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These boys are happy now that they no longer show any signs of lice.

How to Tell If You Have Lice: 3 Signs to Watch Out For

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As a parent, you need to protect your growing child from the many dangers in their environment. This includes preparing them for social activities, such as going to school or playing sports, to more practical safety measures, such as knowing about their allergies. Dangers that can happen to your child include injuries during sports, allergic reactions towards food, and even lice infestations.

Preventing Lice Infestations Before It’s Too Late

Lice infestations are transferred through head-to-head contact and while that might make it seem like the chances of spread are low, anyone who has had lice knows how easy it can spread. Removing lice from your child can take hours, especially if they have thick or long hair. This is why you need to spot the signs of a lice infestation before they can become too problematic to handle.

In this article, we will share three warning signs that your child may have a lice infestation:

1. Their Head is Always Itchy

One of the most typical symptoms of lice infestations is having an itchy scalp, which is itchiness caused by the body’s allergic reaction against louse saliva. The danger of experiencing an itchy head is that the body’s allergic response to the lice may not be present for as long as two to six weeks until lice have started nesting in a person’s head.

An itchy head alone isn’t a surefire reason that you have head lice since it can also be caused by increased production of dandruff and skin irritation from eczema. Nevertheless, you need to be extra cautious about other symptoms to make sure that you can protect your child from a potential infestation.

2. They Start to Feel Crawling Bugs on Their Scalp

A recurring feeling in having a lice infestation is the feeling of crawling bugs along your scalp. You should ask your child if their head’s itchiness is also related to this symptom. If you’re not too sure about their responses, you should know how to identify lice by yourself or get a professional head lice check.

Louse appears similar to small light-brown sesame seeds that can crawl on people’s hair, skin, or clothing. If you happen to see an adult louse on your child’s head, then there’s a high chance that several lice are nesting on their head, together with their eggs.

Lice eggs, also known as nits, can be confused for dandruff but they won’t move when touched. You will need to use a special comb to remove these pesky eggs since they’re hard to remove from a hair shaft. Keep in mind that eggs found less than .25 inches down the hair shaft may have already hatched, which makes it harder to remove them.

3. They Experience Sleeping Difficulties

Lice infestations can cause your child to have difficulty sleeping because lice are most active in dark environments. This leads them to have sleepless nights, which can also lead to them being cranky in the morning.

If your child is infested with lice, their constant scratching can cause noticeable sores in their head. You should inspect these sores as they can be infected with bacteria on your child’s skin and be further aggravated by the lice’s saliva.

Prevent the Spread of Lice

Dealing with lice is no simple matter since they can lay six eggs per day, making your efforts at removing them at the end of the day pointless. This is why you should contact professionals to make sure that your child’s head is completely clean from lice and nits.

Head Lice Treatment in Jacksonville, Orlando and Savannah

Fresh Heads Lice Removal is a head lice treatment center that offers professional head lice treatment in Jacksonville, FL, Orlando, FL, and Savannah, GA. Get in touch with us today to inquire about our AirAllé® treatment, which can solve your lice troubles in just 30 minutes! We make sure that your worries with lice are handled with expert care!

Schools Without Lice.

Schools Without Lice

Our mission at Fresh Heads Lice Removal is to eradicate lice from schools across the United States. So, we’ve partnered with the Lice Clinics of America to create a program called Schools Without Lice. Through our program, we provide school nurses and teachers with free head lice screenings, resources, and treatments. Together, it’s possible to have schools without lice!

Lice and dandruff can look very similar in this woman's hair.

Lice vs Dandruff: Differences in Symptoms and Treatment

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When someone experiences an intense head itch, we often associate it with these two situations: they have lice or dandruff. Both are irritating conditions that can be treated, but they are not the same. The only similarity between lice and dandruff is that they are conditions that happen on a human scalp that gives an itchy and uncomfortable feeling. Other than that, their causes and treatments are different in many ways. Let us talk about the two conditions in detail.

Lice vs Dandruff: How the Two Differ

Lice are parasites. They are alive, six-legged parasites that come in three forms. First, they are seen as eggs. These are the tiny white specks with a tail that hold onto human hair. When they hatch, they turn into nymphs. These are tan-colored insects in a tiny size that runs around one’s scalp. When they become adult lice, they get as big as a sesame seed. Lice rely on human blood to stay alive, and when their saliva touches a human scalp, it causes itchiness.

Dandruff, on the other hand, are not insects. It is a scalp condition, also called seborrheic dermatitis. It often leaves your skin or scalp dry, flaky, and itchy. It is a non-contagious and non-inflammatory skin condition that usually affects adolescents and older adults. Babies can also experience a flaky scalp, which is called cradle cap.

Dandruff and Head Lice Infection: The Cause

The main difference between dandruff and head lice infection lies in the way they appear on one’s scalp.

You do not simply get lice. It is caused by head to head contact, from an infected person to another. If you have a family member who has lice, it is easier for you to get them as well. Close interaction is necessary before you get infected by lice.

On the other hand, you can never catch dandruff from anyone else. However, if your family is prone to dandruff, there is a higher chance that you will also suffer from the same scalp condition.

Dandruff and Head Lice Treatment

While shampoos exist for both conditions, shampoo for dandruff can be effective, while OTC shampoo for head lice is not. Lice is best treated professionally.

• On Dandruff

There are special shampoos dedicated to treating dandruff. These shampoos have the following ingredients: coal tar, salicylic acid, ketoconazole, or selenium sulfide. They help slow down the skin-shedding process and treat the fungal infections that cause the skin-shedding.

• On Lice

OTC head lice shampoos contain harsh chemical pesticides such as permethrin and pyrethrin. The shampoo companies recommend using the product repeatedly, at intervals of around seven to ten days, to get rid of the infestation. Unfortunately, this puts your child through repeated exposures to harsh chemicals. In addition, most species of lice prevalent today are super lice, which OTC shampoos are ineffective at killing.

The Prevention

Since they are two very different conditions, prevention for dandruff and head lice is very different too.

• On Dandruff

Using the right shampoo for your scalp can prevent your condition from worsening. Avoiding chemicals like hair dyes or hair sprays can also help. Regular brushing of hair and massaging it instead of scratching are few ways to improve your condition.

• On Lice

Lice has nothing to do with hygiene. Anyone with human blood can be infested with lice. The best way to prevent being infected with it is to avoid close head to head contact with someone who has lice. Using lice prevention products can also help.

Diagnose and Treat Early

Lice and dandruff are two conditions that you would not want your children to get. They cause inconvenience and irritation. Although they cannot always be prevented from happening, there is a solution to improve or get rid of both of these conditions. You just need to be aware of what is happening on your child’s scalp and make sure to attend to them as soon as you can.

Head Lice Treatment in Jacksonville, Orlando, and Savannah

For head lice treatment in Jacksonville, Orlando, FL, and Savannah, GA, turn to Fresh Heads Lice Removal! Our lice removal clinics offer different treatments and protection plans, depending on your child’s needs. Book an appointment with us today!

Schools Without Lice.

Schools Without Lice

At Fresh Heads Lice Removal, our mission is to eradicate lice from schools across the country. To accomplish that mission, we’ve partnered with the Lice Clinics of America to create a program called Schools Without Lice. Through this program, we can provide teachers and nurses with free head lice screenings, resources, and treatments. Together, we can have schools without lice!

head lice prevention what methods work

Head Lice Prevention: What Methods Work?

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Head lice are common among children because they have close contact with others and are curious about their environments. One thing most people don’t know about lice infestations is that lice are normally only spreadable through head-to-head contact, not through jumping off the scalp and scattering. Lice normally die after 24 hours being off of their host’s scalp, which is why infestations are quite easy to manage. Eggs, also called nits, are unable to hatch and die quite quickly when far away from head temperatures.

If your child is a victim of the seasonal lice infestations going around their play places, there is no reason to fear and halt them from having fun. Here are some steps to take to prevent and control the spread of head lice:

Avoid Head-to-Head Contact

It is important to tell your child to avoid rough playing or having contact with their friends during playtime. Lice cannot fly, jump or transfer without direct contact, so educating your child on keeping distance will help you avoid them catching lice.

Put a Hold on Sleepovers for the Meantime

When there are outbreaks of lice in schools or play areas, a sleepover may not be the best idea for the time being. Lice can also briefly live on bedding, pillows, and carpets that have come into contact with a person who has a lice infestation. The best time to resume is once the outbreak has been solved and you are sure that lice no longer exists in your child’s environments.

Try Not to Share Head-Care or Head-Use Products

Although occurrences of lice transferring through means other than direct contact are extremely rare, there is still a small chance of other methods of transmission. Some of these involve the use of combs and brushes, sharing hats and other headgear, or towels used to dry children after playtime. These methods of transmission are very rare causes of lice transfers, but it wouldn’t hurt to disinfect combs and brushes through soaking in hot water for at least five minutes.

Think Wisely when Dealing with Your Home

Extreme clean-ups regularly are usually not going to stop the occurrence of lice in your home, as they can even manifest in clean environments. It has been found that regular washing of pillowcases is a useful method that deters the spread of lice. Spending excessively on home cleaning methods and products is not needed to avoid re-infestation of lice in your home, since lice die after a day off of a human scalp.

What is important is washing beddings and pillows after a lice infestation to avoid them from re-occurring. Utilize hot water to wash the fabric products and then seal them in a plastic bag for two days to be sure that the lice have died out.

When dealing with a current lice problem, try to avoid contact with beds and fabric surfaces such as pillows and couches that have been in immediate contact with a lice-infested person. Vacuuming floors and carpets are also recommended, but only as a precaution rather than a necessity.

Do Not Use Pest Sprays and Fogs

Children in your home may be affected by the chemicals in sprays and fog products, which are often overkill and are not a requirement to treat a lice outbreak. Simple precautions are better, and of course, proper treatment.

Head Lice Treatment in Jacksonville, Orlando, FL, and Savannah, GA

There are many ways to prevent lice outbreaks from happening, but when they do, it is best to have treatment done by a professional head lice removal clinic. When it comes to head lice treatment in Jacksonville, Orlando, FL, and Savannah, GA, you can trust the team at Fresh Heads! Allow us to solve your lice problems by booking an appointment today!

Schools Without Lice.

Schools Without Lice

Our mission here at Fresh Heads is to eradicate lice from schools across the country, so we’ve partnered with the Lice Clinics of America to create a program called Schools Without Lice. Through this program, we provide teachers and nurses with free head lice screenings, resources, and treatments. Together, we can have schools without lice!

Two girls sitting on a bed playing with a stuffed toy.

How Is Head Lice Spread and Is It Contagious?

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When you’re holding a notice from your child’s school informing a recent lice outbreak, it’s easy to panic at the thought that your kids may be infected with the pesky critters. However, you don’t need to keep the children home from school just yet.

If you’re dealing with a lice outbreak and want to keep you and your child’s head safe from lice infestations, learning how to identify lice and how it spreads can save you from head-scratching moments.

Are Lice Contagious?

Head lice can be contagious, but not in a way you would think. When people say the word ‘contagious,’ it’s easy to imagine how viruses or diseases spread from one host to the next using airborne methods. Lice, on the other hand, will only invade your hair if you come in direct head-to-head contact with a person who has lice.

Even if lice fall off hair strands, keep in mind that it cannot survive for more than 24 hours off the human scalp. It also cannot jump, and its only way of travel is through crawling, which means that you won’t automatically get head lice just by sitting next to someone who is harboring one.

This means that the only way to spread head lice is if you or your children come into personal contact with the infected person’s head.

How to Spots the Tell-Tale Signs of Lice Invasion on Your Kid’s Head

If you’re afraid that your child has come into close contact with someone who has head lice, it’s best to look closer at their head for any signs of unwanted life crawling out and about. The most obvious symptom is when your children start to itch, especially in areas like the neck, hairlines, and behind ears.

However, itching doesn’t necessarily start in the earlier stages. If you want to get a head start before the infestation becomes too much to handle, watch out for the following warning signs of head lice:

  • Direct light on their head. Lice hate the light, so they will start to move away quickly. Adult lice look like small, sesame seeds with a 1/16 inch long body and reddish-brown color. Nits, on the other hand, are whitish eggs that are firmly attached to individual hair strands.
  • Even if you only see nits, consider seeking professional lice removal treatment as it is a red flag of a start of a head lice infestation.

Removing Head Lice Once and For All

If you or your children get infected with head lice, there are options to get rid of the pesky insects. However, you should avoid home remedies and over-the-counter shampoos as they are ineffective, which increases the risk of infecting other people, especially other children living within the same household.

Professional lice removal offers a quick solution that can eliminate the lice living in your kid’s locks for good. Just to be safe, it’s best to clean your home, sanitize brushes, and change your children’s sheets to ensure any lice are eradicated before they become an issue.

We’re a professional lice removal service in Jacksonville and Orlando, FL, and Savannah, GA. Book your appointment today!

Schools Without Lice.

Schools Without Lice

Our goal at Fresh Heads Lice Removal is to eradicate lice from schools across the country. That’s why we’ve partnered with the Lice Clinics of America to create a program called Schools Without Lice. This program gives teachers and nurses free screenings, resources, and treatments. Together, we can have schools without lice!