All About Lice

Lice are little beasties about the size of a matchstick head. There are many different types of lice which like humans. There are head lice, body lice and pubic lice (also called ‘crabs’ because of their shape but rather smaller and don’t live on the beach!)

Head lice

The life of a head louse is a mere three weeks. They like everybody's hair but some more than others. They prefer short hair to long, clean hair to dirty (no, that's not a mistake). They seem to spread only directly by head to head contact, they cannot jump, hop, fly or swim, and they can spend time on several heads a day.

Getting rid of head lice

To stop this grossness you first have to find the beast, which is the hard part as they are nearly transparent and a bit smaller than the head of a match; and the eggs on the hair are pinhead-sized and flesh-coloured. There are two things to do – the first is to regularly comb your hair which breaks the legs off the lice. Life is not so easy for a legless louse and they fall off our heads and die. The second thing is to use an anti-louse lotion. The instructions are on the bottle. You can by it at your local pharmacy (cheaper to get mum to do it!) and the whole family need to use it at the same time because if one of you have it so does the rest of the family and it just gets passed around. Luckily - if used properly - it not only kills the lice but protects you for a bit against getting them again. You have to leave it on at least two hours and some of them over night and you can’t go swimming for two days after using it or blow-dry your hair (chlorine in water and heat stop it working).

Just because you have head lice doesn’t mean that you are, in anyway, dirty. Head lice aren’t fussy and seem to like clean hair just as much as dirty hair.

Body lice

These are similar to hair lice but like your body rather than your head hair or pubic hair.

Public Lice or 'crabs'

What goes wrong

Your balls / pubic area get incredibly itchy.

It's caused by

Pubic lice which are not absolutely the same as head lice, as they seem to like your pubic rather than your head – hair. Left untreated, they will just breed and breed.

The lice look like little crabs, are nearly transparent and a bit smaller than the head of a match; and the eggs on the hair are pinhead-sized and flesh-coloured.

How not to get it

Don’t sleep with anyone who scratches down there a lot as they are sexually transmitted infection.

What to do if you get it

Nip to the pharmacy and buy some special anti crab lotion. Check out ‘what’ with your local pharmacist – they won’t be embarrassed or embarrassing. That should stop you feeling lousy (ho ho). You should also get checked out for other sexually transmitted infections at your local young people’s clinic or your family doctor.