What Is The Science and Reality Behind Head Lice?

Let us talk about lice, mainly human head lice.

THE SCIENCE/REALITY OF LICE???? Let us talk about lice, mainly human head lice. First of all, lice is plural for louse, like mouse and mice. Lice eggs are also known as nits. The nits/eggs are either viable (ready to hatch) or shells. Lice have nothing to do with scabies. Not enough money is spent on research of lice, especially human head lice as they do not pose a threat on anyone’s health if you were to discount mental health and phobias. Simply ignoring lice will not make the problem go away, in fact, the opposite will happen, lice issues will only escalate. Due to the lack of research funding for human lice, the knowledge is sparse and this resulted in a lot of misinformation about this very crucial subject and the public is unable to understand lice and how to deal with the situation effectively. Do you know that even fish have lice? Well, do not worry as this type of lice is only meant for fish, not humans. Each living organism is a parasite and is host to other parasites. The truth of the matter is that we all have a symbiotic relationship with each other. Lice are parasites meant to be on their hosts and there is not a single thing any of us can do to prevent them from manifesting on their hosts since each host carries the germ/bacteria responsible for the manifestation of these lice. When it comes to the subject of lice, all rationale become non-existent due to fear. Our reactions vary due to our level of ignorance and include from feeling like a social outcast to being a full blown phobic. However, these feelings are not without justification as due to age old stigmas, people were bullied, made to feel ashamed, individuals were categorized by the masses and blamed. Let us not forget the name callings. The fact of the matter is that there are over 3,000 types of lice, only three of these belong to us humans and they are the human head lice, human body lice and human crab lice. Each one of these three types of lice lives on different body parts and are on us for different reasons. Blood is their only food. They do not have teeth. Since lice do not have wings, it means that they cannot fly. There is also no hopping, skipping or jumping for these parasites as they simply crawl due to their short legs. Now, because lice are parasites meant to be on us and we cannot prevent them from coming unto us, our body has the ability to prevent them from continuing to live on us. This can happen only if our DNA switch is on to let our autoimmune system know to create an antibody to fight against this particular type of lice. However, for the majority of us, this switch is on the off setting. Human Crab Lice: Also know as Pediculosis Pubis are found mainly on human pubic hair. They can also live on the human head with hair and human eye lashes and eyebrows, beards and moustaches, armpits with hair and other body hair. Crab lice need to lay their very tiny eggs on hair. This type of lice are mainly sexual transmitted. Crab lice and generally need human hair to lay their eggs. This type of louse got its name due to the fact that it looks like a tiny crab. I have only had 2 different occasions pertaining to crab lice. A very young individual was brought in to our head lice removal clinic for head lice. However, I soon realized that it was not head lice but crab lice. I let the parent know of my findings and I spent some time removing the ones on the head…it was very hard work as these lice really do anchor themselves to the skin/scalp. However, I was not able to remove the eggs from the eye lashes as the individual was quite young and I did not want to cause any undue pain and/or harm to her. My other client was an older teen who was referred to us by a doctor and after he told me what the issue was, I advised him that we only remove human head lice. However, I did let me know that if he were to remove the hair, the crab lice will not be able to lay their eggs and so will not be able to propagate. Human Body Lice: Also know as Pediculosis Humanus Corporis, are found anywhere on the human body including the head. These lice look like human head lice but they live on and lay their eggs on clothing and feed on your body’s blood. They are basically found on individuals who are unhygienic. An example for this is the soldiers who fought during world war 1 had body lice as they were unwashed and had to wear the same clothing for long periods of time. Body lice and head lice look alike.

Being hygienic by washing the body, clothing including the bedsheets, pillow cases towels and etc. regularly and by giving the living environment and once over cleaning, you may get rid of them. I have only had to deal with human head lice once. I was contacted by an organization to remove head lice from an individual head and I discovered that the individual not only had head lice but also body lice. I managed to clean the head as the individual. In this case, due to the client mental issues, the organization had a hard time convincing the individual to practice daily hygiene. Human head lice are parasites meant to be on us. As we are parasites on the earth, head lice are parasites on us. Simply put, we all have a parasitic symbiotic relationship with each other. If you are grossed out about head lice and their nits living on our head, imagine what the earth must be thinking about us as we do worse acts to the earth. Yes, head lice do, drink our blood, urinate, defecate and populate on our heads, after all, our head is their world.

I call it instant karma. Because body and head lice look alike, head lice became hated and stigmatized due to body lice. This is why most families are ignorant about lice and are embarrass about head lice. The truth about lice is that they are meant to be on us under certain circumstances. What these circumstances are, we do not really know. Because they are parasites on us, we carry the bacteria responsible for them to manifest.

I like to use the analogy of fruits and fruit flies to explain about head lice; we buy fruits and depending on the ripeness, you end up with fruit flies. Where did the fruit flies come from? Well, because the fruits carry the bacterias responsible for fruits, you can safely say that they came from the fruits. Similarly, we can manifest lice under the right environment. So, where did lice come from? Simply put, us! As long as we have been around, so has lice and when we cease to be so would lice. We cannot prevent head lice, but we can take preventative measures to ensure that should they come on our heads, we can remove them. The most efficient way of removal is by manual combing with a good lice comb.