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Head lice - Management
How should people confirm that they have head lice?
- Use detection combing (systematic combing of wet or dry hair with a detection comb) to confirm the presence of lice.
- Wet combing takes 5–15 minutes per head; lice are immobilized by hair conditioner, so are easy to see on the comb.
- Dry combing takes 3–5 minutes per head. Using a comb on dry hair may produce static; when a louse is spotted on the comb, placing a thumb on it before drawing the comb out of the hair prevents the louse being flicked off the comb by static.
- Lice found using detection combing at home can be attached to sticky tape and brought to the consultation to aid diagnosis.
- Advise the person (or the child's parent) that all members of the household should also be checked.
- Only make a diagnosis of active head lice infestation if a live head louse is found.
- An itching scalp is not sufficient to diagnose active infestation.
- Itching can persist for days to weeks after successful eradication of head lice.
- Itching may not develop for several weeks or months after becoming infested.
- Itching is a common reaction to hearing that there are head lice within the school or community.
- The presence of nits alone (eggs) does not indicate active infestation. They are commonly misdiagnosed. See Differential diagnosis.
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