Head lice - The parents' plague!!

Headlice are more an inconvenience and an annoyance than a real health threat, but they spread from child to child, and take up a huge amount of time when ou're faced with them.

Having successfully cleared my kids' heads twice in the past few months, I am faced with yet another infestation AAAAGH!!

Putting my pharmacists head back on, I did an internet check to see just how much information was out there- and you know what's really scary??- The amount of disinformation. From my trawl these are the best sites I've found:

1 Head lice - symptoms and treatment of nits- a bupa site

2 An official NHS policy leaflet - an excellent leaflet on detection and treatment of headlice

3 The Bug Buster Kit - the best way to treat head lice - a commercial site, but useful piccies of the beasties. And a list of the most common myths.

4 Headlice and nits- another useful article.

5 Another Commercial link for people who prefer not to use chemicals- I haven't used this so I can't stand over it, but it has FDA and UK aproval:


In summary-

The cream-coloured 'nits' in hair are in fact empty eggcases and therefore harmless.

Use a detection comb- (usually the cream/white plastic type available in Irish pharmacies) to detect living headlice in WET hair, by combing every bit of hair, in sections from root to scalp. (You are unlikely to find headlice in dry hair unless there are so many of them they can't hide from you!)

Treat if found. (Link 2 above)

Re-comb WET hair with detection comb every 3-4 days.

If any sign of living lice found within 2 weeks of treatment, re-treat.


And now that you've finished reading this.....Stop scratching!!