#kill lice

How Long Can Head Lice Live on a Couch?

How Long Can Head Lice Live on a Couch?

First of all Head Lice will start to die once they get off a human scalp. Although head lice can theoretically live on a couch for up to 24 hours, if lice can’t get a blood meal every 3-4 hours they will starve, dry out and die.

Head lice love kids.

Because kids are in close contact with each other every day. This gives head lice the opportunity to travel from one head to the next head. Because head lice transmission takes place through direct head to head contact.

  Lice-Assessment Guide

  What head lice treatment works when you discover live lice in your child’s hair?

• Although treatments for head lice abound on the internet,

• Useful health information about head lice is difficult to come by.

• In fact when you do find lice and nits.

• You need to use a lice comb and hair conditioner to successfully treat head lice.

Furthermore there are many lice combs available, however the only way to make sure you have no more lice and nits is to use a good metal nit comb. OTC lice treatment kits that you can purchase only contain thin plastic lice combs which are not effective at stripping the nits off of the hair shaft.

A metal nit comb plus hair conditioner will remove both the lice and the nits.

How Long Can Head Lice Live on a Couch?

Because the nits are attached to the hair shafts with superglue. The lice nit superglue is laid down during the egg-laying process when the adult female louse is laying the nits. During the production of the nits the adult female louse is able to produce a very sticky substance that hardens on the hair shaft, thereby firmly glueing the nit to the hair shaft.

Therefore even if you kill live lice and remove every last one of the adult lice on your child’s scalp,

the nits will remain and continue to hatch. And a fews days later you will discover the newly hatched lice. Therefore the use of a finetoothed comb is your best and most reliable method of getting rid of lice from your family members’ scalps.

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  How Long Can Head Lice Live on a Couch?

When the school nurse sends home the health letter saying that cases of live lice have been detected in your child’s school, if you are like most parents, you will panic.

You will take what your school nurse says as medical advice. You most likely will run to the pharmacy to purchase OTC treatments for lice. However the efficacy of OTC lice treatment has changed in the past 20 years in the US. In fact the most commonly utilized pesticide in lice shampoo will longer kill lice.

In addition the Centers for Disease Control does not require reporting of head lice cases. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children not be sent home from school when they have lice. Because head lice do not carry, or spread, any diseases in the US in 2020.

As of 2010 the American Academy of Pediatrics updated their policy on head lice, noting in particular that No healthy child should be excluded from or miss school because of head lice, and no-nit policies for return to school should be abandoned.

First of all you don’t need to purchase overthecounter treatment, because these OTC lice treatments don’t work on head lice any more in the US. Secondly you don’t need to obsessively clean you house from top to bottom, because the lice are only in your child’s hair. Thirdly you don’t need to turn your life upside down about head lice, because head lice don’t carry any diseases and head lice are not a Centers for Disease Control reportable condition.

For centuries parents have created their own home remedies, including beef tallow, olive oil, coconut oil and even kerosene.

You can relax and take a deep breath because head lice are manageable! Although Lice might stress you out, they won’t harm you or your family.

In fact if you want DIY lice treat treatment for home use here is what to do:

• Apply Hair Conditioner to  dry hair or wet hair

• Comb the hair using a Metal Comb such as the OMG Lice Comb

• Use lice combs to Comb every day until you get 3 clean comb-outs in a row.

How Long Can Head Lice Live on a Couch?

Interestingly head lice are handled differently in the Netherlands. In Holland parents now deal with lice very calmly and sanely. In fact there is even a brand new TV comedy series about lice in Holland called “De Luizenmoeder” — “The Lice Mother.” It’s a hit because lice mothers are a real phenomenon: Mothers (and the occasional father) who volunteer to check for head lice at school, sometimes as often as once a week. Furthermore in Holland parents now view lice as a fact of childhood. There is none of the lice shunning, lice secrecy or lice stigma seen here in the US.

However the past history of head lice in Holland

differs from the present. In fact, during 17th century Holland, the task of treating lice and keeping one’s child’s hair clean fell squarely on the shoulders of women, and mothers in particular. Especially relevant is the Rijksmuseum painting ‘A Mother’s Duty ‘ Pieter de Hooch, c. 1658-1660,  which shows a mother picking lice out of her daughter’s hair.

Head Lice Faqs:

How do you get rid of lice in one day?

• OMG Conditioner when applied to dry hair will smother lice.

• Then simply comb through the hair with the OMG comb to remove lice and nits.

Can head lice live on pillows and sheets?

• If you see lice on a pillow or sheet remove lice and place in plastic bags.

• Place plastic bags in the trash.

• It is very unlikely that you will find head lice on pillow or sheets.

• If you are concerned about this, you can simply place pillows and sheets in the dryer for 30 minutes.

• You can place brushes and combs in a ziplock bag and place in the freezer overnight to kill lice

Does Hair Dye Kill Lice? Educate yourself at NitWits!

does hair dye kill lice?  All that parents can find on the internet is lots of conflicting information about whether or not coloring your hair can prevent, or even kill, head lice.  Let’s remember here that head lice are pretty feisty and resilient critters. We have thrown a lot of chemicals at them over thousands of years and the head lice are still with us. Also, just this past August, a study came out indicating that head lice in Massachusetts and 24 other states are highly and genetically resistant to pesticides.

  NitWits in Boston Magazine

does hair dye kill lice? We here at NitWits were just interviewed and featured in a Boston Magazine Story about Super Lice. It is our goal at NitWits to educate and calm down parents about Head Lice. Let’s remember that head lice are not dangerous, head lice do not spread disease and, head lice are not a CDC reportable condition.

Myth: People with color treated hair are less likely to get lice. Fact: We have not seen this to be true. There is the remote possibility that if you have one louse in your hair that has not yet laid any eggs, that louse might be killed by a hair coloring treatment. However once the nits are laid, they are quite bulletproof and they would continue to mature and hatch without problems.  In general head lice do not like adult hair and they do not like men. We see head lice in 20% of Moms and 2% of Dads.

This leads to the question, do head lice come in different colors? In other words, do lice turn brown in brown hair and blond in blond hair? No: head lice do not come in different colors. Head lice are clear like a jellyfish. So when you look into the hair, if you have head lice, you will look right through them. Most of the time you cannot see them with the human eye because they are transparent. This leads to the mistaken idea that lice can change colors, or that lice come in different colors.

We’ve seen it before. Over time, bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Roaches become immune to bug spray. Weeds become immune to herbicides. Adaptation wins. Chemicals lose. Such is life.

The newest winner is lice. A champion strain of “super lice,” now reported in 25 states, is proving resistant to the chemicals commonly used today to kill them – both the over the counter and the prescription drugs. When are we going to learn that chemical warfare will always result in creating super bugs?

It isn’t necessary to poison lice with chemicals that harm us and our environemnt. You can kill them naturally by suffocation. Even if over the counter treatments and prescription treatments still worked, do you really want to slather neurotoxins on your child’s scalp? Or yours?

Natural Remedies for Lice and Super Lice

There are several methods to go to war on lice and a few preventative treatments as well. As always, the better you eat, the healthier you are, the less susceptible you are to infection both inside the body and outside. This is true for internal parasites and external parasites like scabies, fleas, and lice. If you’re dealing with any infection (or ailment for that matter), it behooves you to load up on fresh, raw vegetables; to eliminate processed foods; and to seriously restrict any excessively sweet whole foods (like grapes and bananas for instance).

Manual Delousing

First of all, check your child’s scalp on a regular basis – once a week at the very least if lice have been a recurrent problem in their daycare or school, daily if there is a current infestation.

Check all over the scalp, but pay special attention to the area around the ears. Look for lice and look little dark specks. If you find the dark specks, these are nits – otherwise known as eggs. You can use a nit comb to remove lice and nits.

Now, of course, the manual method works, but it is tedious and time-consuming. If you’ve ever tried to remove fleas from a cat or dog with nothing but a flea comb, you know the drill. But if you catch lice early enough and your child only has a few lice and nits, the manual method alone may work.

If you spray any area that has nits with apple cider vinegar (or dab it on with cotton balls), the vinegar will dissolve the “glue” that attaches the nit to the hair shaft, making manual removal much easier.

How To Smother Lice

Mayonnaise, olive oil, and coconut oil are all used to smother the little suckers. Some suggest beginning with an apple cider vinegar rinse, leaving it on until it dries, and using the nit comb as the first step. Some suggest doing this as the last step.

Cover the entire scalp with mayo, olive oil, or coconut oil. Oil can be used with or without the addition of essential oils (tea tree, rosemary, cinnamon, or peppermint oil are good choices).

Cover the head with a shower cap and leave it in place for 2-8 hours. Some say the little monsters can hold their breath that long. Other say 2 hours does the trick.

Don’t forget this important step: wash everything that could be infested with lice and use the dryer! Bed linens are not the only concern. Hats, hoodies, coats, clothes – wash them all at the same time you do a treatment. In fact, if you do the 8-hour treatment, wash the linens before and after.

One treatment will probably not be enough. If you miss one nit, it will grow up to lay 8-10 eggs a day. So… plan on repeating the treatment every 7 days for a few weeks. (Of course you may not find any lice and be home free after one treatment. But check carefully!)

Other Natural Methods of Killing Lice

Reports of using strong salt solutions or diatomaceous earth look promising. One mother successfully treated lice by using ½ pound of salt to 2 quarts of water. Her instructions are to pour the saltwater over the child’s hair while the child is in the tub,  leave on for 10 minutes, rinse, and condition. Repeat daily for 3 days and again every 7 days for 3 weeks.

Diatomaceous earth is a little trickier. You want to leave this dry powder on overnight after working it into the hair and follow with a vinegar rinse and nit comb. Since you don’t want to breathe this dust and you don’t want your child breathing it and you have to devise a method to keep this on the scalp overnight, it seems oil would be a better, easier method.

How To Prevent Lice Infestations

Yes, there are idiots out there who will say that your child caught lice because you did not keep his or her hair clean. Others say that lice prefer clean hair. Cleanliness is not the issue.

The one thing you are responsible for is the health of your child. Feed your child the best possible diet. All parasites do seem to prefer unhealthy hosts, and they all love sugar! If you do feed your child a healthy diet, and he or she still picks up lice, don’t waste your time looking for fault or blame. It’s time to deal with it in a healthy, responsible way.

In addition to diet, lice really hate essential oils and will avoid them. Spritzing your child’s backpack, coat, and hat with a spray of water and essential oils (10 drops of peppermint, rosemary, tea tree, or cinnamon oil to one cup of water) may deter lice.

Conclusion

Maybe the evolution of super lice is a good thing. Maybe the result will be  a revolution in awareness of natural treatments. Remember that the skin (scalp included!) soaks up any chemicals that are placed on it. Why would anyone ever want to expose their child to poisons, to neurotoxins, to anything that might harm your child this way?

One can only hope that Big Pharma doesn’t respond the way other scientists have – to replace a failing insecticide with a new, stronger one. They probably will. We’ll see.

Recommended Products:

Diatomaceous Earth • Food Grade DE

Recommended Reading:

Heal Cavities, Gum Disease, Naturally with Organic Oral Care – Toothpaste recipes included

All About Fleas – Natural Remedies – Inside and Out

Common Parasites and How to Kill Them

Herbs and a Protocol that Eliminates Parasites from the Body