Lice and nit combs

All methods of removing lice on the head can be divided into two groups: chemical and mechanical.

The first group includes methods for the destruction of lice using substances that poison parasites. Such drugs are very popular today, but often their use leads to side effects - from allergies to chemical burns and serious intoxication.

The advantage of mechanical methods of dealing with lice is that they are safe for human health - this is either removing lice with your fingers, or combing them out, or cutting your hair bald. With the exception of the last option, until recently, these methods were very ineffective: from the eyes of a person and the teeth of ordinary combs, lice and nits are reliably saved by their tiny size.

However, today the pharmaceutical industry has developed combs that, while leaving the hair intact and intact, successfully remove lice from them. Really, in practice, a special lice comb is no less effective than powerful insecticidal shampoos, sprays or lotions, but it is completely devoid of any contraindications and side effects.

On a note

Today, another method of fighting lice is gradually being used abroad - thermal, in which lice are destroyed by a stream of air with a temperature of about 60 ° C from a special hair dryer. But so far this method is not widely used, although it promises to be very convenient and safe.

It would seem, why, with such significant advantages, lice combs have not yet ousted chemicals from the market? It's simple - a comb for combing out lice and nits also has its drawbacks.

 

All the advantages and disadvantages of combs

The indisputable advantage of all combs from lice and nits is their safety - they do not cause any reactions on the skin when applied.

Besides:

• The lice comb is designed to be as effective as possible - special notches are applied to its teeth, which greatly narrow the lumen, but do not interfere with the passage of hair. So the comb does not cause pain when combing out, but reliably collects lice from the hairstyle. In the photo - a popular scallop from AntiV lice.
• Any comb for lice and nits, unlike many medicines for lice, does not have an expiration date.
• The comb for combing out lice and nits is applicable to all family members, from infants to adult men.
• It would seem that an ordinary comb for combing out nits and lice in practice turns out to be very reliable and almost never breaks - medical steel is used for its manufacture, which ensures high strength of the teeth.
• The comb can also be used to prevent head lice: if you comb your hair at least once a week, then the lice that accidentally get on them will be removed and will not have time to breed (this is especially true for children).
• And finally, the lice comb can be used in conjunction with other pediculicides, which significantly increases the effectiveness of the latter.

Review

“We tried the nit comb for the first time about five years ago. It came with some kind of shampoo. As a result, already three times during this time they were infected - both in the camps and at school - and they took out lice only with this comb. A simple one, with a purple handle, but it combs out parasites with a bang. As soon as they are found, we immediately begin to comb out every day, and usually on the fifth or sixth day, neither lice nor nits remain. Not in one evening, of course, but it’s safe.”

Inna, Volokolamsk

However, before you buy a lice comb, it is also useful to consider some of its disadvantages:

• A lice comb requires a much greater effort to remove parasites than almost any other remedy. To comb out lice with a serious infestation, you will need to spend 1-2 hours every day for at least a week. Accordingly, neither a simple, nor even a special medical lice comb will allow you to get rid of parasites in one evening.
• It is quite difficult to remove parasites from oneself with a comb.
• In addition, the price of any effective lice comb is quite high and starts at about 1000 rubles. As a result, buying such a comb turns out to be several times more expensive than pickling the whole family with a fairly effective pediculicidal shampoo. And given that most people don't plan on getting infested with lice on a regular basis, not everyone will prefer a comb.

And further: Lice are not cockroaches, so is it worth removing them with Dichlorvos? (the article has more than 20 comments)

And about the nits: combing them out is generally more difficult than the lice themselves. Therefore, it is quite obvious that not even a single metal lice comb allows you to comb out all the nits at a time.

 

Instructions for use of lice combs

Removing lice with combs consists in daily combing the hair along its entire length. For this:

• the hair is washed with a simple shampoo and dried with a towel, with sufficient length pulled together on one side of the head into a ponytail;
• then strands are pulled out of the gum in turn, which are carefully combed out from the very roots with a comb from lice and nits;
• combed out parasites are collected and flushed down the toilet. To do this, it is convenient to carry out the procedure for combing lice over a bathtub or a white sheet.

After the first combing, most of all adult lice will be removed from the hair. Then every day the larvae and individual nits will be combed out.

As young nymphs hatch from the nits, they will also be removed (which is why the indispensable removal of the nits themselves with scallops from lice is, in principle, not required). In any case, removing lice from the hair with a comb alone is recommended for at least a week.

Review

“For a long time they wanted to buy a comb for combing out nits in our kindergarten - some children have parents so careless that even if you tell them that the child has lice, they don’t find a week of time to poison them. I have to call the director, he forbids visiting, scandal.But at the same time, it’s not so difficult to remove lice with a comb - after the first combing out, they don’t remain, only nits remain, and then every day for processing, and that’s all - after a week the child’s head is clean. Now we have such a lice comb in every group, and several times it happened that the teachers removed the lice from the child before the parents got down to business.

God, Ivanovo

The lice comb is convenient to use with chemical and folk remedies. To do this, after applying a specific product, the hair is combed out one or more times with a comb to remove dead insects.

 

The most popular models of lice combs

Today, there are several dozen different combs on the market that can successfully fight lice. Of these, the most high-quality and effective are the following:

1. AntiV lice comb - various sites overflow with reviews about it, and dealers themselves advertise it very actively, due to which this comb can, perhaps, be considered the most popular today. At the same time, it is really convenient and effective. The long teeth of the AntiV comb allow you to process thick strands, and the original relief of the notches ensures reliable removal of lice. The price of this comb from lice and nits is about 1000 rubles.

On a note

The Comb Active from lice does not exist in nature - this is sometimes incorrectly called a product with the consonant name AntiV.

1. The LiceGuard comb is another quality comb that effectively removes lice and nits. It attracts buyers by the fact that for about 850 rubles in one package you can buy two combs for different types of hair - this is the best solution if you need to remove lice from the whole family.
2. The NitFree lice comb is very similar to AntiV and has the same design and even shape. Its price is slightly higher - about 1100 rubles, but it probably does not have any significant advantages over Antiva.
3. The electric lice comb RobiComb is a high-tech development in the fight against parasites. It has a characteristic narrow blade of teeth and a comfortable wide handle, it is positioned as a means for more effective destruction of lice through the use of electrical discharges between the teeth.
   

And further: A very useful thing that allows you to get rid of lice and nits without any chemicals - a special medical comb ...

If you are going to buy a lice comb, it is worth remembering that the effectiveness of each of them largely depends on the diligence of the parasite fighter himself. If the budget is very limited, then you can safely buy the most affordable and inexpensive comb, since the speed of removing lice does not depend on the price.

It is also important to understand that using an ordinary comb instead of a special lice comb, even with very fine teeth, is a relatively ineffective exercise. Plastic teeth easily bend and diverge, passing with a bunch of hair and lice and nits.

On a note

It will be much more effective to buy any chemical remedy for lice with a comb - today there are a lot of such drugs that come with combs. For example, Parasidosis shampoo, Nyuda sprays and Pediculen Ultra - they all cost less than AntiV, and the combs in the same Pediculen and Parasidosis are in no way inferior to it. You can remove lice with the help of a tandem from a chemical agent and a comb in just two to three days.

 

Electronic comb: what is it better and is it worth using

The principle of operation of the electronic lice comb is the same as that of the simple comb. The only difference between them is that when lice hit the teeth of an electronic device, insects receive an electric shock and die. After that, even if the parasite rolls off the comb, it will no longer be able to cause harm.

Electronic combs from nits and lice are safe for humans - they have limiters on the sides of the tooth web, thanks to which the teeth do not reach the skin and do not shock the person himself (and these discharges are quite safe for people).

In general, we can say that the effectiveness of the electric lice comb is about the same as that of conventional high-quality combs. There are no studies, experiments and reviews that testify to the clear superiority of electric combs.

At the same time, an electronic lice comb costs from 1,800 rubles - almost twice as much as a simple comb. The web of an electronic comb is much narrower than that of conventional combs, which makes it difficult to comb out parasites with them. Therefore, an electronic lice comb is more of an expensive toy than a really reliable lice remedy.

Review

“I really liked the electronic comb against lice and nits. I don’t know how simple combs work, but with this we got the lice out in five days without any chemistry - you take it and just comb out their head. It is absolutely safe, no stink or allergies. My daughter went crazy when we scratched her head like that. True, the price of such a comb is very high, not everyone can afford it, but on the other hand, there is no safer means.

Irina, Petropavlovsk

Be that as it may, a lice comb is an ideal tool for the prevention of head lice, since the use of chemicals for this purpose is strongly discouraged. But combing the hair with a comb, especially in a child, once a week is quite useful.

With this approach, even if a lice infestation has occurred, at the end of the week the parasites will be removed, and their random and few offspring will live at best for another week. So the search for the safest remedy for lice or a reliable method of preventing pediculosis can be safely completed on the ridges.

 

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Detailed instructions for using the AntiV comb

 

Useful video: what should parents do if a child has lice