Lice Myths & Facts

Myth: Lice jump, fly, hop from people, animals or environment onto your head

Fact: Human lice are only transmitted between people and never come from animals

Fact: Head lice can only crawl (not fly) from human head to head

Fact: Adult lice can only live a maximum of 48 hours off of a human head; baby lice (nymphs) can survive only a couple hours

Fact: Transmission of head lice from inanimate objects (the environment) is very uncommon

Study: only 4% live lice were found on infested subjects' pillowcases http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

Study: over 450 students had active infestations, but the floors of their 108 classrooms did not have even one louse - they were completely uninfested http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

Check the Experts: http://www.cdc.gov/lice/head/faqs.html

Myth: Lice is at epidemic levels

Fact: MN School nurses tell us that lice outbreaks seem to occur each year and they are not seeing an increase over previous years

Fact: Outbreaks are not easily eradicated with the OTC pesticide of permethrin due to pesticide resistance

Fact: We regularly see live lice on clients' heads after home treatments of NIX and RID (permethrin based products)

Check the Experts: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/archives/1999-releases/press09141999.html

http://archderm.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/139/8/994.pdf

Myth: Lice is easy to get (casual contact)

Fact: This actually depends on the level of infestation of the neighboring head.

Fact: Lice have to have very specific spatial and kinetic conditions in order to crawl over to grasp a hair of a neighboring head

Study: only 7.1% of hair to hair transmission attempts worked (34 out of 480); the louse had to be oriented outward on the hair (not ready to feed at the base of scalp), the neighboring hair had to be parallel to the hair the louse was on, the neighboring hair had to move very slowly (4 m per minute) http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/v119/n3/full/5601602a.html

Check the Experts: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6556831

Myth: Re-infestation from classmates is common

Fact: Re-infestions are often the same infestation which was never completely eradicated and has erupted again.

Fact: The Head Lice Life Cycle illustrates that a couple of missed nits can take upwards of 19 days (almost 3 weeks!) to become adults before a new egg is even laid - and most likely another week before enough nits are visible to spot. That's one month, well outside the recommended two week time frame to check after an infestation.

Check the Experts: http://www.holdfast.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=798

Myth: If you have head lice you must have poor hygiene

Fact: Lice are opportunistic bugs, surviving only on human blood; they are not affected by cleanliness or dirtiness in their need to survive

Fact: Lice like clean and healthy scalps; experts believe dirty hair is slippery therefore harder to glue nits (eggs) to

Check the Experts: http://www.cdc.gov/lice/head/epi.html

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cd/cdped.shtml

Myth: If one person has lice you should treat the entire family

Fact: Doing correct head checks on all family members is crucial; treating all "to be safe" is an unnecessary waste of time and energy

Check the Experts: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/dk1030.html

Myth: You have to have an itchy head to have lice

Fact: You can have lice up to 4-6 weeks before you begin itching your scalp and 50% of infested people have no symptoms at all

Fact: In ongoing infestations habituation can occur and itching decreases

Fact: Lice bites and nits are commonly found behind the ears, crown of head and nape of neck

Check the Experts: http://www.cdc.gov/lice/head/disease.html

http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/cdc/factsheets/head_lice.pdf

Myth: Head lice transmit diseases

Fact: Head lice are not carriers of pathogens

Fact: Body lice, a completely different strain of lice, do transmit pathogens

Check the Experts: http://www.cdc.gov/lice/

Myth: Nits (eggs) will hatch after pulled off the hair

Fact: Nits need a warm incubator (the head) and humidity in order to hatch

Fact: Nits are laid close to the scalp and are viable within 1/4 inch from the scalp

Fact: Nits found 1/2 inch or more away from scalp are no longer viable

Check the Experts: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/headlice/forhcp.html

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