Nits

[TopCat1]

Hi everyone, please can you help me. My daughter was in contact with a little girl over a week ago, we have since been told the little girl has nits. I have checked my daughters head, but dont really know what Im looking for, although don't seem to see anything, and she isn't scratching at it.

My questiion is, how long, after contact, would there be signs?

Thank you for your time.

[curlyperm]

well topcat1 in my experience, the evidence is immediate, scratching and such like (god youve got me scratchin now lol) my daughter had them loads of times at primary school (it never seems to happen now shes at high school) but if she has dark hair you will see little white eggs that stick to the hair at various places, buy the special comb from the chemists, and section all the hair off, (tedious job) and thn keep coming through, have tissues handy and then if there are any eggs or they have hatched into headlice they will be moving about, not sure how obvious they are on blonde hair,but i'm sure someone will be able to tell you on here.
This is only my experience though, there are also combs that you can buy now that 'bleep' when they detect nits in the hair, and i think they are quite pricey?
good luck

[TopCat1]

Thank you for your reply. Its put my mind at rest and I will get working on the prevention.

[ruby molloy]

Hiya, yes, scratching is a sure sign but very small white egg cases attatched to the hair shaft near the scalp is a useful sign.
Both my kids kept getting nits and I found the best thing was to literally sit and pull off the egg cases individually with my nails!!
Sounds terrible but I enjoy picking....!
Any stubborn ones simply clip the single hair off.
I found the combs totally inadequate.
Hope this helps.
Made my head itch now too!!
Good luck
Kind regards Ruby

[ganesh]

Hi Topcat again,
Lice are the insects,nits are the eggs.Lice will transfer from
hair to hair and are small like ants but very visible when you use a nit comb,though I swear that when my blonde son had them they were lighter in colour than when my dark-haired daughter had them.I also found loads on me when my kids had them and I wasn't even itchy.
The eggs are harder to see and get rid of,they look like a pale rounded speck of dandruff but unless you get all of them the cycle will continue.
I used a horrible melathion killer on our hair the first time and it did work (we found 30 lice on my sons short hair) but it smelt horrible. The full marks mousse didn't work at all,and since then I've just used the 'plenty of conditioner' and occasional nit-comb check, and we haven't had them for years!

[rosepetal]

My Mum used to rinse our hair with teatree oil on Sunday nights and she says we never got nits until we started washing our own hair and leaving the teatree oil off.