. You should avoid purchasing the treatments that say they work in an ‘anecdotal’ environment. ‘Anecdotal’ basically translates to ‘unreliable’, and for that reason, these treatments may be of little to no help in ridding yourself of head lice.

            When helping your children to get over a case of head lice, you need to exercise special caution in order to not harm them with the harsh chemicals that many lice medications contain. Treatments like ‘Rid’ and ‘Nix’ may be too intense for your child. In these cases, you may want to use an anti-lice shampoo instead. There are some home remedies that may be of use in ridding your child’s scalp of lice, but they are untested and therefore should only be used at your discretion.

            When it comes to getting lice out of the hair of adults, permethrin is the most commonly recommended treatment. Both ‘Nix’ and ‘Elimite’ contain permethrin as the active ingredient, with Nix containing 1 percent of the formula and Elimite containing a more potent 5 percent. In most cases, only one application of permethrin is necessary to remove all of the lice from an individual. If the simple cures for head lice aren’t working, you may need to opt for a more drastic treatment. Lindane is a drug that is only available by prescription, which has shown to be rather effective. Take caution, though, because the drug has been shown to induce seizures in children in a small number of cases. Oral agents such as Septra or Bactrim can also eliminate head lice over a period of 7 to 10 days. Stromectol is another oral drug which can help to destroy the parasitic insects with only one dose.

            In addition to killing the parasites present in your hair, you’re also going to need to take care of the nits that they leave behind. You can do this by breaking down their adhesive which binds them to the hair with distilled white vinegar. Afterwards, you’ll be able to remove the nits with little to no trouble. Focus on the area of the hair shafts that are within one centimeter of the scalp. Nits that are located more than one centimeter away from the scalp are not necessarily a worry as they are not likely to survive. With a little persistence, you can treat even the most dire cases of head lice in the home. Good luck!

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-         When you are working towards manually removing the lice and the nits, be sure that you’re in an area that has a good source of light. You may want to perform the procedure outside, as sunlight can provide an ample light source and you won’t have to worry about the lice escaping inside your house and possibly afflicting another individual.

-         You may want to consider buying a specialized comb for dealing with head lice. These combs are often boilable so that you can use them repeatedly for whenever a case of head lice arises. The combs also have long, fine teeth that can be used to successfully pull the lice and nits from the hair.

-         Removing the nits that the lice leave behind can be difficult. They are attached to the follicles of the hair with a special agent that lice produce, making it nearly impossible for the nits to be taken away easily. In order to loosen up the adhesive that holds the nits in place, you may want to use white distilled vinegar.

-         Sometimes, cases of head lice can persist due to a lack of proper cleaning procedures. You should wash and dry the bed linens of the affected individual to ensure that no nits or lice are present that may be able to re-infest the individual. Remember, it only takes one louse to fully infest a person’s scalp!

-         When you are combing for lice, be sure to repeat the process for a few days in a row. If you happen to notice the presence of more nits, the problem has not been successfully contained and you need to continue the process.

-         You may want to consider enlisting the aid of another when helping to de-louse a member of your family. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, and lice tend to avoid light and can crawl fast. By having two people looking at once, you’ll be better suited to eliminating the problem.

-         If you are unable to remove all the lice and nits by hand, you may want to use a medical treatment to eliminate the infestation. Use caution when using this method, though, because most of the treatments available are pesticides that can be damaging to your health.

-         If you’re using a chemical treatment to eliminate your lice problem, be sure not to use the same treatment repeatedly. If it doesn’t work the first time, the lice may be resistant to that particular treatment, and using it further will only be damaging to your health.

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The creation of life

When a female head louse moves to new nesting ground (a new human head) they lay eggs about a centimeter away from the scalp. The female manages to keep the eggs firm on the hair, close to the scalp by using a substance they make that has glue like qualities.

Once the eggs have incubated, which is normally anywhere between seven and nine days, the eggs will hatch and the life of a head louse will begin. The newborn head louse is called a nymph.

Start out in life

The nymph is white in color, almost transparent, until it takes its first feed on the human blood by biting into the skin of the scalp, even then it will just look like a tiny red dot about half a millimeter in length.

The nymph is a smaller version of an adult and looks like an extremely tiny ant, although the head lice have longer front legs for grasping hair.

The nymph stays a child for twelve days; in these twelve days the nymph will follow the metamorphosis process three times, shedding its exoskeleton on each occasion. After each stage of metamorphosis the nymph becomes larger on it’s way to becoming a fully matured adult.

Its not until the nymph reaches adult hood that the sex of the head louse is apparent.

Adult hood

When the nymph reaches adult hood the sex is determined and its mature adult life can begin.

The adult female is normally slightly bigger than the male and a fully-grown adult head louse grows no bigger than a sesame seed. The average lifespan of an adult louse is between twenty-eight and thirty days.

The female louse can lay between three and six or seven eggs a day which means in its lifetime female head lice are capable of laying 210 eggs each.

Adult head lice, like the nymph feed on the blood of their host by biting into the scalp and feeding on the blood in the skin.

Sometimes adult head lice can fall off their host, this is due to hair growth and the fact that we shed hair every day. If a head louse falls off the human host they generally die within two days although in this time female head lice may still lay eggs on surfaces that resemble human hair, like teddy bears and woolen rugs which gives possibilities of the cycle being able to start again through a different host being found.

It is not well known that a fully grown adult head louse can run very fast, a lot faster than we realize, this means that should they fall off a human host there is every possibility that the louse could find their way onto another human quite quickly and without the unsuspecting victim realizing they have a guest.

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Unlike other lice the head louse is long and thin with six legs close together, most lice are shorter in appearance and have legs further apart due to their terrain.

Like all lice, the female head louse glues her eggs towards the root of the hair using her saliva. The eggs are very small in size; they are normally no bigger than a grain of sand.

The eggs take about seven days to hatch, before the young nymph comes out. Once the nymph has ventured out of its egg it needs to feed, before feeding it is almost transparent. The nymph will feed on the blood of the host by biting the scalp and sucking the blood out of the skin.

The nymph takes 12 days to become and adult, in this time the nymph will go through a lot of changes, including shedding its exoskeleton on numerous occasions.

Once a fully-grown adult the head louse, as it is now called, will now produce fertilized eggs. These eggs, just like the one they grew from will take seven days to hatch and the cycle starts again.

The adult head lice have a life span of about 28 to 30 days in total, so from the moment an egg is laid till the moment the adult head lice dies is a life cycle of less than fifty days.

Head lice treatments

All the treatments below are supposed to be good forms of combating infestation; they all need putting in the hair and leaving before combing or rinsing out. There are many other treatments on the market, all possessing to be the best form of removing infestation but these are the main ones available.

• Olive oil
• Louse comb
• Insecticide lotions, crèmes and shampoos
• Shaving the head completely
• Tea tree and peppermint
• Neema seed oil
• Alcohol

The history of the head louse

The head louse has been around for over one million years and has evolved many times, with many species dying out over the centuries.

The head louse has been close to humans since the dawn of its existence because of its need to be in human hair. There is a belief that the head louse started out in life infesting our Homo erectus ancestor and it wasn’t until 100,000 years ago that they started infesting the Homo sapiens, which is the species of human that lives today.

Each species of louse has been able to adapt greatly over the years and find its own niche area where it has been able to grow, and live a comfortable life. There is no real explanation as to why different louse have ended up with such small living areas like the head louse.

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-         Head lice are tiny insects that are clear when they hatch, but turn a reddish brown as they mature and feed off of blood.

-         Head lice can actually only affect humans, so you don’t need to worry about any pets around the house when dealing with them.

-         Head lice can only survive for approximately twenty four hours after being separated from their human host, so paying someone to conduct a complete bug spray on the house is often unnecessary and harmful.

-         Head lice are unable to leap like fleas, and they do not have wings, making them unable to fly. All that they can do is crawl, so the best way to avoid being infested with them is to make sure that you don’t have any physical contact with a person who has the bugs. You also need to take care when it comes to sharing personal items; avoid sharing combs, brushes, hats, helmets, hair ties, towels and the like in order to ensure that you’re employing safe practices when it comes to avoiding infestation.

-         Head lice are most common in school-age children, and infestations can spread quickly through a school system or day-care center. If you have children, be sure to let them know that they need to be responsible when it comes to keeping their personal items to themselves. If you’ve found out that your child is infested with lice, be sure to contact the school, and don’t allow your child to return to school until you have successfully treated the lice.

-         The life span of a head louse is roughly one month when living on the scalp of a person.

-         While there are many different chemical treatments that you can use to kill off the lice, they are pesticides which you need to exercise extreme caution with. Be sure not to over-use the pesticides if they are not working, and if you’re worried about toxicity, you should manually remove the lice with a nit comb.

-         Lice can crawl fast and they hate sunlight. For that reason, when you are removing head lice from someone, it’s best to use two people in order to spot runaway lice.

This article should teach you a lot about the pesky parasites known as head lice. If a head lice infestation occurs, be sure to act quickly in order to minimize the spread of the bugs. If you’ve got a case of head lice that simply won’t go away through using the normal methods, you may want to consider speaking to a doctor in order to learn the best course of action to take. Best of luck!

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            First off, you should recognize the symptoms that may indicate a case of head lice. The lice feed on blood, living on the scalp and reproducing repetitively, increasing the problem. The irritation that occurs when the lice feed can cause you to feel intense itching. Also, many people who have head lice can feel them moving around on their head, causing a tickling, crawling sensation. These symptoms may indicate that there are lice present, but you will also need to manually confirm the diagnosis.

            Finding lice on the head can be difficult. While the bugs are unable to fly or jump, they can crawl very fast and they tend to avoid light. For that reason, they will quickly scatter when you try to locate them under a light. An easier thing to be able to find are the eggs that the lice leave behind. These eggs, known as nits, are smooth and oval-shaped. They are attached to the hair follicle and they are roughly the size of a small sesame seed. They may be either a light whitish color or dark brown, and they are attached to the hair follicle with a type of glue that the louse creates. If the nits are not glued within a centimeter of the scalp, they won’t have the body warmth necessary to successfully incubate.

            Lice themselves are of a translucent color when they are born, but they will quickly take on a reddish-brown hue after feeding. They have six legs and a wide lower body. These legs are equipped with claws that allow them to latch on to hair and the scalp. If you find evidence that lice are on a family member’s head, you need to eliminate the problem while examining everyone in the household to ensure that the infestation is contained. If at all possible, you should manually remove the head lice as opposed to using medical treatments. Of course, not all cases of head lice can be easily solved, and sometimes you may need to resort to one of the pesticides that you can buy to rid yourself of the problem. Use caution, though, and be sure to read the directions carefully, making sure that you follow through every step. You don’t want to have to use the herbicide twice as it can be harmful to your health. Also, use caution when using pesticide treatments with children, as they are more susceptible to the harsh effects of the pesticides. If one of your children has become afflicted with a case of head lice, you should contact their principal in order to ensure that the infestation is contained within the school. You should keep your child out of school until you can confirm that the lice are gone.

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            Body lice are a type of lice that aren’t as common as head lice in the United States. As opposed to head lice, which fasten their eggs to the hair follicles of their hosts, body lice usually attach themselves to clothing that is close to the skin. The eggs that they create are often placed near the seams of clothing. For that reason, the most common cause of body lice infestation is the sharing of clothing or close personal contact with another person’s clothing. The problem posed by body lice is easily solved, however; simply washing and drying clothing helps to get rid of most of them. One very grave threat that is presented by these parasites is the fact that they can transmit pathogens to the host. Typhus, relapsing fever, and trench fever have been passed from person to person via body lice, causing serious problems in the 20^th century.

            Public lice are another type of lice that attack humans. These lice differ in their appearance to a great degree from the lice that invade the scalp or the body. Their bodies are short and crab-like in appearance, causing many to call them ‘crabs’. In most cases, pubic lice are transmitted through sexual contact. They can also be spread through sharing the same bed with a person that is infested, although it is less likely.

            One type of louse that isn’t a worry to humanity is the bark louse. These lice are often found throughout nature, preying on the barks of trees or leafs, sometimes even gorging themselves on the pages of a book. While these types of lice may be found on humans, they will only be present incidentally, and there’s no need to worry about infestation.

This article should show you exactly what care you need to exercise when you’re around others. There are many different types of lice that you can fall victim to, and keeping clean and not engaging in risky practices, your chance of becoming a host are limited. Avoid engaging in risky sexual practices and sharing beds with people who may be infested, and you’ll be able to avoid public lice. If you’re living outside of North America, be sure to keep your clothing washed and clean in order to ensure that you’re not going to fall victim to body lice.

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            One method that many people use to get rid of lice that can be effective that doesn’t use pesticides is to buy a specialized lice comb. These combs have fine, long teeth and they can be used to easily pick out the nits and head lice present on the scalp. By manually removing the nits and lice, you can sidestep the need for chemical solutions to ridding yourself of head lice. When you’re buying a specialized lice comb, be sure that you purchase one that can be boiled so that you can sterilize it and use it again and again if necessary. When you are removing lice and nits from someone else’s hair, it can be a good idea to have another person with you helping to look. Lice can crawl rather fast, and they don’t like sunlight so they will do their best to avoid your grasp. To remove the nits from the hair follicles, you may want to use distilled white vinegar, as they are attached with a cement-like substance the lice create.

            Another method uses a compound that you actually have in your house! You won’t need to look under the sink for it either; many people have found that common household mayonnaise can provide a less toxic way of getting rid of lice. While it’s efficacy is questionable, it’s surely a method that won’t harm your child. Some people try for the same results with Vaseline, but Vaseline is hard to get out of the hair and is generally not very useful.

            Tea tree oil is another home remedy that people sometimes employ. Unlike mayonnaise or Vaseline, however, this natural oil can be harmful to one’s health. It can be useful when killing head lice, but it may also cause scalp irritation and repeated use of tea tree oil is generally not recommended.

            There are also shampoos available that can help to kill off the lice with a minimal amount of pesticide. Unfortunately, these shampoos often only work for minor cases of head lice.

            Sometimes, natural remedies can not be enough to rid yourself of a lice problem. If you’re having repeated failures with removing the lice, you may want to opt for some 1% permethrin cream. Sold under the brand name ‘Nix’, it offers a low percentage of the active ingredient in order to kill off lice while keeping the pesticide content to a minimum. If you’re still unsure of what you want to do, you may want to consult a health care professional to get a good idea for how to solve your problem.

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Can head lice be harmful to a human’s health?

While they can prove to be a major annoyance, causing intense itching of the scalp, lice are rarely the cause of a more serious problem. They’re not known to be able to transmit diseases from person to person, so the worry about these bugs is largely due to the itching that one faces when infested. There’s only one minor worry that the bugs truly present, and that occurs when you itch your scalp too much when infested. That can result in the itched area becoming a sore, and allowing a chance for infection to take hold.

I’ve heard about using antibiotics in order to get rid of a lice infestation. Can you really use them?

Yes, there is a type of antibiotic available that can kill off the lice that are present. It works by eliminating the enzyme that is within the lice that allows them to successfully digest human blood. When this enzyme is gone, they will be unable to get any nutrition from feeding, and will eventually die off. Some head lice researchers shun the practice in moderate cases of head lice, however, as they feel that increased exposure to this kind of drug may increase the head lice’s efficiency when it comes to becoming immune to the antibiotics.

What are nits? Do I need to worry about them?

Nits are the eggs that head lice lay. These nits are one of the biggest problems with head lice infestations. They are cemented to the hair follicles of the infested individual, and take seven to ten days to hatch into live lice. When you’re trying to eliminate a case of head lice, you need to ensure that there are no nits left present in the hair to ensure that the problem will truly disappear. They are firmly attached to the hair follicle, and the best way to remove the substance that allows them to remain attached is to rub the follicles with white distilled vinegar. The only nits that you really need to worry about are the ones that are attached to the hair follicle within one centimeter of the scalp. This close proximity is necessary for the nits, as they need to soak up your body warmth in order to successfully incubate and hatch into lice.

In this article, you’ve learned about the threats that lice can pose aside from itching, as well as the use of antibiotics for removing a lice infestation and everything that you need to know about nits. Hopefully, this increased knowledge will make you better prepared for the next time that you have to deal with a problem with lice.

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