Facts About Head Lice

According to the Center for Disease Control: (1)

The head louse, or Pediculus humanus capitis, is a parasitic insect that can be found on the head, eyebrows, and eyelashes of people. Head lice feed on human blood several times a day and live close to the human scalp.

  • Head lice are not known to spread disease.
  • An estimated 6 million to 12 million infestations occur each year in the United States among children 3 to 11 years of age.
  • Head lice move by crawling; they cannot hop or fly.
  • Head lice can be spread by head-to-head contact with a person who has head lice, or contact with clothing (such as hats, scarves, coats) or other personal items (such as combs, brushes, or towels).
  • Personal hygiene or cleanliness in the home or school has nothing to do with getting head lice.

Super Lice

A mutated strain of so-called ‘super lice’ has hit a reported 25 states and can’t be killed with most over-the-counter treatments.

According to research conducted by Assistant Professor Kyong Yoon, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, U.S. states that have infestations of Super Lice include the following:

SuperLiceStates

Researchers are finding that head lice that are becoming resistant to OTC treatments. Red states: 100 percent of the tested lice were resistant. Orange states: 50 to 90 percent of lice were resistant. Yellow states: 1 percent to 49 percent were resistant. Blue states: Data hasn’t been analyzed yet. White states haven’t been tested.

 Read Channel KTEN’s story on Super Lice in Grayson County, Texas.

Gone for Good technicians have a trained eye to spot and remove all eggs, nymphs and adult lice.

Actual size of the three lice forms compared to a penny:

A shiny, copper penny in comparison to size of an egg, nymph, or adult louse. All of which are smaller than the penny.

Egg/Nit: Nits are lice eggs laid by the adult female head louse at the base of the hair shaft nearest the scalp. Nits are firmly attached to the hair shaft and are oval-shaped and very small (about the size of a knot in thread) and hard to see.

Adult: The fully grown and developed adult louse is about the size of a sesame seed, has six legs, and is tan to grayish-white in color. An adult female louse can lay between 7-10 eggs a day resulting in about 200 eggs in her short lifetime.http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lice/head/disease.html