If a child has lice: what's important to know and how to properly treat

Compared with older children, lice become more common. Usually, a child’s lice appear after the start of a new school year at school or in kindergarten — after a vacation in the village. At the same time, it is almost impossible to detect infection in the early stages - only a few parasites on the head are usually not felt, and it’s usually necessary to treat a child more than a few weeks after infection.

It is helpful to know the main approaches and nuances of treating a child for lice to parents so that, when detecting parasites, be able to take necessary and targeted actions in time and quickly, thus saving their children from severe forms of pediculosis.

 

Ways to infect children with lice

There are two main ways lice transmission from sick people to children:

• direct body contact with joint games, fights, sleep, just socializing
• and the use of other people's hair care products.Parasites can easily remain on hairbrushes, hairpins and elastics, and they can easily crawl onto the hair of a healthy child.

Few people know, but also lice can be transmitted by water in the baths, pools and open water bodies - they keep well enough on the water and do not die in such a state for several days. However, cases of such infection with lice today are extremely rare.

On a note

There is a pronounced seasonality in infecting children with head lice: most often they are transmitted in winter, when children spend a lot of time indoors in close teams, and also in early autumn, when children return to school groups after the summer holidays. It is in the middle of autumn and for the New Year holidays that it is usually necessary to check the child’s hair condition as closely as possible and, if lice or nits are detected, start adequate treatment as soon as possible.

 

How to detect lice in a child?

Determining that a child has got lice is easy. Enough for this:

• Carefully observe the child: if he constantly scratches his head and tries to lay his hair, it is most likely lice (you need to visually verify this).
• Check the condition of the hair: lice in children on the head are noticeable on their own, sitting on the hair, and also show themselves by the presence of nits on the hair - whitish-colored eggs attached to the hair by a sticky secret. When they are detected, treatment should begin immediately.
• Even if there are no lice on the hair, it is worth checking the child’s bed and underwear that he wears most often - linen louse lives right here.
• The main effects of pediculosis in children are actually lice bites and the appearance of an allergy to these bites. It is precisely the numerous red itchy spots on the head that are a sure sign of infecting a child.

In this case, the presence of nits in children means that the parasites in the hair of a child (and sometimes on the eyebrows and eyelashes) are precisely lice. Inexperienced eyes may confuse them with bedbug larvae (more mobile than lice), fleas (darker and bouncy), and even ticks. But their eggs on the hair place only lice, and treatment the child in this case must be made precisely from these bloodsuckers.

On a note

Describing the treatment of pediculosis in children, the famous pediatrician Komarovsky advises to identify the lice themselves to shine on the head with a desk lamp - the lice in this case shine and become more visible.

 

What can be dangerous lice?

Lice in children are most dangerous because they cause a whole complex of unpleasant symptoms that violate the child’s behavior, sleep, and, in general, normal functioning.

Lice are primarily harmful by itching, irritation of the skin in places of bites and the appearance of pustular inflammations where the bites are combed with fingers and infections are introduced into wounds.

Deeper manifestations of lice are a rash, the appearance of a small blue spots on the skin, signs of allergies. With the development of the disease, the skin may become rougher, boils and ulcers appear.

A clothes louse, which bites a child mainly on the body, sometimes carries pathogens of typhus and relapsing fever - a deadly disease. The same infections can infect a child and a head louse, but much less often.

 

How to treat a child for lice?

Treating a child for lice is generally not difficult. Even if the situation is neglected and there are serious rashes and wounds from the combed bites on the head or body, it is first necessary to get rid of the parasites themselves, and then proceed to symptomatic therapy.

To get rid of head lice are often used quite numerous, affordable and diverse today insecticidal shampoos. Very popular among them is flea shampoo Medifox.

With shampoo head and body lather and aged for an hour or two. On the head, it is desirable to wear a rubber cap or plastic bag to enhance the effect.

Feedback:

“The nightmare, the whole Internet was on the line, it is written on every forum that the treatment of lice in children should be done with kerosene. This is the old-fashioned method! Anyway, that conspiracy to get rid of them. I buy Nittifor or Medifox, after one washing the child’s head this nasty thing doesn’t last a year. My fellow regularly brings lice from yunnat expeditions, so we poison them even before they multiply in large quantities. "

Galina, Ostrovskoye

Lice on clothes can be destroyed by boiling things or soaking them and treating them with the same shampoos.

Sometimes after a week or two, the treatment of lice should be repeated, because some shampoos do not kill nits, and in a week new parasites have time to get out of the eggs on an already clean head.

On a note

Strictly speaking, it is not entirely correct to say “treatment of lice in children” or “how to cure lice in children.” Lice are not a disease, a disease called lice. To treat lice that need to be destroyed is completely inappropriate.Therefore, it is necessary to say either “remove head lice in children” or “treatment of lice”.

After lice are destroyed, you should begin to treat the children. If an entire team or several children in a family are infected, the procedure should be carried out simultaneously:

• Fresh and itchy bites are smeared with Vietnamese asterisk or Savior cream.
• To relieve an allergic reaction, you can use antihistamines. This should be done only on the recommendation of a doctor, since such drugs have their own contraindications.
• Wounds, inflammations and ulcers on the ground of bites should be treated with disinfectants and cauterizers such as zelenka or iodine solution. In case of serious injuries, it is necessary to dress them with wound healing agents.

The bluish spots on the bite spots will eventually disappear themselves, but to speed up their disappearance, use vitamin preparations containing B vitamins and vitamin E.

Feedback

“We brought Maksimka lice from the camp. All as a textbook - itching, nits, lice on the pillow. The grandmother shouted something about kerosene that needed to treat lice in children, but we quickly calmed her down, bought the NOC, and for a week they washed their heads instead of shampoo, keeping the boy long with soaped head.Lice literally fell into the bath! We had to smear green paint with bites, for there were too many of them. But they did it, in two weeks there was not a single parasite. ”

Stanislav, Omsk

Very good for getting rid of parasites special combs from lice. They allow you to remove lice mechanically, without the use of insecticidal shampoos.

However, complete elimination of lice with these tools will take at least 3-4 days and will require a serious investment of time for diligent and scrupulous combing. In this case there is always a risk that nits will not be completely removed.

 

Modern drugs and some folk remedies for getting rid of lice

In order to get rid of lice was as reliable as possible and after it children could immediately be treated, you should choose reliable shampoos containing proven insecticidal preparations. Permethrin is the best known anti-winch poison - if it doesn’t get into the mouth and eyes, it doesn’t cause any trouble to the child.

Several shampoos are available on the basis of Permethrin:

• Medfoks - the most famous and popular shampoo
• NOC is a close analogue of Medifox
• The boom
• Lauri, who also works well against body lice.

Additionally, you can use the tools Pedilin, Parasidosis, Itaz, but the effect of their use is often not as pronounced as from the use of Medifox and NOC.

In the people with lice in the old manner continue to fight with kerosene, vinegar and turpentine. These products also kill lice, but using them is more difficult and unpleasant than shampoos. Sometimes herbs are also used, but their effect on lice is often quite weak.

In any case, after the treatment of lice, whenever possible, it is desirable for the child to cut the hair as short as possible, and ideally to shave the head.

In this case, the lice on the head themselves will not be able to dwell, and the skin will quickly recover from bites and allergies.

 

How to comb a child's lice and nits with a special comb

 

What to do if your child has lice or scabies: tips for parents