Lice Do Not Spread Disease, but They Are Contagious!

Lice aren’t dangerous and don’t pass blood born disease disease, but they are contagious and can just be downright annoying. Their bites may cause your child’s scalp to become irritated, and persistent scratching may lead to skin problems and even infection.

Recognizing Head Lice

Though very small, lice can be seen by the Human eye.

Lice eggs (called nits). These look like tiny yellow, tan, or brown sacks before they hatch. Lice lay nits on hair shafts near the scalp, where the temperature is perfect for keeping warm until they hatch. Nits appear a lot like dandruff, only they can’t be removed by brushing or shaking them off. Unless the infestation is heavy, it’s more common to see nits in a child’s hair than it is to see live lice crawling on the scalp. The eggs hatch in about 2 weeks after being ‘nitted.’

Adult and Hatched Lice

Adult lice and nymphs (baby lice). The adult louse is very tiny and is brown-tan in color. Nymphs become fully grown in about a week after hatching. Most lice feed on blood about every 4 to 6 hours, but they can survive up to 3 days off the scalp.

Hair Lice and Scratching

With lice bites come itching and scratching. However, the itching may not always start right away – that depends on how sensitive your child’s skin is to the lice. It can sometimes take weeks for kids with lice to notice the discomfort, meaning the infestation will become more severe. They may complain, though, of things moving around on or tickling their heads as they can feel the lice wriggling near the scalp.

Red Bumps and Scalp Sores from Head Lice

For most children, the irritation is mild; but for others, a more bothersome rash with crusting and oozing may develop. It’s also not unusual for kids to develop some swelling of their lymph glands as a reaction to the bites. Excessive scratching can also lead to a bacterial infection (the skin would become red and tender around the bite area). If your doctor thinks this is the case, he or she may treat the infection with a topical or an oral antibiotic.

Searching For HeadLice

You may be able to see the lice or nits by parting your child’s hair into small sections and checking for lice and nits on the scalp, behind the ears, and around the back of the neck near the hairline). A magnifying glass and bright light may help. But it can be tough to find a nymph or adult louse – often, there aren’t many of them and they’re able to scramble quickly running from the light. It is much easier to find the newly laid eggs attached to the hair shafts.

Are Hair Lice Contagious?

Yes, hair lice are highly contagious and can spread quickly from person to person, especially in group settings (this pretty much means anywhere kids are together such as school, daycare or sports team that share equipment)

Though they can’t fly or jump, these tiny parasites have specially adapted claws that allow them to crawl and cling firmly to hair. They spread mainly through head-to-head contact, but sharing clothing, bed linens, combs, brushes, and hats can also help pass them along.

Can Pets Pass Head Lice

Nope, pets like dogs and cats are NOT prone or susceptible to lice or passing it along. They gotta live with the fleas, but not the lice!

Your doctor can recommend a medicated shampoo, cream, or lotion to kill the lice. These may be over-the-counter or prescription medications, depending on what treatments have already been tried. It isn’t uncommon for treatments to be unsuccessful because of incorrect use or because the lice may be resistant to the chemical in the shampoo.

It’s important to follow the directions completely because these products are insecticides. Applying them too much or too frequently can increase the risk to you or your child. Following the directions on the product label is also important to ensure that the treatment works properly. Your doctor may also suggest a special rinse to use on your child’s hair that makes it easier to comb out the nits using a fine-tooth comb. There are specially designed fine toothed combs that will remove lice eggs from the hair.
A good hair cut is also a good idea after an infestation.

Medicated lice treatments can usually kill the lice and nits, but it may take a few days for the itching to stop. Your doctor may recommend repeating treatment in 7 to 10 days to make sure all the nits have been killed and avoid risk of reinfestation.

What About Lice In The House?

Headlice don’t live very long once they fall off the scalp of the host. So it’s unnecessary to spend a great deal of time and money trying to rid the house of lice.

Following are a few tips for eradicating lice in your house after an outbreak on you or your child’s head.

* Wash all bed linens and clothing that’s been recently worn by anyone in your home who’s infested in very hot water (130° Fahrenheit, 54.4° Celsius), then put them in the hot cycle of the dryer for at least 20 minutes.
* Dry clean any clothing that isn’t machine washable.
* Have bed linens, clothing, and stuffed animals and plush toys that can’t be washed dry-cleaned. Or, put them in airtight bags for 2 weeks.
* Vacuum carpe

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Scabies is caused by a tiny mite that infests its host. It is very often mis-diagnosed and causes severely itchy rashes in infect individuals. Dermatologists estimate that more than 300 million cases of scabies occur worldwide every year.

The condition can strike anyone of any background and is not always a sign of poor hygiene. On the whole, scabies is easily controlled and eliminated.

How You Get Scabies

The very tiny mite that causes scabies can barely be seen by the human eye. Being a tiny, eight-legged creature with a round body, the mite burrows into your skin. In a few weeks, the patient develops an allergic reaction causing severe itching; often intense enough to keep sufferers awake all night.

Human scabies is almost always caught from another person by close contact. It could be a child, a friend, or another family member. Scabies is not a condition only of low-income families and neglected children, although, it is more often seen in crowded living conditions with poor hygiene.

They are attracted to the warmth of your body and the natural pheromones we humans give off. The female mite burrows into the skin, lays eggs, and produces toxins that cause allergic reactions. Larvae, or newly hatched mites, travel to the skin surface, lying in shallow pockets where they will develop into adult mites. If the mite is scratched off the skin, it can live in bedding for up to 24 hours or more. It may take up to a month before a person will notice the itching, especially in people with good hygiene and who bathe regularly.

What to Look For

The earliest and most common symptom of scabies is itching, especially at night. Little red bumps like hives, tiny bites, or pimples appear. In more advanced cases, the skin may be crusty or scaly. Many times, people who get scabies think they may have a bed bug problem.

Skin mite

Scabies prefers warmer sites on the skin such as skin folds, where clothing is tight, between the fingers or under the nails, on the elbows or wrists, the buttocks or belt line, around the nipples, and on the penis. They will also hide beneath and inside jewelry warn on the body.
In children, the infestation may involve the entire body including the palms, soles, and scalp. The worst parts of the infestation in children are the lack of sleep and itching.

Another concern is the onslaught of bacterial infection from the constant scratching. In many cases, children are treated because of infected skin lesions rather than for the scabies itself. Although treatment of bacterial infections may provide relief, recurrence is almost certain if the scabies infection itself is not treated.

Crusted Scabies

Crusted scabies is a form of the disease in which the symptoms are far more severe. Large areas of the body, like the hands and feet, may be scaly and crusted. The skin becomes leathery and thick in defense of the infestation.

These crusted skin areas harbor thousands of living mites and their eggs, making treatment difficult because medications applied directly to the skin may not be able to penetrate the thickened skin. This type of scabies occurs mostly among the elderly, in some AIDS patients, or in people whose immunity is decreased. This form also breeds heavy infection often.

Diagnosis of Scabies Mites

The dermatologist needs to do a thorough inspection, specially exploring skin folds.

Many cases of scabies can be diagnosed by your dermatologist without special tests. To confirm scabies your dermatologist can perform a painless test that involves applying a drop of oil to the suspected lesion. The oil makes the mites rise to the surface where they are then and transferred to a glass slide and examined under a microscope. A diagnosis is made by finding scabies mites or their eggs.

How to Get Rid of Scabies

• * 5% permethrin cream is applied to the skin from the neck down at bedtime and washed off the next morning. Dermatologists recommend that the cream be applied to cool, dry skin over the entire body (including the palms of the hands, under finger nails, soles of the feet, and the groin) and left on for 8 to 14 hours. A second treatment one week later may be recommended. This cream can cause burning.
• * 1% lindane lotion is applied from the neck down at night and washed off in the morning. It may be reapplied one week later. Lindane should not be used on infants, small children, pregnant or nursing women, or people with seizures or other neurological diseases, and has been banned in the state of California.
• * 10% percent sulfur ointment and crotamiton cream may be used for infants.
• * Ivermectin is an oral medicine which may be prescribed for the difficult to treat crusted form of scabies. It is not to be used in infants or pregnant women.
• * Antihistamines may be prescribed to relieve itching, which can last for weeks, even after the mite is gone.
• * Getting rid of the mites is critical in the treatment of scabies. Everyone in the family or group, whether itching or not, should be treated at the same time to stop the spread of scabies. This includes close friends, day care or school classmates, or nursing homes.
• * Dryclean all bedding and sheets

What To Do if Scabies is In Your Household
* Wash clothes. Do all the laundry with the hottest water possible. Wash them twice and don’t mix clean clothing in the same closet as soiled clothing.
* Items may be dry-cleaned.
* Wash all sheets and blankets in all bedrooms.
* Have all carpets professionally steam cleaned
* Pets do not need to be treated.
* Items may also be placed in a sealed plastic bag and placed in the garage for two weeks. If the mites do not get a meal within one week, they will die.

Another way to be sure you completely eradicate the mite problem in your house is to call a professional exterminating company like Terminix. They will be able to eliminate scabies from your home as well as all other insects infesting you and your family.

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