Young schoolchildren can pick up contagious diseases when in contact with other kids for the first time. Similarly, head lice can be acquired by contact. Adults coming into contact with the children can get lice as well. Lice are not exactly a medical problem, and you should not panic if your children or you are infested. They do not spread disease or carry bacteria. Although it's a bit gross to realize they live on human blood, they are not a menace, just an annoyance.

Although lice won't spread diseases, they certainly cause suffering since they cause continuous itching and also the embarrassments because of it. And the problem is that it is not easy to get rid of them. Not only the adult lice, but their eggs, or the nits also cause serious itching. The average shampoo or any amount of soaping is useless against lice. So, how to get rid of lice? Fortunately, there are few things that can be done to completely remove these head lice.

You can do a manual search to locate head lice and nits and kill them. It is a time-consuming and laborious job though. There are medicated shampoos that work well. You can use fine-toothed combs called lice combs on moistened hair to remove the lice and nits. They are also known as nit combs and are more effective than medical treatment, as scientists say the lice are increasingly getting immune to chemical treatments in some parts of the world.

After combing using the lice comb, remove all debris from the comb and wash it by holding it under running water, preferably warm water, and dry thoroughly. You can use your hair blower to blow hot air on it from a slight distance. Wash and dry the head and repeat the whole routine of combing. Just combing once is not enough and you have to repeat to ensure all the nits and head lice are eradicated.

Lice treatments can be done in several ways. One method, especially against fresh infections is to wash the clothing in hot water properly and then dry them in dryer. This can be done to remove lice from recently used towels, pillow covers, hats, caps or scarves. Even if the thing is not washable, there is no need to worry. For things that cannot be washed may be sealed away from contact for a minimum three days. This is because lice die within a day that they don't get to feed on human blood.

Now you need to make sure that anything touching the infested head is clean- combs, brushes, caps, hairpins, and so on. Make sure that children know the importance of using their own brushes, combs, and pillows. Color coding these items has been shown to be effective. The entire process should be repeated every seven days for about a month to ensure that the infestation is truly gone for good. Lice have a life cycle of three weeks, so this protocol needs to be followed a little longer than that.