Anyone – even you, can catch head lice.  It doesn’t matter whether you have clean hair or dirty hair, short or long.  Once one person in the family is suffering from head lice there is a very strong possibility that everyone in a family group will catch them.  Worse still they can be passed on to anyone you meet. 

The problem for most people when encountering head lice for the first time is whether they know what they are looking for.  Your child brings home a letter from school saying that there is an outbreak of head lice.  But what are they? How do you know if your child or anyone else in the family has caught them?

It can be very hard trying to find authoritative information since often details are biased in favour of the company making a head lice treatment.

So what are head lice?  Head lice have been around for centuries and in all cultures.  Archaeological excavations have revealed many examples of head lice combs across the centuries.  It is virtually impossible to eradicate them completely – like a cold anyone can catch them. 

Head lice are tiny creatures that hide in your hair and drink blood from your skin.  The only way they can be identified is if you check your children’s hair regularly.

To do this, you need to comb through the child’s hair, parting it at close intervals so that you can see the scalp beneath.  Look at hair shafts from the roots downwards.  At this point, you should be looking for tiny brown almost blackish creatures, which will probably be moving about in the hair.  They will try and hide.  They can move very quickly.

Look also for eggs. At the base of the hair shaft, you may see tiny brownish eggs.  These are unhatched eggs and will stick to the scalp.  Further down the hair shaft, you may find white cases – unfortunately, the presence of these white egg cases means they have hatched and are now laying more eggs on the scalp.   

Tiny bites may be found around the soft skin behind the ears, or at the base of the neck.  This is where the lice will have been sucking blood. 

Clothes, pillows and towels may show a substance like a dusting of pepper. This comprises louse droppings.

Children will scratch their hair frequently and complain of itchiness.  In bad cases they can become depressed and very uncomfortable.

This content was provided by one of our users, pinewoodlodge