Head lice

Lice sit on the head and are visible; the scabies mite sits on the body and is not. Both are passed on through close contact, and with both the whole household is looked at.

A suitable lice product and thorough wet combing work best together.

Treat again after about 8-10 days to catch newly hatched lice.

Clean combs, change bedding; telling school/daycare stops ping-pong.

Lice are a nuisance, no emergency and no cause for shame.

Only what cannot be wiped off and sits close to the scalp speaks for an active infestation. The wet comb with conditioner is the most accurate test at home.

Dimeticone is an oil that blocks the breathing openings of the lice — it acts physically, not chemically, which is why no resistance develops against it. It kills the lice but not all the eggs: hence the repeat after eight to ten days, when the hatched larvae are there but have not yet laid. Without that second treatment it comes back, and that is not the fault of the product.

A louse lives two to three weeks on the head and lays up to ten eggs a day; off the head it survives one to two days. The eggs hatch after seven to ten days — which gives the spacing of the second treatment. Eggs more than a centimetre from the scalp have already hatched or died, because hair grows about a centimetre a month. Wet combing with conditioner every three to four days over two weeks catches the later hatchings.

With plenty of conditioner, strand by strand with the nit comb, for two weeks. The rhythm catches the newly hatched before they lay — one pass is never enough.

Lice transmit nothing and like any head.

The main route — not mainly via hats or pillows.

Itchy scalp, small lice, eggs stuck close to the skin.

Check family/close contacts and treat everyone together.

Skin and lining renew themselves quickly and need zinc for it. With places that heal badly, cracked corners of the mouth and frequent skin infections a lack is a serious possibility.

Without vitamin C no stable collagen forms — the wound closes but holds less well. With a very one-sided diet, smoking and alcohol the intake is often tighter than assumed.

Steers the horn-forming of the skin. Too little makes it rough and dry, too much over longer periods harms liver and bone — and in pregnancy a strict upper limit applies.

Every healing needs building material. Anyone eating little during an illness loses exactly that — a sufficient amount spread across the day belongs to the treatment.

Head lice are neither a question of cleanliness nor of nutrients. What works are agents that suffocate the louse — dimeticone oils act purely mechanically and there is no getting used to them, unlike with the older nerve poisons. And afterwards the combing out with a nit comb every three to four days over two weeks, because no agent reaches every egg.

Both are often recommended, and both have shown some effect in small studies — distinctly weaker than dimeticone. Tea tree oil frequently irritates a child’s scalp, and the scalp here is already scratched. As prevention neither of them works.

The itch only begins four to six weeks after the infestation — that is how long the defences need to react to the saliva. So the itch says nothing about when it started, and this is why the whole family is combed on the same day.

Lice pass by head contact, not through hygiene or food. That belongs said, because many families feel ashamed without cause.

Widely recommended; the studies are small and the results inconsistent. Dimeticone products, which suffocate the lice, work more reliably — and lice cannot become resistant to them.