Head Louse

There are three general categories of lice that infect humans:

• Head lice
• Body lice
• Crab or pubic lice

Head louse and body louse are closely related, and if observed, they have identical appearance only differing on the habit of thriving on human body. Head louse live entirely on the head of the person, unless they are taken away or die. Body louse on the other hand lives in the seams of the clothes and are only seen when they feed. These are very rare. Meanwhile, pubic louse can be transferred from person to person during intimate contact but can be also transferred in may other ways.

Head louse infestation is one of the many concerns for American health issues. Roughly ten million of the American population is inflicted with head louse, a quarter of which are grade school children. They can easily proliferate with physical contact and even the best sanitary condition cannot prevent the spread of the head louse. Once a person in a house is inflicted, chances are other members may become infested too. Caucasians are more prone to head louse due to the individual shape of the hair shafts.

Nits are the eggs of the head louse, thus the term nit picking. A female louse can lay around 50-150 nits in a period. They stick on the hair shaft and may hatch around 5-10 days. Normally, head louse cannot live away from the host in a period of two days.

On normal degree of infestations, lice may be commonly found in the hair near the ear and the back of the scalp. In the more severe cases, they infest the whole area of the hair and some may be found on the eyelashes.

A common symptom relating to infestation is itching, this may cause loss of sleep at night in children and too much itching may arrive to scratching, consequently to scalp irritation. In this period, a home remedy for louse, which may be applied, is the intake of antibiotics to prevent further spread of irritation. 

The usual and more effective form of home remedy for head louse makes use of mayonnaise. This works by suffocating the lice on the scalp and ungluing the nits on the individual hair strands. Mayonnaise is specifically efficient in diminishing the infestation.

In using mayonnaise as a home remedy for louse, you start with applying the plain mayonnaise on the hair of the patient. Make sure that the entire scalp is penetrated with the mayo. Leave this for ten to fifteen minutes. After which use a comb (which has shorter distance between the bristles) to remove the dead lice then individually release the nits from their hold. Once you are satisfied with the appearance of the scalp and the hair, wash the patient's head with the hottest water he or she may withstand. This will aid the mayonnaise to gently slide down the hair and so does the nits and louse. To remove the remaining oil from the head, use a dishwashing liquid or soaps, these are effective in taking away the grease from the scalp.

This home remedy for head louse is then followed with a washing of coconut oil-based shampoo. It is also important that this routine is followed with the application of coco-based conditioner. Lice are specifically repelled by coconut and coconut oil.

This home remedy for head louse must be repeated regularly to prevent further spread of the louse infestation and to completely treat the sufferer from the pests.