What are lice afraid of and do they die of cold

Knowing what lice are afraid of, you can get them out in just a few hours, and with the right approach, just one time. Usually, the procedure for killing lice on the head or other areas of the body requires repeated use of pediculicides, and its success depends largely on how effective the drug is used.

So, let's take a closer look at what lice are most afraid of and with the help of what methods of physical and chemical exposure they can quickly get rid of both the parasites themselves and the nits.

 

Frost: how to get rid of lice with low temperatures

Lice are afraid of the cold. However, like most other insects, they withstand a drop in temperature to 0 ° C and can remain alive for some time even at low temperatures. Lice die in the cold at minus 5 ° C for 20-30 minutes, the more severe frost kills them almost instantly.

In this case, the lice die in the cold only when they are far from the human body. For example, you can not destroy the lice on the head, just walking in the winter on the street without a hat. In the hair, warm air from the scalp will still be preserved, and although its temperature will be far from optimal for frost, which is deadly for parasites.

On a note

Similarly, it will be ineffective to swim naked in the hole with a disease of pubic lice. The temperature of the water, even in the sea, rarely drops below minus 1 ° C, and the lice will quite easily survive this immersion in ice water. An ordinary person (not a "walrus") can suffer from hypothermia much more strongly than the lice themselves.

It should also be borne in mind that lice are sufficiently resistant to oxygen deficiency and long-term diving of the host under the water is easily tolerated.

Nits are also afraid of frost, but not as much as the lice themselves. At negative temperatures, nits are able to survive longer than the larvae and adult parasites, and after being treated with cold, some of them can remain viable.

It is possible to use the fear of lice cold mainly to fight with clothes (underwear) lice. They spend most of their time on clothes and only get to the human body for feeding.

To get rid of laundry lice, you should take all contaminated clothes and hang them for a few days in a hard frost. While lice are dying in the cold, you should wear only clean underwear, guaranteed not infected. After three or four days, all the lice and nits in clothes will die.

It is interesting

Lice and cold - rarely found in nature nearby. The optimal temperature of reproduction of all lice living on humans is + 31 ° C, and already at + 20 ° C they cease to multiply, and the development of their eggs (nits) practically stops. However, at this temperature, adult insects remain active and continue to feed. Therefore, generally speaking, “cold” for lice is still quite comfortable temperatures for a person. But in the cold lice generally can not move, eat and somehow aktivnichat.

Feedback

“In Koyanov, we don’t even know about any of your pesticides. There are two means of lice - kerosene and frost. My grandmother also told me that lice are afraid of frost. Just take your laundry and hang it in the winter on the street for a few days. It froze - changed, and hung up, too. And the whole business. But it is only with clothes louse works. Pubic or head need to poison with kerosene ... "

Pavel, Koyanovo

If, in addition to body lice on the body, their other types (head, pubic) parasitize, the frost will not help here. You should not even try to freeze the parasites from the head or, especially, from the pubic part - you can overcool and seriously harm your health. In this case, you should get rid of lice by other methods.

 

High temperatures

High temperatures lice, too, are transferred with difficulty. At + 40 ° C, they cease to multiply, at + 45 ° C, the development of nits stops, and at + 50 ° C, adults die for half an hour.

Higher temperatures almost immediately destroy the parasites. However, nits can remain viable at temperatures up to + 60 ° C, and therefore lice out, taking hot baths, inefficient.

High temperatures are used against lice differently:

• body lice and their nits are destroyed by boiling contaminated clothing in boiling water
• pubic and head lice are removed by blowing hair on the appropriate places with hot hair dryers with an exit air temperature of about 50 ° C. Such processing does not kill lice, but the parasites become lethargic and practically flake off the hair, no longer able to cling to them. Immediately after this, the hair is combed out with combs for lice.

In general, it can be noted that lice are afraid of hot dry air. Infection in lice in the desert regions of the world is lower than in humid forests and swampy tropics for this very reason. By the way, the technology of using a hair dryer for lice was developed specifically in the desert states of the United States, where local researchers found the susceptibility of parasites to rapid death in conditions of heat and dryness.

 

Specialty Insecticides

These substances are used in the composition of most modern shampoos, gels, and balms. As a rule, they paralyze the nervous system of lice and lead to their death within a few minutes after applying the product to the hair.

As such poisonous components in the composition of pediculicidal agents, various pyrethroids are mainly used - Cypermethrin, Deltamethrin and some of their analogues. They are contained, for example, in such preparations for lice as Medifox, NOC, Bubil, etc.

Effective against lice and a special kind of silicone, called Dimethicone. It works in a slightly different way: effectively flowing into the respiratory tract of insects, Dimethicone leads to suffocation of the parasites. Substance is part of the facility here.

Products based on modern insecticides are very effective against lice and are relatively safe to use - they rarely cause allergies and do not lead to intoxication. They are most often used in the fight against lice in children.

 

Kerosene

Kerosene is a rather outdated folk remedy for lice, which, however, due to its high efficiency, is still often used for removing parasites. It poisons adult lice and partially dissolves the shell of nits.

Lice are also afraid of the smell of kerosene, and die when the substance gets on the chitinous surface of the body. Half-hour treatment of the head with kerosene allows you to destroy all adult lice and larvae, while a second session a week later ensures the extermination of young larvae that have passed out of the surviving nits.

Important!

Incorrect use of kerosene can lead to extensive scalp burns and poisoning, especially in children. When working, one should not forget that kerosene is very flammable, and its vapors can ignite from the smallest source of ignition.

 

Vinegar

In its effects on lice, vinegar is somewhat similar to the effect of kerosene.At the same time, it dissolves the shell of nits much better (more precisely, it softens the glue mass, which nits are attached to the hair).

Lice are killed by table vinegar (9%), diluting it in the ratio of one part vinegar to two parts water. When using vinegar, observe the same safety precautions as when killing kerosene lice - undiluted vinegar can cause skin burns!

 

Cranberry juice

Cranberry juice is another great folk remedy for the fight against lice and nits. Lice are afraid of it and die when they are treated with hair with juice, and nits, when using this tool, are easily peeled off from the hair when combed. This can be used when sharing cranberry juice with lice combs.

On a note

Lice and nits are generally afraid (by convention) of strong organic acids. For example, among the popular recipes for lice there are funds with citric, malic and grape acid.

 

Chemerichnaya water

Chemeric water fear mainly adult lice. This tool can be used to combat parasites, and to prevent infection with them.

In the first case, hellebore water is applied to the head as well as lice shampoo,and in the second case, it is smeared with hair behind the ears before a possible meeting with an infected person or before visiting a place where there is a risk of infection by parasites. The lice in this case are much less likely to get over the hair sprayed from the infected person to the policaric water.

 

What lice are not exactly afraid

And here is what the lice are not exactly afraid:

• Prayers - although this will upset especially believing readers, psalms and appeals to “higher instances” of parasites will not have the desired effect, if you do not back up such prayers with insecticides or even kerosene.
• Conspiracies - the situation with them is similar to the situation with prayers.
• Talismans - lice on a person do not even suspect that somewhere on the neck and arm, it turns out, there is an object that should frighten them. By the way, lice are almost blind and the stones on the wrists, even with a strong desire, cannot be considered.

Most lice are just afraid of simple hair removal. Shaving the pubis or head allows you to get rid of parasites literally within an hour without chemistry, combing and the risk of poisoning. Therefore, a shaving machine - the most terrible enemy of lice on the body.

 

Useful video: how to properly and effectively deal with lice and nits