However you do not need to bring the nasty headlice home!

The arrival of such “friends” — small pests (headlice) and their eggs, can endure for as long as seven days before hatching — says Sonja Gaumer, nursing services facilitator for the Lawrence Montessori school district.

Headlice affects over 100 million people worldwide each year, especially children of primary school age; especially in children 3 to 11 years old according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Symptoms of Headlice

1. Head lice can be a nuisance and may leave your child with an itchy scalp,
2. Speak with your child about sharing hats and hairbrushes. As much fun as it might be for little girls to comb one another’s hair or try on one another’s headware, it increases the risk of sharing lice.
3. Be sure your child understands they can catch nits from their friends if they are not careful.
4. Some schools have lockers where children can store their coats, hats, and backpacks during the school day. However, if your child hangs their belongings on a hook or in a cubby, it can come in contact with other infested materials. Encourage them to hang their items on the hooks so they are not touching the belongings of other children. You may want to consider providing your child with a garbage bag so they can pack their items in the protective plastic and hang the bag in their cubby. They may resist the extra step at the beginning and end of the day, but they will be thrilled they are not a part of the lice infestation should one occur.
5. Be vigilant about checking for signs of lice. Watch for head scratching, and check their hair at least once per week.
6. Catching the problem early may save other parents from having to deal with the problem.
7. Also speak to your child’s teacher about the notification process should an infestation occur. Be sure they notify parents as soon as a child reports a lice problem.

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Don’t let your kids go back to school with Nelly the Nit!

First, do not act as if you are angry about the headlice infestation. Even if you are feeling frustrated and frightened for your child, do your best to act as if the situation is completely under control. It can be stressful knowing you have to launder everything in the house, apply headlice treatment to your child, and watch for signs of recurrence. You will also need to let your child’s school know about the condition and you will need to keep an eye on other children and adults who live in your home. All of this will try your patience, but make sure your child realizes you have the situation under control and they will be fine. She may feel guilty or as if she has done something wrong by catching headlice, so let her know it is not her fault and you are not angry.

Next, explain to her that headlice cannot hurt her and they do not bite. She should understand the lice will do her no harm other than making her itchy. If she has questions, answer them patiently and help her feel more secure about the situation. It is important she not feel as if she is going to get sick or hurt due to her current condition.

Finally, include your child in the process. Read the instructions for the headlice shampoo together and let her wash her own hair. If you are using a natural treatment, she will be safe washing her hair as if it were regular shampoo. Explain each step of treatment and take time to learn about lice together. If she feels like she has some control over the situation, it will put her mind at ease and help her cope with lice living in her hair.

Nits are usually found very close to the scalp because they need body heat to survive. When the female louse lays her eggs, they attach with something like strong, natural cement. They are usually about .8 mm by .3 mm and are oval in shape. They are white or yellowish in color and they will not be moving. Sometimes, it is easier to spot nits in the hair than it is to see lice because nits are lighter in color and stand out more in darker hair.

After nits hatch, they enter the nymph stage. A nymph looks like an adult louse but smaller. During its short life, it will molt three times, shedding its exoskeleton. Nymphs are about the size of a pinhead, usually yellowish or brownish in color, and are typically close to the scalp near the ears or neckline. The nymph phase lasts about 7 days.

Adulthood is the final phase of the life cycle. Adult lice are oval in shape and they have three legs that end in claws. They are a brownish or rust color. Like the nymph, they stay close to the scalp and can be found near the ears and neck. They feed about five times per day and females can lay up to 8 eggs per day during their 30 day life cycle on the head.

It may be hard to believe that something so small that lives for such a short period of time can cause so much chaos, but it is true. If you suspect you or your child has head lice, treat the infestation with a natural, safe lice removal shampoo. This needs to be done when you initially discover lice, and again throughout the various life cycles. Our Natural Headlice Blitzer can be used two times per week, so lice will be targeted throughout the cycles of their lives. And to fight off lice before they get into your hair, use a preventative treatment like Natural Headlice Beater.

So you found lice in your child’s or your own hair. What comes next? Follow these step by step instructions for treating the problem and soon you will be lice-free.

1. Remove all clothing currently being worn, and gather clothing that may have been worn in the last few days. Put these items in a plastic garbage bag and tie the bags.

2. Apply lice treatment to hair. Choose a chemical free lice treatment that is safe for children, adults, and pets. Essential Health Australia’s 100% Natural Headlice Blitzer works well to combat lice safely. It also nourishes and conditions the hair and scalp, and it is safe for delicate and sensitive skin. Massage the treatment into the hair and scalp.

3. Comb through hair with a nit or fine-tooth comb. This helps to remove eggs that are stuck to the hair shaft. The conditioning effect of the treatment makes it easy to move the comb through hair without pulling or yanking. This means no tears due to pulled hair while combing out the nits.

4. Do not wash hair following treatment. Treatment should be left on overnight. Comb through the hair again in the morning, and then wash as normal, combing one final time after shampooing. This process should be repeated again a second time before bed. Headlice Blitzer can be applied two times per week, so you can safely continue your battle against lice and nits following the initial discovery of lice.

5. Be sure to treat the house, and wash bed linens and pillows. If items are unable to be laundered, leave them in a sealed plastic bag for at least two weeks. Furniture and carpets should be vacuumed thoroughly.

Finding lice is never fun, but if you follow these steps carefully and use an all-natural lice treatment, you will have a lice-free home in no time at all.

Human head lice can survive only for a very short time once they leap off the human head. If you are battling lice, it is still important to vacuum the pet’s bedding or anywhere your pet spends time, but chances are the pet will not be affected. Pet lice exist, but are not common, and there is no need to worry about lice transferring from pets to humans.

Keep in mind though, if you share your home with pets, you are not completely free of risk when it comes to sharing bugs and pests other than lice. Fleas, worms, mites, and ticks are happy to move from pet to human, so check yourself, your children, and your pets regularly for infestations, bites, and itching. Fleas prefer to live on dogs and cats, but will jump to humans if the infestation is bad enough. You may end up with flea bites, especially if your pet spends time on your bed. Some parasites can create serious and sometimes fatal problems when passed from species to species. Pregnant women exposed to cat feces may come into contact with Protozoa Toxoplasma Gondaii, which can cause birth defects and miscarriage. Internal parasites are especially dangerous, so if you are stressed about the transfer of pests, be sure to contact your doctor and your veterinarian immediately about your concerns.

All parasites will trigger symptoms when they are present, so familiarity with what to look for is a big part of treating the problem. It may take longer for internal parasites to make their presence known, so should a pet or human in the house show symptoms, be sure to get all members of your family checked out. While you should not be worried about transferring head lice from people to pets, you may find yourself with other bug related concerns.

If left untreated, head lice will continue to itch. The more a person scratches his scalp, the more likely he is to break the skin, which makes him susceptible to a scalp infection. This is especially true if he continues to scratch at his scalp with fingers and nails that are not always clean and free of germs. While a simple antibiotic may clear up the infection, he may experience stinging and burning in the meantime, have a tough time washing his hair because of the infected sores, and find that other symptoms associated with the infection cause pain and discomfort. If the lice were prevented or treated, the subsequent infection from scratching would have never occurred.

Even if lice are treated, there may be a variety of side effects associated with the treatments. Many unnatural lice treatments contain products that are considered harmful. Some who have used medicinal lice treatments on their children believe there may be a connection between the treatment and leukemia. Others believe these pharmaceutical lice treatments are dangerous for pregnant women and unborn babies. Still others have reported mild side effects like nausea and vomiting. These dangers, both mild and severe, can be avoided by using an all-natural product to prevent lice.

Remember, natural products can still trigger allergic reactions, although they are usually very mild. If you experience increased levels of itching, or a rash forms, discontinue use of any product and speak with your doctor. It is also important to know the ingredients of a product before you using it so you can avoid things that have caused a bad reaction in the past. The risks with natural products are usually not dangerous, but they may be unpleasant.

In order to avoid the stress of dealing with head lice, and the potential side effects from trying to rid you or your child’s head of the problem, use an all natural lice prevention product that will keep lice away.

However, there are situations where you may think your child has contracted lice and it turns out to be something totally different. The ideal way to avoid this is to use a natural product that deters lice. This way, if you know your child is protected from lice, the bugs in her hair must be something else.

If you have not begun using preventative lice treatments, and your child has signs of lice but has not been exposed to anyone with the bugs, there is a chance what you are dealing with is not lice. First, do a thorough lice check. Even if there are no bugs, your child may have a head full of nits waiting to hatch. If something is still off and you are pretty sure the problem is not lice, there are a few other problems you may have on your hands.

What is in your child’s hair may not be bugs at all. A day at the beach, even after several hair washings, could leave grains of sand that could be mistaken for lice. The same is true for dandruff or flakes of hairspray. Look closely at your child’s scalp when examining for lice. If you see scalp flakes, they could be the problem causing the appearance of lice.

Other bugs can get into the hair and give the appearance of lice including ants or aphids. While you still have a creepy-crawly problem to deal with, it will not be contagious, and once you get the bugs out of the hair, the problem is solved. Bugs other than lice will not attach to the hair shaft and they are unlikely to lay eggs.

If your child has a head full of something, be sure it is not lice before dealing with other problems. You can eliminate a lot of the stress of dealing with lice by being proactive and ensuring white flakes are never lice!

This build-up of immunity is common among living creatures. Humans are capable of it and it is why a person needs increased amounts of a drug to feed an addiction. It is also why many of the current antibiotics available to us do not work. To combat the resistance, drugs and chemical treatments must be made stronger and stronger, hurting not only lice and diseases, but causing damage to the human body. Natural products do not create this quagmire of resistance and increased potency. They work with your body’s natural instinct to protect itself instead of blasting everything with chemicals.

The super lice are believed to be surviving treatment by counteracting the lice medication before it is effective, or they have just become less sensitive to the poison chemicals. These super lice take a licking and keep on ticking, laying more eggs and continuing the itchy life cycle in the hair and on the scalp. This means if your child contracts lice, there is a greater likelihood he or she will still be scratching weeks after the chemical treatment is applied. The solution to combating super lice is to prevent your child from getting lice in the first place, or using a product that is guaranteed to eradicate the nasty nits. Go into battle armed with something you know will eliminate the itching and egg laying for which lice are known. This way, there will be no surprises down the road when your lice problem has not gone away. Combat super lice with a duo of products sure to stop lice dead in their tracks!

Side Effects

Anyone who pages through a magazine or watches a few hours of television is well aware of the numerous side effects associated with prescription medications. Every advertisement ends with a laundry list of all of the things that can happen if you take that particular medication. From headaches, to nausea, to serious complications worse than the problem you are treating, pharmaceuticals have numerous side effects. By substituting natural remedies for pharmaceuticals, you avoid the complications of side effects.

Unknown Problems

Even with all of the warnings that come with pharmaceuticals, doctors and researchers are still learning about new complications with medications already on the market. While drugs are tested and need to meet certain standards before being available to the public, many of them end up on the market before all of the dangers are known.

Natural remedies, on the other hand, have been in use for centuries. While you can never be sure exactly how everyone will react to a substance, a remedy that has been used again and again, throughout generations, has exhibited more of its potential dangers. Those who work with natural remedies can rely on years of use to understand the complications associated with the product.

Known Dangers

In relation to headlice treatment, the dangers affiliated with pharmaceutical products are well-known, and in some countries, the products have been banned. Lindane, a chemical found in many headlice treatments, is suspected to be an endocrine disruptor, a carcinogen, and may not even be effective. By using a natural headlice treatment, you avoid these dangers and get a product you know will work. Do not risk the health of your child or anyone else in your family who contracts headlice. Choose an all-natural solution that you know will be successful! Treating your child’s headlice is simple when you buy 100% Natural Headlice Blitzer.

Nits
These are lice eggs and are found firmly attached to the hair shaft. Their shape is somewhat oval and are white or yellow. A nit will take about 5-7 days to hatch and in order to get rid of lice, the nits must be killed and/or removed. Recurring infestations often occur because the nits are not removed during treatment.

Eggs

While you might think of eggs as something to eat for breakfast or bake into a cake, eggs are also associated with lice. Eggs are another term for nits or unhatched lice.

Pediculosis

This is the medical term for lice infestation. If a person is diagnosed with pediculosis, it means they have lice.

Louse

This is the singular term for lice. If you remove a louse from the hair, you have removed only one of the bugs.

 Dandruff is a scalp condition that often results in white flakes in and falling from the hair. These flakes are sometimes confused with head lice and head lice may often be ignored if a person thinks they are suffering from dandruff.

Infestation

This is the act of being infected with lice. If a person’s hair is filled with lice or nits, they are suffering from an infestation. Infestations can also affect furniture, toys, and bedding.

Lindane

 This is a chemical in many lice removal treatments in the United States and some other countries. It has been outlawed in a number of places and is commonly accepted to be carcinogenic and toxic.

Natural Lice Treatments

These are treatments or home remedies that do not include Lindane and other potentially dangerous chemicals. These products not only get rid of lice, they can be used safely ahead of time to prevent lice.

Parasite

This is an organism that lives on a host and feeds from that host. In order to survive, the parasite takes something from its host. Lice are parasites, as are fleas, mites, and hookworms.