Head Lice Treatments

Head lice live in the human hair found on the head and neck, they are very small and have a life span of about thirty days, within this thirty days a female louse can lay between ninety and two hundred and ten eggs.

Because of the amount of eggs a female can lay in such a short period of time the head louse can infest a persons head in a very short period before easily moving onto its next victim.

How Can An Infestation Be Treated?

All the treatments below have been researched and approved by medical professionals.

Removal Of Lice And Eggs By Hand

Evidence is available that using a special comb that has very fine teeth is more effective than most methods of delousing.

To get the most out of this method it is the best practice to wet the hair, apply conditioner or olive oil and methodically comb through the hair with a fine-toothed comb, called a louse comb. This method removes any lice or eggs in the combs way, this needs repeating for three or four days, or until there are no lice being removed by the comb.

Malathion

Malathion is a type of insecticide that works well against head lice. The method for using Malathion is to apply the Malathion to dry hair and leave for eight hours, after the eight hours you can wash the Malathion out. If there are still lice in the hair after 7 days then you can repeat the treatment.

It is good practice to buy ready made treatments of Malathion because in large doses it can affect the human nervous system.

Lindane

Lindane is another type of insecticide although it is a lot stronger than other insecticides and has neurotoxin chemicals so it needs to be used carefully. This is used by applying to wet hair for only four minutes before washing out. It is recommended not to use Lindane whilst pregnant due to its strong affects on the body.

Pyrethrins

Pyrethins are used in head lice shampoos and normally make up only a third of a percent of the shampoo. This treatment involves using the shampoo as normal but leaving it in the hair for ten minutes before washing it out. You may need to use the shampoo more than once, if you do then there needs to be at least 7 days between each application.

Permethrin

Permethrin is said to work better than Lindane and is less damaging to humans. Permethrin comes in a cream and only makes up one percent of the cream. The cream needs to be applied to the hair and left for ten minutes before removal, if the cream is removed to early then the lice may become resistant to the treatment rendering it useless. If the first application fails to rid the hair of lice then you need to leave seven days before the next application.

Summary

These are just a few of the different treatments available with combating head lice, the problem with head lice is that they are very durable and can easily move from human to human.