Remember that time when your mother wouldn’t let you be in the same room as your brother so you wouldn’t get his head lice? Well, that was probably because like a lot of people, she believed that lice could fly and hop from one head to another.
While these vile parasites are a source of serious discomfort to all of us, there are very few people who actually know how lice move and spread from one person to another.
How do you contract lice?
The only way to contract lice is through physical contact with a surface or a person that’s infested. Most infestations occur due to head to head contact, a phenomenon that is most common among children in elementary schools and pre-schools in America.
Lice can also traverse objects very adeptly. If you’ve contracted lice, it’s likely that they’ll crawl on to your hair accessories, hats, helmets, and even clothes.
How do lice move?
Lice mobility is restricted to crawling. The parasites are unable to hop from one head to another because of their bodily structures. They can’t fly either, because they don’t possess wings. This means that the only way your son got lice over the weekend is because they crawled on to his scalp from the head of an infested child or when he was lying on the carpet in space that was infested.
Head lice have adapted to living on the scalp, and don’t voluntarily leave unless they have another scalp to crawl on to. A louse may fall off your hair, but that’s an indication that it’s either dying or ill. So if you find one on your bed, it doesn’t constitute a high risk of an infestation.
Head lice that are removed from the host’s hair are able to survive for around 24 hours without food. This is so because they require the human blood for survival and the humidity of the scalp to grow. However, even though the transmission of lice through hats and headscarves isn’t impossible, the likelihood of it happening is statistically low. Similarly, lice can also swim in water, but their separation from the warmth of the human body will render them unable to survive for long.
Now that you understand the process of how lice
actually spread, if you ever contract them, head over to the
Lice Troopers salon near Miami Beach for an pesticide free, non-toxic and highly effective lice removal service.
Contact us for more information!
