How to Get Rid of Lice

Though they are tiny little organisms, lice can cause incredible frustration and misery. Worst case scenario you can catch diseases like typhus, trench fever and relapsing fever. It is more common, however, that a person who has lice suffers from the itching than actually catching a serious disease. Lice doesn't discriminate by age or hygenically--and even a proper treatment of lice shampoo sometimes doesn't do the trick. There are three different types of lice a person can get; head lice, body lice and pubic lice. Here is how you get rid of them.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Lice removal shampoo
• Lice removal comb
• Well-lit location
• Wastebasket
• Towel
• Regular comb or brush
• Hair clip or band

1. Determine if you have lice. An itchy head, especially behind the ears and at the nape of the neck, combined with redness is the first sign of lice infestation. You also can see small, white to silver-colored eggs, called nits, stuck near the roots of a hair shaft.
2. Shampoo hair with a lice removal cream rinse or shampoo. Follow the directions on the container. Usually you leave the treatment on your head for a certain length of time to kill all the live creepy crawlies.
3. Find a friend or relative to assist in the lice removal if you are the infested victim. Promising a few drinks afterwards can be a motivator for their assistance, but don't let them imbibe before they remove all the nits, or they will have more difficulty seeing the little, tiny eggs.
4. Move to a well-lit location and wrap a towel around your shoulders. Have a trash basket nearby to dispose of the little buggers as they are removed from your head.
5. Take a comb and divide hair into sections. Then, move most sections off the side using a clip, leaving only one section to work with.
6. Slide the nit removal comb slowly through a small section of hair. Start from the hair shaft and move down to the end. Remove any nits or lice that are stuck to the comb and dispose of them. Combing out nits can take several hours, so be patient and don't try to get it done in a hurry which can lead to missing one nit--a nit that can spawn future lice very quickly.
7. Repeat combing procedure for your entire head. Be careful not to drop any nits on the carpet where they might hatch and later find their way back to your delicious scalp to have their honeymoon and make more babies.
8. Wash all bedding and clothing in hot water. Then, dry them on the hot setting. Anything, like pillows, that can not be washed can be put in the dryer for a half to one hour on high heat.
9. Vacuum the carpet, furniture and the infected person's mattress to lift any lingering lice.
10. Re-check for nits every day for a week. If new nits appear, another shampooing will be necessary.

Tips & Warnings

• As a last resort, check your local yellow pages for a lice removal service, who will remove lice and nits for a fee.
• If your lice outbreak involves a child, be sure to inform the school so that other children can be checked. Otherwise, the lice will continue to move from head to head and you run a good chance of being re-infested.
• Any items that can't be washed or dried, such as stuffed animals, can be put into a sealed plastic bag for two weeks to suffocate the lice.