Author: Benaroch, Roy Date published: November 1, 2010 Q A lot
of girls in my daughter's class keep getting lice. How do I know
if my daughter has lice? How do you treat it?" A The human head
louse (multiple: lice, singular: louse) is a small insect about
3 mm long. It uses its six legs to scoot around and between
human hairs, close to the scalp. Lice feed by sucking up tiny
amounts of blood every few hours. The only symptom you're going
to notice if your daughter gets lice is itching, caused by an
inflammatory reaction to the saliva deposited when a louse
bites. Head lice do not cause or transmit any disease. After an
egg hatches, the egg casing remains glued to the hair shaft,
moving further out as the hair grows. These little nubs, still
glued firmly to a single hair, look a lot like a sesame seed.
They can be pulled off by hand or with a nit comb, though it's
not essential to remove these at all. If it's more than 1/2 an
inch from the scalp, then it has either already hatched or it's
dead. Transmission of