Where do lice come from and how to treat them

Almost always, the fact of having lice on your head or on your child is a big and unpleasant surprise. Where do lice come from and, most importantly, how to treat them now - these are the main questions that first of all arise in a person and which we will consider in more detail below.

First of all, it is important to understand: the main and only source of lice is people infected with them. Lice do not parasitize animals, cannot live on furniture and household items (except in frequently worn clothes), and they get on the body or head of a person only when moving from a sick person to a healthy one. At the same time, lice do not know how to jump or fly and do not have any special abilities that facilitate their movement between people.

Nevertheless, lice manage to spread very, very successfully. Practice shows that if a person already has signs of lice, it means that about a few weeks ago he had close communication with someone with lice.

On a note

Unlike most other bloodsucking insects, lice are not able to starve for a long time: in an ordinary city apartment at a temperature of about 23 ° C, these insects die without food after about 5 days.Ideally, lice should feed on the human body 3-4 times a day. This further limits their ability to move between victims. For example, ticks can starve for months, and each patiently waits for the next portion of blood on their blade of grass.

 

When and how are lice transmitted?

Lice are transmitted through close bodily contact between people. The best known for this is the pubic louse, which in the vast majority of cases is transmitted through sexual contact.

Review

“Even before the treatment, I asked my doctor where pubic lice come from. He told me - only from sexual partners. I have only had two connections in the last six months, and it seems that the star from the club infected me.

Igor, Moscow

Other types of lice are transmitted in other situations:

• between family members when playing and spending time together
• between children in kindergartens and schools - also during games and fights
• in crowded places in the absence of proper sanitation - in places where the homeless spend the night, in field camps during hostilities, in refugee camps and prisons
• in public transport
• during crowded events
• in swimming pools and solariums
• on tourist trips.

The important thing is that lice need a certain amount of time to crawl from one person to another. So, with a simple handshake, they are not transmitted - you need, at least, to stand tightly in a trolleybus for a long time or play with a child for a long time.

On a note

An important feature of lice is their ability to be transmitted from an infected person to others even before the signs of their presence in the carrier become especially obvious. This complicates the task of prevention and requires special care in communicating with people.

There are also rarer ways of transmitting lice.Parasites can be carried on hair products, hats and water (pools, for example). However, these methods are not of leading importance in the epidemiology of pediculosis.

Review

You still ask where lice come from in the head! Of course, you received them from your child even before you removed the lice from him. They also need time to reproduce. Consider now before you treat your head that you most likely re-infected your child.

From a forum conversation

It is important to understand that if lice appeared on the head in large numbers, the very moment of their transmission was already in the distant past - usually a few weeks ago. Usually single insects are transmitted, which then give rise to a new population on an infected person.

In the photo below - lice on a comb, with which they can be transmitted to a healthy person:

The next photo shows a child's hat infested with lice. This is a clear answer to the question of where lice come from in domestic conditions:

On a note

Local epidemics of pediculosis in children in September-October are associated with their stay in children's camps in the summer. In a month or two, each schoolchild has time to mature several generations of parasites, and itching on their heads usually occurs at about the same period.

Review

“I didn’t know where lice come from in children, but everything turned out to be simple. One such lousy in a kindergarten - and a month later all the children walk and itch, and the kindergarten itself is closed for quarantine. Children are not ministers. They fought there, they play toys head to head, they just fool around - lice between them, like walking along the boulevard.

Raisa, Magnitogorsk

Now a few words about where the nits in the hair come from.

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

In most cases, nits are not transmitted from an infested person to another. Nits are just lice eggs attached to the hair with a special adhesive substance, completely immobile and not capable of self-transmission. It is only occasionally possible to transfer them with falling hair or on combs, but these options are unlikely. Nits on the head appear only from adult lice. If they are, then there are lice.

Review

“Adults, mothers with children, and teenagers often come to our consultations and ask where nits come from. We have to give them a lecture on biology and explain that they are laid by the lice themselves. But where do lice come from in a person, everyone is aware of it normally. ”

Maria Georgievna, Krasnoyarsk

The video below explains in detail where lice come from and what are the main transmission situations.

 

Useful video: how lice can be transmitted

The process of transferring clothes (linen) lice is somewhat apart. They usually sit firmly on the inside of the clothes, on the seams and collars. When sharing clothes, they can remain on the body, and then infect another suit, and can also move between people when clothes come into contact. It is linen lice that should be feared in public transport.

Review

“Now I know where linen lice come from. We rested on a wild beach in Odessa, and the homeless hung out nearby. It's a nightmare, of course. We left from there as soon as I passed their towels on the stones - it was directly visible from them how the lice were crawling. The tin is full! What if the kids just walk around there?”

Dmitry, Belgorod

 

Infection of children with lice: all the features of the process

Infecting children with lice is no different from the same process in adults, except that children:

• less likely to follow the rules of hygiene. They easily put on other people's clothes, enjoy using other people's towels, combs, hairpins and hair ties.
• They have fewer psychological barriers to close communication. Games and bodily contacts between them are the absolute norm.
• Generally more sociable.
• They do not avoid communication with antisocial peers, and sometimes even strive to communicate with them.

As a result, children are more likely to catch lice and in more situations than adults. In general, according to statistics, children become infected with lice 5.4 times more often than adults. For this reason, when lice appear in one of the adults in the family, the children should be checked first - perhaps it is one of them who is infected, but does not yet know about it.

Reviews

“I came to the doctor with constant itching on my head, I thought I had seborrhea. It turned out - banal lice. Moreover, the doctor asked where I work and with whom I communicate. I said that I was a diplomat, and he advised me to inspect the kinders. It turned out that he was right - both the son and the daughter walk around with lice, the mothers do not admit, the nanny looks at them with one eye. Now I know where lice and nits come from in cultured families.”

Ignat, St. Petersburg

It is important to understand that children are usually very complex to admit that they have lice - this will bring ridicule on them at school. Therefore, you should always be attentive to the behavior of children and urgently take measures in case of signs of illness.

Review

“Because of the warm climate, the autumn epidemic of pediculosis is especially serious in our country - children are brought in crowds.I had to hang out in the clinic since the beginning of the summer, and then on the front houses in our area, hang pictures and announcements about where lice come from and what treatment can be against them.

Oksana Yurievna, Maikop

 

And further: Paranit from lice - a dummy that you can’t wash off your hair with, or a really effective thing? (the article has more than 70 comments)

Lice already exist: what to do?

By and large, it makes no sense to guess where lice come from when they are already there and the head or other parts of the body require treatment.

It is important to initially make sure that the unpleasant symptoms are caused by lice. For this:

• hair is combed out with a thick comb from the very roots over a white sheet or bath. A few insects must fall from the head.
• You need to ask a relative or friend to simply examine the hair itself, on which nits should be visible.
• In case of suspicion of pubic lice, independently examine the hair on the corresponding part of the body. Lice there should be visible to the naked eye.

If the suspicions are confirmed, then it is necessary to start treatment. In this case, you can follow the following instructions:

• the head is washed with a special lice shampoo - Nix, NOC, Veda - or a lice spray is used. Processing is carried out in accordance with the instructions for a specific tool. This step allows you to kill the bulk of adult insects.
• Dried hair is pulled into a ponytail on one side of the head (if its length allows) and combed out strand by strand with a special lice comb. This removes both adult dead and living parasites, and part of the nits.
• A week later, the procedure is repeated to destroy the larvae that could hatch from the surviving nits.

In principle, treatment with shampoos or other pediculicides alone, or only combing the lice with a comb, will also work. But at the same time, there is a risk that surviving lice will remain on the head, and the treatment itself will take more time.

Treatment for pubic lice follows the same procedure. It is only important to use specialized preparations for pubic lice.

On a note

It is quite effective for pediculosis to visit special reception centers or departments of the sanitary service - there the lice will be removed at a time. However, you need to be mentally prepared for such a visit - the contingent of "clients" of such establishments can cause a shock.

Body lice are fought a little differently. They need to be destroyed on clothes, ideally in a special vapor-formalin chamber. But you can simply boil the clothes, wash them with vinegar or pediculicidal shampoo.

Treatment for lice with folk remedies is done in the same way as with shampoos or lotions. However, it should be remembered that in general, folk remedies are less effective than special insecticidal preparations.

Review

“I have no idea why lice come from, but I got them from somewhere. Maybe he picked it up in training, maybe at competitions. There were guys from Armenia with herpes on their fingers - a very dangerous thing for wrestlers. In short, I removed lice with kerosene, the old fashioned way. First he shaved his head baldly, then he washed it, then he smeared it with kerosene and put on the bag. I walked like this for an hour, then I took everything off and washed it three times with a normal shampoo so that it would not stink. But as I understand it, it was enough just to shave your head, then lice have nowhere to live.

Daur, Masala

 

Lice Prevention

Knowing where head or bed lice come from can effectively reduce the chances of infestation. For this you need:

• refuse casual sexual intercourse, in which infection with all types of lice is possible
• avoid contact with strangers
• do not communicate closely with the homeless, people living in unsanitary conditions
• avoid crowded places
• do not use other people's hygiene products and clothing
• be careful in public transport, avoid "suspicious characters".

And of course, you need to carefully monitor your feelings and the behavior of loved ones. Itching, constant scratching of the head, anxiety - all these are signs that a person can be bitten by lice. At the first such manifestations, a child or an adult should be examined and, if lice are found, treatment should be started as soon as possible.

 

What is important to know about lice for a civilized person

 

An interesting video: how wrong and how to get rid of lice