HealthRemedis directory

Well that time of year is on us again, the long awaited return to school (for the parents anyway). Unfortunately with the return to school comes the risk of contracting head lice.

One of the ways of keeping head lice under control, is to get to know the head lice life cycle. This way you can take steps to foil their dastardly plans to take over your child's head, before they even get a chance to lay a single egg.

To understand the head lice life cycle, it is a good idea to know where the whole problem starts.

Studies have shown that head lice are almost certainly only spread through head to head contact alone. With this in mind, there are certain steps you can take to prevent them from happening at all.

Before school, have a quick word with them about sharing hats, combs or hair ties. You can also tie the hair up, so the head lice have a harder time swinging from head to head with those powerful front legs. Girls can wear a scarf over their head, and boys can wear hair gel, to make it harder for the lice to move around and lay their eggs.

Another common misconception is that head lice can be caught from pets or other animals. Head lice are a human parasite, and need human blood to survive. Concentrate on ensuring they don't catch them from other children, and there is a good chance you may avert the problem before it begins.

Once you have lice however, it is possible to get rid of them by breaking their life cycle.

When a child comes home with a case of lice, a parent's knee jerk reaction is involuntary and instantaneous. They want them out, and they want them out now. They want to nuke them good, and I don't blame them.

The problem is, pesticide treatment products are potentially dangerous and can cause serious damage, even if used specifically as directed. Please avoid OTC (over the counter) chemical head lice treatment products at all costs.

Head lice are resistant to most of these chemicals anyway. Our children on the other hand, are not.

At this stage, you will need to find something natural that will kill the lice now, and worry about the eggs second.

In order to control them with a remedy that does not kill eggs (almost all of them), you need to time it so you kill all the live lice before they are capable of laying more eggs.

The first stage of a head louse's life, is the nit, or egg. This lasts for around 6-7 days before they hatch.

The immature louse is called a nymph, and they stay in that stage, shedding their skin three times over the course of 7-10 days. In this time, they don't lay eggs.

The life span of an adult louse is around 30 days. In this time, a female louse can lay up to 88 eggs.

So, if you kill all the live lice in the hair, and the first egg hatches immediately afterwards, you have 7-10 days before that louse is capable of laying eggs. So, one week later, use your remedy again, and all hatched nymphs are dead.

If the next louse hatches immediately after that treatment, again, you have seven more days before it starts to lay eggs. So, using your natural remedy, treat and kill all nymphs again in seven days time.

It's highly unlikely any lice have been able to lay more eggs, or there were any eggs left to hatch, but to completely break the life cycle, treat one more time with your natural remedy, and all should be well for the future.

For this method, treating this many times, I really feel chemicals or any other toxic remedies commonly in use are out of the question. I feel this is the only way to break the head lice life cycle however, if you are unable to kill all the eggs.

You can go back to using prevention methods to ensure they never return.