Of That, Which We Must Not Speak - Lice!

There are some topics that should never discussed across a dinner table.

And they should not be, at least in polite company. In part these are because we are "civilised" or at least in veneer. Sometimes they are just too gross to discuss over a meal! One such topic is that of Hair Lice and nits. Clearly no one wants to think of small writhing living creatures dropping from their hair into the soup.

Or worse, the thought of having to drag them out of the hair of a loved one. But then many of us have done that for our children, after they have shared hats at school, or got "really close" to each other. I remember those days well, of drowning the little blighters in some nasty chemical from the pharmacist, and then dragging, slowly, a very fine tooth comb through the long tangles of one of our children. Frankly, it wasn't easy, but it worked.

Lice are tiny creatures with six clinging legs, about 1 mm long. They give birth to babies as eggs called "nits" which generally contain a cluster of about six eggs. These stick to hair like - glue. For an adult human, who gets lice in their hair, they are a nightmare if only because it implies that the person is unclean. In fact the opposite is more probably true - lice love very clean hair, and hate oily locks.

I copped a dose of lice at my local barber. He used tools that had been also used on two teenage boys, who had their hair cut before me - I watched it happen! To make matters worse, I was heading off on a four day trans-continent motorcycle ride, and frankly, my helmet made a perfect breading ground for them - warmth, sweat, dead skin and time. By day two I was itching like hell.

On my return, I read up on lice via the internet of course. The general consensus is that lice can be killed easily in a hot environment and that the nits or eggs will not last 10 days in the heat. So, I wrapped my helmet in a plastic bag and set it in the sun for three weeks. Then cleaned the liner thoroughly after removing it, via hot water and soap. This did NOT work. Nits can last longer than three weeks quite clearly. I also believe that they can also last on bedding and towels, which is contrary to much of the information on the internet. For this reason, I started washing my towel and pillowcases every day.

In fact the way to sort out the liner, would have been to freeze the liner in our domestic freezer, then clean it.

While all of this was going on, I went to the pharmacist and bought two different commercial shampoos, "guaranteed to remove lice and nits". They did not. They will kill the lice, but the nits are another matter all together. I then tried other commercial treatments and some "home remedies" such as vinegar. The latter works fairly well, smells horrible and needs to be used twice a day for some days.

For nits, they will stick to your hair very strongly. The cleaner your hair, the better. So, adding a little oil to your hair makes it MUCH harder for them to survive. I started here. Then I had all my hair cut off, leaving the shortest stubble. It still did not clear this up, so I had my hair removed with a blade, by a barber. This worked for some time, but ANY small nicks or pimples offer a re-breading ground for the little buggers.

My recommendation is to mechanically remove the nits with a fine comb, when your hair is long. Do this a number of times. THEN get it cut short to a stubble, and rub with oil - cooking oil works but Tea Tree oil is the go -and number one treatment. This finally worked.

A footnote to this is that this process with chemicals is very rough on your hair, allowing another pest to take hold. It is microscopic and called demodex. Because you cannot see these little mites, and they are present on everyone's head, they are much harder to deal with when they get to plague proportions. The cause a rash on the skin, much like rosacea, when in plague numbers. Again, a very short, non-blade hair cut, coupled with Tea Tree oil works well.

A second footnote is that helmets wear out. Old ones are worse then new ones. This is a great time to throw out your old helmet " then one you have kept in case of emergencies". Do it now.