Lice Enablers

My friend’s kid goes to a school with a fair amount of parents who use alternative everything to deal with inconveniences life  introduces to them. This is why when her daughter contracted head lice yet again she said, “Ah! So that kid WAS loaded in tea tree oil. I just knew she was hiding it. I smelled it.”

Her daughter has very thick wavy light brown hair…a veritable lice nirvana…and this is not her first lice rodeo. She caught this one at the gate because she is diligent with her head checks. Still, it had advanced enough to be in the nymph stage. In another week she would have had a healthy population of new adults reproducing like, well, lice. Hopefully, the other parents in the class  had been doing the same. Because, thanks to one parent who told their child that it was something that needed to be hidden, the other parents didn’t know that the infestation had begun.

My friend will report what she found to the school. She knows that it could come back round again if everyone in the room doesn’t take precautions. The other kids will get a note saying to be on the look out because that is the school policy (not all do). Her child won’t feel bad about it because she knows that she didn’t do anything wrong. She isn’t dirty. It can happen to anyone if they have head to head contact.

She is frustrated because if she been made aware of that her kid was exposed, she could have combed her out immediately. Not giving the insect a chance to get to the nymph stage. Not having to haul all of the linens and clothing to the laundromat because she lives in a city and does not own a washer and dryer. Not having to call all of the play dates from in between the time she contracted it and now.

We get cases like this all of the time at Lice Aunties Newton. Someone in a class or a camp or a daycare felt too shamed to report an infestation, usually because they had treated them and thought it was a done deal. They trusted a treatment shampoo and thought they got them all, not realizing that “super lice” have developed a resistance to the chemicals in many of them. Or maybe the nits (eggs) got missed in the whatever process they chose  to use. Or the lice population had grown enough to spread the love before they treated the child. Any number of scenarios. All of them ending with some unsuspecting other family being exposed without warning.

My friend knows that it isn’t the end of the world. Her kid doesn’t feel humiliated, just inconvenienced. That it is the lice causing the lice although people hiding them don’t help. I wish everyone could figure that out.

 

 

 

 

Can Selfies Cause Head Lice And Other Boogiemen

Recently, a question was raised to the Lice Aunties regarding the role of selfie photos and their role in the spread of a lice infestation. After all, the easiest way to get head lice is via head to head contact and a selfie usually requires head to head contact. Can a person get head lice from participating in a selfie? Let’s look at the facts:

• Head lice locate another host head using hair as vehicle to get to the food source aka the blood under the scalp. They have to crawl. They cannot fly or jump.
• Head lice cannot survive being away from their food source for much more than a day, maybe two.
• A newer infestation does not have a large amount of adult head lice. The immature lice (a.k.a “nymphs”) do not normally venture away from the food source.
• Head lice  prefer the warmth of the scalp.
• Occasionally, a louse may fall onto a piece of clothing. This would most likely take place during an advanced state of  infestation when the proverbial house is crowded.
• Cell phones are made of materials that a louse cannot grasp.

Given these facts, if two people put their heads together to take a selfie, is it possible for a head louse to see the opportunity and then run fast enough to transfer from head to head? Possibly but not likely.  That would have to be a really fast louse and it would probably have to be positioned in a convenient location away from the scalp. It can’t transfer to the head via the cellphone unless it is an absolute freak of nature. The likelihood of an adult louse wandering away from the food source is not unheard of but they do prefer to stay warm near their food source until the situation warrants it.  And it is far more likely to happen when there is a case that is advanced with a population of adults on the head that is aggravating its host (i.e. beware of  itching people).

So, can it happen? Yes. You can also get one from leaning onto the same chair a person has just vacated in a waiting room and a ton of other ways warranted via really bad luck. Is it likely? In our unscientifically proven, hands-on experienced opinion, not any more than a whole lot of other ways with really low odds. Which explains why we see way more 6 year old girls who like to play head to head with a bunch of other 6 year old girls (and their older sisters) then we see, well, everyone else in the population taking selfies.

For more real facts and helpful information, check out our website at www.liceaunties.com